Atomos: Interlude 1
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It is late evening, and on the Enterprise, most of the crew are asleep; only a skeleton crew remains awake, to keep watch over the ship and maintain course and speed. This suits Tristania jsut fine. The dryad is not in her cabin, having retreated to below decks, where she may occupy a corner in the cargo hold that lacks windows, so she need not look on the dizzying heights between her and the ground. She has re-arranged a few crats to make a sort of room of her own, and is crouched in front of a lantern. Her face is bare, with her mask held in her hands as she works, swiftly, on a bit of maintenance.
"...I think that I know why it is," a sullen, largely flat voice speaks up at the dryad's back, muffled slightly by the obstacle of a mask, "that I find it upsetting, so."
Tristania tilts her head, upon hearing the sound. She calmly lifts her mask and secures it over ehr face, taking the time to adjust the straps and make sure it is both comfortable and secure; she does this in silence, and only when she is finished, does she slowly turn her head to face Alba. She looks her over with a flick of her eyes, before offering a nod. "Viera," she greets, her own voice just as flat. "You have come to share your displeasure."
"It is an upsetting thing," Alba insists, speaking half to Tristania, half to... something else. Perhaps herself, perhaps something unseen, but the occasional gesture Tristania's way leaves little room for doubt. "Upsetting for its smallness, its beaked nose jabbing upon all it sees beneath it."
Tristania pauses, and an eyebrow rises behind her mask. She stares back at Alba, and folds her arms across her chest. She holds this pose for a long moment, before turning back to face the lantern. "It," she replies, calmly, "Is also busy, and has no time for idle chatter." She pulls the crude doll off her belt, and begins a detailed inspection of it; bits and pieces are teased at, to repair some of the damage done by repeatedly stabbing it with needles. "Perhaps the viera should reach her point swiftly."
"The viera shall reach her point when the path of her words has found its clearing," Alba snaps back, "for it is in sore need of instruction, and would do well to hear with both ears." There's a moment of silence, as Alba settles down into a cross-legged seat, on the crate it had been crouched upon. "Once, there was a young Viera. In pain and madness was she raised, for her mother had been destroyed by the Mists, yet continued to breathe and think, in its way. A Fiend-that-walks, the mother was, and the young Viera and its brother and sister and later cousin were all it had."
"Then it was fortunate," Tristana snaps, interjecting her words. "Fortunate *beyond words*. A brother, a sister, and a cousin? Three, upon whom it may depend and love and be depended on?" She snorts loudly. "And 'all it had', the viera says, as if this young viera were somehow destitute." She flips the doll over, and tsks at several holes, which she straight away begins to mend, without turning to face away from her work at any point.
"When she had seen seven summers," Alba goes on, as though Tristania hadn't bothered to speak, "her mother had forgotten to feed her, again. Eldest she was, and the clan it followed upon the Sandsea refused to aid them. Blood of madness, they were, and their mother was only suffered to follow as it would not turn its madness upon them. For three days, they hungered and thirsted, until in desperation the young Viera caught a small lizard; less than a mouthful for each. At seven summers, the young Viera was called to work as trained hunters, for no other help there was to fill their bellies."
Tristania grunts wordlessly. The dryad finishes with her doll, for the time being, and replaces it upon her belt. Apparently lacking anything else that needs to be fixed, she remains in her current position, and assumes a rather... tired posture. Her elbows rest on her knees as she leans forwards, lacing her fingers together, and waiting for the tale to continue.
"Years and years pass," Alba says, "what lay within them matters not. The young Viera has seen sixteen summers, and her heart is full of anger. Her mother, mad, often carries by a Fiend's hate, all but insensate otherwise. Her younger siblings, often dependent upon the meat she may bring within the home, and what they may steal from Mother's notice. The young Viera has tired of such life, has spend long and long and long seeing the children of the clans be held in tenderness and love. 'Where is love for this one?' she asks, sorrow wrenching her guts in the darkness and chill of the Sandsea nights. The clan passes by a cave. Within the Sandsea, the caves are well known to carry thick Mists, deep within."
