The Shifting Landscape

"The...voice? So, you...are Tirahvaalta?" I said shakily.

La Valtana's eyes brightened and the fireflies on her necklace pulsed an electric green.
"I am an aspect, not the whole. The whole of Tirahvaalta is something far greater than I. I exist here, in the royal city, to keep ties with those who organize the information on this world. Peili is truly more of a focal point, or a door than anything royal. If it helps you, think of me as a figurehead, although that is not quite my role." She paused. "Do you not like the tea?"

I hadn't touched the seductive liquid swirling in my cup. The smell, now that I noticed it, was maddeningly delicious, and the bubbles were forming tiny scenes of animals frolicking on some sort of hillside. La Valtana smiled in a way that was supposed to assure me that I would not be poisoned or grow an ass's head, so I took a sip.

Caramel, purple, summer winds and calliope music floating across an empty field. This tea certainly made Earl Grey taste like the pompous fool that the name denotes. I slurped unceremoniously as La Valtana took her seat beside me again. I watched as her hair cycled through colors until it had arrived as the deepest cobalt blue I had ever seen. My eyes hurt.

"I know you don't quite grasp why I have chosen you, Esteri, as one of my Ambassadors. It's because of your sight. To give you an example, it's the difference between what Sir Cuthbert sees when he looks at me, and what you see. Everyone views me differently- it's a matter of heightened perspective....a certain keeness. Naturally, two people looking at the same painting will see different worlds, but there is no guarantee that they will see what they artist intended.
You have the ability to see my true form, and as such are one of the best to explore the world of which I am part."

Maybe it was the tea, but I felt finally understood her. Oriel's face changed to a great round window painted with zodiac signs in gold around the border, her dress wriggled itself into becoming a blanket of ivy and purple flowers that echoed soft musical tones. Before I realized what was happening, I felt myself being pulled through the window of her face into a colorful landscape of green and red hills, which then evaporated into a large room. One wall of the room was entirely open to the same hills I had just seen, the sunlight bouncing off the floor tiles which looked like they were made of mother of pearl. Aside from the gilt decorations on the ceiling, the room was fairly plain, although terribly messy.

There were several large wooden tables with papers strewn on them, about them, and under them. There were four youngish looking men in what I would consider a caricature of high renaissance dress (with these enormous floopy hats that looked like lattice topped pies) having a communal hissy fit and throwing push-pins every which way.

"Boreas! It's moving again! Catch it!!!" shouted the man in gold (His hat-pie looked like apple. What was it about palace attendants and this strange identification with desserts? Bother.)

Two men, one wearing pale blue and one wearing crimson were hovering over a pile of papers with push pins pinched tight between their fingers. The fourth man in green was biting his nails behind them and holding a large ceramic cup. The man in blue suddenly pounced on the papers, vicious stabbing away with his push pin.

"YOU'VE GOT IT!!"
"NO! NO! It's getting away...DON'T LOSE IT! It took me a half hour to get it onto this page!"
"AAGHHH!!"
The man in crimson (hat looking like cherry pie) flung himself onto the papers, nearly knocking the man in blue out of the way. Both of them were flailing viciously, smashing their hands down on the pages as if they were playing a game of slapjack upon which one's life depended.

"Don't crush it you moron!" Shouted the man in blue to the man in red. "Oh, a fine example you are Eurus!" the man in red retorted. "Have you nimwits got it?!!" railed the man in gold. The man in green (gooseberry pie hat) shifted back and forth on his very girlish satin slippers, now with half his hand in his mouth.

"Notus, don't just stand there, HELP them! USE THE CUP!!" The man in gold slapped Notus's hand away from his mouth and pushed him towards the other two still writhing on the floor.

There was a scuffle, lots of screaming, a torrent of paper and Notus launching himself at the whole mess, cup aloft and eyes full of madness.

"I think we got it!!!" The man in blue had lost his (current and blueberry pie) hat in the meleu but didn't care as he and Notus (the man in green) both had their hands firmly over the cup atop a striped piece of paper.

"Well done, men!" bellowed the man in gold joyfully, clapping his hands. He walked over to them, triumphant. "Let's have a peak...but carefully now."

All four men bent down around the cup, whispering and nudging each other.
I noticed La Valtana next to me, looking radiant and holding somewhat to her blonde, violet eyed form. She turned to me with an expression of poorly disguised amusement and said quietly "I'd like you to meet the cartographers of Tirahvaalta; Boreas, Notus, Eurus and Zephyros."

No sooner has she finished the quiet introduction than there was a scuffle amongst the men.
"AHHH!!!!"
"NO!!"
"Blasted thing!"
"YOU LET IT GET AWAY!!!"
"His elbow was-"
"It was not! It was your FAT fingers, chummy-"
"Well where is it?"
"OVER THERE!!!"

The entire group of men stumbled to their feet, pushing each other and ran to a far corner of the room.

"Umm, Oriel, what exactly are they doing? Catching a bug?"
La Valtana laughed so hard that flower petals rained down her cheeks.
"No, no my dear." she said trying to regain her composure.
"They are making a map."

(oh bollocks.)