[The Sanctuary] The Eye of the Storm

by **Vanator** on January 17th, 2014, 4:05 pm

Vanator agreed that Revelrie Island was a logical place to start. It was a personal refuge Kavala had built, and if she had truly gone off of her own volition to be alone, it would be the place to look. But that meant going by boat. Vanator had only been on a boat once, recently when a Svefra girl hauled him onto her small craft after saving him from a shark.

Though he was still apprehensive of travel via water, Vanator had considered going sailing at some point, but with Kavala, under controlled conditions. As they stood at the dock, he listened to Caelum impart hasty instructions on the inspection of seagoing vessels, Vanator felt an anxious tightening at the pit of his stomach. Only because he worried for his sister did he so readily agree on the urgent need to take the boat.

Unknown to both Caelum and Vanator, the Drykas had encountered the same pirate woman that had pulled the Eth from the waters off of Black Rock. Seven years ago, Vanator had stumbled upon Nel Sayo's camp on the beach. Her ship, the first one the Denusk had ever seen, laid anchored offshore. The encounter was a pleasant one, the Konti pirate showing him how to hold a rapier and he showing her how to ride a horse.

Vanator, given his crash course, made his way down the vessel, carefully inspecting all the elements Caelum had described, most with names he had never heard before. Hands touched, eyes scanned, and ears listened as he diligently (maybe too diligently) examined the catamaran. He was just finishing when Sybel and Faryon arrived with supplies. Caelum, captain by default, gave his instructions and the women moved the gear below deck as Vanator moved to the ship's tiller. He consumed Caelum's words with sobriety, understanding his responsibility. Calloused hands laid hold of the wooden tlller, ready and willing, his gaze constantly darting to the shoreline, even before Caelum shoved them away from the dock.

Vanator had discovered his sea legs after a bout of unsteady swaying and grasping at anything he could for support. He realized the craft was not so different from a horse, in that each had a motion that could be matched and mimicked with a little practice. The trip to the island would have made a good comedy had not the actors been so preoccupied with Kavala's whereabouts. Caelum could not be everywhere at once, so he tried desperately to give instructions to a crew unfamiliar with the boat, and the sea. Simple terms, unfamiliar to the neophyte sailors, became lengthy descriptions like, 'that thingamajig over there,' and 'that one, no the other one, on the port side, port side....right side of the boat!'.

Finally arriving, they maneuvered the craft until they could tie it off securely. Vanator scrambled off of the catamaran, ensuring Sybel and Faryon disembarked safely. He looked up at the small island. It was beautifully strange, a series of terraces in glossy black rock that seemed striated with shifting colors, dependent upon how the light struck it. Atop its small rise sat a stone pavilion. Van had never been there before, but he had seen Kavala's drawings, and he squinted as he recalled the layout. "Unless she has some secret locations, there is not much here aside from the pavilion and I think a cave on that side." He pointed towards one end of the island. "Bel, why don't you and I check out the cave and you two," gesturing towards Caelum and Faryon, "can check out the building."

Taking Sybel by the hand and sharing a concerned glance, Van lead her to where he thought the cave was located.

by **Caelum** on April 2nd, 2014, 8:55 pm

OOC :

The initial scouring of Reverie Isle was a complete failure.

There was no sign of Kavala discovered amid the tropical sands and sea cave, leaving her loved ones frustrated and afraid. It had been some while since Caelum had felt such an intensity of failure, the sort that shot the iron of meteorites into his limbs and blackened all of his moods. Since the day he had returned to the Sanctuary, he had been eyeballing the increasing curve of Kavala’s abdomen and mentally planning her safe delivery. As she grew larger and weaker with the dying of the season and the inevitable frost paws of winter, his plans had begun to adjust appropriately despite the fact that she never allowed him to physically examine her. She herself was a learned and talented healer, twice blessed by Rak’keli, and so he had not insisted.

Now Caelum knew he should have, and he wondered what she had been hiding.

By the time the party returned to the Sanctuary, empty handed and down of heart, Caelum was grimly determined. Every atom of his being was addled with frustration and fear and it kept his senses sharpened, his awareness in high gear. Vanator and Sybel were sent out beyond the protective walls of the Sanctuary strider-back and armed to the teeth in order to ride into Riverfall city proper and speak with Kavala’s friends and associates as well as members of the stalwart Kuvay’nas. While Caelum was certain Kavala had taken to the sea, it was fallacy to leave stones unturned and ground uncovered. In those investigations and disappearances he had troubled himself over in the past, detailed legwork was an important aspect of any search. Even Caelum was not wrong about his friend going into the sea, an investigation to suss out seemingly minor data that once sifted through and combined could often correlate toward recovery.

