[The Stone Gardens] Not Another Dead Conversation (Open)

[Jilitse]

Not Another Dead Conversation
34th of Summer 510 AV
The Stone Gardens
Tell me, would you like to know what death is like?

It's been a few weeks since Jilitse stopped in Syliras, and while she still considered her stay as a stopover more than an act of settling down, she had tried her best to find her roots in the city. Her favorite place, a silent sanctuary were she spends most of her free time in, was the Stone Gardens. It was a peaceful park, a memorial garden that lays still inside the busy city. The Stone Memorial Gardens have its own power over its visitors, the path of cobble stones evoking the emotions and memories of those who remembered their past. The Garden was a testimony to the sacrifice of those who have done great things during their life, a constant reminder that there are many people who have survived and continued to live even when all things seemed to be at an end. The Garden was a form of salute, of recognition, and of memorabilia, to the great Knights and the honorable men and women who have put together all that they can and all that they could into making Syliras exist the way it was now.

And for an immortal like Jilitse, the constant battle for survival was no love lost. Today, she was wearing her usual clothes, fashionable but outdated. She looked more dead than dying, decay and sugary-citrus scents wafting around her. She sat unmoving, pipe on her lips, unlit. She had it with her as a force of habit, not that she was a chronic smoker when she was still alive. She was standy nearby a corner of the garden, staring at the stones in her feet. She was trying to clear her mind of worry, trying to empty her brain of useless thoughts, trying to come up with a concrete plan for her goals. There was solace in being alone, but at the same time there was a sense of dread in staying in Syliras, a place far away from home and nowhere like it. She wasn't feeling melodramatic, thinking about all these dead people being commemorated. Although being she thought that being remembered would certainly be welcome, if not nice. A testimony that you have lived, and have done something worthy of history.

The nuit had been a regular sight in the Garden especially during days when the weather was not throwing a tantrum. Nobody really bothered her when she was around, it was more like the other people were the ones who were bothered by her presence. She was callous enough not to mind. Jil often stood alone on a corner, mind wondering and planning about how to go about her life, or rather, unlife. It was a debate she did not like having on her own, but friends were rare for Nuits, even back then when she was still in Sahova. Acquaintances could not be replacements for phantom relationships that would not work because of moral or ethical boundaries. The undead was tolerated, but often times unappreciated or misunderstood. Jil often found it saddening how there was a constant need to label people as allies or enemies or nuisance. Most of the people she had seen (or, the even less number that she talked to) were nuisances in the world, lost souls looking for their calling, but they never really know and they would never really figure it out. And then there were those who have been born for fate knows what nth time, a recycled set of heroes who are out to do something, people who take the risks and fight for their ideas and beliefs, people who, in the simplest sense, live and survive.

Jil was silently pondering about a design for a golem, sitting still on a bench. It was enough that a number of people freaked out upon seeing her, and it was already hard to explain her presence. She tried not to tell anyone that she was from Sahova, or that she was, by profession, a mage. It was hard to keep inconspicuous when you're a nuit. The stigma was strong, too. But she did not plan on letting go of her profession, there was much at stake in her ability as an Animator. She needed to learn, even if she would be on her own.

[John Vicari]

For the past few days John saw a female staying in the Stone Gardens yet he made no action to avoid her. He only saw her for a bit during his own breaks from the shop and running around the city for his boss. Yet he was the type to blend in the sea of people or at least he thought so.

He wore his normal clothing, pair of dark pants with a brown tunic. A leather belt with black leather boots and a pair of gloves. Nothing special but the gloves were a bit too warm for his own taste during the summer times yet any time of the year they would had been fine.

He heard the tales that the new person upon the gardens were of the undead race called the Nuit yet he never really met one other then once when he did go with his Father fishing. Yet that was such a long time ago and he was such a young age he did not recall it with any details other then a foggy day. Yet even as he heard people talk for everyone had something to say in the city he still had no predefine view of her or was it a him in the end? After all they could switch bodies he heard.

