• Closed • A Curious Place (Part One)

[Llyr Llywelyn]

6th Break • 66th of Ymiden • Arc 720

W H O O O O O O O S H

Curtains slid aside, quick and without warning, and the beams of a rising sun flooded into the cold room where Saza Moshe had fallen asleep. Llyr threw aside the next set of curtains. He clapped his hands a few times, in loud sharp noises, and his halo flashed in bright light that seemed to echo off the painted walls of his temporary office.

It wasn't really an office, but an apartment that he'd converted... and by converted, that meant he'd thrown all his paperwork and books into boxes that filled the place from floor to ceiling while he gradually moved his records from Etzos to Viden, and required immense categorization of sensitive materials, which had been Saza's main task for the past several trials.

"Time to wake up, sleepyhead!" Llyr's wings fluttered behind him. He lifted off the ground in a darted motion before he gracefully landed in front of the other biqaj. He picked up a few loose papers away from whatever Saza had been working on. "You sure sleep a lot, don't you? Perhaps I ought to get you something to help with that..."

Llyr laughed, then, in a spirited manner. He shook his head, and flipped his long bangs aside, then fixed the cuffs of his bespoke jacket. His clothing suggested that he had business ahead of him, given that it was a perfectly tailored attire of a charcoal doublet suit. Most of the outfit covered his mutations, from the fitted gloves, to the high collar pinned with a silver crow-shaped brooch. His eyes sparkled in vibrant orange flecked with daffodil yellows.

"I require your assistance," he clarified while he strode around the room and picked up whatever papers seemed to have gotten separated from their stacks. Llyr thinly smiled when he found a book and opened it up with some interest. He spoke to the book, "...oh, here you've been!"

He snapped the book shut as quick as he'd found it, then used it to point over to Saza before he threw it aside without care where it landed. "Hurry on, Saza! Get your shoes and coat! We're wasting time! Bring your scribe kit, we have lots to do totrial. Lots and lots, yes, indeed, yes."

"Have you eaten?" he asked as well, then waved a hand in dismissal of his own question. "No time, no matter! Hunger strengthens the soul. Nothing like starvation to clear the mind! Why, I once didn't eat for sixty trials, or was it six..."

Llyr went to one of the desks, opened up the drawer, and then lifted an embellished silver mask to cover his face with. He peered through the eyeholes and asked, "What do you think? Mask? No mask?" between each repeated phrase, he placed the mask over his face or lowered it in quick peek-a-boo manner respectively. "Mask? No mask? Mask? No mask? Mask? No mask? Hurry, Saza, we don't have all morning! Which shall it be?"

[Saza Moshe]

6th Break ‣ 66th of Ymiden ‣ Arc 720

Shivering. He was shivering! He didn’t know if he’d ever shivered more in his life than he had since his recent arrival in Viden. Certainly not while he slept. Nashaki nights were dry and hot (barring the colder seasons when he did his best to find shelter inside), and the coat pulled over his tall, slender body could hardly compare to the warmth of his desert home.

Curled up in the office chair with his legs pulled to his chest, Saza slept with his face against his knees. From the state of the cold room, it looked as if he’d finally fallen asleep against his will rather than by any conscious choice. Papers were still spread across the desk, some finished, others only halfway filled out. A small stub – the remainder of a graphite stick – sat on the floor just in front of the chair, where it’d fallen from his hand. His fingers were smudged here and there with gray and black.

A sudden swooshing sound stirred him from his light, restless slumber. With a deep inhale, the tired biqaj lifted his head… and a small note paper, creased and smudged with ink, fell away from where it’d gotten stuck between his cheek and his knee. It left a faint imprint on his tanned skin, and with his eyes closed against the incoming sunlight, Saza lifted a hand to rub at his cheek.

“What’s… oh,” pushing his coat to the side, he moved his legs off of the chair and straightened up to look at the man that’d entered the room. As the etherist’s little flight landed him in front of the stirring blond, Saza blinked his bleary vision into focus.

“Morning, Mister Magpie.”

Did Llyr need his help with something already? It felt rather early to him, but then, he still hadn’t quite adjusted to the differences between his home and the frigid, northern city of Viden. It could’ve been late, for all he knew. Saza closed his eyes for a few trills and ran both of his hands through his hair, so that his fingers could comb through the wild curls. If Llyr needed him to do something, he could at least put in some effort to look presentable while he did it.

Once his hair was about as tamed as it could get (which wasn’t all that much), the youth opened his eyes again and pushed himself up and out of the office chair. Deep blue irises were sprinkled with gold as he glanced over the other, sharp-dressed biqaj, and the rich, metallic color only spread while he observed. Llyr was certainly in good spirits, or at least he seemed to be for now – Saza was glad for it, but he had to wonder what the etherist wanted so early.

“Shoes and coat, got it,” Saza turned around, thrown into motion after Llyr tossed a book and called for him. He would gladly put on his coat, even if it provided him relatively weak insulation in the chilly weather – and that he did, while his bright, golden eyes followed the mage’s movements around the sunlit office room.

