Speech | 37, 515 AV | Thoughts
It was edging on dusk, and Naia still hadn't been able to find her way out- back to the port and onto The Mischief. Everytime she thought she was close, the next turn or bend or T section would come to a dead end, or it would circle her back through to a street that was all too familiar to be any progress. It seemed like she would need to go out, and then try to circle back in, if luck would have her.
Another quarter bell of walking, of circling and failing to navigate well enough through the streets to find herself, and Leth had taken over the sky. Perhaps it was her gnosis that was causing her such duress, the constant knowledge and attempts to find the most direct route out being what was constantly failing her. She needed to stop thinking so much, and just walk. If the streets were more often than not ended in dead ends, then she needed to come at the issue with an all too absent optimism.
She felt the ocean tug her to the east, and it took her a breath and mental push to not take the next right, and once more try and head directly towards the sea. The stars were out, by then, and of divine comfort, the Svefra able to point out and marvel at a now much more familiar sky, easily taking not of the Crooked Cross in the eastern sky. The distraction enough to allow her to pass by several streets before choosing to walk down one that proved to be much longer than it was winding, and it was with hope that she began her brisk walk, the streets now alight with lanterns.
Something caught her eye, then. A bright movement, a swish, from the very edges of her vision. Her head whipped around and she pursued its source, her flitting gaze as quick as it could be while still taking in the wanted information. Her gaze had brushed over it, them, several handfuls of times before she realised just what it was she was seeing, several small orbs of light floating at a moderate distance.
They did not hop, move or float around, they simply hung there, suspended in the air. They were almost like stars in their own right. They were not, however, unheard of, and though the Svefra marvelled at their shimmering beauty, there was little more interest to be had in them. They didn’t seem to be active, more of lethargic little things, and so the woman turned on her heel and continued her forwards march, before she saw her own shadow flash in front of her, and she once more turned, and caught the lights in her gaze.
Once more they were still, but she wasn’t all that sure they had moved, so she took the red door to left of the lights as the landmark, and once more turned and walked.
Again, she watched as her shadow moved in ways that it shouldn’t, and attempted to turn with as little warning as she could muster. The lights were still, closer than ever, and the red door that they once hung by was now a half dozen paces behind. A thin and slim finger was soon pointed towards the collection of lights, and Naia’s lip quirked as she attempted to take herself seriously as she issued the following command. “Stay,” she didn’t know if they’d listen, and so the next few steps she took backwards, before finally turning around and continuing her walk. Another flicker of her shadow, and she whipped around quick enough that she could have sworn she caught them move.
She shot a glare before she continued her walk, far more focus on the flickering and shifting of her shadow than where she was going, and soon enough she stumbled and scuffed her boot. “Just, no, go away,” Naia, with all she was, decided to try chasing the orbs off, and once she approached them for more than three steps she watched with satisfaction that they seemed to ease off. “Good, thank you. Now stay,” her triumph only seemed to last for a total of 5 steps, because then her shadow flitted in front of her once more, and the Svefra decided that it was evidently a case of chase or be chased. It took her all but an instant to turn and begin following the lights at haste, spite fuelling her.
They remained an equal distance from her, and moving in an erratic manner that very well explained why she’d seen her shadow to dance around with such vigour. They travelled the entire length of the street, before there was a right turn, and then another winding, bending street, and Naia was by then red faced and breathless, the lights showing no signs of weariness.
Soon enough she began searching for other escapes, for stores open late or a tavern of sorts, and she continued to follow the lights, though at considerably slower pace, for the next half length of the street, before she caught what looked to be one of Alvadas’ inns. ‘A good enough break as any,’ she shot the lights a conspirator’s look, as though they had their backs turned, and split off, found herself stumbling through the entrance, and into what she soon enough found to be a cave complex, warm fire alight in large room, and a kind face by a bolder she that made a deceivingly apt table, the woman poised to give direction.
The exchange was a short one, though not impolite, and quite soon enough Naia was directed down one of the many tunnels within the establishment, which soon enough broke to another large room again.
The first thing she noticed was the zith, and her own surprise was lost on her. Word travelled quick around The Mischief, and she looked in them for what so many feared, a particular creature meeting her gaze with a snarl reminding her of the considered rudeness to stare. The smile that curved her lips in reply was good natured, though the following nod was rushed, and the smoothing of her simple dress almost awkward, the Svefra then making the journey to the bar itself a quick one, with eyes fixed forward.
“Good evening,” she greeted the bartender before she could get a proper grasp upon his face, her hands flat on the rough surface that was the bar itself, studying the claws and scratches, though more accurately, wondering what it was that made them. “What do you have?” She lifted her head before the all of her words fell from her lips, and the last of her question was slowed as she focused her efforts then on reading the sign that hung on the wall before her, brow furrowing as she wondered what event had given cause for the messy lettering.
