A Sight To See (Phira)

[Madeira Dusk]

After her prayer, Phira offered her hand and Madeira took it gratefully. She could feel eyes on her back, but she still would not turn and face the people she refused to help. Prayers for a kind death was the only thing she would do. Could do.
 
The Kelvic pulled her aside, and whispered in a hushed voice so their audience would not hear. Her blue gold eyes were sad. Her heart was breaking. Madeira knew because her heart was breaking too. She was right, they needed to leave. But the sympathy is her voice was making Madeira jumpy. Her eyes nervously cast to the barred door before she put an arm around the woman's shoulder and whispered right against her ear in a snarling hush.
 
"No. No, no, no, no. Don’t ever come back. Do not give them food, do not give them shelter, nothing. Do you understand? This city... this city isn't like other cities. That's because Ionu is this city. And do not think for one tick that us even being here has gone beyond it's notice. Do. Not. Come. Back."
 
With that she let the taller woman go, feeling sick to her stomach. Feeling like a coward. She cast her eyes around the cavernous space, doing her best to not look at the Vantha. There had to be more than one exit. It's a palace. A scaled down palace, but a palace none the less. Unfortunately, the whole thing was both sparkling and largely transparent. It was impossible to see seams in the wall that could possibly be a door.
 
But at the far end of the structure something caught her eye. An ornate chair on a dais. Or was it a throne? An empty throne for a disgraced queen? A queen wouldn't walk through what could be hoards of people to get to her throne. Perhaps she would come from behind.
 
Madeira approached the back wall, but unconsciously gave the chair a wide berth. She ran her hands over the icy surface looking for anything that could possibly be a door. It was only until she was right up against it that she saw a protrusion in the wall that could only possibly be a door handle.
 
Oh thank god's
 
She twisted the crystal knob carefully, and peeked through a crack in the door. Immediately an icy and bitting wind clawed through the gap, blowing in a flurry of tiny snowflakes. She couldn't see anybody out there beyond the houses that ringed the empty plain. Mind you, that's what she saw last time too.
 
"No chance you're some sort of big, scary cat, is there. Like a tiger or a cougar or something?" she asked her companion hopelessly.  

[Phira]

05 Winter 516

She didn’t expect someone who looked like she felt to take her and say what she did. She knew that those words were supposed to warn her, but she couldn’t possibly just leave them here by themselves. Or help them at all. She didn't know of any way to help them, but if she could she couldn't turn them away...could she? In any case she didn’t want Madeira to be involved with something like this in case she ever got caught, ”Ok. Ok. I won’t come back.” she lied. She didn’t know how convincingly she came off but she tried to maintain a neutral face and even tone. ”Now let’s find a way out.”

Madeira walked away, going around the vantha, trying not to look directly at them, just as she was doing. She had seen enough, and would never forget any of it. The illusionary palace was big and made of see through ice. She took the time to really get a good look at the castle. Who would live in a place like this? Did all buildings in Avanthal look like this? Were they made of ice too? She began looking for a door, and went in an opposite direction from Madeira.

She ran her fingers along the wall to find a seam of a door or window, even a laundry chute would work…well it wouldn’t work but it would be something other than wall. This ice castle was beautiful, but it was so cold. The walls were cold, the ground was cold, heck even the doors had to be cold because they were connected to the walls. She pulled her fingers away from the wall and wrapped her cloak around it, and looked over to see how her new friend was doing. She seemed to be luckier in finding a door, so she hurried over to her side.

She cocked her head and smiled for the first time since being in this cursed castle when Madeira asked if she was a 'big, scary cat. She was hardly scary, she didn't think at least. But she could grant her wish for a cat and if that would lighten her friend's mood then she would enlighten her to her animal form. ”I am not a tiger or a cougar. But I am a leopard, is that scary enough?” she asked before looking out into the white landscape.

”You don’t think there is another bear out there do you?” she asked taking a very cautious step out. She didn’t want to meet another one of them any time soon. In fact the faster she got out of this snowy, cursed city the better.

[Madeira Dusk]

Madeira laughed for the first time since they saw the palace. The sound was tight and low, but it was something.
 
"You're the first leopard I've met. But yes, I bet you're scary."
 
She cleared her throat and edged out the door behind the Kelvic. She hurriedly removed her hood again, lest anyone mistake them for Vantha.
 
"I definitely think there's another bear out there. But I'm hoping it's more worried about people getting in than people getting out", she said truthfully. "I think we best make a run for it, ready?"
 
