A Blanket of Stars [Jilitse Please]

[Cosette Merryweather]

Cosette followed the other nuit, her nimble but steady steps betraying the near-perfect condition of her newly acquired body to the older nuit. "I'm not exactly sure how to put it, but... you're different. I can feel it." Cosette tapped her temple, a confident smirk playing on her lips. "My intuition rarely fails me."

"The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." Cosette had to agree with Jilitse's statement. Both the living and the undead wanted what they couldn't have and she suspected it would remain that way even long after she would perish and fade into obscurity.

"You haven't been talking to other nuits? I mean... you're on Sahova. I was under the impression that they ignored me because I was too weak." Cosette's disbelief was all to obvious in her face. How these people could refrain from interacting with the people around them frequently was beyond Cosette but perhaps it was one of those nuit things that she needed at least two centuries worth of experience to understand.

"Well, besides that near-impossible goal I'm trying to polish my cooking skills. I've been known to make some of the best hotpots back in Syliras and I heard that there are a few living mages here and I've been thinking of cooking for them. Master Farke thought it was alright as long as I don't get in anyone's way." Cosette was smiling from ear to ear now. The prospect of cooking again really appealed to her, she'd been away from the kitchen so long and this opportunity to make a few people happy really appealed to her.

"I'm also trying to pick up some self-defense magic. Morphing is useful and all but I don't want to be caught defenseless once I'm cornered. Do you know any self-defense magic? Could you teach me?"

[Jilitse]

She listened with earnest to Cosette, who proved to be amusing as any other human she had encountered. Acting like a human, as if that makes her less undead. "I don't talk to other nuits, I rarely do so unless I have to. It is hard to explain from somebody from the outside." She waved a hand of dismissal.

"A cook?" Jilitse almost forgot what cooking was, for centuries she had no need of food, and knowledge of food preparation was certainly useless for a nuit. Poor Cosette, finding her talents suddenly wasted. "If you meant to become a cook here, then it is almost impossible for you to even try to find a clue if being a nuit can be reversed." Cosette reminded Jil of how whimsical other people, or nuit, can be. "Every other nuit you will encounter here will plan behind your back and drag you into their own brainsickness - and that includes me." A slight laugh. "The only creatures who even dare think they can last in Sahova are either sturdy or stupid. Those who stay can be both, or neither, because they end up dead." Cosette, Jilitse thought, was more of stupid and will probably end dead. When that happens, she will cut off the nuit's bunny ears(if it can be done), embalm them and keep them as a toy.

Cosette wanted to pick-up defense magic - as if magic was something that could be bought from a store, a book that you can take off the library shelf. "You are talking to the wrong nuit. I'm just another servant. If you wish to learn, you have to go to a master. Magic is not something that you can pick up in Sahova. It is a very dangerous knowledge, and I would not take it too lightly." A slight frown creased her forehead. Cosette was probably the optimistic type - foolish to a point. "But I guess you will insist to learn and I would suggest voiding, I'm sure you must have heard of Master Aelobius. Only he might push you into the first portal you'll create, if only for the fun of it. If you find him too creepy you can find some of his best students. I highly doubt that they would have the ability to teach." Learning from a competent voider was still different from learning from a master. Magic was dangerous in its perfection, and even more so if its not.

[Cosette Merryweather]

"If I don't drag them into my optimism first." Cosette giggled, her ever-radiant demeanor showing through that pure and honest smile. "Besides, I'm already undead. I don't think I can suffer a fate worse than this, I'll just make the most out of the situation I'm in right now." Jilitse was probably right in her assessment of the neophyte nuit. She was probably as stupid as they came but she was also equally as stubborn as she was hard-headed, she'd made her mind about returning to the world of the living and it didn't matter if she had to die all over again to accomplish that goal.

"You're right, I know its not wise to learn from anyone else but a master... But you know I did learn how to morph off a book, Master Farke barely gave me proper instruction." probably because he was too busy contemplating whether the girl could make the cut in become a resident of Sahova. "I don't think it would be impossible to accomplish the same thing with voiding. I'll just borrow a book from somewhere and besides, Master Farke told me that Aelobius was a jerk." which wasn't exactly the way he put it though he painted a horrible picture of the master voider - one that fit the skeletal nuit to a tee.

