One in the Same

Re: One in the Same

Postby Rance » Fri May 10, 2013 10:19 am

Little shards danced and clattered across the ground at the behest of a sweeping palm. Cooling tea left streaks of wetness along the floorboards, soaking into the knots.

Enough, Gloria. Leave it be, don't cut yourself on the pieces.

She had broken it. She did not remember flinching, her whole body having snapped to attention with enough force to eject the cup from the desk with an elbow. And when the door opened, she took in a breath. A younger student coming to retrieve her books, perhaps, or the next lesson before Rhaena took her dinner. Her brain was in crumbled pieces. She felt lethargic. Her left ring finger kept jerking out and snapping back again her palm -- a synapse in her brain misfiring, the evidence of tampering, the residual evidence of something being touched, drained out, tapped like a wooden barrel that its contents might run free.

And then we have our young bella...

When she looked up and saw Giuseppe, her whole body became like that of a keep-side gargoyle, a shock of stone and rigidity.

Sounds whistled through her ears as if funneled from a repository leagues away. The noises trickled down into her, eventually becoming words. Rhaena was saying something, something, rife with its usual kindness. With a fistful of shattered mug, little teeth of white sprouting out from between her gloved fingers, she clambered to her feet and knocked her hip and backside against the desk.

Giuseppe. What a pleasure to see you again.

"He -- he should not be here," the girl said, though Rhaena's kind hand was denied. The seamstress never let her eyes away from Giuseppe, even as he leaned in the corner and seemed to flicker like a shadow put against the test of a lantern's weak light. He was gaunt, a skeleton without a tomb.

You are dropping things and making a mess, yes?

"I don't want him here," she said, all but ignoring the Black Man's cryptic greeting, her gaze finally flicking toward the governor's lady. "I can pick up the pieces just fine. There is -- is no reason he should be here, Menna Olwak. I have seen how he treats children. I -- I imagine he will not treat ladies any differently."

The bravery and courage in her words were the products of weak fabrication. Porcelain edges scraped together under the clutch of her palm. The hem of her skirt danced in a shuddering sway around her ankles as she tried to still her knees.

"Helpful," the seamstress said. "Yes. But we will clean it up just fine. We do not need his help, Menna Olwak."
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Re: One in the Same

Postby Glenn » Fri May 10, 2013 12:00 pm

There was a nice rug elsewhere in the room, something from 'r Chyr'laud that Burnie had pilfered from his room in Darkenhold upon moving out. It was not large but it was very unique to Myrken, made with techniques and designs not normally found in the area. A thing that spoke of dust-swirled bazaars and exotic tastes and smells. He'd donated it to the school upon its opening, a tiny taste of culture to enrich the lives of the students each and every day, mostly by being stepped upon. Giuseppe recognized it on sight. It was with a casual gait that he walked over to it, placing one foot down with purpose. With one step after the left, he dragged it across the room with that foot until he was able to completely cover the broken mug with the rug.

With a little bow, he smiled to Rhaena. "So often how we take care of things here in Myrken, Rhaena, no? You cannot say I am not good at my job though, yes?" Standing up again he loomed towards the two women. "And of course it is good to see you. I cannot imagine a more charming overdressed lanky woman with a skin condition that no one likes to mention in all of the provinces of the land. It is the young bella here I find more interesting though. You heard her, yes? Such a Myrkener in bloom, refusing help for no good reason."

Another few steps brought his approach closer, though he'd not drawn a weapon yet. "I am good at my job, ladies. And currently, my job is very particular. I am bound by honor, by my profession, and most of all by a nasty, nasty piece of magic to see that Gloria here is, how do you say, swept under the rug too." The shadows creeped along behind him but still he was able to manage a coy smile. "That is, dear Rhaena, unless we can come to another accord?"
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Re: One in the Same

Postby Jirai » Fri May 10, 2013 1:26 pm

Rhaena's lips pursed slightly in displeasure to see that treasured rug treated so. It was an expression she maintained as he continued speaking, before smoothing abruptly into a polite smile.

