Another Day, Another Night (Dhatzu, Dor)

[Aselia Timandre]

Another day in this carnival of souls.
Another night settles in as quickly as it goes.
(Five Finger Death Punch)

Timestamp: 3rd of Summer, 511 AV
Location: Tenten Peak


Aselia was sitting in the darkness once again, both feet dangling over the edge. She had chosen Tenten Peak again, though the other side, near the bridge connecting it to Zintia Peak. Her hair was swaying in the occasional breeze like feathers of white snow, her scales sometimes shimmered in the fading light of the day. Her clothing was white, almost glowing through the twilight. Leather gloves covered her hands up to the elbows. A falcon was shuffling around on the right one, trying its jesses and otherwise keeping quiet. The hood shielded its eyes from the outside world. A satchel from Piramba’s was in her lap.

She had wanted to let the falcon adjust to the noise of the streets, but somehow she had gotten sidetracked and ended up at the edge and staring into the fog below. Oh, it was something she did a lot recently: sitting and staring and thinking.

And what did she think of? “You are a reckless child, Aselia. Never do you pay attention to your classes or your mentors. You let everyone down who tries to teach you something. How do you expect to learn anything in your life if you don’t muster the discipline and will to learn?” Her mother’s voice rang in her ears as if the lecture had been yesterday. Nokomis Timandre. Shahal Timandre.

A line of self-confident, independent and wise women Avalis had produced with the Timandre.

Aselia almost felt as if she didn’t belong to them anymore. So far away from Mura, literally at the other side of the world, playing with birds and cutting raw meat. It wasn’t what she had been destined to do, but she had never cared. And not once the thought had occurred to her... that it might mean nothing than temporary escape. Fleeting pleasure.

The falcon fidgeted and released a half-hearted cry into the twilight air. Soon Zintila and Leth would rule the sky together and the falcon’s eyes wouldn’t be able to defeat Akajia’s darkness and spot prey below. Aselia sighed and ran her left hand over the shimmering brown feathers to calm the bird. To calm herself. Through the glove she hardly felt the small body’s warmth.

[Dor]

An unexpected answer to the falcon's call shattered the solitude of Tenten Peak. It was harsh and recoiling, reflecting off the starlit mists encircling Lhavit to reverberate in discordant descent to the very halls of the Temple of the Sun. Faster still seemed the stoop that sliced the night air into shreds about the peregrine, a darkling blur flung not unlike a meteorite by the fist of an irritated god. There was at least one man on Mizahar who was like to agree with the possibility of that divine sentiment. The pigeon's speckled pattern appeared a condensed collection of solar systems, a galaxy made small and blurred as it smeared in constant expansion across the flickering shreds of wing tips and tail feathers. It had hatched in the eave of a Lhavitian shop and spent what small years so far known breathing in the faith of the two legged citizens, eating of the seeds and scraps who had absorbed the same courage in the often intangible, and the result was a bio-luminescence that ultimately won the pigeon's end. After all, it made the pigeon easily spotted prey despite the gloom of Akajia's hour. A crack signaled the swift snap of the pigeon's neck beneath the incredible impact of the peregrine's claws. It was all too audible even to the Konti perched yards beneath the buffet of the peregrine's wings, beating against the air to slow what the uninitiated at this juncture might consider a fall. Flight or fall, the peregrine's landing on a small outcropping of moss blanketed stone near Aselia's meditations was surprisingly clumsy; but victory was her's for the cooling pigeon corpse flopped with a soft and satisfying thunk to the stone.

[Aselia Timandre]

Lowering her gaze to the beautiful blue-black feathers on the back of the falcon, she jerked up immediately when the response cry rang in her ears. Violet eyes cut through the growing twilight. Above, high above, another raptor was attacking its prey, flung at it like divine lightning. A breathless moment she watched the spectacle.

As the falcon tumbled down, the echo of its catching move still in the air, Aselia recognized it for what it was. Peregrines were the fastest. The exemplar sitting on her arm still fidgeted with jesses, unable to put up with the hood when she heard that one of her cousins was hunting. Using her teeth, the Konti freed her left hand from the glove, pale skin and scales, and ran it through the falcon’s feathers once again, calming it, soothing it, murmuring words she didn’t hear herself.

