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[Rowland]

4th of Winter, 513 AV. 13th Bell.

Rowland stood on a street corner, carefully observing all those who walked by. Like many citizens of Alvadas, he was wearing an outlandish outfit of fancifully colored clothing, though he had gone for a rather masculine motit and so he he was dressed in various hues of silver, Navy blue, and black with gold trim, with a gold jacket on top. He wore a white powdered wig and a gold-trimmed domino mask.

He wore this outfit because his goal was to be a performer, and he wanted to stand out. But he was not yet ready to actually perform; he needed to hone his craft a bit. To do that, he decided to do a bit of observing, as he felt that you could not act or ape people if you did not know what they normally did in the first place. So his current desire was to carefully watch people so that he could remember what to do if acting angry, or sad, or happy.

And so he looked at a sad man in drab clothing. He saw that the fellow had his hands thrust into his trouser pockets, his head was low and his eyes were staring at the ground. He walked slowly and let out a few morose sighs. His outfit was monochrome shades of gray. It did not look like he had washed or shaved himself in a few days.

Rowland attempted to imitate the man. He stuck his hands into his own pockets, he bent his head low and he shuffled along slowly. He walked right into a Svefra woman.

"Oh, you poor dear!" she said, giving him a comforting squeeze on the forearm. "Did you break your leg?"

"Oh... ah, no. I'm depressed. Well, not actually depressed.... I.. uh, was trying to practice acting like I was being depressed..."

Without saying another word, she backed away slowly.

Sighing to himself-- and now actually feeling a bit depressed-- Rowland decided he needed more practice in watching people and in imitating them.

He watched a pair of young lovers as they held hands and practically skipped through the crowd. As far as he could tell, they were quite affectionate: they kept hugging each other and touching each other, and they paused quite often to nibble at each other's ears or neck, nuzzle cheeks or kiss on the lips. Rowland guessed that they were on the way to the place where one of them lived.

Rowland pondered imitating one of them when he caught an elderly female Womiyu glaring at him speculatively, and he decided to quickly stroll through the crowd and towards some other street. At random he went east, and found himself a few blocks later standing on the periphery of a crowd watching a Vantha woman perform.

At last-- here was someone he could openly observe without causing any undue suspicion. After all, this was another performer; this was someone craving the eyes of the crowd on her.

Rowland slowly and politely jostled his way towards the front of the circle so that he could get a better look. And then he was very glad that he did. Unbidden, the words came out of his mouth: "Fantastic! How marvelously wonderful! How exquisite! Ionu himself-- or herself--would be proud!"

[Renate Winterflame]

As usual Renate danced barefoot, but she was not wearing the same dress. She found that most women in her profession depended too much on the flourish of the skirt, the pretty movement they could make of it. So she had recently come into possession of diamond-patterned one-piece that framed both legs as the separate appendages they were. It was something of an experiment. Still she wore the bell bracelets, the necessary music to her dance. She started slow, established a rhythm, and persuaded at least one onlooker to engage the rhythm with their own hands or feet. Then she danced to it, bounced and swayed and added a second beat to it. Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap. Stomp-Clap. Clap. Stomp-Clap. Clap. Stomp-Kick-Clap. Clap. Stomp-Kick-Clap. Clap-Kick. Clap-Kick. Clap-Kick. Clap. They always liked to go faster, to test how quickly she could dance. It was never too complicated, but it always seemed so as the crowd picked up pace. When the rhythm became too fast she ignored it entirely, diving forward into a handstand and wagging her legs until she lost her balance. She knew enough about the kinetics of her own body to make a little leap of it, followed by an acrobatic tumble and a final pose. The beat-makers dissolved into a short applause, and Ren gave a deep bow. It was, perhaps, not the most truly talented performance on the block. But it enthralled her smiling audience and that was the point, wasn't it? The real music was the rattle of coins as they poured into the cooking pot at her feet, the only tangible measure of her success. Her attention was drawn to the man who spoke loudest, granting his enthusiasm a special nod of gratitude. "Thank you," she said with a smile, stepping toward him. Her olive skin was flushed with exertion, her rosy irises melting into a bright golden hue. To a friend, it betrayed her secret hope that his appreciation would manifest in coin, but to a stranger it was simply an amusing quirk. "Do you speak for the divine, Mister..." She trailed off in anticipation of his name as she bent to pick up her cast iron busker's hat and the colorful bag beside it. Pretending that she wasn't catching her breath, she emptied her profits into her purse. "Or do you simply presume to?" She teased behind a friendly expression, the cooking pot in her fist trained in his direction. She would not ask outright for money, but she would not pretend it was not the reason she danced. Perhaps if she knew Ionu better, she would find a better reason.

