Fire and Shade (Dor, Elhaym)

[Duvalyon Hellebore]

"Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire." Noon on Day 75, Spring 512 AV It was prying him apart and it would not relent. It filled the plaza in a flat glare and radiated off the ground: terrible yellow pools of vulgar light. The high sun obliterated velvety shadows, making the world stark and parched. As he scanned the plaza, Duvalyon felt like he was observing a supernatural husk that would only grow flesh come evening. The height of the peaks twisted rays to their breaking point, dazzling the populace and making a hundred pinions in the Symenestra's back. Daring his eyes to adjust, he faced the light. It was a foolish challenge. His skin prickled and his eyes watered, remembering the first few days of near blindness outside Kalinor. He had lied smoothly to Laszlo then, assuring the Ethaefal he was fine and took such minute care to not not stumble. It was an exhausting charade, achievable only due to the alien grace of his kind. His burgundy cowl had been reluctantly given up. In late spring, a cloak drew more notice, defeating its obscuring purpose. Lhavit was a courteous city, and its inhabitants had greater fears since the djed storm than their cavern dwelling neighbors. None welcomed him, but neither did they act on the spite snapping from their eyes. The tree lined paths were minor respite from the garish noon. Even Syna in her highest seat could not dissipate the shade of gathered green. He found himself drifting towards them, remembering idly his ancestors once gathered in the boughs. The old blood who named themselves for flowers Duvalyon had mostly seen flat and dried. The old blood who were never troubled with the slow decay of their kind. Hellebore. That bloom he had seen once. Long leaves with serrated edges, delicate saws. And the flower, darker than its leaves, colored like blood under skin. Some said it was poisonous. It had made him chuckle at the time. Perhaps his ancestors were a bit more clairvoyant than the rest. Duvalyon shook his head, wondering if the sunlight was muddling his thoughts, causing them to twist into idle poses. He walked on and filled his head with colorless, pragmatic concerns. He gave other bodies a wide berth, not welcoming another encounter where he had to recite his benign purpose in visiting Lhavit. Some bodies were unmoving, lounging or perched on low walls. A quiet footfall was his veil and their distraction his shield. Bodies became silhouettes to him, bled of definition and color by his disinterest. They were drab chattering birds at best. Until one caught fire and terrifyingly, beautifully so. She was inelegantly folded over a book nested in her lap, sitting on the ground with both legs drawn in almost like a heron's. Her thick hair was now gilded, having absorbed the sunlight and ripened to harvest golds. A feather dangled from her temple almost brushing the pages. The plumage betrayed her more than the shape of her bowed curious face. Duvalyon slipped into shelter, letting a tree come between him and his view. For a foolish moment he considered climbing it and hiding in it boughs until nightfall. A single thought permeated his whole body: he could not be seen. She had been years amongst the sunlit races and no doubt heard the hollowing hatred in their voice for Kalinor and his blood. She had seen up, infinite, without shadow and mercilessly blue. She had seen dense limbs and flushed faces nearer her own reflection. The name "Widow" had likely crossed her lips with conviction the way "Azo" crossed his. She had once looked at him with something like love. He had loathed it on her face then, knowing the toxin it was, but it was not without worth. Perverse as her affection was, he-- he- The encroaching thought was snapped in two and Duvalyon fell on the broken shard, letting it wound him anew. No, a thousand times, no. Quiet as he came, Duvalyon turned back, moving towards the horrible brightness again. Better to be pulled apart interminably by the eyes of suns and strangers than withstand a single flinch of her disgust.

[Dor]

