Strange Places, Strange People [Dor]

[Rorugir]

"Indeed." His father, being the pompous man he was, had explained their name a long time ago to Rorugir. Steelrune, one of the most well-established names of the Pitrius citadel - so said. "Yes, well, a while ago, I mean." Rorugir hastened to explain, saying, "Runes was used a long time ago, in Sultros, when paper wasn't readily available, I mean. We had to carve our letters into rock, or, metal, like steel." Rorugir's eyes twinkled, bringing up his arm to explain how such a process was done. The overlarge arm, colored a midnight-black and webbed with silver veins, was usually enough to satisfy askers. "I speak both Common and Isur." The Isur suddenly switched gears, changing into the harsh language of his past- "I can speak Isur better than Common, but I doubt it is the same for you." At the next of the girl's many questions, he hesitated. Indecison flickered across his face, although only briefly; in a second, it had disappeared and the man was speaking smoothly once more: "I...did not run here. I walked a bit, I guess, and I traveled with a caravan for a time...it was a complicated journey." the Isur spoke evasively, looking away from the girl beside him. He never was a good liar. More questions! Ironically, it was usually he who battered others with questions. Rorugir briefly wondered if this was what other people had to deal with when he talked with them. "You know what, I'm tired of sitting down." Rorugir said suddenly, ignoring the question. "Let's walk a ways, alright?" For a ways, Rorugir walked without talking, then he quietly said, "I rejected Sultros, if that's what you mean." As much as he wanted to stop the conversation from where it was going, he couldn't help but ask a question of his own. "A place that doesn't have an Up...a bit of a riddle, don't you think? Does this place have a name?"

[Dor]

OOCMany and more apologies for being so god awful slow. I'm NaNoing on another PC (and failing). The Isur was given wide eyes with the abrupt change of his mind. It left her scrambling back to her feet, digging up broken blades of grass in the process and tripping over an invisible rock. That left her staggering some steps, catching herself with a hand to his arm and hauling herself upright while shaking off the stumble like water from wings. "Petch," she pronounced politely. "Most actual journeys are complicated," she carried on while releasing her grip of his arm. Her fingers were a bit clammy, but that was due primarily to an over abundance of hours spent in the higher echelons of the sky where the air itself thinned itself chill. The blood beneath her skin was warm and sometimes that was all that mattered. "Don't you think? Mine have been. Or maybe you and I are just exceptional at being complicated. Huh?" She blinked a few times and shoved her hands deep into the pockets of the oversized coat, chin going down but eyes peeking up once, no, twice, at him before she mumbled. "Kalinor. S'not a riddle. Just the truth. Kalinor has no Up. Nor does Hai or Sultros or the tunnels under the Sea of Grass.." She trailed off. One was left with the impression that she could list every underground domain, great or small, littering the entirety of Mizahar.

[Rorugir]

OoCDon't worry about it. I mean, you just replied now, and that's good enough for me. P.S. You're not the only one failing NaNo. Dor seemed to have trouble catching up with Ror, though he scarcely paid heed. When she swore, however, the isur looked back at her, perhaps at first interpreting her profanity as a result of Rorugir moving too fast. A clammy hand came to grab his arm, making his jump with it's cool touch. He slowed down to let her catch up, listening to her speak with a thoughtful look on his face as he did so. "That seems to be the case with a lot of journeys," Rorugir agreed, "but mine is still quite strange." He frowned as she spook, perhaps glancing back in time to reflect; but if he did, it was only for a moment, as he once again turned to Dor with a focused look in his eye. "I know I myself am complicated, but I can scarcely say the same about you. Is this true? Are you as complicated as I?" A faint smile touched Ror's face. "I would like to believe so." They walked a while without saying anything. Dor seemed to long to say something on her mind, though, and Rorugir patiently waited to what she had to say. When she finally spoke, the isur's black eyebrows came together, and his small smile curved down into a frown. "No up? Kalinor and Sultros and Hai - all those places have an up. I mean, all you have to do is look skyward. What's above you might be small, but-" Rorugir suddenly stopped, realizing what she meant. She didn't mean the direction up, she meant Up as in- "Oh." The isur breathed. "You mean the sky, don't you? Well, then, you're true. Sultros and Kalinor don't have a sky." A sudden shake of the head and Rorugir watched his companion, more intently this time. His eyes seemed to speak of some realization the man had, some sort of understanding. "Forgive me if this is a personal question..." He said slowly. "...But do you happen to be kelvic? You...you seem like to be one." An image, perfectly formed, appeared in his mind, crossing his eyes as though real. A young woman, with black hair and alabaster-pale skin, beautiful and starkly painful for the isur to imagine. He tried to force himself away from the image, and it faded away, leaving only the image of Dor in it's wake.

