Birds of a Feather

The city of Alexandria is awash in gray again, to the point where shadows are only a suggestion, lending a vaguely dreamy, if gloomy, sense to the world as one walks around and goes about their daily life.

Yet Cor'lana, someone who has walked and struggled in dreams as of late, walks with a sort of purpose up the steps that lead to a certain home. Dressed once again in her adventurer's robes, the woman wears a sort of determined look on her face to match the implication: there's something that needs to be done. Wearing a flower crown of azalea, gladiolus, and hydrangeas, while holding a matching crown in her hands, she has a bright, yet regal appearance, enhanced further by the dark-feathered raven with violet eyes that rides on her shoulder.

"Do you think she will accept?" the raven murmurs, almost anxiously into Cor'lana's ear. "It is..."

"It is the way it is," Cor'lana responds, gently, as she walks up to the front steps of Auranar and Verna's home. "Yet I would never walk back away from it. It is up to her."

She knocks on the door. And she waits. Smiling.

It takes a long moment for the door to open. Long enough to worry those without that there might in fact be nobody home. Even if the smoke from the chimney indicates to the contrary. The door slides open and there is Auranar peeking around the edge of the door. Even at first glance it's obvious that things are not well. This is not an Auranar aflush with victory, nor one who has settled happily into her home with Verna.

Her eyes are not just pink, but nearly red from constant rubbing. Though there are not tears on her cheeks, her face is just faintly wet as if she'd done her best to wipe away the proof of her sorrow and failed to erase all of the evidence. She stands there a long moment, offering no greeting but blinking as though Cor'lana was not who she had expected to see. Then, and only then does she notice the raven on her sister's shoulder.

Inexplicably this sends a fresh wave of tears down her face and she wordlessly opens the door further, she has to clear her throat before she can manage something close to words. "I... I didn't expect to see you so soon."

Inside the house there's a tray with a teapot sitting on the table, some cookies set out. The fire is dying slowly, unfed for what has to be hours to have it looking so weak and feeble. No one has poured the tea, and once Cor'lana and Grandfather are inside Auranar closes the door gently but hovers near it uncertainly rather than moving easily into her natural role as hostess.

"It was important for us to see you again," Cor'lana responds to Auranar, offering only a smile. There's a sort of shared sympathy in her voice as she, of course, notices the red of Auranar's eyes. There's been enough pain and grief between the two sisters lately to fill the Tornmawr with their tears, but the location for tender words is better had inside.

Which is why Cor'lana follows Auranar inside, and she holds her arms out, first for a hug, a thing that's a gentle yet long embrace. "We're here for an important reason," she says. "Grandfather?"

The raven that acts as Grandfather's vessel here on Aeryth hops off Cor'lana's shoulder and forms into the familiar and wisened form of the Feathered One. Thanks to the efforts of his children, he looks right as rain, although if one looks closely, the golden color of the potion lingers quite faintly in his veins. "We are here for an important reason indeed, my raven with rose-tinted feathers," he says to Auranar with the gentleness and warmth of his voice that he's always had, far healthier than it was the other day. "A duo of reasons, to be exact. The first is to comfort you, and the second is an offer--so do not run off to make tea, as we will be leaving as a group if you accept." He widens his arms, too, for an embrace.

Auranar gives her sister a hug, but it's clear that there's an odd distance there. Not on Cor'lana's part, but on Auranar's. She quickly wipes her tears away, trying and largely failing to regather herself. Grandfather mentions the tea and her eyes flicker toward the pot. "The tea is cold." The words are more than half to herself, and she steps into his arms, more falling into his embrace than anything else. It's a moment or three before she's sensible again, pulling away and her touch lingers on his arms; reassuring herself that he's still here. That he's better. "I'm sorry. Why are you two here? Is something wrong?"

Cor'lana smiles gently at Auranar as she watches her sister embrace their patriarch. Her hand finds its way to Auranar's shoulder, a small but reassuring gesture. "It's okay," she says softly. "I'd better let Grandfather speak first, like he did to me."

Grandfather's more than happy to be the tree to which Auranar clings to, his violet eyes half-closed yet full of warmth for the adopted bird he insisted on bringing into the nest. "Child," he says, almost whispers, as his taloned hands go to rest gently into Auranar's hair. "I have come to offer you that which I feel you deserve. That which I feel is overdue. I have spoken about it with Cor'lana, and she has agreed to aid in the rites required."

