Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[C S]

"Sounds like something a doctor-person can help with. I know a few. By face, not their names. I think I know their faces, at least." The mind that so confounded Firel continued to spout things that only made sense to the jungle girl in his absence. With that casual allusion to her surgery out of the way, Dahnae moved to Viho's desk and hopped onto it to make it hers until teaching resumed. She shuffled and turned around a few times before she settled down in a lounging position. "Are you going to join the class too, little-decoration scarmun?"

[Hopeflower]

'I think not,' Arsenic answered. He was fairly sure the tentative middle ground he and Viho had found would fall out from underneath them if he had to tolerate his father for more than a few minutes at a time. At least, at this point. 'A friend of mine needs help more than I need to study my basics.'

[C S]

"Oh." The simple answer was followed by a moment of introspection, which led to Dahnae's stunning discernment. "I guess someone who mind-talks all the time doesn't need classes for mind-things," she said, mostly to herself. Her went to her desk once more. The mittens hadn't wandered off, but she really should have put them in her pockets before she made herself comfortable, now that she thought about it.

[The Kingpin]

Before long the trio had made it to what at first had seemed to be a small stream. In reality, it was a spring rising out of the sands themselves, tumbling over the edge of the oasis ravine a few dozen yards away. The cacti, and the paroperas in turn, were a few feet away from them at this point. Ceridwen had taken to wistfully staring at the colourful songbirds.

Septimus found it especially entertaining that the reason she was so distracted was that she was listening; taking in the calls of the birds in silence for quite some time while they walked, and eventually growing very still once they had reached the shade of a large palm tree.

As Septimus took to leaning against it to take in the views, he saw why she was listening. As if in response to the countless songs of paroperas and other birds, a musical trill came from the Thunderkin's throat, the dragoness breaking out into her own intricate song. It sounded like bird song, but with a melody that had more in common with a pan-flute lullaby than any bird's trilling calls. Gentle rises and falls in pitch and trilling, soothing notes seemed to lend themselves to a verdant glen rather than a sparsely vegetated plain. Then again, the Scholar noted that over the edge of the nearby waterfall, there probably was just such a place.



Andruil, meanwhile, could have been found sat in a leather reading chair in the library. It was one of three such things in a cosy corner of the room, near a stone fireplace that gave him pleasant reminders of the inn. The side table had been cleared of its decorations for the time being, a stack of books placed on it in their stead, one of which was in his lap, opened up to about two thirds of the way in.

It had been a couple of days since Vix came across a mention of the Liullwyns while poring over yet another tome in her search for clues. The fact that it was this same tome that had unsettled her recently gave him cause to look into it further.

The realisation that he had taken on more than he bargained for recently had him taking a step back from his other activities. For once, he had chosen not to attend Viho's class.

[C S]

Syria lay down on her belly and sighed. Ceridwen's song was an enchanting sound to be graced with; something that the mage felt could rouse mana and thus could be called actual magic. The birds appeared to agree, ceasing their own melodies to harmonize with the dragoness, bobbing heads and all. "Perhaps I am romanticizing it too much," she debated with herself. Syria never thought that she would ever hear a dragon sing. In some admittedly small ways, it was even more unlikely than being able to call one a husband. The sacred rarity of it made the song so much sweeter. A feathered dragon with a voice to put songbirds to shame, kin to a giant avian upon a misty peak...

The mage thought back to Beshayir, and wondered how she would have appreciated the moment. That thought became a yearning. How was the young elf faring against the storm raging in her head?

[Hopeflower]

'Not beginner-level ones,' Arsenic half-agreed. He recognized that there were things he could stand to work on yet. While it could never hurt to revisit his basics, Arsenic stood by what he'd said. Vix could use extra pairs of eyes more than he needed to study. Or stand around talking, for that matter. It was about time he started heading back.

Viho inclined his head and circled his desk to take his seat. "Regardless, there is a place for you here."

Arsenic paused in turning to go. He'd heard that invitation extended before. 'I'll keep that in mind.' Whether or not he'd act on it was up in the air.

The door shut behind the mute with a quiet click. Viho sighed quietly. He...wasn't sure he was going to get used to having civil conversations with Arsenic any time soon.