Yet as he saw her upon the fine day as she was along a stone bench the young human took a seat by her along the same one. In his pale white hands he held a small cloth bag which he placed by him pushing it towards her unsure if she even knew he was by her or not for she did seem lost in thought upon something.

Inside the bag was a gift for her if she did open it. She would find a simple 5 ox perfume bottle with atomizer that had the scent Rain which he for from the local perfume store before stopping by the garden just in case he saw her again. It was not a gift that was a lot in Miza yet it was a gift from thought even if he did not know the person. Other things he heard of Nuits were that they could have a smell at times and his idea for the perfume would help her blend in the city more and maybe show her not everyone was fearful of her race.

Yet he did not say a word as he stayed upon the seat yet waited for her. The quiet female to have the first words for even he did not know if she even wanted company or not.

[Jilitse]

Jil did not seem to give any notice to the pouch that the other human was giving her. She did not even consider the possibility that she was being handed a gift. The person seemed familiar, somebody she recognized to have passed by the Stone Gardens occasionally. Not exactly a stranger, in a loose sense of the word.

The nuit, though far from being inattentive, had still a lost gaze away from where her companion was. She wasn't really eager for a conversation at the moment, as she had a good idea in mind. Not that her idea was taking her far, anyway. She was perfectly still, like the stones in the garden.

But just about the time that the human lost interest, she faced him and smiled. It was a rather unnatural smile, disconcerting, if not pretty. She laid a hand on the cloth bag and asked, "Why do you sit beside me?" She brought her arms together and laced her fingers on top of her knees. "I found it rather peculiar to be approached by a human being in a rather silent way. Are you too curious to bring out any form of words to your mouth? Or are you mute?" Jilitse said her words slowly, in a tone of inquiry rather than sarcasm.

Perhaps the human wished to be acquainted, she wondered. It was not her first time to be approached by another person. In the course of her stay in Syliras, she was not without a human companion, and she had carried conversation with a wide assortment of people. She stared, eyes unblinking, at John Vicari, for a while sizing up the man. What does he want with me? She repeated the question out loud, "What would a pulser like you want with a nuit like me?" She brought her laced fingers under her chin, keeping her eye contact with John, "May I ask your name?" Politely acquainting herself with the other person, she revealed, "My name is Jilitse." Short and concise, for she did not want to reveal anything more than that. There were peculiar things about herself that she wished to hold back. Let the human fill in the gaps of his curiosity by virtue of a proper conversation.

She gave her attention to the gift, reaching out for the small bag with both hands. Perhaps it was a token of peace, or friendship? She held her smile as she saw the small bottle, immediately recognizing it as perfume. "Is this a human's way of saying you stink or you should take a bath? Are you selling this to me? Are you a peddler?" She shook the bottle in front of John. There was no offense of course, the words were delivered in inquiry. She looked back at John Vicari, eyes questioning.

Upon realizing that the perfume was intended as a gift, she placed it back into the bag and handed it over to the human. "I cannot accept a gift without knowing its purpose." A slight frown creased her forehead. "I find it starkly unusual, please forgive me."

[John Vicari]

She was the more talkative type then he thought she would had been. That was not to say it was a bad thing however it did take him back slightly. He almost enjoyed the words from her lips but just kept a smile along his face as he saw her smile.

"To answer your questions...I am John. I am as you can tell not mute but why did I not talk first? Simple, you seemed so lost in thought I did not want to break the stings that bind the muses of ideas together."

He said letting the words flow from his own mouth as he tilted his head towards her. "mhm I am not selling that item to you. It's a gift I brought for you. I heard Nuits can have a hard time handling the weather in the city with something about the body so I thought that would had been a thoughtful gift. I did spend some time thinking of something as a token I mean you no harm but I guess like always my ideas are not the best thought out."

"I have seen you for a bit of time now in my breaks from the shop I help run, it is a local bookstore of sorts but I always find you are alone. People seem to stay from you and I can't see why they would. I have heard stories of your race but I am sure humans are bad as well so I never see a person as a race but as a person. I guess I am odd that way?"

