Remembering to Breathe

[Seven Xu]

“I doubt He is distracted,” Seven murmured, coaxing the pages of the book in his palm to drift by, one by one, “I’ve come to understand that Ionu has a notorious sense of humor.”

A slender arm dove to his hip, fondling the contents of a waterlogged satchel that could well have contained a weapon—and did, in fact, but it was not the object of his interest—he produced a bruised apple small enough to close its entirety in his fragile fingers. “My notes have like to all run together in there,” teeth that marked his polluted blood broke the fruit’s skin with an idle crunch, “I have spent weeks attempting to find some sort of pattern or formula to Alvadas’ streets, and I’ve been met with frightening illusions and a string of terrible luck. Yesterday I spilled an inkpot across my desk, ruining five days worth of hard work.” The book was closed and shouldered again to offer Ifran proof marked on an ink-stained palm.

“While I’m hesitant to curse Him, I do tend to wonder if it isn’t merely chance and ineptitude holding me back.” Seven snorted above a crooked, hubristic smile. “Might be I give myself too much credit. Might be I give Ionu too much credit as well. You seek Him? I would not waste my time looking. You do not find Ionu; a friend told me that, once.”

[Ifran]

"Ah, but who ever said Ionu was male?" he asked. In fact, the deity's gender was decidedly ambiguous. Even Its priests could not say, or would mumble about gender being a human construct. Ifran assumed even they did not know for all their favor. Of course, this was all glib nonsense, none of his knowledge got him any closer to the slippery deity, or Its blessed players, the Inverted. But he could not return to Ahnatep without some modicum of divine favor. Others might be fooled that it was a triumphal return, but he would know that he failed. He needed power and allies, but he was not having much luck of late. "The shape of Alvadas is in flux, or the mind fluxes around it. I am not sure which. Perhaps it is a moot point, the same thing deep down. I do not have this wisdom, though I should like it very much. But if you seek Akajia, you are more likely to find her in Riverfall. The shadows here might be blinding light for all we know, so deft is Ionu's trickery."

[Seven Xu]

“You’ve mentioned that,” Seven said dryly. “If I could uproot and ride merrily to this place called Riverfall I’d do it; that being said, I’m interested to learn of her and her shadowspeakers, not risk life and limb on a chance. Books will do me fine. They always do.”

His fingers pushed against page after page of text-rich volume as he spoke. “Not that I should criticize. I rode here on the coat tails of someone doing the same thing; one of countless, I’d wager, to make a pilgrimage to this city to seek out Ionu and Their favor. I could give a damn about Ionu, Its streets vex me, and I have seen what little good a God walking among men does.”

No celestial being should let a boy, even a bastard, be treated so poorly; when divine intervention failed him, as did Seven’s love for the Alvina. When all of Lhavit sang Her name, he paid service with his lips, but not his heart. Knowledge of the gods was just that, knowledge; not that he had enough as a child—or in his bottled resentment as an adult—to recognize that free will was not to be influenced by the Gods. It could not have all gone; he still spent night after night staring at her glory in the tiny specks of gems on a blue-black sky. Once, he felt he knew them all.

“My apologies if you’re one.” A wan smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “A pilgrim, that is.”

[Ifran]

Generally speaking in an Arumenic poem, repetition was necessary for the seeker to hear. The mind did not want to accept the plain truth, and so the answer kept coming back in different forms, but always the same message. But if this Seven was tired of the message, far be it from Ifran to be the repetitive messenger. He gave an eloquent shrug. If it was so easy to grab a deity's attention, he might never have had to leave the splendor and comfort of Ahnatep to learn the art of illusion and seek out the Inverted, but here he was. If Seven expected to find a deity other than Ionu within that one's domain, it seemed like fool's errand, but who was Ifran to judge. "A pilgrim?" he asked. "I suppose. I did come here to learn, but not only from the deity of illusion. I am an artist, and their art is a different manifestation, something to be absorbed, synthesized." There was much to be done here, plans to be made, preparations laid far from the madding crowds of Ahnatep's political élite. Here they could not see him, would forget about him until he came back to take Ahnatep by storm, preferably with a cadre of allies, trustworthy and loyal. And, of course, the power of illusion, a wonderful tool for politicking. "But I do not take offense to your words."

[Seven Xu]

“An artist,” Seven smiled; it was a refreshing change of subject. The pursuit of faith had soured his tongue, left him wanting for an exit if he could not steer the conversation away on his own. The halfblood’s mind began to swim with the potential for artistry with an ample supply of hands.

