22 years ago…
The pale dark-haired youth spent little ti in one place. He hurried from one market stall to the next. His eyes were wide with wonder as he surveyed the trinkets and food the tribe craftsn had brought with them from their villages. Aurelia seed to be following him more than guiding him. She felt as if she was watching over an overactive child.
After looking through almost two dozen stalls, he finally stopped in front of a stall with a firepit. Several spits with skewered at hung over the blazing fire, their flavorful aroma wafting through the air.
The goblin cook looking after the at sent the outsider a suspicious look. “What do you want?”
“We’ll take one,” Aurelia spoke up and handed the man so coin.
The cook noticed her white acolyte robes and nodded reluctantly.
Aurelia glanced at her charge and stiffened in shock. “Hey! Stop, wait! It’s too hot, you’ll burn yourself!”
The strange youth had already grabbed the sizzling slab of at from the spit and taken a bite out of it. He looked up at her and tilted his head in curiosity. “Huh?” he asked between his chewing.
“Eh…? N-Nevermind,” Aurelia muttered.
He shrugged and walked off, eating and surveying the city streets. She followed a few paces behind him, watching him curiously.
“You know,” she said. “You never did tell your na…”
“Huh?”
“What am I supposed to call you?” she said, annoyed.
He finished off his food and licked his greasy-covered fingers. “Call whatever you like.”
Aurelia frowned. “That’s not an answer.”
“The way I see it, nas don’t really matter. What matters is who we are.”
She crossed her arms, “Sure, who we are is important, and who you are is an idiot if you think nas don’t matter. They are part of us, just like our hands or feet. Nas are important.”
“Ugh,” he chuckled wryly. “You sound like this woman I once knew. She was always spouting about the importance of nas; they carried power and whatnot.”
“She sounds like a wise woman. Nas do carry power.”
“And yet funnily enough she was always reluctant to give people her true na. What use is power if you never use it, hm?”
“Says the man who refuses to tell his na.”
“I don’t have a na,” he admitted casually.
Aurelia blinked. “What?”
“If nas are a part of who we are like you said, then it’s a part of that I’ve chosen to leave behind.”
“Are you saying you're Naless?” she asked cautiously.
In Sylvan culture a Naless referred to the tribeless, soone who had been exiled from their tribe; their na had been struck off the mouths of all those who knew them. No one was allowed to speak their na ever again. They were ostracized for life. ř𝙖ΝŐ₿ÈＳ
As if reading her thoughts he smiled and shook his head. “No, it’s not like that.”
“Then tell your na.”
“My na is Sabina.”
“Did you really just—?” She frowned. “Your na isn’t Sabina.”
“You caught , it’s Virella.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s Stryga.”
“At least stop picking feminine nas,” she sighed.
“Okay, note taken. How about Stryg?”
“What?”
“It sounds masculine enough, no? Actually, I quite like it. Yes, Stryg… hm, Stryg,” he repeated himself, tasting the na on his tongue. “Not bad.”
“Stop using my grandmother’s na for your jokes,” Aurelia hissed.
“Sorry,” he raised his hands in surrender. “I honestly think that’d be a nice na though.”
“Enough. Your na. Now.”
“Fine,” he sighed. “My na is— Ivory.”
“Ivory…?” Aurelia glanced at the giant seregulus skull hanging from a stall next to them. Its long ivory fangs glistened in the firelight. She turned and glared at him, “Really?”
“What do you want from ?” he shrugged.
“A real na, not the first thing that pops up in your sight.”
“Ivory is the only na I’ve got.”
Aurelia raised her hand to punch him but hesitated. She rembered Virella’s words about the outsider’s suspicious origins. Perhaps he really wasn’t from here. “Wait… Are you saying you’re from the Ivory Realm?”
“What? Gods, no,” he gasped indignantly. “Do I look like an elf to you?”
She looked him over, “I’ve never t an elf, soooo.”
“I’m not an elf,” he said in a deadpan voice. “I am from the Scarlet Realm.”
“So you’re an orc? I didn’t know orcs ca in a particular shade of sickly pallid.”
“Yes, haha,” he said dryly. “I’m not an orc, just like how you’re not a drow.”
“I’m part drow.” She pointed at her snow-white hair.
“Okay, not the greatest comparison, but you get what I an.”
“Hm. So, Ivory, are you really from the Scarlet Realm or is this just another stupid ga?”
Was it even possible to travel between realms after the Schism? She wasn’t sure.
