Completed Boathouse Clean Up

[Amolina]

~ Amolina Moletta ~ ~ 24 th day of Fall 513 AV ~ “ Fate…if fate exists, who can tell how it’s machinery is working, deep down in the unknow places where the patterns of our lives are wowen until pictures we didn’t know exist are revealed to us, somtimes not to be fully understood until we look back at them and our future selves recycle the memories of the past, editing them and changing them in the process, until the past itself is forgotten and the final interpretation has taken it’s place and become the truth we know - or believe we know.” The words were on repeat in Amolina’s mind. She had been reading the Ascontine plays last evening. If it could be called plays - they didn’t resemble the plays she was used to, with narrative parts like this one interlaced with short scenes written like plays, with lines for actors and directions for setting, light, sound, costume and décor. Philosophy gone Performance, Amolina thought to herself. Wasn’t this what the Ascontine plays really were. Or was it Performance gone Philosophy ? She kept thinking about this while she cleaned up in the boathouse she still thought about as “Mom’s boathouse” but which was actually just a boathouse owned by NHC but obviously forgotten by them in the chaos after the big storm 512 AV. After the quite silent and awkward breakfast she had shared with Nolan Parnell the morning after his “visit” in the boathouse she had returned to gather the used blankets. She had taken them home and washed them and it had taken her forever to get rid of the persistent stains of the poison maker’s blood. Not until today had she had time to go back with the clean and dried blankets. She had already cleaned the fireplace and at the moment she was scrubbing the floor. This was one of the few occasions when a dark violet dress of silk wasn’t right. Amolina was dressed in simple pants and a sleeveless old grey undershirt and her hair was pulled back from her face, gathered in an artless long braid on her back. The pants were rolled up halfways to her knees and her feet were bare. The floor was full of soap-water. She scrubbed and scrubbed but had started to fear that the small stains of blood had been absorbed into the wooden tiles and in worst case it would be impossible to get rid of them. She winced at the thought. Fate…if fate exists…who can tell how it’s machinery is working…deep down in the unknown places …

[Amolina]

Not for a long time had she had time to think of things like this. Or the inclination. She had been so occupied, so filled of plans, so exited by her new project with Valerius Nitrozian. There had been so many things to do. And recently she had felt spent and so oddly exhausted, after the escape through Ravok and the death of the unknown boatman. She had killed a man who might have been just an innocent bypasser she and Parnell had hi-jacked to save themselves from being questioned by Ebonstryfe soldiers. It had been him or her. Her or him. Wasn’t that enough to justify the boatman’s death and her own survival? Hadn’t it been Rhysol’s will that the stranger would die and she would live … or had it just been chance … or fate, if fate existed … did this unknown man’s death in the industrial back routes of the harbor part of Ravok have a meaning, or was it just … one of those things that happens…fate…? Parnell had been so “kind” as to tell her the man might have a family, a wife and children waiting for him to come home, and made her feel like they couldn’t kill the man, while the poisoner himself was obviously set on doing it and just taunting her to make her feel guilty. She susptected he had just wanted her to reveal herself as unwilling to kill somebody, not able to bring herself to do such a thing, then do the deed in front of her and turn on her next, to get rid of her too. …Parnell’s acted smile, her acted response, his embrace, her irresponsible feeling of fun despite the serious trouble she was in - the playacting they had continued despite how they had shaken off the soldiers and it wasn’t necessary anymore, had nearly been their death. But the boatman had knocked Parnell out. He had aimed to kill her, kill them both. And he would have done it, if not the boat had ran into a leveler and the man had stumbled forward and stabbed himself on the weapon she was holding. With Amolina’s next to no combat skills she would never have been able to kill him in a fair fight. But fate had done it for her. Who had he been? An ebonstryfe soldier in disguise, or a man that was stealing the ravonsalamen’s business, or something else? Why had he been there with his boat ? Was somebody searching for him? Had his body been found… and in that case by whom, what had happened to the corpse and was somebody looking to find out who had killed him? Would there be consequences? Would there by any chance be somebody looking for a two people that had seemed to be a quarrelling married couple, a dark-haired woman in a dark violet dress and lean man in a dark cloak ? She felt worried, but what could she do…for now she was going to clean up in the boathouse. This also meant she was aiming to cover the tracks and wipe out all evidence of anybody having been there. In case somebody eventually decided to investigate the empty boathouse she wanted the place to look innocent and unused. ...who had the boatman been, why had he turned up with the ravonsala, had his corpse been found, would anybody look around...

