2022-06-07: Eggs or Cake?
- Log: Eggs or Cake?
- Cast: Eleanor Klein, Seraph Nimue
- Where: Klein Castle, Klein, Meria
- Date: June 7, 2022
- Summary: Eleanor brings Nimue home to show her around, but Nimue detects that something is amiss with the young elf.
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Eleanor Klein has been a little pensive since her last return from Spira; oh, she got what she was after there. That, and more; not just the things she'd hoped to buy but also knowledge, and the experience of not one but two Shrines in Spira. That's what's got her pensive. However, when she had the chance to see her friend, the Seraph Nimue...
Well, she invited her to come hang out at her home! There are markets, ports, and all sorts of things to keep one busy in Klein... but Eleanor craves a bit of quiet too, so she's taking Nimue to see some of the secret places of the keep. This has mostly involved, as far as her family and the servants know, walking around by herself and periodically speaking to herself, but they're used to her being a wizard by now. There was a brief interlude that was pleasant with Danielle, who can see Nimue. And now...
"Ah, here's the view," Eleanor says, and steps out by the railing. Klein's black keep stretches out beyond, the more colorful buildings all arranged like a little diorama at this distance,all the way until the docks and the crashing seas. Eleanor looks out on it fondly... but there's something bittersweet in it for her this time, and she can't quite hide it.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Nimue has posed.
Nimue has become more interested in walking and living like... not a human, perhaps, but some sort of person, at any rate -- and yet, when Eleanor offers the chance to see some secret slices of the Klein keep... well, Nimue's pretty excitable and she likes going places she shouldn't.
Other than briefly saying 'hi' to Danielle, she pops herself into a book and that book into Eleanor's bag to remain nice and unobtrusive. It reduces the risk of being seen, even as an accident; call it... a little bit of the courtesy Nimue's learned over the last few years, to avoid disrupting other people's worlds in ways that might hurt them a little bit.
She does pop out, though, when she's told there's a good view. (Book position does not make for great viewing.) She makes the conscious decision to spill out of Eleanor's bag face-first as if physically climbing out of it; she always did love a good pratfall. That part of her *hasn't* changed.
Nimue looks out toward Eleanor's family's domain at first, but... it's Eleanor herself that she ends up staring at. She's spent more time around humans than she's cared to admit, even *before* all this. The decision to treat their -- and her -- pain as unreal had always been a conscious thing, not a genuine lack of empathy.
So:
"... You okay there?" she asks, poking -- both metaphorically into Eleanor's business, and literally into her shoulder.
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
It is never strange for Eleanor to have a book in her bag. Nimue can enjoy a lot of other things in her bag while she's there though; various curative items, a few other books, a number of magical trinkets and baubles... The normal things for a wizard's bag. Some of them are much, much older than Eleanor. Some are not! IT's all very exciting.
Eleanor is happy to carry her, regardless; it's kind of nice to have a friend she can just... carry! Without even using her bracelet! Just hang out with by having along with her. It's a good feeling. But eventually, on the view that she's appreciated all her life...
"Oh?" she starts, when she's poked, and then it registers what Nimue is saying, and... then what she must've seen. Eleanor looks a little sheepish for a moment. "I'm all right," she says first, reassuring--but she doesn't like to lie. That isn't a lie exactly, but it wouldn't be entirely honest if she didn't follow up, "That is..."
"I've been thinking... about how all this will change. About the way I'll see this city grow older, or... or that maybe I..."
She bites her lip. "Well, that maybe I won't. I feel like... by making the choices I've made--not marrying Monty among them--that I've... closed a door. And I'm not sure what door that is yet."
"But I know that if something doesn't happen to me, I'll still be young when the people my age out in the city are much older. And I've been thinking a lot about it."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Nimue has posed.
Looking Eleanor over -- watching her sheepishness, watching her biting her lip, really drinking in every part of Eleanor's tentative movements -- Nimue cants her head just slightly to one side. "Well, okay. Uh. That's a lot, actually." She turns her gaze away for a little bit, again -- looking where Eleanor looks.
"So, there's like ten things going on in all the junk you just said and I'm not really in the business of confronting problems one at a time, soooo... whatever, fuck it, we'll do it live!" Nimue gives a big, cheeky smile. "Gonna take it from theeeeee... bottom!"
