Ryzom

Yrkanis, Majestic Garden of Verdant Heights

I have never shown anyone the scars on my feet before now. Until the last few days, I had not so much as mentioned them. In fact, the first mention I have made of them, I made to Zyquo in Thesos. The sand, for some reason, irritated them.

Boots cover them easily enough, even the faded ones up my calves. There's been no need. Last night though, I finally showed Enon. I had told him, the night before, what I remembered of how it had happened. Matia Guardsmen and a pyre of sorts with a post. The memory, at best, is a dream barely remembered.

I haven't wanted to remember. I don't understand why it happened, and I doubt any still live that could explain it to me.

The closer I get to Enon, the further I feel from some truth, and the more unsettled the shadows in the back of my mind become.

His smiles have changed. I pretend not to notice. I've tried to pretend to be simple, lovely Jeziellia. Soft smiles and adoring looks. I don't doubt what he says is true, I doubt what he is not saying. Something is happening. Something has changed somewhere. I wonder if I really know him.

Yet, I do believe I love him. What will become of it, I do not know. A part of me would die if something happens to him on this trip he is planning. That is how I know how I feel. I worry for him, and whatever it is he is planning to do. Of late, the only peace I have known is when he is shielding me from the rest of the world. Somehow, though, my sleep has become more troubled. It has remained peaceful after a fashion. It is difficult to put into words.

I've enjoyed the time I've been spending with him, but part of me misses the desert.

I haven't seen Valko in almost a season, now. I'm sure he's busy with the Militia, but still.

"Loyalties lie where loyalties lie." but the day I cannot serve the 'responsibilities' of friendship and be true to myself is the day I am not deserving of the name "friend", nor of the position of "Officer" in any guild.

I am curious about Zyquo's homeland, but I dare not inquire. I see how it hurts his heart to remember, and I would not cause him pain. One day, perhaps, he will tell me more.

It feels as though there is much I should be doing. I'm growing restless, like a wild animal in a cage.

I will try to finish my maps today.

This entry has no notation of location or date, the handwriting is tremulous versus the delicate script of other entries.

I cannot still my mind enough to know where to start. Enon is not himself. I do not feel like myself, but I know it is not the same. I have never intruded on another's mind the way I did Kas last night. I was angry, afraid, and determined to find the truth. What that truth may be, I am now more afraid to learn than to go on in ignorance.

I will start, as best as I may, at the beginning.

I administered Tests of Rank to Enon. He did well, if not showing off a little bit with the first Test of Combat. Short of a Token of Bravery, he has completed all of the same tests I have. With the Token, he will become a Blade in the Order.

When he was finished, I asked if he had seen the Trove, and we set out for it. It was the place Jelathnia and Souvec had taken me once. After playing with the gingos in an attempt to thin the pack, we finally crept down and dodged them enough to splash into the water. They growled in irritation, but went back to their prowling. All was well. We swam around. There were new kinds of frogs; likely due to the season.

We sat down and all was quiet until this horrible feeling came over me. We were talking about my feet, and about Zorai theories about a homin's spiritual connection to the sap of Atys. There was something he wasn't saying, though I could not begin to guess what it might be. I will reflect more on this later, it is a minor thing.

Something in his eyes has changed. I saw it, and then I saw beyond it. I don't really 'see', but I get these feelings. It was horrible and dark. I was vaguely aware that his smile had faded to little more than a curl of his lips, so I brought myself back from it. I told him it was alright. He asked, "Is it...?" and a moment later he was turned away from me, a cloth to his mouth, and caught in a coughing fit that wracked his body in a way I have never seen. I was terrified.

I moved to his side, uncertain what to do, but determined to be there. When the coughing ceased, he slipped the cloth away before I could see what I suspected to be there. When he sat up, he smiled pleasantly at me and asked how Ema was doing.

He was pretending nothing had happened! ...maybe nothing did happen. Maybe I'm going mad, or maybe I dreamt it all.

No, this happened. There is still dirt under my fingernails, mud on my skirt. This happened.

Then he mocked me. He chuckled at my questions. I said this was not like him and he giggled, a sound not borne of mirth but something horrible. "Why do you say that, Tyr?" He's never called me that. Never. When I told him not to call me that, I had backed away from him. I don't know where they came from, but the more upset I was becoming, the more mektoubs seemed to wander into the Trove from their grazing above.

I could feel Atys wavering around me. I was going to faint again. I shoved my fingers into the rain-softened cliffside, to feel something, to focus.

He giggled at me again and then seemed to withdraw to himself. I could hear him whispering, but the only word that reached me was "her". One moment he was mocking me, laughing at me. The next he curled into himself and seemed to be asleep.

Before all of this, when the coughing first happened, I did something I had never done before. I invoked Kas' name and dynasty and demanded something of him. Never have I treated him like that.

