Everything, Because of Nothing [Aello, Gural]

[Aello]

Serves him right, Aello thought, as she watched Gural pluck Victor up and off the ground as though he weighed little more than the slightest of feathers. He should not have been trying the patience of an Akalak. There was a slight pause, oh well, he would have to learn for himself sooner or later anyway. So why not have it be in this way? Aello wondered, as she watched Gural's muscles continue to tense, as Victor's facial muscles seemed to change ever so slightly. Was he wincing? Aello wondered with a small smile, her eyes sparkling in amusement. Or did he simply find this whole spectacle as amusing as those that owned the kiosk? Or as she did herself, for that matter? During the whole ordeal, Aello remained silent. There was no need for her to piss the Akalak off even more than Victor had already done. "What library?" Aello asked as she tilted her head slightly to the side. "Unless you are referring to what might be found in the school the 'stryfe run? Or perhaps what may be found in some of the shops around here, like the Black Tar for example?" Aello asked, as her hair trickled down her shoulders, tickling her from time to time. There was a slight pause, "wait, why are we even going? Why do we need a library?" Aello asked, as she simply stared at Victor. It was only another few seconds before Gural let Victor down. At which point, the man leaned in to whisper to Aello. As he did so, Aello's brow furrowed, what an ignorant little boy, she thought, as she whispered, "you forgot about Yune, fool. The sparrow." There was a slight pause before Aello added, "and the tall blue guy is an Akalak, not whatever you just said." It seemed as though that as soon as she had replied, Victor was slipping away. Aello scowled, as her muscles began to tense and the edges of her cheeks turned a dark red. "You come back here," Aello called as she stormed after Victor, "we weren't done talking you know." Chirp! Chirp!

[Victor Lark]

He glanced at the bird, peering in a moment of suspended curiosity. If she referred to it as we, did that mean the animal had an opinion to be consulted? Could she talk to it, as they talked now? His hand rose mere inches from his side as he contemplated touching it, as if that would somehow answer his question. At her words’ suggestion, he glanced at the Akalak. Akalak. He would probably not remember the word. He wondered what would happen if he dared to try and pronounce it again, in front of the man it described.

But her previous question lingered in the air, "wait, why are we even going? Why do we need a library?" His crowded mind remembered his old goal.

“To find out!” Victor answered simply, drowning his tone in exaggerated annoyance. Normally, he was not one to seek out a book. He had not learned from his governess as much as he had tormented her with black beetles and treasures from the canal. It was a miracle he knew how to read. But it was not the first time he had resorted to the ‘library’ to find some tidbit of information that he could not discover elsewhere. Rarely were those trips fruitful, but still he went back whenever it was necessary, like an animal choosing an alternative watering hole. With a laugh, he crossed the bridge, hoping that the vague answer would inspire her to pursue him further.

“I am not going to the university.” He explained as he walked, short legs stepping quickly. “You may, if you like. I would rather not be eaten by statues.” While tried to speak as if it were a joke, Victor was honestly uncertain whether the rumors were true about the stone beasts at the hall’s entrance. No, if Aello knew the city, she would guess before they arrived where he was headed: the colors behind the open windows lured them like magpies into the congested depths of Odds and Ends.

The shop’s single shelf of old, unwanted books hardly constituted a library, but it satisfied Victor’s definition of one. He escaped through the door and immediately held the symbol to the haphazardly stacked spines, so that he might see if it looked like any of the fading ink labels. When that amounted to nothing, he chose a book at random and began to flip through the pages. The outdated medicine and healing handbook had many illustrations, but he was too consumed in the investigation to realize their irrelevance. He looked on every page, and found nothing even remotely similar. With a huff, he replaced it and took out another.

[Aello]

