Seeking Guidance [Veldrys]

by **Lysander** on July 8th, 2011, 1:09 pm

The Ethaefal’s head cocked sideways when Veldrys questioned his skills in medicine. The realization that his pale counterpart was combing him for information had not occurred to him when strong fingers tugged again at the fragile arm to lead him from the musky chapel. Crisp, summer sea air filled his lungs and curled his lips into a pleasant smile. Veldrys seemed to have a habit of asking question after question, leaving little time in between for Lysander to respond. Despite this, the accent lost none of its appeal and the Ethaefal would answer each inquiry the best he could in the time he was allotted.

“I can set broken limbs, uh, yes, bandage too,” he repeated, mulling over what he knew in his head as the chapel grew smaller and the rest of the city grew larger. Lysander wouldn’t admit that the entire thing was a bit too frustrating – consciously knowing little of your own ability until the situation was presented to you. “I know that I can mush up certain plants and make an effective poultice if you have swelled or aching joints. Uh,” Lysander furrowed his brow in thought, shuffling feet slowing to a complete stop before Veldrys had continued with an attempt at motivation. It certainly was enough to soften the Ethaefal’s expression and coax a familial grin.

Turning to face the Symenestra, their eyes met and the toothy grin persisted as Lysander’s hands shot upwards to cup the white jaw between his fingers. Veldrys looked as if he could easily snap if his lingering touch was too rough and he held the impossibly soft face as he would an egg he feared would shatter if it were to drop. “More than just talk?” The grin evolved into a teasing laugh and a misunderstood accusation and as Lysander leaned in to speak more quietly, their noses nearly touched, “What do you mean? Are you one of those priests, Vel? Sitka told me about the Temple of Nikali, but he also banished me from ever going there. I have never been with a man before,” a pause, testing the violet beneath the growing pupils of his new friend, “Then again, I have never been with a woman either. I am only shy of two weeks old, after all!”

The curious hands would release from Veldrys’ face now - if the Symenestra had allowed him to embrace him for such a length of time - and the laugh turned dismissive with a flick of his wrist. “Sitka would kill us both.” Embarrassment was of no concern to Lysander; social taboo was not something he seemed to be aware of. When he started down the dirty path again, Veldrys could breathe a sigh of relief when those invasive digits dove into the pockets of his oversized pants.

“Oh, it’s brown, by the way.”

Elaboration would arrive on the next breath, “My hair that is. It’s brown.”

by **Veldrys** on July 9th, 2011, 11:47 am

As Lysander admitted that he also knew how to make a poultice, the Symenestra nodded. That was soemthing he had learned as well. In fact he had just made a few things that would hopefully help to easse Chaplain Zahari’s joint pain a few days ago. Some of the plants he had harvested were still lying in his quarters, drying so that he could make them into soem kind of tea. „Do you also know how to operate on somebody?“ he enquired further. „Do you know how to take care of wounds that are internal?“ As he waited for the Ethaefal’s answer, he wondered where he had learned all that when he had just been a slave. Had he had been a healer before he had been captured or was it something his owner had taught him?

As Lysander cupped his jaw between his fingers, the Symenestra narrowed his eyes, clearly not welcoming the other man’s touch. Lysander would notice that the priest’s skin was soft and smooth, without even a hint of the facial hair that human men possessed. And then the Symenestra brushed his hand away. „Don’t touch me unless I give you permission to do so“, he hissed, and then, as he heard the Ethaefal’s next words, his eyes narrowed further until they had become nothing more than thin, purple slits.

„I’m not one of those priests“, he informed him. „I don’t serve Nikali.“ He found the mere suggestion that he could be one of them, little more than a better prostitute, offensive. „I serve Viratas, the god of blood, as I’ve already told you, and I can read your memories if you give me just a drop ...“ He came to the decision that it would be better to tell Lysander after all, even if he might find the notion of drinking blood disgusting. It was better than being taken for a servant of Nikali. Truth to be told, he found the Ethaefal’s form fascinating and exotic, but there was just something about the way he acted, about how childish he was that immediately destroyed any romantic thoughts he might have entertained otherwise. It would have made him feel like a pervert.

„You have never been with anybody?“ That statement irritated the Symenestra further, if it was at all possible. He looked at the Ethaefal’s body that resembled that of a grown man and shook his head. How could he look like an adult and still be untouched? Had he never had a lover in his past life? „Sitkanis banished you from going there? Why does he give you orders, and why do you obey them? Aren’t you old enough to make your own decisions?“ Did it have something to do with the fact that Lysander had only fallen two weeks ago? Did Ethaefal consider themselves children when they had only been in this world for such a short time? When did an Ethaefal come of age? After a year? After two years?

