Welcome to Gaia! ::

On Ayr, the wind speaks.

Or, so it seemed to. It whistled through gullies and canyons, sang over the mountaintops and gathered in hushed conventions between the leaves of century-old trees, speaking of things no Magescian could ever decipher. Lithian climbed high among the rocks to hear it, but also to drown out the rest of the voices scattered amongst the usually bare mountains.

A star shower meant a gathering of all the races, each in their individual clusters for the most part, but with some inevitable mingling. Most of Lithian’s family had attended from his youngest sister Iwana all the way up to Daraka, his eldest brother. Even his mother was in attendance. Only his father, and eldest sister Ysette were absent, making for more company and conversation than Lithian had a mind to cope with. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his family or even that he didn’t enjoy time with them — he did, and was ever grateful for them — but as of late, the older he grew and the more he learned of both the rest of the world and himself, the more he felt distanced. And pressured.

It felt now that with every passing day he was less what his parents hoped for him and more something that even he could not yet define, and the prospect terrified him. Frowning at the thought, Lithian stopped his progression up the narrow, winding mountain path before him, and crouched, eyes over the edge and everything that stretched out beyond: the sheer drop, so abrupt that in the current dark, he could not even make out the formation of rocks at the bottom, the rocky, mountainous expanse of cliffs and jutting formations that lingered beyond that — dark, piercing silhouettes like boney fingers reaching for the night sky and blotting out the stars.

Poor little rich pureblood. Lithian snorted, collapsing back to a sit on the path with his back to the mountain face, for once not even caring about the potential dirt on his clothes. Who was he to complain? He had everything he could ask for: a perfect childhood, loving siblings and parents, wealth, comfort, ‘untainted’ pureblood heritage, and more than enough status from his family name alone to get him any profession he liked, should he choose to pursue it in earnest.

Casseth would have laughed at him if he’d known how much Lithian sulked.

At the thought, Lith winced and shut his eyes. When an unasked for memory of Casseth’s kiss with Irida filtered in, his brow pinched further, and he muttered a soft curse. Stooping, he brushed his fingers over the earth at his side, gripped the nearest small stone, and threw, watching it arch through the air and sink into the abyssal dark with grim satisfaction.

Lithian jerked at the sudden gust and voice, letting out a rather undignified, high-pitched clip of noise in his startlement. When he recognized Ara, though, he flushed, body relaxing again, but pulse still fast in his chest.

“Abronaxus spare me, Ara, I hope you don’t make a habit of greeting people like that unless you’re looking to induce heart attacks…” Lithian said. As the rest of her words sank in, however, his cheeks warmed further, and he pinched at the sleeves of his tunic top, worrying the hem between his thumb and forefinger. “Mm. I’m alright,” he murmured. True, in a sense; he wasn’t hurting, after all, but the weight of his previous line of thought did put a damper on his instinct to smile for his friend. He pushed the smile out anyway, eyeing her. “What are you doing out here all alone? Don’t you have some dashing firestarter around here somewhere lusting after your affections?”

Lithian thought, again, of Casseth and felt his face radiate with its previous heat, but he only rubbed at his cheek with a huff. “Maybe he would have thought different if he knew what a sight it’d be to see you here, in your element,” Lithian said, avoiding the latter part of her question temporarily. “It is quite a sight…and it must be especially lovely for you.”

As his attention drifted over to his friend, lingering on the way the light of the raining stars highlighted her upturned cheeks and sent glints of silver rippling over her dark hair, Lithian’s thoughts moved back to their previous direction. And to her last question. Araceli was attractive. He recognized this now more than at any other stage in his life. Different, certainly, with her eyes and the strange scattering of her scales, but beautiful all the same, and he cared for her genuinely. But even here, framed by the glow of the stars and alone in her presence, he couldn’t imagine things being any different between them than this.

The thought of reaching out to touch her hand, having her lean on his shoulder, or — Abronaxus forbid — kissing her, even if she hadn’t been in a relationship, felt absurd and forced, and, unfortunately, so too did the same situation with any girl he could think of. Lithian let out a breath, turning his eyes away from Ara and out to the stars.

