Homecoming

[Daedraug]

One by one they had drifted away.

Haldren slept soundly, his quiet nights perforated by ale-induced snoring and mumbling dreams of haunting battles.

Netherlyn had fallen once again to the shadows, her essence and heart worn away by too many battles against the darkness.

Even Miltonian, so loyal and brave despite his stature, was nowhere to be found, chasing the ghost of his wife into the northern wilderness.

Their comrades seemed scattered to the four winds. Some basked in the glow of plunder brought to the surface from the deepest caverns and dungeons, pursuing adventure and danger for its own sake and the sake of its rewards as if the stakes and perils of the never-ending battles they had fought together were not enough. Many more had simply faded away; perhaps some were gone from the world forever.

The light from a lone candle ebbed and flowed like a warm tide as Daedraug though of these people. It was in its tiny flame that he allowed himself for the first time in many long years to dwell on those he had lost to the calls of peace and death. He wished for the indignation he had felt when the Swordwaltzers had been abandoned; at least the anger held sorrow at bay. That pain had been a hot brand at which he snarled and snapped, but this was a missing piece from a place inside himself which he could not pinpoint. It was like trying to find where the sun should be in the hardest of driving rains: nothing but dreary grey wherever he looked.

On the Island his brother was teaching the young ones the ways of the Earth. Somewhere in Elune's embrace another slept eternally. His sister, all her sins sprouting from his own, had not been seen in months.

It seemed that whatever cause had led him away from his clan was nothing more than a foolish, shadowed memory. Perhaps he could hope for the same in the family he had abandoned.

A thin trail of smoke rose into the air of a cold, empty room.

[Itakae]

((more? please?))

[Daedraug]

His eyes opened slowly and shone in the darkness, the only points of light on the dark ship's lower deck. He sat hunched against the exterior wall of the cabin, pulling from the sea air in long breaths and tasting the moss and pollen of the approaching coast.

The door slowly creaked open beside him and a glow spilled across the wooden planks. The ship's captain didn't bother to look down but spoke aloud to Daedraug anyway.

"'Bout an hour out from here, Sir," he croaked through a whiskey and smoke throat, "Ya may want to be gathering yer things now, 'fore the others wake."

"I owe you, Simmons," he replied, his voice flat with restraint.

"Nah," the old captain refuted, scratching his dirty fingernails through the salt and pepper of his beard, "Still don' know how we ever woulda landed them foodstores if you hadn't swam out to the blockade and lit those little gobbo bastards up like a summer festival."

Daedraug's eyes flashed as a blistering image of twisting bodies leaping off the deck through the flames and heat shimmer cut through his mind.

"It was not a far swim, and most of them were sleeping. Your small debt is doubly repaid."

"Well, says you but I ain't 'bout to argue." Simmons chortled as he struck a match and drew it up to his pipe, white clouds rising from the bowl and corners of his mouth. "Still the bravest thing I saw a man try durin' that whole mess."

He felt the wash of hot blood over a cold, sea-soaked hand; the tapping of the drops falling in a red rain.

"People do what they must. Thank you again for your discretion."

He hoisted the leather pack over his shoulder and took the oak chest up in both arms. A short time before the crier spotted land he was rowing himself around the coastal village, and as the mist claimed the ship's mast he was again alone in the night's hands.

[Daedraug]

Mathrengyl Bearwalker filled the doorway like an iron-shod gate. He folded his massive arms across his chest, the razor-sharp obsidian claws of the bear claw on his right and wrapping around the opposite limb. The arches of his mustache trembled like tree branches when he spoke, his voice a caged roar.

"The Enclave is at rest, traveler. You must wait until the sun breaks."

Daedraug took a few more measured steps forward through the driving rain and Mathrengyl's feet slid wider, planting his form a few feet in front of the entrance. He peeled his soaked hood from his head and called a whisp closer, its silver light casting seep shadows across his face.

"I am here for my brother, Bearwalker."

"Hrrm," Mathrengyl's glowing eyes narrowed to slits and thunder rumbled deep within his chest. He unfolded his arms and shook them loose. "If you cared anything for your brother you would not have left him alone here and pulled your poor sister into your foolishness."

Daedraug took a slow, calming breath. "You can either let me in to see him or lecture me untill the sun rises. Either way I will tend to my affairs."

With that, Mathrengyl Bearwalker began his lecture on the sins of Daedraug Nightwing, and the rain continued to fall.

