A Dogwood's Brevity

[ruckus]

"- the Malloran elf can be said to exist betwixt the two most commonplace conceptions of "elfhood," the former predicated on the notion that elves are descended directly from godhood, heirs to a grace divinely presupposed and, therefore, constructed, and the latter treating elves like standard mischief-makers, more akin to the oft-vicious faeries or whimsical pixies than demigods."

The young elf taps his fingernails against the arm of his chair like the legs of a centipede, crawling, four in rapid succession. The chair, high-backed, mahogany, rests beneath a flowering dogwood tree in the courtyard of the Gaian Academy, relatively secluded from the chatter-ridden bustle of students along cobblestone paths that steer them from class to class. The young elf sits facing away from the tree's scaled trunk, the tip of his quill courting the edge of his lips. He sets the ink to parchment.

"In a strictly physiological sense, the Malloran elf falls closer to the pixie or the tiefling than, for example, the human, whose image conforms more closely with that of the typical Aesirian-based demigod than any other creature this side of the Veil. Here, I do not mean to assert that the Malloran elf claims an Aesirian heritage, since nothing could be further from the truth; instead, I adopt the rhetoric of the proponents of the "demigod" theory of elfhood in order to show not only how, and why, the Malloran elf deviates from their traditional understandings, but also how, and why, these understandings are useful when attempting to construct a fresh conceptualization of Malloran elfhood."

A dogwood petal floats down gently, riding a disconnected current to a pale underworld, to rest on the back of his writing hand. He stops for the moment, regards the blossom on his dorsum. With two fingers, he gingerly lifts the petal from his flesh, regarding it with an eye as green as it is critical. There is a mark beneath his eye, black and minuscule. He puts the petal in his mouth, where it melts into flavor, strung up between butter and cream. He looks at the parchment again.

"For example, while it is not useful to consider the Malloran elf through the Aesir-elven lens when its comes to their basic composition - this because the Malloran elf, in actuality, rarely rises above four feet in height, cannot put on lipid fat, grows hair over every inch of its body, and bears teeth predominantly canine -, it can be useful to theorize about how these impressions of Aesirian heritage came into existence, how the peculiarities of Malloran society and Malloran interaction with other dimensional species might have created these impressions and allowed a false conception like the Aesirian fallacy to spawn and propagate."

He swallows thoughtfully, a prominent jawbone shifting only slightly as he chews. He casts his eyes over the courtyard, dogwood blossoms littering his blond hair; he knows the blooming period of the dogwood tree is miraculously brief, that its beauty is transient, ethereal, transported swiftly and without recompense to its end and oblivion. So many pale students. The comparison is enticing, delicious.

He smiles at the cruelty of the joke, eyes shedding light like chrysalises made of jewel.

[Mayako]

"U-Umm . . . M-Mister Astair?"

Two years. Two years, and she still calls him that. Two years, and little to nothing has changed--about her, about her classes, and about the way she carries herself around others. Which is to say, on the tips of her toes, as if ready to duck her head down, shy away, or even scamper off at the first sign of aggression. Two years passed for her and felt like mere days all the same. Weeks, at worst.

The girl was what, now? A junior? Thirteen years old, now? And yet she's practically untouched by time. Grew a couple of inches, but suffers the same curse of all Oo'Xoran girls, who almost always look younger than they really are. One might call it a perk, perhaps. A boon of beauty. A genetic fountain of youth. The girl had heard it all, practically each time she complained about being smaller in some way or another than another girl her age.

But no. No, it's not a boon at all. Not to her. To this girl, it's a curse. Whoever would take her seriously when she looks like a ten year old girl in clothes all doubled or tripled her actual size, what with all her clothes being donated to her from other students who were all larger than her? Who would ever listen to her seriously attempt to discuss an important part of religious history when her voice is so upped in pitch, sounding cheery at best and whiny at worst?

No one, that's for sure.

Well, except for one person . . .

"Th-that does, um, th-that doesn't look li-like a good place to write . . ." she pauses and clings a tome to her chest, "Y-you're just going to get petals in the ink . . ."

Not that the sight isn't pretty, because it was. It really was. Inspiring, too. Which perhaps explains her companion (one of the very few she still has) and his affinity for it now. But even still! Pretty could be inconveniencing, especially when one is attempting to compose anything of importance at all!

