A meeting in the City {Artemis~StormKatz}

'What am I interested in?' Leuan echoed, slightly surprised by the question. 'Well... Flying, I guess. I spend a lot of time hunting birds, though that's also what I do to make a living...' He felt that perhaps it wouldn't be the best of ideas to say 'girls,' but it was definitely true. 'Uh...' He racked his brains for anything to add to his list, but was thankful for the distraction of whatever was interesting Eliza as she sped up. It became obvious, however, that the issue was the plainly missing Victory Column.

His eyes widened in shock and he hurried forwards to the heap of rubble.
'What the...' He had no idea what could have broken the pillar, let alone why anyone would have wanted to do it. It was often said that the stone was imbibed with magic for strength and could withstand anything. Certainly it was pretty sturdy. But here it was, just a pile of stones on the floor. The avian shook his head slowly. He was sure that the column hadn't just collapsed from age. Perhaps somebody would have seen what had happened? He looked around for somebody who seemed composed enoguh to answer a few questions.

Barely registering Leuan’s reply, she continued to elbow her way through the crowd. Although all of her physical features were the same as they were when she was in her twenties, she still had the obnoxious, pointy elbows that most elderly women used to get where they were going. There were a few people tutting mildly in the midst of the crowd who looked much less stricken than the others, so she edged her way closer.

“Excuse me, do you know what’s happened?” she asked politely. One woman turned to her, and outright laughed in her face, before turning her back rudely, while the others just ignored her question. She was half tempted to punish such insolence, but there were too many people around for her to do anything, so she turned around to look for Leuan. She wasn’t going to get anywhere by being a stranger to everything around here.

Realising that he had no idea where Eliza had gone, Leuan turned and scanned the milling crowds for her blonde head. He spotted her not too far away, talking to an older woman, who turned away without replying. Frowning, the avian pushed his way between people to reach her.
'Everything alright?' he asked, mostly rhetorically, before turning to a man who was staring glumly at the ruins of the pillar.
'Sorry, but I don't suppose you know what happened here, do you?' Leuan asked him, before glancing back at Eliza.
'The Column's supposed to be indestructible and imbibed with magic,' he told her unhappily.

“Oh, I can see why everyone seems so distressed then.” She commented. Then, catching herself, she added, “That’s awful!” in her most pathetic voice. The women beside her scoffed, and disappeared into the crowd to get a better view of the destruction.

Eliza’s mind whirred as she studied the crowd nearby. She may not know much about recent history, but she knew all about magic. She had done her fair share of research to get to where she was now, and before her interest had focused in on water sylphs, she had looked into all manner of so-called mythical creatures. However, as she trawled through her memory bank, she couldn’t think of anything that could shatter more than a very weak enchantment, and realised that this had to be something much more serious.

She turned to Leuan with thought forming creases on her brow. She shot him a concerned look, before focusing on the man Leuan had been addressing, keen to hear any more details. This casual search for prey had suddenly become a whole lot more interesting.

Eliza was definitely acting oddly. Leuan gave her a look as he replied,
'Yeah... It's, uh, awful.' Her attention seemed to be wandering somewhat as she took in the crowds around them before turning back to the avian and the man he had asked the question of.

Said man now replied,
'I certainly don't know. Nobody knows. All there is is rumours. They're saying that mages of all kinds have come and checked the area, and that magic in the column's been broken. But all the rubble is exactly the same, and there isn't a sign anywhere of what could've done it. It's a mystery.' He didn't seem to mind talking to the two of them at all, probably a big one for spreading gossip of any kind.

“Would you care to tell us any of these rumours? We could really do with whatever information we can get.” Eliza interjected, trying to pry as much information out of the seemingly gossipy man as she could. She may have only been in town for a little light hunting, but mysteries had always interested her. Maybe that was what had pushed her to become what she was today. After all, the mystery of the water sylphs was what had caught her eye. Either way, she couldn’t help being a little curious about the pillar, and whatever had caused the damage.

