Contracted Interests

[Seven Xu]

43rd day of Fall, 511 AV
Twenty-First Bell

Beneath a dazzling ebony basin, the City of Illusion continued its endless plaiting dance. A salt breeze had wafted in from the tranquil spread of the Suvan and bit through layers of cotton and linen, coaxing goose prickles from ashy skin. Seven shuddered, plunged a set of bony fingers into the collar of his coat, and exhaled a plume of white into the crisp fall air. Laszlo was trudging over cobblestone a stride ahead, visibly unaffected by winter’s inevitable encroachment. When Syna’s fallen proffered a walk through Alvadas to investigate a peculiar building, Seven jumped at the opportunity; since the night he passed out in his room, the Ethaefal had kept his distance. Coincidence or not, it put the youth at ease when he was invited on a light-hearted outing.

The structure looked as if it’d been awkwardly dropped between two taller buildings; its black paint was peeling from aged timber, and the large window that overlooked the narrow street was opaque with filth. When the door swung open under Laszlo’s bodily push, he was hit by a wall of thick, stale air. Seven set to work trying to warm frozen fingers against his breath as he followed the Symenestra-on-duty’s lead, weaving between hazardously strewn furniture.

“It’s certainly charming.” Seven pulled back a dilapidated chair with the toe of his boot and sucked in his bottom lip, warping an already crooked grin. The chair creaked and whined when he eased himself into it. “I can’t imagine why anyone would abandon such a gold mine of firewood and—”

“… And …”

A pair of rubies had caught the silvery gleam of a low-hanging evening moon. With years of grime muting any outside light, it was no small wonder that Seven was gawping slack-lipped at the ceiling.

Countless minuscule glass tiles shimmered above their heads, a deeper, more vibrant blue-violet than most dyes allowed. Blue-white pinpoints speckled the expanse, twinkling, moving slower than his darting eyes could perceive. Looming like a beacon towards the back of the narrow room, a startling copy of its companion in the sky—was the moon. “Gods,” the airy derision had been ripped from the halfblood’s voice. It was obvious even at a glance that this was no ordinary mosaic. “It’s beautiful. How—just—what is it?” A crease formed between his pale brows and unvoiced determination lit a fire in his eyes; these were real stars, they were identical to the assembly in the sky leagues above their heads and yet here they were within reach. He had to get closer.

The old wooden chair groaned again as Seven’s weight shifted and his knees bent, catching the edge with his boots. His small frame heaved and straightened and soon he was standing on the wobbling seat, arms extended over his head to splay curious fingers across glimmering stars. “So you just ran into this place?”

[Laszlo]

Laszlo leaned himself up against one of the wooden tables, propping his arms behind him. His gray cloak bunched clumsily in the middle of his back, hanging down and brushing at his ankles. As he watched Seven eat his words, the false Symenestra's gray lips curled smugly. Already well acquainted with the splendor of the seemingly living mosaic, his amethyst eyes only flickered upward briefly in passing appreciation. "More like I keep running into it." While Seven distracted himself, Laszlo's amusement melted away. Not for the first time since that troubling evening, when he'd placed his friend into a hypnotic trance, he found himself studying the young halfblood with uneasy scrutiny. How could someone so small, so gentle, so timid, become something so cold and monstrous? The Ethaefal flexed his fingers, pressing the sharpened tips of his nails into the tabletop. He wasn't sure whether he was afraid to be alone with Seven, but he kept his distance. It felt like the intelligent thing to do. "Once every few days at least, I pass by this building if I'm out in the city. Seems like Alvadas keeps thrusting it at me." A trail of claws hissed against the old oaken table as Laszlo stepped away, pushing his other hand through his silver hair to nudge it back behind his ears. Stepping over odd bits of splintered wood and dusty, discarded trinkets on the floor, he made his way over to bar. His sinuses itched badly as he inhaled the dust kicked up by his footsteps. Clasping his hands together, Laszlo leaned over the bar and inspected the shelves along the back wall. "It changes, too." He sneezed, then cleared his throat. "The mosaic, I mean. In the day time, the tiles show the sun and the clouds. It's not always the same as the real weather." Thing is, not even Seven remembered what he did. Was he even aware of what his hands were capable of? The look on his face was pure innocence. Well, perhaps there was a note of sourness about his eyes… which ran deeper than anyone could possibly fathom. But Laszlo knew. "Do you like it?" The Ethaefal turned around, leaning back against the bar. He put on a cautious smile. And for now, it was just a smile. "Do you want to see upstairs?"

