[Scholar's Forum] More or Rather Less an Animal [Fiera]

[Avaltri]

Winter 91 of 511 AV More than a hundred feet above the university grounds, a small figure was seemingly standing in the air. Avaltri was building a mental map of the area; not so much to orient herself, but just to see the pattern in which the wondrous pieces of ancient architecture had been arranged. Even to her, one to whom everything was foreign, the ancient buildings stuck out. They spoke of times of more prosperity and leisure, it seemed to her. A particular area just outside the university drew her attention to itself. It was a wide open square that stood out from its surroundings, and it contained a building, or rather, the quarter of a building, as was obvious from Avaltri's lofty position. Avaltri approached it, stopping in the air maybe fifty feet away. It was a quartercircle of two lines of white round columns, standing on a slightly elevated base, with a pitched roof and a line of ornaments in yellow between the capitals of the columns and said roof. The Akvatari looked down on the square and found it surprisingly populated, with quite a few heads turned after her. She figured it would be a nice idea and practice to draw not just this structure, but the structure it had probably belonged to, with all four parts intact. So she sought a suitable spot and eventually landed on a piece of lawn that was as far away as possible from any promenaders. Settled on the ground, she retrieved her drawing board and pencils and a sheet of paper from her bag.

[Fiera]

As it was both the second last day of winter, and also the day before her classes were to start, Fiera decided to take her walk earlier than usual. There was nothing unusual about Fiera taking a walk; in fact, it was part of her daily routine. Although her university courses were yet to begin, Fiera had already moved out of her worn, threadbare tent and into the university dormitory. She found that the close walls of such a building were rather detrimental to her physical state, and so, daily walks became mandatory. It was a cold morning; the still-sleepy sun could be seen rising slowly above the ocean, and a chilly wind brushed through the town, reminding all who ventured outside of the severe winter that had just passed. Some of the university students were already lounging on the benches, or preparing for their courses. Others were pacing the grounds or talking to their peers. Fiera often wondered how humans could interact so easily with each other, so plainly and honestly. It was quite often that Fiera, on the grounds of the university, would see interesting things. With such an assortment of races and cultures, all studying in the same place, it was difficult not to. Today was no exception. A white sheet of paper caught her eye. On it, graphite lines marked out an exact replica of the Scholars Forum – a building Fiera had come to memorise. Fiera held an interest for architecture and spend much time studying the universities pre-Valterrian buildings and structures. And so, the scholars forum had often been subject to her utmost attention. Fiera immediately noticed the completeness of the drawing compared to the almost destroyed, real version. She quietly approached the artist from behind, not wishing to disturb them, still mesmerised by the hand, moving back and forth across the page. Fiera stood there for a while, watching as the artists hand embellished the drawing further.

[Avaltri]

At first, Avaltri wasn't entirely absorbed in her drawing. From time to time, she just sat watching her surroundings for a few seconds or longer, taking in the atmosphere of the place. She observed the people walking or standing around. The forum was not too lively today; there were no orators, and from what she could say, no fierce debates going on. People seemed in solemn conversations or absorbed in studies. Everything seemed somehow overshadowed, which contrasted in a sort of ironic way with the sun that was becoming ever warmer. Avaltri reckoned that it must be due to the rumors she had heard about a storm that was to come. The Akvatari wasn't frightened. She wasn't made uncomfortable by the atmosphere, either. Quite to the contrary, she found a strange, morbid pleasure in it. She was confident that whatever it was, it couldn't affect her much. There was nothing it could do to her. Surely the whole university wouldn't collapse. And if it did, she would have to find some other occupation, maybe go to another city. And if she was herself struck by a brick - well, then she would be relieved of the necessity of finding an occupation anyway. Avaltri smiled a little, and for a moment felt a hint of pity for those who were so entangled that they were in fear of what was to come. Finally, the artist focussed on her work. First four curved lines appeared on the paper, forming something like a discontinuous ellipsoid. Then, a second layer of such lines. Now she would concentrate on one quarter of the structure, the one she could still see. Straight lines that captured the outline of the columns came first, and after a moment of looking at the structure to correctly estimate their height followed a sketch of the roof. In fact, there wasn't much to come but more, and less insecure lines. Avaltri didn't usually use the pencil to create shades; she wanted to distill the essence of the form of her object. Color and lighting seemed to much more contingent. A little while later, what was left were the ornaments above the colonnades. Avaltri had done those of the quarter that was still standing, and figured that the other four quarters must each have had a different pattern for themselves. The put her pencil down and trying to come up with some that would fit, she raised her head and looked up in the air. She had been much too engaged in her drawing to have heard the figure approaching behind her.

