Post by Kaidona on Oct 26, 2005 19:52:08 GMT -5
[glow=blue,2,300]Decided I wanted to develop Aikiura's character one day, and this came up. I guess it could be some half century after her last death. x_o;
--Oh, and content rating, probably PG-13, or Teen by the common rating standards.[/glow]
_______________
Crouched by a small fire on a great, expansive plain, a young, silver-haired Ryuakurei toyed with a small piece of tinder in his fingers, watching the ever fluctuating flame rise and then flicker down, waiting until it nearly went out, before tossing the flammable fragment into the hungry blaze. Beside him sat a small pile of dry lumber, which he fed to the fire once it grew strong enough, and brought it to a knee-height blaze, soon leaning back to settle on his rump, and then adjusting his feet to use his knees as arm rests. Twitching the tips of his ears, the red-emerald shades comprising his eyes remained locked on the flames dancing before him, until a peculiar twinge tugged at his senses, and an entire flock of birds suddenly took flight from the nearby trees with a series of startled squawks.
“Hn?” That platinum adorned head swiveled about, a few blinks sent in the direction of the fleeing avians, until a frown gathered onto pallid, flawless features, and a slender frame gradually rose to armored feet. “…Peculiar… Those birds are not nocturnal…” With a faint blink, the fellow turned entirely around, peering off in the direction from which they flew, before pushing off into a brisk trot, intent on investigating just what would have frightened them off like that. Eventually reaching the edge of the small thicket, he slowed his pace to a steady stride, which soon came to a gradual stop as his gaze befell the prone form lying crumpled in the grass.
A young woman, of fair complexion lay somewhat battered under the focus of draconic eyes, where it became apparent that the cool night air afflicted her exposed form, and her consciousness was lacking. She had a slender build, and a frame that came but inches short of the length of the lad’s own, while her head, ducked down closer to her chest, bore a healthy mass of thick, silky green-blue hair, which scattered its length about her shoulders, the grass beneath her, and nearly concealed her delicate countenance.
A slight frown contorted the young male’s features, and he sank into a low crouch, looking the lass over in a quick, yet thorough appraisal, before gradually reaching out to pull long, black, draconic ear out in a brief inspection, soon letting it go upon seeing the oddly familiar piercing dangling from it. “Miss?” he began, reaching a hand to nudge at her exposed shoulder. “Can you hear me?” He nudged her a little more, his opposite hand working to unclasp the chain of the thick black cloak he wore around his shoulders, and sat back as she only stirred a little, about to inquire her well-being, when she slipped back out again, and that frown on his face deepened. Pulling the cloak off his shoulders, he leaned down to wrap it about the draconic woman, soon working his arms beneath her, and gradually stood again, turning to make his way back to the fire.
Reaching the small encampment he’d set up, the platinum-topped fellow carefully set the current occupant of his cloak down between himself, and the fire, before flopping back on his haunches. He released a soft yawn once gaining solid balance, eventually clacking his jaws shut, and lowered his head to peer at the fallen lass again, twitching his ears as he leaned down and craned his neck to peer inquisitively at her face.
There was something about her that intrigued him; something that seemed to hint like he should have known this young woman from somewhere a long, long time ago, which he didn’t quite realize until twitching his nose a little bit. A hint of water wafted from her delicate skin, which brought him to twitch back a moment, before cautiously reaching down to brush the soft tendrils of her dark hair away from her face. In the firelight, those red-emerald shades flicked over the entirety of her softly glowing features, which bore a rare perfection and fairness that seemed to surpass that even of his own countenance.
After a few long moments’ staring, the lad flinched back again, a startled expression taking to his pallid features as he propped himself on a leather-clad palm, and used the same hand near the lass’ face to gently nudge at her again. “A… Aikiura…?” he half-stammered, voice a haunted waver at best.
Again, she stirred just a little –long enough to manage a soft, inquisitive grunt, before slipping back out.
