Closed Sitting Books (Johanne)

[Dariel]

It might have been an utter surprise that Dariel's fingers were not cold as stone when they ever so gingerly touched Johanne's skin for the second time. Not that they were particularly warm; they were simply human. Flesh and blood, warmer than the encroaching winter outside, colder than a hearth fire. Soft, though not as soft as if they'd never known the touch of a tool or weapon. In short, he was a young man, with all the good and ill that implied. This time, his hand closed slowly, as if afraid to disturb the markings on the adorned skin, taking his time to experience those patterned ridges as he would brush across in the process. Cool eyes took in a heady fill of the images made of skin from skin, quickly warming to them, chasing along knotwork and skirting the edges of divine imagery. Once, just once Dariel caught himself following a line with his fingertip and stopped shocked when he realized what he was doing. Dariel's hand spasmed open, merely balancing her wrist on his palm now, eyes flicking up to meet Johanne's gaze before his gaze dropped, awkward. Now studying the patterns on the floorboards instead of those on the tousled girl's skin he forced out a mumbled,"Thank you." Finally letting go, he turned away never looking up until he faced away from Johanne. Only then did he find it in himself to point out,"Ironically enough you carry the proof of beauty being found in disregarding rules and mores eternally etched into your skin. I can only imagine how intimate these... pictures must be. Moments of great joy, moments of great sadness... or great pain... they have a habit of sticking with us, no?" "And forgive me if I was vague. Yes, there can be beauty in traditional things. My aim was more to say that other people rely on social strictures to define beauty for them. Obviously these social strictures root somewhere relevant. It is just that all too often such a codified idea of beauty becomes oppressive. I thought you would understand." Dariel's voice had started to fade while he spoke. The last sentence came out barely above a whisper, spoken to a bookshelf on top of that. Slow, measured steps took him along the bookshelf until he found the place where there was a hole in his perfected order. A hole he filled with the book he'd removed earlier. Of course it fit perfectly. "I have never heard Denvali, I do not think. Where is it spoken? Is it like another language? Can you say a sentence while I fetch tea?" Raising his voice just a little, Dariel was very obviously deflecting as he moved to a small door between shelves.

[Johanne]

Johanne chewed anxiously on her lower lip, ripping the skin there, trying to swallow her pounding heart further down into her stomach. His fingers ghosted along her flesh, Dariel's touch barely leaving sensation, save the shivers down her spine. He traced along the lines she had made in fits of sadness and ecstasy: when Jolan had called her a true friend, when her mother told her that she wished she weren't her daughter. To an outside observer, they simply looked like obscure symbols. They knew they meant something, but did not know precisely what. To Johanne, they meant the world. Dariel surprised her: his touch was gentle, his eyes alight, his focus on the artwork, on the raised ridges of skin. She inhaled and could not breathe out: here, for the first time, may be a man who understood, and saw in her scars the very thing Johanne craved most.

Beauty.

Their eyes met briefly, his hand pulled away as if her wrist was suddenly white hot. Dariel's eyes flashed to the floor, avoiding her gaze. Johanne's heart sunk further, and her shoulders sagged. They had hovered close to the precipice of understanding, but at the last moment, the stranger pulled away. Johanne understood. To others, she was strange, an anomaly, someone who desecrated precious skin and let life giving blood flow freely, a wastrel. But she had hoped, for a moment, that to this ghostly pale man, with their conversations about beauty and the insides of things, that her scars would mean more. His thanks were strained, and she simply nodded in response, worried about the torrent of words building up under her tongue.

Dariel turned, avoiding her gaze, even the sight of her being. He could not stand to look at her, and Johanne could not help but be frustrated. Even as he picked up their earlier thread on beauty, a conversation Johanne had revelled in at the time, she wanted to scream: say something! feel something! they are here because they mean something! But no one ever wanted them to mean something. She did not pull her sleeves down again, though. Her scars would be there for Dariel to see every time he wanted to look at the young woman. Johanne wanted to prompt him into feeling.

