[Kiel]

OOC: This thread takes place at the end of the Acanthan Arc, when the vanguard is arriving home.

"Dude, I so can't wait to get back to my own bed, man, for sers. Or your bed, or a bed, or something not, like, hard and rocky and carnivorous." Kiel had bounced on his toes despite his exhaustion at the thought of being able to sleep properly for once, because, like, even though he'd got some shut-eye on Zeph's sick bed on the skyboat, it hadn't been enough, you know?

"Yeah..." Zeph had avoided his eyes. "About that." But then they'd been distracted - and so much had happened that Kiel wasn't even sure what exactly had distracted them that particular time - so Kiel didn't have chance to figure out or, like, quiz him or something. And now he knew why.

“Dude. Like. Dude.” There was a crack in the earth that broke the line of the worn-in track leading into the city. Like, it wasn't bad enough at the road itself to stop the caravans passing, which was cool because Kiel didn't even want to think what would have happened if the southern villages got cut off or something. But the crack widened dangerously as it swung around the building that had been his workplace for, like, the last two, three years. Zeph's home. His store, his livelihood. The crack widened so bad half the building was gone. “Like. Dude. This so wasn't the homecoming I wanted, okay?”

He'd had plans to, like, check on the store to make sure all the stuff wasn't stolen while Zeph was racing to his rescue, then sleep for a week, then drag the dude to his own home so they could shower properly (because that thing Zeph called a bathroom was tiny and awkward and didn't always have hot water) and then sleep in his big actual bed instead of that stupid cot for another week before they even tried to pretend they were normal, regular, like, citizens or whatever.

“Dude. Like, I'm so sorry, man.” He touched a hand tentatively to Zeph's shoulder, not sure of his reception, 'cause, like, wouldn't the guy be mad that his home had been destroyed while he was chasing after some annoying kid who kept getting into trouble like it was, like, like it was his job or something? “Except I'm totally not because, like, if you'd been here when this happened, and, like, what the heck even happened anyway, because, like, last I checked there are no volcanoes around here, man, and I don't think Alexshire has quakes, okay? But if you'd been here, then you might have been crushed or gobbled up by the dirt, and do you think a Dryad could have done this? Like, maybe somebody pissed her off or something? Like, did you insult another Nymph, man? You seriously gotta quit glaring at people, they take it the wrong way!” He flapped his hands, flailed in the general direction of the destruction, and wailed. “Like, but, who the heck is gonna fix my sword now if your furnace is, like, a mile underground, man?!”

[Zephyr]

Zephyr was now mostly healed from his injuries in Acantha.... but the same could not be said for the land in Elysia. The earthquake that had occurred just before Zephyr left was still evident everywhere he looked. Buildings were destroyed... and some were just blatantly missing. The jeweler he went to most of the time for custom orders had lost his shop, and according to the rumors on the street he was missing as well... most likely consumed by the ground along with his building.

Kiel seemed devastated by the destruction he was seeing, and it was only getting worse as they approached where the smithy used to be. Zephyr let the kid ramble for a bit so that he would have time to figure out how to explain what had happened.

“I was here, Kiel,” Zephyr said coolly. “There was an earthquake... it destroyed everything. Derina and I barely got out in time.”

It was far from the first natural disaster that Zephyr had experienced (though there was still debate as to whether the quake had been natural in origin), but this was the most he had lost due to one. He had lost his store, his livelihood. More than that... he had lost the place that he had used as his home for the past few years. It was going to take a long time to recover.

Derina coiled around Zephyr's bicep as he walked towards the tear in the ground. The remains of the shop had obviously been thoroughly picked through be looters. There was nothing here for him now.

• Piper's Boutique · DaFont · Mutsie · Aethereality · Kevin sorbo •

[Kiel]

“I know, right?!” Kiel exclaimed, his brain still focused (lah-dee-dah of miracles!) on flailing over the ruins as if Zephyr was agreeing with him instead of - “Wait, what?”

Whipping around, Kiel stared at the spot Zeph had just vacated, still seeing echoes of the gloomy tower that was his boyfriend, before his eyes managed to catch up with his brain on that whole the-dude's-not-actually-there-duh thing. Jaw hanging loose, Kiel gave a whole-body hop to chase after him, skittering to a stop at the edge of what used to be the small yard out front. The yard that Pria had landed in once and complained because she'd scraped a wing on, like, a cart or something as it passed by. The yard where Shane had chased Deri because the imp dragon had, like, blown snow in her face and nicked off with the last donut while the shadowkin was distracted.

“Like, are you serious right now?” Kiel pawed at the dude's bulging shoulder. “Because, like, it's kinda hard to tell when you're being serious and when you're being serious, you know? Like, I never knew there were different levels of serious before I met you, okay, but I've counted, like, fifty just since we left Acantha and holy Xanth what the heck is that is that a dead body.”