Fait Accompli: An Unwilling Tutelage

[Seperallis]

Nevina contained a snort at the mention of magic being heretical; such a silly Sidgardian mentality, to carefully scruitinize the sciences and deem certain practices as an evil taboo based upon the degree to which they challenge the Order's position of power. Not insulting, no, as she fully understood that someone like Elke, having grown in a place that was ruled by such norms, would grow to mirror those sorts of ideas if that was all she was taught, but the idea of restricting certain knowledge in some vain attempt to control the progress of science and protect the monopoly of power in the disparate realms felt silly to the elf. A silly norm endemic to the Order, a cancer unleashed upon the world at large as they spread themselves to new lands bullied anyone who did not think exactly as themselves.

But that was neither here nor there, and Nevina reined in her wandering thoughts to the present question at hand.

"Absolutely not."

Nevina's matter-of-fact reply swiftly followed Elke's stammered request while holding her gold-rimmed cup before her lips. She didn't need time to consider what was asked of her, the reply coming almost on instinct. What reason did she have to accept asside from a desire to be a little more personable, or perhaps let the poor girl down east and not be so rough with her feelings? Hah! Nevina didn't know this person, and felt no obligation or impulse to fulfill any wish anyone with half a mind dared to present before her. Rightfully so! She might add; she had her own mission and plans to attend, and who's to say she could afford to be derailed into spending the time or inclination to tutor some barely-learned updstart mageling?

Was Elke even that, though? The girl had explained a little of her origin and long trek to Nevina - her childhood in the wilderness of Sidgard, an education in alchemy from her parents, her proper schooling with one of a pletora of so-called "colleges," spending weeks on end in an exhaustive search across vast expanses of dangerous terrain in some childish pursuit of exaggerated half-truth wrapped in a shell of myth and legend - but had been particularly sparse in the telling of anything that did not pertain to how "fantastically cool" she thought this person she'd never met might be. Nevina wasn't a stranger to this kind of story; often the curious son of a farmer or a merchant's daughter occasionally attempted to leave their sad, boring, mundane lives and begged to travel with their newfound idols to learn of the ways of the Cult, full of wonderment and adoration for the attested "miracles" performed by a member they saw in passing or heard about from acquaintance. Nearly all such people were denied and sent back to their lives and loved ones, their impulsive decisions often seen for what they are: a fad, a whim prone to the distracting and debilitating effects of homesickness, as the life of the Cult begins to eat at their attachments to past friends and family.

Here, however, was not someone hoping to find a new life or escaping a dull existence or seeking some silly manner of vain glory. Well, actually, it was quite clear from every indication Elke gave that she most certainly was seeking the whole "excitement and adventure" thing, but beneath that, in the twinkle of Elke's eye one might catch a glimpse of a heartfelt inquisitiveness, a desire to learn new and interesting things.

Nevina sighed into her cup after finishing the last sips of her tea, and gazed down into the vessel's twiggy, rust-colored remains as she pulled it away from her lips. She could already see the disbelieving twinges of disappointment manifesting on the edges of the girl's expression, a delayed-shock that all the long days of traveling and the enthusiastic buttering of the elf as her blind idol could possibly be met with such swift and cool denial. For her part, Nevina did not wish to sound callous, but only a select few responses could deny Elke her request...yet none occured until after the words were already spoken, and she once again lamented her lack of social means.

The elf softly set her cup upon the heavy oaken table and reached for the small kettle Forlag had brought moments earlier. She kept her eyes on her task as she continued. "I am sorry, you seem very nice, but you had a family. And friends, if I do remember? Go back to them, please. Have you thought about what they must be feeling, with you away for so long? Have you even sent them word?"

Nevina paused for a moment, placing the pot back upon the table, and placing the warm cup back into her hands; she glanced across the table, before looking back into the murky waters she clutched close to her chest. "My tasks, my travels, everything I know could place you in danger, not only now but when you return. Even speaking with me, should the...'wrong' people be near, could cause you inconvenience. Maybe harm. I couldn't do that to you, to your family and friends. You may not see it now, blinded by admiration for something oyu barely understand, but such things are the most important in your life; go back to them. Continue your studies at your college, and forget this foolish request. For their sake."

"I, for one, think it's a fantastic learning opportunity for the both of you," came a raspy, dry, crackly voice from behind her, and wheeler her head around to spot Forlag as he waddled between ailes of chairs carrying yet another platter, this time with a wide-ranging array of various small confections, a mess of matted gray hairs upon piles of deeply-pressed and pitted wrinkles barely visible above the gilded acorn-laced oakenwork. Reaching their seats, the little man slid the platter upon the table - an assortment of powdered, glazed, roasted, toasted confections of varying nuts, flours, flowers, fruits, and candies assailing the eyes and appetities on a myriad of pastels - and literally hopped into a nearby chair, a small "oof" puffing out of his stout form as he landed rump-first upon the cushion; with a wrinkle and shake of his nose, his selected chair quietly edged forward, the kettle pouring a cup of the brew and floating serenely towards him while he reached for a tiny round of a cookie.

Nevina, for her part, rolled her eyes with an audible huff of breath through her nose, as much at the eccentric wizard's display as at his words. Of course the lecherous old coot would fancy Elke staying. "I am neither a teacher, nor am I a daycare. I have jobs to perform."