"I think you may be right, Gloria," she said conversationally, aiming to pat the younger woman on the shoulder. "What sort of accord might that be, Giuseppe?" She was not unmindful of the potential danger - Giuseppe had been Glenn Burnie's guard for a reason, after all, and that was only the beginning. So, perhaps there were tendrils of thought reaching out, delicately seeking an opening.
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Re: One in the Same

Postby Rance » Fri May 10, 2013 3:04 pm

The Black Man made a display of it: the touch of a boot-tip to the rug, the snagging, dragging, wrenching of the thing like a corpse between school-benches and old, rickety desks. Meanwhile, she leaned more heavily into the bureau, arms curled up against her chest as if she were cradling something precious within them. The shards of porcelain cup clattered between her knuckles. The rug settled again, its absence from the other side of the schoolhouse leaving a dull, wide memory of where a mat had once been, gritty underfoot from the dust and dirt that had settled through its weave.

Giuseppe was near, all grease and darkness. Overbearing. Suffocating, as if his shadow was something that could be touched, played with as if it were loose taffy, set to strangle--

"Do not talk about her like that," the girl blurted at the Black Man, her shoulder a taut line of hard muscle and pliable skin beneath the gowned woman's touch. A little dollop of black sweat glistened in the divot beneath her nose. She did not want to be swept under the rug. She knew metaphors from the old poems, as familiar with them as the Gartogt horse defense and the moment in H'zlz ar G'leuse when H'zlz brandished the glass-edged blade and struck it deep between the voorbear's lowest ribs so that he might free his love from the belly of the behemoth. For Jernoah, for Jernoah--

...unless we can come to another accord?

Fright was a twisted branch of rubbertwig in her guts. Her skin was slick and glistening like she had been staked underneath the Glass Sun. But here, here was the choice of a frightened seamstress, a thing that she had thought abandoned to the messa'josts a sea away. Once, she had pummeled little girls until their noses were half-bent bruises and their ribs were snapped into powder.

She had stared down Catch with his Black Smoke eyes; she could be a thorn for Giuseppe, then.

Rhaena was the governor's lady. None of her guards were present, her stoic attendants.

The seamstress was a subject of the governor. A Myrkener.

She held out an arm, thick and shaking, to wedge herself between Rhaena and the Black Man, as if to put the woman of Razasan behind her. Her eyes were wide, desperate, too smart not to be frightened but too foolish not to be loyal. "No. We do not want accords or -- or to talk, not with rhetoric and not with the words you use to frighten children. You are not welcome here. You are not natural.

"Leave us be," she said, though the phrase was more a plea than a firm command. "There is nothing to be said to a man who tosses knives amid children and expects them to fight to the death."
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Re: One in the Same

Postby Glenn » Fri May 10, 2013 3:36 pm

Oh, the things Rhaena Olwak would find. Certainly, they were not what she expected. Perhaps she'd felt Giuseppe's mind, once or twice. Practical measures for practical things when they were both filling close to the same role for a few months the year before last, before the incident in the basement, before she had changed again. His mind had been a human thing, then. Now it was something else entirely. It was a mystery, a puzzle to be solved. Stories upon stories holding it all together. In the time she had now, she could grasp the mystery, see the entirety of it, but it would very likely take time for her to solve. Time, perhaps, was not something she had.

Gloria stepped into the breach. "There is something I learned a long time ago, bellezzetta, a very, very long time ago. When I was your age, perhaps." His voice was kindly, like an uncle talking to a niece of the world that was to come. "All the bravery in the world, yes? All of the ...how is it, ah. Gumption. All of the gumption? All of the courage? It matters much against monsters, yes, but against professionals? Against professionals, it matters little. I am not this man who is mean to children and stomps and makes a fit. No, this is not me. Not today. Today, I am a tool. A tool in a hand. A hand that wishes you silenced. An axe comes at your head. This is not a dragon or a wolf, no. This is not a bear who you can make yourself seem bigger against. This is an axe. The axe comes. You stand up Bravely. You stick up your chin, bellezzetta. You purse your lips. You huff and puff. The axe doesn't care. Chop." One hand made a downward clapping motion against the other. "No more brave bellezzetta."

