Closed fingering old bones.

[Eliza]

DisclaimerThe player of Kovac has granted me permission to take license with his character. Not naughty license, just literary license. Minds out of the gutter, kids. Further, this thread notably occurs on the 85th of Summer whereupon in the Wind Reach Calendar of Events, "due to volcanic activity, the Dreaming Lady spa reports issues with the natural fumes, causing horrible visions and nightmares." Fingering Old Bones there are times in life where, in order to get things done, you must beat the walls and hallways. If you find this insufficient, set them on fire. - augustus. Timestamp: 85 Summer 513 Deep within the mountain was a room the dark had always owned. The only relief offered the gloom was what faint luminescence provided by trickling veins of obscure minerals embedded deep within the walls of stone. The source was unheated, phosphorescent or florescent, incomparable to the molten substance occupying the heart of Mount Skyinarta that if unleashed could ignite the world. It was in this dark place, this room carved for comfort and therapy by well-intentioned dreamers, that a malevolent gas crept from the cracks laced between the mineral starlight to seep into the pores and rush with the bloodstream through the unsuspecting. Kovac fell victim to to this spirit, a noxious fume unleashed by volcanic activity, unlikely but not entirely unexpected. Eliza Jin thought of it as a poltergeist. For all she knew there were the long since melted shrouds of people long passed in the lava below and these the afterimages of their lives. This might have been a sad little dek stubbornly clinging to the concept that death could earn you everything, even a few hours of leisure at the Dreaming Lady Spa. Perhaps this dead thing had delusions of grandeur -- not uncommon; and they tugged at what was left of them, concentrating what puny will they had, and attempted a possession. Of course, it was botched; but the dead will sink claws into what the living keep, tear the flesh of consciousness and splinter the bones of an aura in a desperate, flailing bid to connect with life. Any life. "You are looking at me," Eliza told the Avora, her throaty voice at once ruthless and calm. She stretched out her hands, light fingered, to spill them down the victim's arms until she could take grasp of strong wrists and deliver a sharp tug. "You are looking at me. Your eyes are open. Stop listening to the dead," Every word snapped between the notes of lute song he heard. It was expertly timed. Of course, for her there was no music but the beat of their footsteps as they chased shadows through the corridor, slow creeping around the massive Weather Stormvial suspended in the center of the holiest room in Eliza's knowing. The Shrine To Those Who Have Passed was unusually quiet and she knew that whatever ghosts muttered beneath Kovac's skin tonight could only be fake or his own. Therefore, their music and words would come synchronized to the natural metronomes of his life -- his breath, his heart, his mind. Like so, she managed to pattern her words to be heard through his visions. Unlike them, she would remain uninterrupted. She would not flee. Eliza had not led him to this place, but rather found him here, sprawled very alive at her feet. The poltergeist fumes had either hunted or lured him here. Later she would guess hunted because the sprawling chamber laden with the forgotten whimsies of the dead was a place of peace and security for her. If she was to seek sanctuary from any haunt, genuine or dross, she would seek it here. Ghosts either knew her to love her, or were keen enough to her kind to hate; and if they hated, it mostly meant they feared, and so fled. "I mean it. Stop listening to the dead," she snapped. A hand shot up, shaking through the chest of a lurking Endal with too curious eyes and an incredibly poor materialization. He had died in a fall (boring) a few decades ago and was still waiting for the second half of Eliza's story as promised him the day before. At Eliza's impatient gesture, the ghost scattered backwards to allow she and Kovac some breathing room. The sometimes forgot about things like that -- breathing. By now, Eliza had Kovac sitting upright on the shining floor, theirs the only shadows striking through the foxlight. Her eyes were latched onto his face and in them was the iron of meteorites, determination flattening her mouth as she drew on the archer's hands. He was a stranger. She knew his face, could not recall his name. He was known in the way anyone was known in a city such as this, in passing and from a distance, at once familiar and alien; but she had found him here, suffering, and knew due to the rumors slipping through the mountain what had to have been the cause. "Listen to me," she murmured now. Her hand, seeming small stretched alongside his, smoothed his palm against her cheek. "See me. Not nothing." The dark could not own him too. Not, at least, for long.