"They stick with me because I have the drive to make them," she said, and her voice was duller, more challenging. While Johanne seemed like a ditzy young girl very often, she was capable of great storms of emotion, and now was a time when she would make her feelings known. "Others write them down with ink. Some paint. I carve into my flesh with a stilletto knife. Yes, they are beautiful. My scars are beautiful. But no one ever seems to think so."

"And you? What do you think?"

Johanne softened with Dariel's voice. As he lost volume, so she lost bitterness and rage. They were just two individuals in one too-big world. She could not blame him for not understanding: there were so many confusing things in life."I'm sorry," she said, her voice just as quiet. "I do understand." And she did; but because of her occupation with herself, her scars, and her meaning, she had not really considered what Dariel meant, what he felt. She had not truly listened to him, so focused was she on being right. But the words were between them: she could not take the accusatory tone back. It hovered in the air, while Dariel moved on to lighter topics. Their conversation was stained with the brief altercation.

"Denvali is spoken in Denval," she told Dariel, while he bustled around, grateful for the excuse to redeem herself. "It's a small town, not far from here. Very isolated. I left two years ago. I could not stay any longer." She let the past hang there for a moment: but to dwell on the lost meant that the present drifted away, too. "Denvali is another language, I suppose. Our ancestors twisted and bastardised Common, as they were cut off from the rest of the world. Now it sounds entirely different." And she thought of something she could say to Dariel in the language of her home.

"When I get home, I shall scar just below my elbow the shape of your hands, with their long fingers and gentle touch. You will be something I remember. Even if you forget me in the morning." The language would be unintelligible to Dariel, spoken deeper in the throat, more forcefully, like a general giving orders to his troops. Johanne took refuge in that.

"That meant, 'It is very late at night but I feel wide awake!'"

[Dariel]

Dariel had taken the liberty of vanishing from sight while Johanne spoke. Just a thin wooden wall away he'd poured tea among vats of pulp and stacks of frames with freshly dry paper. She probably would have liked that too. What an alien thought, but here it was. What did it mean and did it matter? Stepping back into the shop, Dariel held a glazed earthen cup in each long hand. The tea, most likely. "A curious tongue to be related to Common. The similarities seem to be few to put it mildly. It has a certain rustic charm but it also seems unusually wordy." There was no hint of suspicion that Johanne had said anything but what she claimed to tainting his voice, but Dariel did sound rather puzzled. He continued in a softer timbre,appropriate to the subject matter. "I should probably express my dismay that you had to leave your home for whatever reason, but..." "If your path took you here, who am I to argue with providence? It is the dominion of the Gods -- and it seems divinities make for bad sports overall as I am certain the inhabitants of Suva would attest." No. That was not it. Dariel knew well enough to cede the gods the respect they were do. The respect any powerful ruler expected from his subjects. He also knew that he did not care for their intervention one way or another. He would own his defeats as much as his victories... His own mind was deflecting the matter. That too would need to be analyzed. "Is there any writing on this town or its... preculiar argot? There should be." He added that as an afterthought and sounded as if he expected her to do it. Deflect, delay, even if it is the inevitable. Not that he was not curious about this place he never heard of. Yes, the world was vast, but he had at least heard the names of most relevant settlements and even seen a few with his own eyes. But never a Denval. And maybe, just maybe the tall slender boy was more curious where the tall slender girl had come from than he admitted. Having bridged the distance between them while he mused, Dariel now stood in front of Johanne, extending his hand, palm turned up, fingers bent to cradle the teacup. And beneath the cup, yet hidden from sight, a few crumbs of brown rock sugar, because, no matter how unconventional, the girl is a girl and girls must surely like sweet things. But if he thought that why did he not just add the sugar? Deflect, delay, obfuscate. This was not like him. He was better. He was more. Dariel inhaled. "To answer your question as to what I think... I think a great many deal. There is so much existing mythology of scars. Scar tissue is stronger than hale skin. Scars are a map of one's life. There is more, but both of these apply here I would hold. Especially the latter. You go about your scarification in an elaborate and ritualistic, not to mention thorough manner. You obviously invest deep thinking and feeling into their creation, as is proper for such permanent ornamentation." "At the symbols you choose I can only guess. They relate to intimate moments, concepts, beliefs that are all yours to know. And you make them yours. By carving them into your skin you claim them as yours and bind them to your very being, but also yourself to them. In a way you are working magic. The ritual, the pain, the massive investment. You are giving persistence to abstract things, capture and possess. I am quite curious to see what you will do when your skin is fully covered, but I digress."[i] In fact he had been digressing from the moment he spoke. At least he was slowly homing in on the crux of the matter. One more breath, just one more breath to steady himself and a sip of tea. Warm still but not hot anymore. Just right for drinking. Focus. The girl deserved an answer.[i] "Do I think them beautiful? Very. Almost too beautiful."

