Private Tales The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul

[Stella]

Continued from: https://chroniclesrp.net/threads/the-valenntenian-masquerade-festival.5790/page-8#post-161348

To see the wisps of white curl about as the drink gained its color. How they rose, a veil of mysteries through which truth danced betwixt the twists and spirals so thin, no mortal hand could hope to stitch.

"No," he replied with a soft smile. Easy, where hers was tight. "Oddly enough, I came to get away from such familiar spells," his eyes met hers, with nary a hint of shame. For he was a Shaman. Mistborne.

Secrets were things kept, too deep to cause worry. And half truths turned tongues just as well, when strung with care.

"Yet, I would be remiss to say that I found little more than solitude amidst the festivities, and bad habits to keep me company," a warm curl on his lip. More truth than not, as the aroma of the Valenntenian brew began to fill the air. "Till our paths cross, Stella,"

Stella

“Curious,” the woman remarked, her tone delicately tethered like a spider’s web in a breeze that she might speak too loudly, too forcefully, it might tear away, “to be among so many and yet find only solitude for company.”

It was a notion she knew well. So well, in fact, that her eyes did not meet those of the man across from her as she continued the dance of brewing.

“Seeking solitude being one of my own bad habits in accordance with man, it seems you have found your current state relatively unchanged in my company.”

Her lips pressed together in silence then, to make the point. Long enough that he may speak in reply. Longer still that the patience for tea be granted with the finished product. Amber and golden in the light of the festivities, liquid memories poured into hand-made nostalgia.

“For someone making distance between what was and what is, you have not gone very far,” Stella’s eyes connected with his again as she settled into her chair with her tea cup gingerly raised before her, their gazes meeting between a serpentine of steam. The relative proximity of his current location to that which he meant to leave behind was barely even a fortnight apart.

 

[Hazanko Miya]

For all the void that was found in silence, clarity and calm rest there too. “Relatively,” he said with a pleased smile crested across his lips. “I have found my state nourished, in your company,” he played along, words like ripples set to skim across the tranquil surface of the space between them.

Room allowed for the quiet to envelope them once more. Wrap warm about them. Comfortable.

“Pleased, in so much, that you would allow me to share in your solitude,” he gave, as his eyes watched the color of their drink change. The light bent and danced within the cup. Against its walls. Bloomed the more as the hue deepened.

Grew rich.

“Far enough to get away,” he assured, as the curtain snaked and shimmied betwixt them. “If only for a while,”

 

[Stella]

A human might have blushed at the off-handed compliment. Stella understood his words only for what they meant in reality: that he was receiving nourishment of the literal kind. She listened to his voice while her tea cooled beneath her nose. Human bodies were such delicate things - so easily burnt that even tea could render injury.

As a dragon, she’d suffer no such consequences but alas, taking tea in that form was next to impossible, if not entirely pointless. A full mug would barely touch a single taste bud.

“What is it you are getting away from?” her words chased a small silence that followed his last, no hint of shame to be seen for what was likely a private matter. Stella rarely denied her curiosities.

 

[Hazanko Miya]

A catlike smile crept across the Mistborne’s face, ”You are persistent, no doubt in that,” he said before he took a sip of his tea. Felt the marriage of ceramic and abalone press gentle across his lips. How he relished in the warmth that filled his breath, and filled him so.

He brought the cup down, kept it nestled between his hands, and he looked into the shallow pool of drink once more.

Contemplation is clear across his face.

“Duty, I suppose,” he smirked. Roguish and without shame. “What I know must be done, after my fate has been twisted by the winds of fortune,” his eyes found hers again. A tenderness there in.

As if already, he stepped too close to the truth. There across that shallow distance between them. “That same wind that found me here, with this cup in my hand, banded by the pearl dragon,” his lips managed another happy curl. Pleased, despite the melancholy that seemed so warm and familiar in his heart.

 

[Stella]

Persistent? Hm.

That garnered a look from the woman, fleeting as it were. Dragon and cat passed as ships in the night.

