An Offer She Couldn't Refuse (Solo)

by **Vala** on June 1st, 2011, 1:50 am

21st of Spring, 511 AV

“Warden? Warden?” Vala called out timidly. “Are you here Warden?” Vala gulped. The halls were inhumanly quiet, and she could even see a Dek standing about.

She gasped when a larger shadow popped out of a corner, catching her by surprise. “There you are my dear. Come into a workshop, come on now, don’t be afraid.” Warden walked into a well hidden, almost invisible entry way into his personal space. Vala followed reluctantly. “Take a seat girlie, while I get my stuff in order. I hadn’t expected you to come so early.”

Vala sat down, massaging her aching hand. It was still cramping from yesterday’s work. “I just couldn’t wait to work with you.” While what she actually meant: I couldn’t sleep and had nothing else to do. Vala smiled with a perk flush to her cheeks. It wasn’t exactly as fake as she normally tried to be, but it still wasn’t genuine; Warden was still very much a stranger to Vala.

“Did you bring the scribe’s kit I gave you yesterday.”

Vala managed to swallow her scoff. “You didn’t give me anything. I earned this.” Vala said proudly as she pulled out the package from her katinu pocket. She waved it around a little before laying it gently on her lap. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to write today though. My hand is feeling a little stiff.” Vala frowned, feeling guilty, but unsure why.

Warden stopped, looking up from a stack of papers. “Vala, look at me. Don’t worry dear. I was surprised you managed to finish my work order in the speed you did, I kind of expected it.” He bit his lip, faux nervously, when he saw Vala’s eyes glint angrily. “No, no, no. I didn’t purposely try to get you to cramp you hand. But I did prepare a job for you, if you did. And don’t worry it isn’t that bad. And you came just in the nick of time too. I’ve been super busy, and I’ve just been an utter mess since my last assistant left. So are you ready? You can just drape your katinu on that chair if you’d like. You’ll want your hands free.”

Vala did as she was told, still a little worried at what she had gotten herself into. “Ok, I’m ready. What do you need me to do?”

Warden walked over to a far wall, made entirely of stone niches. “Do you like it? I had a master earth reimancer come and set it up all for me. So I could be perfectly organized.” Vala scoffed. The mass of paper shreds and broken styluses littering the floor definitely didn’t look organized. “Yeah I know. It’s messy now, but it has the potential. All it needs is you.” Vala couldn’t help but smile at the cheap flattery. “I’m sorry if explaining the system takes a while; I’ll try to be quick. Anyway, this section,” Warden waved his arms to the left third of the wall. “This is the writing surfaces section. This first column is for all the different types of the wadj, straight from Ahnatep. The second column is for all the types of vellum. The third column here is for my collection of parchments. The fourth is for the miscellaneous, like the handful of sets of wax and clay tablets I have. You won’t have to touch that today, that or the rest of the wall. I’ll just tell you anyway though. This section,” He motioned to the middle third of the wall. “this is for my writing tools. And the last section there, are for all my inks. Okay. That’s the end of the lesson. Well all that you need to know.”

“What do you mean all I need to know? You just told me where everything generally was… what do you want me to do now?” Vala was trying really hard not to be sassy, even keeping her tone bright and pleasant, though her words came out more cutting than she had intended. She tilted her head a little down, trying to appear more childlike and naïve, in an attempt to slow Warden down, just pumping out the charm.

Warden chuckled. “Oh, how silly of me.” Warden walked back to his cluttered desk, picked up a giant stack of writing surfaces, and waddled back to Vala. “Put these back where they belong. Each sheet into the proper cubby.”

“That’s it?”

“Yup, it’s as simple as that my dear. I’m sure you’ll be able to tell which papers match what; feel them with your fingers, if the look, or coloring doesn’t tell you, the texture will. Just call my name when you finish.” Warden handed the pile over to Vala before walking out of the room. “I’ll probably be back in half a bell. Don’t touch anything else. And definitely don’t break anything. Good luck dear.” He called out, already half way down the hall, his deep voice echoing against the stone.

