Boarders with Borders (Phobius, Aislyn)

[Kuvarakh]

xxxxxxx23rd of Fall, 514

Architectrix

He'd tried to talk Wanda into joining him, but she'd decided to trust that the Womiyu, Alvadas' hidden, but well known, security force, would keep the shop under surveillance and prevent any repeats. For himself, Kuvarakh was not so sure that the Womiyu did not think he'd be fine bait to lure the thugs out of hiding, so they could come after him again.

As a Nuit, he was once again in a newly acquired body. But this one had some unforeseen strings attached. This body had belonged to a truly heinous criminal from the Alvadas Underground, and Kuvarakh had no trouble reconciling himself with his part in this body "becoming available" for him. But it appeared that some of the other unsavory elements in the Underground had unsettled debts to collect from the man, and they now held Kuvarakh to have accepted responsibility for them.

Kuvarakh had not seen it this way, and had been gone from the shop when a trio of thugs came calling, doing grievous injury, both physical and emotional, to two of his new acquaintances, as well as his boss, the aforementioned Wanda. He'd returned to the shop to find a furious Wanda, letting him know, in no uncertain terms, that he owed his new acquaintances some very heavy favors for saving her life, at the risk of their own.

Yinasareysin, the Dhani mercenary he'd hired to 'acquire" his new body was now with the healers, and Maya, his artist friend, was apparently hiding behind locked doors in some location he was not privy to. This was what Wanda had told him anyway. She had also told him that the thugs had made it clear that they were willing to take his head as payment for the debt.

As a Nuit, this was not so final as it sounded. What they'd said to her, while a number of tense knives had been at a number of tense throats, was that yet an even MORE harsh and unscrupulous boss wanted this head, and they were willing to let the debts go in order to appease him. In truth, it was not an unreasonable solution. It only meant Kuvarakh had to find another new body to transfer to. Then the head could be freely removed from this one and no one need be the wiser.

But Kuvarakh could not find a new body. And even though he was willing to see a murderer, rapist and slaver killed, he was not going to go out and stalk a warm, innocent body to "move into", not even to save his unnatural life. Nuits had a reputation for this sort of villainy, but Kuvarakh was not that sort.

But neither was he the sort to invite a beheading by being easily cornered. Wanda had assured him that she would be safe. Apparently, the Womiyu had given HER cause to embrace this confidence. But they had pointedly omitted him from this safety umbrella. So, until a body turned up, Kuvarakh intended to be nowhere near the shop, or his home. He hoped that the third option available to him was unknown to these criminals. It was The Towers Mansion, the old structure, once the home of the famous Alvad socialite, Andres Towers. It had been animated with the lost magic of Architectrix, a craft which made it sentient.

Kuvarakh had been befriended by a portion of this large estate. This fairly friendly part had warned him away from the less amiable wings, outlining the safe zones that would tolerate him. The sentient presence called itself 'Aceren', and took the form of a sort of maitre d' with military overtones. He and Kuvarakh both accepted that the other portions of the house would "come around" in time. And as a potentially immortal being, this suited Kuvarakh fine. He had already grown through several rounds of friends, and their mortal lifetimes. He hoped to find that having one enduring friend might make the inevitable loss of his new mortal friends more bearable.

But this point was moot if the thugs caught up to them. He was currently at the shop waiting for his courier employee, Phobius. They had been out to the Mansion the season before and found the structure to have taken a surprisingly strong liking to the young man. Kuvarakh wanted to have Phobius find Maya and advise her to come to the Mansion as well. The Architectrix structure had some impressive capacities to keep them safe, and he intended to stay there until a more permanent solution presented itself.

x

[Phobius]

It was dark. Really dark. As if some giant, hungry beast had come along and swallowed the sun whole, leaving the world devoid of light. Except...

...except for some reason, he could still see. And he wasn't sure where he was, but it didn't feel like he was inside of anything; there was no roof over his head and no walls at his sides, just...dark and more dark, stretching on for miles. Making him feel tiny. Vulnerable.

For no real reason the boy looked down at himself, and was startled to discover that his clothes seemed to have vanished. Not a speck of cloth was covering his body, anymore...assuming that he'd even been wearing clothes prior to whatever was going on, now. And yet, for some reason, he wasn't incredibly bothered by this new fact. Perhaps he'd have felt a bit more panicky and embarrassed had he been in a public place, surrounded by people. Here—wherever here was—was quiet and empty; it was kind of hard to explain, but the boy knew for sure that he was alone without having to look around.

Suddenly hopeful, the boy reached up and touched his neck, but frowned when his fingers brushed across the leather band that had made its home there. It'd have been nice if the collar was gone, too...