Persistence wasn't something she ascribed herself to. It felt far too human a word to describe the means in which her pursuit of information made itself manifest. The word didn't feel appropriate, as though it fell short in the way that the word pretty might when describing the scenery of morning sunlight filtering through dew-dazzled hillsides.

Was she ... taking offense? Nonsense.

"Duty. Fate." Stella intoned, swaying a hand to the setting before her, "Tea. Pot."

 

[Hazanko Miya]

He smiled at the game. Laughed and bowed his head. "Outmatched," he gave. A small shake of his head as he settled back into the air of comfort. "No, outclassed," he said sure and easy as he relaxed in his chair. "But such is the nature of the Shaman," he bowed his head. "Mistborne, no less," he took in a breath, looked back at the cup in his hand. "We hold our secrets like well worn robes," he tilt his cup in his hand, and spied her gaze through the shift and shimmer of the reflection there in. "But there is no hiding from your eyes, is there, Stella?"

He took a moment. As if a man about to plunge into a river. "You are familiar with the Divine Raakgui, Aembi?"

 

[Stella]

"It was not a competition," Stella remarked tidily between his words, pale brows arched as she partook in her first sip of tea. It tasted of heady summers upon the veldtlands surrounding Valenntenia. Warmth that had nothing to do with its temperature suffused the passage journey to the pit of her belly and held there like somber honey. It mixed well with his next words that brought up a wealth of nostalgic reminiscing on topics, subjects, sights, and peoples not ruminated upon for quite a long while.

So he was a Mistborn Shaman. Despite her memories and experiences in his homelands many decades ago, she had not seen and learned all there was to see and know there. In fact, as Stella sifted through those memories ...what she could remember came in fractured pieces, which caused the woman's brow to furrow and her gaze to grow distant as she delved deeper into this curious disturbance of her otherwise impeccable mind.

"You are familiar with the Divine Raakgui, Aembi?"

This drew the Guardian from her reverie. Stella gently cleared her throat and adjusted her poise.

"Familiar, yes," she replied, looking back to the man and his many scars, "is Aembi part of your duty or fate?"

 

[Hazanko Miya]

Hazanko's lips curled at their corners, like the feint fingers of steam, come curl against a cooling breath. "Is it the leaf's duty to sail the river's current? Or is it fate that has the ice melt to carry it out to sea?" He asked simply, though his voice tightened, just. Too close to his own worrisome heart. There with wistful drink in hand. He breathed in deep, to come collected. He sipped, and let the stillness of the moment grow the more between them.

A somber warmth.

"I cannot claim to know," he admitted, and looked to her again. "But my path has crossed with the Divine Toad's, and that encounter has brought me here,"

He kept the rest hidden.

That Aembi was in truth cursed. A secret hidden from Aetochi itself. And he, the fool shaman that had purified the great raakgui. Turned it into not more than a toadling. Potent as a sapling sprung from its cone, but all the more vulnerable to every danger of the world that aimed to keep it small. Keep it from growing strong and true. Was he to take Aembi back to the world that had rendered them cursed?

He took another drink. And relished the flavor of the brew.

It was only a matter of time before news of what had happened in Sonshan got out to the world beyond.

"In search of the answer to that same question," he kept his eyes on hers. His smile brightened just so, "A karp, much less a leaf, can not compete with the will of the river, coursing as it is, and yet," he looked down at the tea pot, and the cups once more. "It can learn to jump across its currents,"

 

[Stella]

Stella had very little to say on the matter of Divine Toads, leaves, or fish and so the Guardian maintained her collected reticence to allow her company to find a natural end to his trailing thoughts.

Given he had not prompted her for her thoughts nor asked for her advice, she gave neither. Sometimes silence was the best answer to life's many mysteries. Listening, thinking, wondering often rewarded one in time. After a respectful amount of time had passed, the woman gently set her tea cup down and gave herself a moment to ponder her next words.

"Then I shall provide you a fresh current. What is your familiarity with poisons?"

 

[Hazanko Miya]

With the precision of a crane, she plucked at his worries clean.

