[Mhakula Tea House]Cups and Conversations (Johanne)

[Seleucus]

41st of Winter, Mhakula Tea House, late evening. A steady hustle and bustle filled the tea shop. It was warm and full of people and steam and customers. Cold winter's nights tend to usher people in to such establishments. At a table by a moonlit window sat an Ethaefal still enough to be mistaken for a statue, he even looked like one. Skin the colour of polished marble that glowed with reflected light, long horns of a violet onyx hue. His eyes, silvery disks of mercurial shine, gazed out at Leth. No tea sat in front of him, Seleucus was here for the atmosphere, and the delicious smell. Were Syna reigning the sky he would have been sipping a cup himself. At night, however, it was not necessary; Leth provided all the sustenance needed. Several chimes passed and a waitress approached, pestering him to buy something. Reluctantly Seleucus parted with a few kina and ended up with a cup of tea steaming in front of him. He hadn't want to turn her down, but nor did he really want tea. Ah well, now it would sit there cooling until he left the shop. The air was worth it though, sweet and spiced with the smell of pungent brews and soothing herbs. Warmth and good lighting was appreciated as well, in exchange for a seat Seleucus guessed the purchase of a beverage was worth it. The Eth continued to sit, un-heckled since his purchase from the waitress. He cut a lonely, if rather ethereal figure. Tea untouched in front of him, cloak draped over the back of his chair. His long, tapered fingers reached up and adjusted his scarf, hanging crimson around his neck, and push back his locks of loose white hair from his eyes. It makes one wish for a companion, he thought, as Zintila's gems keep company to Lord Leth. Seleucus sighed gently, turning his gaze back to the moon and stars he thought of.

[Johanne]

Johanne stared at the blank, yellowing parchment she had brought with her to the Mhakula Tea House. It was one of the last that she had brought from Denval, very little of her original paper remained. She had bought while she was in Lhavit, favouring the imported wadj papers for their sturdiness and their exotic connotations. But the ones from Denval, her home, the ones she had crafted lovingly and painstakingly with her own hands, were the ones closest to her heart. And the ones that were slowly, slowly running out.

Taking a deep breath, she reached out, and brought the steaming cup of tea she had purchased from one of the Ethaefal waiters when she had come into the tea house half a bell ago. It was still hot, the flavour still pungent, and it warmed Johanne from the inside, loosening her tight chest. Placing the colourful cup down gently, she hesitantly picked up one of the charcoal sticks she had purchased in Lhavit, and brought it gently to the piece of parchment she so treasured.

She began to draw. Inecino had told her that she needed to improve her drawing skills; it was not enough to be talented at creating art on skin, she needed to be able to sketch out what the customer wanted, so that they would trust her better. She had lost several customers before, when she had admitted that she could not sketch what they wanted, that they would need to trust that she could scar them as accurately as she could. Inecino was tirng of this lost business. Johanne had brought along this precious piece of parchment in the hopes that it would inspire her art.

She sketched long, sweeping lines, curving endlessly into a smooth globe: Leth at his fullness. She was able to sketch the outline of the moon with ease, a simple circle was enough. With her tongue between her teeth, she sketched fragile dots along the paper, representing Zintila's presence in the sky. They were too simple, somewhat childlike, but they were good enough: she would be able to put more effort and more detail in when she had finished the basics. But when she tried to sketch the pockmarks and the craters that lined his surface, she pressed the charcoal too hard, smudging it over the parchment, and breaking the stick she had payed hard earned kina for.

Crying out, she threw the charcoal stick to the table, and stared despondently at the desecrated paper. To think that she had wasted her very own parchment, something that was her reminder of home and what her true purpose was, on her amateur sketching abilities. She stared at the ruined paper, her heart beating hard inside her chest, as tight as it had been before the tea. Biting her lip to keep from crying, she stared up and out the window, at the scene she had been trying to sketch. How was it that the world was so beautiful, and she could not ever translate that?

She called out for a waiter, for another cup of tea. Sighing, she continued to stare out the window. Handing over the kina for the tea when the waiter brought it to her table, she brought it too her lips, scalding her tongue on the liquid. But that didn't matter. Johanne was used to pain. She barely noticed the Ethaefal by the window she was staring out, so wrapped up in her own inadequacies. But to him, it might have looked as though she was staring endlessly at his celestial form.

