You Can't Fight Tears that Ain't Coming (Cosette pls)

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This shining population center is considered the jewel of The Sylira Region. Home of the vast majority of Mizahar's population, Syliras is nestled in a quiet, sprawling valley on the shores of the Suvan Sea. [Lore]

You Can't Fight Tears that Ain't Coming (Cosette pls)

Postby Malia on October 11th, 2009, 1:25 pm

Timestamp: 36th day of Fall, 509 AV

While following the girl through the streets Malia tried to analyze her pace, her movements. How could someone change a mere girl into an undead? What motivation had driven her creator to make the girl’s life a never ending mental torture? Malia didn’t know much about people’s minds, but she could easily imagine a girl who hadn’t even found herself getting depressed and hopeless in such a situation.

Not that she didn’t have her fair share of sins and mistakes herself, but the circumstances were different. She felt worried about a child that was trapped in time for ages and ages from the moment on the ichor had dripped into her lifeless little mouth.

Suddenly the girl stopped. Malia flinched in surprise, then watched the little one stomp at the ground, kneel down and bury her face in her hands. Was she … trying to cry?

Malia, as a Nuit who had already survived for two centuries in countless different bodies, had studied human expression with great interest for some time, remembered and memorized the ones she was still able to copy and forgotten the ones her physical condition forbid her to mirror. Nuit didn’t possess tears, and they didn’t cry … and Malia, as a Nuit who tried to hide expressions because they weren’t useful anymore, had completely forgotten how weak and sad someone had to be when they hid their face to let tears flow.

For some moments she just stood there and watched. However, she still felt strangely worried about the girl. So she did what her instinct told her: approaching the girl until she could kneel down at her side and softly touch her shoulder, lie a hand on it to let her feel that she wasn’t alone. The hand was cold as ice.
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Re: You Can't Fight Tears that Ain't Coming (Cosette pls)

Postby Cosette Merryweather on October 13th, 2009, 9:11 pm

Cosette had learned long ago how pitiful crying looked when she couldn't shed any tears but the feelings she had been holding back came bursting forth with how that man treated her. She honestly believed he meant no harm and that she was probably forcing her beliefs on him but to be brushed off like she were just a little girl left a deep impression on her, it made her feel insignificant and tiny.

Qualities which while once upon a time might have been the very reason she made a few more suitors than the next girl, since that was what was expected of housewives, now made her feel frustrated, probably even more than it did back then.

"I'm sorry," Cosette rubbed her eyes despite the absence of tears and slowly rose from where she was kneeling. "I was being childish... and here I was expecting people to treat me like I'm an adult. I'm find now, really."

It was a little difficult for her to realize what the woman was at first glance. Besides the fact that she was remarkably pale Cosette wasn't really paying attention to the lady's face. She still felt a hint of embarrassment and so she was avoiding the woman's eyes but the woman's cold touch didn't escape Cosette's senses.

Cosette reached out to hold the girl's hands in her own and a closer inspection of her face betrayed the stranger's secret in a heartbeat. "You're like me... aren't you?"
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Re: You Can't Fight Tears that Ain't Coming (Cosette pls)

Postby Malia on October 14th, 2009, 8:24 pm

When the girl rubbed her eyes – a strange gesture – and started to rise to her feet, Malia’s hand vanished. She had done what she could, and apparently it had worked, but she didn’t feel relieved at all. Just another little girl, she thought, acting like a human, although being Nuit.

Thus the next words disappointed Malia a bit. Realizing that the girl’s actual age could be from sixteen up to sixty years, she had to admit that she had underestimated the girl too. In her thoughts only, but thoughts would eventually become words and actions. And how could she not? There she was, looking at Malia with big sky-blue eyes, fresh blond locks framing her sweet face. Only her eyes, her words told the true story.

Malia also noticed that she apparently used magic to hide her black tongue – to appear human? Why, for what? She herself had given up acting human a long time ago. People sensed that something was wrong with her, making each and every kind of disguise useless.

