Is It Bright Where You Are? (Trista)

[Chaelnomyl]

"And have the people changed?"

Timestamp: Early Winter, 509 AV

Chaelnomyl breathed a heavy sigh as she stumbled upon the city of Anhatep and gods, despite the hype that surrounded it considering that the Eyphrians were known for being all about beauty… It was largely one color. Or seemed to be one color. Basically, there was entirely too much sand and not enough of anything else, or so it appeared as the winged creature approached the white and gold city.

To be quite honest, she knew nothing of it, except that it appeared to be a breathing entity in the relative desolation around it. Curse her for wanting to go to Rockward Isle, curse the mysteries of her race. It would all be so much easier if whoever had created them hadn’t also hidden away like a parent embarrassed of their progeny’s failures. Not that the Akvatari were anything short of perfect in their own opinion… Having risen above the petty ways of violence the rest of the world tended to take and their mastery of all forms of expression, they were the pinnacle of society. And yet they were completely misunderstood, even by themselves.

Sticking to the sides of the streets and staying out of the way as best she could, Chaelnomyl wandered through the streets of Ahnatep towards the sea – it had been a long arduous journey across the land and throughout all of it, from the moment she’d left Zeltiva, she had longed to see the sea again. After all, Chaelnomyl was no navigational expert and estimating the exact location of Rockward Island (other than knowing it was on the southern tip) was near impossible. As such, she had gotten slightly distracted – perhaps a wrong turn somewhere along the way, or just a far too westernly path – and wound up in the “Crown of the Desert”. Not that its existence or history held much significance to the Akvatari. There was little precious shade from the sun out there in the desert and despite the time of year she had serendipitously made that journey, Chaelnomyl couldn’t help but grow annoyed at the way each grain of sand seemed to reflect Syna’s splendor… straight into her eyes.

Nearing the western edge of the Eypharian’s establishment, Chaelnomyl regarded the port curiously and paused in the shade of a building. At least the sun itself was still sort of in the east and thus the buildings – which she swore had been dug out of the sand itself – could shield her for a brief reprieve. Her eyes wandered over the boats that were coming in to port and she let out a deep sigh, the only expression of her slight frustration that she would allow the outside world to see. Arms crossed over and allowed hands to reach her shoulders, running her fingers over them as if that would somehow brush off the heat journeying through the desert had been producing.

The boats and the harbor had caught her attention though, and sure enough, just as the thief is drawn to the sparkling jewels in the corner of a house, so too was Chaelnomyl drawn to her notebook and pen. The paintbrush, too, had left her pouch but currently it was only to be twirled through her fingers as she analyzed the way the desolation’s eruption of buildings and life met the sweet touch of the sea. Or ocean. Or whatever it was called on this side of the continent. The non-bristled edge eventually met her lips and tapped against it like a finger might have in her left hand as her right hand curled around the actual utensil she would sketch with and watched there in the shade. Just as had been done in Ravok and aboard the boat to Sahova, Chael decided that if she were to keep sane and eventually document her journey someday – especially in the form of a book, like she had promised the Librarian in Zeltiva – sketching those relatively unknown lands to her would help her remember.

”A picture’s worth a thousand words now, isn’t it?” Chaelnomyl mused to herself softly, making a mental note that it would be useful to actually have such drastic items as colors in addition to her traditional sketching tools.

And so it was that the waves began to form on the page as the Akvatari tapped the wooden hilt of her chosen sword against her chin, eyes glancing between the parchment bound and curled into the cradle of her own tail and the word ”Ahnatep “ scrawled across the top in loopy, cursive and fluid script. With any luck, she’d go unnoticed by the bipedals around her… Their appearance did make her wonder, which god had thought that they needed two sets of arms, as if things with two legs weren’t clumsy enough as it was? Surely he was watching far off somewhere and laughing.

[Trista]

The boat had stopped.

It was supposed to stop, of course. But nonetheless, it wasn't going anywhere for at least a day, as the Zeltivan traders with whom she had hitched a ride unloaded their cargo and loaded whatever they were picking up from the Eypharians. Maybe arms -- that was something the Eypharians seemed to have a surplus of, after all.

