[prp] At Rest [ayle and petra]

[phoenix kiss]

For a young man like Ayle, home is often just where one eats and sleeps and takes a s**t; with no parents, there is no special thread to tug one back home, or to make someone think longingly of the place where they came from, people they might see or miss, or a hot meal. He has lived on the farm he calls home at the present for a little over a year, but every few weeks he goes 'missing' -- ranging off into the woods, or at the very least just the fields, to be underneath the sun. Though the lady of the house might complain, the only thing that happens to him is that he's more deeply tanned, his hair edges closer to white, and he is a bit wilder.

With the appearance of Siscalus it has only grown worse; the Guardian seems to think that this behavior is perfectly acceptable. So much so that, in weeks past, Ayle had ridden -- borrowed -- one of the dumpy little farm ponies to go out ranging. Now he rides Siscalus himself, and thinks that he may never sit a horse again. The deer moves with an unearthly sort of grace, lean muscles moving smoothly under his dark hide, and where ponies balk at jumping fences, or stumble their way through mud, Siscalus does not. He seems to be an extension of his chosen.

Which is exactly true, given that Ayle currently lounges on the top of a huge, flat, sun-baked rock in the middle of a meadow. The rock is still heated through with the last of the day's sunlight, and the farmhand lays on his back atop it, arms folded behind his head and arms closed. Siscalus, who rests beside the rock (though he did not even break into a lather and his breath is still calm), surveys the meadow calmly. His ears do not fan out, nor do his nostrils flare. He is, seemingly, in perfect control of the situation.  

[Rejam]

Perhaps then it will be the buck who first notices that they are not quite alone--not as alone, surely, as Ayle must have assumed.

There is a white doe on the edge of the meadow, gleaming between the trunks of the trees. She is so silent that her movement does not betray her--only the brightness of her, and the scent of her carried on the wind, a clean deer scent and the ranker smells of goat fields and mud and milk--give her away.

She seems aware of Siscalus early on, and makes her presence known as she approaches, framing herself in the buck's field of vision. Everything about her--the self-assuredness of her movements, the dignity of her stance, the strange intelligence of her eyes--gives her away for what she is. Where her Chosen may be at the moment goes unanswered, at least for now.  

[phoenix kiss]

Siscalus is the first one to react; perhaps his Chosen is actually asleep, instead of just lounging on the rock. The buck climbs to his feet by simply unfolding his long limbs and snorts, ears fanned forward. His stance is masculine, protective; he either has never seen another Guardian before, or is simply startled by the fact that Spokelse has just appeared, like a ghost, before him.

He takes a step forward, his head canted just so, perhaps a challenge; it is only then that his Guardian wakes up and pushes himself onto an elbow to blink muzzily at the deer.  

[Rejam]

Spokelse seems unfazed by Siscalus's reaction, and only turns her head over her shoulder, ears pricked, towards the treeline. The source of her attention reveals itself soon: a sun-brown, small and sturdy figure that emerges from the woods with her skirts tucked up into her belt and her scabbed knees bare, her dark hair a wild and feral mass around her intent face, disfigured--as it becomes clear as she approaches the deer--by a thick scar that twists at the corner of her full mouth.

She comes to stand near Spokelse--there is still quite some distance between them and the rock, but they are in earshot, now--and puts a hand on the doe's neck. She stares at Ayle with dark eyes that are fierce and challenging beneath the shock of her unkempt eyebrows. And she waits for him to speak first.  

[phoenix kiss]

He sits up. His hair, which is now so blonde as to be almost white, striking against his sunbrown skin and held back in what appears to be a halfhearted excuse for a tail -- slides over one bare shoulder. He looks very much like the glistening, manly heroes on the covers of the romances novels sold in bookstores in Palisade, except that he is a good deal thinner and more wiry, one cheekbone smudged with dirt, and in much less fine clothing.

His accent, when he speaks, is curious: somehow sharper than the countryfolk accent, the vowels more rounded, just -- different. "It's alright. You don't have to stare at me like that."  

[Rejam]

A strange feeling settles over Petra.

Once, when she was very small, a man in the market told her father a joke which she had overheard: a silly joke, fit for a child's ears, nothing dirty or naughty or lewd. But she had not gotten it, had begged for an explanation, and none was forthcoming, just shushing hands.

Years later as she sat on the back of her cart in the market, swinging her feet, she thought--for no reason at all--of the joke, the first time she had since the day she'd heard it. And suddenly, she understood it, and sitting on the back of the cart she had laughed a belly laugh and startled the dog and Spokelse.

This feeling is rather like that--a feeling of thinking a thought that doesn't belong to you. But it is a stranger and more angry and stomach-turning feeling.

For no reason at all, Petra wishes she had braided her hair. She wishes she did not have a scar on her lip. She does not know why she wishes these things, and for some strange reason this embarrasses her, and blood starts to her freckled cheeks.

