Yet Another Morning After

Re: Yet Another Morning After

Postby Niabh » Tue Jan 10, 2023 6:51 am

His fingers left the footboard. His shoulders unlocked, and he let out a sigh bordering on relief. “Better.” Sometimes you had to throw the dog a bone before you got to the meat. He did not appreciate wasting time with praddle. Privately he was a man who, if he ran out of fingers, would continue with teeth.

His foot hooked a rung of the stool but only to brace himself; he did not sit. He wore the Niall’s red with elaborate gold knotwork on the hem and sleeves, and brown suede boots over the knee, yet managed to appear workworn and functional. A ladder of gold rings rose up the rim of one ear, and a large garnet rode his forefinger, catching the light like a vast frozen drop of deer’s blood, but they felt like bare minimum adornment, something he wore out of obligation, like a badge of office. Looking at him poised on one foot, it became more noticeable how much of the Queen’s beauty lay in her animation, all her small quick darting changes of expression, the rise and fall of her voice, even her flitting glamourie that shifted to reflect her mood. His features were strikingly similar but the cast of his face wholly different, not all of which could be excused with the subtle variances between masculine and feminine attributes. He was darker in skin, more deliberate in movement, and possessed not one soft facet.

His eyebrows went up. “Are you plotting something? I’d certainly be interested in hearing that.” He shook his head, brushing a dismissive hand beside his face. “You needn’t tell me straightaway; make me work for it.”

He slid up to the stool, which was a little too high for him; one point on which he did not follow the Queen’s fashion was her height. “Let’s start with what I’ve been told, hm? The Lady is adamant that there is nothing between you save a long correspondence where the both of you fleshed out some potential plans for trade between your folk and ours, but that you proved a hinderance to some of her interests here and she had no choice but quit you.” That, to him, was the biggest bare-boned lie she had ever had the guts to tell to his face, but she was being uncharacteristically protective about the details, which led him to believe there were details. “I’m interested in what sort of hinderance you intended to be and what might be done to convince you to stop hindering.”
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Re: Yet Another Morning After

Postby Glenn » Thu Jan 12, 2023 2:24 am

Burnie's expression didn't change in the least as the notion of plotting earned a distinct reaction from the unwanted guest. His eyes followed the shaking of the man's head. Words were on his lips, ones about shifting circumstances and biding time and the lay of the land, but they stayed put. It was obvious that he did not know that he did not know, just as it was obvious that he did not care whether or not Glenn discerned that. That was confidence, arrogance even, not foolishness. A certain level of assurance in one's own ability and power was freeing, as was Burnie's lingering sense of personal nihilism, that his life had, in every meaningful way, already reached its conclusion, and everything now was a bonus of sorts. It allowed for a sort of daring recklessness which created opportunities men with far more to lose would never be able to reach for. There was a certain irony in that, in that his lack of realistic ambition allowed for far more ambitious grasps. It was not lost upon him but there was little time to muse about it now.

Instead, there were some fairly direct questions (finally), and an onus not to disappoint (or at least an additional risk if he did).

He didn't quite roll his eyes at the man but there was a shake of his head. "As I am in her confidence, even as we are at odds, I cannot speak to specifics of the matter, not without her leave. In fact, It has been my observation, an easy observation, as she spoke it to my face, that she loathes, as much as she loathes anything, the idea of others speaking behind her back about her business. So let us tread carefully then and talk about me and not her." The question was framed just enough in that direction that he could navigate this matter accordingly. "The notion of trade seems quaint now. Wistful even." He did not adopt a wistful expression. "An immediate and direct side effect of what she perceived to be her primary interest makes it extremely difficult, though it was not her intention. I still see mutual benefit in it, but my rhetoric was not strong enough to overcome her desire. Not in this matter at least." And if his had not been strong enough, no one's would have been. That was somehow plain in his tone. Arrogance was not a resource entirely possessed by any one man. It was a commodity that could be carried by many.

"I had thought we had come to a compromise on the matter, one that might allow for flexibility over time. It turned out I was mistaken. Therefore, I went directly to the agent she had chosen to enact her will and expressed directly to it the benefit of said compromise. It was a trying effort that left me in such a state, but as best as I can tell, it was not an unsuccessful one." Laying there in this bed, it was very hard to tell just what was going on out there in the real world, let alone the one where Elliot Brown resided. "That said, I still can cause all manner of further difficulty, direct difficultly instead of indirect, even prone or housebound. I think she dares me to do just that in order to make things easier for her. If I make the first move, it justifies her response; that sort of thing. However, good news," and here he flashed a poor attempt at a smile, something likely done in jest, though it would be anyone's guess if the imposing stranger knew enough human social cues to understand that. "I am willing to be convinced. Rather simple and direct terms, ones couched in the notion of fairness, that will ensure my neutrality, silence, and congeniality (towards her, you understand, not you; I'll not begin to offer you things you don't want in the first place)." It wasn't prattling necessarily, more like an adept and deft verbal dance, or perhaps some athletic exhibition, the way that he inserted such asides and then repositioned himself right back to where he had been headed. "And she will receive these terms in the next day or two."
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Re: Yet Another Morning After

Postby Niabh » Thu Jan 12, 2023 6:39 am

In a queer way, he was almost grateful for anyone willing to talk about themselves rather than the Queen. His jaw ached from keeping his teeth clenched for a week, and the limits of his patience—short to begin with—stretched from being forced to tiptoe around her oh-so-delicate moods. That there was something quite unright about the girl was plain, but he didn’t see any benefit from wrapping her up in lambswool and carrying her about on a cushion. She’d rally faster by applying herself to something—anything. Organizing the camp, assigning tasks, instructing the lower hands on how to navigate the tultharian. Anything. So far her efforts to do so were half-hearted at best, and he suspected that despite their enmities, she’d be more than glad to hand the reins over to him the heartbeat he had enough information to handle it. The little she had done so far was out of pure duress. It infuriated him. One of these days she had to learn to be mistress over herself, rather than a mere puppet of every passing megrim and fancy. One of these days she would have to start acting like a Queen, rather than simply wearing the title like a bit of fancy jewelry.

