Day 23 of Spring, AV 513 |
Rising and falling. Eldon had, many many times over the past many, many years, watched Vanah's muscular body rise and fall as she slumbered, stood watch over him, or even just pranced around playfully. The strider was his own, they were true kin. Vanah was, and without any stretch of exaggeration, the greatest love in Eldon's life. But times have changed. Both Eldon and Vanah had grown up and seen many things, painful things, exhausting thing, mind-shaking things. Eldon had been through the Sea of Grass in hunting parties, he had been on the ride in fleeing from the fierce glassbeaks that had bit and clawed only inches from their backs, and he had brawled, and nearly died, to the Zith that killed his father. Eldon had crossed over into foreign lands, into the home of Syliras, where he found men in iron clothing and a city that did not move, but was made of stone and walls, a painfully enclosed place that Eldon simply could not stand. From Syliras, Eldon traveled north to the Spires, where he remained throughout the catastrophe known as the Djed Storm of 512. Finally, he had returned to his homelands to find frost and snow, unfamiliar things to find in Cyphrus for the most part, and a pox that had eaten such a large number of his kin. And through all of this, both Eldon and Vanah alike have been wounded, broken, mended, and here they vigilantly carry on. Except, now, the aged and worn Vanah, she can go no further. Eldon had walked her out of Endrykas, taking her to the fields where she was born and raised, and allowed her to lie down. She was dying, she knew it, and because she knew, Eldon knew. The Drykas man fought hard to hide his tears, to refuse sorrow to grasp him and expose the weakness he felt for Vanah parting from him, but it was a futile attempt. The man wept, silently streams of water flowed from his eyes and down his cheeks, and all he could do was stare, to speak and comfort his love until she had passed on peacefully. "Vanah, I love you. You know that. I understand you don't want to leave, but I'll be fine. We're home now, and when your spirit finds a new vessel, wherever that vessel may be, and whatever form it takes, I will find you." [[WIP...]] |
