ikarosx

[ikarosx]

MATTHEW DADDARIO

[ikarosx]

Ikaros had come to show face, as one always did. Every year, a very short year it seemed, the Lysarans liked to speak of the wonders they had achieved. While it was different within Avalon, where they learned these things that moved with nature and did not disrupt it, Titania had made him start going to show just a little bit of coordination. Still, there were some who looked for him, asked for him, and the voice of someone familiar was one of the only things that made him turn, "Elris." He greeted the other with a small tip of his head. Ikaros was always patient, frowning when the topic of the ring on Abelas' finger was brought up. "What about it?" He'd read the history about it with his brother, but he was curious what the other knew.

Who: @ikarosx

Where: after progress day

He wasn’t sure if Abelas would still call him a friend anymore after all he said, how they parted ways. Those rings weren’t something to be ignored, to be felt to chance. Maybe Abelas was willing to gamble, wait till an answer fell into their laps of how to be rid of them. But Elris wasn’t going to wait, he wasn’t going to leave it to the wheel to decide if his friends soul would stay damned. He’d leave no stone unturned, it was his family role to find such information so he would search every library in existence if he had to.

He had found a lead, a slim one at best but it was far better than nothing. Three rings from the Age of Enlightenment had survived, one with Iskaran royalty, one of the hand of the divine and the other with Queen Yavanna. Part of him wondered if she had left it behind before rescuing those in the hollow but there was a sneaking suspicion that it was still resting on her finger. It was why he was hunting down Prince Ikaros. Why when he saw him he picked up his own pace to reach him “your highness, your highness a word please.” The relationship he had with Abelas wasn’t the same with Ikaros it was far more formal. “It’s about that ring on your brothers finger.”

[ikarosx]

"Well...yes, it's supposed to be thinner where there are...immense spiritual presence. Tragedy, emotions." The Elvhen felt all things very deeply, as did dragons, the creatures of the world. It weighed on them more than they could ever really understand. Their intristic connection to the Veil, to the world of the Spirits as well, it was lost on them. Still, there would be moments that would come to remind them what was lost. Nyla's connection to Souls was a start, and Nuvi could understand the Veil if she continued to study. "Different how?"

“Thank you for your answers,” she tells him, gratefulness evident in her tone despite the answer being what she had expected. Best to double check her own observations lest her own biases color her discoveries. Usually she would try to find people to bounce her theories from her fellow researchers, but with the vow of silence in the topic, she could not. So if the Prince was offering… Well, she wasn’t one to deny Ikaros after warning him about her own propensity for word vomits. He knew what he was getting into, after all. Moving to sit in front of him, she settles in the library chair and taps her nails against the table as she considers where to start.

“My research began by trying to identify why the Veil is thinner in  certain areas while denser in others. For the most part, Lysara follows a certain logic. Places where the veil is dense tend to be peaceful in a way. In places where bloodshed has taken place, the veil is thinner, if not all outright torn. The agony and pain of the events that took place in the area left a sort of imprint, and rarely does that imprint disappear.” She pauses, still tapping her fingers against the table, hesitating, before continuing. “The logic also appears in Ankhuria, and the few places in Astoria I have managed to visit but somehow… Somehow that wasn’t the case for Iskaldrik. The veil acted differently there.”

[ikarosx]

"Great. Less I need to explain, then." Ikaros was busying himself with anything these days. And leading Ryujin in was filling his time. He was so benevolent, it was crazy. Still, there was a selfish part to this – the Faiman wouldn't live very long if he didn't attempt Avalon at least once, or maybe he'd take the route Elokian had and return every twenty years. A small price to pay and a very small amount of time. He moved forward now, expecting the other to simply keep up. People usually did. Passing through the Moongate was easy, and for Ryu, it would be as well. They stood now, in the courtyard that always greeted them. But Ikaros continued to walk, towards an Eluvian that stood, and a path that continued along behind it. "We can take the direct route...or," he tilted his head towards the path that led into the Hearth, "We can walk." His clairvoyance had never failed him, and Ryu's dancing around words was more than enough to interest him. The other always had his mouth full when they were together, anyway.

