In Need of Direction [Open]

[Ishi]

Ishi sat in amazement as he rode atop a griffon for the first time. The land below was shrinking away into the distance as the griffon took him and the rider skyward. “So is this your first time flying or something?” The griffon rider asked. Ishi didn’t respond. He had nothing to say at the moment, he was simply trying to take note of how easy it was to see how close landmarks were in relation to each other from up here. Ishi’s wheels were turning as he watched the griffon’s wings bat against the air, propelling them upward. Perhaps he too could fly if he flapped his arms. Then again, perhaps not.


The griffon came to a rest upon a landing site. Ishi dismounted and began to walk away, in search of a particular locale. Before he got far, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He stopped walking and turned to face the man. It was the griffon rider who had just given him a ride. The man wore an upset face. “What? You think I gave you a ride for free? Cough up the fare.”


Ishi didn’t quite know what this was about. He spoke nothing about a fare. It must have been something that should’ve been understood. “Fare?” The rider gave Ishi a small push.


“Are you trying to be funny or something? Fare, money, coin.” Ishi understood now. He took an unnatural breath to fill his undead lungs with air. “ I not carry money.” He tried to explain he didn’t carry any coin, he didn’t really have need for it generally. This upset the rider. He curled the cloth of Ishi’s cloak in his fist and held his other hand threateningly in the air.


“You’d best pay me, or I’ll toss you over the edge.”

[Lucia Stark]

Arcadia...you know, Lucia was going to miss it. Sure she loved adventuring, seeing what else Elibe had to offer her in spite of its dangers, but the difference between Lucia's past expeditions and this one was...well, she hadn't gone at it alone. Either her father, her mother, or some of her allies always accompanied her beyond the safety of Arcadia. Beyond the safety of the Divide.

And they always came home.

It...was a bit of a bummer to think about. A winding trail that just got darker and darker as it spiralled further and further down. So Lucia opted not to walk that trail. To keep her mind fixed on her surroundings, doing what she did best. At the moment what she did best was simply walk through the bustling city, making her way over to a somewhat familiar area. She could have just asked Kurai to teleport her down to the Divide, but he was busy enough as is. Nameless needed him.

Besides, flying was AWESOME! Even if Lucia had to shell out some coin for it, the experience alone paid for itself. A smirk tugged at her lips as she thought about it. The rush of the wind against her body, through her hair. Watching the vast sea of green slowly expand into the details of the Divide as she descended closer and closer to the ground...

“Hm?” Something grabbed her attention, noise that rang out clear amongst the slight crowd. She'd been passing a landing dock, a fairly clear space that allowed fliers of all kinds to land, dismount, whatever, without worrying about hitting a building or a person. Usually it was pretty calm aside from the various flying mounts people rode in on. Let alone the people that could just fly themselves. So the raised, fairly threatening tone one such rider had taken against another man grabbed her attention.

The other person was dressed in a large cloak. Lucia couldn't make out any details beneath it, so she couldn't even see their face. But it was pretty damn obvious to her that an altercation was about to boil over. These things happened in Arcadia...hell they happened everywhere. But if she could help resolve it peaceful, then she knew she'd feel better about it than if she just walked away.

“Whoa there, no need to start throwing fists, I'm sure.” Lucia strode over to the two men...? She wasn't sure about Cloak. Didn't matter either way, all that mattered was that she got between them ASAP. “Now what's the problem here?”

[Ishi]

Ishi almost lazily turned his pale eyes toward the new voice. His attention wasn't entirely captivated by the man holding his withered frame in the air. The voice of the blonde haired, lavender eyed woman asked of a problem. Ishi didn't respond. The rider did. "This dead beat, wanna be reaper thought he could skip out on my fare." That wasn't entirely correct. Ishi thought he would have to correct the griffon rider. Then again, it didn't really matter now. The man either wanted money or to pound his face in. Of course the money route was preferable, but depending on how long the face pounding took, he could be amenable to that as well. He wanted to be on his way. He was searching for an area of the city, a library. 

