usir | Mini-Event: Skywhale + Day of Lefkokó

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The Skywhale & Day of Lefkokó

🜙 The Skywhale

	After fierce retaliation and an increase in city-wide defensive power and measures, it seems as if the orc attacks have, at least for the moment, begun to subside. Along with the lessened threat of orc ambushes, the first storms of winter have died down to a gentle and occasional snow flurry, leaving the world peacefully blanketed in powder snow and a calm stillness. The City of the Free Peoples take this time to celebrate the final repairs of the airship, the Skywhale. With sail balloon once more filled and the engines working hard to keep the air within it warm, easier and safer travel is once more available. The Skywhale leaves once a day in the early morning to head for Didymos, and today is its maiden voyage since the repairs. Thalassa has changed greatly in the last century, blossoming into a massive port and military city, with resources and opportunities unavailable in the more eclectic Cty of the Free Peoples. Restless legs may find their chance to stretch to a new experience. Sail the skies aboard the Skywhale and see Thalassa's grand transformation to Didymos for yourself. Catch the voyage back before nightfall, or remain in Didymos until the ship's return the following day. There is plenty to see and do in the city by the sea. You can even see Logistykon's reef from aboard the Skywhale's deck as it swings around to dock. It is a grim but beautiful sight in the clear blue waters. While the threat of fire and orc ambush has diminished greatly, the City of the Free Peoples is filled with a sense of unease and discomfort as repairs on the city and attempts to put lives back together continue. Murmurs of discontent slip through the city streets, along with rumors that this is all Lykos' fault or accusations that the Captain might be hiding something. For every murmur of distrust, however, there are counters of the heroics and quick action that helped keep the city strong and beat the orcs back. There has still been no word from Krimnos or the airship, Valiant, that usually hails from the cliff city daily. Messengers have not made their wing from the city and those sent to the cliffs have not returned. It's not unusual for this time of year, but the absence is felt keenly by traveling merchants who need to get their wares to or from the city. A journey by horse or on foot would be risky, but the potential rewards for escorting a company up to the cliffs could prove significant.
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🜙 Day of Lefkokó

	No matter what city you find yourself in, the dawn of the 17th sees a change in mood and atmosphere across Idan. Snow has stopped falling and the sky is a bright, clear blue. The weather warms enough to cause water to drip softly from the icicles hanging off every awning and outcrop. Decorations of magical or crafted snowflake art and blue ice flames line city streets and building windows, and jovial merriment spills out into the streets. A sweet wine made from frostberries, warm honey-mead, and spiced apple drinks are offered in taverns, inns, and small shops or homes, a free offering to be had with sweet or spiced cheeses and spiced or candied nuts and fruits. It's a celebration that is far from unfamiliar, one that has been celebrated for centuries across Idan's towns and cities, though the methods and particulars of the celebration have always varied from place to place and people to people. December is the month of the White Raven, and in particular, this day is a day to honor him. Lefkokó, the deity of dance, freedom, madness, and cunning sits at the head of the cause of these festivities and his domains are the focus of the celebrations. Today is a day of dance, drinking, and games of skill and chance. A day to test your bluffing skills, show off, and take deep joy and pride in the liberties and opportunities available to all. Few work on this day, beyond the essentials, and everyone who is able to takes part in this moment of freedom and relaxed expectations or responsibilities. The cities are alive with music and dancing, and the taverns are a swirl of chaos amidst high stake games of cunning and chance. Clever minds clash over riddles, old and new, and as the day progresses a lack of sobriety becomes increasingly evident in the streets and establishments alike. As the sun reaches the highest point in the sky and the shadows dwindle to near nothingness, the aviaries of all three cities release the newest flock of rare juvenile snow ravens to their freedom, letting them take wing to the skies for their first ever flights. The flocks of snow ravens, the most coveted of magic familiars, fly off to the wildlands after practicing their acrobatic feats and visiting various areas of the city in search of food to give them energy for the journey ahead. Once they take their leave of the city, many begin to seek out hidden trinkets, magical herbs, and small, rare items across Idan with a precise and dedicated focus. Those who honor Lefkokó by celebrating in his name may be visited by his rare and clever emissaries later in the month with an offering of thanks from Lefkokó himself.
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🜙 A Warning.

