Winter Deliveries

by **Alses** on January 27th, 2013, 4:23 pm

Timestamp: 59th Day of Winter, 512 A.V.

The clouds above Lhavit were fat and louring, bloated and stuffed almost to bursting with a great cargo of snow, just starting to shed gently on the celestial city. The wintry smell of it was everywhere, hanging in the air, a harbinger of the heavier falls would undoubtedly come in a few chimes' time. For now, though, the sun still shone, striking brilliant fire from the vanguard and the puffy barges of snowflakes and vapour simply circled in holding patterns above the shining streets and merry, red-nosed citizens, buffeted hither and yon by the mountain winds high above even the tallest spires.

Alses was on another morning constitutional; she was trying to build up her stamina for all the running about her couriering tasks had her doing. The steady stream of work over Summer and Autumn had toughened her (or so she thought), but Lhavit had thrown another obstacle in her path; the cold winter air was like knives in her throat after a little while, and she found herself frequently stopping to wheeze and cough and catch her breath. She was taking the long way round from the Towers' Respite, rather than using the private bridge that would deposit her right at the Dusk Tower's doors in short order.

That meant devising a rather more circuitous route from the Respite's location on Zintia peak to the Dusk Tower's imposing presence, bulking as it did on the topmost tier of the Shinyama. The easiest and simplest way (if not using the private bridge) was to simply head due west from the Respite gates; the positions of the Tower and the main bridge were such that you'd run more or less straight into the Dusk Tower's doors.

However, the purpose of Alses setting off at the crack of dawn (since she only had to report to the Tower secretary by the tenth bell) was to strengthen her muscles and build up her lungs to deal with the stresses and strains of winter; a simple and easy straight run simply would not do. No, there needed to be crowds, and curving streets, and sudden jinking twists and turns - which did sterling jobs at disrupting the mountain winds before they could build up too much force in the celestial city, true, but were a nightmare to a courier in a hurry.

Couple that with some stairs between the tiers - guaranteed to make an out-of-shape courier’s legs burn, and carrying with them the exciting possibilities of longer-than-expected falls and multiple broken legs - and perhaps an impromptu obstacle course of the sorts generally occasioned by the smaller back-alley streets: a tangle of temporary rubbish dumps, machinery and stockpiles of bulk goods, well, then you had the makings of a training course of sorts. Adding in a bit of distance by taking her course through the Alheas Park could only help matters, but this was something she’d resolved to build up to - there would be no end of embarrassment if she turned up at the Dusk Tower’s doors sweaty, panting, exhausted and therefore completely useless for the purposes of her employment there.

Nobody bothered her as she slipped out onto the shining, frost-encrusted streets - and why would they? She was no person of great substance, beyond the usual gravitas afforded to any Ethaefal in Lhavit, but even as she started to accelerate up from a steady, unhurried walk and into the gracefully loping gait that served her as a run, the gentle bubble of silence and genuflection that surrounded her seemed to be even wider than usual, as though she had some sort of invisible retinue pushing and shoving at people to make them keep their distance. Unsettling, that - but Alses pushed it to the very back of her mind as she focused more on the run itself, the route unspooling through her head even as her boots rang on the skyglass, sending frost and snow flying.

So…from the Respite’s wintry grounds, out onto the grand procession of monumental squares, plazas and boulevards which characterised Zintia peak, curving across and up through the crowds which were a permanent fixture of the Surya Plaza, then clattering down the tiers once more to join the Cloudward Pathway as it wended its way around the base of the city's peaks, littered with courting couples and the occasional philosopher trying to find his thoughts amid the amorous activity all around.

There was something in the motion of sprinting, the fluid bunching of the muscles of her lower legs, a rising wave that coiled her flesh and propelled her forward in an easy, loping gait that was entirely instinctual. It was a natural rhythm her body responded to, her brain processing a million variables and adjusting her tread on the fly, tensing some muscles, relaxing others, reducing the bone-jarring jolt of each strike against the skyglass to a muted impact, there and gone in an instant as the work of her bunching sinews flashed into physical force and pushed her onwards, ever onwards.

The wind did its level best to slow and hinder her, sending whistling shards of ice to bite at her exposed face and arms, pushing clouds of smoke down her throat and irritating her nose with its acrid, pervasive stink, but by now she was used to many of its tricks. Indeed, this time it was the people that were giving her pause, rather than any demanding tickle in her throat or the feeling of ice-lacerated lungs. She was used to stares, of course, any Ethaefal who'd been on Mizahar for more than a few days was, but these were not appraising, awed, appreciative, delighting, honoured or any of the manifold other feelings an Ethaefal's glorious celestial form tended to inspire in the masses – even the masses of a city so fair and fortunate as Lhavit.

Instead, wherever she went there was a wider-than-normal bubble of space around her and she was skewered from all sides by glances and sidelong looks, unnerving and positively alien on a Lhavitian street. A cloaking susurrus of whispers accompanied her every move, too, and wherever her gaze landed amongst the throngs of people for more than a fraction of a second the good citizens of Lhavit looked away, not willing to meet her eyes, shuffling aside to leave an open path for her, getting out from under whatever unnatural pressure her gaze seemed to have acquired.

