To Someone From A Warmer Climate (Nyra)

[Nyra Charlotte Enigma]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","Lost"]

[break]

@ Bran Viola

549 Words

Music

n/a

[break][break]

There are some things [break]

That no one teaches You

[break]



Nyra looked up at him. Her eyes were twin new moons. She had been chiding for looking too long. She alarmed people, apparently. It had never really bothered her before.


[break][break]

"There is nothing like Rhea." She said. "And I will assure that there never will be."


[break][break]

She did not say it like she was bragging. She did not say it lightly. She said it point-blank. It was fact, like the sky was blue and she didn't belong in this court. Rhea was born of old magic buried under Borelias. Even if someone else got their hands on it, they would need to know what to do with it. And living things could not be randomized, they simply couldn't. But she would do it. She would be the first and the last. She would have a legacy even if she was immortal.


[break][break]

It was said the fae were greatly powerful. Mostly, their greatest strength was their eternity. They didn't have to be good. They just had to be dedicated, and in time, they could best any mortal. He threw like a fae who had been training for half a century, even if he was barely Nyra's age. It was that impressive thing about mortals again. They learned so fast. They burned so brightly, they burned themselves out. 


[break][break]

"Probably," she said, thinking of that burning themselves out again. "We are thinking of the same cousin." Gemini was half mortal. He seemed eager to burn himself out too.


[break][break]

She listened to his inscription. She did not answer. She filed it away in her mind. She would find it later, where it was from. It sounded familiar. Titania was the old Faerie Queen in that play, the one where all the lovers went mad. She was cursed by something. She tilted her head and looked back at him with those half moon eyes before shaking her head and turning away.



[break][break]


"I am an archer," she replied. He had not turned the knife over. She set her elbow on the edge of the table, away from the knife, waiting for him. She wanted to read the inscription. She was curious what mortal handwriting looked like. It was their one great hope at permanence. Did they write desperately? She did not know. "I had to choose a weapon to hunt with. I chose a bow. But I stopped, last year. I could not--" She broke off, looking for Rhea, who was standing under the table, sniffing around her feet, trying to avoid the iron on Bran. She thought of the pack of hounds, of the silver hind, of how it bled out in her hands, of the way she held it. She thought about another pair of new moon eyes. "I do not care to see beautiful things killed," she stated, less neatly than she would have liked, brushing her hands off on her top. "The knife?"





[break][break]

[newclass=.Lost]opacity:0;transition:all linear .5s;-webkit-transition:all linear .5s[/newclass][newclass=.Lost:hover]opacity:95%;transition:all linear .5s;-webkit-transition:all linear .5s;background-color:#c3c3c3[/newclass]

[Bran Viola]

Bran broke her eye contact and let his gaze fall to the knife on the table. He didn’t really understand why the girl was so fond of staring.



“Ah. Right.”



Bran grabbed the knife by the tip between his middle and index, simply turning those same two fingers, and setting the blade down again.



“Why did you choose a bow? Actually, you were required to hunt? I was under the impression that it wasn’t necessary for nobility to do that themselves. Im aware many choose to participate, but I didn’t know that it was mandatory.”



Bran paused and looked around. He wished there was somewhere to sit. It was evident that this girl wouldn’t let him leave until she was satisfied. Technically he could, but he didn’t exactly feel comfortable leaving his weapons here. He looked at rhea again. The thing stretched, almost like an actual deer. There was still something uncanny about its movement.



“Why? Why make rhea unique, I mean. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I mean why do you want to?”



It seemed like he’d be here quite a bit longer. He might as well sate his curiosity.

tags-Nyra Charlotte Enigma,

[Nyra Charlotte Enigma]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","Lost"]

[break]

@ Bran Viola

420 Words

Music

n/a

[break][break]

There are some things [break]

That no one teaches You

[break]



Nyra was moving on to the other side of the knife, only half listening. He was fascinating in how odd he was. He was a mystery to crack.


[break][break]


“You knew the Queen before she was crowned?” She asked. “How? No one did.”


