Welcome to Gaia! ::

✦ Step 1: Capture. ✦

With the come of nightfall, the continent borne from the goddess of shadow came awake as surely as any other did with the coming of morning. Night blossoms, mushrooms and fungal beds glowed with an iridescent sheen. Night bugs chirruped, cricketed or squeaked. Birds filled the night air with the low whistles and hoots of the native forest. Sitting perched on the outer lip of a now-empty caravan, Detraeus listened, and watched.

The various and sundry jobs he took on — nearly all revolving around connections and names dropped in the Pit — lead him all over the map to a wide variety of places, including all across Eowyn’s north, south, and to every coastline, as well as, on slightly rarer occasions, other continents. Detraeus still avoided Serenia in its entirety, of course — though it felt more like a giant tick looming, itching, waiting for the time he could finally scratch and pluck it free from him. He did, however, accept the occasional travel to Ayr or, preferably, Soudul.

Though he had no memories of a young childhood there — only those that came after he fought his way back to it — he felt a sense of familiarity and peace amidst the landscape that he found lacking in other portions of the world. His traveling companions, for better or for worse, did not share that love. Nor did they partake in the schedule of the land. Mostly dovaa, they were all asleep, scattered across a messy spread of sleeping blankets as well as clumped within the caravan itself. Like living, breathing mounds, burbled up and all around.

While living on Eowyn, Detraeus had taken to a daytime schedule out of relative necessity, but something about his home continent seemed to call to his blood, making it tenfold as difficult to find sleep at night. Here, night was the time of wakefulness and activity. Giving the forest line one last glance, however, Detraeus released a breath, on the verge of relinquishing his post and at least attempting to join the rest in sleeping.

Then, something — quiet as a shadow — moved between the trees.

Thoughts of sleep immediately dispersed, Detraeus shifted his weight, rearranging his perch so that he was on the balls of his feet, poised. After several long, drawn moments with nothing to break the silence but the wind between the trees, he moved down, dropping his weight silently to the earth and letting his fingers rest idly at his quiver as he navigated the sea of bodies beneath him with barely a downward glance.

Something was out there.

For the better part of twenty minutes, Detraeus picked quietly through the surrounding edges of the grove they’d taken up camp in. Night creatures, small amphibians, furred critters and lively birds: he saw evidence of many things, though nothing more than a set of potential hoofprints that might fit what he’d been looking for.

A Soudulian hastar, perhaps?

Detraeus had heard in passing that, while arguably timid, the hastars native to Soudul were among the most gentle tempered and easiest to groom towards being suitable for riding. Then, mid-thought, as though summoned by the mere notion of it, a shadow moved again, and as he froze, Detraeus saw it.

Sleek. Young. Wild. And a coat as dark as the night sky unmarred by stars. It caught his stare, watching him and sniffing the surrounding area — wary, but curious. As he watched, it shuffled its hooves, taking a step forward and then back. He waited, still as a lake of glass. Minutes dragged on, and he watched the beast’s curiosity get the better of it. Barely out of the colt stage, if Detraeus had to guess. Too small and too bold to be a full adult.

It came nearly within reach of touching, drawing its snout out to scent him directly.

The instant he twitched a finger, though, it gave a short, clipped whinny, trotting back, and then bounded off into the night. Detraeus spread his wings, tail flicking curiously, but eventually, he chose not to pursue. One day, though, he decided, he would give chase. He needed a mount, after all. And what better than one born and raised wild, and free, on the continent of his mother goddess?