Closed Can this Dream be our Reality? [Meville]

[Lorelle]

Lorelle’s eyes shift upward quickly as she hears Meville’s signal. She stays in her crouched position, listening to his words. Her eyes first shimmer a red color at his words. Quickly though, they shift to a golden color as she begins to laugh. It is hard to be made when such a ridiculous statement is made and the speaker of said sentence is laughing themselves. Standing up, Lorelle puts a hand on Meville’s shoulder. She continues to laugh mildly. It is as though it has been a long time since she has last laughed. Now she gets it out. Laughing probably a little too much for such a simple statement.

After getting ahold of herself a chime or so later, Lorelle pats his shoulder before letting her hand drop. “You wish you were the light of my world,” she makes her attempt at teasing him back. With the common though, she isn’t sure it sounds right. Not sure that the tone is right or the way she says the words. She sighs before shrugging. This is a language that she knows little of. Not many people she has come across in Avanthal have required her to use common in order to communicate fluently. Most know Vani more than anything else. Some even only know Vani. Though granted, those some are few in numbers.

“Library,” Lorelle confirms, moving in front of him and beginning to lead the way. She walks for awhile with her eyes ahead before looking to Meville and making sure he is keeping up with her. Once she is sure he is, she gives a small smile. Though she won’t admit it, she is pleased with him being slower with talking to her in common. It is a language she will need to really learn in order to communicate to others outside of Avanthal. And while she hates even admitting it in her thoughts, Meville is right. She needs to not be upset with herself and her short comings, but learn from them. Practice correcting herself and pushing herself to become good at the language. She has a feeling that won’t be the only thing she will have to push herself to learn in the next seasons. But merely the first in a long line of many things.

With a slight bounce in her step, Lorelle walks. It feels good outside and it feels good to have laughed. Even if she has embarrassed herself in the amount of laughter she has let out. She is learning not to care so much. Not when it is only Meville. He is still but a child like man in Lorelle’s eyes. And who in their right mind gets nervous in the eyes of a child? Tense, impatient, and easily unhinged maybe. But not nervous.

Tilting her head up slightly, Lorelle looks to the sky. She remembers the day they went to mirror lake. She was happy then too. Maybe today can be another good day. She feels like she should be having more of those. If in fact these turn out to be her last seasons in Avanthal, she should make the best of them. Form memories worth keeping of her cold childhood home.

“There,” Lorelle announces to Meville, her common making her feel much like a child herself. She points, her arm outstretched and her index finger extended towards the library. It is a small stone building. Nothing fancy. But home to most of Avanthal’s accessible books. Even though she doesn’t make as many mizas as she might be able to and it is a quiet job. Lorelle loves, or at least enjoys, her work at the library. It is something hard to her to explain. Most are blind to the pleasure it can bring. The calm and quiet of it. There are hard parts of course. Like when Jack made her entertain those girls last season. That was stressful. And when people have late or damaged books, she always seems to get nervous having to demand to take people’s mizas because they were careless. The benefits to Lorelle however, outweigh the downfalls. So here she stays as far as work goes and at the moment, she can’t see herself going anywhere else.

Walking quickly, Lorelle heads towards the building of books. Hopefully Meville is keeping up. Lorelle hasn’t bothered to check, forgetting about how he seems so much weaker than normal humans. How he tires easy. Like he did at mirror lake. It is only when she reaches the door that she remembers to check for him. So she does, turning and looking for the man with blonde hair. She hopes she hasn’t lost him. Or if she has, that he isn’t far behind. Having to go back and search for him doesn’t sound pleasant. Not pleasant indeed.

[Meville Brightshade]

Lorelle's laughter was a relief, despite it carrying on just a tick longer than it probably should have. Sighing out a happy, comfortable breath, he only rolled his eyes at her little jest. It was almost ironic how similar a meaning the two phrases had in each language. In a way, Vani wasn't that different when it came to things like that, colloquialisms, but the manner in which it was pronounced was as foreign as it could get. Shrugging, he let Lorelle take the lead, as was customary, but not before chirping out, "Library!" Hinting at the proper emphasis.