The struggle of literacy was softened in the lace work of green shadows. Sunlight dappled the pages of the book, slipping and then stilling on the page not unlike the travels of clouds in the sky. It made the familiar symbols and their strange combinations almost companions to the young woman who was more at home in the Up than within any walls. Maybe that was one of the reasons she had lingered in Lhavit, for only here were most all of the walls and roofs that blotted out the Up crafted, at least, from skyglass. It glimmered as reminder of all the stars that had stolen her breath when first seen and helped a soul that chafed at tethers and known no moorings since the gorge of Kalinor had swallowed up all of the innocence of her youth, dousing the flames they had become with a wet, monstrous mouth. The eruptive hour in which she had departed Kalinor, flying into the Up rather than crawling after Duvalyon Hellebore, was two years gone. The blood rich hue of her hair had been dusted in Syna's light, though it still seeped deep Virates' pools amid the cobwebs underneath. Nor was she was so well fed as her keeper had maintained, this now the body of a woman recovering from her second real wintering and gone lean in the aftermath of the mystical storm that had buffeted the peaks. Tanroa, however, was as tricksy a deity as the rains that fell from clear skies, disorienting and deadly. It was impossible to tell from what direction those waters came or not to imagine in the queer glory of their brevity what small miracles the puddles they left might wreak. As, while so very much was changed, the presence of Duvalyon Hellebore was still utterly impossible for Dor to miss. A deceptively fragile hand flattened against the pages of her book, pressing on accident too hard against the fragile binding. It cracked and memory assailed, floating like a down feather through the back of her mind of another book in another time at another place. All of which were far, far away from her, from here, from now. Only lightless eyes slipped sideways, traveling through the splotch and shadow arms of tree boughs across the gardened boulevard. The rest of her had gone still save for the flicker of wind fingers against the ends of hair, the fluff of a feather knotted there. Lips pursed, distant annoyance, huffing the tangle out of eyes meant for spying the cumbersome flights of small birds. It was his walk that betrayed him. Blood, Dor knew, always betrayed. The only god she had ever come too close to understanding had taught her that, and what it meant in blessing as well. Fingers hooked around the book, snapping it shut as instinct surged her to her feet, to the sky and flight which was aborted by the fact of human limbs having forgotten themselves. She stumbled, boots loose because she had never laced them, and near crashed on her face before catching balance with a hand from the shift of Lhavit's wind. Even when her wings were hidden, she understood the wind. Equilibrium gained, she tucked the book under an arm, her steps taken with greater care though they still stumbled in their lengthening strides. She had never been meant to walk; but of course she tried for him. Noon light haloed her when she fell into step with him at last, shoulder brushing his arm, hands digging into the pockets of low slung trousers. Heart beat in the back of her throat and she could smell his. "Hullo, Duv," she whispered, as fiercely unafraid as she had when saying goodbye.

[Duvalyon Hellebore]

He closed his eyes when he heard footfalls slapping the ground, sloppy beats breaking the hum of the milieu, and prayed to Viratas for leniency. She slipped into his cadence, his shadow, easily as breathing. "Hello, Doryn," huskier than his normal tone. It had the gravel of disuse. Heads lifted as the bizarre pair passed. Sunborn faces contorted with loathing and sharpened with suspicion. Forgetting the years could have eroded their subtle familiarity, Duvalyon gently pressed Dor out of his reach with one guiding hand. "Not so close." He clasped one wrist behind his back, a public display of the intent to do no harm. From the scant distance, he indulged a half curious look of appraisal. It was meant to be a casual glance but was distinguished at its end by a twist of paternal concern. She hadn't been eating enough. Perhaps more time should have been spent cultivating her falcon abilities than trying to polish her intellect. Despite a lean season or two, most men would have marked her as striking. He noted her skin was still fair, a trait that subconsciously pleased him. She had swiftly moved from the first bloom of womanhood into its fruition. Her rapid maturation was no surprise to him, but now that she had passed the borders of adulthood the marvel was winnowed with grief. Hers was a life as brief and kaleidoscopic as dawn's sky. The distance didn't last long. Dor had already drifted into his orbit again. She could never follow a narrow path, but always tilted and curved her steps following the lines of the earth. Straightforward gravity and legs didn't agree with her. Duvalyon tried to keep his face in profile, making it harder for the Kelvic to take stock of him in the unflattering light. She could see glimpses of reddish chitin armor under the curious costume of his people. In Kalinor, such precautions were unnecessary. Unfortunately, the segmented pieces enhanced the insect quality of the race. As of two years ago, Doryn Hardai was as far from him as a star. He remembered the moment in her childhood when he understood that she must leave and never return to him. She grew up oblivious to the inevitable parting, while his head made preparations and he struggled to scrape her affection off his heart. She lived and he had honored his god, that was all the consolation he sought. He swallowed, unsure of what he was trying to banish back into his gut. "You really shouldn't stand so close."