`Still struggling to keep the papers from shifting as they were precariously balanced in her arms, Vala looked for a place to put them. The littered floor was not an option, but Vala was starting to get desperate. The papers were far heavier than she had ever expected. In numbers the weightless sheets could squash a child. Spotting a nearby chair to her right, Vala began to hobble over. Unused to lifting weights, Vala ended up carrying most of it with her back, causing her more trouble than necessary. Once she reached the chair, she still didn’t know that she should have been bending at the knees, thus bending instead from her waist. As she set them down, a handful, near fifteen sheets slid off and made their way across the room.

Vala sighed, wiping her flushed brow with her sleeve. “Why do I do this to myself?”

by **Vala** on June 21st, 2011, 1:55 am

Carefully balanced on the chair, the papers reached all the way up to Vala’s chin. She eyed it distrustfully as she picked up the fifteen sheets that had slid off earlier. “Well,” she said as she flipped through the mini stack in her hand. “Might as well start somewhere.” She plopped down onto the floor before the giant stone wall cubby. Vala stood right back up, yelping in pain as something jabbed her bum. Looking down, it didn’t take her long to find a broken stylus handle inconspicuously mocking Vala from the floor. Instead of throwing it against a wall, as much as she wanted to, she stuffed it into the pocket of her byrda instead. Maybe if she helped clean up all the miscellaneous crap lying around Warden would shower her with praise… or maybe not. Either way, the clutter was really getting to the girl who needed everything in perfect order or she started pulling her hair out.

Before she tried to sit down on the hazardous floor again, Vala made sure to sweep everything aside first. Warden’s direct order superseded the obsessive compulsion that was starting to itch beneath her skin. First things first right? Once a four foot radius had been cleared between the wall and the chair, Vala gingerly lowered herself to the cold stone, her hand sweeping about to check for any more pokey things. Once she was there she began to separate the set of fifteen sheets she had in her hand.

After a season or so of working in the library, Vala had learned a few important tricks about ‘organizing’. One of them was never, absolutely never, organize everything one at a petching time. She use to do that as a new librarian, and no one had the decency to teach her otherwise until she finally noticed everyone was finishing twice as fast as her… librarianhood was a lot more cut throat that some people realize.

It was easy to spot the wadj. She didn’t even have to feel it; the plant fibers were easily identifiable by sight. What really got to her was trying to differentiate between parchment and vellum. Kirna occasionally liked to give informational tidbits, and one day as she was working late at the repair station she had the privilege of learning Vellum was made of calfskin, er cows, and Parchment was made of sheepskin: a load of help that was. What had really gotten her through the day was when some cranky old crone screeched to her many moons ago “Hand me a sheet of the parchment there… are you dense? Parchment is the thick one. Try and get that through your thick skull.” Vala didn’t make the same mistake again.

There were countless ways to treat animal skin into a workable writing surface. There were many that could make vellum look like parchment and parchment look like vellum – which was all very silly to Vala. Even texture became a variable with the more masterful papermakers. The one thing the sneaky buggers couldn’t do was change the weight of the sheet.

So that her eyes couldn’t deceive her, Vala shut them tight and let her fingers do the work. Her calloused ink stained pads boasted a scribe’s intuitive touch. She spent no more than three seconds on each sheet. To her far left she set the parchment. Right in front she stacked the wadj. And to her right she lay the vellum. Vala had purposely separated the parchment from the vellum just so she wouldn’t accidentally place the sheet on the wrong stack once she got sloppy and tired.

On any given day, math was absolutely out of the question. Just the mention of numbers gave Vala shivers. But her mind, her nebulous consciousness, was wilting under the repetitive job of classifying paper. Vala desperately needed something to entertain her as she worked, preferably before she blacked out from boredom and conked her head against the hard stone floor. She couldn’t sing; she felt far too self conscious with the risk of Warden possibly popping out from any god given corner. And she couldn’t do anything else that was too mentally demanding or she risked messing up the childishly simple job. Math… she was actually turning to math.

