Lunch with Friends

[Jirai]

It was a lovely day, the sky a bright blue dotted with fluffy little white clouds. A fine day indeed to lunch with a friend, and that was exactly what was to happen.

The bar in question had been a darker thing some years back, but a good cleaning had removed several layers of smoke and grime from the windows, allowing the bright sunlight to shine in. The tables were graced with embroidered clothes and it was at one of these tables that the Lady of Myrken Wood sat, in violet skirts and glittering jewels, kobold-made tiara topping her elaborately braided hair. The table itself waited, with a second chair for the vice-governor and tea service for two, mint and lavender scenting the air.

[channe]

Funny enough, these things.

Last week, this place had been just as dark and grimy as it had ever been back when Rhaena and Agnie were just unknown girls in funny clothes, swigging whiskey and talking about their dreams. Agnieszka snorts a moment, unladylike even in her plain, blood-red, angular dress, made to impress and not be frilly. A pause as she walks through towards Rhaena, letting her hand drift across the tablecloths, towards the woman --

-- she'd chosen this place because it was safe. Now: it's a battleground.

"You're looking nice," she finally manages to say, without a hello. The tone, of course, is certainly slightly sarcastic.

[Jirai]

Agnieszka dressed to impress and chose sarcasm as her weapon. Rhaena, on the other hand, lovely in her lace and finery, simply smiled happily, rising as her friend approached.

"Agnie! How lovely you look! Oh, I am ever so happy that you managed to find the time to lunch with me today. Sit, sit! They have the blueberry pie today, just as I said - hot out of the oven." As she spoke, her smile became more of a grin. "Would you care for some tea?"

Rhaena Burnie seated herself again and, without awaiting a response carefully poured tea into twin delicate cups, handling the painted pot with an ungloved hand.

[channe]

Tea. Tea. So much fecking tea. Tea at the meetinghouse and tea on the porch of the Broken Dagger and tea at the teahouse. It's enough to drive a vice-governor to drink. And, oh, she thinks about it for a moment, before she decides. More tea it is, then, more tea down her gullet, and oh, if she drinks tea after this, the world might end.

But maybe she'll have water, here, just to stay sober through this conversation.

A pause as she seats herself across from Rhaena, the unease in her gullet masked by the thought: She can't hurt me. She's promised, and I'm pledged to the Bright. She can't hurt me.

"Sure," she says, quietly. "Tea sounds great. Now, we got some things to talk about, don't we?"

[Jirai]

So much tea.

Glenn Burnie had never liked tea. Not since the incident with the drow. It had been, perhaps, one of their most significant differences, for a time - that she loved tea so and he could not stand it.

Now? There was tea everywhere, tea steaming gently in Agnieszka's cup, in Rhaena's own as the governor's wife took a sip.

"We do, don't we?" She answered with a tiny smile. Really, the younger woman was never without a smile, hadn't been since Catch's unfortunate birthday party more than a year past.

"It's not like the old days, is it, Agnie?" And for a moment, there was the barest flicker of regret in the woman's voice. "How is Aleksei doing?"

[channe]

"Oh, Aleksei's fine," she says, smoothly, grinning widely. "Just fine. He's probably coming back any day now with good news from the Thesil front." A pause, and she reaches for the sugar.

"And no, it isn't." A pause. "So, have you heard from Glenn recently? Has he had time to... visit the museums wherever he is? Or --" A pause, a glint in her eyes -- "Perhaps the gardens?"

[Jirai]

"Well, I shall hope for your sake that he returns swiftly. I'm sure you miss him ever so much." As for Glenn... well, she smiled. Of course she did.

"I always hear from Glenn, Agnieszka, you know that better than most. And museums are not likely to hold his interest at the moment." She blinked at her friend with a bit of confusion.

[channe]

"So. What is holding Glenn's interest?" And she shifts in her chair, bringing her hands to a nonthreatening position in her lap. She tilts her head to one side, her eyes glinting -- "Because, really, I've been through all of those files you sent me and I can't find one damned reason why he should be anywhere else but Myrken Wood right now."

And perhaps that is the reason she went for the position of vice-governor? For answers? Answers that she didn't get, and let that thrill your heart, Rhaena. Because if that's still you in there, darling friend, you'll notice the slight downturn of her lips, the way she always does when she is annoyed.

