RP:A Rynvalian Stroll

Shellfish Street

Madigan :: How often is it that the high elves of Rynvale see a scantily clad woman with sun-darkened skin and tattoos decorating her back? From the scoffs and gasps overly-dressed women made, from mothers covering their children's eyes, and from the long stares Madigan got from the passing men: not very often. To her, the egyptian-esque collar that wrapped around her neck and draped itself over her breasts and the stark white hem-tail skirt she wore with leg straps wrapping up the length of her legs and up to her thighs were traditional attire. Unbeknown to the high elves, her 'improper form of dress' was probably a tradition that has lasted longer than their civilization on Rynvale Island, but such an argument is debatable, truly. There need not be any pointless arguments entertained here that have no resolution, right? She blinked, moss green eyes staring out to the sparkling, dancing waves of the sea visible when facing south. A warm, gentle gust of wind blew against her shoulder and she inwardly sighed, long wooden staff clutched lazily in one hand as the tail of her skirt dropped into stillness when the wind dissipated. There was a lot going on in the dryad's mind as she stood over the seashell-decorated road. There wasn't too much traffic passing through here at this hour: everyone out and about was finishing the last of their errands, everyone else retiring from their labor and entering the local pubs while families relaxed indoors, mothers making the dinners and fathers calling their children in. The homeless carted their valuables into dark alleys to rest for the night while the ne'er-do-wells prepared for the waking of the nightlife. From where Madigan stood, no sun could be seen in the sky; her eyes flickered up toward the blanket of sky, left then right, then back down to sea. It was still bright out and fairly warm, but the sun was dying down and readying itself for the coming of twilight. One corner of her lip twitched as the thought of twilight triggered a memory. Was that supposed to be a smile or a frown? The indifference that had replaced the twitch and settled over her face would keep the answer to itself. Ajani rested in the shadow of one of the nearby stores, head hanging as he stared at the ground entertained. His lavender eyes flicked from this sparkling seashell to the next and then off to a rock in the distance. His maw spread open suddenly as his eyes closed in a big yawn, his long tongue curling and trembling at the tip before his jaws closed shut. Suddenly, Madigan yawned as well, though there was no sign on her face that she'd seen the Poppy-Jasper's yawn.

Svilfon is walking through the streets, quietly singing an old pirate's song. One he used to sing for the fallen captain, Leoxander, when the rogue and wizard went out to sea. It had been a long time since Svil had visited Rynvale; his only tie here was slain and that death was avenged. He cared little for the fate of this continent and even less for its citizens. But it had been over a year since the pirate-captain died and the wizard, in a break from his usual study, decided he would walk these streets again. Dressed as ever in his fur-lined robes and his fantastically amazing wizard hat he seems the most unsuited for piratical songs ever, but he was still a wizard-pirate, even if he no longer sailed the seas (At least in his own mind, anyway). He is afforded a certain respect from the citizens; never once does he move from his chosen path, yet he never runs into people. They knew him here still; though he often wears the veil of almost child-like joviality, the dangerous Magister Templi's reputation was forged in steel and blood on these streets long ago... even if it cost him a few teeth. That is until his gaze falls upon the scantily clad Madigan. The wizard wanders closer to the woman, his eyes taking in her form, and even once flickering to the side where the yawn-inspiring Ajani rested in the shadows. The perceptive wizard doesn't need his skills to determine these two are not the normal haughty high-elves or rogues who stalk these streets, so he walks up and offers her a tip of his hat once he's assured he has her attention. In a voice that so easily carves through the background noises of the street, Svilfon speaks. "I think you're shocking the sensibilities of these rather prudish high-elves, and even the pirates and rogues, too." He offers a short laugh that never quite reaches his eyes, before carrying on. "I would suggest the streets will soon be unsafe for a woman of your... endowments, and lack of shame, but I think you know that already." He tips his hat again after his words and offers a gap-toothed and fanged smile that speaks of an unspoken humour which isn't mocking, at least not towards the dryad herself.

