There was no other way to look at it. Daia had set him an utterly impossible task. Find a place where people and Jacadons could live together harmoniously. Bring them all together, under a common understanding. Teach them to work together and become a united force. That was fine and all when he was the one handling Jacadons. Where in Idalos had Daia gotten it into her head that he could do this with other people though?!
Ever since arriving in Scalvoris with his contingent of Jacadons, he'd not moved from the hill he'd first landed upon. Scorn lay a short distance away, splayed out upon a hill and lost in a deep sleep. Occasional movements in his chest were about the only sign that the great beast was still alive, and Nir'wei watched each one with baited breath. They'd come so close to losing him before, he didn't trust a moment away now. Of course, he wasn't the only one either. Though the Jacadon broods technically had free reign of their new land, and swarmed the air high above to scout out potential resting grounds, they were yet to travel any further than the seafront. Even now, a glance eastwards could see them rising into the sky before diving into the waters, emerging with fish clasped between their jaws. The fact that they were still within eyeshot of Scorn was no accident.
Just because they hadn't moved far, didn't mean their presence wasn't known, though.
Reaching the Scalvoris Mountains on the east coast had meant crossing the airspace of much of Scalvoris. Large towns and small villages alike had spotted the flock first-hand, and those that didn't, soon heard the rumours. The presence of Daia herself, and Scorn visibly towering over beasts that already threatened to dwarf the local Enormowl and Sohr Khal divisions of their Element escort, only made the spectacle that much more enticing.
Nir'wei himself, standing atop Scorn's back, was the icing on the cake. His little temporary encampment, set far from society to specifically avoid the crowds and keep to himself, made him all too easy to find when the first of the local lookie-loos came sniffing for a peek at the great beasts and the Natural Affairs Councillor responsible for them. They came to gawk, they brought their children to point and stare as another of the great Jacadon took off with a sweeping motion of its wings. They didn't come far, though. Egilrun was only a few breaks' walk away.
That didn't last for long, though.
Most arrived from Scalvoris Town, and some few later from Darbyton. A few, even all the way from Gunvorton, if the chatter was to be believed, but he could scarcely believe that people would voluntarily travel across the entirety of Scalvoris just for a sighting. Some had taken boats from Faldrass too, and Almund, though they'd heard nothing but rumours and hearsay, and Nir'wei had to ensure the carrier pigeons they sent back to their relatives to confirm the spectacle didn't become mid-flight snacks for the Jacadons, since the people didn't keep a good distance while releasing them. In fact, they didn't seem intent on keeping distance at all. They let their children walk right up to his wolves, ever-vigilant as they scanned the land and skies for interlopers, and pet their fur as though they were common dogs. Some of them made small trips to Egilrun and returned with dried meats heaped in their packs, which they then distributed to the other hungry visitors for reasonable sums. A musician arrived at one point, and found good money in entertaining the crowd with a small tune about the Jacadons and their apparent fascination with gold and riches. He didn't know where the singer found her inspiration, but it made for a jaunty tune.
That was all good and well. Let the people have their moment and all, he thought - they all needed a little wonder and magic from time to time, and as long as they weren't causing an upset to the Jacadon, he wasn't about to put a stop to it. Only, as the spectacle wore on, and he glanced back to the small crowd, he swore that it seemed a little bigger. Instead of pre-made dried meats and pastries, he spotted a wide cooking pot set upon a tripod over a small fresh-made fire, with soup bubbling away inside and a modest collection of earthenware pots stacked next to it. Where before there had just been a few bedrolls, he spotted a couple constructing a simple tent, their children arranging their belongings next to it in piles to cover with thin tarp to protect it from the elements.
This was beginning to feel less and less temporary.
On the third trial, and for the first time, Nir'wei was forced to intervene when a member of the crowd finally plucked up enough courage to approach one of the Jacadon broods and reach out to grab at its snout. The great beast recoiled and stepped away from the intruder, but as he continued walking forwards, unwittingly entering its territory and stepping dangerously close to its young, the creature gave a sharp, warning hiss that the man didn't seem to heed well enough.