"A fresh current?" he sounded, brow quirked. Come the question of poisons, he let his breath spill from his lungs. Let the worries of fate and duty snake their way back into the darkness of his mind.

"I am Mistborne," he said with an easy pride, his head held higher, back straighter with a new lungful of breath. That was explanation enough. He drank from his tea, and let the warm brew work its way through the coil of his being. "To be used, or to be remedied?" he asked after a moment of calm.

 

[Stella]

Mistborne, yes. Perhaps he had been placed on her doorstep for a reason given her current mission at hand.

"Remedied," she replied, took a slow breath and a moment to consider her words before continuing, "a citizen of Valentennia has experienced prolonged poisoning. Despite my ... extensive knowledge of the world, I do not yet know everything." The Guardian gave a tight-lipped smile at this admission, her poise unchanging.

It was always an exciting prospect to find something new and unknown.

"The symptoms mirror many common poisons but no known remedy has brought relief."

 

[Hazanko Miya]

Common poisons.

Yet no remedy.

The Shaman of Mist let those words brew within the drink of his mind, as he held the cooling cup in the palm of his hand. His eyes came shut, and his lungs filled with breath. The fragrant scents of the cup, eased him into the journey.

"Fevers, lack of breath, a swelling of the soft tissues?" he asked, as his inner self walked through the mists of memory.

 

[Stella]

"Deep lethargy, lack of appetite, weakness, a slowing of the heartbeat..."

"He's been sleeping most of the day, but his condition is worsening Sir, Madame. Can't get him to eat, barely get him to drink. I don't know..."

Solomon raised a hand up slightly and nodded. The guardsmen turned and led them to the largest cell, placed far back in the stone hallway. through the metal bars was a man around The Absalon's age, thin and wiry, with frazzled gray hairs coating his face like a silver lion's mane. Dressed in old noble clothing that had seen better days, the man lay on his side, pale face blotched with dark blue bruises or something that resembled them.

"Stella, meet Odhran Carvyre, once the second most powerful man in Valenntenia."

Stella's eyes narrowed, having gone unfocused as she recounted the exact memory from several nights prior, "...a bluing of the flesh like bruises, but not caused of physical harm. Internal hemorrhaging, I believe."

Her eyes closed then as the wash of claustrophobia of the underground cells came over her. Tea cup clattered unsteadily back to the table as she set it aside, lips drawing thin, a muted sound in the back of her throat at the rush of discomfort. She gripped the arm of her chair until the metaphysical memory passed while her other hand lifted to her head.

"Yellowed teeth..." she continued, "hallucinations."

 

[Hazanko Miya]

While the scarred shaman sat still upon his seat, within the walls of his mind, the mists swirled.

A landscape of grey. Thin veils, draped and shift with each word uttered by the woman he sat so across. Those lines of history he had willed to be with each symptom he had listed, vanished as details poured from Stella's mouth, and new currents streamed around him. Made the curtains stir the more as he stepped across the plane of his memories.

Scenes of the past. Faces that came clearer through the distant haze. Twisted by weakness. Hearts pounding softer and softer in his ears. Those who ate well, faded from the shores of his mind. Those who had their minds, followed next. Until only a handful of faces remained.

Contorted and bruise mottled as they were. Weakened and withering in their beds as their chests hardly moved.

A sound. From their throats. A sound.

Hazanko's eyes came open, and he saw how Stella struggled. His hand laid down the cup with a gentle clack against the table.

"Stella," he said as he looked to her. Her name fell from his lips like a warm spring breeze.

 

[Stella]

The memory persisted. Stella's brow furrowed inward.

"The only symptom he exhibited before his arrest was a noted increase in aggression. His temper grew short and he began to have frequent outbursts of rage... Nothing like this though, this... rot."

"Increased aggression preceded the deterioration..." and then the memory began to unspool. The line on her forehead softened and her hand receded from her head. When Stella opened her eyes again they were pinned and slit as a dragon's might be when taking in the sight of a threat.

