Closed Micah's Fortune

[Lucas Arias]

Continued from here.

Spring 16, 516 AV

Fortune tellers seemed to be in very high demand in Alvadas, Lucas decided as yet another person approached him. He was surprised that they didn’t have competetive fortune telling here, fortune telling tourneys and similar stuff just like they had tourneys with horses and real weapons in Syliras. Maybe he would suggest to Okana that they’d have a competitition sometimes, although he wasn’t sure how the winner would be determined. Would the fortune teller that came up with the craziest prediction win?

He pondered the issue for a few moments before he took a closer look at his newest client. This time he was facing what seemed to be a human woman (although you could never be completely sure in the City of Illusions), a little younger and a bit shorter than him. She was quite pretty with her heart shaped face, her purple eyes and her black hair with purple highlights.

Lucas didn’t have any highlights in his hair. He wasn’t wearing his natural orange-red Inarta hair either that day. For a few days he’d been dying his hair blue, to match the colour of his eyes. His appearance, including the strange, moving tattoo on his left arm, was a little unusual, to put it mildly, but the smile he gave Micah was radiant and genuine.

„Yes, fortune“, he confirmed and gestured for her to enter the tent. „Right here.“ He pointed at the carpet that covered the inside of the tent. It was the only piece of furniture. There was no table, and there were no chairs either. Lucas‘ tools, cards, a crystal ball and a bowl with bones that were covered with complicated carvings, were lying in the middle of the carpet, together with a few old drawings, paints and brushes of his.

Lucas took his swordbelt off and put it aside, and then he sat down on the carpet and gestured for Micah to do the same. Sitting was more comfortable than standing after all.

„You don’t know a lot of Common, do you?“ he asked. „I speak a little Nari and Arumenic as well, so we could try that if you want. Or we can attempt sign language. So where do you come from? And how can I help you?“ He realized that he’d probably talked much too quickly for her to understand him, so he added, „Sorry, I’ll try to speak more slowly.“

[Micah Frostfawn]

He was a peculiar male, Micah decided as she came closer to him. His hair was blue – a most unusual colour, though it made her think of Morwen and her snowy home. Nevertheless there was something temptingly intriguing about him. Micah supposed that it was this curiosity of hers that had bought her to the City of Illusions, least of all this male’s strange tent. She returned his smile with a breezy one of her own, and followed him inside.

The inside of the tent was as strange as anything Micah had come to expect in Alvadas, though this time it was the bareness of the interior that struck her as bizarre. Truthfully she still did not wholly understand what she was signing herself up for, but certainly an empty tent was not what she expected. For a tick she was distracted by the strange objects lying on the carpet: are those bones? As a hunter, skeletons and carcasses were a common sight to the Vantha, but never before had she seen them used in such an unfamiliar way.

She listened to the young male babble on, a light frown starting to crease her brows as she concentrated on translating his words. Slowly she nodded – it seemed like the safest reaction to go with. “Fortune, please.” Micah said eventually, her voice wary and quiet. She was sure that he had asked what she wanted from him, and for clarity’s sake the Vantha figured she may as well make her request known. A language barrier was a clumsy thing to stumble over, but she was determined.

Again her purple eyes scanned to the carpet, watching the fortune teller sit himself down before he indicated for her to do the same. The Vantha followed his orders, her attention once again captivated by the bones and other strange things that now lay before her. “What’s this?” The question was spoken innocently and a finger jabbed towards the collection of bones. Then the Vantha’s hand touched her own chest, as before: “I’m hunter. These are bones? What of?” They seemed small; perhaps a bird, or rodent?

Suddenly she recalled the need for introductions, and the Vantha sat upright, her eyes now blood red. “My name is Micah Frostfawn.” She said clearly, in a clearly well rehearsed manner. “I am from Avanthal.”

[Lucas Arias]

Lucas rolled his eyes as the young woman repated „fortune please“. Had he not told her that she would get her fortune told right here? He scratched his head because he wasn’t sure anymore all of a sudden, but then he came to the conclusion that, yes, he had most definitely told her that.

„I’m a fortune teller“, he informed her in case he hadn’t been clear enough yet. „Among other things. I’ve also been a knight in Syliras and taught classes at the famous University of Zeltiva, but that’s not the point, right now, is it? The point is that I can tell you what the future has in store for you.“ He grinned as he said this. Of course he had not really been a knight – he had left the order as a mere squire – but he had indeed worked for one Professor Hadrian Aelius in Zeltiva. He’d also been enrolled in a few classes as a student.