[Seleucus]

Seleucus turned as he heard a cry of frustration, breaking his meditative revery. The Ethaefal looked about for a few minutes before finding the source. Directly perpendicular to him at one of the simple pine tables of the tea-shop sat a woman with dark brown hair. She was clearly under some emotional duress, eyes misty, biting into her lip. Of what the source of her problems were, Seleucus could not tell. In front of her sat a piece of paper with some type of markings, an empty cup, and a dark stick of charcoal. An artist, how lovely. Though she does not seem to be having a very lovely evening. The woman called out to a passing waiter and Seleucus turned back to contemplating the evening view. A few chimes later Seleucus glanced over to the woman, to only see she was staring back. Her eyes seemed locked fixedly on him. It made Seleucus a bit uncomfortable, though maybe she was drawing him. It was not the first time an artist had become consumed with an Ethaefal for a model. Mizaharian art was graced with a non-proportional amount of Ethaefal characters, their heaven blessed shape practically screamed to be painted, sketched, and sculpted. In a way we are like art, he thought, breathing sculptures and walking masterpieces fashioned by the hands of Lord Leth and Syna. No matter, the woman wasn't doing him any harm. Again the horned man turned back to his lord in the sky. This time not even a chime had passed before Seleucus turned, feeling the pressure of eyes on his side. What could she be looking at? It must be I, there is no one else by the window! Seleucus had no qualms about being used as a model, but she was beginning to make him feel unsettled. On a whim Seleucus stood up and strode over to the sitting artist, only to realize his mistake. The woman looked more upset than intent, not the face of someone making art. When he glanced at her paper, there was no sketch of him, but of Leth. I can't believe I was so arrogant as to, oh no, what am I going to say? Seleucus stood in an awkward silence by her table for a moment, this is why it is better to think before you act. Finally the tall young man bowed deeply. As he straightened up he looked down at the artist, “I saw you working and was quite...uhm, interested in what you were doing.” He smiled as awkwardly as an Ethaefal can, try to put off a friendly air. “I am Seleucus, by the by.” He bowed again, this time a little more relaxed, “It is a pleasure.”

[Johanne]

Johanne rested her cheek on her hand, her elbow on the smooth pine table before her, her eyes fixated on the heavens. In Lhavit, the stars never went unnoticed. The people revelled beneath Zintila and Leth and every night in the city on the Peaks. Johanne had wondered beneath their graceful forms every night for two years this season: and yet she could not understand their substance and their heart enough to make a simple sketch with charcoal! She could not look away from the window; she would not look away from the night.

To Johanne, this failure to sketch Leth surrounded by Zintila's crystals in the sky was simply another example of why the gods owed the little human no favours. They would not give her stories, nor would they lend her their image for her precious Denvalian paper.

All of a sudden, her view of the night sky was blocked, by a tall form rising in front of the window. Taking her hand off her cheek, leaving a charcoal smudge on pale skin that she was not aware of, she watched this newcomer stride up to her simple table. Her eyebrows furrowed, she took in the tall broad man who strode to stand before Johanne, his snow white hair, his night-coloured horns. What could an Ethaefal want with a mortal? She stared up at the celestial being, and waited for him to speak first. She could have no words that would impress an immortal who had touched the divine.

Her eyebrows raised when the Ethaefal bowed to her. She knew it was a custom of the Lhavitians, a sign of respect to their peers, but in no world and no earth would Johanne be an equal to this divine creature. She was plain and thin, too tall with scars that terrified some, and repelled others. Her mouth dry, she moved her hands to cover her drawing: an Ethaefal of Leth, as he clearly was, would likely be offended by her crude rendition of his god. Her sleeves were rolled up, and her scars on display to her elbows. They shone in the moonlight, and everyone could see where Johanne had ripped into her skin.

Johanne half-heartedly smiled in return, unsure of what exactly they were both smiling at. Waiting until he had reverted from his second bow, a second display of humility that was entirely undeserved, Johanne introduced herself.

