Post by Mittens Mckittens on Jul 18, 2024 20:46:13 GMT
Co-written with Mittens' new guardian angel from the starry heavens the ever wonderful Orianna Èirigh｡✧˚
There it was, that golden light ahead of him again.
Warm, inviting, exciting, invigorating… He felt his feet once more begin to walk forward toward it. His mind was fuzzy, he thought he should know what that place was ahead of him, as if he had walked down this familiar ethereal track many times before and yet had only just noticed this new fork in the road ahead of him. Did it really matter where it led though? It gave him a purpose, a renewed sense of self. He was going to head down it and see where it led and see what opportunities it could open up to him…
But just as the light started to get brighter he felt a force… A hand? The wind? Gently but firmly steer him back towards a dimmer but still present light behind him, like a dwindling candle on his bedside table when he used to fall asleep reading.
“No, that is the wrong way Mittens,” said a voice in his ears, or mind, perhaps both as the candle seemed to glow brighter till he blinked and was awake, sitting in an armchair, stiff, skin prickling, but-
“Alive,” he said out loud, realising again what had nearly happened back out on the street of Orianna’s neighbourhood.
“Here.”
The slightly accented voice of Orianna’s jolts Mittens again as she places a warm glass of spiced milk on the small table beside his chair. She crouches down, bright violet eyes travelling over the bandages wrapped around his small body before alighting on his face. She doesn’t smile with her mouth but her eyes get warmer as if she does.
“I always found this a comforting remedy when I was troubled,” she says, indicating the glass.
“T’anks.” Mittens stutters out.
It’s warm and cosy in Orianna’s house, and he’s been given a soft robe to put on over his bandaged frame. His armour, clothes, and yellow cloak — so carefully chosen for him — had been thoroughly eaten through by the strong stomach acid of that a‘Mal’gamation along with a good chunk of his left ear. Big chunks of his mane had fallen out onto the cobble stones as he’d been helped inside, while patches of fur on his left side including his left foot had been thinned and bleached a strange blue hue, as if he had been splashed with ink knocked over on a writing desk.
The scent of his favourite beverage doesn’t comfort him though. In fact, it makes his stomach squirm and knot as if he is about to be sick. The dull ache from the vast amounts of food he has been forced to endure these last few weeks is also taking its toll.
“I-I think it was a bad idea asking me to come,” Mittens says, trying to make his voice sound his normal jovial self. Instead, his grin turns into a hissing grimace as it pulls at the scorched skin and fur on his face.
Orianna study’s him. “Is that your way of shifting the consequences of your choices to someone else, Mittens? Or do you genuinely think you should not have come to help bring Calla back?”
“I-I’m not blaming you,” Mittens confirms, shaking his head. “Not at all. Y-you’re right. T’was my fault. I saw Calla rush off and I wanted to make sure she’d be okay. To look out for her like she’s been doing for me, getting all those folks looking out for me.” He sighs and glances over at his grimoire, the leather wrapping scorched in places from the impact of the acid but the arcane contents miraculously unscathed. Unlike him.
“I tried to do a big spell to trap that Arcravine fella before he tried to trap Calla again. B-but It didn’t work, and then I messed up with me backup cast and well…” He slumps back in his chair sadly staring at his hands. “I really am a terrible wizard.”
She reaches out to rest a gentle hand on him. “No, Mittens, you’re not a terrible wizard. You’re brave, if a little foolhardy to the point of concern, and certainly smart enough to see an opportunity and take it. But have you thought of why Calla has sought to keep you safe?”
“Because I’m not strong or skilled enough to look after me’self,” Mittens admits, knowing it’s not the answer Orianna is looking for.
She keeps looking at him, a single silvery-white brow arching up, waiting for the truth.
“And because she cares about me,” Mittens adds, glancing over to the corner of the room where Calla is sleeping soundly curled up on the sofa.
Orianna nods. “If you know that, then why did you almost let The River take you?” she asks, quietly.
“The river? What Ri-Oh… Right.” Mittens’ ears droop as realises what she means. He hadn’t realised at first the gravity of his choice until he’d spoken it out loud to the others as he’d laid in Calla’s arms out in the street when he came back. He pulls his legs up onto the chair and crosses his arms, a very childlike pose as he stares at a knot of wood on a beam on the wall.
