Fragments of Time

[Lion]

He was astounded.  It couldn't be possible.  It hadn't happened before.  It shouldn't have happened.  But he was quickly coming to the conclusion that this Arcan was intending for him to delay his arrival.  He knew the Fallen Prince was smart enough to know there was more about the shard that Ghanon had not said, and the slick fucker was buying time for him to figure it out.  He had here here, could have taken her in an instant.  But he didn't want him to arrive that way it seemed.  He'd have to work for the shard if it were to be his.

He looked up at Lana and stood when she beckoned for him to follow.  He didn't question her and was right behind her tail, scrambling away as fast as he could so that nobody saw him.  It didn't matter anyway, but if she knew a better passage, he'd gladly lend himself to her should she need him.  "That's never happened before," he explained slowly, if with a great deal of confusion.

[Anonymous]

As he spoke, they came to a decrepit brick wall that had long since lost its dusty red color.  She took hold of a dislodged brick and managed to lift her small form over the top of the wall, straddling it for a moment as she looked at him.

"That is strange." She shrugged, "But I have no idea what kind of ordeal you've been through."

Lana then swung one of her legs over the barrier and landed stealthily on the other side.  Behind her was a vast spacious unclaimed piece of land with a valley leading toward a slowly bunching group of trees.  A couple of deer grazed in solitude off to the side near a gathering of bushes.  A small watering hole lived peacefully near them, slowly drying day by day in the sun.  She glanced back to watch Ghanon ascend as well, and extended a hand to him for support as if he were the lighter, more fragile one.

"What kind of ordeal... did you go through?"

[Lion]

Ghanon was not above traveling where he needed to go by foot.  But for so long he'd been accustomed to just appearing wherever he needed to go, without any of another.  It was a good thing he was always in top physical shape now didn't it.  He would never tire, never stop, and followed her like a blonde, crippled shadow and watched her as she scaled the wall.  Ghanon felt the solidity of the wall, his hands feeling far too physical for him.

A smirk appeared on his lips before he too managed to climb over the wall.  He landed with a crouch and regained his footing, grabbing the offered hand for support and towering over her as he stood.  He looked back and  then ahead.

"Now you're curious?  Before it seemed you couldn't wait to get away," he joked with a grin, but it was genuine.  "It just so happens, some people don't like it when I take things from them.  And sometimes those people possess weapons powerful enough to hurt me."  He looked down, his face seemingly embarrassed.  "That doesn't happen often you know.  But that wound hurt like hell.  How were you even able to heal something like that?"

[Anonymous]

Lana's expression remained nonchalant as he mentioned the veiled reason why he had stumbled into her lodging with a powerful wound in his side.  Inside, she was wondering at what exactly he had pilfered to anger a creature, or otherwise, to provoke an injury that appeared fatal.  And it had been poisonous, wrought with blackened magic, the kind of toxin that could very well eat away at the flesh down to the soul.  The mere fact that he had already made a new enemy within the short time they were parted was a bit astonishing.  Even more so, he seemed callous to his wrong doing.  His honesty was to be commended, but by the same token it was the fruit of a careless attitude, not a desire for honorability.     Whatever had occurred, he sounded more amused with himself than regretful, and this spoke to his character, which she would guard herself against.  

While he gathered himself she took the liberty of trekking through the field, feeling the soft whiskers of grass tickle her exposed knees.  The flowers looked hot and dehydrated under the sun, but they were still gloriously colorful in their random speckling pattern amidst the greenery.  She clutched at her pendant as she traipsed through patches of mildly exotic plant life.  As she drew nearer to the watering hole, the deer looked up, their grazing jaws snapping shut at the sight of her.  She smiled at them and brushed a curl from her face as the wind picked up a bit.  But it wasn't she that had signaled their tentative listening.  Something else was prowling about in the bushes.

"What do you mean?" she was genuinely surprised by his question of her, and she looked over at him with a pursed brow as she walked ahead of him, "I am a goddess...  If the magic that affected you had been of a deity, and if it hadn't been a simple stab wound, I would've had much more difficulty.  But it was more a nuisance than anything else."

[Lion]

No, there was not honor to be found in nearly anything Ghanon did and he refused to have anything to do with such a silly, useless idea.  Honor was for fools that loved dignity in death, but could not sacrifice their character for the sake of survival.  Honorbound was the general that led his troops on a foolish mission for glory where in actuality there was none to be had.  Even if honor tempered you, gave you good sense in some things, Ghanon refused its leash and tried to sever himself from it at all costs.  Yet, even if he carried as little honor in his heart as possible, it did not mean he acted without sincerity or honesty, and, in some cases, absolute humility.  The nature of his transgressions went beyond black and white thought.  And in some small, obscure facet of himself, he knew that he was beyond redemption in the eyes of those that governed all things.

Perhaps Lana would consider this, but he could not place himself on a perilous ledge with hope.  Nothing Ghanon did was without reason and every corner he turned, he found himself at odds with the universe.  And those in it.  It was not be expected and he understood why things had to be the way they were.  Life wasn't easy and neither was anything that was worth doing.  He followed her and viewed closely the way her surroundings seemed to react to her.  He didn't know whether or not she noticed it for it was an extremely subtle reaction; the greenery seemed all that much greener as she passed through it.

