time and circumstance. (cailet)

[Dor]

I wanted freedom bound and restricted you squeezed the life out of me but I won't let you bury it I won't let you smother it our time is running out you can't push it underground our time is running out you will be the death of me you will be the death of me - muse - Timestamp: 24 Fall 511 AV Home was a four letter word. It crunched foul between her teeth until she was forced to spit it out in fucks and shits. They were ugly, bitter splatters on the wind that slammed across Sartu peak like a fist punched through glass. It lifted a tangled mass of hair the color of woman's blood off a slender, bare back. Moments before the air had snapped at itself with pops of light that the wind threatened to blow into catastrophic disruption, ultimately leaving the high speed stoop of a dark feathered falcon miscarried into the stumble and fall of a young woman. She skinned her knee on the steps of the Temple of Time, grit digging into skin so pale that the shadows of bones could be seen beneath. It was the closest cause for her cursing, bright spots of pain while she brushed the grime with slowly bloodying hands and unraveled to her feet with an eerie imbalance. A crumpled scrap of linen ruffled, tumbling across the smooth steps of the temple and forcing the girl to go stumbling after it. Fortunately, the hour caused the surrounds to be mostly empty. Not that she would have cared, naked as dawn in her too lean curves. She jerked the wrinkled shift -- crumpled from having been tattered and gripped in the curve of bird talons -- over her head and half walked, half crawled up the remaining steps to shove a shoulder against the door of time. It creaked. Then it opened. Thick blood, hot blood like springs of steam from the center of the earth dripped down the bird's arm as she crept into the crumble and dust of Tanroa's time trapped temple. There were other places she might have gone, she could have gone if in the mind of a whirling, agitated bird she could have thought of them and taken moment to note, to remember, that they were safe. Safe. This was almost at the top of the world. It was as good a roost as any to nurse her wounds, inside and out.

[Cailet]

Boring. The patrol was so boring. Nothing interesting ever happened. Leaning on her staff, Cailet stood gazing off into the distance. With her back to the streets she was supposed to be prowling, the woman instead took in the beautiful view before her. Sartu was the tallest peak, and not only did that give her the best view of the world thousands of feet below, but also a spectacular eyeful of her sparkling city. Even in the daylight, it was still beautiful. As her eyes followed the spiraling peaks of the delicate towers, Cailet was reminded of why she had fallen in love with her home. It had seduced her and left her unable to even imagine leaving it's streets. The Shinya had adopted her, welcoming her as one of their own. Well, at first. Turning her head, Cailet spat the foul taste from her mouth. Accepted, indeed. Which was why she was left guarding empty streets during the noon rest period. The irritation she had momentarily quelled rose back up into her throat, turning her placad expression into a scowl. Snapping her staff sharply against the stones, Cailet turned away from the cliffs and back to surveying the vacant streets. For a city as beautiful and luminescent as Lhavit, there were an awful lot of shadows, real an metaphorical. Blinded at first by all the sparkles and glory of the place, it had taken Cailet years to notice this. Hidden from the watchful eyes of the Shinya, there was angst and deception aplenty. The mood of some Lhavitans matched the reaching shadows that cluttered their streets. With such tall buildings everywhere, there was no lack of the deep pockets of darkness. Alleyways were completely consumed by this, some streets only seeing very short amounts of sunlight. Long story short, Lhavit was a good place to hide. However, this no longer a problem for this particular Shinya. Blessed by the mistress of the shadows herself, Cailet spent her days walking within the darkness. Her gaze, no sharper than that of any human, could none the less penetrate even the darkest shadows cast around the city. Dealers and thieves that hid in the blackened alleys were an easy catch for her. As her idle gaze continued to sweep the streets, passing over light and shadows as if there were no difference, she saw him. He was a boy in his later teens, pressed against the inside wall of a building not a hundred paces away. He was working his fingers under the edge of a window, the cocky set of his shoulders telling Cailet that this was not the first time he had attempted this. Keeping her gaze moving, fighting the urge to let her eyes linger on the boys process, Cailet knew that it would only tip him off to her presence. Their most basic animalistic tendencies were the ones that had to be dealt cautiously with. Staring the boy down would only cause the hairs on the back of his neck to prickle, hackles raising in an unknown defense and only making him harder to catch, for he would most surely flee. No one messed with the Shinya. Slowly and ever so cautiously, Cailet slipped into a shadow the nearest building cast. She just had to get close enough to each him. One slow step, followed by another and she was only eighty paces...fifty... "Petch!" The boy had managed to shimmy the window open, slipping his arm inside up to the shoulder when the window went crashing down. Startled, the swear had slipped between his lips before he could stop himself. Panic bright in his eyes, the boy glanced up and around. When his gaze landed on Cailet, crouched in the shadows with her staff at the ready, he bolted. Quick as lightening, Cailet darted forward. Unable to take the proper amount of time to prepare, the woman was forced to rip her projection. Wishing to extend her arm, she focused her energy and djed on her arm. With a forceful push, Cailet tore the astral body of her arm away, flinging it towards the fleeing thief in a punching motion. However, she missed. Having heard the whistle of an invisable fist past his ear, the teen redoubled his efforts and quickly disappeared around the corner. By the time Cailet got there, he was no where in sight. "Where did he go?" Makleth slithered from her tongue as she whispered at the shadows. They chattered unhelpfully, mocking her failure and giving unhelpful and otherwise rude tips. "Where.....did he go?" She snarled, her hands balling into fists at her sides. "The Temple of Time..." Came a helpful whisper from the darkness. A little too helpful. Skeptical, and having nothing else to go off of, Cailet stalked towards the building. Angry at her failure, the woman couldn't help but stomp up the steps to the temple. There was no sign of the boy anywhere. Opening her mouth to swear at the meddlesome children of darkness, the same helpful voice as before gave her pause. "Inside..." And so, containing a growl, Cailet slammed into the otherwise abandoned temple, easily penetrating the shadows as she stalked through the entrance way and into the temple it's self. Whether she was intentionally hidden by the shadows or not, Cailets gaze skipped right over the bloody Kelvic in the corner.

