Noctisardor Bypass the night is long, and the path is dark

Captivated as he was by eventide over the Rising Sun Valley, the Elvhen found daybreak nothing less than enchanting; where evening woke quiet frantic flutters of nocturnal vigor, the twilit morn cast a different sort of vibrancy through the land. A sleepy stirring, the Wilds unfurling, yawning, blinking bleary eyes. Amadis picked through tall trembling grassland cast flaxen by sunrise, a bloodshot inkspill winding through dimlit Arcadian hills. His wandering found him creekside, following the twisting waterway to where it broke over mauve-shadowed rocks. The prince lingered over stone-strewn shore, admiring the water's surface, the windchime whispers of burbling creekflow. The sound of it was bittersweet, the clench of nostalgia and homesick yearning round his battered, aching heart.
For all that it had spurned him, for all that it had maimed his fragile soul, he missed Elvhenan. He missed the serene beachside mornings, the coarse warmth of sand between his toes, the gentle murmur of the tide skimming the shoreline. He missed the pearlescent grandeur of Tarasylan Telas, the simple sunbleached elegance of sleek stone palisades and slender spires, the distant drone of pompous debate among royals. He missed evening walks through labyrinthine Arlathan, the eerie echoes of clicking nails through endless jewel-crusted corridors, the shrill screech of stonework by tireless Scholars under long somber shadows. He missed walking the length of the Chronolog, the stretching soapstone slabs engraved with intricate runes representing the history of Elvhenan. In another life, he might have been a Scholar, might have added his own marks to the Chronolog until his teeth were worn to nubs from clutching crude salvaged stone instruments and he retired to passing verbal history to the Noble youth, old and accomplished and content in his fate.
If wishes were fishes…
The silkie stepped into the water, seaglass eyes tracing the glassy surface incarnadined by dawnfire and watching it break in chromatic ripples around delicate darkling ankles. He sighed, closing his eyes to the foreign scene that suddenly struck him as cold, unwelcoming. For several blissful heartbeats, the prince imagined that he was back on the island, that the sunlight warming his back was reflected off the sea behind him, that the creek bubbling over his paws was the purling oceantide.
Then he took a breath, and the sweet deepgreen scent of inland flora shattered the illusion, too heavy and musky to sit on delicate threads of seaside daydreams. One by one, the dreamcords snapped, and left the wayward elfblood bereft and broken-hearted. And still, he felt no desire to return to his forsaken throne.
Home was no longer home… but neither was Rivenwood. Home had simply ceased to exist.

rivenwood by contrast had become more of a home to mahler than he had expected. wylla was here, phaedra was here, and now ciri. and although the shredded pieces of what had once meant family to the gargoyle could never be mended, he had still found his own sort of contentment in it.
before the graf, a grey-red fox ran. he did not quite pursue, but he kept diligently after it. the little ones, after all, were not too old to be carried off or otherwise harmed by an eager and desperate thief.
perhaps he was too cautious, too overbearing, but mahler felt it was unnecessary to shame himself for that. and so he padded after, satisfied to see that the terrified fox had left his land altogether.
in the haloing light of dawn, he spotted amadis, the poet who had recently come to join their number. the charcoal man approached quietly, clearing his throat with perhaps errant politeness as he set his gaze upon the loveliness of the expanding day, and shared a moment of quietude with the elfwisp prince and his throat of polished words.

aaa sorry! thanks for being patient ❤️

The prince was soon graced by a familiar presence — in fact, the only presence familiar to him in these lands thus far. Amadis stepped from the water and greeted the master of the wood with a quick bow, still quite formal but markedly less stiff in his manner. In the magic of the day's glowing debut, it only felt proper to allow the moment to pass in silence. Inwardly, he felt glad that his own personal moment had passed before Mahler's appearance; his sorrow he held close, away from curious eyes. He sensed, however, that the Graf of Rivenwood was not a man inclined to pry. An assumption absent much evidence, true, but Amadis felt sure enough to rely upon it — and he was grateful for that.
In a matter of minutes, the land was warm-lit, and the air grown heavy with summery sweetness. Only when the sun's touch had driven the last of the shadows to muted duskiness did Amadis allow affable murmurings to breach the silence. It is very different here, The prince's observation was not without wonderment. The land stretches on and on, forever, infinite as the ocean — and the heat... In Elvhenan, it was never so hot. So far inland, the heat feels suffocating, and the cold will make one's bones ache. On the island I once called home, and along the nearby shoreline, neither was true. I wonder if the proximity to the sea is the difference... or perhaps something else?
He hadn't meant to speak so much, but his curiosity knew no bounds. No amount of shyness, nor even his ingrained sense of propriety, could hold it at bay for long.

always! <3

amadis spoke. mahler felt that the other was not only a poet, but a cartographer. the way in which the pinne described rivenwood was admirable. not for the first time did he wish his own tongue had that sort of glory. the gargoyle was content to listen, charcoal ears cupping forward at the mention of the sea.
"it has been a long vhile since i saw the sea," the man mused aloud. "but vhat i recall of it vas that the ocean moderated the temperature."
griminismal. wylla's smile. the scent of salt hanging always, always heavy in the air.
"vhat vas it like, living upon an ocean?" mahler asked, as much to know more about amadis as to relive the spare memories of his time along the surf.