Now it felt they had fallen back into their old roles: her putting on pretty poses while he rolled up his sleeves and took care of the offal. It was a base insult to be forced to run interference with one of the Queen’s cast-offs. The only difference was that this one seemed to have some intellect and a devious sort of wit, rather than one of her usual diffident swains whose sacks shriveled if you but gave them a stern look, which might mean, if nothing else, that her tastes had matured. Trust her to pick this one at the very moment it would have made his life easier to have someone he could bully.

“Here’s your convincing. If you act against the Queen, people are going to die. Some of ours but most certainly some of yours. She has made us very aware that our kind are not liked here. If we are attacked, we will attack in kind, and we will make it count. And whatever defense we must make, the Queen will be at the head of it. That is our way, and that is her duty. You’ll be putting her in front of the arrows. If you must die to prevent that, then you will.” He made only the briefest pause to let the seriousness of that seep in. His presence made no bones about it: Glenn was now sitting in the room with his own death. Once he felt the point was settled, he went on, more gently. “She doesn’t want that. I am temporarily acquiescing to her wishes solely to avoid making her even more of an already impossible thing. Whatever petty philosophical point you’re trying to make, whatever moral victory you hope to score, whatever noble holdout you’d like to envision yourself as, is immaterial in face of the fact that lives are now on the line. I should hope you are not so obstinate that that means nothing to you. If it does, I will say that it does not mean nothing to her. If the matter comes to the crisis, she’ll side with her own people over you.”

The raven krrled, very softly, like a dog growling. Its hackles had not gone down. As long as it stayed put, it could react any way it chose.

“Here’s the bargain. Let us do the convincing. It’s plain to see you’ve failed. Tell me what her plans are and I can make sure she leaves off. Or her sister will, or her bard will. One of us will, or all of us. All for the price of your silence. She set no conditions on buying or, if necessary, enforcing it, but I understand that you do not do well with glamourie—” a barely veiled threat if ever there was one “—so we’ll start the bidding with the basics: I will ensure you have access to her again. Because I assure you, she will not receive your terms nor your entreaties nor your stipulations nor any other thing from you without they go through me. Whatever leverage of personal liberty you previously enjoyed with her has come to an end. It’s time for her to be Queen now; she can’t play with you anymore.” Though he wondered, listening to the man’s presumption, who was playing with whom.
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Re: Yet Another Morning After

Postby Glenn » Fri Jan 13, 2023 8:32 am

"Interesting." Was the word that got Glenn Burnie punched in the face more than any other? Probably not. It was always something more personal. Still, he let it hang out there for a moment as he looked just past the man. "Let's start at the end and work backwards. She's spying on me three ways, at least. The guard. Her own sister and/or mother depending on how you want to look at it. The child." Not the raven though. He'd not even begin to think that way. And not her 'father', which was, in its own way, a compliment, and in another an insult. He'd take it however he wanted to. "That's entirely past the fact she's left me one of the world's great emissaries. In a pique, yes. But also as part of her own machinations. I'm convinced you could halt one, two, maybe even three. Not all, not without more cost than it's worth."

It was well within his interests (and Benedict's) to move on, to not let that linger. He'd started at the second point, the less salient one, for the same reason. "Moving back then. Do you think me overly sentimental? Highly moral? Either would likely flatter." He'd say 'good neighbor' but that would get him punched, certainly. There would be a time in this conversation or another when he'd want to get punched. Best to save it for then. "Why do you think my terms are what they are? If she does not accept them (minor as they are), knowing what she plans, knowing the consequences, then people are going to die. She has been constrained to a degree. Matters remain unsettled, however. Once they are sealed off, everyone will be safer. I'm not looking for three boons, a bag of magic seeds, and a kiss on each cheek here. I mean to avert bloodshed."
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Re: Yet Another Morning After

Postby Niabh » Fri Jan 13, 2023 1:45 pm

“I think you’re an interfering, manipulative, self-destructive piece of shit,” the man said flatly. “I thought I was very clear about that. I keep adjusting my estimations downward. That’s not a propitious sign for a first meeting. Let’s not let them fall any further, hm?”

“You don’t have to talk to him.” The raven’s beak snapped the air toward the man as if attacking flies. “He’s just here sizing you up. He can’t bargain for her. She don’t even know he’s here. He said so himself.”

“I also said you were free to go tell her at any time.” He inclined his head thoughtfully toward the raven, seeming to seriously consider his argument. “I’m Queensman, idiot. You’re a disgraced raven. Incidentally, if you try to approach the Queen, you’ll be shot. The other ravens have been instructed to raise the cry if they see an outsider. If I’m the one who spots you, you’ll be shot twice.”

“You’re full of shit,” said the raven.

The man chuckled pleasantly. “So are we all. Full of shit and piss and blood and snot all oozing out of our various orifices. We’re disgusting. Aren’t we, Sionnach?” He darted a glance to Glenn, inviting him to confirm. “Morgana’s been wrist-deep in yours all week. She can attest.”

“Yeah, don’t even talk to this asshole,” muttered the raven, shifting from foot to foot once more. “You talk to the Queen. I’ll figger something out.”

In reply the man twitched his two forefingers at the raven, twice, then stood, with his hands tucked behind him, and prowled restlessly at the foot of the bed. The tultharian had another name. Of course he would. That was useful. He tucked it into his pocket to think about later, and began again in a rich, loud proclamation: “The guard is spying on you, true. She’s probably doing it now, through the door.”

