Aether's Heart OOC

And we're off!

So, a note about hearing the bells gong! I would like for your character to come into contact with runic material in some kind of way. That can be runic minerals, like how Railyn does, refined runic stones like at shops or stores, or if you have one, or touching inscribed runes on weapons or totems.

The Storybook Challenge has a week left, which means that you have a week to write your intro post to get the points. One of the things I like to emphasize is collaborative writing. So, collaborative writing is, basically, writing together! For example, maybe @ScarlettFire and I jump into a WriterFeedPad and write a Railyn post together, and Elidyr's featured in the post. She can write Elidyr's reactions to Railyn's questions or dialogue, or she can jump in and add to a section to add detail, or she can jump in when I say I'm at a lost, or she can just lurk so I can play plot bunnies off her to see what she thinks.

While the intro post will have your character alone, all posts after that will most likely have your characters surrounded by other characters. So, after all of our intro posts, I would highly recommend that all posts be touched by more than one writer. Now, obviously, there can be some exceptions, but try it out! It's a lot of fun

this character is no longer in Aether's Heart

Midmorning sun glared baking white onto the clay outer wall Aharon pushed off from as he adjusted the turban across his face, readying for a performance, of sorts. He could manage it in the space between post-setup and midday presiding over his uncle’s ornament store, yet it would mean cutting interactions fine—not that fine-cutting had ever troubled him before. Against the wall Aharon had scanned the street in front of him, tucked in a wide gap between two market stalls.

Yse attracted a sprawling mess of stall merchants, traders, and crowds at this hour, and as inconvenient as this time was for him there was plenty to choose from; after all, it was easy to get lost in a foreign city. The dusty, earth-toned clustering of stacked buildings and narrow steps leading to higher and lower levelled streets would tip any outsider off balance, the consistency only spared by iron railings or the soft jewel of a dyed fabric draped from above.

Not far in front of him, unaware of his interest, a middle-aged woman also looked around, not with creativity as he did but with the stiffness of processing an overwhelming environment.

For a moment Aharon lifted his eyes from the back of the stranger to the fierce light above the drooping canvas shelters. If anyone had regarded him in this briefness, they might have sworn he had nodded to it as if acknowledging some unspoken challenge between them.

He then set to work, approaching the female traveller with a casual ease. “Forgive me, certain stranger,” he began, offering the side of his body as company, “but you present symptoms of being uncertain of your location.”

Together they faced the eclectic river of an open market street crowd, the smell of sweat and sizzling foods enmeshed in the all-too familiar scene to Aharon. It became apparent that the traveller was taller than Aharon by more than he had first estimated, but her thin mouth line and dainty physique were otherwise well observed.

She gave a breathy laugh. “I’ve travelled from the Astruian Empire, you see, so everywhere else tends to be… uncertain.” The traveller regarded Aharon’s fully covered body with equal uncertainty, however seemed to think it impolite to comment. Aharon was almost disappointed.

He appreciated her remark enough to laugh openly behind his turban, patting a hand on her nearest shoulder. “Yes, yes,” he sighed, “I can assure you the uncertainty only grows with steam operated delivery systems and Grand Rebellions.”

The traveller relaxed visibly at this, but Aharon soon wanted to speed up the process; Yse’s value of efficiency was ingrained in him.

“Where are you headed? Perhaps I could direct you.” Although he could assume the answer from the court robes she dressed in.

“The estate of Baroness Eveesha," she said. "One would think it more noticeable, yet these high, narrow streets are an eccentric maze at best.” The woman barely composed her distaste as she spoke.

“Ah, well, I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much of a navigator then, however,” Aharon gestured widely to the opposite side of the street, blocked only by the dense interweaving movement of people, “I know of someone who might… yet it might be difficult to see who I…”—he craned his neck for effect—"… well I’ll show you to her…”

Before the traveller could react, Aharon stepped into the market crowd, knowing the woman would hesitate before realising her best option was to follow. It gave Aharon a pause to be alone and calm among the swerving bodies. He dug his gloved hands into the outer pockets of his coat with habit, yet one drifted inadvertently within where a rolled map was tucked. His gloved fingertips brushed over the paper. The baroness’ estate, huh?

Glancing around, Aharon thought of the Astruian Empire and all the places unknown to him. To the south of Yse, the peeks of the Sturka Jaw – a Yse name for the two close, jagged mountains that loomed beside each other – were imprinting the sky above the street, and reminded onlookers of what would be waiting for them in that direction if they dared venture beyond them. Aharon often stared at them when the flat rooftops didn’t get in the way.

He knew what he must do, yet the thought made him unusually solemn.