"Johanne," she said timidly, unsure of why the Ethaefal would choose her of all people to talk to. "But really, this isn't anything worthwhile, it's a terrible sketch, really." She protested, still sitting, still covering her drawing with her hands. She knew it was rude of her not to stand and greet the man as well, but to do so would reveal the sacrilege on the page.

"Would you like to sit?" she asked quietly, then cringed. Why had she invited the Ethaefal to tea with her? It could only lead to insistences to show the inadequate art, that Johanne only wished could be beautiful. And disappointment, too: Johanne would not prove enough for the Ethaefal, a simple mortal, unskilled and worthless. She cleared her throat, deciding to give Seleucus an out. "But if you do not wish to, that is okay, too. I know tea with someone as plain as I is not something that someone as beautiful as you could revel in." She shrugged awkwardly, admitting her own inadequacies, before fluttering her eyes to the table: Seleucus was too beautiful to look at for long, and her scars would likely only disgust him.

[Seleucus]

The artist looked up at him, eyes shining with that awed shine that many people developed when looking on Ethaefal. If Seleucus had been of a vainer kind he would have relished it, but instead it just made him slightly uncomfortable. She seemed nice enough, though slightly flustered. She invited him to sit, though in a rather self-deprecating manner. A soft smile blossomed pleasantly across Seleucus' face, “I would love to.” As he sat he glanced at her hands. They covered her sketch. From what Seleucus had seen it might no be a pre-Valterrian masterpiece, but it had been at least okay. Then again I caught a gaze barely a moment long. Seleucus folded his moonstone fingers together over the honey-coloured wood, dyed a pale gold by Leth's rays. Looking at her hands his eyes alighted upon something else. Strange marks shimmered silvery white over her skin. Intricate knot-work, whorls and shapes. This is beauty, he thought. His gleaming eyes widened, studying the shapes intently. They're scars! Realized Seleucus. Living, breathing art. His expression enthralled, the Ethaefal simply sat and stared. It must have been at least a chime before he looked up into Johanne's face. Realizing after a moment how rude he seemed he glanced down in shame. “I am sorry for being so rude. I noticed your marks,” he gestured vaguely to her arms, “and well, to put it mildly...” Seleucus paused searching for the right words. Glancing back up he finally spoke, “...Beautiful. Absolutely stunning craftsmanship.” Seleucus' face shifted into that of when he was marveling at fine art. His eyes bright, mouth smiling eagerly, with a visage of absolute admiration. “Did you do these yourself? They are incredible.” He reached out, then paused, “May I touch them? I don't mean to impose, or be too forward.” Seleucus looked into her gaze, hopeful though slightly bashful.

[Johanne]

OOCI'm sorry if this is a little dull. Hopefully you have something to reply to.

Johanne blushed, light pink dusting over her freckles. She smiled back, subtly, confused by Seleucus' willingness to spend his evening with a strange little human girl, rather than in communion with his God. She had had the impression that the Ethaefal were a religious bunch, who spoke prayers in voices crying out to Lords they prayed had not forgot them. And yet here, in the tea house, with her dress still stained with blood from that scar of Dariel's hands, and her artwork of his God far less than adequate (a mockery, perhaps, if he chose to look at it that way), Seleucus, the child of Leth, chose to sit with her.

Her eyebrows slightly furrowed, she readjusted her arms, feeling the charcoal stain her pale milk skin on the underside of her forearms. Not a single inch of this dreaded work could be shown to the child who had fallen from Leth. It was simply too embarrassing. She noticed his eyes shoot once more to her desecrated paper, and could tell that he longed for her to remove her hands and show him. He was either too kind or too cruel. Johanne's teeth worried at her bottom lip. She waited, tense, for him to speak. She could have nothing worthy to say. She could only defend her attempts at sketches, should he force her to.

Johanne could not bear to look into his marble face, his gleaming eyes, his celestial horns that sprouted from his head for too long. That was the thing about the Ethaefal, for Johanne: although they were a tragic race, Johanne too was no longer where she had called 'home', and yet she had no beauty to speak of. She was not jealous, not at all: she had not a spiteful bone in her body. She was simply made even more aware of how plain her flesh was, even with her attempts at art, with the scarring of her skin. But while she wallowed in her pathetic state of self-pity, she could not see his eyes widen, his focus shift. She did not see Seleucus spot her scars.