“What sort of artist are you?” Seven’s hands fumbled for a nearby chair. He gave a feeble kick at the thick water, propelling himself towards the furniture that huddled itself around a hearth that could not have possibly been alight, but there it was, burning fiercely. It gave off no heat, another illusion. He waved his hand to beckon the Eypharian towards him before busying himself with a failing attempt to sit successfully in the wingback chair, “Some illusion-weaver? An expert at sleight of hand? Or hands?” When Seven lifted his hands to wriggle his fingers, his rear deviated from the slick leather cushion and his book lingered above his lap.

[Ifran]

"An artist," he agreed. "The sort whose canvas is self and stage, whose tools are voice and body. They say 'actor' here, but that is not quite it." He gave an eloquent shrug. "The arts are different here as well as the culture." But he didn't elaborate on that, unsure how much the stranger wanted to hear. Few people not immersed in the arts themselves seemed interested in discussing them at length, though Ifran was certainly qualified and able to do so. "And you?" he asked. "What do you do?" It did not seem an unseemly question when he had just answered the same. Then again, customs, as he had said, differed here.

[Seven Xu]

oocSorry, this slipped out of my thread list and my mind. You're too darn polite, should yell at me more often.
The smile that had spent so long basking on his face finally flattened, and he strained to lift his shoulders in a shrug of self-depreciation. “I’m a map maker,” the statement was pursued by a thick breath of laughter and he hauled the grin back over his tired mien, “in a city that will not sit still for me.”

When said like that, Seven may as well have been a bee keeper allergic to their sting, a farmer without a field, a tone-deaf musician; he sucked in his bottom lip and gave the silence a moment to settle before a few bored fingers scrabbled along the textured cover of the book he nursed. “I’m more interested in stars than streets, but I haven’t done much in the ways of studying them since I left home.” Seven stole a glance at the ceiling, as if the night’s sky would show itself on ageless vaulted hardwood and tile. “All things considered, I don’t know much about them at all.

“Lucky me, they’re fixed and predictable.” Thin rings of crimson, blotted out by engorged black pupils, settled on Ifran’s silhouette again. “Tell me then; if a stage is your canvas, and your medium your voice and your body, but you are not an actor, what do you do?”

[Ifran]

"Ah, one need not be an illusionist to create a new reality on a stage," he said. "Actor, singer, dancer, swordsman..." Several of his hands spread wide, asymmetrically and syncopated like flowers opening and loosing a bouquet of uncertainty. Words were not supposed to fail a poet, but the glib answers did not seem to suit this strangely colored human. "I assist... we are midwives of creation. Sculptors in snow. Here it seems about as foolish an endeavor as a mapmaker in Alvadas, but there might be a lesson there for the both of us. "If you wish it, I will accompany you beyond the city walls. There you can see the stars without the city's interference, or we can climb into the foothills and you can get a new perspective on the shifting streets of Ionu's city. However, I imagine they will look kaleidoscopic." It was a generous offer for him, and strangely enough, in Alvadas his generosity rarely came with strings attached. Here he was more himself than in Ahnatep, perhaps, or merely isolated and wishing to reach out to other beings in the hopes of finding a kindred spirit to catch his drifts.

[Seven Xu]

Seven had not mentioned illusion, but he swallowed any contradiction that dared pass over the tip of his tongue. A smile tipped the corners of his lips and his eyes darted from hand to hand to hand, as Ifran explained the intricacies of entertainment in the only manner his race seemed to know: intelligent prose. It was undoubtedly charming; the way too many arms weaved a story to accompany desert-gilded Common.

Then, an offer came from the exotic that split that wan smile into a grin.

“Beyond the walls,” he repeated, tonguing a row of teeth, “in the foothills?” He stole a glance over Ifran’s shoulder, as if the wall behind them would afford the halfblood a glimpse of the Kitrean range beyond. “If you’re well-equipped to do so; I’ve seen the Unforgiving at night, and I’d not put it past the hills beyond the city to be just as dangerous.

“It would be nice to see the sky again, as it is,” Seven fingered the spine of the book, curled his toes within his waterlogged boots. He exhaled a snort of laughter. “You know; without a divine hand turning the constellations themselves on their sides.”

Seven would not let hypothetical slip from between his fingers. After a pause, he considered the Eypharian’s face and murmured a bold, “When?”

[Ifran]

"I am not without my defenses," he assured the concerned halfblood with a modest smile or, at least, modest for a nobly born Eypharian in exile. He was quiet as Seven considered his desires and Ifran's offers. His lips quirked at Seven's joke and his laughter, as much sharing as he was likely to get just then. "Consult your almanacs," he said, "and we will step out on the next full moon after my performances are over. Or the next convenient full moon, anyway. I do not know your schedule, and one certainly can't trust Leth's face in Ionu's city."

OOCI figure their schedules can align sometime in Winter?