He found his eyes lingering on her and they traced along back where the jewels of her spine could be found.  It was so unusual to think that such things could bring power, and if they could be of any use to the Fallen Prince.  Even if all Ghanon wanted was the shard, he wondered if there was a way to get one jewel from her back without crippling her...or killing her.  Even if he killed, it was never without reason or scrutiny first.  Ghanon avoided murder when he could, but he had serious doubts this Arcan really cared who or what he killed that got in his way.  That much could be deduced by the heinous wound he'd inflicted on the Astralwalker.

"Be it deity or demon, it seems...the effects were far more than a mere wound," he found himself saying.  "I felt something strange within it...something that went beyond normal healing attributes.  I've seen a god heal before.  But yours—"  He paused there and reached her side.  "It had something to do with that other, interesting pendant you keep on your neck, didn't it?"

[Anonymous]

Lana felt a bubbling, crystal laughter rise from her throat.  There was no reason to reveal the power of her sacred ornament to someone who was so easily lured by the temptation of taking that which did not belong to him.  It certainly was not as impressive as she was sure he imagined it to be with his greedy mind.  Likely, he created some grand explanation for the part it played in the mending of his side.  However it had aided her, it was not necessary to share such trifles of information with Ghanon.  She was quickly learning how deviously he carried on his days.

"You're generous to think I possess such delightful toys as a pendant with special capabilities." Her eyes widened with her words to give emphasis to the silliness of his assumption, and she smiled, touching the skin beneath his chin with her forefinger as they walked, "But I am rarely so extravagant.  You make one mistake in your statement."

Lana smirked and confidently faced away from him again as they arrived near the watering hole.  The deer had already fled sensing some impending event, but Lana was hardly disturbed.  She knelt down and cupped her hands with her palms facing skyward and dipped them into the water.  Instead of trickling out of her hands between every microscopic crevice to escape back to its home, it took form like a gelatin clay, following every adept movement of her fingertips as if she were a sculptor at her wheel.  As she continued the formation, she drew slowly backward following the size of her creation which grew to enormous proportions.  Soon, standing fourteen feet tall at its crest and with proportionate width and weight was a creature entirely formed of water and made in the image of a great six legged creature with the noble posture of a sphinx.  The legs at the center were tucked away toward the edge of the ribcage, having no use for them at the moment.  The dwarfing wings were neatly folded against its sides until, like a butterfly pumping blood into its wings for the first time, the creation expanded them as far as it was capable, tentatively flapping and seemingly gaining strength with every impact of movement.  It was a magnificent thing, not entirely original bearing easily identifiable features of bird and dragon, the head entirely fowl shaped and the body intermittently patched with scales and feathers.  The tail was short and wide like a spade, only useful for aerodynamics, and the feet were reptilian, each with six digits, a thumb and a dewclaw.  

Lana stepped backward to view what her magic had produced, willing the beast to solidify to something more akin to a hardened jelly.  She then glanced over at Ghanon.

"You may have seen gods heal, but I am a goddess.  And one which you have not seen the likes of in your realm."

[Lion]

[Sorry for the late post!  Yours wasn't lame, I'm just an ass and I didn't know what to write.]

He had a feeling she'd play it off like it was nothing, little more than a trinket worn for decoration.  But even a complete stranger knew it was more to her than such a thing.  The way she idly clutched it, fiddled with the damn thing like she had to constantly ensure that it still remained on that chain around her neck.  He was not always in a clever mood, and certainly didn't feel like it this afternoon, but even then he could see it.  He grinned at her play and nodded, moving away from her finger and taking a look around the watering hole.  He did not need her confirmation to know that the pendant was special.  He had seen it before, though he would have preferred if she would have told him herself.  Curiosity, after all, did not always kill the cat.

Ghanon watched her create the water creature and viewed it like an artist to his own painting.  It was a fascinating trick but magic failed to surprise him most of the time.  He put his hands in his pockets and looked at her all the while the creation came to fruition, eyes that wanted to look into her more than what she was doing.  The way she moved, and allowed the creation to come to full form.  There was beauty to be found in life amidst the ugliness, even someone like Ghanon could appreciate that and he was smiling when she came too look back at him.  It was a grin of pride, but a pride not in himself.

"No, not in my realm," he agreed and stepped towards her.  Corroth was such a stifling place; he was only so happy to be free from there.  "That is why I prefer to travel, because there is so much more to be seen and learned from in the realms beyond.  I'd love to learn from you.  You have so much to give.  I wonder if you realize that sometimes."  Ghanon busied himself then with studying the magnificent creature she had created.  It was regal and awesome and he wondered what purpose there was to it, but no doubt he'd find out soon enough.

[Anonymous]

"I've nothing to teach." She stroked the eager creature, allowing it to nuzzle its epically dwarfing beak into her palm, "Nothing to teach you, anyway." And with this she gave him the time to surmise whatever he may from those five words.

