RP between Degu and Rigby
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Carneiros — 09/20/2021
Carneiros had gone for a night-time walk, perhaps a little fly around town... but instead he'd ended up back here again. Drawn like a magnet the outlawed fae lord found himself too close to the border to the western fae lands, staring intently into the trees. He could feel it calling him, and every fiber of his being is telling him to go there, to throw caution to the wind.
They'd know him, maybe. Maybe someone would spot him and raise an alarm, his crimes are not against just humans after all. He'd caused great rifts between the fae and the humans, he'd gone against a queens orders and it'd all ended in so much death. He wasn't exactly the same man as he was back then but in all sense of the word he was still Carneiros. They'd still hold him accountable, and he could not guarantee they wouldn't do the same in this world as well.
For a while he paced and sighed, wings raised behind his back. Now and then he'd stop and his piercing eyes would stare off into the darkness, listening. He could feel the unseelie guards in the distance, he wondered if they could feel him too? ...no they'd have come over here if they had, at least to investigate.
Sandro — 09/21/2021
His fiancee wasn't the one to meet him, this time.
The first one to spot Carnieros was an altogether different russet-red beast, one who caught his scent on the breeze, and had crept quietly closer until she'd locked eyes on his iridescent wings. She'd slowed to a crawl and then froze, tail lifted high and paw raised incredibly delicately.
The Watch had carried weapons of silver and weapons of iron. The Maggiore di Aiolfi carried more, and decades hunting with the tigre had seen Sandro learn every quirk and tic, every canine and alien gesture large and small. This point meant 'fae' and the man followed dutifully. Only to find -
A fae at the border, on the mundane side, looking out at the wilds with something a lot like longing.
Sandro approached in near silence, posture and stare shifting to something like recognition. Harpur and Marc had reported a 'Cassius' appearing in the city about a year ago. Cassius was an Unseelie lord, and had a dragon lover. It was quite the magical disruption within the city, and to the savvy, full of chaos magic.
Marc had been filling in for Alessandro, then; it had been an open secret that there may have been something more than grief affecting the Lord, and Sandro's absence was due to his recovery among family from one of those apopletic attacks. The swap had been admirable even then, so soon after Marc's recovery after his own illness, and just a year out of Piero's death. He was proud of Marc, but he was so curious about this pair of new arrivals.
Well, he didn't have to wait much longer, it appeared.
"Figured you'd be on the other side, looking in." was how he'd chosen to reveal himself, though the ask was guarded. This close to the border, there were tricks. There was almost, always tricks.
Carneiros — 09/21/2021
Carneiros might have noticed, his ears are keen but they're listening to the loud chorus of the forest ahead of him. The night might seem silent to any human, but he can hear it, feel it, smell it. Then he becomes aware of someone approaching him a little too late, his wings snapping down swiftly as he turns his head to look directly at Sandro. Piercing, glowing yellow eyes fix on the man in the dark. For a moment it might have seemed like the trees were melting as if made of sap, but a single blink would erase all evidence of that.
Faewatch. Fantastic.
He knew they'd have to find him here one of these days, even if he'd been careful before he was starting to get a little sloppy. A small laugh rises from his throat "I used to think so too." he says in a cryptic way to this relative stranger, eyes drifting down to the uhm... the.... what is that? Looks like a dog, but not. It's probably a silly decision but he pats his thigh with long fingers as if to call the creature closer for attention.
"I'm not here for any trouble." He says almost submissively, it's a juxtaposition of his regal stature and blood, let alone the wings on his back, usually a mark of status. "You have my word." And a when a fae gave his word, it was written....the problem is their words tend to have so many loopholes. Hard to trust even then, really.
Sandro — 09/21/2021
"Your word." He quirked a brow, even allowed a thin slip of a humorless smirk to grace his lips, but otherwise remained still. But it was a tense sort of stillness. "Whose word is this?" It seemed somewhat on-the-ball; there was power in names, even if he was asking the powerful.
Rosa did move forward a few steps, but it was similarly tense in the way of a dog waiting for a proper command, nose visibly twitching. Her head did tilt with curiosity in spite of her practiced control. Over there? He has something? Maybe?
He, too, took a couple steps forward, though his weapons remained lowered. "It's awfully close to the border for no trouble. Unless you're steering clear of the Court Guard?"
Carneiros — 09/21/2021
Carneiros tenses visibly as his name is asked. He'd been using 'Carneiros' again, but he often wondered if he was stupid for doing so. Someone would know it, one day. Then what? but living a lie perhaps was an insult to those he'd harmed. "I'm steering clear of them." he admits. He puts as much trust as he can in this stranger, he is, after all, trying to integrate into this society on this side of the border. So he doesn't get defensive as the man steps closer to him.
For all his body language though it seems like he wants to everything BUT steer clear of them. He keeps keenly staring towards the border and then returning his gaze to the two of them.
The lord offers a humble gesture, a hand for a handshake. Something a human would understand easily "I am Carneiros" he introduces himself with a slow bow of his head, the man ignoring the clawing urge at the back of his mind to mess with this lone human. I mustn't bother the fae watch.
