The Circle's Gonna Come Around [Goss]

[Trista]

45 Autumn, 509AV

There was something ironic about an Akvatari taking a boat, but Trista had done it enough times now that she was starting to get used to it. Sure, she could have swam from Eyktol to Konti, but it would have taken her a lot longer, which would have meant more time in which working on her art and her music would have been difficult at best.

So she'd hitched a ride with a Zeltivan trading ship back to its home city, then switched vessels and made the run to Mura. It was a trip not unfamiliar to the young woman, and she had been lost in thought for most of it.

Why was she coming back? Trista herself didn't have a good answer to that question. She enjoyed her time in Mura, no question about it, but it wasn't simply a matter of returning to a favorite vacation spot. Much in the same way that she had felt compelled to journey to Eloab, she felt compelled to make this trip now, without being able to put her finger on the precise reason.

But she was here now, and there was no sense in second-guessing herself at this point. The Akvatari didn't have to wait for the gangplank to be lowered; she simply said her thanks to the crew and then flew over the side. The docks were somewhat crowded, but crowds meant nothing when you could hover twenty feet above them. And besides that, although Trista wasn't exactly anti-social, there were times when she didn't feel like making idle conversation, and this was one of them.

The streets of Mura were familiar to her now, and so she was able to find her way without difficulty. Eventually, she might find a place to stay -- although it was equally possible that she would just curl up on the beach. Being Akvatari did help one save on lodging bills. But for now, she wanted to look around a bit first. Unity Circle might not be a bad place to start. She'd spent long hours there, sketching the murals, the partially drowned buildings, and the elegant women who walked there in the evenings.

The girl flipped her wings, and then darted off in that direction.

[Gossamer]

Mura wasn't ever truly busy. The city existed in a peaceful lull that very little effected. Sometimes when a ship came in, the docks would bustle momentarily with activity as everyone helped pitch in to get cargo and passengers unloaded, and then the very same vessels reloaded. Mura was, however, something of a treat for the sailors. In times past, the Konti women had a difficult time getting traders to stop by The White Isle. They had few resources to trade, save for their Silver Lake waters, and needed very little for themselves as well. Tourism, however, changed that slightly when the island was 'discovered' in 497 and people realized that the very sick simply got better if they were taken to Mura to relax. And now, twelve years later, tourism was on the rise. Visitors came to relax and take in the peace of the Konti. There was a medical library and healers facility that trained anyone who showed an interest in healing - no matter what color their skin was. It was still a rare sight, even in this day, to see men walking openly on the streets though. They weren't stared at or speculated over. But rather, they were offered a measure of respect, and a wide berth... except at the docks.

The sailors knew that when they hit Mura's port, they would be welcomed wholeheartedly. Rather than a string of taverns lining the docks, the Mura denizens had a slightly different set up. There was a pavilion dedicated to Laviku - the God of the Sea, where meals were served at any hour of the day. Often Konti women would wander down to the pavilion seeking news of the outside world or to hire a ship to take them to the rest of Mizahar when they felt the urge to wander. Sailors were offered showers and baths free of charge along with the meals, and normally musicians would gather to sing and play - encouraging the visitors to join in.

The whole isle had a haze of peace about it. No one got too excited and there were very few rivalries. Part of the reason, if one were to dig deeper, was that the Matriarch of Konti made herself very open. Before issues could boil over, there was community mediation that helped neighbors work through problems before they escalated into greater problems. And because by and large the majority of the island was women, the women had long since learned to work together to get things done. Konti had no military and indeed no true need of one. They had spellcasters a plenty and enough healers with gnosis marks that could sicken as well as heal.

And above that, to a core the entirety of the Island were Seers. Each had a different gift, but if trouble was coming Konti's way, the whole of the mass would usually identify it and anticipate it with enough foresight to keep the women safe. And besides, Konti was really not a very promising target for raiders. Other than the occasional stolen Konti woman, very few people had anything the konti needed save perhaps for advice.

Still, it was a welcome peaceful island, and Unity Circle was the central hub of it.

Trista would have little problem finding it, nor settling down in an unoccupied space. The circle itself was the heart of the city, its center occupied by a sacred well that only people seeking guidance drank from. A spring, the wisest of the white isle women would claim, fed it that came directly from Silver Lake itself. The Starry Night - a poetry reading and performance art center occupied one quarter of the circle while The Pearl Divers Inn occupied another. The administrative building spilled out in another section, while a simple shop filled with fabrics took up the fourth quarter.