A moment later, an odd noise reached his ears. It was faint and hard to make out, but the boy immediately claimed it to be a voice. Was someone here, with him? Trying to speak to him, maybe? Wanting to call out to them, he opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

He was beginning to grow worried, now. What had happened to his voice? He didn't feel like he was sick or had a sore throat or anything, but for some reason he couldn't...he couldn't speak. It was like something had snatched his words away from him.

Quietly mourning his loss, he almost didn't catch the voice, again, though this time it was ringing clearer in his ears. Stronger. And it was, most definitely, a voice, but it didn't sound like it belonged to a single person. No...there were a bunch of voices, some low while some were high, all overlapping over one another and melding together to form a strange-sounding chorus...and it was calling his name.

Without giving it a second thought, the boy started to walk toward where he figured the voice was coming from. Each step that he took felt extremely light, as if he was made out of feathers and air as opposed to skin and bones, and for a moment the boy was genuinely afraid of floating away. Then he pushed the fear aside, choosing instead to focus on the odd chorus as it continued to call for him. And he didn't know why, but at the moment he felt happy. Inexplicably so. This place had a certain warm, inviting vibe to it, and there was nothing but pure joy coursing through his body as he bounded forward.

All of a sudden, the warmth disappeared, and the boy hesitantly slowed to a stop. Before he truly knew what was going on, he was on his back with some massive weight keeping him pinned down, feeling as though he'd been shoved. Confused and more than a little scared, the boy tried to bring himself back to his feet, but then something enclosed around his neck, and it took a few ticks for him recall the feeling but he was sure that they were hands; strong, trembling hands that wrapped themselves around his tiny throat and started to squeeze. And he was choking, and it hurt, but there was nothing that he could do because he was too weak too fight, too terrified and confused to really try and defend himself, so the pain only grew and grew and he could feel his lungs screaming for air—

Phobius woke with a start, writhing and thrashing around under his bedsheets as he blindly struggled against the invisible assailant's hold. And it took a while, but eventually he was able to get a hold of himself and realize that he wasn't being attacked. His aggressor, along with that strange, dark place that it lived in, had faded away.

It was all just...a bad dream...? the Inartan boy mused as he lay in his bed, staring up at the ceiling.

The chimes ticked by, and Phobius made no moves to get up, letting himself sink a bit more into his disheveled covers as he listened to the rapid thump-thump-thumping of his heart.

A bad dream. That's all it'd been. A lot more horrifying than the ones he tended to have, but still...it was a dream, nonetheless, and it wasn't real, because dreams were never real.

Only...only this one had felt really real. More real than dreams were supposed to feel. The fear, the helplessness, the collar...and those hands...

Phobius cautiously brought a hand up to his neck, his fingers poking around for sensitive patches of skin that would reveal bruises, but a moment of sightless searching led to nothing. Everything seemed normal, save for the beads of sweat that had sprung up on his forehead, and the way he was forcing himself to breathe with his mouth open, his lungs painfully nudging his ribs whenever he inhaled.

Maybe it hadn't been a dream. Maybe it'd been a memory, something that he'd locked away in the very back of his mind. Maybe...

No. No more.

Letting out a groan, Phobius turned over and buried his face into his pillow. The boy knew all too well that it would be impossible for him to get back to sleep, now, but that was okay. He was awake. Besides, today was important; Kuvarakh had called on him to go and stop by the alchemy shop, which could only mean that the alchemist had a job in store for him. Normally, an assignment from the man would have Phobius tumbling out of his door in an excited rush. He hadn't had any courier duties for the last few days, and had been eagerly awaiting the next one, more than ready to go running up and down the ever-changing city streets to deliver things. But now...Phobius felt tired. Not sleepy-tired, either, but exhausted-tired. Like he'd already been running all day, and had just sat down to take a break. That dream or whatever it'd been had eaten up nearly all of his energy.

Nearly. He could still muster some up, and convinced himself that he'd have to as he continued to lay in his bed. Kuvarakh needed him for something, and he couldn't, wouldn't disappoint the man.

So it was with a considerable amount of effort that Phobius sat up and, almost literally, rolled himself out of his sheets. Then he did what he could to neaten up his mess of crimson hair, prying some sweat-soaked locks off of his face and patting them down. Pants came next, along with his boots and, last but not least, his scarf; he looped it a lot more tightly around his neck than he normally did, and checked that it couldn't slip off before he headed out.

The walk to the Alchae took a little longer than usual. Phobius chose not to comment on it as he came walking through the doors of the little shop, and tried his best not to look as worn-out as he felt when Kuvarakh came into view, planting a rehearsed smile on his face. "Good morning, Kuvarakh. Is everything okay?" the boy asked, staring over at him.

[1279]


"This is speech in Nari."

