Not Quite So Rare

[Kender Bard]

"Oh...." Kaylin moved back a few steps, realizing that she had likely been terribly rude. But she had wanted to know, know if things got better, so badly....

Swallowing, she sat down on the ground and looked up at Ryder. "Will you tell me about your wife?" she asked. If she couldn't be sure of her own happiness, she could at least hear about another person's.

[Devon]

Ryder smiled even if he didn't intend to when thinking about Nalani. Sitting down so that he and Kaylin were on the same level he said, "She is kind and loving and supportive. She can also be stern and she seems to have a way of getting what she wants at least from me." He smirked at that and continued, "Nalani and I have been through a lot, not all of it good times but she has remained with me through it all. She is also in line to be the next High Priestess of Love."

[Kender Bard]

Kaylin breathed out a soft sigh and she rested her chin on her hand as she stared at him, listening as rapt as a child at storytime. "Tell me how you met," she asked him. "Was it romantic?" As she asked, her eyes roamed his body, not sexually, but looking for baubles. Not that she would grab one, like she had with Mat. She didn't feel that pull, but she did like looking at such things.

[Devon]

"Well I had just arrived in New Anarlina and I had no idea where I was going," he began. "I ran into her or maybe she ran into me, she was/is a very friendly girl. We talked for a minute and she offered to show me around. We were just friends at first, then gradually it changed," Ryder explained.

[Kender Bard]

So, not love at first sight. That was fine. Kaylin was well aware such things rarely happened, but she was interested nonetheless. "When did you know you were in love?" she asked him, her expression softening from earnest interest to something a little more inwardly reflecting.

[Devon]

"I'm not sure," Ryder answered honestly. "We talked all of the time and at some point I think I just knew, I don't know if I could pinpoint an exact moment without trying to have a vision of it," he told her.

[Kender Bard]

Kaylin frowned thoughtfully at that. "How did she take..." She gestured up to her own eyes. "All the changes and Eco once you became bonded?"

[Devon]

"She thought I got myself in trouble again," Ryder said with a smirk. "Nalani was worried that something bad might have happened or would happen to me, but she still supported me and accepted it. She has grown very fond of Eco," he told Kaylin.

[Kender Bard]

So. It was possible to lead a somewhat normal life (with some carefully constructed lies, perhaps) and to have a normal, happy life with someone you loved. Even a non-feyling if they were kind and compassionate enough.

"What do you think you'd do if you didn't have her?" Kaylin asked, her tone very light and careful, a tone of brittle glass. "Or if she couldn't accept you for who you are? And what if you didn't have your seer powers? Wouldn't you be afraid of faeries getting you? You wouldn't be able to see them coming."

[Devon]

"I really don't know," Ryder responded. "I guess I'd just try my best to get by, it would be hard though," he said.

[Kender Bard]

Live in the wilds? she thought darkly. Possibly. But he didn't seem inclined to give it further thought. And why should he? His life had turned out just fine.

Kaylin felt anger at the unfairness form a lump in her throat. She'd begun to lay so many problems at the feet of her transformation, of the faeries, of everything that had happened... But here was another feyling who had wasn't all twisted up by the events. How much of that was luck?

How much of what had happened to her was her own bad luck? Or... Fault?

She stood up abruptly, tense and unhappy. "It's good to know that there are other feylings out there who are happy, healthy, and able to carry on like normal," she said, proud that her voice was calm and steady. "I'm not sure how many there ever were--I remember seeing quite a few in the Beastlands. But I somehow doubt there's many now."

[Devon]

"There is no telling," Ryder said. "You just have to find a place for yourself, mine is New Anarlina. I think when you find that place you'll see that even as a feyling you can get along with others and carry on like normal like you said."

[Kender Bard]

“That,” Kaylin said, a bit sharply, “is probably impossible.”

She didn’t want to talk more. Without so much as a farewell she hurried off back into the heart of the forest. Not towards her home—she didn’t want to lead him there, just as she hadn’t wanted to lead Mat there. She just wandered to where things seemed wildest and then came to a stop under the sheltering branches of an oak tree. Sitting down, she drew her knees up and hugged them to herself. Maple landed nearby and sat, for once not commenting.

Kaylin didn’t cry, but she did feel terribly sad and a little angry. Not long after she and Nuo had returned to Acoia, she had contemplated leaving him to return to the temple and her life there. But she hadn’t; not for Nuo, at that time. So soon after what he’d done, she hadn’t quite forgiven or trusted him yet. She had wondered at how her reception would have gone in those uncertain early days with him. Sometimes she imagined being welcomed back home with open arms and other times at being turned from the door, cursed for a soulless monster. Fear of the latter made it hard to trust that the former was even possible. She also wondered if she would ever be happy trying to live a normal life. Would she have ever been capable of a family? Of a lover? It wouldn’t have been long for everyone in Acoia to know what she was and then…. What? What would her future have been? Doomed to weaving in the temple, carrying on friendships and nothing more?

But wouldn’t that have been better than living as she had, teetering on the edge of sanity? Years and years (more than she’d realized, if Eco and Ryder’s bond was a measuring stick to use against time passed) of barely talking for stretches at time, never reaching out and finding a pair of waiting arms to hug her close as she could at least have had with her friends in Acoia, cut off from the mundane act of just living that she’d taken for granted (grown tired and bored of, even.) She’d survived, not lived. Survived because after a certain point, she’d convinced herself that she was alone except for her partner in misery and if she didn’t have him, there was no point. At least the guilt of thinking she’d trapped Nuo with her against his will had been lifted after they’d spoken. That had been an illuminating conversation, and it now threw a new light over everything. If she hadn’t gone through all that suffering, she wouldn’t have him. She might not have wanted anything more to do with him at first, but that had changed considerably.

She cared for him. She… Possibly loved him. But they would never be able to have a normal life together. Ryder had suggested that it was possible to have a normal life even with her fey-ness. He had a wife. People could understand. But did she want anyone else at this point? How could she ever possibly leave Nuo? How could she ever possibly be happy with him, either?

It was beginning to make her head hurt to think about. What did she want?

What I want right now is Nuo, Kaylin decided, standing up. Maple perked up and moved to her shoulder as Kaylin made her way back to her shared home. If nothing else, she wanted to tell him about Ryder and Eco.

[Darastrix]

Nuo was outside, though not more than few feet from the door of their hidden home, coaxing some flowers to grow and bloom with his sign.  It didn't seem to take much.  Though the plantlife in Acoia had been perfectly hale and healthy, the plants there in the Force's sanctuary were even more so.  And it was nice, to have the world around him feel so alive.  It helped him feel better, too.  Engrossed in what he was doing, he missed Kaylin's approach, though Blueberry didn't, and the little sprite bounced from the toadstool she'd been perched on to flutter toward them and wave.

[Kender Bard]

Kaylin spared a slight smile for Blueberry. Maple moved to intercept the sprite in an aerial hug as Kaylin drew closer to Nuo, not coming up directly from behind him in case he startled, but from the side.

Watching him grow flowers she suddenly, forcefully, remembered when they'd first met and something she had said then. Their roles reversed, now--he had come up from behind her while she had been bent over the blooms--she remarked, "What a gorgeous spring it's been, and summer promises the same."