• Solo • Falling Awake

19th of Vhalar 717

Here are all threads from before the Fall of Emea in 719 and all threads pertaining to the Fall. As of Ymiden 719 (1st June 2019), this forum is locked for new threads and is a repository for old content.

Moderator: Staff

User avatar
Arlo Creede
Approved Character
Posts: 1386
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2017 9:15 pm
Race: Mortal Born
Profession: Cassion's Champion
Renown: 820
Character Sheet
Character Wiki
Templates
Point Bank Thread
Wealth Tier: Tier 5

Falling Awake

Image
19th Vhalar, 717


He was walking alone through the streets of Rharne, his treasured hat on his head and his hands dropped deep into his pockets. It wasn't the Rharne he knew to be however, but the one he'd known as a child. A busy, colorful city that from a young boy's perspective, must have been all there was of Idalos. A place where ordinary buildings stretched up to the sky and where the massive walls and gates could hold back dragons that Arlo knew to be real. The spires of the Lightening Cathedral reached even higher than the sky, into another world, and Lake Lovalus wasn't a lake at all, but a vast and bottomless sea.

He was going somewhere. He didn't know where or why, but he thought that it was important he got there on time. When he looked to the side and caught a glimpse of his reflection in a shop window, Arlo stopped and frowned at what he saw. It was him without question, but he couldn't have been more than six, seven arcs old. His brown mop of curls was in bad need of a trim and the black suit he was wearing was much too large. The familiar hat was on his head, but the size suited the adult he was, and not the boy looking back at him.

It was a dream, and in his slumbering state Arlo knew it. But nonetheless there was a sense of urgency to get to the place he was meant to be. And as important as that, to appear just as he did. He looked away from his reflection and hurried along. And before long, found himself at the edge of the wide ribbon of sand looking over Lake Lovalus.

There was a small group of people gathered there, most of them clustered at the edge of the water watching a small boat that had been pushed away from the shore. The thing appeared to be filled with rushes and tinder, and as a man fired an arrow glowing orange at the tip, Arlo realized what it was. He could just make out the shape of a figure reclined in the boat as the rushes caught fire.

Just as he realized what they were doing, that it was a funeral, and that this particular trespass of another's dream was better undone than continued, Arlo spotted a small figure apart from the rest of them. A small girl seated alone on a chair, her tiny feet in black patent leather dangling a good foot above the ground.

She was a pretty child who looked to be six, seven arcs old. Tiny for her age though, with reddish brown hair and eyes a curious shade of blue. Her long lashes were spiky as if soaked then dried by salty tears and her eyes were rimmed in red. But there were no tears spilling out them or streaming down her face. It was if she was all cried out and was left numb in the process. She was wearing around her neck a loop made of leather, with a carved wooden charm dangling off it. A crescent moon, with a little man seated in the curve at the bottom. He was wearing a hat that resembled Arlo's own. She wasn't paying any attention to him, or the group of adults gathered at the shoreline. Instead, her eyes were fixed on the boat as the flames consumed its contents. Something told him, he didn't know what, that he was supposed to be here after all. Or at least he should be.
Last edited by Arlo Creede on Tue Oct 24, 2017 8:09 pm, edited 3 times in total. word count: 611
User avatar
Arlo Creede
Approved Character
Posts: 1386
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2017 9:15 pm
Race: Mortal Born
Profession: Cassion's Champion
Renown: 820
Character Sheet
Character Wiki
Templates
Point Bank Thread
Wealth Tier: Tier 5

Falling Awake

Image
"Can I sit here?" Arlo asked when he reached the little girl, and pointed at the empty chair beside her. She didn't look at him or say anything, but only lifted her small shoulders and dropped them again, as if she didn't care if he did or he didn't. He sat down, and even like this it struck him that something seemed familiar about her. But he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. He didn't say anything, but simply looked out at the waters, at the distance between the shore and the drifting boat. After a long few bits, the girl looked at him, her face a mix of grief, sadness and anger. "My grandfather died. That's him out there on the boat. He made this for me," she added, taking hold of the charm around her neck. Arlo frowned, nodded his head and still looking out at horizon, uttered, "I'm sorry. My grandfather died too. It was a long time ago."

