Of Secrets and Skeletons

[Victor Lark]

12 Winter, 511

Wandering was all anyone could do in this city, and it was all he wanted to do. Alvadas’s distant ramparts were as much a cage as any, but the impossible spectrum of paths and possibilities made the world seem endless, the walls irrelevant. The sky changed between the hours and so did his travel, from the rooftops to the roads to the din of voices behind a great stone door. Victor’s eaves had dropped on mention of such a place, but he had never gotten the chance to explore the city’s innards, the rooms behind the walls.

As his eyes caught sight of what his ears had only glimpsed, Victor suddenly remembered a number of things he needed to buy.

He had entered the place looking for a new lantern to replace a long swept pile of glass shards; he had stayed for the satisfying whorl of color and noise and chaos; he had stopped to browse when he realized that he might find something to fill the space behind the bar. It was in this search for spirits that he constructed a game for himself, a challenge of deciding who, if anyone, was the city in disguise, a piece of the illusion. He decided on a few arbitrary criteria: that they would know what they were doing, that they would not care to leave, and that they would seem wholly and simultaneously remarkable and ordinary.

He found one, a peculiar small girl with dark hair, the unassuming kind who seemed like she could easily keep unnoticed by undiscerning eyes, and yet was dressed like she had something to prove. The stall beside her accommodated an illusionist’s collection of religious fetishes, and so he stepped toward it. With the pretense of scrutinizing a chainless pendant, he leaned to one side and brushed her shoulder. She was tangible, he observed; that was promising.

Victor’s brow rose and fell like surprise and contentment. He scrutinized her face from their new proximity, idly clasping her arm as if to steady the stranger from his intrusion. She seemed familiar, but he suspected that might be a figment of the city’s charms. “Hello, beautiful,” he greeted, and his syllables rocked in apologetic laughter.

[Abalia]

The bizarre was, for the native to Alvadas, probably the easiest place to lighten the purse of an oblivious visitor or two. People inevitably found their way there, fascinated by the colors and the seemingly endless rows of tables and carts and stalls, all presenting a mind-boggling variety of trinkets and foods and other things to sell. Abalia, in fact, had never found an end to the bizarre. The difference between herself and an outsider, though, was that she was intuitive enough to realize the places where Alvadas was bending reality, reshaping the truth so that she was really simply strolling through a different aisle that may have been parallel only a moment prior. It was a playground for thieves, especially ones native to the city of illusions. The need to eat was, unfortunately, a very real and pressing one, no matter what dramatics filled her nights and days, and so Abalia found herself working the foreigners on a particularly nondescript day. She had more than enough coin and was, instead, focusing on a display of jewelry. There was a particular pendant in the midst of the rest of them that had caught her eye, something too familiar and personal. That was, perhaps, the only reason that she didn't notice the figure hovering far too close until he'd bumped her. With a hand curled about her arm, far too presumptuous in a dangerous city, the stranger had the gall to smile at her. To compliment her. And as wide brown eyes turned upwards to take in his face, prepared to scowl and shoo him away, she found something she hadn't expected. There was laughter dancing in his eyes. Or, she thought so, at least. A hint of bemusement that simmered beneath the surface of his otherwise charming visage, which was not at all unattractive to look at. It didn't make her heart flutter in that ridiculous, foolish, and girlish manner that Laszlo so easily accomplished, but Abalia doubted anyone could look upon this face with anything less than at least general admiration. It was flattering, then, to be spoken to from such lips. Such words did not exist in sincere form, she had decided, and so it was the way he smiled as if he had a secret that she responded to most of all. Roxanne had smiled like that. "There are lots of beautiful things in this city," she retorted, lifting a hand absently to brush a dark lock from her eyes. The breeze frustrated that effort and returned the silken brown back to it's obtrusive position, and so she simply attacked it with a puff of air from betwixt rosy lips. "But how can you ever tell if they're real?" Abalia glanced back to the merchant who had become impatient with her distraction. She gave a smile and an apologetic shrug, and then stepped away from the stall so that other, more gullible patrons might peruse what was on offer.

[Victor Lark]

Her words felt like a clue, but it was only a small piece of the proof he needed. However thrilling it was to think he had chosen correctly, Victor could not let himself be fooled, this early in the game. Maybe all Alvads talked like that, outside of the drunken banter of the bar and the bitter ramblings of the gambling house. Or maybe only the city herself did, when Ionu spoke through the mouths of her illusions.

