The Beginning, and an End. [OPEN]

[[-Kay-]]

BANNER HERE

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Click, click, click.

The sound of talons against stone could be heard preceding the creature who was prowling through Ellesmera. A vast creature, the hue of a thousand different shards of amethyst and violet tourmaline. A deep throated growl escaped from his chest, his neck seizing and curling against his breastbone as a sudden pain wracked his body. He threw his mind towards his Rider, frantically seeking out her mind. Something was very wrong. Eitauv stretched, flaring his wings, curling against the ground again, another growl erupting from his throat. Elves of all shapes and sizes could be seen in the brush, peering out at the large male dragon, concerned for why he was acting this way. Anyone who knew him knew that this was severely out of character for him. Eitauv was a quiet and considerate creature, without an aggressive bone in his body. As an elf drew near, he swung his head around and growled at him, displaying long white teeth. Eitauv launched himself into the air.

Thud, thud, thud.

The thunderous sound of his wings wracked the air, each concussive beat carrying him that much closer to his bond-mate. 'Laemiri!'

[/color] He roared in his mind, using his mind to seek hers out yet again. He couldn't believe that he had lost connection with her again. 'I'm here, sweet. ' Laemiri's mind rang weakly into his as he nearly crash landed into the clearing where they had been living these last few months. Laemiri had found Ellesmera a bit too crowded and noisy to her liking and wanted somewhere where she could feel more at peace. In reality, it wasn't Ellesmera that had changed, it was her health. It was getting worse, and she didn't want to be around other elves. She just wanted to finish out her work in peace. She was nestled in the roots of an ancient oak that even Eitauv could find a comfortable place to rest in. Her dark hair obscured part of her face, and even though her eyes were clouded over from her sickness, there was a dullness to them that made Eituav worry even more. She was paler than usual, her scars standing out like sickening ridges. 'I'm here, Laemiri. What's wrong? Why do you keep losing me? Why aren't you staying connected, little one? He sent her a flurry of questions, along with shades of worry and concern. 'I think you know why, Eitauv. You must prepare yourself even more than you have, dearest one. I love you, sweet boy. Keep your chin up, little one. We only part to meet again.' Her mental voice flickered, sending him images of love, comfort, and those words. Eitauv nuzzled her, a deep panic setting into the great beast's heart. She wasn't conscious. 'Laemiri....'[/i] He probed her with his mind. 'Laemiri....? Nothing. No response.

The panic in Eitauv rose even more as he enveloped her with his talons, throwing them into the sky. 'No. NO. Not today, not now, not ever. Must get her back. Damnit Laemiri, not today. Please not today...' He kept trying to rouse her from her state as he raced towards Ellesmera. He dipped, dove, and nearly crash landed in a clearing in the center of the great city. A roar bubbled from his lung, filled with pain and grief. 'Help! Somebody, please!' His mind shouted this across the city as he set her in the tall grass, nuzzling her to try and keep her awake. It was all he knew to do. He couldn't save her, not now. It was beyond his reach and he didn't know who could. Something deep within him told him to snap at whoever got near them, to protect her and kill whoever tried to take her away. But he knew if he did that he would only risk her life that much more...[/size][/blockquote]
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[/color][/b]: 648
NOTES: "TALK TALK TALK" <---Need to remember that for next post, too lazy to change text color now.
TAGS: Open!
LYRICS: monster - professor green

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[Lisenet]

Will post image when image stops being a pain in the arse.

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Linweylan[/center]


Linweylan spent the earliest hours of the morning—some before dawn even wakened—convincing a surly flock of geese that her garden, while comfortable, was not the best place for them to roost every night unless they tended to lay eggs there. Most didn’t, so she begged them not to destroy her plants, to find another place near water where they could bed down in the evening. Those that wished to nest she permitted to stay, on the condition that they would try not to eat all of her herbs and flowers. She always grew rather attached to her plants, but she couldn’t evict a perfectly sweet pair of birds on that count alone. Besides, they promised not to savage her tomato vines. That would have to suffice.

Linweylan was just scrubbing dirt and other brown things off her hands when she heard it, a bellow of such strength and solidity she was astounded that she was still on her feet as it rolled over her. Removing her hands from her ears—they did nothing to guard against the mental plea—she listened, heart darkening, and sprinted for the city center.

She arrived in moments, shoving unceremoniously through the few elves who had dared get close enough to Eitauv—Laemiri’s dragon—to be in her way. Laemiri lay motionlessly on the paved stones before the massive, violet dragon, and Linweylan’s heart dried further. The Rider’s health had faltered for years, since Linweylan had known her, but they had all thought that the strength she shared with her dragon would stave off the illness’s success in destroying her, inevitably they had hoped, but perhaps they had hoped for an outcome that was not fated to become.

