The Yellow-Throated Raven

Log Info

• Title: The Yellow-Throated Raven

• Emitter: Ravenstongue

• Characters: Dolan, Ravenstongue

• Place: Ravenstongue and Telamon's home

• Summary: Dolan comes over to Ravenstongue's house for a chat and with a new snack in hand for Pothy to try. The chat veers into unexpected directions with the full revelation of what Ravenstongue endured as a child and as a young woman--and then comes the happy revelation of Dolan's apparent blessing by Daeus. The two friends rejoice, and watch Pothy turn progressively more yellow as he consumes the snack that Dolan brought.

Content warning: grief, mention of suicidal ideation, mention of existential crisis.

Lúpecyll-Atlon home, afternoon.

It's a light rain that accompanies the mildly cold day in Alexandria, not nearly so cold nor wet as the city has experienced in the past months--but still cold and wet nonetheless. The grey of the sky above lends a sort of sleepy and calm mood to most things, but for one Cor'lana, things are not quite so sleepy and calm as she stares at a letter half-written in her study. Her violet eyes stare at one word in particular, and finally, she sighs in defeat. She gives Pothy a glance, the white raven all cozy and tucked away in his 'nest' of books by the desk.

"I can't sit here forever and chew my lip until it bleeds over the right words to write to that animal," she finally declares, rising from her chair. "I'm going to make some tea. Pothy, you coming?"

Pothy perks up. "If it means snacks with you, Lana, then yes," he says, and he hops up from the nest to Cor'lana's shoulder. The two walk into the kitchen to put the tea on.

A rap at the door, insistent, breaks the silence just as Lana walks into the kitchen to put tea on. It's quiet enough that she probably will not have heard anything in the study, and outside the door, Dolan's voice is barely audible. "They probably aren't home. Oh well."

Pothy gets left behind in the kitchen, where he's content to graze on the ever-present bowl of peanuts. There's been an awful lot of knocking at the door lately, to the point where Cor'lana mutters, "It better not be him sending me a messenger with another poem," as she makes her way to the front door. But when she hears Dolan's voice, she sighs in relief, opening the door.

"Dolan! Come in, it's just me and Pothy," Cor'lana exclaims with a genuine smile. "I was just about to put the kettle on for tea, but I can make something else for you if you'd like."

"Dolan!? Come in~!" comes Pothy's sweet voice from the kitchen. "We have some really yummy honey-roasted peanuts I can share."

Dolan had turned his back on the door, and taken a half-step in the other direction, when it finally opens. He turns around again at the sound of the door, and the mobile half of his face brightens. "Oh, you are home. Brightest of days, Lana." He's carrying under his right arm a box of small, toasted bread pieces tossed in salt and what looks like it might be ground mustard seed. "One of the sellers in the market had a new thing, and I was wondering if Pothy wanted to try it."

Beneath the hood and cloak that protects him from the rain, he wears the newly usual sheepskin-and-leather jacket and shirt beneath, this one unbleached linen. The brace is very firmly over his left shoulder, as usual, and no weapons are in evidence. He steps inside, once invited, and sets aside the box to remove the clasps of his cloaks.

Cor'lana's face lights up in delight with Dolan's words. "Aww! Oh goodness, Dolan--you really didn't have to, but Pothy will be so happy!" She opens up the door wider for him to step inside, and once he's in, she shuts and locks the door behind him. "Pothy, Dolan's brought you a--"

"A new snack!?" Pothy zooms over, flapping all the way over from the kitchen to Cor'lana's shoulder. His tail is wagging a mile a minute, his blue eyes bright and shiny like this is the nicest thing anyone's ever done for him. "Come sit in the living room with me while Lana makes tea."

As Cor'lana passes through the living room to get to the kitchen, Pothy flaps down from her shoulder onto the table that's in the center, excitedly awaiting Dolan and his new snack. "How are you doing today, Dolan?" Pothy asks. "Lana told me you were looking at being able to wield your greatsword again soon."

"He was so excited when I told him," Cor'lana says from where she is in the kitchen, setting up the kettle. "Pothy actually wanted to come over and see you--but then this whole 'game' with Zalgiman started."

