[SE] on this harvest moon

SUNJATA

Gone without a trace it seemed. Her things had remained strewn around their home, and while she had an adventurer’s heart, she’d never strayed from home for this long, not so unprepared, not without telling him. And so he’s become somewhat of a mess, unable to sleep, unable to focus on anything unless it involved the possibilities of where she’d gone. And the mud? The mud outside he had thought would be a good sign, to see for tracks, to follow a scent, but alas it hadn’t been.

Not since the mud moved and what not. It never retained its shape.

He looks better, more put together in his panther form – and at this point he doesn’t care what anyone else thinks of him. At least this way he doesn’t have the bags under his eyes, the perpetual exhaustion to his tall posture. This way, perhaps he can take out some of the frustration on said mud, pushing it away from the Domiciles, away from their home, away from the Devil’s Advocates, away from the traces of her before it devours what he has left, whole.

And so he starts, along the walkway past their house, finding one particularly large ball of mud, and begins to roll it with both paws and body, uncaring as it sticks in his dark fur. All the while, Haai has remained curled up along his back, having made her home there in an attempt to try and comfort him to these new sensations.

come home. don't die so far from the sea—

It was amazing what one could get used to in Caido. For instance: walking down the street on the way to the Atheneum and coming across a large panther rolling a mudball down the street. It was a sight that nothing on Numeria could have prepared Jigano for, but now he only paused to try and see if he knew who the panther was. It never occurred to him that it might not be an Attuned, not after the past year, but the shape was unfamiliar and after a moment he stepped closer with a courteous clearing of his throat to catch the muddy feline's attention.

"Good afternoon, sir. May I ask what you're-- Isuma?" The little white-and-blue ball of feathers and fur on his shoulder leapt off with a joyful peeping, flying a dizzying aerial ballet of greeting for the little ball of black-and-teal fluff nestled on the panther's back. Over a year since her hatching and this was the first other gryphon that she had met, and her excitement surged through the bond with her companion, startling a laugh from the bard in spite of his recently subdued mien.

"And who is this?" he asked with a bow for the young hatchling, joy lighting his own face as Isuma's enthusiasm proved infectious.

SUNJATA

He supposes it’s only a matter of time before someone questions what he’s doing. But he doesn’t expect such a shocked feeling to cross through the bond between him and Haai which had been relatively quiet since everything happened. The griffin’s head lifts, a canine yawn given before the other white griffin begins to flit around her, and she howls a hello to the other griffin, shifting  to stand along Sunjata’s back before taking to the sky to circle the other griffin.

A sort of yin yang appearance.

It’s enough of a distraction that Sunjata turns to face Jigano, steel eyes focusing on the man before the companion antics, before he shifts into himself – only partially covered in mud. Bags beneath his eyes from loss of sleep and a sort of uncanny paleness to him (likely from drinking quite a bit too much again) as his eyes remain on Haai. “Hey Jigano.” He says in a quiet hello, a hand waving toward his own companion. “That’s Haai, found her egg a few weeks ago in the Outskirts in the mud.”

He’s not sure what else to add, not finding it in him to wonder about the small talk, to answer what he’s doing since it seems pretty clear to him that he’s simply just trying to get rid of the mud.

come home. don't die so far from the sea—

Isuma trilled at the howl, flying joyfully with the small kitten (cub? pup?) as she made her own introductions as only a gryphon could. Jigano was distracted enough watching them that he didn't see the transformation take place, but when he glanced down again it was to a recognizable tall, lanky man.

He was covered in mud instead of snow now, but the shadows beneath his eyes remained and Jigano's cheer at the new companion faded, replaced with worry as he stepped forward to hear the quiet voice that rumbled in the spring air. "She's the first gryphon I've seen since Isuma," he admitted with another smile for the skydancers. "She's a lovely little one. But what's happened? You look like the blight still has its claws in you." Blunt, but he had found less joy in mincing delicate words since his LongNight... conversation? fight? with Amalia.

