Closed Dinner with a Corpse [Jayden]

Confused by an apparently abandoned house, Jayden investigates...

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Center of scholarly knowledge and shipwrighting, Zeltiva is a port city unlike any other in Mizahar. [Lore]

Dinner with a Corpse [Jayden]

Postby Erorn on November 11th, 2013, 3:49 am

Erorn
Eleventh of Autumn, 18th bell, 30th chime

It was a day filled with the typical emptiness of endless days. Erorn had not slept that night, or any night for five hundred and thirty years. He didn't often remember how long he'd been alive, but today he remembered it in fine detail. He remembered a lot of things. Evenings like this, when the autumn was losing its ruddy, red confidence and looking forward through time to see the grave, lean harbinger of winter standing tall and smug, bringing with them a deadly cold he couldn't feel, a bitter wind he'd never understand again, a sense of emptiness that was nothing compared to the emptiness he felt... they crushed him. Made him less himself. If being himself was something he was even capable of. The sun had set hours ago. Outside, soldiers beat inconsequentially at doors, held men down in the street, and otherwise enforced their petty trivialisation of martial law. He remembered when he would slaughter men like that wholesale simply for being in a city when he rode through its gates. That was a long time ago, and the world had moved on. "More's the pity," he murmured, and the sudden noise startled him, shaking him out of his reverie. That distant contemplation was the closest he had come to sleep for five hundred years.

Ah, for those days of unbridled, thoughtless war. He knew that his undoing was that he fixated so strongly on these old days of death and destruction that he hated so much, but nothing was quite like them. They were so empty of any threat to him. So free. He shouldn't have ever undergone the ritual. But then again, not a day went by when he didn't think that more earnestly than he thought anything else. Idly, he picked up the bottle, the clay container, filled with arsenic, and looked at it, heard the sloshing of the liquid. He'd opened it today, his last full one, and it felt comfortingly heavy in his hand as he unstopped the wooden cork, its remnants of wax seal still clinging to it, and idly looked around. There was no basin to use, so he'd have to be inventive. They buried their dead in Zeltiva, or so he assumed, and bodies would be hard to come by. Gently, he stood, taking care not to strain any muscles that would never, ever unstrain themselves, and dipped his fingers in the bottle. Without relevant tools, he'd have to just hope the body could hold together until he could find another corpse. As it was, he embalmed himself because the smell invited less attention than corpse-rot, and if his skin held together then his body would hold together a lot better in any case. This was what drove him from day to day. Ritualistic preservation of his body.

The embalming fluid itself, undiluted, would in the end just damage his body, give it a green tinge and a sick arsenic reek that would most likely sicken anyone he actually met. He wasn't interested in meeting people, though, and he was content with his life - if one could call him content. A more appropriate adjective might have been 'empty'. He finished rubbing a fine layer into his face, stood up, stripped off, and ran over his body, even disjointing his left shoulder to reach around behind his back, before getting back into the mouldering but middlingly expensive rags he called clothes and settling back into the chair he had spent the last week in. He never went outside. There was no reason to. He stared at the door, and waited for the embalming fluid to run out, and when that happened he would search for work. And perhaps be run out of town. Such was life.
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Dinner with a Corpse [Jayden]

Postby Jayden Leina on November 12th, 2013, 3:51 am

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The day had been mundane. Bland, sluggish, the air thick with the weighted feelings of indifference. The young mage acquired a day free to her own means, yet no activities had presented themselves to her. She could've trained more in her magics of interest, she could've shut down and drifted into the void of her dreams to catch up on some much needed and barely obtained sleep, or she could've moseyed on over to her grandfather's house for a day of family company and perhaps an in depth discussion of her favorite magic to study, Spiritism. However, the young mage had remained in her cottage, staring lazily off into thin air, mind jumbled, sometimes contemplating, and others, letting go and becoming a blank canvas to paint upon with the coming of the night.

Feelings of redundancy welled deep within Jayden, along with self criticism for having wasted the day as she had. Determined still to accomplish something before turning in to bed for the night, she swiftly left her cottage and began meandering her way down the road, no real destination in mind. She was to see where her feet would take her, and process what she found there whenever she arrived. Adept feet picked their way among the terrain as she walked, head mostly down, long blonde hair hanging freely about her as she proceeded into the night. Tonight was not her first adventure in the shadows of Zeltiva, but she soon found herself upon a road she'd not yet traveled.