This is thought.

[Kuvarakh]

Architectrix

Kuvarakh was reluctant to come directly clean with the lad as he came in, all smiles. He hoped that starting slow would allow the youngster to deal with each increasingly grim development. "Well, I'll tell you what, Phobius. I'm hoping that everything's alright. But I can't be sure." He took a step toward Phobius, gratified that the kid at least did not retreat a step or two to avoid standing next to a body he'd recently help drag dead into this same shop.

"It's recently occurred to me that...this body..." Again he subtly scrutinized Phobius for signs of revulsion, relieved to see nothing drastic. he knew it was still a tender subject to the young man. "Well...that being the bad guy that he was, he had probably had some bad friends...or even enemies." he paused to let the situation start to register. "I guess really, any associates this man had are most likely some pretty unsavory characters. And even with the Womiyu keeping a lookout, the odds are pretty good of one...or more...of them showing up to...well, to...well, really I don't know what they might want. But I doubt it would be good."

Kuvarakh wanted Phobius to realize the potential danger, without admitting that an incident had already occurred. The kid might run and never come back. 'How to lie without lying...' he pondered. "The point being that I thought I overheard Wanda say something about Maya hitting her head, and she made it sound like she was pushed...you know, hit her head when she fell." He leaned in conspiratorially, "I'm guessing she had a run-in with one of these guys. Now she's okay, don't worry. but I think the guy was probably trying to scare her into picking me out."

He tried to reassure the kid. "She's trying to protect me, I'm sure, and I wanted to thank her, and assure her that the Womiyu have been informed and not to worry. That it's okay to tell anyone, that asks, who and where I am." He acted like it was an afterthought, "Oh and the same is true of you, son. If anyone should ask about me, just go ahead and tell them. This is what the Womiyu said to do. It's only me these thugs are after, so they're watching out there."

He waved absently toward the door, to indicate the whole city. In truth he had no idea what designs the Womiyu may have regarding the thugs, but he wanted Phobius to think that this alleged "incident" with Maya had been distant and isolated. Nothing he'd said thus far had been an actual "lie". Rey was in the 'Ionu's Mercy' hospital, out of the way. Kuvarakh knew his wording had made it sound like Rey had known nothing of the incident. As long as he offered no details of the fight in the shop, he could allow Phobius to convince himself of non-threatening details of his own. he wouldn't actually have to lie to him.

Bu at the same time, he wanted to get Maya out of here. Now that she'd been seen here, the thugs would know her to be involved. Kuvarakh felt responsible for keeping her safe now. He felt the same way toward Phobius, but felt that the thugs probably did not know of him. "Anyway, I thought it might be a good idea to spend some time out of here, to let her feel safer, and I thought The Mansion would be a good place for her. We don't need to go beyond the lawn and the central portion of the man building."

Kuvarakh had a strong hunch that Phobius would be reluctant to return to the Mansion. The sentient building had sort of toyed with them both last time. But Kuvarakh had come to realize it was a test, and the fact that the house had released them in friendship confirmed they had passed this test. It bothered him somewhat to drag the kid back to the Mansion, but he genuinely believed Maya could be in danger. Maybe even more than he was.

The Mansion could offer more safety than any building he could think of. If thugs came there looking for trouble, they'd never be seen again, Kuvarakh was sure of that. For now though, he would accompany Phobius to Maya's domicile. Both to assure Phobius that he was sure of his plan of action; and also to be sure he was there to prevent Phobius from hearing too honest a version of the recent violence at the shop.

As he and Phobius made their way to Maya's home, he told himself that it was for their own goods. If he said it frequently enough, he might even come to believe it.

x

[Phobius]

While Phobius didn't show any signs of apprehension or nervousness as the alchemist came a bit closer to him, it was clear enough that he wasn't entirely comfortable where he stood. The boy didn't seem to want to move any further from the door than he already was, which couldn't have been more than three inches, but the smile remained ever-present on his face, only fading with time as Kuvarakh began to talk to him.

He liked to think that he'd gotten over his shock pertaining to the alchemist's new body. It'd taken some time, and for a while Phobius couldn't even look at the man without immediately feeling sick or terrified, which made his courier duties a little difficult to carry out. Kuvarakh had seemed to understand all of this, though he insisted that the boy would get used to it at some point and, despite the season having been a light one in terms of jobs, made it so that they'd always have to meet like this before he was sent off. And so Phobius had become sort of...tolerant of the sight, managing to convince himself that the alchemist he knew and the bad man whose body he now lived in had nothing in common with each other. His friend had only changed in looks, not personality.