Happily, he fell into step slightly behind and beside her. He'd managed to get to Avanthal's library once, but it had taken quite a bit of arm waving and finger pointing to do so. Having one of its librarians to lead the way, Meville felt much more confident in locating the building in a timely manner. It was a pleasant walk, a comfortable, almost amiable silence clung around the two of them, both lost in thought. Meville's mind was occupied with the wonders that awaited them beyond the Walls. All of the stories he'd been told by the various travelers who'd stopped in tumbled and crashed in head, blending together and creating impressive imagery, some wonderful, some terrible.

As he began to dawdle some, Lorelle turned to check on him. The two shared a smile, and Meville hurried to catch up. He was getting a little tired from their pace, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle. Suddenly, his thoughts switched from daydreams to realization that he was at a physical disadvantage to travelling, even more so than Lorelle. His face lost a bit of the smile it had been carrying as he thought about it. It wouldn't be impossible, of course, it was just that he'd have to be very careful with his energy. Having already started to do his morning exercises with a bit more vigor, he'd been more and more tired lately. Of course, he was getting a bit stronger, which meant he could handle being tired for longer and longer, it was just that once the two of them left - before, even, with what training they had to do - he'd have to be extra vigilant of his physical condition.

At some point, Lorelle had managed to get a good distance from Meville. She seemed not to notice, as she state rather definitively they were there to which Meville called back, "Over there, Lorelle. Over." As he made his way to join her, his impish grin bobbing with the steady rhythm of his gait. As he joined her, he shook his head, chuckling, "So are we going to go in, or just admire the architecture from afar?"

Common | Vani

[Lorelle]

With the roll of her eyes, Lorelle doesn’t give him the satisfaction of a verbal answer. He will just probably find some way of telling her she hasn’t said it correctly or has left out words anyway. So instead she turns and opens the library door before walking in. She is happy to find not much has happened since she was last here. As she rarely does. It is a library, not much chances aside from the amount of people in the small building. So far all Lorelle notices is that the library is basically empty aside from Jack and now Meville and herself. Good. No one to distract them or be distracted by them.

“Jack,” Lorelle greets, looking to the desk where the quiet Vantha sits. He normally wouldn’t be out here so Lorelle is guessing that he didn’t have someone else today to work. Jack meets her eyes for a moment, making a sound of acknowledgment deep in his throat before returning his gaze back down to whatever he has on the desk. Lorelle gives the simple roll of her eyes before looking to Meville. She gives a shrug before motioning him to follow her towards the books. There is no need to bother Jack further. Lorelle knows this library by now as well as he does and she doesn’t want to get even more on the man’s bad side. He is already grumpy enough from the event that was unexpectedly held here in the library earlier in the season. And Lorelle has a feeling that he won’t be returning to normal for awhile.

“Things are a bit shifted since the fifth, a bunch of people got trapped in here during the snowstorm and I have yet to get it all back to being perfectly arranged,” she tells Meville in hushed Vani words as she moves towards some of the last shelves in the library. “However,” she goes on, “I am pretty sure what we are looking for is back here and hopefully has been left untouched or has been fixed already.”

Once the shelf Lorelle has been after has been reached, the Vantha goes straight to the sections she hopes to find what she is looking for. The first section is maps. A map of Mizahar would be nice but Lorelle is doubtful that there is a book that consists of an accurate one here. She isn’t sure how anyone would get such an object. However, she thinks there may be a book of maps that can help them at least a little bit. So with a soft hum in her throat and darting eyes, she finds what she is looking for after a few chimes. She slides the book out of its slot on the shelve. It is a journal by a human who travelled (or is thought to have travelled) all of Mizahar before settling in Avanthal. Why anyone would do that Lorelle doesn’t have a clue. Nor does she believe the story to actually be true. Who can really travel all of Mizahar in a single lifetime? The female Vantha is skeptical. Still, the journal is here as it always has been since the man died. May as well take a look at it. See if anything useful comes up.