Besides, he had to do something.

While Faryon took on the task of helping Chalce see to the Sanctuary’s long list of evening chores, including all of those its absent denizens were currently neglecting, Caelum checked in on Cadra and Tasival. The cat was as anxious as the rest of them, though she was doing her best not to show this to Kavala’s little boys. The toddler planted himself firmly before the ethaefal and demanded to know what had happened to his mother, and Caelum did his best to answer him with both honesty and reassurance. It was not an easy task. Eventually, Caelum decided to enlist the child’s help in hopes of occupying his mind as well as helping the Akontak to feel useful. Tasi and Shayru were went to their mother’s bedroom to turn it inside out, searching for not for anything new but rather for anything missing. The child had spent a large portion of his life playing in his mother’s room and was probably the second best authority on its equipage.

As for Caelum, he went to the healing clinic. Its halls were walked and every corner of every room inspected. He was doing much the same thing there as he had tasked Tasi with at Kavala’s bed room – looking for what was missing. Of course, he calculated out the supplies he himself had selected and packed for the trip to Reverie Isle and proceeded to compare the remaining items to a mental list of available tools, pre-mixed medicines, and preserved herbs typically held in stock.

When nothing surfaced, he moved on to the stables and performed the same sort of inventory there. Next was the various rooms of the Within.

It was dawn by the time any of them found their beds. Familiar with the keyed up anxiety that lay like a sickness over them all, Caelum took the time to brew a pot of night time tea for everyone but Larik who volunteered to stand watch. It would help them sleep, and if they were to continue this search and rescue mission (and they would, without a doubt), they were going to be sorely in need of decent rest.

The second day was more brutal than the first. They recovered old ground and tempers were worn thin. Caelum kept glancing at the sky and narrowing his eyes on the path of the sun across it, as if he were blaming his first goddess for not granting him the sight necessary to succeed in this and to save his friend. The required chores to take care of the animals and livestock were seen to by all and gotten quickly out of the way, all other manner of business at the Sanctuary placed on temporary hold. By the time afternoon rolled around, a group of them were spreading out into the forests surrounding the Sanctuary on foot. They sought tracks and signs of passage, any evidence whatsoever that Kavala or potential opponents had passed this way.

There were none, or at least none that they could find.

It was the middle of the night that found Caelum and Vanator peering at each other over the kitchen bar, mugs of tea and a communal plate of hastily put together snack between them as they discussed what routes remained for them to follow. Eventually, they determined that they had to get back onto the water and parted to prepare for just that at dawn.

So it was on the third day they returned to Reverie Isle, carried on a narrow current of sustained hope.

by **Vanator** on April 7th, 2014, 2:59 pm

Had it not been for Sybel and Caelum, Vanator would have gone mad. His brain was a battleground, pessimism fighting hope, and his renowned optimism dismantled by every worrisome minute that passed. Kavala was out there, somewhere, alone, near term, and her brother could not help or defend her. He had lost her once, he could not bear losing her again.

It was with great relief that Caelum suggested they take to the sea again. Sailing at night was beyond Vanator's comfort, but if it meant finding Kavala, he would attempt to swim to Reverie Island if he had to. Caelum had given him a crash course on sailing on their first trip to search the island. Though it would only be the two of them this time, Van was certain he knew enough to help the Eth guide the catamran there.

While Caelum needed no more light that the guiding points of Zintila's stars, once they reached the island and docked, Vanator employed a small res flame to light the lanterns they brought. Once the vessel was securely tied, Van handed one of the lanterns to Caelum. The Drykas' gaze lifted to the summit of the island, its moonligt details obscured by the light he held. Was it an exercise in futility, just a distraction to keep them from giving up hope? No, Van had to believe they would find his sister somewhere, he could not accept any other outcome. "I suppose we start at the pavilion."

by **Kavala** on April 9th, 2014, 3:14 am

The Konti had no idea she'd spent a year building an island, rising it out of the sea, only for it to become her and the children's tomb. But it was the truth. And in a way it was a fitting final resting place. Even in the end, Kavala wasn't thinking of herself. She didn't care about herself. Konti weren't built to be selfish in that way, especially during birth craze. It was the babies she was worried about. They wouldn't be eaten by passing sharks. They wouldn't be washed out to the deeper sea where no family could never visit them and know they existed. Here they would be found, eventually, by someone. It would be too late, because it almost was now, but they would be known and they would be loved.

