“I don’t understand why you don’t!” Honestly, finding out you were part of some sworn bloodline of Earth knights and then going out of his way to avoid it made her want to bash his brains in. She’d kill to be in his place and all he did was whine. She let go of his arm, now that his use as a transportation device was filled.
Awe filled eyes took in the sight of the secluded fortress city, long abandoned and left vacant crumbling stone towers with complex carvings. For Zia it was hope, a solid rooting confirmation that she wasn’t a lost and broken soul. She was a part of this family, she was of Earth, even if she had been victimized by Nehelenia, left broken and in pieces and without a destiny. This was solid and tangible. She was part of this, even if she couldn’t be its champion. She could guide him, though. She could have purpose here, again.
She fished the piece of paper with Aquarius’ alphabet from her pocket and pursed her lips in a frowning thought before she darted off into the stone city.
She did, ever so faintly, register that the poor page she was basically using like a car was calling after her, but she was on a mission here! And besides, she wanted to rifle through great-great-grandmommy’s things. She didn’t understand his hesitation to come within the city’s walls anyway. Sure, the ruins were mildly disturbing, since there was plenty evidence that once upon a time they were all occupied by people, but they were crumbling white stone now, with the verdant greenery trying it’s hardest to retake it. It was an archeological wonder, and a personal piece of history for them both.
There was one tower that stood out from the rest. While they were all spiraling works of art, thin pieces of architecture, this one was reinforced, and practical before beautiful. It stood outside the carefully laid out pattern of the city, a mark of dissonance in an otherwise expertly laid out plan. As good a place to start as any.
Zia had a messenger bag full of notes, her tablet, her smartphone, and of course, the writing samples she was supposed to be looking for were clutched in her hand. She was prepared to investigate. She’d have to pester Valhalla for a ride to his wonder later, but Alfheim was the easiest to get to for now for obvious reasons.
The tower was a pain to get to. The door had bowed and become stuck and even in it’s rotted state took forever to bust through. She managed to work a board out of it’s place, and from there another, and even though it still stood strong, she was able to maneuver through the opening with only a bit of struggle.
She tossed her bag through, and then tried to push her way in, getting one foot caught and tugging on it until she wriggled free and bounced backwards into the large room that made up the base of the tower. Out of breath, she gathered up her bag and moved in a circle as she looked up and around. Light poured in neat streams from carved windows and created an eerie shaded glow that dust particles were seen dancing in. The art carved in the stones was faded, eroded, and barely visible in some places. Rotted tapestries, ancient furniture, odds and ends. This was a sitting room, a foyer to something bigger and a maze of other rooms with various purposes like living quarters and dining halls, and she could only imagine what was at the top of a spiraling, ivory staircase that started at the end.
Badly as she wanted to find out, she mulled around the foyer, blowing dust from tables and opening drawers. She smiled when she found a small stone pendant with a familiar celtic knot carved into it and stuffed it in a pocket to save for later. There were no writings here, and so it was time to brave the steps.
She expected more floors, but there was only one, and the stairs to get there felt endless. The tower narrowed towards the top, and she was wondering if the stairs were just a cruel joke when she got to the floor near the top. This door was easier to open, but it still took all her weight to push on it and make it yield. When it did, though, she was treated to what looked like was once a living quarters. Which didn’t seem to make sense, given the obvious tactical position and the grandeur of the rooms down below.
“Huh,” She panted. She was pretty physically fit, but that had been a lot of stairs. Before venturing further she pulled out her phone and leaned over to take a picture of the insane height of the spiral. For scientific purposes, totally, and not at all for bragging rights. The thought of having to walk down them was daunting, though. Ugh, why was adventure so difficult?
The living quarters was bare and suffered badly from age and rot and dust, but most of the frames of the furniture was intact. The bed was probably still usable, even, if it had a decent mattress. Whatever material that had occupied the frame beforehand, which made a strongbox shove beneath it visible when it probably would’ve been pretty well hidden back in the day.
“Oh, secrets, excellent.” Zia put her bag down and crawled under the structure to pull the heavy thing out into the open so she could investigate. Brushing off as much dust as possible, she got a good look at the lock. The still very intact lock. The key was probably around somewhere, hiding. It was a basic assumption, but the way the box was hidden was more like ‘teenage girl hiding her diary’ and not so much confidential secrecy. So she took to rooting around in drawers and the shelves, finding interesting enough things along the way. Bottles that still had dried remnants of whatever substances they held, drawings and tools, art and jewelry. The jewelry was her favorite and she was not ashamed to admit she was distracted for a long time with the intricacies of the little box containing the shiny polished stone and metal trinkets. A hair piece that was just made for her unruly curls had been especially good for a good amusing 30 minutes or so.
