Mountains west of Northgate
Winter 29, in the evening after the hot springs
Sav
Perhaps it’s merely fearlessness lent by more liquor than she’s drunk in quite a while, but Sav finds herself in an unusually talkative frame. Her hunger to know more rarely ever fades, of course, so the two combined promise to lead to a barrage of questions to whomever is unlucky enough to be the first target. As she lowers her arms from the now-thoroughly-familiar ritual version of the shelter spell, freshly cast in the campsite for the night, her gaze falls upon Bax. “Bax.” Just in case he didn’t hear her, she steps closer, reaching out to tug on his sleeve. “Bax. Bax. I’ve more questions for ye. And I want to study your stuff. Your Stuff.” She giggles a little bit to herself at the pun that would likely only make sense to herself. “I want to know more about th’ yeti thing. Maybe we can figure out somethin to keep you safely up during yer time of the season. And lemme do some tests to ye. Not like test-tests, you wouldnae have to do anything, but sit for a bit and lemme observe ye.”
Bax
Bax had left the makeshift hot tub first. He was exhausted after the deluge of questions from all his friends. Their concern for his well being was both endearing and overwhelming. And he had learned that he very much disliked being the main focus of people’s attention. There was a lot to think on and his mind had too much to process, so he opted to take the last watch and try to get as much rest much as he could before then.
Just as the crossroads of a hopefully dreamless sleep tantalized him, he was stirred back to reality. Sav was at his side, pulling at his sleeve and calling his name, saying she had questions for him. With an irritated grunt he pushed himself up to see a drunk Sav, excitedly waiting for him to respond.
Is she even old enough to drink…?
A habit he had learned to foster was to always keep his right eye closed without the eye patch. This would lower the chance to keep anyone who shouldn’t, from discovering his eye. He remembers his current surroundings and friends and fights against old habits, opening his celestial eye.
He crosses his legs and turns fully to face Sav. Bax smirks to himself, noting how cute she seemed to be when Sav was very excited about a topic. Apparently if you throw in some alcohol her excitement seemingly doubles.
“Yeah sure,” he replies with a yawn. “I tried to get you guys to ask more stuff earlier but everyone wanted to talk about sex instead. Though I’ll admit that it’s a much more fun topic than my shit.
“Actually, do you know what was up with Talith or Astarael? They both seemed real quiet during some parts of the conversation. And Van kept giggling about somethin….” He shakes his head lightly and turns his attention back to Sav. “Anyway, yeah go for it. What kinda questions you got for me?”
Sav
Sav scowls, but at what exactly isn’t immediately apparent. The only thing she says is, “I’d asked what I could think of at th’ time, an’ anythin else required some tools an things I didnae have access to in th pools.” And truth be told, the draw of a hot—clean!—bath and friendly company could overcome even her hunger for experimentation and seeking knowledge, especially after several weeks with little more than bird baths and increasingly strong scents imbued into her scarf. “So anyway.” She suddenly dives away, but any confusion is likely quickly remedied as she returns with her bag, scrabbling inside for her goggles—set aside for once while she’d been bathing. Other tools, a set of gold-touched wires, hooks, gears, and mysterious bendy things quickly follow from the inky depths of the bag. She starts to work fiddling on her googles, cranking a few dials and using one of the bendy things to draw what looks like a line of liquid gold on the sides of the goggle frames.
“So lemme lay out what I remember from what ye said in the pools,” she says as she works, brow furrowed as she focuses. It’s a little harder than it might normally be, the world a bit fuzzier. For that matter, remembering exactly what was said is surprisingly difficult right now. The reason isn’t exactly strange, but it’s definitely annoying. She’s beginning to remember why she doesn’t normally drink very much—not only does it put you off your guard, it makes it pish hard to do anything useful. “Started ‘bout a year ago. Sometime after ye left the city after your friend was killed. It happens three times a season, in a very regular pattern.—On the 5th, 35th and 75th?” she hazards, a little more uncertainly.
She interrupts herself for a moment to breathe on the goggles and croon something unintelligible, which makes the liquid gold lines she’s drawn flare up and disappear. Undeterred, she draws yet more lines, and continues to speak, her tone going back to conversational. “Ye don’ remember hardly anythin bout your times as a yeti. Maybe sometimes scattered images, if reminded of ‘em or if ye see ‘em. Almost sounds like when someone drinks too much if y’ask me. — wait, so how’d ye find out then that you were a yeti? From that man ye met after your first time?”
Bax
“65th,” Bax corrected, but Sav seemed too busy tinkering with her tools and magic to notice. Not that it mattered, she seemed to know what she was talking about despite the lapse in wording.
He placed an elbow against his knee and used his hand to support the weight of his head and watched as Sav worked. “It’s…well I don’t know for sure that I’m the yeti. But the more we talk about it, the more I see flashes of moments that convince me. And I become more certain.
“It was when we found that cave a few days back. Like, returning there triggered somethin in my head. And I realized that the nightmares I thought I was having were real. Including what Ormangir told me. ‘The Hunter is awake and he sees you’ or somethin like that. And somethin else about ‘finding the man in the beast’.
