[Trail of Waterfalls] Once Lost, Found Anew (Haneht)

Two souls friendly to one another meet anew in the Trail of Waterfalls.

(This is a thread from Mizahar's fantasy role playing forums. Why don't you register today? This message is not shown when you are logged in. Come roleplay with us, it's fun!)

The Diamond of Kalea is located on Kalea's extreme west coast and called as such because its completely made of a crystalline substance called Skyglass. Home of the Alvina of the Stars, cultural mecca of knowledge seekers, and rife with Ethaefal, this remote city shimmers with its own unique light.

[Trail of Waterfalls] Once Lost, Found Anew (Haneht)

Postby Savis Maren on February 8th, 2019, 9:16 am

Image
Narrowed eyes set upon Haneht re Ahnatep as he uttered his somber answer. There was no smile to lead the nuit into believing him a joker. Frustration festered within the undead, this fateful reunion between two little more than strangers leading Savis into questioning her ability to evaluate others. Haneht's visage was completely serious, and the Nuit lost some of her nerve. She'd seen this boy, guided him in the fogs of Summer, but they separated soon after. What truly brought Savis to see him again? To answer his letter?

Maybe I regret it, she mused, watching the change in expression shift to a playful grin that was marred by new impressions. Confusion marred Savis' silver eyes, producing a dullness in her intense gaze as she sought to gain her bearings and ponder what exactly was going on in the Eypharian's mind. Of course, it was natural to have defenses. Savis Maren herself tended to the high walls that guarded a fragile heart.

Hatred and dislike are a bulwark coated in poison. To touch it is dangerous. To climb it is folly. And yet, here I was thinking that this boy was foolish enough, she hissed. Savis persisted in the encroaching darkness of musings until Haneht began to share with her anew. She adjusted her position again, pointedly facing away from the Eypharian, but she continued to listen avidly to his admissions. The golden bracelet continued to rise into Savis' attention, again and again he seemed to point it out for her to see.

And so, she looked. She combed her gaze over the noble metal, and nearly drew her fingers towards it before remembering her anger, refusing to draw closer to the Eypharian out of spite.

Then, he began to lavish her with titles. Mistress of the Arts. Painter Extraordinaire. Peerless mage. The last more than the first fluffed the ego within her, the notion only accented by the Nuit's growing proficiencies and her burgeoning awareness of how much more she could become. For now, Savis Maren was learned: enough perhaps even to teach with some degree of qualification.

"It'll happen regardless of whether you want it to or not," she said, allowing the haughtiness she'd learned from Mauriel to spill into her voice. She had full faith in the talents she possessed, her sharp wit and tendencies making her ambitions only able to be hindered by circumstance.

"Are there better ways? From my experience, people will lie before they besmirch their own name. They'll share only the best of themselves. Evil hides beneath even the prettiest face," she says, a humorless chuckle parting her lips before she added, "Being plain and civil is often the harshest means of ascertaining the truth." Savis Maren thought to just days prior when she'd confronted Madeira Craven with painful truths and how the scars of that altercation still weighed on her. She shook her head, banishing the specters of the past. Try as she might, Savis Maren could not hold off the high laughter of Castius Mora when it spilled into her consciousness. In the pits of the night it happened the most, but now it struck in the daylight.

The Nuit prepared a quip for his next utterance, relating to his thought on collateral damage. The retort, however, sat fat on her tongue when the Eypharian admitted to holding on to his dying sister. After a moment of silence, she asked,

"What happened to her?"


Image
Savis Maren
Only a little bit dead
 
Posts: 295
Words: 399286
Joined roleplay: July 8th, 2018, 11:49 am
Race: Nuit
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Plotnotes
Medals: 2
Overlored (1) 2018 Mizahar NaNo Winner (1)

[Trail of Waterfalls] Once Lost, Found Anew (Haneht)

Postby Haneht on February 19th, 2019, 6:41 pm

Image
9th, Winter 518AV


Relief came to him with the recognition of confusion in Savis' piercing gaze; the dulling of such an intelligent pair of eyes could only either mean dissapointment, or confusion. In their case, Haneht suspected both. At least, Savis was beginning to understand what he wanted from her. From them, and whatever this was. Or perhaps it was his wishful thinking, and the nuit was seeing him for who he truly was, past the big, harmless goof everyone else found in the boy. She might decide to run soon, he mused, far away from him just as others had with no desire to ever return. He supposed it would be fortunate for them both. Haneht wouldn't have to venture into the uncharted, muddy waters of friendship, and Savis would be saving herself a whole lot of trouble.