She closed the door behind them and beat her mittens together to banish the cold from her fingertips. Where was Dexius and his sword when she needed him? It's only when she's faced with a corporeal threat that she realizes how useless her magic is against ninety percent of everything dangerous in the world.
 
"Ok... Run!"
 
The blonde raced through the snow, blood already pumping in her ears. She was aiming for a gap in the houses in front of them, some hundred meters away. She let herself imagine a bear hot on her heels, and let the image spur her to move faster.
 
But no bear ever came. Even when Madeira risked a peek over her shoulder there was nothing but white snow and a fading, glittering palace. They were going to make it.
 
She wasn't about to let that thought slow her down, though. This was the city of illusions, where the laws of nature went to die. A bear could materialize on top of them and Madeira wouldn't be surprised in the ticks before she was eaten.
 
Suddenly she was through the gap between houses, and almost immediately she tripped over something on the ground and rolled to a stop on springy, dense grass. Her mittens were gone, and her cloak was the same faded grey thing it was yesterday. Even without looking up Madeira knew they were no longer in Alvad-Taldera, thank the gods. The blonde got to her knees and took her first look around at the new city. The streets were paved in grass, and the structures were all elaborate stone works thatched with pillars and domes and statues. She climbed shakily to her feet, and brushed the grass stains from her knees, only to catch sight of her shadow on the ground.
 
What should have been the shadow of a skinny teenage girl was a bulking behemoth that covered three times the ground than should be possible for the object casting it. The shadow was sporting a long pony tail, a pair of pointy ears, and was extremely male. She gave the thing a little wave, and laughed to see the shadow mimic her exactly with an arm as thick as her leg.
 
"I know where we are, Phira. This must be Riverfall!"

[Phira]

05 Winter 516

Phira gave her a smile and followed her lead. Running through snow was tough, another thing she hated about this freezing season. As she was running something must have spurred Madeira to run faster, did she see a bear? Taking no time to look and see if her suspicions were true or not, she picked up her pace too. She must have kept up behind her maybe a little too close because as the woman in front of her went down, she tripped over her, and landed on all fours. She looked back over to the blonde and gave her a sheepish smile, ”I am more graceful than this though. Sorry." she apologized.

She hopped up and began dusting off pieces of grass and dirt from her normalized clothes. The grass stains weren’t too bad on her, thankfully due to the dark color she wore. She looked over to see if Madeira needed help up and saw her playing with her shadow. Why was she doing that? She looked between her and the shadow, and back and forth between the two until she noticed the differences. She then looked down at her own shadow, it was so big. Really big. Bigger than she would ever want to be. Stretching far taller than she really was and was wide across with thick muscle, and long hair that fell loose down passed her shoulders, with pointy ears poking out the sides of her head. ”This is odd. Better than the snow bear, though." she asked as she stepped from side to side and waved to see if it was really her shadow, or just some form of her imagination.

She managed to tear her eyes away from her shadow when Madeira let out the realization that they were in Riverfall. So this was Riverfall. ”So what do you think the shadows are?" she asked naive of the city or its inhabitants. She walked through the houses she noticed one particularly bit house looming in the distance. She got the feeling like she didn’t want to go there, but at the same time her curiosity peaked as to why she didn’t. She turned to her Alvadian friend, ”Do you know what that place is?" she asked curiously while looking at it.

OOCShe is looking at the Craven Manor if you didn’t get that

[Madeira Dusk]

Madeira looked over her shoulder at Phira's new shadow as the woman stepped side to side in an awkward kind of dance. Her new shadow was just as large. In fact, both their shadows could be brothers sporting the same long hair and pointy ears.
 
"Well, the shadows kind of give it away. They're Akalak, you know, the big, blue-skinned men with pale eyes. You see them in Alvadas from time to time, but they're all from Riverfall. I've never been to Riverfall, myself. I've never left this city, actually. Which reminds me, you never told me where you're from..."
 
Madeira's question trailed off as the Kelvic wandered away. And the human was hit hard with the realization that she was having a conversation with a cat. An attractive, human-looking cat, but a cat none the less. And the cat was being distracted by a very familiar house set back from the grassy street. The house's grim facade was remarkably untouched by Ionu's new world map. There were several new hulking statues and strange flora in the yard from when Madeira last saw it, but the house seemed to have escaped the dome-and-pillar restructuring. She wasn't too surprised. It was common knowledge that Ionu had a special preference to Madara Craven that her namesake didn't.  
 
