Open Chronicles An Arrangement of Stardust

Lysander stood before the canvas, posture straight, gloved hands tucked neatly behind his back. His white coat, lined in black and gold, caught the gallery light with each slow breath. The painting loomed tall—an ominous fortress, wrought in deep blues and blacks. The battlements looked jagged, like cooled obsidian pulled from the bones of some ancient volcano.

He leaned in, just enough to catch the thick drag of oil paint layered over stonework and sky. The texture tempted touch—but he resisted. Barely.

“Hm…” he hummed, eyes narrowing.

He tilted his head. No familiar crest. No tower shape that matched any estate near Elbion. The silhouette was wrong. Too sharp. Too stark. Too grim to be a home.

“Looks like something out of a lich’s wet dream,” he muttered. “I bet the owner keeps wolves in the dining hall. Probably throws houseguests into snake pits for dessert.”


His fingers twitched toward the canvas. He stilled them. The oil-paint lay heavy, tempting to touch, textured like cooled slag. He stepped half a pace back, eyes tracking the angled battlements, trying to read what kind of mind would build a home that hated light.

Whatever lord lived here—if any had—clearly valued fear over comfort. As art, it was masterful. As architecture, it was a prison. A beautiful one, maybe. But still a prison.

Bliss said:

"Oh! Hello! Welcome to the gala!" A good few of those wearing sashes went about to greet all they could, ushering bystanders to go view the various art pieces and paintings hung up on the wall. New and old, it would be shown here tonight.

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Pomrick filed in with a gaggle of other students. He was swathed in an awkward-looking, ill-fitting navy robe like a hand tucked into a oversized glove, unable to reach the fingers. The sleeves swallowed his arms. The collar devoured his chin. The ends dragged after him on the floor, causing more than one bystander to have to skip over it and shoot him incensed looks.

This was the best he'd been able to find in his master's wardrobe, but it had to do. It also carried a handy hood to pull down over one's face - for craftiness! Just in case. Should Krellos be here. He tested it, pulling it over his head - and it fell down well beyond his nose, drowning him in fabric and nearly causing him to walk into a ruffled Anirian.

When he pushed it back, he spotted Lysander across the room, carefully studying a piece of art rendered in even darker colours than Pomrick's borrowed clothes.

A glance around him confirmed that, indeed, a group of older students were in attendance as well, including an ash-haired girl brushing past in an elegant dress of mauve silk, neatly fitted. Pomrick blinked, then glanced down at the folds of excess cloth dangling about him like curtains. He almost pulled the hood back over his head.

At least the senior students might mistake him for someone else. Feeling a need to blend in, he desperately sought someone he knew. Anyone! Even vaguely.

His uncertain path took him to Lysander. Lifting the ends of the robe around him like a skirt, Pomrick dodged a delegation of Anirian diplomats, briefly turning their heads in his direction like he had been a buzzing wasp. But this did not deter him. Anyone could appreciate art - his ma had said as much.

He found Lysander still scrutinising the painting, finger nearly touching it. Was that how one was supposed to look at a painting? Noted for later. He announced himself with a shuffle of cloth and gentle clearing of his throat.

"Evening, Lysander. Oh," he interjected himself, spotting the brooding details of the painting. A gloomy fortress in midnight black and blue. But also a chance for a witty witticism. "Damn me. That could almost look - that could almost look like . . . Maester Kikwi's home. It looks right owl-ful." In place of crickets, gentle glass-clinks and distant laughter trickled over them. Pomrick's voice and manner shrunk, peering around them. ". . . Eh? . . . You . . . you get it. . ?"

Lysander Docatto Valestri

A few confused yet curious eyes glanced towards the young gentleman standing with a serene smile before a complex painting of the ancient wizard Xhazier the Grey in his battle with the demon Balanor. It was an old story from Elbion that was more common as a children's story, more so than any real piece of history. What made the painting truly unique was the intricate spell patterns woven into the art, signalling the artist's skill in both the brush and a magic circle...And what made this all the more peculiar was that the young man was enthralled with this image, was clearly and absolutely blind.