"You know, even though you say you're just a servant you're bound to know a thing or two about magic. You've survived on this island as long as you have, you should know a trick or two. I'd like to learn whatever you can teach me, I'd make it worth your while too."

[Jilitse]

Jilitse watched as the last of the stars fell down from the sky. And she stayed there, motionless. Cosette was still talking to her, but the nuit witch paid no attention. She would go away after a while, she told herself. Jilitse wished she would.

After what seemed like hours of sitting like a rock, Jilitse stirred and descended. She brushed her robe which was a little moist from the sea. She ran a hand through her hair. It felt sticky and smelled salty. She liked the strong scent of seawater. It was time to return to the Citadel.

She sauntered slowly, taking in the breeze, and started to think of her gears back in the castle. Yes, a couple of rotating gears might do the trick. She entered the castle and avoided animated wagons and golems. It was late at night but the whole Citadel was still busy. But of course, nobody really slept. Down through endless corridors and hallways, Jilitse went into a common laboratory, and picked up a couple of gears from a nearby cupboard. She had worked on them early in spring, and had found no need for them. They were merely playthings, for practicing animation.

"Rotatlas." She said as she held out an open palm. There were three small round gears of equal sizes, and a fourth twice as big as the rest. One of the smaller gears spun a good speed as she whispered. She ordered it to stop before she picked it up, separating it from the rest.

She cleared some space on a messy table, another nuit must have worked on it. There were papers and bottles and the smell of burnt chemicals. A portion of the desk revealed a combustion mark on the table, an impressive indication that something went wrong with the experiment. She pushed the bottles aside - one fell of the table - and dusted the table top. She laid the three gears on top of a dirty cloth and the fourth, the animated one, on a small glass plate. And then Jil went to find a bottle of ink and a usable brush.

The nuit then pulled a stool closer to the table, and set a piece of paper on top. She made sure there were no creases on the parchment, or unwanted dust. The most minute of specks can cause disaster. She held out her paint brush and a length of thin wood which was slightly trapezoid in shape. Uneven in size, but one of its longer sides was straight and smoothened.

She ticked of a couple of places in the parchment and then slowly started drawing a circle.

[Cosette Merryweather]

Jilitse was suddenly unresponsive and Cosette was no stranger to this behavior, the few nuits she'd met in her time, including herself manifested this expression in moments of sheer disinterest or during a breakdown. Cosette suspected it was the former, Jilitse had mentioned suicide but if she was going to commit suicide then why was she now walking in the direction of the citadel.

Left with little to do Cosette decided to stubbornly stick by one of the few nuit who would talk to her on the island though she made sure to tail after Jilitse at a comfortable distance at an attempt to give the woman some personal space.

As they moved into the citadel, through hallways and tunnels Cosette had only seen for the first time she had to wonder where the other nuit was leading her. Surely she wasn't bringing her into some trap? Cosette caught herself before her ideas wandered to that avenue. She was starting to act like everyone else, doubting people, giving them ulterior motives. While Farke would have probably encouraged that train of thought Cosette didn't want to give up on people just yet, she wanted to believe in the goodness of people's hearts.

Finally Jilitse had led Cosette into a large laboratory, one designed for public use though it probably saw little action. Mages were naturally secretive of each other's works and there was no way they would build a masterpiece in this place, only people practicing or doing something mediocre enough to be ignored would work here.

"Rotatlas..." she'd seen similar looking things once, inside a windmill, they were the things driving it to work, turning a vertical motion into a horizontal one.

Cosette silently observed the other nuit and noticed the other's attempts at brushing off dirt and dust. Whatever this was, magic or alchemy, Cosette suspected that it was critical that everything be in order, things couldn't be out of place or she'd be witness to how burn marks were left on the this table.

"World Magic?"

[Jilitse]

One trick that Jilitse had learned from a book was how to draw a near perfect circle. It involved drawing a perfect cross, and measuring an equal distance from the center. She would then have to draw an arc to connect the four points, and this was where it gets tricky. Often her drawing would look like a lopsided circle, sometimes it even appeared to more square than not.