Despite that she was fine … she supposed. Nobody could guess what lied under the surface, never, until it became visible, causing either joy or pain. Malia shifted and replied: “You have to expect people to reflect what you are, how you live.” Others were mirrors of yourself – she had learned that a long time ago. In the meantime it had become more difficult to recognize herself in a human’s, a Kelvic’s face. They seemed to be so much more alive than her. Sometimes the difference hurt, but it always was clearly visible. However, Malia supposed that for the girl the distinction was still blurred.

Somehow the fact that the girl was avoiding looking her in the eye proved a lot. Nervosity, not being sure of herself. Malia felt utterly amused and incredibly old at the same time. What a pleasure it was, to see human behavior performed by a Nuit’s soul! Perhaps not everything was lost on her.

The question wasn’t difficult to answer, and it confirmed her assumption. Malia was Nuit, and she definitely looked like Nuit. So the consequence was loneliness. But with the girl …? “I am.” A small pause of consideration. “So what does that tell you? What do you want to do?” Oh, she was curious! The memory of her own first days, first years had already faded into nothingness, consumed by the endless flow of time.
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Re: You Can't Fight Tears that Ain't Coming (Cosette pls)

Postby Cosette Merryweather on October 17th, 2009, 6:49 pm

Cosette blinked at the question and relinquished her hold on the older woman's hands. Out of habit her hands wandered to the hem of her skirt and she started playing with it, her face thoughtful as she tried to articulate what she made out of the woman's being a nuit. "It tells me that you're someone who must be very lonely... and you're someone very kind."

"...Most nuit I've met wouldn't have bothered." her voice was barely audible now, the passing burst of gratitude that lent her courage had all but disappeared. Nevertheless her manners forced Cosette to smile brightly at the older woman and like clockwork, curtsied in front of her. "Thank you. I'm Cosette... I'm not quite sure how old you are but you must be my senior... I get that impression from you, its almost the same feeling I had when I talked with the masters in Sahova." the only thing missing was the strength and intensity those wizards radiated and the woman would've probably passed off as one of those wizards.

A strong gust of wind blew past them and while the bitter chill shouldn't have caused her to shiver Cosette re-adjusted the red scarf on her neck regardless. After a few moments of awkward silence a thought registered in Cosette's mind, she remembered her job and the work it entailed. Perhaps this meeting might have been fated because here, right in front of her was someone who could help her. Though the question of whether she could was still up in the air. After taking in a deep breath the young nuit finally turned her head in the woman's direction and she tried to keep her eyes from veering away from the stranger's. "Are there many of us here in Syliras...? I'm trying to learn more about the Nuit, I landed a job yesterday that requires me to resolve issues for our kind and while I may be loosely affiliated with our kind in Sahova I must admit I know very little about us. Would you tell me what you know?"
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Re: You Can't Fight Tears that Ain't Coming (Cosette pls)

Postby Malia on October 18th, 2009, 6:28 pm

Obviously Malia had forgotten how honest and painful words of a young girl could be. Lonely – true. Kind – well, sometimes true, she admitted. Perhaps she could learn something from the way the girl expressed things: directly, clearly, not disguised in any kind. Freshness could be called what blazed through her mind at that moment.

And then even more! Raising eyebrows, she felt a bit overwhelmed.

The girl … Cosette had seen and talked to other Nuit, and said that they were more ignorant than herself. For a few moments Malia stood there, speechlessly. Then the girl’s curtsy forced a reply out of her, in form of a nod and a stiff, uttered greeting. “Malia … at your service.” At the same time she wondered what had caused her to say such words. She was neither the servant of that girl nor did she intend to be in the future.

To be honest, she liked her loneliness, she liked the freedom and anonymity it gave her. Alone, without companions, she wasn’t bound to anyone, any duties or any expectations. A lonely life was a free life. Additionally, she strongly believed that Nuit weren’t made for relationships. They were sole experiments. Beings who existed to defeat time. And because of that Malia had to play the observer, the chronicler who didn’t judge, who only watched in silence.