No use dwelling on it; Alses fed the energy being uselessly consumed in perplexity back into the immediacy of running, arms down at her sides and not scything through the air as she'd seen others do – it seemed a terrible waste of energy, pumping the arms up and down when everyone knew it was the legs doing all the work. It stood to reason, and Alses was nothing if not logical and reasonable when she actually sat down and considered a problem. Mizaharians were a very strange lot, sometimes. Perhaps it was a tradition; that sort of thing seldom had relevant reasons behind it other than 'it's traditional'.

From behind her, as she loped up the long staircases from the Cloudward Pathway and back to the main tiers, there was an almost-palpable sigh of relief; some buck had been passed, some terrible event averted, or at least avoided. Even the Shinya – and there had been rather more of them than usual down on Cloudward, now that she came to think of it, and bulking in full skyglass plate at that – had seemed hesitant and uneasy at her presence. Had something terrible happened? Had some great calamity befallen the city? Surely, though, if such a thing had occurred there would be some more visible signs than 'everyone's looking a bit shifty'.

Her train of thought entered a long, dark tunnel as she ran up through the twisting alleyways that ran parallel to the Surya Plaza, feet aching from the continual battering, unyielding press of skyglass through her boots, each step sending a lance of discomfort up from the soles of her feet. 'Has something terrible happened to me?' She winced as a further thought occurred. 'Or, even worse, is something about to?'

Operating on the basis that forewarned is forearmed, and also because of the fact that her abused feet felt as though they were about to catch fire, she slowed from her steady sprint to a gentle jog and then to a placid, meandering walk as the skyglass gave out to dirt by the entrance to Alheas Park, a shimmering and secretive expanse of greenery right in the centre of the city.

by **Alses** on January 27th, 2013, 9:31 pm

Alses steamed faintly in the crisp, wintry air as she stepped across the threshold and into the park proper. Even here, with the local atmosphere warmed by the complex interplay of djed currents that also produced the spectacular mist-banks and gentled Syna's rays to a warm twilight, curls of vapour rose from her fire-opal skin, beaded with pearly sweat from her exertions.

The amble: that gentle recovery from hard physical activity, the calming of her heart from its pounding toccata against the prison of her ribcage and the gentling of the ferocious expansion and contraction of her lungs and the smooth, oiled ripple of muscles no longer running up and down her frame, was perhaps the best part of her running regimen.

Alses drew in a deep breath of djed-laden air; it seemed to tingle on her tongue and flash between her teeth, probably a minor interaction with her auristic Sight, always shimmering at the edge of conscious thought. The six-acre enclave was a beautiful place, true, but slightly strange – the heat, for example, a wrapping warmth that seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere, quite noticeable after the chill of the rest of Lhavit and even through the residual warmth of her sprint. Regardless of how much running she'd done over the Summer and Autumn, Lhavit's winter still managed to get the better of her, cold air pouring into her lungs with every breath to steal warmth and energy from the bright blaze of her insides.

Fortunately, the park had an abundance of skyglass benches for the weary or contemplative, and Alses sank gratefully onto the nearest one, reflexively blessing Zintila for Her foresight that skyglass should forever be slightly warm and so not take strips off unsuspecting Ethaefal, even in the depths of winter. Blue lights flashed in front of her eyes and a headache throbbed meanly at her temples, a constricting circlet of pressure under her skin, tight around her skull. Even the seamless fusion points, where skin and bone transformed into whatever indestructible divine material her crown-of-horns were actually made of, ached.

She bent forward out of reflex – some deep-buried instinct had recognized the imminent danger of vomiting – and simply breathed, deep and as slow as she dared, filling her lungs with the warmer air of the Park and recharging her body with whatever vital element that running – or any physical activity, actually - deprived it of. Her legs trembled and shivered without conscious control as her muscles reluctantly returned to their resting states, and her throat constricted and burned.

After a few chimes in that peaceful place, however, the worst of the effects of her exertion began to ebb away and the blessed normal state of affairs reasserted itself, slow and unsure at first and then with mounting confidence. The constricting band of her headache slipped and eased, the jellied legs ceased their spasmodic juddering, the icy lump in the centre of her ribcage thawed and melted, and her heart ceased its madcap attempts to smash out of her chest.

The various city bells, no two of them exactly in step with one another, put forth their joyous carillon on a general consensus of the ninth bell of the morning. Alses waited patiently until the last echoes of the thought-destroying pealing rang away into the silence of the mountain valleys all around before even trying to think.

So.

'Item One – Nobody on the street wants to meet my eyes. Something's definitely wrong here; normally they're only too happy to get recognition from one of the sun-touched favourites, even if it's just a smile or a wave.'

Item Two – Then again, the Shinya haven't actually laid hands on me or followed me or anything, so either they're biding their time for something or I'm not actually in hot water for anything.'

With a shake of her head, now that it didn't feel as if it would come off at the slightest provocation, she rose from the skyglass bench and made her way at a leisurely, stately pace – there was no sense arriving at the Dusk Tower's doors breathless and panting, and in any case the Alheas Park was a beautiful place to take a stroll, if perhaps a little dim for her tastes. A little more light on the scene would not have gone amiss, but then again, she noted, in the spirit of fairness, that would probably destroy the mystical, serene ambience of the place, the elusive embodying spirit that made the Park such a draw, different and yet at the same time fundamentally similar to that of the Kinell Hotsprings.