Vala subtracted -5 from how much she thought of Warden…

There… she was already starting to waste away her brain cells. It was no use though, the mumbling of numbers under her breath was slowly starting to sap at her will, as she finally relented herself to the secondary act of mind numbing counting. It was one thing to robotically catalogue and organize, but it totally changed the game when her mind was filled with two brainless tasks – as in it managed to fill up her mind so completely she didn’t feel the need to jump into an abyss full of sharp jagged stuff to avoid the tedium.

One… two… three… four sheets of parchment. One… two… three… four… five sheets of vellum. One… two… three… four… five… six sheets of wadj. There she was done counting the first fifteen sheets. Sure it was easy enough to keep track of three stacks while they were still under the fifties… but what happened when she got to the hundreds? Thousands? It was a challenge. Vala was sure there were at least over a thousand sheets in the stack Warden had given her. Was she up for it? Vala’s heart raced. She bit her lip, piercing the soft pink flesh with a pointed canine. There was no one around to prove herself to – only herself… Her eyes flickered, flashing from one stack to the next, as she pulled out another hefty sheaf from the large pile, sitting back down in her circle of organization, the numbers 4, 5, and 6 in bold white, flashing at the forefront of her skull.

She was so absorbed in her system and new personal challenge that she had forgotten she eventually had to put her perfect little stacks into more obnoxious cubbies. The stone wall seemed to loom ominously, waiting to devour the poor hunched girl.

by **Vala** on June 22nd, 2011, 11:43 pm

Steps echoed in the hall. Vala didn’t turn around when Warden walked in. The red raw pads of her forefinger and thumb could barely feel even the most prominent of textures anymore, she was relying on her strained eyes to identify the sheets now. “How’s the work going?” Warden asked, his low voice shattering the piercing silence that had slowly engulfed Vala, who was now lost in the fog of numbers that had begun to jumble her thoughts and peck at her sanity. Was she on the fifty-eight sheet of wadj or the fifty-ninth? Well she would figure it out the end, for she knew for a fact that there were exactly two hundred and twenty four pieces of wadj. Or was it two hundred and twenty three pieces of wadj?... Vala shook her head as she shoved another sheet into its proper cubby. If she let the numbers get to her now, there was no guessing where she would be in five chimes… clinically insane? Bloody Rampage? Probably.

With Warden’s entrance, it felt like the cotton had been pulled out of her ears. Her ears pricked at every deafening scuffle of Warden’s boots trying to traverse the littered floor of his workshop. She could even hear him brush off a stone chair right before he plopped down. His slow, even breathing was starting to grate on her nerves. Can’t a girl be left to work in peace?

Warden cleared his throat. At this Vala spun around, fingers white from gripping the sheet of wadj so tightly. “So I see you’ve gotten all the vellum put away…” Warden offered as a friendly ice breaker. Yeah. All one hundred and eighty eight sheets. Vala wanted to scream, but she just twitched instead. Warden opened his mouth, looked away from Vala’s red veined stare, and then closed his mouth again. It was another chime or two before Warden attempted to break the tension again. “Put the wadj down, dear. Come sit down for a bit.” Warden quickly cleared off a nearby stool.

Vala pouted childishly. “But then I’ll lose count…” The focus fading from her eyes as she mentally recited her page count again… Two hundred and twenty three sheets of wadj; One hundred and eighty eight sheets of vellum; Two hundred and thirty one sheets of parchment, to be exact.

