Who are you to me? [Legion]

[Elhaym]

The Ninetieth Day of Spring, in the Five Hundred and Twelfth Year after the Valterrian

“Should I even bother telling you to take it easy?”

Elhaym sighed in response, holding her left arm aloft as the young physician poked and prodded at it's joints and the scar tissue that comprised it. Knelt underneath his stooping form, she could almost feel the weight of his eyes looking over her wounds. His touch was not tender; it was an evaluation, and nothing more. Her body was bare from the waist up to allow him to view her injuries fully, but modesty was something she had let go of long before this visit. In truth it would have brought her a small amount of joy if his eyes had lingered on her bare breasts for a moment; they at least were still firm and blessedly unscarred. But alas, his eyes swept over them without pause and continued to dwell on the burns.

“The muscle tone is returning nicely. That much, at least, you have done properly.”

He released his hold on her arm, but began to lean in closer. Elhaym moved by instinct; this part was always uncomfortable, but better to get it over with. Her unburnt hand pulled the cloth band that was always canted over her face to cover her missing eye, and in the same movement she swept her hair back and over her shoulder. His thumbs moved over the scarring on her face and touched around her flacid eyelid, searching for any complications for the hundredth time. She could see everything clearly through her other eye, and she placed her attention anywhere in the small room she could except for the hand upon her face. It was a small room much like any other in the pavilion; polished wood flooring interrupted by course mats in muted blues, and skyglass pots containing various plants that created a somewhat soothing harmony amongst the blue and warm brown tones. The physicians bag was set before her with several small instruments lined out in an orderly fashion should he have needed them. The sight of them used to scare her, and then they had made her angry. Now she was indifferent.

Her eyes snapped to his hand despite her attempted avoidance when she felt something… foreign from the physician. His hand gently swept through her hair, letting it fall back over her shoulder.

“If only our bodies could heal themselves so completely as our hair… your progress is good, but I would very much like for you to give your arm a rest. You've been doing no striking with it, I hope?”

She shook her head in slight disbelief of that tiny display of tenderness. The physician rose with a quick motion so that she could dress herself, returning to his usual detached self. Without care for her nude torso she carefully repositioned the cloth over her eye, and unfolded her legs gracefully into a standing position while pulling her robe's upper half back on. The tools had already been carefully placed back in his bag, but the physician lingered.

“Oh. I was told that an initiate would be bringing you a new uniform, so if you would please remain here for the time being. You have a visitor, or so I hear.”

-----

She waited just as she was told. Alone in a small courtyard, it was hard to keep track of time. Night had fallen and the stars shone down, visible through a square slice of sky visible above the high walls that surrounded her on all sides. In the center of the well landscaped enclosure grew a great tree with thick and gnarled bark, but it held no leaves of the regular sort. From it's limbs grew a great bounty of pink and white flowers, occasionally falling free and rustling about the ground at her feet. Her new uniform had arrived as promised, impressively clean and untarnished. More telling was the armor she wore; the hardened leather plates that adorned her had all been lacquered white like her Acolyte's sash, and she honestly looked resplendent. The final piece of the puzzle had been the blade they had brought, though not truly her own. The one that was called Sable, the blade of eighty days, was tucked into her thick cloth belt. It was by far the most visually stunning of her ancestor's swords. Someone had intended her to look impressive for whomever she was to meet, and thus her patience had lasted longer than it normally would have when she mulled over that fact.

She knelt underneath the tree as it's blossoms fluttered down around her, playfully clinging to her shoulders and hair. With her lone eye closed, she tried to clear away the annoyance of having been made to wait and obliterate it into nothingness. She never had found the balance in meditation; she was almost completely oblivious to her surroundings.

[Legion]

“Grand daughter of Sooyun,” came a greeting. “Where does skyglass come from?” The voice belonged to a young woman standing in the shadow of the tree. No shadow of her own crawled from her toes, bare as they were and curling into the tender grass. The acolyte could sense how close the woman stood, well within reach of both strike and embrace. Too close, perhaps, for the dull glow housed within her flesh to not warm the eye. The celestial trinkets shaped in the forms of suns, moons, stars tinkled a merry counterpoint to the eerie bay of the wind as it chopped at the tops of peaks and gnashed the redolence of sentinel pines. It was not the wind, but the woman’s fingertip that trailed the charms sewn into the hem of Elhaym’s scarf, gently bopping a shiny little star against the crude bridge of her nose. By this time, the acolyte would have opened her one, good eye to find eyes coin bright peering down at her with a frighteningly vast curiosity. The woman was smiling and it was wry, hands finding a clasp behind her back and witching hour hair tumbled past her waist and littered with loops and braids as if the hands of small children or lovers had long been in it. “I should have worn something else,” she murmured, half squinting at the splendor of the clothing Elhaym wore. Her own attire was dull by comparison, a simple parchment colored robe sashed in blood red and even the hems of full cut pants in fawn brown were frayed and stained by grass at the knees. She shook herself lightly, as if rising from a quiet, somber place and raised her eyebrows, smile encouraging. It would seem she wanted an answer to her question, though it was one all of Lhavit knew.

