Half-Elf Homecoming

Log Info

• Title: Half-Elf Homecoming

• Characters: Ravenstongue, Telamon

• Place: Ravenstongue and Telamon's house

• Summary: Telamon returns home from his trip to Ylvaliel, where he escorted the Lady Nuala and also visited the prison cell of the malevolent Karan'taara. He comes home troubled by what he witnessed and heard, as is Cor'lana by the news. The two opt to assuage their worries with an evening walk and poetry, in the cool night air.

Lupecyll-Atlon home, early evening.

The autumn sunset casts a gradient of brilliant hues on the flowers and leaves in the garden behind the Lupecyll-Atlon home. A cool wind from the west gently ruffles the leaves and the hem of the long, black dress that is wrapped around Cor'lana, the bishop sleeves looking quite fashionable for the harvest season. She holds a cup of tea in her hand as she sits in her chair at the garden table.

And for the moment, all is calm. The pixies aren't snickering nor giggling, as they've left to go tend to their own ideas of wedding preparations, and the boys of the household are napping--Bois in the garden, Pothy in the study.

Well, all but one.

"He's missing a perfectly good cup of tea," Cor'lana murmurs to herself. And she takes a sip.

There's the funny sound of muted hoofbeats, like someone's riding a horse wearing thick socks or something. Telamon comes around the corner, riding... well, it's horse-shaped, but it looks like someone poured smoke into the shape of a horse. Sorcerers are weird, after all.

Coming past the garden fence, he looks, doubletakes, then smiles wearily. "Hey love. I'm home -- finally." He reins in the horse-thing, and it obediently comes to a stop next to the gate. "Want to unlatch the gate and let me in?"

Cor'lana has a rather funny look on her face as she tries to figure out what the strange noises are--her mouth scrunches up a little, as does her nose, and her eyes narrow a little. She puts her teacup down and rises from her chair, walking warily over to the gate at first until she hears Telamon's voice, at which point her smile is wide and her pacing quickens.

"Welcome home, my starborn prince," Cor'lana greets in a chipper manner to match her smile as she unlatches the gate. "You're getting a bit of mileage out of that shadow conjuration spell. How was your trip to Ylvaliel?" Of course, it was more than just a trip, but it's nice to think of it as one.

He slides off the horse-creation carefully, and stretches. "It has its uses," Telamon remarks with a grin. With a gesture, he dismisses it, the shadowy form dissipating, and he pads into the garden, shutting the gate behind him.

Then his arms are around Cor'lana, embracing her, holding her close as he murmurs, "O queen of my heart, I have returned at last, and my soul is full once again." Happily nuzzling her for a moment, before lifting his head to speak more plainly.

"It was a bit intense," he admits. "We got Lady Nuala to the Mythwood, although we had to deal with four leucrottas on the way there." He makes a face. "Nasty things. Fortunately we were all up to the challenge."

And Cor'lana finds her happy place underneath his chin as he embraces her, humming cheerfully for a moment as she lingers there and listens to his poetic notion. She ends it a moment after by leaning her head up to kiss his chin and pulling away enough so that she can look at his face as he talks.

And she frowns a little to match his face as he talks about the leucrottas. "I guess it was too much to hope for a peaceful ride up," she says, "but at least it sounds like you had a peaceful ride home. Did you stop by your parents--what am I saying, I don't think you could be there and /not/ say hi to your mother, at least." Cor'lana snickers.

Telamon shakes his head. "Even with the wights and other nasty undead, there's still all manner of things out there looking to cause trouble. The good news is that's one group of evil bastards who won't be bothering -anyone- ever again."

He chuckles softly. "No, if I went home and tried to bypass my parents, my mother would send out search parties. I know better. Plus... I needed to call in a favor to do something." Tel walks Lana over to the garden chairs, sitting her down first before he takes a seat.

"Father had mentioned this, and I think he was right, but... I went to see that other evil bastard we both know." His lips curl in disgust. "Karan'taara."

Cor'lana takes her seat again, and her hand is curling around her teacup handle when Karan'taara's name leaves Telamon's mouth. She stiffens all over, starting first with her hand as it travels up the rest of her. Less than a second later, however, she puts her teacup up to her mouth in a manner like her usual fashion. Unbothered. Unmoved. And completely unlike the autumn sunset that is dyeing the sky a dark purple as the orange light of Daeus begins to fade.

