Conversations with an Inn (Ashnah)

by **Lucas Arias** on March 26th, 2016, 6:54 am

Spring 68, 516 AV

Lucas had just finished his work for the day (which consisted of telling people their fortune and occasinally lying to them) and was on his way home to the Cubacious Inn, when he saw a woman that was talking to a whale. It was a perfectly normal looking whale that sat between two perfectly normal looking houses. He stopped in his tracks and stared. In the one season he had lived in Alvadas he had already seen the whole city covered in fabrics, he had ridden a shark, had lived underwater and attended a most bizarre festival that was dedicated to illusions, but this was new!

Another man might have questioned his sanity or wondered if somebody had slipped him drugs, but the former squire (who currently sported blue hair again) did not doubt for one moment that the whale was real. He approached the woman because he really wanted to find out where the whale had come from. He could see now that she appeared to be in her thirties. She had lots of blonde curls, a heart shaped face and nice brown eyes. She was holding a cup of tea in her hand and occasionally taking a sip from it while she happily chatted with the whale who occasionally answered with a loud wail.

„And you know what’s the best thing?“ he heard her say to the whale. He stood completely still because he really wanted to know what the best thing was, but unfortunately she had already noticed him and turned around. Lucas waved and grinned somewhat sheepishly. „Oh, hello“, he said. „Sorry to bother you, but I was wondering where the whale is coming from.“ The woman laughed as if he had just been wondering about the most obvious thing ever. „That is my house“, she answered. „When I came home from work today, it had turned into a whale. Apparently empty houses turn into whales at the moment. I was ever so surprised of course. She is very nice though. We are fast becoming friends. Now could you please let us continue our conversation? I have never had such an attentive listener before!“

~~~~~
He saw several more people that were talking to whales before he finally reached the Cubacious Inn. Some people were having friendly conversations with their whales, like the blonde lady, but others were screaming. One man was even hitting his whale, and another one was threatening it with a harpoon – as if violence could make it turn back into a house!

The Cubacious Inn was not a whale of course. It was never empty which was unfortunate. Lucas was convinced that it had a lot of interesting stories to tell. Sighing, he walked through the door. He was just about to walk down the hallway to his room when something caught his attention. Something silver. A man that had apparently just arrived – he had a large suitcase with him – handed Mrs. Delner, the proprietor, a handful of silver mizas. That was it! Lucas reached into his pocket and furrowed his brow.

That should be enough!

The former squire climbed onto a chair, cleared his throat and announced: „I’ll give anybody that leaves the inn a silver miza! Making money has never been so easy! You as well, of course, Mrs. Delner!“ he added because the proprietor had looked at him disapprovingly. After hearing that she would get free money as well though, she smiled at him. „As you may or may not know all empty houses become whales today, and I really want to find out what this fine establishment is like as a whale!“

„You heard the young man!“ said Mrs. Delner who had decided that turning the inn into a whale was a great idea. „Please leave the inn. Our friend from Syliras will hand you the money as soon as you have stepped out of the door. You are free to stay and watch the transformation of course, and everybody will be allowed to ask the inn a question, provided that it is capable of understanding Common.“

Some of the people that stayed at the inn were a little bemused. Some were irritated, but in the end they all walked out of the door and positioned themselves in front of the inn, waiting with bated breath for the transformation to begin.

Secret :

by **Ashnah** on April 8th, 2016, 6:41 pm

Stubby legs were almost a blur as the Pycon tore through the streets of Alvadas. She was really putting her ability to run to the test today! A stray though hit her; did they still count as streets when they were underwater? Was there another word for underwater streets? Oh well. She was following the pull of her key. Her house was a whale now apparently, and it had swum off. Which was fine. If being a whale was what it wanted out of life, she'd not begrudge it, in fact she'd happily respect its life choices. Probably being a whale was more exciting than being a house, though at least the houses in Alvadas got to see the sights as they moved around each day. No, she wasn't running down her whale-house because she wanted it to go back to its foundations, she was running down her whale-house, because if it wanted to be a whale now, and had absconded with her belongings, it could at the very least be friends with her.

How grand would that be! Being friends with her own whale-house, going on adventures together, maybe a picnic. What did whale-houses eat? What did regular whales eat? Well, when she found it and became best friends, she'd find out. About whale-houses anyway. Her whale-house had never met a real whale to the best of her knowledge and might not know about that sort of thing.

Besides, her whale-house got to actually swim. She could ride it around! That would be great fun! It would probably be more amiable about it than the sharks too. She'd been excited when she'd walked out into an underwater scene, and had almost immediately reshaped her limbs into flippers and given herself a little whale tail. And proceeded to lay on the street flailing said flippers and utterly failing to go anywhere. Water water everywhere but not allowed to swim. So she'd gone back to the stubby legs that had served her well so far in her life. She'd kept the tail though. She thought it was festive.

