All questions lead to...

Postby Cinnabar » Wed Sep 19, 2007 3:45 am

Talk of symbols, then, to this swordswoman who refuses to pick a side, who spurns both light and dark to stand between them as twilight grey, and who wears clothes to match. It's a matter of pointing out what's obvious, so obvious that it's barely even noticed consciously. This is what he does.

But then there's this talk of the Violet Dawn's markings, the circles that mark the brows of its members, and he's frowning a touch.

"The very same mark? That is... that's certainly interesting." But then there's charcoal scratched across paper, thick and bold letters pressed so firmly upon the surface. And that has him grinning, with a nod.

"Then that is the mark to be laid upon them. Symbols forge links, you see, between the marks and the meaning. So, were we to paint this word upon the Violet Dawn's door where people might see it, they would first see the mark of the Order before they saw anything else. This way we make a new link - in people's minds, in the thoughts of those who see this word on Vraal's front door, we connect the idea of the Order with the idea of the Violet Dawn." There's a grin at this, clearly pleased at the elegance of it.

"We do not even need to explain it, to prove it - someone will see the mark, and they will wonder, "why is it that this Violet Dawn bears the mark of the Order of the All?", and they will think on it, and ponder it, and they will find the connection for themselves. And even if they do not, the Violet Dawn will ever after be linked in their thoughts, however subtly, with the Order. So that when we move against Vraal's works, they will have doubt; they will have suspicion; they will hesitate to protect the Violet Dawn, because there is that uncertainty: what if they are linked to the Baie?"

Calomel sits back, watching the swordswoman's reaction closely.

"And at the end of things, the black king finds that he stands alone."
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Postby Carnath-Emory » Wed Sep 19, 2007 6:05 am

"Mm. Like the eyes of their Chosen, Okulari, do you see?" It's an unfortunate choice of words, but one must expect that of this woman; her grasp of the common tongue remains far from perfect. "There was even a time he wore it inked upon his body, but perhaps the Order, they do not know this; perhaps they saw only the robes. It matters little, mn?"

And she is sinking back in her seat then, is taking up teacup in place of charcoal, and sipping sparingly of its coarse contents. This is all of it difficult talk, after all -- for such a fledgling mind, for a woman who's certainly chosen a side in things, but .. in so unconventional a sense. What Cinnabar describes has struck her as a remarkable sort of sabotage, as something not unlike the posters they'd found scattered upon Myrkentown walls months and months ago, but simpler by far.

A person needn't read, to catch the message Calomel intends.
A person needn't even much think.

"But you must have care," she is advising, this woman who is surely not equipped to do any such thing. "It was for their victims, that word. The girls, the bakery, the Fletcher's boy."

This last addition is an anomaly, of course. He'd flung himself from that chapel's spire, and not a body'd been near to make him do it. Cinnabar Calomel has described the power of symbols, and now he sees it in action, right here at his table.

"For themselves, it was but the robes, the knives. But it is ... a good thing, this doubt," she's nodding slowly, in any case. "This suspicion, it is what they once meant to create, I think. So you use it for your own purpose, mn? As have I, for had Kerrak al'Nerun not reckoned them monsters one and all, then I -- "

Ah, but there is no need to complete that statement, and so she will not. Instead there is some very brief aversion of her features, behind some hang of dark hair, and a moment's reaching for composure before she turns a speculative gaze towards that chessboard. Thin fingers touch to the black pieces, isolating its king, save for its dark knight --

And a sole bishop.

"The dreamwitch," she murmurs then, with a tap of forefinger upon that piece. "Galacia -- do you know that she so plagued Bromn's mind? I did not tell you much of this, when he was -- " Here. Governor. Both. "I do not mean to do him more harm than he's already had, not even to his reputation, mn? But I think ... I can not do this, not no more.

"She did prey upon his mind, his dreams. Lamai Carver, she held a place within his thoughts; for months she had done this, to keep Galacia from them, and she describes it as .. a difficult thing. Perhaps this witch, she does not like him. And perhaps it was because he was Governor.