"I'm in no rush today, if you'd like a hand with the troublesome stuff," he added, nodding to the mud with a faint grimace of distaste. "We only barely saved the Atheneum from it the other day." As he looked the other man over his gaze dropped to catch on the bracelet on his wrist, and the bard tilted his head thoughtfully but held his tongue, far more concerned about Sunjata's state of mind than his guild affiliations

SUNJATA

Listening easily, he wipes some of the mud from his hands with a quiet nod in response. “She's the first one I’ve seen.” A brief pause as he considers and decides to keep close all the family he has now. “My niece had to tell me what she was.” A casual shrug before Jigano’s concern is lingered on him, the shadows under his eyes, and he clenches his jaw slightly under the observation.

“Not the blight, no. Wish it was.” He waves it off slightly with a hand before he looks down the alley as if he can see the way she’s gone. “Lusea went missing a week and a half ago.” He offers by way of explanation, just a few days prior had he posted the notice on the board.

“Help would be great though. Trying to see if there’s any signs or anything of her but the mud seems to be taking over everything.” A roll of his shoulders as he looks back to Jigano. Haai, meanwhile, isn’t fazed by the sorrow coming from Sunjata and instead continues her hapless circling of the other griffin.

come home. don't die so far from the sea—

"Your niece?" The bard couldn't help but ask, blinking in surprise. He had thought that only Sunjata and his once-dead love had made it through from their dust-dry world, but perhaps like the Helovians there were more coming through every day?

Jigano kept his expression curious but he couldn't help but feel a twist of relief in his chest that the blight hadn't returned - or hung on, whichever the case might have been for Sunjata. They had barely survived it once and he didn't know if he was strong enough to face it again and come out the other side still sane. Lusea gone missing though... he still hadn't met Sunjata's lady, but he winced in sympathy, knowing he'd look the same if it was Rory that had disappeared. "I'm sorry to hear that," he murmured, knowing the words were inadequate but having no better condolences to add without it sounding like she was dead instead of vanished. "I think I remember... yes, the notice in the Temple? I'll keep an eye out for her, too." Though if she didn't want to be found, and had illusion magic, that would certainly make things more difficult.

Looking around at the current situation the bard nodded, wrinkling his nose at the mess and the cheeky mud puddles that reached after the feet of passer's-by in an attempt to claim boots or simply cause havoc. "Yes, it's causing a lot of problems, isn't it? Getting it shuffled out of here would be a help to the community at large... and to your own search."

He looked around, seeing the dirt-packed streets, and tilted his head thoughtfully as he waited for the last few people to hurry onwards. He ambled to a nearby lot, one whose building had long since collapsed to rubble, before he reached out, grasping at the green threads of his earth magic and tugging experimentally. The ground around him shook and then rolled, a mound of earth rising like a wave and sliding towards Sunjata's mudball. The rounded Memory Mud began to roll forward as the hump of higher ground reached it, and Jigano walked behind, concentrating fiercely as he used the ground to push the ball along. "If you can get the stuff rolled up into more of these balls, I can push them along out towards the Ruins," he suggested hopefully.

Not least because that division of labor would help him stay cleaner than if they reversed their roles.

SUNJATA

A quiet nod is given back to Jigano, not willing to go through the whole nitty gritty details of it all to explain aside from just a name. “A girl named Melita.” He doesn’t know if he’s met Melita or not, doesn’t know much of the girls time here, but the girl has helped him in numerous ways in his short time here already.

Still, the events of what has happened keep the bags beneath his eyes, kept the exhaustion permanent in his features. A slight shrug, gaze drifting down to his hands, absently running a hand along the Devil’s Advocates bracelet, one he had made for her too when she had joined. But that seemed like forever ago – but he hadn’t had enough time. Never enough time. She had come back for two seasons.

It wasn’t enough.

He offers another small nod to Jigano. “Yeah.” Shifting his shirt slightly to reveal the flamed arrow tattoo over his heart. “She also has one of an ocean wave in the same place.” Just in case it helped. He didn’t know what helped or not. He didn’t even know where to start here in Caido. So he focuses on the mud at least.

“I was hoping to maybe find some tracks or something. She may have been taken? All of her things are still here aside from her.” Another sigh of some frustration. If he’d only been there. He should know better. It wasn’t the first time she’d been taken from him.