As he spoke, he crossed the room and gave the door a smart rap with his knuckles, then tilted his head and listened. No sound of shifting from the hallway, but the guard was trained better than that. He shrugged and nodded his begrudging approval, then stalked back to the foot of the bed. “But she’s doing it in such a nice, obvious way that I’m sure she won’t be much bother. The Queen sent her, not I, if that makes you feel better. Morgana is dull as a loaf of wet bread, and sickeningly moral. I do hope you’re joking about the child.”

This had already taken more time than he scheduled for it, and the smell of sickness and the cloying funk of the tultharian and the whiff of iron in the room made his stomach sweat, further pressing upon his patience. If he didn’t already know he’d fumble with the latches, he’d open a window. Idly he cast an eye around for something to smash it with, then dismissed the idea as too showy, too similar to a display of temper. He’d breathe through his mouth if he must.

“We have the same goal: to avert bloodshed. Surely we can find some common ground from there. Even your raven here would agree that no matter how put out she is with you, the Queen will listen to sense to keep the peace.” He paused in his pacing as if an idea had just struck him. “Here’s a thought: send me with your terms. Act of good faith. You’ll have an answer before the sun sets.”
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Re: Yet Another Morning After

Postby Glenn » Tue Jan 17, 2023 10:13 am

"When she was sent away," there had been a shift, something in his shoulders, a readjustment of his legs. Or was it just that he had sat up a little more, become ever so slightly more present in the room and the conversation, "away from her home, from everything she knew, from the air she breathed and the ever-shifting communal presence through which she perceived the world," and if he was to take his fingers for this, well, damn it he could try. Those teeth he might take too would be quickly busy gnawing away at him for his efforts, "her only companion, her only connection, her only balm was this Raven. I'm sure you see that now as an unintended boil growing upon her, a weakness. You're free to. But what queen sends away a raven? Banishment? What Raven has ever been banished when any insult or slight worth actually punishing would merit a far more severe and far less lofty punishment. Relatives you can't kill get banished. Political prisoners whose death might inspire rebellion and whose imprisonment might draw intrigue get banished. It takes a certain combination of affection and hurt to banish someone else. Treat my life carefully or not, but tread carefully when it comes to this one." His bigotry would color how he saw Burnie, certainly, but that would be fueled by ignorance as much as anything else. More the fool to be bigoted when coming from a place of superior knowledge and familiarity.

As for the rest? If he had a spy, he wouldn't be here himself. If anyone could get meaningful information from a child, it would be the Queen. Morgan ought not be underestimated; dull, moral... honest, and able to speak to certain objective physical truths that Glenn might rather be kept between patient and practitioner and not provided to queen, a matter of which he would get absolutely no say in. It's interesting that this man survived as long as he did underestimating all those around him. Maybe that's what it took in a Tuatha court, so much as it did in a human one: believing your own bluster and bullying others into believing it as well. Maybe the man before him had been "lost in his own glam," as it was. Burnie did not have such luxury in this case.

The mood shifted once as he went to defend the raven. It shifted again at the presented offer. He leaned back, his head tilting. "Interesting. You think that I want an answer before the sun sets? It's essential we come to an accord. We won't if I lead with practicality as opposed to care. She'll listen to sense, but she'll listen to it better when the time is right, and certainly if, and try not to bristle or melt when I say this (no one wants to see that), it comes from the heart. Benedict, how many days was I unconscious again?"
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Re: Yet Another Morning After

Postby Niabh » Thu Jan 19, 2023 11:07 am

The raven's head swiveled toward Glenn, in a clear expression of bewilderment. “Um. Gosh. Good neighbor, Glenn. Ahem.” A raven could not clear its throat, and any efforts at doing so were a complete aping of its human companions. “Well. Meg said you were out nine days, didn't she? Sorry, I’m not so good at tracking days. I know the lady stayed with you a couple days before Meg showed up.”

The man responded to Glenn’s repositioning himself, to the firmness in his voice, by going very still, head slightly a-cant, eye slightly a-squint, lips slightly pursed. He held that pose as if waiting to see if Glenn was going to get all the way up, or if he would raise anything but his voice. If the dog had another trick in him, he’d love to see it. When he did not, the man shrugged, neither pleased nor disappointed. Interesting. He decided to be honest, which annoyed him. As mild revenge for being annoyed when he was not expecting it, he began to pace, taking advantage of his command of the space opposed to Glenn’s restrictions. Also he thought it might annoy Glenn in turn.

“I see it as the gesture of a silly young woman who believes, deep-down in her button-blue heart, that if she never makes any irrevocable decisions, everything will come right, we’ll all be friends again, and she’ll still get her own way.” He paused in pacing to give a small, helpless flash of his palms: You see what I have to deal with? “Judging by your response, I dare suggest the reason she did not take care of the raven was because she knew it would displease you. There’s an interesting question for you: does she care so much for the raven’s companionship that she could not bear to kill it for sake of sentiment, or does she care so much for your opinion that she fears your displeasure? The first one makes you correct, the second makes you important. Don’t decide too hastily. Really savor it.”

One-handed, he hopped to the stool’s top and settled tailor-style, impossibly balanced. The glam was barely perceptible, as if the air had rippled like satin. With his chin tipped downward, his cheeks were gaunt, his expression nearly impish. “I think you want an answer. I can make the difference between getting it tonight and getting it never. Now I am little fucking tired of running lips with you.”

The raven squawked as the light from the grey windows shrank back into their frames, withdrawing the slanted light from the floor and causing mid-morning shadows to run backwards. An eerie demi-twilight took its place.

“You said you wanted to avert bloodshed. I assume your bloodshed is different than mine. You don’t just suggest that and then trapse along from the subject—not if you’re serious about it, not if you’re not introducing it for leverage, not if you’re still waiting until the time is ripe. You thought I was; I am not. If the little Queen has gotten herself in the middle of something, I will find it out, either through you or through her. If it’s through you, you get something you want. If it’s through her, you get another week of rag baths from the soft-handed Lady Meg and no more. It’s all the same to me, except I won’t have to offer her anything.”

