Waking Unrest

Waking Unrest

Postby Tolleson » Mon Jan 06, 2014 3:56 pm

((As Genny is just waking up, whatever plays out of the Golben thread will likely happen after whatever follows)).

Laboring long hours at the Inquisitory, minding what she could manage of Glenn’s affairs and helping Treadwell handle the town had been the excuse she gave for not sleeping well before. But in truth, it had been the nightmares and over-full dreams of memories not her own that plagued the realm beneath her eyelids.

This, however, had been different. It had been empty and hollow, a dreamless and black sleep. Her mind, for all the trouble it had caused seemed to skip, time unaccounted for, very much like a vivid dream soon forgotten upon waking. There was a vague notion that there had been something, a figure at the corner of vision, a whisper of a word not quite heard, a sliver, a fragment just beyond reach. For all that she knew, it could have been mere minutes or hours since she was last awake, except that her limbs were weak and did not want to move. She was sore down to her bones from lying still so long.

Red lashes would flutter to a moaning sound, dull agony still far off, somewhere else in the building. She had been here before, many times, the ceiling of the Rememdium is easily recognized. Perhaps it was even the same bed Giuseppe had occupied many long months ago, it is a thought that spurs her to action. Muscles and bone seemed to creak and it took her the better part of an hour to sit, to dress warmly, to prepare herself at the edge of the bed to stand.

A stale, half eaten pie sat upon the bedside table and was eyed curiously, as a nurse finally ventured over and gave a few startled off-balance steps backward at the sight of the redhead sitting. The clatter of steps pulled her attention away, and left the two to stare at one another for a span of several seconds. “Have you… a horse or… perhaps a carriage I might employ?”
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Re: Waking Unrest

Postby Carnath-Emory » Mon Jan 06, 2014 4:16 pm

Perhaps it was the same room that Giuseppe had occupied, all those months ago. Perhaps it was the same bed. Had the swordswoman suspected the same, she might have hesitated in her approach.

But not for very long.

Four hours ago, a difficult request had spawned a harrowing conversation. A dozen different questions had mended certain wounds; a dozen answers had spawned wholly new concerns, had left her thoughts electrical with Why and If and Perhaps. Begin with causality. Examine a moment backwards and forwards, live the passage of three months in both directions simultaneously; that is one way to analyse what it had been to become the Lady Marshall. It is also, and far more importantly, the beginnings by which she can begin a search for disparities between the swordswoman that was and the thing which she is today -

The conversation had been beyond difficult. And it hadn't even been about her.

She had left it reluctantly and she had left it upon horseback. She had ridden from her home as if it were possible to trample the idea of compromised beneath her mount's heavy hooves, that being the speed at which she and dark Hrimfax moved. They'd churned the snow at the Rememdium's doorstep into so filthy a slurry that, from some persons quietly speaking there, they'd warranted two frowns that she hadn't even noticed; by the time she properly ought to have, they were retreating back to the warm interior, and she was already loosening her scarves by the door.

If she'd suspected this was once the Lord Inquisitor's room, she might have hesitated before knocking upon its door. But today ignorance begets expedience: two quick raps of her knuckles serve for announcement of what comes, and she is opening that door before an objection can possibly be raised.
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Re: Waking Unrest

Postby Tolleson » Mon Jan 06, 2014 4:23 pm

There is no objection, having only just woke the redhead sitting at the edge of her bed is rather placid, her face a neutral expression and her eyes easily passing from the surprised nurse, who could only nod, and the lady Marshall. Presumably the nurse would be off to fetch the horse or carriage, and get her affairs in order. After all, how was Genny to know she’d been asleep so long.

“Good…” Genny stopped, not entirely sure what time of day it was, evening by the glow of the lamplight, the savory smell of dinner gone cold some hours earlier. “Evening?” she ventured a guess, blinking at the intruder blankly.
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Re: Waking Unrest

Postby Carnath-Emory » Mon Jan 06, 2014 4:38 pm

She'd come in like a storm -

And the sight of a Genevieve not just lucid but upright gives her pause; works a very mundane sort of magic besides, transforming the hard set of her features into something almost smiling, something gentled by its own relief.