“Well, some people were saying that it was a huge dragon.” the man said, sounding deadly serious, but Eliza had to struggle not to laugh. The column had been enchanted, if she had heard right, and people would have seen a creature that size anyway. However, as the man seemed happy enough to keep pouring out tales, she listened intently, probing her memory store for information on each possible idea. Most were ridiculous, but at least it gave her some idea of what they /weren’t/ dealing with.

Leuan raised his eyebrows at the dragon theory.
'I think we can count that one out; I probably would've noticed it on its way here. I spend plenty of time in the sky.' He muttered this to Eliza, not wanting the man to hear and cease the torrent of potential causes that he was rattling off at speed. Yes, definitely a gossiper.
'Hm, interesting,' said the avian when their informant had finally finished filling them in. 'I wonder if any of them are true...' He looked down at a chunk of stone which lay nearby, his eyes tracing along a groove that had been carved into the stone in a seemingly random path.

“And I know enough about magic to tell you that there is no way that a mortal creature broke the enchantment surrounding this thing.” She whispered back. As the man beside them fell silent, she nodded to him in thanks, and found a smaller piece of stone to study. It was about the size of a fist, and she stooped to pick it up carefully. She felt a jolt where the broken enchantment released what was left of its magic into her, but ignored it. Being a creature of magical origin anyway meant that this raw power had little effect of her – it was only once it had been tuned that it posed a threat. O a human, or avian, however, it might have hurt.

The cracks in even that tiny piece were distorted and strange. She would have expected the stone to crack along set lines like a crystal, but instead there were all manner of curved lines and spirals. It wasn’t physical force that had done this, it couldn’t have been, so that eliminated most of the man’s ideas. However, even Eliza’s bank of knowledge on magical creatures failed to explain the strange patterns in the rock. She was out of her depth, and that made it all hugely more interesting. She would happily wait a few days before feasting, just for a chance to solve this puzzle.

At Eliza's words, Leuan looked down at her curiously. A magical creature, hm? That was interesting... There were meant to be mages in the city to protect against things like that. Whether they were simply slacking or if they had been defeated, he couldn't say, but if it was the latter then the citizens of Didienne certainly had something to worry about- seeing as Didienne was the capital of DC, it had the strongest mages protecting it and the royal family. Of course, if the mages were slacking that was hardly good, but as least they were still around if who or whatever had destroyed showed its face. They wouldn't be able to ignore that, no matter how lazy they were- they'd die just as surely as the rest of the city.

Before he thought of a good response to Eliza's words, however, she had picked up a chunk of stone and was staring at it, apparently intrigued by the swirling patterns set into it. Leuan frowned- he hadn't realised that there was anything interesting about it, assuming that it had simply been decoration carved into the pillar while it was still intact. But then he realised, with a feeling of stupidity, that the rubble had the patterns on all sides and not just the smooth, gently curving ones that had been the outside of the pillar. What an idiotic thing to miss. Crouching down beside the huge chunk of stone he had been looking at the grooves on earlier, he extended a finger to touch one of them- but as soon as his skin made contact with the stone, he leapt backwards with a yell of pain.
'It shocked me!' he exclaimed, already feeling wussy at his reaction. He shook out his hand with a grimace, trying to expel the tingling he still felt in it.

“Oh, yeah, I got a jolt too.” Eliza lied, not wanting to make Leuan feel uncomfortable or give away her identity. She should have waited another ten years before coming back to Didienne - there could still be some people there to recognise her, and after this, the mages must be on high alert. That was, presuming that Didienne still used mages, but she didn’t think that they would have disbanded them all. The city was too important.

Eliza couldn’t think of anything helpful to say, so she kept quiet and continued to study the lines in the rock. The cracks were all quite measured – the curves were all the same, and suggested that it could have broken along fault lines caused purely by the enchantment, but she couldn’t think why that would happen. Her memory was getting rusty, and that wasn’t a great sign. She had signed up for the whole ‘soul-sucking sylph’ thing presuming that she /wouldn’t/ loose her memory as she got old, and felt a little bit cheated that it wasn’t at it’s best any longer.