Aello rolled her eyes as she shuffled after Lark, pushing past people so that she may keep up. Trail only a few steps behind him. "Well yes, that does not sound pleasant; being eaten by statues... it's a good thing we are not headed anywhere near that blasted building," Aello commented, her voice strained to be heard over several shouts from other pedestrians she had elbowed the heck out of her way. Her face had scrunched up somewhat in disgust, how horrible would it be to have your bones crushed under the weight of carved, stone teeth? she wondered with a small shiver; before pushing the thought out of her mind, and continuing on her trail, before nearly bumping into Victor's back, after his having stopped short. "Well you could have announced our being here," she growled under her breath, irritated by the fact that he had stopped short without so much as a warning. Shaking her arms out to get rid of the stiffness her irritation had caused, Aello looked up at the sign that hung over the doorway: Odds and Ends What a peculiar name for a shop, Aello thought as she glanced back down at the window displays. All she saw was row around row of colorful fabric draped over each other, or some piece of furniture. Instantly, Aello's brow furrowed, "you honestly expect to find something useful in that mess?" she asked, her eyes growing somewhat wide, irritated, and confused. Does he think we're stupid or something? Or has he himself, lost his mind? Aello wondered, as she hesitantly followed him through the place, pushing past everything she deemed useless in order to get to the bookshelf Lark was staring at. Aello glanced up and down the rows of books. "That's hardly a library you know," she commented, a hint of irritation in her voice. Oh men... always so very misleading, she thought, as she watched Lark pour over books, flipping through pages, obviously looking for something. Aello raised a single brow as she watched, crossing her arms and leaning into her right hip, her right foot as she watched. Her bow resting between her arms. She began tapping her foot lightly on the floor, growing somewhat impatient. Just what does he expect to find in one of those dusty old things? Aello wondered before finally huffing impatiently. "You know, it looks like you could use some help," Aello commented, an edge of ice in her voice, as she reached for one of the books on the shelf with her free hand. She laced the bow onto her arm, letting the area where string and wood met rest by her elbow, as she opened the book to the first page, and then began to quickly rifle through it. It seemed to be nothing more than an encyclopedia on plants, with yellowing pages, several of which had been torn out. OOCIt has been awhile, so I figured I'd post, and if Gural wanted to jump back in, he could >.<

[Victor Lark]

A smiling huff greeted her suggestion, but he did not look up from his latest tome. There had been words on the spine, but he had already forgotten what they were. He began to skim the pages from their beginning, just as he had done to the previous book. There were a few pages of tedious introduction, and then he turned the third page and was greeted with an intricate illustration that filled an entire page: among furiously painted blackness, glaucous lines danced around the circle of a shadowed moon, a crouching man’s silhouette, and a large triangle. On the top was scrawled in meticulously ornate letters, AKAJIA. Scowling with concentration in confusion, Victor traced all five fingertips of his free hand tenderly over the image. On the opposite page, many lines of text offered an explanation, but he did not read it. There were not words to describe what he sought, only the curious little symbol that was presently pinned between the book’s soft cover and the hand the held it. He could see the outline of another illustration on the next page, and the next; he flipped past an ominous-looking door and some nature scenes and a pair of lovers... then, there it was.

At the center of a deep blue monochrome square, between etchings of a stage performer and long-beaked bird, a single star sat atop a curl that straightened into a line as it descended down the page. Wavering, whimiscal tendrils of ink spelled IONU.

Awkwardly, Victor arranged the items in his hands so that the toy sat in the fold between the pages. Then he shoved it above the book Aello had chosen to examine and pointed. “Look, this is it!” As quickly as he had shown it, he pulled it back to himself, pulling his forefinger over the words as he read them aloud. “Ionu, hereafter described as male despite ongoing debate, is the god of illusion and trickery. He delights in mischief-making among gods and mortals alike, with no discernable purpose other than causing confusion and chaos. Worshipped by performers, spies, and other flavors of liar, he is the patron divinity of Alvadas. Alvadas,” he repeated, looking up and towards the corner of his eye as he scoured his mind for a recollection of the name, “That’s a city, right? Do you know where it is?”

Then he looked down and read the rest of the article in its entirety, leaning against a nearby table that was covered in a careful arrangement of tiny figurines. His smile, which never seemed to leave his face for long no matter the circumstances, grew wide for his candid interest. When he looked up again, it would be hard to tell whether he heard anything that had just been said to him. Still, he continued to interrogate the woman who had already admitted she knew little on the subject, “Have you ever heard of Ionu? What about other gods?”

[Aello]

"What was that all about?" Aello scowled as her eyes grew wide, the added weight of the second book making it difficult for her to hold up her arms. "You could have just leaned over to point out whatever it was," she continued, just as Victor pulled the book away again. What a strange man... tries to show you something but isn't nice about it. Heck, he didn't even give enough time for you to really look. Aello sighed. It just looked like a bunch of bloody black lines, didn't it? "Look at what?" Aello asked. "You pulled that bloody thing away far too quickly for anyone to notice anything," she explained, as she slammed her encyclopedia of plants shut, and placed it back on the shelf. She shook her head slightly as she turned to face Victor. "So you can either share that book, or read off whatever it is that has you so darn excited," Aello continued, her voice somewhat cold. Especially now that it seemed as though Victor was too rapped up in himself to truly notice what she or anyone else was trying to say to him. When he began reading to her, Aello simply listened, her arms instantly folding themselves across her chest, as she placed all of her weight on her right foot. She looked at Victor somewhat incredulously. "You're excited because you found a small passage on the god of illusions?" she asked, her voice giving away her mood entirely. "No, not even a passage, a few sentences! Heck, what does this have to do with anything?" she asked, frustrated by how he was keeping her in the dark. "And I don't know maybe. If it is, I've never been," she finished in a small huff. "No, Ionu is new," Aello explained, before pausing for a moment. "And just of Morwen, whom the Vantha in Avanthal consider their queen, Zintila, goddess of the stars, and Dira, goddess of death," she finished. Having only heard a little of the first two in her travels. Aello fell silent for awhile after answering, "now would you care to share what is going on inside that silly little head of yours?" she asked. OOCSorry this is so blah.