"Evening." A tilt of her narrow chin towards the wall where windows ought to be, if only the Rememdium had spared some space for them. Alas, those shelves, and a remarkably bland attempt at art... "Very much evening. And I am glad to see you improved," by whatever measure she might be; a swordswoman needn't be a surgeon to reckon upright a sign of betterment. "There was - some talk," an errant wave of one hand, little but dismissive. "Some thought that it might be days, yet; quite the knock you took, mn?" A pause; a necessary moment to allow her eyes to properly look.

"How does it feel to you?"
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Re: Waking Unrest

Postby Tolleson » Mon Jan 06, 2014 4:54 pm

She had come like a storm, but then, she always seemed to. It was purely opinion, but it seemed that Ariane was not one for tea and idle talk, not now, not after she had returned to what was left of her right mind.

To say Genny was lucid was giving her a lot of credit. The room spun at first, distance had made little sense and the blurry, distant objects seemed to resolve into a firmer reality with every passing blink. Still she made little indication of a grogginess that lingered.

There is a meager smile, an attempt at good humor as she glanced to the phantom window. “Days,” her eyebrows lift, far more vulnerable now that she had been in their last several encounters, far more unaware. Confused, even.

“All right, I suppose… I…I fell.” It was a question turned statement, of course she fell, she fell easily and often. In truth, it was only a matter of time before this was surely unavoidable. But the furrow in her brow that had begun to grow only grew deeper as she looked over her visitor. “Is, is something t-t-the matter?” Her tone now somewhat more urgent, after all, a Marshall barged into the Inquisitor’s room, it might stand to reason that the matter was dire.
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Re: Waking Unrest

Postby Carnath-Emory » Mon Jan 06, 2014 5:45 pm

It is opinion; it is also fact. And that, that is very much her impression of Genevieve Tolleson: a woman with an innate talent for gazing directly through the details of a thing and into the essence which lies at its core. It's no wonder whatsoever that someone had made her an Inquisitor. It would have been remarkable if they hadn't.

"Days," she confirms, quiet for a moment in her examination of focusing eyes, and what might be a struggling equilibrium. "You - fell, yes. For the Governor fell against you, and he fell because he was pushed - very solidly, too. It caught your head a fine crack against the stage," and the words are an attempt at a soldier's odd humour; something in the eyes betrays her, however; betrays a week's long and wordless concern, and after a short shake of her head: "There was some concern. It rang like bone breaking, so that - you understand - I am relieved to discover it was not."

But they come to it, then. And she'd thank the woman for that expediency, if there was any way to gracefully manage that at all. Lacking such a talent, she can only offer the acknowledging incline of her head, and: "May I?" With a chin tilted towards a spare seat, and a hand dragging it near Genny's bedside already. "There is a problem. It is - unnatural. It was suggested to me that you might - if not a solution, you might offer at least some understanding." A pause follows, a moment in which to order her thoughts and choose her words.

"I've Elliot Brown trapped inside my dreams, and I must have him returned to his body. As his body is presently occupied by Elliot Gahald - well. A problem, you see?"

That being the sort of statement which emerges when a thug chooses her words most carefully.
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Re: Waking Unrest

Postby Tolleson » Tue Jan 07, 2014 5:34 am

Days. At first there was surprise, then frustration that pulled her lips into a hard line. Time was too precious, and presently, it was as fickle as Myrken’s folk. “When I … am gone t-there will be t-t-two t-things said of me,” the line of her lips softened with a sweet smile and ever so slight of a wry pull at the corner of her mouth. “T-they will say, I fell often and… and I had a very t-thick skull,” she spoke with a forced happiness, the way one comforts a friend, with a goal to dispel concern. Perhaps if she had been prepared for their meeting, aware of the details, the truth of her troubled thoughts would not be so plainly written beneath the thin smile.