She slowed slightly as a crowd suddenly started spilling out onto the street. A fairly small crowd, more of a group really, but enough that she wanted to be careful not to run into or be stepped on by anyone. She glanced up to see where they were coming out of and saw the Cubacious Inn. So that's where it was today! Interesting!

A shock of blue caught her attention, and didn't people find that curious considering she had no visible eyes, and she noted a man she'd met before. Wait. Was he young enough to be a boy? Human aging was so confusing. A venerable Pycon would often still be a child if they were human! Man was probably safer. Boys didn't mind being called men but men often got titchy about being called boys and Ashnah never meant to offend anyone.

She weaved her way through the milling group, missing the transformation entirely to her chagrin. She'd been facing away when her house changed too. Did it just suddenly change, like a Kelvic, or was there stretching and changing as one form was molded into the next, like her? Oh! What if the houses had decided that being whales was their true final form? How exciting for them to have found them!

In a moment she was free of the forest of legs and up front. As was her usual way, she spoke to Lucas immediately. They were friends after all, you could tell by how they'd met that one time. Ashnah largely categorized the world into 'People I Don't Know' and 'My Friends'.

"Hello! It's me, Ashnah! Isn't this lovely?"

She turned to face the whale-Inn a little more head-on. It looked larger than her whale-house. Well, that made sense. It had been bigger to start with after all.

"Hello Whale-Inn!"

by **Lucas Arias** on April 9th, 2016, 9:07 am

The transformation happened very quickly. One moment the Cubacious Inn was standing there in all its cubic glory, and then the building began to flicker and waver and blur before a whale suddenly appeared and wailed loudly as if it had just awoken from a long and pleasant slumber. There were a lot of “oohs” and “aahhs” from the crowd, including Mrs. Delner who applauded as if the inn had just done a particularly impressive trick.

The Cubacious Inn-whale, it turned out, looked just as weird as the Cubacious Inn-house. It was a very large whale which probably made sense since it had been bigger than most of the other buildings in the street when it had still been an inn. Its skin was blue, and it had big black eyes. It also had a somewhat cubic build rather than being all round or curvy, but again that made sense. As a building it had been made out of cubes after all.

It was not spinning though, which it had done quite frequently when it had still been a building. Instead it just sat there, between the other houses and looked at the crowd as if it wasn’t sure what to make of them yet. The crowd looked back. They weren’t too sure about the whale yet either.

Lucas who considered himself the leader of the group – he had paid them after all – was just about to approach the whale and start talking to it as he heard a voice that was coming from somewhere near his feet. He furrowed his brow in confusion, but when he looked down, his eyes immediately lit up, and a smile spread all across his face.

It was the Pycon he had met earlier that season. At least he thought it was her. The voice was the same, but she looked slightly different. He often changed his appearance as well though, so he did not begrudge her the transformation. Always looking the same was boring anyway. Besides, the little tail she had grown looked rather festive. He wished he could grow additional appendages!

“It’s awesome!” he agreed. “I really wanted the Cubacious Inn to become a whale because it probably has a lot of things to say, so I made all the people go outside. Did your house become a whale as well? What did it say?” He looked incredibly curious as he asked that question. He had initially wanted to be the first to talk to the Inn, but he decided to give the honor to Ashnah instead because he really liked Pycons.

As Ashnah greeted the whale-inn, it blinked at her as if it had never seen somebody like her before, and then it wailed as if it were saying hello. “Do you think we should make whale-sounds instead of speaking Common with it?” Lucas wondered and immediately tried it. His wail didn’t seem to turn out quite right though. The inn suddenly looked angry.

by **Ashnah** on April 12th, 2016, 5:48 pm

"It did! It didn't say very much though, it just sort of swam off, I've been looking for it."

This didn't worry her too much, she'd find it, she was good at finding things. You kind of had to be if you wanted to leave in Alvadas. Besides, she still had her key! That was one of the handy bits about being a Pycon. She didn't need to worry about losing her key, which would have been an even bigger disaster in in the City of Illusion than elsewhere, she kept it within her clay so she always had the pull home to orient her. Besides, who worried about anything when they had something as interesting as the Whale-Inn to occupy them? It was much blockier than her house had been, but that was fitting, just because it was a Whale now didn't mean it wasn't going to be a Cubacious one! She was perhaps a little disappointed it wasn't still yellow, but she supposed none of the other whale-buildings she'd seen had been anything but, well, whale coloured.

She perked up again at his suggestion of making whale sounds, that was probably smart! It had seemed to answer her greeting, but maybe it had just been making sounds back at her, it was hard to tell. Lucas proceeded to try out his idea and made what she thought was a rather good whale noise impression. Unfortunately the flaw in their new plan was quickly uncovered. Apparently Lucas didn't speak whale any better than she did. Well. His pronunciation was flawless, he just didn't know meanings. At least if the look on the Whale-Inns face was anything to judge by.

"SooOOOOooooooorryyyyyYYYYYyyyyy! WWWWwwwwwwwwEEEeeeeeee dIIIIIIIiiiiiidddddNNNNnnnnt MMEeeeeeeeaaaNNNN IIiiiiit!"

