Current
After an unsettling encounter that threatened to uproot a lot of the things Branimir thought to know or at least believe in, the young man left his home city. Packing two heavy crates of all the things in his life that could be moved, he kissed his mother good-bye, shook his father's hand and promised to write them, as prodigal sons do. He walked the house he grew up in one last time, letting his hands soak in as many memories as they could.
Then he simply strode off to the harbor and booked a passage to Riverfall where he intends to take a new look at life. If only he knew how to get those crates off the ship by himself when he got there.
Recent History
Like any sane human being, Branimir had of course always revered the Gods. He'd paid tribute to Laviku was befit anyone living by the sea and when the dreams started, he'd taken to praying to Nyself before he went to bed. Often enough, it felt as if the God of Dreams heard him and kept gifting him vistas of faraway or long gone places and their often beautifully alien architecture. And on those nights when he didn't sleep, there was Leth to consider, though that was always something of a wary consideration. The God of the Moon being an unpredictable sort.
But from the time he could read, none had held more reverence in Branimir's eyes than Eyris. Here was a goddess who seemed to exemplify and share the young man's passions. There was no need to pray to her for something in turn, no wary regard as with the impulsive Leth. There was just, in as far as any human being might risk to consider such things, a kinship. A dvivine being Branimir would not just respect but love for her existence and the things she stood for.
In retrospect, it shouldn't have surprised him that, in his interpretation of what transpired at the least, this love would be reciprocated. It was supposed to have been bis 22nd birthday, but in all frankness, Branimir had forgotten about that. The badly damaged folio in his hands had been doused with wine or maybe even blood and he wanted to copy every single word before the ink could smudge. Working into the night in his lodgings was not a rare thing for the boy, but today, it felt harder than usual.
Cats yowling outside, pots and pans clattering in the common room, drunks banging on his door. He forced his way through all distractions trying to at least have a legible copy of the book. Someone else would need to make it pretty again, illuminating and binding the pages. But he could at least save it. So absorbed was he in copying the letters of the writing, he barely paid attention to their meaning. Later, he'd think it fated that the book in question was a folio on the Lykata cult. Then it was just a book in need of saving from the deeds of brutes.
When Branimir set the final strokes to the last page, the door to his room opened. A breathtaking woman stood in the doorway, smiled, then let herself in. Before he could protest, the woman explained that she would take his finished copy. That made him want to protest even more, but the lady had an aura of command he couldn't deny. When she took the pages from his hand, she ever so lightly brushed her fingers across it. Dumbfounded, Branimir stared at the glowing mark her touch had left behind.
"Serve me," Eyris, for that was of course who the nightly visitor was, spoke in quiet somber tones, "And in time you shall gain all the knowledge there is to be found. So you may have it, have it and save it. For yourself, and for me."
Adulthood
Thus set on a course, his parents, caring as they were as much as hoping for a better life for their son, enrolled him in the Zeltivan University once he was of an appropriate age. There he would be able to pursue his dreams and, as they knew or at least hoped, excel in his chosen field.
Given his nature, Branimir's relationship with his parents was never as warm as they'd have preferred, but it was still one of respect and care. Even if they were his inferiors intellectually -and they were- he at the very least felt indebted to them for allowing him to amass the knowledge he sought and not force him into becoming a fisherman or sailor or other menial thing.
Of course, Branimir did excel at his studies. At least the theoretical parts. At least the ones that weren't boring repetition of things he already knew. So he did excel when his mind was stimulated with challenges or fed with new information. He did however feel little inclination to take time away from his theoretical studies to pursue an understanding of physical construction, for example.
Instead he'd visit courses in the College of Scholars and learn of the history of the world and other matters, telling himself this was done with an eye towards improving his understanding of architecture or just to exercise his brain. In practice it had him designing buildings that were pleasing to the eye and would have been a joy to inhabit but which in fact could not be built due to the weight of their components and other statical problems.
It was frustrating because he realized his shortcomings, because he hated them, and because he could not bring himself to address them as readily as he should to advance in his courses. Instead, he quietly floundered for a year, preferring to learn sundries and ignoring his priorities. At first, he beat himself up over it, but soon, he told himself, he'd found a solution. Impassive, logical and a huge blow to his pride:
He took on menial work. He could not stand for his parents financing an education that was under threat of going nowhere. Neither could he stand feeling dependent and indebted. So Branimir took to working for his keep and his education, even if it went nowhere. And work he did.
Certainly, it was in the University Library. Certainly, his task was honorable in itself, finding worn books and copying them for posterity, or at least for the next few generations of students who'd use them to rest their cups on or what other horrible things they might do. Having had little training, but a naturally pleasing hand and better talent at recreating the technical drawings in those books than illuminating them, he made up for it all with the passion he brought with him.
A passion for knowledge that he translated into a passion for saving knowledge. From time's passage, from the salty Zeltivan air and from the depredations of men and women who could not see what treasures these works held. Even while copying a work was not quite the same as reading it and he never managed to retain a book that had become a piece of work for him to its fullest, he still enjoyed it all.
Monographs about hunting a particular kind of small deer long since extinct, tall sailors' tales made up to be reports of fact, faulty but grandiose theories on the relation between the interplay of the Gods and the weather in Nyka. He saved them all. To Branimir, there was no useless knowledge. There was only knowledge. And knowledge was power, but more importantly, knowledge was knowledge.
Childhood
Life was a drag before he started dreaming. His father was a shipwright in Zeltiva, one of many. Thus his parents were hardly wealthy, but neither were they poor. They got by more often than not and could afford their son some rudimentary education. Of course he excelled. Anything less would have meant to waste that precious gift and in general would not have sat well with the boy himself.
He'd been smart for as long as he could remember. Other children had been bigger or faster or better liked, but the boy, Branimir, had had a knack for not just seeing but understanding what he saw. And what he understood he could more often than not manipulate to his advantage. Being somewhat sociable back then, little Branimir would of course play with the other children. But, children being children, there were days when such play turned to his detriment.
Very very quickly, the child learned he didn't like to lose. Didn't like it at all. Him understanding things came in quite useful when he went about extracting revenge for his losses. Marking another child with honey so bees would beset it or making sure they soiled their new clothes so their parents would notice was, literally, child's play. Certainly, trouncing the others would have been more satisfying, but his strengths lay elsewhere and he grudgingly accepted that.
It all changed as Branimir grew older and started noticing the dreams. It is said all mortals dream each nicht, they simply don't remember most of their dreams when they wake up. But Branimir remembered vividly. He dreamed of walking among the ghostly buildings of the lost Eypharian cities and marvelling at their beauty. Stalking the halls of the grand citadel in Sylira and thinking he could do so much better. Watching Ravok appear from the prow of a boat and just wondering, and marvelling at the ingenuity of both Gods and men.
Soon it became impossible to tell what had come first and what was second. Had he dreamt up these things, then read up on them or otherwise informed himself as best he could? Or had he heard about them, then given them shape in his dreams? One seemed to fuel the other in a neverending cycle. The important thing he took from it, however, was that he truly came to love the idea of designing buildings.
Beyond the mere accumulation of knowledge, this became a driving goal for him. It was just that his hunger for knowledge and understanding wasn't diminished by it. It did become informed by this love of architecture, but was that high art not more than simply building a house that wouldn't collapse within a year? Would the perfect houses, the perfect cities they would shape, not take into consideration the land and the plants and animals and people therein? Of course they would. Architecture might have become his form of expression, but all knowledge was still knowledge and thus desirable.
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Branimir 
by Branimir on June 27th, 2015, 4:57 pm 