I really should have expected that response, Dolan tells himself as he hangs up his cloak and ditches his boots by the door and pads further in, setting the box down on the dining room table. Outwardly, he laughs as he does so, a pleased smile spreading across the mobile half of his features and crinkling the melted flesh on the other half. He seems in good spirits, and seems to move reasonably well as well. "The healers have given me clearance to try it, and we've started, just a little." He says no more on the topic, his pleased smile fading, when Zalgiman is mentioned.

Knowing that him not opening the box is not, at this point, to be borne, he pulls the twine holding it free and sets it aside, lifting the cover aside so that Pothy can access the contents. "Game? I hope you aren't seriously entertaining him, Lana." That takes the rest of the smile away.

Pothy, of course, accesses the contents as soon as Dolan lifts up the cover. His tail wags up and down again, his head cocking a little from side-to-side as he inspects the snacks--and then he lifts out two of the bread pieces, placing them on the table nearest to Dolan. "We share snacks here," he informs Dolan politely in that cherubic little way he so often has, the blue eyes looking up at Dolan like a little brother looking up at his much older sibling. "I'm just really, really happy for you. You work really hard, Dolan."

Cor'lana walks back into the room, although she hovers by the doorway to the kitchen, clearly just waiting on the teakettle to finish its song now. "I've been writing letters to him and making him think he has a chance," she says. "His last letter, besides being so full of purple prose that I felt my innards churn a little, made it very clear he is on the verge of... breaking. Apparently his 'colleagues'--you know of whom I speak--have noticed his odd behavior, and he's begging me for something that he can do for me to 'accept' him. I am currently mulling over how to get information out of him regarding the whole operation."

She looks at Pothy on the table, who is digging into his own portion of the snacks, and watches as some of the ground mustard begins to color some of the white raven's throat feathers, making him more of a yellow bird than a leucistic one. "Then when he proves to not be useful in that aspect--I lure him in, kill him, and take his totem. Or I simply skip the information opportunity this presents, lure him in, kill him, and take his totem." But she does sigh a little and adds, in a dark tone with equally dark eyes, "It's... been a rather trying few days."

"Thanks. I'm really happy, too. There's nothing wrong with work. It's better than sitting around doing nothing." Dolan picks up one of the two bread pieces, examines it, and pops it into his mouth, his flesh-and-blood eye widening a little. He finishes chewing, then picks up the other and offers it to Lana. "These might be good journey-food."

He then turns to lean back against the edge of the table, once the bread is taken or set aside, his right hand and thumb rubbing against the brace absently. "I can imagine," he muses sympathetically. "I've got nothing to say to someone willing to take risks to get information. I'm sure you know what the risks are. Just be careful, yeah?"

Cor'lana does take the offered food, offering Dolan a polite 'thank you' as she nibbles on it. She hums appreciatively, nodding with a small smile on her face. "This would be good--for those who need to eat, or want to," she replies. "The taste is very enjoyable. And I see it already has Pothy's approval." The smirk on her face spreads as the yellow dust on Pothy's throat feathers also spreads. A 'discovery' of a new raven species, the yellow-throated raven, might be happening.

She looks back to Dolan, her eyes resting both on him and on the brace. "I do know what the risks are," she says. "Thank you for..."

There's a moment where Cor'lana finds herself searching for the words, and finally, she says, in a tone that leads to a sort of quiet confession: "For understanding. I wonder if I am mad half the time, to attempt this dance. If I am compromising on everything I love and hold dear. If I will ruin everything that I love in the end. Tel has supported me so far, but I know he worries--and I know he's had his own way of dealing with it."

She sighs. "It's not that I'm worried I'll fall in love with Zalgiman and go running off with him into the sunset. I have no illusion about that. I am... worried what I will find out. If I will have the heart to kill him after all of that, and what that makes me if I do."

Dolan doesn't pay the direction of Cor'lana's eyes any mind, if indeed he even notices what she is looking at. He just seems to be pushing on it in places, slowly and carefully, but his attention remains on her. "I've got no qualms about killing him, Lana. In the first place," and he drops his hand to start ticking points off on the fingers of his left hand. "He's a werewolf, and an unrepentant one. He likes being what he is. He's got no qualms about doing what he needs to do to get what he wants. Second, what would he do, if your roles were reversed? Would he spare you, or use you and throw you away like so much trash?"