"She was with us for a long time," in Ryu's typical means of evasion, that meant he knew quite a bit about his mother. "The weave, the sundering, the blight," he's listening it all off like a grocery list, turning to Ikaros, "I know enough; the sea called to me more, and whatever stories my mother told me of Avalon to help me sleep only made me all the more prepared for now." He's avoiding the emotional bit of it all, wants to wash his hands clean of feeling too deeply about it all when the darker pieces of him were simply using this to avoid greeting the Abyss a little earlier than he wished to. "She should be in Elgar'nan's Hearth."

[ikarosx]

Gwaern was pouting. He even put his wing up to block view of Abelas, but not long enough to not snatch the meaty treat, however. He then sat with his back to the brothers, only after making sure he looked over his obsidian shoulder to give them both a huff and puff before plopping onto the ground in his sorrow. Ikaros put his hands on his hips as well, standing side by side with Abelas, it was obvious they were brothers. "Gwaern –" The dragon was easily won over, the scratch behind his scales doing enough to make the big overgrown baby purr.

Ikaros put his hand on the dragon's head, holding it for a few more moments before he looked at Abelas, "I can't see anything," he said finally, though he tried to keep his tone lighter than it should be. "Haven't had a migraine in days. It's doing wonders for my mental health walks." If anything, people were giving him an even wider berth than usual. His mother had told him he was...simply carrying the classic royal bitch face. But to an even worse degree. "We've kept the Eluvian under endless watch. No one wants to even step inside again, and something tells me the walkway we used is most likely destroyed."

"Ikaros he's right there." Abelas said, putting his hands on his hips, "Honestly brother, you're not nearly as perceptive as you used to be." With a big sigh and a stretch, he fished out a meaty treat from his pocket - brushed off some lint - and then tossed it in the air for Gwaern to catch. "It's okay, you'd have got him no problem," Abelas praised, "but you'll have to do much better to pull one over on me." Another pose was struck, punctuated by the hard snores of Vallas taking a nap under a tree - his growing belly sagging against the grass. He looked hungry. "Don't worry," he reached for Gwaern and scratched behind at some of those hard-to-reach-scales. "he'll be in good hands here." Ikaros didn't need to explain, Abelas understood perfectly fine. "Any news from the other side?"

[ikarosx]

[ikarosx]

[ikarosx]

Ikaros assumed it felt the same as what Nuvi had expected upon entering. "Broken. It's been blighted for so long, it doesn't know how to feel any other way." The prince tapped his fingers on the book he'd shut, another old text, but nothing useful for the time being. They needed to go into another branch, perhaps another time – while the threat of Lusacan didn't linger. The group had been sworn to silence for the time being. "I saw darkness in there, Nuvi. So much that the visions blinded me." Now, the Dark One had somehow slipped in once more, his visions gone – the prince was aimless, muted. He'd never felt worse. A distraction was sorely needed. "Sit. Tell me."

At the very least, the bow seems to be enough, and a part of her tension leaves her in a rush of relief. It seems that she should research how to properly address nobility. Perhaps she can ask Elris for help? Quietly, she makes a note to ask him later, before turning her focus to Ikaros and his words. His words don’t come as much of a surprise, and disappointment doesn’t show even as she nods slowly. 

“I assumed as much, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. Just. How did the weave feel to you in the Falon’din branch?” She had made her own observations on how the branch had felt, and how it differed to the place her group had met the Archfey Nintra Siotta. Even small details like this could become helpful when put together with the other information. “As for my research, I would be delighted to share, but please do feel free to cut me off at any point. I am well aware that I can ramble for hours, and sometimes I lose myself in my explanations.”

