Breaking the Surface

[Tyrann Xekourassi]

Breaking the Surface
5 Searing, 123rd Year, A.o.S.

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Breaking the surface for the first time beyond the brackish waters of the river's mouth, Tyrann scanned his surroundings. He hadn't spent much time in fresh waterways. Once his eyes adjusted to unfiltered sunlight, he scanned his surroundings.

"It is more colourful than Old Nepthalia." He sang to his travel companions. This didn't surprise him per se. He wasn't wholly ignorant of the inland landscape, but he'd never been this far North upriver. It wasn't very like the Ecith he knew, but his immediate purview didn't contrast terribly starkly either from what was familiar.

He patting his delphine mount upon the back and whispering soothing words, he slipped away and swam toward the Western shore. When it was shallow enough to wade, he trudged the rest of the way, allowing the webbing between his fingers and toes to recede as silt gave way to mud. His two companions took a moment longer to see to their cetacean steeds, as he took a few deep breaths to reacquaint his lungs to the feeling of breathing air. His head felt a bit dizzy at the sensation, and he lifted a hand to brace himself against a nearby tree. The bark felt odd against his palm.

As the others emerged from the water, he turned to face them.

"The old maps marked a village just West of here. You stand vigil here. I'll scout about and see whether I can't glean more intelligence about the state of things in this region."

"You should not go off on your own, Milord..."

"You both need more time to acclimate than I. Night will fall soon and it will be time to portal back home. I won't be long. Guard the mounts and await my return." Without waiting for a response, Tyrann marched into the woods. His armour, though preternaturally light, felt somehow heavier in the air than it did in the water. He knew that didn't make logical sense, given the nature of the enchantments that made the metal near weightless and pliant to the wearer, while still being protective. Perhaps it was his own form that felt heavier.

Untucking the folded map from his britches, he opened it and did his best to get the lay of the land, fully aware that a great deal may have changed since it was scrawled.

[Imogen]

It had been some time since Imogen Ward's last jaunt through Central Ecith, and she had to admit that this trip had been a lot smoother.

She still wasn't comfortable with opening portals the vast distances which would have been required to spirit her at once from Serendipity to Drathera, but the combination of her tireless Animus-powered flight and smaller feats of Traversion still served to foreshorten the trip considerably. Even the extra miles gained by avoiding the desert were pleasant; she'd gotten used to travel as an albatross over the rocky lands of Karnor or the inner jungles of Southern Ecith, but it was, first and foremost, a seabird. The salt, the cool winds, the easy thermals... yes, it had been a pleasant trip.

Even with an albatross' eye, Imogen Ward managed to miss the two Neptori resting near the river's bank. This should come as no surprise. She'd overlooked far greater and more wonderous things than a few elves struggling on the shoreline. No, the greater miracle is that she did not miss the third one, further in.

The rivers were major causeways for the Commonwealth, but this one was not well-trafficked, and the sight of a distant figure wrestling with a map stirred up sympathetic memories within the ork-cum-large-seabird. She angled downwards, amidst the branches of the high trees, to get a better look at the traveler.

Wheeling overhead, she could make out a few details. Elven, to be sure--the build was a sure giveaway--but with a rather exotic mane and tone. It was momentarily tempting to sneak up on the elf, to steal their shape and make off with it, none the wiser. Alas, it was a passing fancy. Whatever her betters claimed, Imogen was too upright to stoop to that kind of petty theft.

Still, they were definitely consulting a map, and having little luck. As a citizen of Drathera, surely it was her duty to render aid to those lost in the jungle? She tried in vain to recall all the Tenants to determine if any applied, but she'd never been gifted at that sort of rote memorization.