Sav
“5th, 35th, 65th. Hm. Every 30 days… a Turn?” Sav blinks, her head snapping up, though her hands keep moving automatically - she seems to have done this particular ritual so many times her hands know what to do even when she’s distracted. She looks up at the sky, gaze darting toward the image of the Octurne she’s placed in the fake night sky of the shelter spell. “That’s—that’s exactly the same length as one Turn of the Octurne! Are they linked?”
She turns huge eyes toward Bax, alight with excitement at this possible connection. And then she speaks a final ringing word and drops the goggles down over her head, the gray-green eyes hidden by round green lenses that glow faintly as she adjusts something on them.
“The Hunter?” she asks. “Like the Torch, the Harvest, the Hunt? An right, that finding the man in the beast… I mean, like we were haverin’ about, if that cave had drawings of your village an’ some stars it seems the man’s already in there, but how would you find it? Hnh…”
Bax
Bax follows Sav’s eyes up towards the Octurne and he holds his gaze, staring at the broken thing in the sky. When he was younger he would spend much of his time in the evenings staring up and wondering what happened to it. How does something so big and so high up break like it did?
But now he often did everything he could to avoid remembering it existed. He felt it was a cursed thing, and despite himself, would blame it for his current predicament.
“I mean, I guess it could be linked to the Octurne. But in my mind everything somehow ties back to it already. I’m not sure how, but I think The Octurne is at the root of all magic. Just a feeling I have…”
He turns his gaze back to Sav and lazily continues his thoughts. “But I think that the transformations are more directly linked with the Hunter constellation somehow. There’s a star that’s part of the constellation, The Beast’s Eye, that appears every month for one night and shines red. I think that’s what sets off the transformation.
“I also have no idea what Ormangir means about ‘finding the man’ either. I’ve thought about it some, but I got nothin. Part of me thinks it’s a miscommunication, since I don’t think Common is his first language. But I think he meant what he said.”
Sav
Hm… on the other hand, the seasons are 90 days, which is three times thirty—and the transformation happens three times a season. Maybe that’s more tied to what’s going on?
His musing interrupts her rapid-fire and slightly blurred train of thought, and she blinks, unseen behind the lenses. “Oh! That…. uh. Aye, right, I suppose that makes a titch more sense,” she allows, perhaps a little grudgingly, unwillingly slightly annoyed that someone had a better idea on information related to the sky. She’s been so fascinated by the Octurne that she hasn’t paid as much attention to the stars—and also, with the stars so relatively recent, the conformation of constellations and the stories around them haven’t yet settled down into a widely-spread set of lore. Or so she excuses herself.
More importantly, that’s interesting. “If the star pops up for one night, thricely a Turn, and sets off your transformation… you an’ the other Aelorean’s Crossing folk, your magic. Innit related to the stars, somehow? Does that make it your constellation? Do the others have their own they be twined to?”
She adds, almost casually, “Also, I’m near sure you knew this, but that dark eye o yours has got sommat of magic ‘bout it. An’ there’s that necklace you figured out today. Did ye know about the thing on your shoulder? Somethin’ protective.”
Bax
“Wait, what?” Bax asked in surprise.
Looking down he patted at his shoulder, finding the brooch on his chest, just under his shoulder. “Ah. Ah! That’s right! This is some kinda magic thing! Garbon had figured out what it was ages ago before I tried returning it to the orphanage…”
He pulls the brooch off and holds it in his hand. Remembering his friend.
After a moment, he returns the brooch and turns back to Sav to continue their talk. “I mean, I wouldn’t go so far as to claim the Hunter constellation as mine. Seems to be a bit of a bold statement y’know? May be more accurate to say it’s claimed me…but anyway. Yeah, I’m very much attached to it in some way.” He leans forward and points toward his celestial eye, where a smaller version of the constellation rests.
“Some of the others are marked by different constellations too. It seems to happen randomly, and not always as obvious as an eye going completely void. You’ll have to ask everyone else directly for more information though.”
Bax yawns again and readjusts himself. “So ya had some tests or somethin? What do ya need me to do?”
Sav
“Do ye know what it does?” Sav asks, shifting closer to look at the brooch. “I can find out for ye if not, and that necklace, see if it does anythin else besides lettin you breathe underwater.”
She looks up as he points toward the eye, for the first time really examining it. “Pure keen,” is her enthusiastic opinion. Without thinking or asking, she reaches out to try and grasp his head in her hands, attempting to turn his head slightly to the side and thumb his eyelid up to get a closer look at the eye and the stars held within. Even if she doesn’t get a hold, she continues to lean forward, face intent and frowning slightly in concentration. The swirls of magic twining through the dark depths seem to have a faint tone of warding. Come to think of it, actually, it seems not too dissimilar to the way some of the magical forms in the skyfolk ruins flowed.
