In the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep.

[Vega]

1st
Trial
of
Zi'da
Arc 717

following this

It was, as far as she could tell, the middle of the night or at least the early breaks of the morning, but Vega knew that she wasn't sleeping any more. After the dream with her familiar, she'd woken up and tried to get back to sleep but to no avail. Her entirely comfortable bedroll was no longer comfortable at all. She had an itch in her leg, then she couldn't get comfortable. Wrapping her arms around Bert, her stuffed bear, Vega frowned deeply and closed her eyes and then, finally, she'd let out a yell of frustration and flung Bert across the tent. It was big, now, their tent. She'd had a two person tent to begin with and he had a one person one and she'd sewn them together. But still, it was claustrophobic and she had to get out of there.

The snow was falling and so Vega pulled on her boots and her coat and pulled her blanket with her, then made her way out to go and sit by the fire. Pulling on her wooly hat, the one with the earflaps which Arlo teased her about, she busied herself making a cup of tea and then sat, pulled the blanket around herself, put on her gloves and cradled the mug of tea in her hands and looked up at the sky. Leaning, her back against a tree, Vega felt a sense of calmness wash over her at the sight of the stars. She didn't have the biqaj ability to know the stars, not like her family did but then they were full blooded biqaj and her silver was diluted with Sev'ryn blood. Unknown to her as it was, that was far from evident at the moment, the firelight reflecting off her blood and causing a slight glow all over her where the silver liquid shone through her skin.

Sipping her tea, Vega concentrated in the way her father had tried to teach her. She knew that, if she looked in the mirror right now, her eyes would be awash with different colours. That was her familiar she had dreamed of. Iris. It was a flower and a rainbow and a strange mixture of bird and flunny but Vega knew that it was right. She was right for her, they were for each other. They hadn't been to the Sweetwine Woods, her and Arlo, so it would be fun to go there, but in this weather it was going to be a trek and then some. And bees? Why did it have to be bees? Why not.. giant undead spiders, Vega thought with a grin. That would be so much easier considering that last time she'd run up against those she'd frozen in fright.

Between the combination of the dreams which were plaguing her due to her familiar being so close and the discomfort which was as strong from Arlo being so far away, Vega was absolutely exhausted and she looked it. Yet, her face lifted into a smile as she considered. She was going to have to go, she knew, but she also was absolutely certain that she was not going to do anything until he was home.

As the snow fell around her, in the open but wrapped up warm and with warm clothes on her next to the fire which didn't go out thanks to the Yellow Dragon wood, Vega felt more comfortable and relaxed than she had in the tent and, leaning her head against the tree, she felt her eyes start to close as she finally fell asleep.

[Arlo Creede]

[img]/gallery/image ... e_id=10180[/img]

So far as Arlo could tell, any number of trials ago he'd been snatched up out of his bed and Vega's arms, from the dead of sleep. Impossibly, maybe, so far as anyone else could imagine. Except, Immortals. But being a dreamwalker himself and blessed by Jesine herself, it had made a strange sort of sense. Even if his body and belongings had been taken along for the ride. Of course in spite of being dreamwalker and having been fully lucid, he'd never had a real sense of the passage of time. It might have been breaks, trials or even a season.

That was the least of it though, so far as wrapping his head around it. He'd only know that he'd remember every bit of it. And he'd know that unlike ordinary dreams, it had been real. He'd never known either how he'd get back home. Back to Scalvoris, back to camp. Back to Vega. He'd somehow imagined that he might be put aboard a ship, or put down some distance away during the middle of the trial and gone walking back home. Turned out though, he was put back exactly the way he'd been taken. Except that apparently since he'd been gone, some things had changed.

The dropping in, such as it was, was a disconcerting experience, as if his body arrived just a split trill, or two, ahead of his awareness. It was dizzying, confounding rush of consciousness when it happened. Right there, sprawled face down in the snow a few feet from the tent. The place where his bed had been just a handful of trials ago. The cold cut right through him, the falling snow was collecting in his hair and even in his confused state, Arlo was pretty sure he was laying on top of a good sized rock buried beneath the snow. Raising his head up, he blinked and looked around. "Vega?"

[Vega]

1st
Trial
of
Zi'da
Arc 717

It was strange to be so comfortable, sitting on the ground with her back against a tree, but Vega was just that. The thick blanket her father had given her a few trials ago was wrapped around her and she was warm and snug. So, when sleep took her, it took her hard and by the time Arlo arrived back in their camp, she had been resting soundly there for maybe a break. Which meant, of course, that there was a covering of snow on her, although a light one since the tree provided cover.