“Do you remember, years ago when we took that student trip to Aisko…when I asked you about what it meant to care for someone, to…feel things for a friend that were different somehow, more significant than other friends?”

Lithian blinked, confused at Araceli’s change in direction and not immediately picking up on where her assumptions had ran. “Of course,” he said. “And I’m very happy for you. But…what does Callum have to do with…?”

Then, realization dawned, and Lithian’s face blossomed with heat.

“No,” he blurted. “That’s not—I mean, I don’t—” He cleared his throat. “You are beautiful, and I’m sure any man would be lucky to have you — Callum is lucky to have you — but I don’t…I wasn’t meaning to imply…that…”

He stumbled, tongue tripping over his own words as he shut his eyes, and drew a breath. Somehow, though he hadn’t imagined it possible, this was even more awkward than he could have imagined. Reaching up to thumb his finger over the ridges of one of his horns, Lithian shook his head, cheeks still hot.

“I care about you. Greatly,” he clarified. “I trust you, and cannot imagine losing your friendship. But please do take no offense when I say that that is genuinely all I see, and ever will see between us.” He shot her a hesitant, surreptitious glance from beneath his lashes. “Which…awkwardly…leads me to my next…” He cleared his throat, swallowing, “ …point…of sorts.”

Pulling his knees in closer to himself and surveying the stars through narrowed eyes and a pinched brow, Lithian hesitated a long moment before he spoke again, and when he did, it was only barely audible over the wind.

“What would you think of me…if I told you it is not simply you that I’ve had no romantic interest in, but every girl…?” Lithian asked. After shoving back the growing lump in his throat and the flutter of panic in his chest, he persisted. “What if I said that…for as long as you, and my siblings, and my parents, and anyone ever close enough to me to comment has been making assumptions, I have never once felt a spark of desire for anything beyond friendship with a single young woman? Ever.”

Lithian blinked, staring, entirely caught up in the fact that Araceli’s immediate assumption at his admittance was not that he was abnormal in not showing any interest in anyone, but that clearly his interests must simply lie elsewhere. This, though, suggested — at least to Lith — that there were others out there with his peculiar brand of tastes, a revolutionary concept as far as his exposure was concerned. How had he never heard of this? Never seen it, or heard it spoken of? Everyone had simply assumed that eventually his interest in women would appear out of nowhere.

Not only that, but Araceli didn’t even seem particularly bothered by the idea, merely curious.

As such, overwhelmed with the swamp of unanticipated revelations, Lithian stumbled over his response. “I…that…is that…? There are people like that?” he blurted, unable to hold the question back. “Others? I thought I was sick, that something horrible had overtaken me, and that I needed to fix myself somehow. I thought…I…how could…? You knew about this illness? Is there a way to change it? How common is it? How come I’ve never heard of this until now? Why wouldn’t anyone even mention…” He trailed off, squeezing his eyes shut and drawing a full breath as he attempted to grapple with his racing questions. Finally, hesitantly, he asked, “You do not find it disgusting…?”

Lithian blinked, startled at the extra contact, but soon gave in, blushing for entirely different reasons as he let himself lean into Ara’s embrace and appreciate the closeness. It was an indescribable relief, in certain ways, to have the words off of his chest. But in others, at least according to the way Ara phrased it, it brought about a new sort of dread. No, he was not alone, and no, it was not a disease. But it was uncommon, unrecognized, and — from the sound of things — alien and strange to most.

There was a high chance his parents would react as he had: hoping he would grow out of it, and move on. He released a slow breath, shoving all the rest of his concerns temporarily out of his way before shaking his head in answer to Ara’s question.

“I’ve told no one. I…didn’t quite know how to speak about it,” he admitted. “It seemed such a strange concept to me, and I kept praying that…eventually…” He trailed off, expression pinching again. “I would rather not be this way…but as it stands, I am very grateful that you were the first I came to, and that you listened. Thank you…”