#i feel bad about the lightweaver set and i may re-do it

[shardclan]

A Moment in the Summerlands

The granary serving both Aphaster and Feldspar is filling as the fields empty.

 Queen Rebis stands in the reaped remains, alone save the quiet presence of Nayvadius. Though she went there knowing that it was the same place her predecessor often stood, her mind is not on Telos. She looks at the easternmost grasslands dourly, knowing that they have been harvested early. Dragons and beastclans alike are preparing themselves for an early winter courtesy of the changed winds. The possibility of a food shortage is so likely that she considers it already a reality.

For the first time, she feels relief at the thought of a satellite clan that will diminish the capital's numbers. The promise she made with Lightweaver still burns, but the partial banishment of her attachments means fewer mouths to feed. There are comparisons to the rule of the Investor already reaching her ears. The climate change and the food storage it will bring is not an unknown, and the clan is braced for rationing, closed borders, and all manner of restrictions.

She worries that she is naive to think she will be able to winter their clan without doing anything drastic. Her upbringing was idyllic, her image of Aphaster idealized by a lack of conflict. She is grown enough now to understand that may not have been for the best.

She emits a quiet prayer to the high noon sun that her choices will be the right ones.

Arcanus sets down the Sunbeam Sentinel and closes his eyes. Across from him, he can feel Carnelian watching him.

He has already admitted that he toasted to Telos' departure with Gethsemene. That was supposed to be it. That was supposed to be enough. But Carnelian is not Gethsemene. While she and Arcanus were sure to grow closer from now on, she was tangential to all that had happened since Aphaster came to be, and to who Arcanus had become since then.

Carnelian is integral--an attachment that Arcanus gained that grew with him. He knew everything, and even though they have not seen each other for eons, Arcanus feels that Carnelian still knows even the most remote corners of his heart.

Carnelian would never actually prompt him to be honest, but the untouched cigar gently smoking in its tray, the unpoured liquor, and the carefully neutral expression are all glaring to Arcanus. Expressions of compassion from a difficult man.

Resentment stings him, and embarrassment on its heel. It's only a fleeting feeling, but he is angry that someone as opaque as Carnelian can see through him so easily. He has walked through Aphaster with his head high, his mission accomplished and promise kept, and yet Carnelian pierces through it without a word.

Arcanus lets out a sob with only the most passing attempt to restrain it.

He has missed Aphaster so much. He is so happy to be home.

But Telos is not there anymore.  

With as little sound as possible, Carnelian closes the blinds, and sits with him in the dark. The sound of the guardian's grief passes over him and fills his home as inescapably as rain.

"Telos would never have allowed it," Dantalion spits.

"Telos had to make other allowances," Heaven points out meekly. "They just...didn't affect us."

Heaven has never seen him so furious. Dantalion is within arms reach, holding tightly to himself and seething, and Heaven feels as though the Sea of a Thousand Currents is already between them.

"Our life is here," he grits. "Your family. Our family. You shouldn't have to leave just because of some ambiguous demand from Lightweaver!"

"Lion..." Heaven tries to soothe. "It's not ambiguous. I have to go because Rebis is attached to me."

"I'M ATTACHED TO YOU!" Dantalion explodes. 

The air between them buzzes, a rushing vibration that both can feel in their bones. Neither is sure if it is the unexpected anger, or his thick witch's blood calling something into their home.

"I'm attached to you," he forces himself to say more calmly, but he is trembling. "But everything else I'm attached to is here, Heaven. Everything you're attached to is here too. There's nothing for us in the Isles. Just a bunch of bad memories. A place where I fucked up and didn't recognize a dragon made to masquerade as a spirit, and a place where a bunch of our clanmates who are either dead or gone used to live."

Heaven swallows. The attempt nearly chokes him, but he manages to whisper, "I still have to go."

"I know," Dantalion admits wearily. He rubs at his eyes. "But I don't think I can go with you."

Lavi finds Carnelian standing at the door. He drops, holding onto his knees and wheezing as he tries to catch his breath.

"He's--he's here, right?"

Carnelian nods, but he is quick to throw a blocking arm in the way to prevent Lavi's passing. They meet eyes, and a spark of irritation jumps between them.

"I don't think he wants you to see him right now," Carnelian says with unusual patience. "Not like that."

"But you have seen him," Lavi shoots back. "In whatever state he's in. He came to you first."