[Dor]

Dor regarded him with absorbed eyes when he remarked upon complicated journeys and complicated people. "I don't think I'm complicated," she admitted, feeling a bit wretched for it because he seemed to like the idea of her being so. "But I am a kelvic, yes," she nodded, ruffling tangles of sunset hair into her face, a truer red than found in most due to an incredible lack of sun bleaching. A smile shook itself up, something amused in the frame of her face, and she pressed one finger down on a glimmering, eerie vein snaking through the Isur's arm. She watched intently, seeming to expect something to happen. When nothing out of the ordinary did, she huffed a breath and stuffed her hands back into the pockets of her coat. Steps clomped and stomped, overly loud for a young woman made up of hollow bones and slight stature. Cheeks were a little hollow, or they would be when winter came. It stray wind turned her attention, sharp eyes narrowing on the high flight of a sparrow zooming above them. "A bird and a girl," she went on to explain, musing while observing the pretty bird in drooping flight. It was with no poetry she observed the sparrow, however, no sense of community. She looked at the sparrow as if she wanted to eat it. "Yes, the sky. The whole sky. An Up. Kalinor doesn't have one. It only has the gorge, a giant Down," and here she slanted him a look, humor bubbling up. She was mocking herself, not as slow as one might think. Then it was often the error of man to mistake an alien sentience for a lack of wits.

[Rorugir]

Rorugir gave a mysterious, knowing smile. "You're too hard on yourself." he murmured. "I'd bet you're plenty more complicated than you believe. That's a compliment, by the way," Rorugir added, a rueful smile on his face. He only nodded when Dor admitted her true nature. So his assumptions had been correct. The way she walked, she talked. It was all uncannily similar to the kelvic he had met only days before. Although he tried to refrain from thinking of her. "It doesn't do too much," Rorugir said by way of apology when Dor inspected his arm. "Not right now, that is. You can try and dent it with a rock, if you like. That'll interest you." By contrast to her heavy step, Rorugir was lighter, more agile on his feet. A sense of bliss seemed entrenched in his figure. "A bird, you say?" Rorugir said absently, eyes also on the sparrow that soared above their head. "That's funny. It seems I can only find kelvics that are of an avian nature. I assume there are more than just bird kelvics, though. Correct?" Charcoal eyes glanced over to assess the girl's reaction, though he kept his body smoothly moving forward. Rorugir nodded his head in another apology as the interpretation of her words and sideways look became apparent. "Forgive me, it was my own slowness in figuring out this that made me exclaim so. A gorge, you say?" Rorugir said, hastily changing the subject. "I've never been to Kalinor. I wonder what it's like?" He mused. Turning, the isur realized their walk had taken them out of the gardens. Now they were on the steps of the Koten Temple itself. The sense of uneasy secrecy had fled from his stomach, and once more Rorugir sat, this time on cool rock. He motioned for Dor to sit down once more. He then found himself abashedly saying, "I won't make you sit down and stand up this time, I promise." With that pledge out of the way, Rorugir turned to examine the surroundings in which he and his enigmatic companion found themselves. Birds like the sparrow twittered in the air, their cries creating a peaceful atmosphere which silent citygoers moved to and fro, soft treads taking them among the peaks. Syna's rays glinted off the graceful buildings, creating pools of light among the darkened streets. The cold had abated somewhat, though it never disappeared, - not when they were so far up the mountains. It was everpresent, yes, but now it had died away somewhat. It allowed some measure of warmth to once again fill Rorugir's limbs, for which he was thankful. "It's a beautiful city, isn't it?" He finally said.

