Settling In

BETHESDA , Central District, The Inner Ring. 2420AA, The sun was up and the light was bright when Havillah's eyes finally cracked open. She looked around with wide eyes before frowning as her memory came back to her. No, it had not all been a dream, she confirmed as she took in the plush looking front parlor decorated in gold and red. Like the hallway,  the walls were white with golden crisscrossed patterns. The upholstery was Carson that much she could tell through the translucent furniture covering and the sofa that she had settled on the previous night. The marks of luxury were everywhere now that she had visited an ordinary home. From the gilded wall panels, the crystal chandeliers and the high carvenous ceilings that made her feel quite small in her superfluous surroundings.  All apart from the coach she had taken to sleep on were covered by white sheets. A white silky fabric of a glossy nature that shimmered and shined, appearing spotless even after the many years that the mansion had remained inhabited. It bothered her quite much that the last inhabitants of this place had taken so much time to prepare for their departure. So much that it made her wonder if the move was meant to be temporary and whether they had been planning on coming back one day to reoccupy these rooms. From what she had gleaned from the few stories that Killion had told her about the priesthood, Havillah had always assumed that their move had been sudden. A rushed thing, but now, as she looked at it from the inside, she could see that the evidence was pointing differently. "Why did they leave?" she spoke out aloud for the very first time since the previous evening when she had left Gabriel stranded at her doorstep. She had felt a little remorseful for leaving him, but on another note, she hardly knew what she was walking into and her anger at that point had not allowed her the luxury of reason beyond the point of giving him a choice as if he truly had one. Gabriel was a soldier and first and foremost, it meant that he would follow his orders before anything. She had placed him at a crossroads. Forced him to make a choice that soldiers did not usually need to make. Go with her or wait for his Captain. "Fear for most of the part was a great driving force." the voice told her, once again creeping up  on her and surprising her in the most unexpected of fashions. "I am beginning to suspect that you are not who you say you are?" she complained. "And who do I say I am Havillah?" the voice chuckled and she bristled at the thought of being made fun of. "The Light?" she asked doubtfully, not sure if it was just her doubts or the fear of retribution clouding her voice. "I never said that I was..." it replied. "You just assumed that I was... " " and yet you did not see it fit to correct me?" she accused it rather angrily. " The point being?" At that, Havillah's jaw dropped. " Are you even being serious right now? "she glared back, looking at nothing in particular. Her hands fell to her waist as she took an offensive stance, out to reprimand the owner of that voice. " Fine." it chuckled. " I am a guide and a messenger of the Light. " it finally conceded. " And you are made from air?" " No. Not really but your natural eyes can not possibly hope to perceive me at this stage. However, in due time, hopefully you will reach a level that you can know more." "My natural eyes?" Havillah was getting more and more frustrated by the minute. "It is a complicated matter, but one that you will get with time. Right now, let us focus on the present which is getting you fed. As it is, your stomach is rather noisy." it replied, at which her stomach rumbled and Havillah looked around in embarrassment. "No need to worry. Believe me, I have seen and heard more disturbing things in my existence." "and that is supposed to be reassuring?" "There is no shame in hunger. Your people just put too much importance in the things that hardly matter while those that do matter suffer from your negligence." That was definitely a slight. A tired sigh escaped Havillah's mouth even as she stood up from the sofa and began to survey the rest of her surroundings. "I have no idea what you are going on about there. It is very possible that I could have an idea but my glucose starved brain cannot process that at the moment." "So you do remember your lessons." "Oh shut up! I am not sure that I need another Gabriel in my life right now." with that she fumbled for her slippers and continued to walk, surveying the rooms as she went along. For the remainder of the time, the voice remained blessedly quiet even as she surveyed the corridors and the rest of the rooms that covered the entire ground floor. A total of thirteen rooms in all that consisted of two front parlors that were differing in size. A much smaller back parlor, a ballroom, two dining halls, a massive lounge, three bathrooms at different ends of the floor, a courtyard and an indoor garden and at last the Kitchen. The floor plan was a lot like that of the temple, making