[Seven Xu]

A black-tipped thumb crooked between two tiny tiles in an attempt to loose one for examination, but after a few seconds of hearted fidgeting with the obstinate bit of glass, and then another, and another, Seven gave up. A sigh flared his nostrils and his arms dropped to his sides, clapping his hips in a defeated thud. “Yeah.” The murmured syllable seemed sufficient to answer both questions.

Seven managed to tear his eyes from the dimly glowing display of night long enough to paint a mirthful smile on his lips and offer it to Laszlo. Two leather-booted feet met with the floor again as he relinquished the archaic chair of his weight, only to dress it in his heavy jacket. The bulk of his form went with the coat, leaving a slight figure behind; his limbs were still of human proportion, but the Symenestra in his blood had left him lissome and elegant—a fluid grace that all but disappeared when he tasked his mind to its display.

Approaching the bar, Seven reached out to run a set of fingers across its polished surface. Years of dust came with it, and he promptly wiped a grey smudge across his stomach. “Upstairs is that way, yes?” He jerked his head towards a closed door on the far wall, but didn’t wait for confirmation before he’d passed the spider-faced impostor. A few hollow steps brought him to the door in question, and he lifted a hand still marred with bar grime to jiggle its bronzed doorknob. “There’s an old adage that claims this city will choose your path for you—you know, that it isn’t random and that something of fate is involved—but if that’s true in my case, I’m tired of its opinion of how long I need to walk to get where I’m going.”

Seven exhaled in satisfied celebration as the door released its sticky grip on its frame; shuddering open beneath his coaxing hand. Beyond it, a staircase ascended to the second level. The ceiling offered little light beyond the pale, eerie glow of the main floor; had Seven’s eyes not been well-adjusted to darkness he may have very well been blind after three or four steps. Pupils bled large into rings of crimson and sopped up every bit of light to be had in order to lead his feet to the second level. He inhaled a cobweb and spat, reaching up to wipe the back of his hand across his scowling face. “Eugh.”

The top of the staircase presented him with a short hallway and three doors. Only one was ajar, leading back the way he’d come to face the front of the building. Wind howled through the room’s open window. To Seven’s dismay, the mosaic seemed to only span the first level ceiling; the second level was bare, aged wood on all sides. It was also much colder. He snorted a plume of steamy white into the air and crossed his arms over his chest, inwardly cursing the chair that wore his coat across its narrow wooden shoulders. Moron, you’re the one that left it downstairs.

“Strange that there are places like this just drifting around the city, and we all sleep packed together in some inn.” He laughed the kind of laugh that was almost forced under the pressing cold, and turned bodily towards Laszlo.

[Laszlo]

Giving a parting glance to the glassy artificial sky, stuck flat to the ceiling though it gave the illusion of depth, Laszlo began to follow Seven upstairs, giving him a wide radius of personal space. His wool cloak fell around his shoulders, shielding him from the night's autumn chill. The old wooden stairs gave pained whines under the footsteps of both men, lending a haunting atmosphere to the otherwise silent, abandoned building. Laszlo paused considerately as he watched Seven spit out something, apathetic to his brief plight but appreciative that it was Seven who had to suffer it.

The grim, dark hallway upstairs was the same as Laszlo remembered. It still had not changed, from the first day he and Victor had explored the building. He wasn't sure whether he was unsettled by the structure's one-time treachery, or relieved it wouldn't happen again. The eerie place was at the mercy of Alvadas' whimsy, like everything else here, and Laszlo wasn't sure anyone understood exactly what the city wanted. Maybe not even Ionu, because what was the fun if he knew all of the secrets of Alvadas?

