Thunderbolts and Lightening

-

Mina’s gaze shifted again to Cal and she grinned, “I have a feeling that one could study you their whole life and never figure out everything.” She knew enough about him to enjoy him and his company. But she’d never pried too far and wouldn’t dig. His boundaries were his own and she respected them. But what she did know, she adored. He loved with everything he had, and he loved often. He was free with his affections and his attention and it changed as quickly as… well… a stream.

Her smile softened when he brought up his past, she knew he hadn’t been as fortunate as she had been. She loved her mother dearly and she still had her father. And while she was trying to get to know him more, she didn’t know him that well yet but she was grateful that he had accepted her. She’d never been an orphan, nor had she ever lived on the streets. She’d found her home early in the temples. “I know it isn’t… helpful to hear but orphans shouldn’t be judged based on what their parents did. That’s awful.” She shook her head and smirked again, “Why would anyone want to behave? It sounds so dull.”

“Probably because I don’t know much of anything either,” he tells her with a matching grin. “I think I’ve told you as much as anyone else who knows me. Poor little street rat, a leech to the Red Keep, who went on to be a leech to the Mageasterium until I finally left. A short story, hardly nothing to study.”

He shrugs, leans back as he takes a drink. “I don’t very well know what my parents did or who they are. I like to imagine they were warriors, died valiantly in battle. But they were probably just scoundrels who got stoned or hanged for their actions.” Or maybe, maybe they just left the boy. His mother some poor, unknown street worker, and his father some rich diplomat who paid her in hush money. That unknown made him burn. He held no bitterness to the lot in life who knew how their parents were, but he always wanted more. It just gave him the strength to keep going, to prove the ghosts of his mind wrong.

“You are everything but dull, dove. The sharpest of mind, wit, and tongue. I’d have to lie to myself in order to believe that you’d be one to behave. There is nothing in the world that could hold you down.”

~

Keeva was usually quiet, not just in voice but in the way she moved. A dragon’s natural grace and years of stealthing through the swamp made it an unconscious habit to move silently. It wasn’t something she even noticed until she found herself living in the small cottage with two humans. She felt the hum of magic as she startled the man, and she realized he hadn’t noticed her until she spoke. 

“I am so sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you, I— there were no healers downstairs and I—“ Her gaze landed on the books, papers and notes sprawled before him. Feeling even worse now that she realized she had interrupted some sort of work. She cursed herself again for not noticing. “I didn’t mean to disrupt either. I— I can find somewhere else to wait.” 

It takes a few seconds for his heartbeat to calm back down. He often pretended that he had skin of stone, but for those that could hear or sense his heart, that would in turn show him to be an imposter. He swallows, waves it off. “No harm done, just a few years off my life I suppose.” He does move to pile his papers and books up, the words started to not make sense, and his eyes tired of the candlelit strain. He wonders, not for the first time today, where the wired lenses he normally kept in his pocket, had gone to.

@callahanorro

Keeva was too restless to wait much longer. It was the whole reason she sought out a healer in the tower in the first place. Her injuries were healing but they were severe enough that they required her to be resting and that they be tended to. She hated it, hated being cared for, feeling like a burden. Being told she wasn’t supposed to be moving around only made her more restless, more stir crazy. And her moving only aggravated her wounds. So she went looking for a healer. Hoping magic could speed up the process, only to be told that they were currently occupied but she could wait.

After what felt like nearly an hour, the dragoness couldn’t sit still any longer. She would return later and hopefully they would be back. But for now, she would take advantage of being outside the cottage for the first time in a few days. She found the steps leading to one of the higher areas of the tower and slowly made her way up.

They opened up onto a decent sized rooftop balcony, a few chairs and small side tables scattered about. As she stepped out, she was momentarily taken aback by the wonderful view of the darkening evening sky. She was half tempted to pull her hood away for a better view but she refrained. The dragoness was more hesitant about showing her face now since the attack. But the sound of paper behind her surprised her and she whipped around. It seems the balcony wasn’t as vacant as she thought and she cursed herself for not being more observant.

“Oh! I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize anyone else was up here.”

It was quiet.

That’s all Callahan looked for after what felt like too busy of a day. He spent what felt like weeks travelling, when it was just a set of favors to griffn riders and the like, to arrive at the tower to quickly be thrown in to doing a hundred menial tasks that the mage felt to be beneath him.

So yes, of course, at the first second some older, greyed woman wasn’t barking orders at him, he fled with a series of books and his notes to read and study in a spot of solitude. He was sprawled out across a table and was so focused on the words he was reading that when he heard a voice he fumbled his quill and missed the inkpot and had he not called the water of the ink to still and return fast enough, he would have had a mess on his hands, literally.