But he would definitely have something to offer, should she need to be bribed.
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Re: Yet Another Morning After

Postby Glenn » Fri Jan 20, 2023 10:02 am

Nine days. Nine days actually meant that she would be more than ready for something at least. She had to be drunk on the company of her own people, but being so awash in them would make her miss some of the creature comforts of the last few years as well. She was changed. One cannot simply go home after going to Faerie. The opposite apparently was true as well. Though, now that he was awake, she'd be bolstered by little snippets of information, things she could ask Meg or Bo (and yes, the child too; as if she wouldn't want the opinion of a child, if only just to dote over clever or amusing observations). There was no outwards reaction to that or any other word or expression from Benedict.

There was also little reaction to the man's pacing. Burnie was full of such tricks and while he didn't know this man, as of yet, to know if this was a trick or honest impatience (or a trick spurred on by such impatience) and he found himself empathizing as much as anything else. He was a pacer himself after all.

"Such savoring would be a waste. You said it yourself. She wants it all. She wants him. She wants me. She wants you as well, though I wonder what she wants from you," and it was as if Burnie was looking at the man (and his vaulting crossroads of physicality and glamourie) for the very first time. "Not praise, I think. You give it sparingly, one third of what would have been rightly deserved after she does three times the work to earn it. At one point it was a rare delicacy. Now? Simply sour for she has her own life experiences for comparison's sake. The two of you are obviously past the point of permission." Glenn had allowed, feigned or otherwise, an expression of curiosity. Now it turned into something far more distasteful. "If you made me guess, and that's the last thing you're doing, of course, I'd say what she wants out of you most is to provide her with an answer that she can convince herself that she came across on her own. That's absolutely miserable for both of you, but only spiritually for her because she'll go out of her way to preserve her ignorance of it." Curiosity gave way to distaste which gave way to something edging upon pity.

What other trick did he have then? A clap. It was sudden, immediate. "The truth of it, and we can disagree upon our understanding of it as there are things I know and things you know, is that I reached out, to Meg, for assistance with her on a matter beyond my ability to resolve, and that is why you and yours are here. It is not exactly the issue in which I've interfered with her but is tangentially connected to it.

"Look, it's not that I don't wish for us to work together in this. I increasingly think that might be a wise course of action, albeit one of many operating in parallel," those recently clapped hand moved outwards into a rare shrug. "It's just this: if you aren't aware of what's going on, if you've not been looped in by the parties in your court that either I or my solicitor have already reached out to, just what exactly are you supposed to be achieving here?" Just how isolated, ostracized, and neutered did he have to be if he was coming to Glenn Burnie for answers that already existed closer to home?
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Re: Yet Another Morning After

Postby Niabh » Thu Jan 26, 2023 6:49 am

Calmly, and with the cool ambling grace of a tiger, the man slid down from the stool, took the two steps to the foot of the bed, then vaulted himself over the bottom board, landing with a slight bounce as the mattress received his weight, and settling once more into the same casual tailor-style with no visible change in expression. The entire maneuver took no longer than Glenn’s handclap. The raven immediately exploded, charging him with neck thrust full-length. “Hey-hey-hey, nope, not allowed, you back off. You break anything and I’m yellin’ for Meg.”

“And what if I should break your neck?” he asked, seeming genuinely curious. His fingers patted once across his kneecap, measuring the time between question and response.

The raven faltered, but refused to back down. His black claws snagged the bedclothes. The man settled his elbows upon his kneecaps and folded his fingers together.

“What I’m achieving here is getting a good look at you. I thought that part was so obvious it didn’t bear mentioning. Anything beyond that is incidental, though I’ll take whatever I can salvage from it. If that means coming to a private agreement with you, I’m all for it, though you increasingly appear uninterested in pursuing it. I’ll leave it on the table for perhaps one more round and then give up.” He didn’t have all day to be dragged around to the tultharian’s way of thinking, despite the evidence of his own eyes and experience. There was only so long you could threaten to break fingers without doing it before someone thought you weren’t going to do it at all, and there was only so long you could continue to hold out an offer before the balance of power shifted from something you could give to whatever they might demand. Mutual negotiations took everything out of the realm of the informal and left everyone measuring the depths of their desperation. Mactire was not yet that desperate. “If all that was needed was someone to give her an answer she could call her own, I’d give her one and be done with it. I might still do, just to break the deadlock. But that does not make for good Queens. Before she came Here, she was frequently wrong and impulsive, but she made up for it with a certain amount of enthusiasm; she was engaged with the process; she put in the effort. That was fine. That was no more than anyone expected from a reasonably responsible girl her age. Now she behaves as if she’d just as soon have someone else take care of it. That’s not like her. Something has fundamentally shifted. I’m curious as to what. I want to know if it’s being in this place that’s done it or if there’s more to things than that.”

He had his suspicions. From the cool way he regarded Glenn, from the long pause after the final word of the sentence, it was plain that he suspected Glenn might either be involved or else know what was. Fine. Let him know that part. Letting a man like this know he played a critical role in the proceedings was a perilous enterprise: either they were flattered at the importance and turned useful, or they clammed up and held out for a better deal. Mactire could probably organize a slightly better deal on short notice, if it came to that, but he’d prefer not to, as he could see it all ultimately coming to the same impasse in the end. That was a test of wills in which he’d prefer not to participate.

“You’re going to have to prove yourself a little more helpful if you want to work with me. Right now I feel you nudging your foot under the door, trying to convince me you’re essential, but so far you’ve spent this entire meeting in deflection. If I can get more information from Meg, I’ll go to Meg. At least she understands what’s at risk here.”
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Re: Yet Another Morning After

Postby Glenn » Mon Jan 30, 2023 7:24 am

Bad form? Bad form was threatening Benedict right after Glenn had made it quite clear how important the bird likely was to the Queen. It showed something of a lack of impulse control. Really, it was one thing to threaten Glenn and something else entirely to threaten a guest in his home (or by claiming the bird to be his representative, did that make him part of his household? Did that make it more or less of an affront than if Benedict just was a guest? He truly had no idea).

