Open [Alements] Dockside Discussions

[Khida]

Spring 21, 515 AV
afternoon

Khida found herself walking down roads almost familiar for all the time she'd spent on them; it was almost not strange, now, to walk on stone, between stone, amongst people who were nearly living mountains in their own right. Almost. It helped that her thoughts were preoccupied, distracted from interfering with her feet. The Kelvic walked past apartments and down stairs, past shops and alongside docks, sparing only a passing glance for the men lading cargo and towing lines. She walked until her feet stopped.

They stopped before a space scattered with wooden tables and bouquets of fragrant herbs, backed by a wall of colorful windows and lanterns quiescent beneath the sun's gaze. The Kelvic considered the double doors which pierced that wall, behind which she might find the person she knew she had come to speak to, even if there hadn't really been a decision involved. But in the end, she shied away from the building, recent days still sharp in her mind -- the man in the tower, the caged beasts. No, today was not a day she felt like closing herself off from the sky.

Khida detoured instead, padding around the patio and out onto the boards of the dock. Her footsteps rang oddly hollow on the wood, a constant reminder of what lay beneath: nothing much. At the edge, she crouched, arms loosely draped across her thighs; there, she studied the boat which shared this resting place. It seemed a bit of an odd boat, like someone had taken two identical little ships and stuck them together side-by-side. With its sails furled, it seemed skeletal, a hollow frame -- caught in a quiescence that could reflect injury as readily as sleep, if it were a creature that lived at all. But of course it wasn't; it was just a boat, a thing, made to do what people needed it to do when they needed it to.

And wasn't that an odd thing for her to be thinking about? Sleeping boats. Shaking her head, Khida lowered herself to sit on the planks, sliding off her shoes and dipping her toes into the water. If she ignored the roar of the waterfall, the crisp edge in the air, the cliffs and trees and buildings on the far side of the pool -- if she ignored all of those things, the wood and the water and the boats felt familiar in a strange way; they hinted at a home which had not been home for seasons on end.

She would sit here for a while, Khida decided, watching the light glitter off the water, its reflection memories. She would sit, and see if the sun-man appeared, and if he didn't -- well, then maybe she would go finish finding him.

Khida space Common | Pavi
other space Common | Pavi

[Kavala]

The strange sun man might not have been around, but Kavala was definitely about. Her mind was on new friends now old that lived across the sea in Sultros. She'd been missing the folks of the Southern Boarder Post and was looking forward to seeing them again sometime soon. There would be a trip planned, she'd decided, somewhere in the fall with enough time to get back before winter.

Until then, she was offloading the catamaran and stalking Alements' stone dock with crates of honey from her own hives. There were live bees too, staked up in wooden hives that were outfited with tin cans filled with sugar water that slowly dripped. Sailors would have to refill them between Riverfall and Sultros quite a few times, but that was something that had been pre-arranged. She was meeting Isur sailors here, transferring the honey and bees to them and overseeing the loading of her own exchange goods. There were seeds and seedlings of Kalea origins she wanted to try growing in The Sanctuary's greenhouses. She feared the altitude might be a problem, but her Sultros contact had assured her that he'd harvest and provides seeds only from the low lying coastal lands for her to experiment with.

Kavala didn't notice the pensive Kelvic hanging out feet dangling off the stone fortress of a dock until her business had been concluded.

The Isur had sailed up, moored right behind The Dreamweaver, and had made quick work of the exchange. Kavala hadn't had to lift a crate. They were strong men, each willing to work, and in no time her cargo she'd stacked on the pier was on their ship and their cargo on hers. Handshakes were exchanged and Kavala gave personal gifts to be sent back to her contacts there. She missed Emaneus. The Anvil of the Southern Boarder Post had taught her many things, most of which had resulted in her high opinion of the whole of the Kingdom across the Sea... the one no one ever spoke of.

She'd then treated the Isur to some of Caelum's finest, and had parted ways leaving her to drift back out onto the dock, the men native to Sultros having lingered in Alements to relax before catching the tide back across the Suvan. The whole process had taken no more than a half a bell, leaving her to quietly begin to go through the live seedlings to see if they needed any tending - watering and such - before making the short trip back to The Sanctuary.

It was then and only then she noticed Khida and tilted her head, walking towards the lone kelvic to offer a greeting. Kavala wasn't normally one to approach strangers and say hello, but Kelvics were as different from humans as day was to night in Kavala's world. To the whole of Riverfall, the woman would have appeared human. But to the Drykas born Konti, Khida was as blatently kelvic as was her own niece and nephew. The woman radiated her thoughts which Kavala tried to filter out as best as she could, toning them down just to catch a mood.

"Are you okay? Normally we don't have people sitting out here alone. There's plenty of food and drink inside if your hungry." Kavala said, glancing at Alements and taking it in as a kelvic might see it. "The double doors don't lock and those windows are very easy to see out of for all their garish coloring." Kavala said, pausing alongside the woman and offering her a smile.

"I even have a tab there if money is short yet you need something to eat." The Konti said, taking a knee and putting herself on Khida's level. "I'm Kavala Denusk, of the Denusk Pavilion, Sapphire Clan." The Konti said in common, though her words were heavily accented with Pavi.