Linweylan skidded to her knees at Laemiri’s side, hoping Eitauv wasn’t anguished enough to lash out at her, and grasped for the woman’s hands, chasing down the faint thrum in her wrists, and bowing her head as she sought the elder’s mind from the recesses of her failing body. Trying to work with the vast dragon leaning over her was beyond stressing, but she couldn’t ask him to leave. And he shouldn’t, regardless. Laemiri would be better for him here, whatever her fate.

Feeling the distance between each heartbeat, Linweylan’s own pounded faster, terrified, horrified. Weren’t there any others more suited to this desperate task than her? She barely knew the elder, being more familiar with those more involved in politics than the older Rider had been. And her magical talents lay in growing things, not in fixing them. They lay in plants, not in people. Wasn’t there anybody else who could help? She didn’t even glance around to know—there was no one. They hadn’t heard the call, they were out of the city, they were too far away, or they wouldn’t come. Linweylan, the girl who loved plants better than her own people, whose father forced her into the power plays and politics she so abhorred, who was so very young and uneducated in comparison with so many others, was all Laemiri and Eitauv had. Even though she struggled, despaired that this couldn’t be the end of the soft elder, she knew she wasn’t enough to save her.

But Linweylan thrust her mind into Laemiri’s anyway, battering around the obstacle of her unconsciousness, and looked for anything she could do to at least keep her safe until anyone better came. Laemiri’s mind lay quietly, undisturbed, utterly stationary, like a pond that lay entirely undiscovered by wind or stream. Below the surface the emotions left from her last moments awake were settled and slow, like the fragrance left over from flowers recently moved. Linweylan cried out, trying to reach her, to ripple the waters enough to wake her, and she felt Eitauv’s presence there with her, but neither one of them could affect a change. It was as though the light of the elf’s consciousness had hidden itself. But this wasn’t a game.

Linweylan turned her attention to the state of the elder’s frail body, lining her sore muscles with her own strength, filling empty places with energy that had long been lost, purging her blood of all weariness, all in an attempt to rouse her. The faint lines in the elf’s face and hands smoothed with the younger elf’s insistence, and places where her flesh had shrunken against her bones filled out again, flushing with the appearance of health. But none of this would matter unless Linweylan could reach the woman’s diminishing, quiet mind. And that was something she feared she couldn’t do. ”Please,” she whispered, voice quivering. Her hands tightened on Laemiri’s. ”Not yet, wait just a bit longer.”

[[-Kay-]]

BANNER HERE

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Eitauv growled, the deep-throated rumble pouring into the clearing. 'Linweylan.' He acknowledged her presence, taking a step back so he wasn't looming directly over her. That and he feared, with his restless shifting and great size, that he would accidentally trod on her or Laemiri and make matters worse. He dove into her mind, trying to bolster her with his energy, enough to bring her mind back. But only just. Like a sputtering, flickering candle trying desperately to stay lit in the wake of a summer storm. Eitauv began to draw her into his mind, to shield her from her impending fate. Images flicked through their combined consciousness, lessons that their Masters had taught them so long ago. He knew, deep down, that they could not share his mind. He would eventually go mad and that he's be of no use to anyone if that were to happen. But he felt that he'd be no use without Laemiri either. He began throwing more energy into Laemiri, but he knew it would be no use. Even as he did, he could feel it draining away. Like trying to maintain the water level in a pot with a hole. Eventually, you don't work fast enough and it sprouts more leaks and it drains out anyway. Large, hot tears rolled down the massive dragon's scaley cheeks, and he roared, he great maw thrown skyward.

Eitauv dipped his head, soft keening noises coming from him as he nuzzled Laemiri's form. Like a lion nuzzling a tiny mouse, Laemiri had been small, even by elf standards. She looked even more dwarfed by the creature she had called her companion. Eitauv didn't want to recoil from her, but even now, the smell of rosemary, cinnamon and blackberries was beginning to leave her. No longer did she smell of lemongrass and salt. She didnt exactly smell. Or sound, and she was beginning to feel cold. Everything felt wrong. Eitauv recoiled, shaking his head as if he had gotten a nose full of pepper, a strange sort of noise emanating from him. 'No. This is wrong. This is very wrong.' His mind felt empty, hollow. Like the feeling of standing in a forest clearing while it snows. Quiet, but a noisy silence. Wrong, very wrong. He began kneading the ground, tearing at it with his great claws. He wasn't raging, he was retreating into himself. Detaching from the situation.

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[/color][/b]: xxx
NOTES: "TALK TALK TALK" <---Need to remember that for next post, too lazy to change text color now.
TAGS: Open!
LYRICS: monster - professor green

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[Lisenet]

Laemiri’s lake dried and vanished rather abruptly, and Linweylan found she was reaching into what felt like an empty box. Or no box at all. There was nothing here. Her mind wasn’t still anymore, it had disappeared entirely. Eitauv had felt it too. He recoiled, hide shivering, snorting as though he’d inhaled water or hadn’t gotten enough breath.