"The-" she began, breathing in a slow and weary breath and then released it with a gentle clearing of her throat, "the attending Doctors believe it to originate from the deep Falwood." Eyes shifted behind a flurry of blinks, returning to those of the human presented to the man as she looked back to him, "Does this bear any familiarity?"

 

[Hazanko Miya]

He did not avert his gaze. He did not flinch or retreat. Still and calm, he remained before her as her true eyes showed themselves.

He was here with her. If only in that moment.

The-" she began, breathing in a slow and weary breath and then released it with a gentle clearing of her throat,

He bowed his head, and moved his hands easy, tender as boughs and branches set to sway. His fingers took up the pot of tea as the last details came free. A pour, measured and steady filled the cups, with the last bits of tea come drop from the spout. Each measured and sure.

An ease of the wrist saw the pot righted. Emptied, he set it back upon the table. His hands grabbed the cup he had filled first, and pushed it toward her, took the second cup, and pulled it toward himself.

Their eyes met.

"..Does this bear any familiarity?"

He bobbed his head. "It does," he assured. "If only because of how peculiar the circumstances around it were," he took his cup in hand, and drank from Valentennian brew. How the warmth felt so familiar, yet the drink tasted so different.

"It is made of the southern bitterfrond fruit," he looked at those tea leaves which gathered at the bottom of the cup.

And the face of the old hermit was washed from his living memory.

 

[Stella]

The fatigue slowly began to settle upon her and Stella could not be sure if it were from the ordeal of reliving the memory or from the memory itself. Eidetic minds seldom found peace, though she was lucky enough to have the wherewithal and the extended life to hone her abilities.

They still were not without their price. Even a dragon tired.

But a dragon such as she was not without manners, either. To the tea she bid him her thanks in his native tongue and took up the freshly filled cup with care, breathing in the soothing vapors while it cooled beneath her chin.

"Bitterfrond fruit," she repeated, brow set in thought once again but drawing no conclusions or first-hand experience with the subject matter.

"Do you know where to find it?"

 

[Hazanko Miya]

He gave a bow, and held a long moment to welcome the words of thanks. His own cup of fresh brew, steaming there, as he cradled it close to the chest.

Felt its warmth, ebb through the fabrics of his starkly colored robes. Each cup they shared, was a bit of nourishment. Restoration. For tea had its own magic, and the Shaman of the Mist knew how to channel those energies within the brew. The flavors distinct to each pot.

Timings and rhythm's. The way each movement of flesh and bone set to stir steam and drink alike.

All to bring out each flavor and scent of the Valentennian black tea. Those subtle hints of cinnamon from the Taagi Baaran kangra leaf. Mixed with the earthy scent of root and vegetable.

"I do not," he said plainly. "At least, not its exact location," he went on, and took a moment to sip from the tea. Pulled it from his lips. "But I recall what the flower of the bitterfrond looks like," he shared. "From sketches, and detailed notes, to seeing, and smelling the dried up specimen," he smiled easy, and sipped from his cup.

 

[Stella]

"Then perhaps you will join me on a journey into the Fallwood to locate and study it," Stella returned before taking a slow sip. While the Mistborne indulged in rejuvenative qualities through his innate magics, she merely enjoyed it for the flavor and experience. A land dweller novelty that had become more habit and hobby than anything else.

"Unless, of course, you have pressing matters of your own to attend to?" crystalline eyes peered at the man over her cup. His story did not give her the impression of any urgency on his part - even his presence here at all spoke of idleness. Surely she could give him a purpose whilst he shirked that of his homeland?

 

[Hazanko Miya]

A moment of silence between them. "I will join you," he said simply. "And follow this current you've sprung before me," he drank the last of his cup, and set the vessel before him. "To have more knowledge of the bitterfrond fruit will be," he smiled. "Invaluable,"

His hands went to the second pot of water that sat waiting before them. Steam rose in wisp once the lid was removed.

"Though, do you not worry?" he asked, as a deft hand slipped into his robes. "To invite such a stranger into your company?"

 

[Stella]

Ah, good. That was the answer she wanted to hear. His knowledge of the subject matter would be terribly useful and make her efforts that much more efficient in finding the antidote Solomon required. Her mind shifted to planning out the details as she supped into her tea once more, pausing mid-sip at his follow-up.