"That's the Craven family manor." Madeira stepped up beside Phira, and their shadows rippled across the grass as they followed. "I, ah, lived there for a while. I'm a Craven too." It was always strange to have to explain her family to outsiders, but it has happened on occasion. The Craven name held substantial weight in the city, but that weight seemed to evaporate once you left the city of illusions. "They are, we are, a family of Spiritists. Going all the way back to the Valterrian if the records are to be believed. If there is any spiritual problem, or attack, in the city, that's who you go to to fix it."
 
She cleared her throat and looked away, suddenly uncomfortable. She had half a mind to explain that she was just a ward, and hadn't earned the Craven title to it's fullest. That Phira shouldn't judge her cowardice in the ice palace on the name she just happened to inherit at birth. But she couldn't bring herself to say the words.
 
Instead she took the further coward’s route, and derailed her Craven explanation with a question of her own: "You said you've been to three cities. Which ones? You seem really young to be travelling so much." 

[Phira]

05 Winter 516

Akalak? That’s right. She had only seen a handful of them back when she was in Zeltiva, but they rarely ever came to her side of town (the bad side where all the thugs and prostitutes worked). She couldn’t keep her eyes in one place in this city, there was simply too much to look at. When she spotted the manor and asked about it, she was surprised to hear Madeira’s explanation.

The Craven family manor? A whole family of spiritists? ”Are you really? It sounds like you have a very important family.” she said with a smile. She could sense a little uncomfortableness rolling off her talking about her family and the manor. She didn’t understand yet, but if the Cravens were as elite as they seemed then she would understand it soon. In fact there was a lot she would understand soon about this city.

Finding the topic even more interesting now, she was about to ask her friend more about her family, but she was beat to it with Madeira’s questions about her. She smiled, ”Well I am from Black Rock. But I didn’t really feel like I was supposed to be there, so I left on a ship to where ever they were going, and ended up in Zeltiva. I stayed there for a couple of months but didn’t really find my calling there either, and went with a trading caravan up to Sunberth. I stayed there for some time but it got…a little to rowdy to put it nicely. So I came here thinking the whimsy of the place would give me a clue as to what direction I should go in to find my place in life.” she explained her life’s many journeys.

She has never been to Riverfall though and if this is what it looks like then maybe she would stop by there some day. Instead of going back to the Craven family conversation she left it for another day. She didn’t need to know everything about her in a day, and she could find out information about the Craven’s on her own at a different time. ”So if you could go any where in the world where would you go?” she asked changing the topic of conversation once again.

[Madeira Dusk]

Madeira's eyebrows slowly travelled higher and higher up her forehead to hear the Kelvic tell of her travelling adventures. It was so rare to meet anyone who had been to more than two cities. To have been to four, and only within a couple of seasons, was unheard of. Not unless you were a hardened merchant or a seasoned adventurer. Her respect for the beautiful young woman was bolstered, and she began looking at her with a new light. She was obviously tougher than she appeared.
 
"Where would I go?" the thought threw her. She had never thought about leaving Alvadas before. She tried to imagine herself in Riverfall. The real Riverfall. Meeting Akalaks, learning their culture, learning to live in the wider world. She tried, but she couldn't. This was her home. This was where her work, her family and her god were. She couldn't leave.
 
"I would stay here. A kitty kat once told me you cant find carnivorous cobblestones anywhere else. And how will I get by without them?" she smiled impishly, but there was a note of regret as well.
 
The blonde lead the way and the pair kept walking. They passed people with their own hulking shadows. Some seemed to be having very heated arguments with their new additions. Madeira was glad their shadows were the strong and silent type.  
 
"Wait, Phira, you agree this is a map of Mizahar, right?" she asked, her brow furling. "Do you think... Do you think Alvadas is on the map?" her eyes brightened at the thought of the metaphysical puzzle the way only an Avalad's can. What would Alvadas do to represent itself, when 'itself' was ever changing? How do you illusion the illusion city?
 
"We must find it." she rubbed her hands together gleefully, her pace quickening.

[Phira]

05 Winter 516

The look on her friend had changed, and she smiled at her with a cocked eyebrow. ”And I am not done either. I plan to see the whole world…well the real whole world.” she said with a wishful look and slight conviction. She didn’t know a lot of things, like what she was good at, and what she would do for the rest of her life, but she did know she wanted to see the world and everything in it, both good and bad.
She laughed and gave Madeira a bright smile to try and brighten up her impish one, ”And there is nothing wrong with that. It’s always nice to have some place to call home and have a place where you belong. And if on my travels I ever find myself back here, I know I will always have a friend.” she said and shrugged her shoulders with a playful roll of her eyes, ”And you are quite right, Alvadas is the only place in the world with carnivourous cobblestones, and I will be sure to advertise that when I speak of this wonderfully wacky city.”

