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Goodfellow · **04-13-2014, 11:27 PM**

Her apparent earnestness made great strides toward endearing her to him, but he endeavored to remain cautious.Â He worried about sending her for more information; that would be one more person who knew more than he cared to be known, but if she was who she said she was and wanted what she said that she wanted, then she understood.Â She was a thief, a criminal, she had done harm and she wished to undo that part of herself, she had said.Â If that was true, then she would understand, even if she learned more about him.

"Yes, try your best.Â I want to know where he heard whatever it is that he thinks he heard about me.Â Nasty rumors like that can confuse people, hurt people.Â But now--" he eyed her swishing tail and the edges of his mouth betrayed the makings of a smile, "--now we talk about you.Â Have you ever exhibited any magical talent?Â As I recall, you said you can't read well.Â How well are you able to read?Â Can you draw basic shapes?"

Zhavi · **04-14-2014, 01:55 PM**

Uncomfortable. Zhi's emotions kept swinging from extreme to extreme, laced with irony and a waffling sense of bemusement. She'd nodded along to his requests, forcing enthusiasm that she'd only ever shown sarcastically, but found herself pausing when he asked her to speak of herself. The line between Joz and Zhavi blurred as she answered. "Mebbe, I ain't real familiar wi'magic, sir, so I can't say wi'any know-how. I can't read much, jes' real simple stuff, know most o'me alphabet, but I ain't done much aside from doodlin' in the dirt. Weren't no need fer it."

Her tail slowed and her eyes slid away from Lalataru: enthusiasm replaced with regret.

Goodfellow · **04-14-2014, 05:56 PM**

Lolo raised an eyebrow.Â "How much is 'most' of the alphabet, precisely?"

Zhavi · **04-14-2014, 06:13 PM**

"Uh. . .all but a few of me letters?" Zhi offered up a sickly smile.

Goodfellow · **04-14-2014, 11:20 PM**

"Hm...that complicates matters," mused Lolotaru, rubbing his chin.Â "We need light," he added matter-of-factually.Â He upturned his hand and wave in towards himself and Ben halted his survey of the perimeter and skipped excitedly back to Lolo's side.Â Lolo nodded forward with his head and Ben hopped upon the raised edge of the platform before him.Â Lolotaru pulled notepad from the right pocket of his robe and set to drawing on the paper by the light of the carbuncle.Â He traced a series of independent lines along with a simple symbol composed of those same lines.

"This is a very basic geometry for Ruin, an early arcanist's skill.Â Examine it, retrace it, modify it in whatever way seems natural, according to how the symbol feels to you."Â He made to tear off the sheet, but stopped himself, folding it closed and handing her the whole notepad.Â "We'll see if you've any latent skill for arcanima.Â Bring it back to me with the name of the hairy-faced sailor and we'll continue from there."

He turned to go, Ben following at his heels.Â "Oh, and Miss Joz," facing her again, "do be careful.Â Don't draw any unnecessary attention to yourself.Â Or to me."Â He turned back and continued into the Wench and back to his room at the Mizzenmast.

Zhavi · **04-15-2014, 03:01 PM**

Zhi was slack-jawed as she watched Lalataru go, the notepad clutched tight in one hand. The expression was not constructed. She'd been thoroughly flummoxed by the man, by her mistakes, by the fact that he'd just handed her some work to do, and that she might fail that work through no lack of effort on her own. The triumph of success and the bitterness of defeat: her quickly beating heart would not wholly make up for the sour taste in her mouth. She was left standing on the bridge, alone, as he disappeared from view. Only the ancient stone of the city, the water and the stars were there for company, and they left her to her struggles. She stood there for a long time: a silhouette in the darkness, outlined by the moon's faint light.

___________

Someone knocked.

Zhi looked up from her idle pursuit of repeatedly-stab-the-table-in-frustration, and then around at the small space she presently lay claim to. Bed, table, two chairs, door, explosion of poorly maintained clothing used for various disguises for various jobs, leftover food, mouse slowly creeping towards leftover food. She frowned at the mouse. "What," she said, too pissy to inflect the word as a question.

"'Sme." The door made a rattling noise, almost as if it would fall to pieces should someone lean on it. "Unbar th'door."

