Lost And Found [Arvaelyn]

[Hilana Chenzira]

7 Ash, Year 122

[Closed - Arvaelyn]

When she had a break during her work day, and even on her way off, Hilana had made it her business to comb the Forum. Considering that she worked in Port Vasta, she didn't look too out of place. She wasn't just looking around or getting food or shopping, however, the Vasti was on a mission. The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer, and miracles are by appointment only, she reminded herself. And as day after day passed, she had a feeling that she needed to find some way to make an appointment for a miracle, because at this rate, it was going to take one. No one had seen the convicted members of House Nykara at the Forum, and when she'd inquired in innocent, idle gossip about the Sub-Forum, no one had seen them there either. Sharing a pita with the old grandmothers was the safest, easiest way for her to get information and stay blended in, as long as she presented herself properly and respectfully. Maybe he wouldn't appear on the Forum. Maybe he would be kept. Or sold privately. And if he was, Hilana was out of luck in looking for the Star Shine. The gossips hadn't known either, but it was certainly a topic of conversation, even before she had prompted it. All she had had to do was tap into it.

Today, at least, was a shorter day than the last six of the new season. With the smoke having continued to fill the air, the shop had been open early and closed much later than normal, between serving clients and patients and selling the balms and oils for aromatherapy. Her visits to the Forum had been much, much shorter than usual, but with the much-welcomed change in the air, she had endeavored to get back into the swing of searching. As much as she hated to admit it, her regular routine of browsing had been fruitless today. Still, she wouldn't quit looking, because if there was one thing Hilana hated more than emulating her elder sisters, it was giving up.

She still had a ways yet to go to complete her loop, and this time, she could at least browse for herself, her eyes and ears open. The Forum was usually one of the safest places for a person like her, because it wasn't often a Noble made their way down there themselves. That was what they had slaves for. Still, she made sure to give people space and not crowd or get too close. Her python was being somewhat active for once, but perhaps that was because he had not been out of the apartment for the previous six days. Hilana couldn't blame him; cabin fever for her would have been borderline fatal. But such as he was, Tiaz was using her torso like one might a tree, his weighty body draping from her waist and crosswise, over one of her shoulders. He was still moving, but slowly, contentedly, enjoying the heat of the sun now that he had himself situated precisely where he wanted. She paused to touch a brightly-coloured scarf, admiring the feel of it under her fingers, her ears open and glancing about as she let her fingers do the seeing on the silky fabric.

[Arvælyn]

Having spent nearly three full months in Solunarium, the urchin of Antiris cum divine bastard of Re’ha had something akin to homesickness. It wasn’t exactly that, for he’d never felt quite at home in the North. His home had dutifully travelled Southeast with him in the form of a certain fair-skinned minstrel who was working to make a name for himself in the cabarets of the Umbrium. Arry envied that freedom, having essentially abandoned the career he’d been building for himself since he quit the thieving dens of Antiris to recreate himself in Kalzasi. Playing the part of the exiled noble of Sol’Valen he didn’t dare to dream he might be an exiled royal of Solunarium. In truth, he hadn’t really been aware of Solunarium until he chanced to be cast unwittingly as one of his own direct ancestors. Through his own machinations, he later subsumed the role of Deus Aværys himself and became fascinated by the culture. Perhaps that sense of kinship with the distant, isolationist culture had been coincidental, but it felt like more.

Still, there was only so much he could immerse himself in this alien culture before he wanted for some semblance of familiarity. In the Forum he found that. Shopkeeps of many races with many accents- not like the relative homogeneous he found in his Aurecine neighbourhood where most everyone who met his eye on the street looked a bit like him. The others, who looked more like Finn, tended to keep their eyes downcast. There had been something lovely about that at first, but once the novelty wore off it was terribly isolating.

He’d grown up on noisy, pungent inner city streets. Much more like these of the Forum than those of the quiet, austere, spacious markets of the higher hills.

He found an Antiran luthier and a Kalzasern clothier, who had taken advantage of the recent entrepreneurial gold rush of foreign traders embarking on the mercantile frontier of this kingdom. It was a relief to speak Common to others fluent in the tongue, but by and by he found himself at the stall of a toy seller whose wares looked remarkably like those of the man who raised him. Self-propelling gadgets- miniature airships and wyrms that employed magic to animate. The merchant, clearly a Vastian, addressed him in the local tongue upon noting his interest.

“These…” he gestured to the toys and continued. “Beautiful pieces.” His pronunciation was technically perfect, but there was something off about the lilt of the language that gave him away as a foreigner to a particularly keen ear.