And silence was what she desired to return to. Silence, loneliness. The picture of herself in the mirror. Black hair, haunted eyes. Her dear goddess was waiting for the experiment, for the timeless creature with the shattered soul of a living.

And Cosette? Cosette was too young, and she could never deny what Malia had read in her reactions, in her voice and her still fresh, still young Nuit eyes.

Malia hardly registered the cold wind blowing through the streets. Regardless, the girl’s voice was the only noise she had to listen to. A source of information Cosette should be, and nothing more …

Then she forced another reply out. Nuit did work to earn money? Well, this one anyway. The type of work Cosette mentioned almost made her laugh. Resolve issues – but with whom?! “I’ve been staying at the city for around a season already, but haven’t seen or sensed anyone else of our kind. If there are some, they know how to disguise themselves.”

Source of information. She tried to let that thought rotate inside her mind. “But tell me, what is Sahova like? Do they accept visitors?” Apparently they did. Malia felt slightly confused, dazed, but also excited at the thought of visiting Sahova. Naturally, she wasn’t trying to socialize, but was curious about what philosophy and reasons other undead might have about and for their existence.
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Re: You Can't Fight Tears that Ain't Coming (Cosette pls)

Postby Cosette Merryweather on October 18th, 2009, 7:32 pm

"Its a pleasure to meet you Malia." Cosette smiled brightly at the woman. She rather liked this one, at least the lady had personality. The other nuits she'd seen in Sahova were as pleasant as corpses, which was saying something.

"I can understand why they would want hide themselves, if people don't fear our kind they'll hunt us down instead..." Cosette closed her eyes and shook her head as unwelcome thoughts raced through them again. "I'm sure you're experienced enough to know when to avoid people but I really do think it would be in your best interest if you learned how to properly disguise yourself." and while the advice could have been interpreted as haughty, coming from Cosette's lips they sounded harmless and there was even an undeniable hint of concern in her tone.

"I know I should be hiding myself from people too, but I don't like solitude... I tried it, but I don't think I was ever cut out to live that kind of existence. I get far too lonely, the boredom and sleepless nights would probably drive me insane. That's why I pursued this branch of magic... my control is still far from perfect though, if I spend too much time around people they begin to notice telltale signs." she looked at her hands and consciously willed some color into her flesh and within a few moments her skin started shifting from a pale porcelain like hue to the rosy complexion of a healthy young girl. "I still cant keep this level of manipulation up without being conscious of it..." and then just as quickly as it came the color vanished and Cosette was just as pale as the nuit in front of her.

"Sahova is... well, stale, for a lack of a better word. Its like the island is trapped in the past and its failed to keep up with the rest of the world... kind of like it's in a place outside reality. I didn't spend much time there, I didn't even have the chance to stay there longer than a day since the archmage told me I was too... full of life." though perhaps it had been the best decision to let her return to civilization. At the very least there were new things to see, different faces to meet everyday. At least she wouldn't go insane here in Syliras. "But yes, they do accept visitors... tenants however are another matter entirely. They only want the best to join them, I guess you'd have to be prodigious in magic or special on your own way to be accepted... not that I'd want to anymore. There maybe hundreds of our kind there but a lot of them seem dangerous, unstable... not that I'm surprised. I don't think the human mind was built to last five hundred years in the first place."

"So... Just out of curiosity, I know this is a personal question but its something I want to know. What drives nuit after the first few decades have passed? What drives you? The wizards in Sahova have that unquenchable thirst for power, is there something you've been trying to achieve these past years?" it was important question for the young nuit. Cosette wanted to understand the nuit psyche and find the underlying reason behind their existence, did most of them have a goal to give meaning to their lives? Or was each day a struggle just to survive.
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Re: You Can't Fight Tears that Ain't Coming (Cosette pls)

Postby Malia on October 24th, 2009, 5:22 pm

Malia noticed that Cosette was assuming a lot of things that weren’t right. Not in her opinion, at least. Why did the girl expect her to be so much more experienced? What had Malia done that the girl hadn’t done? Of course, she had wandered the forests and deserts of Mizahar, of course, she had existed for a considerably long time, but what exciting things had she done? She was even jealous because Cosette had visited Sahova.

