Solo putting down roots.

[Caelum]

Beloved, Though the Bright-Eyed Mariner was home to the first hand to fish me free of the waters and I sailed with her crew for the better part of my dawn age, it was never my home. For all Nel's efforts and the wishes on me wasted by Captain Rezar, I found comfort but not belonging. Theirs was a life of cheerful inequity, not vicious yet still quite mercenary, but I think I could have been at home with them. If I had wanted to. If I had tried. My mind is malleable. I believe change is more often evolution than degeneration and that changing one's mind is a sign of a constant thinker rather than a weak will. I would rather seek and learn than stay and stagnate. That, ultimately, is what drove me from the sea for the second time. My head was a hornet's nest. I hummed with the vibrations of a hundred unanswered questions and gave no thought to making a home. I was too busy trying to find a way back to my old one. My true home. The Goldenlands. Your table, sweet Syna, and your smile. I wonder if you were as surprised as I when Lillis crawled her way into my arms and brought with her the motivation I required to stop, to stay a while, and go about the business of putting down roots.

[Caelum]

Timestamp: 80 Summer 514 AV The administrator at Riverfall's Housing Office studied Caelum with dark eyed reserve, but his brother Malin quickly stepped in to fill the rising silence with casual chatter. The Akalak brothers had been patrons of Alements and clients of Caelum's since he had opened the business last spring. They were well known and popular among Riverfall's citizenry and often were willing to tackle the more problematic entanglements of employment and housing desperation as brought to them at the end of Alement's marble topped bar. They were less strict and more relaxed than when on duty. Insolong as Caelum kept their wine glass filled, Malin and Malix were typically amenable to assisting whatever shy and anxious stray the ethaefal steered their way. They liked to assure everyone in Riverfall was useful to the city and gainfully employed, and Caelum had an uncanny knack for knowing just exactly where someone might fit. It was a primary example of the healthy symbiosis that Caelum attempted to maintain with many of his fellow citizens. "Yes," Malin continued. "There is real estate directly above your tavern, Caelum. But it's a residence and recently vacated by the widow Treza'lyn. She's gone to live with her sister's family while she considers accepting a Talvis. If she does this, she might wish to return to her former apartments, Caelum, and I'm sure whoever is lucky enough to receive her favor would support that choice." "She doesn't want to come back," Caelum replied firmly. It was with an air of certainty and he placed the key-request form on the desk between them. His expression gentled. "I know Treza'lyn. She's devastated, and she thinks that maybe the gift of a new child in her belly and then in her arms will help heal the grief in her. But what she doesn't want is to do all of this in the home she was so happy in before." "But it's already paid for," Malix cut in. He aimed right at the heart of the business matter and leaned his muscled frame back in his chair. It creaked comfortably. "Mulac paid the apartment off years ago and left it to Treza'lyn, Caelum. It would save Treza'lyn's new Talvis a considerable amount of money if she chose to live there." "Instead of having to foot the bill for her new home, wheresoever that may be," Caelum concluded. A voluntary nakivak was not expected to provide for her own housing, regardless of her financial situation. It would cause people to look poorly on a Talvis who expected his surrogate to use her own monies to maintain her upkeep. However, it was different if the nakivak simply wished to remain in a home already possessed and paid for. Caelum gave a small nod, golden eyes lowering thoughtfully. His mouth thinned and he tucked his fingers into the pockets of low slung riding leathers. Malvin and Malix were silent. Finally, Caelum said, "How about you give me the key. I go look at the apartment. If I want to buy it, and Treza'lyn wants to sell it, she and I make our arrangements. If she decides to move forward with a Talvis, I will purchase a different apartment of her choosing and rent the space to her Talvis at an extreme discount." Malix sighed. "And just how do you think that will look?" "To who?" Caelum offered a close lipped smile. "Treza'lyn does not want to live in her old home. Not now. Not ever again. She shouldn't be forced to in order to save either the reputation or the purse of a man who wishes to father her children." "It's not that we don't agree with you --" "Nobody has to know." Caelum cut in. "Not even her Talvis. Eventually, he will come looking for a key and rates of a place for Treza'lyn. You tell him about the new apartment. Treza'lyn will love it. It will be fantastically cheap. He'll speak of his good fortune and nothing else." Malin rubbed his hands up his face and back into dark hair. His mouth twisted one way and then the other as the brothers considered. It was Malix, the more stoic of the two, who surprisingly smiled at last. He reached into a drawer and removed a neatly labeled key from a maze of files and dropped it into Caelum's waiting hand. "I'll start looking for that second apartment." "You're a good guy, Malix." The smile Caelum shot them was impossibly warm and he pocketed the key with a nod. "I'll be back later. Morning, Malin." He turned about on his heel to duck out into the sunlight, satisfied with this first step toward solution with an intricate collection of needs.

