Alemi [side scene 1]

He was seated at a table, dinner set out before him. Silverware had been neatly laid on either side of the plate, the porcelain pristine and unchipped with fluid lines dancing along its edge in sweeping curls of gold paint. The food itself had been laid upon a crisp nest of leafy greens, settled atop a swirl of sauce: here, a smear of green, there, a smear of amber. The off-white curves of carefully clean bones, criss-crossed, leading to the plump pink centers of perfectly cooked lamb chops. A hand touched his, long nails glossy as glass were the tapered ends of elegant fingers, stroking gently against the delicate framework of his own pale hand.

"You’ll take care of her, won’t you?" It was Alemi’s mothers’ voice. He knew that in an instant. His instinct was to look up, and he would have, if not for the sudden crimson splatter that struck the snowy skin of her narrow wrist. He was distracted for only a second, as he raised his gaze, somehow knowing what he would see. His mother’s face, garish with blood, the lower jaw jaggedly split apart, hanging agape like quivering the mandibles of a spider, tongue pulled forward and dangling between them in drole fashion.

Beside her, his father inclined his head to look at his wife, his state mirroring hers, the same slit splicing him from lower lip to navel, ribs butterflied in showy display of the slow expansion of lungs at each draw of breath, and nevertheless, he was dressed in his very nicest suit, only slightly stained at the very edges. With one hand, Alemi’s father drew forth his fork to stab a piece of cleanly cut meat from his plate, lifting it to the remnants of his twitching mouth. In between all the red, Alemi could catch the glimpses of white from his teeth, indicating that, just maybe, he was smiling.

Alemi awoke with a start, sitting up suddenly in his bed, the air around him cold against the sweat-sheen covering his skin. Beside him, he felt his fingers instinctively draw against the fabric beneath him, balling into fists, and all the raging course of adrenaline slipping through him and fixating into the knuckled hand of nails pressed to palm. He stilled his thoughts, counted his breaths, and closed his eyes. All the liquid emotions, slips of fear and anger and frustration, they could be captured and controlled if he was careful about it. They could be shaped in a productive fashion, forged into something useful. This is what his uncle had taught him.

He opened his eyes. The familiarity of his room greeted him: the little rows of book spines all lined up neatly on his bookshelves, the soft glow of sunlight filtering through the veil of his curtains. His bare feet slid out from the blankets to be greeted with the coolness of smooth, grey stone floors. Alemi shrugged off the last clinging threads of his nightmare, no point to dwell on them. Today was another day with things to do.

It had become almost ritual for him to knock on the door of his uncle’s bedroom, and when inevitably their came no answer, Alemi would open it up with some reluctance to peer inside. He never dared to actually go in. Even though his uncle had not been home since Alemi had returned from the Shadow, somehow the old lesson of never touching his uncle’s belongings endured, a threshold he couldn’t quite cross.

As he continued his morning routine - a routine he wasn’t sure had been the same before the war, which parts had been picked up in his shadowlife and which parts had always been - Alemi began to mentally list the various tasks he planned to tackle, reviewing all the shop names that his Uncle Stellan had used regularly in the Celestial Bizarre. It was possible, surely, that his uncle had his reasons to avoid coming home. Yet, perhaps in his pursuit of knowledge, something which had always taken precedence, he’d still reached out to one of these vendors to get the materials vital to his research.

Mechanically, Alemi rinsed out his teacup, now empty of its once steaming contents, and placed the cleaned dish back where he’d retrieved it. He did not dwell there, never one to waste his time. Alemi had already gathered his things and made his way toward his door, his thoughts carefully selecting which trivial detail he’d give up to the Memory Gate before he arrived there. Part of him was tempted to spare himself some element of his nightmare, but that thought was quickly discarded. His nightmares might be unpleasant, but that same disturbing influence was what gave them power to supplement his own strength. He singled out instead the exact time that he had risen out of bed that morning.

With everything readied, the transaction was quick, effortless really, and in seconds, Alemi found himself gone from the cool, clean air with the earthy yet comforting scent of wet leaves that lingered always around Far Town. The temperature in the Celestial Bizarre was only a hint warmer, the skies overhead clear of everything but the occasional plump cloud, and the morning was in full swing, the chatter of merchants and patrons, the laughter of children. Yet, Alemi didn’t allow himself to be distracted by the sights, flashy as some were, flowers with petals made of humanlike skin, or a collection of birds with crystalline feathers. His closest destination was Sarashina's Bottled Memoirs, which sold as its name indicated a variety of dreams, memories, and even fragments of spells, all carefully contained in intricate glass containers.

