Title: After Starlight Storytales
Characters: Zoissette Vauban, Y'shtola Rhul
Rating: Teen
Summary: Zoissette explores the Noumenon, finds some books. She has... opinions.
Notes: Thanks to https://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/ for their help and collaboration with some of the arcanima worldbuilding
Strategy, Zoissette knew, was a tool to be used to manipulate one's situation into the desired reality.
And in order to ensure one's desired strategies came to fruition, proper preparation was necessary to prevent poor performance, as the saying went.
As such, Zoissette was studying maps and checking over the data she had available to her. She was on her own outside of Gage Acquisitions for the first time in a long time, and she would do well to check and double check her preparations.
First was the matter of gear and equipment. She made sure to bring out expertly made Scholar's vestments, loaded with the tools of her trade. Spare aetheric ink, pens, quills, and nibs were gathered, and her robes were such that it was easy to spirit them away in easy to access compartments. She would be able to switch the specific ink she would need to be at the point of her quill at any moment, as well as repair and replace her writing instruments in the heat of the moment should they become damaged for any reason.
Next was the matter of her codex. While other magic disciplines may have relied on staves or wands, a scholar relied heavily on the books that they carried with them. Hers was laden with shortcuts, lookup tables for complex mathematical operations, and of course plenty of pages on which she could write future tactics to influence current situations. The paper was of surpassing quality, and would be able to survive a wide variety of disastrous eventualities. In fact, with the enchantments bestowed upon it, it was even proof against the elements. The book could safely be tossed into a fire, and she would but need to pluck it free to resume her spellwork or notations as needed.
Last of her gear was perhaps the most important, the small pouch in which she would slide her soul stone, the self same soul stone where her fairy familiar, Lavender, resided. Lavender could be called upon to assist at a moment's notice, and often acted as a multiplicative force on Zoissette's own abilities. Zoissette felt herself more than capable in many situations, it was true, but with Lavender she often felt as though she was as able as two or maybe even three people. Lavender was another mind to lean on, clever and quick, flexible and adroit, and Zoissette had been long glad of her company.
The gear situation sorted, Zoissette turned her attention to other matters. With her maps and directions, as well as her own prior experience, she felt she knew the terrain well. She knew where she was going, and about how long she would take. Of course, before she even began formulating her tactics, she had made sure to spare a thought for her own strengths and weaknesses. She knew herself well enough that she calculated a series of eventualities, starting from what she would like to plan, but allowing also for her personal tendencies to possibly disrupt the plan. How long this would take would vary greatly depending on how she met the terrain.
As such, she reserved several pouches for spare notebooks, but also for spare food. She would need foodstuffs that were both edible and reasonably tasty, but also easy to preserve and unlikely to spoil. It was also important that they be discrete to carry and consume, lest she attract unwanted attention. Along with that, provisions for water were put into a few canteens, lest she find herself unable or, for whatever reason, unwilling to seek out reasonable sources while she was in situ.
Lastly, the part of her preparations where she actually did the planning. Potential paths were decided upon, as well as avenues for exploration or evasion, should it come to that. And considering the tasks ahead of her, she was careful to key in enchantments into her glasses. Alarms were set to make sure that she was both resting at regular intervals, as well as reminders regarding wake up times and meal times. Of course, some of these plans were more flexible than others. Eating times could be adjusted as needed, but rest times, she decided, would need to be strictly observed, lest she find herself in an uncomfortable situation at an inopportune time - or worse. And just to be sure, she instructed Lavender to serve as a backup, to which the fairy, of course, agreed.
She slept on the matter overnight. There was no immediate rush, but once she was in, she would be committed, and it would not do for her to not take the time, be well rested, and look over her planning again with a fresh mind.
And so she woke up, and checked again. Clothing, gear, food, water, schedule, other equipment, and backup plans as well as general solutions for unforeseen eventualities.
Finally satisfied that her preparations were all in order, Zoissette performed her final checks. She was careful to make sure she took everything with her. She would not be returning to her current quarters in particular, and she wished to leave no trace behind that she had ever been in guest housing in Old Sharlayan.