Well, nothing for it. She was in no particular hurry. The albatross fluttered to a landing on a bough high above the elf below.

~~~

Given Tyrann's gifts in Traversion and Sembling both, doubtless he noticed Imogen's approach. She was not particularly stealthy.

Imogen was heralded by her staff, which dropped from the heights of the tree. It spun gracefully to the air, tumbling to stop on its end just before it impacted the ground, floating serenely. Her Pact staff was a handsome piece, polished wood capped with brass, and bearing a fist-sized Dawnstone, integrated partway through the staff's head as gleaming crystalline circuitry. A moment after the weapon's descent, Imogen teleported herself onto it.

She was in lemur-form now, having preferred that option to either appearing nude or stopping to retrieve her clothes and dress. The sifaka was a small monkey, no larger than a cat, but with striking tones of white and gold throughout its fur, and with a majestic tail nearly twice the length of its body. She appeared perched atop the staff, then stood up straight and offered the stranger a polite little bow. The whole of the effect was striking, for it put the lemur just at the level of Tyrann's head.

"Good day to you!" the lemur spoke in a clear contralto tone, having long ago worked out how to produce her own voice in many different bodies "Are you lost, perhaps? It strikes me as plausible, for you wander rather closely to the hunting grounds of one of the great beasts."

The lemur turned her head to look at the direction behind her, where Tyrann had been heading.

"Yes, I fear they're still agitated from the mists, even with a year gone. Ah-hm. I am Imogen, at your service presently."

[Tyrann Xekourassi]

Tyrann detected Focus before his arcane or mundane senses picked up on anything else- Interest in him from a sentient source. He did not detect predatory nor any other sort of hostile intent behind that interest, but he was far from his realm and all that was familiar. He had been cautioned to be careful around the land-dwellers, for they, too, were cognizant of arcane Craft and might conceal their true intentions from his Sembling. That a weapon revealed itself to his gaze in advance of a person seemed a foreboding sign, and his stance shifted slightly as one foot planted behind him and both hands gripped the blades sheathed at either side of his narrow waist. The map, discarded, fell fast to the ground.

Pale, purple eyes came to rest on a small creature whose Aura held more than that of any primate he'd encountered in the past. He wasn't entirely sure what this being was, but he was certain that it was more than it appeared... Although one might have gleaned as much from the gravity defying staff and the balance this being maintained in perching atop it.

It took a moment for Tyrann to register the tongue being spoken. It was one he'd long studied in preparation for this mission upon which he'd recently embarked. The aptly named 'Common' tongue was spoken in sundry realms and thus very useful to his purposes of information gathering eventually toward, he hoped, diplomacy.

"Good morrow." He released his grip on one of his blades and crouched, to collect the map he'd dropped with the free one. "Not lost, per se... My map is old, and I was scouting for potential updates." At the mention of 'great beasts' his brow raised and his eyes darted down to the map. There were several icons thereupon, surrounded by rings depicting their erstwhile habitats. He ought to have been well outside of any of their ranges, and yet between time and the Mists mentioned, he supposed it stood to reason that such was no longer the case.

"Ah... I am Tyrann, and I thank you for the warning." He bowed his head slightly, before casting his gaze beyond the creature toward the direction he'd been heading.

"Do you know of a village in this vicinity, or... has that been lost to time?"

[Imogen]

"In the vicinity?" Imogen scratched at an arm, thoughtfully, "I suppose that would depend upon what you consider vicinitous. Oh! But perhaps you are looking for one of the settlements which was destroyed in the Imperial march on Kythera all those years ago?"

In truth, Imogen was not much of a cartographer, but she'd seen plenty of modern charts in Drathera. Few were of the level of detail the stranger's sported, but they were doubtless up-to-date; the Librarians were fanatic in that regard.

"Yes, I think that's as may be. Quite a few settlements in this region were razed alongside Kythera, and when the time came to rebuild they often chose to relocate somewhat. Well, hard to blame them for not wishing to dwell in the charnel yard of war. Here, perhaps this will be of some use-"

Imogen scuttled down her staff, which obligingly touched down to let her onto the ground. She scampered over to a nearby tree and knocked on the bark.