"But now, of course, he is not."
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Postby Cinnabar » Wed Sep 19, 2007 6:56 am

This talk of markings, of eyes and robes and knives and murdered bodies has Calomel thinking for a time, perhaps assembling the pieces in his thoughts, turning them this way to that to see how best they fit together, how to make them form the picture he desires.

"Their victims only, then? Hm. But it was a message used to sow terror, to incite fear of opposing them, yes? It is a small step to change such a thing from a message to a warning - to threaten with it, such that one need not actually perpetrate these atrocities to spread that fear. Not so much "look upon our works with fear", so much as "fear our works that are to come". As a beaten dog learns to associate a raised hand with the blow that immediately follows, and cringe at a raised hand even when the blow is not struck." Grey eyes remain thoughtful for moments after, before a thought occurs.

"The Violet Dawn operates an orphanage; meanwhile, it is the way of people to fear for the sake of children. That may suffice."

But then there is this other business, the black bishop pointed out and that name uttered; one of the three, Baie-Vraal-Galacia, a dark trinity. A pale gaze on that chessman, then glancing up to regard the swordswoman's features as she speaks of... no, as she circles round these concerns, these worries, not quite speaking them outright. And there is an odd reaction at this talk of the dreamwitch, of plagued thoughts and a mind besieged: for Calomel, High Constable and now Governor in Bromn's place, grins broadly with honest humour.

"Aha, dreams. Yes. Of course. I can see how that might have been a trouble for him. She, what, she magicked them? Sent him night-terrors? Sent him monsters?" It is an incongruous response to these horrors he describes, these night-time torments that one might expect to provoke concern, or fear, or worry. No, for this young man there is only amusement, as if Ariane proposes some quite entertaining jest. A glance to the door, and he leans forward to speak quietly, conspiratorially, as if wary of being overheard, for all that that smile remains.

"I already have one of those."
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Postby Carnath-Emory » Wed Sep 19, 2007 7:39 am

To threaten, says this would-be Governor, and to make his point clear he wields an analogy of penetrating force. This beaten dog, this cringing, pathetic thing: the notion strikes a faint flinch from this woman, who cannot quite bear the sight of a thing so reduced. Even if it exists only within her own mind.

Still, she may nod a grudging assent towards these suggestions, even if some uncertainty lingers; something lacks here, and she cannot quite identify its name. Something is absent, and a corner of her mind shrills insistently upon this fact, and the rest of her cannot imagine what it might be. It very quietly troubles, and certainly it inspires a second sip at the potently-filled teacup.

They're moving on soon enough, in any case, but amongst the reactions to such news Ariane had reckoned likely, good humour did not feature. It ought to have, of course; experience has taught her to expect precisely this, and yet still there is this brief war upon her features. Still, this flicker of startlement, of something like a bitten-back retort --

And she pauses. Exhales a word, unspoken. Runs a fingertip across the teacup's delicate edge, as if that were her touchstone for the day, cool and aloof, and then she can follow the direction of the Constable's gaze ... reluctantly. Can meet his gaze with significantly more enthusiasm just moments after, for he's said something .. that could mean anything. There is only one reasonable answer to this.

"Explain."
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Postby Cinnabar » Wed Sep 19, 2007 8:08 am

Ha, and always is it a matter of straightforward questions where the swordswoman's concerned, the very bluntness of which has the man pausing, thinking, still grinning slightly.

"How to explain such a thing? It is not easy, for all that it is familiar - it's something that makes itself known each time I sleep, even if only briefly or in passing. Perhaps an example is best, hm?" Brows raise, and he takes up his own teacup to sip at the brew with a more suppressed wince at the harshness of it. Clean, yes, as taking a handful of gravel to a dirty pan will clean it. Still, he settles, and gathers his thoughts.