No, she wasn’t experienced – but perhaps she should change that, try to be the Nuit people expected her to be. Try to be more than she was at that moment. That would be a new kind of sense to seek, or not?

Anyway, the older one watched the girl playing her tricks with skin color. Until then, she hadn’t realized that someone as unnatural as Nuit could really disguise themselves. At the same time, she was absolutely sure that she wouldn’t want to hide what she was. For decades and decades she had walked among the living without hiding her immortality. Glav Navik had given her face powder, but completely hiding herself with magic – no, never, that was too much.

So her features remained emotionless. When hearing about Sahova, however, a slight hint of curiosity was showing.

Every single word was absorbed and memorized. A little bit of surprise got through her façade. According to the girl’s words, the island was some sort of elite club – accepting only the best of their kind, focusing on magic, forgotten by the living world around them. And they forgot their surroundings as well. Somehow it sounded sad, but Malia could absolutely relate to it. Sometimes she felt that scary urge to just lay down and sleep … fall in trance for days, weeks, years even, because the world wasn’t worth it. Sometimes she had felt tempted, but never had she really done so. The Nuit of Sahova had apparently forgotten about their origins? A sad fact, and nobody could change it, or so it seemed.

Nevertheless her desire for visiting the city was stronger than ever. She blinked, raised a hand to smoothen strands of her long, black hair, was musing to herself. Somehow, in the future she would try to get into the undeads’ island. “Thanks for telling me that”, she told Cosette. If she hadn’t been cold to the touch, she would have … but then, even humans didn’t do that regularly, did they?

Then … a personal question? She subconsciously stiffened. Personal questions were almost always uncomfortable questions too. What should she expect? How should she carry on if too many personal questions would follow?

Oh. Of course the girl wanted to know … about her own future. What she would be like in a few decades or centuries. A faint smile covered her features, although it looked more like a grimace. Mask of despair, mask of joy … Which one did I choose?

Perhaps the answer was too easy. “If you try to find your own answer to that question through others, you’ll fail”, she warned, and was serious. “Everyone needs their own. Mine is … My search is for sense. I try to find out why I exist, why you exist, why our whole race exists.” And no, she wouldn’t tell Cosette anything about what she had found out. And she wouldn’t accept anything Cosette said, for she was sure that the answer was something different. A young lively girl, barely dead yet, wasn’t able to know what she herself could only guess.

Impossible. With interest Malia kept watching Cosette. “So what are you doing these days since you haven’t found your drive yet?”
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Re: You Can't Fight Tears that Ain't Coming (Cosette pls)

Postby Cosette Merryweather on November 6th, 2009, 5:08 pm

So Malia thought that she was trying to find a purpose to her existence through others? It wasn't so unlikely for anyone to assume that considering her personality but Cosette was far more independent than anyone gave her credit for. "I appreciate your counsel but despite how I am I do know what I want... I believe the goal you're pursuing is very admirable though, I really do."

"W-What I'm doing?" her hands drifted down the hem of her skirt again and her fingers fumbled with the stitching as she tried to explain exactly what she was trying to accomplish without sounding like too unconvincing. "I... Please don't laugh, I know how absurd this might sound... especially to someone as old as you but... I'm looking for a way to bring nuit back to life. Master Zarik, I'm not sure if you're familiar with him but he's the most powerful wizard in Sahova... maybe the most powerful wizard on Mizahar right now, he told me that his predecessors may have the key to bringing the Nuit back from the dead, according to him one of them even became a god..." her gaze rose from the floor to meet Malia's eyes and if the older Nuit gazed into Cosette's own she would see that and beneath those cold lifeless eyes of Cosette's there was the briefest hint of an unseen intensity simmering below that pleasant facade. "If people can become gods I don't think becoming human again isn't asking for that much, don't you agree?" It was obvious that the girl truly believed in the possibility of salvation for her kind. Or was it she was so desperate that she would blindly embrace anything that promised her that one glimmer of hope she needed in the sea of endless night.