“You can’t,” he agreed, moving with her as she stepped aside, keeping them close. Eyes like unrelenting steel melted from her darting eyes to catch that lock of hair where it strayed. Taking the cue, he stole the arc of rebellious brown with a knuckle, pushed it aside and secured it behind her ear. As quickly as he had looked away, her eyes drew his attention again. His fingertips floated on her jawline as he peered at her, trying to find something different, if not something familiar. He needed another clue, but he did not know where to look. The whole world moved around them; there were too many distractions for anything to be distracting, and yet he felt his eyes drawn to the door. “Nothing here is,” he reassured her absently. Maybe if he surprised her, something would give. Maybe he could inspire a mistake and could discover some loose thread to pull... “That’s the beauty of it!”

Victor laughed, dropped his arm, turned his head the stall beside him. Tucking a hand under his chin, he pretended to look for the pendant he had forgotten seconds ago. However real she was, Victor gambled that she played the part of the cheeky pragmatist, who knew more than she saw. He complimented with sardonic suspicion, argumentative, assuming, proud. “This is a city of fools, fools who believe what they see and...” His finger jumped to and from the tip of her nose. “Fools who don’t believe it’s worth anything.”

If she was an illusion, she would disappear before long. If she was not, she could prove otherwise entertaining. “Which are you, beautiful?”

[Abalia]

There was a sort of ease that this man possessed without right or privilege. It was unnerving, but only inasmuch as Abalia wondered over his self-assurance. Did he treat all women with such ease? Not one to be put off too easily, she became fluid diversion, that pretty chin canting ever so slightly away from his idle touch, her nose scrunching as he tapped it. His words, spoken in jest?, produced a mirthless laugh. As if she was, somehow, mocking herself in response, Abalia shrugged a slim shoulder. She reached past him, sweetly scented frame pressing too close to his as she touched the pendant his own fingers had formerly traced. "Oh, I'm the greatest fool of them all." How could she feel otherwise, with the sting of Laszlo's rejection still so fresh in her mind? She'd been an idiot, she saw that now, and the memory alone was enough to dredge up a freshly offended bite to her pride and emotion. "But everything has worth to someone," she murmured, her thumb tracing the line of the trinket he'd favored. Worn, imperfect, but undoubtedly lovely to someone, much like the imperfect gift she'd been given once. "I suppose it is finding the balance, then. Or... is it realizing that there isn't such a thing?" Her grin was almost conspiratorial, bemused by his willingness to diverge into such conversation. It distracted her from her lonesome mulling, anyway.

[Victor Lark]

However engaging her words, Victor knew a retreat when he saw one. A moment’s consideration and he dropped his hand from where it lingered by her head. His eyebrows shrugged, conceding her compromise. He followed her gaze to the little golden circle pendant that served as a proper distraction, reached out to take it from where she fondled it. He brought it up between their faces, scrutinizing it closely.

“Or is it realizing there is such a thing,” he countered, “And not giving two shykes about putting it all together?” The last syllable was like a laugh; the nonsensical words were meant to rile any product of divinity as much as they were to end what promised to be a tedious conversation. He turned the little disc, which was shining blank on the side that was not raised into the outline of a vildani. Then he closed it in his fist and lowered his hand, just enough so that he could see her face.

Though it had been worth the try, he expected that his argument would amuse her more than anger her, so he tried a different tactic. How did illusions adapt to spontaneity? Admittedly, Ionu’s were probably the best at it, but Victor had already developed an idea. He turned his eyes as if in wandering thought and said, “What brings you here? Surely you are not spending your own money, a sight such as yourself. I’ll tell you what,”

He flipped the thing from his thumb and caught it like he had learned after of season of playing House and slighting hands. It dropped clumsily into his sleeve, seeming to have disappeared only to the least attentive eyes. The merchant behind his wares glared at him as if he were a thief, but Victor did not seem to notice. His grey eyes danced to the door again before they settled on diverted browns. “Last one to find it buys the other lunch. Meet me at the door!”

Then he fled, and the harmless merchant yelled after him, begged people to pursue the thief and retrieve the merchandise he stole. But when dutiful Alvads assaulted the charming foreigner, they would find that he was without it, because it had been dropped between Abalia’s feet.

