Completed Chasing Tail

Rohka begins her workday consoled by Lelia, encouraged to see her present time as a blessing to have and take hold. Would someone see things differently? [Caspian]

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A city floating in the center of a lake, Ravok is a place of dark beauty, romance and culture. Behind it all though is the presence of Rhysol, God of Evil and Betrayal. The city is controlled by The Black Sun, a religious organization devoted to Rhysol. [Lore]

Chasing Tail

Postby Rohka on June 21st, 2019, 7:02 am

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9th day of Summer, 519 AV
Though her dark eyes watched the Divinist with curiosity, her stomach churned with a familiar anxiety. Nothing ever prepared her for these sessions of teaching, and she knew that this one would be different from the rest. The rest had been standard, things to help her hone the craft of the cards, but tonight would be a simple lesson in—

“Djed. Learn the word now. Take it and see it as a force within everything around us. It can’t be destroyed, child. It can’t even be created. It can only be transformed. You’ve experienced a great transformation, blessed by Rhysol himself, through the djed of his released chaos,” and the Divinist pointed to the appendage that now laid by their feet, unmoving. “Your present shame will become your future boon if you see it for what it is. That tail, Rohka,” and she pointed at it now, still staring into the young sybil’s dark, worried gaze. “That tail has more purpose than you have found in the last year.”

The churning sunk lower, spreading through her core, making her feel sick to hear a truth that she only wished to fight. Lelia had proven once more that she could know a person’s story merely from their appearance. She was right, the last year had felt largely devoid of usefulness, despite the few insights she’d been able to give and gain. To hear it said so harshly—to realize that she agreed with the piercing assessment—only made the sybil’s heart sink with the rest of the organs now collecting at the bottom of her internal pit.

“You hate hearing it, yet you know you need to. Rhysol's blessing is a part of you now, and the sooner you accept that fact, the faster you can train yourself to use it to your advantage. Find your way, Rohka,” the advice felt more like it was given as a practiced speech, and the young sybil couldn’t help but raise her brows at the expression. Lelia closed her eyes when she noticed, and took a deep breath to find her centre.

“My child, your tail is capable of seizing, grasping, taking hold of whatever it needs in order to support you. Can you do the same?” Lelia asked the question gently, aware that the young sybil had begun to see its potential. “You’ve done a fair job of supporting yourself this year. Fair. A common life with its common needs. Are you meeting all your needs, Rohka?”

This was a question that required more thought. It was a question she had been asking herself since the beginning of the season. She broke their connected gaze and looked down to her cards haphazardly strewn across the table, seeing the wheel of fortune immediately, as if it jumped out at her.

“Good, even just the knowledge of djed makes the flow of the aura quicker to catch. Remember Rohka, everything has an aura. Absolutely everything. The amount of the flow varies, depending on what or who you’re looking at. Your cards, the table, the candles, these simple things have ones that flow thinly around their boundaries.” Lelia had been getting quicker at sensing and responding to the young sybil without her ever having to speak. It was a welcome change for once, not feeling the desire to be the one talking. Roh had always been asking as much as she could to the Divinist, and had only ever gotten answers that seemed sparse. But she still learned. She still felt as if she picked up something new every time. She felt like what she picked up was always for the exact moment of practical use. Yet it never felt like she picked up enough. Could it ever be enough?

“Do you notice the edges, dear?” Lelia asked, pointing to the card she’d eyed, trying to bring her attention back. “Do you see a shift beginning to form?” Rohka tried to see what she meant and could pick up nothing but what she thought was a glimmer, with a faint scent of pine, which she quickly dismissed as a childhood memory from when the same card caught her eye in the forest by the lakeshore so many years ago. It just felt like a distraction, like a piece from the past that she had no reason to remember.

“Focus, feel into it, and you will see it in time. It takes time,” said Lelia, slowly lifting herself out of her seat. “Now come, it’s almost time to open, and I am expecting a client in a couple bells. I must prepare. And I know you have questions, but remember,” and she looked into the young sybil’s eyes once more,

“You have time.”

Lelia smiled and walked around the table towards her apprentice, touching her shoulder reassuringly to signal that they must switch seats before strolling towards the back of the shop. She approached a door, ornately engraved and produced a key from her pocket, opening a lock and strolled inside, giving a Rohka a nod before closing the door behind her.

The sybil had the front of the shop to herself now. This was always her time to practice. Early mornings, the least busy, but also the most intriguing. Syna’s fresh light came in through the windows, illuminating the simple bookshelves, the multiple draperies of cotton and wool of several colours, and mysterious artifacts all crowding the small, discrete place of business. Several candles had already been lit, and so had a couple incense sticks. The sybil enjoyed the smoky atmosphere and tended to get lost in rapture watching the air dance around her. On slow days, she would give every swirl of smoke a name and pretend to tell its fortune, attempting to predict its change in movement and space. Most days weren’t slow, however. Lelia had built a sizeable reputation, especially for her connections to the Black Sun, so her clients frequently brought her news and sought her advice. Roh was now known as more of Lelia’s secretary than a fortune teller herself, but occasionally, clients would turn into willing partners.

Considering this had made her realize exactly what Lelia had done. The Divinist had left her alone at the front of the shop in her current, novel predicament. She would have to explain her situation to anyone that walks in. Rohka hadn’t had the chance to buy a new pair of simple pants, so she’d taken to wearing her long, dark green shirt as a short dress. The belled sleeves of her shirt covered the length of her arms, but her legs were bare under the table, and the thick, dark, iridescent tail had no place to hide as it laid neatly curled by her feet.

She sat at the table in wait, her hair kept back with her headscarf and her cards being shuffled absentmindedly in her hands. Two silver dice sat by the singular lit candle, and a blank piece of parchment was held down by an ink vial with a blue-green peacock quill dipped within, standing tall.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.

“Come in, we’re open!”

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Last edited by Rohka on October 21st, 2019, 7:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Chasing Tail

Postby Caspian on June 22nd, 2019, 9:40 pm

To ask for help is past undesirable. Caspian doesn’t do it, and he definitely didn’t, and it’s only come up because Saticath had had the gall to label it as such, and despite his detailing, in rapt response, the sheer incorrectness of her categorization, she had refused to retract it. And following that, she had rubbed it in, really ground it up and slathered over him the possibility that he’s found himself at a loss, and at an incurable deficit interminably preventing him from solving this on his own.

