|
Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 26, 2022 15:08:19 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Jul 19, 2022 17:59:24 GMT -6
“This is for you.”
Those were the words out of Noa’s mouth when he presented Briar with a delicate doe.
Incongruously, the first emotion that swept through Briar was relief. It had been strange to see Noa next to something like a Galabex, rather than his usual retinue of large and scaly predators. In that vein, Rhys also looked out of place -- he had always reminded Briar more of a young girl’s companion than the caretaker and accomplice of a young man without morals -- but Noa was almost never without him, and by now Briar had grown used to that. Still, his first thought was that Noa could have nothing good intended for a creature who could not bare its fangs and weather the heavy blows of the other beasts that the Fighting Pit favored; and so he was relieved that she would be spared that destiny.
1
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Jul 19, 2022 18:00:01 GMT -6
But then the words sank in, fully, and his relief dissipated as quickly as it had come.
Noa’s gifts were never without strings attached. Briar expected that, of course. It would have been more unsettling if Noa had offered him anything without demanding something in exchange, given everything else Briar knew of him and his character. The trouble was determining what he wanted -- and how it was seldom anything Briar wanted to give.
In this case, however, the motive turned out not to be so sinister. It was only the very practical consideration that, as his agent, Briar would need to move from place to place. And the doe was meant to provide a solution to the problem of his transportation, since Briar couldn’t fly everywhere himself if he needed to conserve his energy, and he didn’t have the means to simply apparate there on a whim.
2
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Jul 19, 2022 18:00:58 GMT -6
Or rather, he could have, but it would have been a waste of his ‘meager magical reserves’, as Noa had called it.
Briar didn’t know a lot about magic, but passing mentions of elementals had always emphasized their power. He shuddered to think of what Noa considered adequate, if this was what he considered insufficient.
The doe was untrained. It was a little inconvenient, but on the whole Briar thought it was to be preferred. Noa had his own extensively trained retinue of beasts, but Briar didn’t trust his methods, especially not with a creature of a more delicate temperament. Noa had suggested Briar could better mold her to suit his own needs if she hadn’t had too much handling by someone else, which was a wicked way to put it, but he wasn’t entirely incorrect -- though it had less to do with wanting something tailored to his needs.
3
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Jul 19, 2022 18:01:10 GMT -6
At least this way he could bring her up gently, and without any trauma or fear that she might have suffered under more rigorous ‘breaking’.
The first step was, unfortunately, to get her to trust him.
It wasn’t as hard a job as it might have been. One look at her coloring -- a pretty piebald, with crystalline protrusions along her jaw and horns -- and he could tell that she was one of those custom-bred sorts, the ones made to get along easy with their new masters. Mercifully she wasn’t terribly flashy, the way some of these creatures were; Noa owned at least one Pliathor that was barely recognizable as such, but the only unusual thing about this Galabex was the pink crystals.
He had still half considered rejecting her on those grounds. Anything that stuck out too sorely would make its presence memorable, and Briar wanted to pass without notice wherever he could.
4
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Jul 19, 2022 18:01:42 GMT -6
But the thought of where she might end up if he had said no stayed his refusal, and Noa had offered the helpful information that she was, apparently, capable of flight.
It was with mixed feelings that he set up a little pen in the Gracehaven gardens, and slowly coaxed her into it with a series of bribes. She would not take anything from him, and certainly did not allow him to put any sort of halter on her, but with patience he eventually managed to get her where he wanted her to go.
It would be some time, he was sure, before he could even think of putting his weight on her back.
For now he was content to simply acclimate her to his presence. He was bringing her food and cleaning her stall too, though she still shied away from him when he came by to do it.
5
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Jul 19, 2022 18:01:55 GMT -6
Later, when she was comfortable enough to ignore him, he might try some other more direct means to get closer to her. But for now, all he could do was get her used to him being around.
Once she was in the pen, he shut the door behind her, moving slowly so that she wouldn’t be startled by the motion or the noise of it. She watched him the entire time, from the far side, ears forward and standing entirely still. For some reason, the force of her caution felt comforting. Maybe he felt a certain kinship with her, this creature who didn’t trust him yet, and made no pains to hide it. And it made sense to him -- of course she had every reason to be wary of a stranger. He didn’t even know how long she had been here. If she had lived here before --
6
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Jul 19, 2022 18:02:24 GMT -6
For a moment, Briar remembered very vividly the glowing pods he had seen -- the Hara, tumbling out of them, flying away into the dark -- the other shapes within…
… If that had been her fate too until recently… She didn’t have the intelligence to contextualize or understand what had happened to her, but he wondered if that was better or worse. He sighed, and her ears twitched, a tremble running through her whole body. She stood poised and ready for flight, though there was nowhere for her to go -- was there? Noa did say she could fly, though he hadn’t seen any hint of it yet.
Suddenly the pen seemed like a foolish idea. Should he have put up netting, like they sometimes did for birds? The image in his mind was a claustrophobic one, and anyway it was too late now, even if he wanted to do it.