[break][break]


No one seemed to know the origins of their new queen, not even Juno, who was supposed to know everything. No one knew where she came from. She and this mortal had that in common. They had risen from the sea foam or from the ashes. No one seemed to know which. Nyra was mostly curious about the ironside piece of them. She was not exactly sure the way of passage between the two worlds. It had to exist.


[break][break]


"Ironsider," she said, suddenly, like she was remembering who he was. "How did you get here? Were your parents born here?"



[break][break]


He was so young. There were the mushroom circles and the pathways known only to the fae, but he was so young. How could he have stumbled upon one? Was he a changeling?



[break][break]


“My sister is a huntress. She wanted me to learn.” Nyra had learned. She and owned a hunting hound and she had learned to direct it. She was equipped with a bow and she shot soundly. They had hunted foxes and birds, but Nyra knew that Juno was thinking of their ancestors who had killed monsters. It mattered little to her. She had tolerated it until the fawn.
[break][break]





The year after she turned fourteen, they had been hunting when a silver fawn appeared, sprint through the forest. It was a creature of mischief. It was stunning. Nyra had gotten close. She had studied it. And then the hounds smelled it and before she could say anything, they tore it apart. She held it in her arms as it died, and even though she could see in her mind how to put it back together, it did no good. She was useless with living things.



[break][break]


She looked ahead, trying to shake the memory. “It is the one thing I might be great at.” She said. “Rhea. I failed as a huntress; as a princess. I am useless with the living. But this…” she stopped studying the knife. She had memorized it a good while ago. “I might be great. I cannot shrink from it.”


[break][break]


She did it because it was duty and because it was her purpose. She did it because she was the blood of Faerie. All that she was not had to mean something.





[break][break]

[newclass=.Lost]opacity:0;transition:all linear .5s;-webkit-transition:all linear .5s[/newclass][newclass=.Lost:hover]opacity:95%;transition:all linear .5s;-webkit-transition:all linear .5s;background-color:#c3c3c3[/newclass]

[Bran Viola]

“Ah, never mind. It’s not that important. She’s just another mortal caught in the sway of this place.”



Bran sat down and watched her trying to make sense of the heavy metal dart that he knew inside and out. There really wasn’t that much to it. His parents now? She was full of questions. There was going to be a point soon where he’d need to stop answering them, if that time wasn’t already upon them.



“Probably not. I grew up in the mortal world with extended family. I haven’t met my parents. Im told they died shortly after I was born. I imagine they were born there too, but I don’t really know. I never asked.”



Bran paused, leaving his own world for a moment.



“Oh, you mean how did I get here? It’s not wildly difficult. Doorways were once manufacturable. I don’t know if you have cults in faerie? The mortal world is covered in sites dedicated to ecstatic ritual. Mystery traditions that aspired to communion with the faerie. Mortals have plenty of legends of revels and ceremonies with mystic beings at commemorated sites. It’s easier to cross in these sorts of places. There’s other places in the mortal world where the crossing can be done too.”



The one Bran was familiar with was a well of sorts. A spiraling corridor wound about the wells circumference into its depths. An ornate iron gate covered the wells mouth, and yet more were set in intervals on the descent. At a certain point the echoes of footfall would expand, the shadows of the iron bars that cast their patterns across brans body would writhe and every sense would enter a sort of twilight, until all of these grew to the point of homogeny, and everything was suddenly nothing, as the user woke to the secondary world within the well. Presumably mortals had once used it as a space for archaic ceremony. Now, the well was on the grounds of the family villa. Fae had only used it once since the viola had taken up residence.



Bran saw the shadow of a bad dream flit across her pale countenance. At first he thought it was the iron, but beyond the earlier burns she was still the hue of a porcelain doll. Bran nodded, the sort of nod an old man would give when their apprentice was shocked to experience the suffering their mentor knew well, and had warned them about extensively. It wasn’t entirely unsympathetic, but there was an acceptance, as though the grievance was something that was already a given. Perhaps the apprentice should have known as much. This was the nod of someone who knew hunting well. Bran had received this same expression several times himself. Sometimes from other hunters. Sometimes from fae who’d been bound so long they now belonged to the same world that the hunters did.



