Nasenorya, the city of the Night

Sophia looked up at the city wall looming over her, awed by its height. The iron gate before her seemed ridiculously small in contrast. It was a side entrance, ‘guarded’ by only a single guard - a sleeping lump of man on the grass. As Sophia gazed at his red-themed clothing, tabard and mail, she noticed her hair was not trying to get into her eyes. Further inspection found that it had been wrapped in a brown piece of cloth, a rare, though unusually consistent phenomenon. Sophia happily welcomed the head wrap - people seemed to act nicer to her whenever she wore it.

The guard, a man called William, well into his twenties, was catching up on the hours sleep he’d missed by spending his time in the tavern. By all means, he should have been able to. The gate he was assigned to was an incredibly narrow entrance to the slums, of no value to besiege or pass through. It was a little more than surprising when a young girl woke him up.
“Whoa!” The guard scrambled to his feet, and was shamed by his hand, that had instinctively gone for his sword. He faced a child, obviously struck with misfortune in both her frail body and few possessions. She wore no shoes, her turban was shabby, and her tunic was small, too small. It was unsightly and indecent, but above all, pitiful. William could see her shapes – or rather, complete lack thereof – right through it. And she was trying to hug the gate.
“How did you get here, missy?” The guard rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and wondered if he had woken up at all. There was some kind of surreal music playing inside his head and it made it hard to concentrate.
Sophia ceased trying to push the gate open and briefly pondered. That was actually a very good question. Had she crossed the drawbridge behind her? When had she descended from the hill she’d looked out on the city from?
“Um, we don’t know,” she answered, her eyes cast to the ground. “I think we took the distance between where I was and here and put it behind me but um, I’m really not sure. Can I go now please? I think our mom is in there.” Sophia pointed at the locked iron gate.
“Your mother? Why would she have left her daughter?” William asked his questions with all the delicacy he could muster. The child was evidently touched in her head, and his heart ached for her.
“Oh um,” Sophia said, nervously digging her bare feet into the soil. “She never really leaves me, you know, not really. And I’m kind of not her daughter but she’s still our mom, except when she’s um, not. I don’t really get it but a super big turtle said I had to go here and his words sort of looked like rainbows in my head so can we go in?”
William shook his head. Like he could send a girl like this into the slums of Nasenorya with a clear conscience. “There are a lot of bad people in this part this city. Tell you what, if you wait until my shift is over, I’ll take you to Rasmorya myself. But I can’t let you in.”

“Can we go out then?”

“Out?”
“Yes.” Sophia pointed at something behind William. The guard turned around, expecting to see the quiet noon scenery of grassland pierced by a slightly swerving road. Instead, he looked at the dirty, refuse-strewn streets of Nasenorya. The decayed buildings of the Twin City slums.
“Huh?! Weren’t you just- were we? I don’t get-” William exclaimed, shocked and confused. He hadn’t drunk, had he? “I… yes, of course you can get out.”
“Thanks!” Sophia said, meeting eyes with the guard for the very first time. “But I don’t want to because we have to go this way to my mom so bye!” The girl slipped past the guard and casually, without a wary hair on her head, pranced into a part of Muiren most grown men would choose to avoid.

The guard, for his part, returned to the side of the gate he was supposed to guard, unable to comprehend what kind of trick his mind had played on him. It was not the last. William, right-handed from the moment he was born, was now left-handed. Unable to get used to the change, he was stabbed in the heart in a fight two weeks later.

William miraculously survived. The healers were astonished to find his heart not on the left, but on the right side of his chest. Under the pretense of rehabilitation, Guardsman William left the city the moment he was discharged. He travelled Muiren and beyond, and found a small village by the sea to live at, where he worked as a fisherman to make a living. There, he fell in love with the mayor’s fifth daughter. They married shortly after. Four sons and two daughters they raised together, and William became a steadfast and fair mayor whom all villagers relied on. It is said that he died a peaceful death, survived and surrounded by all of his children.

Not once did he speak about his days in the twin cities of Muiren, where he met a girl with an ocean in her eyes.