"I think most people stare at funny-looking things," she retorts, her fingers tightening against Spokelse's neck. It is not the witty answer she'd hoped for, but it's what she's stuck with.  

[phoenix kiss]

Ayle's eyes glitter for a moment before he smiles: a brief flash of white teeth in his dark face, and after a second's thought he slides down off of the rock. One hand goes to Siscalus's neck to steady himself -- or to comfort the deer, who is staring at Spokelse and her chosen strangely. Perhaps Siscalus has not seen another Chosen yet. Perhaps he is just oddly protective of his farmhand. "Well," Ayle says, "Which one of us is funny-lookin'?" One eyebrow arches. He lifts his hand from his buck, and Siscalus paces forward, a patient expression on his face.  

[Rejam]

"Guardians," says Petra loftily and with great sincerity, "are never funny looking." Beside her Spokelse stretches out her neck, ears fanning forward in invitation for Siscalus to come closer.  

[phoenix kiss]

Siscalus pauses for a moment, one leg uplifted; a moment later his dark muzzle touches Spokelse's own: silent greeting. He will turn and look at his Chosen a moment later, inviting Ayle to approach. The ease with which he seems to do it speaks of the deer shepherding the farmhand more often than the other way around.

Ayle will approach calmly, his boots whispering through the tall grass, and shrug. "It's true, Siscalus is a handsome buck." The deer gives him a flat look. "I'm Ayle." He blinks down at her; he is several inches taller than she is. Upon a closer look, he is not that much older, either.  

[Rejam]

The blood starts up in her face again; she feels it hot beneath the skin but hopes her tan will at least minimize it, or maybe that he'll mistake it for the heat. And she is irritated she cares.

"I'm--" she hesitates, considering briefly giving a false name, something pretty: Annabelle, or Evelyn, maybe--but then she realizes she is hesitating before giving her name and how stupid that must seem, and she sets her jaw grimly. "My name is Petra," she answers gruffly. "And this is Spokelse." She buries her face in Spokelse's neck, trying to make it seem nonchalant and indeed perhaps it appears that way--it is like a child hugging his dog--but it succeeds admirably in hiding her face. "I didn't know there was another Chosen around here," she says, muffled. "Where'd you come from, anyway."  

[phoenix kiss]

"The Settlement," he says, sitting down on his haunches so that he does not tower over her so. One hand rests familiarly on Siscalus's flank; the deer, with practiced patience, ignores it. "Came over when I was little."

The Settlement is a prison colony, but given Ayle's tone of voice regarding it, he doesn't care either way about it.  

[Rejam]

Peeking up from between the tangled, matted strands of hair around her face, she tentatively, because she cannot resist it, extends her finger towards Siscalus. Ever since touching Samael and realizing that this doesn't burn her hands, she's been nearly unable to resist beckoning to the few Guardians she's encountered.

"What'd your parents do?" she asks. It's a forward question, but she doesn't exactly look like the sort of person who's been taught manners. She smells like goat and sweat.  

[phoenix kiss]

Siscalus noses forward for a moment, whuffs into her hand -- and then settles his nose into her hand to be petted. He feels like velvet. His breath is warm and slightly damp against her skin, and he watches her with calm eyes, and one ear cocked towards her; the other is angled back to listen to Ayle speak.

It is a good thing that Ayle's deeply suntanned skin does not -- like hers -- show a flush, because her question sets him on edge. He runs a hand over his face, brushing sweat-soaked strands of hair off of his skin, and then shrugs. His expression is, somehow, still rather mild, if his answer is a bit .. direct.

"They were farmers. They moved here when I was small, and died of the bloody flux." A commoner's name for sickness.  

[Rejam]

"Oh," she says, and then after far too long a pause to be polite, remembers to add: "Sorry."

She strokes Siscalus's nose, relaxing a little; she glances back up at Ayle when she speaks. "How long've you had him for? I've had Spokelse five years almost." She says this proudly, and indeed, it is perhaps something to be proud about: it would mean she was only eight or nine when she ventured into the Wardwood alone.  

[phoenix kiss]

Ayle rises; his shoulders are the last thing to roll back, and he makes a short crawling noise from deep in his throat, a noise of pleasure at how good that felt. His shoulders and arms are often sore from hay-threshing or pulling on the horns of errant billygoats too stubborn to come quietly, and baking in the sun and stretching feels entirely too good.

But it's only now, it seems, that he realizes he's not wearing a shirt, and to his credit, he glances worriedly over his shoulder back to the rock he'd been sleeping on. His shirt is there, a scrap of white cotton against the dull grey of the boulder. It makes his full mouth, which is slightly too big for his face, thin and then twist wryly off to one side as he thinks about it.

Siscalus noses him in the back -- hard enough to jolt him back into the conversation -- and then whuffs, disapprovingly, turning his attention back to the more put-together Spokelse. "--couple o'years. Three, at best. When he came out of his totem," an awkward phrase but the best he can do, "He fell off of a shelf of china. Broke half of it."