The Fool

[Volans]

Timestamp: 60th Spring 512 A.V. The sky clutched hopelessly at the last vestiges of cloud, as shards of gossamer black night invaded on the waning day's territory. The day had passed fitfully over the monk city, storm threatening a chime before it was replaced by golden sunlight. And now Nyka was slowly transitioning into nighttime, and the shift was noticed by one man in particular. This man, dark-skinned, purple-eyed, had watched the turbulent sky with an unnatural longing; it seems desperate in its gaze. For he was a product of their majesty, born of inky black and a ray of sun; the materialization of divine essence called ethaefal. Volans's day was spent in a corner tucked away from the sprawling streets, behind a doorway that read 010 Wheat Street. The unassuming storefront belied the witchery that lay within; the menagerie of melted candles, stones of glass and dusty cards that the earthbound made his way through with a natural ease. He walked with a goal in mind, and a rag in hand. Early in the day he had begun to dust and clean, spiderwebs shorn from the farthest corners and extinguished candles being replaced by newly lit ones, cards assembled in neat stacks that hid their true potential. It was only as Syna begun her descent towards Semele's beckoning arms did his tasks finally cease. A bell tinkled as the Nine Staves' door was opened, and Volans exited. What he did now was work well known to the other occupant of the 'Staves; stargazing. After walking out from the maze of alleys that concealed the Nine Staves from public view, Volans stood on the main street and gazed up. A seat was taken on a overturned bucket, as bright purple eyes that were slowly giving way into black were sent spiraling above. It was foolish, Volans knew, but he couldn't help it. The pain stabbed deep, but Volans could not stop him from gazing upon the heavens that he had so recently inhabitanted. Perhaps it was his own way of reminding himself there was other, higher, work to be done. Eventually, however, his eyes made their way downward, and begun to watch those how passed by him on Wheat Street. Most of them were expected, black-haired Nykans and monks bearing Skerr's sigil. Some days he might get lucky and spot something out of place; but not today, it seemed. A sigh. Even with the storm at the beginning of the season, things rarely changed in monk city. The Aperture, the Celestials, everything; all were fickle by nature, and yet nothing seemed different. It all seemed so hopeless. He chuckled darkly. And wasn't that the truth...

[Hadrian]

The beanpole wizard didn't really know where he was, but after months at sea, it was nice to stretch his legs on terra firma, not bound by a wooden vessel, and walking had always helped him think. He glanced toward the ocean, but could not see it from this street. In his fist, he extruded a wisp of res, blue and glowing if his hand were to open, and made it tug toward Water, the greatest of which was the sea, and his eyes glanced in the right direction. I can't see you, Lord Laviku, he prayed quietly, but I can find your kingdom. He smiled to himself, letting the bit of res dissipate; he would have to learn to Leech in order to take it right back, and he was not so bold as to risk that discipline, not until he could manufacture some sort of filter to protect his soul from pollution. There was always the future, and the sea seemed eternal, as well. Since leaving Avanthal, he had begun to pray to the sea. This was not something he had done before, really, though he had traveled by sea before. He liked to let his thoughts drop over the rail to float on the ocean's surface and sink below, imagined he was spinning out memories as to a memosite, only the sea could hold them all, and he supposed they were an offering to Laviku. He should have paid the god more attention when he lived in Zeltiva, for there he had greater standing, especially when he had been initiated and drawn Water when he had wanted Fire. I think I realize the wisdom of Water now, he prayed to the hidden sea. When Fire comes, I will be wiser for having learned Water's lessons. So he knew in which direction lay the sea, but still he would brush the corner of a building as he turned, the Lormar symbol on the back of his hand glowing more strongly for the activation of his Lykata, picking up faint data to help him orient himself, his mind open to the auras around him even as his own was tamped down, altered to appear mundane and benign to the casual Aurist. Hadrian was not a casual Aurist. It was the tool that had helped him discover his ancestor's cache, and alert Eyris to his existence. Will you speak to me, Lady, he asked, when I return to the sea cave? Have I learned what was necessary to come back, or did the wild djed thwart your purpose. I look forward to a new conversation with you, Most Wise. He knew the ethaefal was there before he saw him, his modified aura still quite sensitive. An ethaefal, here. The demigods ruled here, and the ethaefal were children of higher deities. Strange. Then he saw him with his spiraling horns, more graceful than any creature of the land. A son of Leth, then. His wandering feet slowed, stopped. Perhaps he should have cloaked his strange new coloration in illusion, but he had not. It was dark out, and the moon leeched color from the world anyway. Perhaps it would not matter that his hair had gotten darker, was shot through with dark blue, and that his eyes, always pale and strange, were even more markedly so, blue like the shadows under a glacier, but then he had always been somewhat cold, aloof. "Hello," he said quietly.

