Closed Of a Moonlight Stroll[Asterope]

[Crylon Stonecraft]

8 Summer 518 (Just after Sunset) Crylon let out a sigh as he got dressed. It was nearly sunset, and he'd been getting ready to turn in for an early night and perhaps to rise early in the morning when there had been a knock at his door. It was a runner from the Calico Lumber Company, the business which Crylon worked for. After dropping off a letter the young boy had run off, leaving Crylon to read what he'd left behind. Apparently someone with some swing wanted a structure examined tonight, and had paid extra for it to be expedited. A guest house or something according to the note, which was currently empty but needed to be examined so that it could be fixed due to an unexpected need for the structure. Likely from context, Crylon reasoned, an unexpected guest would soon have need of it and so they needed to make repairs before that occurred. This meant Crylon was to be pulled out of bed and sent to examine it. This meant either a Ravasol ride, or a long walk along the docks till he found a crossing to the Merchant's Ring, and then another crossing to the Noble District. Then he'd need to wander around till he found the right place marked by a slave standing in the street so to speak to greet him. But seeing as he didn't know where he was going, and the note for some reason didn't give a specific name for the place or owner, security reasons it said, a Ravasola was out for the final bit. Deciding it would wake him to go for a long walk, and if nothing else hoping to gain a bit more familiarity for the routes and crossings of the city, Crylon decided to just walk. Not bothering to don a cloak as he was staying in the city, Crylon headed out in his standard garb of a simple shirt, pants, and boots, with the sleeves short enough to let his arm and namely his onyx left arm be visible. He considered taking the new weapon he'd acquired out, but knew he wasn't good enough to do much harm to anyone but himself with it and so decided to leave it behind. Dressed, mostly awake, ready to go, Crylon headed downstairs and made his way to the front entrance and into the outside world, the sun having just set and the moon and stars lighting the night. WC: 406

[Asterope]

Aster sighed, staring up at the ceiling of her room; this had been the routine for the past several nights now. As the sun set and she shifted into her mortal seeming, she would lay in bed, moping, stubbornly denying her body's needs and refusing to leave her room...until inevitably, the hunger gnawing at her stomach got to be too much.

A loud rumble came from her abdomen, and Asterope shot a glare down at her stomach, as if it had personally betrayed her; which, in her mind, was about exactly what she thought.

Knowing she would regret it if she ignored her hunger and just went to sleep, she pulled herself out of bed, throwing on her cleanest dress and her light cloak; despite being on a lake, the weather was surprisingly pleasant, even at night.

Heading out of her room and down the stairs, Aster didn't pay attention as she left the boarding house, and promptly nearly ran into a short man who was leaving just ahead of her. "Oh," Aster stumbled, narrowly avoiding colliding with him, managing to slip around his side instead.

Irritation flickered through her, but she tamped it down. "Sorry," She mustered with a false smile; that would have been the end of the interaction, but Aster suddenly noticed something strange about the man. His left arm seemed to be made of stone; a dark, gleaming black stone.

The redhead stopped, furrowing her brows, curiosity stirring in her chest. Realizing she was blatantly staring, she cleared her throat, tearing her gaze away from the man's arm to meet his eyes; he was a tad shorter than her mortal form, only by an inch or two.

Aster was keen to examine the man's arm; not only was she curious, but she wanted to know how it worked on a deeper, anatomical level; how was it possible for a limb to be made of solid stone, yet still move and function like flesh and blood? But she restrained herself, at least for the moment.

"Ah, I'm new to the city." That wasn't a lie. "I was just wondering if you perhaps knew any good places to get food?" That also wasn't really a lie; it would be good to know from a local where the best places to eat were. Presuming the man was indeed a local of the city; he was also coming from the boarding house, after all.

"My name is Aster." A brief moment of hesitation, and Aster offered her left hand to shake; she rarely bothered with handshakes at all, but it seemed like a good excuse to get a better look at the man's strange arm.

