rowan, graceless tarnished cryptid. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
runir) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
finalflight2022-03-28 10:39 am
runir) wrote in finalflight2022-03-28 10:39 am
PSL; [ VEILED IN NIGHT ]
[He has slain demigods and gods alike. Legends felled under his blade, or torn asunder by his magics. He has suffered the burden of immortality to help usher in a new age, one of the cosmos and the brightest stars amongst the lonesome night. He may tilt the world’s axis with the weight of his accomplishments, having become more than what he once was. The children born of this age, and their children’s children, and generations beyond them, will spin his tales. He is tantamount to a new history itself.
And yet, next to her, he still feels so small.
She is a goddess by right of blood, newly unbound from her destiny to etch one in the stars anew. His own station was earned by wrath — for as well-intentioned his ambitions had always been, it was only through upheaval and violence that he managed to wrench his throne free of the shardbearers who’d keep their fragments of divine power clutched close. Rowan is forceable change; Ranni is the inevitability of opportunity, as vast as the night she veils across the Lands Between. Even her Empyrean corpse, a form long shed, felt ineffable to him. The ground she lay upon, unearthly.
Perhaps that is why, even now, he bends his knee to her, recumbent and head bowed, features shadowed by the hood he has kept up; in this case, it is a tactical choice, to hide his pinched brow and frown, unsatisfied and almost petulant.]
You needn’t leave now.
[Here, where the Erdtree once stood, lies only a plateau of night and a great, imminent moon. He is sure of her silhouette, softly outlined against silverly light, even if he does not cast his eyes up at her.]
Stay longer, Ranni. To do aught you couldn’t in the past. [When she was still bound by stars unmoving.] Before you leave me to a solitary throne.
[He has aided many, their ambitions small and large. But they have all died, or left, and that he should have to add her to that sorry list twists at his insides.]
no subject
no. to be Tarnished is a thing of the past. there will be a new word, a new term, and that will have to be constructed by those that follow, when they realize their fates are in their own hands.
she had thought to take him with her, a lord into the stars, at enough of a remove where they might sleep and dream of the world below, safely away from interfering. power has never ended well if overused, and a divine power is intoxicating. she has thought on this, many a time since she departed the paths before. if he would stand by her even now, acting in ways some would consider high blasphemy, ruinous, then it might be better to move Rowan's throne up above.
but he will not take her hand, and so Ranni pulls it back, folds all four quietly, and looks carefully at him.]
You speak as though I would leave you for ever, as if we truly need to part.
[even as she says it, she knows - he would be miserable, to dream of a world where he could not share directly in its joys and grief. the earth calls to him, and he answers.]
To stay...
[and here, she pauses. the plan had been so studiously crafted, so forged over time and the light of the moon, that the idea of delaying any step is unexpected.]
The world cannot be held in suspension for too long. The stars, halted in their paths before, long to move. What wouldst thou have occur, before they move again and their order aligned?
[anyone else would have been rejected out of hand, and she would have proceeded. but she can hear that note in his voice, and so she offers a different option: persuasion.
it is not as though one would happily rush towards a solitary journey into darkness, after all.]
no subject
But Ranni sparks hope in her questioning reply, asks of him explanation and persuasion, more than what he could have expected. And yet his mind grasps for greater reasonings that would justify keeping a newfound goddess grounded to the earth, to indulge oneself in pleasures never afforded to them in the scope of their grand ambitions.
Why should she remain, even for a short while? Other than for his own selfish reasons, a want to cling briefly to what he has — to not immediately reign from a lonely throne, consort to a goddess dreaming in the cosmos beyond.
He lifts his head to look at her. Rowan has nothing to offer but the truth, and slowly, he rises to his feet.]
To exist in the presence of one another, fleeting as though it would be. The Lands Between is steeped in night, and should you not wish to see it with your own eyes, free from what bound you before? To look upon the waters of Lake Liurnia, reflecting the moon. To ride stop Torrent along the rim of the giant’s great forge, and see if those embers still flicker in the darkness? Many things. Any.
[To live ludically.]
To feel whimsy, until responsibilities claim us both again. For an age.
no subject
so much has to. so much needs to. it has been years upon years in the divine flow of time - others would consider it an age all its own - since the idea of want to was allowed to sprout under the moonlight. there is honesty in Rowan's gaze, and it pulls to her like a tide. it tells her, who would know? who would forbid it? her own nature will prevent her from abandoning duty forever, and it is her own nature that has driven her on, forward and forward, planning and plotting and thinking and trying so hard to uproot what was always rotted at the core.
no one could tell them no. it is only Ranni who can decide. and her heart, somewhere under dolls form and all the frost of her magic, says something so quiet, but so loud.
she takes a step closer to him, and then another.]
So, not only do you possess the crown of a lord, but the silver tongue of one as well.
[it's gentler, and her eyes remain on him.]
I concede. For the moment, the ascent is halted. Not for always, but for enough - that we might pass moments together, and see the Lands without the haste previously so required.
no subject
Was it not my silver tongue that earned a place by your side?
[To convince her that he would be a loyal follower, even if under the not-so-hidden guise of locating her cursemark at Rogier's behest. Strange, how far both of them have come since then.
His features soften.]
Thank you, Ranni. I know you do little more than humor me, but I will make it worth your while.
[Here, his hand slips into his pocket, to pull out a familiar whistle. It pipes as clear as a bell, and in a rush blue, ghostly magic, Torrent appears beside them both. His friend paws at the starry ground with a hoof, flicking an ear.]
Come. [He swiftly mounts his steed, and holds out a hand to Ranni, beckoning. The mirror image of just moments ago, when she had reached out to him.] We go wherever you like. Torrent will ride undeterred with an honored guest on his back.
no subject
when he extends his hand, she moves to take it with one of hers - this form is cooler to the touch, but she can propel herself up with a touch of magic to sit behind him, briefly and gently touching Torrent on his flank. he has been no less a hero himself, and she must devise a proper thanks, for bearing up under it all as he has. like this...she feels a tender ease, emotions creeping from the chest where she wanted to lock them at present.
it will make it all the harder to go, in the end.]
Where is somewhere you cherish, Rowan? There is where I wish to go.
[to know more of you, she might as well have spoken aloud. because that is a wish she can allow herself right now - to simply travel, and ask questions again, though in a much larger form. surely in the breadth of these lands, there must be many places he cares for.]