Notable Sources

[Leliana]

31st of Searing, 120th of Steel

The wait had gone on long enough. It was time to take matters into her own hands. Leliana's father was still missing, and she needed answers. Seeing as how she was still incredibly unfamiliar with Atinaw's geography, the half-elf imagined the best place to start would be a place of collective knowledge--the library. She had to stop and ask for directions a few times on the street but soon enough she was entering through the heavy front doors.

Lily had to take a moment to pause as she entered the large building and appreciate what she was actually looking at. Never in her life had she seen such a collection of knowledge. There were rows upon rows of books, tomes, scrolls, even what looked like tablets. Tapestries and murals depicting battles and larger than life figures hung on the walls. She assumed it all had something to do with the history of Atinaw and Álfsós.

"May I help you, young lady?"

"Shit--! What--?"

She must have been gawking for a while because a voice beside from behind startled her out of her thoughts. Face flushed, she quickly stammered an apology when she turned and saw the old man standing before her. Old really didn't quite describe it properly though. He looked like he would break at the knees if a strong gust of wind came through.

He was very small, hunched, only reaching her at chest height. Thick heavy spectactles balanced on the bridge of his big nose as if by the will of the Gods, and heavy robes nearly swallowed him whole. She didn't really know how he wasn't suffocating in all those layers. He was wrinkled like a small dried fruit, had a few wisps of long hair on his head, and a long braided beard.

The elderly man didn't seem at all phased by her reaction. He blinked at her from behind his thick glass lenses and repeated himself.

"May I help you? You seem lost."

"I--well--I was hoping to look at some regional maps. Of Atinaw," she clarified, and he nodded slowly. Somehow the spectacles remained firmly in place.

"Please follow me."

He was surprisingly quick for such a small old thing. Leliana found herself having to step out to match his switch pace. Under his heavy robes that brushed the ground it didn't even seem like his legs were moving and gave him the appearance of gliding across the stone floor. They wound their way down aisles, between shelves, and through stacks. Finally he stopped, fetched a ladder, and climbed easily up to the top to grab several long rolls of parchment.

In an instant he was back on the ground, holding the bundle out to her. Lily stared at him slack-jawed, brows furrowed in confusion. Almost on instinct she opened her arms and he laid the bundle in her embrace.

"Here are several options. One of the entire country, then four small maps composed of the north, south, east, and western regions. If you need anything else please let one of us know." And then he was off, disappearing between the shelves as quickly as he'd arrived.

"Uh--thank... you..." He was already beyond earshot though and her voice faded into a puzzled silence. "Weird..." Leliana mulled over the strange man as she made her way back toward the middle of the library. It was a bit of a maze and she had to backtrack a few times, but finally she found a large table in what seemed to be a common area. A few people sat around with stacks of books, but it was otherwise empty and silent.

She found herself a spot to set up shop, carefully arranging the scrolls so that they wouldn't scatter across the floor when someone passed by, and rolled the first one out across the long table she'd chosen. Using some small weights to hold down the edges, Leliana spread the surprisingly detailed map of Atinaw out and went to work backtracking across the parchment with her finger, stooped over the table in the luminous lamplight.

[Althalos]

☿

It had become exceedingly obvious to the undead elf that he lacked even a general understanding of the area around him. While he knew that he lived in a city, he wasn't even really sure what amenities might be expected within the confines of the residential center. There had been alcohol and food and entertainment easily enough, but such things could almost certainly be found anywhere in the world. People were always thirsty, and oftentimes different ales and beers were safer to consume than nearby water sources anyway. Beyond that, he like most understood that there was a constant gnawing hunger to be found throughout each day that could only be sated with the proper consumption of a meal.

While he suspected that at some point he would attempt to rectify some of his more severe misunderstandings by interrogating a local or a foreigner. Perhaps they would even be able to identify the signet ring that still graced his finger or the noble garment that he had awoken with in the midst of the field outside of Alfsos. Once he had learned more about where he was from, he would no doubt be able to learn his place in society and re-acquire whatever power or economic influence he had possessed before he had been condemned to unlife.

Nevertheless, that was neither here nor there. For now, Althalos had plans to visit the local library to learn more about the culture of his people, to finally understand more about the nature of the Silnori and what they represented. When he had solicited such information from the locals, a few had merely scoffed and talked about it being 'tragic', and others had seemed confused and mildly irritated by his questioning in the first place given that it was his own race. It would be like the humans asking him about what it meant to be human, he supposed.

He'd found the library to be readily enough accessible, though he hadn't expected to be assisted upon his entrance. A bespectacled older man who wore an outfit larger than himself had approached and offered some degree of help to the traveler. "I'm looking for information on the Siltori." He answered, keeping his voice quiet to maintain the sanctity of the library so that anyone else here studying wouldn't be disturbed by his presence. "History? Biology? Discoveries?" The elder offered, apparently nonplussed by the idea that he would request an entire race for discovery. Althalos answered directly with a nod, and the elder sighed and stepped off to locate the appropriate documents.

