One Step Too Far[Rozz]

[Maxi]

Season of Spring, Day 20, 513 AV

The bright sun shone over the peak of Syliras, casting a lengthy shadow across the land adjacent. Inside the fortress were a mass of citizens going about their daily schedules, bustling to and fro. Quite the variety of races and cultures were residing within the welcoming walls of the well-known town.The hundreds of torches set against the walls and ceilings of the magnificent city illuminated the spacious halls mapped out within. Maximillion Ahrow strode a casual and steady pace, weaving his way between the crowd of people crowding the main streets, a farmer's hoe placed lazily across his right shoulder.

Wow, the main streets are rather busy today... Maybe something at least moderately fun or mildly interesting is happening... Maximillion sighed, knowing it probably wasn't. Though he still hoped. With one hand he secured the hoe from falling, and with the other he held his flute to his mouth, playing the odd note or two while he walked. The simple and pure notes comforted him like an old friend. Occasionally he would play a series of notes in rapid succession, creating a miniature fragment of a tune. If he so truly wanted, Maximillion could easily whip off an elaborate melody, though he saw no reason to. Single notes were enough for him. Several people blinked at him in passing, wondering why he blew such simple and random notes amidst a crowd. Others simply ignored him, rolling their eyes. And even others smiled knowingly to themselves, knowing who Maxi was. He was a simple farm boy, playing his precious flute for fun while he strolled. His precious flute which served as his only truly consistent form of entertainment. Perhaps one day he would find another, or even better, many.

But for now he simply paraded across a multitude of hallways on the way back to his quarters. As signified by his dirtied hoe, he was back from a long day of working the fields. The young man's back ached furiously, evidence to support his father's accusation of needing to work out more. Bah, working out wont help! I'm just weak like that. He groaned audibly, interrupting himself in the middle of a spree of notes. I'm sooo boreedd! I need to find something fun to do. A brief scouting of the area around him bore no results. Maxi rolled his eyes skyward. Lower standards... Look again... The second time, again, wielded no results. Merely exhaling loudly at the product of his lame search, he continued to amble down the corridors.

[Rozz]

There are little girls in this world. Those little girls who are not knights nor monster slayers, not heroes, nor hunters, nor great mages. They know not the secrets of the world, they speak not with those who do. They dream not sweet dreams of oracles. They have no real impact of the fabric of the city of Syliras. Those are little girls that wear little shoes upon their little feet. And in those little shoes, little toes wiggle, leaving but the faintest footprints of the patchwork of time, the canvas of memory which would soon fade them out to nothing but a little spot upon the minds of those beloved. Those who too will one day forget, for death has such quirky ways of ridding the world of memory.

Now, despite her age, Rozz was no doubt a little girl, not in terms of such frivolities as age but in those of size. Her little toes were no doubt little and her shoes just big enough to be filled by those little toes for she had found a way in which such a little girl may immortalise herself. For few things in this world were immortal; but those of beauty stood a greater chance than heroic deeds or magical inventions. Art was immortal. And if her name was to be forgotten, her art would live on, or so she thought. She would plant the seeds of art in the hearts of children who would carry on the 21 year old's legacy, which she was still in the process of erecting of course. Such legacies take time which the mortal body of such a little girl, seemed to have little. So pitifully short were the lives of humans. And if one was to be so lucky and live past fevers and troubles - for humans stood little better chance than those little spiders who are crushed beneath the little feet of little girls who scream with utter terror at their sight - then the universe would find another way to be rid of them. The insignificance of a solitary figure in masses. It was the blonde girl who sat upon her knees, recording such masses with he scribing of charcoal on paper, unnoticed by all and so very insignificant... yet.

Pencil to paper, carving out obscure shapes of glimpses of the ever shifting sea of heads that went about their way home. A heavy hand, the lack of tone for drawing was not a proficiency of her's just yet, but rather a fun pass time. As long as she understood form, she didn't really need the ability to wield a pencil as if it was a rapier at her side, for paint was far more lovely a medium. Far more exciting a means of transmitting beauty to canvas. Her wrist was stiff as she placed the lines in obscure proportion, a surreal entropy. And if the page now bore an array of unproportional shapes, twisted silhouettes and other such obscurity, it only made her feel as if she was one of those expressionists who rebelled against the traditional renaissance of photo realistic art. An anarchist of paint and pencil, is what she thought herself to be. One thought in the ways of making perfect portrait, only to tear it up and chew it and spit it back out into something new, something exciting. She who lacked perhaps many things, but never lacked originality nor maturity in her understanding of the grim reality of artistic experience.