“Hunting isn’t an idealists profession.”



Brans expression darkened.



“I’m sorry I asked. About Rhea. I can’t say I understand your desire.”



The apology was genuine. The impetus to create purely for its own sake was something he couldn’t relate to.

tags-Nyra Charlotte Enigma,

[Nyra Charlotte Enigma]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","Lost"]

[break]

@ Bran Viola

489 words

Music

n/a

[break][break]

There are some things [break]

That no one teaches You

[break]



Nyra blinked at him. “Do you think I’m an idealist?” She asked. She had never heard herself called such a thing. Mostly her sister called her naive. Mostly she was ignored. “I would call you the idealist. Railing against the hierarchy in faerie.” Maybe he would say he was being honest, but all he had was an idea. It was never going to happen. Nyra could make her ideas happen.



[break][break]
She let him talk about his family, things about cults. She laughed. “The fae are not gods. We are faithless.” Mortals could be driven mad by magic, though. At least supposedly. Supposedly they could become manic. Nyra had never seen it. That didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. Just that it hadn’t yet.
[break][break]



“Do you not know duty?” She asked. She did not say it like a judgement. He was just so odd, and he thought about things so differently. “The high court’s magic is that of creation. Call it duty or bloodright, but that magic is part of me, as surely as Rhea’s wiring is a piece of her. It feeds every part of her. My wires are called duty, tradition, and there is one more. I do not know yours. But you have them.”
[break][break]



She thought about people like that, like they could be machines that were picked apart and put together. Maybe that’s why she didn’t press him about the queen. Or maybe she was just selfish, and realized to be free of court business.
[break][break]



A whole coronation, and only two people in this palace were missing. She and Bran were not so different if only because they were here, because there was something more important to them than the throne in the other room. And yet, she found his choice of words curious. “If the high queen is just another mortal — which is curious wording, to be sure — what are you?”



[break][break]
“Anyway. I create because if I didn’t..” she trailed off. He wouldn’t understand and she was a fool for trying to make him. “I must. I simply must.” It was a pressure, building under her skin, threatening to spill over. She had considered mortals going mad plenty. She had considered madness because she could feel it like a knife on her neck. She hadn’t been totally truthful. There was a name for that third wire.





[break][break]

[newclass=.Lost]opacity:0;transition:all linear .5s;-webkit-transition:all linear .5s[/newclass][newclass=.Lost:hover]opacity:95%;transition:all linear .5s;-webkit-transition:all linear .5s;background-color:#c3c3c3[/newclass]

[Bran Viola]

“Yeah, sort of. What other kind of person would ignore the coronation to keep creating their own little kingdom?”



Bran smiled.



“Me? I can talk all I like but at the end of the day I just do what other people tell me to.”



She laughed, and while her voice pealed like a mellifluous bell, what she said next returned him to his usual pensive frown



“I know.”

She had asked him about 'duty.' While it was an incredibly forward thing to do it put Bran at ease again. The pale creature seemed to believe he was something to dissect. Fortunately, she seemed to have come to the wrong conclusion. The world wasn't a reasonable enough place for the faerie to treat it like the horologium she seemed to think it was.



“I guess I do, but it doesn’t need to mean that much. I think you make things out to be more complex than they need to be. But from your perspective I’m probably the one with the complicated ideas.”



Bran took another knife out and began to pass it back and forth along the fingers of his right hand, in lieu of anything else to do. He’d wasted so much time here. The coronation would last a while longer, but it wouldn’t be forever.



“You saying grand things about creation being in your blood is exactly why some of the mortals who know of the fae think you’re all gods. There are mothers who would happily give up their own child in return for a changeling.”



Bran’s hand clenched around the knife, and he suddenly stood up as he stowed it away.



“I’m just another mortal. I need to go. My knife.”


