Brunnhold Campus
Late Afternoon on the 34th of Dentis, 2719
Ezre understood the challenge that arose from dividing one's interests, from the discovery that one could not possibly pursue every mountain hingle of curosity into each of their dens in one lifetime. Perhaps even two or three or more wasn't always enough, either, considered quietly the child of a raen. As refreshing as the chilled outdoors was to the Hoxian, so, too, was Subprefect Nkemi pezre Nkese's level of comfort with the unusual depths their conversation seemed to probe. He may have enjoyed her surprise at his description of winter in his homeland, of his casual level of comfort with mountains thick with snow, but he knew that she could walk in the desert heat of Mugroba and not feel like she was surely going to wither away and die, that she could see a sandstorm on the horizon and trust in the sturdiness of her goggles like he trusted in the capacity of his lungs high above the rest of the world.
"An order separate from the Mhorven Basheva, which are perhaps the better-known religious group in Hox. Like the Everine are here in Anaxas, I suppose, even if there may be others who follow more than just Alioe out of the Circle. We are much smaller, the Hexxos. Perhaps we are also seen as, well, just as foolish for some of the truths we keep as the academia of Brunnhold—and Thul'Amat—have made the paranormal appear in the present. Except, of course, when there are bodies to be buried." The young Guide didn't feel the need to delve too far into the tenuous social position the Hexxos occupied in his homeland, the religious importance of their role in the rituals for those who had passed and the tending of their corpses, but the hesitance when it came to true acceptance both by the nature of their work as well as by the rumors of ghosts and strange spirits that the Hexxos continued to keep alive in the world.
Ezre was indeed insistent with his coat, dark eyes expressing the warmth he felt inside in the giving of such a gift, no matter how temporary. He stood still for an extra moment, however, there with inked fingers awkwardly in the air, eyes wide,
"Contact the dead—as in reaching into the Afterlife? Or here, in the material world where they do not belong?" He huffed a sound, surprised and curious, aware of how he'd probed this life for displaced spirits (and succeeded).
Nkemi fluffed herself in all of her warmth, still so much like a bright, tropical bird, now especially with the green of his Brunnhold uniform coat over everything else. It was not a displeasing metaphor, and she wore it well. It was not the Hoxian's place to smile about it, however, but he nodded with her continued explanation and remembered his duty as tour guide by returning to their walk across campus toward the undeniable presence of the Church of the Moon.
Ezre was perhaps no longer thinking of what unusual or at least oft-ignored but beautiful places to show her on the Anaxi university campus and now very entangled in the conversation that he found himself in with the Mugrobi woman. It wasn't as though he'd never brought up similar subjects with strangers before; if anything, the Hexxos Guide was hardly shy about what he saw as truths everyone should know so much as careful with the secrets he'd been raised to keep. There were layers of knowledge and understanding just like the Subprefect was now layered against the cold, and one could only peel back so many before there was no longer any semblance of privacy between what was socially acceptable and what was not, between what everyone needed to see and what only a select few were capable of truly accepting.
"Serkaih, zjai I know of it." He didn't stumble over that city name, not in the way he'd perhaps struggled with the pronunciation of newer, less-familiar Mugrobi words. This one, he knew indeed. There was no small hint of camaraderie in the warmed tones of his voice, "You are not from Thul'Ka, then, but somewhere small and possibly obscure—"
The young Guide stopped when she did, arching one delicate brow at her emphatic but cautionary words,
"—I am too used to being the only one who reads those amusing footnotes in well-aged scholarly works, Nkemi, if only because I may as well be a footnote myself now that I am so far from Kzecka, which does not sound so different from your home of Kcchant. Duh-kcha-nat." He'd smiled already, more than once, but they'd been more in humor than in seriousness. The expression that graced his features was one of simple honesty: an acceptance of his calling in defiance of so many layers of convention, "Kzecka is considered in walking distance of Xerxes, our sacred place of burial, but the walk is neither a short nor a safe one. More of a pilgrimage, really."
Ezre exhaled a slow breath in a cloud, cheeks red from the cold but still quite comfortable in the balmy temperature that was just above freezing. He didn't bother to furtively glance around, to suspiciously glance for unwitting strangers who might overhear what he felt were truths everyone should know,
"This understanding of the dead, as you call it, cannot be contained by merely Clairvoyant explanation, so in some ways a footnote is all it deserves in magical textbooks. There is far more to the spiritual condition than academia and science are always willing to pursue, though I have touched and seen and can quantify theories with all the same methodology."
He was so bold as to flash a grin—boyish and rebellious, dark and grim all at the same time—before he turned and began to walk again, sliding tattooed hands into trouser pockets that were to high, much like their green-wooled waist, watching more of his breath float away while he returned his dark-eyed gaze toward the distinctly Anaxi architecture of the Church of the Moon after a casually slow observation of the open courtyard-like area they walked through, still coated in snow and sparkling in the sun. The permanent ozone scent that clung to the Field of Practical Application carried on the wind along with the sounds of other voices—a trio of second or third-form students giggling, a gaggle of first-form children tossing snow at each other, and a professor in his dark robes cutting quickly toward a lecture in the direction of the Static Wing of campus.
"I did not intend for conversation to take such a detour, but—"
Maybe, he'd wondered, maybe it was because Scryers often pushed the boundaries of what could be done with various forms of communication, with distance, with the edges of what one could see within the mind that so many Clairvoyants felt more open to the suggestion of the supernatural. Maybe, he'd considered, maybe it was because there was so much honesty about how interpretation was subjective in the Clairvoyant community that they were naturally suspicious. Or maybe it was simply because Ezre knew where, and what, he came from, that made him more susceptible to seeking out others who didn't entirely dismiss him for his views.
"—your knowledge of such things suggests that you are not necessarily opposed to accepting the possibilities."