Lana may have been seduced by him physically, and even emotionally, but he could not seduce her good sense.  She knew the potential for deception in his every word the more he spoke.  Exactly what was real, and what was feigned, and what was truth and what was a lie, none of that could be quite clear to her.  But his carefree way of life, the unpredictable circumstances he was often swallowed in, she even went so far as to say the smile that widely graced his face often when he looked at her were all key indicators of a well crafted guise.    And the more he complimented her, the more she wanted to scoff at him.

She then hooked her foot into the jelly side of the animal and hoisted herself atop it with a little effort.  The creature was so grand in scale that she looked to be an annoying insect in its feathers.  She stood and stabilized herself as it breathed heavily in and waited for Ghanon to join her.

"I don't get the sense that you're the kind to be taught, anyway." She watched him, "You may learn, yes, but not by being the willing protégé.  You'd rather reap what you can by other less traditional means.  I assume you learn your life lessons through your suffering, or through the suffering you cause others, and I can't promise you a different style of proverb from myself.  Whatever lessons I might share with you, if I even possessed the desire to try, would only be the echoes of your own method.  What you imagine I could "give" to you, to whatever, I might've been able to give in a simpler time, when I knew less of the stupidity of hope."

How her tongue had become so bitter, she didn't know, but the moment had possessed her.  She wanted to call him out on his bluff, to cease the unnecessary fluffing of her ego and for him to become real.  What was she to him, anyway?  What was he to himself?  Was he so lost in his disguises that he had become so transparent?  And did he know how transparent he was?  It seemed that he still thought her naïve, as the moment they first met, and though little time had passed between then and this moment, she was a quick learner, and she had absorbed every detail of her experience here.  Certainly, she knew nothing of the depth of his nature or the exact details of it, but there was enough of the stench of dishonesty rising off of him, as it initially had when he revealed himself to her a stormy night ago, that she was not to be taken in by sugary words or tender tone of voice.

And all of a sudden, she felt angry toward him, and though he joined her atop her creation she focused away from him and on the task of travel.  The wings expanded again, this time with the intent to gather air beneath them, and the creature moved to take flight ever so carefully.

[Lion]

It was plain to see the distrust by which she spoke and in all seriousness, it did nothing more but amuse him.  He did not convey his sentiments and such a response was more than expected.  In some ways it was welcomed.  He was pleased that she was not blinded in such a way that she expected him to be more than altruistic to her, if anything she would only prove her own naiveté in doing so.  He did not think her naïve in the least; in fact, she was anything but.  And that's what he found so admirable about her in the first place.  Fools were a waste of his time, and though her comment was clearly one-sided, Ghanon fought hard to hold back a laugh.  He did not smile and merely shrugged when she was done talking.  There was nothing to be said and he left it at that.  She would learn in her own time.  After all, life was the greatest...and cruelest of all teachers.  And no one could possess more than the sum of their experiences without making anything they said convoluted in any way.

He had climbed onto that back of that peculiar water creature without any hesitation on his part and was ready to take off when he paused briefly, his body clearly locking still until the sounds became clearer to his ears.  Of his blood, he was not limited to the range of hearing bestowed to a normal human.  He had been born a mortal, and the many gifts of his mortal heritage, he still retained.  Ghanon paused and his face visibly stiffened as the wounds became more prominent, more violent, to the point where he could not ignore it.

The creature was ready to bound off, to take to the clouds where it would never again touch this point on the soil until their riders deemed it so.  "Stop," he said.  "Stop!  Wait!!"  His voice was desperate and he rushed off the creature's back, sliding down and landing on his feet, taking off with a run in the direction of the sounds.  In a flash, he could have teleported, but that damn debilitating wound refused to allow him.  His running was the only way to get there in time.  Ghanon's mind's eye viewed far through the trees and there he witnessed the man with the axe and the poor body he was dragging through the trees, crying, sobbing, pleading.

Ghanon knew of the people in this part of the country.  It was not uncommon for those to interpret the will of the gods as they saw fit.  But this...this was beyond interpretation.  This was murder.  Ghanon did not know or care if Lana bothered to follow him.  The vision of the boy, and the man holding the axe vanished from his mind quicker than it came, and soon he saw the two figures through the trees.

The voice of the boy reached him first.  A young man no more than fifteen or sixteen.  He saw the fear in his eyes, the sorrow as he cried.  "Father, please!  Don't do this!  Please!"  The words fell to deaf ears as the boy's father slumped the boy's body over a stump.  The wood was flattened and smoothed over from much use.  A leather rope was pinned to one end of the stump and had a clasp with which it could be buckled, to keep in place whatever was placed on the top.  The boy, his hands bound behind his back, was helpless to fend off the cord that his father placed over his neck to hold him in place.  He faced the ground, on his knees and his body partway on the stump, while his chin perched on the edge.  Tears streaked his dirty swollen face.  He was already bloodied up pretty badly.

