Flashback A Book's Cover

[Mara]

Winter 80, 511AV

Pattering along the interlace beneath his less than graceful feet a disconcerting rhythm trembled. He could feel it, subtle bends and arcs of petite feet slamming heels first with each marching step. If he had been any other tourist, finding himself any less surefooted than at least a part of him was blessed, he would be horrified of a plummet. The yawning depths below gawked back at him, void, black, and ravening. Instead his toes curled within their attired confide and stretched out with another well placed step.

The patter became a ricocheted drumbeat and for a moment it was a descant strumming along with the slow beats of his chest and a distant prattle of midday from somewhere his sight could not penetrate.

“Sister! Sister, Look at me!” a tiny voice cried out, small enough to match the pounding beats. Mara risked a glance back, peeking over his shoulder to find a patch of silvery hair bobbing several paces behind him. His arms were unfurled, the mock of tiny wings flailing against the air and his brows knitting determination into a whitish palate.

“Vero, come back here! It is not time for playing right now!” A girl barely timeworn enough to leave the nest answered the animated demand. She was much closer than he had cared to notice, and a mature drape of a complimenting shade of grey silk swathed her shoulders in lax waves. “I just got you cleaned up.” She droned, hands perched upon the round of her hips.

“Awwww, a little longer, pleeeaassee?” Her head shook and exaggerated the swells of her hair so an imagined breeze drew the threads from her face.

“No, time to come inside.”

The boy buzzed past, a huffy moan on his breath. “You are no fun at aaaall.”

As he reached her side, her eyes slithered over Mara, as if she had been evading notice of him until her brother was by her side, safe. She stared, summing him up and in that stolen moment the drop to the bottommost of Kalinor seemed more inviting than swimming in that stare. She knew almost instantaneously. He had not spoken, nor altered from his natural shade of red. Still she could see and from her look, the dilemma was grotesquely apparent. He was not complete. Her face looked more bewildered than repulsed. She was piecing together the fragments of this surprising mobile conundrum, but she was bothered with the unsolvable question with one lonely response: ‘You are not Symenestra.’ His eyes ripped away, his tongue licking at a shrunken fang beneath his tightened lip, and the load of stacked leather bound pages became unbearably heavy from their rawhide strap as he heaved them closer.

One. Two. One. Two.

He numbered each breath by how it entered and how it left, until his count steadied and his feet led him further down the road. It was several counts later when the sensation of a penetrating watch abandoned his back leaving open holes boring into his spine. If that was the nastiest of it he supposed himself strong enough to shoulder it. It was safe to say he was not as social as he was made to be. Faces filtered in and out at every angle of his life, there was no more time to worry about what these face assumed or alleged.

He glanced down at a tiny sliver of parchment slipped into the edge of the book at the top of the pile in his satchel. It stuck out just enough to delivered the final line of the scrawled directions displayed upon the face and he verified with a final determined glanced around. “Here it is.” He encouraged with a deep breath as he glanced up at the dangling structure. His fingers drug across the silken path that would get him to his purpose, and he began his sluggish ascent.

It took some time for him reach the summit. He was not as practiced at climbing as the others. Whether it was only natural to be so or if it was by lack of practice he assumed the former. Symenestra children easily put him to shame. Before arriving he had honestly not known he should be more agile in climbing or balance.

The entrance was finally in reach and he readjusted the bag about his shoulder as he approached. His hand hesitated a moment before the shut door blocking his entrance. At last he mustered a gentle knock across the frame.

[Vyxaaron Yew]