[Jirai]

"Puzzles. As always." She answered easily enough, taking another sip of her tea. "Red really is a fine color for you, you know. Quite lovely, though perhaps a touch of embroidery... no? Ah well. Tell me, Agnieszka, why this bothers you so when none of my husbands previous absences have?"

Agnieszka is annoyed. Agnieszka is irritated, and in the face of this, Rhaena Burnie only smiles the more sweetly.

"You had a visitor the other day, didn't you?"

[channe]

"I have a lot of visitors, I'm the freakin' vice-governor. And he always tells me where he goes when he leaves for more than a few days, but that's something that you should have known," she says, smoothly, reaching for the pie. "It bothers me that the answer to such a simple question could be so hard to answer."

She waves her fork in Rhaena's direction as she lifts a slice of the pie and puts it on her plate, but does not yet eat. "So, you tell me. Let's stop with the artifice. I'm sick of it. Did you put him in Golben?"

[Jirai]

Rhaena gave a small, polite sigh. "Were you not, just the other day, complaining that he chose not to inform you about his most recent trip to Razasan?"

A small shake of her head. "You may have had lots of visitors, Agnieszka dear, but I think you would remember this one in particular. A young woman. I must say, I hadn't expected that one to be useful at all, but I was wrong, wasn't I? Did she touch you?"

The vice-governor's final question went unanswered.

[channe]

"And what if she did?" Agnieszka says, pointedly.

It seems, then, that today is going to be a day for unanswered questions. Questions taken and thrown about, questions disregarded, questions answered not with words but with looks and stances -- and if Rhaena wasn't going to answer Agnieszka's questions, her old friend was going to add to the pile.

"What happened to you?" she says, quietly, straightening in her chair. "I -- I'm sorry, Rhae, that I wasn't able to save you. It happened so gradually... I thought you were just finally picking up what you liked from living down here, I thought you were just... getting comfortable and learning new things. God, if I'd only known, I'd found some way to stop it."

She looks down at the pie, and back up to Rhaena. "I'm a shitty friend. But I am going to save you -- you know that. I'm going to save you if it's the last thing I do."

[Jirai]

"I need a friend, Agnieszka." She said, just as quietly. "I need a friend, and you've always been my friend, haven't you? Even after what they did to you in Razasan." A light laugh escaped her lips even as bronze eyes slowly lost their focus.

"It matters. I would have left you alone, you know. I did promise. But you kept asking questions, and the more questions you asked, the longer it would take, and it's already taken longer than it should. It should have been done by now, and Glenn could have come home and everything would be as it should be."

Hands were folded neatly in her lap, back straight, and bronze eyes seemed to stare right through her companion. "It wasn't just the promise, you know. They did something to you in Razasan. That protected you as well. But she touched you, and now there is nothing, Agnieszka. I didn't expect her to be so useful, not at all. Because of her, I can save you."

She smiled. "I don't need a toy, Agnie. I need a friend. I need someone to stand beside me, to protect me. You will do that, won't you? My dearest friend..."

[channe]

They did something to you in Razasan.

The memories are still unclear, are feelings and crushing terror-pain; there are images of the black tower, the penitents, the taste of blood in her mouth, coughing out dirt, breathing in soil, and the certain, beautiful knowledge of the Bright that was All. The promise, the seals, the Two Seals, and as she trembles there, she realizes that one of them is coming undone, underneath her very thoughts, underneath --

-- and she's tumbling up from her chair, sudden terror on her face. "N-no. Don't you dare. Don't you fecking dare -- you promised --"

You fool, to think that this thing in Rhaena's skin would keep a lip-service promise --

Perhaps she hesitates for a few seconds, standing there, staring at the monster. This is, after all, her closest friend. Her confidante. The only one that treated her with kindness at the beginning, when she was dirty and worn and too, too young. Rhaena, her friend.

"No. I'll die first," she says, and she drags her dagger from her belt. "Or maybe you should. Because you're not her. Not anymore."

[Jirai]

When dealing with monsters, one ought not hesitate. Rhaena certainly did not.

Agnieszka sprang from her chair, but the gowned woman remained seated calmly, a half smile on her face as she reached without moving, reached out to make the changes she required.

"She touched you to break you, but I don't need to. I never did. Not the last time, not this time. You were always my friend, Agnieszka," and her voice was almost plaintive, child-like. "Now, you will be my friend again."