Closed Life and Death

[Mienskil Ostovik]

21st of Winter, 512 AV Mienskil was having a hard time finding his way around the Citadel. Of course, the follower golems were always handy to have, but he liked to know as much as he could be committing them to memory, so as much as he could he avoided using the little annoying mouse/rodent mimics. It may or may not have had something to do with their annoying mantra, which they repeated up to and beyond the frustration point for the poor little pulser. However, the Synchograph Office was just one of those places that he needed the little bugger for. It was quite embarrassing to request one, as the little rodent golem more or less announced “hey, here’s a new guy!”, but the Synchograph office was just a little bureaucratic space in a huge stone citadel that was mostly underground and he had no luck finding it on his own with what meager help he could coax from random wizards. He assumed he’d eventually get it though, as the little office seemed so vital to everyone on Sahova and he had no doubt that he’d be making several trips within the next dozen days or so to request something new to hold with his tongs and hit with his hammers. He’d pick it up eventually. The little follower golem – dammit that thing was really annoying – kept tweeting its tune as it led him through the stone passageways and halls, past quarters and upset nuits. He’d only seen a handful of pulsers, but most were too withdrawn to really engage in conversation with any of them, which was a shame because the nuit of the citadel seemed too alien and condescending for the still fresh face to converse with them comfortably. Though it was understandable he supposed; Mienskil had to keep reminding himself that he was getting special treatment and not all pulsers were treated as well as him. Indeed, the other living beings he’d come across were generally much more downtrodden and sickly than himself, though they seemed nearly as dedicated to their work as he was to his, and he hoped he would be able to talk to a few of them at least. Just to find someone to relate to on this dead island. A few chimes later and the little rat helpfully informed Mienskil that he had arrived at his destination, waiting a few ticks before turning around and heading back the way it came. The human had to resist the urge to kick it and help it on its merry way. Pushing against the oaken door he’d been left at, the human wizard entered the Synchograph Office for only the second time since his arrival and the conclusion of his preparations. As such, the place seemed as convoluted and confusing to him as it had last time, and he walked over to the desk to start looking through the forms, knowing better than to ask the nuit behind the counter for help.

[Orinei]

Though she wouldn’t admit it, Orinei felt a small degree of pride that she, out of the scraggly group of apprentices currently under Amaryllis’ loving care, was the one that was trusted enough to be sent to the Synchrograph Office for supplies. She was ignoring the fact that it probably was no mark of trust at all; she was simply the newest-arrived, and therefore the one most likely to have to do the grunt jobs. But all the same, when one of the other apprentices (Amaryllis hadn’t even delivered the order herself) found her in the library and gruffly pushed a list into her hand, sending her to the office for some embalming ingredients, she had no complaints. Of course, she had snatched the list and rolled her eyes for effect, storming out with her skirts swirling. But that was just for show, after all. She was actually a tad apprehensive, having never visited the place before. She had had no trouble finding the place; she was able to stop some shivering pulser in a corridor, and with a poisoned-honey smile and sharp-edged tone, probably scared the poor thing into giving her exact directions. And after she had what she needed, she had simply whirled in the opposite direction, long blonde braid whipping around as she directed her measured, small steps towards the office. She didn’t walk fast—most Nuit didn’t, after all—but her strides were small enough to make the hem of her skirt look like it fluttered. As she walked in, she was faced with the same cluttered and convoluted mess that Mienskil had entered into only moments before. A trademark eyeroll followed. After the quiet calm of the Palsa Hydrasa, any place with loud rustling papers or bangs and explosions—namely, 90% of the rest of Sahova—seemed a little grating. As soon as she stepped through the door, she stopped; she figured she’d at least take in the scene before making her next move, seeing as she wasn’t exactly sure what the next step was. She pulled the now-crumpled list from her pocket, surveying it once more as she stepped toward a counter that seemed to house some sort of important paperwork. By chance or by fate, she found herself standing directly next to Mienskil—and in him she found an unfamiliar face. True, she was new herself, but he looked even newer. Alive, definitely—and still so flushed and healthy-looking! The thought crossed her mind, manifesting on her face as a smirk as she watched him rifle through papers, obviously as unexperienced as she. It was different, though; being a Nuit—even one without true magical skills—gave one a slight degree of credibility, even if it was just over pulsers. She gingerly leafed through a few forms, grabbing a quill to begin filling out her request. She glanced back over at him, smirk still in place. “You look lost. Need a hand?” Her tone was coy, perhaps sarcastic; she’d found in the last few weeks that it was awfully entertaining to talk to humans, particularly ones fresh from the mainland. OOC : disclaimer: I know she seems mean, especially if Mienskil's looking for someone to relate to...but she's just got a tough exterior