It hadn’t been the best of mornings. He had awoken with a mild headache, and his nose stuffed up, making it hard to breathe. Vyx wasn’t unused to such a condition. There were certain activities that seemed to trigger it, and rooting about amongst some of the oldest tracks in the library the day before, carefully copying the bits his father had requested, he had first felt that familiar stinging in his eyes. Then came the sneezing. And by the time he was ready to sleep that night, he was congested and his golden orbs burned and itched like mad. At least this morning his eyes had improved, but he still felt a bit under the weather, and that wasn’t something likely to improve his mood any. And it wasn’t the best to begin with. Far from it. His father, Vylindel, had left their home a couple of hours ago, with specific instructions on what part of the memoirs Vyx was to tackle. They were being paid a pretty penny to sift through and edit and organize and compile the voluminous studies and geographical and mental wanderings of a recently passed Symenestra of fairly high renown. The family of the deceased had commissioned Vyx’s father to gather all together in a coherent, flowing volume – or more realistically, volumes – and they were pressed for time. There was to be a memorial gathering and service at the beginning of the new season, and the brother who had negotiated the deal with Vylindel had been quite adamant that all must be completed by that time, as the work was to be a special, surprise presentation to the dead healer’s widow. The race was on, and Vyx had been pulled in to lend his hand, literally, in the copy work. While his father read and made meticulous notes of what was to go where, Vyx had already begun on those parts of the work that were straightforward and easy to place at the beginning. In his beautiful, flowing handwriting, which was regular and neat and highly legible, he had already begun to write – and write – and write. There were certain tricks his scholar-father had taught him about how to get the most work out of one’s hand, and eyes, and head, and body – for all of these played a part in what appeared to be a simple task – copy work. For the hand to keep moving - steadily, gracefully, uniformly – across the pages, it needed to hold the pen just so and be placed on the table just so, and breaks and massage to keep the fingers limber. Eyes needed breaks too, as did the back, and correct posture while sitting was important to allow for hours of what would otherwise be ‘backbreaking’ labor. Ending up hunched over and bent like a pretzel would drastically reduce productivity the next day. So on this day, Vyx had been left with his marching orders, which included a very unpalatable responsibility that had come about as the result of hitting a snag in the preparation of the memoirs. Vylindel was a scholar, but in the field of history and anthropology. He was no medico, and the dead healer had been possessed of a cramped and often almost illegible handwriting. Notes were scrawled will nilly over acres of paper, and trying to piece them together in some logical order was proving a deal frustrating – and was slowing them down. Poking about in the tomes on hand at the library was of some use, but not enough. Vylindel had pondered this glitch for a day or two, until just the day before, he had apparently stumbled – almost by accident – upon a solution, or so he hoped. A visit to the Place of Purging to visit a friend there, to ask if she had any idea what a certain indecipherable term might be, had resulted in his introduction to a young healer who was, after some explanation and negotiation of pay, willing to help. It seemed a double blessing to Vyx’s father for the young healer in question was also, allegedly, a decent artist - at least, he appeared skilled enough to duplicate the myriad drawings and sketches that accompanied the decedent’s notes. Thus two problems had been solved with one new acquisition to their little team, and Vylindel had been quite elated about it, when he had returned to their home the evening before and shared the good news with his son. All looked rosy and the task before them much more manageable. Until Vylindel had mentioned the young healer’s name, with a fleeting hint of embarrassment washing over his features. Vyx’s jaw had dropped, metaphorically if not literally, at the mention of who they were going to be working with. Of course, he didn’t know the creature personally – of course he would not! But he didn’t have to know him to know who he was – or what he was, to be precise. The ‘Dra’ before his name gave it away in an instant, and Vyx could only look at his father in stunned silence for a long moment. Then his golden eyes had narrowed and he had spent the next half a bell trying to argue his father out of this course of action. Yes, they were pressed for time and yes, this plan made imminent sense. But – a mongrel? Here? In their very home? Despite all that they believed in – what Vyx’s mother had died for – all that they espoused as right, and that which they condemned as the worst of racial sins – how could he? How could he?! The argument had turned loud and scathing, on Vyx’s part. Vylindel had been calm, at first, but in the face of his hotheaded son’s ire he had finally put his foot down. Needs must and that was that – the healer would be coming around sometime near mid-day on the morrow and they would show him what was to be done and sit him at a desk and what would be the harm in that? This endeavor was important – it would preserve forever the work of a great mind and add to their people’s store of knowledge – and wasn’t that a priority? Wasn’t the greater good here to take precedence over their own closely held values? Well, when a man wants something badly enough, he can always justify the abandonment of what he believes in – at least in a small way and just temporarily, right? In the end, Vylindel won the case, of course. What could Vyx do, but steam and huff and pout? He had come very close to refusing to help on the project. But his own values, his own sense of duty and loyalty to his father, nixed that option. It was complicated, and he was feeling quite resentful towards Vylindel for putting them – him – in this awkward and uncomfortable position. So he had gone to bed feeling crappy and awoken feeling not much better. After consuming a breakfast of pureed fruit, and dressing with his usual meticulous care, Vyx had listened to his father’s instructions in stony silence, waves of disapproval wafting off of him but hitting an equally stonily resolved barrier. Vylindel was feeling defensive, which made him even more of an apologist for the soon to be arrival of a mixed blood Sym into their home. Vyx was young and brash and couldn’t see the bigger picture, but he’d just have to swallow his anger and adjust to the situation as best he could. Vylindel would just try to keep the two young men apart. He would have tried to do that in any case, to avoid…well, undesirable affliliations…. So all was in order for the arrival of the healer, when, mid-morning, a message came, brought by a special courier. Vylindel’s niece was just being brought to her childbed – she was in labor, and a new generation of his small family was to be born on this day, it would seem. A day of great joy and profound sadness, for this family of Esterians that believed in racial purity above the lives of its daughters. Vylindel had made the easy decision to leave the house and go to his brother and perhaps take one last chance to make a good bye to Vyxaaron’s cousin, for it was almost a certainty that this would be her last day in this cycle of her life. With curt and pointed instructions to his son to stay and receive the young healer when he made his appearance, and some hasty and less precise words of how to get that young man started on his work, Vylindel had left a very sour looking and feeling Vyx behind. For the next two bells or so, Vyx had gotten down to business and made good progress, for it was something of a distraction from his displeasure to stay focused on his work. He also thought with disapproval that his father’s departure and absence would just put them that much further behind. He loved his cousin and he had made his good byes a few days ago, but this was how life was. His father’s being at his uncle’s side would not lessen the grief the man would surely feel, seeing his only daughter passing into the beyond. So Vyx tried to concentrate, and suppress the fact that, as time passed, he was coming closer and closer to that moment when he must open their door to a young man who epitomized in his conception the dilemma of Vyx’s race. The time passed much more quickly than Vyx would have liked, and he was actually quite engrossed, not realizing how close to noon it had come, when he heard the light tapping. He actually startled, his hand jerking and a trail of black ink spewing across the almost completed page he had been working on. Cursing, he rose in an instant, almost throwing the innocent pen across the room. But too well trained for that, he took a breath and carefully laid it in its little tray. He swallowed, feeling a slight soreness deep in the back of his throat, and he cleared his voice with a little coughing sound. Carefully running his hands down the front of his silk shirt, smoothing away imaginary wrinkles, he then reached to tuck an errant strand of palest grey hair behind his ear. These were all natural, almost unconscious gestures of his, but today, he was highly cognizant of a desire to make sure he looked the part of a real Symenestra – dignified and proud and…superior. With an unhurried gait, Vyx made his way from the desk where he had been working, in his father’s study, through into the main living area of the home. It was sparsely but beautifully appointed, the décor chosen long ago by his mother, when Vylindel had first brought her home as his bride. There was an understated elegance and air of good taste about every carefully chosen piece that graced their home, and upon her passing, when Vyx had been born, Vylindel had left it all without change, his own small memorial to a much beloved wife. Vyx crossed the living area, straightened the neck of his collarless shirt, and paused before the door. Fixing a haughty look upon his finely wrought features, his eyes hard as amber, he opened the door. The first thought that flew through his unhappy mind was By Viratas, he’s even worse than I thought he’d be – doesn’t he even care how he looks?! Well, of course not – why should he? It wouldn’t help, would it – trying to look like something he will never be! Outwardly, he held his features carefully frozen in place, giving the young healer a frosty glare. “You are Dra-Marvasa Whitevine?” It was amazing how the young Sym could put so much of a sneer into that last, foreign sounding name. There was a reason, though, that he could pronounce the Vani word with something approaching accuracy – a secret reason that he probably would have died before revealing, though its very source came unbidden to his mind as he gazed down his nose at the dark haired mutt before him. He didn’t wait for a reply, for really it was only a formality – a way to let this foreigner know that Vyx was in the know - and information was power, right? “My father told me you’d be arriving about now. He’s had to leave, rather unexpectedly.” His voice was as chilly as his stare, and he had no intention of going into any explanations – he wasn’t going to share any of their family’s personal business with the halfbreed, for it had nothing to do with him. What would this healer truly know about the interwoven and inextricably enmeshed joy and sorrow of a pure Symenestra couple bringing a real Symenestra child into the world? He might work at the Place of Purging, but standing on the sidelines, even as a healer, was nothing – nothing – like being part of such a family. For all Vyx knew, this stunted mistake standing in his doorway probably tended to the foreign bitches that the unenlightened of his race utilized to further corrupt their purity. Any way you looked at it – this guy had pariah and traitor and sullied written all over his diffident looking features. And Vyx had to let him in…. … “Come in,” he said brusquely, barely stepping aside and his body stiff with wariness, his eyes glued on the young mixed blood, as if he was willingly letting a thief into his home and expected nothing good to come of it.