[Kovac]

A nagging notion had lead him to the Dreaming Lady, the nudge of a conscious still fairly new is its manifestation, the consideration for the well being of those few who had shared his friendship. The scarcity of those relationships were not dependent upon his own particular selection as much as it was on the exceptional few who saw something redeemable beyond the mongrel's snarky exterior. The more daring souls who breached his heart, the more open that heart became.

Kovac's intent was to check on one of the spa's employees, Chemar. It had been almost three seasons since the incident when an outing had revealed her addiction to the fumes within the Lady, the ferocity of her sudden withdraw leaving her severely sick on the Sanikas Road with no one to care for her but the Avora. It had strained an already convoluted and difficult relationship, and the two had found justification to avoid meeting since. But the reconciliation would have to wait, for Chemar was off-duty. Her sister, who held no love for the half-vantha, was abrupt and sharp in informing him so, dismissing him with a baleful glare. Kovac turned without a word to leave, the whisper of notes already echoing within his hearing.

Once in the hallway outside of the Lady, the music was more discernable, the instrument offering more clarity, revealing itself as a lute. Determining a direction of its source, Kovac turned and followed it down a corridor, its charm already seated in his mind. Desire to find the musician muted any logical inquiry as to why the music could be heard, or why it resounded more in Kovac's head than in his ears. All the hunter knew was that as he descended deeper into Skyinarta, the louder the music, the sweeter the tone.

It was his lute. He knew its voice, the subtle rattle it emitted when a certain string was pressed against a certain fret. But the quality of the musician was far higher than himself. And only with a cursory thought did Kovac wonder who had his lute, or how they acquired it. Greater was the need to be closer, to hear it more clearly, loudly, to look into the face of the musician.

By the time the sacred shrine's entrance was breached, so captivated was Kovac's attention that his very vision was stolen, and his knees sunk to the stony floor. As if peering through an imperfect slab of glass, the subtle waves in its contour warping the image slightly, he saw the musician. She was olive-hued, like himself, her long raven mane falling around her face, concealing her features as she bent over the instrument. slight fingers plied the strings skillfully, her white garb flowing around her as if motivated by the mournful tune.

Then the voice. It was not the woman's, for she remained bent over the lute. It was a female, unfamiliar, whose words were interjected into the lute-player's performance, each insistent word seeming to twist the sight-glass a bit, deforming the vision of the musician more.

No!

It was beautiful, and sad. The haunting music resonated with something beneath his deepest awareness, as if touching tones that resided hidden in his innermost core. A spark of life, or the mirror of it, long lost, or never known.

Firm grasp around his wrists. He was being scolded, admonished, tugged. The dead. The voice said he was listening to the dead. Why should he stop? It was his lute...who was playing it? The woman's image blurred, smeared, the music faltering as the sensation of cool skin pressed at his palm, a new countenance, closer, appeared. Cloudy amber eyes peered through the glass, his own hand flattened against the youthful face. The visage was both beautiful and insistent as the full lips mouthed words that cut into the lyrical music that rang in his ears. Her skin, like his own, was darker then the full Inartans, but more bronze than olive.

The gossamer-clad musician was all but gone now, the notes she played waning to echoing tones as the soft but firm voice of the girl before him drew Kovac's focus. See me, not nothing. She insisted.

"I don't see nothing, I saw a musician. Now, I see you. Who was she? She had my lute, and my skin." The fumes had permeated his blood, flooded his brain, affected his being. The notion that the woman with the lute was an hallucination, or an apparition, was lacking, she as real to him as the woman who's hands still laid on his. Kovac was vaguely aware that he was in the Shrine, though he had not visited the place for a decade. Curiosity regarding the identity of both women now occupied the befuddled Avora's mind. Both women held a familiarity to the man, but the nature of that inclination was different for each. The girl before him now, he believed he had noted in the warrens from time to time, standing out because her skin was not like the others around them.

