Legend of Ransera

Posted: **Mon Jan 11, 2021 1:11 am**

5 Ash 120

”Curse this cold.”

Faine shook their head and stomped their feet like a dog, sending specks of ice flying everywhere. They had run through the first pair of open gates they saw and found temporary respite under the small awning of what appeared to be a shop. All around them, the flurry of snow fell in sheets of white with no sign of relenting.

On the first day of Final Solstice, the Fae had begun their long held tradition of seasonal transformation. Piles of wood had already been cut and stacked, food stores replenished, boots oiled. Glamouring was the final step, as it always left them easier to tire. With the hearth blazing merrily and every window barred shut, they had lain themselves on their bed, taking great pains to slow their metabolism and condense their body so that heat could be conserved. It was not until the next morning that the process was completed, and as a final touch they had shorn everything below the tips of their ears.

Now, blades of moss-green hair fell just past their eyes, the freedom from branches and berries weighing down their head both celebrated and missed.

And yet...somehow, in spite of all that preparation, the cold still bit and cut as it pleased.

For a moment, Faine contemplated going back out. There were, after all, few things they hated more than wasted time. But no sooner had they taken a step forward than a blast of particularly nasty wind smack them square in the face, covering them in snow.

The Fae sighed in resignation. Turning to face the door, they tried the handle and, relieved to find it unlocked, stepped wearily into the shop.

As soon as the door shut behind them, a sense of calm washed over their chilled form. Snow began melting into driblets, though Faine paid them no mind, focused as they were on absorbing the warm and dimly lit room. A foyer of sorts, if they were to guess. The wood floors were smooth and clean, the curtains appealing in their plushness. Somewhere beyond the waiting room they could hear a fire crackling merrily. It made them remember all the times they and Mother had joined with traveling caravans, jolted about in rickety old wagons as they were shown all the little ways one's fortunes could be told. Stars, tea leaves, lines on palms. How fascinating all of it had been.

Of course, the quiet, earthbound shop made for a very different sort of environment. It lent the air within it a sort of weight, of seriousness. Not unlike, Faine realized distantly, the heavy silence of their mountain home. Many of the fauna had gone to sleep, leaving mostly rocks and trees to keep the hermit company.

Faine craned their neck to look for whoever was in charge, but saw no one. Not wanting to seem like a loiterer, dripping a small puddle onto the floor as they were, they cleared their throat and sent a muted "Hello?" into the stillness.

Common ❀Valasren

Posted: **Sun Jan 17, 2021 5:14 pm**

Nikaia had not been expecting anyone to show up with the weather like this. Most people stayed inside, not making leisure trips to a fortune teller's shop while the snowfall refused to cease and the winds coated every surface with frost. In fact, Nikaia wasn't even downstairs when she heard the door open. It was a heavy, solid door, and she'd found she didn't even need a bell to know when someone had come to see her - the slam of its weight against the rest of the building was loud enough. The winds assisted, and it felt like the whole building shook from their combined force.

The half-Orkhan promptly lept out of her cozy bed and began to get ready. She had just woken up from a nap, comfortable and warm from the smaller fireplace crackling away in her bedroom. She tended to that fire so that it may not attempt to burn down the building while she was downstairs and got dressed, her outfit far more practical than her profession usually suggested. She liked it better that way - not that she didn't own any extravagant clothing, she did - but the fortune teller liked to look more practical than mystical. She thought it lent a bit of seriousness to her, and in turn, allowed others to believe just a bit more in her fortune-telling skills than they would otherwise. She was no master like her grandmother or even her mother, but she still felt that she did good work. She just wanted others to feel the same.

A few minutes later, after she brushed her hair and made her bed, Nikaia was downstairs and pushing aside the curtain. "Are you here to get your fortune read, or just to escape from the cold?" She asked the new arrival, and held open the curtain for them to come in just the same. Even if they didn't want their fortune read, Nikaia would let them in to sit by the fire. It was far too blustery to just kick them out, and she didn't expect much in the way of more customers.