[Dor]

The bird girl stopped. She just stopped -- stopped walking, stopped breathing, stopped thinking because here he was, all the way to the city of stars, to the place he had sent her and she had come around to once the gyre of her rebellion was complete. And he was pushing her away. Again. Half in the noon light, she watched him, small shoulders huddled up and book still crammed beneath her arm. The wind flipped an untied sleeve, fluttering worn fabric about a narrow wrist, pale skin stretched across bird bones. An impatient, even challenging air of waiting all but sparked off of her and were she wearing wings all of the feathers would have been ruffled. Lhavit slipped around them, the gears of the world grinding too close to the day-hidden stars. It meant nothing to her, as little as the dandelion seeds fluttering across the toes of her boots. The falcon's terrible sight had focused on its prey.

[Duvalyon Hellebore]

Duvalyon felt the subtle heat of Dor's body fall away. Relief and regret mingled, then greedily grabbed fistfuls of his gut and pulled in opposite directions. But when the loud slap and clap of her step ceased, he lifted his head, breaking his resolute posture of focus. The Symenestra twisted a degree, to see Dor standing resolutely in place. Her expression was a painful collage unified by profound anger. He passingly envisioned a small pillar of fire. "I have the feeling you want to violently throw a thought or two at me," he said with a dark cast to his expression. There was a black timbre under his even voice, an alien note Dor had yet to hear from Duvalyon in sincerity. When she was a child to him, he had been so careful to keep it from her. Children began admiring their parents but eventually learned to judge them. It was understandable that Dor would go through the same process and find the verdict twined with anger. His pride coiled and bared its fangs: he'd like to see someone in his situation do better. "Lead someplace secluded, if you please." He began walking again, "I am in no mood to be clawed at in public."

[Elhaym]

Only the most foolish and naive Shinya truly believed that Lhavit was safer during the day. True, the night brought more people from their lairs and saw them infesting the streets like locusts to barter, dance, and steal, but the night was also Zintila's time. The day? Only Syna kept her watch... and Elhaym Vormav, if it counted for anything. An Acolyte's training never ceased, but she was trusted enough (some would say foolishly) to make her rounds alone at times, given her skills. A foolhardy rationale if anyone were to go so far as to ask her, because her skills were primarily in the art of killing. Diplomacy was one of the dustiest skills in her repertoire. It was also the skill she felt least compelled to resort to in the presence of a vile Symenestra, brazen enough to walk the city streets as if he were wanted here. Of course she was harsh; Zintila accepted any who pledged peace within her glorious city… but Zintila divine, and she was made of sterner stuff than Elhaym. She watched him from afar, seething silently as she kept herself a distant face in the crowd.

Her right hand softly prodded the thick cloth slung over her face, a band of deep blue sewn with blazing white fire and canted to cover her left eye. Small charms dangled from it's edge along her cheek, clinking together as the suns, stars and moons danced when she turned her head. They were only a slight distraction from the burn scars that crept across the left side of her face, but they were enough.

Her heart skipped a beat when she saw the woman. They were speaking, the crowd parting and moving silently by as they engaged. Teeth ground together as she saw his pathetic attempt to seem harmless, but she knew the truth in that farce. A Symenestra's true venom did not come from their teeth, nor was their most dangerous attribute the midnight talons on their fingers. It was their words, their filthy charm that beguiled insecure women into their bed, and thus, their deathbed. Her hands tightened into fists without thought, and the dull pain in her left hand went ignored. She could feel the tactile sensation of the thick bandages that covered the length of her arm and hand as they dug into her scarred skin.

Zintila was patient and kind, but there were limits to even the most abundant of kindness. A traitorous Shinya would only be exiled from Lhavit, but a Symenestra hunting in the city? Their death would be swift and gory, no less than an execution. He made a move as if to divert himself away from the swath of Lhavitians that crowded the tree lined pathway, and her fists grew even more taut. If this woman followed, so too would she. The people of Lhavit deserved better than her to protect them, but she would protect them with everything she could muster. Even those stupid enough to isolate themselves alone with a spider, the vilest of creatures.