[Johanne]

Johanne waited, her heart pounding, for Dariel to emerge from the room he had disappeared into. She took the brief moment alone to compose herself. Her hands twisted in on themselves, her fingers picking at cuticles, scratching a her thumb. She was uncomfortable in a place where she should have felt at home. It was a strange feeling. Since she had arrived in Lhavit, never had she met someone who had spoken of her scars so frankly, or had examined them so closely. This young man stripped away her layers with his eyes until all that remained was the very essence of Johanne on display. And he did not even realise that he was doing so. She took several deep breaths, squaring her shoulders, when Dariel emerged, two cups of steaming tea in hand. She could not help but smile at his generosity.

She let the comment on Denvali slide. She did not like to lie, to cover up secrets with shadowy words, and felt uncomfortable conning Dariel any further. If she had spoken more on it, she would have undoubtedly let slip what she had said, and what she intended to do. And all this, for a man she had met only half a bell ago, less, even! Johanne was a woman who felt fully, and that alienated people from ever getting to know her truly. She had to ease them in to her true nature.

Dariel had never even heard of the small little town. He did not miss the streets, the docks, the rubble in the same way she did, and any words would have felt empty against the memory of sea breezes in her mind. It stung a little, that her past was so obscure, and so meaningless in the eyes of the wider world: but that is why she had left, was it not? "Denval was small. It was tiring living there, trying to be as big as I could be in a world contained by mounds of debris. I left to find stories." Not that I found any, she thought to herself. But perhaps Dariel was right: divine providence had saved her from a life where words were swallowed by the insignificance of her geography.

"But the Gods ... I cannot understand their reasonings and deeds, and I must say: I have no intention to try." She shrugged, dismissing the Gods from her being, although she respected their power. She had never seen any evidence that they were at all interested in her stories and her scars, and so Johanne thought: why should she be interested in theirs? Save for Leth and Syna on her left forearm, an image of Joseph rather than the deities themselves, the Gods had no standing in her soul.

"I have found no mention of Denval's culture and way of life in any literature here, but I do not have access to the Bharani Library yet." To write the story of Denval, of the people there, and her way of life ... Johanne was not sure that she could do it. It would finally and irredeemably close a chapter of her life that she had always felt she could return to when the world got too big for her. But to write it would mean that she would have to keep walking, that she had gotten all she could from Denval. Even if that was the story she was meant to write, she could not do it now. And so she remained tight lipped on that topic, even if Dariel were to press it further. Writing was what happened between her soul and the page in private; it was not something she could contemplate aloud.

She stepped forward, inclining her head in thanks as she outstretched her hand to take the tea from him. Picking up the warmed cup, she saw below, in his palm, the crumbs of rock sugar: a small and hidden offering, if she should choose. She paused, his thoughtfulness taking her by surprise. Hesitating for a moment, she took the sugar from his hand, her fingers brushing his palm lightly, before dropping it in her tea. "Thank you," she said softly. Kindness went a long way with Johanne.

She sipped her tea while Dariel spoke, staying silent, never once interrupting. She had put the questions to him so demandingly that she must stay and let him say his piece. He was an intelligent young man. His voice measured, he clearly put much thought into everything he did, and said. This touched Johanne, a girl too used to hasty dismissals and uninterested hasty interactions. Here was a man who would think on what she said and give her an honest answer. A thrill went down her spine when he said that she was working magic. Johanne had hope that he would understand.

