If there was one thing Hanne missed about the mortal city of Beuzaheim, it would have been the size of it all. It stood at the point where it neither matched the coziness of villages nor reached the callousness of cities, and while being among the few seafarers in it had kept her from true anonymity, she still could have wandered its streets with peace of mind. It was one thing to be recognized—it was another for her presence to be of any significance.
Yet as much as it pained her, returning to Maritima had been the only choice she could justify in the end. Keeping the carriage would have been within her rights, but once word got around that she'd been kicked out of the Rīsan estate, those seeking their turn with it had grown bolder. Hanne had not been in the mood to put them in their place.
At least Eitel had gone with it. Waves knew the driver was a prick and a half, and Hanne suspected he'd managed to annoy her former friends through their interactions as much as… as much as Hanne herself had.
The Rīsans would sooner invite a natrix into their wells than let Hanne return there—so long as Bernadette held the last word, that was. And she doubted that would change anytime soon.
Her home greeted her from a distance, the cold ripples of her own passive Circulation intermingling with the boundless energy within the settlement. It slowly shifted from a blur in the distance to the inverted dome it was, its shape reminiscent of a shell.
There was no denying the beauty of Maritima, not that it brought her that much comfort. She still fetched supplies when given the task, her experience living among mortals serving as quite the rare qualification here. Unfortunately, each return to the settlement had her mind making knots out of itself. It was not unlike getting a taste of that which she had lost, and she only had herself to blame for it.
Hanne clung to the mast, the thin plank she stood on shaking as she picked up the pace, pushing forward with her thoughts alone. Her mana was so intertwined with the boats that she could no longer tell where one started and where the other ended, the entire vessel almost as frozen as her insides.
Wood—with intricate metal designs carved and inserted into it—formed most of the hull save the enchanted point at its bow, which cut through the waves above. The sound of it all would have been oddly soothing, had it not been for the water's tendency to splash against her face each time she almost reached a state of relaxation.
Upon the fifth occurrence of this, Hanne started to suspect the sea was doing it on purpose.
You've reason to be at odds with me—that, I shan’t deny.
She exhaled, her windswept hair tempting her to simply close her eyes when the next attempt to clear her vision would be moot regardless. The course was set, in any case.
Hanne felt hollow most days. There was no other way to describe her current state, for nothing else could possibly suffice. It was as though each shred of her confidence had been stuffed into a spice-grinder and been powdered, not minced.
The Chief Speaker's grandchild could do no wrong…
…Or more accurately, she had grown up hearing the Chief Speaker’s grandchild could do no wrong.
Yet here Hanne was.
Having done wrong.
There was something utterly surreal about coming face to face with failure, and it'd had her in denial right up until the moment it had cost her her friends.
Perhaps in more ways than one.
“You returned sooner than expected,” the keeper at the docks told her as she arrived, her vessel sliding into its designated spot with practiced ease—it would have been difficult for it not to, given its enchantments.
“I see the tide still goes your way, Idle Fisher,” Hanne greeted the man by the same name she had since childhood. He was not the type to be zealous over giving out his name, but she preferred it this way, and never had he asked her to stop. “The market was emptier than usual—The Snow approaches, and with it, mortals withdraw. They are a careful bunch.”
“A wise choice,” Idle Fisher nodded, aiding her in unloading her bags from her vessel's hatch. “I take it word of the Carriage Driver's missive has not reached you, given your expression.”
Hanne felt her heart flutter. She knew Eitel had remained close to Beuzaheim, alongside his current charge, but she refused to contact him herself. At least directly. “Did he write home on matters that should be of concern to me?”
“Rumors reached him, of trouble on the lands you grew attached to. A sibyl, they say. It started this very week.”
“It might be naught but a rumor, then,” Hanne said, mostly to herself. “Have any attempts been made, to invite her to a temple?”
“No word on that, yet,” Idle Fisher told her. “She's yet to be sighted, in any case, or so did the Carriage Driver say. He might yet learn more—we shall see when we next receive word.”
