Across the Sea of Stars

The hour was late.
They both should have already been indoors but curiosity was always a prize/problem with them.
They could see the twin moons high above, one behind the other. And they knew they had to watch their backs.
"Blood-kin, your thirst will wake the Crels again."
"I do not go in the Crels' direction, do I?"
"No, you do not. But why do you come out?"
"We have another Blood-Kin."

The twins stared each other down eye-to-eye for a good long minute. Older by three and a half Lifebreaths, R'hown felt in a few ways he was wiser. It wasn't a prideful kind of thing. It was more the elder-sibling mentality.
Lugh'ad had always been able to keep the stare of his twin. He had always been able to tell more than the usual Linking when his sibling was trying to tell an untruth. So he stared his elder twin down.
"Prove it, R'hown."
"You doubt me? You say I speak an untruth."
"I have doubt. Show me."

It's how they found themselves out here now staring eachother. Finally R'hown broke the stare, turned his back and crept along the steep tunnel he'd found in the palace catacombs. He had found this one when he'd slipped away from the ever-dutiful guards and hid behind one of the few banners that hung on the opaline walls.
He fell back gracelessly and slid down the passage.
That was when, a few moons ago, he found the albino.

"How do we get back in?"
"We do not."
Honestly, that confused Lug'had. R'hown had told him of the inner passage but they weren't crawling through that like a couple of taldreens. No. They were outside, creeping along the edge of the palace walls.
"You shall see."
The younger twin trusted R'hown. How could he not?
For a long time, they crept in silence, hugging close to the wall until the elder finally stopped and ducked under a rather shadowy niche.
"Here. And remain soundless."
Lug'had followed his brother to the letter.
Sliding back to let his younger sibling have a look, R'hown almost smiled. He could almost feel Lug'had trying not to Transcend right then and there.
The albino.
He was asleep, curled up in a tiny little hole of a thing with only that one way to get in or out. He was shorter than both of them and had the characteristic blue-black skin.
It wasn't that that caught Lug'had's breath in his throat.
It was the hands.
"He is ours?"
"He is ours, Lug'had."
The twin sons crouched low at the entrance of the hidden little place for almost half the night.
R'hown couldn't help but stay.
Lug'had wondered what signature his Life-Bringer might give off.
R'hown wondered why this third sibling had never been felt.
Lug'had wondered what colour the eyes would be.

~<>~

(( Just a retrospective bit going. From one world to another, as it were.))

Across the Sea of Stars
Illusia's Price

The dance had begun.

It started as it always did with the two standing face-to-face. Then one to drop face-down on the hard stone floor.
She stood still with a look on her long, narrow face that spoke of angry triumph.

The dance had begun.

He stood up then bowed again as the fires were lit. The string of flame set upon his back at his first turn. The pirouette brought the cold.
She stepped back and leapt over him. The cold fire screamed out its fury in the growing haze. He loved it and hated it. He cherished it and he despised it.
The fire-ice came around.
He cherished it.
The fire-ice lashed down.
He despised it.

The dance grew in furious fervour.

They waltzed in a place of fluid motion, no gravity and searing heat. They danced in a time where time meant nothing and the sky was colder than ice.
She turned and flung out one arm.
He twisted, then bowed low, then came up in defiance.

Then they stepped in perfect time on nothing.

He knew her motions. They were almost always a constant. She turned and let the lash fly once more. He spun and ducked. He still felt the burning cold across his back.
She loved it when he fought back.
He loved it when he could pin her with logic.

If only Logic existed in moments like these.
But it didn't, so he kept on dancing.

Across the floor they went -- spinning, arcing, ducking and evading.
Across the floor they went -- the fire came down and the ice came after.
She howled her fury and let the fire rain. He ducked, howled back and took another blow. He knew why this time her anger was ignited and as the dance came to a burning end, the illusion of seducing beauty wore off.

He ran away again. She caught him again.
Property, even sentient property was just that.
Property.

Across the Sea of Stars
Of Names and Voices

He could never see the smile, but he felt it.

That was enough for him.

He smiled back.

He was uncertain, shy and quiet. The twins only grinned -- they knew their sibling by now to know his almost mouse-like mannerisms.
She was slow, smooth and a bit shy herself. But like the twins, she knew when her instincts were strong.

"You are not Documented."

Renne shuddered and let his ears fall back.
R'hown and Lug'had spoke swiftly in their uncanny tandem.

"There is much reason we are not at liberty to explain."

"This is not the time of the Cataclysms."