Except he could, and he might, and he should, because out of everyone on the continent – besides, possibly, Taalviel. Speaking of personal woes dragging themselves across durations interminable – only he bears knowledge of all the components of his situation at once. They conflict upon themselves, and tesselate into reasonings both uselessly infantile and arrestingly well-beaten, and at any one moment he feels a certain way about it but thinks in quite the opposite, only for those dispositions to oscillate to their diametric quadrants and hold themselves there just long enough for him to give chase. Just as he becomes certain that the act of making up his mind on the topic can finally be crossed off his poorly and vaguely scribbled list of long overdue accomplishments, his chronic bout of crippling unsurety rears its insubordinate head, and he’s left wondering if it wouldn’t make sense to decide to do precisely what he’d nearly convinced himself he shouldn’t. The whole thing has his head spinning, and if he dwells on it for too long sends him almost frantic, and it’s just easier to choose not choosing at all because the problem is he holds all the pieces and has for years and nothing has changed except maybe him, except maybe he's afraid that he hasn’t, actually, so he’s really at the end of his rope when it comes to this because what can one even do when one has got everything at their disposal yet the sum of it amounts to absolutely nothing -

So perhaps he does need help, though it’s a resentful thing to be. More than that, though, he greatly resents its being pointed out, even by droll friends with boundlessly good intentions.

Droll and good enough to let him show up on her doorstep unannounced, even in the basest of states, and if he’s not there she lets him get there and is right alongside with seemingly endless supplies of liquids and consumables to amuse and deaden, until the issue of making up one’s mind, along with the issue itself, distance themselves and diffuse.

So for this droll and good friend who’s put up with him and his antics as recently as yesterday, on this ninth day of Summer in the year 519, he’s agreed to escort her youngest and most pregnant-est sister to and from her primary medical practitioner. It’s not the furthest distance but it’s also not the closest, and given yesterday’s rampage by what people are saying was a Dravlak, and then the Druvin that followed, they’re understandably ill at ease with the idea of going about the city unarmed and alone.

Though it’s debatable what relatively meager-bodied Caspian, decked out in today’s magically generated offering of a wispy suggestion of a suit in burnt amber, might have to offer in the way of protection vis-à-vis purported stalwart masculinity. The gesture, he supposes, is what counts. (There are grosgrain rosettes running down his sleeves, and embroidery in gradients of gold at the cuffs, and the pockets are trimmed with vermilion lace and this magically shifting article of clothing hasn’t disappointed him yet but he really, really likes what it’s become today.)

He’s only met this youngest sister once before, and her name’s Nariath – right? Nariath? Or is that the one in the middle? – but she’s expecting him, and she was pleasant enough when they’d last seen each other and this favor is really the least he could do. He hadn’t bothered writing down the address – and maybe he should have, because when he knocks on the door he thinks it ought to be and lets himself inside, he realizes he may have stumbled upon something else entirely.

The thing is – it sort of looks like Saticath’s own home, as if he’d never left it, with its heady mélange of scents and powders and strains and suggestions, and the lushness in color and formation of every object occupying the room.

The woman who had welcomed him in isn’t someone he recognizes. But before his hesitation has him retracing his steps, the door swings shut behind him, all light and sound from the city suddenly dampened, giving him the sensation that this singular point in time, all its dimensions, its trappings, the woman at the table – even himself – are held and will be held together in voluminous, eminent arrest.

“Sorry, I –“ He glances over the room curiously. “What is this?”
Last edited by Caspian on June 24th, 2019, 10:04 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Chasing Tail

Postby Rohka on June 24th, 2019, 5:18 am

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“Oh hi!” The sybil emphasized the greeting with a voice so high-pitched that it made her question her own intentions. It’s a peculiar thing to become instantly lost in the elegance of presentation—in food, in rituals, in art galleries, even in homes—but what is most intriguing about presentation is its ability to strike at emotion.

And goodness, Rohka’s emotions were struck.

Although most would first cast their judgements upon one’s outfit, the sybil had at once caught sight of her guest’s deep green eyes. A colour that was held so close to her inner being, seeing those eyes in a fraction of a tick led to a quickening chain of internal effects as her own warm, earthen gaze explored over his complete form, without hesitation. Zero care or consideration had been given to his potential interpretation of her obvious, unabashed yet probably narrow analysis. ‘Narrow’ because the extent of what she saw simply resulted in her final assessment as being: Handsome, refined, confused. She knew, of course, that his appearance couldn’t possibly give her everything to know about him.

Yet. It was like a whisper within her, surprising her. The urge to know, the need for discovery with precision. In time. Again, the self-assuring thought, with the only self-explanation being the afterglow of Lelia’s consoling reassurance from earlier.

Roh’s cheeks tinged pink and knew she had no way to stop them from doing so. As the sybil eyed the intricacies of his tailored, well-made beauty of a piece of clothing, she lost focus on her own role as the keeper of shop. The initial greeting had only been followed with her grinning smile and flourishing hand, as if she meant to wave—but even her trailing fingers became lost in his presence. The other hand still held her cards, however. Since she’d been shuffling them, Roh hadn’t quite held them all together at once, and it was her cards that broke her short reverie as a few dropped on the table, slipping from her one-handed grasp.

She looked down, saw an upside down crown and a face holding coins, and it gave her pause.

“Ah-um,” she shot her eyes back up at the young man and decided to keep the startled insight to herself. The sybil never took anything for granted with her cards. They helped her. Every time. It was maddening, preposterous, illuminating, infuriating, and incredible almost every time, but they truly did. She could only ever point to the gods and to Rhysol himself for the knowledge she seemed to gain with them. Day by day. This specific card in this specific, brief moment told her of materialism and acquisition, of fire and earth, of feeling stuck and of… possessiveness?

Rohka let it be. She tried her best to re-set, to pretend she saw nothing, but it wouldn’t be too difficult for anyone to see that the sybil had quite the ravosala of thoughts riding through her mind. She kept the smile on and attempted her best at being polite and inviting,

“This is the Mystic Eye, your place to learn more about you,” she began, excitedly. This wasn’t a practised speech. She typically doesn’t say much to a potential client when they arrive, but today, she had the sense to add on a bit more to her welcome, since the young man came in seeming almost as if he didn’t know where he was. If that were true, she would explain.

“Allow us to help you understand whatever you need to find out. There are a number of fortune telling services we can provide, for a very reasonable number of coins! Now, I know Lelia was expecting someone, but she said it wouldn’t be for another bell. Are you here to see her? Or is there anything I can help you with?”