[Mienskil Ostovik]

The nuit embalmer's entrance had gone completely unnoticed by the human at the desk, who was too busy looking through the papers to pay attention to any sounds or other people. He was dimly aware of someone else entering the room, but had nit the attention to really notice or care. Instead, he was looking through the different colored forms for the one he needed right now, which he was actually having trouble remembering. Was he here to sell his dirks? Or to requisition some more? A voice to his left pulled him from his contemplative thoughts and drew his attention to the young-appearing woman who had just entered. She was marginally pretty, at least conventionally, yet her skin was frigidly pale and her already blonde hair was beginning to whiten slightly in some places. Her eyes were sunken slightly, yet were devoid of any movement in the irises that suggested life. There was no need for him to use auristics to tell that she was a nuit, he'd grown familiar enough with the appearance that he could recognize most by sight. Still, he was surprised to find a conventially pretty nuit among a people who cared more about longevity and research than any sense of phyaical self. Her tone had completely slipped by him, but he deduced her sarcasm logically, so he smiled softly. "No, I think I am fine, thank you," Mienskil replied honestly. In general, the nuits here did not like the living, though he could not understand why, so her offer of help was either sarcastic or a genuine uniqueness among the undead. "The forms are neatly ordered, I just need to remember what I came here for. Lab 37B is too far away for me to jjst go back and check, and I didn't think to make a list befote I came."

[Orinei]

For a moment, Orinei was slightly taken aback by the man’s demeanor. He seemed so…calm, so laid-back. So unlike the normal pulsers, who either seemed to be incredibly high-strung and nervous or so sickly they were more sluggish than the Nuits. He had even smiled…that was the strangest part. The advantage for Mienskil and his strange behavior (well, Orinei considered it an advantage at least) was that Orinei was immediately intrigued. Generally, she’d brush off a human after moments of conversation, if they failed to interest her; this one, though, made her take a closer look. She let her eyes slowly drift over him, taking in the healthy glow that she envied, albeit secretly. He was only barely taller than her; they would have seen nearly eye to eye if he was looking at her. “Lab 37B?” it wasn’t something she’d normally do—admit curiosity about a human, that is—but she couldn’t help it. “I’m not familiar. What is it you do there?” It truly was out of character for her to be asking so many questions. But the man’s demeanor—that tiny smile—it made it hard for her to just start slinging insults at him. She wondered if he was an apprentice too; she figured he must be, since he seemed like he hadn’t been on the island long. His health told her that, at least: she’d learned quickly that it was hard for humans to thrive here. She found herself, in her intrigue, standing a few steps closer to him than she had been before. Noticing this, she swiftly took a step back, quickly grabbing a few of the forms herself. She pulled out her list once more, smoothing it against the surface of the table, skimming over the forms and beginning to neatly pencil in the names of the herbs that were needed.

[Mienskil Ostovik]

Mienskil paid no attention to the nuit while he thought about the reason why he was here. To him, the undead were the major population of the island, but they now shared a home and that was all there was to it. Maybe they were dead, maybe they were very different, but they simply were. His mind was very factual about the way things stood, and as far as he could tell the nuits were still people. Their auras were as large as those of humans, larger in some cases because they've been around for so long. Yet the reason why Mienskil treated them with such normalcy was simply because he didn't see them as undead, just fellow wizards all striving to benefit off each other. That wasn't always the case, but he could dream. One thing that irked him about the few nuits he'd encountered though was their supreme arrogance. Just because he had a pulse didn't make him any less eligible for work and planning than a dead man. He had plenty of ideas, lots of projects he had planned and- suddenly he remembered what he was here for and scrambled for a sheet, looking for one that would allow him to requisition supplies. Finding the colored document easily enough, Mienskil then scrabbled for a pen, all very frantically and in a rush to get it done so he could get started as soon as possible. But the nuit wanted to make conversation it seemed, and so he forced himself to stop and listen to her. He was as curious about her and her kind as she seemed to be about him. "Lab 37B," he repeated. "Right now there's no one else there, so it's just me doing Magecrafting projects on my own. That's why I'm here, I remembered, I'm here to ask for a new item that I think I can Magecraft that could help people see auras. Unless they hear auras, in which case I cannot help." She was not much shorter than he was, and though obviously dead appeared even younger than he in some respects. Most nuits he saw were in various states of disrepair, so it was refreshing to come across one that had more self-preservation and looked a bit more like himself or other humans. Mienskil returned his attention to the form he was filling in, unaware of her growing closeness. He did, however, notice her move suddenly away from him, which prompted him to turn his head halfway through filling out the form. "May I help you?" he asked, a bit confused.

