Welcome to Gaia! ::

Ataya wore his hood up. It wasn’t an entirely unusual practice in Taliuma to begin with — certainly not enough to make him stand out overly so. Between the sand, sun, and winds that carried the desert with them, extra protection was practical and commonplace. With it up, though, and his hair tucked away and his skin in shadow, less persons stared. Small as he was still at fifteen, he went all but unnoticed in the crowds of the marketplace and, when undisturbed, could flit from shop to shop.

His father never would have approved, of course. Wanted both he and his sister with as little distance from their uncles’ house as possible, and would have likely confined them inside it happily if he could have convinced their mother that that was a reasonable plan. Ataya, however, was having none of it. He was aware of the risks his father fretted over. Well aware. Society’s scorn for him, by his current age, had left a permanent imprint. A bitter taste on his tongue and a natural predisposition of wariness and distrust.

But still he refused to be curbed by that. It wasn’t his fault that society was as blind as they were stupid. And he had no intention of allowing himself to be limited by them. So, he took his precautions and then did as he pleased.

Taliuma’s library, while better than nothing and — Ataya supposed — a small blessing in and of itself, was insufficient. Small. Lacking. Disorganized. After spending many an hour of his younger years dwindling away the time tucked beneath its shelves he had quickly learned that it had very sharp limits, and that for certain things, he would need to look elsewhere. So he did.

Such was the case on this occasion. Taliuma’s market — unlike its library — was wild and vast, brimming with possibility and ever-changing circumstances. Filthy, certainly. Crowded, always. Unpredictable. Dangerous. Loud. But the market stalls and solid shops that lined the streets in the merchant district held within them endless potential for those with the right amount of coin or bargaining power.

Or, in Ataya’s case, patience, persistence, and a lack of moral inhibitions. Being that he had neither coin nor leverage of any other sort, shadow tricks, quiet opportunity-seeking and determination would have to suffice. And they did.

On this particular day, his goal was more specific than most. Several weeks prior, he had spied a scroll among the wares of a corner-store talisman and rune-stone merchant. Tucked far back from the most of her things, Ataya had wondered, then, if it was even for sale. On spotting his interest, however, he had been ushered out and away with no shortage of sharp words. He had decided then that if he were ever to get his hands on it, it would have to be after giving the seller ample time to forget him.

Today, he decided, was that day. Busy, hot, and bustling, even her small shop had the attention of more than one customer, and Ataya lingered outside it, waiting until she was busy with a pair and not paying remote attention to him before moving further in. At first, he feared the aim of his trip would no longer be present, not spying it in the exact location he remembered. But then, he found it. One slip and tuck. The paper was old but crisp, the ink on it unnaturally hot to the touch and he felt an inkling of something there in it. Spellwork long buried and woven between the strands of parchment.

It fit inside the cloth of his tunic easily. No one looked. But, just to be safe…

Ataya flicked his fingers out in a subtle, minute gesture just beneath the hem of his robe-sleeve. Eyes locked to an object on the far wall, just to the right of where the merchant was currently conversing with her customers, Ataya added a spellword to the gesture, plucking up lightly at the object — a large, ornate and engraved statuette of some variety — bringing it out out from the shelf to hover for a moment, and then—

—CRASH!—

—Ataya took the convenient opportunity to slip out of the shops doors. Down, down the streets and—

“Nnngf—” Face first bodily contact with another with force enough to send multiple things toppling into the sand was not on Ataya’s list of ‘things to do’ for the day. “You,” he accused before even looking to whoever had run into him (because clearly this was their fault and not his), “clumsy, oaf of a—are you blind?” Already, though, he was crouching, eyes frantically scanning what had dropped and finger slipping inside his tunic to assure himself—yes, good, it was still there.

His gaze darted back towards the shop he’d left with a pinch of a frown. No one following. Even better.

Satisfied he was in the clear, Ataya turned the full force of his stare on the unwelcome invader of his personal space.

Ataya stared. Opened his mouth. Shut it. And continued to stare, his eyes gradually narrowing into a thin, almost disbelieving squint at the other’s capacity for raw, pointless speech. It seemed to burble up from him in an endless slew like verbal diarrhea. What did the boy think he was on about? And what, gods pray tell, made him think Ataya cared?

