[Pavi Lake] Madness at the edge of death (Leo pls)

[Malia]

Sympathy for Leo was increasing when hearing his answer. But fire? Malia didn’t possess any fond memories about fire. Neither did she need it to keep herself warm nor had she been chased away by torches – not yet, fortunately.

Still she listened to his story with interest. Ceramic … she knew about its beauty, even possessed a few pieces herself. Ordinary quality, of course, designed to be practical. What Leo spoke of didn’t seem to be anything more, but through the words Malia could see pictures, bits of his memory coming alive. Although she hated to disturb his monologue, she couldn’t hold back. “I’d appreciate to see one of those pieces one day. Pieces made from people I know … must be a different experience.”

Then she stayed silent, remembering that there were many other things she intended to ask. Often sticking to the topic proved to be the better choice, though. With that thought in mind she raised her eyebrows in amusement. A Nuit and swimming?! How well she remembered the lessons her Master had told her again and again!

“Certainly not”, she replied determinedly. “I don’t like water too, but neither do I prefer fire. It is as dangerous as the depths of this lake and of no advantage for me. So, what does it give you?” Emotionless black eyes penetrated the young human, although a hint of lively, energetic sparkles could be discovered deep down. She just sensed that there was something odd about him. Unnatural heat under his cool surface … brushing over her cold skin, although a wall of air still separated them. How would it feel if she touched him?

No, she pushed that thought away. Stranger, he was still a stranger from that big city. With hidden curiosity Malia awaited his answer.

[Leo Varniak]

"Possibly. A revealing one, at the very least, if you are keen on discovering someone's reflection in their work." Malia's choice of words did not match any patterns he had come to establish for girls her age... admittedly, not a company Leo kept very frequently, but still he had eyes to see and ears to hear. She was... unconcerned, that was the best word he could find. Not just detached, for Leo was detached from individual people and yet very much concerned with the world as a whole. Malia sat there, looking like she did not really need a past or future, or an elsewhere. Even the gods were more involved.

His answer to her question was firm; he did not hesitate for an instant. "Life. Fire gives me life. It did once, literally. It saved my life when I was younger, and then several times since. Without fire, today Mizahar would have my bones in a bundle." He gave the shade of a grin. "But more than that, fire is a tool to me. It is the tool by which I change the world. I am not content with just watching and thinking. After I have seen and thought, I feel the need to act."

He wondered if Malia would understand, or at least listen without prejudice. Her countenance so far was quite promising, and Leo allowed himself to be optimistic about it. He had very little to lose from it. "Fire sculpts the face of the world, and so do I within the limits of my abilities. Once you have seen enough of what life has to offer, it is only natural for people to want to do their part. You know, in this world there are makers, keepers and destroyers. All serve a purpose, and it doesn't matter which one you are, as long as you are true to yourself."

"There's no shame in being a destroyer," he said, matter-of-factly and fully convinced of it. "Once something is beyond the point of no return, its only salvation lies in destruction. There are quite a few people who deserve this fate by all reasonable accounts and standards; I just make sure it reaches them on schedule." That was probably the most eloquent wording he had ever come up with. Usually, he gave people the short version - I burn bad people.

[Malia]

She blinked at his reply. Why would someone not be interested in the opponent if they were already having a talk? And a talk like that even! But, well, if he didn’t want to elaborate on that topic, she wouldn’t either.

Instead she listened to his beginning speech about fire. Life … life? His words revealed that he possessed a special connection to that element. She herself had always seen fire as a tool for destruction, never productive because it had destroyed what she had valued most. On the one hand, her mind screamed that she couldn’t trust a man who spoke of fire like that. His words almost sounded like organized madness.

On the other hand, she sensed that there was something more about his story. Just like fire had destroyed the community with Malia’s Master, it had saved Leo’s life. As he said, every person was maker, keeper or destroyer. Malia immediately identified with the keeper’s task – having endless time at hand to conserve history she had lived herself. Perhaps it was true that Mizahar needed all three types, even destroyers.

Perhaps the Valterrian had been necessary too. Who knew?

Eventually she nodded, still hesitating to accept his explanation. What about the future? Her eyes, strangely sparkling with energy, were fixed at his. “What you say sounds reasonable. But what are you going to do if one day Mizahar doesn’t need destroyers anymore? What if society has developed a way to avoid that ‘point of no return’? Konti have already managed as much.”

[Leo Varniak]

The human found her reply somewhat strange, but quite insightful. It did tell a lot about Malia, as most people would not think of such philosophical objections. It was as if the girl could not only imagine a future eons from now, but imagine herself in it, as well. The distant future had never bothered Leo to any great extent, but it seemed to concern Malia. "Well, we are in the realm of speculation now," he mused, "but I doubt such a time will ever come. And if it will, it won't be in my lifetime and it probably won't last long. Life and history teach us that the moment we reach our peak, is also the moment we start to decline."

