A Song of Snow and Ice (Malia)

[Varian Snowsong]

Summer 11, 511 AV Since his death the Nuit found himself moved by the strangest emotions. He found himself fascinated by things that had not meant anything to him in his past life. He could study the tiniest details for hours. He didn’t have to stop to sleep, to eat or drink or take care of all those little physical needs anymore. He was never hungry or thirsty, but there was a kind of hunger in him nevertheless, a yearning that was strongest when he was in the company of mortals, of pulsers as the Nuit he had met in Sylira called them. He who bore the mark of Morwen and had never truly been freezing yearned for their warmth. He wanted to bath in it and feel their heartbeat so that he might be able to replicate some of it in time. so that he would feel human again at least for a moment. He envied them so much that it hurt, so much that he would have cried if he were still capable of crying, but at the same time he hated them because they had something he would never have again: a life. Sometimes he could barely keep himself from lashing out at somebody. Sometimes he wanted to hurt himself, to drive a knife into the cold, unfeeling, decaying shell that his body had become and destroy it completely. It disgusted him beyond measure. And sometimes a great apathy took hold of him, and he stood there for a seeming eternity, unmoving. Sometimes he wished he would never have come to Avanthal. The company of people that he had known before made him even more aware of what he had lost, but at the same time he couldn’t imagine not seeing them for one last time. The only time when he was truly calm and at peace was when he was making music, when he was trying to create something. He had found a small rock, somewhere near the Temple of Everwinter that had recently become one of its favourite places and cleared the area surrounding it of snow and ice using his mark so that he would be able to sit more comfortably. In his mortal life he had played the lyre with some skill, but he had stopped using the instrument since it had put too much strain on his fingers. It would have made it necessary to replace this body faster, and he was not ready to let go of it, to wear a stranger’s face. Instead he lifted a small flute to his lips and began to play, a few high, clear notes. And then he shook his head. It didn’t sound right. He wanted to compose, to make a song that replicated what he was feeling inside, a song that spoke of the cold that surrounded him, of how cold his skin had become, a song of snow and ice, an endless winter, but he found his skill lacking. He wanted to make people feel what he was feeling, but he didn’t know how. She, his fellow Nuit, would find him there, wearing thick clothes to hide his pale, thin body. His face was visible though. There were dark bags under his eyes. Humans would most likely think he was sick or not getting enough sleep, but a Nuit would recognize it as a sign that there was somebody that shared her condition.

[Malia]

In a city of ice and snow, Malia was alone.

It wasn’t like she cared. Like she even noticed it. No, she was content with scribbling ideas in her journal, words and words and words, accompanied by little sketches and drafts. Like an architect slowly composing a building, beginning with the outer walls and adding details upon details until they had thought everything through, from the basics to the core, Malia composed and built her golems. Then she’d draw a circle upon the remnants of the previous ones, covered by a carpet during the day bells. She’d sit in the circle, let her mind sink to the bottom of her consciousness, add a drip of ichor to the chalk lines and perform the ritual, surrounded by sizzling lines of Djed. When she was done, she’d try out the golem and either think about and adjust any mistakes she had made or set it aside and begin with the next project. She’d take breaks after every couple of bells, dictated by the lifestyle of the pulsers she saw through the window. But that was about everything that could be said about her existence.

She needed to leave Avanthal soon. It dawned on her during one of countless walks she engaged in. Circling the barracks of the Icewatch, lingering in front of Morwen’s Palace, the stranger with the blood-red hair and the gloveless hands was a common sight. Even though she didn’t even know what she was doing or why, she kept roaming the outside squares. It wasn’t the fresh air on her skin, and not the low temperatures.

In two hundred years Malia had long forgotten how to feel cold. She always wore her traveling attire and her cloak. From time to time her hand wandered up and adjusted the silk scarf that was tied around her neck. To make sure that what the scarf covered was still hidden, and to stop herself from thinking too much.

But then again, when had she ever managed to shut up her thoughts? They helped. Logic and reason, adding to the illusion of sanity.

Of all things, it was another person who disturbed her musings. For a moment or two, Malia stared in a face that resembled her own. How she saw it in the mirror before and after hygiene sessions: dark bags under the eyes, skin the color of pale sickness. She added the black tongue and realized what she was seeing. And then the stranger passed by and the snow swallowed him.

It had been a boy, his facial features those of a Vantha. Of course, that didn’t reveal much. He might have an affinity for Vantha bodies. But the look in his eyes, the way he moved, the thick clothing he wore... they told Malia that he was young. Very young, maybe. And as she continued with her circle around the barracks, the light of opportunity broke through her dark musings. At least there was something she could do.

