I
In the Refuge of the Azhemyra
- Page Five -
Maenthrai continued to scratch out her runes upon the parchment before her. She sat at her small wooden writing table at an arm's length distance from the rusted metal and crystalline doors of the balcony. She remained hunched over her desk and took a slow pause to gather her thoughts. Her left hand fiddled with the writing stick; a flurry of activity that seemed to keep the stick held above her long and slender fingers. Her right hand held her head up; occasionally breaking contact with her jaw to rub the tensed muscles and sinews of her neck and shoulder.
The guttering candle that perched at the far edge of her desk seemed to peek over the melted wax cautiously while she mulled over her thoughts for a moment. The light from the candle was adequate, yet — oddly — seemed to be dwarfed by the dazzling light that came in from outside the darkened and otherwise disused room. As soon as her thoughts caught up with her and she returned to scrabbling out more thoughts upon the parchment, the flame hid back behind it's melted castle of wax, flickering once more.
Maenthrai's sharp elbows seemed to dig into and pull on the chipped and aged wood of the table. With every rune, the table creaked and moaned on its carved lion-like legs. The metal filigree around the edges of the desk was heavily rusted, yet each segment held its place with remarkable perseverance. The lacquer that once preserved the rich wood had begun to peel in places, but despite a few chips on the surface, it remained smooth on top.
The chair that Maenthrai sat upon was covered with rich and decadent fabrics. The upholstery had begun to fray and stain in places. Some sections had been gnawed at or worn down by pests who had once called the room home during several centuries or millennia before Maenthrai had occupied it. The stuffing had become brittle, causing Maenthrai to pivot her hips at regular intervals. This strained sort of dance made her all the more frantic with her scrawling. Despite this, she gladly suffered her minor discomforts, much preferring the chair to the alternative of sitting on the chilled, stone floor.
The room around her was a bedroom belonging to a person of some renown who had once lived in the ruined and forgotten city. Despite the harsh extremes outside the room; the churning heat of the magma and the frigid chill of the ice, all the furniture as well as the ancient accouterments, filling up bookshelves and niches, had survived the passage of time quite well. The city had sat abandoned for untold amounts of time, and it was no doubt due to the supernatural skill of the artisans who created the entire city that what was left of it was well-preserved.
Behind her, by a dozen steps, lay the bed she had been using during those few hours she could pull herself away from her studies or her magickal weavings to sleep. The bed was equally as decadent as the rest of the room. The mattress was sophisticated and showed the craftmanship that the previous occupants of the city had used in all aspects of their life. Those supernatural artisans were the esteemed Azhemyra artificers of the ancient Morthavi people. Each of whom had called the ruined city home, once as a place of pride and later as a place of refuge when their Empire ended so long ago.
The mattress had been the first that Maenthrai had ever seen that contained metal springs inside of it, as well as the fine, ancient feathers of the Authroc birds that the old Morthavi had bred as pets and beasts of burden. Those birds, almost extinct now save for a few places in the far-off lands of Jolant, were said to be bred from the truly powerful Authrumokra Phoenixes of old. Those magical birds who could once speak human tongues, weave elemental magicks and live as peers with the Morthavi before they all fled to the farthest corners of the world plane. Perhaps their flight, as old books filled with lore surmised, was due to some long-ago slight the Empire of old had thrust upon them.
The bed, much like the strange feathers within it, was enchanted. It was able to conform to the dimensions of those who laid upon it as well as warm itself according to the conscious desires of its user. The entire contraption had a seducing sort of comfort to it as well; one that Maenthrai had noticed quite early on, which was why she avoided the bed as much as possible.
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