"IENVAER"
it starts like this:
it is just me, and i am alone. im at uni - gripping a piece of paper, furtively glancing between a string of letter-numbers and the buildings towering before me. they werent tall, or intimidating on their own; it was simply their newness. my own inability to tell where i was on the map. i am looking for - administrative services. i was called in, again. another blaring email proclaiming my failing grades and lack of attendance. this time it wasnt a request. it was an order.
and for some reason, even as i struggle to find the set of offices - i didnt realize they wouldnt be formatted like the classrooms - there is a nag in the back of my head. there are pieces missing. people missing, from me.
there are people around me, of course. a large manner of people - different backgrounds, clothing. there are people who stand out - i recognize them from class, from front-page announcements. there is a girl like a praying mantis, green and white and frills and just enough accessories that you can't tell where her body begins and the clothing ends (she is not human. but she is close.).
when i finally struggle my way into the cramped admin building - narrow hallways, small rooms, as if they were tucked behind the classrooms and forgotten about - im supposed to meet with Bai Allina. i cant find her, the office doors only half labelled, some with numbers and some with whatever the professor inside tacked on. i find a Mr. Edwards, head of this part of the building. he chides me for not setting up a meeting, i needed a meeting to see anyone here. no walk ins. i grab several papers - im not sure which i need, so i grab all of them.
of course, by the time i find and get a meeting with Bai, she says, oh, no, you grabbed the wrong paperwork. so i fill it all out, again. she says how much she is here for me, i can lean on her for support. i am so frustrated i leave my jacket in her room. and when i exit, there is someone in the chair outside, proclaiming how bad it is to be missing class, to fail on work, to -
i end up grabbing him by the shirt collar and only just manage to not punch him.
he is only noteworthy because i recognize him from class. lavender shirt. and skin, patterned like a panda. he is closer to human. but his ears are just a little too rounded. his skin just a little too contrasted.
when i leave, i am cold. frustrated. i filed to leave uni. i left my jacket and it was my favorite, fur-edged, soft.
except as im walking out, down the grey bricks and into a part of town, there is someone wearing - what looked like my hoodie. and was, because i knew the fur on the back of the hood was a little bit longer and thicker, splaying out. and for some reason, i opt to catch up to them. white, streaky hair. taller than me, i have to look up as i catch up, as i start to tell them something.
it didnt matter what i said, because suddenly a tiny piece of something is missing something is wrong flits into place. this person is a million times familiar, a thousand times my - friend?
they laugh, and the world - feels cohesive. im pretty sure they laughed at my run-up-word-pause-mouth-agape. i nearly tripped on the stone. but they dont treat me like a stranger, either. we both know. he teases me about the jacket. arent you cold, he jests. they make a motion like, how warm they are, in my jacket.
i dont get that jacket back, but he finds me a new one. we stick together, ienvaer and i. i mostly feel like a lost dog trailing along. not much else to do. but both of us are - stuck. we are familiar in ways we cant begin to describe. but we do not have the memories to go with it. we try our best to have some semblance of boundaries. we step around each other, we walk together just far enough apart. we eat at restaurants, at diners, at home, across from each other. we are holding our breath for something and we do not know what it is.
it is months later and we are near a beach; outside, unpopulated. there is a breeze and the flowers are blue and there isnt anyone around. we just wanted to go walking, we wanted outside, away from town and people. a rest.
we did not get rest.
ienvaer is chloroformed, bagged, put over the shoulder of a person with large wings, and i am roped like handcuffs and led down a dirt road. we are, in small graces, being taken to the same place.
it is a dark painted, disused mansion. no one has been here for a decade, at least. some of the windows are haphazardly boarded, the rugs are thick with dust and frayed both from use and moths eating at the edges. i am made to wait in the lobby. ienvaer is not here yet; the flight apparently had a detour. supplies, i thought.
"supplies" was a word kylepsier would use for them, i guess.
while i had been simply dragged along by a guard, someone in enough armor and a large enough sword i didn't fight, there was an entourage that soon arrived.
most notable, at the front, was nagylyth; more dragon than anything else. his wings were intricate; his horns, his half-helmet all sported an intricate design of purples, golds, reds.
