Elysia

Crawling into this thread even though I haven't actually played that many non-SE games *shamefaced* I grew up with FF, so it was only 'natural' that I moved on to KH, Seiken Densetsu, TWEWY (it was really fun to play this game and then finally get to visit Tokyo to see Shibuya for yourself), but I think Legend of Mana deserves a special mention. It is still one of the most charming and enigmatic games I have ever played, and I still return to it every now and then. I have also played some Suikoden (Tierkreis, got almost all 100+ characters before my game file died forever), Ace Attorney installments, and also D3 and LotRO extensively. (I've not logged into either of the last two since FFXIV: ARR happened in my life...) And finally, the button-mashing fanservicing goodness that is all of the Marvel vs Capcom installments. 8-)

While Avis won't be applying for a position (she'd be hopeless at waitressing or singing, and she knows it), I'm jumping in to say that the tea menu looks amazing (and "pearls", are those what I think they are ). My character and I both love tea, so this establishment sounds like it'd be a neat new hangout spot for Avis once it opens.

Avis's face was wearing a very curious expression indeed. She was amused, yet perplexed, by his rather disproportionate response to her question, and - was she flushing? This, frankly, was exasperating. She certainly enjoyed having her expectations overturned by Xavarian, but she wasn't sure whether she appreciated the duskwight's ability to break her composure, as few could, with his terrifyingly disarming bouts of honesty. Or affection, since it'd started, if that was what it was. He didn't even intend any form of flattery, he meant merely to clarify, rectify, provide Information as was required, or so she felt she had come to realize. But there it was. Her features were strangely contorted, as if they couldn't decide on the form they wanted to take - mouth open in a half-smile, one eyebrow raised, and if one took care to notice, subtly reddened cheeks. Of course his touch, too, had something to do with this. (How did self-disparaging even come into this?) It took a long moment for her to find the words to respond to him. She decided to make a concerted effort to speak at a lower volume. "Well, your condition... certainly is both boon and bane for 'Above'. You're sound-sensitive and light-sensitive, how difficult I imagine it must be, to have to deal with the..." Avis hit upon a memory just then, and her mouth abruptly widened into a wicked grin as she quoted his words from one of their previous meetings - "...the shining shards of who I am." She'd almost broken into laughter again, and had to fight to keep it down, so that her words came out breathless. "But I will... I will take note of this... issue." He still hadn't taken the towel, so she thrust it into his hands. "And now you should go - I'll take the letter as a comparable substitute for your company. Admittedly it does have its advantages. I have no worry of dealing hearing damage to ear-less paper," she commented wryly. "I suppose we will meet again... soon enough."

She'd been watching him intently, as she always did, more so than with others; most people Avis found interesting were likely to be the recipients of her unabashedly upfront gaze. So the attention she paid to Xavarian and his strange aetheric manifestations - such a curiosity he was - would have disconcerted many should such scrutiny be turned on them. So she didn't miss the wince that blinked itself across his face, or even the briefest of dips in temperature. Still, it didn't quite click yet; she supposed something else altogether - though not entirely inaccurate - and gave a little 'tsk', smirking. The hand that grasped his elbow gave it a little shake and squeeze. "Oh, you're ridiculous. Don't you start being self-disparaging on me - I have no patience for that. If I hadn't figured that my current top source of merriment wouldn't last the next few minutes, I'd have made you stay and brave the sun's scowls. With me." She patted his arm. "And once you're fully awake, we can even the score, and be as equal as we want to be." Another challenge. "One moment," she added to him, then slid back into her room. The door was ajar, as careless as its owner, and if Xavarian were to peek or even wander a few steps in, Avis wouldn't have stopped him. Her room was spare, save for the paper sprawl on her desk, and devoid of most material possessions. The garish cover of Taking the Thief would have been the only decorative detail in the room. She went to the old, peeling chest that the Inn supplied and rummaged within. Most of her clothes lay tucked away in there, and she rarely gave much care to how they were arranged or folded til she had to wear them. The same could not be said of a thick towel of a rich dark hue and a rather expensive bearing, however, which she had carefully washed, dried and folded separately from the rest of the mess in the chest. She took this out now, giving it a couple of curious sniffs; the recent washing it'd undergone hadn't dispelled the subtle earthy, yet pleasant, smell it had to it. It smelt, indeed, of a different world altogether. It was then that she made the connection. He'd said as much about his sense of hearing. He'd also made that face on at least one or two other occasions, though she never perceived its reasons til now. She hurried out of the room with this epiphany and the large towel bundled in her arms. "Am I too loud, Xavarian? Do I hurt your ears? Do I?" She was looking both amused and actually apologetic, for once; then, as she held out the towel to him, she gave a smile, a soft, warm one that spoke of that secret meeting they'd shared.