He didn’t say anything to Lysander’s statement that Sitkanis would kill them both. He’d feel like committing a murder as well if their roles were reversed. As Lysander chose to stop his strange questions and annoying touches, the Symenestra breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t know what to think of him. There was something utterly fascinating about the people that fell from the sky, but on the other hand Lysander reminded him of an annoying little boy, an annoying little boy in the body of a grown man.

„Brown you say? Then you were most likely just a normal human, no Inarta or Vantha“, he decided. „I hope that doesn’t disappoint you.“

by **Lysander** on July 11th, 2011, 8:18 pm

“I told you, I don’t really know the extent of what I can do.” Lysander replied, fingering the rolled up linen in his pocket as the question was posed to him. His face twisted as if trying to remember, but his mind was stubborn and unwilling to retrieve the information he wanted. “Maybe, I mean, I don’t know.”

It took a lot for some things to sink into Lysander’s head – the clear anger that bubbled up in the Symenestra, the narrowed violet irises that bore down on him and scolded him over the physical contact he had grown so fond of – forced him to recoil and furrow his brow to distort his unnaturally beautiful features. And while the Ethaefal bordered on rude and overbearing, equal opposite force seemed to grind the young man to a halt. “Okay,” he rebuked in a brash tone, as if he were the one that had been wronged by the infraction. “I will not do it again.” The promise seemed empty. The porcelain skin was so soft. It tempted him; damn the luck that he had annoyed the man to the point where he’d been cut off from that soft white face.

Lysander’s eyes trailed off towards the edge of the city, where cliffs gave way to water and in the darkness, beyond his plane of vision laid buoys and float docks and beyond that anchored boats that winked and rolled in the relative calm of the ocean. “Been with, as in sex? No, nobody,” a shake of his head came with the glisten of curled horn against the low light of the celestial body that hung lazily in the black sky above. “I haven’t really met many people in my short time here and Sitka is my brother; you donnot lay with your own brother.” Veldrys’ following comment, likely brought on by further annoyance, struck Lysander as nothing short of revolutionary. “Why do I obey him?” An astounded pause, “I …” then he trailed off, unable to respond logically to the question, as even he was not sure why he listened so obediently to everything Sitkanis demanded.

“Vir-a-tas,” Lysander repeated, falling victim to the Symenestra's quick line of questioning that left him unable to dwell on one thought for too long, “My blood? So you want to bite me.” He accused. Sure, he had been irritating – but did he deserve to have his skin torn open and his blood spilt? After a moment of what looked to be deep thought, Lysander’s lips opened and closed a few times before a response emerged, but not without his own conditions. “Just a drop wouldn’t hurt, I guess, but I want to touch you again.” The request, if one could call it that, did not seem to dip into the realm of carnal desire. The Ethaefal was simply insatiable in his curiosity.

The hand slid from his pocket again and made a move for Veldrys’ face; that soft face, as beautiful and smooth and shining as Leth’s wondrous moon, he could have been a child of the night, had by some turn of magic his limbs grew shorter and temple bore horns. The apprehension in Lysander’s movements was clear, but the initial fear he felt when their last contact had gained him a hiss of harsh warning had long since melted away from the front of his mind. He did not wish to be torn into like some piece of dead flesh, and when the back of his hand found the curved jaw line of the fragile creature again, his fingers pressed to warm lips and the grin he wore took on a deriding crookedness.

“Is my hand alright, or do you prefer biting people elsewhere?”

Lysander then turned his eyes towards the darkness; away from the skin that would inevitably be broken open at any point on his body – he hoped Veldrys chose the tougher skin on his hand, rather than a more sensitive area – in the name of finding information about his past. His jaw had slowly tightened to the point where a twinge of soreness made him realize the pain of gritted teeth and he released the muscle to allow his lips to hang open. The anticipation of the bite was getting to him; he wanted the pain of it to be over and he yearned for the information Veldrys claimed he could acquire from drinking his blood.

by **Veldrys** on July 15th, 2011, 12:03 pm

„You should try to remember then“, the Symenestra suggested. The Ethaefal’s lack of knowledge was frustrating, and the way he reacted to the things he said left him permanently puzzled. How could somebody as beautiful as Lysander act like a boy that was forever stuck in the worst phase of puberty? No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t figure it out. It just didn’t seem right or make any sense. How could one Ethaefal be so mature, and the other one so ... childish?