Before the creature could snap at him and cause an incident, Nir'wei whistled and Myrth's jaws snapped around the back of the man's shirt, dragging him fiercely away from the Jacadon until his backside was covered in mud stains. "What the HELL do you think you're doing?!" Nir'wei hissed as he finally rose from his station and stormed down the hill, towards the rapidly coalescing crowd.
"Well, y'know, I've handled Enormowls myself before, y'know, and so I thought well, they can't be much, y'know, different..." He trailed off under Nir'weis stare, clearly quite shaken.
Nir'wei paused, letting it sink in for a long, agonising moment. "You thought you could just... what, exactly? Jump up on their back and take off like it was just another Enormowl?" The sheer incredulity of his tone made it difficult to actually sound annoyed, though his expression did most of the work on that front. "Is that why you came here?" Their conversation wasn't private. This was the first time since they'd begun arriving that he'd directly addressed the crowds at all, and even if they weren't here for him, his voice and presence held clear weight here, in the shadow of the Jacadons. It might have been his imagination but it felt like there was more to it than just that, too. They were waiting for him to say something in particular, even if he didn't know what that was himself. The man, the stranger, gave a sheepish nod. Nir'wei sighed in frustration. "No. You can't just hop on the back of a Jacadon and treat it like some common horse. Nor an Enormowl. Nor even a Sohr Khal. They are noble, prideful creatures. They will only accept those they deem worthy."
"What makes someone worthy?" came a quick call from somewhere else, near the back of the group where he couldn't make out the caller. General noises of agreement followed from elsewhere, and were taken up by the people. Were they all here for the same reason?
He turned slightly, from singling out the trespasser alone to address the wider group, who had now largely turn towards him. "It's a combination of many things. The way you stand, talk and handle yourself. Many will test you through direct combat. Though you can't hope to completely subdue one yourself, you need to be able to hold your own enough that the Jacadon acknowledges your threat. Finally, riding skill. Without it, you'll be thrown off straight away... and that's if you're lucky, because these things fly straight up on take-off, and even an Enormowl rider can explain the difference between a ten-foot drop and a fifty-foot one." He'd unknowingly slipped back into a lecturing tone at the first opportunity, and only realised at the end, noticing the slightly glazed look in a few eyes. "Anyway. Forget about it. Unless you've lived among them, it's not happening."
He was ready to turn away again, already reaching out to scratch Myrth behind the ears for a job well done, but the trespasser's voice called out to him again and forced him to stop. "So what if we do, then?"
"Do what?" he asked.
There was something more firm in his eyes, more confident. "Live among them." The murmurs were back. This time they were stronger though, and Nir'wei realised that now, all eyes really were on him. Excited whispers echoed at the back, and children looked up at him with eyes so wide he could make out his reflection in them. What in the world was happening here? "Isn't that what you're doing?" he asked, pushing the issue when Nir'wei hesitated. He'd been about to say no, but he was finding a hard way to say it in such a way it wouldn't somehow embolden them to do it in spite of his denial. That's what he'd do, if someone told him he couldn't.
"Do what you want," he said at last. "I won't stop you." He turned, and walked just a few steps up the hill towards his encampment once again, but those steps were enough for excited whispers and conversations to practically erupt behind him. They were already coming up with names for their own Jacadons and debating which of them would be the fastest. Then he spun around again. "Listen up, though!" he called out, this time truly addressing the crowd in its entirety. "I have brought these Jacadon here under a promise of safety, and protection. They are not beasts of burden, nor playthings. They are individuals, as unique and varied as each of you people... and they deserve the same respect that you would give any of those you stand next to." He paused. "As do all beasts you see here. If you cannot abide this rule, then leave."
With that, he turned for the last time and begun the climb back to his camp. Honestly, he thought, what were they thinking? Of course he'd expected some spectacle, a few tourists and a bit of ruckus, but this was far beyond that. What could have come into their mind to think to uproot themselves like this? Was it really just the Jacadons, or was it something else? They certainly seemed to focus on him an awful lot, but that seemed more like a coincidence; he was a Councillor, and one with quite a reputation built in Scalvoris these days. Just another spectacle, probably.