At any rate, the ship was a swirl of activity and noise and sailors cursing at things, and Trista wasn't going to get anything done there. So she'd flipped off the side of the ship, caught herself something to eat, and then headed into Ahnatep to see what there was to see.

The docks themselves didn't look to be that exciting. After sailing from Abura to Eloab to Mura and then back, she'd seen as much of docks as she cared to for a while. If she weren't traveling such a long distance, she'd be swimming, not riding a boat, but there was something to be said for a conveyance that could keep moving while she slept, given how far she had to go.

At any rate, she was about to move farther into the city, when her eyes were caught by a pair of bluish wings. Familiar wings...

"Chaelnomyl?" She hadn't seen the other Akvatari in ages, not since before her first stay in Mura. "I'd hardly expected to see any other Akvatari here, let alone one I know." She flittered closer. "How have you been?"

[Chaelnomyl]

A sgwiggle of ink found its way off the page as Chaelnomyl jumped ever so slightly, hearing her own name. This far from Abura, the Akvatari had not imagined she would hear any voice, much less a female voice call out to her. It hadn’t really ruined the sketching she’d been doing, but Chaelnomyl couldn’t help but feel a bit flustered.

Looking up, the Akvatari saw light blue wings accompanying a light blue furred tail. It was one of the Akvatari who was nearly ten years younger than her – Chaelnomyl being thirty-two, while Trista was twenty-two.

”Trista,” Chaelnomyl replied, having regained her composure and put her drawing materials down, ”I’ve been… well, I suppose.” Her voice lingered on the word well as if she was not actually well, but there wasn’t much to say on that either. She’d been places, seen things, and was currently searching for Rockward Isle, to try – hopefully not in vain – to find the history of her race.

”I wouldn’t have expected to see any of us here either, but I stopped by to gather supplies and honestly, take a reprieve from my journey. I’ve been heading south through this area from Zeltiva.” A small smile crossed her face – nothing of terrible note to be made, of course, but a small smile nonetheless. ”I am eventually heading to the southern coast… What brings you to Ahnatep?”

And that was true, except that she had wished Dranquay would have come along with her. Sort of. Then again, the Akvatari was quite the one to be perfectly fine with being alone, and found traveling together a little odd. The journey to Sahova had been rather tense upon her mental faculties, simply because she was in the company of so many people at once. Then there was Drainira. That was not a … person (?) she wanted to think about.

Carefully placing her bound parchment and drawing utensils back into her pouch, Chaelnomyl spurred her wings to life and lifted herself back off the ground. Her light brown, spotted tail curled up towards herself and she brushed at the sand that lingered in it softly.

The overly-arm possessing people that were bustling around them made the Akvatari watch absently. After all, it was a little distracting. Perhaps it would have seemed aloof to anyone but a fellow Akvatari… Thankfully Trista knew her well enough. She was perfectly happy to hardly pay attention and yet all the same was completely focused on anything Trista would have said. It might have been a talent to split one’s attention like that… but Chaelnomyl had always just thought of it as a natural trait of her race whenever she was asked why she wasn’t paying attention. Which was more often than one would think.

”I feel out of place, having only two arms and all.” The Akvatari muttered.

[Trista]

Ah, the memories.

As Chaelnomyl was talking, Trista's mind returned to their earlier history. Chael was older than her, but had many of the same interests and talents -- drawing, painting, music. This meant that, as Trista's arts education had progressed, she had studied with many of the same teachers that Chael had had previously.

Such a quick student, so talented. Abura needs more like her. You could learn a great deal from that one. If she had a miza for every time one of her instructors had said that to her about Chael, Trista could have bought her own castle years ago. She had come to regard the other Akvatari with a strange mixture of admiration and envy -- and, if the truth were to be completely known, the image of what Chael had already accomplished was something Trista continually held in front of herself, making her work harder, longer, and smarter.

To some degree at least, it had worked. Trista had a piece in the Lemanychol now, had executed a major outdoor commission in Mura, and was, if she were to say so herself, one of the more promising young artists among the Akvatari. She hadn't seen any of Chael's more recent work, but Trista would be willing to put hers up against Chael's, feeling confident of not being outdone.