“Have you always known what you’ve wanted in life, Orianna? Did you know what you were gonna do when you came here to Kantas? I presume you’re not from here? The town’s not been here all that long from what I’ve read and ’erd.”
“I have thought I’ve always known what I wanted in life. But that’s the thing of it. Living means experiencing, growing, and changing.” She takes her hand back, as she stands, choosing to grab a spare cushion with her tail and settling down into an easier position on the floor. “I came to Daring Heights because I saw myself here. I knew I needed to be here, but I did not know for what, nor for when at the time of Seeing.”
“So it was like you- your fate then. This whole thing with the Archwyrms that you and Calla..and all those others are involved in?” Mittens asks, his mind awash with the recollection of all those clearly very powerful dragon-folk before they’d made their delve into Arcravine’s stronghold. And of Orianna and Calla, Waffles and Frigus, Henry and others mentioned but unbeknownst to him Dawnlanders imbued with their powers. Their champions, their Heralds.
Orianna shakes her head, the waves of her silvery white hair rippling with shimmering starlight in the light from the low fire. “My Vision gave no indication of the man I would meet, who has become my heart, or of the family I would find,” she gestures over to Calla’s sleeping form. “Nor the connection to dragons so powerful as to carry sparks of the divine, nor the Inheritance I would accept.” Mittens sees her eyes catch on her arms, dusted with so many crystal dragon scales and there’s a small lift to her lips, but in happiness or bitterness he cannot say. “No, when I came here all I hoped for- all I wanted- was to find my fathers.”
Her gaze flies up to a shelf on the wall where sits a glittering white rock with small threads of silver. Now this look he can read. It’s one of happiness, full of love, as if she is seeing something more than what her eyes gaze upon. “Was it my fate?” she asks, turning back to look at him. “Or the summation of the choices I have made as I navigated what Living meant for me?”
Mittens recalls seeing the smiling man with the long brown hair and beard talking with Orianna just before they left to rescue Calla and he knows who she speaks of becoming her heart. His whiskers twitch, a flush creeping over him as he puts such grownup thought from his mind. He turns to Calla sleeping soundly on the sofa across from them, her face for once relaxed and worry free. Orianna’s mention of her fathers brings to mind a memory of his own parents, of their smiling proud faces as they stood in the doorway of the cottage to see him off, as he’d left on his own journey to Kantas with Miss Kennari bringing stinging tears to his eyes.
“I-it sounds like you’ve made a lot of the right choices in coming here. I don’t think I can say the same,” he gulped.
“I think it depends on what you view as ‘right’, Mittens. But more than that,” Orianna leans over and rests a hand on the arm of the chair he is sitting on, “you cannot compare my life’s choices to yours. What is the saying I’ve heard here? Ah, yes. The grass is not always greener in another’s pasture.” Her expression softens as she adds. “No two people walk the same path. You are still very young, and though your childhood is behind you, you are not yet the adult you will fully become. You have yet to discover that.”
She glances at the untouched glass of cooling milk and she frowns ever so slightly.
“What is truly on your mind, Mittens? If you do not speak it, it will eat away at you until it consumes you.”
It will eat away at you until it consumes you. Mittens could have almost laughed at Orianna’s choice of words, if they hadn’t hurt with the truth. That deep pit in his gut caused by that curse raking him with a constant desire to eat may be gone, but the pit still remains. It aches with a desire of another kind, one that no food could satisfy.
“I-I feel lost Orianna. I came here with me teacher, Miss Kennari, who said I had potential to be a great wizard. B-but then she up and left me. Left me fumbling around on me own, thinking I could still achieve my dream, my dream to do something more than just being on a farm working on the fields and harvesting the crops for the rest of me life. B-but I’ve made so many mistakes.” He lifts arms as if to acknowledge the bandages. “I’ve put others in danger, having to look out for me when I can’t pull me own weight, still believing in me head whatever magical prowess I process could grow into something more.