[Rowland]

He gave her a deep bow, and spoke in a soft, elegant voice while waving one hand around with a flourish. "Well, it's hard not to speak on the divine when one is chatting with a goddess come to do handstands and dance barefoot in the fair city of Alvadas. Of course it makes me suspect the handiwork of the ineffable Ionu, for such grace and elegance must be beyond mere mortal ability. And that diamond pattern one-piece; a goddess must have weaved that. The bell bracelets... music to my ears. All in all, it really was a splendid performance."

Then he pointed to himself, and this part was loud enough for the entire crowd to hear. "I'm really more of a Listener than a Speaker, but at the moment I'm just a man on vacation. My name is Rowland and I am quite sincere about this: that was really a very enthusiastic performance." He looked around at the crowd, and spoke in a slow, stentorian baritone. "A performance like that is certainly worth a bit of coin. After all, charity is a virtue and one never knows who is Watching."

Then Rowland glanced over at a well-dressed young woman who looked like she had really enjoyed the show. He did something that Renate could not follow, but she could see that he had deepened his own breathing and appeared almost to be meditating for a moment; perhaps he found the other woman pretty. "I suggest we all show a bit of mercy and kindness for such a lovely performance. I'll go first." He opened his own coin purse and threw in a few silver Miza.

He gestured at the cooking pot, attempting to lead others to donate as well. "A few coins for a performance worthy of the Crooked Playhouse. I do believe Ionu could only smile on any who rewarded such entertainment."

And he spoke a song that he clearly knew very well:

"Today we may be neighbors/
tomorrow the other side of town/
But there is one Alvadas constant/
one should always tip the clown!

One should always applaud the singer/
one should always enjoy the dance/
Ionu says always pay the juggler/
Because you don't want to take the chance...

You never know who might be Listening
you never know who is friend or foe
Only Ionu knows who is Listening
We might all be Womiyu!"

[Renate Winterflame]

His flatteries painted a wide grin on Renate's face; whatever her cool presumptions about his own motives, she was not immune to a compliment. Especially one to her talent or the choices she made. A moment of confusion flitted across her face when he turned to address the crowd, but it melted away when she sensed his motives. Her cooking pot, recently emptied, was a prime recipient to the loud clang of his coin. Somehow the crowd seemed as eager as ever to give, even those who had already given their share--a fact Ren dismissed for forgetfulness. There was no time to address each word before he began his song. She would not accept a donation, after all. She only muttered, "You are too kind," and began the dance anew. Renate stepped in beat with his song, punctuating every ictus with a flurry of bells. She spun slowly through the edge of the circle around them, shaking the pot in her hands like a tambourine. This round of collections did not garner quite as much money as last time, but the dancer was happy enough to have a second round at all. By the third verse, she was losing her breath again. Instead of jumping around and wagging her bells, she leapt onto her hands and attempted another brief handstand or, as she liked to put it, a handdance. And then the song ended and the applause resumed. Renate dropped inelegantly from her pose and stood to retrieve her coin. Gods, that last part must have seemed too desperate. Embarrassment colored her Vantha eyes for a moment, but it did not linger. When her attention fell on Rowland again, she showed him dark pink contentment. "Renate," she said finally, her cheeks almost as rosy as her eyes. "Or Ren. Is my name." Except for a small handful, she poured her profits in her bag and hung the empty pot on and outer strap. She offered him the coin that remained in her hand, which included even one of the rare golden mizas. "For your excellent performance," she explained, grinning. "Thank you." Not allowing him the word to refuse, she filled the air between them with genuine curiosity. "Is Ionu really offended when a person doesn't reward art? Or was yours just a song?" She laughed, the lyrics of his tune ringing in her ears. Nothing was just a song, she knew, just like a dance was not just a dance but rather the expression of the soul. From what little she knew of the deity, Ionu cared less about souls and more about tricks and games. It did not occur to her that all this was simply an elaboration on his flattery. "In all honesty, I do not know as much as I ought to about the city's patron deity."

[Rowland]

Rowland pondered on that last bit. "I do not know if any of us can truly say we understand Ionu, Ren. Or what motivates our deity here. When I was a teenage boy, I assumed Ionu was female, because all girls at that age were a mystery to me, and because boys at that age were rather obvious to me. And since Ionu was a mystery, I seriously pondered on Ionu's gender. Among other things. After all, I consider myself a rather flawed human, so I assumed Ionu was the opposite of all the things I am."

