Reconnaissance, Part I

[Solo] Georgia Delner and Seven strike a deal.

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Considered one of the most mysterious cities in Mizahar, Alvadas is called The City of Illusions. It is the home of Ionu and the notorious Inverted. This city sits on one of the main crossroads through The Region of Kalea.

Reconnaissance, Part I

Postby Seven Xu on December 24th, 2011, 8:09 pm

Winter 40 511 AV

Wake up. Wake up, damn you.

Winter had come; that was as plain as the hoarfrost that edged a murky window. Dust motes danced between streaks of morning light that bleached blood-speckled sheets and a slumbering twosome, no more than two blackened tufts of hair beneath layer upon layer of linen and cotton and goose down. One groaned, stirred, and reached blindly for the warmth of the other while a brazen toe tested the rumpled white landscape that lay untouched by bodies; it sang of a morning as frigid as the night that has preceded it, and with a shudder Seven withdrew his leg to tangle it between those of his sleeping human.

Sleep tugged against his heavy eyelids, cajoling him back into bottomless black. A bell barely had time to pass before those pallid lashes parted again and he abandoned Nysel’s clutch with a gasp and a scrabbling attempt to rid himself of too many blankets. Whatever had startled him was already fading from his memory, teasing the corners of his wits and darting out of his grasp when he reached. A vacuous frown turned pleasant when a hand snuck up along the inner crook of his elbow and tugged him back into a nest of body-warm respite.

Those eyes burn when he stares at you. Crimson eclipsed narrow rings of iron before black lashes fluttered shut again; his human’s mind was too weary to show contentment. He had grown familiar with those tiny changes, as much talent as they were a perversion of djed; Seven had no right to pass judgment, he who could weave his very essence into an invisible safeguard. His resolve broken, he settled into the feather mattress, offered the brief sting of fang against tired lip, and buried his nose in a musky sea of silk ebony. Sleep took its time finding him again.

When Seven woke, the hot fingers of the sun had drifted far above their heads, and the crackling frost had melted into a thousand glassy beads, clinging to the corners of the dirt-riddled window. Again, an olive-wrapped collection of fingers protested Seven’s move to the far side of the bed. They snagged him at the hip, drew desperate lines across wan skin with tired fervor. Words without nuance briefly filled the air, an unintelligible plea. The effort earned a breathy laugh before the digits were gingerly dismissed in favour of a bitter cold room.

The hearth wasn’t lit. Its fire probably died bells ago.

Seven fished across the floor for discarded trousers while a deep yawn stole his sight. An index finger hooked a worn belt loop, and two slim brown legs swallowed a set of pale ones. He was still fumbling with the leather string that cinched the threadbare pants around his waist when he approached the window. A pair of free fingers tipped back half-drawn curtains. “It’s nice,” he remarked, to no one in particular, despite the body that occupied the bed, basking in incomparable warmth and a reluctance to accept morning’s arrival. He envied the man so immune to the guilt that came with wasting a perfectly good day in bed. Then again, he could not remember when Alvadas had shown Victor the way home that morning.

Seven let the curtain drop and knock half-heartedly against a dusty sill. He licked his lips, dry, and still hot from sleep. “For winter.”
Last edited by Seven Xu on March 11th, 2012, 2:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Seven Xu
Rhetoric can't raise the dead.
 
Posts: 976
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Reconnaissance, Part I

Postby Seven Xu on December 24th, 2011, 8:14 pm

Cobblestone glistened with early morning’s leavings of hoarfrost, bits of which still clung to the shadows drawn by ever-shifting streets. The door, whose paint was black and peeling, swung shut behind the diminutive silhouette wrapped in his weight in fabric. A black wool jacket hung to his thighs and boots strained to meet it, falling short below the knee. Not one, but two scarves wrapped a skinny column of neck and black leather gloves, worn grey from use, were the best he had to shield his hands from wind’s sharp bite. As he stepped from the Sun and Stars, a visible wobble in his gait suggested that a glass-ravaged foot was taking its time to heal.

The City was kind to him that day, and the upturned shape of the Cubacious Inn caught his peripherals as he crested a narrow side street. The great ponderous cube, set awkwardly in the ground as some giant had plucked them from elsewhere and tossed them aside, loomed above Seven’s head as he approached it. Its foundation was riddled with cracks; golden-yellow paint had been sun-washed in some places, and was falling off in others. A mess of silt crumbled in dust from the roof as he heaved open the front door. A bell heralded his arrival; it rang a sharp chorus through dead air, thick with the smell of burning timber. When the lumbering door settled back into its frame, its tarnished golden bell sang a second verse.

“Ah, Seven, back so soon?” A female voice chirped, forcing the halfblood to swivel bodily towards its source. The look of surprise had time to settle on his face, and he sucked a bottom lip beneath a row of teeth in an attempt to abolish it. Georgia Delner: she held a charming repute as the owner of the Cubacious Inn. Victor had done a large part in kindling their acquaintance, having left the woman a generous handful of silver when they had first shambled into the Inn, in the fledgling fall.

You’re quiet,” she had noted, half a season ago, when Seven and Victor gathered their belongings with the promise of greatness beneath the illusive stars of a derelict building, “and you’re smart. Hold those traits close in this city, and you will get far. If you should ever need guidance, you know where to find me.”

“You’re doing well for yourself.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Why, sweetling, do you ask questions you already know the answers to?”

“Because you answer them.”

Smart boy,” she twittered the scathing remark, “You and that nice boy with no sense of shame,” amusement curled her lips into a smile, “Bought a tavern with the Synaborn; I hear you’re doing well for yourselves, a veritable bunch of born-again Alvads.”

