Such Great Heights :: Azreyal Dak'ma

[Ninat Tumet]

OOC NOTE:

 

This is not a journal in the traditional sense, as my particular character would not keep a detailed written record of his personal thoughts and actions.  Instead, this will be a regularly updated series of introspective short stories that may or may not make sense to the reader depending on their knowledge of the character and his story. 

 

This thread contains trigger topics.  While not graphic in any way, it could be considered sensitive.  Read at your own risk.

 

Reading this thread does not mean your character has any of this knowledge.  If it is brought to him in such a manner, I will simply disregard it. 

 

And so we begin...

 

 

 

[align=center]~*~[/align]

 

The trek to the cliff had been long and tedious without Victoria and the use of a right arm.  His bow was slung across his back for the sole purpose of scaring off would-be attackers.  Fur laden apparel was dusted with several layers of snow, having accumulated over the almost two bells it had taken to arrive at this place on foot.  Each step closer to the steep incline seemed to be harder to take for Azreyal Dak'ma, a goal -that to his eyes- appeared farther away the more distance he closed.

 

A snowstorm had hit the night previous, rendering the trail almost two thirds of a yalm high with freshly packed white powder.  The miserable weather seemed to be picking up again, snow falling heavier by tenfold than it had been when he left his workshop that morning.  The workshop...

 

As the thought crossed Azreyal's mind, his breath caught in his throat, leaving him standing still for longer than he'd have liked, rendered immobile by some thought or another.  After the initial incident that left him bedridden, only Kitka had bothered to come seek him out, the pair taking up residence in his workshop rather than his private loft.  The others, besides Veloxa, had really not even thought to ask him how he was over the Linkshell- not as if he expected better; never expect better.  He had to escape.

 

The base of the cliff was within ten yalms now, the male Miqo'te plodding forward against the snow, which seemed to be telling him to turn away.  He ignored it.  Up the steep incline he went, the wind and the snow pelting his bared face and irritating his golden skin.  Eyes watered and the tears almost froze immediately against his cheeks, his breath hanging before him in thick white clouds.  He had still been so weak from the events of the days previous; the injury that rendered his right arm almost unusable, the poison that brought him to the very brink of death, the fever that lasted almost a full two days, only breaking several hours before...

 

The edge drew nearer until his legs simply refused to carry him anymore.  Azreyal fell, collapsing into the depths of the snowy ocean he had been trying to sail against to reach the top of the cliff.  His cliff.  The hood of his jacket closed around his face, shrouding him in cold darkness, and he just laid there partially on his side and slowly being buried alive by the snowstorm above.  

 

 

It wasn't bad, he thought, resting here.  He would get up in just a few moments, just a few... But it felt good to rest.  Alone.  Without anyone there to disturb his thoughts or body.  Without having to worry about anyone else but himself for the first time in two weeks.  Without the pressure of having to please and pretend.... Alone.

 

Dirosei's visage swam into his vision and he quickly blinked it away, annoyed.  His brother hadn't come to see him, and was already out and about like he shouldn't be, trying to do things for everyone else but himself.  Even their Linkshell conversations had been short, if any at all.  It's not at if he needed his brother- No, he did need his brother, and he was slowly slipping out of his fingers.  Not that Azreyal hadn't had a part in it, of course, making sure to help him forge his own relationships and paths in life; ones that didn't include himself, his own brother.  That had been for the best, at the time; Azreyal hadn't planned on staying around long, always figuring his time would be up sooner than later.  Why else would his life had shattered so thoroughly five years ago?  

 

 

[align=center]so6ExplQlaY [/align]

 

Alicein's face took its turn to haunt his mind, and he couldn't blink this one away.  Her skin was a few shades lighter than his own, tan naturally but pale enough to suggest a life indoors.  Slanted blue eyes stared into his very soul, framed with dark top lashes that he could almost feel against his skin.  She looked at him sternly, shaking her head and letting orange-brown hair sway from side to side.  The man felt an icy grip in his heart that had nothing to do with the snow he was laying in and everything to do with his deceased wife.  "Cein..." the words came out muffled against the fur of his hood.  

 

The female Miqo'te that only existed in his mind these days only shook her head.  She'd aged with him  -perhaps because he never quite accepted she'd died-  a woman in her mid twenties now instead of the innocent young lady he'd married so long ago.  Beside her another visage appeared, one he hadn't been expecting to see.  

