[Flashback] Under Star and Under Moon

[Veldrys]

Spring, 508 AV Lhavit was amazing. The healer had never thought that any city could rival Kalinor, but Lhavit came at least close to it. He’d sometimes accompagnied his father onto the surface as a child and found the homes of the humans ugly, nothing more than simple blocks of wood and stone that were far from the architectural masterpieces he had seen in his home. He’d come to consider humans inferior because of that circumstance, but now that he stood atop the Zintia, the center peak of Lhavit, he was willing to reconsider his views. The crystal buildings shimmered in the starlight, as if they were filled with magic. He’d never seen anything like that before. Humans seemed to be capable of producing beautiful things after all. He sat there, on a bench, gazing at the dark sky and the houses around him. Since he had arrived in Lhavit in the company of a trader a few days earlier, the Symenestra had mostly kept to himself, observing the people around him. He’d never been a particularly sociable man, and the fact that the people of Lhavit were deeply suspicious of his kind had only reinforced his decision to simply watch and admire the wonders that Lhavit had to offer. He was dressed in a robe atop his exoskeleton armor. His feet were encased in soft leather boots. Shoes tended to get in the way when he wanted to climb, but he thought it would be best to make a few small concessions to the human culture. A small, leather bound notebook was in his lap. His head was bent over it, and he was writing something in it. He’d decided to take notes about his experience on the surface. He had come to realize that it had much more to offer than surrogates that were abducted to bear Symenestra children and die a painful death. Numerous silver white strands fell into his face. From a distance, to somebody who had never seen one of his kind, he would likely appear a human man, although a bit too slender, with proportions that seemed a little off and unusual coloring, but to somebody with Symenestra blood his race would be obvious.

[Seven Xu]

It was easier to slip out of his father's sight as of late. In the warmer months, Seven's father was a gardener at Tenten peak where the food source of Lhavit flourished and he was required to work during the day to take advantage of the rapidly warming sun. This meant that Seven could easily and soundlessly leave their small apartment and explore a city and culture that may not fully understand him. It was risky, and he had been caught in the past by his sisters.
Fortunately, they were young, impressionable, and easily bribed.

This was the third consecutive night that Seven had gone off to the Zintia. The bluff was unusually quiet tonight, although he had no complaints. Two nights ago he had gotten his first taste of wine at the tender age of fifteen. Unfortunately for the half-blood he had no knowledge of moderation when it came to alcohol. The following night he had spent much of his time trying to figure out why his right shoulder burned so much before coming to the shattering realization that wine and a lack of inhibition mixed in with the suggestion of a tattoo was a terrible, terrible idea.
The pain had all but abated and tonight he didn't even look sideways at the tavern in the Surya Plaza. Instead he was intent on finding the right spot to stare longingly at the sky and think. He had done a lot of that lately. Thinking. Dreaming. Even when he wasn't fixated on the sky, Seven seemed to walk about in a dream state for the majority of the time. Completely in his own world.

Seven's dulled brown leather boots were silent as he crossed from the Plaza and into a quiet courtyard overlooking the beautiful city of night he called home. The white tunic his sister had insisted he take once belonged to her but as she reached puberty and her hormones became unforgiving, it no longer fit across her chest. It fit the fifteen-year old albino perfectly and was made of the softest fabric he'd ever felt on his skin. His cropped silver-white hair glowed in the soft moonlight that streamed in through etched sky-glass above.

A figure caught his eye, sitting on a bench on his path. Although he had never witnessed one in the flesh, he knew even at a glance what he was. Seven's heart rate increased and a cold sweat overwhelmed him. His head commanded his feet to stop carrying him towards this person but curiosity won out over fear. Seven slowed to a stop not ten feet from the Symenestra and parted dry lips to speak but nothing came to mind. Now he just looked like an idiot. "Hello." Was the most intelligent thing he managed to croak.