"You can be the student then, and learn to be the teacher. It's all the same," Forlag responded, courtesy of a mouthful of cookie, a grin, and a raised bushy eyebrow.

Of course, Nevina was not in the least amused with him, and she set her tea upon the table while gesturing towards Elke with one hand. "Do not use her as one of your lessons, she's a child. Magic is not a toy, it is not a curiosity, it's a tool, Forlag; you and I know it's dangers, but does she? Doubtful, and I will not" - Nevina emphasized, tapping the fingertops of one hand upon the table - "be responsible for the health and wellbeing of a child when it's hard enough to look after one's own."

[Sal]

“Excuse me?” Elke interjected, her voice containing trace elements of confusion, amusement and annoyance. “I’m in the room. Could we not talk about me like I’m not?” How rude, honestly.

Presented with a tray of her favorite vices, gloriously tasty sweeties, the mageling caved without a moment’s hesitation and took what she recognized to be a treat she’d eaten only once before on a journey to a distant countryside: battered, fried and sugared lace flower blossom. A delicacy.

“First off,” Elke informed the room’s other occupants, the juxtaposition of her serious-sounding tone against the dusting of powdered sugar on her lips probably neutralizing some of the lasting impact she’d hoped to create, “I’m not a child. I’m a young adult.” Older people always made that sort of mistake, and given that she was talking to two non-humans, or at least not-entirely-humans, her teenage status probably did render her an infant in their species-based biases. Nonetheless, she wasn’t a child, she was a young woman. Would a child have survived a journey on her own through a wilderness full of dangerous beasts and jagged cliffs, fully exposed to the elements? Certainly not. Would a child be able to perform the magicks that she could perform? Preposterous! And who could seriously believe that a child would have had the constitution to withstand the encounter with disgusting shopkeep trolls Glork and Spunkus, or whatever their names were, without fainting from odor alone? “Child”? Please!

“Second,” she informed, really laying into those lace blossoms in earnest, “of course my family knows where I am. It’s not like I just ran off without saying anything.” What kind of disrespectful sprog did they take her for? “They encouraged me to take this journey.”

That might have been a bit of a stretch. Elke’s mother and father might not have strictly forbidden her departure for parts unknown with the sole purpose of tracking down this elusive and mysterious idol, but they had been none too thrilled about the prospect. It wasn’t that they doubted their daughter’s ingenuity and dedication to her craft, it was just that Elke was so small and the forests were so big. Even with her blossoming skills in magic, she wasn’t exactly an all-powerful mage just yet, and there were always the more basic concerns like snakebites and hypothermia to worry about. Beyond that, Elke, even being the wilderness-loving country egg that she was, really enjoyed her creature comforts: warm baths, clean sheets, unhealthy snacks.

That much was readily apparent as she polished off the last of the blossom fritters.

Brushing the pixie dust sweetness from her fingers, she stood and balled her fists at her sides. “Now.” She hadn’t exactly prepared to justify herself as a worthy student. What was she going to say? Dear heavens, hopefully she wouldn’t embarrass herself in front of her heroine and never be able to face her again. The hour, maybe two hours they’d been together were nowhere near enough to satiate.

“Nevina, you’re right. I am curious. I’m extremely curious about what you do, about the powers you use, but that much was already obvious. I mean…” Elke paused to scoff. “I mean, I came this far, didn’t I? So…!” She realized there hadn’t actually been more to say on that point and let her sentence trail off into a dead end. “But you say that I don’t understand the implications of using powerful magic like yours, and I have to disagree. That’s just not right.” The mage-in-training had to commend herself, this was going surprisingly decent. “All magic has repercussions, and that’s why I wanted to study it; I want to study it in all forms so that I can find alternatives to the kinds of sacrifices that have to be made. And if you won’t teach me, and no one else will teach me, how can I learn about the powers or their dangers? The professors of magic back home mean well enough, but they can only teach me the basics, and I already know the basics! I want more than that. I want... I want to learn more than those stuffy old mages and wizards will tell me. I'm not scared like they are.”

Elke hadn’t noticed when the tears had begun to collect on her eyelashes, or when her cheeks had become so hot that she could practically see the carnation-pink glow off of them. Was she seriously throwing a tantrum upon learning that her one true icon, the embodiment of powerful magic, the figure she hoped she could one day become, didn’t actually want to meet her?

“And it’s not like I’ll be a burden!” she continued, her words flowing fast as a mountain stream. “I can survive on my own! I’ve already proven that much. It’s not like I’m some soft child from the city. I didn’t grow up in the market square; my family came from the forest! I can hunt, and track, a-and navigate just fine!”

She sniffled, and her fists clenched by her sides relaxed as she put them on her hips, tensing her shoulders. A pose of defiance.

“Nevina,” she said again, never having thought before that she’d be able to so freely address her like this. “You should reconsider.”

Oh, divine power of all things in nature, what was she thinking?

“Forlag agrees.”

‘Time to shut up now,’ she urged herself, but she felt strangely compelled to get the last word in, even though she was the only one talking.

“Right, Forlag?” She gave a sassy little shrug as she turned to look over her shoulder at the daffy old man, her wide-eyed stare practically begging, help me out, here.