"He came to a place where he doesn't have to deal with echoes of Telos first," he corrects with an arched brow. "I didn't think you were the jealous type."

"I just--" Lavi blusters, immediately ashamed of his cattiness. "I just want to see him... Please."

"Let me say it again, but so you can hear it: Your father wouldn't want his son to see the kind of grief he is dealing with right now."

It amazes Carnelian how easily diffused Lavi is by the acknowledgement that Arcanus considers him a son. Lavi is Imperator, and a half-feral that towers over the other glamours that the clan has accustomed itself to using, but he is also only a young drake who hasn't seen his father in half a cycle. Playing on that leaves a surprisingly sour taste in Carnelian's mouth.

"You come running to where he is every time," he offers peaceably. "One man to another, he needs that right now, but that's not something I can do."

Carnelian's strange softness jars some suppressed emotion loose in Lavi, to the older dragon's chagrin. "I was supposed to take care of things. I was supposed to have really good news for him, but--!"

"Gods, shut up before you piss me off. You're just like him; you'd do the right thing even if it killed you."

From inside, a muffled croak: "He means that you've done your best and shouldn't worry so much..."

The imperial and the guardian meet eyes again, and with a tired roll of his eyes, Carnelian opens his door and watches Invigilavi run in and leap into Arcanus' waiting arms.

Carnelian closes the door to leave them alone and wanders off into the fog of Bramble Step without a care. They need each other, and Arcanus knows the locks. They'll be fine.

The moment plays over and over, no matter how Azricai tries to get past it.

It was sad, but peaceful to watch Kea go. She had seemed a little confused that Azricai had specifically come to say goodbye to her. The remnants of Tawhiri respectfully parting, maybe? She took Azricai’s hand anyway.

Kea was warm. She was so, so warm.

"Azricai helped lift the stigma around you from your grandmother's exile."

The words were said coolly. Not blurted. Deliberate. Equinox' emotional geography was smooth and stone still beside Azricai. She had never seen it coming.

In her moments of clarity, Azricai knows it was a betrayal of her trust. But she also knows she would have done the same--she just had the benefit of so much practice that she would have picked a better time. She would never have let anyone feel the way she had in that moment. 

"She's been looking out for you since she joined the clan. You're the reason she became the Gale Wolf. She first learned how to be the person she is now with you, Kea." Equinox moving, letting Azricai go. She knew they couldn't remain together after that. "The Gale Wolf was created for you."

Kea had no reason to disbelieve Equinox, even though it was unbelievable. But if she had, Azricai's stumble would have given her away. The naked expression on her face. The way she yanked her hand back, covering her face as though she could somehow put her impenetrable persona back together by hand. The anxious horror of watching Kea piece her memories back together. Re-contextualizing. Shedding light on places inside her that hadn't come to the surface in eons to see where this new information came in.

"I..." Control of the situation had been wrenched from Azricai's hands. She had never felt so vulnerable. Not even when Lavi had asked her point blank if she loved him. "I did not want you to feel manipulated. I didn't want you to think less of how far you've come for my involvement."

Kea's eyes had softened with understanding Azricai had not ever dared to think about. "But that's the point of you isn't it? You only ever push forward what's already there. Like you did for Iblis. For everyone who has ever come to you troubled." A warm blush had spread across her cheeks. "Though I guess it's a little embarrassing that I was the guinea pig."

"You weren't!" Azricai cried. "You were never any such thing! You were my family, and you deserved better! That's all it was ever about!"

It embarrasses Azricai now. How she must have looked. Crying out and weeping before a woman who, until that moment, had never been aware that Azricai cared for her. Much less considered that somewhere in those unknowable depths, Azricai was genuinely attached to her--that she had been from the start.

But Kea had smiled. The way she only did with Iblis. With Camellia and Kiele and her children. With dragons she considered Family. The open gates of the Observatory awaited, and she would not go back on her decision. But she had spared a moment to embrace Azricai and say the only words that she thought needed saying.

"Thank you."

The words are still lodged in Azricai's heart. She sits alone inside the hollowed marble pillar she has called home since their first days in the Sunbeam Ruins. 

Rebis needs her. Lavi needs her. 

But no matter how many time she closes her eyes, the conversation replays, and the strength to do anything but curl deeper into her pillows eludes her.