The bedroll was calling to him. Cold, Myrth and their group would take the night watch so he could take some much needed time-off and rest his eyes, because he seriously needed some--
A cough behind him had him spinning, and the crowd recoiled. The one that had been at the bottom of the hill. The one now at the top of the hill. HIS hill.
"What the-- what the hell do you think you're doing?!" he asked for the second time that day... in a very different tone of voice.
The same trespasser, still at the front of the group, stepped forwards, wringing his hands together. "Well, we want to live among them. Live among the Jacadons, as you do." His attention visibly moved from the Jacadons nearby to the wolves currently watching him from multiple angles. "And all beasts," he added quickly. "You said we could, technically. And since you're the one living among them, we figured... y'know." Were they being serious? Though he scanned their eyes, he couldn't find one that wasn't fixed on him. This was crazy. Absolutely, incredibly crazy. He couldn't imagine what could be going through their heads to consider that this was possibly a good idea, and it must have shown on his face, because the man took another step forwards. "Please." Insane or not, he was certainly sincere, and nobody else had moved from their spot.
Nir'wei felt himself at a tipping point, and held his breath for a long moment, his heart pounding in his chest. "Be honest with me," he said at last, raising his chin to address them all. "Is this really just because of the Jacadons?"
He'd expected silence, long and awkward, as the group shuffled and considered their narrow-minded goals and the extreme measures they'd taken for such a childish pipe-dream. Instead, one of the crowd stepped forwards as though she'd been waiting for the question to be asked, and blurted out with a heartfelt earnestly. "I like dogs!" Well... that was something.
"I've run a stable for arcs," an old man said from the fringe of the group, yet it seemed the crowd shuffled around to make room for him the moment he spoke, and though he never took a step, he was soon just as well-framed as the young woman that'd spoken a moment ago. "It was my father's, and his father's. Though horses are my life, I've never felt... I could share it with someone else. So I came." That... yeah, that was nice, but that hardly explained as much as he probably thought.
"I want to talk to birds!" piped a young child from somewhere. "My farm is failing, and I don't know what to do," said someone else. He thought he picked out more, but soon there were several voices overlapping one another, and the words drowned beneath overlapping sources of noise. It was all he could do to stop them before he was deafened beneath the wall of sound they produced.
This wasn't right. All this time he'd assumed they were vacationers, looking for their own five minutes of excitement near to a rare spectacle. Perhaps that's what most of them had been at first, or these were the few left behind as the crowds swelled and ebbed throughout the last few days, while his attention had been elsewhere. They struck more like pilgrims, though. Those that might be like him... or could be, with proper guidance and training, just waiting for the right opportunity to present themselves, to make the leap from the common life into something new, and exciting, and different. Perhaps the Jacadons swirling overhead were just the lightning-rod event needed to set their minds. Or it had simply drawn them all to the same place at once, at precisely the right moment. Whatever it was, they looked to him. Every set of eyes was on him, and in the wake of their pleas, the silence of anticipation was so quiet that not even a breeze stirred.
Daia's impossible task... had somehow solved itself, apparently. "Well, first of all. You... we shouldn't stay here. Better to travel further towards the bottom of the mountain, and set up at the edge of that valley over there, I think. You can't set tents up like that either, it's going to get far too messy... if we're going to do this, we should set it up right. Come on, everyone, follow the wolf. He'll show you to Grey's den..." Oh, that had a nice ring to it, actually.
When the suns rose on the fourth trial, the hill he'd sat upon since arriving with the Jacadons lay empty. Instead, within the shadow of the Scalvoris Mountains, a new encampment had formed of some several small tents, set with cooking utensils and pots, collected neatly around small semi-permanent fires and wooden racks for drying clothes and pelts, the beginnings of some small rudimentary gardens he'd had them dig out for herbs and small root vegetables, and an arrangement of torches on high wooden stakes to act as little watchtowers. It would take time for the people to get used to the roaming patrols of wolves, and even longer to get used to the nearby Jacadons that still watched them with wary eyes... but their first lesson, as their new leader, was in proper handling of the young wolves of his pack. Most importantly, how to give the best ear scritches, while stressing the importance of administering them every day...
