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Center of scholarly knowledge and shipwrighting, Zeltiva is a port city unlike any other in Mizahar. [Lore]
"Hi there,"she said. His eyes snapped open, gray and dark and empty, and stared directly into hers, unblinking. Other than that he made no movement.
"Um... can I- can you, tell me my future?"she managed to stutter. She was obviously nervous. But Anselm was used to that. He had that effect on people.
He let a long pause hang between them before speaking.
"No,"he said firmly in a deep, raspy voice. He let another pause fill the space.
"I do fortune-telling, not future-telling."Other than his empty unblinking eyes and his mouth, he had still not moved a muscle.
"If you want to know your future, you should consult the gods. Not that it will do you any good. On the other hand, if you want see what is in your own soul you have come to the right place."
"Sit,"he ordered waving nonchalantly at the chair."Do you have a particular question you want to ask of me? It is not required, but sometimes it helps."
He continued holding her gaze."It will cost you 5 silver mizas in any case."
SYlkra blinked as the stranger opened his eyes. They looked lost, alone, cold, black. She shuddered. She had never come across someone so.... dark. He waved for her to sit, and she obediently obeyed. He clearly said no. This made her a little bit worried, for several reasons.
Did she anger him? Had she done something wrong? She only just met him! She thought of the 10 words she had said to him, Hi there, Can I- can you, tell me my future?" They were so bland. That couldn't be it. Was it because of her clothes? She looked down at her rags of clothes, and was kind of amused. People didn't really care she wore next to nothing. Then what was it? She fidgeted around in her seat, uncomfortable next to the mysterious stranger.
His next statement answered all her questions. He did Fortune telling, not Future telling. She felt a little more relaxed.
She handed him her 5 silver mizas. They jingled around in her hand, and made this delightful clinking sound.
Question? This was a delight! She could ask him anything in the world. She could know something that she would never find out alone. Well, she did want to know who her masters would be. Thats what every kelvic wanted to know. But he did say no future telling... and that was the future... wait. She had it.
"Can you tell me what I am like? Maybe that's a little too much... just, who I am? I don't know myself too well..." She trailed off, thinking it was getting a bit too personal.
"If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you've done and whoever you were and throw them away."
What am I like? Who am I?Anselm thought to himself.How often have I heard those two questions? Sometimes it seemed to Anselm as though everyone in the world was trying to figure out who they were.Idiots! You are who you are. Don't over think it. Duh!But apparently that wasn't enough for most people.
He took a small cloth bag out from under his cloak, carefully untied it and poured the contents into his right hand. He held his hand open in front of the young woman so she could see what he had. What he had was a set of eighteen tiny bones with intricate designs carved on them. He reached out with his left hand and placed two fingers on the back of her right wrist. Anselm always wore thin cotton gloves so that his customers didn't have to feel his cold dead hands, which he had long ago discovered unsettled most people. He let his mind reach out and touch her aura.O great,he thought despondently.Another Kelvic.He could not tell what kind of Kelvic she was, but Kelvics had a distinctive aural signature and there was no doubt in his mind that she was Kelvic. Anselm did not especially like Kelvics. Their animal nature made them difficult to predict and Anselm preferred predictability.Sometimes it seems like every Kelvic in the world has come to Zeltiva of late,he thought.
“What am I like? Who am I? Let us find out.”He turned his right hand over and let the bones fall on to the table with a clatter. Then he stared at them for a few moments and intoned:
Wind above, submissive. Heaven below, strong. Being strong, yet acting submissively, The submissiveness subdues the strength And strength cannot act on its own.
As he gathered up the bones and put them back in their bag he said,“These are ancient words but not always easy to understand. Do not pass over them too quickly.”Lifeless gray eyes engaged hers again.“May I know your name? And what is your animal form?”
OOC :
The ancient words come from the I Ching, or Book of Changes. See bibliography I used a random number generator to select one.
Last edited by Anselm on June 16th, 2012, 11:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Sylkra was a little disturbed when the stranger touched her wrist. His hands were cold, but still, okay. He took a little bag and opened it, and showed her little bones. She closed her eyes, thinking they were going to do an ancient ritual or something, but when she opened them, he had simply tossed them onto the table with a clatter.
She couldn't tell how he knew what they meant. To her, they looked like bones with little inscriptions on them. To him, they meant so much more. She wondered for a second on how he did it, but the thought soon fizzled when he stated loud and clear:
Wind above, submissive. Heaven below, strong. Being strong, yet acting submissively, The submissiveness subdues the strength And strength cannot act on its own.
What did it mean? She could kind of guess, she was strong, yet shy. And her shyness strengthened her strength. That was it, right? Then he said they were ancient yet hard to understand. She knew what he meant. They certainly were.
The man asked her her name and form, so, obedient little Sylkra gladly said, "I'm Sylkra, a natural born warrior and hunter. I am a wolf at heart."
Thinking about what she said, she added, "Might I ask yours?"
"If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you've done and whoever you were and throw them away."
A wolf Kelvic then,he thought. Not that it really mattered. For that matter her name didn't really matter and he didn't know why he had bothered asking. At the same time, people were like puzzles to be solved, mysteries to be unraveled. After nearly four hundred years observing people, Anselm had come to the conclusion that there are only a few basic motives driving the choices people make. But he found it interesting to try to understand how each of those few motives manifested itself in different people. The challenge was to find the key that would unlock the mystery.
“My name is Anselm,”he said. He put the little bag back under his cloak.“So you are a natural born warrior and hunter. A wolf at heart.”He seemed to consider this thought for a moment.“That would be your strength I suppose.”He scratched absently at a scab that was forming on his left cheek bone. It fell off and disappeared into his cloak somewhere, leaving a black spot behind.“Tell me, my dear. What is your weakness?”
This was always the critical point in the conversation. Either he had found the key or he had not.
by Anselm on April 22nd, 2012, 7:06 pm 