“Where your technique learnèd was?” Alas it wouldn’t take so deft a listener to note the faults in his grammar. The toyseller smirked and rubbed his hands together.

[Hilana Chenzira]

So many accents, so many voices. Some louder, some at a normal level. But as she left the stall she had been browsing with the new scarf that she was soon tying over her hips at an offset, almost saucy angle, she was listening to the strange grammar. A Peregrinus, maybe? They were becoming more and more common, but this one seemed to have a masterful grasp of pronunciation that she wouldn’t have expected from an outsider. But as she drifted towards the toy maker, the one who had spoken had some colouring that she associated with the Hytori elves of the Ex Re’ha, and in that instant, Hilana had to quash her instinct to leave them to it. Elves meant trouble for someone like her, after all. Further, she knew better than to knock someone else’s racket, if only because one never knew when you, yourself might have to pull the same thing one day. She was thankful that Vasilei, as much as her mentor enjoyed selling and turning a profit, had some scruples, too.

In her peripheral gaze, Hilana saw the way the shopkeeper was rubbing his hands. That was a look she had seen far too many times in Tertium when she was being trotted around the markets there, where business was quite competitive and even more cutthroat. Salim had had that exact same expression more than once when she had gone to visit him after their fathers had started making arrangements. But she kept the visceral reaction off her face, just as she had back then. Wear the mask. Wear. The. Mask. Breathe, and keep it all in.

And that was how the Vastian woman drifted her way up to the table, stopping beside Arvaelyn, though perhaps a body’s width away. She had an interested expression on her face as she admired the toys, smiling at the moving wyrms. She had to admit that they were stunning, but she had to keep herself from touching them lest she break one. “They are beautiful,” she agreed in Vastian, raising her brown eyes to meet the shopkeeper’s own. “Where did you learn to make such things?” She inquired, a bright smile on her face, a tilt to her head suggesting curiosity. The python she was wearing shifted up a bit more, his long tongue flickering out, his head just below her chin as he seemed to be observing the toys that moved on their own. But despite her cheerful countenance, Hilana was determined to avoid the Elf - oh, by the Radiant Father and the Midnight Mother, a full-on Hytori Elf! - getting taken for a ride by someone who thought they had found an easy mark with deep pockets.

[Arvælyn]

Arry looked to the approaching woman. Ironically, it was her sudden insertion into the discourse, and not the shady shopkeep, who reminded him to check his belt to make sure his coin purse hadn't been nicked. How far he'd come that the former cutpurse should have ascended such a distance from the slums that he forgot to mind his coin. He'd become the sort of mark he used to look out for- Finely dressed, out of place... He resolved to be more mindful, as he nodded a friendly greeting to the woman, having established that his purse was still in place.

The toy trader cleared his throat and forced a smile, now addressing them both.

"My mentor used to make pieces like these for the royals themselves." He explained, "He had a proper shoppe... four walls and a roof- at one of the posh markets in the Aurecine. The Sovereign's oldest, Founders rest His Serene Highness' soul, came in one day when I was polishing up the airship collection. Bought a Blazing Basilisk for his son, just like this one..." The shopkeep leaned over his display to pick up a model lizard, that seemed to slither in his grasp. He tapped the head twice and said: "Lux", and the painted scales began to glow like roiling lava- bright and beautiful.

"That's right." He grinned, "I put one of these in the hands of the Princeps Pontifex himself when he was knee high to a grillus. Would you like to inspect it, Dominus?" He offered the toy to Arry, who accepted the illuminated model basilisk and turned it in his hands to inspect it from different angles.

"How was the mentor named?" Arry asked with an arched brow.

"Erasmus Venius Ceres." The golden elf seemed taken aback at this nomenclature. There was harrowed recognition. "After that, he worked for our blessed royals several times, and then he retired rather suddenly... I suppose he got into some trouble or t'other, but I was his best student. I carry on his traditions here in the Forum."

Arry handed the toy back with a trembling hand. The shopkeep only now seemed to notice his distress.

"Shall I wrap this up for you, Dominus? I am certain your children will love it for years to come..."

Arry shook his head, and the seller looked crestfallen.

"Thank you, no..." The elf hadn't caught every word of that, but he caught the crux. "Are you every day in this spot?" He was resolved to come back with someone who might help translate so he didn't miss anything important. The artisan's eyes lit up,

"Oh yes, Dominus. My son or I am in this spot every day."

"Thank you." Arry inclined his head to the shopkeep, then the woman who'd stepped up to them, and started down the aisle.

