((Aoise))
Flagstones smelling of elf shoes and the menace of wolves assaulted Aiose’s nose. Her head—delicately constructed and covered with a loose pelt of silvery, damask softness—was lowered close to the ground, wet nostrils undulating as they inhaled each new olfactory sensation. Darragh had wanted her to track out his companion, the man who smelled of marble, dusty silks or satins, and too many kinds of soap. The dog didn’t like him very much; he antagonized the creature, unlike her friend, and she hated the little crawling boy. He was feral, and he reeked of danger—wolf piss, boar-bristles, bogwater and mud, all manner of unpleasantness. Moreover, the snarling, strange, bony thing wanted Aoise very badly, for which the dog much feared him; often had he cloaked her mind with his and then, all her being was enthralled to him until Darragh came to her rescue.
Too much leaf-mold flew into the hunting-hound’s muzzle. Breaking her ambling trot, she paused, working her mouth for a moment before sneezing cacophonously. The action disrupted her concentration, bringing her to rest lightly on her haunches and paw at her face with a forefoot, wrinkling her nose with a half-coughed exhalation of breath every now and again. However, this interlude in her activities was not long-lived; somewhere in her dog’s mind, a small voice of warning yipped her back into action, a unique intelligence and focus bred into her line of game hound.
Nails clicking, she paced on. The trail winded and twisted; her target had been all about. It perturbed Aoise somewhat that he’d changed from her memory. A long-lived breed, she could recall events and personages from up to ten years past, and she recognized Lysander from what history she could recollect—he smelled of gentility, soaps, sometimes horses. But the cold elf she’d scented last night had, underneath the screen of lavender and cloying sensations, the undertones of mossy worlds, and he’d not entirely been rid of the Unorian-hunter smell, the saltiness. Perhaps this strangeness was why Darragh, when he’d asked her to seek his pack-brother, had stank lightly of… of… not fear, but bred-of-fear?
This was the trail, and now she heard them. The grey dog’s ears perked up, her head lifting as she ceased to require a chemical path. Noting an unfriendly message on the breeze—her canine heart sank, as much as a canine’s heart could sink, when it registered as the changeling elf’s uncanny signature—the hound raised her mouth to the sky and barked loudly for Darragh. She wouldn’t approach the weirdling boy alone, he was too terrifying in his desire to eliminate free will. But she’d achieved her task.
((Lysander, Niall, Dia; omniscient 3rd person))
At Aoise’s bark, the heads of Niall, Lysander and Diarmuid all turned as though jerked on a string. Lysander’s focus shifted because he anticipated Darragh’s arrival in the sound of his hound. Niall had turned mainly at the highness of the sound, for he didn’t much care either way about the man behind it or his pet; and Dia’s head turned because he’d heard the elusive Unorian canine.
Lysander was the first to turn away, barely sparing two seconds of attention to the interruption before he returned to marking necessary stocks for their re-provisioning. Diarmuid’s gaze never wavered; it strengthened, and he rose intently, foggy eyes growing near-white as his desire for Darragh’s dog was reflected in his increased exertion over the wild court he already contained.
There wasn’t a chance for him to touch the bitch’s will, though, for the booted clip of the Unorian were quick to come on his tracker’s call; Diarmuid grit his teeth, not the least bit pleased at being so abruptly stymied. There might have been a slight tilt of scorn to Lysander’s lip: an odd reaction that only his foster-brother summoned, unique among the people the Ælfher esteemed in that he was spared little scoffing. “Tá an lá go maith*,” the mage stated abstractedly, his voice as low as though he addressed Niall and not Darragh, who’d only just turned the corner.
A sharp disparity of disposition existed between them; to Lysander’s measured rudeness, the other elf broke into a wide smile, as untainted by the stress of years as a child’s, and cheerily replied, “Tá sé cinnte! “** He was himself much like the dogs he adored, eager to please and capable of handling a large quantity of neglect—this quality alone seemed to be what allowed him to foster such continued closeness for his singular near-brother. Aoise, a sleek specimen of good breeding—one would hardly guess that she was from a tainted litter, and therefore a lurcher—slunk close about the hunter’s legs, eyes making triangles as she nervously eyed the Ælfhers about her.
“So,” Lysander murmured off-handedly, as though the topic were of little concern to him, “what brings you here today, Darragh, when all the fighting elves are supposedly with Dian Aerain?”