Cor'lana turns her gaze to the floor, something within Dolan's words striking a chord in her. It's a moment before she responds, "I spent so long thinking that I was nothing that I... I would understand if he did."

Pothy stops eating, turning over to Cor'lana. He opens his beak to speak, but then the tea kettle in the kitchen begins to sing. Lana lifts her eyes up from the floor and murmurs, "Sorry--sorry, I'll... I'll get the tea." She turns back into the kitchen.

Alarm at the sentiment sends Dolan's remaining eyebrow and the scraps of the other one arching towards his hairline. "Lana, don't say that. Nobody deserves to be used like that. I used Kol, too. I used his indifference and his desires to get what I wanted. The only reason I'm okay with that is that in the end, I was able to give him what he wanted, and what he needed."

He stops there, a shudder rippling through him, and presses on a point on the brace again, letting Lana get the tea. He presses down a little at first, then harder, until he grits his teeth, but when he lets go, he has relaxed enough to pick up speaking, again. "Maybe you can offer him something without destroying yourself."

"Dolan's right," Pothy says, his voice turning very much into a concerned little boy who is very, very worried. "You're in a better place now--it's not like back in Rune."

He turns a pair of blue eyes to Dolan, like he has something he wants to say to him, but... maybe not in front of Cor'lana? Because he turns back to Cor'lana as she walks back into the room stiffly, holding a tray with two teacups on it. Her violet eyes are dark and seeming to be here in the present, yet distracted with thoughts that take her elsewhere in her head. "I just have to wear a mask," she says. "So he won't get at the real me. I..."

Cor'lana closes her eyes, breathes deeply, and sighs. "White feathers," she says. "A tray with two teacups. A couch. Two blankets on the couch. Blue eyes." It doesn't take much for anyone to realize she's naming off objects in the room. The stiffness in her body begins to abate, relaxing.

"A fireplace and hearth. A table." Dolan, catching her drift, immediately turns and reaches for any bread pieces that Pothy may have left. His own smile is gone, replaced with sober and immediate focus. "Today is the twenty-fifth day of Eatonis, in the year 1025." He picks up several pieces of bread, and straightens, putting them on the tray as Lana approaches. "And tea sounds good." He turns to follow the tray to wherever Cor'lana is headed, picking up the box as he does so."

"And it's Pothy, and it's Dolan, and we love you very much," Pothy says, his blue eyes filled with a heady mix of emotions--more than Dolan probably ever thought a raven could have, but then, Pothy is full of surprises.

Cor'lana's eyes open. First, she nods, and then she looks at Dolan, offering him the small hint of a smile. "Sorry," she says. "I... have to do that, sometimes. If I feel my head and my emotions are getting out of control. Sit. I'm okay."

She puts the tray with the teacups down onto the table, next to Pothy, where she gives his pale-feathered head a scritch, although her slight smile turns into that of amusement as she looks down to see the dusting of yellow powder on his throat feathers. She picks up one of the teacups and takes a seat near the table, but she does not reach for the bread pieces. "I'm okay," she reaffirms, taking a sip of tea.

She exhales softly over the rim of her teacup. "You saw my nightmare in the dream we were in together, right, Dolan?" she asks. "The one where you were telling me about how to use the totem."

Seeing that they are headed for the table, Dolan seats himself across from Lana, moving the box of bread pieces to make room for the tea tray. He reaches with a callused hand for the other teacup, letting the warmth sink in before sipping from it. "Where do you get this, Lana? It's very different from the temple tea. I don't mind it as much."

"That's a pretty good way of reminding yourself where you are," he agrees. He seems about to say something else, but shakes his head and takes a careful pull of the hot tea instead. "Yes. I remember, I'd been wanting to ask you more about that, but it never seemed to be the right time."

"Grandfather actually makes it," Cor'lana says with a small smile. "He grows the lavender and the mint in his garden, prepares it, and then sends or gives me the tins himself. If you like it, I could have him make some. Whenever I happen to see him next, that is. It's... been some time."

She looks at Dolan and nods. "It... is never really the right time to talk about these sort of things," she says. "And I apologize for what I'm going to tell you. But you told me a long time ago that I could lean on you, and... That requires knowing."

