Beauty in the Detail

[Cassandra Southwind]

Winter 18, 513 Zintia's Rest It was a day of celebration. The thin air was cooling on the heels of an aging autumn, its last day stolen by the frozen fingers of winter. And still the moutaintops brimmed warm with the spirit of the holiday. Merriment rang in the streets between empty shops and an aura of love and relaxation seeped into every home. But most of all, it was a day for doing nothing. It was a good-for-nothing day full of no-good, lazy people. Cassandra's rented okomo cart had made it all the way up Zintia peak before anyone bothered to tell her about this most special of days. It was her turn to sell the pod's haul in the city, but apparently no one in her family had anticipated much about the city's various traditions. Initially the resting citizens' greedy little hands had tried to steal fish from her wagon as if she had brought some sort of generous gift for them, but she managed to tarp and stow it in a friendly portman's gateside warehouse before too much was lost. She considered returning to the shore again, but then the trip up would have been a waste, and she would have to trust the haul to a stranger... Anyway, it was too dark to go down again. The dusk rest was only just over--not that you could tell, with nobody doing anything anyhow--and the svefra girl was tired from her trip. She didn't even have the energy to inquire about a place to stay, able only to search quietly through the glowing skyglass shadows for something resembling an inn. But before she saw that, she perceived the distinct murmur of moving water and the warm musk of steam. Like a moth to its flame, she found Zintia's Rest in no time. A few papers and mumbled words later, she was carrying a bathing kit into the crowded grotto. Everyone was in various states of undress, as was natural for a bathhouse, but somehow that did not make it easier for Cassandra to strip down. She was in and around the sea so much that she did not often bother to bathe wholly, much less remove perfectly good clothes. She envied the lot of them, their confidence and their comfort. As she shrugged off her blouse she consoled herself with the fact that she would be in the company of so many other blouseless people; maybe the sheer multitude would grant her some sort of privacy in anonymity. Dressed in a towel, she approached the nearest pool as quickly as possible. She found an open space, mumbled a short, "May I?" And squeezed in. The water itself was a greater comfort than Cassandra could have imagined. Very rarely was the briny ocean around her boat so mild and fresh and earnest. It embraced her like a forgotten friend, filled her aching skin with a breath of new life. She forgot the mass of people around her as she wrapped her fingers around soft pumice and clean soap. She closed her eyes and wallowed in the procedure of bathing. She allowed that aura of relaxation to seep into her pores and, if only for a moment, betrayed a small smile.

[Alses]

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Alses was floating in the hottest part of the baths, just floating, lulled into in a state of perfect, ecstatic bliss with body rocked by the continual current that cycled water around the communal pool and by the gentle motion of fellow bathers nearby. Not a bit of her was visible above the surface of the bath, entirely submerged and cradled, cocooned by slightly perfumed water – the Rest added something, probably a philtre if Alses was any judge – to it, getting rid of the slightly sulphurous smell of most of the city’s abundant hot water and leaving a pleasant, indefinable scent behind.

Lovely.

Normally, she’d have used the Towers Respite baths – but this was Aviakittis, the Stolen Day, the festival where all the normal rules were suspended. To a degree, anyway; this was still the Diamond of Kalea, the shining jewel of civilisation in the wildlands, and that meant something. All the more so, in fact, after the riots and unrest of the previous season, the scars of which were still evident all over the Sharai and – to an aurist – in almost every citizen of the starry city.

The Shinya were, as ever, on hand around the baths to curb the most egregious of excesses – hence why Alses was in the public pools, where the guards were watchful, rather than taking a private room as was her wont when she made a rare visit to the Zintia Rest rather than the baths at the Respite or the Kinell Hotsprings for when she fancied something a little more rustic.

She paid little enough mind to the people all around; the Rest’s pools were large and well-designed; there was plenty of space for everyone. The warm, mineral-rich water that cradled her, blue-green and half-clouded with precipitating salts, murmured and whispered all around her – although how much of that was her auristic perception, forever conducting the world in a choral susurration of the senses, was a matter for debate.

Her gills tingled with pleasure at the unending flow of richly warmed water, jolts of delight racing in from those sensitive organs. All sense of time, of Tanroa’s river that touched her only lightly in any case, had vanished; she hung there, an opalescent star, perfect and undisturbed. Indeed, it was only in the water that her mortal chain could even approximate the grace and beauty of her daytime mantle, the only time her dislike of the pale Konti sack of flesh she wore under Leth’s gaze faded.