“By the gods, I think you should invest in a bell on your neck,” he says after a second, waiting for his heart to slow.

-

In some ways, Mina did feel like even those without it could sense magic. Like there was a sort of buzz around different objects or people. Like you just knew they were different, that they were… more. But she also thought that in many ways, she was more too. Her education had been unique in that she hadn’t been satisfied learning just the teachings of the Infinite Three, she wanted to learn as much as she could. And she wanted to draw her own comparisons and conclusions from that. Not everyone had that sort of drive. Just as not everyone was driven and led by their magic like Cal was. “So the light is your power but the water… that’s your compass…” She smiled, “Probably a whole theory out there somewhere in the world that says we go where the rivers flow and the seas command. You’d be the best subject to study.”

“In that case!” She chuckled, her grin widening in a mischievous, joyful smirk. “We might as well go… show them how much trouble humans really can be.” Which wasn’t a great deal, in actuality. Human wars rarely touched Vailen and the Vae in all their infinite wisdom and patience and lifespans didn’t involve themselves in the quarrels of man. “So what of us that are bastards… I heard they don’t particularly like those even if they don’t kick them out of society? Assuming the bastard behaves.” That was true too, Vae in general didn’t respect bastard born as much as they did legitimate children. But they rarely kicked them out of families. They might have them change their name or act as if they were hired help to save face, but they had their quirks. At least in Loqoala and some parts of Elysi, bastards were treated with love and care, even if they couldn’t inherit titles or land. She supposed humans had to be more evolved in some way.

She was never satisfied. He wondered if that’s why he felt so drawn to her. But Cal couldn’t claim in that regard she was special when he viewed everyone as special in their own ways. But she was... godlike in his eyes. Her words were magic. The eclipse felt like nothing when he sat in the shadow of her.  “Are you saying you haven’t studied me enough?” he asks, voice light as he tears off a piece of bread to place in his mouth. 

-

She understood that, feeling like you were in your element. Only for her, perhaps she was tied to the wind. She had grown up loving her home and her life and family but even as a child, she preferred skipping around, spending time in Elysi with her father or Loqoala at the temple or with her mother’s family elsewhere. Getting to learn about different places, different people, experiencing all of that, that was what she held closest to her heart. “Mmm… maybe I’m at my best with the wind then, never settling, never still. Like you are with light. Motion, traveling… that keeps me at peace.” Mina gave him a small smile, it was so easy to take kindness and thoughtfulness like that for granted and she often did. Perhaps coming from the temples where everyone just sort of… helped out each other had skewed her view of the world. “Thank you. It is the least you can do for me allowing you the pleasure of my company.” She grinned then, teasing and laughing.

Go to Vailen with Callahan? It seemed like a perfectly simple, promising, exciting adventure. “Oh we could? And let you sully my good name to the elves?” She laughed again, as if she had any such thing. She was an unknown, only really acquainted with other priestesses, a few people outside of the temples like Cal, and her father. “I’d love that, honestly.” She admitted. Seeing more of the world, especially with good company as they breezed through it, sounded like her ideal life.

He believed there was magic everywhere, that even if you weren’t gifted by the gods, magic still swirled in you. He saw it in the poets, in artists, in Mina’s eyes when she was truly, madly, deeply in her element. Moments like that remind him how he was drawn to her like a moth to a flame. They’d be apart for weeks and then be pulled back like the waves to the shore. There was an ebb and flow to them.. “And water,” he reminds, both helping him become the healer he was. “The light gives me strength but the water compels me, pushes me where I need to be. Funny how the gods granted a little desert boy power over water,” he laughed softly and looked away from her sight to stare upon the stares. She always did that, he always found himself staring at her, even when she catches him. “I aim to please, my lady,” he says, remark equal in jest to hers.

-

“Do you feel a rush of magic during the summer then, when the sun is at its strongest and in the sky the longest?” She slid down next to him, crossing her legs and pouring a glass of wine for herself. “Like during the solstice?” She smiled, taking a look through his bag. “Oooh you got havarti…” She peeled back the wrapper a bit on the soft cheese and broke off a piece. “Wine, food, stars, good company… you’re spoiling a girl.”

