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the Mother of Companions He answers her unvoiced question, which brings a smile, however brief, to her tightened lips. It is a unique idea that he explains; being bonded to everything. She can't quite comprehend it. The limitations of her mortality, so accustomed to walls and limits, struggles with the infinity that is the gods. Even so, she finds some comfort in the fact that the Earth God is always present, existing alongside each and everything. She wonders shyly if he is in her, or if because she is from another place that she is absent of his bonds. It is at this moment, as the calm has begun to gather in Ampere like the wind under her wings, that Tandavi's voice cuts through. Ampere's head naturally turns towards the sound, ears tilting forward with intent to listen. She has to commend the golden girl for at least choosing to listen and learn, regardless of whose lesson she is most attending, and yet Ampere cannot help but feel that she is just as unwilling to budge in her opinions as Ampere is. Gently she shakes her head and murmurs, "Families may not be chosen, but they can be broken, because they are forged only with blood and body, memory and mind, not with soul. Even so... not all families are good together." Ampere thinks of her absent father, once a prized figure in her childhood for all his daring tales. As she aged however, she saw him for who he was - a vagabond that knocked up her playful mother and nothing more. Ampere sighed gently, tearing her gaze away once more, for in Tandavi's face there was nothing but her failure. It was not that Ampere was against creatures and horses working together, it was that she loathed the manner in which it was done, in the sense that the souls were paired eternally and irreversibly (perhaps not?). That the mind was invaded and the emotions melted into one. That the creature was never itself, because since birth there was always another presence lingering inside them. It was disturbing to her the more she thought about it, but even more so with the commonplace acceptance of it in this realm. It was the only thing keeping her tethered here. Someone had to do something about it! As Ampere's gaze settled back on the God of the Earth, whom continued to speak evenly, Ampere felt the weight of sorrow tugging in her chest. As her anger dispersed, she was left with despair. Luckily she was not left to drift in her own seas for long. What the mountain of a horse had to say was something Ampere had never before considered. She perked up considerably, though her gaze remained hard and suspicious. Companions choose? she asked herself. If that was the case, then why were there those that seemed unhappy? She thought of Hespera and their battle in this very location. It was one of her first serious encounters with a selfish bonded and one that had given Ampere faith that she was on the right path. Her chest tightened with confusion, how can it be? Torleik's? Oxy's...? Ampere glanced away, her feathers bristling around her body as she tried to untangle all the disjointed thoughts tumbling around in her mind, and her heart. Yet the disbelief did not end there. What next the God of the Earth told her stunned her from her train of thought, causing her head to whip back around. She stared at him long and hard, no longer sure if she trusted all that he said if only because so much of it was new. "Wha-" she cut herself off before she wasted her final question on something so ridiculous. The contained inquiry seemed to implode inside her, causing an outward rippled of fluffed and then flattened feathers. "It can't happen very often then," she snapped at last, diverting her gaze from him once more. "I've never heard of it." She continued to pout as he carried on, too wrapped up in trying to figure out why if the companions chose, none had picked her and the freedom she offered. Was it truly as the God of the Earth said? Did the companions want these lives? Did they, enjoy them? Like trying to imagine all the stars in the universe or all the bonds this god existed within, Ampere simply could not understand this abstract idea; that one would be willing to substitute their freedom for a voice in their head. Ampere was brought back to the present by the sharpened voice of the god. Petulantly she tilted her nose back towards him, gaze peering bright and blue from a chaotic facade. He answered and she smiled, "Good." She was about to speak, to ask her third thing, but the Earth God continued on, seemingly not content to let that answer permeate the discussion, though it had already settled within Ampere. Curious, Ampere listened, her gaze drifting towards the fennec fox to whom he addressed, though with a certain disbelief. If companions could be made to talk so freely, then Ampere didn't understand why wouldn't they have already. Yet she stood there with her mouth agape all the same, doing her best to impersonate a fish instead of a pegasus. Natraj's words, as broken and scattered as they were, overwhelmed Ampere with emotions so raw she couldn't handle them. In response Ampere began to weep. Not the controlled, lady-like weeping or the joyful prick of tears in the corners of your eyes, but gut-wrenching sobs that choked her into silence. She could only manage an occasional wheeze of fresh air, which sounded unappealingly like a water buffalo in heat. All around her the dust began to sizzle and pop, but there was no anger here. The sparks were brought into existence by the outpour of energy that gushed from the Mother of Companions like a new wound. She was a mother finally given the chance to speak to her son, a gift she thought impossible. This only proved to her that nothing was. She wept all through his words and then after, wiping away the dewdrops of salt with her feathers and her mane. Around them her sparks had transformed into his liking before finally dispersing as she gathered herself. In another time she might feel embarrassed for this moment, but in the now she could only be enthralled. "I know," she began in response to him, her breath hitched and heavy. She shook her head, trying to clear it. "I know that's how you feel," she whispered, steadying, though she melted as she looked at him. "Yet what other life do you know? What other love?" She glanced at Tandavi, believing the mare to be good, but disagreeing with the basis of the relationship that she shared with the fox, no matter the intentions of it. "I have a story that may help." "I knew a stallion once that found an injured hawk. He took the hawk in. He sheltered it, cared for it, even loved it, until it healed. The