"I abhor violence," Laszlo answered defiantly, giving Fia a playfully chiding look. It took a little longer for him to form a meaningful reply. His mind preferred to work slowly, needing time to digest her wandering thoughts. When you lose a thing, all you have left are the ideas of it. Too right, Fia.
He knew what she meant, the likes of her being something like a speck of hardy ash on the surface of a well cut gem. She struggled to feel as though she belonged. It made Laszlo wonder what Denval must have been like. "It's a challenge, being forced to move forward once the familiar has been stripped away. And I agree. Sometimes I think Lhavit is too dazzling." To his night form, where mere starlight could have been enough illumination, parts of the city could be literally too bright to look at.
There was something he'd read in one of the books he'd borrowed from the library. It took a moment to remember the exact wording. "Sublime upon sublime scarcely presents a contrast, and we need a little rest from everything. Even the beautiful."
It seems to know you.
The Ethaefal responded with a gentle smile and a quiet chuckle, without parting his lips or giving an immediate reply.
Sometimes, Laszlo managed to possess an immortal's patience. He was still new, and standing against eternity, he had barely begun, but having confronted death on several occasions had made him see the precious short time that earthly creatures were given. Where most mortals seemed to consider their lives in ten-year increments, his had no marked end. The passing of days would never ebb away at his youth or vitality. At least not on the outside.
It became clear to Laszlo that Fia was not absolutely sure where she was going, but he was in no hurry to push her in the right direction. Whenever she seemed uncertain, he moved absentmindedly toward the Observatory, wordlessly showing her which way to go so she could continue leading him. He was glad to let their pace slow to a meander while she absorbed the new, sparkling features of the Sartu Peak.
"I work for another Ethaefal in the city," he said finally, allowing their conversation to take the same pace as their tour through Lhavit. "He's a prominent alchemist and teacher, and he's very busy. I run messages and packages for him all over the city. I've become familiar with the roads, but there are still places I don't know."
When he was still learning the twists and turns of the city in the sky, Laszlo's first impressions had been darkened by his purpose for coming to this place. Fia was downtrodden by her own tragedies, but she had come with higher hopes and wider eyes. He watched her with a hazy smile, vicariously absorbing her enchantment over delightful things he had overlooked before.
His expression acquired a thoughtful shadow when she asked him about his chosen name. Laszlo looked down.
"There was a little girl I knew in Syliras. She's the one who found me after I washed ashore, and she claimed she saw me fall." Courtney Fenwick. She would have been a few years older by now. Likely her memories of the strange, beautiful horned man she once knew had been soured. Or perhaps she thought the Symenestra she saw had done away with him. "Her pet bird had recently died, and he was called Laszlo. She was convinced I was his reincarnated form. I had no name that I could give her at the time, so that was the one she used for me."
Children of course struggled with the concepts of death and the things that followed. Her puerile attempt to understand the nature and motion of the ukalas had been charmingly obtuse. "I grew fond of it. Suppose I liked the idea that someone had been waiting for me to come back."
Having reached the Sartu's highest tier, Laszlo slowed to a stop, turning his attention to a grand structure nestled here in the canopy of the Misty Peaks. It looked to be made of gleaming marble, catching the sunlight well here at the highest point in the city. Laszlo nodded toward the statue of a woman in at the center of its lushly decorated garden. Her arms were held toward the sky.
"That's Tanroa." If he were more familiar with Fia, he might have touched her shoulder to summon her attention. Respecting the polite distance between them, Laszlo expected his voice and presence to be enough. "I should come to the Temple of Time more often, but lately she and I have had a trying relationship. If you can call it that."
Distracted, Laszlo turned in the spot to briefly glance at the Observatory, which still lied ahead. Making an inward note, he returned the moment. "If you stand here and squint, it looks like she's holding the sun." |