„Good“, he remarked as Lysander stated that he wouldn’t touch him again. He couldn’t help but notice the tone of the Ethaefal’s voice though. He sounded just like a boy that was permanently in a bad mood, acted offended when he been the one who had done something wrong and was generally just looking for a way to get what he wanted regardless of whatever rules had been imposed on him. He decided not to make a comment about it though. It just didn’t seem to be worth the potential trouble.

„I arrived here on one of those boats ...“ he remarked as he noticed how Lysander looked at the cliffs and the sea in front of them. „About two seasons ago. Have you ever been on a boat?“ The Ethaefal could notice that the Symenestra wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about boats. They still made him a little uncomfortable, even after all the time. He’d grown up in a place where there was no open water, and he was more used to climbing rocks. If travelling to Denval by boat hadn’t been the safest way, he would definitely never have done it!

„No sex?“ he repeated and furrowed his brow a little, but then he nodded. „You don’t lay with your brother“, he agreed. „That would be wrong in a way that I cannot express with mere words.“ With that he waited for Lysander’s explanation as to why he obeyed Sitkanis, but to his surprise the Ethaefal couldn’t answer the question. „You should learn to think for yourself“, he advised him, not knowing that Lysander’s other form was that of a boy who should obey older people. „You cannot rely on him forever.“

„Yes, I want to bite you“, he confirmed. „Unfortunately there is no other way, at least none that I know.“ Lysander’s request to touch him again made him hesitate because it was obvious that the Ethaefal wanted it. Lysander just made him uncomfortable. But then he gave a curt nod. „Touch me then if you absolutely must“, he remarked. „And the hand is fine. When I sacrifice my blood to Viratas, I always cut my hand.“

Truth to be told, his experience with biting people was still small. He had only devoted more time to Viratas since his arrival here, and he didn’t normally walk around the city, offer to bite people and try to find their memories out, so he didn’t know how exactly to go about it. In the end he simply took the Ethaefal’s hand in his. Lysander would find that the Symenestra’s bite was comparatively gentle. Even though the Etheafal was getting on his nerves a little, he had no wish to hurt him more than was necessary. This was an almost religious act for him.

OOCI think we should stop after your next post until the thread where I get my gnosis has been graded. I’m not comfortable using the power that the gnosis grants me without that.

by **Lysander** on July 18th, 2011, 4:14 pm

Lysander brightened at Veldrys’ question of boats. “I landed near a boat!” the exclamation was loud and jarring in the night air. “The fisherman was really surprised, he yelled and screamed a lot when I crawled into his boat and changed in front of him. Then he swam all the way to shore.” Lysander furrowed his brow; his nerves were making him skittish and talkative. “It was not a really good first time in a boat. I scraped the shyke out of the bottom getting it to shore, too. That’s where I found Sitka; it was like he was waiting for me.”

He grinned at that thought. The first time he had met Sitkanis, the delicate, beautiful man that sat on the rocky shore and questioned him with a solemn look on his face Lysander had found impossible to wipe off. “I do think for myself,” The boy-Ethaefal argued, contempt sullying his voice, “Sitka guides me, I don’t know where I would be without- aah!”

A sharp gasp escaped Lysander’s lips and he snapped his golden eyes shut when Veldrys’ needle-sharp fangs broke his skin, sensitive and fleshy below his wrist. The position he was left in afforded him a chance to wrap his free arm around Veldrys’ shoulders and draw him into what he hoped was an embrace that would soothe the pain the man was causing him. Tears stung his eyes and his heart drummed against his chest and against the Symenestra’s pale shoulder he was pressed against. Compared to the aches and pains felt by soldiers, mothers, and those of a slave-life long forgotten by the boy – this was absolutely trivial. A pin-prick to his wrist, something that would be over within seconds; the boy had a way of exaggerating his emotions and reactions.

Lysander would later swear he could feel the fangs slipping from his open flesh, and when they did and Veldrys was no longer drawing red from him he recoiled and covered the wound with his hand. A murmur and a swarm of djed lasting no longer than a fraction of a second, a twinkle of a distant star beneath his fingers clotted the blood and began to close the pair of tiny wounds. If Veldrys knew nothing of the gift Ethaefal possessed, the ability to age wounds, or small organisms by one day every night, it would appear that Lysander had wondrous – if not a bit weak – healing powers. He rubbed the dulling pain Veldrys left behind before gold flickered up to trap violet again with an inevitable question.