Sandro — 09/23/2021
"I know that name."
There was a barely perceptible cue from Sandro - perhaps it was body language, perhaps it was a cue only the tigre could hear, but she and Sandro stiffened as one, her hackles rising uncertainly.
"...and so did someone very special to me." That could have meant anything, and he'd said it strangely enough. He certainly wasn't old enough to keep company that Carnieros would have terrorized firsthand, was he?
After a moment, he returned that bow.
"So they won't have you either." It was frank but it wasn't unkind. Rather it seemed an implicit question, and possibly light confirmation. Another beat, and he offered a gloved hand in return for that handshake - though he broke it a little too quickly and stiffly.
"Why are you here?" It was a kinder and perhaps broader question than 'why do you live.'
Carneiros — 09/24/2021
I know that name.
Carneiros's face drops immediately and his eyes widen. He takes half a step back, wings flicking briefly behind him. The fear is something he can't hide. Maybe he should have gone by a false name, something, anything. He couldn't lose his family and all the things he'd worked towards now. A part of him almost considers killing Sandro and removing one person who knows his name but he can't. It's just not who he is anymore.
"...how?" he asks almost a little sadly "How did they know of me? I've been gone for hundreds of years."
But no, his own people probably wouldn't take him "I don't know. Probably not." he looks back towards the forest.
Then the last question brings his attention back, piercing eyes staring into Sandro's own. There's a whole lot beneath the surface of that 'why' "Short answer: I moved here with my partner and my friends, and now I work at the castle." there's a deep sigh and a pause. "Long story? After I was killed my soul hid itself within a tree until a shrike took up its branches as a nesting site. I became a young shrike by taking over the body inside an egg, I became a new man with few memories of who I was. I made foolish mistakes, I was turned into a slave for it and tortured. My master had my true name..." he paces slowly back and forth, eyes a little haunted.
"And to cut that long story quite short I was eventually freed through death, I claimed the body of an abandoned, dying baby in the forest and i returned as Carneiros, as i once was. If you want more than that I expect you'll have to take me somewhere more comfortable and make me a cup of tea" he muses weakly.
Rigby — 09/24/2021
sandro: Carnieros asked after “how” …and Alessandro could have lied. It would be believable enough too: Aiolfi have traveled the realms, encountered many fae, worked for many of all stripes, returned home with spoils of all sorts. And there would’ve likely been a kernel of truth to it too - Sandro had tried, but even he didn’t know all of what was in the House’s extensive texts, and he barely trusted his memory after his health scares on top of that. Carnieros could have easily lurked in those pages.
And the fae’s play at humbling himself could have been all for show. Sandro had seen enough of that, too.
But there was something melancholy and defeated about how Carnieros was so sure he wouldn’t be taken back among his own people too, and even if it was only for a moment, it did strike as more genuine than the human had expected.
“That person…had been around for a very long time. She’d heard. I’d never known if she had know firsthand, but word travels among fae.” He couldn’t keep his delivery neutral when speaking of Agnesina, though the effort was commendable, despite the results being transparent, and that note of loneliness and loss crept into his tone, traitorously. “She was…very forgiving.” It was an odd thing to add, but it had seemed that vocalizing it played some part in keeping the man in place, and he listened to Carn’s story with no small amount of odd curiosity, head angled slightly, eyes fixed on the fae. Something akin to envy saw him tense again and slowly clasp Rosa’s collar as an outlet when talk swung around to death and souls, but he remained politely silent.
One part was particularly salient, though, and he couldn’t help but picture Harpur losing his absolute cool about it. But he couldn’t help but picture Harpur reacting to a lot of things lately.
“The castle…does not know who you are, I’m presuming. And would it be presumptuous of me to assume you’ve come in peace?” He left that open, but a small snort escaped him. “On duty, alas, the tea will have to wait. Kept stranger company lately!”
Carneiros — 09/24/2021
Carneiros listened in return, as Sandro had listened to him. There seems to be some recognition in his eyes as Sandro speaks of Agnesina in as vague a way as he can, but it tells the fae enough. The note of how forgiving she is makes him....curious. Can even he be forgiven? and is this human man willing to do the same to keep the spirit of this person alive?
"You must have loved her very much." He says, very softly.
"The castle does not. I'm quite lucky...given the royal bloodline of the queen." he sighs in vague relief at that "They know I am - well. The wings." he shakes them briefly. "I had these things cut off you know? to prove I would never be a threat. They cut them from my back because they didn't trust me and I offered them" he almost sounds a little broken as he says this "But they're back now. This time I am keeping them but they make people nervous." he realizes belatedly that he has gone off on a tangent and is pacing slowly.
He turns about and idly gestures through the air "I come in peace, yes. I am not the Carneiros I once was." He turns and simply starts to ...fall over! like a plank of wood, but as he hits the ground a burst of shadowy chaos erupts from him and a black shrike with bright yellow eyes flutters up into the trees to sit on a branch above Sandro.
"Might I join you on your patrol?" it asks as it hops towards him along the branch, head twisting side to side in a very bird-like way.
