Strange Places, Strange People [Dor]

[Rorugir]

23rd Fall 511 A.V. Rorugir wasn't sure how he ended up in Surya Plaza, just like most of the other places he had visited that day. After waking up this morning without a clear purpose in mind, Rorugir had found the day consumed mostly by wandering and sightseeing. When asked his purpose for such, Rorugir would assert it was to get more familiar with the city, and while that was partially true, Rorugir was really just seeing the sights. Being so new to the city, excitment seemed to lay around every corner, each street hiding a new surprise for Rorugir to discover. And so Rorugir had discovered Surya Plaza. He briefly remembered it from his entrance to the city; he had passed through it when he had first entered Lhavit. However, at the time he had not spared much thought or glances towards it, a luxury he was happy to accept now. The plaza was large and square, lined on all sides by shops and restaurants. The imposing Koten Temple loomed over the square, though an atmosphere of tranquility seemed to proceed over the surroundings. A fragrant smell drifted from somewhere, one which Rorugir inhaled gratefully. It was all so new to him- the scents he had experienced thus far had been that of a cavern or a mountain range. The sweet, flowery smell he smelled now...like nothing he had smelled before. Just like everything else about this city. It was all so...strange. The last couple of days had passed in a stupor of wonderment interrupted intermittently by rationale and common sense. Up until this point, even after traveling through the Unforgiving, Rorugir had never realized what a sheltered life he had been living. While pangs for Sultros still pierced him now and then, he had never felt more sure about his decision to leave. A shiver went down Rorugir's body as a cold wind echoed across the plaza. Winter was coming, that was for sure. Just one more new thing to experience, then. Rorugir hugged his arms close and moved down the plaza, breathing on his hands to warm them up. Nonetheless, he smiled as he moved across the Surya Plaza, feeling as though he was ready for anything.

[Dor]

The air tasted like maple leaves. It might have wept fluid through the peaks, but in the basin Surya Plaza made beneath the swell of the sky it crunched and skittered like chestnuts popping in a festival fire. All the green in the surrounding trees was beginning to bleed, save the staunch sentinel pines remained prickly and bright. No cooling wind could convert such stalwart creatures and within an ever shortening series of days they would be hunching up their needled shoulders to shawls of snow. Enraptured by the shifting seasons, precious kinas had slipped through Dor’s fingers, marked off with reluctance and grimacing, but in exchange an entire box of maple candle was obtained. It was with this box clutched close to her chest that she wandered through the crowd, immersing herself in the din of false companionship. A pair of weathered boots slouched from her knees, sporadically buttoned and half hidden by too large fall of her trousers. It created an unkempt image as the young woman shuffled and side stepped, progress slow enough to almost be indolent. A piece of sugary candy was crumbling in the tips of her fingers, nibbled on slowly so as to savor every morsel of the thick, syrup flavor. A braid held back the sides of blood rich hair, the rest tangled as was typical and there might have been a stray down feather caught in an end. She breathed in the aging air, sharp and clean, and carefully navigated her way through the miasma. It was shuffle, side step, stumble, shuffle, step. This was not a creature much accustomed to walking, let alone in shoes. She hated shoes, but it was cold and she was getting better at it, day by day, all the blood of her drop by drop. The world tapped at her wrists. “Oomph.” It was while looking up, up at the Up, up at the peaks, up at the star material soaring in shining constructs of men and gods, that she side stepped and smacked right into the chest of a stranger. Everyone in Lhavit looked up. It was a thing she had noticed ages ago. They were different skinned than the citizens of Kalinor who never seemed to see the truth through the pitch. The candy box crumpled and dropped, somwhat mangled, to their feet; and fierce black eyes caught Rorugir’s shock wide and startled.

[Rorugir]

In that annals of that single day, Rorugir had grow desensitized to the people who shared Lhavit with him. The exoticness of the inorganic surroundings had led him to simply ignore those who also walked the streets of the Diamond of Kalea. They had formed a living milieu to the wonders of the city itself, rather than being disparate entities themselves. They were nothing more than a backdrop. Or, at least, they were, until the woman crashed into him. "Oomph." At first, Rorugir didn't comprehend what had happened. It took a minute for his mind to detach enough from it's ramblings to understand that something had pounded into him. But when he did, a sharp breath escaped from his chilled lips and he took an involuntary step back, as startled as the woman who had committed the act. Rorugir and the stranger's eyes met, two black shadows colliding in midair. Rorugir's dark orbs, a product of his Isurian heritage, met fiercely dusky eyes, as dark as his, though product of a distinctly different heritage. A crumpled box, full of a sugary substance dropped from the woman's surprised hands; that, combined with the syrupy look about her mouth, and Rorugir's engaged attention, spoke legions to the reason they had collided. She was rather small and fine-boned, though not without a certain fiery beauty about her, accentuated by hair the color of blood. Her messy mouth and fingers contributed to an overall miasma of unkemptness, though it did not seem to be a consequence of poverty; no it rather seemed she simply didn't care about such things. For a moment, the two stood in a perfect equilibrium of shared shock, and then, abruptly, it shattered. Rorugir blinked once, twice. His initial inertia broken, he knelt to grab the box the other person had dropped, which he then proffered to her. "This is yours, I believe." were the simple baritone words that came from his mouth. "...Hopefully none of them are crushed."