Before Vala could be further sucked into her own psychosis, Warden abruptly stood up, the chair pushed back a few inches. He pressed the palm of his calloused hand to the small of her back, violently ripping Vala back to reality. She jumped a few inches into the air as she yelped in pain. Warden stepped back, surprised by her unconventional reaction. “Come on dear, it looks like you really need to take a break. Deep breaths, that’s it. Come on no need to get so tense. Here will this make you feel better?” Warden reluctantly stepped away from Vala to grab a small clay tablet from the shelf. His eyes scanned the floor, stopping at a broken stylus. He picked it up; it would do. Walking over to Vala he placed the tools in her hands and said, “Why don’t you write down your count so you don’t forget and you won’t have to keep all those silly numbers in your head.” Vala nodded dumbly. She winced as she held the stylus. The bell of rubbing endless sheets between her fingers had worn down so many layers of skin that she was dangerously close to bleeding. Her lines of her characters were wobbly even though she tried so hard to keep her hand from shaking. When she was done, Warden nodded, placating her, as he pulled the stylus and tablet from her hands and placed them back down on the chair. “That’s a girl. Come on. I need to go deliver some letters to an Endal. I’m supposed to meet him at the lakes. Why don’t you come with me.” It was an order wrapped in a gentle request.

Vala threw one last frantic glance at the papers she had left un shelved. The work’s siren call pained her. She wanted to push Warden away and run back and finish what she started, but she couldn’t. She knew she was getting obsessed again. It took all the will power she had, and Warden’s supportive presence to walk on and not tear up.

by **Vala** on June 23rd, 2011, 12:58 am

“Where are we going?” Vala asked numbly, just realizing she was following Warden, a man she had barely knew that and she had forgotten her scribe’s kit back at the work room. She opened her eyes, trying to memorize the path they were taking just in case she needed to run back and snatch what was rightfully hers.

Warden was glad she was cognizant enough to break the silence on her own. “I’m to meet an Endal by the small grass area by the Shivias’ east shore. You know, maybe we can even sneak some berries when the Avora aren’t looking.” He suggested mischievously, thought it was obvious he had done it several times before without negative consequences. Vala just nodded mutely. She wasn’t in the mood to talk yet. Once the girl got invested in a project she didn’t like getting ripped from its dark embrace until she had proved her worth. She knew she should have been rubbing elbows with her possible future master, making him like her by any means necessary, but he had already assigned her a task – wasn’t that enough? And acting took so much out of her too. Vala preferred bleeding fingers and a job well done over boring acting any day; if Warden was going to be her boss she couldn’t mess around: he had ‘Target’ Immunity.

Once they reached the sunny knoll, Warden sat down in a very visible but out of the way space and patted the ground next to him. Vala plopped down, adjusting her byrda to get comfortable. Warden looked to the landing pad for Eagle Riders. His client had yet to arrive; Warden liked to be early when he could. And it was a great time to start getting a proper ‘feel’ for his new ‘apprentice’. He already knew there was something just not right with the girl, but she was a hard worker, a little too hard, and he wanted to give her a chance. And it was rare to find anyone interested in calligraphy in their survivalist colony – Warden wouldn’t give up such a rarity so easily. “So I heard you speak Common and a bit of Lhatvian?”

Vala ran her fingers through the lush blades of verdant green. “I might. How do you know that?” She asked, a little creeped out.

Warden just chuckled at Vala’s defensive tone. “It’s a small city hon. It’s hard not to know things about people. Plus I do business with Val Imsun.” That made sense; Vala’s muscles relaxed. ”So do you prefer common? Or do you like Lhatvian?”

Her pink lips twitched side to side. She never thought about it before. ”Well I think Common is very practical for traders and travelers alike. But Lhatvian sounds softer to the ears, if you know what I mean. “ Warden nodded in agreement.

Vala watched as he leaned back into the grass, staring up into the beautifully cloudy sky. ”I might just have to agree with you lady Vala. Say, do you happen to know any songs in lhatvian? He closed his eyes, allowing the sunlight to dance upon his pale cheeks.

Vala shook her head until she realized he couldn’t see. ”No, I can’t say I know any lhatvian songs.

Warden sighed, switching to common just because he could. ”Shame… that just means I’ll have to teach you.” Vala giggled. ”Why? Do you think I can’t sing?

Vala shook her head, forgetting again. No, it’s not that at all. I dunno, I just laughed is all. The smell of new life, of rebirth and fresh chances filled the air. The joy was infectious. Before she knew it, Vala was already forgetting about the work she had waiting for her in the stuffy tunnels of her home city.