[ruckus]

"First and foremost, it is important to understand that illusion, both as a social act and a magic one, is not only a custom to the Malloran elf; it is his very religion. The design of one's Glamour, the illusory appearance the Malloran elf will wear throughout his adult life, is the initiation ritual of adolescence in Malloran society; the inability to craft a Glamour is seen as the inability to function in a mature setting and, in rare cases, may even warrant execution. It is precisely because Aesirian Glamours have been in vogue in Mallorus for the past several millennia that so many other dimensional races take them as the totality of elf culture. But if Puck the Opportune had wor-"

Ah, and there was Mayako. It was not an exaggeration to say that Mayako was the young elf's favorite humanoid, in the same way that a trapped fly, in the minutes before its legs and wings are removed by the child who watches it, becomes the most interesting insect in the world to its observer. Same hand-me-down clothes, different book in her arms, all obscuring her as-of-yet still inscrutable chest. Something about the whole composition was just fascinating, nigh mesmerizing, to be able to deconstruct something so subpar and average and put it back together as consummate beauty.

Two years had treated Flik much in the same way they had treated Mayako; there were some differences, but few major ones. Even the major ones weren't visible. He still wore a duster just about everywhere he went: tan, missing buttons on the cuff. His body, nowadays, was typically riddled with writing, hurried scrawls along the wrist and forearm, reminders scratched in magiscule, cursive notes and rushed epiphanies. Prominently displayed on one of his arms was the phrase: possible Lead: Abamoth connection? As Mayako came closer and spoke, Flik crossed his arms over his chest, minding the quill so it would not stain his clothes.

"Petals in the ink," he echoed. He stared at Mayako from across his makeshift arms, down the bridge of his nose, letting the silence hang in the air, gestating. He leaned forward, lacing his fingers together purposefully. "Mayako."

He cocked his head slightly to the right. "Have you been getting taller?"

He stared at her pointedly for another two seconds, then tilted his inkwell to peer inside. Lo and behold, a sticky clump of petals sat soaking up liquid dark at the bottom of the container, a post-floral tumor gathering mass. Two long fingers delved into the opening and pulled out the black lump, dripping ichor. The ink slid down his fingers and onto his lap; Flik was far from oblivious to the sexual parallel, but would Mayako be?

He smelled the stained flowers, inhaling deep and long. Then, he flicked the black ball away into the grass. His gaze returned to Mayako. "What's the book?"

[Mayako]

Seemed like it had already happened. Mayako smiled weakly. Sheepishly. She wasn't one for "I told you so's," but being correct about something never hurt the ego--no matter how minuscule and tiny that ego may have been. Any innuendo, parallel, or symbolism in it all, however, was missed. She could pick them out in a book, find various sexual metaphors littered throughout a text, and pack them away in a mental suitcase labeled open only in case of paper topics. With texts, the girl was observant as a starving owl. But for her life, she was painfully oblivious to all things, too busy worrying about a dozen other things to pick up on the subtle nuances of conversation.

It certainly was no help to her that she socialized less and less over time. Seemed Flik was one of the few people she talked to anymore, and he wasn't even a student. It wasn't too long ago that he graduated, after all . . .

At mention of her height, she paused nervously. He really noticed? Could see that she'd grown a couple of inches? It was a nice thought. Strange, maybe, but Flik was always strange.

"Y-yeah. I-it, well, um, I'm still shorter than the other girls my age . . . m-most of whom are freshmen, a-actually." The entire reply was like an inadvertent exercise in pitch, starting first as upbeat and falling to a sullen, disappointed downbeat by the end of it. Perhaps even a bit shamed.

Petals of the blossoming dogwood drifted, and a pair caught themselves in her hair--which, now, in the bright of day, had just the slightest hint of a purple hue amongst the natural Oo'Xoran black, almost always presenting a strange, if not vaguely unnerving contrast with how pale her skin could be at times, especially during winter. It was just a slight change in hue from blue-black hair, natural and not at all outlandish for where she would have come from. In two years, she'd changed her preferred style out of stress alone, having far too much school work, volunteer work, or mandatory training at hand to worry about something like her hair. It was a bit longer, now. She got it cut whenever it grew below her shoulders, and now it was just a few fractions longer than chin-length.

"O-oh, umm," Mayako pulled the book away, looked down, and smiled contently. Still yet to look away, she replied, "I-it's th-that book on Oo'Xoran religious history. I-I, um, I think I told you about it. I-I put in an order a-at the library, w-well, um, last year. A-and I was really excited about it."

Oo'Xoran history in general interested her. It was a topic she knew little about. Something hard to research. Most things outside of Terrenus were. Ever since she'd found out she had all the genetic qualities of an Oo'Xoran, Mayako wanted to find out more about the place. Thus far, her findings had been quite scarce. Even something as simple as a historical text took an entire year to obtain.

"It finally came in," the girl looked up again, to Flik, her smile brighter than ever.