There were so many things said, a great deal by the concern on her friend’s face, the gestures, the urgency of her tone, the words themselves both spoken and unsaid. Details were missing and she craved them, had it been Catch who pushed, yes, maybe. What was it he had said? The gears of her mind were turning, leaving her gaze in the direction of Ariane, but focused far, far off. And then she said it had not been a crack of bone, her arm felt to be made of lead but idly it rose and ran fingers over the landscape of her scalp feeling a scar. The still tender welt shot pain enough to make her flinch, it was real and brought her back to herself, ringing her vision in shadow. Too soon, her hand shot away, her eyes refocusing to follow the woman as she asked and entered, a numb and silent nod of permission as her vision returned to normal.

For Ariane’s part, the words seemed carefully enough chosen, conveying a very difficult concept in a succinct few words. The words that followed were reactionary, and far from concerned, “fascinating.” Genny seemed more the intrigued student than a concerned party, but that would follow the eager interest.

“He was… he is two very different… different people, our Brown and … the Lady’s Gahald,” she had been only once in his head and he had not been the petulant, self-proclaimed thief. He had been whole. An entire person with hopes, dreams, fears, love all his own.

“A split. T-transference? Perhaps… she held him,” excitedly whispered words, her eyes fallen away, they searched an imaginary page before her as if her mind projected a desk and upon it were tomes to be referenced. The unhelpful and academic thoughts of how were quickly cut short in favor of extracting more facts. Plus, she was not so socially far-gone that she had abandoned being polite.

“Are you… certain he is not a… a memory? Does he, do you interact with him… speak with him?” The very notion was something that a year ago she would have dismissed as ridiculous. But the dreams and memories of the minds she had touched were testimony to belief; the mind was a powerful thing.
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Re: Waking Unrest

Postby Carnath-Emory » Tue Jan 07, 2014 6:54 am

She might have explained it properly - having stood near enough at the time to hear the most of it, after all. And near enough to be within reach of Catch, when he flung that furious fist at the Governor's face; had she realised that Genny would take some of that blow, she might have knocked his arm aside after all. But then, had she even begun to recognise what art the girl was working upon that crowd...

This evening, a swordswoman's ignorance serves them very kindly indeed: rather than anything else that could have been, her answer to that sentiment is a small, hard grin. "Fair words to end with," she laughs, and it is the grim approval of a woman whose business for years has been the navigating of just such blows; who very much expects to someday die to one. "There's worse that it might be. Particularly here." And in that seat she settles herself, as the Inquisitor recreates that moment in her thoughts; sets a low boot-heel against the bed's worn edge, as Genny carefully explores the tender curve of her skull. It's easy to be patient with this, easy in the wake of everything had led them to this moment, and when the Inquisitor turns her attention the problem presented her, she has in the swordswoman a very attentive student indeed.

"He is." No. A correction: "They. Are. Brown; Gahald; at first I reckoned Gahald not much more than a puppet for the Olwak girl's whims - you know? Speaking her words when she wagged his mouth open; doing as she pleased, when she chose to have him do any thing at all." Cold condemnation, as spoken by a woman who likely includes the Lady Marshall that assessment. Or the form that Lady had taken initially, at least, for: "I was not - entirely - correct," she continues, almost immediately. "He is neither 'swain nor the thing which I'd become."

synthesis. impossibility.
"He ... thinks. He feels; he responds." Consciousness, an architect had said, and she had flinched beneath the word but she had not disagreed. Not by that point. And now, scant hours after a conversation which had spiraled into a thousand different variants upon the theme of Self, she echoes the man's words almost verbatim. "He strives to understand his world, and to - to analyse his predicament. She may have created him, but now he's no more a tool of her intent than - than a child is, of the parents which birthed him - "

A pause, not quite smiling, for when she speaks again it's to add: "Easier for me, I'm afraid, if he were."

.. a split
... a transference...