Not, of course, that Trista had ever told Chaelnomyl any of this. They had met on numerous occasions -- gallery openings, concerts, the usual social events in Abura -- but Trista had largely confined her discussion to asking pointed, carefully thought-out questions regarding Chael's methods, aesthetic theories, and critical opinions of recent exhibitions. Anything Chael knew, Trista wanted to know.

Anything she can do, I can do better...I can do anything better than her...

This wasn't true, of course, and Trista would have been the first to admit it. She had no way of knowing the full range of Chael's talents, and at any rate, everyone was always superior to you in some way. Nonetheless, some of the latent competitiveness brushed against her thoughts again. This was not the time for it, however, Trista knew.

"I've been in Mura, working on a commission," she replied. "I'm hoping to travel to Yahebah, and possibly up to Riverfall, sort of on an inspiration-seeking tour. So I got a ride with the Zeltivan trading ship going that direction...which had to make a stop here. So I did too." She half-smiled.

"How many arms do you need?" she asked, a little quieter, picking up on Chael's muttered comment. "I'm hoping they put them to some good use...like, say, juggling thirty plates at once."

[Chaelnomyl]

Sadly for Chaelnomyl, the amount of admiration and envy that Trista held for her was widely unknown. Of course, she had suspected it – the Akvatari was not completely naiveté of the things that were spoken about her talents… but never would she have guessed the extent of it or how it pushed Trista to better herself with such determination.

To be perfectly honest, Chael had always regarded Trista as a quite nice, if not a grave deal younger, fellow artist. She was the type to always show up to appreciate the same things Chael did, and while any other race might have started down the road to paranoia, the elder of the pair had simply relished in the idea that there was someone else out there in their race who appreciated those things as much as she did. It was, after all, refreshing to discuss paintings and compositions with someone other than the wallpaper.

The mention of a commission in Mura drew Chael’s attention. So Trista too, had been wandering, but with a slightly different purpose. Chaelnomyl had been wandering in search of direction, while Trista had been wandering in search of inspiration. Both seemed to have found it, if Chael had not accidently found her object of desire slightly ahead of the younger Akvatari. Whether or not her direction was the correct one was yet to be seen, but nonetheless she was keeping her skills up with slight sketching here and there for ideas to paint her travels down later. She would, when she got the chance someday, document the discovery of their own history on a giant canvas – a masterpiece of sorts, that depicted her journey and her search. It was already starting to come together in her mind: Ravok at night with the Ethaefal creature barely visible, to Zeltiva in a sea of books or maps, to the deserts of Eyktol and the island of Rockward. If she ever got there, of course. From there, it would depend on where the clues led her next… But she would blend them together, and then one day, it would be the centerpiece of Lemanychol with a lengthy explanation about how Chaelnomyl was the proverbial mother of their race, not only because she was quite talented in the arts, but because she was the first one to figure out where they belonged in the world. Trista would never have been able to top that.

”Understandable,” Chaelnomyl responded quietly, ”Inspiration is a fickle thing. I seem to be finding plenty of it on my meanderings, though. Are you in town for long? Perhaps it would do us some good to peek into local events. I honestly have no idea what these… Eypharians? …” She paused, unsure if that was even the right way to say the word, ”Are like. But they seem to possess an overwhelming desire for extravagance…” The jingle of their unnecessary (in her opinion, anyway) amount of adornments caught the Akvatari’s eye as she finished, ”In addition to arms.”

On her way towards the docks, Chaelnomyl had passed through a rather bustling market… type… of… venue and had overheard something about a festival of sorts later in the month. They were giving invitations out like the sand gave out annoying pieces of itself to get stuck in fur and between fingers, and so she had come into possession of one of them. If Trista was sticking around long enough, it occurred to the Akvatari to suggest they attend that event. Even if the younger of the pair wasn’t, Chaelnomyl figured she’d probably check it out, if for nothing more than to know what to paint in Ahnatep’s section of her giant canvas… Other than sand and a lot of arms, of course.