Ishi found that the blonde lady wanted to end this situation peacefully. The reanimated man inhaled deliberately before speaking. He spoke in his unnatural, raspy voice to ask her for assistance. "You spend... for me?"  Ishi thought that if she accepted this proposal then the griffon rider would be satisfied, ending the conflict peacefully and leaving Ishi's face in tact.The rider turned his head toward the woman and repeated the inquiry. "Well? Is that how its gonna be? Are you gonna spot this guy?"The rider loosened his grip on Ishi's cloak, allowing his feet to return to the ground. The grip still remained on his cloak, however. He must not have wanted Ishi to flee. He wouldn't get very far in this floating city, not with his limp and poor mobility.

[Lucia Stark]

Well, at least she managed to calm the situation down. Must be that good ol' womanly charm of hers. The problem seemed rather simple as well: Mr. Dementor didn't seem to be willing to pay the rider his fare. Somehow that didn't exactly sound right...yeah, it was probably that he COULDN'T pay the fare. The guy looked a bit off, what with his cloak and raspy voice, but...eh, everyone was a little weird in Arcadia. And a lotta weird if they came from beyond the Divide.

Still, Lucia had to admit she didn't like the idea of shilling out precious gold. Then again she was headed OUT of the Divide, where currency was more or less useless. Anywhere beyond the Divide probably wasn't going to accept Arcadian coin anyway.

“Yeah, all right. I'll cover his fare. Just let go of him, would you? I doubt he's going anywhere.” Lucia replied, turning towards the rider as she reached for the coin purse on her waist. “Uh, how much were you charging him?” Oh how she hoped he wasn't a price gouger like most of the people around here. Anything more than a couple gold coins and he was absolutely ripping people off. There were about a thousand and one ways to get from the Divide up to Arcadia, and at least half of them were free.

It was mostly a matter of principle honestly. Lucia was born and raised in Arcadia. She didn't care if SHE got ripped off because she knew how to take care of herself. Lucia could be pretty persuasive. Again, womanly charm, she was sure. Definitely not threats. Whereas she didn't know about this little ringwraith here. If he was from outside of the Divide then he was at risk of being taken advantage of. He was either pretty ignorant or pretty desperate to come to Arcadia without a coin to his name...

[Ishi]

Ishi was more of an outsider by this point. This was fine. He was perfectly content watching the scene play out between the griffon rider and the good Samaritan. The rider finally let go of his cloak and turned to address the woman directly. "I was planning on charging the guy five gold, but since it's you paying and I'm in a good mood, I'll say three." Ishi noted that for some seemingly arbitrary reason he would've had to pay more than the woman. Perhaps it was simply by virtue of their genders. Ishi didn't believe the man was truly in a good mood, for he would be an absolute menace if he were in a bad one. Ishi watched the man hold his hand out waiting for payment.

Ishi expected the transaction to move along with no further complications. The griffon rider walked away making some comment to himself, before he mounted his lion-eagle and take to the sky. That flight still fascinated Ishi but now he held a different curiosity. He looked at the woman, nearly motionless and silent. He just stood there and looked at her, as if he could figure out everything about her just by sight. He wanted to know what made her interfere in the altercation, what did it matter to her what happened either way? Ishi didn't voice these inquiries. He continued to stare at the woman for an indeterminate amount of time.

Now that the dust of the altercation was settled Ishi inquired about the reason he had come to Arcadia. "Li-brary?"  His raspy voice held a rising inflection to indicate a question and it was punctuated with a lengthy exhalation.

[Lucia Stark]

Ahh. Yeah, go figure. Grimm gets gouged five coins for a ride, but the hot young blonde just gets charged three. Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeal subtle there, rider. Lucia had half a mind to screw with him, see if she could ah...”bargain” her way down to like, one gold. Probably wouldn't even be that hard if he was going to be that obvious. But she wasn't REALLY angry about it. Really, it wasn't anything she wasn't used to, and honestly she benefited from it.

The principle of the matter may be a little screwed up, but Lucia's father always tried to teach her to pick her battles wisely. This was a fight that wasn't really worth having.

“Three gold? Fine.” Lucia drew three gold coins from her pouch, offering them to the man. “Now you two're square, yeah? Then pleasure doing business with you.” Not as much pleasure as that rider was going to give himself later that night, no doubt. Ugh, now there was a disturbing image...THIS was why Lucia opted not to let her thoughts wander. Just never seemed to end well, one way or another.