”No,” he said. ”This is wrong. This is very wrong.”

Linweylan stood. The great dragon’s agitation was clear, palpable. ”Eitauv….” How to tell a bonded dragon his elfmate was gone? You might as well tell him he was going to have to part with his scales and half his teeth and bones. ”You’re right,” she admitted, throat closing in, dry, the air feeling thick. ”I’m so sorry, Eitauv.” Her eyes welled up just from watching his panic turn to confusion and anxiety. She knew where it would go next, and a grieving dragon, feeling cheated by the world, was not a safe person to be around. His baffled misery was drawing at her like claws hooked through her ribcage. She stepped forward again, careful to give Laemiri’s shell its space, and reached her arms up toward the shadowy, grieving creature in comfort. She didn’t know what she could possibly have to offer someone who had just lost the very reason he had hatched in the first place, but surely there was something she could do, wasn’t there? She couldn’t he helpless. This standing and shaking couldn’t be all that she was capable of.

Linweylan had barely known Laemiri, but she had heard of the illness that slowly seeped her health away like a crack in a lovely vase. The flowers hadn’t wilted, but they had known they would soon run dry. The young elf sniffed, blinking back tears. ”Eitauv, don’t be afraid.” Please. It seemed like the least useless thing she could possible say.

[[-Kay-]]

Jul 14, 2013 20:40:24 GMT -5 [-Kay-] said:

BANNER HERE

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Eitauv's big head swung up as she spoke. "Don't be afraid, Eitauv."

[/i] his head cocked to the side slightly and, shockingly, he chuckled slightly. 'Afraid?' He thought at her, a slightly amused but bitter tinge to the words. 'If I was not afraid, that's when you would worry. I am alone. Completely alone. The only thing I've ever known, gone. I've never known a life without Laemiri. Four hundred and thirty cycles, Linweylan. Many have spent much longer with their bond-mate and lost them in old age. But by my race's time, I am still young. I will live the rest of my life like this. Of course I am afraid. How could I not be?Feel how I do right now.' He enceloped her mind in his, suffocating it, smothering it until it was restricted to one small corner and manipulating things until she felt the sheer emptiness that he was currently experiencing. He blinked, releasing her mind and retracting his claws from the loamy soil. He eyed her outstretched arms, eyes darting to her long blonde hair. He had always noticed her work while flying about and he admired it.

He growled, deep in his throat. 'I may need your assistance. I request that you help me shape a tomb for Laemiri. I can do alot with rock, but your nature-magic would be helpful. I also request that you help me to gather Laemiri's things in our aerie. I'll be needing to go to Ilieria to inform them of what has happened, and it is best if they could take the things that they could use to help teach others.' For a dragon who had just lost his Rider, he was remarkably calm. But there were many around, and though he knew he would not be judged for throwing a tantrum, he still preferred to keep his grief more personal.

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[/color][/b]: xxx
NOTES: "TALK TALK TALK" <
TAGS: Open!
LYRICS: monster - professor green

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[Lisenet]

Eitauv turned to look down at her, his colorful eyes larger than her spread, upturned hands. His mind filled into hers and wrapped around it, suffocating it with the same vacancy that he now felt. She felt simultaneously as though all the air had thinned to the point that her lungs couldn’t hold it—she was sucking in as much as possible and it still wasn’t enough—and drowning, the air either thickened to the point of poison or gone entirely. She stood quaking amidst a rushing well of misery and apathy, life turned shallow, air became unwanted. Seconds slowed until she believed she could feel time dragging across her skin like jagged needles. Tears welled in her eyes until she felt as though her face would never be dry again.

Linweylan blinked. Her hands, lifted above her, had turned into hard fists. ”I am afraid,” she told him, upon feeling the vast space and oppression of his loss. Her hands slowly fell, but still she stared up at him, wide-eyed, praying there was something she could do to help him when she already feared there was nothing.

”I need your assistance.” And he explained how.

Linweylan nodded, sniffing. ”Of course, Eitauv. In any way I can.” She knelt at Laemiri’s side and began to hum, turning her requiem into a spell, so that the rumples in Laemiri’s clothes and tangles in her hair all straightened, folding her hands over her stomach and encasing her temporarily, in such a way that when Eitauv carried her his claws wouldn’t even snag her hair. Finally she lifted him a couple of feet off the ground so he could take her more easily, knowing he would want to carry her himself.

At last she stood. ”I will gladly go wherever you ask. But, Eitauv… Illiria is lost. The Riders have gone to Vroengard. I know they will still welcome you though.” What else could they do?