[Dor]

The striking clarity of light that blanketed Lhavit caught against the silver toned veins stretching beneath the stranger's skin. It caused Dor's head to tilt to the side in an avian manner, a ruffle of hair spilling over her shoulder even as she made grabby hands at the crumpled box of maple candies. "What's in your blood?" She was instantly curious to know, forgoing or in careless ignorance of widely accepted manners that would have had her apologizing for having thwacked into him like a silly bird into a windowpane. "It is mine," she went on in a soft, surprisingly husky voice while lithe fingers clutched at the tattered edges of the paper box. Hunkering up teacup shoulders and ducking her chin, she pried at the lid to peek inside at the jumbled array of once artfully molded sugar treats. They were considered for a long moment, tongue sticking into the corner of her mouth, before she pried loose a piece that was yet still perfectly formed. This candy was offered on the flat of her hand, a tentative smile flickering at the corners of her mouth as she sought the stranger's gaze. This was apology, then.

[Rorugir]

She snatched the box from Rorugir's proffered hand a little bit faster than he expected, causing him to freeze for but the merest second. He drew back his hand hastily, in just enough to time to hear the woman speak: "Eh? Um, my blood is pure Isur, or at least that's what I've been told." Rorugir said, caught a bit off-guard by the odd question. "And- and yours?" He watcher the girl look into the box of candies, inspecting them. She took an awfully long time, but when her hand emerged from the container once more, it held one artfully shaped maple candy within it which had managed to survive the impact with the pavement. With an odd tilt of her head, the girl proffered it back to Rorugir. She smiled tentatively at him. Rorugir, looking between the small smile on her fact and the offering, understood the gift for what it was. He gave her a smile in return and accepted the gift, the dull heat of the freshly-made treat doing wonders with his cold hand. For a minute, he simply savored the candy's warmness, and then, under the stranger's watchful gaze, he took a bite of the candy. It was delicious. After scarfing down the candy, Rorugir turned back to the fiery-haired girl whom he had collided with. "So sorry about what just happened back there." he said, doing his best to be open with her in lieu of a return offering. "My name's Rorugir."

[Dor]

An alien intensity lived in the young woman's regard, hooked fiercely as it was upon the Isur while he consumed her gratitude, unexpectedly sweet. Though the wind ruffled against the faithless walls of their shadows, she was still as the stone outcroppings carved into the bones of Lhavit's peaks. It was an attitude of observation at odds with her youthful countenance, suggesting an unwieldy combination of predator and ingenue. "From Sultros?" The question popped up along with her eyes, voice buoyant and small, exacting hands closing the wrinkled lid of the candy box. Her Common was embattled by an accent that both decorated and eroded the lips, tugging at the ends of otherwise crisp consonants until they fluttered and drifted, not helping in her attempts to master the language. Delicate eyebrows nettled and she rocked back on her heels in an subconscious gesture, either gaining a better look at the whole of him or requiring distance from the concept of Sultros. "That's in the belly of a mountain," she explained as if, perhaps, she expected it to explain anything at all. "Wind Reach is the mouth of a volcano and there is a hell called Hai buried beneath the sands in Ekytol. Why would anyone want to live there? Or didn't you? By choice?" The candy box shifted in her hands, overly occupying them. This was a girl who was used to communication attempts involving gestures and body language. "My blood's in a place like those," she confessed, narrow shoulder jolting up in a useless effort at dislodging plaguing thoughts. "And unlike them too. Dor," and here she smiled again, a bare breath and then it was gone.

[Rorugir]

A impulsive hand went up to scratch the back of the Isur's head, nervously working it's way through the thick stubble. His eyes worked over the figure in front of him, at once surprised and intrigued. While she was a study in stillness, he, Rorugir, fidgeted, wanting to look over this wholly exotic person in detail. However, out of politeness, he tried to keep his curiosity in check; for the most part, his examination was done with his eyes. "Where else would I come from?" The words, borne of an irritable nature, slipped from his mouth before he could silence it; mistake. Hardly the way to start a relationship. Rorugir grimaced nearly imperceptibly, then turned it into a smile for Dor. "Yes, I did come from Sultros, I mean. Why would I want to live there? Well, it can be a bit enclosed sometimes...but the caverns, the walls, they're comforting. Keeps everything tight, that is." Rorugir paused for a moment. "I guess that's why you always got to break away from it in the end, huh?" The amount he was revealing was surprising, even to Rorugir. Isurs weren't known for their openness; in fact, exactly the opposite was true. As was natural, Rorugir felt bound by unsaid laws of secrecy and what should and should not be said. However, this girl, completely open and direct, unlike his compatriots in Sultros, placed him in an entirely different situation, one he was not designed to cope with. In his shock, he found himself tripping over his own tongue as he talked like he'd never talked before. "'Fraid I never been to Wind Reach or any of those other places. I know Wind Reach by name only, and "Hai" is completely foreign to me." He cocked his head in a gesture eerily like Dor's own. "Have you been to these places, then?" A slight touch of envy tinged his tongue. The name she proffered then was at once exotic and completely expected. Given the girl's nature, Rorugir thought her name would be something unfamiliar to him, and that turned out to be the case. "That's an intriguing name...Dor. If you don't mind me asking, who named you? I'm Rorugir, of the family of Steelrune." he added. While he found himself increasingly open with his newfound friend, his clan name was one thing still sacred, still not to be revealed. That was exclusive for Isur alone.