Ataya’s gaze — ice blue and sharply judgemental — skimmed down the other, sizing him up and letting the most of his babble rush over him like a wave, forgotten as soon as it retreated. Tall. Perhaps his age, perhaps a year older. Broader built than he, but then, most all were. Long dark hair. And his eyes — a similarly striking pale blue to Ataya’s own — identified him as aiskala also.

Odd, Ataya thought, to be sharing the clan with someone so…

…so…

…was the boy still talking?

Just as Ataya thought it, the other finished, and — much to Ataya’s surprise and mild displeasure — held out a hand. Smiling. Why was he smiling? ‘Nice’ was not the word he would have chosen to describe their brief, unanticipated, unnecessary, and uncalled for violent physical bodily collision, but then, from what he had discerned so far, the other didn’t seem to have a particular craft for speech and rather spat out whatever immediately came to mind instead as quickly as he could spit it.

Ataya eyed the hand and then glanced up to the boy’s face. “It is…a meeting,” he conceded. “I suppose, of sorts. Though it might have been avoided if you had been more attentive of your immediate surroundings. Can I help you?”

“Mm…you may know it, I suppose, but since I’ve not told it to you yet, I find it highly unlikely,” Ataya said. What had the boy called himself again? Nehelini. Nehelini Parodi…something. Privately, Ataya mentally catalogued the name. Though he considered it unlikely he would ever encounter the boy again, the fact that he seemed insistent on remaining in his space and making conversation with him was reason enough to at least file the information away somewhere for potential future use. It wasn’t as though Taliuma was a huge city, and it was possible that he might have to deal with him again at some future point in it. “I wish you the best of luck finding your…cousin.”

With that and a stiff, barely-there motion of his head that might have constituted a bow among the most generous of circles, Ataya turned on his heel, intending to disappear off on his own way.

Ataya snorted to himself, musing at the start of the boy’s renewed babbling that yes, he likely did obviously know more about their current location than the other, but that was hardly a difficult bar to meet since he suspected most anything knew more about most everything than—

‘Fellow dovaa.’

At the words, Ataya’s gaze flicked sidelong towards his unasked-for company. Ataya was visibly hybrid. Anyone not oblivionite could see it, and even then, only those who had not fully grown into themselves. It was the purple of his skin, and the deep, obvious purple of his hair that gave away his mixed lineage. To an oblivionite who saw only in light, shadow, and shapes, he was just a small, bony dovaa with a skin condition. To dovaa, however, it ought to be glaringly clear. Those facts made the aiskala’s next statement all the more peculiar, and Ataya’s mind shifted through mental options as his attention sized up the other.

Perhaps he truly was above and beyond foolish? Or, since he seemed at least vaguely competent and capable of some degree of seriousness, he simply had some issue with his eyes. Something that prevented him from discerning shades accurately? At length, Ataya gave a quiet, assessing hum and then glanced about the market, shifting off to the side and out of the way of the undulating crowds in order to give himself and his company — Nehelini — space.

“Call me Ataya. Your cousin…where would he most likely tend towards? More of the market, taverns, entertainment? And if all else fails otherwise, it may be simplest to return to where you began. Are you housed here in an inn, or an encampment outside the city limits?”

Ataya listened, though only with dwindling patience and attention. He thought he had asked a fairly simple question. Why was the boy telling about his relative’s sexual preferences? Or preferences at all, for that matter. Was he supposed to care that he apparently had aggression issues, gambling problems, or issues with coin and attentive babysitting?

His attention meandered outward and he wondered how best he might lose the other’s trail if he tried. His last attempt — for some reason — had ended in being followed like a mother bird by a waddling hatchling, so he had to assume the same was likely to happen again unless he varied his tactics.

Then, the other finished speaking.

He glanced back towards him. “I know locations,” Ataya said. “Not persons. My…parents are not particularly trusting of outsiders nor fond of me interacting a great deal beyond the walls of the library, but if you gave me the name of an inn or tavern…I might possibly be able to direct you towards its general vicinity if I found reason enough to bother…”

Ataya mind — in spite of the words — turned as he thought on it, mentally flicking through recollections until—

“The northwest quarter caters to more oblivionites than elsewise. If your cousin’s ‘friend’ preferred familiar service and less chances at a blade between the ribs, he might favor it.”