[Caelum]

Caelum

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The afternoon had been crowded with people and ailments, tasks and responsibilities. Several of Kavala's visitors from the Southern Borderpost Caelum had coaxed into his infirmary while his best friend handled her business and affairs. It was so he could see to some of the more common illnesses associated with life at sea and even life in Kalea, an adventure he was only somewhat familiar with. Between their Isurian "neighbors" and his regular patient care, he had been busy with the healing portion of his business, up to his elbows in matters of scurvy, summer allergies, severe sunburn, and a few of the more fraught diseases of the skin and blood as associated with less than ideal conditions of lifestyle and cleanlieness.


As a result, the long, granite countertops of Caelum's infirmary were littered with half unrolled bundles of muslin bandaging, stray bits of herbal concoctions, a few hastily jotted notes, and all manner of discarded equipment and half-emptied medicine vials. The physician gazed at these for a while before swallowing a sigh and curving about on the worn heel of a favored set of riding boots to just walk right out, the blazing opal-gold of his rakinivas shining on the backs of both hands and slithering up both wrists. He ought to have been exhausted, but the sun still shone, bright and coppering as the afternoon waned, and it fueled him. There was a bounce to his step, brightening his typically more lazy swagger as he made his way down the short hall into Alements mains and inhaled the tidal pull of all his patrons desires.


"I need you to look at a couple of orders later," Elise said, looking up with deep, ocean blue eyes finding Caelum's. A smile came across her mouth, startled there, and he too stopped just to offer a smile back at her.


"Alright. You're good for now though?" A glance was cast around the tavern, taking in the varied faces. Most of them were familiar and he offered more than a few nods before arching an eyebrow at his friend and employee.


Elise laughed, a ruffle of sound in the back of her throat. It was deep and gorgeous. "Go. Go. Kavala's out there, love. I know you want to greet her. The two of you are so busy, you need to set time for each other." She raised both hands, ushering him on. "Go. We're fine here. I'm fine. Go. I'll call you if anyone needs your, ah, expertise." She cast him a smile that was half worshipful and half full of charming snark.

Wisely, Caelum took his cue and left, walking swift but loosehipped for the door in worn, dark brown leathers and a comfortably faded white tunic. He routed himself right out those double doors, gold gleaming off the curve of summer pale horns and echoing in his eyes. Upon spying Kavala, he adjusted his path through the patio down the dock pier, and a smile grew to see Khida there as well, wondering at what passed between the two of them.


"Kavala, Khida, hello." A friendly, familiar, if somewhat weary smile greeted them. It was shortly energized as he passed through the shadow and into the dying light reflecting from the waters of Plunge Pool Bay. His footsteps clipped, echoing, behind him against the dock that Kavala had built for him. His hands rose to shape signs for food and family for Khida. "I was thinking a picnic out here? Chilled wine, sandwiches. Will you join me?"

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h

[Khida]

It soon proved that Khida was not the only one on the dock, a glint of motion on the periphery of her view demanding attention. The one who approached... was not Caelum, was a stranger, but her pale and scale-dappled features bore a resemblance of type to the sun-man's child. Fish, the Kelvic's fingers shaped, unconscious gesture shaded with recognition. An older version of Konti, with gleaming skin not so very unlike the sun-man's, eyes as blue as the sky. It occurred to Khida to wonder, with that brightness in both their kinds, if Konti were god-touched too. It seemed like those were cropping up everywhere this season, as if the Spring had also given them a call to bud and bloom.

The stranger proceeded to offer her concern and invitation, speaking Common doubly familiar in its cadences -- first for the language itself, and second for the intonations peculiar, so far as Khida's limited experience encompassed, to those Drykas who spoke it. A familiarity only clinched by her self-introduction, though her association with a Pavilion elicited some surprise from the Kelvic; she would not, on appearances alone, have expected the woman to be Drykas herself.

As unexpected revelations went, it was a welcome one.

The woman's introduction was met with warm greeting inflected by lingering surprise. These were followed quickly by an assertion of Khida's own well-being: all good. "I'm fine. I came to see Caelum," she offered by way of further explanation, and never mind that that goal might be better accomplished by going inside. Despite the signs, she spoke in Common, her recent days in the city having brought that language back to the fore; a Common leavened with influences from both Ahnatep and Endrykas, the place of her birth and the place she now made home.

Inside -- or rather, the building which defined it -- was given another scrutiny in the wake of the Konti's words. The windows were large, and colorful, and maybe would do a lot to lighten up the stone. But she still didn't really want to go in -- and in altogether timely fashion, was saved from further contemplation of that prospect by the exit of another person, the very person she had come to see. Outside, he suggested, to which the Kelvic returned a definitive yes. Sky clear, wind good, stay well, she tossed his way, only underscoring that affirmation.

Khida paused, then echoed family at the last, her gesture inclusive of the Konti. "I am with the Dawnwhisper Pavilion," she offered to Kavala, for once not needing to be prompted to return an introduction. She hesitated for a moment, caught on a novel thought, then finished with "No Clan," -- for so far as she knew, that seemed to be the truth. It hadn't occurred to the Kelvic before to think about that as applied to the Dawnwhispers. Maybe she would ask the hunter, later.

Khida space Common | Pavi
other space Common | Pavi