Solo Present Knowledge of the Past

[Zuhre]

Timestamp: Autumn 46, 518 AV

It felt like a cat scratching the inside of her wrist. The needle was injecting itself into her skin like a body piercing that didn’t quite stick through to the other side. Zuhre hit the back of the wooden handle with a dense rod, causing the needle attached to the handle to slip in and out of her flesh like that of a viper’s tongue. She had added a few more cerulean blue dots that had meshed into the other blue dots in the area.

Wiping at the surplus of ink, Zuhre scrutinized her work, looking to make sure the thin line of blue connected at the place where she had started and the place where she ended. A thin band stretched around her wrist, connecting at both ends, resembling that of a bracelet. The Ethaefal smiled, admiring her work before setting her tools down onto the table beside her.

“Thanks, Matthew,” she called over her shoulder. She had been allowed to leave early from work because the incoming train of new clients was near to none since they had opened. “I’m heading out for the day.”

Matthew, who was bent over his most recent project, hadn’t given Zuhre so much as a grunt as she walked out the front doors.

The day had slowly began to grow colder, she recognized, holding her arms close to her body. “I should have brought a coat with me to work today,” she mumbled under her breath, hastening her stride so that she could arrive back to her unit and be out of this wind quicker.

Thankfully, she didn’t live that far away from Funel’s Ink. It was only a few blocks before she was in more familiar territory.

She noticed the last remaining vegetation surviving steadily around the doors of an older building ahead of her. It wouldn’t be much longer before they would lose their leaves and return to their slumber during winter.

Her intention, upon returning back to her unit, would be to collect her notebook and coat and a couple sticks of charcoal, and venture out to a place one of her most recent client’s had told her about; a building on the edge of where the Noble District meets the Merchant’s Ring that houses stationary and books of all kinds. Zuhre’s ears had perked upon hearing this man’s description, for she had lately been wanting- nay- needing to learn more about her earthbound form as a Svefra.

Fortunately, her key slipped into the lock of her unit with ease, allowing her quick entry to where she snatched the materials she needed- her backpack, her coat- and left all within a few moments.

It had also felt like only mere moments before Zuhre was found standing in front of a quaint edifice with bright yellow paint broken by the whites of the doors and window frames.

The inside was just as quaint, she noted. Candles of various sizes and shapes were strewn about, lighting the room with a mystical glow. Hardwood floors covered the front half of the shop and a fabric material covered the back half. To her right stood a large counter made out of a hodgepodge of different stones that shimmered under the light of the candles. Behind the counter sat a middle aged man who wore glasses that made his eyes appear twice their normal size. What was most stunning was the large bird that rested on its makeshift perch, a perch crafted from several books.

“You don’t look like you belong here,” bellowed the man, rising from his seat. He placed his forefinger at the spot in between his glasses, pushing them up on his nose.

Zuhre looked down at what she was wearing. While her shirt had very few holes, if any, it was basic, poor even. The same could be said of her pants and shoes. Her backpack and the items inside were the only signs that proved she had any value to her name.

“Appearances aren’t everything,” she deadpanned. Biting her tongue, she wondered if that would cost her. Zuhre’s eyes strayed from the man, whom she proposed, owned the establishment. Only a handful of others populated the area around her. Upon noticing the staircase to her left, she assumed more people occupied the second floor.

“They might not,” the owner began, coming out from behind the counter. The bird made a sudden move, practically causing Zuhre to lose her balance out of surprise.

“But they more often than not give us a good understanding of who someone is.”

Zuhre brought her attention back to the man. His hair was slicked back against his head, doing nothing to frame his square shaped face. His eyes showed an attempt to discern more of the Ethaefal than was possible by the way they turned into slits and looked her up and down.

Zuhre felt a slight pang of disgust for how he was looking at her, like she nothing more than an object awaiting judgement. Was she to be labeled a pest or a pleasure to have in this establishment?

“Then I suppose you have some sterling excuse as to why you are here.” He stated, his tone inflicting a sense of inquiry upon Zuhre.

