View source for Watcher in the Stars

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==Log Info==

*Title: Watcher in the Stars

*Emitter: Ravenstongue

*Characters: [[Ravenstongue]], [[Telamon]]

*Place: A07 - Lower Alexandria Market District

*Summary: Ravenstongue catches Telamon at the market out of the blue! The sorcerous couple talk of recent developments as they wait on Telamon's skewer to be cooked. Ravenstongue expresses concern that she's becoming feytouched, only for Grandfather to swoop in to deliver some cookies for Pothy and inform the two that it's nothing to be worried about beyond being mildly inconvenient as what amounts to another puberty for Ravenstongue (in terms of emotions and in discovering new physical sensations, such as being able to hear the whispers of Quelynos). Telamon finds himself divulging his own 'second puberty' of sorts to Ravenstongue in the form of the dream he has received of a strange entity in the stars... watching. Ravenstongue reassures him and states that she'll stand by him, just as he stood by her with the Feathered One, and the two go off to find snacks for Pothy.</div>

-=--=--=--=--=--=<* A07: Lower Alexandria Market District *>-=--=--=--=--=--=-

Just west of the Northern Highbridge and east of the arena, commerce blooms. Noisy and bustling, most anything may be purchased here for a price. Vendors from all cultures sell their wares from exotically colored carts, and the smells of different nations and far-off city-states mix with local ones from Alexandria and its riverbanks. 

For all its commerce, visitors are advised to keep hold of their purses. Even the merchants possess a certain, cunning look. Most are positioned at carts or stalls as opposed to a formal storefront, with trade here being mobile, and visiting from all parts of the world. 

Though the quality of goods suffers here compared to Upper Alexandria, the options are more diverse. Too, the oversight of the Watch is slightly less, and during times events are held at the Arena, chaos abounds. After dark, the square becomes a hangout for bards and other entrepreneurs whose business is best conducted by night; the shadows at the edges of the square often contain furtive figures engaging in their own brand of business.

<pre>-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=- Dramatis Personae =--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-    
Ravenstongue         5'0"     99 Lb      Half-Elf          Female    Short half-elf girl with violet eyes and black hair.                                      
Telamon              5'6"     140 Lb     Half-Elf          Male      A platinum-blond half-sil man with dancing dark eyes   
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-</pre> 

It's a cold and dark evening, as the moon and many of the stars have been blotted out by dark clouds in the sky, but the market is lively and warm enough with small, controlled bonfires and the ever-present food vendor stalls cooking away into the night. 

One lucky food stall sees Ravenstongue come up to it with Pothy in tow, the corvid riding atop his preferred roosting spot with a keen eye towards free samples. And indeed, the person running the stall recognizes the possibility of big business--for it was Pothy who often dictated the meal of choice for the evening if it was just Ravenstongue and her pale raven--and he immediately hands Ravenstongue a skewered bit of chicken and vegetables. "Will you be getting anything for yourself today?" the man asks. 

"No, not today. I'll let you know if Pothy's made his verdict for more, though," Ravenstongue replies with a smile as Pothy looks at her. The blue-eyed bird stares at her for a moment before he huffs and digs into his free sample.

The fires blaze bright, bright enough to try and play counterpoint with the stars barely visible through the clouds. Gliding through the market with an easy stride, Telamon catches sight of Raven -- Pothy does tend to stand out. He slides up to the vendor, though, and politely tells the stall worker, "I'll have one, though. Mild, though -- go easy on the spice for a change." He spins a coin adroitly to the man, before turning his eyes to Raven now. "I thought you weren't due back till tomorrow. Easy return for a change?"

"Due back until--?" Raven spins around to Telamon's voice and smiles at him. "Oh, is this one of your jokes?" She snickers a little and moves to embrace him much like she did the last time they spoke, coming up just under his chin. 

Pothy croaks in greeting, too, before he cleans off the sample stick offered to him and just... politely waits for his mistress to finish hugging her boyfriend. That's a shocker.