Of course, the snow was everywhere, but he would see that there were changes, indeed, in the camp they shared. Vega had sewn together the two tents and moved them to where the one newly formed tent would get the most protection from the wind. She’d covered the larger tent with a tarpaulin and secured it firmly. Other than that, he might notice the four new bits of what seemed to be furniture, of a sort. A wooden bench and two individual chairs, high backed and made from a variety of different woods; there was no uniformity to them but instead each was created with the aim of bringing out and showing off the wood itself. They were deep and comfortable looking and, it had to be said, if Vega had made them her carpentry skills had improved.

She was fast asleep against the tree, a cup which had held tea next to her, filling with drifts of snow and, there was no doubt, she’d used his cast iron pan again. It was next to the fire which burned continuously thanks to the Yellow Dragon Wood. Vega was wrapped in a blanket, thick and woollen which he wouldn’t recognise but which looked very warm indeed. As he moved and at the sound of his voice, her eyes opened and she sat up, suddenly.

”Arlo?” Vega said, although her face already showed that she thought she’d been dreaming of him. However, as her waking eyes caught sight of him, Vega grinned. Delight lit her features as sleep left her and she realised that he was, actually there. Then, however, she looked at him and a quizzical expression crossed her face. ”Why are you lyin’ on the ground?” She was already scrabbling up, and she was quick to cross the distance between them. Last time he’d left for a night, they’d ended up shouting at each other and her father had turned up, it had not been a pleasant experience for either of them and she looked at him with some concern in her eyes. ”You alright? Like, you know, not ‘urt or anythin’?” Stepping the last step so that she was as close to him as she could be, Vega wrapped her arms around his waist and looked up into his eyes with mostly relief, but a little uncertainty, too. ”I missed you. I got well bored an’ did stuff.” That much was obvious looking around the place. ”How about you?” She asked, with a cheeky smile. ”What’ve you been up to?”

[Arlo Creede]

[img]/gallery/image ... e_id=10180[/img]

Why was he lying on the ground? Frowning, pulling himself up further off the ground and dusting the snow off his clothing, he shook his head. "I think they were trying to put me back in bed where they got me. Except that the bed's been moved," he concluded and then grinned a little as he looked around him. Noticing the changes that had occurred since he'd been gone, Arlo raised a brow. An approving one. "Looks like more than the bed's been moved."

He'd take more of it in later, but for now Arlo could honestly say he'd never been happier to see her. And he crossed the ground between them and met Vega halfway. He cut off the barrage of questions and chatter midstream by taking her in his arms and kissing her as he rarely had before. He'd experienced things while he was gone that he'd never have imagined he would. And so much more than that. But he'd missed her, and couldn't be happier to have been dropped off at home again.

"I missed you," he said, in case she hadn't figured it out. "And I'm more than alright. I can see that too." She'd done quite a lot, so far as he could tell. The tent they'd share was much larger. There were places to sit and put things that hadn't been there before. Not thrown together things either, but things that made their camp much more a home than ever before. "You've been busy. How long has it been?" he wondered. To him, it had felt as if no more than a trial had passed.

So, what had he been up to? Taking Vega by the hand and walking back to the fire to have a seat there, he tossed his bag down on the ground. "Oh, you know. Solved a few puzzles, rubbed elbows with a couple Immortals. Got shot at...Or just shot," he said. "Cassion was there," he told her then. "I got the chance to talk with him for a time." Judging by the tone of his voice when he said it, his expression, it seemed that so far as he was concerned, all the rest had paled in comparison.

"What about you? You been alright? Any trouble?" he asked. Arlo didn't say it exactly, but he wasn't just asking about the kind of trouble that came from bandits on the road, pickpockets in the market or giant snakes in the jungle. He was curious to know if her cousins had given her any more trouble while he'd been gone. If they had, he was going to be calling on them in the very near future.

[Vega]

1st
Trial
of
Zi'da
Arc 717

He met her half way, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her and Vega let out a squeal of surprise, delight and relief. She'd been mid sentence, but she couldn't have told him what she was going to say as he pulled her close and their lips met. Her hands moved to behind his neck, her response to him fierce and filled with emotion. Pulling herself against him, Vega murmured against his lips, "I love you." She'd said it in reply to him before (eventually, and with an insult attached to it), yelled at him that she'd fallen in love with him, but she'd never just outright said it first. When he told her that he'd missed her, she already knew but she smiled in pleasure. He was more than alright? What had happened, Vega wondered. He'd tell her what he wanted to when he did, she wouldn't push it. Right now, she was quite content to simply stand, wrapped in each others' arms and relief at being reunited threatening to overwhelm her.

When he said he'd missed her, though, she looked at him. Her eyes were vivid green with thick swirls of gold in them. "Good," she whispered and smiled. "I missed you too. What? Oh, yeah." She'd been busy, he was right. It had been in part, or in fairness in totality, to distract from being miserable. It had worried her slightly, she didn't want him thinking that she was trying to get all domestic and build-a-home, but those worries seemed silly and miles away now. "It's the first of Zi'da," she said with a smile. "It's been three trials. An' three nights. I've 'ad to resort to bringin' another man into our camp. Me an' Bert 'ave fallen out, though." The solid and vivid colour of her eyes told of the depth and intensity of her emotion and it wasn't shifting at all. "He hogs the bed," she said, mock serious.