His father, there was anger in his eyes as he walked around his son for a moment, a simple woodsman's axe in his hand, shining silver on the edge from being freshly sharpened.  "I have to," he murmured at last.  "It is the only way for you to be forgiven...for me to be forgiven for letting you disgrace your family.  The gods will forgive you, my son...as a sacrifice to them."  As Ghanon rushed through the trees, he saw the swollen eyes of the boy's father, eyes that were filled with disappointment that he knew only too well.  He saw the face of his own father and nearly paused from his own running.  But that thought only made him run all that much faster.

The father held the axe as if it were the heaviest thing in the world, his shoulders heavy, weary.  But in his face was the look of a man who knew what had to be done.  He lifted the axe high above his head and waited moments, minutes deafened by the cries of his son.  A tears overflowed from the man's red face, but his hesitation, Ghanon knew, would only last so long.  In a quick second, Ghanon flicked a spark of green energy from his right hand, a spark of magic enough to knock the man backwards, and off his feet, and the axe away from his grasp.

"What is the meaning of this?" he asked savagely as he stepped towards the man, stopping as he faced the boy's father.  "You're not going to kill your son.  Not on this day."

"Who...who are you!?" the father was incredulous and he was still trying to recover from the force of the energy that had sunk through his chest.  He sucked in breath harshly when Ghanon reached down and plucked him from the ground with one arm, holding him by the collar of his shirt.   The tears now flowed freely from the man's face as he tried to justify his actions.  "The gods demand it!  The boy must not live!  Don't incur their wrath, stranger.  The gods will have their sacrifice."

"They are wrong!" Ghanon said with rising anger.  His mind was working quickly and he cast a glance back at the boy that was strapped to the stump.

"Do you speak for them...?"

"What?"

"Do you speak for the gods?  Are you a priest?" The father was distraught but he did not know what to believe.  His face was filled with the stands of anger and fear combined to make his skin far too red.

"I do not need to be a priest to know that this is not sacrifice...  It is murder.  You are but a man...not a god, and you cannot speak for them in the meanings of life and death.  What has he done that is worth taking his life?  Tell me and I may just spare yours."   Ghanon turned his grip to his neck and lifted the man up with little effort, squeezing his neck as a storm coursed through him.

"He defiled a girl...disgraced his family, himself!  His honor...had a bastard son by her..."  The man tried to blink the hot tears from his face but was doing a poor job of doing so.  His hands braced Ghanon's wrist as and he coughed as he tried to free himself to breathe.  But the vice of the Astralwalker's hand was nothing he could fight against.  The hand that held him up from the ground and slowly strangled him, was not steady.  It trembled with fury, with pain.  And the man held his breath when he saw the fire in Ghanon's eyes.

Ghanon could kill the man in a single closure of his fist but he chose instead to drag the man close to him.  The father's limbs moved like a ragdoll and still he fought against the hand at his neck.  Ghanon snarled in rage, and brought his face uncomfortably close.  He spoke softly, dangerously.  "You are a spineless, quivering swine of a man.  To think that all will be forgiven here and now, because they so will it.  Gods are foolish creatures that dance and drink to the pleasure of their power.  And your gods will eat you alive if they have the appetite for it.  Do you think that by killing your son that you are safe from their wrath?  There is a special place in the Abyss for murders of kin, my fearful friend.  Don't do something you know...you will never be able to take back.  You have a grandson now...and he will come to know the man who took the life of his father.  You want to love your son.  Then love him.  Or it is not his head that will be on the business end of that axe.  It will be yours."   Ghanon left the man in shock when he dropped him to his feet and released the grip he had on his neck.

The father's eyes were wide but he stood there but a moment before running off into the woods, leaving behind the axe his son and the one that stopped him.  Ghanon looked around idly and spotted the weapon.  He picked up the thing in his hands and held the shaft lightly.  Walking over to the boy, who was still tied, he looked down at him and looked at him.  "Is all he said true?" he asked.

The boy still quivered with sobs, but it was of anxiety than of sorrow.  "Y-yes....."

"I just spared your life, you realize this, yes?

"Y-yes...."

"Good."  Ghanon raised the axe high above his head.  The boy cried out loud and he squinted his eyes shut before he heard the thwack! of the axehead hitting wood.  He opened his eyes with a shuddering breath and saw that the cord at his neck had been cut and so had the one that bound his hands.  Ghanon knelt by his side and left the axe in the wood.  "You are free now.  Choose wisely, boy.  I may not be here the next time your father decides it's a good idea to take your head as offering to godly things."  The boy nodded and scrambled away, his face still tear streaked and beads of sweat having formed on his face.  And he ran in the same direction his father did, disappearing through the trees.

Ghanon just knelt there, still...  He stared at the axe and the cut cord and imagined the amount of blood that might have stained the stump had he not intervened.  His face was hard, stern; but try as he might, he could not conceal the pain that was present on his expression.  He felt cold and a shiver ran through him like he was being watched.