The Alchae, however, was still a place of bad memories to him, and Phobius wasn't sure how long it'd take until he could tolerate it, too. Being inside of its walls always reminded him of that horrible day, when he'd had to help Mister Ekans lug a cold, clammy corpse inside, and he'd had to touch it in order to help, and the only reason it was a corpse in the first place was because Mister Ekans had killed the man. He'd been there, he'd seen it happen, and he...he couldn't stay inside of the shop without feeling his tummy do a front flip. The threshold of the front door was a safe zone, to the boy; prior to today, it was as far as he'd gotten, too.

Phobius listened to his friend speak, his feet rooting him to his spot as the man brought up concerns that he had. It had never occurred to him that the bad man might have had friends—what kind of people would like bad men?—but now that Kuvarakh mentioned it, he could see that it could cause some problems. It sounded like the alchemist was worried that the bad man's friends would come looking for him, since they were probably angry about their friend dying. Phobius guessed that he would be angry, too, but...these men would be different. They wouldn't want to just yell at Kuvarakh. They were bad men, and bad men hurt people.

Which meant that they'd hurt Kuvarakh.

The boy's amber eyes widened a little, the horrible nightmare and the choking from earlier temporarily forgotten. Kuvarakh was in trouble, now...! He didn't know how the bad men would be able to find him, or how they'd even know who they were supposed to be looking for, but the alchemist was making it sound as though it really could happen...and if that was the case, wouldn't that mean that Mister Ekans was in trouble, too? As scary as he'd been, that day, Phobius had nothing against the man and still considered him as a friend. He didn't want any of his friends getting hurt.

His worry growing, Phobius opened his mouth as he prepared to ask the alchemist about the snake-man, but closed it when he started to talk about Maya. The boy hadn't had the chance to meet her more than a couple of times, but she'd seemed nice, and he nearly blanched upon hearing that she'd already been hurt. She was okay, now, but still...

If they'd found her, would they be out looking for him, too? Phobius had heard good things about the Womiyu, Alvadas' authority and law-keeping group, and had no reasons to doubt that they were doing whatever they needed to do. That didn't keep him from feeling a little nauseous about it all, though.

When Kuvarakh revealed his idea of having them all stay at the Mansion for a while, the sick feelings within the boy's stomach didn't lessen any. It was a beautiful old house, but things hadn't exactly been fun the last time he and the alchemist had been there. Thank goodness that none of them had been hurt. He wasn't too happy about having to go back, but if Kuvarakh thought that it was best then he guessed that he'd be okay. After all, Aceren had been nice to him...if "Grandma" and the house's main personality were related to each other, at all. Maybe the house would be happy to have company, again.

And so Phobius had no comments to make once Kuvarakh had finished, content with keeping his thoughts and general concerns to himself for the time being. With that done, they left to go over to Maya's house. It's gonna be okay...Kuvarakh knows what he's doing. He's really smart, Phobius reassured himself as they walked, despite having to put a bit of extra effort into it. He didn't really doubt the man's judgement. Things had become incredibly unstable and serious, though, and it was...scary. He was scared. Was the alchemist scared, too...?

They trotted up the front steps, and Phobius knocked a few times on the woman's door. "Miss Maya?" the boy called, raising his voice a little. "It's us, Kuvarakh and Phobius!"

[930]

"This is speech in Nari."

This is thought.

[Aislyn Leavold]

23rd of Fall, 514

”Miss Maya? It’s us, Kuvarakh and Phobius!”

Petch petch petch pet-
Aislyn jolted up from the tiny cot she called a bed, catching her head on the wall as she went. With a hiss, she let her thoughts trickled into her words, letting out a hushed swear beneath her breath.
What time was it?
She must have fallen asleep… No, wait. That couldn’t be right.
She couldn’t have fallen asleep, because she last thing she remembered was…

Well, she didn’t quite know. What did she remember? A blur of days, bells, tiny moments in the days prior; sketching some random scene she’d happened upon, weaving through the Bizarre in search of something special, then right before her lack of memory, a job with Kuvarakh, and having to wash blood out of her hair…
”Petch…”

There was another knock at the door. Suddenly, Aislyn remembered she had guests.
”I’ll- uh, be there in a moment!”
In a blind rush, the woman threw on an outfit of purely white clothes, pausing only to locate her notebook and throw it into a backpack as she went.

She had to organize herself, and remember… Well, anything. Any bits of information would be helpful at that moment. She’d been having trouble remembering anything the past few days. And she didn’t even know why. If she had a clearer head and any time to think about it, she would have been afraid of this sudden amnesia. Or had any rational thought of how to fix it.
But, for the moment, she had more pressing matters. Like, for example, fixing the fact that she looked nothing like this ‘Maya’ that Phobius and Kuvarakh had set out to get. No, at that moment, she looked like Aislyn Leavold, and that was absolutely no good.