The shop’s name was written in swooping script on its large storefront window. The current display centered around a large bottle of translucent peach, which transitioned into a deeper burnished orange toward its base, the vessel’s exterior neatly fluted, but still visible within was something swirling, and dotted with moving shadows. All around it, smaller versions had been neatly lined. A closer inspection revealed that even these tinier bottles held blurry, flickering shapes, figures almost.

"Smell of your favourite memory." Advertised a sign to the right. Alemi reached for the door and stepped inside.

A slight silvery tinkling announced his entrance. From the counter a few paces distant, a tall, lithe figure raised its purple-veiled head.

"Welcome." The voice was sibilant, soft, bereft of any indication of gender. It straightened to its full height from its work, and its narrow head swept the ceiling of the little shop. It made no sound as it swept around the glass case of the counter and quickly closed the distance between them. Its head seemed to tilt, curious as a bird as it regarded the shop’s only patron.

Palm upward, a dark hand slipped out from beneath purple folds of cloth, long, thin fingers stretching to indicate both patron and shop. "You certainly look like a man in want of a memory. What manner of memoir do you seek?"

"I'm afraid that isn't quite what I'm looking for today," Alemi spoke apologetically. In spite of his words, his gaze could not help be drawn to the various wares displayed around him. The elegant glasswork at times drawn precariously thin, some colorless and clear, others vibrant with color, but all glittering under the overhead lights.

"Your shop is beautiful though," he added with a smile, and then drew a breath to focus his thoughts. "My Uncle Stellan came here often. Are you Sarashina? If so, he spoke highly of your work." It was not idle flattery. Perhaps some felt no compunctions about outright lies, but Alemi was never comfortable in such spaces. Besides, truth, when used properly, could be equally potent, and ultimately, the reaction he received was of greater interest. Alemi watched carefully for any recognition of the name or telling nuance of emotion that might draw a clearer depiction of the relationship. Though gossamer fabric obscured its features, he focused instead on movement and stance, any shift of hands or incline of chin, attention paid to such subtle changes.

[Sooth card: Assassin]

The proprietor nodded at the mention of its name. Its robes swept the floor with a gentle susurration. It might have been performing a bow, but given its height and the folds of its robes, it was difficult to be sure.

"Stellan." The dark hand turned, fingers curling inward, smoothly stroking the being's palm like a spider's legs sliding over a mirror. "Sssssstellan. The name sounds familiar. Like stones, and streams." It turned, then, and drifted over toward the western wall of the shop. It paused before a bookcase nearly as tall and slender as its owner, and searched the shelves before it. A left hand, then a right, drifted above the shelving, a pianist composing a song. After a few moments, its fingers alighted upon a stout, silver-blue jar. It was a simple thing, unostentatious, stoppered with a jagged bit of ore. It plucked the jar from the shelf.

"How is... Stellan?" The being asked.

There was little to discern from the lissome proprietor, whose words flowed around his questions with all the liquid grace of water washing over the pebbles of a riverbed and whose gestures were equally cool and neutral in their nature. Yet, at least recognition was there. Alemi may have been a man blindly grasping in the darkness, uncertain of what palms fell upon without the context of sight to add to their tactile complexity, but that alone inspired some sense of direction, lent the illusive framework of small talk.

"If you're asking, then I'm guessing you haven't heard from him recently." A rueful quirk touched the edge of his mouth, lips thinning slightly. "Still, if you're able to tell me, would you happen to know when he was last here, or last placed an order with you?"

"Some years now, I'm afraid," answered Sarashina. "The War took much from us all. Those who survive pay the highest price."

With a single hand it clutched the silver-blue bottle, long fingers sliding up the sides to carefully cradle the jar. It swept back toward Alemi. As it held the empty vessel out toward its would-be patron, its arm extended fully, revealing a flash of a thin, dark limb beneath purple cloth.

"You should have this." The green ore of the stopper caught flecks of light from the aethyric lamps overhead. It seemed to glow briefly, as if burning from within thanks to this stolen light. "Stellan's last work commissioned of me, paid for in advance. Take care: neither Stellan nor I named it, but I believe it desires one."

The smooth edges of polished glass pressed to palm as Alemi took the decanter from its grasp, the solid base of the container thrummed with an almost lifelike heat, a blood-warmth flush beneath the surface as it touched his skin. His fingers affixed in automatic response to trap the rounded body and his other hand fell softly to brace the slender neck, which stretched skyward like a tender sapling reaching for the sun. Even after its faint illumination had faded, Alemi's gaze lingered on the bottle, studying the restless liquid that nevertheless stirred and swirled even long after it should have settled in his steady grip. Like its passing flicker, the item's presence had inspired in him a pulse of hope, foolishly strong in its arrival before his better senses succeeded into dulling it under reason and carefully measured expectations.