Again, those curious little sparks of his which had made the not-unwelcome decision to roam onto her hands. She followed them again with an amused interest, but then Xavarian began making a complete mess of his somnolent self, and that had all her attention. She had to pull a hand from his to cover her mouth as he spoke, but when his 'wandering herds' struck she could not contain herself, giving up an odd, sharp yelp of laughter. Certainly that caused, in the distance, another passing resident's head to turn. Activity was picking up in the Inn. "Wandering herds. Wonderful. I will never look at another La Noscean buffalo buffoon without imagining you - your, your, spu-sputtering - dribs - dribs and d-drabs, of speech, speeches, thoughts, figments, figs, green and sparkling figs~" Again, she contrived to mimick him, though with rather questionable success. "I wonder what strange sort of animal, vegetable or mineral you'd assign to mine were you not half-asleep. It seems to me a delightful experiment to conduct, to compare the quality of your metaphors before and after rest. Though sleep deprivation would certainly raise some ethical issues." She grinned, wondering if he remembered this half-serious aspect of their first conversation those weeks ago. But now she loosed her other hand, and made to turn him around, to steer him in the opposite direction from her doorway. "You should probably go and be a dead, deaf, dark lump in your own room before I... change my mind. And - ah..." As her fingers caught his elbow, she seemed to remember something. "I've got something to return to you, yes~"

Avis had an eyebrow arched through Xavarian's words; verbally he could be abstruse and somewhat harder to follow, especially if he spoke in pieces. Still she understood well enough, especially as he complemented his words with a literal reduction of the distance between them. He was learning, this duskwight. And at the end of his rhymes Avis gave a soft laugh - he'd completely put her earlier one to shame. She took his cue - if a cue it was, one could never be quite certain with Xavarian - and crossed the last few steps to him with scant regard for whoever happened to be watching the odd pair. Smirking up at him, she took his right hand in both of hers, a smooth, natural movement with no trace of tentativeness. "Careful," she said in a low voice, returning the earlier 'gesture' and running her thumb across his palm lines meaningfully, "reading between the lines, or out of the margins can be dangerous. Words and actions can fall out of their proper places. Though I suppose we're no longer strangers to that in the light of 'new shores'... We have been very dangerous, and I dare say, creative." There was, of course, no cautionary note in her voice, only a low tremor of excitement. She'd also seen his eyes close in fatigue for a moment, so she continued, "But you seem hardly awake enough for challenges, even if your mind's sharp enough to make rhymes. Or tangled enough - I will never know which does it. I can be merciful, and have you begin your inevitable perusal of daylight with me another time when we are both physically and intellectually capable of them." She knew exactly what she was saying; a note of mischief had slid back into her tone. For the time being she was content to observe him, and to be amused by the usual mess he made of his appearance. She had missed him, after all.

Now she was smiling like a girl in the height of her adolescence again, glad once more for the language only they shared, no matter how brief this current correspondence lasted. Avis moved slightly more into view and leaned against the door post without stepping completely into the hallway; she was dressed in very simple garb suited for the confines of a room lived in alone, and was only just barely modest. "Rules?" She gave a little chuckle, though her tone, while teasing, was as quiet as his. "I have little respect for rules... except, perhaps, some grammatical ones. I would not have expected you to be a stickler for them, Xavarian, even your rhymes have an irregularity to them at times. And yet," she added, her mind pleasantly sharpened by the fruits of her 'organization' just a minute before, "rules are certainly intriguing creatures to bend, seduce, or play with. If Worlds should meet eventually, I say let them - there'll always be a corner of it we keep unknowable, bounded simply by, well, rules that make the core of us, us." She folded her arms, watching his reaction, noting his weariness. She wouldn't keep him if he had to leave.

The trip to Jig's university, followed by an unexpected meeting with one of his mercenary proteges who seemed to enjoy nicknaming herself, fuelled much of Avis's rumination upon her return. So much so that she was up even earlier than usual the next day, sitting and poring over notes, papers, reports, diagrams wearing a look of utmost concentration. She had been contemplating an academic lifestyle, the implications of an "official" position, and the institution's proximity to Ul'dah, all of which had led her to acknowledge the quantity of work she had been neglecting for a time. Avis was fond of supposing that she had an innate ability to grasp concepts, make wild connections and pluck strange ideas out of the air. She fancied her mind as an unruly thicket that only she knew, that she could call up any file, label, memory, or figment of her imagination as and when she wanted it, no matter how lost it might seem. So she perceived the act of organization as a chore, though she conceded its necessity once in a while. Indeed, "once in a while" the amount of backlogged material and documents she owed the Professor ambushed her at inopportune moments like a forgotten monster under the bed, and she then found herself remembering dates and deadlines in a fluster and, scrambled, days too late, to the task. Despite her sheer dread of "organizing", however, she always enjoyed the effects of the mental exercise once it was done. Things took their place better in her mind then. Words too. Dawn thus found her absorbed in such work, for which she made generous use of Xavarian's paper. The room was quiet save for the scratch of her quill against documents, and so she noticed immediately the tiniest of thuds on her door and the letter's emergence under it. Avis was never good at repelling distractions (unless she was absorbed in a novel), and this particular distraction, of course, was very welcome. She leapt from her seat instantly for the letter and picked it up, faintly registering that the letter seemed significantly wordier than she'd come to expect of him, before unlocking her door and poking her head out for a glimpse of the departing duskwight. She was grinning as she tossed her drawls at the dark, retreating figure down the corridor, paying no heed to the one or two curious stares she attracted from miscellaneous residents leaving or re-entering their rooms. "The fell lord of the underworld is up late," Avis called, then followed that up immediately with a passable affectation of his characteristic lilt, "Is he so fraught with missing that he'd risk celestial blinding?"