"I see," she says neutrally after a sip. She sets the teacup back down onto the table and she offers Telamon a little smile. "And why did you visit him?"

Telamon is pretty sure she's angry, mostly because his next words won't be 'to bring back his head and set it at your feet'. He exhales. "Well, first: to see where they're keeping him. He's in the maximum security prison cells -- these are magically warded and guarded by... well, a lot of things I'm not at liberty to discuss. Suffice to say he's not leaving under his own power."

He sits back in his chair, looking upward, as a chilly breeze blows through the garden. "I also wanted to see if I could shake loose any information from him, about how he'd hooked up with Ainasse, his plans, and so on. It... wasn't particularly fruitful." He looks down at his hand, which has reflexively clenched into a fist.

Cor'lana's gaze is trained on her teacup, sipping it quietly again as Telamon talks. Her expression is that carefully neutral thing that gradually relaxes as Telamon talks about the security of the prison that he's kept in.

But it seems that she was keeping the corner of her eye on Telamon after all, as she puts her teacup down and reaches out to take him by the shoulder. She smiles warmly at him, the violet in her eyes matching the purple of the sky overhead. "You don't have to talk to him for my sake," she says, a little quietly. "I don't know if any amount of information from him will ever do anything besides lead to more questions. I... have been trying to forget. I've been trying to fill my head and my heart with happy things. And for the most part, with all of this wedding talk, it's worked. Even the wight issues were something else for me to focus on besides what..."

Her voice wobbles on the last word, and she bites her lip. She looks away.

Telamon looks up suddenly. "It... wasn't precisely for you, per se. Though if I could've gotten away with it... well, I'm not sure if I'd kill him, or deliver him to Grandfather." His expression is hard, cold, and his eyes shine with the light of those distant stars.

Then it passes, and he sighs, reaching out to take her hand. "I shouldn't have spoken of it. Dammit. But it's wrong to hide things from your husband or wife, save in jest. I won't keep secrets from you, not now or ever." He lifts the hand to his cheek, nuzzling. "Forgive me."

There's the inklings of tears in Cor'lana's eyes as she turns back to look at him, but the smile, at least, is back as he gives her hand his affection. "I should have phrased it better," she says in her own apologetic fashion. "What he did, he did to /us/, and therefore I don't think it's necessarily good for us to go looking for things that are better forgotten in their cold caverns."

She tilts her head a little to one side. "I suppose I should admit that I've done my hardest to try and hide my own pain and sorrow from you--not just on that regard, but in others. There is an awful lot of poetry you've never seen, and some of those are the poems I'd offered the Queen. I don't believe in keeping secrets, either, but... I also don't believe in sharing my pain with you when I associate you with such /joy/ in my life, Telamon. I'll forgive you, of course, but I hope you forgive me that as well."

Telamon kisses her hand, pressing it to his cheek again before lowering it (though he doesn't let go). "I'm afraid I've nothing else to report, though. Mother and father send their love, and mother mentioned making a visit at some point. I think she wants to see the wedding dress." He smiles. "I told her she better not offer any ideas for modification, or Aryia might pitch her into the harbor."

He furrows his brow. "There was one other thing. An... oddity. The last night I was there... I dreamed, and the Watcher spoke to me. We were... well, it sure wasn't Ea. I'm not even sure how to describe it. Strange pillars of glass and brown, windswept hills. The Watcher congratulated me on the upcoming marriage, though... it sounded like he didn't -quite- understand all of it."

Cor'lana seems content with the implied forgiveness, smiling back at him. "Yes, she'd better /not/ send us or Aryia any notes. Last thing I want is to have to turn the dress over to Jovani for a supremely rushed order because Aryia's decided I'm too much to handle." The whole notion is enough to make her sigh deeply.

But then her curiosity is piqued by the Watcher's appearance in Telamon's dreams. "Glass pillars... and hills," she murmurs, looking thoughtful for a moment. "I do wonder where he 'travels' to in these dreams. Or if he's just showing you someplace that doesn't exist, but /could/. It's enough to put a wrinkle on both the forehead and the brain."