Veils of darkness and shadows blanketed the street, and therefore the scenery surrounding it. The mage could see the road before her, and where it stopped on either side, but not much along the sides were visible. She could really only see so long as she was within a few feet of an object. Anything farther away than that was swallowed by the night. A few fence-lines entered and exited her view as she walked, but one in particular piqued the woman's interests. Nearing the gate to one particular house, Jayden found herself in the entrance to an older cottage. The fence was worn, battered by weather and weakened from lack of attention, as were the weeds sprouting from all over, threatening to bury the walkway in a coffin of unsightly flora. Clearly an abandoned home, an opportunity for adventure bestowed itself upon Jayden. Uncertain as to where her interests stemmed from, she decided to further investigate.

She picked her way among the debris of tangled vines and plant life that littered the ground around her, eventually reaching the front door, it too showing signs of neglect. Opening it gently, the mage stepped gingerly inside, worn floorboards creaking beneath her every step of the way. As was to be expected of a neglected dwelling, furnishings and objects lay about, but none showed any signs of use or life. The floorboards eventually ceased their complaints of weight upon them, as Jayden came to another door at the back of the room she'd entered through. It was here that Jayden first felt it.

It wasn't hidden knowledge that magic users seemed to obtain an extra sense regarding their magic. Varying based upon the type of magic involved, magic users could detect when it was nearby, and sometimes exactly where it was located. Slight vibrations filled the air around the mage, first heard echoing through the silence, followed by twinges in the hairs on her skin, and finally confirmed through the gentle placing of her hands on the door before her. A person sat motionless in the next room. Jayden was well aware that 'skilled' was not often the word of choice to describe her Aurist abilities, but she'd obtained enough knowledge to be able to discover when something besides an inanimate object was near her when there hadn't been all night thus far. This aura was weakened though, so faint Jayden was surprised she picked it up at all. Fearing that someone was in trouble, caution was a back-lying thought as she flung open the door before her.

As surprising as it'd been to suddenly feel an aura close by, it was downright shocking to discover just as suddenly where said aura was emanating from. Even more disorienting than this, was what exactly Jayden found on the opposite side of the door. A man sat statuesque in a chair in front of her, at least she thought it was a man. Ocean colored eyes were well adjusted to the darkness, but in such a poorly lighted room, it was hard to make out exactly what she saw sitting before her. He appeared to be a man, but something was amiss about the encounter. There was a strange smell to the room, seemingly coming from the man she now stood staring at, and straining eyes believed they could make out a distorted and unconventional face in the shadows. Her befuddled brain commanded her to speak, to apologize for barging in, for staring, and to explain herself and her actions. Nevertheless, all she could do was stand and stare, in shock, in bewilderment.

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Dinner with a Corpse [Jayden]

Postby Erorn on November 12th, 2013, 12:04 pm

Erorn

It was a fine difference between alone and not alone when company did not make itself obvious, but it was also one that Erorn himself had had years in experience in noticing. The person, whoever they were, had no intention of remaining undetected, but had nonetheless invited themselves into his home and no doubt thought it abandoned. A rustling, then a distant echo of footsteps on ancient, deep-timbred wood as she stepped into the clean, tidy but almost uninhabitably dusty room that he had spent all of the uncounted weeks he'd been here. Mice and rats and other foul things skittered through the dark, hidden places of the house and the house itself groaned with the weight of a new occupant, almost as if complaining at the new contact with unfamiliar feet. Many houses would know their masters, and this one was no different. Not that Erorn could claim to be master of anything in this day and age. No, as he was so fond of telling himself, the world had moved on, and with it the fine footsteps moved into the room and towards the cupboard that he sat in to embalm himself, to save the troubles of an ignorant townsman seeing a naked corpse that was nonetheless moving.