“But I’ve just been lucky. Far too lucky.. Until it fully ran out today.” Big tears begin to run down over the gold shimmering tattoos on his cheeks and blue hue burn marks to his whiskers. “I’m- I’m scared, Orianna. Scared I’ve let everyone who believed in me down. Me teacher… Me parents, Calla, Yin… Me-self… I may look different on the outside, but on the inside I still feel like that little kitten that wandered in here over a year ago. Head full of grand imaginings of the adventures and the exciting future that awaited him.
“What would he- I- think if they could see what little I’ve achieved?” He stumbled out with a sniff, rubbing his eyes with a bandaged wrist.
Her eyes trail over the acidic lines on the young tabaxi’s skin and fur. The feeling of abandonment, of being left behind resonates so strongly with her.
“I am so sorry you were left behind by someone who chose to take responsibility for you. I… I know how that feels. I was younger than you when my fathers left me behind, not telling me where they were going or why.” She pauses, and Mittens sees a hurt that is still healing settle across her face for a brief moment. “It is not easy finding your own path. I, too, struggled with it. Where I am from, a person generally has one Calling, a purpose that they dedicate themselves to for life. I had two. It was not easy because no one had done what I was doing before. But both felt right, to me. It was hard telling them, our Elders, that. But does the walker choose the path, or the path choose the walker?”
Orianna lets her words reverberate around them like the rings orbiting their two planets. The sounds of low conversation fall away, the crackle of the fire in the hearth, dims to a murmur. She lets herself be seen by the young wizard with full clarity and honesty, before continuing.
“But here’s the thing, Mittens. We all make mistakes. Each and every single one of us. Cosmos knows I have. So has Calla. As have the others who helped get her back. It is how we learn from our mistakes that shows the growth we have achieved. So tell me.” Orianna folds her hands neatly in her lap and tilts her head in an attentive listening way. The murmur of conversation and comforting crackle of a low fire seeps back in as she looks at Mittens. “What have you learned and discovered about yourself since coming to the Dawnlands?”
Mittens looks up at the tiefling sitting before him.
When he had first met Orianna on her visit to his and Yin’s place to inform him of Calla’s fate, he had found her countenance… tall — she certainly was that with the added reach of her horns. But also impressive, and honestly a little imposing, even more so now with the darker visage and looser attire she now donned herself in.
Could someone who looked so strong and confident as her have really gone through struggles of her own, maybe even worse? He’d always had his parents around him nearly all his life. To think of growing up completely alone without them… He couldn’t imagine it…
But within the aura Orianna gave off, this tranquil peace and look in her eyes as she spoke, he knew every word to be true, and it made it easier for him to reflect upon her question to him. What lessons he had learnt since coming here to the Dawnlands? What challenges he had faced in matter, mind, magic?
“Well I guess…” As he spoke coloured squiggles and shapes made up of light formed in front of him, rearranging themselves in the air until they resembled a rough abstract approximation of a small cat eared figure. It moved forward to hug two larger similarly eared figures who began to vanish as it left them, still waving as it hurried to join a fiery red haired blue cloaked figure, before the two began walking in step towards a shimmering sapphire portal.
“I guess I’ve learnt y-you can never know when something’s gonna happen. There’s so much going on in the world, across the different plains and realms. Sometimes ya don’t know that when something that first appears to be simple and straightforward can actually be far more complex, dangerous even than ya can imagine.”
The red hair figure stops and waves after the cat-eared figure as it continues walking, looking around it with clear wonder and awe at the surroundings that form around it. Tall pale trees and glowing mushrooms of an ancient woodland. A mysterious shimmering mirror realm full of rippling snatches of reflections.
The figure continues walking as tall shadows form around it resembling tall armoured heroic looking figures. One suddenly draws silhouetted weapons, another summons coloured motes of light to their hands before rushing off in different directions. They leave the cat eared figure alone as it fumbles to flick through a book, trying to summon light to its hand before acidic green arrows of light swirl into view and strike the figure in the chest. The impact causes the little figure to stagger before a huge wall of swirling flame washes in over them, leaving them lying still and smouldering upon the ground.
“I’ve learnt things can be hard to overcome, and that it’s good to have somewhere to call home, where you have folk who have ya back.”
