Alter My Ego (Victor)

[Laszlo]

Fall 26th, 511AV Roughly Midnight Twist. Turn. Spin. Click-click-click. Twist. He'd rather be sleeping. The mountainscape of Kalea was still fresh in Laszlo's mind and he wished it would leave. For the whole of his trek to Alvadas, he'd put real effort into forgetting his time in Kalinor, and letting go of a past that ceased to matter to him. Now he wanted to forget having to forget about it. The crisp mountain air was still chill on his skin, and the smell of the Kalean wilderness (a mixture of pine and dust) still clung to his nostrils. Memories were bothersome, old and new ones alike. Even if he had gotten any sleep, he knew he would simply begin dreaming about the life of the Symenestra Vethis Orthilia, a man who by every right died decades ago. What was the point of remembering if you couldn't go back? Click-click. Turn. Now he was exhausted, weary from remembering and weary from travel. Laszlo had tried to get some sleep, but the Cubacious Inn wouldn't let him. His room was moving. He had been sure of it. At first, his bed had vibrated, and he heard rumbling. Not quite asleep to begin with, he decided to investigate. When he rose out of bed to ignite a nearby lantern, he swear he felt the floor shift beneath his feet and he lost his balance, stumbling into a shelf. An object had tumbled across the floor then, knocked loose from the force of impact. Now that the sun had set, Laszlo's night vision had become especially keen. It was a toy, a puzzle cube made of several smaller cubes that all rotated on an axis. It certainly didn't belong to him, but he didn't remember it being in his suite when he'd moved in. Deciding its origin didn't matter, he picked it up, very mildly fascinated. When he realized he wasn't going to get much rest any time soon, Laszlo left his inn room and returned to the main lobby, the puzzle cube in his hand. Most of the lanterns were out, so the majority of the light came from the moonlit windows. No one else seemed to be about, but Laszlo felt better being in the open than he did confined to his room. The isolation made him feel claustrophobic, and though the empty lobby wasn't much better, he feared he'd get lost in the city if he left the inn itself. Twist. Click. Spin. So here in the moonlight, the Ethaefal had found himself a chair to lounge in. His thin, spidery form was draped sideways over the seat cushion, with his head resting against one arm of the chair, and his legs dangling over the other. With Leth in prominence, he was Symenestra, and his silver hair glittered while his pink skin had become a dull grey. Held between his delicately sharpened black claws, he twisted and toyed with the puzzle cube in his lap. The repeating clicks that sounded as he turned the cube's faces were the only thing that broke the silence of the room, apart from his soft breathing. Bored and passing time, Laszlo had more or less conceded the fact that he'd be counting the hours until sunrise, when his fatigue would finally melt away as Syna renewed his celestial form and he'd be freed from his earthly wants. Then the front door opened. Click-click. Having already been in this spot for a bell or two, Laszlo was not as surprised as he thought he might be if someone walked in on him. In fact, he realized he'd been hoping for company. Without turning his head, he looked up from his puzzle. The light reflected in his sensitive pupils gave the appearance that his eyes were eerily glowing, much like a cat's, but it was really just the angle at which one looked at them. Yet they shimmered, curious, as they examined the stranger with cautious interest. "Hello," Laszlo greeted dully. He twisted the puzzle again. Click-click. "Who are you?" he added, somewhat awkwardly. He had meant to ask the question in a more demanding and hostile tone, but at the last second decided that there was no reason to scare the stranger off. He was starving for a little conversation.

[Victor Lark]

The wet leather around Victor’s feet slurped against the carpet.

He had been so close to the Inn, earlier that night. After wandering for hours following what was supposed to be a short sight-seeing stroll, he had finally found it: a quarter of the rising moon cut out by the sharp shadows of cubical corners. But as he neared, he thought he heard a peculiar whirring sound. They were moving—no, spinning. The four suspended ends of those giant cubes were revolving around each other at an alarming speed; he would not dare approach them, much less reach the door. Unsure of what he had witnessed and too naïve to consider it an illusion, the confused tourist had escaped onto another street and warily resumed his search.

The door squealed its welcome and clicked behind him.

An uncountable measure of time had passed without consequence when he turned a corner to find an impossibly smooth road. It shined in the moonlight like a mirror, casting the faintest white glow on the adjacent buildings. Without anyone to watch him, he approached it with necessary caution. The slick surface gave under his weight, leaving him to tread through a long and calf-high puddle of what he could only hope was water. At the other end of the street, a pair of steps led benignly to an avenue of regular stone, and he was allowed to go on his way. Glancing back left him with the sight of a perfectly average and reasonably dry lane of cobblestones, but the cotton around his ankles was still soaked through.

When he turned to greet the man that had spoken, there was already a smile on his face.