Alistair Krixus stood before the art in a richly embroidered black suit with a silver lining and stylizations rounded out with a dark blue half cape draped across his right shoulder. A simple ebony cane rested lazily in his left hand as he analyzed the artwork.

The young Anirian aristocrat had seemingly disappeared from the public eye for a few months, a fact that had garnered much attention and gossip while he was away. The patron of House Krixus had ballooned his family's wealth seemingly overnight after his graduation from the Academy, only to go missing just as the family business was at the height of its influence. This event was his first attempt to wet his feet back into the public realm.

"If only our people were so openly creative with our use of magic in other creative fields."

Pomrick Bloomsfield said:

Pomrick filed in with a gaggle of other students. He was swathed in an awkward-looking, ill-fitting navy robe like a hand tucked into a oversized glove, unable to reach the fingers. The sleeves swallowed his arms. The collar devoured his chin. The ends dragged after him on the floor, causing more than one bystander to have to skip over it and shoot him incensed looks.

This was the best he'd been able to find in his master's wardrobe, but it had to do. It also carried a handy hood to pull down over one's face - for craftiness! Just in case. Should Krellos be here. He tested it, pulling it over his head - and it fell down well beyond his nose, drowning him in fabric and nearly causing him to walk into a ruffled Anirian.

When he pushed it back, he spotted Lysander across the room, carefully studying a piece of art rendered in even darker colours than Pomrick's borrowed clothes.

A glance around him confirmed that, indeed, a group of older students were in attendance as well, including an ash-haired girl brushing past in an elegant dress of mauve silk, neatly fitted. Pomrick blinked, then glanced down at the folds of excess cloth dangling about him like curtains. He almost pulled the hood back over his head.

At least the senior students might mistake him for someone else. Feeling a need to blend in, he desperately sought someone he knew. Anyone! Even vaguely.

His uncertain path took him to Lysander. Lifting the ends of the robe around him like a skirt, Pomrick dodged a delegation of Anirian diplomats, briefly turning their heads in his direction like he had been a buzzing wasp. But this did not deter him. Anyone could appreciate art - his ma had said as much.

He found Lysander still scrutinising the painting, finger nearly touching it. Was that how one was supposed to look at a painting? Noted for later. He announced himself with a shuffle of cloth and gentle clearing of his throat.

"Evening, Lysander. Oh," he interjected himself, spotting the brooding details of the painting. A gloomy fortress in midnight black and blue. But also a chance for a witty witticism. "Damn me. That could almost look - that could almost look like . . . Maester Kikwi's home. It looks right owl-ful." In place of crickets, gentle glass-clinks and distant laughter trickled over them. Pomrick's voice and manner shrunk, peering around them. ". . . Eh? . . . You . . . you get it. . ?"

Lysander Docatto Valestri

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Lysander turned only partway, as if not to break the small spell that paint and canvas had cast. His gaze went from the colors to Pomrick, the tangle of hair, the eyes too awake for this hour, and he let his mouth take on a crooked line that was almost a smile.

“Your jokes are so thoroughly bad they come back around to good,” he said. “There’s a kind of charm in the full circle of it.”

He considered his words, fingertips to his chin, as though the thought had a rough edge that wanted smoothing.

“I always pictured Maester Kikwi in an oversized bird house,” he went on. “He’s, what, two feet tall? What would he do with a real house? He could sleep in a shoebox, if he chose, and likely wake well-rested, having left room for dreams.”

Pomrick's half open mouth moved as if to remember it could utter words. He couldn't for the life of him figure out if he had just received a compliment, an insult or a detached observation. Perhaps all three.

Still, he grinned boyishly, appreciating the faint, crooked smile he had earned. He scratched the back of his hair, unknowingly puffing it up there.

"I guess, heh-heh. Yes, castle or house probably too big. Although I remember pigeons living in the rafters of our-- of a house in Elbion. Maybe he shares a room with another maester, living in the, uh, ceiling."

Now that he thought about it, where and how *did* Kikwi live? His brain had now tasted blood in absurd, wandering imagination.