He sighed sadly, having the usual dim view of his own race and gender that a decade in law enforcement gave to anyone. After all, he had not refused her offer of a few coins; if he'd been some saintly knight of Syliras, he might have found some chivalric reason to refuse, but he had no illusions (ironic for a man of Alvadas) about his own nature. Those coins would be spent on wine, women and song.

"Yes, it was rather arrogant of me, but I thought I had everything figured out. Except, clearly I had not." He pointed at his arm, at the lack of multiple marks of Ionu. Many people in Alvadas had none, and some had at least one, but only those truly favored by Ionu had two, and some had three or more. And Rowland did not have two or three marks.

He looked at Renate's upper arm and brightened considerably. "But it appears you are more fortunate in your dealings with the divine." It was clear that this wasn't just flattery: Rowland was a devout man and truly believed what he was saying. "I don't know that particular mark. Except for Ionu, such things are an enigma to me. But it shows that you are someone special."

"Certainly more than I shall ever be." Rowland shrugged, spreading his hands outward. "Though of course, in Alvadas, this is probably the one place where being obviously marked may mean nothing, as a mark could be invisible or backwards here for all I know. Or just a tattoo, signifying nothing. In Alvadas, nothing is for certain, beyond the fact that Ionu is here."

He spread his arms all around, taking in the city of Alvadas in one gesture. "Of course, even this point is a matter of sore debate among scholars, as nothing about Ionu is truly known: not his or her race, gender, age, height, build... none of it. We in Alvadas, we take the true form of Ionu on faith. As we take the true nature of Alvadas itself. But you should not hear my ramblings on the matter. I am under no illusions that I am right about any of this." He turned and pointed to his left. "If you are truly curious, I would be happy to escort you-- and anyone here who wishes to accompany us-- to the Temple of Ionu. There you yourself can hear directly from the various clerics and priests on the matter."

[Renate Winterflame]

oocWasn't sure if you were mentioning that he was marked or not. I'll edit that part out if I'm mistaken. "Fortunate!" Renate echoed, her hand rising to touch the mark he had noticed on her arm. For all her reservations about her appearance, this was one of the few things that gave her pride. It was a constant recognition of her worth in the eyes of the gods, who saw not the value of the body but that of the soul. Of course, her own patron deities had not rewarded any proper diligence or worship. Ren was marked for her blind trust in fate, her optimism in the face of certain death. She did not value her own life until someone important had shown her how. His choice of words lighted her face with uncertain gratitude. The illusionist, on the other hand, seemed to be a good and proper worshipper. He explained the city's patron deity in the way only someone who had spent a lifetime in it could. And he spoke in the sort of honest way that should have been difficult to trust, his face at once handsome and forgettable. Ren was not devoid of instinct; she knew what his mark meant to the reliability of her own senses, but she was not the sort of person to put too must weight in that sort of thing. Face value was a rare and beautiful thing, in a place like this. "Kelwyn gave it to me," she explained. "The gods of lost causes and last chances. Certainly not the most glamorous patrons, despite the look of the mark." Her hand dropped to her side then, pulling a simultaneous chuckle from her heavy jaw. Seeing that her audience had long since dispersed, Ren accepted his invitation with a deep nod and stepped in the direction he had indicated. She looked forward, her attention wandering over the mossy columns and craggy silhouette of the temple across the square. A cloud of pity tinged the back of her mind as it lingered on the sad humility in his tone, which was of course presented with the sort of contradictory, charismatic pride that could only be expected of an Alvad. Her heart begged her to show this stranger that he was worth more than he seemed to think, despite that she did not actually know if it was true. She added, "Perhaps my mark seems like it's bigger than some others, but it won't last. The symbol will become smaller and less elaborate as it's used. Yours will last your life. Like you said, Ionu rewards your devotion, your appreciation. I have simply been branded a lost cause!" Her own self-criticism was mostly for show, meant to make a joke of his and therefore dismiss them both. She skipped forward a few paces and turned around, walking backward before him so that she could look him in the eye. "Everyone is flawed, Rowland. And no one is right about everything." A broad smile attempted to reassure him, but it faltered when she turned around again. Where she was expecting to behold the giant door to the great building which she had approached, Ren saw only an empty field. "Where did it--?"

[Rowland]

oocSorry for the delay. I'm still working on my Gnosis story.

Rowland nodded. "That's all very true. We're only human. I myself have a very good sense of direction and have always enjoyed maps, but living in Alvadas has kept me very humble."