Suddenly, Johanne became aware of the silence between the two: the Ethaefal had not spoken a word since he had sat. Her eyebrows furrowed, she raised her eyes, and saw where his gaze was fixed. Instantly, she tensed. Her expression became remarkably guarded, for one who had been so vulnerable and so openly self-loathing only minutes before. Her scars were her Achilles' heel. There was nothing that could break her more than someone who criticised her scars.

She held her breath while he began to speak. She expected words of judgement, of dissuasion, of chastisement. Seleucus trailed off, his eyes to the table, before slowly gazing into Johanne's doe brown. Instead what came out was praise. Before she had met Dariel, there had not been one who had thought well of her scars. Her eyebrows raised, her mouth opened slightly, and her eyes were glimmering with something Seleucus might recognise as hope.

"You think my scars are beautiful?" Her voice was quiet, diminutive. That he, who was so celestially blessed, with his crystal horns and his shimmering skin, could think something on Johanne was beautiful was a strange concept. There was a hollowness inside of Johanne, though. When Dariel had said it, she had wanted to strip away her skin bit by bit, and show him her bloody, beating heart. And though she truly cherished Seleucus' praise, it sounded clinical. As though he loved the scars, but did not think about where they came from, or why. "Thank you, very much. You've very kind." She bit her tongue, though she wanted to yell at him that they were not 'craftsmanship', they were her soul on display.

She nodded her allowance, stretching her arm out a little for him to touch. Somehow, so eager and so verbal, the Ethaefal did not seem so lordly anymore. He was different to what Johanne had envisioned. Excited like a little boy. While she waited for him to trace his shimmering fingers over her scars, she answered his questions. "I did do them myself. They represent moments in life that have truly affected me." She felt strange explaining this to him. He only saw her as a piece of art, observing something from a distance, apart from it. Dariel had wanted to absorb her scars and her flesh inside of him. She felt oddly clinical discussing them, and it left a sour taste in her mouth.

"I thought Ethaefal did not eat or drink... What, then are you doing in a tea house?" Her shoulders were held stiff, though she would still allow him to touch her scars. If he were perceptive, he would be able to see that she was uncomfortable with his perusal. Perhaps she would tell him, if he were quieter and more heartfelt. She did not like being treated as a piece of marble on a stand. Her seemingly random question was a way to turn the mirror from her flesh, so that he did not see everything that was too-little and too-worthless inside of her.

[Seleucus]

“Why of course they are beautiful.” said Seleucus. He looked almost surprised at her very suggestion that they couldn't be. “Works of the body always are, you and I are alike in that way.” As Johanne stretched out her arm, so did Seleucus delicately reach out a long hand, opalescent fingers stretching. Barely, ever so lightly, as though afraid the scars would smear he listened as she explained. He paused for a second on an image of Leth and Syna, a smile tugging at his lips. “You see I am art, made by Leth, and you,” he paused pressing gently on Leth's scarred silhouette, silvery finger against silvery scar. “You are art made by yourself.” He pulled back his hand and looked up into Johanne's eyes. “You are quite brave, to do this to yourself. I had to wait for a god to do it with me.” His impassioned look blended into one of cool reserve, every bit as elegant as Ethaefal were supposed to look. When Johanne queried into his business here his eyebrow arched slightly, many a human does not know that about my kin and I, let alone ask. “It is true,” he said as he raised hand to bath in Leth's glowing beams. “Lord Leth gives me all the strength I need, at least at night. However, I do like tea, and when I am not enjoying it the warmth and company, it can be rather lonely at times....” He trailed off without exactly explaining what he meant. After a silent beat had passed Seleucus snapped back into the conversation from his thoughtful pause. “You see, if I had your skill and bravery one on arm.” Seleucus touched his right arm, “Would be Leth.” He reach out and touched his other arm. “And on the opposite, my fall. It leaves you sometimes, how should I put it, quirky? To be dropped from your one true home.” He smiled, eyes heavy and somber despite his grin, the atmosphere rapidly gaining a melancholy tone. “Sorry to spill my problems. Maybe I really just visited you because I wanted someone to talk to.”

