Spring: Early Immanis
He wandered out from the searing waves of revelry, content in the cool winds that kissed acrossed his chest and arms. The gossamar fields, and eldritch woods seemed to eclipse the well-worn paths that cascaded over the Silverwood. The early morning mist was drifting down the crystalline columns held high on up, where it wound its way through the dappling. Barefeet scrunched the dirt. Sometimes the rocks and grit were a bit much, so he would wrap ribbons around his sole, and inbetween his toes, on up to tie around his calve. On this night he wore something like that, with bits of sumac hanging from his calves and ankles. Some of the kin around the Corranyr estate made a light joke of the noble animal. Another commented that the newphew-exile had finally lost it. Nobody understood that to him the complexities of the Combine and the intricacies of an elms bark were as valuable as one another; they needed one another or the substance between them was all an illusion. He laughed at the easiness of that feeling, but struggled to hold to it. Dramatics of the spirit and heart invariably called him to be close to those around him, even when nothing more than to wander the desert until he found the right place, where a midnight sky above the dunes, blanketed silver-dotted-abyss-drops of dew was perfectly centered, so that he might
fall up into the reflecting umbral unfolding.
Stepping away from one rounded curve of the Moonwillow Keep wall, Quenthalus found a familiar knoll where he had once many patterns ago. It was the place where he and Wisteria crept away to talk about life and share dreams with each other; it was a parade of wooing gently wrapped in an offering of their hearts and souls, speaking a keen language of authenticity to one another. Both of them were quite swept away with the possibilities that they dreamt up upon hearing each other's stories, ultimately being able to gauge one another's growth and experience via the poetic form of transmission. He had sat with a host of friends here, from Jhanlariel, to Ery'endolen, Sylia, Llorinal, Destrin, Jael, and at one point Laeriul, the lost heir of E'braeyl. He once got incredibly sick here, and fell into a dimension of halucinations that arrested his mind and spirit, drove him to the edge of his own personal oblivion and rendered him an observant of his own existance. He remembered meeting Laerithil here, and watched her and Llorinal initiate him through the simplicity of conversation, gently peeling away at a shell that was fortified by years of unwavering sentinel. They provoked questions about himself in a time when he felt like his life was ethereal and suffocated. He lacked substance in ways that set him apart from those that found a singular niche. He was in constant pursuit of experience, leaving him breathless, and caught in the grip of turning his dreams and intentions over to the influence of his surroundings. In befriending him, those two read between a line and found a parable that he had been chasing for patterns: be moving and be the moment moving.
Exhaling a ghostly lungful of smoke, Quenthalus turned his sleepy eyes toward the double suns that encroached upon the emerald horizon. He was standing back in time, in the moment, remembering that this was the same place where he had told Wisteria that he intended to leave for Acumin those many patterns ago. Reflecting on the lonely moments, he watched the buds emerge from the naked branches, and touched the ground near a silent Moonwillow, quiet since the invasion, and wondered what was holding him here.
"Quenthalus!" He turned to the shout of a she elf's voice. His ears lent to the north, where a dark haired blur bounded up from the ravine near Yavie'mela Falls. He smiled when he saw that it was Laerithil.
"Vedui` seler!" His dark eyes flashed on her, opening wide to the onyx vortex therein. Smiling he waved her over, surprised to see anybody out here, especially this early.
"Miss the long nights?" She asked, looking at a hollow Moonwillow.
He simply nodded, turning to embrace her, and the two of them seemed to connect like a soul reacquainting its thoughts with its dreams, memories with its expressions.
"You want to learn fire staff then?" She was eager, always ready to extol her knowledge upon enthusiastic and intentional people. When Destrin had told her he was recruiting for a dance troupe in Imperia, surprised as she was to hear his choice of search, she still readily agreed to train him in the use of the staff.
"I feel it is time to expand my horizons of expertise. I have begun to craft a whole new dance, and I feel it may be the most important one I undertake." The seriousness of his voice spoke volumes, and try as she may to not appear puzzled, one couldn't mistake the curiousity piqued in Laerithil. The wilder elf and Moonwillow dancer simply shrugged it off as artistic immersion then quickly snapped a staff out from her shoulder strap and tossed it to Quenthalus. Catching it, she bade him join her in a pose. Her elegant form went perfectly straight, shoulders level, while the right hand folded over the left, working through the rotations of a basic twirl.
"Let it kiss the breeze, toror."