In the lengthy pause, as Dariel sipped his tea, she stayed silent, processing. Just as she had begun to think that he had said his piece and required a response, he spoke. And spoke such beautiful, unexpected words, words so similar to the ones she had offered Joseph years ago, that tears welled up in her eyes, obvious to Dariel, though they did not spill.

"Thank you," she whispered, and her voice was hoarse. "No one has ever thought that before. I cannot express what those words mean, what memories they bring back--" Joseph's eyes flashing through her memory, his smile, his smell, his lips against hers.

"Thank you, Dariel Masute. Thank you for thinking they are beautiful."

[Dariel]

Dariel's eyes dropped from sight, his gaze stealing across the floorboards again, only disturbed by the rising steam from the cup cradled in his palms. Was that the lightest hue of rose shading his cheeks? At the angle it might have been a shadow. If shadows came in such tints. It was all he could do to shake his head, strands of hair fighting their way down across his forehead in the process. This was a new sensation he was experiencing. It wasn't that he hadn't thought about people in depth before, but when he had done so he was always looking for an angle, understanding was only necessary to achieve ends. There was no end here. Just a gossamer chain he'd forged from understanding something intimate about another person, a chain which now ran between them. He could snap it if he chose to, he knew. He didn't want to. He was reminded of the witch girl he'dmet in the woods. Dariel and Haeli had gone from a chance meeting to sharing secrets within a few bells. But that was because they both were smart people who sought understanding without judgement. It was a comfortable mutual thing. With Johanne, Dariel had quite accidentally reached out and touched her soul, scratched it a little, and now it had bled all over his fingers, staining them with her color, seeping in through the skin, coursing through his blood like venom... or medicine. What was he going to do about it? Nothing, most likely. He had done enough for one day. And yet... "Nobody should ever have to thank another for saying what is right and proper. The contents of their minds and hearts; the truth. It goes back to our discussion of beauty. I am no artist but I know enough to know that everything exists in relation to another thing. The mores and strictures I mentioned are what most people seek to draw the relationship to. If they fail, well, then it must be ugly." "I am a simpler creature, hopefully more free for it. I look at your markings in the context of you. Pain purifies, blood anoints, labor honors. I would afford the same judgement of anything anyone invested the same amount of effort and sacrifice, even if it might not correspond to my personal aesthetics." As far as audiences went, the floorboards were one of the harder crowds Dariel had experienced. But of course this lengthy explanation had been meant for Johanne's ears. The young man forced his head straight again, offering a scant smile tinged by something melancholy. "And at any rate, I should be thanking you for being beautiful." It was a good thing Dariel was clinging on to his teacup because he wanted to slap himself as soon as he had said that. At least the surge of anger washed away most of the awkwardness and inexplicable softness he had experienced before. Anger he could at least rationalize and rationalize away. Yes, it had been a terribly sappy thing to say, but for one it could not be unsaid and was too plain to explain away as anything but temporary insanity. On the other hand, it was not like to cause more harm. What was the worst that could happen? His next instinct was to look down again, but instead his gaze just got caught on the ridges patterning Johanne's skin again. Textures had always been dear to him. There were some foods he refused to eat simply because their texture in his mouth offended him. Scars felt all kinds of wrong to his fingertips. They were made from skin but smooth and tender in their own right yet invariably stronger than the skin around them or so the saying went. Familiar and alien at the same time. In short, they were fascinating to Dariel. Arranging them in man-made shapes being the ultimate act of refinement. His teeth grazed across the thin pale lower lip as he looked. He knew he wanted to touch her again, follow those lines with his fingers, no matter where they took him. He also knew such a wish if uttered could only be misunderstood. Unbidden, the Djed roiled in his center like a boiling kettle ready to burst, reminding him that he could take what he wanted without the girl ever being the wiser. Dariel tried not to listen. "Oddly, I would liken the Gods to food. Some are good to partake of, some a decadent indulgence. Some simply appeal to your palate, others not at all even if they are very popular. Some go well with specific occasions, some are for everyday... But most people only need so much of them in a given day. Is it very silly to think this way?" Gods were a good topic. Gods did not usually involve wandering hands or forging bonds of understanding. And there were so many of them. Certainly food for a conversation.