Rohka had spoken with a profuse number of hand gestures, and if a person wasn’t used to such a flair for simple theatrics, it would almost seem too much. Even the sybil realized how flamboyant she was being, but it was like she’d just wanted to either distract attention from her feelings within or draw attention to the craft itself. She hesitated a tick and spoke again before the young man could respond,

“Also, no need to apologize! You’re our first client of the day, see? And just for fun, that also means one free reading, if you like, from me,” She pointed to herself and tilted her head, still smiling. In her joy of introducing herself, she hadn't noticed that her scaled tail rose and pointed upwards at the sybil as well. It was almost as if she'd forgotten that it existed. As if it had already subconsciously (if not consciously) become so much a part of her being.

“I’m Rohka, and I’m Lelia’s apprentice here. Feel free to sit and I’d be happy to answer anything you would like to know about yourself,” she offered, her hand out, palm upturned. In her honest and selfish desire, the sybil truly thought it would be fun to read him after seeing the card that dropped on the table. She was afraid that her guest would turn and leave if he had not found what he was looking for. She was also afraid that Lelia would not approve of providing her services for free, but the sybil knew that a good partnership was based in belief.

Sometimes, belief needed to be earned.

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Chasing Tail

Postby Caspian on June 26th, 2019, 1:51 am

“No Leila on my mind,” Caspian replies, his lift in lilt and tilt of smile bearing the implication of something occupying his thoughts nonetheless, that something - or someone - featured in far more immediacy.

It’s easier for him to do this when prompted, when there’s kindling, when one’s hostess is staring with that roaming intensity and in a way he rather -

Petch. No better way of putting it other than he quite likes it.

Even as she fumbles.

Of the prompting, and the kindling, and the staring, it comes in droves. Of the last bit he’s really only got himself to blame, because even when graded against a Ravokian in the throes of carnival season saturation he’s already leaning towards the more dramatic end of the sartorial scale. In Sunberth these tendencies of his brought no reward - drawing attention to himself was a senseless death wish, the consequences beyond jeering, or ridicule, or even his stepfather’s violent contempt. It’s one of the reasons he likes it here in Ravok, why he finds it so internally abhorrent to consider upending the sanctity of his routine here, which had taken so much out of him to build. Over Sunberth, over his stepfather Taaldros, over his slovenly roustabouts and the facts of his past so shamefully written as if across his face, he will cling, at least for now, to the idea of Ravok - despite all its rituals and shrines and never-ending processions between each ecclesiastical destination, and the fogs of tritonal droning that follow. Despite, even, this most recent imposition of a curfew that he finds entirely antithetical to his core but found new justification in most recently as yesterday’s desiccation of a -

And that’s when he notices the tail.

To his own knowledge, though, it’s not enough to be a Dhani.

If she catches his gaping after it, it’s only fair the indulgence is granted.

Feedback, then, for the both of them - mutually locked in their indulgences if they choose it, mutual gain - even if fleeting, even if spurious, even if he never finds his way here again. There’s something to her that he’s immediately taken with, her earnestness a consequence of, despite her designated apprenticeship, an irrevocable emoting of the impression that this is precisely where she belongs. It’s something he’s never felt before, and growing further than his envy is that on her, it’s a lovely and resplendent thing to be.

Even with that tail, which seems in shade to beckon.

The bright thing is to leave, isn’t it? But what does Saticath expect - that he’s going to spend his day knocking on every door? He’ll make it up to her - and though the list of debts grows, she’s not even once demanded him of anything.

Except, arguably, that he walk Nariath to the doctor’s -

Oh, hang it. The hour of appointment comes and goes.

“Fun’s the only thing I rise for,” he says with a grin - and it’s telling, isn’t it, how much of an agony it isn’t when it comes to making up his mind if there’s amusement to be sought. “I’m Caspian,” he adds, crossing the room towards her and taking her hand, allowing himself to be directed wherever she might lead. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know where to begin - and more afraid of how easily you could make me look a fool.”

In touching, now, Rohka can doubtless feel the unnatural coldness that his body bears, and the light calluses on his left fingertips from years with his violin. The cold isn’t worrisome, perhaps a bit unusual and overt enough to be cause for jest, and to be at the end of the day explained by nothing more than a dearth of both morals and circulation - but with his features taking more pointedly after his proximally-Benshiran mother, it’s as if the temperature drop is his last but irrevocable remnant of having been born on Morwen’s blasted heath.

Avanthal’s far and away, though, and what’s here is him with the gold he’s winged across his eyes, and Rohka and that tail that seems to sway to a melody only she can hear.

Impulsively, he imagines what it would feel like wrapped around his throat, and involuntarily flushes at the thought.
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Chasing Tail

Postby Rohka on June 30th, 2019, 12:39 am

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Petch, he’s staring at this godsforsaken—

Rohka caught hold of her thoughts and they froze in her mind. She knew that her freakish accident of a tail would be the newest bane to her existence. She knew it would cause her to feel sick just thinking about it, having to convince herself that it was a blessing from Rhysol, like Lelia had said. It was much easier to see it as a cursed punishment but that was not what she told herself anymore. The sybil knew she could choose to feel differently, just as she knew she could always change the way she felt about almost anything. Lelia helped her see that today. Today and everyday after, she would remember to choose gratitude for the new appendage. It was to be seen as a gift and nothing less. The Gods were always in the right, especially Rhysol… right? Roh resolved to push aside thoughts of the Gods’ trickery, their confusing doings, and their indescribable existence.

With zero motivation nor ability to fight against the Gods’ will, why bother to think differently?

At least her craft helped her try to understand. There might not always be a logical explanation, but at least it was some tangible way to help her mind piece together a story. A story that would have the power to evoke truths in the past, the present, and the future. There was no way to call this magic. While auristics was definitely using ‘djed’, card reading never seemed to involve calling upon the forces around her. Unlike magic, reading a card was in no way transforming djed, nor was it ever as difficult as having to intensely focus in order to reveal what a card entails. In fact, reading cards required diffused thinking. Putting focus on a card could only ever result in a narrowed, constricted reading.

But if her guest wanted constriction…

Once again, Rohka had to get a grip on her mind’s flittering nature. It was a sybil’s tendency to take multiple paths when exploring an area of interest, and she could not help but follow her thoughts as the young man spoke and approached her. She only blinked and continued to smile at his first words, processing their meaning. He wasn’t here for Lelia. That’s good, that meant she could induct him into their trusted services. She supposed his own thoughts were occupied by something rather peculiar, then. Though the sybil was usually of the self-absorbed sort, when it came to her craft, she made it a habit to have her clients focus away from herself and onto the fortune-telling paraphernalia. Thus, at no point would she have clued into any suggestion that his thoughts were on Roh—but she definitely raised a brow a bit, grinning at the mention of rising for fun.