He was just rambling it would seem as he felt more at ease with her. Maybe it was the fact she did talk and ask things to let him know she was not going to eat his soul if a thing could be eaten as a food. If it did he did have to ask what it would taste like.

"So Jilitse..what is it that brings you to this city? I can't say I have seen many Nuits but I have seen a handful yet they never seem to last that long. Is it the weather or something else that drives them off?"

"Was the gift a bad one? Maybe some sweet bread would had been better?" He asked her as he looked at the small bottle but made no movements to pick it up for he did buy it for her and her alone. If she wished not to take it nor would he even if she did give it back.

His light blue eyes just blinked as his head towards the sky. It felt like a nice day but it was always nice it would seem or maybe that was just his outlook upon life. Did she see the day as he saw it as well or was it a darker shade of life?

[Jilitse]

Sometimes, she wondered, if it was better to talk to humans without any pretenses. By her experience in Syliras, they seem too eager to believe anything that a never-before-met nuit would say, or too skeptic to listen to whatever words come out of a nuit's dead lips. And then she looked far away, not to ignore John but to face the direction of the Watchtower. The Watchtower brought her to Syliras, or at least, the need to meet Priskil.

John was a thoughtful human, it seemed. The nuit was somewhat surprised by the sheer audacity of John just by coming up to talk to her, and was also puzzled by his thoughtfulness by bringing a gift. Retreating her hand, still holding the small bottle inside her closed fist, she gave a weird glance to the human. It was, by no means, an acceptance of the gift, but an encouragement to keep talking. She wondered what his motives might be. It didn't seem like he recognize her face, so she struck out the possibility that he knew the owner of the face she was now wearing. She did mind being interrupted, but it seemed like humans, with the way they are, constantly strive for company or acceptance into one. Jil had learned to be friendly enough to let on, as polite as her undead demeanor could carry her, but predicting the reactions of humans in Syliras proved to be too random to calculate.

"I wish to visit the Watchtower, John." She said, for if he was a citizen of Syliras, then it would mean he knew that the Bronze Watchtower was now shining the brightest Yellow. "I wish to meet Priskil, if circumstances would even allow that." Surely she would sound like the next human who wished to get an audience with a god? Jil's face was smooth, and did not give out any particular hint at why she would like to visit the tower, or if the desire was too deep and the reason important.

"I believe you have never been acquainted with a nuit before?" She made a sound that was close to an amused groan. "We have no need for food, or any form of sustenance that the living needs. Our lifestyles are as far away as it can from each other, our cultures even more so."

She asked coolly, with a level tone, "It seems like you might have a question or two about me, my existence in Syliras, or my existence in general? I have never been approached so... kindly." If being greeted by scorn and hate was the usual for a nuit, no wonder a gift would instantly make that person kind. Of foolish and stupid. Jil was thinking of John as the latter, but she did not want to pass judgment just yet. Continued with, "What then, is the motive behind buying me a gift?"

As the awkwardness peeled away, she inquired about the local bookstore that he was running, "Do you carry mundane books? How about anything mystical, esoteric, or magical?" She did not seem particularly interested in the topics she mentioned, but she was a potential customer, and John should try to sell.

[John Vicari]

"Well if you ever do wish to meet any god I would say go to the Temple of All Gods, the main person who stands upon that area has marks from almost every god and would know how to talk to one more then anything else in this city."

"The tower...yes I could help you find it. Yet it is one of the greatest landmarks for a good while on any trip. The knights are around it often to keep people safe and such when they are outside the walls. As for my shop...It's called The Undeniable Interests, just your basic odd artifacts and bookstore. Everything from your basic books to your not so basic books like cooking and even things like Animation."

He said without much thought even if magic was a taboo subject in most cases but it was giving her a idea of what the store could and would hold if she did ever go inside. They had books from all subjects even magic type items. Even people from the city did buy magic books and he found a lot did enjoy the Flux type even if it was the harder of the magic's to handle.