[Anonymous]

She had meant every word she had spoken, and silently refused to let herself feel any sort of remorse for her words.  It was easy for her to regret the things she said, felt, if they were judgmental of others.  Even while her thoughts rang unfortunately true she could not help but second guess herself.  Partly, it was due to how sudden her passing of judgment could be.  She was reactionary, unthinking at times, and this made her wonder at the outcome of such quickness to blame.  Though, she knew in this case that there was little she could have been wrong about.  Ghanon's reaction had not refuted her analysis, rather it could have been interpreted to further solidify it.  Lana had not been looking at him, however, and purposely garnered nothing from his body language.  It was her intention to put distance between them.  She had done him a favor in cleansing his wound, and had hoped to separate for yet more time until.... Well...  Lana honestly could not know.  What change could she expect from him?  Certainly none....  So she would not have waited for change.  Would it be a change in herself that she desired?  Or maybe, simply a length of time to collect her thoughts, rejuvenate.  But hadn't a month been time enough....  All she knew was, whatever relief she felt knowing she was away from him, it was relief none the less.  It simply would be ridiculous to think that time with him, for innumerable reasons, would be profitable.  The more she was with him, the more she desired to be closer to him, and it frightened her to know that so rapidly and so powerfully she had felt for him.  What he would do with her vulnerability...... she couldn't imagine.  She did know that it would not be sweet, or tender, or pure.  Not entirely.  And the knowledge that even this drew her in caused her to waver in his presence.

It was her consumption in these thoughts that caused her to start and lean forward in response to Ghanon's yelling, her hand reaching out to grasp the creature's feathers and pull backward to stop their ascent.  Whatever had alerted him so moved his feet to flight and without warning he dashed across the grassland and disappeared into a collection of trees.  Her eyes narrowed, her mouth shaped into a delicate 'o' as she strained to see his dark figure through the trees.  There were yet more raised voices, but not only Ghanon's.  For a moment, Lana considered ordering her creature to take flight.  This was the perfect moment to seize of she truly wanted to part ways.  There would be no need for a fumbling explanation, and no emotional struggle with saying goodbye.  She would simply leave, and he would return and see that she had left him, think ill of her, and never know of her internal struggle with her feelings... and perhaps... they would never see each other again.

Lana faced forward, the angry voices still reverberating in her ears amidst her thoughts, and her fingers gripped the beast's feathers as she bit her lip in resolve.  It was the only way.  She had no other friends, especially no friends like him, but whether a relationship with him was positive or negative, she could not decide, and there was little certainty that he would in the next moment deserve her affection.  Certainly, she would have to expend more energy in cultivating their friendship, energy she wasn't sure she had.  To spare herself this frustration, she had the choice of simply leaping upward and away and never being tormented by this kind of uncertainty again.

But then, Ghanon spoke, and powerfully....  And it brought her attention back to the direction of the woods.

"What is the meaning of this?  You're not going to kill your son. Not on this day."

His voice was distant, in the way a voice can seem so unworldly to a mind freshly awoken from its dreams.  What he said...  how passionately the words left him....  It struck her in her chest, and she felt the over sized pang that she had known the night that he sat at her feet, naked and open to her.  It was indescribable other than it hurt and thrilled her all at once, and curiosity stopped her heart.  Was he saving the boy?  All was quiet for a moment, so that she could further listen....

But the more she listened, the more she realized she could not simply stand by and avoid knowing the situation first hand.  She leapt from the creature and laid a hand against its cool form, further cooling it until it froze in the motion of grooming itself.  Her footsteps were heavy and loud due to her boots as she bounded through the greenery toward where Ghanon remained, but it mattered little.  This situation did not call for stealth.  

Their figures came into view, and with wide eyed astonishment, her lips parted just so in quiet surprise, her hand reaching gently up to touch the side of a tree, she watched the older mortal suffer at Ghanon's will.  But Lana knew it had been justified.  This was the man who was to kill his son...  He deserved no pity.   And in response, Ghanon was livid.  But his anger seemed to stem from a more familiar source than it appeared.

"Don't do something you know...you will never be able to take back. You have a grandson now...and he will come to know the man who took the life of his father. You want to love your son. Then love him. Or it is not his head that will be on the business end of that axe. It will be yours."

Lana remembered what Ghanon had told her about his past...  It hadn't been much, she knew there was so much more to his story, but she thought that maybe this father and son were reflections of some kind of pain he had known himself.  Her eyes glanced over at the young man, still quivering, as anyone would even in the presence of their savior, especially if that savior was as overwhelmingly intense as Ghanon.  On instinct, she found herself wanting to free the boy while Ghanon dealt with the father, the poor young mortal still strapped to the stump, his chin now slightly bloodied from the roughness of the tree bark.  But she knew better than to interfere, no matter how her heart went out to the child.
And it wasn't long before Ghanon had clearly made his point, and released the son, but not without a word.  

"You are free now. Choose wisely, boy. I may not be here the next time your father decides it's a good idea to take your head as offering to godly things."

And the two ungrateful humans were soon gone in a flurry of running footsteps.  

She wasn't sure if Ghanon knew of her presence behind him.  She was privy to the quiver that shook his shoulders perhaps more violently than he realized.  From her standpoint, she could not see his face, but the muscles of his body being taut, his neck forward, head down, gave her clues enough that he was not unmoved by all of this.  And this, she realized, was why she wanted to know him so.... To be close to him.  There was more than simple arrogance and illusion, at times, though not often enough.  And maybe this was why she stepped forward, without thinking of her previous hesitancy, and knelt behind him, laying her warm palms against the back of his dirtied coat.