Because he clearly meant getting out of bed in the morning. Nothing more.

As he took her hand, she did indeed feel the rough, chilled skin sending the slightest shiver through her arm. If it hadn’t been covered with sleeves, he would’ve seen the goosebumps that rose in response to his introduction. Caspian. He said it with such simplicity and the sybil closed her eyes and nodded once, listening to his admittance of fear.

“Afraid?”

She looked up at him, blinking twice, her head tilting to the side with a questioning gaze. How could he possibly be afraid of their imminent exchange already? Rohka was still smiling of course, but her expression now held an ounce of worry that would be hard to completely hide away. The sybil squeezed his hand gently and rose out of her seat, beginning to walk around the table closer to him, still holding on. She noted the gilded wings just when his face flushed and she quickly let her eyes fall to his feet, worried once again of whether she was making her guest uneasy. It was partly the reason she decided to come closer to where he stood, wanting him to feel relaxed while he was here.

There were surely other reasons that Rohka wouldn’t admit to herself quite yet.

She’d left her cards on the table and was now standing in front of Caspian, her stature shorter than his, her dark gaze now looking back up into a face still reddened by thoughts she couldn’t read. With her free hand, she gestured to the seat beside them.

“Caspian, there’s no need to fear. Please, make yourself comfortable,” she began, fighting with herself to stay professional. A part of her just wanted to play, to socialize, to poke fun at him and bubble in laughter at both of their reactions. But they weren't at the Malt House, where that would be appropriate and rather welcomed. Right now, they were in her place of work. She knew she needed to keep some things serious. Or try to, at least. Truthfully, the sybil knew that she shared his fear. She too was afraid of making a fool of herself in front of him—not through her work, but through her sudden infatuation. The sybil figured that her craft could be her distraction as it always was.

She leaned back and let go of his hand, folding her own against her lap, barely sitting on the edge of the tabletop. Her tail came up to rest on her shoulder, and she glanced at it briefly. She had yet to really get used to the way her thoughts connected with the new appendage, but it seemed to follow absentmindedly, just as her hands did. She smiled and brought her attention back to her guest, knowing that she needed to entice his interest in the shop’s services.

“We can begin wherever your thoughts go first,” she said, her voice soft. A growing desire to have him spill every delicious secret within him made her look away for a tick before continuing.

“It can be about anything at all. Life, love, Leth even,” she giggled, imagining the mysteries one could learn from beneath his light.

“It can be about the past, the present, or even the future. Your first reading is simple and free, and you can choose between cards or dice. Cards will give you a nuanced reading, and your input will be through picking a few of the cards. For the dice, I will write you a list of twelve possibilities, where you are allowed to contribute half of them. We both roll a die, and the numbers plus the total will give you the answers you’re looking for.”

The second option was one that Rohka had barely tested yet. It was one that she had come up with recently, wanting to bring in more of her partner’s involvement, especially for those clients who wanted clearer, confined answers.

“We could even combine the two,” she exclaimed, beaming. The sybil figured her new methods would help a person feel more connected, knowing that they had participated in creating their fortune.

The sybil paused, then remembered the bit she always forgot to add.

“Your reading will always be strictly confidential. Nothing that gets said here will be repeated anywhere but here. Your story is safe with me, I promise.”

It had to be said. To Rohka, it was true. She always wanted her partners to trust her, and besides asking Lelia for advice on her readings, she never had any reason to repeat anything she learned from her parters. Lelia, however, was different. When Lelia speaks of confidentiality, she knew that the Divinist had always lied, despite her similar desire to have her clients trust her completely. Lelia’s connection to the Black Sun meant that nothing was ever truly just between her and her clients. The Divinist had her reasons for sharing info with the pious group, and Roh was not about to start questioning her mentor’s intentions.

“Caspian, I,” and she paused again, biting the inside of her lip in thought. Standing so close to him was getting a little difficult, watching the candlelight dance across his angled face. She would wait to hear what he wanted before walking back to her seat on the other side of the table. There was only one last thing to tell him.

“I am happy to answer any questions you may have,” she stressed the ‘any’ as she crossed her bare legs, pleasantly content.

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Chasing Tail

Postby Caspian on July 4th, 2019, 11:59 am

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The first thing that comes to mind to ask her is if she makes everyone feel this way, with her heliocentric revolutions and sudden nearness, and him at the center as her gauzy, glossy star. The earnestness with which she speaks paired with the directness of her gaze make him feel as if he’s the veritable crux of something, and even if he were in doubt to falter, she’s enough conviction and belief in it for the both of them.

Closer to the curious tail now, Caspian can discern the arcs of its flickering, how it refracts and filters the light around each scale’s rim, the effect a long, wavering melt. With only half his blood Vantha, Caspian’s never shimmered, any verdancy to be found in his green eyes held in permanent arrest, his black hair left in the same voided coarseness as when he’d been born. Counterintuitively, his conspicuous dullness had caused him to stand out as a child in Avanthal, where it seemed that everything but him refracted in infinite effortlessness, degrading the legitimacy of his connection to his father even as he stood by his side in the halls of Snowsong Hold.

So there’s another thing he envies of the charming president of the present domain, the warmth and deliberation of her touch of which he’s now bereft - her serpent’s tail, in its embodiment of nights, from the iceborn to the balmy, the furtive to the restless, the shades of onset twilight to the hour just before the rising of the morning lark.

The point from which it swivels - if his eyes follow the winding path of it, from tip to base -

Counterintuitively, again, is looking precisely where one has identified one shouldn’t. But without the table between them, he can sense the muffled rustles of her skirt to each of the tail’s inclinations, and his wonder strays to the spot to which it must anchor.

And if it’s as lissom as the rest of her -

“As you might have already divined,” Caspian replies, folded as he is through his organza haze, “I’m in the habit of going overboard when I probably needn’t. Let’s have the lot of it, then, the cards and the dice.”

With ready compliance, he takes the seat she offers, crossing one leg over the other in jaunty mirroring of her own lithe perch. From this position, his pointed shoes are on display, the magical suit manifesting in gleaming leather the color of golden sands, banded by metallic strips that arc over the heels and toes in geometric compliment to the embroidery along his sleeves.

At her assurances of discretion, he settles back in languid lean. “I doubt any of me is worth retelling. Well - I suppose I can think of a few things, so you’ll have to do your utmost to keep mum.” With a ribbing grin, he adds, “I can promise you quite the same - that everything you might be so compelled to do or say stays between you and I.”

There’s the question, then, of where to begin.

