Closed Around the bend (Adeliz)

[Marino Oceangem]

23rd of Summer, 520 AV

Hesitantly, Marino teased back the string of his composite short bow. He could feel the muscles in his left arm contract as he pulled the heavy string back as far as he could. It dug into his fingertips painfully, and his right arm trembled from holding the body of the bow stiffly in front of him. His quiver lay discarded at his feet, filled with unused arrows that Marino was hadn’t worked up to trying just yet.

For now just getting used to the feel of the bow was enough for him. Buraga, whom had helped him by stringing the petching thing was watching from where he sat on some driftwood. His eyes were as meticulous as ever, reminding Marino why he was one of the few in Syka that he seldom felt comfortable around.

He was reaching his limit holding the bow taut. Not wanting to smack himself again with the string, he eased it back down into its resting position before turning to Buraga. “That’s a lot harder than using the harpoon gun.” Marino said, breathing out a breath he hadn’t known he had been holding. That released some of the tension in his chest, and Buraga stood up, his own longer bow in hand.

“A petching sight more effective too. Once you know how to use it.” The man said, and Marino wondered if he was reading the man right. It was hard not to feel like the butt of some joke when trying to learn from Buraga, though Marino consoled himself with the fact that it was probably do to their significant gap in experience that he felt this way.

Buraga teased his bow string back as he notched an arrow. Then, narrowing his eyes slightly, he sent the arrow flying down the empty stretch of beach they had chosen for its proximity to the saw mill. It struck the wooden target Buraga had set there some fifty yards away, easily placed towards its center.

Following his direction, Marino leaned down to draw out an arrow from his quiver. “Set it across the back of your thumb. Use the feathers to guide your shot when you draw back. Then pay attention to how much it drops from where you aimed.” Buraga said slowly as Marino did just that. Slowly, he drew the arrow back, his fingertips subtly shaking from where they pinched the back of the arrow between his thumb and forefinger. He shifted to put one of the feathers in line for the target before he released it.

The arrow soared forward before planting a few feet away into the sand. Marino frowned slightly, though he was feeling a little amused at the result. “Well, at least you didn’t drop your bow.” Buraga chided before he notched another arrow. It went on like that for a long while between them. With Marino missing his shots, and Buraga hitting his. More than a few times Marino had his forearm twacked by the bow string which smarted rather terribly by the end of their practice.

After a bell, Buraga packed things up before heading down the beach towards the Swine Swells with Lars. Marino passed on that, wanting to get in a little more practice in with his bow before he headed back towards Syka Commons in the Seasilk. Before that though, he took a break on the improvised driftwood bench. Stripping off his shirt,boots, and socks he let his feet soak for a bit in the surf that washed up onto the beach while he looked out over the water.

[Adeliz]

For the past week, Adeliz had avoided everyone. Mostly, that had meant avoiding Ines. She couldn’t explain why, but this thing on her wrist felt like a betrayal. Perhaps it was the body that she wore was the same one she had worn with Ines in life and any addition to it without Ines felt like a violation. Perhaps it was that she didn’t fully comprehend what the mark meant. Either way, she avoided Ines, and she avoided the living. After all, it was their Goddess that had laid claim to her.

Most of that time, she had spent trying to claw the mark free from her spiritual body, but she had found it was no use. This was something more powerful than anything she had ever before encountered. After all, it was the power of a goddess. Eventually, Adeliz had realized that she would have to interact with people again, but she was not yet ready to face Ines without a decent explanation as to what this thing on her wrist was.

That was where she found herself this day a week after the Marking. She had decided she would seek others out who had the mark, and so she had waited, watching passers by from the invisible edges of unmaterialized nothingness. Many people moved through the busy Commons of Syka, but finally, Adeliz found one who had the mark, one who caught her eye.