"Or - or maybe he lives in someone's waistcoat! He could, ah, be here right now. Overhearing us."

Lysander Docatto Valestri

Kikwi

Visual Reference for dress

With great hesitance, Nilamani had chosen not to wear their pendant. Hesitant because their very being enrolled at Elbion college was a sign of changed times. They weren't sure if those times had changed enough that they could put their full form on display and not ruffle the wrong feathers.
Yet this event seemed somehow more appropriate a time. The strict culture of their visitors aside, this was an event about appreciating art....in a quite vain way Nilamani decided that not displaying their tail would be a waste, a small tragedy even.
At the college they wore whatever was loose and comfortable.... that wouldn't do for something this formal. As they owned no dresses, they had taken a hand me down from Udore. It was a color that made quite a statement. Layers of soft pink and peachy gold in a tailored fit that would have been a tight mermaid fit. They had cut a slit in the skirt quite high for mobility reasons. As much as there would have been a subtle irony to it, they couldn't risk falling over at such an event. They could only imagine the cost if they were to flounder and knock over some priceless bust.
They had adorned their hair with pearls and put on the most regal poker face they could manage before slithering in with a group of other students from Elbion.

Their heart beat in their own ears, blocking out any chance of noticing the accents among the whispers of others. Nilamani's eyes swept over the people at the gathering. Amongst the gathering they too were drawn to first seek the comfort of familiar faces. Better to collect ones courage before confronting the unknown.

Just as they had slunk up to the pair, Lysander Docatto Valestri seemed to be chiding Pomrick Bloomsfield on his sense of humor.
Lysander seemed to be wearing what he always did but between his clothes and his demeanor, Lysander looked far less out of place here than at the college. Well Lysander was a noble after all.
Pomrick on the other hand....well he it was certainly an amusing choice.
"You two seem to be getting on well. good evening~"
Nilamani gave a sort of half curtsey that was more of a bobbing up and down motion. It was hard to curtsey without knees.
"Incidentally, Maester kikwi is so taken with their work I sometimes wonder if he sleeps out with the creatures in one of the barns."

"Perrine Urahil, as in Proctor Urahil?" Vittoria lifted a brow, impressed that she had never known the Proctor was so talented. She surveyed the crowd around them, to see if the Proctor had indeed made it to the gala, but alas, a talented artist such as Proctor Urahil was also a prized Healer that survived the Academy before the revolution. She would be stationed closer to the war than be here in Elbion.

Turning her attention back to the young man that accompanied her this evening, Vittoria's eyes lit up with amusement.

"Remind me, Kilien, to extend my admiration to the Proctor once we are all returned to the Academy." Her eyes flicked back to the painting, a memory immortalised on canvas. Rallying of the troops, it had been titled, and indeed the hero of the piece held their broadsword aloft before a sea of weary and uplifted soldiers.

It was a scene Vittoria could pick out in her own memories, the countless times morale needed a boost and a speech was made.

"Very clever..." Outright compliments were hard earned from Vittoria Larrainth.

Kilien Basmarc

Alistair Krixus said:

"If only our people were so openly creative with our use of magic in other creative fields."

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"Come now, Lord Krixus." Livia Quinnick mused. "I am sure our nation can bring to light those that wish to lead such a life."

Dreadlord Quinnick had accepted the invitation on behalf of her family, known patrons of the arts in Vel Anir. Her mother was too ill, her older brothers too preoccupied with business and the estate. Livia had no qualms in traveling to Elbion, nor did she mind putting on a dress to make new acquaintances in a new city.

Her eyes could not see what the blind man was able to make out in the art, but Livia's eyes could find the phantom presence of magic. It hummed to her, softly, alerting her that magic was there. "What do you see, Alistair?"

She knew the Anirian Lord by now, having worked closely with him in the past on several missions.

Pomrick Bloomsfield
Nilamani
Lysander looked up from whatever quiet orbit his thoughts had settled into and gave a small, knowing nod toward Nilamani.
“Well,” he said, not quite smiling, “look who’s slithered in.”