[Johanne]

Johanne's skepticism could only rise, like the waters that crept up and over a flood measure, when Seleucus the Ethaefal spoke. He was so aware of his own beauty, and compared the scars that adorned her arms to his divine and blesséd seeming. His long fingers, alight from Leth's rays, shimmered in the moonlight, as the moonbeams shone through the open window of the tea house. Ever closer they came, reaching out to touch and feel and see with flesh. Here was an Ethaefal, one that Johanne had idolised so often from afar, touching her own unclean mortal flesh. He had been in communion with the sun and the moon, and she had not known devotion. And yet he sat at her table, and touched her. And yet she could feel no awe inside of her.

For Seleucus to consider himself art seemed to Johanne to be a sacrilege against the very nature of beauty, the very thing Johanne sought to encapsulate with her words and her scars, and to defend. Seleucus had fallen from the Ukalas like a babe from his mother's arms, and had, in pity almost, been gifted a beauty that these mortals of Mizahar could only dream of. Johanne was the one who took a blade to her flesh and ripped strips of skin away from her frame. She changed the very nature of herself for beauty. Seleucus was privileged to have fallen with it.

And though her doe eyes pierced into Seleucus', she kept her thoughts inside of her, while he pressed down with heavenly finger onto the scars that lined her skin. Perhaps he would notice the barely furrowed brow, or the thin line of her lips, but she would not argue with a man she had barely met, let alone one who had been touched by the Gods. But she could not keep all the words inside herself: she was a writer. Words would bubble up regardless. Keeping her gaze steady, she spoke.

"It was not bravery, Seleucus. Just necessity." Her protestation was quiet and strange, surely something that the Ethaefal sitting across from her would pick up on. That scarification should be a necessity to Johanne was oddly worded. If he asked, she would elaborate, but she would not offer up her past so freely, like the tea was served within this circular parlour. Seleucus would have to dig. Too polite to refuse him outright, Johanne relied on subtlety and the subjectivity of language to protect her from one Ethaefal she seemed to perceive as arrogant.

"You drink tea, then, although it is not something that your body needs." It was not a question, but a statement softly repeated to herself, as if to understand better that which Seleucus had said. "But if Leth dictates that you do not need the sustenance from tea, then why drink it? Is that not a sort of sacrilege?" She was not trying to press or offend. She simply asked because the question had occurred to her. He had brought up her scars, the most intimate part of her, and so she felt she deserved to ask questions of his faith: perhaps the most intimate part of him. "Although loneliness can be a cruel mistress. I understand the need to escape her thrall." Her language tonight was on guard, defensive, overly formal. This is what happened when her hackles were raised. This is what happened when her scars were brought into question by someone she did not know or truth.

But her sober form was melted a little, by the warmth of his confession. His voice dreamy and his eyes longing, he spoke of the Ukalas and the fall, in ambiguous terms and short sentences, and yet it was an acknowledgement of his past nonetheless. Johanne's shoulders softened, her back unstraightening, becoming more gentle like the poetry she so loved. She paused. He had fallen from the heavens and lost his home forever. Johanne could return to Denval at any time (or so she thought), and yet Seleucus was trapped in a cage that was mortality. Pausing, swallowing, she swallowed her defensiveness and opened up her heart a little more.

"You may talk to me. I have nothing but my terrible sketches to accompany me. You may be refreshing." A soft smile crept onto her face. All of a sudden, she looked younger, rounder, gentler. More delicate, more open, more loving. Seleucus would hopefully see that she meant him well. "I have something you may like to see."

Slowly, shakingly, she stretched out her left forearm, so that it lay in the middle of the table, a bridge between the girl and the fallen. Stretching across the entirety of her forearm, lay a rendition of Leth chasing Syna, desperately searching for his love, round and round Mizahar they went. The scars were faded, but the impression was still there, a deep cut, five years old. "This is your God and his Lady Love. It was the first scar I ever made." If Seleucus should look from the scar to her face, he would see Johanne looked uncertain, more afraid, more childlike. This was The Scar to her. The one that began it all. To show it willingly to Seleucus took more courage than she could express.