The moon had reached its height when he stumbled across his chosen home yet again; that time, it was satisfactorily stationary. Victor was not sure he would ever decide what to make of the streets of the city he once called his favorite, or whether he would ever return to his bed in a timely manner. But by the time his long walk had ended and he was allowed the happy solace of discovering his destination, he decided that he did not care. The city was a masterpiece, her god an artist. Victor might have liked to be that sort of artist.

“I am a lot of things!” He replied, finding himself in a riddling mood. He trudged to the stranger with weary feet, but a bright expression. It only faltered when he noticed the look of the Symenestran face: uncolored skin wrapped around pale purple eyes like vapid pools of instinct—but no, that man was not like the half-woman whose fangs were still a pair of fading circle-stains on his wrist. There was something to be unlocked in them, almost like a human’s. Almost. The lingering slant of a grin on his lips grew wide and cordial; the plush seat gasped beneath him as he sat. It did not have the gall to object to the wet shoes that perched on its arm as his knees rose up to his chest.

Only when he was comfortably situated did he actually oblige the question. “My name is Victor Lark. Who is asking?” Then he looked idly at the window. As he allowed his lungs the sigh they craved, the laughing mercury of his eyes remembered to be tired. Upon drooping downward they noticed the toy in between a set of oddly proportioned fingers. “And what is that?”

[Laszlo]

Who is asking? Laszlo mulled the question as he watched the stranger, Victor, making himself comfortable in the darkened lobby like it weren't the middle of the night. It was the first time, Laszlo realized, that he'd met someone outside Kalinor in his Symenestran form. Others had seen it, of course, but only after they had known his less imperfect day phase. They knew him as Laszlo, the Ethaefal. Laszlo, son of Syna. Laszlo, the lost. Victor Lark, however, had no idea that this spidery, lanky thing reclined sideways over a cushy chair was not truly a Symenestra. To simply say nothing on that matter, to just give his name, would be a lie by omission. He'd be allowing this stranger to think that Laszlo was something he wasn't. And who cared, honestly? Yet… the idea of having a cultural identity, even a fake one, was a little enticing. As an Ethaefal, he was alone. As a Symenestra, he had a history of existence. Why was he thinking so hard about it? "I'm not sure," Laszlo responded dully, though he smiled softly at the human's peculiar energy. With the flick of his arm, he tossed the object casually in Victor's direction. It had already entertained the Ethaefal for roughly an hour, and now he was tired of it. "A toy I found. Some sort of game or puzzle, I reckon. I think the object is to make the patterns match on all sides. I've only managed two out of the six." Laszlo laced his fingers together on his stomach as he watched the raven haired man. "Keep it, if you want. It's not mine." A puzzle. A game. The words suddenly had such alluring significance to him. A mischievous little idea came to mind, and one side of his mouth curled into a smile. A puzzle. A game. Why not? "I'm Vethis. Vethis Orthilia." Pretending to be someone else, someone who actually existed with a life and loved ones, might be fun for a while. Laszlo's reflective, amethyst eyes shifted downward, spying the wet stain Victor was gifting to his chair. He tilted his head. "Was it raining outside?"

[Victor Lark]

The toy was lighter than he had expected it to be. Its pieces moved smoothly as he turned them, ruining what little progress the man had made. It amused him for a matter of seconds, but he was not fond of games that did not include other people. He looked up briefly at that odd, pallid face as it spoke at him, cradling the thing pecariously between his knee and fingertips. Keep it, he’d said. Victor shrugged and gave it another glance. Seven might like a puzzle, a game for his mind. Victor’s wandering eyes found the stairs. He should have returned to bed, or at least made sure that the man who shared his was content and asleep, but he didn’t really want to.

He took the name for what it was. Symenestra always came up with the most peculiar syllables. Victor cared little about the labels on packages.

“It was not,” he replied simply, but not unkindly. When he finally let his attention settle on the strange man in front of him, he swiveled to sit properly in his chair and left the toy on its arm. Then he leaned down to remove his shoes without another word about why they were soaked through, and possibly ruined. As the first popped away from his squelching sock, he said, “What brings you out to an Inn’s lobby so late?” With some tugging and rolling, he removed the black and greying sock, too. His fingers felt warm against his cold, pruning foot. Preempting the question’s reciprocation, he added, “It’s hard enough to find: you’d think everyone in it would be exhausted!”

His legs flipped over themselves and soon enough, Victor had made both his feet bare. They dropped to the cold ground and he grabbed the little cube where it had waited. As he leaned forward against his knees, the toy hung in the hands between them, forgotten again. He regarded Vethis more closely. This one seemed different, if only because he was so civil. Victor wondered if he prided himself on that difference. He did not consider that he was not, in fact, an expert on symenestra, having met two (and a quarter) in his life. “Maybe you prefer the nighttime. Though I’m sure there are places to go at this hour, things to see,” he suggested, attempting to hide the prying presumption beneath an expression of idle interest, “I heard your sort lived in holes in the ground, and yet you all seem to know something about stars.”

