Water Under the Bridge

Log Info

• Title: Water Under the Bridge
• Emitter: Aryia
• Characters: Aryia, Ravenstongue
• Place: Lower Alexandrian Gardens
• Time: March 10th, 2022
• Summary: Upon a bench in the gardens, Aryia is conversing with some strange company about some plans she has before a familiar half-sil friend is rolling along with sweet rolls in hand, and a Pothy prepared to devour them. Ravenstongue apologizes to Aryia after a bit of a spat they had, and the mute is quick to forgive, wanting only the apology said to her face. They move on to some suggestions about what to put on a boat before their conversation become a mental one, the mute using an item on her person to speak mind to mind. After some misspeaks of the mind, they show each other what it's like to do what they do before they move on to finer discussions about the water craft.

Lower Alexandrian Gardens District, Midday

It's a fairweather day. Lazy clouds float across the blue sky. There's warmth in the sun, but a chill in the shade. Amongst the garden, sitting at a bench under a tree, is that of a scarred mul'neissa woman. She's got a few folders of pages strewn about on her lap and on the bench, a pen scribbling things in here and there as she's in thought.

Beside her is... a manifested shadow, peering over her shoulder. "... but why a-"

The mute reaches up, clamps her hand where a mouth should be, and shushes them. "Because I want it." <Handspeech/Tongues>

Scribble scribble scribble...

Off in the distance from Aryia and the not-her-shadow, there's a familiar cry...

"Snacks!" Pothy says happily, beating his wings as he sits on Ravenstongue's shoulder. The half-elf sorceress is dressed for the spring, wearing a knee-length gray cotton dress with a drop-shoulder neckline that bares her chest enough to show off the feather mark over her heart. Gray sandals with straps that curl up around her ankles lend her an air of simple elegance that she manages to carry despite having a pale-feathered friend on her shoulder, looking like he might devour the small box of sweetrolls that she's acquired from a nearby bakery without any warning.

"Yes, Pothy, snacks. Here you go," Ravenstongue says sweetly, drawing the sweetroll up from the box to hand to the bird.

She hasn't noticed Aryia or the not-her-shadow yet, although she's unknowingly walking in her direction...

That sound was enough for the mute to glance up, her peering back and forth before her gaze lands on-

Her expression twists in a conflicted manner. Glad to see her friend, yet annoyed from the recent memory of their spat. And with how terrible she was at masking her emotions, that split was plain as day to see.

The Shadow seemed to pick up on this. "... should I go?" it intones to her, voice like cracking glass.

The pugilist reaches up, grabs the darkness, and chucks it into the bushes.

"... ow."

"Shh."

She resumes working on her folders and papers, only clearing her throat when the half-sil and bird drew close enough to get their attention.

The throat clearing gets Ravenstongue's attention, at least. Pothy's too focused on sweet roll consumption to look in Aryia's direction.

And, well, Ravenstongue smiles for a split second before it seems she, too, remembers the spat. The smile quickly turns into a frown and a sad look in her eyes, brows furrowing. "Hi Aryia."

Ravenstongue looks around for a moment and sighs. "Umm... I bet you're still mad at me, and you have every reason to be. I haven't been a good friend lately. So..."

"She means that she's sorry," Pothy pipes up, sounding rather happy on account of having been fed.

The mute gives a wave while she's still penning something or another on the pages: diagrams and charts, matrices and equations. It's stacked atop her lap, and she caps the pen before tucking it behind her ear.

Milky glowing gaze settles on Ravenstongue, expression flat. Though a white brow ticks upwards as she glances to Pothy.

"Then get some balls and say it to my face," she bluntly gestures after motioning towards Pothy. "I'd rather hear it from you than your goose." <Handspeech>

Ravenstongue has partially disconnected.

"Pothy, I can talk for myself," Ravenstongue chastises the bird right as Aryia signs her notion. She nods to Aryia's words and takes a deep breath. "I am sorry. I hurt your feelings and I presumed the worst of you. That's not what a friend should do." Her words are genuine, filled with the sort of gentle regret that an apology cultivated over rumination and time often has.