He gestures to the mark on Cor'lana's chest. "I have come to offer you a pact, like your sister's. A thing that will change you, that will make you mine by blood, that will bind you to Cor'lana by blood, that will give you access to potential and to power that a child of my feathers should have--as their proper birthright. For while you were not born into my nest as Cor'lana was--your actions have proven to me you were born with the noble soul that a child of the Lúpecyll line carries."

Their comfort helps. Though they know not the whole source of her sorrow; their love buoys her. At first, she doesn't understand. She does by the time that Grandfather is finished explaining however and... It's utterly painful to her. She shakes her head, not really a negation, but rather disbelief. "Why? Why would you want me?" She looks at Grandfather with a lost expression. "I'm... I'm not worthy of this Grandfather. You don't want me. Not like this." Not at all a dark voice whispers to her.

Cor'lana's hand on Auranar's shoulder turns into a wrap of her arm around her, a sort of side-hug as she looks at her sister. "I thought that way originally," Cor'lana says. "That I couldn't possibly be wanted by anyone. That Grandfather's love for me was a fluke or that it was entirely conditional. After all, I'd gone all my life without knowing it, and for him to appear--I felt it could just as quickly disappear."

Her other hand goes to the mark on her chest. "But when I received the mark, I finally knew for certain that he did. And that the power I received from it was _also_ real. That's why when Grandfather asked me if I would participate in this with you, I said yes."

Grandfather nods gently to Cor'lana's remarks. "I have long seen loneliness, Auranar--many of your lifetimes over, I've seen it and felt it. I have felt the powerlessness that comes with it. I have felt the despair. And... I know those of my own flock. I know when they need aid, when they need someone who will care for them and love them. By doing this, Auranar, I give you my love and protection in the form of magic in addition to the other ways I give you love."

He continues to lovingly pat down her hair, looking at her fondly still--so gentle with those talons that could hurt if he wanted to, but he doesn't. He only wants to help. "You need not accept it Auranar, if you do not want to," he says. "Nothing could ever change the fact I feel a grandfather's love for you. But I feel you would become the raven that soars from the nest, like your sister does, if you did. It is out of love that I offer it."

Auranar looks at Grandfather, her eyes full of dark things. Things a person like him, who's lived so many lifetimes, who has lived _alone_ for so long would well understand. She knows that he of all people will recognize it. That maybe, just maybe he can help her. It's to him she speaks, though her words are probably not lost on Cor'lana. "There's no deep well of magic in me. I'm not strong, or brave. I've done nothing to deserve the kindness that you and Cor'lana have shown me. Nothing to deserve _this_."

She grasps him gently, firmly by the sleeves, looking up at him with a wild spark in her dark eyes. "No... I'll do it. But... I want you to... do something for me... after." She stumbles over her words, the words that she's lost and is trying to find again. "I want you to take me to Quelynos with you."

For the first time since they entered the room there's a spark of hope in her eyes.

There's a swirl of sadness in Grandfather's eyes, mingling with the love he has for Auranar in the violet color. "Oh, Auranar, my girl," he says softly. "You don't have to do anything to be given kindness. It isn't something you earn like an award. It is something given freely out of compassion and out of love."

He takes a moment more to look into Auranar's eyes, and there, a spark plays in them. It's suddenly apparent--Grandfather is fey, and therefore there's a bit of mischief that comes with it. "Child, that's where I'm taking you for the pact," he says. "You and Lana both. Dress yourself in something where I can place a mark above your heart, then we will leave together to go outside of the city. This must be done in the land where I am present and of my own power."

There's a spark there now. Of determination and hope. Resolution. Instantly and without hesitation the wild elf hugs her grandfather, it's an impulsive thing and short lived before she's off up the stairs to her bedroom. "I'll be just a minute!"

Indeed, she makes great haste and it seems like hardly more than that before she's racing back down the stairs; this time dressed in something a little more cleave-revealing than what she'd been wearing before. Oddly enough she's wearing her adventuring gear around it. Sturdy boots and a pack slung over her shoulders. Her bow on her back as though she expects that she might somehow need it. "There! I'm ready!"