When Enon finally stirred, he seemed not to know what had happened.

"Ground him against that which would take him." What does that mean? What is going on?

He held me until darkness took me, but was it truly Enon or something else that has come to wear his form? When I woke, except for the dirt beneath my fingernails, all of this could be said to be a nightmare. Was it him? Is it still Enon at all?

Something in his eyes has changed. The way he chuckles seems more malevolent, even the way he smiles is altered. He's going to test Kas. He's more secretive about the preparations for his trip. It is not like him. This is not the Enon I knew.

It is madness to think the things that go through my mind. Is that why my family kept me hidden away? Am I mad?

Jeziellia stilled her trembling hand. She stared down at her words for almost half an hour before she slammed her journal closed and threw it across the small room. It hit the wall and fell to the floor. She closed her eyes with a shuddering breath. She would collect herself, calm down, and find these answers. She would find out what was going on.

Oasis Rift, overlooking Oflovak's Oasis, the Burning Desert

I don't need to know. I need to trust.

I can do this.

I thought I was afraid before; it was nothing compared to this.

I hope Narael is alright. Enon should be more discrete if he feels the need to corner me like that in the future.

There's no one I can talk to about this. Without further answers, I'd look like a maddened fool, or I'd be believed and Enon would come under scrutiny. There's no time for that. I will not cause a disruption in his plans, or within the Order.

I am strong enough to bear this. I must be. I have always been able to be what I must in the past.

Jeziellia closed her journal and closed her eyes. A breeze came in over the Oasis, blowing her hair back from her face. For a moment, she took comfort in the cool desert breeze. The stars sparkled, bright and clear, in the early morning sky, and the moons shone brightly. She had felt herself bolstered the minute they had come to the desert, the evening before. She wanted to explain it, but shook her head. There was no sense in trying to puzzle it out; simply enjoy it.

Enon was still asleep nearby, but Jeziellia had not been able to sleep much. Fire haunted her dreams, burning her feet.

Setting the journal into her bag, she withdrew the small amber carved container that Zyquo had given to her. It was a salve his sister, Emberstorm, had made that was supposed to help heal scars. Jeziellia looked down at her bare feet. Even in the dark, she could see the scarring from the burns. The scars on her legs were less, hidden easily even by her Matisian sandals. "We'll start there," she murmured, opening the container. Gently, she smoothed the gray salve over her calves, rubbing it in. She remembered Zyquo's warning about the side effect; she'd have to drink plenty of water.

Watching the moonlight reflecting on the rippling water below, she whispered into the wind, "Thank you, Zyquo."

Towerbridge Way, Knoll of Dissent of Verdant Heights

Enon's fallen asleep. It's just me and the cold winter morning.

Why does he make this so hard? Every little thing I do is somehow a slight. Perhaps at one time I was pushing happiness away, but now I think it is him. What more can I do? Does he love me, or who he wants me to be? For that matter, who does he want me to be? I've asked, he has never answered.

He never answers.

Tonight has made my recent resolutions of acceptance very hard.

He goes veritably mad, taunts me, doesn't remember it, but knows something about it... and cannot yet tell me. I must accept this. I do.

I comb another man's hair, in public, with others present with no lewd or romantic intentions, and I am just shy of a harlot. Somehow this means I do not love him, or do not love him enough, or do not love him the "right way". The same way. His way.

I have learned to accept instead of walking away. Shouldn't the effort be equal. Am I being unfair?

I don't want to lose him, and he says "Then don't", as if it were all in my power. Maybe it is, if I am never again myself. But if I am not myself, then who does he love?

What must I do?

Jeziellia curled up near Enon, pulling the warm blanket over her. Despite the chill, she dreamt of fire -

She was suspended in darkness, always in darkness. The sun, bright but illuminating nothing, shone above her. Below her, her tears fell, making sparks of fire. The fire grew, and twisted together. Rising before her was a being, a homin, made of fire. As the details slowly formed - eyes and lashes and lips and teeth and hair all made of licking flames - she saw that it was Enon.

The fire spread from his feet, beneath her, burning her feet with a cold blue flame. As her feet caught fire, they burned a sickening purple. The Fire Enon reached out to her. She tried to pull away, but as in all her dreams, she was powerless to move, only to reach out or away. His hand plunged into her chest, burning her heart.

Jeziellia cried out in anguish - both in her dream and lying there in the tower of Towerbridge.

Yrkanis, Majestic Garden of Verdant Heights

I must've passed out again. ...I really wish I could find a way to stop it. In the Trove, Enon was talking about a homin's feet being their spiritual channel to the lifeforce of Atys. I assumed that since my feet were so... I assumed that was the reason. He explained some things about homins who had lost legs - I can't help but remember Aeduir - that still functioned, spiritually and in regards to Sap, as though they had not. A "phantom limb" that seemed to uphold the connection.

