Exchanges Most Bazaar [Naadiya]

[Alric Lysane]

“So they say, certainly tend to leave to much more…interesting dancing than the slower ones” he said as he puffed away at his pipe, following the music as everything was ordered, drink was drank and seats started being filled, “as for the saviour being satisfied…it wasn’t that much for me to do. I’ll probably sleep well tonight but what with one thing and another I find myself using magic more and more these days” he shrugged slightly as the smoke curled around his face and he took the first relaxed moments they had had together to start musing upon her as a person, rather than as a schemer.

For all of her talk about appearances and the like she was quite quick to forget it all and cover her chin with sauce and juices from the food. She clearly didn’t think much of herself either, or at least the way she was dressed or her station, given how dismissive she was of her ability to garner interest without her adornments, almost like she had worn armour for a fight perhaps. She was a strange creature, at once curiously warm but also dismissive of self. He found himself wondering how it was she had ended up where, and who, she was. At her question about Sunberth and magic he couldn’t help but laugh, snorting out smoke in surprise and slight discomfort before clearing it out with a clear breath and pinched fingers.

“No…no not in Sunberth,” he said after a while, once he was recovered and leaning back once more with a strange half-smile upon his face, “Sunberth hates magic. Probably string me up if they caught me doing it there” he scratched his chin and then grinned as if that were obviously no reason to not use it anyway, so long as he was careful.

“Sunberth is a violent and dark place I’d imagine by your standards. There is no government, no unified leadership and no rules beyond the golden one of ‘don’t petch with the powerful’. Every time I talk to someone about it they always seem surprised and start asking me how such a place even functions…truthfully I’ve never figured it out fully. It just…does”

“Natural law I suppose, the strong survive and the weak don’t. Crime, slavery, abuse and all the rest. And the people keep plodding on, despite it all. In many ways Sunberth is the epitome of stubbornness, never giving up despite it all. It’s a good place to be if you want to discover what you’re capable of…or what you can survive. Or if you even can” he said with a slight frown, the truth of that resonating with him as he thought it all through, speaking as he went.

Each time he was asked about Sunberth he had slightly different answers, coloured not just by the company but also by his new experiences and the most recent broodings before the fire. He had often wondered, of late, why he had stayed in Sunberth. It had been more than just the recent events and needing a hiding place, of that he was sure. He loved his city, in his own way, and Naadiya would hear that in the almost sad tones of his voice as he talked of it. He just wished that he had a way of making it…change…but not because he wanted it to, but because it wanted to. He was resigned that it might never happen, but it was a deep, quietly buried hope, that perhaps one day he might help facilitate it…somehow.

“It’s an anarchy, bereft of a purpose when once it had had one. The stories of the older times, of the mines and enslavement…they aren’t as true as the citizens would have them be to justify their darkness. But te times when the bloody mages rules more recently…they were true. Sunberth never really recovered from the Valterrian like other places…I wish that one day I could make it so that it had. But…I always did like impossible things I suppose”

“What about you? Where do you come from> What’s your story?” he leaned back, puffing away as he picked at the food, drinking his wine between and watching her intently.

[Naadiya]