"This world is rotten," Leo stated forcefully, with a total conviction in what he was saying, "but at the same time wonderful. There is no greater pleasure than to burn off the festering skin to reveal the gold underneath. Perfection does not belong to a person, race or society. Everyone is responsible for contributing a little, be it by building something good or destroying what is flawed. This is what I was born for. And this is most likely what I will die for, one day."

"Normally, I wouldn't tell you all these things," Leo's eyes narrowed a little, scrutinizing the girl as he spoke, "but you give off an unusual feeling. It's as if you will listen to anything... you will listen and think and think and think endlessly. You won't judge, though, not the way I do. I judge all the time... I judged that I could tell you this without you running away or calling me names. Neither of us fits the world's definition of 'normal'. Now you know what makes me abnormal... all I have left to do is figure out what makes you abnormal."

His eyes betrayed his curiosity. He knew there was a secret about Malia, and he suspected it was a secret worth discovering. Now it was just a matter of exposing it.

[Malia]

Ah, that answer was to be expected … somehow. Perhaps Malia had hoped that Leo, despite of the fact that he was still human, would have similar thoughts about the future. He seemed so eager to shape it, to remove the ugly and cherish the beautiful that existed in Mizahar, but then he still didn’t concern himself with what might be afterwards. It was so human, that attitude. And Malia who was a bit surprised didn’t find words for a reply.

She wasn’t required to anyway, since Leo kept talking. Oh, she was quite content with that. His thoughts were so interesting, so … different from everything she had heard before. Perhaps all followers of Ivak had that twisted mindset, but then she couldn’t really compare him to another one. Burning down what was rotten to reveal gold … His words circulated in her mind as if it was too slow to follow immediately. Something about that sounded wrong, although of course everything was subjective. Malia blamed it on the fact that he was a destroyer and she was an observer, two totally different tasks and personalities. So she didn’t argument what he revealed to her, but rather memorized it as a part of him. She certainly wasn’t arrogant enough to attempt changing other people because she didn’t agree with them. Perhaps her opponent was, but she preferred to remain in the shadows and watch.

Which led to the next topic they were just approaching. Her secrets. If she had been asked, she wouldn’t have called her interior a ‘secret’, but apparently it gave other people that impression. Perhaps because they still belonged to the world of the living, to the world of dying and not living the consequences of their and their surroundings’ decisions. She didn’t really mind anyway, instead she found it quite amusing – sometimes.

However, everything he had said about her was true, very much true. Unsurprisingly, he had read her mind just as she had read his all the time. She was impressed by his ability to decipher people’s intentions, although it only suited what he had said about himself earlier. He was the judge. And she … she was amused and trying to get even more out of that little play. The only visible sign of that amusement was her sparkling, dark eyes though. “I’m sure that a few bits of information would tell you enough about me. Firstly: According to your theory, I am an observer, perhaps more than most people might assume. Secondly: Just like you, I was given a powerful divine ability to support me at my task.” Pausing, she let the information sink in. It wasn’t much, but she trusted Leo’s extraordinary talent enough to foresee the conclusions he would draw.

“Now tell me what you think.”

[Leo Varniak]

So she wanted to play a game. Leo could play that game, for all that he looked too somber to possibly entertain the thought. A hunter at heart - a predator of all things evil - chasing a target, whether to unravel it physically or mentally, came natural to him. He could play Malia's game all right. He squinted unconsciously, taking in her appearance carefully. She had what the world called beauty, he guessed, for all that he did not take too much interest in such matters. It was a static beauty, though, closer to a doll's than a young woman's. It was the beauty one could see in a painting or sculpture, captured in eternity and ever unchanging. Its stillness was both the appeal and the curse.

"That is not much information to go by," he commented, more to himself than to Malia, "but plenty enough to draw some conclusions nevertheless." He enumerated his findings on his fingers, one by one, methodically. "One. Despite your appearance, you are older than me. Probably much older. I inferred that from the nature of your questions. You speak of a very distant future as if it was a future you were going to see with your own eyes. People my age do not reason that way."

"Two. It follows from One that you are not human, not in the same way I am human, anyways. I do not know enough about non-humans to make an educated guess as to what you really are, but there is a barrier between us. A barrier of race, certainly, but it goes deeper than that. Three. When you look at me, you see a point in the ocean of time, a speck of dust in the greater scheme of things. Four. You listen to me and even humor me because of Three. You would not bat an eyelid if I were saying the contrary of what I did throughout our exchange. As you say, you are an observer… an eye and an ear."

"Five. You are not totally sincere to me… perhaps not even to yourself."