It couldn’t last, of course; nothing so perfect ever did. Sounds, rippled and changed by the thick medium that buoyed her, intruded on her gently-freewheeling thoughts, along with the sharp tang of salt and a crazying of the once-smooth currents as a new body made itself comfortable in the bath. Bubbles fled in terror from the dark shape sliding in, but water was nothing if not adaptable; scant ticks after the intrusion event, all was peaceful and serene once more.

Still, Alses had been jarred by the entry ripples: with a practiced, instinctual flick of her webbed hands and feet, a subtle arch of her back, she broke the surface, nictating membranes sliding back from her eyes once the pressure of water no longer registered, turning to look at the new arrival. Alses’ corpse-pale skin blazed in the skyglass glow of the Respite, and the rippling patterns of opalescent scales matched the rainbow of colours in the divine material as water cascaded down her body.

Her interest had been piqued, first by the taste of salt in her gills, uncurling in waves from her new companion, and also by the…the slightly alien nature of the woman’s aura, the odd glitter and shimmy of it to Alses’ Sight, subtle little signs that together screamed ‘different’ into her brain.

She drank in the appearance of the young woman - insofar as she could gauge these things, anyway - beside her, noting the fair skin and the gentle, secret smile that the mundane magic of abundant hot water was painting on her lips.

“The simplest pleasures are best, are they not?” Alses asked, softly so as not to startle or alarm, her pale, pale eyebrows quirked in inquiry at the slowly-relaxing Svefra. “Were you drawn by the festival?” she added, quickly – a nice, easy, inoffensive question.
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[Cassandra Southwind]

Cassandra's eyes opened only just enough to follow the feel of the soap against her arm. She watched as so many layers of sand and ash and sweat dripped from her skin and disappeared into the scented pool below. It left her a little paler than she had imagined herself, but also a little fresher, a little more vulnerable. In another place, at another time, that might have been an uneasy thought. In the little world of her vicinity, it was quite alright. So lost was she in the rhythmic solitude of her bath that she did not see the creature that rose from the pool's depths, nor even hear the first words that had been spoken for her. Cassandra tried not to seem surprised when she finally noticed the ethaefal's starlit disguise, though she could not know how her own aura might betray a trace of fright amid her growing discomfort and secret wonder. Her smile dropped instantly into a trained frown as she examined her new acquaintance. The body that had graced her was as lovely as it was strangely familiar—its luminescent scales and aquatic aptitude were the thing of stories at Southwind firesides. Only after a good, solid moment did she catch herself staring at the stranger's slight, feminine nudity. "Nothing," she stammered absently, having not quite understood the woman's questions until then. Her svefra accent was heavy, her Common a little too formal. "I mean--no. I was... it was only a pleasant surprise." It was a lie, of course. She hated even the idea of an unproductive day, and had yet to shed the last of her frustrations from her first few minutes in town. But she could not say that to this woman, who seemed so courteous and kind and beautiful. Cassandra became suddenly aware of her own body. No amount of comfort could hide her from the water's glassy clarity; she was a mortal mess beside this white goddess. If only she had seen Alses's truer form. Folding her arms over her chest and torso, the svefra foreigner added, "I am not from Lhavit, so I don't know all of the traditions. And you, Miss..." It was a polite, if not somewhat passive, way of asking for her name. "Are you from here? H- how do you like the..." What had she called it? "Festival?"

[Alses]

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Alses had to cover a smile at the Svefra’s pronouncement, even as the woman’s body changed in an instant, that soft and relaxed smile vanishing behind a defensive barricade. The ripple of change washed down her body, manifesting as bunched and tensed muscles – difficult to notice, but if one was looking for it, there it was.

The water, though, that would do a sterling job of teasing out the tension – always providing Alses didn’t manage to overcome it. She was quite good at that, it had to be said; she was reasonably sure her company had seen Johanne off in winter, for instance.

Never mind.

“Lies,” she laughed easily. “It’s written all over your face, frustration and just a soupçon of annoyance.” That was true, as far as it went – there were all the subtle signs there, for someone looking out for them with a trained eye; a tensing of the muscles of the jaw, a rough hardness to the edges of the eyes and the too-sudden sharpness of even the smallest of movements, but Alses was mostly relying on the sudden, sharp-as-roses spike of both of those in her aura at the mention of the festival.