The benefit of a stranger, perhaps, is that one can undertake both nothing and everything.

“How much longer can I stay in Ravok?” On the surface, it’s an innocuous handling of a topic more enormous than the city itself, reaching past the perimeters of the Lakeshore and the wildlands beyond, greater than the present continent and what the eye can see. The wording of it is more revealing than he intends, and upon realizing this, he goes on, in self-conscious attempt to both clarify and conceal. “I feel it, that something may coerce and compel me away. I suspect - I have reason to suspect I may not be happy here. But I think I could be, if only I knew the way. So if you might help me find it, what I could do here to make myself feel more of it -“ He falters. “Unless this isn’t the place I’m meant to be at all. Is there any stock to be had in thinking of things that way? Suppose I decide I want things one way or another, and I want them quite badly - does an active striving, and one armed with what you can dowse prove or prevent?”

He crosses his arms, the sleeves of his airy approximation of a suit sheering and taut against his limbs.

“That aside, I’d be more than fluffed if you’d tell me where I might find my next cheap thrill, or for a change one deep and lasting, and if my fated expiration is a relative tomorrow. If the date of my death can’t be claimed with any precision, I’d like to know how I might figure its coming, and dodge it. Not forever, but for the sake of one final satisfaction.”
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Chasing Tail

Postby Rohka on July 15th, 2019, 4:37 am

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“Oh wow, that’s a lot of questions Cas!”

The sybil had been listening and nodding the entire time he spoke, carefully noticing the way he formed his words, the modulations in his tone, the pensive quality to all that he’d laid out thus far. Even the modesty, in thinking that he’s in any way going ‘overboard’, or that his story was in some way insignificant, when she was more than sure that it wasn’t. It almost felt as if he feigned the modesty, but Rohka quickly dismissed the thought, realizing she might just be judging the young man too quickly. But as she followed his gaze she began to see that her guest was indeed not unlike most men with their visual intrigue. She was surprised to realize that she felt perfectly at ease—he’d followed her new pseudo-limb to the area that she’d at once felt self-conscious of when the initial trauma and tears began to settle. It was like his eyes had began to rebuild her sense of self-esteem. The sybil was oddly glad.

It just proved Lelia right: Rhysol knew best.

When he’d finished expressing his series of wishes, Rohka shook her head, the grin on her face so wide and pure that it would seem almost lunatic to those who didn’t know that this was her form of excitement. This job had always given her the means to listen and learn in ways that she never dared to do back home on the Lakeshore. Everyone on the Lakeshore had their business, their issues, their gossip, their relationships—everyone knew everyone, in some way, shape, or form. Conversations were either light and social or deep and complicated. Here, at The Mystic Eye, conversations were a perfect combination of both: light and complicated.

And the best part was that she rarely, if ever, needed to share much about herself. It wasn’t part of the job.

Still, she found it much more effective when a potential partner felt comfortable with her. There were ways she’d discovered going about this. One of her favourite ways involved giving nicknames—it worked to get the job, at least.

“We’ll start right away. I’ll grab my quill and write down your questions so we won’t lose track. Now luv,” and she paused for a tick on the way back to her seat behind the table. ‘Luv’ was her common way to address all guests, but using it now felt extra playful, in a way that she’d hoped would garner an even deeper sense of familiarity. The sybil knew that she could sometimes take things a bit too far. She was so glad for his promise of trustworthiness so early in their budding acquaintance. Roh felt at once so safe in knowing this—so completely appreciative of his offer, knowing full well that she would most likely never take advantage of it in this first meeting. She knew that most times, her feeling of closeness never matched the feeling on the other end. Most times, her means of creating a connection were superficial at best and downright shallow at worst. A part of her knew this, but never wanted to believe it. She enjoyed creating connections with her guests, her partners. She knew it made for the best readings. She also knew just how distant she kept herself away from others. Her true self. She hated spending time pondering the matter.

Besides, there was no point. Rohka had her reasons.

“Is there something wrong with Ravok?” The sybil asked the question as she sat down. The grin stayed present on her lips. Before he could answer, Roh continued.

“Now I know this thing that happened recently might seem a bit shocking to most people, but come on! We all know that Rhysol has his ways, and that it’s all a blessing in disguise, right? I wouldn’t worry. I definitely started to worry, as I’m sure you’re doing right now, but let me help you see exactly why and how you have nothing to worry about. It's possible we might learn something that could disturb us, but I highly doubt it. It would definitely turn into a very seriously somber reading for the both of us if we discover a terrible matter about Ravok, but it’s truly unlikely, and hasn’t happened in all the time that I’ve been an apprentice, just so you are aware, okay? Let’s see here, your first question: ‘How much longer can I stay in Ravok?’” She began to write.

“Since this was the first question, it will hold the most weight over the reading. The questions after that were spurred by the first, and will thus be written as points underneath, like branches from the trunk of your question tree!”

Rohka kept writing as she spoke, making sure to look up at Caspian every once in a while to catch his line of sight, observing any and all expressions, yet speaking at a rate so clumsily quick in speed and excitement that it would be hard to get a word in.

“So Cas, if I heard you correctly, you want to know the way to be happy. Under this, you want to know if it would work to actively strive towards this way. You then, beautifully if I may add, asked where you would find ‘A’ your next cheap thrill, or ‘B’ something deep—which then sparked the lovely question of when you will die, which is truly the best and hardest one for me to answer, but since it was asked from the trunk right here,” she pointed to the capitalized question, “your answer will fall forth accordingly. And oh! Cas! This is perfect, since you asked your questions in this way, we can split them! So we have three branches to this tree. We’ll chop off two with the dice and one with the cards. The first two will be perfect for the dice. We’ll leave death to the cards, because they’ll surely give you a more nuanced, symbol-filled answer that will help the most to put you at ease with the answer. Alright, as promised, I’ll write six answers, and then I’ll pass this over to you, and you can write your own six answers. I’ll pray first, have a moment of silence to collect myself, and then I’ll simply be guided to inscribe a few outcomes. Feel free to do the same when I hand this piece of parchment over to you, or you can devise your own method of divining your fortune. We are doing this together because I want you to have a sense of control, okay? Let me know if you want me to clarify anything and I’ll gladly do so.”

The sybil finally allowed room for words, and during this time, she began to write out anything that came to mind. It took her all of about two to five chimes to turn the parchment over to Caspian. In that time, she’d hummed, she’d tapped her foot, she’d looked all around the room, she’d even seemed as if she was looking right past the door, lost in thought. At times it would’ve seemed like she scratched something out, and re wrote something. Her brows kitted together for some ticks, her eyes widened at other moments, and the ink from her quill had somehow gotten to mark the side of her chin, purely from the amount of impatience and determination in her absentminded movements. Finally, feeling satisfied, she blew on the piece of parchment to help the ink dry and handed it to her guest.