[Veldrys]

Veldrys didn’t react to the fact that somebody had approached him immediately. The healer was much too focused on his book and the stars above him. He’d decided to try and draw them, to make a map of the sky. There were no stars above Kalinor, but only rocks. The moon never shone above his home city. Day and night were the same. He still remembered the first time he had left the underground. He had been scared because there had been nothing above him, because he couldn’t reach the ceiling. Maybe he’d take his drawings back to his little sister. She had never seen the surface. Without a doubt she’d wonder if the things he had drawn were real. He only raised his head once he was content with his work, closing the notebook as he did so so that whoever had greeted him couldn’t see what he had drawn. For a moment, for nothing more than a few seconds the Symenestra believed the boy that he was facing – a boy that was only a few years younger than he was – to be human, albeit one that looked very different from the people of Lhavit. And then he noticed the boy’s black fingernails, and his gaze darkened. He had Symenestra blood. It was watered down – he was likely less than half Symenestra and lacked many of the typical Symenestra characteristics – but it was still noticeable. "Good evening", he greeted him – in the Common tongue since it was unlikely that a creature such as him would understand the language of the Symenestra and be familiar with their ways. The tone of his voice was polite, friendly even, and the cold look he had given him was replaced by one of curiosity. In Kalinor, in his home, he would likely have ignored the mixed blood and not deemed him worthy of his attention – people such as him weakened the Symenestra - but here, on the surface, things were different. It was unusual to meet a halfblood in a city that wasn’t exactly the most welcoming towards Symenestra. Who were this boy’s parents? And why was he here? "You are the first one of Symenestra blood that I have seen in Lhavit since I’ve arrived here", he remarked as he gestured for Seven to come closer so that they could talk more comfortably. "Do you live in this city? I have seen none of my kind here so far."

[Seven Xu]

Seven's thin lips curled back to reveal his pointed canines and he approached the Symenestra, sitting down on the bench beside him, crossing his legs at the thighs and leaning back, palms pressed against the smooth, cold stone of the bench. From his soft, pale lips came a calm voice of explanation. "I grew up here."
He didn't appear to be much older than his early to mid teens, although it was hard to tell. A hair over five-foot-three and scrawny as the dickens. Seven's eyes peered at the Symenestra searchingly. The long limbs, the feral look in his dark violet eyes. He could certainly see the resemblance. The fangs hidden behind those curious lips would put an end to his life within minutes if the stranger willed it. There were times Seven was envious of the potent venom he heard Symenestra have. His own was weak, unusable for any sort of hunting.

"There are not many of us around here." Seven's comment, though obvious, wasn't meant as a flacid statement but bloomed the beginnings of his own curiosity. It was also a vast understatement. This man was the first full-blooded Symenestra he had ever met, in the flesh. Alive. "... But, to be fair, my father is human and my mother is also a half-blood... I am, watered down for lack of a better word." He blushed and tilted his head away with a smile.

Seven's gaze shifted towards the sky and his smile grew. He shuffled back on the bench and tucked his legs beneath himself. "Lhavit is a wonderful place if you can look past those looks." Seven knew the Symenestra was aware of the looks their kind received, especially in cities so close to their Harvest. Families torn apart in the name of the tragic continuation of their race. "If for no other reason than the view at night."

Seven's expression shifted to one of comfort and calm as he examined the sky. "Is it true that Kalinor is under the surface? I have no idea what I would do without the ability to see these stars every night." Seven paused and pursed his lips, brows knitting together. His heart sank from the realization that he had done what so many others had done to him. "I apologize. I did not mean to assume you were from Kalinor." Another pause.

"What is your name?"

[Veldrys]

