The Wreckage Wrought in Rhaena's Wake

The Wreckage Wrought in Rhaena's Wake

Postby Tolleson » Mon Sep 30, 2013 2:39 pm

Parchment and spilled ink carpeted the small room, books lined the walls as if they held them up and even the unused bed had become a desk, piled high with maps, reports, splayed volumes, and intercepted messages. At the center of the storm was the red haired inquisitor, working at a fevered pace. A dozen pins traversed the wall and floor where she crouched, a spider to the web of thread that looped around the tacks.

Oh the mess it had become. Guilt and guile, rolled in her stomach heavy and hot as molten iron. To whom was she loyal, to what? Glenn had made it quite clear to her that day, years ago now. Large matters of fidelity over small cakes and slight smiles. Glenn was different now. Or had been. And that was a different matter, but not entirely.

Nearly empty spools clattered to the floor in the surprise that followed the unexpected rap at her door. Before she answered the thread was yanked, the pins pulled free to leave a mine field of tangled clutter. The door is opened ever so slightly, room enough for one eye. A letter for her, delivered directly to her room, a place she so rarely left anymore. Within it’s book lined walls she was safe, the teetering tomes her biggest threat. The nightmares still came but the nervous rat eyes of Rhaena’s followers of Agnie’s men wouldn’t peer here. And even if they did, what would they find: a map riddled with the holes of pins pulled free, an unsent and cryptic but hardly incriminating note to her dear friend Mr. River. No, the worst they might find is evidence that she’d harbored the ‘lunatick,’ Catch.

The parchment is snatched with a curt but grateful nod and the door is shut immediately. Much like the state of her room and her sanity, her ability to interact with the world outside of herself had begun to deteriorate. Care is taken with each step as a finger slips under the fold and cracks the wax seal. A small circuit of pacing ensues as it is read once, twice, and a third time before she stops to find herself in the long, misshapen mirror. Red hair like fire, it matches so well now the girl in her head. Though in her mind, there are no bags and bruises under her eyes, there is more girth to her wasting frame, and less anger reflecting back. Who else must she lose. How many more ways would she inevitably fail.

Aside from the fact that most of her Rhaena-sanctioned clothing had been destroyed by some calamity or another, and more than a sheer act of rebellion, it was Giuseppe’s letter that prompted the former pie marker to pull the black shirt and trousers from the shelf. She had been meaning to return them, freshly washed and perfumed in lavender to avoid offending Zilliah and as a common courtesy. Within moments she is redressed, Giuseppe’s black garb, the dagger gifted by Glenn, Zilliah’s eye and the only book in her small library that mattered. Her hair is braided quick and tight, no mind given to the time of day as she departs to find the Marshall, the journal clutched tight under arm.

Careful as instructed she avoided too many prying eyes, rooms with table cloths and tea. If she was stopped in violation of the dress code she could simply explain a laundry-list of prior and entirely believable, coming from her, incidents that had occurred. Incidents that had, in truth, happened at some point, and which had deprived her of Rhaena approved, dirt free, suitable clothing. And surely, she would explain she was just on her away to change.
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Re: The Wreckage Wrought in Rhaena's Wake

Postby Carnath-Emory » Mon Sep 30, 2013 3:42 pm

Were an Inquisitor to introduce herself to the Marshall's meetinghouse office, she would find herself greeted by an audience of half-curious glances, each one of them a little preoccupied; a little detached. Being an avid student of what Myrken's come to, she'd hardly need to glance at their lace-edged collars to realise why. Having survived an odd mentorship beneath the Man in Black, she would not require clever-eyed Radeorin to redirect her discreetly to Darkenhold.

Like much of the Militia's operations - for there are no more muddy footprints here, no more back-and-forth trudge of increasingly uneasy farmers and 'smiths - as much as possible of the Marshall's daily duty has been relocated.

To arrive at Darkenhold's gates is to find herself admitted without question, and the Inquisitor will understand the reasons for this well before she catches sight of the afternoon's festivities. Which are not unlike the morning festivities, and which bear a distinct resemblance to the festivities of last night as well, and all the day before it, because this is no common feast but The Lady's Soiree, and it has extended for weeks. Music will reach her ears before her eyes note the vivid colour of the hour's rather wilted revelers; regretfully, she will detect the odd gourmand aroma of spitted meats and tiny delicacies piled into narrow, staggering towers. And should she care to linger -

does she?
can she bear to?

- angry little Genny, with her bruised eyes and her strictly-braided hair, might even catch a glimpse of the swains' week-long accomodations: a series of pavillions, pale fabric drawn snugly across timber frames, and on their outskirts a scattering of intimate little bowers, heavy with vines and delicately curtained. Is that laughter, wafting musically from within one of those curtained niches? And for all its loveliness, is there not a slightly fragile edge to the sound?