He wondered if the intruder would barge in, thinking the house empty and free to loot, or gingerly enter the tiny room with modesty worn on his sleeve, apologetic to any occupants he might find within. Playing true to his greater fears, however, the stranger simply opened the door, and Erorn saw a silhouette of long, curled, or perhaps river-winding hair, a flash of yellow and an elegant, fine face. His eyes were no better than any other, and considerably worse than most, but he saw for himself that the intruder was no errant looter, but a wench, and one of no small gall to simply enter a house, abandoned or not, unkempt or kept with meticulous care. He simply watched her, as she stared at him, and it occurred to him that she searched for life, not valuables, and thought her search frustrated by his corpselike visage. Perhaps, in another time, he might have been amused. Instead he looked on her in long silence, neither breathing nor feeling the need to breathe, appearing utterly corpselike, wondering if she even knew what a Nuit was.

He couldn't know if she would react violently at a sudden movement, but he had a lungful of inert air that he could easily use to speak, without startling her with rattling breaths, and doubtless she would simply think him mortally wounded and be less disturbed until she learned that the soul in this body was not its native occupant, or even entirely alive. He adjusted to the light of the street outside shining through the open front door of his home, and he saw that she appeared confused. What did she expect of an empty house, with order to it but no occupant? Or perhaps it was his manner of death that confused her - his face was mangled beyond any remnants of beauty, so perhaps it appeared that a wolf had broken into the house somehow and mauled him or some such unlikely occurrence. To all intents and purposes he appeared a corpse, his hands hanging limply from his lap, his legs limp in front of him, stretched out to the door. Finally, he made his decision. It was time for the people of Zeltiva to know that the dead walked among them, or his possessions would be gone within the day. And even without need for worldly possessions, he would rather keep his boots than lose them to looters. The world had gone to rot since the fall of Suvan.

His throat was dry, dusty - his speech to himself was more sub-vocalisation than actual speech, and he was out of practice with working his vocal cords at all. Nonetheless, his voice was clear. "This hamlet must be devoid of responsible mothers, or surely thou wouldst have had the common manner to knock before entering a fellow's home," he whispered, his dry, underused throat expelling a cloud of dust as he ground into apparent life. "Didst thou think this dwelling abandoned, neglected, or didst thou simply think its owner absent?"
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Dinner with a Corpse [Jayden]

Postby Jayden Leina on November 13th, 2013, 7:08 pm

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Wheels spun and gears ground themselves in her brain to decipher the situation at hand. Moments ago she'd just been wandering down a random road, and then had seen and investigated a seemingly abandoned house. All was fine, until she felt the presence of another here. And she'd found who it was coming from. But many things remained unclear. The face staring back at her held no life in it, clouded eyes didn't blink or close, and there were no signs of breathing either. This told her she'd found a corpse. And then it moved. Leaned into the light to allow her a better view, as she took a hesitant step backwards. Her facial features gave way to her thoughts, eyes widening that a corpse was moving. But then, corpses didn't move, so this was something else.

As if her shock and confusion weren't apparent enough, this corpse-like being then spoke to her, dust escaping between black lips as he spoke. His speech was unlike anything Jayden'd ever heard. He spoke like he was from a distant time, a time Jayden couldn't imagine. He sounded old, not only in age, but in intelligence as well. His speech was proper and formal, in a non-proper and informal situation. His face was further visible with his adjusted position, exemplifying the massive laceration and scarring on his cheek. Deep-welled bags sat below his misty eyes. His appearance was unsettling, but Jayden didn't retreat. Didn't bold out the front door, never to return. She instead swallowed her confusion and answered him.

"I... I... Uhm... I'm so very sorry, Sir. I wasn't aware anyone was here. It looked abandoned. I wasn't going to take anything, I swear! I was just curious." She stumbled through her words as her brain attempted to make sense of everything that was happening. Hesitant but determined to know what she'd gotten herself into, she boldly continued. "Sir, you don't owe me anything, but if I might ask, what are..." She trailed off as everything finally clicked in her head. Mentally, she soared back in time, when she first involved herself in learning magic, of any kind, and remembered something she'd read once. When she first chose to study magic, she read about both World Magic and Personal Magic, deciding what interested her. When reading about Animation, the book spoke of Nuits. She'd never read anything else about them or ever came across one, but she believed that's what was happening now. "You're a Nuit, aren't you!"