 

"Hello daddy," Eva's voice could have resembled her mother's at that age, only existing inside his own head but as real as any other.  His mind had pieced together what Eva might have looked like some time ago, and she'd manifested in his nightmares ever since, specifically his poison-induced hallucinations.  The little girl, around five years of age, smiled at him brightly, the markings on her face curving under her cheeks when she did.  Her eyes shone, cloudy and white-yellow like his own, black messy hair falling from her head in waves, half obstructing her face.  Everything else was Cein's, the nose, the mouth, even the shape of her ears.  

 

Azreyal couldn't bring himself to respond to his own mental summons, closing his eyes as tightly as he could to push the thoughts from his head.  The fur of his hood had become damp, and damp in this weather meant frozen, icy tears clinging to his cheeks and nose.  

 

"Go away," he muttered, muffled.  "GO AWAY."  The force of his exclamation caused the inch or so of snow that had accumulated atop him to shift and disrupt itself.  As soon as he'd said it, he'd regretted it, but the images had fled from his mind anyway.  "No, I..." Azreyal's words never came and he never expressed verbally the newly refreshed feeling of complete loss and pain.  He would never be able to apologize enough for all he'd done wrong to his family, for his failings and shortcomings.  Never able to tell them he loved them one last time, at least not where they could hear.  

 

Loxa had asked him what he'd do with his three wishes, and for a moment his mind drifted to the selfish thought of granting himself that privilege.  What if he'd just had that chance to say goodbye?  What if he could have postponed the inevitable until his daughter saw the first glimpse of his face from newborn eyes?  Would he truly feel better this day?  The weight of the snow was a comforting blanket, and the man was almost to oblivious to the bit sneaking through his protective winter wear, seeping against his skin.

 

No, he decided.  He wouldn't feel better.  Nothing would ever take away that pain.  Azreyal reached out with his good arm, tunneling it through the wall of snow around him until he hit the ground, snaking it along until he could wrap his hand around the defined edge of the rocks.  The tips of his fingers found the incline that he knew only led to the void and they waltzed across it, a tempting dance with death.  

 

Azreyal had not had the time to mourn, not then, not now.  He'd always shoved the issue to the side in an attempt to stay strong for his brother...his mother.  Taking to the bottle had not helped, numbing the pain but never the cause, making him irate instead of happy.  For a happy year or two he'd been able to try and resume his life as normal, picking himself out of a proverbial rut and cleaning himself off, but then the signs had started coming.  It was as if the Gods didn't want him to forget just yet, and so he couldn't.  What would it take?  What would it take to live a normal life again?  He'd given five years to this prison.

 

These thoughts had run through his mind before in this very spot.  He remembered standing at the edge of the cliff, closing his eyes, and stepping off.  He remembered a strong hand catching him by the scruff of his jacket, which almost slipped off of him.  He remembered Dirosei's panicked gaze as he pulled a rather catatonic Azreyal from what would have certainly been a sweet release from his pain.  In that moment he'd hated his brother like he'd never hated anyone, but he knew that all Dirosei saw was an empty and broken shell of a man with no emotions.  

 

Is that what he'd remained?  Until the past few months, he'd never bothered to care about anyone save himself, his mother, and his brother.  He never thought he could.  Perhaps he still couldn't; he didn't know.  What was caring anyway?  Caring wasn't lying, he remembered with a guilty tug at his stomach.  This was a feeling he associated purely with Kitka now, having felt it more in the last two weeks than he had in his entire life.  

 

As if on queue, Kitka's pale features swam into view and he groaned softly.  The chill of the snow had numbed his tail completely, the tuft at the end a frozen solid.  It was the only part of him not covered in thick animal furs, only the natural thin coating that he'd been born with.  The pink-haired female just stared at him with her intense gaze, smoldering coals in her eyes that betrayed the emotion he knew she had underneath the stoic mask she offered everyone else.  Oddly, he thought of her little book, the one she wrote in often when she wanted to formulate her ideas.  He wondered what else she had in there.  Why hadn't he ever asked to read it through?  

 

He hadn't asked her a lot of things, he realized, things he'd been wanting to ask.  About her past and her present and her plans for the future.  About her loves and hates and indifferences.  They'd collided harshly with their guards up, with every mental wall stuck in place, impregnable... or so he'd thought.  How was it that she'd been able to sidestep his defenses so quickly?  Perhaps she was the first to every truly try, the first to pressure him into opening himself instead of letting him paint his shell thicker and thicker.  