She cleared her throat, her tolerance of him draining as they continued to converse. “I have a reason rather than an excuse,” she began, hoisting up the strap of her backpack back onto her shoulder. “How can someone own many riches or hold such an esteemed level of intelligence without first starting somewhere? I come to obtain enlightenment, of which I am little to be blessed with. Alas, the little that I do have has not only gifted me with the knowledge of this place, but also of my ability to use it. Unlike most people, I know that I do not know everything. That’s why I have come. To learn.”

The man glared at her, studying her through his bifocals. “And the knowledge that you seek. Is it to help or to harm?”

Zuhre scoffed then. “Now I know from that closed door back there with the none-too-obvious sign validating it so that you have your own secrets. As do I. But if you must know, I seek to collect information that could help me.”

Considering her words, she elaborated. “Though I am aware that one's pleasure could be another’s pain. But as I’m sure you are aware, as scholarly as your appearance depicts you to be, that the definition of what is to help and what is to harm is very… personal.”

She wasn’t sure the owner was really regarding her anymore at this point, but her heart continued to fuel the connection to her brain.

“The same could be said about whether something is right or wrong. Some people view the greater good to be something that aids rather than impairs, but the term “greater” does not denote an absolute. Therefore, there will always be a byproduct of pain from the pleasure or wrong from the right.”

The man seemed satisfied that this woman was in fact, not some random slum from the streets seeking out trouble rather than theory. He nodded his head in approval, but his eyes never did resume their openness. As Zuhre walked away and up the staircase to her left, his eyes still remained in their thin slits.

[Zuhre]

It felt good to stretch her legs. She could feel her tendons and ligaments contracting and expanding as she lifted one foot above the other to ascend the stairs.

It felt even better to have finally reached the top. Her anticipation had reached an ultimate high, the threshold that contained it beginning to bend under the pressure.

The second floor was just as glorious as the first. The floor consisted of the same wooden paneling as the one below with its rich colour and smooth texture. Only unlike the first floor, there was no carpeting. It’s visage couldn’t be tarnished by another faux or less than perfect.

As Zuhre began to cross the room, she took in its sheer size. The building itself wasn’t very large, but perhaps it was this floors layout that made it look so spacious. There were numerous bookshelves housing hundreds of books. Some contained written words and others contained room for the written word. Some books were bound in animal skin of all kinds and others were wrapped in fabrics varying from the very smooth to the extremely rough. Some shelves contained an assortment of paint pigments and ink sticks whereas ones above or below held brushes of a multitude of different sizes.

On the other side of the room, as though arranged specifically just for it, was an area dedicated strictly to quills and their associated inkwells and vials. The Ethaefal was amazed at how many different styles of quills there were. It seemed to her that there were individuals whose sole purpose in life was so design them.

Forcing her attention to the centre of the room were several tables framed with chairs not exceeding four each. Zuhre quickly took a seat at a table at the far end of the room where no one would disturb her.

She placed her backpack on the table and began pulling out her notebook and her sticks of charcoal making sure to not mark up anything during the exchange from bag to table. She flipped to the next blank page in her book and started at the top with her stick of charcoal.

In big, bold letters she inscribed “Svefra” hoping she had spelt it right. She searched her memory for the one thing she already knew about the race, about her earthbound form. After finding what she was looking for, she wrote it down, her words large and bubbly as she wrote “ties to the ocean”.

She closed her book, set her writing utensil down and hesitantly approached the bookshelf closest to her. She didn’t exactly know what it was she was looking for; she wanted to learn so much and in such a short allotted time. She only had key words to go off of in her hunt for acquiring new knowledge. Many of the books weren’t even labeled.

Zuhre began to panic. What if she didn’t find what it was she was looking for? Or worse yet, what if she found what she needed but it wasn’t what she wanted? What if she came across the lore of her earthbound kind and found out awful things? Her anticipation had skewed her expectation into purely positive things. But there was always some negative when it came to the positive or else it wouldn’t be called positive would it? She hoped for common ground, finding information that was neutral and made her feel indifferent.

She closed her eyes for a few chimes, taking in the sounds of her surroundings: the sound of pieces of parchment being turned; the crinkling sound in harmony amongst the sounds of metal tips against paper, scrawling notes at a controlled but eager pace. She took in the smells of her surroundings, specifically the smell of leather and old papyrus mixing together into a concoction in front of her nose. She felt the overwhelming sensation start to evanesce alongside the beat of her heart.

