[novel drabble] Separate and Yet the Same

[nathanialroyale]

Title: Separate and Yet the Same
Rating: (PG)
Content Notes/Warnings:

The Ellearn on Cor'Terrae are considered a different species from humans, not just another 'race' as that moniker is to be used within a species to denote by geography or other differentiates. Thus, this different species has many unique physical aspects, but remain humanoid enough for children of both species to grow up among each other rather easily.

Warnings: None.
Main Character/s: Sir Castillean, the Commandant of King Joscelin's Sovereign Guard, and Lady Yara Sallis the newest, and youngest Sovereign Guard.
Plot: Yara having been brought up among human orphans of the Danaigh culture knows very little about the various cultural practices of her species, and finds that she must be educated upon them often.
Location: The Castle of the Capitol City of illander.

-

Yara had only meant to knock, she had not known that her Commandant’s door was not fully closed, and that pressing against it to knock would slip it open. She had stopped once the deed had been done, tilting her head seeing through that open-sliver, that Castillean’s back was turned, with his coat, and shirt off, before the mirror.
Neither had the young Ellearn expected to see the beautiful vine of flowers that appeared as though it grew from the very flesh of the Commandant’s shoulder, trailing down, and obscuring a nipple. Confused, Yara had taken a step back from the private scene. But blue eyes in the mirror fixed on the door that had partially opened, “Is someone there?"

With a swallow, bucking herself up, Yara truly knocked, opening the door the last of the way, "Commandant, Sir, I did have need to speak to you, however… I can return…"

"Nay, it is alright, I will re-dress myself, give me only a moment.”
Yara knew that she should have looked elsewhere, but the foliage fascinated, and yet, horrified her all the same, and she could not draw eyes away, her cheeks dusting red at her own impropriety.

The elder Ellearn had moved to his bedside, picking up the gold, and black stripped under-tunic of his uniform. Straightening, Castillean looked to the newest member of the Sovereign Guard, and he stopped, holding the cloth to his chest, making no move to slip it over his head.
“You have never seen our Garden Grafting, have you?” his voice has a gentler-ring to it now, and this only causes the blush to increase, as it was the tone Castillean used when he was to educate her.

“No…” Always the orphan was reminded how different her past had made her, how growing up in the capitol ghettos had denied her the heritage of her people.

“Would you like me to explain Lady Yara? You may touch them if you wish, and I will teach you how the Mellael learned to Graft leaf to flesh, and how many have become a walking garden of epiphytes. I realize, I do, that many of our practices appear so outlandish to you, as well as unknown, and I do not expect you to come into any of them easily, however, you should know…”

Yara Sallis would take in a deep breath, stepping into the Commandant’s room fully, softly closing the door behind her, and her hands clasp behind her back to stay straight, and tall.
“I have come to realize quite starkly that I know very little about my own species sense I have been accepted into the Sovereign Guard, Sir. Castillean, and I cannot say everything that you, and Sir Armeludon have done, or will do, makes very much sense to me… But, I do want to learn, and those lilies, well they are very lovely,” she gives a hesitant little smile.

Always was the young woman willing to learn, and to try to understand, even if she would never partake, because these rituals may have been hers by blood, and breed, they were not hers by rearing. She would always be of the Human Capitol City, and the Danaigh orphans she had grown up beside, regardless of the unique physical qualities of her Ellearn species.

“Thank you, Lady Yara."

Castillean laid down the tunic on his bed, "Come, sit with me, you can bring up what you also needed to speak of with me as well, whilst I teach you a little…”
The female Knight would nod, following her superior to the small two seat table. It was at times like these that she felt adrift at sea, surrounded by those who she should have seen as brothers, and sisters, but could only see as a separate, and remote peoples that for all intents and purposes were utterly alien.

Yet Yara had promised to keep an open mind, and an open heart to the traditions of the species that she had been born of, but had never, and would never truly be a part of. So she listened, and she just for a singular moment wondered, ‘Would such flowers look so beautiful as part of me?…’