[Orinei]

Magecrafting? Orinei wasn’t about to admit it, but she had no idea what this…magecrafting was, aside from the small context he’d just given her. Items that can help see auras? That’d be useful, she thought, allowing a tiny smile to come to her face. Useful especially for someone like her, who wasn’t quite well-versed in the ways of magic yet.

She watched him for a moment, lost in thought, wondering how to ask him more about his discipline without coming off like she didn’t know anything. When he noticed her step back, though, her outer demeanor changed slightly. “No!” she said sharply, turning back to the form she was filling out.

She scribbled for a moment, slowly copying down the items from her list, pausing only ever so slightly to shoot glances at him. She hoped he wasn’t finished with whatever he was doing; she still wasn’t sure how to get more information out of him. The feeling of interest felt foreign to her, but she realized he’d said he was working alone. That meant…that meant he was a wizard. Not an apprentice. Not as lowly as she’d figured after all. In that case, maybe her interest wouldn’t seem so strange.

“So, your magecrafting,” she continued, trying to inject a degree of nonchalance into her voice. She got halfway there, but she obviously wasn’t exactly skilled in the art of fluid conversation. “What sort of Magecrafting do you do?” As soon as she’d said it, she could have kicked herself. What sort? Orinei, you are truly tactless. With her luck, there was only one sort, and she was about to be laughed at.

[Mienskil Ostovik]

When she sharply protested and returned to her work, Mienskil was even more confused. He was never a very social creature, so he was unsure whether this behavior was normal for women… whatever age Orinei was at this point. She looked maybe twenty, maybe even younger, but one could never tell with the undead. A centuries-old nuit could inhabit the body of a child, and a recently-made nuit could be in an aging body only for it to be the one that was originally made undead. All that wondering made Mienskil even more confused, so he just returned to filling out the form. Recently he’d taken a break from making dirks and testing reagents to sit down and think about some actual projects he could make. After all, data-gathering was good to a point, but if you never applied that knowledge what good did it do? Once he learned a decent number of reagents he could start applying them to his actual useful projects. Like the one he was working on now, the goggles through which one could see auras. He’d need to make a full mask for smell and taste and hearing if they sensed auras other ways, but that would have to come later. Though it wasn’t a bad idea. Maybe he could do that. Mienskil cursed his brain for being so abstract. While scratching away at the form before him, he was largely ignoring the nuit’s presence beside him. The undead in Sahova were a copper a dozen, and so there was no real way to distinguish the woman besides him – if she even considered herself a gender – from all the many others. On the other hand, he certainly had no idea why he was distinguishable, though he should probably have been aware if he’d thought about it. She was the first he’d come across who put effort into her appearance though, as corpses certainly didn’t look like that and many wizards simply let their bodies rot until they needed a new one. It was against the traditional vein of efficient thinking, and any nuit that was unique in their mentality was a possible ally and helper, seeing as most just shut him out when they discovered he was actually alive. Her nonchalant tone pulled him out of his thoughts, and again he turned to face her. Emotions were hard to read, especially since eyes tended to be missing a lot of their energy, but even so he could tell that she was at least mildly curious as to what he did. Otherwise she wouldn’t be asking, though she phrased it rather oddly. “Um, what kind?” Mienskil repeated, unsure of what she was precisely referring to. “What do you mean by that exactly? I do improvements in various fields, like structural and behavioral, but it’s all the same kind and almost every Magecrafter knows how. Do you want me to explain?” OOCJeez, she's acting like a high schooler!