“What do you see?”

by **Veldrys** on July 21st, 2011, 6:52 am

„The fisherman swam to the shore?“ the Symenestra asked and arched an eyebrow. He wasn’t sure if he had heard correctly. Why would the man have abandoned the boat? Why had he not thrown Lysander into the water or taken him to the shore in hos boat? The Ethaefal wasn’t such a scary sight to him. „Was he afraid of you?“ His lips twisted into a little half smile. As Lysander insisted that he thought for himself, the Symenestra nodded curtly. He wasn’t entirely willing to believe that – most of what he had said so far hinted at the contrary – but he didn’t really want to dwell on it either.

He had always thought that an Ethaefal’s blood would be different from human blood or the animal blood he had sometimes drunk at the Purging, when he had been so busy with his work that there hadn’t been time for a proper meal. He had been half convinced that it wouldn’t even be the same color, but it wasn’t so different after all. It was just blood. Maybe the few drops he took weren’t been enough to notice a difference. It was barely enough blood to wet his mouth, barely enough to leave a crimson stain on his pale lips, but it had an unusual effect on him nevertheless.

For a moment, as he drank, the outside world seemed to stop existing. He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear. There was only the precious crimson liquid, a confusing mix of emotions that weren’t really his own. He could feel what Lysander was feeling, his fear, his rage, his annoyance. There were thoughts and memories, but they were confusing. They seemed to be entirely random, and he didn’t know how to make sense of them. Had Lysander been calmer and more mature, he might have been able to guide him through his memories, but as it was the Symenestra felt overwhelmed, and it took him a moment to recover.

„Your wound has closed“, he observed, ignoring the Ethaefal’s question for a moment. Indeed, the tiny pair of wounds that his teeth had inflicted seemed to have faded. They were no longer bleeding. As somebody who bore the blessing of Viratas, Veldrys could hasten the healing of wounds, but he had never thought that the Ethaefal had similar abilities. He seemed so childish. Maybe he had underestimated him. „You do not bear the mark of Viratas or Rak’keli, do you?“ he asked, wondering if maybe Lysander had a mark hidden somewhere on his body where he couldn’t see it.

„I saw ...“ he began and then he stopped, tried to make sense of the few, confusing memories that had invaded his mind. „There was an older man. I’m not sure, but I think he was a slave as well. He taught you something. Was he the one who taught you healing?“ The Symenestra furrowed his brow as if he weren’t sure if he had interpreted the picture in his mind correctly. „You were young. You were still young when you died, but I don’t know how young. You were younger than I am now though. I saw a second man, a little younger than the one that taught you. He was responsible for your death – he sent you there - but you still considered him your father. He was the only kind of father you ever knew.“

He stopped again and looked at Lysander. „Do you remember his name? And how old are you exactly? You seem to be a grown man now, but the boy I saw was younger. How can that be? How can you be both a man – and not?“ His violet eyes were wide with curiosity – and a vague kind of shock - and somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered if Sitkanis‘ treatment of Lysander wasn’t entirely unjustified after all.

by **Lysander** on July 22nd, 2011, 11:25 am

It was no surprise to Lysander that he was made of flesh and blood. Then again, he had never thought too deeply about it. Steely gold eyes remained locked on Veldrys as he ignored his question in favor of chattering about the now closed-over wound on his wrist. “Every Ethaefal can do it,” he mumbled dismissively, “I do not bear any mark of any god. I just aged the wound a day. See? It isn’t even healed; it’s just a day old.” His opposite hand reinforced his comment by pressing a pair of fingers against one of the holes. It was scabbed over with dried blood that was painfully scratched away, re-opening one of the tiny wounds to the air again to ooze and bleed crimson, mortal blood. Nothing spectacular, although Lysander had immediately regretted brushing it off as so – Veldrys seemed genuinely impressed with him, for once.

As the novelty of Ethaefal aging gifts had worn off and Veldrys finally spoke of what he had seen, Lysander withdrew, arms folding across his chest and toes curling in discomfort against the dirty ground beneath his feet. His head dropped so far his chin nearly met his chest, and he listened, waiting for Veldrys to finish speaking. Of course, it would be followed by an onslaught of questions; this willowy-armed man with a moon-pale face and a taste for blood was good at asking questions.