'Can't've been as strong as mine,' Leuan informed her with a grimace, inspecting his hands. 'Weird though, my hands don't look red or anything... What do you think caused it?' He cautiously poked the lump of stone with his foot. There was no reaction. With a sigh, Leuan turned away and looked at the piece of rubble Eliza was holding.
'It reminds me a little bit of woodworm,' he observed, thinking of the floor in the dusty storage room in his house. There was so much junk lying around that you could hardly see the floor, but some of the boards had similar wiggly patterns carved in from the worms which ate away at the wood. Leuan was pretty sure the floor would fall through sometime, but he hoped it wasn't while he was in the house.

“Hmm, woodworm you say? There’s an idea.” Eliza muttered. They knew it wasn’t a massive dragon, since they would have seen it, but a tiny worm-like creature? Maybe.

“And I don’t know what caused the shock – it might be to do with the enchantment on the column though.” Eliza lied, knowing that know-it-alls didn’t go down well. Certainly they hadn’t when she had lived in the city, and there was only so much that time could change.

She felt one arm itch as she bright sun dried the last moisture out of it. Darn, that was going to burn before long, and sunburn didn’t suit her. Hopefully the clouds drifting around would keep the worst of it off, but she had no doubt that she would be significantly pinker by the time she made it back to the tavern that night. Dimly she wondered if it could stay pink when she changed forms, but she pushed the thought to the back of her mind.

Dropping the piece of stone she was holding, she winced as it shattered along the lines. Then, stooping to collect a new piece, she winced to cover the fact that the stone wasn’t shocking her. This one had the same patterns, but as she inspected them, they seemed to be like little tubes, not just cracks. Hmm, maybe woodworm was closer than she had thought. But hadn’t the enchantment been there to stop it being shattered? Clearly they were missing something else, but she couldn’t tell for the life of her what it was.

Leuan was slightly surprised by Eliza's reaction to his comment. He hadn't meant it as an actual theory as to how the column could have been destroyed- but then, he didn't know as much about magic as she seemed to, and if she thought it was possible then he wasn't going to argue. Along much the same lines, for all the avian knew it could well have been the enchantment which was causing the shocks.

He knelt again to pick up another bit of stone, looking for a small piece which hopefully wouldn't shock him too much, but a passer-by cautioned him,
'They've got electricity or something in. Somebody was knocked out by that one earlier.' He jerked his head towards a block of stone, gave Leuan a friendly nod, and continued on his way. Looking up curiously, the avian saw that the block of stone which had apparently knocked someone out was about the same size as the one he had touched. Apparently different people were more or less affected by the shocks. He straightened again and looked at Eliza. She was just picking up another piece of rubble, and she winced as she did so- but it looked a little fake. Perhaps she wasn't particularly affected either.

“Knocked out? What were they, a five year old? Some people just like to exaggerate…” Eliza exclaimed, throwing the little piece of stone up in the air and catching it again. It felt great to be able to absorb the shock (sylphs had a much higher tolerance threshold for magic than humans), but it did sadden her that she couldn’t use any of the magic she knew so much about. Well, besides the few little quirks of being a water sylph – changing form was probably quite a biggie.

“Well, we aren’t going to get anything else from these lumps of rock – we should probably think about finding someone with a better idea of what happened. Street theories are not going to help, really – especially not if half of them still thing it was a great big dragon.” She said, dropping the stone as she list interest in it. She loved the mystery, but there was only so much a piece of nicely-carved rock could tell her.

Leuan shrugged, a smile flashing across his features.
'Maybe. Didn't feel anything like enough to knock me out, though. I guess I'm just strong enough to take it.' He grinned at Eliza again, straightening, and brushed the ground's dust off his hands.
'Sounds good,' he agreed. 'Where to, then? I don't tend to have much to do with magic, so I don't really know who you'd want to talk to. There's a library, if that'd help? Just say wherever you think would be best and I'll see if I know the way.'

