by foxfire lit.

[Legion]

I have love And a child, A banjo And shadows. (Losses of God, All will go And one day We will hold Only the shadows.) - C. Sandburg. 69 Spring 512 A.V. It was not a soul the black sheep of the Aelius family had crossed paths with before. Had it been, Hadrian would have caught first whiff of sea wind and cool shade obscuring her aura's borders and been struck with recognition. Or would he? Funny that uncertainty itself was Hadrian's first certainty--nothing which was about to occur would be usual. Normalcy itself was abruptly suspect. "Stop that," she suggested and flipped the trailing end of a scarf over her shoulder, the sag of cerulean silk over bright against an otherwise pallid image. The hood was dark, sea worn and sagging shadows down an unremarkable face. Did the daylight seeping through the tidal shift occurring within Herring Square dare linger on her, if she would but turn her face toward noon's grace, she might have been pretty. Hell, she could have been beautiful. Yet in the slant of narrow shoulders, the cross of legs in a sailor's canvas trousers and the damnably elegant if decidedly off key bounce of a high buttoned boot she remained entirely unremarkable. A pale coil of hair was blown with pursed lips and eyes with no discernible hue in that hood were, once found, gazing arrow-straight at Hadrian Aelius, unwavering and intent. "You'll get a headache," she chided. "I've no doubt you can get a grip on my aura, but it isn't worth it. Not yet. Trust me? Have a seat." Her head tilted, indicating half the remaining bench beside her. Pigeon browny leather, lined and cracked and once fine, made up her jacket and did nothing relieve her image. "That was funny, wasn't it?" Humor caught her mouth, smile a shock of vibrancy. "I say trust me. You, within a breath, do not. I'm only trying to lay the foundations of our expectations for one another. Shall we go back to the start?" A hand came up, out in a manner more masculine than the rest of her implied. "Maeclair Solduvan. Your goal for duration of our time together here is to discover who sent me. And why." A glance was thrown not toward the sky for time, but to the ground that was being forfeited by fishmongers to buskers and the earthly merchandise. "Let's begin."

[Hadrian]

She was right, of course, which was both exciting and maddening. Hadrian was used to being right, the star pupil that made the other students feel like idiots, the eccentric traveling magus who pulled wonders out of his hat. If he was not right, if he was not ten steps ahead of the rest, then he didn't know who he was. This was a weakness. Of course, she probably knew that. But he had a few new tricks up his sleeve of which she might not be aware. The faint Lormar symbol disappeared from the back of his left hand, obscured anyway by long sleeves that hadn't been taken in for warmer climes and seasons since departing Avanthal. Then the inverted triangle on his back that only Kendall had seen and not lately. One could never be too careful. Thankfully his face was normally impassive; interested, intense, but opaque. Of course, she would probably list his tells at some point before she disappeared again, a shadow in the ether. "Yes, of course," he said, careful to keep his dialect that which he had picked up in his years in Zeltiva. He didn't look Syliran anymore, not since the storm had changed him despite heroic layering of shield over shield to protect him and the two Kelvics within arm's reach when hell came to earth. He stopped actively sensing. It wasn't even vision anymore, nor any other sense but its own. He had transcended the need to pretend to be using a mundane sense. He had reclaimed his human birthright, and while he could have cracked her control over time, this was not that sort of interrogation. But he smiled through her lines, genuinely amused, but otherwise not responding. The game had begun ten steps before he noticed her, and likely a hundred steps before that, all told. She wasn't the type to teach from books, but that was fine by him. "I feel like I should know your name," he mused at the introduction, but he had an eidetic memory, so he had never heard it before meeting her. Perhaps it was some sort of soul memory, some past life passing him by like two ships in a foggy night. But they had begun before she called it, as soon as their hands were shaking, his hidden gnosis lit up. He could feel it burning his off hand as the other began to pull soul-scrawled contributions from her gloves. If she knew what Lykata was, how it worked, and that he had been blessed by the goddess, something he had only found out with the storm, she might have known to wear someone else's gloves. She might have anyway. If there was someone more circumspect than him, it would be Maeclair Solduvan. His hair went back to normal, and the eyes too. He was Hadrian again, the Hadrian she knew. Or was he? "Andry Ellis. Pleased to meet you."