 

'Pressure makes diamonds,' he'd told her the other day in regards to herself.  Almost as if he'd said it out loud, his mind's version of Kitka's eyes closed briefly in acknowledgement.  Unlike with Cein and Eva, the vision was completely accurate to life, his mind not having had the chance to formulate any sort of other expectation of her other than what he'd seen near constantly for over a week.  She'd been there almost always, just enjoying the company, talking to him of ships long sailed and of the ashes they left behind.  The ashes stung his nose, his eyes, his throat.  In reality it was just the cold, but to him it had been the bitter taste of memories that neither of them could quite let go.

 

It wasn't as if he'd not enjoyed the learning experience.  Kitka was a riddle to him, a challenge that he knew he'd never be able to complete.  She intrigued him and surprised him almost every day.  Her smile invoked joy into his heart and her tears made him feel sorrow.  Yet he escaped from her now...perhaps because he didn't want that pressure.  He didn't want to be a diamond, not yet.  He'd have to tell her before he broke again. 

 

"Tell her..." the words were harsh against his frozen lips.

 

The book in his mind's eye, her book, caught fire and disappeared in a puff of smoke.  The vision of Kitka hadn't even seemed to notice it were there, still looking at him calmly.  If she knew his thoughts, she didn't seem to react unkindly to them, just smiling a little bit.  Slowly he would to push her, too, out of his mind.  His left hand gripped the edge of the sharp rocks, too weary to even push himself up, and so he lay there.  Alone.  He'd prefer this, buried in snow and wrapped in the furs of the lives he'd taken, laying on the very edge of the cliff.

 

His cliff.

[Ninat Tumet]

The fire had reduced itself to a few smoldering embers in the hearth, casting weak sunset shadows against the the Miqo'te-shaped bundle of furs in front of it.  A smooth male tenor sang softly by the window, working diligently with a piece of silk and a needle, an old folk song about the rise of a prominent royal family in Ishgard.  After some time, Azreyal Da'ma fall silent and glanced over his shoulder as the furs shifted, his piercing eyes almost luminescent in the dark.  After a moment of tense silence, the man turned again to his work.

 

The plain mannequin he'd been working on was made elegant by the garment in which it was displayed.  The dress was a base of thick black silk, starting around where the bust would be, the fabric tight to the torso and cinched for a flattering figure.  This lasted until the waist of the garment, where the fabric pooled to one side asymmetrically from a starting point at the right hip-line, stopping around where the wearer's middle thigh would be.  The back is only held together by corset-style lacing, starting from a tail-sized hole and ending in the middle of the back.  From this black confining structure, held aloft by a moderate hoop skirt, flowed cascades of lighter silks in pink and black, sheer and layered, as light to the touch as water.

 

Azreyal ran his hand down the skirt, relishing the sensation of the fine silks against a sensitive hand- callused, yet trained and gentle from a lifetime of work.  He sat back on his stool, taking in the past few hours of changes he'd made to the dress.  The moon was high in the sky, but he'd not slept, as per usual for the insomniac.  Before working he'd taken about half a bell to himself outside in the snow, staring up at the stars and reading the patterns they offered each night.  They'd winked at him and he'd winked back before returning to his workshop, careful to make very little noise.  

 

A week or two ago this dress had just been the result of a creative fit, the random desire to produce, much like an artist would feel smitten to draw or a singer to sing.  He'd wanted to create something beautiful yet functional, delicate yet deadly.  Azreyal had only revealed one of the dress' secrets to its intended wearer, currently sleeping by the fire.  His left hand traveled to the left side of the dress, fingers pressing into the area that would fall below an arm, and manipulating a small dagger from the fabric.  

 

"My gift to you..." he had said in a whisper to her that night, drawing the knife from her side as she observed herself in the mirror.  He hadn't been able to gauge her true reaction to the addition, but this was his artistic mind and bound not to please everybody.  Azreyal turned the dagger over in his fingers gently, revealing a side he had been careful not to show her.  Engraved in the blade were words in a decorative script that read: 'A circle has no beginning'.