"The Brown caught in my dreams is no mere memory. For first," and she counts these off upon her fingertips, "I knew the boy - slightly; hardly more than that." Two conversations. Vivid, yes; consuming. But in the end, only two. "For second, it was - the other - " A struggle to properly describe the thing which she'd been; the mouth hesitates, works silently through its words before lending them some voice. "It began before I was - restored. And I assure you, the thing which I've been reckoned Gahald its friend of years, but of Elliot Brown it recalled nothing at all. For third? You must accept my guarantee of this: that I am good for many things, but imaginings is not one of them. This boy battled the Olwak girl's hold upon me when I was not remotely myself - "

monkey-boy, she'd called him, her laughter rich with contempt
" - and now that I am returned, we talk; we struggle with this; we argue; there is not the hope that I could recreate this Elliot. There is not the slightest chance." A pause, though; a fingertip's soft, slow tap upon the chair's arm, and: "What does this mean? This thing which you said; that she held him."
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Re: Waking Unrest

Postby Tolleson » Tue Jan 07, 2014 8:39 am

The art she worked on the crowd, Agnie and Gloria, specifically, Catch would have been victim too, if she could have made it so, but all her intervention would have done is exacerbate his anger. At this though, they both share ignorance, the events bringing her to this moment, are merely secondhand. Blurry, half remembered things, a dim room where she and Glenn and talked, the words wouldn’t come but small things, the grain of the chair back, the light on the flowers in a vase by the window.

There is a small sound, an agreeing mumble from the redheaded girl as the Marshall explains how much easier it would be if he were simply a puppet of Rhaena’s creation. Rhaena was powerful, but powerful enough to create an entire person, from scratch was questionable – probably, she simply worked with the perfectly good materials on hand. It would likely have been easier. People are complex.

“Before? T-that… remarkable.” So, Brown was a part of Ariane while Gahald walked, whole unto himself.

“It… it is a curious t-thing, but …t-though my experience is limited, I can say t-the mind is… each reacts to adversity differently, and… we are quite a bit more clever th-than we think. “ She fought for words, cocking her head slightly to the side as she attempted to find a way to explain her meaning to this particular audience.

“A blade… a blade might… kill a man with slight pressure, but for all… t-t-that we are fragile, it is just as likely that a poorly placed blade might go clean t-through and the wound still heal. We are strong t-t-too… resilient.” Elliot was this and very clever more than most people she knew, as much as it pained her to admit.

“I t-thought, perhaps … Gahald is not Elliot rewritten, but… duplicated, reformed in the manner that suited her, whole and entire to himself, then Brown’s mind, she might have held within her, apart from this new boy.” It was an interesting idea, one that would surely have made her elated to study if not for the problems it presently presented.

As for the second to last of her concerns, of arguing and the inability to return him."It is… it is quite a quandary," a pensive look overcame her and she shook her head, slightly, the motion jarring and little help in keeping the room straight.

"While I should like to know firmly... how and... why. As for solutions," her eyes would fix on Ariane as if she is a stationary point, holding the room from spinning. "I might ...t-t-take him from you," even having done this with some success, she sounded unsure. "Perhaps... if t-there is someone," she thought for a long time then, silently. For the overly cautious a problem might be that transferring a whole person between minds was as dangerous as carrying home a bucket of water from a distant well with the caveat that even a single drop spilled might irreparably ruin a person, make them forget their entire childhood, or how to speak. Of much larger concern was simply, what then.

Even if she took Brown from Ariane, she couldn't simply overwrite the now, fully fledged Gahald. Genny was no Rhaena, not by a long shot, not in any sense of her. She couldn't so easily wipe the mind of some criminal or mind too far-gone and replace it with Brown's - essentially, giving the aspiring thief a new body. Perhaps a mind already empty, one of the children from the crowd, hadn't a townsperson said his son or daughter had gone simple? Wiping might be preferable, mush might leave Elliot Brown with his own body but little to do with it, a vegetable. So, even once the bucket of water had been carried home, somehow, it would need to be poured entirely into a container of a small mouth, of indeterminate size, with cracks weakened by madness or merely Rhaena's mental touch.

But then, what as the alternative? Who else could even make the attempt?