"I sleep. I find myself in a dark place, a cavern of some sort - the air is thin, cool, and smells of damp stone and cold water. I stand in the middle of a pool of light cast from the cave's entrance, a steep upward climb, where the moon shines through pillars of ice, like the bars of a cage but clean and clear as crystal-glass. Outside of that light, though, all is dark." He glances up to the swordswoman, perhaps checking her reaction to his tale so far. "Black like coal, and that is strange to me because I don't see the dark, normally, when awake. Or at least, I see things in darkness as well as I see them in daylight. Fewer colours, but still quite clearly visible." Pale eyes lower to gaze into the drink cupped in his hands, perhaps regarding his reflection there.

"In this cave, though, beyond my little circle of moonlight there is blackness. I can hear the echoes from the walls, I can... feel the size of it from the sounds, but I can't see it with my eyes." His voice is quiet, as if sharing a secret, and there's the sense that this is not something he's spoken of before. "But I am not alone. Something moves in the shadows - to begin with, I'd always be looking at the cave's mouth, looking into the light through the ice, and there'd be something that moves at my back - large, from the sound of it, long and deep breaths, stone-grit scraping beneath its tread. Claws on the rock, like a dog on flagstones." He glances up, then, pale eyes beneath pale brows, some sardonic quirk of his lips as if he half-expects the woman to be regarding him as one would a madman.

"So I'd try to turn to face the thing, but would awake instead. Every time I slept, for... some months, I think." He shrugs. "I think he doesn't wish to be seen."
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Postby Carnath-Emory » Wed Sep 19, 2007 8:56 am

Each time Calomel sleeps, this thing occurs. Even by Ariane's reckoning, this is a remarkable thing -- and she is a woman somewhat aquainted with what oddities the sleeping world can produce.

After all, there was a time --

There was a time when --

Oh, but will he read this self-restraint? That by the fourth breath of this tale, she might as well be clasping a hand over her mouth, for that is the weight of the words which fight to answer it. By that point her brow is furrowed by frowning lines, her lips fallen slightly parted and very nearly-breathless; oh, Ariane hardly moves at all, so intent is she upon this recitation. These are very beautiful things which he describes: pools of moonlight, starstruck pillars of ice. There is a certain serenity to it all, even in the thoughts of a woman who despises such cold, who reckons snow and ice for her mortal enemy and ever loathes it.

Oh, but speaking of loathesome things, isn't that what the Constable continues to describe? A hidden thing, no -- a thing of some size, and which means to remain hidden. And this dreaming world is clearly the belonging of this thing, like a temple to its greatness, like a cave which is its lair, like -- like its place, and that does not sit well with this swordswoman, who is after all a territorial creature herself.

Has Calomel expected to have a skeptical audience? But then he must become aquainted with disappointment, for what sits in this chair opposite his is quite intent upon the tale which he recounts. Has set that teacup upon her bent knee, and the fingertip traces, traces the curve of its rim, and she is so very quiet. Words tumble and fight to be free of her, and each of them a revelation worse than the one before it; much of her wishes to be similarly free of this room, and of this company as well, and would have her shout something furious as she dashed free of them both.

But Syl Duquesne has spoken more confronting things to her, during their long conversations, and she had made it her business long ago not to flee from any of them, to leave no question unanswered at all. Only once had she turned away from the architect, and that was because he'd seen too well and too true, like there were words that could tear her wide, and somehow comfort what remained --

It had been a very thorough lesson in her capacity for confrontation, and it serves her well in this moment. He confides in her, does Cinnabar Calomel. He describes a thing of such particular importance, and it is not necessary that she flinch from it. It is possible, in fact, that she can occupy the role that is simplest for her: that of Questioner. As easily as breathing...

"Does it speak? Even though it means to stay hid, does it give you its voice? Its name? It ... these dreams, they continue even now, yes?"
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Postby Cinnabar » Wed Sep 19, 2007 9:31 am

A quiet audience, rapt in this picture he draws with words, endeavouring to bring the touch, the sound, the scent of this dreamscape to her mind as clearly as it came to his. There are small glances for the woman, attention drawn between her and this really quite... singular drink, of which he takes another hesitant sip. Whether it's this beverage or the tale he tells that has him only nodding silently to her questions is hard to say. It takes a moment for him to find his voice again.

