Post by dee on Nov 14, 2022 12:43:51 GMT
Calla wakes up, splashed in sunlight, in the Three Headed Dragon. She’s still uncertain about this laid-out-flat “sleeping”, but she’s heard a lot about it, and is determined to be good at it if she can. It’s not really working. She enjoys the shape and structure of the Inn’s beds all the same. The bright, uncluttered and clean rooms, the open-window breeze and background noise, unlike anything underground. Even by Elven standards her kin Dream more than meditate: she struggles with unconsciousness until late each night, before falling back into the shared memory her whole clan have crafted for millennia. After the first few nights she’s meticulously arranged the curtains to get the timing right, and now rouses a little after dawn, with plenty of time to navigate the Dream’s own seasonality, and to enjoy the morning light on her face before getting ready for work.
Even that is exotic. This is the first time she’s been employed, for coin, to do anything at all. She knows the position is temporary, part time, but she adores it. She finds the uniformity of the coin fascinating. The regularity of time and labour almost bewildering. The access to books and those currently writing them, intoxicating. Her first few shifts as an assistant cartographer were spent under vague observation, but that’s slowed as the idiosyncratic, piecemeal and maddening archives of the Academy’s Geography Department have become increasingly systematic under her watch. Calla is meticulous, driven, nigh-immune to the department’s unfortunate effect on sanity, and cheap. Her eyes only get sharper in the gloom between shelves, without candle or magelight. She frequently loses track of time, working longer than she should.
By noon, more or less, she’s finished up for the day, and takes great pleasure in choosing something new from Daring Height’s market for lunch. She struggles to find a comfortable spot to eat outside, still utterly enamoured with sunlight, not yet well adapted to read in it, and frequently too cold. The Uplands might be bright, but they lack the close warmth of her home. Nonetheless, she wraps up more than the season demands, and enjoys the weather otherwise. Cloud, rain, thunder: almost all of it is new to her.
Where Calla’s mornings are spent in the present and recorded past, her afternoons belong to the future. She explores Daring, and when her feet tire, she finds a spot to read, write, and puzzle through the disparate fragments that make up a good half of her grimoire- notes from a century of subterranean scholarship. Eventually they’ll reveal their mysteries and become spells in her growing arcane repertoire, or more solid hints at long forgotten treasures in the overworld. For now, much of it is nonsense, hyperbole... diagrams and drawings of impossible ephemera.
When it eventually comes, Calla allows herself to fully enjoy the golden light of dusk, her favourite thing, by far, about the Dawnlands. As it fades into twilight though, she inevitably finds herself drawn back to the crest of Daring Depths. If her kin are going to come for her, she knows it will be in those darkening hours. Almost an hour passes in watch, in quiet contemplation, in paranoia, until the stars come out. With a mix of longing and relief, she turns her back on the rift to seek out more friendly company for the evening. Not least of all the various wizards who haunt the Academy.
When midnight comes she returns to her room, largely content with the shape of her day, but knowing that it is temporary, part-time. Before too long, as Elves reckon it, the Academy’s maps will all be organised. A little bit longer, and Calla will be taken back or leave the rift behind. Eventually, she will have mastered all that she has brought with her from home.
What then? Even before she stretches out on the bed, she’s dreaming of a life yet to come.
Even that is exotic. This is the first time she’s been employed, for coin, to do anything at all. She knows the position is temporary, part time, but she adores it. She finds the uniformity of the coin fascinating. The regularity of time and labour almost bewildering. The access to books and those currently writing them, intoxicating. Her first few shifts as an assistant cartographer were spent under vague observation, but that’s slowed as the idiosyncratic, piecemeal and maddening archives of the Academy’s Geography Department have become increasingly systematic under her watch. Calla is meticulous, driven, nigh-immune to the department’s unfortunate effect on sanity, and cheap. Her eyes only get sharper in the gloom between shelves, without candle or magelight. She frequently loses track of time, working longer than she should.
By noon, more or less, she’s finished up for the day, and takes great pleasure in choosing something new from Daring Height’s market for lunch. She struggles to find a comfortable spot to eat outside, still utterly enamoured with sunlight, not yet well adapted to read in it, and frequently too cold. The Uplands might be bright, but they lack the close warmth of her home. Nonetheless, she wraps up more than the season demands, and enjoys the weather otherwise. Cloud, rain, thunder: almost all of it is new to her.
Where Calla’s mornings are spent in the present and recorded past, her afternoons belong to the future. She explores Daring, and when her feet tire, she finds a spot to read, write, and puzzle through the disparate fragments that make up a good half of her grimoire- notes from a century of subterranean scholarship. Eventually they’ll reveal their mysteries and become spells in her growing arcane repertoire, or more solid hints at long forgotten treasures in the overworld. For now, much of it is nonsense, hyperbole... diagrams and drawings of impossible ephemera.
When it eventually comes, Calla allows herself to fully enjoy the golden light of dusk, her favourite thing, by far, about the Dawnlands. As it fades into twilight though, she inevitably finds herself drawn back to the crest of Daring Depths. If her kin are going to come for her, she knows it will be in those darkening hours. Almost an hour passes in watch, in quiet contemplation, in paranoia, until the stars come out. With a mix of longing and relief, she turns her back on the rift to seek out more friendly company for the evening. Not least of all the various wizards who haunt the Academy.
When midnight comes she returns to her room, largely content with the shape of her day, but knowing that it is temporary, part-time. Before too long, as Elves reckon it, the Academy’s maps will all be organised. A little bit longer, and Calla will be taken back or leave the rift behind. Eventually, she will have mastered all that she has brought with her from home.
What then? Even before she stretches out on the bed, she’s dreaming of a life yet to come.