Pothy looks at Dolan for a moment, and then he flies over to Cor'lana's lap, sitting down in it. It appears he knows what's coming. Cor'lana strokes his feathers for a moment. "My mother--believed Grandfather was a monster," she says, eyes on Pothy's white feathers. "My 'father' did not tell her that he was the descendant of one of the fae, who suffered from 'curses of loneliness' that made him inconsolable. So, the firstborn's firstborn of the current head of the Lúpecyll family was always sent to live with him--typically a baby or a young child. I was the firstborn's firstborn, and when my mother saw what she thought to be a monster holding me--she blasted him with magic and teleported far away. We were in hiding--so when the other children in our village bullied me for being half-sil, and I told my mother that I didn't want to go outside and play anymore... She let me. And I stayed inside all the time, convinced that the whole world hated me for what I was, finding my solace only in words--and praying to Navos, for knowledge. So that I would know why people hated me. And that I could learn what would make them like me. And He never answered--but I didn't know that deities answered prayers then." She pauses in the recounting to sip her tea, to keep herself calm.

"Nothing to be sorry for. I said it, and I meant it." Dolan leans forward, putting his tea and both elbows on the table in front of him. He's a bit perched on the edge, but he doesn't seem to mind, instead picking up the tea with his left and offering his right to hold, if she wants it.

He doesn't sip any more of the tea right away, though, instead hearing out the story without a trace of a smile. Clearly, Lana has been needing to talk for some time, and if he can be an ear, he will be. I know what it's like to need an ear and not have one. "That sounds like a terrible way to grow up," he offers when she is done. "You didn't go out at all?"

"Very, very rarely," Cor'lana replies. She does take the hand as he holds it out to her, gently holding onto it at first, almost loosely--presumably, she'll squeeze later if she hits a particularly painful spot. "Usually only if Mother was busy and desperately needed to go to the market. There were... a couple of times, where I convinced myself to be brave and go out, but... something would always happen that would remind me why I never left. It was safer to be inside. It was lonely... but it was safe. And I had my little brother, too--Pothy was Mother's familiar then."

Pothy gives sort of a little nod. "She grew up with me," he says. "We played together all the time. I was her only friend. But--I couldn't talk to her like I can now, because I was Nadi's assistant, not Lana's. The magic link didn't exist between us yet, and that takes time for it to develop."

Cor'lana continues to stroke Pothy's feathers. "Eventually, I learned how to do the smallest of magic. I tried enchantment, too. I... remember looking at the mirror and casting a charm spell, in the hopes that I would like myself more. It didn't work like that, but the fact I could cast it all told my mother that I was..."

Her gaze turns down to the floor, and she squeezes Dolan's hand. "That I was ready." She takes a breath. The next is always the hardest part.

Dolan just listens without comment, letting her speak her piece, although he looks over at Pothy, surprised at the revelation. He'd known that Pothy was an older bird than he appeared to be, but passed down is interesting. Not until she squeezes his hand does he squeeze back, a controlled gesture. "What a lonely place to be," he murmurs. "You're not now, though.'

Cor'lana nods, just a little. And she smiles, just a little, the warmth in her eyes blooming as Dolan reminds her. "I know," she says--an affirmation to herself more than anything. "I know. Thank you. That... makes the next part easier to tell."

She closes her eyes. And she takes a breath. "It was my eighteenth birthday. She walked me into the room, where she would cast magic and make items for people who needed them. She'd drawn a ritual circle on the floor, and she told me... everything. That there was a monster after me. That she knew she couldn't always keep me hidden and keep me safe--and it was better to do things 'this way'. That Pothy was part of her inheritance from his father, an inheritance he'd received from an ancestor, and their ancestor, and their ancestor--generations back, a gift of Knowledge and arcane power bestowed onto us. But... only one person could have the gift at one time. So, she told me--she was passing Pothy down to me. Her magic down to me. And she gave me a book that contained a ritual incantation inside, telling me, 'Everything you need is in here.'"

The hand squeezes Dolan's hand again, Cor'lana trembling slightly. "I was so confused. We did the ritual, and... I saw her disintegrating. Falling apart before my eyes. I was screaming at one point. She told me she loved me--and she disappeared, and her magic flowed into me. I..."