At a loss now until additional backup could be provided, she slumped a bit, folding her hands bashfully in front of her. Yep, there was no doubt: Nevina thought she was crazy.

[Seperallis]

Forlag huffed a chuckle with Elke's insistence, a small smile sitting cozy beneath the wiry bush of his moustache, though he failed to come to Elke's rescue when called upon. Many words have been used to describe him, but tactless was certainly not one of them; what was there he could say, truly, that could ever sway Nevina's mind more than the display ELke had already given?

For her part, there was no doubt: Nevina thought she was crazy. Okay, not particularly so; Forlag certainly, but the girl...maybe emotional or excitable would be better terms, but the palpable pause that hung in the air following Elke's petite tantrum, might certainly make one think the thought of oneself. Through it all - the tantrum and the pause - the elf regarded the display through a heavy-lidded stare, eyes meandering alternatively from the flustered protestations across the table to the spread between Forlag's two guests, tea cupped gingerly in her lap. Awake since before the twilight hours of the morning and with adrenaline coursing through her small frame for most of that time, she honestly could not care less about the nuanced differences and appreciations smallish human children gave to their smallish human timeframes of development.

A long sigh was all that came as she gazed over to Forlag, done with the display, her eyes clearly stating to the town's magician, "See? A child."

But was she wrong? So what if she was a child, surely anyone capable of navigating the wide wilderness between the edges of cosmopolitan civilization and the middle of nowhere to find a single person across such avast world - the proverbial needle in the haystack - has more than proven one way or another a capability to look after one's own skin. In Nevina's eyes, the girl clearly lacked the experience to temper her skill and enthusiasm, but the fact remained that she did possess enough skill in...something to at least not distract or burden her prospective mentor with "babysitting." Besides, with anyone so dedicated to a person or craft that they would leave behind an entire life to strike out towards an unknown destination for however many weeks with no certainty of success, someone so incredibly clear of purpose, how could she deny such a request?

It's either that or she's stark raving mad, but everyone else in present company claims that in some capacity anyhow.

"Fine, very well" the elf conceded and broke the lingering silence. "But," she continued, placed the cup from her lap upon the table and leaned in upon one elbow, holding forth a pair of fingers floating indecisively over a lingonberry custard tart, "there is one condition: you do exactly as I say, when I say it. There will be no second chances, either; if you can't manage that, then we're done with each other." Changing her mind, she finally claimed a candied Halfa's root cube.

What else could Nevina truly do but accept Elke's request? She's read these kinds of novels before; by all likelihood, someone so insistent would just defy any order to "go away" and find some way to follow or sneak along on her own and be the cause of whatever untold problems for the both of them by some way of gaining recognition and making an impression. Knowing the mageling is around and following should surely put to pasture any such possibilities.

Surely.

"If you'll excuse me, my work is not done." Nevina leaned forward and slid the heavy chair backwards before she stood and pulled her shed robing back over her shoulders. Making to leave, she stopped mid-step upon remembering a passing thought and faced the present company. "Miss...Elke," she mulled over the name for a moment, settling upon a first-name basis to avoid admitting to forgetting the mageling's last name, "I shall return here for the night. We will leave upon sun-up; do please take care to get enough sleep."

[Sal]

"You don't--!"

Elke's eyes went wide as she simultaneously swallowed her premature objection.

Had Nevina just agreed?!

"You what?" she instead murmured, her accusatory tone replaced by one of hopeful trepidation. "Oh, I-I mean...." In all honesty, Elke had been ready to enter phase two of her verbal strong arming, prepared to deliver a rashly strung-together smackdown of counter objections sprinkled with a healthy dose of whining.

What she hadn't been ready for was Nevina folding and giving in just like that.

The girl cleared her throat and calmly folded her hands. A true professional, or something like. "Well, thank you for your consideration." Despite her attempts to maintain a straight face, the corners of her mouth twitched visibly in an insuppressible grin. "One chance is all I need. You won't regret it. You have my word."

When Nevina seemed to be distracted with something in her teacup, the mageling seized the opportunity and flashed a victorious grin to the old innkeep.

Her mind was spinning. A whirlwind of manic optimism. Elke had known since she woke up this morning that good things were in store for the day. She'd seen it in the way the light spilled through the trees and the way the clouds moved on the horizon. Her abilities in omen interpretation were vague, though, and at times so unspecific that she wasn't sure if the impending fortune would be as insignificant as finding a place to sleep that wasn't a blanket tossed over a pile of leaves or as major as having her hero agree - or at least not outright object - to take her under her wing.

The former was more frequent in her experience, but the latter was far more exciting.

Still reeling with delight, she selected a jellied citrona cube studded around its sides with toasted pine nuts and popped it into her mouth. Candies somehow tasted sweeter when enjoyed in triumph.

The magically-charged charms and pendants strung about Elke's person more numerous than festival decorations jingled as she moved to sit and jangled as she jerked herself back up into a standing position as she saw Nevina move to take her leave. She was halfway into a stride towards the door before the elfen woman announced that she had unfinished business, and though it hadn't been stated aloud, the implication was there: she was going by herself.