“You’ve taken up the proper title, I see,” he replied, voice like deep laughter. However, although the lord’s voice made merry, his wintery eyes were tentative, and the smile that so frequently graced his lips didn’t sparkle in his gaze. Lysander let a lull follow that comment, tapered fingers lightly skipping over rows of soaps. The materials necessary for good hygiene, which had grown scarce in their travelling, would certainly not be wanting from now on, if he had aught to do with it.
“Pine and eucalyptus,” a voice breathed into his ear; Lysander very nearly whirled about in surprise, angrily checking himself as Darragh’s happy face came into view. “Show-off,” the mage curtly retorted, selecting a soap with biting scent for their stock, as the hunter had recommended. He’d not stoop so low, nor give the other elf the satisfaction, of asking what made that brand preferable; he wasn’t so foolish, though, as to disregard his friend’s learned advice. He glanced at the seal-haired noble from the corner of his eye—the uneasy shift remained.
“Darragh,” Lysander casually voiced, “would you care to account for yourself? It’s rather unseemly of you to dodge my earlier question.”
A sigh left the addressee’s deep chest, for which Lysander smirked. 316 years, and yet many of the Unorian’s habits hadn’t changed a jot from his forties. “Well, if you must ask…,” Darragh mumbled, and the mage didn’t have to look at him to know that the flautist was staring at the tiled floor, scuffing his left boot, over something which seemed important to him and silly to the Ælfher.
“Lysander,” Darragh stated abruptly, and with sudden loftiness as he resolved his spirit. “Let me be frank in telling you this: I’m every breed of coward, you know that.” Actually, the lord was much inclined to think otherwise—how many boars and savage beasts had the other elf launched himself at, caught in the revels of the hunt?—but he’d obviously not state such a compliment.
“And last night, I was out on my own, no Aoise to keep me company, no Conla or Tréasa to strike a banter with, and so the loneliness set me to contemplating my current situation in a manner which I hadn’t before.” Well, that was typical. “To be honest with you…” Darragh sighed, one large hand ruffling Aoise’s head. “Well, to be honest, I signed up for this lot because of the sheer number of people who matter to me, whose lives are on the line here. Honestly, it won’t affect the Unorian yet… but then, when we heard that the Rau-lass were marching to the border of the Ælfher’s province, and that they would freely take inexperienced hands and train them under the tutelage of an Occalus faery… Parthalán was quick to send me. Of course it’d be me…” the elf’s tone reflected decades of bitterness over not fitting fully into the fold of his family, but he rapidly resumed what was becoming a tedious narrative.
“I’m well and truly a competent archer, Lysander, and I can fell a stag if you point me to it, at least nine times of ten… but—look at me, will you?—“ A strong hand turned Lysander’s face, gripping the mage by the jaw. He made a face at the manhandling, though no complaint rose at his friend’s manner. Hazel eyes fixed on wintry eyes, Lysander complied with Darragh’s need for closure long enough for him to continue. “I can’t do this,” the elf whispered, fear dominating his bold features. “Fates, Lysander, I can’t… I… it’s not the killing that gets to me, because I know I can kill, but it’s the… I’m a coward, see? My life’s on a line here, and I don’t much like that, nor does it settle well with me to try imagining what a fight with my foster-family would be like. It’s… I can track, lead, work in a hunting party, take a group, travel through all hell, but fates preserve me if I can do a suicidal dash into something so chaotic.”
Lysander reserved his response for a moment, touching the strong hand that yet remained on his cheek. Gently taking down Darragh’s palm, the vigilante bowed his head to lightly kiss his foster-brother’s lip. It wasn’t greeting, but it was comfort for his highly physical friend.
“Darragh Unorian,” he stated flatly, “you are without a doubt the single most ridiculous example of an elf I’ve ever had the mischance of meeting.” The other smiled sheepishly. Continuing in all pompousness, Lysander assured him, “of course you may join me in leading this group of mine northwards! Certainly, your skills would be of more use to me than to Altair, and honestly, I wish that I could take my brother as well.” Shaking his head with a sigh, Lysander remarked, “this entire enterprise seems suicidal to me, but... I have some faith in the teachings of the faeries. If you recognize the futility behind so much of this, how it stands more as a vain show of comradely glory to the end, then who am I the deny you an exit through a far more sensible course of action?” Flipping his hair, Lysander resumed his mental listing of supplies they’d need to be stocked with. Having the addition of Darragh lead to greater benefits than hed anticipated, all of which were neatly presenting themselves in Lysander’s thoughts.
“We simply need to inform Lilith, now…” he mused.
*It’s a nice day.
**It certainly is!
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