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Dinner with a Corpse [Jayden]

Postby Erorn on November 17th, 2013, 9:16 pm

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It was a reaction he had seen before, but it was admittedly rare. Most often he got 'undead scum', or for the particularly knowledgeable bigot, 'chained one', straight away, followed by a great degree of forcible escorting to the city limits. Sometimes he had to outrun the angry mob by himself. He looked back levelly and watched the gears grind in her head, the poor, young girl unable to comprehend the concept of a moving corpse. Or perhaps she could, and she was making some kind of miraculous leap of logic to arrive at a non-violent conclusion. Either way, his frail body couldn't last the journey out of this room by any way other than the doorway she was blocking, so he would have to wait. Rheumy, dead eyes regarded her as she eventually arrived at a conclusion that he had met, but never expected. Perhaps he should give the uneducated masses more credit than they were given. Or perhaps there was a school in this particular backwater hamlet. Her eyes widened. His didn't. His face didn't even change; he'd seen it all before.

An intelligence of terrible age, dulled by time and apathy, regarded the woman in front of him with eyes devoid of expectation, judgement, desire or revulsion. Erorn looked at her, unmoved, and thoroughly bored. His extensive experience with women had taken place within the space of twenty years, five hundred years ago, and since then he had grown so far apart from the concept of the human form that it didn't occur to him to estimate her age, or appraise her form, or any other immediate reaction of a red-blooded male. His blood was not red; it was dust in his veins, cold and grey. He raised a hand at her stammering words, and when she didn't stop, simply waited for her to finish. He had all the time in the world to bandy idle words. "Aye, I am," he replied, without any evidence of surprise. Really, he didn't care if she knew. "Though I find it mildly disturbing that anyone can meet a corpse in motion and not immediately attack. Thine survival instincts meet with question, wench, and I must look askance. If thou came into a strange house, with thine curiosity intact, then why didst thou not prepare to defend yourself? I may well be a cannibal, or a murderer, or some similar evil inflicted on this town. Many of the gods teach that I am unnatural, my existence an affront to life." He just watched. She might leave, she might not. In any case, he would certainly outlast this temporary, intruding nuisance.
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Dinner with a Corpse [Jayden]

Postby Jayden Leina on November 20th, 2013, 12:47 am

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The young mage stood there as he answered her, delighting in the age in his words. He wasn't just some random Nuit she'd stumbled upon. He was a very old one, her interest peaking even further. Oh, the things she could learn from him! From what she could gather of his age from the way he talked, he was deeply moralistic, or at least aware of them, but he also showed absolutely no emotion of any kind, which she also contributed to his age. She really didn't know too much about Nuits though, only a little that she'd read when being introduced to magic. He went on to admit a reaction to her, disturbed that she was obliviously inquisitive and either ignoring her instincts, or was without them all together. When he questioned her of this, she shrugged, tucking her long hair behind her ears and out of her face.

"I admit that at first, I was simply far too stunned to react in any way, much less attack you, or flee. I truly hadn't expected to come across anyone, or anything, in this house, and to open the door to find you sitting there staring back at me, was a tad frightening. Not because you yourself look particularly threatening, but because of the pure shock factor of finding you there. And then you spoke to me. As a normal human being would. It took me a moment to figure out why, but one I did so, all inclinations of fear, or fighting, vanished. If you were a cannibal or murderer, you would likely have attacked by now. All the moments I spent standing here, stunned and frozen, were ample enough opportunity for you to subdue me. Instead, you made conversation."

She paused, taking a step towards the doorway, only to lean against it's frame. "I know most are disgusted by you, but I'm the opposite. I'm fascinated. I don't know much about Nuits. Only what little I read when I was introduced into magic." She stood there a moment longer, watching him. He clearly cared not for her existence, and she was probably unwelcome more than anything. However, he'd made no move to throw her out or ask her to leave. "My name is Jayden, by the way." She added, nodding. She wondered how long she could keep him talking to her, how long he'd put up with her and maybe let her study him, or learn anything from him. She only had to find a way.