"I wish to know more of you. What brought you to the city...what did you do beforehand. Research or trying to find the god and if just for the god why not another area? Was it more luck then anything? How are our cultures different and lifestyle? What is it that you do for your time if you don't eat and do you need sleep? I could only think of the things that would be helpful if I did not need to eat or sleep."

He just kept going on as if the flood gates were let open as questions filled his mind so did his voice let them out. He was the type to research it would seem and to probe things.

"As for the motive behind the gift...It was just for you. Nothing ill nor good I guess for I thought you may find it helpful being around humans. Most humans use smell before sight so maybe they won't treat you ill if they did not smell anything bad?"

[Jilitse]

John sounded so eager, so helpful that Jilitse looked at him with narrowed eyes. It was natural for nuits to be skeptics, sometimes to a fault, that they can imagine other people plotting. Sometimes, they could even hear elaborate plans planted in their head by their own cynical imagination. Could the bottle of perfume be poison? There was no telling, of course, that John was of pure interest as he claimed to be. Maybe he held a deep grudge too.

Had she been alive, she would have thought of John as a stalker who was trying his best to woo her. But Jilitse was a nuit, undead, and she only had the most twisted explanations for the human's interest in her. "Know more of me? Or know more of nuits?" Jil was stoic, but there was wariness in her voice. "I walked to Syliras from Zeltiva. Took me the good part of Spring." Which wasn't exactly the whole truth, as was "I'm interested in finding her." That was as much as she was willing to reveal about herself, giving the impression that she wanted to keep to herself, or John must be crossing the lines of her privacy.

She granted him a scowl and a reply to his last words. "So it is your way of saying I stink, no matter how much euphemism or concern you try to envelop it with." A nod and then she turned her body to look away from John. The nuit seemed to have accepted the gift as a form of humiliation, and had slipped back into her own musings.

[John Vicari]

John did not say a word as she moved back in her own world. He could only do the same as he pulled out a small leather bound book from his pack. It was a simple book holding no title upon the cover yet John knew this book well for he wrote it. In a sense.

It was a book dealing with basics of philtering, he read it more then once but he also copied the text from another book while he was working for Undeniable Interests.

He did not say anything to her as he flipped to the first page, his eyes reading the neat handwriting which showed he had some skill with calligraphy upon the quill and ink. He knew the basics of the topic and had some understanding over it but wanted to learn more in his free time.

He had no idea why he did not just get up and leave nor the real goal for sitting next to her. He should had just listened to people and left her alone yet for some reason he could not find it in his self to leave her nor even use his powers to get her to open up.

Maybe it was the fact that he did not know how her mind worked or her own thinking ideas. Maybe it was the fact she was not human he did not test the waters of her mind for age did bring power in stories and he knew she could had outlived him and could see him as a small stone in her life.

Could it had been human curiosity that drove him to understand her or even try to befriend her or was it just his naive like mind? If he knew more of her race or even of the world he could have seen his gift was a slap in the face then a gift.

Yet he could not turn the sands of time back as he flipped to a new page looking at different steps of philtering and what one could use to what was needed in the end of things. The pages of the book were of a slight better quality then most books but it also showed just how the shop was.

As he had his thoughts run around in his head his body just stayed near her as people walked by. He did not care what they said or thought of in the end of things. He never did for some reason.

[Jilitse]

So much tumult awaited. Jilitse had visited all the bars and taverns, trying to look for the right barmaid, hoping to find Priskil in disguise. She had done what John Vicari had suggested, but her visit to the Temple of All Gods did not result in anything remarkable. Asking around about the Order of Radiance, mentioning it seemed to be anything but speaking a myth - they do not exist, no one has confirmation of their existence.