Naadiya found her reflection on a clean spoon and checked to see if she’d missed any saucy smudges on her face. As she did so, Naadiya caught a glimpse of her wrist and for a moment, she admired the new bracelet that adorned it. When she and Alric had returned to the jewelry stall, Naadiya had given back the borrowed jewelry and made a few purchases, as she had promised. Now, she wore delicate silver chains on the previously bare earlobe, a few of her fingers were now thinly ringed in the same metal and more of it still clinked inside her bag. Her choices had been based on the craftsmanship each piece had taken, not only the value of the metal, and she made sure to choose ones that lacked any sort of precious stone, keeping her spending just short of extravagant. What made the short interaction a bit strange was when the merchant had given her one piece free of charge. The slightly chunky chain that hung from her wrist appeared to be gold, but the woman had little knowledge of authenticating metals and could only assume. If the precious metal was not enough to make it stand out, the clasp had been wrought in the shape of two leopards fighting over a ring, each cat with emeralds for their eyes. If Naadiya were to have guessed, the piece’s value would have certainly outweighed any of her other purchases and maybe all of them put together. At first she had been hesitant to accept, but with all the other successes that this had followed, Naadiya chose to take this as her lucky day and the feline bracelet was it’s spoils. Alric had been there when she’d accepted it and even he had no magical alarm bells ringing so she had clasped the charm bracelet to her wrist and thanked the trader before they left his stall. As she sat at The Wayward Minstel now, Naadiya found herself lost in the green stone eyes. She heard Alric speaking of Sunberth but there was something else too, in the background. It wasn’t so much a sound as a feeling. Unable to define or describe it, Naadiya tuned in to Alric, pushing the feeling aside. “Is that why you stay there? To see if you can survive it?” Naadiya had come from a fairly unforgiving land herself. Not ever having been to Sunberth, it was hard for her to compare, but with her eyes on the man sitting before her, Naadiya couldn’t see him ‘stuck’ in such a place. Looking at him, she saw a man who seemed capable and well enough equipped to cut his way through to a city of his choice. And a sharp blade with a skilled hand could find employment easily enough in most places, so it couldn’t be that he lacked the funds to leave the ever burning slag heap. “Why not leave if, it’s so bad? There are other places not as opposed to magic.” Then, the man’s words began to alter her perception of him. He spoke almost like the leader he claimed the city lacked. He knew the history of the place, he seemed to know its people and was very aware of the faults of both. Curiously, she tucked away the thoughts of how high his ambition might take him, though she wasn’t sure if ‘ambition’ was even the right word. Naadiya was leaning back in her chair to answer Alric’s questions. She absentmindedly lowered her hand and was surprised to find herself scratching the back of a cat, as it encircled her calves, weaving between the chair’s legs and her own. Barely acknowledging the cat, she mused on how to answer his question before replying. “No story, just a girl trying to make a bit of gold to save up for a rainy day. We get quite a bit of rain back home, have you ever been to Syka? Thick jungle, wet air, few people. Well, not so few these days, I suppose, we’ve have a wave of newcomers,” she said, neglecting to mention that only one ‘wave’ prior, she had been a newcomer herself. With a sip of wine, she smiled and reached for the shrimp. Her bites were more careful than before, leaving a fair amount of meat still on the tails, which she then dropped to the floor where they were quickly snatched up by the stray. “It’s not entirely free of danger, the jungle can be a treacherous place, but the locals at least, we are a very helpful group for the most part,” she quickly lumped herself in with the rest with only the slightlest hint of unintended emphasis on the word 'we'. “People lean on each other and are usually willing to lend a hand where needed. Plus there is a good deal of magic going around and I’ve yet to hear someone suggest stringing anyone up for it, so no risk when it comes to that… Though I suppose recently we’ve had some unsavory magics roaming the settlement… Very unsavory…” But the day had been such a success so far. Her deals, her connections, her new acquaintance and her gifted bracelet. Why sour all that with thoughts of the very unfeminine appendage she sometimes had… It’s only sometimes anyway, and it’s not here now. Praise Syna. She added the prayer almost surreptitiously, then added another. Praise Xyna. Naadiya lowered the plate of shrimp tails to the ground, not even paying attention to what she was doing, yet this time the bits of meat she gave the cat had specifically been wiped off of the heavily spiced sauce. Naadiya wasn’t even sure why she’d done it, but without skipping a beat, she ordered more and kept talking. “But normally one of the biggest problems I’ve found are the snakes… too many snakes. Way too many snakes for my taste. It’s actually rather bizarre, someone in town even got the crazy idea that the solution to a snake-problem was MORE SNAKES. So there are snake-eating snakes as well. Madness, really. But at least there’s no slavery… that’s certainly something to brag about!” 1029

[Alric Lysane]

“I used to think that, perhaps,” he conceded after a time of reflection, “but the truth is that I was abandoned there. It is a…long story, but the end result was that I was alone in an orphanage from a young age. I thought my parents had died, so I stayed, trying to find out how. I never really thought about leaving. Sunberth has a…hold on you after a while. A city of deception, filled with the natural law of survival. Now…now I stay there so that I’m the only one really in danger” he said, expecting that that would likely lead to further questions from a woman of ambitious and inquisitive nature, but there was little else that he could tell her and not drag her into things potentially, so he left it.