Sandro — 09/24/2021
"More than I thought I could love anything in this world. And then we had children."
It was quiet, it was startlingly, achingly vulnerable for how little information he actually gave - but it was a secret for a secret.
Carnieros' reaction had cut oddly and deeply, What he does, how he forgives, and what he learns - it may be too late for him, it may be slow going and difficult for people like himself and like Harpur to adjust (there he went with those thoughts, again) - but all of his effort and his example would be for them.
"Oh I know. I'd heard of a winged fae appearing with a dragon woman on the day you'd returned, but my son and my!" Whoops! And what were they, anyway... "Guard." Which was true. "Were the ones that officially reported the incident. Caused quite a stir, pity I missed it." He didn't elaborate why he'd missed it.
"So...fae aren't all one people. And I can't even begin to fathom the avenues of justice your sort live by. But where you are from...is there a timer on these things? Would this follow you from one life to the next? Are you...a figure from history living in our city, or is our city harboring said...historical figure." It could have been threatening under other circumstance, but it did appear Sandro believed the other man came in peace enough; this seemed sidelined into pure curiosity for the time being.
And he quirked his head once more at the bird. It wasn't a shocking transformation, necessarily (though his arms never lost their tension, and might have strayed a bit too close to weapons as a reflex at the burst of Chaos, itself) and it wasn't like people turning into birds was a matter of course for him, but that same wistfulness tugged at the corners of his eyes in a ghost of a wistful smile when he'd registered what had happened.
"If you're prepared to possibly see things you might not want to see." Unlikely at this stage - they were a double-deterrent for any errant fae, now. But he was on the job, and things happened. And Carnieros - the Carnieros had likely seen worse.
He'd held his arm out like a falconer in offering to the bird above him, and another head-quirk served as a come-on-down gesture. "Riding or flying?"
Carneiros — 09/25/2021
’my sort’ Carneiros thinks with amusement. “The long lived are slow to forget transgressions, I expect the timer has not yet run out on my crimes”
He’s quite curious about the wistful smile he barely catches the edge of but he says nothing.
“Things I might not want to see? What is it you think I may not want to see?” He asks with curiosity, he’s eager to know, though he’s sure he understands... fae being killed perhaps, or at the least arrested and handed off to the court guard.
The arm is offered and the little bird tilts its head back and forth in consideration before fluttering down to perch upon that arm “I can be something a little more intimidating if you prefer” he offers as he hops back and forth along that wrist before making his way instead up to Sandro’s shoulder.
Sandro — 09/25/2021
"Well I don't think I can surprise a person with your...years." It was barely winking, but it was better than 'history.' "Faewatch and the Court Guard have stopped more than their share of troublemakers."
"Court Guard can be trouble of their own. There's one ensign that doubles up with another guard I've crossed paths with a few times. He's insufferable. Hates humans, the lot of them, is probably someone's child. And every time he sees one of my men, he opens his flap and just. Pisses over the border. It's harmless but he knows it annoys me."
“I can be something a little more intimidating if you prefer”
"No, no...I like-! This is...I'm used to this." I've missed this. Carn would ride along for only a few moments, before Sandro reconsidered, with something like a sparkle in his eye.
"You say it like an offer, but I'll turn it back on you as a challenge. It's a quiet night, anyway. How intimidating?"
Carneiros — 09/26/2021
The bird laughs loudly as the pissing court guard is described. He seems utterly amused by it, then moments later curious ‘I’m used to this’ had his beloved been a bird too?
He lets the silence fall for those few moments before he’s issued a challenge. The mischief in his eyes is impossible to make out in this form, he tilts his head and eyes Sandro closely.
“Be careful what you ask, human... never has a man looked on something so fearsome as what I’m about to show you and not fallen victim to it’s terrible maw” he booms ethereally.
The weight on Sandro’s arm starts to grow and grow, his wings lift up as they increase in size. This goes on for a moment until a greyscale Canada goose sits upon Sandro’s arm.
It turns its piercing yellow gaze towards him before letting out a low hiss ending in a pitchy honk.
’hhhhhhhhHenk!’
Sandro — 09/28/2021
That noise-! The one-two punch of Carnieros' introduction coupled with that goose transformation caught Sandro so entirely off guard that he laughed.
Just outright, to a strange fae, a notorious former warlord, while on the job. It was brief, it was reflexive, and he made sure to clamp it down pretty quickly (only for it to continue to escape in periodic snorts) - but if Carn's intention was to ease up on some tension, it worked! "If this is somehow worse than the geese we know here, our world is truly lost-!
"I'm certainly looking upon you and living. It's in the blood, you know. I will return from my shift a noble champion of the watch after facing this monstrosity!* Even with the weight shift, Sandro adjusted easily; even in his age, he was still quite well muscled- and this was the bird-arm anyway - if anything he took even greater care not to spill that horrible goose when he did laugh!
Carneiros — 09/29/2021
Carneiros honk-laughs, a strange and unnatural sound for a goose to make but it seems natural on him in that moment. "Your end is nigh, humans, the fae geese are here!" he flaps his large wings slightly in a silly threat display. If these two men could laugh together, maybe there was hope for this world. For Hy-Brazir, for Thornmouth. It filled Carneiros with a spark of happiness, maybe there was even hope for him.
