Starting over

[Orryn]

Day of Spring 82, 512AV - Southern Trading Post

Orryn took a breath of relief as he stepped off of the trade ship and onto the solid ground of Ravok. He looked up the hill, to a large grey tower. The large structure, imposing as it was, seemed to welcome him. It conjured, in his mind, images of a trained patrol force and that was a welcome change from the cold, dangerous (and quite lonely) streets of Sunberth. The tower, in its own way, reminded him of better days in Zeltiva. His mind traveled back to safe days when his family lived among the shadows of the great university towers.

Orryn had left Sunberth in an undignified haste. There was no doubt that as an unimposing stranger, in a city such as Sunberth, he wouldn't last the full 8 hours of darkness. Determined as he was, to figure out just what exactly had happened back there, he knew that he would have to survive in order to investigate.

He had tapped into his skills of camouflage and impersonation in order to stowaway on the transport ship to Ravok. Unfortunately, he hadn't planned much further than this moment. He stood, now, in a city that he had never before laid eyes upon. He knew, literally, no other living person... anywhere... let alone within Ravok.

The only skills that he had ever learned were those necessary to survive in Sunberth. Beyond an accumulation of academic knowledge, he didn't really have any basis to form an honest living. He wasn't sure, yet, where his livelihood in Ravok would come from.

But these were questions for later. For now, he had no real choice other than to make his way to the city proper.

[Ciel Galen]

The Southern Trading Post meant something to the people of Ravok. To most people, it was nothing more than the entry point of visitors into the city, and the location of the Bazaar. To others, it might have been a place to get their first look at the slaves that would soon be up for auction. To others still, it was a place where they could purchase passage onto other ships and leave Ravok for Sunberth, or Zeltiva, or whatever gods-forsaken place they wished to go.

To Ciel, the huge imposing gray tower marked a boundary, a boundary that should never be crossed.

He made it a point to not linger by the Trading Post more than was necessary. He visited the Bazaar occasionally, searching for herbs or other medicinal supplies that might not have made it into the city, but he was very carefully not to stare longingly at the ships, or study the crowd as if he was looking for a familiar face. The last thing he wanted was for the damn Ebonstryfe to think he was looking for his sister, or thinking about skipping town and meeting up with her.

He hadn't confirmed whether or not they actually cared what he did. For all he knew, that business with his mother and with his sister was a footnote, and they had forgotten all about him. But Ciel was nothing if not paranoid, so he acted as if they were. He still had one sister left, after all, and because Zephyr couldn't be bothered taking her along for the ride when she disappeared into the night, she needed looking after.

He was there today to purchase some fresh fruit. It was a bit of an expense, but Faye liked them, and he did occasionally like to treat her. And as cautious as he was, he tried to make it down to the docks when he could, because he did keep an eye out for Zephyr. He was just smart enough to not let anyone know about it.

Feeling rather pleased with his intelligence, Ciel studied the crowd, idly taking a bite out of one of the apples he had bought. He wasn't here often enough that this would look suspicious, and he was entitled to enjoy a fruit while people-watching if he wanted to. The usual crowd made their way into the city--merchants who had finally gotten their permit, hollow-eyed despondent slaves, citizens of Ravok returning from a trip, sailors heading down to the nearest watering hole, and so on and so forth. A few bore the marks of a hard voyage--the slaves in particular looked like they might need medical attention, not like anyone would care. His eyes passed over one slave's injuries, cataloging them with about as much feeling as he would have used to write his grocery list.

Bruised jaw, walks with a limp--possibly a sprain, thin from malnourishment, chafing around the wrists and ankles from chains... He took another bite out of his apple.

Boring, he determined. Next.

Next turned out to be slightly more interesting. Benshira. Short. In his twenties. Not a slave. He bit into the apple with a crunch, chewing quietly as he studied the man.

Now what in the name of the gods was one of Yahal's fanatics doing in Ravok? Ciel waited as the man passed him, and then decided that the easiest way would simply be to ask. He spoke up, a smirk on his face as he leaned against a couple of stacked crates.

"You're a long way from home," he commented.

