Audemus Dawnspark
Pendulum
Brawl’gar is running a special on well drinks, a silver for swill, and as enticing as redirecting his rage into a bout of exhibitionist violence sounds, the place is packed and he’s not especially interested in waiting for the opportunity. It’s less effort to kill his liver and wallet instead.
There's enough waiting at the bar, anyway, swarming with brutality fetishists thirsty for scrapping and spirits both. When a space opens up next to him — the announcer whipping up the crowd about last call bets for a quite literal bout of tauromachy, Grimtotem on Grimtotem — a hulking Orc missing a tusk and sense of personal space leaps like a horny salmon into the spot, shouldering him brutishly.
“You got a problem?”
With...
Riptide
I imagine that, given enough time, I could catalogue the ridges of your callused fingertips, charting a topographical map using only my tongue as a surveying instrument.
Further, still, the intricacies and abrasive origins of each individual groove, revealed by taste alone: rope, braiding and cording innumerable hewn hemp knots until scraped raw; wind, dry desert air wicking away the moisture until splitted and scabbed and balmy tradewinds infusing so much that they swelled, macerated; salt, powder-dry remnants of the sea marking every crevice, the taste of which never has (and I’m sure never will) quite left (leave) you.
“Nasty,” You say, fingers hooked into my mouth as I tongue them in a perfect parody of oral sex. It is...
Peregrinate
Each boggy step belches sulfuric muck, the mineral rich earth grasping after the soles of his sodden boots like gnarled beggars fingers seeking alms. More than once, he sweeps away lacey lichen from his face, an unasked for procession of netted moss bridal veils as he passes beneath sagging swamp willow branches. They leave behind traces of powdery spores on his skin, soft as talc, and while there’s a lack of baby’s breath to draw further poetic parallel of weddings to, soft fruticose sprigs tangle into his hair like marshland wreath.
It’s slow going. Treacherous, in its own way, how he can’t tell how far the earth will give beneath his feet. Testing steps into shifting sphagnum reveal footholds that seem solid with the...
2. Breakfast
Never has been one for routine but, inexplicably, has been drawn to a creature of habit.
Before, this manifested as a gentle exchange of whispered goodbyes and half-remembered kisses, the echo of warmth beneath the seed-stitched cashmere as they traded spaces and wakefulness.
Now? He's another step.
A glass of tepid water and two sets of pills. One to purge the last bits of resistant infection from his system, the other a palliative measure to blunt the knife-edge of his discomfort.
It works, in a way. Takes away the point.
Doesn't do much for the still-sharp serrated edges tearing, ripping away at his resolve.
Stitches are inspected with practiced hands as he slouches in the near-dark. Cleansed, doused in petroleum ointment,...
3. Lunch
Lunch at the Legerdemain.
It sounds quaint. Like something you'd do on a first date with someone you don't know but would like to. Sensible entree that’s middle of the road in cost. Don't want to seem cheap, but not like a braggart either. Coffee.
Wouldn't know. Doesn't like dates.
Not in the mood for cappuccinos or conversation, either.
Lunch is to-go: shaved sprouts, julienned cucumbers, sweet baby spinach with an avocado and goat cheese mash, for two. Winning combination of nutritionally sound and thoughtful gesture.
In the time he waits, it’s only a short trip to less reputable establishments. Back before it’s even parcelled up and ready to take.
It’s a working lunch.
Chiseling out a brick from the outer hearth of the...
4. Dessert
He gets a suite out of habit and because what's the point of money unless you can throw it away on frivolities? Doesn't intend to share the room with anyone, and doesn't mean to stay longer than a night, but the amenities are nice and there's always a balcony in case he wants to throw himself off of it later.
Two things are set aside, the room’s selection of herbal teas and coffees dumped into the trash so he can make use of the tray they are arranged on. Just him, alone, third wheel to this pretty little pairing for his ugly little conscience. A metal tin, four little sachets of powder within, and the small blue vial. There’s a nebulous reminder flitting in the back of his mind to take as directed for the sake of his health...
Melisande's Visit
In his more lucid hours — between the bouts of restless sleep and shivering cold sweats, the long prayer sessions he spent worshiping at the foot of his provided bucket with offerings of bile and half-digested meals, the periods of time where he could scarcely do more than press his face against the cool stone floor and count his shallow breaths in an attempt to distract himself from the debilitating migraines — he had little to amuse himself with. Not that the time amounted to much.
