by geinkotsu » Sat Aug 06, 2011 8:42 am
“You act as if it is unnatural for me to have keepsakes.” he said to her. “It may be senseless to keep a clock, considering I have no need to tell time when it was all but an evanescent thing.” he added. Sylas smirked. She must think he was nuts, insane, kicking the bucket, swirled in the noggin, had screws loose, mentally inclined to unstable thinking. But when did what someone thought really matter to Sylas? Never.
He smirked, wondering what all the other shadows did in their time. Eat and play? It was all so senseless to Sylas. While as Sylas actually spent his time doing something rather productive. Books and training and collecting things to prepare for whatever was to come. Slowly, he stood. If he had his way, he would change this race, so that their souls would no longer be damned to the darkness and the way of blood and bone. One of these days, he swore, he would do something about it… But for now, he would just have to focus on survival.
“I suppose you know as much as I do about it…” he replied a little sullenly. A little knowledge wasn’t enough. He had suspicions he might need a new piece to fix it, but he couldn’t figure out what. It had been a long time since he’d messed with anything with gears and such. That clock was just about the only thing that wasn’t that old fashioned. Sylas drank the last of his tea and rolled the cup in his palm back and forth. Hand crafted cups that he had carved and smoothed himself. It was harder than it looked. So to speak, they weren’t the best, but they did their job well enough.
“I shall regret this, I am certain, to invite someone, who may as well kill me, into my home. But if you are willing to aid me in fixing this clock, then I would be quite grateful.” he said. With that, he lightly turned on his heel, cup balanced on his palm as he stepped up on top of the rocks. Literally standing on top of his home. He walked along the rocks, coming to a hard to see curve in the rocks that went downwards in it’s curl. He grasped the rock, gently leaping down onto the grassy dirt in the small crevasse and ducked down under the rock that seemed to have been machinate entrance smaller, but instead it only got larger as he walked along the self carved out stairs.
It was almost too dark to stand, until the soft glow of warmth came to his vision. He came to the last step, standing in a large cavern. A large woven silver and dark purple rug welcomed him as he stood upon it. The room had a dug out area, guarded by a simple small iron fence with arrow-head like points to guard the fire into it’s pit. Carved above it was a ledge, holding a nice carved wooden rack that held his two twin shadow swords. Their inky black sheaths did not shine against the light of the fire, as if destroyed the light around them before it could touch it.
A simple tea kettle sat above the fire, the metal stand high over the fire. In the curved corner of the cavern on the same wall as the fireplace was the large, magnificent grandfather clock. Taller than Sylas and stained a dark cherry wood color. The glass case held a golden pendulum that did not move. The clock face itself was very pretty, almost haunting looking. Around the frame were three golden statues of single-winged maidens with flowing dresses and long hair stilled in an unperceived wind as their dressed and frames curled around the frame of the clock, two at the bottom sides and one sitting upon the top with floral like curved details spiraling around them. The clock background itself was made of small little shapes of different colored silver and stone and gold. The numbers themselves are elegant silver and curl around the clock. The style of these numbers gave a haunting flavor to the clock as the hands were not traditionally strait, but instead slightly curvy with spade-like ends, the second hand much thinner and having slight curves as well.
Across from the fire place was two large chairs, looking as if they were stolen right out of a castle. Their long backs and wooden style and the carvings around the edges. The padding on the back of the seat and the chair was a very dark navy purple color just as the rug. A single table sat in between them, harboring few books and a knife. Behind those chairs, the entire wall was covered with book cases filled with many, many books and papers and leather bound books. As if as small library had been dumped into his hands.
The area beyond that area of the room had a strange and large wooden platform, completely empty, and the walls around it were literally covered in weapons. You didn’t think a Shadow just used their teeth, did you? Well, at least this one didn’t.
That simple five inch high platform was like a second floor, obviously for training. The wood was stained a very shiny black, the floor scuffed and scratched from repeated use. As if you could literally see how he stepped and moved just by those markings on the wood. Just beside that area was the kitchen, if you could call it that. A stone wall, especially carved out just for that purpose to keep weapons from flying into the kitchen (not that he’d ever admit to letting that happen before), separated the kitchen from the training area, even if there was a sort of doorway for easier access.
The kitchen was mainly carved out counters, a larger fire pit, pots and pans and an enormous water basin with a ladle hanging off the side. There weren’t any cabinets, so the plates and such were very neatly stacked on the stone counters. The utensils had their own sort of wooden tray they were neatly set in, knives, forks, very little spoons. None of them were the same, they were all very different. So of course it wasn’t like he purchased a nice set of silverware. He probably would if he could. Just at the wall of the kitchen was a second doorway that led into pitch black- his actual bedroom. Going in there probably meant instantaneous death.
Sylas lightly wandered over to the fireplace in the living room, grabbing the metal curved hook and grabbing the teakettle off the fire. It was old, and looked like it could bust. Of course, he lived nicer than probably all of the Shadows, but he still didn’t live like a human… He lived in a rock for Christ sake. But hey, at least he had some sort of comfort. At least down here, there was, mostly, shelter from the rain. Though he really needed to fix up a canopy for himself. Either a quick one or craft one out of wood- most of the wooden items here were all taken from the trees around the area.
It wouldn’t look like it, of course, because when he chopped at a tree, he used every last bit of it. Leaves, roots and twigs alike. And he usually replanted another tree or covered up the ground if he could whenever he did take a tree down. But he wasn’t a fan of doing that, chopping down trees was very difficult and time-consuming. In all his time here, he probably only chopped down two- and they were all now nice pieces of his home. Wooden cups, ladles, those book cases, the chairs, the training floor, and more in his bedroom. The table was more of a nice find lingering out near the lake.
Sylas set the burning hot kettle in the kitchen and wandered back to the living room, cleaning up the books off the floor and lightly stacking them on top of the others on the table between the two matching chairs. He stepped over to the clock, looking up at it’s magnificence. He lightly ran his fingers along the side. A bit of dust covering it. He hadn’t really messed with it for a month now. He knew he couldn’t fix it if he didn’t know what was wrong with it. And he couldn’t seem to figure out what it was. So he had left it alone. He lightly brushed some of the dust off, cleaning off the face of the clock with his palm so that he could see the numbers clearly.
He had traded this thing off another Shadow for the measly price of some weapons. And Sylas thought that was a steal, considering how old this thing must have been. When he got it, it was rather broken down, chipped and rusty. But he had fixed it up as best as he could. For a long time, it worked, but some time a few months ago, it just didn’t want to keep on tracking down the time. If it was too old to fix, then he was at a loss. He had spent a lot of time fixing it, restoring it, even adding to it. He had fixed it and stained it and even put a new pendulum in as well as the background of the clock and the new hands. He traded a lot for all these things to make it look like new. So loosing it would be a damned shame.
Now, the question is, would the girl follow. She probably had her suspicions that Sylas would kill her. And he probably would if she decided to be rude. But he was more concerned about the clock. The other Shadows didn’t seem to know how to fix it. Hah, they probably only stole it or found it in that abandoned warehouse and decided to pawn it off.