“That, we shall.”
Hanne hovered, her feet touching the curved platform soon after. The transition between the docks and Maritima proper required crossing the tunnel carved within some ancient beast’s horn. It looked a cross between shell and stone, angled, and unidentifiable.
Proximity to the waves made the path perpetually damp, though the same could be said for most of the settlement. Feylights the size of fingernails had been inserted into the material, illuminating the path, and with the sea so close to Maritima, they’d never lack the power to function.
With the three bags slung over her shoulder, Hanne had to be more careful of her footing than usual. Some of that which she had procured was both too delicate to survive a fall, yet too robust to be inventoried.
As she descended the final steps into the city, familiar green-blue light greeted her. It felt like home—and oddly, she found it evoked more memories of the estate’s outskirts than of this place.
Hanne bit her lip. There was no use crying over spoiled anchovies.
“Pearl Taker,” more than a few passersby greeted her, with the type of nod that signaled respect to her station but not exactly to her person.
She wished she could be like the bothis, unseen when at the bottom. The sea itself knew she could not sink any lower.
As Hanne walked, she crossed paths with countless others who would not look her in the eye, even as they muttered amongst themselves. She envied their meals, their work—some ate freshly baked bread, others were sweeping the ground with delicate brooms crafted from willingly-given hair.
She returned their attitude, moving forward as if none of them existed. Or mattered.
Most of the roads within Maritima had been shaped out of sea glass, with greenery aplenty everywhere else. Most homes and buildings were carved from stone or similarly shaped in glass, for most forms of traditional architecture preferred beneath the waves were not compatible with Maritima's proximity to the sea.
Her grandmother's unyielding Presence could be felt from afar, and so Hanne followed it. The source of it was the main temple—that much, she need not use her Intuition to know—yet it flagged with an emotion Hanne could not make out.
The Chief Speaker was still quite cross with her, the matter of her thefts not one she could hide forever. Still, Hanne had kept the blame to herself. Her grandmother knew she'd poisoned someone unintentionally—that much she could not hide once the details of her theft were out—but she had avoided elaborating further.
Perhaps today would be the day where she explained—what she craved most of all would be for the Chief Speaker to enlighten her, to make sense of what had gone wrong.
For Hanne herself knew not.
When she entered the temple, she found it empty save for the person she sought. Its architecture was brutalist in nature, a series of box-like rooms arranged atop each other until they rose well into the sea above. It was fitting—where better to know oneself than next to the waves?
Hanne set the bags in place for the servants to unload later, close to one of their workstations, and commenced her climb. The walls in most rooms were bare save the occasional notice or plaque—this was a place of worship. Decorations were unnecessary. As the Presence led her where she needed to go, she joined her grandmother, kneeling next to her before the glass that held the waves at bay.
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“You arrived early.”
“So everyone keeps telling me,” Hanne mumbled. She gazed upon the waves before her, as she often did. Never could she grasp what her grandmother saw in them. “I fear it may be time for a confession, grandmother.”
“About what you took from me? A confession would be long overdue, if that is the case,” the Chief Speaker did not face her. Those green eyes remained fixated on the water. Mortals would be likely to mistake the Immortal for a young woman, her features youthful and her hair a bright red. “Theft that leads to harm is worse than theft alone, girl.”
“I fear I might have killed him, though I didn't know it yet. Even if he was still standing the last I saw of him,” Hanne started—the manner in which her own voice wavered caught her off guard. “Bernadette was right to blame me.”
Her grandmother flinched at the mention of the name. Mortal names were to be traded, no differently than their own, but part of what had gotten Hanne curious enough to approach her fellow apprentice in the first place was just that—not once had her attempts to name them failed, despite her lack of leave to do such a thing.
Save for their patriarch's and his now-wife's, the Rīsan family's names were strangely unprotected, in the same manner those of Maritima’s former patrons were not. Even the name of their youngest, Beryl’s daughter—someone Hanne had never met—was one she could utter at will. This was far from unseen, but never had Hanne heard of a group that large displaying this quirk.