“Yes, I have heard of many places. But Sunberth is home, and magic isn’t just positive. It can be damaging, and seductive. Should I grow too consumed by it…well I suppose then the city will take care of that” he offered up for her second set of questions, truth enough that it didn’t taste a lie yet still not the whole truth, not that she would likely know that.

Leaning back to sip at his drink he raised an eyebrow as she seemed to fondle with something by her knees, though a few moments later another cat jumped upon the table and started to walk up his shoulder, there to perch and nibble at his hair as if it owned the strands. He tilted his head to avoid the fur getting into his face and merely sighed, the cats here were many and did as they pleased. Often, they didn’t actually brush his legs as they did with others, though he didn’t know why. No, instead they tried to rub their faces on his and sleep on his chest – a fact which when socialising was not ideal.

“Sorry, I don’t know why they like doing that” he offered by way of apology before finishing the rest of his drink and pouring some more form the bottle that had been left upon the table.

He listened as best as he could between the purring in his ear and the general noise as the establishment continued to fill up, picking at the food to satiate his hunger as he did so. Naadiya was an intriguing, if strange woman, though that was likely because she was from a different culture that he was unused to. She had picked up a number of jewellery items before they had left the last merchant’s stall, even procuring a free one that she had asked him to look at. He wasn’t an expert, he had seen tha tit was magic, though a passive kind as if waiting for something else. It had been difficult to explain, though he had taken it at his word. A strange thing for one so distrusting to fate that she had rigged her own gave as neatly and completely as was possible.

“You’re a girl who went from the sands to the surf and there’s no story? I won’t press, but forgive me for saying that that seems…unlikely. Do you think so little of yourself? Or is just a tale reserved for those whom you call…close friends?” he asked, curious but not overly assertive in tone.

Despite her words, suggestive of downplaying her fate or her role in the web of life in general, the fact that she was from Syka served to prove to him that there were no such thing as coincidences, or small stories. At least, not these days. No, for whatever reason he felt that he had been tangled up in the settlement and its people, though why he was not entirely sure. From his journals it was because he had found the lost precious of things, but he was starting to think it was something beyond that too.

“I am aware of what is happening in Syka, at least in part. Though I understand that there is probably little desire to discuss such things with a…well a stranger, whatever amount of time we have spent together this day. So…instead let us drink and see whether that changes come the end of our time together?” he suggested, raising his glass and taking a long sip then, putting it back upon the table afterwards.

He smiled at her words about snakes, he might have agreed at one point, though now he had his own snake – Twilight – and he was gentle and reasonable enough, so long as food and water were left out. Cleaning up after him was less amusing, but then again nothing was ever perfect. He could not remember being gifted hi, not fully, though he had read in his journal that it had been a gift from Tazrae – she had given him many gifts, yet he could remember giving none in return, a tally of sorts that grated at him somewhat.

“Slavery is a terrible thing, I am glad you need not put up with it there. As for snakes…once I may have agreed, but I was recently gifted a pet Mussurana and he is quite amenable. I quite enjoy his company these days, especially when alone”

“Now Brats…Brats are awful creatures. Size of…medium dogs maybe? Hairless, tailless rats with jaws filled with disease and worse. Cowards alone, but four or five together…well, then it’s a problem. Hate the skittering sound of their claws on stone. Bloody nightmare”

“It’s not all bad though, there’s this flower in Sunberth. Stone Rose it’s called. Usually it’s grey but every so often you can get a rainbow coloured one, that’s quite nice. And there’s always a good song and dance in every tavern. Might be a brutal place, but because of that we know how to live. Does Syka know that? Or is everything so soft, in your estimation, that they are more relaxed with the pace of life?”