Perhaps her steps will hasten.
Perhaps they always had.

Eventually, someone will realise what she's about. Eventually - and sooner, rather than later - she will find herself inducted into an escort that brooks little interference from distracted party-goers and impatient waitstaff, and of the latter it need only be said that the week has worked them into short-tempered exhaustion. What has found her is something distinct from either of these, being clad in a rider's serviceable leathers and wearing an expression that is sharp-eyed and grim. A weapon for his hip, and he has made no pretense at disguising the fact; a hint of dark ink uncoiling from beneath one loose sleeve. And a hand for her elbow - if she'll permit it, and perhaps even if she won't - the better to remove her to the stronghold's interior and inquire, in faintly-accented words, as to the nature of her business here.
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Re: The Wreckage Wrought in Rhaena's Wake

Postby Tolleson » Mon Sep 30, 2013 4:29 pm

With Giuseppe gone relatively few allies remained within the Inquistory or the Meetinghouse, not that he could be considered one, under Rhaena’s reign. But she would go, quietly, paranoid and without a word to anyone clad in so much as an inch of lace. Miss Mary might be present or perhaps the snarky messenger with a knack for finding people, even the ones who didn’t necessarily want to be found. There weren’t many like him, clever people, the overlooked, the unimportant, perhaps like Genny herself; the lingering remnants of the true governor’s hand-picked regime.

Regardless she arrives and it is unnerving at best to be let so easily into Darkenhold. And the sight of the festivities is by no means a comfort, rather it is a clear sign indicating the extent of the siege. And Rhaena was winning. This thought and perhaps the aroma of roasting meat, the air itself saturated with saccharine, it is all sickening. Skipped meals, a neglected exhaustion has her staggering a step as her stomach lurches.

Even so, there is no lingering. Her legs are long, her stride large, and her gait quick. She watches the beautiful and charming chaos around her with distain, the wait staff with pity and it is enough to distract her from whatever or whomever takes hold of her thin elbow.

Whisked away from the party she will attempt to retrieve her arm, gently. Force likely wouldn’t get her far and even if it was a tactic that she could reasonably employ, doubtful, it wouldn’t serve her to run away in the middle of Darkenhold. Not with her sense of direction and not with what it had become.

“C-certainly n-n-not for the cake,” a pause as she looked over her captor, or perhaps her savior. “I m-might ask you the same t-thing… that hardly… cannot be at all appropriate attire for such a … fancy party,” she’d seen the posters after all, there were strict regulations regarding the amount of lace necessary. And ink! Gods forbid.
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Re: The Wreckage Wrought in Rhaena's Wake

Postby Carnath-Emory » Mon Sep 30, 2013 5:01 pm

Force wouldn't get her far; is this not what's stated by the open steel hitched near his side? But it doesn't need to, for by the time they're within the stronghold's foyers and its heavy doors closed in their wake, his rough hand has not hesitated to remove from her arm. It is replaced by a perfunctory glance, and - she's a clever girl, this one; despite his silence, she will surely recognise the moment in which quick, sharp thought rushes through his gaze.

"Certainly not," he echoes after a time; a silhouette passes a distant doorway only to pause as he raises his arm, arresting its departure. Beaten bronze, half hidden beneath a sleeve-cuff slightly frayed; simple, brutal ornament, and not of Myrken fashion; certainly not some remnant of the distant capital. "This - " But he laughs, as he glances down at himself; laughs, with a sudden grin that belies the hardness of his eyes. "Business - within. Festiving," a jerk of his chin towards the windows, " - without." A glance, dark brows lifted. "Mm?"

The shape which he'd given pause has emerged from that doorway and into the foyer proper - this broad space with its tall, draped windows, its mosaic floor; like Genny amidst the music, this man is a battered-leather contradiction to the elegance hid behind a stronghold's stern walls. This shape, which sunlight reveals as feminine in its lines and quiet at the eyes, and there is a moment in which they collaborate quietly, these two, bowed heads and murmured words.

Clever Genny; does she have a talent for languages? For there's a beauty to what they speak, a musical lilt to the texture of its strange syllables -
No. Perhaps she mightn't recognise it even so.

And in any case, the woman is already departing, and with clear purpose; at the doorway she corrects from her original trajectory, swallowed into a torchlit corridor and gone from sight by the time this man turns his eyes back towards his guest. "This? My home." As if it were plainly obvious, and it couldn't have been; not to someone whose concern has ever been Myrkentown proper, not to an inquisitor for whom Darkenhold has existed largely as an asset - or else a problem - marked in ink upon a map. "The unexpected? My business."