"You did a good thing." her voice was hushed.

[Lion]

He stared at the stump for quite a long time. And the silver sheen of the sharpened axe, he almost didn't want to take his eyes off the godless thing.  The weapon was such a crude thing, made of little more than a shaft of wood and a head of steel, but in an instant would have brought about the suffering a father that he saw would regret his decision.  The blade might have been fashioned of steel, but the man was little more than a creature of meat and bone and blood, the likes of which did not have the steel to kill in cold blood.  The look in his face was so much like the emperor Ghanon had called father once, the expression, the eyes and he didn't know if that's what shook him the most.  He was silent, and said nothing at the sounds of approach behind him.

His eyes still lingered on the axe.  It was easy for him to conceive of the idea of such a simple thing could bring about such drastic change.  But it was not so easy to think if the boy's father would have done his son a cruelty by using the axe, or a favor?  Had his own father been nobler because he sought to exile his murderous son forever from the plane of his birth, to cast him out and to suffocate in the vacuum of the stars?  Did the method of madness matter as much as the madness itself?  He did not want to think about it and it left him so visibly shaken that he flinched at the contact of hands on his back.  A familiar voice spoke to him. "You did a good thing," she said.

Ghanon let out a breath and licked his lips, forcing himself to tear his eyes from the axe.  "Did I?" he said with solemnity.  "Or did I just stave off the inevitable?  Perhaps I did him a disservice.  As you said before, I learn from my suffering and the suffering I cause others.  Life...is...suffering.  But it's how that suffering is dealt with...that matters most."  There was some venom in that last sentence but it was not enough to bite.  Perhaps only to make a point.

"I saw something in the man's face...despite his cowardice, that reminded me of my own father.  I...couldn't let him kill his son, regardless of whether or not he deserved it.  Second chances are not to be squandered."  Ghanon regained himself, though his shoulders were still heavy with the burden of his memories.  "Second chances are not always afforded to the more deserving.  And those who get them...they throw them away like the daily garbage.  I should have killed that bastard when I had his throat.  But death was too good for him.  I can only hope that he will learn from this moment."

He turned on his haunches and faced her, the axe no longer on his mind.  He looked her squarely in the face, the intensity of his gaze still there.  He said nothing as he reached out and took her face in his hands, and leaned in to kiss her briefly before pulling away.  "Thank you for following me," he said and let on hand remained on her cheek.  "But why did you?"

[Anonymous]

Lana understood his meaning.  There was much in life that was unfair, especially in the region of lessons learned.  Likely, what Ghanon tried to instill in this small mortal family would not stand up to societal expectations, and the Father would stay in his destructively small minded thinking and perhaps, it would end in tragedy.  

But that didn't matter.  Ghanon's intentions had been right, and that was what would make this moment so purely beneficial for him.

She could have commented, but there was little time between his words, and he seemed to be thoughtful.  It wasn't her interest to stop his train of thought.  It was then that he unexpectedly placed a kiss to her lips, the warmth of his sweet breath and the suppleness of his mouth inciting a tingling sensation through her chest and neck, her face flushing with some color.  She felt the cold air again touch her lips, reawakening her from the moment.  She felt somewhat undeserving of this kind of affection after what she had said to him...  But then, she wasn't about to object.  It was... comforting to be able to share this kind of closeness with someone, almost as if her soul were parched of it.

"I..." her first instinct was to say that she didn't know, but she caught herself, thinking that was too trivial an answer, and she looked downward, then up again at him, "I think, because I wanted to see what you would do."

Her eyes sparkled and she smiled a little, "You sounded heroic."

[Lion]

Ghanon's face softened visibly, from the moment he pulled away, but the solemnity remained.  He did not feel the need to dwell on his memories, not at the moment.  And certainly not with her around.  He did not know if she could sense the way he was shaken, but it had struck him so that he could not have hidden it even if he'd tried.  There was a chance she did, but he wished that she didn't if she had.  But little did he realize that the door to his soul had been pried open on the very first moment he'd met her.  Whether she would pry it further, ask him of the things he never spoke to anyone, remained to be seen.

He didn't think that he might have been watched when he'd met that and if truth be told, every instinct had told him to punish him more than what had already been done.  He'd wanted to cut off his weapon hand, to never allow him to effectively wield the axe again.  He might have tortured the son of a bitch if he'd been so inclined, but he'd never known the importance of vile treatment of people, especially when it went beyond necessity.  Once the desired effect had been achieved, what need to be done had been done and he let the man go.   But their choices would shape their future...  Ghanon did not care beyond this moment.  This moment was what had mattered.

Ghanon's hand stroked her face unconsciously and rested his other hand in his lap.  When she spoke at last, he couldn't help the small laugh that came to him and he put his hand on her should instead.  When his chuckle ended, he sighed and he grinned with genuine amusement.  "That is a first, Lana," he said.  "Nobody has ever said that to me before.  But what made you think I sounded heroic?"