A guest that was about to become a partner. Partners in telling this fortune.

“Ready?”


The Mystic Eye
A reading by Rohka

HOW MUCH LONGER CAN I STAY IN RAVOK?
    - Find the way to be happy
    - Find (A) cheap thrill or (B) deep thrill
    - Find out time of death + prevention of death

Answer:
  1. You will be compelled to leave immediately
  2. You will be coerced into staying in Ravok this season for the new few seasons to come
  3. In the next few days, you will find that your happiness is divinely provided to you
  4. It will take many seasons before you determine the way to find create your joy
  5. A thrill is a chase, your happiness will take flight and then perish, but not in vain
  6. Your happiness will last a lifetime, only when you transform your strength weakness


When he was finished writing down his answers and clarifying anything he needed to know, the pair found themselves interrupted by a knock at the door.

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Chasing Tail

Postby Caspian on August 4th, 2019, 2:44 am

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The ready abbreviation of Caspian’s name has him propping an elbow on the table with his chin upon his palm in reciprocal ease; the subsequent sobriquet all the more welcome.

As Rohka scribbles, he regards her with a fond flight of a smile. Of all things - and all her merits, of which she has many, in aesthetics and genialities alike - he finds himself fixating on the fluttering of her lashes to and fro, as she swivels her gaze from one line to the next.

The tail rotates and flexes as with her wrist, as if one were the marionette, though it seems to deviate at some points as if it might disagree with what’s just been inscribed - and if it had its way, would it make the prescriptions as virulent as its coruscations, as foreboding as its portentous sways in the darkness, as haphazard as its effortless filtering between shade and light? It seems to loom to him, and in the next seamless moment, turns playful and callow - but always knowing more than him, already in arrival, in possession of some clearer and deeper truth that he’s not even yet sought, and that it’s not quite made up its mind as to whether it will divulge.

And at its end is Rohka, in her glorious fervor, the hierophant of him, of everything and all.

Of prophetic power and trade, he makes no claims - but he can see her now, as vividly as if it might already be actualized, some years ahead and not so distant, in which she is apprentice and student no longer, and maybe with one of her own. Wile and guile, prose refined, conversational beats so tightly attuned to those she reads that she has them sharing more than they even knew they had within and in that way, carrying themselves through half the labors and being none the wiser for it.

She’s lovely too, in these waking imaginings, a rosy razor’s edge.

When she hands him the quill and slides the parchment across the table to him, he hesitates. Her penmanship’s quite fair, any variation or error in scrawl only adding to what comes together in a pleasingly long slant that’s of like embodiment of her as a whole.

The momentary pause and near-imperceptible but not entirely invisible creasing of his brow stem less from possible trepidation at the outcomes he might himself wring - and instead from the fact that his own script is something only very belatedly developed.

By the age of 12, Caspian had had as much a grasp on Vantha musical shorthand as could be expected, less of the longhand, and a progressively reduced handle on written Common, the very latter suffering from the standard clumsiness of adolescence. There had been very little occasion for reading or writing in his stepfather’s company in Sunberth - if one could add one miza to another and carry on a legible tally on parchment - well, one didn’t need much more than that, did they, and besides numeration, threats of violence committed to paper and ink if the situation called for it only ever needed so much vocabulary and space.

But that part of him had won out in the end, the one wishing he had been born elsewhere, raised anywhere, raised in the first place - elegant and sophisticated and belonging to a class of distinction, and different and better. So he’d cultivated it in concert with the rest of his affectations, writing with quill and ink, pointedly and methodically and only rather lately, and he can do it but it’s better if he can take his time with it and best if no one’s watching.

It hadn’t been an entirely frivolous endeavor either - in his line of work, secrets just look better when one can depict them in flourish.

There’s none of the security of solitude here - and if there’s another mode of operation he’s made an effort to learn, it’s rolling with the present.

And looking pretty good while doing it.

So he’s got the quill and parchment now, accepting the burden of cosmic tread with a warm wink for his host.

“I have to say I wonder if this isn’t all some neat trick. I find it preposterous they keep someone like you behind a desk, in the dark,” Caspian says, his tone light so she might catch his jest.

In mucking about with Saticath, he’d missed the eruption of yesterday by a cool mile. Drinking the both of them under the table had kept them squarely indoors when the rest of the city went to havoc and rage - or better yet, rage and then havoc? - and he wonders, now, had the night developed otherwise, if he might this afternoon have a shimmering tail of his own.

Or, from what he’d witnessed on the way here, an outcome less compelling and far from favorable.

Taalviel, in any case, can leave off just this once from chiding him for his latest bender.

Having been pleasantly occupied with watching Rohka’s gestures and increasing exuberance and even the charming slash-and-dash splotch of ink on her chin, he hadn’t premeditated any of the outcomes as she’d prompted. For a brief moment, it occurs to him to write the preposterous, adopt a persona that isn’t his own and delineate futures that belong to some other. What might he write if he were any of the host of characters he’s played? The chef’s lackey, the waiter starched stiff, the painter dipped in blue, any of the iterations of by-side sycophant and flowery fete fawner?

Rolling with it, though - maybe better to defer to instinct here, rather than agonize? And he’d rather not have anyone witness how his less practiced hand might physically waver - he adds his scraps to the list in following.

7. Ravok is where you will spend the rest of your days
8. Your greatest thrill is right around the corner
9. Your next passing interest will come to occupy you for a lifetime
10. Happiness is where you left it
11. Happiness can only come at the expense of others
12. You will mistake a fleeting fancy for happiness; the consequence will be disaster


Though none of them have yet to arm themselves as something to revere or fear, it’s a weight off him, somehow, to set the lot of it down. The manifestation alone has a touch of the cathartic - his anxieties could be crumpled where they lie, set ablaze or lost to the tides - or shoved into his pocket and simply forgotten.
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Chasing Tail

Postby Rohka on August 19th, 2019, 9:06 pm

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An overwhelming sadness took over, when Caspian said what he did. Rohka blinked and forced a smile, catching the jest and dropping it, just as quickly.

