[Flashback] Stories Shared and Things Learned [Nasilia]

[Velarian Zantedeschia]

Season of Spring, Day 37, 509 AV
Location: Blue Grotto

"And I believed everyone had heard about it already." The voice of a young woman echoed through the grotto. Reflected from the black and white limestone, the whisper rung louder than it would usually have.

"Hearing does not mean believing," someone sneered. The second female sounded older, although she could not have been the other ones senior by more than two or three years. Both voices bore a certain similarity in tone and modulation which suggested kinship. Two cousins maybe. Or two sisters even. It was hard to tell.

"You think the rumor's just that, gossip?," the young girl asked again, her words hinting a certain disappointment. She must have liked the tattle, but that did not really come as a surprise. In a remote location like Kalinor hearsay was one of the few things which proved an ever changing form of entertainment to young and old alike. To some residents these whispers were far more interesting than the tidings hunters and harvesters brought from the above.

The older woman snort again. "People talk, they exaggerate."

"Truth told, I did find it a little odd," the first voice confessed. "Who would turn down a surrogate like that just because you do not like the color of her eyes?" A pause. "Have you seen her?"

"No. Some Chaktawe girl, is she not?"

"That she is. Broad hipped and docile like a cow I heard. Eyes as black as a starless night around the midnight hour though."

"There are worse traits..."

Velarian pushed away from the stalagmite he had been leaning against. Behind him the sounds of gossip faded, the two woman heading deeper into the cavern. The animator looked around. Tonight the blue grotto was thriving with activity. Men and women walked among pools so clear one could see the bottom, chatting and gossiping and talking about family business. Few paid him attention yet those who did rose a hand in greeting or stopped for a brief exchange of pleasantries. They asked how he was doing, if his son was well and if his sister would be on the market in the morrow. No one asked about his work. Many knew or at least guessed he was dabbling with the arcane, but it was a topic others did rarely inquired on. Magic made some people nervous.

Watching a group of younger Symenestra walk past him, the older man turned to head deeper into the cavern himself. In search for a more quiet place Velarian slipped past a couple of stalagmites, sitting down beside a small basin. It wasn't until a second later he noticed the presence of the younger woman.

Eyes the color of dark rubies darted towards the girl. Her face was familiar and still he failed to remember her name. He inclined his head in a greeting gesture. "Good evening. I don't believe we have met so far, or did we? My name is Velarian. Of the Zantedeschia web. Son of Andavel." A moment he watched her. "Hope I did not intrude." Again he paused. "I can leave if you prefer."

[Nasilia]

Nasilia was an introvert by nature, and she couldn't stand the grotto sometimes simply for all the noise. But she had to come out here and see to his her brother off to some meeting of which she didn't know the details of. Why her father wanted him escorted, she didn't know, but she had an inkling it had to do something with her search, perhaps a sense of keeping the family close since the loss of the mother of the home. She was still out there somewhere...hopefully still alive.

She waved him goodbye and sighed, folding her arms as she thought about her last trip. She couldn't say it was a total loss, but with how things were going, her main prize was well out of her grasp, and it weighed heavily on her heart. That Dhani...

Her thoughts were interrupted by a male who seemed to have recognized her from before. She had no doubt he did, she was naturally aloof and greeted people with an absent mind sometimes. She gave him a quick glance all over to see if she recognized him, which of course she didn't. She barely caught his name and confounded title, and she wondered if she liked or disliked such formalities. She imagined what it would be like if he wasn't...she supposed it was better to be formal.

Nasilia was silent for a moment before saying, "Hello...I'm Nasilia. It's a pleasure to meet you...um..were you here to see my brother? I know he has business today, and I just saw him on his way, so if you were looking for him I'm sorry but you just missed him."

[Velarian Zantedeschia]

A long moment the man was silent, merely looking the young woman over. Belated Velarian shook his head. "Just came here to see who is about, eventually meet a few familiar faces." The grotto was not his preferred place to do business. While usually quiet, you had to half whisper when you did not want your words to echo through the cavern for others to hear. There were no tables nor proper seats to sit down and discuss, making the location thinkable unsuited for such endeavors. Few people who came here to talk about trade or crafts, instead they came to relax, to chat and enjoy the atmosphere.

"Have to admit I don't even know who your brother is." The young woman had not mentioned the name of her family, making it all the harder for the animator to connect her to a certain web. It was quite possible he knew her brother. That he had seen him in passing, even that he had talked with him at some occasion or another, yet if that was the case he could not link his face to the young woman before him. When he had mentioned the name of his own web and even his father, he had not done so because he felt a need for formalities – instead one might have heard a little pride in his voice. His family was neither influential nor rich. He doubt his web was among those people considered important for the city, and still, he had no reason to feel ashamed of his ancestry.