 

The knife glistened with reflected starlight from the singular window nearby as Azreyal tilted it this way and that.  One finger pressed to the tip firmly until a bead of crimson life formed on the silver and trailed down.  He watched the beautiful contrast of colour for several moments, drawing his bleeding digit to his mouth to taste warm iron.  The glow of his eyes extinguished as he closed them briefly, opening only when he'd stopped bleeding openly.  Azreyal scooped a rag from a stand nearby and wiped the blade clean before sliding it back into the hidden pocket in the dress' side. 

 

The male glanced over his shoulder and back to the sleeping figure by the fire, his gaze melancholy.  That feeling inspired him, however, rather than inhibiting his creative flow.  His paranoid and jaded nature only added a unique flair to his work that he couldn't help but appreciate.  Thick leather lining that would assist in an emergency, hidden weapons, other secrets... Even the very forms of his creations stemmed from his desire to combine good and evil, pain and pleasure,sweet and sad, beautiful and fierce.  Perhaps he just enjoyed complexities, hidden surprises- things he could tear through and not leave broken and empty, but rather reveal a whole new array of things to explore.  

 

Azreyal turned back to the dress after a moment, which was now in much more pristine condition than when he'd last worked on it a week ago.  He scooped up a small brooch from his stand that he'd picked up from the market some time back in hopes he might use it.  Deft fingers attached it to the place at the right hip where the fabric splits to either side.  As he stepped back, the moonlight glittered like droplets of dew on the black jeweled rose.

 

The man smiled to himself, scooping up a sheet and throwing it back over the creation.  It would come into play soon enough.

[Ninat Tumet]

[align=center]XmQuIsDnQ3k [/align]

 

 

A looking glass.

 

Azreyal Dak'ma stared at his appearance, tracing each line of his features with sharp white-gold eyes.  They were his mother's eyes, his brother's eyes.  His face was his brother's face, his mother's face.  What was his?  A hand came up to touch the sunkissed skin, naturally tan underneath the enhanced golden sheen.  It trailed across his jaw, thin and strong, to his mouth.  There, barely noticeable, were disruptions in the skin; little pinpricks of scars on either side of his lower lip.

 

They had asked him about his long abandoned piercings today and forgotten the question.  He had started to answer, but his musings were lost to the rain and more interesting conversation.  This was alright with Azreyal, of course; he didn't need to explain himself.  It was likely, he thought, that they would even find his reasoning silly.  This was also alright with Azreyal.  

 

A little more than five years ago, there had been metal hoops there, decorating his bottom lip on either side.  Sometimes they were gold, sometimes silver, always thin and discrete, little more than a sliver against the darkened flesh.  These had been his first, save the ones on his ears.  The metal had felt real against his skin.  His skin.  Yes, this was his body, his nerves, his flesh and muscle and bone; nobody could take that from him.  

 

Next had come the brow, two there on the left side; little hoops hidden by his bangs, which were shaggy even back then.  Azreyal remembered the feeling of each one, even to this day, the painful yet oddly satisfying pinch of metal and flesh.  He reached up to touch his left brow, which contained no signs of the jewelry that had once adorned it.  His finger ran across the ridge of bone and straight down to the outer side of his left eye.  An odd place to pierce, he knew, but this skin too bore the subtle signs of once being home to a small curved barbell, unnoticeable to one who did not know what they were looking for and hidden by the leather patch he normally kept over that side of his face.  

 

Azreyal regarded his reflection, dropping his hand to his side.  There had been other piercings, but none had meant so much to him as these.  It might have been a superficial reason, perhaps even a bit twisted, but they had made him feel as if he'd claimed his face for his own.  The man crossed the room to his desk, flanked by two beds.  One was occupied by Eva, his animal companion, a growing fawn who enjoys sleeping in a nest of furs and work materials.  The other was claimed by a small and huddled Miqo'te shaped figure, rose pink hair and ears sticking out over the blankets.  Azreyal regarded the second figure with a soft expression, leaning forward to ensure that her dreams were safe before turning back to his desk. 

 

In the second drawer from the top on the right side sat a little box, covered in fine velvet, just large enough to resemble one normally found holding rings in jewelry shops.  He scooped it up into his hand, opening it gently.  The ring that had originally sat inside it was now on his finger, of course, the golden band he wore on his left.  Instead, there were little hoops, studs and barbells in golds and silvers.  Azreyal took the box and crossed his room again to the looking glass, pulling a thin hoop from the myriad of metals and resting it around his bottom lip on the right side. 