It was actually easier to deal with dead people, and it was not like Jil was not used to keeping with herself, talking to herself, thinking alone, and being alone. But she liked dealing with inquiries, both directed at her and intended for others; it was almost a pain to deal with statements. Humans had a way of hiding meaning in between words, that there was no one true way of dissecting a simple statement like "I wish to know more of you." For the sake of curio, she was always turned on by research. Books, indeed. What did The Undeniable Interests have about Animation that Jilitse did not? Did she not, after all, have all her pre-Valterrian books that are probably found nowhere else in the whole world? But, what was there a chance that Syliras have magical tomes that Sahova did not? Perhaps so.

In silence, they stayed together. Like a portrait that shifted every now and then, denoting small movements like a page flipping, hair tossing, or a relieved sigh, Jilitse and John Vicari became acquaintances in the stillness of it all. It was somewhat marvelous, somewhat astonishing, how two very different persons can come together and somehow understand each other without speaking any word. Perhaps without knowledge of it, John offered Jilitse the silent company she was used to having, the space and time required for a Nuit to establish trust. Maybe the gift helped a bit, too.

After a bell of two, the harmony was broken. Jilitse found in John a person who shared her interest: reading books, if not research and the pursuit of knowledge. And, so she chose the most mundane of questions, "John, do you like reading books?" Followed by, "I do research. Magical research, mostly." It was an improvement, she was, at least, willing to put forward her expertise.

After a while she answered his previous inquiries. It was conceivable that all Jilitse needed was enough time to establish some form of camaraderie. Being approached by a stranger might not have been too appealing.

"I have made efforts--" or were they, really? "--to find Priskil. Going to the temple did not bear me any luck, and it seems that seeking her out is not a matter of faith or chance." She paused and waited for John if he had anything to say before adding, "I choose to go to Syliras because I have been here before, and it is reasonably safe for a Nuit to stay in. Not that I don't have difficulty, but it is much better to stay here than any other place. There are dangers the undead cannot outsmart, at least not by one like me."

She stared ahead and continued, "I practiced Animation in Sahova." John may be able to note that she spoke about the past. Jil explained, "It is an island of undead mages, a magical research facility that had survived the Valterrian. Alahea..." she talked dreamily, "we were supposed to win the war for Alahea. Sadly, the plan had to be aborted. The Valterrian was unexpected, and we suffered great losses. Sahova is not even close to its own grandiosity before the war." Before the war. Such a long, long time ago. "But time eats away its fringes," Jilitse's voice lost its singsong quality and slithered into its usual cool and unsympathetic pitch, "There were many reasons why staying in Sahova turned all the Nuits stagnant. It gets boring to live after a century, doing the same thin over and over again. We all have our eccentricities. And then there was the incident." She pursed her lips and checked John, tried to engage his attention by looking straight at his eyes, "Sahova, as you may know, is a place that exported golems. But never in the whole world will you find another golem as greater as Drainira. It use to supervised the Citadel, an almighty administrator built within the fort itself. It was sentient, capable of intelligence but not emotion, the most advanced and efficient overseer you can think of. But she devised a plan to escape Sahova, and she now wishes to rule the world as she had ruled the island."

She smiled, her eerie voice slipping back to its wistful quality. "I am tasked to destroy her."

And then casually, as if what she said did not bear any weight at all, she persuaded John, "Now you know more about me. I wish to know more about you."

[Duality]

oocHelping Archon out with some grading Jilitse Interrogation 3 Rhetoric 1 Storytelling 1 Alone to your thoughts Only Slightly Awkward Silences Getting a Gift from a Stranger People are Always Plotting Revealing something about Yourself Attempting Conversation Gained: Perfume from John Vicari John Vicari Interrogation 2 Rhetoric 2 Meeting a Nuit Giving a Gift to a Stranger Sharing Something about Yourself Attempting Conversation -1 Perfume Nice thread. I love your style of writing, Jilitse. It keeps the posts long and the conversation engaging. Your character's thought process is also something I love to read. As always I wish these threads made it to completion, they're such entertaining reads. For any questions or concerns about my ruling, feel free to PM me!