[Victor Lark]

A small passage. A breath of annoyance pushed into the air between them, a sneeze of an exhale that came out as more of a mindless noise than any real expression of emotion. “It’s longer than that. Didn’t you see?” He paused to look down at the book which he had taken back so soon, mouth hanging in anticipation of a further reading. In accordance with his penchant for deceiving and interfering said another paragraph, further down, Ionu grants his most devout followers with the ability to create illusions— Before he could prove anything to her, she deigned to answer another in his cannonade of questions. His reeling gaze dipped up to her skepticism, and his grin finally settled into something almost satisfied. Was she sharing his interest, and hiding the sympathy behind a mask of contempt? If not, he would have to make her understand the importance of the discovery.

“This.” Victor answered. He lifted up the little symbol, now warm with his palm’s commitment. Behind it, in his other hand, he held up the page which he had only let her glimpse before. The little item between his fingers was a three-dimensional replica of the illustration below Ionu’s name. “I took— I found this in the market. It’s the mark of Ionu. It has to be.” He tore his eyes from hers to look at the thing. He twirled it so that the spiral at the top spun like a dancer. “It’s a sign.”

More likely it was a coincidence; there had been a smaller cart, just opposite the spice kiosk, which had been selling candles and other such religious memorabilia. But no amount of reason could convince the naive and ambitious youth that this happenstance was anything short of divine intervention. He stuck the toy at the corner of his mouth, as if it were a cigar, and pored over the page again. “It says here that true followers of Ionu, the ones who get the mark, are actors. They’re supposed to travel around, but I’ve never seen them. Maybe they only travel around Alvadas. Maybe it’s a whole country!” He stopped a moment, to consider. Then he looked at her again. “Do you follow a god? How... do you do that? Only Rhysol has churches. How can anyone worship anything else without a church?”

[Aello]

"No," Aello growled, "for the last time, you took it away far too quickly for anyone but yourself to see," she explained, as her eyes darted from the boy's face, to the tiny object he held up to her. Aello squinted, trying to get a better look at the markings, "no, what you said the first time was true, you took it," she muttered as Lark attempted to correct himself. Her eyes darting from the symbol to the page, over and over again, slowly tracing the shape of the markings over and over; they were the same. Finally, Aello allowed her eyes to return to their normal state. "What do you mean, a sign?" she asked, her voice still somewhat cold. "And what does it matter whether or not you managed to steal something that means just a little more if you choose to look a little deeper than that which simply meets the eye?" There was a slight pause as Aello's breath caught in her throat, and every last bit of color drained from her face. Is he stupid? Or simply suicidal? the girl wondered as several beads of sweat trickled down her brow. Her muscles tensed as she shot several steps forward, reaching for Victor with her free hand. If she could, she would grab the space between his elbow and his shoulder; the fleshy part of his arm. She'd dig her fingers into him, gripping tightly, just to be sure he paid attention to her words, as she leaned in and whispered in his ear, coldly, "what the petch are you doing? You can't speak about that sort of thing here, openly. Not when you have no idea just who may be listening." Aello swallowed the clump of saliva that had gathered in her throat before continuing, "they don't let us practice freely here. So your words must be guarded. Unless you want to hang... or worse," she whispered. There was a slight pause before she finished, "if you wish to discuss the gods, then find a private place to do so." As soon as the words had left her lips, she stepped back, away from Victor, and tossed his arm away with a shove, assuming she had managed to grab it in the first place. OOCSorry for the peculiar wording... This may also be a slight exaggeration. Or not...

[Victor Lark]

OOCIt probably isn’t. :)

The shock of her sudden advance spat the little vildani from its perilous position between his lips. A rug lay across the floor; where the symbol fell, it made no noise or movement. Victor did not even have the chance to grab it before she grabbed him, and only luck saved it from her angry feet. He could tell that her words were sharp and cold from the way she hissed, but for a moment, he did not listen to what he heard. Ionu still swam at the front of his mind, and any notion of another god was only a fleeting comparison to his growing obsession.

By the time she stepped away, the stranger’s words had already floated into the air between them and begun to dissipate. Victor’s ears scrambled to remember the pieces as he stood and shut the book with a loud smack of pages. Perhaps the pause for his answer was a moment too long. “What are you so afraid of?” He answered facetiously. Despite the sentiment, he obliged her whisper with his own as he approached her again. “Haven’t you ever thought of other gods? The Ebonstryfe can’t read your mind! Surely there are holes in Rhysol’s big black web of influence.”