Worry?

Her cup lowered to reveal a strained and polite smile.

"Worry is a waste of time and mental resources," Stella primly set the cup down on the table and returned her hands to her lap, a pointed look settling upon the Mistborne across from her, "do you have designs of ill intent toward myself or Valentennia?"

 

[Hazanko Miya]

From his robe he pulled a small box. A thing of fine craftsmanship. Seamless and smooth, it came apart at a hidden hinge with a twist of his hand.

"No," he said clearly, and wholly unbothered. "But what if I did?" he teased. If only for his own amusement.

Inside the box were what seemed to be beads. A dark earth tone, with hints of jade that veined through them. He whispered words in his mother's tongue to those little beads. Words that soothed. That calmed and lulled to rest. With his last words whispered, the veins of jade seemed to pulse. Seemed to glow as the pearls unfurled, just so.

With a gentle tilt of his palm, he poured them into the pot. One by one.

 

[Stella]

"I do not subscribe to living a life of what ifs and hypotheticals," Stella returned, leaning to take up her tea cup once again upon his answer to her question. Seemed the simple no sufficed.

She sipped and watched in silence. This particular routine of crafting tea was not one known to her, even with her own intimate history in his homelands. While there were common customs across the broad spread of his people, there were also those traditions specific to families and orders.

In her time spent in Aetochi, she'd come into contact with a Mistborne only once. The traditions of the Mist clan were quite a mystery to her. By nature, she could not help but allow it to capture her full attention and each little uttered word, every tiny movement and detail were taken in by senses keen to indulge in the new and unknown.

There was a playful saying that passed around Valentennia from time to time: find someone who looks at you the way Stella looks at a new book.

 

[Hazanko Miya]

Hazanko's face played at souring, the corners of his eyes and lips, pinched just so. Left him more tart peach, than ripe lemon. Playful and deceptive. Firm and crisp, where one might look for soft and sweet.

"What of dreams? Do you subscribe to those?" he asked as the last of the beads fell into the pot, and the aroma's of the Aetochin tea bloomed along with the rising wisps of steam. "What wonders and mysteries hide behind those stars you call eyes?" his smile was as sweet and small as a drop of honey, as one hand danced along the steam, as if to shape it, whilst the other grabbed the lid and made ready.

Each moment they gave the tea, each moment they shared, deepened the drink.

"This tea is from my homeland," he said calmly as his hand cut its wave down toward the open mouth of the pot. Its chopping motion, like a leaf falling on the wind. It stopped over the pot. "Not just the land of Aetochi, but of the Isle of the Silver Winds, Yin Feng," he covered the pot gently with its terracotta lid, and eased back. "It is called, The Dragon's Tears," he said with a small huff of a laugh. "And we brew it to help us rest. Nourish, and relax our bodies," he poured her cup first, and placed it before her. "And minds," he poured his cup, and placed it before himself.

 

[Stella]

Though she had spent plenty of time studying human body language and emotive expressions, Stella could not rightly define just what she was seeing on Hazanko's face. There were hints of what she believed were pain or distaste, though if there was humor at all she did not see it. Her mind unspooled countless human expressions within, attempting to match one or several.

Alas, his question of dreams interrupted the flow of thought and just like that, his expression had changed.

She might've answered him. Told him that her kind did not dream - for if they did, the world would be a much different place indeed. Dragons were already deadly, but imagine how much more dangerous life would be for everyone if they suddenly were given dreams to conjure untold ambitions, desires, and goals beyond that which was innately bore into them. She might've told him this, but she did not because part of the great wonder of dragons was just how very little the world really knew about them.

Stella did not smile in return.

The stars followed his hands as they danced and poured and served, ever observant in their silence. Then settled back on him. Whole galaxies of thought moved behind them.

"Have I given the impression that I am in need of rest, nourishment, and relaxation?"

Solomon had said of her more than once that she needed to learn how to relax. Stella had no idea why.