In her mind was a burned-in list of all the things she had to remember to disguise. Hair, skin, eyes… These days, it took her no longer than a chime to get the illusion up and running smoothly. Five illusions, to be exact. That meant five bells to work with. That was plenty of time for whatever Kuvarakh had for her, was it not? Maya was a face she’d become so accustomed to wearing, nowadays. Five hours was more than enough, in her experience, and besides, she’d always have time to refresh it if it wasn’t.
Unfortunately, illusions couldn’t work miracles, and Aislyn was still stuck dragging a tiny wooden brush through the now-light-coloured hair.

Once she was ready, the woman finally got to the door, swinging it open and greeting the two with an only slightly forced smile. It was the face of Phobius that made the smile genuine, and the face of Kuvarakh that made the smile fade away. The man looked concerned- almost paranoid. Had something happened?
Kuvarakh didn’t usually deliver his messages himself… Or, at least, he hadn’t before. In hindsight, it probably had something to do with the whole escade that had happened three days prior, but at that moment, the woman really didn’t want to think about it. It gave her quite a heavy headache.
Then again, a lot of things seemed to be giving her headaches since that incident.

Pushing the thoughts to the back of her mind, Aislyn turned her attention back to what was in front of her- Kuvarakh and Phobius. She was obviously needed for something, it was just a matter of what. With a slightly worried smile, Aislyn decided to ask the question she’d been wondering since the two had turned up on her doorstep.

”What can I do for you today?”

[603]

[Kuvarakh]

Architectrix

Maya took long enough to answer that, for a moment, Kuvarakh worried that some thug was already inside, setting up some sort of ambush, threatening her with violence if she let on. When the door finally opened, his eyes probably conveyed this degree of worry as he leaned in, trying to survey all that he could before pressing the issue. He was honestly not sure if he wanted to come inside.

"Could we talk please? Somewhere private?" he asked, not truly insisting for it to be inside Maya's home as opposed to some other place. Once everyone was more or less comfortable, he went on, "I'm afraid I owe you a pair of apologies. As I do Rey, and you..." he added, turning to Phobius. "The first being for what I brought on you guys at the shop the other day. And for being gone when it came down...And now this second one for what I am about to propose."

"I had no idea that their would be such consequences from taking the body of this murderer. I can tell you, in hindsight, it seems so predictable now that I feel like an absolute fool! The proposal the men made at the shop now seems like the better way to resolve this. By that, I mean getting a new body, and letting them take the head from this one." He sighed heavily. "But unfortunately, I have no lead a new body just now."

He waited a few ticks, trying to find an angle to continue. He turned to Phobius, "I'm sorry, lad, but I'm afraid I have not been entirely honest with you. I presented the situation as something that might GO wrong..." If Nuits had blood, he'd have blushed with shame and embarrassment. "Well...the fact is, it has already GONE wrong. A few days ago, I was alerted by Rey that some thugs were looking for me. I actually already knew, because I had a run-in with one just a couple days before."

It hurt him worse than he'd thought it would to see the look on the Inartan's face. He went on in a tone that begged for understanding. "I had no idea it would blow up like this! I thought it was just the one guy, Victor. But it turned out HE has another enemy in town though, and she came to my rescue. A truly impressive wolf Kelvic named Nanami. She was the one I was going to get when the criminals struck the shop."

He could hardly look Phobius in the eyes. "Look, I...I wanted to get you out of the shop without scaring you, so I gave you that story. I'm sorry, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time." His voice became very quiet and introspective for a moment, "Everything's seemed like the right thing..."

He collected himself again, "But anyway, here's the deal, We've all been out to the Mansion before, right?. It knows us, and it will protect us, as long as we stay in the...acceptable area. Even if those thugs ever found out where we were, they could never get at us in there. The Mansion...Aceren..." he looked again at Phobius, "...Grandma...would never let them."

He knew they would ask, so he preempted them, "Wanda has been assured by the Womiyu that they are keeping the shop under constant watch. They say they'll have these guys rounded up in no time, but she thinks they may be thinking to use me as bait. Well, I don't intend to BE bait! So, I am going to the Mansion whether you guys choose to accompany me or not. But I want you to know you are welcome. it's your choice."

x

[Phobius]

Phobius was able to return the smile when Maya answered the door, despite being momentarily distracted by all of the white that she was wearing. It made him think of snow, which was kind of funny, since he doubted that the temperature ever got cold enough for it to snow in the city. Then again, if Ionu could toy with the many buildings, streets, and alleyways, there was a good chance that he could toy with the weather, too. For all the boy knew, a raging blizzard could pop up during Summer.