"Of course!" Elke shooed away the correct and obvious assumption that she had intended to follow Nevina before being otherwise forbidden. She had, after all, interrupted the woman in what had appeared to be mid-slaughter. After further thought, she didn't mind one bit being excluded from whatever had been going on in that dingy shack on the outskirts of town. The flashes of a dead, hulking heap of something and a fresh coat of blood spatter spied through a dusty window had been enough. In due time, undoubtedly, she would learn more, but for now, the mental images were enough.

As if it had been her idea all along, Elke confirmed, "I'll just wait here." Here there were sweets and beds and a place for her to spread out for some quality time with her journal. She still had a newly purchased toggle and sewing kit to keep her occupied. If she was lucky, there were even perfumed bath sachets for sale at Forlag's establishment to make her smell less like Waldo and Chubb's - aha, those were the names - putrid funk.

Speaking of Forlag, maybe he could introduce her to the little village of Myerleigh a bit better. Next to the fact that it had a haberdashery (or some kind of farce of one) and an inn, she was totally unfamiliar. There was also something about owing Forlag exactly one item of his wildest dreams, a promise which a traveler with about six pieces of silver to her name had no possible way of fulfilling and which she really hoped would be forgotten in the long run.

Maybe he would actually make her check for mold. But maybe she would get free room and board in return. Such an offer she might have to propose....

Whatever potential the night held, Nevina would play no part as she was up and gone like a gust of wind. But, all things considered, just one more night of anticipation before her lessons began was something Elke decided she could handle.

Probably.


..:: End Lesson One ::..

[Seperallis]

Lesson 2: Fundamentals of Magic

True to her word, Nevina was sat downstairs in the Cozy Canker's dining hall, sipping on the warm remains of her favorite albidium root infusion just as the first feeble rays of day poked through the deep violet dawntime horizon. A certain little red squirrel lay sprawled upon her lap in a most convincing display of gruesome and dramatic murder, were the façade not betrayed by the occasional flick of a tufted ear tip, mouth agape and nose twitching with every inaudible squirelly snore.

Nevina's lips curled into a smile at their edges as she gazed distractedly into her empty cup, her mind drifting somewhere between now and nowhere by the time Elke would eventually find fit to make herself present. The wanderer seemed on first appearance to be in a simpler mood this morning, brighter of attitude and chipper of posture...relief, perhaps? That would probably be an apt feeling to have when one no longer feels the weight of possibly not seeing next day's sunrise due to an unfortunate wailing of claws and gnashing of teeth.

"Come, eat. The road will be long, and I regret we will not pack as well a variety for it." Apparently not as entirely spaced-out as appearances let on, she set her cup upon the table and motioned Elke to a prepared place beside her, where an as-yet untouched plate of various fruits, toasts, and cheeses awaited someone with the appetite to claim them. "I am sorry, I did not know what you might enjoy."

Before her, on the table and just beyond a plate of abandoned toast crumbs, sat a tiny thumb-sized crystal beaker, a rust-colored & quicksilver-laced concoction swirling slowly within and of its own volition.

"'Falulf's Blood'... I never thought I'd have need of it," Nevina offered, a name one might recognize as an ancient folk remedy for lycanthrope victims, a vile-smelling (and tasting, should one so dare) brew of rue, vervain, Hawthorn root, and Valerian petals; the last ingredient caused much of the previous evening's labors as the elf spent much of her night foraging around the trunks of the local forest's great ash trees outside the town's crumbling walls, as Valerian only ever blooms in the night, and she wasn't about to kill another man with its unflowered bud, no sir!

Preparations to leave the vial in Forlag's care and the agreed-upon payment already transpired the previous morning. Instructions, too: how to prepare the bandages of the creature's victims with the potion, where best to add the remainder to the town's well water, directions to not drink from the river...all of which the old tree-rat man-thing dismissively passed off as so much information he "naturally" already knew. Of course he would, that's just how eccentric old squirrel-men are; you know the type.

Forlag grunted in protest at the new morning commotion - such as a squirrel could grunt - and snorted amid snores as he drowsily rolled himself into a coiled red poofball of fluff atop his new lap-cushion, a much more comfortable position by which to continue his nutty dreams.

[Sal]

There had been no mold in Elke's room at Forlag's inn, which she'd, indeed, inspected. She felt no obligation to the innkeep stemming from her bluff of being a professional in the field of searching for rot and ruin, but the idea had gotten her curious. The old man didn't exactly seem the type to think to check for fungi and molds, and the inn seemed the type to be full of such things.

On the contrary, the room had been nice considering the crumbling state of decay in which large swathes of Myerleigh village found itself. The straw-stuffed mattress had been covered with a thick down topper dense enough to keep any mischievous, needly fibers from giving her a midnight poking. There were no infestations of any sort visible - not mold nor mildew not insect. Soft woven blankets had been provided for her comfort, and the young traveller delighted in her realization that they could be strung up from the headboard to make a cloth fortress like the one she had at home. In the corner of the room was a wash basin and mirror, the water in the pitcher still warm and a perfumed lump of obviously homemade soap at the ready. There was a small window with wooden blinds opened to let in the dying light of the late afternoon and the smell of pine tar and wild onions from the forest. Compared to her past week's sleeps performed in the uncomfortable elements, Elke decided it a veritable heaven.