Once she was ready, she squared her shoulders, and headed out to at last begin her mission.
And after a short walk, she arrived at her destination. Noumenon, that bastion of Old Sharlayan's collective knowledge, and one of the greatest libraries in the civilized world.
She walked inside, looking up in wonder at the tall shelves of books. Always in wonder. She had been here before, of course. She had research that needed done after the Scions had first landed, research on how to get Gage Acquisitions onto the island nation legally and with a minimum of fuss, research on the history of the Forum... research, always more research. And despite how often she was here, she was certain she would never lose the sense of wonder the place invoked in her.
It was beautiful to her, in a way she could not quite articulate. The sight of seeing so many shelves filled to the brim. The feel of leather and bindings under her fingers as she ran them across spines. The differences in lettering, colors and fonts that had been chosen. The smell of ages of paper and book covers. The way it had been carefully organized and curated. Mammets and peers wandering between the shelves. The enchantments visible to her with but a tap along the rim of her glasses. And just the sheer thought of what it all represented.
She was always moved, same as if she had caught sunset in Gyr Albania at just the right time, or the many times she had woken up to watch dawn crest over the hills of Coerthas. Every time. It was special, every time. Here there was everything from the most banal observations of a pretentious noble to the quiet wisdom of ascetics of ages past, collections of mathematical notation and discovery, documentation of scientific progress, drawing books and learning books and everything in between. It was all precious, and it was all here, in one place. The work of so many minds with so many goals, all collected, collated, protected, and now, appreciated.
And it was just her. No goals other than her own, no office to rush back to, and no real obligations at least until after Heavensturn.
She found herself fair giddy.
She registered Lavender as a research assistant at one of the side desks, and once she had been approved for use of the familiar, she sent the fairy out to search for certain texts. This time was her own, but she did have goals in being here. She was an expert in multiple disciplines, and she had seen the fruits of her labor when she had travelled to the Thirteenth alongside the others. At that point, though, she had gone along as support.
Now she would be going as fellow researcher. Her mathematical conceptualization of negative energy had been of help, as well as her work into aetheric conversion, but she felt she should know more if she was to avoid being a burden. And anyroad, she always had that desire to know more, that intense curiosity that had served her well throughout her life.
Her research carried her forward for many bells, before one of her alarms went off, a gentle glowing rune appearing in her vision, and a soft pinging in her ear only she could hear, both delivered by one of the many myriad enchantments she had in her glasses. She broke for lunch, choosing to sit just outside the building with what rations she had brought with her. Once she was done, back inside she went.
It was not over long before her tendencies caught up with her, but this, too, had been accounted for in her plans, so it was alright. She sought out the works of her friends, curious to see which of whose publishing had made it all the way to Noumenon. Apple's work was available, of course. The results of Ryssthota's latest did not seem to have made it yet, but she was intrigued to find older work from the woman, and checked out the appropriate journal to peruse later.
Over in the area more concerned with summoning, she found Riven's treatises, as well as an unexpected gem from Synnove. She remembered the woman from back in her time in the Assessor's office. She perused both woman's work quickly, but not in depth. It was interesting to see the similarities and differences in their pursuits. Both made heavy use of tattoos, which still seemed incredibly novel to Zoissette. It essentially marked them both as masters without peer, in a way. And their works on arcanima were always interesting to read.
Zoissette read through Synnove's work and admitted, that while she thought she might understand their work, she was unlike to replicate it herself. The art of summoning, as they practiced it, seemed so very different from her own approach to arcanima. Synnove seemed to have a more holistic, big picture, top-down approach that centered on the results in her carbuncles. Zoissette always felt her work, deriving at it did from the Nymian perspective, was more concerned with incremental work from first principles, building from the bottom-up. And Synnove worked much more closely with the living aether, shaping it, drawing it in, while Zoissette preferred the fractals and patterns to do the heavy lifting necessary for her fairy to function.
