Emissary

Emissary

Postby Glenn » Wed Aug 14, 2013 12:30 am

Just where had the new Vice-Governor set up her office in the Meetinghouse? The Chairwoman had an office, yes, but it was a paltry thing. Frankly, Burnie had disliked the idea of his Agony behind a desk. It was an anathema and that room would hardly suffice. Regardless, she would be given notice by one of the bemused office workers that remained that there was a visitor for her, one Mary Ford, from the Inquisitory.
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Re: Emissary

Postby channe » Wed Aug 14, 2013 3:18 am

She's not at a desk. Or, rather -- there is a desk, the one that was moved out of the office into a larger room, but there's no chair. Instead, Agnieszka paces around the table, leaning over to write, running her finger down a map, and -- most particularly -- writing a list of names. When Mary walks in, she'll be chugging a mug of coffee, having lost the taste for tea around the time that her sister started waxing poetic about The Lady.

Oh, Mary: this is a personal fight for her.

She's pacing when Mary walks in, perusing one of the innumerable stacks of paper sent over by the governor's secretary. "Oh. Yes. Miss Ford. I've heard of you. What's goin' on?"

Most notably, the greeting is followed by an examination of Mary's hair, dress and shoes, as if she were looking for ticks... or some kind of beautiful, nefarious influence.
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Re: Emissary

Postby Glenn » Wed Aug 14, 2013 3:29 am

There's not a whole lot beautiful about Mary Ford. She barely passes as professional. Oh she probably does better than Agnie, pound for pound but then Agnie has more money to work with, a somewhat less plain face, and none of that wild red hair. Her clothing has a bit more thought put into it, maybe, but Agnie's were all in all probably nicer. "Good morning, Vice Governor." She was smiling but it was a timid thing, flinching, lots of flinching. "even though, legally, I mean, you know the problems right? I'm sure you do, and this is just a gambit, but it's really exciting to see a woman here in Myrken, you know. Like this. I just wanted to say that. It's inspirational, it is." Clumsy and dangerous and maybe hazardous but so was everything important in Myrken, right! Mary knew that much.

"I have a message from the Head Inquistor." Her voice got timid to match her expression. "The first part goes like this:" Mary cleared her throat before continuing. "I made Mary memorize this because I didn't want it down on paper for anyone to see. She's a fairly safe choice because there's not anything in her head worth looking at. The eyes sort of bounce right off of her, poor girl, so I doubt Rhaena knows who she is despite meeting her before. Also since you're both farmgirls, there's less chance you're going to punch her in the face." She cleared her throat again, looking down. "Do you want to hear the rest?"
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Re: Emissary

Postby channe » Wed Aug 14, 2013 3:42 am

"Yeah. I know the problems," she says, tilting her head to one side. Satisfied with what she sees, she continues, waving her hand at the carafe that probably has cold coffee in it by now for Mary to take from if she would. "But, I imagine, you probably also know the reasons why. And you're right. It's exciting." A laugh. "Maybe not the good kind of exciting, though."

And then she speaks those next words, and those are Giuseppe's awful sentences coming from the girl's mouth, and she puts the cup of coffee on the table, moving around to close and lock the door leading to the room. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."
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Re: Emissary

Postby Glenn » Wed Aug 14, 2013 4:58 am

"I know the reasons," she'd agree. There were good reasons, in theory. It was just the execution that... well, this wasn't the time.

Instead, there was a little nod. She was to continue, fine. "Two points. One: No you are not my boss, bella. He, uh," she stammered, "told me that I had to include the bella." With a breath, she moved on. "The inquisitory is independent. That is the point of the inquisitory, yes? It is there to poke into the dark corners even if the dark corners are the Lard God Tubbius' underarm flabs." Mary winced, but soldiered forward. "We have a dwarf that pokes into that. Sometimes I hate Myrken. The moral though, is that we are wholly independent. I don't even want this job but I am stuck with it. I cannot say I am my own man nor can you trust me but I can say that I have my own mind and that is a damn sight better than almost anyone else you'll have in this position. Catch has his horn. There are demons and monsters afoot like always. The dreamwaker stirs. You get in the way of us doing what we do and pretty dresses will be the least of your worries, yes?

Mary exhaled. She had only a tinge of southern accent when she recited his words, and even that seemed be giving her a headache. "So, um, that's the first part. Let me know when you're ready for the second. That's the part that I really, really hope you don't punch me for."
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Re: Emissary

Postby channe » Wed Aug 14, 2013 5:03 am

"Oh. I won't punch you," she says, dryly, tapping her finger on the table.

A pause.

"Well, go on."
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Re: Emissary

Postby Glenn » Wed Aug 14, 2013 5:10 am

Mary seemed a little dubious of that. "Okay. Well, We have a file on every one. Including you. Why wouldn't we? You died, Agnieszka. You came back to life. You were older for a time. If someone touched your hand, they felt death. Your soul belonged to the crown. It might still. No one knows what that Bright stuff is about. There's your connection to Karolinger and the Eight. You've been on the payroll of both Chewdry and a Thessilanian mercenary group. And then there's Jan Baker. We know a lot. We can prove some. The public ran the last Marshall out of town just for coming back to life. You mind your business. We'll mind ours. I'll try to make sure that," with a breath and a sigh, Mary looked to the left and then to the right to make sure no one else was peering in, maybe wearing a very nice hat or cravat. "her prissiness doesn't get a chance to use what we have, but don't be an idiot about it either. You go too far and you go too far."