Veldrys spoke of some life Lysander felt was not his own – at least, for the most part, a life he could not remember. But somehow, those memories were stored somewhere in his head, some place he could not access for whatever reason other than salt in the wound caused from falling from his divine realm. His head lifted again to drink in the hue of deep violet that looked back at him and the thin, pressed ‘m’ of a mouth that was now questioning him, probing for things he was assumed to know. As his own mouth opened to answer, or to lash out in anger caused by frustration and self-doubt, some vague memory trickled out from the recesses of his mind. Brought on by Veldrys’ explanation of what he had seen, no doubt.

“His name was Woren.” The breathy murmur was nothing short of revolutionary, “He was old and as useless as I was because I was just as far away on the other side of manhood. Woren taught me how limbs worked, joints and muscles and arteries all wrapped beneath skin together. Then he was gone.” Lysander’s mouth drew a straight line across the bottom half of his face and his vision blurred, “I am young - was young.”

If he knew Sitkanis, Veldrys had to know that Ethaefal change at dusk and dawn – how long before dawn, anyway? Lysander broke the stare just a moment to leer towards the horizon where Syna had begun to paint wisps of orange and purple where sea met sky. “I am young during the day. Not a boy. ‘Young adult’,” he dared look back towards Veldrys again, “I will never age beyond that, not while Syna reigns in the sky. Father Leth blessed me with a man’s body; but I do not remember growing older in his realm.”

There was an aspect to Lysander that was undoubtedly mature – it had come out once or twice in their short meeting, often when snippets of his past life were revealed or forced upon him by some trigger. Teenage impulsiveness would be set aside for a mind more developed in the darkness of night. Even then, it was fleeting and volatile. A thin curl returned to Lysander’s lips as he reached up to draw invisible lines across a soft white cheek. The longer he grew accustomed to the man’s strange and inhuman features, the more he found them appealing to the eye. “If you stay, you can see me change.” Sitkanis seemed to keep the matter private, but Lysander thought the transformation was beautiful. The smile grew, “Please stay, I remember things around you.”

by **Veldrys** on July 25th, 2011, 11:39 am

„I didn’t know that“, the Symenestra admitted as Lysander informed him that every Ethaefal could age wounds. „Do your abilities extend to other things as well? Sitkanis never told me about it.“ He watched with curiosity as Lysander proceeded to scratch the wound so that it began to bleed again, and then he nodded. What the Ethaefal had said was true. The wound hadn’t disappeared completely after all. It still impressed him though. „If you want to, I can show you how I heal wounds“, he offered, and then he proceeded to watch Lysander’s reaction to his revelation carefully.

As the Ethaefal withdrew, the Symenestra didn’t stop him, but merely took a step back as well and let him digest the things he had just heard. Lysander seemed to take the news fairly well, everything considered. Veldrys had half expected that he would break down, at least for a moment, that he wouldn’t be able to bear the news that the man he had considered his father had also been the one who had killed him.

„Woren“, he repeated the name of Lysander’s teacher. „If you knew how to heal, he wasn’t useless, and you weren’t useless either“, he tried to comfort the Ethaefal. For a moment it almost seemed as if he would cry for Woren. Veldrys couldn’t even begin to imagine what his life had been like as a human. Some of the things he had seen had been a little shocking. Maybe, he decided, it would be best to overlook his childish behaviour for now.

„A young adult then“, Veldrys corrected himself. „I have a hard time telling the age of humans sometimes. How old were you exactly? Fifteen? Sixteen“ He didn’t say anything to Lysander’s revelation that he would never grow older. To the Symenestra it seemed to be nothing short of a nightmare. He remembered his own youth all too well. He had been in a constant state of turmoil, and he hadn’t found his place in the world yet. He didn’t want to go back to that time. Besides that, he couldn’t help but wonder if Ethaefal could have children at all if they never aged.

He didn’t envy the Ethaefal so much anymore. He still found Sitkanis and Lysander beautiful, but their lives were more reminscent to a tragedy. And thus he allowed Lysander to touch him again, thinking that it would calm him down. „I would love to stay“, he said to him. „I’ve never seen an Ethaefal change.“ Without a doubt it would be fascinating.

by **Lysander** on July 27th, 2011, 12:28 pm

Lysander’s hand dropped from Veldrys’ face and lifted it between them, turning his palm over as if to inspect it for some hint of deeper power when he was asked. “No,” the shrug was belated and sluggish and his hand dropped uselessly to his side again. “I think that’s about it. I mean, I’d know if I had more right? I’d like to know what you can do, though …” Lysander seemed thoughtful for a moment, but his attentions were parted easily. As space parted them, the glittering gold of irises that once caught dying moonlight went dim as the Ethaefal tried to remember – tried to care – about this man Veldrys claimed was his father. He just couldn’t.

