Welcome to Gaia! ::

“And what about her, eh?” Syrikk said, elbowing Lithian gently to emphasize his ‘playful’ goading as he gestured with his spare hand towards a young woman across the way, currently engaged in conversation with a festival performer. “She’s fairly cute, eh? Look at those horns. Scales aren’t bad either…you can even see their glint from here.”

“Mm,” Lithian hummed in answer, a half-hearted attempt at feigning interest in this new favorite ‘game’ of his brother’s which essentially always played out in the exact same format. First, Syrikk found a young dovaa woman he found fetching. Second, he proceeded to start up a one-sided discourse on why she was appealing and why Lithian ought to be interested if he had a sane bone in his body. And, generally, he finished by giving up on drawing Lith into the convo entirely and would wander off to engage the girl himself.

As predicted, Syrikk soon huffed, nudging his shoulder up against Lithian. “You’re impossible to please, little brother, you know that?”

“Hm?” Lithian glanced over. “What?”

Syrikk rolled his eyes in defeat. “Ads, he’s all yours,” Syrikk conceded with a bow. “I’m off to go appreciate the beauty in the world.”

“Uh huh,” answered Adela, his sister, at Lithian’s opposite side. “Just don’t get your sack burned like last time. You might wanna give the firani’s a rest for a bit.”

Syrikk made a rude gesture.

“If you can’t take the heat—!” Adela started, but Syrikk was gone, disappearing into the crowds, and she snorted, lip curving up in smug amusement.

The evening sky over the Celestial Plane glowed red-orange with the fading day, the shadows of night already seeping around it, but Astral City was alight with activity. Glowing red lanterns hung from shop windows and glimmered in the windowsills of city residents. Banners draped from between buildings and over store fronts. Festival performers in intricate costumed garb walked the streets busily, and every indrawn breath brought with it the scent of more food than could possibly be consumed by every dovaa on the entire Plane in one sitting. Naturally growing fruits, vegetables, and farm-raised meats lined shop tables alongside expensive imports from the lower world. Steamed dumplings and fried wraps, puddings, breads, cheeses all made a showing.

The place was alive with the first day of what would stretch into several weeks of periodic festival activities celebrating the coming of spring in the lower world and the turning of the elements to favor heat and the warming of the earth: firani, kiandri and gaili clans made the strongest showing.

When Adela punched his arm, Lithian frowned, glancing sidelong towards her and rubbing it dourly. “What? What did I do?”

“You look so glum, Lithi,” Adela bemoaned, raising her fist to likely punch again but stopping at Lithian’s instinctive cringe and shirk to the side. “Oh, come on, I didn’t hit you that hard you big uruu. What’s wrong? You look like you get more burned out every time we take you to go have a bit of fun. The idea is to cheer you up and get you involved, not turn you into a sack of dead fish.”

Lithian huffed, diverting his gaze. “I…” Thinking of Casseth, however, and how much time he had been spending off of the Plane lately, he sighed. “I’m sorry. I have been spending a lot of time away from home. I…suppose I’m just a bit out of it.” He pushed a smile onto his lips — partially forced, but not entirely insincere. “I’ll try to enjoy myself?”

“You best try hard, Lithi,” Adela cautioned with pseudo seriousness. “Between all your gangly limbs and awkward habit of growing taller than everyone I know, you’ll never attract anything but nesting birds in your hair if you don’t at least smile. It’s your only winning feature!”

Lithian snorted. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, Ads. It makes me feel so much better.”

“Good.”

Lithian winced, cringing again as Adela buried another playful punch in his arm. “I’m going to develop a bruise…”

Ignoring him entirely, Adela gave a curt nudge to the small of Lith’s back. “Go on and get out there, eh? I’m gonna go see if I can convince Daraka to come join us, and if you can’t tell me you’ve met at least one new person by the time I find you again, I’ll be severely disappointed.”

“Mm. But—”

“Go on, mingle,” Adela encouraged, stepping back and away from him, and before he could protest any further, she too was starting off into a brisk jog down the street, leaving him to his own devices.