"Perhaps a little." Telamon happily embraces Raven, pressing a kiss to her brow. "But I may have been misled. A fellow at the Arcanist's Society said you'd be going out of town for a couple days. Not the case?" He gives Pothy a grin. "Someone's been trying shenanigans again, Pothy. How much for you to cause them some grief?" His voice is genial; he's not really serious about trouble. Well, maybe a TINY bit.

Ravenstongue is certainly smiling as a result of the kiss to her brow, flushing a little as she receives it, but confusion reigns on her face soon after. "Someone said I'd be out of town? Wonder who! Or why! I've been at home reading books for the most part--although I did attend the Resurrectionists' Party last night. That was okay--have you ever been to any of their meetings, Tel?" 

Pothy quirks his head at the suddenly new nickname that Ravenstongue has given Telamon, but he is distracted sooner by Telamon's inquiry. He eyes him and says, "I'll do it for free, bub, but you gotta pay," mimicking some rough-and-tumble man whose only familiarity with the word 'soft' was looking it up in the dictionary once.

Telamon chuckles, and hrms. "Well, I shall have to have words with the fellow when I see him again. Although one can hope he was simply mistaken. No... I admit I'm not familiar with the Resurrectionists. Though the name kind of brings certain things to mind, like 'the grave can wait'. What do they do?" He smirks at Pothy's rough voice. "We'll see if it's needed. I'll call on you if it is." He offers Pothy a finger to 'shake'.

Ahhh, the corvid handshake. A feat that can only be attempted by those that have won the trust and affection of the animal in question--but Telamon has experienced it before, and just holding out the finger gives Pothy the signal he needs. He opens his beak and gently holds Telamon's finger, croaking softly as he does, as though to say, "Sounds like a deal to me." 

"Well, the Resurrectionists are a group of people looking to... Well, they want to resurrect Animus, the god of magic, and they think they can do that by collecting the shards that have been left behind. I helped them out when my first adventure but I haven't done much with them since," Ravenstongue explains. "Their leader, Griva, called me over at one point in the party and said that there was... something old inside of me. Which, well, that freaked me out--I knew she was referring to the curuchuil. I sort of left the party after that." 

She looks away briefly. Clearly the incident was troubling her, but was there more to it than that?

Telamon cocks his head, looking at Raven. "Why would that set you off, Cor'lana? The curuchuil is a part of you now." He uses her real name deliberately. "I'm not saying it hasn't come with complications, but Grandfather turned out to be the reasonable sort. Is there more to it that you've discovered?"

"Well..." Ravenstongue looks up at Telamon. "Have you ever heard about... proximity to the fae making mortal people different? I've, umm--I've kind of begun to feel different. Only Grandfather's cookies and cakes that he brings me tastes good, for one thing." 

She drops her voice to a bit of a whisper, leaning into Telamon with an increasingly worried look on her face. "But I can hear the whispers of the world, like one of the full-blooded sylvanori can--like my father can. And they keep telling me to seek home: except I feel that home isn't... Isn't here, but Quelynos. It's not scary, and I only hear them if I stop to listen, but... Well, it was something I wanted as a girl when I read storybooks. I guess I just didn't realize that... I'm different now. I'm feytouched."

Telamon shakes his head. "I'm not giving up on you yet. You may need to ... moderate your intake of Grandfather's sweets." He furrows his brow. "Maybe... there's some way to anchor you here, at least for a time. Some way to keep you from slipping further into... well, fey, for lack of a better term." He takes her hand, looking into her eyes. "I just found you. Grandfather will bloody well have to wait his turn."

Ravenstongue flushes again as her hand is taken and she returns the gaze into his eyes. "I..." 

"Oh, it's not nearly so dramatic as any of that," the distinctive voice of Grandfather says in somewhat of an amused tone as the black bird lands on the ground holding a satchel of cookies tied to his feet. "She's becoming feytouched. All it means is she's experiencing some sensations as my kind do--and feels emotions more powerfully. I promise you, I'm not actively trying to steal her away, young man." 