She wasn't letting go of his hand, or him any time soon and when they sat, she draped her legs over his, her arms around his waist. Just as she nestled her head against his shoulder, listening to him about how he'd solved puzzles and rubbed shoulders with Immortals, Vega's head suddenly lifted and her hand moved from a gentle caress of his to suddenly roaming over his chest, trying to find out where he was hurt. "Shot? Where? Who shot you?" Gone was the relaxed embrace sitting together, her hands were urgently searching him to find where he was injured. "Arlo? Where are ... Cassion? What happened?" It was the tone of his voice, when he said that he and Cassion had the chance to talk for a time. It was significant, more than anything else and her hands stopped searching for the wound which she was now fairly confident wasn't there.

He asked her about what had happened here, though, and Vega shook her head. "Stop tryin' to change the subject. I'm fine, no trouble, just the opposite. Good stuff with my Papa, an some sort of closure with my cousins. Familiar stuff, camp stuff. I'll tell you all about all of it later. I promise." Reaching her hand up, she buried it in his hair and she looked at him with her vivid and suddenly serious eyes. "Somethin's changed, somethin's different for you? What happened?"

[Arlo Creede]

[img]/gallery/image ... e_id=10180[/img]

"Three trials?" Arlo wondered as they sat, embraced in each other's arms by the fire. "It didn't feel like it. It felt like breaks, maybe a trial. It was like a dream that way. In a number of ways I guess. But not like the sort I'm used to." He was fully lucid, yes, in the same way that all of them seemed to be. He hadn't been able, or at least he hadn't tried to bend reality in the way he was accustomed to doing when walking in Emea. Come to think of it, maybe he should have tried, Arlo thought belatedly. For the sake of experimenting at least.

Should he be jealous, he wondered aloud when Vega talked about Bert. He was joking, of course, and it was good to be back here where it was just their way of being. But when she worried about him being shot, he reached up and took her hand in his to still it. "I'm fine. Cassion didn't want any violence, we gave him our word. But there were others, or at least one that didn't abide by it. She fired on several of us, hoping to stop or slow us down. It was healed though. I had a scar afterwards, but I'm not even sure it's still there." Arlo wouldn't know, he guessed, until he shed his leather armor and clothing and had a look.

But she told him just enough of what had happened while he was gone, for him to know that there was more to it. But promised to tell him later. Arlo wouldn't press. He was back now, and that was what mattered. "Changed? What's changed?" he asked when she said it. Was he different somehow? "I don't know," he said honestly. "I mean mostly it was a game. Sure, one contrived by Cassion, but a competition all the same. Some were focused on winning, and just winning. But I don't know," he admitted. "Being there seemed more important somehow." At least for him in had.

He'd spoken with Cassion though, he told her. Just the two of them. "He told me to write down my stories. And that he was sorry about my mother, and he meant it. He told me too that he'd known her, he'd met her before," Arlo added with a curious frown. "I asked him if she'd known it was him because she'd never said anything about it. He didn't exactly answer, but he said he'd met her while she was pregnant with me. And he told me a little of what she was like then. I'd never known her like that," he admitted.

[Vega]

1st
Trial
of
Zi'da
Arc 717

"You see," she said when he took her hand in his, stilling her search for a wound that wasn't there, "right there, that's what I missed." Motioning to their hands there together where he had stopped her frantic worrying at him, she considered the truth of that. When she was with him she had moments of being more calm than she'd ever been in her life. Of course, she had to admit that he also made her crazy to the point that she could kill. It was a balance. He'd been shot but Cassion didn't want violence so he'd been healed? Vega looked at him sternly, like it was his fault that he'd put himself in front of the arrow but then her expression shifted to one of teasing. "I'll be sure to thoroughly check later. You never know, migh' be one of those lesser-known roamin' scars. I'd best jus' make sure." As she said it, she looked rather surprised at herself and she hugged him, fiercely. "Xiur's perky nips, Arlo, do you see 'ow much I missed you? I think that's the firs' time I've ever flirted with anyone." Frowning, mock-seriously, she considered. "I dun't think I'm very good at it." She shrugged slightly, not really concerned if she was, or wasn't. It wasn't likely to become a pastime or hobby, after all.

What had changed? Vega held on to him and shook her head. "It was a question, not a statement," she clarified. He seemed to be.. no, he wasn't changed by the experience as such, but it had been a significant one, she thought. Though significant in what way, she wasn't entirely sure. It was about Cassion, she knew, but he had an expression which spoke of more than that.