That was quite sudden. Leo's finger tapped the pinky finger of his other hand. "I do not know what kind of observer you are, though I would have to think it was one of the more scholarly gods… Tanroa, Eyris, maybe Gnora. But you are more than just an observer, for there is no use to an eye without a hand. You have a slightly more selfish purpose, something you must do for yourself. We all do as long as we exist. I can sense that you are not entirely removed from this world, though you may wish you were."

"Any more and I will have to become a Konti to answer," he concluded with the shadow of a smile.

[Malia]

Malia listened as she always did, although perhaps with more interest than before. Everyone liked to hear other opinions about themselves, and Malia certainly was no exception, although she probably was as far away from ‘everyone’ as Leo himself was with his destroyer drive and his odd beliefs.

Her eyes were switching back and forth between his fingers and his face, trying to see any potential emotional reaction that would reveal itself on his features. Of course, she had a hard time doing so. Nevertheless the conclusions he drew were amazingly detailed and accurate. He noticed things she didn’t. In fact, that was the first time when she seriously pictured him as a Nuit. In some way their nature would suit him, but maybe there was something Malia had missed. He was human, after all. It couldn’t be, could it?

When he guessed that she wasn’t human there wasn’t much surprise. With every passing century it became more difficult to suppress what time had shaped her into. It was both a gift and a curse; that much was sure, although Malia liked to think that she had chosen the light side. There was no doubt that he would have immediately recognized her race if he only had been better informed about such things.

The third point startled her a bit. But yes, he was right, absolutely right! Although he looked unassuming, there was only a thin line between extraordinary thoughts and extraordinary actions. Actions that changed the environment. Perhaps she had seen too much ordinary people who were content with the little world they lived in – to her it was obvious that Leo was made for bigger things. And she would love to see what those things turned out to be which matched his fourth point.

She felt the urge to raise her eyebrows to the fifth, but didn’t, maintaining her façade as if it was something of importance for her. Some kind of constant test maybe. Not totally sincere … Not even Malia herself could be sure if she had been conscious about that by then. Leo seemed to point out that there was something she was missing. Perhaps he referred to the fact that she was playing a human, hiding in the guise of a mortal, but she thought that that couldn’t be all. “Can you elaborate on that?”, she whispered with her usual emotionless voice, before even noticing that the words rolled off her tongue. And then, of course, it was too late.

After the last point had been spoken, she nodded. She would have returned his fleeting smile, but she didn’t feel like it. You may wish you were … The curse of vengeance. It burned inside herself like a small, steady flame, neither taking advantage of her nor disappearing entirely. Yes, it was only natural, as Leo had said. But there was something about that simple fact that annoyed Malia. It shouldn’t be. She had drawn a picture of how to be and then she had ignored it. No good. After all, she still was a perfectionist.

So, as always, the opponent was a mirror of oneself, and Leo was an excellent and exceptional one. Malia had to face the result of her silly little game. After a short pause of silence she decided to avoid a direct comment and instead replied: “What I am is called a Nuit. We can live forever if we change bodies every once and a while. In fact I’m old enough to be your great-grandmother, but there are still older ones. Individuals born around the Valterrian or before. I haven’t met them, but I know that they exist.” There she paused, letting the information sink in and at the same time gathering her thoughts. “It seems that time is one of the key factors in my life. Yes, there is something I have to do which I suppose is something you can relate to. Compared to you, however, I have a small eternity to plan and prepare.” She paused again, studying Leo’s appearance as if calmly judging him. She did not – not really. “There is a ritual that transforms mortal beings into Nuit. If you were like me, there would be something that remains”, she said slowly, emphasizing the ‘remains’ part.

[Leo Varniak]

"I can't elaborate on a gut feeling. That's why it's called a gut feeling. Like indigestion, they come unannounced and you just wait for them to go away."

Leo had correctly guessed that Malia was hiding things from him, but the revelation that she was not even a living creature took him by surprise. He'd never met one of the undead before, and he had always assumed any such encounter would be immediately hostile. "I see." Two words, and then he went silent for a little while, the wheels of thought spinning wildly. Leo Varniak was quick to elaborate information, but sometimes slow to respond to it.

"I've never met my great-grandmother, so as a philosopher of science I cannot even rule out that you are my actual great-grandmother until proven otherwise," he shrugged after a while. Leo liked to argue points as his nature commanded, even in the presence of far grander topics to be faced. His hound instinct thoroughly piqued, the Azenth trained his eyes on Malia with the additional insight of the newfound knowledge. There were so many questions a man could ask of such a creature; it was a rare opportunity indeed. In a way, he already had received an answer, that is, no matter how long you existed, there were always problems without a solution. Centuries of thinking had done Malia little good in answering the basic questions of reality.