By which, very clearly, he means herself.
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Re: The Wreckage Wrought in Rhaena's Wake

Postby Tolleson » Mon Sep 30, 2013 5:29 pm

Arm retrieved she rubs it idly as if despite his harmless grasp she was bruised. It is an unconscious gesture accompanied by a forced smile at the uncomfortable laughter. She offers a nod of understanding, even though the words are broken. Not that hers are much better. But it’s the least she can manage as her attentions are taken by the woman that joins them.

She has no talent for languages, body language perhaps, or even unspoken words between eyes. But between them she stays silent long enough to try and listen, long enough to be polite. Longer even still as she takes a step back and admires the windows, the floor, the corridor, the nearest exit.

“T-thank you for… for… inviting me i-into your home,” ever so polite in her dodging of questions “and… I do apologize t-t-that I am unfamiliar… to whom do I speak? And… if this if your home… is, you are the host of t-t-that party?”

Ever so frail and entirely genuine in her polite curiosity, she turns back around to find the harsh eyes that had laughed.

“Not… t-t-that I am ungrateful, but I… why pull me away from your… your.. festiving?”
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Re: The Wreckage Wrought in Rhaena's Wake

Postby Carnath-Emory » Tue Oct 01, 2013 1:24 am

An unconscious gesture; an understandable one, as well: the woman reclaims what was seized from her, and all beneath the eyes of a man whose grin is sometimes more like a smirk.

But what of young Genny's eyes? For there is so much to see here, and it is not limited to the breadth of a leather-clad thing that's not bothered to hide its arrogance. There are tall windows well worthy of her admiration, even if the most of the leaded glass is hid behind drapes wrought in crimson and gilt - every inch Lady Rhaena's colours. Vaulted ceilings arch high, high overhead, yielding over only to a stretch of heavy glass through which sunlight cascades, inspiring mosaic tiles to prettily gleam: to look long is to imagine a household which intended to bring the sun itself into their home. A scattering of elegant benches welcome the weary visitor; near the door, a weapons-rack discreetly awaits his steel -

"'Host'," he's echoing her now, in the wake of the other woman's departure, and perhaps he is unfamiliar with the word. But clearly not the question which came before it, for he has straightened a little from the laconic slouch of a moment ago, and here is a hand offered to her, Myrken-style. "I am - " The grin again, sudden and small; something like mischief stirs in the dark of his eyes. "Efnysien fab Euroswydd. And you? Easier with name, I think. Else we make one for you. But perhaps then you decide you do not like. Mm?"

She will shake his hand, or else she will not; in either case, it's soon repurposed into a gesture towards those waiting seats.
Perhaps the hand which so gripped her elbow had noted the exhaustion hid behind all the cleverness.

"This," and he's turned away now; given her a shoulder as he lifts his gaze towards the windows, "this not for ours. This with purpose," and a slight shift of the shoulder concedes that he has little attention for its actual nature. "Not for likes of you I think, mlantes fach. You are not their sort," and it is sudden, the glance he fixes upon her then; it confronts. "But if you rather? If you would dance, would sing your soul away?"

An indicating jerk of his chin.

"Doors are not locked."
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Re: The Wreckage Wrought in Rhaena's Wake

Postby Tolleson » Tue Oct 01, 2013 6:33 am

A weary smirk, a rough man with steel at his side, the somberness of the interior despite the searing light, stained and streaming throughout the vast interior, everything is considered. Mentally, notes are taken and comparisons made to things already known.

She contains her awe quite well, but her own eyes are wide in observation more than admiration or appreciation of the splendor. Such an environment was unfamiliar but not completely inaccessible – having been to the palace in Thessilane recently and often as a child. But there is more there, in her eyes, they are a succulent spring green, lively and vibrant, genuine and curious marbles that dart about. They’re almost frantic, almost beady from the buzz of an un-resting mind, exhausted, frustrated, and trying so hard to recognize the slip of sanity and restrain herself. Struggling to recall every ounce of Glenn’s training, of two months hidden under their noses. So many sacrifices she could not let be made in vain; protected by the people she loved, it hurt to remember it all and keep from blurting out her request, to scream for Ariane, or even the less sensible, Glenn, Calomel, Zilliah, or even Giuseppe, and Agnie, all the people who might save her, or to take Rhaena’s head in her own hands, to feel her mind and leech the infection out of her, else crush her head between them.

