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<blockquote data-quote="Lylandra" data-source="post: 7469554" data-attributes="member: 6816692"><p><strong>Fencing with words</strong></p><p></p><p>In the evening, Auryn has invited a good bunch of her closest friends to her first real birthday party in Flint. The guests are a bit surprised when she declares that this party will at least be partially a traditional elfaivaran happening. She explains that in her culture, this day is celebrated by friends and family and acts as a means of saying “thank you” to all those who helped you grow stronger over the course of the last sun cycle. The guests, on the other hand, celebrate as a means of showing their joy about the celebrant's personal development and the of seeds his or her actions that have grown over time. </p><p>Before anyone can ask her about her motive, Auryn declares that she decided once and for all to stop hiding her eladrin heritage and to openly embrace who she is and has always been. She then introduces each of her guests to the others, including Milena and Morris Dawkins, Telluriel Rommath, Bronk (the minotaur bartender), Nymeia, Andrei, Isobel, Flying Spark, Margit and Gabriel Carlyle. She then first thanks her mother and her mother's husbands for being brought into this world and all the education they offered to her, before turning to Zahir and his ultimate sacrifice. She then thanks every single guest for their various deeds and hands them their personal gifts.</p><p></p><p>As soon as she's speaking about Isobel, the eladrin bursts into tears and Auryn takes a short break to hug and comfort her younger “sister”, saying that she, too, will grow so much stronger and be reunited with her mother and sisters soon. When she then turns to Carlyle, he is a bit surprised about his gift: a light blue silken shawl and a similar colored handkerchief, as he actually figured out her birthday date in advance and bought her a present, too. He then hands her a beautifully decorated box with a mithril-embroidered, magical scarf that can change its color according to its owner's will. Auryn thanks him a lot and says that it is really beautiful. </p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(I actually made a short list with all the different gifts, including fancy pants for Andrei that he loved very much. And Carlyle actually said that he'd love to have a light blue shawl once, so she remembered that as well. And usually, I'm really bad at figuring out presents, but these were pretty easy.)</span></p><p> <span style="color: #008000"></span></p><p>She ends the official part of her party with a song in elvish and by announcing that she agreed to a ceasefire with Francis Fordren, even if she doesn't really know whether or not this truce will last. Over the course of the evening, she is also visited by a small group of Bravuras who sing her a traditional Crisillyiri birthday song and hand her a gigantic bouquet of exotic flowers. A short time later, two shorts can be heard from afar, signaling that these boys are ready to defend their community. Meanwhile, Nymeia is still looking languishingly at Carlyle and it seems as if her desired tea session still hasn't happened. </p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(To quote Tizbiz: Poor Nymeia. Auryn did her very best to this point to let her friend at least have a chance of meeting Carlyle in private, but he doesn't seem interested at all, not even for an alibi tea party. And Nymeia is simply too shy to approach him personally. Jeesh, this has been going on for a year!)</span></p><p></p><p>As time goes by, one after another of the party guests say goodbye until only Flying Spark, Carlyle and Isobel are left. The faerie dragon is quite happy with all the good food he ate today while Dr. Meredith is keen on getting to know more about elfaivaran festivities after her first taste. Sill, they are both tired and retreat to their garden home. </p><p></p><p>Auryn takes Carlyle aside to apologize again for the incident with Gale. She explains that she didn't intend to hurt him, but simply forgot about his presence when she got caught up in her own thoughts and worries about both the future of Elfaivar and her own. Carlyle brushes the matter off and says that he understands her need to orient herself as he's currently a bit lost himself. He explains that, right now, he's threading on completely unknown grounds and Auryn adds that she's feeling as if she's stumbling blindly through a swamp, knowing that she has to move forward but pretty unsure about the right way. </p><p></p><p>Carlyle gladly hops onto her train of thoughts and assures his colleague that, at least from his point of view, she isn't lost at all. He encourages her to learn from the past and never forget those who made sacrifices for her sake (like Zahir) and Auryn agrees that she'd learned her lesson from her encounter with the pirates. He then adds that she has grown so much over the last year in terms of confidence, courage and personal strength and he encourages her to go forward and find out who she truly wants to be. He understands that she might fear losing touch with her traditions, but Carlyle guesses that her mother will have enough reasons to be proud of her daughter should she eventually return to Elfaivar. And on top of that, he'd also come along with her and meet her family should she have nothing against it. </p><p></p><p>Auryn is