Hushed Willows Nowhere to turn

I have permission to PP Sirius leaving and vanishing a while back

He had left Teekon for a while because he had no luck in finding his father and Sirius had decided quite out of the blue that he no longer had the desire to be anywhere near his mother. He had tried to convince his brother to stay, admittedly because he didn't want to be alone in these strange lands. He was a family person, he needed to be near family and without it he was lost. Sirius hadnt listened though and so Drakonis had followed him out of the wilds. Then one night, without a word his brother had vanished as he did sometimes. Drakonis had expected him back but he never showed and so without any other choice he returned to Teekon, wandering around aimlessly to determine where to go. It was cold and he was lonely so without anywhere else to turn to he wandered his way back to Elysium. 

When he reached the borders he hesitated. He didn't want to stay around here too long. He felt weird. Sure Olive was kind of sort of family in a way but he felt weird coming back without Sirius. He did need to speak to her, he needed to ask her about Dad, about what happened with them and if she had any idea where he was. So finally he sat down and called for @Olive praying she would answer.

A call drew Olive to the border — a call for her, specifically? That did not happen too often. She was not the important one with visitors, like Seabreeze was. Anyone who might want to speak with her was already here, and Olive thanked her stars that she might be so lucky, but sometimes she wished that she might have people outside of Elysium who cared for her, too.

With interest immediately piqued, she left whatever she was doing and made her way to the boarder through the willow’s tendrils. The sylph was soon met with Drakonis’s familiar face, and Olive found herself equally surprised and equally excited to see him. Olive strode confidently forward, emboldened by the familiarity, and took the boy into an embrace. “Drakonis,” she whispered to him since her mouth was already in close proximity with his ear. “Welcome back to Elysium.”

In an almost comical fashion, the woman’s eyes scanned left, and then they scanned right, eyebrows raised in sudden intrigue. He was alone, when last time he was with her firstborn, Sirius — distant and dark as he may be, Olive loved having her kin close. The attention she paid to his absence was immediate and total. The slight woman backed up a step, then another, and looked into Drakonis’s eyes and asked cautiously  “Sirius… Is he well?”

He didn't have to wait long for her to answer as she strode toward him and to his surprise embraced him. For a moment he closed his eyes, enjoying the closeness to another wolf silently. He had to learn boundaries with Sirius which in his brother's terms meant no touching, no long conversations and lots....of alone time, not that he ever complained really. "Olive" he greeted back, voice almost like his father's except for a bit of a twang and not as deep. He gratefully nodded with a smile accepting the welcome and then watched as she searched the area with her eyes almost expectantly. His smile fell just as she asked about Sirius, backing away as if Drakonis had done something to the boy. To say that having his suspicion that he was only welcomed because Sirius had been around smarted was an understatement. He looked at the ground, ears pinning against his skull "He didn't want to hang around anymore, i tried to get him to come back here but...he just vanished. I don't know how he was when he was a little boy but... something happened to him and he doesn't like anyone anymore" he explained this in the gentlest tone he could muster despite the hurting inside. He missed his Uncle Zander and his mate Lidia, they were his family. 

Lifting his deep blue eyes he swallowed and shuffled his paws nervously "Olive...the only reason I even came here is because I want to find my dad. He came here to Avenge my mother and never returned. I know he thinks I'm dead but...this has been my whole life. Its my only goal. I need to know everything about him that you know so I can try to find him" there was an intensity to his gaze, his tone pleading. He wanted this to be over, he was growing hopeless and depressed and honestly he didn't want to hang around his father's new woman. Or...ex new woman apparently.

The information that Drakonis offered did not please the shakti woman. Not only did he had no idea where Sirius was — this did not really surprise her, for she had seen what a life of forced distance had done to him — but he was continuing to seek his father, the dark knight. Olive truly wished to distance herself from the memory of the man, and had successfully done so since she had departed Sunspire. In her new blissful life with Seabreeze and Elysium, Dakarai was only a shadow that once used to haunt her.