The torrent of thoughts give her a sickly pallor, chills and a groan in her hallow knot of a stomach. The tarnish of exhaustion is not so readily visible in her eyes, but in the depths of them she too is weary, crushed under the weight of invisible burdens, a fact her tired appearance has already conceded. But she is not slouching, trudging or dirty, her clothes are ill-fitting and a poor choice, but they are fresh and crisp. Ever presentable, ever polite, even if it had no place in this Rhaena colored room or with the people just beyond the doors.

“Efnysien fab Euroswydd… Efnysien is… is, does t-this follow Fore and Sur or, is Efnysien a family name?” She repeats the pronunciation, not perfectly, but closely and several times to ensure she has it right.

A Myrken handshake was not necessary, hardly anyone used the gesture with her. Still she takes his hand before offering her own name, watching, perhaps, for what he might do with it.

“I’m Genny, t-though I t-t-think… perhaps the name you give would be better,” she smiles meekly.

The rest is to follow, to listen, to understand that perhaps she among friends within these walls.

He confronts her so gently and her reply slips out like melted butter. Such practiced excuses to avoid parties, to stay hidden. “You… you flatter me to t-think I am able,” to dance that is. It may well be he had never heard or met her before, but no effort is made nor could it be, to hide her awkward height and clumsy feet. “mlantes fach ,” she repeats with curiosity but without a pause for the explanation. “T-though I t-t-think you are right,… I… would ruin t-their fun,” one way or another that was a certainty and surely a more revealing answer. Her voice is sweet, gentle, entirely self-depricating as if she, clad in black, with two left feet would simply ruin their fun. But beneath the tones is the most subtle upset, an edge of lurking animosity for all that those singing, dancing, poor lost souls represented.

The distance to the bench is closed but Genny remains standing for the time, eyes narrowing but not with suspect. “With purpose? T-t-to what end do you hold… this… such a lovely party… for… for them?”
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Re: The Wreckage Wrought in Rhaena's Wake

Postby Carnath-Emory » Tue Oct 01, 2013 8:33 am

He's laughing, of a sudden. Rich and easy and with what very much appears to be genuine delight, although its source might well escape the girl; laughing 'til it echoes through a foyer that's surely been starved of mirth for weeks.

"Family name," he grins even now, and the shape of it does pleasant things to sun-weathered features. "Is good like that, mlantes fa - " A pause, for she's accepted his hand and offered her name in return for it, and for this she receives a swordsman's firm clasp, all easy strength and skin gone rough to the touch. It's the second time that he's looked at her like this - in a manner that is something other than a cursory once-over, identifying the immediacies and penetrating no further than that. There's some curious in the dark of his eyes, something which quietly wonders, and: " - Genny," he corrects, now that she's supplied it for him. "Is good you try, mm?" And perhaps he means only her attempt at his accent.

No. More than that, perhaps. As she stammers from one stumbling statement to the next - as if this were a dance, and perhaps she even thinks of it in just such terms. An audition, an occasion; a confrontation, with a man who does not speak this language well but never actually stumbles. Whose quiet consideration lingers even as she wanders through all these words, as she defies herself and defies the prancing fools beyond these walls as well, and clearly he is content to let her do precisely that. For it's not until she asks her question that he moves to speak again; moves for true, too, this small measure nearer. Something collaborative in his tone, perhaps; something quietly piercing in the nature of his eyes:

"This?" A tiny jerk of his chin towards the windows and what lays merrily beyond. "Genny. This? Not for them - "

"Cadwgan," and it is spoken by a second voice, and from the doorway through which the girl he'd whispered with minutes ago had vanished. Something other than her, this time: some narrowly-made thing, the dark of its garments interrupted only by the subtle glitter of steel at its hip. It speaks this word and accents it in a manner that is anything but musical; his head lifts, gaze back towards the Marshall even as he straightens, and: "Enough, I think," she murmurs - more gently, now, as she emerges into the foyer's light. "See to the gates if you would. Yes?"

And with a small incline of his head, the man moves towards the doors - but not without some backwards glance for the girl he leaves there upon the mosaics; not without some narrow grin, before he closes the doors behind him.

Quiet, then.
So quiet in here.
The marshall's eyes inspect; the whole of her clearly awaits an explanation.
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Re: The Wreckage Wrought in Rhaena's Wake

Postby Tolleson » Tue Oct 01, 2013 9:20 am

Assumptions might be made that she is the butt of the joke, but there are no obvious qualms from her. He had steel and she had clumsy feet, no coordination, and a frail frame with little strength. The weapon best suited to her was conversation, attempts to be cordial, to mislead, extract information, win favor, or even simply to be polite. If she could ever learn to string together entire sentences perhaps she would be a worthy opponent. For now, it was merely defense.