[Johanne]

Johanne smiled softly as Dariel stared at the floorboard. She should not have been so touched by a comment from this stranger. Anyone can say anything is beautiful, anyone can let the world think that they think a certain way, or believe a certain thing. It was strange that she was so moved, so emotional, so raw on the surface. She was too used to recording these things, not having them happen to her. Dariel was clearly embarrassed at the sudden intimacy with some strange, emotional, excitable girl who had run into the shop seeking paper and ink, and yet he did not shy away from it. Johanne at least appreciated that, and appreciated the man who found her scars something lovely.

"Not many look at me at all. I am too tall, too gangling, too out-of-the-way. I do not mean much nor accomplish particulars. I am simply the girl you walk by on the street. Not one person has ever called my scars anything other than an abomination, Dariel." She took a breath. She pondered telling him the story of where they came from, of which man spurned it all on in the first, but she tucked that story back into her heart for another day. The outer limits would suffice. "I once saw a man with scars like these. I told him his were beautiful. And they were. They spun all over his body, his chest, his arms, his necks, even his cheeks. But no one has ever told me anything similar, until today."

Dariel's last comment struck her silent, and he followed her suit. She had never asked him to tell her if she were beautiful. Simply the scars. And here he was, calling her, Johanne the failed storyteller, beautiful. All of a sudden she stilled, looking into her tea. He found her beautiful. A man she had met only once and who had seen deeper inside of her than anyone for a long time, found her beautiful. Perhaps it were a slip of syntax, and not what he meant to say at all. Johanne's heart sank. She looked at her palms, cupping the tea, gently, and thought as she lifted the cup to drink.

Whispering beneath her breath, as if more to herself, to remind herself of a deadly, unwanted truth, she spoke. "I thank you. You may think my scars are beautiful. But I am not." She shrugged, before putting the tea down onto the counter and looking down onto the floor, examining the floorboards, looking for cracks like the one in her heart. She could not be beautiful. After a lifetime of knowing that she was not, it would be cruelly done to kid her into thinking she was for a night: only to awaken the next morning, alone and chasing after a lost dream. Johanne, the plain, the unwanted, the UnBeautiful.

(But how she wanted to be truly beautiful to someone, somewhere, one day.)

The mood shift was quick, strange, and odd. It happened in an instant, and her whole demeanor changed. Her shoulders hunched, and she focused on anything, anything but Dariel's piercing eyes, his impenetrable face. She did not want to be led on, to have hope. He spoke again, and Johanne was grateful for the change in topic, something to distract her from her own inadequacy. But the Gods: again, something she had no taste for. Something she had no hope in.

"Perhaps it is a little silly to think that way." Johanne's discourse had changed. It was harsher, more realistic. She was not acting the seventeen year old girl who had kissed Joseph. No, this woman speaking was the Johanne who knew that she would never craft any story worth writing, even if she spent every day searching. "Myself, I cannot find it in me to trust in any god. We see it every day here in Lhavit, Dariel. The Fallen Ethaefal, the ones the Gods let slip through their fingers. If the Gods truly cared about them, then they would have stopped them leaving." And it was unsaid: if my mother truly cared about me, I would not have left Denval.

[Dariel]