His eyes passed over her, golden and distant, but not unkind. Whatever judgment they might have held was tempered by distraction, or perhaps deliberation. He did not linger on silk or shine; his interest rested elsewhere.

He folded his arms loosely. “Since we’re naming maesters,” he said, voice smooth as if reciting something memorized, “Vaezhasar will be teaching two courses this term. One concerns magical beings, what they are, what they are not. The other…” A slight pause, the lift of one brow. “Combat.”

There was a glint of dry amusement behind his gaze now, though he didn’t let it stretch into full expression.

“I heard his wife was less than pleased. Took offense to the new schedule. The ceiling in their quarters did not survive the conversation. I think the rumor's true, too. It'd certainly explain why half the chandeliers in the north wing spontaneously exploded."

He tilted his head, as if weighing whether that was exaggeration or just architecture meeting emotion.

Calixtus stepped into the gilded hall with an easy grace, the golden dusk illuminating his pale features. He wore a dark, impeccably tailored ensemble. It was subtle but unmistakably noble. His bearing that of someone both accustomed to admiration.

He had been to Vel Anir. His wealthy family thought it was important to travel. He had thought the city awfully square and grey.

From the corner of his eye, he spotted Bliss Gradimir. She wore a dusky mauve dress. He hadn't seen her dressed up. She had an uncertain posture, but he found her intriguing. He offered no greeting at first, simply approaching with slow confident strides as if composing his entrance.

When he reached her, he inclined his head with polite insolence.

“Miss Gradimir,” he said, voice low and smooth as velvet. “An art gala. How… enlightened of the College to put this on."

He paused, gaze drifting over her and the crowd, eyes sharp and assessing. The college students remained as a group. He glanced at the Anirian delegation. He inclined his head politely towards Atticus.

“Tell me, Bliss, do you seek to study the artistry of Vel Anir tonight… or to observe the faces of those who pretend to appreciate it?”

With that, he placed a gloved hand just inches from hers, not quite touching, the distance charged with intent. He arched an eyebrow, the smirk softening into something almost gentlemanly. If one ignored the spark of challenge in his eyes and his words that kept straying ever so close to direct insults. He would never be so crass.

Pomrick turned at the familiar, gently sibilant tones of Nilamani, like autumn leaves blowing over damp undergrowth. His smile increased and he began to speak:

"Ah, g--"

But when he spotted her, the rest of his greeting died. His jaw dangled slack, and he could all but stare at her serpentine lower body, while Nilamani- and Lysander's voices both drowned into incomprehensible muddle to his ears.

Nilamani
Lysander Docatto Valestri

Vittoria Larrainth said:

"Perrine Urahil, as in Proctor Urahil?" Vittoria lifted a brow, impressed that she had never known the Proctor was so talented. She surveyed the crowd around them, to see if the Proctor had indeed made it to the gala, but alas, a talented artist such as Proctor Urahil was also a prized Healer that survived the Academy before the revolution. She would be stationed closer to the war than be here in Elbion.

Turning her attention back to the young man that accompanied her this evening, Vittoria's eyes lit up with amusement.

"Remind me, Kilien, to extend my admiration to the Proctor once we are all returned to the Academy." Her eyes flicked back to the painting, a memory immortalised on canvas. Rallying of the troops, it had been titled, and indeed the hero of the piece held their broadsword aloft before a sea of weary and uplifted soldiers.

It was a scene Vittoria could pick out in her own memories, the countless times morale needed a boost and a speech was made.

"Very clever..." Outright compliments were hard earned from Vittoria Larrainth.

Kilien Basmarc

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Strangely enough, Kilien had a difficult time managing his appreciation of art. Not that it held little value or meaning to him, but simply that art in and of itself meant something different to his people. Rovani were not known for being masters of paint, though he vaguely recalled one or two from his childhood being quite talented with charcoal and parchment. Art to them was more a matter of story and representation of their clans.

Colors branded bloodlines. Subject matter took the place of conversation. One could produce an entire letter of intent in the braided web of horsehair over willow wisps. A bead or shell or bone a single word or note of a song to be gifted to another either in spite or in warmth.

