Nobody's Got No Class

[Hadrian]

Hadrian nodded at the word; it was the correct one, and he liked how Montaine had used it, though he said nothing about that for fear of seeming disingenuous. But he did not judge the people around him, verbally or otherwise. His own moral code was almost impossible to articulate, or perhaps it was just that nobody had challenged him to articulate it since a discussion with Professor Nightshade about ethics. But when he noticed Montaine's empty glass, he caught the eye of a server with a fresh tray and forced a smile to bring her over. He just wasn't very good with people, but once Montaine had him speaking about ideas rather than the humdrum frippery of the other guests, he relaxed a bit in his company. "Thank you," he said, when the server handed Montaine another drink, divesting him of the old, empty glass. For a moment he meditated upon his own glass, either half empty or half full. His mother had taught him etiquette, but she had seemed to understand the soul of it, that it was meant not as a list of rules and thou-shalt-nots, but as a thoughtful system to put people at ease and lubricate social encounters, to make every interpersonal interaction as positive as possible. He wondered if his father knew how lucky he had been to marry her. Certainly he seemed grieved at her passing those two years past. "Ah, yes. You deduced it. I am originally from Syliras, and moved here at seventeen to matriculate at the University. Then I traveled for a couple of years, which would explain any odd variations. Sometimes I pick up a certain way of pronouncing a thing... Anyway, I was in Avanthal when the storm hit. Apparently they weren't lying when they told me I had some small amount of Vantha blood. The storm made my eyes paler and colored my hair strangely... "But I can hardly complain. Most people suffered worse for it."

[Montaine]

Monty nodded in thanks at the waiter and looked into his new glass. It was slightly odd to be drinking something that wasn’t tinged with green and smelt, and tasted a fair bit, of sewage as most of the available alcoholic beverages, and most of the water to be honest, in the city were. As the scholar was speaking he took the opportunity to sip from his drink, buying him a little time to formulate an appropriate answer. It hardly seemed fair at all that the petching storm had chosen some for whom it merely changed the hue of their hair and eyes and for others it had ruined lives. It didn’t seem fair, but the storm wasn’t the malignant entity the people seemed to want to make it out to be, there was no dark intelligence behind it. It simply struck at random, destroying or not in as chaotic and haphazard a manner as possible. It must have been disturbing to have yourself altered by it, but the glassworker would have given anything, allowed himself to be changed in anyway, if only what the storm had stolen from him could be returned. ‘We lost a man down on our crew in that storm, an’ a few more besides,’ he frowned and looked towards his shoes, muttering ‘Awful business. A friend o’ mine found a silver linin’ though, ‘cause things are getting’ fixed round this city what hadn’t been fixed for a long time, she says that despite all the deaths, the city can use the destruction to better itself. I see her point, but it still don’t bring back those we lost, does it?’ Monty went quiet. When the garrulous gadgeteer, his friend, had first shared the philosophy, first shared the possibility of a silver lining, he had snapped at her. He understood the point, he did, but he still couldn’t accept that any amount of amelioration in the harbour city would be worth the price paid. ‘Still don’ know what caused that shykestorm. At the time we thought it were jus’ another sea squall come in off the east wind, but the things what it did weren’t no natural weather. Then we started gettin’ news from all over, that it weren’t jus’ us. You’re a scholar man, an’ you’ve been travelling to boot, they been sayin’ anything the rest of us ain’t heard?’

[Hadrian]

"You have my condolences," he said simply. Perhaps it sounded stilted, but he never understood why people said they were sorry for things over which they had no control, or even to be sorry that someone felt badly. He was of the firm belief that people were responsible for their own feelings, but that belief sometimes wavered when faced with the hurt of people about whom he cared. Kendall's silences had begun to ache. "It doesn't bring them back, but the dead would probably wonder at the foolishness of not taking advantage of the silver lining. Life is still difficult, and one has to do what one must to survive." He considered the questions, then urged him over a few steps to where a map of the continent was framed behind protective glass. He pointed at Avanthal, which lit up with an ice-white glow. "I was here when the storm hit, and it came from the south and the west." A vague wave of energy lapped toward Avanthal like the gentlest of tides on the sands of the shore. "The first ship passed over Novallas and docked in Mura." He pointed and Mura lit up with a distinct silvery flare. "Their Visions claimed the terror came from Wind Reach. I even heard a rumor that Ivak climbed out of Mount Skyinarta, but I have no confirmation of that. The storm hit from the west." Another repeating wave moved toward Mura. Next to light up was Nyka, which actually seemed to shift between four colors for the four Celestials. "Much the same from Nyka. And Zeltiva," the heavily embellished part of the map that marked Zeltiva burned with a blue fire now, "from the north and west." Another wave, and he drew perfectly straight lines along each wave's axes, and they all overlapped quite near to Wind Reach. "The map is imperfect, but based on my observation of the damage patterns, I triangulated ... well, quadrangulated the likely source, and it is Wind Reach. The geometry doesn't lie, and I double- and triple-checked my calculations." When he realized people were staring, the magical lights faded to nothing, and there was nary a smudge of fingerprint on the glass. "Um..."

