An Introduction (Or: You've Probably Never Heard of Transience)

[Aloesque]

Nesyr was a merfolk who scouted and mapped the surrounding areas for his kingdom. He had a habit of sticking his head above the surface and stargazing, and on this particular night, the rain did not deter him.

What was peculiar then was that he heard human voices carrying across the relatively calm sea. Here, in the Hivan Ocean, far between the trade routes shared by Serendipity and Thanatos was a ridge in the ocean floor. Nesyr knew--he was in the process of etching a series of topographical maps in wood, but the voices were coming from an unmapped direction. Was there an island there? He had to investigate.

No, it wasn't an island. It was just a jagged peak of the ridge above the water, perhaps the only one that rose so high. A man's voice reached him. "That's what I was talking about. It will be difficult to recall much of anything beyond this world." Nesyr's heart rate quickened. What's this about? He could only wonder as he swam forward under the cover of the somewhat choppy open sea.

There was little purchase for their booted feet, and now she could make out how their strange robes caught in the gentle yet uninhibited wind. Two figures were silhouetted by the light of the moon from between the clouds, and neither seemed terribly perturbed by the soaking wet.

The woman with the braid falling down the front of her shoulder watched with the silent respect due a teacher. He continued, "And though I'll barely warn you, you won't be able to affect others' magic like you're used to, though it might happen to you."

He's talking about Mordecai? Nesyr was lost trying to piece together a context. Clearly they were mages of a variety, or something unusual. Adventurers, probably.

"But I've already lined you out on what I think you'll need to know. If you don't manage to find your way back to me in a few... Uh, right, a few of our years, or I guess my years, I'll come find you. Then there's this:" Did he snatch that sword out of thin air? A conjurer? Now, he was proffering a beautifully hilted and sheathed blade to her.

"I know this and those clothes are sentimental to you. Let them serve to remind you of why you're here. We're going to make sure you won't ever need help to find him again, and that you'll be of use if and when Talra calls for you." She took the sword and held it close. Nesyr had caught glimpses of their faces and clothes through the night's obscura. Her face spoke of cold weather and cool experience, dark hair curling and threatening to tangle or slip free somehow in the bindings of that braid. She flinched at the rain and the ocean spray occasionally, in contrast to her companion.

Nesyr had seen a glint of gold, maybe amber eyes when she'd looked out over the water and missed him.

The man's face was recessed in similarly deep black hair that was nearly as long, almost perfectly matching the length of his great beard. His robes were different--scholarly with a traveler's cloak. Hers were formal, like a strange martial uniform, black with gold trim. Nesyr wasn't used to seeing such dark colors on humans, having not known much of sneaks or other night walkers of the land.

"Thank you," She finally said something, and her voice was soothing. "I think the preparations you had me take are helping. I can hold onto some of those details. Enough of them." She examined the handle of that sword through its sweeping steel bars. "Avvercus, silver hair, and the knowledge it won't keep from me. The feelings, the sentiment. That makes me feel a little better.

"It's strange, I can feel it in everything, like the sea could cast its own spells. Like it's alive."

"Yes, some worlds are like that, but I think I should leave you to it." Suddenly, he was shooting a flat glare across the water, practically into Nesyr's soul. Was he angry? He didn't want to find out, so he dove and resurfaced elsewhere.

Only, by then, he was gone, and the woman stood alone, sweeping her brilliant eyes across the sky before examining a wave as it caught a crevice in its recession and shot thick droplets into the air. With a somatic gesture of the arms and hands, she drew the next wave to fuller force--definitely with magic. She brought it around her, but as its motions grew less natural, the water fell away from her manipulations until she finally let it cascade upon the rock. "Okay." She spoke to herself speculatively, quietly.

Nesyr wasn't sure what to make of what he was seeing. She was just there, oblivious to him, intuiting the very force in which he resided. Should I bring this news to our people? Will she present a threat to us?

She was learning quickly. Before he could decide upon a course of action, she dove into the water, and next a wave carried her an unnatural distance from the rock. After it subsided, she spotted him as the only other thing bobbing above the surface in its lackadaisical tumult.