The women's bath, she'd learned, was communal and located downstairs, and that had been her first stop. No more smelling like a troll. She took the opportunity found in the sudsy solitude to ponder the missing room keys she'd spied earlier. One was probably Nevina's, but what of the other two? Were there actually additional guests here, or had the keys just gone missing? She could ask Forlag, but did Forlag even know? As if he ever supplied a straight answer, anyway.

As the evening dwindled, Elke, now clean, spent the last hours of the day curled up in her hand-strung blanket nest, jotting ideas and scribbling doodles into her journal by the glow of a flameless light produced from the empty husk of a huge Sydra beetle - a spell to which she'd devoted several years of her life and yet which remained imperfect. (This night, she'd produced a very amber-tinted light. Last week, it was more of a green like new spring leaves. Creating pure white light was almost impossible with so many subtle variations in elemental makeup, she'd decided.)

Elke did regret staying up perhaps a bit too late, lost in the pages of her travelogue and waxing prolific in her writing down of ideas. She didn't quite remember falling asleep, but by the time she rose, the sparrows perched outside her window were beginning to herald the dawn. A quick splash in the wash basin and a hurried stowing of her things, and Nevina's newest student was downstairs at the agreed upon rendezvous point.

Had there ever really been anyone in this banquet hall? Elke swore - swore she could smell the phantasmic scents of fresh bread and roasted meat with root vegetables and recently spilled ale absorbed into the wood grain of the countertops, but she'd never seen anyone coming or going. A late-night crowd that liked to make their merriment after bookish magelings like her were asleep, then, or a spell cast by Forlag to create the illusion of an inn more bustling than it actually was?

Who knew...?

There was food now, though. And although it most definitely was not the source of the nice smells in the great, oaken room, it did look tasty.

"Oh, this is more than acceptable," Elke quickly assured Nevina. "Thank you."

Having gathered all her belongings upon checkout, Elke dropped them all by a spot at the table that she decided would be hers and took an empty saucer she envisioned as being loaded down with a slice of that coarse, grainy toast, perhaps topped off with a smear of the soft, creamy cheese in that shallow dish. Was that dill swirled into the cheese? Yes, definitely. And those berries, there - those would make a perfect garnish.

Attempting a more meager portion through power of will, Elke sat with her sensibly loaded plate and tucked in to her breakfast.

It was Nevina who drew attention to the odd little vial first; her pupil honestly found the food more interesting at the moment, but there, indeed, was a swirling potion of some sort, perched on the table as if it belonged there.

"Blood?" the young woman inquired with a smidge of trepidation.

Upon second thought, she could recall a similar-looking concoction being prepared by her father once. He'd called it Something-or-other's Blood, she couldn't remember, but it contained only the crimson remnants of brewed redroot, not actual blood.

Because it was too early in the morning to want to consider otherwise, Elke assumed Nevina's concoction was also not real blood. Even if Forlag did look rather deceased in her lap.

Oh - no - he was alive after all. Just sleeping, apparently.

Had he remembered her I-owe-you agreement? He had held up his end of the bargain, and, squirrelly though he was, he seemed the type to remember promises for one object from his deepest desires.

Maybe he'd just stay asleep.

"If I'm being completely honest, potions and tinctures are not my specialty." Even with an herbalist as a father and an experienced plant-gatherer herself, Elke's knowledge was rooted more in medicinal mixtures and less in magical ones. "What is this used for?"

[Seperallis]

Nevina took a moment to respond to Elke's question, in truth slightly taken aback by the fact that the girl posed one at all. Sure, this partly owed to certain undue assumptions made on the elf's part as to what her "pupil" already knew, but in truth much of her pause came from personal hesitation, an unfamiliarity toward sharing her thoughts, her knowledge with someone else. In all her life, she'd had little need or practice in having to explain herself to someone else while wandering the vast and empty wilderness alone; save the trees, who could there possibly be to listen as she prattled on about her motivations?

The trees made for pleasant company, mind, and Nevina found the quiet sentinels a much prefered partner in conversation in their stoic silence and soothing whispers, but Elke would soon join them in the converation or lack thereof; resignatedly, she knew this was a simple fact to which she would need grow accustomed.

"My apologies," Nevina offered, sweeping in one slow motion her few empty dishes from before her to an unused portion of the heavy oaken table. "I had assumed, given your...upbringing, your education, you might be more familiar with alchemistry. But, I suppose if I am to teach anything, then this is as good a place to start as any."

Nevina reached across the table and clasped the tiny tincture of strange liquid in her hands. Even as she held it gently, taking pains not to jostle and overmix the concoction within. The vial felt painfully fragile; why important and powerful potions always tended to find their way into the most breakable of containers would forever remain one of life's many mysteries.

"Falulf's blood," Nevina explained, holding the vial aloft so the brew's silver-colored streaks would catch the sun's morning rays filtering through the empty tavern's stained glass and sparkle in a dozen vibrant rainbow hues, "is not your typical medication or herbal remedy. It is a potion, a magical infusion, where the ingredients and the brewing process impart extranormal qualities to it's use. 'Magical' effects."

"In this case," she emphasized, gingerly placing the tincture once more upon its spot on the table, "it is an interventive and preventive for the werewolf disease. Lycanthropy, you would call it."