Xavarian's pre-slumber rhyme hadn't helped, or perhaps it should have been uttered again before they'd parted ways inside the inn. For in the morning Avis found herself dragged into consciousness by the abrupt cessation of yet another dream of Ul'dah. It hadn't been an especially unpleasant or vivid dream - indeed, she could recall little about it almost moments after, as she sat up in bed and rubbed sleep out of her eyes; it was simply the sort in which one pursued the fleeing visions endlessly, wondering what the hell happened, who did what, and why - why - why this need to remember. Something old, once again. Something from a very young age that she once loved. Though she could not put into any concrete detail what this memory was, its scent lingered. She rose sluggishly, sliding out from beneath the sheets only to find that a mildly alarming quantity of sand lay in her bed. Brow furrowed, Avis brushed them absently onto the floor, pulling salt-stiffened hair out of her face with her other hand. Another part of her mind began fighting for dominion over the one lost in the fruitless search for old things. Her lips curved into a half smile, she looked instinctively towards the door and - There they were. Letters. She picked them up carefully from where they lay, brushing any dirt or sand that lay on them off, and padded back excitedly to her bed with the two precious items. She drew her feet up to her chest as she read, back against the wall, and in so doing restored more specks of sand to their undesirable occupation of her sheets. Mirth and amusement lit up her features as she read them both. He had fallen hard - though, in truth, so had she, perhaps. She'd needed little persuasion towards the end, though Xavarian had intended none of it, probably did not anticipate or realize the effects of his words on her. In a span of conversations they had tumbled into Something, she knew not what it was, only it wasn't exactly the torrid passion she was used to feeling, it was a wry, quieter fondness whose strength she could not yet discern. Then she found a Word in the letter, and it all came back to her. [align=center]***[/align] A bath and some perfunctory sweeping of all the sand into a corner of the room later, Avis found her mind clear enough to write. There was a good deal of hesitation towards the end of her letter, and her quill hovered above the paper (Xavarian's, of course) for a few long minutes as she considered briefly the implications of being accountable. But she wrote it in anyway with a smile. When she locked her room and strode down the hallway to Xavarian's room, she was fully decked out for a journey - well, as fully decked out as was usual for Avis, of course, she always travelled light. Grimoire, notebook, money, water, gemstone. Check. She was dressed in the long ink blue ensemble that she'd received a few compliments on, the only one that carried any indication that she might, after all, have the aesthetic inclinations of the gentry. Before she slid the letter under his door, she touched it to her lips without self-consciousness, a hidden message that even Xavarian would not be able to find. Then she left, and if any regret for their misaligned hours existed, it was not to be clearly gleaned from the odd tune she hummed under her breath.

I... teach. I suppose this gives a pretty good idea of what I go through most days: I live on the other side of the world (and therefore am 'bored at work' when most of you are resting), it's almost midnight right now, and I switch screens periodically between FFXIV and my Internet browser to source for 1200-word long articles to torture my students with for their mid-year examinations. I also have to contend with kids who write things like this:

Jumping in on this because, hey, this is one of the few areas I can actually offer my assistance in! :3 My main, Avis, is stuck in the mid 40s but I have a low level THM (16? 18?) and CNJ that I intend to develop. If you are ever online on EST mornings, and I am actually miraculously online, I'd be happy to help as well.

