Long Time Coming

[Khyan Nykara]

Long Time Coming
5 Frost 122

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Was it strange or was it fitting that one of the most sacred and ascetic spots in Solunarium overlooked one of the most ostentatious and decadent. The unfathomably ancient Templum Mediæ Noctis Matris, or The Temple of Midnight's Mother as it was known in the Common Tongue, loomed just North of the Noctis Æternæ district where arcane arts complemented more mundane forms of diversion. How often in those days of blithe privilege had he walked right by the massive temple without so much as glancing at it. Now he was finding he favoured it.

With Æros busy about his nascent work in the major house of the Senatus Solunarius in the Luxium above, Khyan was left to his own devices. He'd grown fond of taking walks. It wasn't quite as precarious as it had been when he was property of House Argenti, and the Umbrium was finally starting to grow on him. One of his favourite areas was the plot of land in the foreground before the Temple of Midnight's Mother. It boasted an ancient, statuary garden where ancient marble benches from the age of Aværys had been set up for people to regard the far older statues erected by some antiquated civilisation about which Khyan knew little. But, as a particularly potent Sembler, he grew to learn more with every visit.

The lunch he packed for himself today was leftover from Hilana's last visit. She always brought far too much food. He'd never concerned himself with wastefulness when he'd been a wastrel, but now that he was a servus he was more conscious of such things. He'd resolved himself to suggest to Æros that he invest food storage that was negated against spoilage. After the expense of Khyan's lateral move from the House of Argenti to that of Sælyan, he'd elected to wait a bit longer before proposing costly purchases.

Finishing his last bite of pita, he let his Sembling eyes scan the worn old face of the statue before him. He hadn't spent time with this one before, but with his Craft he could peel back the layers of time to see what it had looked like in it heyday. He looked like an elf, but something in the Sembling suggested he wasn't... But, like all of the sculptures he'd examined here, he couldn't quite place exactly what it was or why it was different from the elves he knew.

It was hard to place what drew him to this garden, but perhaps it was that he felt a kinship to this forgotten culture. These statues, like him, were so lustrous once... but like him they had fallen far and been forgotten by most. Still, he smiled as he regarded them the way they were meant to be seen, Sembling them back to their due resplendence. Even if it was a fleeting memory.

[Cetus Argenti]

“I always envied you your sight.”

A spider crawled across the time-worn statue. Brown with white speckled spots, the whole of its being hardly bigger than a silver coin. The arachnid clambered quickly up atop the marble - or was it onyx? - figure and turned to face Khyan.

A strange circumstance to the mundane senses. And to the magical, well. A different sort of creature revealed itself in the spider’s aura. One well familiar to Khyan, formerly of House Nykara.

“It’s the obvious choice of magic, isn’t it? Semblance,” Gala said, her voice as cold and sharp as breaking ice, “I’ve tried to convince Cetus to induct himself - one of the few times he’s managed to hold up against my arguments.”

She sighed, and to the clever eye, it was clear the spider made a gesture not unlike a shrug.

“I - also - tried to warn him against trading you to House Sælyan. You might have continued on with your ridiculous Fae as you were, Cetus as he was, but never were mortals so clever to know not to want. Not that I can blame you. All I know is to want.”

The spider’s body broke, suddenly; splintered completely into shards of meat and smeared guts. Then, its legs twisted into each other and wings burst into being, and soon enough, a child’s imagining of a fairy flitted before him. Her eyes were black and beady and her wings as red as blood.

“I did you a favor,” Gala said, hovering close, “You can imagine Mattia’s reaction. I was there, when he discovered your silly ploy. I have never known a human so full of spite. Have you?”

She smiled - all fangs.

“But it is done. He’s distracted with another, and you and your lover shall know peace for a time.”

[Khyan Nykara]

Khyan blinked, starting at the sudden intrusion of a voice spawning seemingly from nowhere. As the spider crawled into view, his actively Sembling gaze narrowed slightly.

"Gala." His greeting, if you could call it that, was half a sigh and barely voiced. His shoulders slumped and he leaned back on his bench, holding himself up with his hands gripping the back of the seat. He immediately looked bored at the critique of his principal arcane Craft.

"Do you really think so? I've always found it to be rather prosaic. Terribly useful, but not as fun as, say, Elementalism or Kinetics. It's so passive, you know- A voyeur's magic more than a Craft for someone who participates in the world. In truth, it chose me more than I chose it. It was just what came to me most naturally when I studied at the Academia." He pursed his lips at the chiding, and lowered his eyes to the foot of the statue. When he lifted them, the spider was transformed into some sinister spritely seeming.

"A favour? Ought I to thank you?" He let the question linger as his eyes assessed the flitting figure before him, and the Aura of the spirit, trying to glean anything resembling a Focus for the mercurial entity.

"Did you... Was there any talk of my parents? Of their condition?" Khyan steeled himself, prepared for the possibility that they news might be passing grim. If they yet lived, he imagined it was only for the pleasure Mattia derived from hurting and humiliating them. His mother was a saint and, for all the interpersonal issues he'd had with his father, he certainly didn't deserve that. He was an idealist above all, but Solunarium could be a crushing environment for so fragile a breed.

[Cetus Argenti]

“Do you think so?”

Gala flitted this way and that, her form effervescent - literally. It bubbled and boiled, rife with potential; her aura mirrored her, perfectly. She was a creature of pure desire. A gaping hole in reality that took more than it would give. Whatever focus Khyan might discover was surely dwarfed by the hunger that she felt.

“Perhaps that is a fault of yours. If I had your eyes, fool, I would delight in all that I see. Sate my every curiosity.”

She landed, still small, on his left shoulder.