[Hilana Chenzira]

When Arvaelyn offered her a smile, Hilana smiled brightly back at him, inclining her head in a respectful greeting. But unlike many of the other Vasti, around him, she raised her head back up and kept it up. It wasn't haughty, she didn't have her nose in the air, but her gaze went right back to the shopkeeper, and there was an intensity in those dark brown eyes of hers that wasn't in the rest of her body language. Her wrists crossed neatly at her waist, the rest of her posture non-threatening. Her attire didn't suggest anything of a high rank; because while colourful, the materials were largely plain with the exception of the vivid purple silk scarf tied over the ombré-patterned dyed blue skirt.

She didn't interrupt the conversation further, listening to the conversation. She was trying to discern from his face and eyes out of her own peripheral vision whether or not he was following the conversation properly as the shopkeeper spoke at length of his history and training. Something said bothered him about that name, though it was unfamiliar to the girl. Had the blond Elf had further problems with the conversation, or seemed to misunderstand, she would have stepped in. She did see the tremors in his hand, though, as he handed the fascinating creation back to the shopkeeper. That was different from the way he had taken it.

When he started off down the aisle, Hilana inclined her head to the shopkeeper, and actually trailed after the elf, keeping her hands in front of her so that she didn't come across as a thief. "Your pardon, Dominus," she spoke quietly to him in Common, not quite falling into step with him, and certainly out of arm's reach, but close enough for him to hear her murmur despite the din of the bustling Forum around them. "Forgive me, but I overheard your early conversation with the craftsman... and I was wondering if you might wish assistance in translating Vastian into the Common tongue."

[Arvælyn]

"Yes?" Arry paused, turning around and only after a beat did he realise she'd addressed him in Common. As she continued, he stepped out of the flow of traffic into a little pocket between two of the stalls nearby the toymaker's. He replied in his native tongue.

"Oh, you speak Common, I..." He sniggered and shook his head, "I shall have to let my pædagogus know how quickly I was caught out in the Forum today." He turned his golden eyes toward the stall from which they stepped away.

"He tells me my pronunciation is quite good, but I'm still struggling with the grammar. All the bloody conjugations are killing me, and I still need to refine my vocabulary." It was so hard to rush language learning, but at least he was immersed in it on the day to day. The official language was the only one regularly seen on signage. Common was just not... well, common there. Nor was the realm particularly friendly to foreigners. They hadn't been particularly welcome there over the past few millennia, but recent and controversial shifts in their foreign policy would likely bring about changes. Albeit not quickly enough to benefit Arry.

"I... think I understood most of what he said, but he was speaking a bit quickly so I suspect a missed a bit of the nuance." He looked back over to the cart. He considered giving her some context for their exchange, but decided that it might be wiser to revise the truth of it. He knew from years as a liar that the easiest lies to both remember and make convincing were those nearest the truth. Fanciful stories were easy to pierce and harder to uphold, because one inherently lacked the details and making them up created complicated webs that it was difficult to retain.

"When I was a boy, I had a few toys quite like those." Which was true, "I suspect his mentor may have constructed them, and... Well, as my broken Vastian might suggest, I grew up a long way from here and it made me nostalgic to see something evocative of my childhood." He smiled wanly and shook his head, "It isn't important, really..." He paused, looking the woman over and considering.

"You know, I was feeling a bit homesick today. I think my brain could use a break from Vastian for a bit, if you'd care to stop for a cup of tea and a chat? I would deem it a welcome diversion."

[Hilana Chenzira]

She was glad he hadn't taken offense, because her inability to keep her mouth shut and her head down sometimes was almost certainly what was going to be the death of her in this city, even if she had had good intentions. When he stepped away from the thoroughfare, she did follow him, keeping her hands where he could see them lest she be taken for a threat. When he sniggered, the Vasti responded with a growing grin, very clearly keen to hear him out. This was, frankly, quite new to her, an Elf talking to her outside of Sweet Remedies, but he didn't seem like a bad sort. He had an accent that was quite different from what she was used to, even from what she had heard from her relatively short time in Tertium, but it flowed well and he spoke well. He was easy to listen to.

"Your pronunciation was perfect, you should know. I am sure your paedagogus was just downplaying it a little bit as to raise the bar for you," Hilana reassured him. "There are a many rules to the language, yes, but once you know them, it will be second nature. Common is easier to learn than Vastian, you know, so I commend you for speaking it so well. The merchants are vultures, though," she made a little bit of a face, "I have found it to be a good practice to keep my ears sharper around them. That is the only reason I noticed that you have not been speaking it all of your life." The woman's Common was much less accented than many Vasti in the city, if only because those she had run after as a child had insisted she learn it, and learn it early. On the Sands, you never knew what you might find, or who, and using it often with different people on the roads had smoothed her speech down.