Slender, half-clad fingers gently brushed the tendrils of green-blue from her face again, while the eerie shards of scarlet tainted eyes slowly turned to focus on her exposed ear, where they studied the crystalline azure prism hanging from the mid-point of its base. Soon enough, the faintest hint of nostalgia began to settle in as the man continued to study her carefully, and with it, came a more profound touch of sorrow in his already constantly forlorn eyes. By this point in his life, he’d already lost a majority of what optimism he had to begin with, thus, despite what evidence he gathered already to her being the one he recognized her as, he readily dismissed it as coincidence, and nothing more.
As such, his mind sank a little deeper, and, gradually settling back on the balls of his feet again, he folded his arms atop his knees, resting his chin on the topmost forearm, while long tendrils of silken silver draped lightly over the same appendage, where the ends dangled daintily from their perch. It was uncanny… but she couldn’t be; she just couldn’t. It had been far too long ago… Another frown spread his fair features from behind his arms, thoughts slipping deeper into areas they shouldn’t have, until a sudden movement caught his attention, and he returned his focus to the young woman occupying his cloak.
It was a slight, convulsive shiver that brought him back into reality a little bit, that frown deepening, before he unraveled himself again, leaning down towards her, and pulled her form around a little, shuffling back, and then working her up to prop her shoulders against his chest. Making certain her neck was angled comfortably; the fellow then wrapped his arms firmly, yet gently about her torso, leaning his own head down until his cheek nearly buried itself in her hair. Again, his nose twitched a little, and this time he registered a hint of the scent of jasmine, which brought him to flinch one more time, before his chin sank into her shoulder, and a cringe contorted his face. He went rigid, to the point that he trembled, and his eyes burned, while his breathing seemed to choke somewhat.
All those memories… How they ripped and pulled at his fragile heart… The fire he had built was beginning to die, and what little wood he’d gathered had already been fed into it; at that point, what embers lingered he would have had to rely on, however that seemed to concern him little at the moment. While he kept silent, he convulsed every now and then, and a slight glitter ran down the sides of his face, which remained profound, until eventually he fell still, and his breathing slipped into a slow rhythm.
-----
As daybreak approached, the sun rose lazily over the horizon at their backs, an ocean of orange hued gold spilling over the grasses from behind the thicket of trees, where it eventually flowed over them and rushed its way to the opposing end of the world. What crickets chirped in the night had fallen relatively quiet, while a few nocturnal rodents where making last minute passes around for morsels of food before withdrawing into their homes to sleep. From within the thicket, a number of birds began to chirp one after the other, until the entire flock, which had eventually returned during the night, had all joined together in their own, gradually awakening chorus.
A long, pierced black ear twitched to the very sound, a soft grunt of sorts drifting out from the owner’s vocal cords, before a pair of eerily metallic silver eyes gradually opened, locked in a seemingly lazy, unfocused stare at the morning sky up above. Within the moment, they began to close again, clamping as a fair countenance scrunched, before the jaws therein parted in a long, quiet yawn. As said jaws closed, a bleary blink was sent up towards the clouds strewn thinly across the warm heavens, and the slender lass shifted a little in place, before finally realizing she was propped against something, wrapped in a large, thick garment, and there was an unusual amount of pressure around her torso and in the base of her neck.
Sliding her eyes to the side, they soon enough focused on the bits of lengthy silver spilling over her shoulder, past a downcast face whose cheek leaned a little against her head, while the owner apparently sat limply slumped over her, with both toned arms wrapped loosely around her over the dark garb that currently clothed her. Several moments and a blink later, she convulsively flinched and scrambled out from the slumbering male’s weak grasp, impulsively shuffling back closer to the dead coals where the fire had once been, and turning her head as she heard the landing of his inevitable forward flop. She blinked again, peering back through unruly bits of glossy green-blue, and gradually turned around to face him at the observation that he failed to awaken from that.
“…?” The water Ryuakurei tilted her head in slight puzzlement for a moment, cautiously reaching out a hand from beneath the cloak she wore, pressing down to the soft earth in front of her, and leaned slowly forward, edging a little closer to him. Why didn’t he wake up from that…? Most people would have already lurched from their slumber and cursed the ground by that point. Was he…? Shaking her head a moment, she shuffled further towards him, leaning her head down in an observational stare, gradually registering various traits that stood out to her.
