[Closed] A Song For Sorrow

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A large forest in Central Anaxas, the once-thriving mostly human town of Dorhaven is recovering from a bombing in 2719 at its edge.

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Elias Mercucianno
Posts: 51
Joined: Wed Jan 30, 2019 6:21 am
Topics: 8
Race: Galdor
Character Sheet: Character Sheet
Writer: Raksha
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Sun Feb 10, 2019 7:41 pm

12th Achtus, 2718
VIENDA | EVENING
Image
E​​lias chuckled, leaning back in the soft luxurious padding of his armchair and sipping on a short glass of Twemlaugh as he looked down his person at the young man sitting at his feet. His shirt was unbuttoned, the slightly tanned planes of his Bastian skintone exposed to the evening firelight, and the buckle of his pants was loose. The gentleman, some wick with a proper business writ he’d picked up in the Lantern, smiled up at him with the curve of a lovely lower lip between his imperfect teeth. The galdor reached down to place a finger on his mouth with a tsk.
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​​ “Mmm don’t do that. You look clocking atrocious.” He muttered, noticing the wick was much much prettier when he didn’t show his teeth. Stroking a finger along the man’s cheek, Eli leaned his head back, looking at the ceiling with a sigh as the slightly perturbed man fussed with the rest of his fastenings.
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​​ “You speak to your mother with that mouth?” The young man said teasingly, brushing a hand across the Bastian’s chest as he moved to commence the lewd activites they both knew were inappropriate for Anaxas but didn’t particularly care. The galdor had straightened in his chair, grabbing the man’s wrist and glaring at him with hard green eyes, the gold rims bright and his field flexing.
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​​ “Get out.” He snapped angrily, any hint of arousal or humor completely void from his tone. The wick drew back, his face curling into a confused sneer.
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​​ “What? But I—” Standing, dragging the man by one hand, Elias threw him aside and pointed at his doorway.
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​​ “GET. THE. FUCK. OUT!” He roared, and with wide eyes, the wick scrambled to his feet, collecting his shirt along the way and bolting for the door. The dark haired man stood staring after the fleeing man, breathing hard and field pulsing with anger.

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​​ “Now see here, you need to use just the slightest touch on this one, and it will open the valves above us to let some of the gas move from the bladder to the containment unit. That will bring us down, just a little. Give it a try.” The dark haired Bastian said warmly, his thick mustache twitching with a smile as he gestured at the boy beside him. Elias stepped forward, looking out of the window before him to the glittering sea so very far below with a deep breath.
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​​ “Alright father, but if we drown you are totally not telling mother it was me.” He said with a raise of his brows, before gathering his field and focusing on the instructions the older man had provided. The spell was simple enough, just a Pull, but it had to be precise. Too hard and he would rip the valve open and they would plummet rapidly. Too gentle and they wouldn’t move. The monite was released in a smooth, gentle syllable, and with just the hint of a jerk the ship began to descend.
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​​ “Nice work! You’re a natural!” The green eyed man said with a laugh, patting the boy on the shoulder. Elias smirked, letting out the breath he’d not realized he was holding and nodding. This was probably the best moment ever, way better than being stuck at Brunnhold.
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​​ “Can I take us into the docks this time?” He asked, over confident with his one act of flight. The older man laughed again and placed his hands on the wheel.
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​​ “Patience Eli. Patience. All in good time.”

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​​Knocking back the rest of the drink, Elias fastened his pants and stormed towards his bar, taking the crystal top off the Twemlaugh bottle and pouring another two fingers of the amber liquid. Lifting the drink to his lips, the man stared at into nothingness, sipping as his mind wandered. Damn that fucking wick to hell. It had been months since he’d thought about his parents, his perpetual state of intoxication pushing all the feelings and memories down so they were nothing more than annoyances that simmered in the back of his mind. Shooting down the alcohol, already hazy with the opioids he’d inhaled at the Lantern and cocktails he’d plied the wick with, Elias knew drinking more so quickly would bite him in the ass tomorrow but frankly he didn’t care right now. Pouring again, he picked up the bottle and the glass, moving to place it beside his chair before glancing out the black darkness of the window that looked out onto Crosstown Court.
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​​ “Elias James Mercucianno! Pay attention!” The slender brunette said with a firm tone, though there was a gentleness there. Her hair was pulled back into a bun, and she was dressed in a white blouse and tan trousers, a slight auburn catching in her locks where the sunlight hit it from the airship window. The teenager groaned, tapping his quill impatiently and running his hand through his hair.
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​​ “But mother, I don’t
need artithmatic! It’s just all numbers and equations that make no sense. I fly with my magic!” He said with a petulant exasperation, entirely convinced that she was just hellbent on torturing him. After a year out of Brunnhold, he’d learnt how to bring the ship up and down, and even landed it in Old Rose. Leandrah of course had been allowed to physically drive the ship to and from the ports between Anaxas and Muluku, and of course Elias had complained. Which had increased his mother’s daily tuitions. She was adamant that regardless of where he spent his teenage years, he would still have a proper education. His father managed the Conversational things, and she managed the academic.
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​​ “Is that so? Right, so tell me then Mister ‘I’m Too Good For Arithmatic’, if we have a south easterly breeze coming in at twenty knots and we need to get to Muluku and back before the twentieth hour this same day, how fast should we be travelling and at what altitude?” The lithe woman asked, crossing her arms and raising her eyebrow questioningly. Elias scoffed, his cheeks darkening and hand waiving dismissively.
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​​ “That’s easy. You just have to multiply…the uh…wind speed by…um…no divide by the…it’s…” He foundered, field jittering before sighing loudly.
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​​ “Finnnnee. But can I
please fly us into Muluku tonight if I do these sums? Pleeeaaasseeee?”