Seven turned to Laszlo, and he almost jumped. His eyebrows slid upward as he stiffened under the crimson scrutiny of his strange acquaintance. "Yes," he replied simply, completely at a loss for any sort of meaningful reply. Laszlo had no opinion on the crowded nature of the Cubacious Inn, other than he didn't want to live there forever. "I've thought of buying a place of my own, here. What about you, Seven? Are you and Victor going to live in Alvadas, or are you just passing through?"

Sliding past the halfblood, Laszlo nudged a creaking door open. The room beyond had only a singular window on the far wall, but it was much larger than any window rightly should be; it was nearly as tall as Laszlo was, and just as long. The moon's bright enthusiasm rushed in, nearly blinding Laszlo, and easily bathed the both of them in cold, white light. A few ticks later, as Laszlo's large pupils focused and adjusted for the copious illumination, enough even for a human to operate easily in, he pressed inside the room. It was empty but for a singular piece of furniture: a large, deep brass tub meant for bathing. Under a blanket of dust it retained a metallic glimmer, but the Ethaefal only drew so close to it. In the middle of the floor, he slowed to a hesitant stop.

"As far as I can tell, no one's lived here for years, although…" Laszlo canted his head toward the brass tub. It appeared an ordinary piece of furniture, despite its lonesome elegance. The way Laszlo's eyes hovered pointedly at the tub's ledge, however, seemed to implicate that there was something more about the object. And if Seven cared to draw close enough, he'd find out what Laszlo was referring to. "I'm not sure what to make of that."

[Seven Xu]

Muted silver pored over the room, turning every dust-riddled surface into an achromatic masterpiece under its long pale fingers. What hid from the moon’s face was starkly contrasted in the black of shadow. A pair of hands crested the edge of the tub, trailing pale marks of misplaced dust as Seven bent at the waist to examine what had caught Laszlo’s surprise.

Lying in eternal silence along the bottom of the tub, laced with the film of soaped water long drained and its own smattering of weightless, shimmering dust, was the fleshless form of one who had long since taken their life—so it seemed. The corners of Seven’s lips twitched into a frown and he reached forward to slide one apprehensive fingertip along the skeleton’s femur. “It’s a body,” he remarked dully in response to Laszlo’s question of what to make of that, “I mean, it was a body. Now it’s just bones.” A nasal laugh broke the seasonally cold air, an unspoken attempt to clear his voice and twisted face of its mounting trepidation.

It was not the first encounter Seven had with human remains. He was suddenly very aware of the thin chain around his neck that supported a silver pendant, its crossed daggers poking against his chest beneath layers of body-warm clothing. A hand dipped beneath his shirt to retrieve the sleeping memoir.

“To answer your question, I think we’re staying here,” Seven’s brows furrowed over a positively sanguine leer, enveloping the pendant within his cold palm. Victor had made a lengthy pilgrimage to his god’s domain; it was not likely they were going to up and leave again with the change of seasons, as they had the godless and overbearing Stormhold Citadel. He nodded, as if to ground his reason. “No, yes. Yes. Victor is happy here, and I have nowhere I’m particularly in a hurry to go.”

Seven let his knees bend and he relinquished his akimbo lean to a more comfortable squat. He let his elbows balance him, drawing more pale lines along the tub’s edge. “What do you think happened to them?” The question they both seemed to be thinking was finally voiced. “Do you think it kept them here?” It wasn’t difficult to figure out what the halfblood was asking, but his veiled excitement was disquieting. Something deep in his gut wanted to feel that cold water sensation the ghost in the Bronze Woods had given him when he passed into him, took control of his limbs, and made him a spectator in his own body. “In spirit, that is.”