"You want a scary bird?" he turns his head towards Sandro, faking a bite at his nose in the hopes of playfully making him flinch, but it doesn't make contact "I'll show you. Just don't let your ... ah..." he tilts his head to stare down at Rosa with bird-like eyes.
"whatever that lovely creature is- don't let it charge me. Please trust that I will not harm you, i am merely doing as you asked."
The heavy goose leaps down onto the ground with a THUD and waft of leaves blowing away from it from the very dramatic impact. Then...? he disappears into the trees.
There's an uncomfortable silence, almost as if he has fled the scene entirely until the piercing eyes of a much larger beast emerge between the trees. The features in the dark are hard to make out, but the light from its own glowing eyes seem to accent parts of its horrible skull-like head and large crest. It walks slowly towards Sandro, talons softly scraping at the earth.
"Don't be afraid." it insists in an otherworldly voice, echoing through the trees.
Sandro — 10/02/2021
The goose's feint was answered with a swat that was almost playful, never intending to connect.
Rosa seemed to understand and respond to a brisk and odd hand gesture and a small little click of Sandro's tongue; she sat slowly and skeptically, but ever-obedient, eyes fixed on the goose that had landed on the ground, ears tense and flicked forward, her only movement that of her head as she canted it to follow Carnieros into the trees.
"She will not charge unless I tell her to charge." Perhaps Sandro didn't need to say it, but as a demonstration perhaps it would assuage the fae.
And soon that horrible, horrible goose had fled and Carnieros made his grand re-entrance
Enrica had not told him much about her own ventures beyond the city's borders, but this creature seemed to capture his own imagination about what she did reveal to him. There was something primordial and odd about this lizard bird.
"I fear, but I don't fear this." It wasn't unkind, nor was it meant to sound ominous or pained. Rather, he was properly looking now, even approaching it to touch that crest rather boldly if Carn allowed. "This intrigues me. Is this your natural shape? Are all of them, or none of them?"
Carneiros — 10/03/2021
Carneiros was relieved by the reassurance. He wasn't afraid of the tigre so much as he didn't want to have to hurt the poor thing but she seemed well trained. But now truly emerged from the forest, his feathers puff up happily at the assertation that he didn't scare Sandro in this form. "I am a master of chaos" he dipped his head "Outside of the body I was born into my form is no longer restricted to just this, I have no natural shape." it was strange to talk about it. The Carneiros part of his mind had been bothered that even in this new body, even in this new life....he'd tried to cover his true nature up by burying himself in work and domestic family life. He knew Evren would likely support him exploring the arcane but taking that leap was proving difficult.
This was helping, though.
He shakes his head side to side, the feathers rustle like parchment on the wind and with a small sparkle the deadly spines between the feathers disappear. After a moment he lowers his head and one might even think the corners of the bird's beak were smirking "Would you like to ride on my back, friend? ....I promise, I have no fae realm to ferry you away to. Just my house, and my dear partner isn't expecting guests this evening anyway." he muses with a gentle laugh.
Sandro — Yesterday at 1:49 PM
He wasn't one to be spirited off to a fae realm (these days) but even now in his age and state, there was a little smile in his eyes that did heavily imply he'd risk it for the thrill, that he very likely did a lot more of that in younger days.
"Wouldn't mind that. Could drop you off after my patrol. Is she one for surprises!" And then that smile did quirk at his mouth and ventured rather brazenly to run his fingers over those feathers and - if invited - he would climb right on as best as he could (though going from a four-legged mount to a two would prove to be interesting).
"Think we'd surprise a few people at the border like this, anyway!" And his tone was all for it!
Rosa was VERY skeptical of this arrangement, accentuating her small and questioning "RRR?"s with puzzled and uncertain tail-wags. But between her own tigre-brained attempts to assess the situation and Sandro's continued nonverbal communication and command, she remained at Sandro's side - and then at Carnieros', once her master climbed aboard!
Carneiros — Yesterday at 2:38 PM
Carneiros's own eyes seem to gleam with mischief. What chaos it would be, to run past the faewatch and the court guard like this! "I'm sure she'd be happy to meet my new friend" It's said with a bird-like friendly squint of his lower eyelids and the ruffling of his featherrs. They've just met, but Carneiros is already decided. He likes this man.
"Lets surprise them, then."
He'd buzz the court guard with Sandro on his back, declaring them gleefully to be the 'Faefaewatch!' as he ran by. The unseelie were baffled by what they were seeing, many of them leaning out of trees and outposts to get a better look, some of them knocked back by playful blasts of chaotic energy and thrown from their perches.
"HEY!" and various fae curses were thrown their ways and questions that Carneiros didn't stop to answer. It was a good laugh and he'd tread more carefully near faewatch patrols, still laughing the whole evening about the court guard's faces, chatting away to Sandro about his old life and how he'd come to be here in Hy-Brazir, how he'd met Evren, about his friends. He shares it all with him as if they're old friends and not strangers who'd just met.