Still, his voice did not raise. He made no sudden movements. He simply continued to get a look at this man and hear what he had to say. "Is there external immediacy? I'm well aware that I do not know what I do not know. How much time do you have to work with? Need she present herself back home sometime soon? Are you at siege at home or is it just her actions, schemes, and overall well-being here that is the primary concern?" He did not mention the word court. He did not mention the word queen, and especially not high queen. There was much to be implied in his questions, but they were not pointed.

"If you have time, you'd do well to use it. There is no simple answer. Generalities will be your worst enemy here. She's far less of a child than when she arrived, but she remains royalty nonetheless. Now that it so directly matters again, even if all else was ideal, and it is not, that might require a period of adjustment and realignment for her," which implied, for that is what he was doing now, that things were not at all ideal. "It's not simply that. She's suffered trauma as well. Trauma that is tied in to her fascination and tied into her avarice and desire. I can't imagine Meg to be fooled by her obfuscation, even if she may be distracted by me. If proximity to her object of fascination has healed her before your open-eyed arrival, know that it was only skin deep."

He'd been stoic, playful, detached, idle, amused, but now, finally, concern peaked out from his own obfuscation. "You should be talking to Meg about this. That's no threat to me. I want you to do it, even if it harms my access or negotiating power. It'd likely serve her best if the four of us spoke together. Of course, there are many ways to care about someone and some are more selfish than others," and Glenn Burnie was not the only one with negotiating power to worry about.
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Re: Yet Another Morning After

Postby Niabh » Tue Jan 31, 2023 1:46 pm

Bad form would be letting the Queen’s pet tultharian occupy an iota of his head. The raven mean precious little to him. It was a mechanism, slightly defective, probably better discarded than mended. The only value it held, like the sweet kernel in a hard nut, was information, and the raven stood on a rapidly tilting balance of information garnered versus information leaked. Why not let the tultharian think he’d persuaded him?

“Good neighbor,” he said, in tones that could not be distinguished from genuine relief. He smiled, hooked an elbow around one knee, and rocked backward, clearly settling in for a chat. “Oh, there’s some time, some time. Somehow there’s always a deadline, but there’s always a way to make a little more time if you’re willing to shave a few heartbeats from the next thing up the path. But sooner or later comes a moment when you find you’ve snipped every corner off your blanket and there’s nothing left to keep you warm. That is where we are.” Apart from that, he had no idea if the tultharian’s concept of soon resembled his own timeline. He would have preferred her back two seasons ago, but prefer it how you liked, the past was fixed. “For our part, there is no reason why she should not leave this very day, return to her home, resume her duties, and endure in relative safety of her person and her title. On her part, there appears to be a snag. Morgana says there is no safe way to drug her and drag her all the way to Cnoch-na-Niall. She says there would most certainly be complications. Of course, she could just be telling me that, but things are complicated enough.”

But then Glenn betrayed that quivering bleat of concern, that one chord that cried dissonant amid the other notes. His ears did not prick forward again but he had to clench his jaw to keep them from it. He listened, and then he spoke, reaching a level of stone-sober dignity out of keeping with his posture and surroundings; and this, too, was like his daughter, who could drape on a new mood the way another woman might try her hair upon the other shoulder: for effect, to steal the mood of a room. “If someone has done my lady ill, that one is my queen’s enemy and mine own. If you know such a one and do not tell me how to find it, you are too my enemy and hers. Trauma is a very serious word to use about a Queen, still more some trauma that makes her forget she is a Queen, for then she is annihilated. In the hill of the Nialls we keep accounting books. In each one are the names of those who wronged our Queen. If there is a name not stricken from the book at her death, her daughter inherits it, and her daughter, and hers. The current Queen inherited four. She’s down to two. One was Meg’s but we let her keep it. Now—

And finally he let his shoulders slump and his head drop forward in exhaustion from having to deliver that speech, which didn’t polish well for all the repetitions. “Avarice I know she’s got. We’ve had to break her of that problem at Court. She wants to be everyone’s favorite, all of the time, and she will not accept that if you’re in one person’s favor, you’ve just fallen out with two others out of sheer principle. If she’s done it again on a smaller scale, I’m not surprised: you can take the girl out of the Court, but…you know that one, hm?” He wondered if the tultharian had been a rung of the triangle, but decided not to ask. Let’s not make things tawdry unless the shock would stir something. “But you see, we have seen her do all this before. We know her habits, we know her custom, perhaps even better than she does. We know how to break her of these patterns—safely, before you ask; we don’t take her out back and beat her. Now if you know something has happened to her, say it. Let us start to get her some help.”

A little sound shifted in the back of his head, like two coins sliding across one another, not quite a chime. His tongue played slowly over the roof of his mouth, savoring the moment. Then he swallowed. “The last time she made an irrevocable decision, it all came to grief. Now she lets other people make the decisions because it absolves her of blame.”

He straightened up, ears perked forward; the swinging gold hoop in his ear caught a flash of the light. “Or here’s a thought: rather than I be the one to make up her mind for her, why don’t you do it? I find she is at that obstinate age where she’d sooner listen to her peers than her elders. Or else she would, had she peers. She’s quite peerless.” He fixed his fox’s gaze upon Glenn. “If you could think of something to tell her, that is.”
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Re: Yet Another Morning After

Postby Glenn » Wed Feb 01, 2023 4:45 am

There were limits to patience, even for a captive audience. Glenn Burnie, when he spoke, be it oration or conversation (with the two often blurred), was nearly constant motion. Here he listened, and he managed it well enough without leaping out the doorframe or rolling about on the floor, though towards the end, there was a definite increase in running one's finger over the edge of one's sheet, not at all a usual mannerism for the man. When the words finally stopped, it was but a slow and steady glance to his feathered solicitor. "Is his wank better than mine? Worse? It's not fair to compare with just one example; the entire method behind it is trying to figure out what is advantageous to the person you're speaking to and to yourself and to modulate your tone accordingly. But still, you must have a general opinion, no?"

