The Circle's Gonna Come Around [Goss]

[Trista]

Trista nodded. From her satchel, she withdrew fifty Mizas, and placed them on the ground next to Kal'dava. "If you'd hold the cottage for me, I'd be most grateful." The Akvatari smiled, though it was a small one. "Thanks for your help." She closed her satchel again, and then flitted over to the building that Kal'dava had indicated.

There were several ideas that Trista had been playing with, but many of them weren't suitable for a public mural in Mura. She flipped through her sketchbook, examining the work she had done. Near the middle of the book, there was one of a underwater scene, the floor of the ocean with a large rockfall to the left. That seemed like her best bet, and so she left the book open to that page.

The girl entered the building and looked for someone to ask about applying for a comission. When that person was found, she politely introduced herself and showed her sketch. "I should be able to execute it in color, at a size and in a shape suitable for any of your public spaces that you choose."

[Gossamer]

The Taviasa, home to the city manager, her three secretaries and several officials, is located near the harbor, so that every new visitor will immediately spot it while walking into the city. It is a huge, impressing building made of white stone and painted with mythological scenes in pastel colors—like everything else in Mura. It's special trademark, however, is the dome-shaped roof made of milky white glass. A pathway and short stairway framed by delicately carved columns leads to double doors with pale violet glass doorknobs. The garden that surrounds the whole building is popular for growing all kinds of medicinal herbs of which a significant amount is bought for laboratory usage by the Opal Temple.

The first room is decorated with three beautiful paintings of the typical Mural architecture gracing the walls and a white plant spreading it's thin branches and leaves from the back corner over the floor and counter behind which the work desk of the manager's third secretary is situated. After the visitor has stated their request and been given a sheet with a number and a few explaining lines on it, they will be directed through an open door and to one of the stairways—either in right, left or straight forward direction. The whole building possesses high ceilings and beautiful, brightly painted glass windows letting in as much daylight as possible. The huge ballroom right under the half-round roof gets transformed into a meeting and discussion room every now and then – but only in cases of extreme importance or difficulty. Usually it is used for noble guests merging with the local wealthy, and balls are held almost frequently.

In general the Taviasa exists to help citizens with public concerns and problems as well as to assist strangers at finding a home, job or other location. The manager herself, an elderly woman with long, braided hair and an understanding, slightly crinkled face, usually handles problems and concerns of greater value to the whole city. She also welcomes important visitors and invites them to stay at one of various individually decorated VIP suites. Ordinary foreigners trying to find a home or job are usually directed to the second or first secretary.

The known rivaly between these two women causes a lot of gossip spread throughout the whole city by other officials and the staff. Nevertheless each one greets visitors directed to them with a polite smile and the obligatory question of how they can be of help.

The Taviasa wasn't hard to find at all. It's dome glowed with a luminescence that drew teh eye and soared above the rest of Mura's beautiful if somewhat restrained buildings. In fact, the whole reason why the Kontinese women were such good at their murals was that they tried to dress up the cement-like plaster that covered all of their buildings. Unlike other cities that were located on the mainland and had access to stone quarries of various colors, types and quality, Mura had... timber and plaster. It wasn't a bad life. They even had a small marble quarry, but the artists took precedent there.

Regardless, Trista had no problems walking up the front steps, through the foyer, and stopping at the first desk she saw. Nai'la Tamris wasn't actually sitting at the desk. It wasn't hers. She was instead leaning against it speaking with Amiala Sa'nanathy discussing another issue. When she saw the sketchbook, the aging konti woman turned and raised an eyebrow. The woman introduced herself, her companion, and greeted Trista as she gave her own name and displayed her sketchbook.