A wave swelled spectacularly between them, closest to her, and that was the last Nesyr saw of Antique.

. . .

[Aloesque]

Transience was a small trade town, a stopping point between Cerenis and another major port of call. Its commerce was tailored to sailors who ran supplies along the Eastern coast of Serendipity.

Sueesi was a scion who handled accounts for a trading company with a hold in Transience. The beach, or rather, the rocks that overlooked it, were a place for her to get away from her numbers and letters and commercial intrigue.

The waves calmed her, and on a quiet morning that held peace between the calls of coastal birds, the sounds of sopping cloth cut through the swells of wind and water.

She was surprised to look away from the sand and the docks to find a strangely-clad woman with her hair in a tight bun heaving herself unto the ridge at a decent distance. A cursory survey revealed no vessels near the rocks below, nor anything headed for the docks.

Water was spilling quite rapidly from her clothes, which Sueesi made note of. That didn't seem like it would be her only trick. The seaborne stranger's mind was racing as her eyes darted over Transience. What was she seeing in the beach houses, nautical storefronts, and grounded ships? There were a few morning errand-runners milling to and from the docks, but they didn't seem to garner much attention from her.

Sueesi set aside her own thoughts to gaze into the stranger's. They were guarded. Of course she could recognize the sensations that came from a busy mind, but as she reached at the wisps of surface thoughts, they escaped her like words in a gale or sand through the fingers. She could only gather that she was assessing some aspect of the town's prospects.

"Are you an adventurer?" She called out, and the woman's sharp golden eyes snapped to her. Wariness dissolved beneath a subtle blooming smile.

She stepped forth on the jagged rock, calling back. "No, but maybe! Just a nomad." That didn't feel quite honest. Her clothes were dryer than they should've been in the early light of the sun, hardly damp or dripping at all now.

"Okay." Sueesi accepted the response. "Well, maybe I can help?" She asked, diverting her gaze from those eyes to the hilt of an impressive sword hanging from her waist. "Oh, what a pretty weapon. You're going to want to peace tie that."

"Oh. Thank you. Do you have any cord?"

"No, sorry." She told her, "There are craft shops on Lubber Lane--hobbies and war trades and all that--though no, nobody likes its name but our presiding lord. He's a funny sort of leader."

"I see." She brushed stray wet curls behind her ear. Was she impatient, or nervous, or was it something else? Her feelings were a knot too dense to make sense of in a stranger. She thought she sensed a myriad of things: fear, worry, concern, amicability, relief, exhaustion, and more that dizzied her to examine. She couldn't even be sure of that read.

"I'm Sueesi. You seem complicated." She didn't like the trouble it cost her trying to read that expression, though she knew to tamp that frustration.

"Oh, well, well met. I suppose I am complicated. My name is Antique." Was that a joke? No. An alias? Something felt like that mononym must have been very on-the-nose, but she looked so young, and her ears were round. Sueesi was sure she was human, until skepticism grew on her. Pale skin, strange eyes, and a fake name that spoke of age? Was she a vampire? 

"Aha, well, perhaps we'll have to pass you on to a collector." She thought to crack a joke, and indeed, Antique's smile parted her lips, revealing a lack of fangs.

Sueesi felt she should watch this woman and learn about her, then chided herself. She couldn't afford to be so distracted from her work and her contemplations. This new acquaintance spoke through a rolling mirth, "Well I'm not looking to stay anywhere too long. Lubber Lane for a peace tie, and where for a map?"

Letting the moments carry away her wistful disappointment, she gave her directions and watched her move on, until something struck her. "Wait! Do you have money for all that?"

Antique turned. "No, I suppose I don't, unless they'll take foreign coin. I've got..." She was digging in her beltpouch. "Oh. Nothing. Never mind, they've gone like fairy marks."

Fairy marks? The scion frowned, then dug in her own wallet, counting out pennies, shils, and glints as the woman wandered back. "Let's see, enough for a peace tie, a map or two, and maybe a room at a bunk house if you need it for the night or whatever else might keep you going.