[Laszlo]

"I have no idea," the Ethaefal replied dully with a light shrug, still lingering at a comfortable distance and wholly uninterested in the subject matter. Laszlo knew something of ghosts and spirits, and the chains that kept them tethered to the bastions of their forfeit lives: primarly that their reasons were illogical, irrational, and entirely irrelevant. They were, as a rule, impossible to reason with and difficult to endure, and if there were ghosts in this place, he would not give them the benefit of his caring. "With the mosaic downstairs, I'd say this building has more than its share of intrigue. It used to make me uneasy, given the humanoid remains, but I've begun to think that it only makes this place's story all the more interesting."

Laszlo had been more poised on Seven's reaction, nudging the halfblood to confront death in this way. The Symenestra woman's murder had deeply disquieted him, and it became a question of whether any unnatural death might unnerve the amnesiac killer, or if he'd absorb it like everything else. Seeing as Seven was not purging his stomach or huddled on the floor and cradling his knees, Laszlo deemed it safe to step forward. It didn't look like his friend was about to snap and throw himself in a homicidal craze at the Ethaefal, so perhaps there was little to worry about. Seven had seen the bones and simply reacted as any sane person might, with curiosity and fascination.

Well, in contrast, Laszlo had let out a fearful, high-pitched yelp when he'd seen the bones. In his defense, he was entirely not expecting anything out of the ordinary, he'd been alone, and he'd only looked into the brass tub with a passing glance. He was fine a moment later, but seriously, a skeleton in an eerie, abandoned building!

"Alvadas keeps depositing this building along my routes just about every day." Pocketing his slender hands, Laszlo receded inside the warm barrier of his thick cloak as he began casually sauntering closer. His violet eyes played off the disassembled array of dusty bones at the bottom of the tub, browned with age and the memory of flesh. "If this were any normal city, its reoccurrence might test my sanity, but I've decided to believe that Alvadas is doing it for a reason. It wants me for something, or… it's trying to answer some unasked question, I'm not sure."

Laszlo came to a stop beside the tub, gazing inside at what used to be a vessel inhabited by a soul. The bones held a certain, unplaceable poignancy to them, as if it reminded him of his own mortality. The soul was what mattered to the Ethaefal, but something stirred in him to set eyes upon a lost life. "I want to buy the place," he said suddenly, looking up at Seven. "Alvadas seems to insist, and I've put some thought into it. I have no desire to continue wandering aimlessly, living out of inns and establishing a reputation over and over."

Turning his back, Laszlo leaned back on his waist against the side of the tub, angling his tame stare through the large, clouded window. So far, this was going as planned. "Can you imagine it? If I turned the place into a tavern? After cleaning it up, of course."

[Seven Xu]

Though bending the knee to mutter pleas of salvation to the gods and focusing his wits on the intangible was not of the boy’s taste, he did sympathize with the plight of the solitary ghost he’d met. Lost souls and fallen children of sky gods seemed just as otherworldly as the pantheon, to Seven—despite his well-forgotten former disdain of Ethaefal.

Floorboards creaked as he hauled himself to his feet; wringing cold from his hands, he approached Syna’s fallen to join him in a mutual appraisal of what lay beyond a span of dirty glass. “If a city insists, I suppose you should oblige her,” a flippant reply painted the window with a breath of thick haze. He lifted a finger to draw a jagged line through it, “I can’t say I haven’t thought of getting a place, myself. Living out of a trunk becomes tiresome. The ‘Inn is loud, and its spinning drives me mad.”

Seven’s bone thin finger screeched against the glass before he let his arm drop limp at his side. He exhaled so wholly through his nose it looked as if he’d push his very soul out through those narrow white nostrils. Instead, the sigh turned into a weary yawn. “I suppose it’s a home, for now; it has a warm bed and my things and I’m not want for a roof in a storm.”

A nameless ghost and its corporeal remains were pushed to the back of Seven’s itinerant mind and he sucked his sagging bottom lip beneath a row of teeth.