The man in black, shadows dancing at his feet, looked back to Rhaena Olwak, look back and smiled. "She has a big mouth, this one. Were you to convince her to not open it, even to you, for oh, let us say a week. If you have her not mention any suspicions she has, about anything, to anyone, even you. And if she has not already mentioned these things to you, perhaps we could make a deal, yes? Otherwise." And there he made wet, sick noise from between his teeth, a not unsympathetic look upon his face.
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Re: One in the Same

Postby Jirai » Sat May 11, 2013 12:46 pm

There was Gloria beneath her hand, easy to read, easier to nudge, just as Rhaena wished. There was Giuseppe not so far away, and what lay in his mind was a shock, something to puzzle over, certainly - but not now. Now there was the Man in Black far too close to Gloria and Rhaena herself, for all the seamstress tried to interpose herself between Giuseppe and the Governor's lady.

"You pique my curiosity, Giuseppe." She murmured. "This is a mathematics lesson, is it not, young sera?" A gentle pat for the younger woman's shoulder. "I am sure she has not spoken of whatever it is you fear. Is that not right, Gloria?" Spoken, of course, being the key word there.
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Re: One in the Same

Postby Rance » Sat May 11, 2013 1:09 pm

He spoke of monsters and axes. His words were a discombobulating mess that inspired sudden bravery and then requiting intimidation. His eyes bored into her, into both of them. When Rhaena spoke, it was empowering and almost intoxicating -- the voice of a friend -- and when Giuseppe did, she could feel the marrow in her bones hardening, calcifying, turning her to stone.

His hand raised like an axe. The beam of his palm struck the other hand. She thought she could see the head rolling.

The learnings of rhetoric: Words are a tool that may rend greater than any blade, any thrust of a sword.

Were it not the governor's lady, perhaps it would have been Cherny or Catch or the potion-maker; maybe behind her, she could imagine her mother, her pupils like black pits, her breath reeking of acrid smokeroot, a madness that came from ash or her father, driving glass nails into the heels of boots for Jernosta, heels that would march on for the good of the State and country. Rhaena could have been the stalsi, and it would be a seamstress' proper duty, that her body should be expendable, a shield of but fleeting seconds to be cut through to protect the lives of those more valuable.

A deference to authority. Her blood and flesh between the blood and flesh of those she held in the highest regard and those who wished to do them harm. It was no sense of nobility that flared in her, but of propriety.

There was Gloria beneath her hand, easy to read, easier to nudge, just as Rhaena had wished.

"Today," she said, responding to Rhaena's question but directing her words toward the Black Man. "I have talked of two-plus-two-is-four; I have understood that radius and diameter are not the same; I have expressed my -- my sheer dislike of reducing fractions, regardless of Menna Olwak's praise of them, and I have thought far too many times that maybe it is too beautiful a day to be crushing a brain over numbers.

"But what I also know is that good souls do not appease dark ones. Menna Olwak," she said, glancing over her shoulder, her stocky body still between them, "I watched with my own eyes as he encouraged boys -- Master Cherny, Cat-Talon, and Son -- to solve their disagreements at blade-point, and even gave them the -- the means by which to do it. And at another time altogether, frightened Cherny for his own amusement."

She tightened her jaw. She bared a round fist. She reeked of fear, of sweat.

