Timestamp: Fall 1st, 511 AV
The melody flowed through the streets, marking walls and covering people in layers of sweetness so thick that they couldn’t help but feel drawn to it. A figure flinched under her cloak’s hood, nevertheless she glided towards the noise like night Herself. Music again, seeping from the warm breaths of the Vantha. Now things had changed. The voice provided fresh water in a sea of dry humidity.
She didn’t believe that music could give water to the thirsty. Yet she came.
There sang the girl, her throat reflecting the first light of Syna and her arms rising as if to greet the citizens of the city she didn’t belong to. What kind of message did she convey? Words were dripping from her lips like ripe fruit, yet the Nuit didn’t know their taste and neither did most of the other spectators.
The Konti smiled, a whirlwind of white and ivory, a jewel whose value probably equaled the stars. Then she sank into a bow. People started to shower her in appreciation, yet she raised her hands and slipped away like a butterfly. Afraid of losing freedom, perhaps, afraid of the gifts that’d tie her down. And Malia left too.
Even the wood beneath her boots hummed in response to the girl’s song, praising her sweet voice. Malia walked away from the tiny square still thick with the ghost of her performance, mingled with the hustle and bustle of the general market crowding the Outer Petals. Trying not to get lost in a maze of fabric folds, pages of parchment and vellum, ink-stained scrolls, little creatures of clay, stone, leaves and fern, souvenirs and scholarly materials, practical and pretty.
They filled and cluttered her mind like automatons and cranking golems filled the citadel of Sahova, and the stone walls vibrated with loud noise.
Towards the end it thinned out, the noise, the clutter, everything was sucked away by the lure of more spectacular offers. Yet after all that glitter she found something exotic in the corner nobody else visited. It didn’t glitter – but it shone with pale ivory and clean colors not unlike the thin blues and pinks of the morning sky.
Upon approaching, beetle eyes inspected her just as she inspected a dark mop of hair and white fingers. They lay curled up as if to always embrace and protect their creations.
“How expensive are these?” she asked. Nodding at them, letting her gaze wander over each and every single exemplar caused something deep inside her to tremble. Dolls and dolls and dolls. Not golems, not sterile and useful. They were dolls.
Before, cloaked in the darkness of Akajia illuminated by Leth’s shine and Zintila’s peaks, she had stood and craned her neck to watch them all. Had muttered questions too irrelevant to reach their ears and had cursed them under her breath.
It was so unlike her usual self that she choked with disgust.
And then the treetops flared up and light illuminated the sky like one of those semi-transparent veils Eypharians loved so much. The changing of the Watchstone’s color, the passage of one season and arrival of the next.
It was Fall. She blinked and sank to the ground, sitting until the crack of dawn. It was Fall now.
The melody flowed through the streets, marking walls and covering people in layers of sweetness so thick that they couldn’t help but feel drawn to it. A figure flinched under her cloak’s hood, nevertheless she glided towards the noise like night Herself. Music again, seeping from the warm breaths of the Vantha. Now things had changed. The voice provided fresh water in a sea of dry humidity.
She didn’t believe that music could give water to the thirsty. Yet she came.
There sang the girl, her throat reflecting the first light of Syna and her arms rising as if to greet the citizens of the city she didn’t belong to. What kind of message did she convey? Words were dripping from her lips like ripe fruit, yet the Nuit didn’t know their taste and neither did most of the other spectators.
The Konti smiled, a whirlwind of white and ivory, a jewel whose value probably equaled the stars. Then she sank into a bow. People started to shower her in appreciation, yet she raised her hands and slipped away like a butterfly. Afraid of losing freedom, perhaps, afraid of the gifts that’d tie her down. And Malia left too.
Even the wood beneath her boots hummed in response to the girl’s song, praising her sweet voice. Malia walked away from the tiny square still thick with the ghost of her performance, mingled with the hustle and bustle of the general market crowding the Outer Petals. Trying not to get lost in a maze of fabric folds, pages of parchment and vellum, ink-stained scrolls, little creatures of clay, stone, leaves and fern, souvenirs and scholarly materials, practical and pretty.
They filled and cluttered her mind like automatons and cranking golems filled the citadel of Sahova, and the stone walls vibrated with loud noise.
Towards the end it thinned out, the noise, the clutter, everything was sucked away by the lure of more spectacular offers. Yet after all that glitter she found something exotic in the corner nobody else visited. It didn’t glitter – but it shone with pale ivory and clean colors not unlike the thin blues and pinks of the morning sky.
Upon approaching, beetle eyes inspected her just as she inspected a dark mop of hair and white fingers. They lay curled up as if to always embrace and protect their creations.
“How expensive are these?” she asked. Nodding at them, letting her gaze wander over each and every single exemplar caused something deep inside her to tremble. Dolls and dolls and dolls. Not golems, not sterile and useful. They were dolls.
-
Before, cloaked in the darkness of Akajia illuminated by Leth’s shine and Zintila’s peaks, she had stood and craned her neck to watch them all. Had muttered questions too irrelevant to reach their ears and had cursed them under her breath.
It was so unlike her usual self that she choked with disgust.
And then the treetops flared up and light illuminated the sky like one of those semi-transparent veils Eypharians loved so much. The changing of the Watchstone’s color, the passage of one season and arrival of the next.
It was Fall. She blinked and sank to the ground, sitting until the crack of dawn. It was Fall now.