Sitting upright, she'd expected more sleepy protestations from Forlag as consequence of all the discussion and movement, but a glance down revealed him to be gone. Just...gone, with no noise, no movement, no trace of his passing or having even been there except a few short rust-colored stray hairs upon a squirrel-sized wrinkled nest of fabric. How he had left and done so with no warning, neither sound nor motion, irritated Nevina in the way only the squirrely old man could; her brow furroed slightly at yet another display of Forlagian Secrecy as she gave an annoyed sweeping to the squirrel-man's vestigal remains.

"That is actually what I- we are investigating next." Nevina punctuated her statement with a few sharp tugs on the sides of her robes, straightening her now vacant lap before folding her hands upon it. She paused a moment to gather he thoughts, the act of putting words to actions terra incognita to a person so used to simply doing without explanation. "I have a...hunch; the disease was not brought here by another werewolf as is typical, so it must have been deliberately introduced soem other way. The afflicted man was living by the water, and I have reason to suspect the source will be upstream. That is where we shall head when you are finished."

Wow, was she bad at conversation. Was that too much information? Hopefully that wasn't too much information.

[Sal]

"Ahhh," Elke acknowledged, the drawn out syllable a sound effect for the absorption of sage knowledge imparted by Nevina into Elke's brain. Like a slurp, really, except less repulsive and viscid. "Mmm. I see." Pen ever at the ready, the pupil had found a clean sheet of paper in her journal and was jotting down quick notes about the churning, glimmering suspension known as Falulf's blood. She wondered for a moment about the name Falulf, her ponderances materializing into ink strokes: Falulf? Surname/place/both??

And lycanthropes - there was another subject which would require further thought at a later date. She'd heard about them before, but the summation of facts and opinions she'd totaled from professors, peers and populace seemed often contradictory. The last Elke had read of them in her texts, the author claimed that werewolves and the belief therein were the product of very well-done glamours being cast by highway robbers and ruffian types as a cover for their crimes. One of her teachers of hexing had outright denied their existence, calling the very notion that shapeshifters could exist preposterous and an affront to established science and the laws of physics (although Elke had taken this flat-out denial with a grain of salt as this particular professor had also vehemently denied the existence of faerie despite there being a bona fide fae in their class). Her parents had quietly agreed to disagree on the subject, her father thinking them little more than an urban legend crafted by city dwellers who had forgotten how large and vicious wild wolves could be, and her mother believing them to have existed at one point, yes, but also believing they had gone extinct quite some time ago. Elke had even encountered a small but vocal group of intellectuals who, strangely, not only accepted that wolfmen were very much a thing, but insisted that lycanthropy was not an affliction nor a disease, but merely another valid iteration of the human experience deserving of the same levels of respect and tolerance awarded to any person.

Curious, indeed.

Not having yet left their lodging for the morning, the last sips of tea in her cup not having been drunk, Elke could already see that her upcoming travels and lessons with the object of her fascinations would lead only to more questions. She couldn't deny that the idea of so many pending revelations was exciting, but it would have to keep her busy when she returned home. For now, there were more immediate matters in need of the mageling's attention. Nevina accepted that lycanthropy was real and was a disease, and so for now, Elke believed the same.

People being turned by drinking tainted water was certainly a new concept to the young woman, however, who maintained her denial of expertise in the area. She had only heard the typical lore that men became werewolves after being bitten on the night of a full moon. Her mentor seems to think that the cause was less mystical and more bacterial in nature.

"A bit like bloody flux?" she murmured, half to Nevina and half to solidify the thought in her mind for a later date by means of vocalizing the question. She'd first heard of that particularly gruesome ailment after her father had returned from treating a small village whose inhabitants lived downstream from a larger farming community with less than sanitary manners. Different symptoms than lycanthropy, true, but a similar mechanism of disease.

"I didn't know a werewolf could turn a person without biting them," she admitted. Something about removing the mysterious, ceremonial nature of The Turning and instead viewing it through a more clinical lens made the entire thing seem less... not interesting, certainly, but less.... Well, yes, a little less interesting. Not that a disease which altered a man's very basic nature and form wasn't interesting, it's just that it wasn't what Elke had pictured. No foggy forest lit only by the huge, silver moon, no distant, macabre chorus of howls and screams, no hint of dark magic or malicious intent. Just an infection.

"But this Falulf's blood - it is magical in nature, yes?" That was fascinating. An enchanted tincture would not be needed for the average infection where a paste of herbs applied topically or a tonic of vitamins and roots drunk thrice daily would normally suffice, implying that this lycanthropy disorder might be some hybrid of magical and biological in nature. A hybrid, just like a wolfman.

Elke's eager excitement returned in full-force.

"So, then, what is it exactly we'll be looking for upstream," she asked, and feeling the atmosphere right, tacked on a quiet, "Professor Nevina?"

[Seperallis]

Nevina gave an audible "hmph," crinkling her nose with a scowl and sitting upright with squared shoulders against the back of the chair at Elke's insult. A professor! As if she spent her days regurgitating centuries-old facts with such an air like they were personal discoveries, playing magic like a toy for their "research" into pointless "discoveries" in their political game for prestige and recognition. Nevina wasn't some collegiate blowhard, she gathered real knowledge with real practical value for everyday use, thank you very much. Professor, indeed; certainly, if anything, it was (or would be?) more like a master/apprentice relationship, a venerable practitioner teaching the details of her craft with a wide-eyed journeyman fellow.