[Abalia]

Abalia acted affronted. She consoled the agitated salesman with outraged words - clearly planting herself firmly on his side. She could never, of course, condone such unwholesome behavior as thievery. Small and innocent a thing as she was, he soon disregarded her entirely as he attempted to keep an eye on his wares and rally the outrage of the common citizen towards the petching foreigner. With a shuffle back, sunlight glinted off of something below, and a casual stoop had Abalia shrugging helplessly and making her way towards the exit, too. Better not to be seen with thieves, even if they were falsely accused. She skirted the group currently accosting the handsome trouble maker with perturbed looks of determination. To them, her gaze was one of wary disconnect. She wanted no part of that, to be sure. When Victor glanced up, however, to meet her gaze, her lips quirked ever so slightly and her eyes danced with something much more like amusement. He seemed a smart boy. He'd catch up. And so it was that she left the bazaar behind, as people began to bore of the upset. After all, he didn't have the trinket, did he? Short of checking every orifice, they'd examined him well. Abalia meandered away from that place, hardly foolish enough to linger. She moved slowly, almost aimlessly, though, so that she'd be easy enough to find - even as she palmed the small token the other had stolen. How bemusing, this twist to an otherwise normal day.

[Victor Lark]

There were hands on him, searching him, assaulting him. He had expected as much, and so he shook his head and teased their mistake, raised his palms in surrender. They left him alone soon enough, but not without a good shove and string of curses. He had not seen where she went, but he knew she was not where she was; the only option was the exit. Laughing to himself, he tripped out the door and into the cool air.

She was not there, but her steps were hardly silent in the narrow corridor of a street. The sky was bent and angled, and the city had adopted an acoustic perfection that made his breath echo and his shoes scream. Victor tromped noisily toward her, relishing the percussion of each footfall as it kept pace with his mind. She had left the Bizarre, and she had not acted with the others when they questioned him. It meant no one was an illusion, or that she was an exceptionally complex one... or that she was just a real person.

How disappointing.

Victor caught up to her soon enough, spinning around her and stealing her hands with his. His fingers secretly fished for the trinket between them, under the pretense of an idle caress, as his eyes appraised her, up and down. His voice was a whisper, but still it swam around in the street and resonated from the walls and the windows and the very sky.

“You’re real,” he observed, squinting. “What is your name?”

[Abalia]

Abalia was already laughing before he reached her, and by the time he did, spinning her about to search her palms in such clever fashion, her eyes positively twinkled. What a pleasant diversion. The trinket was there, in her warm palm, and she easily gave it up to his questing fingers. His scrutiny was as curious as everything else about him, and Abalia shook her head once in amused disbelief. She turned to continue on her way, wanting to put distance between herself and the bizarre. "Khrysus?" she quipped, a backwards grin and glance ensuring that he was following along. "I'm too much mischief to be Syna, I suppose. She seems... sweet? Mmm. Nysel. Perhaps I am the weaver of dreams, and everyone has just mistaken me for an exceptionally good looking man for all of these years. Or Ionu. That one makes the most sense, doesn't it?" Abalia had no idea why she carried on in such a manner. Perhaps it was the simple fact that this man was a stranger, and one she'd almost certainly never see again. And... he was funny. Why not? It wasn't as if her life, which had become overly serious and morose of late, was bursting with reasons for laughter.

[Victor Lark]

“That’s unfortunate,” he pouted, squeezing her fingers between his, urging some recognition of how incredibly strong he could be. “For I am Rhysol, and I was looking for a pretty little mortal to make into my Voice. It’s too bad, really.”

That she was not an illusion made her more mysterious, he was beginning to realize. Whatever the Trickster’s talent, there was no illusion that could surpass the intricacies of a person, the motives and emotions that begged to be unlocked and explored and incited. Just as the box of a market place had opened into the endless world, so had Victor’s game bloomed to a new height. He grinned approval for her whimsy, her beauty, and her secrets. Each was a function of a life lived, not a character made; that was the best sort of mystery. He removed her hands from his suddenly, then closed the distance between them and gripped her waist in the next instant, searching her eyes for the inevitable surprise.

“Haven’t you had enough of lies, in this city?” He offered, and his breathy mumbles were shouts in the acoustically-tuned lane. “Tell me the truth, and I’ll tell you one too. We’ll never see each other again, if this giant maze has anything to say about it; what does it matter?”

[Abalia]

Her eyes did widen when he changed his grasp so abruptly, to stand so close with his hands so intimately and casually rest against her waist. It was all with good humor, however, even as she squirmed out of his grasp with a laugh and pushed his hands away with soft fingertips. "A truth, or the truth? Is there such a thing?" Abalia, still grinning easily, turned away to walk down an Alvadas street that was familiar and different all at once. "Alvadas isn't all lies, you know. People misunderstand this place. Alvadas is... beautiful." Her quip was shot over her shoulder, where she was pleased to find him still present. "And I'm Abalia." One name in a sea of so many faces. What could it really matter?