To call Mavek a "seeker of knowledge" would be an immense understatement. That would imply something more casual, more passive; as if gathering information were something he did to fill his long life, filler to connect all of the interesting bits like intellectual glue. But no, information-gathering was the squid-man's entire modus operandi, a compulsion-- no, an obsession-- a way of life. He never stopped moving, never stopped searching. His hunger for new knowledge was insatiable, as though his stomach was a black hole or a bottomless pit, something excessive and cavernous and endless.<br/><br/>He hadn't had a home since he was a child, over a hundred years ago, his personal collection of books and artifacts scattered around the world, kept safe by the few humans he had come to trust in his travels. It was dangerous to stay still, but Mavek also found it imperative he never stop searching, desperate for hints and clues that could lead to another like him. But hope diminished as he aged, the gifts that fortune gave him dwindling in frequency and number, and he found himself simultaneously hopeless and restless, worried that his people were extinct or, if they weren't, that their numbers dwindled beyond repair.<br/><br/>This voracious information-gathering tickled in the back of his mind as a constant, even as he peered through countless tomes, dated beyond eternity. He found himself caring less and less about the age of the books that fell into his hands the older he got, although he still gravitated toward the musty and leather-bound out of habit. As he peered through new-age paperback science fiction novellas and dusty vellum-bound encyclopedias alike, the names and dates melded into one another, his eyes searching for a series of keywords in text rather than proper jargon and titles. Expertise was subjective, and Mavek had found himself unashamedly haunting the work of fiction authors whose imagery he found astute and curious just as much as he did comprehensive biographies and histories-- his own anatomy and circumstance was just as unreal and eldritch as the monsters that crept through fantasy and science fiction novels, so who was he to judge the reality of such things? Most considered traditional, historical myth to be a fantasy too, and even in his long years of searching, he had found little to ease the unrest in the pit of his stomach that insisted he was an anomaly.<br/><br/>In spite of the constant war against himself, his logical mind fighting with his emotional one as he swore to himself that one day his search would be fruitful, Mavek regularly found himself guided by deep-rooted instinct. It was like a red string of fate tied to something deep in the water, tugging him along as it swam; he hugged the coasts and followed a pulsing in his chest that insisted on his direction. It was with this mindless reflex that he found himself in Italy, although it was only the word of an old man who claimed to be a seer that led him to the northern parts. In this age, so few clung to myth and the old gods; it was a rarity to find someone who claimed some sight beyond human senses, and he couldn't help but follow the guidance of the man's pointing finger as it shakily pointed to a spot in Mavek's map. Hell, he had his own inexplicable abilities and inclinations-- who was he to judge the word of someone who only wanted to help, only wanted to guide? Someone who expressed generosity even as he stood before them all strange and mute, someone who had taken Mavek's hand and insisted it was destiny?<br/><br/>So, when he finally arrived at some approximation of the man's gesturing, a village near Trieste-- so far north in the Italian anatomy it was almost swallowed by Slovenia, he mused-- Mavek took his time. He wedged what few belongings he kept between some rocks under a cliff face in an empty beach, meandered between the alleys and along the docks, and explored little shops as they caught his eye, peering through trinkets and oddities delicately as if they were priceless treasures lost by time. The bookstore was a natural end to his evening, he had decided, and when that no longer sated him, the sharp and dusty scent of pages new and old leaving the pit of his stomach shriveled and dry, he finally decided to leave for the water.<br/><br/>His anxiety was a ticking clock, the hand pushed forward as he caught looks thrown his way, curious onlookers perplexed by his enormous yet lithe form. There was one man, in particular, he caught constantly stealing glances, dark and tall, though nowhere nearly as tall as the squid-man himself. Mavek had caught himself creeping about the library with nervousness and suspicion by the third time he caught the other man looking away, and when he removed a single glove to feel the pages of a particularly aged tome in his grasp, he had done so in the belief that he was finally free of surveillance. He was unaware of the mistake that he had made, his carefully crafted concealments pulled apart and pieced into something new and inhuman.<br/><br/>After he left the bookstore, Mavek was locked in a daze of introspection and anxiety. It wasn't until the sun was nearly set and he found himself on a rocky shore that he finally found himself sinking back into consciousness, as though his body had been piloting itself back to the water, desperate to feel the water soaking into his skin and floating through his gills. Perched on a rock, he closed his eyes and took a deep inhale of the comforting, familiar smell of salt and brine-- although the particular scent of the sea differed from place to place, there was always that underlying stench, crisp and airy, an olfactory memory filling his head from ear to ear with each sniff. As the sky began to dim, transforming from yellow to orange to violet, he finally shook himself out of his trance, in dire need of watery freedom.<br/><br/>First came the gloves, soft and silken, long, delicate fingers concealed within them. He was thankful for the pliability of his webbing, a feature that permitted him to wear gloves in the first place. He let his hands rest on his cheeks for a moment, his own cold touch often the only one that he was allowed, then snaked his hands down to his neck, unraveling his thick wrappings. He was thankful for the cool breeze, the autumn evening-- he could get incredibly hot during the summer, trapped underneath layers of clothes that hid his skin and his inhuman features from the world, but the current weather was ideal, familiar, comforting. When his tendrils felt their first hit of salty breeze, they loosened their tension with a wriggle and writhe, as though they were awakening from a long hibernation. Finally, he pulled off his coat, a long, worn thing that would have come to the calf of a normal man, loosening the ends of his tentacles with a refreshing wriggle. He folded his removed clothing in his lap, then carefully set it on a rock as he enjoyed his relative freedom from constraint. He would have removed his turtleneck, too, and then perhaps his belt and pants before going for a swim in his undergarments, were it not for the sudden and chilling voice of someone behind him.<br/><br/>Mavek froze in an instant, soaking in the words but unable to react to them in his immediate panic. He pressed his lips together and sealed them with his teeth before turning around slowly and cautiously, still seated, his long torso following his head and neck. His fingers gripped the scarf in his lap, scrunched it in his grasp, uncertain whether he should place it back over his head and run or resign himself to his fate. Strangely enough, he realized, the man's main concern wasn't his alien features, it was some self-conscious worry of being followed. This man clearly had his anxieties, as well. Perhaps that was a benefit.<br/><br/>As his palpitating heart thumped in his chest, Mavek finally managed to shake his head, hesitantly at first, then more urgently. Lifting a careful hand, indicating he meant no harm, he lifted an elegant finger and pointed it to his lips before touching a corner of his mouth, drawing a line across its curves. Finally, he reached for the man's mind, hoping his strange method of speaking wouldn't serve to escalate the situation.<br/><br/>He began to say something in Italian first, then realised with a jolt the man had spoken in English. He shook his head and flexed his fingers, his eyes fluttering, before starting again. "<i>I follow no one"</i>, his voice rang in the man's mind, delicate and strange, his accent something definitely of the British Isles but difficult to place. Mavek nodded, eyes going slightly wide, then hesitated, pushing his words into the man's head again. "<i>I am curious, however-- I had gained the impression it was, in fact, you following me. Do you-"</i>He hesitated again, shaking his head and waving a hand in front of his face almost dismissively, now even more perplexed to the man's lack of running and terrified screaming. He searched for the words, but couldn't quite find exactly what he wished to say. Almost suddenly, he went with anxiety-bred instinct, "<i>Are you not terrified?</i>"