He drifts off, partially in thought, aimlessly watching the magic work with a pang in his chest. A nod of understanding before he shifts again into the panther form, working on another section, rolling and making a sort of mudman base out of it all. And while Sunjata typically preferred to remain as presentable as possible, when it came to something like this he finds all the cares he has about it slip away.

come home. don't die so far from the sea—

Of all the names Sunjata might have said, Melita's wasn't one that Jigano had remotely expected. He blinked, recognition and confusion slipping across his features as he tilted his head at the tall Outlander. "But... Melita is from a world called Helovia," he said cautiously. "I thought you were from Korofi?" And Melita's world had gods, or at least one mad one, while Sunjata had said his world was godless.

He knew the pain of sudden loss, and while he hoped that Lusea was still alive and would be soon be found, he still empathized with Sunjata's drained and weary bearing. The bard studied the tattoo and nodded gravely at the description of Lusea's - though he didn't think he'd be in a position to see it on her, unless her style of clothing was particularly daring.

"The spring rains would have washed tracks away fairly fast even without this cursed mud," Jigano agreed with a faint grimace. "Was there any scent trail remaining, though?" He wasn't sure how good a panther's nose was, but it had to be better than a human one. "Or any idea of where she was last seen?" Who had seen her, where, and when? All important questions to ask if they were to have a hope of tracking her down.

Or maybe she had needed some space to work through some things on her own. It wasn't as though the bard hadn't been there himself. And she would eventually come home again when she was ready.

For the moment Sunjata seemed sunk in his own thoughts, and Jigano was willing him to give him some space while he helped move the mud. He shifted the earth along in its small hump of a wave, refining as he went so that two arms of it curved forward enough to keep the mudball from rolling off to the side. The Memory Mud seemed content to be rolled along, seeing more of the world as it went, and Jigano had few problems getting the first ball down the street and off into the ruins beyond most current habitations. He returned immediately to collect the next sphere that Sunjata had made and began the process again, working quietly and enjoying the chance to stretch his new magical muscles a bit.

SUNJATA

Ah, so Jigano does know Melita. And that makes it quite awkward to try and explain. So he reaches up, aiming to brush a hand along his neck as he tries to think of how to explain it. “I am from Korofi. But Melita tells me that Helovia was similar, in where people from other worlds also arrived there somehow. And Melita’s father is from Korofi.” A quick explanation. “He was supposed to marry my sister before he… Left. Which is where he met Melita’s mother.” The tone of her hair is unmistakable to Sunjata, the word she had slipped when speaking of her father had Korofi written all over it.

It made sense. And in a way, despite Gaal’s involvement with Sunjata and how much he entirely despised the man, Melita deserved a much better role model than that to figure out the Korofi blood that ran through her veins. “Forgive my brashness but Graasvoel, her father, was a real piece of shit who wanted nothing to do with her, teach her of the blood that runs through her veins. I intend to.” And teach her some Korofi while he’s at it, another addition to understanding part of who she is.

But the mention of Lusea definitely takes precedence and his hand falls back to his side as he looks back down the alleyway as Jigano speaks, biting down on the inside of his cheek as he listens and frowns with. “No scent trail. People say that the last place they saw her was the Settlement.” It’s not so much the idea that she’s run off that he’s worried of. He’s worried of her being taken. Again. “She was at one of the market stalls and on her way back here, only she didn’t get here.” A shrug, an angle toward the home he’s converting to the new bar.

All information aside, it’s time to move the mud, and so he shifts, pressing the mud into larger balls that stick to one another while Jigano uses magic of a sort to roll the balls along the way. And he continues, adding more and more for Jigano to roll down and place in a space that’s not in the way of the rest of everything. At this point, the mud has coated his dark spotted fur, but he’s determined and doesn’t care a bit at all.

come home. don't die so far from the sea—

Sunjata's explanation cleared up much of Jigano's confusion, the explanation succinct but clear enough for the bard to follow, and he nodded his understanding of the chain of events... however strange they seemed. After being in the Hollowed Grounds for a year, welcoming newly-portaled-in arrivals, however, he had a far better basis for making sense of it. None of his Helovian friends had mentioned the portals on that world before, but Caido made it much easier to swallow the tale down, and it wasn't like he had any reason to doubt Sunjata.