[ruckus]

Like a corrupt king sitting on his stolen throne, Flik managed his right hand as it dripped black ink and stained his camel-hair duster. He briefly entertained the thought of rubbing his hands together, or against something, to stop the ink's flow, but resolved not to grope Mayako simply because his fingers were dirty. There would be plenty of time for all that in the future: a brighter, cleaner future without clogged inkwells or blindly procreating dogwood trees. He let the arm come to rest over the side of his high-backed chair, letting the slow drip fall to the grass periodically.

"If anybody's going to claim a religion, I guess it should be Oo'Xora." With his other hand, he popped a cork into his inkwell and, with a flick of his slender wrist, stowed the inkwell and his quill into the convenient interdimensional pocket he'd had sown into the fabric at the end of his duster (hence the missing buttons; one could get careless). "They call it, what, a mega-metropolis. . ."

With yet another flick of his wrist, his hand held a seemingly ordinary manila folder; in reality, it was one of Professor Euphaire's extraordinarily handy inventions from her stint in academia (spell patent pending). It was an immensely large file storage system intimately linked to the mind of its user, allowing one to store and recall manuscripts via thought, provided the manila folder stayed in the user's hand. It could be considered either an incredibly primitive or incredibly advanced computer; such ambiguities, Flik found, were common in many areas of life. "Towers that grapple with the sky, automated buildings. . . It all seems so incredibly advanced. . ."

Unfortunately for Flik, his own adaptation of Euphaire's Beige Folder of Optimized Organizing (no accounting for taste or style) not only changed the color of the folder (his was more of a pleasant eggshell color than beige) but also allowed for a form of encryption foreign to the spell's original incarnation. If he attempted to access the folder while holding it in his right hand, he could get his ordinary, run-of-the-mill academic papers; if he attempted to access the folder while holding it in his left, he could enter his more personal archives: observations about Mayako, field notes from his assignments in the days of Headmaster Samal, Aldoid research.

"Seems a little. . . fantastical, doesn't it?" He casually clasped his folder with both hands, looking over the top at Mayako as he delivered his frank appraisal. "I guess they have something to thank a god for."

He swapped the folder over to his right hand and swept his manuscript into its folds, where it would be sorted in interdimensional space according to a peculiar logic Euphaire had once tried to explain to him, but which he'd willfully forgotten soon after hearing it. He'd been able to make the spell work according to his own rules and precepts, so her logic didn't really matter in the long run. With another flick of his wrist, he sent the entire folder, now closed and ink-stained, back into the pocket from which it came; the niftiest part about Euphaire's design was really the fact that the object was only "interdimensional" when it was open and, until that point, really only a catalyst or facilitator, thereby allowing one to store one interdimensional container within another without causing a universal paradox. Flik had his doubts as to whether such a paradox would even occur with two nested containers of a finite size, but he couldn't muster up the courage to try it blindly or the desire to design a safe way of testing his hypothesis.

Flik sat back, relaxing, and stared Mayako up and down. On the subject of religion, he considered a universal theory that posited the existence of infinite nested pocket dimensions; the idea was that this universe, or omniverse, was really just a pocket of reality for another dimension, accessed conveniently by the god (or gods) of that dimension, who could manipulate elements at will and with reckless abandon. He felt compelled to think that this idea was particularly stupid, but couldn't really bring himself to believe it fully. He stared down at Mayako's ankles, obscured by her oversized pants. "Pull those up, really quickly? To about mid-thigh height; I want to see if I'm right about something."

[Mayako]

"Y-yeah," Mayako replied, still smiling, "It's true. I-- I don't really, um, I don't really know all that much. I want to, though. I-I really do. I-- I mean, I-I'm a citizen of T-Terrenus, but, um, well, s-somewhere down the line, someone related to me c-came from there to Terrenus, a-and, um, well, I want to know about that. Y-you know, why, how, what it was like wh-where he or she came from. I-it's just really unfortunate th-that a lot of specific studies a-are, umm, h-hard to come by around here."

Mayako had probably told Flik about all this before, the little passion she'd taken for an obscure historical study, and the why. Had she told him that much before, she wouldn't likely remember. Sometimes, she told a person the same thing multiple times. Had a bad habit of spilling so much information, she often forgot what she said and to whom she said it.

But then her enthusiasm stopped short, when Flik asked her to lift her pant-leg. Mayako tilted her head to her side, furrowed her brow a little. Confused.