"How'd you end up here in this weather?" She'd ask once they came inside the curtains, which revealed a room much larger than the small waiting room suggested. Soft rugs covered the floor, a large fireplace crackled merrily, and various paintings and decorations covered the walls. Nikaia would briefly go upstairs and return with a towel so they could dry off from the melted snow.

Posted: **Mon Jan 18, 2021 6:33 pm**

The sound of footsteps drew Faine’s attention above, someone clearly having been caught unawares. Chagrinned, the Fae waited patiently, doing their best to keep the growing puddle beneath them from spreading too far.

When the shopkeeper emerged at last, arms parting the curtain wide as an invitation, Faine could not help but stare a little. There were so many details to take in—long white hair, lavender eyes, the trademark skin and tusks of an Orkhan—that it took the soggy Fae a moment to process it all. Fortune tellers, in their experience at least, tended to either be shriveled and sagelike or sashaying all over the place, leaving a trail of incensed mystery in their wake. It was a first for them to meet such a singularly unique soothsayer.

Faine glanced up and gave a sheepish grin as they passed through the curtain. “Both, now that I’ve troubled you into hosting me, on top of having dampened a good portion of your carpet.”

To their further embarrassment, their words must have triggered even more hospitality, as the shopkeeper went back up the stairs and returned promptly with a towel for her guest. “Thank you, truly,” Faine accepted with relief, grateful to be able to hide behind the towel as they dried off the rest of the wet.

Hair—and leaves—fluffing drier by the minute, the Fae felt infinitely more at ease.

“I came here to ah...sell some of my wares, perhaps pick up a new client or two,” they replied once they were done, draping the damp towel over an empty chair to dry by the fire. It felt a little strange, speaking so much after weeks spent in isolation, but they pressed on, determined to reacquaint themselves with civilization. “I am a perfumist by trade, though I pick up the odd job now and then.”

A flurry of snow rushed past the windows, rattling them ever so slightly. “Only five days in, and already Lady Frost is proving herself more brutal than her predecessors,” Faine noted as they took a moment to drink in their surroundings, appreciating the comforting sights, textures, and smells. Meeting their hostess’s gaze once more, they smiled in earnest. “You have built for yourself a very pleasant home. I hope to make mine the same, but I must survive this merciless season first.”

“That being said,” the Fae continued, pulling out their small pouch of coins, “I think a glimpse into my future would be a worthy investment. Though you’ll have to forgive me, I’ve been...away for some time and may need reminding how this all works.”

Common ❀Valasren

Posted: **Wed Feb 03, 2021 5:09 am**

Nikaia nodded along to the Fae's story. A newcomer to Kalzasi, with a voice noticeably strained from...traveling alone, perhaps? The half-Orkhan rolled up her sleeves, the swirling tattoos from her Semblance rune peeking out around her elbows. As they talked to her, she focused her aether into probing their emotional state. Their aura flashed brilliantly around them, and through the jagged shapes was she able to determine that they were cold and embarrassed, with relief flooding through the edges by the moment. The half-Siltori blinked the vibrant lavender glow from her eyes - evidence that she was using magic as well as evidence that she was not full Orkhan, if the tattoos were any other hint. The Fae's aura disappeared from view.

"First...I am Nikaia. What sort of fortune do you seek? I deal in love and business, primarily, but not exclusively. Today, I can show you your fortune in the stars, in the cards, in your palms, and in your aura." She paused, noting the bluster and cold from outside. "But I won't charge you to simply drink a cup of tea." As the Fae pondered her decision, Nikaia went off to put hot water over the fire, and to retrieve her necessary materials.

"Please, make yourself comfortable." She called out to the Fae as she rifled through her small library. She pulled out a small book with a marked 'a-ha!' and set it on the table just as the water screamed to tell everyone in a mile radius that it was, indeed, boiled. Nikaia took a thick rag to carry the hot kettle to the table, where she set it on another, even thicker cloth and began to prepare the actual teapot. She carefully measured the tea leaves into a small strainer that would hang inside the ceramic pot and poured the hot water inside to steep. She had an entirely different mixture of tea leaves for doing tea readings, but the purpose of the herbs and spices here were to warm up your insides. It even smelled warm.