A warm breeze flutters into the room, causing the tattered drapes to dance and sway. The inn room is nothing special. It’s the cheapest in the town, but hey, so long as it has a roof and walls, it’d be just fine with the woman slumbering within a hammock wedged into the corner. Actually this unbridled lady doesn’t mind sleeping out under an open sky either. Every now and then though it’s nice to indulge one’s self, return to civilization if only for a few days. This rogue comes and goes at random. No set seasons, no set days nor months. It keeps the merchants on their toes as she brings back as fine beast hide or treasure as she can. She has a handful of acquaintances in the city and looks after them dearly (only to keep her own arse covered). Her favorite sort of night is one at the bar with her friends, roughing things up and getting into a brawl with them. There are dangers upon her however. Her left eye softly glows even beneath her soft eyelid. It's just waiting, that foul ocular, to leer at its next prey. And of course along with the rogue is her dearest companion, Himmel. And oh my Himmel. The oddly colored gryphon is currently crawling along the dusty wood flooring, gazing up at his rider with anxious mirth. The creature suddenly lunges with a shrill whistle as he dives onto the slumbering woman, crashing the hammock to the floor with his tremendous weight. Finch utters a colorful string of curses as she awakens, trying to fend off that potent beak that’s nuzzling her face. “Himmel! What’re you doing? You should be in the stables, you stupid animal!” the clawed rogue sputters, finally shoving her feathered mount away.

Once outside of the cheap inn after paying a measly fee, Finch has Himmel all set with his riding gear. The bridle on his beak, reins around his lovely throat and his plush saddle hitched behind his shoulders. Gryphons are able to carry heavy loads but the woman is lithe and without heavy frame, making flying easier for Himmel. Uttering a loud waaark!, said gryphon pecks at a passerby who has wandered too closely. He's not the friendliest of creatures. With a sneer and a scoff Finch grabs one of his feathered ear tufts to remind him to behave himself in town. Lips puckering in thought her one revealed eye glances about, that jungle jewel of an orb roiling with mayhem and malice. Finch approaches the market first and purchases a pear and a hen. Leading Himmel away from the market she grips the bawking hen by its legs while biting the pear to hold it with her pearly teeth. The rogue lady finds a suitable perch onto the fountain and drops the hen.

As soon as it's dropped the hen hurries to stand up in a flurry of feathers. Tilting its head this way and that, it barely has time to perceive the predator diving towards it. With a cluck of distress it turns to scamper off, but Himmel lunges, muscles rippling as he lowers his head to snap at the live poultry. There's a loud squawk as the hen's legs are bitten off. It thumps about on useless, bleeding stubs. Since his rider had been holding the hen by its legs, Himmel had wanted to try. However the gryphon doesn't know his own strength. Wings arched and crest erect, he proceeds to attack and maim his breakfast. All awhile Finch leans back onto the fountain with an amused smile as she proudly observes her mount's savagery. Of course she's already dressed in her light leather armor caked in muck and blood. Finch had just been raiding a tomb before coming into this town. The inn was closed when she arrived so late in those unholy hours of the night. So she proceeded to have Himmel screech and blatantly beat at the building's windows with his wings. Until, of course, the inn keeper caved in and allowed Finch entrance. As the vibrantly colored beast continues to maul the helpless little hen his rider doesn't blink, only enjoying her pear. Mayhap she is even imagining herself ripping the plump poultry apart.

In truth she shouldn't be so casual. Finch has only been released from prison last week. She's supposed to be fixing this nation wide issue. Being a rogue she has no clear concern nor direction for such a thing. The woman has carelessly been taking her time and doing other things. All things pertaining to herself of course. For now the rogue continues to admire her exotic mount's insatiable appetite. Her own being non-existent, she dislikes eating really but will do so in the company of her best friend. Not that anyone could tell she eats at all. Finch is basically a walking skeleton. She has no womanly curves to speak of although this makes cross-dressing a cinch when she needs to hoodwink guards or nobles at a party. Her long hair is greasy, strung down from her scalp and sludging over her prominent cheekbones. With androgynous features and an equally androgynous voice, who's to say Finch is even a woman? She chucks the core of the pear into the murky fountain before spying a very frail and pale creature stumbling about. Well, well, well...what do we have here? Come here little lamb.