"Nevina. Just...Nevina," she resigned with a sigh, ending that particular train of thought. The idea of someone calling her master - or worse, mistress - felt infinitely worse than any annoyance suffered from a mislabeled professor, and she certainly wouldn't be the one to plant that idea in Elke's head.

Resolving that minor emergency, though, meant moving on to the girl's actual question. Truth be told, she'd been mulling over possibilities of what might cause an extranormal disease with very specific traits for transmittal (Elke was mostly right in her assumptions) to suddenly show a completely different character. There was no evidence of another werewolf nearby to introduce it; by all rights, the answer to Name That Disease should not be Lycanthropy, yet the blood on her hands, the flailing of claws, and the gnashing of teeth she witnessed just inches from her own face yesterday morning clearly testified otherwise. How could she explain the implications of a disease doing what it quite clearly shouldn't do?

Nevina sighed again, this time slowly and in thought, her posture slumped slightly. "I do not know," she lied, each syllable deliberately poking its way forth. "This is a recent problem for the town, so the change must be recent as well. We will know exactly what when we come across it, I am sure of it." This entire investigation wa based purely on a hunch, after all, a best guess to explain what happened here in Myerleigh. Just as likely, the poor afflicted man (rest his soul) could have brought the disease into town himself from somewhere else, in which case killing him and curing those attacked ends the threat.

This entire continuing investigation could very well be a wild goose chase, but what if it wasn't? An entire valley filled with bloodthirsty bunnies is no laughing matter!

"Well!" Nevina more expelled the word with finality rather than spoke it as she rose from the table, her hands clasped. "I think we will have plenty of time for discussion while we walk. Please, take your time with your tea; I will stretch my legs and wait for you outside."

* * * * *

Continue the discussion they did. Nevina clearly explained that, yes Elke's internal assumptions were right in that veritably every werewolf story explained the spread of "werewolfism" through some manner of wound inflicted by the monster, but no, this disease was not supposed to transmit like "bloody flux," as Elke called it, and finding the very reason why it suddenly did so (or why Nevina at least felt it so) was the reason for their investigation. As to the magical tincture left behind in the figurative hands of Forlag - who had remained conspicuously absent since his stealthy morning disappearance - the elf was only too happy to go into great detail regarding the intricate and time-consuming process. From the careful selection of the brew's four-herb base ("Only select the valerian when its buds are in bloom at night," she warned, "lest you kill the man") through a step-by-step explanation of the long, slow ritual that must be performed to a literal "T" ("Enunciate clearly, or you will have instead a useless and expensive mud tea, with a bitter hint of floral notes"), no secret was left unexplored as she divulged unbidden what must have been an entire library's worth of detail on this one very specialized, neatrly forgotten and almost useless remedy for an affliction many in Sidgard regarded as a mere bedtime story.

The backdrop of the conversation probably had as much a hand in her glad divulgences as any personal interest in the topic. After an initial warning to not touch the water ("for fear of the disease," despite the woman literally standing barefoot in it not days before, but nevermind that), the pair forewent the well-traveled paths out of town, leaving through one of the many crumbling breaches in the wall to follow the stream up-current, Nevina leading the way.

There at the settlement, the waters lay broad and meandering, likely a natural ford so shallow the pebbles lining the bottom stretched visibly from shore to shore, a turbulent mirror reflecting clearly and simultaneously two conflicting worlds of land and sky as it broke across the rocky clearing. As the pair moved further from the shade of civilization and once more into the wilds, the rock-strewn meadow once more surrendered to the trees, but this time their number remained relatively Spartan when compared to the lush foliage the two would-be travelers witnessed coming from the other side of the town. The trunks gave wide berths to one another atop the thin soils and their sparse canopies provided only a patchwork of shade form the sun's increasingly oppressive stare as it began its track across the heavens. Out here, the stream coalesced as it cut through several feet of sharp limestone dropoffs, nearly making moot the elf's earlier warnings.

The waters ran straighter, faster here, trying to make up for the still morning air with their own redoubled speed. The gentle pulsing of the stream wrapping its way over, around, along its smooth stone embankments competed eagerly with the few songbirds proudly chirping their victory to potential mates as surviving champions of another night's dangers. The two-part orchestra saw itself rhythmically, regularly interrupted by only the percussive crunch of two sets of feet plodding steadily along a thin layer of twigs and leaves, a few premature reminders of the impending change of seasons.

"What were you studying?" The sudden change of topic didn't exactly flow straight from the previous conversation (such as it was), a pregnant pause invaded by waterborne birdsong. The change in tempo did not trip Nevina, who kept to her short stride, eyes scanning the grounds ahead for hazards. "Your university, I mean. I understand that such students devote their study to a particular discipline. What was yours?"

[Sal]

With anyone but Nevina, apple of her eye and object of her idolatry, Elke would have offered her reply straightaway. Proudly, even. Maybe with a dash of bragging in the right company.