[Dor]

“People just grow into the shape of the world that swaddles them,” she commented with a twist of her mouth when he spoke of the hot walls of Sultros comforting, containing. Did she think then of those souls she had known best? Of course, there was only one thus far whom she had known at all. All else was flotsam and vague, the limited amount of their hours together leaving but shallow imprints on the borders of her soul. People were careless with themselves, with each other, in her ever lofty opinion. They left marks, mostly dings and damages though occasionally etchings that ached with artistic beauty, on everything. They had been left on her. Of course, her’s was a soul more malleable that most. Or it would have been had one man not stood between it and the devouring black as long as he was able. Too much time had passed now for her too so easily be bidden. The unearthly stillness broke with a quiver not unlike the shaking of water from wings and she turned her head toward the northeast and the magnificence of Koten Temple. It soared as a glittering backdrop to the plaza and the fresh scent of the gardens was bourn to them by an errant breeze. Dark eyes slid sideways, taking Rorugir in, and with a slow tilt of her head she offered him an invitation. “No, I don’t go to those sorts of places,” she answered while clomping and puttering her way in the direction of the temple’s garden rows. Graceful, she was not. Birds rarely were when trying to walk. Frankly, she might have gotten around better by hopping, but she was determined. There was little quite like the ferocity of a predator’s ambitions. “My mother named me,” Doryn Hardai, “Another shortened it.” And she liked her full name best in the mouths of those two mentioned, the only ones who had ever known it. She had not even said it aloud herself. Not once. One day. When she found someone else’s mouth she’d like it in. “Steelrune is a pretty name,” she decided. “What’s a rune?”

[Rorugir]

"Very true." he murmured in response to her philosophical comment. "Though some chose to reject the world that swaddles them." Memories. Of dark caves, of bright valleys. Of destroyed caravans, hungry eyes in the night. The woman's words, so strange and yet so familiar, brought them on, assailing Rorugir's mind. Whatever she was, this creature who called herself Dor, she was like nothing he had encountered before. And was he okay with that? One voice said no, another, yes... The ringing broke through the Isur's musings, bringing him firmly back to the present. He too turned his head to the Koten Temple, though one eye remained entrenched in Dor's visage. Rorugir's dark lips twitched, as she turned back to him. One eyebrow raised as he accepted her invitation, walking with clipped, even steps, in contrast to her unwieldy stride. "Strange. I took you for someone who might have been around this world." he said, following her into the gardens. The way she walked only backed-up his theory; something was off about Dor, something he couldn't quite put his finger on. She was like one of his memories, on the tip of his tongue, and yet so far away at the same time. Longing for it, trying to reach it, yet at the same time afraid to do so. "A rune? A marking, nothing more, nothing less. A writing made on stone instead of paper...archaic, really." Something entered his voice then, subtly changed it, as though he didn't quite believe the words he was saying. The garden was fragrant, even more so than what he had smelled them across the way, though that was nothing more than common sense. He inhaled deeply, graciously, and smiled. A turn of the head, and Rorugir was facing his strange companion once more. Revulsion and longing roiled within him, conflicting like two opposing armies. He started to say something, then cut himself off; turning away, he sat on a bench to the side, before finally speaking once more: "Mind if we sit? It's been a trying day, and, well..."

[Dor]

"A rune is a letter?" That was, at least, what the Isur's explanation translated to for her. It peaked her curiosity as, at his last question, she dropped straight down to the thick grass with legs crossing tailor style. The candy box was plunked on the ground and she tilted her face up, watching him with clear expectation. "Is it a letter for Sultros? Where you're from? Do you speak a different language than Common?" Years ago she had been taught the alphabet in a glowing orb, swallowed in the stalactite dwelling of an incredibly enigmatic physician. B is for bird. S is for spider. They were benchmarks of her history and ones her talons would never release. The had become of the bricks that had built her. "Did you have to run from Sultros?" The questions continued, a string of them drawn from her mouth like prayer beads to scatter in the air between them. A finger dug up a fresh, broken bit of sugar from the candy box to pop into her mouth. "Is that what you mean by reject? Or do you mean you rejected it, rather than it rejected you?" The maple sweet melted on her tongue, sliding sugary liquid down the back of her throat and she sucked on it rather than crunched. Elbows dropped to her knees and she gave an irritated tug on the button and hooks of her slouching boots. "No, not to those places at least," she mostly told the truth, horrible at it and thus unable to look at him when she said it; but speaking of her history was a thing she had a habit of shying from, though there were both times and people that were worse than others. "One," she revised, apparently her inability to lie catching up with her. "Never again, though. Why go to place that doesn't have an Up?"