29th of Cylus 720
It was a quiet night in the Scholar’s Nook, or perhaps it was afternoon. It was becoming difficult for Lara to tell as Cylus wore on toward its ending. He sat in a cozy little corner, not far from the fire, to which there were a few others gathered. However they all had their noses stuck in their respective books, looking for all the world as if they wished to have nothing to do with him personally. He being, of course, Larza Impre, the human guise of Kalortah Satravial. It was a well kept secret of Kalortah, or so he thought, that he was the owner of not one but two transformation gems. Each with its own accompanying guise that varied wildly from the Avriel he truly was.
Where Kalortah favored pale colors and bold reds and blue colors in his clothing, Larza wore only woolen clothing of black and brown. He had no jewelry in this form, for Larza played the part of a humble Athartian human. His only concessions to having any sort of wealth to call on were the fact that his black wools weren’t dyed, which suggested they were sheared from the relatively rare black sheep. Kalortah couldn’t abide the smell of black dye, and it often caused him fits of sneezing. Larza was no less discerning when it came to that.
He sat on a plush sofa near the fire, wrapping his attention around a rather poorly made journal. It was Kalortah’s journal. In it, was contained the practice scratches of Kalortah’s attempts at penmanship. Avrielic script was elegant, beautiful and precise, and equally as difficult to master for all that. It’d been a while since Larza had occasion to practice his linguistic skills, but here he was. He was rather closed off in posture, however, not willing to let the others see what he was reading and writing in it. Upon the end table, an ink well and quill. But for now he made marks on his journal with graphite, saving the ink for when he was satisfied with what he was writing.
On it, a few choice phrases he’d caught people in Athart using, of Dehasin. He still wished to learn the language, although he had no intention of returning to Athart. A language as ubiquitous among slaves, however, might be a useful one to master, he reflected. If only to learn what those sneaky gutter mice were saying about him.
It was almost deliciously blasphemous, that he was making Dehasin phonetic marks with Avrielic script in Lorien. The strange marriage of the three languages, one written, the other two spoken, might’ve been sen as vile by some among the Avriel. But Kalortah… er… Larza, no longer cared what they thought. He once thought that way, that his people needed protecting or coddling, or uplifting. But such was not their way. They were strong, and would endure as long as the weakness was purged. So it would be with the flightless avriel.
The thought brought bitter feelings to the fore again as Larza pressed his graphite stick against the page, and it snapped. Cursing under his breath in Lorien, he shook his head and swept the dusting of graphite from the page gently, shaking it out.
Then, he set the graphite aside, and with a knife pulled from his belt began whittling it down to a sharpened point once more.
His materials left much to be desired, yet he soldiered on despite it all. It was his own journal afterall, that he’d bound himself in that workshop in Athart, so many arcs ago. Even though it was near without value, he couldn’t bring himself to buy the work of another. Call it vanity, he supposed with a small smirk.