Thankfully the cloaked man drew her attention back to him. Rather than offer a “thank you” or anything that showed ANY sort of gratitude, he just asked...to see the library? What the hell was this? Was the guy so damned nerdy he couldn't be thankful, just needed to be shown to his books? Lucia's face fell a bit, but she sighed and rolled her shoulders.

“There are archives up here, yeah. Fair few of them. One's pretty close by, if you just follow down that road there...” Even as Lucia spoke, she realized that this ungrateful coat rack probably wasn't going to be able to follow her directions. So, as she pointed down to their left, across the nearest road, her gaze flicked to the hooded man. She was looking for signs of confusion, curiosity or...you know...fucking gratitude.

[Ishi]

Ishi recognized the woman’s face droop and her body language indicated disappointment. Now why would that happen? What did she expect him to do that he had not done? Ahh yes, the money. She must have wanted him to do something to repay her. Ishi tried to formulate a plan to do so. There wasn’t much he could do though. While he considered the possibilities, the woman spoke of the location of the libraries. Ishi understood there were multiple libraries, or archives and one was particularly close. That wasn’t sufficient information for the hooded Jiangshi. His eyes followed the woman’s hand to the road, then back to her, then back to the road. Directions were fine and all, but Ishi something more reliable.


Ishi reached a grey hand out to clasp the woman’s extended finger. He was trying to be careful as not to alarm the woman. He spoke, taking pauses between words to refill his undead lungs with air. “Come. Show. Me. All.” Ishi wanted to see the exact locations of all the archives. He wanted to know how to move between them and perhaps, if he was lucky, he could find a way to give the woman her due gratitude.


Just in case she needed some persuading to assist him, Ishi made his intention more clear. “I repay.” Hopefully that would be enough to get the blonde woman to come show him the way to the archives. If not, Ishi may just be out of luck. He would have to wander the floating city and find his way to the archives on his own. It wouldn’t be the end of the world but it would be a hassle that Ishi would prefer to avoid.

[Lucia Stark]

Whoooooooooa-kay there, the ring-wraith was touching her now and oh man did it feel weird. His skin was...grey and clammy. Like he'd been submerged in water for far too long and then left to dry in the shade, or like he'd just stepped out of his cellar for the first time in over a century. Of course, despite Lucia's initial shock, even she was smart enough to come to the conclusion that this guy proooobably wasn't human. Maybe some sort of Youkai? She couldn't certain about what species...she'd always been bad at recalling the different kinds of sentient species on Elibe.

The short answer was that there was a lot of them, and nobody knew exactly how many, but a certain number have been confirmed. Cyrus had documented all of the ones he knew, figuring that it could be useful knowledge, and Lucia could remember her parents trying to pass that knowledge onto her. Even from the ones she did recall, nothing immediately jumped out at her from old coldhands here.

So, for the time being, he was still a ring-wraith. Or the Grim Reaper. Or a dementor. Or coldhands. Who or whatever he was, it was clear that he wanted her to take him to the nearest archive himself. He even offered to repay her somehow, and uh...well Lucia wasn't the brightest on Arcadia, but even she had a better memory than a goldfish.

“And uh, HOW exactly would you be repaying me?” Lucia pulled her hand from the man...thing...dude's grip. Really, she didn't care what he was, but his touch was just a bit too weird even for her. “No offense but I dunno what you'd be able to offer me. You didn't even have enough gold for that guy earlier...I hope.” Though really, Lucia...didn't really want anything. Sure, this set her journey back some thirty minutes at absolute most, but that wasn't really time she needed physical compensation for.

So instead Lucia took a few steps forward, then turned around and smirked at the dude-thing-ring-wraith. Face to conveniently-covered-by-cloak-face. “Luckily for you: I don't need any real payment. Just a 'thank you', and uh, your name. That should be fine.” The blonde gestured to herself and shot the probably-a-Youkai a smirk. “My name is Lucia.”

[Ishi]

The woman was shocked at his touch. That was right, his cloak prevented people from seeing him, but feeling his bare hand was a different thing. He would need to find some sort of device that could make a barrier between the skin of his hand and another’s. No matter, at least this didn’t put the woman off too much. She stuck around long enough to question how Ishi planned on repaying her. Ishi had very little in terms of material wealth, but he knew some things, some interesting things. But, perhaps these things were of value only to a Jiangshi like him, so it would come down to what can she do for her? Not much. A frail frame and a poor sense of time and space left him with very little to offer.