“Library sounds good to me. Lead the way.” Eliza said with a smile. She forced herself not to snicker as he said he must just be strong enough, and looked around for any last clues they could glean from the devastated square. There seemed to be nothing.

“Have you ever heard of anything like a stone-worm before, Leuan? Or was it just a guess? It’s beyond the level of things I know about magic or myths, so I couldn’t tell you how likely it is.” Eliza said, her mind buzzing. Her dry skin suddenly didn’t seem like a problem, and she was genuinely interested in what was happening.

'Library it is, then,' Leuan said cheerfully, moving off through the streets and leading the way to the road which was the quickest route to the city library- not a place that he had much cause to visit, but he had been there a few times before.

'A stone worm... Well, it's not something I've come across, I have to admit,' he said, half-smiling. 'Sand worms are the closest, I guess- they eat sand, which is like crushed stone, but I doubt they could get through that pillar. It was really more of a passing comment; you're likely to know a lot more about magic than I do, although I've heard plenty of myths and fairytales in my time. I doubt any of them would be helpful to us, though.' He shrugged unconcernedly, rounding a corner and heading down another street. 'I think we should be relieved if it is some sort of freaky little worm thing though, instead of a magician who wants to destroy everything or whatever.' He paused for a few moments, seeming to consider something. 'It could be trouble if they go around chewing up anything else, though,' he admitted.

“Yes, we should be thankful for that. It’s still a possibility, I suppose, but I doubt any magician would be able to do such a thing without the city mages noticing. And never doubts your fairytales – they might be more helpful than you think.” Eliza said, remembering the first time she had read the fairy book about water sylphs. Back then she never would have imagined they were real, but here she was, about 80 years down the line, living as one.

“I don’t think a sand worm could manage anything of this scale, so I doubt that, but your ‘passing comment’ actually sounds like a better idea. We’d better hurry to the library to see if there is anything at all that fit’s the bill.” She added, trying to remember the way to the mythology section. She was glad that she had no outward, sylph-like signs, however, as they would be dangerously close to the very book she had used to guide her to becoming one. If Leuan guessed what she was, it would be a disaster. Well, at least the library should feel a little more familiar – she had never heard of a city tearing one down to replace it, and she remembered the old one easily.

Leuan laughed at Eliza's words.
'Yeah, you'd hope they'd notice something. It'd be nice to think that they actually did their jobs.' He thought about the many legends and stories he had heard, running each through his mind- none of them really seemed like they had any relevance to their current situation.
'I don't think it's a sand worm, no,' he agreed. 'But it did look like woodworm, so maybe we will find something in the library. Who knows?' He took one last turning and the library came into sight, the walls of the large buildings peppered with windows to let in as much light for reading as possible. He led the way in and paused for a few seconds, looking around, before making his way over to the man who sat at a desk carefully copying out a delicate-looking scroll in beautifully neat script.
'Excuse me,' the avian said politely. 'I wonder where we could find information on mythical creatures and the sort?'
'Shelves one-oh-five to one-oh-seven,' the man replied, without looking up from his work. 'If you need any more help, just come and ask me.'
'Ah, thank you,' Leuan said with a nod, before beckoning to Eliza and moving off between the shelves, being careful not to knock over or brush against any of the candles and torches which littered the place, providing extra light.

Eliza nodded to the man, and turned to follow Leuan. She did recognise the library, and knew exactly where those shelves were, but there seemed to be a new system in place to find them with. However, just as she was about to walk off, the old librarian beckoned to her.

“Have I seen you before, miss? If you don’t mind my asking. You just look very familiar.” He said. Eliza raised an eyebrow, before a sudden realisation hit her. When she had been a child, she had known a boy who had been just as fascinated as she had in books. He had been interested in the books themselves, while Eliza had been interested in their content. However, that young boy must have been in his nineties by now, and that must mean…

“I’m sorry, sir, you must be mistaken. Now I really must dash.” She said hurriedly, darting off through the shelves to find Leuan. That had been close – too close. She was just lucky that he hadn’t continued to press the matter.