Not far from Andruil, Vix and Rowan sat with their heads bowed over a shared book, struggling with translating the copy of the text Vix had painstakingly made so that the knight could have the book. The rolling noises Vix was muttering under her breath might as well have been gibberish to Rowan, but the innkeeper helpfully translated and asked if a word fit one of the blanks they were trying to fill.

In this way, little by little, they were making progress.

"'It takes...heart'? No," Rowan muttered. "That's not right. 'Cor vul'... what was it?"

Vix repeated the phrase. It made as little sense to Rowan as the first time she'd heard it, though she was beginning to be able to separate the words from one another.

"Heart of...man? Woman? Woman," Rowan concluded, flipping through the different possible translations and deciding on the closest one. She paused, did a double take at the one word they were sure of. "Still doesn't really explain why 'fox' is in there. They've referred to Iupan as, well, Iupan up until now."

"Maybe we're completely off-base and this is just some guy talking about being rejected," Vix remarked offhandedly. "Don't men refer to women they can't win over as v - ?" She broke off abruptly and sat up, reaching for the loose papers Rowan was holding. "Let me see those."

The scarred assassin handed them over and leaned in to watch what Vix was doing.

"Not 'heart of a woman'," the innkeeper muttered, making a new note. "'It takes the heart of a fox and the will of a woman to gain understanding of the beasts.' That's it!" She just barely kept her voice from rising to a triumphant shout.

"Cryptic," Rowan commented. "But it fits better than any of our other guesses."

Vix clutched the other woman's arm. "Where was that family tree? I want to check something."

"Uh - over..." Rowan turned and started going through a pile of books they'd already been through, bewildered by the innkeeper's urgency, but not about to question it if Vix thought she had something.

[C S]

Dahnae's gaze wandered from the door and back to her desk. Her mittens did not use the closing of the door as a diversion for a daring escape. The girl settled onto her back, and that was when she saw the shape in the ceiling that shouldn't have been there. So that was what Viho had done while she was playing mind games with Firel.

She wriggled her body onto her haunches, then sprung straight up from the teacher's desk. She was suspended in the air for an instant longer than one would expect, where she had time to snatch the quill from the ceiling and stuff it into her mouth, then she thumped back onto the desk without so much as disturbing the stacks of paper near her.

Dahnae then plopped onto her back to nibble on the feather-pen.

[Hopeflower]

"Thank you," was Viho's slightly dry response to the display; a halfhearted attempt to cover the fact that he'd immediately cringed and snatched his ink from the desk in anticipation of her landing scattering everything on it. Mindful of Dahnae's antics, he set the bottle back down a reasonable distance from the half of the desk that she'd taken over.

At least he didn't need to worry about retrieving his quill...from the ceiling. He suspected he might lose a finger if he tried to take it from Dahnae. Good thing he'd stocked up as soon as he had the coin to spare.

[The Kingpin]

"You know, in Drakhunmiir, this is a common sound to hear in the early afternoons around this time of year," noted the Scholar, drawing the mage out of her reverie. "Every clan has their own habits to salute the seasons... For Unguul dragons, even those not technically of the clan, it is singing." He dared not speak aloud for fear of ruining Ceridwen's concentration.


The Knight set the book down in his lap as he looked up to the sudden franticness with which Vix was searching for something. "Did I miss something?" he asked with an arched brow as he closed the book around one of his fingers to keep his page, getting up and walking over to see what the commotion was about.

[C S]

"It must be beautiful," Syria responded. Beautiful for her, as an outsider with only so much knowledge about dragons, and a little less about the Hueilin specifically. Her captivation, she figured, would have been a point to tease her about for one who called that mountain home. The tiny human maiden that Septimus liked to joke about, gawking at everything there was to see, Syria reckoned it would be less good natured than simple teasing. If a hidden race of reptiles thought so little of Aster's other people, then proud drakes would be even more... imperious.

Syria hummed, letting that sit where it did in her mind. Something to be aware of when the grounds of Drakhunmiir were the grounds underneath her feet, whenever that would be.

[Hopeflower]

"I think I missed it," Rowan replied over Vix's muttering. The innkeeper was tracing a line back from her grandfather, following the Adsila lineage back two, then five, then ten, then twenty generations. Occasionally she paused next to a name and wrote it beside the translated phrase, moving up the paper until she'd reached the point where she couldn't continue. With her finger on the last name she'd copied down, she glanced between it and her notes.