[Mara]

A long suspension erected an anxious itch under his crust. He was tempted by the distress in his shoulder to knock a reminder of his arrival. The knobs of his knuckles flexed with the urge, curling and uncurling beside his frivolously fluctuating stance. He scrutinized the view to his side over the conurbation, arcane shades of light glittered in their encrusted divans. A field of fallen stars reflected in an undulating sea of lace.

The entrance fissured open and he hinged to intersect it. There was not much written in his own expression that could be surmised upon a single glance. Against a disarray of dark brown hair with razor edges and metals garnishing the stiff angles of his features, Marvasa was not artlessly explained by the finest judge of character. His lips loosened to offer his best attempt at small talk when a grandiloquent voice halted him stiff.

His cavernous rubies meandered along this stranger’s façade. Vyxaaron could have been the poster child for the Symenestra race. The illuminations of the open room cast an eerie glow across his skin embroidered with the delicate gossamers of pulsing life. Cold golden eyes fluttered silent accusation behind a fine dust of lash and his tantalizing accent laced each exceedingly well-bred sentiment with venom that slithered into his veins, eating away. Suddenly Mara was hyper vigilant of his dissimilarities: small, maladroit, and robbed of any endeavor to feel assertive in his company.

“Thank you.” He finally answered making a point to overlook the other as he crossed the threshold into his home one wary toes. “I hope everything is alright. I was not aware it would be only you and I.” He made his way across the room to the writing desk. Structured stacks of newly bound work covered the surface making the bottom impossible to locate. The loops of the Symenos writing, words he desired to read in affluence carried him along the pages down to a thick dribble of ink down the corner of a page. Deliberately it saturated the paper’s corner, forking into the invisible ravines of texture along the recently pressed page.

The volumes in his hand slid without exertion, down his shoulder, next to the swollen leg of the desk. Instant relief liberated his aching tendons. Idle hands, without delay, palmed a single stack of marginally angled pages about the top of a pile straightening them back into place to ease a habitual response. This was Mara’s silent indication of surfacing discomfort. Trivial security was received in the uniformity and poise surrounding him. All but one individual constructed in composure within the neighboring vicinity. Observably if nothing else he took this work seriously. That alone was reputable, admirable even. “Is this your written script?” he questioned his discreet tone a suggestion to his diffidence.