If the man indeed shook her hand, she would marvel at the strange texture of his palm; otherwise, if he refused, she would awkwardly drop her arm back to her side, clearing her throat. Either way, she spoke, deciding to be candid if slightly blunt. "I...don't mean to be rude, but I've never seen anyone like you before. Your arm, I mean," She clarified.

"It's fascinating." She fell silent for a long moment, contemplating. Normally, she would leave it at that, and allow the conversation to take its course. No matter how intense her curiosity got, she wasn't one to cajole or force someone else for information. But she'd never met someone who so intensely appealed to not only her normal curiosity, but her medical curiosity as well. The combination was too much to ignore.

"If you're not busy now, maybe you could show me a good place for dinner rather than just direct me; on me." She gave a hesitant, but more genuine smile; her words were frank, and her eagerness shone in her eyes, but there was nothing flirtatious about her request. To Aster, it felt good to be able to follow her instinctual curiousness, to have something to distract her; it took her mind off the emptiness in her chest and the nervousness that haunted the back of her mind.

She hoped the strange man would take her up on her offer, or at least propose an alternative if it didn't interest him.

Word Count: 691

[Crylon Stonecraft]

Crylon was almost out the door when someone nearly collided with him. Both going out the doorway more or less at the same time, Crylon had stopped and jumped to the side to avoid the collision, while the other person had stopped short and moved sideways around him. He hadn't been moving slowly, but apparently the person behind him had been walking faster and wasn't paying attention. Turning to see who had nearly barreled into him, Crylon inspected them. A human, he wasn't surprised to see, common enough in Ravok. She was perhaps a bit on the shorter side for a human compared to most he'd met, but besides that seemed normal enough if only a bit taller than he himself was. The human started to apologize, and then unashamedly began to stare at his arm. His left of course, which was the one he was used to having stared at in Ravok. Isur not being all that common his metallic or stone like arm surprised most people. Of course if the lighting was better Crylon supposed she would have also marveled at the tint to his skin, somewhat bluish, and the color of his raised and visible veins, silver. He also, Crylon recalled, had a proper Isurian brow ridge unlike the humans with their flattish brows. He felt without it the humans just looked odd, their symmetry off, but he'd grown accustomed to seeing their somewhat odd and flat faces. This human had flaming red hair, different from most of the humans he'd met but not unusually so. Fighting a sigh as the human stared, Crylon resolutely thought to himself, yet another human... He waited in silence for her social propriety to take hold, and after a bit it did and she tore her gaze from his arm to his eyes. At her question Crylon simply shrugged, not overly familiar with the city himself. He did his best to speak in clear common, but knew if she started talking faster or said more at once than the few short sentences she had used he would likely begin to fall behind. “I a visitor myself, here a few years but... Still new. Do not know... Of too many places, nor where to eat close to here. I advise... Speaking to a Ravasolaman, they know of the places here well.” Fighting another sigh, Crylon extended his left arm and quickly shook, a not so subtle attempt as some he had seen to touch or inspect his arm. Shaking hands in greeting was actually quite a bit better than some. One woman had just openly started groping his arm, speaking nonsense as she did. Though as she did speak normal later he assumed it was nonsense born of surprise and not true stupidity. Once they had finished their contact and when he did respond he only used his personal name, not even his family name, which to an Isur would have said something in and of itself. “I am Crylon. Yes, I noticed. I should hope this was not your second time, or that might say something about you. Better it is your first, yes? Where I come from, it is normal. It is only here, among humans like you, where it is odd.” Letting out a sigh as the woman offered to buy him dinner, Crylon searched for the right words. He had begun to simply say no, but knew he needed to explain further than that or risk offending his neighbor. “I could eat, but cannot now. I must go, must work. I go to the Noble District, must examine damaged building. ” Crylon gazed about, trying to recall which way he needed to go, and reconsidering at least taking a Ravasola to the noble district. “Perhaps another time. Or after, but first I must work.” WC: 636

[Asterope]

He was a visitor as well. That was perhaps a bit unfortunate, but not overly surprising. His accent and the occasional pause in his words made Aster think that Common wasn't his first tongue, either.