[Montaine]

Monty had startled at the lights as they flared into life on the map. For a tick he thought it was his imagination, or the drink, then it occurred to him that perhaps it was a magical map created by some magicartographer as a gimmick to sell his merchandise to wealthy, wasteful merchants. He looked around and noticed a number of the guests staring as the scholar spoke, including the host. Judging by the expression on the man’s face this was not, generally speaking, what the map usually did. And if others could see the glow then it clearly wasn’t just him hallucinating, unless someone had put something in all of the drinks. The man had said he was a magician, a wizard, a thaumaturge, yet to do such things so casually, so easily was remarkable and a little scary. Mrs Nolty, the elderly woman who lived in the rooms below the glassworker’s modest lodgings, would have had a fit if she had seen such things. Zeltiva was an enlightened place but the public perception of the Djed arts was still sketchy at best, certainly down in the city proper. Up here in the higher classes the merchants rubbed elbows with the academics often enough not to be so phased by such things and yet such flagrant and fancy free use of magic was still something of marked peculiarity. Whatever plans the two had had for staying out of the limelight for the remainder of the party were beginning to look bleaker with every tick of the clock as those that weren’t staring were asking what the others were staring at. Montaine was suddenly very aware that he could slip away quite easily and escape the awkward scene, and the clamouring conversation that would undoubtedly surround the scholar soon after, but just couldn’t bring himself to abandon the sole interesting guest at this petchingly tedious party. He leant over to the scholar, then propped himself up on tiptoes so he was slightly closer to the man’s ear, and whispered, ‘Balcony, give me five chimes,’ He then turned, smiled broadly at the gathered guests, took one step, two steps towards the lady of the house and, with a loud ‘Cheers!’, he jerkily raised a toast, the clumsy upward thrusting of his drink causing the remaining wine to slosh out of the glass and directly towards the hostess’ incredibly expensive looking dress. She squealed, and all eyes were on them.

[Hadrian]

It all happened so quickly. He mumbled something unintelligible, but then Montaine was off making a scene. At least Hadrian reacted in a timely manner, walking through the nearest door and immediately disappearing under a cloak of illusion, pulling his aura back and in so that only an equally masterful aurist might track him by his soul's emanations. He quickly walked back in and out the door leading onto the balcony per Montaine's instructions. He didn't know why he complied, but he did, and then waited in a dark corner, still invisible, for the glassworker to sneak out too. Such strange things, parties. He still wasn't sure he liked them, even though this one had allowed for some good conversation.

[Montaine]

‘Oh! I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!’ Montaine frantically dabbed at the hostess’ dress with a napkin, and turned his accent up a notch to endearingly working class, ‘I’m so sorry, Miss, I ain’t never had good grip in that ‘and since it were burnt somethin’ awful a few years back, never recovered it did, an’ I wasn’t meanin’ to let it ‘appen, an’ I’m so sorry, so sorry!’ The hostess’ eyes flashed wide and her lips curled into a snarl and Monty truly thought for the briefest moment that she was going to hit him. She raised her hand slightly but before it made contact with his face she noticed the collecting crowd and, realising the potential loss of face that would be caused by slapping the charitable, quaintly charming guest from the lower city, she instead lightly pushed him away and forced a smile, ‘Not at all, not at all my dear Mister Redsun, accidents happen after all. And we are all such big fans of the Redsun philosophy, if one can’t give you some leniency in the face of accident, we could hardly consider ourselves proper, could we?’ Monty raised an eyebrow and looked around at the faces of the gathered guests. They were nodding sagely at one another and inclining heads towards the hostess. The glassworker could hardly believe it, his flustered wiping of the woman’s dress slowing in disbelief. She had turned the situation to her advantage, in the fashion of a master manipulator. She was actually garnering kudos for not hitting him, for not angrily demanding reparations. It was nigh unbelievable. The glassworker stood up and looked at his hands, wet with wasted wine, and made a vague excuse to go find some place to clean up, apologising all the while. The hostess was more than glad to see him gone and quick as a flash he was out, the attentions of the party now firmly entrenched around the woman he had left, the woman who actually desired them. Monty slipped out onto the balcony, wiping his hands down his trousers. ‘Mister Aelius? You there?’ he stepped up to the edge of the balcony and looked out at the city. He gasped. He hadn’t had a chance to look properly when he had last slipped away, but the view was magnificent, simply magnificent.