“Vylindel,” he hesitated and once again faced Vyx, reminding himself who he was speaking to. His jaw clenched as he caught sight of the stone idol that he was addressing and he steadied his voice. “Your father did not underplay your skill, Vyxaaron.” The melodious ringing of his Common still lingered in elongated vowels and hummed in rolling consonants. His Symenos was too untrained to safely try without some insult to the prideful race it was cultured from. He wanted to learn, he wanted to immerse in every inch of the knowledge drenching the papers covering the desk. A sinking feeling drew his eyes to the cracks of the flooring, drawing his coat closer around his middle where he clutched its center. This nameless sense prepared him for less than well received much less willing help from his new partner. Even so, he was employed for a job; it was an advantage in and of itself, regardless.

[Vyxaaron Yew]

The mixed blood returned Vyxaaron’s unfriendly glare with crimson orbs that offered only the mildest of gazes and harbored no outward signs of indignation or reproach for the brusque greeting thrown at him. His non-reactivity, though, far from producing any mollifying effect in his reluctant host, served only to bring Vyxaaron’s lip up the slightest bit, adding a physical dimension to the sneer already present in his words. What a weak excuse for a being! Vyx thought, his piercing eyes giving Dar-Marvasa an intense scrutiny as he crossed their threshold, equating the other’s politeness with lack of selfworth. Of course, rationally, this fell completely in line with Vyx’s own pre-determined evaluation of the young healer. He was not pure blooded, ergo he was worthless – worth less than a full blooded Sym. But even though this was how Vyx saw it, he was more than ready to mentally penalize Dra-Marvasa for thinking the same way about himself. Such is the logic of prejudice – there could be no way that the half blood could win merit in the bigot’s eyes. To the healer’s quiet and neutrally offered thanks and expression of polite concern, Vyx made no reply, almost as if he hadn’t heard – or that his unwanted guest’s words were of so little value that he hadn’t deigned to listen. With a watchful gaze like a hawk tracking a rabbit, his golden eyes followed the other as he crossed to the desk which was stacked high with books and papers, the desk Vyx had just left, the one where his botched sheaf lay, testament to his error. Of course, the interloper’s gaze would fly right to it, and Vyx felt an angry flush warm his pale cheeks. Dra-Marvasa was letting a heavy satchel slide from his shoulder and his hands were moving, already claiming some dominion over that which Vyx had been working so diligently on, rifling the top papers as if they were his to possess. Likewise his ears were assaulted with the guttural growls and discordant, choppy vowels sounds of the Common tongue. His father hadn’t mentioned that! Why, this mutt couldn’t even speak Symenos! Vyxaaron did a quite literal eyeroll, even despite the compliment offered right on the heels of the question. Dra-Marvasa was turning back towards him, and Vyx’s face hardened the more. In three quick strides, Vyxaaron was beside the healer, his forearm flung out as a physical barrier, to block his further sullying of the contents of the desk, though there was no physical contact between the two young men, who were so close in age yet worlds apart in experiences. “This is where I will be working.” Sharp, clipped, with no room for questioning – Vyx was claiming his territory. “My father left me with your instructions.” He spoke in Symenos still, as he had when he had opened the door. If the mixed breed couldn’t get it, well, that was his problem, wasn’t it? There was no way he was going to stoop to speaking Common here, in his own house! What in the world had his father been thinking – to bring this cretin here, to their home, his mother’s home! Vyx shook his head at the vexation he felt, as he said curtly, “Come with me. I’ll show you where you will work, and what my father wishes for you to begin with.” He gave the shorter boy a long look, and added dryly, “I’ll speak slowly, to make sure you understand.” He turned deliberately on his heel and moved away, towards an aperture in the wall that led further into the home.

[Mara]

The soft pith of his lip sunk between two canines where they burrowed in with the persistence of a bear trap smashing securely onto his victim. He took a few fervent backward steps from the desk, spreading the cavity between them. The contemplation that he may actually turn and strike him transiently sashayed along the cortex of his awareness, dilating his pupils into hollowed gourds and deepening the cerise of cautious irises in the slightest.

The hastened flow of Symenos drudged up more annoyance to voluntarily display for his use of Common. He was not so blind or optimistic to overlook it, and he was well aware the memorandum was in no way being encoded. His mind scrambled to translate hurriedly, it was fortunate, for the first time, his co-workers shared in this conviction with Vyxaaron. They, as well, found him galling and undependable, in their minds it was by fault of his own if he could not keep up. It was no great loss if he no longer worked in the Purging because he had misheard a delivered direction. He understood this; his worth was earned not given. There was no value in special treatment. So with a full breath and searching sight he pulled the implication from his harshened verses. ‘Don’t touch my things. Keep to yourself. Do as you’re told.’

“Very well” he answered in Symenos, bracing for the obvious distaste that would follow regardless. The accent was accurate, practiced but deliberate as if at any moment an intonation of Vani would fill the empty space and give him away.

A lanky arm swung around the barrel of his ribs to clasp onto the flexed bicep of his own opposed arm now dragging ebony points along the contour of his jawbone as he listened. He was not sure if he should be grateful or further bristled by his closing statement. It was easier to comprehend when Vyxaaron paced his words, but the phrasing was altered. A cultural undertone lingered there in a way that only a race that prided itself on its preeminence could do. The implication was toward his status as a lesser being, that in some way the accommodation was as much for clarity as it was for communicating with the mentally inept.

