For the first time in a long time, his eyes were clear. There was no hint of madness in their amber depths, flecked with the golden light of the sun. The heat of it trickled down as gently as the rays glittering across the surface of the dancing sea.
It was an odd place. Not at all like the home he would have recognized. But the air hinted to the warriors here, returning together with their familiar must of the jungle, his home. So long ago, his home.
He'd been born there. His mother, the fiercest General the Amazons had ever seen, raised him alone. He trained side by side amongst the younger generation, working his hardest to be the best, just for her, a leader in her own right. He'd done well; she'd been proud. He was a force to be reckoned with, thanks to her.
A fierce Brother, a fatal weapon.
And now he returns, this prodigal son. One day he's consumed in despairing madness hidden deep within a forest of isolation, seeing visions of his murdered child and losing consciousness to a raging monster in his mind that lashes out and attacks complete strangers.
And today, awakened. Rebirthed. But so lost. His nose brought him here, like a confusing dream of memories. He recognized no one, he'd been so small in his last memories. Hadn't he grown up with them though, in that formidable jungle? But all he remembers is childhood.
His golden gaze falls to two such strangers as he trudges slowly toward them, eyes glowing from a dark face. His coat was the deep red-gold of a prideful lion, marks of a tiger striping the tips of his bay-dun limbs. Neither predator truly described him, though, this child of a wyvern warrior and a king.
He slinked carefully into their presence, not caring to intrude and catch their conversation. So many years he'd spent in self-condemned confinement, isolated from the world in a prison of silent sentinel trees to protect the world from him. He was uneasy in so much glaring sunlight, like a terrible beast set free in the world, seeing the sun again after years of darkness in his cage.
He tipped his chin to each of them, just barely. They seemed to have introduced themselves to each other, judging by the way they kept themselves separate from each other, but with just a hint of edging closer in new familiarity.
"I am Ainlif," he said carefully, his voice deep and foreign to his own ears, so used to only the sighing of the trees.
He was so lost, so alone now that he'd pushed -no he swore he wouldn't think about it. His soul ached for a connection, a link to his past, to himself. Who was he anymore? That was what he wished to learn here. He could not truly have a life until he found himself again, and he'd had a rude awakening; it was time to live. Before he lost everything again. If he hadn't already lost her.
Would they remember him? Could they help him?
"Do you know me?" he asked awkwardly with a slight tilt to his head in question. Who am I? he seemed to say. So desperate to find a little hope, and no longer versed in how to speak to others, he dimly wondered if he had made a mistake in coming here.