| |
|
Popping one eye open to peek at Sage, lifting her arm, Madrigal smiled. "Thanks," she said, letting her arm fall back over her eyes to block out the sun. "You know, this is so nice. Having a purpose, I mean. A purpose, but not a mission. It's so nice to be able to go with the flow, have a direction, a goal, but no pressure to get there. No time constraints. We can enjoy the world around us, enjoy each other, just... be." She spoke softly, letting her words carry themselves. "It's probably going to take us ages to get there. Though, I think the journey will be half of the fun. What comes after the journey, well, who knows..." Madrigal thought for a minute, using a moment of quiet contemplation before she continued. "What do you think we'll do when we get there?" |
|
|
| |
|
Sage listened to the girl speak, and after a moment he hummed in agreement. Freedom, he knew, wasn't something to take lightly. It could be taken from him in the blink of an eye, and it could happen when he least expected it. It had happened that way. Then he shrugged in response to the girl's next question. "Two things. We could be boring and settle down, or continue to a journey somewhere else." He glanced over at the girl, then looked back down to where he was absentmindedly playing at the grass. "Life is an adventure," he hummed, looking up at the horizon. "There's always a horizon, always somewhere new to go, somewhere more to learn. I think just...a life where I know I can do what I want when I want sounds pretty nice to me," he hummed. Then he blinked and looked over at the girl cocking his head curiously. "What about you?" He'd opened up with the girl a bit...let his guard down a bit. He hadn't meant to, but he had, and he kind of liked it. But his head still told him to be careful, even while his heart seemed to be screaming at him to open up to the girl about everything. But he did want to get to know her better, so why not start here? Besides, he wanted to see her reaction to him opening up a bit. Was she genuine? Or should he go back now? |
|  |
|
| |
|
Madrigal let her arm drop from her face so she could watch Sage as he spoke. Something in her resonated with his yearning for freedom. Living by their own rules sounded like a dream. One that was just moving within reach. She could almost reach her arm out and catch it in her hand, pulled forth from the universe. It was becoming more and more a reality she could embrace. "What about me..." She smiled up at Sage, catching his gaze with her own. "Freedom, not even freedom- choice, has always been a dream, too far out of reach to even hope for. Everything I've ever done has been an action forced out of me, a result of coersion." Madrigal slung her arm back over her eyes, the inability to look not on the the truth, but also Sage, in the eyes grew too overwhelming. "I'm sure you've heard stories from Ciradel. If you have, the reality is much worse than the stories lead you to believe. Which is funny, because usually it's the other way around." The corner of her mouth tipped up in a wry smile. "Neither my mother nor my father could be conscripted. My father had a sickness that left him unable to work for almost a year before he died when I was 15, and my mother was a nurse with only one arm. I was the only useful body in the family, so when war was declared against the Ixirian Empire and the conscription process started, they took me." Madrigal rolled into her side, bringing her knees to her chest. She watched her fingers work, picking the grass and twirling it until it fell and then picking more. "I've done... things," she swallowed, hesitating before she went on. "I've been through things, seen things, done things no sisxteen year old girl should, and all without a choice. When the options are to do things that will probably get you killed or be killed, there really is no choice." Madrigal let her words hang. She knew Sage had also been through a lifetime of danger, of heartache, of struggle. She could relate with some of those feelings. She smiled brightly and looked up at him. "I think we should just go with the flow, and see where the wind takes us. At least for a while." She shrugged. "Maybe we get there and decide to stay for a while. We make camp, explore, go on adventures that don't take us too far. Or maybe we get there, see some things, do some things, and decide we want to keep going. Who knows." |
|
|
| |
|
Sage cocked his head and watched the girl intently as she started speaking. He pinched his lips together and then sighed when she told him more...but it was good to know she was willing to be vulnerable around him, too. She'd been much more open than he had, and while she hadn't been much in detail about what those things were, he knew she didn't have to. Anyone who was lying about doing those things would have gone into more detail, so this just seemed to make him trust the girl a little bit more. He had always been good at telling when people were genuine or not, and this girl was definitely being genuine. He looked over at the girl and allowed a bright grin to cross his face. "You know, I had absolutely no idea you were quite literally a princess," he hummed. "What are you doing with me? Surely you could have found a better companion?" It was half a joke, but there was some seriousness to it to. But he agreed with the girl....going with the flow sounded great. It sounded real. "You're not getting away from me now," he noted in a rather amused tone, eye starting to glint with mischief as his real self kind of peeked through the mask. He sobered up then, and looked up again, staring at the horizon once again. "I'm not going to ask you to go into anymore detail about what you told me," he hummed. "But...thanks. For trusting someone like me enough to travel with, to be friendly with." He shrugged slightly. "We've both done things that aren't things to necessarily be proud of, but...maybe this life of travel, or choice as you put it, will be good for both of us." He rested his chin in his arms with a slight sigh, thinking about what the future might hold for he and the girl. |
| |
|
| |
|