A brow perforated with a slender black ring arched at the sound and fell back into place. “I see.” He exhaled and lolled his head to an angle, peering up at the delicate features before him from a marginally hunched neck before rejoining the observation of his feet squirming under the imperceptibly scuffed leather of his boots. “I cannot think how anything would become lost in translation under your careful consideration. I do appreciate the extra effort.” His tone was docile in sincerity and blended into his unperturbed expression. No sense of hostility or offense was intended from this. However, Mara knew what the other would take this as and he intended him to. He was no agitator by nature but still he was experienced in playing games with words in the face of subjugation. It came fluently, like a sardonic juvenile sassing his parent. It was a hard learned habit from someone too young to control all aspects of his quip, but old enough to be held responsible.

“Please, show me what is needed of me.” He finished with deliberate Common and stretched his spine before reluctantly bending at the waist to lift the bag he had once discarded a few sentences before.

[Vyxaaron Yew]

Vyxaaron withheld the sharp snort of derision the Vantha halfblood’s far from perfect Symenos engendered. Instead, his nostrils simply flared a bit and there was a soft huff of air from them, the most telling of sounds of contempt. In truth, it was not all that bad – obviously the young healer had had some practice with his mother’s tongue. But Vyx would never see anything but the discreditable in such a creature, and what flaws there were in the careful pronunciation he immediately picked apart in his brain. He had paused, fractionally, at Dra-Marvasa’s reply, hearing only polite tones but sensing that perhaps the giving of the words was not so amiably made as would seem. But his innate feeling of superiority was bolstered by a belief that others must surely see him through the same lens. So after a moment’s piercing stare, he accepted them at face value, with a barely perceptible nod, and an inner muted satisfaction that perhaps – perhaps – if the mutt kept his place and understood what was what here, this whole farce might go a bit more smoothly. His back muscles, as he turned once more, were one iota more relaxed than they had been, and he stalked off, the last words in Common grating on his sensitive ears but some miniscule sense of pleased arrogance now residing in his breast. He led the healer to the kitchen – and truly, it had been his father’s idea, not his, to place the mongrel scribe here, in the center of domestic employments. There was a long, broad work table set against the slightly curved far wall, in a nook, as it were. Opalgloams set in that wall provided good lighting, a rather unnecessary perk for those whose night vision was excellent. But it had been constructed so more for effect, and Vylindel had thought, of all places in their home, this work station would make the most sense for the youngster he had hired to help them get this publication effort done. He hadn’t been entirely sure if the mixed blood healer’s eyesight was as strong as his own, and Vyx’s. So there was that to recommend this space for the half-Vantha. Additionally, the other two desks were already occupied – Vylindel having his own in his study, and his son having the one in the living room – a legacy of his erudite mother. It just made good sense to house Dra-Marvasa here, and to this one point, Vyx had made no objection. Yes, stick the mutt in the kitchen, out of sight, out of mind. Of course, he was willfully neglecting to acknowledge that there would have to be, of necessity, a good deal of discourse and back and forth, as Dar-Marvasa sifted through the unorganized notes and recommended some system of organization. And though the healer would know about medicinal terms, given his time put in at the Purging, he might need some assistance with just the everyday vocabulary of the prose and the text itself – something Vylindel had accepted upon making his decision to hire Dra-Marvasa, but which he had failed to make Vyx aware of. Probably the elder Sym had just had enough of his offspring’s venting his spleen over the situation already and he hadn’t wished to fan the flames of his son’s indignation further by this language tid-bit. In any case, as Vyx led the healer into the invitingly appointed cooking and eating space, he was just glad that he could park the guy there and then try his best to forget about him – once he had given him his marching orders. Vyx turned and gestured to the roomy work space, at the end of which his father had placed a stack of notebooks at least two feet high. “To begin, you need to skim through all of these. They are just part of what we have to get through. They are chronologically the earliest.” His words were attested to by the tattered and faded covers, and curling page edges of the notebooks so indicated. Despite his assertion, Vyx didn’t appear to be making any special effort to speak either slowly or in easily understood word or syntax. For a person who wished to be shed of this perceived undesirable impediment to his own work, he seemed to be doing a good job of shooting himself in the foot. “But my father wants the finished volumes to be organized in terms of subject matter. That is why you need to read these. He’s already placed some of his own notes here and there.” Vyx plucked up the top one and leafed through it until he found a sheaf of much fresher paper, holding it out in his long, delicate, thin fingers, tipped with lethal black claws, for Mara’s inspection. “Read those too, he wants your opinion.” Again, this was accompanied by that little huff that said oh so quietly just exactly what Vyxaaron thought about this mistake of nature’s ‘opinion.’ He held the notebook out in a way that indicated clearly that the healer should take it and give it a glance. Meanwhile, Vyx forged on, in a hurry to get this over and done with as quickly as possible. “Here is paper, and ink, and a pen.” His golden gaze turned on Mara, almost accusingly, as he added, “You won’t need anything else, will you?” It was definitely not a question – being more of a mandate that such was indeed the case. “My father should be back in a few hours. I’m sure you won’t be anywhere near finished by then. So you had better get started. He’ll want to talk to you when he gets back.” Imperious, dismissive, pained to be put to such an interaction, but there it was. At least it was done, and he could leave the kitchen and get back to his own desk – his mother’s desk – and try to forget about what was sitting out here.