[Orryn]

The question caused Orryn to come to an abrupt stop. Frankly, he was just happy that, for the first time in nearly a day, someone had actually spoken to him. He pulled the hood off of his head and allowed it to hang over his shoulders. He turned toward the voice and saw the human leaning against some nearby crates.

Orryn immediately noticed how much more height, this human possessed, over his small form. Strangely, Orryn was not put at unease by the stranger's presence. Maybe, now out of Sunberth, he overestimated his degree of safety. Maybe the cause was unacknowledged feelings of acute loneliness. Whatever the reason, Orryn felt mildly comfortable, despite the human's inquisitive eyes and analytical facial expression.

Responding to the question, he managed to muster a smile, empty as it may have been. Orryn wanted to engage this stranger. He wanted to be approachable and warm. However, after the week that had led up to this point, there was a limit to how sociable he could truly be in his mannerisms. For this reason, his smile was honest and genuine. It was also, in its own way, joyless and weary.

At first, he was able to converse normally.

"Eons away..." he replied with a biting wit about his tone.

After saying it aloud, the thought came to him with a new sense of gravity. He hadn't, until that moment, until having to vocally express it, had the time to really consider that he had lost anyone. His voice didn't crack and his lip didn't quiver. He didn't break down and weep, nor did a single tear appear from his eye. Yet, for a moment his eyes betrayed the sudden and disturbing thought. They briefly displayed the flash of surprise and panic of one who had just entered into great danger.

"But what about you?" Orryn asked, trying to regain a functional sense of stoicism. "Why take any interest in an alien with no money, family, status or employment? Do you usually come down to the docks to meet with the city's greatest vagabonds, slaves and beggers?"

After asking the question, Orryn took a few steps closer to the human and the nearby fruit stand. Beyond wanting to clear the way of busy shoppers and dock patrons, Orryn wanted to talk quietly.

[Ciel Galen]

Ciel's eyes remained fixed on the Benshira's face as he spoke, the smirk still on his lips. He continued his analysis of the man. It was a sort of game he played with himself, to see how many things about the man he could observe in the few moments they spoke, and what he could learn about him from them.

Weariness, relief, exhaustion, the marks of a long journey... he mentally listed as the man confirmed he was away from home. And then a rapid change occurred. Fear, panic, possibly from realizing he's conversing with a total stranger in the so-called city of evil. For some reason, the thought that this man might see him as a villain only made his smirk grow wider. He wasn't, of course, but this was so much fun.

It showed that Orryn had some small amount of self-awareness about him at least. With his height and exotic coloring, he could easily fetch a good price at the slave market. And it was possible that some of the others at the docks thought the same thing as well. Ciel's eyes drifted towards one of the slavers, his green eyes suddenly growing cold as he met the man's eyes. The slaver reluctantly looked away, leading his train of slaves over to the market.

Orryn might have had a slight modicum of intelligence about him. That made him worth protecting from the slavers, if only for a time. Only complete imbeciles should be put on the market. There were too few people around worth talking to for one to be lost. The change in his expression was slight, barely noticeable, and Ciel's eyes shifted back to Orryn. He shrugged, casually tossing the apple core over one shoulder. It landed in the lake behind him with a satisfying plop.

"Only the interesting ones," he admitted, his eyes fixing on Orryn again. He grinned. "Dark skin and crystalline eyes, indicative of the nomadic peoples of the desert. A people fiercely devoted to--almost fanatical--about their god Yahal. Said god is also a patron of the Syliran Knights, and they are firmly in Rhysol's bad books, and this is Ravok, the city where Rhysol reigns supreme and his enforcers would be more than happy to see you tied up at the slave market with a price over your head. They might even look the other way if someone were to try something right about now. So...it does begs the question, what are you doing here?"

[Orryn]

"Yahal?" Orryn smirked. "Ya know, you might know more about Yahal than I do." My father never spoke of Yahal or any of the pantheon. My parents chose to leave Yaheba but there was no tearful goodbye. He found worship of a distant pantheon to be too frivolous while there were pressing scientific, philosophical and logical matters to consider. He raised us accordingly, with no true knowledge of our ancestral theology."

Orryn kind of smirked in a way that didn't truly succeed at real smirking. His expression only revealed spite and frustration instead of this wit he was trying to fake.