[Amolina]

The scrubbing of the boathouse floor had so far not been so successful. Parnell’s blood seemed to have been absorbed into the planks and the stains might be permanent. Amolina watched the marks and felt defeated. No matter how hard she tried she didn’t seem to be able to get rid of the bloodstains. They were there to stay. She decided that enough was enough and started to gather the water, drying the floor. Sometimes there’s nothing to do but accept the marks left on the tiles. The ravonsala was still moored among the other boats outside. When she had emptied the bucket several times and was waiting for the floor to dry she inspected the boat. It was damaged after the collision with the leveler in the narrow back route, but not so badly damaged. It had after all made it here without problems. If nobody turned up to claim the boat, she would keep it and hire somebody to repair it. That way she would be able to go by boat wherever she liked, whenever she liked, and not even the Ravonsalamen would know about it. This thought immediately led on to another: why would she need to be able to move around in Ravok without anybody knowing about it, was this something she would want to do just for fun? Perhaps she would like to do it because it wasn’t like living her life as a standard plot in the standard play, she thought. With a boat of her own it could be different. She might find new, rare waterways, seldom travelled, abandoned buildings, secret places, intriguing backwaters, things outside what people were normally aware of. She could pass by houses, observe people, listen to conversations she could hear through open windows towards the canals, stop in some places, go in and investigate them…find out about many things that were hidden to her and most other people in Ravok. The idea intrigued her.

[Amolina]

Amolina went back into the boathouse. The floor was dry now. It was clean, despite the faint stains. She started to put the blankets in well ordered and perfect piles again, like it had been before Parnell had started to throw them around like a not so picky dog making a lair to sleep on. Among the fishing gear she found one of Parnell’s socks. A pethcing used sock thrown carelessly in the fishing gear? THIS… But then she thought back on the morning after the escape in the ravonsala and recalled that the poison maker had been quite groggy. And very hungry. He had been eager to leave and get some food. She guessed he had simply forgotten a few things and the sock had been left behind. And wrapped in that sock was a small dart that was perhaps some kind of vial with a dart on, or just a dart, she wasn’t sure. Parnell had kept it in his sock and she had found it when she had searched his body for marks that could mean he was poisoned. She had used the sock to shelter her hand when she picked it up and put it away. What could it be meant to be used for, and why had the poison maker kept the dart in a sock of all places? Only he could answer, but Amolina wasn’t going to ask. If she started asking questions he too would ask questions. She was so not going to tell the man she had searched his body while he was out, and nicked the dart. He had forgiven but not forgotten the past. She wasn’t going to give him reason to start to feel angry again. But she didn’t dare to throw the dart away either. What if Parnell would recall it at some point and want it back? Then she would at least be able to give him the dart, hopefully without needing to explain so much. She put the sock, with the dart inside it, in a small open box that had been used for bait once upon a time. After this she continued to look through the fishing gear. She would keep most of it, but weed out a few broken things to get rid of. She could even go fishing in the ravonsala, couldn’t she? There were fish beneath the city and she wouldn’t need to have a glider for fishing. Yes, she could equip the ravonsala with fishing gear to make it look like it was used for fishing and she could dress like a fisherwoman and travel around incognito in the town. If somebody would speak to her she would just pretend to be fishing. If it would be possible to keep the boat?. She didn’t know that yet. Time would tell. But one could hope that the ravonsala was now a boat that had lost its previous owner and that nobody would claim it. Days, evening and nights in Ravok, she could glide around on the canals in her recently acquired ravonsala, observing, listening, fishing, exploring, investigating, experiencing so many things, exiting, entertaining, intriguing, odd. She would be able to do go where she liked, do as she liked, do what she liked, act as she liked, even say whatever she liked and nobody would know. A weird thing to think, but there was something special with this idea. It filled her heart with a feeling she had never felt before and had no name for. It felt like there ought to be a word for it, and she searched for it inside herself, but in vain. The word wasn’t there. But the nameless feeling was…

