~Chapter 25~
Living in the Sal'air'nyne Quarter gave Mae a unique perspective on how one could live. Aside from the odd personal item, everything brought into the hive city, belonged to the hive. Doors, specifically, were absent from everywhere except relief closets and the homes of Non-Ji'vie, although even those were open near all the time.
While inside the palace, the second through to the fifth floors were nothing but equally sized rooms, sitting areas with tables in the front and bedrooms in the back; mostly they were just rooms filled with cushions, blankets, furs and the like, with the occasional kitchen and laundry room speckled in between. These room were the Ji'vie's living quarters, aside from the young and elderly, who lived in the more quiet and spacious dormitories in the city outside of the hive, which often made it difficult to find someone, since even as Ji'vie had rooms they favored, nothing was explicitly assigned. Some of the rooms were kept warmer than others, and some were even chilled, so when one was tired, it was simply a matter of finding a room with some space and settling down for the night. Even Mae had found herself on occasion grabbing a spot in a pile of Ji'vie if she found herself unwilling to trek up the ramp to her room on the ninth floor of the palace.
Mae had come to settle into the lifestyle of the Quarter rather quickly, and before the end of her first season, she knew a large portion of the population by name; a small perk of spending most of her time with Athilaan.
Hidai, however, never truly took to his surroundings. While at first Mae kept him out of his stone in hopes that he would come to acclimate to the new environment, he showed continued signs of stress and discomfort, at least while inside the palace. Eventually she recalled him to his stone and only brought him out when they were in the city proper, when she and Athilaan would go for a proper spelunking or spend time on the lake shore watching the shepards; bioluminescent tadpole looking creatures with pectoral fins, the size of blue whales, drift like ghosts beneath the surface.
The lake was always an enticing place to Mae, but as much as she wanted to swim in it, the water was constantly near boiling, making it impossible. Lucky for her though, in the basement of the palace there were a large number of lagoons, along with the main baths, that while only suitable for Ji'vie to soak in, the largest made a delightful small swimming pool for her.
Mae continued to train on the same schedule as before, only now her teacher was a blue-eyed Ji'vie named Trilukan, although he was referred to by near everyone as Auk. Auk was surprisingly small for a Ji'vie, but he was no less intimidating. He made no exceptions for Mae, the disparities between their two species becoming more apparent as the months went by. For while she managed to excel and keep up with her class in magic, she was wholly useless against the Ji'vie when it came to martial training. Now while Auk was prone to disapproving glares and covering his eyes as to not have to watch her suffer defeat after defeat, her fellow classmates held nothing against her. They were constant in their encouragement, offered advice when they could, and were never disparaging. Regardless of her shortcomings, she was treated the same as everyone else, at least until classes got out.
Outside of the classroom, she felt like a celebrity. There wasn't a Ji'vie that didn't acknowledge her in some way. She knew it was because of Nimaro and what he had shared with them, giving them random new experiences a bit at a time, hoping to prolong their enjoyment of learning about her and her world.
About the palace Mae could see the influence her knowledge was having on the Ji'vie, as they began to paint shop ceilings blue and added murals of earthly scenery to their walls. Greetings shifted to 'Howdy ma'am' and new decorations for their akress began to appear a little at a time. Some even took to wearing scarves and bandanas, and had it not been strange for any of them to wear cloths, she half expected to see them producing T-shirts with their favorite movie quotes sprawled across them in bold blocky letters. In a way, she could more easily see Jack's influence in them, shot to the heart, both bitter and sweet. For Jack had a love for old movies, mostly western and samurai, and despite the vast array of movie genres she enjoyed, it seemed Jack's favorites were the ones the Ji'vie enjoyed too.
The Ji'vie were like children in their curiosity and adults in their intrigue and had a habit of recreating altered versions of anything they found in her knowledge that fascinated them. Mae had barely been in the Quarter a season, when a bowling alley and saloon opened on the northside of the courtyard, although it wasn't quite the same as Mae recalled. With pins being made from mushroom stalks and bowling balls of polished stone, even the smallest of which were too heavy for her to lift, she kept to the sidelines and watched the hilarity of the gangly aliens attempting to look graceful in positions that were completely unnatural to them. Behind the bar, the tender could always be found wearing an apron and hand polishing the glasses, which were all scaled up in size to fit the hands of the Ji'vie, their shot glass being a standard 8oz cup, completely missing the point of it being called a shot. But they didn't seem to care, and Mae wasn't going to bother filling them in and spoiling their fun. Truly she was just happy they had something small enough that she could use as a normal glass. Even the food had morphed into Earthly looking fare, although resembling in appearance rarely duplicated into flavor. She had truly enjoyed living in the Quarter, and even after nearly a year, she hadn't gotten tired of watching the Ji'vie work their way through all the knowledge Nimaro had derived from her.