Which means -- "So like. That stuff happens to humans too! Say your sister gets that freaky human killing disease that only Filgaia has. Poof! Gone. You'd outlive her by like sixty years at that point even if you were a human! People just live different lengths. This doesn't make you special or anything, it's just how things work! Take it from me, I'm like a thousand and twenty or something." With a grimace-smile, Nimue notes, "The first couple decades are a REAL blur."
Climbing right back up. "Same with doors! I made the decision to eat all of the eggs in your house this morning, and because of that I'm closing the door on having cake tomorrow, because... some goober ate all the eggs! Can you imagine the rudeness? I mean, what kinda jerk closes the door on cake???" She pauses, and then for dramatic effect, affirms: "The eggs were delicious though."
And then she hits the hard one: "The thing I said earlier cuts the other way too. Sometimes you don't get to see stuff! I've SUPER ditched, like, so many people. Some of them got famous! Some of them it was a real dick move to ditch at the exact moment I did! And sometimes you don't see any stuff anymore 'cuz --" Nimue does a little gesture with her hands like she's tossing something with her sling-staff. "-- you're dead, too. If that bugs you, either do something about the course you're on or commit to the whole dying thing! I've done both and, like. There's a winner there."
The Seraph clasps Eleanor firmly on both shoulders with her dumb little hands. "Also," Nimue finishes, "You're super not okay because that was at least three whole I'm-obviously-not-okay topics."
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Eleanor, for all that she's supposedly trained in Deportment and Negotiation and so forth, is not actually a particularly good liar, and neither is she very good at concealing how she feels. As it happens, Eleanor looks at the docks mostly, where there's the most sign of activity visible outside of roofs and ships and things. But she's not really looking at it.
"Ah, yes, that's..."
Eleanor starts to be a little embarrassed about it, but it's hard when Nimue's so big and cheeky about it. So she doesn't Instead she listens, and--and obviously that freaky human killing disease gets her to blanch a little but it doesn't dwell on it; it's just a true statement. "Hmm..." She looks a little grateful to hear that the first couple decades are a blur, though; she's still in hers. But doors!
"...Ahahahah," Eleanor can't help but laugh, cheering up a little even though that was quite a lot of eggs actually and there's going to be some very confused people. "Well, that's good," she says of the eggs. But the hard one...
Dead! That's a possibility. Eleanor mentioned it herself even. But she listens to that last bit. Do something...
"Mm," Eleanor says. "I see..." Then she smiles, lopsidedly. "I guess you're right, Nimue. I suppose I'm not, am I? It's been really bothering me lately."
Eleanor has Seraph hands on her shoulders. It is comforting, actually.
"So I suppose... Hm."
"Well, I'll tell you why i'm thinking on it so much, I suppose. When we visited the Shadow shrine, we each... heard voices. Like another version of ourselves; mine was..." She pauses. "She was a little mean. And she married Monty. But she told me... that I 'couldn't have been her' in the first place, that she was my 'mortal' self."
"I'm not sure what she meant, to be honest, but I knew somehow that in some way it was... true. That I won't be that sharp woman she was. ...Which I'm fine with, I think; she was a bit stronger than I am, but I don't think I'd enjoy being her."
"...I just feel like there's some... kind of change coming, to the way I've lived up until now, and... And I'm looking forward to the future but I suppose I'm a little frightened. I don't want to leave everyone behind. ...But I guess this means that if I don't want to do that then the answer is to make sure I don't, doesn't it?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Nimue has posed.
A possibility of a 'stronger,' more mortal Eleanor... Nimue glances away as she hears that. "... Man, less of you *and* it's pointier? That kinda sounds like just 'worse.' I'm glad you're you instead." She chews on that for a little while, thinking about it.
"You know no one ever told me what happened to me was bullshit?" Nimue asks, conversationally. She glances down as she concedes, "OK so like, some of that is on me for not bringing it up. But I think an Eleanor who just told me to fix my shit back then would probably have made me a ton worse! I mean, she might have made the world a better place in other ways? But again. Cake or eggs?"
She's a little lost in the metaphor here, so she moves on rather than dig into it. "Got any idea what that change might be? Because, like -- okay, again, let's roll with that. Either you can change the change or you can't. If you can, and you don't like it, you know, go nuts. If you can't, then you move the whole world around it instead!"
Nimue gives a snap of her fingers that turns into a wink and a fingergun, noting, "You did a pretty good job of moving *my* world, so let's get started on yours. 'cuz I have a feeling there's something you're not tellin' me here."
