Arrow Lake displaced

@Rhaenyra

he ventured a bit further from the vale.

he prayed abraham was okay. perhaps the boy had made his way home again, perhaps he had ran into jacob, perhaps...

a million thoughts.

a million prayers.

he muttered them under his breath, plucking along the mountainous lake. fish swam beneath its surface for spring revivals. he could not bring himself to think of eating one of them despite the thinness of his sides and the dullness to his coat.

instead he merely paused for a drink, wetting the delicate hairs of his thin chin and the tips of curly long ears.

rhaenyra of the starlit shores was no more.
in moons recently past, the castaway seahawk had shed her earliest and dearest identity for something tameless, something fierce. rhaenyra the wanderer, rhaenyra the rogue. she had become common, gods save her, and still she shone above the rabble. it was no less than what was expected of a seahawk, yet it felt empty.
without rhaegar at her side, the world held no color.
they had sworn to find each other, for all the good it had done them. gaemon was a thorough man, if nothing else; the once-beloved heirs to the starstrewn crowns had been separated, led far away in opposite directions through rivers and wetlands to hide their scents. someone else's notion, no doubt. perhaps one of her cleverer cousins with a taste for power. whatever the source of her misfortune, rhaenyra knew it would be some time before she saw her betrothed again, if they ever found each other. rhaegar would have doubled back and followed her path as best as he could, she knew, so she had continued in the direction she was set on until many miles lay between her and the starlit shores.
by then the wilds had chased the last of the softness from her. time spent alone had lent a wild aspect to her beauty, but rhaenyra was no less the refined creature who had once been a princess among her people. her heart had been torn from her chest, but her pride would die only with her.
the sharp, sweet sound of her seahawk's call pierced the air from above. foxfire, her faithful companion, had returned to her. the pale osprey swept in close with another round of affectionate calls, only to dive away at the sight of the lake ahead. rhaenyra's frosted gaze followed the osprey's flight and found a stranger at the water's edge. a thin, dark figure, as foreboding as he was displeasing to the eye. at first glance.
a closer look revealed more of the starlit shores in the stranger than rhaenyra had expected to find in foreign lands. perhaps the descendant of some long-forgotten seahawk bastard. they were common enough. tragic, truly, if he was a seahawk; their beauty had been lost to him. she stepped closer, regarding him coolly.
«γεια σας. είσαι από τις αστρικές ακτές;» her voice was soft as ever, just above a whisper. if he had any of the blood in him, he would know the old tongue. thus far, none she had met outside of the starlit shores knew it. she held little hope.

a bird.

it was the first thing he could notice, its calls not one for alarm or that akin to a vulture. bartholomew knew his work was not yet over on this planet. gospel still to be spread, sons still to be found... but it seemed somebody else seemed keen to find him first.

she was familiar and strange all at once.

his eyes settled on her only briefly, shame hot and hard in his gaze as he looked back to the surface. if her reflection was there it would be the only way he'd view her for now. and any familiarity of her ebbed away at the words she spoke. he knew nothing that she uttered, not a single ounce of it.

despite his reluctance to look right at her, he did have an apologetic look on his features.

i'm afraid i don't understand, he offered softly, thoughtful. do you...speak another language?

he wondered if andrés would have known the words she uttered. or maybe his hunter, the bear, pier, a regretted lover...

it was so very easy to see the faces he had lost.

the thin man looked on her with eyes of sunlight, and spoke in the clumsy tongue of barbarians. it seemed ill-fitting. he was delicate, perhaps even handsome after a fashion, seemingly too small to harbor the voice of a brute. «τέλεια. άλλο ένα άγευστο τέρας,» soft still, yet dismissive. rhaenyra the wanderer turned away with a feral toss of her wisp-framed crown, but did not depart. instead, her frosted gaze followed foxfire's frenzied flight above the water. the seahawk had spied a meal under the glimmering surface. «φόξφαϊρ, φέρτε κρέας.» she sang out sweetly to her companion as its talons struck silver. the bird willingly yielded its kill, dropping it with a wet slap before it dove away for a second attempt.
rhaenyra placed one delicate silver paw atop the grey-scaled fish before it could wriggle away, and ended its struggles with a swift snap of her teeth. she tossed the meat to the dark male, her primitive companion for the day. he was too thin, and it displeased her. as long as she had to suffer the sight of him, she would see to it that he did not waste away any further. perhaps, if he followed, she would lead him to the sea where the sunshine might lighten his fur. he would never be as comely as rhaegar, to be sure, but he might serve...
the wayward seahawk dispelled the thought, disgusted with herself. he was common, not of the blood; such would never serve even to warm her bed while she awaited her betrothed.

