[private] here it comes without warning; romek

[Romek]

fuck all your dreams; they're not all they seem.

Look at them all, this land of misfits and the lost, stung into pain and suffering by the land that had hosted them so well for so long. And, in doing so, she had cast away swathes of her children into the darkness, left them in the cold. His own daughter, Lilitha, is one lost to the shadows, although she shouldn’t be. She is warm, and sweet, and if she is feisty, it is because she is young, and doesn’t understand what had come before.

She says it’s a pleasure to meet him and he smiles politely in return. She seems to be managing to shake off her initial anger, if only temporary – but its progress, its all progress, and everyone has to start somewhere.
”And yourself.” he says. He has never been one for formalities or insincere niceties, but he is genuine now.

‘It feels like I am’ she says, and despite his hatred of touching, he finds himself moving closer to offer some comfort, some physical assurance – he is here, he seems to remind her by reaching out to touch her shoulder gently. He is here, and he is going nowhere. It is not much that he can offer, but he gives it willingly. Of course, she probably doesn’t even need or want it but Romek feels like he must try something, at least.

He listens to her, because it’s all he can do for now. He doesn’t know her, he cannot give her support, he cannot promise anything, he cannot reassure in good faith. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen. He doesn’t know whether everything is going to be okay or not, whether the lands will rise up and rip the ground from beneath their feet again, or rip the people from their lives. He simply cannot say. So he listens, nods sympathetically, and understands what she is going through (because he is going through the very same).

She mentions the Deserts and his dark brown ears prick up.

”You lived in the Deserts as well?” he asks, tilting his head. ”I grew up there, I rose through her ranks. My blood is more sand than water, I fear.” A slight smile as he reflects briefly on his heritage – of his Mothers, the two Queens, and further back still, to his grandfather, the First King of the reborn Deserts (and isn’t it a funny coincidence that Romek has become a kind of founder as well?). His kin was tied to dune… but no longer. Now he is of tree and dirt and running water, and his children will never know the warmth of the sands.

”It was a difficult time, and I thought it had been overcome. I found happiness again. But then it was ripped out from underneath. Again.” he pauses, his eyes glittering, as he regards this mare (this relic). ”Was it the same for you?”

He pauses once more (pause pause pause). "And now I have found a new home, a new land... And I just wait for this one to go wrong again."

Romek