[Legion]

"The pleasure is mine," she offered rote with a smile, half moon beguiling in the shadow of her hood. Gloved fingers twisted in the disrupted ends of her scarf, wrapping and winding the fabric as if she were shredding the sky, a gesture on anyone else entirely too nervous. Or maybe she was. "Whatever happened to you, Andry?" This came with a blink, her hand still in his as teacup shoulders pitched forward. The motion raised her chin as if on a puppet string, but this was Nyka and the Aperture was the foremost power sizzling the air. "You looked positively Vantha. It's charming and I like it." Delight caught her smile, her fingers tightening on his, maintaining the still life of their new start. "Is this you or was that? Were you teasing me in Syliras, Andry? Oh, you're good. This is going to be such fun." And she meant it, didn't she? For with the with word fun she released his hand, tugging her's out to drop to a fold with its twin in her lap. Yet behind her Eyris had contributed for Hadrian, conjuring up images from Maeclair's calfskin glove in an abbreviated but shattering series not unlike that left in a decade of prayer beads. The Nyka monks would have understood. Frozen water, briny and once teeming, clung in chunks to the seam of the glove as caught the hilt of a knife too late. It had buried already in her stomach. Candlelight and the hand within the glove trembled, betraying a truth to the often deceptive frailty of her. A face -- her's? probable -- turned up to a high summer sun, radiant and triumphant and young, so terribly young. An echo, dim, broke apart the pieces of the name she had given him. Clair. Clair. Mae and Clair. The sounds splintered. They were a facade, but also a jest, her smile hidden behind gloved hand. "Aren't you going to sit?" She asked, Common clear and sounding Syliran in its slant; but of course that was the expectation they had agreed upon.

[Hadrian]

There was a wicked light to the smile in his eyes. The pleasure, indeed. Andry Ellis was most certainly not Hadrian Aelius. "I went north," he assured her, "like I told you. Like the tin man told you. Did a little damage, went west and north again. Went native, I suppose, or rediscovered my roots as the case may be." His mind reeled behind an amiable mask; or else it wasn't a mask, but the charmer Hadrian might have been if he got out of his own way, gave himself permission to be whoever he wanted to be. He covered this by fixing her scarf for her, arranging it so her nerves needn't bother, taking in another ream of revelation. Then, apropos of Andry, he tugged on the ends of that scarf, leaned down and kissed her full on the mouth. He closed his eyes as if shy, and certainly a flush painted his cheeks pink. His eyes shone when they opened, though. "Sit next to you in front of the gods and everyone?" he asked in a scandalized whisper. "But Maeclair, miss, people will say we're in love." But sit he did, will she or nil she, and his long arm slung along the back of the bench behind her. He could be elegant, it seemed. Blithe and becoming, while somewhere in a hidden place, he prayed to Eyris for wisdom and Ionu to see through this constructed reality to the reality behind it. "Maeclair," he said into the ensuing silence, each syllable swinging like a sing-songing drunk. "Mae. Clair." And because the third time was the charm, he looked over at her, smiling. He could love her. "Mae. "Clair. "Whatever happened to you?"

[Legion]

"The tin man has stuck spears into squires for less than he offered me for a smile," she murmured, piqued at their shared acquaintance. When he reached for her scarf, began to tuck and arrange it, tugging ends from her fingers like untangling puppet strings, she dropped her chin to observe. A ledger was unwrapped from the folds of the scarf, scarred and dog-earred. Lettering was stamped, cracked at the borders of itself, naming the book in Nader-canoch. The spine was littered with ink drawn glyphs, sketched over and over faded copies of itself and beneath the Ancient Tongue title was embossed a perfect eglantine rose. The title was: Summer. A gloved hand flattened to the bench beside her, fingers spreading slow, so that when he came in for a kiss she was braced; but no, no, that had not been expected. Astonished eyes widened, lips parting but a breath from the break of their kiss. A moment more and shock might have faded enough for her to respond. Yet she was warm, lips full, fecund with life and tasting of sea water and sun and maybe an orange. Where anyone might find an orange in a Nyka spring was maybe the biggest mystery of all. "Let them say it," she managed, unvoiced laughter a giants depth beneath her remark. He sat and she shifted, angling toward him and leaning a touch back upon the arm he propped behind her. The motion eased the hood back, revealing hair the color of raival leaves, gold and ripe against a smooth brow and noble cheeks. There was a distilled essence about her, starker than when he had seen her last. Less well fed. Less fulsome. Less vivid. More human and real. It would seemed something had happened to her, not that it could be told by her smile. "Andry," she reminded him, the name becoming more his in her mouth. "You have grown. Remarkable. Tell me, where are you headed with all that height?"