Carneiros had gone for a night-time walk, perhaps a little fly around town... but instead he'd ended up back here again. Drawn like a magnet the outlawed fae lord found himself too close to the border to the western fae lands, staring intently into the trees. He could feel it calling him, and every fiber of his being is telling him to go there, to throw caution to the wind.
They'd know him, maybe. Maybe someone would spot him and raise an alarm, his crimes are not against just humans after all. He'd caused great rifts between the fae and the humans, he'd gone against a queens orders and it'd all ended in so much death. He wasn't exactly the same man as he was back then but in all sense of the word he was still Carneiros. They'd still hold him accountable, and he could not guarantee they wouldn't do the same in this world as well.
For a while he paced and sighed, wings raised behind his back. Now and then he'd stop and his piercing eyes would stare off into the darkness, listening. He could feel the unseelie guards in the distance, he wondered if they could feel him too? ...no they'd have come over here if they had, at least to investigate.
Sandro — 09/21/2021
His fiancee wasn't the one to meet him, this time.
The first one to spot Carnieros was an altogether different russet-red beast, one who caught his scent on the breeze, and had crept quietly closer until she'd locked eyes on his iridescent wings. She'd slowed to a crawl and then froze, tail lifted high and paw raised incredibly delicately.
The Watch had carried weapons of silver and weapons of iron. The Maggiore di Aiolfi carried more, and decades hunting with the tigre had seen Sandro learn every quirk and tic, every canine and alien gesture large and small. This point meant 'fae' and the man followed dutifully. Only to find -
A fae at the border, on the mundane side, looking out at the wilds with something a lot like longing.
Sandro approached in near silence, posture and stare shifting to something like recognition. Harpur and Marc had reported a 'Cassius' appearing in the city about a year ago. Cassius was an Unseelie lord, and had a dragon lover. It was quite the magical disruption within the city, and to the savvy, full of chaos magic.
Marc had been filling in for Alessandro, then; it had been an open secret that there may have been something more than grief affecting the Lord, and Sandro's absence was due to his recovery among family from one of those apopletic attacks. The swap had been admirable even then, so soon after Marc's recovery after his own illness, and just a year out of Piero's death. He was proud of Marc, but he was so curious about this pair of new arrivals.
Well, he didn't have to wait much longer, it appeared.
"Figured you'd be on the other side, looking in." was how he'd chosen to reveal himself, though the ask was guarded. This close to the border, there were tricks. There was almost, always tricks.
Carneiros — 09/21/2021
Carneiros might have noticed, his ears are keen but they're listening to the loud chorus of the forest ahead of him. The night might seem silent to any human, but he can hear it, feel it, smell it. Then he becomes aware of someone approaching him a little too late, his wings snapping down swiftly as he turns his head to look directly at Sandro. Piercing, glowing yellow eyes fix on the man in the dark. For a moment it might have seemed like the trees were melting as if made of sap, but a single blink would erase all evidence of that.
Faewatch. Fantastic.
He knew they'd have to find him here one of these days, even if he'd been careful before he was starting to get a little sloppy. A small laugh rises from his throat "I used to think so too." he says in a cryptic way to this relative stranger, eyes drifting down to the uhm... the.... what is that? Looks like a dog, but not. It's probably a silly decision but he pats his thigh with long fingers as if to call the creature closer for attention.
"I'm not here for any trouble." He says almost submissively, it's a juxtaposition of his regal stature and blood, let alone the wings on his back, usually a mark of status. "You have my word." And a when a fae gave his word, it was written....the problem is their words tend to have so many loopholes. Hard to trust even then, really.
Sandro — 09/21/2021
"Your word." He quirked a brow, even allowed a thin slip of a humorless smirk to grace his lips, but otherwise remained still. But it was a tense sort of stillness. "Whose word is this?" It seemed somewhat on-the-ball; there was power in names, even if he was asking the powerful.
Rosa did move forward a few steps, but it was similarly tense in the way of a dog waiting for a proper command, nose visibly twitching. Her head did tilt with curiosity in spite of her practiced control. Over there? He has something? Maybe?
He, too, took a couple steps forward, though his weapons remained lowered. "It's awfully close to the border for no trouble. Unless you're steering clear of the Court Guard?"
Carneiros — 09/21/2021
Carneiros tenses visibly as his name is asked. He'd been using 'Carneiros' again, but he often wondered if he was stupid for doing so. Someone would know it, one day. Then what? but living a lie perhaps was an insult to those he'd harmed. "I'm steering clear of them." he admits. He puts as much trust as he can in this stranger, he is, after all, trying to integrate into this society on this side of the border. So he doesn't get defensive as the man steps closer to him.
For all his body language though it seems like he wants to everything BUT steer clear of them. He keeps keenly staring towards the border and then returning his gaze to the two of them.
The lord offers a humble gesture, a hand for a handshake. Something a human would understand easily "I am Carneiros" he introduces himself with a slow bow of his head, the man ignoring the clawing urge at the back of his mind to mess with this lone human. I mustn't bother the fae watch.
