Post by NightshadeVII on Dec 12, 2020 19:31:08 GMT -6
Again Sohl drew as he spoke, this time sketching out a creature of sorts, slender and elegant, yet sharp and focused. It was... hard to figure out what the creature looked like, other than itself. It shared no similarities with anything he had seen before, and honestly, it just made him all the more curious. The icarim Sohl sketched had the eyes of a hunter, of something deadly, yet also something intelligent. There was something about the eyes that Sohl had drawn that Edge couldn’t quite put his finger on. Still, he hadn’t expected Sohl’s kind to look like that. After all, he was sitting in front of a fairly human-looking individual... but on the other hand, he knew all too well that looks were deceiving. Was it shapeshifting? Illusions perhaps? Or that thing he had been introduced to in Wathais called magic?
The Icarim sounded like a proud race too, singing of their battles and their legends, and it was fascinating, to hear about cultures that at once both were so different from what Edge was used to, but still had something resembling similarities. It would appear that most species enjoyed to sing, no matter where you were.
Even though the mindsets were so very different, Edge could still see some similarities, or at least he could understand the reasoning. The duty of stewards or protectors of the land was a noble one, even if it involved harsh choices. Darai had done something similar, being protectors and caretakers of their world, though they went about it very differently. However, with how Sohl described his own world, the duties and actions of the Icarim made sense. So despite how grim Sohl’s explanations sounded, Edge didn’t seem fazed or disgusted in the slightest, in fact, he seemed to be listening eagerly.
The fact that they could filter air and vent oxygen, that they could nourish the land simply by breathing fascinated the Darai greatly, and his eyes lit up when Sohl spoke about that, visibly impressed by the feat. The pulse and breath of different worlds really showed itself in ways Edge couldn’t have imagined when he was younger. And this was just one of the ways it could show.
The Darai was just about to ask another question, utterly fascinated by the Icarim and just now different they were, however, Sohl beat him to it, asking whether Edge’s kind head a lot of festivals. A lot would be an understatement.
He took a moment to consider how he would explain it, because words didn’t really seem to do it justice at all, but at the moment, it was all he had to work with. An explanation would only really capture half of it, really. It would never convey the emotions in the air, the laughter and chatter of his people, the atmosphere and feeling of togetherness. It was something that had to be felt. It wasn’t hard to remember the taste of spices on his tongue, both from beverages and local dishes, as well as incense. In his mind he saw familiar faces, smiling, dressed in their finest attire, faces painted with swaying colours and intricate patterns shifting in the light. The dances and songs that lasted for days, leaving everything so strangely quiet after all. The raw beauty of it all was something to entirely its own. How was he supposed to convey any of it properly?
“Oh yeah, my people have a lot festivals. After all there is much to life to celebrate, isn’t there?”, Edge chuckled as he began explaining, “We Darai take great pride in the sharing of culture between settlements, so even events such as diplomatic meetings were celebrated and made joyful, not because it was hard to be on good terms with other Darai settlements, but because we enjoy what we share.”
He paused, considering his next words. Now that he was thinking about it, he couldn’t even remember all the festivals by name. He’d have to write that down some day.
“But mostly, our celebrations centered around the land, the flow of life and the changing of times. Life, death, renewal, all that. We had festivals for the changing of seasons, the cycles of the moon and other astrological phenomena, like specific auroras and eclipses. We had festivals to celebrate our culture and history as well”
A longing smile touched Edge’s lips then. By Eda he missed that, all of it. He missed hearing the pulse of the world, to be embraced by the vivid lights of a festival and feel the rhythm of a drum replace his own heartbeat. To be with his people, to celebrate that they had survived and that they had hopefully come out of it all stronger than before. He would have loved to have been part of that.
“We’d paint our faces and bodies with the appropriate colours and patterns, show off our finest clothes and jewelry, you know, really make a show of it”, he gestured as he spoke, pointing to the most common placements of face paint; chin, lower lip, cheekbones, nose bride and temples
“And the settlements, oh they’d be illuminated buy countless colourful lanterns, so much so that you might forget what things normally looked like. There’d be stalls everywhere, some with food, other with the different crafts, like woodwork, art, pottery, weaving, anything you could imagine. Storytellers would entertain around the bonfires with ancient tales of every kind. I must’ve heard them all a hundred times.”
For a moment, his voice swelled with emotions, excited yet bittersweet.
“And there’d be music and song in the air. The kind of music you feel in your body for days afterwards. I’ve lost my voice at festivals more times than I’d care to count”, he chuckled to himself, remembering how he had sounded the day after he first sang at a festival, “and the dances. They really were something else. The most talented dancers almost seemed to loose form becoming this mess of swirling colours and glistening metals. But honestly, nothing I say could do any of it justice. It’s something that would have to be experienced.”