“Here,” Lorelle says shortly, in common. Handing the book to Meville, she walks swiftly over to another section of the shelves before beginning to search. The Vantha does this many times. Giving the books to Meville after she has found them before moving on. She gives him four books in total. The one being told to hold the maps, one on the region Kalea, one on a island known as Mura and the last on another region known as Sylira. All the books are someone else’s thoughts and notes on the cultures, people and for the two books on regions, the cities they hold. Lorelle isn’t sure how accurate they are or how helpful they will be. But it is all they have right now and it is a sort of beginning. So hopefully more questions will be answered than thought up and never answered. Picking up one last book, Lorelle decides to keep this one herself to look at later. Tucking it under her arm, she looks to Meville.

“Let us be starting here,” Lorelle says, trying not to wince at how choppy her common sounds. She motions him over to a set of chairs around a table. Taking a seat she waits for him, tucking a fifth journal she has picked up and slides it between her leg and the edge of the chair. “Let us see if anything can answer what we seek in these before others," she says, wanting so badly to let herself slide into her own language instead of this choppy one Meville has someone figured out how to fully learn. Sighing and shaking her head slightly, she looks to her hands. Frustration seeps into her emotions at that thought. She hates that Meville is better than her at something such as a language. “Common not my favorite,” she says, looking back up to him and giving a soft groan in the back of her throat.

Running a hand through her hair, Lorelle sighs before sitting up straight and on the edge of her chair. “Let us begin,” she says simple, leaning on the edge of the table and peering forward. Ready to read and look at the first of the books. Now hopefully, some questions will be answered and decisions made. That would be nice. Though, probably a little to much to hope for.

[Meville Brightshade]

Laughing at Lorelle's disdain, Meville followed her into the building. Inside, it was much the same as it had been the last time he'd visited, though there weren't nearly as many people. In fact, there wasn't anyone else in the building but the two of them and the man named Jack. It still held the same musty smell of parchment and ink Meville had come to enjoy, a sweet slice of nostalgia to the senses. Glancing around through the shelves and aisles, he followed behind Lorelle, pausing as she addressed Jack. His eyes scanned as far as they could, making sure to check for any faces that might be watching. Apparently, the last time he'd been there, the Charoda, Una, had seen him, but he'd scarcely been aware of her. Determining there was indeed no one else but the three fo them, Meville glanced back at the grumpy face that had returned to his reading.

"Looks a bit cross." He whispered, using his Common rather than Vani to subtlely help Lorelle with her pronunciation. His Vani wasn't the world's greatest, but the majority of what he did know was from a total immersion in it when he left his cozy cabin. Figuring it worked just as well in Common, he planned to use his Vani around Lorelle as little as possible. If they were to leave Avanthal, she'd be hearing a lot more of it in the near future. Plus, most of the Vantha weren't fluent in Common. Some of them didn't even understand it at all, which meant communicating likes and dislikes regarding other people became much less socially unacceptable.

Raising a brow at the idea of people getting trapped in a library, Meville nodded as Lorelle shared her hopes everything would still be more or less where it should. It was a bit surprising she hadn't sorted everything out yet. It must have been either quite the mess, or she'd been dealing with a lot lately. Meville figured it was somewhere in between and didn't want to press the issue. She was already flustered enough trying to communicate in a foreign language. So flustered, it seemed she wasn't quite ready to communicate the more difficult sentences in it yet. Following behind her, Meville let his fingers ride along the spines of the books near his hand, enjoying the slightly rough feeling as he passed.

Lorelle moved through the stacks like a calm professional, her gaze scanning the many shelves until she found the area she'd been looking for. Meville hung back, not wanting to get in her way. She stared up at the books for a few moments, her lips barely moving as she scanned for the title she was looking for. Removing the book from its papery brethren, Lorelle turned to face him, a look close to skepticism on her face. Handing it to him with a short "here", she turned to continue on in her foray. Grinning as he took the book, Meville whispered, "That was actually quite good. Very terse. Almost had me believing you were frustrated with me." After which he quietly chuckled as he opened the journal, keeping half an eye on where he was going so as not to stumble into Lorelle or one of the many stacks.