A step closer and her eyes are fixed in his. The party wasn’t for them. Of course, but then why, what purpose – bury them under a mountain of bows, an avalanche of lace, or perhaps make them blind and deaf from all the gleaming and garish, hallow compliments of the well-to-do. So eager is she to hear him explain she doesn’t notice the figure beyond until the voice interrupts and steals her attention.

He is sent away, but not without the softest smile and a thankful nod in reply to that grin. Snapping back she bows her head respectfully and crosses the distance to the, understandably dour woman. Considering her once rather frilly appearance it seems a good sign in the Inquisitor’s opinion.

“Marshall,” her tone is pleasant but flat, to the point and she stops just out of reach, not that swordswoman was likely to cut her down. Especially, if she was still ‘swained,’ and Giuseppe had lied. But still, better safe than sorry.

“I, uh… it is a very lovely party, are you… do you intend to return t-t-to it shortly?” she probed, offering no explanation as to why she was here. She might expect an explanation but having worked under Glenn long enough she was hardly compelled to do anything she didn’t want to by mere body language. Though, he was also quite a bit more vocal in his requests.
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Re: The Wreckage Wrought in Rhaena's Wake

Postby Carnath-Emory » Wed Oct 02, 2013 4:32 am

Assumptions might be made, and these assumptions would be ill-informed; Cherny, of all people, might have been able to explain, Cherny with his growing experience with Efnysien fab Euroswydd and his bawdy partner-in-trouble. Perhaps that conversation will actually happen, days from now, weeks from now; perhaps it doesn't need to. The inquisitor's weapon is well-placed words, and it has bought her a reception that was anything but cold. What else really matters?

This dour woman, meantime. This narrow thing and its unremitting darkness, all high flat collar and sharp angles: she watches in a way that Efnysien never had. But then for him, it had never been necessary to explore further than an easy manner and exhausted eyes. The Marshall's circumstances are significantly different. Watches then, quiet eyes for the nondescript and the very nearly haggard. An inclination of her head answers the other woman's greeting, but she has no words for her at all: only listens, listens as Genny stammers her way through a question which seems so improbable -

except that it is very much a kinder variant upon what Gloria Wynsee had charged her with just the day before.

It decides her. Flattens the mouth into some narrow line, wry at its corners and yielding in the end to a short breath of sound that doesn't even begin to sound like laughter. "It's a very lovely party, for very lovely people. Not the likes of us, mn? Come." A little beckons in the tilt of her chin; she's turning then, retracing her steps as if she expected the girl to simply keep up, and indeed: "We'll speak while we walk," she explains.

Winding corridors: cool stone underfoot, lined with thin runners of softer carpeting. Claustrophobic, perhaps, if not for the periodic lighting and the ceiling's height overhead, and here and there some spot of loveliness to mark their passage past doors and doors: a vase set upon a small table, perhaps; a tapestry hung flat against the wooden wall...

"You wonder am I still what I was made to be." A sidelong glance, as blunt as her words had been. "Of course you do. Of course you are right to. So I will tell you plainly that on this matter, I have no means to persuade." They pass doors, sometimes open; a glimpse of nameless figures at their daily work, a glimpse sometimes of rooms in which no-one stirs at all. "No easy proof. No tests." Sometimes - rarely - a desk lined with tiny ink-pots; sometimes a hint of shelves made heavy with stacked books. But largely these are living quarters and their doors fastened closed. "If you've come armed with such things, this is the time to say so. But otherwise?" Something almost like a smile. At her throat, half-hidden things glitter beneath torchlight. "You will have to choose for yourself. And if you are not capable of choosing, you will leave, and I will return to doing the things which I must do."

They pause at the point in which corridors give 'way to open spaces: an expanse of stone, a double-doorway through which trails the dim of voices, the scent of simmering meals.

"But I'll welcome a name, when you're ready to give me one. A name. A purpose. This is no idle visit."
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Re: The Wreckage Wrought in Rhaena's Wake

Postby Tolleson » Wed Oct 02, 2013 5:35 am

Being examined was not nearly as uncomfortable as perhaps it ought to have been. She expected as much and if anything was happier for it. It meant thought, which was more than could be said for many of the ‘swained’. Even as words are spoken regarding the party her smile returns, a joyous relief even if her company didn’t find it amusing.

Genny stumbles at the outset, she won’t fall, just a quick, short step to catch herself and recover before following the Marshall. Bluntness is appreciated, they were words far less coy than she dared use, all things considered. But being careful had kept her from Rhaena and until rather recently, it didn’t even seem possible for someone’s mind to be released from the illusions.

