Closed So Far from Home

[Uleru]

45th of Fall
Year 513
15th Bell


"I hate this river. The food is muddy, the water is strange, the fish are dull and I haven't met a single person in two weeks. I hate this river. And I hate you."

Uleru scowls at the toad in her hands, daring it to speak up and deny such saucy accusations. Demanding it fight back, to struggle against its fate as a sea monsters dinner.

Instead she is treated to a long, belching croak.

Without another word the Otani winds up her arm and throws the defiant toad downstream, watching its skinny legs pinwheel in the air.

Uleru's trip up Riverfall had been a trial. Demanding poor Jorin to carry her up the city's three tiers in a jar when she knows intimately how well her kind do in enclosed places was a risk, sure. And to have a long lost friend materialize from the ether only for the woman to accidentally chuck the monster, still in her jar, down a busy street was the risk she didn't expect. But it would all be worth it in the end! she would constantly remind herself. You might never get this opportunity again!

The toad hits the water with a heavy thunk, disappearing under the surface with a barrage of ripples that get swept away with the current as soon as they are made. Uleru continues to scowl at the water before turning back to view the land. And if it wasn't for the impossibility of it all, she would be so sure that the view hasn't changed since she left the waterfall behind.

Grass. An endless expanse of the green stuff as far as she can see in both directions. It reminds her of the paintings the Painedtide would make on the Flotilla; canvases with huge expanses of the most beautiful scenery and the most vivid colours, but then you take a step to the side and see that its completely flat. The ocean might be the same way, beautiful and very empty on the surface; but it's also three dimensional. There is stuff down there. Wonderful, enchanting stuff. This place seems hollow by comparison, when there are no mysteries or secrets below. The most the Sea of Grass can offer are some fuzzy specks in the distance that may or may not be another creature, and ugly grey-green river weeds from which she makes her meals.

"Thats enough traveling for today", she sighs to no one, pulling herself ashore with a tired groan. The current can be rough in patches, and unlike the sea she has no choice but to fight against it. It can be quite tiring.

But there is still at least an hour or two of daylight left, what should she do? The moulding pads ashore, sinking her feet into the plush green grass. And, feeling rebellious, she starts to walk away from the water. What is the harm? The animals she has seen have taken no notice of her, except for the giant, evil -looking birds with the glass claws. And all they did was stare.

But this dare devil streak doesn't last long. By a few chimes the Otani is looking back to the river as if to assure herself that -yes, it's still there. And by less than ten chimes she is overcome by nerves. Unable to take anymore stress Uleru turns on her heel with every intention of running back to that cursed river. But something makes her stop. She might not be able to go see the strange land creatures, but maybe they can come to her!

She is aware that she has a scent thats too similar to water to be recognized. And her body generates no heat of its own, making it impossible for the Leth-eyed night animals to follow her either. But maybe it can be more simple than that.

Pulling dijed to the soles of her feet, she releases the energy in the form of a light mist. She takes an even, deliberate step and presses the dijed under her before tapping her Reimancy and turning it to ice. Then, peeling her foot away, she can see the perfect, glassy footprint she left behind.

Smiling with a simple gleeful pleasure, she repeats the process again and again, leaving a strange, icy trail right back to the river.

[Darius Twoseas]

