Solitude's Promise

[Naelona Ezel]

The air was cool and crisp, and drove goosebumps up many a slaves bare back, even upon her skin the chill spring morning air had it's way. Fog hung like heavy curtains about the garden, and the only area visible to her was a few paces in each direction. The earth-bound clouds were too thick for any vision beyond that.

Even the deadly plants of the renown location, gradually shedding their iced coffins and growing anew. Soon enough their deadly venom and formidable maws would be flourishing with fatal beauty for the next several months.. but now the garden was still quiet. Empty. Dead. Save a figure sitting on a single bench. Her frail looking hands folded upon her lap, the middle of a cascade of soft grays that ran from her shoulders, down her frame to over her feet.

Between a meager slave for two, and her brother, she'd left her days mostly alone for the past month or two. Hidden away. Conversing with Anolean was about as far as she'd gone in terms of visitation, and even then their chats were quiet and of few words, often leaving for actions to say what their tongues were not. Namely - what hers wasn't.

The boogie sat unmoving in the still morning, the faintest of sounds seeming to resound louder than usual in the absence of sight. A breath of the air rushed into her lungs, just as cold as the first breath. The damp air curled her hair, left down for the morning, unbrushed since rising from bed. Her pale arms lay bare, at the gray cloth clung to the tops of her shoulders before it fell into a V down her back. Save for her hair, her spine left bare to the world, giving hint to the faint faded scars that haunted the once-pink flesh there. It was a curious morning. No pipe lay in her hands, nor hidden upon her person. No book of papers were spread out beside her, nothing but space - quiet - calm.

A weak thought had wondered if she'd meet anyone there, it was such an odd hour of the morning.. but who looked for her now? She'd been known as Naelona Syeira Ezel, a boogie who intimidated into submission most of Wonderland and drove her pipe into the craniums of those who didn't. A being that seemed to find some sick delight in tormenting the disobedient, yet did with a countenance that rarely showed any hint of joy. But after a time of absence, this being had returned to this garden, to a bench on a morning. Was it safe to presume it was even the same creature who'd left?

Or maybe like the flowers about her, she was waiting.. just waiting.. waiting to strike.

[Ryan Cardwell]

Through this emptiness strode none other than Tristan, little more than a dark shadow amidst the fog. A huge beast padded alongside him, starkly white against the gray that encompassed them. There was nothing overtly odd about them, nothing out of the ordinary. At least not at first glance. If one were to get close enough, they would be able to quiet clearly see the marked effects that recent events were having on him. His face was drawn, weariness evident on every feature. Not only that but there was a hint of dark rings under his eyes that plainly illustrated his recent lack of sleep.

These days he very much wished to be alone, though it did nothing to ease his mind. Nothing would he reasoned, at least not until all of this foolishness was over. Tristan was weary of all the fighting, he simply had no heart for it anymore. Boogies' had no discernible and yet.....he could no longer ignore the fact that he was old, old and tired. He simply had no will to be the man he was in his youth, a lifetime of hardships having finally begun to take its toll on him. A deep and weary sigh escaped his lips, hand raising to idly scratch Moon's ears. After a few moments his eye drifted up, catching sight of a figure in the mist, a figure he hadn't seen in some time.

His footsteps never slowed, though his gaze remained on the small boogie women that had been absent these past few months. Soon enough he was before her, watching her a moment more before turning away the eye he knew disturbed her so. "Naelona" Though he was loathe to admit it, there had been times when she would have come in mighty useful. As long as he'd known her hers had been a sound and logical mind, something that was desperately needed now that the world had turned to madness. "It has been awhile..." Too long perhaps...

[Naelona Ezel]

"Naelona." An utterance of such a name, for most outward appearances it didn't seem to evoke a reaction. That name, much less uttered by someone other than her brother, or a slave. It was spoken.. by something.. something else. A being that, when she'd first left, didn't know where to place. He stood before her now, more fatigued than her memories recalled, and even those were distant.

"Yes." She returned, eyes still transfixed upon some distant point. "I was absent." The creature known as Naelona returned before her coal orbs drifted to gaze upon him, looking unhesitatingly into his unharmed eye. Not even a shiver seemed to grace her spine, but a soft look of observance, acknowledging his presence and existence there in that place and moment.

Shortly the boogie dropped her gaze to the paws of Moon, but didn't look at her. "Forgive me, but I was not well." Forgive for her abrupt disappearance, is what she meant by the words. Perhaps a strange request - coming from Naelona of all people - but it existed then, there, to this elder.

When she'd left two months before, the female had been horribly conflicted about more matters than even she cared to address. It didn't seem to matter where she turned, to her slaves, family, self, or another boogie.. there seemed to be complications at every turn and each in turn twisting and distorting the ones before it into a further mess. A mess she had neither the ability for will to sort out. What resulted..? Naelona just.. left. Shut down. Vacated. Disappeared. Vanished. Much like the children before her by her hand, she too left the social eye - retreating into her own shadows and hiding like the defective, troubled creature she'd come to see.

"I think I'm a bit better now." She added softly in her own quiet lilting tone, looking to him once more. For the moment, she probably appeared a shadow of the sharp-tongued, lawful, demanding boogie she'd lived as. Quiet, soft.. one who didn't know her might say she couldn't have hurt a spider. Whichever the reason, or the cause, she watched his face closely and the movement of his visible eye. "Have you been well?"