The red haired figure suddenly rushes back into view. Helping to sit up and dusting off the cat-eared figure, they turn them in their arms to look them over. As they do, the colour of their hair changes to a pale blonde, their skin to a slightly bluish hue, and minute glasses manifesting on their face.
“I’ve learnt t-that I like having friends. Friends that care- and do worry about me- but are folks that also can have their own trials and troubles to overcome. I’ve learnt that I like being there for them, to show them that no matter how strong and powerful they may appear to be, no matter how dark and scary their troubles may seem, everybody needs help sometimes. ‘A trouble shared is a trouble halved,’ as me Ma used to say.”
The vision changed as he spoke. The two figures began walking and gesticulating as if talking together. The bespectacled blonde’s face was buried in large tome until large crimson slashes strike through them, causing them to fall and lay in a pool of expanding red till the little cat-eared figure hurriedly uncorks a bottle. Bending before the bespectacled figure, they administer the potion until they rise up. But then the bespeckled figure begins striding away, head held high and determined, with the little cat eared figure running to catch up with them.
Catching their hand and holding on until suddenly their head appears burst on fire for a few moments with a panicked screaming expression. The flames suddenly evaporate in a puff of coloured smoke, leaving the bespectacled figure to appear stunned and confused. But then they appear to be laughing, clutching their stomach and then doubling over as they do so, miniature tears speckling from their face.
Mittens smiles as he watches this conjured scene before him, the animated motes appearing to make the golden patterns on his fur shimmer.
“I’ve learnt that I like making others smile. To help them let down the masks and guards that they feel they need to hide behind and show the world the real folks they can truly be. To not to always keep focusing on all the troubles or worries they have bottled up, but to enjoy all the magic and wonder, and all the good that this world… that life… has to offer,” Mittens finds himself saying.
The bright colours from his minor illusions catch in the crystal scales on Orianna’s face as she asks, “And how has all of what you have learned about yourself changed you from the child-like kitten you were into the young man you are becoming?”
“Y-young man? W-well I don’t know ’bout dat…” replies Mittens, ears bowed, cheeks flushing pink on the patches of visible skin beneath his fur. “I’m still very young after all. I’ve got a lot of learning to do. But I- I do know that when someone does something for you, even if it’s just because they think they should or just cause they can, you’ve gotta thank’em proper-like. Dat’s a difference between expecting stuff as a child, and truly appreciating ’em as an adult.” He holds his arms open towards Orianna. “May I?” he asks, a true strong grateful smile on his face.
She returns his smile with extra warmth. “Of course.”
Orianna opens her arms and carefully embraces Mittens, not putting her hands where his acid burns are. She hopes he understands her line of questioning, and will think about them more, beyond this conversation.
Mittens appreciates Orianna’s level of care in the embrace. Though he was the one who initiated it his body ached all bloody over as if he’d been cooked in oil like one of Yinmaris’s apple fritters.
“You are a very smart person, Mittens,” the druid says. “I know you’ve been through much, but do not think you can carry everything on your own. It is a good thing to rely on those around you. They will teach you many things, if you allow yourself to learn them.”
She rubs her cheek just a little against his in a comforting way, before pulling back. “Should you wish it, and once I have rested, I would like to help restore these parts,” her hand passes over the side of his face with the acid burns and half missing ear. “You should not have to carry around the scars of what happened to you. Not when you already carry them here.” Orianna places her palm over his chest, over his heart.
“Thank you Orianna”, he says, coming out of the embrace but taking hold of one of her long slender hands with his soft pudgy mitts. “It’s reassuring to know there are other people that faced troubles- honestly worse sounding- than mine and come out of them on top. I’m so glad you’ve found your Pas and have got such a great home and family, one you’ve welcomed Calla into too.” He looks over and smiles at his friend sleeping peacefully. “She deserves that, after all she’s been through.”
He quivers slightly, but then smiles as he feels her palm press against his chest. She was his savour after all, another guardian angel to add to quite the flock that had gathered around him these past few months. “Aye, scars can be nasty things to have sometimes, can make people judge ya before they get to know ya proper-like… Although,” Mittens says as he catches sight of his reflection from the fire light on his glass of cooling milk, appreciating the way the light seems to ripple off the blue sheen of the acidic burns. They mixed with the gold and shimmer in their own way, similar to his heart mark tattoo. “They can look rather badass too.”