pretty surprised to hear that and directly replies that she has absolutely nothing against his plan. She thanks him for his kind words and adds that he himself also changed quite a bit over the course of the year and that she'd never thought she'd call a deva her trusted friend. She then asks him whether he'd wish to solidify the bond between them in a way that no one, at least not in Elfaivar, could contest it. When Carlyle signals his interest, she tells him about the ancient ritual of Sahodar Mitra (meaning “honorary sibling”) that would symbolize a familial companionship between two people not related by blood. She explains that in modern enclaves, where many eladrin already have blood ties with one another, the ritual understandably lost its meaning. Still, no one would doubt the legitimacy of the Sahodar Mitra and would have to accept him as her companion. </p><p></p><p>Carlyle accepts her proposal and so she leads him towards one of her private rooms. There, they both first meditate on cushions while being subjected to strong but pleasant incense. Then they use a plant-based color to draw traditional (or, in Carlyle's case, rather intuitive) patterns on each other's forearms before marking each other's forehead. They then lay their foreheads against each other to symbolize the communion of their spirits. Lastly, each of them spills a drop of blood into a cup of “dream spirit” (which turns out to be more or less simple papaya spirit). They both drink from the cup to symbolize their communion of blood. </p><p></p><p>Auryn then takes Carlyle's hands and says: “Thus we are bound in spirit and blood. None shall sever this bond but the two of us. None shall have the right to set us apart. From this day on, you are my Sahomi, Gabriel. And I am yours.”</p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(Yeah, I'm a sucker for culture-building. My bad. </span></p><p><span style="color: #008000"></span></p><p><span style="color: #008000">I imagined contemporary eladrin culture to be centered around growth, including personal growth and finding one's place in the society they're trying to rebuild. At least as a youth/young adult. Therefore, and because children are kind of rare and births are a reason to celebrate, I thought that they would definitely know birthday celebrations. </span></p><p><span style="color: #008000"></span></p><p><span style="color: #008000">Regarding the Sahodar Mitra ritual, I shamelessly borrowed the idea of a blood brother, but made it less messy and more spiritual. Eladrin are people who live for centuries, so there could have reasonably been means to integrate someone who grew really close to you into your family-sphere. I also imagine that each family or region has their own patterns for painting their hands, feet and sometimes face. Similar to the family embroidery and calligraphy. Coincidentally, I also love traditional arabic and chinese/japanese calligraphy...) </span></p><p></p><p>The next morning, we get a message from Slate saying that king Aodhan requests our presence immediately. As Carlyle is by now pretty used to his newfound magical powers, he teleports the two of us directly to the teleport circle in Slate where we take a carriage to Torfield Palace. We are received in the usual way, which means skipping the official rooms and antechambers. This time, however, we find ourselves being led to the royal fencing hall where we are told to wait for his majesty.</p><p></p><p>When king Aodhan enters the hall after a while, he greets us while casually changes clothes and dons a light armor before drawing a short sword from a large weapon rack. He then turns to Auryn and asks her to be his sparring partner while they discuss Morgan Cippiano's offers. The eladrin is a bit confused at first as she isn't used to fencing with both words and swords at the same time. She then gets accustomed to Aodhan's rhythm after a while and manages to be an equal opponent while the king keeps rotating between different kinds of weapons and styles, including some that are most certainly not taught in royal fencing schools. </p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, we tell the king about Cippiano's proposal. When we express our worries of giving the Familia far too loose reins, he agrees and says that as noble as this organization may read on paper, he doesn't want to foster a beast he cannot control. He's quite enthusiastic about the idea of exchanging prisoners as he knows that there are a few spies that got caught during their missions in Crisillyir. Freeing Giovanni Algardi however wold be really difficult and we correctly assumed that he cannot risk the nobles' support over such a persona non grata. </p><p></p><p>Carlyle then has a brilliant idea: What if we claimed that Algardi himself was the source for a good deal of Cippiano's information about the Kell guild? Solving the matter by banishing the guy to Crisillyir under the premise of getting valuable information from him could satisfy the nobles, especially those who have industrial ties to Flint. King Aodhan agrees that this trick might actually work and he states that he'd really love to intensify the political exchange with Crisillyir. He tasks us with organizing a Crisillyiri representative who'd also attend to the peace talks as an observer. Auryn takes that bait while parrying one of Aodhan's attacks and jokes that his majesty would not need to look any further for an additional