Ever since arriving in Scalvoris with his contingent of Jacadons, he'd not moved from the hill he'd first landed upon. Scorn lay a short distance away, splayed out upon a hill and lost in a deep sleep. Occasional movements in his chest were about the only sign that the great beast was still alive, and Nir'wei watched each one with baited breath. They'd come so close to losing him before, he didn't trust a moment away now. Of course, he wasn't the only one either. Though the Jacadon broods technically had free reign of their new land, and swarmed the air high above to scout out potential resting grounds, they were yet to travel any further than the seafront. Even now, a glance eastwards could see them rising into the sky before diving into the waters, emerging with fish clasped between their jaws. The fact that they were still within eyeshot of Scorn was no accident.
Just because they hadn't moved far, didn't mean their presence wasn't known, though.
Reaching the Scalvoris Mountains on the east coast had meant crossing the airspace of much of Scalvoris. Large towns and small villages alike had spotted the flock first-hand, and those that didn't, soon heard the rumours. The presence of Daia herself, and Scorn visibly towering over beasts that already threatened to dwarf the local Enormowl and Sohr Khal divisions of their Element escort, only made the spectacle that much more enticing.
Nir'wei himself, standing atop Scorn's back, was the icing on the cake. His little temporary encampment, set far from society to specifically avoid the crowds and keep to himself, made him all too easy to find when the first of the local lookie-loos came sniffing for a peek at the great beasts and the Natural Affairs Councillor responsible for them. They came to gawk, they brought their children to point and stare as another of the great Jacadon took off with a sweeping motion of its wings. They didn't come far, though. Egilrun was only a few breaks' walk away.
That didn't last for long, though.
Most arrived from Scalvoris Town, and some few later from Darbyton. A few, even all the way from Gunvorton, if the chatter was to be believed, but he could scarcely believe that people would voluntarily travel across the entirety of Scalvoris just for a sighting. Some had taken boats from Faldrass too, and Almund, though they'd heard nothing but rumours and hearsay, and Nir'wei had to ensure the carrier pigeons they sent back to their relatives to confirm the spectacle didn't become mid-flight snacks for the Jacadons, since the people didn't keep a good distance while releasing them. In fact, they didn't seem intent on keeping distance at all. They let their children walk right up to his wolves, ever-vigilant as they scanned the land and skies for interlopers, and pet their fur as though they were common dogs. Some of them made small trips to Egilrun and returned with dried meats heaped in their packs, which they then distributed to the other hungry visitors for reasonable sums. A musician arrived at one point, and found good money in entertaining the crowd with a small tune about the Jacadons and their apparent fascination with gold and riches. He didn't know where the singer found her inspiration, but it made for a jaunty tune.
That was all good and well. Let the people have their moment and all, he thought - they all needed a little wonder and magic from time to time, and as long as they weren't causing an upset to the Jacadon, he wasn't about to put a stop to it. Only, as the spectacle wore on, and he glanced back to the small crowd, he swore that it seemed a little bigger. Instead of pre-made dried meats and pastries, he spotted a wide cooking pot set upon a tripod over a small fresh-made fire, with soup bubbling away inside and a modest collection of earthenware pots stacked next to it. Where before there had just been a few bedrolls, he spotted a couple constructing a simple tent, their children arranging their belongings next to it in piles to cover with thin tarp to protect it from the elements.
This was beginning to feel less and less temporary.
On the third trial, and for the first time, Nir'wei was forced to intervene when a member of the crowd finally plucked up enough courage to approach one of the Jacadon broods and reach out to grab at its snout. The great beast recoiled and stepped away from the intruder, but as he continued walking forwards, unwittingly entering its territory and stepping dangerously close to its young, the creature gave a sharp, warning hiss that the man didn't seem to heed well enough.