It wasn’t entirely pointless goofing around, when she got to the bottom of the box she noticed the slightest oddity in the base and after some fiddling, managed to pull out a false bottom.
One eye raised as she pondered the previous inhabitant. The hidden box, the false bottom in the jewelry box, she was sure if there had been tape in Alatriel’s era, she would find her diary key stuck under a desk drawer and her prize would just be a stack of love notes or something.
The contents of the false bottom were scarce. One key, and Zia would bet her life on what it went to, and a ring. The ring didn’t seem all that special, especially compared to some of the other items in the jewelry box. It had some decorations around the band, but the face of it was plain with no carvings or stones to speak of. She decided it must’ve just fallen in with the key on accident.
She slid it on without much thought, just to keep track of it while she messed with the box. A perfect fit on her ring finger. It was dismissed almost instantly. Most of the wearables she was finding in the wonder fit her with eerie accuracy and she had gotten over the phenomenon by now. Sort of, it was still weird and a curiosity, but it was less shocking by this point. The point now, was that she had the key.
To absolutely no surprise, it fit in the lock and with a few forced clicks, the box top yielded. She pushed it open and finally found her writing samples. And cringed a bit, hoping these weren’t love letters. God, she wasn’t being serious when she pondered that. There were also more trinkets, pendants, and a small knife.
The knife distracted her from the task at hand. It wasn’t the first knife she’d seen here, but it was different somehow. The styling it was crafted in was just ever so off. Different. And she found why after she turned the hilt in her hands. A jupiter symbol. That was interesting. She stuffed this in her bag too.
The letters were the real prize. They weren’t all written with the same symbology, but they were a huge sampling. She was giddy, and she could only just imagine how pleased Aquarius was going to be when she lined up a symbol with the paper she’d brought. And then another one. Two! Two whole characters. And after some rifling she’d managed to match five whole unique symbols and she was lightheaded with victory. This was the start of something, she could feel it in her bones.
“What... are... you doing?” Alfheim gasped as he stumbled and fell through the doorway, making Zia squeal in surprise.
“Jeez, are you okay?”
“Lots... lots of stairs...” Was he this out of shape? Yikes. “Have you been up here all this time?” He asked after wheezing and gasping for air for a while. “Jesus, Zee, I’ve been looking all over this creepy place for you.”
“It’s not creepy,” She countered and angled the preserved papers in her hands so he could see. “Look! Letters!”
“And other things,” He said with a judging frown as he reached over and pulled the elfy looking comb out of her hair. “Great, I’m getting a history lesson and you’re up here playing dress up.”
“Not entirely,” She whined. “Look, these match these, and these match symbols in the library on the Surrounding, that’s huge!”
Alfheim was not super amused. If he was barely toying with interest in his knighthood, he certainly didn’t care about some swoopy looking lines on paper. And right now he was just wishing there was bottled water or something up here as he just sat next to her on the floor and tried to regulate his breathing as Zia chattered on and on about her finds and Aquarius’ project and did you see the art down there in the foyer, and the early pre-Christian Irish pagan symbology and the knotting on this hairpiece and this comb and that mirror and look, a bracelet!
And while both figures sat there, they were being watched. If Alatriel had breath, she would be holding it right now as she watched them discuss and huff and babble and just gloss and graze over something important. Something so important.
Even Alfheim, the only one out of the two capable of perceiving Alatriel didn’t notice her presence. He was too distracted trying to keep up with Zia’s flippant storytelling. But when she pointed to the bracelet she was wearing, something made of intricately intertwined bands of metal, he noticed the ring on her finger.
Only he didn’t see a boring ring with some decorations on the band and a blank face. It looked a lot more interesting to him.
“What’s that?” He asked, and suddenly the ghostly figure they were both oblivious to tensed.
“Oh, it’s just a ring, I didn’t want to lose it.”
“Jesus, Zee, you gonna steal all my jewelry?” He joked, since it was him tenuously dipping his toes into this whole ‘Alfheim belongs to you’ business.
“I just think they’re pretty, gawd,” Zia laughed, taking the comb back he’d pulled out of her hair. “I took a few other things too,” She added, showing him her much heavier than before messenger bag. “It is kind of cool. Can I keep it?”
Alatriel was ready to explode with anticipation. Surely he could sense it was important? He didn’t really need her to tell him, did he? Well, she probably would’ve told him anyway if she wasn’t so mad at him, but still. She had been looking forward to sending him on his quest to get his signet ring and here it was, right in front of him before a quest had been given.
“Pft, I don’t have any use for it, what do I care?”
Ala could scream. Seriously? SERIOUSLY? She didn’t interfere, though. She was pissed, she didn't want to reveal the stupid, stupid mistake he'd just made. Just giving away his signet ring like that.
Good luck on your ring quest, you son of a b***h.