He felt more caged beast than elf. He supposed it was appropriate — he had acted quite ferally, hadn't he? Serazyth was taking the necessary precautions, a lesson learned about exactly how far he could trust his sullen Sin’dorei captive. Not that...
1. Dinner
Dinner is fine. Enjoyable, even. Two glasses of water he’d wished were rum, mechanical consumption of a blackened mackerel fillet on a bed of rice, even a stolen taste of the grilled peach and sweet potato salad that wasn't his. The balsamic drenched bite had earned him a familiar look — warm affection muddled with fake annoyance — but tinged with just a taste of something far more souring. Pity? Sympathy? Understanding?
He'd like nothing more than to bite the expression off of those lips.
Or is it the pain talking?
Yes, maybe so. That's the easily digestible answer — just like the diet of bland rice and toast suggested (imposed) upon him to average out the nauseous highs and lows of his strictly regulated medicine intake.
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Shipwrecking
The Fale’norore doesn’t make a habit of taking passengers for transport. Too many variables to worry about and usually more headache than it’s worth. But this half-dozen? They had seemed the alright enough sort — alright in that the lot of them of them were dour, craggy-faced mercenary types that kept to themselves and had paid, handsomely, upfront. So, when they put up the money for a seventh — seven’s a lucky number, after all, and what’s a sailor without superstitions? — it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. There’s a sky of pillowy white clouds with a blanket of gently rolling seas, a good omen, and he’s feeling in a good mood to match. It’s easy to agree when the gold is already changing hands, a tidy...
Thalassophobia
“Are you going to help me, or not?”
Khida frowned at him, which was not to say that her face had been exactly cheery before: her cherubic cheeks had been made taut by the downturned line of her mouth and the deep furrows caused from her crinkled nose.
The form his doting had taken with the little girl involved gifts, mostly: fripperies his sticky fingers had collected, books on interesting (This descriptor was not always shared by Melisande, with her strange sense of censorship. What was inappropriate about a history book regarding the liberation of Khaz Modan from the Bleeding Hollow? The vivid descriptions of battle wounds were very true to life.) subjects, crystalline sculptures that had been faceted into small animals, but —...
Homecoming
The owner of the estate spends a lot of time smacking his lips about Kul Tiran high society, which seems an oxymoron in and of itself. As if the crumbling stone foundation of the flat rock fences around the unkempt heather fields aren’t a poignant symbol of his dying lineage, a hermit of a Baron who has no one left and thinks that this should impress something upon him. He thinks about helping speed along this miser’s death — it would certainly make the negotiations more tolerable, but it seems a sour way to start a new chapter. It wouldn’t take much, though, and it would be easy to make it look natural.
x
He’s used his real name, of course, the transfer of funds from his trust necessitating such, and it’s not exactly a...
Polaris
In the pellucid waters of this harbor, moonlit and still, the copper-bottomed hull of The Meadowshine looks less a color reminiscent of her namesake and more ethereal mother of pearl. Just an illusion — easily dispelled, unlike some others — dissipating readily into the ripples of his wake.
An orange flame dances along the wharf, a sentry’s lantern in steady patrol. A pause in his own choreography is required, sculling gelid water until the stage is once again his. An astern, unsecured Jacob’s ladder, slick with biofilm, limply drifts in the currents of the bay.
It almost seems too easy to sneak aboard, pruned fingers moving on wooden rungs, but it’s just another lapse in security he’s all too happy to take advantage of.
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Imbrication
“Both of you,” She begins in that special Meadowshine tone, smart and sharp and just try me, “Are absolutely ridiculous. Spoiled, even. Do I look like a scullery maid?”
A withering look and foreboding jerk of a wash-pruned finger. “Don't answer that.”
Carrying a wicker basket with a paisley patterned liner that is stacked to the brim with laundered and folded clothes, he can see the similarities. Tucking away his clothes into his dresser and hanging his coats in the armoire, she’s also more housekeep than laundress, but he knows well enough to keep those observations to himself.
Idly, he turns a page of the journal in his lap, revealing an inky sketch of a human with an aquiline profile. He commits the image to...
Stardust
This masquerade is stifling: too many self-important elves palavering about inconsequential topics they somehow manage to still be dreadfully misinformed about, too few servants manning feathered fans to offer a respite from the balmy Eversong evening.