[Elhaym]

The voice brought her back as if she had been in a fitful sleep, and her blurry eye tried to make sense of a woman standing before her and flicking at the tiny charms that dangled from the band across her eye. Her face twitched away from the woman's outstretched hand, and she gave her a cool look as she grumbled about her own clothing. Her skin seemed to glow, but not in a uniform way. It was if her own body was littered with a thousand sources of light, each tiny and insignificant on its own but creating something beautiful with its brethren.

She was reminded at once of Laszlo's handsome visage, down to the eyes. They gleamed like molten metal fresh from a forge and were reckless in their regard for her. Though the horns that Laszlo had had sprouting from the base of his temples were not present on this one, it was apparent she was an Ethaefal. No man or woman had skin or eyes like that, but the Ethaefal were all beautiful. Just because she seemed to recall them always having horns didn't mean they had to; after all, she rarely had really paid them much attention.

"The, uh... skyglass, comes from Zintila. She makes it, her and the Seiza. If you want to know more about it, you should go to the Koten Temple in the Surya Plaza. This is…"

The oddity of the first part of what the woman had said to her struck then. She had referred to her as the grand daughter of Sooyun… most Ethaefal in the city were likely not too interested in the history of the cities martial protectors. As her voice trailed off she rose to her feet in a fluid motion. Her left hand moved instinctively to rest on the sheath of her blade just below the handguard; it was a movement of respect, not hostility. She had been taught that to leave your blade unattended in the presence of others was reckless and insulting. The other hand, the whole one, gestured broadly in front of her. Of course, there was likely only one explanation for essentially anyone outside of the Shinya Order knowing anything about her.

"Do I know you? If you are one of the healers who helped me when I was burned, I don't remember. The days after are hazy… if you remember, I was feverish and sick for a long time."

The supposed Ethaefal's eyes danced with something that might have been amusement, but Elhaym found her entirely hard to read. Just like Laszlo. Of course, this young woman must be lost. The Shinyama Pavilion had many twisting corridors that had worked many unwary visitors into a fit.

"Are you lost? I would show you the way out, but I was told to wait here to meet with someone. I think it's one of the Shinya, come to scold me again."

She sighed at the thought of that, but said no more. Strangers had no need of her pitiful woes, and she brought them all on herself anyway. Some of the Shinya had simply resigned to the differences in ideologies that Elhaym and the rest of the order shared, instead focusing on her strengths. Others found her a constant thorn. Silence loomed, and Elhaym summoned the courage to voice her assumptions.

"I can send for an initiate for you, if you'd like. I'm sure any of them would love to walk beside an Ethaefal for a few chimes."

[Legion]

Bemusement became evident on the young woman’s countenance, quirking the curve of her lips toward a smile that in it all of its brilliance was still but a greater foil for the sorrow that waited beneath. Moon bright eyes rose to the sprawl of the sky above them, lingering there in long consideration while blossoms littered the tops of her bare feet and clung to the neckline of her robe in frail flutters. “No,” she said at length and brought the full intensity of her regard back to Elhaym, the weight of her presence startling and sure. “It is I who wished to speak with you and I know the skyglass comes from Zintila and the Seiza, Elhaym, but that is not the answer I’m looking for.” She paused and tilted her head a little to the side. Night black hair, dense as the spaces between stars, trembled down her shoulders. “Try again,” she urged.

[Elhaym]

"Oh."

She didn't even have the grace to look abashed under the intensity woven through the woman's stare. So, this was the one she was supposed to be meeting. Why though? She had answered with the only answer she knew to say. Though the Shinya taught their Acolytes many things, Elhaym had only been in the Order's ranks for a little over a year. At her age, it should have been closer to fifteen years of study. Her lone eye collapsed under the entrancing gaze her guest confronted her with, and she ducked her head and began to pace.

"O...kay, well, let me see."

Annoyance was kept at bay with the knowledge that the Shinya had likely initiated their meeting for a reason. Her talents lie in her ability to kill, not in her propensity for solving riddles. Still, if that's what was being asked of her she would try. Whatever she came up with would simply have to do.

"Skyglass does come from Zintila, so you must be looking for something else." she mused, her mouth working wordless between her statements. Long ago she had gotten over embarrassment when it came to her need to work things out aloud when approached with a difficult problem. "Well, the skyglass is what keeps this city from falling into the mountains below, so it must be here for a reason. I was not born here; worship of gods and goddesses was never a part of my life until I came here. I tend to focus on more earthly things... like the people."

She stopped, an answer forming in her head that was perhaps cryptic and symbolic enough to suit her guest. "It's the peoples need, I think. They need wisdom and protection to guide them. Without them, the skyglass, the Shinya, the Seiza… we are all husks. So I would say that skyglass comes from the kindness, patience, and remembrance the people of Lhavit show us."