Sandro — 09/23/2021
"I know that name."
There was a barely perceptible cue from Sandro - perhaps it was body language, perhaps it was a cue only the tigre could hear, but she and Sandro stiffened as one, her hackles rising uncertainly.
"...and so did someone very special to me." That could have meant anything, and he'd said it strangely enough. He certainly wasn't old enough to keep company that Carnieros would have terrorized firsthand, was he?
After a moment, he returned that bow.
"So they won't have you either." It was frank but it wasn't unkind. Rather it seemed an implicit question, and possibly light confirmation. Another beat, and he offered a gloved hand in return for that handshake - though he broke it a little too quickly and stiffly.
"Why are you here?" It was a kinder and perhaps broader question than 'why do you live.'
Carneiros — 09/24/2021
I know that name.
Carneiros's face drops immediately and his eyes widen. He takes half a step back, wings flicking briefly behind him. The fear is something he can't hide. Maybe he should have gone by a false name, something, anything. He couldn't lose his family and all the things he'd worked towards now. A part of him almost considers killing Sandro and removing one person who knows his name but he can't. It's just not who he is anymore.
"...how?" he asks almost a little sadly "How did they know of me? I've been gone for hundreds of years."
But no, his own people probably wouldn't take him "I don't know. Probably not." he looks back towards the forest.
Then the last question brings his attention back, piercing eyes staring into Sandro's own. There's a whole lot beneath the surface of that 'why' "Short answer: I moved here with my partner and my friends, and now I work at the castle." there's a deep sigh and a pause. "Long story? After I was killed my soul hid itself within a tree until a shrike took up its branches as a nesting site. I became a young shrike by taking over the body inside an egg, I became a new man with few memories of who I was. I made foolish mistakes, I was turned into a slave for it and tortured. My master had my true name..." he paces slowly back and forth, eyes a little haunted.
"And to cut that long story quite short I was eventually freed through death, I claimed the body of an abandoned, dying baby in the forest and i returned as Carneiros, as i once was. If you want more than that I expect you'll have to take me somewhere more comfortable and make me a cup of tea" he muses weakly.
Rigby — 09/24/2021
sandro: Carnieros asked after “how” …and Alessandro could have lied. It would be believable enough too: Aiolfi have traveled the realms, encountered many fae, worked for many of all stripes, returned home with spoils of all sorts. And there would’ve likely been a kernel of truth to it too - Sandro had tried, but even he didn’t know all of what was in the House’s extensive texts, and he barely trusted his memory after his health scares on top of that. Carnieros could have easily lurked in those pages.
And the fae’s play at humbling himself could have been all for show. Sandro had seen enough of that, too.
But there was something melancholy and defeated about how Carnieros was so sure he wouldn’t be taken back among his own people too, and even if it was only for a moment, it did strike as more genuine than the human had expected.
“That person…had been around for a very long time. She’d heard. I’d never known if she had know firsthand, but word travels among fae.” He couldn’t keep his delivery neutral when speaking of Agnesina, though the effort was commendable, despite the results being transparent, and that note of loneliness and loss crept into his tone, traitorously. “She was…very forgiving.” It was an odd thing to add, but it had seemed that vocalizing it played some part in keeping the man in place, and he listened to Carn’s story with no small amount of odd curiosity, head angled slightly, eyes fixed on the fae. Something akin to envy saw him tense again and slowly clasp Rosa’s collar as an outlet when talk swung around to death and souls, but he remained politely silent.
One part was particularly salient, though, and he couldn’t help but picture Harpur losing his absolute cool about it. But he couldn’t help but picture Harpur reacting to a lot of things lately.
“The castle…does not know who you are, I’m presuming. And would it be presumptuous of me to assume you’ve come in peace?” He left that open, but a small snort escaped him. “On duty, alas, the tea will have to wait. Kept stranger company lately!”
Carneiros — 09/24/2021
Carneiros listened in return, as Sandro had listened to him. There seems to be some recognition in his eyes as Sandro speaks of Agnesina in as vague a way as he can, but it tells the fae enough. The note of how forgiving she is makes him....curious. Can even he be forgiven? and is this human man willing to do the same to keep the spirit of this person alive?
"You must have loved her very much." He says, very softly.
"The castle does not. I'm quite lucky...given the royal bloodline of the queen." he sighs in vague relief at that "They know I am - well. The wings." he shakes them briefly. "I had these things cut off you know? to prove I would never be a threat. They cut them from my back because they didn't trust me and I offered them" he almost sounds a little broken as he says this "But they're back now. This time I am keeping them but they make people nervous." he realizes belatedly that he has gone off on a tangent and is pacing slowly.
He turns about and idly gestures through the air "I come in peace, yes. I am not the Carneiros I once was." He turns and simply starts to ...fall over! like a plank of wood, but as he hits the ground a burst of shadowy chaos erupts from him and a black shrike with bright yellow eyes flutters up into the trees to sit on a branch above Sandro.
"Might I join you on your patrol?" it asks as it hops towards him along the branch, head twisting side to side in a very bird-like way.
Sandro — 09/24/2021
"More than I thought I could love anything in this world. And then we had children."