Avis had found herself frowning slightly in the direction of a bookshelf (for here the bookshelves never managed to keep out of your way) after Xavarian left, in his usual bustle of robes and papers. She'd managed to break out of it after a moment or two, returning to the tiny chair in which she'd dozed and been caught dozing (again), and turning a page or two of lengthy descriptions of amorous caresses before she realized she wasn't really focusing anymore. She had lost the reading thread somewhere along the way, and knew it would not return for some time. So she rose and went to the bookstore attendant, sliding that drool-marked copy of U'naanza Jhin's Taking the Thief across the counter. The novel fetched a hefty price, which Avis winced at, but it would not do, in vain she had struggled, her feelings could not be repressed, it had been her favorite book from the age of nine... and now she was finally reunited with a copy of it, of course it was a greater priority over the history and translation theory texts she'd recently been sticking her nose into too. Not that they would necessarily let her leave with any of those either. The attendant actually looked gratified that Avis was finally making a first purchase from the store, and looked one small step nearer to forgiving her of all her bookstore-related sins. Then he caught sight of the Thief in half a state of undress on the book's cover and pressed his lips together, and Avis lifted her chin at that, smirking and willing him to say it. He didn't, and let her be on her way. Back atop the ever-dependable Sir Fabuli, Avis reflected on the amount of time that had eclipsed since the revelation of the Nymian tome in Xavarian's study. It couldn't be more than two... or three... right? She realized with a kind of bemused horror that she really didn't know. She wasn't even sure where she had slept, if that was even possible - the longer she lingered in the Eagle & Quill, the more the hours failed to make sense - days blurred into nights and nights into days. Once, craving for fresher air, she'd made a day trip to Wineport, but something had brought her crawling back to the bookstore again. She was almost at the inn when she realized that she'd neglected to buy paper again - not that she had much money left after the U'naanza Jhin, though. [align=center]***[/align] Avis had taken to making small talk with the trusty Innkeeper lately, ever since he'd rescued the scrollcase from where it'd been left hanging on Avis's door. These bits of conversation ranged from comments on the weather to interrogations that revealed the relative plainness of the Innkeeper's name. As always, he stood where he always did, observing the tavern-goers, a clothed, watching wall of green behind the counter. When Avis approached, then, after an absence of Hydaelyn-knew-how-many days, she had a bright smile for him, and it seemed he had word for her too. "It seems you're just a short while b'hind 'im, this time," he quipped. Avis stood rooted to the stop for few moments as warmth rose through her skin and everything clicked - the reason for his curious hurry, his vague parting words, the secretiveness - as though he'd planned something for her. And he had. "That's... interesting," she replied lamely - and immediately kicked herself inwardly - what a terrible response, for shame, Avis. She managed, somehow, to hold her expression in check, her back straight and her head high as she walked sedately past the innkeeper into the halls and corridors of the Mizzenmast. Once she was certain she was safely out of sight of the Innkeeper, she broke into a mad dash for her door. [align=center]***[/align] There it was, that broad smile spreading across her face helplessly where she stood, bent over the table, spreading Xavarian's gift out over the table, until it was consumed by a patchwork of elegantly-crafted paper. She found herself touching them with more incredulity than wonder, lifting one or two of them at intervals to give them her customary sniff; then her pleasure began to ebb, and uneasiness took its place. He'd given her the scroll case, the scroll ring, writing supplies and the Eagle & Quill, which was tantamount to a kingdom. She had nothing to offer except a few shabby pages and a smattering of prose poetry. More importantly, she was used to a world where gifts came with prices; she knew the language of trade and never expected to be treated otherwise, even if her philosophy differed and she made little claims of others... She was used to living lightly. Living on less. Because the worlds - inner and outer - were... more. Yet Xavarian... what did he even mean? Were these gifts? Avis found herself pacing the room, in much the same way Xavarian, unbeknownst to her, had done on previous occasions. Except she left no trail of ice or embers, of course. On her third circumnavigation of the bare, too-wide space she stopped, seemingly resolute, and pulling off her hair-tie and left longboot, hurled them both with some vehemence in the direction of the window. She folded her arms and stared at both objects, considering, as though they were strange to her. Then her gaze drifted again to the beautiful mess on her table. Well, if he would insist on furnishing her with all this paper... who was she to stand on ceremony? This overthinking when it came to Xavarian was really beginning to annoy her. [align=center]***[/align] The other longboot finally removed, Avis turned her attention to the letter itself - which proved, of course, to be an even greater headache. What had she done? It'd started out innocently enough. The first note was little more than a playful jibe and a display of curiosity, interest, careless goodwill. Now she didn't know what she read and what she wanted it to read. She found herself laughing, again, at herself. Her fingers had found a couplet which they seemed to take pleasure in tracing, over and over and over again. [align=center]***[/align] It took her a much shorter time than she'd expected to get down to her reply. She pulled a sheet of paper from her new stack and began, with little hesitation, to write. Then she pulled another, a smaller piece, and scribbled briefly on that one too. She folded both completed manuscripts in halves, once, as usual, then decided that words alone might do this paper insufficient justice, especially if she had to return them to their maker. (What an odd situation this was.) So she spread them out again, this time making diagonal folds. The way a girl from Pearl Lane had shown her, years and years ago, with posters she'd ripped from the city's walls. He'd echoed her metaphor, mentioned the wings in flight... perhaps he knew her name, too. Avis's first few tries were failures; she must have missed steps along the way (it had been so long since she'd last put her fingers to such a task). By the time the birds took form properly, the paper had gotten so unevenly creased that there was nothing for it but to try again or make a copy and toss the original out altogether. But the latter would have been a waste of perfectly good paper... so Avis said to herself as she brought the paper beings in assisted flight to Xavarian's room. She pushed them underneath the door, lifted her hand to knock, dropped it, then left.

