Faint gray wisps danced upon the red tome, traveling across the cover then almost burrowing itself within the pages. Lasutro's curiosity surged as she was suddenly filled with the urge to see where the wisps were burrowing and waited for another to move into the pages, when it did, she quickly opened it hoping to catch sight of where they had moved. When she searched the pages for the wisp but instead found themselves staring at the last page of the short story of Paydaego Freesill she had just finished reading.
Lasutro sat there, on the floor of their room, rereading the page over and over, stuck in cycle, finding their eyes unable to move from the dried droplets of black ink and the single rusty brown mark on the bottom right hand corner. It took a few minutes of staring almost mindlessly at the page for Lasutro to gain enough sense to flip to the next page, only to find it to be the same, each letter, blemish identical. Their confusion turned to frustration, and soon after Lasutro began to flip through the tome with vigor, continuously finding the same page it wasn’t until she attempted to physically remove the page did she cut their finger on the aging parchment.
As their blood fell upon the open pages of the book, Lasutro watched strings of gray flicker from their bleeding index finger to the small pool of blood, the pool slowly seeping into the page until it was as if none of it had been upon the page. The gray strings gradually made their way to what seemed to be the next page, drawing Lasutro’s hand with them. Flipping to the next page Lasutro took in the blank page relief, before a series of elven words appeared upon the page in a glossy scarlet. After taking a moment to read them, she realized that the script differed from the elvish she had learned when she was young and all of what she had read since. She reflected upon the most likely pronunciation before she attempted to speak them aloud, as she did the words flowed together, as they were one to do in elven, she felt a change in the air and watched as the empty air started to leak gray wisps. Lasutro eyed the wisps in silence when they suddenly rushed towards them, as if pulled by an unseen force. She almost let out a yelp of surprise, closing their eyes and raising their arms in a defensive position in response, nearly dropping the book as the wisps pierced their arm like a swarm of arrows, the very same arm the ethereal gray chain had seeped into previously. Yet, she wasn’t filled with pain instead she felt an almost familiar energy grow in their arm.
The feeling grew, the light tingle becoming a pulse of energy through their arm before it faded all at once, as if it was never there. Lasutro felt their knees buckle as the energy faded as if they had lost far more blood then they expected, and found themselves nearly sprawled out on the ground. She took a breath, their thoughts sluggish before she brought the red tome in front of their eyes. As she examined the book again she caught sight of familiar gray wisps upon its cover, though now they were condensed, concentrated and as she examined them gained no particular insight until she set their eyes upon the largest cluster of wisps. A needle of pain pushed through their skull as she looked inside the cluster and began to see beyond it, another side to wisp. She saw themselves, yet it couldn’t be because it wasn’t a physical thing, an idea of themselves, or rather the essence of them as formed from ideas, and emotions. The sight or rather the perception drained the last bits of energy she had and Lasutro just laid there for a moment. The book sat closed beside them, the gray wisps still dancing on the cover, though it no longer called to Lasutro as it had before she cut themselves on its pages. While she laid on the floor she took slow and steady breaths for a few minutes hoping to regain the strength to further explore the gray energies that now appeared in their vision apart from those attached to their red tome.
When she recovered enough to move again albeit slowly and the pain in their head faded, Lasutro dragged themselves up to their feet before they moved sluggishly toward the bedside table. By the time she got there she felt as though she needed to lie down again, and found themselves laying back into their bed just managing to grab the room key beforehand. She struggled against the fatigue but gave in and told themselves “It’ll only be a couple of minutes, I’ll just rest my eyes for a little bit.”
Although only ten minutes had passed since she had been pulled into bed by their fatigue, Lasutro shot out of the bed like the bolt from a crossbow with a hair trigger. If not for the remaining exhaustion that clung to their muscles she would have jumped, but instead she slid off the bed and made their way to the door. With each movement she pushed back the invisible weight that had made its home upon their body, gaining the temporary strength to further fulfill their curiosity in the sorts of gray that might be seen upon other people.
Lasutro was already on the other side of the door when she recalled the words of Waelim. A rational part of their mind agreed, and pleaded for them to return to the room, but another retorted it, demanding to be satiated, to “Know “ as it always did, the part that had pervaded their thoughts for as long as she could remember, now amplified. Lasutro dismissed the thought along with the recommendation Waelim had made and headed down the stairs to the still bustling tavern below, locking their room behind them.
When Lasutro caught sight of the main floor of the tavern, she saw that while there were plenty of drinks still flowing there was now space to sit alone relatively undisturbed. Making their way to the closest empty seat Lasutro kept their head down until she sat firmly in their new seat. After ordering a small tankard of mead from one of the several barmaids Lasutro began their search for more of the gray flickers. She threw their gaze upon patron after patron hanging on them for a short moment seeking some greater understanding of what the ethereal gray flickers were, what they meant. On some of the tougher looking mercenaries, and even on a merchant she vaguely recognized from the past two days of travel, she saw similar gray wisps crowding particular items on their person. She noticed that the gray wisps she had spotted on the mercenaries gathered upon their more fanciful weapons, and similarly she saw a similar gathering on one of the merchants rings, though it was noticeably less, not significantly so but just enough that it was easy to perceive in Lasutro’s current state.