She was weak. What kept her going was the food she had stashed at the island. The healer had eaten it and drank of the fresh water the cisterns collected because she was afraid to loose her milk for Ralac. It was Ralac she felt the worst for. He was strong, passionate, and so full of life. He was larger than a child his age should be. He'd spent more time in his mother than was healthy, but Kavala knew it was because he was buying time for Ia'del, helping her grow enough to survive on the outside.

But the dual births, the shape she'd been in when she'd started the process, and the trouble Ia'del had was wearing on her. She couldn't rest. Every time her eyes drifted closed, her tiny girl in her arms quit breathing. Kavala's heart stopped a dozen times, and then she'd slowly grown used to the frailty of the Konti infant, knowing what its cause was. The Konti had healed her own wounds, thanking Rak'keli that the Goddess had the foresight to make sure the healers could always heal themselves. But there was no GROWING with Healing. Kavala couldn't force Ia'del's lungs to mature. She couldn't force the little girl to catch each breath and expel. Water seemed to ease it so sometimes the Konti moved them all to the bath, but it was taxing and she was weak. There was no meat on Kavala's bones. Her stomach was a gross joke of loose skin that held nothing to her anymore. Each rib could be counted, and though her breasts were full of milk they hung ugly beneath her prominent clavicles. Even her hair was as colorless as her eyes in their sunken sockets.

The Konti should have wished for death, but in weakness and illness, sometimes one held hard to even thinking anything at all. Kavala was going through the motions of caring for her son, gazing upon him with sorrow because she knew he would outlive both the females at this point and would have to die alone. Kavala would have cried at the thought, but her body was too dehydrated to spare the tears.

So instead, she'd moved them both off the bed where the sheets were bloodied and soiled, then crawled into a fresh bath with both babies where Ia'del could breath a little more. There, she dozed while Ralac paddled about happily, more active than a baby should be, seemingly unaware of how dire the circumstances were for the two Konti.

They weren't up top of the Island under the pavilion. Kavala loved sitting there in the sun and watching the sea roll in around them. Instead, they were halfway down the steps, in the little sanctuary she'd created that was more of a guest cottage of one room, than anything else. The door was unlocked, though not open, and there was blood on the steps and the latch that unfastened the door for a person to open it. In fact, there was blood on all the steps leading upwards to the little sanctuary.

The bath was clear though. The Konti had stopped hemorrhaging bells ago when she'd regained enough of herself to use her gnosis. But she was anemic, bereft of several pints of blood, and lethargic because of it. She kept Ia'del on her chest and one arm gently under Ralac though he needed no support.

And in that place, reclined nude in the bath with both babies, she hallucinated that she was back in the sea of grass, a child riding carefree with her brothers through the tall grass on an old horse that was more babysitter than bonded strider. She had a smile on her face and her head was slightly tilted as if she was finding the sun in a bright blue Cyphrus sky.

Waiting for death was easy. It was the living part that was hard.

by **Caelum** on June 19th, 2014, 4:04 am

It was a nightmare attempting to maneuver the Dreamcatcher again, but Caelum had learned long ago, within his first steps back on this earth, how to navigate via the stars. Fortune was with them as well as the tides, carrying them over a treacherous jetty that curled out from the island’s shore. With his hands on the wheel and an eye on the sails, Caelum had been very much in need of Vanator’s help. It still took them nearly an hour to travel the mile from dock to dock, and despite how hard Caelum attempted to cut their speed, they still ended up bumping too hard into the dock.

“These double hauled vessels are blasted quick,” the physician grumbled even while landing lightly beside Vanator. He ducked down to check the tether lines, not doubting his friend so much as being logical, and when he straightened it was to shoulder his bag of medical supplies and accept the lantern. Turning his head, he called to Cadra, “Stay with the vessel.”

Larik swooped over the treetops and Caelum nodded to Van as they headed for the pavilion. As they walked, Caelum opened all of his senses so that they might be more receptive to the notice of minor evidence. He studied shadows and ears sharpened for the higher pitched cries of people over the low thrum of the sea. He worried not just for his friend and her infant, but for Tasi and Shay back home and Vanator who walked at his side. The light from their lanterns created illuminate puddles in the night, quavering with every step of their progress until washing along the stone of the pavilion.