"Even now, yes. And even now I've not seen him properly, though we have spoken... hm, some handful of times. The first time..." His gaze grows distant as he thinks on this, and then there is some small smile turning his lips, as at a fond remembrance.

"The first time was just after Helstone was deposed; while I slept at the Rememdium with an arrow in my back. The sort of sleep that comes when you are wounded, exhausted and heartsick." A small grimace at that memory, then he shakes his head. "So. I find myself in the cavern again, and the moonlight through the pillars of ice, only I lie on the cold stone as I'm too hurt and tired to stand. Again, as always, I hear the sound of it treading closer, only I don't look round because I am too weary for it." There's a distance to his voice, to his gaze, as he seems to turn inwards from this office of chairs and cabinets and paperwork and swordswoman, towards somewhere chill and dark and moonlit silver.

"And it stands over me, behind me, and it is... you know how in an empty room, the sounds are different because the furniture is not there to catch them? Like that, only in reverse - it fills the space, and the echoes of it moving and my breathing have to go around it because it is that large. The wound on my back stings under its breath, and then when it speaks, when it speaks..." A steadying breath here, a glance to the swordswoman as if he only now remembers where he is. "When he speaks it is as if thunder had a voice, and speaks like a song." Some failure of language here, some wordless groping for a better way of conveying the richness of it, the way the creature's words are felt in the bones and the chest, and have a music to them. After a few seconds of this he shrugs, and sips of that awful drink again.

"He said, don't give up. He said, you're doing well." Pale gaze to meet the swordswoman's own, then a shrug and wistful smile.

"Then they pulled out the arrow, and I woke up."
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Postby Carnath-Emory » Wed Sep 19, 2007 10:24 am

This liquor, this jenever, really is quite awful. It's not that the flavour of the substance itself is so bad (although it is); the problem is that to brighten that flavour, they infuse the stuff with herbs of dubious quality, and the end result is ... a challenging brew. That it is wildly popular amongst the town's poorer quarters indicates nothing but how viciously Myrken Wood will drive a person to drink.

When Ariane discovers fondness in Calomel's nostalgic smile, she drains her small cup and fills it over again.

It's a difficult time, that Cinnabar recalls, so that 'heartsick' is a word that might as easily describe them both. She had sent vile Hrimfax against Janeiro that day, against friends and students both; this woman who does not bluff, she'd presented tumbling flame as the answer to their iron bolts, and had truly meant to incinerate them with it. The bolts. The archers. It would be easy to imagine that he describes some fevered dream, some sickly fantasy, and those are common enough in sickhouses, she knows this for true.

Except that Calomel insists the dream has continued ever since, and he is not much given to deceit, else they would not sit here and speak of these things today. He describes it with such focussed care that he has quite lost himself in the telling: the heavy bass of that thing's voice had filled his room, and now the weight of this tale has filled its speaker. If nothing else, that might have alarmed her, and certainly it does now, and really she might have risen and put a loud end to this, but --

You're doing well, this nameless thing had said to him. Da bachgen, a cold man had once said to his brother, Good boy, and Ariane had never forgotten this. Had never once forgotten the look in that one's eyes when he spoke those words, nor the other's, when he heard them. Her own...

Her own are averted for a time.

"You're glad of it," she answers Calomel, when she can look back to him. "You like this unknowable thing."
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Postby Cinnabar » Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:02 am

It's an interesting question, not because of the answer it brings, but because... well, he'd not thought it a question worth asking before. And he finds himself nodding slowly, steeling himself for another sip of that brew that is almost a tincture.

"I... yes." His grin is rueful, self-conscious such that it renders his features boyish and young. "Yes, I am. I do." Of course I am glad of this creature, of its awe-inspiring presence that gives a sense of majesty even when one cannot see it; of course I like it, this creature, this companion that provides such warmth, such encouragement.