She doesn't look too hurt, Phobius mused, glancing up at the woman's head as he stood by Kuvarakh and worriedly searched for any visible wounds. Sure, the alchemist had told him that she was fine, now, but what if she was feeling dizzy and didn't realize it until it was too late? What if the blow to the head had managed to do something to her brain...?

Then they were shuffling into Maya's house, and the boy closed the door behind himself. A few ticks later Kuvarakh began to speak, and Phobius, assuming that the man was simply going to repeat the things he'd mentioned to him, earlier, allowed his eyes to roam the surrounding space. He'd delivered messages to the woman's house, before, but had never actually been inside of it. And maybe it was because the interior easily dwarfed his room back at the inn, but the boy felt as though it was the biggest house he'd ever been in, besides the Mansion. Did Maya really live in here all by herself?

Curious, Phobius considered going ahead and asking her. He lowered his eyes to hers, bringing them away from the piece of ceiling that they'd been focused on, but then he alchemist was speaking to him, re-directing his attention.

A proposal...? What proposal? And what did he mean when he'd said that men were at his shop? What kind of men?

...bad men?

Whether or not the words were directed at Phobius, they were the first ones that he caught, creating a confusion that only seemed to grow as Kuvarakh went on. One could practically hear the gears slowly rotating in his head as he struggled to understand, taking in bits and pieces of the man's sentences like a growing fire that was being fed kindling. And when it all finally began to make sense, the Inartan boy's eyes widened, making him look afraid and more than a little hurt.

Kuvarakh had...lied to him? But...but friends didn't lie to each other.

No, no, no! He wasn't trying to hurt your feelings, Phobius mentally shouted, attempting to reassure himself. He just...he didn't want you to get more worried. That's all. He didn't wanna lie, but he had to...

What about the bad men, though? The alchemist was admitting that he'd already met one, now. There was a slurry of names that followed that information, but the boy didn't retain any of it, too occupied with his growing anxieties. Had Kuvarakh and the bad men gotten into a fight? Had he been hurt? And what about Mister Ekans? Nothing had been said about the snake-man, other than the fact that he'd warned the alchemist about the danger that seemed to be lurking about. Had the bad men gotten to him, too...?

On another note, it sounded as though the plan to head to the Mansion was still relevant. Phobius' opinion about it hadn't changed much within the last few chimes, but now that he knew about the true extent of the trouble they were all in...

"What about Mister Ekans?" the boy asked once Kuvarakh had finished, the concern clear in his voice. "Isn't he in trouble, too? S-shouldn't he be coming with us...? I mean...I'll go if you both go, but...but I don't want him to get hurt like Miss Maya was. I want him to be safe, too."

[658]


"This is speech in Nari."

This is thought.

[Aislyn Leavold]

That had certainly escalated quickly.
Phobius had seemed so happy and cheerful when he had appeared on her doorstep. Yet Kuvarakh… Kuv showing up at all had been an immediate warning sign, but insisting on speaking somewhere other than where they stood? Peculiar. Even so, Aislyn complied, moving out of the way for the two to enter the small place she called her home. Nothing fancy, though, with just two people living there, nothing particularly fancy was needed. The other person being Aislyn’s mother, who, luckily, had already appeared to have departed for her carving store, which was situated god knows where in Alvadas. For once, the illusionist was thankful for the lack of presence of her mother. The woman looked nothing like Aislyn’s illusion, better known as Maya. Even a fool would have sensed something strange between the two. And besides, though she hated to think it, Lyn’s mother was a liability. With her waning sanity, she could have said any number of things that could give her away.

Once they were inside, however, Aislyn invited the two men to sit on the little amount of seating she had, which consisted of two chairs clustered around a table in the center of the abode. The woman herself took a seat on the bunk in the corner of the room, which she had just recently awoken from. Consequently, the cot was unmade, making it the only untidied thing in the house.
Aislyn’s mother got a strange enjoyment out of cleaning the place, often before Lyn even woke up. Once again, the woman found herself thankful for her mother’s oddities, as it preserved her image towards Phobius and Kuvarakh.
At least, it did for the moment.
She still wasn't sure how they would interpret the drawings.

The drawings being the collage of various sketches and pictures, which took a whole new take on decoration. The paper lined the walls of her home, with varying degrees of skill, anything from childish doodles to almost photographic portraits. Though the latter were few and far between, and had taken easily taken Aislyn a season to draw. She wasn't good enough of an artist to create such drawings in a timely manner yet.
But that was not her focus at the moment.

The focus, of both Lyn and Phobius, was Kuvarakh, who had just begun to explain his presence there. His brief explanation of the events three days prior- most likely directed towards Phobius to apologize for his earlier unclarity- helped clear up quite a few things for Aislyn. Her lack of memory of the event was certainly a hindrance, but with the quick recap, she found many of her questions answered.
Unfortunately, it wasn't until the man blatantly stated what he was asking for did Aislyn realize what he was saying. He wanted her to move into the mansion.