he hated it.

not her, but the way he felt because of her. his eyes may have not settled properly upon her but they had seen enough. the wildness that gently blessed the domestication, the way the hawk seemed to follow her as if she had been blessed with some animal connection, the blues of her eyes.

he thought of dove.

he thought of a faceless lover.

he thought of those moments of Heaven on earth, but had it been worth the turmoil in its wake? and so Heaven help him if he knew her own mind.

the apologetic look stayed on his face, even as he processed that she was...caring for him. sharing a meal. he only nodded a thanks. there was little point in talking if she could not understand him or the other way around. although he yearned to know more.

who was she? what was the language she spoke?

where would she go?

tenderly he chewed upon the meat provided.

the thin man who spoke the tongue of barbarians lapsed into silence, as if he sensed rhaenyra's disdain for his ugly language and was shamed by it. and the absence of his gaze on her was soon felt as keenly as the absence of his voice. it was no rare thing for men to fear to look upon her at first meeting, but sooner or later all of them gave in to their curiosity, their lust. yet he did not. he ate in silence, his gratitude reduced to a wordless gesture.
rhaenyra studied him, her gaze never leaving the man even as foxfire descended at her side once again to devour its own meal.

the bird returned.

it ate alongside her as if they were one. how had she done it? was it a mere blessing? had she...raised it? he would never know, he supposed. at least not as long as she spoke her cryptic tongue.

eventually, when the meat she tossed him was finished, he found some...slice of bravery he supposed. or perhaps his shame whittled him into an even thinner man.

gold eyes settled on the slender of her own features. uncertain where to go from here, but his gaze tilted to the curious kind all the same.

as all men, he finally relented. rhaenyra rewarded him with a smile. foreign and lowborn as he was, he was almost beautiful compared to the rotblooded beasts who called themselves wolves. so many had crossed her path of late, rhaenyra feared gaemon had sent her to some distant hell. it was likely he had.
«rhaenyra,» she introduced herself with a gesture, thoughtful for a moment as she recalled the sound of her family name in his brutish tongue. she knew that much, at least; she knew herself, in all the languages known to the starlit shores. «rhaenyra seahawk.»

rhaenyra,

he uttered it back to her, rolled it on his tongue. he was not familiar with its origins but this was no surprise, was it? he did not understand the normal words she spoke.

bartholomew.

his toes flexed in the muddy bay of the lake. eyes drifted to look towards the north, the coast.

would the island heal him as it had before or was it still desolate? it did not matter, did it? his gaze returned to her once more. it was shamefully hard to look away once he had allowed himself to look in the first place.

«πριγκίπισσα rhaenyra,» the once-princess corrected with a note of force to her tone, her voice still deceptively soft. no matter how far her wandering feet took her from home, she was still a seahawk, and him a commoner. «bartholomew.» this time her smile masked her amusement. even his name sounded strange and barbaric. she beckoned to him. «Έλα.»
the word was as much for foxfire as for bartholomew, if he chose to follow. rhaenyra set her sights east for now, intent on bypassing the long stretch of mountain standing between her and the north. foxfire ranged ahead, as was the bird's custom, leaving the scant remnants of its meal for scavengers. aware that bartholomew might fail to take her meaning, or perhaps choose to seek his fortunes elsewhere, rhaenyra only looked back once to see if he followed. such was his lot in life, as a commoner, but perhaps his loyalty had been pledged elsewhere.

fun turn 0:

she placed another word before her name and he wondered — had he missed it? perhaps. it was...hard for him to follow her voice. the tones clear but the words hardly.

however the message she conveyed now seemed clearest of all.

a summon.

he did not know why he did, but he followed. perhaps it would not be forever, perhaps it would be only until another meal or until he found abraham. perhaps it would be forever.

there was something freeing with not knowing.

to be the sheep and not the shepherd.