Closed Moonlight Harvest (Dariel)

[Haeli]

Timestamp: Late Fall, 512 AV

Haeli always loved the nights of the full moon. Leth's light gave the area around Lhavit a warm glow that lit up the terrain fairly well and gave everyone a great view of the landscape bathing it in silvery light. The witch was after herbs and had decided to wait until the moon had risen high to harvest them. Their properties were more potent and in many ways they were utterly blessed with Leth's properties if their lives transformed from that of the living to that of the dead by her hand in moonlight.

Lhavit was a city that never slept. Part of its denizens were out during the day and part at night so there were no quiet silent streets as she walked towards the main gate from All Things Wild. She wore sturdy boots, leather pants, and a wool tunic to keep warm. A dark cloak covered her and a pack filled with the things she'd need to harvest the herbs was over her shoulders. At her belt was a knife

She hummed softly as she walked. Had it been summer, the girl would have been barefoot and barely clothed. But because it was winter, she was more than willing to bundle up in warmth. Haeli hated the cold. Born in the swamps of the west, far south of Lhavit, she'd never known snow before she came to the city of stars. It had been an awful surprise to her when the temperatures dipped and the white stuff gently started falling from the sky.

And so this was her compromise. Warm clothing, shoes, and a cloak... now all she needed was some company to keep as well. She looked around for a fox or perhaps even a high mountain rabbit. Sometimes they would go with her, trialing her curiously and chattering away.

But a person would be nice too. She'd been alone for several seasons, having went back to the swamp for a while, and now she was back. Frankly, her social skills needed a tune up, for in general she had none.

[Dariel]

Oh how this city suited him. Starting with the schedule that allowed him to indulge his nocturnal urges as well as address the demands of the day, moving across the myriad little factors governing daily life and culminating in his newfound appreciation for the mountain air. It was crisp, it was clean, it was rarely ever still. A bit too humid in these dying days of Fall, but Winter's embrace would fix that, he was certain. Dariel had taken to all of it with a speed that surprised him. It was as if he'd really been made to live here, as if he'd been designed to thrive in this environment. Especially tonight. Resplendently, Leth strutted across the clear sky tonight. Forever longing for his Syna he yet seemed to enjoy making all of Zintila's stars swoon with his noble pallor and his cool grace. While not a faithful man by any semblance of the term, Dariel knew to pay the Gods the respect they were due. Earlier in the night he'd hovered over the pool in the Temple of the Moon and sought himself in Leth's reflection over a simple prayer. On a whim the young man had decided to follow the tarnished silver beacon in the sky that was Leth. It was how he discovered things after all, by simply following the flow of things. While the important locations of Lhavit followed a pattern, the interesting ones did not. He barely noticed Leth leading him towards the gate and out into the relative wild, one space-seizing step after the other. What finally gave him pause was not the fact that it was darker than inside Lhavit's walls (though he much preferred the pristine purity of Leth's light alone anyway). Nor that it was colder. Nor that he was all alone out here. Especially not the latter because he clearly heard someone humming. Dariel's head turned in a single sharp movement, his eyes sweeping the direction the sound came from, squinting against the gloom. Instinctively he willed up his Djed, but as soon as he realized what he was doing he let go of it again. This was Leth's night. He owed the God a little faith. Neither the wide steps, nor the wooden heels they rammed into the ground served to make him any kind of sneaky as he approached what he could only make out as a vague shape at first. A shape that congealed into the image of a girl in a dark cloak. Even as the cloak swallowed the moonlight, her face and hair were lit up by it, giving off an otherworldly impression in that moment. Stopping well out of the reach of an assumed weapon he had no reason to believe was there, Dariel finally stopped, tilting his head to the side as he regarded the young woman with a measure of curiosity. When he thought to say something, what came out was a naive sounding, "Are you real?"

[Haeli]

Haeli had the stride of a swamp dweller in that she never quite went from point a to point b when she was walking. There was a slight wandering to her route, which was never bold and purposeful but more meandering and directionless. Her footfalls were silent, deliberately placed, with her toe feeling the ground before her heel gently sat down. In a way, the girl's movements mimicked that of a crane hunting through high grass or wading through deep water. It was elegant but almost inhuman. But she did have an awareness of what was around her. She listened to the animals and the wind and the watched the way the moonlight lit up the world.

There was a peace about her. It was as if nothing was wrong in the world and everything in fact was just absolutely right.

She spotted the young man before he spoke and noted the whiteness of his blond hair and the way the moon reflected off his skin. The girl shifted her weight back and crouched, on her heels, studying the man. She looked as if she might bow to him or use her lower position to push off in a last minute but necessary flight.