Rubbing his horn with a frown, Lithian glanced out into the crowds with trepidation. How was one supposed to ‘mingle’ to begin with? Eventually, he gravitated towards one of the lantern dances in process near the city’s center. While talking was difficult and he generally found large crowds and excessive noise to be intimidating rather than enjoyable, he did appreciate performance art, dancing in particular, and found that he was easily caught up in the display, the rest of his concerns temporarily, blessedly, on hold.

Night came into full bloom as he watched, transfixed by the rhythmic bend and weave of the firani performers, each plucking and manipulating their element like gods of light and shadow in the cooling air.

Lithian blinked at the commentary, glancing first to the young man beside him and then around himself, looking for whoever was being addressed. After an awkwardly long period of time spent determining that it was in fact him that was being addressed, for whatever reason, he opened his mouth.

“Ah…” And then cleared his throat, flushing and closing his lips. “Mm. It, er…”

Was this ‘mingling’? Because apparently he was far worse at in than either he or his siblings could possibly imagine. Lithian tangled his fingers in one of the loose ends of his braids, coiling it and flicking his gaze between the speaker and the dancers. A firani, Lithian deduced as he studied him — he would recognize eyes like that anywhere, having two sisters of his own who sported a similar look — conventionally attractive with a long, razor straight nose, sweeping brown hair streaked with red, and glinting, burnt burgundy scales. About his age too, most likely.

It would have been embarrassingly easy to let the commentary slip entirely by the wayside and avoid conversation as he typically did, but as he reminded himself that the entire reason he was out here — ideally — was to meet people, Adela’s words came back to him instead:

‘…you’ll never attract anything but nesting birds in your hair if you don’t at least smile. It’s your only winning feature!’

Swallowing back his indecision, Lithian smiled. “I think so,” he agreed. “I don’t think I’ve been spending enough time on the Plane — I haven’t watched a performance quite like this since I was small. It’s lovely to watch the other elements at work…” Then, before he could keep the question off of his tongue: “Do you dance?” Almost the instant he spoke it, Lithian regretted it, and stumbled over his words to clarify, “Not—not that you look like a performer. Or that I was asking you to dance, obviously. I didn’t mean—I mean clearly you’re just watching at the moment…er, not that you couldn’t be a performer, that is, if you are. I’m sure you’d look magnificent dancing up there if you—ah, I mean more, as in, if you do, I’m sure you’re skilled, not that you look especially…different. Not in a...strange…mmn…”

Lithian swallowed, tucking hair behind his ear and diverting his gaze, spare hand rubbing over the ridges of his left horn.

“It’s a nice night, isn’t it?” It occurred to Lithian briefly to introduce himself, but after the past half minute or so of his personal blundering, he figured that not giving out his name unless the other boy offered up his first was a safety precaution. Perhaps, if he'd embarrassed himself horribly enough, he could simply slip off into the crowds and the young man would forget of his existence entirely.

“I…”

Lithian closed his lips, cheeks warming to a dark, red-brown at the commentary, thankfully close to invisible in the deepening night. But he did relax a fraction. Even if his company was correct in pointing out his awkward tendency to lose control of his tongue under pressure, the firani didn’t seem bothered by it — genuinely amused, even — and that set Lithian more at ease, regardless of whether or not the amusement was at his expense. When the other finished, Lithian smiled. Fully sincere, this time, and curious as he eyed the other in earnest.

“Lithian,” he said, accepting the hand. “Lithian Bhardvaris. It’s a pleasure to meet you…and I agree,” he added, the corner of his lip edging up further as he let his hand drop. “The warmer months make for much more amicable swimming conditions in the lower worlds, not that it’s much of an issue here.” He tilted his head. “Do you frequent performances like this?”

Lithian blinked, glancing between the pair and then out over the crowds. After spending a brief moment wondering where his relations were — specifically Adela, Syrikk and even Daraka if his sister managed to convince him to come join them — Lithian dismissed his concerns and turned his attention back to his companions at hand. His siblings had ushered him out here with the sole purpose of encouraging him into some interaction, after all, and if they wanted to seek him they could. It wasn’t his responsibility to keep them up to date on his whereabouts for the entirety of the evening.