Occasionally in his professional and personal life, Glenn Burnie did encounter a long outburst or speech from another. It was bound to happen, even sometimes inspired by Burnie itself. There was so much air in a room and he had notoriously strong lungs, but here he was laid up in bed. And anyway, sometimes, people struck out with their words instead of their fists, even in Myrken. For so insidious a sophist, Burnie was not keen on debate. It was more often than not his way to avoid direct engagement and instead be inspired himself by what he heard. "Friend, and you'll forgive me for that since you've not given me a name and I refuse to call you by any sort of paternal substitute or to offend by suggesting your station, I say this in the spirit of sympathy. Do not take it the wrong way though that may be your nature. She is changed. You and yours are endlessly mutable and endlessly static. Change, with a small c, is instant and Change, in the most meaningful ways, is glacial. She is meaningfully changed." He let that sit out there for a second, but just a second, for there was only so much air and this known stranger was obviously enjoying his breathing on this day.

"Very soon, within the phase of a moon I imagine, you will recognize it. She will make a decision, will pass a judgment, will connect disparate facts, will reason in a way beyond her years and that transcends what you know of her own nature. You are cold and calculated, but here you will feel pride, alarm, anger, remorse, exultation. It will be a knife in the ribs, very much in plain sight, but will feel like a knife in the back. The real pain for you will be that it will have absolutely nothing to do with you at all. Accentuate the positive in this moment. A queen growing into her own power and presence needs counsel far more than a disinterested one who merely plays at the role." They were past the point of broken fingers now. Yet despite that, there was something so genuine about Burnie's voice, about his manner. If his guest had sensed that little quiver before, if this had then been preceded by his small sidebar to his representative, this now was Glenn focusing entirely on the man before him, as if there was nothing in the world but the two of them. "The former needs leading, but the latter needs guiding."

Which left an item on the table still, the notion of names and retribution. "There is nothing preemptively prohibitive in punishing a person, a power, or a land for reflex. Behavior on that scale can be altered, but not with the time or resources you currently have. Focus instead on her. The trauma is not a broken heart. It's not a stubbed toe. These things might exist as well and have their own congealed impact, but you need treat deeper scars and unmoored power. This is beyond my expertise. Speak with Meg. Find a bard."
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Re: Yet Another Morning After

Postby Niabh » Wed Feb 01, 2023 10:19 am

It was not, on the surface of things, an easy answer for the raven. He had to determine if Glenn was being rhetorical, for one. “I wouldn’t say yours is better?” he began hesitantly. “But you don’t go out of your way to be an asshole about it. You just don’t seem to notice how you come across sometimes. Most times,” he amended. “Also you don’t keep threatening to kill me so that makes you aces as far as I’m concerned.” He cut a sharp glare at the stranger, a quick savage twist of the head. “You’re not here for her. You’re here sizin’ him up.”

Mactire folded his hands and briefly pressed his lips tight, for patience. “I just admitted that. I believe I used those very words.”

“Yeah, but why are you sizin’ him up?”

Mactire sighed richly. “Because he did something interesting and I very rarely find myself interested.”

He paused to slither off the side of the bed, and to compose himself in an easy, thoughtful posture, his gaze now contemplating a cobweb in the corner.

“You poisoned yourself. Poisoned yourself.” As though he could not believe it; as though he were talking in an empty room. “At the Queen’s very feet. Far away enough that she would have no time to thwart you, but near enough that there would be that paralyzed moment when you could look into her eyes as she realized what was happening. Did she put out her arm too late? I bet she did. I wonder what provoked you to draw that golden arrow from your arsenal. The one act she could not ignore. It must have been something dire. Self-injury’s a trick you can only use once effectively; afterwards it only looks like histrionics. It looks like histrionics the first time as well, but that’s neither here nor there. You could have held off, kept that arrow in its quiver, saved it for when you really needed it. You could have stayed your hand from your lips at any time, pretended you’d yielded to supplication, and she would have granted you anything afterwards, out of sheer relief, but you didn’t need anything more than what she gives to anyone for free: her undivided attention.” He flapped the ends of his fingers in the way one might wave bye-bye to a small child. “Then off to nappy-nap for you, safe in the assurance that whether you woke or whether you didn’t, you could not be ignored.”

He spat on the floor in disgust, then ground his boot on the blob of spittle.

“Lugh’us Dannan, lad, have you met the Queen? She cares about everything; when she was a child she used to care that the poor dear sheep might be cold after they were sheared. That’s what you were up against. There’s no challenge there.” He flashed his triangular, sharp-cornered smile. “But sometimes it’s more fun when it’s easy, hm? Like fucking a virgin, they flop right onto their backs and spread their legs and don’t know what they’re missing. You gambled on a queen’s wrath, whether she would leave you to die or save your worthless life. You were counting on her compassion. You staked your life on it—and is it not the best when lives are on the line? That’s when you really feel alive. When you woke and knew you were still alive, did part of you smile for the joy of guessing right? There was a while there when we couldn’t stop suitors from stabbing themselves in front of her. One of them put it through his eye and quite spoiled the Lughnasdh feast. There’s some trauma for you: blood spurting two manslength out of a fool’s eyesocket and ruining all the stuffed quail. But those were boys. All they saw was her beauty. It took you to look deep and see more. A girl who could give you everything you crave, and that she would do it for as long as you required, perhaps even long enough to finally slake your gluttony, because now you had her attention. That,” he concluded, “makes you interesting. But it also makes your motives suspect.”