A sky blue figure cut through the crowd in pursuit, and the people began to part for her as well. A blade was slung across her back, thought mostly for show. Her single eye never wavered from the spider, and her gaze was ice.

[Dor]

"I don't think with my claws, Duv," the bird retorted with confusion crowding an otherwise fair brow. The anger in her sparked like the sun might have against fly-a-way hair had not storm clouds begun to draw their veils across Syna's face, spilling a sprawling dim over the plaza in which the skyglass failed to truly mute. It was hurt that glanced across her eyes before fading into their black, but at what exactly remained to be seen as she stuffed her hands again into pockets and rocked forward with a jerk of her chin. All the while, she watched him. Only now it was from the corners of things. "Why are you here?" It occurred to her minutes too late that he was not here for her. Hope fluttered in her fingertips, tugging a loose thread in her pocket, twisting it round and round slender fingers until it dug into the callouses there and caused her fingertips to chill with blood lack. "Why did you come to Lhavit, Duv? You don't like it here." It was plain to her as the yawn of the sky stabbed at by the city's peaks. Here there was light and Up and prying eyes. He had armored himself in more than a cool demeanor and implacable glance, but with the custom protection of his kind for the frailer make of their limbs. "Why?" She prodded again, unknowing of the woman who followed, the whole of her world having narrowed down to the blood light in Duvalyon Hellebore's interminably distant regard.

[Duvalyon Hellebore]

Duvalyon had almost grown accustomed to scrutiny. Faces flicked upward when he passed. Eyes would rapidly focus; the iris enflaming with a jolt of emotion. He had transitioned from the familiarity of Kalinor to the solitude of the Unforgiving and now to the muted distrust of Lhavit. He'd known worse reactions than grudging tolerance. Prolonged exposure would eventually make him blithely numb and then he would start to take pleasure in the discomfort of others. It was an amusing power, this ability to frighten merely by entering a space. Elhaym was quiet with her hatred, submerging it between the airs of less driven citizens. It joined the generally noxious cloud of sunlight and suspicion made Duvalyon itch under his armor. Blue cut through the throng of bodies, momentarily catching his eye like a bright jay. His passing attention to it wavered with Dor's direct question and was lost entirely when she repeated it. "Why am I here?" Duvalyon broke a single laugh into bitter pieces. "I am attempting what I know is impossible." Truth forced his head to bow a little and his voice to lower into a textured line of music. "Keeping vigil, Dor. I am building webs to catch and bind what I know will break." It was his offering to blood: consistent labor and cunning on their behalf. Affection was too soft for him to carry in barbed fingers, so he rarely bestowed it. What was labor but love made visible? It would have to do. Duvalyon smirked. If he was trying to make Dor understand his struggle, and in riddles nonetheless, he was surely unraveling on some level. "Your brother," the term was wry, "Laszlo accidentally made a surrogate out of a girl he loves. He asked for my help. Kalinor is a bit grim for the task, and Lhavit is the closest city with a fine library." While the library had an intellectual lure for the medic, it was more a distraction for Laszlo. False hope was as good a net as any, and a vast store of knowledge would offer plenty of it. It momentarily occurred to Duvalyon that Dor suspected he had come for her, but his interpretation of her curiosity was twisted by his assumptions. "Don’t worry. I haven't come looking for you to drag you back to Kalinor. You are free, as any bird."

[Elhaym]

Elhaym's steady pace brought her close enough to hear his last words, and her hackles would have risen had she been a feral dog. The comparison wasn't far from the truth in all honesty, and she brutishly pushed an absent minded Lhavitian to the side as she made her way to confront the spider. His outraged cry was stymied halfway as he noticed her robes, and he simply shook his head and continued on muttering. His alarm would have given her away as she found herself stalking straight towards Duvalyon.

"Is dragging women back to Kalinor something you oft' do, spider?"

Her words seethed contempt. All these weeks of pitifully lying in bed, sickly with infection and relying on others… how badly she had wanted to pay this city back for its kindness. Here and now, she had found a true threat. Their kindness would be repaid in full by her vigilance.

