Unkind Interruptions [Private]
Jan 4, 2023 1:55:16 GMT -5
Post by Xhavian Navarre on Jan 4, 2023 1:55:16 GMT -5
At first, it had been something to do. His mother was gone, away on her pilgrimage—for answers, she had told him. The house was still and silent, lonely and empty. He had time to himself, time only with himself, truly, and as the years had drifted by... it had become too much.
Too still. Too silent. Too alone and too empty. Time had begun to stretch slowly. On and on... longer and longer... He had kept busy with chores, with prayer, with waiting, but he had lost track of the minutes, of the hours, of the days, and then the weeks. When the first month passed him by and he couldn't remember when it started or when it had ended, Xhavian knew he had to do something. Time was fleeting and precious and myriad of other things as his mother had taught him for it to slip through his fingers without him remembering the way it had felt held within his hands.
He had started with the library. He had... caused quite the scene in the library that first time, actually. Showing up with a smile, with the strangeness of his appearance and no answers or explanations for it. A few were familiar. They had known his mother, recalled all the instances she had entered the library herself, asking after obscure and hardly touched tomes seeking information that may or may not be found within them. But knowing of him and seeing him were two very different things, and while he liked to think they had warmed up to him by now, he saw the looks and the staring. He heard the whispers that accompanied them, even if he couldn't make out the words.
It was impossible to spend all his time there, of course. So many books and only so much focus. Reading hurt after a while, not unlike the way he hurt after meditating and becoming... lost in it. Drawn in close to that place within himself that went on past forever. Frighteningly so. It would be so easy to never find the way back from something that was endless... More so, when the stars called to him, when the nebulous nothingness alight in the same way he was whispered not with words but with a feeling of belonging that he had never had before. Alone as he was. Always alone now.
Resigned that he was to that fate of being without others, Xhavian had found himself working in the apothecary, instead. It had been an accident, though. Or rather, of course it had been an accident. Prone to such things as he was with the way he watched everything except where he was going.
He had been walking home from... nowhere, really. Wandering was another pastime, an attempt at one, at least. One where he kept the hood of his cloak drawn around him to avoid claiming the attention of others. He hadn't seen the cart coming down the road, hadn't noticed it until the horses were spooking and the crates were dumped from the back of said cart onto the ground. Fortune existed in so much as those crates were already outside their destination, and after he had worked quickly and efficiently to gather and sort everything that had been scattered, he had simply... kept returning?
The owner, Ardreth, was kind, and they didn't mind him, either. From his looks to his absentmindedness to the way he sometimes spoke strangely. Maybe they had seen the loneliness. Maybe they had needed the help. But he had been given a job and was allowed to help stock the shelves and brew the simpler potions. He didn't even have to hide himself away when potential customers came in, willing that he always said he was. The last thing he'd want to do, after all, was drive people away when they walked in and saw him sorting the various dried herbs and leaves, bottling those that needed to be bottled, glowing unlike anyone should. If they were normal.
It had happened once or twice... or seven times, actually—not that he was counting. A source of guilt and shame and apologies that were always waved off with gruff gentleness. It made him timid and hesitant to step anywhere near the front of the shop. But things needed doing as they always did, and the displays wouldn't dust or clean themselves, didn't he know?
Too still. Too silent. Too alone and too empty. Time had begun to stretch slowly. On and on... longer and longer... He had kept busy with chores, with prayer, with waiting, but he had lost track of the minutes, of the hours, of the days, and then the weeks. When the first month passed him by and he couldn't remember when it started or when it had ended, Xhavian knew he had to do something. Time was fleeting and precious and myriad of other things as his mother had taught him for it to slip through his fingers without him remembering the way it had felt held within his hands.
He had started with the library. He had... caused quite the scene in the library that first time, actually. Showing up with a smile, with the strangeness of his appearance and no answers or explanations for it. A few were familiar. They had known his mother, recalled all the instances she had entered the library herself, asking after obscure and hardly touched tomes seeking information that may or may not be found within them. But knowing of him and seeing him were two very different things, and while he liked to think they had warmed up to him by now, he saw the looks and the staring. He heard the whispers that accompanied them, even if he couldn't make out the words.
It was impossible to spend all his time there, of course. So many books and only so much focus. Reading hurt after a while, not unlike the way he hurt after meditating and becoming... lost in it. Drawn in close to that place within himself that went on past forever. Frighteningly so. It would be so easy to never find the way back from something that was endless... More so, when the stars called to him, when the nebulous nothingness alight in the same way he was whispered not with words but with a feeling of belonging that he had never had before. Alone as he was. Always alone now.
Resigned that he was to that fate of being without others, Xhavian had found himself working in the apothecary, instead. It had been an accident, though. Or rather, of course it had been an accident. Prone to such things as he was with the way he watched everything except where he was going.
He had been walking home from... nowhere, really. Wandering was another pastime, an attempt at one, at least. One where he kept the hood of his cloak drawn around him to avoid claiming the attention of others. He hadn't seen the cart coming down the road, hadn't noticed it until the horses were spooking and the crates were dumped from the back of said cart onto the ground. Fortune existed in so much as those crates were already outside their destination, and after he had worked quickly and efficiently to gather and sort everything that had been scattered, he had simply... kept returning?
The owner, Ardreth, was kind, and they didn't mind him, either. From his looks to his absentmindedness to the way he sometimes spoke strangely. Maybe they had seen the loneliness. Maybe they had needed the help. But he had been given a job and was allowed to help stock the shelves and brew the simpler potions. He didn't even have to hide himself away when potential customers came in, willing that he always said he was. The last thing he'd want to do, after all, was drive people away when they walked in and saw him sorting the various dried herbs and leaves, bottling those that needed to be bottled, glowing unlike anyone should. If they were normal.
It had happened once or twice... or seven times, actually—not that he was counting. A source of guilt and shame and apologies that were always waved off with gruff gentleness. It made him timid and hesitant to step anywhere near the front of the shop. But things needed doing as they always did, and the displays wouldn't dust or clean themselves, didn't he know?