Telamon shakes his head. "I don't know. I asked him once, but he didn't seem to understand the question." He shrugs. "In any case, the Watcher also said that at some point he would send me a..." He pauses, mulling the word over. "Mentor, I think? Advisor. He said that while dreamwalking had its benefits, there are times when trying to contact him through dreams could be less than ideal."

He looks pensive. "The problem is that when I asked how I'd recognize him, I woke up. Figures. Well, whoever or whatever the Watcher sends, they'll be -interesting-."

There's another headtilt from Cor'lana at the idea of a mentor/advisor arriving for Telamon. "Interesting indeed," Cor'lana murmurs. "I can't help but be a little... afraid? No, not the right word. Wary, perhaps, of what it could be. It could be something awful that insists on hanging out in the corner of our bedroom, for instance, and /won't/ leave no matter how you try to explain that we'd like privacy. Pothy can be such a clingy and sweet boy, but even he knows that we want our space from time to time."

She snickers a little as she goes to drink from her teacup again. "Granted, he's also quick enough to leave the room when a certain mood is apparent, so there's that in his favor, too. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see."

Telamon furrows his brow. "I... don't think he'd send someone or something disruptive. He knows how much you mean to me, and that sowing chaos in the house... you know, besides the -usual- chaos... wouldn't please me." He sighs. "We'll just have to wait and see."

He strokes Lana's hand, leaning over it to kiss the knuckles. "So, how -did- the dress fitting go? Any problems? I presume I need to go down next to be fitted for those robes. Thank the gods I got all the materials to Aryia in short order."

Cor'lana... blanches a little. "The fitting went okay," she says. "Pothy wouldn't stop trying to offer Aryia snacks, though, because apparently now he's /banning/ me from having snacks so I'll fit into my wedding dress on the day of. He took that conversation at Aryia's to heart, it seems."

She sighs and shakes her head with a smile. "Somehow, any instance where Pothy says 'no snacks' is deeply disturbing, yet funny. Here's hoping he doesn't start relocating all of the snacks into the study."

Telamon just... kind of boggles a bit. "Good grief." He scratches his chin. "Well, we may need to embark on Aryia's fitness program at least till we get through the wedding. And note I said 'we' -- it'll be both of us." He snorts. "Could be worse, though. Plenty of stories about couples who were getting married and the bride had to have a couple seams let out, because she was, well, showing." He makes a motion around his midsection.

"Oh, speaking of tailoring..." He sighs. "Gonna need to have that adventuring tunic mended. It got torn during the fight with the leucrottas. Honestly, I need to look into an enchanted robe that repairs itself, like a troll."

Cor'lana flushes bright red. "We /definitely/ do not have that problem," she says, "and I'm thankful for it. Even if it probably would delight your mother and Grandfather to no end to know that children are on the way. I am not ready, and I'd like to retire my adventuring career on my own terms, unlike my mother."

She leans back a little in her chair, sighing. "Well, better the tunic than you. I could take a look at it, though--if the damage isn't too bad, I've worked out how to fix things using magic. But... a self-repairing robe sounds nice, too."

Telamon grins at that blush. He just loves it when the color appears in her cheeks! "To everything a season," he says, smiling broadly. "But yes. And I would be obliged to retire as well. These will be -our- children, after all -- yours and mine. I have no intention of sticking you with all the work." His eyes sparkle brightly.

"Well, the leucrotta who tore the tunic kind of got what he had coming. Don't know if you've ever read about them, but they're nasty, evil creatures -- supposedly, the spawn of hyenas and demons. Thurid really took a dislike to them, and it showed." Tel smirks. "And Dirk was... on target, you might say. Lethally so. We made a good team."

The flush eventually abates, since Telamon hasn't given her more to fan the flames, although there's a look of deep-seated affection on Cor'lana's face when Telamon talks about how they would, in fact, be /their/ children. "They'll be beautiful little bundles of mischief, but there's no reason to rush into having them yet--all the more reason to hold off until we're ready," she says.

She squints, however, at the supposed origin of leucrottas. "Oh. Oh, that's... Eugh. That's odd. Demons are odd, I suppose, but maybe the next time we see that fiend that likes to take people's appearances, I'll ask her if she's had a hyena for a mate." The impish grin crosses Cor'lana's face with a snicker.