It took her several repetitions before wondering if a perfect circle can be made by joining all the points that were equidistant from the center-point. So she tried just that. One point here, one point next to it. And she continued, careful not to scratch her paper with her piece of wood.

Of course, the attempt was unsuccessful. The ink smudged, the measurement off by a small space. That meant she had to try again on a clean paper. She tried it again, and again. And on her fifth try she was able to produce a dotted circle. She deftly brushed ink over her guide, and proceeded to inscribe glyphs.

It took time, and she had to draw another circle right beside the first one. Which proved to be a harder task because an error meant she would have to redo the first circle. She didn't complain, she just silently drew.

After long hours of attempting to create two equal circles, Jilitse finally produced the right drawing. She drew glyphs on both, taking extra care in writing.

And then she took out a slab of wood with a flat surface, and started tracing her circles on it. When she had completely copied the ritual circles, she set down one gear on the circle. She then took the other animated gear and set it on the other circle. She stood up to get a lit candle and a small pointy object.

The nuit pricked her finger and a dot of ichor appeared. She let it drip on the circles, and started a quiet incantation in the ancient tongue. The inscribed circle glowed.

"Rotatlas." The other gear started rotating on its place. Slowly, the gear on the opposite circle started to tremble. In quiet concentration, Jilitse ordered the new gear to rotate.

It did not.

Instead, it flew out of the circle, as if some force threw it out. Jilitse moved her body aside, and turned to find that another nuit was struck by the small metal object.

[Cosette Merryweather]

It was dreadfully boring business, watching Jilitse try to create a perfect circle and if she had been anything other than nuit she might have been inclined to drift off to sleep. As it was she just watched the mage in mild curiosity as she worked through these few hours until she finally achieved the set-up she'd been trying to reach.

Finally something was going to happen and with renewed interest Cosette stared at the gears wondering what they were supposed to do. All this work was building up to this one moment when the wheels would sink into each other and move in their place. How and why this would happen Cosette couldn't understand but she was also acutely aware of the fact that things could go horribly wrong somehow and that kept the girl on her toes.

Jilitse's sudden movement had spurred Cosette to take a step back but when she saw that sprocket flying in her direction she unconsciously lifted up her hands to shield her. And then her sudden fear of injuring this new body caused her to panic. That sudden impulse to protect herself resulted in a near-unconscious reaction on her part, her golden hair whipped out from behind her, every strand acting like tendrils as they shot in front of her face converging into a tight weave of golden threads strong enough to resist the gear's momentum.

The gear fell on the floor with a dull thunk and her hair disengaged from the weave, still flowing wildly in the air. Frowning she tried combing down the golden strands with her fingers though the djed flowing through them were making them unpliable, every strand seemed like it was floating of its own accord and slowly, with Cosette cutting off their djed supply every strand went limp, returning to its original stagnant form.

"Maybe I should bring a shield next time." she said, a nervous smile lingering on her lips.

Suddenly the world became lopsided and it felt like someone was pulling the floor off from under her feet. This was what she'd been warned about, mild overgiving, something she'd experienced once before. It wasn't like real overgiving where the side-effects were permanent, she'd certainly recover after a night of lethargic sleep but she hated the migraine that would hammer at her for a few hours after this.

Cosette had to support herself on a table and her breathing grew ragged and hard, even though she didn't need air at all. Her human instincts hadn't died with her body it seemed. "Sorry, I'm not supposed to use magic that quickly. I'm just a little winded."

[Jilitse]

There was a curious surprise to her when she saw the bunny girl used magic. " "Cosette, was it? I thought you I left you earlier." But it doesn't mean you didn't follow. A hint of a mad chuckle. "Welcome to the Common Laboratory, 1G."