One, he slept through getting his nose rammed into the dirt. Two, he seemed young, but his hair was silver, and it had very black roots. Three, he too was a Ryuakurei, and he wore unusually elegant clothing for some random traveller. She mulled over those few specifics for a moment or so, before leaning over to either side to further study him, until her eyes passed over the unusual crest marking his right shoulder, to which they promptly returned and locked upon for several long moments. That mark… she knew that mark from somewhere.
It didn’t take her long before she recognized it as the royal crest of the kingdom she last belonged to, the realization of which brought her to suddenly convulse, before she lunged forward, trying to push the lad up off his face. “Iae?!” she nearly yelped, eventually managing to pull him up enough that she had him under the arms, where he continued to slump, head cocked awkwardly to the side, until she shook him a little, as if in effort to awaken him, however to no avail. She shook him a bit more, eventually letting go of his ribs to clap her hands over his face and hold him up that way instead, bits of water splashing away from her fingers in the process.
A moment or so later, the lad twitched and squirmed a little in his dangle, previously troubled face scrunching in discontent, until she let him go, at which point he flopped right back down with a forced grunt. His face scrunched more upon landing, another grunt wisping forth, before he pressed his hands down at either side of his head, gradually pushing his face back out of the dirt. “Nishiku… what—” he began, before cut off by a pair of arms squeezing him around the middle, at which point he instead ‘squerk’ed. “Erk… Can I help you, miss…?”
“Iaeruki, you dope!” she half-sobbed, nearly squeezing the life out of him. “It’s me!”
The captive male squerked again, cringing a little at the pressure she was putting on his ribs, and took her by the shoulders, pushing her back a little, at which point she let go and he could get another look at her. He blinked, looking over her features again, and soon paused on her teary eyes, which bore a metallic shade of silver. “…Aikiura?”
The young woman nodded vehemently, clenching her hands at her chest as she trembled in barely contained cries.
Iaeruki stared at her, as if trapped in some form of stupor, and he soon felt his eyes burn, while his hands slowly reached up to press at either side of her face. Utter disbelief had carved itself into his features, while his pain-tainted eyes studied her pale visage closely, until his expression seemed to fall, and he leaned his forehead against hers. “I am so sorry…” he choked out in a trembling voice. “After all these years, I have become so pessimistic, I—” He stopped, all but his hands turning rigid, until he began to tremble, soon wrapping his arms around Aikiura, and pulling her in close.
“No, it’s alright,” she murmured weakly, taking firm hold of his middle. “I’m just glad you stayed strong enough to survive for me.” She turned her head a little, temple pressed to his chest, and paused. “…Thank you,” the trembling water dragon whispered, before offering the princely lad a faint squeeze, and buried her face in his chest.
They both held together like that for a short while, shedding tears of both joyous and sorrowful origin, before eventually calming, and just resting in each other’s warmth and silence.
“…It’s been so long…” Aikiura broke the stillness that had fallen over them.
Iaeruki nodded, which nuzzled his chin against her head. “Indeed it has.”
“…Over a thousand years, no doubt.”
Another nod. “Yes, quite.”
“I trust you’ve kept yourself in decent shape?”
“…I suppose, yes.” Iaeruki made a strange face. He almost promptly wanted to bite on his tongue for that lie, however left it as is; he didn’t want to make her start fretting over him so soon.
Aikiura blinked. “Are you sure?” she inquired suspiciously.
“Yes, yes. You do not see or feel anything out of place, do you?”
The lass quirked her lip a little, taking a moment, before responding. “No, I guess not.”
“Come, now… you need not concern yourself with my well-being so soon.”
“Sorry about your nose, by the way.”
Iaeruki blinked. “…I noticed it was a bit sore upon awakening.”
“Yeah… that was my fault. It’s not bleeding, is it?”
The lad sniffed, made a strange face, and eventually shook his head. “No. It just tingles a bit.”
Aikiura notably relaxed. “Thank goodness. What sort of future wife would I be to make my betrothed bleed the first hours we meet again?”