Pothy looks between the two women for a moment before he quietly asks, "Can I be a goose that lays golden eggs, at least?"

Aryia stares in that motionless, I-have-several-centuries-to-wait kind of stare.

And she stares.

And stares.

"Accepted," she motions finally to break the silence, that neutral expression cracked to her more gentle serenity. "Sit. I need a hand with something."

Was... that it? Truly? Was that spat between them so minor?

"Yes, sure, whatever," she motions to Pothy without looking. <Handspeech>

Ravenstongue looks like she's on the verge of tears, like she's expecting a round two of what happened at the bathhouse, but then... Aryia just accepts her apology. She looks mildly dumbfounded for a moment. "R-Really? You mean it?"

"Shhh, just go with the flow," Pothy says. "I want to split a sweetroll with my best buddy Aryia and I don't need your tears to get them all soggy."

"I-I wasn't going to cry," Ravenstongue says. Sniffle. She totally was going to cry.

She sits down next to Aryia as directed. "Umm... What do you need help with?" she asks, finally.

Aryia looks back up, her blinking slowly at the verge of tears. "Uh... yes? Look, RT, you don't get to my age without realizing you can't sweat small shit. I just wanted you to say sorry to my face, and that's it. I can't change your mind about your actions, not going to, don't have the energy."

The mute glances to Pothy, then to the sweetrolls, and a defy hand plucks one out of the container. She winks to him before munching on it. "Was I pissed? Yes. Am I now? No. Don't have the energy to stay mad."

She opens a folder with her free hand, and shows...

Is that a blueprint of a boat?

"My hands are full, can I use this?" she asks, tapping an ivory band on her head. <Handspeech>

"See? Aryia has the right idea. Don't be mad, eat a sweetroll instead!" Pothy says happily, even giggling boyishly.

Ravenstongue looks a little confused for a moment longer... But she smiles. It's a tiny smile. "Well, I'm just glad we're friends," she finally concludes.

Then she looks down at the blueprint of the boat and purses her lips together in thought. "A boat...?" Ravenstongue asks, before she looks up at the ivory band. "Oh, umm, sure. Go ahead."

Aryia nods once as her eyes narrow faintly. The onyx and quartz gems on the sides of the band start to glow, glimmer. And after a bit-

A soft, even timbred and practiced tone brushes against Cor'lana's mind. "I don't use this often, as I can absolutely hear everything you think."

"Anyways." She flips through a few pages, and shows a large inner room of the heart of a boat as she finishes up the sweetroll. "I'm thinking about getting a boat, and I'm trying to figure out what to put in this. Got a couple ideas: a training space, a tailor's den, or just a minor house." <Telepathy>

"Oh shit," is the very first thought that Aryia came hear from Ravenstongue, the poor half-elf girl's eyes going wide. "Oh wow. Okay. Umm--/fuck/, every thought? Okay, don't think about Telamo--NO, SHIT, FUCK, YOU CAN HEAR THAT TOO, *AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH*."

Ravenstongue turns bright red as she facepalms. "I'm sorry, I just, umm, wow, sorry--hold on, let me get myself together. Breathe in, breathe out..."

The half-elf breathes in and out with her thoughts. Eventually, she sighs. "Okay. I think I'm good. So... Wow, that's a lot of ideas for a boat. I think having a boathouse would be nice. You could go anywhere and always be home!"

The mute blinks, then a grin breaks out across her face as she clutches her gut and wheezes. "Haa... a... ha..."

Though in the mental connection it sounds like a soulful laugh. "Ohohoho..! Holy fucking shit, Cor-, just chill, and don't think about soup." Still... it was odd. Was... this the mute actually sounded like?

She gives a wink before snickering and shaking her head."Yeah, that'd be a good idea. Mostly just thinking of like... you know, all this shit going on, and I'd like to explore the world a bit more eventually. Just thought a boat would be a neat idea." <Telepathy>

"Don't think about soup--maybe I could make some tonight and Tel--Shit! Right. Houseboat. Houseboat houseboat houseboat. Houseboat would be nice." Ravenstongue pauses for a moment. "You'd need room for you and Violet. Plus a kitchen of some sort if you plan on being at and not docked at port. And you could have a living room where you also have some tailoring supplies to do your work. You probably couldn't keep a stash of fabric there--although, hmm, let me ask Grandfather if he knows any tricks for magic storage. His tree home is pretty small but he has enough yarn stashed away to knit a thousand sweaters."