A crowd of crowds began to grow as she drew them almost a little haphazard. Some deformed strangely as she struggled to capture the many freeze frames of motion before her, in which she saw the world. And whilst if motion in the streets of Syliras really did freeze for a moment,t hen such may be far more simple to retain and transfer into the mind of her hands which scribbled at an astounding speed. Lines and scratches, cross hatching and often a mark or 2 out of place on a drawing that looked out of place all together as if it was a scribble at the hands of a child. But somehow it lacked the kindergarten flare, yet bore that of enigmatic nature. An abstract of a single day. A singular page in a tattered old sketchbook upon which the doodles which were people began to form their own life.

Some may fall into the background, blurred and obscured, yet some - the self proclaimed kings and queens - drifted to the foreground, becoming the focal point of the heard. Those must not necessarily be of royal blood, but of charisma which, in her deep awkwardness, Rozz herself lacked. Those bigger than she. They were the ones with bigger boots and a heavier step and they would leave legacies far more memorable than she who knew not really what she wished from life. She who procrastinated until time had fled from her and she found herself in the city of the Knights. She who wanted to take up the tuition of others in her ways of art, but instead sat upon her knees and scribed. The mind of little Rozz Potato was indeed a morbid one, and ever has bean as far back as her fable may stretch. Having never thought herself much of a pessimist, she did indeed indulge in such from time to time, though few knew for few knew little Rozz Potato. And if bigger shoes were what it took to stamp greater footprints in the collective memory of Sylira, then she would mus over them but remain in the lazy flesh, relishing her lazy bones, leaving those dreams of greatness precisely what they were: dreams.

Alas the sketch neared completion, a point at which she'd abandon it for in it's aesthetic, unfinished pieces bore much greater an artistic interest to her youthful eye. And when she stood, it seemed as if the very height of the girl was impaired. And when she strolled though the streets, it was the stride of little shoes who had little faith in them self. A sketchbook of magic and inspiration, tucked under her arm casually. The feet of one who'd rather not try than fail and be disappointed. The one who relished in things as they were; not the spirit of adventure but that of a pensioner who, even having little sand to loose, had never left the walls of the Citadel.

Home she strolled, though footsteps lacked the haste with which one could drift though Syliras. Indeed she was in no hurry to return to that beloved cousin oh blonde mane and a bowl of warm soup, leftover from the night before, again to be left for the next day. No wealth, unlike that previous existence which she had in Ravok. But this existence was her's even if she was to share it with Gabriel until her art would bring enough income for a place of her own. But in this one she was happy, away from the rays of the Black sun and safely eclipsed by the banners of the Knights. Just another busy bee in the capital.

It was perhaps that point at which, having lost herself in the realm of musings, Rozz forgot that she had two left feet. A girl who attracted accidents much in the fashion of fire attracting hungry bears in the wild lands. And such an accident was one of many, for by some terrible lack of luck, she lost her footing for just enough time to again rediscover herself upon her knees, a healthy dose of pain shooting though her right one, eyes reddened by the frightening haste of the ordeal. Pain, which to any knight would have been close to nothing, now perpetuated long the surface of her limb, flared by faintly bleeding flesh, a tear in her trousers. The sketchbook laying by her side as for a moment she became a freeze frame, gaping at the floor, slowly growing as red as only a Rozz could. How she had fallen was beyond her, for that sudden moment failed to register in the now frazzled, embarrassed mind which hope to have fallen with at least a bit of grace and dignity - though such was not granted to her slender frame. Perhaps she had tripped over a cat, or stumbled over her own shallow stupidity. Whatever the cause, this was now a painful effect and in a manner of a blind girl who had just lost her glasses, she felt for that sketchbook, too afraid to look up for she already knew that someone noticed. Someone who's shoes she was now awkwardly staring at, wide eyed and fearful. She had fallen to his feet, which would be a romantic thought if not the unsightly fashion with which it had happened.