When the sun's soft light finally began creeping through the canopy above, the large druid left without benediction. Daedraug rose from his seat against the lantern post and picked his sopping wet cloak off the ground. The rain had stopped, but the water dripping from the leaves made it difficult to tell. He had barely crossed the threshold into the great tree's cavernous trunk when his brother strode with determination toward him.

"What is the meaning of this? You see fit to disappear from the face of Elune for nearly a year and then arrive unannounced?" The raven-colored hippogryph feathers ruffled on his brothers armor. "Why bother waiting for the sun? You should have simply attacked Bearwalker; isn't that your way? To leap into violence rather than listen to anyone?"

Daedraug stared flatly at his brother, hoping the verbal assault would run its course until the words were replaced by winded breathing.

[Mortica]

(( Love it, as always! ))

[Daedraug]

"Fylerian, if you would let me...," Daedraug tried to fit the words in, but was cut off by the impact of hands to his chest. The wind rushed from his lungs and he staggered back drunkenly. Fylerian lunged at him, indigo tufts of fur bursting from his grossly twisting limbs and wicked talons sprouting from his hands. The weight of the druid crashed into Daedraug and sent him hard onto the earth floor.

They fought as only brothers do, which is to say they fought with a rage second only to the way brothers fight for each other. Daedraug managed to bring his forearm underneath the great cat jaws that snapped at his face. His brother's teeth crashed into one another with a crack, and yellowed splinters flew into the air. Daedraug gripped the thick mane at the back of his brother's neck and thrust his legs upward, throwing the cat into the nearest wall of the trunk and rolling backward to his feet.

Fylerian arched his back in the air and planted all four paws on the wall. He sprung back at Daedraug and caught him mid-turn, but an elbow found the base of his ribcage and forced the air from his lungs in a scream. Daedraug brought his fist in an overhand arc and cracked the cat on the crown of his skull, sinking to a knee and driving Fylerian with all his weight into the ground. The druid's chin bounced off the floor and his legs kicked in unison. Fur shrank away to reveal skin once more and Fylerian rolled on the ground, stunned beyond his wits.

Daedraug stepped over his brother toward the exit. "It seems our family is fated to always have at least one fool in it. When you are ready to break that cycle I will be at the Inn."

[Daedraug]

They sat next to each other with wooden goblets in hand on a bench against the inn's wooden wall. A night breeze blew a cool breath of salty air through the open ends of the hollow trunk.

"I was beginning to think you would not come," Daedraug admitted, "like all the other times."

His brother sat upright, leaning his back against the woodgrain and taking a long drink. "I was tired of our reunions. I ache for days after you return home. To be true I thought you had finally drowned in the waters of chaos you choose to tread; now that you've returned I feel I owe you an apology,"

Daedraug nearly dropped his drink, returning a wide-eyed look of genuine surprise to Fylerian. "That isn't necessary. I chose my path despite your objections and I cannot claim innocence in your anger."

"Not for your departure, you thick-skulled fool," Fylerian snapped out, his voice mellowing as he continued and softening to nearly a whisper, "For what I did to you when you left."

"The were angry words, yes," Daedraug surmised, "but I understood your anger."

"No!", his brother hissed, "Not for my words to you either! You don't understand; I've done something awful to you which I cannot undo."

"The earth cares not for our sins, Fylerian, only that we return to balance."

"Little brother it is that balance I have stolen from you!" Fylerian stood and pulled his brother into the open night air. His voice came out graveled and breaking with grief. "On the day you left I cursed your name to our ancestors and the ancients! I swore to them that you might never again call a place home if you would abandon your true place." He turned away from Daedraug and sunk his head into his hands. "You had already sworn your oath to the Cenarius," he sighed, "in breaking it you gave my voice power."

Daedraug tried to speak several times, his mouth opening and closing with no effect, before he managed to force out, "Then I am cursed to wander forever? A stranger in any land I find?"

Fylerian nodded as if his head bore all the weight of the world.

"Then I am a stranger to you as well! You should be twice-cursed for swearing such an oath against your own blood-kin, but you are my brother no longer."

Daedraug drew a small hunting knife from within his belt and ran the blade along his palm, squeezing a fist until red drops fell to the ground. He spit where it fell.

"I break our blood bond Fylerian Nightwing. May I trouble you nevermore."

The ship across the great sea could not sail fast enough.