[Seleucus]

There was something about Johanne that went not stony, that was too strong a word, flinty perhaps. Seleucus noticed and knew, to his embarrassment, that he was the source. I have sounded perhaps too...full of myself. Yes, but I didn't quite know what I was doing over, that is no excuse though. Well better try and make ammends. Despite his good intentions her next comment brought him some moderate distress. "..necessity." His eyes, maybe imperceptibly, went far-away. Necessity yes, I have always believed the world needs more beauty." he muttered softly, barely audible. "And we all pay a price for beauty, some more willingly than others." His eyes flitted to the window where Leth hung. "And some pay it without having willed it at all." Silence settled over the table for a moment, luckily for Seleucus Johanne continued the conversation down a different path, that pierced through the previous beat's somber silence. Rich, pure peals of laughter issued from Seleucus' throat. "Sacrilege?" His face bubbled with mirth. "You have to understand, I do not myself out to be a priest, far from it. Leth and I spent time together, yes, but I do not know his every wish and whim." Seleucus chuckled again, "For all I know Leth deems me the most amoral of beings for drinking tea, but from what I recall, he is not a god of forbidding small pleasures." "Although loneliness can be a cruel mistress. I understand the need to escape her thrall." said Johanne. Seleucus sighed gently and laced his marble fingers together. This he deigned to reply to this line with only a small affirmative nod. People had come and gone in his short life on Mizahar with unpleasant frequency. Little did he care to pursue that with a stranger whom he had already ended up putting on edge. When next Johanne spoke there was something softer to her. A gentleness he had yet to see. She bared her arm and there emblazoned on her skin was an image of shining scars, slightly faded but still clear against her skin. Leth chasing Syna. A smile broke over his face, a nostalgic one, the kind of smile that reminds someone they were talking to a being that could recall in bits and pieces many lifetimes of memories. "You honor Leth to have put this on you flesh, and Syna as well. He is a god of thought and change, was this a time of change for you?" Seleucus listened closely though his face studied the art on her skin with an absorbent ferocity. "Thank you for sharing this with me, it brings me great happiness to see such things."

[Johanne]

Johanne quickly looked back down to the table, a red sheen of embarrassment across her pale cheeks. His words were quiet, but in this small pocket of intimacy in the middle of the tea house, Johanne could hear every word he spoke. "I am sorry," she whispered to the table-top. She spoke too fast and too soon, and once again, her concerns were centered on herself. Johanne had a terrible time remembering that she was not the only one in pain in this world. Swallowing quickly, she changed the subject, reluctant to let the silence settle.

It seemed strange to Johanne that he should be one of Leth's fallen children, and yet not know what he believed and what he wished of his believers. The tea question was obsolete, something Johanne had just thrown out there out of curiosity. It was nothing but a triviality. But what about the bigger concepts? Did Seleucus know what Leth thought of murder, abuse? Of drinking, of drug-taking? Of love and passion?

"Do you ever ... hear him?" Her voice was oddly strained, and perhaps Seleucus would detect an undertone of longing within it. She wished nothing more than for a god to recognise that she existed. "Does he ever speak to you?" That was something Johanne had never understood about worship: how one could spend such time with a God and never hear any acknowledgement back.

Her extended forearm brought back their conversation from silence and the awkward stillness of misunderstandings and righteousness. As Johanne held her shoulders tense, she keenly watched his expression, for the slightest change that might indicate derision. Showing Seleucus this scar, the Joseph scar, was more of a peace offering than he could ever understand or appreciate.

"A time of change?" she repeated, and all of a sudden Joseph's kiss came flooding back to her. Smiling softly, she nodded, slowly. "Yes, this changed everything. On the day I made this scar, my whole self imploded and a new world was around me." Grandiose words, but Johanne was not one to restrain herself from language. To her, meeting Joseph had made her anew, and making this scar was a baptism of blood.

"I did not make this to honour Leth, though," Johanne said gently. If he should look back up into her eyes, he would see that she no longer held the tension within her, as she had when she had waited for a response. "I am not religious in the least. A god has never touched my life, and I do not think I have ever crossed the mind of one." She shrugged, a bitter smile across her face. "No, I made this scar because someone touched me in a way no one had before, and no one has since." Dariel, almost. "He bore the same scar, on his cheeks."

Seleucus would never know what an honour he was receiving, for Johanne to impart this history on him. Perhaps it was because he was an Ethaefal, beautiful and lordly. Perhaps it was because despite that, he seemed as human and as lost as she did.