Madigan smiles amiably at the robed man with the funny-looking hat when he approaches her and speaks. Her eyes were soft and her features expressing pleasure to have his company. "I don't know what endowments are nor what 'lack-ohv-shem' is." A split down her tongue presents itself as she speaks. Her smile broadens. "But if anyone here is prudish, then it would be me who follows Nature through her course better than the vain elves with capricious habits," she jokes. Madigan's understanding of the word prudish isn't the meaning the funny-looking man was trying to convey. As far as she understood the word, it meant 'proper' and 'correct', and to a dryad, what would be more correct than following Nature's harmony? "Whatever danger you imagine for me, you should cast toward that which you think threatens me, though," her grin darkens at her words, heavily accented with African intonations. Her eyes fill with a sly, threatening look alongside her grin.

Svilfon spends just a moment sorting through the dryad's words, before he laughs again, seeming entirely at ease. He briefly ponders calling over a rather shocked looking high-elf to explain what a 'lack-ovh-shem' is, mostly because it'd entertain him to no end, but he decides against it. Best to not annoy too many of these high-elves - their memories are long and Svilfon is never sure whom he may need services from in the future. Best not to destroy a potential bridge before it's even begun being built. "Ah yes, nature." He peers a little closer at her; the wizard has the social graces of a cat. Which is of course to say none at all. "There is harmony in that, I am sure. Death and life, violence and eternal peace. But there is also a certain harmony in how the civilized world works, and that is what you unbalance." He tips his hat again in an unconscious gesture while flashing another brief smile, which shifts into a laugh as he thinks over he last words. "I am simply here for a walk, lady. I do not wish to destroy those who walk these streets unless I must." He offers a crooked grin, "Though, we could walk together for a while and if those dangers I spoke of come... well..." He spreads his hands and bows slightly.

Madigan's smile grows slanted as she reaches out and pats the funny-looking man on his arm, wherever she could reach with her small stature. "I wouldn't think you my threat, Funny Fang. Much too happy to have malicious intent toward a stranger. It's like swatting a bug from the air as it flies about. It would make no sense." Her hand drops as she glances toward Ajani and then back at the man before nodding. Without taking her eyes from the funny-looking man, her arm extends and points toward Ajani: "He might follow and he might not; he might run ahead or he might wander away. Don't pay Ajani mind; he has his own thoughts and his own whims, which I don't question." Giving the man a smile, she stares up in anticipation, waiting for him to lead. Ajani remains motionless, his eyes flickering between the two as they interact.

Svilfon offers a very brief smile filled with the hunger that always stalks his kind. "Many dead men have said the same thing." But the smile fades so fast it may perhaps have never been there, before Svil begins to walk away from the ocean. He figured the woman would probably prefer the forests to the water. To Ajani the wizard merely smiles, "I have a parrot who is much the same." Not quite; the abusive Percy is the most horrific animal to ever curse Hollow, and Svil is sure even Madigan would struggle to love that little piece of nature. "In any case, lady, I am Svilfon. Wizard-Knight of Frostmaw, Magister Templi of the Mage's Guild." As the two are walking, even the most grubby rogues and vagabonds move quickly from their path. Like they were carrying the plague itself, the crowds part for them - sensing perhaps the hidden danger, or maybe just wanting nothing to do with such a strange looking pair. "Do you live here? I once knew someone like you who lived in the forest. I miss her very much." He spoke of Quinmyutiotu, the only other dryad he has ever known. "She too spoke of the harmony of nature, though I prefer to think of it as beautiful disharmony, myself."