the mansion a somewhat circular building with the glass domed courtyard and inner garden at the centre. It was possible it formed another shape to, but with the way the corners curved, Havillah was sure that the building had to be circular. The front doors opened to a hallway. The hall of portraits as she had come to call it which led out to the first front parlour. Beyond the front parlour was a great glass window and from here the entire courtyard and inner garden were visible. On the other side was another great window. It reached from the floor to the ceiling and made up part of the wall to the kitchen. A space that interested her more than anything mostly because she was actually starving. The kitchen space was greater than any other space on the ground floor. It had a sunken floor giving it an even higher ceiling and was attached to a smaller dining room. The walls were painted a golden yellow with a white marble kitchen island at the centre.  There was marble basin in the middle and a crystal hollow tube that she assumed was the source of water in the kitchen. Cast iron pots and steel containers hung on hooks above the island and on the wall opposite it, was an massive stove and oven. Wooden cabinets and drawers lined every wall in kitchen and pulling open one of the drawers, Havillah found the cutlery. More open drawers and cabinets and she found every kind of kitchen utensil that she could ever need. The kitchen was fully equipped, she noted. What about the pantry? She wondered. Could there be anything edible even after centuries of years of storage? What storage techniques did they use? The researcher in her perked, excited to find the answers to the questions. "Pantry! Pantry!" she thought as she looked around for an exit. Finally, in one corner, she surveyed another door and like she had suspected, it led out into a pantry that looked even more empty than the bare counters of the kitchen that she had left behind. If she had had any doubts before, this spotlessly clean and clear pantry was evidence that the last inhabitants of this house had planned their exit all along. At least, long enough to clean things up and leave behind an immaculately clean house. Havillah was not sure if a journey through the other houses would yield the same result, but even then, she doubted that she would be able to gain clearance as none of the others seemed in anyway related to her. Havillah left the pantry, her hunger momentarily forgotten. She embraced her curiosity and continued surveying the rest of the rooms, floor by floor with the same results. Spotlessly clean rooms with sheet covered furniture. The closets were also empty, apart from a few garments here and there that closely resembled those that were worn by the people of this world. She would have to make do, she decided as she picked one room with cream walls with gold and purple accents and several colourful dresses hunging from its closets. It had mauve curtains that matched the purple beddings that she had found in a closet. The rest of the furniture was golden including the bed's headboard, the vanity and the chaise that lay at the foot of the bed. Purple and golden that is, with a purple velvet like material for the upholstery. 'This will do.' she said again even as she set to work spreading out the purple silken bed sheets and dressing the pillows that had been covered beneath the protective covering of the white sheets. She brought out a rug, this too was purple before moving on to the adjoining bathroom to check that too. There was a huge marble bath and marble basins. Like the kitchen, the water was supplied through a series of crystal tubing. It was not hard figuring how those worked out. Just an infusion of Virtue and like with the door, the crystal did the rest to bring out the water. "No cloud harvesting," she thought, looking out of the window with satisfaction. Doing so, would mean leaving the mansion and she did not want to have to do so just yet. The toilet was in working order, she noted as she lifted up the crystal cover of a floor mounted white marble basin, "and so is the bidet." she added looming at the smaller basin next to it. "All I need now are soap and supplies for the kitchen.' she mused, satisfied that everything else was now in order. 'but how when they all hate me...Maybe Gabriel, but how can I put him in danger from Calla?" "You know, there is the garden in courtyard through a door you missed. It may be a little overgrown but I am sure there is something youcan use there." the voice told her. "I missed?" "Yea. The glass window - wall of the kitchen?" "That was not a window?" It did not respond. "Right." Havillah rolled her eyes at empty air. "Fine. Lead the way!" "and you will follow?" "Quit being problematic and do as you are told." Like the voice had told her, the was a door there. Only that it slid open which explained why she had missed it. Like the voice had told her, the garden was over grown with both weeds and food vegetables. However and in spite of all the thorns and