There's a moment where Ravenstongue pauses again. "Not that I've been in his home, just saw it briefly in a dream... Vision... thing? Kinda like that dream walk I had with Telamon a while back--shit, stay on topic, Lana, Aryia doesn't want to hear about cloakers and flumphs! " <Telepathy>

Aryia drums her fingers across the pages, smirking lightly as the bait was taken. "I can throw some bags of holding in there to keep materials safe and out of the way for tailoring. But yeah, if he's got some advice that'd be cool."

She just blankly stares. And Ravenstongue gets Aryia's full, unbridled, unfiltered deadpan. "At this point it wouldn't surprise me if he hid in your shadow to watch you. I don't give a shit. /Anyways/, the fuck is a flumph?" she asks, confusion on her face.<Telepathy>

"Flumphs! Flumphs are... kind of cute? They look like jellyfish, but they have eyestalks like snails. The creature that watches over Telamon is a flumph, I think, but it's just called the Watcher in the Stars." Ravenstongue is more than happy to chat away about the strange creature now that she's been given the excuse. "Telamon and I took a lucid dreaming potion a while back when we figured that we could probably visit the Watcher, who visits in Telamon's dreams, /through/ dreams that we control. It was a very strange journey, but it was kind of fun."

A slightly playful look crosses Ravenstongue's face. "I had wings in the dream. I kind of miss them still. At one point I carried Telamon in my arms while I flew us to safety. He looked up at me like I was the most beautiful--AHH. RIGHT." Ravenstongue's face colors again as she facepalms.

Aryia's face scrunches up as she looks to the blue sky- almost like she was trying to pierce the azure veil to see the stars beyond. "Sounds fucking weird," she comments in a way that only Aryia could. "Sounds more like you two went on a trip on something rather than a shared dream. But, shit, I'd do that, that sounds like fun."

She tilts her head to the side, and smirks lightly. "Cute. Wings are cool. I wonder what that's like. Last time I had something that I didn't normally have was a tail. And I was a kobold."

She crosses her arms and frowns at the space in front of her. "Was fucking weird." <Telepathy>

"It was easily more intense than any dream I've ever had," Ravenstongue replies mentally, firmly nodding. "It was terrifying at one point, but Tel and I held together and made it out alive--well, not like we were going to /die/, but..."

Ravenstongue pauses. "Wait. Why were you a kobold? When did /that/ happen?" she inquires. "How'd you even get turned back to normal!?"

Aryia tilts her head. The mental connection was an odd one, the mute can share only what she wants, while getting the full range of the half-sil's thoughts. Then, Aryia's opinion comes in two simple words. "Sounds hot."

And just that like, she's moved on. With a scowl to her expression. Ravenstongue gets the mental image of a short kobold looking in a hand mirror: grey eyes, grey scales, scars all over them. "Had to get someone out of a cave system underground and under water, save them from some kobolds. Someone was paying for polymorphs to blend in. I though it was an illusion. Kobolds... use their nose a lot. It was fucking weird," she caps off in her usual manner. <Telepathy>

Ravenstongue goes an even deeper red and puts her hands to her face. Mentally, she sputters. "Not THAT kind of intense, Aryia! I mean, it /is/ intense but--oh gooooooods!" The last comes out as an embarrassed squeak, as the poor half-elf is trying hard not to think about shirtless Telamon or /anything/ else.

She makes a variety of embarrassed and anxious little noises until she finally seems to pull herself together. "A cave! Kobolds love caves, or so I've experienced--but... Ohhh, weird. Do you mean... they use their noses like dogs use noses?" Ravenstongue inquires.

Aryia's visage cracks into a smirk, an expression wholly fitting a mul'neissa. "Damn you're too easy," she teases before pilfering another sweetroll. She rips it in half, and offers it to Pothy while Cor'lana pulls herself together.