The twins narrowed their eyes at her but held in their slight displeasure. They knew of the Cataclysm Wars but that time was long ago. Generations ago even if the lessons of that era still remain deeply marked in the minds of the People.

"I meant no offending. I only wish I knew why..."

She trailed off as the twins backed away. She stepped forward, reached out and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Have you a Calling?"

The twins didn't let their youngest sibling speak. They stepped forward and gently brought him to his knees. R'hown was the first to speak. Lug'had followed as his elder twin had taught him.
Tradition commanded that Callings be made. They were as sacred as any life coming into existence.
He wasn't Documented but that was all right.

"He does not. We hoped that you should assist us with finding his Calling."

"We are his Blood-Kin. We have grown to know him."

"You have much love for him. Are you Bonded?"

She spoke more gently this time, now understanding the protective undertones of the twins' signatures. She listened to them tell what little they could about the Cataclysm Wars and what that era left behind.
They spoke of how they found him and how they knew the story behind the scars.
She felt her signature flare as instincts grew stronger.

"We are not Bonded. We have a wish to be, but we cannot."

"Yes. I understand. It must be spontaneous. I know the stories. I have a suggestion."

She whispered to them and for a while, they left the albino kneeling on the ground. They spoke in their signatures. They gave off enigmatic readings that the albino could only half-interpret.
Protection.
Confusion.
Fear.
Anger.
Pride.

The three faced him now and the twins clicked twice. Stand up. So he did.
The twins spoke first.

"We wish to gift thee, Blood-Kin of our line. We read upon thy Calling and we understand it."

The Female spoke then, whispering. She'd done this before but none were quite so strange as this. She felt her signature flare again. In the time it took her to speak, she knew.

"Thy Calling is as much thine as ours. Blood-kin of thine, may they speak."

The twins Transcended and bade him to do so. When he had Transcended with them, he heard his name.
His name.
His Calling.

Horaetio Renne Arc'err.

Stubborn One.

---------

The ritual wasn't as ornate as it could have been. It was nowhere near as lavish as perhaps it should have been. Callings had always been one of the best celebrations in a family. But this one, in its simplicity, was the most profound.
The twins had taught him how to Transcend in tandem with others of the People and how to avoid detection by the one they used to adore.
Upon having met Renne, they found the truth.

Still, unlike the albinos and mountain clans of the Land People, they could indeed weave a fine lie.
The twins had no genetic programming to prevent them from doing such, as albinos, Land People to the North and a tribe of Sea People to the East.
So she, the Female Pro-Creator of them and their youngest sibling, remained unaware of their growing hate.

Renne was alone now with her; the one the twins had brought. They had, after all, what most of us call curfews.
She didn't and neither did he.
Being Undocumented was indeed a perk sometimes.

"May this life-form hear thy Calling?"

She shook her head and laughed. He could hear the strands of her woven hair swishing in the becalmed grove. She had a scent of nanj-wi drifting off of her. He had the scent of something she couldn't pin down.
"The Calling that is mine is Ilyen-maru Wyrcu'en Aaqeh."

"This life-form shall Call thee Tullyai."

"Why? It has the meaning of Water-Distant."

"And? Thy Calling has the meaning of Offspring-From-Crelscale. This life-form has no belief that Calling is true."

"It is. When a life-form holds anger and creates harm, I am worse than the Crel."

They had taken to walking now through the grove and beyond, into the banfa'al forests where the trees grew higher and the oln-ma shrubs grew almost too thick to come through.

"You may have this. This life-form has felt thy signature. It has much beauty."

"Like the Distant Waters the Sea People live in?"

"Yes. This life-form has the wish to traverse the Distant Waters, then go beneath to visit the Sea People."

She outright laughed at his constant formal speech. As they walked hand-in-hand, they came out of the forests and onto the powdery beach. Beyond the glistening white-blue sand roared the oceans.
Thick, blue-black waves reached skyward and fell again in thundering roars at some moments. They were calm as a mill-pond the next and reflected blue from the four suns.

They listened for many hours, speaking in both the High and Low tongues. He taught her how to hide and survive if she needed to. She taught him how not to speak so damned formally.
By the time they parted ways, their forefingers touched in the ancient way.

"I have love for thee."

"It is reciprocated."

And he smiled.

Across the Sea of Stars
Dark Cymbeline

The memories flashed through his mind like a kaleidoscope of sensations. He was aware of what was around him -- he just didn't care to acknowledge it.
He felt gravity suddenly increase, then implode upon itself to ultimately fling him outward to the legendary barrier that no one had crossed in at least four generations. Oh, he'd heard of it from the twins. They'd told him of an ancient time before the Containment Laws took effect.
Fear no more the heat of the sun

Huh. Breaking his first law already.