Calm swooped in to settle and stay.

Zuhre opened her eyes again and reached up to pluck a book from out of the shelf, enchanted by the drawings of tidal waves across it. A swarm of dust particles fell down like rain onto her head. She rushed back to her table, attempting to escape the onslaught of sneezes that were slowly taking hold on the poor girl’s nose.

It felt like fate, as the book she had placed on the table told stories of the people of the ocean, the Svefra. A young man, as the story had commenced, had come to befriend one of the sea bearing souls and had learned an ordeal on their kind. He had, in his adventure, documented his newly acquired knowledge to which Zuhre was now plenty thankful of.

She smiled and read on.

The Svefra, as the poorly legible handwriting had stated, had blue eyes. “None, did I see, bore any other colour than blue. Like the ocean. T’was like they had the ocean in their eyes. Perhaps they even did for how often they were riding the waves.”

Zuhre made sure to note this, as she made a mental picture of her eyes, as blue as ice, during the time where Syna was in the sky.

She picked up the piece of charcoal and returned to the page in her notebook marked Sfevra. There, she hastily wrote, “Blue eyes” in her own cursive scrawl, barely seeing any difference in legibility between hers and the author of the book she was reading. Under this note she made sure to leave an anecdote: “like the ocean is in them”.

She ended her thought with a period and continued reading.

[Zuhre]

Zuhre wrote, inditing notes into her notebook with underlines and capitalizations. She picked her stick of charcoal up off the paper and brought it back down, brandishing the parchment with a thick dot to symbolize the embellishment to the otherwise bland “i”. She had written under her page labelled “Svefra” that they were oftentimes recognized for their “multiple hairs”. She continued her notetaking by writing down their exceptional abilities to fish, sail, and swim.

Her eyes drifted across the words, soaking up every detail she found hidden amongst the scrawl. She tried to focus more attention on words of particular value to her. For every author, there are filler words, details that are not completely necessary to get the main point across. Zuhre had planned to scan over the added fluff in hopes of finding what she was most interested in faster. She had not, however, expected to find excess detail that pertained to the information she was looking for.

Her finger paused under a sentence describing the modifications that decorated the Svefra’s body. “Colourful splotches of ink composed images of dolphins, turtles, coral, waves, like a bard’s song was composed of lyrics.”

Zuhre stripped her arm from her coat, examining the blue and green hues, the fine one dimensional lines that created texture not uncommon to three dimensional waves. Some parts of her sleeve mimicked an artists representation of water colour. She saw the intricate detail of bubbles, illustrated in white ink, that rose up her arm towards her shoulder. The gears in her head clicked.

Reverting her attention back to her notebook, she picked up her writing utensil. While glancing back towards her exposed arm every few seconds, Zuhre started to draw out her tattoo. She glanced at the page in her book, clean other than the few notes she had taken earlier. She started her drawing by creating a basic sketch of her arm. She compared her sketch to her arm and scoffed. The image on her paper looked more like an oval with a couple narrower parts than an arm. However, she let it go. She was still new to drawing and didn’t let it weigh her down.

She looked over to her arm again, trying to take a mental picture so she didn’t give herself whiplash by looking back and forth so often and so quickly. Going back to her sketch, Zuhre started at the bottom of her ovular picture, placing her stick of charcoal and creating a star, making sure to denote the five extensions with sharp points. Above the starfish, she gradually added several long strands that reached upwards, connecting to a circular object she knew to be the base of a jellyfish.

Suddenly, a large creature flew through the room, startling Zuhre into dropping her charcoal piece. She heard the beating of its wings against its enormous body. A feather rained down next to as she did her best to cover her head. It had felt like the bird had tried to dive bomb her.

She stole a peek through the cracks in her arms. She couldn’t see the bird anywhere. Perhaps it had flown away back downstairs to its master. However, she was never so lucky, for it’s cold and calculating eyes glowed out from behind a near empty bookshelf.

Zuhre shivered as she dropped her gaze back down to her work. She wondered if ignoring it would make it go away. Glancing back up saw it was still staring at her. Apprehension bubbled up inside her then, reminding her of the bubbles tattooed onto her arm. She tried to distract herself, as it may seem, by thinking about those bubbles. She wanted to bird to leave. She couldn’t concentrate on her research if it stood there glaring at her with such skepticism.