7
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Jul 19, 2022 18:02:42 GMT -6
If she could get out, then she would certainly have done it by the time he came back with the necessary things.
Well, she hadn’t fled yet. Maybe she didn’t know how. Gods knew how long it had been since she was last awake, if she had been in one of Noa’s pods. Briar still didn’t think Noa would have any interest in Galabex, but there were plenty of smaller creatures in the pods he’d seen next to the Hara. Maybe he was a collector, in a general sense, in addition to everything else.
Now it was Briar’s turn to shudder.
He needed to take his mind off this sort of thing. And the Galabex would probably feel more at ease if he was a little further away anyway. Briar took one last look at her, then turned away, and made his way over to the garden beds to check on them.
8
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Jul 19, 2022 18:03:05 GMT -6
Even with everything else that had happened, it was still his job -- his official job, the one they could put on paper. The rest… Well, that was the result of a bargain, and the unspoken threat of the phylactery that Noa had made that night. Noa hadn’t yet asked him for much in the way of actual favors, or… or jobs, or whatever it was. By Briar’s reckoning, they were still in some sort of preparatory stage. But Noa had no qualms about throwing Briar headlong into those ‘preparations’, up to and including turning him into an elemental.
At the thought of the node, he had to resist the urge to touch his ears. The first, and smallest, of the changes that had come over him was the way the fur trailed off now into insubstantial wisps, not unlike the smoke from a candle flame just snuffed out.
9
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Jul 19, 2022 18:03:16 GMT -6
The ear beneath was still solid, but it was undeniable proof that something about him had transformed. At least his wings were hidden beneath his clothes most of the time, but he wore his ears out around the property, where there was no one to see them but Noa and Rabbit -- the former of which already knew, and the latter of which had no reason to care.
There had also been his orders to learn archery, though that wasn’t something that could be accomplished so quickly. Briar doubted he would simply be asked to bring home game, but he had decided not to dwell on it after all. Perhaps Noa would have divulged more of his plans if Briar asked, but perhaps he wouldn’t; and there was every possibility he would lie just to get a reaction. The unpleasantness would come when it came, and anticipating it did him no good in the meantime.
10
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Jul 19, 2022 23:26:59 GMT -6
The garden had always been his sanctuary on the grounds of the sprawling estate -- though it perturbed him to even think that he had been here long enough to have an ‘always’ sort of place. Perhaps the one good thing Noa had ever done for him was to give him this job. Even the amount of work necessary to sustain the pretense of the role gave Briar time away from everything else, to collect his thoughts and center himself; and there had always been something healing about working with the earth, tending to the plants and watching them grow.
In his first household, too, it had been his haven, though in that case it had also been his cage. In the brief period between his having left that place and found this one, it had been made abundantly clear to him that he had little in the way of practical skills.
11
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Jul 19, 2022 23:27:13 GMT -6
He knew how to garden; this was the beginning and very nearly the end of his abilities. And it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough.
The worst of the trouble was other people. He couldn’t speak, but that wasn’t the only reason that talking to people was difficult. All he had ever known was yes sir, no sir, my apologies sir. People wanted so much more eye contact, and yet they frowned when he gave it. He didn’t know what expressions to wear.
It was almost a lucky thing, really, that the realities of being on the run meant you spent most of your time avoiding people. It was a lucky thing, too, that Noa hadn’t had more servants after all. The place was eerie and unsettling, but it made things easier too -- working, keeping out of the way, and investigating where he could.
12
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Jul 19, 2022 23:27:27 GMT -6
Not that he managed much, not anymore. That might have been Noa’s strategy, come to that -- to keep him so busy that he didn’t have time to be poking his nose where it didn’t belong.
Here though, it was quiet, and his hands knew the work, even if his mind wandered. It was summer, so there wasn’t much planting, though there was a lot of maintenance. He took the deadheads off the flowers -- and there were decorative flowers here, though not many, and probably installed by a different generation. From what Briar could tell, all the recent additions had a practical bent, though the focus on poisons and curatives bordered on obsessive. In comparison, the ornamental plants were almost a welcome break. Whoever it was that had chosen them had selected relatively hardy, low-maintenance species. Pretty, but not so work intensive. Though maybe it was just that only the lowest-effort ornamentals were permitted to stay.
13
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Jul 19, 2022 23:27:37 GMT -6
There was also the small vegetable garden to be tended, which was another small joy of Briar’s. Noa had given him free run of the crops to do with as he liked. The offer, when it was first put forth, had seemed uncharacteristically generous, and Briar had waited for weeks for the other shoe to drop. Only later did he realize that Noa had no care for the food garden at all, and it was only because Rabbit had been asked to maintain the whole garden that any of it had survived. Noa, so Briar had learned, gleaned his sustenance from bricks of some sort of edible… stuff, which he apparated into existence with magic.
Of course the two of them had nothing in common to begin with, but learning that about him had really driven it home. Briar couldn’t imagine being so divorced from anything mundane that he eschewed real food.
14
|
|