"It's funny, eh?" He looked up, for the first time, intently at Ciel. "Maybe that's the reason that I am in this mess. Maybe its all some twisted 'trial' from Yahal. Maybe it's some grandiose gesture to 'bring me back to the wise path...' or something."

His words were more biting than he intended but he didn't care anymore. He now had a moment to think about everything that had happened it wasn't serving him well. He couldn't fight his tone or mannerisms, they were his own: those of someone who had just experienced a great loss.

"But let's get to your question. I had to get out of Sunberth. I wasn't going to last there so sneaking onto a trade ship was the quickest way out. Little did I know I'd end up in the mecca of Rhysol. Still, I have no allegiance to the enemies of Rhysol so I take no issue with playing by the rules of the Ebonstryfe."

Orryn looked back up at Ciel. This time, not as intently, but in more of a stern, decisive stare.

"Now I know what you're thinking." He began. "No, I'm not a criminal. I fled Sunberth because I am not one. I didn't fit in. When I was still part of a family, we had the luxury of disappearing into the crowds of the city. Sure, what little we had was occasionally stolen. All kinds of "tax collectors" came by. It was a ragged life, but it was a life nonetheless and we all hoped it would be temporary."

Orryn paused. He silently thought for a moment before speaking again. "There was a great fire, a fire that consumed my old neighborhood. It wiped everything clean. With an unremarkable residence and a few boring rags for clothing I could roam, unnoticed, throughout the entire city. However, with no standing house...well there we no welcoming doors to be opened for me. Moving to some other part of the city would have drawn to much attention to an alien with no connections, I had to move on."

Orryn stood up straighter now. He began to flash an analytical gleam of his own. "But we've been standing and talking, here, like two old friends. We may well know everything about each other but, perhaps, our names. And so you pique my curiosity with your sudden interest in an anonymous Benshira...What is it that you want to gain from myself or from this line of conversation?"

[Ciel Galen]

Ciel listened as Orryn spoke, picking apart his story. A smile of recognition appeared on the young human's face as Orryn spoke about his father seeking science and knowledge. In a way, it was a mirror of the smirk on Orryn's face, except in Ciel's mind it was much more witty and much less spiteful. His own father had never revealed why he had brought the family to Ravok in the first place, and had taken his secrets with him to his grave. But he often suspected it was for much the same reasons.

"Ah, well, who can know the mind of the gods," he said, his voice laced with the slightest amount of sarcasm. He straightened up, getting up from against the crates and facing Orryn. The young doctor slipped his hands into his pockets casually, his eyes fixed on Orryn as the other man told his story. He tried to tell whether or not the man was telling the truth, but he was having a hard time telling.

It was all quite dramatic, really. Ciel hoped the man didn't ask for his own life story in return, because he certainly didn't intend to oblige. "You have nothing to fear from our patron Rhysol," said Ciel, flashing Orryn a grin that actually looked genuine. Oh, he could act the part of a devotee quite cleanly. It was a lie he told so often he almost believed it.

There were a million clever lies Ciel could have used to answer Orryn's questions at the end. They would have been well-crafted things, words carefully arranged in a manner that was as articulate as it was false. He had a feeling that Orryn would be expecting that after their brief conversation. So, Ciel decided to teach Orryn the first thing about himself.

He couldn't be predicted.

He rolled his shoulders in a simple shrug. "I'm petching bored," he said simply.

[Orryn]

"The gods are, at best, distant and, at worst, unsympathetic," Orryn responded. "Actually, I fear more from your fellow humans than from your fellow devotees. In Sunberth, we were able to find ghetto for most of the non-human residents. Out of sight and out of mind, we were able to live away from the slavers and most of the violent crime. I am not incredibly concerned about the worshipers of Rhysol. I'm more concerned about the pretentious and often elitist humans."

Orryn didn't understand the ways of religious factions. The flip side of never learning anything about Yahal was never learning about the enemies of Yahal or his Benshira followers. Afterall, Kalehm never had anticipated moving his family into the city of the Ebonstryfe and the Black Sun.

