Private Tales Misery Knows Thyself

A private roleplay only for those invited by the first writer
Mara felt a twinge of sorrow at the idea of life and nature lost. If she actually saw it herself, she was certain she would feel more. When she wasn't lost in anger, the elf felt almost altogether too deeply. "I suppose this will be my chance to see the world," she said instead of voicing her private thoughts on the matter of what had happened so close to where they were now walking. "Perhaps there is a place for..." She hesitated, successfully catching the next words, and then said in their place, "Nevermind. I should know better."

Seska's cool nature towards the future losses seemed in keeping with what Mara knew of her world-weariness, even if it was difficult for the elf to understand. Perhaps in a few centuries, she would have a better understanding. Her father had told her once of the difficulties of spending time among shorter-lived races. With Seska's age, she imagined the effects were hundred-fold.

But she at least had Seska speaking on a topic. That was better than their first interactions, where little had been said. "May I ask you what your favorite place is? I doubt I would be able to settle on one, but you are far wiser than I."
 
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"The mountains," she replied without much delay. She had not missed the girls half finished sentence, but answering the direct question first suited her.

"They remind me of...a different place. The heights where the eagles soar, the wild pinnacles of stone thrust fingers through the heavens. Pristine waters, cool summers. And life, everywhere." The keep of the Ordo de Draconis, seat of her power in a different age came to mind. But that had been a different place, full of sorcery and steel. During a time of ceaseless war, an aspect of life she did not miss.

She barked a laugh. "Wise? No, dear, I am old. Age breeds some wisdom, but a fool at one hundred is still a fool at ten thousand. Or one hundred thousand." She made her way along with painful care. "I have played the fool in my day, same as anyone else. Why mortals put me and those like me on a pedestal, I will never know. We bleed, same as you." We hurt, just like you.
 
"And here I was hoping growing some grey hair would solve my problems," Mara said with dry humor, lips twitching slightly, trying to find a smile even though she couldn't really make one anymore. "I suppose I'll have to look forward to mountains, then. They're at least as easy to fall off of as a pedestal, I hear."

Despite her better judgment's words of warning, she was glad for the company along the road. If nothing else, trying to bridge the gap with Seska diverted her thoughts from the too painful and too recent past. "It will be strange to see a whole horizon. In the forest, the only way I could see that was climbing the tallest of trees and look across the leaves where birds and butterflies played." She lacked a poet's tongue to do her home justice, but she could attempt to convey its beauty to whatever stranger decided to ask her. She didn't need to for Seska, who had already seen it.

Though, they were obviously looking through very different eyes. She thought of her father then, still stinging from everything that had been said between them. He was older, almost an elder, and had grown hardened in his time beyond the forest watching the younger races grow and die. His return to his homeland had been born from a weariness very similar to Seska's. Still, he loved his family and perhaps her more than Nendir...once upon a time. Even Nendir said she was their father's favorite, without an inch of resentment in his heart. Mara had needed him.

And when she needed him most, he wasn't there.

I don't know who you are, he'd said. It was the first, agonizing moment she knew that she was not his daughter in his eyes any more.

She blinked away a few tears. For the most part, they'd stopped falling when she was awake to banish them. There was just the pain, the broken glass and hollow space inside. This was not the time to show it, though.
 
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"Parting is always painful at first, whether planned, or forced," the Sidhe said of a sudden. She was making her way best she could given her shorter legs and lack of sleep, thecwearing thin of nights with no rest and abuses done to flesh and blood not long ago. "I cannot tell you to not feel sorrow, but of hope I would hope you yet hold out."

The girl had said nothing of her circumstance or story, but to her it was a tale as old as time. The details might differ, but the main thread had a commonality with the lives of millions before her, spanning all of history.

The one with the undesired gift, the one who was different. The one cast out, banished, tossed aside like some trivial piece of refuse. The one left to wander, to shift through the ashes of a life once cherished, now lost.

This was what the ancient sorceress saw in this young woman. She was not stupid, and could put together a few of the pieces without asking the obvious questions. The scars, the tears that seemed to gave little to do with the loss of beauty they espoused. The travelling into the open world, bereft of possession and family if friend,suddenly and tearfully.

And there was little she could offer to ease the pathos that weighed her companion down. How could she, when the grim spectre had made its periodic visit to her, snatching away what she held deat as, inevitably, it always did?