It appeared to be a collection of several maps, some notes, but mostly just pages and pages of wiggly lines denoting rivers, mountains, roads... Chewing on his lower lip, Meville flicked through the pages until another book was held out to him. Shutting the one he already had, Meville added the tome to his meager collection, peering down at the title to guess what contents were held within the binding. "Kalea? Kay-lee-uh? Kah-lay-uh?" His muttering was interrupted by yet another book. This one much smaller that the book on Kalea, though larger in size, rather than page count, forcing Meville to tuck the other two under his arm while he fumbled with the new addition. Just as he was trying to open the third book, another was handed him. Grumbling slightly, he extended a hand to receive the rather massive thing, out-weighing the third book by quite a bit. As Lorelle grabbed a fifth book, Meville let out a little frustrated snort. Fortunately for him, she tucked in into the crook of her arm and carried own, apparently oblivious to his plight.

Dropping the books on the table Lorelle mentioned, Meville just glared at her, not noticing the disappearance of the fifth book, and frankly, not caring. His frustration faded quickly as Lorelle continued, obviously uncomfortable speaking outside of her fluent Vani. As he sat down to her groan, he grinned. "You're actually not doing all that badly." Arranging the books so they were four lined out in front of them, Meville leaned an elbow on the desk, putting his chin in his hand and tilting his head to regard the woman in front of him. "I think just, 'Let's start with these', would suffice." He took time to slightly over pronounce the proposed sentence. She was doing fine, but Common wasn't nearly as flowery as Vani, despite his attempts to make it so. Sometimes, simplicity was just the only way to get things across.

Nodding at her readiness, Meville opened up the first book, the journal with the maps. Frowning, he flicked through some of the pages, unable to read much of the chicken script. "Ehm..." From what he could tell, the maps were fairly haphazard. He assumed they moved in the same pattern as the man that had drawn them, but without being able to decipher most of the words, it made for a very confusing picture book. "...Is that Avanthal?" He pointed to an ambiguous group of squiggles at a northern corner of a page. "...I'm not sure about this one."

OOC :

Haha I'm not sure how to do the books. If you want to go through them until she has a question, that's totally fine. Mev will probably just make snide remarks anyway until they find something interesting. :)

Common | Vani

[Lorelle]

Lorelle only gives Meville the roll of her eyes at his comments about her common. He is only trying to help. She has to keep reminding herself of this. So instead of giving him a reply, she looks to the book he has opened. The one of maps. Smiling softly, she watches as she flips through the pages. From what she is seeing along with him, there isn’t much here. In fact there is even less than she thought they would find in the journal. The scribbles in here look like the marks of a mad man. Frowning slightly, Lorelle nods. “I agree," she says, picking up and taking the book from him. Flipping through the pages, she has a look of great concentration on her face. The notes on the edges of the pages are little help as they aren’t in a language Lorelle recognizes. Either that or they have been written in code or extremely poor common. Frowning deeper, Lorelle looks to Meville. “I think we’d be better off moving on,” she says, closing the book and pushing it to the side.

Reaching over, Lorelle picks up the next book. The thin journal about the island. Flipping it open, she puts it between the two of them so they both can see. The first page speaks of a land full of pale woman born of the sea. In script like Vani, the words cover the page. Speaking of these woman and their home with a certain amount of knowledge and admiration that Lorelle finds herself thinking about the place as a possibility. According to this book, the people of this land are called Konti. Woman with scales patterned across their skin and white hair. Known for being seers and healers, they are a quiet people living on their island of Mura. The book doesn’t go very deep on the people though. Their looks, saying they have mild temperaments, and that their island is simple and covered with water is about as much depth it goes into.

“Not much here, not sure if what is here is even true though,” Lorelle murmurs distastefully, “What do you think? Pale woman known to be seers and healers? What is seer?” The Vantha taps her fingers against the table, trying to decide if she has heard of such a thing before. Biting her lower lip, she shakes her head before setting the book done. “Let us come back. To short. Not enough information to go on or decide.” She shrugs, leaning forward and grabbing the next book. Looking at the binding she finds this is the one on Kalea.