Veldrys watched as Seven sat down next to him, making sure that the boy didn’t get too close to him, as if he were worried that his taint would rub off on him. Apart from that he was still polite though, albeit a little reserved. "You grew up here?" he repeated and arched a pale eyebrow. "How come?" If he ever moved to the surface, if he ever chose to live his life among humans, he would pick another city. Lhavit was beautiful, but it was too close to Harvest territory. Life for one of their kind wasn’t always pleasant here. "‘Many‘ is an exaggeration", he remarked in a somewhat dry tone of voice. "You can probably count the number of Symenestra in this area on one hand." As Seven told him that his mother was a half-blood, he took a closer look at the boy, wondering. "Your mother’s mother was a Symenestra, wasn’t she?" he asked. It wasn’t truly a question. He was merely waiting for confirmation. If his mother had had a Symenestra father, she wouldn’t truly be considered a halfblood. "What is the name of her Web?" If a Symenestra had betrayed her kind with a human, he wanted to know, even if asking such personal questions might be considered a little impolite. "You get those looks everywhere in this part of the world", he said. "You should try and get used to them, but yes, the view at night is beautiful. I’ve never seen anything quite like it." His gaze softened a little as he said this. "Kalinor is underground", he confirmed. "It isn’t so bad, the lack of stars at night. You’d probably get used to it after a while. There are other things that make up for it." As he said this he glanced up at the silver lights in the sky as if he were wondering if that was indeed true. He’d probably miss the sky when he returned home. "And there is no need to apologize. I am from Kalinor. There are few Symenestra that don’t come from there." "My name is Veldrys", he introduced himself. "And you are Dra...?" he asked, assuming that the boy had a name that was typically given to half-bloods despite the fact that he had grown up on the surface.

[Seven Xu]

There was a moment of silence between them. Then Seven's head, resting against the cool skyglass of the building the bench rested against, rolled over to look at Veldrys. "Seven. Just Seven." There was a Dra, once, but nobody called him Dra-Seven. His name must have sounded strange to the Symenestra, as the softer S and N sounds were often saved for females. There were worse he had been called, but Dra was something his father did away with almost immediately. "Veldrys is a nice name." His airy comment echoed against the empty walls of the courtyard. Another period of awkward silence as Seven gathered his thoughts. The albino's eyes closed and he took a deep breath, organizing his jumbled, absent mind before opening his mouth again.

"I am ashamed to admit I know little of my mother's origins, but I have gathered that my grandmother was a Symenestra from what little I have managed to study about your -- our -- people." He spoke well for his age, it was obvious he was a well-educated young man. "I have no idea what Web my family would have originated from..." Seven's eyelids opened. His eyes were dark, forlorn.

"To tell you the truth, you are the first Symenestra I have ever spoken with. It is difficult to live here, as you can imagine. My father, he's over-protective. I am home schooled and I am to never leave the house without him. When I am alone with my family, my sisters, it is easy to forget that I am not completely human. But Lhavitians are excellent reminders." Seven grinned a little. Despite everything, he was still a typical, rebellious teenager. "As to why I grew up in Lhavit..." Seven paused, "My father tells me that my mother died when I was just a baby." This of course, wasn't true. Unknown to Seven, his mother had abandoned him, disgusted by what she had done, how she had further tainted her proud race by repeating the actions of her own mother.

"It was nice when I was younger, it is hard to distinguish me as someone with Symenestra blood," Seven held his arms out. They were of normal, human length. As were his legs. He tilted his head. "A simple albino human. Nothing out of the ordinary, really. But, word gets around you know?" Seven's eyebrows raised momentarily. "Of course, it is not surprising you picked up on it."

Another pause, and Seven hugged his knees to his chest, "Will you tell me about them?"

[Veldrys]