He laced his fingers together. Her condition did not imply evil per se, though it could certainly be used to that end. "Do you remember what you looked like when you were alive? Were you human? Are you even a 'she'?" It was perhaps not a question Malia got very often if at all, but Leo was trying to picture her the way she was originally. He was bypassing her Nuit shell entirely, trying to reconstruct her deepest and truest self. As usual, digging for the root to work his way backwards from there. He also noted how she carefully avoided the word 'undead'. He could see why, to be honest. The word was unlikely to win anyone a lot of favor.

"The problem with your setup is that you can't really understand what it feels like until you've tried it, and by that time it's too late to go back if you don't like it," he noted with a half-smile. "This, however, explains the mechanics of you, but not the dynamics. Which is the most interesting part by far. Knowing what magic fuels your every step on this world is useful, yes, but knowing what forces drive you to take that step is so much more important." Being a Nuit was not really what made Malia interesting in Leo's eyes. Every monster out there could make a claim to the unusual and the bizarre, but only few creatures had enough layers worth unraveling, and she was among them.

"So, would you turn me into one of these… Nuit if I asked you and said 'please' and 'thank you'? Would that make you my mistress or something?" He leaned forward, issuing the psychological challenge of the question. Such questions were sources of invaluable profiling as far as moral and ethical values were involved. That and Leo was enjoying baiting Malia out of her comfort zone with unexpected lines.

[Malia]

Malia nodded, mildly disappointed, albeit not showing it.

After the initial phase of shock she reconsidered what this human’s judgment had revealed about herself. While being overwhelmed by melancholy, nostalgia even, one couldn’t think straight. That was a matter of fact. Even Malia couldn’t avoid being surprised. Mizahar was all but entirely known to her. Secrets lurked around every corner. She considered this encounter to be one of those: a box of secrets that was labeled ‘Leo Varniak’ and had now been opened to reveal sparkling jewels inside. In fact, the more she talked to him, the more she realized that his words could be used to her advantage. By thinking about why she wasn’t sincere to herself and what she could do about it she could fight that particular weakness. Perhaps Tanroa or someone, something else had arranged for Leo Varniak and her to meet. Unknowingly, he should help her in her journey.

However, she also saw how he himself could be valuable as an ally. Ivak was a powerful god, although much of his power was locked away – the fact that he managed to gather young and useful followers around him was proof enough. Malia had actually never considered gaining other Gods as her allies. She was dedicated to Tanroa with all her heart – then why bother to get the attention of a God if mortals were enough to fight mortals? Undead enough to fight undead? Even humans were clever and skilled enough to defeat Nuit.

Anyway, she hadn’t come far enough down the way of gaining Leo Varniak’s sympathy. He was hard to read; he might also be hard to charm. Not that Malia intended to literally charm him or anyone else for that matter … She was just on a serious quest for allies. People who could support her. We’ll see, was the conclusion once more.

She had been distant for quite a while and was afraid to have missed his response. The echo, however, seemed to still linger in the air between them, the fresh and crystal-clear air around Pavi Lake. The shortness of his comment about the Nuit amused her. Suddenly she felt amused by many things. Obviously Leo hadn’t encountered many Nuit in his short life which she could use as a tool. What for? That would be discovered in the future, certainly.

Her eyes sparkled, making the faint blue color in them obvious for a second. Someone who actually asked about the Nuit! Rare those Seekers of dubious knowledge were. Folding white arms in front of her torso, Malia readily gave answers: “I remember my appearance and all those physical things I’ve relived my past about half a season ago. I was human. I never tried a male body before … although I’ll most likely try one out in the future. Not being limited to gender or even race can be useful, don’t you think so?” Blinking, her gaze met his. In fact, just now Malia wondered if he considered the option of her doing any harm to his soul. Or did he consider himself well armed?

Oh, it was a game, in so many ways. Malia’s thoughts were properly kept at bay, although an invisible part of her hoped that they could continue this exceptional conversation forever.

What he concluded then sounded most reasonable. Simply listening and not showing any emotional response in her body language, Malia waited. However, the last remark … actually made her smile. A thin and distant smile, but a smile nevertheless. Amusing, as she had discovered earlier, but that was a whole new dimension. Suddenly she remembered that she had been quite fond of the art of teasing others when still being alive. So she leaned forward while her eyes narrowed. “I would even do that without you being polite. For free.” A meaningful pause developed before she moved to the actual question “Physically no Nuit is dependent on another one. But of course an extraordinary connection develops if two beings spend time together. There are things young Nuit have to learn, but have difficulty finding out themselves.”

Leaning back, she considered saying more. At least to herself, however, the reasons for turning him into a Nuit were obvious, all too obvious. And even the fact that she couldn’t help but add one last thing proved that. “Most likely a genius trapped in eternity.”