She glanced over her shoulder at the merchant when Arry's gaze went that way, her eyes sweeping the table. "He said that his Master had a proper shop. He does not claim one of his own, though, so you may be right that the Master was the one who made them and he is passing them off for his. His stock has not changed much over the last few months," she offered. "If you would want to know for sure, we could ask to see his shop and process. Make him put his money where his mouth is, yes? It may be he is capable of making them, and just follows the old designs rather than coming up with his own. If you recognize them here from your homeland..." she raised her palms and shrugged slightly, suggesting that something smelled off with the merchant's story. "I am happy to translate for you with him or wherever you need here."

At his offer of tea and a chat, Hilana nodded her head to him. He seemed like he would be fun to talk to, and truthfully, she was fascinated. If he said he was homesick, maybe he could tell her more about where he was from to remember the memories and stories of the faraway lands. "I would like that very much, Dominus. I am always interested to hear of other places. I have never really left Atraxia myself," she admitted. "But I understand homesickness quite well. I am coming to enjoy this city, but I do miss the Expanse where I grew up. Is there somewhere in particular that you would like to go?"

[Arvælyn]

“Is it?” Arry’s smirk might have taken on a bit of smugness at her compliments to his diction. “Well, I’ve always had an ear for languages, and I used to be-…” He stopped himself from letting his enthusiasm at being flattered cause him to be reckless, “Well, I had cause to take an interest in linguistics.” He demurred.

“Ah…” He listened to her clarification of thr conversation with the merchant and considered the suggestion. “I don’t think we need to go to the trouble of vetting his story with a stake out or aught of the like. It was… naught but a spot of idle curiosity.” It was more than that, in truth, but he was just being impatient. He knew that, in time, the answers would come to light. As his mother had bade him: ‘Let all the poisons that lurk in the wood hatch out.’

“You’re terribly kind to offer your services as translator. I do have more resources at my disposal than may seem apparent at present. My father…” That felt stranger on his tongue than Vastian, “Is a Vigil of the Sentinels, though as my accent might suggest I am a Len rather than a Val.” He unconsciously rolled his eyes at the designation of bastardy baked into his nomenclature. Although it had been emphasised to him many times that base birth didn’t carry the same connotations in the South, his knee jerk reaction to the label remained a fierce vexation.

“Alas, I am a stranger in a strange land with few Solunarian experiences and fewer friends. I’m certain you’ve a better lay of the land than I, but wherever you decide- I’ll treat. You’ve been ever so helpful.” He gestured for her to lead the way,

“So, you came up in the open desert? I’ve not met any like you- am I to understand that’s rather atypical?” It seemed a hostile enough place.

[Hilana Chenzira]

Learning languages was a valuable skill. She admired those who took to them easily, and if given the opportunity, she thought she would have liked to have learned them, too. But beyond what she had, she knew most things weren't meant to be. The desert was her home, her familiar, and realistically, she knew she likely would never leave it. Travel around it, yes... but leave it, certainly not.

She did nod in assent when he said it wasn't much to worry about. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't; she remembered the way his hand had shook. But that was on him to decide if it was something he'd wanted to pursue, Hilana had only laid out the possibility. Either which way, she was content with his decision. It wasn't something that impacted her personally, but she had felt it best to offer.

"The Sentinels?" the girl nodded. "They are all over, are they not?" She wondered if that was how his parents had met, but that was not something she could just ask him. Maybe she would learn in time, but that was an awfully rude inquiry, even for herself. "But... do not worry about Len or Val," she told him. "You are who you are. You have experiences they do not. They have experiences you do not. But you are richer for having them outside of these lands. That is something that no one can take from you, no matter how they try. And they will try, because they know it. It makes you that much more well-rounded, no?"

When he suggested that she should pick, Hilana knew where to take him. Someplace tidy and homey, but not too far off the beaten path. "I came to Solunarium last season, in Searing," she told him as they walked. "But I spend most of my free time exploring up here, where I am allowed to be, anyway." That suggested that as her attire indicated, this girl was not one of the Patrician caste, but it also didn't seem to trouble her. "The woman who owns this tea shop used to be a traveler, a nomad, so this is fare you probably would not see in other districts, and it is less common even here, in Port Vasta. But it is very good." She had doubts that an honest-to-goodness Elf had ever been in there, but there was a first time for everything.