"Melita is... she could use some family here," he agreed quietly. "She lost much on Helovia, as I understand it." He said nothing to the parts about 'understanding who she was' or 'the blood in her veins.' Meddler though he was, he knew it wasn't his place to intervene in family matters, and Melita was strong-willed enough to stand up for herself if Sunjata grew too insistent on trying to force his world's way of things on her Helovian spirit. Even if, as a son of immigrants, he had certain strong opinions of others trying to force an appreciation and knowledge of a land he would never see down his throat.

Lusea was a topic that mattered more at the moment, especially with her whereabouts unknown. Jigano nodded gravely at the information, hearing something of Sunjata's fear for his lover as much in what he didn't say as in what he did. She'd made no preparations to take off - either through the portal or to anywhere else - and though he couldn't imagine why anyone in the Hollowed Grounds would kidnap anyone else, it wasn't hard at all to come up with a few reasons she might have been killed and her body hidden. A mugging gone wrong, a mind that snapped under the number of earth-shaking changes that the Hollowed Grounds had endured in the past year leading someone to kill an Outlander, or someone else from Korofi who had come through recently with a personal grudge against her... though admittedly the latter was far less likely. "If you find any leads or learn about where she might be, I'll help however I can," he said quietly. "If she's hurt or anything has happened... well, I have healing magic as well." Among other talents that might come in useful if Sunjata needed a distraction.

The mud was everywhere, but thankfully there was less Memory Mud among the more usual muck. As Sunjata created more mudballs Jigano broadened the reach of his earth-wave so he could roll two and three balls of mud at once, murmuring apologies at those Naturals he passed who looked offended at his open use of magic on the street. Now it wasn't just keeping him clean; it also let him move more balls at once than he could have with his arms alone, and between them the bard and the panther were steadily cleaning out a broad area of the domiciles.

SUNJATA

A quiet, solemn nod, is given to Jigano as he agreed. “She lost everything.” He agrees – similar to himself when cast to Caido. Everything, every semblance of who he was, those he knew, gone for him to start over again. At least he was old enough to have figured out where to start, came from a place where a name had been made for him. Melita? She was still young, the worlds she’d passed through were wrong from the start, collapsing and colliding in on itself throwing them from place to place.

Sunjata can relate, in a way.

And he’s offered tales of Gaal for the curious child’s ears, offered information of what Korofi was like, information for the fury that would rage beneath her skin – a hot inferno – that she couldn’t figure out where it came from. But he could relate to it, those same thoughts, same feelings, because they burned beneath his skin since the day he’d been sent to his trial. Perhaps before even then.

Still, in regards to Lusea, his stomach churns with the unknown, the possibilities of what could’ve happened to her. How he hadn’t been there to help her, to find out what happened, to prevent it. But he offers Jigano a thankful nod, hoping she’s found soon. After all, she’s died once before and he hopes dearly that it hasn’t happened again. He was surprised enough when she came back the first time, let alone be naïve enough to think of a second chance at that too.

They work together pretty well, however, and between the two of them they have it mostly cleaned up. Just a few more that Sunjata rounds up before he passes them off to Jigano, watching with those predatory steel eyes of his as the section is cleaned. They’ve found nothing, no trace, and all that’s left behind is real mud. And while he had been hopeful he can’t help but feel as though part of him cracks with the realization, dark ears flattening with a huff as he turns back toward the entrance of the bar he’s putting together before shifting to himself and standing along the entry way.

“You’re welcome to come in, I’m just going to clean up a bit.” A flat offer, but he didn’t know exactly what he was expecting to get out of it. And he needs to rid himself of the mud, pour himself a drink, and try to keep the pieces glued together.

come home. don't die so far from the sea—

It was a team effort, and between the two of them the task went much faster than it would have if either had attempted it alone. Jigano did his best to keep his eyes peeled for clues, but without knowing Lusea, and with how much time had already passed since her disappearance, he could find no trace that might lead to her current whereabouts. At least they had success in moving the Memory Mud on to someplace else, where it would be less bothersome to people's lives and livelihoods, though Jigano was sweating heavily and looking a bit pale by the time he returned from his last trip to the ruins.