A new mural was added to a wall visible by the well. It was a herd of seahorses being ridden by children racing as if in the end of year festivals. A painter, a young woman still in her teens, was still working on it, completing what looked like shell inlay around the boarder of the enormous design. The Akvatari could tell she was a painter by the splatters on her coveralls, even though the work she did at the moment was more of a masons art. Trista wouldn't be able to remember what was under the mural... what artwork it had replaced, surely though, there had been something there.

A woman sat with a chessboard, quietly waiting, the pieces all set up as if she had anticipated someone's arrival for a game. There was no one else with her though, even though every once and a while someone strolled by.

Konti was beautiful, and Mura was its shining centerpiece. The blue sky reflected the white trees that lined the streets running away from the Circle like spokes of a wagons' wheel. Clouds drifted by, making the women that strolled beneath them seem almost as if they were reflections cast upon the ground by the clouds getting in the way of the sun. There were a few smiles, as people recognized and greeted each other as they passed by Trista's resting place.

Across the square, two little girls played with dolls while their mother stood nearby haggling the price of a basket of apples from an apple seller who pushed a cart. There was no lack of activity, no absence of people to talk too. Trista could approach any one of them, or indeed quench her thirst from the well. The crank looked in good order and the white wooden cup hanging from its side appeared clean. Vendors passed by, and all the people she observed looked definitely approachable.

[Trista]

If there was one thing that Trista had had quite enough of recently, it was wells. After her last adventure in Eloab, she was in no hurry to see what was at the bottom of yet another well -- although this one was certainly less ominous.

The Akvatari turned her head, taking in the scene carefully. She half-expected to see someone she might recognize from her last visit, but everyone that she saw was a stranger to her. No matter.

The redhead glanced curiously at the woman with the chess set. She wasn't a particularly skilled player, but Trista enjoyed the game. It was clean, spare; the same sort of thing that fit her artistic views. Perhaps, she noted, she ought to study it more in the future.

Her attention was taken, however, by the girl working on the mural. It was somewhat bothersome to Trista that she couldn't remember what had been there before; she'd have to go back through her sketchbooks when she returned to Abura and see if she'd drawn that portion of the wall.

Regardless of that, however, it was an interesting piece. Trista probably wouldn't have used shells for the inlay, and the style and subject seemed vaguely...cheerful for her taste, but the artist showed promise. The Akvatari flipped her wings and moved across the Circle.

She waited for a break in the artist's work before interrupting, unwilling to disturb the other girl's concentration. When a good time arose, she moved slightly closer, hovering about two feet off the ground.

"Pardon me -- I couldn't help but notice your work and your use of color. How did you decide how to compose the scene?" An Akvatari asking an art question was as unsurprising as a Myrian trying to rip someone's jugular, and so Trista didn't give her query more of an introduction than that.

[Gossamer]

The teen turned, glanced at the scene, and smiled. "My little sister won the races this year. That's her out in front riding the red seahorse. Her name is E'vania. His name is Kalahan. It was the happiest day of her life." The girl said, her eyes going soft and round with sorrow. "She disappeared shortly thereafter. We looked and looked, but no one could find her. I was given permission to do the Mural so that the city could remember the last time all the girls were happy together for a year until another theme is picked." The woman said. She set down the shells she was using to inlay the scene and reached out her hand. "I'm Kal'dava. This is my first public work. I composed it from memory, and used the colors so they blended into Unity Circle rather than clashed." The young Konti said, smiling a little. Her eyes were still sad, but Trista could tell the grief had eased somewhat.

"You're Akvatari aren't you? Are you an artist yourself? I'm working on this inlay, but I could use some help with it." She said, gesturing at all the inlay still left to do. It seemed she was lining the edge of the mural with shell so it shined, using some sort of paint-on adhesive. She'd done the top and sides, and was now finishing the ground floor work. There was a spare can of adhesive, another brush, and all it really consisted of was painting on the glue, then placing the shell chunks on like a mosaic.

"It's a good way to remember my sister. And then, if for some reason she ever comes home, she will know how much we love her and miss her when she sees this. It's just strange. In a city full of seers, none of us have a clue what happened to her. Someone should have 'saw' it." Kal'dava said, almost musingly.