The mouse fled. Zhi nearly took off after it. Killing it would be stress relief. She stared at where it'd disappeared, fighting the instinct and the urge; how much dignity did she even have left at this point? She opened her mouth and inhaled, dragging air over the glands in the roof of her mouth. It smelled tasty.

"Zhio?"

She got up and let Brindle into the room. He looked around and whistled, a cocky grin plastered on his face as he looked back at her. Without even acknowledging him, she resumed her seat at the table, and returned to scarring its imperfect surface with her knife. The silence became oppressive. Brindle awkwardly took the seat opposite her, and folded his arms on the table. His eyes grew wide as he watched her, but he knew better than to speak.

Finally, she exploded. "That self-ruttin' dog set me up!"
"That why ye bit it?"

His smile was as innocent as her glare was venomous.

"Shut it, scrag. Lalataru?"
"Jes some drab what works at th'Gate. Oo set ye up?"
"Galleon," Zhi growled the name. Small chunks of wood splintered off from the table as she worked her knife back and forth. "Right craven bastard he is, too, hirin' me on an' then -- ye know what he did? I was thinkin' on it, thinkin' how I missed me step, an' it came from him! He gave me the blimmin' crumb what set me on th'trail."

Brindle considered this. "'Ow ye know it was a-purpose?"
"Hear nothin' 'bout that book Lalataru carries?"
"Not solid."

Zhi slapped the table with her free hand. "Right so, an' yet this bastard wants it? Not for no reason he don't, not fer what he's payin'."
"Ain't his fault y'didn't check thrice."

It was the truth in Brindle's words that made Zhi bristle. She started stabbing the table again, the thunks of metal hitting wood forming a counter-rhythm to her words. "Lalataru wants th'name o' me source."
"So?"
"Thinkin' might be time t'cut loose."

Brindle stared at her for a tense few seconds, then he broke down into giggles. "Even th'mighty Zhio takes a turn at bein' craven, is't?"
"I aint craven."
"Yeah? Prove it."

___________

Zhi lived for challenge. That was truth. Zhi lived to stay living. Also truth. At the point the two truths met was where she often found herself, hanging out over the edge and staring death down. That was how she lived. But there was something about Lalataru, about her employer Galleon, about the mess of a job that felt twisted. Something was off between the three, something she couldn't pinpoint, and that took her off course more than she cared to admit. Though she'd set Brindle out on his ear the night before after grilling him for all pertinent information, his words had stuck between her ears. Piss on what people said, but he had set her a challenge. He'd given her something to prove. He was just a dumb kid with a flapping tongue what didn't know when to stop, but he'd made his point. She'd been about to back off from a challenge. A challenge that stood to make her a lot of money.

Greed and her stupid sense of pride won out. She tracked down the woman she'd gotten the information on Lalataru from (short hair, petite, not anything like what she'd told Lalataru). At first she pressed the woman for more information on Lalataru, and was laughed at: "I give you word that the mite has a rotten past chummy with rats for a handful of gil, and you think you can afford the rest?"

As it turned out, she couldn't. Though, truthfully, Zhi couldn't tell if the woman even knew more, or was just putting her on.

"Ye know Galleon, then?" Zhi was grinning at the woman for all she was worth, her fangs on prominent display.
"Don't you just have the most interestin' names on the tip of your tongue. Careful you don't bite it off, dovey."
"He tell ya I was comin'?"
"As it happens, I'll be shippin' out tomorrow. Give your dear little friend my regards, hm?"
"Oh, really? Huh. 'Cause I thinks yer in it deep wi'Galleon, an' holdin' out on me. Whatsit, got his cock so far down yer throat y'can't talk?"

The woman laughed at her, again. The sound was too big for her small frame. Zhi weathered it, beaming at the woman like they were close friends sharing some stupid joke.

"We all have our errands to run, don't we? Best stick to it lest your attempts at cleverness see you caught out."

The conversation went nowhere from there, and Zhi was finally forced to admit defeat. The whole situation baffled her. Something was going on, something that had to do with Lalataru and that book of his, something that her employer and his rutting lapdog didn't want her to know. It made her uneasy. If there was more to the situation then she had been let in on, fine -- but it was seeming more and more like she was some throwaway piece in the game being played. Get the book, she'd been told. You'll probably have to get on Lolotaru's good side; it's not something easily snatched from him. You'll need information on him for that, so if you go to the lower decks. . .