 

For a moment, the man saw the reflection of his adolescent self, an overconfident yet sentimental boy, burning with desire and initiative to forge a bright future for himself and his family.  He saw the youth who fought in the arenas with his twin, openly basking in the glory of shirtless fame and yet entirely alone. He saw the young man who had proposed to and married a young Seeker from Ala Mhigo.  He saw the young boy, not even of age, who had shot his first kill up on the cliff.  He could see the wolf howling before his arrow had silenced its voice...

 

Azreyal's hand came down to his waistline, pulling the loose pants he wore down a few ilms to look at the howling wolf forever immortalized on the left side of his pelvis.  He stared for a long time, tracing the thick and expressive lines that composed it with his eyes.  He had never stopped to consider why the wolf had been howling in the first place.  Mother had once told him as a boy that wolves howled out of love.  Had the wolf been in love?  Could wolves truly love?  The wolf tattoo disappeared as his hand released the garment, letting it rise back up and rest on his hips once again.

 

The hoop on the man's lip glinted softly with reflected firelight, catching his eye, making him remember it was there.  Slowly he pulled it off and set it back into the box in which it belonged.  There was no more need for the jewelry, not anymore.  Whilst Azreyal's desire to conquer himself had not dissipated, it had manifested in other ways, more permanent ways.  His dominance leaked into his actions, his words, his intimacy. 

 

Turning from the looking glass, Azreyal spied the sleeping Miqo'te again.  His hand closed around the tiny box of adornments tightly, almost crushing the small hinges.  Catching himself before destroying it, he moved forward to tuck it away into his desk once again, pulling out a false bottom on the drawer below it.  There sat the journal they'd retrieved from Kitka's deceased brother, with her name embossed in gold on the front of its deceivingly innocent cover.  The man's hand shook as he took the small book, with anger and anticipation and fear.  

 

Azreyal closed the drawer silently and sat on Eva's bed, the fawn gazing up at him with a strangely knowing look in her wide eyes.  The journal opened to a random page and he began to read Kharth Bodelaire's twisted musings, terrible messages hidden behind a beautiful script that could have belonged to royalty. 

 

 

 

 

[align=center]5th Sun of the Fourth Astral Moon.[/align]

[align=center]        The experiments are exceeding my greatest expectations.  I've been able to completely remotely manipulate Kitka's entire left hand whilst she sleeps.  It seems she has no recollection of these events when she wakes; the magic must be effecting her memories.  This is a marvelous breakthrough, to compete with the sheer amount of nerves and musculature in the Miqo'te hand with simply my will and my gift.  Should I succeed with my plans, I, Kharth, shall be considered perhaps the most powerful magister in Eorzea.[/align]

 

 

The man closed his eyes, furrowing his brow.  This was an earlier entry, far less implicating than the ones to follow...the ones... Azreyal had read some of them twice, once on his own and once with Kitka.  The words had made him feel sick to his stomach, as if his heart was being ripped out of his chest, torn into shreds and then replaced.  The female had turned a delicate shade of green and then completely shut down.  As she had walked away, he had seen himself.  He had seen a mistake he once made.  He had seen something he knew at that moment he could never let go of again.

 

This desire had led Azreyal to giving in to Kitka's wishes over the last few days, but he could not help but worry that it wouldn't be enough.  Veloxa's voice resonated in his head as he stared at the page of the journal blankly.  She'd told him to offer the young woman a normal and stable life and allow her to come to terms with things as she would.  That made so much sense, it did, but something in his mind tugged at him.  

 

How could he give her a normal life?  How could he protect her as he failed to protect Alicein and Eva?  How could he save her from something that already happened?  

 

Azreyal opened his eyes and flipped much further into the book, toward the back where the darkest entries were, landing on one he'd already read with Kitka a few nights previous.