To him the paintings felt cold. Detached. Lacking in the color of words unspoken. The gazes of those depicted by brushstroke listless and distant. It was almost like looking at an uncovered corpse at a wake, if the eyes had been painted over the eyelids. Gave him the heebie jeebies more than any run-in with a Soothsayer ever did, and that was saying something.

Or maybe he was just that uninitiated in high society. Either way, he wasn't sure he was missing out.

"Hm?" he had not been listening, the arrival of Nilamani secured his attention far better than any of the current pieces of art on display, "...sure, yeah..."

Now there was something you didn't see every day. Kilien stared in wonder.

Tucked away from the crowd and commotion stood another Anirian. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a beard that made him look more fit for an arena than an art hall, Henk seemed perfectly content to linger in the background. He watched the ebb and flow of students and initiates with quiet patience, finding more joy in their laughter and chatter than in the canvases on display. Playing spectator brought a kind of peace to his heart; rare, precious, and all too fleeting in his line of life.

The last time he had walked the streets of Elbion, he had been an Initiate himself, trapped in some ill-fated foreign study program. Back then, he’d balked at the idea that a handful of Dreadlords-in-training could be confined within the University walls and expected to play by rules that weren’t hammered into them with pain and discipline. He had thought that naïve.

Of course, that was wrong. He understood that now.

This gala, a simple, joyous exhibition of creativity, was the sort of thing he'd taken for granted. He had been so consumed by the need for approval from his peers, and later, by a thirst for vengeance against those he believed had wronged him.

But now, standing in the corner with nothing but time to reflect, he felt something shift. Watching these young men and women, yet unshackled by the same chains that had once bound him to his violent path, he saw what they could create with brush instead of blade, with patience instead of punishment.

It made him happy.

So it was with a sizable donation that he'd attended, and it did seem he was not the only one of his class who'd found their way here. A familiar, confident voice carried across the room, and Henk’s eyes followed it straight to Alistair Krixus. Interesting. By all accounts, Krixus had all but vanished from the world for a time. Henk could appreciate the act—after all, he’d done much the same himself once.

“If I’d known his Lordship was crawling out from under the rocks…” Henk rumbled, his tone dry but softened by the smile tugging at his lips. He moved toward Alistair, boots striking heavy against polished stone, hands clasped neatly behind his back. “I might’ve dressed better. Shaved, even.”

He came to stand beside them, laying one broad hand briefly on Alistair’s shoulder. Friends? Perhaps not, but they had been through too much together to be the opposite. "You look well, Alistair. As do you..."

Recognition caught him off guard. A twinge of something worked its way to the corner of his mouth as he realized who Alistair’s companion was. Livia Quinnick.

When the young woman had been struggling to control her magic, Henk had taken on a brief mentorship role with the girl. The last time they'd seen one another, he'd left her with a difficult choice in her lap.

Henk wasn't of the opinion she'd made the right one, but he couldn't argue her success.

"Lady Quinnick." he greeted, dipping his head politely, "Keeping yourself under control?"

Pomrick Bloomsfield
Nilamani

The sound of his arrival was modest, but not modest enough to be mistaken: his armored soles clicked against the marble with the tidiness of an abacus, one, two, three, announcing him to those who preferred their revelations to come with a rhythm. Vaezhasar came on like a well-reasoned argument, broad-shouldered, horned staff riding in his hand like a standard, helm slitted and unrevealing. The living plate gripped him as a single obedient muscle; not a squeak of leather or clank of buckle volunteered to ruin the effect. He stopped where the carpet surrendered to polished stone and rapped the spear-shod butt of his staff against the floor. Octarine sparks jumped, tidy as punctuation.

“Dreadfully boring,” he announced to the nearest pocket of cultured murmur with the air of a man noting that a soup has too much water and the chef is related to him. “I was promised art and confronted with mere survival. One animated sculpture would have redeemed the evening. Failing that, a painting that bites.” He peered, as if giving the walls a fair chance to lunge.