A slight wriggle shifted Iaeruki’s form, one foot eventually lurching free of its trap beneath him. “Oh, it was a mere accident, my dear. How do you fare? I cannot say I found you under …‘normal’ circumstances.”
“I can gather that much. Don’t worry; I’m fine. I’m just… going to have to borrow your cloak for awhile is all.”
“Would you care to take my tunic for the time as well? I would not want for you to gain too much undesired attention.”
“That’s alright, Iae. The tunic wouldn’t really do much for me anyway. You can barely tuck it into your pants, and I’m hardly four inches shorter than you.” Aikiura fidgeted a little, lifting her bare knees from the dirt, where they’d begun to chafe, before suddenly lifting her head off Iaeruki’s chest, craning her neck back to peer up at him. “What’re you doing out here, anyway? Shouldn’t you be in Yasiore?”
The once-forgotten tranquility that had returned to his features suddenly faded, his expression suddenly sullen, grave. “Much has changed since last we truly were together, Aikiura. I fear the kingdom, or anything, for that matter, is no longer as you remember it.”
The water dragon furrowed her brows, a slightly perplexed look glinting in her eyes. “What do you mean? Just how much can the kingdom change in a thousand years?”
“Very much, I am sorry to say. It is a very grim matter; I shall explain it to you once your own situation has been taken care of, alright?”
Aikiura frowned. She didn’t like the sound of that at all, however didn’t pry, gradually nodding despite her newly flared concern. Just how much had she missed in all that time? Was it really as bad as he made it sound? Perhaps it was an exaggeration, but… Iaeruki’s descriptions of severity about those kinds of things were usually pretty accurate. “…What are you doing out here, anyway?” she finally inquired again. She wanted at least a vague answer if she could get it.
Iaeruki breathed a soft sigh, loosening his hold on her a little. “I am currently wandering in personal exile.”
That frown worsened. Personal exile? She opened her mouth, about to inquire further, before she closed it again, shifting her forehead back into place against his chest. If she knew him well enough, then it was probably connected to the situation with the kingdom, and she would find out then just why he’d exiled himself.
--Oh, and content rating, probably PG-13, or Teen by the common rating standards.[/glow]
_______________
Crouched by a small fire on a great, expansive plain, a young, silver-haired Ryuakurei toyed with a small piece of tinder in his fingers, watching the ever fluctuating flame rise and then flicker down, waiting until it nearly went out, before tossing the flammable fragment into the hungry blaze. Beside him sat a small pile of dry lumber, which he fed to the fire once it grew strong enough, and brought it to a knee-height blaze, soon leaning back to settle on his rump, and then adjusting his feet to use his knees as arm rests. Twitching the tips of his ears, the red-emerald shades comprising his eyes remained locked on the flames dancing before him, until a peculiar twinge tugged at his senses, and an entire flock of birds suddenly took flight from the nearby trees with a series of startled squawks.
“Hn?” That platinum adorned head swiveled about, a few blinks sent in the direction of the fleeing avians, until a frown gathered onto pallid, flawless features, and a slender frame gradually rose to armored feet. “…Peculiar… Those birds are not nocturnal…” With a faint blink, the fellow turned entirely around, peering off in the direction from which they flew, before pushing off into a brisk trot, intent on investigating just what would have frightened them off like that. Eventually reaching the edge of the small thicket, he slowed his pace to a steady stride, which soon came to a gradual stop as his gaze befell the prone form lying crumpled in the grass.
A young woman, of fair complexion lay somewhat battered under the focus of draconic eyes, where it became apparent that the cool night air afflicted her exposed form, and her consciousness was lacking. She had a slender build, and a frame that came but inches short of the length of the lad’s own, while her head, ducked down closer to her chest, bore a healthy mass of thick, silky green-blue hair, which scattered its length about her shoulders, the grass beneath her, and nearly concealed her delicate countenance.