He sighed when she didn’t quite seem to hear him. Shed lost focus as soon as she tried to tell him why it was she chose to create. Bran supposed it wouldn’t matter. She didn’t need to tell him, and he didn’t really need to know.



“The knife. Please.”

tags- Nyra Charlotte Enigma,

[Nyra Charlotte Enigma]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","Lost"]

[break]

@ Bran Viola

414 words

Music

n/a

[break][break]

There are some things [break]

That no one teaches You

[break]



“My kingdom?” she asked. She did not own the forges. This was not her home. She did not live here. Borealis was her home, and even that did not feel native, did not feel natural.

[break]

[break]



“Where is your kingdom, then?” She asked. She did not correct him that it would be a queendom. Faerie was a realm, which was much easier.




[break]

[break]
This was the home of her ancestors. This place was rife with magic older than any living fae had ever seen– maybe any fae ever. She wished, sometimes, that she was more inclined to study the histories, that she was more inclined to study books at all. She did not do well with them, with stories. She did not do well with organic life in general.




[break]

[break]
“Creation is in my bloodline,” she repeated. “It’s hereditary. So is madness.” They had spoken about her cousin, the poisoner’s prince. His mother went mad. His mother was not the one she thought of.




[break]

[break]
She did not understand him. She did not understand that blind subservience. She had been crushed under the frame of what Juno wanted her to be. It was why she hated molds. There was no creation in parody. Where there was no originality, there was no art. “So then, you do follow duty just like the rest of us.” She did not think he was so different than her. Yes, she was fae, and immortal, and timeless, but he had iron and a stability about him she could never achieve. And in the end, they would all die. In the end, the earth was all their mothers.




[break]

[break]
“I don’t think there's any such thing as just a mortal.” She said. “Is there such a thing as just fae? We’re magical.”




[break]

[break]
Fae were the kind of magic that drove men to madness. Fae were the kind of magic that would swallow you whole. Fae were the blood of the earth, of the dragon, of all inconceivable things. They ought not to have existed.




[break]

[break]
Mortals were alive. They should have died out by now.




[break]

[break]
And she was saying that like they were the same, but maybe they were. She kept thinking that if she just pushed hard enough, she would find the one wire or five that defined her as separate from mortals, and then she could cut it, and then she would finally be her own.




[break]

[break]
She would die anyway. It seemed such a small price to pay. What was living without her mind?






[break]

[break]





[break][break]

[newclass=.Lost]opacity:0;transition:all linear .5s;-webkit-transition:all linear .5s[/newclass][newclass=.Lost:hover]opacity:95%;transition:all linear .5s;-webkit-transition:all linear .5s;background-color:#c3c3c3[/newclass]

[Bran Viola]

Bran leaned back a bit as though surprised or confused, an expression that, as it would become clear, was another feature of trying to speak to this girl.



“No, what? I- not literally. Building your little kingdom meaning, like, that you possess your own desire to create that you’re pursuing instead of…”



He trailed off as his words were consumed by the dark pools of her eyes. The twinned new moon told him it was pointless.

 he surrendered to that deep black with a sigh.

“You know what, never mind.”



She quickly continued her questions in spite of this, and as she did so, Bran leaned forward across the table upon which she’d bid him place his knife, covering it with one of the hands upon which he rested his body weight. Now looking up at Nyra from just below her neckline, When she commented on his adherence to any sort of duty, his low response was so quick it was practically an interruption, her distant bell-tower of a throat now beneath the dominion of a distinct melancholy that surrounded his words and hers like a heavy fog.

“It’s imaginary.”



He exhaled slightly, a weary look about him, though this was perhaps the closest Nyra had brought him to a laugh yet.

 

“Everyone is special then? How romantic.”



He held her gaze for a moment, returning his attention to the iron beneath his splayed fingers. He lowered his tone, enunciating. Hopefully an effort at gentleness paired with the eye contact would result in her actually hearing him this time.



“I’m leaving now. I’m taking this with me.”

tags- Nyra Charlotte Enigma,