She felt thick beads of air welling up inside her, pushing themselves to forge a link between their location in her gut and their location in her arm. She felt the Djed take rise, coating itself in her left arm, bring awares to its succumbing numbness. It felt like those minute beads of air where popping all along her arm, resulting in a pins and needles feeling that spanned up to her shoulder. Her concentration was so intense that beads of liquid began to form on her forehead. She felt her astral body stretch, reaching only a metre or two in front of her but progressively approaching the physical position of where the bird sat perched in between the two shelves.

Zuhre contemplated for a moment, the fact that her existence could be divided into two different categories: the physical and the astral. She wondered then, if her mind could be too. Was her mind being divided into two separate categories when she used auristics? Or was her mind in a continuous state of physical connection with attributes of the imagination?

“Imagination is hardly physical, but it neither is it astral,” she whispered to herself. She decided then, that there must be two ultimate classes of existence: that which is thought and that which is extended; the thinking substance, and the extended substance. She used her mind, she noted, to use her arm, both in the physical plane as well as the astral plane. There was always some sort of relationship. Her existence exited no matter in what state that was.

She diverted a small quantity of her attention from the Djed in her arm, to the Djed in her mind. She willed it to move forward, to coat itself around her eyes, and aid in the visual of her astral projection. She was only a novice when it came to projection; Aberdal had left her after only a few sessions of teaching the discipline. Therefore, Zuhre thought, using her more practiced magic of auristics, she could try to see her arm pass through the astral plane.

She witnessed a thick liquid-like essence spiralling in a languid pace around and around directly in front of her body, as though an extension of her arm. Which, she thought, was exactly what it was doing. Although, all the energy she needed to project her astral being was draining her ability to see it happening. Her auristic sight quickly depleted, allowing Zuhre to focus more on her projection.

Finally, she had stretched her arm to the point where it was in between the shelves, adjacent to the creature but also directly next to a small notebook. She closed her eyes and pushed her arm a little further, allowing it to connect with the book, sending it off the edge of the bookshelf. The bird’s eyes engorged, (as if that was even possible) and frightened, it batted it’s large wings and took off, tearing down the stairs back to whence it came from.

Triumph burgeoned in the girl as she concentrated on commanding her Djed to return to physical body. Once it was back in her full control, Zuhre noticed her arm was still very much numb, though not to the extent it was when she was projecting. She refrained from getting excited; she didn’t need to bear concern over anything just yet. She knew that overexerting oneself had… consequences, but she also knew that she had performed her abilities well within their jurisdiction.

Calmly, the Ethaefal looked around at her surroundings, hoping no one had grown interest in the random occurrence of a falling book. Thankfully, from what she could see, no one had. Pride still smothered her in its grace as she went back to her research. Finally, she could get something done now that those hot golden eyes no longer bore holes into hers.

[Zuhre]

Zuhre had a hold on her stick of charcoal again, and was using her arm as a template, copying the images she saw tattooed in her skin onto a page in her notebook.

She carefully eyed the bubbles that ranged in a variety of sizes. In the ovular shape that was supposed to be an epitomization of her arm, she drew several small circles. Surrounding those circles, she drew slightly larger circles. She noticed in her tattoo that the bubbles were not flat, meaning they had some sort of three dimensional appearance to them. She saw that this was signified by crescent shapes inside of the bubbles. This crescent shape, she proposed, was meant to illustrate a reflection, like the sun off the water.

Taking to her paper, she started at a point on the far side of one of the circles and drew an arc. Pausing only for a moment, she continued her arc in the same fashion, but in the opposite direction, her thin line meeting up with her point of origin.

She continued this process for the other circles, finally finding it in herself to consider them bubbles now that they actually looked more like bubbles. It happened that she had found a stopping point in her drawing then, and seeing as how some of the other details of her tattoo were of much higher complexity, she shifted gears and went back to her research.

She put the charcoal piece into her notebook, marking her page before returning to the book she was reading on the Svefra. She had left off on the author’s detailed interpretation of the race’s tattoo style. Succeeding this information, her eyes read over an unfamiliar term to her. “These people’s religion always none like the waves, standing wholly in devotion to Laviku,” she read. Whoever Laviku was, it aroused Zuhre’s fascination. She went to her notebook and watched as though out of her body as she wrote down the God’s name. Next to the name she put a question mark. Who was this mysterious deity?