This was not a can of worms that Olive wished to reopen — maybe, if there was a good reason to, but if there was one here Olive failed to see it. There was only risk to her and anger for him to be found by divulging the truth she knew about Dakarai: the truth that he was indeed dead, and at his own daughters [Drakoni’s half-sister’s] jaws.

Olive very quickly turned darker, and more serious. Her teeth grit a hard line as she regarded Drakonis and the threat he posed right now.   “Unfortunately, I wouldn’t know anything that happened to him when he little.” Drakonis knew this. She figured this was not his point, and the ‘thing that happened to him’ was actually the distance itself, but it was a valid point to make since the boy’s comments felt  very directed and personal. Then she turned her attention to the matter of Dakarai. 

“Why would you want to find him? Why is that your life’s goal?” Olive questioned, unable to hide how this matter flustered her.  “You never knew him, did you? I knew him — loved him and raised children with him. If you wish you be happy, I suggest you distance yourself from the idea of him. Move on and make goals that exist outside of Dakarai. It’s for your own good.”

Of course she wouldn't, he wasn't suggesting she had done anything but had left it suggested that something did cause his brother's solitary nature. Drakonis did not like the way that as soon as he had mentioned Sirius disappearing that she turned on him, no longer welcoming and motherly. It caused the boy who longed for nothing more than a family and a place of belonging great pain to see that he wasn't welcomed without his quiet half sibling as an offering. He said nothing in return to the woman but dropped his gaze so she wouldn't see the pain swimming there and gave a small nod. 

When she questioned his motives he gave a small sigh, beginning to wonder if he should just apologise for showing up and then leave. He didn't want to cause distress but his hunt for knowledge was important to him. "Because I want to know the story. I need to know of the love I came from that made a man leave on a journey to avenge it's death. I want to see him, to tell him I lived, that I am alive to carry on the lineage of him and my mother. My mother cannot tell it she is dead" his voice was strained, telling of the frustration he felt deep in his soul. She continued onward, asking if he ever knew him. Unable to help himself he glanced up at her with teenage attitude, an expression of "Are you kidding me?" Written on his face before he dropped his gaze once more and let her continue. 

Continue she did. On a tirade about how she had loved him and raised children with him. The famous Svartell temper began to flare and unfortunately for her she said the wrong thing in suggesting he stop searching, hinting that his father was someone he didn't want to know. "No!" the word erupted from his maw, a snarl of denial and refusal more than anger. Unlike his father he immediately looked appalled at the outburst he had made "I'm sorry...but no" he said in a normal voice. He was still mad but rage wouldn't solve anything. "I won't be happy without at least meeting him. It's obvious that you don't understand and i won't upset you further by attempting to explain. It is clear you don't like him and something happened to cause him to leave you, otherwise i wouldn't even have to bother asking your help" in other words he figured they had argued and she was pissed at him and his father had been sent away or got tired of it and left. He didn't get relationships. He wouldn't ever abandon anyone he loved.

As Olive always did, she regretted going negative — she saw how it poisoned a situation, and angered the man in front of her, but there were many things that needed to be said to anyone who came to her doorstep and demanded information of her. Though Drakonis was heated and speaking unkindly, when he finally explained why his life’s quest was to find his father, Olive finally came to a sense of understanding and her biting accusations quieted.

She could understand the need to know where one came from — she, herself, had grown up with both of her parents and mused for a moment how absolutely dreadful it would be to not have known either of them, or glean knowledge from their many wisdoms. The shakti looked at the ground, displeased how this situation must sour because Drakonis had moved with her, carried her own children as babies from place to place as they followed the blackbird to the hushed willows, and she owed him the truth. The truth, unfortunately, was most sour.