The questions are somewhat rhetorical and so she simply lets the woman ask them, explain herself. Her eyes follow the woman while the rooms and corridors are watched only peripherally. But by now she is already lost so there is little use it trying to recall the just where she is or how to escape.

She had been ‘tested,’ before, why else mention such a thing. But who, there were only a handful of people who would bother, and of them two or three, maybe, who had the audacity to try. Gloria then? Walking she remains quiet, absolutely until the all the words are spoken and the Marshall stops.

“Genny,” her smile is kind, tired, but trusting and sweet; easily fulfilling the woman’s request. “You must surely understand the necessity… though, I do not… I am not armed with t-tests of proof and I am inclined t-to believe you.”

Following suit, she will slow, her attention taken by the great stone room beyond the double-doorway causing one foot to catch the other, a surprised gasp and an abrupt face plant into the floor. Released from her hands, the small, blue volume thuds softly as it lands several paces from her. The long leather straps that bind it are still secure, wrapped tight at least a dozen times, though their tendrils lay splayed out.
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Re: The Wreckage Wrought in Rhaena's Wake

Postby Carnath-Emory » Wed Oct 02, 2013 8:01 am

She had expected little; had anticipated almost anything but trusting smiles and sudden relief. The gradual appearance of both had slowed her stride considerably, had worked a certain ease into its measure, and when she pauses with a hand flat upon these doors it's with a quiet nod for the girl. The words do not hesitate. Not really, not now.

"I have been given a list. Names - you see? Of those that might be of some use to me, those that are not yet hers. Being beneath her notice, mn? Or else very carefully avoiding it." A pause, eyes gauging the other woman's. Exhaustion tempered by relief. Or no, perhaps the other way 'round. There's no knowing for certain, not when her experience of the girl is minutes long. "Not a long list. But one of those names was yours. Genny," she echoes it, and there is some quiet satisfaction in the way she shapes its sound. Perhaps just a near-illiterate's respect for the authority of written words. "Who is a fine Inquisitor. So."

A fine inquisitor. Which should have been obvious the moment she saw the girl. Having determined not to hide the fact of her recovery, having determined to wear her self like a challenge, it was only inevitable that those of Genny's particular sort would quickly realise what the Lady Marshall had become. The Inquisitory it is, then - which body the Marshall had added like an afterthought to her first assessment of Myrken's present state, realising distantly all the while that this was an unusual way to approach an institution which was either an asset or a threat; that was, in either case, significant. And even knowing this, her thoughts skirted around the edges of the idea...

"I understand the necessity. I endorse the practice. This process, this mentalism - what I understand of it is very little, you see? That she has taken so many, so swiftly - " Weeks, the architect had told her. And immediately - hating to, needing to - she'd measured that shocking realisation against the only thing that was worse: weeks, during which half of Myrkentown was eaten whole. A tiny shake of her head; this is a sentence she's willing to let die half-spoken. "I require caution - of my household." A tilt of her chin towards their surrounds. "I would expect no less of you - being what you are. So you'll withhold what you must, and you'll tell me what you feel you can - of your purpose here; whether it's even your own."

Being what she is, her purpose might be almost anything. The Inquisitory, after all - which she'd woken hours ago, this Marshall, intent upon visiting; well before finishing her breakfast, she'd decided for no reason at all to postpone that approach for another day.

Inexplicable. Slightly maddening, because of it. A question gnawed at the edges of her mind and she could not quite make out its shape -

"Sera." For the girl's taken a stumble, falling victim perhaps to that tricky point at which carpeting gives 'way to flat stone. Two steps towards her then, but the hand which had reached for the girl's has set instead upon what she'd dropped. Small. Guarded.

Discretion prevails; it is offered back to the girl at arm's length. But slowly so; reluctantly, perhaps. There is nothing to restrain this slight frown.
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Re: The Wreckage Wrought in Rhaena's Wake

Postby Tolleson » Wed Oct 02, 2013 8:50 am

There is no surprise at the mention of a list, she’d kept her own after all. It was reasonable to expect someone else had as well. That her name was included was also no surprise. Her involvement with the small band of rebels had been limited but she had helped where she could, hiding the madman, covering tracks, sparing a comatose Elliot from a bed-ridden future.

The surprise comes at the mention of being a ‘fine Inquisitor.’ There is a small snark at the flattery. However, if she was as fine as this list claimed, she might well have known who shared it. But that was really a lesser concern given the scope of things.

