Junior Member
EXP: 730, Level: 1
Level completed: 37%,
EXP required for next Level: 1,270
The last time Astrophel had seen her master - the lovely red-haired lass named Amari, who had been so kind and generous to her - had been the previous night. Taken deep within the bowels of the Seventh Sactum Astrophel had briefly seen the world of the Althanasian assassins. Then, for safety, Amari had suggested Astrophel go into her vessel for rest. It was not something that Astrophel took joyfully too, but she did so; after all, the vessel was her constant reminder of what she was, and what she had to bear every day.
A life cursed, to live as another's to command. A life of sorrow, of orders and of shame. A life that had, from her moment of birth, been Astrophel's to shoulder the burden of. To be a djinn was to be tethered to your vessel, and unless you got a kind master anything - anything - could happen.
It was not unknown that Lye Ulroke, once-again leader of the Crimson Hand, did not take kindly to other's possessions. Overmore, he had a complete disregard for those belonging to his plaything, Amari Red-of-Hair. And thus it came to be, that when a sleeping djinn was inside her vessel teapot for safety, and the white-haired assassin master had simply thrown out into the rubbish what he had presumed to be nothing but scrap. Scrap clay for a scrap slave-hand, for that is what Astrophel had seen Amari was to him. He treated her like the dirt that Astrophel had been subject to so many times - sentenced to incorigable tasks, asked to grant insane "wishes," all the other usual things - but yet Amari did not seem to notice that. Instead she stood tall, kept Astrophel safe and looked after, treated her like a little sister, or like Astrophel's mother should have. Was nice. She was nice. She was actually ...
Flutter. A heartbeat. Flesh meeting fine, cracked clay. Over the spot, the spot of absolute recognition, of summoning.
Waking her up.
She had no choice, she had to answer. For it was her duty as a djinn to do so any time a hand crossed over the small 'x' mark on her teapot's surface. Softly her eyes blinked, her form began to stir, and, she realised, that it was safe time now. Amari was calling her out, to be free from the constraints of the teapot, to be bold and alive and not fear who was in the Sanctum!
Deep asleep, the blue-haired djinn had never felt the move. Her body had not noticed the removal of Amari's safe hold to the dung heap. And then from there into the hands of a man who recognised the pattern and the skill, the fact it belonged to the red-haired wild woman of the Salvarian towns. And thus she assumed, that as she took form, that there standing with brilliant eyes and great mind would be Amari, her master after Herandira, the pirate trader.
"I think I just dreamt there," she was saying as she took physical form as the young, blue-haired girl she usually did. "I actually think," she rubbed her eyes, her ghostly, gas-like aether essence pouring from the spout of the teapot onto the ground and steadily building into the girl, "I actually think I was able to dream. I have-"
And then she noticed it. The cold. The freezing, numbing cold - what was that? - and creaky wooden planks beneath her bare feet. It was freezing, not like inside where they usually were, with the toasty fire and lovely tea. Dropping her hand from her face Astrophel looked around, frowning a little. No, definitely not inside: instead she was on a dockyard of some sort, with the fine calls of powerfully-winged gulls cawing overhead and the raucous voices of merry seamen.
"Where are we?" she asked, turning as if in a daze, her eyes dancing as she saw houses on the edge of the sea. "Why are we outside? And how can I help, I-"
Then she cut off, seeing the sudden, gawking stranger at her. A proud dragon-headed man, standing at a similar height to herself, a sparrow on his shoulder. His head was not a mask, but rather the real thing, and he stood upon two legs, a hybrid of drake and human. Flashes of wings poked from under a cloak, glints of deep gold in those bold eyes. But overall, shock and surprise at the girl before him, who had floated out of the teapot that was in his hands like water from a simple tap.
Oh yes, the teapot. In his hands.
"Oh," Astrophel blinked, as the realisation came to her. "Ohhhhh ... Oh." The last one was disappoinment in the tone, a final understanding. This drakling man had been the one to touch the mark, after some way it had fallen into his claws. There was no Lye Ulroke, and there was no Amari. Astrophel's vessel had fallen into this lucky traveller's hands and now. Well. Now he was akin to a god.
Sigh. Damn it, she thought, as she dropped into the necessary low curtsey, Amari had been so nice. She raised her eyes to look at those of her new master and murmured the ancient words, knowing she would likely never see the red-haired beauty again.
"Master," she said to Varin the Drakari, "Your will is mine."