[Dor]

The clamor of Cailet's entrance burst through the interior ruins of the Temple of Time, scurrying and furious. A wind from the closing of the door rocked the cobweb strung chandelier dangling from the shadow drenched ceiling as precariously as a pocket watch from a rusted chain. It swung ponderously through shafts of Syna's dust choked light that struck like knives through the laborious crawl of time. The concentration of moments housed in the temple fattened itself on the disturbance, at once absorbing the clash of history's rage and dousing it like a match strike in the giant's depths of eons. "What the hell?" Dor whirled like the hands of a broken clock toward the entrance, ribbons of hair floating out like war banners and eyes wide and reflective. They threw back all the glow and mystery of the orb in the temple's center in a way that either offering or dismissal. The line of her body settled in a defensive posture, so still as to be frozen while she studied the intruder. Torn threads dangled from the hem of her simple shift where a piece had been ripped off to use as a makeshift bandage. Dried runnels of blood and the early blossoms of bruises snaked beneath and around where the bandage had been awkwardly tied about her upper arm. The intruder walked like a wraith through all the waiting energy of the temple, motions translating into warning signs for the kelvic. This was not a woman, but a predator. Dor understood the notion well and wished, belatedly, she had not given herself away in the static of surprise.

[Cailet]

Fortunately for the Kelvic, Cailet had stalked far enough into the temple that the exclamation died in the darkness before it reached her ears. Circling around the Orb that dominated the room, Cailet moved towards the very corners of the room, searching each of the mossy corners for the runaway thief. "Behind you.." "You know what? I'm done with these games you unhelpful little pieces of..." Makleth slithered from her tongue without even thinking as she swore at the shadows that hurt as much as they helped her. Sure now that she was being taken for the fool, Cailet abandoned the search as soon as the creeping whisper reached her ears. Spinning on her heel, a stalk similar to the one in which she originally entered the Temple brought her back towards the entrance. Unfortunately for the Kelvic, she did not think to shrink back into the shadows after her silent hideout was invaded by the fuming Shinya woman. The sound of Cailet's passing was barely a whisper of slippered feet, but all sound stopped when the details of Dor's person were distinguished from the shadows. Years of practice kept the sudden appearance of this other from showing as surprise on Cailet's face. Her staff, formally held at her side with little care, snapped against the cracked stone floor as she struck it's butt against the layers of moss and mold that muffled most of the sounds within, their only purpose to attest the age of the building. "Well. Can I help you? You might be aware that we can provide if you need a place to sleep, as public buildings are not the proper place for such things." The sideways jab at Dor's appearance was offered with a very formal tone, placid expression and a slight bow. Brown eyes kept careful watch of the woman's expression and posture, taking note of the small nuances that would suggest before hand if she was going to bolt. The bloody tattered appearance was also noted, as the shadows provided no protection for her from Cailet's piercing gaze. "I told you. Behind you." Came a distinctive snicker that made the Shinya's lip curl in disgust. They were really getting to her today, but in the presence of a stranger Cailet was forced to let the comment go. Instead, she slowly, carefully began to separate her astral self from her physical body. This time, if the woman was to run, Cailet would be ready.