As the last words faded, he sighed to himself. Explaining it really wasn’t the same, and he was in no way satisfied with his wording of it all. It sounded so... flat, in comparison to the real thing.
Then after a moment, he remembered what he wanted to ask Sohl, before he had rambled about festivals.
“I take it your species are a kind of shape shifters?”, Edge asked, gesturing from Sohl’s sketches to the blonde himself, “or maybe you’re just really good with makeup.”
The Icarim sounded like a proud race too, singing of their battles and their legends, and it was fascinating, to hear about cultures that at once both were so different from what Edge was used to, but still had something resembling similarities. It would appear that most species enjoyed to sing, no matter where you were.
Even though the mindsets were so very different, Edge could still see some similarities, or at least he could understand the reasoning. The duty of stewards or protectors of the land was a noble one, even if it involved harsh choices. Darai had done something similar, being protectors and caretakers of their world, though they went about it very differently. However, with how Sohl described his own world, the duties and actions of the Icarim made sense. So despite how grim Sohl’s explanations sounded, Edge didn’t seem fazed or disgusted in the slightest, in fact, he seemed to be listening eagerly.
The fact that they could filter air and vent oxygen, that they could nourish the land simply by breathing fascinated the Darai greatly, and his eyes lit up when Sohl spoke about that, visibly impressed by the feat. The pulse and breath of different worlds really showed itself in ways Edge couldn’t have imagined when he was younger. And this was just one of the ways it could show.
The Darai was just about to ask another question, utterly fascinated by the Icarim and just now different they were, however, Sohl beat him to it, asking whether Edge’s kind head a lot of festivals. A lot would be an understatement.
He took a moment to consider how he would explain it, because words didn’t really seem to do it justice at all, but at the moment, it was all he had to work with. An explanation would only really capture half of it, really. It would never convey the emotions in the air, the laughter and chatter of his people, the atmosphere and feeling of togetherness. It was something that had to be felt. It wasn’t hard to remember the taste of spices on his tongue, both from beverages and local dishes, as well as incense. In his mind he saw familiar faces, smiling, dressed in their finest attire, faces painted with swaying colours and intricate patterns shifting in the light. The dances and songs that lasted for days, leaving everything so strangely quiet after all. The raw beauty of it all was something to entirely its own. How was he supposed to convey any of it properly?
“Oh yeah, my people have a lot festivals. After all there is much to life to celebrate, isn’t there?”, Edge chuckled as he began explaining, “We Darai take great pride in the sharing of culture between settlements, so even events such as diplomatic meetings were celebrated and made joyful, not because it was hard to be on good terms with other Darai settlements, but because we enjoy what we share.”
He paused, considering his next words. Now that he was thinking about it, he couldn’t even remember all the festivals by name. He’d have to write that down some day.
“But mostly, our celebrations centered around the land, the flow of life and the changing of times. Life, death, renewal, all that. We had festivals for the changing of seasons, the cycles of the moon and other astrological phenomena, like specific auroras and eclipses. We had festivals to celebrate our culture and history as well”
A longing smile touched Edge’s lips then. By Eda he missed that, all of it. He missed hearing the pulse of the world, to be embraced by the vivid lights of a festival and feel the rhythm of a drum replace his own heartbeat. To be with his people, to celebrate that they had survived and that they had hopefully come out of it all stronger than before. He would have loved to have been part of that.
“We’d paint our faces and bodies with the appropriate colours and patterns, show off our finest clothes and jewelry, you know, really make a show of it”, he gestured as he spoke, pointing to the most common placements of face paint; chin, lower lip, cheekbones, nose bride and temples
“And the settlements, oh they’d be illuminated buy countless colourful lanterns, so much so that you might forget what things normally looked like. There’d be stalls everywhere, some with food, other with the different crafts, like woodwork, art, pottery, weaving, anything you could imagine. Storytellers would entertain around the bonfires with ancient tales of every kind. I must’ve heard them all a hundred times.”
For a moment, his voice swelled with emotions, excited yet bittersweet.
“And there’d be music and song in the air. The kind of music you feel in your body for days afterwards. I’ve lost my voice at festivals more times than I’d care to count”, he chuckled to himself, remembering how he had sounded the day after he first sang at a festival, “and the dances. They really were something else. The most talented dancers almost seemed to loose form becoming this mess of swirling colours and glistening metals. But honestly, nothing I say could do any of it justice. It’s something that would have to be experienced.”
As the last words faded, he sighed to himself. Explaining it really wasn’t the same, and he was in no way satisfied with his wording of it all. It sounded so... flat, in comparison to the real thing.
Then after a moment, he remembered what he wanted to ask Sohl, before he had rambled about festivals.
“I take it your species are a kind of shape shifters?”, Edge asked, gesturing from Sohl’s sketches to the blonde himself, “or maybe you’re just really good with makeup.”