So what is wrong with me? The more I force myself to practice, even with more powerful amplifiers (which do admittedly make it easier on me), the more exhausted I am. And my legs ache.

Enon's asleep. He and Kas will be saying their farewells after the Day Out. I don't want him to go. Either of them. I may never see them again. I meant to spend more time with Enon, but when I curled up to take a small nap before swimming back to Fairhaven, I ended up sleeping too long.

Zyquo showed me this beautiful waterfall there. A grand view over a little island, and the turquoise blue waters of the Lakelands. It was breathtaking. I'm thankful to count Zyquo a friend. He's helped me keep my mind from the negative things upon which I could focus, and helped me remember the simple beauty of the world, which I used to enjoy more often.

I cannot thank him enough. For that, or the extra blanket while I napped. I must've been exhausted.

I must rest, and try to make the most of tomorrow. There's so little time.

Jeziellia closed her journal and quietly slipped it back into her pack. Moving across the room - he must've brought her to the small room she'd been renting from the city until she could afford her own apartment - she leaned over to pick up an extra blanket. She draped it over Enon, against the winter chill that crept into the treehome, as it did everything else. Kas,she thought, Keep him safe. Keep him... him. And come back whole. Both of you. This night, she dreamt of nothing.

Enon's Apartment, Yrkanis, Majestic Gardens

The letter sat nestled upon the carefully folded pile of light armor she had worn the prior evening. Her name, Jeziellia Mara'Tyr, was scribed in the careful calligraphy of old Matisian scripts over the front of the unsealed envelope.

Jeziellia Mara'Tyr,

My love, it saddens me to know that I must once more set off to journey without having shared proper parting words with you. It would seem that the Fates have forever kept us from saying "good bye" to one another, whatever the intent of the words may have been.

Your loving words echo in my mind, like a rush of warm air over the fragmented embers of my heart amidst a swirl of cinders and ash. Igniting my passions, resurrecting and inspiring the coliseum of flame that is my heart, the heart that I had all but smothered until you unknowingly stayed my hand on Silan. When I look at you, this new serene and peaceful expression settled over your face as you sleep upon my bed, the flower of flames burning in my chest roar and torment me, beckoning me to stay and forget my journey.

The radiance that surrounds you when I look at you holds me enthralled. I am overcome with the sense that no matter what may come, our celestial selves will hold to our love and the incandescent light that forms this bond will persevere through all that is to come. The conflagration you have sparked inside me has been honed into my own phantasmal sword of fire, blazing with power, to which the sacred Dragonblades of our order are only faint shadows.

Do not think that I have forgotten the heartache and troubles that we have bled so recently. I would only remind you that we would not, could not, have been so hurt by one another if the quintessence of the love that we knowingly share were merely a construct of desire. I can only excuse myself, for my part; by admitting that the inferno you have sparked inside of me is anything except controlled, further bolstered with the aid of jealousy, this inferno hisses in the threat of consuming me completely.

There is much that I have left unsaid in our time together, each with a separate reasoning. When I return, I hope to find the words to express what I have not, as of yet. I miss the conversations we engaged in during much simpler times. The memories of them whisper into my consciousness more often than you might guess, and we must take the time to initiate them regularly once again.

The stars call for me, my love. I will miss you. Carry my love with you, wherever your feet may take you.


In Your Honor,

Enon Etchmarc

P.S. – I made sure to take the time to repair the bodice piece to your vest. It was not my initial intention to tear it as I did.


Setting his pack just outside the door, he returned once more to the side of the bed where she slept. He pressed a light kiss against her forehead, her skin unnaturally warm against his lips. A faint smile curled his lips as he looked down at her one last time before tearing himself away from the apartment. Hauling his pack down to the caretaker, a hushed conversation carried on between them, which ended with Enon slipping the caretaker a handful of luminescent multi-colored baubles of hardened sap. The dappers would quiet a lot of questions in Yrkanis.


[size=-2]This 'entry' composed by Enon's Player.[/size]

Black Circle Tribe encampment, Withered Stock in the Witherings

I've traveled through the Grove of Umbra. My intent was to observe the Goo fields here. The Witherings are the only lands that have true eruptions, though I found traces of Goo residue near th Psykopla Knoll. Worrisome, and worth investigation.

I had not expected to find the Black Circle Tribe here. In honesty, I know very little about them. Is everyone on Atys so secretive? Does everyone have such cause to be?

I managed to barter with them. I am allowed to camp within the perimeter of their encampment, and enjoy their protection, in exchange for a small payment of dapper, and anything I might 'discover' while out here. I told them I was only here to observe the fields, and not truly anything of a scientist. They said they needed no explanations for the moment.