“You should buy it,” he said, turning to catch an oft-apprehensive violet stare. “I mean, how many people can say they have the sky in their very house? I cannot fault Ionu for His sense of humor, if it is His will that keeps leading an Ethaefal to a building that changes between night and day.” Curiosity tugged at Seven’s wits and urged him to go downstairs again, to identify the clusters of stars as real constellations and to stare into the face of a glowing moon. The tiles glowed. He swallowed a beat, and broke away from Laszlo’s pallid Symenestra mask, “But if you don’t mind me asking; why a tavern?”

[Laszlo]

"I like taverns," Laszlo professed, almost defensively. In all honesty he hadn't really put much as thought into why of it. The long, spacious room downstairs had afforded a bar, several tables and chairs, and a zigzagging set of shelves clearly meant for storing wine; it would only follow suit that he would keep to the theme of the place. Still, as Seven's question needled its way into Laszlo's thoughts, he began to realize that he had already endeared himself to the concept. He could have turned the place into a workshop for some craft, or perhaps opened a store, but even as he briefly considered his options, he couldn't separate himself from well-formed notions of hushed, thin crowds, softly murmuring to each other over the tops of their mugs every evening.

In the gray light of the room, the tall, rail-thin Symenestra stood, as still as the night, as his heavy cloak contoured around the pointy bulge of his folded arms. Leaning his gentle weight against the side of the cool brass tub, he kept his grayish violet circles trained on the ghostly impressions of breath which Seven had left upon the glass, watching as they slowly shrank inward on themselves. Laszlo felt his heart warm as he turned his eyes back to Seven, staring into the stark white tresses of his mane because it was so difficult not to.

He had to look away. Seven was so painfully normal; complex, pensive, hopeful, and full of yearning as much as any other perfectly sane person. Even after seeing the glimpse of madness he'd uncovered so many nights ago, he had to consciously remind himself what the halfblood was capable of. That lazy finger drawing whimsy into a cloud of condensation had once painted blood on a wall.

Does it matter? Laszlo found himself wondering, as his amethyst trawl lazed across the chipped floorboards. This was Alvadas. This city was built for insanity—to cause it as much as accept it. Lifting his head, Laszlo regarded Seven again. Patricide in a modest package. Anyway, look at him. He couldn't hurt me if he wanted to.

"I've been briefly to the Rearing Stallion in Syliras, and spent many nights at the Hunter's Gather in Kalinor. Taverns are filled with good and terrible stories, people living their lives. I don't have much of either, so I enjoy listening." Laslzo's purple eyes dipped to the side of him, observing the humanoid remains at the floor of the tub. Unfurling his arms, Laszlo slipped one clawed, slender hand out from the confines of his cloak and reached down, heedlessly nudging a few of the lifeless bones. A small conical bone, which must have belonged to a finger once, rolled in a sloppy circle. "I haven't found any decent pubs in Alvadas, unless she's hiding them from me." He gave a light, nasal laugh as he reiterated Seven's personification of the city as a woman. "Any real ones, I mean."

Feeling a little more at ease around Seven than he had an hour ago, the Ethaefal pushed from the edge of the tub and began wandering toward him. "Usually I don't fit into places like that, though I'm fairly sure it's less so because of the way I look, and more a sad lack of social skill on my part. Running a tavern would amend that, for certain."

A hazy, half-formed reflection of a gray-haired Symenestra materialized in the window, though the lines were blurred and warped nearly beyond recognition in the old aging glass. "Mostly, however, I'm just in love with the building. That mosaic, it's mesmerizing. I could watch it for hours. I want to live and work underneath it. I want it to be mine."

The piquant sting of djed danced on the tip of Laszlo's tongue, flavoring his words with a flash of desire. He'd seen the way those wide scarlet eyes had taken in the easy glow of the tiles, watched a set of longing fingers brush against the stars. Magic or not, it was a material thing, after all. It could be purchased. Owned. All for the simple exchange of coin.