He could almost see the cogs of her century-old mind grinding as she evaluated, or re-evaluated the Eyktolian. Something foul simmered in the pits of his core when her gaze no longer seemed to meet his, when he saw the way she refused to reach a hand out to sate her curiosity, and what was all this? Why did it agitate him so?

"Because you say so?" He challenged, staring intently at her face, hoping she would look him in the eyes. "That's individuality for you, Sav. Everyone presents themselves differently because they percieve differently. What is my truth may not be yours," With his counter, the brunet strove to continue his argument, savaging at his lips with teeth. Savis was an enigma, a puzzle he had yet to even fully look at before working on. They'd only met twice, and there was little he could learn of her from everyone else when everyone else wanted nothing to do with the undead. She had decades of experience and wisdom on him, even if he could smell hints of the lingering childishness they both failed to outgrow on her as well. He had no control over Savis at the end of the day, unless-

"Is this what friends do, Savis?" His tone softened with his gaze, something akin to hurt and vulnerability seeping into the molten gold pools. "Or have you yet to ascertain your truth? A face this pretty can't be good. I must be incredibly foul, down to the bone." A smile, sincere and yet vaguely mischievous. Then, as if failing to maintain his pretense, he snickered, a lazy wave of his hand dispelling the tension in the air. "Lighten up, Sav. The world's ugly enough as is. The veils you keep tearing off people are what protects you." And them, he added in the silence of his mind. And somehow, the picture he was painting became just a little bit clearer. Savis was equipping herself with the weapon she knew best - knowledge - in an act of self-preservation. Of fear. There was a reason her gaze was so haunting, haunted, apart from her state of undeath, that it had frozen over like a lake mid-winter. Did the dark time of servitude have something to do with it, or was it something from her former mortal life? "What's so wrong about wanting to look beautiful anyways?"

The silence that ensued his revelation was admittedly incredibly awkward, even when he had been expecting a similar reaction. Hearing Savis unable to fling so much as a sassy remark back his way was odd, and possibly abnormal for the few chimes they'd spent together collectively. "Why do you think? I killed her," he spoke with such blatant conviction that it almost felt true. And in a funny way, it was. "I jest - don't summon the Shinra," he corrected soon after, hands comically held up in surrender.

"It's an awfully long story- almost theatrical. My sister had a forbidden lover. When our sire found out, she lost both her soulmate and freedom overnight. Her spirit went too, gradually. The political marriage must've accelerrated it," he paused, reliving his neglected memories with a deep exhale. Why he could neither seem to properly look back nor let go of his past eluded him still. "Or, maybe, it brought her back - because the next thing I knew my sister was blazing bright again, this wild, spitfire Queen that no one could ever hope to tame. Alive, blinding, burning brighter than I'd ever thought possible like fireworks," and foolishly, his younger, naive self had thought she'd gotten over it. Or, perhaps wishful thinking in facing the stark reality that Ahnouk might be lost forever; gone with her murdered lover. "In the few days leading up to this massive festival we have back home, she took something, and lo, Dira came for her just as she had planned. Big 'petch you' to our sire and her husband-of-six-months."

And there it was. A piece of his buried past, out there for the world to know, exploit. A piece of him, dancing in the palms of a single nuit's hand. A stranger, a friend. Was he being naive, or plain foolish? Haneht alone had sought her out, out of boredom and the sudden lonesomeness that gripped him in Fall. Yet, once met, the notion of allowing someone so sharp and knowing near himself instigated yet another conflict in him.