„Seven?“ the Symenestra repeated and furrowed his brow as if there were something that irritated him. „That is an unusual name.“ He’d never heard of parents that named their son after a number. Of course you couldn’t expect too much from halfbloods, but still. Did the name have a special meaning? Was he their seventh child, the promised seventh son? He decided not to ask. While his previous questions might be considered a little direct, this here would definitely have been offensive, and the Symenestra tried very hard to be polite to everybody, even a boy of mixed blood. Seven, he observed, seemed to be a fairly intelligent boy, despite his strange name and his tainted blood – and he seemed to be sad. For a moment Veldrys was tempted that he shouldn’t be sad that he didn’t know where his mother had come from because there was no point in knowing anyway, because his mother’s family would never accept him, but then he decided not to. Instead he simply wanted to know, „Did you never ask your father?“ It was a pity that he apparently wouldn’t be able to find out which woman in Kalinor had shared her bed with a human. „Humans in general are excellent reminders that you are not one of them and will never be“, he remarked. „But you must keep in mind that their opinion is at least in part justified.“ He wanted to say more, but then Seven told him that his mother had died in childbirth which caused the Symenestra to look at him in confusion. She had been a halfblood, the boy’s father had been human. His poison shouldn’t have been strong enough to kill her. Something about the story seemed a little off to him. Had there been other complications? „If word gets around, why did your family and you never leave?“ he asked. „There are means and ways to hide the Symenestra traits that you have.“ It was what he did occasionally. Veldrys disliked halfbloods, but at the same time he disapproved of surrogates and the Harvest, even if it was the only way for Symenestra to have fullblood children and live. Sometimes, when the pain got too much, when he couldn’t stand it anymore, this constant dilemma, he used his magic to make himself look less Symenestra, as if he were a halfblood himself, despite the fact that he usually despised such people. Sometimes he wished he weren’t Symenestra. „What do you want to know about my people?“ His voice became a little softer as he posed that question, as if thinking about his own problems with his people had made him more inclined to accept Seven, at least for a while. Did he know about the Harvest? About the poison that each Symenestra carried inside of him? About the desperate situation of his race and about the great works of art that they created?

[Seven Xu]

"Unusual?" Seven's voice cracked. "I suppose it is not a common name, but it has its charm." He added, rocking forward onto his toes. Far enough forward that right before it looked as it gravity was going to get the best of him, one thin leg shot forward and Seven stood, approaching the edge of the low railing that overlooked the jagged mountains that surrounded Lhavit and pierced the night sky. "And my father is not one to speak of such things. He will not talk about my mother, I have asked him many times before." Taking a deep breath, Seven's narrow nostrils inhaled the cool, thin night air before he craned his neck to eye the Symenestra over his shoulder with a stern expression. "I think it pains him to even think about her."

Seven turned back towards the stars in the sky. Stars he could see in great, glorious detail due to his adept night vision. Something he no doubt shared with Veldrys. "We did not leave because despite everything this is still my home. That outweighs everything else. I am not ashamed of who I am ... even though sometimes it hurts to face such a sobering reality." Seven's pale hand slid across a column made entirely of an opaque skyglass. Beautiful, smooth, opalescent. Two of his fingernails were jet black claws, filed down in line with the rest of his hand. "While I file my nails, that is more a convenience than anything. I file my other nails. I could dye my hair, but I like the way it looks. I could learn an illusion to change the color of my eyes and I could painfully file down my teeth ... but, that is not who I am. I like who I am. Hiding myself would feel worse than being ridiculed for what I really am."

Seven smiled and his shoulders raised a bit to shrug before moving back to sit beside Veldrys. He knew of the Harvest, a plague to the Lhavitian people, but something he had never witnessed himself. He knew that the Symenestra had a beautiful, delicate city that they were immensely proud of and he knew that it was likely he would never see it. Everything else he had learned of the Symenestra had been in text books. Text books most certainly not written by Symenestra. "I would like to know ... everything. All I know, I can only imagine is biased. You have yet to bite my neck and liquefy my innards so you have already abolished one rumor." Seven's smile turned to a childish grin at his obvious joke. "As long as you have the time to talk, I have time to listen."

[Veldrys]