While he clearly had started out very gregarious, he grew a bit quiet as they spoke of Ionu and religion. And he had never heard of Kelwyn, so he found the entire tale fascinating but he was not sure what to make of Renate now. He enjoyed her company, but there were hidden depths to her and she was not just the street performer he first took her to be. She was being very nice about it, but it made him feel like he had slightly misjudged her, and so he was a bit more quiet and humble than he might otherwise have been.

He was in his own way-- considering he was a son of the city of illusions-- an honest man, and so Rowland admitted honestly that he had few dealings with any Vantha and none with any who knew of Kelwyn, and he made some polite inquiries about Taldera and Avanthal, though even from the questions it was clear that his knowledge of both was nonexistent, as he believed Avanthal to be a jungle province where they spoke Shiber.

Rowland also discreetly counted all of Renate's fingers and toes to make sure she had ten of each, and that no other parts of her were changing color.

As they strode along, Rowland found himself doing more listening than talking. When Renate exclaimed in surprise that the Temple was missing, Rowland had to actually wrench his attention away from the exotic beauty and to the streets of Alvadas themselves.

Then he laughed. "Ah yes. Welcome to Alvadas. Where neighbors one day find themselves strangers the next, and the store across the street from you sells shoes one day and pipeweed the next."

He scratched at his face for a moment, contemplating the scenery. First he looked to his left, and then to his left again. Rowland explained that it was pointless to look both left and right, as sometimes you end up seeing the exact same house. One day as a teenager he kept finding himself walking towards the same ugly orange house no matter where he went. It turned out to be where the man who'd be his best friend for the next seven years lived. Many such events in his life had convinced Rowland that Ionu might be silly, capricious, madcap and arbitrary, but there was some hidden purpose to all of this.

He didn't know the purpose. Not yet, anyway. He wanted to know it so that he could better follow it, but the fact that his life was being orchestrated: of this he had no doubt.
The continuous amount of illusions were proof to Rowland that Ionu was interested in Alvadas and cared deeply for it.

Even the fact that the Temple was no longer in their line of sight was a good harbinger to Rowland, proof that Ionu was pleased with them. "Never worry about taking a few extra bells and chimes to get somewhere. No one in Alvadas is capable of being punctual, so no one judges anyone else harshly for taking the long way around. Sometimes you just have to."

His brow furrowed a moment. "Instead, worry if things start coming too easy. If the path to a particular store is always the same, or it always takes the same amount of time to get home at night. I heard a tale of a man that this happened to, and they say his world became a dull and colorless place. Eventually he left Alvadas, unable to bear the tedium that his life had become."

Rowland shook his head sadly at the thought.

But then he looked around, realized he had no idea where he was, and he brightened considerably. "I do love this city. It's never boring!"

[Renate Winterflame]

Ren nodded warily, slow to distract herself from the sudden and discomfiting change. She had been in Alvadas for a few seasons, but had only just begun to grow accustomed to that which Rowland described--the difficulty in getting around and the necessary forgiveness Alvads awarded to tardiness. She had been told that she would eventually find patterns in the changes, patterns which natives enjoyed attempting to describe, but Ren herself had not yet bothered to keep track. And luckily too, according to Rowland's anecdote. "Indeed," she laughed wearily, head turning around them in a vain attempt to decide which way to go next. "I rue the day I might predict a path, but so far Ionu has been kind to me." Suddenly a bell began to chime, a sort of old and hollow noise without a definite rhythm. It sounded from high above them, apparently in the bright blue sky but too close to have reached the clouds. Ren heard herself chuckle, throwing a look of happy confusion at Rowland before she turned back toward her original path. She reached out tentatively at the seemingly empty space before her and felt her hand touch an invisible wall that felt like weathered stone. "But no, I think it--" She gasped as a great invisible force pushed her out of the way. She stumbled and braced herself sloppily against that which she could not see, feeling the deep groves of an aged wooden wall where she saw only patch of prairie. A man appeared, walking easily out of what seemed to be the most casual portal she had ever seen. Really it was their destination itself. Rowland might see the interior of the temple open up before she did, a crack of its holy innards from within its illusory walls. "It's here, hidden." Clumsily, she rounded the obscured heft of the entrance door and stepped inside. She marveled at the grandness of it, her eyes fading into a dark plum color as they were immediately drawn to the tell ceiling. What the place boasted in size it lacked in ornament, decorated more with the bustle of people and their exchanged words than the splendor which the city itself seemed to so eagerly bestow on them. Ren smiled at the sentiment of it, stepping eagerly into the great hall. "Brilliant," she mentioned; the word was one which she had picked up from her own patron deity, and she did not use it lightly. Her expression only faded when she noticed how everyone seemed to be filing past them, toward the door and out of the temple. An important-looking someone was descending from a podium at the center of the hall, apparently after a rousing speech. Renate sighed. "Oh, we missed it." Then she giggled. "Or has it just begun?"