"The Marshall would not make deals with cruel men. Nor should you, Menna Olwak." Her lips quivered, her dull eyes stern, honest, Jernoan. "Nor will I."
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Re: One in the Same

Postby Glenn » Sat May 11, 2013 3:27 pm

"Ah, mathematics. A noble art!" Another clap but this one was far more a benign thing. Gloria had spat all sorts of flighty rhetoric at him, and he simply smiled at her, directing his words between the two women. "Ah, ah, but I see what you are saying, bella, bellezzetta. You are saying 'Giuseppe is a thug! What would Giuseppe know of mathematics!'" A hand undulating. A finger waggled. "But this is not correct. Mine is a varied profession, yes. Many tasks. Many jobs. Many duties. Some are tedious. Others are tedious. Sometimes you get in a knife fight against a half naked courtesan on a gondola while the full moon shines down, making her left breast stand out so, yes? Most of the time you go door to door and make sure you are paid what you are owed. Mathematics! Shall we talk about ratios?"

The knife had finally chosen to appear. At least, that was how it must have seemed. It was not there a moment before and now it was. This was a fell thing, Pantha's dagger. It was an eater of souls and worse by far. His price for a terrible thing. "Keeping things in balance. I have a balance I must keep. Or perhaps we can just talk about subtraction. For instance, Gloria minus a few pesky little worries would equal my job being done. But.." Now he was waving around the dagger instead of his finger. "There are many equal equations though! Many ways to make equal my little ratio, yes? Gloria minus her life equals the same thing! Gloria minus her tongue! You see! I have so many ways to balance the scales. Tedious tasks sometimes for Giuseppe, yes, but his skill opens so many doors in how to complete them!" Finally, a little tsking sound would escape his lips as he looked from one woman to the next. "Perhaps the first equation is best, no?"
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Re: One in the Same

Postby Jirai » Sun May 12, 2013 8:37 am

"Put the knife away, Giuseppe." Rhaena said calmly. "There is no need for such things here. No need for subtracting tongues or anything like that... hardly appropriate, my dear. Would you care for some tea?" There was plenty left, even with Gloria spilling and breaking things. "I am sure that, if you ask politely, the young sera will not discuss anything you do not wish to be discussed. Is my assurance not enough?"
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Re: One in the Same

Postby Rance » Sun May 12, 2013 2:55 pm

When she saw the knife, the rest of the world seemed like a whisper. Giuseppe spoke. His voice was lost somewhere in the rushing noise of a waterfall in her ears. His lips moved, gave warnings, noble arts and equal equations, formulas regarding the subtraction of tongues and the addition of sharp things. Rhaena may have been an unknown presence inside her, impelling her, plying threads the seamstress never even knew existed, but her fear of blades was an acute one.

Her spine turned to sun-soft clay. She scrambled, a tangle of dirty skirts, grabbing up her slate to hold it like a shield against her chest. Her hips wanted to twist, her legs wanted to run, but they were nailed to the floor with the weight of fear in her guts.

Put the knife away, Giuseppe, Rhaena said. It seemed wrong; it seemed wrong to ask him to stay, like they were politicians chatting in a room over little menial things.

"No," the girl said, with force, though her eyes flickered toward the door. How many steps toward the evening sun and the cool grass, how many strides until safety? She brandished the slate in white-knuckled hands. "How will I know what -- what it is he wishes me not to say? How will I know what I must keep silent should he not first divulge it himself?

"It is a bad game, Menna Olwak. He tells us what thing I should keep quiet, and -- and then we both know, and then his only recourse is to cut it out of us."

There would be no white peppermint tea for Giuseppe the Black Man. She would not listen to politely-framed questions. If a man was willing to give children knives and wield blades at them, she and Rhaena would be no better than slaves to him. She refused to be rat'vak, and Rhaena? Rhaena was the governor's lady; the girl's mind was shredded, tampered with only moments before, subject to extremes and a lack of sense. All she wanted was to be free of him, away from his knife. And Rhaena needed to be too.

She would regret it, she thought. That was the way it always was.