She continued reading, but the following sentence and the sentence after that did nothing to elaborate on her disregarded curiosity. Zuhre licked her thumb and flipped the page of the book. Her eyes grazed the text, searching out the word that had captivated her. She had to scrounge through several pages before she crossed that name again, but there it was. Laviku.

She wrote down everything she read in her own words, ensuring she highlighted and emphasized the main points that needed addressing.

Laviku, she scrawled, boldening her print, is the god of the sea, worshipped by the Svefra as well as the Charoda.

She paused, searching the page for any more guidance on who the Charoda were. Down near the bottom of the page lay a memorandum describing just that. Zuhre added on to her notes, considering the possibility that the need to know about the Charoda would arise one day.

Charoda are sea dwelling creatures who own the ability to breathe through their skin and manipulate coral, she wrote. They look like most amphibians with webbed hands and feet, rubbery skin, and fins.

Zuhre stopped to relish in her amazement. How it must be to look like that and be seen as a monster, she thought to herself. Especially in such a place as Ravok where humanoid creatures who could be found in an alternate animalistic form were treated as slaves to be studied or used for ulterior means; where a young woman could be under some else’s command solely because she had horns sprouting from her temples and skin that shimmered in the moon’s nightly glow. Zuhre shivered, subconsciously creating a bond with this race of people. She knew not exactly how these people were treated, but she understood that it wasn’t always well.

The sentences on Laviku continued, opening her mind up further. Something had popped out at her then, and while the entire book supplied her with enthralling documentation, this one particular part screamed at her for her utmost attention.

She wrote on, trying her best to ignore the pained cramp developing in her left hand. Laviku often makes appearances to those who worship him.

The author had written and described an account of a Svefra woman’s interaction with Laviku. He looks mid to older in age with soulful, yet demanding eyes. His hair seems to be made out of seaweed, and the air about him is alluring, like the ocean, wanting to swallow you; similar to extreme humidity in the air and it’s suffocating nature. Zuhre admitted, she had gotten a little carried away with the way she illustrated the god’s appearance. Although, her over dramatic writing was nothing compared to her succession of notes.

Laviku is a deity of immeasurable sacrifice due to his motivated nature. But, -she made the last letters tall, so as to stand out to those of wandering eyes; who would read her writing, she didn’t know- his determination also shows in the form of a gnosis mark to which many call Oceanus.

Zuhre tried the feel of the word on her tongue, her assumptions leading her to believe it was based off the word ocean. She rolled her eyes. Of course it would have been the word ocean.

And it was something strange then; Zuhre coveted the sight, the smell, even the taste, of the ocean.

[Zuhre]

Oceanus was a concept that partially went above and beyond Zuhre’s scope of bearing. It delved into a familiar, yet foreign type of magic that both grabbed her attention yet forced her away.

The first thing that had been mentioned in the text was the appearance of the mark. This much the Ethaefal was able and willing to grasp.

“The appearance of this mark is highly sophisticated what with its vibrant blue and green hues; it appears three dimension, the waves creating troughs and crests as though actually crashing onto the shore.”

Zuhre quickly went to her notebook and jotted down the information she found most vital.

She wrote, Laviku’s mark can move on a person’s body and even under one’s touch. Slightly confused by what this meant, Zuhre made sure to highlight this concept with an asterisk placed strategically right above the beginning of the sentence.

Now that she had accomplished noting the physical description of the mark, she wanted to learn more about what it does and how it works. While she knew this would be no easy task, she was motivated to try regardless.

She continued to read, taking notes and ensuring they were in her own words so she could look back at them at a later date and reflect. “This mark grants the bearer the ability to share the power of Laviku. It is a mark that is commonly found among the Svefra and is a large component of the Svefran culture and in their association with the Suvan sea and surrounding waters.”

Intrigued by the specifically named sea, she wrote it down in her notebook and underlined it several times. Perhaps another day at the bookstore would allow her more time to research this. For now, however, she focused on the gnosis mark.

She paused her writing in order to read the pages that contained information on Laviku’s mark before returning and summarizing all that she could.