"A contender for a mural?" Was what the konti said, glancing over the book. "Well, we only have one wall left, and its a great spot, but we do not have an applicant at this time. To qualify, you must not have any murals hanging in the city at the time of application because we want as many artists featured as possible." The Konti woman said, smiling gently. She took the sketchbook, thumbed through it, and nodded. "I see that your a great artist, and I know your work isn't featured yet. I would remember an Akvatari. But.. this scene won't do the mural justice. I'll be willing to let you do the scene if you agree to produce something ... far off and exotic. Perhaps a view of another place or time, something exotic to us... maybe the desert or the jungle. How would something like that work for you?" She asked. "We can pay 500 mizas for the completed work, and we expect it to be done by Winter, for it gets too cold to paint here fairly quickly." Nai'la Tamris added. If Trista agreed, then Nai'la would give her a form to sign and advance her fifty gold mizas, of her fee, in order to buy starting supplies. The women carefully explained that there was a shed out back that contained scaffolding, ladders, hoists, anything she might need to help complete the mural. The truth was, none of them really understood the Akvatari could hover, so she was given a key to the shed as well.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Kal'dava didn't let her down either. There was a messenger waiting on the steps of the building with a basket of fruit, bread, and a key to a cottage on the beach. The little cottage was actually not that far from downtown right on a white sand beach. It was fully furnished, with a nice little porch and a perfect area for drawing in a lovely kitchen that looked out over the sand.

Trista had time, money, and oddly enough an endless supply of well-wishing konti women that had 'heard' she was working on a mural and was a stranger in town. They dropped her paints, brushes, sponges, whitewash for the primer, and all sorts of tiny little welcoming gifts - most handmade. It was an odd feeling, almost as if she'd gotten celebrity status over night.

[Trista]

Trista had to bite her tongue at the response she got. There was as much art, if not more, in making the familiar seem new as there was in painting exotica for the sake of exotica. There was an entire speech she could give on this subject, and she probably would have, except for the fact that she had one more subject up her sleeve that she could use.

And so she agreed, signing the form and obtaining the advance. She took the key as well -- even though hovering was on her list of talents, it was easier to keep the lines steady if she wasn't airborne.

Kal'dava's cottage was better than Trista had expected, and she thanked the messenger profusely. She set up the kitchen as a studio -- as an Akvatari, Trista had no idea how to cook, preferring instead to eat her oceanic meals raw.

The stream of visitors made her feel a bit awkward. She smiled shyly and tried to be polite, but she wasn't sure what she'd done to earn such kindnesses. After all, she wasn't really part of the community, only a visiting guest artist. Nonetheless, she appreciated the gifts.

**********

For the following days, Trista was consumed by working on the project. She spent twelve, fourteen, sometimes even sixteen bells a day on it, stopping only to eat and sleep.

First, she rendered a preliminary sketch. This went through five drafts before she had settled on the composition that she liked. After this was set, she made a more formal sketch, with notes on another page indicating the color scheme that would be used during the actual painting. She treated this last sketch as if it was a finished work in and of itself, carefully blending the shading and adding detail.

On the left of the sketch was a series of empty mud huts, scoured by the wind and blasted by the sand. An angry sun beat down on the landscape. The door to the middle hut was open, and inside, a fully set table was visible. This section was bounded on the right by a pear tree.

Underneath the right-hand side of the pear tree, Trista had sketched a young woman. She was Benshira, clad in ceremonial-looking robes, and she was trying to eat one of the pears that hung from a nearby branch. She was doing it without taking hold of the fruit, which seemed to be because, although she had arms, she had no hands. There was a house to the right side, with a latticed window clearly visible. Beyond the house, further to the right, there was a well, which marked the end of this section.

The third section also made use of the well. A hooded figure, its features completely obscured, had set a bucket on its lip. A moon lit the scene, and unusually large stars spotted the sky. The figure held its hands extended, and water glistened inside. Strange, half-clear images played across the water's surface. To the right, there was another pear tree, marking the end.

On the right side of the tree, the beginning of the final section, leaves were falling. The background was hazy, uncertain. The center of the image was dominated by the same woman who had been underneath the pear tree in the second panel. Her eyes were closed, and she was embracing someone -- a female Akvatari who was facing away, revealing only her back to the viewer. The woman's arms were visible, and now had hands, though they looked metallic and unearthly.

When she was finally finished, Trista regarded it one last time, and then signed her name in the corner. Now, it was time to go prep the wall for painting. But there would be time for that after an evening swim...