There it was, that golden light ahead of him again.
Warm, inviting, exciting, invigorating… He felt his feet once more begin to walk forward toward it. His mind was fuzzy, he thought he should know what that place was ahead of him, as if he had walked down this familiar ethereal track many times before and yet had only just noticed this new fork in the road ahead of him. Did it really matter where it led though? It gave him a purpose, a renewed sense of self. He was going to head down it and see where it led and see what opportunities it could open up to him…
But just as the light started to get brighter he felt a force… A hand? The wind? Gently but firmly steer him back towards a dimmer but still present light behind him, like a dwindling candle on his bedside table when he used to fall asleep reading.
“No, that is the wrong way Mittens,” said a voice in his ears, or mind, perhaps both as the candle seemed to glow brighter till he blinked and was awake, sitting in an armchair, stiff, skin prickling, but-
“Alive,” he said out loud, realising again what had nearly happened back out on the street of Orianna’s neighbourhood.
“Here.”
The slightly accented voice of Orianna’s jolts Mittens again as she places a warm glass of spiced milk on the small table beside his chair. She crouches down, bright violet eyes travelling over the bandages wrapped around his small body before alighting on his face. She doesn’t smile with her mouth but her eyes get warmer as if she does.
“I always found this a comforting remedy when I was troubled,” she says, indicating the glass.
“T’anks.” Mittens stutters out.
It’s warm and cosy in Orianna’s house, and he’s been given a soft robe to put on over his bandaged frame. His armour, clothes, and yellow cloak — so carefully chosen for him — had been thoroughly eaten through by the strong stomach acid of that a‘Mal’gamation along with a good chunk of his left ear. Big chunks of his mane had fallen out onto the cobble stones as he’d been helped inside, while patches of fur on his left side including his left foot had been thinned and bleached a strange blue hue, as if he had been splashed with ink knocked over on a writing desk.
The scent of his favourite beverage doesn’t comfort him though. In fact, it makes his stomach squirm and knot as if he is about to be sick. The dull ache from the vast amounts of food he has been forced to endure these last few weeks is also taking its toll.
“I-I think it was a bad idea asking me to come,” Mittens says, trying to make his voice sound his normal jovial self. Instead, his grin turns into a hissing grimace as it pulls at the scorched skin and fur on his face.
Orianna study’s him. “Is that your way of shifting the consequences of your choices to someone else, Mittens? Or do you genuinely think you should not have come to help bring Calla back?”
“I-I’m not blaming you,” Mittens confirms, shaking his head. “Not at all. Y-you’re right. T’was my fault. I saw Calla rush off and I wanted to make sure she’d be okay. To look out for her like she’s been doing for me, getting all those folks looking out for me.” He sighs and glances over at his grimoire, the leather wrapping scorched in places from the impact of the acid but the arcane contents miraculously unscathed. Unlike him.
“I tried to do a big spell to trap that Arcravine fella before he tried to trap Calla again. B-but It didn’t work, and then I messed up with me backup cast and well…” He slumps back in his chair sadly staring at his hands. “I really am a terrible wizard.”
She reaches out to rest a gentle hand on him. “No, Mittens, you’re not a terrible wizard. You’re brave, if a little foolhardy to the point of concern, and certainly smart enough to see an opportunity and take it. But have you thought of why Calla has sought to keep you safe?”
“Because I’m not strong or skilled enough to look after me’self,” Mittens admits, knowing it’s not the answer Orianna is looking for.
She keeps looking at him, a single silvery-white brow arching up, waiting for the truth.
“And because she cares about me,” Mittens adds, glancing over to the corner of the room where Calla is sleeping soundly curled up on the sofa.
Orianna nods. “If you know that, then why did you almost let The River take you?” she asks, quietly.
“The river? What Ri-Oh… Right.” Mittens’ ears droop as realises what she means. He hadn’t realised at first the gravity of his choice until he’d spoken it out loud to the others as he’d laid in Calla’s arms out in the street when he came back. He pulls his legs up onto the chair and crosses his arms, a very childlike pose as he stares at a knot of wood on a beam on the wall.