The girl fell silent a long while more and then looked at him again. "Why did they have to burn his body? Doesn't he need it anymore?" It was beyond Arlo, this particular ritual but he suspected there was more to her question than the mechanics of it. "I'm thinking no. What makes you...you," he suggested as he tapped a fingertip to his temple, "is here, and here," he added then, lowering his hand and thumping his chest. "The Immortals I'm sure will give him a new body, all fit and strong, when he gets where he's going." She didn't believe in the Immortals, she told him then, and suddenly, when Arlo observed the particular set of her jaw and the flash in her eyes, he knew who this was. Whose dream he'd trespassed upon. But she couldn't know, and shouldn't. "How can you not believe?" he said. "They're as real as you or me." Then, she insisted, if they were real then she hated them. One of them had come for her grandfather, is what her grandmother had told her. To take him away.

He knew who the dreamer was. There was no doubt in Arlo's mind. But why was she dreaming herself a child again? And why now, her grandfather's death so very long ago? And for that matter, why was it this dream of hers that he'd stumbled into when their paths in Emea had never crossed before. And late in coming, Arlo realized that Lyova, the little companion given him by Jesine to watch over and protect him in the dreamscape, had ushered him in but then left him alone here. He couldn't tell her. Especially her. But she hated them. Hated the Immortals for taking her grandfather away. "I think your grandmother only meant that one of them met him when it was time to go. To show him the way," he explained, but she dug in all the more. He recognized that temperamental streak. "Then I want to go too. I want to go with him," she insisted.

Arlo frowned and shook his head. "You can't do that. You can't go where he went. Not until it's time, and it won't be time for a long while yet." He should have anticipated what she said next, as the girl turned on him with narrowed eyes and demanded, "How do you know?" He shook his head, and couldn't help smiling a little. "I just do. I know lots of things that you don't yet." A long time from now, arcs and arcs, Arlo told her, her grandfather would be there, smiling and waiting to take her hand in his and show her the way. But in the meantime, she had things to do. "What things?" she insisted. "You have to learn things, and you have to become a grownup," he said. "Get married." She wrinkled her nose in distaste, when he went on to tell her that she'd make family of her own. Arlo genuinely grinned then and shrugged.

"Maybe you'll be a mother, and because it's your boy's favorite, maybe you'll learn to make jam with peaches and pecan nuts." The girl crossed her arms across her small chest and snorted. "That sounds gross." Ignoring her, Arlo shrugged. "And maybe one trial, your boy will wander off in the woods when you've told him not to...and you'll worry. But you'll forgive him because he'll be a lot like you are now." In truth, Arlo had only just realized it. How much like her he was in spirit. And still he wondered why now. "The point is, you've got a lot to do, and your grandfather wouldn't like it very much if you followed him too soon." That last bit at least seemed to strike home. He wouldn't like it if she didn't do all the things he'd always said she could do.

But then Arlo looked up, and the people gathered by the shore had turned round and were on their way across the sand. It was time. "I've got to go now," he said and stood up. "Why? Can't you stay?" she asked. "Because it's time, that's why. I can't stay but I'll see you again. And I'll write if you want me to Nella." She'd like that, she said as he turned to go but then she called out again once she realized he'd called her by name. "Hey, how do you know my name? What's yours?" He shrugged, smiled and told her that she could call him whatever she liked, and that would suit him just fine. And then, before she could say anymore, with a tip of his hat, Arlo was gone.
word count: 999
User avatar
Arlo Creede
Approved Character
Posts: 1386
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2017 9:15 pm
Race: Mortal Born
Profession: Cassion's Champion
Renown: 820
Character Sheet
Character Wiki
Templates
Point Bank Thread
Wealth Tier: Tier 5

Falling Awake

Image
Epilogue to a Dream


It was the morning after dreaming of his mother, after joining her in her own dream, that Arlo sat down by the fire to write a letter. He'd waited until he could be alone, when Vega was gone, off hunting or wandering around the market in town. He'd promised a letter before he'd left home more than a season ago and hadn't done it. He'd promised again after his mother had sent a letter with Vega, and he still hadn't done it. He hadn't thought it was important. Or at least he thought there was all the time in the world. So why worry or rush? The details of the dream were still fresh in his mind though. And if they hadn't been, and he'd thought of stalling, his little diri friend had pushed and prodded and strangely had refused to let it be.