"But eventually you want to enlighten me?," Velarian suggested with the shadow of a smile. "Your name does sound familiar." It certainly struck a chord with him, only because he had met her before or because someone had mentioned her name he was unable to tell. Thoughtful he watched her, two seconds, three, then he suddenly seemed to recall something.

"Hm, have you not been looking for your mother? Who went missing?," he had heard something of the sort, the way you always seem to hear about such rumors – they slowly tickled down the grape vine. The animator could not recall any details, not even when the woman had gone missing. Or what had happened exactly. Gossip did not usually interest him, but the story had been uncommon enough for him to memorize. Women died in Kalinor. Either because of age or more likely after they gave birth and sometimes a surrogate managed to kill herself. However women rarely just vanished from their homes.

"My condolences." All of a sudden he sounded sober, more so than before. His own mother had died giving birth to him and his father had never married. Andavel had always deemed his studies of the arcane more important than marriage. He had sired three children, had lead the family as everyone expected him to, had done a good work doing so even, but there had been many things he had shown little interest in. Finding comfort in the presence of a woman was just one of them. Still, Velarian could understand what it meant to loose family.

"I should really leave you to your musings," he said slowly, not yet rising.

[Nasilia]

Nasilia winced slightly at the mention of her mother, still listening to the man speak after that. Shooing him away like that would be somewhat rude though she did have some desire to be alone. She did the formal thing and said, "My mother was kidnapped. By who, I don't know. Where is she now, I especially don't know. That's a mission I've already failed anyways." It wasn't her biological mother but a stepmother obviously, no one's mother ever survived, and if they did they were most likely dead giving birth twice. No one would turn away a womb for Symenestra children despite the woman's suffering, but she accepted it with a little grace as she had grown up learning that it was necessary and that the population had to be preserved.

She finally heard him say that he was going to leave her to her musings. Despite being connected to the web, she was rather aloof, not as attached as she would appear to be. She was apathetic in most ways save the very few that mattered such as her mother, and the one task she placed upon herself to prove her worth she had already failed. She supposed someone who was inept to begin with wouldn't have found her successfully anyways, that things would have ended up this way on their own accord.

Nasilia did at least mention, "My last name is Fern; people find it odd sounding but that may be simply be a consequence of breeding into odd folk, I am not sure. My brother is trying to follow in my father's footsteps as he is a priest. I just take care of the home really; I'm not that interesting so I simply assume that anyone who wants to speak with me simply want to talk to one of the men. I don't really have much to do today like most days."

[Velarian Zantedeschia]

Velarian nodded when the young woman talked about her mother. He had not expected her to know where the older Symenestra was held captive and then spend her time idly chatting in the blue grotto. While the woman had to be past twenty and beyond her child bearing days it was hard to imagine no one was looking for her. Their people were too few to not mourn the loss of every single individual lost to the fold, no matter age nor gender.

"I take it is your brother's turn to trying his luck now? I hope he is successful," the animator offered with the slightest hint of a smile. Understanding lingered in his ruby eyes as he watched the young woman speak. She did not seem your typical adventurer and yet she had traveled the world above to find someone she had little chances to find. Kalinor was an impressive city, but small compared to magnitude of settlements and lands under the sun.

Although he had wanted to go, the man remained sitting. The woman had continued talking, without mentioning if she would rather have him stay or go, but he felt at least her last words deserved a response. "Someone has to have an eye on the home too, it is an important task." Again a smile crossed his face. "Take myself for an example. I work as an animator and I would like to think people appreciate my work. That said, I am sure what you do is more important to the city." While hunters and harvesters were renowned professions, Kalinor was depending on all its residents from huntsmen to weavers to simple workers and laborers. Women in charge of households did not only make sure they run smoothly they would also have an eye on the children and their upbringing. In the end that was more important than the automatons he created in his study.

Encouraging he nodded. "You are selling yourself short, assuming no one would talk to you. I am most certain, there are many who would be just to glad to learn more about you." There were still a rare few who preferred a woman of their own ilk over surrogates and even ignoring those there was a good chance people were drawn to a face as pretty as the young woman's. She seemed the sort of quiet company many would find pleasing.

"Maybe it is time to find something to occupy yourself with, if you really have so much time at hand as you say?," he continued after a while. "Go out and make some new acquaintances maybe, or pick up a craft to pass time with?"