[Mara]

Mara's watch tracked Vyxaaron, the light filtered between the even progresses of his nibble footsteps where he held his gaze. A solitary groan or thump never rose to audibly greet him from the flooring beneath them and he was reminded of the grace that lay there, no matter how supercilious. His own footing appeared to betray him, dragging and snagging where any discrepancy in terrain caught him by the toe and wrenched him down. Fate it seemed, being punishing and with some humor to spare, was summoning the humiliation that his company could twist between his elongated fingers. He endured, silently drudged through, and came to their destination without remarkable incident.

The light spilt over the cornered space casting washed-out shadows that pooled around their ankles in sporadic directions. He was glad for it, taking a moment to bask in the shine. He led himself to the side of the desk where he listened in earnest, but could not muster the strength to wrench away from the texts he hungrily coveted. A groundswell of excitement flooded him over, trickling along his spine with freezing vitality. His father’s gift of Vantha blood cooled blood red into a hardened stones of blue. There was so much to progress through, so much to discern from another’s forethought. Years of medical knowledge, Symenestra medical knowledge, now organized into his personal holy grail.

His sack landed with a clunk, he eagerly made his way around the table with restrained paces thrumming into the floor, glad to be free of the weight. He ran ink covered hands lengthways over the time worn faces of splintered leather. The aroma of fresh ink and paper filled his nostrils for a moment of pure appreciation. He would have to remember to thank Vylindel for the opportunity, it was unquestionably worth it.

"You won't need anything else, will you?"

Apprehended by the unexpected sound from his momentary trance, he plucked up eyes that were churning with color as he contained himself. At last, with a few flitting blinks in the direction of his Symenestra host, he regained a state of normalcy. The other now seemed as gleaming as the pages in the glowing light. Much like when he had first seen him, the silver hue of his skin and hair harshly differentiated against the lethal molasses of his glare, a lost observation in the disorder scrambling to find a place for this purposeless opinion. A pause had not been afforded to him so he poised himself to gesture a halfhearted nod in reply before glancing back down at the works. "Yes of course." his distant tone of dismissal slipped through murmuring lips and he was absent again in a turbine of thought as he timidly reached for the first mountain of works.

The book waved a greeting with the first turn of a yellowed page, worn by time and experiences, beckoning him to fall a little deeper, look a little closer. Seduced, he slunk between the fastenings and plunged deeper and deeper into the throws of an affair. Before long he was a boy again, flipping through the works of his father, learning more about this man that any intimate father would care to share. The way this man thought, the way he felt, and all he had discovered and learned was in broken rendition filling his skull to the brim.

He quickly established his own routine of organization. Drawing blank pages of parchment he would scrawl his own adjoining notes and tuck them amongst pages at the end of a passage. He would sketch a small summary of a procedure or account and at the top corners sticking just above the binding's edge he would mark a tag by name and classification: Anatomy, Female Symenestra Womb; Stitching, Open Wound; Stitching, Post-Surgical; Disinfection, Post-Surgical, and so on. A few select pages were interspersed with certain underscored words, words that made a sentence here and there too confusing for him to entirely cognize or dictate into his own explanation.

By a number of bells past, not a single word had been vocalized from him, only the sound of turning sheets and a contrast of drawn-out and thickset pen strokes, if there was more to be heard he had not taken an interest enough to notice. A volley of agony gored into the length of his hand and seized his fingers forcing him to release his utensil with a jerk. A discreet hiss manifested in a whispered irritation. He clutched his hand to his chest, massaging the pain away with the opposite hand. He had allotted no breaks for himself, and it was only then he realized how sore his fingers had become.

The piles of sequential books had relocated around the desk, showing he had made a substantial dent in the reading. It now reared proudly along the opposite corner of the desk, its own tower ready to be reviewed. Looking over the work accomplished his fingers found their way to his mottled forearm, tracing tiny raised scars with callusing hands.

[Vyxaaron Yew]

