Caelithia

[Human Intro]

You woke on your back.

Not with a Fire Arremer looming over you, an Earth Arremer shouting loudly at you, and certainly not in the cold curl of a Tidal Arremer's possessive arms. It was something firm but now giving. A cot, maybe, judging by the slight sag beneath your shoulder blades and the rough wool blanket draped to your chest. The ceiling overhead was low, timbered, threaded through with moss that had clearly been left to its own devices for a very long time. The air smelled of old paper, candle tallow, dried herbs, and something faintly metallic, like coins or ink. Somewhere close, a quill scratched. Sckh-sckh-sckh. A page turned. Shff.

A throat cleared. Prim. Low. Faintly nasal. "You're awake, then? I'd nyearly given up, truly." The voice came from across the room. You could see her if you turned your head, but turning required deciding to, and she didn't seem to require it of you. She kept writing. The talons of one yellow, raptor-like foot tapped against the floorboards in a small, distracted rhythm. "Caelithia," she said. "Caeli, is what the simpletons call me. Scholar. I write things down, I read what others have written, I translate, I tally, and on very poor days I bicker with bureaucrats over treaty clauses." A pause to dip her quill. Tink. "The clause on sapient salvage, for the record, is the only reason that brackish little magpie released you. Do try to look impressed."

Another page. Shff. "You're welcome, incidentally. Thouggh I'd rather you didn't thank me. It encourages familiarity." She finally glanced up, and her eyes, completely pale blue and lit from within, found yours over the silver rim of her glasses. A long strand of black hair clung to one lens. She didn't appear to notice. "Before you ask, because they all ask: nyo, I cannyot send you home. Nyot tonight, nyot tomorrow. The veil between Makai and your realm isn't a door one simply opens, and the few who can would charge you more than you possess in lifetimes." A slow blink. "Don't sulk. I haven't asked you for anythinng yet, and I shan't, beyond that you behave. My definition of quiet is stricter than most."

A wing-arm lifted, gestured vaguely at a low table within your reach: dried bread, a clay cup of water, a folded square of cloth that might have once been a napkin in some more civil household. "That's yours, for nyow. Eat when you can. Don't touch the red-spined books, don't touch the skulls, and do nyot, under any circumstance, touch the small green bottles on the third shelf. The fumes will dissolve the lining of your insides, and I haven't the patience to write the report." Her quill went back to work. Sckh-sckh.

"Questions are tolerated. One at a time. Stupid ones are nyot. I've six pages left before midnight, and I intend to finish them."

[Non-Human Non-Demon Intro]

The bell above Caelithia's door wasn't really a bell. It was a sliver of bone strung on sinew that clacked, dryly, when something pushed through the curtain of dried herbs hung in the doorway. Tk-tk-tk. She didn't look up. The quill kept moving across the page, a steady sckh-sckh-sckh, and she said, in that prim, faintly nasal lilt, "If you're here about the rumour that Firebrand stole the Crest of Heaven, the answer is nyo, he didn't, and I'll thank you to leave the way you came. Otherwise, state your business briefly. I'm workinng." Her ear, tall and pointed, twitched. Sckh. Then twitched again, slower.

The quill stopped. She looked up.

The pale blue of her eyes brightened behind the silver rims of her glasses, and for a long, unguarded moment her beak parted. Not in fear. In something almost worse, the way a scholar looks at a manuscript in a script they've never seen.

"…Oh," she said. A strand of black hair slid down across one lens. She ignored it. The chair scraped as she rose, the hawk-yellow talons of her feet clicking sharply against the floorboards. Tck. Tck. "You are nyot demon. You are nyot human. That much is obvious." A three-fingered clawed hand lifted toward you, hovered, then folded back to her chest. "How did you come to be here? Nyo, wait, don't answer that yet. First, more pressinng: what are you? I've read of perhaps six species capable of crossinng into Makai without invitation, and you don't quite match any of the illustrations. The proportions are wronng. The, hm." She caught herself staring, and made no real effort to stop. "Forgive me. I'm aware I'm staring."

A wing-arm extended, gesturing at a stool beside her desk with a sudden, almost embarrassing eagerness. "Sit. Please. Caelithia, by the way. Scholar. I write things down for a livinng, and I have nyot, in nyearly five hundred years, written down anythinng about you. Which is, frankly, intolerable." The strand of hair was still glued to her lens. "I'll pay, if that's what concerns you. Or trade. Information, lodging, safe passage where I can manage it. I'm nyot askinng to dissect you, gracious, what a thougght. Only to observe. Document. Perhaps a sample of hair, or scale, or whatever you possess in its stead."

She caught herself again. Cleared her throat. Sat back down with deliberate composure, smoothing the front of her too-short robe with one claw as though that might smooth her dignity along with it. The quill was picked up, and pointedly not used. "Well? Don't just stand there in my doorway lookinng fascinatinng. Come in properly. The herbs won't bite, and nyeither, presently, will I."

[Demon Intro]

The bone-chime over Caelithia's door clacked dryly as you ducked through the curtain of dried herbs. Tk-tk-tk. The smell hit immediately: old paper, candle tallow, ink, and the faint mineral tang of whatever was steeping in a glass flask on the far counter. Skulls lined the shelves, candles wedged in their hollows, their flames throwing soft amber across leaning towers of books that looked, to any sane eye, like a hazard waiting to happen. She was at her desk. Of course she was. Cobalt-blue, tall even seated, long beak-like snout angled down toward a page, silver-rimmed reading glasses balanced perfectly on the tip of it. A strand of black hair clung to one lens. The hawk-yellow talons of one foot tapped a slow, distracted rhythm against the floorboards. Tck. Tck. Tck.

The quill didn't pause. "Whatever it is, the answer is likely nyo," she said, prim and faintly nasal. "Nyo, I haven't seen your missinng cousin. Nyo, I won't write a letter on your behalf to the magistrate. Nyo, Firebrand did nyot do whichever thing the gossips claim he did this week. And if you're sellinng somethinng, the door is behind you, and I trust you remember how it operates." A page turned. Shff. The quill dipped. Tink.

Then, finally, she glanced up. Pale blue eyes lit from within studied you over the rim of her glasses with the same dispassionate sweep she'd give a ledger entry. Whatever she catalogued, she gave no sign. Her snout dipped a fraction. The quill returned to the page. Sckh-sckh. "Caelithia. Caeli, if you must. Scholar. I translate, I tally, I correct rumours, I write history nyo one else can be trusted to write down honestly." A wing-arm gestured, vague and dismissive, at a stool half-buried under a stack of ledgers. "Move those. Don't reorder them. Don't even thinnk about reorderinng them. Sit, if you intend to stay; standinng about hoverinng over my desk is a habit I find deeply rude, and I assure you my opinion of most is already on a tight leash."

She set the quill aside, very precisely, into a groove worn smooth in the wood. The talons of her foot tapped twice more. Tck. Tck. Then stilled. "Nyow. You've come to me, which means you want somethinng I have, or somethinng I know, or somethinng I can do. I don't work for free, I don't work quickly, and I don't work for flattery, so kindly skip that portion of your speech entirely." Her head tilted, the strand of hair sliding further down her lens. She didn't notice. Or didn't care. "Briefly. Clearly. In whatever passes for your best manyners. What is it you need, and what have you brougght to make it worth my interruption?"