[Fiera]

She was near enough to touch the artist, yet Fiera remained motionless. The young kelvic watched as details were added to the first quarter, the quarter that still stood. Fiera caught herself wishing to have such a talent. It seemed not to occur to Fiera that she could easily sit down and attempt a sketch of her own. Quite unexpectedly, Fiera found herself looking into the bright green eyes of the artist. Taking a step back, she shrugged her shoulders, an apologetic expression on her face. Fiera glanced down at the rest of the artists body. Two butterfly-like wings protruded from her shoulder blades and the bottom half of her body took the form of a tail. How unusual. Her non-human body parts were all a somewhat sombre colour tone. Greens, greys and blacks patterned her wings, constantly changing as the angle of light shifted. The tail resembled that of some marine animal, but Fiera could not pinpoint the exact creature. “You have a talent, but what race are you?” Fiera questioned, slightly taken aback by what she saw. She knew little about social etiquette, usually acted on impulse and spoke her mind freely. On occasion, such a habit would get her into an unpleasant situation, but the soft features of the artists face did not emanate danger. Fiera inclined her head in curiosity, waiting for a reply.

[Avaltri]

As Avaltri looked up from her work once again, she found herself looking directly into two unfamiliar blue eyes. She was startled and flinched slightly, but the petite woman's quite unthreatening demeanor and expression made her relax quickly. "Why, hello", she said. The other didn't reciprocate the greeting. Instead, she asked a simple, topical question right away. Somehow, it amused Avaltri, and she smiled softy and looked at the other for a moment before answering. There was something strange about the woman's habitus; not quite as one, or, at any rate, Avaltri, would expect in a predominantly human city. In fact, she reminded the Akvatari of a kind of animal that she had seen in the harbor in Abura. Ships from Eyktol often had them aboard - they hunted mice, they said. Graceful animals they were, these cats; they seemed to be in perfect control of every muscle of their body, and were much less frail than they looked. When they slept, curled up, they looked extremely peaceful, but somehow, there was a hidden force in them, which burst out when they ferociously attacked something, jumped at it, or ran up a mast that one wouldn't have thought them able to climb. On some level, the woman she was looking at bore a resemblance to a cat, although Avaltri was quite unable to tell why or how exactly. But it made the artist interested for the moment. "Thank you. The kind I belong to is known, if it is, by the name of Akvatari. My home is on the Island of Abura, a good way south and east from this place. I'm Avaltri - may I ask your name?"

[Fiera]

The woman seemed to study Fiera, as if it was she the artist was drawing. Then she smiled and answered her question. An Akvatari? Fiera had never heard of such a race; which was quite expected, of course, she being less than six years of age. One thing she did know, however, was the points of the compass. She had both a good sense of direction and a good understanding of Syliras – possibly due to her kelvic nature and her abundance of travel in the area – and so immediately saw the mistake that Avaltri had made. If one travelled much further south-east from Zeltiva than Lisnar, they would end up in the sea. She was about to point it out when a more pressing thought came to mind, “Can you teach? Perhaps if you can teach me to draw… ” She trailed of, not knowing how to finish her sentence. The kelvic had completely missed Avaltri’s question due to her confusion over the directions the artist gave. Luckily, she had the presence of mind to introduce herself anyway, “I am Fiera. A feline kelvic. A cougar to be exact.” As she spoke, Fiera seated herself cross-legged next to Avaltri, so they could converse less awkwardly, and gestured at the rest of the forum, “What do you think the rest of this building looked like? The architects at that time had so much more imagination that they do now, it seems. See the patterns carved into the stone of that wall? They’re almost mesmerising in their complexity” Fiera smiled in a delighted sort of way. It was a sincere smile, one that she had not given anybody for quite some time. She had surprised herself by how easily the words flew out of her mouth. It was some change from her usual, thoughtful manner. Fiera waited to see if the artist would teach her to draw. If not, then she didn’t mind discussing the architecture surrounding them – obviously a mutual interest.

[Avaltri]

Avaltri had never thought about teaching. She considered herself to be still in need of development as an artist. But now that she was asked to, it didn't seem so impossible. She knew the technical basis well enough, and one didn't really teach art in the way of giving accomplished answers. So there was no reason why she shouldn't be able to lead another onto the path she was on herself. However, she had no time to answer before the woman introduced herself. The Akvatari gave her an attentive look when she said that she was a feline Kelvic. She had no idea what the latter word meant, but found it interesting and somehow amusing that her association with cats seemed to be reflected in reality in some way. But since Fiera had not inquired further about her own kind, Avaltri decided to postpone discussion of the subject. Without thinking, she gave a gentle smile as Fiera sat down besides her, conveying that she didn't object. The woman seemed quite unreserved and eagerly continued the conversation. Avaltri made an effort to push the other two issues that had come up to some corner of her mind and followed her gestures only for a moment and then looked down on her drawing. She opened her mouth to explain, and stopped. The picture made no sense: the four parts of the structure all looked the same, apart from the adorning patter. That was too boring; there could have been at most three structures looking alike, perhaps even only two. One, or maybe one and its opposite, would presumably have had some additional part on the roof, making them higher, and giving the whole thing a direction, although she would still have to figure out which one. "I've been silly", she said after a moment. "I don't think it looked quite like what I drew. At least one part of the structure must have been more prominent; the one furthest away from the main entrance to the place. It makes no sense with four equal parts. I shall have to draw it anew at some point... It's natural, however, that the patterns on each would have been different. It would be a waste otherwise, and I'm certain that the people who build this had enough time at their disposal to worry about not being wasteful like this." She looked around, but rather pointlessly. In order to see which direction made sense for the structure, she would have to view it from above, and the middle of a conversation with someone who lacked wings seemed hardly like the right time for this. "As for teaching you a thing or two..." she said after a moment's pause, "I've never done it, but I see no reason why I shouldn't."