[Volans]

Leth's blessed light broke over a tall, juttering form, proof that even the children of gods could be wrong. Black eyes rose to examine this newfound oddity, running over the strange man who stood in front of him in mockery of streaming water. The gaze was delayed mainly by the hair shot through by dark blue, nearly unnoticable in the dark, and the bright blue eyes that gazed out on him with an auroral intensity Volans saw every time he gazed at a mirror. They, Volans realized, were one and the same. Or, at least, this man and his earthbound form. "You are Vantha." The lilting words, which might have been a statement at the beginning, rose in the semblance of a question. Volans unfolded himself, stood up so as to look the stranger eye to eye. The horns that were beginning to blossom from his temples sent reflected starlight twinkling. His unearthly form, pumped full of his patron god's grace, put him at near the same height as Hadrian, a tallness that was devoid from his daytime form. "My name is Volans," he said, lips quirking into a small smile. He seemed to not be perturbed by the random greeting. "And you, now you are most certainly not a Nykan. What are you doing here, in Nyka?" "A pilgrim?" he asked, his eyes flashing in something near danger. He tilted his head to the side. "Or just passing through?"

[Hadrian]

"So they tell me," he agreed, 'They' being Queen Morwen herself, who had recognized a faint strain of Iceglaze blood in him, diluted by the years and marriages of his ancestors, but apparent all the same. He was oddly self-conscious about the change brought out by the wild djed, which was strange as he hadn't really paid much attention to his appearance before, which led to messy hair, missing buttons, and other such oversights that had only lessened with the traveling companions he had accumulated. "I am called Hadrian. I am traveling to Zeltiva, but I could not find berth on a ship for a few weeks. That's all right, though. It's my first time to Nyka and I wanted to explore. So if I am a pilgrim, this is not the site of my pilgrimage, but merely a step along the path." He reached up to brush his hair back, a nervous tic that revealed the Lormar symbol on the back of his hand, mark of a Lykata, if only a weak one. Worshipers of wisdom, they. "What do you here?" he asked, quid pro quo.

[Volans]

“So you are a little of both,” Volans allowed. His lips quirked into a smile. “Both a pilgrim and a traveler. Is something – or someone – waiting for you in Zeltiva?” As he waited for Hadrian's answer, the eyes settled on the god mark on Hadrian's hand. The Lormar was not a symbol unfamiliar to him, but it had been a long time now since he had saw it last. He looked at it for what seemed even longer still, then the lips parted once more. “What do I do here, do you mean? Or perhaps why am I here? Such are questions not easily answered, for their answers differ as based upon what the questioner is truly asking.” The smile deepened, a head was tilted to the side. “You are asking how an ethaefal could have settled in such a city, I presume. Or are you? Well, if indeed so, the answer is anticlimactic, I'm afraid; it is simply that Nyka is the only place I have ever known. It is my home...for now.” The tip of one of his fine horns was touched solemnly by a hand, fingering the ephemeral chain that bound him to such earthly form. They all changed, in the end. The horns would, one day, fade away, and Volans would return to the arms of his master. But the end was far off indeed, and there was still work to be done. “Why did you approach me, Hadrian?” the ethaefal asked. “Is it because you were bored and I caught your eye, or is it because of that infallible yet unknowable purpose you humans call intuition?” A hand reached out to signal Eyris's goodwill. “Maybe a bit of both?”

[Hadrian]

"I studied in Zeltiva, own a home there, and have history there. With the Storm and everything happening, it seems important to find that place where I can live peacefully for a while. I might teach at the University, spend some time figuring out what I want to do next." There was always something next, some adventure or intellectual pursuit. Hadrian remembered then the curfew and wondered if he wasn't in for some trouble. He noticed the look and made an effort not to hide the symbol. Of course, there was no shame attached to it, but he never liked people to know all he had up his sleeve. He was not strong, and so he had to survive with his wits. It was good to be underestimated sometimes. The ethaefal had misunderstood him, but perhaps there was wisdom to be garnered from his answer all the same. Let me learn that wisdom, he prayed silently to Eyris. "A little of both, perhaps," he agreed, "though call it pensive rather than bored, and intuition is merely the mind moving too fast to keep up with itself. I have learned to follow it whenever possible." There was a pause as he thought of something; this was, after all, an ethaefal who had been staring at the stars. Could it be? "Do you know the star Jaleri?"