A slight frown contorted the young male’s features, and he sank into a low crouch, looking the lass over in a quick, yet thorough appraisal, before gradually reaching out to pull long, black, draconic ear out in a brief inspection, soon letting it go upon seeing the oddly familiar piercing dangling from it. “Miss?” he began, reaching a hand to nudge at her exposed shoulder. “Can you hear me?” He nudged her a little more, his opposite hand working to unclasp the chain of the thick black cloak he wore around his shoulders, and sat back as she only stirred a little, about to inquire her well-being, when she slipped back out again, and that frown on his face deepened. Pulling the cloak off his shoulders, he leaned down to wrap it about the draconic woman, soon working his arms beneath her, and gradually stood again, turning to make his way back to the fire.
Reaching the small encampment he’d set up, the platinum-topped fellow carefully set the current occupant of his cloak down between himself, and the fire, before flopping back on his haunches. He released a soft yawn once gaining solid balance, eventually clacking his jaws shut, and lowered his head to peer at the fallen lass again, twitching his ears as he leaned down and craned his neck to peer inquisitively at her face.
There was something about her that intrigued him; something that seemed to hint like he should have known this young woman from somewhere a long, long time ago, which he didn’t quite realize until twitching his nose a little bit. A hint of water wafted from her delicate skin, which brought him to twitch back a moment, before cautiously reaching down to brush the soft tendrils of her dark hair away from her face. In the firelight, those red-emerald shades flicked over the entirety of her softly glowing features, which bore a rare perfection and fairness that seemed to surpass that even of his own countenance.
After a few long moments’ staring, the lad flinched back again, a startled expression taking to his pallid features as he propped himself on a leather-clad palm, and used the same hand near the lass’ face to gently nudge at her again. “A… Aikiura…?” he half-stammered, voice a haunted waver at best.
Again, she stirred just a little –long enough to manage a soft, inquisitive grunt, before slipping back out.
Slender, half-clad fingers gently brushed the tendrils of green-blue from her face again, while the eerie shards of scarlet tainted eyes slowly turned to focus on her exposed ear, where they studied the crystalline azure prism hanging from the mid-point of its base. Soon enough, the faintest hint of nostalgia began to settle in as the man continued to study her carefully, and with it, came a more profound touch of sorrow in his already constantly forlorn eyes. By this point in his life, he’d already lost a majority of what optimism he had to begin with, thus, despite what evidence he gathered already to her being the one he recognized her as, he readily dismissed it as coincidence, and nothing more.
As such, his mind sank a little deeper, and, gradually settling back on the balls of his feet again, he folded his arms atop his knees, resting his chin on the topmost forearm, while long tendrils of silken silver draped lightly over the same appendage, where the ends dangled daintily from their perch. It was uncanny… but she couldn’t be; she just couldn’t. It had been far too long ago… Another frown spread his fair features from behind his arms, thoughts slipping deeper into areas they shouldn’t have, until a sudden movement caught his attention, and he returned his focus to the young woman occupying his cloak.
It was a slight, convulsive shiver that brought him back into reality a little bit, that frown deepening, before he unraveled himself again, leaning down towards her, and pulled her form around a little, shuffling back, and then working her up to prop her shoulders against his chest. Making certain her neck was angled comfortably; the fellow then wrapped his arms firmly, yet gently about her torso, leaning his own head down until his cheek nearly buried itself in her hair. Again, his nose twitched a little, and this time he registered a hint of the scent of jasmine, which brought him to flinch one more time, before his chin sank into her shoulder, and a cringe contorted his face. He went rigid, to the point that he trembled, and his eyes burned, while his breathing seemed to choke somewhat.
All those memories… How they ripped and pulled at his fragile heart… The fire he had built was beginning to die, and what little wood he’d gathered had already been fed into it; at that point, what embers lingered he would have had to rely on, however that seemed to concern him little at the moment. While he kept silent, he convulsed every now and then, and a slight glitter ran down the sides of his face, which remained profound, until eventually he fell still, and his breathing slipped into a slow rhythm.