But of course there were no churches for Ionu here, not beside the strangling monotheism of Rhysol’s Ravok. Perhaps he could instead worship the god of illusions by making his own illusion—not from the senses, of course, but with... other sensibilities. It was a stupid idea; she hated him, and any beauty that he might have once seen in her was stripped by her hostility and lack of enthusiasm. Throwing a wary line of attention at the trinket on the ground, he carefully wrapped it in his own shadow as he closed the distance that she had briefly created between them.

One arm hung at his side, clutching the book and its precious morsel of information, but the other was restless. It rose to mirror the assault that Aello had committed, but instead of gripping her arm in return, he brushed the cloth on her shoulder almost affectionately. For an instant, the expression on his face was as mocking as it had been all afternoon, but then it dropped to hasty warmth. His voice remained low as he added, “Certainly, I’ll guard my words. If you insist. But why do you mention?” He dared to raise a finger to the hair that strayed in front of her ear, bringing his face close. “Do you know of a place where we can discuss in private?”

[Aello]

"The darkness that surrounds us," Aello hissed, hoping that would be enough for Victor, that he would understand what she so feared if she spoke in riddles. For it seemed that should she ever speak their name, she would give them more power, an even greater hold over her and everyone else in the city. "And yes, at times, although that is something best kept to one's self? Don't you think?" Aello asked, before pausing a moment. "And perhaps they can, and perhaps they can't. You should know as well as anyone that they have a large sphere of influence, a sphere which they will not fear taking advantage of... it is difficult to say just who and what may be in their employ. Who is one of them and who is one of us. Who you can and cannot speak openly with... just what they may do to you if they only knew what you thought. Or if they so much as suspected your thinking something impure... what do you think they will do if they find you? If they find your friends? Your family?" Aello asked. "They have their ways of doing things, you know. Of simply knowing, of sensing who and what you are. They seem to have eyes and ears everywhere... and there is nothing you can do to stop that. And there is truly no where to run; to escape to. Not in this city anyway. Not from them." Aello paused to swallow the clump of saliva that had gathered in her throat; to give her heart a minute to calm down, to quit beating so rapidly. She watched the shadow of Lark's hand flicker across her flesh as it moved towards her face. He is not taking you seriously. He truly fails to understand just how dangerous the Ebonstryfe is, Aello's mind whispered. He does not realize that there is next to nothing one can do to arm themselves against them; to keep themselves safe. The young spiritist gulped, as several beads of sweat trickled down her forehead. The ignorant, mindless, and just plain stupid were not those you could surround yourself with, if you expected to survive in Rhysol's city. Aello shifted her weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. "What reason would one have to mention it, other than to keep themselves alive a little longer?" Aello whispered, her voice shaking a little; although it still held a cold edge. "Unless you think it time to walk among the dead?" Aello inquired as she stared into Lark's eyes. There was a slight pause, "and there is a place we can go, if you choose to take things seriously; to quit acting so rashly and putting each of our lives in danger," she whispered, before turning abruptly on her heels. "Feel free to follow only if you can agree to those turns," she added over her shoulder, before heading out of the store, and down the street. OOCSorry this is blah.

[Victor Lark]

Victor scoffed at her tirade, but even he could not deny the pulse of hesitation in the breath. It was mention of family that struck him; even in the city of chaos, a person valued their blood. The religiously passive Larks were as prolific as they were vain, but Victor was not certain whether he would mourn for any particular one of them. On the other hand, though he liked to say he hated his mother, he could not imagine a world without her. The length of Aello’s rhetoric left the blasphemer bored even as his attention returned to her. Ultimately, he remained foolishly unmoved. What could they possibly do to her, or him for that matter, for the sake of a few irreverent words and dropped eaves?

A small sigh accompanied his hand’s unceremonious drop from where it had lingered beside her furious brown eye; if his attempt at an illusion of attraction had not escaped her entirely, she seemed cross enough to ignore his ill-timed advances. Still he smiled, tilted his head, glanced down for an instant at her lips—but they only tossed more resentment at him. Victor noticed only superficial anger above her true anxieties, and was beginning to resent her in turn. He bent to pick up the little blue vildani at his feet, careful to brush his shoulder against her waist as he rose. If he coudl not seduce her, he could at least annoy her.

He opened his mouth to speak, probably of some other sacrilege he would not know how to regret, but she had announced her departure before he could. Victor drooped, frowning with uncertainty. He glanced down at the book. He could not take it, this only source of information on this fascinating new thing. Neither could he decide if he even wanted to learn more from that single page, in favor of discovering what secret that woman meant to show him. With a groan he decided on the latter, tossing the book back to its shelf and trotting after her. “I can’t promise anything,” he said when he finally slowed beside her. Despite the honesty in the statement, his tone was full of jest. “If you don’t want to talk about it, you’ll have to outrun me!”

He laughed, looking around as he tried to determine their route. “So where is this safe and serious place? It’s not your place, is it?”