"On that note, I know the chances are slim, but I may as well as the question. You've lived for much much longer than I probably suspect so I want to know if you've ever heard of the names of Rupert Pycon and Sagallius Hrinn, the latter is the man who ascended to godhood by the way."
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Re: You Can't Fight Tears that Ain't Coming (Cosette pls)

Postby Malia on November 26th, 2009, 9:35 pm

Malia nodded, was satisfied with the little one's answer. All she wanted to add was a simple word, and a sentence: "Thanks. That means a lot to me." Actually she wasn't sure if she was telling the truth, yet she guessed so. Cosette was someone important, different from the others because of what she had become. So was Malia. They had to stick together, one way or another, and whatever Malia meant with 'sticking together'.

Her brain felt a bit numb from all those twisted and complicated thoughts. She wasn't sure how to treat that girl either. At least body and mind were approximately the same age - or not? Cosette had aged because of what happened to her, that much was clear.

The reply to Malia's question proved that too ... at least partly. Cosette still sounded very modest, as if the work she was doing couldn't really be called honorable. Nevertheless Malia tried to understand and appreciate her her individual approach. "I actually don't think that I would be able to survive as a human any more, but it's certainly a respectable idea", she stated calmly and tried not to sound too polite.

Master Zarik. Memorizing that name, Malia intended to get information about (and also from) him when travelling to Sahova. One day she certainly would visit the famous island!

Then she heard two important names, names that caught her interest. Indeed, Malia had heard of them! Of course, everyone who knew a little bit about religion and races would tell the girl the same. Malia shifted and folded her arms in front of her chest. Sagallius ... "Of course I've heard of them. Sagallius, God of Manipulation and Insanity ... It is said that he was human before he ascended. A wizard." ... and Pycon. Malia couldn't help but feel amusement when she remembered the last of those funny clay people she had met. "Apparently Rupert's the creator of the Pycon race." She paused, thinking. "I don't know anything about him, but perhaps his knowledge was similar to the techniques of creating a Nuit."

Unfolding her arms, she shrugged. "Do you know anything else about them? And why is that important to you?" Naturally, she was truly curious about Cosette's answer. What was the girl trying to find? Perhaps her information was a part of the puzzle Malia tried to put together. Perhaps they could help each other with her studies!
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Re: You Can't Fight Tears that Ain't Coming (Cosette pls)

Postby Cosette Merryweather on February 12th, 2010, 7:17 pm

"I know little, not more than you do." she confessed. "The archmage told me to seek out their laboratories, that in one of them I might find a means to regain my humanity or at least move one step closer to my goal."

"I don't know where to look, to be honest I don't think I would find Sagallius' laboratory without turning over the deserts of Ekytol..." somehow the thought didn't bring a frown unto the young nuit's lips. Instead she felt an iron-clad conviction swelling within her that made her feel like she could accomplish the impossible as long as she worked hard for it. "I guess there's one reason I should be glad I'm Nuit, at least now I have all the time in the world to accomplish my goal." but then, could she really take her time? She still had a family to come back to and she wanted to return while they still drew breath.

"Could you do me a favor...?"
the question came out as a croak. Even now Cosette refrained from asking for help, not when it came to the tasks she could manage on her own. "If you get wind of news concerning anything they left behind, be it a book, the place where they grew up in, anything that might be useful in finding their legacy would you please tell me? I'm usually helping out at the Temple of All Gods, Master Glav would point you to my quarters if I don't see you myself."
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