[Naadiya]

Alric’s story was quite sad, or at least the bits she’d heard of it. But one thing had seemed odd when he’d said it and the comment had stuck out to her. The man had said he’d ‘thought’ his parents were dead. Were they dead? And if they hadn’t been dead, why had he been left in an orphanage? Maybe she was misunderstanding his meaning, but it also seemed too sensitive a subject to try and pry into on this occasion. Seeing where she might make an inquiry that was not so intrusive, Naadiya replied. “You stay so you are the only one in danger? Do you have children, then? Or is it a lover that you are protecting?” As she spoke, Naadiya actively tried to keep a light enough note to their conversation, not wanting to dampen the mood. Then, the cats had arrived and it was impossible not to smile while one of their furry faces was being rubbed on one’s person, the one closest to her had a face that looked as if it had run into a wall, with its nose set almost flat on its face. It was an amplitude of long pale fur in most of its body with brown patches in select areas, one of those being the flattened snout. Faster and more gradually than Naadiya would have guessed, the animal leaped on the the table and set at the very edge. Green angled eyes glanced from Naadiya to Alric, though ‘glance’ may not have been the right word and to Naadiya the movement had seemed very slow, even deliberate. Then, with a very smooth sweep of its paw, another brown stained spot that almost mimicked Naadiya’s own stains, it knocked a cup over in what was plainly a very intentional act. The glass hit the floor and shattered and soon another drunk, fellow patron of the establishment yelled out a cheer in response. The cat leapt away once more after noting nothing of interest on the table. “To hiding magic in Sunberth!” Naadiya said after thanking the server who had replaced her glass. She raised the wine filled goblet to clink on Alric’s. Their drunken neighbor joined in without turning to them, yelling much louder than Naadiya had spoken. “To hiding mah *gick’s* sunburn!” He slurred with an inebriated hiccup. A round of laughter roared from another table in response and soon several others were shouting cheers to hiding inappropriately placed sunburns. It didn’t take too long for the laughter to die down and the music to take over again. Naadiya drained her glass and filled it once more when Alric tried to ask a little more of her story. She took a sip and thanked the server who’d come back to wipe away any mess and smaller piece of glass, noticing it was a different person than the previous one and let them leave before turning back to the man and answering. “I left to look for my father…. Turns out I don’t even know where to start looking.” She gave a small shrug and a smile, “not a very exciting tale, I’m afraid. And not one that is likely to progress…” she said longingly. “Unless you know of a way to find someone without knowing where they are from, where they were last seen, or even their name or what they look like? Wait do you? A mystical magical djed-fueled solution? Too much to hope for, I suppose?” Syka’s inception had not been so recent as a few days but it was still a young enough settlement that word of its existence and location could not have already been entirely widespread among the lands. She had not even known of it until she was less-than-politely left on its docks. He knows?[I] “How do [I]you know of what is happening in Syka?” She asked and took a sip from her own glass, almost mirroring his motion. He not only knew of the fledging city but of its current ongoings? Odd. Naadiya knew people had been desperate for a solution to their current problem but how could word have reached Sunberth so quickly? She was very new to the use of the dovecotes that allowed passage to the Outpost, but she had remembered the man at its entrance explaining about it not working as a method of long-distance travel, or any travel, really. But could the doves transcend these barriers? Was there such a fast form of communication between the settlement and the eastern coast of the continent? Or another link between he jungle coast and the burning slag heaps? “You were GIFTED a snake?” She cried out incredulously before another word Alric had said rang with familiarity in her mind. What had he said? “Did you say, a Mussurana? We have those running wild back in the jungle. Well, ‘slithering’ wild. And not even always so ‘wild’ either, the place I live in has almost an infestation of those things, but of course everyone always reminds me they are better than the venomous alternative. I suppose I can’t disagree. But I had no idea they ventured out as far as Sunberth, or did your friend have it imported from Syka?” Naadiya tried to imagine the creatures he describes and the picture her mind managed to paint, however potentially inaccurate it might have been, was far less than pleasant but the flower caused less of a grimace to rise to her face. “Stone Rose… interesting, seems almost symbolic for the city, occasional bursts of joy and color in the usual grey and gloom, or maybe it’s more bits of magic amongst the mundane. In Syka we have a good deal of flowers in every shade you can imagine and every other one smells better than the last, if they don’t poison you, of course. We also have something that has been dubbed the ‘Suicide Plant’ that looks just like a good deal of other less painful foliage, and are very aptly named, I can say with confidence… I suppose those can be a little symbolic as well. Everything looks pretty and even inviting at first, but be careful where you step…” “I think that maybe because the population is still relatively low, most of the local conflicts are between people and the environment or outside sources, which makes it easy for everyone to band together when needed. Actually having ‘power’ in Syka requires a lot of responsibility at its current stage, I believe that’s why there still hasn’t been anyone vying for it. Yes… It is very different from the desert and I imagine from Sunberth as well.” 1112

[Alric Lysane]

“It’s a long story, but summed up by saying both, really. Sunberth is a place that you can hide in, if you have a mind. It isn’t difficult to become part of the background of grime and detritus. I’d rather not have to worry about others getting hurt, not that we always get what we want” he said, sipping his drink as the cat purred and nuzzled into his ear persistently until his hand journeyed up of its own accord to fuss with its ears.

