[Pavi Lake] Madness at the edge of death (Leo pls)

[Malia]

Timestamp: 62nd Day in Summer, 509 AV

Pavi Lake—a place created by the Valterrian, a place with numerous legends and tales revolving around it. A place holding a secret that was even older and more interesting than the existence of Nuit. As soon as she approached it and saw it's strange beauty, she already loved it. The structures seemed dead, lifeless. Salt all around. Malia felt it when holding her hand under water, tasted it from the drops at her fingers. Salt was something she couldn't understand … so white and pure and yet with a very strong taste. Too much grains would destroy a good meal. Too little would make it taste boring. There was some kind of magic in it.

However, Malia hadn't come to the place to think about the meaning of salt, not only at least. Rather she wanted to adore the beauty and the unique stone structures. While following the shoreline she wondered … wondered if it do her any harm to climb a little. Usually she couldn't find joy in hiking, wandering, feeling her non-existent muscles, but this day was different. Slightly and strangely different.

She stopped and looked at the stone that towered right in front of her. Just close enough so that she could be sure to land at the edge of it and not slip and take an unexpected bath. It was safe—as safe as climbing on places that weren't designed for climbing could be. Eventually Malia took a deep breath and a few steps back. Then she started running and … jumped. Her feet and hands touched rough stone. Phew. After a few additional hops she found the stone she was standing on rather flat and comfortable to sit at. Nice. It really was different to staying at the city where she had nothing to do except pray and think her bunch of dark thoughts. She already knew it all too well.

But this was something new. Well, not entirely new. It reminded her of travelling with her Master. They had been free to go wherever they wanted, untouched by time or daily needs like eating and sleeping. She had never been afraid, because her Master had been with her.

But now, being on her own, she had to be careful. Her thick, white, lifegiving substance, the ichor, needed to be protected. A single wound, a little cut would already do her great harm. Suddenly she realized how crazy her climbing idea was. She could die if she didn't watch out! Malia certainly didn't like the wall of difference between her and the living, but that didn't mean that she wanted to escape it all and die. No, she wasn't as foolish. She still loved nature, she loved being alive, seeing, smelling, feeling. Gathering knowledge.

Careful … She had to be extra careful this day.

[Leo Varniak]

Earlier that day, Leo Varniak had quit his job for good. Oh, he had had many over the years, and he'd never lasted long at any of those. Odd jobs, he called them, and never cared to elaborate. They just kept his stomach reasonably busy and little more. Leo had few material needs, and did not take pleasure in the things of the flesh. Odd jobs were enough, his future was not with them.

There were no more jobs for him. He was about ready to embark on a quest that may very well claim his life - a quest given to him by the voice of a god of passion and destruction. Ivak. And so, Leo had come to take in the sight of what Ivak had done to the world, here at the Pavi Lake. He had not judged Ivak on his actions during the Valterrian; not yet, at least. It was surprising, for one as judgmental as Leo, to be unable to decide whether someone was in the right. It bothered him, too. Justice had no room for the grey, the shade of meaning. One was either right or wrong. Leo lived by that principle.

Dark eyes gazed upon the structures of salt, always watching, always judging. This one was too tall, that one too low. This one did not offer enough shade from the sun, that one's shape was not pleasing to the eye. Leo wandered restlessly along the shore, unable to find his peace, which was a fitting metaphor for his life. There was always something wrong with his surroundings, be it a person, an object or the landscape. Something that needed to be fixed. Corrected. Purged. Cleansed.

He squinted his eyes and noticed a spot reminding of someone sitting on the rocks. He decided to not change direction despite the unexpected turn of events, though he was unsure whether he should even address the woman. Leo was not a sociable person, and those who interacted with him often wished they hadn't. While Leo was a just person, that didn't make him nice. Most people, if confronted with absolute justice, would back away from it in horror. The girl, for what he could see, seemed content with being there, was not committing any misdeed, and did not appear to be in any danger.

As he approached, Leo found himself staring at her a little longer than he should have. He was dressed in simple clothes, neutral shades of grey, brown and green. Something was... off, but he could not tell what. And so, he said nothing. Silence suited him just fine.

[Malia]

While watching the landscape Malia recognized that someone was watching her. A young human with an … ordinary body, nothing interesting for her. Not that she wasn't interested in him as a person, but still she couldn't resist to look at his body like someone else would look at a fresh apple. Deciding about it's quality. After that had been done, her attention turned to the mind. And she liked what she saw so far.