Althalos watched him as he meandered away, observing the way that the robes clung so tightly to him. His vigors had been lost to him, considered the corpse, recognizing the presence of something so close to death in the absence of a heartbeat. He sought warmth, clinging to the animal vigor that still forced his corrupting body forward, attempting to retain whatever heat had been produced within his own blood. That was why he wore such a heavy robe, though he likely thought of it only as being 'cold'. No one whose health was uncompromised would find the Searing season to be cold with all of the stifling heat bearing down from the greater celestial luminary.

He caught himself running his tongue across his teeth, and snapped out of his analysis, refocusing when the fellow promptly shoved a stack of parchments and papers into his hands and meandered away. Althalos took his retrieved bounty, hunting through the aisles of the library until he had discovered a series of tables and -- a familiar face. He slunk forward, feeling not so dissimilar to a shadow as he moved, though any sneaking he accomplished would have been due to a lack of perception on her part instead of much talent on her own.

"It really is quite the small city after all." He offered with a faint smile, leaning his head slightly to look down at what she was studying. "Planning on traveling into the wilderness? I wouldn't recommend it."

[Leliana]

Unsurprisingly, there was a detailed network of roads within Atinaw. Thankfully, she recognized which one she had traversed on the map due to its orientation to Álfsós and her time spent with the trade caravan up until arriving in the city. It was a main thoroughfare through the region, well travelled by many and a generally safe route for many--or so they'd said. It had many branches, but they had mainly travelled west-southwest, away from Kaldria... and more importantly, away from Daravin.

She found the point where it met the city and backtracked across the parchment with her fingernail, inching by topographic markers like mountains and rivers, scanning the paper for any details that looked particularly familiar. The map itself continued into the border of Kaldria somewhat before reaching its end. She searched a while, stooping over the table, hair spilling around her face and brows furrowed in concentration as her eyes scanned back and forth across the drawing.

Leliana thought back to her months on the road. Most of that time had been spent training diligently or learning about her heritage from her father--so much so that she hadn't been paying nearly as much attention to her surroundings as she should have been, for which she was now kicking herself. After later becoming separated from Arangyl, the half-breed was lucky enough to be found by traders but had to nurse multiple injuries on the way to Álfsós. Surviving her wounds had been a full-time job for several weeks.

Lily sat down, sighed heavily, and ran her fingers down her face. Was her best course of action going to be just to retrace her steps? The fact that her father hadn't come to find her yet left her with a quiet feeling of dread that she adamantly refused to acknowledge. He had to have had a good reason, surely, to keep her waiting. Perhaps he'd been captured and had no means of escaping, even with his magics. Was there a way to keep a mage such as himself contained?

It was during these plaguing thoughts that Althalos snuck up on her, and at the sound of his quiet voice she let loose a bloodcurdling shriek and brought her fists down onto the table.

"Fuck!" The exclamation echoed through the quiet hall, turning all eyes in the vicinity on them. A few heads popped out of the aisles and searched around. Leliana rose so quickly from her seat that it rocked back on two legs and threatened to topple, but she caught it just in time during its precarious wobble. "By the Gods! Althalos?" Leliana began, pale face now several shades of pink as their audience started to go back to their own business. Her hurried voice was hardly more than a whisper now. "You're quieter than the dead! What are you doing here? I didn't even hear you walk up. How long have you been standing there?"

[Althalos]

☿

Althalos had understood very quickly that a library was a place for quiet contemplation and analysis. That didn't mean that there couldn't be conversation of some form or another, but typically it was limited in volume and scale as a courtesy to others. A whispered sentence and clarification here and there wouldn't disturb many of the other patrons of the establishment, but talking for hours would almost certainly begin to grate on the nerves of even the most experienced library-goers. Though he had meant in some ways to surprise the white-haired woman with his presence, he had predicted that she would simply spin around, perhaps knock something off the table in surprise, and then smile and say hello.

Her actual reaction immediately scattered his predictions of how the conversation would go whatsoever. The explosive obscenity shot through the serene structure with astounding volume, the sudden proximity, and breach of the theme's surrounding the structure actually triggered the elf's reflexes, causing him to jump backward and spill about half of his luggage upon the floor in the process. He felt incredibly seen, and a subtle glance upwards from his spilled mess revealed the judgemental glares of a half-dozen others, and even more who peered from their reclusive hiding spots in the library's alleys.

There was a whispered accusation that he was 'quieter than the dead' and he found himself stirring much faster to movement. Dead people didn't move often, after all, and certainly not of their own volition, and he made a point of inhaling deeply and exhaling hard, as though a breath had caught in his lungs in the middle of the ordeal. "Sorry, I didn't think I'd surprise you so badly." He offered apologetically as he began to sort through the spilled files, returning them to his grip before rising again to his full height.

"I came to learn more about myself." A pause, his tongue running across his back-teeth as he thought. "About us, actually." He concluded, shifting his burden slightly so that she would be able to see the nature of his bounty. "I saw you here at the table while I was looking for somewhere to sit, and... I thought maybe you'd want some company." He said, nodding towards the sprawled out map that she had been analyzing earlier. "Part of me wants to say I was standing there for forty minutes, but I also don't want you to yell at me again, so I'll admit that I've only just come over." He joked, a smirk growing across his lips.

"I hope I didn't catch you in the middle of something too personal. I can find somewhere else to sit, if you'd prefer. For all I know, you've got an ambush to plan on a rural road, and I try not to be involved in things like that."

Credit to Saej!