That decided, Lithian smiled and gave a dip of a bow. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir, and the offer is much appreciated. I feel as though I haven’t eaten in days.” In truth, he’d eaten only an hour or so before, but his stomach seemed to have forgotten already, giving an insistent pang of hunger at just the mention of more food, and the surrounding stalls smelled mouth-wateringly appealing. “It would be an honor to join you.”

Once they started off, with Paen taking the lead, Lithian’s attention flit again towards Vyren. He wondered if the boy lived in the city, and if so, which portion. Thanks to his parents’ choices as far his upbringing and tutoring were concerned, it wasn’t at all uncommon for there to be fellow students around his age living in the area that he had never encountered before. Lithian rarely thought much of it, but in retrospect it did seem a pity of sorts that he’d never had the opportunity to meet more of a variety of people.

After a quick gathering of his nerve, Lithian drew a breath to speak.

“I don’t actually frequent such things,” he said in long-overdue answer to Vyren’s previous question. “In fact, most find themselves hard pressed to get me out at most any social gathering. My family has been trying to encourage it as of late, however. I feel as though they fear the time I spend in the desert is making me forget how to talk to anything but sand and sunlight, which…” Lithian paused, frowning, “…may be true, though I don’t suppose it would be the fault of the sand or sun. I wouldn’t go so far as to say making conversation has ever been a strong point of mine to begin with, let alone…”

‘…you should really just stop talking. You tend to blather on a bit.’

Lithian trailed off, wincing a fraction, and rubbed at the tip of one of his horns. “So what do you enjoy doing?”

Lithian raised his eyebrows at the other’s mini fire show, but said nothing. He had seen what fire could do. Having two firani sisters gave him more than enough experience with it, and while he had always found the element fascinating — entrancing, even, in its power — it was also intimidating on a level he preferred not to think about. He loved his sister, Ysette, with all his heart, and watching her play with her element as a young boy had always intrigued him. But he feared for her, too, as though her raw energy, recklessness, and thirst for power would one day burn her up from the inside out. He wondered, watching the fires lick between Vyren’s fingers, if that was a trait common in many firani dovaa.

Thankfully, the change in topic and arrival of food gave him excuse to set those thoughts aside for the time being, and Lithian smiled, thanking the older man again and waiting until Vyren started to eat before following suit.

“Dragons always seem to find me,” Lithian said between bites. “My first ever encounter with them, in fact, was a massive accident — an ambush by firani and kiandri dragons on myself and my siblings on my first ever trip to the lower world. I never would have survived had I been alone, but it certainly taught me wariness of them. Not that I wasn’t before, of course, I’ve always been…”

Lithian trailed off, flushing, and curtailed the ramble with a bite of food, his eyes flickering up to the dark sea of sky above them. Seeing the Celestial Plane’s empty sky always reminded him how much he missed the view of the stars on a desert night, or over the open sea.

“I prefer reading to training, myself. I almost didn’t become a fighter at all, but…I wanted to put my healing to active use and at least be capable enough that I wasn’t a burden on anyone.” Lithian eyed the other boy, tilting his head with a curious smile. “You must be all the stronger, though, if you are actively seeking out your battles. Any interesting stories to tell?”

Lithian arched his eyebrows as he listened, tilting his head and wondering how much of it to take seriously. Vyren certainly looked fully capable of besting ysalis easily, but the way he told the story made Lithian wonder. Then again, Lith had no personal experience with the little green dragons to begin with, so what did he know? All he’d fought as a young boy was leklans and dunkels until he’d received the aid of his siblings in training him up, and he hadn’t been nearly so successful on his first few fights. So, as Vyren spoke, he only smiled, giving him the benefit of the doubt.

“That sounds like some fight,” Lithian said when Vyren finished. “I’ve never before known a dragon to bleed, but perhaps — since I’ve fought only with water — that is to be expected. Drowning a thing from the inside hardly makes cuts.”

He considered Vyren’s question for a long moment. If Vyren’s grand tale was of a ysali battle, he didn’t want to tell the boy a story he wouldn’t believe, but on the opposite hand he wasn’t particularly eager to go into detail about his first embarrassing attempts trying to fend off grazing animals with little success. Eventually, he chose to compromise: his most recent encounter with Soudul’s diabis was unlikely to be taken seriously, but he had more than that story to work with.