"An Ethaefal who owns his own personal miniature sky. Heh." Leaning forward, Lazlo peered through the smoky yellowed window before him, peering up at the cloudy night sky outside. "Can't afford the place, though. I have funds saved from Kalinor, but not quite enough. I'll have to visit the Sanity Center and see if I can take out a loan. It seems my best bet." He looked downward thoughtfully. "Then I'd have to hire staff… ha, listen to me. What do I know about logistics?"

Laszlo's amethysts sidled into the crooks of his eyes, angled not quite directly at Seven. He pushed his tongue into a fang as his djed pushed at the backs of his eyes.

It could be fun, was the thought Laszlo pushed into Seven's head, worded in the halfblood's own voice.

"Thank you for coming out with me, Seven," Laszlo added, concealing his taut, anxious nerves in polite conversation. "I needed to share this with someone before I made any decisions. You and Victor were the first friends I made here, in this place."

[Seven Xu]

“It could be fun.” Seven murmured, eyes darting from the wraith reflection in the glass, as he turned bodily to face Laszlo. The words had dribbled from his lips like the dregs of a wooden tankard, murky and lukewarm, but there. He felt compelled to repeat it louder, “It could be fun! I mean, I have gold—well, some—you wouldn’t have to take out a loan, or hire staff, if you had partners, right?”

Seven took a step, closed the airy gap between them, and followed Laszlo into the remarkably dim hall. Whatever had sparked in his mind had caught flame and roared to life in his swollen pupils, and before he knew it, he was offering gold that was not his own. “I could talk to Victor, I—” he caught himself mid-thought, and his brows arced upward in a twisted look of self-surprise. “—I’ve gotten ahead of myself. My apologies, I’m more eager to get out of that ‘Inn than I thought I was.”

Two sets of feet thumped down an aged staircase as the pair descended to the first level again. Seven’s back pressed hard against an unwilling door and it shuddered closed. “I’m glad you shared this with me.” His gaze drifted and scanned the lengths of tiles that painted the ceiling with their swaths of black and navy and gatherings of stars. He could map the sky from the comfort of a table; sitting beside a roaring hearth and watching the night pass chime by chime; he could feel the warm hug of ale in his belly, the laughter and merriment of well-paying men.

He wanted it.

Seven’s fingertips crawled across the iron bolt that held a door between the first and second levels shut. It screeched in protest, but he managed to shove it closed with a bodily push and a grunt. “I saw two other doors in that hall. Victor and I get by well enough sharing a room,” in fact he’d prefer it. Seven smiled, lifted two fingers to wave across his cheekbone, and grinned. “My offer stands.”

There he left Laszlo, ghosting by him with another amiable wave of a frail hand before it dove into the blackness of his wool coat. He forfeited the tile sky above his head for the real thing, taking it in with a brief crimson scan and filling his lungs with crisp autumn before his feet found worn cobblestone streets that could make no promises for an easy trip home.

[Laszlo]

Laszlo was left standing in the doorway of the old building, watching that head of white head into the darkness of the Alvadas street. It had been so difficult to still his excitement when Seven had been the one to propose splitting the costs of the tavern. And bringing in Victor too! The Ethaefal could almost forget completely that Seven was most definitely a killer. They were going to help him open a tavern! A business of his own! He could scarcely believe it worked. Sweet Goddess, it worked. Backing away from the door, Laszlo receded back into the gloomy depth of the aging structure, returning to the cool glow of the shifting mosaic. Slow laughter cut the silence as the Ethaefal drew both sets of thin, white fingers through his silver tresses, his eyes wide with incredulity. It worked! His laughter escalated, filling the old room and shaking its layer of dust. Ha ha! With a sudden flourish, Laszlo sank his long, lean form into an old, wooden chair. Even when his laughter was spent, the board smile remained, and he flashed it up to the tiled representation of Leth as he leaned the chair back on its two hind legs. Twin fangs glinted in the false moonlight. "Ah, Leth," Laszlo called arrogantly up at the imitation sky. "Tell me a story of how you beguiled Syna into loving you. I should think it's a good one."