Veldrys’ comforting words dried the tears threatening to burst from his narrow eyelids and brought a thin smile to Lysander’s lips. While the burn of not feeling pain for this man, this ‘father’ figure Veldrys had mentioned was placed down hard in the back of his mind, Lysander reached forward again for a pale hand. “Thank you, Vel.” A nod, “I don’t feel like being alone right now.”

He led Veldrys down the dirt-packed street towards the heart of Denval. The silence grew between them as darkness began to give way to the pastel colors of dawn. Lysander remained ever wary of the changing sky as his voice broke the air with a squeeze of the Symenestra’s hand. “This is home,” he stated flatly, grinding to a halt in front of a small cottage-type building squashed between two others just like it. The roof was terracotta red in color and the white exterior was home to windows too thick and dirty to see through from the outside. His free hand pushed on the front door, left unlocked, and aged wooden floorboards creaked as he stepped into the empty house.

The whole main room smelled musty – as if it had not been lived in for a long time. “Did you see anything else?” Against a backdrop of dun grey, the Ethaefal looked nothing short of extraordinary; he glimmered in the cottage’s simplicity, something terribly out of place in a room so plain. “I mean, this … man you spoke of, that you say was my father, who sent me to my death.” Lysander’s brow furrowed as he stepped further into the cabin, letting his satchel drop with a thud to the floor behind him. “Do you know any more about him?”

Lysander was unable to focus on Veldrys when he turned for a response, eyes constantly flickering over the Symenestra’s head to the dingy window behind him where hues of purples and blues were turning pink and orange and where the face of the goddess that would change him would inevitably peek. If Veldrys continued to speak, Lysander would fall silent, staring vehemently past him with that dull, glazed-over look.

by **Veldrys** on August 1st, 2011, 12:57 pm

„Not necessarily“, Veldrys disagreed as Lysander assumed that he’d know if he had other abilities. From what he had observed, the Ethaefal’s mind was a fragile thing, and a lot of his memories were buried somewhere deep inside his brain, waiting to be recovered. „It could be that your other powers will only reveal themselves in time, that an event, a certain word will trigger them. You only remembered the name of your teacher when I saw it in your blood.“ He lifted a finger to his lips as if he wanted to check if any of the precious crimson drops still lingered, and then he lowered it again. It had been an almost subconscious gesture.

„I can heal wounds with blood“, he revealed as Lysander admitted that he was curious about what he could do. „If a vicious beast attacked you and tried to tear you in half, I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it – only somebody who had been marked multiple times would be able to help you then – but if you cut yourself, and I drank your blood, I could make the wound disappear.“ At least he thought that he could do that. He was still trying to find out what exactly Viratas‘ gift allowed him to do. Viratas was not a god that pampered his followers, that explained everything to them. He preferred if they found out things by themselves.

He allowed Lysander to take his hand and lead him to his home, even though it felt strange to hold the hand of what seemed to be a grown man, a grown man of almost otherworldly beauty that he was not romantically linked to and that was really only a boy inside. To distract himself from the strange thoughts that invaded his mind when he thought of the Ethaefal, he concentrated on the house in front of them.

Even after months on the surface, he still didn’t find the buildings of the humans in any way appealing. The coccoon like dwellings of the Symenestra were so much more graceful and beautiful. The house seemed like nothing more than a boring block of stone to him, but for Lysander’s sake he remarked, „It’s a nice place.“

With that he followed Lysander across the treshold and took a look around. One of the first things that he noticed was the small, that slightly unpleasant, musky smell that buildings generally acquired after they had been unoccupied for a while. He almost asked Lysander if he could open a window, but then decided not to, worried that the Ethaefal might consider it impolite. Instead he turned to answer Lysander’s question.

„No, unfortunately I didn’t see anything else. I saw that he made you fight, but I don’t know why. I might be able to find out more if you allowed me to drink your blood again and if you concentrated on him, but it isn’t certain. The extent of my abilities is still limited ...“ His voice trailed off as he realized that Lysander wasn’t really paying attention, that the Ethaefal’s gaze seemed to be focused on the window behind him.

„You will change soon, won’t you?“ he asked.