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Dinner with a Corpse [Jayden]

Postby Erorn on November 28th, 2013, 10:15 pm

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Erorn raised a brow, a movement that was appreciably difficult to pull off with a face that was frozen in rigor mortis. He'd spent the first day after embalming this corpse from the ruins of his old one just loosening his hands and arms, and after that it had been another day of bringing his legs, core and face out of the frozen state of utter death. He smacked his lips, slow and unhurried, in an utterly pointless movement that served no purpose other than to turn his lips into something other than rigid, unmanageable slabs of meat. He hadn't moved his face in any small length of time, apart from odd sub-vocalised thoughts escaping from between his rotting lips. "Strange..." he murmured, inaudibly, "...But not unheard of..." She was unafraid - in fact, fascinated by him, as if he was some strange, fantastical creature. Which, of course, he was, but the fact that that surprised people never failed to surprise him. He lived with himself everyday, he supposed, and the strange aspect of being undead had become blasé in ages forgotten by the scholars of this time. Now he simply sighed, and moved on, doing without vocal chords or skin or a leg for a few days until he happened across a new body and could perform the ritual anew. He lived with the reduced feeling, the lack of emotion, the crushing boredom of infinite ages in the same way as other people deal with their own lives - he soldiered on, and never asked himself why lest he not find and answer. She was so casual. So naive. But then again, she was staggeringly logical.

"The logic to thou is cold, but thou thinseself seem excited. A scholar, then, and a young one. I'm afraid, however, that thou'st found nothing new in mineself - my kind have been on this earth for far longer than I have. We are extensively documented and many people are seeking to make us understood," he whispered from between cracked, parchment-dry lips, the embalming fluid already producing a feeling of calm stillness on and in his flesh where before he could feel the proverbial maggots crawling. He had to remember to move around more often. "Thou art far too matter-of-fact to be careful. Thou reek'st of the kind of person who would knowingly walk into a trap, and be humiliated when it had the audacity to spring," he continued. "There is nothing for thou here but death and bitter frustration. No sustenance, no knowledge, no stimulation, only a budding obsession into a subject that it is most likely beyond thou to understand. Nuits are complex, and precious few of our own know our own inner workings as it is." Somehow, she expected to be made special in his mind. How sad. "The young such as thineself expect the world to be made theirs because thine own story is told by thou, and thou feelst entitled to a happy ending. But be assured, before thou beginst thine grand plan of futility, I have not been moved by an appeal to reason or humanity in a mortal age. It makes no difference to me whether thou seek my end or pursue my continuation - I care for neither."

But she just stood there, looking at him. There was such persistence in one so young that it was scarcely believable that she would not persist at all. But she would be gone in a time so short that Erorn would scarcely notice it, and then he would be alone again. It was never clear to him whether this was a relief or a sadness, but nonetheless it happened and so the point was moot. Bodies wore out and died, and he lived forever. He outlived the great ones, the loved ones, the forgotten masses. He was older than the vast majority of people alive on Mizahar, and this upstart would be dead long before he was. But then, magic... Magic was something he'd never had a grasp on, one of the few things that in all his time on Mizahar had always been alien to him. "A conjurer, then?" He appeared to consider the implications of that for a moment, but really he just didn't feel the need to speak very fast, and he was simply pausing. "...Magic has been alien to me for a long time. I never understand how anyone can have any grasp on it." He would only encourage her, but then he didn't care if she felt encouraged. She would still inevitably die.
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Dinner with a Corpse [Jayden]

Postby Jayden Leina on December 2nd, 2013, 5:33 pm

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He eventually answered her, moving slow and replying just as sluggishly. Jayden wondered for a moment if this was because he had to do so, or if he just wanted to. She wanted to know as much about him as he would allow. She wanted to know about his kind, but even more so, she wanted to know him personally. He implied again his age, and Jayden drew the conclusion from as much that he was a capsule full of experiences and knowledge. How many different lives had he lived? How tormenting had it been to live on forever when all around him died off? Where was he when the Djed storms struck? What was it like to see their world shift and change and evolve beneath his feet as he remained the same throughout? She could go on for days with all she wanted to know from him. She knew however, she needed to get him to at least consider keeping her around in order to do all this learning she daydreamed of from him. But she was only in her twenties, from a current times... What could she possibly have to offer him that he hadn't already been through and obtained for himself over his many years?