He almost laughed at the irony. Protecting laws that no longer existed -- No, they still exist.
They do not.
Yes, they do.
Laws on a dead world?
Laws nonetheless.

His mind raged with itself to reconcile that. His forced ability of sight had by now gone and so had the sight-memory. Now? He knew not where, perhaps when, he was. Only that he floated in a mishmash of things.
Asteroids at one time.
Planets the next.
And gods-know-what after that.
Nor the furious winter's rages

Time was lost to him now. He couldn't calculate how it passed -- the void of that had at first frightened him to no end. He had however, begun to accept that part and found another way to register time as passing.
Sort of.

He drifted close-in to another world. Close enough that its gravity took him downward and into a sea unfamiliar to him. He knew it was a sea; he could fall into it, not upon it. This sea was strange. The water wasn't so thick one could walk upon it with the right footing. This water was thin and bitter-tasting. And turbulent.
It was turbulent one moment, then calm the next. That, he related to.
And eventually, it had done him some good.
He drifted, floating for only Fate knows how long until a ship had passed him by.
It didn't matter to him, the hands that pulled him from the water. He was out of the water and had managed to prolong his humanoid-looking appearance this far.
The hands that pulled him out of the water were none the wiser.
For thy worldly task has done
Home art gone and ta'en thy wages.

Across the Sea of Stars
Make You and Break You

I. Customs

It didn't take him long to learn how these oceans worked. He learned how to follow the currents -- mostly in warmer waters -- and he remembered to go into the proper form of which to swim.
He may have been alone but drowning wasn't on his mind.

Back there, where he once lived -- the Place-that-Once-Was -- the twins taught him to swim. He had met the Sea People almost. He had ridden the waves of blue-blackness and loved it.
He knew he was a half-breed like his siblings.
Their Male Pro-Creator was of the Land-People.
Their Female Pro-Creator was of the Sea-People.
So he had the best of both worlds.
And the worst.
But he wasn't in the Place-that-Once-Was anymore. He was here, wherever "here" might be.

He found out soon enough.

---------------------

Rough sand had scraped along his body. The tide had carried him to dry land and for many days he did nothing but sleep. Even meditation was foregone -- it wasn't needed yet. So he slept.

He woke roughly ten days later and knew he had to get his bearings. Water wasn't needed. Food however, was and despite his civilisation being wiped out, he remained a staunch vegetarian.
Renne had no idea the treasures and the troubles he'd find here until he got up and explored.
He could still walk upright and maintain a humanesque appearance -- Six feet tall, dark brownish-tan skin, semi-webbed feet and pointed ears. It would do for now.
He was unsure of how any life-form in this place would handle his un-Shrouded appearance. And while it wasn't a lie, it wasn't entirely the truth either.

He walked until he found a sturdy, stiff structure. It wasn't made by nature; that he could tell. His hands examined the thing in front of him and he swiftly figured it out. A wall. Thus, a building of some kind.
When another voice called out to him, he knew he was correct.

"Hail and welcome to ye!"

What voice was that? Strange to be sure and natural curiosity bade him respond.

"Hail?"

"Aye, Laddie. Come in out o' the night."

Laddie? What the hell was a "Laddie"?

More curious than not now, he followed the voice and in under twenty minutes, he was engrossed in another set of stories. And laughter.
He learned of new life-forms now called demons, dark faeries, vampires and Drow.
He learned the name of this place was Veldri Niahar'dro. He learned other names too.
Silver. Shadow. Richard. Storm. Dove. Malaggar.

To this place, he kept returning until a pleasant thing awaited him. It was spontaneous, sure but it was not the Bond of ancient lore.
It was something else.

------------------

He'd always remember that day -- May 18, as it was told to him by Nym, the resident dark faerie -- as the day he regained a part of himself. He had a purpose again.
He had something to believe in again.
He was worthwhile again.
It wasn't a day of ceremony. In fact, it was just another night at that tavern he'd run into some days before. It was under this roof he discovered something called "bloodwyne".
And the stuff, he vowed, to never touch.
But then, being not of a vampiric type, it tasted awful.

It wasn't the bloodwyne though, that was the moment.

