07-10-2015, 09:57 PM
some are lost in the fire
some are built from it
As soon as he'd seen his mother, Erebor had known they'd need to have a conversation. It's not that he worries for her. He is no more or less concerned about her new gift than she is about him. It's more that they need to meet up, to compare notes, to come to an understanding about what each can do, and how each can benefit the Chamber.
And although their conversation may have been delayed, it's not been for lack of desire, but merely due to more pressing concerns. In both of their minds, the Chamber always comes first. And that means things like recruiting, like attending the Deserts event, like making sure that the basic needs of the kingdom are satisfied will always, always come before anything else. And both of them would have it no other way.
But now, as the afternoon wanes and starts to head into gentle twilight, Erebor is finally able to seek her out. He enters the pine forest without hesitation. It has regrown marvelously, and he imagines it's returned more or less to the state it was in before the volcanos. He pauses for a moment, imagining what it would have been like if he'd been here, and had his new gift, when that had happened. Could he have prevented it? Should he have prevented it? An interesting thought experiment, and a moot point. He had not been here, not for that loss. He'd been born the Prince of Ash and Ruin, son of the Queen of Ash and Ruin. And now? Now he was the Prince of Heat, son to the Queen of Ravens. And the trees knew it – they were no longer ashes and ruins either.
He closes his eyes, letting himself feel the heat currents. He finds her this way, tracking down a single pulsing beacon of warmth, surrounded by a handful of smaller beacons that could only be her birds. He moves through the pine trees toward her, feeling the branches of the trees caress his skin as he goes. If he has one lingering aftereffect from the quest (not counting the most obvious lingering aftereffects), it is his joy at the sensation of touch. He'd been partially robbed of it when he'd been boiled, and what touching there had been before that had been largely painful throughout the entire process. It is pleasant to feel pleasant things, like the wind in his mane or the reassuring fingers of the pine trees on his back.
She stands before him in a small thicket-clearing, big enough for the two of them to stand comfortably, but not big enough for much else. It is quiet here in the heart of the pines, and Erebor wonders if she'd been passing through or seeking solace. He knows she walks the pines (and the borders) just as he does.
He gives her a nod, pushing through the last of the trees to emerge into the clearing as he does so. "Mother." he greets, his voice deep and handsome with a subtle kind of affection that he knows his mother will recognize. If he weren't so ridiculously colored – his coat a deep wine red, his mane and tail colored with broad stripes of alternating dark green and dark blue - at the moment, he'd look every inch a stallion. He is no longer a boy, especially not after the quest. If he hadn't already been so damn grown up, he'd surely have been by the end of that. A raucous 'caw' draws his attention upward, and he sees a bird (his mother's, he assumes) circle them high overhead. He looks back to Straia. "Ravens?" he asks, although he is obviously not questioning what the birds in the sky right now are. His question is obviously about the bigger picture: why ravens? How many ravens? What can the ravens do?
Certainly he could ask all of those questions individually, but he knows that his mother will understand exactly what he's asking. And if she were to skip out on anything, he wouldn't hesitate to raise more questions, or to ak for clarification. But for now he relaxes back (a relative term, considering that he is never truly relaxed) and waits to hear her story, her telling of what had happened to make her kin to the ravens.
And after that, he doesn't doubt, it'll be his turn to tell a story.
And although their conversation may have been delayed, it's not been for lack of desire, but merely due to more pressing concerns. In both of their minds, the Chamber always comes first. And that means things like recruiting, like attending the Deserts event, like making sure that the basic needs of the kingdom are satisfied will always, always come before anything else. And both of them would have it no other way.
But now, as the afternoon wanes and starts to head into gentle twilight, Erebor is finally able to seek her out. He enters the pine forest without hesitation. It has regrown marvelously, and he imagines it's returned more or less to the state it was in before the volcanos. He pauses for a moment, imagining what it would have been like if he'd been here, and had his new gift, when that had happened. Could he have prevented it? Should he have prevented it? An interesting thought experiment, and a moot point. He had not been here, not for that loss. He'd been born the Prince of Ash and Ruin, son of the Queen of Ash and Ruin. And now? Now he was the Prince of Heat, son to the Queen of Ravens. And the trees knew it – they were no longer ashes and ruins either.
He closes his eyes, letting himself feel the heat currents. He finds her this way, tracking down a single pulsing beacon of warmth, surrounded by a handful of smaller beacons that could only be her birds. He moves through the pine trees toward her, feeling the branches of the trees caress his skin as he goes. If he has one lingering aftereffect from the quest (not counting the most obvious lingering aftereffects), it is his joy at the sensation of touch. He'd been partially robbed of it when he'd been boiled, and what touching there had been before that had been largely painful throughout the entire process. It is pleasant to feel pleasant things, like the wind in his mane or the reassuring fingers of the pine trees on his back.
She stands before him in a small thicket-clearing, big enough for the two of them to stand comfortably, but not big enough for much else. It is quiet here in the heart of the pines, and Erebor wonders if she'd been passing through or seeking solace. He knows she walks the pines (and the borders) just as he does.
He gives her a nod, pushing through the last of the trees to emerge into the clearing as he does so. "Mother." he greets, his voice deep and handsome with a subtle kind of affection that he knows his mother will recognize. If he weren't so ridiculously colored – his coat a deep wine red, his mane and tail colored with broad stripes of alternating dark green and dark blue - at the moment, he'd look every inch a stallion. He is no longer a boy, especially not after the quest. If he hadn't already been so damn grown up, he'd surely have been by the end of that. A raucous 'caw' draws his attention upward, and he sees a bird (his mother's, he assumes) circle them high overhead. He looks back to Straia. "Ravens?" he asks, although he is obviously not questioning what the birds in the sky right now are. His question is obviously about the bigger picture: why ravens? How many ravens? What can the ravens do?
Certainly he could ask all of those questions individually, but he knows that his mother will understand exactly what he's asking. And if she were to skip out on anything, he wouldn't hesitate to raise more questions, or to ak for clarification. But for now he relaxes back (a relative term, considering that he is never truly relaxed) and waits to hear her story, her telling of what had happened to make her kin to the ravens.
And after that, he doesn't doubt, it'll be his turn to tell a story.
erebor
heat manipulating lord of the chamber
warship x straia
Have I mentioned how much I love this HTML.