This day Malia had put on her new violet dress with colorful orchids stitched on it. In fact she couldn't really tell the reason why she had decided to wear this dress. Until then, she hadn't dared to wear it in public, it could easily give people wrong impressions. She didn't like pretending to be what she wasn't and usually avoided people who did so, but … it seemed right this day. The weather was fine and she had decided to take a walk outside. To Pavi Lake, approaching nature. It only seemed natural that she wore a dress with flowers on it, right? She had also used some face powder to conceal the dark bags under her eyes—although she hadn't expected to meet a man with similar circles. Still she could sense that he wasn't Nuit, he looked too much like a human, he wasn't pale and his hair wasn't black.

After some time she realized that she was staring at him and gave a short nod. „Hello“, she called out. If he had found her here, why not talk with him, get to know him more? While Pavi Lake certainly looked like a place of silence and loneliness, upon seeing that human she couldn't help but open her mouth and talk about something. Anything. It didn't matter anyway. She had time, endless time to find out what she really wanted. If she even wanted something from him.

So she continued, sitting at the stone and looking at him. Almost appearing human herself … almost. „I am Malia, it's nice to meet someone else outside the city. Why are you here?“ Although she hated formalities like exchanging names, talking polite nonsense, she didn't care this day. She didn't care about anything. She was in danger, but she didn't care. This human could be afraid of her, but she didn't care. A feeling that was strangely comforting. Still it didn't reach her face, and so she remained staring at him with her pitch-black eyes. Observing. Being curious. Being thoughtful.

Almost human, indeed.

[Leo Varniak]

She broke the silence first, just when Leo was about to walk away and return to his silent ruminations. He never felt sure why people bothered addressing him at all, only to back away - all creeped out - soon thereafter as they got to know him a little better. People were like that, he suspected; they asked questions without considering whether they wanted to hear the answer. Leo had long since decided that the less he spoke, the better. An essential man, he was not fond of wasting things, even his own breath.

Still, there was no reason for him not to return the greeting offered. "Hello," he said, hands in his pockets, taking his time approaching the girl. Leo was not a hasty person at all; at the very least, he did not react to things as soon as they happened. There was a certain lag, a pause, a delay with him. Even now, as he walked up to her, he scrutinized her all the way there; maybe in the way any man would check a girl out, maybe more. It was ironic how they were carefully inspecting each other, albeit for entirely different reasons. Leo was quite simply a control freak who needed to have all the facts all the time, so he could properly judge them.

He could feel, on a purely instinctive level, that she wasn't normal. It was all about the heat... Fire was Leo's best (and only?) friend, having learned its ways from dreams brought to him by the flame god Ivak whose wavy brand he carried hidden on his back. He thought there was something strange about the girl's temperature; as if something was missing that ought be burning within her.

"They call me Leo Varniak," he replied once he was close enough to talk comfortably. His voice had no particular inflection or accent to it; it indeed sounded like a tool, something that one used to accomplish a purpose, but without further meaning attached to it. He calmly sat himself down at a respectful distance, though compared to her lack of heat, Leo was exceedingly warm. He had gotten accustomed to his half-feverish state, which had been a constant companion for years now.

"Thinking about things," he answered the question with the usual depth and detail. It took some time to unravel Leo these days. "Chances are this is your reason, as well." He did not look afraid in the least. If anything, he was a vulture slowly circling above her, methodically trying to figure her out for whatever reason.

OOCI am so sorry. Between being busy and not subscribing to threads, I've kept you waiting a long time. I'll post faster next time!

[Malia]

Oh, he couldn’t know how she adored his attitude, his voice and the context of his words from the first syllable until the last echo. Maybe ‘adored’ wasn’t the right word, maybe ‘loved’ would sound better. But Malia wasn’t one to love or be loved. She simply existed, as a dead, yet strangely moving and speaking creature upon some living creatures.

Thinking about things … Chances are this is your reason, as well. Clear and precise, no useless phrases, no lies, the absolute truth. She could see it. She could see that this Leo Varniak was different than other humans. They would have branded him an outcast. Perhaps they were doing similar things. Malia knew how unforgiving some human souls could be. How mistrusting.

Then she did something she rarely did during a first meeting with someone else – smile. A true, warm smile. Maybe it would confuse him? To her it didn’t matter, not there, not then. It was as pure as innocence and as fresh as spring. Nuit? No, the exact opposite.
“You are right. But I don’t think that your things are the same as mine. What are you thinking?” Her voice sounded soft, almost purring.

For a few moments she was confused about herself. A Nuit? Flirting with a human? Of course any kind of relationship was impossible, so what did she really want? Perhaps she just had to wait how this odd meeting would turn out. Perhaps time would give the answer – as it did for so many other things.

OOCMy turn to say sorry - and my turn to promise not to let you wait again.

[Leo Varniak]

Leo certainly suspected that the girl who sat next to him was not normal in any sense of the word, but he had never met one of the living dead before. Even though he could not consciously draw the conclusion that she was dead, the little telltale signs began piling up in the back of his mind.