[Anonymous]

(AH!  Oops!  I actually meant to comment in that post on his mention of his father, but I was so tired, and I forgot!  Also, sorry I pooped out on you last night!  I crashed :(  )

Lana decided that she liked his smile, and it was infectious enough to cause her smile to widen as he laughed at her girlish description of him.  She pretended to be a little insulted and placed a hand on her hip, tilting her head just slightly and lifting one eyebrow.

"Well, I'm certainly happy to be the first, even if your reaction is to laugh." She playfully pushed him in the shoulder, and leaned to settle on one hip.

Nobody had said this to him before?  Strange.... She thought, because for beings such as they, it was nigh impossible not to do things that would be perceived as heroic, or godly.  How unfortunate that perhaps he had not known the kind words of appreciation for his intervention.  But she couldn't know, she could only surmise from the little knowledge she had of him.

Although, that knowledge was beginning to broaden.  Lana had perked a bit at something he'd said, something she had neglected to comment on for lack of assurance that it would be a welcome subject.  

"I saw something in the man's face...despite his cowardice, that reminded me of my own father. I...couldn't let him kill his son, regardless of whether or not he deserved it. Second chances are not to be squandered."

So, her observation had been more than simple imagination.  She had noticed the zeal in Ghanon's eyes, rage even, and it had not come from a compassion for the son, or if it had, that compassion stemmed far deeper than the reaction of a mere onlooker witnessing a crime.  There had been more, yes, something that had triggered his instinctual interruption of the boy's murder, and unfortunately, it had been something near to his heart.

She remembered her earlier thought that she knew so little of his past, even after having spent a painful night in the sorrow of their woes together.  And even though just moments ago she was considering leaving without any assurance that they would once again see each other, she found her eyes again opened to his inner strife, and she was drawn in helplessly by the complexity of his character.  It was pointless, she realized, to avoid him.  And avoidance seemed to be the worse choice, for the time spent apart had dulled memories and sharpened fears, the ideal combination for reality turned askew.

An expression of thoughtfulness, solemnity, replaced the playful smile and twinkling eyes, their color darkening to a night sky blue.  One of her hands rested over his that remained on her shoulder.  It was likely not pity he wanted, so she would try not to give it.  But she did want to offer understanding.  It was evident that this part of him was not often shared with anyone, and she wanted to be a deserving ear.

"Ghanon..." she shifted herself to be a bit closer to him, her voice lower as she continued.  She was to tread carefully, "What of yourself did you see in the boy..."

She traced her fingertips around his face which was fixed in a brooding expression, as if to analyze it more.

[Lion]

[Hahahaha!  No worries! ^^  Though I'm starting to think your crashing is becoming a bad, if unconscious habit! XD]

She spoke of it.  He hoped she wouldn't, but she spoke of it and he found that the smile that was spread on his face faded fast into a tight-lipped frown, and the humor in his eyes too burned away like the dying embers of a fire.  But he had only hoped and he was quickly coming to find that hopes would be dashed away without warning or notice and where the embers in his silver-eyes seemed like they were dying, the words she spoke merely stirred the flame to blaze anew.  He breathed heavily through his nose, almost trying to come to terms that she actually had the gall to mention what he said at all.  But perhaps it was his own fault and he'd brought it on himself.  He didn't watch what he said as he should have.

But he found he couldn't run away from her, not as every thread of his being pushed for that reaction.  He was coming to realize that being around her came at the price of bearing himself, perhaps gradually and painfully, but surely.  Ghanon abhorred the idea, resisted it at every turn but some part of him, no matter how small, knew that perhaps there was a chance she would understand, as she claimed to before.  Yet everything else screamed that she wouldn't understand, she was like all the rest. Maybe this was but a ploy to catch him at his weakest, to admit his sins and to cast him into the Abyss.  Somehow, however, the sensibility of that option sounded less and less reasonable.  She too had her own pain and worries to deal with.  Why did it matter what she learned of him?

Ghanon wanted to pull away from her touch, hated that she touched him at all but he just resided there and squeezed her shoulder.  He seemed burdened and he could almost not bear to look at her.  Why did she care?  What did it matter to?  Would telling her bring him back to the place he'd once called home?  Would it place him in welcoming arms?  He belonged nowhere, possessed no one and nothing.  Why did it matter that she knew?  It was the goddess in her that he feared the most, and the judgment that would likely come with whatever he told her.  He wasn't afraid to be judged, no.  It was more the consequences of that judgment that he feared, and that all his work had been a complete waste once the die was cast.

But what did he really have to lose?  Nothing, he decided.

"I knew what he was feeling as his father was about to kill him.  I know what it's like," he said simply, stoically, but his body was shaking.  "What I remember most was my father's face.  And the keen disappointment and regret that was there before he cast me away.  Like I never should have been born."