Madrigal chuckled, "I assure you, I'm no princess." She rolled back onto her back and stared up at the tree branches hanging overhead. "What do you mean 'someone like you'? You haven't given me any reason not to trust you, and by what I can tell so far, you're human enough." The tip of her mouth turned up into a slight smirk. Smoothing her hands over her hair, Madrigal played with the end of her braid. She took a deep breath and sat up. She wouldn't tell Sage everything now. She didn't even know is she would ever tell him everything, it was all too dark, even for her, and she lived it. But she would feed him bits. Bits to let him understand her, and why she was the way she was. But now was not the time to tell stories. "We should get walking again, kill another few miles before the sun goes down," Mardigal suggested, standing up and reaching down for her bag. She slung it over ber shoulders, doing up the straps and waiting for Sage. "How far away from home have you ventured over your little lifetime?" She asked. |
|
|
| |
|
Sage snorted and shook his head. "Most people see I'm a yadan and automatically think I'm the most dispicable thing on the planet," he told the girl, using the slang term for his type of people. "People think more their horses and dogs than me." He shrugged slightly and chuckled. "I've gotten used to it, but you're the oddball who thinks of me like a human," he noted with a voice tinged with amusement. He stood up and grabbed his back then, following suit to the girl. Then he wrinkled his nose in thought. "I can't really say," he eventually hummed. "I've been through all the woods around my house for miles to try and hunt something, and into town a bit, but I was never able to leave. Dad always kept me on a pretty tight leash. I was his source of money for the alcohol. He couldn't stand to loose the drink, so he managed not to kill me." He rolled his eyes slightly at that and shook his head. "He let me out of the house though...so I can't complain too much I suppose," he mused. Things were awful, yes, but they could have been so much worse. He couldn't forget that. |
| |
|
| |
|
Sorry, it's short. Not quite sure what to write but wanted to give you something at least XD) "You are human, though," Madrigal said, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. Listening to Sage, she peered through the brush, watching little insects fly around. Apart from the exposed feeling, she liked the peace of their surrounding. She tried to imagine what Sage's life had been like and couldn't. Her own past shadowed her, the trauma of her experiences too much to imagine anything else. Anything she could drum up would fall short anyway. She moved on. "What was your most comman catch in the woods there?" She asked. She knew some hunting and snare techniques, but he would surely have something new to show off to her. |
|
|
| |
|
Sage glanced over at the girl and have her a rather confused look, though it was definitely a thankful one .....he just was having a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that someone saw him as him and not what his class was. In response to her next question, he hummed thoughtfully for a moment, titling his head slightly and leaning back, resting his head in his hands and laying on his back. "it depends ...a lot of deer, down by the rivers and streams, and quite a few rabbits and squirrels in the woods and grassy areas." He shrugged slightly and nodded in the direction of the river. "occasionally there's fish within reach too, but they're harder to cook and prepare than the frogs on the banks," he informed the girl. "there's plenty of animals....though the dragons that sometimes come through eat a lot of the population, so there's not a bunch of them running around," he admitted. (It's all good lol! I don't mind a bit shorter paragraph xD) |
| |
|
| |
|
Honestly I'm not inspired in terms of writing ideas so I'll just pass some time if that's goof with you XD)) Madrigal nodded as she listened to her friend, opting to stay wuiet now that she had said her bit. After the deep monologues each had given about their respective pasts, Madrigal was worn out emotionally. When Sage decided it was time for another rest, she dropped her pack as she sat, listening to him talk about his hunting experiences. She wouldn't complain, although it would mean they wouldn't get too far today, but it didn't really matter. They had all the time in the world to get to their destination. "So sightings of dragons are rather rare there?" She asked. She'd only seen them at a distance, never up close. She knew that would soon change. She pictured the mountings; them finding a deserted cave that was the perfect size to house them both, days of scouting the area in search of tracks and possible dragon activity. There would be plenty, she knew, but it would take them some time to map out the different species, their territories, and behavioural patterns. It would take days, weeks, maybe months of observation. At least for her it would. Madrigal didn't know how in touch Sage was with his dragon heritage. Speaking of, what did te dragon blood mean for Sage? In what ways was he different to her, biologically. That was another thing she was interested to discover, and him too, if he didn't already know. |
|
|
| |
|
(Yeah that's fine lol) Sage was more than content to walk for quite some time, though when he started to get super hungry again around dinner time he decided it would be best to stop for a bit and have a meal....they had been walking all day after all. He hummed lightly in response to the girls and shrugged. "They like to stay away from the crowds, so they're more popular a few miles into the brush. Their territory can extend for hundreds of miles, since they eat a lot and need large hunting areas, and normally towns aren't included in that territory," he informed the girl, a kind of light shining in his eyes and a crooked grin forming on his lips. It was a real smile...not the fake one he'd become so accustomed to. This one clearly showed his corner incisors were more like canine teeth of a dragon...fangs if you will. They were relitively small, not much bigger than his normal teeth, but they were sharp, and could inflict a decent deal of damage if he wanted them to. Normally, he kept them hidden, but he wasn't thinking about them now. "it's incredible really, how they can make sure so much land is the same day after day, and protect it and their families..." He babbled on for quite some time about the incredible species, not really knowing what all he was saying, just...talking, he supposed. Comfortably. |
| |
|
Heavy Downpours, Flood Warning
