KAJ

the aurelight

Evening had slid upon the sky like a woozy, dreary painter upon a lopsided canvas. It had come slowly, leeching out the color from the sky like a devilish beast, and he recalled the hedonistic sins of the empress of the night and could not find a difference between she and his description. Kaj was a creation of sun and earth, fire and stone, but he could find a sort of elegance in the night around him. He had once delighted in letting the moonlight turn his skin to platinum, dancing through dappled patches reminiscent of sunlight. The Edge used to light up like a mimicry of fire, the mists aglow so bright that it seemed daylight had descended upon them once more. Kaj mused that the sun and the moon were rightfully similar, in their godly blood and lineage. If he could enjoy one, there was no harm in taking grasp of the memories he still had, the nights spent roaming beneath the stars, for he'd once been so alone that even the vastness of the world could not dissuade him from attempting to find companionship. 

He is still that alone, and he does not know why he attempts to convince himself otherwise. 

Though he remembers little of her now, faded gauze wrapped around a pretty face, Kaj recalls Kahlua's errant travels. He understands the pull in her bones, though it does not yank within his marrow as it surely had to in hers. He embraces it now, traveling beneath the satin of twilight, letting his legs carry him where wings would suffice. The earth is firm beneath his hooves, familiar though the path he treads is unknown. He was no traveler, no errant vagabond with a heart made for wandering. He was a soldier tethered to his rulers, he was a ruler tied to his herd, a father to his family. Upon his wings there may be wings, but the sky was the only foreign domain for him to escape to. He was not meant for this life of lonely pacing, and Kaj would never feel the need for it. 

But the sensation was enjoyable while Kaj was immersed in it, and with his thoughts on Cirrus and her unexpected return - her plea to join, to be a family, to be with him? - he found himself inevitably in the place where they had first met. The willow tree was as nondescript as any other, meaningless to all but he and the lass he'd met beneath its boughs. But it was familiar, and he turned away from it, the memories it inspired and the changed woman that paralleled the ghost in his head. Instead he turned his face to the stars, as bright as miniature suns but unwilling to impart their warmth upon him. Void, heartless, brilliant. He strained to be like them, but was left wanting. Unchanged. Even in all his efforts he was weak and malleable, pushed around by the pretty faces surrounding him as they cheerfully crushed his heart with hands he'd only dreamed of chastely kissing. 

Kaj turned his head to face the waters, feeling an itch below his skin, a desire to wash away the wraithlike memories haunting the gaps in his head. And he found her, angelic and solitary, submersed in the twilight waters like a silver monument to the night's beauty. They stood on opposite shores, her face familiar as it submitted itself at an angle beneath his gaze. The Czar let his title slide loose from his shoulders, aware that Megaera was the Sultana, further aware that this grove of tranquility did not need such pervasive, somber subjects as shifting powers and loss of purpose. 

The brute stepped to the edge of the water, sliding in only to his knees, hoping to draw her attention from whatever had so captivated her. "Sohalia," he rumbled quietly, only loud enough to reach her ears, loathe to disturb the quiet of the evening. Though the sound of insects and various animals remained they too were sparse with the winter evening, but the chill of the water would not keep him from her company. Not when he felt as if he knew her deeply, in this moment. Even if he was merely deluding himself. "May I join you?"