She didn't answer his question, not immediately, but instead her eyes roamed his form, finding him as equally ethereal in the moonlight. Her hand snaked out of the cloak to push the long unruly strands of her hair behind one ear, clearing her vision. The cloak parted enough with that action that he could see she held a basket in her other grip and a white knife gleamed in its empty depths, a device for cutting plants with its sickle shaped blade, not one for wounding flesh.

Still, she didn't answer his question. Instead she glanced at the sky to where the moon glowed overhead. Then her gaze fell back on him.She spoke finally, her words accented but in perfect common. There was a oddness to the way she pronounced things, though he could understand her perfectly.

"Are you Leth?" She asked, trying to judge - he could finally see - how a pale moongod could be standing before her and yet still be shining in the sky.

[Dariel]

If he was Leth she'd asked. In one fell swoop the girl had both trumped his naivete and sent his mind racing off from the relaxed drift the walk had put it in. There were so many options here, so many ways he could answer. But which one would gain him which result? And was there anything to be gained here at all beyond a further distraction from his studies? Dariel's head straightened, passed straight and tilted to the other side while the rest of his body, even his hair it seemed, remained as if hewn from stone. He still regarded the girl from a skewed angle, albeit a different one. She seemed unkempt but not dirty, at least not from neglect seeing as being near her did not offend his nose in any way. On the other hand, despite her civilized garb she seemed to be at home away from civilization, not merely because she appaeared not to get out much. No, he decided, this simple wildling had nothing that required deception. With a shrug, Dariel withdrew a shoulder from his cloak, the heavy blue grey cloth falling behind to reveal more of his clothes. Simple, rough, stained and faded they were, hardly befitting a creature of the divine. "I am as much pale Leth as you are bountiful Caiyha, child. Simply a curious wanderer, or a fool to leave behind a safe place in the middle of the night..." The pale face turned to look at the sky as if what he saw would somehow reinforce his point, gaze brushing past the stronger stars whose presence was not blotted out by the unfettered light of Leth. For a few moments longer he treasured that picture then returned his focus to the young woman in front of him. "And you might be just as foolish I presume. Or are you a ghost? Or maybe yourself otherworldly by some description?" He would have said more, and almost did. The pause he ended his row of questions on he let hang heavily between them, even though his speech had been soft and quiet, even though his face had strained to smile. But, fool he might be, he was not enough of one. He would not plainly confess that despite a few educated guesses he could not place this girl at all. In fact, the more he thought about it, the less sense it made. The less sense it made, the more curious he got. The more curious he got, the more he thought about it. It was a vicious cycle, a spell only a satisfying answer would break. As the thoughts swirled about Dariel's head, his gaze danced from the girl's face down to her basket. A ritual implement, how curious. It occured to him that Leth's name was the root of a term for madness in the Ancient Tongue, but certainly he hadn't pushed his Djed that far yet. But if he had, how would he know? He wouldn't. The mad don't know they are mad. A shadow of worry crept across the chiselled face, still more failing than succeeding at smiling, as he waited -hoped- for an answer.

[Haeli]

Haeli shook her head. "I am no ghost." She said thoughtfully, then offered him a smile, straightening from her sudden crouch as if deciding he was no threat after all. In Haeli's experience, those that meant harm rarely talked before they made one a meal or worse. "I have seen things, though, that should be real and are not. And I've seen real things that I have wished were not. But I think I fall somewhere in the middle of such occurrences." She offered, glancing back at the moon one more time as if finally deciding he was not in fact Leth.

"Your paleness startled me. If Leth took on a mortal form, I would imagine it would be a reflection of his visage in the sky. You are much like I would think he would be." Haeli admitted, offering an apologetic smile and hefting her basket back up on one arm. She pushed her hood back and he could see that indeed she was just a girl. The more she spoke, the more real she appeared as her humanity separated itself from the surreal canvas in which they stood.

"I am called Haeli by my mentor." She offered. To her names had no power. Real power was in the hearts of the people who were assigned such things. Though in Lhavit, Haeli had met people that indeed refused to gift their names to each other in fear or hope that such a thing retained them power.

She partially lifted the basket on her arm, as if offering it to him though she did not complete the gesture. "Some herbs are more potent in Leth's light when harvested neatly and sacredly. I have been feeling the Winter coming on with the early morning chill and the way the wind takes a person's breath at night. I thought to come out and see what was left before the snow buried our green friends." Haeli offered as if to explain her presence in the wilds at night.