It was quiet, it was startlingly, achingly vulnerable for how little information he actually gave - but it was a secret for a secret.
Carnieros' reaction had cut oddly and deeply, What he does, how he forgives, and what he learns - it may be too late for him, it may be slow going and difficult for people like himself and like Harpur to adjust (there he went with those thoughts, again) - but all of his effort and his example would be for them.
"Oh I know. I'd heard of a winged fae appearing with a dragon woman on the day you'd returned, but my son and my!" Whoops! And what were they, anyway... "Guard." Which was true. "Were the ones that officially reported the incident. Caused quite a stir, pity I missed it." He didn't elaborate why he'd missed it.
"So...fae aren't all one people. And I can't even begin to fathom the avenues of justice your sort live by. But where you are from...is there a timer on these things? Would this follow you from one life to the next? Are you...a figure from history living in our city, or is our city harboring said...historical figure." It could have been threatening under other circumstance, but it did appear Sandro believed the other man came in peace enough; this seemed sidelined into pure curiosity for the time being.
And he quirked his head once more at the bird. It wasn't a shocking transformation, necessarily (though his arms never lost their tension, and might have strayed a bit too close to weapons as a reflex at the burst of Chaos, itself) and it wasn't like people turning into birds was a matter of course for him, but that same wistfulness tugged at the corners of his eyes in a ghost of a wistful smile when he'd registered what had happened.
"If you're prepared to possibly see things you might not want to see." Unlikely at this stage - they were a double-deterrent for any errant fae, now. But he was on the job, and things happened. And Carnieros - the Carnieros had likely seen worse.
He'd held his arm out like a falconer in offering to the bird above him, and another head-quirk served as a come-on-down gesture. "Riding or flying?"
Carneiros — 09/25/2021
’my sort’ Carneiros thinks with amusement. “The long lived are slow to forget transgressions, I expect the timer has not yet run out on my crimes”
He’s quite curious about the wistful smile he barely catches the edge of but he says nothing.
“Things I might not want to see? What is it you think I may not want to see?” He asks with curiosity, he’s eager to know, though he’s sure he understands... fae being killed perhaps, or at the least arrested and handed off to the court guard.
The arm is offered and the little bird tilts its head back and forth in consideration before fluttering down to perch upon that arm “I can be something a little more intimidating if you prefer” he offers as he hops back and forth along that wrist before making his way instead up to Sandro’s shoulder.
Sandro — 09/25/2021
"Well I don't think I can surprise a person with your...years." It was barely winking, but it was better than 'history.' "Faewatch and the Court Guard have stopped more than their share of troublemakers."
"Court Guard can be trouble of their own. There's one ensign that doubles up with another guard I've crossed paths with a few times. He's insufferable. Hates humans, the lot of them, is probably someone's child. And every time he sees one of my men, he opens his flap and just. Pisses over the border. It's harmless but he knows it annoys me."
“I can be something a little more intimidating if you prefer”
"No, no...I like-! This is...I'm used to this." I've missed this. Carn would ride along for only a few moments, before Sandro reconsidered, with something like a sparkle in his eye.
"You say it like an offer, but I'll turn it back on you as a challenge. It's a quiet night, anyway. How intimidating?"
Carneiros — 09/26/2021
The bird laughs loudly as the pissing court guard is described. He seems utterly amused by it, then moments later curious ‘I’m used to this’ had his beloved been a bird too?
He lets the silence fall for those few moments before he’s issued a challenge. The mischief in his eyes is impossible to make out in this form, he tilts his head and eyes Sandro closely.
“Be careful what you ask, human... never has a man looked on something so fearsome as what I’m about to show you and not fallen victim to it’s terrible maw” he booms ethereally.
The weight on Sandro’s arm starts to grow and grow, his wings lift up as they increase in size. This goes on for a moment until a greyscale Canada goose sits upon Sandro’s arm.
It turns its piercing yellow gaze towards him before letting out a low hiss ending in a pitchy honk.
’hhhhhhhhHenk!’
Sandro — 09/28/2021
That noise-! The one-two punch of Carnieros' introduction coupled with that goose transformation caught Sandro so entirely off guard that he laughed.
Just outright, to a strange fae, a notorious former warlord, while on the job. It was brief, it was reflexive, and he made sure to clamp it down pretty quickly (only for it to continue to escape in periodic snorts) - but if Carn's intention was to ease up on some tension, it worked! "If this is somehow worse than the geese we know here, our world is truly lost-!
"I'm certainly looking upon you and living. It's in the blood, you know. I will return from my shift a noble champion of the watch after facing this monstrosity!* Even with the weight shift, Sandro adjusted easily; even in his age, he was still quite well muscled- and this was the bird-arm anyway - if anything he took even greater care not to spill that horrible goose when he did laugh!
Carneiros — 09/29/2021
Carneiros honk-laughs, a strange and unnatural sound for a goose to make but it seems natural on him in that moment. "Your end is nigh, humans, the fae geese are here!" he flaps his large wings slightly in a silly threat display. If these two men could laugh together, maybe there was hope for this world. For Hy-Brazir, for Thornmouth. It filled Carneiros with a spark of happiness, maybe there was even hope for him.