briers that were evading her progress, Havillah was able to make out a path and find something that could satisfy her hunger both for that day and the next several weeks to come. That is, if she decided to survive on just vegetables and fruits. She also found the well that seemed to be supplying the rest of the house with piped water. Somehow the advanced crystal technology had managed to keep it clean and an infusion of virtue was all that was needed to get the water flowing. There was a lot of advanced technology and Modi that did not exist among the Great at the moment. As long as the crystals were involved, all that she needed was just a pull of her Virtue and there was nothing that she could was not able solve. Despite this the house was also large and with every little Virtue she infused Havillah found that it exhausted her. Much faster than it did on Triberias. However, with time she began to get used to it and as she soon found the Virtue and especially her Second Virtue was reacting like a muscle. The more she utilized it, the more it kept on giving and kept on growing without boundaries. Where she could not siphon her Virtues directly, Havillah learnt that there were other ways of making things work out for her and just like the ancients had done before her, she found that she could manipulate her own hope Crystals and use them to run certain gadgets within the house that had been left dead for years. Three days went on like that. Havillah cleaned the house, (not that it needed it but she did it anyway as a formality), weeded the garden and got the kitchen and bathrooms operational and every one of those three days ended much the same way. With her passed out, lying on a sofa feeling too exhausted to move her body up the winding stairway that led to the floor above and to her bedroom. On the fourth day, when all the work she could think of was done - she was stalling and she knew it - Havillah suddenly found herself with enough time to reflect. She missed home, her parents, her brothers and also her mother, despite their strained family relations. 'Is she okay?' she wondered out loud remembering the famous elder who had also been absent on the day of her trial and hearing. Havillah was not disillusioned to think that that was just coincidence. Deep down in her heart, she knew that they or rather he must have had a hand in it. Her mentor, her teacher. That blasted elder must have had something to do with her mother's absence. Had she known that he did not just dislike her, she would have been more careful or at least, that is what she kept on telling herself. Deep down she really knew that there was no way she would have ignored another person in need. If put in the same place in the same scenario her actions would have differed very slightly. Even with the knowledge that she now possesed. For somehow despite being alone and on the run, she still felt a peace that she had never felt before, while on Triberias serving under her mother and that blasted elder. 'No need to think about such things...' she admonished herself. 'Truly. It will only cause you more pain and that can only work to stop you from moving forward.' That voice, the voice that had often irritated her spoke up for the first time in days and Havillah was surprised to find that she had actually missed it. Hearing it assured her that she was actually not alone and despite that other fact that her eyes were too 'natural' to see it, Havillah found reprieve in its presence and in the insights it continually offered her, despite them being offered in the most unconventional of ways. 'What do you mean by onwards?' she asked, her back reclined against a gold baroque sofa, one of the several pieces that she had managed to move up the stairs and into her room with the help of her Virtue. "Serene Barrageway. I think it is about time you did something about that situation. " "How? when I have absolutely no idea what happened? If only I had known that my robes would do that..." "There is a story behind that but so is there behind every other thing. But now, you have to go over and heal her." "Heal her?" Havillah sat up with a most bewildered laugh spewing from on her lips. "Have you met the lady's daughter? She will kill me!" she all but shouted into the air. "Probably, but you do not know that for sure." the voice responded but Havillah was not having any of it. "Think about it Havillah, are you the kind of person who leaves other people to suffer when you know that you can do something about it?" she looked down as she seemed to ponder it for a moment. "Even when you saw Killion falling. It really had nothing to do with you, but you still helped him to your detriment. That is what matters. That is what makes you you and that is what makes you special." "Okay! Okay! Fine! When you put it like that who can resist your charm?" she replied most sarcastically as she stood up to gather her things. "So, what exactly do you want me to do?" "You are a clever girl Havillah. I am sure you can figure something out."