She mused, however, that her thoughts would seem odd to an outsider. Did they not all work with living aether and math? Well, they did, but the details mattered, in arcanima more than any other discipline. She spent a few bells reviewing the work against her own, and seeing if there was anything she could apply cross-discipline. Ultimately she decided against it. The voidsent emulation her and Lavender had arrived at could possibly be more volatile with living aether, though it could also possibly be made more stable with the gemstones so central to a carbuncle's form, but in either case, adapting would take more time than refining her own approach. Zoissette set the book back and moved on, quietly offering a whispered prayer of well wishes as she did so.
She decided it was time for another break. She set an alarm, and wandered outside for a bit, enjoying some mixed nuts she had brought with her and emptying one of her canteens as she did so. She sat on a bench and watched as the peoples of Old Sharlayan went about their day, fresh students to experienced Archons, gleaners and artisans, and others beside. It was as lively as any other city.
She wondered idly what it would be like to live in Old Sharlayan full time.
When she returned to the stacks, she decided to allow herself to be just a touch self-indulgent. Avoiding the staff who could have helped her, she instead found a mammet to do so, and, after carefully making sure nobody could overhear her request, she quietly asked for a search of her own works. The mammet quickly and discretely led her to what she sought, and she pulled out a book that had her name on its spine.
It was a treatise on Nymian mathematics. There were other scholars, but her and Alka Zolka had been among the first to not only do a deep dive on their methodologies, but also to document their findings. And as far as Zoissette knew, she was the first person in the age to have managed to feat of creating a fairy from base principles, rather than relying on modifying an existing one, or finding a Nymian soul stone that already had one. She leafed through the book a little. It was, of course, in pristine condition. There were enchantments and cantrips on it to keep it so. It was almost as well protected as her own codex.
She touched a hand to the rim of her glasses to activate its own suite of enchantments, and the book flared to a new life in front of her. Some methods of modifying the book were strictly verboten by the policy most any keeper of knowledge in Eorzea would have recognized. The tearing or excessive folding of pages, bending the spine too far, base mutilation was out of the question. As was writing in the book with permanent writing inks, or paints and pigments, or other vandalism. However, other methods of modifying the book were not only acceptable, but encouraged. New enchantments could be layered into the system of existing ones, and special aetheric ink, invisible to the naked eye when left untouched, could be used.
And so with either the right enchantments oneself may have - such as the ones in Zoissette's glasses - or with a pulse of aether from someone who knew what they were doing, a hidden world of new knowledge could be created, shared, and looked into. She was pleased to see the annotations of other scholars in her book, as well as updates from some of them on findings from their own research. There were also notes on clever applications of some of her work, or expansions upon the same. She leafed through it, looking at the runes as they glowed and hovered in the air around the book, footnotes and marginalia that had been added by those who had come after and been interested enough in her work to engage with it deeply.
Grinning and giddy, she looked around to make sure nobody was watching, and then she carefully replied back to some of the notes she could answer to quickly. She was secretly pleased by the attention, as well as gratified that despite the fact she had placed few protections against misuse, there was no vandalism in her own tome. As she paged through, however, she stopped in one section that did a deep dive into aetheric theory.
There was notes from Y'shtola. Zoissette checked the magicks, to see when the note had been added, and saw that it had occurred not so very long ago. She quickly did some math in her head. It would had to have to have been shortly after Y'shtola had recovered from the events that had left her body bereft of soul, incapacitated for moons.
And one of the first things she had done was to come here, find one of Zoissette's works, take the time to read the book, understand it enough to make some notes in it, and then to return it to the shelves, updated with new knowledge.
Zoissette did not know what to do with this new information. She wanted to take the book and do a deep dive on every note that had been made, and now especially the update from Y'shtola. But she also felt oddly even more embarrassed than she did when she had indulged her pride in checking on it in the first place. She put it back, and decided that perhaps it was time to redirect her energies elsewhere in the library.