Perhaps the admission would provide catharsis for both of them. Emotion buried deep would fester, and could turn a person into an ugly beast.

"I miss my little mare," she said suddenly, a faint tremor in her voice that denoted an ocean of tears, of pent up sorrow barely contained.
 
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Mara turned slightly when Seska spoke of hope, to look more fully at her companion as they walked. It was surprising to hear the woman speak of it with how jaded she had seemed before, but Mara knew, or at least thought, that people contained multitudes of facets, like gems carved with unearthly complexity. Perhaps that wasn't even a poor metaphor, given the grit and wear she had seen used to polish a stone's side.

Besides, even jade had many qualities.

The elf's expression softened when Seska gave voice to her own sorrow. It didn't matter if it was merely an animal companion or something more magical: clearly the mare meant the world to Seska and the pain of its loss was enough to crack jade so deep that perhaps it was almost in half. "I'm sorry," she said, though the words were woefully insufficient. "I know I can't change it, but I'm here." It wasn't much of a comfort, but Mara didn't want Seska to have to feel alone in the middle of that loss. Even if she was just a mayfly to Seska, perhaps she could do something while she was able to do so.

After all, Mara was grateful for the company, even with barely any conversation and the melancholy they seemed to share. It was enough to not be alone for a little while. It was enough even if their paths would depart soon, when Seska tired of her or found a new direction to head in instead of Mara's aimless wandering. The presence of another couldn't fix or change the past no matter how much she wanted to go back and do it over again, but it could soothe a fraction of the sting of loneliness.
 
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She struggled for a moment to master her emotions, a truly titanic task and surprisingly so. She couldn't stop a few tears from falling, but she managed to keep a level head. She wondered, as she had many times in the past, how long it would be before she could put this overwhelming sorrow behind her, before the hole carved in her heart would heal again. So much time passed between such terrible losses that it was difficult to remember, and it was difficult to remember the heart-wrenching sorrow when the time came to form another bond.

She could not avoid people, could not avoid association. It was a part of her, as much as it was a part of many others. It was possible, of course, to sequester herself away from the world in its entirety...but that way lay madness, and eventually death of the mind. An unpleasant notion.

The pain was a small price to pay to keep moving forward, step by step.

To break the silence, she swallowed her tears. "You have no idea where you are going, do you? Simply....going." How I can relate to that, she thought to herself bitterly.
 
Mara struggled within herself for a moment, trying to grapple with the idea of being absolutely rudderless in the sea of life, buffeted by waves. More than anything, she didn’t want to be that way. “No, I don’t know where I’m going,” she said quietly. “But I can’t go back and I can’t stay here.” Here was both her state of being and her physical location. Maybe it was stupidity, but she found herself desperately clawing for hope that someday, somewhere, things might be different.

She sighed and admitted, “I need to learn more of magic, though I don’t exactly have a plan on making that happen,” she said. “Once I leave the woods, I can practice every day, but that’s never enough for actual mastery.”

Her dreams of that were admittedly vague right now when apparent at all. She was far more dominated by nightmares than hopes. Catching Tarquin was a dream at this point. He’d left almost four years ago, without any indication of where he was going next other than “a great city far from Falwood”. The traveling metalworker had once been a College mage, or so he claimed. Given the man’s grasp of magic, Mara believed him.

He’d said she was gifted, that many a conjurer could have used an apprentice like her, but all she had to show for her pyromancy so far was scarring of one variety or another. And yet, the temptation to swear off it hadn’t arisen. It was her comfort, her soothing balm and safe embrace, but also her protection. There was a great deal of danger beyond her home and fire could keep that at bay...hopefully.

Tarquin had at least seen something good in her magic. That was a damn sight better than anyone else. Mara sighed again. “I suppose it doesn’t matter,” she murmured, thinking of the fever dream of learning more. Without coin or connection, she was out of luck. Seska was clearly magical, but the world-weary woman likely had less than no interest in being pestered.
 
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She sighed heavily, a thing full of deep meaning. The same old crossroads, the path traveled so many times that it had worn a rut into the road, was becoming increasingly difficult to step out of.

