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Re: Brighter Days Come [Aurin]
Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2025 2:36 pm
by Destyn
"This all sounds good to me! Well... the parts I understand of it sound good to me." Destyn amended, for Aurin's talk of portals and so forth was beyond his ken. He knew how his Amulet of Wandering worked, and only insofar as it pertained to his own experience. He had no knowledge of the magical theory beyond why it worked, only that it and other portals he'd seen, got him from one point to another faster than even Fae-flight.
"When I am not watching the baby tree grow or foraging I like to be with my friends. I mostly see them when they are here, though, because I do not like the city as much and prefer to be close to the tree. So I am often lonesome, but this is, you know, parenthood. I must consider the needs of the tree before my own amusement. I wish Laurevere would visit me more, because I like to couple with him, but he has other, uhm... duties. I do not understand them, but I take him at his word." He offered with a shrug.
"The world is not my concern except when it is in danger and I can help. I helped, you know, stop the eclipse, which is how I got this." He displayed his Emblem and caused it to glow for emphasis, before letting the dawnfire fade back into his skin, which dulled to its normal sunkissed hue.
"How about you? How do you spend your days? Do you have, also, duties that you manage? You could be important like Laurevere or unimportant like me. I have no idea about you, honestly. You are just someone who has been around sometimes."
Re: Brighter Days Come [Aurin]
Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2025 1:55 am
by Aurin
"Well," he said, "next time I see Laurevere, I'll offer him a portal to your tree in case he's feeling frisky..."
His smile was strange, as if he wasn't sure quite sure how to respond to it all. Aurin's first impression of Destyn had been a pretty, air-headed creature. Torin defended him, though, and Torin rarely contradicted or corrected Aurin. He understood that the smith was a loyal friend, but he still wasn't sure if it was mere loyalty or Torin understood some deeper value of the fae'ethalan than Aurin did.
There was nothing wrong with being pretty and air-headed, though, at least to his mind. But being swept up into world events that earned him a gift from a reincarnated draegir, and the loyalty of men like Torin and Sivan—it was possible Aurin's first impression had been wrong.
"To most people, I just count coins at the big theater in the Plaza of Jeweled Arches. I'm also a merchant of secrets, I suppose you could say... It lets me travel. I suppose I'm sort of like you before your tree... wanting to travel where the winds took me." He shrugged, not sure he had that right, and attempting to gauge the fae'ethalan's response to that.
Aurin wasn't lying, but he also knew that Destyn saw the world differently than most of them did and he wanted to be understood as much as he wanted to understand.
"I'm important to myself, and I suppose to Torin. But I'm not so important in the grand scheme of things." He looked down at the slowly shrinking bounty and tried a bug that was less familiar to him. Couldn't know whether he liked it unless he tried it.
Re: Brighter Days Come [Aurin]
Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2025 3:30 pm
by Destyn
“Yes! Please do this, Aurin!” Destyn exclaimed emphatically at the prospect of a speedily delivered lover being dropped at his feet any given moment. His wings twitched eagerly at the very notion!
“Counting coins sounds very very boring. You cannot even eat coins! They are only fun for throwing, I think. It is better, I think, to count buggies and berries to make sure you ett enough.” He said sagely, before adding:
“One.” As he popped a raspberry into his mouth. Gulp.
“Travel is much more fun than, you know, counting things! I am glad that we have this in common. Maybe we can travel together somewhere, since you seem to have the Wayfarer’s gift. I have an amulet that helps me to travel between fixed points. I can change them when I wish, but I do not have very many and it can be, you know, a ordeal if the places are very far apart, I cannot dance freely between lands like you. But this is, I think, a good skill for a ‘merchant of secrets’ to possess.” He observed, thoughtfully.
“I do not know the ‘grand scheme of things’. I am just a little Fae boy, not a god. I would rather be important to a few people than many. Many people become a city and I do not like those. I prefer many plants and many buggies… oh! When you eat that kind it tastes amazing if you have a blackberry in the same bite as the buggy! Here!” He handed a berry to Aurin to complement his insect selection, before plucking up a similar specimen and another blackberry for himself.
“Two, three.” He said before shoving his palm against his open maw and devouring its contents.
Re: Brighter Days Come [Aurin]
Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2025 4:15 pm
by Aurin
Aurin grinned at Destyn's enthusiasm. Perhaps he would just leave the portal open. Live elf-on-fae action might make an entertaining show and recompense for the travel magic.
"Well, they
do pay me for it," he allowed. "And there are better things to throw; spend a couple of coins on those, and save the rest for other things you might need. Or, you know, you can always leave your coin with me. When you need it, I'm only a portal away. Or however your amulet works."
It wasn't even a bad deal. Aurin kept a lot of things hidden, warded, and the like; he could invest whatever money Destyn had, skim a little off the top, and still keep things liquid for whenever the airy fairy needed something. Torin couldn't even pout about it.
"Or I suppose you could hide it around here. I remember a Winter Court gnome sort of fellow who liked to hide gold in various places. It was fun to find them and watch him lose his mind when he realized his caches were empty."
Aurin accepted the berry addition in the palm of his hand, and popped the combination into his mouth, chewing and nodding thoughtfully. He had gone too many nights without food to pass up even strange, wriggling food.