[Caelum]

It was at the end of a dark afternoon that we came into the shop. A storm had grumbled its way off the ocean to simmer through Zeltiva's Old Quarter, scattering rain over the day's slowing egress. Lillis drummed the flats of her hands against the door while I eyed the sky, glowering at it with what was then a typical degree of love and lost certainty. We must have been a sight, she and I, dampened and broken heeled creatures that belonged anywhere but there between her Lily and scales and my Ukalas-bred form. Knowing how fast the night was falling and how badly I wanted to be off the street when the change came over me, Lillis just banged and banged on the door. You would have thought it would have been angry and desperate, but instead it was laughing and sweet. Let us in! Are you home? Let us in! She mostly sang, causing all manner of looks to be cast our way by passersby. I wanted to go. I told her the owner must not be at home and I wanted to leave, to get out, maybe to find a new city entirely. Those were difficult, anxious days inside of me. But Lillis just rolled her eyes and grabbed the lapel of my jacket, holding on in wordless reminder of my promise not to leave her, and kept banging on that door. There really was no where else to go. We were fresh from the wilderness, worn down with tragedy and exhausted by our travels. I needed to make her feel safe again, and looking back I think she needed the same for me. Sunberth would never survive us. That much we'd already determined. And I could not ever think of a city as walled as Syliras as a sanctuary. Cyphrus and Mura were strictly off limits by mutual agreement. This was new. This was a rebirth. This was our life and what lives we had lived before were not allowed to have bearing here. Everywhere else was just too far away, or just exactly out of reach. --- "Did you get it?" Elise asked when Caelum returned to Alements. The young woman turned from where she was arranging flowers in a collection of pitchers and bottles on the bar. They would be some of the last summer centerpieces. "Got it," Caelum nodded. He patted his pocket and offered her a smile. "Do you want to come up and see it with me?" Elise hesitated, dark blue eyes lingering on her employer and friend's face. She had spent the happiest seasons of her life since he had lifted her out of the black of Rattling Chains last winter, and she had followed him around through every day of it. She knew and understood Caelum far better than he realized. "No." She brushed her hands through the air, playfully shooing him along. "You go on. I'll look at it if you decide you want to buy it. I want to finish these up anyway." "Alright," he agreed. The door was tucked at the end of a short hall. The hall entrance began off to the side of Caelum's kitchen and led as well to the six bed infirmary. Since he and Elise, with the considerable help of Kavala, Cadra and Larik, had designed and set up Alements this door had been locked. He knew it led up to Treza'lyn's residence and in short order he had the pleasure of meeting the widow. She became a regular, and he a fast friend. It was at her urging that he unlocked the door now and made his way up the wide stone steps to the second floor. A smooth railing graced the stone and he trailed his fingers along it on his way toward the sunlight visible at the top. A small open foyer was at the top of the steps with a cushioned beneath tucked beneath a wide window. A corridor ran down the length, covered in a long, narrow rug the color of the plains, all comfortably faded greens and greys and blues. Caelum looked on this with some surprise, not having expected furnishings to still be present; but he supposed that it made sense for Treza'lyn to have left some things behind. He went first to the left and found a trio of doors -- one on either side of the corridor and one at the end. Behind the first door was what appeared to be an office and crafts room, most of the space cleared but some of the furniture and window treatments left behind. The second door held a parlor and the third housed a simple but clean, functional privy. His mind mulling over details, Caelum made his way back down the hall to pass the stairwell and walk into the other half. The first door he opened on this end revealed a small kitchen to his dismay. He did not need a kitchen, not when he had a large, fully stocked kitchen belowstairs. Yet as he studied the drainage system for the sinks and the coal shoot, an idea occurred to him. With a little money and some skilled laborers, this room could be turned into a rather luxurious bathing chamber. The remaining doors revealed three bedrooms -- two standard and one that was obviously meant to be the master bedroom. It was this last that Caelum paced through, taking in the four poster bed and the comfortable furniture. He walked right to the window and came to a halt, a hand rising to the glass. It was warm from the day and beyond it was a view of Plunge Pool Bay. He lowered his eyes from the water to the windowsill and rubbed his fingers along the wood, remembering.