Her story about finding her father, so soon after the cat’s pointed intervention, possibly at its lack of attention, was a strangely comparative setup. It did call to something within him that felt like it was far older than it actually was. He had only recently learned what had happened to his own father, to both of his parents, but he could remember clearly how it had felt for those many years where he had not known. How he had searched, everywhere his small Sunberth world had allowed him to search. Coming to the Outpost had been the trigger for his own revelations, though he was not sure that it would be the same for Naadiya. Still, it almost felt as if it were something that he could pass on, another little synchronicity of his life that he had given up trying to understand these days – he was close to just giving up and admitting that it was divine intervention or more.

“Your story is a familiar one, I had much the same desire for many years. Here, in the Outpost, there is a brew you can get called Memory Tea, it helps you to relive memories, even explore ones you don’t have…like blood memory I suppose. There was also a Dreamwalker, though whether they are still there…I am not sure. But they can explore your…what was it? Chavi…and that goes back, through your family line. They could, for enough miza, probably do more than inform you of your father as a person. Whether you wish to explore those things…that has to be your decision…it is not always better, to know what happened or who they were” he said softly, meeting her eyes for a few moments before letting his gaze slip away and finishing his cup for another refill.

“As for Syka, that is another complicated story, I only tend to have those these days. Recently I woke up to a letter, written in my own hand, telling me that a woman I knew and cared deeply for was not forgotten to me. Cursed to be forgotten. Also writing in her hand, explaining the same and more. We communicate by letter these days, though I suppose even if I had met her in person I’d have forgotten. I have been trying to figure out ways to…get around the memory loss…but it is difficult. I also know Moritz, cursed to lie…difficult for one who prides himself on accuracy and well worded discussion. So yes, I know some of what is happening in Syka. I wish I could do more than simply stand at the side and wish things were not so”

“She was indeed the one who gifted him to me, he is good at dealing with pests – mice and the like. I would introduce you two but it would seem that fate has not decreed that to be a friendship worth pursuing,” he said with a flash of amusement, “we all have our foibles I suppose. I don’t know about their kind in Syka, but I would imagine that the same thinking would apply. I wrote down that Mussurana apparently eat venomous snakes…so perhaps they were bred to deal with those. He lives here, with me in the Outpost. It is nicer than Sunberth, though I also have a…shack I suppose…there” he mused aloud after a few moments of thought.

When she spoke of flowers he listened and tried to summon up pictures of what she was describing, but he found that his frames of reference were such that he failed miserably. Perhaps, he reasoned, he’d get to see them himself one day and her words would make more sense. It did make sense to him, however, that a settlement at the edge of the world and forging its own destiny would be more experienced with its own internal problems than with the controlling of the environment. The fact that dangers had been imported merely seemed to suggest that it had managed to survive, and thrive, enough that it had been upgrade dint he estimation of the world – the rest would follow eventually, and they would likely build more, encroach upon the environment more…and the rest would be history. Hopefully the less poisonous things would be allowed to remain, he mused.

“Power usually comes with responsibility, unless the one wanting it is doing it for the wrong reasons. Or at least that is how it seems to me. Much damage has been done because people wanted something without the negatives balancing its actually having it out. Striving for things and ambition aren’t necessarily bad things, in fact they’re probably why we get anything done. But to want all the perks and none of the responsibility…that is an equation that ends up being forced into a negative outcome. Perhaps, in time, as Syka grows there will be opportunities for more influence and…responsibility…but when you’re on the edge of survival I would imagine that it becomes more important that the more…altruistic…might hold more sway” he suggested gently, wondering whether she wanted this power herself, or whether she was simply making conversation.