I'll try to be around Friday - I could look you up in-game, or we could exchange PMs, I'm quite used to that too. (Also, Dasair gives me too much credit for tormenting Xavarian, who is an awesome character to have around :3) *looks around at all the readers* we need to form some kind of Limsa Lominsa Book Club.

A novelist you say? Avis fancies herself quite the writer, and recently reconnected with her favorite romance novels at a bookstore, so I'm sure she'd be interested in meeting your character. (It MIGHT even be possible that she's read something by this Scarred Heart.) That said, time schedules might be a problem... On weekdays I'm only around on EST mornings, if at all, though I'm definitely looking for new connections to make too.

A creature of the day, Avis was roused quickly by the touch of sunlight on her face. She needed only another minute in her sheets before she slid smoothly out of bed, little ungainliness or stiffness glimpsed in limbs only just put into action. Then she assumed her favorite position at the window. She loved mornings most of all, always had, even if she felt little regret at having adopted some of a duskwight's nocturnal habits on some important nights. Today she had risen feeling lighter than she had in days, though there was a certain decisiveness about her that never used to be there. Avis looked out into the brightness and tapped her toes lightly on, or between, the long regular shadows on the floor. A new day. What to do? Perhaps...? At intervals during her morning contemplations, Avis's gaze travelled, as if by reflex, towards the scrollcase on her table. As always, it lingered upon the object for a few moments of admiration before it left. Should she return it to him? It wasn't a question new to her consciousness, but she'd succeeded in convincing herself not to, every single time. It was, after all, a beautiful thing. But it seemed out of place there, sitting upon her table void of all possessions except her quill and notebook; it seemed to not belong in that room at all where she owned nothing but a change of clothes, a couple of grimoires, and her own written words. And his. Avis espied it eventually, after a time, turning toward the door; she ran to it, picked it up, smiled, took it to the table, turned it over, furrowed her brow, thought of annotating it, thought against it, read it again and smiled some more. She was decidedly happy. Relieved, mostly. Flattered, perhaps; Avis had never felt repelled by any form of positive attention, from men or otherwise. But this was the first time anyone had been so effusive without necessarily wanting anything for himself. There was such a quiet ease in his writing, and it was... refreshing. She remembered "shining shards" - shining shards! - as she reread the final lines over and over - she couldn't be reading wrong, could she? - she was experienced! - and by this time she had to stand up and pace the room ten times before she could finally set her features straight. Xavarian wasn't like other men; she had never been entangled with, or even met, anyone resembling the duskwight in any way. At the rate things were going, though, these correspondences were likely to consume her inner life. Did she need that, though? Did she want herself bound? Or would she give herself? How did one even give oneself at the level of written exchanges? Of the mind? She had never before experienced this. The novelty of it was exhilarating, to say the least. But he had... promised his friendship. That was more than enough. Somehow she trusted that more than anything else he had ever penned. Avis read the last two lines one final time, then realized, suddenly, that she didn't need to be sure. She admired the sitting scrollcase one last time before leaving the book with both the letter and her notebook. *** Avis found herself walking up and down Limsa Lominsa recording everything on her notebook. The Roegadyn who pulled a wagon of apkallu past her. The bard who sat in a corner asking for food for his dirty ditties. One of the members of the, well, Missing Member gesticulating in rhyme with barely a cloth streaked across her chest. The Carbuncle on the ledge who was separated from his arcanist. The downtrodden pie in the middle of the street. The boats, little insects from where she stood, pulling themselves out of the bay to gods know where. The way the walls glittered under the sun. She was seized by a sudden desire to ask him everything, show him everything, thrust the world under his nose and empty her hungry questions upon him. She wanted to be inventive, wanted to make his mind dance, if she could, if she still had the power to, and so she listed topics, conversation starters, everything on the paper - everything and anything as long as they continued. The list grew steadily sillier with every item added and, eventually, due to Avis's high spirits, ended up with a mind in the gutter. Perched high atop the docks, winds rushing in her face, flags flapping nearby, Avis lifted her quill with a grin and put it to paper. (Again, her notebook.) A pause. She couldn't - she didn't - didn't know what to write - it didn't matter what she had to ask him, after all. Was the pleasure of it all truly in the knowing of it? *** When she finally sobered up, she was able to write again. She didn't pretend to be clever this time. She thought, she felt, she'd written what she wanted to say, and that that was it. Avis delivered the letter, and, returning to her room, finally pulled the linkpearl from where it'd been kept away since her meeting with the Professor. She spoke tentatively into it - "Good day", she began - then thought better of it and put it away again quickly, not wanting to listen to any responses. She was fine, now, but she could afford to be out of action just one day more, couldn't she? The Professor might miss her, but she missed someone too, and would undertake another longer journey to Lower La Noscea.

