Not Sleeping

Flint had seated himself slightly apart from the others, not caring that he sat upon bare stone. He wasn't cold, he didn't need any furs – if anything, he needed a whole new set of clothes, as his were close to falling apart and patches could only do so much – and he took just some bites, then listened transfixed to the explanation. So much words! No one had talked to him that much since the lectures his mother gave him ages ago. And while he hadn't even put away his backpack, kept it close out of habit and to have something to feel secure, the young one slowly let himself be coaxed into a sense of safety, stopped glancing over his shoulder every other moment as if the cave walls would turn upon him when he didn't paid attention to them. Once they seemed finished, he spoke up – the first time since arriving here. “So... you all are elves? Really?” Probably not a question that was expected, but as he understood there was no way to get him back or bring his brother here, so he pushed that aside for the moment. Of course he missed Sapling, wished he'd be with him, but here he was, in a safe place, looking at the first other people he ever met like a child experiencing snow for the first time.

Mahrak had made himself and Longsleep right at home in the Sleeping Chamber, taking up one of the bed-bowls and the cozy furs within it. He was sad he'd apparently been separated from Nightbird and that he'd likely never see her again, but he hadn't quite digested that yet and that was happening was so terribly exciting and distracting! He'd left his home with the knowledge that he might never see his family again and he'd made peace with that. And this! This was his goal, all around him!

"Of course we're all elves!" Mahrak said with a laugh at Flint's comment. "I'm guessing you haven't run across a lot of other tribes either, Flint? Because what else would we-" he wasn't quick enough as SL2657F's words cut in before him, in another language - and the idea of people speaking different tongues was fascinating all on its own! Mahrak waited impatiently for a translation.

"Is it possible to be mostly elf?" he just had to ask once SL2657F had finished and been translated again. "Or do you mean because you have snowcat blood?" That was his guess, at least, because the elfess was hairy enough to be one of the Firstborn. "Longsleep and I here share blood too - not as much as you seem to share with your cat-kin, but enough for us to bond. So-" This time it was Mahrak who cut himself short, just realizing something. "Oh...was it your bond-friend we saw in the cave we ended up in?" That finally managed to slow his near manic energy. The thought of an elf in his presence just having lost a bond...yeah, that was a cold shower.

OOC: Sorry for this late post, my life went utterly mad last week (aka I just bought an apartment and am working on getting all that tied up with the bank and the seller and aaaaah!)

While even listening to one longer explanation had been something that he hadn't experienced for years, the following discussion was almost to much. Everyone seemed to talk to everyone else, following no pattern and with translation intertwining – he needed a moment to catch up. And than Flint was at a loss at which point it would be appropriate to answer. Of course he had things to tell, way to many stories to get them in order, but groups, actual interaction, proved so... difficult. Chaotic. Not comparable to the deep understanding he had with Sapling. He cut in the first moment there was a pause, without means to offend anyone, just longing to explain. “I... I don't know what a tribe is. There aren't any, back where... there isn't anyone.” It was a struggle to answer without veering of in prolonged stories of his homeplace and he looked to the floor at his feet, because complicate wasn't enough of a word to comprehend it. “I've meet two other... sentient beings... elves so far – Sapling and our mother. Two, in my entire life... and Ivy left us to care for ourselves the moment we could. There was a father, of course, but he vanished once he fulfilled the call...” Hard to imagine, but it was just like that. A lifetime of travel hither and yonder, coming up with not a single encounter. Now that he had it in his mind and saw the difference to this safe, thriving, people filled place, he worried about his brother. Although Flint knew that there was nothing he could do – or one of the others for that matter – it hurt just to think about his little brother, staying behind on a hostile world, left alone despite all promises. Maybe he thought him dead or worse, gone up in his magic. A runaway like their mother. The worry, pain and distress showed open on his face. He wanted to shout at this damn magic or hurl some of his own against the stone walls, just to get a reaction, to force it to let him get to his brother, one way or another... but he tucked away his destructive impulse, blinked tears back. Nothing good would come out of giving in to magic. And Flint had only one lead for interaction – to be nice to others – which made him determined to follow it. Loosing it in front of everyone here sure wasn't nice.

Mahrak's wide smile froze as answers came from both Flint and the cat-like elfess who'd apparently arrived just before he had. The other two in the room – Keleero and Jaseio he thought he remembered them being called – were keeping to the background, one translating and the other just watching. They stayed in his periphery but his main focus ended up on Flint, the cat-elf, and the madness they were spouting.

”Not anyone?” Mahrak had no idea with 'sentient' meant, but the rest of Flint's words were clear enough to pain a terrible picture of what his life must have been like. “How...how?! How did you survive that? How didn't you go mad? Even with a sibling...” Noting Flint blink back tears, Mahrak broke off that line of questioning. “And I thought there was little enough elves in The Far White,” he finished that, turning to the cat-elf. Her words were more of a challenge to figure out, even with the translation.