Besides the Ji'vie, Mae also became familiar with a group of five Cyb'nyk that traveled to the palace once every other week for trade. Cyb'nyk were a smaller species from what Mae could tell, given that none of the five she met were over five feet tall, and like the Ji'vie were more animal than humanoid. Their features were like that of an opossum and their colorings like that of a racoon. While refusing to wear most types of clothing, they did seem to favor vests and hats, and not one had less than four 'enhancements' attached to their bodies, be it ocular implants or mechanical limb upgrades. They weren't the friendliest bunch of people to get to know, as they always seemed more interested in asking questions than answering them. Their personalities were like that of used car salesmen, always hoping to sell the latest gizmos and gadgets of which few were ever purchased, always by non-Ji'vie inhabitants.
However, amongst this group, there was one that Nimaro trusted over the others, a female named Ola, probably because her personality was more subdued. The first time they met, Nimaro convinced her to let Ola examine her phone and the charger, and while she was pleased that Ola didn't damage either, it was only because she promised full salvage rights to Ola and her crew that she was able to get them back. Mae was also certain that Ola misunderstood the relationship she had to Nimaro, since she often referred to her as 'Casceel' which as far as Mae could tell was their untranslatable word for what Nimaro described as a gold-digger. And while nothing ever came from the examination Ola did, since Mae had refused to allow her to take anything apart, despite her assurances that it would be given back in perfect working order, the salvage agreement guaranteed Mae was always a priority stop when they came by the Quarter, just to make sure they continued to hold the salvage rights. She found them a peculiar lot, but she did appreciate feeling like an adult around them.
Before she knew it, another year had passed, and her training had come to an end. Of the six levels of training, Mae had completed the first three; the only ones to be found in a classroom. Everything going forward could only be gained through practical experience, something that Mae was still sorely lacking. Thus, it was time for her to return to the surface.
Mae had visited Ven on several occasions and had been lucky enough to catch Karanosi a time or two, although she never quite managed to get used to the feeling that being pulled by the binding stone left her with, which was the entire reason she didn't visit more.
It was winter again, now three and a half years since Mae had arrived on Sah'Korhune. While she had been living in the Sal'air'nyne Quarter with Nimaro, Ven and Kyurn had been growing, building, and renovating the Canba tree they had planted, into a house, so it would be ready when she returned. At two levels high, it was slightly more compact compared to Ven's home. Her bedroom, where a sitting room should be, overlooked the valley, and her sitting room was next to the kitchen. The second floor being the closet and laundry room. And to Mae it was cozy and wonderful. It had taken her a long time to come to terms with the thought of living on her own, but now, as the last of her things were put away, it was a welcome step forward. She once more felt like she had obtained adulthood and independence. And Hidai was just as overjoyed to be back on the surface in his own yard.
Mae had learned a great deal in the time she spent in the Quarter and now viewed the surface with a new perspective. She wasn't the same scared unfortunate soul she was when she first arrived. Things had changed and she along with them.
Magic had played a large part in the way she now saw things, and her proficiency with it had continued to grow the more she came to understand the principles of how their magic worked, discovering innovative ways to manipulate her element by mixing it with others. While the basic training had been strict and rigid, she learned quickly that true mastery of the magic required an openness and fluidity.
By the time the snow had melted, and a new spring had begun, Mae knew that it was time for her to leave the safety of the valley behind. She still had a number of questions about the task that she had been given, namely about who Strativar was, and the city for which he was being kept. Even with all the information she had gathered between the Ji'vie and the library in Tag'thyr, there was little that could be considered relevant, as most all was viewed through a bias lens or written in an unfavorable light, painting the Draynar to be horrific, power-hungry, merciless tyrants, more keen on bathing in blood than working towards peace. Most of the stories she was told depicted them as blue-skinned monsters, that enjoyed cleaving the akress from Ji'vie because they relished listening to them scream. To the Ji'vie, the Draynar were known more for their torture techniques than anything else. The books in Tag'thyr's library were also of little help, giving only a breakdown on the known history of the Draynarian people, and the various victories and defeats in battles and wars that had been fought through the ages. But there was also a bitterness to be found in the way they were written. Skewing the Thay as the victims when they lost, and the justified when they won. And the only mention she ever found of Strativar Ral'shin Stroff was in a paragraph that called him the 'short-lived King of Ix', stating that after just two decades of rule, his younger brother, Prince Zalryn Chomblan Stroff, stole the throne out from under his older sibling, although the means by which this happened was left unexplained.
She spent two days packing and preparing for the journey ahead, enjoying a feast with Ven and Karanosi the night before she was to depart. Her plan was to first head to Sap'letor to catch a flight to the neutral city of Vaughn in the west, and from there, another to the city of Ix, capital of Boem'thol's Empire, and home of the Draynarian people.