I must be going mad, came the belated realisation, only for him to release a breathy laugh at the hilarity of it. As much as he lacked in self-awareness, the Eypharian had long come to terms with his lack of sane judgement. Long embraced the recklessness that he only ever seemed to thrive on, the tickle in his belly and the rush of blood that spun his world in dizzying circles whenever he did something questionably risky. At present, 'something' was telling the truth, when Haneht knew that his lies offered the best protection.

Amber pools flicked upwards, in spite of knowledge that the reassurance sought could not be found. Not when Syna's reign was still young. His lips twitched.

"So what do you think, Sav?"
Last edited by Haneht on February 24th, 2019, 4:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Haneht
All that glitters.
 
Posts: 106
Words: 100302
Joined roleplay: July 3rd, 2018, 2:05 pm
Location: Lhavit
Race: Eypharian
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Plotnotes
Medals: 1
Featured Thread (1)

[Trail of Waterfalls] Once Lost, Found Anew (Haneht)

Postby Savis Maren on February 22nd, 2019, 2:15 pm

Image
"That's individuality for you, Sav. Everyone presents themselves differently because they perceive differently. What is my truth may not be yours,"

Haneht countered Savis' words with what some might consider a wise tidbit. But, to the pair of jaded, wizened eyes before the Eypharian, they were platitudes meant to dull her reception of his foolish retorts. The Eypharian acted as the porcupine, presenting his quills in an effort to protect himself from the predation that was Savis' prying. Magical insight and mundane prying were tools at the Nuit's disposal, of course, but in this asking the undead saw far more of the Eypharian than, perhaps, she even wanted to.

Damaged goods. Turmoil begging to be released. Haneht can hide behind his little platitudes, but he can't disguise the truth.

Then, when at last the topic of their talk shifted and the Eypharian delved into the past, he spoke in a comically misleading tone. His words were grave, but he inflected his voice with humour. Savis Maren did not flinch at the thought of murder, and certainly, the idea of death itself was laughably mundane to the woman who dealt in it every moment of every day. She listened intently, nodding in cue when he exhaled. Reminiscence was such a terrible thing, for the ghosts of the past were all too real in the trenches of thought.

As he continued to speak, he drove himself further and the Nuit felt the shivers form along her skin as the Sight. In the frigid aura that emanated from Haneht, Savis Maren pulled at her djed once more, tempted beyond the reasonable to gather exactly what it was that motivated the foolish boy to speak as he did. She even felt the warmth that pooled into his face, the blood that carried with it the truth even when his words and tone sought to disguise the pain.

"What do I think? Of you? You're but a child, lashing out in his tantrums after the bully's pulled the wool blanket from his hands. You seek protection, a wall to raise high over the seeds of doubt. And yet... you've trusted me with this little blade of knowledge," she mused.

"Tragedy is the brush with which character is born. Some break the mold of their despair and come out greater for it. Some shatter their perception of self and come out different for it. Others dwell in it, allow it to fester and rule over their soul," she began, pointing out the observations she'd garnered in the century of her unlife. The Nuit paused for a moment before she leaned in to breathe her foul words into his ear,

"I've done far worse than you could imagine to look beautiful for just a season. Look at me," she told him, raising both of her hands and meeting his chin. This was no compassionate touch, but rather, she jerked his head, silver eyes at last meeting his own jaded pair.

"When you met me last, the body I wore was truly beautiful. And yet... how did she die so young, hm? Before that, I've worn countless women, each so pretty and dazzling in life and death alike. Such beauty doesn't simply collapse conveniently," she alluded. Savis Maren wouldn't admit it aloud, instead she beseeched Haneht Re Ahnatep to figure out her former truth for himself.

"I think you're broken, Haneht. But, at the same time, if you were whole you wouldn't be here with me."


Image
Savis Maren
Only a little bit dead
 
Posts: 295
Words: 399286
Joined roleplay: July 8th, 2018, 11:49 am
Race: Nuit
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Plotnotes
Medals: 2
Overlored (1) 2018 Mizahar NaNo Winner (1)

Previous

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 0 guests