The drudgery invites his mind to wander. His thoughts seem to idly return to the same subject matter — a luxuriously long-legged one — as he goes through the motions in playing this evening’s role: Silvermoon son in denial about his dissolute nobility. There are plenty of interruptions but none as distracting as the hostess of this stale affair who comes over and interjects herself into banal conversation.
She’s tall (not as tall as he would like) and supercilious (not as...
Wax
There’s a certain power held within names, and even if he’s always been the pragmatic sort, it doesn’t mean he’s immune to superstition.
Vividly, he can recall the folktales learned by rote in his childhood and that Melisande, in particular, never grew tired of hearing. Sometimes, by browning books with scratchy ink illustrations, secret beneath a blanket and via guttering candlelight; more often, orated with fanciful embellishments, minor changes of cast, but always revolving around the same mythical credos.
One’s true name was a portent of sway. A Very Wise thing to guard and protect and a Very Foolish thing to be used lightly.
He’s shocked from reverie by his own.
“Mathias.”
Snappy, as though it’s...
Keep Your Fork, There's Pie
As a physician, he was not unused to asking questions that resulted in varying degrees of truthfulness. Patients were quick to lie – or at least, stretch the truth – about their sexual history, alcohol intake, severity of their medical issues… The list was honestly quite long, and their motives typically baffling (Fear of judgment? Lecture averse? Ignorance?), but his agreeable, even-tempered personality and a well-developed gut instinct for when someone was fudging the truth allowed him to navigate the mazes of white lies without much trouble – or headache.
With that in mind, one would expect that the surprisingly forthcoming mage would’ve been a welcome change of pace. More often than not, a query posed to Audemus was...
II. Hiraeth
My proposal for breakfast is met with such a resounding affirmative that it makes me wonder if Audemus had heard my question correctly. I don’t repeat myself to capitalize on this potential mistake. Getting him out of bed only takes thirty-nine minutes and dressing is only another fifty. Progress.
The downstairs is quiet, with only employees of the tavern milling about. A quick glance through the one of windows reveals the explanation: no ships in port. Bad for business, but better for the atmosphere. I spy a sunnily dispositioned Miss Meadowshine tying a starched and pressed apron around her waist and move to greet her, but he does so first.
He kisses her cheek, which makes her smile, and pokes her belly, which makes her...
I. Dwelling
“Can you do me a favor?”
From most, this question would not be an alarming one. From him? It is a skipped pulse: a dry and uneasy feeling in my throat that is washed away with a steadying swallow of lightly sweetened tea. He does not ask before he does. I roll my wrist, quill in hand, to work out a writer’s cramp before I answer with a question of my own.
“That depends. What kind of favor?”
It proves to be a reasonable request, which, considering the source, makes me immediately wary. His mother is ailing, and he would like a second opinion. I find it surprising that he has a mother — not in the biological sense, of course, but in the sense that he has never spoken of her. Then again, he had never spoken of his...
Key
He’s quiet, and he uses his key.
The gentle, metallic rasp, rotate, click of the lock as the pins are slotted into place sounds cacophonic and he realizes he’s been holding his breath; he tells himself it’s just habit, a holdover from his days spent sleuthing, half-diamond and torsion wrench working in tandem to drop into a place where he was unwelcome, uninvited. But, he has a key. This seems significant, somehow. His grasp on the meaning of it is thin and insubstantial. It’s ignored.
He’s quiet, but it was unnecessary.
Romarique is awake, and they are sharing a mutual expression of surprise in the quiet. Waiting up for me? The inch of melted wax in the pillared glass candle holder, still-steaming cup of...
Germination
Her favorite flower is sweet alyssum. Not that she knew their name when prompted. He wasn’t surprised: of course she would know very little in comparison to him about all of the things (he thought) that mattered.
I like the kind that grows along the dunes. They are little, white flowers and they smell like clover honey. If you pull at the root, the whole thing comes out. We have some growing in the garden at my house — do you want to see?
He hadn’t. He had just been making banal small talk with the pretty, copper-haired girl at the florist’s stall despite — or perhaps, because of — her peasantry. His father would disapprove. Either his guise of feigned politeness had improved drastically since his parent’s last...
| Age | Young Adult |
| Eye Color | Green |
| Height | 5'8 |
| Body shape | Lean |
| Residence | Rustberg Village, Tol Barad -- more or less |
| Realm | Wyrmrest Accord - US |