“No, it’s true, I am from the Realm of War,” he nodded.
“The Realm of War, huh…”
“A deserving epithet if you ask . You think skirmishes and bloodshed are common here? Hah! You should see where I co from.”
“Is the Scarlet Realm really so grueso?” she asked, genuinely curious.
“More than you’d like to know,” he winced playfully. His expression suddenly brightened and he leaned close to her, “What about you?”
“What about ? You already know who I am.”
“No, I know what you are. But not who are you— personally, I an. Like, do you have any family? Besides Stryga, of course.”
“Hmph.” Aurelia stepped back and walked around him.
Ivory followed closely behind, a light skip to his step.
“...I have a little brother, his na is Jahn. We still don’t know if he’ll be gifted with magic like Mother and I, but he trains every day with a sword just in case he isn’t. He wants to get stronger as soon as possible.”
“A sword, huh? Sounds like a fun kid,” he grinned. “Who trains him? Your parents?”
“...My dad used to.” Aurelia’s steps slowed ever so slightly.
“Oh, why’d he stop?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Aw, co on. Now you gotta tell . The suspense is killing ,” he said playfully.
Aurelia sighed. “...A couple of winters back, so stupid hunters went out to hunt in the middle of a snowstorm. Hunting in a storm is forbidden and it would have fallen to the chieftain, my mother, to bring them back and punish them, but she was here, in Evenfall, attending so damn eting of the tribes.”
She hadn’t planned to share much, but the longer she spoke the more the words ca spilling out of her, as if eager to escape from the dark corner she had buried them in. “So instead, my father, a hunter himself, went out to find them. I would have gone with him, so would have Jahn, but he said we were just kids, we needed to stay ho. In the end, my father found the other hunters… and he died protecting them from the beasts of the forest.”
“...I’m sorry,” Ivory whispered sympathetically.
Aurelia sniffed, rubbed her nose, and shrugged stiffly. “It’s fine. Happened long ago.”
He reached out and grabbed her shoulder. “Even still, losing a parent is terribly painful. I—”
She shrugged him off. “Have you ever lost a parent? Do you know what that pain is even like?”
“...W-Well, not exactly,” he admitted.
“Then stop pretending like you can even begin to comprehend what I went through and leave it alone,” she snapped at him.
The anger had burst out of her in an instant. She hadn’t planned it. She had tried her best the last few months to keep her emotions together and yet just a few words from Ivory had bothered her more than anyone she had t.
The young man scratched his cheek and looked away awkwardly. “Well, I’m glad your mom is in good health at least, I an, seeing as you're not chieftain of your tribe, I assu she still lives.”
“Don’t talk about my mom,” she said in a quiet deadly voice.
Ivory took a step back and bowed apologetically, “Sorry. I just thought— never mind.”
She stopped walking and took a deep breath to calm herself. “Just leave it, alright…?”
“Will do,” he nodded and hurried to resu his sightseeing.
Aurelia followed him from a wide distance; keeping an eye on him but saying nothing. As for Ivory, he walked around with childlike wonder, stopping goblins on the street and asking them the most random of questions.
The longer Aurelia watched him walk about with such a carefree attitude, the angrier she grew.
“Why are you even here!?” she finally blurted out.
Ivory glanced back at her with an innocent expression. “Huh?”
“Why do you keep acting like you're not walking in a military stronghold city that explicitly forbids outsiders!? You’re not so tourist! So stop acting so carefree and start having so goddamn sense of responsibility!”
He blinked and smiled, “Carefree? Should I act stressed instead? It would do no good to worry.”
Aurelia clenched her teeth in frustration. Her anger boiling within the pit of her stomach. “...Of course, you don’t need to worry. People with power like you have all their needs already t. You can just waltz into a forbidden city and act like it’s nothing! You don’t know what it’s like to live in Vulture Woods, what it's like to struggle, to have nothing.”
“Aurelia…”
“Tell sothing, Ivory,” she growled. “Have you ever felt hunger a single day in your life? Not a ‘~Oh, I’m starving, Auri~ so let’s go on a fucking stupid goddamn tour!’ No, have you ever felt true hunger? The kind in which you haven’t eaten in days because the winter was so bad and the last several hunts ca back empty? And all you can do is watch as the hunters go out into the woods in the middle of a snowstorm out of desperation to find food, so at the very least, the children won’t starve! Have you ever felt that kind of hunger, hm, Ivory?”