Flipping quickly through the pages, Lorelle finds this book is wildly incomplete and full of mistakes and blotted out marks. “Looks like many mistakes,” she points out. Pursing her lips, she drums her fingers against the outside cover. After running her fingers through her hair she lets out a huff before turning back to the beginning. “Doesn’t look promising, but let’s try,” she says, trying hard not to stumble over her words as she speaks common. She takes her sentences slow. Trying not to leave out any words and say everything as correctly as she knows how. The language will be hard she knows. And she doubts it will become much easier while she is here in Avanthal. Full immersion is really what she needs and she won’t get that till they leave.

“Giant eagles, red hair, on a volcano,” Lorelle says what little she can make out, “Sounds like what I remember of Wind Reach.” Sighing, she purses her lips once more and flips the page again. “I don’t like journals,” she decides out loud, “To many mistakes. Not enough information.” She sighs again, settling in the chair and not even caring to show Meville. She will tell him if she comes across anything important or even remotely interesting.

The journal goes on to tell what little this author -or authors. By the multiple styles of handwriting Lorelle is seeing, it seems as though more than one person wrote this.- knows of the other cities of Kalea. Alvadas is called the city of illusions and home of Ionu. Lorelle isn’t even sure who that is. “Ionu, god of illusions and trickery,” the Vantha reads out loud as she finds out something new, “Sounds like he is up to no good.” She glances up to Meville, a smirk on her lips before she looks back to the book. Nothing else informative is mentioned about Alvadas so Lorelle moves on. The book speaks of a city filled with spider like people. Her eyes grow wide for a moment as she reads what the journal says about this land. Kalinor. She is quickly turned away from it, finding that out of the few facts she is able to make out that the people of this land take the woman who travel into it and they are never seen being allowed to leave. A good enough reason for her not to want to go for surely a man such as Meville will be little to no help in such a place.

“What about this place,” Lorelle speaks in Vani as she comes up to the last city mentioned in the book, “Llavit. A city filled with skyglass. Home of the Ethaefal. I don’t know what they are, but their name sounds pretty.” She gives a soft smile as she tries to make out the different facts in the last part of the book. “I think this place is like here. Pretty, full of light and color but not cold,” she decides, finding what little is in here about this place quite interesting and to her liking. She gives a shrug, putting the book on the table so he may look for himself if he so desires. “Not much to go on, but some place to look into. See what we think.” She looks at the last book, wanting to keep moving and see what information the last book holds. If any at all. “Can you pass the last book? Sooner we finish, sooner we go home. Nothing needs to be set in stone today. I think it is best we just look, test the waters first before deciding how deep we want to jump in.”

[Meville Brightshade]

Meville leaned back as Lorelle extended her hand to flip through the incomprehensible journal. She had much of the same look of confusion as he'd had and wasted no time in denoting the journal's uselessness to them. Letting her take the lead, Meville set the journal on his left as Lorelle pulled the next book towards her. As she set it between them, Meville frowned down at the familiar script. It was similar to Vani, but his ability to read the language wasn't nearly proficient enough to understand the book before him. Figuring Lorelle would share whatever information the book had to offer, he merely skimmed the flowery scrawl, trying to find any familiar words. He'd managed to decipher "women of white" before she gave him the gist.

He shrugged at her question. As far as he knew, seers were something that "saw" something. Whatever that meant. Deciding not to point out the obvious, Meville just shook his head, implying his lack of answers. While the journal was much better written and preserved, it was far too short to be of any use - especially as it lacked maps. Nodding, Meville placed the Journal on the White Women on top of the Illegible Ledger as Lorelle continued on to the larger book. As she pointed out the author's lack of professionalism, Meville just rolled his eyes. "Can't say that comes as a surprise."

Apparently,the book wasn't important enough for him to see, as Lorelle chose instead to just read from it to him, flipping through the irrelevant pages and speaking at a slow pace (but with much better pronunciation). "Volcano?" It sounded like some kind of foreign cuisine. Lorelle didn't seem overly keen with the prospect of Wind Reach, and while his interaction with the fiery Zed had been interesting, Meville wasn't certain if he could handle the constant vanity that was, apparently, inherent in the Inarta. Fortunately, the journal - despite Lorelle's frustrations - contained more information than the other two had.