[Gossamer]

Mura had a strange aura to it. Most people didn't realize that the water everyone drank, the seas surrounding the island, and even the very air they breathed when they visited the White Isle was somehow tainted. There was not a poison, however, that laced the land, turning the trees and grass and even sometimes the sky silver. It was rather the waters of the great lake in the center of the island that infused the Konti's world. Scholars among the white isle women often said the repeated and frequent exposure to Silver Lake's water - with all its mists, fogs, vapors, and streams running both into and out of - was the primary cause of the Konti's unusual abilities. They would be only partially right though, for the ability to gain the sight ran in the Konti's blood since their mother birthed the first of her daughters.

Visitors however, usually felt nothing, saw nothing, and were not affected. Sometimes though, there were rare cases that inherent talents burst forth when in the aura of Mura's atmosphere. As Trista worked her artistic magic, casting color across parchment and lending her best effort into it, something was subtly changing. It wasn't something observable. But it was something she could feel... like she was standing on cliff staring out over the sea with suddenly no ability to fly or swim. It was a taste, a sensation of the sense that was beyond the five she was familiar with. Trista had sketched on Mura before, painting and creating, but not like this... not focused and intent on producing a very finished product with a specific purpose in mind. This drawing in front of her was aimed to be a prelude to a masterpiece, fit to serve in its place though in a smaller capacity certainly.

And when she was done with it, setting it aside for the first time, her gaze was drawn to the panels, and she noticed something shocking.

The mud huts came to life as if she was standing just beyond them gazing into a village. She could feel the burning heat of the wind as it blasted the sand. The heat was intense, oozing off the painting. The table was so real, so perfect, she could have stepped through the artwork and dined at its surface. The next panel was no different, alive in its intensity. Though similar to the one in the piece, the building had enough differences that Trista could almost say it was real rather than rendered. The woman was there, living, though no longer reaching for the pear. She was moving around the background, drawing water from the well with her elbows, her handless arms useless for the task though she could in fact work the crank with bent arms. But the pears were ripe, none laying wasted on the ground like they would be in these northern climates where the food was far more abundant. The third panel was similar to the original painting, only darkness did not kiss the burnt land, bringing cooling relief. The hooded figure was gone, though the moon glinted off the pear tree visible even in the daylight. An odd light was cast off the side of the panel, as if a fire was illuminated within just out of the vision, casing a corona of light upon the ground. The final section also filled with life as Trista turned her eyes to it. Only it was different... and Trista realized there was a change in season, no... that wasn't right. The same season prevailed throughout the entire scene, and though the woman was in the fourth scene, the Akvatari was missing. So was the metallic hands, for the woman's arms just ended in artful bandages, and even though she was handless, the woman wove, sitting at a loom, mostly using her mouth, knee, and a long slender stick attached to one stub to move the loom.

The paintings remained lifelike, almost as if they were windows to another place, as Trista stared at them. They weren't her original works, but rather the painter felt like she had turned her media into glass and looked out into the world. After ten chimes the panels shimmered, and faded into the original artwork.

[Trista]

Trista certainly hadn't been expecting anything unusual when she took a final look at her drawing. After all, she'd been in Mura for a year once already, and nothing strange had happened then...or at least not this sort of strange.

What followed was an almost hallucinatory experience. Indeed, Trista could not say for certain what was happening. It was as if she was there -- except that the scene passing before her differed from the one she had rendered, more so as the panels moved on. She took in all the details that she could, noting them carefully, before the vision vanished.

Trista slumped back, her wings pressed against the wall, her evening swim forgotten. What had happened? And, more importantly, what did it mean?

The drawing that she had made might have looked like the product of a particularly fertile imagination, but in truth, she had only been drawing what she had seen and experienced, filtered through the lead of her pencil. She had gone to Eloab, and seen the empty buildings, eerily preserved as if their owners had merely stepped out for a walk. Then, everything had changed, and she had met Ezebel underneath the pear tree, asking for her hands.

I didn't say I hadn't come to help. Those had been Trista's words shortly before she dove into the well, only to emerge in an unsettling evening with the mysterious hooded figure. It had taken something from her, something precious, something she could no longer remember -- but in turn, it had given her Ezebel's hands.