"You want a scary bird?" he turns his head towards Sandro, faking a bite at his nose in the hopes of playfully making him flinch, but it doesn't make contact "I'll show you. Just don't let your ... ah..." he tilts his head to stare down at Rosa with bird-like eyes.
"whatever that lovely creature is- don't let it charge me. Please trust that I will not harm you, i am merely doing as you asked."
The heavy goose leaps down onto the ground with a THUD and waft of leaves blowing away from it from the very dramatic impact. Then...? he disappears into the trees.
There's an uncomfortable silence, almost as if he has fled the scene entirely until the piercing eyes of a much larger beast emerge between the trees. The features in the dark are hard to make out, but the light from its own glowing eyes seem to accent parts of its horrible skull-like head and large crest. It walks slowly towards Sandro, talons softly scraping at the earth.
"Don't be afraid." it insists in an otherworldly voice, echoing through the trees.
Sandro — 10/02/2021
The goose's feint was answered with a swat that was almost playful, never intending to connect.
Rosa seemed to understand and respond to a brisk and odd hand gesture and a small little click of Sandro's tongue; she sat slowly and skeptically, but ever-obedient, eyes fixed on the goose that had landed on the ground, ears tense and flicked forward, her only movement that of her head as she canted it to follow Carnieros into the trees.
"She will not charge unless I tell her to charge." Perhaps Sandro didn't need to say it, but as a demonstration perhaps it would assuage the fae.
And soon that horrible, horrible goose had fled and Carnieros made his grand re-entrance
Enrica had not told him much about her own ventures beyond the city's borders, but this creature seemed to capture his own imagination about what she did reveal to him. There was something primordial and odd about this lizard bird.
"I fear, but I don't fear this." It wasn't unkind, nor was it meant to sound ominous or pained. Rather, he was properly looking now, even approaching it to touch that crest rather boldly if Carn allowed. "This intrigues me. Is this your natural shape? Are all of them, or none of them?"
Carneiros — 10/03/2021
Carneiros was relieved by the reassurance. He wasn't afraid of the tigre so much as he didn't want to have to hurt the poor thing but she seemed well trained. But now truly emerged from the forest, his feathers puff up happily at the assertation that he didn't scare Sandro in this form. "I am a master of chaos" he dipped his head "Outside of the body I was born into my form is no longer restricted to just this, I have no natural shape." it was strange to talk about it. The Carneiros part of his mind had been bothered that even in this new body, even in this new life....he'd tried to cover his true nature up by burying himself in work and domestic family life. He knew Evren would likely support him exploring the arcane but taking that leap was proving difficult.
This was helping, though.
He shakes his head side to side, the feathers rustle like parchment on the wind and with a small sparkle the deadly spines between the feathers disappear. After a moment he lowers his head and one might even think the corners of the bird's beak were smirking "Would you like to ride on my back, friend? ....I promise, I have no fae realm to ferry you away to. Just my house, and my dear partner isn't expecting guests this evening anyway." he muses with a gentle laugh.
Sandro — Yesterday at 1:49 PM
He wasn't one to be spirited off to a fae realm (these days) but even now in his age and state, there was a little smile in his eyes that did heavily imply he'd risk it for the thrill, that he very likely did a lot more of that in younger days.
"Wouldn't mind that. Could drop you off after my patrol. Is she one for surprises!" And then that smile did quirk at his mouth and ventured rather brazenly to run his fingers over those feathers and - if invited - he would climb right on as best as he could (though going from a four-legged mount to a two would prove to be interesting).
"Think we'd surprise a few people at the border like this, anyway!" And his tone was all for it!
Rosa was VERY skeptical of this arrangement, accentuating her small and questioning "RRR?"s with puzzled and uncertain tail-wags. But between her own tigre-brained attempts to assess the situation and Sandro's continued nonverbal communication and command, she remained at Sandro's side - and then at Carnieros', once her master climbed aboard!
Carneiros — Yesterday at 2:38 PM
Carneiros's own eyes seem to gleam with mischief. What chaos it would be, to run past the faewatch and the court guard like this! "I'm sure she'd be happy to meet my new friend" It's said with a bird-like friendly squint of his lower eyelids and the ruffling of his featherrs. They've just met, but Carneiros is already decided. He likes this man.
"Lets surprise them, then."
He'd buzz the court guard with Sandro on his back, declaring them gleefully to be the 'Faefaewatch!' as he ran by. The unseelie were baffled by what they were seeing, many of them leaning out of trees and outposts to get a better look, some of them knocked back by playful blasts of chaotic energy and thrown from their perches.
"HEY!" and various fae curses were thrown their ways and questions that Carneiros didn't stop to answer. It was a good laugh and he'd tread more carefully near faewatch patrols, still laughing the whole evening about the court guard's faces, chatting away to Sandro about his old life and how he'd come to be here in Hy-Brazir, how he'd met Evren, about his friends. He shares it all with him as if they're old friends and not strangers who'd just met.
