Yros

when morning dawns on the bluffs it’s dreary and cold and gray. an ugly morning for an ugly land. it was mostly bare, except for the spare hardy shrub growing sideways out of shale stones and red dirt that was was more clay than anything else. it took an hour to stumble up the nearly invisible goat trail that led to the top, tripping over loose stones and rocks.

he didn’t come for the bluffs, he came for what lay below: the bones of the world he used to belong to. once you reached the top, the burnt out husk of beaches that became graveyards and a newly shallow ocean came to view. pyr watches the waves crash as the tide rushes in, lapping at the stone cairns that dotted the sand by the hundreds. Each one a marker for a grave or for the drowned the sea never have back. He can still taste the blood in his mouth as it seeped from a wound on his cheek as he crawled, half-dead, from the surf to the carnage of his people. A court destroyed by the gods themselves. Blood and sand crusted the side of his face, his nails, as he’d somehow found himself crowned as heir while he helped the others bury their dead. They didn’t have enough time to do much more than stack stones to mark where the others fell before Pyr ushered them from the beaches in case the sea decided to take the rest of his people to her depths.

And there, beyond the breaking surf, its stones burnt but still proud stood home.

He longed for it, like a fucking child, wishing he could go back to a time when he would never have been an heir, a prince, or a king. He would have been allowed to do as he wished, to wander where he saw fit.

Pyr sometimes thinks his father had lied about allowing him freedom once his half-siblings came of age to take his responsibilities from him. In all honesty, he’s not sure his father would have ever truly left him alone. Probably would have shuffled him off to marry some noble girl to deepen their hold over the east or grow their coffers. Now he was here, stuck in his father’s footsteps and at the matriarch’s mercy.

they think, surely, the matriarch will release them soon. the land isn't healed, nex knows, but it's healed enough - the closeness of the courts is unnatural and with the arcana on the fritz, it has led to far too many dangerous interactions. they feel the weight of those fights on their shoulders, pressing down, down, down as they struggle to keep house mourning whole. what's left of it, anyway; they've already failed at that.

they can't fail at protecting what precious bit remains, less pryos himself rise from his grave to haunt the mariner. a rueful smile tugs at the edge of their lips as their heart tightens in their chest. they miss the late sovereign; he and camillia had been leaders worth devoting house ruais to for all the years their family has served the leaders.

and they are the first to fail house mourning so spectacularly.
to lose a sovereign and their spouse. to trail a broken prince to the cruel high court and struggle to keep tabs on him as he drinks and fights and fades.

they're a disgrace and though they've tried to resign, the prince wouldn't hear of it. not yet, anyway - perhaps they would try again and one day pyr would listen. they know even as they think it, it's not going to happen. the prince - no, the sovereign - was unswayable once his mind was made.

it doesn't take them long to find pyr today. the morning is barely dawned when they catch sight of the golden fur and dark, dark mask. they can almost swear they can see the glint of green from where they stand below him on the beach proper. they stand for a time watching the hungry sea, nex touching and cleaning the cairns that mar the sands. seaweed wraps around the little gravestones, driftwood knocking some akimbo, and they are careful to fix each they come across.

they've been doing it since nightfall - as they do every few weeks.
caring for what they have left of the dead.

after a time, they climb from the sandy beaches, picking their way along the bluffs to approach pyr's left side. they know what he's looking at, out there beyond the tumble of waves. "the aerie," they say hoarsely, voice rough from drinking salty air for hours. they clear their throat, ears tipping back in something close to sheepishness. "the aerie will heal." they promise, the deep timbre of their voice quiet, but not soft.