[Dor]

The Shinya was delivered an unamused stare. It was not human, that look, though it was set in a human face she would not have known to call beautiful. It held in youthful curves a disjointed regard, at once removed from the purview of man and an integral piece. This was an outlander, part of no world to which she might have laid claim, yet framed in the timelessness of Tanroa's temple for once belonging. She was not beast enough to hear Caiyha's cry, nor woman enough to naturally interpret the lesser communications of man. She was family to a man with whom she shared no blood, no lasting vows and stranger to those surviving to whom she was born. She was irritated, too, by this intrusion, by this claim, by the mockery she felt even if she lacked the ability to put it into translatable phrases. If she were wearing her feathers, they would have been ruffled. "I wasn't sleeping," she staunchly informed the woman while holding her ground. It was riddled with pitch falls in the shape of dust and divine ruins, but the coward bird never ate. She had made of this place a temporary nest. The Shinya woman was clearly the trespasser in her eyes, not the other way around. "I wasn't doing anything. I was being, being," verbally grappling for the right word with a voice accented by the elegant lacework of a foreign tongue, she spread out her hands. "Polite? Polite." She meant respectful, but did not know it in Common. Doll like features settled into a scowl. "Unlike you."

[Cailet]

Her pride immediately flared, sending her temper rushing like storm churned waves into her ears; her adrenaline pumped and deafened her while the semi-polite expression her face had adopted fell into a blank, emotionless mask.

"Careful." Was all she said, a whispered word with a clipped ending syllable that only drew notice to the odd way her lips had formed the word. It wasn't as if Cailet was drunk with power; never had she wanted this position of power, never wanted the responsibilities that came along with it. She had grown up fast thanks to her mothers neglect, but matured even faster once she joined the Shinya. No, Cailet was simply mad, irritated that she not only lost her 'prey' but was not put off by a smart mouthed, apparently homeless girl.

"I guess we have different definitions of 'polite', then. I find it rude that one would use a holy place as their bedroom." That icy gaze flickered pointedly to the spot where Dor had formally curled before pinning her again with that serious stare, unaware that Dor thought Cailet was just as guilty of befouling the Temple of Time. Fists clenched at her sides as she took in Dor's posture, shifting her shoulders into a more comfortable position as if the anger that emanated from the woman had settled upon her shoulders and she had to shake it off. Slowly, carefully, Cailet began to prepare her djed in case Dor decided to make a break for it. She wouldn't have to rip this time, and she wouldn't have to let another get away.

"And your reasons for doing so? Are you.... approved to be within the city?" Though her face kept it's expressionless mask, Cailet's tone spoke clearly of everything she had left unsaid. Dor's ragged appearance, her compromising position within the temple and her strange accent all lead the Shinya to believe she was simply dealing with a miscreant who hid from the law such as herself. With her life dedicated to protecting the city and keeping it's occupants in line this was a common issue that the woman had to face, and so Dor was shrugged off as just another problem.

And though Cailet tried to tell herself that broken rules were the only reason she felt so negatively towards the stranger, it was simply not the case. The malevolent, predatory gaze unnerved her. The way she seemed awkward in her own skin, as if she was unsure of how she should hold her posture, how her arms were supposed to hang by her sides all practically screamed at Cailet that something was different or wrong, but she could not say what.

But for all that, she wanted to know. Why was she here? What was she doing? Why where her clothes meager tatters? The questions constantly ate at her, and though Cailet simply wanted to do her job, punish the rule-breaker and be done with it...she knew that would not sate her need. And she knew the constantly whispering shadows would not help her one bit.