"Most times, there is only that barest presence - the cave, I hear it behind me, I turn around but wake before seeing. Each time it has spoken with me things have been... similar. That first time after Helstone was overthrown. The next time after the fight with that worm-thing - you recall I was near buried under the thing's corpse, yes? And the last time, not quite a week ago, after I'd not slept since... since the Ashfiend's attack." A glance for Ariane at that, some hollow gaze still showing echoes of that night.

"I think he speaks only when... when there is need for it, hm? After Haberdasher's Row, when I was hurt and defeated. After the worm-thing, when I was so battered I could not see - he spoke; I asked who he was and he told me a name, then soothed my bruises." There's a grin, and he runs his thumb up one side of his face and then the other, cheek to brow to hairline over each eye in turn. "As a... you have seen a cat grooming its young? Like that. Only instead of a cat, some great thing with... with teeth like so." He holds up his hand, flat to show the distance from fingertips to the heel of his palm. "And the bruises faded, and when I awoke I could open my eyes." He sets the cup of foulness, the jenever, to one for the moment, fingers lacing together in his lap.

"The last time, again, when I was uncertain, unsure that I did right - fearful that this coup of mine was doomed, that I would fail - and he said it again. You're doing well, as before. Also you surprise me, and it pleases." And the swordswoman, hard and grey as the weapon she bears, might see for true that look that she recalls, only now in the new Governor's gaze at the recall of this. He is silent for a time, then nods.

"It is... a comfort to me. He is a comfort to me. It is like being very close to something vast and strong and terrifying, and yet... yet good and wise and kind, such that you know that you will not be harmed by it, nor will it allow harm from others." He pauses, and there is some sense that perhaps he calms his words, that he stops now before he rambles, before he pours forth such effusive praise that he seems addled by this creature he claims to meet in his sleep. So he draws a breath, and composes himself, and shrugs.

"So. This is why I do not fear for my dreams."
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Postby Carnath-Emory » Wed Sep 19, 2007 12:47 pm

Ariane's experience of the dreaming world, of course, has taught her that this is in fact an essential question. But then, her dreams are influenced by a very different force indeed and, if Calomel's impressions are to be trusted, one that's not nearly so benign. She might have questioned the man further on that subject of fondness, of trust, except that this is ground that they've already trod, and long ago. They'd discussed that journal, after all: there is advice penned in that thing, and the Constable is certain that it leads him in directions good and fine, and not a word she'd spoken had served to dissuade him from that conviction at all.

Nevermind that he knows nothing whatever about its author.
Nevermind that he knows virtually nothing about this voice.

She cannot argue this over again, will not make a second attempt at it, and perhaps it's not even important to. That he describes unchanging circumstances: that strikes her as significant. There had been a consistency to her.. Influenced dreams, as well; there certainly had been in the one that half of Myrken had seemed to share in. That this voice makes itself heard when its audience is mostly needy is surely significant too, for In Need is another way of saying Vulnerable, and a malevolent thing would certainly take advantage of such moments.

That it heals him is meaningless to her, although the method Calomel describes inspires a blink, a cringing little squirm, when she realises what he's describing. Methods notwithstanding, however, this is almost irrelevant: the strogij chelovek Kylerryth had also displayed a fondness for healing his pets; it indicated nothing but an eye for the beauty of untorn flesh. The dimensions he describes, however ...

For these are teeth the span of her hand, and a body best described as 'vast'; these are great claws which grate and drag across coarse stone, and he is strong and wise, this creature, but terrifying as well, and the Constable's eyes shine so, and what comes of this all is a woman defined almost solely by her ambivalence.

"We speak of a thing long ago," she answers at last, and quietly now; these words are chosen with such care. "Of heads and hearts and the better of one over the other. So I tell you this now, mn? That my head, my thoughts, they are not so sure of your dedushka, your ... like the, the grandfather, you see? But my heart, it is ..."