Darius was almost giddy today, and to be honest, for the past few days. There were a multitude of reasons, a major of which was his joy at returning to the great web of the Sea of Grass. However, he was undoubtably most content because of the sense of belonging he had not even anticipated to have coming here. While he had been raised in the Sea with the Drykas clans, he had still felt a bit of an outsider there, as he never bonded with a Strider and got his windmarks. To be fair, he had only been ten when he left for the Suvan Sea with his father's people, but Endrykas had never quite felt like home. All that had changed about a week ago, when he had encountered his this pavilion of Drykas heading, at the end of the season, back to the moving city. Darius had decided to travel with them for safety, though he knew it would delay his own travel. In all honesty, he wouldn't be much help to them, as he was a poor archer and only acceptable rider. His knowledge of webs was rather redundant when when the Ankel was more accomplished. But the pavilion had been unwilling to allow a lone fellow Drykas navigate the Sea of Grass alone. At first, Darius had tried to avoid being a burden on them, as without a horse he would slow them down considerably. But then something happened that changed his outlook. The fist night with the pavilion, they had come across a wild herd of Striders and one had stopped in front of him and lay down, left behind y the herd. The pavilion had joyfully recognized the bonding the next night with a feast and Darius had had his windmarks applied there. It had been days since he had been fully included as a Drykas, but the glow of support was still filling him. This was a good omen. He couldn't wait to return to Endrykas. His Strider, who he had named Alaxel after his mother's father's father, was at the moment particularly docile, though he had been playful and energetic earlier. Darius took the opportunity to let his consciousness flow into the web, checking for any predictors nearby. He was marveling at the beauty of the Sea when he noticed something he had never felt before. A creature was nearby on the plain that he had never encountered. It was very deeply imbued with djed, but didn't feel like one of the magical predictors that roamed the plain. It felt almost fluid. Strange. Just as he was about to say something, a member of the family he was traveling passed the word down from farther ahead. "We're putting down here for the day. We're running low on supplies so we're going to have to go out hunting. You're welcome to come once the pavilion has been set." Darius appreciated the invitation, but politely declined, knowing he would be little more than dead weight to the true hunters and trackers in the pavilion. He helped them set up the large tent and then, grabbing his mother's bow, crept out amidst the grass alone, seeking the spot that he had felt the strange djed earlier. Before he lost sight of the pavilion through the grass, he let himself seep into the web again for a moment, locating the presence again. It wasn't far away from the camp, but when he came within what he judged as viewing distance, he saw nothing. He looked around at the horizon, but no one was there. He was about to risk making himself vulnerable by entering the web, when he noticed the strange footprints, like they were made of glass. He went over to one, wary of some sort of trap, and touched it. It looked like a human print, but cold...like ice. There was a trail of the prints, leading away. Drawing his bow, he warily followed them until he was on the banks of a large river. The prints led to the water, but Darius was much to worried about his safety to actually go in. He stood for a moment, trying to decide if he should abandon his pursuit.

[Uleru]

His eyes are blue.
 
Thats the first thing Uleru notices as she looks up at him from the riverbed close to shore. In her stayed hands is a crown she is fashioning from long-drowned sticks and ugly, feathery weeds. Her eyes are wide with surprise and her lips are parted as if to ask: what the void?
 
If she were to be honest with herself (and she rarely is) she would have to admit that she didn't expect anything to follow that obvious trail. Animals don't have that kind of curiosity. And she hasn't seen a single human or similar (who almost all have that exact kind of curiosity) in weeks.
 
She can see the mans blurry profile through the water as he seems to scan the surface of the river. Looking for her she has no doubt. The water distorts him too much to make out anything about him, except his eyes. Such blue eyes. Ocean blue. And there is only one race she knows of that have those eyes.
 
The crown is tugged out of her hand by the tricky current, but the Otani's fickle attention is too caught to notice. Her body gives a rousing shake to get the lethargy out of her limbs, and then she starts to kick for the surface.

Her hand breaks the surface first, snapping out to grab a tuft of tough grass on the shore to keep from being swept away, and the rest of her fluidly follows. She hauls herself ashore and ends up kneeling on the bank, the low light of Syna fracturing through her body like she's made of glass. The Otani considers him, her eyes alight, unconcerned about the precautionary weapon in his hands. The weapon meant for herself, if she turned out to be dangerous.
 
"Svefra? Is that you, Svefra? Oh how I've missed you!" she croons, speaking of him as the embodiment of his whole perceived race. "The Father smiles for me today my handsome lad. But what is a sailor of the seas doing so far from the salt and the blood of the world?" she asks, her face lit with a dancing smile.