"Not like, sniffing each others tails," she frowns some before chomping down on her stolen food. "Yeah, they like caves. And being little shits sometimes. Their noses are just really sensitive is all. Like... if I was still a kobold, I could probably have smelled the food from like a block away."

She shakes her head. "Regardless, it felt weird. I'd probably not be a kobold again. Maybe could give human for a spin if some magic would let me try it out. Just to know what it's like to be blind as fuck in the dark."

She offers another mental image, this time of her perspective of the here and now. Ravenstongue could see herself, and Pothy. Though, everything was... sharp. Very, very sharp. Every strand of hair could be seen on the half-sil's head, every leaf from the tree behind them. And not just that, but everything that had a bit of shadow was seen as nothing more than just a splotch of darkened color, and the details hidden within were as plain as day.

No wonder the mute was so keen-eyed on everything. <Telepathy>

Ravenstongue seems befuddled by the mental image, judging by her facial expression. This is confirmed when she thinks, "Wow, is my hair /really/ that unruly?"

It's actually rather fine for naturally wavy hair, but Ravenstongue's her own worst critic. Pothy, however, is fucking /adorable./ His feathers are fluffy and his blue eyes are so keen and sharp, full of light and a mischievous feeling that reflects the corvid approach to life. He croaks happily as he eats his sweetroll.

"Pothy's so cute," Ravenstongue thinks, which is not a sentiment that she says very often out loud. There's genuine warmth in that sentence. "...Don't tell him I said that. Is this really how you see everything? No wonder how you never miss a single detail, Aryia, jeez." <Telepathy>

Aryia snorts, nodding and putting a finger to her lips. "Won't say a thing."

She raises a brow. "Can't be any worse than mine, I don't do anything with it." Her own a moon-hued white, and straight just like her mother's.

There's another slight bob of her head, and she stops showing that little snippet of a memory. "Yeah. Elves, ya know? Also got sensitive ears. Great when we're out and about beating shit up. Annoying as hell when I can hear people I don't want to hear. Learned to ignore most of it though."

She's watching the half-sil for a moment overlong. Something in that telepathy sounding like half formed questions, before she ends up just asking outright: "What's it like to do magic? I can do a little bit of my own, but it's... nothing crazy like some mages." <Telepathy>

There's a mental image in Ravenstongue's head as Aryia asks what it's like to do magic. A room boils in--a small library room full of books and a human woman who looks strikingly similar to Ravenstongue in her raven black hair and most of her facial features--but she is stunningly beautiful, although some of that beauty may be magically enhanced. "Lana," she says sweetly, leaning down in her somewhat low-cut dress to meet the eyes of what can only be presumed to a very small Ravenstongue, "do you want to do magic like me, too?"

"Yes!" comes the little voice of Ravenstongue, so sweet and young. "I want to do magic like mommy!"

"Alright," the woman purrs, taking little pale hands into hers. "Think very hard about... the sun. Think about its warm light. Now think really hard about how much you want to make light like that appear in your hands... and repeat after me."

It's a magic incantation. Ravenstongue's little voice repeats it, fumbling over the words, but finally she gets it right, and there's a little surge of power that wells up from within Ravenstongue. A tiny little puff of light. It's there and it's gone.

"I did it, mommy!"

"You did, honey!" Ravenstongue's mother smiles so sweetly, leaning in to kiss the little girl on the cheek. There's such a feeling of pride and happiness...

And the memory fades. "Like that," Ravenstongue says with a smile. "It's a feeling of /power./ And it gets more and more intense with the more difficult spells. It's... It's exhilarating. Like nothing else."

The pugilist blinks as a memory plays out before her, her brows pinched while her gaze grows unfocused. She can't help but lightly smile at the interaction, her folding her hands into her lap and mirroring her hand shape: cupping a light.

A little orb of milky white light appears, then slowly goes away.

"I see. That's pretty cute. I guess I can kind of relate to that feeling."

...