She reminded herself, a mental rebuke, that examining everyone with her power was a sure way to trip merrily down the primrose path of overgiving. The problem, of course, was that it was just so easy to slip into the warm waters of auristics and dive to the enticing depths where everything was instantly explicable and so very, very beautiful.

“Sorry. I see more than most,” she offered as an explanation, of sorts, resolving to clamp down more fiercely on her unconscious power. “My name-” a sudden break, a thoughtful pause, head tilting up and sideways and a little grin quirking the corners of her bloodless lips. Well, why not? It was Aviakittis, the Stolen Day – what did it matter? Especially when she was buoyed by the goodwill pouring in from all sides and the natural grace of her mortal chain in water. Few believed tales occurring on Aviakittis, after all – and for good reason; alcohol, feasting and abundant, willing company flowed freer than the water in all the city’s fountains and pleasurably fuzzed recollections en-masse. “My name is Alses.” Her voice was pitched perfectly to carry to her companion and no further, quickly being lost in the background hum of tumbling water and low chatter. “A pleasure…” she tailed off, making it clear that Cassandra was to complete the sentence.

Alses carefully refrained from commenting on just how obvious it was that the girl was a foreigner, unused to Lhavit and all its little, incidental civilities and oddities. “Technically speaking, I’m not Lhavitian born and bred, but it’s my home nonetheless, and has been for quite a while. It’s my sanctuary stronghold; something about the place always calls to me like nowhere else I’ve seen. I’m as naturalised as I can get, I suppose.” She shrugged, a fluid motion that translated itself into her sliding more fully into the water once more with a soft sigh of pleasure at the liquid heat.

“I don’t think I could live anywhere else on Mizahar, not permanently, anyway. As to the festival – Aviakittis, it’s called, the Stolen Day – we needed it. The city, I mean. A day given over to the medicines of the soul; rest and relaxation and all the civilised excesses that make life so pleasurable is just what the Catholicon ordered. Autumn wasn’t a kind season to the Diamond of Kalea, it has to be said.”

Remembering the earthquake that had convulsed the shining city, and the subsequent delving into the depths of Mizahar – old ruins full of insane traps and petulant ghosts – Alses shivered, despite the warmth of the water. With an effort of will, she tore herself away from contemplation of such things and regarded her companion steadily for a few moments, bright green eyes – almost the only splash of colour in her face – roving over the Svefra’s body without shame; the perspective of an Ethaefal, even in a Konti chain, shining through.

“What of you?” she asked lazily, the water working its magic. “You’re not of Lhavit, as you said – did you come by air or by sea? Hear about the magic that sings from our Towers? And whilst we’re on the subject, where do you call home?”
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[Cassandra Southwind]

Cassandra was not often so charitable with her pleasantries. She preferred the point of the matter to polite overtures, and she would have liked to be left alone altogether. But there was something charming about this stranger, or maybe the friendly city that surrounded her, that had warmed the foreigner to her presence. At least it had, until her odd observations struck a little too close to the truth. What did that mean, that she could see? Had Cassandra's desperately trained stoicism failed her? Steely distrust colored her budding sympathies as she turned her shoulders toward the pool, at an angle from this Alses. "Cassandra," she replied quickly to the unspoken question, neither pleasant nor unpleasant. Aviakittis was the name of the holiday. Certainly she had heard it said before, but it was too easy to forget unfamiliar words. It wasn't the name that perturbed her, though. Questions bubbled up at the back of her throat, like Why waste an entire day? or Why not rest when it is time to rest and work when you can? But a piece of her did not want to show any disrespect. Another piece did not want to show enthusiasm of any kind. When she finally did look back at Alses, it was only to find those pretty green eyes trained on her own soft, flawed figure. Cassandra recoiled, her crossed arms rising with her knee, which favored a display of thigh over a glimpse of her fleshy inner body. She would never admit that the ethaefal's own physique was part of the reason that she remained at all; Alses was so attractive, and so forthright about it all, that it was hard to remain cold. "By sea," the human answered cautiously. "But we didn't hear nothing. We sailed west after Charbosi and found the first safe place to settle before winter." Craving something to do with her hands, Cassandra turned and stole her soap from the side of the pool. That was what she was there for, after all. She ran the thing consciously down her arm. "It is beautiful, though," she blurted suddenly, both avoiding the subject of herself and hoping not to seem hateful. "Even with the destruction." She had only heard in passing about the event, but it never seemed right to inquire further on the tender subject. Somehow, the novelty of the situation gave her the daring to ask, "What happened? Autumn, you said--"

[Alses]

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OOCMay I just say I thoroughly enjoyed your solo thread Just North of South? I shall be watching for more .