Telamon chuckles softly, though he looks at his free hand, opening and closing it. "Well... yes. I want us to start the family when -we- are ready. Father and mother understand -- though mother, obviously, has offered a polite objection. No worse than Grandfather, though."

He snorts at the mention of the mul-faced fiend. "If we see that bitch, we'll have to ask before we remove her permanently." He looks over at Lana, smiling back. "I also took care of some minor things while I was in Ylvaliel. Reserved a meeting hall for the reception. Made sure food and drink would be ready. That sort of thing."

"I /do/ have that sword ready to go for her," Cor'lana says with a smirk. "That will be a very nasty surprise, I'm certain--and it'll be /such/ a relief to have both her and that sword gone."

She nods thankfully at the mention of the reception. "I'm /so/ happy you were able to go up there and get things sorted," she says. "I was worried we'd have to make your parents do everything and hope that things looked good by the time we arrived--there's so many details that can get lost if one is communicating solely by mail."

Then Cor'lana pauses for a moment, and she snickers. "Sorry, that reminded me--there was a book I read in my teenage years about a girl who started writing letters to a prince, pretending to be his just-publicly-announced fiancee from another country, and he /actually/ responded back to her--/and/ they even end up married by the end despite the lie."

"I knew you were concerned, so I got most of the details nailed down. Hence why I took the job to escort Lady Nuala -- I needed to go up there anyways, and besides, it was nice to see her again." Telamon smiles at the memory, before continuing, "Father will keep an eye out for any issues -- acts of the gods, someone gets sick, that sort of thing. But things are pretty well handled."

He snorts at the mention of mail, and old stories. "Oh, no arguments. You can get incongruities just -writing- letters. Father once told me a tale about Tristan Serenas IX -- the father of the current High King of Myrddion. Evidently his majesty the ninth once got distracted writing a fairly innocuous declaration, and what got put to paper was that he was about to declare himself military dictator over half the continent." Tel crinkles his face up. "To this day, I wonder what the hell was in that letter, but evidently the king was so appalled at his own mistake that he -burned- the letter and started over from scratch."

"Wonder what His Majesty was distracted by to begin with that it ended up on the letter," Cor'lana says, but then she looks sheepish. "I can't judge too harshly. I have... accidentally nearly written different words entirely in poetry that was intended to be clean when I write about my feelings for you. Crossed out and never read aloud at the poetry slams, of course."

Then she perks up a little as she looks up at the sky, the sun now nearly faded over the horizon. "Oh, look, the first star of the evening," she points out. "I suppose that's a decent sign that I ought to get inside and get started on dinner."

She looks at Telamon and smiles. "Unless, of course, you'd prefer to go out tonight and maybe stop to look at the stars along the way."

Telamon gets to his feet, and reaches out to take Lana's other hand, helping her up. "I... honestly can't decide. Part of me wants to go out and enjoy the starlight, and part of me wants to cuddle up with you." He squares his shoulders. "Hell, let's go out. The night's cool, but it's a nice change from the humidity and heat."

Tel smiles down at Lana. "If you feel brave enough, maybe you can show me some of that poetry when we get back. I promise not to laugh at it... though I might comment on it."

Cor'lana grins as she rises up onto her feet, her violet eyes sparkling in the fading light of the sunset, soon to be replaced by the cool-toned light of the stars. "Why not both?" she says in Sylvan. "We can go find a bench somewhere to sit on and admire the stars while we hold each other. We could pencil that in after dinner, I think, when there are more of them out."

And then she flushes again. "If you comment just right, I have a feeling it could lead to other things, too," she adds, and she squeezes Telamon's hand. "Provided you're not /too/ tired from riding all the way back here, of course."

And then she flushes deeper as she catches herself and the implications, and she fires off quickly, "That's not an invitation to flirt about other meanings of riding! Let's go."

Telamon tucks her arm into his, his eyes reflecting the stars starting to appear overhead. "Sounds like a good plan to me." He leans over to kiss her cheek. "I cannot say no to you," he purrs in Sylvan. "Besides, seeing you is a tonic like no other. I feel like I could walk around the world. Or at least, five hundred miles or more."

He furrows his brow. "I heard that once, in a song. How did it go? Something about walking five hundred miles... damn, I know this..." And with that, he leads his lady love out off into the early evening.