He said nothing, his expression troubled.
“Gods, what am I even doing here?” she laughed exasperatedly and threw her arms up. “I’m guiding you while you play around, instead of searching for a cure for my mother’s illness. She could die any day and here I am wasting my fucking ti with you!” She turned around and walked away, “I’m done. You can find your own way back ho.”
“Your mother is ill?”
“Fuck you, Ivory.”
He grimaced but hurried to catch up with her. “I’m sorry!” he called out sincerely. “I didn’t know about your mother’s condition or your efforts to find a cure.”
“Just stop, alright? Stop pretending like you care how I feel. You don’t know anything about . So stop acting like you give a damn and fuck off sowhere else!” she snapped.
Ivory nodded weakly, but he followed next to her nonetheless.
“What do you want now?” she hissed.
“...I’m an orphan,” he admitted.
Aurelia furrowed her brow, “What…?”
“The village I was born in was a peaceful place. It had never seen the strife of war. The villagers thought they were all safe, until one day, they weren’t. I don’t rember it, but the few survivors told that on that day the ground shook like ocean waves in a storm, and blankets of fire fell from the sky, eviscerating the village in an instant.”
Ivory closed his eyes in grim recollection. “The few that survived were horribly injured, none ca out unscathed. And yet, despite their wounds, they searched the ruins of the village in hopes of finding other survivors. …In one burned down house they found the charcoal remains of my parents, kneeling on the ground, their arms wrapped protectively around their unscathed newborn— .”
“I may not know what it’s like to lose a parent, Aurelia, I never really knew mine, but I know what it’s like to hunger, to struggle, to have nothing. The lands around my village were devastated by the war. There was nothing left, only scorched earth and ash. The few remaining villagers died from their wounds or starvation. Hope was the only one that kept going, without Hope I think I would have been lost…”
Aurelia stared at him in horror, unsure of what to say.
Ivory exhaled deeply, “Anyways, after a long ti I realized that there was more to life than survival. I found my purpose, my aning in life. After that, well, worrying about the rest didn’t seem so important anymore. I left it all in the past.” He smiled, “So, here I am in the present. Enjoying a date with a beautiful girl. Why should I stress?”
Aurelia felt her cheeks grow hot. She frowned, “This isn’t a date.”
“Well, in that case, Aurelia Veres, would you like to go on a date with later this week?”
“I can’t—”
He raised his hand, “—And before you say no, I promise I’ll help you find a cure for your mother in the anti! So, what do you say?”
She placed her hand on her forehead and sighed with closed eyes, “...I’ll think about it.”
“Great!”
“On one condition.”
“Do tell.”
“What are you even doing here? In Evenfall?”
“Oh, don’t rush things, that’s like a 5th or 6th date question,” he winked.
She narrowed her eyes, “I’ll find out, one way or another.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Ivory glanced out at the sunrise peeking out through the mountain range, decorating the scarlet forest below in beautiful hues of red. “Well, I think this is a satisfying view to conclude the night. Thank you, Auri.”
“For what? Yelling at you?” she asked, self-deprecatingly.
Ivory smiled, “Everything.” He turned and walked off down the street.
“Hey,” Aurelia called out. “What was your purpose?”
He glanced back at her. “Hm?”
“You said you found your purpose, your aning in life. What was it?”
He smiled softly, his lilac eyes bright in the dawnlight. “Goodnight, Aurelia.”
~~~
Present day…
“Auri!” Virella’s voice resounded from behind the locked door.
Aurelia opened her eyes tiredly. Despite the late hour of the day, she was still in bed. Her hair was astray and covered half her face.
She rolled over in bed and turned her back to the door, “Go away, Vi.”
“You know as Silver Mother I have keys to every locked door in the temple, right?”
“Try it and I’ll blast you off the damn mountain peak.”
“Being stuffed in your room isn’t healthy, you know.”
“Neither is listening to your squeaky voice.”
“My voice isn’t squeaky! Ugh, look, the daughter of the Warrior Elect is here. She is injured, badly from the looks of it.”
“Even more reason to go away. Find the girl a healer, before her dad throws a fit.”
“She requested you.”
“...I don’t care what Lykos thinks. His daughter can die for all I care.”
Virella sighed and leaned her back on the door, “Stryg was the one who sent her to you.” She squeaked and stumbled back as the door swung open behind her.
Aurelia stood in the doorway, her eyes wide. “Where is she?”
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