	By the 18th the orc camp has been abandoned, the animals freed and the orcs, whatever was left of them, appear to have fled. Retreat is unusual, even more so for them to cut their creatures loose and flee without triumph or trophy, but this is something different. Many of the weapons, trinkets, and armors coveted by the warring orcs have been left behind, and the fires trampled and stamped out with apparent urgency. Tracks lead to the south a few miles and then vanish into snow in the direction of Lake Atéleio. It and the land south and west of it are consumed in a blizzard blown over from the sea, and tracking beyond that point becomes nearly impossible, though by this point it is assumed the Orcs have retreated to Spear Valley. Whether or not they will return is unclear. Those in the City of the Free Peoples on the 18th will receive another message, this one from a less mysterious source, addressing the coming dangers. Though the attacks have set preparations back a few weeks I would like to quell any worries. The Long Night approaches, but you are a city of strong, brave folk. The threats on the horizon will not be the end of this city any more than these raucous attacks have been. Supplies can be claimed from the defender's camp for any struggling to make the necessary preparations. Those who have lost their homes will be provided shelter and supplies. When the Long Night comes, keep your children indoors, your fires stoked, and your buildings shuttered. There is nothing to fear. Your defenders will keep you safe. -Captain Lykos Several hours later a second and then a third message is received across all kingdoms. It comes only to the couriers of the awakened. The first comes as an audio message: A dull scraping sound followed by the click and whine of metal dragging across stone and the dripping of thick, viscous liquid somewhere distant. It ends abruptly and a simple thought message, short and uncomfortable, follows it. silarclupes irom otnemem The message has no signature.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Then perhaps you ought to learn.

[ She gives Ellis a look, clear in what she means. If Alucard is to be paired with a wolf, a feral beast, no matter how intimate they might be, he ought to learn what they are like. Lauralae knows them intimately in a way that most people might not ever be able to experience: she had lived near wolves, had hunted in their lands, had avoided their chase of her own scent and dodged here and there to make sure she did not fall prey to them. She respects them, worships them, and if she could become one...

With wild magic and blood magic as close to mastered as she can do alone she knows what her next challenge is.

Breathing out, she relaxes a little, leaving her hands to rest gently in Ellis' fur. It is strange to feel a kind of kindship with someone of her race, someone she is older than - and she has never known a dhampir older than she is. She was the youngest in her Temple for a long time, until Myr was killed and she had fled. ]

She might teach you.

Inevitably. But perhaps also in due time.

[Because this is all about timing in the end, isn't it? Whatever godsforsaken task they have been dragged from the dirt for (and godsforsaken here is literal, no deity has tried to stop this absolute blasphemy), it is yet to be revealed. For now, there is getting the world under one's feet again, and that too is a question of time.

Catching up has been easy, for the most part. Cities change, their characters morph, but most things are familiar enough. The only question that remains is that of home and of legacy, and those are the only things Alucard's concerned with for the time being. Only after that should a new skillset be learned. (He will balance it with rebuilding. Recollecting looted books, stolen objects, the things that made home home. His parent's life work and his own.)

Ellis' response is to snore softly. She's out of this conversation now, her two stupid dhampirs can navigate everything without further nudging.]

The one thing that has become apparent to me is that so much of where we stand now is a question of just that.

I do not know if this is natural to this place or not.

[ There's a sound as someone across from them dances and sings and her head snaps up, sudden paranoia snapping at her heels. Her eyes flick here and there, desperately on edge and unsure, curling in on herself more like a startled animal than the elven woman she appears to be. Her eyes do not flash, at least, and she turns her head, longing for the hood to cover herself, to try and curl into the shadows and become nothing worth looking at.

Slowly, she turns to look at Alucard, letting her eyes drink him in. The two of them are more like night and day to look at them, opposites in appearance and the way they handle themselves. It must seem odd to anyone who might make note of them, for these two to be together, a wolf curled on their laps and a raven settled in her hair, wings shifting and flapping as he keeps watch for his mistress.

