Green Fields Verse || Starter for @cinderella-gurei
The wind and snow was biting in its flurry around him, even as Novak was bundled up amidst layers of clothes, including the furs hooded around his features that lent him somewhat of a leonine edge. Sensing he was close to perishing (all members of his clan could feel how the cold diminishes the flow of life running through their veins but Novak has taken to also measuring the slowing of his biology through his own unique heart rate and number of strides, both of which he was pushing to their limits right now) he orients himself by shivering a hurried gloved look at a contraption he has devised that measures the directionality of flow of the lifestream and detects wind factors in terms of speed and direction also.
It takes one last gasp effort to make his way into the great cavern, and he staggers down two pathways to an alcove before collapsing against the rock there. His skin is already sticky with paradoxical sweat and it takes more than a few moments for him to bring himself round enough to start to strip off a few layers and build a fire. This was nothing new to Novak, he was born in the Knowlespole and it was the only life he knew, but it was no less disorientating and uncomfortable setting out across the great glacier region, apart from the others and the communal defences to the elements that they all provide. But he was an architect now, a seeker. He would have to start getting used to being alone.
He knows what he did at the hot-spring bordered on the blasphemous, but he could not help but explore the qualities and utility of the new materials he had traded last he had visited the capital. He had met the most interesting fellow there, with a name as uncommon to his tongue as the metal he had carried - Cid. Novak knew that was not a common Cetran name, even though he has not before done what he is now bound to do. That is, to cross over the continents and learn from the others. He sighs and shivers, moving closer to the flames, huddling his arms around his legs in thought. It was a pity Caenholdt had not met Cid too, or perhaps he had? Knowing the other man he might have even accidentally blown up that skeleton of an air sail that Cid had arrived in during one of his prodigious magic and materia experimentations.
Thinking of Caenholdt has Novak shuffling down to sleep, arranging a layer into a blanket and with one last look around lets his head meet one worn out limb. He was tempted to ask the other to join him, knowing that this life would probably appeal to the pointy-eared lad. And selfishly, that way he would not be so alone. But, no, that was entirely unfair. Caen still had a culture around him, families to love and elders to frustrate. This was his own responsibilities to carry and he was going to try his best in his duties. Head still spinning from the cold and also from the vast possibilities ahead of him, Novak finally falls to sleep, the flames of the fire licking shadows over his features.
It only takes him another two days to reach the capital and Novak hastily carries out trading, another thing well-known to him from his upbringing, swapping out furs and leather for lighter clothing for the next step along his journey. He would be sailing between the various landmasses of the knowlespole to beach at the continent to the South of them. From what he could gather it was a far more temperate climate than what he was used to, though he keeps his furred hood, affixed now with rope to the side of his backpack. As he makes his way down through the conch like structure he stops outside a pearlescent door, holding out his palm against the material and feeling it resonate an announcement of a greeting to the occupant inside. Wind whispers and runs through the glowing aquatic-blue tunnels, bringing the sounds of the sea to whip round his features.
He might not be asking Caen to join him any more, but he was still like a brother (or so he figures for his affections) to him, and he wants to see him one last time, “Caenholdt, are you inside? It’s Novak. I have much to tell you, my friend.”