[Laszlo]

Crossing his arms over his chest, Laszlo rested his head back on the arm of the chair, fixing his eyes on a far side window. It wasn't raining, but Victor's feet were sopping wet. The entire lower half of his legs, actually. It looked more like he'd slogged through a fountain. Laszlo found it peculiar that Victor hardly seemed bothered by it. He'd assume that most people would be eager to complain about the discomfort and the inconvenience. Keeping his eyes fixed on the window, peering at the darkened city outside, Laszlo was glad that his unexpected company might be a little more interesting than most. "I have nowhere better to be," Laszlo replied with a shrug, choosing not to mention the strange quaking in his room. Even if it was real, and not some dream or city-induced illusion, he wasn't sure how he could begin explaining the happenings in his suite without sounding vague and overly worried. "I have a suite upstairs, but I couldn't sleep. Much too restless. New city, new bumps in the night, you must know how it is." As Victor shifted, Laszlo let his eyes drift back to the odd movement. It did so attract his attention when people shuffled around that way. Whether it was a latent predatory instinct, or something he did out of apprehension, he still hadn't decided yet, but he had grown used to it. The expression he wore on his gaunt and pallid face was clearly fatigued, but non-descript enough that it was friendly (if only because his Symenestra visage often held a permanent scowl). "I'm really more of a morning person," he corrected, tonguing a fang thoughtfully and staring up at the ceiling. It was fun, being misleading. "My cousins are better with stars. Me, not so much." As an afterthought, Laszlo landed his eyes on Victor. "I heard humans like to keep to their own. I'm surprised you know anything about 'my sort'. Tell me," he opened, pausing to unfold his arms and clasp his hands together behind his skull, giving himself a more comfortable headrest, "are you as ubiquitous here as you were in Syliras? I haven't been in Alvadas for more than a few hours."

[Victor Lark]

A supercilious look rose on his eyebrows upon hearing the symenestra’s impression of humans; they dropped in just enough time to make the sentiment known. Victor’s race was not the they, the other, the different. Nonhumans were just perversions and embellishments of the true race, and it was strange to hear them considered otherwise. Victor was not very good at hating them for it, though—at least, not men who spoke as humanly as this one. With a heavy inhale, he shrugged. “I’ve picked things up, here and there,” he explained. “As have you, apparently.”

The seat of his chair sighed again as he leaned against its back. He had not glanced away from Vethis even when his amethyst eyes strayed, and he did not move his gaze then. The stranger’s wandering look was not nervous, but idle—if not bored, then tolerant of boredom. Victor briefly wondered what kind of person he had to be, to spend a long night alone in a lobby with only an unsolvable puzzle for company. As his mind hasted for a conclusion in the brief moment of silence granted to him by the conversation’s lull, he did not notice that the metallic grey of his irises had swarmed with a pale purple sheen. A mirror of the symenestra’s eyes reflected out from between Victor’s dark lashes for a single moment, clinging to a caught thread of stray djed. Then he opened his mouth to answer and the shimmering gemstones around his pupils collapsed into their old steel.

“But no, unfortunately. The city is full of animals who could not appreciate its patron if they tried.” He carefully sidestepped the mistaken mention of that god with barely a beat. “There are Kelvics and snake-men and, well...”

He laughed. That this symenestra was an exception was still an unproven hypothesis. For fear of losing him for some misplaced sense of pride, he averted his words. He was grasping for straws, it seemed, but he did not mind; he was not tired. The beginning of a person was always the most interesting part. “Well,” he repeated, “Your morning’s not for a while, yet. What’s keeping you here? You don’t need a place to go to go someplace. If fact, you’re better off not having a place go, if you know what I mean!”

He could only suspect that the newcomer did know. It was hard to miss, the way the streets seemed not to agree with each other enough to associate for very long. The question was mostly rhetorical, an investigation more than a suggestion. Nonetheless, Victor’s cold toes curled against the carpet.

[Laszlo]