She is mine, his dark eyes seem to say, watching Alucard as much as he watches the room. ]

The world has always been strange like this to me. I cannot see if this is more unnatural as the world before I woke.

It is natural enough. What changes have happened are generally for the better - the ease of travel sticks out for me the most. [There's a smile on his face at that. Travel as men do. His mother's words, meant for his father and for himself. To travel as men do now is much easier.] It is progress in the best and most wonderful way. It too me weeks to get to places, and now, hours.

[He's not elaborated on his own past occupation, mostly because it betrays the extreme luck he had in who his parents were and how they viewed their son. He continues, the rest more considering.

When there are noises, Alucard doesn't react at all. None of it bothers him. And no one seems to be looking at them either, which is probably for the better based on the momentary reaction from Lauralae.]

Communication as well.

But the rest is...if not unchanged, then similar enough from all I've observed. Natural to cities. Some attitudes changed and more open, because there is always evolution over a century.

Travel was never easy. People are too quick, too clever, ready to draw weapons on anyone they see. The men of the world are nervous, scared of anything they do not know. I do not think they have changed much in that regard.

[ There's no point in talking about what men had done when they had seen her. It is bad enough that she can remember Aramas, the tenderness and the warmth and the softness before it had all gone wrong. It is why she is so distrustful now: men have done nothing but harm her so she isolates herself, to protect herself, to protect the world.

It's subtle, but she does twitch a little bit closer, a twist of anxiety inside her. Ellis protects her but there's no reason not to use the company of another person as a means to protect herself. ]

I cannot imagine it being so long. Time always moves so slowly, but it has been a blink.

[ Frowning, she tilts her head, glancing around. ]

It does not make it safer. For me. For us.

Of course none of that has changed, nor has the question of what is safe. But between complete isolation or accepting risks, I was raised to take the latter.

[He pauses at his own words. There's still so much grief about his family to get through, but...but he does feel that there is a point worth making here. Because yes, of course, the world is unsafe for dhampirs, but his mother's attitude was right. There was enough in the world to make it worth seeing.]

My father was a vampir in full. He saw the world because my mother asked him to, and if you think that the question of safety is an issue for us, well, there were greater struggles for him. Yet he always returned. Not entirely changed, but bettered for no longer holding himself apart.

Safety means different things to everyone. Some find war safe. Others think their homes with their wives are safe.

[ She cannot say she is a risk taker, other than living alone in isolation. She had been raised to become a priestess of some kind, to worship in the Temples, but that had been stolen from her. She had been severely ripped from her dreams of the future, but she still has her prayers to guide her. Nothing will take that from her at least.

Not even death, which is a bitter irony. ]

I did not know my parents. [ Her lips turn down, frowning, intent and sure. ] There are risk to vampir and dhampir alike. We will always struggle. I see no other future.

And your own definition?

[That's the only one that matters in this discussion. Alucard's not about to turn and look at her for the answer, it has a sense of putting someone already laying out vulnerabilities on the spot. Right now, what are they not if indulging that simple fact?]

That's a truth, but it is too simple of one. There must be other poles that help define a life.

Forests. Distance. Less... People.

[ She's incredibly twitchy, there's no denying that. She voices it because a question expects an answer as far as she's concerned even if he doesn't expect a reply or imagines her to think about it instead. Her fingers flex in fur, almost kneading, as if she's some sort of feline.

Closing her eyes, she breathes out gently, a hiss through her teeth. ]

What poles? What else is there?

Safer. But is that what you also want?

[It's an easy thing to understand why her definition is what it is. Easiest to return to old routines in all of this confusion (and isn't he doing the same?) Perhaps this is prodding too much. Perhaps not. He expects to be informed if he is.

Ellis shifts slightly in her sleep to all the movement in her fur, lets out a soft huff. Nothing more.]

Contentment. Exploration. Friendship. Satisfaction. A million more things besides. To achieve them is struggle, but the good kind. A good strife.

It is what I have always made for myself. What other desires can there be?