THe dryad continues to sit, facing away, moving only to straighten her hair or adjust how she sits. She does tilt her head at the mention of the cave, and she tsks once again, much as she did for the damage to her doll. "So," she replies. "Either the spiteful viera did something smart, or something predictable. I am given to think it was the former. By all means, elaborate, as you have been doing."
"The young Viera sees the cave, and wonders. If perhaps she may understand her mother's madness, perhaps she may know her mother's love. Foolish and full of old anger and older hurt, she slips into the cave, and breathes deep of the Mists. Deep, and long, until the Mists have wrenched her mind from its moorings. And so she is found, and dragged away." There's the whisper of silk against silk, claws against bone, and the voice loses its muffling. "I am certain it may guess what she finds upon waking, for it has guesses of the worth of all it sees."
"It finds that it is no further ahead. It does not understand its mother's love, because there is none. There is only madness, and perhaps certain motions that are retained from habit, such as not stabbing her children to death." She sits up straighter, and stretches until her muscles pop softly. She leans forwards, and blows out the lamp; her makeshift alcove is plunged into darkness, but for what light comes in through the open hatch. The dryad stands, and turns to face Alba full on. "Perhaps I am right, perhaps not?"
"She finds that she has been foolish, stupid. She is no closer to understanding than she was before. Further, yet, for understanding is what the mind exists to do, and she has stomped upon her mind until it is cracked and loose. Summers pass, and she is half-mad, still full of anger and hurt. She leaves her family, and finds herself aboard an airship. Before another summer passes, she is a part of the ship's crew, tasked to watch for Mist, and slay Fiends. Her family finds her, and it is her Brother that gives to her wisdom, that takes root and grows. 'Try,' he speaks to her. 'Understand these people, these wetlanders. See how they live, learn what you may of their ways and their minds.'"
Tristania shakes her head, and snorts loudly. "So the mad viera becomes one of the crowd," she replies. "Or at least tries to pretend. I assume this is some parable to convince me to speak with kind words to those around me. But this is a foolish quest; I am a dryad. I am wood, unyielding, and my nature does not change." She crosses her arms beneath her breasts, and glowers. "Fear not. I will act to defend the group and accomplish the mission, openly and honestly. I simply have no interest in whether or not anyone likes me," she sneers for the last couple of words.
"And this is why it is an enraging thing," Alba replies, whites shining almost unnaturally bright in the backlighting of the moon, all around dark irises. "For I look upon you, and I see that you have no use for the world, and reach only for what *you* may grab, what shines brightly enough for *you* to wish to take and hold. I see a shrivelled, dry, *wasted* thing. I see a fool of a Dryad who places upon herself a mask, tells all the world it is who she is, and sits in judgment upon all that *breathes!* I wear a mask too, *Dryad.* I wear the mask of nobody, of nothing, and through its eyes I *see and understand.*" Unnaturally quickly, the mask is replaced upon the Viera's face, tied securely, and she lurches into a crouch, using claws and toenails to dig into the wood to support her, as she leans down toward Tristania, less than an inch between bone and wood. "You know *nothing,* Dryad. You *see* nothing, and you are *deaf* to the wisdom before you."
"You know *Nothing!*" The rejoinder comes as a ferocious snarl, as the dryad herself leans forwards. "So you marched about in the desert and had a miserable time, and now you think that this gives you the right to judge me? To think you understand me? *Me?* Well I shall tell you what I see. I see factories in Emberstrand, a thing I knew not the word for until I took to wandering. Wandering, because my grove is *dead*. And you know what I see, at these factories? Hundreds, thousands of trees, of my *family*, being destroyed to feed an industry that barely notices. I see throngs of people who profit by the destruction of everything my kind holds dear. Do you know why we wear masks, Viera? You think that you wearing one is the same?" She draws herself up to her full height, and bares her teeth as she grinds them together. "They sit in judgement over us, over *us*, for the crime of defending our lives and homes and families. Why should I not repay the favor?"