There are two parts to the mark, she wrote, scribbling fast in order to keep up with her whirlwind of a mind. With a mere touch to the water, the bearer of the mark can sense what is surrounding them in the water.

The girl tried to imagine that. Letting their feet dip into the water, soaking up the liquid like it was soaking up the knowledge of what lay deeper still. She wondered how far an individual blessed with this gift could sense: if it was miles upon miles or a mere few feet.

The second part to the mark is the ability to control various sea creatures. This is coupled by the ability to control ocean currents.

The sentences didn’t stop short, rather it was Zuhre who did. It was both confusing, thrilling, and frustrating learning about this. She was not ashamed of who or what she was, just that she was alone. And having read this book, it made that loneliness come into a new alternate perspective. All these Svefra, her earthbound form, merging in pods, sharing the same gnosis mark from a god they all worshipped and felt protected by, hells they even all looked similar with their blue eyes and tattooed flesh. And while Zuhre had that side to her, it wasn’t who she was. She was something else. That ship had sailed, as ironic as the phrase went.

The ocean felt extremely far away, but not just in the physical sense. Sure, she could not hear the gulls cawing off the rocky coasts, and sure, she could not taste the salt on the tip of her tongue, and sure, she could not feel the gritty substance grinding between her fingers, but the worst part of all was that there was a second part of her, a past life that had connections to the sea, and that connection seemed dull, and so distant from her.

Zuhre sighed. She drew an arc onto her paper, followed by another one. It was funny, she thought, how all these arcs she drew were connected, but she was so far removed. The arcs resembled the waves of the ocean. In her mind, she saw them beckoning to her like the movement a finger makes when someone wants you to come to them. Come hither, she heard though no one was speaking. Come learn about a past life you have no memories of.

Just the thought made her body shiver; she felt so cold inside. Like something truly was missing, and it wasn’t just the connection. This being she was, having fallen from the heavens and into the water- “two completely separate entities; the air and the sea”, she whispered- was impossible to understand. It was rather not a question of what was she, but who was she?

Zuhre rubbed her arms, trying to stifle the gooseflesh that littered her body. Shaking her head, she glanced back at her drawing. It felt incomplete somehow. She gathered it needed something else, something to guide the waves, something that brought together the entire picture. Then, the image burned inside her brain like a branding. In every image inscribed in the book she had just read, it was there. It was right there.

She moved her arm around in a circle, the stick of charcoal acting as the extension of her arm, and the faint line it created acting as an extension of that. She drew a circle, and she shaded in only a portion of that circle. To her, however, the circle meant so much more. To her, the circle represented a moon. And she found that the waves and the ocean and the seas, and all that inhabit them needed something to rely on. Like the pushing and pulling of the tide against the shore, the water needed a guide. That guide, she gathered, was the moon.

“And that’s exactly who I am,” she stated proudly. “I am the moon and I am the sea; I am that interconnected force between both entities. I am the daughter of Leth, but I am also the daughter of Laviku. They go hand in hand.”

Finally, she felt at some level a sense of understanding of where she belonged.

[Zavya]

Grades!

 

Zuhre

Skills Earned:

Auristics +1
Drawing +3
Observation +4
Philosophy +1
Projection +1
Socialization +1
Tattooing +1
Writing +2

Lores:

Charoda: Sea-dwelling amphibious creatures
Drawing: Sketching her own tattoos
Imagination: Neither physical nor astral
Laviku: God of the sea
Laviku: Worshipped by the Svefra and Charoda
Oceanus: Can move on the marked's body
Oceanus: Gives marked the ability to control sea creatures and currents
Oceanus: Laviku's gnosis mark
Self: Covets the sight, smell, and taste of the ocean
Self: Daughter of Leth and Laviku
Svefra: All have blue eyes "like the ocean is in them"
Svefra: Commonly marked with Oceanus
Svefra: Exceptional fishermen, swimmers, and sailors
Svefra: Tied to the ocean
Tattooing: Inking her own wrist

Comments: You are such a gifted writer, and I still miss you! However, should you return, I would recommend checking out the recent scrap Goss posted about the rarity of books in Mizahar. These lores may end up being contested; I'm not sure that a bookstore exists in Ravok.

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to PM me!