[The Stone Garden] A Quiet Place (Hadrian)

[Airil]

19th Day, Fall 510 A.V. Current DescriptionHood down, hair covering right eye, fingerless gloves. Airil's first day in Syliras had been uneventful thus far. She had intended to keep to herself in the room of the Traveler's Row, but things never seem to go as planned. She had wandered about the streets, keeping to the less populated paths until the quiet had drawn her to this garden, a garden of stones. It had been early when she had awoken. For hours, she had laid in bed, staring at the wall. It had reminded her of the days she had passed, waiting for her master to return home. Her mind had ended up drifting; passing thoughts and memories until finally she reached the final destination, those dark days that had left her alone. Suddenly, being alone in that little room had seemed far worse than being surrounded by strangers. Somehow, that had led her here. She walked along the neat paths, wondering what its purpose was. Someone had obviously put a lot of thought and care into its planning. If there had been some sign indicating its function, she had certainly passed it by without notice. Then she noticed that there was something on some of the stones. She squatted down and wrapped her hands around her knees, balancing herself carefully. Her cloak pooled around her, quite obviously too large and not meant for her. The posture seemed quite childlike, though it might be hard to tell whether she was indeed a child or just a very young woman. She reached out, slowly, toward one of the stones. Names, the stones had names. Her fingers traced one of those names with a gentle touch.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian was not a fan of Syliras. It wasn't the city itself, but rather the people in it. It wasn't the population at large, but rather his family specifically. Now his mother was dead, he wondered if his siblings would scatter, if his father would spend more time on caravan than at the city itself. Perhaps if it ceased to be a residence of the rest of the Aelius clan, he would be happy there, but for now, he longed merely for Zeltiva and the mysteries he had left behind. Sitting in the meditation garden, he tried to meditate. It was calmer here than at home, and he had begun to practice meditation with his eyes open and his sight augmented to see the auristic spectrum. He could watch the tranquil flow of djed, powerful and profound, but not wild. Here he could observe and let the observations go. Let everything go, really. That was part of the practice. As such, he noticed the blonde enter the bounds of the garden, saw how her presence caused the djed to ripple with her newness before absorbing her, assimilating her. It was all so fascinating, even if he didn't understand it as well as he would have liked. He noticed her, but he did not speak yet. He was there and she was there, and that was all. They were co-existing. He wondered if there was a subtle message there from the remnants of dead Sylir.

[Airil]

Airil pulled her hand back. The names on the stones were an intriguing mystery to her. Had they been important men? Were they the names of honored dead? Perhaps they were victims, lost in some tragedy. The garden was such a beautiful place to be remembered. But her master's teaching reared up in her mind, blotting out the innocent potential. Who was to say these were the names of heroes? Perhaps they were heroes to the knights but he had taught her plenty about their corrupt ways. If he was correct then these would be the names of knights who had used force and greed to bring the knights' version of order. What kind of thought was that? If her master was correct? That wasn't an idea that she couldn't deal with at the moment. She focused on the names. The garden didn't seem like the place to remember violent deeds. Instead she imagined they were people who had made great contributions to Syliras, maybe even people who had given their lives trying to protect what they believed in. She wondered if the Konti who had helped the nights might even be among the names. The voices of her mother and her master had warred too long in her head. She let them go and listened to the garden instead. She had needed an escape from her own mind and here she had found it. Her eyes closed and for some time she just sat there, breathing. The stress and anxiety, the sadness and loneliness, all of it began to drain away from her. Her thoughts, for once, were not on the things that had happened to her. Instead her mind was able to turn away from those things, towards the place surrounding her. She didn't notice Hadrian. The garden was such a quiet and peaceful place that she hadn't bother to look around for others to be present. So she sat with her eyes closed and allowed her thoughts to travel down lighter paths.

[Hadrian]

Though he had been aware of her arrival and her continued presence, it wasn't until he came back to himself, to his normal mode of thinking, that he really paid any attention to her. He felt calm and rested, as if having woken up from the best night's sleep. Several people had told him that his intellect was his best advantage, but also his worst disadvantage. He would have to agree there; things had been worse before he had begun to meditate, to rein in his mind and assert peace upon himself, even temporarily. It had often helped him when struggling with a difficult idea or question or problem at the University. He would stop, step back from the situation, and return with a refreshed and stilled mind. He had always sort of had a thing for Konti women, but his thoughts were not licentious as he watched her meditate. More curious than anything else. It would have been rude to interrupt her and so he waited for a while to observe. Perhaps she would come back and they would speak, or perhaps he would grow weary of waiting and make his quiet way elsewhere, remembering her only as a detail from his latest awakening. For the time being, he sat in a more conscious contemplation.