She slinks from the mud and siddles up to the girl, a single bright eye observing that petite form. Gold? Does the whelp have any gold on her? Would anyone notice she's missing anytime soon? Finch smiles with faded white teeth but doesn't make eye contact. It's not in the rogue's nature. "Oh you dear thing...are you lost?" she tilts her head in Sophia's direction before glancing off towards her sulking gryphon.

Sophia danced through the dirty, of human waste-reeking slums called Nasenorya, playing hopscotch with the cobblestones beneath her bare feet. The game was made significantly more difficult by the fact that said stones were not exactly set in stone – except they were, but not really. The narrow streets echoed with shifting pavement, rocks swimming through sand like mad dogs thrown in water, desperately trying to avoid her feet. In her conquest for dominion over the stonefishes, Sophia unknowingly – or at least, without noticing – strayed from her path. Similarly unnoticed by her, was the fact that the stones, by chance or design, safely guided her through the city. Not a single person emerged from the decayed buildings, nor from the dark shadows they cast. Until the lady with half a face called out to her.
"Oh you dear thing...are you lost?" she asked, utterly confusing Sophia.
“Lost?” the girl asked groggily, half daring to look at the woman. They were of almost equal height – Sophia was still smaller, but it was a phenomenon so strange she instinctively shrunk away, literally. Both of them were underweight, but where the girl was emaciated and plain thin, the woman’s body was wiry and tough, and Sophia knew it not to bear one ounce of excess fat. And her eyes – no, her eye, the one not obscured by a veil of auburn hair, was the most stunning green she had ever seen. Sophia managed to catch its gaze, and part of her, for only that merest instant, fell in love.
“Lost?” she repeated, dreamily. “No. I think I’m found. Hello.”

Sophia turned around and resumed her way, but paused after a couple of paces.
“So I’m… um, we’re going this way. Your hair is really neat… bye.” The girl took another number of faltering steps, then stopped and started biting her nails. “Um… can you come with me because we think our nothings might get robbed by a greedy skeletonlady with a flying eaglething.”
Only then did Sophia take notice of the magnificent gryphon standing by the woman’s side.
“Your flying eaglething is really cute miss skeletonlady and I bet it is fluffy can I pet him or will it bite us because once I tried to pet a dog and it bit us and we cried frogs.”

"Indeed you are found." she muttered in partial agreement with a rakish smile. The few interactions Finch has had end with a fight, murder, theft or staled stand off. And very rarely something could spark her interest. Or rather someone. Still there was no doubt in Finch's mind that she would not so much as blink if given the chance to zip a blade through this muddled child's belly. The way the girl spoke captivated Finch with rapt, morbid fascination. Such troubled folk such as that girl tended to drag others down with them. Perhaps it was a risk the rogue wished to take for the time being. No, Finch wanted to go down in history with some grand execution. As such it was enough incentive to make her cross that deadly line. Mortal lives flash in the blink of an eye on a cosmic scale. Even more bait to be taken, to get over this horrendous hunch. And learn more of the peculiar girl without the shadow of death brought to them. Finch often strides for what is nigh out of reach and what others have that is not yet in her own possession.

When an intense gaze holds the attention of her jungle hued eye it's all the woman can do to keep herself from fleeing. Gut instinct, rogue tick. She just got a let's-get-the-hell-out sensation. Yet her curiosity overwhelmed her better judgment as she watched the girl look at Himmel. Just who had she been addressing? If she claimed "nothings" then Finch would be wasting both of the time they had. Frogs? Oh gods. The woman could stand bloodshed and maimed bodies but frogs were far too much ironically. Thankfully the notion that Finch must be inquired for permission for one to touch Himmel is laughable. "Of course, cherub. I'm not the one to ask for that favor though. Himmel? May the child touch you?" while the gryphon understood Finch is a partner in crime and not a mistress, he can fathom simple tongues.