(when he first marched in, i took a dagger to his wings; it tore them, a little, but luckily he opted to "forgive" what i did for cooperation)
behind him, their leader. navaghrot floated, lightly, above the ground. they sported the same purples, golds, reds (they all did; although in different ways). they wore a cloak that, looking closely, might've been insect wings. they did not need them, though. they wore an elaborate headpiece, an almost-crown. the only among them with a face not distorted by natural features or masks, but it was not a face many would see. i suspect, too, that not all of the headpiece was outfit, but instead flesh - or whatever approximation they had of it.
they were flanked by two guards; ultimately that part of the entourage moved into the room ahead, leaving the lobby where i was rather quickly to set up.
kylepsier was last, dragging along vaxravos. kylepsier was much like navaghrot, but smaller. still capable of floating; their insect-like legs just-hovering above the ground (although they'd be as tall as me if they were not). they did not sport a cape, and were much more modest in their patterning of clothing-skin. they had a large - helmet? visor? it covered their entire head in a dark, swirling grey (bouncing any light off so features could not be discerned). (think astronaut suit helmet).
vaxravos, however, bound up behind them, was clearly in a boat like me. he looked as if hed been fetched from living in the woods for months, and the fact that his head was rather a skull did not help the appearance.
based on visuals alone, vaxravos probably could've single-handedly taken down the entourage. he was taller than nagylyth, bulky. his tattered semblance of clothes still covered his frame, neck to toe. he wore - what would've been black clothes, if they weren't patched with mud and leaves and green grass stains. he hadn't fought, though. he admitted to me he was mostly morbidly curious to see what was up with these jesters.
after all, he tacked on. he had woken up in the woods months ago with no memory and had just been living there since. he was interested in a little spice to his life. (he had an award-winning grin. not just because his face was permanently showing teeth, but i could tell by the mirth in his voice. i could tell in the familiarity. the way i knew he leaned, the way he winked with the curl in his voice. we never voiced it. but we both felt like comrade-in-arms. like we'd lazily chatted in worse situations. like we knew each other despite forgetting.)
vaxravos asked about ienvaer, unceremoniously dropped to the ground from nagylyth's shoulder as we watched. while we were in the lobby/foyer, further in was a double set of doors that were open to a large room, only barely lit by lights just out of view. electricity didn't work in the mansion - it was something the "jesters" had done to see the ritual they were working on. i could just make out a set of scrawls, circles and shapes drawn on the floor. in the back of the room, only just lit so that the keys could be made out as floating white bars - an organ.
and ienvaer was being asked to play.
it was painfully clear ienvaer was just as confused, and considerably more frightened, as we were.
"I - I don't remember, if I ever even knew how-"
"You will."
kylepsier makes a motion, and the double doors close on their own. it is quiet for a long, long time.
the thing about this mansion is that it, too, is familiar. it was how i knew that room had an organ; knew that the lines on the ground were drawn on. that i knew ienvaer would be able to play the organ, that i could play the organ. why i wasn't, entirely, surprised by the bookshelves lining the foyer were filled with research, diagrams, specific topics on specific magics, that the seven lived here and i- i stop. there were more. more people i was forgetting, more people who had forgotten.
vaxravos sits near the middle, on a pillow he had procured from somewhere. kylepsier seemed intrigued by what i did, and more importantly did not seem apt to be outright cruel like nagylyth.
"You - you all know us, even though we do not know you. the books on these shelves are tomes on magics, research on science and anatomy." I hold a book open, diagrams on chimeras. A diagram on proper parts, acceptable animals. "I mean - chimeras, right? Impossibilities so far, and this book talks about it in serious research. As if the author had succeeded."
"They all had their magical specialties. Magics that have outmatched everything before it. It's a shame you all decided to forget." Kylepsier's voice is neither kind nor cruel. Only, a little, intrigued.
"Works for Navaghrot. Once we find all of them, our objectives will be easily complete. You were fools for thinking that forgetting could stop anything."