My character's journal can be found on the forums (link in my signature), but I also host her entries on a tumblr account I've created for her. I see first-person journals as a means of digging deeper into my characters' psyches and figuring out exactly how they tick. I enjoy seeing Avis develop gradually over time, and I use her journals to try to make her as real and human and flawed as possible. That and the fact that journalling really rounds off the immersive MMO experience. I love the FFXIV world, and making Avis an avid diarist (though I'm severely backlogged by now) is my own way of appreciating it. (:

Back in her room, Avis laboured a long time with the eight pieces of paper spread beneath her hands, upending notes (consisting mostly of single words, letters, and deep dark splotches where frustrated criss-crosses were made) into her journal. A long list of nouns and adjectives had begun snaking its way unevenly down the page. An hour or so passed before she gave up for the time being and leant back against her chair, mentally spent, but satisfied in the hope that she had managed to solve at least part of the riddle. A few minutes of blank staring commenced as Avis's mind cast itself out on the waters to rest. Then, quickly, she snapped out of it, and, decisively picking up the quill again, she copied out the entirety of the verses on the dark page and fitted her chosen words in. She read it over and over, and over again. Not that it was completely new to her; he'd designed his pages so that they fed one into the other, and from the first she'd had an inkling of what to expect. Not that she needed to be certain she was right. Only that this was the second Story to be placed in her hand in a matter of days, and it was up to her to keep them both safe. Even if she had never asked for them... no, that wasn't right; she'd asked for them as she always had, but she had never understood fully what that entailed until now. Avis reached for one of the five pieces of parchment she'd plucked from Xavarian's study just the day before, and spent a few moments feeling its texture and its strength once again before she set her quill to it. She stopped. Why should she send this to Xavarian? What was the point of acquainting him with thoughts even she disliked? What should she even tell him? In her agitation she nearly struck a line across the page, but decided it did no justice to the paper, and so she folded it away into a drawer and didn't look at it again. [align=center]***[/align] Avis found herself making her way to the Drowning Wench. She longed suddenly for the cheery ruckus of the tavern, noise, laughter, strong drink. But even as she partook of her favorite brew her head swam with the same six (or seven, or eight) words over and over again, and she found - this was the strangest of all - that tonight she could not enjoy or even concentrate on any of the dozens of conversations alight all around her. So she sat in her corner and brooded. Then she took her notebook to a bench at the Aftcastle, and brooded. Then the pier, where she brooded still more. Then the Bismarck, where she brooded long enough for the restaurant's manager to bother her personally about placing an order. (She never did.) Then back to her room, where her method of answer became clear. A dozen or so revisions later, Avis folded up the few sheets of paper she'd penned on and ripped from her notebook (a sad, misshapen thing now) and made her way to Xavarian's room. She paused outside it, then remembered, not without a tangible jolt of disappointment, that he wasn't going to be around that much here anymore, and took it back to her room. Should she deliver it to his study at the Eagle & Quill? No; it was best that everything stayed here in the Mizzenmast, a world set apart from the other. But would he see it? A total of three trips back and forth were made before Avis finally made up her mind. As always, the pages, fed into the dark slit under his door. Then it was sleep for her, finally, sweet, glorious sleep after a long, troubled time.