It was empty.

Caelum stood there for a minute, looking at the stone seats with their pillow pads and the slow fade of night spilling softly out of the tree tops surrounding. He drew in a breath, held on hope, and gave a bump to Vanator's shoulder while passing for the entrance to the underground. They had not come all of this way not to be thorough. By the time his boots hit the steps, he was calling.

"Kavala! Kavala, are you here?"

The sound of his voice reverberated back at him, mingling with the now removed applause of the waves breaking themselves on the edges edges. He laid out his hand, trailing it along the stone as if it might speak and his eyes sought every shadow, seeking out a sign, any sign, before he saw the blood. The lantern swung up, throwing it into gruesome vibrancy as he stopped to study it. Dark eyes narrowed degree by degree and then he jumped the last pair of steps to the guest room door, the back of his mind automatically taking note of the blood on the latch. His mind snapped like fish bones in his hands, popping into three distinct pieces:

The blood was not old. It was fresh enough to still be bright, though it was dried here on the door, smeared too thin. It was not quite flaking, and the smell was evident now that he sought it but not quite intense enough to be considered either thick or rotten. Therefore, someone was seriously injured though perhaps not mortally if proper care was received in a timely fashion.

He could still be timely.

"Vanator," he said sharply over his shoulder and ducked down, palming a dagger from his boot, and he rose only to shoulder open the guest room door. The room was taken in a quick sweep, another stop happening just inside. It was not a hesitation, it was an assessment.

The threat here was Dira, and not in the form that his dagger could do much battle with.

He crossed the room in three long strides, stooping down at the end to set his lantern on the table beside the tub. Kavala and the two infants -- his mind meditatively busted for healing, data analytics, and in preparation for the divine force of ranuri instantly began to chew on the facts of there being not one but two babies -- were taken in. From the outside, it must have seemed rather fast; but on the inside, the sun was rising on the edge of the waves and the healer was reaching down to lay a hand on Kavala's throat and another on the tiny konti child against her breast.

"Give her to me," he murmured, pitching his voice toward hope of recognition. Rak'keli's gnosis already glowed bright as dawn breaking on the back of his hand, pumping magic into Kavala's veins and into the limbs and lungs of her unbreathing baby. He lifted the child, his hand scooped beneath her easily with her head resting on the broad span of his wrist.

Unbreathing. Tiny. Two babies. Two. One large, strong, swimming in the tub. Two. One small, white, breathless. She wasn't old enough.

Caelum smiled and somewhere beyond this room Syna finished rising, illuminating his transformation in the same moment he conjured her grace to spill with Rak'keli's into the infant he held and age her, complete and entire organism, a single, very necessary day.

She hiccuped and breathed.

by **Caesarion** on August 2nd, 2015, 11:43 pm

Grades, my darling, grades

Kavala (Edited Grade! Forgot about Childcare at first.)
Lore:
An Island Tomb
Ralac: Strong, Passionate, Full of Life
Ralac: Buying Time for Ia'del
Fighting For My Children
Dreaming of the Sea of Grass
Caelum, A Savior

XP:
Endurance: 1
Childcare: 1
Meditation: 1

Sybel
Lore:
Kavala, Missing
Vanator: Minimalizing the Situation
Konti in Labor: Seek the Sea

XP:
Flirting: 1
Seduction: 1
Observation: 1
Running: 1
Persuasion: 1
Investigation: 2
Deduction: 1
Planning: 1

Faryon seems to have quit or gone inactive from Mizahar, so I will hold off on grading them unless they PM me.

Vanator
Lore:
Kavala, Missing
Sybel's Irritation
Catamaran's Structure

XP:
Seduction: 1
Deduction: 1
Investigation: 2
Sea Navigation: 1
Reimancy: 1
Tracking: 3
Planning: 2

Caelum
Lore:
Kavala, Missing
Konti in Labor: Seek the Sea
Catamaran, Easy Maneuver
Desperately Seeking Kavala
Kavala And Her Children
"Ralac"
"Ia'del"

XP:
Planning: 1
Tracking: 4
Investigation: 4
Sea Navigation: 2
Sailing: 2
Deduction: 2

Additional Comments: Beautiful thread. It's only too sad that it was cut short. Kavala's post was tragic and compelling, and the determination of the searching group was inspiring. Good writing.

Tell me if I missed anything! Enjoy your grades!

If you have concerns, questions or praise (inmydreams;_;) for your grade, drop me a PM and we'll do a number!