This man had poisoned himself before the Queen. He had come to the Queen’s Sionnach knowing only the name she had given him and that one fact. Those two things were all he needed to understand that this tultharian had exploited a vulnerability he had cultivated for his own purposes. The tultharian, thankfully, seemed on the verge of becoming aware of that. This didn’t strike him as the sort of man who could lie to himself. Endlessly justify, perhaps, but not lie. Now there was a choice: to communicate with the Queen, or not. He did not think, ultimately, that the tultharian would not try reaching out for her, but on his own terms, never Mactire’s. That Mactire had introduced the idea made the scheme his first. It shouldn’t be too much a trick for him to justify his way around that, but it would only ever be justification. His smile revolved lazily between them. “There, raven. Does that answer your question?”

The raven mumbled something that sounded like asshole, then raised his voice to be audible. “You’re pretty sick.”

“A shame. If a man hasn’t his health, he hasn’t anything.” He waved his hand beside his face again, absent and distracted. “But I didn’t mean to get into all that, really. Just a few thoughts, knocking about my head, keeping me awake at night. We were talking about the Queen.”

He began to slowly pace again, this time without any contrived effort for effect, merely to burn off some heat. He ambled with the slow, easy sway of a shark in shallow water, a shadow just under the surface. “The day that girl stabs me in the back will be the day I die a happy man, knowing that at last, we finally have Mabhe’s heir rather than Morgana’s daughter. If it takes a little trauma to jog her to that truth, I’ll traumatize her myself. I cannot die until I know for certain that she is capable of retaining her title without me. That girl has bound me to this wretched earth. She has not yet reached one hundred winters, but she will soon. Think of the time. Not those first hundred winters but all the seasons thereafter. She will grow, and she will change, and change again, and perhaps the woman we get will not resemble in any wise the girl we know. That is the trouble with children—do you have children?” He stopped, shock-still, and fixed a solicitous, inquiring look upon Glenn. “If you don’t, don’t start. They’re like balls of twine, you never come to the end of them. And young girls are like their own cataclysm, even when they're not Queens. In this span of years, they grow and change so quickly you can hear their bones crackle in the night. You can sow their minds with ideas, and if you are very skillful, the fruit might bear a passing resemblance to the seed. That is the best you can expect under the best of circumstances, and these have never been the best of circumstances. What concerns me now, in this moment, is that she appears to be changing into one of you.” He spat it out, a vile curse. “Not only in her mind or her way of looking at things, but in her person. She weeps. She rises from sleep and swears she has gone away to some other place, for days or for years, and she cannot tell if she is there yet or if she is here in the present. For a while she was drinking this…vile black liquid, boiling hot, gallons of it. Now Morgana fears that it has been poisoning her, blunting her glams, stifling her. She was stuck to it like a drunkard to a flask.”

Another heavy pause, then he added, “The bard is involved. Morgana is involved. For better or worse, I’m involved. And you want to be involved. Well, you think you still are involved; you're not. Why you should want to be involved is a bit of a mystery. There’s not a lot of opportunity to poison yourself twice, you know. You blew your shot. But do you know what she’s going to ask me when she finds out I’ve seen you?” He spread his fingers, eyes opening wide. “She’ll rant and rave and curse and clutch at her dagger, but then she’ll ask how you looked, and how you were, and if you seemed well, even though I’m sure Meg’s told her all that already. And in her ever-so-roundabout way, she’ll ask me if you asked about her. I wonder what I’ll say.”

He tipped his head to the side, much like the Queen, and bored his sharp-cornered smile into him in another wry acknowledgement of how awkward this all was. And it was awkward, both in the difficulties it presented and the implications it made on how the Queen had gotten to her current state. Deep down, on a visceral level he did not often admit, those implications were so grotesque as to evoke incest. On the level below that, they satisfied him. But the important part was that they were useful.
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Re: Yet Another Morning After

Postby Glenn » Thu Feb 02, 2023 1:48 am

"Here's what he's doing," Glenn said softly, but not so softly that Mactire couldn't hear it, manners and common decency put on for show as he spoke to his solicitor. "He has limited information. Despite that, he's pressing to the farthest reaches of what he does know, taking it to logical conclusions that are just as likely wrong as they are right. He's making a show of it. Either he's right or he's made it so blatant and ridiculous and over the top that I'd be crazy not to contest him. In arguing against his assumptions, in providing evidence to counter his claims, I give him more information. He'd then reevaluate based on the new information and once again make the most extreme claim he can. The process repeats." Burnie had sat up more so than before in order to lean towards his feathered friend, but now he sank back onto a pillow, chuckling a bit despite himself. "Now, typically, there are two risks to this. Either you completely alienate the person you're speaking with, make them so hostile that they disengage with you, dramatically or otherwise, or you show too much of your own hand, what you know, and what you don't, what you think, what you feel even, who you are. But then, it can be a feint, a way of making the other person think this is what you know and what you feel to lull them or draw them out or make them think they have the upper hand and thus make a mistake of their own. And so on and so forth. Circles within circles, plots within plots. I'm being exceptionally rude not playing along here, but I'm also tired and my throat hurts."

He placed the palms of each hand upon the respective eyes that they matched and rubbed at them. The threat of violence had been the first. The threat of isolation had been the second. The threat of falsehood the third. "Just wait until she asks me about you. She's dying to hear." It was an odd look, this man, prone, hardly in clothes respectable enough to have such a first encounter, his palms rubbing at his eyes, and yes, a wry smile on his face for what he had just said. "Anyhow," his tone shifted from almost jovial to fairly serious, if a bit resigned. "I ought to give you something, at least. Three pertinent thoughts, the first sure to be unpleasant for both of us, but then we can take medicine as easily as poison, no?