She breathes in sharply. The squeeze is hard, just for a second, before she relents. "I came to and I couldn't remember what had happened. Just that I opened a book, that Pothy flew out of the book, and then... Mother was gone. And I realized: I couldn't remember my own name. I couldn't remember parts of my childhood. Pothy was a stranger to me, too--even though I'd grown up with him, he was a total enigma. And... I spent two years in that house, hoping she'd come back. Hoping that I would understand why, or how, or anything. I even went into the village, but nobody could help me--Mother had altered all of their memories before the ritual. I began to doubt my sanity, if I was real or if I was just someone's nightmare. My own nightmare. A ghost in a house but for some reason, I was alive and I wasn't dead."

Tears brim up in her eyes as she opens them and looks at Dolan. "I prayed for death. Any deity at all, to end my torment, if I couldn't have answers from Navos. No one answered. No one had ever, ever answered."

In that moment, Dolan realizes that he has no words for this. All he can do is return the squeeze, and the hold - even the hard squeeze doesn't seem to bother him overly much. What does one even say to a tale like this? Especially - knowing that Daeus has answered him, and more than once, of late. Now doesn't seem like a good time to say that.

"The gods do not always hear what we want," he starts, very, very slowly. "Sometimes, though, they'll hear what you need, if you ask the right one. But -" He finally takes a sip of his tea with the other hand. "Is that where that necromancer fellow came from?"

Cor'lana reaches up and wipes her eyes with her free hand. It takes her a moment to gather herself enough to speak again. "The necromancer--he was working with my father's wife," she says. "My father's wife had political ambitions, to put it bluntly--she found out about my paternal family's arrangement with Grandfather, and ordered him to sire a child with someone else. A 'disposable child' to placate the monster, so that she could have a child with either my father or her father's brother--she was sleeping with them both--to eventually install onto the throne of Llyranost in a plot that would have never worked, but... struggled with infertility. Apparently, the necromancer had promised her that she could be made fertile with the blood of a young woman, and since she knew where I was, and saw me as disposable... She ordered him to kidnap me."

She strokes Pothy's feathers again. The white-feathered bird has been looking up at Cor'lana the whole time, nuzzling into her on occasion with his beak. He's getting smearings of yellow dust onto her dress, but Cor'lana doesn't care about that at all. "In other words--he was unrelated to what happened with my mother. An unhappy coincidence. If my mother had learned the truth about Grandfather--none of that would have happened. My life would have been very, very different."

She looks down to her left hand, painted with the curuchuil from her wedding day, and the ring she wears. "You and I likely would have never met. I might have lived out the entirety of my life in Quelynos. I would have never met Telamon--who knows all of this, and... he helps in his own way. The way he knows how to comfort. He's a diplomat by training, not a healer--he knows nothing of broken minds and houses that are cages. He knows of high society and all these other things I can barely comprehend, barely grasp at--yet he loves me, me, so completely, so unconditionally. So, while his words are not always the best--he has an awful tendency to say exactly the wrong thing at sensitive times--I know where he comes from. He wants to help. He just doesn't know how. And... it's unfair to ask someone who doesn't know how to help like that."

Cor'lana looks up at Dolan and smiles again, lightly. "Thank you. For giving me a space to speak."

"It's amazing what can happen to your life if just one thing changes," Dolan, who had been listening to all of this in silence, finally says, still allowing Lana to hold his hand if she needs it. The bread pieces are mostly forgotten. It's not until she gets to the piece about Telamon that he shows any sign of discomfort at all, but when she does, his hand holding hers tenses up. Not squeezing, just tensing. "What you two have is beautiful, Lana. I know you've got no secrets from each other, and it's got to be hard for both of you that he can only help so much. I'm always here if he doesn't get it, and you need to talk. I can only begin to imagine living practically alone like that all your life, but sometimes, whoever's listening ain't gotta talk. Ain't gotta say anything at all." He slides, just a little into that farmboy accent that he occasionally shows. "Just being able to say whatever you've got to, and know that the person who's listening to you ain't gonna think you're weak, or stupid, or childish for saying what's on your mind - no matter what it is."