[Dor]

A lopsided smile flickered like a lightning bug when Rorugir defined his compliment. A hand dusted down her arm, plucking at the wrinkles of her jacket's sleeve with an air of preening. She spat a tendril of hair out her mouth in the same moment and her steps bounced a bit as she continued in her attempts to keep stride with him. "Wait, what?" A quick head swivel brought wide eyes back to the Isur, disbelief drawing up her eyebrows. "With a rock? You would let me hit you with a rock? Why would you do that? That would bruise," she attempted to explain, crashing up against the already existent evidence of his intelligence. "Maybe bleed. Or break something. I don't want to hurt you." He was too big to eat, wasn't he? Her questions, that maddening litany, rolled forward as the grass grew to stones beneath their wandering feet and Koten Temple soared before them. "You've met other kelvics? Birds?" Interest sharpened and she swung around, loose boot heels clunking, to walk backwards in front of him for a moment, trying to examine his expression, maybe, and see if he was having her on. "I've not. But I know they exist. There aren't a whole lot of us. More stars than us. Yeah? But I've heard of horses and wolves and mice and all manner with hot blood." Tripping across a crack in the stone, she swiveled back around with a quick fling of arms out in an attempt to catch her balance. It worked well enough, tossing her shadow with wings across the ground while Rorugir sat, she thought, like a supplicant at the temple's feet. "Kalinor is black," she mumbled while drawing back her arms, folding them beneath the swell of her breasts and peering down at him. "Homes hang from the floor the world and streets are made of silk and industry. Blood hazes everything and people speak with words that are soft like shadows." She bit her lips and shifted her weight off a lean hip. This time she did not drop fast, but sank slowly first into a corbie's crouch and finally to lay on her back rather than actually sit. This was so with a hand risen to shade her face she could gander a while at the surrounding sky. "I forgot my candy in the last place," she admitted with an absent air. "Ants will eat it. Maybe I'll start to glow in the skyglass light like I've seen the pigeons do. It's the.. the, what is it called, Rorugir? Calias? I can't remember. A shop keeper told me. But it gets into living things here and lights them up from the inside."

[Rorugir]

Rorugir chuckled and shook his head. "It won't hurt, I promise." He said, flexing his left arm for added effect. "My arm has got this special property, y'see," He began to explain, "A gift from Izurdin that makes it super-hard and nearly indestructible. I myself have bent metal like clay with this hand, and I've seen other isur even use their arms as shields! Trust me, Dor, a little rock won't hurt it." Her interest in other kelvics was profound. Perhaps because she was one of them, Rorugir had thought Dor didn't partake of the intrigue of a kelvic, but now he supposed that a rare species was rare to everyone, even if you were part of that race yourself. "I met one other kelvic, and she was a bird as well. A...swan." Rorugir stiffened, eyes turned right. What looked like her form, caught in the setting sun, had drawn his gaze; but then he realized, with disappointment, it was but a cloud fleeing across the heavens. "So I haven't met that many either," he muttered, slow in turning back to her. "Horses, wolves, and mice you say? That's...strange. And interesting." It would doubtless prove an interesting subject to pursue. Rorugir had heard of Marcus Kelvic, of course, but he was astounded by the huge impact one man could have on the world. He created an entire race, for Izurdin's sake! And he wasn't alone...other men had tread such sacred grounds. Had down the works of gods. Keep that in mind for the future. Rorugir came back out of his musings to find Dor talking about Kalinor. "Stranger and stranger. How do they live like that, I wonder?" He mused. "Streets of silk..." The next few seconds the isur simply thought of what Dor had said to him. She seemed to get distracted, going off about random details like her candy, and Rorugir ignored her for a second, trying to make heads or tails of what she had mentioned. One thing she said, however, caught his attention swiftish. "Calias, the mineral?" He said, astounded. "I knew it lit up the plants...but it does that to people, too? How peculiar."