Madigan follows after the so-named Svilfon, quickening her pace to walk alongside him. Her hand reaches to his hand and she grasps it, glancing briefly at Ajani before looking up at Svilfon as he mentioned Frostmaw. Her grabbing his hand was of no consequence to her. "We don't talk of where we live," is all she offers Svilfon as an answer to his question. "I miss things I once knew, too," she mutters cryptically. The dryad watches the floor passing underneath them as they walk, unaware of the crowd splitting about them. She didn't care for civilized life as much as she should, secretly knowing that such a system as civilization was born of the jungles at one point. Her philosophy was that things wouldn't exist if they were unnatural because Nature is omnipotent and omnipresent; nothing would escape Nature's scrutiny before being manifested. She suddenly looks up at Svilfon and asks, "Do you know Satoshi? I've seen her with children in the tower near the mountains west of Sage."

Svilfon spends just a moment looking down at the dryad as she grabs his hand, but he doesn't attempt to pull it away. Personal space didn't exist amongst the Coterie, and the wizard was rather used to it now. "She didn't talk of where she lived, either. At least, not in detail. Something about a special tree." Svilfon knew far more than that about dryads, but rare is it for the man to share the depths of his knowledge with anyone. Even those he is most close to. "You cannot tell me where you live, but will you tell me what you miss? Not all things that are gone will remain as such; the Fates have a habit of returning that which they take, unless death has taken it from their control." He smiles again down at her, "And to answer your question: Yes, I know the lady icicle. We are... friends..." There is no real word to describe the relationship between Satoshi and Svilfon, "We are.. family... Though, I've not seen her in a while. She hunts ghosts, I think, while I hunt..." He almost speaks then of what it is he is doing, but he stops himself just short. He didn't know this woman from any other, and almost she illicited information out of him with her causality that no other in this world does know. "I hunt things... vampires, we're part of nature, too, right?" He ends the words with a little laugh.

Madigan glances up at Svilfon at the mention of a 'special tree', her eyes wide and shocked as the muscles controlling her hands twitch subtly. Eyes still wide, she stares out straight ahead, with a perturbed, fluttering...plant-heart-thing. "You should not speak of things so casually," she warns in a low voice, avoiding making eye contact. The dryad doesn't make clear what 'things' she refers to, so it was purely Svilfon's guess as she continues, "I can tell you what I miss but I won't; dryads are as daft as any other creature." She doesn't explain her final comment any further than the words she offers then, wondering briefly about his pause. Instead of asking about that pause, she looks up at him and curiously asks, "What is 'ghosts'?"

Svilfon notices the twitching in her hands. A master of his craft, his hands are the only part of him that are truly beautiful; sensitive and dexterous, a requirement of his particular blend of arcane might, they have no trouble feeling the slight twitch at all. To her ominous words he simply smiles, "Perhaps speaking of them casually makes it seem like there is no reason to learn more, where as this..." With his other hand he motions towards her agitated self, "means more will wish to learn that which you fear." As his words die he gives her hand the slightest squeeze. "But as you wish, no more will I speak of it." Whether he figured out or not what she means isn't clear, but he lets it go and answers her other words. "That is why I call nature beautiful disharmony. We're all insane; the creatures, the trees, the people and the Gods. Sometimes I am surprised we don't all just... die... and were that to happen, lady, we would all become ghosts. They are... a memory, perhaps, of what once was... or the souls of those who used to live. I am unsure, in truth... they are like the bones of a dead animal that have turned into rock, yet except living beneath the earth, they live amongst us in silence." He did his best to explain it in a way she could understand, but he isn't entirely sure he was successful.