The Pycon wailed at the Inn before turning to Lucas.

"Whale sounds is smart! It's polite to try and accommodate different people, but maybe since it's had to listen to people speak common for years and years before it got to be a Whale it might understand Common? I think you're better at trying to make whale sounds than me though!"

She thought for a minute before continuing.

"I bet Whale-Inn would be happy if it knew you were the one who helped let it become a Whale!"

Ashnah was at heart a peacekeeper. She wanted everyone to not only get along, but also to be happy. Lucas wanted to be friends with Whale-Inn, this made sense, she wanted to be friends with her Whale-House after all. Lucas had accidentally offended Whale-Inn. But Whale-Inn would be just Inn without Lucas, so maybe if it knew that Whale-Inn wouldn't be angry and Lucas could be its friend. The best solutions left everyone happy!

by **Lucas Arias** on April 15th, 2016, 10:09 am

„Your house swam away?“ Lucas asked and grinned. He didn’t think about the implications that might have for Ashnah and her life, that she might have to sleep under a bridge, in a park or on the street, if Pycons slept at all. He only thought about how awesome it would be to have a moving, swimming whale house of his own. “I wonder if the Cubacious Inn can swim as well. It looks kind of big and clumsy, doesn’t it?” He considered the Cubacious Inn-whale in front of him. No, it certainly didn’t appear to be very agile.

“You speak whale better than I do”, he decided as he heard Ashnah. He realized what had done wrong now. He had tried to make normal whale sounds when it would have been better to combine whale and Common. The inn had lived among humans for so long that a few of their traits had likely rubbed off on it. It would take a while before it became a proper whale again. He hoped that time would come soon. He found it somewhat depressing to be stuck between house, whale and human and not truly belong anywhere.

“I’ll give it a try”, he said as Ashnah suggested that he let the inn know he had helped it become a whale. Around him the people were growing a little restless because they wanted to talk to the whale-inn as well, but Mrs. Delner gestured for them to be quiet. Before they could talk to the whale-inn they needed to figure out how to talk to it and how much it understood, and in her opinion Ashnah and Lucas had the greatest chance of success.

Lucas made another step towards the whale-inn that watched him closely from out of its big, black eyes and cleared his throat. “Iiiii AaaAaaaMmmm LllluuuCcccas! IiiiIiii FrreeeeeEDDddd YyyooooUuuu!” He coughed a little. He was not used to making such sounds, and his throat felt a little weird as a consequence. The whale seemed to have understood him in some fashion though as it looked a little less angry now. Lucas wasn’t content though. Something else had just occurred to him. If the inn was a whale now, where would he sleep tonight?

“Do you think we could climb into the whale, Ashnah?” he asked the Pycon. “Maybe we should make a bit of small talk first and ask it how it is and how it likes being its true self. Do you want to do that? I’m still not sure if it likes me very much.”

by **Ashnah** on April 17th, 2016, 10:32 pm

"It did! That's okay though, it probably wanted to stretch it's... fins. It's good our houses get to see different parts of the city every day, but they just appear somewhere new. If I have to sit for very long I like going for a walk after too."

This made perfect sense to Ashnah. She cocked the part of her body that one could assume from the mouth functioned as her head and considered the Whale-Inn at his next question.

"Well. Maybe it won't win any agility races, but I bet it can swim okay! Plus since it's bigger than most of the other Whale-Buildings probably they'll move out of it's way so it'll just have to go in whatever direction it wants. I would think. I mean I'd get out of it's way."

Ashnah had a lot of experience in getting out of the way of things larger than herself. Speed and agility just meant you were better at it. You could think you had right of way if you wanted, but that was just going to end in bruises and curses for the flesh and blood, and if you were unlucky as a Pycon a squished head and death. Much smarter to just step aside.

She shuffled her stubby legs at Lucas' praise of her whale speech, pleased. If she'd been any other race she might have blushed. How nice of him to say that! She was glad to see that the Whale-Inn looked much less angry at Lucas after he explained his part in its whale-ification. It still didn't look exactly happy tough, he must have said something awfully bad before. Maybe about it's mum? Did it have a mum? Maybe whoever had built it originally was its mum. This line of thought was set aside at Lucas next suggestion and question. She wasn't exactly sure when she'd become the expert on Whale-Buildings but it was nice of him to think to ask her opinion. Besides, most of the time as long as you were polite you could get along with anyone and anything.

"We probably should ask first, I suppose people just crawling into your mouth might be a bit rude. Oh! Plus if it only turned into a whale when everyone got out, what if it turns back into an Inn when someone gets in? It probably doesn't want to be an Inn again yet, it hasn't even had a chance to swim around. And don't worry, I'm sure it will like you once it gets to know you better!"

She turned back to the Whale-Inn.

"DDDdddoooOOOOooo yyyooOOOOoouuuu LLLlllliiiiIIIIKKKkeeee bbbBBEEEeeeeiiIIIINnnnng aaaAAAAaaaa wwwWWWWHHhhhhhhhaaaAAAAALLLLleeeeee?"

She paused to take a breathe, wailing like a whale was hard! Plus, the Whale-Inn needed a chance to answer. It let loose another string of whale speech, which quite frankly Ashnah didn't understand in the least, but it looked quite happy and moved it's flippers and tail. In fact it looked a bit like it was getting ready to go for a swim...

Closed Conversations with an Inn (Ashnah)