It was hardly the truth to claim that Vyxaaron was satisfied with the avid attention the mongrel gave to his instructions. But, try as he might, he could find nothing to immediately fault the healer for, as he watched those careful eyes soaking in the tomes. Eyes that blended from red to blue in the passing of a moment – a feat which Vyx would never in a thousand years have admitted to finding…captivating. Brutally, he wrenched his own golden orbs from those exotic features, having registered the lustful longing in them – an undiluted passion for what lay within the notebooks, or so Vyx could only assume. For those beautiful spheres were fixated on the tattered leather volumes in the same way a lover would gaze upon the adored and fascinating object of his obsession. Such devotion to the epicenter of their assignment should have been at least the beginning of a fraction of a point given over to Dra-Marvasa’s favor. But Vyx only felt some prickle of what could only be described as…jealousy. Though, what he was jealous of – the healer and his obvious intent to possess the knowledge within the notebooks – or the notebooks which held such sway over the other boy – was an answer Vyx wouldn’t risk acknowledging even within the chambers of his own heart. He felt confused and annoyed and unaccountably warm, and when the mutt took the volume that the Sym extended towards him, and then looked up with eyes within which the colors eddied and flowed like the iridescent sheen on a soap bubble, Vyx was already looking away, with a purpose, at the stack of books still neatly piled on the table. But as if drawn by sheer force, against his will, when those hands touched the notebook, his own eyes jumped back and Vyx felt that pang again, like the most delicate of blades sliding easily through the flesh of his brain. The healer took a moment to surface from his lurid reverie of the journals, and gave a small nod and a mumbled word of assent. No, he didn’t need anything. Vyx gave another small huff of confirmation – because of course he hadn’t planned on offering. He gave his last command and the healer was already turning to his work. Vyx watched him for a second longer, happy – or at least , less unhappy – to know he could leave the half blood and not have to think about him for a while, now. Because that’s what he wanted to avoid – thinking about him. On silent feet, Vyxaaron retraced his path back to the living area and his own work station, seating himself with a loud exhale of breath, as if he had been forced to hold it in for some unpleasant smell or some distasteful happenstance. His amber eyes fell on the ruined page and his lips twisted into a disfiguring moue of contempt. Reaching with clawed hand, he snatched it up and crumpled it in one motion, tossing it onto the floor. He sat there, contemplating the wadded ball for a good long moment, and then turned back to the desk, and his task. Time passed – ten chimes, thirty, one bell, a second bell – and Vyx brought his mind to focus on his work, with a good deal of success. Whenever his mind began to stray, he reined it in sharply, even when he paused occasionally to flex and rub his hand or let his eyes close for a chime. If the boy in the kitchen area was mindless of the seconds as they ticked past, Vyx was not. His ears strained to hear the sounds of his father’s return – though for what reason, he wasn’t able to formalize into any logical rationalization. It wasn’t as if Dra-Marvasa was pestering him every five chimes for assistance. In fact, he hadn’t heard a peep out of his co-worker and the healer might as well have not even been present, for the total lack of sound emanating from the kitchen. Vyx was glad of that. He didn’t want to have to deal with the other scribe. He didn’t want to have to interact with the mutt. But out of sight, out of mind was not completely working here, and he just…wanted a third party to be around. Just in case. Though just in case of what, he wasn’t quite sure. A third bell passed and a few chimes as well, and finally he heard it. The softest of scrapes outside and then a hand on the front door knob, opening it with the assurance of one who had the perfect right to do so. Vylindel entered, his features and form a matured echo of Vyxaaron’s own. He smiled, a sad smile, and when he spoke his voice was tinged with melancholy. “A daughter,” he said, simply, with a satisfied nod. Of course a female child was preferable – their race needed all the females it could produce. If the Esterians had their way, it would take two to three females for every male born to keep extinction at bay. Though it seemed, their disappearance from the face of Mizahar seemed a foregone conclusion. “The child is well, and healthy. Her mother had already chosen a name – Sanura.” A last gift to a child she would never see, never hold, never nurture or teach or love, past her last dying breath. Vyxaaron had stood, carefully placing his pen down in its holder and he stretched as his father entered their home and he smiled at the news. “That’s good. I’m sure Uncle is pleased.” Sad – bereft, perhaps – but pleased. Vylindel crossed to his son, his face a bit drawn with the unhappier emotions of this turbulent event. But he brightened as he looked upon his own, sole offspring. Once Vyx’s mother had passed on, he had not had the heart to marry again. In this, he had failed in his duties towards his race, but for once, he had allowed his heart to overrule his head, and his sense of honor. The way he looked at it, there were more than enough male Syms in need of pure females – wives who would proudly and honorably accept their fate in the furtherance of their species. Let these males choose amongst the dwindling number of potential mates. He had no more desire for such. His eyes strayed then to the pile of sheaves that had increased greatly since his departure, and his smile became less haggard. “I see you’ve made good progress,” he intoned with approval. “And did our healer show up? Did you get him started?” Vylindel looked past Vyx and the desk to the entrance into the kitchen area, and then back again, questioning. Vyx’s relief at his father’s return, and his quiet acceptance of both the death and birth of his cousins, was quickly replaced by a sulky look of extreme displeasure. “Yes,” he replied curtly. “He’s in the kitchen.” A superfluous nod indicated where the most unwelcome creature was situated. “I told him what to do – In Symenos of course! Father you didn’t even tell me…” In response to the rise in both volume and timbre of his son’s voice, Vylindel raised a shushing hand. “Enough!” he said quietly, but firmly. “I’m not going to discuss all that over again. He knows Symenos – of course I made sure of that before I hired him. Enough for the purposes of this job – and with the lexicon that you and I both lack.” Vylindel gave his hot headed son a chilly look of exasperation. “We need his expertise. I can’t undo the sins of his mother – she’d dead, apparently, and not under pleasant circumstances, of course. But his father is a healer, and Dra-Marvasa knows a lot about the profession.” It was clear that the older Sym had done his homework before bringing this hybrid in on this important contract. People didn’t just show up in Kalinor – even these mutant halfbreeds – and live amongst them without some of their histories becoming known. It was also clear that he had no intent to continue to argue about it with his son. Vylindel did raise a clawed hand, though, and placed it gently on Vyx’s shoulder – a placatory gesture. “I’ll take responsibility for him. You needn’t bother yourself over him.” He offered his son a smile – a peace offering. “Now, why don’t you take a break? I want to go talk to him – see how he’s coming along.” He patted Vyx’s shoulder reassuringly. With a frown, Vyx sat back down. “It will be time to eat in another half-bell. I’ll take a break then.” Taking up his pen, he plunged right back into his copy work – or at least he appeared to. Vylidnel sighed silently and looked at his stubborn, moody son for a moment. How much Vyxaaron reminded him of his wife. Proud, beautiful, tempestuous. With a little shake of his head, Vylindel turned and made his way across the floor and through the doorway, into the food preparation and eating area. His eyes, the same hue as his son’s, lit up upon sight of the work table. “Dra-Marvasa! Don’t tell me you’ve looked through all of these already?” His lilting voice was filled with both pleasure and slight disbelief, and he stepped over to put a hand on the young healer’s thin shoulder, just as he had done a moment before with his son. “Tell me,” he said with excitement. “What do you think? Do we have the makings of a great work here or what! What did you think of my notes?”