[Darius Twoseas]

Darius had finally come to a conclusion when the hand came from the water. After finding nothing more of interest on the riverbank, he was about to return to the camp and remove himself from the possible danger. Then, to his immense surprise, the a hand of water rose from the river. Darius was too bemused to move as the hand grabbed the weeds on the bank and pulled itself up, revealing a strangely translucent, small, feminine, humanoid figure kneeling on the beach. Before Darius could craft any sort of response, she began to speak. Svefra? Is that you Svefra? Oh how I've missed you! The Father smiles for me today my handsome lad. But what is a sailor of the seas doing so far from the salt and the blood of the world?" Darius blinked dumbly at the torrent of words for a moment, appreciating the surreal scene before him. It was a girl, the sun-beams cutting through her fluid body. There was a moment before Darius realized that the question was directed at him. However, his first response was a question. "You're an Otani, aren't you? I'd heard stories from some of my podmates but they were just...stories. I've never..." He trailed off, the memory of his podmates a little painful. There was a tense pause and his expression first hardened for a moment, then looked up in surprise that the Otani, as if just remembering she was there. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm only actually half Svefra. I'm heading back to my mother's people in Endrykas. My father's pod," he blinked once, "was lost." Darius frowned slighting, examining the Otani closer. "But what about you? Did you leave those prints? How are you out here? Don't you require constant access to water?" There was a moment for him to figure it out. "The river? Why would one of your kind come all this way inland?"

[Uleru]

The Otani's face is strangely disconnected as the man relates his story. Like she cant quite settle on the expression she wants, or he expects. The Svefra is a runaway, that’s all there is to it. She’s seen men half mad with grief stumbling back and forth across the shore, demanding the sea spit out his wife or child. That's a grief she's seen, studied and understands. But to just... run? Where is he running to?

The comment about his pod was short, but something hard passes over his deep set eyes that means there is more to this. She wonders what it is. But he has questions of his own: did she make those footprints? Why is she here? How did she get here?
 
She considers these questions carefully before answering. The truth is that she is looking for something. This something is not as identifiable as a treasure or even a place. Rather, it’s intangible and even unspeakable. She's looking for whatever it is that makes the people of the sea flee inland.
 
Her dear friend Edreina was the most recent to abandon her, but by no means the first. Three hundred years and nine generations of Charoda, Svefra and Konti have just... left. Not all of them, of course. But it's like holding sand in your fist. No matter how hard you hold on some still just trickles out and is lost. Then these people of the sea leave where she cant follow. Why? What is it that the sea, or herself, cant provide that this wasteland of sand and dirt can? This question has been haunting her for so long, eating away at her guilt and her confidence like a physical thing.
 
But the moulding smiles through the stab of pain the thought conjures. She would never tell this not-quite-Svefra this very private thought.
 
"I'm here for you, of course", she lies smoothly. "I'm here to call you home.”

“See this here?” she spreads her arms to indicate the rolling landscape. “This isn't your sea. You don't belong here. If you come back I can be your sister, just as Laviku is your father. I can take care of you and be your family. That's all you want, isn't it?" by the end there is a note of pleading in her voice that she cant hide. Like a tiny window into her desperation. Why do they leave!
 
"And the footprints? That was magic. I'm a Reimancer. Not an expert, mind, but I know a few tricks. I can show you if you'd like." her voice is back in control to the airy friendliness that it was earlier. She doesn't expect that the man is learned in Reimancy himself, she is just planning to stall him. If she shows him a few flashy magic tricks she might catch enough of his attention for him to stay. Then she can convince him to come back to the Suvan with her.