The black-skinned elf had taught her how to throw, so she whipped out her arm and tossed the slate in a sloppy, violent arc toward Giuseppe. The moment it was gone from her fingers, she lunged out with her gloved hand and tried to grab hold of Rhaena Olwak's gowned arm, to pull her, yank her toward the door. One word was in her eyes, pleading:

Run.
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Re: One in the Same

Postby Glenn » Mon May 13, 2013 12:41 am

Rhaena Olwak was so very reasonable. So pleasant. His mind was blocked off to her due to the mystery, the riddle contained within and he almost wanted to have tea with her despite all that. Most of all, she would allow him to achieve his need, to meet this geas upon him without having to cut down Gloria before she had reached her prime. She was such a wonderful story in blossom. Cherny, whom he had said so much too, had so far to go. Gloria, though? She was almost there."Yes, yes, alright. So if you and our glorious little girl here would both agree to.."

There was a slate flying at him, and truly he did not know whether to laugh or cry as it hit him in the shoulder. In reality, he could do neither. His choices in this matter were limited and here was this broad girl with narrowed vision limiting them more. He moved because he had no choice. He moved because he was fed upon the story of stories, one which involved him, which involved his Creature. Rhaena's dress was not suited for haste, nor was her manner. Gloria was pure momentum. The man-in-black, however, was shedding humanity by the moment as the stubborn girl stood in the way of his story's completion.

It was a blur of shadow and darkness. One moment he was there, nursing a hurt shoulder on the far side of the room and the next? The next he was between them and the door, seeming gaunter still, paler, sweat upon his brow and a hacking cough upon his lips. "Rein her in." Harshly, sharply, to the Governor's Lady. "I control myself for your sake, yes, for hers, out of admiration and curiosity. I wish to see what she'd become. I would not spill blood in your precious school, yes? But this is not me. This can not be helped. This can not be stopped. Only managed. We manage it together or I mange it alone." His grip on the dagger tightened. Did not Gloria realize in that inhuman burst of shadow and speed he could have stabbed her through if he well wanted; With a dagger that would have devoured her soul whole.
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Re: One in the Same

Postby Jirai » Mon May 13, 2013 10:47 am

It was quite simple, really. A tiny thing, easily worked out, suitably solved... Except for Gloria. It is immediately clear that Rhaena Olwak has made a mistake, has misjudged this girl. Rhaena Olwak did not expect Gloria to throw that slate, to try to run, and so she could not prevent it.

She would not make that mistake again.

The younger woman tugged at the older, leaving Rhaena off-balance, but the Governor's woman was not about to run. Nor was she about to let go of Gloria. That would be stupid. Both things. Indeed, a moment later the man in black stood between them and the door.

"Gloria." Her voice was calm, soothing. "Gloria, simply make this promise. Everything will be alright. I promise you that." Her words were not all, not even the most important part of what was happening. Rein her in, Giuseppe had said. Rhaena fully intended to do just that. She could not touch him, not until she had some time to think, but Gloria was a different matter.
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Re: One in the Same

Postby Rance » Mon May 13, 2013 12:28 pm

"What," she whispered, before it crescendoed into a shout, a bellow: "What promise?"

Giuseppe was at the door, a shadow set against it with his hungry blade; Rhaena was a stoic column of gowns and kindness, refusing to move. The girl's eyes were wide, desperate not to compromise, and they questioned the governor's lady and her willingness to discuss. Her knees were tangled amid her apron and skirts as she stumbled back, back away from both of them. The shaking girl patted at the air with her hands -- did she realize she had forgotten her glove, that her silver skin was wholly visible? -- as if she were trying to shield herself from a blinding light.

Rein her in.

A throb started to awaken in one of her teeth.

Simply make this promise.

In the confines of some rotten, hollowed-out cavity, she thought she felt a rockbreaker's hammer knocking, cracking against yellow enamel.

Everything will be alright.

The nagging pains matched her heartbeat, hot and swollen, and she jammed her bare palm against her cheek, grimacing, an agony in her tooth finding the wrong moment to introduce itself.

Everything will be alright. I promise you that.