process was long, and in that time the stallion had to hunt for the raptor. He was not very good at first," she simpered, "but he tried hard all the same, because he wanted the bird to get better. Eventually the hawk was able to help, and with that it grew stronger each day... yet the days grew more and more, the pair remaining together. At some point they both most have known that the hawk was healed, but together they stayed." Ampere paused for a moment, her gaze distant as she remembered. It had been a beautiful hawk. "They got separated a few times during hunting, but the stallion would search and search, calling for the hawk from the Sun's rise to its set. Always they came back together in the end... until one day. The stallion looked up into the sky on that day and he saw wild hawks spinning on their wings, dancing together. He thought it looked liked mates, getting ready for their future nest and chicks. The stallion realized in that moment how he had been selfish, keeping the hawk all this time. So one day, when they went out hunting together, the stallion got lost on purpose." Ampere fell quiet for a moment, blinking at all of them in turn before carrying on. She breathed in, "Several days later the hawk found his way back, and though the stallion was overjoyed to see his friend again, to know that the hawk cared for him in return, he did not let the hawk roost in the same nest, and would fly off whenever the hawk came near. The hawk was surely confused at first, because he loved the stallion, or at least he thought he did. The hawk was use to the way of life it'd been living with the stallion after all those years, and he was scared of the unknown that a different life would be. Eventually though, after nearly a season, the hawk started to follow the stallion less and less. The hawk hunted on its own, brave and resourceful as all of its kind are. The hawk rode on the air thermals of its own accord and screamed out its own territory to any that came near." "Finally the hawk was free, and it lived its life happily. The stallion cried to see such a sight, knowing he had helped the hawk achieve it, knowing he had let him go, despite his love. The two still flew together from time to time, once that the hawk understood. They are friends, but they go their separate ways when they choose. They think and act on their own right, their own thought, their own feeling, and they are happier for it. Because what is love, if not tested, if not given a chance to grow?" Ampere fell quiet for a moment, letting her story close respectfully. Although she had only known the stallion in the latter half of this tale, she did not doubt its honesty all throughout. She did not tell it simply to reminisce however. She hoped that they would find purpose in the experience of the other, that they would understand why the bond limited the connection between a companion and its horse, rather than helped it develop. It's easy to think you're close to someone when you live with them day in and day out, but it is the absences and the spaces between souls that are able to bring them together as one, balanced with different perspectives and experiences. Two souls that come together willingly surpass the half souls created by magical bonds. "Love needs to be tested. It needs to be given a chance to grow." With that Ampere turned back to the God of the Earth. She was composed, her gaze, as brilliant as ever, fixing itself wholly upon him. It was full of something new, something far worse than before. Gone was her rage, her sadness, her awe, and her confusion. Gone was her uncertainty. Ampere was full of resolve. "For that reason, I ask my final question." Her tail flicked casually between her legs, as if all this while they had done nothing but hold a normal conversation, as if her worlds had not shifted and collided in a matter of minutes. She was drained of everything. She had thrown it all at him, but he had remained, unmovable. Now that the the dust had settled and the rain had dried up, Ampere was left with one residual feeling. "I offer my magic. Strip it from my soul and leave me barren. My blade is yours for the keeping, and all the amulets I have ever found in the names of the gods. The sensations my body was born with, the color of my flanks, the wings at my sides." She was eerily calm about this as she spoke, which only proved to accentuate how serious she was. The raging filly that had arrived here had withered in the shadow of this mother. "I am willing to sacrifice anything, everything, if it means I am one day able to break companion bonds." She wanted a way to silence the connection, to force the bonded pair to reforge themselves anew. If they were strong enough to stand together when alone, as bonds never allowed, then they deserved their partnership. Steadily Ampere's wings spread at her sides, reaching their full span. The wind whipped around her, sending her mane and tail astray and casting her feathers into anxious whispers. "Take from me whatever you will, won't you?" In the name of justice, Ampere bared her soul to the god. [3/3] questions asked! I am only asking for something to be taken from Ampere, as I figure she won't be getting a quest for here and now since this pass was used on conversation (though I would not be opposed to a quest ;D ). Ideally her second magic ability, the one that allows her to direct the natural current of objects, is what I want to give up. That way it open up a magic slot for me to gain the magic I need for her bond related ability. However, I am up for a variety of plots and ideas for her if admin want to do more/other than take that magic, which is the easiest path for me. :) The tale about the stallion and the bird is a real life event. My horse trainer's father did falconry for a long time, but after one of his hawks passed away he felt absolutely torn about keeping his other captive and depriving it of a full, free life in the wild. He was an excellent birdkeeper, works at a zoo and everything, and is a genuinely nice and kind person. So, after much thought he let the current bird go. Mind you, he actually did hunt for this bird for days on several occasions if it would fly off or get lost when they were hunting. I mean hacking through brushes and brambles and god knows what in the backwoods. The bird, named Bullet, followed him around the ranch for months after that. It'd follow him whenever he'd walk out of the house, it'd fly from tree to tree as he'd drive around in a tractor feeding the horses, until eventually you saw the hawk less and less... I thought it was fitting :) |
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