[Anonymous]

Lana sensed that her touch was not doing for him what she had hoped, and rather than continue to aggravate him with it, she demurely pulled away her hands and let them fold languidly in her lap.  This was more than she had expected to hear...  Though she couldn't be sure exactly what she had expected.  So this was where his hurt originated.  This was the pinnacle of his pain.  But it was more than pain, she suspected.  An entire life's journey redirected by it.  An entire life in jeopardy because of it.  And he had survived?  Why?  He was visibly shaking by now to the extent that their sunny surroundings could have been mistaken for bitter cold if it weren't for the fact that she, too, could feel its warmth.  Again, her instinct was to comfort him with a tender hand, but he seemed not to reciprocate.  Instead, he gripped her shoulder rather hard, though without hurting her, and she decided against provoking more of this unconscious behavior.

There wasn't much she could think of to say that might help him, only questions filled her mind.

"Cast away..." the words trickled from her tongue, "Exile?"

Her tone was bland for the words accompanying it, but it did not lack the gravity of them.  She strained not to even caress his arm with her fingertips.  It was so difficult to respond to someone in a way that was unnatural to her.  She herself would want to know the warmth of another's affections in a moment of turmoil, but some wished to only be left alone.

[Lion]

[If she wants to touch him, that's fine, you know. XD]

Ghanon met her eyes and knew they were glistening, as if he would cry.  He knew she could see the hurt there.  But the moment was something he'd lived with for as long as he'd been around and he no longer cried because of it anymore.  He was incapable of summoning tears for that reason anymore and the emotions in him were so long buried that he was surprised that they came up at all.  But he shouldn't have been surprised.  It didn't take much to uncover them, and once the wound had begun to have been pricked, they poured forth in a most unpleasant manner.

He was hesitant to answer her and sighed again.  "Exile would be ...one way to put it," he confirmed.  "But he killed me that day.  And I knew that he would and he did, without looking back when he turned away.  But he didn't count on me being able to survive.  Nobody survived the void.  But I did."

[Anonymous]

It was true, then.  He was far more spectacularly made than he appeared.  To have survived the void, which she had only heard tales of, was to have defied your own body, your own soul, the natural mechanics of life and death.  And though she didn't fully understand it, she did know that he was the son of Dragolir.  

A chill swam through her as he said the words, "But I did."

As if in his voice there were an eerie defiance against that which no one could hope to successfully oppose.  A darkness came through in his breath that caused her to force herself to inhale again.  His eyes told of a dead sorrow glaze, entirely unlike the tears of a fresh wound.  Her own eyes were flickering from a midnight blue to a plum purple, depending on how the light caught them.  Without notice, her hand went out to his chest and she gripped his shirt gently, as if to show in some physical way that she too was struck by the blow of reality in his words.  

"But you did..." she echoed, "Son of Dragolir."

She smiled a little, letting her fingertips caress his shirt's fabric, "And how unfortunate it must be that he now cannot know the son who defeated death itself."

[Lion]

Ghanon never did understand at exactly what moment he shed that burden of a mortal coil.  It was not an easy thing to explain.  The true nature of his being was a mystery even to the keenest of gods and they found no need to explain him further than the fact that he was a permanent pest that burrowed deeply in divine hides.   He was a ghost, lost in time, but was without time himself, and while he was there, it was like he wasn't there all at the same time.  He was but a caress of the wind, a kiss of the stars, and the cusp of eternity.  And if one looked carefully, one could almost see eternity itself in his eyes.

His powers emerged without his knowledge.  And they came to full fruition, it seemed, when he needed them the most.  The breath of life had been sapped from him.   But he never stopped breathing?  His form was both ethereal and physical all at the same time.  How could that have been possible?  Had he truly been the son of a god?  Was Valdric merely the reflection of a greater figure?  Of what could have been?  But Dragolir had died long before he'd been born.  Yet the die had been cast and he'd been chosen to follow in the footsteps of the god of change.  He bowed his head a little and shook it.

"Dragolir did not do that," he confessed.  "My blood father did.  It was his punishment for me for...."  He did not want to finish that sentence.  "Dragolir saved me.  He was the father of what I am today."  He put hand to hers on his chest and squeezed it with some affection and a small smile touched his lips.  "You're the first person I've ever told that too...."

[Anonymous]

His hand was warm around hers.  He had diverted, intentionally, from further explaining the cause of his father's drastic punishment.  But this, even she wasn't ready to know.  She knew so little of everything else that it hardly seemed necessary to focus on only one aspect of his life, when there was still so much more to be uncovered.  And she knew that with time, he would reveal things he did not, even in this moment, anticipate he would.  It was pleasing to be aware that she had this affect on him.  Ghanon proceeded to admit himself, of his own accord, that she was privy to things about him that not many had been.  He was genuine, and it dawned on her that some of her fear was perhaps taking up space where her confidence should reside.  She could inspire him to be genuine...  If only he knew how much more she enjoyed this part of him, in spite of what that might consist of.

"The first..." she squeezed his shirt underneath his hand and caressed the bare skin beneath the fabric with her thumb, "The first, and yet you've existed for timeless years."  She didn't expect a reply.  Her statement hadn't been meant for one, unless he felt the need.  She went on, "And who were you, then, if he made you what you are today?  What loss occupies the furthest reaches of your mind?"