[ikarosx]

@ryujinseaborn Location: Outside the Feywilds

"What do you know of your Elvhen parent?" Truth be told, Ikaros should have asked that question a lot sooner. Regretfully, or perhaps not regretfully, they'd been preoccupied in previous meetings to actually ask anything of importance. But still, the other was a captain of a ship, one of the many Armadas in Taravell, and while Ikaros only knew more of Elokian, who didn't stop talking whenever he'd returned to Avalon, he knew less of the others. Including Ryujin. "Are you sure you're ready for this?"

[ikarosx]

@abelasx Location: Arvandoril Notes: Dragons here dragons there dragons everywhere

Gwaern was stalking him. He could hear the beat from the obsidian dragon's wings, somewhere not too far behind him. The dragon was definitely trying his best, no longer pocket sized and easily hidden in the shadows. Still, Ikaros was pretending not to see it, instead greeting Abelas instead when the other appeared. Ikaros didn't understand how to best spend his time at the moment, in constant meetings with his mother, the Nobles, taking turns walking towards the Glade, making a way out for the Elvhen and the dragon that now resided within, just in case. "I've been thinking Gwaern should spend some more time at the sanctuary. With Vallas." There was a hidden meaning behind his words, to protect the little obsidian dragon if Lusacan did indeed make his way through the Gate. Word had easily spread throughout Avalon, that there was something dark within the mirror. Lusacan's name kept under wraps for the time being. "Except I can't find him."

[ikarosx]

[ikarosx]

conversations from the past: the escapist & the oracle.

How long have I known you, brother Hundreds of lives, thousands of years How many miles have we wandered Under the sky, chasing our fear.

@abelasx

[ikarosx]

Mr. Carter y'all

[ikarosx]

You wake with a jolt, your breath shallow, the edges of the world growing indistinct as the vision takes hold. The sight is wrong - distorted, like a shattered mirror, and for a moment, you cannot move, cannot breathe. The future… it’s empty. No more threads weaving the tapestry of time. No whispers of what comes. Just a suffocating, impenetrable void.

Then, like the first cracks of dawn breaking through a storm, you see it. The sound of horns - deep, mournful, and sharp - rips through the silence. Their curve, like the sickle of a blood-red moon, echoes in your mind. The horned Kossith stand tall, their eyes - hungry and sharp. Their feet stir the ashes of Lysaran soil as the flags of Progress Day ripple overhead.

You try to turn away, to flee from the vision, but your body remains locked in place. You cannot escape it. You cannot change it. The overwhelming sensation of dread presses down on you, heavy like a weight you cannot lift, and a soft, strange warmth fills the space around you.

The Dark One is coming. 

Ikaros received a vision of the Kossith landing in Lysara on Progress Day, a holiday on April 1st that the Lysarans use to celebrate the innovations of the past year. Ikaros is no longer able to see anything that will occur after this, for the first time in his life, he’s completely in the dark.

It's black; void of light, void of hope, void of feeling. Emotions were colors, colors were feelings, but darkness? Black did not always mean it as such, but red? Anger, blood, it was everything, and Ikaros felt like he was wading in it.

Ikaros had felt something like this before. He'd been in Eterna, in the Tower; he'd felt that wave of apprehension, of hunger. But it wasn't a sort of hunger that was satiable. It was all consuming. A hunger for darkness, and this dread roots him to the spot.

There weren't too many times that Ikaros couldn't pull himself from a vision. He had figured out ways in his five hundred years of life to protect himself, to force his way out by touch, or perhaps by magic alone. It was his to control, he'd always tried to learn it as such. Yavanna's calm words, Titania's promise that it would be okay, strong women that guided his hand to ensure that he would be able to learn – it meant so little when he felt like he was endlessly falling.

The Kossith were coming, the Dark One was upon them. It reminded him of Lusacan, of that path and destruction he saw. But that image had been of the past, this was of the future. And then, as the Norns weave, as the Fates cut, as Fen'harel chased, there was nothing.

What do you see, da'len?

Ikaros chokes, on the empty future, on the past, on the feeling of loss that he knew so well. Elvhen were emotional on a spiritual level; they felt things so deeply, and Ikaros was no exception. No matter how hard he tried, he felt it. In his soul, to push through the feelings, until there was nothing.