"Stay away from him," she said, sliding to the side and placing herself between Dor and Duvalyon. She even lowered her arm as if to bar her from getting any closer, or perhaps him from getting any closer to her. "Unless you want to end up on your back, pregnant with your own killer in Kalinor."

She had to look up at him; curse these Symenestra and being tall. After it had been made clear he should come no closer, she perched her left hand on on the sheath of her blade. A bandaged thumb rubbed the edge of the handguard, and the movement may have drawn attention to the fact that her hand was half maimed if he cared to look. The other hand pointed sternly at him as she began to speak again.

"Why do you dress yourself in armor? Are you planning on having to fight your way out of the city, with this one in tow no less?"

Her outstretched finger traced the edges of the exposed armor peeking through his clothing. Her challenge was apparent in her face. If Duvalyon wanted a fight so badly as to walk around prepared for one, she would gladly oblige him here and now and suffer the consequences later. Her gaze never left him, but she targeted the young woman with her next words.

"You should go, and leave this one with me."

[Dor]

"Webs catch for the purpose of breaking," Dor retorted to her first teacher. Slender arms crossed beneath the swell of her breasts, the book still caught in an awkward corner beneath, pressing against an unexpectedly frail rib cage. A tangle of hair was spat free of her mouth, tossed there once more by a heartless wind. The unconscious action transfigured into a pungent remark, a spectator easily visualizing the picking of bones or spitting of blood. "To eat. To fuel. To live." It would take a discerning eye to spy beneath her bravado the hunch of shoulders within the worn, comfortable frames of an oversized jacket caught somewhere between the color of the ponds and the sky. "That's why they bind, Duv," she went on, her Symenos disgustingly fluent. It was sickening and eloquent, a symphony of shocked certainty amid what was a typical sea of verbal stutters and stumbles when she tried to juggle Common. Her voice was unchanged -- husky and soft as blanketed hearths -- though all the context had shifted. The pages of their story had flickered in the wind, turning and turning. "So why are you using a web to do something different? Maybe you need a new tool." It was common sense to a peregrine falcon to whom hunting and survival were made penultimate only by the fact of a malformation, a magical disruption to her very djed that had twisted her long before birth toward seeking and serving instead. "Brother?" A jolt to the system. She thought of Naravelia Eglantine's triumphant face while stepping closer, bumping their arms, neck craned. "Laz," she completed, answering herself before he could finish. Fingertips plucked at his sleeve though it was not shiny, not to normal senses. An unwarranted smile dared, chasing itself through her face at memory of the ethaefal. "Wait. I only have one brother," that she knew of. The thought was worthy, but it too plunged when disappointment side swiped her. It left her skull ringing, a tremble in the pit of her stomach like the clap of hungry flames to the once shattering walls of Kalinor's destroyed Nest. Duv had not come to Lhavit for her. She had not even been his second hand thought, that belonging to a building with books. That made sense. The worst sort of sense. Something else, however, failed to. "Is Laz's child's mother Melia?" It was what made sense, after all, for Duvalyon to betray his race again in preference to his god. He had done it for her, but they were family. Laz was family, but his surrogate could not be. Not, of course, unless it was Melia. That was a bird's logic for you, seed sized and unexpectedly profound. Discord jolted through the bird and indignation swooped after when the acolyte interrupted them, Elhaym's arrival seemingly too swift. Reality was that Dor had been too focused, her heart's prey in sight. "Who are you? What are you doing?" Common yanked itself out of her, stomping down her more educated Symenos. A muffled, exasperated sound was emitted as she was moved away from Duv and Elhaym's warding arm was looked at with altogether too fierce and too distant eyes. "Duv just said he isn't taking me anywhere. He doesn't want me, okay?" By this time she had reached out, grabbing a handful of Elhaym's sleeve to give it little tugs, trying with little success to gain all of the attention and thus pull it away from Duvalyon. Who did not want her. Who was not here for her. But she still fretted for, it would seem. Viratas or Marcus Kelvic or an accidental miracle of impossibly tangled nature versus nurture said so. "Don't you know anythings? Symenestras have to wear armor in the light."