In a way, it was a wrench to leave the sun-dappled, djed-rich surrounds of the park, ducking out from under its interweaving canopy of leaves and branches, varicoloured mists swirling about her ankles as she made the transition from dirt and well-packed gravel back onto the familiar ringing tones of obdurate skyglass, hard and unyielding and the very devil to run on for long periods.

The bright blaze of Syna, still valiantly overhead and holding her own against the encroaching clouds, and the wave of heat and contentment that brought, soon wiped those thoughts from her head, though, as she ambled along the long bridge which linked Zintia and Shinyama peaks, heading for the Dusk Tower and its gates which now loomed, large and immediate, in front of her.

Here, at least, there was a smidgen of normality, in the guise of the two stoic, always-silent guards who stood on either side of the permanently-open gates: nothing about them, at least, had changed. She was almost moved to break the ritual and actually speak to one of them as their eyes zeroed in on the Dusk Tower crest she bore, but only almost.

Thus it was, perhaps thinking that the Tower had been spared whatever outbreak of consternation had swept over the rest of Lhavit (as unlikely as that sounded), that Alses entered the pleasingly harmonious grand atrium and quickly made her way up the shallow marble steps to Mr. Secretary's office, once a place of brooding grandeur and austerity, and now simply a comfortable place in which to conduct business of one flavour or another. She and the Dusk Tower's public face got on rather well, all things considered – indeed, it was with the upper echelons of the House that there was any sort of friction.

“Good morning, Mr. Secretary,” she carolled. She'd known his name – briefly – once, but, having forgotten, some rare imp of perversity had led him to refuse to give it again, and by now 'Mr. Secretary' had attained the status of an inside joke, or possibly a tradition, between the two of them.

He looked up, blankly, from the ever-present piles of papers in front of him, and gave her a decidedly wan attempt at a smile. “Ah, Alses. You've...decided to come in, I see.”

She blinked. “Is there some festival we don't know about?” she asked. He winced.

“Not...not exactly. That is to say...” he havered, casting about for words. “Has no-one told you?”

Alses put her hands on her hips. “In this Tower, Mr. Secretary, we are generally the last person to know anything. Now, what is it? Birth in the Family? Death in the Family? Illness again?”

He laughed, hollowly. “Nothing of the sort, I'm afraid. Do you really not know?”

A sigh. “If we knew what on earth you were talking about, Mr. Secretary, we wouldn't have to bother asking. I could rip it from your mind, I suppose, but I regard you as something of a friend, and we're told that in any case the practice is rather frowned upon in polite society.” Besides which, even if she had been so inclined, that sort of thing just wasn't possible with auristics. She was being deliberately flippant as a way to take the dapper fellow's mind of whatever calamity he was about to reveal – given his slightly nervy procrastination it couldn't be anything good.

“One of your brethren threw themselves from the highest tier of the Zintia Peak this morning. I'm sorry.”

by **Alses** on January 28th, 2013, 2:34 pm

Absolute silence tightened its velvet grip around the room for several long chimes. Even the crackle and snap of logs in the ample grate seemed muted, and the usual busy scritching of the secretary's pen was completely absent as he contemplated the statue-still Ethaefal sitting ramrod-straight across from him.

As the silence stretched into hitherto-unplumbed depths of awkwardness, he broke it by running a finger around his collar and offering: “Drink, Alses?” He knew she didn't, as a general rule, partake of the actual physical act of drinking, but that she derived some satisfaction from 'experiencing' – that was her term for it, beyond his own understanding, but he'd accepted readily enough that it was a magic Ethaefal quirk – a glass.

As he turned towards the drinks cabinet and its antique tantalus, Alses spoke. “Accarat, Mr. Secretary.”

He sighed, though tolerantly. “When did you get a taste for the high life?” he asked, not really expecting an answer. She was, as a rule, remarkably tight-lipped about things from more than a few years ago, although the occasional odd detail – such as her liking for fine Accarat brandy - slipped through.

In short order, the richly decadent cherry brandy rested luxuriantly in a Tower-engraved brandy balloon between them. Absently, and with the ease of long practice to the secretary's discerning eye, she cradled it and desultorily swirled the liquid about a few times, eyes half-closed and distant.

“A Synaborn took their own life?” she asked, not looking at him. The secretary stiffened, bracing himself for an incipient explosion that he could almost see brewing.

“Yes,” he replied heavily. “Terrible thing, terrible.”

There was a long pause, and then: “Ah,” said Alses, tone as mild as milk. It would take an experienced people-watcher, or someone who knew her quite well, to spot the hurt flaring in her eyes and the tension singing in tightened muscles. “Another star winks out of our dwindling constellation. Found the suffering of a half-mortal life on this petching ball of shyke too much to bear, I shouldn't wonder. The aegis of their faith crumbled, and they with it.”

She cast a blank look skywards. “The Goldenlands will be awash with tears today.” Some measure of mundanity returned as she looked at the secretary once more; he squirmed like a pinned insect under her gaze. “Do we – do you know who it was? A name, perhaps?”

The secretary shook his head, half-hypnotized with nebulous dread. “I'm afraid not, no. The Shinya and our House Guard talk, though – I can make enquiries if you like,” he babbled. “But surely you can find out more quickly? There aren't many Ethaefal in the city, after all.”