"Mmm..." Appreciating the strange flavor combination, he continued to muse. "I wonder if Laurevere's important enough to get some sort of... pass... through the wards around Sol'Valen. Can't travel directly there otherwise. Not even with magic. Best I can manage is a spot near the border in Auris. That's where I've taken Torin... and sometimes Siv and Laurevere so they can cross over the border properly and then get to Silfanore. Pain in the arse, but still faster than airship."
Re: Brighter Days Come [Aurin]
Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2025 6:14 pm
by Destyn
Destyn's enthusiasm promptly waned as Aurin started talking about how to better use coin. Aurin was not the first to attempt such, but the Fae had been successfully able to get what he needed without money either through foraging forests or forging friendships. He didn't throw away all his coins. Sometimes he gave them to one of his friends who would buy things for him, since he refused. Perhaps this stance on commerce derived from the fact that a disgruntled shopkeep had been the one to get his clan into the trouble that led to their being buried beneath his baby tree. But Aurin likely didn't know about that, so he probably came across bored, rude or childlike in his stubborn disregard for matters mercantile.
He did look up from his snacking when Aurin began ruminating about Laurevere's position and Sol'Valen's security practices, but he didn't really have anything to contribute to that, so he just kept on munching away at his little hoard until it dwindled down to only berries, at which point he handed those over to his guest.
"These are yours now. I am done with, you know, eating." He announced, rubbing his hands together to wipe off some of the residue that remained from his meal.
"Will you stay, do you think, long in the valley? I can feed you, also, later if you are still around for the gloaming meal." He offered, warmly and without pressure or expectation. It would have been nice to have company for longer term and he was enjoying getting to know this relative stranger, but he seemed well-accustomed to entertaining himself most of the time or finding others who could pass the time with him, be they friends derived of flora or fauna.
Re: Brighter Days Come [Aurin]
Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2025 2:00 pm
by Aurin
Aurin could read a room or a single Fae'ethalan. He shifted away from matters financial when it was clear there was no interest. He could deep dive into it as wealth was just a game he played with Avenna, but it wasn't his sole interest. Once the fey creature was sated, Aurin peered at the remains, then tipped the berries into his hand.
"Thanks," and down the handful went.
"I can stick around for supper. I promised Siv and the lady I'd open a portal back for them, but I don't have to walk through it when they do."
The man didn't feel like scintillating company just at the moment, but he supposed Destyn's other options were watching moss grow or trying to hold a conversation with birds.
"What do you do with yourself all day out here?" he asked. Normally, there might have been some bite to his tone, but he was genuinely curious.
He understood the draw of this remote, relatively safe place, and he certainly slept more securely even in Torin's half-finished home. But most of the time he had been out of a city for any period of time had involved running, not leisure. He had nodded and smiled when Kalzasern glitterati spoke of the joys of retreating from city life, but he didn't really understand it.
And he thought Fae'ethalan traveled in groups. Perhaps this belated grieving was also ritual, and eventually he would return to a more public life.
Re: Brighter Days Come [Aurin]
Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2025 2:33 pm
by Destyn
“I do as the bird, the bear, the fox. I bask in the warmth of the sun, I seek out sustenance when I have hunger and water when I have thirst. I nap, I bathe, I explore and I meditate. Sometimes I talk to friends, but I am never lonely for I know I am always surrounded by and immersed in a constellation of life.” Destyn replied with a wan smile.
“I know that it may sound boring to you, but for me it is enough. To be alive is enough.” He shrugged. He did not see himself as better or more important than any other animal and he recognised his place in an overarching ecosystem. He had no aspirations to surmount it or control it. Only to play his little part and to be content in that.
“I know that people often have other ambitions. Do you find it odd that I do not?” He furrowed his brow.
“What would you do with your days if you were me?” He paused and blinked for a moment, before amending the sentiment:
“What do you do with your days when you are, you know, you?” Perhaps a more direct comparison would better communicate his priorities to the mercurial Fae.
“I am thirsty and my fingies are, you know, sticky. Come.” He rose and began to saunter in the direction of a freshwater brook with which he was acquainted nearby. It was not a long journey— just a few paces past the treeline but his tree, being a fairy tree, was planted in an open meadow with no other trees nearby competing for sunlight in a battle they would surely lose when his baby tree was a baby no more.
Re: Brighter Days Come [Aurin]
Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2025 3:25 pm
by Aurin
Aurin nodded along to Destyn's explanation. At the question, he shrugged.
"It takes all kinds. I don't know that I would be happy living like that, but I was born and raised in a city. Most of the wilds I know, I passed through them as quickly as possible by road. I only really started spending time out in the woods when I thought I should learn how to survive out there should worst come to worst... Torin and I used to take Timon out."
He shrugged. "It was nice, but eventually my feet itch to head back to a city. I suppose... if I'm not a pack animal... I still want to be around my kind."
Hoisting himself up, he followed Destyn toward the little brook that must eventually feed into the river bisecting the valley.
"I don't actually know if I'm ever, you know, me."
Aurin was not, in that moment, mocking Destyn's patterns of speech. It was more of a small revelation or, if it was not new to him, it was not something he often acknowledged.
"You know... chameleons...? The lizards that change colors to blend in with... whatever they're sitting on? I suppose I'm like that. Except not just my colors... I change myself to blend in or stand out wherever I am. Whoever I need to be. Does that make sense?"