"Kitty, could you get my map case? Thanks, love."

The little lemur lingered there for a few moments, head twitching a little as the sounds of birds calling above elicited involuntary glances. Before a minute was up, the shadow in the bole of the tree darkened, and disgorged a small case of worn leather. Imogen caught it, nearly staggering backwards under the impact, and toddled back to her perch. Despite the initial unsteadiness, she seemed to have no trouble dragging it up to the top of the staff with her.

"Sorry about that, he's still quite shy. Now, then- I've a map of the Commonwealth in here, purchased in Drathera just last year. Workman's map, mind, not a lot of detail, but it should show if your village is still about, and if they moved at all since."

The map Imogen dug out of her case was creased, stained, torn and rather extensively marked. The Commonwealth itself was copied out by some professional scribe, properly marked and keyed, though it was a bit spare on detail. Someone else--presumably Imogen herself--had marked various points in a steady hand, adding notes like:

"Koidhome"
"Altar - unidentifiable. Lemurs."
"Many bees."
"PHANTOM DRAGONS"

The original map had included sparse detail for the desert realm of the continent, and none at all for Southern Ecith, but Imogen's little notes re-appeared south of the sands, with equally incomprehensible tags:

"Captain"
"Serendipity"
"Tower that does not exist"
"Birchen's grave"
"Cat legislature"

"I've scribbled on it a bit, but it should still be clean enough to check. What brings you out here, Mr. Tyrann? This is quite the wrong way to be coming from Drathera- have you got a ship anchored somewhere?"

[Tyrann Xekourassi]

At Imogen's uncertainty over his meaning and her use of the unfamiliar term 'vicinitous' Tyrann was forced to wonder whether his academic Common was not as practically useful as he'd anticipated. Perhaps it was as outdated as his map. But by and by the strange, talking lemur arrived at his point on her own and replied with pertinent information.

"Ah..." His eyes darted down to the spot on his map marked Kythera, which he estimated to be either due North of slightly Northwest of their current location. The children of the Delta he'd passed along the way had been less than forthcoming... those that hadn't fled or hidden upon his approach. He hoped to have gleaned more from them, but now he was feeling out of his depth, as it were. When he glanced back up, Imogen had moved over to a tree and was, ostensibly, speaking to it or something that dwelt within. She was a whimsical creature, this Imogen, but the Commonwealth was chronicled to be a whimsical place by the standards of his culture. Although it was part of his tour of the lands, the Commonwealth was not being taken seriously as a potential diplomatic partner or threat to the Empire of the Tides. As such, it hadn't been a particular area of focus in his preparations for this trip.

Tyrann stepped closer to Imogen and her staff-cum-pedestal to regard the more recent map she presented.

"...what is a cat legislature?" He wondered aloud, finding that, of all the scrawlings to be the most perplexing. At Imogen's question, he straightened his back as if suddenly reminded of the official capacity under which he'd embarked upon this trek.

"I have travelled from Néa Nepthália, the Empire Beneath the Waves. I seek to open diplomatic relations with those who rule the land. To that end, I would be interested to see your Drathera... are you a citizen of this Commonwealth and... is this your preferred form? I infer that it is not the one to which you were born, though forgive me if it is indelicate to mention."

[Imogen]

"Oh, that's just a little joke." The monkey rubbed at one eye, "They were not considering any laws."

If she'd the words for it, she might have called it a panther moot- alas, she did not. Speaking of things she wasn't prepared for-

"You're Neptori."

The possibility simply hadn't occurred to her. She'd never met one in Zaichaer or Kalzasi, of course, though she'd heard tales on the boat from Sangen- might even have glimpsed one on the docks of Drathera, and left none the wiser. The sailors had easily confirmed that sea elves were real enough, but described them as solitary and rare fellows; certainly, she'd never heard of any "Néa Nepthália". An empire beneath the waves? Were there really so many people living in the mer? She found it hard to imagine, but that had never stopped anything else from being true.

"Ah, yes and no. That is- I am a citizen of Commonwealth, and I'm not usually a monkey." Imogen pointed upwards, towards the canopy high above. "I was traveling towards Drathera myself, in the shape of a bird, when I spotted you down here. I am Orkhan, but I thought it might make a poor impression if I showed up in the nude. Not that it's entirely uncommon in the Commonwealth to go about your business unclothed." The Ork's tone was unreadable. She had long considered herself a conscientious defector from the prudish aspects of Zaichaeri society, but it was damned distracting to be going about the day-to-day and seeing someone with their tits out.