"Petch." In a tone low enough that any normal human would be unable to distinguish the words, the curse rolled from her tongue in Makalith before she could stop it, for just a moment hating the gift Akajia bestowed upon her as it would inevitably keep her in this woman's presence for longer than either of them desired.

[Dor]

"Roost," Dor retorted. Roost and bedroom had, to her, two entirely different meanings. A bedroom was a place with walls and a ceiling to bar a body from the Up and a roost was a haven safe enough to allow guard lowered for sleeping. Maybe this particular roost had a roof, too, but the syrupy concentration of djed present had worked to sooth her nerves in that regard. "Not bedroom. Roost," she repeated herself with mounting frustration. The intruder was taller and stood like a bared blade, perfectly balanced for and prepared for all manner of hunting and defense. The pockmarks flawing all the flesh her communication skills continued. Humans were impossible to talk to, but that had yet to stop her from trying. Goosebumps rippled up porcelain arms and with a glance to the side she tucked a few steps -- entirely ungraceful -- closer to the crumbling fountain in the temple's center. It felt safe for reasons she had no ability to translate. "Approved?" The young woman had a glass face. Every failure to understand, every ounce of mounting annoyance and drop of physical pain and discomfort was visible in the nuances of her expression and the fierce consciousness of her regard. "What do you mean? By who? For what? I'm not allowed in Lhavit? Why?" Oh, no. Was she not? Had she missed something again? Someone would have told her, wouldn't they? But then there was no one to whom she was close. Haeli she saw most often and handful of others from time to time; but by and large, the peregrine falcon was a loner, suffering from self-enforced solitude in a last ditch attempt to protect herself from being lost in a bad bond.

[Cailet]

"Ugh. Come with me."

The girls questions were quickly eating through Cailet's bluff. Most of her bluster was for show and she couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt at the sudden and obvious confusion plastered across her face. In truth, Cailet had no idea what the gate keepers did, or if they ever denied anyone access. If anything, she had hoped to startle the bedraggled woman from the temple and simply be done with her. It didn't seem like it was going to be that easy.

All caught up in herself, Cailet had failed to notice pretty much everything about the stranger; the strange way she spoke to the ungainly way she seemed uncomfortable in her own skin. Only when she stood waiting for the other to hop to her command did she see. At first, she said nothing and simply observed. That she had been struggling to find words had not raised any alarms; many came through Lhavit who spoke something other than common, forcing Cailet to do her best to breech the language barrier almost daily, so this was nothing new.

"She called it a roost." Something snickered behind her, a faint whisper that Cailet almost couldn't hear.

"Maybe she's simple" Came another whispered insult.

"Roost?" The woman tasted the word slowly, taking the cue from her shadowy companions. "Did you call this a roost?" Taking longer than it should have, everything clicked into place.

And then: "Are you Kelvic?"

All of her former agressive agitation dissipated, replaced by almost childlike wonder. Yes, she had come across Kelvics in her lifetime but her mother had never let her see one up close; they were one mystery that Cailet had never gotten the chance to unravel.

Stepping forward, brown eyes wide, Cailet seemed like she wanted to reach out and touch the bedraggled woman before her, to test if she was real and really there. Stunted social skills left Cailet unaware that her sudden change of mood might startle the woman, especially after being hostile and now reaching towards her. But still, she took another step and gestured excitedly.

"Yes, Come with me. Please? Come with me?"

[Dor]

A startled expression claimed the bird girl’s face, widening lightless eyes. Bare feet skittered backwards, stumbling through the dust before plastering her with arms flung across the temple wall. Suspicion nettled delicate eyebrows, pursing lips as she straightened with laughable attempt at dignity. A tug was given her thoroughly wrinkled shift and she slid her eyes to the side, toward a window set hit in time’s molding wall. It and the needle of daylight it blessed the air with was considered for longer than was strictly necessary or polite. “Yes,” she replied at last. It was possibly the longest drawn out yes in the history of the world, laden with distrust and all but crackling with uncertainty. Refocusing on the woman, Dor tilted her head in a spill of tangled hair. “Where do you want me to go?” A decision appeared to be in the making. “This is an okay roost,” she explained. “Well, it was.”