Then, what more it was about became obvious as Arlo spoke about his mother. Vega listened to him, her frown showing that she was doing so intently, concentrating on his words. "That's amazin', Arlo," she said softly. What did it mean, though, she wondered? Was Cassion particularly interested in him for some reason? How had the Immortal known his mother? If all of those questions were running through her mind, what must be running through his, Vega wondered. The person Cassion spoke of, when he spoke of Nella Creede was a person Arlo didn't recognise? Vega thought she might have an idea and she felt curiosity build within her as she asked, "are you more like 'er than you thought, Arlo?" Nella had understood Arlo's need to be free, Vega thought, in a way that most parents wouldn't. She was quick to add, though, in case he didn't want to answer. "It must be a lot to take in. Write your stories down? That's int'restin." She guessed that would mean keeping a journal of more than just his dreams.

Reaching up, she pulled him to her as she lifted her head to kiss him. It was a lot for him to take in, there was no doubt and Vega thought that his mind must be swirling and running in laps. For her, she was relieved that he was back, safe and whole. It had been a surprise to her just how much she'd missed him. Or maybe it wasn't, really, she admitted to herself. "So, it's the middle of the night an' bloody freezin'. We should go to bed." Vega suddenly grinned at him, aware that when she said that she wasn't good at flirting, she really was not joking. "I'm not tired."

[Arlo Creede]

[img]/gallery/image ... e_id=10180[/img]

"You won't hear me complaining any," he said when Vega promised to give him a better looking over, later in private once they'd gone off to bed. In fact it couldn't happen too soon for him. And she was wrong about one thing, that was for sure. "Flirting looks good one you. But only when it's with me." Of course anyone else she'd have chosen to flirt with would probably have disagreed with him. But if he had his way, they'd never get to find out.

As for Cassion and the nature of the conversation that he and the Immortal had had together, the questions running through Vega's mind had also churned round in his. And it was his nature, and the extent of his imagination, and the timing Cassion had referenced that had brought to the fore some outlandish ones along with those that were perfectly logical.

"Judging by what he told me, I guess I am," he said when she wondered if he was more like his mother than he'd ever believed he was. "I only knew her growing up," he said, stating the obvious. "After she was married to my stepfather. She always seemed content to be a farmer's wife and to stay put there."

To think that it hadn't always been the case, caused him to revisit moments he'd witnessed or experienced growing up, that only seemed telling in retrospect. "She was...well she wanted to do things. Like be a painter, or a musician or an actress. It seems like she wanted to see and experience things but never did. But maybe it explains things that I didn't understand back then." Like how he'd been gone, wandering in the woods for trials when he was very little. But when the peddler he'd never seen before and never had seen again brought him back, she'd never been angry with him or even insisted that he stay closer under her wing after that.

"I always thought that even though I never knew who my father was, that I'd gotten my urges to wander from him. Maybe I did. But maybe I didn't. Maybe it was her," he concluded with a thoughtful frown. There were other questions too, but she was gone and he wouldn't be getting the answers anytime soon. All that was forgotten though when she lifted Vega lifted her head for a kiss, and he dipped his own and obliged in kind. More than in kind. Being so close, drinking in the sight, the scent and the feel of her reminded him that it might only have felt like he'd been away no more than a trial, he'd missed her. It might as well have been a dozen trials or more. "I'm not tired either," he said then with a grin as he stood and pulled her up with him. "To bed."

[Muse]

Your review is ready!

Welcome home, Arlo! What a strange adventure. You two reuniting was really cute, and I'm really loving the character development I've been reading all of Vhalar. Adorable with just the right amount of sass, as always.

Vega

Points

XP:
15 | These points can/cannot be used for magic.

Fame:
NA

Loot

N/A

Injuries + Overstepping

N/A

Knowledge

Skill Knowledge:
Fieldcraft: Keeping the camp warm with yellow dragon wood
Fieldcraft: Wrapping up against the cold
Meditation: Try to find the space of inner calm
Meditation: Hard to meditate when you're warm, comfortable and tired.

Other Knowledge:
N/A

Arlo

Points

XP:
15 | These points can/cannot be used for magic.

Fame:
N/A

Loot

N/A

Injuries + Overstepping

N/A

Knowledge

Skill Knowledge:
Endurance: Sudden cold is a shock
Investigation: Putting together historical clues
Investigation: Identifying patterns of behaviour
Storytelling: Giving a flippant overview.
Storytelling: Provide a summary of important points
Storytelling: The tale of your meeting with Cassion

Other Knowledge:
N/A

If you've got a question or concern or if I've missed anything, don't hesitate to PM me!

Now that your review is complete,
don’t forget go back to your review post here and drop this image in!

Code: Select all

[center][img]/gallery/image.php?album_id=39&image_id=12206[/img][/center]