And so she sought lighter reading for a while, as she drifted to other sections of the library. She moved slowly, now, but did not spend any large amount of time with any tome. Any book that truly began to snag her interest, she stopped to make a note to return to it later, or perhaps ask the mammets about possibly borrowing it for a time. However, as the day turned to early evening, her discipline began to slip, and she was finding herself spending more and more time in individual books, cross referencing against her own knowledge, and engaging deeply with the expanded magical annotations many of them had.
Before she knew it, it was almost dinner time, and she decided that perhaps she should settle on one last book before taking her leave. She decided to leave it to whim, glancing quickly over titles on spines, when she happened upon one labelled Forever Twenty Summers. Curious as to what the meaning of such a statement could be, she pulled the book out, and began to read it.
It was a treatise on how to take care of oneself, it seemed. Though the information it contained seemed sound enough, the central thesis seemed amusingly absurd. The book spoke about how to eat well, exercise and tone the body for reasonably sustainable fitness, and the use of arcane techniques, all in the name of maintaining a body's humours balanced, the mind healthy, and the wholistic fitness of a person in order to ensure a life as long and useful as was practicable. The core idea, however, was the stated goal that whatever age the reader of the tome happened to be when they came across it, they should aspire to remain that age forevermore, through the use of the techniques the book detailed.
Zoissette read the book, deeply amused. She checked the annotations of various people who had come across the book, and she tapped the rim of her glasses to bring up her own note system. A quick check of various images she had stored, and she found a particular work from Ishgard she wished to compare with the Sharlayan tome. The Seasons of the Shieldmaiden against the lessons of Forever Twenty Summers. They both spoke broadly on the same matters of self care, but each had very different ideals in mind in the goal of doing so.
She cancelled an alarm, and waved off Lavender when the fairy flitted near. "Just this last one," she reassured the familiar, who frowned at her while crossing her arms, but after a moment nodded and flitted down to rest on her shoulder. Dinner could wait a half bell or so. Zoissette had found her fun.
Zoissette was deeply engrossed in the book when someone did something so rude she was almost knocked out of her reverie.
"Ah," they said. "I see you've found a book that I myself have found quite useful. I believe I indulged in it from an early age, shortly after the exodus was affected. I wonder, how are you finding it?"
She frowned, and was inclined to ignore the person. It would be unspeakably rude to do so, but answering rudeness with rudeness was, generally, acceptable.
But, of course, she could not bring herself to do so. She gathered a response in her mind, trying to consider the best way to be polite.
But she was on sabbatical.
And they were interrupting her.
"Fascinating," she replied, breezily. "I had it on good authority that Sharlayan did not have much in the way of storytales, and yet, here I found one. In the reference section, no less."
"A storytale? Perhaps it is not the tome I imagined it to be. I was fair certain that was Forever Twenty Summers, however."
"It is," said Zoissette, not elaborating further.
"And how, pray tell, is it a storytale?"
Oh, she would only be too happy to explain.
"Well, what would you say a storytale is, fundamentally?" asked Zoissette lightly. She highlighted a particular annotation for deeper review. It was difficult to read while talking to the stranger, but she at least could mark progress for later.
"This again? Very well. A storytale is, of course, first and foremost, a fiction. A story, usually with some manner of fantastic element, and often, though not always, used to convey some sort of greater moral truth or guidance."
"Oh. Interesting. A fantastic element, you say? Like, perhaps, stopping the wings of time from blowing their wind at a moment of one's choosing?"
"Merely a metaphor, in this case, and little more, I assure you."
"Ah, but that metaphor is woven throughout the whole work. Underlines it. Almost defines it, really. It exhorts to reader to pay well attention to its words, and then treats said metaphor as fact throughout. Why, it certainly pretends that ceasing aging is possible. Which is, of course, certainly fantastical. It is exactly the kind of storytale I would expect out of Sharlayan."
"That begins to sound like a sort of criticism. Well, let us suppose you are right, then. Whatsoever do you mean by that, that this is exactly the kind of storytale you would expect of Old Sharlayan?"
Zoissette was starting to get a feel for where she wanted this discussion to go, and tried not to be too pleased with herself about mapping the future territory. She considered. If she was annoying enough, the stranger might go away. Either she would have some mild sport, or she would be able to get on with her reading.
