commodities [eme]

[CLAUDIA LUNA ELIADE]

Slowly but surely, Claude was beginning to discover rather useful things about Manuka. For example, the fact that the sleepy little city was able to boast a rather large supernatural population led to her ability to acquire certain... commodities that she might not find elsewhere. Also, there were a lot of wealthy folks who didn't think too highly about security. Which was to her benefit, of course, since she was able to raid most of the houses – but not all of them – on Evergreen Street with a relative ease. For a while, Claude had told herself that she should start living her life on the 'up and up' instead of stealing, pickpocketing, looting, and pawning said stolen merchandise the way she used to before she had come to Manuka. Even while she was relatively new to the city, she had continued with her life of crime – although really it wasn't a lifestyle when it was out of necessity – and had continued to do so until she had acquired gainful employment. Chloe and Heliconia had been good to her, which was surprising given that she still basically trusted no one, but the shapeshifter was starting to grow on her. There had been secrets shared, a bond established, and while Claude didn't like to dwell on any sort of budding warm and fuzzy feelings, she was able to say that if she was able to have friends, she might be able to peg Chloe into such a category. An odd though, sure, since she was basically a recluse when she wasn't working or keeping to her own devices, but one that she had started to welcome, since it seemed that some sort of bond with her boss was going to be impossible to avoid, especially since she had opened up to the woman on a rare night when the nightmares of her life before had become too much for her to harbor alone.

Despite the rough patch she'd gone through that Chloe had actually managed to help her out of, the witch was starting to live a relatively normal, free life where she could be accountable for her own success and failures, and was comforted by the fact that the failures were few and far between. Her boss encouraged her to experiment with her potions and sell them to the shoppers and clients that they dealt with on a daily basis, she had a steady source of income and enough hours to keep her busy, there wasn't anyone on her trail (at least, as far as she knew, though she was always careful), and with the exception of a pesky redheaded woman that kept popping up into her life at unwanted moments, she was doing all right. Claude had survived. Even so, she found that she could not escape old habits, and was constantly too short on cash to get all of her 'side projects' finished. There was a list of potions that she had been dabbling with for years, dark and rare alchemy agents that would be extremely pricey and could bring in a fortune for her, if the right person gave in to their greed or vanity – immortality, eternal beauty, rapid cellular regeneration, all sorts of things that people would pay a high price to obtain, but that wasn't why they interested Claude. Claude always sought for a challenge with her alchemy, always sought to be able to make things that nobody else could, because her bloodline ran deep in witchcraft, and she felt that excelling in her family's trade, excelling in a gift that was only passed down to Cristea women was a way of keeping that lineage alive, even so many years after her mother and the other women in her mother's coven were put to death.

So, even though Claude had a decent paycheck that came to her on a bi-weekly basis, she stole things. Just to make up for what the extra lacked, and because she knew that she couldn't just go to Chloe and ask for a loan. Whether or not the woman would actually give her the funds was unknown, but there would likely be questions, and Claude knew that she did not want to live with any sort of debts to anyone. The house she was emerging from had been one that she'd kept an eye on for a few weeks, learning the security system (there wasn't one), and the schedules of the people that lived there, and had it down to a precise mental catalog so she could slip in and out with the goods she needed, and then she'd be off to a 'fence' that she'd met, in passing, who was from Romania as well, and gave her a more than fair price for the goods she obtained illegally. Today, she had pocketed a solid gold pocket watch, a set of diamond earrings that were set in a pricey white-gold, and a few other baubles that were small enough to slip into the pockets of her jeans with a relative ease – no bulges, no odd shapes that would raise an eyebrow. She disappeared behind the large mansion and walked down the street like nothing happened, like she hadn't just stolen at least a few thousand dollars' worth of people's prized possessions, and reached into her breast pocket for her pack of cigarettes, and then into her empty pocket for her lighter. She lit up one of the cigarettes and exhaled the smoke ahead of her, enjoying the crisp fall air on her skin as it seeped through the warm flannel of her shirt, and continued on her way, whistling a tune from her home country as she walked. She'd make it to her contact within the hour, and then she'd hide the money away, hoarding it for a time until she found another new contact to get the final ingredient for the potion she had been wanting to make for months. She'd only have one chance to get it right, most likely, since the final ingredient was so rare.

The blood of an immortal. An immortality potion. Claude was... well, she was almost excited.


OUTFIT:

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[EME YAXK'IN DREAMSPELL]

[style=width: 400px; font-family: times new roman; font-size: 25px; text-align: center; text-shadow: #000000 1px 0px, #000000 0px 1px, #000000 0px -1px, #eaeaea -1px 0px; margin-top: -25px; letter-spacing: -1px; color: #ffffff;]My heart was flawed I knew my weakness

So hold my hand consign me not to darkness

It was another day in another year of another life.