"No, I... I haven't the skill, you... I will find a solution, but t-t-t... t-to risk Brown's ...existence. I cannot," her eyes were still pensive, but also uncertain, afraid. "I will carry him if t-the burden is t-too t-t-taxing... but you are better t-to ask the fae, Zilliah," not that she knew him to have Rhaena's talents, but in his own, he was masterful. Of course, she was not aware that the fae had all but vanished from Myrken. But this was all she had, for now. The expert on the matter was also the cause, and unfortunately inaccessible due to her unfortunate death.
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Re: Waking Unrest

Postby Carnath-Emory » Wed Jan 08, 2014 10:38 am

What an unlikely sight they make. The Inquisitor, unsteady sometimes on her bed's-edge perch, having wrenched herself from sleep only to be confronted by this. A Marshall that's all sharp-angled limbs, all winter-pale skin and livid scar, an illiterate come to be educated upon a subject which she finds repugnant...

"We might hope," she'd murmured at one point, "to be a little cleverer than everyone thinks." But the thin wave of one hand had dismissed that for the interruption that it was, and beyond those wryly-framed words she was as silent a student as any teacher might hope for; any professor at his podium, any governor upon his stage. Something in the grey of her eyes acknowledged an Inquisitor's willingness to frame very new, strange concepts within analogies that a swordswoman might more readily grasp; something like smiling, at her mouth's very edge. If only what was to follow hadn't flattened that almost-smile so efficiently.

Zilliah, after all. Whose name is seldom mentioned to her, and never without caveats; whose person she'd been given leave to dispatch.

"I've not sought you out in hopes of having him removed." Helpful, really, if she had mentioned that from the beginning. But then how would she have learned of such transference? that the wholesale duplication of a person's psyche was even theoretically possible? And her fingers had not begun to creep towards her throat as those words were spoken, had not felt at all compelled to toy - a little guiltily, perhaps - with the cluster of pendants tangled together at her throat, but that changes now. Fingertips sort blindly amongst silver and glass and raven-black feathers, and when she leans towards the other woman it's with a thin triangle of onyx lifted free of the rest in tacit demonstration.

"He speaks and moves and functions within my dreams, but my suspicion is that he does so by means of this - or else that he is contained within it. Those dreams did not begin until I wore this first; they do not persist when I lock it well away from me." Which she'd tried. The night after that dreaming-moment in which the pendant had caught his attention, had lit his eyes with sudden recognition; oh, of course she'd tried. "I've come to you for that I mean to see him restored - and I must know if this is even possible, and I must know if the attempt will risk him, for - " a small incline of her head " - we are agreed on this matter, you and I: for all that his circumstance is - terrible, I will not see him endangered further.

"So for now, we deal in hypotheticals, mn? And if I should turn my questions upon Zilliah - " the lips slightly flatten; the shift of one narrow shoulder discards certain considerations. "So be it."
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Re: Waking Unrest

Postby Tolleson » Wed Jan 08, 2014 12:26 pm

A wry little comment for cleverness, lends a meek smile to the proclaimed professor. It is a task for which she is ill suited. Perhaps if she spoke more directly, with clear thoughts and emotions free of the constraints a body imposed; rather than rely on insufficient words, stutters as clumsy as her feet.

Poor Zilliah. How ever had he gained such a terrible reputation among the likes of Glenn and Ariane, stone pillars of people in the mind of the young Inquisitor. It was not well known, but it might be plain to Ariane in this moment, Genny had no qualms with the likes of the fae. Myrken had a certain repugnance for magic, the mad, petulant youths and foreigners that Genny simply did not understand. Tolerance, perhaps more than was wise. Still, to her, Zilliah was sweet, a viable option, if not one of her first recommendations.

But Ariane speaks, and she is glad of it, as if the wind expelled by speaking left her breathless. The expression of concern, perhaps even fear, dissipates, changed by a renewed curiosity. For one so ready to not only believe, but engage in the magic of the mind, she seemed strangely suspicious of magic by means of a rock. Still, her hand lifted as if to touch it, examine it further, but she stops, a storm of questions building behind red, furrowing brows.