Cor'lana grins a little, and places the wreath of flowers she's been holding onto, a twin to her own, onto Auranar's head. "_Now_ you're ready," she says. "Grandfather thought the azaleas would pair nicely with your hair."

She takes Auranar's hand. "Let's walk together, sister."

And so the trio move through the city, although Grandfather reverts to his raven form while the two sisters walk through. Beyond the gates and past the point where magic has been known to go awry, Grandfather turns back into his normal form, and there, he uses the aid of his magic...

Where they land in the garden. Grandfather's gardens. The ever-twilight rolling above them in the skies, the light brighter and healthier than before, and the croaks of the strange corvid-like birds in the trees surrounding the clearing greets Grandfather and his children. "Come, follow me," Grandfather declares.

He leads Cor'lana and Auranar to a path that leads out from behind the tree-home, a path that winds around its own magnificent curuchuil: headstones with carefully-maintained flowers planted by each one, stone-carved memories of all of the descendants that came to live out their lives here in Quelynos. The path winds on for some time, but it stops finally at the statue of an elven woman holding a half-fey child, small wings jutting from its back, and the headstone at her feet declares:

'For my eternal love, and the loves we birthed: Lana'lel, Grandmother of the Lúpecyll Family'

"Here is where she rests," Grandfather says, his voice warm and fond as he looks at the statue. He turns to Auranar and Cor'lana both. "She would have loved both of you. But she is here to witness you both."

He regards Auranar a moment more, before those violet eyes lose the warmth that he's always had. The violet eyes of Alud'rigan, the Feathered One--member of the Unseelie, a man with talons that can rip and tear out throats and hearts as easily as anything. "What we are about to do will change you forever. Should you consent, know that I cannot undo this. Know that it will be painful. But you will benefit forever, so long as you shall live. None can take my love away from you--just with every other member of my family."

He pauses only a moment. "So tell me and swear it true: do you accept this pact of your own free will?"

A nervous smile greets the flowers that Cor'lana offers and then they are on their way. Auranar is more used to the travel between one place and another than most are, and she is eager. Every step through this familiar and yet unfamiliar place deepens the resolve in her step and in the line of her shoulders.

She doesn't have Cor'lana's violet eyes, nor Grandfather's. There's nothing in her features or form that marks her as a member of the family. She was not after all born to them. Yet by every word that is spoken between them binds her more fully to them both. Her dark eyes are set, there's no hesitation nor uncertainty here. "Yes. I swear it true; that I accept this pact with my own free will."

There's a feeling of an accord, a shimmer in the air just as the Corpse-Eater had sworn his own oath: for this is a land where words with the weight of oath and swearing often respond to them as binding as the magic used for summoning, a land where dreams and living are blurred and intertwined with the will and whim of those ancients who live here among the trees, in the Courts, in the wilds, underneath the twilight sky. Grandfather's violet eyes flicker with acknowledgement of these sworn words, and he nods deeply.

"We will begin," he says. "Cor'lana, behind her."

"Yes, Grandfather," Cor'lana responds with the duck of her head. She stands behind Auranar, only a few inches taller than her sister, and she places her hands onto Auranar's shoulders.

Grandfather waves his taloned hand over his chest. There, the mark of a many-feathered tree, similar to Cor'lana's own but even more intricate and delicate in the way that the knotwork-roots intertwine with one another and that there are many feathers rather than the one that is on Cor'lana's chest, comes into being on his skin, black as his veins had been only a short time ago. "The first is the mark," he intones. "My blood is your blood."

He passes both of his hands over the mark, and it _sloughs_ off of him in a black liquid, pooling into his cupped hand. Finally, he looks at Auranar with his violet gaze again. "I apologize deeply. This part is the part that will hurt. Lean into your sister for support; she has you and will guide you."

Auranar's eyes take in every detail, widening slightly as the mark takes form on her grandfather's chest. It is, to a student of magic entirely enthralling to watch it appear, and then peel away from his flesh. She takes a small breath, steeling herself for the pain he promises. It's difficult to relax into Cor'lana, not knowing what to expect really beyond what she's already been promised. The determination in her only grows firmer. Her jaw sets in a bout of stubbornness for which she is in her way well known. She meets his violet eyes with her own dark ones. "It's okay. I trust you Grandfather."