-----
As daybreak approached, the sun rose lazily over the horizon at their backs, an ocean of orange hued gold spilling over the grasses from behind the thicket of trees, where it eventually flowed over them and rushed its way to the opposing end of the world. What crickets chirped in the night had fallen relatively quiet, while a few nocturnal rodents where making last minute passes around for morsels of food before withdrawing into their homes to sleep. From within the thicket, a number of birds began to chirp one after the other, until the entire flock, which had eventually returned during the night, had all joined together in their own, gradually awakening chorus.
A long, pierced black ear twitched to the very sound, a soft grunt of sorts drifting out from the owner’s vocal cords, before a pair of eerily metallic silver eyes gradually opened, locked in a seemingly lazy, unfocused stare at the morning sky up above. Within the moment, they began to close again, clamping as a fair countenance scrunched, before the jaws therein parted in a long, quiet yawn. As said jaws closed, a bleary blink was sent up towards the clouds strewn thinly across the warm heavens, and the slender lass shifted a little in place, before finally realizing she was propped against something, wrapped in a large, thick garment, and there was an unusual amount of pressure around her torso and in the base of her neck.
Sliding her eyes to the side, they soon enough focused on the bits of lengthy silver spilling over her shoulder, past a downcast face whose cheek leaned a little against her head, while the owner apparently sat limply slumped over her, with both toned arms wrapped loosely around her over the dark garb that currently clothed her. Several moments and a blink later, she convulsively flinched and scrambled out from the slumbering male’s weak grasp, impulsively shuffling back closer to the dead coals where the fire had once been, and turning her head as she heard the landing of his inevitable forward flop. She blinked again, peering back through unruly bits of glossy green-blue, and gradually turned around to face him at the observation that he failed to awaken from that.
“…?” The water Ryuakurei tilted her head in slight puzzlement for a moment, cautiously reaching out a hand from beneath the cloak she wore, pressing down to the soft earth in front of her, and leaned slowly forward, edging a little closer to him. Why didn’t he wake up from that…? Most people would have already lurched from their slumber and cursed the ground by that point. Was he…? Shaking her head a moment, she shuffled further towards him, leaning her head down in an observational stare, gradually registering various traits that stood out to her.
One, he slept through getting his nose rammed into the dirt. Two, he seemed young, but his hair was silver, and it had very black roots. Three, he too was a Ryuakurei, and he wore unusually elegant clothing for some random traveller. She mulled over those few specifics for a moment or so, before leaning over to either side to further study him, until her eyes passed over the unusual crest marking his right shoulder, to which they promptly returned and locked upon for several long moments. That mark… she knew that mark from somewhere.
It didn’t take her long before she recognized it as the royal crest of the kingdom she last belonged to, the realization of which brought her to suddenly convulse, before she lunged forward, trying to push the lad up off his face. “Iae?!” she nearly yelped, eventually managing to pull him up enough that she had him under the arms, where he continued to slump, head cocked awkwardly to the side, until she shook him a little, as if in effort to awaken him, however to no avail. She shook him a bit more, eventually letting go of his ribs to clap her hands over his face and hold him up that way instead, bits of water splashing away from her fingers in the process.
A moment or so later, the lad twitched and squirmed a little in his dangle, previously troubled face scrunching in discontent, until she let him go, at which point he flopped right back down with a forced grunt. His face scrunched more upon landing, another grunt wisping forth, before he pressed his hands down at either side of his head, gradually pushing his face back out of the dirt. “Nishiku… what—” he began, before cut off by a pair of arms squeezing him around the middle, at which point he instead ‘squerk’ed. “Erk… Can I help you, miss…?”
“Iaeruki, you dope!” she half-sobbed, nearly squeezing the life out of him. “It’s me!”
The captive male squerked again, cringing a little at the pressure she was putting on his ribs, and took her by the shoulders, pushing her back a little, at which point she let go and he could get another look at her. He blinked, looking over her features again, and soon paused on her teary eyes, which bore a metallic shade of silver. “…Aikiura?”
The young woman nodded vehemently, clenching her hands at her chest as she trembled in barely contained cries.