This human was strange. Victor had clearly noticed that Laszlo was different, but seemed more curious and intrigued than frightened or revolted. There was a hint of something there, a flicker of distaste, but it was shelved in favor of thoughtful curiosity. That was fine, Laszlo thought. It was far better than abject loathing. Laszlo revealed a lazy smile at the rambunctiousness in Victor's tone, as if the night were still young and there were still adventures to be had. The Ethaefal supposed that could be half true, but outside Kalinor, he'd grown used to keeping to himself once night fell. As a Symenestra, he was so much more fragile, not to mention despised. It seemed too risky to combine the two by showing his face around in public. It hadn't even occurred to Laszlo that the many wonders of Alvadas could be just as rich at night. Still, there was the possible threat of thieves and purse snatchers, or whatever nocturnal horrors haunted the streets after dark. Preoccupied with his thoughts as he stared at the changing lights through the lobby window, Laszlo failed to notice Victor's brief magic trick. When it belatedly occurred to him a moment later that Victor was extending an invitation, the Ethaefal turned back to him with an eyebrow arced in mild surprise. For a moment he thought he saw a flash of color in the man's cloudy eyes but... no, his vision must have still been adjusting. "Afraid of getting lost, I suppose. I don't know the city." He hadn't been in the city long enough to know the truth about the shifting streets, but he would learn soon enough. Laszlo shifted, sliding his legs off the arm of his chair and sitting properly upright as he placed his hands on his knees. "I think what I'm really afraid of though is getting lost on my own. I'm always alone," he added unintentionally; the pensive uncertainty in his tone might have been mistaken for melancholy. Laszlo tongued his fang again as casual prelude to his question: "Why? Do you have something in mind, Victor Lark? Didn't you return to the inn to sleep?"

[Victor Lark]

Victor laughed again, pulling his head to rest against his fingertips and itching his brow idly. He chided, “No one knows the city, Vethis Orthilia!” But then his unmoving eyes softened from their superficial joviality to something almost kind. His head fell frankly against the ball of his hand as he countered, “I think you’ll like it. You’re never alone in Alvadas. You’ll get to know the city like a friend, and maybe it’ll lead you to someone who will help you forget your loneliness.”

Alone. The scrutinizing human had indeed inferred a sense of longing in the word. He held onto it as if it were a toy, something akin to the little puzzle cube beside his arm, eager to twist it around and see what could be made of it. He would not waste much time in matching the first side—or maybe it was the point, to do just that. “I came to the Inn because it was the object of the journey,” he replied simply, with a sigh that might have been fatigue or annoyance. Whatever it was, it ended with a smile. “I’m not tired, anyway. I have a bed upstairs... I can be entertained there, but if you’d rather not be alone, I can entertain you here.” His grin morphed into something sly, but he did not move from his comfortable position in his comfortable chair. “Unfortunately, I have absolutely nothing in mind!”

Then he tore his gaze from Vethis’s and let it fall on the cube. He plucked it from its perch and began to finger its sides with no real purpose as he asked distractedly, “So what brings a Symenestra such as yourself all the way across the Unforgiven?”

[Laszlo]

Laszlo wasn't looking for pity, and whether or not Victor meant to sound sympathetic, he didn't much care that his acquaintance had taken such keen notice of his implications. His lip curled briefly as he sighed, absorbing Victor's prodding question. He strummed both sets of fingers across his knees restlessly, then stood up. "Nothing spectacular," came his belated, but smooth reply, threaded through a thin smile. Slipping one hand in his pocket, he lifted the other and casually inspected his curved, black claws. "Family matters, you could say. Very dreary business. Mostly, I had to get out of Kalinor. Not sure how long I'll be here." His hand fell to his side as he aimed his careful amethyst eyes at Victor. "If you'd like to chat, how about a walk outside in the fresh air? I wouldn't mind touring the city now that the crowds have dispersed. I've heard there's a house of mirrors somewhere in the city. It would be absolutely terrifying in the dark, at least for a human." There was an unusually adventurous gleam in Laszlo's eye. Some ancient fragment of predatory instinct his Symenestran mind found the prospect of watching a human floundering in the dark especially enticing. That wasn't to say that Laszlo himself would fare much better in a maze of endless reflections. In fact, with sharper eyesight, he might become even more confused with the amalgam of broken images. "What do you say to that?"

[Victor Lark]

Victor scoffed over a grin. What little he knew of Vethis painted him as a cool and discerning creature, but he had to reconsider those assumptions in order to excuse the insult for ignorance. He was not afraid. He reached down to the sopping cotton and leather at his feet and tugged them over his still-damp feet. He might have opted to go barefoot, if this were Syliras or Ravok, but where the street could turn to fire and needles, Victor could tolerate the noise and discomfort of his slurping footwear. As soon as he stood, he closed the distance between himself and the stranger and clapped a friendly palm to the side of that fragile ashen face.

“I say maybe I’ll show you the way there!” He replied, perhaps too eagerly. With a few heedless pats, his hand slipped to his side and he strolled towards the door.

The air outside was just as cool as he remembered it, but this time it did not seem to swarm around his knuckles and make them ache. Whether for the moment’s rest or the novelty of the company, a deep inhale filled Victor with fresh energy. “This way,” he said as if he knew, waving in one direction and then following his own command. He glanced back at his latest acquaintance and slowed to walk beside him. His gaze lifted upward, as if tied to a balloon. “What do you want with the house of mirrors, anyhow? Do you want to be terrified, or are you just vain?” A laugh told the joke in the inquiry. Eyes tied to the rooftops, Victor added with an idle hop, “I take it you’re not afraid of the dark.”