Elhaym turned to meet the stranger's gaze again, but it was hard. There was something sullen in her eyes behind that trickster's smile. In the soft glow of the courtyard, she seemed even more beautiful than Laszlo ever had.

"They saved my life, in a way. After I was hurt, I thought I was done. Crippled and half blind… I will never be whole again. Still, I stood on the precipice of giving myself to Dira and just…"

Elhaym choked herself off, the memory of that moment when she had truly considered everything she had lost seeking to crush her under its burden again. Her body maimed, never to be repaired. Her lover gone without a trace, and with him her tidy future filled with joy had vanished. Her friends. Master Grandpa and the Vixen she had called them, though their names were Hazul and Yune. They had died, she had lived. There were more than just the two, but they always came to mind first.

"The people of this city did save my life. They showed me they cared, even if I was maimed and useless to them. I can't ever repay them for what they did for me, but I will try. There are a lot of people here who put Zintila before the people in their mind, but I just… they are what matters to me here, they matter the most. So there you have it; without them, Lhavit is hollow, and the skyglass is pointless. That is where skyglass comes from. Lhavitians."

Elhaym had to tighten her jaw as she spoke in effort, but she never looked away from the woman. She was not one to shy away from eye contact, and her single eye had bored a hole in even the Ascendant's calm face on more than one occasion. Still, something lingered there that she couldn't quite place.

"You seem to know who I am well enough, but I have been rude. I am indeed Elhaym Vormav, and heiress to Sooyun's bloodline as you said for whatever that's worth. But... who are you?"

[Legion]

The young woman watched Elhaym pace with patience unblemished by the facade of mortal constrictions coiled about her limbs. There was a stillness to her that rivaled the renown masters of meditation littering the cloudscape beneath the floor of the heavens that called itself Lhavit. Yet the subject of her contemplation was not the grand philosophies most imagined by more simple minds, but instead it belonged to whatever theology it was housing itself within the skin of the acolyte before her. "I am your ladder," she said when Elhaym's words found their finish, every nuance not lost. "I am your choices. I am most especially your hard ones." The smile was humble offering, dumb like a fox but with none of the dross that implied. What light lived within her was altogether real; and while it was not that light which she horded like sanity, saved for the hour in which she might need it most, it was yet precious even in its multitude. "You know who I am, Elhaym Vormav," she continued with a tuck of elegant fingers into the sag of her sash. The curve of her hip sunk out and she slumped somehow undiminished and noble. "And you answered my question well. I'm pleased," a pause came as she pulled a comedic serious face then allowed it to fade into actual sobriety. "What I would like to know now is whether or not you are Lhavitian."

[Elhaym]

The realization of one's own ignorance is often disconcerting, but Elhaym had little reason to be abashed when the full breadth of who this woman was struck her. Zintila had never appeared before her, and she had only seen her once from afar. It could have been nervousness or anger that caused her jaw to clamp shut like a bear trap and her limbs to shake… she could not tell. She had no ready explanation as to why she would feel either. Her jaw worked silently as she sought words, standing there with one eye fixated on the patron deity of Lhavit.

"My lady... Zintila. I may regret what I say later, but I've never been one to hold myself back. You ask if I myself am Lhavitian? I will be honest with you, my lady. No… I do not think I am. I live with Lhavitians, eat with them, protect them. This much is true, but I am not like them."

Of course she had said she would be honest, but it was fairly difficult to admit what she would in the next few seconds. In the presence of divinity her personal shortcomings and failures seemed irrelevant, and perhaps that knowledge was how her mouth managed to form her next few words.

"I am a killer; there is no peace in my heart. When I fight, I feel fury and rage that is quelled only by the blood of whomever stood before me... my ambition is fueled by vengeance and hatred, not peace and clarity. I am not fit to be a Lhavitian, but I owe them a debt. After that... day, my body was broken. My mind and soul followed shortly, and I'm not sure if those wounds will ever heal. But I will protect them, in whatever capacity a butcher could protect a herd of cattle. I have thought about what I might do Zintila, and it could be bloody. I only tell you this because I know that we share one thing in common, at least."

Elhaym leveled her mortal gaze as surely as she could upon Zintila's form, and spoke her last words.

"We both love this city and the ones who fill it. When I survived that day, I swore I would never forget the pain those vile magics caused me, and this city. I swore that when the people of this city looked at me, they would know that they could survive anything and remember that day as a triumph. If walking among them and showing them that even if I am broken I still protect them achieves that in a small way, then for now… that is all I can do. For now."

Elhaym wondered if Zintila understood what some of her more cryptic sentences hid beneath such a flimsy and vague veneer. The Shinya were mages, just the same as the ones who had disfigured her in their madness. Would the city ever be safe with such men and women protecting them? Elhaym didn't think so… and if she found a way to force the Shinya to change their ways, she would attack it with the same ferocity she had every other problem in her life. With such ferocity, bloodshed was always inevitable, but that was what lurked beneath the depths of her words. The imminent threat of brief chaos for the greater good of a city.