Still, she nods, grateful that the Marshall can understand the delicate intricacies of the situation. “I had… it was assumed you were lost t-to us. But given… Giuseppe’s fragile loyalty t-to her… I t-trust him. He wrote and was… he is convinced I will be of assistance to you…”

For a moment she sits a heap on the floor, only her eyes to follow the book, gathering up long limbs without embarrassment to spare. The two might only have known each other in any real capacity for the duration of minutes; but soon she might too become accustom to the frequent spills taken by the over-tall and awkward redhead.

Collecting herself she stood, with a thankful nod and eyes that would find those of her company. “T-t-thank you... I would t-tell you all I know,” her tone earnest as she reached out, surely to collect the lost article.

Long, cool fingers brush the lady Marshall’s wrist and clap so softly over the hand that holds the book. Her touch is gentle and at first the lady Marshall might not even notice. Like a cool breath, as easy as inhaling, Genny’s mind reached out, benign and peaceful, her peering harmless. Though perhaps to one so recently affected by a mindwitch it is an intrusive presence.

Zilliah would disapprove, she was certain. If the Marshall was not herself then Rhaena would see her, would feel her, and the months of undercover work would be almost entirely for nothing. But if Ariane spoke the truth, if Giuseppe’s letter was earnest, with Agnie taken, Cinnabar gone, she was the only one who could possibly benefit from all that had been recorded.

And so she wouldn’t test Ariane with words and games, it would be but a glance as she stood. Perhaps the sensation could easily be mistaken as the depth of her gaze as she looked into the other woman’s eyes. Searching for the severed links of a woman changed, the invisible scars left by the mindwitch who was surely less tender than Genny was now.
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Re: The Wreckage Wrought in Rhaena's Wake

Postby Carnath-Emory » Wed Oct 02, 2013 10:47 am

Years ago - in another lifetime, another Myrken - there'd been something more than lists. It was Glenn Burnie's Myrken then, and the Governor insisted upon seeing to it that his newly-made Marshall was as informed as he could make her. His method was a long succession of carefully-penned letters, page after page of them to fill the two-year gap left by a swordswoman's absence and arm her against the world to which she'd returned. Catch. Aleksei. The institution which Calomel's constabulary had become; the idea which was to birth the Inquisitory.

A stumble. A mishap. A heap of weary limbs and good intentions, and despite herself - despite all of this - something has stirred at the Marshall's mouth-corner; something helpless and very nearly smiling. Because every inch of this sight is familiar, because she's been that, a creature devoted to equilibrium and entirely too exhausted to maintain it. Her hand, then - which offers a book, instead of assistance. Her hand, reaching across the space between them as the girl pushes herself to her feet and -

Genny's name had featured amongst those missives, but only in passing; by the time she rose to prominence, Glenn Burnie was already gone, and a Marshall who could hardly read 'Genvieve Tolleson' could not have hoped to connect it to the nickname by which she'd introduced herself. But there were so many others. Niall. Gloria. Rhaena's Foundation. Kacela's well-intentioned aggression. A dozen different people that she came to intimately know, whole weeks before she ever put faces to the names. Kostroma. Berdini.

Zilliah.


- she flinches beneath the touch of an Inquisitor's hand. Slightly flinches, and it was so slight a thing, hardly glancing against her skin at all. Really, what harm could a small touch do? Surely she does not realise what Genny intends. Brute that she is, halfway-illiterate and occasionally naive, surely she does not even realise when it begins. She is a gentle one, this Genny: she slips sideways through staggered defenses and the din of background noise which is subconscious thought. Delves with a surgeon's neat precision into a mind that days ago had been a wreckage of half-wrought conclusions and things terrifyingly suspected; two distinct selves tangled in terrible disarray. That weeks before this, had been a single, newborn thing so dedicated to re-writing its self into something different - something new - that it was a wonder it was capable of conscious thought at all.

Of Zilliah, the Governor wrote:
He looks an annoyingly pretty teenage boy ..

How good is she, this Genny? Will she approach this with the forensic skill necessary to pinpoint the moment in which it had all nearly come apart? In which she nearly had, both the lady marshall that Rhaena had built and the swordswoman that she'd never been able to quell but only sealed away, away with all the strength and cunning which she possessed. How the mind had strained beneath the weight of convictions set in deadly opposition; how it had struggled, infected by Ideas of such potency that they evolved into new and terrible dimensions from one moment to the next, utterly ruinous and threatening the fragile integrity of both the thing which she'd become and the woman she'd always been. A third influence had intervened. A semblance of order had been restored. Until -

A mentalist without Rhaena's restraint ..
But perhaps that hardly matters to a Genny who is also an Inquisitor. Perhaps her interest lies not in what Was but what Is, and to be sure of a swordswoman's integrity she must plunge through subtle transient thoughts and a broad sea of coldly-burning rage; she must race swiftly across a history to be certain the fit of its pieces is seamless and secure. She might take a moment's interest in the mind's inability to approach certain thoughts - like oil on glass, they slip away, and does she care to identify their focus? - but she has a goal here, this Genny, and in its pursuit she will discover that Rhaena's creation was not obliterated but by turns either excised or subsumed, so that the lady who was exists only in afterimages and impressions, in experiences half-recalled, gentled and impotent.