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
"...You know," Eleanor says, "She was a little thinner too." She's not quite offended at that but a little perturbed. She smiles, though, when Nimue says she's glad she's her. "I think I am too."
But the matter of--well. Cake or eggs? "...Yes. I wouldn't want to be that person, even if she was good in other ways. And I think you know how I feel about you and your life. ...If you don't, by all means, I'll tell you." Cake or eggs! It reminds Eleanor of Magilou's talk of her and trying to predict the future, even with her powers. What's worse, what's better? How to know?
Hmmm... What could it be? What is this 'change'?
"It sounds so much more... possible, the way you say it," Eleanor says with a small smile. "Thank you." But then--wink, fingergun. Moving Nimue's world, was it? She smiles a little wider at that, and then nods. "Yes, that's true," Eleanor says. "There is something on my mind that you wouldn't have the context for." She turns, towards the railing, and sets her hands on it to steady herself as she thinks about it.
"...So I never explained to you how I got my visions." Eleanor looks out to the sky. "...We discovered these tablets in the Great Sea. They were--fascinating. In ancient languages we could only begin to translate, full of strange symbols... As we researched them, we really believed we were onto something great. Perhaps another entire field of Crest Sorcery was possible, elements of means we didn't even have words for. And so we put together the pieces, and tried a ritual, that would unlock the greatest Time Magic we had ever seen. We had so many grand hopes about how we could bring peace and hope to the world."
"...We did everything right, but..." She looks down. "It went wrong. Something happened, I don't know what, because I have no memory of those moments. But that's when I started getting the visions. At first, it was of my colleagues.. dying. And all of them came true. And you know what came of that; that until ARMS, I never found I could avert those visions."
"But apparently i gave a... prophecy, while I was out of myself. And I have it now, it was sent to me. But it's in a language that I don't understand. I'm looking for ways to translate, but.."
"I feel like--I feel like I'm on the precipice of something. That if I open this door, something will change forever."
"...But I owe it to my colleagues to understand what happened, and it could be important to the world, this vision. So I've made my peace with doing it. I'm just... nervous."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Nimue has posed.
Nimue has become a better listener, in fits and spurts. She was never a *bad* listener, mind you; no, listening was the first act that shaped her world. She's always been interested in the sounds, the stories of humans, in spite of herself -- in spite of what's happened to her for listening.
She has become gradually more accepting, over time, of the notion that what happened to her because of that was anomalous and not the expected. That's been an undertaking of a thousand years, though.
Only when Eleanor has finished does she speak. "OK, so, like -- this is basically everything I've already said summed up, but: your gut says right! Literally everything you learn changes you -- this isn't special! So basically, all I can really give you here is a boot in the ass and tell you to shove the mouth noises you made at every human who's ever been seen within, like, a couple hundred dozen sharls of a book."
Looping back to the sheer consistency of her clear best metaphor, Nimue finishes, "Learning I ate all the eggs will also change the way the rest of your days go."
With a little laugh, she says, "I guess I'm not telling you anything you dunno, though. It's fine to be nervous about that stuff, but just... don't let it get in your head too hard." A beat, before Nimue appends: "Just because I like to hide in books doesn't mean I know any languages, except for, you know, all the languages I know."
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Eleanor is just glad to have been able to meet Nimue, and if she's been able to help in that undertaking then that's wonderful. But for now, it is her who is doing the talking and letting someone else do the listening, which she does not often allow of herself. But Nimue is a good listener, and so when Eleanor finishes and she says it...
"Hm!" Eleanor says at first. Her gut says right. "...I..." Nimue has a particularly good way of making things that seem impenetrable seem altogether much more--grounded, really. Which is perhaps strange to think of a Wind Seraph, and Eleanor smiles as she does, thinking that over. But then--the eggs--
"...You know, I think it actually may," Eleanor says. "Pity about the cake. But I'm glad the eggs were good. But that is rather a lot of eggs..."
A laugh back, and Eleanor steps away from the rail, and--pauses. "Can I give you a hug?" she asks. "You've really helped me... think about it. Even if it's not exactly solved, I do feel better."
Then, "And then if you're up for it I'll show you my transcription! You may not know it, but that doesn't set me back any further than I already am."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Nimue has posed.