It was after that. When Silver, Shadow, Richard, Nym, Malaggar, Storm and other he hadn't known yet took him on a short journey to a small fortress to the northeast of the tavern.
The place was grand but not so grand. In the tavern, he'd learned much about other species, customs and even improved his language skill.
Tonight though, he gained his purpose.
He became a NightRunner.

As it was explained, the group was the military force on the island and their purpose was to protect the isle and each other.
The code was simple as that. And he latched onto it.

Protect the isle from enemies, both outside and in.

Protect each other as brothers and sisters.

He translated most things into simple enough similarities but "Brother" wouldn't come here. "Teacher" came here. "Mentor" came here.
"Brother didn't come here.
Still, he had a purpose and that was good.

Across the Sea of Stars
Make You and Break You

III. Ironguard Gone

The day had faded into the black of night when the pyre was finished. He had only just escaped the depths of the Abyss below and heard Silver walk solemnly upon the docks of Northern Veldri Niahar'dro.
He was in some kind of finery but nothing overbearing. It was a kilt and he held a set of Uillean pipes in his arms. Silver-gray hair had been tied back into a formal queue and his voice remained that of a commanding presence.

Even commanders' voices betray through a whisper.

"Go in peace ta the other side."

It was all he said before the night's quiet was overcome with the song that now echoed on Silver's pipes. He played to his fullest and let the music echo as it should. In this moment, he had shed a single tear, never knowing that as it fell it was captured.
The ritual had begun and Renne found in the tear, strength.
He heard the song end even if he could do nothing else.

Silver said nothing as his fist song concluded. Without a word, he drew his left arm back and formed a fireball in his hand. And with a great cry, the demon flung that ball of flame at the waterlogged pyre to light it like dry kindling.
It was said that the flames blossomed into an inferno that could make a dragon jealous and it was fitting as fire consumed both the burial and the night.
Ebony shrank away as gold-red licked the sky.
Deep blue of the sea reflected in red sparks.
Damp brown wood threw both liquid gold into the sky and crowned it with a plume of gray-black smoke.

Renne felt the warmth turn his solid shell into ash. He felt the ash that his body was turning into. He felt his Lifestone come back to him with the tear.
As the stone began to crack and leak, bleeding with a silver-reflective fluid, Renne closed his eyes and began the ritual that would ultimately restore much to his being.

He never saw the flaming thing he was on. He never saw the dance that fire, water, wind and sky played out above or below him. He only heard the roar of burning wood and the waves of the sea as the ashes multiplied.
He felt and heard nothing as his head, brain and face joined the ashes.

On this night, Horaetio Renne Arc'err discovered regret.

-----------------------------

The ritual had passed in quiet seclusion. Long after the night of flame, wood, water, sky and wind had gone quiet the Lifestone was active beneath the pile of ashes and burned wood. It glowed, then dimmed as the silver leaked out and drained.
The stone broke into two as the fluid left it.
And while it did not dry or evaporate off, the hard stone shattered into a tiny explosion. A chain reaction began with the explosion.
It started with a rise in temperature. Then the fluid boiled until it thickened to the consistency of honey. Then it grew hot -- hot enough to trigger another explosion of sorts. More accurately, it was an implosion of heat, ash and that silvery substance that relatively speaking for its small size, packed the same punch as a star going nova.

It was the perfect force needed to do its job.

As light and heat dimmed, the silvery fluid left over from the chemical war thickened and gathered into something nearly solid. Within this, the heat rose once more to create a solid shell.
It was perfect and it had done its job.
The ashes gathered to coat the hardening shell.
The heat pulsed and fluctuated for hours...

Two days later, it was done and he was drifting through the waves again.

-------------------------------

He had thought about the process. Why it was necessary, why it happened the way it did and how to explain it. The truth, obviously. But telling the truth in a manner that would be constructive to both sides -- that was the trick.
He discovered the continent of Rhy'Din by the time he'd worked it through his mind. Crawling up onto shore, Renne shook the thin film of ashes off from his regenerated skin and began a new life as a nomad. He discovered that he could sing and both bring pleasure and gain coin for it.
This, he learned, was traded for things like food and shelter.

It took him a while, but he got used to this life. Even came to like it. And for a while, he didn't let himself think about Silver. For a while, he let his mind get itself up to par. He was surprised to learn another lesson -- Never let your guard down.

He had ended a song at a little place in Rhy'Din when he had heard over the lull, the voice of a demon.
"Hm. Richard, I smell somethin' wrong here."
Silver stood and almost stalked smoothly toward Renne as he got up to depart. It wasn't seen but the demon's pale face held glaring yellow eyes and a thin-lipped look of dripping disapproval.
And Renne stumbled. Again.
He got out only half-a-line by the time the seven-foot-tall demon stood inches away from him. He got out only half-a-line when he felt three inches tall instead of six feet.
"Come back from tha dead, can ye? Prove it."