"I know why *I* wear a mask, *Dryad,*" Alba snarls, leaning just close enough that bone scrapes against wood. "I would *understand* why your people wear them. My ears are *open,* shrivelled hateful thing. Where are *yours?*"
The dryad glares back at the Viera, eyes reflecting just enough light that they are seen to be hard, set. "Why do dryads where masks," she repeats. She turns, whisking the beak of her mask through the air to face away. "Imagine a time when we did not. We were young. A new race upon the world, crawled out of the wood and learning to live. We were of the forest. We *are* of the forest. Even we who wander truely want nothing else. We seek not for golden coin or power or glory, but only to be left in peace, where we may be wild and savage and joyful. But that is not allowed, in this world. The cities grow, and even where they do not, they demand fuel. Not just to burn; farms are as much a blight as burning the trees. And so they come to our places, to our *homes*, and with not a care for what they do they raze everything to the ground." She draws her knobkerries, and smashes the end of it into the crate in front of Alba's feet. "So we fight back! Should we not? Has not your Emberstrand been doing just that this last year, fighting back against those who would opress them? And they have their heroes who are lauded for doing so. But what of us? We defend ourselves, and Judges come in their armor to behead us for crimes. *CRIMES!*" She howls. "Maybe your mother was a fiend trapped in woman's flesh, viera, and for that I truely am sorry. But mine loved me dearly, and taught me all that I know. And to find her slain by a Judge for defending her grove from woodcutters? Damn them. Damn them, viera, damn them *ALL*."
Through out the entire rant, the display of rage, all of it... Alba has remained more or less motionless, save the occasional shift in position that allows her to practically hang off the edge of the crate. "My ears are open, shrivelled one," she says, voice flat and quiet. "They are waiting for it to say why its people wear masks."
Tristania gestures with her knobkerrie, waggling it about in the air before pushing it back through her belt. She grinds her teeth, audibly, as she spends nearly a full minute calming herself. "We hide," she replies at last, simply and unashamedly. "When Judges came for us, or soldiers, they almost invariably won. We were slaughtered. We took up the mask for the same reason that a Judge wears his helmet; to hide our identities. To keep who we are and who we might be hidden from the world so we may survive." She glares at Alba for a moment longer, before she turns to face away. "So we may be nobody. Now, it is simply a part of us. To be without it is deeply taboo. I would no more bare my face than you would your womanly parts. Does this information satisfy you?"
"And all of its kind, they wear the mask that this one does?"
Tristania snorts. "We wear our own masks," she replies. "How could we know what another Dryad is wearing? We make what pleases us, and if our mask becomes associated with judges and soldiers and a city's destruction, we make a new one." She pauses, and perks an eyebrow upwards. "I fail to understand why this is relevant."
"Thus," Alba muses, settling back on her haunches. "The mask hides not who you are, for one Dryad could be told from the next, by the knowing of its mask. Hn." Lifting a shoulder, she tips an ear. "A foolishness little different from the Viera who rove the length and breadth of Terra, to appease the Wood and to rediscover Firsthome. Fortunate you are, and your people. You have an enemy to *hate,* to point upon and say 'there, these are our enemies.'" Her head tilts to one side, ear dipping backward. "Imagine then, what it must mean to know that none are responsible for your doom but yourself."
The dryad lifts her shoulders. "My hatred makes me stronger," she replies. "Perhaps yours does, as well. Perhaps it does not. That is for you to decide." She stretches, arching her spine. "Your plight is yours to grapple with, viera. I will not interfere. It is not my place to do so. I have no quarrel with you or the others, and as I have said, you may rest assured that I will fight and act in the best interests of the group. But that is where it ends. I am not going to cozy up to people I have spent my life considering to be my enemy."
"And this is where you are foolish," Alba mutters. "There would be those who would stand at your side, face your enemies as their own. There would be those who would make your weakness theirs, and their strength yours. And scarred in mind and Mist-maddened I may be, *I* have learned this lesson of the Wetlands." Uncoiling, she turns her back on the Dryad. "What trees that do not bend, break, when the storm comes. You know nothing, Dryad. Perhaps one day, you shall learn." And with that, she hops off the wooden wall, slinking out of the hold toward the den of silence, she has claimed for herself and her SUmmoner.
Tristania waits until the viera has fully retreated, holding her tongue until she is, once again, alone. Slowly, she reaches up to tug her mask off her face, and shakes her hair loose. She stands in the darkness, running her fingers over the edge of her mask. "Easy wisdom to speak at leisure," she observes, speaking just barely loud enough for herself to hear. "But where, viera... where do I seperate the sincere from the liars?"
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