representative from Elfaivar. </p><p></p><p>After a while (and a couple of weapon changes more), the king seems both satisfied and exhausted. He thanks Auryn for the refreshing duel and hopes that she, unlike some of his subordinates, didn't hold back her true prowess. She returns that she'd never embarrass him like that as she knows that a risuri king is a figure of both mental and physical power. She didn't use fey magic on him though as she thought the duel would be about swordplay. When Aodhan mentions that he did jinx his blade quite a few times, Auryn says she didn't even realize he used magic, but maybe that's because she's so much infused with magic herself that it seemed natural to her. </p><p><span style="color: #008000"></span></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(seems like these two have a good deal of respect for each other. For Auryn, holding back would have signaled the king that she'd thought he is weaker than her. And Aodhan being such a resourceful fighter who knows a lot of dirty tricks and doesn't stick to standard styles clearly impressed her)</span></p><p></p><p>Needless to say that the royal weapon masters and, to a smaller extend, even Carlyle, are a bit shocked at her reveal (they were no fan of his mundane fighting techniques either). Aodhan thanks her for the effort and mutters that he's maybe getting too old for this. Auryn doesn't think that he's out of shape yet and thanks him for the honor of crossing blades with such an astonishing and resourceful swordsman. </p><p></p><p>Before we bid the king goodbye, Auryn talks about a rather personal issue. While being the representative of Elfaivar has been more or less a joke, she does hope that Danor will learn from the example of Risur and put an end to slavery soon. Especially when it comes to abducting people from other countries to keep them as trophies or breeding stock. She adds that Elfaivar is trying to recuperate and grow and might even form a nation in the future. Which also means that they could start a war with Danor should they not release their people and she really doesn't want Risur to be caught in the middle of the conflict. Aodhan sighs and says he understands her point. But he does fear that Danor abolishing slavery is something that most likely won't happen during his lifetime, especially in times like these when they need cheap workforce for their industrial growth. </p><p><span style="color: #008000"></span></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(Yeah, this was basically just musings about the future from an Eladrin's perspective. Which could mean centuries. Also, Auryn isn't quite sure about the political situation in Elfaivar as she only knows about the enclaves which are smaller clusters and which are not even close to forming a nation in the traditional sense. But she had to try planting this seed in Aodhan's mind and when she told him about the Traverses' “breeding stock”, she had been as graphic as the courtly situation allowed to convince him about the injustice of Danor's societal system)</span></p><p><span style="color: #008000"></span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lylandra, post: 7469554, member: 6816692"] [b]Fencing with words[/b] In the evening, Auryn has invited a good bunch of her closest friends to her first real birthday party in Flint. The guests are a bit surprised when she declares that this party will at least be partially a traditional elfaivaran happening. She explains that in her culture, this day is celebrated by friends and family and acts as a means of saying “thank you” to all those who helped you grow stronger over the course of the last sun cycle. The guests, on the other hand, celebrate as a means of showing their joy about the celebrant's personal development and the of seeds his or her actions that have grown over time. Before anyone can ask her about her motive, Auryn declares that she decided once and for all to stop hiding her eladrin heritage and to openly embrace who she is and has always been. She then introduces each of her guests to the others, including Milena and Morris Dawkins, Telluriel Rommath, Bronk (the minotaur bartender), Nymeia, Andrei, Isobel, Flying Spark, Margit and Gabriel Carlyle. She then first thanks her mother and her mother's husbands for being brought into this world and all the education they offered to her, before turning to Zahir and his ultimate sacrifice. She then thanks every single guest for their various deeds and hands them their personal gifts. As soon as she's speaking about Isobel, the eladrin bursts into tears and Auryn takes a short break to hug and comfort her younger “sister”, saying that she, too, will grow so much stronger and be reunited with her mother and sisters soon. When she then turns to Carlyle, he is a bit surprised about his gift: a light blue silken shawl and a similar colored handkerchief, as he actually figured out her birthday date in advance and bought her a present, too. He then hands her a beautifully decorated box with a mithril-embroidered, magical scarf that can change its color according to its owner's will. Auryn thanks him a lot and says that it is really beautiful. [COLOR=#008000](I actually made a short list with all the different gifts, including fancy pants for Andrei that he loved very much. And Carlyle actually said that he'd love to have a light blue shawl once, so she remembered that as well. And usually, I'm