[Edel PRP] The Unavoidable (Xun Jiang/Adrienne)

[Zero Dream]

He really shouldn't put this off anymore. It had already been put of long enough.

Even if he had wanted to do so, it was unavoidable - Adrienne was Glyph's aoide, and he and Forest would likely keep on walking likewise steps, or at least it was the hopeful feeling he'd had from their meetings together, soon after he'd become himself again. And Elik, whom he still talked with every now and then, seemed quite close to the little werewolf...

That and well, he didn't want to. He found himself missing her quite terribly, but that fear of rejection has kept him away. He wasn't Illisia - what Adrienne probably wanted. Well, not completely.

Still, he couldn't help the knots forming themselves in his stomach as he wandered outside, looking for her. Best to try to meet her on neutral ground, somewhere open... Somewhere where he could take dragon form with the most ease if she wished for him to do so.

Maybe he was worrying too much, but he found it better to be safe than sorry. Illisia had loved Adrienne like if she had been her own child, in a way - and some of that affection still lived on in the dragon king. To see her ill at ease...

[Meepfur]

Adrienne was...coping, to the extent that she coped with anything. She'd cried - a lot - and struggled to get back to what was normal for her: to be happy, joyful, to have fun and just be Adi. She'd been mostly successful, as it was her natural state, but there was that lingering sadness, an inescapable hole in her life, and a guilty feeling that it would be wrong to let go of that mourning. Illisia had meant so much to her, been so many things: friend, teacher, mother-figure. She had idolized the night elf, who'd given her a more definite path in life, to be not just an aoide, but Glyph's aoide, and a druid. The loss was profound, and would have been difficult even had she been older than her four years; it was just so hard to process and understand it all.

Today, she was Not Thinking About It. She was in her little clearing, sitting against her tree, and watching the rosebushes that circled the area intently. Something had been eating her roses, and she was determined to discover the culprit. If she just waited long enough, maybe it would show itself...

[Zero Dream]

And there she was, and he was probably far from the critter she had been on the lookout to try to spy.

For a moment, the dragon froze. It looked like she hadn't seen him. Maybe he could just...

No, he reminded himself. He couldn't.

"Adrienne ?" He said, but didn't move. Let her take whatever steps she felt comfortable in taking. "I'd... like to talk with you, if you don't mind."

[Meepfur]

No, a dragon was not what she'd been expecting at all. Not a dragon, not a ghost.

There was still so much of her in him - her color, her ears, even a little of her smell - but it was the differences that were the hardest. He had scales, wings, a tail, and though there were feminine elements to him, there was a definite masculinity now, especially in his face. The beauty she'd once so admired was changed, and would eventually be gone completely.

She didn't hate him, she didn't resent him, but she didn't know what she felt except confusion. It would have been easier if the resemblance weren't so clear, an echo of what she'd lost...but Adi also knew Illisia could still be there, in some way or another. She really didn't know how to react, so she tried to fall back on 'normal' with mixed results.

"Xun?" she smiled tentatively, though her tail was notably still. "Y-Yeah, of course."

[Zero Dream]

It hurt to see her that way. That much was undeniable, and he didn't know how to deal with this. At all. Illisia had learned to deal with loss, but not anything... like this. He had nothing he could base upon to make the young girl smile again, to make her understand that everything would be alright.

She was so young, in spite of looking much older. It might well be the first time she had lost someone, and he had nothing to guide his steps.

Well, nothing but instinct and the fierce love and care he had for her, the one that Illisia also had.

Finally, he did the first step that led her toward her, and stopped, settling to sit beside her.

"Your flowers look lovely, still." Goof job dodging the issue there, mighty dragon king. He looked to be just as awkward as she felt.

[Meepfur]

Adi didn't object when Xun sat beside her, although the happy hug she usually greeted friends with was absent. "Something's been eating the roses," she replied after a moment of hesitation. Dodging was fine, that worked. That was easier, even if she wanted to just ask how much of him was who, but she was also afraid that it might not be the answer she wanted. "I'm trying to catch it, but I haven't even seen it yet."