Surely, she does not realise what Genny intended; what Genny is doing. But as that touch lingers - so small, so harmless - dark runes emerge like shadows from beneath the pale of the swordswoman's hand. An arcane blackness, consuming fingers and hand, cresting soundless across the narrow wrist and surely further yet. She could never have realised what clever Genny's about, but when she glances down at her own flinching hand, when she sees this tell-tale indication -

It is important you are not taken by surprise by him or else there will be bloodshed.
The swordswoman is a sudden economy of motion. Two sharp steps demolish the distance between them; the third and she has the girl's throat in her hand, a lunge of the arm like a whipcrack. Cold fingers; cold and hard and glittering, and this is a wall against Genny's back, this is the unremitting sharpness of colourless eyes.

"Explain yourself."
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Re: The Wreckage Wrought in Rhaena's Wake

Postby Tolleson » Wed Oct 02, 2013 12:14 pm

Why would her name be spoken or appear as anything more than passing? Even now she was nothing; little more than a stammering young woman who spends her days reading dusty tomes, consoling windows, and calming madmen. A vaporous creature in both presence and impact, so little was her contribution to Myrken that even though she worked directly for it’s governor she had been overlooked. And not just initially, but entirely.

The glance is a matter of mere seconds, but in them she is entirely lost. Her physical self abandoned, her muscles locked and body frozen, held in the gaze. But the information she retrieves, the distance she travels through the labyrinth of Ariane’s mind is at the speed of thought. And she is not untrained; on the contrary she has both Rhaena’s training and Zilliah’s insight, with all that was learned traversing the shadows of madness left by Catch. Plus, countless nights without rest, within delusional half dream states where the very boundaries of her mind had been tested and expanded.

Perhaps what she gathered was everything. Genny had a purpose, something she needed to know, but so rarely were pieces and memories so easily isolated. To this, Genny is no stranger, though she sees her own mind, clumps of it, great swaths, some of them once thought to be her own, it had taken practice, a careful watch of herself to even notice and sort the one from the other. How delicate the equilibrium, and how tenuous and fractured the mind of the woman who was neither he old self, nor the creature created by Rhaena’s implanted memories.

One broken mind glued together as if it were a single vase, comprised of the many varied pieces that littered the landscape. Her own mind is tortured, plagued by guilt and harsh memories like pounding, relentless waves upon jagged cliffs. The sea is warm, violent, and carries the voices of others, Catch, Zilliah, Elliot, even Rhaena herself – pieces of them, fingerprints of a presence long gone. Whatever grip she holds on reality seems impossible and yet here stood with patience, presence of mind, and words. It is practice. Practice to clear the space, to quiet the voices, to overcome the memories, doubts, the guilt, to isolate herself; to be able to even interact with the world with sanity, to have stood here, to have spoken.

And with practice and restraint she kept from touching, left with her goal and content in observing the other mind, despite it’s scattered pieces. Learning and observing even if some things seemed so simple to fix.

Until this moment she had done nothing to show herself, nothing to project her presence into the virtual landscape of the woman’s mind. But as Genny’s physical body is slammed against the wall, a piece of her composure is lost. Ariane would likely feel in the encroaching mental presence a fracture in the wall that separated their minds. It is a practiced structure that held one broken mind from another that in this moment let free a rush of emotion. The calm, the fear, the concern, the urgency, the guilt, the loss, and most of all the earnest intention. It is so thick it is nearly tangible, at first like the air forced out of her lungs that in this mental space turns to salty, sea water rushing in a single flow and ebb. Where there had only been thoughts and air the sensation of sand between toes might be felt so strongly if is as if the space if real.

Genny is neither swift or aggressive, but at once her hands, void of strength, clasp the choking arm. She holds her, as if an ally staying a hand too quick to a sword. In the same instant the link is broken, the sea sand and air is gone, the waves vanished.

She can’t very well explain herself here in the vice that has become the Marshall’s hand but she tries.

“I do… no harm, Ariane. T-t-there … was… only one… way t-to… know for certain,” even now she submits with peace, docile and earnest in her explanation.
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