"Thank you," Alemi said, looking up intently at the shopkeeper's face, the gratitude evident in his every depth of tone that coloured his words. It had spoken true when it had referenced the the impact of the War. His uncle's absence only the most keenly felt, but with the stolen years thrown to the Shadow now over, Alemi felt both lost and left behind. "You've already given me more than I'd dared dream to get when I came to the Bizarre, but if you might be kind enough to indulge me a little longer, is there anything you can tell me about Uncle Stellan's commission?"

Sarashina's head inclined as it looked down on Alemi. Somehow the gesture did not seem like one of superiority, or of judgment; no, it almost felt like pity. Its presence was a strange embrace, reassuring in spite of the absence of touch.

"Your uncle was quite specific with his instructions," it said, "down to the very number of grains of sand used to form the glass, and the weather under each sun when the materials were sourced. The Makers involved in its creation were intrigued. They, too, had questions I cannot answer." The proprietor's hands slowly returned to its sides, long arms disappearing beneath gauzy folds of cloth. "He meant it to hold something, indefinitely, perhaps eternally. But what, I cannot say."

That same half-smile tugged at the corner of Alemi's mouth again, and there, in the midnight depth of his dark blue eyes, glittered a newfound mirth, not unlike the playful spill of light over the vial he still held with acute consideration, cradled between the bridge of firm fingers. He felt a certain kinship to that container, its unyielding walls meant to house and hold, just as Uncle Stellan had once taught him to be a vessel for the spells he'd learned, for the bad dreams that haunted him, for the unwanted emotions that sometimes surged and writhed and threatened.

"That's Uncle Stellan." Sarashina's words had evoked a certain comforting familiarity. Memories of his uncle standing in their home, his upright stature cutting a stark silhouette of towering presence as he relayed in crisp tones instructions layered with intricacies. "He always detailed out everything, the very particulars of his expectations from you, the exact order in which it should be done, but he'd never tell you the one thing you'd be most interested in. What exactly the hell it was that you were doing." Even the barest of laughter never escaped Alemi's lips, and yet, it infused ever word, woven through every syllable, as clear and warm as if it had been his only reaction.

In his youth, Alemi had learned not to push for answers. Uncle Stellan told you exactly as much as he wanted you to know. Nevertheless, it took some effort to reign in his curiosity, and now that it dangled as another question to add to the hundreds of questions he had regarding his Uncle's delay in return, Alemi could not help but indulge a little. For surely it was more important to follow any breadcrumb that might lead to his uncle's whereabouts.

"Those Makers you mentioned. Do you have their names or know where I might find them? It may lead to nothing but I have to try."

"More streams," murmured the being. "More stones. Those answers wore away long ago."

A silence fell, then, as unyielding as the pall over the Pale Embassy during a long, inscrutable wait. The bright bells over the shop's entrance sounded. A young man entered, followed closely by an elderbrin. The former wore a tight-fitting black suit; the latter, the head of a large tuna atop a waspish body and the black, spindly legs of an egret. They chatted together, their voices animated and rife with rapid-fire slang as they moved from one shelf to the next and commented on the wares. Sarashina did not appear to look away or to otherwise acknowledge them, but its tone grew softer all the same.

"Perhaps Kiaman of the Tellian Theater could be of assistance. He served as my go-between. His Omnitron is a fascinating work, and not one he could have built entirely on his own."

Alemi fixed the name in his thoughts, and it slipped in with the quicksilver presence of a cool rush, like the pinprick trail of adrenaline creeping up one's spin. This was another elusive shadow to be held within, to whisper at the edges of his mind, to observe and study until he better understood the deepest layers of its nature. The words themselves were more than just the syllables that framed, they were living breathing things, unravelers of secrets.

"I can't thank you enough for all your help." Alemi's voice had dropped into similarly lower tones. "If there's ever anything I can do to return the favor, please don't hesitate to find me."

He didn't dare take up any more of its time, not when the newest occupants of the small shop might actually be paying customers. With a final farewell, he escaped out the door, the fairy jingle of light metal marking his exit as it had his arrival. There were other places to stop before he went home, but Alemi's instincts that they'd offer far less than he'd found as Sarashina's were quickly confirmed. Yet, the boon of the morning carried him through the fruitless tedium of the rest of the day, and when sleep once again beckoned him, Alemi found he still felt hopeful with Sarashina's gifts: his uncle's last commission and Kiaman of Tellian Theater