He couldn't claim to have much time to spare himself, most was used up either by work, or study to hone his skills. In a way animation was not just a profession to him, it was a work he felt to merge with. Velarian could not have said when it had happened – but animation had become an integral part of his life. Not as important as his son or family, yet close behind them.

[Nasilia]

As irritated as she was, she didn't feel this man deserved to be, to put in blunt terms, bitched at. Her anger did not stem from him, and therefore she kept some things she would have liked to yell and scream to herself. Perhaps it had something to do with the mask she put on everyday, but whatever the reason, she found she could restrain herself to the point of keeping calm until such negative and chaotic emotions had passed.

She nodded and said, "As much as I appreciate your compliments, I have to say that I am in no mood to do much of anything right now. I know it doesn't make sense from a logical standpoint but I cannot feel somewhat guilty for leaving to go to the store instead of staying with mother when she was taken from us, and I especially can't help but feel guilty that whoever did it did it so easily as to not only get this far and deep into the city unnoticed but escape with my mother while covering his or her tracks to the point of practically disappearing from the world."

She sighed lightly under her breath, adding as well, "That is why I feel inadequate, because something like this should have been easy to track. As for my brother's involvement in the case, he simply went to father and went through all the blood memories he had gathered from the people here as well as asked around. Both of them have too many responsibilities here to get up and leave without warning, and by the time they would be prepared, the kidnapper would already be gone...that's why I went. But the trail has already gone cold. Perhaps the person who did it is fluent in magics that have confused my senses, but however he or she did it, it does not matter now. My mother is long gone from here now."

[Velarian Zantedeschia]

"Do you believe you could have helped her, even when you had been with her?," Velarian asked quietly, watching her. He had not intention to hurt her, but she did seem as strong as some other woman, hunters and harvesters, he had met. "Maybe it was for the better. You could have been hurt."

It was strange talking about such intimate things with a stranger, yet there was no pressing matter which could have called the man back home. His son was with his aunt, at least he hoped that was the case. The boy had a certain talent to not appear to his lessons and instead show up with dirty clothing and the rare bruises from his adventures around the cave.

It also seemed Nasilia could use someone to talk to, even when that was something the Animator was not so sure of. He had never been good reading people or dealing with certain problems. Today however he felt like trying. Thoughtful he ran his fingers along his chin. "It is indeed strange someone wandered around the city unseen," he admit slowly. "It is even stranger to believe they made it out of Kalinor together with your mother however. I can not imagine the guards would have helped strangers down the woven gate, not when they were in the company of a captive."

It was doubtful someone not of their breed able to climb well enough to leave the city while carrying someone else. One would need wings for such endeavors or those responsible had indeed to be Symenestra. Both options seemed rather unlikely in Velarian's eyes, even when he did not say it. The young woman surely had realized as much.

"Are you sure she was taken?" Caution lingered in his voice. He did not mean to anger Nasilia, not after she had told him so much, and still – he could not help but wonder if it wasn't much more realistic for the woman to have left of her own accord. It would have been easy for her to depart alone, when no one paid attention. It was odd to think a woman would leave her family without further notice. Family was important for their kind. Some woman withdrew from Kalinor to be with merchants and other men, but the Animator was almost certain the woman's mother was to old to worry about unwanted offspring. Again he did not voice his thoughts. Instead his ruby eyes found Nasilia once more.

"Magic would indeed be a powerful tool and yet..."

The man nodded more to himself than to Nasilia. "Hypnotism could be useful, yet would not prove very useful against casual onlookers. Morphing could help one turn into an animal able to fly or climb well – that would require a lot of skill however." There were a few other options too, only they seemed even more unlikely.

"Over all," and now Velarian frowned, "it seems such a venture would require a lot of planning and more resources." Much effort for a random woman. The animator sensed there was more to the story than met the eye.

[Nasilia]

Normally Nasilia was opposed to random folk prying into her business, but by this point she was glad someone even cared. This whole affair was just simply bizarre, and she couldn't help but wonder how her mother was even taken in the first place. She shook her head and said, "It a mystery with very little clues; it is difficult to imagine what could have happened. I do not believe she left on her own accord. I just feel if she did, we would have found her already."

She shook her head and said, "In any case, pondering it will only cause me more stress as I know better than to think I can find her with what little information I have." She shifted a little as she stood, anxiously flexing and relaxing her fingers. Her frame leaned back some as she looked over the male again, saying, "As for your magic, I can't say I know very much about the ways of magic. I'm rather mundane personally, though you probably could have assessed that by my earlier description of myself. I've know very few magic users who would believe themselves to be minor cogs in the machine."