Turning around, she followed the other Nuit. The weather was clear enough to see his footsteps in the snow. Anyway, Malia was in no hurry. In Avanthal, a close-knit community, she could always ask around if she happened to lose him. She didn’t though. Near the Temple of Everwinter, the tracks led her to a rock devoid of snow. Instead he occupied it. The Nuit. Playing a flute.

Malia approached, red hair spilling out of her hood. “Why are you doing this?” Thin fingers fluttered into the direction of the instrument. The lyre flashed through her mind, her lyre. But she had stopped playing when she had left Syliras.

[Varian Snowsong]

Again he lifted the flute to his lips and tried to play, but the tones that left the small instrument sounded empty to him, hollow. There was nothing wrong with the melody he played – the notes sounded right – but his melody lacked a soul. He closed his eyes, tried to block the world that surrounded him out, tried to forget what he had become, that strange ichor filled his body instead of hot, crimson blood now. He tried it again, and this time the melody sounded better. Note followed note, like drops of water that fell from an icicle that melted in the warm summer sun. He doubted that there was anything that could melt the cold inside his own heart, but for this moment at least he wanted to play something that was vaguely hopeful. There was always a bit of warmth. The sun shone even in the harshest of winters, and the sky wasn’t always cloudy. He noticed that somebody was there, staring at him, listening to him, but he didn’t react to her presence immediately. He didn’t want to let her interrupt his play. Rather than adressing her, rather than reacting to her words he finished the song. Only when the last note had left his flute, did he lower it and open his eyes. He raised his head and studied her. There was something about her that was familiar to him. She didn’t have those dark bags under her eyes. Her skin was not as deathly pale as his had become. She didn’t look sick, as if she were suffering from some kind of disease that would eventually take her life, but there was somethign about the look in her eyes that he had seen in those that he had met in Sahova. Her chest never rose and fell, and her breath didn’t form a cloud of mist in front of her face in the cold. Most foreigners barely seemed to tolerate the everpresent cold, but she didn’t seem to mind. She was lightly dressed, as if she bore the mark of Morwen, just like he did. She seemed to be like him, more like him than any other person he had met in Avanthal so far, but he decided not to make a remark about it, at least not yet. He didn’t know how he should put the questions that were on his mind into words. He didn’t know which words he should use. His experience with such things was still comparatively small. Instead he simply answered her question. "Why am I doing this?" he repeated and looked at the silver flute that was still in his hand and as if he were wondering about the same sometimes. "I do it because I enjoy it, because it fills me with peace. There are some things that I cannot put in words, that are better expressed with music. Do you never play an instrument? Do you never feel the need to express yourself in such a way?"

[Malia]

The words stung, for a tiny moment at least. Of course, he had to take the thought she tried to brush aside and turn it into a question. One that Malia didn’t particularly want to concern herself with. What was music, if not another pastime for the pulsers to feel grand and like they could accomplish something within that limited lifespan of theirs? What was an instrument, if not a pretty toy that didn’t have any real use apart from charming others and making them listen to you? It was a tool to attract attention.

Malia stood in front of him, arms crossed, and her gaze judged him from head to toe. Young, still young, his words told her again. Because of that, he would probably be useful to her. The youngest ones often were most alike to the pulsers they had once belonged to. Malia... She had already become something else.

It was true, she didn’t feel the cold, but she did care for her body as well as she could. A few steps brought her nearer. And then she sat down on the stone, next to him without touching him. Her movements radiated care. Her vessel was to be protected. The distance between them almost didn’t exist anymore.

Only then did she answer his questions. “I have in the past. But not anymore. It distracts me and keeps me from fulfilling my task.” She didn’t elaborate, creating a moment of awkward silence. “The fact that you do it means that you haven’t found something else to do yet. Tell me about it.”

Oh, her words were vague, it had been her intention! The young one still had to find the road he wanted to follow for the rest of eternity. Just like the ichor flowed through their veins at a different pace than hot blood, they weren’t humans anymore and not made for human things. Malia wasn’t sure what she was trying to do with him, what she wanted to teach him. But then, she didn’t really mind until he revealed to her how she could use him.

[Varian Snowsong]