And then she had come back through the well, bearing the other girl's hands, which had taken their place on her arms. They had embraced, the world had dissolved, and then Trista had been left alone in an empty village of abandoned huts.

I do not think we shall meet again as we are. Perhaps when we are undone into something new. That was what Ezebel had told her. Living forgiven is exquisite. And Trista had answered, even though her friend was gone and there was no one to talk to, even though she was giving her words to the sand and the blazing emptiness of sky.

Every moment is liminal, the space between the end of one thing and the beginning of another.

She fingered the chain around her neck, the one with the charm on it that she had found after Ezebel had vanished, the last gift she had left behind.

All of this was as clear to her as if it had been branded on her brain. So what was the meaning of the visions she had just seen? What was the significance of the changes, and why had they been shown to her? It was too real for it to have been her imagination, and she discarded that thought immediately.

Shaken, Trista blew out the oil lamp and fell asleep, all other thoughts forgotten. Tomorrow, she would prepare the wall, but for now, she fell into uneasy dreams.

[Gossamer]

Waters flowed through the earth upon which Trista rested within the shelter she normally refused to use. In fact, the whole of Konti Isle flowed with precious waters. Sometimes, people could visit Mura for years and be unaffected. But other times, just a single breath or two, a sip of water, or a bite from the flesh of an apple grown on the island, tended to change someone. There was seemingly no rhyme nor reason to it. But never the less it happened.

The Konti as a whole, one and all of them, would simply smile or raise an eyebrow if the effect was mentioned. The waters of Silver Lake were familiar to them and they understood the oddly luminous water infused all of the island. It was no secret, because it was the reason the White Isle was indeed white. To the women of Mura, life with the water was commonplace, and they were used to it effecting outsiders randomly. They would perhaps say it is fate, Lhex's realm. And maybe it was, but people could go for years without feeling its effect and then suddenly have something unusual crop up.

So when Trista laid down to rest, and set aside all her wondering - handless women, charms, and the memories of her real life - she began to dream. She woke elsewhere, surrounded by the silvery luminance that was not in fact a lake, but the whole of the ocean. Her body was larger, but serpentine, and her head was somehow elongated, elegant, with sharp eyes that pierced the odd tones of the water. There was singing all around her, and as she turned her head in the water, moving her body like a rudder, she saw the others all around her. Family. Friends. Mates. Offspring. There was a timeless quality to the group - a group that Trista did not recognize from her former life. Her arms were outstretched, wings beneath the water, gently caressing the viscous fluid. There were bio luminescence making wildly pattern markings that ran up and down their flanks and across their wings. The marks made them look even larger and more strange than Trista's first impressions. She was part of the group, known to them, and yet a stranger still among them. And to Trista's mind, they looked like snakes that had wings like manta rays... only larger. Infinitely larger.

And she had no idea where they were.

Until the leader, one swimming point in what Trista soon realized was a loose v formation, sent a signal of pleasure along the group's wake - a signal buried in the strangely silver water that sounded a lot like whalesong - and a light flared before him. So as they swam, he molded the light, exactly as if Trista herself were painting a picture, and seemed to swim through it when the picture was done. They all swam through it, bursting forth on the other side into a field of stars where they hovered in warmth and muted light. His song came again - sleep - rest - and he would paint again when they were ready to re-inter the river of time and flow across it. And then he did something strange, they all did, and curled around Trista protectively, as if she were a fragile new thing, a child among them, and needed the protection. Unscaled flexible limbs surrounded her, wings that were more flippers than anything enfolded her. Snouts both male and female butted up against hers while tails entwined with her own. It was as if she slept in a womb made up of living things - safe, warm, welcome - yet still a stranger among them.

She had no name for them, and as the questions fluttered through her mind like the beating of her Akvatari wings, they were calmed and soothed by the strange song that seemed to radiate through the entire pod.