Aster inclined her head with a polite nod, acknowledging the man's words. At least he was nice enough to tell her who she could ask. She listened intently when he addressed what she had said about his arm; so there was a whole race of people with strange stone arms? The prospect was fascinating to Asterope.

Humans like you. Aster couldn't escape the surprised laugh that left her, though she quickly smothered it. She supposed she was human, at least in her current state. "Yes...humans like me," She said, perhaps somewhat cryptically, with a small, tight smile. She didn't feel like explaining herself, of getting into the matter of what she truly was.

He declined her offer, which was disappointing, but did so politely enough; despite that, Aster could sense he was...annoyed? Irritated? Perhaps she should leave him alone, but she didn't want to take a ravosala, which meant they would both be walking.

"I see. I don't mean to keep being a bother, but do you mind if I walk with you; since we're both on our way somewhere?" She asked, hesitantly; despite her intense curiosity, she really didn't want to annoy the man, or worse, anger him.

"You repair buildings here, then?" Aster glanced around, as she began to walk. If the man accompanied her, or at least kept pace with her, she would continue to talk, if only to fill what she was sure would otherwise be an awkward and borderline painful silence.

"It must be difficult, with everyone on the water. I've never seen a city like this...it's beautiful." Indeed, Ravok was a beautiful city; the canals reflected the light of Leth at them, the dark water glimmering silver and rippling gently, lapping quietly at the wood around them.

"I suppose it makes it a bit hard to navigate though; but at least everything stays in one place," Aster mused, with a soft, if slightly pained, smile; she didn't even consider that the man, Crylon, would have no idea what she meant by that. "You work here, then. Are you planning on staying here?"

She realized suddenly that she was talking too much again, and frowned to herself; clearly, her self-imposed isolation was not doing much for her social skills, such as they had been. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude or...irritating. It's been awhile since I've had someone to speak with," She admitted, not seeing any reason to lie about it, though she was slightly embarrassed; red coloured her pale cheeks, making her freckles stand out under the pale moonlight.

OOC :

Hope this was enough for you to work with, and sorry about it taking me so long to get a reply up!

[Crylon Stonecraft]

When the woman laughed in response to his simple comment on her being another human, Crylon puzzled. Was she laughing to say she was a human, but not another simple human? As in special in some way? Or that she was not human? He was unsure which or if the woman simply thought it funny to be called another human. Though her comment which followed make him think there was something more to the story which she was not mentioning. At the offer to walk together, Crylon shrugged and in turn motioned forward in the general direction he needed to go. “Walking and talking fine, so long as we keep moving. Have work to do.” As they began to walk, the woman began to chatter on and on, not giving him much of a chance to respond before launching into another question. Eventually she did explain herself, noting that she had not been around people much of late and so had not had much chance to talk to another. Though her rapid fired words were a strain on his basic understanding of the common tongue. He sometimes had trouble following said common tongue, both for its foreignness and for its lack of detail. Isur, a graceful tongue he found, was packed with information when used. By comparison common was empty and devoid of meaning, and rather troublesome to use when defining something exactly and therefore left many things unclear and open to interpretation. Not as bad as the Ancient Tongue he had a small understanding of, but still much worse than Isur. Rather than let the woman's clear embarrassment coloring her cheeks continue, Crylon took the opportunity to change the subject by answering the many questions she had asked and passed by and followed with more questions. At least, the questions he could recall, as there were quite a few. “Not repair, examine. My job to examine. I design, understand, others build later.” Realizing he may have come off as offended, as if she had said he did a lesser job, Crylon continued. He couldn't help but think though that if he had been speaking in Isur it would have been clear at first and not required re-explaining. “I also build... Just not now. Now I work on the designing, the understanding. Is why I examine, so can understand to fix. By others.” “Yes, water building, is different than land building. Different in bottom, in floating bit. Different in top, in how build. Size... Ma.... Material... Different on water than land. ” Her comment on things moving was a bit confusing, and he was not sure if he had understood that bit. Coming back to it, Crylon paused and tried to meet he gaze as he spoke. He did not quite understand though, how a building would move... On rolling bits? Light buildings perhaps, made to slot around? Perhaps. Or perhaps she meant something else... “Is place where buildings not stay in place? Where is this? How?” Once the woman had a chance to explain, Crylon continued, having to pause again to remember what else had been asked. “I here to learn. Stay, to learn. Leave, once have learned. Learn another place. Some day, go home with what learned. Why you not talk to people in long? And what is you do? I examine, design. What you do? What you be?”