“It would be a kindness, Mr. Secretary. As a rule, we Ethaefal avoid one another, a few exceptions - like the Lady Talora – notwithstanding; the name will be known to you long before it would make itself known to me if I relied on the other Ethaefal of the city. I will say a prayer at the Sun Temple for our fellow Synaborn's soul; a name will make it...more personal.”

She pushed the crystal brandy balloon back across the table with a longing gaze. “You look as if you could do with it more than me, Mr. Secretary.” A wry half-smile tugged at her lip for a moment, before vanishing. “At least we now know why the citizens wouldn't meet my eyes and why the Shinya guards looked ready to grab me at a moment's notice.”

She paused, and leaned back, relaxing ever so slightly. “Do you have work for us, Mr. Secretary?”

He blinked, monocle nearly popping from its orbit. “Work? Zintila above, one of your own's just died and you're thinking about work?”

Alses' lips pressed together in a thin white line. “We don't know who it was, Mr. Secretary,” she reminded him, voice cold and flat. “It could be someone I've never really met, or an Ethaefal we once held closer than friend. Either way, they gave up, and we shan't serve any purpose by randomized mourning. When I know which of my brothers and sisters has...” the words 'killed themselves' stuck in her throat “...relieved themselves of the burdens of life...then I shall offer a prayer and mourn when the time is right.” She laughed, a hard and sardonic bark that was a complete contrast to her normal, usual merry laugh. “What possible advantage is there to us sitting around and moping through all the empty bells of a day? Besides, we must work to live. No charity in Lhavit, Mr. Secretary, or had you forgot?”

He let the barb, the loaded comment, pass, sensible man. Despite her protestations to the contrary, Alses' mood was a black and introspective one, behind the massive walls of shock and the carefully-constructed mask of indifference she'd built up to deal with unexpected situations. It was a reflex, now, that studied, detached disinterest, but perceptive Mr. Secretary had caught a glimpse past the armour.

He cast about, distracted, amongst the detritus of his desk. It was plain to see he'd got no work done that morning, probably reeling over the shock of the news like everyone else.

“Ah! Aha! Yes, yes, here's a little something you can do, if you're really feeling up to it,” he said, rather doubtfully, after a few ticks of scrabbling.

Still sitting ramrod-straight in the chair, Alses raised an eyebrow at him.

“A few deliveries we didn't manage to get through the Midwinter rush. It's always bad, but what with illness and the weather this year, some didn't get through at all.”

“What sort of deliveries?” Alses asked, putting – with an effort – the thoughts of suicidal Synaborn out out her head.

“Midwinter gifts, would you believe it?” he laughed, shortly. “We had to send carriages to bull their way through the weather to the other Towers. Now it's cleared a bit, we're getting through the backlog.”

Alses cheered up somewhat; Midwinter gifts tended to be small things: food, drinks and trinkets of one flavour or another in the main. Hopefully they wouldn't be too heavy.

“You'll have to go to the Clerk of the Exchequer – hold on a moment and I'll write you a scrip of release for him. Do you still remember the way?”

“Yes, of course,” Alses said with a short laugh. “I do spend quite a bit of my time in the Tower, and I have no desire to get lost, bumble through a door I'm not supposed to go through and end up in Lady Yuo'ta's boudoir, say. She'd eviscerate me, if the House Guard didn't get there first.”

The secretary smiled, reassured by the gentle – if slightly black – humour, and handed her a rectangle of parchment stamped with the Tower seal and the secretary's flowing – and illegible – signature.

“A case of Rosaille Grand Sol?” she asked, looking up from her reading and quirking an eyebrow. “Who's the Tower buttering up?”

“It's our usual gift to Tian J'net, actually,” the secretary replied. “She's indispensable for certain elixirs, and generally gives us something of equal, if not greater, value in return. Generous woman, you know.”

Alses smiled, remembering all the little titbits of information – and, admittedly, gossip – that the laughing proprietor of the Starry Chalice had lavished on her over the course of their acquaintance. “Indeed she is,” she replied absently, continuing to scan down the list.

“Most of this is bottles,” she commented, and the dapper fellow flashed her a mischievous smile.

“People drink a lot at Midwinter. Not much else to do, see, and most of them don't have the benefit of a wine cellar. Pragmatism, Alses – the maximum amount of gratitude for the least amount of effort – but don't ever say I told you that!”

by **Alses** on January 31st, 2013, 7:18 pm

The twittering, birdlike man who served as the Dusk Tower's Clerk of the Exchequer was a cautious fellow, his eyes hard and suspicious – which was probably just as well, since he was the Tower's first line of defence for the Dusk family fortune. He scrutinized Mr. Secretary's scrip and then Alses' own Dusk Tower crest, running obviously-practiced fingers over the intricate embossed lines and curves.

“Do you get a lot of people trying to steal from the Tower?” she asked, curious. He didn't look up from his painstaking examination.

“Almost no-one,” the clerk replied, holding the seal up to the light and squinting ferociously. “The Shinya and the House Guard do a sterling job. Mostly I just have to remind students and Family when they've exceeded their draw limit for the season, as set by the Patriarch, but if someone gets away with an unathorized double handful of treasure it's my job on the line. So I always check. Keeps m'skills sharp, too.” He gave her a sudden, bright smile.