As she walked through the streets, Eme looked around and just saw the flaws in society, saw every bad and good thing that it possessed, and still did not have an opinion about it. She was no allowed to feel any way other than good or bad, and with that it was hard for her to make contact with anybody, because quite frankly, that was not why she’s here. That was not what she was made for and it was not her purpose in life. People weren’t supposed to like her, or hate her for that matter, they were often mad at her for a while as she turned out to be right, and after that they went straight back to being indifferent to her, much like she was indifferent to everything around her. People called her heartless, cold and emotionless, and maybe that’s just what she was, no Eme knew that that was what she was, but it all had a purpose, and therefore she couldn’t care less. Most men and women were hopelessly wandering through life, always looking and searching for that one thing they can’t have, or the one thing they can’t find. They don’t know their meaning in life and are desperately trying to get an explanation for everything that had happened to them, for everything and everyone who had wronged them. Eme knew it was useless, senseless even and above all stupid, to go on a quest that could never satisfy you no matter how hard you tried, but nevertheless she let them go, because they were meant to do that and discover for themselves. Faith was a funny thing, something interesting she hadn’t learned to pay attention to, while it turned her into who she had become. She had found her meaning in life, there where most people don’t, because she was meant to do so, and help guiding them on their way. Her help was never for free, and you had to give up pieces of yourself to get it, but it was the most valuable thing you could get, if you could handle it.

Sometimes the immortal looked back at her past and nearly felt something like.. nostalgia. Nostalgia for when she still felt anything other than indifference, for when she was still open for pain and sadness, though they were the first emotions to go. How striking it is, that one has much less difficulties with letting go of their fears, their negative sides and emotions, rather than the positive ones? They were willing to pretend the bad side didn’t exist, but letting go off your good traits is a big leap from having lost your bad ones. And Eme knew better than anyone that it took a lot more to get rid of them, to want to stop feeling like you were worth something or not. She had fought a lot of battles, won them and sometimes lost them too, but in the end she had always listened to her inner voice, she had always followed that tiny little voice inside her head that told her what was right and what was wrong. What was meant to be and what was to be stopped. Where she could interfere, and where she couldn’t. It was that voice that made Eme the Oracle, it was that voice that had made her into who she was today. She did not even feel gratitude or anger, or anything else. She just realized she was meant to be this way, she realized that she would always be this way. And she realized there were others too, who could be like her. Who were supposed to be like her. And since guilt and compassion weren’t in her manuscript of feelings either, Eme could do what faith told her to do, no matter how horrible it was. No matter how much one shouldn’t want to let something like that happen, and protect only one of the remaining family members. Others would stop it, or be a psychopath and enjoy it, but for Eme it was neither of those things. It was just something that had to be done.

That same family member she was following right now. The little girl she had protected from death all those years ago was now a grown woman, and her voice told her she had been doing the right thing. Even though Eme hadn’t protected her from all the horrible things that had happened to her, in fact she had merely kept the witch from dying when it came to a critical point, she did not feel any remorse or guilt for being able to stop those things and not doing it. Bad things were part of life, they were part of what made people into the person they were, shaped their personality, and Eme knew these things had to happen in order for Claude to become the person she was meant to be. A person destined for Greatness, if only she managed to let those emotions sail away, much like the immortal had. Emotions only blocked your rational mind, and it blocked your talents too. It was too why humanity never reached its full potential, because they were led by their emotions, and not by what should happen, or what they should do to create Greatness. Eme watched Claude as she stole things, sold them again, and whistled on her merry way to wherever she was going next. Other people would have felt scorn for this stuff, but for the immortal it was simple; it had to happen. Everything that had to happen, she made sure it happened. But now it was time to show herself, as the voice inside her head echoed to her. Never in clear orders, not anymore. It now echoed chants and songs through her head in a whisper, ones she had to decipher and understand. ”You know you could have done a way better job than that, Claude.” She said as the witch walked through a rather deserted side-street. People often assumed that because Eme had no emotions, her voice would be monotone, flat and blank, but none of those were true. Eme’s voice was charming and luring, like the death call of a siren’s song. Finally, after all those years of staying in the shadows, the immortal emerged and showed herself, knowing that Claude wouldn’t recognize her. Not yet. But all in good time, everything would start to make sense to her.

tagged: claude • outfit: here • 1085 words • here we go!