The smile on Cor'lana's face becomes warmer, thankful for all of Dolan's words, even if there's something else in her violet eyes for just a moment with Dolan's discomfort regarding Telamon, and his last words--nothing dark, more like concern, but it passes quickly. "I'm grateful, more than anything, to have a friend like you, Dolan," she says, warmly. "I wish I could offer you the same level of confidentiality and comfort--but as you said, Telamon and I have no secrets from each other. It is physically incapable for us to hide much of anything from each other. He gifted me a castle in the form of a magnificent mansion spell last night, as a birthday present--and while I knew he was casting magic and was using a scroll he'd obtained from Verna, I had no clue he was doing it with the intention of giving me a castle. If only for a small amount of time."

She takes her hand back from Dolan and pets Pothy--although her thumb strays too close to Pothy's dirtied throat feathers, and she looks down to see her thumb is now rather yellow. "Oh goodness. Pothy really enjoyed your snacks, it seems."

"Nevermind the snacks," Pothy says, looking between Cor'lana and Dolan. Yes, that phrase did just leave his mouth. "This is what I meant that one time, you know? The gods bring people together who need each other, sometimes. I try to do what I can... but I'm only one boy who barely knows anything at all, despite the fact I am supposed to be Knowledge. That's why it's important to have people to talk to. Even if you can't talk to them about everything--having the comfort of friendship is, at least, better than nothing at all."

"Yeah." Dolan looks over at Pothy at those words, surprised, and frankly staring for at least a moment or two. "Yeah. I guess so. Lana's right, though. Telamon isn't ready for my shit, Pothy, and if I tell Lana, I tell Tel. He doesn't need that dumped on him, and he's not ready for it. I hope he never has to deal with it. Lana and Tel are still my friends, and nothing's going to change that. I've got people I can talk to at the Temple." That's the first time he's ever said that, even as obliquely as he did.

"Which reminds me that there is something I wanted to ask Tel, but that'll keep for later." He sets down the teacup and waves a hand in a way that clearly says, not right now. "Don't worry about me, Lana."

Cor'lana's clearly just as taken off-guard by Pothy as Dolan is, because she looks at Pothy for a long moment. "You're very sweet to worry about Dolan, though," she offers Pothy, petting his feathers in a placating fashion. "I know you do."

"I just want people to find their happiness," Pothy says, quietly, in that uncannily intelligent way so uncharacteristic for the boyish voice that he uses. "I've seen lots of people go through things. I've seen people consumed by their own situations so many times. And I like the people you know, Lana. I like them a whole lot. Dolan included."

He looks back at Dolan... And then hops over to him, onto the shoulder that isn't braced. "Speaking of which. Want to keep eating snacks?" he asks. "Lana won't eat very much, because she doesn't need to eat, and because she's going to ask Zalgiman on a date, she has to look all thin for him."

Surprised, Dolan stares at Pothy. "You - worry about me? You don't have to." Touched anyway, Dolan smiles a quiet smile and, if he can, squeezes Lana's hand again. "I'm learning how to live with it." That's all he says on the matter, though. "I'd better not have any more snacks. Remember I spent damned close to a month in bed. I was more flabby than I'd like, and certainly too flabby for the road. If I'm going to move on, I've got to be able to fight, and keep going, yeah?" He takes another sip of the tea.

He turns his attention, then, to Lana. "You're not eating so you can ask the fleabag on a date?"

Cor'lana smiles brightly, squeezing Dolan's hand back, before taking it back to put both her hands around her teacup. "See, Pothy? He'll be fine. And, you get to have the rest of the snacks."

Pothy looks at Dolan for a long moment, like a little boy trying to figure out how to plead with his favorite big brother to do something with him. "Okay, I'll make sure Telamon can have some snacks when he gets back, then," he concludes. Ever the sharing bird, it seems, these days. He flaps back to the bread pieces, snickering in a much more age-appropriate way with Dolan's question.

Cor'lana looks... bemused and bashful all in one go. "No," she says. "Pothy just likes to tease me. I... actually don't need to eat. It's a 'gift' I was given a year ago, by Grandfather. I do not need to eat in order to live, but I can if I want to." More bashfully, she admits, "I usually only eat as part of a social occasion, such as dinner with Tel."