[Amolina]

Nobody had sorted out the fishing nets, they had just been thrown up on the hooks on the wall as they were. Amolina knew - she was the one that had done it, too affected by the disappearance of Ana Moletta and the small fishing glider to care about the nets. Her mother had taken the boat out on the lake in in the calm morning of the disastrous storm 512 AV and she had been gone from then on, believed to be dead. No boat could have made it in that weather. Amolina had shuffled the fishing gear into the boathouse, locked it and hidden the key, never to return until she brought herself and her escape accomplice there a few evenings ago. She hadn’t paid the rent as she had never been the tenant. Then again, NHC seemed to have forgotten the small building at the outer waterfront. It was like it had been waiting there silently for her return…a safe refuge left for her by the grace of fate. Amolina had sometimes pretended that Ana wasn’t her foster mother but her real mother and that Jeb was her dad. They had acted like they were, albeit the two of them had not been a couple, just two people with separate lives, a fisherwoman and the bouncer of a tavern. But in their different ways they had both taken care of her when she was small. Jeb also tried to patronize her despite she was grown up, and she didn’t visit him often, as it always seemed to end with mutual irritation…last time she saw the man had been that evening in summer when he insisted on her only drinking lemonade and warned her for a man asking questions about her and offering money for information. So, her thoughts were back to the same topic again, were they. Well. Parnell had found her, finally, but not the way he had planned, she bet. There had been little time for her to think of the events of their sudden escape-cooperation, and it wasn’t until now she had been ready to go through the memories, think and evaluate. There had been that moment when the solider had thought Parnell was somebody else, with another name. Somebody the Ebonstryfe had been after but that they believed to be dead. And there had been that slave who had so suddenly changed his mind and been sure Parnell wasn’t the man he had thought it was. A mistake. A mistake sorted out…but Parnell had still been so keen on leaving that he had gone on playacting. During their escape there had been so many urgent troubles and so little time to think. She had not asked him any questions about the slave or about the name that had been mentioned. The lesser you know about some things, the better, sometimes. She knew a tad too much already, was how it felt like. Like that name - Inoadar - only one single name that could be a first name or a family name, she didn’t know. But the similarity to the name of Parnell’s poison shop was hard to overlook. It was hard to believe it was only a coincidence. Somebody wanted for something. Somebody that was carrying lots of weapons and was like covered in battlescars under the innocent shopkeeper façade. Somebody that “Had to kill”. But as far as the man knew, she had only heard a name in passing by and seemed to have forgotten it completely. He hadn’t shown any signs of knowing that he had been babbling deliriously, no signs of knowing she had searched him. And also, she had compromised herself by hiding him when he was out, hadn’t she. Whatever she might know or suspect, her only option was to keep her mouth shut about it. She had hidden him. Now her only option was to go on hiding what she knew about him. Yes… she weeded out broken hooks and other rubbish and put everything in order on the shelves. Then she took the nets and went to sit outside in the afternoon sun and disentangle them, finally, after all this time.