“Have you always known what you’ve wanted in life, Orianna? Did you know what you were gonna do when you came here to Kantas? I presume you’re not from here? The town’s not been here all that long from what I’ve read and ’erd.”
“I have thought I’ve always known what I wanted in life. But that’s the thing of it. Living means experiencing, growing, and changing.” She takes her hand back, as she stands, choosing to grab a spare cushion with her tail and settling down into an easier position on the floor. “I came to Daring Heights because I saw myself here. I knew I needed to be here, but I did not know for what, nor for when at the time of Seeing.”
“So it was like you- your fate then. This whole thing with the Archwyrms that you and Calla..and all those others are involved in?” Mittens asks, his mind awash with the recollection of all those clearly very powerful dragon-folk before they’d made their delve into Arcravine’s stronghold. And of Orianna and Calla, Waffles and Frigus, Henry and others mentioned but unbeknownst to him Dawnlanders imbued with their powers. Their champions, their Heralds.
Orianna shakes her head, the waves of her silvery white hair rippling with shimmering starlight in the light from the low fire. “My Vision gave no indication of the man I would meet, who has become my heart, or of the family I would find,” she gestures over to Calla’s sleeping form. “Nor the connection to dragons so powerful as to carry sparks of the divine, nor the Inheritance I would accept.” Mittens sees her eyes catch on her arms, dusted with so many crystal dragon scales and there’s a small lift to her lips, but in happiness or bitterness he cannot say. “No, when I came here all I hoped for- all I wanted- was to find my fathers.”
Her gaze flies up to a shelf on the wall where sits a glittering white rock with small threads of silver. Now this look he can read. It’s one of happiness, full of love, as if she is seeing something more than what her eyes gaze upon. “Was it my fate?” she asks, turning back to look at him. “Or the summation of the choices I have made as I navigated what Living meant for me?”
Mittens recalls seeing the smiling man with the long brown hair and beard talking with Orianna just before they left to rescue Calla and he knows who she speaks of becoming her heart. His whiskers twitch, a flush creeping over him as he puts such grownup thought from his mind. He turns to Calla sleeping soundly on the sofa across from them, her face for once relaxed and worry free. Orianna’s mention of her fathers brings to mind a memory of his own parents, of their smiling proud faces as they stood in the doorway of the cottage to see him off, as he’d left on his own journey to Kantas with Miss Kennari bringing stinging tears to his eyes.
“I-it sounds like you’ve made a lot of the right choices in coming here. I don’t think I can say the same,” he gulped.
“I think it depends on what you view as ‘right’, Mittens. But more than that,” Orianna leans over and rests a hand on the arm of the chair he is sitting on, “you cannot compare my life’s choices to yours. What is the saying I’ve heard here? Ah, yes. The grass is not always greener in another’s pasture.” Her expression softens as she adds. “No two people walk the same path. You are still very young, and though your childhood is behind you, you are not yet the adult you will fully become. You have yet to discover that.”
She glances at the untouched glass of cooling milk and she frowns ever so slightly.
“What is truly on your mind, Mittens? If you do not speak it, it will eat away at you until it consumes you.”
It will eat away at you until it consumes you. Mittens could have almost laughed at Orianna’s choice of words, if they hadn’t hurt with the truth. That deep pit in his gut caused by that curse raking him with a constant desire to eat may be gone, but the pit still remains. It aches with a desire of another kind, one that no food could satisfy.
“I-I feel lost Orianna. I came here with me teacher, Miss Kennari, who said I had potential to be a great wizard. B-but then she up and left me. Left me fumbling around on me own, thinking I could still achieve my dream, my dream to do something more than just being on a farm working on the fields and harvesting the crops for the rest of me life. B-but I’ve made so many mistakes.” He lifts arms as if to acknowledge the bandages. “I’ve put others in danger, having to look out for me when I can’t pull me own weight, still believing in me head whatever magical prowess I process could grow into something more.