Chuckles a mite wryly then, this grey-clad thing, she with the void in her spirit where Belief should exist; with her mind filled with gaps that only the very best questions will fill; with her absolute capacity for the very worst sort of Necessities.

"Hah. My heart -- I see your eyes when you speak of this, and I must think that Myrken be better, if all we dreamed so well."
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Postby Cinnabar » Wed Sep 19, 2007 1:44 pm

Were Calomel so inclined, were he not so staunchly based in the physical and the material as to give little time or thought to such matters, he might describe these dreams as being almost spiritual in nature. But that is not the case, and so he can only puzzle over them in the context of what he knows, and what he is told.

But then Ariane is speaking of hearts, of heads, and there's some distraction as he tries to think back to that conversation. Hm. But then a grin, and another of those shrugs.

"It's not something that can easily be put in words. To describe it doesn't really convey it - like trying to explain a picture. You can say what is there, what the colours are like, but that's not the same as seeing it yourself. Hm?" Brows raise to be sure she follows. "Like that. But... hm." Some thought, then a grin. "To describe him like a Grandfather, I think that's close. That affection, that pride when something is done right, that desire to protect? Like that." Then a pause, a slight frown as he considers something.

"It's not sorcery, or enchantment, if that's what you suspect. I've known that, and it's not the same. That's a pressure applied here." He taps his brow. "To make you think you feel it here, when you don't." Fingertips touched to his breastbone. "You can tell the difference, as it's sort of... false. Foil rather than gold, bits of glass rather than jewels." An odd metaphor, but one that captures his meaning. "He has never compelled me, never commanded or demanded or ordered. Only ever encouraged, aided when necessary. That is all."

Still, he's grinning again regarding the woman with good humour. Not the shining fervour of a moment ago, but a more steady light to his gaze, a confidence and enthusiasm and optimism that is almost infectious.

"Act as your heart advises, hm?"
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Postby Carnath-Emory » Thu Sep 20, 2007 1:16 am

Here is one of the stranger facts of Ariane's existence: that despite her atheist's heart, circumstances have given her some sense for the spiritual. Some appreciation of it, perhaps, so that there'd come the lazy day that she'd sat upon a fountain's edge and smiled into a landscape of heartrending beauty, and a man had murmured riddles that all amounted to her capacity for hope...

It is not necessary for Calomel to describe these dreams in spiritual terms, for that is precisely how she understands him to have experienced them. He has a young monk's quiet fervour when he describes them, he has a blessed man's subtle warmth; familiar with such things, she recognises them when they're present even in the young Constable. Its beauty, she finds, is a thing best experienced from some cautious distance. In his place, she would experience not delight, but horrified unease.

"I think .. they do not make words for those things. I am so sure of that," she replies at last, this woman who's struggled before with precisely that lacking. "It it is not a thing that can be properly said, it is not.. for words, for saying. I think - ah. If he led you to a thing, this dedushka, then would I condemn him for monstrous. I know that witchery you describe, the feel of a thing which means to make you act, although it was not -- "

Pauses a moment, then. There is something like a subtle envy in her, however briefly, and it has a fine edge of regret.

"'Glass instead of jewels'," she echoes him after a moment's regard, and with some chuckle of sound then; her cup's lifted in toast to the notion. "And can you teach a person this trick, this knowing of one from the other? Ah, no," she is demuring already, a tilt of the hand dismissing inevitable protests. "I know. But..

"Act as your heart advises. That is the one that's not led you astray."
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Postby Cinnabar » Thu Sep 20, 2007 2:06 am

As the swordswoman speaks this young man - Newcomer to Apprentice to High Constable to Governor in scarcely a year - can only nod slowly, listening and considering and mulling things over, absorbing her words as a sponge takes in water. There's the start of an answer as she asks after teaching, some uncertain frown, but then only a shrug. A difficult matter, and another which he cannot help but feel he lacks the words for. Then an echo of that advice written not by him, but for him in the front page of a blank journal, and a grin that is some part agreement, another part gratitude for her understanding, and other feelings besides.