She opened the door and held it for him, and she would follow him in. The scents of food and drink were strong here, but it seemed to be of coffee and tea, of bread and pastry. It was not very busy at the moment, considering the time of day, but Hilana picked it partially for that reason. That gave them more space and opportunity for privacy, and truthfully, chatting in Common would have been less, well, common in there. "Do you like sweets?" she asked him, guiding him to a table and picking up the menu. "Or less sweet?" There were options, some of the teas being more traditional, and some of them being fruitier, and the food, well, the food could be different. It wasn't that she was trying to score a meal, but he had said he had few experiences... why not show him some of it?

"My parents came from different nomadic clans, and while my mother's still travels, my father's parents and some of their relatives settled in Tertium. I liked the desert more, and that is where I ended up. But it is not very common here, no. You will not find many nomads, or those who would admit to it, in the city," she nodded in agreement. "There is protection here, what is I think a much easier life, and many are drawn to it. But there are those who like the old ways, when we traveled the sands along the rivers, moving herds and living. Some settled into towns and little settlements all along the River Vasta, some continue to travel between those towns, and on routes that are their own." Still, those that made their way outside of the cities performed a valuable service many wouldn't have thought of. Their presence, along with the brigades that patrolled the roads, made trade much easier for those who lived within the walls. "Different clans, different tribes, they go in different routes. But times are changing, and there are newer, harsher dangers out there as the ecology changes, too. But it is beautiful, for all of its harshness."

[Arvælyn]

"So it would seem." Arry conceded. The Sentinels, like much of Solunarium, were a novel concept to the foreign elf. Much of the information that was available abroad was absurdly out-of-date. It was fortunate that, in many ways, the insular culture hadn't changed much over the centuries. It had evolved, of course, but where other cultures adapted to their times with science, the Solunarians seemed to default toward magic. There was a fearlessness to that, which he found invigorating.

He chuckled slightly, embarrassed at her didactically optimistic response to his unintentional eye-roll.

"You ought to give lectures! I could have used someone like you at Port Tertium." The welcoming committee he'd actually received upon arriving had been rather aloof and austere, until Finn had plied his inimitable charms upon him.

"Oh? Well, that should do nicely. And, worry not, I do have an adventurous palate if things wax exotic." He noted with a sly wink as he stepped through the door at her gesture.

"I'm really not terribly picky, in faith... Sweet or savoury will serve me, but-..." His memory flashed backward toward Antiris on that watershed day when his life forever changed. Stuffing honey cake ravenously into his adolescent mouth on Aurin's Aven, and thinking he'd broached the divine. A faint, crooked smile curled his lip, given the current context of his life. "Well, yes, I do like sweet." He acknowledged, as his mind returned to the present moment.

"You will order for us." Arry stated, as if it was a foregone conclusion, and settled into a seat against the wall that gave him a good vantage of their environs. Part of it was out of curiosity and a desire to people watch, and partly out of habit- having once been a thief and, more recently, a spy.

"Tertium was beautiful, I thought. I'd never seen anything like it... The Colossi were..." He was speechless. The grandiosity of the statues that guarded the harbour was awe-inspiring. "And..." He bit his lip, excited but a bit uncertain about mentioning this, "Well, I'm told it's thought a favourable omen, but as I emerged from the hold of the ship? The shadow of the Crownwyrm graced me... I'd never seen a dragon, and..." His face was flush at the very memory of it.

"It's so fascinating to me the way people hold onto traditions here." The golden elf pondered, "The 'old ways' of the nomads must be, gods... Over five thousand years old?" The tribes of the Vastii had wandered the desert since being driven out of their Northerly villages by the Orks in remote antiquity. It was before Aværys and Varvara... before the Cult of Re'ha ever crossed the Crystal Sea to flee their Hytori oppressors. Perhaps it was the newness of this knowledge that made it feel so potent. This wasn't scripture or ancient history to him, it was his favourite penny dreadful.

"Do your roving tribes still have skirmishes with the Orks? My f-..." He twitched. That was a slip not completely avoided, "My fair mother in Antiris used to tell me scary stories about the Orks stealing human children and gobbling them up with their tusks." He wrinkled his nose, "She said their stench alone could paralyse a person outright." In truth it had been his father... or the man who'd claimed to be... who'd told him such tales, but that didn't suit the current narrative of Kyros Len'Sorokys Arvælyn as it did that of Arvine Venasyr.