He could almost feel her gaze on him, could clearly see that she was judging him, and he couldn’t help but wonder what he looked like to her. Did she consider him a lowly being? Did she despise him for the fact that he clung to whatever was left of his old life? Did she inwardly sneer because he hadn’t been able to completely hide the signs of his undead nature, because he still acted human, even though he was not? Most of the Nuit he had met had considered themselves superior to those that called pulsers and sought to sever the ties to their old existence, but to him this was the only kind of life he knew. He didn’t want to be anything else, but tried to find a compromise, something that still allowed him to be Varian of the Snowsong Hold. He tried to estimate her age, but found that he could not. The way she had so expertly made up her face suggested that she had been undead for a while, as did the care with which she moved, but he couldn’t say whether she had been like that for a few years or decades. He doubted that there was a way to correctly estimate a Nuit’s age. Eyes that flashed with a hint of yellow – a clear sign of curosity, even though it was mixed with caution – followed her as she sat down next to him. He hadn’t been so close to another one of his kind since he had left Sylira nearly overnight. There was something about it that made him vaguely uncomfortable, an entirely human emotion. „Music tends to have the opposite effect on me“, he told her. „It distracts me while I’m playing, but afterwards I am calmer and can focus more easily. Why does it mean that I haven’t found something else to do yet in your opinion? Is music not as eternal as we are? Why did you stop playing whatever instrument you were playing?“ The words might have sounded slightly accusing under different circumstances, but in this case the tone of the former Vantha’s voice was calm, and he spoke without judging her. His eyes were still the same shade of yellow as before, curious about the first Nuit he had met since he had arrived in the city where he had lived as a mortal man.

[Malia]

She hadn’t paid attention to his eyes before, but when they flashed yellow, it reminded her of the special color changes a Vantha’s eyes underwent. Color meanings were individual, so she couldn’t be sure, but something inside him had changed. During her stay she hadn’t had enough time to use that fact to her advantage, but she did pay attention to it. Just in case, and for practice.

And although his words didn’t sound accusing in the slightest, she couldn’t help but stay silent for a while. She had to contend her mind, to focus on the message she wanted to get across. Whenever the goal went amiss, Malia realized that she was strangely lost, as if nothing mattered, as if everything mattered. What was so hostile about music that she refused to answer his questions? She probably couldn’t stand it, being outwitted by someone who was centuries younger and still more like a pulser than a Nuit.

Then, she mentally took a step back. Analyzed the words he had used. Focus. Eternal. There was no doubting that, music was eternal, had persevered throughout the centuries and survived the Valterrian. But one could say the same for dozens of other things, language, culture, fashion even, if one wanted to think like a pulser.

“Why music?” she suddenly mused. “Music doesn’t solve problems. Music is only a pastime and entertainment for those who can afford to spare the time to listen to it.” And then she fell silent again, weighing her options. She had stated her opinion – exactly what he had wanted from her, right?

While speaking her gaze had lingered in the white environment stretching out all around them, but after a moment or two her eyes met his again. They might be a little bit too close for his liking. Certainly for hers. Leaning back brought a few inches between them. That was when she returned to his last question. “Because there was something else I had to do... What keeps you from committing suicide, here and now? You already are half dead.”

Abrupt? Not for her. Although she didn’t know what she would have done if Tanroa hadn’t visited her, she imagined a pulser in her situation would have tried to rid the world of his existence. There was nothing left to live for, was it?

But Malia persevered because time erased her emotions. Little by little, she emptied out. Only logic and reason would be left at the end of the eternal day.

[Varian Snowsong]

„Why not?“ he asked. She didn’t seem to understand the choices he had made and the things that moved him. She had to be new to Avanthal, very new, otherwise she would have realized by now that music, that stories played an important part in this society. Even though he wasn’t technically Vantha anymore, but something else, he still thought like one. She on the other hand, seemed to be almost hostile in this regard. It was an attitude that he found hard to understand, an attitude that he didn’t really want to understand. „Music can solve problems“, he disagreed with her. "It can make people calmer. It can make them more courageous or make them tremble with fear. It can make them cry or laugh with joy. It’s not just a form of entertainment. It’s a way of life, and it’s what keeps me going.“ His voice was still calm and gentle. He wanted to make her understand. It was important that the first Nuit that he had met here didn’t disapprove of him. There were some aspects of his condition that only another Nuit could truly understand, that he could only really talk to about with one of his kind. „The world would be a sad place if there was no music, if there was no entertainment, if all that people did was struggle along, work hard and eventually die. What is there to live for if art doesn’t exist?“ What kept him from committing suicide? It was a good question. Sometimes he wanted to die, despite the music and everything, but those moments when he despaired were becoming less and less frequent, although he still dreaded the day when he would have to exchange this body for somebody else’s corpse. „I want to know more“, he slowly replied and met her gaze. He noticed that she had moved a little away from him. Was she suddenly uncomfortable as well? Or did she want him to relaxe in his presence? Did a creature such as her even care about the feelings of a man that was still more pulser than undead? „I want to collect all the songs there are, all the stories, and I have eternity to do so now. Even though it might only be a pastime to you, it’s everything to me. Don’t you think that there are some songs that should be preserved for those that come after us?“ Music wasn’t the only thing that kept him from killing himself right now. There was also a wolf, a wolf that sometimes took the form of a woman, a wolf that he had met only recently, but that was something that wasn’t meant for her ears, at least not now. He doubted that a lot of Nuit chose such a being as a companion. As she stated that he was already half dead, his eyes darkened – he didn’t really like being reminded of that - and he nodded curtly. „So are you“, he said to her. „What keeps you going? Why don’t you kill yourself?“

[Malia]

The other Nuit wasn’t as hot-headed as the most pulsers she had observed which she saw as a good sign. Mental strength would help him to survive time and change, although it was too early to say for sure whether he’d persevere or not. Too many possibilities.