She continued to read, sharing tidbits here and there. The city of Illusion certainly piqued Meville's interest. His eyes flashed a quick impish grin at Lorelle's remark regarding Ionu. Taking a mental note of interest in the city, Meville leaned back into his chair, letting Lorelle continue her literary exploration. Directly after Alvadas, the journal moved on to a city of spider people. They were, from what the journal said, kidnappers of some sort who favored women. Frowning, Meville shook his head back and fourth, agreeing that he found the city as unpleasant as Lorelle did.

As she switched to Vani, Meville grinned slightly. Her voice had risen slightly in excitement, and Common was far too cumbersome for her to truly express herself in - for the time being, at least. From the sounds of things, Lhavit was as appealing as anything else they'd found. Lorelle appeared rather taken with it, though Meville found the close comparison to Avanthal to be a bit of a deterrent. Still, it was much better than the residence of the Spider People. "Perhaps there are people in the Warrens who know more about it? I'll have to ask around." He kept his use of Common. The best thing for Lorelle to do, aside from speaking it, was to hear it.

Nodding at her request, Meville traded books, setting the one that had had interesting information on his right before sliding the last, heavy book towards her. "I agree. It's not as if we're leaving tomorrow." Still, they were leaving, and he couldn't help but rekindle the excitement he had each time he thought about it. Frowning down at the book before them, Meville just shook his head. "Let's hope for something useful then."

Common | Vani

[Lorelle]

“Yes, something useful would be good,” she says shortly in Vani as she stares at the last book in front of her. She hesitates to open it, wondering if there is actually going to be anything interesting in this book. Looking at the cover she doubts it. The journal is made of worn leather that has grown thin and light colored by how many times it has been used. The cover shows nothing of significance. Barely a title. Just a faded work on the binding. Sylira. The region's name it is on. Lorelle wonders if it is even on the region. It could be about something completely different and that is the only word left. Shaking the thoughts from her side, the Vantha woman remembers that there is only one way to truly find out the answers to her doubts. Open the book.

Lorelle wastes not a moment longer, reaching forward and opening the book. There is no title page. The first page is the beginning of the book and at the site of it, Lorelle feels her heart sink. The writing is that of a Vantha and there is much within the contents of the pages, but within a first few sentences she can already tell this book is most likely not going to tell her what she wants to know. She flips through some of the first pages in order to make sure her suspicions are correct, ignoring Meville for the time being. The book looks to her to be a story. The story of the one who wrote this. The author speaks of his life, thoughts, some about the things going on around him. He speaks of the names of the places he is traveling and how he misses home. Some on how things are different from home, but not enough to get anything real out of the book.

“There is nothing here,” Lorelle decides, her voice telling of her aggravation before her eyes have a chance to. She closes the book and puts it down on the table. Listening to muted thud of a sound it makes. Seems to be all it is good for. “Sylira is the name of the region. This journal speaks of some of the cities there. A place called Ravok, another called Zeltiva, a third called Syliras, and one called Nyka. The book speaks of two others, but doesn’t mention their names. That is all the information it gives on these places, their names,” she clenches her jaw when she finishes, looking to Meville. It isn’t fair. Why can’t things just be out in the open? Information easily accessed?

“Looks like we will need to conduct our research else where,” Lorelle decides, trying to rid her voice of her obvious irritation over the fact there is nothing of use to be found here. She doesn't return to practicing her common but sticking with the language she knows best. It is easier for her to think and let go this way. Exhaling she stands up, forgetting about the fifth book she has grabbed. She presses her palms to the table, leaning in with her weight as she tries to gather herself and remain calm. She stares at Meville, wondering what else they can get done in this day if anything. How much can they prepare for the trip that may very possibly change their lives forever in a day? Lorelle isn’t sure, but she wants to find out. “What now Meville? Any ideas?”