[Airil]

Airil didn't remain with her eyes closed for long. It was amazing to her that when she opened her eyes she felt better than she had in weeks. She fell backwards, in an intentional way, to transition to full out sitting, her knees pulled up in front of her. She looked around, wondering if she'd missed a sign that would explain the garden, and for the first time noticed Hadrian. He was watching her. It was something that she would ordinarily find threatening, yet here in the garden it wasn't so. She gave him a small wave and then an idea occurred to her. He probably knew what the names were for. Her doubts flared up at the thought of actually approaching a stranger. It wasn't safe to approach some guy who was staring at her, especially when no one else was around. On the other hand, did villains really hang around in peaceful gardens waiting to assault the next person who entered? Her training said yes. She was having issues with that aspect of her mind. Curiosity won out over caution, especially in as relaxed a state as she was already in, she decided it wouldn't hurt to go ask a simple question. She moved to rise from her sitting position and, with all the grace of a hippopotamus on roller skates, caught her foot on the edge or her cloak and fell backwards into a heap.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian shot the Konti girl a nervous smile when she actually looked back at him. Everything moved so quickly, though, and she was falling. Too far away for him to do anything about it, still, he got to his feet and hurried over to help her up. "Didn't see that one coming, did you?" he asked, offering her a hand and a crooked smile. He quickly frowned, realizing that might have sounded harsh when it wasn't meant to be. "Sorry," he said immediately. "I wasn't trying to make fun of you, just... Konti... prescience... falling..." It seemed to get lamer the more he went on, so he just clamped his mouth shut, his hand still held out to help her up if she wasn't too offended to accept it.

[Airil]

Airil's face had turned a faint shade of pink. It hadn't really hurt, but it had still been embarrassing. She blinked at his question, not understanding his attempt at humor but not really being offended by it either. “Prescience?” She took his hand. As her bare fingers grazed his skin, her eyes went blank and glassy and her mark began to itch. Airil was quite startled by the vision of a... frog. It seemed to come from no where and she was at a loss to understand why she was seeing it. But it wasn't really a frog, it looked strange. When she tried to concentrate on it she noticed the laughing. She could hear children laughing and chanting something though she knew there were no children in the garden. She tried to hear what they were saying. Hotspot? No, that wasn't right. Hopscotch. No no that either. She strained to listen, wondering where the children were. “Hopstop.” Her voice was faint. In any other part of the city it might have been lost to the noise of the city, but here in the garden it was just loud enough to be heard. She blinked and seemed to come back to herself. She'd been too preoccupied with the strange event to move but now she did rise from the ground with his help and removed her hand from his as quickly as she could. Her gaze darted around the garden in search of the children, but none were there. The only person was Hadrian and that was where her gaze ended. What had he done to her? She'd heard of people who could use some sort of magic that wasn't from a gnosis mark, or maybe that had been gnosis. “Are you a magician?” The experience had unsettled her and the thought that he might not have been responsible didn't even register in her mind.

[Hadrian]

"Your race is the favored of Avalis," he reminded her. "Goddess of Prescience." He was the sort of person who normally maintained a bubble of space around him, but having offered her help up, it should only have been a bit uncomfortable, instead she went glaze-eyed with clairaudience. Else, how could she know about Hopstop? Hadrian pulled his hand back, trying not to make it an offensive gesture, but then she had taken the hand of a perfect stranger and sucked secrets out of his mind. Not secrets, perhaps, but he didn't like anyone taking anything out of his mind, which was why he was leery of other aurists to begin with, let alone Konti. Her telling took him back to Sahova with Tieh's embalmed Konti body parts and testing them for maledicted powers of prescience. He didn't understand why she didn't just court the favor of Avalis herself. Well, he did. There were several roads to the same occurrence, magically speaking. Knowing one was all well and good, but knowing eight meant that one could fine-tune the approach and use the one that was the most efficient use of energy for whatever the purpose. "I... yes, I am." There was no point in denying it. He wasn't exactly hiding the fact that he went into Akvin's old laboratory to learn Animation from Jilitse or work on enchantments for the Knights. This wasn't a city where magi were thrown out on their arses or staked, burned, or stoned. "I'm Hadrian."

[Airil]

Goddess of Prescience, he must have meant divination, or maybe that's what prescience meant. The fact that he was a magician probably explained it but why would they need a different word? Whatever reason, she wasn't sure she liked him, or magicians. Especially not if they went around forcing thoughts into people's heads. She wanted to leave the garden, and him, behind before he did something more dangerous, but at the same time she wanted to understand what he'd done. What if the image was hiding something else? Didn't magicians do that? Hypnotizing people to control them? “I'm Airil, and not all Konti can See.” She thought for a moment and decided that if he could be so rude as to put things in her mind, then she deserved an explanation. “Why did you do that? What did you do?”

[Hadrian]

She was looking at him funny. He didn't like it when people looked at him funny. It made him wonder what they were thinking, what they saw, what they might do. Squinting a bit, he tapped a quick blink of his eyelids, and suddenly he could See much more than before, not only her face and form, but now her aura, the which he was getting better at reading. Still, he was fallible and human souls were so complex. At least he would be able to recognize her now from afar or in the dark, once he committed her specific patterns to memory. "What is it you think I have done?" he asked, confused. She was the one who was digging Animation experiments out of his head. Stupid Konti; why did they have to be so dangerous and so beautiful at the same time?