Her eyes followed the other peregrine. Grew larger as it neared her and performed a clumsy show at the moss-covered rock less than three feet away from her. Coincidence? Aselia didn’t think so, but it was too early for her to know.

Thoughts of the distant past and future had vanished into thin air. Watching the falcon and its prey, Aselia smiled and said: “Well done, little sister, well done. Consider practicing the landing though, won’t you? Surely Zulrav is eager to lend you some grace to end the show properly.”

Spoken as a half-joke, the words nevertheless resonated in her heart. Still she was a Konti through and through, she realized, speaking of the gods and of grace. On the other hand, it was what birds represented to her. Weren’t they favored by Zulrav and Eywaat, more so than the races without wings? Every now and then Aselia dreamed of flying side by side with her peregrine.

[Dor]

The wind that could be imagined to have brought the falcon skirted along the line of feathers that had ruffled up. The falcon turned its head, bringing the Konti woman who glowed like a misplaced star on the cliff's edge into her line of sight. An irritable swipe of her beak dislodged a loose feather, sending it floating slowly to the earth. Molting season made for an often disgruntled bird. It was the fact of the falcon perched on the Konti's gauntlet that left Dor landing upon this narrow out cropping of stone. It had drawn both her attention and a flaring of ire before that too banked with deeper leagues of thought surfacing through the thin skin of avian mentality. Dinner hunted, prey caught, it was decided that a full stomach was the best scenario in which to attempt to discern the intentions of strangers. A sharp beak plunged into the plump, warm belly of the dead pigeon and in short order blood and thicker things began to spill across the rock. A string of dripping entrails was pecked over and gulped down, taloned feet shuffling a little bit to the left and then to the right in apparent expression of avian ecstasy.

[Dhatzu]

Though beautiful in the revealing light of Syna's sun, Lhavit became glorious as the deities that ruled the night set the stage for the Crystal City to shine. Leth's moon rising, the first twinkling of Zintila's brightest stars, and the deepening shadows of Akajia's darkness framed the shining city, its magnificent architecture reflecting a myriad of colors that shifted as the light of day gave way to the glow of night. It was during this moment between day and night that the Shinya acolyte found himself at the edge of Zintila Peak. Mundane errands had brought Dhatzu to Surya Plaza, but a raptor's cry overhead drew him to the far corner, away from the waxing illumination of the grand city center, near the bridge to Tenten. Only two days ago the lhavitian had met the most fascinating creature, and the sound of a bird of prey in the darkening skies held promise that maybe the kelvic still lingered within the city, or more appropriately the surrounding peaks. Another, louder screech echoed off of the mighty peaks of Lhavit, and the young man saw the streak of a falcon and the flutter of dislodged feathers in its wake. His feet thunked lightly on the skyglass bridge as Dhatzu dashed over the bridge, searching the skies and rocky slopes for sign of the peregrine. There were many falcons, hawks and eagles in these mountains, but maybe this one had a name. The young man's gaze was drawn to a figure that almost glowed of its own light, perched on the edge of the rock. It was a woman, pale and clad in white, a mane of the same color danced lightly in the breeze. Upon her arm was a raptor, and though Dhatzu felt a wave of disappointment that the falcon was not Dor, the woman proved to be intriguing nonetheless. Drawing nearer, the lhavitian looked up. The growing shadows could not obscure the konti from the Night Stalker. Yes, he knew what she was, and hazarded a guess she was the same konti that ran the animal shop. Never seeing her close up, she appeared more than just a shop owner, her skin seemed to glimmer in the changing light. Only then did Dhatzu see on a nearby ledge, another peregrine devouring its prey. It was blue-black patterned with a light underside, and Dhatzu's face sprouted a grin as he recognized the bird that had snatched the kina from the street just days before. The konti was speaking to the kelvic falcon, and the boy wondered if the white woman knew Dor, for what she was. The sight was rather surreal, like a folk story, and Dhatzu simply stared at the two creatures, unwilling to disturb the encounter.