“But I’ve just been lucky. Far too lucky.. Until it fully ran out today.” Big tears begin to run down over the gold shimmering tattoos on his cheeks and blue hue burn marks to his whiskers. “I’m- I’m scared, Orianna. Scared I’ve let everyone who believed in me down. Me teacher… Me parents, Calla, Yin… Me-self… I may look different on the outside, but on the inside I still feel like that little kitten that wandered in here over a year ago. Head full of grand imaginings of the adventures and the exciting future that awaited him.
“What would he- I- think if they could see what little I’ve achieved?” He stumbled out with a sniff, rubbing his eyes with a bandaged wrist.
Her eyes trail over the acidic lines on the young tabaxi’s skin and fur. The feeling of abandonment, of being left behind resonates so strongly with her.
“I am so sorry you were left behind by someone who chose to take responsibility for you. I… I know how that feels. I was younger than you when my fathers left me behind, not telling me where they were going or why.” She pauses, and Mittens sees a hurt that is still healing settle across her face for a brief moment. “It is not easy finding your own path. I, too, struggled with it. Where I am from, a person generally has one Calling, a purpose that they dedicate themselves to for life. I had two. It was not easy because no one had done what I was doing before. But both felt right, to me. It was hard telling them, our Elders, that. But does the walker choose the path, or the path choose the walker?”
Orianna lets her words reverberate around them like the rings orbiting their two planets. The sounds of low conversation fall away, the crackle of the fire in the hearth, dims to a murmur. She lets herself be seen by the young wizard with full clarity and honesty, before continuing.
“But here’s the thing, Mittens. We all make mistakes. Each and every single one of us. Cosmos knows I have. So has Calla. As have the others who helped get her back. It is how we learn from our mistakes that shows the growth we have achieved. So tell me.” Orianna folds her hands neatly in her lap and tilts her head in an attentive listening way. The murmur of conversation and comforting crackle of a low fire seeps back in as she looks at Mittens. “What have you learned and discovered about yourself since coming to the Dawnlands?”
Mittens looks up at the tiefling sitting before him.
When he had first met Orianna on her visit to his and Yin’s place to inform him of Calla’s fate, he had found her countenance… tall — she certainly was that with the added reach of her horns. But also impressive, and honestly a little imposing, even more so now with the darker visage and looser attire she now donned herself in.
Could someone who looked so strong and confident as her have really gone through struggles of her own, maybe even worse? He’d always had his parents around him nearly all his life. To think of growing up completely alone without them… He couldn’t imagine it…
But within the aura Orianna gave off, this tranquil peace and look in her eyes as she spoke, he knew every word to be true, and it made it easier for him to reflect upon her question to him. What lessons he had learnt since coming here to the Dawnlands? What challenges he had faced in matter, mind, magic?
“Well I guess…” As he spoke coloured squiggles and shapes made up of light formed in front of him, rearranging themselves in the air until they resembled a rough abstract approximation of a small cat eared figure. It moved forward to hug two larger similarly eared figures who began to vanish as it left them, still waving as it hurried to join a fiery red haired blue cloaked figure, before the two began walking in step towards a shimmering sapphire portal.
“I guess I’ve learnt y-you can never know when something’s gonna happen. There’s so much going on in the world, across the different plains and realms. Sometimes ya don’t know that when something that first appears to be simple and straightforward can actually be far more complex, dangerous even than ya can imagine.”
The red hair figure stops and waves after the cat-eared figure as it continues walking, looking around it with clear wonder and awe at the surroundings that form around it. Tall pale trees and glowing mushrooms of an ancient woodland. A mysterious shimmering mirror realm full of rippling snatches of reflections.
The figure continues walking as tall shadows form around it resembling tall armoured heroic looking figures. One suddenly draws silhouetted weapons, another summons coloured motes of light to their hands before rushing off in different directions. They leave the cat eared figure alone as it fumbles to flick through a book, trying to summon light to its hand before acidic green arrows of light swirl into view and strike the figure in the chest. The impact causes the little figure to stagger before a huge wall of swirling flame washes in over them, leaving them lying still and smouldering upon the ground.
“I’ve learnt things can be hard to overcome, and that it’s good to have somewhere to call home, where you have folk who have ya back.”
The red haired figure suddenly rushes back into view. Helping to sit up and dusting off the cat-eared figure, they turn them in their arms to look them over. As they do, the colour of their hair changes to a pale blonde, their skin to a slightly bluish hue, and minute glasses manifesting on their face.