Bemused, Dolan just shakes his head and pulls his own hand back. "Man, the fey are weird," he complains affectionately. "It must be nice, though." He hesitates, then picks up his own teacup. "Pothy, it's okay, you can have them, I got them for you. I know where I got them, too, if you like them and want more. See, I like you too."

He scratches at his hairline with the newly freed hand, then. "I've gotten a blessing or two myself, but that's different. I don't quite know what's going on with that, but I don't think it's bad or anything."

Cor'lana certainly grins at Dolan's remark regarding the fey. "To be honest, it can be a little of a pain," she says. "When I'm writing poetry, I have to remember, sometimes, what being hungry felt like. Because I haven't felt that way in a long time. But it means I don't ever need to eat while I'm out on an adventure, and that's nice in of itself."

Pothy starts picking at the bread again at Dolan's direction, but his snacking is slower and more thoughtful, the familiar pausing for a moment to say, "Oh. You know, it was only a matter of time before you got a blessing, Dolan."

It's Cor'lana's turn to blink, looking at Pothy--and then narrowing her eyes. "What do you mean?" she asks. "Do you know something that neither of us do?"

Dolan had been taking another pull of his tea, and sets the empty cup down in front of him when he is done. He's about to say something to Lana's comment when Pothy pipes up, and any quip he could have made falls neatly to the floor in the wake of a remark like that from a bird with a proper little boy's voice. "What do you mean, Pothy?"

"I've seen people be 'touched' in certain ways, with proximity to certain entities," Pothy explains, again in an intelligent way that is far too out of place with the boyish voice. "Lana was 'touched' by Quelynos, when Grandfather held her as a baby, so she's feytouched and has always been--even if was dormant until later. I don't know what touched you, Dolan, and it doesn't even really need to be an entity--as much as it is prolonged exposure to a concept. An idea of goodness made manifest. The concept of light. You are a servant of the Knight, after all. With how you have called on Him, and how ferociously you serve Him? Something has touched you. Maybe not Him, but something that's related."

Then... he snaps a particularly large bread piece in half. "That's my guess, anyway," he adds brightly, before he eats the bread. "Yummy, yummy~" There, that sounds far more age-appropriate.

Cor'lana looks... thoughtful, and a little stunned all at once. "I mean... I do agree with Pothy," she says. "As improbable as it sounds... It's not out of the realm of possibility. Magic affects people in so many ways. The powers that we live with, too."

That's a lot to absorb, and Dolan scratches at his hairline again, pondering that. "I - me? I'm a farm kid. If He did touch me - I guess it sort of makes sense, if that's what happened. I know he's quite seriously guided my sword at least once, when I was near-blind, face to face with a devil," he murmurs reverently. "I suppose it makes sense. It doesn't explain why all of a sudden I can read the language of angels, though."

Cor'lana smiles a little at Dolan. "Strange things happen to ordinary people every day," she says. "Maybe He touched you because you came from 'ordinary'. Does that make any sense? You are a good person aspiring to be good--to do Daeus's good in the world, despite everything. Maybe He likes that. Maybe He's uplifting you."

She looks over to Pothy as he eats his bread. "I don't know from first-hand experience, of course--but that seems, to me, like the things that the gods do." For other people, is the unspoken but spoken bit. "I still cannot... fully wrap my head around Vaire listening to me. It feels like a fluke? But what if it wasn't?" Her eyes twinkle a little, like tears might be about to bloom in them again.

"It isn't, Lana. Remember what I said about, maybe it just wasn't the right god." Dolan's still trying to digest what she had said to him. "Maybe you were supposed to be talking to Vaire the whole time. I don't know," he admits. "I guess I'll never know. I guess all I can do is take what I am given, be grateful, and do the best I can with it, yeah? Use it to serve Him. I - You think it's related to His light?"

He looks over at Pothy, and half a grin pulls at his face, an odd expression.

Pothy's tail wags up and down as Dolan grins at him, clearly a happy boy. "I don't know for certain!" he replies. "The only thing certain in life is that food is yummy, at least to me. But it makes sense to me if it is His light. It would explain being able to read the angelic tongue." Then, he pauses. "Can you speak it?"