"Stop -- stop talking," she begged both of them. "I cannot think; I cannot think with knives and -- and requests to promise what I do not even know to. I do not even know what to promise," she said to Menna Olwak, glancing up at her, her teeth gritted, her steely eyes glistening. She was supposed to have protected the gowned woman, put her body between her and Giuseppe because that was what subjects and loyals did; she was supposed to yank her out to the street, save her, a seamworking H'zlz to the governor's G'leuse. Just like in the old poems. Just like in the good Jernoan stories. Glenn Burnie would thank her for her duty and bravery, he would give her a badge, she would be able to show Catch how wonderful it was to be a Good Citizen just like him. Rhaena's words were so soothing, so invasive, bubbling in her mind and blanketing her in warmth like the tongue of a cub-mother sliding along her flanks, her cheeks, her ribs--

This is not right, I am scared and this is not right-- but Rhaena's words stifled those thoughts.

Unconsciously, she stuffed a thumb in her mouth, not to suck it like a babe, but to press at her gums, applying pressure to the pain of a back tooth as it boiled like magma.

"I don't want to promise anything to him; I don't even know what I am supposed to promise, what I am not meant to discuss. He is a j'uk'ol and I do not talk to -- talk to wretched men. What promise do you expect me to make, Black Man, that Menna Olwak," a pointing, accusing finger, "thinks is so imperative?"

simplymakethispromiseeverythingwillbealright. A barrage rumbling against the back of her skull. Too much, too much...

She grabbed the side of one of the school benches and threw her head down, her bonnet spilling off her head. She belched wetly, a precursor to vomit, but all that came from her was a trickle of spittle. Her tooth was screaming with pain. As she heaved, a twisting tendril of black oil splattered out of mouth, never falling from her tongue but hanging, stretching like stubborn wax. Gleaming grease like old rotten blood, a single-horned embryo of liquid that seemed to take shape into a little horned lump on her tongue.

In its mass, a tiny, blinking eye, mad and desperate. The fluid mewled like sizzling water.

Shaking fingers tried to cage her mouth, cover it, as she flattened herself against a far wall and stared upon them both.
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Re: One in the Same

Postby Glenn » Mon May 13, 2013 1:10 pm

"Ohh, bella." Three steps back and a stare, such a stare. What had saved him the night of Catch's axe? It had been Cherny, the boy directing the violence. The tale of that boy, with such a good heart and such a fell decision could have saved him from far worse than an axe. And now? Now there was Gloria, Gloria feeling such pressure from Myrken Wood's Angel, Gloria feeling such pressure from whatever it was inside of her. "Oh, Oh.. Look. Look at that"

It provided what he needed the most. It provided leverage.

"Look at her, bella. Look at what churns within. All of that ambition. All of that meddling. All of that learning and striving and toiling and beneath it all, there is that. Look upon what you have wrought with your beautiful clumsy hands. All of our veils fall today! Yours and mine and hers, too." He barked out his laughter. He took his bow. Leverage allowed for such an investment as he could make now. A beautiful, wonderful investment in the future. "Years of surprises, Gloria Wynsee. Years of inevitability. I await them." Then with a barking smile, he looked back to Rhaena. "I cleaned up her mess. My creature's mess will remain as it was, unfortunately. You, though, may clean up your own." The door opened and he slipped back through it, his shadows having left him completely for a time.
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Re: One in the Same

Postby Jirai » Fri May 17, 2013 8:37 am

There was this, at the least, that Giuseppe takes his leave without using that knife. That had been the goal, after all, and once the immediate threat of the man in black is over, Rhaena might focus back on Gloria. Between Gloria earlier and the alien mind that was Giuseppe's and Gloria now... well. It was a lot. She needed time to sort things out. But this... this thing. This thing tugs at memories that have been locked away for the good of all, hints of a party and a puppet show gone horribly wrong, but Rhaena Olwak gives a brisk shake of her head.

"Was that so hard, young sera, a few words that we both might not be lying dead on the floor? Giuseppe is very good with that knife and I can hardly run in these skirts." They are not very practical, not at all. "Come back over here, Gloria, I have something for you.

"And do wipe your mouth, dear, that is hardly ladylike."

The shattered teacup can wait.
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