Oh how relieved Dariel was. She'd taken up the offering and run with it. The Gods, of all things, had saved him. Not that he didn't think the girl beautiful. She wore her heart literally on her sleeve. A heart so that beat so hard that she was willing to bind the world to it and leave it for the world to see. Artistic merit aside, both the ingenuity and audacity of it marked her as something special. It was a beauty a far cry from a pretty face or a shapely body. An entire definition of beauty all her own. Which in turn was even more beautiful. In her own way, she was just like him, he erred. She was free of all ties and able to shape herself to her own mental image without concern for the world. The world in turn had reacted as it would: It hadn't understood. How unsurprising that was. The gestalt pulse of the unwashed masses was a deeply reactionary thing. Changing it required exchanging every pint of bad blood in its veins for something pristine. A task Dariel did not possess the gall for. He was content on his own. Or had been. Lhavit had changed that. He couldn't place his finger on it. Maybe it really was a better place. Maybe he was simply more willing and ready to see the individuals hidden in the throng now that he was free of his past. It was an awkward thing for the cool man to like someone else. Inconveniencing, too. But it also made him catch a glimmer of why people forged families and communities, above and beyond banding together for shared tasks and mutual protection. He found that he, too, had a heart. He simply was not sure whether that was a good thing. And that question had never been more pertinent than it was right now. Here he was, awkward, not in control, stumbling over himself. Maybe if she'd slapped him when he grabbed her first. Maybe if she'd laughed at him picking over her scars with words, or when he called her beautiful. But she'd taken him in stride as he her. Unbidden and unprepared he'd been lured into unknown territory and didn't know what to do with it. His only saving grace was that his mind worked still, depsite his heart getting in its way. She didn't mean much, she said. But she had a fierce love of books and art, a fierce enough love of the world to etch it into her skin. The world in turn never understood, but she weathered it. Weathered it without being impervious to it. There was a bitter irony to it. The scars on her skin were beautiful, but people failing to see this beauty gave her scars on her heart. If she'd received more encouragement maybe she'd see herself differently. Dariel wanted to grab Johanne again, yell at her to stop caring (not that he thought she could). Shake her awake to a world in which only individuals were even allowed to have an opinion because the masses were not fit to, Tell her to be more like him. He didn't have the heart to do it and so he remained silent, just standing dumbly while she spoke and stirring his tea with gentle shakes and tilts of the cup. Instead, he seized upon the ruse they had. The welcome screen they could put up between them to not be awkward and vulnerable and confused. They good give it a few moves and see what became of it. Argue some random detail, or even find common ground. It was almost like an exercise. "The matter of the Ethaefal is a peculiar one. I put it to you that maybe -especially- Leth and Syna have enough of a love of humanity to want their servants walking among us. Not for the sake of such servants but for our sake. To inspire and enchant and remind. It is easy to dismiss the orbs in the sky as pedestrian and everyday, but look outside, look up. Leth is out there, watching over our nights, and Syna will replace him come the morning." "Maybe the Ethaefal slipped through their fingers, maybe they were allowed to slip. Maybe their stay in the mortal realms is for their benefits, maybe for ours. I am by no means a man of religion or faith, but even I take solace in their presence. Surely, there must be some design at work here." Though he certainly entertained the possibility of some greater plan behind the mere presence of the Ethaefal, he did not actually care. The lack of conviction was palpable, his words little more than an idle wonder. But at least it wasn't awkward.

[Johanne]

Johanne could see, from the corner of her eye, Dariel holding his cup in hand, swirling the warming liquid, looking for answers in the reflection: a way to overcome the sudden barrier that had been erected before them. It was ironic, Johanne thought, that in learning deeply about someone, humanity's knee-jerk reaction was to shy away, to hide the truth, to turn one's heart and flesh to steel, impervious to penetration. Her eyes were not as gay as they were before; her lips no longer smiling. If Dariel looked closely, he would see her knuckles white from holding the tea so tightly, in order to keep her soul within her. She leaned against the workshop bench, where Dariel's father forged art in his own way, and seemed to be the picture of nonchalance. But if one looked closely, the edges and her corners were hard, sharp and poised. Johanne was holding herself inside.

When Dariel began to talk on gods and faith, she raised her eyes, certain that her self doubt was locked away. Though the gods hurt her heart, too. It was hard to believe they cared for anything save their own affairs. Now she was Johanne the Wanderer: with no home, no ties, and nowhere for her to rest her aching ankles.

Dariel's voice carried the lilt of a half-forgotten dream; upon waking, you remember something, and you lie idly in bed hoping for the images and sensations to rush over you again. He was wondering, exploring, thinking, and Johanne was endeared to the man for doing so. It endlessly frustrated her that she liked the man, that he had slipped beneath her skin so easily and so quickly, simply by musing aloud. It was with this bitterness that her next words were tinged. "The Ethaefal are beautiful, I will not deny that. To look at them inspires hope. But for me, it is not a hope in the gods. It is a hope that when we have fallen to our lows, we can keep walking, and keep shining." It was not that she disrespected the might of Syna and Leth. It was simply that she could not feel their relevance in her life. She was not this bitter towards the Gods, but the frustration at herself, at Dariel, and at her inability to mean something worthwhile began to seep into her words and tinge her every thought. She needed to sit. She needed to write.