[Dor]

"They can climb like monkeys," she explained. Kalinor and the Symnestra were of the few things she knew more than a little bit about. Though there was a great deal locked up in her lungs that had gasped too many terrified breaths and sealed up in her heart that had broken too many times in that city without an Up, she could and did occasionally speak of it. Besides, if she was being generous enough with herself to allow the churning, pulsing drive to seek community and companionship to peek out from behind a hard won and discontented defense, she might be willing to talk about anything. The trick was getting her to focus and not on something capable of being defined as "prey". "They have these things that come out of the holes in their skin," she meant pores and, were she speaking with the fragile lacework of Symenos would have said so. "And they're sticky so they can climb sheer cave walls and walk silk streets when most anyone else would just fall into the Black if they tried." Her hand slanted even as her head turned, squinting up at him while the sun warmed stone eased comforting warmth into her back, into her bones. She did not appear at all self conscious about her position, though it did win the pair of them a handful of strange looks. "Oh," she said and the word dropped like a brick. She blinked, shoved up to an elbow and proceeded to invade his personal space while trying to get a better look at whatever it was she had witness fleet in his eyes. "Yours? You," she squished the fingers of one hand together. "Came together? Um. Bonded? With the swan?" A beat. "Did she fly away because you were cruel to her?" It was growing more and more apparent that social niceties were beyond this young woman. While it was true that a few had been well drilled into her early on, many of them had been discarded with the black of Kalinor and the last remnants of a busted heart. This was primarily because she did not agree with some of them, finding them silly and stupid. Pushing herself the rest of the way up, she folded one leg beneath her and began to scout the immediate vicinity for something, possibly a rock with which to hit his arm. It was far too fascinating an invitation to pass up. "It lights up plants and animals," she murmured, distracted. "Makes them hazy like an opalgloam. I don't know if it can light up people, but people eat plants and animals. Do they just poop it out?" Huh.

[Rorugir]

It seemed almost difficult for Dor to talk about Kalinor, something which Rorugir knew well. But while his tight lip came from honor and shame, her's seemed derived from a darker emotion. Fear, or anger...? "That's fascinating. I wonder if it can be replicated in other races? Pores...or so I presume." The word she had meant to say did not escape the isur. Rorugir drew back as she drew near, invading his personal space. "What do you..." He muttered, only to drop off suddenly as she spoke of things he'd rather she speak of. "No we did not bond..." A pause, and an outraged expression. "I wasn't cruel to her!" The impassioned cry escaped his lips before Rorugir was able to stop it, his jaw grinding close as soon as he realized what he had done. "I'm...sorry." He said, teeth gritted. "The swan...she had enough of this city. Of the ways of men. She wanted to escape, and I helped her. She left, because of cruelty, yes, but not because of me." And then, in a softer tone, "Or at least I hope not." Rorugir couldn't help but breathe a relieved breath after she turned away, apparently flitting from one subject to another. The other kelvic hadn't been like this. She'd been focused on her goal with a primal intensity. Hm. "If you're looking for a rock, I spied one in the flowerbeds." Rorugir pointed. "Maybe the calias is simply absorbed into their bodies, used for energy and djed?" Rorugir cringed. "Or, yes, they might poop it out."

[Dor]

Dor delivered the Isur an expression of incredible patience when he cried out. It held what could be described as detached fascination, as if his reaction to her question had taken her off guard. She blinked, blood tinted lash shadows spilling, and held herself very still in a position somewhere between sitting and crawling that would have been awkward for anyone else. "You never know," she pointed out with a voice gone flushed like cheeks in the cold. "You could have been." There seemed little judgement in her words, as if the fact of cruelty was an unassailable likelihood in the walls of her world. "It's good that you were not," she went on, a shrug lifting narrow shoulders. "You helped her escape?" Now that was interesting. "Where did she go? Do you know? Had she ever seen an Up before?" A man who helped a bird escape induced instant favor from Dor. It had her forgetting for the time being about flowerbeds and stones and arms with the strength to keep skin from breaking beneath battering stones. It had settling back, careful now to not invade his personal space, having seen his distaste for it, for her. It clicked with understanding. The other man she had known to help birds escape black places had not liked to be touched either. Scattered. Scattered. Oh, she had always been scattered; but when that primal instinct took over, when threat or fury hastened, there was next to nothing that could steer her from her goal. What, after all, could stop the hunter's stoop of a hungry falcon?