"Just remember you've got a friend at the Ferrymaster Trading Company. You can ask for me if you ever come by. We could definitely find you work if I vouched for you."

"You would do that for me?" She asked, appreciative and ginger in taking the coins. "Thank you so much. This will be very helpful." She said. "I'll keep you in mind. Sueesi?

"In fact, here:" She reached into a pocket inside the breast of her odd attire, producing a small nautilus. She explained it like this, "I found this... Swimming at the beach." A clumsy lie to Sueesi, but it had seemed like an offhanded diversion from the truth. "It whispers, but not like other shells. I've suspected it to be a ghost, perhaps some small god, or even a deranged mage.

"It will try to frighten you, but more often than not it will converse. I think it wants to be in the hands of somebody more inclined to commune with it than study it."

Sueesi took the random artifact with a sort of dumbfounded shock and pressed it to her ear experimentally.

"She knows you're psionic." Echoed an androgynous breeze of a whisper.

Wide brown eyes found golden ones.

"What?" Asked Antique.

"How can you tell?"

Antique picked up on things quickly, and doubt was clear in her frown. "I don't think I can. It's not always very honest." Maybe she started to saying something else, but if she did, she thought better of it.

Sueesi examined the shell. "Okay, well, weird, but thank you? Yes, thank you." She looked up. "Well good luck out there. It shouldn't be hard to find me as long as you're in Transience. Do you think you'll stay long?"

The traveler had just tucked away those coins and she looked up, another little smile crossing pretty lips. "Maybe. See you if I see you?"

She looked her over one last time, thankfully sensing no hostility or malicious intent. There was, however, a dagger revealed on the other side of her waist as the wind whipped the hem of her half-robe, half-gi into the air. "Oh, you'll need a peace tie for that too."

Antique looked where she pointed, nodded, and gave thanks. That time, she sauntered off to the road that ran to the pier, heading into town.

Sueesi decided it was about time to make her way to her office and its world of ledgers and messengers.

. . .

[Aloesque]

A young man who sold cloth stock and related material supplies wore an implication that he was being trained to inherit the business. Antique liked his genuine naivety and friendly demeanor. He traded peace ties for coin, and kept quiet about regulation ones just as his father had taught him.

It wasn't illegal to sell or use ones that weren't regulated, so long as they met the right requirements, but to the guard, it would mark her as either a foreigner or an eccentric. It was a prettier solution to the cheaper, more functional variety.

Helga's One-Stop Travel Shoppe had maps for both Serendipity and Transience she could use.

At first, the burly shopkeep's inquiries had annoyed Antique, but eventually she learned that the woman she presumed was Helga was trying to make herself a resource. Antique acted like a foreigner, and Helga didn't try to ask where from, which she was thankful for.

She told her all about the area, and even gave her insights into recent history and local gossip. In the end, Antique tipped her and carried on into the early afternoon heat, leaving Helga with a smile in her footbath, waving a fan at her neck.

Counting her coins in the stink of sweaty sapiens and horses, she found contentment in this journey. It was already distracting her from her troubles and frustrations.

"I wouldn't flash those like that little lady." A gruff old dwarf scolded her in passing, and she closed her hand.

"Thank you." She said to his back and stowed the coins. Her eyes lingered on that hilt at her waist, bound in pink and navy stripes by the crossguard.

So many of the people who bustled about showed purpose, as if this was not a place for minimal subsistence. Perhaps it related to the patrol of armored guards.

Three swords, two lances, and a halberd flashed in the sun. The one on foot took note of her. Did he say, "Write that down?"

A lanky boy who trailed them turned out to be more than a commoner. He waited to flick his eyes over Antique again, thinking she wasn't looking, then scribbled in a pocketbook. She took that as her queue to carry on, and she was left undisturbed in doing so.

She kept her magic subtle in Transience, exploring, learning, and planning. She would pocket the rest of that money and wander into the woods that night. Until then, she was hungry for food and information.

An End