She kept up with Madeira as much as she could without stopping to look on to the others that were arguing with their shadows. They couldn’t talk back could they? Or fight back? What if they could? What would her shadow say to her? What would it do to her? She would have to come back and see, if they were to see the whole world in a day then they would have to keep moving.

She furrowed her brows and her mind began racing. That was a very good question. Would Alvadas be in Alvadas? She had been thinking so hard she didn’t notice that blonde counterpart had picked up her speed. She laughed and lightly sprinted to catch up with her, ”You are right, we must find it. It can’t be that hard though, right? Given that it is Alvadas, has to stand out from every other city we visit. I don’t think we could miss it if we tried.” she said thinking out loud. What would the illusioned Alvadas look like compared to the real Alvadas? This had her excited about finding out. Walking next to Madeira with her mind racing at the possibilities (And there were many considering that her imagination was the limit) she hadn’t noticed that they had left the city of Riverfall and walked straight into anther mini-adventure.

[Madeira Dusk]

Phira agreed, they must find Alvadas-Alvadas. If only to sate their combined curiosity.
 
But how would they find it? Madeira pondered as she walked with her Kelvic companion. Anything worth seeing was never easy to find. That was just the way Alvadas worked. The longer you lived there, the better you could recognize that the city was fickle and could be shamelessly coy when it knew you were after something.
 
Fine. There was no dignity in front of the deity of trickery anyway. She would just have to beg.
 
She said a silent prayer, her mouth moving soundlessly and her eyebrows kitted together above her narrowed eyes. With all her heart and soul she threw her pleas into the wind, hoping Ionu would listen.
 
"Blessed Ionu, God(dess) of Illusion and protector of our city. Please clear the path and lead us to our home, your home, so that we may be awed by your creations" she purred, wondering is Ionu might be susceptible to flattery. "We wish to see how our great city exists in the wide world. We want to know this city as you see it. Please, let us experience your city as only you can truly show us."
 
She came out of her prayer and finally took notice of their surroundings. She was disappointed to see the same grassy streets and white domes. Not that she was expecting the walls to melt away and let them pass, but still.
 
There was chimes of silence, each woman studying in wonder the city of Riverfall neither had ever seen. The path was winding, and seemed endless. Until suddenly it wasn't.
 
The two turned a corner, each looking in a different direction, only to stumble into something unexpected.
 
It was a maelstrom, a cacophony of passion and noise. To their left and right people had stopped at the edge to stare. Some looked horrified, some looked peaceful, all looked wary. Nobody made a move to approach it.
 
To Madeira the storm was made of light and colour and safety, and yet underneath it all was a profound, disturbing darkness. It was what happened when an immovable object met an unstoppable force. It was so familiar. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
 
"Bless Ionu" she whispered, her voice cracked with emotion, thanking the deity she wanted to believe led them here. "We found Alvadas." 

[Phira]

05 Winter 516

She listened to the girl’s prayer and let her pray respectfully. She didn’t really give much thought to praying until today. Bu it seemed that her friend was certain that they worked for she seemed to pray often, at least today she did. She walked in awe of Riverfall and its astounding beauty. She could see herself here, lounging under Syna’s light for the rest of her days.

As they made their way further into the city, she didn’t realize that they had ventured into another until Madeira whispered Bless Ionu. She looked over to her friend and hopped back, spooked by what she saw. It was a humongous storm that was quickly changing color, never settling on just one. It sounded like a loud drum that started off slowly and softly before it quickened and crescendo into a loud pounding. All of this and it did and it didn’t seem scary. She had never seen anything like it before and that is what was scary and the sound terrified her somewhat, but the fact that no one else seemed to be running in the opposite direction of it made her feel a little better about it. Madeira didn’t seem at all phased by it. In fact her blond friend looked like she was intrigued with it.

When she voiced that they found the Alvadas within Alvadas she nodded in agreement. If this was the city with in the city, then what did the god of the city look like? That was also a terrifying thought. She quickly walked up behind that girl and let her lead. ”So what do we do? Do we walk into it? Or sit by it? Or let it come to us?” she asked her questions one right after the other.

She wasn’t quite sure what to do at this point and would take her friends lead on it. She followed her into cursed territory, and they were chased by a very large snow bear together. They prayed with doomed vantha, and found their way out of an ice castle. So she would follow Madeira into the tempest if that was what she decided to do.