[align=center]INTERLUDE[/align] Avis awoke. It had been another brief, yet convoluted dream, of magitek frying pans and raining limbs and rotund feathered beings. All this was no doubt the product of a few morbid hours spent in the basement speed-reading wide-eyed through what little there was of Garlean history before, emotionally-drained from the horror of Garlemald and her employer's confession, the hyur fled back upstairs into the children's section. There she'd spent another long period of time walking in the worlds and woods of her old favorites, books of pictures and rhyme. Until she fell asleep with the book in her lap, the page turned to an amusing illustration of Mother Dodo attempting to repel assailants with a colorful list of don'ts. Get it? She hadn't realized how fatigued she was, though sleep had been a dismal possibility since her meeting with Jigumundo. Still disoriented, Avis cast her gaze upwards slowly to connect with that of the bookstore's attendant. His glaring concern was quite obviously directed at the faint elegant watermark her drool had made on a recently-creased page, and not at all at the dangerous way in which her head had lolled in slumber, as if it'd hung from a near-snapping thread. With an elegant touch to the left side of her mouth, where it was still moist, Avis smiled and asked sweetly for the time of day. The attendant gave it. At that Avis bolted from her seat - then collapsed back into it as pain shot through her neck from having dozed off in a position bearing an unfortunate likeness to a badly executed beheading. It took Avis another few neck-rubbing moments of wincing and incoherent apologizing before she finally mustered up the composure to walk, as sedately as possible, out of the establishment - with an unpaid book in hand. She paid for her completely unintended crime with the attendant's irate lecture and another excruciating twist in the wrong direction to her sorry neck. At midday, Avis finally hobbled from the Eagle & Quill, which was paradise regained, cursing and... glad... ...in a way she hadn't felt for years. She knew, though, that she had left without having dropped by Xavarian's study for a farewell. She wondered what he would think of that. [align=center]***[/align] Sir Fabuli, steady to a fault, was still exactly where she'd left him, down at the docks, despite all the hours that had passed. Angry warks punctuated the air for a good few minutes before Avis finally got the chocobo to calm down. His displeasure was not unfounded, of course; she had, after all, disappeared somewhere further into the Mist with Xavarian, that most decidedly unnatural and apparently malevolent of duskwights, for half a day. His disapproval was complete. Still, Avis's feelings were hardly touched by the legitimate concerns of her steadfast steed. As the pair clunked through the Mist, Avis had the strange feeling that she had walked through a tunnel and exited from it into an alternate reality, that the world had shifted, become altogether larger and sadder, somehow. She turned Sir Fabuli off course, briefly, to look once again over the sea. The sun had set the lights to dancing upon the waters. She found herself pulling out her notebook and anchoring that view with her scribbling, as though she needed some sort of marker to signify this: ...that she had left one chapter of her wanderings resolutely behind. [align=center]***[/align] At the Mizzenmast Inn, the innkeeper seemed to have been waiting for Avis all night. He dangled an elaborate scrollcase from one hand as she approached, silent, his face drawn into a perfect blank, like a lone porter carrying a lamp through light winds and snow. Avis knew it for what it was straightaway, and covered the last few steps with her hands reaching out like a child certain of her gift.

I'd like to add that comedy is often a powerful force for social or political commentary, partly because humour is employed as a way of coping with the underlying bleaker / darker aspects of life. Reason why many of the best English language movies are comedies, IMO (: On a more related note, I've RP-ed in situations which started out "serious", dissolved into general slapstick silliness and then curiously went back up the scale amidst all that because the characters were learning, changing, in very small ways. All RP is meaningful as long as it's your characters taking the story wherever it needs to go. My character admittedly hasn't been in RP all that much and all she's been doing is talking, writing and getting friends drunk - slice-of-life stuff, basically - and I'm finding that it's actually laying a lot of groundwork for her character development!

The sky over Limsa Lominsa seemed reluctant to release its purple-pink hues that hour, and it was only when the typical morning pallor seeped through that Avis allowed herself to begin the winding walk back up from Fisherman's Bottom. At the Mizzenmast Inn, the Inn-keeper, though bleary-eyed from a long night's watch, kept up a straighter posture and raised an eyebrow ironically as Avis, yawning, trudged past him. Fatigued though he was, he had a keen memory, and he was no doubt remembering the odd duskwight who had asked for this very Hyur hours ago, before her exit from the Inn, and then the duskwight's departure some time later. There was a story to be had. He watched secrets. Kept them. Housed them. [align=center]***[/align] Sitting on her bed, reading Xavarian's reply over and over again, Avis found herself running an entire gamut of emotions. First, amusement as she imagined the duskwight's nervous, low voice tumbling and stuttering over such elegant aphorisms as he had scribed. Next, a strange, warm, sadness - bittersweet. And finally a slow, creeping annoyance began its way up her neck and into her face. She was frowning by the time she finished the letter for the tenth or so time and tossed it, with some vehemence, onto the table beside the bed. Those sagely airs. She didn't need them. She knew herself perfectly well, thank you very much. What had she written to him again? Her head hurt. Too proud to admit that he had gotten under her skin at last, struck closer than she'd ever been used to from people, Avis gave a groan, lay down, and curled herself into the wall as sunlight began to flood the room. (Was she turning into a duskwight too?) [align=center]*** [/align] Avis rose after midday and left the inn. Three uneventful ferry rides, two afternoons and one bout of bantering with Thubyrgeim about the relative merits of fiction later, she returned. The letter was still where she'd left it, slightly creased and with one edge hanging off the table. Avis returned to it again, and this time she was gratified, somewhat moved. He had been trying to speak to her through his writing, after all, even woven some of her words with his (as she had), and that was... something, goodwill, concern, interest, what-have-you... was it not? She took up her quill, reached for parchment, realized there was none left, kicked herself mentally for forgetting to purchase any - then grew an idea. Scissors in one hand, notebook in the other, Avis began performing a delicate minor operation. Twilight had begun in earnest when she was finally done, and it took some squinting and peering, her nose almost to the surface of the table, before she realized she'd been too absorbed to light her lamp. And, for the final touches, she tore off an empty page on her notebook and folded it in half, scribbling on it the following words: [align=center]***[/align] Avis had to stop twice on her way to Xavarian's door to gather up the pieces that had slipped from her deliberately flimsy excuse of an envelope. She was grinning lightly when she dropped the note off at Xavarian's door. This was a gamble she wasn't used to, but two could play at that puzzle. She whistled a handful of notes meaningfully at his door before she returned to her room. It was a challenge.