"I wish I could offer you guidance, but I cannot. Your magic and mine are different things. No one of this world could have taught me my Art, and my Art cannot be taught to one who is not Sidhe. It would be like teaching a fish to fly." And, assuming you could even tap such power in and of yourself, chaos is a dangerous tool. Seductive, entrancing, enticing...

Hers was elemental in nature, but the form it took was in chaos, the disordered mana of creation itself. Bound in her flesh, channeled through a living mind that could bring order to chaos, to give it shape and purpose. Frightfully powerful in the hands of a master...and deadly dangerous in the hands of the novice.

Blessedly, unless there was some drop of Sidhe ancestry in Mara's family, she could not learn that method. And perhaps bma blessing for her, as well. The Watered seldom fared well with the abilities offered, and tended to die young.

"Take care, young one, in your practice. I do not know how it is among elves and humans-" Ham-fisted and clumsy, her mind supplied fir her, "-but among many, trying to wield too much power too soon can kill you. Or those around you. Or both," she said in a mild tone. "Elbion would likely be a good place to start looking for proper tutelage, though."
 
Mara nodded. She had tasted enough flame to know what a lack of caution could bring. "I don't know if I'm ready to be part of a college," she admitted. "The man who started training me said there was one in Elbion, but he wasn't too fond of it. Tarquin always said he liked going his own way more. That's why he traveled."

Her main concern was born out of the pain of her freshly shattered heart. The last world she'd claimed to be a part of had rejected her utterly. Why would some foreign college be any different? An individual person or two to learn from or with was one thing. Even that would be difficult, between her sensitivity and scars, but in her experience, pyromancy was not a discipline that bred fond feelings. Part of it was probably elven history with fire. That said, Mara knew there would be other people who weren't elves who probably wouldn't take kindly to it. At its core, fire was destruction made beautiful and beauty made destructive. While her thinking right now was wishful, she wasn't stupid: fire burned.

It would be up to her to choose where and when to apply that power. It was an overwhelming thought, but a necessary one.

She looked over at Seska. "I promise I will be careful," she said, meaning it. Seska's company was all she had right now and she didn't want to alienate or harm the smaller woman. "Your guidance is appreciated , even if it is not in magic."
 
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"My guidance is caution," she said simply. She still sounded tired, but the distraction of conversation was helping deal with the loss of a friend. "You short-lived races tend to run when you should walk, take risks where caution is advised."

She paused a moment, then her cheeks reddened a but in embarrassment. "Sorry," she said in an almost contrite tone. Almost. "I do not interact with the world as often as I should. Too long spent in isolation..." She shook her head. "Another piece of advice: do not run from the world for fear." Of what, she did not say, but there was no need to.
 
“It’s not every day someone calls elves short-lived,” Mara observed with a quiet sort of reflection. She didn’t know what precisely Seska was, but asking seemed impolite. She was trying not to intrude on Seska’s privacy where it could be avoided.

She hesitated a moment, pondering Seska’s warning not to hide from the world. Finally, she said, “I won’t hide, but as you say, caution is advised. I don’t tend to find people who like me once they know what I am.” It was a bitter truth, but one too powerful to disbelieve, a far cry from some illusionist’s little tricks. Once her pyromancy was known throughout her home, she had been persona non grata.

She tried to smile faintly behind her mask, but her lips remained mostly immobile, giving her a little asymmetric expression that might have looked sarcastic or contemptuous if it were visible. “I’m not the world, but I’m here if you need anything. Do you know what the nearest town or city is? We might head there, provided there isn’t trouble on the way.”
 
She did not deride the woman, only nodded. "Elves can live a long time, but we Sidhe can live far, far longer. Your kind are still..." She paused, trying to think of how best to describe it. There had been scholars during her day, back in the height of her civilization, that could have given a more concise explanation than she ever could have. Hers was not about scholarly pursuits. Then, or now. "You are physical beings. There is magic within you, but it is not the same. Me and mine, we are magical beings. I do not even have to eat in order to survive, unlike you." But I have to be careful where I tread, for there are places in the world that are deadly to me as a result of my strange metabolism. "We die, same as anyone else...but not because of aging. Or at least, not directly because of it."

There were those that could not handle the passage of years, or those that simply grew tired enough of life that they simply abandoned it. She herself could not understand the mindset behind that, but the world was full of strange peoples.

