Home again

[Anastasia]

A few hours later...

'Can I come in?' It's a simple prayer, unremarkable. Yet the person who speaks it is anything but - Calley.

[Ebiris]

Well that sort of direct request is a bit rare for a prayer. Is Dawnhope with him?

[Anastasia]

She is. They're just outside of Sylica's boundary with Ysgard. Dawnhope looks rather tired but is still holding up.

[Ebiris]

She thus speaks directly to Dawnhope.

Sylica is your home too, you don't need to stand on ceremony even if you're bringing a guest.

[Anastasia]

'I know, but he wants to talk to you,' Dawnhope replies to your message.

[Ebiris]

Then bring him inside and take him to Mercia, I'll be waiting for you both.

[Anastasia]

Where in Mercia? General location/type is fine.

[Ebiris]

Lets go with an art gallery, give the kid some culture.

[Anastasia]

The gallery is airy and bright, sunlight coming in from roof windows that illuminates everything. Here people leisurely take in the section dedicated to metalworking. Calley's here, studying an iron state of a ghaele eladrin, rather fine work if a bit too loose with actual details.

Calley turns to you, a small frown on his face. "I wish people didn't get older," he says, without preamble.

[Ebiris]

"How is your grandmother doing?" Alicia asks, turning away from the statue to look down at Calley, her presence muted to the eyes and ears of everyone else at the gallery so they can admire the artwork without distracting people.

[Anastasia]

Calley looks down. "Her stomach had trouble. Tumors. I fixed it, but she's getting older, isn't she?"

Dawnhope just rests nearby, listening in and perching atop your head, lying there sprawled out.

[Ebiris]

Alicia considerately keeps her back straight so Dawnhope can rest on a stable platform. "Yes. I recently met a dragon who had some unkind things to say about humans and our mortality. Is it meant to be a prod so we feel compelled to squeeze more into our span of years? Why then when so many other creatures in Creation are given as many as they care to spend?"

[Anastasia]

"Life isn't fair, is it?" Calley admits, looking down with his bangs hiding his eyes, hands in his pockets. "That's something Mom's taught me with everything. How come none of the other kids can do what I can?"

Pausing at that, "But why isn't it fair? That's what you really want to ask."

[Ebiris]

"Humans, elves, dragons, demons, and gods... all of us were made for a purpose. Why are things a certain way and not another?" she smiles a little. "When I was a little girl I would ask questions like that. 'Why are trees green?' 'Why does eating too many sweets make me sick?' 'Why can't dogs talk to humans?'. But then I grew a little older and a little wiser and I learned that that's simply the way things are. I learned not to ask such questions. And yet now as I've grown even older and even wiser, my mind is drawn back to such questions of 'why'."

[Anastasia]

"We're like toys," Calley goes on, "We make toys and to have fun with them, to do a specific thing we want. When you break a toy or it finishes up, you just get a new one." Even quieter, "I know that children love toys, but when we get older, we toss them aside because we're bored of them."