She'd been lead along like a puppy on a string, and it pissed her off. She'd followed the information and hadn't given it a second thought. Why? What was with the runaround? Did they want Lalataru chasing phantoms?

No, Zhi didn't like the rutting mess at all.

_________

Two days had passed before Zhi shadowed the entrance to the Arcanists' Guild again, notebook in hand and clothing unchanged since he'd last seen her. She was curled up in the corner again, watching people walk by as she waited for Lalataru.

Goodfellow · **04-15-2014, 05:37 PM**

The day after meeting Joz, Lolotaru almost didn't return to the Guild.Â He debated returning to Wineport, laying low in the country.Â But his curiosity was piqued.Â He needed to know what was being said about him and he could best control the situation from nearby.Â Reconciled with the fact that there was no satisfactory course of action to be taken just yet, he went to the Guild.Â He breathed a small sigh of relief to see that Joz was not there, then entered and lost himself in his notes and books.

By the time he left late that evening he was almost disappointed not to have encountered her.Â It was hardly orthodox, but the ways of the Arcanists' Guild, while official, were newer than those of the thaumaturges and conjurers; writ less in stone, more flexible.Â If he decided to take an apprentice, he could reconcile it with the system.Â If it became problematic, there would be paperwork to do; a semi-official recognition sanctioned by the Guild itself.Â Nothing insurmountable.Â Nothing to bar the Thaliak-given right to learning and education.Â He began to look forward to their lessons, frustratingly basic though they may be at the start, and wondered if he wasn't still a fool for it.

The following day was much the same.Â The sharp edges of his feelings eroded somewhat and he spent the whole of it again in his books.Â And in the book, tracing its sand-yellow pages, his eyes following the dancing script that so entranced him, despite his complete and utter lack of understanding.Â Nothing calmed him so much as the presence of his book.Â Nothing so excited his mind with the imagination of possibility.Â And yet, nothing frustrated him quite so much as its perpetually impenetrable mysteries.

He had allowed him to become so distracted, so detached from the events of two days prior that when he saw Joz there, waiting for him just as she had been before, he was shocked and taken aback all over again.Â Well, at least it wasn't quite so hot today.

"Good morning, Miss Joz," he said.Â And waited.

Zhavi · **04-16-2014, 11:42 AM**

A grin was Lalataru's first response. Zhi got to her feet, clutching the notebook a little tighter as she looked down upon the shorter man. "Fair winds, Master Lolotaru," she replied. She was fidgety, looking at him and then away, sideways or down at her feet. Her posture was a careful work of art; her indrawn shoulders and lowered head brandished 'don't look at me!' even before one could look at her ears or tail. She was not one well used to honest conversations.

Abruptly, she bent and proffered the notebook to Lalataru. "I done as ye asked, sir. But. . . I couldn't find th'man again. I-I'll keep a lookout, fer true!"

The matter of the notebook had been the uppermost sour note in the past two days for Zhi. In between her fruitless attempts to gather more information that would benefit her own tenuous position, she'd found herself stone-sober as she labored over the damn thing, drawing runes and trying to make sense of why it was even necessary. She didn't know what 'latent skill' meant, but she hoped for her own sake she harbored something, because she couldn't allow the farce to end. She always could beg for general education, she supposed, or to become an assistant. Anything to further the cause.

Goodfellow · **04-17-2014, 02:47 PM**

Lolotaru took the notebook from her outstretched hand and began to skim through its contents as he spoke to her.

"Hm...that's too bad.Â If you don't see him soon, we may have to be more proactive in our search."

His eyes traced the lines and designs scrawled across the pages.Â She had little enough experience, sure enough, and any creative flourishes of her own were sorely lacking, but that was to be expected on the first of such assignments.Â The students first inclination is to parrot and not innovate, a tendency which left unchecked will lead the neophyte not so far into arcanima at all.Â Still, his own successes had hardly been immediate or his talents readily apparent.Â And despite her experience with ink and parchment, she was clearly a careful and accomplished mimic.Â After the first few tries, he could find hardly any variation in her reproductions of the symbols he had drawn for her.Â It's a start.

He looked up over the edge of the notebook at Joz.Â "And what did you feel?Â Tracing these, I mean."

Zhavi · **04-20-2014, 04:06 AM**

There were many unflattering things Zhi had been called on account of her typically bad attitude. All of the reasons for those monikers lay at the forefront of her mind as Lalataru looked at her from over the top of the notebook. Restraint was somehow very difficult in that moment. Resentment curdled deep in her gut.