Color swelled in the apples of Seven’s cheeks. “I guess you could call us that.”

“A little patriotism never killed anyone,” Georgia’s eyes crinkled as she laughed and rose, slapping the countertop with a svelte hand. “Sit. Tell me why you’ve come.”
Last edited by Seven Xu on March 11th, 2012, 2:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Seven Xu
Rhetoric can't raise the dead.
 
Posts: 976
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Reconnaissance, Part I

Postby Seven Xu on February 26th, 2012, 6:39 pm

“Akajia?” Georgia’s sharp laughter filled an otherwise empty lobby. They had taken up in two wingbacks beside the main room’s hearth, and the charming woman had even gone as far as coffee, for two; it was a luxury Seven knew little of, but the bitterness teased his tongue and the warmth was a comfort winter did not offer. “Sweetling, all I have is a pair of good ears; shadows do not confide in me, nor do I know much of your goddess.”

There was a beat of silence; Seven let a trapped bottom lip slide out from beneath a pointed fang. He mouthed the word oh, but the sound never escaped him. She did not allow his chin to dip; a bony finger snapped out to catch it, and she laughed again.

“Don’t look so disappointed. I’m no shadow cultist, but I could tell you about them.”

She hoped that would spark a fire in those drifting reds, and when their eyes met, she smiled her unspoken victory. “It’s not unheard of to worship her in Alvadas, but you’d have better luck in the south, in Riverfall, where their Night Mother’s presence is strong.” Georgia paused, leaning back in the well-stuffed chair. “Most people come to Alvadas looking for Ionu, you know.”

“I’m not looking for gods.” Seven trained his eyes on the fire that cracked and sputtered as it devoured the remains of a blackened log. “And I’m not intent on crossing the sea of grass where barbarians on horses lop off the heads of any stray wanderer they meet.”

“Is that what you’ve heard?”

“It’s true.”

“I would fear the land more than the Drykas who lay claim to it.” She looked amused. “You can’t believe everything you hear and read, Seven. Remember that. Our books are written by the survivors, and those clever enough to hold a quill, and all words are written in the same color ink, regardless of their truth.”

Seven cocked his head, a half-smile playing on his lips. “If you can’t believe books, what can you believe?”

Georgia leaned in close and tapped his white nose with the tip of her finger, an endearing gesture, had Seven been ten years old. As a man grown, it felt almost condescending; the wrinkled corners of the old woman’s shining eyes told of her innocence to such a slight, “Your instinct.”
Last edited by Seven Xu on March 11th, 2012, 8:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Seven Xu
Rhetoric can't raise the dead.
 
Posts: 976
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Joined roleplay: April 30th, 2011, 11:02 pm
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Reconnaissance, Part I

Postby Seven Xu on March 11th, 2012, 4:09 pm

“Maybe we can make a deal,” Georgia continued, pressing her mug’s porcelain rim to her lips.

“What sort of deal?”

“Well, you want secrets, don’t you? Sit in the shadows, bend the knee for your night mistress—”

“I just want to know—”

“… You came to me, because I know more about these people, the Alvads and the foreigners, than most families could say of their own kin.”

“And you’d know that how?”

Georgia’s brows lifted, and she tittered.

Seven conceded a grin. He took another sip of the bitter black. “You want information in exchange for information.”

Smart boy.”

“So, what, do I mail you letters—how does this help me with Akajia?”

“I thought you weren’t looking for gods. I told you where to find them: in Riverfall.”

“I’m not,” Seven sighed, exasperated, and nearly threw up his hands. He took a breath, calmed himself, and quenched the fire in his eyes. “I just figured if anyone were to know anything about her, it would be you.”

Georgia’s face remained unaffected; her mouth sat in its perpetual curl, her eyes friendly. “You first: you tell me something I do not know. And then, I’ll tell you something you do not know.”

The halfblood sucked his bottom lip in thought.

“It doesn’t have to be personal. It could be anything about anyone, but if I already know it, it does not count.”

Something nearly slid off of Seven’s tongue, but caught in his throat. His mouth hung open. He thought he’d been numb to what pain the memory should have caused, but in that moment, on the cusp of confession, he felt guilt. No ordinary person gives their sire a red grin and forgets about it. No ordinary person finds comfort in awarding a stranger the mercy of death in their commitment to a lover. The fact that it did not bother him enough bothered him.

“There’s something wrong with me,” he admitted, unable to lift his crimson stare on Georgia Delner’s kind face.

“That isn’t really information.”

“I’ve killed.”

There was a pause. Seven’s gaze skirted Georgia’s eyes and settled on the flat line of her mouth. “Death is unavoidable,” she finally said, as cheerfully and as calm as she would greet a patron. Then she stood. “Come back in seven days, Seven, and every seven days after that; bring me something I don’t know, and I’ll tell you whatever you desire.”

“I just told you—”

“I know.” She laughed. “I knew.”

Seven tried to swallow his beating heart. “How?”

“Seven days.”
Seven Xu
Rhetoric can't raise the dead.
 
Posts: 976
Words: 567538
Joined roleplay: April 30th, 2011, 11:02 pm
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Reconnaissance, Part I

Postby Mirage on March 20th, 2012, 1:57 am

The Truth Within the Reality

Seven :
XP Awarded
  • Philosophy: 1

Lores Awarded
  • Akajia: Worshipped in Riverfall
  • Gregoria Delner: Will Trade Information for Information
  • Gregoria Delner: Knows Many Things
  • Secret Meetings Every Seven Days

Contacts Made
Gregoria Delner


The Truth Hidden by a Mirage :
Very good thread. Your writing continues to inspire me :)
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