[Amolina]

She sorted the fishing nets out, slowly and carefully disentangling them, and did the same with her thoughts. It was like this monotonous and patient work helped her focus, helped her think. ¨ She sat in the sunlight and summed things up. She tried to overview her life a bit, think of things, get some structure in her life and plan forward … First. At the end of spring 514 AV she would have worked off the debt to KRI and doctor Alzelin. One year of next to debt-slavery, named “volunteer work”. It was terrible, but she had met Valerius there and found a new project , a carreer and new hope. What would the next step of the project be, which troubles and possible conflicts would they encounter and would they succeed and move forward or would it backfire ? Second.There was also the new location, which would be a wonderful place to work in once it was ready. The reception and the rest-room were very nice but she also like the lab with its books and it’s pleasant smell of herbs and spices. She was still wondering who the house’s former owner had been. Would she find out? Had he left any notes behind that could give explanations and clues to what he had been working at? Would this be something they could use or something totally outside their scope? Third. She had recently made a truce with her former enemy Parnell and for good or for bad he would perhaps be involved him in the project as well. What this would entail and where it would go from there was hard to guess at. Would Valerius decided to let the poisoner in on the project? Would he be told the full truth or just what met the eye? What was he going to bring to the plans? How would the teamwork turn out ? Time would tell, like it always did. Fourth.The theater group she had done an audition for had still not sent her any message and she didn’t know where she could find them. She had asked around a bit in the city, but not found any hearsay, not a single rumor, no information. Perhaps they had left the city - would they ever be back? Would she be offered a role eventually and in that case in which kind of performance and with which co-actors? What kind of scenes would be rehearsed? Fifth. The boathouse seemed to be hers to use for time being and the same went for the ownerless ravonsala she had taken care of after the escape. And it was like the boat spoke to her and wanted her to take it on and continue it’s journeys on the waterways of Ravok - weird feeling. Would anybody claim the boat or would she be able to keep it? Would she be able to keep the boathouse? What made her be so interested in the ravonsala ideas? Where would she go if she made reality of them and what would she see, hear and find ? Sixth. Lately she had thought about the ide to impersonate that fortune teller. This idea had inspired her so much, but then she had never found time to do it. But she would perhaps find time and opportunity in the days to come - perhaps she would even buy a deck of cards to make it more realistic. Would she find somebody to practice on ? Would anybody start to react to the impersonation in interesting ways? Seventh. So what she now needed to do was to learn things, buy a good dress for a nurse, plan some research and experiments for the research project together with Valerius and perhaps…let’s see. She also needed to visit Odds and Ends and see if she could find a deck of cards there, use it if possible and otherwise just impersonate on occasion. And while she was waiting for new chances at auditions she could read the Ascontine plays…weird and unusual as they were. Eight. She could follow the allure of her new odd ideas about a secret double-life, dress in simple clothes, take her boat and roam the canals of Ravok … words from a dream she’d had long ago, in the beginning of summer 513 AV, came back to her when she thought about this. “We can’t know it but we feel it…we have a sister ship somewhere that travels a completely other route.” She thought of this and felt a rare and fascinating sense of wonder tingle through her mind and soul. It seemed like she might be her own second version, her own shadow, her own secret sister on a journey of her own. Where this would eventually take her remained to be seen. … if fate exists … deep down in the unknown places where the patterns of our lives are woven until pictures we didn’t know are revealed to us…where we find ourselves travelling a completely other route, unpredictable, unknown… She was done with the nets and went back in and arranged them neatly on the hooks on the wall. The she left the harbor, the door to the boathouse closed, the key it’s hiding place. Tomorrow she would have a business meeting with Valerius Nitrozian and Nolan Parnell.

[Abstract]

Grade Awarded!

Player One

Amolina

~ Cleaning - 1
~ Planning - 1

Lores

~ Ascontine Plays: Philosophy Gone Performance/Performance Gone Philosophy
~ Ravosala Boat: Freedom?

Other

N/A

Notes

There was little to give in this, but it was a beautifully amazing thread. It really went with my music as well... but that's a side thing The writing was really good, and I found a great insight into Amolina's mind and past. Though... I'm still confused to the difference between the pink and the white words, though I know there was something... they weren't exactly thoughts, but... ah, they actually made it feel really smooth