“I… forgive me, I assumed,” a sincere apology through the curiosity, though, was it really such a leap? Rhaena was still fresh in mind and Elliot her shining, golden example. Not to mention that Ariane was one of a handful of people, or so she thought, that knew of what she could do.

“I,” she shook her head, her shoulders slumping though her eyes held the black stone with intensity, as if curiosity was a hunger, fed only by knowing, learning, and understanding. And she was starving.

Her head shook in a long silence, it was a small thing, barely even a gesture, unwilling to admit defeat. But even theories required testing and she had not even those to propose in bringing Elliot back. Eventually her eyes rose up to the Marshall who hovered near, leaning in.

“I… I…” Deflating further each time she repeated the word, curiosity gave way to defeat. “My knowledge of t-t-these th-things is… I need to know more, even for t-the hypothetical… even for … t-theories. Even,” she paused, the light of an idea visibly striking her eyes as they widened for a moment.

“Even if… the Lady had t-t-transferred our young Brown here, into t-this stone,” she finally touched it, ever so gentle of a press. “T-to get him out… it is one t-thing, I t-t-think, t-to speak as we have,” mentally, she meant. “Quite another… entirely, I can only imagine, t-t-to t-take the essence of a mind and remove it from a living body.” She didn’t want to say how she thought she knew this, how she held lingering thoughts, memories, dreams of all those who had entered the space of her mind. To share the mental space with others as if they were boarding tenants, it did not seem such a leap. But to remove them, seal them away in an object. This. This was remarkable.
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Re: Waking Unrest

Postby Carnath-Emory » Thu Jan 09, 2014 10:48 am

"That is nothing to be apologised for." Even as the Inquisitor's hand reaches for something it perhaps should not touch; does Genevieve even realise that she does this? Has the hand operated independently? expressing, perhaps, a want that the conscious mind is yet to acknowledge? Having some suspicion as to the pendant's origins, the swordswoman cannot help but silently wonder.

Her fingers close silently over the pendant's blackened angles. A shift of the hand tucks it back beneath her shirt. Out of sight, out of -

"Truly. I am ignorant of these things, of these arts; I have chosen this ignorance. But now - " a thin shift of her shoulder; a note of quiet regret. "Things are as they are, and this is not a choice that I can sustain. You draw me the shape of this, and I am glad of it. What I'm not certain of is that this - duplicating - was Rhaena Olwak's doing. I knew a man once who was - "

And having begun with this tiny measure of an old, old tale, the swordswoman finds herself suddenly dwarfed by its scope. Parted lips pause motionless; for a single, crucial moment the whole of her hesitates. Describe the cruel arts of Thadius Dhrin in a single word; encompass the scope of his motive, of his willingness and his ability, in the space of a single phrase. Hah! It is the very definition of impossibility.

"Who with a trinket stolen from someone's person," she begins instead, "might craft the means to enter into that man's dreamings; who might, in this way, read from within him those truths he would rather have hid. A strand of hair; a snatch of cloth cut from his shirt; such small things, you see? A cold art; a particularly cruel one," she concludes, and feels no particular need then to mention that the man is dead, or that she'd held him very still as Lamai Carver cut open his throat...

But with a shake of her head, the swordswoman's begun to straighten from her seat. "Thank you. For this; for your cautions and for your advising. I've only one question more to put to you, and - " the mouth's become some wry smile. "And perhaps when you've answered, it will become my turn to apologise. Nevertheless..." A narrow lean against the table's near edge; lips that hesitate a necessary moment over the choice of words.

"Upon the close of the Governor's speech." Slowly, now; quietly. "When Catch came at the stage, very much at odds; when the crowd were lost to shouting and outrage," and her eyes are steady, steady upon the Inquisitor's own. "Did you come to work some part of your talent upon them? Upon any one of them at all?"

Because in the end, the woman is a weapon, and knows only how to be direct.
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Re: Waking Unrest

Postby Tolleson » Thu Jan 09, 2014 1:50 pm

Ariane is quicker by far and Genny’s hand almost touches hers. Quickly she retracts as if the pendant were a hot coal. An apologetic glance to follow as her entire body recoils slightly, slowly, adjusting her posture as she listens.