But given that she was, indeed, with Nevina, the answer did not yield itself so freely. After all, this was the woman to whom she'd looked up, with whom she'd been infatuated, even, since she first heard her name mentioned in passing in a brief chapter of an obscure book penned by a lesser known author and shelved in a section of the collegiate library that presented itself rather a home to spiders and mites than a smorgasbord of interesting literary selections - what if Nevina thought Elke's field of specialty to be silly or frivolous or impractical? It was a foolish reason, the young human knew, but knowing was not the same as being able to do anything about it. The potential sting of being dismissed by one's heroine was a powerful demotivator.

"Aaaahhhhhmmmmm," came a long, ponderous, time-biding noise from Elke. Dried evergreen needles, in fact no longer green, and pebbly yellowish soil creaked and crunched under the weather proofed leather of her boots, plumes of aerosolized dust exploding around her footfall in the sparsest patches of leaf litter.

"This and that," the young woman offered at first, but quickly decided such a vapid answer was even more unbecoming of one who claimed herself an intellectual than her true response would be. "I do like to dabble, I mean. The reading of omens and divination are my natural suits, but..." Her voice tucked itself into a softer, contemplative tone. "I suppose what really interests me is the study of magical energies. The laws of conservation, and the like." It was not a glamorous answer. So many of her fellow students held a love for spellcasting and potions and all the dazzling, romantic parts of magic that Elke could only wish she had, but she fancied herself more a physicist who happened to apply her knowledge to the magical arts rather than a mage with a penchant for the hard sciences.

The glint of a silver-scaled fish appeared briefly above the churning water as the creature made its cameo, not seeming to notice the two women traveling along the embankments of its home or anything other than the buzzing insects that hovered just above the river's surface. In a blink, it was gone, submerged again and now with a fuller belly. Swarms of lumbering gnats caught the light spilling between the trees like clouds of dandelion seeds.

"And more specifically," Elke continued, her mood becoming more comfortable, more mellow as she discussed the thing that was her passion. The thing that filled page upon page of her diary with related equations and observations and hypotheses. "What I'd really like would be to discover a way to perform magic with less damage to life energies." It was a lofty and, by all practical means, unobtainable goal, and Elke knew this. There were dozens of mages, magicians, witches and alchemists before her whose goals had been shared, and yet - here they were after centuries, still requiring the exchange of one energy for another.

"To cause less harm in spellcasting," Elke summarized. "To self and to others. While still being able to perform strong magic." In essence, the subtext read, to be a miracle worker.

A jagged and abrupt rise in their path wrapped up her discussion momentarily as she and the elf searched for the best way to scale the tiny cliff, searching for sturdy, gnarled roots and well-anchored stones where they could have a safe foothold. Beside them, the roar of a waterfall, short but incredibly powerful, attempted to drown out their conversation. The steep grade lasted only for a few paces in length, the dropoff raising just above Elke's head, and then they were above the whitewater and could resume their quick stroll anew, the water rushing past them downstream as they moved towards its source.

"I've made some progress," Elke noted. Not proudly, no, but almost reassuringly, as if she, herself, needed to hear that the entire idea of making magic without sacrificing life energy wasn't an unachievable dream. Though in truth, her progress thus far had been minute, limited to finding small energy stores in recently shed cervid antlers and tapping into the tiny reserves of a freshly plucked fruit.

"Promising results," she agreed with herself, and then passed the torch. "I don't know much about your origins, Pr--". No, Nevina had already rejected that title. "Lady Nevina," sounded fine, though. Just Nevina, as she'd been instructed, sounded too familiar, too disrespectful an endearment coming from someone like Elke - a toad fart - to someone as awesome as Nevina. "How did you find your path?"

A structure - obviously man made - interrupted the organic scenery and the conversation as they rounded a small blind, rising up as a marker of human civilization in the rugged wilderness. If this was their destination, they had reached it much more quickly than Elke had thought based on Nevina's description; they'd hardly trekked at all.

But as the pair approached, it became clear that this village was not now, nor recently inhabited by human life. Regardless of what turned a man into a beast, there had to first be a man, and this place was devoid of them. Surely this was not the intended destination.

A crumbling well formed of smooth river rocks greeted them first, and the remains of wooden houses still teetering on their main beams stood shyly behind like a team of lost horses. Their thatched roofs had caved in, the hungry, gaping mouths of the cavernous rooms below swallowing the dusty straw. Time and weather had erased all but a few glimpses of what was once a footpath. One viewing the scene might have been able to imagine how the town - if about four buildings and a well could be called that - would have looked before its decay, but now only a few skeletal traces of civilization remained.

There was life here. Plenty of it. But none of it human. Thousand-legged insects slithered through the square frames that had once housed window panes into the berry-laden brambles and black truffles that had seized their chance to make a life in the packed dirt floors of the abandoned homes. Every corner on every building found itself full of birds nest or beehive, and the soft pattering of something like tiny rodent feet gave away well-camouflaged positions.

"I wonder what this was," the mageling pondered aloud. A waterline on the old wooden beams indicated that this area was prone to flooding. Perhaps the old inhabitants had simply grown tired of needing to scrape the mud and mildew from their walls each spring?

A more pressing question came to mind, then - previous topic of discussion on academic origins forgotten, "Do you think the werewolf might have stayed here before it reached Myerleigh?"