really bad at figuring out presents, but these were pretty easy.) [/COLOR] She ends the official part of her party with a song in elvish and by announcing that she agreed to a ceasefire with Francis Fordren, even if she doesn't really know whether or not this truce will last. Over the course of the evening, she is also visited by a small group of Bravuras who sing her a traditional Crisillyiri birthday song and hand her a gigantic bouquet of exotic flowers. A short time later, two shorts can be heard from afar, signaling that these boys are ready to defend their community. Meanwhile, Nymeia is still looking languishingly at Carlyle and it seems as if her desired tea session still hasn't happened. [COLOR=#008000](To quote Tizbiz: Poor Nymeia. Auryn did her very best to this point to let her friend at least have a chance of meeting Carlyle in private, but he doesn't seem interested at all, not even for an alibi tea party. And Nymeia is simply too shy to approach him personally. Jeesh, this has been going on for a year!)[/COLOR] As time goes by, one after another of the party guests say goodbye until only Flying Spark, Carlyle and Isobel are left. The faerie dragon is quite happy with all the good food he ate today while Dr. Meredith is keen on getting to know more about elfaivaran festivities after her first taste. Sill, they are both tired and retreat to their garden home. Auryn takes Carlyle aside to apologize again for the incident with Gale. She explains that she didn't intend to hurt him, but simply forgot about his presence when she got caught up in her own thoughts and worries about both the future of Elfaivar and her own. Carlyle brushes the matter off and says that he understands her need to orient herself as he's currently a bit lost himself. He explains that, right now, he's threading on completely unknown grounds and Auryn adds that she's feeling as if she's stumbling blindly through a swamp, knowing that she has to move forward but pretty unsure about the right way. Carlyle gladly hops onto her train of thoughts and assures his colleague that, at least from his point of view, she isn't lost at all. He encourages her to learn from the past and never forget those who made sacrifices for her sake (like Zahir) and Auryn agrees that she'd learned her lesson from her encounter with the pirates. He then adds that she has grown so much over the last year in terms of confidence, courage and personal strength and he encourages her to go forward and find out who she truly wants to be. He understands that she might fear losing touch with her traditions, but Carlyle guesses that her mother will have enough reasons to be proud of her daughter should she eventually return to Elfaivar. And on top of that, he'd also come along with her and meet her family should she have nothing against it. Auryn is pretty surprised to hear that and directly replies that she has absolutely nothing against his plan. She thanks him for his kind words and adds that he himself also changed quite a bit over the course of the year and that she'd never thought she'd call a deva her trusted friend. She then asks him whether he'd wish to solidify the bond between them in a way that no one, at least not in Elfaivar, could contest it. When Carlyle signals his interest, she tells him about the ancient ritual of Sahodar Mitra (meaning “honorary sibling”) that would symbolize a familial companionship between two people not related by blood. She explains that in modern enclaves, where many eladrin already have blood ties with one another, the ritual understandably lost its meaning. Still, no one would doubt the legitimacy of the Sahodar Mitra and would have to accept him as her companion. Carlyle accepts her proposal and so she leads him towards one of her private rooms. There, they both first meditate on cushions while being subjected to strong but pleasant incense. Then they use a plant-based color to draw traditional (or, in Carlyle's case, rather intuitive) patterns on each other's forearms before marking each other's forehead. They then lay their foreheads against each other to symbolize the communion of their spirits. Lastly, each of them spills a drop of blood into a cup of “dream spirit” (which turns out to be more or less simple papaya spirit). They both drink from the cup to symbolize their communion of blood. Auryn then takes Carlyle's hands and says: “Thus we are bound in spirit and blood. None shall sever this bond but the two of us. None shall have the right to set us apart. From this day on, you are my Sahomi, Gabriel. And I am yours.” [COLOR=#008000](Yeah, I'm a sucker for culture-building. My bad. I imagined contemporary eladrin culture to be centered around growth, including personal growth and finding one's place in the society they're trying to rebuild. At least as a youth/young adult. Therefore, and because children are kind of rare and births are a reason to celebrate, I thought that they would definitely know birthday celebrations. Regarding the Sahodar Mitra ritual, I shamelessly borrowed the idea of a blood brother, but made it less messy and more spiritual. Eladrin are people who live for centuries, so there could have reasonably been means to integrate someone who grew really close to you into your family-sphere. I also imagine that each family or region has their own patterns for painting their hands, feet and sometimes face. Similar to the family embroidery and