A turn of the lips, a smile crept onto Warden’s cheeks. He sat up, his eyes still closed. Give me a second to warm up why don’t you.” Warden cleared his throat and began to warble jokingly. Vala giggled, watching as his adam’s apple bobbed up and down. She looked down at his fingers. They were a dark gray. To a normal person they would have assumed him to have lost his blood circulation or be diseased, but as a practiced scribe she knew it was years of ink stains that had seeped so far deep into his flesh no amount of washing could get it out. She could even spot the yellowed callous just on the last joint of his middle finger where he balanced the quill. It gave her shivers seeing traits she knew she would soon be sporting if she continued on her current path. Would she grow old and wrinkly like Warden? Of course she would. It was only natural. But as she counted the aged folds that lined his face she frowned at the thoughts of the inevitable toll of time. Her attention was brought back to his fingers as she watched them casually tap out a steady beat. She watched, mesmerized by the light, tap, tap, tap, of his forefinger and middle finger against his knee. It was inaudible, he tapped so lightly, so she could only watch for the beat, which she did with great zeal.

She unconsciously held her breath when Warden began.

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

Warden faded balefully, until only the bleating of mountain goats rode the breeze. They sat in silence for another chime or two. The last somber notes seemed to hang in the air, but not as sound, only as a memory of the sadness. Warden’s voice had been deep, emanating from far within. Though he was by no means a master singer, his voice had been pleasant - though his song choice was of something to be desired.
Vala’s ice blue stare focused onto a circling form up above: a Wind Eagle? It was still too small, too far away, to tell exactly. She squinted, trying not to be blinded by the sun’s glare as she tried to identify the black brown dot.

Warden once again pulled her back to reality. ”Why don’t you try dear? I bet you can sing beautifully. It took Warden another five chimes of insistant cajoling before Vala even considered trying the song. She was proud enough to admit she had a pleasant enough voice, but she knew that she was basically tone deaf. Vala was only meant for choir singing, where she could latch on to another’s voice and basically amplify their sound with hers melding perfectly.

Finally she agreed to sing with Warden. He made sure to take her through it step by step. Her Lhatvian was still severely accented, with few natives to ever teach her the proper way, but he supposed it would be ok since in singing accents were usually lost to the notes. Once she could speak the words without stumbling, she was quick learner, memorizing the first two stanzas in a couple chimes; Warden began to go through each phrase of notes. He sang louder than normal so she wouldn’t feel discouraged when she sang her notes wrong.

Her crystal soft sopralto danced along side with Warden’s somber bass. While his steady tone grounded the song to the sadness inherent within the words, Vala articulated the notes in such a way that brought out her inner darkness, transforming it into beautiful music. Even the sharp missed notes and cracking of her voice added a more genuine flavor to the song. Vala blushed sheepishly when she saw some of the other citizens had stopped to listen to the two sing.

Vala was filled with bittersweet gratitude when an Endal marched up to them, tersely interrupting their private bonding session.

Song :

by **Vala** on June 23rd, 2011, 6:35 pm

The Endal looked down his nose at the two. "Who is she?" He asked.

Warden stood up, brushing off his byrda. Vala followed his lead and stood up as well. Though the Endal stood a good head taller, Warden still made an imposing figure when he felt like it. Vala's head took a momentarily sharp pounding when she tried to see Warden's aura. She hadn't been prepared for the amount of force and energy he emitted without any outwards effort. Vala averted her eyes when the shine of the bright blue energy crackled with power. She hadn't been prepared at all for such a show. Vala made a mental note not to try reading Warden so close or without a few chimes gathering mental clarity. She drew her gaze to the Endal's face when Warden spoke. "She is my new apprentice." The Endal's face did not change from its mask of aloof disdain; Vala wondered if her face revealed the surprise she had felt at Warden's straightforward answer.

This was below his notice. "Do you have my letters?" Warden nodded. And without another word the letters and the money were exchanged. The Endal walked back to the platform, mounted his Eagle, and rode away.

"I thought you had a booth for exchanges like this..." Vala asked tentatively.