"When she first encountered me, what interested her the most was how similar I was to you but also how different." For all of his placidness, all of his languid movement, he was, in short doses, capable of much more. Here it was sitting right back up, hands dropping, staring the man down, even with a comically askew look upon his face. Overwrought. "Ucghh," a sound that the raven was welcome to mimic later. "The poison did taste better. Oh, and the look of hers, that attention you've droned on about? It wasn't about having her attention for what I had just done; it was her realization for what I was about to do," that being the second gift, a bit of truth that would confound instead of elucidate. "It still tasted better than either the poison or what's now blatantly obvious after having met you. It evolved from there, but that was what opened the door."

It was a humbling notion for at least one of them, yet despite that, amusement trickled out from the corner of his mouth once again. "We're dancing around each other's questions and comments, of course. But do humor me. I'm curious if that last notion, of our similarity and her interest, is more or less horrifying than this next one." He placed his hands down upon the bed so that he might sit up the rest of the way, might steady himself for this would take a bit more energy than the last. "One could argue, and I have, and I probably do, if pressed, that what my people have to offer you the most, other than sheer breeding fodder," and he didn't roll his eyes for that, because he didn't do such things, but his tone suggested the possibility of it at least," is, perhaps counter-intuitively, a byproduct of our relatively short lives. We need to be quick, decisive, resourceful. Our vulnerability creates its own sort of necessary ingenuity, a drive to find purpose. Oh, it can manifest itself in malignant, bestial ways, but in inspirational, almost miraculous ways as well. Do not think her broken or damaged by her time here, save for in very literal ways. You and yours have been repeating the same courtly intrigues for centuries. The lyrics change but the melody remains. Her time here has given her the means to upset the applecart, to disrupt the very system that keeps your faction in its place. When the time comes, she'll be able to strike from an angle none could expect, with a set of skills, built upon what you've fostered within her, that no other Queen could be prepared for. It'll be wonderful and horrible and if you move quickly enough, you might even be able to keep up with it."
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Re: Yet Another Morning After

Postby Niabh » Thu Feb 02, 2023 5:52 am

“Oh, you’d be surprised what I know,” he replied. “I like that scenario because it’s elegant. Sums up a lot of vital truths in one grand gesture. You don’t take that kind of risk unless you’ve been gambling for quite a while and have a very good idea how the dice will fall. Whatever your intentions, you still did them right under her nose, so that she would be quite aware of what your plans were. You don’t just let someone know what you’re up to if you intend to get away with it, only you had the little problem that the plan might have cost your life, so you needed someone on the outside. Attention or not, that doesn’t exactly make you look any less suspect. Not to mention that for someone so concerned about her trauma, you didn’t much care about how she would react if you died right in front of her, therefore I must assume her emotional state was not a pressing concern. I’d be interested in knowing what was.”

He mused thoughtfully over the matter and found the idea sweet.

“She knows, you know,” he added. “Rather, she’s had a week or so to mull the matter over and she’s coming to awareness. It takes her about a week to work through emotion and start thinking critically. I can’t be sure, but if you were lying on the floor again, I think she might step over you. You won your gambit at the cost of the Queen’s continued sympathy. I have the advantage of being blood-related; she can’t get rid of me so easily. But I think she could discard you. You’ll have to change tactics if you want to win her back.”

“Whose side are you on?” cried the raven in exasperation.

His eyes narrowed. “Sides are restrictive.” He addressed Glenn again. “I’d prefer you stand down, myself, but there’s a nice fat packet of letters that suggests that you won’t. You’ve been in contact with Meg. That’s more familiarity. You’re invested. What you’ve invested, I shouldn’t like to guess. But I suspect it is enough that you can’t bring yourself to walk away from it. Not that you’re doing a lot of walking just now.”

The trouble, as always, was that he was even more invested, and to a far greater and more personal extent than Glenn ever could be. One hundred years. One hundred years and the weight of a legacy. The length of the Queen’s life, plus the centuries before when he’d been forced to bide his time. Centuries before that, even, back to the original battle that ended in the fall of Cnoch-na-Niall. Perhaps even before that, with Leabharcham, who’d reorganized the Courts in a fit of good intentions and ultimately succeeded only in division, a rift that spread over time and left her daughter desperate to reconsolidate power. He could probably trace it all the way back to the Sister Queens if he had the mind to frustrate himself. The roots of the past were tangled. All he could resolve were the obstacles of his own lifetime. If he had a dozen daughters, that still would not have rectified the problem and might have conceivably made it worse when they became old enough to start infighting. By pure chance of blood and birth, by a stroke of the gods, the young Queen was the perfect vessel. Keep her safe, raise her right, and there’d be no need for another. The last Queen. The last chance. He’d be dead before the next set of problems arose, but he would have done his duty by this one and passed the burden on to her, and he could only hope that by then, she would be strong enough to bear it. Her instincts were there, in miniature, but sharp and growing. But there must be a Tuatha queen. Not some weepy hybrid.

“The scale of time is measured in landmarks. This time among the tultharian isn’t even a pebble in the path. Ten years. Not even that much.” His eyes briefly blazed. “What are ten years when she may have a thousand? This time will have faded by the time she sets foot on her own lands. Ten more years and it will be all but erased. She will have moved past it. If she recalls it at all, it will be as an unavoidable derailment. A blot on the score of her life. She’ll look back and be embarrassed that she let it bother her so much, the way you recall a bad love affair or a blunder that could have been avoided. I understand you must feel you have some significance, but your kind decay, and it is a filthy, messy, incessant decay. I can smell your life rotting like fruit on your breath, even from this distance. There is nothing to be admired in that, and everything to be pitied. If you infect her with humanity, you infect her with death. You are offering her the gift of death, to live with her own dying amid a world where all she should look forward to is sweet continuation. Humanity for her is no different than a cancer in her breast. She’ll feel it eating her from the inside out. She’ll be eternally separate from her own people. And she’ll feel every moment of it. What will that do to her, do you think? What would it do to her mind?”
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