One voice whispered into her mind, the male who had swam point and painted a safe haven for them. It whispered non-intrusively and very very protectively across her senses. "Sleep, Trista. You will dream with us again. We've missed you, for the waters of time always create space between those you have loved and those you will. But you are a part of us... and you know our ways. But now you've come home. In the morning, there will be plenty of time to sing and swim and rejoice for your return. Until then, rest and we will protect you. For now you are bound to other places, but our gifts will always be your own. Live there, follow through with what you agreed to do that took our youngest and brightest so far from her family. And when you have finished, we'll be waiting. Your line is the greatest of all at making the distance nothing at all, but your form in that far off place is fragile and fleeting, so too is your power. But you have it still, even if it has only just begun to reawaken. Use it. It is the reason you are so far gone from us. But remember, my little one, that each day we sing for you. All of us. And will do so until you return."

And then, all the voices that enfolded her filled with music and they sang for her what she recognized as her song. It empowered her, refreshed her, and gave her tired weary soul a lift it had not had an age so long removed from time she couldn't begin to count increments. Her song. It etched on her memory and filled her with a power she only vaguely understood. When she woke in the morning, she'd still be humming it - clearly remembering the dream and the creatures that enfolded her. And she'd notice something immediately. She felt stronger, happier, and less burdened.

And she'd also feel the urge to paint. Strongly. And to paint something familiar... not a person, but a place. Because the male, the strong ancient voiced male, had said it was in her blood - making distances nothing at all - and the urge would fill her to do so, but to so in pigments rather than cords.

[Trista]

Trista awoke, almost surprised to have returned to her seaside cottage. She shook her head once, then flitted to the window. There was nothing outside except the same seashore that had always been there, speckled with seabirds of decidedly average mien.

She took up her dulcimer and a plectrum and picked out the melody that was winding its way through her head. It was a much more cheerful piece than anything she was used to playing, but she somehow knew that it belonged to her. She made some quick notes on a sheet of sketch paper to remind herself of the melody, though she doubted that she would forget it.

The Akvatari was less somber than usual, but still, she couldn't help but be puzzled. What were those creatures she had seen? For someone living in the post-Valterrian world, Trista was well-educated, well-cultured, and well-read, but she had no recollection of ever having seen anything resembling them. They had seemed to know her, and to know of some previous existence in which she had been one of them. She had not understood the words about her agreement or her power, though it had seemed natural enough to the one who had spoken to her.

She did notice that she felt like painting, even though today was the day she had planned on preparing the wall. The unsettling images that had troubled her before she slept were still on her mind, and she thought that perhaps she would leave the mural alone for today. Instead, she took up her paints -- watercolors rather than oils, given that she didn't want to spend a year working on this one -- and started to work.

A place, a familiar place. That was what she felt like painting, though she couldn't imagine why. Carefully, methodically, she began outlining the image of her room in the Pearl Tower. She worked from memory, although she had sketches of it in one of her notebooks. She depicted it as if she had recently been working there -- her dulcimer was in a corner, a canvas on her easel, and a palette lying on a bench.

One couldn't rush watercolors, and so she took her time. Eventually, she should go get something to eat, but for now, she was lost in her art, and put those thoughts away.

[Gossamer]

Trista lost herself in the painting. It was how things worked with artists at times. Honestly though, the painting didn't go as she meant it too. Her dulcimer didn't manage to make it into the watercolor, though the easel was set up exactly as she'd left it. There was no palette lying on the bench, though she wasn't sure why she laid down color and water over her sketch and yet didn't get her pallet right. Instead, a window was open even though it was winter, and she could almost feel a cool breeze blowing through the window. In her artists mind, the curtains were blowing and seemed to move on their own. The vision transferred to the thick paper. She could almost smell the salt air of Abura and indeed she could feel the breeze from the painting.

As if in a magical trance, Trista did not stop.

She painted until her spine ached, her fingers went numb, and her tail was stiff from disuse. She forgot about eating, taking a break to play her instrument, or even glancing around. In fact, she was so engrossed in the painting that the soft voice behind her was somewhat startling.