He was taken slightly aback by the smile, as he did not believe his words had been very encouraging in that regard. People usually did not react well to Leo's kind of attitude - no, they expected layer upon layer of 'what a wonderful day!' and 'where are you from?'. Leo Varniak was officially puzzled, not to mention intrigued. He gave a very thin grin back to Malia, which was quite the extraordinary achievement for the Nuit, even though she may not be aware of it.

"I was pondering what I really am," he spoke the truth. "A pointless exercise, most likely, but still one that keeps haunting me. Even if I were to get a perfect understanding of myself, I would be changed by that realization and I would have to start over. I guess the question for me is... if we are changed a little by every moment we exist, then what defines us?"

"A man once had a favorite knife," he continued, slowly, methodically, fire burning under the ashes of his conscious being, but his outer shell mouthing word after word in serenity. "After some time, he had the blade replaced. A few years later, he changed the handle, as well. He kept calling it his favorite knife even though there was nothing left of the knife that had been his favorite." He paused for a moment. "I wonder if it's the same for people, as well. Is it only our names that remain unchanged, or is there something more?" His eyes narrowed ever so slightly. He was not really expecting an answer from Malia, but he was glad he had voiced the thought. It had a nice ring to it when outside the confines of his mind.

[Malia]

When he returned the smile, although with a weaker version of her own, Malia was far from wondering what sense lay in her behavior. She acted naturally, and for the first time in many years she enjoyed doing what she just did. There was no reject, no depression, just exchange of opinions and philosophies. The talk they were having perhaps carried a greater sense than the past fifty or so years.

Then her eyes visibly widened and her brows went up. What he really was? Of course it was obvious what he really was, how could it not be, since she was looking at him as someone who wasn’t like him and all those others back in Syliras. How could he be that blind? No doubt, his ideas were extraordinary for a human’s, but only normal for a Nuit.

However, as he continued speaking, describing that strange feeling, Malia recognized that she neither understood his question nor could answer it correctly. A few moments earlier she would have replied: ‘Of course you’re a human! Look at your body, and you’ll know it.’

Apparently it wasn’t that easy for him. Humans had to fight other problems than Nuit – while the latter were staying the same on the inside, only changing bodies, humans were changing inwardly and outwardly. Without getting the possibility to stop the change and look at different stages of the process. But wasn’t he referring to personality as well? Malia had to admit that her knowledge was sparse, she had never paid enough attention to the long-term changes humans’ personalities had to go through.

Perhaps he was talking to the wrong person … but she could at least give her own opinion! As a Nuit she would have a different one than his human acquaintances, for sure.

And she couldn’t resist. “Your body. It’s true, your skin and hair color change, but it’s still the same body you got at your birth. It always stays the same body, and you can’t change that like …” Quickly she caught herself. Like us Nuit.

She didn’t really know why she hid what she was. Of course she was doing so every day, every move she made in Syliras was a careful one, but people who interacted with her usually showed shock or fear very quickly. It was strange that this one did not, but perhaps his own strangeness did protect him a little from recognizing how things really were.

“Besides, your name is a part of yourself. I think it is the only part that truly lasts. The trademark of a person.” Of course someone who only remembered a name from her human life … was a bit of a special case, but names were important to her. It was through names that she remembered people she had met, and her memory was a good one.

[Leo Varniak]

"Mmhh..." Leo gave a low, mumbling sound, like fire sneaking under the embers of the hearth. His questions were most likely without an answer. The body always stayed the same? But that wasn't true. It aged, it shed skin, it replaced old hair with new hair. Leo went as far as venturing that not a single bit of matter remained in his body of what it had been at birth. It had all been traded away for new matter. Names could be forged and one person could go by many names in his time. So, what was Leo Varniak, or Malia for that matter?

"I have always wanted to know," he commented. "know what makes a man, a man." He needed to understand, so he could be a better judge of men, and decide when they stopped being men and slipped into less desirable categories that were best weeded out. "There are unchanging rules in our world, laws that are true no matter where you are, or when. If you drop something, it will fall. If you heat ice, it will melt. It all makes sense. However..."

"However, there is one thing that appears to be random - who we are born as, our identities. We are born in random places at random times... if there is a pattern to that, I can't begin to see what it is." He had mulled over a myriad hypotheses over the years, but of course all of them were nothing but circular logic - understanding life while one was alive was a paradox at best.

Air flared out of his nostril in mild frustration, and he abandoned that train of thought, if anything because he knew it all too well. "So, are my thoughts really that different from yours?" He took another good look at her with his dark, judgmental eyes, and again felt something was out of place. As far as girls went, there was a stillness to Malia that even Leo - about as far from a ladies' man as one could get - could not help but notice. Even more so because of the fire running through Leo's veins, the power of the fire god Ivak himself; he could feel so acutely the lack of that fire in Malia.