"You're lucky I wasn't working on something more... dangerous." A slight malice to her voice, "You think you can pop in here and learn? You'll find yourself without a toe or a limb or an eye if you're not too careful." With the wrong kind of actions, the other girl can be hauled towards the specimen laboratory, what with the bunny ears and tail. She stood up and went and picked up the fallen gear. A slight annoyance. Where had she gone wrong? Perhaps the timing was not right. There was not enough concentration, not enough flowing djed. There must be an obstruction to the flow, somewhere. She ordered the rotating gear to stop.

She stared at the little gear in her hand and tossed it by the table. It failed. It was a useless piece of scrap metal.

She tried her luck with the next small gear. This, too, failed. It rotated alright, but it kept on tilting to one side. Maybe she was too distracted to work right now. Ah, but there was a last piece. She would try this one, and be done for the night.

Not about to give up, she took the fourth, and bigger wheel. It was the size of her palm, and it had teeth. She turned, only to find the stubborn Cosette still watching intently. "If this spirals towards you again, it's not my fault. I told you I'm not the one to teach you magic. I even doubt you'll learn anything."

She had to squeeze her finger to let the ichor flow out, and this time she kept her focus. Focus. Think of the rotating gear and nothing else. An almost invisible mist hovered over the two circles, and Jilitse started the incantation once more. This time she murmured slower, making sure that she pronounced the words right, with the proper inflections.

Once she was able to stabilize her concentration, she ordered the rotating gear to start spinning. Slowly, the bigger sprocket turned in place. A perfect copy! Jilitse felt a small triumph. She then taught it to stop. Contented, she drooped her shoulders lazily.

Turning to Cosette, she said, "Well, I'm going to take some time off. I'm sure you can find your way out?"

[Cosette Merryweather]

Perhaps she shouldn't have been smiling but Jilitse's threats weren't really getting to her. Cosette recognized the dangers in laboratory experiments though they were eclipsed by the horrible magic that was used on her by that man who had turned her.

With the worst of the headache slipping into the background of her consciousness Cosette pulled herself up from the table, a hand resting on her hip and the other stroking the rabbit ears into its natural position over her head.

"Since you're going to take a break do you want to join me?" she chimed, her voice all sunshine. "I'll be visiting the common library, there's a book I'm interested in... unless of course you have something else to do."

"I can probably retrace my steps going back from here but if you know a short cut to the library I'd really appreciate it Jil."

[Jilitse]

Jilitse seemed attracted to Cosette's furry ears. Not that she found it beautiful, she even thought that the other nuit's skill at morphing was that of a novice. Why would one fail to morph completely, if not for the lack of expertise? The rabbit's fur hit her with a growing sense of nostalgia.

Cosette invited her to the library. Jilitse was taken aback, nobody ever did invite her to do anything. But then Cosette was not really a Sahovan nuit, which explained why she was nice and polite. She wanted to turn down the other girl's offer, but what was she to do? She was actually heading to the library to read The Principles of Engineering. There was an old copy that she had used a few days ago.

She just stared at Cosette for a while, face blank. She did not want to be mistaken as friendly.

"In truth, from here you can go through six different routes to get to the library. I am also on my way there. I prefer to walk above ground. The underground passages that lead to the library are often filled with poisonous gases." It was not the gas she worried, but the laboratories and specimens Cosette might see. She did not like the thought of revealing more of Sahova's tunnels to an outsider. "Let's take a special shortcut I take all the time." Which was of course, a lie.

And she placed the two working gears on the pocket of her robe, and gracefully walked out of the laboratory. They walked by a bridge which had a boring scenery of Sahova's plains. The vast space outside looked dull yet menacing. Far beyond was the view of seawater, where the silhouette of a boat could be seen sailing slowly. Dawn was about to come.

After a while of turning left and right, they descended down a stairwell that was connected to a hallway that led into the Library's entrance. As Jilitse opened the door, a small golem with a stack of books wheeled by, followed by a rather handsome nuit.

Jilitse stared ahead, without a glance at the other wizard. She pushed Cosette out of the way. "Back off," she whispered, "Hurry and follow me."

They went inside, and they were faced with towers upon towers of bookshelves. The place had a weird atmosphere, and it was anything but scholarly. The air smelled faintly of decay and old books, and groans and moans can be heard from behind one of the bookcases.