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[CLAUDIA LUNA ELIADE]

The witch had been on the run for so long that she had gotten used to always looking over her shoulder. For a while, she had been expecting to die in the gypsy camps whenever they tired of her and her potions, or could no longer get money for them. If she became a hindrance instead of something useful in one way or another – and for a time, she had been planning a way to end her own existence if they found other uses for her – she knew that they'd be done with her. She'd be put out to pasture, slaughtered just like their animals when they lost the ability to lay eggs or produce milk, when the birds no longer sang sweet music that pleased the ears of the old women in the caravan. To them, anything they possessed was expendable, and their only honor was to one another. Everyone and everything else was simply there for their enjoyment, for profit, or for other, darker reasons. Aleksander had told her stories of how he had been taken from his parents much like she had. Except he had been raised by his grandparents, and they were too old and feeble to keep him from being taken when four strong men jumped from the back of the caravan and took their cabin by force. His grandparents hadn't survived, either. For a while, Claude had wondered if the gypsies had always known of Aleksander's gift to turn from boy to animal, and if that wasn't why they had taken an interest in him in the first place. Claude's alchemy skills were an apparent use because the potions she created would fetch a pretty penny at market, but Alek was a strong, able-bodied boy with no other obvious talents other than a strong work ethic and strength that seemed to be above and beyond all the other boys their age. They forced him to do backbreaking work every day with the crack of a whip not far behind, and whenever he slowed due to pain or pressure or his spirit breaking because he'd finally had enough, someone would jab red-hot pokers into the lash marks and bring him to his knees, allowing him to 'find the strength' to keep up with their endless tasks.

When Claude had finally escaped, the woman who purchased her had seemed kind... in the beginning. She insisted upon calling Claude by her given name, Claudia, instead of the name she had chosen while she was in the camps. Only her mother had called her Claudia, and it was a name that she never wanted to hear from the lips of another. Every time the woman used it, the name had stung her ears like the crack of the whip or the burn of cigars on her exposed flesh when the men in the camps decided that it would be entertaining to hear her screams for hours. They were in the middle of the woods, and nobody would hear them. If anyone had tried to come to her aid, Claude knew that the gypsies would have likely killed them, or the people who had saved her would take her as their hostage, and likely put her through more torment, just at different hands. This was how she expected to spend her life until it was over, but being sold into the care of another old gypsy woman who was from the United States, visiting relatives in Romania and delivering goods to said relative who occupied the caravan, had been the closest thing to freedom that she'd ever allowed herself to hope for. The price Claude had fetched was a bolt of silk and two fat calves from her father's estate in Bucharest.

A bolt of silk and two calves. That was all she was worth to them, but still, it was her chance to have a change of scenery, and maybe a different life. The woman who called her Claudia had been much kinder once they made it to the United States. Claude had never been given papers or an identity, because even though she wasn't subjected to the same amount of abuse, she was still a slave. She worked for free, cleaning and caring for the woman's home, garden, and anything else that she felt needed attention. Claude cared for her cats and cooked her meals, but was still given cold soup and table scraps like she was just another pet. The ingredients she'd obtained for a poison had been ones she'd stolen from an apothecary that specialized in magical supplies – a store not unlike Heliconia, but with an owner who was much less sharp than Chloe. The poison had only taken her an hour to make, and when she slipped it into the woman's tea that evening after supper, she hadn't known that she would be taking her final breath until the death rattle signaled her end. Claude had stolen her money, sold valuables from her home that would give her enough for transportation to a new city along with some forged identity papers, and she adopted the woman's last name. Before, she had been Claudia Cristea, the last of the Cristea coven and rich Romanian bloodline that was filled with magic. Then, as she finally tasted her freedom, she was Claudia Eliade, a free woman, on her way to Maine to start over.

After so many years of looking over her shoulder, she should have known better than to get too comfortable. The witch had settled into her job, and still stole things on the side to keep her skills sharp, but after she had been residing in Manuka with no trouble, she had let her guard down, and that had been her biggest mistake. She was half way down the alley, on the way to meet her fence and sell her newly acquired goods when a woman stepped out of the shadows, wearing a hat that blocked her eyes from Claude's immediate vision. The woman spoke to her. The woman called her by name, and Claude froze. The lit cigarette in her hand continued to burn as her jaw dropped slightly before she closed it, clenching her jaw, and squaring off her shoulders. She was armed with a knife and some potions that could be used to create a smoke screen or other deterrents that might allow her to make a quiet, quick getaway, but for the moment, she didn't want to appear as a victim, even though she was feeling fear for the first time since she had been purchased by Ms. Eliade.

”How do you know my name? Who are you?” Claude swallowed, violet eyes sparking before she felt indifference overtake her once again. If this woman was one of them... if she had finally been found... then she could be at peace with the fact that just once, she had tasted freedom. She had not died in that forest. For a short while, she had truly lived.