“I would, if I were you. Thanks isn’t worth much as a word, but as action -,” she giggled, “- or debt?” And, there it was. As she settled nearest his ear, he might see her focus reflect him; a perfect image, as if he was standing before a mirror.

“Mattia -,” Gala never bothered with titles, or hadn’t ever where he might hear. It was never Dominus or Consul or Senator. And never, in Khyan’s recollection, had Cetus ever corrected her. “- asked me to ruin you. Not that I would. Not after he so cruelly punished Cetus for you.”

She hopped back to her pedestal, the statue’s head.

“He’s terrified of what you might do, of what Æros might prove capable of. It was not easy to draw his attention away from his own paranoid imaginings. But I did manage to, of course. Mattia is only a man. I am a demon.”

She smiled at the mention of his parents.

“On that occasion? No,” she said, her form turning and expanding; fur bristled where skin had been, whiskers and tail, and a cat rested atop the statue like a strange hat. “If the rest of House Nykara breath, I do not know. Cetus has tried desperately to find you answers, although I will never understand why he so easily clings to guilt that does not belong to him.”

“...perhaps I may yet be swayed to find them. Is that your wish, Khyan?”

[Khyan Nykara]

"I do..." He replied almost plaintively, "Though I suppose the sand is always smoother on another man's property." He shrugged one shoulder. Of course he'd envied some of the other students, Cetus included, though he'd not have given Gala the satisfaction of mentioning Summoning as one of the flashier magicks. Semblance was a solitary sort of sorcery, whereas Summoning was inherently social, contract-based as it was. If one advanced far enough in the practise, one even acquired a companion. Though he supposed that was a risky gambit, as said companion could wind up being as confounding as the one currently haunting him.

Khyan listened as she alighted on his shoulder, turning his face to see her at such close range she was rather blurry. A faint smile curled his lips.

"Ah, but here you touch on one of the only favourable things about my current lot, Gala. As another man's property, I cannot incur debt. When I can own nothing I can owe nothing. I'm afraid my thanks will need to suffice."

His smile faded as the blurry figure took on his own image. It fully became a frown at the mention of Cetus being 'so cruelly punished'. He'd hoped, it seemed whilst wearing the blinders of selfishness, that their above-board transaction would have spared his erstwhile benefactor too harsh a comeuppance.

"Ah." He hadn't considered that Consul Argenti might regard a would-be Senator of the higher house in the curia a threat, because he certainly wasn't an immediate one. It did stand to reason, though, that an older, wiser and more conniving mind would gravitate in that direction.

Khyan clenched his eyes shut. He hadn't seen his parents nor heard word of their condition in months. When they'd parted, it was under the gravest and most ominous of circumstances: Their sentencing day. Of course it was his bloody wish to have news of them... Just not at the cost a demon was like to exact.

"Is that how you would ruin me, then?" He countered the question with one of his own, "By binding me to some fell bargain in exchange for something I want? I suppose that would be two birds one stone for you. I'm just not so sure it would prove as favourable for me." He lifted a hand and unceremoniously flicked his diminutive doppelganger off his shoulder.

[Cetus Argenti]

Gala smiled a Cheshire smile.

Her lips stretched wide - too wide for a cat’s face. Lips threatened to push past whiskered cheeks, and teeth (where there should be, instead, fangs) shone brilliantly.

“I have never much cared for the hierarchies of this place. You are not the first to tell me property cannot incur a debt,” she said, “And, here, with your rules and role, that may be true. But I am not of this society. Nor do I care to pretend I am bound to it, should I be disadvantaged by such a binding. So, dear Khyan, once of House Nykara, allow me to give to you a greater truth.”

Gala - that cat - stretched her body long over the statue.

“You do not yet own nothing.”

Eyes, as wide and bright as the moon, reflected back the world - and him. Perfectly. This must be a new trick of hers. Gala’s form wasn’t so mutable, last they had met.

“Do you think I would ruin you, Khyan? Cetus would hate me,” she said, rolling her eyes, “He’s so sensitive when it comes to you. He thinks you far more fragile than you are.”

Her aura shone with a sharp focus, ripe with feeling. A flare of complexity to the void that was Gala. Greed and envy and anger, directed completely at Khyan. And, from one moment to the next, it vanished; replaced entirely by a cold emptiness.

“It would cost me to search. I might yet find ways around Mattia that Cetus has not discovered. But I will not do this for free.”

[Khyan Nykara]

"Blasphemy." Was all Khyan said in response to Gala's musings on Solunarian cultural conventions. Pursing his lips, he considered the burden of the Summoner. Moments ago he'd been thinking about how nice it would be to have a regular companion of his own, but what if the spirits drawn to him were agents of chaos like to curry more trouble than bounty? Like this one.

Pursing his lips, Khyan looked into the twin mirrors of Gala's eyes and, in his own, the brown irises played host to a gathering of grey clouds as his Semblance pushed beyond the illusory displays the spirit seemed so fond of projecting. It was, at once, a validation of her assertion that he didn't yet own nothing, as well as being an incursion into the Aura of the entity.

"If you wish to barter with me, let us be clear with one another." He said pointedly, as he gazed at, through and into Gala.

"I am disinclined to enter into any agreement with so mercurial a creature that they dismiss the law of the land by virtue of it being disadvantageous to them personally. Why should I trust a party with that world view? Mightn't our agreement prove an inconvenience? What is to stop you from divorcing yourself from that?" He paused, pondering.

"That said, I suppose it wouldn't do me any harm to hear you out. Were I to engage you in the service you offer, what would that cost me?" It seemed Khyan's upbringing in a house of politicians rubbed off on the youth, who was very exacting when it came to matters that called for him to tender bargains. The very father he sought word of had raised him to be exceedingly cautious and, even if he bucked against those lessons at the time, it seemed they'd taken root nevertheless.