[Darius Twoseas]

The nearly transparent girl took a moment before she answered. There was a moment before she spoke, before her eager smile appeared, when her expression was harder to read, and Darius had trouble picking up anything from her facial expression. Perhaps it was the unusual coloring, the fluidity of her features that made it difficult to read the emotions through the refracted sunlight. Darius's attempts to discern her thoughts was forgotten, though, when she began to speak. She was here specifically from Laviku to him? He thought back on his time on Laviku's domain for the last decade and smiled internally, though his outward expression didn't change from the confusion he showed. If only he could just return and find the family she spoke of so cheerfully. But if she were sincere, why did that edge of the manic begin to show as she ended her speech. But her response to the footprints was far more interesting, and Darius's eyes lit up at her offer. That was an offer he was very keen on. "It was Reimancy? What element, water? That's amazing! Could you teach me something? I personally have connection to fire," he had first been driven to the sea by his family's pavilion burning down, and his pod's ship had been sunk by a massive storm of djed-powered fire-rain a year and a half ago, "but I could see why you especially would learn water manipulation. It stands to reason the skills are transferable, though right?" All thought of the sea and her earlier statements were forgotten in his enthusiasm to learn more magic. Her offhand offer had garnered far more attention from him than her thinly-veiled pleas.

[Uleru]

"It was Reimancy? What element, water? That's amazing! Could you teach me something? I personally have a connection to fire."

What.

The Otani's smile vanishes into surprise and a reflexive flinch. He's a Reimancer? That's unexpected. He's too, well, healthy and well-built to be a mage, frankly. He doesn't resemble the over-drawn, cooped and well read type. Besides, most of the people of the sea are too focused on survival skills to put too much effort in such scholarly, corrosive subjects like magic.

And, of course, the one element he can conjure is fire. And fire reimancy is thee most deadliest thing she can go up against. Really, there is nothing constructive you can do with fire as an element! There is nothing that can be built, drunk, carved or pushed with fire. It is a purely destructive tool. And in the hands of a novice that thought is particularly frightening. Especially where they are. The lush green grass around them suddenly feels like sitting on a giant tinderbox.

"Naturally", she mumbles, her caution rising in direct proportion to the mans enthusiasm. Well, this is what she wanted, isn't it? She has his attention now! Besides, at this point she would keep company with a third-cursed blasphemer for the fleeting moment of contact. Unless she wants to start another conversation with a toad.

"Ah, yes", she answers his last question as she brings herself back to the conversation at hand. "I-I've found that res is res, it's only once the element is released and you lose the direction of it that it differs. I was inducted with water. All my brothers and sisters are. But I've learned to harness air and ice since."

"Here... Let me teach you some things, eh?" she beckons him to sit in front of her with a wave of her hand. Yes, yes, lets teach you how to kill me, her mind coos endearingly.

Well, at least she can escape to the water if things get hairy and he loses control of his element. Though that wont stop the yet unseen grass people from getting devoured by the ensuing fire tsunami that could result.

They'll just have to be careful with the practice, thats all.

"How about a game of it?" the Otani proposes amiably, rocking on her hips to get comfortable on the sloping beach. "At the end of every technique I teach you I get to ask one question. If you get it right, or answer truthfully, I will teach you another one. If you get the answer wrong or lie, I get back in the river and you will be stuck with whatever the grass-people know of magic."

A stroke of genius on her part, she decides, smiling to herself. Surely the man is eager to learn, if his enthusiasm is any indication. And maybe there is something she, as a monster of the sea, can teach him that the other mages cant? Who knows. Either way, he is unlikely to refuse a punishment game when he has nothing to really lose. And she can probe him for what she wants as they play. She can turn his mind back to the sea, and find out things only a human can know. She might even get some insight on what she herself is looking for. It's a win-win if she has ever seen one!