"I... would appreciate it," the bard admitted, panting though he tried to hide it. It was the most magic he'd used in a continuous stretch yet, and he was afraid he had overtaxed himself with the effort. At least his hands and clothes remained relatively clean, but he tottered into the building after Sunjata looking like a strong wind might blow him over. He waved Sunjata on to get cleaned up while he collapsed into the nearest chair, focusing on catching his breath as he looked around with weary curiosity.

"Are you setting up a new bar?" he asked when the other man returned, intrigued by what he saw. "Did no one want to rebuild the Rathskeller? Or are you striking out on your own?" After the nightmares of LongNight and all the memories in the Rathskeller's charred pit - Edrei's ghost, Chunk's bones, Bastien's days as a bartender there - he couldn't blame people for wanting to start something new someplace with less... emotional baggage.

SUNJATA

Jigano takes him up on the offer, and he nods, slipping through the door and holding it open for the bard to enter. He allows Jigano to make himself comfortable while he slips to the back, changing clothes and wiping away the mud that accumulated to his face and hair. And when he returns, he looks more put together, a clean sleeveless shirt and clean pants, hair wet but brushed back. Yet, there’s still shadows beneath his eyes as he slips behind the bar and grabs a bottle and a glass.

He pours one for himself, steel eyes lifting to Jigano at the question. “There isn’t much of the Rathskeller left, really. And Lusea helped run the bar back home and so we thought we’d put one together here to replace the both of them.” A shrug. “I’ve got water and alcohol so far, I’m afraid I don’t have much else, you're welcome to either.” But he’s willing to let the bard have whichever he’d prefer.

Seems like a water guy though, if he’s being honest.

After pouring himself one, he takes a deep drink of it, setting it back on the counter before stretching his tattooed arms along the top of it as he sighs quietly. “It’s got a long way to go, but it'll get there.” He shrugs, steel eyes drifting back to Jigano.

come home. don't die so far from the sea—

He didn't know enough about the tall man to be able to say whether he normally took care of his appearance or not, and therefore how bad a sign his earlier muddiness really was. For Jigano, a lank and unkempt appearance was a sign of a seriously troubled mind, such as when the blight had stripped him of even a semblance of care for himself. He had only seen Sunjata in the throes of the blight, really, and now at his lover's disappearance... neither of which would let the man be at his best. His return, clean and washed, at least somewhat, gave Jigano hope that the other man was managing to keep it together in spite of Lusea's loss, even if it was only temporary.

Jigano nodded at the silent question. He had been a bard his entire adult life, after all, and a wandering one at that going from town to tavern to city to bar and trading his music and tales for food, drink, and a place to sleep. The drink was often stale beer or watered wine, but occasionally there was raw moonshine or whiskey. He preferred wine or cider - or tea, glorious tea - if he had his choice, but he was used to being a beggar rather than a chooser, and knew he could drink whatever it was Sunjata was pouring.

Besides, as worn out as he was after using so much magic, he could use a little fortification.

"Alcohol is fine,"he assured his host verbally at the second offer, a wry quirk to his lips. "Have you been making it yourself, or getting it from Remi?" Remi had supplied a fair bit of the Rath's old supply, he seemed to recall. He took his own glass and sipped it more slowly, testing the edge of it before committing. It was the reflexive wetting of the tongue of someone used to checking for poison, second nature and barely conscious by now as he glanced curiously down at Sunjata's tattoos.

"Sounds like good reasons," he added, a little belatedly. "Seems a shame to let the Rath's old space go to waste, though. I wonder what else it could be turned into... I wouldn't mind another teahouse in town, but I don't exactly have time to run it myself," he admitted ruefully. "It would just be conveniently near the Atheneum for when I need a break from the guildhall for a bit."