It would be impossible for him to know how hard that statement hit her. It was so simple too, alluding to her position here, at a desk, playing to the craft she was building, wanting desperately to be providing meaning and truth and direction, while praying it wasn’t all for naught. There was no denying that she had felt the same way before - that these methods and this art probably served only to trick a partner into an action in line with her reading, her telling, her carefully crafted story. The feeling had often spiralled into thoughts of inadequacy, of wondering whether this job was really worth her time. The sybil’s selfishness has often gotten her thinking that she could run this business on her own instead, if only she had the level of skills and knowledge that Lelia had. The coin was certainly beneficial, and was better than the jobs she had in the past, but Caspian’s words sparked the oft burning fire of desire for more.

Whatever ‘more’ meant.

Rohka shook her head, wanting to respond to him so that he wouldn’t feel as though his words were taken harshly. She knew she wasn’t a good actor, and that her smile would’ve surely come across awkwardly at best.

“Is it truly preposterous?” She asked, only wishing to question his reasoning. The young man seemed so poised, so put-together and thoughtful that she figured there was more to his words than simply a veiled compliment. It was of course easier for herself to bury her mind in her self-doubts, but she was curious to understand what it was that made a stranger see her in such a light. Was he simply being kind? Did he mean to say she looked like she belonged elsewhere? Rohka picked up the silver dice and rolled them between her fingers as she thought for a tick, and then continued to speak her mind.

“Cas, I love what I do behind this desk. I find myself wondering why I do it sometimes, and the answer boils down to the fun of it, and for the chance to help people see things in new ways. Is it enough for me? Gods, I don’t know. No one is forcing me to be here, you know. I left my family to be here. If there’s anywhere that I would’ve been kept in the dark, it would be in my family, under the guise of protecting us. But the truth is, as far as this job goes, it’s hard for me to know if I’m earning enough for what I do, or if I’m doing enough for what I earn. Lelia will definitely be on my literal tail about my skills soon. I haven’t been as helpful as she would like me to be, recently. I’m letting her have extra time to conduct her personal business, which is great for her, but she’s expressed so much concern over the future of The Mystic Eye. I want to get better at this, I really do. She’s more connected than I am, and experienced too, so maybe me being behind a desk for now is just what I need to get to wherever I should actually go. Who knows. Rhysol probably does,” she chuckled to herself. The sybil hadn’t meant to go on for so long talking about herself, but she felt she needed to explain. It wasn’t much. Her words were far less than she would have spewed if they’d met at a tavern or The Malt House, but this was her place of work, and the young man expressed some level of concern. So she thought it best to answer with care.

“Honestly, Cas, you’re not alone,” she paused and dropped just one die. It rolled a four. She briefly glanced at the sheet she made for Caspian and took in what it said:

It will take many seasons before you determine the way to find create your joy.

The sybil brought her dark gaze back to Caspian and picked up the single die once more, returning to twirling the dice around and around between her thumb and index finger, using the middle to balance the act. She hoped that it would just look like an accident. That her intentional and selfish check wouldn’t be called out. Rohka sighed and shrugged.

“Sometimes, I wonder if its all a trick as well,” she said, vulnerably. “Our lives, even. How can one know so much about the past, the present, and the future of a person? To what extent are our lives so intertwined with each other and with nature itself for people like myself and Lelia to be able to bring you a service that lays out our truths? I’ve bothered Lelia before, with questions like these. Our conversations usually end with her reminding me that our services bring benefits that people are willing to pay for, especially when told that everything comes with Rhysol’s blessings. So I guess that even if this trade is a trick, whether by us or by our saviour himself, it doesn’t matter as long as it works. Our dedicated, devout, and darling clients trust us so much so that our methods aren’t a bother. Why? Because they work, trick or treat.”

At the last word, Rohka offered a grin, feeling her tail swivel over to her side. She willed it to rest in her lap and brought her other had down to feel the surface with her palm. Gently, she smoothed over the scales, feeling the initial slick pattern, then recognizing the warmth as her own. It seemed to relax herself. She continued to caress the strange limb as she spoke and watched Caspian write down his answers.

“I don’t know about you, Cas, but I find that I’m always learning a new trick about our lives. For instance, have you heard about auras? Lelia began to teach me how to see them. There’s a lot of information hidden in this world, Caspian. Things that we can trick ourselves into seeing more clearly.”

The sybil nodded to herself when he’d finished writing his answers and then handed him the dice. She ignored the knock at the door, since it wasn’t quite loud enough, nor did it sound too urgent.

Besides, this reading was surely far more important.

“Ready to see for yourself, luv?”

oocCaspian rolled 1d12 and got a 4. I rolled 1d12 and got a 10. We decided to say that we both rolled doubles.

Caspian rolled a pair of twos. An elated gasp escaped her lips and she quickly grabbed the dice. She rolled a pair of fives. Her eyes now sparkled with an exuberance reserved only for the beauty of synchronicity, and it spurred her to dart over to her cards. She picked one and told Caspian to pick one as well, reminding him to think of the time and prevention of death. The two cards were pulled out from the deck and placed face down beside the sheet of parchment, waiting to be flipped. The sybil first began with the numbers, and wrote out her explanation while stating it to her partner.

“These numbers are incredible, luv. It’s so rare to roll doubles, and to see us both roll doubles means that this is a strong calling, with a two-sided answer. The trunk of your fortune tree was the question of how much longer you can stay in Ravok, and these dice are meant to tell you both the way to be happy and where your thrill will come from. You rolled a pair of twos, which together equals a four. You have answered the first branch of your tree, which is that it will take you many seasons before you determine the way to create your joy. You could also see this as a warning, coming from the second answer, in that you will be coerced into staying in Ravok for the next few seasons to come.

“As for your second branch, it seems that it beautifully ties into the first branch, as the total of my pair of fives comes to ten. Your tenth fortune that you created says here that happiness is where you left it. Where did you leave your happiness, Cas? Well, if we take it to come from the fifth answer, we read that a thrill is a chase, and your happiness will take flight and then perish, but not in vain. Such an answer ties into your third branch almost poetically, as we will see what it is that will determine the time and prevention of this perishable nature.”

With a smooth swoop, the sybil flipped the two cards over. She crinkled her nose and leaned forward a bit more to stare into the images, unsure at first of what she was seeing. She hummed and uttered a silent ‘shhh’, allowing herself to focus on the cards. She willed herself to think of what Lelia had said earlier, glancing at the edges and squinting as well, feeling for the djed of the cards as best as she could.

Nothing.

Not a single ounce of a reading came to her. A growing panic gnawed at her insides and she immediately looked up at Caspian. She brought a finger up to her lips and signalled for his silence as she stared at him.