The After seemed like such a distant possibility, but Mina knew before they knew it they would be traveling to whatever fate awaited them. There were all sorts of theories about it, about what happened after. She did like the idea that perhaps they would go on to be star-stuff or travel the universe in spirit. It seemed like such a beautiful, eternal and peaceful existence. “I would love to travel whatever’s left up there once I get done on this world. Still haven’t made it to Vailen but I’m working on it…”

“I don’t know if it’s a rush of magic or just my love of the sun,” he admits. Summer was always his time. Lately it just made him miss the Red Keep, the warmth of the desert under his toes. “Perhaps it’s a bit of both. It’s because your surrounded by what gives you power. I feel it when it rains, also. Or even just floating in a lake, or the ocean.” It relaxed him, he could feel the magic swirl around him and he could swear he felt the heartbeat of the world in it. But he was always a bit romantic. “I like to think I just know you enough to know your type of cheese,” he teases.

Mina smirked, “Too bad you were not born a night dragonkin, from what I’m told it’s like they get an extra surge during eclipses… like they drank too much khaf.” She knelt down, pouring him some of the wine she’d brought up and handing him the goblet. “I’m almost done setting up, get comfortable.” She’d known Cal a few years and he was always a good, kind, and fun person to spend time with. And though she appreciated his time and his company, Mina knew there was little beyond that. Not that she wanted it, she had so much to see of the world and relationships that weren’t formed by blood would only slow her down. But she did enjoy their time together, when she got it.

She finished the calculations she was taking and the adjustments the instruments needed and sauntered back over to Cal. The telescope wasn’t the largest in the world, Loqoala had a much larger one in their capital, but it was sufficient for accurate measurements. And the instruments had been enchanted to record on their own. Ritual magic, unaffected by the eclipse. It was strange how both strains of magic came from such different places. She slipped beside Cal, pointing upwards as she leaned back, the roof hatch widening as the telescope raised itself above them. “Some say we end up as stars… that’s where we go in the After. I don’t know that I believe that, as stars burn out right?” Glancing over at him, she smiled, “But I do like the idea that there are way too many of them for us to comprehend.”

“Instead I get the luxury of being a poor magic user of the dawn,” he drawls. He had heard those stories too, even met a few shadows mages in his time at the Magaesterium. He thanked her for the glass before he pull himself up in to sitting position, if only to marvel at her for a moment longer while he was still clear headed enough to do so. ”Don’t have to tell me twice.” He motions to his bag, “In case we get hungry.” He had filled it with fruit and cheeses, a loaf of bread, all carefully wrapped. A bottle of wine more just in case. If the stars called for it.

As much as he believed in the gods, he believed in the stars. He believed in the gifts they granted them and if he believed in the gods any more than he did, he would have joined a different life. “Stars burn out, but there is always one to replace it. They continue on, in one way or another. Perhaps one day we can travel among them and they can tell us what they know.”

-

She reached out across the table and gave him a playful shove. “You better not stay away for years again. I don’t want our next meeting to be when we’re old. I want to see this adorable face more.” She pouted but laughed. “Letters are wonderful, but I want to see your expressions when you’re speaking.” It was a rare moment when Nora was simply just happy, pure and undiluted happiness that he was actually in front of her.

Nora gave him a sad smile. “We all have our time. It was my father’s I suppose, or rather, those that attacked Glasswater made certain that it was his time.” She let out a breath, trying to focus more so on the now then the anger she felt at how her father would still be alive had it not been for the attack.  “Thanks, I try to remind myself of that every day. I try to keep telling myself that we’ll get through this.” A wicked smile came to her lips as he asked about the trouble she got into. “A lot of fighting, but also quite a bit of drinking and any antics that come up when I’m out and about.” She chuckled, trying to imagine him writing, reading and walking simultaneously. “But what happens when you reach your destination? Any fun then?”

“If I could persuade you to join me in my travels, I would. But I know you can’t.” He wonders what it would be like to have a road companion. Nights were long when you spent them alone, but he didn’t always to that. Callahan was well aware of his looks. He did grow in to his ears, as they say. “Adorable is not a word I hear too often anymore,” he teases, “Something I’m not too sure you hear much of either,” he tells her, a slick smile to his face.

“I was there. Afterwards,” he clarifies, “I could only do so much. They expected so much more out of the healers but the gods gave us limitations for a reason. I’m sure it was a great party though.” He has to stop is mind from wandering in the moment to nobles in pretty gowns and capes. “Oh, I have fun. All work and no play would make me a very dull boy and I assure you, my oldest of old friends, that I am far from dull. I can cure a hangover in a single touch, I know how to have a good time, Nor.”