“This might be the closest you have ever gotten to telling me the truth, child,” the Chief Speaker smiled. “I admit I have been ill at ease with your mentions of this, especially given how not once did you seek my aid, despite your admissions of having hurt someone.”
“I did not wish to bring trouble upon my friend. I feared, most of all, that you might hurt him.”
“Yet you speak of this to me regardless, despite your wait.”
“With the passage of time, my concern for his wellbeing grows to outweigh my hesitation to consult you.”
“Then tell me one thing, child. Did he know of what you had taken from me? Of what you must have used?”
“He did not.”
“Then he would have had nothing to fear. It was your doing, in the end. Your hesitation did nothing but cost him time, if your assumptions—whatever they may be—are correct.”
“How was I to know that? I’ve witnessed you strike overstepping visitors down for less with my very own eyes,” Hanne retorted. Even she would have been livid, had she learned anything she had not made for such a purpose was shared with mortals. There was something intrinsically wrong about something one crafted by the grace of the sea being squandered in such a way.
Yet Hanne had done it to her grandmother anyway.
“Was that what you used the awakening elixir for? You fed it to one of your mortal friends?”
“I used it to prepare a tonic. A joint venture to make something capable of awakening Affinities, but for mortals.”
“And your friend did not notice the seawater?”
“I did everything within my power to mask all signs of it—the taste bothered him for completely different reasons, in the end. I wanted this to work, grandmother. I care for him, but I feared he would not trust me enough to try it were I to be upfront. Trust only goes so far in the face of a mortal’s fear of the sea.”
The Chief Speaker raised an eyebrow. “Why not test it on someone you didn't care about beforehand, then?”
“Please. I only had the one,” Hanne paused. “I did end up with more than one dose, once we bottled it all, but that is besides the point. Anselm has never been one to shy away from simply testing our creations himself. I suspect some of his hidden Acclimations could rival mine from that alone.”
“A foolhardy approach,” her grandmother noted. “Even if you hadn't taken matters into your own hands, he would have placed himself in a predicament sooner than later, had that continued.”
“Yet this was my doing.”
“Oh, I'm not saying his idiocy absolves you. Two things can be true at once.”
“I suppose you must be right about that. I… I struggled for a long time, to understand how I felt about this. I knew it was my fault, yet… We had both done this.”
“Hm,” her grandmother nodded, rising from where she knelt. She moved closer to the glass, pressing a palm against it. The water on the other side glowed with the shape of her palm. “Something tells me you are not opening up out of desire for me to lecture you on your wrongdoings, however.”
“That is true,” Hanne said with a sigh. “I admit that despite my best efforts, I could not determine what I'd done. Beyond him showing signs of seasickness, it's hard to pin down. The oddest part would be… I suspect whatever happened somehow led to him falling under a geas of sorts.”
Her grandmother frowned. “That is incredibly unlikely. Exposing a mortal to the waves’ touch in such a direct manner can have permanent effects even when they survive, but those are physical in nature.”
“He spoke to me of seeing things while I was healing him, or at least attempting to. Of seeing panels that did not exist, and a woman that made no sense. I tried, later on, to question him further on the matter, yet each time, he would falter. It was as though I were watching him have a lapse in consciousness every single time I asked.”
“That is admittedly worrisome,” the Chief Speaker admitted, brushing at her knees with her palms. She stood in one swift moment then, bowing to the sea before her. Without looking at Hanne, she began walking away. “Show me, girl.”
Hanne rushed to stand and bow before she could follow. “I fear I am not exactly welcome within their estate at the present moment. I could not return, let alone with an additional guest.”
“Sea above! I am not barefaced enough to intrude upon anyone’s domain uninvited, child,” her grandmother glared at Hanne as though she had made the least socially-acceptable suggestion possible. “Show me these tonics of your making.”