 

 

 

 

[align=center]26th Sun of the 3rd Astral Moon.[/align]

[align=center]        I've devised a rather ingenious plan, though I believe it will take a few months to come to fruition.  I've not yet been able to infer whether or not it is safe enough to remove the protection I use to prevent conception; however, after this it may not matter.  Thus far I have noticed that she has less pain when moving after I finish with her; she has begun to adjust quite nicely.  My Kitkalianne.  She should be proud, her purpose is a great one; our children will be the start of something incredible.  I have already contacted the 'group' with logs of my interest and they have agreed to help facilitate my interests once I can steal her from this place.  [/align]

 

 

[align=center]My only concern is that she has begun to lash out at me during our nights together, and I've seriously lost control over her.  I fear the magic building up in her body as a result of the manipulation is seeking a violent way out of her system.  She will need to learn to enjoy me; it is the only way to circumvent the violence. She will. [/align]

 

 

[align=center]The family trusts are almost all transferred to my name, insurance on the home secured.  My 'death' may shatter her for a time, but I know that she will easily fall back into my waiting arms when I come to 'save' her from the torment that will be her life after the 'accident.'  I may even bring her Parker's head as a gift; how thoughtful of me.[/align]

 

 

[align=center]I've been taking steps to secure my hold on her.  Her heart is mine, and as long as it remains so...  I am in full control.  The future is so bright that it shines.[/align]

 

 

Even reading this for the third time, Azreyal felt a a murderous rage wash over him, every muscle tensing.  He flung the journal to the side, into the mess of things on the spare bed.  Every bit of him wanted to cross over to the sleeping woman and just hold her tight so that the world could never touch her again, but he did not.  If the world had never touched Kitka, she wouldn't be the woman he cared so much for today.  If he never let her experience anything, she would be sheltered and naive.  There had to be a balance struck, a way to offer her the support she needed and to share her burdens.  

 

The man began to calm as he heard Veloxa's voice in his head again, this time fuzzy, as if he'd not heard her correctly.  She had mentioned something about...Kitka needing something of his to wear.  He could do this, but he rarely had anything he wore all of the time, something that meant enough to him to bring her the sense of security she'd need.  Azreyal's left thumb started to twist the golden band on his left ring finger and then he froze.

 

The ring. 

 

Slowly, his white-gold eyes trailed down to look at one of his most prized possessions.  It was simple and yet strangely elegant, the malleable metal twisting around itself in an infinite spiral.  Azreyal frowned, the thought of parting with the object foreign to him even five years after his marriage was broken by death.  That very feeling was the fuel for his next action, a slow sliding of the ring off of his finger and insertion into his pocket.  

 

Azreyal stood, pulling a pair of fluffy furry pajamas from a bag on the bed and folding them meticulously onto the table.  He scooped a wooden bowl into the pot of stew over the fire and set it next to the warm garments.  The sun was beginning to shine through the fur he kept over the window, and he knew Kitka would be waking soon.  Quickly, he drew a chocobo feather quill and scrawled a note on parchment for her to find when she wakes.

 

Something gave the man pause, however, as he went to exit the room hastily and prepare for what he needed to accomplish that day.  His reflection stared at him from the far wall and he stared back.  It was his face now, he decided, stepping closer to the wall to see himself closer.  Suddenly, without warning, Azreyal's fist cocked back and slammed into the glass.  It shattered quietly around him, into his face and chest, cutting into his hand.  

 

The male Miqo'te just gave a twisted and satisfied grin, leaving the pieces on the floor and turning on heel to leave.  The very real sensation of warm crimson lifeblood dripped from every new cut and gash.  The pain was good, the reality was good, the nip of mortality was excellent.  His blood.  His face.  His life.  

 

A looking glass.  

 

 

 

[align=center]UxnQ04PI2ps [/align]

[Ninat Tumet]

The sun's setting rays filtered through the leaves, soft light hitting Azreyal's closed eyelids as he rested in the boughs of a particularly large tree.  The rough bark was as good as any bed to him, inviting after almost two solid days of nothing but pure exhaustion.  Even a thin layer of snow had accumulated on him in parts, blending him in with the rest of the arctic landscape of Coerthas.  He did not even seem perturbed as the branch rustled and shook, the half-asleep male simply clutching harder around the the cylindrical wooden resting place.

 

A small figure, lithe and graceful, climbed her way down his branch and then carefully over the male.  Anything else would have woken him, but not this woman.  The female turned so that her face was staring directly into Azreyal's, and then slowly reached a finger out to offer a single stroke to one of the man's ears.  Normally, Azreyal would lash out when woken, likely injuring whatever or whomever had dared to take him from the few precious hours of sleep he was able to get; however, this was different.  The male lifted his head, disrupting a pile of snow, and stared straight into a very familiar pair of white-gold eyes only inches away.