"And who are you?" The lute was barely audible now, but did not disappear completely, the cadence increasing, the music in a crescendo, as if to cling to his consciousness.

x

[Eliza]

It took a tumble of heartbeats of the Avora not just looking at her but actually seeing for Eliza to startle. Her hand dropped, fingers closing again about his wrist to tug. This time, it was away from her. What had not been awkward moments ago, when he seemed in need of being called from the dark, lured out of the drugged shadows, was without warning uncomfortably intimate. She remained seated, knees poking out, worn leather trousers soft against the gleaming floor; and she turned her head, the heavy plait of her hair slithering against the delicate line of her collarbone. "That's Kolara Snowsong," she told her unlikely patient, an element of surprise coating her words. "You were telling the truth, weren't you? She is real. She's just dead." All the while Eliza had imagined Kovac to be ineptly transferring bright colored memories and ill stored emotions into false visions; and instead he had been catering a genuine ghost, and one who was an acquaintance of Eliza's. The dead woman was ephemeral, faded clear through the center and barely materialized any more. Kolara rarely bothered with more, Eliza knew by experience, but then Kolara was rarely around to bother. She paid them no heed as it was, still bent over her lute, attempting to lullaby a dream even as she faded the rest of the way out, disappearing into the dark that no longer claimed her son. Eliza turned palest gold eyes back on the Avora with her eyebrows drawn together with a combination of curiosity and concentration. "I'm Eliza," she introduced herself, absent, even distracted because she was not a woman who misunderstood her relevance in this society. "Are you..." She hesitated, leaning forward a touch. "Are you feeling quite well?"

[Kovac]

The fumes permeated his brain, crossing signals, eliciting uncertainty as to what Kovac saw, and what he thought he saw, and where he was..and what was going on. The hunter was not fully coherent, unsure of what was real and what was not. The young woman before him became more corporeal than the dissipating musician, and the mongrel latched onto her soft muted bronze features as one clung to a hand hold at the Edge of the World. His emerald eyes were wide but glassy, as if screaming to her for an explanation. Kovac did not note the surprise in the girl's own amber gaze as she spoke to him through the confusion, her words having to contend with the vapor-induced intoxication and the disbelief of their content. She said Kalora Snowsong.

The syllables that spilled from the feminine lips after that were barely discerned. Truth, dead, Eliza...but the first name echoed in his mind, as if the repeated mental sound would eventuall take root in comprehension. Then it did.

A hand shot up to seize the back of the woman's head, a firm grip set upon the bones of her skull. The grasp was not painful, nor was pressure applied in any certain direction. It was as if the man wanted to ensure she did not look away as he stared intently into her golden gaze, or to simply assure himself that she was fully flesh and blood. "Did you say, Kalora Snowsong?" Kovac's breath was a bit labored, his heart rate elevated by the eerie revelation.

"That...that was my mother." He panted, narrowing green orbs darting between Eliza's, as if assessing the trustworthiness of the stranger. His hand lowered, face softened, eyes becoming apologetic. Looking around, the Avora on some level understood where he was, but oblivious as to how he had arrived there. His head still swam, the room more saturated with light and shadow as he remembered, the prickle of supernatural, real or perceived, still clinging to his nerves. The befuddled half-breed spoke slowly, taking effort to form each word. "Sorry, sorry....I am Kovac. And I don't think I am alright."

x

[Eliza]

“Yes,” Eliza said with a clipped end. “I said Kolara Snowsong.” When Kovac’s hand palmed the back of her head, she had gone still as one of the dead. Breath itself paused in her lungs and pale eyes peered back at the Avora with a ripening warning. The line of her mouth tightened, but she made no attempt to dislodge his grip or to move away. Rather she waited, entirely too accustomed to the enforcement of the stronger on those deemed less deserving. Hers was the enduring patience of the undiminished, of a young woman who flatly refused to allow the world to destroy her in its pockets and corners. Instead, she prepared for the hour of her quickening just as she had prepared for the last. When he released her with baffled apology, her spine straightened comfortably and he won a satisfied smile. It was as if there was a test and he had just managed to pass it, and she the deciding judge; and now that he had, she could shake out her shoulders and turn up her hands, palms empty toward the ceiling, and resume friendly interaction. It was as easy as that. “It makes perfect sense that she is your mother.” Their conversation was picked back up in the middle, as if there had been no flaw or break. “That explains her interest in you. It isn’t often that she materializes, let alone graces us with music.” A curious cant took her chin. “Have you not seen her before? She isn’t gone, Kovac. She’s just dead.” The repetition of that fact was due to the unlikelihood that other people, arguably more normal people, typically followed that line of logic. Eliza was used to making a point of it. “You’ve been drugged, “ she went on to explain. “It was a complete accident. I understand you aren’t the only person to have fallen ill to the fumes today.” She paused, weighted and absolute, before delivering matter of fact generosity. “How can I help?”

