• Solo • [Mature] Homeward Bound

11th Ashan, 719

11th of Ashan 719

This area is unmoderated. Please click on "Forum Rules" at the top of this page or go to the "Unmoderated Areas" forum to see the rules for playing here.
User avatar
Pharan
Approved Character
Posts: 103
Joined: Sun Jan 20, 2019 11:41 am
Race: Avriel
Profession: Diplomatic Aide
Renown: 15
Character Sheet
Character Wiki
Templates
Wealth Tier: Tier 5

Contribution

Milestones

Miscellaneous

[Mature] Homeward Bound

Image
11th Ashan, 719
T
he wee hours of morning had come and gone, and sunlight filtered through the curtains of Pharan’s room in shades of red and orange. Motes of dust danced in the air, stirring in the memory of past commotion. Somewhere below, a scullery-maid busied herself in the kitchen; unseen, but not unheard.

For a change, Pharan didn’t care.

“Why won’t your sister talk about you?” Orik leaned forward, the weight of his lean body comfortable against the Avriel’s own. He wore last night’s tunic again, the rust-red fabric crumpled and wine-stained.

“Why don’t you ask her?”

“She isn’t here.” Orik dropped forward and the bed creaked in protest. “And you are her brother.”

“Nymae and I aren’t particularly close,” Pharan said. He had reached out to trace the contours Of Orik’s face with his fingers. Talons, pale as bone and just a little sharper than fingernails, dug into skin without breaking it. The Biqaj didn’t as much as flinch.

“Why?”, he asked.

Pharan rolled one shoulder in a tentative shrug that made his wings rustle against the frame of the bed. “When Nymae left Athart I was a child. When she returned, I was about to leave—we never had much time to get to know each other.”

“And yet you came all the way from Athart to help her. Although you seem to have little interest in the matter yourself,” Orik observed.

And although I knew Jaene was here, Pharan thought. He studied Orik’s face again. The Bijaq eyes had taken on the color of the sky at dawn, the iron-blue shot through with streaks of rust. A scar, almost as long as one of Pharan’s fingers, graced the side of his face. Pharan wondered how he could have missed it until now.

“What did Nymae tell you about our family?”

“Little.” Orik ran his thumb across the front of Pharan’s tunic, driving wrinkles across the pristine, midnight-blue linen. “She mentioned she was looking for her older brother and sister; that they had left Athart and never came back.

Orik’s fingers stilled. “She spoke about becoming a warrior or a hunter. Or a bandit leader—but I am reasonably certain she was joking about that one.” He paused, lips curving in whatever memory played out before his inner eye. His expression sobered. “I was surprised when I saw her again and she was running a weaving mill.”

“I doubt it was her first choice, either.”

Orik snorted. He reached out to run his fingers across the brown and gold feathers of Pharan’s wing despite the Avriel’s warning glance. It was only after a moment he dropped his hand. Pharan sensed the man’s mind work behind guarded features, moving around the intangible puzzle pieces of his and his sister’s relationship.

A bit passed and then another. The murmur of the street below seeped into the room, filling the silence between them. Pharan thought of the things he had to do before he was expected at the harbor. Things he wanted to do before saying his farewell to a city he didn’t plan to visit again anytime soon.

“Could you have run the mill?”

Orik’s words caught Pharan off-guard. He had reached out to smooth over the wrinkles left by the Biqaj’s idle hands and halted mid-motion. Belatedly, he continued. “Maybe.”

It was what his father had wanted. At some point. After there had been no one else who could have run it but he and Nymae, and his sister had made clear she followed through with their father’s wishes only because she considered it her obligation as a dutiful daughter.

Neither had appreciated his decision to not get involved. Unlike his father though, his sister had never complained—her usual harmless jabs aside.

Orik’s eyes lit up with his smile. “Maybe,” he echoed. Pharan’s hesitation had not been lost on him. “But you didn’t want to, either.”

Pharan stayed silent.

“Ah. Family. Complicate sometimes, with all the duties and the occasional guilt—“, Orik started, then stopped when he noticed Pharan’s expression. He inclined his head then moved to stretch out beside him. “Relax. The times I find someone of your people worth talking to are far and few in between—and even your sister would have scratched out my eyes over what we did.”