Before the creature could snap at him and cause an incident, Nir'wei whistled and Myrth's jaws snapped around the back of the man's shirt, dragging him fiercely away from the Jacadon until his backside was covered in mud stains. "What the HELL do you think you're doing?!" Nir'wei hissed as he finally rose from his station and stormed down the hill, towards the rapidly coalescing crowd.
"Well, y'know, I've handled Enormowls myself before, y'know, and so I thought well, they can't be much, y'know, different..." He trailed off under Nir'weis stare, clearly quite shaken.
Nir'wei paused, letting it sink in for a long, agonising moment. "You thought you could just... what, exactly? Jump up on their back and take off like it was just another Enormowl?" The sheer incredulity of his tone made it difficult to actually sound annoyed, though his expression did most of the work on that front. "Is that why you came here?" Their conversation wasn't private. This was the first time since they'd begun arriving that he'd directly addressed the crowds at all, and even if they weren't here for him, his voice and presence held clear weight here, in the shadow of the Jacadons. It might have been his imagination but it felt like there was more to it than just that, too. They were waiting for him to say something in particular, even if he didn't know what that was himself. The man, the stranger, gave a sheepish nod. Nir'wei sighed in frustration. "No. You can't just hop on the back of a Jacadon and treat it like some common horse. Nor an Enormowl. Nor even a Sohr Khal. They are noble, prideful creatures. They will only accept those they deem worthy."
"What makes someone worthy?" came a quick call from somewhere else, near the back of the group where he couldn't make out the caller. General noises of agreement followed from elsewhere, and were taken up by the people. Were they all here for the same reason?
He turned slightly, from singling out the trespasser alone to address the wider group, who had now largely turn towards him. "It's a combination of many things. The way you stand, talk and handle yourself. Many will test you through direct combat. Though you can't hope to completely subdue one yourself, you need to be able to hold your own enough that the Jacadon acknowledges your threat. Finally, riding skill. Without it, you'll be thrown off straight away... and that's if you're lucky, because these things fly straight up on take-off, and even an Enormowl rider can explain the difference between a ten-foot drop and a fifty-foot one." He'd unknowingly slipped back into a lecturing tone at the first opportunity, and only realised at the end, noticing the slightly glazed look in a few eyes. "Anyway. Forget about it. Unless you've lived among them, it's not happening."
He was ready to turn away again, already reaching out to scratch Myrth behind the ears for a job well done, but the trespasser's voice called out to him again and forced him to stop. "So what if we do, then?"
"Do what?" he asked.
There was something more firm in his eyes, more confident. "Live among them." The murmurs were back. This time they were stronger though, and Nir'wei realised that now, all eyes really were on him. Excited whispers echoed at the back, and children looked up at him with eyes so wide he could make out his reflection in them. What in the world was happening here? "Isn't that what you're doing?" he asked, pushing the issue when Nir'wei hesitated. He'd been about to say no, but he was finding a hard way to say it in such a way it wouldn't somehow embolden them to do it in spite of his denial. That's what he'd do, if someone told him he couldn't.
"Do what you want," he said at last. "I won't stop you." He turned, and walked just a few steps up the hill towards his encampment once again, but those steps were enough for excited whispers and conversations to practically erupt behind him. They were already coming up with names for their own Jacadons and debating which of them would be the fastest. Then he spun around again. "Listen up, though!" he called out, this time truly addressing the crowd in its entirety. "I have brought these Jacadon here under a promise of safety, and protection. They are not beasts of burden, nor playthings. They are individuals, as unique and varied as each of you people... and they deserve the same respect that you would give any of those you stand next to." He paused. "As do all beasts you see here. If you cannot abide this rule, then leave."
With that, he turned for the last time and begun the climb back to his camp. Honestly, he thought, what were they thinking? Of course he'd expected some spectacle, a few tourists and a bit of ruckus, but this was far beyond that. What could have come into their mind to think to uproot themselves like this? Was it really just the Jacadons, or was it something else? They certainly seemed to focus on him an awful lot, but that seemed more like a coincidence; he was a Councillor, and one with quite a reputation built in Scalvoris these days. Just another spectacle, probably.