"Umm," she said, because she suspected there was a right answer and she had no idea what it was supposed to be. "I felt right calm, I guess?"

Bored. She'd felt bored. Bored, and frustrated, and resentful. But it hadn't been hard, at least, and that was one small favor out of a heap of shite she'd gone through the past two days.

Goodfellow · **04-20-2014, 09:19 PM**

"Er...hm..yes," he began.Â Calm?, he wondered to himself as he allowed the notebook to fall to his side.Â She was reaching.Â He continued, "I apologize, Miss Joz.Â I was unclear.Â 'Calm' is how you felt.Â I want to know what you felt while working on the designs."

And again he waited.

Zhavi · **04-21-2014, 12:18 PM**

Zhi almost glared at him. She stared at the ground instead. Clearly Lalataru was a little bit loose between the ears, which left her in the lurch. Gamble with a madman, or stick to the truth? If he found out she was lying, well, she'd already found out that hard way that toying with him wasn't too smart. "Nothin'. . .special, I don't think," she said slowly. "It was jes. . .lines, an' they done what I asked 'em."

Goodfellow · **04-21-2014, 05:32 PM**

Lolotaru frowned.Â He felt like a fool.Â He had aspirations of teaching one day, perhaps at that very guild, and yet he was failing miserably in anticipating the needs and frustrations of his first student.Â He had enjoyed tutors and professors throughout his life and, what's more, was a skilled autodidact; he had not had to think about how others might learn.

He softened his countenance and responded.Â "The lines did what you asked of them, yes.Â The problem is that you asked so little of them.Â I've done a poor job explaining.Â Come."Â He turned and beckoned her after him with his hand, entering the guild and descending the stairs into the room where they had concluded so abruptly their tense first meeting only days before.

Zhavi · **04-21-2014, 07:03 PM**

Zhi followed Lalataru, meek as you please. Her re-entrance into the Gate brought with it sweaty palms and an instant jump in pulse; she'd expected the need to go back in, but couldn't claim immunity to the strange moments that had passed between herself and the lalafel when they'd been alone. Oh, sure, she'd people who'd wanted to kill her before, but the set she floated between were typically more straightforward with their threats and intentions. Lalataru was strangely opaque to her, as if there was something else lurking behind the scholarly facade -- something that would eat her for a snack and not think twice of it. It was as frightening as it was thrilling, and she ought to have conspired to avoid being alone with him until she'd had more interactions with him. And there it was again, the ought to that spoke of common sense.

As she neared the bottom of the stairs, the silence and memories got to her tongue before she could pinch it down between her teeth. "What was I sposed t'have felt, Master Lolotaru? An' whaddya mean, I asked too little?"

Curiosity, and all that.

Goodfellow · **04-22-2014, 01:35 PM**

"I mean that you only asked the lines to be straight."Â He raised the notebook and painstakingly drew a reproduction of the same symbol he had given her.Â He finished and looked up at her, turning the page toward her to show her.Â "You see, I reproduced the symbol perfectly, but with only that intention.Â Now, watch again," he muttered as he turned towards an empty, bruised looking patch of wall across the room.Â He once again drew the symbol's basic form, tracing the lines just as he saw them, carefully aping the angles exactly.Â As he finished, he quickly turned the book toward the spot on the wall before him and a small bolt of distorted energy leaped forth, crossing the room and striking the wall before bursting and dissipating.Â He looked back at Joz.

"That time, I held the design in my mind as I traced it with the intention of drawing my own aether out through it.Â But it was weak and difficult.Â Unwieldy.Â Watch once more.Â This time, I will use the design as a general outline, but allow my own awareness of the internal flow of my aether to direct the subtle differences I will add to the original design.Â It will be my own, ultimately, based on the skeleton of the one I drew for you, and it will respond to me in a much more efficient and powerful way."

He again turned to the wall and put pen to paper.Â Now, he allowed the tug and pull of the flow of the aether to influence the curves and angles he drew; he added tiny embellishments and personal touches.Â With a practiced comfort, he completed one final flourish and again pushed the notebook out before him.Â A bolt of Ruin burst out and flew across the room, smashing powerfully against the wall and leaving a great smoking blackness hissing against the magically reinforced bricks.

"You see?"

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