What Orryn, did, however understand (and quite deeply) was prejudice and exclusion. He knew that the humans of Sylira cared for their own and little else. More than anything else, this was the danger on his mind. He was most concerned by an unwelcoming culture and the cracks through which no one would care if Orryn fell.

When Orryn heard Ciel's answer, he smiled. It was the most wry of his smiles but it was also the most genuine. It was a smile through which the greatest about of true amusement poured forth.

"Oh yeah?" Just looking to pass the days away by hearing a few good yarns down by the Dock?" Orryn sarcastically laughed. Even if it was true, Orryn knew it wasn't the truth.. Still, after hearing it, Orryn didn't feel slighted in any way. He knew, as well as anyone, that if you had a story worth telling, you didn't tell it cheaply.

"Well, if you want a task, how about you point me in the direction of a welcoming door. Is there such a neighborhood in Ravok? Is there anywhere for a Benshira to go, undisturbed, about his business?"

Concern and worry were both present with Orryn's mind. He hadn't even yet started down the path of trusting this unknown stranger. Still, being in the city with an non-threatening stranger was better than being an anonymous alien. Orryn would be weary. If he grew suspicious, he would react to it appropriately. For now, Orryn was just trying to find his way around town.

[Ciel Galen]

Your fellow humans... noted Ciel, with some slight amusement, looking Orryn over. So he considers himself a breed apart. He considered telling Orryn that the Benshira were a subrace of humans, meaning that the both of them were biologically the same race, but he decided against it. In a sense, he wasn't wrong. The Benshira's crystalline eyes did set them apart as a distinct people group.

When Orryn questioned his story, Ciel lifted the bag in his hand, showing him that he hadn't come to the docks to idly pass his time. 'Well, if you really must know, I came down here to do some shopping as well," he said, shrugging. He liked to people watch. It was a harmless hobby.

A gleam of amusement appeared in his eyes when Orryn asked about a welcoming door. Ah, here it was. He had been waiting for the usual stigma of Ravokians being completely evil. It seemed to be a common theme among visitors, because of Rhysol's reputation in the outside world. In reality, Ravok could be a lovely place to live...on the surface. Orryn was from Sunberth, so he knew danger, but the dangers in Ravok were a little more...insidious.

"Keep your head down and follow the rules, and you should be fine," he said. "I recommend the Center for Employment and Business Licensing if you need work, and the Nitrozian Housing Commission for housing. Tarsin's Boarding House specializes in housing for visitors..." He frowned, looking over at Orryn when he realized how much information he was giving. "You might want to take this down," he commented. It might have been easier for Ciel to make Orryn a list, but that didn't cross his mind.

"But...if you're looking for a welcoming door for a few hours, I suppose you could have dinner with my sister and me."

[Orryn]

Maybe it was because Orryn didn't want to have to deal with the fact that he was alone. Perhaps it was just a poor error in his judgment, born from his exhaustion and hunger. For whatever reason, Orryn wanted to have dinner with this stranger. He wanted, so badly to sit down and to have a meal! He wanted to have extended, friendly conversation with someone! Anyone!

"I want to thank you," Orryn began, "for showing me a kindness beyond what a nameless stranger should deserve. I certainly appreciate the amount of time that you have donated to me but you'll have to forgive my caution. I haven't yet had the luxury of exploring this city. I don't have a level of comfort, here, that I feel is very sufficient."

This conversation was getting to be too much for the mentally exhausted Benshira. There were too many conflicting thoughts racing through his mind. Outside, he was having a cordial conversation with a citizen of Ravok. On the inside, he was hosting a large number of conflicting thoughts and opinions. None of them, yet, truly winning over the other.

"For now, I am going to follow your directions. I need to find shelter, I need to secure some kind of income. I hope you enjoy the rest of your morning..." Orryn paused for a moment. He screwed his face up into a look of confusion that had clearly amused him. This comical realization has distracted him, momentarily, from the otherwise tumultuous confusion within his head.

"And while we've reached these pleasantries, what is your name, anyway?" He asked.

"I am Orryn and it has been a rather enjoyable encounter to have met you here," he admitted while extending a hand.

"I would ask that you tell me where I might be able to find you after I have settled in and perhaps have become more useful, as a knowledgeable citizen, to you."