The bedroll was calling to him. Cold, Myrth and their group would take the night watch so he could take some much needed time-off and rest his eyes, because he seriously needed some--
A cough behind him had him spinning, and the crowd recoiled. The one that had been at the bottom of the hill. The one now at the top of the hill. HIS hill.
"What the-- what the hell do you think you're doing?!" he asked for the second time that day... in a very different tone of voice.
The same trespasser, still at the front of the group, stepped forwards, wringing his hands together. "Well, we want to live among them. Live among the Jacadons, as you do." His attention visibly moved from the Jacadons nearby to the wolves currently watching him from multiple angles. "And all beasts," he added quickly. "You said we could, technically. And since you're the one living among them, we figured... y'know." Were they being serious? Though he scanned their eyes, he couldn't find one that wasn't fixed on him. This was crazy. Absolutely, incredibly crazy. He couldn't imagine what could be going through their heads to consider that this was possibly a good idea, and it must have shown on his face, because the man took another step forwards. "Please." Insane or not, he was certainly sincere, and nobody else had moved from their spot.
Nir'wei felt himself at a tipping point, and held his breath for a long moment, his heart pounding in his chest. "Be honest with me," he said at last, raising his chin to address them all. "Is this really just because of the Jacadons?"
He'd expected silence, long and awkward, as the group shuffled and considered their narrow-minded goals and the extreme measures they'd taken for such a childish pipe-dream. Instead, one of the crowd stepped forwards as though she'd been waiting for the question to be asked, and blurted out with a heartfelt earnestly. "I like dogs!" Well... that was something.
"I've run a stable for arcs," an old man said from the fringe of the group, yet it seemed the crowd shuffled around to make room for him the moment he spoke, and though he never took a step, he was soon just as well-framed as the young woman that'd spoken a moment ago. "It was my father's, and his father's. Though horses are my life, I've never felt... I could share it with someone else. So I came." That... yeah, that was nice, but that hardly explained as much as he probably thought.
"I want to talk to birds!" piped a young child from somewhere. "My farm is failing, and I don't know what to do," said someone else. He thought he picked out more, but soon there were several voices overlapping one another, and the words drowned beneath overlapping sources of noise. It was all he could do to stop them before he was deafened beneath the wall of sound they produced.
This wasn't right. All this time he'd assumed they were vacationers, looking for their own five minutes of excitement near to a rare spectacle. Perhaps that's what most of them had been at first, or these were the few left behind as the crowds swelled and ebbed throughout the last few days, while his attention had been elsewhere. They struck more like pilgrims, though. Those that might be like him... or could be, with proper guidance and training, just waiting for the right opportunity to present themselves, to make the leap from the common life into something new, and exciting, and different. Perhaps the Jacadons swirling overhead were just the lightning-rod event needed to set their minds. Or it had simply drawn them all to the same place at once, at precisely the right moment. Whatever it was, they looked to him. Every set of eyes was on him, and in the wake of their pleas, the silence of anticipation was so quiet that not even a breeze stirred.
Daia's impossible task... had somehow solved itself, apparently. "Well, first of all. You... we shouldn't stay here. Better to travel further towards the bottom of the mountain, and set up at the edge of that valley over there, I think. You can't set tents up like that either, it's going to get far too messy... if we're going to do this, we should set it up right. Come on, everyone, follow the wolf. He'll show you to Grey's den..." Oh, that had a nice ring to it, actually.
When the suns rose on the fourth trial, the hill he'd sat upon since arriving with the Jacadons lay empty. Instead, within the shadow of the Scalvoris Mountains, a new encampment had formed of some several small tents, set with cooking utensils and pots, collected neatly around small semi-permanent fires and wooden racks for drying clothes and pelts, the beginnings of some small rudimentary gardens he'd had them dig out for herbs and small root vegetables, and an arrangement of torches on high wooden stakes to act as little watchtowers. It would take time for the people to get used to the roaming patrols of wolves, and even longer to get used to the nearby Jacadons that still watched them with wary eyes... but their first lesson, as their new leader, was in proper handling of the young wolves of his pack. Most importantly, how to give the best ear scritches, while stressing the importance of administering them every day...