"I get hungry!!" Nimue insists, at the idea of that being rather a lot of eggs. "Sometimes I forget to eat for like two days!! And I mean, Seraphim don't... nnnneeeeeed to eat? But like -- living like a normal person is easier. You blow a ton of energy eating not enough or too much and still maintaining the same shape, and, you know... I get tired easy."
Eleanor offers a hug, and -- Nimue agrees, after a few moments, "Hey -- go for it. I mean, I got handsy first and I didn't even ask." She makes herself perfectly huggable -- and if Eleanor does indeed go for it, hugs back. It lasts as long as Eleanor wants it to last.
At midway through it, she adds, "Sure, go nuts? I dunno what I'm gonna do with a bunch of squiggles I can't read but, like, let's go for it."
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
"Ahahah!" Eleanor laughs at the matter of getting hungry. "Yes, I see. Those eggs were used for important shape maintaining business." She's still smiling even when she isn't laughing. And then, well--Eleanor might not ask everyone, but especially Nimue deserves a chance to decide where her body is going to be in the next few moments. So Eleanor is a little gentle there. And she does go for it, and it lasts a good few moments. Eleanor is a good hugger; she is warm, and soft, and squeezes just enough that there's pressure but not so much that it actually urts. "Thank you," she says, and sighs. She resists the urge to get completely sentimental in the moment, but it does seem to help her.
Eleanor is very much a hugger.
But then, she finally answers as she pulls back, "It's a phonetic translation, because I gave it verbally."
Eleanor pulls out her bag and pulls a small, well-kept paper there, where she made a copy of the notes she had, and hands it to Nimue. It's not especially long, something in the neighborhood of ten lines or so. Eleanor points to some of the words.
"I believe it's a form of ancient Elw language; I was able to translate a couple of words, but only enough to know it's related. This is 'to devour, to consume' or maybe 'to dim, to remove, to take away', and this represents the Sun, or maybe generally daylight."
"I'm hoping in one of these digs I find more examples of the text so I can compare them and translate it better."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Nimue has posed.
Nimue ... likes hugging more than she usually lets on. It's a whole thing.
"Oof. That sounds like it's gonna make it real hard, if all you have to go on is sounds from something *that* old." Nimue grimaces a bit at that; it certainly sounds above *her* pay grade. "Especially since, like... you can't exactly be sure, right? There's a lot of sunlight" (heh) "between 'tune' and 'tuna.'" She glances up to the sky for a moment, saying, "I wouldn't have any idea where to start, even..."
... then again, maybe she does. "If it's 'remove' 'daylight,' does it mean something's happening at night? That's like a third of all time to go on, which isn't exactly much of a prophecy..." That's the sum total of what Nimue has to offer on practicals on this one. Instead, she hops up onto the rail, taking a comfy seat. "I can't exactly promise I'll be up to it from day to day, but if you need help with Digging, well. I do like blowing stuff up."
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Eleanor is a very touchy sort of person. She can't always show that, but it's true about her!
"Yes," Eleanor says. "If I could reference the texts we used for the ritual, that might help... but unlocking those is difficult; the professor sealed them away once people started dying. And I don't exactly have the pull to get them released on my own..."
A nod. "But that's true. I can't be certain. I only know that in the same languages we studied there, we had some words in common."
But somewhere... Hmmm. "Something happening at night... No, that is a place to start, at least." She smiles after that, and says, "Well, that's fine. I think I can provide you with a chance! I'm especially looking here, around the Great Sea--for obvious reasons--and down in Spira. These ancient shrines may have something of use!"
"...But you know," she says, "This was always one of my favorite views. Would you like me to point out the different parts of the city from here?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Nimue has posed.
"Hmmmm." Nimue considers this very thoughtfully for several seconds. She looks genuinely like she's having a good time as she thinks about it; a long silence passes. So long, in fact, that Eleanor has time to lay out even more elements of the puzzle.
"Would you like me to break in and steal, just, tons and tons of stuff?" she asks, all at once, at the end. "I'm good at breaking into things and I... gggggenerally like doing it?" Nimue you are in ARMS now. You can't just admit to doing and enjoying crimes all the time.
(She can, though... if only because her movements have been pretty well-established at this point and the actual criming has been kept to the occasional petty theft.)
Ultimately, though, Eleanor offers to show her some of her favorite places from her favorite view... and Nimue decides to turn herself out toward the city, nodding. "Show me everything!" she commands, excited.