[Darius Twoseas]

The Otani seemed for a moment shaken by Darius's enthusiasm for learning magic. For his part, Darius barely noticed her reaction, and his mind was instead turned to his own magic. He knew that there was great danger in using fire in his Reimancy, but he was sure he could contain it. The first thought in his mind was for keeping the fire in control. He had, in fact, chosen the element because he hoped he could use his res's ability to draw its element in order to protect others from the same experiences he had had with it. He had chosen it it learn how to control it. Darius only noted the Otani's apprehension when she began to speak, and by then it only lasted a moment before she had collected herself. At her gesture, Darius sat down on the ground, his legs crossed, propping his elbows against his knees and leaning in slightly in anticipation. After a moment, the Otani across from him was more comfortable and amiable in her speech. She surprised Darius by turning their lesson into a game. If Darius lied about something or got a question wrong, the lesson would be over. He decided to accept immediately. There was nothing he knew that he felt was more important than his quest to learn. Only a minute later did he think to question what she gained from the trade. Darius didn't dwell too much on it, though. It could just be her whim, but even if it wasn't, there wasn't anything important or dangerous for him to give away. "Sure, I'll answer your questions. That sounds fun." He smiled, his eyes alert. "What are we starting with?"

[Uleru]

"We'll start with this. Something nice and simple. Watch-"
 
The Otani takes a deep, exaggerated breath and holds it, distending her chest slightly. Turning her head to the side she points a shimmering finger to the top of her throat to catch the mans attention to whats going on inside her body. And through the viscous liquid you can see a small, packed ball of a opalescent white res being pulled from the bed of her tongue.
 
The ball seems to loosen as he looks at it. It's still spherical, but more like a dense ball of mist than anything else. Then with a gust of breath that smells like the sea, the moulding purses her lips and pushes the res out of her mouth. As soon as it pasts her lips it turns to a seeming dispaportunate flurry of snow, expanding in the chilly air like a cloud before settling on the bank.
 
Uleru licks a few stray flakes from her lips before turning back to the man with a smile. "It's not flashy", she admits, "but it's very useful. If someone is too close for you to defend yourself, or is holding you down, spitting ice or embers in their eyes will throw them off balance. Or at least give them pause that you can make use of, yes? And nobody thinks of holding your mouth when arms and legs make for much juicier targets" she smiles wickedly before laughing lightly.
 
"Now you try Svefra", she commands. "Take a breath before you mould your dijed. Breathing around it might be hard, and Laviku knows what would happened if you accidentally swallowed it. Pull the res from your tongue in a thick mist right here" -she leans forward and taps a cold finger at the spot under his jaw- "Then push it out with your breath as hard as you can. And don't tap your reimancy until it's past your lips, or else you'll lose them."
 
"And face that way", the moulding pushes his face away and to the left preemptively.

[Darius Twoseas]

Darius was glad that she wanted to start with something less complicated. He was still a little intimidated by the sheer destructive power of Reimancy, especially in his particular element. He watched in curiosity as the Otani breathed in deeply and the filled the very back of her mouth with res. It struck him very convenient that her body was partially transparent, as otherwise he would not be very confident that he had understood what was going on. His confidence was a little bit shaken, though, to see the results of her efforts. When she described it as "not very flashy" Darius almost choked. If this was simple and not very flashy, he was becoming rather worried about the next techniques she would show him. However, Darius was still sure he could pull this one off. He inhaled deeply and began to pull his djed out of his tongue, noting as he did so that he was likely to breath a gout of flame with this technique instead of snow. He turned so he was facing right over the water. Nothing for him to accidentally burn down there. It took him longer than he had expected to form a sphere of aproximately the same size in his throat, but that was likely because she had more experience than him. Nevertheless, his chest was beginning to feel tight when he was ready, and he blew out the air and res a little bit harder than he expected necessary. All the same, it worked. He was unwilling to risk his own body and didn't convert the res until it had passed a foot from his face. He was surprised, however, to not see the flame he expected, but instead see a surprisingly bright shower of sparks, in dazzling orange, red, and yellow. They arced out over the water and were extinguished. Even in the bright sun of day, the sudden light hurt his eyes and he was blinking away stars as he turned to the Otani and smiled. "That was really impressive! I wonder why it did that...was it because of the force behind it that it became sparks instead of pure fire? I guess that makes sense, I mean, if you blow out water with enough force it becomes a mist..." his musings became more to himself as he spoke. A moment later he refocused on the Otani. "Oh, yeah, what's your question?"