So he wrote to his mother. He told her about his trip from Rharne to Scalvoris after he'd last seen her. He told her about the strange party he'd attended, the mysterious tower near his camp. The ice caves that he'd explored with Vega and the strange ice statues they'd found there. He asked after Jonas, thanked her for the preserves she'd sent with Vega since they were his favorite. He wrote that Vega had told him to send along her 'hellos', even though she hadn't really, and he promised to write again soon and even visit. As soon as he'd written the last line, Arlo sealed the letter and addressed it, then walked to the docks of Scalvoris to find a ship that would carry it to Rharne. It would be a full seventy-six trials before it reached it's destination. But as fate would have it, his mother would never read the letter.

A full eighty trials had passed since Arlo had seen his letter off at the docks, and he hadn't thought any more about it. But on the ninety-ninth trial of Vhalar, a messenger wandered into the camp he shared with Vega, with a letter for him It was from home, but it struck him right away that the handwriting on sealed scroll wasn't his mother's. It was his stepfather's hand, he was sure, and with a deep frown and uneasy feeling, Arlo wandered away from camp to read it. His own letter would have reached Rharne by now, just a couple trials ago. But recalling his dream, this one must have been sent just a trial or three after he'd dreamed of his mother.

He'd come to wonder if Lyova had known. If maybe Jesine had known and had prompted his little companion and protector to usher him to the place he needed to be. He'd probably never know for sure, but the solemn way the little diri looked at him while he read the letter made it seem more likely than not. It was sudden, his stepfather told him. Over the course of a handful of trials. A fever that had outdone all of the healer's attempts and skills. She'd been afraid at first, Jonas wrote. But the night before she passed, she'd enjoyed a strangely peaceful sleep, and no longer seemed afraid. 'She dreamed about you Arlo. Except it's not exactly what she said', he wrote. 'She said she dreamed with you, but with the fever, she wasn't in her right mind. Except she seemed more clear headed than she had been for trials. I don't really understand how or why. But she told me when I wrote, to tell you that she loves you. She said that some trial a long time from now, after you've done what you're supposed to, she'll be waiting to take your hand. And she told me to thank you, to tell you that it was better than any old letter.'

There was another line at the bottom, scrawled there as an afterthought. 'She said I should send this to you. She wanted you to have it and that she thought you might remember it. I don't know why you would. Far as I know it's been in an old box in the attic since she was a young girl. At least that's what she told me.' As if he knew what was in it already, Arlo pulled off a small leather pouch that had been attached to the bottom of the scroll, beneath Jonas's signature. Emptying the contents into a trembling hand, a leather loop tumbled out, along with an old, carved wooden charm in the shape of a crescent moon. And the little fellow perched on the lower scoop of the moon wore a hat, very much like his own.
word count: 821
User avatar
Pegasus Pug!!!
City Moderator
City Moderator
Posts: 10449
Joined: Sun Sep 11, 2016 1:08 am
Race: Prophet
Renown: 666
Plot Notes
Office
Templates
Point Bank Thread
Wealth Tier: Tier 1

Falling Awake

Arlo

Overview

It's rare to come across a thread that deals with such a topic and does so like this. It's beautiful. It's poignant and it's beautiful. I could go on (and on and on) about it, but it's a fantastically written thread and just.. wow. Poor Arlo. Poor Nella, I liked her!

Points

XP: 10

Fame: None

Loot

+ 1 leather & wood necklace

Knowledge

none requested.
word count: 70
Image
~~Red in hoof and claw... ~~


Family visiting. Send help!
Post Reply Request an XP Review Claim Wealth Thread

Return to “The Fall & Before”