[Ryan Cardwell]

The eye she sought was noticeably dimmed, the vigor and spirit that normally filled it having collapsed almost entirely under the recent exertions of his body and mind. He did not turn his gaze from her, although it lacked the chilling effect that was common of it. Tristan knew she had been absent, there were very few things that escaped his notice these days. However he had not known that she was unwell, and his eye narrowed a bit in what could only be construed as concern. "No apology is needed. I am glad you are feeling better, though I was unaware that you were unwell."

His eye might have widened or his brow raised at the uncharacteristic words coming from the woman, if not for the fact that both were so heavily laden with need for rest. As it was there was no change in his appearance though his mind did stir a bit. He had never known Naleona to be concerned for anyone's well being other than her own, and most especially not his. They had been tooth and nail for centuries, and there were times that he still wondered why he had never simply killed her as he had so many others. Perhaps it was this strange attraction that he'd felt for her of late, something that not even he with all his vast experience could even begin to explain. "I..." His instincts brought a pause, unwilling to reveal any weaknesses. His better judgment forced it away though, Naelona was no threat, and if she were then she could be dealt with easily enough. A sigh escaped him once more, heavy and exhausted. "I have been greatly wearied of late. Though I seek to put an end to this foolishness the miscreants elude me at every turn. I fear it will be some time before we can be rid of them and return things to as they should be."

[Naelona Ezel]

Naelona nodded only slightly. "Most were unaware are still are, it was meant to be that way." She had often prided herself on her good health, both physical and mental, and with this had been reluctant and saw no point in pointing out otherwise. The rest of Wonderland could wonder as it willed. For now - it wasn't her concerning matter.

"If you're looking for guidance, I'm not one you should seek it from, Tristan. Ask Anolean, for perhaps even Kazn, not I. But come.." Naelona made motion to the bench beside her. "Sit, and tell me of it." She had no driving desire to 'fix' any problems that might be plaguing the area, but perhaps by mere listening she could offer some direction. In truth she hardly had the will, let alone the energy for any actual effort, her own recovery and well being a higher priority, but listening was a simple thing. If even she only listened for a little while.

"You appear for worse wear than I feel within my own being." A sympathetic remark perhaps, but she still made room for him anyway. Such an odd invitation, from one previous opponent to another. One before she couldn't tell to shut up and silence enough, and now asking for him to speak. She had been silent enough in his called meeting, though then of similar weariness. This was something different, if not a little foreign to those who'd known her.

[Ryan Cardwell]

A silent nod was the only indication that he had even heard her speak. It was very much like her to give no excuse for her absence, in all his years he'd never known her to answer to anyone at all. If she were to start then he would immediately confine her to her room until her mental incapacitation was remedied.

The boogie frowned, not liking either of those names. And the fact that he was being told to go to them for aid only deepened his distaste for them. Am I not the one that should be providiing the guidance, dear Ezel?" It was afterall he who had taken command of the renegades within the palace, an action he felt that he was beginni ng to regret. Despite his misgivings however he did indeed join the pale figure on the bench, Moon's massive body lieing on the ground at his feet. He had no intentions of sitting and telling her his woes, but telling her bits and pices might lighten the burden of his mind. "Yet I have no taste for these people or their politics"

A rueful smile appeared on his face at her words. Was it really so obvious? He had to suppose it was. The last time he'd chanced to glance a t a mirror he barely recognized the reflection it held, a wraith of the man that once was. He could only surmise that it was an effect of his age, but as he was easily the oldest person within this palace he had no means by which to compare things. "I fear that you have been right Naelona, it seems that I have grown a bit beyond my years. In my youth such starins would have troubled me litte, but my youth is far gone." Briefly he wondered if he too, just like the humans, might one day slip from this world in his sleep. The thought irritated him quite a bit, whilst leaving him with a deep urge to see his hme once more. If it was even still there.

[Naelona Ezel]

The younger boogie held her place upon the cool stone, curling the fingers of a hand into the folds of her garment when Tristan sat beside her. The corner of her mouth curled slightly with half the beginnings of what might have been a laugh. "They are taxing, yes." Tilting her head to look at him, her eyes watching him silently while hair fell from shoulder to back. "It's peculiar you do not find me in a similar distasteful manner. Unless, of course, this is the most disgusted you ever become." It wasn't, she knew, but her thoughts halted there.

"Your youth fled you with death long ago, as with us all, Blackthorne." Wasn't that what all boogies were.. shades, wraiths of something once living, a being akin to begrudging ghosts save in a more human form and otherworldly abilities. "Perhaps that's why we keep them, and hold them here.. sustenance beyond food and shelter.." Naelona mused silently, thinking of the multitudes of slaves that'd found their way into this forsaken land over the millennia.

"I've been wondering of late, given what we are.. driven to take, drawn to hurt.. if we aren't a wrinkle ourselves." with a snort Naelona shook her head, shuffling her feet, pressing against the stone tiles with the toe of her cloth-covered foot. "I've been letting my mind wander too far while my being stays too still. I almost wonder if my own eccentricism hasn't started to seize me before my time." Owing once more to her long held belief that boogies hit a measure of insanity with age. Not that she was old enough for it, but certainly wasn't too young.