"Did the moon call you out here as well?" She asked, not meaning to pry but curious about him all the same. She shifted then and he might realize in that instant that when she rose she had stood as still as a tree, nothing of her moving. It was as if the world waited while they made introductions. But as soon as she asked her question, it was as if the held breath in the space released itself with a hiss and a wind tossed her hair lightly. He could not tell what color it was in the darkness, though it hinted at being something much like she had already described herself... something in between light and dark.

[Dariel]

A quaint little chuckle escaped the pallid stranger's mouth, and nobody was more surprised by it than he himself. Unbeknownst to the girl it had less to do with her than the thoughts churning inside of him. If he was indeed mad, did it make a difference, he wondered. He would only ever have what he thought was real. It might as well be. "Sacredly..." he then echoed her words in a thoughtful tone, the touch of worry having moved on, fluttering off his face as fast as it had come. For one she did indeed become more real to him the more she revealed and the rest was mere acceptance. Hard to come by but reassuring once attained and thus easy to hold on to. Dariel took a careful step towards the girl, into the bold shadow of a branch that now starkly fell across his form, further marring the idea that he was anything like Leth above. His hands rose from his cloak, the empty palms turned up to gather moonlight, belatedly evaluating his appearance before allowing himself to reply to her question. "He did not quite call me, no. I followed him of my own accord. It is something I do. I just walk, with no destination. It takes me places, though I am not certain what to ascribe that to. Maybe fate, maybe mere happenstance... or maybe I simply react to little things along the way that never make it to the conscious part of my mind." At that, he sniffed the crisp night air but didn't seem to notice anything that swayed his opinion. "I like the latter idea. It makes me more than a passive thing being carried off by a stream. And it seems to have worked once again. I certainly have never been likened to a God before." Dariel mused as he turned his hands over, watching his knuckles turn almost translucent in the moonlight before finally managing a genuine smile, even if faint. "I am called Dariel." he added even though he very much believed in the power of names. Just not in any way that approached a magical meaning. His gaze met hers for an instant, then it fell to the ground, scanning the area around Haeli's feet but seeing nothing but moss, weeds and dead leaves upon dead leaves. "So tell me, Haeli of the Green Friends who has seen many strange and wondrous things..." There was no malice in his words. There was little of any emotion safe restrained curiosity to them. At worst he was being playful, even though it did not want to suit him, and at best it was simply his idea of a polite address. "Which herbs are those you hunt for by Leth's light?"

[Haeli]

To call Haeli socially awkward was an understatement. The girl watched the man, uncertain of him and having a little trouble following his words. It wasn't that common was not a language she spoke. The truth was common was not a language she was used to speaking. Its knowledge and practical applications were vastly different. Her first language was Nura and she used it almost as if a person would. Brushing a plant here, stroking a wolves' fur there. Haeli knew a noted lack of fear in these woods where others would have found threat. Had the seasons been reversed, the man would have most likely found her barefoot and in next to nothing. Witches were practical though. And as the season grow colder, so too did the feet become shod and her form covered with heavy cloth.

"You should be careful." The witch cautioned. "There are those in these mountains that would not take kindly to your presence in their home. There is a cat near here, a big cat with two half-grown kittens. If she saw you pass she would think of only how long you would feed her family." Haeli said thoughtfully. "If you want to be passive, indeed something will carry you off. But it will not be a stream, of that I am sure." Haeli agreed. She offered him a smile as if what she had said had not been awkward.

When he gave her a title she frowned, confused, and tilted her head sideways. "I have no green friends...." She started to correct him and then realized for some reason he was adding perhaps unnecessary flourish to his words. Humans did that at times. It was something the Dhani only did when posturing for dominance or mating.

She mused over his question for a while, uncertain as to which she would harvest. "I had thought to see for myself which plants would make it through the rest of the fall and winter. Of those I will not harvest. But if I run across any that have little likely hood of making it into spring, I will harvest those completely. The people here are unaware, at times, of what they do to plants. Sometimes they take the whole plant or more than half of it and that leaves nothing to keep growing. One should always just take a leaf or two from each plant and move on. It will not hurt the plant and might stimulate it to grow more. So harvesting can help them. But when these people here harvest, it is often destructive. If I find any truly rare things that look likely not to make it, I will take them home with me and help them see the Winter through out of the weather." Haeli added.

She then thought a moment. "You have no purpose being out here? You walk just to walk and not to do anything else? Do you do anything for a purpose?" She queried. The girl was easily confused by complex concepts like aimlessness. In her world each action and a purpose and a motive and those motives and purposes were simple. "How do you defend yourself? You look to be unarmed." She added, her voice tinged with curiosity.