Then Vix sat back with a somewhat frustrated huff. "No, that can't be right."

"Care to fill us in?" Rowan prompted.

"I thought - " Vix sighed and ran her fingers through her hair, then leaned forward again to point out a marking that repeatedly showed up beside some people of interest on the family tree. Through the generations, the mark showed up less and less often - though usually in women, as the letter suggested. "I think we're back to square one. These are people who were confirmed to be able to shapeshift." She tapped one of the first names in the tree, a man very long dead. "It can't be passed down through women, because he's one of several men with the ability. That letter must have been written after...whatever happened to make shapeshifters stop being born."

"So we forget the letter and go from the family tree," Rowan said after a moment.

Vix nodded, then growled quietly and rubbed at her temples. "It feels like we're missing something obvious. If we had a name to start looking for, we might know where the magic came from in the first place." That "first meeting" of Iupan and elf, incomplete in Lusio's memories because the carvings had just been that huge.

Rowan gave the top of the family tree another look. A dozen names to start with, easily - maybe more. "Good thing we knew this would be an extended trip," she noted with a snort.

[The Kingpin]

A thoughtful hum punctuated the Knight's reaction to that, looking over Vix's shoulder at the notes the two had collected. "What was it you read a moment ago that got you to look into this? Something about the 'will of a woman'?"


The Scholar smiled. "Breathtaking," he assured. Memories of home floated to the forefront of his mind. Of events, family, friends. Well, what friends he had made while he was there.

It was the thought of friends that drew him to think of one friend in particular that he had not spoken to in a while. "Hm. How rude of me," he noted with a measure of guilt.

[Hopeflower]

The innkeeper leaned back from the mess of papers to give Andruil a better view. "Something about needing that and the heart of a fox to understand the Iupan," she replied.

"I think you had it earlier. Whoever wrote it must have been bitter over a rejection," Rowan put in. She cracked her neck and started looking up one of the oldest names Vix had isolated, figuring they might as well follow that thread.

[The Kingpin]

"I am not that well versed in the old Elven tongue, but perhaps we could look at the meanings of the names? Your name is Vixen, after all," suggested Andruil, giving the Innkeeper's shoulder a comforting squeeze. "I have been told that names are powerful things, bound to the spirit. Hence the phrase 'Speak of the devil and it shall appear'? Or why people's names are carved into their coffins along with sealing runes? So that the spirit of the deceased does not rise to torment the living?"

[C S]

"Rude?" Syria piped up from her resting place, only realizing after her reaction that Ceridwen would have been as confused as she was, meaning she'd stop singing and it was just the most terrible thing. The mage just about pasted her chin to the ground, trying to be smaller in the sparse grass around her.

[Hopeflower]

Vix considered that, then shrugged. "It's worth a look. All of this - " she gestured at the books and notes in front of her " - seems like it's coming to a dead end." Her thumb found her temple again and pressed gently, warding off a headache that she could feel threatening to develop. Had she eaten yet? She couldn't remember. It felt like her head was so stuffed full of dry historical text that it was pushing everything else aside.

[The Kingpin]

The dragoness was thankfully too consumed in a particularly long trilling call, deafening her to Syria's inquiry, though Septimus was quick to tap a hand on the Mage's shoulder to warn her. "Rude. We're in Cleotaire's home and haven't even said hello." As he spoke, a hand casually messed with the pendant he had around his neck, a thumb rubbing the Eye thoughtfully.

[C S]

Syria gave a sheepish "Ah" then responded, "That is very rude. Perhaps we can gift her Ceridwen's song, if she cannot hear it already through some great mystical means."

[The Kingpin]

"Well, she is the Life Bringer," responded Septimus jokingly. "Though one thing any seasoned scholar will tell you is that one should never assume a fact that has not been given sufficient reason to be considered,"

[C S]

"That is very true," Syria responded. The mage then blinked a couple of times. Cleotaire would have known about her unusual friend, wouldn't she? It made sense that the Life Bringer wouldn't have brought attention to it when she accompanied Septimus into her chamber, being the medium between an individual and their greater fate. Self-discovery was the key to inner strength; something Cleotaire needed no reminding of. Syria could only speculate what went through the elemental's mind when the likeness of another was brought into her home, following a humble mage.