He had to admit he found her interesting, firstly because philosophy was not a widespread topic nowadays, when most were busy surviving in the world and had no time for such subtleties. Secondly, because she had a secret. Leo had the seeker's instinct, the restless drive to burn. Somehow, he could smell fuel for his inner fire. While he doubted Malia had committed crimes worthy of investigation, she may involved in things requiring his judgment. And that was something to look forward to.

[Malia]

Oh, there it was, the ever-returning question of whether people were born with a sense in their lives. It seemed that the topic was as old as Tanroa Herself. Malia knew how painful it was to search, search for a meaning nobody would ever discover. Yes, some part of her undead soul knew that her search was pointless – as well as his – but she denied that and kept looking for the impossible.

Why? Why did people always have to chase truths that didn’t exist? Perhaps she was just confused, bored, whatever. Perhaps she actually started to go crazy after so many years of loneliness.

However, this human managed to scare her darkness away, she suddenly realized. While talking to him she felt accepted, excited. Literally burning with her inner desire, like she was talking to Tanroa again, but this time her plead had lead to someone else coming and rescuing her.

No, he certainly wasn’t her ‘Master’, the only one she could trust and follow and still be herself. But their talk was a beginning after all, wasn’t it? She could start a careful relationship, not even as much, but she had made the first step, and she could continue making steps until … until? Well, perhaps until what was between them could actually be called relationship.

If they ever advanced to that point, that is. No, she wasn’t sure. Doubts were invading her mind all the time, doubts pulsing through her ichor, her brain like acid, or poison. Go away, go away!

She wanted to reply to his thoughts, his questions – although of course she couldn’t answer them like the previous ones –, but then stayed silent. Somehow she sensed that he didn’t want to continue with this topic, and then he really went on to something else. Or rather, returned.

Perhaps she could feel the inner heat he was radiating, what he was truly burning for. Nevertheless she replied with a vaguely thoughtful expression. “No, they aren’t.”

Then the Nuit hesitated and took a deep breath. “You are searching for sense. I am searching for sense. Although we know that our search is pointless. I suppose … not even the gods know whether there is a meaning behind our creation.”

She sighed heavily. Sometimes meeting people and talking with them about what moved them was a depressing and tiring effort. Although she loved it, discovering what was driving others, if there was something else that mattered than sense, she could feel when she couldn’t stand talking about that any longer.

So her pale right hand gestured towards the lake. “Have you ever learned swimming?” Of course she wasn’t able to follow him – if he even decided to do so –, but at least she was back in her mood of cheerful senseless activity.

[Leo Varniak]

The search was pointless? Maybe. That was exactly one of those questions never to be answered. Focusing on them for too long was like trying to push a brick wall - a waste of energy, and one that would get you labeled as a madman. Leo nodded and listened. He was certain now that he had never seen Malia in Syliras, and he doubted she hailed from that rat-hole of a city. He may be mistaken, but her outlook did not seem Syliran at all... most natives here had all the answers, justice and civilization and progress and what not. Frail answers, that would not survive a night of the west wind's fury, but answers nevertheless.

"Swimming?" He sounded almost incredulous. "No, never tried." He gazed upon the Suvan Sea with what could have been mistrust. "I have never been comfortable around any water body larger than a bathtub, to be honest." It was deep, trecherous and you could not see the bottom. It snuffed fire out. What was there to like about it? "I like to walk on solid earth, myself. And, I like fire even better."

He wondered why she had asked this abrupt question. Changing topics was fine, but why swimming of all things? "Water is much too cold for my tastes. I grew up around a big kiln in a ceramic workshop. My mother used to make the best porcelain in the city. She was a magnificent painter with her enamel colors; I was in charge of the fire, and picked up a thing or two about painting, as well, though I only did the simpler geometric patterns, sometimes the gilding work. I painted my own ceramics, though. They just don't make it as good these days." He shook his head lightly.

"Are you a swimmer, yourself?" he asked, cutting down on the monologue. "These are dangerous waters." Piracy was bad on the Suvan Sea, though Leo was not overly worried; for all that they sailed on water, ships were extremely easy to set ablaze and burn down. He was curious now. Malia's patterns were diverging from those of the average girl her age. Deviating from the norm was no crime, but it always involved knowledge worth discovering. Besides, he found her easy to interact with. She lacked the overlay of "common sense" that made people wary around Leo (an abnormal person himself), and Leo around them.

He wanted to ask more, but there were rules, or maybe rule was too strong a word. Mutual expectations might be a better one. She had kept her questioning innocent and unrelated, and he was going to do the same until a clear opportunity arose.