Welcome to Gaia! ::

Ozzrick rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, building friction at the tips of the calloused digits before giving a push of internal focus and for a moment, the glimmer of a flame danced there. Small, but enough to match a candle and useful in a pinch. He closed his fist and the light snuffed instantly. Though his mother had never been a practicer of any art beyond dancing, a life of growing up alongside and within a circus came with experiences — and learning opportunities — not afforded to some, if in unconventional ways perhaps. From a reasonably young age, despite his mother’s lack of talent for magic, he had shown some natural promise for it.

But, he lacked the drive for it.

He wasn’t bookishly inclined. He was literate, but only sufficiently, and had not the interest to sustain the patience to sit still to read when there was so much else to do in the world. Studying was for sissies. Thus, regardless of whatever potential he might have had for it otherwise, Ozzrick had never gone to much length to developing such skills. There were those among the troupe who would happily have tutored him in it in their own way, but he hadn’t the focus.

Instead, there had never been much question in his own mind where he would focus any time he spent honing a talent. Wherever he went in his travels, he did not expect to escape the ever present — if sometimes less apparent and pressing — dangers of the world he called home. So, despite his mother’s early choice of avoiding developing any art of war herself, he fully intended to be versed in practical combat.

Once, he had thought that he might hone his swordsmanship along the way carved by the troupe—and he had begun to, of course, practicing when he had opportunity on top of all else he was engaged in. But as he had aged, it became progressively clearer to Ozzrick that he would not be remaining with the troupe indefinitely. While he could dance, he was not a dancer like his mother. Though he could perform, he was not a performer in the way most of their troupe was. Or, not in his own mind at least. These options were before him, certainly, but it was not where he wanted to take his life. As much as he loved traveling with his troupe, he wanted to see yet more than that, and without the confines of someone else’s direction as to what was next on the destination list.

Thus, though he still participated in certain shows, he had been working to turn his focus to other tasks while with them—and honing his personal interests in the meantime. Ozzrick crouched, dipping to grip and lift the dual blades he had been practicing with for some time now. They were real blades, no doubt, but unsharpened, old, and of no special quality. All value in earnest came from the personal association he had with them. The time that had gone into working with these particular strips of metal. He was still studying them when the front curtain of the shared tent opened, and he looked up to see his mother.

Isamene Brisbane was a character to behold, even in her ‘later’ years, though Ozzrick — despite never being told in quite so many words — had reason to suspect she was only fifteen or so years older than himself. Wild, dark brown curls which fell thick and loose about soft, deep tan skin and dark green eyes. Ozzrick had apparently inherited his hair and eyes from whatever man had managed to make his way into her bed once upon a time—but he was happy enough with what he had gotten, and pleased more still that at least during the time he could recall, his mother had typically devoted her interests to those without the parts to implant future siblings within her. Not to mention, in most recent years, her uncharacteristically steady attention to Naysha, which had by some miracle persisted for now nearly six years.

It was a relief, in any case, not to have to cast permanent suspicious eyes on whoever trailed for fear of imprudent conduct or future siblings.

Isamene was humming, fingers in her hair pushing back stray curls as her skirts lapped about her ankles. “Oh, Oz, you are in here!” Her eyes flicked for but a half second to his weapons before focusing on the long mirror she’d come in for and settling herself in front of it. “Come here and help a girl for a moment…”

Oz stood only a second before setting his blades down and progressing to her back. When she gestured, he held whatever indicated, acting as a stand in hairpin mannequin for the time being at least.

“You’ve been training with Kivran for quite some time now.”

“I have.” He stood, watching her fingers as they made small braids with certain segments of hair and waiting for her to speak again.

“You enjoy it, working with him?”

Kivran was a swordsman among their troupe. Not ‘legendary across the nations’ or ‘renowned far and wide,’ but certainly of high respect among all those who knew him and a number beyond. Ozzrick suspected there was more to his history than he spoke of openly, but he had never opted to inquire further. It was suffice enough for his own purposes that he got on well with the man and he’d been willing to share however much he knew of blades that Oz could absorb thus far.

“I do,” Oz said.

His mother’s eyes studied him through the mirror’s reflection, and after a moment, she smiled. “I suppose I never thought you would become a dancer, despite your talent for it.”

Oz shot a wry smile at the glass. “A ‘talent’ for it, have I? Among our own I would have classed myself as a suitable stand-in, but marginal at best…but I’ll take a mother’s compliment for what it is, thank you.”

Isamene smiled, though her eyes lingered, studying him before she sighed. “And you won’t be taking up a sorcerer’s path either I take it? You know we have the resources-”

But he was shaking his head. “Too much books and butt sitting for me, I’m afraid.”

“Mmm…you should speak with Kivran when you find the time,” his mother said. “If you are serious in pursuing a swordsman’s path as you seem and as he thinks, he has something for you. But Ozzrick…”

He blinked. “Yes, Mother?”

“Do make it one of your serious choices.”

Ozzrick chuckled. “I suppose I’ll try.”

Kivran, as it turned out, had the very gift Ozzrick anticipated he might: a pair of blades, crafted — Kivran insisted — by one of the finest smiths Oba had to offer, years before either of them had been born. They had been a gift to him, he said, from the man who had first taught him.

“They’re cursed,” Kivran added as he watched Ozzrick inspect the blades.

Oz thumbed over the base of a hilt, squinting at what might have once been an inscription. He snorted with a smile. “Cursed, ai?”

“With adventure.” Kivran nodded. “No one who takes those up has ever lead a boring life. But…” After a clap of his hands, he gestured to Oz. “If anyone I know wasn’t looking for one.”

They felt good in his grip. Well balanced. Real blades, and a pair to keep of his own. After letting himself hold them just a moment, Oz gave a dip of his head and a flash of teeth. “Can’t say that I was. I think it’s a curse I can handle.” Sheathing the blades, he held out a hand. “Thank you, Kivran…I hope to live the curse as well as you have.”

After eyeing him a second, the older man scoffed, catching at his hand and then dragging him forward with a jerk into a hug. “There, don’t go making it sound like I’m dyin’ or nothin’. Or that you’re leaving immediately,” he added. “Try having those at your hips a few years before leaving your poor mother all alone, ey?”

All but immediately Ozzrick laughed, which wasn’t evidently the reaction Kivran had been hoping for, but no matter. “Oh come. My ‘poor mother?’” he repeated, green eyes bright with amusement. “Did she put you up to this?” Ozzrick might have been imagining the hint of sheepishness to the man’s expression, but he didn’t think so. He grinned. “My mother is fine. She’s young, beautiful, healthy, almost as capable of taking care of herself as I am—really, everyone here has done a marvelous job raising both of us. Besides, she seems to finally have a fairly serious girlfriend. It might do her good to get out from under my wing, have some alone time…”

Kivran snorted.

“But…” Ozzrick shrugged. “Between friends, neither of you have to worry about how much you’re going to enjoy missing me yet. I don’t know when or where, yet, just…” His fingers tapped the sheaths.

“A restless young man will do what he will when he feels compelled.”

Oz grinned. “Something like that.”