She needed to scar.

She put down the tea cup, and it was not even close to being half empty. The tea had tasted sweet, but there was a bitter taste in her mouth, and her brow was furrowed. Had she been more whole, and as Dariel had mistakenly said, more beautiful, perhaps she could have weathered this conversation with more grace, more poise. But for now, she was frustrated with her own insignificance, and talk of the Gods only exacerbated it.

"I must leave," the words abruptly joining the echoes of their spoken thoughts just before it. Her shoulders softened, then, as if saying such had gotten rid of the animosity poisoning her frame. "It is not you. I enjoyed, for the most part, meeting you. You have wonderful thoughts. But..." She trailed off, wondering how she could express the turmoil in her mind. "I need to think. I need ..." She shrugged. If Dariel was perceptive, he would guess what she needed right at that moment. She stood upright, pushing off the workshop, and taking a step towards the door.

"Please, mention me to your father. And Dariel..." She sent him a small smile. All he had said was not forgotten, not meaningless to Johanne. "I will come back soon."

She paused before she walked to the door, giving him a chance to say his final words to her, before she opened the door and spun out into the cool streets. The night was still black as black, but the stars shone over head. The fresh, cool air awoke her body, awoke her soul, and away fell the steel she had erected to keep her heart safe. She walked home, and tears fell to the cobblestone below, like the little droplets of blood would fall when she held her stiletto in hand.

[Dariel]

He didn't care. And he knew that she knew. It wasn't that Dariel was lying or making things up, but neither were they talking about the things they should be talking about. He knew that, too. But a decade of living among wolves in human skins had been enough time to raise massive bulwarks around parts of him. In fact it had been time to watch the walls grow over with thorny vines bearing poison bitter fruit. Enough time to dig a moat and populate the parapets with armored rules bearing glaives. Even enough time to put up warning signs along the outer perimeter. Yet one accidental observation had seen him lower the drawbridge to run out and take a closer look. He needed time. To sit and think and work through all this. Was it an architectural problem? Was the entirety of his defenses in question? Was he at fault? Or was it just a fluke? He couldn't answer any of these on the fly. He needed time. Needed to allow the idle chatter to go on. Say things like, "Oh we can, I am certain. Humans may not walk in the grace of their Gods' light like the Ethaefal, but our minds and hearts are ridiculously resilient. The deciding factor is our will, though. If one..." She had to leave. He didn't want Johanne to leave. That much he knew. But then she said the magic words. She needed to think. Not only could Dariel understand, worse, he could empathize. He could not argue with it, especially since he knew he needed time, too. Just, couldn't she think while he was in the room? Apparently not. Johanne stepped away and he almost followed. Restraining the motion, superimposing his mind over his body, his body twitched once from head to toe. Now it was his time to clamp his hands around his teacup as if he wanted to crush it, even if Johanne's parting words smoothed over some ruffled feathers. What more could he do than give her a parting nod and some level of assurance, even if it could easily me misinterpreted. "When the first snow falls. If you have not been back by then I will hunt you down." His smile was small but undeniable.

[Elysium]

Character: Dariel
XP:
Observation +2
Rhetoric +3
Investigation +1
Organization +2

Lores:
Sleeping at Night is Overrated
Minding the Shop
Johanne: The Girl of the Earth
Beauty: Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Value
The Internal Fortress

★

Character: Johanne
XP:
Observation +2
Rhetoric +3
Papermaking +1

Lores:
Lhavitian Bridges Can Be Daunting
Dariel: The Ultimate Pragmatist
Components of a Lhavitian Book
The Touch of a Man
The Fear of Being Loved

Additional Reward
Johanne's Scar - just below the elbow

Other: This was a wonderful read. Both of you are competent writers and your interaction was very engaging. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact me. I look forward to your next thread.

and so, the journey continues...