Warden nodded, motioning Vala to get a move on. Preferring to keep his business conversations a private matter, Warden switched back to common. "Yes I do. And it does generate most of my business, but the market only meets every ten days. You will learn that, that is very limiting, but once you have a steady clientele base a physical front like that matters less. As you have just seen, business becomes more of a private matter - especially for many Endals who do not like to air their personal laundry. Vala's fingers scrambled within the pockets of her byrda. She yelped in genuine glee when she found a scrap of wadj and a stubby charcoal nub. Before she lost any of the precious information Warden was so freely giving out, she began to scribble what she could.

* Booth is for building steady clientele
* Most business in private
* Keep clients' secrets

Warden chuckled when he saw what Vala was up to. Her handwriting was barely legible as she tried to write while keeping pace. She did run into a couple walls though. "Is there anything else I should know Warden?" Vala asked without looking up.

"Speak in common when we talk about business dear. There you go, another tid bit you can scribble down. Don't reveal your trade secrets to the competition." Vala blushed as she wrote the last tip down. Her heart sang, beating fast in her chest, when she realized Warden had brought her into his confidence... it was a novel feeling. One that she would cherish in her cold soul.

by **Vala** on July 5th, 2011, 4:20 am

"Do you think you can finish the rest of the organizing tonight?" Val sat at his desk, shuffling a couple papers until he found the one he was looking for. "To tell you the truth I hadn't intended for you to finish today... "

Vala gave Warden a withering look. "You wanted to keep me as your housemaid for another day didn't you?" Warden shrugged, avoiding eye contact, quite aware of Vala's glare. Vala sighed. "I'm pretty much half way done. I was slowing down by the time you got to me. Now that I've had a bit of a rest I should finish even faster."

They didn't need to talk. The two got to work without another word passing between them. They were actually pretty similar.

The light flickered. Shadows arched high behind Vala's hunched form. Vala's hands moved quickly, shoving each sheet into their proper niche. Her fingers were still quite raw from her earlier efforts but the pain was dulled by the rushing adrenaline. She had given up trying to keep the numbers straight in her head. With Warden in her company, scribbling away at his desk, she thought it would be odd to do such an anti-social habit. She poured all of her energy into focusing on the task at hand. Every now and then Warden would look up to see how Vala was getting along, shaking his head in both shock and pride.

"I'm Done!" Vala cheered, fist pumping in the air. Warden chuckled. Vala skipped over to Warden's desk, laying her hands on the edge as she leaned in with a lopsided grin on her face. "Sooo..."

Warden raised his right eyebrow. "Sooooo?" He exaggerated the vowel to tease Vala.

She huffed, blowing a strand of hair from her face. "My compensation?" Vala asked meekly. Vala hated to ask; it made her feel wrong inside.

Warden smiled, easing the tension. He switched back to Nari. "Sorry my dear, I didn't mean to rile you up. Of course, of course you'll get your compensation. I do believe we had a deal already arranged?"

Vala nodded. "Yes..." Vala didn't want to overstep her bounds.

"No need to be shy dear. Come on, you can even pick them out with me."

Vala flushed hot pink as she rose three inches in the air. She nearly fainted with joy as she was led to the bountiful ink shelves.

Warden chuckled. "Come on, let's start with the basic blacks shall we...

by **Vala** on July 5th, 2011, 4:31 pm

Vala's 'Compensation' :

by **Flicker** on July 13th, 2011, 8:12 pm

XP:

Organization: 4, Math: 1, Observation: 3, Auristics: 1, Singing: 2, Business: 1, Acting: 1

Lores:

Warden is creepy, Wardens living space, Differences between Parchment, Wadj, and Vellum, The effects of paper on fingers, 223 sheets of Wadj, 188 sheets of Vellum, 231 sheets of Parchment, The secret side of business, Lhavitian "Inside my head" song, Wardens aura,Warden as a mentor, Business with Warden

Comments: Three more threads with common to go, four more with Lhavitian. I'm guessing she learned auristics in a thread that's waiting to be graded because it isn't in your CS yet. And...good job, as always.