Ravenstongue blushes even more as, well, she's pretty close to Telamon, almost close enough to kiss him, and her grandfather's just flown in. "Grandfather, weren't you going to fly home? Where did you get those cookies? I thought you already gave me some from earlier today."

Telamon gives Grandfather a rather askance look. "You might've warned her about it. I know the fey can run the gamut of emotion, but she is still young like me." He sighs, rubbing Raven's hand between his own. "Also, if you pop in like that when we're alone there will be some discussions." Having said his piece, though, he keeps holding onto Raven's hand. "In any case, I presume this will... subside after a time?"

"To be honest," Grandfather says, with a somewhat bashful tone, "she and I hadn't discussed it at all, and I merely overheard as I flew overhead and... How do you say it? Ah, put two and two together. Most of my children become feytouched as they grow up with me in Quelynos. Nothing really to worry about unless she becomes inconsolable and sad--then she might be bawling into your chest for as little reason as 'I didn't get to see the sun today.' Or, in her current case, overthinking a conversation she had with someone." 

The dark-feathered raven unties the satchel of cookies from his feet and tosses it with surprising accuracy, all with his beak, to Pothy. Pothy immediately catches it, proving that he is the world's premier food-motivated athlete. "And to answer your question, Cor'lana--I was chatting with your mentor about your progress, and she gave me cookies to bring you," Grandfather continues. "Sorry I didn't tell you earlier, little one. I had... foolishly assumed you would have already been through something like it in your teenage years." 

Ravenstongue just blinks for a moment before she just mumbles, "Great, I might be the only woman in the world who gets to go through puberty twice." 

"You'll get used to it," Grandfather says. "Both of you will. I daresay that the reason why Cor'lana realized her feelings for you in the first place, young Telamon, is that she started to feel them more intensely."

Telamon furrows his brow again, though more thoughtful now than angry. "Three times," he deadpans. "There's an interesting treatise in the Society archives which compares a sorcerer's development with coming of age. Many nascent sorcerers have a tricky time when the power first starts to show itself. Strange lights, sounds, things moving... you're usually not seeing anything more powerful than the simplest cantrips but it can be disconcerting, especially in households and townships where magic is less common. That doesn't even get into those of us who have dreams or portents."

"Three times? What awful luck to be a sorcerer and to be feytouched," Ravenstongue bemoans. 

Grandfather seems a little amused by the display. "In any case... I am sorry for the intrusion, I only wanted to hand over the cookies to Sir Pothy and surprise Cor'lana before I really do go. I will... leave you two lovebirds alone." 

A mischievous chuckle follows Grandfather raven as he flies back into the sky. Ravenstongue groans a little. "See what I said about the bird puns? Anyway, umm--sorry about, well... my little emotional display," she says, very bashfully. It appears now that she's aware of her newfound ability to feel more deeply than before, she's even more embarrassed than she'd normally be, like some sort of emotional ouroboros. "I was interested in that bit at the end, though--did you have dreams or portents about your powers?" 

Pothy, as ever, is unmoved by all of this. He sees the food stall vendor finish cooking up Telamon's stick and he retrieves it for him, delivering it right into Telamon's hand. Who knew Pothy moonlighted as a food delivery service on the side?

He suddenly looks off guard, like he let something slip that he didn't want to. Perhaps Raven's presence loosens his tongue as well? "I... well..." he pauses, looking away for a moment. "... yes. It was... strange. Disturbing, even. It wasn't... evil, or fell, or anything like that. But it felt..." He pauses, groping for words. "Like I was looking at something that had less in common with me than I would with an elemental."

Ravenstongue tilts her head a little as she seems to think about it. "It was just strange. I can understand," she says. "Whatever it was you say, did it say anything or do anything to you? I'd love to help you look into it, although I'm sure you've done plenty of research on your own." She takes his hand again and squeezes it, smiling sweetly at him. 