At first, the woman loved the idea. She had seen the mansion, yes, scraped the surface of it’s secrets, also yes, but actually explore? No, she hadn’t been that far in yet. That sort of adventure was one the woman would, usually, jump right onto once given the opportunity. It was only when she was about to accept the man’s offer did logic actually work it’s way into her brain. If she stayed in the mansion, even for a little bit, that meant she’d be under near constant observation, if not from Phobius and Kuvarakh, then from the mansion itself. She may not have explored the place, but she knew enough about it to know it was alive.
Besides the obvious creep factor of that thought, the woman realized that meant she’d never be able to take down her illusion. Even at night, she’d have to be Maya. And she could only hold the illusion for five hours at time, which meant waking up in the middle of the night to refresh her concentration.
But even if she went through all that, there was no guarantee her illusion wouldn’t disintegrate during the night. The only reason she hadn’t been found out back when she had fallen asleep at the Alch after drawing the glyphs for Kuvarakh was due to sheer luck and, if memory served her, waking up in the middle of the night out of instinct and refreshing the illusion. But luck didn't last forever, and at one point or another, she would end up sleeping all the way through the night and waking up with the wrong face on. Then there was no doubt Aceren would notice.
As far as she knew, houses didn't sleep, and that meant she couldn't sleep either.

Therefor, the woman was left with two options. Go with Kuvarakh, and risk being discovered, or stay at home, and risk her life. And draw suspicion as well, as if her life wasn’t enough.
That was not a good set of options. Unfortunately, they were the only options Aislyn had.

Phobius was the first one to comment on the idea, inquiring about ‘Mister Ekans’. It took the woman several seconds to realize the redhaired boy meant Reysin. The second she realized, this, however, her mood was spoilt. Unlike a lot of things that season, she remembered her first endevor with the Dhani quite clearly, which was not one of her fondest memories. Then another encounter, which was a bit fuzzier. Rey had definitely been at the Alch three days prior, though the events after his arrival were still quite scrambled within her mind. What she did know, however, was that the man had somehow ended up in hospital after the events of the day, and it was only due to sheer luck that Aislyn hadn’t ended up in a bed next to him.

”I don’t think Reysin will be joining us, Phobius…” At first the woman had planned to outright tell the boy that Rey had almost died on the scene, but a quick look at Kuvarakh’s face told her that it would be in everyone's best interests if she tiptoed around the subject. ”He’s found somewhere even safer to… Hide.”

”But that’s beside the point. Right now, what’s important is…” She hesitated. What she wanted to say was not dying, but once again censored herself for Phobius’s sake. The lad might have been just a few years younger than herself, but she still felt as if she had to protect him like one would a child. ”Staying safe.” She paused, thinking over her words carefully. ”Kuvarakh, if you think it’s for the best…” Caught in the moment, Aislyn found herself making a definitive choice she was definitely going to regret.
”When do we leave?”

{1,104}This ended up being much longer than I intended. Sorry about that.

[Kuvarakh]

Architectrix

Kuvarakh cast a knowing glance at Maya when she made her statement regarding Rey. He added a subtle nod to show he would not gainsay her cover story. Phobius was already on edge, without knowing that the one he probably figured to be the toughest of this little circle of friends was already with the healers for multiple wounds. As much as the boy was consistently uneasy around Rey. He surely also recognized the Dhani as the one most capable of ensuring their collective survival.

Kuvarakh immediately latched onto Maya's next observation, enthusiastically nodding and looking to Phobius, trying to will him to share his resolve. "Yes, Maya is absolutely right. Well be safer out of sight. These thugs are after ME. Part of the threat they carry is to abduct people I care about and ransom them for my cooperation; which would mean nothing short of my death. But if I am gone and they don't know of any way to reach me, then it becomes impractical, because they can't be sure that I know there's anything to respond TO. They need to KNOW that I can be informed of their captive some way."

"So we need to get to the Mansion as soon as we can. I already spoke to Wanda, she says she's going to trust that The Womiyu will protect her. But she agrees that I should disappear for awhile." He reached over and patted Phobius on the shoulder. He hoped that his previous mention of 'Grandma' would give him some measure of comfort.

"Now we all know there is a limited number of areas in the Mansion we can go, right? There are a few rooms off the promenade overlooking the reception area. These should be okay to stay in. They are not actually bedrooms, but I think Aceren will dress them up to accommodate us, once he's aware that we need to stay there." He nodded to pretend that he was sure of this.