[Fiera]

Fiera watched as the young woman to her left chided herself for drawing something that to her seemed entirely plausible. Still, she leaned over to see Avaltri’s sketch of the building and tried to visualise how it would look if the section of the structure opposite the entrance was more enhanced in its design than the others. Looking up, she gave Avaltri a confused glance, “If there were, as you say, four equal segments, and the entrance was between two of these said segments, then exactly opposite the entrance would be the divide between two segments of the forum.” To illustrate her point from a birds eye view, Fiera drew a circle in the grass with her finger and divided it into four equal sections. The young grass sprang up as soon as her finger had pushed it down and so no marks were left, but Fiera only hoped to conjure a mental image. She marked the entrance with a cross and pointed to the opposite side of the circle, where two segments met, “See?” Fiera hoped that Avaltri had understood her and that she hadn’t misunderstood Avaltri, so that she wouldn’t make a fool out of herself. Oh, why did Fiera have to be so awkward all the time? Fiera's Drawing in the grass : As soon as she had said that, another idea occurred to Fiera, “what if there were four entrances? One at the divide between each section. Like four separate structures only connected by a gable. Then you could draw the structure closest to the sea as more grand than the others, since the sea is so valuable to this city. But of course, not too outstanding since this was a place designed for intellectuality. It should be elegant but not distracting” Excited with the idea, she looked to Avaltri to see if she agreed, or had found a flaw in Fiera’s reasoning. In her excitement at the mental challenge that this monumental structure posed, she had somewhat forgotten that she had asked Avaltri to teach her to draw. So, when the young Akvatari mused on the idea, she shook her head, “no, no, wait, you must draw this building first. Later we can have a lesson, but now we need to understand how it looked before the Valterrian.” Fiera paused, wondering how Avaltri might react to her use of ‘we’, “of course, if you wanted to work on this alone, I could leave now.”

[Avaltri]

Avaltri smiled gently at the enthusiasm her conversation partner was showing. She followed her finger trace a shape in the grass and had now trouble seeing the point she was making; she didn't even understand why the other should have found the drawing necessary to convey the idea. And yet it confused Avaltri: Her imagination of the forum had somehow split and gone down two roads simultaneously. In one version, there was a park, with trees and lawn, extending well beyond the circle formed by the structure, which consisted of four equal parts just as she had drawn it, and was there just to decorate the part. In the other, the building stood for itself more strongly; it had a direction, one of its parts was actually an arch that constituted the entrance, the one opposite to it was slightly higher. There was lawn, but no trees. The artist paused for a while to sort out how this had come about. When she had seen the whole are from above, her mind had intuitively leaped at a vague instantiation of the first idea. And then, while drawing, she had concentrated on the building so much that she had forgotten the surroundings, and the second avenue of imagination had become more prominent; so much that in the end, her drawing had ceased to make sense to her. The Akvatari was quite satisfied with this explanation. In fact, it resolved the question for her entirely. Which one had actually been the case was a matter of historical accuracy and of no interest to her. In sum, it may well have been a quarter of a minute until she answered Fiera. "Yes, I suppose that was what I was aiming at when I drew this..." she said, putting a hand on her almost-finished picture. "You don't have to leave", she then added to ease an upcoming insecurity she perceived in her vis-à-vis. "If you want to stay, I can make you see my other vision; although I'll leave it to you to judge which is more likely to have been actually realized in stone, if you're interested in such things."

[Fiera]

In Fiera’s mind, the problem had already been solved. The scholars forum had been a building of four equal sections, all connected by the same roof. In between each section, there was an entrance. It seemed like the most logical design. She couldn’t fathom why Avaltri was so unsure or why she considered a multitude of versions. She had already started on the minutiae of her version of the structure when Avaltri spoke. Yes, there would definitely be carvings on the ceiling, perhaps of the sea and of Laviku, the god. Maybe carvings on the pillars too. The interior of the circle would simply have a lawn, with gravel paths linking the entrances to the middle, where there would be an elegant pagoda with tables and seats. And a sundial. Yes, that would be nessesary. Avaltri invited her to stay, and so she did. She would try to understand what her plan for the building was, “Alright then, show me what you had in mind when you started drawing… It is interesting how differently we perceive these things.” Fiera looked over at Avaltri’s drawing yet again, but this time with a more appreciating eye. OOCI’m not entirely sure if sundials exist in the world of Mizahar, but it seemed like a nice touch. If they don’t, I will delete the reference