“Some years ago, fairly recently after I progressed officially into the rank of adept, I participated — at my parents’ insistence — in a class excursion to Aisko. The general idea was that the more rigorous landscape would encourage intenser training and break us out of our comfort zones when tapping into our element. Of course, my sense of direction has never been good. I’ve managed to lose myself in my own home more than once, and add to that a landscape where the only difference between what’s in front of you and what’s behind you is the exact shape of a potential jut of icy white distant mountain range or a specific pile of snow, and…keeping track of oneself becomes much more complicated.”

Lithian fingered his thumb over the ridges of his left horn, abashed, but thoughtful at the same time as he debated how much to include. It seemed Vyren’s primary interest was the ‘action’ of the story, so he opted to skip over some of the initial details.

“Thanks to a…small misunderstanding between myself and some of my older classmates, one day fairly shortly after my arrival I found myself a fair distance away from our practice site and horribly lost.”

In retrospect, it had turned out the boys had purposefully lead him far away and then left him on his own as a ‘joke’ intending to retrieve him later, but Vyren didn’t need to know that.

“A snowstorm came up, separating me from them and confusing my sense of direction even more — if possible — and as though the gods had it out for me, before I had even begun trying to find my way back, I was attacked by four peisios. Thankfully, theirs was my element, making it easy enough to manipulate their own magic back at them and, despite being exhausted, I managed to handle them…decently enough. Of course, by the time two aiskalas joined in the battle, I was already worn, freezing, lost, and entirely unprepared to take them on. They ended up driving me down a massive snowdrift and I barely escaped by wedging myself under a narrow, icy overhang that the beasts couldn’t fit through. They managed to tear a good gash in my leg, though, and I near certainly would have died there if I hadn’t been found simply thanks to cold and exposure…”

Lithian glanced over to Vyren, studying his reaction for signs of disbelief.

“By the time I made it back, naturally none of my classmates believed me and supposed I had simply tripped on the ice and wounded myself — as I have been prone to do under other instances, so I can hardly say I blame them for their skepticism.”

Lithian relaxed and smiled broadly at the invitation. At least if the boy was offering to hunt with him he couldn’t think too poorly of him, and — as little as he had agreed with it before — perhaps it would do him some good to entertain his family’s wishes and spend some time with other dovaa his age.

“I’d like that,” he answered. “Perhaps you could even meet—” Halfway into the statement, though, Lithian reminded himself that not all of his peers, by a long shot, would take to Casseth’s mixed race with open mindedness, and he closed his mouth, cheeks warming abashedly. If Araceli was any indication, it was best he held his tongue and got to know the boy better before inviting him around Cas. Hence, he quickly changed course. “Ah, I’m sure there is much I could learn from you. The only firani I have ever trained with at any length is my eldest sister, and I’m sure it would benefit me to branch out. Perhaps you can show me what all your fire can do besides burn down villages, mm?” he teased gently, trying to move the topic as far away from his first blunder as possible.

Lithian flushed at the nudge, but smiled regardless. “Mm, perhaps,” he answered. “From the way you tell it, it sounds as though you might make quite a challenge for me.” Eyes flicking up to the older man at the question, he blinked, and then shook his head. “Oh, yes, thank you, but no. I’ll take care of mine,” he said, rising as he did.

Though he’d been raised with ample tutors and caretakers around the house, his parents had always stressed on himself and his siblings the importance of cleaning up one’s own messes — literal, or metaphorical — and the thought of having a stranger who had already been kind enough to provide a meal for him clean up after him also made his face hot. Thus, he cleared up his things, and afterwards offered insistently to pay for his portion, though said offers were just as quickly refused.

Afterwards, he spent only a brief period longer in Vyren’s company before his siblings caught up with him and — despite their objections to it when they discovered he’d actually been socializing — he parted ways with the firani boy there. It wasn’t until afterwards, when he had long since departed and made his way home, that it occurred to Lithian that though they had agreed to hunt together, they had never ended up exchanging so much as each other’s addresses. Frowning at the thought, he fell to sleep wondering if he would ever encounter the boy again, and if it would have made much difference either way.