And an exhale and a flinch, and perhaps a small, curious voice. "Do I feel death if you punch me?"
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Re: Emissary

Postby channe » Wed Aug 14, 2013 5:29 am

"Okay," she says, and Mary can tell she's having trouble controlling her temper. She rounds the table, biting her lip, throwing the rest of the coffee back with a cough. When she's done, she turns back to Mary and hoists herself up so she's sitting on the table, her ankles crossed and her hands holding onto the side, knuckles white. "I've been around for a while, Miss Ford. I've seen things. You can tell that foreign arseface that ain't no single governor in the history of this province for years got elected all proper-like aside from Helstone, and he knows it. Calomel? Coup. Treadwell? Impersonatin' some other arseface. And Glenn? Bought the votes. Don't matter that he's a good man, don't matter that I'm loyal, it's the truth. It weren't my fault Romanova an' Goldenhair an' al'Nerun had better things to do that night." She fixes her eyes on Mary.

"You hear all that. You're an inquisitor. You have an opinion, mostlike. What do you think, hm?"
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Re: Emissary

Postby Glenn » Wed Aug 14, 2013 5:55 am

No punch. A lot of pacing. No punch. She didn't answer Mary's question though but really, that was okay. She was curious but not that curious, barely curious at all really. She wasn't any more at ease though. There was a little swallow. "Well, I AM an inquisitor. I just got promoted from Junior Inquisitor. I think the Head Inquisitor felt like sending me if I was just a Junior Inquisitor would be an insult to you," as opposed to all the words what were said, "and now there's Gloria Wynsee to be a Junior Inquisitor. So that's exciting." An excited silence, perhaps, since really, Agnieszka didn't care. That's not why she said it.

"I think... Oh, okay, I think that..." She swallowed again, obviously a little nervous about all of this. "Rhaena Olwak did something to him. He was under a curse before. Now he's not. Maybe she just saved him and he's loyal to her for it, but I don't think so. So there's that, but, he argues with her. People have heard them arguing. No one else has been able to argue with her for months. He mostly leaves us to do our jobs, so long as we don't go poking too far towards her and the Governor. If you really want to know what I think," and she seemed a little hesitant about THAT too. "it's this: you can't fight a war on too many fronts. Everyone knows that. Governor Burnie's motto was We Work With What We Have and We do Whatever Works. Did you do what you did to try to fix everything or to try to keep everything from getting worse before it was too late or to just figure out what's really happened?"
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Re: Emissary

Postby channe » Wed Aug 14, 2013 7:10 am

"Oh, if he didn't want to insult me, he wouldn't have called me 'bella,'" she says. "It's funny, Mary. No matter how far you come in this world, no matter how you rise or what you do with your life, they're always gonna see you as... well, a dumbass farmgirl," she says, and her eyes are bright and angry. "Just know that. If you're okay with that, fine. But something tells me you're not. And maybe I was in some sort of ridiculous dream-world before, because now I find out, two days into this, that nobody was telling me anything at all and nobody intends to tell me anything at all. Well, you can tell the High Inquisitor that's not gonna fly. All of you inquisitors, and none of you thought, oh, shit, let's write the Defense decisionmaker about the fact that we think the Governor has fallen victim to foul play and that the Marshal is making daisy chains? Understand why that would make me just a little angry? I was just sittin' in the war room with my thumb up my arse, apparently, trying to defend a land that didn't want to give me the time of day. You know what I had in Razasan? I had --"

Darkness flickers over her face; she waves a hand and banishes it. "To answer your question." A pause, and then she extends her hand. "You wanna know why I'm here? Take my hand."
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Re: Emissary

Postby Glenn » Thu Aug 15, 2013 1:11 am

"He doesn't call me Bella," and it wasn't said with any sort of affection or disgust. It was just said. He called her plain and he did that with almost no other female. "He told us that we shouldn't be stirring up things with this." She added. "Everyone's a little bit afraid of getting noticed by her, Agnieszka." Some people needed an object lesson. Elliot Brown had been an object lesson. Other people who had previously insulted Rhaena were object lessons. "She changes just about anyone she even notices. So we're all just keeping our head down," and that meant, amongst other things, that she had put herself at risk just by delivering this message to the Vice Governor. "You know what it's like to start out as just some ... just as a dowry waiting to happen, I'm sorry, but it's true, and I don't want to go back to that. I don't want to be anyone but who I have climbed up to be. It may not be rich and... and it may not be powerful, but it's still mine, and I had help along the way, a lot more help than a lot of people get, but I taught myself to read, hiding in a barn, and..." She rubbed at her eyes pausing, flustered. There was a hand out before her and suddenly, maybe, she had some second thoughts about all of this.

Mary Ford was an inquisitor, a full inquisitor, and what they did was to stare into the darkness of the unknown because other people in Myrken Wood couldn't. Agnieszka Kaczmarek had the darkness inside of her. It was time to stare. With an apprehensive swallow one former farmgirl reached out and took the hand of another.
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