I want to ask them about Enon and Kas. I remember that this is one of the tribes Kas had mentioned when we spoke near the Flame of Justice in Pyr... I will wait though. The idea makes me queasy. Do I really want to know?

I've reread Enon's letter more times than I could count. I've almost memorized it, and I don't know what to think. I don't know how I feel. Everything, except this kirosta sting on my leg, feels like it is lost in some dim haze. As if I cannot feel or think of anything.

He's never used such flowery words. These are the things I read of in books. Courtly. Courting. An aspect of it is as though another man wrote it.

I don't want to think about it.

Again, I've missed his departure. Why? What is the matter with me. If it is my legs, then curse them, and curse the guards who lit that pyre!

There is no sense in being angry now. What is done is done. I will focus on my task. It will make the time pass.

Maybe soon I can think again.

Black Circle Tribe encampment, Withered Stock of the Witherings

[size=-2]"Check your legs. Do you have purple spots on them?"
"What are you hiding? What are you running from?"
"They have been tied to the death of Wyler."
"The Goo causes a peculiar pain..."
"I want to help ease your pain."
"Do not fail us. Do not fail yourself."
"...Why must you torture me so?..."[/size]

Jeziellia stood at the edge of the Goo field. Ja-Zun Luci paused in his prospecting to watch her. She stared into the distance, pacing to and fro. Ja-zun had the impression of a caged animal looking for a way out.

She stopped in her pacing. Ja-Zun noticed a change in her posture, a determination that none of the tribe had witnessed in this strange Matis woman since her arrival on the first day of spring. Her pick hit the ground, and before the shaft was still against the earth, she had set out at a dead run.

Ja-zun stood, his work forgotten, as he watched the Matis woman. Her body fought against whatever decision she had made, her steps faltering as she moved further within the infection. A few other members of the Black Circle patrols stopped to observe. As expected, it was not long before it was too much for her. The woman fell to her knees. Ja-zun was surprised when she struggled to her feet, to turn back toward safer ground. Her effort was for naught; a seizure shook her form and she pitched forward to the festering ground. She curled up and then was still.

She was too far for any of them to reach her, if they had been so inclined. The guards returned to their patrols, and Ja-zun turned back to his work.


...a soft, gentle caress, burning licking over her skin, an embrace of flame, consuming her, engulfing; the primal memory of a mother's womb mixed with fire...

Jeziellia's eyes fluttered open. A mektoub pup snuffled at her cheek, its littermates looking on. They almost seemed concerned. As she sat up, a few of the pups jumped around playfully. Another moved forward and joined the first in snuffling around her. They seemed to be checking her to be sure she was all right. She could see the Karavan nearby. One nodded at her and she knew she'd been pulled back from the grasp of death, her flesh made whole again by the power of Jena.

With a quiet sigh she stood. She would harvest near Hoi-Cho to pay her debt to them.

The Agora of Pyr, the Burning Sands

The changeability of homins can be more tempest-like than any storm I've witnessed.

The night before last, I rested in perfect contentment atop Great Boulder Tunnel in good company with Zyquo. I admit to being a little embarrassed - or was it some other kind of odd modesty that made my cheeks feel warm? - when I awoke to find him still there, gazing out over Maiden Grove.

I joined the others in Thesos for training, on the Day Out. I can now learn lessons specialized to my Dragonblade. I'm pleased. For this and so much more. Kas' words and trust still warm me, even days later.

I've seen Enon little since his return, which occured soon after my 'return' from Withered Stock. I want to ask so many questions, but the answers will come in his time, if at all. When we do see or reach out to one another, one of us is going to sleep. Would that I had not been so exhausted, and that other circumstances had not dampered the evening.

Zyquo apologizes for ruining my enjoyment, but he did not, truly. Nor did Kas. I do not deal well with conflict and this is the first time I have seen two people for whom I care come into conflict with one another, and to some degree agreed with both. It is uncomfortable, and I feel as though I should've been able to say something. There should have been some kind of verbal balm I could have applied to ease the situation.

Instead, I am left with this strange hollow feeling. Similar to when I would hear my Mother and Father arguing about me.

My sister sent someone to check in on me, from Silan. I'm sure he was on his way, but she should not. He is a kind boy named Perun. I cannot help but call him a boy - he appears no older than Emaelle and I have difficulty imagining her as a woman. I have difficulty imagining myself as such.

I agreed to lead a trek to Zora, from Pyr, for Perun and a friend of his. The trip was successful and largely pleasant. There were a few mishaps, and a few hard lessons. All in all, I hope they enjoyed seeing what there was to see, and have recovered from the arduous journey.

I am still tired but, thank Jena, my legs do not ache as they did last night.