Kuvarakh knew that both Maya and Phobius were familiar with the houseman avatar, Aceren. He knew that Phobius and he had not enjoyed the greatest degree of welcome the last time they'd gone to the Mansion. He still was unsure what had provoked the sentient estate into testing them the way it had. In fact, he really didn't think that Phobius was actually being tested at all. The boy was more the subject of the test conducted on Kuvarakh.

He had passed, or at least it seemed that way, given the smile that had graced Aceren's face when Kuvarakh and Phobius had finished up the work they had come to do. Kuvarakh had been out to the Mansion since then; and he had asked about the nature of that incident. Aceren had patiently asked him to accept that it was necessary, but that the details of what prompted it were not open for discussion.

Kuvarakh had then asked how he was supposed to ensure that he would not provoke another such "test". Aceren had paused thoughtfully for a moment, then smiled and stated enigmatically "We learn from our mistakes, hopefully..." Kuvarakh was about to ask who it was that was mistaken, and who it was that was learning, then decided it would provide him no further insight. Aceren clearly had no intention of clarifying anything. Not in words anyway.

"Well..." he said to his two companions, clapping his hands once, "Let's get ready to go."

x

[Phobius]

Phobius shifted his worried gaze over to Miss Maya when she spoke. Supposedly, the snake-man had gone ahead and found himself a safe place to stay in. But, the boy wondered. What could be safer than being in the Mansion? It's big and has lots of rooms, and Aceren and Grandma are there...so that makes it extra safe. ...does Mister Ekans even know about the Mansion, at all...?

It was something that hadn't occurred to Phobius until now. Miss Maya had definitely been there, before, and he'd spent a bit longer than he would have liked roaming its halls, himself...but the more he thought about it, the more certain the boy was that, amongst the many visitors that the Mansion had had over the course of its long and occasionally lonely life, Mister Ekans had never been mentioned as one. Maybe Kuvarakh had never told him about it, for...whatever reason. And if that was the case, then the snake-man would have no way of knowing about how safe of a hideaway it was, compared to wherever he was huddled up in, right now. His room? A cave?

As fearful for the man's safety as Phobius was, however, he knew that he would be able to take care of himself. Mister Ekans was strong and could fight, the latter of which the boy had (unfortunately) seen; if the bad men managed to find him, he'd probably scare them so much that they'd run away and tell the other bad men to leave him alone.

All in all, the man would be okay by himself. That didn't keep Phobius from continuing to worry, and it didn't make him any safer than the rest of them would be, but...well...at least he probably wouldn't be hurt?

Kuvarakh chipped in a moment later, stressing that the bad men were only mad at him, but they'd hurt the people he knew if they couldn't actually find him, which made getting to the Mansion all the more important. He then went on to say that there were a few, certain areas within the building that they'd be staying in, making the rest off-limits. Phobius felt that he could understand that; it was relatively easy to get lost in there, if one wasn't being careful. He would've gotten himself lost, back then, if it hadn't been for Grandma leading him around. She'd been a really sweet person, acting just like he assumed a grandma was supposed to act.

The old woman would still be there, wouldn't she? Phobius wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of having to sleep inside of the Mansion, but he guessed that it wouldn't bother him as much if it meant that he could see her, again.

...did the Mansion sleep? Or, better yet, did it need to? Kuvarakh had said that it was alive, thanks to some sort of alchemy-magic-y thing, and it obviously had feelings, but did that mean that it had to eat like people did or take naps at night? If it didn't, did that mean that it was awake all the time?

Would it be watching them while they were asleep?

The thought sent a brief chill down Phobius' spine. He then pushed it away, not wanting it floating around in his head, anymore.

When the alchemist had announced that they would be leaving, soon, the boy considered running back to his room at the inn, just in case there was stuff that he'd need to bring with him. But then he thought it over, some more, and realized that he pretty much already had what he needed. His clothes never changed, and his "jammies" were simply less clothes, not excluding the beloved blue scarf which he chose to remove during nighttime; the wool was kinda thick, so it made him hot if he wore it inside for too long. And if he was getting his own little space to sleep in, he didn't have to worry about the collar. No one would see it.

Amber eyes beginning to wander, again, Phobius fell back into quietly marveling at Miss Maya's home. It didn't take too long for him to notice the startling number of papers that covered most of the walls; curious, he wandered over to one so that he could get a closer look, only to discover that they were all drawings. Buildings, streets, people, lamp-posts...it seemed like the woman had drawn just about everything in Alvadas. In detail, too.

She never told me that she could draw stuff!

"Did you make all these, Miss Maya?" Phobius called from his place by the art-coated wall, staring at a drawing of a funny-looking woman who was wearing a big, poofy coat. "They're really really really good!"

[793]


"This is speech in Nari."

This is thought.