Orik tried to reach out to him, but Pharan caught his hand by the wrist. “There is still time,” the Avriel mocked. His talons pressed into the other man’s flesh until Orik drew a sharp breath. Without warning, Pharan relinquished his hold on his arm. “At least a break or two, when I have to catch my ship.”

“Or you stay a day longer,” Orik suggested as he rolled on top of him in a rustle of fabric and feathers.

“Or you come to Athart with me,” Pharan suggested.

“As your what?”

“I could always need a slave.”

The Biqaj starred down on him for two, three uncertain trills, then released his breath. “Sometimes it is hard to tell when you are joking and when not.”

Pharan smiled, an expression that tugged only at the corner of his mouth.

“See that’s what I mean,” Orik grunted, his eyes dark with amusement. “I am just a momentary distraction to you.”

“What terrible prospect”, Pharan murmured as he reached up to pull the other man close.
word count: 925
User avatar
Pharan
Approved Character
Posts: 103
Joined: Sun Jan 20, 2019 11:41 am
Race: Avriel
Profession: Diplomatic Aide
Renown: 15
Character Sheet
Character Wiki
Templates
Wealth Tier: Tier 5

Contribution

Milestones

Miscellaneous

Re: [Mature] Homeward Bound

P
haran found himself at the harbor two breaks afternoon. Throngs of sailors and dockhands milled up and down the quays, their shoulders set low against the cold breeze blowing in from the sea. Alongside wooden piers, ships strained at their ropes like massive beasts. The Avriel had watched the departure of a large merchantman, the vessel low in the water under the heavy load of its cargo. Two other ships had trailed it, eager as hounds to keep to its shadow. Safety in numbers against an enemy Pharan still hadn’t heard more about than rumors.

Soon he wouldn’t need to worry about it anymore.

To his left, the sound of wings drew his attention. He turned half only to find a gull stare at him from its dark, round eyes. He wasn’t sure what he had expected.

“She already left two days ago.”

Jaene, her half-long cloak billowing in the wind, stepped beside him. As always, his mentor was dressed plainly, her slate-gray shirt drab against her turquoise skin and the colorless sky.

Pharan bristled. “You kept an eye on Inya?”

“She is eager to give you trouble,” the Half-Eídisi said, her eyes on the dark shapes of ships further down the docks. “And you are my student.”

“I will handle it—as I said.” Pharan pushed away from his vantage point. It was hard to tell was irritated him more—how easy Jaene could still read him after all the time they had spent apart, or how naturally she had pushed her way back into his life.

He didn’t protest when his mentor joined him on his descent down to the waterfront. For a while, they walked in silence down the quay. The air was filled with the cries of gulls and the occasional shout of sailors—Common mostly, but also the familiar syllables of what he had learned to be Rakahi. Orik had taught him to recognize his people’s tongue and a few words as well; most of which he would find little use for in polite company Pharan suspected.

By his side, Jaene veered to the left, around a group of fisherfolk working on unfurling their nets. Few of the men and woman at the harbor-front bothered to step out of their way, forcing Jaene and him to pick their course around them like the scrawny stray cats hunting the pier for scraps. It was only once they reached a less busy stretch of quay Pharan turned to his mentor.

“What was that about, with Praxes’ family?”, he asked eyes on the horizon. “Why did you ask if I wanted to see them, even though you knew the answer?”

“You are my student,” Jaene repeated her earlier assertion as if the answer should have been obvious. “An obstinate and at times petulant student but still my student. I want you to get better. To archive your goals. I always imagined, when we would meet again, you had a better grip on your abilities.”

Jaene voice had been calm, with no hint of admonition, but Pharan found it hard to not take it as such. His lips pressed into a thin line.

“It is not quite as easy as you make it out to be.”

“Of course, it is.” Jaene said. By her voice alone, she could have delivered a presentation on the nesting habits of her favorite songbird or other. “You figure out what people want and give it to them. And if they want something you can’t provide, you make them want something that is in your ability to provide.”