He explained to her how she appeared to him, his observations at first coming off a bit offensive, until the young mage realized he was right. She was naive and foolish, and she would receive the short end of that stick when it came down to it. All he did was make one observation about her, and she was already learning from him. How exciting! She smiled to herself in thought, uncaring of whether she actually smiled on the outside as well. He then went on to explain that Nuits were complex and probably beyond her comprehension, and that she'd be wasting her time here. Jayden was unsure at first if he was just warning her, or this was his dismissal of her, put in more proper terms. She waited a moment, continuing to stare at him as he stared back blankly at her, and when he continued on still, she deduced that he was not throwing her out of his home. Not yet at least.

Her comment about magic had seemed to grab his attention. He looked as though he was considering the thought of it for a moment, and from there he informed her that magic was a subject he'd never understood. That's when the idea hit her. An exchange that would keep the two of them together for at least a little while. She of course couldn't guarantee that it would work, but it was worth a shot to her. It was difficult for her to let go of something once it intrigued her. When she became curious about something or desired something, it was near impossible for her to ignore it and walk away. This was both a blessing and a curse for the young woman, but it was who she was, and she'd learned to live with it over the years instead of fighting against it. Folding slender legs beneath her, Jayden gently slid down the frame of the door she'd been leaning against, and positioned herself on the floor in front of the Nuit. "Alien to you, you say? Would you like to learn more about it? I could teach you what I know of it, I'm no expert mind you, but I get on just fine, if you'd let me study you and learn about Nuits from you?"

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Dinner with a Corpse [Jayden]

Postby Erorn on December 8th, 2013, 11:14 am

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Erorn did not feel a need nor a desire to blink as he sized up this impulsive child. He'd dealt with her kind before, and turned them away at most turns. Perhaps he was in an indulgent humour on that day, or perhaps his apathy grew beyond even his ken, but he had not sent her from his home yet. She seemed quite willing to comply if he were to tell her to. It was rare and unusual that he meet someone so well-mannered at such an age. So many were convinced of their own immortality, and unable to listen to him when he told them that immortality was nothing to enjoy casually. Time turned the most vital and commonplace man into a blasé, jaded freak. He shifted his weight and physically felt his muscles creak a little. He had no desire to entertain her any further than he had already and yet he was somehow held back from sending her away by the knowledge that he could spend the rest of his life doing nothing in peace. She had only her life to render whatever pathetic store of knowledge she could from him. He had the rest of eternity to find what he was looking for, whatever that was. In this conversation of long silences, he sat in long silence, looking her up and down with eyes that grated in their sockets.

At last, he spoke. "If thou wouldst learn anything of me, thou wouldst learn of events lost to history and largely to my memory. I can tell thou very little of scholarly value." He spoke slowly, as if every sentence he spoke carried great weight and import. He paused for great lengths, eking out meaning and coherence into a grand sea of time laid before him. Perhaps a living thing on the mundane plane was as inappreciative of the passage of time as Erorn, but it would be a closely-contested title. "Consider thineself blessed, however. That much I grant to a single soul, perhaps, every decade. Perhaps details of my singular life are written into the library I was told existed here. That is, if that place still stands - I was told of its existence a hundred years ago, and I have noticed a theme in my lifetime of things never lasting beyond the age of the beings that gave them creation." He bit his own tongue as he was speaking, not hard enough to injure or debilitate but enough to feel it, distantly. A look of distaste crossed his features, which almost physically cracked under the unexpected movement. He felt an awakening coming upon himself. He'd moved more in this encounter than he had on most occasions in the last several decades.

There was another long silence. "Thou must understand that my life has been long, and to tell thou any part of it would be to tell thou of a mortal lifetime. I could perhaps fill your mortal lifetime by summarising it in a tenth of the time that I have been." He gently stretched his muscles, and the effect was exactly that of a corpse wrenching into sudden life. He pulled a new lungful of air into his atrophied lungs, and the sound was as of a man dying. "I am not a new thing, Jayden of no house, and parts of my story may already be known to history, but I will still tell the entirety of it, and the telling may take years that I have to spare, and thou dost not. So long as thou enterest into this knowing that the parting of our ways may lead to the frustration of thine studies, I will entertain thine pursuit of the scholarly arts. I do not know how long the entire story shall take, but I will spare no detail. In return, thou art bound to show me a new thing every time you enter my house. Do we have an accord?"
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