Hanne sucked in a deep breath, summoning both their joint creation and her own. She’d taken them from her friend while he’d still been addled from the experiment, and suspected he would not have handed them over had he been in his right mind. The first phial’s were opalescent and watery, while the second’s were a syrupy bright teal that almost glowed.
Anselm’s trust in her had likely been all that kept him from balking at something this shady at a glance. Hanne had scarcely believed it herself, even at the time.
Unnamed Tonic
Made by Anselm Rīsan & Hanne Maritima
Refined from powdered venaroot, sunsetblade extract, and a medicinal herb mixture as filler, this tonic makes one's being susceptible to mana permeation and primes them for intrusion.
Unnamed Tonic
Made by Hanne Maritima
Refined from undisclosed ingredients, this tonic primes one's being to retry for Affinities previously deemed incompatible. It is additionally suffused with 57 mana samples, the specificities of which are unknown even to its creator.
The Chief Speaker took one on each hand, her eyes narrowing. “You are aware both venaroot and sunsetblade qualify as sensory hazards to mortals.”
That was a roundabout way of saying they could be used to make a mortal sensitive to mana-based effects they might otherwise not even detect, Hanne knew. And with such sensitivity often came pain when her grandmother was involved, even if benign uses for both ingredients still existed. “I am aware.”
“A creative application of them, then,” the Chief Speaker nodded. Hanne would have insisted her grandmother’s perspective on the matter was unreasonably warped—that was not where most people’s minds went when they heard of either herb—but she knew better than to argue with the Immortal.
“I suspect it was my creation—the one I mixed the awakening elixir into—was the main culprit of the… event.”
“Out with it, girl.”
Hanne exhaled slowly. “We waited for a time. Roughly forty to forty-five turns of the clock was what it took for any effect to show, and it was abrupt enough even I struggled to follow. He started displaying a wide range of symptoms of seasickness, then. What caught me off guard was how… anachronous they were, or so I would call them. Tension befitting the later stages if light exposure accompanied by the visible darkening of veins one would expect from a case bound to be fatal. I made an earnest effort to heal him throughout, but beyond numbing the pain, it was a losing battle.”
Her grandmother’s eyes were distant and shifting rapidly, as if she were combing through countless memories in search of an answer—she did so often, for the sake of answering requests by the temple’s visitors.
“Sometimes, the type of exposure that is conducive to seasickness happens so quickly that the mortal’s body knows not how to respond to it,” the Chief Speaker noted, each word uttered slowly. “But I confess I know not how a situation like that could end with the mortal surviving it.”
“It simply pulled back at one point. I… In my folly, I believed I might have fixed it, and rushed back to grab some restoratives, of the sort we offer to guests,” Hanne continued. “He displayed the weakness of those suffering from chronic seasickness, in addition to the moments of confusion I mentioned. But it was worsening. It was as though my actions were growing less and less effective.”
“Did you ensure there was no further exposure?”
“Of course.”
The Chief Speaker acknowledged her words with a nod, her gaze returning to the phials in her hands. After a long moment of silent contemplation, she spoke. “There is only one way to understand this in full, Hanne. I suspect you knew that, when you chose to come to me.”
“I did.”
“You come to your grandmother, to do that which you are too much of a coward to do yourself.”
“I do not deny that.”
“I will do it,” the Chief Speaker stated without a hint of emotion in her voice. “But you will bear witness.”
Hanne flinched. “There is no need—”
“I will accept that you are too weak to do it yourself,” her grandmother reached out after dismissing the phials, the movement yanking Hanne closer, “but I will not allow you to avoid seeing it through, when this is for you.”
Hanne could do little but follow as the Chief Speaker practically flew down the steps. Had she not been held in place, she would have stumbled, moving at such speeds. Her ankles bent at odd ankles each time she inevitably misstepped—through gritted teeth, she kept her mana circulating, healing herself without uttering even the slightest complaint.
She had made her choice, and spoken of her misdeeds.
Now, she would have to see the reaction through.