name: Marion
gender: male
what is an item they're never seen without? why?:Marion's earliest memory is that of a woman's warm laughter. He grows up under the tutelage of a female who looks nothing like him, with pale pink hair and bright amber eyes and he loves her desperately despite it. She is quick to smile and quicker to laugh and he never asks her why they look nothing alike, why she has no pack, why she goes around whispering stories to anyone who might listen. She waits until he's older to explain that she is not his mom, no matter what he calls her, no matter what she does for him. She tells him, I found an egg in the woods one day, and I couldn't stand to leave it. She tells him, honestly I didn't think you would even hatch.
But she tells him too that she wouldn't trade him for the world, that she is glad she found him, that their stories aligned at just the right angle so that she was the one who found his egg, and she was the one who subsequently became his mom. It was meant to be, she tells him, with the same fervor she tells stories to seeking eyes. You're mine.
Her name is Esme and she says she named him Marion because that was her mother's name. She is a storyteller, a wanderer, a restless nomad. They never stay in any place for very long, no matter how a pack might beg them to linger. Esme tells stories like it's as easy as breathing, and Marion wants so badly to be like her. He is still a pup and unsteady on his feet and taken in by her low voice and eloquent words, and he decides young that he wants to do as she does. He sees eyes hungry for stories and he sees her give them mythologies and legends and he thinks, I could do that. I
want to do that.
Esme has a small pouch that she keeps about her neck and within it she says is fairy dust. Her eyes always sparkle when she tells Marion the story of it, of the small forest creature who approached her when she was a child, who gave her the dust and told her to give it to others. It was this that caused Esme to leave her pack, her family, her parents; she felt a calling to tell stories, the dust thumping like a second heartbeat to her chest. She said the fairy had magicked her maybe, had infected her with the urge to speak, but she always said it with laughter so Marion knew she loved it. She was never happier than when she was telling a story.
Whenever she settled in to speak she would start a fire and urge whichever pack they were visiting to come gather round; and Marion would tuck himself in among the curve of her belly, and she would lean over the flames and begin to speak. The fairy dust she would loose from about her neck with soft, dreamy sighs. She would wait until there was a pause in the story, a thrilling, trembling breath and then she would throw some into the fire, a few tiny grey kernels, and the pack would jump at the hissing sound the fire spat. The flames would turn colors, blue and purple and green, electric, incredible colors that added something to the story, that encouraged a watcher to lean in, to look for faces in the fire, to search for the truths of their own lives.
Marion grew up and he learned Esme's stories and he learned her little tricks, her mimicry of voices, her dramatic pauses. He grew up on her mythologies and tales and memorized whatever he could get his hands on. He watched her tell stories with the fire softening her eyes and he knew that there would never be another who could compete with her.
But Esme was significantly older than Marion, hardened by a restless life, by a homeless wanderlust. While Marion grew stronger and bright-eyed Esme stooped; her hips bothered her in the cold, her teeth resisted any meat not gentled by the sun. She was tired more often, unroused by the pleas for a story, preoccupied with finding a place to settle for a night and then wanting to stay there for days longer than necessary. She began showing Marion how to use the fairy dust, how to treat it; she showed him how it must always be respected, how a piece must never go to waste. She explained that the bag would refill sometimes, perhaps once a month, always when one wasn't looking. She explained that Marion must remember to be kind for if he was not the fairy dust would not work for him. She explained that
someone needed to go around telling stories and she told him it would be him now; that she was tired, and that she needed to rest.
You must go alone, she told him, and removed from her neck the fairy dust pouch, fitting it around his front paw with a few subtle twists of her teeth. You will continue what I have started. You will tell the stories they need to hear.
Marion lingered for a few days. He didn't want to leave Esme, even in the narrow paradise they'd found, in the shallow cave that lay out against a warm river. He was used to her company, to her laughter, to her stories; but it was as if something had been ignited within him when she had laid the fairy dust to the inside of his wrist, and he was desperate to go. He was torn between her and the stories and eventually, after she watched him pace with a sad, knowing smile, he left. He promised he would return, that he would visit her and she smiled and nodded and wished him well. She said, I was always meant to find you. She said, remember what I taught you.
Years passed, and Esme's paradise became her grave in between one visit and the next. Marion continued to tell stories and the fairy dust remained at his wrist, an eerie pulse that shivered against his own. Sometimes he would even tell stories of Esme, when the dust whispered to him to remember, when his memories of her could be used to help another. And like she had said he never grew tired of seeing how the stories helped those bent over the fires, those who listened, those who looked into the magenta flames and saw past mistakes forgiven.
[
gif version here!]
[art by
Grifforik]
personality:jovial || merry || gregarious || peculiar
Marion is an odd soul, but a spectacularly happy one. He will always believe in the best of people, no matter what they have done in their pasts, but he's not especially trusting. He has never known a pack and so blind obedience confuses him; he does as he wishes, ad not what someone tells him to do. He tends be to quite friendless, as he moves around too often to maintain many relationships, but he doesn't mind. Marion is very well-known in North America, and will cheerfully visit the same pack twice. He says he goes only to packs that need him, whatever that may mean, and that he tells stories that will change someone listening. The stories are all unfounded in history; they are not known outside of him and Esme, and he tells so many of them that they are difficult to remember with precision. He has a soft spot for songs and will sometimes offer to trade a story for a new tune, and as he walks he tends to sing. He does not mind being alone but neither does he mind companionship. If he can find proper berries or seeds he will feed birds in passing, for he loves especially their songs. He has a soft spot for the small lizards that look at him with their strange eyes.