Then all he had was what little information he had swimming around in his partially decayed brain. He would trade his information for the directions and few gold, a fair deal he thought. He was scanning the woman’s attire to see if he could gain any perspective on what she might find interesting. She had a necklace with a gemstone, perhaps amethyst, maybe a deep sapphire. Ishi knew gemstones. They formed deep in the soil, or perhaps within a volcano, another potentially interesting topic for the woman. The question now was, how to communicate this. Not to mention she could already be well versed in both these topics.


Ishi was saved from this dilemma as the woman said all she needed was a thank you and a name. That was something Ishi could do. He felt a brief episode of regret for not noticing that’s what she wanted before. She offered her name and Ishi repeated it. “Lucia” His exhalation hung on the last letter of her name before he inhaled again and continued speaking. “Thank. You.” The Jiangshi raised his hand and placed it over his chest cavity. He indicated to himself before he spoke. “Ishi. Jizoku.” The name came from a book he once had, It meant something along the lines of persistence and will, but there was no way to tell if she knew that.


Ishi took two slow, lumbering, limping steps following Lucia. He noted that the woman moved much quicker than he did. Hopefully, she would not mind taking a little longer than expected to reach the archives.

[Lucia Stark]

Hmm, Lucia hadn't caught it before, not fully, but it sounded like speaking was taxing for this guy. Either way he managed to give her a name, and even a thank you. Whatever sour feelings had lingered on in the young blonde woman, they had mostly passed with that. Forced gratitude wasn't as good as the genuine thing, but she wasn't sure the poor bastard's lungs could actually take anything more than that.

“Well, nice to meet you Ishi.” Lucia replied as he took a few slow steps towards her. Oh boy, he was a slow walker too? Good grief...well, Lucia supposed she wasn't in a MAJOR rush. She knew she'd get down to the Divide before nightfall. And the nearest archive was close by, so there was no harm in taking her time so that he could keep up. “And welcome to Arcadia! Listen, the city's great and all, but it is a bit of a gold sink. People and businesses may try to drain you dry, so be careful from now on.”

A little street advice could go a long way. Lucia was pretty street smart, and she could probably go on for quite a while regarding advice. But she didn't really want to give a lecture, nor did she think Ishi needed one. He was poor, if not flatout broke, but and new to Arcadia but he didn't seem uh, slow, naive, or stupid.

Besides, if she was going to go on forever then she would want to ask him what he actually was. Because yeah, definitely not Human. Lucia didn't really care, per se, whatever his answer would be wasn't going to faze her...probably. It was just an innate curiosity. Still, manners were manners. She could hear her father whispering into her ear “You can't just ask people what they are”.

“Aaaaanyway, the archive's just down here.” Lucia continued on, keeping a slow walking pace so that Ishi could keep up. “Well, one of them anyway. Archive's got a few different ones scattered throughout. Including the Maia.” Of course, that...PROBABLY wasn't where Ishi wanted to go. He didn't look like the super duper magey scholarly type.

Though to be fair, he didn't look like much of anything besides an aspect of death.

[Ishi]

Arcadia. Gold sink. Take care. Ishi was taking note of the advice he was given. It would likely help him avoid any situations like the earlier one. He was simultaneously trying to keep track of landmarks and the directions to this nearby archive, luckily the slow pace gave him plenty of time to do this. It wasn't like he had much of a choice, he couldn't move much quicker than a shamble anyway. Lucia was a good sport though, she slowed her pace to match his. Ishi appreciated the effort. 

Then they came upon an archive. It was a building. For some reason Ishi expected something, grander. This was a repository for the learned information of the world. It seemed like it should be deserving of extravagance. There should've been gold and silver and jewels and other eyecatching things. It should've been bigger than the other buildings. It should have large signs saying this is where the answers are held. But no. It was a lackluster building. That was fine too. Ishi just found it strange how unimportant it appeared to others. For him, this was a very important location. He would remember it always, along with the locations of the other archives of Arcadia.

The Maia was one of these archives apparently. This one stood apart from the others for some reason, based on how Lucia spoke of it. Ishi tried to expresse his interest in this one in particular with his limited vocabulary. "Maia. Can go." Ishi wasn't great with words, but he hoped his message would get across. He didn't make any motion with his body language to indicate what he meant, but maybe he wouldn't have to.