[Kovac]

Kovac's vision seemed to have difficulty keeping up with Kovac's roaming eyes, smearing the images in his view until he settled on one thing or another. The Avora was still confused, the fog of the volcanic fumes afflicting him. The girl before him had seemed unfazed by his firm grip, simply repeating her stunning statement, "Kolara Snowsong". Kovac moved slowly, creeping to a sitting position facing the woman. The hunter's hands idly brushed the grit of dust from is bryda, trying to absorb the circumstances of the peculiar event.

The woman, Eliza, spoke of the dead mother's ghost as if she had spied a rare bird, one that had appeared before. Kovac's chest felt tight, his mind still teetering on the edge, ready to fall into panic if coherent explanations could not be formed. His eyes tried to fix on the deep golden hues of the woman, an anchor to cling to, and a source for answers to help him navigate his clouded awareness. Kovac's lower lip drew in between his teeth for a pensive moment before he spoke.

"You see them, a lot? You don't act surprised." He halted, glanced around the room, then started again. "Not gone, dead, but not gone." Her words started to penetrate the haze. The concept that the mother he never met, had no reason to ever think he would meet, had just appeared, luring him here was overwhelming.

"Fumes huh," he added, "Can't say they are as good as the stuff you get at The Lost Sense." He tried to laugh, but it came out of more of a huff. "But what I saw was real, you saw her too." The benevolent and attractive woman's offer would be accepted, for the questions were piling on his tongue. "How do you know....them? And why, if I have lived here all my life, does she show herself to me now?"

x

[Eliza]

“I see them all the time,” Eliza confessed. A narrow shoulder rose, pale in the gloaming of the shrine. “We talk. I talk to ghosts more than I talk to the living, it seems.” A curl of self-deprecating laughter slipped out of her, tepid but decadent before it tapered off. She slid a glance back to him, suddenly self-conscious. When he made a joke about the fumes and failed at truly laughing, she smiled again. It was with wry understanding. She cleared her throat after a little while and pressed her fingertips together in her lap, creating a steeple. “Just because you’ve been here all of your life, Kovac, doesn’t mean she’s been here all of hers.” The cant of her chin, jawbone delicate, was curious as she resumed her study of him, seemingly not in the least bit worried over his drugged state. Of course, she doubted showing him her anxiety would be terribly helpful. “Ghosts aren’t necessarily attached to places. They can be, but it certainly isn’t all of them. Most can travel with as much relative ease as the rest of us. It is also distinctly possible that she has been around you from time to time but you simply haven’t noticed. Ghosts don’t always have the power to make their presence known, and even if they do who’s to say they always want to?” Around them was soft sifting of air, like a ripple of light flashing over a dozen of the lingering dead, emphasizing Eliza’s statement. “How? I.. Well. It’s an inclination I was born with,” she told him, and smiled without warning, flashing dimples. “And magic. Of course.”

[Kovac]

Kovac's fog had cleared somewhat, enough for him to accept, for the moment, the alarming appearance of his mother's ghost. The Avora was willing too to accept the words of the woman sitting before him. He shifted to sit more comfortably cross-legged in front of her, blinking slowly, as if it took a few ticks for everything to pass through the drugged haze before he could process them. The hunter nodded idly, indicating at least a cursory understanding.

Eliza, was a bit..spooky. Not in appearance. She was young and pretty, and, like himself, certainly not a full-blooded Inarta. The girl seemed a bit shy, except when it came to the unusual subject of the dead. That was what was creepy. The woman seemed very comfortable with ghosts, as if she studied the as a birdwatcher studied avian life. Kovac suddenly found himself immersed in a situation that was as strange as the dreams he and Chemar had walked through seasons ago. His mother appeared there too.

The subtle shift of air may have had a mundane source, but the course of the conversation had given it a supernatural quality, at least in Kovac's mind, and a slight shiver raced down his spine. Were they all around, unseen?

A warmer smile graced Eliza's face, helping to diminish the uneasiness Kovac had felt, yet an atmosphere of enigma still clung to the young ghostseer. "I see." a hand raised to scratch the stubble at his chin. "So, are they all around, right now?" An emerald gaze scanned to sacred room. "Do you...talk to them?"

x