His mind wanderings were interrupted by a prickling on the back of his neck: there it was again, the intuitive feeling of being watched intently. His hand came to rest on the hilt of the Jahibiya knife sheafed at his waist: another habit. Could it be guards? Surely they would have allowed him some entertainment by now given the many days the feeling had surfaced. How boring, he thought. It certainly wasn’t the traveller, who had batted her way through the crowd behind him with hunched shoulders.

Alright, the show now had motion. Aharon put the prickling aside for its cause to work out on their end. He proceeded to talk over his shoulder to the traveller, arms free and gesturing expressively. “I may have to send you to my direction giver while staying clear myself. You see…” he trailed off, mostly for effect, but also to execute a dismayed look in his pale eyes to the traveller as she manoeuvred nearby, “… we are not on good terms, or rather…”—and here is where he made a judgement call—“… the person is my mother who refuses to speak to me because I want to leave Yse for good. She sees it as a betrayal to the family business.” It was a lie and a gamble, but so was his entire plan in all its looseness.

The traveller took it well. “How unfortunate,” she sympathised, with an expression that indicated a chord had been struck. “If it weren’t for my required travel as a representative I would never venture to these uncomfortable places.”

“Ha! You remind me of my dear uncle.” An honest outburst; Aharon’s uncle and his wife had hardly taken a step outside Synilas, let alone the city of Yse, and they much preferred it that way. Aharon had covered even less distance. Unlike his absent parents. He let his lies run free: “I only made my wish to leave known a few days past, so I’m waiting for it to settle. It would be best not to mention me for that reason.”

The woman nodded, seeming more concerned with her sought destination.

Aharon shot his gaze ahead to his target, the so-called direction giver: the older, shorter woman preoccupied herself with a jewellery display table a few stalls down from when Aharon had first narrowed in on her. Aharon was pleased she hadn’t strayed too far since then, although it would have only meant a little further strolling. Still, he was already feeling faint from the direct light and heat.

Before spitting themselves out of the crowd to the other side of street, Aharon reach for the map within his coat. In a short series of movements – one of which involved hiding the rolled map in his coat sleeve – he had successfully placed the map in the traveller’s possession without her noticing; it was all too easy using the nudging of the closely moving crowd to mask the act. When the traveller was to arrive at the baroness’ estate her robes would be checked for weapons and magical threats, and there the map would be discovered. Or rediscovered, actually. He knew from experience. What happened after that was no longer his problem for all Aharon decided.

“There,” Aharon voiced, signalling towards the older woman by the jewellery display as he and the traveller stopped a distance from her on the same side of the street. “It’s harder to ask for directions around here than you might believe, but my mother should be reasonable.” Aharon had never spoken to the older woman in his life, but every resident in Yse knew the way to the Baroness Eveesha’s estate, however rare people were invited in. And the older woman was unquestionably local.

“Have luck with it all, then,” Aharon said, with an unsubtle dip of his upper body; his theatre shows at the nearby inn could be blamed for the naturalness. If the traveller were to look closer at his eyes she would have seen a flash of cunningness there.

The traveller bid him farewell and headed over to the older woman. Aharon followed yet kept his distance.

What had caught Aharon’s regard about the older woman was that she was an overly cautious, untrusting character. Her wide figure bustled along the stall fronts with a second look this way and that, her tanned fingers clutching the bulk of her shoulder bag close to her front. Definitely local: she knew thieves were about. But more paranoid than most.

Aharon slipped behind the curtainlike racks of a clothes stall, lacing his way further in and along the back of the row if stalls where a space only enough to shuffle down was always kept. And he did shuffle, as fast as he could towards the stall just before the jewellery display. It was a relief to feel the cool shadows over him.

The stall before the older woman appeared to be selling weapons, made and adorned no doubt with metals and precious stones from the mines.

On the spot, Aharon had intended to persuade the stallkeeper away, yet he found a snoring scruff of a man reclined on a canvas seat in the far corner. Aharon paused, opened his mouth as if to say something to him, then thought not to. Instead, he crept down the middle of the stall to the front, careful not to knock over any piles of leaning swords. As he did so, he swiftly undid the turban around his face and removed his cloak and gloves, dropping them to the ground close beside him when he reached the front table. He didn’t need them in the shade of the canvas stretched overhead, and their absence would keep him unrecognisable to the traveller he’d interacted with previously. If his uncle saw him now he’d probably have a fit and scold him for weeks, but it seemed this was Aharon’s price for remaining in the city, which he intended to do for a long, long time.

A child and her older caretaker wandered past the weapons stall, and upon seeing Aharon the child pointed and stared. Her caretaker soon noticed and ushered her away. It was a common reaction to Aharon’s pale skin, hair and eyes, often associated with the freakish colourings of gypsies. Which was only half true for him, but he'd not been born looking this way, weak like the fine ceramics traders brought in from Astruia.

