by Carnath-Emory » Wed Jun 12, 2013 4:25 am
What is the Foundation?
She'd meant to ask. Just to hear how Rhaena Olwak would answer. But the question's moment has passed, swept away by the tide of this: a conversation which she had needed, a discovery which she had required - and never even knowing it, until the girl's words ran raw and brilliant across her nerves.
on a desk in her room miles from here, there is a page of parchment patterned over in black and red and unavoidable grey.
it is an intricate chaos. it is cartography, if chessboards are landscapes.
it is a dozen overlapping implications, word and image coiling in towards a single focus or else spiralling away in a pattern of scattering decay.
it ought to, but does not, wear the stains of a man's bloodied hands - that, too, being a matter of cost.
and it has not shown her the solution to the puzzle which is Myrken, it has not shown her how to mitigate or even navigate, but tonight she will add Rhaena Olwak and see how this will modify its design -
"No." Her smile is no rival for what Rhaena wears. And she is for the door now, all casual stride and mild enough features, but when she pauses it's in some nearness to the other woman, and: "I will tell them that they are worth so much more than - accident. Tragedy. Defilement. And that we must learn together to find better - ways."
When she turns, it's towards the door - and when she pauses, it's to set her teacup down gently next to Rhaena's own.