She resumed her walking, joints and bones aching. "You will find," she began in a dry tone of voice, "that the people of the world are a lot less...sour about those with affinities for fire magics beyond the boughs of your forest." Very dry. She had always thought the elves overweening, pretentious idiots that had no right to it. And sanctimonious to boot. The concept of the pot calling the kettle black was one that had never, ever occurred to her before.

"I do not," she said. "The world has changed a lot since I was last through here. Generally, find a road and follow it and it will more or less always lead to a place where people live."
 
Mara doubted the destructive nature of her gift would be welcome for long. Then again, as a battle mage she would be dangerous. It was just that she had no wish to be part of making war. “I hope you are right, but I can’t say I expect a change,” Mara said. A wave of homesickness hit her even through the bitterness. She looked over her shoulder at Falwood as they began to move through a thinner, tamer part of the forest slowly fading to open ground.

She sighed, knowing she would not be able to return. Perhaps in a long, long time she would be free of the stain of destruction, but she doubted that too.

After a long pause, she finally said, “I don’t want to be this forever.” She didn’t elaborate, head full of thoughts. She hated the idea of being always the runaway, the damaged, the fearful, the pained. Anything had to be better, whether light or dark.
 
"You will not," the sorceress replied, perhaps not aware of the women's thoughts but nevertheless understanding what she meant. She sounded confident of her words, too, though there was an underlying current of pathos to that as well.

Things changed, the Sidhe knew. The land did, its people did as well. Time flowed but one direction, and every passing moment brought change to all things. Nothing was immune to this, except perhaps time itself which remained a constant.

A part of her wanted to speak of growth, of the fact that in a short ten or twenty years, this slip of a girl would have matured, grown confident in herself and her abilities and her purpose. All the doubt and insecurity of the current time would be little more than a memory, if even that. The people that shunned her now might still, but she would not care any longer what most of them thought. She might not become famous or special to any but herself, but to her own self she would doubtless remain true.

What a bunch of pretentious shit, she thought to herself. Forever a stranger in a strange land, without a place to belong or any home to call my own. No people to fall back on, no where to turn.

Alone.

A wintry wind blew through her heart, a soul-chilling breeze that darkened her mood. The only one ti be allowed close in recent memory was dead, and there was no changing that. She was in the presence of another, and yet still bitterly alone, separated by the gulf of experience.

"Do you even know what it is you wish to do?" She herself had trouble answering that question some days. "Fleeing from yourself us not a goal."
 
Seska’s question stung a bit. Mara liked to think she was wise enough to know fleeing herself was not a long term goal, nor one pursuing. She didn’t take it personally, however, briefly squared shoulders immediately relaxing.

“I want to see the world. I want to be better at magic, controlled, safer. I won’t be what they saw in me,” Mara said. It hurt, the way that her village had treated her like a monster forever primed to go on a rampage. She hated the looks they’d given her. She promised herself every day that she would practice and train to control her strange kinship with fire.

She wasn’t ready for the college, but if she traveled far and wide enough, she would meet mentors every bit as talented and capable of teaching. Surely not every mage outside the college was irresponsible or dangerous to a prospective student. She tried to have hope for her future despite the agonies of the past that tormented her dreams and sometimes her waking hours.

She softened slightly as she looked at Seska. The smaller woman’s expression had turned wintry with grief again, something that Mara could not ease. She wished that she could offer medicine, but that was not to be. “I’m here,” she offered softly. “If there’s anything I can do.”
 
Mend the unmendable. Patch my heart if you can make this patch stick among all the others. Pathos. It had been a companion of hers for far longer than any if her flesh and blood friends. A product of a long life, or just bearing witness to the dissolution of everything she had ever known. The slow, silent sinking of a people into oblivion, to be forgotten like so many others in the long chain if history.

She shook her head slowly. "Time is the only thing to mend my broken heart, though that heart be all scars anymore," she said, a wan smile on her face. "Take heart in that the whole world is new and wonderful, and let the draw of the novel displace the sorrow you feel," she said. She herself could not look upon the world as such, for the wonder had long since rotted away. She walked through a graveyard that others thought bright and new, knowing of the ashes of and bones all trod upon.

"I cannot promise to impart much, but I know of fire magics. Perhaps if we keep it simple, I can try to help you learn. I am...afraid..." she did not finish the statement immediately, though.

After a moment, she shook her head. "I should be mended enough for a little more, yet," she said.
 
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