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[EME YAXK'IN DREAMSPELL]

[style=width: 400px; font-family: times new roman; font-size: 25px; text-align: center; text-shadow: #000000 1px 0px, #000000 0px 1px, #000000 0px -1px, #eaeaea -1px 0px; margin-top: -25px; letter-spacing: -1px; color: #ffffff;]My heart was flawed I knew my weakness

So hold my hand consign me not to darkness

Eme had nearly seen everything in this world. She was born into a world rich of culture and wealth alike, where people were compassionate and knew how to share, since they had more than they could spend in a lifetime. When you heard present day myths about her hometown, or the movies made about finding it, all Eme could do, was smile a bitter smile of nostalgia, knowing both the good things and the flaws of her own society. The Mayans were very faithful to their own Gods, like every society was meant to believe in a deity, it was to weaken them and make them humble, or at least show them how a decent human should live. But every society, every religious group somehow changed the rules into something bloody. Into something horrible. The Christians and their crusades, the Muslims and their Jihad, and the Mayans? The Mayans and their sacrifices. Eme remembered how every time her own mother climbed that temple to announce who the Gods wanted as next sacrifice, the entire village was shuddering in fear, afraid for their names to be called, or the names of those they loved the most, husbands/wives and children, or family. In El Dorado they had a tight community, everybody knew everybody, and no one was safe. Whether it was the Court adviser's son, the low-grade butcher or the daughter of the Ajaw and High Priestess, it didn't matter. But for some reason, Eme had been destined to not die. She still remembered the man who approached her on the day of her sacrifice, during her final hours of life (or so she thought) and told her that the Gods had made a mistake, and that she wasn't meant to die. How she gave up her soul to the Gods, instead of her life.

She had never seen that man again, not once. He had been vanished by the time it was done, and after that she never tried to find him, somehow knowing that that wasn't what she was supposed to do. Ever since that moment, she somehow knew what to say, what to do, and had a very strong moral compass that surpassed many others, but she had still been human. Human in her feelings, with fears and prides, and all that came with it. It would take so many more years for her to become who she was now, and so much more to go through. She had been destined to save the city of El Dorado, but by doing so, she could never return to her family and friends again, and that was scary, but she had done it, and had lost her ability to feel fears and insecurities. But the other tribes who captured her afterwards were sure to tend to the fact that Eme could never grow arrogant, and though they tried to break her and make her believe she didn't have any form of self worth, when she believed it in the end, the woman realized it didn't matter. She had to go through this to become who she was supposed to be, so she'd do that. And she knew she wasn't someone very significant, that in fact nobody was, but her inner voice led her through all her hurdles and obstacles, and though they had taken all Eme's emotions for it in return, it still meant she lived. It still meant she was free, and that now she could go wherever she wanted. And she did. And though there had still been many things to learn, over time, the woman realized that she could only learn from herself. For she had all the knowledge, if only she remained who she was. And she put up her gates and made it a challenge for people to find her, so only those who were worthy could enter her lair and get the answer they desired, those who could view everything objectively, and those weren't a lot of people. There weren't a lot of humans like her, and like Claude.

But Eme had allowed Claude to become the way she was now, she could have stepped in so many times, and against an immortal as ancient as she was, there was nothing those gypsies could have done to stop her. But she hadn't, knowing the rules of her carefully constructed little game. Life had become some sort of a game for her, in which she wasn't the main player, no. Eme was the adviser, the one who coaxed the players through the game and helped them there were necessary, if they had enough things to give to her. She was the hint-button in any game, and she often spent her time watching humans and their choices in life. It was intriguing really, how mankind could know how bad a choice would be, and still take it anyways, based on emotions. But then again, the immortal had learned a long time ago that emotions were useless and only kept you away from your goal and limited your powers. Humans didn't see it, the way mankind didn't see anything at all, not even if it was right in front of them. Somehow they had to fall flat on their face first, before they realized a decision was wrong, and Eme was there to help them, if they came to her for help. But mankind was also cocky and believed it didn't need help, so few knew the relief of getting an answer handed to you straightforward, even if it is an answer that you didn't like. Eme knew now what Claude was making, and she knew that this was why faith had told her to make her this way. To not interfere, there where she had thought she should, but she had been wrong and had listened to her internal voice who was always right, and with that had created the Claude as she was today, with the hidden Greatness inside of her. And there was the final ingredient she needed. The ingredient that Eme would give her. "My name is Eme Dreamspell, Claude. And I know your name, because I know everything." She said calmly, not fussing over anything or taking any notice of the girl's reaction to her knowing her name. This was something that had to be done, and Eme knew it. "They call me Uyulala, otherwise known as the Oracle. And I am here to give you something you desire very much." And now it was up to Claude, because human free will was still something Eme couldn't change. But she hoped Claude's decision would be the rational one, that way the immortal could see whether her plans had succeeded or not.

tagged: claude • outfit: here • 1118 words • talking in riddles

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