“Isn’t it just?” Alses echoed, nodding in agreement to Cassandra’s sudden comment on the city's beauty. “The Diamond of Kalea, the Jewel in the North. Five peaks wearing a crown of rainbowed light, a beacon in the wilderness.” A slight frown coursed across her features for a moment before she schooled them back to amiability. “For travellers and monsters alike, alas.”

She leaned back idly in the water, the wavelets caused by the circulation and the motion of other bathers lapping against the generous swell of her pale, scale-swirled breasts. Scented steam swirled and billowed, rising in great banks of gently-wafting vapour from the surface of the baths, blurring and diffusing the harsh edges of…well…everything. The lights all bore angel’s haloes of scintillating radiance. After a pause, a comfortable silence as Alses marshalled her thoughts, she spoke again, voice quiet and pensive, distant and full of memory.

“Kalea was shattered in the Valterrian; the earth itself is broken, down in the depths, underneath the mountains and valleys and all the shallow superficiality we see, into many chunks that grind and crunch against one another over aeons of time. It’s why we have so many mountains and volcanoes, why there are hotsprings around every corner and why it’s almost impossible to reach our fair city by land. All those collisions, deep underground, cause earthquakes. Most of the time, the city weathers them without a care; skyglass – Zintila’s gift to the city - resists almost everything, under normal circumstances, anyway.” Her face darkened slightly.

“But Kalea – our present-day Kalea, and by extension Lhavit – is also built on the ruins of Suva and her empire. Most of the works of that state are long since rubble and ashes, if they amount to anything at all, but once in a while, once in a very great while, the geology of the region throws up something a little bit…special. Relics from the past; treasure troves of knowledge that have managed to survive the fury of the gods and the slow patience of the hungry earth. Burial mausoleums and catacomb defences, too.”

“One opened up near the city, shortly before the earthquakes struck. A young reimancer from the Dawn Tower found the ruin entrance whilst walking the Misty Peaks, a new cave, and went exploring before communicating his discovery. He found a Suvan ruin, still with functional magics humming in its walls; they killed him, unleashing a wave of djed that combined with the wild force of the earthquake building below and released a catastrophic charivari of both on the city that shattered the skyglass on the Sharai.” A rather philosophical, resigned shrug. “So Zintila told me, anyway, and I’ve no reason or inclination to doubt Her word.”

“It’s unfortunate that Sharai, of all peaks, was at the epicentre and bore the brunt of the assault; the hothouses and skyglass warrens that riddle the place provide most of the city’s food and tea, you see. That’s less of a concern for me, but for most of the rest of Lhavit…” she let her voice tail off, expressively. “There were riots, people concerned about famine, until the extent of the harvest already gathered and still salvageable was known.” Alses sighed, heavily.

“We – Lhavitians - pride ourselves on civility and culture, we give ourselves airs and call our home the Diamond of Kalea, the starry city of light and magic, a beacon in the wilderness, but we exist on a knife-edge. Take away one of the supports that holds us up, and it all comes tumbling down. The veneer of civilisation is torn away in an instant and barbarians that were once fine citizens run amok through the shining streets. Lhavit is scarred, but she’ll heal, given time and festivals and magic. There’s been a city here for five hundred years; an earthquake, even one sorcerously-enhanced, won’t erase us from the map.” A wide, white grin, sudden and quick.

“The entire Constellation – that’s Zintila’s priesthood, the arcane architects who can work the skyglass – were out in force on the Sharai, repairing all the damage, regrowing the hothouses and the cavern warrens, almost as soon as the rescue operations stopped. They’re still at it; won’t stop until every last scrap of damage and shattered skyglass has been erased and the Sharai is better than before.” Curiosity tinged her tones when she resumed speaking, after a pause to let her words sink in, their import to register.