[Dariel]

"Oh but I do have a purpose. I walk to get somewhere. I just have no idea of my destination. Only that it exists and that I will get there, or already have. Everything in life may serve as a lesson after all. Maybe the object of my meandering stroll was simply to remind me that curiosities may hide in banal wrappings. Or to remind me not to stray from my path." Dariel turned his head back in the direction he had sauntered from as his face displayed a struggle between self-injurious amusement and sour discontent. "To whit, I assumed the city gates were just behind the bend there. But now I neither see the glow from the Skyglass nor the din from the streets and plazas. In truth I have no idea how far I have come." A lopsided shrug rippled across a pair of shoulders so angular, they seemed to threaten to cut through the cloak from underneath. If he was truly worried he made a stalwart effort of not showing it beyond the heightened alert in his eyes as they searched the darkness behind Haeli. Not that he would have been able to tell the presence of an entire herd of cats in this light, much less a single big one. Shot through as the shade the remaining leaves in the trees created was with rays of moonlight his eyes had no hope of ever adjusting to this part of the mountainside. Back on the trail, out in the open, it had been a different story. But here, he was very much out of his element. The straining squint of his eyes told a lot of that tale, though not as much as the simple fact that he would be looking in the wrong direction to begin with. Even if just to break the silence that accompanied his fruitless stares, he mused, "I think I know the kind of cat you speak of. Stout, with tufts on its ears? One of those took my weapon down a ravine with it on the way to Lhavit... and I doubt it would let me reason with it. So I presume I would have to defend myself with my bare hands, seeing as the gate and help are likely too far away. Again, I planned none of this. If you want me to think about this on my feet..." "...I presume that barring access to a branch or the like I would have to sacrifice an arm or leg to keep the creature busy long enough for me to gouge its eyes out." He'd blinked twice, then delivered his rather unappetizing approach to this theoretical quandary as if he was relating a cake recipe. The thin lips quirked into a fleeting smile, "But as it stands I now have you and your knife to defend me, no? Or are two people rather than one already unappealing as prey?" As before, there was a distinct lack of mockery in the way he delivered these words. Nor had there been a cue so far that he even took notice of Haeli's awkwardness with the Common tongue, or her awkwardness in general for that matter. For one reason or another, be it genuine disinterest, sheer ignorance or simply an equal lack of socialization, the boy took it all at face value while at the same time giving off the appearance that little of it all could truly affect him. Except the prospect of being eaten by a savage predator, of course but that one was a heavy caliber as far as information went. Instead he prattled on without a care in the world, "Of course, there is that old joke, 'I do not have to outrun the beast, I only have to outrun you' but as it stands I might be the loser in that race seeing as I am nursing my ankle. But on that note... how come you are not afraid of said cat? Or all those other dangers that might lurk out here? Do they maybe know you to be an even bigger danger than they are?" Another quickly twitched smile followed that last sentence, but it certainly came out more sober sounding than he had intended. It was at that point that Dariel's curiosity won out over his enjoyment of tonight's mystery. Even while the young man feigned to politely listen for an answer, no matter that such politeness may well have been lost on the girl either way, he marshalled his magics. He tended to visualize his Djed as liquid, like a stream, like the blood in his veins, like an ocean lapping at the coast with every wave. Every breath, every beat of his heart pumped the mystical force towards a central point in his chest or so it felt. Unconsciously, Dariel held his breath as he willed the Djed towards his senses, the somewhat dumb expression on his face suggesting he had to strain to listen to something Haeli might be saying despite the quiet of the night. His neck tingled, and the sensation spread across his skin from there. Even though it was not the focus of his interest, he had a hard time escaping Leth's shine overwhelming him then and there. An involuntary shiver wracked him and only when it had passed did he find he was becoming used to the background radiance. Only now did the pale figure think to breathe again, struggling not to gasp as the air brought with it the bloody taste of metal.

[Haeli]

Haeli smiled. For all his chagrin, he still was somewhat charming. "You are not far. The gates are out of sight but I think you could find them easily enough." The girl said, shifting her weight and resettling her small pack on her shoulders. She tilted her head and listened to him carefully. He wandered with his words somewhat, and the twisted paths were hard for her to follow at times. She judged him smart though slightly humble and he tended to make himself seem lesser, she thought.

"Yes, that is the kind of cat she is. This one calls herself Sunclaw for she has one claw on her right paw that is far more yellow than the others." Haeli answered softly. "She seems very proud of it. And of her two kittens." The girl finished, then smiled. "She won't think two is too many. She'll think twice the food, though I am afraid I am not much of a defense. She likes to kill by pouncing and then ripping off the skull cap or breaking your neck at its back. If you run from such creatures, breaking your neck is easiest especially if you fall. They will be on you if you fall and your neck will be vulnerable." The girl confessed, brushing a lock of her hair out of her eyes. It looked dark in the half light, but it might have been blond or light brown in the full sun.