What made her mildly nervous was what the word 'animation' brought with it. It sounded like the power to raise the dead and create zombies and other assorted undead monsters. If that was the case, it was rather nasty business that Nasilia wanted to avoid though she gave this man the benefit of the doubt that there was more to it than that. She didn't ask him about it directly, believing that he'd most likely divulge the details himself when he was good and ready to. After a moment of hesitation, she said, "Besides don't people have to have a knack for magic to learn it?"

[Velarian Zantedeschia]

He could have encouraged her. Could have muttered words of consolation and stirred up hope. It would have been easy, like throwing a hungry dog a much wanted bone. Instead the animator remained silent. Telling Nasilia she would only need faith to see her mother again – it sounded like a lie to him. A sweet one admittedly, but nothing more. Whoever had taken her mother, he, they, had known their way around Kalinor, had shown much preparation and caution and maybe experience abducting the woman. Chance was, they were as good hiding her tracks.

Rather than go into the matter further Velarian concentrated on the second topic the woman had brought up. Magic. Other than investigation or tracking, animation was an art he understood.

"It is always good to have a certain talent for the skill you seek to pursue... but there is no such thing as a magic talent the way you seem to think," he said with the hint of a smile. Many men and women had odd perceptions when it came to magic. To some it was a mystery, others feared the power some sorcerer were able to command. Especially animation suffered from a bad reputation, one not entirely unfounded even though Velarian did not animate corpses. He shied the stink of rotting flesh, the idea to animate a thing once alive. To animate the cadaver of one of his own kind seemed even more disgusting than using the bloated body of a dead surrogate. The sorcerer rather stuck with his fabrics, the small tools and toys he instilled life upon.

The older Symenestra turned toward the nearest pond, only to search for the girl's face again. "What you truly need is a desire to learn and the will to keep going despite hardship and the bias some might develop against your profession." The last part let his smile gain an amused notion. His family had always dabbled in animation, some more, some less successful. Even in his web the art was sneered at, but it was a indulgent sort of sneer, an accepting one. Others did not have as much luck he knew.

"I studied the craft under my father, oh, more than ten years ago. Fifteen almost." A moment Velarian starred into the distance, then focused on Nasilia again. "All these years and I still have to reach his level of competence. You see, talent is useful, but in the end it remains a field of study like history or mathematics. There is always more to learn." A quiet chuckle came over the animator's lips, "or it would be similar when history could put your life to an end when handled carelessly."

For the first time he leaned forward. "No matter what some people might tell you – magic can be dangerous to deal with." The smile vanished from his face, Velarian seemed serious. "It can be worth ones time and effort still, yet there are easier past times to pick up."

He leaned back. "Although I said it already, some confidence would become you."

[Nasilia]

She listens to the man prattle on about magic though at the very least she gave him the benefit of the doubt. He was attempting to change the subject to something happier rather than giving her a generic smattering of comforting words. Those got annoying after a while really. In any case, she did find it silly that he mentioned magic was dangerous. Was she born yesterday, of course she knew it was dangerous! She already thought she was a little sub par in her talents to begin with, why would she even dream of touching magic? Then again, it was his talent, and if he wanted to brag about it every so often, she supposed he deserved to. If one works hard enough, shouldn't one have the right to be proud of their work?

Fifteen years? Oh my, she thought, he must be a pro or at least approaching such status. It was refreshing to have someone who didn't just blow smoke all the time; she recalled running into hollow people, husks of living flesh who knew nothing of the world yet pretended they had it wrapped around their finger like a plaything. It must have been nice living in such a fantasy...that is until it broke of course. It made her wonder if there was perhaps a different perspective than her own. She was quick to take any situation where she was superior and imagine if she were the inferior; it was a rather good exercise in humility, even when one was truly right and deserved to be held in higher regard.

Her introverted nature had revealed itself when she was hesitant to answer Velarian...it wasn't fear, it was merely a digestion of his words that was stalling her. A couple of moments went by before she actually answered him back, saying, "It must be an interesting field; I'm sorry I cannot empathize with you so much. I have no knack for magic, or at least I have not found one yet. I wouldn't even begin to know how it works or how to obtain magic. I simply thought that you either had the power to do it in the first place or that the training was so rigorous that it was neigh impossible for anyone to learn lest they were obsessed with the skill...not to say I'm lazy, but it just seems like too much a commitment to jump into with naive enthusiasm."