Reborn into the same world she died in, Eliax has to work through missing memories, assassinations, the nuances of other realms, and an unhealthy lack of self-preservation. But hey, that's just life there.
-- Excerpt from chapter 6 --
He sighed, "W...
Hivren tilted his head, glancing at the strange girl again, "She seems like she's just lost in thought." Jiuhen, his only companion for today, kept pointing out things that he'd noticed about a random stranger sitting across the tavern as part of his empath training. Apparently, he'd 'gotten bored of all the normal people.'
The girl in question was the strangest person Hivren had seen in quite a while. She looked like she was trying to act normal, but every so often she would stare at something for a bit too long, or take her notebook out of nowhere and make a note, she also had a weird tendency to glare at anyone talking to her, and her bearing screamed of someone with secrets. Hivren had seen her with the caravan that arrived yesterday, and at a glance, she seemed to always have her head in the clouds.
Jiuhen pointed at her, "I doubt she'd notice if someone robbed her. I mean, maybe she is lost in thought like you said, but her emotions are all over the place, and that only happens if someone's going through some stuff."
Indeed, it seemed like the small Tuvei was entirely engrossed in whatever it was she was doing, she'd started making weird gestures at one point and something was clearly off about the air around her, a bit like a mirage. Hivren caught himself staring at the strange distortion. It was a bit creepy. "You never know if someone's a powerful mage in disguise, maybe she's fooling your empathy?" In fact, wasn't that distortion a sign of something?
Jiuhen rolled his eyes and tipped back his drink, glancing at one of the serving ladies a bit too long for someone who'd just started courting a different girl yesterday. Part of Hivren felt he needed to guide Jiuhen through the thorns of female interactions, but there were some things he would have to figure out by himself, besides, you never knew if Jiuhen was just reacting to someone else's strong emotions.
Eventually the flirt glanced back at the lone girl, who was now staring at a worn notebook laying on the table, "She seems to get a bit more emotionally stable every time she does that. What's she even doing?"
"Does it matter?"
"I dunno, she's not bad looking though, her nose is a bit flat but those dark eyes are nice. She definitely knows how to present herself too, I think that's a riding dress, built for practicality, her entire bearing screams 'I'll do things my way.' It's kinda hot."
Hivren sighed. Sparks, this guy... "You have a girlfriend."
Jiuhen rolled his eyes and clapped Hivren on the back in a friendly way, "I was just pointing it out for you, you're too oblivious to the world, I almost think you wouldn't notice a girl if she punched you in the face."
"And...that makes you think that she would be a perfect match for me? We're both equally oblivious?" Hivren shook his head with a groan, "Jiuhen, I'm not into tuvei, for me it's harder to understand you people. I'd like a human if I can help it."
"We both know there's barely any difference. ~Especially not emotionally~"
Well, that was true enough, there were plenty of halfbreeds kicking around, and most scholars -even all the way in Yera- had long since decided that humans, tuvei, and pitten shared a common ancestor somewhere. Hivren still felt the need to point it out though. "Biologically the way things are-"
"Hivren, you always talk like you ate a textbook. I'm just pointing out her looks. She looks nice. She would also look nice too if she was next to you, I'm just saying."
Hivren sighed and looked at the tuvei girl again, "You Jiuhen, are a pest."
Jiuhen laughed.
"Do you think she might be crazy?"
Hivren's head snapped up at the word crazy, glancing over to another table and seeing some familiar-seeming guys pointing at the same girl Jiuhen had spotted. One of them laughed, "I bet she's here just to creep everyone out."
"Really? I bet she's one of those dirty squatters in the old palace, you can never trust travelers these days."
Hivren stood up, frowning at the four idiots joking about the stranger. It was true that there weren't as many travelers these days, trade was moving to the new capital, even the merchants were pretty well known. Everyone knew when someone didn't belong.
"-know how crazy people are, I doubt she'd notice if she lost her own head."
But talking like that just because someone was unknown? The only solution to this in Hivren's estimation was to remove her from the category of 'unknown.' It would help for a start if she wasn't sitting alone.
Jiuhen was giving him a worried look as Hivren glared at the table of idiots, but he was a good guy at heart, Jiuhen was probably noticing the cloud of negative emotions behind them now that he wasn't focused on one person, and despite how he acted, he wasn't an idiot.
"I have to have a chat with someone." Hivren explained as he stalked off toward a certain table...
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Important note for any who missed it:
Of the 8 new alternate POV chapters, I will post a new one every Saturday at 6:00 AM MDT. They will be found in new chapters until all of them are up, after which I'll merge some chapters. They will contain flashbacks from relevant characters as well as what important people were doing when Fora wasn't there. After that, you finally get the last two chapters :P I expect the whole thing to be finished up around May 4th.
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Here's what our stoopid little main character sees when she uses her magesight (and her soulsight together) on herself :D
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And she would simplify it to this if someone made her draw it:
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