[Zero Dream]

The dragon settled with his head resting on his knees, tail curled up around his body in a full circle, tip tapping against the side of his wing in a way that could only be interpreted as nervously, much like someone else might otherwise squirm or run their fingers through their hair.

Part of him wanted to hug her, but it seemed wiser to restrain that urge.

He peered slightly as the nearest rose bush. Most likely some sort of herbivore, through... "Kind of looks like rabbit teeth marks to me. Or some sort of rodent, through the details of the animals of this world still escape me a bit..."

He mostly ate fish. Fish was delicious. And easy to hunt for a river-dwelling dragon.

[Meepfur]

Adi glanced sideways briefly, distracted by his tapping tail. It was a nice tail, really, long with a finned end. Was it sharp? Curiosity urged her to touch it, but she refrained, fingers twitching just a little. "You think so? I wonder why it just eats the roses, though, and not any of the leaves...or the snapdragons, or the orchids. It just wants the roses. Do they taste better?"

[Zero Dream]

The tail kept on tapping, it's owner unaware of the temptation the aoide was going through. The fins were sharp, and might actually cause decent damage should the dragon have any wish to do such, but the rest was all smooth scale.

"Im not too sure... I might be wrong, too. I can't say I've ever tasted a rose...." He admitted. Awkward conversation was awkward.

Enough of this. He reminded himself.

"So... How have you been doing ?" It was an opening.

[Meepfur]

"I..." That was a hard question. It was hard to grasp everything, let alone put it into words, and besides that, she didn't want to make him feel bad. It wasn't his fault - well, maybe it was, but not like that. Illisia had chosen this, and had already been a host when Adi had met her. She couldn't fault him for anything. "Just working with Glyph, you know. Sometimes I feel like it's going to take forever to get to be an aoide."

So that probably wasn't what he'd been going for, but it was a start.

[Zero Dream]

So young... So young, indeed. He wanted to hold her, hug her, take care of her, much like Illisia had, and it was maddening.

"The best things are sometimes the hardest to do, and the longest to see happen." He said, finally tilting his head, to look at her. "But then it finally happens, and it feels... Truly like you've done something. It feels so much better than if somehow everything had been easy. I know you can do it, Adi..." He slipped in the familiar nickname all too easy. "Even if it takes a long time... I know you'll be a lovely aoide."

[Meepfur]

"You sound like Rio." Adi smiled a little.

"I just wish I could figure out why I have to wait," she said with a sigh. It was actually sort of easy to talk to Xun when she didn't think about it too much. His presence was familiar. "Am I supposed to be older? A better druid? I can keep learning after, though..."

"Or maybe we're just not supposed to bother Harmodius." That would be an easier reason to be patient with.

[Zero Dream]

"Then that must mean we're right, arn't we ?" He said with a smile.

"Harmodius is still recovering from the remaking." Oh, he would know - he missed his master deeply ! But he couldn't even fathom doing something like Creation had done, or how he had even done it, so it seemed better to let him rest a little more... Through company, perhaps, he would not be adverse to.

"So that is probably why. Last I have seen you were learning very quickly." He nodded. Little that he could do to help her, now - Illisia's talents were lost to him, and his own skills were not something she could learn, really.

[Meepfur]

The werewolf frowned in semi-affectionate annoyance at the dragon's conclusion. She'd already been with Glyph for more than a year...that was, like, more than a quarter of her life! It was a Very Long Time, at least in her reckoning, and it was even harder to be patient without a clear end in sight. Not that she was likely to ever say any of this to Glyph; she didn't want him to know she was being impatient! That could be counterproductive.

"If I could get someone to teach me more..." But that was hard to think about, when everything she knew about being a druid was bound up in memories of Illisia. There also weren't a lot of druid around, except for Elik, who seemed somewhat reluctant.

[Zero Dream]

"Elik ?" was the dragon's first thought, of course, and lips pursed thoughtfully, in a way that was very Illisia. "Through you'd have to get him to stop going on about how he's not good at it and just get him to show you... He's stubborn like that."

Hn. Through, this was maybe the sign Adi had been looking for. Xun Jiang seemed awfully familiar with his host's son...

"Im sure there are bound to be more druids around if you keep an eye open, through." Hadn't he seen one near Glyph actually ? He couldn't quite remember...