I fell for your magic, I tasted your skin
Her smile makes him feel better. Not a lot, but it is a start.
It is not the gut-busting heartiness he is used to procuring from his audience. He is rather a scholar of smiles, is used to being the source of them, and knows that the one Oceane sends his way is not his best work. It is obvious that she is hurting more deeply than a perfect stranger can easily resolve. It is clear that his humor – the sword he has used to slay many a dragon – is ill-suited in this instance. Finian knows water too, though. The way she lets the water hold her is telling of the gravity that would otherwise pull her down outside of her safe pool. He’s been there himself and the water has never drowned him.
The opalescent woman turns to the other man – Leilan, he learns – and Finian is quiet watching them, listening to the cadence of familiarity between them. My boy. The Isle. So she’s a mother, then. And Leilan? Is he charged with watching her son as a ward of his home? Fin has heard of such different customs from some of the other lands he has traveled to. It would be inconceivable in his homeland, the thought of children leaving the nest so early. When he was but a fry, his Ma threatened to tie his tail to the biggest and deepest coral to keep him from ever leaving the shoal. He laughed then (as he was wont to do often and emphatically), but he couldn’t know how he’d break his mother’s heart by leaving only a few short years later.
Shaking away his own demons, the pale stallion readies himself to deal with someone else’s. He hasn’t come to Beqanna on some mission or hero’s journey. He had come back because something in the land spoke to him of a potential adventure waiting just around the next cliffside or under the next wave. The Mountain, with its imposing façade and shroud of fog spiraling around the peak, told him that he could share in a greater story than he could have otherwise imagined. And now, here in front of him, could be the first chapter waiting to be written.
He’s no knight, but maybe he can be the jester bringing some joy and light back into their soot-darkened world.
“I’ll help,” he says sooner than he knows what he is committing to. “I don’t know this land – you’ll have ‘ta show me what’s right side up and upside down – but I’ll help.” Finian meets Oceane’s gaze with his own, holding it like a tether in rough seas, an anchor if she’ll take it. He turns to Leilan then, too, shifting his leathery wings to a more comfortable and looser position. “You too, if you need it that is.” He rolls his shoulders in a shrug. “I’ll follow Oceane first and find you next.” Fin shifts his attention back to the water-bound woman. “No one should ever have ‘ta walk through the aftermath alone.”
It is not the gut-busting heartiness he is used to procuring from his audience. He is rather a scholar of smiles, is used to being the source of them, and knows that the one Oceane sends his way is not his best work. It is obvious that she is hurting more deeply than a perfect stranger can easily resolve. It is clear that his humor – the sword he has used to slay many a dragon – is ill-suited in this instance. Finian knows water too, though. The way she lets the water hold her is telling of the gravity that would otherwise pull her down outside of her safe pool. He’s been there himself and the water has never drowned him.
The opalescent woman turns to the other man – Leilan, he learns – and Finian is quiet watching them, listening to the cadence of familiarity between them. My boy. The Isle. So she’s a mother, then. And Leilan? Is he charged with watching her son as a ward of his home? Fin has heard of such different customs from some of the other lands he has traveled to. It would be inconceivable in his homeland, the thought of children leaving the nest so early. When he was but a fry, his Ma threatened to tie his tail to the biggest and deepest coral to keep him from ever leaving the shoal. He laughed then (as he was wont to do often and emphatically), but he couldn’t know how he’d break his mother’s heart by leaving only a few short years later.
Shaking away his own demons, the pale stallion readies himself to deal with someone else’s. He hasn’t come to Beqanna on some mission or hero’s journey. He had come back because something in the land spoke to him of a potential adventure waiting just around the next cliffside or under the next wave. The Mountain, with its imposing façade and shroud of fog spiraling around the peak, told him that he could share in a greater story than he could have otherwise imagined. And now, here in front of him, could be the first chapter waiting to be written.
He’s no knight, but maybe he can be the jester bringing some joy and light back into their soot-darkened world.
“I’ll help,” he says sooner than he knows what he is committing to. “I don’t know this land – you’ll have ‘ta show me what’s right side up and upside down – but I’ll help.” Finian meets Oceane’s gaze with his own, holding it like a tether in rough seas, an anchor if she’ll take it. He turns to Leilan then, too, shifting his leathery wings to a more comfortable and looser position. “You too, if you need it that is.” He rolls his shoulders in a shrug. “I’ll follow Oceane first and find you next.” Fin shifts his attention back to the water-bound woman. “No one should ever have ‘ta walk through the aftermath alone.”
Finian
@[Oceane] @[Leilan] - he will go to Loess first and then the Isle, so next post can be in Loess if you'd like Tangi!
