06-29-2015, 10:02 PM
We are at war. There will be scars.
He watches her with interest as she feels the heartbeat. He's never seen someone else become aware of it before; it's always been something that he's taken for granted, like air or water or grass or pine trees. But much like those who live near a beach forget that it is a novelty to others, it's never occurred to him that the beating of his grandfather's heart might be a strange, or even wondrous thing.And so he watches her discover it, watches her taste the vibrations in the ground with tentative lips. He can almost see how the sound blooms inside her head, how it reveals itself to her gently, undressing like a stripping lover. And that's what it is, really; the Chamber is a lover, one that can be capricious, one that is almost endlessly demanding, one that will tease you and deny you and that you in turn can never deny. Erebor was born to it. It has always been a part of him. It fascinates him to see it weave its way into the heart of another.
She feels it, she says, and he smiles. She seems almost drunk with the sense of it, drunk with the history and the belonging of the Chamber, a thousand years and a million memories compressing into this single moment, a thousand paths leading here and a thousand paths leading away – and all converging on them, on this conversation, on three horses who stand above a beating heart buried so deep beneath the ground that all the earthquakes in the world could never cough it back up.
She speaks, musing, and Erebor listens. When she finishes, he offers her a smile – easy, but still a soldier's smile, a teasing grin backed with that same formal posture. "Beqanna is full of strange magic, you're not presuming anything to state that." It is true enough – in this world, those with magic often wreak wholesale chaos. He knows the tales from a time before he was born, the stories of how natural disasters had almost consumed the lands – and how the whole thing had been so very unnatural. He knows his mother's suspicions on the matter, and after having met two magicians, he knows he is right to share those suspicions.
"We’re all bound to the Chamber, and it gives all of us purpose." he says, his voice deep, husky, and pensive. For him, he was born into that purpose, and it couldn't be more clear. He is the Chamber's hands, its instrument completely. He is born to serve it, and nothing else, crafted from two of its best living servants. Born here, raised here, and if he has his way, will die here, or in defense of here. "If it hasn't yet for you, it most certainly will." his smile is a thin line. "Not all bonds are magic." he explains. "And just as importantly, magical bonds are not necessarily stronger than those built without magic."
Erebor
Native Prince of the Chamber
warship x straia