Finch stepped forth to greet her friend and nodded her head. The gryphon clucked softly and began to draw locks of her hair through his beak gently as though to groom her. His eyes swiveled to watch the small girl nearby. Unlike Finch, Himmel is well versed in the arts of behaving and tending to children. Although there was something so alarming about that one. The great bluebird puffed his throat and erected his crest with a bob of his head to exude his compliance.

An emerald mane of feathers tickled Sophia’s face, making her giggle uncontrollably. So far, her efforts at mounting the gryphon had amounted to very little – helplessly dangling from the beast’s neck was her greatest accomplishment still.
“You are sooooo cool,” she chirped and clucked in fluent Gryphon. “I want to get on you hey let me on how did dwarves get on you I don’t get it because they are really small and it is hard getting on you when you are small. But maybe I should not be sitting on you unbridled because I might be sitting directly on your spine and maybe that would be really not pleasant for either of us but mostly you.”

Even without mounting it, the mere presence of the gryphon was soothing. Sophia vaguely felt like she had done this before… before…
“Ah, for me to touch such a magnificent one in these troubled times…” the girl spoke dreamily, resting her head just beneath the withers. “I used to work with your kind, you know. A Speaker, they called me. Keeper in later years. My very own mother was among the first descended upon by your race. Godsends that bestowed flight upon us ground-bound humans. Angels, we first revered you as. Warsteeds, we forged you into. Forgive us… forgive us…”

“Have you forgotten your place, woman?!” the girl spoke, suddenly struggling with the strange throat-sounds of the Gryphon language. “The Omniumvirate decreed for the Child to meet the Mother. The Child’s recent quest for apotheosis changes nothing! Do not impede!”

“Damned coffin-dodgers,” Sophia scoffed in even more broken Gryphon, barely bothering with the simplest intonations. “Yer both stupid fer bickerin’. Flesh-rendin’ freak-bird here aside, haven’t ye noticed this woman is armed?! She an’ I, cut from identical cloth we are. Two-faced fiends, and I’ll assure ye, neither face is pretty.”

“Do not flatter yourself, Mirr,” the Keeper said, attempting to calm the now growling gryphon. “This woman has shown nothing but kindness, and she is in the favor of a gryphon. Know that no animal as noble as this one would ever align itself with the likes of you.”

“Times have changed and forever will, ye foolish fossil. Look, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about what you did to this flying freak’s ancestors, but I reckon the beasts possess enough intelligence to ditch yer sorry hides after a century or two of abuse.” Mirr retreated from the increasingly threatening gryphon and wiped her feather-greased hands off on her tunic, utterly failing to hide her disgust. “No point talkin’ to the bunch of bleedin’ useless remnants you are. It’s up to me to get us back on track. Just sit back on yer mediocrity-rooted arses and watch me.”

“The Omniumvirate does not approve of your person, Mirr, but it will support your actions. Hurry. The Tide in the Eye is rising. Reality backlash is imminent.”

“Approve? Support? Acting as if either means anything… hah.” Mirr turned towards the woman, eyes firmly locked onto her toes, avoiding all eye contact. It was impossible for her to mimic the Child’s mindless facial expressions, and secretly, so secretly she herself did not even know, Mirr felt intimidated. “I… gotta pee. Bye.”

Mirr’s bare feet slapped on dark stone as she walked off in hurried, steady strides. Soon, the strides turned into leaps. The Child never just plainly walked or ran, Mirr knew, but they were too close to their goal for time-consuming façades. Brick structures and danger-filled alleys passed her by like a crimson blur, blood dripping into her vision with each passing step. When she reached a guard post, one that she knew to border the transition of Nasenorya into Rasmorya, Mirr collapsed. Sophia had, literally, never been made for running. With luck, the guards would take the Child into Rasmorya. After that, Sophia's search for the Mother would continue. Their pilgrimage.