D'Aaaaaaww... Gonna frame this ^_______________________________^ O happy day! Will Avis finally get an Eternal Bond invitation.

Somehow, an hour or so later (one could never be sure with these things), Avis awoke. She had been a child again; for some reason they were all standing on their heads in a line at Pearl Lane, reciting what they knew of the alphabet - which wasn't much, they kept forgetting the last four letters. Her sisters sometimes dove in and out of her vision, providing strange directions to a mysterious "fountain", and grew tails and hair on their legs. Then there was a new boy come to join their fold, and they spat on him, but when he drew himself to full height he was Jasper and Avis suddenly full-grown again had been laughing when he pulled her through Ul'dah and threw them both over the parapet towards said fountain and - and. Here she was. In her bed. Back in the world of the living. Avis sat up and cursed her dreams soundly with all the force street expletives could muster, because did it make sense that a city she had felt no regret in detesting and departing was currently the same place she ached for terribly? She stared into darkness for a while, dazed, amused, saddened, before reaching over and clumsily attempting lighting the lamp, which finally came alive on her third try. As her fingers fumbled for quill and notebook, she glimpsed, out of the corner of her eye, a strange piece of paper tucked neatly under her door. She pondered its presence for a good long minute, before her memory finally kicked into gear. And then Avis was almost on all fours in her bid to get to the letter. The paper was smooth, strong, and somehow... foreign; she marveled at its quality, then found herself envious and wondering what she would have to trade for Xavarian to give her a few pieces of this in exchange. Avis read it over and over again as her mind slowly roused itself, taking pleasure in its craft, teasing apart the verse's rhymes, patterns, structure. (There was also that tiny prick of amused disappointment she felt at the duskwight's failure to respond to her jibe about his hair.) This was no gift, of course, but few had placed such words of such fashion in her keeping before. It was precious. She took the note to the table and, with a final tiny scrap of parchment, wrote. Furiously this time, spurred by delight for what she'd read, and half her consciousness still awash in memories of 'home' and other places, and Jasper. This time, when she took her letter along for a second midnight walk, Avis made no effort to conceal her footsteps. She bent and slid the note under Xavarian's door knowing he was most likely still awake within (if he was within), then found herself momentarily uncertain. What had she written? Had she revealed more than she even cared to know about herself? But quickly enough she shook the thought off, moved on. Words were only words, after all; the duskwight, intelligent and enigmatic as he was, perhaps truly possessed little real depth of emotion or understanding beyond his absorption in texts and "knowledge" . If he liked words, he could have them; they were puzzles that could be wonderfully appreciated on their own without necessarily having to know the person that lay behind them. That was what she loved words for: that they could be anything one wished - weapons, shields, balms, ornaments. She was wide awake now and felt no inclination for sleep. Where to? The tavern, perhaps, or the sea?

The note was completely unnecessary. Its existence was an accident; there had simply been some parchment left over after Avis was done with her meticulously-polite letter to the Arcanists' Guild on the pitiful size of their library. Saving the paper for later and going to bed seemed a waste of a good writing momentum, and so Avis found herself picking up her quill again, smirking slightly at the thought of the duskwight who had lately intrigued her. The Inn was mostly asleep when Avis located Xavarian's room with no real difficulty, slipped the folded piece of paper under his door, and padded away back to hers as noiselessly as she could. [align=center]***[/align]

Laughing, she lifted her hands, ringed in extravagant swirls of black ink, and called down an elaborate curse on the only man to ever have loved her.

As of 5th Jan 2014, I'll be back at work full-time which is going to make regular RP nigh impossible on NA weekday nights, since I'm in the GMT+8 timezone. My job / RL also eats my time a lot even on the weekends, so. At any rate, here's a rough schedule of when I may actually be available for in-game RP: I do still want to RP when I can, and yes there are a couple of plots I've left hanging which I'd love to follow up on - so if you're interested, please prod me via PM here anytime to let me know your in-game availability and to set up an appointment! Alternatively, there's always forum RP. :3 Looking forward to staying in touch.