@callahanorro​

For the most part, the magaesterium in Glasswater had been abuzz with people bringing in cots and making plans for the magi to stay and hunker down during the day of the eclipse. Longer, if their magic was affected afterward. But Willamina Moreau had no magic herself, so she’d spent the day passing out bed rolls and making preparations of her own. She’d lived through a few partial eclipses so far, but from what the magi had said, this one, as strange and unnatural as it seemed, only happened every five hundred years. So she had done some errands and sold some of her time researching for some of the other priestesses so that she could buy a good bottle of wine, not the cheap stuff she usually drank.

And she planned on spending the eclipse where no other magi with any magic would dare to go during it. The top of the mage tower, where the protections of the wards were weakest, and the drain of the eclipse was the strongest. Granted, Glasswater’s magaesterium wasn’t the tallest in the realm, but she had offered to record the event using the instruments they had available, solar mapping tools, sun gazers, telescopes. She was the perfect candidate to stay in the astronomy tower simply because she was one of the few priestesses there without any gifts.

She had climbed the long, winding spiral staircase to the tower and spread blankets and pillows around the floor. She’d cranked the lever to open the oculus of the tower, angling the telescope upward, when she heard footsteps behind her. “I didn’t know if you’d show up or not.” She answered with a smirk, pointing up to the glass roof above them. “It’s beginning.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he tries to tell her easily, but the fact of the matter was that after trudging up flights of stairs, he found his legs weak and tired. Which was to be expected even if he was at peak power. (Even partial eclipses, he could feel it tug away the light inside of him.) “I almost didn’t make it though,” Cal told her as he all but collapsed on the floor, the comfort of the blankets and pillows called to him too much. His pack sat discarded at his feet for the moment. “Made me yearn for the power of flight,” he added as he stretched out, eyes half on her, and half on the sky.

It was hard to look away from her, he’d admit that easily and readily. The way she moved about the tools, like they were an extension of her own body.

He knew he would never life long enough to see this happen again, not fully, not to this degree. Not with the hushed tones that he heard, whispered in the hallways about the effects. Cal knew of a few shadow mages who tried to hide how thrilled they were, but he was strongest when the sun was brightest, he supposed. Mina had asked if he would join, and he wasn’t in the business of denying himself that pleasure of being in her presence.

The priestess is leaned against a counter, trying to make a deal with a merchant to lower a price on something she wished to acquire and Cal found himself focusing on sun-kissed shoulders, the curve of her lower back, how her gown loosely hung on to her but still clung to every curve. (A magic he swore only women were able to use.) The ring of her laugh as she tried her hardest and he knew he had to close his book and put it in his bag.

The tavern is dimly lit by a series of floating candles, something enchanted that the local drunkard mages found themselves entranced by. They flicker, shadows cast against draped curtains that segregated areas. As if that would make it private, but when you were drinking you felt safer like that. Smoke hung in the air, it floated down from where incense sat burning in censers. Given the time he could pick out the scents. There wasn’t anything peculiar about it but gods, did he feel warm.

Nora was within reach, head thrown back in a laugh. He said something funny, he’s sure of it but he’s so.. distracted by the line of her neck, the way her eyes crinkle when it’s something she finds to the bone funny and he can’t.. stop himself. A faint memory of a childhood feeling clawed out from inside him. Something that had been gone for ages but always flares back up, like a fire improperly put out. Destined to consume everything.

-

She placed her hands on both sides of his face, taking in his features as she knew that he wouldn’t stay in Red Keep forever and she didn’t know when she’d see him again after he did finally leave. “I wouldn’t dare give you a right hook…until after I got to behold this face I missed so much!” She moved to sit with him at the table then. She felt such joy and happiness, the feeling almost out of place among all that she’d normally felt as of late. 

Nora smiled. “I may not have seen you in ages, but I still know you well enough to know that. Thank you for being here. You have no idea what that means to me. I am safe, working quite a bit more than I ever fathomed in the advisor role with my dad…no longer with us, and my brother healing while taking on the role of Earl.” Having Cal here made all of those things bearable. “I have been getting myself into quite a bit of trouble as of late,” she said with a smile. “What about you? How do you fare? Tell me of your travels? Anything exciting?” 

“I deserve hundreds, if not thousands by this point,” he teases, at ease in her presence.  The gods graced him with her friendship, while they took every other person in his life away. Not that he remembered much before the Magaesterium, he just knew of Nora, of the streets, and then everything changed again. “I won’t spend this much away again, I’ll try.”  