"Stars," Pothy says, mimicking Ravenstongue's voice. 

This seems to jog something in Ravenstongue's memory. "Right! You told me once the priests in your hometown told you that you were blessed by the stars with your magic. Is that why?"

Telamon shivers a little. "That was the strange thing. It... didn't ''say'' anything. Or do anything. It just kind of looked at me. I could vaguely get some sense of curiosity, and there wasn't any malice, but... I just felt very, very small under that gaze. This was after the priests had told me about the stars, and the magic there. I think... whatever it was dwells there."

"Dwells there? Among the st--" Ravenstongue has a look of horror crawl across her face. She squeezes Telamon's hand a little harder. "Tel... Have you ever heard of aboleths?" 

"Jelly snack," Pothy says sadly. 

"Yes--err, no, Pothy. Long story." Ravenstongue sighs and she leans in a little closer to Telamon. "I cannot tell you the specifics. I signed a contract and everything. But... Be careful. I went on a job a couple of months ago to deal with some... scholars, who went mad researching the stars. They were being influenced by an aboleth. Please be careful."

Telamon shakes his head. "No, but... the priests mentioned something like that. But this... wasn't monstrous. Just... it was like a bystander, just watching for the most part. A man tossing bread into a lake and studying the fish and the ducks that came up to eat it." He pulls her hand to his cheek, for the warmth. "It was vast... like a mountain. All I could see were a head and shoulders, just a dark outline against the stars... and two pale eyes in its face."

Ravenstongue is more than willing to let him have her hand. She strokes the curve of his cheeks in a gentle, loving gesture. "I'm here," she says softly. It's difficult to recount anything like that, especially when it seems she's also seen some horrors adjacent to the disconcerting sight that Telamon is describing to her. "Just like you were there for me. Have you seen it again since that one time? How long ago was it?"

Telamon shakes his head. "Every once in a while. Usually every few months. It's always the same dream. I'm standing in a grassy field. The temperature's a little cool, but not cold, and the stars are as bright as diamonds -- like a million points scattered on dark velvet brocade." He reaches up to rub his brow. "I never feel fearful in the dream. And then I look and it rears up... like a mountain sitting up, before it opens its eyes and looks at me."

"Huh... Just a watcher. An observer. And the stars." Ravenstongue looks thoughtful again, pursing her lips together. After a moment, she gets a little look of mischief in her eyes and lifts herself on her tip-toes to replace her hand on his cheek with her lips, just a little peck. "That was to clear your mind," she says with a smile. "But so long as it's just that, I think you're okay for now. It doesn't sound too bad to me if it's not to do with aboleths... But let me know if it ever changes. Especially if it feels more dangerous." 

Her eyes twinkle a little. "Thank you for trusting me with that. I'm sure it's not easy to talk about for you."

He smiles back at her. "It's... unnerving. But it's good to have someone to share it with. Who understands what's it like to be tugged around a bit." He blushes a little at the kiss, though not as much as one might expect. Giving Raven a squeeze in return. "I mean... you'd think something dangerous would be whispering foul nothings in my ear, or trying to cut a deal in exchange for my soul, not just eyeballing me for some inscrutable reason."

"No wonder why you didn't run away screaming when I told you about birds staring at me," Ravenstongue says with a smile. "We really are suited for each other. Just two half-elf sorcerers beholden to things we never signed up to be beholden to in the first place. Bloodlines are tricky like that." 

"Jelly snack," Pothy says again sadly. 

"Oh gods, now that I've reminded him of that, he won't stop begging for one," Ravenstongue says with a snicker. "Should we go find him an appropriate treat?"

Telamon sighs. "Yeah. Maybe... maybe I'll try painting it, and show it around. I don't expect anyone will recognize it, but on the upshot, it'll confirm it's not one of those abo-whatevers." He settles an arm around Raven. "Come on. Let's make the night a little brighter for both of us, shall we?" Flicking his eyes to Pothy, he grins. "You too, you eating machine."