calligraphy. Coincidentally, I also love traditional arabic and chinese/japanese calligraphy...) [/COLOR] The next morning, we get a message from Slate saying that king Aodhan requests our presence immediately. As Carlyle is by now pretty used to his newfound magical powers, he teleports the two of us directly to the teleport circle in Slate where we take a carriage to Torfield Palace. We are received in the usual way, which means skipping the official rooms and antechambers. This time, however, we find ourselves being led to the royal fencing hall where we are told to wait for his majesty. When king Aodhan enters the hall after a while, he greets us while casually changes clothes and dons a light armor before drawing a short sword from a large weapon rack. He then turns to Auryn and asks her to be his sparring partner while they discuss Morgan Cippiano's offers. The eladrin is a bit confused at first as she isn't used to fencing with both words and swords at the same time. She then gets accustomed to Aodhan's rhythm after a while and manages to be an equal opponent while the king keeps rotating between different kinds of weapons and styles, including some that are most certainly not taught in royal fencing schools. Meanwhile, we tell the king about Cippiano's proposal. When we express our worries of giving the Familia far too loose reins, he agrees and says that as noble as this organization may read on paper, he doesn't want to foster a beast he cannot control. He's quite enthusiastic about the idea of exchanging prisoners as he knows that there are a few spies that got caught during their missions in Crisillyir. Freeing Giovanni Algardi however wold be really difficult and we correctly assumed that he cannot risk the nobles' support over such a persona non grata. Carlyle then has a brilliant idea: What if we claimed that Algardi himself was the source for a good deal of Cippiano's information about the Kell guild? Solving the matter by banishing the guy to Crisillyir under the premise of getting valuable information from him could satisfy the nobles, especially those who have industrial ties to Flint. King Aodhan agrees that this trick might actually work and he states that he'd really love to intensify the political exchange with Crisillyir. He tasks us with organizing a Crisillyiri representative who'd also attend to the peace talks as an observer. Auryn takes that bait while parrying one of Aodhan's attacks and jokes that his majesty would not need to look any further for an additional representative from Elfaivar. After a while (and a couple of weapon changes more), the king seems both satisfied and exhausted. He thanks Auryn for the refreshing duel and hopes that she, unlike some of his subordinates, didn't hold back her true prowess. She returns that she'd never embarrass him like that as she knows that a risuri king is a figure of both mental and physical power. She didn't use fey magic on him though as she thought the duel would be about swordplay. When Aodhan mentions that he did jinx his blade quite a few times, Auryn says she didn't even realize he used magic, but maybe that's because she's so much infused with magic herself that it seemed natural to her. [COLOR=#008000] (seems like these two have a good deal of respect for each other. For Auryn, holding back would have signaled the king that she'd thought he is weaker than her. And Aodhan being such a resourceful fighter who knows a lot of dirty tricks and doesn't stick to standard styles clearly impressed her)[/COLOR] Needless to say that the royal weapon masters and, to a smaller extend, even Carlyle, are a bit shocked at her reveal (they were no fan of his mundane fighting techniques either). Aodhan thanks her for the effort and mutters that he's maybe getting too old for this. Auryn doesn't think that he's out of shape yet and thanks him for the honor of crossing blades with such an astonishing and resourceful swordsman. Before we bid the king goodbye, Auryn talks about a rather personal issue. While being the representative of Elfaivar has been more or less a joke, she does hope that Danor will learn from the example of Risur and put an end to slavery soon. Especially when it comes to abducting people from other countries to keep them as trophies or breeding stock. She adds that Elfaivar is trying to recuperate and grow and might even form a nation in the future. Which also means that they could start a war with Danor should they not release their people and she really doesn't want Risur to be caught in the middle of the conflict. Aodhan sighs and says he understands her point. But he does fear that Danor abolishing slavery is something that most likely won't happen during his lifetime, especially in times like these when they need cheap workforce for their industrial growth. [COLOR=#008000] (Yeah, this was basically just musings about the future from an Eladrin's perspective. Which could mean centuries. Also, Auryn isn't quite sure about the political situation in Elfaivar as she only knows about the enclaves which are smaller clusters and which are not even close to forming a nation in the traditional sense. But she had to try planting this seed in Aodhan's mind and when she told him about the Traverses' “breeding stock”, she had been as graphic as the courtly situation allowed to convince him about the injustice of Danor's societal system) [/COLOR] [/QUOTE]
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