Water Gardens, Red Keep,Mid-Day

The water gardens at the red keep were beautiful, usually too crowded for Beatrice’s liking but on such a sweltering but beautiful day, she couldn’t help but wander out amongst the people. She sat with her gauzy dress pulled up to her knees, her feet in the water when some children with puppies approached her and asked her to look after Spud and Terror while they played.Honoured by the trust they’d given her and eager to hold puppies, she agreed. 

She watched the children play, mild anxiety creeping up on her like a sadow. What if they fell? It would be so easy in the water but…would that be so horrible? A bit of suffering to learn? Would the bitterness be so bad that it drowned out the sweet? Whatever happened, they would have their puppies to return to and she would be there to help if they needed it. 

She felt a shadow fall over her, “yes. may I help you?” she asked before being utterly distracted by the adorable noises the puppy was making…

Cal hadn’t explored these streets in... what felt like decades. He had spent most of his life behind the Magaesterium walls by now, and even though he grew up in the Red Keep, it felt like a new city. Much had changed in the time he’d been gone, and he had already spent more time here than he expected.

But it was hard to leave when it was as much of a home as it could ever be.

It was fitting for a water mage to venture in to the water gardens. It felt like a safe place to be, someplace where he had control. He missed the little oasis that the Keep had, the cool spots where one could dip their toes in to the water, and nose in to a book.

The stones warmed his naked feet, the sun kissed his bare skin, and gods did it give him a sense of longing.

“I was just asking if I was intruding,” he repeats, unable to blame her for being distracted by small animals. But it was quiet enough.

Nora felt like her days melded into one another now. She buried herself in work and helping her brother. Not only was there emotions running high within the walls of her home, but also emotions that ran high from people not certain what was going on with the rebels, ever worrisome about where the next attack would be. The advisor was not naive enough to think that it was a once and done situation. 

Yet Nora had hoped that seeing her face out and about, going about her normal business, calm and with a smile on her face at times it would calm the masses. She’d meandered into an Inn that had been known for having the most amazing baked bread and soup. Her thoughts of how long it had been since she’d even eaten today were lost when she saw a familiar figure, sitting there with eating as if this were as normal as ever. 

Nora found herself chuckling, her smile brighter than it had ever been. “You may want to put the bowl down because I am most certainly about to launch myself in your direction. I don’t care if I’m not a launcher and I don’t often throw myself at anyone.” She said as she rushed to close the distance between them. She nearly knocked him over as she embraced him. “You were simply going to sneak into Red Keep without me knowing? What a sight. How I’ve missed you. I’m cross between punching you for only writing to me and never visiting, and just hugging you never letting go. Which says a lot because I don’t simply hug anyone.” Her oldest and best friend was there in the flesh and not simply words on a page.

He had stacks of letters from her, bundled neatly in the bottom of his rucksack, that sat in safekeeping under the bed of the room he’s renting until he... decides he can’t be here any longer. Nora might the only reason why his stay might be longer than a few nights. But still, she rushed over to him and he leapt up, arms around her without a second thought. It may have taken his mind a second to see that it was Nora, but his heart knew right away. “I knew you’d find me sooner or later,” he assures, “I almost thought you would be at the gates, ready to give me one of your right hooks,” he teased as he pressed their foreheads together in a display of affection before he pulled away and ushered her to sit down at the table.

This woman was one of the few things that made growing up in the Red Keep worth it. He may have had the streets, but she was always there to keep him safe. “If I spoke the truth, I’d tell you that you’re the only reason I’m back in this gods forsaken place. It felt like I should be here,” he tells her, “I pray that you’re safe?” he questions. He would have had to have lived under a rock to not know what has been going on in the world as of late.

He’s not sure how many years passed since he left the Red Keep after leaving the Magaesterium. He left those walls and never turned back, finding that the streets of the land called to him more than ever. He wouldn’t stay in place more than a few days, in the life long search to find somewhere that fit.. somewhere that he belonged.

But still, he could never deny that those streets felt more like home than anywhere else and found his legs taking him south, where the sun was ever persistent. He found himself walking the roads where he grew up on, a strange sense of deja vu as fingers traced the outline of bricks in the walls. Cal felt a longing to a time that maybe was happier, but not easier.

He ducked in to a door, stomach aching for a good bowl of fish stew, something he hadn’t had since. At least, any fish stew that was worth it’s salt. He was warmed by the bowl. As hot as it was outside, he could never say no to something he longed for.

“Here I am, trying to enjoy my meal, and I’m graced by the gods by seeing your face in the light and not in my dreams. My, my, how we both have grown,” he coos, eyes on the figure that came in to view.