[Asterope]

The man was blunt, but at least friendly enough to agree to let her walk with him; or perhaps he was just being polite. After she was done babbling, he sifted through her words and questions; Aster was beginning to realize Common wasn't his first language, judging by the way he spoke.

She nodded in understanding as he corrected her, explaining his job. More of an architect than a builder, from the sounds of it; she had no idea what went into the job, but to be honest it sounded a bit dull. Of course, she didn't say that.

Aster was peering around as she walked, but out of the corner of her eye she saw the man turn his head to look at her, so she met his gaze; he seem dumbfounded by her off-handed remark about buildings moving, and she couldn't help but smile at that.

"Before Ravok, I was in a city called Alvadas. I'm not sure how it worked exactly...I believe it was illusions, or magic of some sort. Maybe both. But the streets were never the same each day, and the buildings were always in different locations. Sometimes even stranger things would happen. I've walked down streets made of fish scales and seen a whole maze appear overnight in the city."

Nostalgia crept into her voice as she spoke, and she was surprised to realize how much she missed the city of illusions. "It was a strange place. Strange but wonderful, although I imagine someone who makes a living designing buildings wouldn't have liked it very much..." That would be a frustrating job indeed, to be an architect or builder in Alvadas.

He spoke a bit about himself then, and the mention of home caused Aster's lips to curve down into a slight frown as a sudden and surprising pang of jealousy struck her chest. She was glad when he forged on, asking about her as they continued to walk beside the canal.

"It's hard to meet people when you're new to a city," Aster said, vaguely; that wasn't necessarily a lie. She didn't feel like dumping her woes onto a complete stranger, so she quickly moved on and answered the next questions he asked.

"I don't have a job right now. In Alvadas I was an herbalist." She paused, wondering if the word was too complex for the man to know, given his somewhat clumsy grasp of Common. "I helped sick people," She added, for clarification. "Sort of like a doctor."

She let the man take in the information as they continued to walk, but something inside her was beginning to feel uneasy as the evening progressed. She had these bouts sometimes, were the anxiety and paranoia that now seemed constant in the back of her head became overwhelming.

Aster tried to inhale deeply to calm herself, holding the breath for a few moments before exhaling long and slow. You're fine. There's nobody else around, she told herself, then paused. Was there?

Her palms felt clammy, and Asterope gave a quick glance around, then back over her shoulder. Some distance away, a man was walking behind them; he was dressed in dark colours, his hood up, hands shoved in his pockets.

She knew it wasn't strange; she herself and her newly met companion were also seemingly out for a walk during the night. But the mental image was far too close to that of the man who had once followed her into an Alvadas alleyway to make her comfortable, and her heart leapt into her throat.

Images of her hands stained with blood flashed into Aster's mind, of Navi's lifeless body, and she suddenly felt sick. She distantly became aware that she had stopped walking and was staring at the man behind them, rooted to the spot.

"I'm sorry," She finally stammered, turning back to her companion. "I have to go." She didn't offer explanation other than that, simply fled, running until both her companion and the strange man were far behind her, and even then some. Her boots pounded the ground, and her lungs began to burn as she gasped in the pleasantly cool night air before finally stopping, unable to go anymore, leaning against the side of the closest building, her heart racing.

Aster stood for a long moment, catching her breath as her hammering pulse calmed slowly, and wiped the tears from her eyes. The paranoia was gone; now she just felt tired and alone. She wondered when, if ever, that terrible memory would be forgotten; or at least how long it would be until thinking of it didn't make her want to puke and cry.