The little monkey shrugged. "At any rate, it's quite tiring to grow and shrink, much easier to stay small for a mite."

Imogen pressed her tiny monkey paws together beneath her chin.

"It's a beautiful city, no doubt. As I mentioned, I was just on my way there to make a donation to the Librarians. Civic duty, style of thing. Going to be quite the trip on foot, I'm afraid; you'll have to loop wide around Kythera to avoid the Queen's brood, and then the lands around the breadbasket are a bit more dangerous than usual."

Much better to traverse the air, of course, but Imogen hadn't tried to carry anyone while flying since the nearly-disasterous encounter with Exathun the prior year. She thought her new concept would work, but it was one of those ideas she'd had no time to test. And anyway...

"You say you're an ambassador? Surely you weren't sent up here all alone? Perhaps I can locate one of the Legions and arrange an escort for you..."

[Tyrann Xekourassi]

"Tidal Neptori." Tyrann was prompt to specify, even if it wasn't entirely true. Growing up in Caerulia, he'd often been forcefully reminded that he was only half-Tidal. It may have come with social burdens, but it came with physiological benefits as well- Such as the fact that he was able to acclimate to the air far more quickly than his travelling companions. Whatever the case, the distinction of being a Child of the Tides meant a lot in his culture, even if it would mean nothing to his present audience.

"And you're an Ork beneath the fur, I infer?" He knew that the Commonwealth was largely composed of Orkhan, and he had enough of a frame of reference for the race to Semble a basic sense of what lay at the core of the creature behind the small primate. "...and an Animist." He was familiar with enough practitioners of that particular Craft and between the current lemur form and the avian form she referenced, it seemed a sound assumption.

"Your modesty is your own concern. I would not be troubled by your nudity as a hulking Ork any more than as a tiny monkey." Tyrann noted. Though the wording may have made it seem as though the ambassador was playing the diplomat and was put off by both forms, in truth he didn't care a whit. There was certainly something to be said for basking bare beneath the open sea, and he supposed there might be those who felt that way about the open air.

"I see..." He grimaced slightly at Imogen's warnings about the journey to Drathera on foot, and glanced to his map. "I'd hoped to travel upriver as far as possible and then take to the land to cross the rest of the way to the Crystal Sea, but... are Kythera's waterways afflicted by this... Queen's brood? Hm..." Perhaps an escort may have been in order.

"I... am an ambassador, yes, and my honour guard stayed behind when I took to land. They aren't as hardy of lung as I. If you would be able to facilitate some sort of assistance in getting us safely to Drathera, I would be most grateful. Which is to say I can pay you."

[Imogen]

As soon as Tyrann mentioned his ability to pay, Imogen's tail shot straight up into the air. It was a pretty dramatic movement, too- the sifaka's tail can stretch over twice as long as the rest of the lemur's body.

"Well if you can pay, that's quite different, then." It did occur to the witch that this eccentric Neptori ambassador might traffick in some strange, foreign, undersea currency, but the thought didn't bother her. As long as the payment was valuable to someone, it was of use.

"I am indeed an animist, and quite practiced with other magics, besides which I happen to be a professional mercenary, expert explorer, so on and so forth." She left out the large part of her resume which covered things like smuggling, railway heists and so forth. "Certainly, I ought to be able to hasten your journey and smooth it along..."

Frankly, Imogen was confident in her ability to repel anything short of a Primal, up to and including (sufficiently juvenile) dragons. Still, she hated the thought of boasting, which was--in her view--a slippery slope to the ultimate kind of unprofessionalism.

"I'll admit to a shortcoming in my knowledge of the river, though. The Queen... she is a relatively new Primal, and all the more dangerous for it because her behavior is ill-understood. She is said to look like a cross between a great leviathan and a plant, and her roots spread throughout Kythera's walls- but her brood take the form of floral simulacrums of those she has killed and eaten, and wander further abroad." the monkey-witch rubbed her chin again, pursing her lips thoughtfully... though it might have been hard for a non-lemur to read such an expression. "Thus, I couldn't say whether any of her children dwell in the river. Perhaps they aren't the sort of plant which can live long underwater...?"