“This Charbosi-" she sounded the alien syllables out carefully "-is your home, then?”
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[Cassandra Southwind]

oocThank you so much! Alses told a tragedy of which Cassandra could not have dreamed. The story eddied around her and embraced her like steam, dancing between warm adulations of the great city and the dark realities of its slow triumph. At first she was ashamed of her ignorance, but that fact seemed to make her all the more eager to learn of the events that preceded her, to understand and to sympathize. Though she rarely found the courage or eloquence to speak at such length about any subject, Cassandra did enjoy witnessing the passions of others. A candid look of wonder strayed onto her bright blue eyes as she stared into the emerald pair opposite. She hung on every beautiful detail of the sad account, from a sensible explanation to a somber tale, from bittersweet ironies to hopeful divinations. A painful chord struck at the mention of the city's desperation, words which took the foreigner a moment to recognize and, perhaps, misinterpret. The Svefra's world was typically a small one, limited to the ocean, her family, and their duty to each other. Only once had she witnessed a person stray from their humanity--Cassandra herself had been a fine citizen her whole life, except for one moment of barbaric weakness. That an entire city, a whole network of law and order and goodness, could however briefly descend into the chaos that Alses had described... Cassandra did not know if the concept comforted or terrified her. She did not even realize right away that the woman's answer was over until a moment's silence turned into two. She had been scrubbing her arm all that time, and only then felt the chafing tingle of the soap. "Oh," she replied, as the bar slipped through her startled fingers and into the pool's middle depths. "No, it was our port in early Fall. My home is not a city. It is a palivar." She did not like talking about herself as much as she enjoyed hearing about Lhavit and Alses. Unflattered by her curiosity, Cassandra would not allow for too long for such a distraction. Her attention drifted instead to the murky blob of color beneath her feet, the soap that had escaped her and would need to be returned to the desk from which she had rented it. As far as she was concerned, it could wait there until she was ready to get it. Her mind was concerned with more interesting matters. When she turned back to Alses, her eyes were darting with the effort of organizing her thoughts. "Were you afraid?" She asked. A piercing but genuine look flashed toward Alses's eyes, but then Cassandra let her gaze falter toward the wet shine on her chin, the curve of her scaled neck. "When the earth shook and the skyglass fell. What was it like to speak to a goddess?"

[Alses]

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“Terrified,” Alses replied bluntly. “Sick to my stomach with it. I worried the entire city would come down around my ears. Lhavit is supposed to be safe and serene, to shrug off insults from nature and the outside world, and when that was torn away…” her voice trailed off, and when she resumed it was much quieter, pensive almost. Her emerald-green eyes, burning bright in a pale face, were distant and cold, watching memories play out on the inside of her eyeballs.

“But I was in a position of some authority at the time of the earthquake. I led a rescue team to try and salvage who and what we could from the burning ruins on the Sharai; I had to be brave for the people under my direction. Leading by example and all that.” A hollow smile. “One of the hardest things I’ve ever done. At first, anyway. When other mages arrived – reimancers from the Dawn Tower, morphers from the Twilight, well, things went a little better. The three Towers together can overcome almost any disaster – in this case we had reimancers to clear the way and douse the flames, Morphers to carry the wounded and help with the rubble, aurists to scour the ruins for the injured and the lost and to keep an eye on the other mages, make sure they don’t lose themselves to overgiving in the heat of the moment and the urge to help.”

A lopsided smile pulled at her face for a moment or two, before fading. “Of course, I’ve never been very good at taking my own advice. The Catholicon had quite the time with me when I finished on the Sharai – or rather, when I was made to finish.”

She shook her head, clearing it of the memories. “As to Zintila…the first time I met Her – properly, anyway - it wasn’t under what you might call the most ideal of circumstances.” That was putting it mildly; she’d been choked to within an inch of her life by one of her own kind, gotten her hands soaked in the lifeblood of another and been the direct cause of two deaths – three, had it not been for Zintila’s timely and compassionate intervention.