„Sorry again, by the way. I’ve been talking much too fast again. I should really stop doing that.“ He noticed that she seemed to be very interested in the bones. „Oh“, he said, in an almost dismissive and bored sounding tone. Lucas was a natural actor manqué, if ever there was one. „these are just my oracle bones. I’m not sure what they are made of to be honest. I got them from a fellow fortune teller. But they are most likely not human bones!“

He’d said „most likely“ because he rather liked scaring people every once in a while. He also liked making up stories, especially about himself, so when Micah introduced herself, he replied: „I’m Lucas, Dyres. I come from Syliras. My father is a pretty important knight there, the Grandmaster actually.“ In reality he was not even related to Ser Dyres, as far as he knew. His father had most likely been a random eagle rider from Wind Reach that had visited Syliras about twenty-two years ago which didn’t sound spectacular enough in his opinion.

„So tell me, Micah …“ He took the bowl with the oracle bones and pretended to inspect them, and he made a real effort so speak slowly and pronounce all his words clearly this time. „… what do you want to ask the oracle? Or do you want me to ask the cards instead? I know both methods, but I’m just a little more familiar with the bone oracle …“

[Micah Frostfawn]

There seemed to be a flash of annoyance that crossed the Vantha’s expression as she listened to the supposed fortune teller speak to her. She latched on to the few words she could understand and process with the rapidity of his words. But from what she could follow, Micah understood this young male to be stating grand things about his life – his past career, his schooling, even his father. Despite loving a tale as much as any Vantha, Mich was suspicious. Why would a person be so willing to share their impressive story to a strange? True, she would be potentially buying his service as a fortune teller, so perhaps it was simply his sales pitch?

But still..

”You were knight?” she asked carefully. Knight was a word she knew confidently, understanding the meaning of what it meant. A person encased in armour, valiantly fighting for all that was good and just in the world. Her red eyes fixed upon his face once more. ”Why not now? Why fortune teller? You left?”

She was ebbing close to rudeness, Micah realised. Her voice eventually gave way to a slight blush, and her red gaze changed to an emerald green. Though in part she doubted this fortune teller’s grand story, she also wanted to learn more out of the sake of curiosity. Stories of people fascinated her, whether they were completely true or not. For that matter, sometimes the lies people told about themselves were more telling than fact. ”I’m sorry. I’m interested in stories of people.”

With that, she allowed her interrogation to end there. She once again paid attention to the bowl of bones he held in his hands – he’d explained that they belonged to an oracle, though whether that was a type of bird or some other critter, Micah was not certain. ”I want to know…” She rolled the questions on her tongue for a tick, translating best she could to Common. ”What I will find here. In Alvadas.”

[Lucas Arias]

„Yes, I was a knight“, Lucas confirmed and smirked. “I don’t look particularly like one anymore, do I?” He spread his arms so that she could admire him in all his unknightly glory. “I only became a knight in the first place because my father was one. When you are the son of the Grandmaster you don’t have much of a choice. Knighthood sounds great in theory, but in reality it sucks, to be honest. The knighthood becomes your life. There’s little room for anything else, such as hobbies or personal development.” He gasped as if he had just said something particularly shocking.. “So I went on a pilgrimage to Nyka and decided not to come back again.”

“Daddy’s probably a little disappointed”, he added and shrugged his shoulders. “If I asked nicely, he’d take me back though. There’s nobody else to continue the Dyres legacy. As for why I became a fortune teller … I mentioned Master Anselm, the male Konti, in my little sales pitch outside the tent, didn’t I? I was only another one of his clients at first. I wanted to know what the future had in store for me, and I was so impressed with what Master Anselm did that I convinced him to take me on as a student and give me a copy of his fortune telling book.”

He removed a book from among his tools on the carpet and showed it to Micah. A part of what he had just told her had actually been true, the whole story about how much the knighthood had sucked, in which way he had quit the order and how he had met Anselm.

“Oh, you don’t need to apologize”, Lucas said and grinned. “I’m interested in stories as well. Maybe we could exchange stories once we have taken care of business? I’d love to know why you have such colourful eyes and where you come from. Anyway, on to your question. You want to know what you will find in Alvadas …”

He took the bones and threw them onto the carpet. He pretended to study the pattern in which they had fallen for a few moments and made appropriately ominous sounds before he opened Master Anselm’s book. Well, that was new. He’d never gotten the oracle on the first page before. He laid the book on his lap and proceeded to read from it.

“The creative works sublime success,
Furthering through perseverance.”

“That means …” he said, but he didn’t proceed to explain to her what it meant. Instead he looked at her and asked, “What do you think it means? You know yourself better than I do. If there are any words that are unclear, I can explain them to you.”