[ Lauralae would like to study, to learn, but she knows what she has done in the years of her life cannot be looked upon fondly. She had heard whispers of forbidden magic long before she had fled her temple and now... Now she is a master of it, in a way, and she cannot admit it to anyone. The gloves along her arms protect the scarring that might give her away and she is twitchy with her discomfort.

Slowly, she stares at Alucard, gazing at him. He is... More than she had thought when she had met him before. ]

I have never had friends. I do not know contentment. I do not know how to achieve those things.

Made by what forces? Forgive me if I presume necessity out of true desire.

[He's absolutely overstepping bounds. So be it.]

You learn those things by doing, and they cannot be done apart and isolated from the world. There are countless risks. You must decide if the new and the struggle is worth those things.

What forces are there? The world pushes us one way or another. I make what I can of it.

[ She's not offended. It takes rather a lot to imagine her to be offended by any commentary on her nature. ]

Is the world worth embracing if they still seek to kill me for things I cannot control?

You assert yourself. You control what you can. And then the rest is learned by both parties. It is an unspoken social contract.

[Perhaps this is all too lofty and too dramatic. Alucard is not a stranger to either accusation. But he cannot imagine anything worse than true isolation, and his elder has yet to run for the wilderness yet.

That says something.]

The last time I asserted myself I was killed.

[ Her eyes flick to him, staring, dark, intense. Lauralae had stood up for herself, her place in the world, her enjoyment of her own isolation, and all she had been given were manacles around her wrists and a discomfort that settled deep in her stomach, the knowledge that she might die.

Careful, she turns her head away, a touch morose. ]

I controlled myself. My future. That had been enough.

As was I.

[His circumstances were different. No chains or anything of the sort, just the red hot anger of someone trying to force him into a conflict that he had no love for. Someone dragging him from the legacy of his parents, someone forcing him into a death that he would never choose. Faced with that option, he embraced every ounce of rage inherited from his father, and tore whatever he could to blood red ribbons before the grave opened for him.

It was an unpleasant death. But it was better than the other options before him at the time.]

The future opens itself again.

And I am here.

[ Isn't it enough? She has not fled to the wilderness again, to bury herself in familiar dirt. She has not hidden herself away and demanded that she be left in peace to relearn her crafts and take note of the world again. She is here and she is petting a wolf while speaking to another of her kin and even that feels more dangerous than many things she had done in her life. Openness is not natural to her, and Lauralae is learning to adjust her expectations of what she might expect here now.

She shakes her head, eyes closing. ]

I do not know what path it is I am expected to take. This feels beyond my control.

Not only here, but have remained as such. I would say that is control.

[There will never be enough. But that isn't the point. The point is ownership of where one stands, and how the world must accept that fact. In this case, it is such a tiny step, but from what Alucard can gather, that shall simply be the pace.]

You've made plenty of decisions about the world already. You should reevaluate with that in mind.

Where else might I go?

[ When her soul and her body are directing her rather than her mind what choice does she truly have? Rav'ahm makes a noise in her hair, wings fluttering a little before he nudges at her head, and she frowns. She seems sour, somehow, and far younger than her ninety years might suggest.

Isolation has left her with many childlike mannerisms, it seems. ]

Perhaps. I might try.

Where would you have liked to have gone before?

[That's probably a question with a broad answer. Better that than Alucard trying to actually make a suggestion. He knows absolutely nothing else about the fellow dhampir beside him, save for what has already been revealed. To recommend x, z, or z is impossible.]

Somewhere to learn. To grow things.

[ It is a nameless place, something that doesn't mean anything to her at all in the long run. Somewhere where she might be able to live in peace - but what place could that be? She cannot picture it or pick a name in her mind. ]

That is....very broad.

[Expected. But it is a place to start.]

No one has asked me such a thing before.

[ And she seems rather petulant about the idea. ]

[That in and of itself is both upsetting and unsurprising. However, there is something that sticks in Alucard's mind as he considers this information. To grow things.]

I recall, some time ago, I encountered a temple complex with a series of greenhouses, which enabled the growth of plants that need constant warmth regardless of season.

A temple...

[ That makes her pause. She had a home there once, but trying to remember it fondly comes with some difficulty. ]

An owned temple? To who?

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