Madigan relaxes when he reassures her and goes on to explain ghosts. Listening carefully, she tries to apply his meaning to what she knows of the world. In her unusual, abstract way of thinking, everything was a ghost, then. She lifts her head and looks around at the forming forest ahead of them, bridge they now stood on, and over her shoulder to the receding city. It was all a ghost, then. Or were they many individual ghosts, each representing their own unique memory? "Can there be many ghosts?" she echoes. She looks up at him: "Am I a ghost?" Her thoughts cast suddenly to Anani, a redheaded dryad who insulted the ways of their tribe. Her thoughts weren't so much about Anani and the insults as much as Madigan's devouring of her, trapping Anani's essence within herself to hold her prison from death, decay, and dispersion into all other life that follows after a creature's death. It was her people's Nirvana: to die and be consumed by the life that needs your nutrients to flourish onward, and Madigan had stolen such a fate from the dryad. And now, instead of Madigan's hair being pristinely white as her mother's had been, her hair was tinged in a light pink from absorbing Anani's essence. A single dread from her ponytail hung over her shoulder. With her free hand, Madigan lifts it to her eyes and studies the subtle pink hue with discontentment. Her white hair had been a great badge of honor and internal prestige. Even though she never expressed it to her tribe's people, she was proud to have been mother's only child, to have been the only other dryad besides the Matron to have such perfectly white hair, and now her badge was lost because of her anger with Anani's blasphemous behavior. Still, she doesn't regret Ending Anani; Madigan just misses her badge of honor...

Svilfon stops walking as they cross the bridge, moments after she looks forward and back. To her words he smiles, a crooked and ambiguous smile. "If you are a ghost, then I am a ghost, and if we're all ghosts, then the word has no meaning... so I will say no; you're not a ghost, though perhaps we both are and we simply do not yet know it." He shrugs at his somewhat philosophical words, and is about to carry on when he notices her pull around the twisted lock of her hair and frown at it. Absently he lifts his free hand like he is going to touch it, before he lets the limb drop lazily back to its side. He had no idea at what she was upset at, but taking the gesture as one of nerves he speaks again. "We do not have to enter the forest, lady. And in truth I must soon be back to my home. Things stir there." He doesn't speak of Frostmaw, which is where he lives, but rather the small island off the coast of Rynvale where he spends his time when not in the frozen city of war or his rooms in the mage's tower. "But if you wish me to walk you... not home..." he smiles, "but to the forests where you are more at home, I will do so." He waits there, then, letting her decide what it is she wants and where she wishes to go.

Madigan stares at him for a long moment before speaking, the dreadlock still clenched between fingers but her focus no longer on it or its color. "May I come with you?"

Svilfon spends a moment thinking about her question, before he shakes his head. "I truly like you a lot, lady, and I will come find you again so we may finish our stroll... but they way to my home is guarded by fire and pain. You are a creature of nature and life; I would not risk you to show you where I live." There is an echo of truth in those words - if Svilfon liked Madigan less he might have just said yes to see whether or not she could survive his fiery teleporting and the many defences that protect his home... but he liked her too much to use her as an experiment, which is a rare thing indeed. "If you take this, lady, I will be able to find you again." The wizard reaches into his robe and pulls out a small lily. Though it no longer lives in the ground, it is clear it is still alive. "It will never die, nor ever need the care of your hand... and if ever you plant it in the ground, no matter where you are it will grow. Hold onto it, and with it I can find you again." Without waiting for her reply he reaches up and entwines the small stem into her hair, so it sits just above her ear. "My gift to you, lady, for ending our walk so abruptly." He doesn't quite yet speak the words of his teleportation spell, instead he would await her response before going home.

Madigan frowns in disappointment, letting him place the lily above her ear. With gentle fingers, she feels for the petal's silkiness and simply watches him in silence, awaiting his departure before making up her mind in which direction she would go. She wouldn't be making up her mind, though. She would just wander about in contemplation until something makes sense to her. That was how the dryad dealt with confusion and disappointment. Soon, she would be fine again.

Svilfon echoes her frown with one of his own, but there is nothing to be done about it. So with another brief squeeze of his hand he extracts the limb from her grasp and steps back. "Do not worry, lady, I will find you again soon. I promise, and my word is iron." He offers her a tip of his hat and a brief fleeting smile, before whispering a quiet word. The air around him shimmers for just a moment, before the wizard vanishes in a cloud of smoke that soon is lazily blown away by the winds, mixing with the fogs that permeate the air around the forest.