He had managed to reach the older woman’s near proximity before the traveller. A moment later the traveller passed by – she glanced briefly at Aharon and nothing more – and got the older woman’s attention.

Time to be loud.

As the two women started talking, Aharon deliberately kicked a stack of swords leaning by the front of the stall table as a random person walked closely past. The swords spilled out onto the street in front of the stall, right next to the older woman, who had her back to his direction. She turned at the clatter disapprovingly, then returned to the traveller, clutching her bag tighter.

Aharon cursed. Loudly. “Watch where you’re goin’, ye good fer nothin’! Them swords are worth more’n you can pay,” shouted Aharon, waving his fist in the air; he’d always wanted to wave his fist in the air.

He swooped around the table and began picking up gleaming swords: this was a key moment, with him kneeling right beside the older woman and the traveller conversing with her on the other side.

He couldn’t stay long outside the canvas shade.

While still picking up swords with his far hand and fake grumbling, Aharon lifted the hilt of one sword in his other hand to the older woman’s side, where he could see a strapped, leather pouch. He tapped the hilt steadily there for a breath, a balance between firm and faint.

As quick as he’d done so he broke away to gather the single sword with the rest. He had stolen nothing yet, but now he only had to wait.

On the inner side of the weapons table again, Aharon watched the traveller nod at the route the older woman described and thank her. When the traveller strode a few paces away Aharon made to approach the older woman, but a calloused hand grasped his shoulder firmly from behind.

“What in Runeheim are you doing picking up my swords?” growled the stallkeeper, who Aharon had utterly forgotten about. He could see the individual hairs on the man’s beaked nose.

The low laugh Aharon emitted allowed him the think on his feet. “You were asleep and the swords fell so I figured I’d do a good deed. Now if you don’t mind I believe the older woman here just got robbed.” He said it low enough that the older woman wouldn’t overhear and moved around to her before the stallkeeper could object.

“’Scuse me, lady, but I saw that there woman you was talkin’ to pickpocketin’ ye jus’ now.” An accent had to be consistent, no matter how indulgent.

He watched the older woman’s eyebrows fling upwards as he came beside her. “What? That can’t be! I was watching her the whole time.”

“But I saw ‘er reachin’ into yer belt pouch on yer side. Don’t ye remember feelin’ anythin’?” He shaped his expression into sincerity.

The woman’s eyes glazing over was Aharon’s cue. Mistrust became her weakness, her paranoia focusing all her sensual memory and attention on that one area of her body a few moments ago. It allowed Aharon’s quick hand to go after the item he had really targeted: a cheap runic amulet he’d made note of the woman purchasing and slipping into the upper pocket of her cloak, located on her opposite side. Now Aharon un-slipped it, curving his arm as out of sight as possible, and tossed the amulet behind his back in the direction of where his coat lay under the weapons table. Simple misdirection.

A bright look dawned on the older woman’s face as she seemed to recall when Aharon had nudged her with the sword hilt. Then it fell to dread.

“Did ye have valuables in there?”

“Oh dear, oh dear, those damn rebels,” was all she could reply, and Aharon couldn’t decide whether her complexion had gone as pale as his or flushed with flaming anger. She didn’t think to check her pouch, where she would find everything all and well. Aharon wasn’t about to stick around until she did.

“Tell ye what, I’ll chase after ‘er for ye. I may not look it, but I work in a weapons stall an’ I got a good pair of legs on me.” Already he was darting for his coat, gloves, and turban under the weapons table, narrowly avoiding the stallkeeper’s field of sight because with great luck, the man was now attending to a customer.

Aharon bundled the runic amulet in his coat and hurried in the direction the traveller had strode briskly. She was barely visible down the street, and would soon be swallowed by a street corner.

The older woman called out when Aharon departed a few paces away, “Thank you, young man! But don’t feel the need to trouble…” Her words fizzled out when Aharon gave her a brief bow. Then he took off.

He would throw his outer clothes back on when he was farther enough alone, yet between the folds bundled in his arms the runic amulet touched a gloveless finger. The sun bore down on him, unforgiving, and he heard the toll of a bell:

Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong.

The sunlight and exertion must have got to him more than he thought to be hearing bells in his head, especially ones so loud and eerie.

He sensed no one following him as he ran away, despite the tax on his fine ceramic body, back to his uncle's store on the other side of the city. Back to the life he’d always known.

Young Writers Society

The Prophecy Beckons

The Prophecy Changes

Sponsors

About / Info

Forums & RPG

Literary

Resources