“Is that why you stay then? Somewhere that you can find your own power in?” he asked

[Naadiya]

Alric spoke and Naadiya listened while scratching the flat-faced cat’s back once it had settled down on her lap. Slightly pointed, almond-shaped nails ran down the center of the feline’s spine, until they reached the creature’s fluffy tail where her hand would usually come up with a fair amount of fur. You have so much hair and so much of it is shedding, my dear… Glancing down at her clothes, Naadiya could tell she would be taking some of the ivory fluff home with her, whether she wanted to or not. “Memory Tea? Have you tried this tea before?” The idea of the brew, boiled in her brain. She wasn’t sure if there even were any conscious memories of hers that would be helpful in her search but there also was no reason she shouldn’t try. At least, no reason that she knew of. “I understand, but all the same, I think I would still rather know it all. The good, the bad, the ugly and whatever else hides in the nooks and crannies. I never really knew him, you see, so it’s not like there is an image of him that I could be destroying with the truth. There is no image at all. He is a blank shadow in my mind. All I really have is a compass that may have been his, and even that is no guarantee. Any detail, any hint, that could help add color to this picture would be appreciated. Yes, perhaps I shall seek out this tea, or the Dreamwalker. See! You did know of some magic mumbo-jumbo to do the job.” Naadiya refilled Alric’s glass for him, and did the same to her own. When he started talking about the notes from a not-so-forgotten woman, Naadiya squinted slightly, her head tilting a bit to the right and her hand resting on the cat’s back. “I… think I know of who you speak. I’ve been keeping notes recently… mostly for my own benefit but I wrote on multiple pages of a blonde curly haired woman, but I always forget what she looks like and who she is. Even now I have forgotten the name I wrote. Though, I must be seeing her somewhat frequently as I’ve written of her more than once.” Recalling the scene at the Syka Commons nearly ten days prior, Naadiya nodded. “Yes, I wondered what was wrong with Moritz… He wasn’t making much sense the last time I heard him speak and I have a knack for filtering out lies… He clogged my filter, but I couldn’t see what reason he could’ve had for doing so… So I said nothing at the time, too little information and I was preoccupied with my own problems. But that makes sense.” she finished with a little nod looking off to the side. After a couple of seasons living in the Protea, with its occasionally wandering serpents, Naadiya was still poorly accustomed to the legless, armless reptiles coming and going as they pleased. And while mice had not really been a chief problem during her time in Syka, there was something to be said for a live-in pest control pet. The snakes were most likely the reason the pests were lower than one might expect. There was movement on her lap and Naadiya looked down at the cat with its back side raised, hinting for the brushing to start up again. Maybe a cat… Cat’s chase mice as well as snakes do. Maybe I’ll get a cat. At his last question, Naadiya’s eyes went wide and she nearly choked on her wine, upsetting the lazy cat who had just been sprayed with the lukewarm red wine. “Oh no-“ she answered with a laugh and gently patted the area where white fur was now stained with burgundy, “I don’t want power. That’s messy and heavy, I’m more than content to leave it to those who want it. I only meant to say that the other locals don’t seem to seem to vie for it either. Either nobody wants it, or they are satisfied with the current leadership and see no need to. You know what they say about fixing things that aren’t broken.” Sitting for a few seconds in silence, Naadiya looked into the red rippling in her glass. “I’ve no real reason for staying, if I actually think about it. I haven’t been there so long to have ties that would be terribly difficult to break if it came to it, I suppose.” She thought of Artik, their initial attraction had been strong and almost instant. But time had frayed at the fabric that held them together, and slowly the two had started to drift in separate paths. Her path bore change. His bore alcohol and a hammock. His lack of ambition and drive was not the single reason their joining had not been going smoothly, though. It was accompanied with an over appreciated for any beverage with a kick and an angry mouth whenever it was dry for very long. Differences she once thought might balance each other were now conflicting with too much frequency for comfort. His apologies often came with gifts but they came all too often. It was a dynamic that would not prove to last long without one of them losing their minds and Naadiya had a strong suspicion it would be her who broke first. “Syka seemed wonderful when I got there, but I suppose you are right, I don’t have a very strong reason for staying other than lack of funds, and I’ve been working on that. I haven’t found out anything about my father since arriving, maybe it was the wrong place to start looking. Maybe I will visit Sunberth some day, and then I will see if the slag heap really stays aflame indefinitely.” Would Sunberth have answers? 980