“That all seems to be in order.” He pushed a heavy, leather-bound book across the desk through a gap in the iron bars which surrounded his work area like some sort of cage. The walls and floor and ceiling were all probably salted with subtler defences, but the Dusks were nothing if not cautious. “If you'd just sign for receipt of the materials, I'll bring them up for you.”

Obediently, Alses picked up the slender quill and set her elegant, looping signature to the page, next to the Clerk's neat copperplate hand recording exactly what she was taking – fine spirits, mostly, moved from the deep wine cellars to the Exchequer vault for ease of couriering. “Do you need any help with the cases?” she offered.

He shook his head before the words were half out. “Thanks for the offer, miss, but I couldn't accept it even if I wanted to. No-one but Exchequer employees and Family in the vaults, Patriarch's orders. We take security very seriously here. Won't be a moment.”

In fact, he was several chimes, and preceded by a floating string of swearwords and the glassy chime of bottle on bottle which redoubled in frequency and volume as he came closer – climbing stairs, Alses guessed, from the depths of the Tower.

The bottles had a faint coating of dust which puffed up in a small cloud as the clerk heaved the case onto the desk. “Probably best to take just one or two cases at a time,” he advised. “Considering how much some of these bottles are worth, you don't want to drop them.”

Alses winced, and mentally revised her route along with how long it would take her. The bottles clanked and shifted as she and the clerk fussed them into her backpack, and then they were settled, the pointy ends of the case digging into her sides and the weight pulling her shoulders back and putting even more strain on the fabric at the front of her dress. She kept meaning to have, not to put too fine a point on it, a much looser garment made for just this sort of delivery, but never seemed to quite get around to it, so stares were par for the course for the foreseeable future. It also didn't help that her celestial figure was moulded after the classical pre-Valterrian ideal – curvaceous and voluptuously fleshy; given that most people these days were lean and rangy, finding clothes that fitted was something of a trial, and bespoke tailoring had been beyond her means whilst she was travelling.

Still, never mind, never mind.

Back out into the city, under the shocked and worried stares of the citizens all around. At least now she knew what had them so jittery and unnerved at the sight of an Ethaefal, a sort of randomised, city-wide guilt that someone, somewhere, hadn't done enough to help the poor soul (whoever they were) and the vague, dread-laden worry that that someone was them. Being complicit in the death of an Ethaefal was probably blasphemy as well as being the capital crime.

The best thing to do in these circumstances, Alses decided, having seen people shy away from her gaze as though it were red-hot, was to keep her head down and just get on with things.

A

Running with a heavy package on her back – and moreover, a fragile one – was an entirely different kettle of fish to simply trying to get somewhere fast. When she'd first tried to reattain the easy, loping gait which ate up the distances, the case and her backpack had slid heavily to one side and then the other, throwing her off-kilter and turning her graceful run into a staccato stagger that ended only when she braced herself against the skyglass railings of the bridge.

Two sharp points of pain, radiantly aching, pricked and poked and prodded at her back, protesting afresh each time her movements caused the sharp corners of the wine case (only slightly blunted by her canvas backpack) to jam into the same spot.

With a disgruntled sigh, Alses turned and rested her pack on the broad ledges of the bridge, the bottles clinking gently together as they settled into a new position. The faint warmth of the skyglass struck through her clothes to warm her skin and gently take the edge off the radiating ache around her kidneys, but she knew that the instant she began to move again the whole painful, lurching process would begin again.

Perhaps there was something in the position of her running that could be changed; maybe if she bent over more as she ran that would tighten the straps of her backpack and so pull it closer to her body, more in tune with its motions and so less likely to slop and slosh about and pull her off-balance.

She only managed the length of the bridge before that hypothesis was effectively, if painfully, disproven; Alses clutched at one of the decorative grotesques which held up some of Lhavit's lights until the worst of the pain subsided. She'd be black and blue – or at least, the gem-toned approximations of those colours – come morning; that much, at least, was a certainty, worse luck. Tanroa's Blessing would help – it was surprisingly useful in such matters – but it wouldn't erase them completely, leaving her ginger and careful about sitting down for several days further. The least said about sleeping, the better, frankly.

Trying to sway with the motion of her backpack as she moved had worked, at least for a little while, before resulting in her taking a series of increasingly wide arcs that ended up dragging her right across Surya Plaza before she decided that the build-up of momentum would probably catapult her off the city if she carried on much longer.

Evidently, there was some trick to it, since she'd seen other couriers, lean and rangy and corded with muscle, racing through the city streets and beyond with far more substantial loads than the case she had strapped to her back, but currently it evaded her completely, her body queuing up to present its complaints at her unnatural movement; her calves burned insistently, the twin points of pain on her lower back had turned into broader washes across the width of her body and her shoulders throbbed where the canvas straps had cut mercilessly into her flesh, shifting and biting deeper with every change of direction.

Admitting defeat, at least for now, Alses shrugged the backpack into the most comfortable remaining position and set out for Tian J'net's shop at a much more sedate, unhurried pace, moving gingerly – although that, at least, was only noticeable to anyone used to the usual graceful Ethaefal gait.

by **Alses** on February 1st, 2013, 3:40 pm

The Azure Market. By the time Alses slipped into its blue-washed confines, the news had reached the gossiping traders and stallholders who lined its narrow streets, and the market squares were full of whispers and uneasy glances. Lhavit had been rocked to its normally-serene core, what with the odd happenings as of late; the scuffles and fights with rogue Summoners within the city walls, that odd amnesiac snow which had fallen silently over the city only a few days ago, and now this. One only had to look up at the sky to get a sense that something, somewhere, was very wrong indeed. The heavens were heavy and close, bearing down on Lhavit, a vast weight poised overhead to crush the celestial city at the slightest notice.