She was always unnoticed. Always passed over. An average student, excelling in her intellectual pursuits yet failing in practice. She was the type to sooner become a scholar than a magician, a keeper of knowledge for the Temple of Gaia rather than a warrior priestess. There was no other choice for her, really. Two years, and she still hadn't cast a successful spell. Still couldn't grasp the basic practice of elemental manipulation. She knew how it worked. Knew every little detail she could possibly know. A knowledge sponge like Mayako Takamine was still useful, however. Still worth keeping around and educating. But still, for lack of talent outside of the books themselves, she was ultimately forgettable by most everyone around her. Flik was one of the few people that could pick the girl out of a crowd, who'd actually approach her and talk.

Maybe it was loneliness, the end result of cooping herself up in the library all day, ever day, devoted to sometimes aimless studies. Maybe it was because Flik was always nice to her. Or, perhaps, it was a mixture of both--but either way, as strange as he could be sometimes, Mayako hadn't the heart to judge him for it.

"U-ummm, o-okay," she relented quickly, sheepishly. And as she did, holding her new tome with one hand and drawing up her left pant-leg with the other, pulling it up to about mid-thigh level like Flik asked, she inquired with obvious anxiety and apprehension, "Wh-why? I-I didn't get cut or anything, did I . . .?"

A very real possibility. She didn't have anyone to teach her how to shave her legs, which had become a necessary ritual over the last year or so--not for hygiene's sake, or even for the sake of "fashion", but for the fact that she just felt uncomfortable after a week. Not that anyone would ever notice under any sort of regular set of circumstances. She had no shorts to her name, and if she did, she'd just embarrass herself. She, after all, only eighty-eight pounds. The totality of her frame was scrawny, shamefully so compared to other girls her age. Her legs were no exception to that universal scrawniness, and thus, she'd have never really shown them off, even if she had a pair of shorts to her name.

[ruckus]

"No, no, nothing at all like that." In truth, the elf had just wanted to see if Mayako would do what he asked, regardless of the logicality of his statement. He was thinking and he knows you're there. Why would Mayako, shy little Mayako, lift her pant leg to mid-thigh height out in the courtyard of the Gaian Academy? Maybe she does trust Flik like that, but, then again, Flik is essentially a convicted sex offender by Terrenian standards and was convicted precisely because of crimes he committed against Mayako.

Flik's eyes trailed off, as though toward the sky. He bit his knuckle slightly, though whether or not he drew blood would ultimately be obscured by the ink that covered the hand. Then, he knelt down, taking Mayako's leg in his hands, "Mayako, do you believe in the existence of an intelligent creator?"

He feels along her calf, squeezing to feel the muscle underneath the flesh: not so light as to be considered a caress, but not so hard as to hurt the girl either. He can feel the cuts along her skin, do you hear that, he can feel the cuts, and they do not stir in him glee at some opportunity but compassion; he is repentant for his crimes against the girl, can see himself loving her if given the chance, given enough time and distance from this place.

His eyes are on the wall across the courtyard; he has always found it odd how, even looking at the wall, he doesn't really know what it looks like. It seems oddly amorphous, just like all the buildings at the Academy, though they must exist in concrete terms, do not seem to cohere in a virtual space in his mind, with the exception of one room: the room where he first found Mayako a map. Now, the walls are cobbled together, a mixture of mortar and rounded stones of various colors, grey, tan, black, charcoal, ochre. Somehow, he knows, if he were to ask Mayako to see her map, he would recognize the object as a map, and it would tell him exactly where to go, but it wouldn't allow him to navigate this place on his own. He would not be able to trace a path from hallway to hallway, or, rather, he would, but couldn't reproduce that line in any tangible fashion anywhere else.

"I mean, somebody who dictates who you are, what you look like," He knows there are cuts on Mayako's legs, but he can't actually tell you where they are until he feels them; here is one right below the left knee, here is another at the back of the calf, where the articulation of Mayako's muscle tapers into a heel. "Somebody who decided to put you in the world to begin with."

Flik smiled to himself as his hand drifted to a cut recently reopened, the sort of innocuous wound common to human beings in their daily maneuverings. Then, his face screws into confusion. Then, he smiled to himself again, surreptitiously turning his hand, allowing his Malloran blood to mix with Mayako's own at the mouth of her small, reopened cut.

It wasn't a magical act, but the Malloran blood would mix with Mayako's, spreading a magibiological seed into her bloodstream, impregnating her with potential. Her lack of "spark" for magical ability would disappear over the next month or so; she might even wind up casting a spell by accident. Strange things would begin to occur for her: limbs going invisible for a split-second, nails turning strange colors on a dime, wildly uneven hair growth, perhaps even a growth spurt of an inch or seven.

"No, no, I mean really," he says. "Can you remember what you were doing before you started talking to me?"