The book, seemingly abandoned on the same table from the urgency at which the half-Orkhan prepared the tea, was titled, in Common, "A Traveler's Guide to Kalzasi". It was well worn, with many dog-eared pages. Nikaia, despite being native to the city, had read it many times. It helped her profession to know your city inside and out.

"This may help you." She said simply, pushing the book towards the Fae. She didn't yet take a seat at the table, instead heading to her cabinet to get whatever she needed to do the reading that they had requested.

Posted: **Wed Feb 10, 2021 7:42 pm**

Faine watched, intrigued, as the soothsayer's eyes seemed to glow for a moment. Unfamiliar as they were with magic, their best guess was that she had used some form it, Kalzasi being rife with it as it was. It was not until Nikaia introduced herself and the kinds of fortunes she told that the Fae finally caught onto what kind of magic had just occurred. Aura reading...they had only heard of its practice and seen it from afar, never up close and personal. Perhaps today was they day that would change.

It took a while for them to decide on what kind of reading they desired. Across the room, the fortune-teller bustled, first locating a book and dropping it on the table before she whisked herself away again to quiet a whistling kettle. Faine leaned forward to peer at the book cover, one eyebrow raised in curiosity.

It was simply titled: A Traveler's Guide to Kalzasi.

They wondered, truly wondered, then what it was they wanted—or needed—too know. There was not much the Fae yearned for in life. The few things they did want, they were clear on. They had no business aspirations other than to survive Frost's brutal promises, no ambition other than to see the sun rise on the morrow, no person or place they were truly tied to. There was only one person they missed, and that person was gone. Mother's body had long since returned to the earth from whence it came. All that was left of her were a couple trinkets and a lifetime of memories.

Thinking about her brought on an old pain that Faine could not seem to escape, no matter what they did. It was true, that the two of them had spent nearly every waking second together. But there were not enough seconds in the world to make the emptiness in her place less dark. It was worse than nothing. It was alive, grabbing at any little pleasures to come along, threatening to gobble them all up like a hungry void.

Of all things, it was the spiced scent of warm, inviting tea leaves that drew the perfumist back to their cozy surroundings. They watched with undisguised eagerness as Nikaia the Soothsayer steeped the delicious smelling tea, the swirl of hot water growing more and more tinted.

"I am most grateful," Faine responded earnestly when the book was pushed toward them. Not that it was surprising, but the fortune teller was quite observant and thoughtful, making them wonder if they truly looked as lost as they felt. "This is just the thing I needed, everything here is constantly surprising me. It will be good to be prepared for once."

A moment of thought later, they added, "I have decided, I think, on what kind of reading I would like."

It was difficult, at first, pushing out the words, but they managed after a few tries. "I...lost someone very close to me, not too long ago. She was my mother, my teacher, my dearest friend. Her passing was as peaceful as death could be, as her time had simply come. But...I am afraid...that is, I lay awake many nights now, wondering if the emptiness I feel is...normal."

Faine exhaled, unaware that they had even been holding so much breath in. "I am not so foolish as to seek a fortune of love. I have made my peace with living alone and have no plans to change that. But I would like to know if this feeling of not feeling will ever go away. If I will ever be able to feel warm again, the way I did with my mother. If that makes any sense at all." A pause, then, "I suppose I will have to leave the method of this reading to the expert. If I am to be honest, I barely know what it is I am seeking, let alone how to find it."

Common ❀Valasren

Legend of Ransera

Stars, Cards, and Palms [Nikaia]

Stars, Cards, and Palms [Nikaia]

Re: Stars, Cards, and Palms [Nikaia]

Re: Stars, Cards, and Palms [Nikaia]

Re: Stars, Cards, and Palms [Nikaia]

Re: Stars, Cards, and Palms [Nikaia]