It was rare she was presented with situations that practically promised a win.
Something on the bare edge of her awareness was starting to bother her, however.
She pressed on, regardless.
"The idea that with enough knowledge and strength of will, that a person can enforce a kind of stasis, of course. Forever Twenty Summers, the cover says, and stay forever at a given age, the book promises. Of course it says this is in the service of allowing one to better pursue knowledge and enlightenment, but to do so, the reader is exhorted to remain static, unchanging, and still. Is that not what it is, to forever remain in place, never aging?"
That elicited a scoff, and she bit her lower lip to prevent herself from grinning.
"Is that what you got out of it? I suppose you would. Allow me to offer another perspective, then. The central idea of Forever Twenty Summers is not to stave off the winds of change. Nay, it is to enable the reader to embrace the idea of the vigor of youth, to preserve that thirst for knowledge, to remember to maintain the mindset of what it is to be young. Hence the metaphor. Of course one does not literally stop aging, but through personal discipline and self care, you maintain the spark which first lit forth in your breast as you started your journey. Honestly, I would think you of all people would appreciate the ideas of how discipline can help one to achieve their goals."
That feeling was coming in a bit stronger now. She frowned lightly, and wondered if something was wrong. As a result, she only half-caught what the other woman had said, but she picked up enough pieces to get the gist.
She could still feel Lavender resting on her shoulder. Surely the fairy would notice and alert her if there was trouble.
Well, she had a discussion to continue.
She shifted her weight, and now she was refusing to face her interrogator on general principle. She was not sure what said principle was, exactly, but she was going to follow it until the heavens fell.
Or until she tired of this game, whichever came first.
"Hmn," she said, thoughtful. "I think I missed something in there. Embrace... what was it, again?"
She pretended to make a mark in her book.
"...the vigor and vim of youth. Where are you going with this line of inquiry?"
Drat. Usually she got a few more in before someone started to call her out.
"Just thinking out loud, I think. You said... embracing the vigor and vim of youth... embracing youth. To, what was it you said? Maintaining what it is to be young, maintaining a spark, maintaining a now that has already passed. Perhaps, maintaining a moment in time, for as long as it will go?"
"Fine. Let us say I concede the point. Why do you associate such a stasis with Sharlayan?"
The other person had a pleasant voice. Almost distractingly so. She pushed that out of her mind, even as the feeling started to shift to something more urgently rather like a warning.
"Look at how they handle themselves. Faced with the end of the world, rather than reach out to their fellows and cooperate or, heavens forfend, adapt their society, they doubled down on their cultural values. Oh, one can make the argument that they adapted, but said adaptation was simply an extension of what I believe to be their core cultural habits. Which is to say, what was it I said earlier?"
"With enough knowledge and strength of will, they could enforce stasis. Yes, I see what you are getting at. Well, perhaps you are right. I would argue not all Sharlayans are like that, but surely I need not tell you such. I am still not convinced it fits the criteria of a storytale, however."
"Well. If you are conceding the points I have made, then we agree. It is a fiction that preaches a moral. Is that not what you said made a storytale?"
She heard a huff of annoyance, and this time, allowed herself a smirk.
"And in typical Sharlayan fashion, their stubbornness made for a very poor storytale at that."
"I am certain you think yourself able to support such a case."
"Of course. Think about it. Forever Twenty Summers is rather too dry, rather too stiff. It is a storytale, but it wants to be a reference. The success of storytales is not in the fantastical, not in their fiction, but that they remember to be stories. Nobody remembers that chapter four is the one that covers proper sleep habit. Everyone remembers reading of their favorite adventurer almost succumbing to winter due to exhaustion, having failed to take their rest properly."
Zoissette frowned, thinking. Was chapter four the one on proper sleep habit? She went to go check. For that matter, she cross-referenced her copy of The Seasons of the Shieldmaiden. It had, after all, been a while since she had read it. The bit about exhaustion was either in the winter or the fall, she was certain.
The voice behind her was talking. What a rich darkness to the voice, thought Zoissette.