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When Lasuto’s mead arrived, she handed the coin for it as quickly as she could, the fatigue in their muscles keeping their movements sluggish when she did so. After taking a few sips from their tankard, she resumed their observations on the patrons of the tavern, scanning the figures again. This time, thanks to taking longer moments to inspect each individual, she spotted smaller wisps far smaller than those she had seen on their book, the merchant’s ring and the mercenaries’ weapons. The observation pushed them towards a conclusion about the nature of the gray flickers when she spotted a flash of movement just out of the corner of their eye.
As fast as she reasonably could without attracting a great amount of strange looks, Lasutro turned their head to face the direction the movement appeared to go. Just above one of the larger and louder groups of near if not drunk patrons, three creatures floated above them, each with similar energy about them. The creatures flew around and through the group, sometimes grazing them with their bodies creating a barely visible distortion in the air comparable to a heat mirage if only tinged with an array of gray. Lasutro’s eyes would have widened at the sight of the creatures if not for the weight that had recently made its home upon their eyelids. After taking a slightly larger sip from their tankard, Lasutro began to inspect the creatures best she could from afar.
The sight of each creature brought forth some sense of joy in Lasutro’s mind, as if that was an aspect of their being. Though she could see all three of the creatures, Lasutro couldn’t help but feel as if she was only seeing a part of the whole,like some of their features were just out of sight. Two of the creatures had clear comparisons, that of a rabbit and hummingbird, but instead of the perhaps cute friendship Lasutro unconsciously suspected their relations appeared petulant. The other creature was decidedly strange, an ever shifting humanoid face always showing some expression of joy despite the empty holes that represented its eyes. Though after looking at it with greater observation Lasutro felt the compulsion to drink once more from their tankard. Following doing so Lasutro, realized that while it was an unsettling creature it wasn’t what compelled them to drink, rather the internal feeling that doing so would restore the bit of composure she had lost after carefully observing it for the first time.
Lasutro continued watching the trio of creatures for about five minutes after they first spotted them, taking a few mental notes as she did so before she turned their attention back to the rest of the room. Scanning the tavern again for the gray flickers and now other strange creatures like the trio. It was after ten or so minutes of surveying when Lasutro spotted another creature,its arm resting upon the shoulder of the hochling bartender. The vision of it sending the same incomplete sensation Lasutro felt when she looked at the other creatures. As she began their study of the new creature, a similar wave of emotion, albeit lesser than that from the previous three creatures, emanating a feeling of sadness instead of joy, came over them.
She took another sip of their mead, as she watched the other arm of the creature emerge from behind the bartender, the same lonely smile upon his lips as he poured drinks and exchanged words with the patrons that sat at the bar, going through the well practiced motions of his job. Despite the distance between them Lasutro slowly began to make out the creature in more detail as it moved to sit upon its shoulder. As it moved to sit upon his shoulder its humanoid form became clear. Arms and legs far too long for its body, a hunched neck struggling to hold up its head. Its shoulders hung above its neck further accentuating its hunch. However it wasn't the whole of the creature's form that drew Lasutro’s curiosity but rather what made up its body.
Though she didn’t see it right away, as it moved it quickly became apparent that whatever the creature was made up of wasn’t organic. What passed for its flesh scraped against itself, creating the uneven texture across its form, the sight nearly made Lasutro cringe even though the skin itself made no sound. The longer Lasutro observed the creature, finding themselves periodically drinking from their tankard as she did so, it became clear that its body was formed from a variety of different forms of a single object: a scale. Each of the scales tangled together perfectly to form the creature’s body, the placement of every scale allowing its abnormal movements to feel natural.
Lasutro continued watching the creature as it moved its oblong fingers about the face of the bartender, who clearly couldn’t see it, and made a pulling motion creating the same air distortion she had seen by the other three creatures. As it did so the creature pulled the distortion to its chest before it returned its hand before the bartender's face. It wasn’t long after the creature had begun to do so a fourth time when the bartender made his way over to Lasutro’s seat, shaking them from the trance she had unconsciously fallen into.
His approach was filled with a confrontational energy, and his eyes with a resolve, as if prepared to give a long preformed speech. An angry exasperation upon his face as he stood in front of Lasutro and began to speak in a hushed tone that was just covered by the sound of merriment that filled the Sour Desk.
“I realize that Hochlings like myself are uncommon in these parts, and my appearance is unsettling to some but that is no reason to stare!” The air rushed through his teeth as he spoke the words dripping in venom.
Lasutro processed the words best she could in spite of their growing fixation on the creature that sat on his shoulder. There was pause as Lasutro tasted the air of the creature and had a sudden realization as to its nature. Just as suddenly she felt the words that might banish whatever the creature took from the man come to them.
“I’m sorry, I was just trying to think of the words to tell you that your eyes are enchanting and I hope you find people who see you as more than your appearance.” She replied, hoping they were in fact the right words to tell him, feeling less sure having spoken them to him. Lasutro watched his expression soften after a brief flash of embarrassment before she just barely caught sight of the creature swimming through the air away from him until it faded into nothing.
After a quick apology and a quiet thank you the bartender returned to their post and a few minutes later sent over Lasutro another mead which she drank gratefully, having finished their first just before their brief interaction. She returned to their observations of gray wisps and creatures until they faded from sight. Not long after she finished the last of their drink, then headed back to their room and into a deep sleep.