Some more pause for thought, pondering what has been said in this... interesting meeting, this picnic upon his desk with bread and cheese and sausage and foul liquor. Reviewing it, perhaps, to see it as a whole. And then a hesitation, the discovery of some small concern, some trivial thing that threatens to flaw the whole; the fine dark line on a work of marble that may be a crack that will bring the entire thing to pieces... or may be simply a hair matted against the stone. It poses a question, one which is suddenly urgent, insistent, vital, and so it's a careful gaze he lifts to the swordswoman again, curious but more guarded.

"This is a strange matter, obviously. To have something in your dreams that is quite surely not you." You are everything that is not me. "It's a worrying thing. It raises doubts, I'm sure, especially considering... what has happened before." Bromn. Kylerryth. A governor so woefully compromised he is barely the same person that he was.

A hand waved to encompass the office, and presumably the land beyond; governorship of all Myrken Wood, with all the reponsibility and the power that goes with it. Meanwhile his gaze is steady on the woman, watching... not warily, so much, not suspiciously. Perhaps with hope, but hope mingled with the fear that it will be denied.

"Do you trust me in this? Even after what you have heard today?"
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Postby Carnath-Emory » Thu Sep 20, 2007 3:47 am

The Constable's willingness to listen is tempered by his habit of applying intellect to anything that comes his way, else they would never have had this conversation. After all, she is a reluctant teacher at best, this swordswoman: would rather drill wastrel sons upon the fine intricacies of the Arcasian advance, than taint a well-intentioned mind with anything like... opinion, say. For explanation, one need only observe the awkward situation in which her last personal student has found herself...

But this is a very different matter, and the Constable's is a very different sort of personality: he may absorb a thing without letting it define him, and that makes these conversations possible. It also gives her the freedom to enjoy them, which ordinarily she does -- despite the challenging choices of subject. Speaking of which:

"It ... raises doubts," she is conceding at last, "but they are small, they are familiar; there are doubts already, do you see? Not of you, but of - " and here she must perform some very vague, encompassing gesture. "Of so many things, of everything at all. It is my place, mn? Belief is not for me, but doubt -- oh, of that I am so very capable."

This statement leaves her grinning, quite despite the topic at hand, and things might have continued in far simpler a manner from this point, except that the would-be Governor abruptly speaks such a difficult question. Cultists ask such things, in her experience. Such black dogs as husband Chernevog certainly do, and only ever for the cruellest of reasons. She has not marked Calomel for a villain in many months now, but still she must regard the man slightly askance at the sound of it; must distance herself from the moment, in order to answer it.

This is a swift and very subtle process. In her experience, precisely one person is able to recognise it at sight.

"I think," Ariane replies, when she has made herself able to, "that I tell you of how Myrken Wood dreams, for those dreams are so different from yours, but they are just as ... haunted. Will you hear this? And then, then I think we speak of trust."

Consider, Cinnabar Calomel, that it mightn't be you who's compromised.
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Postby Cinnabar » Thu Sep 20, 2007 4:13 am

There's a slight grin as the swordswoman describes herself as a creature of doubt, somehow appropriate since she has striven so hard against those who Believe, those who would see their vile Belief become ascendant. Never comitting, always standing between light and dark and doubting both.

That pause at his question, and that very subtle shift in her demeanour; he's an observant man, and this she knows well, and he reads people as others read words on paper, noting this gesture, that tone, the other glance, and interpreting them. So it is that that change in the swordswoman finds its mirror in the Constable, and he listens perhaps more attentively, more intently. he knows not what this change means, just yet, so he will watch, and listen, and observe.

Then there's a tilt of his head as she speaks of how Myrken dreams, which is something curious; how an entire territory of thousands of souls is affected in its sleep? Compelling. So he nods, and leans slightly closer. Intrigued.

"The dream-witch?"
Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.
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