[Volans]

A smile still teasing with the edges of his lips, Volans nodded his head in understanding. “Yes, I see,” he said, rather redundantly, “That is quite wise of you to say, indeed, Hadrian. You'll make a fine professor, I think. 'Intuition is merely the mind moving too fast to keep up with itself'...that's quite good, I'll have to use that.” Volans chuckled. A head dipped in the radiant night sky. Eyes that had seen the makeup of the constellations one too many times looked at Hadrian with a bemused expression, thin eyebrows jutting together to form a single perplexed line. “I have watched the stars a many times,” the ethaefal began slowly, “But never before have I heard of a star such as that. Why do you ask? It is important to you?” “There is something about you, Hadrian,” Volans said, crossing his arms and cocking a brow, “Something I can't figure out. You are marked by Eyris, a pilgrim in your own right, and you ask about stars even ethaefal don't know about. There is a great deal more than you that it seems.” Volans musings were interrupted by a sudden hesitation, a thought thrown into the jumble of his mind uneasily, to be spat back out again tentatively, almost shyly. Volans looked at Hadrian closer now, curious. He seemed to be grappling with something, a question aching to be realized. Finally, he asked, “Would you like to have your fortune read?”

[Hadrian]

don't tell your secrets to anyone because ideas are vulnerable as soon as you say your ideas out loud then they can go and live on their own without you He smiled; there was no controlling one's words once they were spoken. If this Volans wanted to use his words, well, that was the nature of things. Spreading his hands, he left the words in Volans'. "Ah, well. I don't know yet. I read somewhere that old Summoners used to call starfire from its surface, but I haven't substantiated that. Perhaps someday I will journey to Lhavit and ask the Lady Alvina herself to number the stars for me." There was that passage, and perhaps if he ran into Dra-Seven again, his maps would hold a key. Stellar cartography. "I am a seeker, Volans. What can I say?" But then he cocked his head at the ethaefal. "I had understood from the seers on Mura that fortunetelling has been unreliable since the storm. But if you wish, by all means." A Lykata would sense bullshit, he supposed.

[Volans]

“Indeed?” The fortuneteller asked, his voice drawn low. Dark embers watched Hadrian's face with interest. “That is quite interesting, I've never heard about Summoning before this. It is making contact with other planets, correct?” He scrunched his nose ruefully. “We don't hear about too many other magics here in Nyka – unless you are a devotee of Xannos, that is.” He spread out his palms and smiled. “I am obviously not.” “The white women would know better than I, but of course we can always attempt it. I do not draw my power from a gnosis mark – indeed, I do not even bear a mark from the Seer – but rather I divine indirectly, using tarot cards as a conduit to the chavena. We'll have to see if that makes a difference.” Volans smiled, and then turned on his heel and walked away, obviously expecting Hadrian to follow. The path he took was short, but winding; the passages were short, little more than alleyways, and Nyka's stone buildings teetered over them threateningly. Before long, however, they had reached their destination; a modest storefront, its windows shuttered and the door locked. Metal flashed and a key appeared in Volans's hand, before meeting the doorknob. Gears clicked, and the door opened. The store they entered was cooler than the outside, and darker. A hand found a match and lit candles, revealing the room to be small and somewhat cramped, with a large table dominating the center and cabinets on most sides. Within, strange things languished, cards and maps and odd trinkets alike. Something like incense filled the air. Volans moved through the bric-a-brac with ease. He gestured towards one of the chairs at the table, obviously urging Hadrian to sit. As he waited for Hadrian to get acquainted and sit down, he made his way to the back door. It swung open and someone was quite obviously behind it, as Volans muttered a few low words and was answered. A second later, however, he had closed the door and returned to Hadrian. A detour led him to a nearby cabinet, this one filled with several decks of cards. For a second, his hand lingered between the various decks. Then, he reached a decision and pulled one of the oldest, most worn deck from the piles, so worn in fact the artistry on the backs were near-completely faded. He was already shuffling them by the time he returned to the table. Eyes met again and Volans's voice shifted, becoming deeper and more mature. This was not the voice of Volans the ethaefal, Volans the man, but Volans the fortuneteller. “Hadrian, you have come before me in search of a reading, and a reading I will provide. Before we begin, I need to ask you one very important question: what is it that you wish to know?” “Answer that, and we may begin.”

[Hadrian]

"Not of Xannos," he said, "but a growing affinity for the elemental gods. At some point soon, I will begin to properly honor Semele. I might seek a little teaching from the gemcutters of Xannos..." He wanted to learn to cut gems, he wanted blessings from Semele, and he wanted to magecraft powerful artifacts blending all those skills and powers. He had ambitions, but he was patient too, and he hoped the blessings of Eyris would keep him on the right path. "Hm." He followed Volans into the building, sat where he bade him sit, remained nonplussed by the shadowy person outside the door. Detecting no danger, he was not alarmed. And then Volans was before him, his pack of divining cards deftly moved from hand to hand. A question. What did he want to know that cards would tell? Were prophecies true that did not come from Avalis? "What will I find in Zeltiva?" he asked simply.