„It has its charm“, the Symenestra agreed and watched as Seven rocked forward, wondering whether he couldn’t sit still because he was so nervous. Had he, Veldrys, caused such a reaction or was the boy simply not used to talking about himself? Whatever the reason was, as Seven approached the railing, he did so as well and looked at the city that surrounded them for a moment. „If your father will not talk about your mother, then it is up to you to find out who and what she was. If I bore the mark of Viratas, I could gain the information from your blood, but my god has not chosen to bless my that way so far.“ A sigh escaped the Symenestra’s pale lips. He knew that he was much too young and inexperienced to warrant a god’s attention. He didn’t even know if his meagre attempts at healing found the god’s approval. „One’s home is important“, he agreed, although he wasn’t sure if it was important enough to face discrimination – and worse – every day. Veldrys enjoyed visiting the surface every now and then, but he had no idea whether he’d ever be able to spend his life among humans. As Seven told him that hiding himself would feel worse than being ridiculed, he nodded. Such an attitude spoke of an inner strength that the Symenestra wasn’t sure he had himself, but then again, he hid what he was for different reasons, because he couldn’t bear some of the things his people did. Maybe, he thought, halfbreeds, such as Seven, weren’t all useless and weak, but he’d still prefer if the Symenestra were free of the human taint. He went back to the bench and sat down again. He’d suddenly grown a bit restless as well. „Why should I bite you and liquify your innards?“ he wondered and made a face as if he found the very thought of eating Seven disgusting. „I’m not a cannibal. I eat meat, and I eat fruit, just like a human, although my manner of eating those things tends to differ a little.“ He shrugged his shoulders. He was aware that humans found the way he ate – as well as most Symenestra dishes – disgusting, but to him it was normal, and he very much preferred the occasional glass of blood to some of the things that humans called food. „Do you know where our people come from?“ he wanted to know. „Without a doubt you’ve heard enough stories about evil, poisonous creatures that live in caves, but are you aware that it wasn’t always this way? We didn’t always live in Kalinor. Once, before the Valterrian that made the world unrecognizable, we lived on the surface, in the jungle. There was no need for surrogates, no need for the Harvest that caused the humans to hate us, and our poison was much less dangerous ...“ „Did they ever tell you about that? Did your father ever bother to inform you about any part of your Symenestra heritage?“

[Seven Xu]

Seven went quiet as Veldrys mentioned Viratas, the blood god. Another subject Seven knew very little about. Viratas was the supposed god of blood in the sense that blood was a life-sustaining necessity, but he had often heard rumors of cults worshipping a blood god and feeding on humans. Seven had dismissed these as fallacies as well, although he was curious. He idly wondered what Veldrys' profession was. Perhaps he was a priest of this Viratas.

Seven felt the tone of Veldrys' voice become frustrated in how little his father had told him of the Symenestra. That frustration was contagious. "No, I do not believe that he thinks I am ready for what information he knows. My father treats me like a child. We have fought more lately. In fact, he does not know where I am right now. I suppose that is obvious, since I told you he does not let me out of his sight... and yet, here I am." Seven's fingers twitched before his hands clenched into pale fists in his lap and his lips tightened. "I could list what I know of the Symenestra on one hand and I guarantee you that most of it is either false or exaggerated." Then, he added with a grimace; "I did not mean to offend with the eating me comment ... I suppose even I have become corrupt and insensitive in my upbringing."
Silence bubbled up between the pair again, although Seven was examining Veldrys closely. He was an elegant being, slow, graceful in his movements as if everything down to his breathing was choreographed in such a way to reflect the utmost strength in his glass-like fragility. It was a strange beauty that Seven admired. His own body was far more human, and he was a bit clumsy at times. Seven was envious of Veldrys' natural grace, and, without knowing it, had become more calculated in his own movements around the Symenestra.

"A jungle?" Seven's lips pursed at the mentioning of the word poisonous. The confusion between the terms poisonous and venomous was a pet peeve of his. Poisonous would denote that Symenestra were edible, only causing harm when ingested by another creature. Venom was far more graceful, dangerous. Injected into a body to cause harm and even death. Do not be a smartass, he reminded himself. Semantics aside, he was admittedly jealous of the power of such deadly venom. "What are your thoughts on he Harvest?" Boldly, Seven added; "I wish it did not have to exist. But, I think I understand the unfortunate reality of the Symenestra and why surrogates are needed. Perhaps, someday, you will not have to do such things any more and humans and Symenestra can get along." A purely childish thought.

The youth smiled at the thought of humans and Symenestra living in harmony as he gazed back out towards the horizon. "I cannot talk to anyone about this. My sisters are too young to understand. But, I have been sneaking out of my house at night lately. I am unsure of what I have been looking for, but I am really happy to have found you tonight."