[Rowland]

Rowland had no comment. Compared to the expressions of everyone else around them, his was unique in that his gaze was not focused on the temple itself, the podium, the parishioners or any of the usual trappings that might catch someone's gaze. Where some might enter a god's church and look at the stained glass windows or the painted ceiling, Rowland instead had the reluctant look of a truant teenage boy finally come home only to realize his mother is sitting in the living room couch waiting for him.

He especially had that look when staring at the middle-aged forty-something woman dressed like Rowland who was looking at him with angry disapproval.

Rowland balked and took a step back. And this time instead of looking left and left again, this time he did look left and right, like a con preparing an escape route while casing a bank. His gaze lingered on several very plain-looking individuals in extremely plain clothes who all nodded grimly at him, and he stopped moving and grew very still.

"Time for a bit of refuge in audacity."

Raising both hands, he turned to the middle-aged woman he had seen earlier, and bowed deferentially. "Jaho-- Mother Pinky. Blessings of Ionu upon you, and hopefully someday upon that crow's nest of unwashed grey hair." He did not explain to Renate who the woman was or his connection to her. She was dressed in a similar fashion to Rowland, a parody of a gate guard's uniform if designed by a color-blind child with garish tastes. Instead of being insulted by his comment, she appeared flattered and smiled seductively at Rowland, giggling like a school girl. If cougars went to school.

The woman leaned against an interior door and crooked a single finger at Rowland, and pointed downward, below the Temple of Ionu. "Brother Thumb, the man who envies plants. An ear who desires to be a mouth. Reports of an odd man coming in from all quarters. It's the sort of defiant initiative that I take a fancy to."

When he first spotted the woman, Rowland had tensed up, arms and legs bent in preparation to run off down the street. But now he paused, scratching his forehead. "What?"

Renate felt angry eyes looking at her own though the woman appeared to still be looking at Rowland. The woman's lips did not always match her words, as it sounded like she was sneering but she kept smiling. "The odd dalliance with a Vantha aside, you have potential. Well, not really, but more than some others. Maybe. I can work with a man who knows how worthless and useless he truly is."

Rowland valiantly attempted to keep up his end of the conversation but he was lagging badly. "Work? You? I?"

The woman waved a hand dismissively. "So you've become a bit of a maverick. Do you think a god who can be any race or sex cares how you look? Would you even have found this Temple if you were disinvited?" She paused to point at the podium and at various features, such as the handsome shirtless Vantha sitting in a pew to Renate's left.

Rowland shook his head. "No. But perhaps it found me."

Mother Thumb brayed out a wry laugh at that. "You're not that important." She pointed a finger at Rowland. "At least, not in a negative way. So you deviate in how you define your job. Big deal. You caught that pod of casinors smuggling contraband, and it's results like that which matter."

Now it was Rowland's turn to be dismissive. "Doesn't matter. I couldn't save the girl."

The woman put both hands on her hips and leaned forward."Then stop feeling sorry for yourself. Learn the skills you need so you can save the next one."

"I don't know..."

Mother Thumb snapped her fingers. "I do! And you want to know why? Because you pranked Highest Crow herself, pretending to be that clueless enthusiastic sailor for the better part of a season. Hahaha, that was funny, though I rather expected you to be Silenced; she holds grudges. Now, you're wasting time that I could be spending locking girls in pillories and throwing tomatoes at them. Follow me. Leave the Vantha to Cadmus or whomever she wants to talk to."

Rowland waved a hand, palm towards the woman. "I can't just-"

She pointed below, and for once took on a quiet and respectful demeanor. "Anyone can hear..."

Rowland sighed and lowered his own voice. "... but only a few can listen. Anyone can talk..."

Whatever the response to that was, it was said in silence.

He turned to Renate and held up a hand. "Excuse me a moment, Renate. I'll be right back. I hope." Rowland gave his companion an apologetic bow, walked over to the woman, pulled out some sort of odd triangle badge, pressed it against a recess in the temple wall, and then he vanished, though his boots could be heard descending steps downward for a few moments along with a pair of high heels.

Sadly, in all the commotion of Rowland and the woman going downstairs, the handsome Vantha had vanished as well.