She does, with an absolute faith that is childlike in its way, but no less true for that fact.

Grandfather passes the liquid to cup more fully into one hand, dipping the talons of his free hand into the dark liquid. "Let one without blood become one with blood," he states. "Let Auranar become one of the line in body as she is in bond."

He reaches forward with his talons to Auranar's chest. And it is this part where the pain comes as promised. It feels claws scraping into the skin, like her blood is being spilled. It is fire, it is uncomfortable--more than uncomfortable, it is _pain_ as Grandfather etches into her skin the mark that she will wear forever.

And yet he pulls away. There is still black liquid in his hand. A feather now adorns Auranar's chest, with knotwork roots jutting out from the plume--but they come together in the shape of a heart.

Cor'lana holds onto Auranar all the while, keeping her still for the creation of the mark. "Let one without blood become one with blood," she murmurs into Auranar's ear, a sort of comforting phrase. "You're doing well, sister. It'll be done soon..."

And then the mark is made. Cor'lana almost sighs in relief as Grandfather pulls away. It is clear that she, too, endured this pain once.

No matter how painful someone tells you a thing is, the reality is that there's no way to prepare for it. Auranar's body trembles with it, she struggles to bear it up. Pain is not something that she is overly familiar with, and so all she can do is her very best to weather this thing that feels very much like his claws digging into her flesh. Her eyes close and her jaw locks. She absolutely refuses to scream or cry out, but there's a sound caught in her throat trying to fight its way out and she's left feeling like Grandfather's claws are there too. Her breath comes quick and heavy by the time he's done; a fine sheen of sweat on her brow.

She nods her head to the reassuring words. Dark eyes opening to glance down at the bloody mark on her chest. A light sickness rises in her stomach and she pushes this down too. This is the price she knows. A fitting one.

Grandfather's eyes are sorrowful as he looks at Auranar, incredibly so. "May that be the worst that you ever hurt," Grandfather says gently. "This next step is the last and will soothe you, although it will feel... uncomfortable at first."

He brings up his cupped hands filled with the dark liquid up to Auranar's mouth. "Drink," he implores, and he begins to tilt his talons so that it runs down his fingers.

Cor'lana knows this step, too, and her hands give Auranar a gentle squeeze on the shoulder, a reassurance that she's doing well. "It tastes pretty awful," Cor'lana says. "But... it's important, and you've never let anything stop you. That's part of what makes you one of us."

In truth, and rather hilariously, the pain has left Auranar _parched_. The idea of drinking something, anything really, sounds amazing. He tells her to drink and she does so eagerly, her lips parting and touching his fingers gently so that she can capture the liquid and gulp it down. Cor'lana isn't lying though, it doesn't taste great, and in the end she's grateful for her thirst in that it means she doesn't taste it long.

It tastes like blood.

But then the discomfort... eases. It feels like a dream, the kind that one slips into with the ease of a day spent in revelry for one occasion or another. What Auranar sees is the dark, and then she sees--

Herself, as a baby, but found in Grandfather's arms, a child crying and yearning for love that he provides quickly with a hug and a caress. Herself, as a child, running around in Grandfather's tree-home, learning her letters from the books in the library and then scrawling them clumsily onto Grandfather's rocking chair like all the others. Herself, as a teenager, practicing magic with Grandfather and his laughter of joy as he sees her accomplishing a spell.

"I was too late to give you these," Grandfather's voice says from all around Auranar, "but let these memories of what could have been be stay with you. They will not overwrite what happened--but know that if I had found you so much sooner, you would have been loved. The thunder that has broken in your heart for far too long would have been only the quiet of your loving childhood. You would have been cherished. Just as you are cherished now."

The images change. Auranar, as an adult in Alexandria, with Cor'lana, Pothy, and Telamon all happy and smiling for her--and then Verna, the love of her life on their wedding day, the vows they exchanged, the peace and the happiness that comes with it.

Then out comes a familiar pair of arms to embrace Auranar from behind, the gentle talons taking her hands in his, the weight of Grandfather upon her. "You are my child, Auranar Lúpecyll-Atlon. And from this, know your power. For love is what drives us to fly, for love is what gives us the ability to soar, for love is what will allow you to win in the darkness."