It was the man who had found the piece of totem at the Sawmill, the first one she had spoken to the day of Marking. He had seemed kind, a soul open to the idea of a dead soul remaining around regardless of her purpose. She, for the life of her, couldn’t remember what his name was. Quietly, she watched him, following at a distance as he gathered Buraga and a bow and headed to the beach.

The demonstration of marksmanship that ensued was unimpressive at best. The familiar man’s first arrow practically dropped from the bow string, only making it a few strides ahead of him. After that, things improved but never to the point of being good, but that didn’t matter. Each time he stretched his arm out to hold the bow away from his body, she got another glimpse of his mark, and it reminded her why she was here.

Time worked differently when it meant nothing, and time meant nothing to the dead. While the practice session may have felt long to those participating, it was over before Adeliz knew it. She had grown distracted by the sand around her. Painstakingly, she was trying to shred her soulmist down and project it against a single grain. Talia, the conceited ghost at the jungle library, had told Adeliz she lacked finesse, and the far younger ghost was determined to prove the older wrong. Despite her efforts, Adeliz was coming nowhere close to being so precise. No matter how fine she made her strands of soulmist, the amount of sand she moved was always a good finger breadth wide.

She was so focused on her task she missed Buraga’s departure, but she found the man she wanted to talk to hadn’t yet left. Instead, he was stripping down, leaving only his bottoms on. While some might find themselves uncomfortable with this, Adeliz had lived with Ines, shared the same body with a Kelvic, and nudity and partial nudity were neither uncommon nor unwelcome things. He was sitting on a piece of driftwood with his feet in the water.

Matching his leisurely attitude, she meandered unmaterialized until she was in front of him and took up a seated position in the surf. Maybe Talia was right. Maybe Adeliz did lack finesse. Rather than an elegant materialization, she sparked into frayed being one part at a time, her edges lacking any real definition or detail. To match his clothing, she materialized in nothing but an oversized shirt that stopped mid-thigh. As she came into being, she saw that the water coursed unimpeded through her lifeless, formless, incorporeal body. She considered it for a moment, then twisted, looking over her shoulder at the man she had come to talk to.

She waved and spoke in Common. It was her easiest way to communicate with the people around the settlement. “Hi. I Adeliz. Remember? Bird leg? I not good at names. I no remember you. Sorry.”

She shrugged and hoped he would give her his name, hoped he wouldn’t be off put by the sudden appearance of a ghost. Driving more effort into her materialization by dedicating more focus and soulmist to the purpose, she materialized her arm more, and as the end of her arm took shape, the vivid mark burst into being, bright and colorful against her gray, poorly-materialized, supposedly-purple skin. Pointing to it first and then his, she acknowledged perhaps the only thing they had in common. “Smudge!” She couldn’t think of the word mark in Common. “I has also. What is? I no like. It wrong, like…” She couldn’t think of a good analogy, so she stopped midsentence, pausing before repeating herself. “It wrong. I no like.”

Realizing it was rude not to ask him what he thought, she questioned him. “It hurt you? It feel…”

The words were getting in the way, so Adeliz stopped trying, hoping he would get the gist and respond.

[Bluster]

Grades!

Marino

Skills

● Body Building +1
● Endurance +1
● Weapon: Short Bow +1

Lores
● How to properly draw and aim a bow
● Buraga: Difficult read
● Buraga: Skilled archer
● Bowstrings are painful teachers to the inexperienced
● Adeliz: The ghost from the assembling of the totems
● Marino and Adeliz share the common bond of Kihala’s mark

Adeliz

Skills

● Materialization +1
● Soulmist Projection +1

Lores
● Kihala’s mark feels like a betrayal of Ines
● Kihala’s mark can’t be removed by mortal means
● Time means nothing to the dead
● Soulmist Projection: Shredding mist to make finer manipulations
● Adeliz’ Materialization: Inelegant and piece by piece
● Marino and Adeliz share the common bond of Kihala’s mark

Comments

I will always feel new to grading, so if you feel I've missed something or would like lore rephrased, just let me know. As always, thanks for the read.