He didn’t respond to the question on food. Llyr waved it off soon enough, but the curly-haired youth wouldn’t have known what to say either way. Saza didn’t have it in him to refuse the offering of food at any time, in truth, and he thought that it was best if it was simply not offered at all. Taking time to eat meant taking time away from work, and beyond that, he just didn’t want to say how long he’d really gone without food. He’d only gotten out of the use of his old nickname within the last arc, and he didn’t need any Viden-specific equivalents.

First shoe pulled on, Saza sat at the edge of the office chair and grabbed the second one next. He slipped it on quickly, and then made sure both shoes were fitted properly to his feet. Llyr’s voice dragged his golden gaze back to the well-dressed mage, and Saza inspected the mask from where he sat. “No mask,” he said it with confidence, as if it was the only proper answer to give.

The mask was nice, of course. It just didn’t appeal as much as its absence did. Saza glanced back to the desk and began gathering his things – his writing materials and other supplies, his journal – and all of it was tossed into his bag. He slung it over his shoulder, took one last look around the room to make sure he hadn’t left anything important, and then looked back to Llyr with the light indentations of a note still pressed into his cheek.

“What are we doing?” the assistant finally inquired, now that he could follow after the other blond if he decided not to wait any longer. With another glance over the etherist’s appearance, he added, “you look nice. Are we meeting with someone?”

[Llyr Llywelyn]

6th Break • 66th of Ymiden • Arc 720

"No mask, he says," chirped Llyr. He threw the mask into the drawer with theatrical flourish. With a bump of his slender hip, he shut the drawer. He ran his gloved fingers over his sharply defined cheekbones as if to rub his skin right off. With a shrug, as if in a disappointing failure to remove his actual face, he waved dismissively to nothing in particular. "Not that mask, anyway."

He snapped his fingers in a flurry of quick noises while he hurried Saza to gather the supplies faster. The playful nature revealed through his smile, though, that revealed a minimal hint of his teeth. For all the time they'd spent together, Llyr didn't often allow his teeth to show in such expressions. There was nothing seemingly wrong with them, but he rarely presented them.

Llyr went to the door in his quick, wide strides and opened the door with a mockery of a bow to Saza as if fulfilling the task of a butler for a lord. His orange-yellow eyes glittered while the orange color bled past his irises and bled into the otherwise white orbs of the elfin shapes. The mage's smile showed a little more of his teeth, the canines most prominent in an almost predatory hint of a grin.

"Why, thank you, Moshe," he replied to the meager compliment. "And yes, yes, meetings and seeing and finding and knowing! Pick up your feet, watch for ice, stretch your lovely fingers and warm up your wrists and neck."

Llyr left the apartment (with a swift locking) before he hurried down the apartment stairs with a skipped bounce in his step. His wings fluttered behind him, which sent light rays around the hall that bounced the rising sunlight in the narrow space. He gesticulated with twists and waves of both hands while he talked, "We are visiting properties today. I haven't had the pleasure in quite a while, and it is such an enjoyable thing but my, it takes up the breaks like nothing else. As such, we will be meeting with either the property owners or their representatives. I'll need you to jot down any observations of note, and will relay estimations of appraisal while we do so."

Once they reached the landing, he paused and took out a white dapper cloak from the satchel at his belt. He clasped it around his shoulders, then lifted the hood.

"Hmm... what color?" he inquired of Saza, then said, "Blue?"

With a snap of his fingers, the white of the cloak changed into a pale blue that contrasted against his orange ether-filled eyes. The orange bled outward around his thick lashes, in warm glow. The mage hummed, then said, "How about rose?"

The blue of the cloak switched to a pale dusty red instead.

"Saza-colored?" he inquired next. The rose-color transitioned in vibrant colors as the cloak turned wine-red with golden flecked patterns along the hemline. "No, no, wrong Saza."

The gold overtook until the metallic color shone over the entire cloak. Llyr flipped it in a sharp snap while he swiftly turned and opened the apartment door to leave the building. The icy cold of Viden wasn't as cold as usual. Nothing compared to Zi'da or Cylus, but not entirely warm either. Careful with his heeled boots against the frosted stone, he skipped down the front steps and onto the neat stone street. Llyr started in one direction, with only a momentary glance to make sure Saza had kept up with him.

"We'll start with the houses," he explained in a voice as chipper as the frosty morning mist that still clung to the ground areas of the lower-class neighborhood. "Please keep a listed record of the requested sale prices, the appraisal value which I will give you shortly after each visit, and the general size of the house."

"After that, we will eat if you must and then we will move onto possible locations for our headquarters," Llyr turned on heel, waited a moment to allow a carriage to roll past, then crossed the street to head down a different direction - away from tenements and toward a spattering of individual houses. "We can't keep you freezing in that little studio forever, now can we?"