Alses shivered at the thought, thankful for the cheery canopies and awnings which stretched between the buildings of the Market, obscuring long stretches of the louring sky from view. The atmosphere of the market was acrid with uncertainty and unease, spiced with shock, a far cry from the usual sense of commercial purpose and mutual profit. It was contagious, too – the shoppers here moved quickly and jerkily, scuttling from one place to another and casting many a worried glance up at the heavens. The Shinya, normally so discreet and unobtrusive here, now stuck out a league, everything about their posture screaming 'alert' and 'ready for trouble'. They'd noticed that the Market was a powder-keg, and they stood ready to dish out justice with a liberal hand to keep the peace. A flying column of reinforcements was doubtless only an emergency signal away, too, just in case things started to get out of hand.

As it was, though, everything was calm – at least, on the surface. Nonetheless, Alses was very glad when the bottle-bedecked entrance to the Starry Chalice hove into view. Nobody would be stupid enough to fight in the vicinity of a philterer's shop, after all – who knew what could happen when carefully-prepared elixirs were spread about willy-nilly? General wisdom held that if you were such a fool, you'd be lucky to get away with merely burning the district down.

Inside was the usual treasure-trove of things that glittered and shimmered; abundant light reflected from the curve of the bottles and pooled in glowing liquids, lit up the clouds of spiralling smoke with internal fire and was bent and broken by the complex glass philtering apparatus ranged in between the lacquerwork shelves. Apprentice philterers, bulking large in the confined space in their heavy aprons, goggles, gauntlets and steel-capped boots, moved to and fro, intent on the task of the moment. None of them had noticed her yet, and she took the unusual opportunity to drink in the sight of a philtering shop at rest – that is, without a customer present.

It wasn't to last, though – barely a chime after she'd stepped between the red lacquer shelves that marked the official entrance to the Chalice, she was spotted, and by Tian J'net herself, no less, the imposing philterer emerging from the fabled back-room philtering lab amid a cloud of unusually-scented steam. Her hair – ruthlessly held back with a no-nonsense headband and further subjugated through copious use of hairpins - was frizzing at the edges from whatever reaction she'd been caught up in, and tiredness had dumped its baggage beneath her eyes. They were, however, still afire with a sharp intelligence that Alses had come to both respect and appreciate, and they had instantly zeroed in on her, lurking unobtrusively in the entryway.

There were few enough Ethaefal in the city, and still fewer that frequented the Chalice, that Tian hazarded a guess on her name. “Alses? That you lurking in my doorway?”

A

Alses didn't reply straight away, still drinking in the myriad sights and sounds of the Starry Chalice. Tian was used, by now, to the moments of inattention and waited patiently, her own eyes sweeping her shop for any mistake or error on the part of the apprentice philterers under her care.

Rather than directly answering Tian, she processed further inside the Chalice, making a beeline for the battle-scarred table which served as a counter, half-buried under drifts of bottles and neat twists of paper, all of them labelled in a fine copperplate hand.

The faint clink of bottle on bottle as Alses rested her backpack on the table and slipped herself free of its straps with a sigh of relief saw a rise in Tian's interest; she moved closer from her position near her armchair-throne (carefully sited to oversee both the philtering lab at the rear and the shop at the front).

“Syna above, that was the very devil to carry,” she complained, rolling her shoulders and massaging her tender flesh in an effort to relieve some of the discomfort. True-blue light burst and flickered about her head and shoulders, a momentary mantling corona that was there for a split-second and then gone as though it had never been. Alses flashed Tian a brilliant, although slightly brittle, smile, the cacophony of aches and pains suddenly, abruptly silenced. “I come bearing belated gifts, mostly of an aqueous nature. Merry Midwinter from the Dusk Tower, Tian.”

“Merry Midwinter?” the proprietress echoed, a chuckle rolling through her words. “Bit late, aren't you?”

Alses shrugged, with a deprecating little laugh. “The Tower blames the inclement weather as of late and extends its apologies,” she recited, the words a mantra after having been said so many times to one recipient after another – and not just today, too. Slender arms tensed as she carefully drew the rough wood case out of her backpack, jiggling it a little to free the canvas before setting the lot down on the table between them.

Tian's eyes had caught light, in spite of her tiredness, at the sight of the dark glass bottles. Plump, practiced hands reached out and plucked one of them out, tilting it to the light and scrutinizing the label with a satisfied, vindicated little sigh.

“Rosaille Grand Sol, vintage 498 A.V,” the philterer breathed in delight, even as she signed the proffered receipt slip with an absent hand. “A wine fit for divinity. It's a handsome gift, Alses.” A wry smile tugged at her full mouth for a moment. “I bought myself quite a few bottles for Midwinter, and do you know I drank every single one of them before the actual day? Willpower is as naught before this stuff. The Tower always knows just what I want. Even better, they've already had my Midwinter gift – some of us use hardier couriers than whatever apprentices we can scrounge up – so I don't have to think about making something to delight Ald'gare Dusk for another year or so.”