Now to return to the discussion... “Still, music doesn’t solve things, not directly. When there is something that has to be done, music can’t solve it for you, can’t fend off your enemies.” Of course, it was simple and a little crude, no real explanation. Even though she might have had enough time, Malia had never indulged in such questions. What was art, what was music? What was worth to be preserved? She didn’t know. They were things of the pulsers, transitory, ever changing, emerging and vanishing without a trace. “There is more to the world than art.”

Even though she didn’t understand, probably didn’t want to, that was not to say that she disliked the other Nuit. In fact he instilled a vague sense of curiosity in her. Gathering information, hoarding random bits of knowledge was something she almost did automatically. Watch and ask and learn. Was it a concept the Master had taught her? Still, he had left her oblivious... to keep her safe.

“Thirst for knowledge is no crime. What kind of knowledge you seek is your decision. You never know what might be of use later.” When his voice was calm, hers was monotone. She spoke without stopping, no need for catching her breath, in one stable stream of words. The musician would probably find it quite the opposite of music, lack of melody.

And oh, how many times had others asked her the exact same question! “There is something I need to do. Someone I have to find. What is your name?” Being a pulser at heart, he’d find nothing strange at the question, but to Malia it carried a significant meaning. Asking for his name meant that she’d remember it. Knowing his name meant that she was interested in knowing more. Data, data, data.

[Varian Snowsong]

„No, music can’t do things for you“, he agreed. „It doesn’t solve problems directly. But it can fend off enemies, sometimes. It can fill their hearts with fear and make them reconsider their decisions. My people, the Vantha, have stories of bards whose, whose music was so great that the gods themselves wept and the evil beasts dropped dead at their feet.“ Once he had dreamed of becoming such a man. He had been vain and bursting with self confidence. He had thought that he would become famous, that his people would consider him a hero one day, that they would still tell his stories in a hundred years. But nobody would ever tell the stories of a dead man. „What is there besides art?“ he wanted to know. „Love?“ Sometimes he felt something akin to love for the wolf, but he couldn’t love another being like a human could. „We are cold and dead inside. We cannot have children, and we do not truly age. We are parasites that move from body to body. We cannot be warriors for our wounds never heal. Art and the gathering of knowledge is all there is left to creatures like us. And no, thirst for knowledge isn’t a crime, as long as you do not use that knowledge to commit a crime. Every kind of knowledge can be of use.“ He found her manner of speaking strange. She spoke without stopping, without any kind of inflection in her voice. Each word sounded the same. Would his voice become like that one day? Would he lose the ability to fill his words with feelings – or would he simply stop caring? „My name is Varian, once of the Snowsong Hold“, he introduced himself. What did she think of the fact that he had returned to the place where he had lived as a mortal man? Did she disapprove? Did she even know that his name was a Vantha name? „What is it that you need to do? Maybe I could help you, ...“ He paused, as if he were waiting for her to give him her name. „I’m familiar with this part of the world and the people that live here.“

[Malia]

Stories, stories. They were tools just as music and the arts were, designed to teach children what good and evil and bravery and crime and punishment meant, what they needed to do to be loved by others and why not to make mistakes. However, everyone made mistakes. Besides, stories weren’t scientific treatises: Nobody knew how much was true and how much added or forgotten later. Was he saying that he took them seriously?

Yet his opinion shone too brightly for her to comment. Who was she to convert him from his beliefs? Nothing good would come from it.

“There are other battles to fight that do not require physical weapons”, she interrupted. Her voice sank to the bottom of her feet as she tilted her head and red hair overshadowed her features. He would only barely understand what she had said. The Kalivant’s pommel dug into her skin between the fabrics.

Once of the Snowsong Hold. Wanting to roll her eyes, she suppressed the urge and shook her head instead. Avoiding his gaze, all the while looking at her feet and the cold white snow. “I am Azola. Have you heard of someone who goes by the name of Kahnikivas? Has he recently visited the North or is there a story about him?” Despite the peculiar origins of most tales, there was almost always a grain of truth to them, and Malia intended to utilize every option she had, look everywhere until she had finally tracked him down.

Interlacing her fingers, she tried to ignore the fact that her hands were shaking.

“What advantage does long life hold for us? What does it make us, Varian?” Her gaze rose and observed him this time. She wanted to see the entirety of his reaction.