"I'm not that fast of a runner, so perhaps even with a bad ankle you will be fine." She said, offering a smile. The girl shifted again, dug a booted toe into the ground and uprooted a rock lodged there. She flicked her eyes to meet his and then dropped them back down to the ground again as if the rock was fascinating. There was a flush on her cheeks now, one he could notice in the moonlight easily enough. Her face was easy to read, even for someone not trained to the tells of humans. She was embarrassed. She felt awkward. The girl didn't know what to say to him.

Shy perhaps?

The more Haeli spoke, the more she had a slight lisp. It wasn't as if her mouth could not form the words, it was more that she slurred her s' quite a bit as if she heard that as normal and refused to truncate them. Haeli seemed to want to speak with him, but she was having trouble picking up cues and feeding him topics like a normal person would.

"I am not afraid of her because I have spoken to her. She doesn't much like me, but she has tolerated my presence thus far. I was born far to the south of here in a very different place. I am only learning her ways and the ways of the other things here. I dislike being new. It was comforting where I was born. There were no people there though, not like there are here. I left when my mentor died. I was too long alone and wanted to do this with others..." She made a gesture, pointing at Dariel and then herself.

"I knew how to be a Dhani and a crocodile and a egret and a snake and even a jaguar. I know all the other beautiful creatures of my home. But I did not know how to be a human. I'm sorry. I do not talk to people much. I came here to change that so I could learn. But it is hard. You are all so strange to me." Haeli said, finally looking up and at Dariel. She met his eyes with her own and then glanced down at him and then around.

For a girl, she was very aware. Even with her eyes down, he could tell she was listening. Her gaze would dart up, spot a motion in the canopy, and then be on to something else as if she was constantly scanning her surroundings.

"Thank you for talking with me. I'm sorry I've been making this hard. I don't know what to say to you though. Or to other people. It means a lot, even if you are not Leth." She said suddenly, then offered him a slight smile.

[Dariel]

The Djed welled into Dariel's eyes like so many unfelt, untasted tears. It certainly stung the same. Leth was still all about, his shine overlaying hers and rendering Haeli's aura practically invisible to the boy's eye. The taste of blood on his lips and the heady scent in his nostrils answered his question nonetheless, long moments before the girl could indirectly confirm what he now knew. There was magic about her. Dariel probably would have laughed if he wasn't, well, himself. While he could acknowledge her talk of Sunclaw with a nod and find his suspicions that running from the big cat would be a silly idea confirmed, could intellectually comprehend theatements she made about herself, he still seemed amused. And even he didn't laugh there were enough telling signs like the tremors on the corners of his mouth, the waxing and waning twinkle in his eyes and the relaxation of his posture. "Being human? What does that even mean. You are human, are you not? At the risk of disappointing you, I have no idea what you even mean. You know things. You can do things. For all I can tell you seem like a worthwhile specimen and I have yet to regret approaching you." The words were light and airy, tinged as they were with both traces of amusement and admitted confusion. A slight movement of the shoulders, an embryonic shrug that never quite made it to see the light of Leth, stressed the uncertainty that swung in his words. Lines grew on his forehead, subtle ripples first but they grew into stark canals as they began to fill with shadow. If Haeli listened close enough she might even hear his mind churning and grinding away at the thought, seeking to refine and distill his answer. The next shrug was more vigorous."Maybe I am not good at being human either. I mean, I can interact with people, but I seldomly feel a desire to be a part of the large drab herd. I bear them no ill will. They simply hold nothing of interest to me." "At base, people band into community for mutual protection and support. If one is capable of providing for oneself, or at least willing to take the risk of facing the consequences alone, then there is no need to be part of a community. It might make for a harder life, but it also offers a certain freedom."Dariel didn't really seem to be talking about Haeli in specific there, maybe not even about himself. Instead he'd taken the whole quandary to a level above and beyond personal concerns. Like a wave, a frown played across his thin pale lips before it died away again. "But you, Haeli, you are doing fine. It is as I said. Being yourself should suffice. At the end of the night, most human beings want simple things. Safety and comfort. A warm bed, a full belly, to live in peace with their neighbors. They merely... hrm... they have merely ritualized the way they assure each other of their peaceful intentions. You might not know the rituals, but you still follow them too, and so do I. I approached her openly visible and with empty hands. You kept your knife in your basket and keep averting your eyes. It is not hard."