“A pleasing prospect indeed,” Alses murmured distantly, most of her mind working out how to ask Tian a question without seeming...well, opportunist, and the rest of it returning, like a compass swinging to point north, to the matter of the suicide Synaborn.

Fortunately, she was saved from that by Tian herself, hands on hips and with a quizzical expression on her face. “I know that look, Alses. That's your 'how can I ask a question without being offensive' look. Out with it; you and I have known one another for a while now. I promise I won't be offended.”

Alses winced; evidently she wasn't hiding her expressions as well as she could be. So much for her iron mask of indifference. “I was wondering if you knew anything about the...the death this morning.” There, she'd put words around it.

Tian just looked puzzled, worse luck, running one hand absently through her frizzing hair. “Death? Who died? I've been locked up in the lab brewing-” suddenly remembering herself, and probably customer confidentiality, she coughed awkwardly. “Well, never you mind that. I've been shut up in here since yesterday afternoon. Only just finished, as a matter of fact. Now, what's happened?”

Alses sighed, steeled herself, and managed to choke the words out. “A Synaborn threw themselves off the top tier of the Zintia at dawn this morning. We are – I am – trying to find out who it was. I thought you or one of the other traders might know...” she tailed off uncertainly as Tian, all the wind taken out of her sails, sat down heavily in her customary armchair.

All work around them had stopped, apprentices not even pretending to work, unobtrusively clustering closer to hear what was said.

“One of your kin took their own life?” Tian echoed, hollow. “Gods above. Why ask me, though? Surely...surely one of your brethren would know...”

Alses cast her eyes heavenwards. “It seems to be a common misconception that every Ethaefal knows every other. We don't. How can I put this simply? Ethaefal do not like the company of other Ethaefal! A few exceptions notwithstanding, of course,” she added grudgingly. “We are...reminded of everything we've lost when we look upon another of our kind.”

by **Alses** on February 1st, 2013, 4:18 pm

“Gods above,” Tian breathed again, and then there was silence, save for the continual bubble of philtered mixtures and the crackle of a myriad of fires. After a while, Tian awkwardly patted her hand, lying between them – operating on reflex, Alses snatched it away as though burned.

She pretended not to notice, something Alses was forever grateful for, and said: “I'll ask around the Market. You still living in the Towers Respite?”

At Alses' confused nod, she continued: “If I hear anything I'll send a note.”

In a creak of springs, the philterer rose and deft fingers danced a fandango between the ranks of bottles, unerringly selecting two from amongst the hundreds – no, thousands, surely – that ranged around the room and setting them down on the table, along with a glass.

One was a faintly golden liquid, and the other a tranquil tealy green – not that there was much colour to either of them, just a suggestion of it on the edge of sight. Tian cracked the seals with a practiced twist and uncorked both of them with a practiced flick of her fingernail, holding them high above the glass and pouring simultaneously, leaning away in a practised motion as the two liquids met with a flash of light and a small puff of acrid smoke.

Tian stopped pouring, and nodded peremptorily at the quarter-full glass. “Go on, drink up,” she urged. Alses shied.

“We don't-”

“Drink, yes, I know, you've said. But I also know you make exceptions – like for your kariino.” Alses flinched; she never should have told her about that. “If it helps, think of it as medicine.”

“What is it?” she asked suspiciously, ready to bolt.

“Something helpful. Now drink.”

Cautiously, under Tian's watchful gaze, Alses sniffed it; there was no scent, or at least none she could detect, and a cautious swirl revealed nothing more than dancing reflections. Gingerly, face screwed up so much it was almost a caricature of her normal features, she let a few drops of the philtre touch her lips, and then a few more.

Soon, the glass was empty; every drop seemed to have a compulsion to down a few more. Alses' throat worked against her rising gorge to actually swallow the liquid – an old battle – and then it was in, rushing down her gullet and leaving an odd lightness in its wake.

“There, we've drunk it. Now what have we drunk?”

“Essence of Cheer,” Tian replied. “Dried cherry blossoms, jasao for vigour, wanamu tree sap and a pinch of fine-milled rose quartz. Oh, and a calming tincture, too. You were wound up so tight I thought you'd twist yourself to breaking point at any second.”

An odd euphoria – although perhaps euphoria was too strong a word for it – was rising up inside her, and suddenly it wasn't quite so imperative to think about the dead Ethaefal all the time. Indeed, her mind seemed to positively skip over those thoughts, focusing in on pleasanter things. The corners of her mouth curved up automatically in a smile, gentle and unforced.

“That's very kind of you, but we're not depressed. Quite the reverse, I assure you! The sun is shining, the heavens are closer than they should be and life is somehow satisfying.”

Tian covered a smile of her own with one hand.

“As you say, Alses. Now, I'll look into the matter for you. Enjoy the rest of your day.”

As Alses beamed and made her way back out into the Azure Market, her keen ears caught part of an exchange.

“...was that really wise? She'll be high as a kite!”

Tian's basso profundo voice was easily identifiable, and she was fairly sure the other belonged to Opeth, her senior apprentice. “Better that than depressed and deciding to follow that other Ethaefal's example. Better to be safe than sorry; a bit of cheer won't do the poor girl any harm anyway. She's a bit too serious most of the time, too.”

Alses shrugged – nothing to do with her, surely – and continued merrily on her way, back to the Dusk Tower to pick up more things from the Clerk of the Exchequer.