[Hadrian]

He hadn't done his fair share of kissing, but he considered it a small victory to have done so without being punched in the mouth or kneed in the groin, but perhaps one of her terrifying knives would slide itself between his ribs to make acquaintance with his heart. But no. Not yet. This close he could pick impressions off of her clothes and all the things she kept close to her with mere effort of will. He didn't even have to touch. His smile was happy, if a little self-conscious. It wasn't every day even Andry went about kissing beautiful women, though she was diminished in some ways, more frighteningly real in others. He licked his lips; not lascivious, but thoughtful. Oranges. Summer. Mae. Clair. "I'm waiting for a berth to Zeltiva, see what I might learn there. But perhaps after a harrowing Winter in Morwen's city, I should while away a few seasons in Kenash. They've oranges there year round, haven't they? Did you bring me one? I don't want the scurvy, and the weather seems to have helped you recover." He paused, glanced sideways at her. "Did something happen? Were you working for someone in Kenash, or was that the place from whence came your suffering?" But no more deep will I endart mine eye Than your consent gives strength to make it fly - W. Shakespeare.

[Legion]

"Suffering is spawned by desire," a shoulder lifted, a hand upturned. The pairing of the gestures imparted acceptance of fate, a handful of nothing offered to the heavens on a gloved palm. "I shall withdraw none of my desire clear of the trap, Andry, no matter what passions may be pressed upon me by man or gods." Though Hadrian was not actively seeking purchase in the study of her aura, the sheer magnitude of his ability was incapable of being switched off. A channel had been reopened within him and any attempt to shut it down entirely would be comparable to trying to cutting out one's tongue in an effort to get rid of the ability to taste. There was wind in her aura, guttering like a quick breath against a candle flame. Shadows were legion, carefully drawn veils thrown by what had to have been an awesome light. Stability and constant change emanated from her core and she had, he would be capable of telling, absolutely altered the appearance of her aura for his benefit. Without actual effort, he would take no more. They would both see whether he was inclined to obey her demand. A hand dove into the folds of her jacket and she fished out an orange, the citrus fruit inordinately vibrant against the afternoon pallor. Her knee knocked his lightly as she reached for his hand and deposited the treat in it with a smile. "Have you ever been?" She wanted to know. "To Kenash. I have recently, you're right; but I've been other places too. Your goal is to discover who sent me and why, not who I am and what."

[Hadrian]

"I wouldn't have pegged you for an Ano Cultist," he mused, and though it was said at least in part in jest, he wondered now if she wasn't, if her true feelings were tamped down under a goddess' own control, and all this merely the brushstrokes of a master actor. He supposed she would assume he was still reading her aura the way he plucked things seemingly out of the air, but it was her chavi he could read, albeit imperfectly. The orange he had tasted, of course, but the Lykata provided context. There were hints of divine power there, but she had laid down ground rules and so he did not pursue them. Was she a Stormwarden, or an acolyte of the goddess of shadows? Anything was possible. "Thank you," he said, then bit into the rind at the fruit's navel, delicately removing that, setting it on his far knee, and began to peel the thing. "I was very young when I went to Kenash." Andry's father was as well equipped as Hadrian's to have taken a son with him. Half-lies and lies built upon truths were more convincing than outright lies sometimes. Hadn't she taught him about the slips and slants, the workarounds and breakthroughs. A master could persuade a seeing man that the sky was, in fact, white splotched through with black as a cow's hide. Who would have sent him a message from afar? Caelum. Loren Dyres. Zarik Mashaen. Gods, let it not be Drainira! Venidus. Alander Jin. Lector Qiao. Caius Delucia. Devandil Nightshade. Professor Stonemiller? "Are they not connected, then? Who you are? What you are? Who sent you to me?"