[Caelum]

The Zeltivan flat we accepted on the owner Zephyr's terms without complaint. It came as-is, brimming with the debris of a lifetime, and the first handful of days were spent simply cleaning it out. It had belonged to Zephyr's aunt who, Lillis and I swiftly learned, had been somewhat of an occultist and historian in addition to being a hoarder. Zephyr himself lived on the third floor, our flat had the second floor, and the ground level was occupied by the book and antiquities shop Zephyr had run with wife for the past forty years. The deal -- brokered over rain-laden boots and steaming, herbal tea -- was that if we agreed to clean out and organize the flat's contents, separating out those things that might be suitable for sale in the shop, then we had the place at a hefty discount in rent. Lillis was hoping that Zephyr might consider hiring her to help out in his shop as well, an arrangement that ultimately came to pass in a backwards way; but in the meantime, I was aiming straight for the University of Zeltiva, desperately seeking employment in their health clinic. We were running dangerously low on mizas and it was more than passing difficult to set up as an independent physician without a mark from the goddess Rak'keli, in a city where no one knew you and you had little left to your name save for an old surgeon's kit and an anemic store of leftover herbal remedies. I ran into an an headache inducing amount of red tape and bureaucracy at the university and my hopes of actually receiving an offer were abysmal by the time I returned to the flat. Worn out and dejected, I stopped on the stairs up to feel the setting sun disappear in the jaws of night in the very marrow of my bones. The sunlight was obliterated from my form and I was plunged into the frame and face of a Drykas man who had been dead so long no memory of him remained on this earth that I could find. Especially not in my own mind. Lillis reached out her hands to me when I walked in, something burgeoned and bright in her face. Golden paint was smeared over her cheek and for the first time in a long while I found no trace of her private anguish in her eyes, just excitement. Just eager joy as she pulled me through the slowly organized clutter of the flat and into our bedroom. Wordless, she directed my attention to the window with a quick, darting gesture and waited. I looked, eyes tracing over the old, bubbled glass and the falling night beyond, until I noticed what she was trying to show me -- the windowsill was painted a bright, sunlit gold. She had painted them for me, and given me a golden lining for every night. --- Turning from the window in Treza'lyn's apartment, Caelum tucked his hands into his pockets and took in the room. It was too big for just him. A breath was exhaled and he shook his head at that thought before heading for the door. By the time he was jogging down the steps back to Alements, he was smiling again. Elise was finishing up placing the new flower arrangements on all of the tavern tables and looked up at the sound of his return. "I'm buying it," he answered her unspoken question. "Good!" She beamed at him, and when he disappeared out the door to track down Treza'lyn, she mumbled, "Finally," under her breath.