To call Renne "heartless" in years to come would prove accurate.

Across the Sea of Stars
I Have Green Eyes

Once upon a time there was an outcast. He survived completely on his own and was all right with that. He traveled as a nomad, never staying in one place for too long and never going back to any place he visited.
He never promised to come back, so it was all right.

Once upon a time, there was a vampire. A Strygoi to be exact. He was older, wiser and had experience in joy and pain. He held accolades from an age past and kept his memories close.
Once upon a time, two misfits crossed paths in a bar fight.
Fall on your knees

As the fall turned into the biting chill of winter, the misfits learned and taught.

Renne learned about honour, integrity, bravery and friendship. He learned about a thing called brotherhood. He learned about this Strygoi that had taken him under wing -- the trials, the triumphs. And one night, he asked what this mentor looked like.
"I have green eyes."
It was all that was said but it was enough. He was friend and brother and mentor and hero to a misfit that had grown confident and strong.
Hear the angel voices

The days passed from the cold, pristinely white winter into the thaw of spring. The days passed in adventure, laughter, tears, joys and falls. And for a while, the reputation had grown that "Where one was, the other would be sure to follow."
Mary's woollen companion held no candle to this.

--------------------------

One spring night, Renne waited for his friend. His brother. Mentor. He waited at first with calm expectation. It had become a kind of ritual for the two to come together or for one to await the other. It was how almost all nights went. Sometimes one misdirected the meeting place. Sometimes the other got lost.
Late but never absent, they were.
I heard there was a secret chord

He was absent. It wasn't unheard of but it wasn't usual. Still, Renne waited patiently, faithfully as he'd promised from the beginning.
In the day, he explored but never strayed far from the various meeting places. At night, he came back to one and waited like a sentinel.
That David played and it pleased his lord

Once upon a time, there was a clumsy misfit and a seasoned, strong warrior. They traveled together and shared great adventures. Tey told stories and songs of their pasts and made new ones inthe present. They battled demons, saved a few damsels in distress. One had even found love and the other was to be the best man.
Once upon a time, Eden gre and once upon a time, Eden fell.
It goes like this: The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift

--------------------------

Kyra Blackstone was the intended. She had told others -- Odin, Artyr and Grifter. She avoided one until the last moment. She had watched him from the shadows and knew that he waited. He waited, sometimes searching and sometimes standing still as a stone.
She knew his loyalty and she knew that while she held the Strygoi's romantic heart, this one held the heart as a brother. Bonded.
And she hated telling him.
She approached him with a careful silence.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch

He couldn't speak. Two words and she walked away not even looking back. Two words and she turned, disappearing from Rhy'Din's land and disappearing from most histories. She left him standing in the rain to wonder.
And then to understand.
He understood and he too walked away.
Love is not a victory march

He went to a place that only he and the Strygoi had ever known. True, they'd only been there once but once was enough. He remembered how he learned the meaning of brotherhood. He remembered the throw-downs, the times he'd gotten his hero angry. He remembered the times they'd made each other laugh.
Catch you breath. Hit the wall

It was whispered for some months that a tower had been erected somewhere. Many had learned the stories of an inseperable group. A leader. A lover. Brothers. They had all made up the story. Odin, the quiet one. Artyr the comical one. Kyra the devoted one. Grifter the distant one. The Strygoi. And Renne.
It was whispered that the group shattered and fell to the winds. Most of them vanished from the face of Rhy'Din.
But one remained.
Refuse to slip. Refuse to fall
It was said that this tower was both a haven and a prison for the last that remained from the storybook troop. It was said that at night, howls could be heard and if one got close enough, the sound put chills into the very bones.
Can't be weak. Can't stand still

For almost a year, the tower remained undisturbed. It was tall, black and forbidding. It seemed something out of a horror story but for the candle in its high window. The candle was small but it glowed steadily at night.
Those that had been part of such a group as that with the Strygoi had sung of each others' glories and pitfalls. Now, they didn't sing. They only whispered of something dangerous. Something that lurked in a hidden place and cried. It wasn't dangerous as to be violent. It was dangerous as to break the stoutest hearts that dared venture too close.
Watch you back 'cause no one will

Once upon a time, there was a golden age.
And once upon a time, the golden age ended.