[Orinei]

Orinei, as she had predicted, was making somewhat of an idiot of herself. Even if it was coming off as a strange breed of curiosity to Mienskil, she was feeling more and more stupid by the moment, which she knew would only manifest itself in her getting angry. She quickly attempted to collect her thoughts and compose herself--no sense in acting like a child, she reminded herself. She had had to remind herself of that quite a bit lately, which was quite frustrating if sometimes amusing. She'd spent too much time being her own master; being on Sahova, where a more brilliant and experienced than you lurked in every corner, was doing nothing to improve her fits of sulking.

"Perhaps...refresh my memory," she said, nodding. She wanted to appear as if she was familiar with the basic concept, merely needing a little clarification; she'd fill in the blanks as she needed. She made a mental note to spend her next bit of free time in the library. Her apprenticeship at the Palsa Hydrasa (and her lower standing among the other apprentices) meant very long days, but Amaryllis kept a fairly regular (and human-like) schedule, so she was guaranteed at least a few free bells in a day.

Strangely, she felt herself actually enjoying this conversation, even if it was betraying the fact that she wasn't quite as smart as she wanted to come off. She rarely found herself curious enough to ask questions of people outside the Palsa Hydrasa, let alone ask a human. Past that, it was rare that a human carried on a conversation with her long enough to really learn anything--they either bored her to tears, or she intimidated them too much for it to be much of a conversation. Socializing...this was new.

[Mienskil Ostovik]

There weren't nearly as many thoughts running through Mienskil's head as there were running through Orinei's. For someone with such a drive to learn and create, he was a very simple-minded fellow. Most of his thoughts revolved around his projects, much as they were now, and he devoted little time to actually thinking about anything else. There were obvious exceptions of course, like when he had met the Archwizard, but those were largely when he was in between projects and hadn't thought of the next one or when he was not able to. He was not against sharing knowledge of his discipline however, and actually found the topic quite engaging given that not much could come of it. Though maybe that wasn't the case. "Well, Magecrafting is the discipline of charging an item's internal djed so that it is reinforced as desired," he explained. "Various materials and reagents are required to stabilize the item in various stages, and the djed flows must also be directed to the fields in which the crafter wants reinforced. It can do anything from decreasing an item's weight to increasing its sturdiness or even teaching it magic. That's actually what I've got planned for my next project, if it goes through that is." It was a very basic rundown of Magecrafting, there was so much more to the craft and he was positive that even he didn't know a lot of the details of the proper process. However, he found the conversation intriguing and fascinating, interested in the nuit's interest in the discipline. Working alone was something he may have been used to, but progress was slow when there were no other supporters. Loneliness was also a factor, but not as large as some would think. What Mienskil really found refreshing was the nuit's open curiosity about the subject. Most nuits he'd come across had to make sure that they came off as smarter and superior and in control, and all that did was made them insecure when talking to him about his craft. Those on the island already that knew anything about it were already part of the Magecrafting team most likely, and that meant that all the nuits who had to feel as if they were superior always got antsy whenever Mienskil brought up his work. But here was a nuit that, while not openly stating her curiosity, was asking more about it than anyone else had. He did not want to turn her away; to the contrary, he wanted to welcome her to the craft and maybe teach her a bit of how it worked. If the opportunity arose that would be.

[Orinei]

Orinei listened closely to the wizard's description of his craft, nodding as if it was a subject she'd had knowledge of all along. In reality, the idea that one could charge an object's internal djed was news to her. She figured it made sense, though; if one could Animate and bring a sort of life to an inanimate object, why couldn't one give an inanimate object magic?

And on that note, she decided it might be safe to ask him another question. "Teaching items magic...what kind of magic?" She paused, the idea of a magecrafted golem floating through her head and bringing a small smile to her face. Even better, she was positive there would be applications for magecrafting in her own discipline. Magecrafted embalming tools, perhaps? She kept these little ruminations to herself, though, still pondering his brief description of the process.

She wondered vaguely if he'd let her see his lab. She was quite interested in the possibilities of this brand of magic she'd just learned of; she just didn't quite know how to express that interest completely. Though she'd allowed herself curiosity to this point, it was just not in her nature to act like anything anyone else was doing was better than what she did. After a long moment of thought, she asked "What lab do you work in again?" He'd of course, already told her--it was the first question she'd asked him. But her mind worked in strange ways. This, she thought, would be a good way to get herself an invite to the magecrafting lab.