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​​Turning away from the window, Elias downed the drink, approaching the small side table and waivering on his feet slightly as he poured another glass. Looking at the fireplace, he lifted his bleary gaze to the wide mantle place, where a beautifully decorated portable harpsichord sat tightly latched shut, scorch marks on the exterior. Reaching with one hand, he unclamped either side of the clever instrument and opened the lid. The interior was painted with a scene of upperclass galdori frozen forever in the middle of some lavish outdoors ball. They were smiling and dancing, and the sky was powder blue and the grass was forest green. Alioe, or a depiction of her lunar presence looked down from the upper half of the lid, as though blessing the event. The intoxicated galdor brushed the keys of the instrument, pressing down on a couple, letting the stringy wooden sound ring with a linger. It had taken a lot of coin to have the instrument repaired after…after everything. Salt water was a bitch to wood and metal, but Elias had persisted. He had paid everything he needed to ensure the harpsichord had survived, and would continue to do so till the day he took his last breath. For a moment, his lip trembled, and a waivering inhale escaped him before the Bastian took another long draught of the beverage.
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​​It was much easier than it looked frankly, though to be fair Elias was not as good as Leandrah, and he wasn’t entirely sure that mattered. Gods forbid he ever admitted it to her, but the seventeen year old loved listening to her play, the older girl’s fingers dancing rapidly across the ivory and ebony keys.
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​​ “That’s pretty good Eli, though you need to play with two hands, not one.” The talented raven haired woman said with a wry smirk, watching her brother as he tapped out the simple tune she’d taught him.
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​​ “Yeah yeah, I know. It’s just easier to start with one for me. You had to start somewhere right?” The young man said with a cheeky grin, though he did take his other hand to join the song. It was an easy tune, one that practiced key chords and reenforced the location of the scales. Adjusting her spectacles, the young woman moved around him, correcting his elbow before settling down in a chair to finish off the inventory. Both the Mercucianno children were tucked away in the cargo hold, a purposeful act by their parents to allow the adults to have serious conversations about their separation from Silas Hawke. Of course, whilst Elias was too young to understand the severity of the situation, Leandrah knew. She kept her thoughts to herself though, smiling politely as she watched her younger brother banter with the Bad Brothers that met them each time they made a drop. The thugs were kind to the boy, but the older girl knew it was a ploy, a grooming act. Hawke knew what he was doing. Get them young and early, make them loyal to the King. She had never trusted them, but mother and father had been adamant they were making the right business move. In bed with the wick, till such time they build a fleet of their own, then they could branch off and make their own trade route. Maybe away from Anaxas and back into Gior. They’d made good connections between Gior and Hesse, and there was rumor of a new drug coming out of drake country. Something that could compete with this so called Crop that Hawke was sold on.
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​​ “Nah, I was always perfect.” She joked, poking her tongue out at the younger Mercucianno before focusing back on her inventory. Elias laughed, his voice breaking with the onset of maturity.
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​​ “Shut up kenserface. There’s a reason they stopped at me. Second time’s a charm.”