All rank speculation. Imogen drifted off from her wild theories, a little embarrassed.

"It's embarrassing to admit this, but in fact I have never acquired an aquatic totem. Ah, well, I tell a lie, but my only option there is not well-suited for river travel. I don't suppose there's any type of fish you'd recommend...?"

[Tyrann Xekourassi]

"Different from what?" Tyrann inquired, blankly. Although his Common vocabulary and grammar were quite strong, he hadn't practised it enough amongst native speakers to pick up on some of the colloquial nuances. There were also regionalisms which came into play and he certainly didn't know the particulars of Common such as it was spoken by Ecithians, who also had their own tongue. Suffice it to say, he was bemused by Imogen's wording.

The Caerulian lordling smiled at Imogen's apparent intention to help expedite the trip to their first major stop along the tour. He understood little and contributed less to her mental musings about this strange primal that haunted old Kythera.

"That sounds like quite a creature. I half expected you to tell me it also sings for its supper." He forced a chuckle, if only to indicate that he was, in fact, joking in case such was lost in translation. He knew he could seem humourless when he was out of his element and he quite literally was.

"Well, if you wanted to go the fish route, I would suggest a swordfish or a marlin for speed, but they come with certain dangers because, on top of being fast, they are also quite delicious to a number of predators- Neptori included..." He trailed off,

"Perhaps we can speak more over dinner? We were going to rest for the evening at my palace, if you'd care to join us." He paused, realising this may have been confusing, "I'm a Traverser, you see, so I'm learning the spots on the Slipstream as I travel and, rather than making camp in unfamiliar, unhospitable areas, we just portal back home and sleep in the comfort of our own quarters." A notion occurred to him, which gave him pause.

"I'll need to travel ahead a bit and make sure we have rooms stocked with air. I assume you need air? It wouldn't take but a few minutes to see about that. I'm also an Elementalist."

[Imogen]

"Oh, don't sweat it." Imogen realized immediately that this was, perhaps, the single least correct way to tell a water-dwelling elf not to pay heed to a turn of phrase, "By which I mean to say... I will try to be more precise. And literal."

The witch-lemur listened to Tyrann's following offer with increasing befuddlement, a state of mind she was getting uncomfortably comfortable with in the modern day. He was traveling up the shoreline but traversing back home each night?

She would have called the regimen insane, but that was unfair. It was actually quite sensible, assuming that the traveler was a wealthy prince with the backing of a master Traverser; it simply seemed like an unjustifiable indulgence from her own perspective and circumstances. Perhaps this kind of setup wasn't so uncommon among the lords of great realms. Who could say whether Mr. Talon traveled in similar style?

Anyway, she was certainly not going to turn down the offer to visit some kind of undersea palace. It was going to drive Carina up a wall with jealousy when she told her.

"Air is customary here, but I can manage without. I'm not a particularly adept swimmer..." She supposed she could try travel while holding her staff, sort of a recreation of the trick which had almost gotten the fairy Destyn drowned last year. "...but I think I can work around that, as well."

The Cardinal Rune of Animus was peculiar in function. Imogen was both experienced and quite gifted at its use, but she still found it true that the shapes of certain creatures were easy to learn and master, and others were not. The witch found that mammals and birds came very easily, but fish were especially excruciating. As a result, she had only one aquatic totem, and as she'd intimated it was inappropriate for most travel and especially poorly suited for an underwater settlement or environs.

Still, it shouldn't be that hard to combine the water-breathing aspects of that form with something humanoid. Her ratio of working chimeric shapes wasn't... stellar, but "water-breathing humanoid" struck her as a lot less difficult than the winged horse concept she'd struggled in vain to make work.

(Anyway, she could always fall back on being a skeleton, which did not need to breathe.)

That thought led her to another point, which immediately consumed her. "Yes, I'm sure I can do a water-breathing elf-shape. But... how do you speak, underwater?"