After another few long moments she straightened up slowly, adjusting her dress, and glanced around, but she seemed to be alone; still, she took a different path. If she had to take the long way back to the boarding house then so be it, but she didn't want to run into her companion again on the way back and risk all sorts of uncomfortable questions.

Vaguely, shame and embarrassment burned in her cheeks at how she must have looked, what he must have thought; but she brushed it off. There was nothing to be done about it, and besides, he had only been a stranger.

[Crylon Stonecraft]

Crylon listened and pondered as the woman spoke of a city she had been to called Alvadas which was made of illusions... False things. But if it was a city, that seemed to imply some amount of realism or physicality... Unless the people living there were an illusion as well? But then no, she had lived there, and surely she wasn't an illusion. He had run into her after all. A city that moved and changed, not settling, not being constant. It seemed odd to Crylon, troubling, but then his mind and skills were focused on building and making and permanence. Crylon nodded in agreement at her comment, realizing that such a place would perhaps be t odds with his people as a whole. What was the point of building and making, if someone could just imagine something up instead and make it real, or if it would change and be replaced in short order? Crylon was left to wonder at her words, at her newness to the city being the reason she had not been around others. This seemed a bit odd to Crylon, as he seemed to run into people all the time about the city. Looking around, getting his bearings, finding new places, he could hardly go a few steps into a new place without finding someone to talk to and get to know. Perhaps this being new to the city was simply her excuse, rather than the true reason why she was so alone and distant from others. “Is meet people all time. Go places, meet new people. If new city, always meet new people any place go. Maybe you not go enough places, is why not meet people?” The woman was apparently a person of plant healing, or of using the more medicinal properties of plants to help people get better. Being an herbalist she said, and so being herbalism. He did not have much knowledge of such things, of repairing people. “I is not know much, of fix people. More know on fix things, places, than people. How is you...” Crylon was about to ask her more of her skill, of how she learned of herb's, plants, of making people not sick with them, when the woman quickly excused herself and raced off. Crylon tried to speak to her, but she seemed bent on leaving and he was left alone once more as he headed off to his job. Crylon was left thinking to himself, what an odd stranger...

[Asterope]

Here are your bright, shiny grades...
Enjoy!

Asterope

Skills

☀Observation +2
☀Socialization +3
☀Subterfuge +1
☀Logic +1
☀Running +1

Lores

☀Ravok: Surprisingly pleasant weather both day and night
☀Subterfuge: Coming up with a reason to talk to an interesting stranger
☀Lore of a stranger with a stone arm
☀Crylon: Still new to Ravok
☀Crylon: Stone arms are normal for his people
☀Ravok: A beautiful city
☀Aster: Not very tactful in socializing
☀Socialization: Honesty is the best policy
☀Crylon: Works as an architect in Ravok
☀Crylon: In Ravok to learn
☀Alvadas: An architect's worst nightmare
☀Lore of experiencing flashbacks of a painful memory

Crylon Stonecraft

Skills

☀Logic +3
☀Observation +1
☀Socialization +3

Lores

☀Location: Tarsin's Boarding House
☀Aster: Red-headed woman new to Ravok
☀Aster: Curious about Crylon's stone arm
☀Crylon: Used to being stared at in Ravok
☀Aster: Not as rude as others have been
☀Aster: Talks a lot
☀Aster: Hasn't socialized in quite some time
☀Aster: More than a normal human?
☀Isur: A graceful and useful language...unlike Common
☀Alvadas: City of illusions where the streets and buildings move
☀Aster: Came from Alvadas
☀Aster: Worked as an herbalist
☀Alvadas: An architect's worst nightmare
☀Aster: Ran off without a reason
☀Aster: An odd stranger

Comments

There wasn't much skill-wise here for either of us given the nature of the thread. Still, this one was fun to do, thank you again!

Thank you for your patience! As always, please don't forget to delete or edit your grading request in the queue. Otherwise, if you have any questions or concerns about your grades, then just PM me and let me know!