[Trista]

A sad smile crossed Trista's lips. The subject, it seemed, was not as happy as it first appeared. Nonetheless, she grasped the artist's hand with her own. "Glad to meet you, Kal'dava. I'm Trista."

In response to the request for help, Trista settled herself on the ground, curling her flippers in front of her, and took a shell and the brush. "Yes, I'm an artist. I haven't done much with mosaics, but I'll certainly do what I can to help you along."

It was a strange story that Kal'dava told, and Trista couldn't help but ask a few questions. "I don't know entirely how your gifts work, so please forgive me if my questions sound absurd. Does the Matriarch have anything to say about the matter? And, out of curiosity, has anyone asked Avalis? I know that she sees only those whom she has chosen, but I also know that she cares deeply for you, her children."

There was a twinge of wistfulness in her voice as she said this. The Konti were a people who knew their heritage, a people with a mother and a father who lived among them and watched over them. The Akvatari, on the other hand, had no past and no deity of their own. It was strange, in a way, to be here among them, and yet so very different.

She opened the adhesive can and brushed some onto the surface of the shell she was holding, looking down at her work, and then back at her new acquaintance.

[Gossamer]

OOCSorry for the wait. This is off my territory and so I keep missing it.

Kal'dava nodded. "Each gift is different. Some Konti can sense the needs of animals, while others can find lost keys. Of course the Matriarch has something to say... she's with us and among us a great deal. She put out a plea for all the Konti to look for my sister, but there is simply a blackness where she used to be. We've never encountered anything like that." The young woman said, handing more pieces of shell to Trista to begin gluing to the wall. All and all the mural was going to look spectacular when she was done - which she almost was. "My gift is for the weather. I get consulted on scheduling outdoor events quite a bit. I haven't been wrong so far. My sister used to be able to see what profession someone would be the best at. She called me an artist, so my mother gave me my first set of paints my tenth year. That is fairly young for one of us." Kal'dava said, smiling fondly at the memory.

But Trista's question about Avalis brought her pause. She tilted her head and looked thoughtfully at the Akvatari. "I am not certain. I do know we do not go to her for everything. Perhaps the Matriarch has, but I am not certain. My parents would not, because there is great shame in both loosing a daughter and then being unable to see her. Avalis teaches us to be resourceful, and to stand on our own. There have been times in the past that we've leaned heavily on her, but there is no strength in dependency. Sometimes... bad things happen. The death seers haven't seen her death, so there is nothing much else we can do." Kal'dava said softly, almost mournfully. "E'vania was going to be a healer of animals I think... she said it was the best course for her. That is how she got such a magnificent sea horse... he was ill and they were going to cull him because they did not want his fungus to spread to the other horses. E'vania took him away, tended him, and got him back to where he could rejoin the herd. She was so proud of him." The konti girl said, smiling. "We still have him. He misses her too I think."

"So enough about me.. why are you here?" The Konti asked, seeming to cheer up looking at her work and realizing it was all but completed.

[Trista]

"To be resourceful sometimes means finding the person with the ability to accomplish the task at hand, rather than being able to do it all yourself." She was thinking of Ezebal, who had found her even when Trista herself didn't know that she would be able to help.

Trista put a shell on the mural and then gave a half-smile. "I spent a year in Konti before, working on my art. It was a..." She bit her lip as she tried to think of the proper way to describe it. "You might say it was a time that had a significant impact on me." It was a statement that was true on almost every level, from the artistic all the way to the spiritual.

She placed more adhesive on another shell, brushing it on with a practiced hand. "But, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure why exactly I'm here. It just felt like I ought to come back, as if there were something else I had to do, or something still left unfinished." A small, self-conscious laugh slipped past her lips. "Not much of an answer, is it? But I'm a professional artist, and I don't really have anywhere that I have to be, so I can afford to act on a feeling from time to time."

The Akvatari's mind slipped back to what Kal'dava had said. Something was definitely off about her sister's disappearance, and it was odd to her that the matron hadn't elected to do more. But this was not her place, was not her home, and so she did not volunteer her opinion.

[Gossamer]

Kal'dava raised an eyebrow at Trista. "You don't think almost every Konti on this island and a few further abroad haven't looked or tried? Really... she's my little sister and we all love her. Everyone does. We've tried. It was too important of a thing to assume myself, try to fix myself...." The girl said softly, a tinge of anger framing her words.