She turned just far enough to be able to study his profile. “You knew the nature of the power you were to acquire when we made our deal. You wanted people to stop pushing you around and look down on you—well, you can now. But power over others is not inherent. You will need to wield it, to have it.”

“I am not disagreeing,” Pharan said without looking at her. “I am just saying it is not as easy as you make it out to be.”

“You could stay here and learn.”

“And what good would that do me?”, Pharan asked. “The last time we worked together you left me to bleed out by the roadside. And before that you had dropped me off in Nashaki for three seasons with no note of what to do or when you are back. You don’t know what I had to do in your absence.”

“I knew you wouldn’t die. And look at you—still alive.” Jaene said, studying him. “I didn’t have a lot of time to look at that fracture and get what I needed… and I did come to pick you up. Later. You can hardly fault me for putting my trust in you and your abilities.”

She paused. “What is it, you want?”, she asked, finally.

“You know what I want.”

“Ah.” Jaene turned to him, expression, faintly, amused. “You can hardly manage the one spark you have and want another one. Are you so eager to slip out from under my thumb already?” Jaene pursed her lips, then reached into the pocket of her vest to retrieve a folded sheet of parchment. She handed it to him.

No larger than twice a man’s palm, the sheet was filled from top to bottom in his mentor’s neat, precise hand. Names of books and people, random remarks he lacked the context to understand. “What is that? I recognize some names, but…”

“I want you to look those up, when you are back in Athart,” Jaene said. “I still have some things I need to finish here—but I feel it is time to move on. I will let you know where I am headed once I have decided.”

Pharan hesitated. “And then you will teach me what I want?”

“I will at least consider it.”

“Right.” He looked at the sheet a last time, then folded it to slip into his own pocket. Jaene’s brow rose half an inch, mistaking his sour expression for more defiance of her will.

“I don’t think I have given you any reason for affront, this time?” she asked, now fully turning to him. They had stopped beside a small brig, moored to the side of the pier.

“No. No, you didn’t.”

It was true. For a while, he had waited for it. Whenever they would meet he had waited for her to make a move, to disturb his pattern in some way or other, but she either hadn’t tried to manipulate his tangle or she was too good for him to catch onto it. Even now, he tried to hold onto some inner calm, so he could sus out potential disturbances—nothing.

His lips quirked into a small smile. “I just figured I had helped you enough over the past arcs to make up for the twenty sheep you paid for me, back when we first met.”

Jaene snorted. “You know I never paid twenty sheep for you—I paid three sheep for you. The others went into paying that fancy dagger of yours.”

Pharan wondered how dumbfounded his expression had been as his mentor started to laugh. The Eídisi reached over to clap him on the shoulder.

“Look up the things I asked you too and we will talk,” she said and looked up to the ship that would bring him back to Athart. “And remember—most things are not quite as complicate as you make them out to be.”
word count: 1273
User avatar
Pig Boy
City Moderator
City Moderator
Posts: 5940
Joined: Wed Feb 06, 2019 9:54 pm
Race: Prophet
Profession: Rharne City Moderator
Renown: 666
Office
Templates
Point Bank Thread
Wealth Tier: Tier 1

Featured

Contribution

RP Medals

Staff

Events

Re: [Mature] Homeward Bound

Image
Image


Comments

This was a fun duo-scene solo thread. A good segue to Pharan's travels. Hoepfully his voyage back to Athart goes well.

I laughed at the line when Pharan threatened to take his biqaj lover as a slave back to Athart. Or was it a joke?

Points

10/10 these points may not be used for domain magics.

Knowledge

Seduction: Playing to the animalistic image of your people
Linguistics: Language: Rakahi
Linguistics: Rakahi: Pillow Talk
Meditation: Maintaining an inward focus
Meditation: Useful to sense the intrusion of a fellow Empath
Negotiation: Letting the other party set the conditions

Non-skill knowledge:
Jaene: Plans on leaving the IE
Jaene: Gave him some names and books to check

Loot

n/a

Wealth

n/a

Renown

n/a
word count: 121
Avatar provided by the wonderful Pegasus
Post Reply Request an XP Review Claim Wealth Thread

Return to “Central: Ivorian Empire”