"I - you say them. Can... can you tell me anything? About us? About what we once were?" Them meant not you. Meant it was not me, josz, and yet the jesters kept me here. They were as uncertain of me as I was.
Kylepsier watches me, clearly thinking. Where they had been reserved before, they seem to relax. A chance to gloat, or at least beat back the boredom of waiting in silence.
"Ienvaer, leader. A lot of raw magical power, the newspapers never could pin down his specialty. Neither could we. Friletviest, with their companion Scuerwint - specialist in winds and air. A classic free spirit, we'll be looking for Friletviest next."
An image comes to mind of a lady, dressed in excess layers of transparent green garbs, sheer fabric that caught the wind in wild and howling ways. She is riding Scuerwint, a long white dragon-like creature adorned with pieces of bamboo and more sheer fabric. They look as if they are one being, together. I know they are inseparable, in more ways than one.
"I heard Miran was traced near a mountain pass. Not sure what boss would like to do, since it was only a faint rumor. I was always a fan of Miran, you know."
Kylepsier fails to elaborate, but I know. I know Miran, with her hot pink hair and eyes boring into me. Her quiet was more intimidating than her speech. She was a sun in a black hole, sucking the light around her. Her body, ridged in a black structure, would vent sometimes. It was hard to read around her. She was - a fan favorite.
"The others we haven't been able to track down, although we heard that one of the Twins died. Better for us, I doubt we could've handled them both."
Kylepsier turns, entire body pointed to me. With the helmet, it was impossible to decipher what emotion they were feeling.
"You are just Ienvaer's pet. Nothing more. I think we're keeping you to make sure ienvaer complies. It'd be useful if you remembered something, having lived with them all, though."
With that, kylepsier turns back away and floats closer to vaxravos, sitting primly in the air.
the first notes of the organ float through the air. it is slow, and heavy, reverberating through every empty space in the mansion. filling the dead silence of the rest of the house.
its clear ienvaers fingers start remembering, clearer and faster, the music growing more complex. the house shifts - literally. congealing from a pattern on the floorboards, silvery metal rises, liquid congealing into a large, oddly shaped axe. Vaxravos knows this weapon. This blood. It is his magic; his call and answer. He watches in a reverent awe as it solidifies, as the final part of the handle is instead drawn from amongst his clothing.
He grabs and holds it.
The music stops, the double doors creaking open. ienvaer has collapsed, the shock of white hair too-prominent on the ground. The jesters simply leave him, sweeping into the foyer. With no time to react, they take vaxravos, his axe, and simply - leave.
I don't know what became of vaxravos. ienvaer says vax died later that day. I don't ask how, or why he knows.
With the music came not only the axe, however. Pieces of memories. Tiny fragments. Emotions, thoughts. Everything was still fragmented for ienvaer and i. but it was better than the nothing from before. better than the just-an-inch-extra-apart. I admit that I don't know how the jesters left, or took a weaponized vaxravos without a fight - because I had immediately rushed into the room to check on ienvaer.
I remember enough to know how to turn the power back on for the mansion, booting up an android in the process. my friend. with their bright yellow hair, and almost childish outfit, they help me carry ienvaer to a room upstairs. the room is perfectly - cleanly preserved. the bed is simple, but made. the walls are white, the blue painted floorboards are dust free. There is a simple shelf with a few items on it, where I set a particular tome on magic I wanted to look more in depth on. ienvaer sleeps for a while, there, while I try to explore the rooms nearby. I couldn't bear to leave ienvaer, so my exploring was cut short by my frequent every-five-minutes-for-3-hours check-ins.
when he woke up, we were able to discuss what came next. neither of us really - we didn't have anywhere else to go. and clearly, we once called this place home. so we were left, trying to piece together our memories. our magic - because neither of us could really remember it. we were not like miran, whose body itself was magic. we were not like friletviest and scuerwint, wind and personalities as one. we couldn't even remember the others, not clearly. but we knew we had to find them before the jesters did.
(forgive the ending here; i do remember more, and there is more, but I Have Already Written So Much Have Mercy Oh God. WIP.)
