Welcome to Gaia! ::

Asi flopped out onto his bed, eyes staring up at the ceiling as he pondered and wondered what he could get into with his father and brother out on a hunt. He had wanted to go with them but had, instead, been forced to stay home. His father had deemed him ‘too young’ and without a clan, unable to defend himself properly. He huffed and rolled over onto his stomach. It had been hours since they’d left. Surely they should have been home by now? Maybe something had happened and he would have to go out in search for them? Just as he was about to jump out of bed, and go off in search of his mother, he heard the front door slam shut and voices echo through the house. Next he heard footsteps and he rolled back over onto his back and propped himself up with his arms.

Tylik burst into Asi’s room, a huge grin on his face and the satchel at his waist very obviously heavy with whatever rewards they’d gotten from their hunts. “Asi’wi, you missed a great hunt! Look at what we got.” Tylik moved over to the edge of Asi’s bed and opened the satchel. Gleaming up at him was a nice haul of aiskala orbs. Each one looked as if it contained a miniature snow storm inside itself. Asi’s eyes widened as he looked at each orb. There were so many, it was no wonder it had taken them so long to come back home. “It was so much fun.”

Asi’s gaze flicked up to his brother, eyes narrowing. “S’not fair,” he muttered as he flopped back onto his bed and huffed.

“Aw, c’mon Asi.” Asi felt the mattress dip under Tylik’s weight and he rolled over onto his side, facing away from Tylik. “Oh don’t be like that!” Tylik lunged, grabbing at Asi and pulling him around.

“Don’t,” Asi whined as he shoved at Tylik and scrambled to move out of his brother’s reach.

Tylik laughed and lunged himself at Asi, his orbs forgotten for the moment. “Don’t be such as ourpuss.” Tylik rolled with Asi, tickling his brother’s sides and eliciting a few unintentional laughs from the younger dovaa. Tylik eventually got the upper hand and ended up sitting on top of Asi and ruffling his long hair. “Gotcha.” He grinned down at his disgruntled sibling. “I always get you.”

Asi muttered as he bucked, catching Tylik off guard and throwing him to to the floor. Tylik flailed, the orb heavy satchel falling and crashing into Asi’s dresser. An audible crack made them both pause and shiver as the room grew cold. Tylik’s eyes widened as he scrambled over to his bag and opened it to reveal a shattered orb. “Uh oh,” he mumbled as the orbs magic shot up and around him. His firani magic flared, warming the area around him and shoving the intruding aiskala magic away.

It sought out the only other option in the room; Asi’wi. Asi scrambled back on his bed, hitting up against the wall, as the magic slithered through the air towards him. He wasn’t ready to pick his clan yet. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to be aiskala, even though it had been an option he’d been considering. He shuddered as the magic wrapped around him and, finding no other competing source of magic, began to meld with him. As the magic flowed through him, the cold of the room disappeared and Asi was no longer shivering. Unlike his brother. Asi’s eyes narrowed on Tylik. “Why are you shivering?”

“Because! It’s cold in here. Rein in your magic, brother.”

Asi blinked a moment before his gaze jerked down to where his fingers had gripped his sheets. Ice rippled out, freezing everything under him. He whimpered and quickly released the sheets and tried to tamper down what was now, apparently, his clan magic.

My brother and I were out practicing our magic when two strangers, who we first thought were dragons, appeared. A dovaa and his hybrid mate. Both were men! I'd never seen that before.

The two strangers, Casseth and Lithian, stayed with us while the storm ran its course. Good thing too! The dovaa was a healer and momma started going into labor with our sister. Soon after the storm passed, the two of them left. I was kind of sad to see them go.

Asi’wi fidgeted, tugging at the sleeves of the top his mother had laid out for him. The last thing he wanted was to dress up and present his orbs to some old, washed out dovaas. He grunted, brows pinching together as his mother leaned forward and wiped at a spot on his cheek — some imaginary piece of dirt that had somehow managed to make its way there, despite him not having been allowed to do anything for the past hour.

“Stop pulling on your clothes, Asi’wi,” his mother’s voice was quiet and soft, barely above a whisper.

“Yes, m’am,” he mumbled and forced his hands down to his sides, laying one of them atop the satchel that held his orbs he was to turn in. Despite his reluctance to be here — and want to be somewhere else entirely — Asi’wi was rather excited to be able to take this next step forward. Turning in his orbs meant that he could move onto the next stage of his training. He just wished it was a quicker process. He had wanted to travel to the Celestial Plain and turn his orbs into Marcus, the dovaa leader, but his parents had refused. They had insisted that it was tradition for the family to turn their orbs in to their elder.

Despite his protests, and making it abundantly clear that he was not happy, Asi now stood outside of the elder’s door, impatiently waiting to be seen. “When is it going to be my turn,” Asi complained to his mother. It seemed as if they had been there for hours and he was growing increasingly more impatient as the minutes wore on.

Just as he was about to open his mouth to complain again, the door opened and revealed a young dovaa boy, about the same age as Asi himself. He shut his mouth as the boy, obviously ysali, bowed and spoke up. “The elder is ready to see you.” The boy’s voice was quiet and unobtrusive but Asi couldn’t take his eyes off of him, for a moment, all the same. At his mother’s nudge Asi snapped out of his thoughts, gaze jerked towards her. He blinked, cheeks flushing when she smiled and nodded towards the door.

‘Right. Orb turn in,’ Asi thought as he turned back towards the door. He swallowed and gave the boy one last look before stepping forward and heading in. Asi froze, blinking as he saw who stood before him, ready to take his orbs. At the smile from the older woman, Asi’s earlier thoughts seemed out of place and, though he hadn’t said it outloud, he wished he could take them back.

A grin curled up the corners of his lips as his grandmother stepped forward and tugged him into a hug. “Oh poo on traditions. I haven’t seen you in months.” The last person Asi had expected to see, that day, was his maternal grandmother. The last he had heard, she was still on the Celestial Plain, taking care of some things — no one had bothered to tell him what kind of things. At the moment, that didn’t matter. He wrapped his arms around the older dovaa and squeezed. They stayed there for a little bit before she pulled away and held him at arms length. “Have you met Kanath? He came back with me from the Celestial Plane and he’ll be staying on Aisko for a while.” Asi’s grandma nodded towards the ysali boy who had called him in.

“H-hello…” Kanath flushed and bowed at the introduction.

Asi let his eyes roam over the boy this time, taking in every small detail that he could — roughly the same age as him, smaller in build and shorter. The only scales he could see were a few peeking out from the robe he wore and climbing up his neck to disappear behind his long ears. His horns started above, and slightly forward, his ears and curved back, hugging the sides of his head and branching off in what looked almost like tree branches (though they weren’t very far past his head). As could have kept looking, had his grandmother not cleared her throat. His gaze snapped back and his cheeks heated all over again at her raised eyebrow. “I suppose we should get down to business, hmm? You’ve brought me something, yes?”

Asi nodded and fumbled to open the satchel at his side. When he finally got the clasp undone and the flap opened, his cheeks had finally cooled. He pulled out the two ysali orbs, from the dragons he’d defeated, with his brother, on Ayr. “From my first dragon hunt, grandmother.” Asi let a small smile curl up the corners of his lips as he handed the orbs over to his grandmother.

“Good, good. You are a very strong dovaa, Asi’wi. Your mother has gushed about your progress in the last few months. I am so proud of you my young one.” She moved over to her desk and sat the orbs down before heading back over to her grandson. “There are still many things for you to learn in life, but you will do just fine.” She embraced him again. “I will see you soon, yes?” At Asi’s nod she smiled and ushered him on his way. “Kanath will see you out.”

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