Iaeruki stared at her, as if trapped in some form of stupor, and he soon felt his eyes burn, while his hands slowly reached up to press at either side of her face. Utter disbelief had carved itself into his features, while his pain-tainted eyes studied her pale visage closely, until his expression seemed to fall, and he leaned his forehead against hers. “I am so sorry…” he choked out in a trembling voice. “After all these years, I have become so pessimistic, I—” He stopped, all but his hands turning rigid, until he began to tremble, soon wrapping his arms around Aikiura, and pulling her in close.
“No, it’s alright,” she murmured weakly, taking firm hold of his middle. “I’m just glad you stayed strong enough to survive for me.” She turned her head a little, temple pressed to his chest, and paused. “…Thank you,” the trembling water dragon whispered, before offering the princely lad a faint squeeze, and buried her face in his chest.
They both held together like that for a short while, shedding tears of both joyous and sorrowful origin, before eventually calming, and just resting in each other’s warmth and silence.
“…It’s been so long…” Aikiura broke the stillness that had fallen over them.
Iaeruki nodded, which nuzzled his chin against her head. “Indeed it has.”
“…Over a thousand years, no doubt.”
Another nod. “Yes, quite.”
“I trust you’ve kept yourself in decent shape?”
“…I suppose, yes.” Iaeruki made a strange face. He almost promptly wanted to bite on his tongue for that lie, however left it as is; he didn’t want to make her start fretting over him so soon.
Aikiura blinked. “Are you sure?” she inquired suspiciously.
“Yes, yes. You do not see or feel anything out of place, do you?”
The lass quirked her lip a little, taking a moment, before responding. “No, I guess not.”
“Come, now… you need not concern yourself with my well-being so soon.”
“Sorry about your nose, by the way.”
Iaeruki blinked. “…I noticed it was a bit sore upon awakening.”
“Yeah… that was my fault. It’s not bleeding, is it?”
The lad sniffed, made a strange face, and eventually shook his head. “No. It just tingles a bit.”
Aikiura notably relaxed. “Thank goodness. What sort of future wife would I be to make my betrothed bleed the first hours we meet again?”
A slight wriggle shifted Iaeruki’s form, one foot eventually lurching free of its trap beneath him. “Oh, it was a mere accident, my dear. How do you fare? I cannot say I found you under …‘normal’ circumstances.”
“I can gather that much. Don’t worry; I’m fine. I’m just… going to have to borrow your cloak for awhile is all.”
“Would you care to take my tunic for the time as well? I would not want for you to gain too much undesired attention.”
“That’s alright, Iae. The tunic wouldn’t really do much for me anyway. You can barely tuck it into your pants, and I’m hardly four inches shorter than you.” Aikiura fidgeted a little, lifting her bare knees from the dirt, where they’d begun to chafe, before suddenly lifting her head off Iaeruki’s chest, craning her neck back to peer up at him. “What’re you doing out here, anyway? Shouldn’t you be in Yasiore?”
The once-forgotten tranquility that had returned to his features suddenly faded, his expression suddenly sullen, grave. “Much has changed since last we truly were together, Aikiura. I fear the kingdom, or anything, for that matter, is no longer as you remember it.”
The water dragon furrowed her brows, a slightly perplexed look glinting in her eyes. “What do you mean? Just how much can the kingdom change in a thousand years?”
“Very much, I am sorry to say. It is a very grim matter; I shall explain it to you once your own situation has been taken care of, alright?”
Aikiura frowned. She didn’t like the sound of that at all, however didn’t pry, gradually nodding despite her newly flared concern. Just how much had she missed in all that time? Was it really as bad as he made it sound? Perhaps it was an exaggeration, but… Iaeruki’s descriptions of severity about those kinds of things were usually pretty accurate. “…What are you doing out here, anyway?” she finally inquired again. She wanted at least a vague answer if she could get it.
Iaeruki breathed a soft sigh, loosening his hold on her a little. “I am currently wandering in personal exile.”
That frown worsened. Personal exile? She opened her mouth, about to inquire further, before she closed it again, shifting her forehead back into place against his chest. If she knew him well enough, then it was probably connected to the situation with the kingdom, and she would find out then just why he’d exiled himself.