While Eliza talked to the man, Leuan waited for her, watching them and hearing snippets of their conversation.
'You know him?' Leuan asked curiously. 'I thought you hadn't been here for a while. I don't think he ever leaves the city, he's been here pretty much his whole life. Practically lives in the library.' He couldn't think how Eliza would know the man; maybe he'd been mistaken, but the librarian was known for his keen memory, remembering names and faces just as well as he did books and shelf numbers. Not that it mattered, really; it was just a curious thing.

They soon reached the shelves that they had been directed to, and Leuan gestured around at the vast bookcases.
'Where should we begin?' he asked Eliza.

He can’t know me – I’ve never been here before.” Eliza lied, shaking her head. “Maybe I look like someone he used to know?” she smiled, and then made her way to one of the shelves.

“There’s an encyclopaedia of mythology here.” She said, pointing to a heavy volume. It used to be her favourite, but it looked as though no one had read it in a long time. That seemed a little sad, but she forced herself not to think about it. She had done the right thing, choosing this life over her human one, and she could never let herself stop thinking that. If she did, she didn’t know what she would do.

Passing that book back and offering it to Leuan, she picked out another heavy book (a newer one that she hadn’t read) to study herself. She wasn’t sure anything would come of it, but at least it would give her something to read.

'I guess that must be it, yeah. There's no other explanation I can think of, really.' It still seemed slightly strange to him, but then Eliza wasn't all that distinctive-looking and the librarian was getting old. His memory couldn't be as clear as it used to be.
When the girl thrust the heavy volume at him, Leuan took it. Written helpfully across the cover was 'Encyclopedia of Mythology', in large, swirling letters. Below it was a painting of what were presumably a group of gods, sitting on thrones in the clouds. However, the dusty spine was blank, with no indication of what the book could be about.
'How did you know what it was?' the avian asked, surprised, as he opened the book carefully and sat on the floor with it. 'The title isn't on its spine.' While he waited for her answer, he slowy began to read down the contents page before giving up on the writing and instead flipping through the book's pages, looking at the illustrations on each page to see if it could be the creature they were looking for. He could read, but only with difficulty, and he was worse at it than he really wanted to let on in front of Eliza, who seemed to have no problems with it.

Dammit, Eliza thought, I hadn’t thought about that. She would have to think of a damned good excuse for that one.

“Erm, I was just looking at the cover of the one next to it, and I saw the front of that one.” She said quickly, trying to cover up the momentary lapse. This library was proving a little dangerous, but luckily the only thing that she thought Leuan could guess would be that she had visited the city before. That was a little more acceptable, she figured.

With that, she settled down on the floor and opened her book. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the text, so she ended up sitting hopelessly, staring at the page blankly for a moment before her reading ability kicked in. However, once it did, she was flying through the pages at breakneck pace, purely from her vast experience reading. However, although the book offered loads of information on common myths, she couldn’t see anything in the first few pages on any worm-like creature – especially not one that could eat through stone.

'Huh,' was Leuan's only response. As far as he could tell, she had only looked over the shelves from a distance before selecting the book straight away, but there was no other way she could have known- unless she had been to the city before. It seemed likely and unlikely at the same time; she had been recognised by the librarian, and sometimes seemed to know her way around, and yet she was clueless as to other areas of the city. He glanced up from a picture of one of the gods from the book's cover and studied Eliza for a few moments. She just seemed to become stranger and stranger all the time.

As he watched her, she began to flip through the pages at a ridiculous speed. Yes, she was definitely a better reader than him. With a sigh, he looked back down at the book and turned another page, peering at the next entry.

» A meeting of heads. (Lycan X Nox)
» Chance Meeting [Kor] - Completed
» StormKatz's Eggs/Dragons
» Frost in the spring? (Spiritdragon & Stormkatz)
» Mystery and Mayhem (Stormkatz vs Eldarwen)