 

"Mother..." he murmured, his own orbs of exactly the same shade coming to meet those of the woman who had birthed and raised him.  S'hira Iivi, or later a self-proclaimed Dak'ma, could have been him if he were in his forties and female.  Her long and angular features sculpted from caramel skin reflected his own and his brother's.  The major difference was that her face was adorned with golden hoops and balls and bars, on her lips, nose, brows, everywhere.  As the sun continued to set, it cast rays of illumination that made each individual piercing glint brilliantly.  

 

"Hello, my Azreyal," S'hira replied, inching closer in her crouched position until her forehead was touching that of her son's, their ebon locks intertwining and her eyes closing.  This was one of her many strange ways of greeting her boys, though Azreyal didn't find it unusual at all.  He shifted his head a bit to rub against his mother's and then pulled back to be able to sit upright on his branch.  

 

Snow toppled off of his form and into the lower boughs, upsetting a few birds nests on the way down.  Their angered cries did little to dampen this rather peaceful reunion between mother and son.  The last few times he'd seen her, it had been business.  Other people had been around, the girls, the Company, but now it was just them.  Azreyal preferred it this way, honestly; he enjoyed the one-on-one interaction with the only person who truly knew his ins and outs, even better than his brother. 

 

"Hello, mother," the male replied, settling himself into an easier sit on the branch, his tail draping behind him.  S'hira could see the tension building in her son's face, the fatigue lacing his features.  Whilst Azreyal was often found hard-pressed to sleep regularly, plagued by restlessness, this was abnormal even for he.  The mother does not reply, simply staring at one of her two biggest accomplishments in life for what seemed like hours.

 

In fact, it was hours.

 

The two Seekers sat side by side on their branch until the sun had sunk far behind the snowy ridges of the highlands.  Not a word was exchanged between them, the two simply enjoying the silence and the company.  Fleeting glances, shifts in posture and facial expressions could have appeared to the observant eye like a sub-vocal conversation.  By the end of it all, they seemed to have come to some conclusion, noted by S'hira's sharp tones.  

 

"She loves you."

 

"I know."

 

This short exchange lapses them into another extended silence.  Their alert hunters' eyes following a pack of wolves scouting below.  A howl in the distance catches their attention, and the small group trots off in the direction of an imposing cliff.  The nightlife was beginning to wake, accompanied by all the peaceful sounds of nature's ambiance.  Only the sway of a tail or the flick of an ear would indicate that the pair weren't simply Miqo'te statues perched in a tree. 

 

Snow had begun to layer on the pair, inch upon inch.  Neither Dak'ma seemed to mind the white covering, making no motion to disturb it.  The powder settled into their hair, into the crevices of their leather armour, in their quivers, yet neither seemed cold.  The warmth of the moment, alongside living in this atmosphere for years upon years, had made them immune to the physical chill of the Highlands.  

 

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Azreyal's tenor broke the silence, a smooth and practiced voice humming softly.  The melody didn't seem to take away from the atmosphere, and S'hira did not even move to note that she'd heard it.  The sound seemed to emanate from deep in his chest, likely from his very soul; all the emotional strain that had built up over the past few days, weeks, making itself present in one very cohesive improvised set of phrases. 

 

Every note that the male hummed was saturated in sorrow and helplessness, yet also laced with tones of hope and joy.  He, for all the stress, was very happy to be undertaking the strain if it meant sharing the burdens of his family.  Azreyal did not mind compartmentalizing his own issues in order to take on more; in fact, he was rather good at it.  S'hira listened to her son's musical confession in silence, allowing him to vent all of his suppressed emotion.  He went for several minutes before his voice simply died out.  

 

The branch shook as the elder woman began to lower herself from it, landing on her feet in the snow several feet down.  Azreyal disrupted the pile of the white powder on his head to look in her direction.  Mother and son traded knowing glances, the pair having conversed in great depth despite only two sentences being exchanged.  S'hira's chin dipped slowly before she turned on heel and made her swift way into the comforting darkness of the Highlands.  

 

Azreyal too began to dismount from the tree.  He felt invigorated, renewed.  This is what he loved and adored about his mother.  Whilst she could have the most profound conversations with him and offer him the trickiest tests of skill and grace, she was also completely capable of sitting with him silently and just...feeling.  Despite not having slept for days, save his nap in the boughs, the male took off toward Dragonhead at full tilt, kicking up snow in his wake.  

 

He had someone to look forward to seeing, and a story to tell.

A story he hoped would never end.