Distracted by her study, she’s slow to respond, saying after a good thirty seconds, “Huh? Ah, nah, this is the test—just examinin’. Was hopin’ to see more that might have t’ do with this yeti, maybe some clues to transformation, but ‘tis the case that I can only see active magic and imbued thingies. Whatever ‘tis that afflicts ye, it lies quiet right now.” She leans back, steepling her fingers in thought. “Vanja had mentioned somethin’ earlier i’ th pools about makin a trap to keep ye safe up in one place when the time comes—might be worth discussin that too.” Reminded, she glances about to see if anyone else is still up. Perhaps it’s too late and too liquored to have that conversation, though. “Havin ye locked down for observation would be a great boon. An’ bein close at hand to stop any wildbeast rampagin’ would be a bonus,” she adds, almost as an afterthought.
Bax
“Oh could you tell what they do? Yeah that’d be grEAT!” As he was reaching down to unfasten the brooch and hand it over, Bax’s head was grasped and turned towards Sav.
She pushes and turns and maneuvers his head, using her thumb to more clearly view his eye. Though initially shocked at the sudden examination, Bax doesn’t try to stop her. As Sav proceeds, he becomes more curious to find out what she may learn. He also finds it interesting to see someone work to understand something, watching them study and take notes.
She really seems to be havin fun with this.
As Sav lists off the benefits of trapping the yeti, Bax speaks up. “I mean, yeah if ya can trap it great. My concern is that we can’t. We have no idea what this thing is capable of. Especially with this new power I discovered the other day.”
Bax sighes heavily as Sav continues to examine him, prodding around his eye with a small rod. “I still think it’s a bad idea. So over the next few days we all need to sit down and come up with a series of plans and backup plans and plans for the backup plans.”
Sav
“If we cannae, then we leg it an you turn back intae human after a day. We’re far deep intae the mountains here, if ye cannae catch up to us then there’s probably naught else for ye to feast on save the goats.” She shrugs, beginning to put away her tools neatly back into their usual spots in the leather roll-up. “Gi’en your new misty slip trick, it’s good tae know that multiple layers of traps might be needed.”
She smiles, one of her rare full ones; it looks almost out of place on her habitually-dour face. “Also, I don’ know that it can be a pure terrible thing, this yeti beastie of yours. If your transformation is kicked off by your link to the stars, an’ the stars in your eyes are similarwise to what the aasimar left in their workins—‘cause they are—stands to reason what ye’ve found ye can do is linked to the skyfolk, an’ I refuse t’ believe their workins’ are for evil. Mayhap they can be turned toward it, but ye seem a good fella an’ those drawings reported in that cave suggest some of you remain there even as a yeti.”
Remembering the items, she moves to collect them and nods. “I cannae do this tonight, but I’ll inspect ‘em tomorrow and gie them back to ye tomorrow with what answers I found. An’ we can get started on the plannin.” Always the planning.
Bax
“Just run. Good plan.”
This is such a terrible idea.
As Sav began packing her tools and notes, Bax sees a broad smile cross her face. Despite not seeming to have gleaned much new information from her initial test, Sav seemed excited at their discussion. Whatever she learned or was theorizing about had her excited and it showed. And seeing her as animated as she is, Bax can’t help but smile with her. He feels good to have been part of something that brought some kind of joy to another person.
Just before she packs up her notebook, Bax catches a glimpse of some of the notes she made. Though he can’t read any of it, he could see a quick sketch of what looked like his eye or the constellation of the Hunter. On the opposite page are diagrams and more detailed portrayals of animals and generic human bodies.
“Oh cool! Sav those drawings in your book are really good! I didn’t realize you were an artist too. That’s really neat, you should share these with the rest of the group!
“And uh, sorry, if I’ve been kind of a downer. Just a lot to think on I guess. I owe an apology to the rest of the group too…hey, ya think maybe if by some miracle this all works out alright, I could help ya with other experiments? Just kinda seems like fun…”
Sav
Sav grins to herself at the rather flat response, but says nothing more. The plans likeliest to work are the simplest ones with the least moving parts, and she’s always been most confident in her ability to escape over anything else.
Her lopsided smile dims at the sudden burst of enthusiasm over the glimpsed drawings in her notebook, and she instinctively clutches the journal to her chest before hastily shoving it back into her bag. Rather than address the somewhat horrifying idea of exposing her journal to the rest of the group, she takes a step back and stammers, “That, eh, well, could be, if spare hands are a danger — I-I mean, nae danger — I suppose some extra hands could be of use betimes — good night—” and she flees to the other side of the 10-foot enclosure, diving into her bedroll.
Bax
Bax watches with surprise as Sav stumbles back towards her bedroll, stammering over her own words, shoving her notebook further into her bag.
Was that embarrassment? I didn’t think she could be surprised like that…hope I didn’t make her upset. I’ll have to apologize another time.
“Yeah okay just um, lemme know whenever ya need a hand with anything or if you’ve got more questions…g’night.”
Sav doesn’t respond but instead tries to bury herself even further into her blankets. Bax sits for a moment and looks around him for any other of his friends that might have other questions. He waits a moment before settling down, assuming that he would be left alone for the remainder of the evening.
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