The konti nodded. She knew Akvatari occasionally visited Mura, and though she hadn't come across this particular one before. "The White Isle has that effect on people. I think its the water, personally. Even those that are sightless leave here with some sort of insight if they stay a significant amount of time." Kal'dava said, smiling slightly as if at another thought. "And it works like that too, sometimes.... gives you urges and feelings even if you don't know what to make of them and aren't trained to explore them. Well, here is as good of place as any to study art. We go through a lot of titanium though in our paintings." Kal'dava chuckled at her own joke, referring to the white ingredient and hence the name used for the white pigment in oil paint.

"Maybe you should apply to get a commission, something like this. Maybe there was something here you were supposed to paint or create? They are putting the finishing touches on a new building off the circle... the one they built for the Child's Center. You might see about putting in an application, submitting some sketches, and seeing if you can get approved to paint one of the walls. Those paintings will stay for years." She suggested, not sure either why Trista would be there. Kal'dava's gift just wasn't geared towards people finding a direction in life. "Anyhow, have you just arrived or have you settled into a place yet to stay?" The girl asked, curious without being pushy. "I know of a few open cottages down by the beaches for rent. That's what my family does, lease out little bungalows." She offered.

[Trista]

Trista shrank back slightly at Kal'dava's muted anger, but didn't say anything. It wasn't what she had meant, but it had been taken the wrong way, and the girl didn't want to press the issue. She was a stranger here, after all.

Which was reinforced to her at the next comment. Sightless. Yes, Trista was an anomaly, one who followed Avalis, but had no gift, no sight, no Konti heritage at all. There was half of a wistful smile on her face. Even in her spirituality, she was an outsider. That in itself could be considered an insight, she supposed, in a wicked sort of irony.

A bit surprised, she looked back at Kal'dava. "Are commissions of that kind available to off-islanders?" She had somehow supposed that art for public buildings would be the province of the native Konti. The Akvatari turned the thought over once in her head. "Where would a person submit a tentative design plan?"

"And...no, I don't suppose I've got a place to stay. Or not a fixed one, anyway." She turned one corner of her mouth upward. "Akvatari don't really need that much for shelter." Many was the time that she had simply slept on the beach, or hauled out on a rock on the far side of Akvatar. Perhaps in some kind of compensation for their perpetual loneliness, they were well-equipped for isolation.

"But, how much to the cottages run for?" Assuming there was a roof tall enough for her to use her wings indoors, it might be nice to have a place to keep her things while she was here in Mura.

[Gossamer]

Kal'dava started to soften, as if slightly disappointed in herself for her reaction. She should have told Trista more... but Trista was an akvatari and a stranger. Little girls had disappeared from the White Isle. It was something of a curse, some whispered, that they vanished without a trace in an island full of sighted women. One was taken every year. Just one. But still, it was a horrible secret and she didn't want Trista to think the Muran women were so helpless that they couldn't even figure out why such a thing happened.

Mura was unique. Often people came here who thought they were sightless only to discover a gift they hadn't known. This was Avalis' doing, Kal was certain, but again it wasn't something she'd mention to Trista. "Sure, I think they like it when off-islanders paint here. It's always exotic, different, with a spice of places afar. I know of several Akvatari who've done murals. In fact, there'd be people who'd claim you have an advantage if you applied. I know we have three places available. Three walls, not counting the front side which the Mother's Circle will paint. But one of the walls is really well located, and in full view of the street. First time folks often get alleys or building sides that are next to another building. Its the advanced painters that get the good views. But your a foreigner. You'd definitely be a good candidate for the good side." She said smiling. Once, Kal'dava would have looked wistful, but because she was in fact painting on one of those 'good sides' at the moment, there was very little the girl could realistically complain about having won her own commission.

"You should go for it, Trista. It's... so well worth the work." The konti woman said, smiling up at her own mural.

The konti smiled at Trista's wistfulness. "We get storms here though... and I know about sleeping on the beach or underwater, but a cottage by the sea can't be beat. They are really inexpensive. 50 Miza a season... and only if it gets crowded do you have to double up... the cottages sleep four - two bedrooms - but we don't get many here unless its a festival and we don't have any coming up until next season." The woman said, smiling. "The best one... with a big porch perfect for sketching... is available right now. I can get you settled after I get done here. " Kal'dava said, then gestured over towards the building she'd indicated earlier. "Take your sketchbook and go see if you can apply if your interested. It's never a bad idea." The konti urged, smiling.