"I like her dress. And her t-" She coughs into a fist off to the side. "Right- want me to show you what it's like for me to do what I do? No blood and guts, honest." <Telepathy>

"Aryia!" Ravenstongue protests, although she can't help but laugh. "It's okay, I guess. She was beautiful and, if Pothy's told me the truth, she not only knew that, but had a legion of lovers who thought so, too. She looked that way up until the day she passed Pothy down to me--maybe if she was still alive, she'd probably look the same."

Then she quirks her head out of curiosity at Aryia's suggestion. "Sure," she says. "It'd be nice to know what it feels like to be able to punch people and not hurt myself in the process."

"Look, I'm just saying..." Aryia starts off, but then trails away before shaking her head, a tinge of crimson on her cheeks.

She shakes her head, then lets out a small breath. "Alright."

Perhaps the first sensation to be felt was that every muscle on one's being felt like tautly corded iron. Where if one wished to move, they would /move/, no matter the position, or the angle. The next was the sight of a boulder before them in that same high definition. Dust lingers in the air, every particle wafting by. A pair of cloth wrapped grey fists linger in front of the sight.

And within, there's a calm. Like a still lake.

Iron muscles snap forward as there's a twist and drive, fist connecting with the stone. Instead of a cringe of pain, it feels more like crumbling, stale bread breaking away underneath the knuckles. There's snapping, but not of bone, but of rock as shards erupt outwards.

The lake gets a tiny ripple.

And the vision whirls around in a rapid 360 as an iron leg whistles overhead from behind and over, it crashing against the rock in a similar fashion.

A breath In steadies the eddy. A breath Out ripples it faintly again, the pool sliding in a shift like the surface moved briskly, yet the underwater stayed the same.

The world rushes by as the training woman (in the mountains somewhere), has crossed a chasm in that sliding rush of the pool, and has driven another steel taut foot into a rock face, making it crumble once more.

There's a calmness underneath it all. There's flickers of excitement boiling forth underneath, but every breath tempers it. Keeping focus.

The image ends with the mute thumbing her nose, and grinning. "Magic is cool, but it feels fucking fantastic being an unstoppable force." <Telepathy>

It's a thing of beauty. A show of force yet only in the sense that it is object A meeting object B, and one of them has to break.

Ravenstongue is mesmerized. And for the longest time, she is silent in both mouth and mind.

Finally, she manages to say audibly, "Wow," once she seems to remember how to breathe again.

Then she turns to Aryia and thinks, "Well, I can't say I can do anything with magic that's anywhere near comparable. That's... Well, that's fucking amazing, Aryia. I mean it. You've always been amazing. And that's why it hurt when..."

She shakes her head. "Nevermind. No sense in thinking about that. We've moved on."

Aryia is grinning madly as the half-sil turns back to her. "I am pretty amazing. Took a lot of people to make me who am I today. You saw me when I first got here, I was terrible. Now look at me!"

Her gaze softens a little bit. "Chin up, girl. Gotta learn what shit you have to worry about and what you can just ignore."

She reaches out, and ruffles the sorceresses' hair. "Thanks for apologizing. We're good now. Just next time don't like, fret about your friends without /actually/ talking to them."

"Now."

She opens the folder once more, and pulls the pen out from behind her long grey ear. "What's going in this mobile house, and why is it stuffed ravens?" <Telepathy>

Ravenstongue's mind automatically blitzes into an imagined scene of a room in a little houseboat, swaying gently on the waves... filled with stuffed Pothy plushies. "Cute!" she thinks--almost shouts, although, is there a such thing as shouting in headspace?

Then she looks back at Aryia and says, "Wait. Can... Can you make a Pothy plush toy for me?"

She looks back at Pothy, who has moved onto eating yet another sweetroll. Her supply of them has dramatically decreased, as expected. Then she looks back At Aryia. "I want to see how he reacts to seeing a plushie clone of himself."

...

"... And I want to cuddle one." No sense in keeping that secret. <Telepathy>

GAME: Aryia rolls craft/tailoring+2: (20)+17+2: 39

The mute thinks about it, then grins further. "Yeah, I can do it." <Telepathy>

-End Scene-