[Hadrian]

"You can call me Hadrian," he said quietly, fading back into view. He had taken up a seat where the thick balustrade met the wall, his feet up and his arms hooked loosely around his knees. Lethlight and the sparkle of Zintila's stars dappled the black surface of the sea with light, and he found his mind projecting many thoughts and ideas onto the darkness, the picturesque view. This evening seemed like such a waste of time save the chance to discourse about things that interested him; he would have to plan a lecture for the following term to expound on those things, then invite learned discussion. But, in any case, he was glad to trade the picaresque for the picturesque. Still, he wondered if he oughtn't have taken that opportunity to slip out of the party entirely. He could find Master Redsun at his place of work at a later date, continue the conversation and view his wares. The orphanage would need sturdy windows, after all.

[Montaine]

‘Hadrian,’ he nodded, the casual offering was unexpected but not unappreciated after the bleak, unbearable formality of party etiquette, ‘Alrigh’, Hadrian.’ Monty turned back to the view. ‘I’ve only ever imagined a view like this, don’t get none where I’m from,’ he smiled but his eyebrows fell contrarily, ‘It’s down there, see? That whole bit up in the north part o’ town, where there ain’t no lights, ‘cause no one can afford candles,’ he sighed and shook his head despondently, ‘Ain’t no one goes in that part o’ town what don’ have to and there ain’t nothin’ there what anyone who don’ live there need. It’s stagnant,’ The glassworker pointed out at the sizeable section of city, cloaked in darkness. The house in which their party was being held, in which the rich and regarded were circulating and negotiating, was, as with most of the wealthier households, located further up the foothills at the base of the Zastoskas so as to avoid the hustle and bustle of the city, and the pervasive odour of fish. Its height afforded it a grand view. ‘Then you move south an’ things get so much better, don’ they? You see the lights all down the Market Road? And then there,’ he nodded westwards, ‘the university, sittin’ squat and proud like some big bloated beast, ah. Not that the school ain’t done a lot for us mind,’ Monty swiftly added with a look to his acquaintance, ‘Without it we’d just be some tiny, backwater fishin’ post. Or not even that, I s’ppose, ‘cause if it weren’t around before the Valterrian, the city wouldn’t have been so strongly built, right? An’ we’d have gone down with the rest o’ the world.’ Montaine paused and his eyes drifted out, past the houses, the streets, the docks and into the bay. Leth was shimmering on the surface of the bay. The sky was clear of clouds tonight and the stars pinpricked the blackness of the sky. ‘You’re a scholar man, you know much about stars?’

[Hadrian]

Hadrian listened to Montaine, let his gaze follow the other man's direction. Urban planning had never been something to which he gave more than passing fancy before; there were always too many other subjects to soak up his time. But his eyes did flicker toward where a sea cave led to a laboratory about which only he knew, and he had hopes to earn title to the land above it in order to build a tower like a proper archmage, and then... Well, that would be a long time in coming, but perhaps Montaine would fashion great lenses for him that he might have a telescope upon the top of the tower, more efficient and powerful than even those belonging to the University. Someday. He felt moved to speak of the orphanage and the plans he had for it, but after their evening and their discussion, he felt it would seem disingenuous. Instead he noticed how the city looked like some system, an ecology or organism from this vantage point. He would have to pay more attention to such things for his tower and for his general knowledge, the which was always synthesized into his work. But Montaine spoke of stars and he looked up. "Some," he admitted. "I only know a little of their mapping, but a few of them hide worlds from which I can summon wonders."

[Montaine]

‘Worlds?’ Montaine’s eyes widened at the prospect. He stared agape at the scholar for a few ticks before he realised quite how gormless the look he was presenting must have been and shut his mouth, turning back to the sky. Other worlds…he could barely believe it, barely conceive it. His world had started so tiny, so very, very small. He had squandered his youth locked away in his father’s home, a prisoner of his own body’s weakness. He had imagine the city beyond his father’s window so many times as a child, the wonders and vast expanse of it. He had dreamed of exploring it, the alleyways and the side streets and the darkness and shadows and undiscovered crannies. He had dreamed of it for so many years that when he finally got out, when he finally got the chance, when his world expanded from the house of his infancy to the city of his adolescence he could feel little but disappointment. The city was still so small. Then he had met his beloved sailor who had told him stories of the world beyond the harbour, beyond the mountains. A world of adventure and so, so many secrets. And he dreamed again, as he had done as a child, but now of oceans and seas and ships and a whole continent to explore. His world had grown but so had his prison. The city was so very small in comparison to the whole world. And now? Now that he was finally on the brink of escape, on the brink of true freedom to explore all that Mizahar had to offer some scholar he barely knew, some man he met trying to escape the tedium of class politics, had shattered it all. There were other worlds. Places still so unreachable, so unattainable. Mizahar was nothing more than another insignificant cage. Another prison. Monty was really starting to regret coming to the party. ‘Other worlds? Are they like ours? With people and rocks and seas, with gods and Djed and things like that?’ he asked, feeling the confidence to look back at the scholar without fear of a return to gormlessness, ‘Have you seen them? Have people gone there?’