“So...one of your parents was a shapechanger? But you didn't choose to bond with your blood-kin animals?” Mahrak asked, unsure but impressed. It had been many generations since that power had left his own people. The lack of bond-friends was however confusing. “And that you're a fighter I understand, but what are 'humans'? And what is a <slave>?”

OOC: From what I know of Jaseio and her background, I doubt her people had a word for slave, thus the lack of translation there.

He felt a bit sorry when Mahrak stopped smiling upon his answer, reacting rather shocked. It wasn't his intention to call forth any bad feelings – of course it was painful for him and showed open, as he never had the need to hide his emotions, but it wasn't the fault of anyone present here. To be honest it hadn't even occurred to him that there was something wrong with being alone, not until he meet all the others here. Still, it hurt all the more now and he struggled to keep his answer straight. “We... we had us. And there was worse...” But he wouldn't cry now, not among strangers and after all that time he had cared for himself. Although the wasn't sure he wouldn't go mad now, just from missing his brother. His mother had left so long ago, he'd spend way more time with Sapling than her. Nothing could replace that.
What the cat-like one told and Mahraks question shook him out of his sad thoughts. And since Keleero hadn't said another word so far, he tried at least to answer some of it. “Humans are mostly like elves... they look a bit different. They don't have magic, but something called technology to compensate for it – nasty things. And they don't care about nature.” Which was more or less everything he knew. “I've never met one. The ones back on Oblivion died in the war and he aftermath of it” To connect the war to the near extinction of elves was easy, Flint just wasn't up to talk about their part in it. While he even was ashamed every time he burned something without intention, to destroy a whole planet wasn't exactly something to be proud of.

Flint's expressive face gave Mahrak pause again, though this time more by kicking himself for blunt words causing such a reaction. Good way to make new friends, fool. Putting on his most flirtatious smile, given their rather tragic circumstances, he hurried to say to Flint: “Oh, I didn't mean to sound accusatory. Siblings are good company, I'm sure, and you can't be blamed for there being no one around. I just thought it must have been lonely.” He added a very obvious wink at the end of that sentence.

The description of humans was vague, leaving Mahrak unsure of what he should be picturing. Tall elves? Green elves? Elves made of stone??? Who knew what madness awaited out into the world? “So they're all dead in the lands you come from? The humans I mean? In a...war?” Another word he had no understanding of, though this one had sounded elfin in its pronunciation. “But they live here still?” This last question he directed at Keleero and Jaseio.

The half-cat elfess' continued talk of her own home made even less sense to him than Flint's eerily lonely existence. ”I still don't think I understand what a <slave> is? Does it mean half-cat?” The way she described her cat-blood definitely sounded magical, though not caused by shapechanging. Maybe powerful healers could join the blood of a beast with an unborn elf? Fascinating! But not what warranted most of his attention in this moment.

“You say they humans killed any of your people who could use magic? So, the humans were your enemies too? Oh, and I don't believe I caught your name. As I hope I remember to say previously, I am Mahrak. What name should I call you?” With these elves being so different even from Nightbird, he thought it better to be overly clear with his questions, lest someone think he was requesting a soul name exchange or something equally insulting coming for a stranger.

He smiled, a little, upon Mahraks retreat, hadn't taken it personal to begin with. It wasn't the redheads fault either to point out the obvious. “With everything else around, you'd opt for lonely too” There were enough things back on Oblivion, that tried to fool their surroundings and falling for it had fatal consequences. Nothing was to be trusted.
Since humans had long been gone from his world, there was no useful description he could provide – all Ivy had said about other elves could be summed up with “they look like you”, so his knowledge about humans lacked details too. But war was something else. Nearly any story had evolved around the great war that had made his home the place it was now and while he was glad to be spared from the experience of it, he knew enough about it. “War... is fighting. Elves against humans, it was with us, way before my time. It's... just everyone against the other, with anything that can be turned into a weapon. All over the place, through years and years... until the cause is lost and barely anyone left. Not out of fun or madness or to gain power – only with the intention to wipe out the other side.” The failure in it wasn't entirely on the humans part, therefore he explained with a grave tone, not wishing this to repeat or to occur elsewhere. Still, no mention of the results, apart from it giving a better view as to why there was no elf to be found on his homeplace anymore.
But Flint couldn't make much out of the cat-like ones explanation. For once, he never had thought to get along an elf that he wouldn't understand. And while he got the part about existing beings getting influence to become something else, as this happened all the time back where he came from, he couldn't wrap his head around why and how someone would do that intentional. To him, it was nothing desirable to change what one would be. Keleeros definition of a “slave” got intermingled with SL2657F telling, resulting in a puzzled, but curious look. “That's like... changing? Becoming part of something else, like... a Waterhill, a Crawler or just the landscape, without wanting to?” he asked. “We never settled on a word for the process itself, there are just to many different cases...” It was more to provide a better explanation for them, if he ever got to tell more about his home. Flint didn't need words for encounters that escaped sense and logic.