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​​He turned his gaze away from the instrument to the fireplace, attempting to take a sip of the drink, pausing for a moment, before pelting it into the low burning blaze with a whoof! and a yell. Leaning both hands against the marble of the mantle, Elias grit his teeth as the heat touched his skin, eyes brimming with tears that begged to be shed. He staggered back, looking to make his way to get another glass, tilting too far to the left and thumping into the wall. Overcompensating, he stumbled to right, tripping awkwardly on the side table and spilling everything onto the floor, including the rest of the Twemlaugh. Landing heavily on his side, the brunette struggled to sit up, propped on one hand and an elbow on one bent knee, staring into the flames that licked the ashen wood before him with a sob. Rocking slowly back and forth, he could barely catch his breath as he felt the tears he had forced to stay away flood his vision and roll down his cheeks.
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​​ “Elias! Elias get up! Gods get up!” His mothers voice was loud, full of panic and fear, dragging the youth from sleep with a confused mumble. The smell of smoke was the first thing that hit him, and bleary eyed he jumped from bed, voice hoarse with sleep and shock. The second thing was the bright orange glow of flames licking the bow of the ship, the controls completely engulfed.
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​​ “What the—Leandrah!” The boy screamed, recognising the blistered and blackened form that lay strewn across the steering wheel. His field collected, and he moved to try and rush past the frightened older woman, who grabbed him by the waist, sobbing against his shoulder.
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​​ “She’s gone Eli! She was gone before we could do anything. Peyter! Peyter help me!” The brunette cried to her husband, allowing the stronger man to grasp his son by the shoulders and turn him, furiously tugging a life vest over his arms and tying it around his waist.
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​​ ”Listen now Elias, when you get out, it’s going to be a long way down. You have to—listen boy!” He shook the teenager who was staring with shock at the bright inferno that had claimed their home, forcing Eli to meet his eyes with a firm slap. The younger man’s field was a mess, flexing and pulsing with fear and helplessness. Peyter held his arms tightly.
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​​ “You have to keep your legs pointed straight down, like a pin, do you understand? If you don’t, your body is going to break all over!” Behind the man, Roseannah was casting a barrier spell, holding back the flames as they pushed further into the wood and metal cabin. The man choked suddenly, dragging Elias into a tight hug as he moved the boy backwards.
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​​ “I love you. I love you so much and I am so sorry. I am so—“ Roseannah cried out for him again, the pain in her voice dragging Elias out of his shock with sharp clarity.
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​​ “Mother?!” He managed to bark, before in almost slow motion he felt his father shove him hard. The world behind him had no resistance, and he fell backwards through the open door of the airship, screaming with fear and anguish as he pinwheeled his arms desperately. Stomach turning violently, the boy’s survival instincts took over and he tried to straighten as he plummeted towards the dark waters below.
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​​The impact was unbearable, knocking the wind from his lungs and dragging a watery scream from the boy as his leg made a sickening crack. Pulling his arms through the water, assisted by the life jacket, Elias popped out of the black salty sea with a gasp and an anguished sound before he lost consciousness. Bobbing in the water for a few precious moments, he missed the way the flames licked the thick canvas of the balloon, and how it seemed to contract for a split second, before it exploded outwards in a huge fireball. The sound roused him, and opening his eyes, the boy looked up with a weak cry. He looked around in the water for his parents, holding out hope that they had made the jump too. Unashamed of his tears, the youth paddled painfully through bits of luggage and airship, avoiding burning dregs as they rained from the sky. A piece of wood bumped into him, and without thinking the boy grabbed onto it, using the barely buoyant piece as a floation device.
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​​Bobbing in the night time waters somewhere between the Rose and Mugroba, Elias close his eyes, resting his head on the wood and trying to gather his field. He knew there was something severely wrong with his leg, but couldn’t pinpoint what. Living magic wasn’t his specialty, but he had to do something or he would never be able to try and start swimming to shore. Which way even was shore? He had to open his eyes, had to look up to see the stars. It was just…too hard. Despair gripped the boy and he keened into the emptiness around him, caprice telling him there were no other fields within range.
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​​ “Ho there! In the water! there!” Elias heard a voice, distant on the water, the splash of oars across the waves. He lifted his head, looking up at the burning airship as it plummeted into the ocean below. Glancing down, he ran a hand over the wood beneath him, catching a glimpse of decorative paint in the glow of the flames.
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​​It was Leandrah’s harpiscord.

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​​Twisting his hand into his raven curls, Elias’ body was wracked with sobs as he sat drunk on his sitting room floor, shirt still undone and broken glass underfoot with Twemlaugh soaking into the material of his pants. His house staff stood just outside, too scared to approach, too unsure of what to do. Shifting to lean against the armchair with his back, the galdor dragged his other hand into his hair, both palms pressed against his eyes as he poured his grief and anguish into his weeping, elbows propped against bent knees. His chest hurt with the release, voice hoarse with emotion and loneliness. Eventually, his heartbreaking sobs became weaker weeping, arms crossing over his knees and face pressed between them. The weeping became sniffles, before finally the man fell into an inebriated and emotionally drained slumber. Only then, did his staff move to him, quietly cleaning and gently guiding the sleeping man to the chaise lounge. They covered him with a blanket, sympathetic even if the man was an ersehole, for they’d seen his outbursts once or twice before. The world outside might not know the true Elias Mercucianno, but they did.
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