A

The sun was low and red, the time just before the Dusk Rest, when Alses finished her final delivery of the day and made her way back to the Dusk Tower, wearily climbing the marble steps to the secretary's sanctum, looking forward to the comfortable chairs beside the fire there.

“Good evening, Mr. Secretary,” she said, quite brightly, as she crossed the threshold. “That's seven more households who're celebrating their belated good fortune, and a considerable dent put in your backlog. I hope you're pleased.”

He looked up from his desk, brightly lit with a steady, even light perfect for clerical work, and gave her a small smile. “Good evening, Alses. Your fortitude never ceases to amaze.”

She cocked her head at him, even as she collapsed into one of the fireside chairs. “Fortitude?”

“You're coping remarkably well with the death of one of your own,” he pointed out. Alses laughed, not the hard, cynical bark of earlier but a gentler chuckle, still buoyed by Tian's combined philtre.

“And you're coping well with the deaths of the hundreds of humans that have doubtless occurred today,” she returned with a half-smile.

He blinked, and then collected himself. “Ah, but humans are meant to die; we have a finite lifespan. Ethaefal don't.”

Alses shrugged easily. “Fair point. Then again, any loss, when compared to what we have already suffered, already endured, is so small as to be miniscule.”

Silence reigned, comfortable and cosy, for several chimes, Alses gazing blankly into the fire and the secretary scritching away at his parchments.

She became so engrossed in the flickering, dancing flames that she barely noticed the dapper man slipping into the chair next to hers, leaning forward to warm his long, elegant hands – as immaculate and free from ink-stains as ever - by the fire.

“I'm afraid I wasn't able to find out the name,” he murmured at last, voice so quiet that she had to strain to hear him. “The Shinya are being very tight-lipped about it, even around the House Guard. No-one is talking; perhaps even they don't know.” He tensed, waiting for an explosion of some kind; when it didn't come, he deflated visibly with relief, letting out pent-up tension on a whuff of expiring air.

“I see. Well, we thank you for trying, Mr. Secretary. It's appreciated.”

“I'll keep a weather ear out,” he promised her quickly. “But no-one's talking right now, as I said. Too fresh, too new, too sudden, I think. Maybe in a day or two I'll be able to give you that name.”

“Thank you,” was Alses' only response, short and heartfelt. The two of them stayed like that, side by side and gazing pensively into the flames, for some time.

Then, the secretary broke the companionable quiet. “Have you ever...considered it?”

Alses, who had been in the process of rising to leave, froze on the spot and then turned, and her eyes glittered more than could be wholly explained by their natural shimmer. “Every day, Mr. Secretary, one way or another. Mizahar is cruel, after the bliss of the Goldenlands, and our connection to Syna, once closer than lovers, has been cut to little more than a whisper, and often not even that.” A heavy sigh.

“We have often wondered why She has not granted Her Ethaefal a gnosis-mark link, as Laviku does with His Svefra, a lifeline to cling to when all else about us is chaos and vulgar discord; I have thought time and again how many Fallen, and how many Forsaken, too, might have been saved, might not have turned their sight away from Syna's bright glory if they could still hear Her voice singing in the vaults of their mind. But She cannot or will not grant Her gnosis so freely, for whatever reason – we prefer to think she cannot expend so much of Her power due to her injuries during the Valterrian – and so I am a creature without anchor or purpose, floundering aimlessly through the world without Her, as are all the rest of us.”

Alses paused, and then gave him a bright, brittle smile. “Faith manages, Mr. Secretary. It has to. The fire of hope and belief is all that stands between an Ethaefal and oblivion, and when – if – that goes out...” she tailed off, not needing to finish, not when the suicide was so fresh in everyone's minds.

“We can understand, of course, that course of action, but we don't condone. We Synaborn may not have a personal connection to Syna any more, but She is everywhere the sun's light touches! We can see Her gilding the mountain-tops gold of a morning and blood-dipped bronze in the evening, She energizes every square centimetre of our skin whenever we step into Her light! Her warmth is at our back every tick of the daylight bells, and everywhere we look we can see echoes of Her bright presence and power.” Alses shook her head.

“Too many of my brethren waste all their time in prayer and self-punishment, waiting for Her to make the first move, to gather them close again, and still more have turned their gaze from the heavens entirely, spurned Syna and all Her gifts. We should be working to aid our goddess, not gazing about in lonely splendour and bemoaning our losses; Tanroa's river won't stop flowing, not even for an Ethaefal; we should raise up works in praise of Syna and by our own efforts strengthen Her and so ourselves!”

Alses' voice settled from its strident tones, the brassy echoes dying away slowly. “Sadly, our view is in the minority, as far as I have been able to determine. Still, where we lead, others might one day follow. Good day to you, Mr. Secretary.”

END

by **Elysium** on February 7th, 2013, 1:04 am

Alses

XP:
+2 Observation
+1 Rhetoric
+3 Running

Lore:
The Emotional Effect of Suicide
How to Handle Precious Cargo
Tian J’net, Mistress of the Starry Chalice
Recipe: The Essence of Cheer
The Burden of the Fallen

Notes: I adore your writing, Alses. You're incredibly descriptive and you do a great job interacting with details presented OOC! All in all, a very engaging read. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to let me know!

and so, the journey continues...

Solo Winter Deliveries