It's a blink of the eyes, and then Auranar comes to in Grandfather's arms, her chest unbloodied--the mark healed. The dreamlike feeling is gone. Here they stand in Grandfather's curuchuil dedicated to his wife and his deceased descendants.

And the pride is strong in Grandfather's violet eyes. "My child," he says softly. And then he leans down to kiss Auranar in her dark hair, like he's been doing that to her for decades.

There are tears on her cheeks as the memories come to her mind. Not erasing the years of loneliness, but standing alongside them. She remembers him vividly now. His gentle touch, his smiling face. She _feels_ what it is to be loved for a life-time. To not be alone. They share a world together, and when she blinks back to this life she feels stronger. Better.

He kisses her on the head and she giggles. The echo of a thousand memories that they share now. She looks up at him and her smile is reborn. "Grandfather." The word is wry and warm. She reaches up and touches his cheek gently. There aren't words here, there's no need for them. Not for a moment.

Finally she breathes out and half-turns, taking Grandfather's clawed hand in her own. She knows how. Knows that he'll never hurt her again. "Cor'lana... I'm staying." She looks up at Grandfather and smiles at him before returning her eyes to her sister. "Not forever, but... I need to get stronger. Learn what Grandfather has given me. He needs someone to look out for him; at least for a while. And that's something I can do. For both of us. All of us."

She reaches out for Cor'lana. "I won't be gone long. Not in your eyes, but I think I need to do this. I need to learn how to fly. And I want... I want to give him and myself a little of what I remember now." She squeezes Grandfather's hand. "So long as he'll have me anyways."

Grandfather smiles brightly at Auranar, the twinkle of his violet eyes brought to joy by Auranar's declaration. "I will be more than happy for you to stay with me, my child," he sort of rumbles in his chest. The reason for the rumbling is evident when one looks back up at his eyes and realizes that there's the beginnings of tears in them, brought there by Auranar's declaration. "I already have a room ready for you, and I'll make you your favorite of my recipes for dinner--and every dinner you spend with me here, should you so wish."

Cor'lana is visibly surprised by the declaration, but then a wide grin spreads on her face to see how happy Grandfather's been made by Auranar's decision. "You will have no better teacher nor protector," she says. "Just don't wander from the house without him--although the birds are very nice, once you get past their odd looks." That's said with a knowing grin in Grandfather's direction, because he, too, could qualify as a nice bird with odd looks.

She takes Auranar's hand and squeezes it. "I'll make sure Verna doesn't worry," she says. "You deserve this. After everything you've been through--you deserve this. You deserve us."

Her eyes sparkle up at their patriarch. "You deserve him."

Auranar is grateful to them both for understanding, accepting. She throws a broad grin at Grandfather. "We'll have to trade off the cooking Grandfather; you deserve someone spoiling you for a bit." She is clearly already looking forward to doting on him as every good grandfather deserves. "I'll be careful sister. Look after Verna for me yes, make sure she doesn't get so wrapped up in things that she forgets to eat and sleep." She doesn't say 'thank you' not here, but it's in her eyes. Gratitude to them both for this; this thing which she needs so desperately.

The gratitude is mirrored in Cor'lana's eyes as she looks at both her Grandfather and her sister--grateful that Auranar weathered the hardest part and most uncomfortable part of this pact to come out the other side with the joy that she, herself, has found and cherished, grateful that Grandfather has given her this joy and sense of strength, and grateful to have a sister that has now been bonded into her family fully and completely. She is no longer the sole woman of Grandfather's bloodline, and that is a comfort all of its own, wonderful and warm, just like the gift given today.

"Let's all go inside for some of that food," Cor'lana suggests with a grin. "Auranar, you didn't get a chance to when I was here--let me show you the nursery that Grandfather made for me..."

The two heritors of Alud'rigan, the bearers of his blood, and their patriarch step inside. While one departs some time later with the aid of Grandfather's magic, one remains. For the first time in years, the Feathered One's home is occupied with two people for an extended stay.

It will not last forever, but people rarely ever do. The memory of them and their love, however, is saved for the statues and the headstones outside, where Lana'lel keeps her eternal vigil over all of her children with loving stone eyes.

-End