“And the second time, I was a supplicant. Both stressful situations; I’ve not sat down and had a simple chat with Her, you understand. But…She is awe-inspiring, even if She doesn’t mean to be. It’s part of who She is, the slow whorl of the universe all around Her, the idea She embodies being greater than mortal conception. The astronomers of the Iraltu Observatory have spent centuries in furious study of Zintila’s stars and nebulae and still understand only the tiniest fragment of all She embodies, and when you meet Her up close, without the buffer of distance, the energy She radiates is palpable even to someone who’s never felt the fire of djed in their veins.” Alses grinned, suddenly, face fey.

“That said, She’s also mischievous and playful, at times – Her Paradise atop the Twuele has a beautiful illusion of the universe cast on its ceiling and walls; She won the boon in a game of cards with Ionu, centuries ago.”

Alses tipped her head back, considering. “Distant and detached from Mizahar quite a lot of the time – it’s why we’re ruled by the Day Lady and the Night Lord rather than directly by Zintila Herself – but still with that streak of mischief running through Her. It was something I could relate to; it was oddly easier to deal with sly Zintila than with Her Starry Serenity the Alvina of the Stars.”

Her sharp eyes tracked the fall of the soap, saw it spiral to the bottom of the baths, trailing a plume of bubbles and lather. “A moment,” she promised the Svefra, nictating membranes sliding down over her eyes even as she turned away and dove from the shallow shelf on which they’d been sitting, slicing elegantly down through the water. Alses gained depth quickly, reading the gentle currents that circulated fresh and clear water and drew away any waste, keeping the baths clear and fragrant and hot, and in a tick or two she’d reached the skittering soap, being carried along the smooth tiled floor of the bath by the water’s pump-driven motion.

A quick grab, a flash of pale skin in water, and the elusive soap was locked in a cage of flesh even as she surged airwards once more, moderating her speed so as not to shower Cassandra – and other nearby bathers – in water droplets when she breached.

It was to her private glee that she surfaced with barely a ripple, putting the soap back in the girl’s hand and folding her fingers firmly around it in one smooth, sudden movement. “Don’t want to lose it, yes? Palivar…enlighten me, hmm? I know as much about ships as I do about…” she cast around for a tick “…about vinting. Which is to say, nothing at all.”
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[Cassandra Southwind]

Their fingers touched on the soap, a long moment lingering on the exchange of such a delicate, slippery thing. Cassandra gave an apologetic shrug and a grateful laugh, her lips curled nervously into a brief smile. As soon as she was in possession of it, she turned to deposit the soap into the dish on the side of the bath. She might have thanked Alses, if the woman were not so generous that she changed the subject first. "A palivar is a family ship," Cass replied. "Two masts, three sails. Ours is called The Water Phoenix." It seemed so petty to be talking about such a thing, after this native had spoken at length about the city's grandest troubles. She used strange Lhavitian words and spoke of strange Lhavitian magics, which intimidated Cassandra and her humble experience as much as it piqued her curiosity. Alses had a way of describing her role in coordinating the relief effort as if the task were not a thing to be admired; as far as Cassandra had heard, she was a heroine in her own right, and yet she admitted to being terrified and troubled and human. But she wasn't, was she? There was something distinctly inhuman about the woman. While that usually might have made the svefra frown and turn away, it had been all too lovely to watch her aquatic form rise again from the bath's surface, shining and dripping. Cassandra wondered if the konti's appeal had something to do with her own connection to the water, but she was too embarrassed of herself to dwell on the concern for long. More questions, about the disaster and the role Alses played in the aftermath, hung on the back of her tongue and begged to be spoken. But she knew it would be selfish ask any more. Clearly it was a tender subject for Alses, and Cassandra had avoided the topic of her own life once already. It would be kinder to pursue lighter fare. She continued, "We sail around the southern seas and the lower Suvan. My family and I. We stop at ports to trade and supply. Lhavit will be our home until the Spring breezes blow in. "I suppose Zintila was helping us more than I was thinking. Lia Regina uses the stars to guide us when land is far away. I do not know how she remembers every one. I can follow the compass, and I can track the sun and moon. Syna and Leth are... easy." She looked away from Alses as she struggled to find a better, more respectful word. Her aura pulsed with the anxiety of talking so much, but with every successful word her confidence rose a little more. How could she be nervous, when Alses was brave in circumstances that were infinitely worse? "Predict... predictable. There seem to be so many stars, though. Too many to predict. Do you know them all?" After a beat, Cass tilted her head and added, "Not--I do not assume that all Lhavitians do know these things. It seems like some would, but, um," Her dry lips laughed before she could lick them. "Do you?"