She watched his edges now, and then back to the card he’d chosen. It was a King of Wands, looking proud and passionate. He knows himself well and is meant to be a passionate lover, enjoying excitement, competition and challenges. But what could this possibly mean about death. Rohka squeezed her eyes shut for a tick and then looked back at her partner. She traced his outline with her eyes and felt something akin to rain beginning to pour over her skin. Instinctively she wiped down her arms but then felt cooled down a tad, and then the air around Caspian seemed to blur and undulate, ever so slightly.

It was at this point that she looked back down at the cards and noticed the salamander in the background. The coolness in the air then spoke to her, connecting it to the cold-blooded creature. She then brought her attention back to Caspian and felt an invisible, glowing heat. That was when she remembered that this was a fire card. Things started to click right then, and she picked up her quill to write it down. The almost hallucinatory experience left her feeling exhausted, but the sybil was relieved to have found something to say, at last.

“Luv, bear with me, please. Death is never a topic that one can speak about with accuracy, but I will do my best. I used a bit of what Lelia taught me, and I will try to explain what it is that I saw. Your aura contains a ton of what I can only describe as ignition. You see, the time of your death, or rather, the coming of your death will be at a moment when you are in fact, so passionate and fiery in your expression of authenticity that it will smoulder within until you impulsively take a major risk. However, the salamander here speaks so loudly. You’re advised to take on the temperature of your environment, to adapt and bask in contemplation under the sun.”

Rohka took a look at the second card now. The one that she’d picked. This one was easier to read.

“Here we have a two of swords, which tells me that the prevention of your death is actually a decision that you will put off on deciding due to uncertainty. You want to be informed of all the possible facts, and in that desire, you seem to be ignoring your emotions on the matter. The advice here is simply to look deeper into your truths and prevent your doom through ceasing to compartmentalize aspects of your life. See this blindfold over the eyes? You will not see your death clearly right now because you are denying aspects of truth. This is common. Most of us aren’t willing to face our death, you see. I honestly think that it’s brave of you to be here and discover something that the rest of your peers are too scared to find.”

There was time now for the two of them to discuss anything that Caspian needed clarity on. She would hand him the completed parchment with the answers circled and all of her most significant points jotted near the bottom. Rohka only hoped that the free reading was enough of a sample for the young man to return to their services if he ever needed something more in depth.

Suddenly, there was an angry pounding against the front door.

“Is Caspian in there?" The muffled question caused Rohka to freeze her movements. "I heard your voice!!”

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Chasing Tail

Postby Caspian on September 26th, 2019, 3:43 am

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Happiness is where he left it?

Has he left happiness at his bedside table, then? Did he inadvertently abandon it while funneling his energies into making a fuss over fulfilling a favor asked by a friend? Has he, in fact, left it there not just this morning but every morning - does it tip and topple as he does when he wanders out for a night or drags his addled mind back in - does it slide across his room and beneath his bed, duck into his closets, peer at itself in his mirror before drowning itself in his basin?

And in his having left it - does it wait for him still, or is it as petty and beating as he can sometimes be, and did it in retribution leave too?

It cannot be Sunberth - unless it is. Unless he has torn it himself and scattered it, and left it more than once, in several places, and by chance the pit and the refuse and the stench has caught a shred of it in its maw. The idea of having ever been happy there, or of finding it there after the lengths he had gone to leave, is preposterous - but precisely the opinion Taalviel has been trying to sidle towards him ever since she appeared.

In his mind Avanthal yet looms, flurries swelling into silent storms, opalescent lights above strung into channels of serpents’ rage.

The doubles, too, are truly something to behold upon the table; even a drunken blaggard would see cause to holler. But with Rohka’s touch they exceed any amusements of chance - they resonate to sidereal heights, as if either of them knew this would happen, as if they had planned it, as if this is precisely what was wanted and the both of them had wanted it at exactly the same time.

Through the duration of the explanation of the dice they’d rolled, Caspian had kept his eyes trained downwards, at the dice themselves, to the table darkened by the close quarters and near shutters, then the slim hand inscribing what are just words but rise like monuments, all-encompassing and their existence immutable. Just as he succumbs to glancing up at Rohka, she’s looking intently at him too, with an expression he can’t quite parse. Of all things he should bear some competency towards, deciphering motivation and provocation ranks quite high - but what she sees in him in that moment escapes him.

At this point, too, is when he realizes he’s been holding his breath - and he goes on holding it until she points out the salamander, which he’d sworn would not have merited mention - but it does, of course, everything in their shared minimal space a result of consequence and action and inaction and reaction, and -

“Any courage from me, historically, is fairly accidental,” he says when she’s through. But it comes out weaker than he’d normally tease back in playful snip, the immediate recounting of the response in his head revealing itself to being perhaps too revealing, of one who may in fact reflect more on himself than he cares to admit - because it’s no fun and no good, is it, to bear the undercurrent of anything less than ebullient optimism, and far less good to inflict it on someone he’s just met.

And a lovely someone at that.

“You’ve -“ He swallows thickly. They’re all just ideas, aren’t they? Abstractions pulled from the air and woven by her careful ministrations into parchment beneath ink. But they sew themselves into a past he cannot shake, one he in silence and smoke untangles nightly.

“It’s a lot to think about,” he says. “Thank you. I...”

Beyond him and the table and her left shoulder, the dark tail glistens and gleams. The sight of it’s a revitalizing jolt - not an entire heart-starting bolt but enough to spark the remembrance of who he is when he isn’t facing down the prospect of death in creative illustration.

There’s the slick ramshackle grin again, the one that pairs well with his gossamer getup and shoes that shine brighter than mizas themselves.

“It’s a labor, I know, dealing with me - and I’d be a villain not to try and make it up to you. Indulge me for a bit, then, and tell me if there isn’t just the slightest sliver of a chance you’d come back with me to the, well, Silver Sliver once you’re through today with -“

The interruption he certainly doesn’t need nor ask for makes itself known. As if the establishment is a domicile of his own - and knowing better than to stall further - he responds to the call with a grand sweeping-open of the door. Before he can find out whether his appeal to Rohka’s free time had been better left unsaid, Saticath in all her heaving and whirling drags him out across the threshold and away, and his parting words to Rohka dilute instead to one last apologetic grin and an airy wave.

For the rest of the afternoon, Saticath berates him mercilessly. Given the circumstances - in this case, his most recent incidentally willful negligence - he has no room to feel offense. Nor can he, even if he tries - his thoughts preoccupied that day and the next, straying to the vision of a sibyl flickering like a dark star through the lake’s eastern gloom.
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Caspian
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Joined roleplay: August 12th, 2018, 11:26 pm
Location: Sunberth
Race: Human, Mixed
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