Chapter Text
Venat carefully picked her way through thick scrub, delicately pushing it aside rather than creating a way through, as the villager before her did. These were their lands, after all, despite falling under Amaurot’s jurisdiction, and she would honor their ways.
The villager stopped in front of her, ducked low under a branch, and gestured. “Just in there,” he said. She crouched alongside him, peering through to a cluster of mossy ice-tossed boulders. In the place where they leaned together they formed a slanted opening, almost too small to imagine someone any larger than a child squeezing through. “We’ve been keeping an eye out since you asked. He’s usually gone this time of day, returns around dusk.”
“Thank you very much for your kind assistance.” She laid a hand on his arm, smiling. “I will find my own way back.”
The villager departed, and she watched from the cover of the trees for a moment, examining the small clearing around the boulders. There were no signs of coming and going, nor any indication whatsoever of inhabitation. She cloaked herself in concealing magics, deadened the air currents around her to a trickle so as not to waft scent or sound upon the breeze, and stepped lightly as she made her way towards the boulders. The opening was indeed too small, no way she’d squeeze through with her muscular form, so she reached out and bade the space between bend just a little–and it obliged.
Inside she found total darkness, and stood for a moment listening carefully, extending her aetheric senses. She knew she stood in a room below the leaning boulders, and felt a sense of peace and solitude in the way one feels standing on a high cliff, looking out over a beautiful landscape. After a moment she realized the darkness was not total, and looked up to find tiny pinpricks of light twinkling down like a lovely night sky. She breathed life into the tiniest light, and commanded it aloft.
As she'd sensed she stood in a large, open room with walls rounded by magic. A wide stone bench sat along one wall, covered in tools and little projects. She drifted to it, found a mixture of what seemed to be created and handmade tools for working various natural materials. She found awls, skinning knives, special knives for cutting quills, even some surprisingly sophisticated but entirely nonstandard alchemical equipment that looked like it had last produced ink. All of the created items looked and felt very solid and true, formed from strongly idealized concepts. The handmade items seemed made by a skilled hand, but she could make no sense of why both were present if the occupant were capable of such fully realized creation. She left the bench, drifting to what seemed to be a doused cook fire, but again it offered her only a mysterious juxtaposition. Finally she turned towards a pile of furs that seemed to be a sleeping area, and on examining them found they were not created but actual skins. She found two parcels wrapped in leather and crude twine, and on opening them discovered a relatively sophisticated but obviously rustic set of drawing tools, inks and such, and a large sheaf of hand drawn diagrams of plants and animals, and some strange ones that seemed at first abstract but her senses told her had something to do with geology. There were pages detailing in images the formation of snow, and dozens and dozens of unique snowflake forms that indicated a sort of classification system based on the temperature and pressure conditions necessary to create each. She found herself lost in the artistry of tiny grass flowers lovingly depicted, the wild brutality of a thunderstorm, the very clinical dissection of a hind. Not a single word appeared anywhere, but the images communicated the ideas perfectly.
Then came the landscapes. They were simple ink drawings, sometimes with the barest hint of color derived from natural sources–no lingering creation on the pages at all. They would never hang in any grand gallery, crude as they were, but they were beautiful in a way that stole her breath. Each one was a glimpse, a moment in time when emotion had overwhelmed their creator, and along with the diagrams conveyed such an immense love for place and time that she instantly felt she knew this person–intimately. She turned the pages slowly, overwhelmed by the knowledge that this stranger was her kin, yet unknown.
For a moment she lost herself in these lovely drawings, textbooks and travel journals without words. An intricately detailed diagram showing the reproductive processes of a fern caught her eye, and she squinted at the page, trying to take in all the fine and lovely detail. A noise startled her, and she dropped the page, looking up to find a young man nearly grown, perhaps a couple decades off from entering the Akademia if she had to wager a guess. He wore neither robes nor mask, the still youthful planes of his face on open display, stitched together furs draped over his body in a way that spoke entirely of practicality rather than propriety--his core was solidly covered, and anything that might be vital or need to stay warm. Yet the smooth, sandy skin of his arms and much of his legs was bare. His red hair was pulled back tightly, loose waves resisting their binding, and his emerald eyes glittered with and instant of assessment–curiosity–fear–
He bolted like a fawn, slipped back through the boulders, and Venat dropped the book, hurrying to follow. She repeated her space-bending trick and squeezed through, but emerged to find the clearing empty. Outside the birds in the trees were utterly silent, disturbed by his passing–but she scoured the area and saw no footprint, no bent twig, nothing. ‘Twas as if he had simply vanished. So she took a deep breath, calmed her racing heart and reached out with her aetheric senses. There was… lingering magic, hastily cast, but–she stuck out the tip of her tongue, concentrating–with enough power that it didn’t matter. She could make out little else about it, untrained and unlike the structured classical magics she was used to sensing from Amaurotines. Because there was no mistaking him, after seeing him, and now sensing his magic–he was. But that was a matter for later.
If it was teleportation magic, then he was long gone, and while she might be able to follow wielding the power of Azem, she didn’t think that would help matters. If it were concealment or transformation, he would be watching--and so she moved slowly, deliberately, to the middle of the clearing, and held out her hands. "Be not afraid," she said, voice clear and gentle. He should, in theory, understand her but if he used no written language, would he have a spoken one? Just how innate was language? "I have come in peace."
Only the soft breeze through the trees answered her. She stood there long enough even her powerful arms ached, and birdsong returned. She sighed, and let her arms fall to her sides, defeated. Elidibus had brought her the rumor of the feral child half a decade ago, and amidst her other duties she had listened for hearsay and searched for signs. It was scandalous at best and unconscionable at worst, to imagine an orphaned child of Amaurot out here in the wilds, alone. At the very least she wished to ascertain if he was healthy and comfortable--and given her druthers, find out who'd been bastard enough to dump him and why.
"Bollocks," she muttered, and turned back to the boulders. She clambered back inside, her forgotten light still shimmering overhead, and looked around once more. She could probably tick comfortable off--he seemed to be doing quite well for himself. Or had been, until she barged in like an oaf and scared him away. She put her hands on her hips and chewed at her lip, pondering that reaction. She'd heard he was shy, but… why had he run? Was he afraid of people?
There were no clues here, so with another sigh she picked up the sheaf of drawings and carefully straightened them then paused. She slipped one of the landscapes out, and examined it carefully. It seemed… familiar, but not in a normal way. She flipped through until she found it again, at a different time of day. He'd visited this place multiple times, she felt certain, and she carefully tucked one of the sketches into her robes with a muttered, "Forgive me!"
She left everything as she'd found it otherwise, and on the way out an idea struck her--he might not return at all depending on why he'd run, how unsafe he felt, but a gift, perhaps…. What in the blazes would a young man who lived entirely on his own in the wilderness want, though? She couldn't give him tools, food was right out without knowing his diet, he couldn't read so maps--
But he was smart--brilliant, maybe, and she'd touched something in those drawings, felt a connection. He'd figure it out, she had faith. So she brought to mind the map of this area she'd studied before coming, and carefully reproduced it--without words. Twas not a simple task, recalling every minute detail, but she was Azem. If she couldn't manage a map for a fellow traveler, she might as well retire on the spot. She left it on the workbench, then recalled her light and shimmied out between the boulders.
Perhaps the villagers wouldn't mind keeping an eye out for his return.