Exegesis
2014-01-20, 12:56 AM
This is your situation:
You're hanging twenty feet above the floor, level with the other lights. They loll across the room in midair, dim and blinding, through the mad gaudiness and controlled laughter and clink of chat. The costumes. Your value as a novelty ended a long time ago to these people—and it wasn't much, even if you touched their minds with Sylvan.
In the past you've played with whispering into other people's minds. Sometimes randomly, sometimes based on who looked most likely able to respond (or realize it was you). Once or twice you've even started a conversation this way. The first time you even made a friend.
He's looking at you now, from the other side of the room. You have practiced this gaze; you've been to a lot of the elite's parties together since you arrived in Overlook. With his head he gestures the balcony doorway.
When you waft outside back where there is gravity, he (Rieth) is leaning out into the night where hundreds of windows are ablaze. Everything true or discrete about the buildings is eliminated. Flakes of revel wash up to you. Rieth turns, stroking his face, saying, “So I've learned some interesting things. I'm glad we decided to come tonight, after all.” You chat for a bit. “...they're leaving tomorrow, you know [the soldiers]. That's what the beacon over the cathedral is lit for.
I'm also leaving. Not with them. ...To the elves, first of all. [Pause.] Some important things are going on there. I don't know if you were listening, earlier, but I met an elf who was here looking for someone. Which surprised me because I didn't think there was an elf in Overlook. Apparently he's visiting, but naturally that only made it harder to get a word alone...
We did talk, though, finally. A great deal. And he's invited me to come back with him, to the forest. You are right that we've had enough of this, the invitations, the new nobility. The yelling. So my question is whether you're going to come as well.”
Once more that cool level look he has developed or repurposed as a way of addressing the faceless.
“I'm guessing there won't be many books. I don't know how much that means to you. Elves are better than books I think. Too many libraries here and too many amanuenses. Doesn't it appall you how many mages stay in the cities like scribes?...”
Rieth sets the highly fashionable headpiece under his arm behind his crests and unties his tail. He leaps onto the stone railing and poises against the night, perfectly balanced. He looks absurd. Or maybe you have heterodox criteria.
This house is an ancient building but the owner and most guests are strapping-rich humans, dwarf-heterodox wealth newly piercing the city. The false gravity has ended or will shortly; the griffons are being brought out. It is late at night. You have a roof if you want it with Rieth, whose temporary apartment is on the western slope (middle-city). In day you have access to the Grand College's library, including a page-turning servant.
Your companion is a warlock who you know has a fey patron. He's told you about how his deal happened but that takes a while to tell. Notably, though, the Feywild (the bright reflection of the world from which fey and eladrin originate) has been cut off from the world for almost a lifetime. No contact, magic fails.
You're hanging twenty feet above the floor, level with the other lights. They loll across the room in midair, dim and blinding, through the mad gaudiness and controlled laughter and clink of chat. The costumes. Your value as a novelty ended a long time ago to these people—and it wasn't much, even if you touched their minds with Sylvan.
In the past you've played with whispering into other people's minds. Sometimes randomly, sometimes based on who looked most likely able to respond (or realize it was you). Once or twice you've even started a conversation this way. The first time you even made a friend.
He's looking at you now, from the other side of the room. You have practiced this gaze; you've been to a lot of the elite's parties together since you arrived in Overlook. With his head he gestures the balcony doorway.
When you waft outside back where there is gravity, he (Rieth) is leaning out into the night where hundreds of windows are ablaze. Everything true or discrete about the buildings is eliminated. Flakes of revel wash up to you. Rieth turns, stroking his face, saying, “So I've learned some interesting things. I'm glad we decided to come tonight, after all.” You chat for a bit. “...they're leaving tomorrow, you know [the soldiers]. That's what the beacon over the cathedral is lit for.
I'm also leaving. Not with them. ...To the elves, first of all. [Pause.] Some important things are going on there. I don't know if you were listening, earlier, but I met an elf who was here looking for someone. Which surprised me because I didn't think there was an elf in Overlook. Apparently he's visiting, but naturally that only made it harder to get a word alone...
We did talk, though, finally. A great deal. And he's invited me to come back with him, to the forest. You are right that we've had enough of this, the invitations, the new nobility. The yelling. So my question is whether you're going to come as well.”
Once more that cool level look he has developed or repurposed as a way of addressing the faceless.
“I'm guessing there won't be many books. I don't know how much that means to you. Elves are better than books I think. Too many libraries here and too many amanuenses. Doesn't it appall you how many mages stay in the cities like scribes?...”
Rieth sets the highly fashionable headpiece under his arm behind his crests and unties his tail. He leaps onto the stone railing and poises against the night, perfectly balanced. He looks absurd. Or maybe you have heterodox criteria.
This house is an ancient building but the owner and most guests are strapping-rich humans, dwarf-heterodox wealth newly piercing the city. The false gravity has ended or will shortly; the griffons are being brought out. It is late at night. You have a roof if you want it with Rieth, whose temporary apartment is on the western slope (middle-city). In day you have access to the Grand College's library, including a page-turning servant.
Your companion is a warlock who you know has a fey patron. He's told you about how his deal happened but that takes a while to tell. Notably, though, the Feywild (the bright reflection of the world from which fey and eladrin originate) has been cut off from the world for almost a lifetime. No contact, magic fails.