While Marion is comprised of nothing but good intentions he is very strange, and sometimes his decisions on things can go completely misunderstood. He tends to get lost in thought, especially when he is alone, and his attention is only ever focused when he tells a story. He says that he does not imagine new stories but that they come to him, as if someone is whispering them whole into his ear. He is never seen without the little pouch he wears at his wrist, and becomes defensive only when it is in danger of being removed. Otherwise Marion seems without temper, and unbothered by the little annoyances of the world. Due to his constant traveling he is quite well-versed in various pack laws and religions, and has an open mind to meeting new ones. Like Esme taught him he always builds a fire before he begins his stories, and throws fairy dust into the flames. Holding a conversation with him can be a difficult task; Marion is quite in his own head, and when he is not telling a story it is sometimes hard to speak with him. He is quick to laugh, and nearly always smiling.
[426 words]
short story:Marion goes where the dust tells him, and it wakes him from slumber one night and whispers, East. So Marion rises and begins to walk and sings to keep himself company, building stanzas off snatches of songs he's overheard, off melodies he barely remembers. When he reaches the outskirts of Nemo's lands he's pleasantly surprised; he's been there a half dozen times before, and he loves the functionality of the pack. It's one of the few that doesn't bother him, as Nemo never expects obedience where there might be dissent.
He sees among the trees a flicker of red and brightens, and shouts, "Canicus! I come bearing stories!"
Canicus emerges from behind a birch with a quiet laugh. It's winter and his breath curls up about his golden eyes like the dragon he is named for. "Marion," he greets. "Rohan will be glad."
"Rohan?" Marion repeats inquisitively, then grins as he closes the distance between them. "Have you found yourself a sweetheart, Cani?"
That startles a laugh from him, and he shakes his head. "No no," he says, "Rohan is new. Serafin has been telling him of your stories and he's been wondering about you stopping by for months."
Marion preens. Like Esme before him, he is always glad for a willing audience. "Good," he says brightly. "Then I will be sure to pick a story for him tonight."
Canicus escorts him to the clearing the pack calls their home, where the others mill about the shallow dens and chorus a greeting upon their entrance. Marion cannot help but smile; he cherishes his time among Nemo's pack, where the folks are curious and kind and patient. They will forever be his favorite to speak to.
He passes the day accompanying Serafin on his errands, which mostly consist of checking the growth of various fruit-bearing trees. Rohan tags along, a slight dark shadow at Serafin's heels, and Marion is surprised at how patient the younger dragon becomes with him. Rohan is as inquisitive as Canicus warned; he asks Marion dozens of questions, about where he's been, about what he sees. He obliges the child with tales of formidable mountains and unbearable summers and leaves that turn an extraordinary gold in August.
As the light wanes and they return to the dens Marion sets out to build a fire. He has practice with the task and it takes him little time, but Rohan watches with great interest. Marion waits beside it while the sun settles behind the treeline and then lights the debris. The fire burns merrily in minutes and by some unseen signal, the pack gathers around it. They sit close, in little groups, leaning on one another, sharing shoulders and seats. Rohan sits directly to Marion's right, framed by Serafin, flanked by Canicus. It is a tremendous thing, seeing the little family.
Marion shifts and presses his leg to the ground and feels the dust grind against the fine bone in his wrist. He think, what should I tell them? And the dust whispers into his skin, into his bloodstream. He opens his mouth and speaks.
"Once upon a time there was a lost little boy, and the lost little boy was alone. He walked through endless forests where the shadows stretched long and eerie and the birds would not speak to him. He walked where the sun did not set and where the leaves reeked of something dead. He walked without knowing where he was going, what he was intended to do. He walked without purpose and did not realize he needed one.
"Then the lost little boy found a lost little man, and that lost little man had a lost little son." The dragon family goes still beside him; he sees it from the corner of his eye, but he does not stop. "The lost little boy says, I don't know where I am. I don't know who I am. And the lost little man hesitates. He thinks of his lost little son, of his son's hardships, of his son's temper. He thinks, what if this boy is like another?
"But the lost little boy only looks at him, and the lost little man cannot bring himself to be cruel. He says, we have a home. He says, come with us."
Marion pauses. The words pulse behind his eyes and he rises back onto his haunches, loosens the pouch at his wrist. He scoops some of the dust out onto his paw and blows it fiercely into the fire, where the flames crackle and then turn an exquisite gold. It is uncannily the color of Canicus' eyes and of Serafin's too, of the little golden bracelet Rohan wears on his foreleg. Marion turns to them; he says solemnly, "And the lost little boy and the lost little man and his lost little son all became a little family, no longer lost at all."
Rohan smiles. The fire is still gold, and where the embers smolder it is startlingly yellow. Marion smiles in return and Rohan says knowingly, "Most children have two parents, you know. I think our family has room for another."
Marion laughs, because there is nothing he can say. The dust takes him where he needs to go, where he needs to be to understand something or hear something or learn something, and so perhaps this was the intention of the eastern dream that woke him.
After a moment Canicus says shyly, "I guess you're right, Rohan," and he will not meet Marion's eyes the rest of the night without sputtering into embarrassed murmurings. Marion finds it too endearing to explain that he is only flattered, and charmed, and thinking maybe of having his own little family with golden eyes and hearts.
[956/1074]
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