[Mara]

Several snaps and cracks rolled from between the junctions of his hollowed carpus. Mara was oblivious of Vylidnel’s homecoming until the resonance of shushed conversation oozed past the bulwarks and into his humble workspace. The father and son exchange was brief and he crooked from the sound aiming to not be held as an unwelcome third party. The delay was not long-lived before an acquainted face made his company known.

The mixed blood turned, eyes large, at the sound of his formal name exclaimed candidly in the once noiseless opening. His dumbfound was soon replaced with an abashed grin and a hand wriggling up to cradle the back of his neck. His head ducked down toward the uncluttered labor he had poured over as a firm hand cupped his jagged shoulder. Marvasa was still until the crooked slice of blunted fangs poking along the limits of his swollen lip sealed firmly shut. He was, in fact, pleased of the work he had accomplished, and he could inaudibly confess it was amusing to share in the excitement of the development with another. Though time had flown, his exhaustion was palpable with the emergent bloom of purple rings beneath his blanching complexion, a spectacle not unfamiliar to any born of Kalinor without the touch of Syna. He had departed a nighttime Purging shift straight for the Yew residence and now the twinge from his choice was sinking into the tattered fibers of fallow arm muscle.

He snatched a book from atop of his newly formed pile. “Remarkable.” It was a subdued answer for what reflected in the melting shade of salmon he gazed back with. “I could not seem to stop myself once I began.” He ran a thumb along the pages, a draft of hurriedly turned sheets buzzed beneath an ensnaring shadowed nail. He flipped open a page and held the spine of the book flat in an open palm. “Your annotations were a vast help. I’m not sure I could have accomplished getting half as far as I managed without them.”

The open page was an indiscriminately selected entry on autopsy, more specifically, the removal of the skull to examine for cause of death or ailment without being detrimental to the brain. It was a feat, that like much of the inscribed compositions he had rifled through for the past bells, piqued his morbid curiosity and had him fantasizing of what a procedure like this would be like. Under his leaf of translated notes and slight depictions he had taken time to draught out an image of the exact parameters described: the expanse of skin and muscle to be detached, and the dotted lines beneath indicating where a safe and meticulous chip could be made to unhurriedly excavate the bone into a haloed cut around soon to be exposed brain tissue.

This practitioner had lived a full and rich life in his research and discoveries. Mara had no choice but to hold him in high esteem despite an obvious disagreement in a select writing. The author had made it quite clear he believed surrogates, the few who did live through the birth of their fully Symenestra offspring, should be ‘put down’. Though he believed it humane and a natural process of furthering their race, it was challenging to swallow. In the works, the belief was that if surrogacy was deemed necessary, that by eradicating any element of nurture in an argument of nature versus nurture the chances of an untainted line could still be established. Folly or brilliance, from a medical standpoint he could have been correct. Apparently he had not lived to see this work satisfied.

The notion tucked away for future contemplation, and he sheepishly extended the tome toward the Vylidnel to examine. He shied from the trait eerily similar to his son, those sharp honeycomb imbued eyes peering down at him. “I wanted to thank you. It has been quite some time since I have had my hands on such information.”

[Vyxaaron Yew]

The healer’s reply was quiet, but suitably enthusiastic. Vylindel was more than satisfied, and the amount of work the young Half blood had already accomplished spoke much louder than his soft words in any case. The older Sym was also gratified to hear that his own efforts were appreciated and had been of use. Nodding with a brightened expression on his still handsome features, the sadness engendered by his niece’s passing was temporarily relieved. With the arrival of the new child and the progress being made on the publication, it seemed a day to celebrate accomplishments more than one to mourn the loss of a loved one. “Good. Good,” he intoned, nodding in approval. He accepted the particular notebook that Dra-Marvasa had taken up with a dismissive wave of his hand for the words of thanks. “No need to thank me,” Vylindel said, his golden eyes eagerly scanning the notes made by the healer. “I’m glad you were available to help us." With more nodding and a holding of the page closer to inspect the drawings, he used a delicate claw to flip over the notes to reveal the sketch underneath, and his brow puckered the slightest bit – but not from any fault found in the rendition. Vylindel was a scholar, not a physician, and he found some of the more graphic passages and impromptu doodles of the deceased Sym a bit gruesome for his tastes. But he could see the merit in the young healer’s work and his frown dropped away to be replaced by a smile. “This is excellent work! You have some skill here, Dra-Marvasa. I’m sorry - I didn’t know your mother. Was she an artist?” It apparently didn’t occur to the Sym that the healer’s artistic skill might have had its genesis in his father’s genes. After all, the man was Vantha – an inferior race.