 “That, I can understand,” the woman said simply, almost in apology — both for her harsh words, and the words that would come next. “He would have been happy to know that you were alive. He talked about you all and Oxsana… often.” Almost Dakarai’s entire existence had been in a state of seeking revenge, and he held his motives near and dear to his heart. Dakarai’s tragedies identified him, and gave him a reason for being. The sadness was addictive — this, Olive also understood. 

She pulled in breath and then held it very briefly, not sure how to say this next sentence. Dakarai’s death had been an ordeal that she truly hadn’t had to reckon with, to the detriment of Dakarai’s noble memory — sunspire had thanked her for ridding the world of a monster, after all. He hadn’t deserved such treatment, but it was a necessary evil at the time. “I loathe to be the one to tell you this, but I suppose very few wolves could.” The sylph gave a gravid paused. “Dakarai is dead.” She let this information sink in for a moment, but quickly ushered the conversation onwards. “I won’t lie to you either. It was at your half-sister Cassiopeia’s jaws.” such an admission was not the most protective of motherly actions, but she was tired of lying about it. As far as Olive knew, Cassiopeia was far from here and safe from any potential harm.

Stone-cold realness returned to her voice. “I don’t want to sully your fallacy of him, but it was a death that he deserved.” As a young wolf who had built this imaginary knight up in his head, Olive knew this was not likely to convince Drakonis to come to reason, but it was necessary for him to know the nature of his father’s death, if Drakonis truly wanted to know Dakarai. “He was a volatile man who did not think things through, but he was undying loyal and brave. I loved him with my entire soul.” Olive felt a familiar stab in her heart, and knew she did not want to visit this subject any longer.

“His bones lay at the summit of the sunspire mountain, if you wish to seek them out.”

He had almost given up, excused himself from the borders of a place he wished to call home but felt too restless to settle in and too paranoid to feel welcomed. It was when her gentle voice spoke up claiming to understand that he looked up. There was no pause between her words and poor Drakonis failed to notice to her usage of past tense when speaking of his father, but instead his eyes brightened with happiness as he took in the information that his father told the tale, he never forgot Oxsana and his sons.  He did notice how uncomfortable and hesitant with her words she became how she stopped and seemed to consider her words and the happy light dimmed, expression turning to one of concern just as she began to speak again.

Dakarai is dead. 


He stared at her, frozen not a single sign to be given that he heard and understood what she said. It took a moment for it to sink in and he exhaled shakily, ears going back against his head. He looked panicked his eyes wide and distraught and pushing himself to his paws pacing back and forth. His mind was reeling, struggling to process and accept this information as truth. His whole life had been centered around his father, from an early age when his uncle preached hero stories of the gallant man that was his father. How the Svartell name cursed it's men but his father wore it like a badge, proud of the name. He had been raised to yearn for his dad, to seek him out and bring him home. Now what? What would he do? He was left with nothing and made an aimless man.

It was at your half-sister Cassiopeia's jaws.

He lifted his gaze and stared into hers, appalled and horrified by the knowledge that family had killed his father. Her words were like repeated strikes straight to the center of his being and with each string of new information he looked more and more broken. Not only was he dead but he had left the world with nothing but bad memories from those who loved him and he had made falsehood of Drakonis's whole life. "Loyalty and Bravery mean nothing when you lose the people you want to protect. So my father was a fool" he spoke quietly, eyes icing over as he looked away from the woman. Every beat of his heart hurt and he sighed softly "Apparently so was I. The Svartell name is a curse and it was a child's naive hope that made me believe it could be anything but." he stared off toward a higher section of mountains, somewhere where he had last heard the name Cassiopeia. "I am sorry that nothing good came of this visit. That I couldnt bring your son home to you like you probably expected when I called for you. I'm sorry I dredged up bad memories. I'm going to stay away now, it'll be better that way" he said gently. He was beginning to understand why Sirius always kept silent, barely spoke more than a single sentence at a time and why the boy never kept anyone close. He said farewell to Olive and turned, walking away with no intention of stopping.