“I’ve learnt t-that I like having friends. Friends that care- and do worry about me- but are folks that also can have their own trials and troubles to overcome. I’ve learnt that I like being there for them, to show them that no matter how strong and powerful they may appear to be, no matter how dark and scary their troubles may seem, everybody needs help sometimes. ‘A trouble shared is a trouble halved,’ as me Ma used to say.”
The vision changed as he spoke. The two figures began walking and gesticulating as if talking together. The bespectacled blonde’s face was buried in large tome until large crimson slashes strike through them, causing them to fall and lay in a pool of expanding red till the little cat-eared figure hurriedly uncorks a bottle. Bending before the bespectacled figure, they administer the potion until they rise up. But then the bespeckled figure begins striding away, head held high and determined, with the little cat eared figure running to catch up with them.
Catching their hand and holding on until suddenly their head appears burst on fire for a few moments with a panicked screaming expression. The flames suddenly evaporate in a puff of coloured smoke, leaving the bespectacled figure to appear stunned and confused. But then they appear to be laughing, clutching their stomach and then doubling over as they do so, miniature tears speckling from their face.
Mittens smiles as he watches this conjured scene before him, the animated motes appearing to make the golden patterns on his fur shimmer.
“I’ve learnt that I like making others smile. To help them let down the masks and guards that they feel they need to hide behind and show the world the real folks they can truly be. To not to always keep focusing on all the troubles or worries they have bottled up, but to enjoy all the magic and wonder, and all the good that this world… that life… has to offer,” Mittens finds himself saying.
The bright colours from his minor illusions catch in the crystal scales on Orianna’s face as she asks, “And how has all of what you have learned about yourself changed you from the child-like kitten you were into the young man you are becoming?”
“Y-young man? W-well I don’t know ’bout dat…” replies Mittens, ears bowed, cheeks flushing pink on the patches of visible skin beneath his fur. “I’m still very young after all. I’ve got a lot of learning to do. But I- I do know that when someone does something for you, even if it’s just because they think they should or just cause they can, you’ve gotta thank’em proper-like. Dat’s a difference between expecting stuff as a child, and truly appreciating ’em as an adult.” He holds his arms open towards Orianna. “May I?” he asks, a true strong grateful smile on his face.
She returns his smile with extra warmth. “Of course.”
Orianna opens her arms and carefully embraces Mittens, not putting her hands where his acid burns are. She hopes he understands her line of questioning, and will think about them more, beyond this conversation.
Mittens appreciates Orianna’s level of care in the embrace. Though he was the one who initiated it his body ached all bloody over as if he’d been cooked in oil like one of Yinmaris’s apple fritters.
“You are a very smart person, Mittens,” the druid says. “I know you’ve been through much, but do not think you can carry everything on your own. It is a good thing to rely on those around you. They will teach you many things, if you allow yourself to learn them.”
She rubs her cheek just a little against his in a comforting way, before pulling back. “Should you wish it, and once I have rested, I would like to help restore these parts,” her hand passes over the side of his face with the acid burns and half missing ear. “You should not have to carry around the scars of what happened to you. Not when you already carry them here.” Orianna places her palm over his chest, over his heart.
“Thank you Orianna”, he says, coming out of the embrace but taking hold of one of her long slender hands with his soft pudgy mitts. “It’s reassuring to know there are other people that faced troubles- honestly worse sounding- than mine and come out of them on top. I’m so glad you’ve found your Pas and have got such a great home and family, one you’ve welcomed Calla into too.” He looks over and smiles at his friend sleeping peacefully. “She deserves that, after all she’s been through.”
He quivers slightly, but then smiles as he feels her palm press against his chest. She was his savour after all, another guardian angel to add to quite the flock that had gathered around him these past few months. “Aye, scars can be nasty things to have sometimes, can make people judge ya before they get to know ya proper-like… Although,” Mittens says as he catches sight of his reflection from the fire light on his glass of cooling milk, appreciating the way the light seems to ripple off the blue sheen of the acidic burns. They mixed with the gold and shimmer in their own way, similar to his heart mark tattoo. “They can look rather badass too.”