The hall’s long windows gave him lines and angles to approve of; the crowd gave him specimens to sort. Here, the Anirian pair, one blind, though somehow studying a canvas with more success than half the sighted patrons, debated magic as if it were a respectable hobby; there, Elbion’s students clustered like migratory birds around any object with a plaque.

He inclined his helm toward the trio nearest him: Lysander, already dissecting a fortress scene with the brisk confidence of youth; Pomrick, swaddled in enough cloth to upholster a chaise, working bravely at humor; and Nilamani, tail and pearls and the sort of poise you wear when you suspect the room requires it.

“Valestri,” he said, the helm turning a fraction toward the painting as if to share the blame. “You’ve chosen the grimmer end of the catalogue. Sensible. A cheerful castle is a contradiction in terms; it leaks optimism from the crenels.” A small tilt toward Pomrick. “As for you, apprentice, never apologize for a joke until it is properly dead. If you must bury it, do not invite the mourners to identify the body.” And to Nilamani, a courteous half-bow of the staff. “An elegant solution to the problem of stairs.”

"Why do you persist in keeping your hair short?" asked Arunwë, her father.

Feä said nothing at first, but merely looked at him with impassive character. She and Arunwë and two other elves of the Mindalië stood in the bedchamber, these latter two younger cousins of Feä's, both girls, and at present they acted as handmaidens, dutifully preparing the beautiful blue dress for Feä and assisting her in donning it.

"I am fond of it arranged in this manner," she said.

A look of disapproval flashed across Arunwë's face. "I implore you to reconsider. Short hair lacks the regality befitting the Lannuädaith."

A minor issue in Arunwë's mind, certainly, as he promptly passed from it and on to the main thrust of what he wished to say regarding the Art Gala: "Know, Linnuwen, that you carry forth the Mindalië name, and behind that veil the legacy of the Nithelem. Trouble yourself not with the opinions of the Lessers, these Elbionese, but take care not to make a fool of yourself. Carry yourself with majestic air, for you are born superior to any of them, and they are blessed to bask in your presence."

His most essential command, then, after he drew in a disdainful breath through his nose. "Speak not to any of the Anirians—we shall live long enough to see the slaughter of their entire race, and it shall be glorious. Avert your gaze from them, deign not to look at them, for they deserve not even the consideration of your eyes."

He tipped her chin up with a finger, and in so doing bid her to look at him. "Am I understood?"

Again, silence, for a moment. And then Feä with great reservation said quietly, "Yes."



Feä upon her return to the College immediately went to her dorm. In haste she tore the blue dress from her body, and with her magic, Crystal Blades called forth from her fists, she ripped it further asunder. All the ragged pieces she gathered and placed in a satchel—she would dispose of them later.

In place of the garment provided by her family, Feä had something else she intended to wear. Another dress, of course, but one starkly different: this one was plain, simple, and brown of hue, one that she had purchased herself. It was not overtly unlovely to the eye, no, not ugly, but something rather that the eye would simply pass over as a matter of course, as it might over the dirt of a barren field. No hands of skilled elven craft had touched it, no precious metals adorned it, no jewels nor jewelry enhanced it, no elegance of design graced it, no novelty brought fresh life to it. Merely was it serviceable, something that a commoner might wear for days of no special significance.

This, Feä, in her naïveté, truly thought to be acceptable. The only ceremony or special occasion in which she had ever been allowed to participate was the Swearing of her Oath. Perhaps also could be included the Commencement in the College's Convocation Hall at the beginning of the term.

But quickly would she be corrected.

On her approach to the Hall of History and Art, in which many Elbionese and Anirians had already entered, a man beside the door saw her, stepped in front of her, and held out his hand.

Feä in her confusion asked, "This...is where the gala is being held?"

"Yeah," said the man, who wore quite the serious expression, "for people who are properly attired."

Feä glanced down at her dress and then back up at the man. "I am attired."

"Properly attired. Young lady, you look better suited to fetching well-water or digging a hole in a garden with that garment."

"I...do not intend to do either of those acts here."

"Listen," the man now said sternly, "you're not getting through these doors dressed like that. Figure something out."

Feä, plaintively, said, "...Please?"

The man just crossed his arms.