Cor'lana looks to Dolan, actually a little awed at the notion. "Can you?" she asks, and then is bashful enough to add, "Not that you have to right this moment! You don't have to do anything you don't want to."

"I don't know. I just know that one day I was trying to read the wedding rites and the next day I understood them, and the translation I was given wasn't quite right. I don't know how I knew that." Cheered by the topic. "It might just be the eye, though. I had it enchanted to read languages, so maybe that's it." Satisfied with this explanation, he reaches up to his right temple, but pauses. "If I can only read, it is the enchantment upon the eye. If I can speak as well, I must think of His blessing, a blessing of knowledge. "Shall I make the attempt? What would you have me say?"

"That's a good experiment!" Cor'lana declares. "We don't know if you don't try. Let's see..."

She rubs her chin in thought for a moment, but then her violet eyes flash with inspiration. "Let's keep it simple. 'I am Dolan Donnelly, and I am a servant of Daeus', but in the tongue of angels. That feels reverent enough for the occasion. I fear what Pothy would make you say."

"Hey," Pothy grumbles. But he just goes back to eating snacks.

Bright laughter escapes Dolan at the shot at Pothy. "I don't worry about what Pothy would say. I'd worry about what Andie would ask me to say." Wicked laughter dances in the lone brown eye, but even as the words escape him, he's already considering how to say such a thing.

"I am Brydion Donnelly, known to most as Dolan, and I serve the holy Sunlord." The words in the angelic tongue escape him easily and without effort, and the words bring a warm and reverent smile that lights the mobile side of his features and tugs at the scarred parts.

The warding on the house may allow all within to understand each other regardless of the language, but there is a weight and style to those words that is unmistakable. Cor'lana's awed look has her reaching to her mouth in surprise--followed by the happiest of grins, and she actually jumps up and down in happiness. "Dolan! You did it! You're touched! There is no mistake about that at all."

Pothy's tail is wagging up and down rapidly, of course, and he dances, too, his little talons tapping quickly. "Told you!" he cheers, and he adds, a little more reserved: "We still have no clue if it's really the touch of the Knight--but that's the most likely explanation there is. So... How about it, Brydion Donnelly, Light-touched? Because it sounds like that's the case to me."

Dolan, however, is just left to blink. Being touched doesn't exactly sound like a compliment, but gradually that wicked grin spreads across his face. Not a pleased thing, or a bashful thing, but a wicked thing that eventually becomes a chuckle. Whatever it was, though, he keeps to himself, and it fades into curiosity. "I guess that would explain some of what happened under the mountain, if that's true. I don't feel any different, although just speaking the words feels like a blessing."

Cor'lana smiles warmly at Dolan, the excitement still with her, but not to the point where she's jumping anymore. "Well, that makes sense," she replies. "After all, you're still you. That's..." She stops as she realizes the impact of her words. "After all, you're still you. After all, I'm still me. Even after the trials we've both endured... We are still us. Changed for the experience. Knowing more than before. But we remain standing."

The smile is bright on Cor'lana's face. "It's a gift you've been given," she says. "His light, given to you. There's joy in this life, and things like that--they ought to be celebrated."

She looks over to Pothy. "I'll have a couple of those bread pieces," she says, grinning. "Dolan, do you want to see how yellow Pothy can get?"

That is a deep thought indeed, but one that brings joy, even as it sinks in. "Yeah. We are still ourselves. I guess we are wiser for the experience, yeah? As long as we can still keep going, I'd say we came out on top, and I'd sure as sunrise say we've both been blessed, yeah? I'll have to express my gratitude later."

Thee reverent musing doesn't last long, and he turns to Pothy. "So let's see how yellow Pothy can get. He sure seems to like those. I'll have to show you where the baker who made these is."

Cor'lana snickers mischievously. "You hear that, Pothy? That's permission to go all out."

Pothy's eyes are bright and shiny with excitement, his tail wagging faster than Dolan's ever seen it wag. "Please! I want more of these!" he asks Dolan--right before he just shoves his little bird-head into the bird pieces.

There's a rare spotting of a new species in the Lúpecyll-Atlon house: the yellow-bodied raven, known for its distinctive plumage... and distinctive mustard-seed smell. The laughter and the joy for this discovery, and others, are celebrated between two friends.