"You paint so realistically when your focused on a specific place. Have you noticed that? It is almost as if you could reach through the painting and see the other side as if glancing through a window. Mura does that sometimes, to outsiders, who linger overly long on her shores." The woman said softly. If Trista turned to see who was there, she'd find a nondescript looking konti woman whose age was hard to pinpoint. She wore a gossamer dress that looked functional for both on the water and out, and tucked into her long pale hair was a seer's lily.

[Trista]

Trista was fully engrossed in her painting, but still, she gave a slight frown. The Akvatari planned her paintings methodically, giving careful weight to the composition and subject before she ever put a brush to canvas, but this one wasn't turning out like she had intended it to at all. It didn't look like someone had been working in her studio recently -- if anything, it looked like her room probably looked now, except that Trista was sure she had closed that window before leaving Abura. Hadn't she? ...

She was still painting, and her brush was retracing the curve of the window when the voice came behind her. Trista started visably, and snapped her head around to see who was there.

She didn't recognize this particular Konti, although she had met a lot of people over the past month and could easily be forgetting someone. Trista shook her head, as if to clear out the cobwebs, and then shrugged apologetically. "I'm sorry -- I didn't hear you come in."

At the woman's comments, she looked from her visitor to the painting and back again. "Thank you...although this wasn't actually what I was trying to paint." Trista didn't know what to make of the mention of Mura. "I think it ended up more realistic than I wanted it to," she added, twisting her lips wryly.

"Forgive me, but if we've met, I don't seem to remember it," the Akvatari apologized. "I'm Trista" She waited to see if her visitor would introduce herself in turn.

[Gossamer]

"No, we haven't met Trista. And it is perfectly okay. The Waters of Silver Lake often grant visions. But what people do not realize is that the waters flow throughout the Isle. Even the drinking water here is more silvered, more shimmering, than water elsewhere. Have you not noticed that it is not exactly clear? The Vision Water infuses everything and after enough consumption, it changes people. It brings out their latent gifts. Some say its the tears of a long forgotten God - one who's realm is so mysterious that even Eyris' wisdom cannot track it nor Akajia's passion for secrets reveal it. I do not know the truth of it precisely, but sometimes the evidence is overwhelming." The woman said, moving forward.

She crossed the room and bent to study the painting. "It is your room, you know, Trista. The one on Akvatari. It's precisely as it is right now because you do not paint an artistic rendition of it. Instead, because of the silver lake's waters, you open a window to it through your canvas. A unique talent, I'd imagine, and one incredibly valuable if used in specific ways. But it puts your life in danger if the secret ever got out." The woman turned, looked pointedly at Trista - her eyes glittering with an infinite amount of possibilities. "Leaders would want you... to have you pick up your paints and paint distant places you've never seen. With your brushes they could ferret out secrets and briefly oversee things they have no business witnessing. I suspect once completed you have but a mere thirty chimes or so to peek through the window before it seizes up. But with such a skill you can see places even people cannot go. You could perhaps see into the homes of gods and know secrets that are not even supposed to come to the light of day." The woman said softly, pity in her eyes.

"Some people would cut off your hands to prevent you from painting. They'd even cut out your heart to protect their secrets. Others would lavish you with jewels and name mountains after you. You can find the lost, Trista, and know the unknowable if you use your gift correctly. I meant what I said when I stated you'd lingered in Mura too long. The damage is already done and it is nothing I can undo. But I will watch over you to see how you fair. And in doing so, can help you, even if in a modest way - so if you learn your lessons carefully you can keep yourself safe." She said, and with that she reached out and touched the Akvatari.

An elegant design appeared on Trista's shoulder, wrapping and looping within itself. It was a stylized Seer's Lily - and Avalis' Mark. Though the woman gave Trista no name, there couldn't be any doubt who she was. And it was obvious too, quite specifically, that she'd answer none of Trista's questions. If she did, there was a risk Trista wouldn't learn how to use her own gifts to answer her own questions... and Avalis hated dependency. So as the mark drew itself, the woman herself withdrew. It was just a heartbeat, no more, that Avalis was there and then gone. Without further dialog, without answering questions, without presenting Trista a task or giving her encouragement. She seemed, rather aloof actually...

And as for Trista... she felt rather branded, like someone's cattle, tracked and observed with no consideration for her privacy or needs.