It broke him from his reverie, the dagger he held in his hand falling and clattering onto the white stone floor. Ikaros let out a breath, his heart rattling in his chest. He picked up the dagger once more, setting it down onto the table to be with the other one. He tried again, looking for more, ignoring the building pressure behind his eyes. He couldn't panic, not now. Yavanna was lost, Titania was mourning, and she had such little time to even do so.

He took a breath, hand curling into a fist. He'd have to find Titania, but could Avalon truly do anything? With an Old God looming behind a gate, perhaps everyone was truly on their own.

[ikarosx]

#dying

[ikarosx]

@lucanisvanyaril Location: Arvandoril of course Notes: A bLoOD oATh

The Prince expected Lucanis, but still, too many things had been left unsaid. Not to mention the question about going somewhere, standing outside the temple that house the Dragon of Night itself. An old god, loose within Avalon, essentially, no matter how removed the broken branch remained. Falon'Din's Hollow was lost to them, Yavanna and Luthonár had willingly entered. She'd told him that it was never goodbye as long as the wheel had weaved, but did a soul return that was blighted as such? Yavanna had chosen her death, to not die in a bed, plagued with the Blight. She'd put on her armor, her pegasus' armor, and had saved them.

"Don't you have a blood oath to be fulfilling?" He tries to be funny, Abelas seems to do it easily. Meanwhile, Ikaros had a bitch face that would be written about in tomes for future Elvhen. He stood up from his bed, it wasn't often someone managed to get in here, but it just meant that everyone out there was working against him. Again. "Thanks. For coming to get me."

[ikarosx]

Ikaros had remembered that lullaby. Words had changed, but the melody had not. Yavanna's voice would float to him in his dreams, even now, as the Oracle remembered his restless night of sleep before. Avalon could no longer soothe him. The sights that he'd witnessed while within Falon'Din's hollow, there had been enough dark magic to curse him. But still, there'd been a reason he'd seen pink dragon scales. And it all only made sense after the fact.

A profound sense of loss seemed to follow him, more than it normally did. And while dragons were a new, welcome addition to Avalon, one now residing within Mythal's Glade, there were others who were clearly...out of place. Fyren had been a stalwart defender, and faced with a branch that was littered with the bones of Elvhen and dragon alike. The branch of the dead, forever becoming a tomb. And with Lusacan within, Avalon was alone. More alone than they had been. "Fyren," Ikaros tilts his head now, wishing he'd had more time to show the other around Avalon. But the future had called, and perhaps now, the prince's sight was finally coming true. "Thank you, for your help. Falon'Din's Hollow was your home. And we'll see it restored."

The ancient crux of his soul was part of which retained the light of the great tree, if ever Fyren had been unsure, crossing the threshold had thus abandoned such fears. Even if the unity between dragons and elvhen was currently fractured, Fyren liked to believe this pointed them in a direction to restore many of what had been lost. Time did not have to bury days of age's past, it could celebrate and rejoice, support what once was while still traversing onward. Grand statues of Mythal greeted them on the other side, the just protector, in life and in death. Their eyes panned up; it was any wonder what other venerations to those of the pantheon he'd find within, but it spoke of much to look forward to.

"I must be of great importance then," Fyren tried to subdue his prideful smile, but he was a dragon, after all! "I wonder why it was me who clouded your dreams?" They rather liked this game for obviously the reason had been Fyren was a dragon, but this prince did not know that yet! Dragons were always fond to share their cryptic wisdoms, even if it offered nothing of clarity; Fyren stated, "I grew up with a song, a lullaby my parents sang; to be certain in need and that a path would form to a home tomorrow, and time could thus be the joy it once was." An elvhen lullaby, rather sad when one looked closely, but it currently resonated hope for Fyren as he gazed upon the current state of Avalon, no matter how fractured it truly was. "It's an elvhen song, does it sound familiar?"