There is something wrong here, thought Zoissette.
She had missed almost all of what the other woman had said, she belatedly realized. She tried to single out snippets of what she could remember from literally mere seconds ago, before they were lost to her mind. Something about perhaps she thought her own cultural tomes could do better. Something - the word Ishgardian had come up.
The warning reached a crescendo. She did not recall mentioning where she was from. Belatedly, she remembered Thancred's warning from mere days ago that it was possible she was being watched, and the potential for risk here.
She casually brought her codex up, and set Forever Twenty Summers on top of it. As she did so, she surreptitiously drew a rune, pulsing a request to Lavender to perform a threat assessment.
Lavender responded immediately by lighting up a glowing rune in the codex, a green zero symbol. No threats, area safe.
Zoissette was suspicious about how quickly that answer had come back.
She tuned back in to the voice as it finished. "...so I wonder to think how it compares to storytales of your own culture."
Zoissette swallowed. Her heart rate was up. She was feeling rather warm. The smug amusement that she had developed throughout the conversation seemed to be evaporating. Still, though, if she was in danger, she would do well to continue to appear nonchalant.
"Well. Uhm. Let us compare it to The Seasons of the Shieldmaiden, which, ah, covers... much of the same topics. But while the central idea of Forever Twenty Summers is the promise of eternal youth, The Seasons of the Shieldmaiden instead promotes embracing the changes of life, and the wisdom that comes with age. Both stories, ah, purport to do the same thing, but... well. Very different approaches."
She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath, and after a moment, found her confidence again. After all, she was in Old Sharlayan of all places, in a library, surrounded by mammets and people. Whatever danger could happen here, she could manage, she was well certain.
Also, she had an argument to close out. She organized her thoughts, quickly made a thesis up that she could work around, and glanced rapidly over what she had read so far. She began to talk, and as she did, she hopped between notes that she had already made before she had been interrupted.
"Seasons is a series of stories, easier to remember. Myths passed through culture, but with truths - the self-same truths in Forever. It is just that while Forever fights for an ever present, Seasons allows for a mutable future. Both tell one how to live longer, but one would have you stay in the now to do so, while the other embraces what it is to be a person. The vigor of youth, you said, but what of the accumulation of wisdom in old age? Youth may have fire, but age has a foundation it can build upon. Let me check - yes. We see this in the Shieldmaiden, as she passes through each metaphorical season - a maiden in spring, a battle maid in summer, a seasoned veteran in fall, and at last, in winter, instead of receiving counsel she is giving it - to the next generation. And though her year has lasted longer than most, it has still passed. And so there is a second hidden wisdom in the story - acceptance.
"And so, the Ishgardian storytale is the superior. It is engaging, so more like to be remembered. It still serves as a reference, as in each season, the tale is told of the actions the Shieldmaiden takes to see to her health. Aetheric balancing, good diet, proper rest, all emphasized. Even arcane stilling of aether is covered by the supplementary character of the witch. And it is an Ishgardian story, through and through. The importance of companionship, adaptation, and acceptance of hardship. The Sharlayan story fights all of that, insisting that knowledge and singular will is enough."
Zoissette nodded her head once, to herself. She had abandoned her usual rhetorical method of asking too many questions, but her confidence had built as she had gone along, and she now felt it fully. She closed both books she was holding, tucking her codex away, and held her head high, not yet willing to turn around, but certain she had made her case. She now paid keen attention to any response from her conversational counterpart.
Also her vision was still filled with runes and notes from too many active enchantments. She was not sure she could have seen who it was had she turned around anyroad.
A few moments passed. Her heart was hammering. Odd.
And then, she heard them laugh. And now that she was paying full attention, that laugh was all too familiar.
"My, I have missed these discussions with you, my friend."
Zoissette almost fumbled the book she was holding. She reached up to snap her glasses off her face, and stuffed them in a pocket as she whirled around.
Y'shtola was standing there, arms crossed, but smiling gently up at her.
Zoissette did not feel it when Forever Twenty Summers landed on her foot.