[Alses]

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Alses drank in the volunteered information, storing it carefully away for future reference and making a mental note to look down on Port Tranquil sometime soon, to get an idea of just how big a ‘family ship’ was. Family wasn’t the easiest of concepts to a timeless Ethaefal, someone who was neither born nor grew up – or old; most of Alses’ exposure to the idea had come with the Dusk House, that sprawling and powerful clan of Lhavitian aurists. If Cassandra’s family were anything like approximating those numbers, the palivar had to be enormous. "You and your family are...close, if that's the right word, then?"

She blinked at the change of subject and the question, momentarily thrown. Was that a subtle joke? Alses’ name was, after all, taken unashamedly from one of the stars. A slightly more obscure one, true, but still…

No. No, it wasn’t, she decided, drinking in the subtle cast of Cassandra’s features, and the faint rose-burgundy shimmer in her aura, the telltale sign of...of…

Alses flushed slightly, two bright spots of pink blossoming on her cheeks. That particular reaction she was accustomed to – in her celestial form, at least – and from both sexes, since Lhavit was an open and egalitarian sort of place where the private business of love was just that: private. No-one’s business but that of lovers, in the normal run of things.

Even with her experience of attraction’s butterfly kiss on her senses, it was still rather more unusual to see and feel the odd cocktail of sensations that signalled it loud and clear to her when she was chained to an ugly mortal sack of flesh; the unexpected appearance caught her off-guard momentarily. Oddly flattering, actually.

“I know a bit about the stars,” she admitted, latching onto the question as a way to give herself some breathing room, to assess the situation – her auristics was so sensitive these days as to pick up on subconscious things that, perhaps, were better left buried. Cassandra might not even have been aware of it, after all.

The knowledge of the stars hadn’t been learned so much as retained; the heavens were – had been – her home, of a sort, and she still knew the major landmarks: it was as though Alses were gazing at a cherished and treasured place from a far-distant point, able to instantly pick out the most striking landmarks, all the things that made it dear to her heart, but with the blue haze of distance blurring all the fine detail.

Such it was on the rare occasion that Alses felt herself able to gaze up at the jewelled vault of the night-time heavens arcing over Lhavit. The constellations were all there, named and sorted in her head, along with their constituent stars and even some of the major nebulae, but the fainter backdrop, the glittering milieu of the more distant universe, the knowledge of that remained frustratingly beyond her grasp, no matter how hard she tried to reclaim the information. The worst of it was that the information floated, fuzzily, in her mind’s eye, some forbidden and locked part of her brain having retained it – somehow – in the fall from grace.

“Not a great deal, I’ll admit,” she added, to cover up the reflective lapse that her kind were especially prone to, particularly in their mortal forms. “Not as much as the astronomers of the Iraltu Observatory who make it their life’s work to understand the night sky, or the Constellation priesthood that serve Zintila, but still…the major stars of Lhavit’s starscape, the nebulae and the near planets, too. After that, my knowledge runs out. Maddeningly.” Alses looked down, as though hoping to find an answer in the wavelet-rippled water’s surface.

“I chose my name – Alses – from the stars,” she remarked, apropos of nothing very much. “It’s the name of one of the North Star’s far and distant companion stars, barely visible from Mizahar, but always there, never quite able to either close the gap or break free.” A mirthless smile tugged at the edges of her lips for a moment.

“At the time, it seemed apropos. The stars were home once, and one day they will be again, no matter how many centuries it takes me.” A faint smile, and after a brief pause, underscored by the gentle sounds of water slapping against marble and the low hum of good-natured chatter from their fellow bathers, Alses looked directly at Cassandra once more.

“You have questions.” It was a statement, not a query; curiosity and its repression was so easy to see, slate-blue and steel chains glowing sullenly and the dull, depressing echo of bars slamming shut ringing in her ears. “Ask away, by all means. Your company is welcome, and whilst I might not answer everything, I shan’t be offended by the asking.” A slight shrug. “It’s how we learn, after all. Which reminds me: your name. Cassandra. Cassandra.” Alses’ cherry-red tongue caressed the word lightly, tasting it and rolling the gentle sound around in her mouth. “Does it have a meaning to you, beyond the nice sound?”
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