There is a small frown, but it is only disapproving of her words, not judging her for the choice. “I understand t-the want t-to choose ignorance in matters such as these. But, Ariane,” she spoke her name as a friend, as if she had known her far longer than she had. But in a strange way, it felt as she did. Their first real meeting had been the culmination of years, hopes, dreams and memories, a rush of information directly into the core of her. Still, Genny paused with some caution as if she had already said more than she intended and had no intention of offending. “Ignorance in something… t-that frightens us, only lends it power and… control over us.” She had been hopeless with a sword, or even Glenn’s gifted dagger, this was Genny’s weapon.

Aside from this small interjection, the mention that the pendant may not be Rhaena’s doing has the redhead puzzled, again she looks distant, as if she references an invisible book.

Behind the may doors of the hall in Darkenhold, was another impossible room, it was the Library, a broken desk and a battered lamp, a tome lay open before her. A volume of all known things. Perhaps she knew, perhaps it had been written in one of Glenn’s files, so long ago read, it’s contents stored.

Regardless there is a somber and resigning nod. “I… I,” reluctant to mention Zilliah again based on the first reaction, she could only shake her head. “I know… very little of this world, beyond myself,” and that was true in other things beyond just magic. “I will find an answer for you,” though there were no words that said as much, her tone was incredibly apologetic.

There is a distinct shift in expression at the change of topic, though the direction is not far from where it had been, blanked with confusion, curiosity, and uncertainty. After all, Ariane was the first person she had really spoken to. “Glenn spoke?” It is not long for a spark of recognition to flash across her face, elated as a person when they fit a troublesome piece to a jigsaw puzzle. “T-t-the stage,” Ariane had mentioned it earlier, “he must have spoken t-t-to the town… of course.” Her smile drops, to the floor, as color drains from her face more quickly than it had come, “Glenn… he...he fell into me, is...is...is he hurt? Did..I... did I hurt someone,” as eager as her eyes had been before they are searching and horrified now. Horrified because she doesn’t know. Horrified that she has surely hurt someone and she can’t recall. Her head shakes nervously back and forth as her eyes grow wide, imploring Ariane to tell her.
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Re: Waking Unrest

Postby Carnath-Emory » Sat Jan 11, 2014 8:10 am

This Marshall, this enthusiastic weapon and occasional monster - she is not much inclined towards informalities; less-so, easy friendships. It is not quite her habit to be anything but quietly remote; military in almost every respect that matters, she ought to have been standing even now, she ought to have been distant in her sentiments and in her manner besides. But demanding circumstances had thrust them into each other's company, the first time, and that they'd emerged intact was due as much to the Inquisitor's temperament as her singular talents. Into each other's minds, besides - a breach which under other circumstances she would never have forgiven - and even now there's no judging the degree to which each woman's self had bled into the other's.

Genevieve Tolleson will always resonate with the clarity of distant sunlit seas.

Inevitable, then, that she'd come to the Inquisitor's sickbed as a friend; that she'd settled herself all loose-limbed into this seat, that she'd been easy with her words. She'd made no attempt to disguise her ignorance. She had not thought, not once, to glove her hands against Genevieve's touch.

Still -

"And if I dunk my hand in a pig's trough? I walk away understanding what filth's floating in there, and I walk away dripping with it, too."

- there are limits.
The tiny shift of her hand cannot mitigate that sudden coarseness; perhaps, though, it means to exclude present company from the sentiment. Certainly her words would seem to suggest so, for: "No, " and the hand's caught back through the dark of her hair; a moment's weary frustration, in which everything relents. "I agree. Conditionally. Else I'd not be here asking, mn?" And her mouth becomes a small, wry smile.

"The Governor - spoke." When they come to that; when she's murmured a quiet gratitude for the Inquisitor's offered assistance. And these are words which must have escaped her before she quite realised the extent of what Genevieve describes, for quick in their wake there flickers a frown across her brow; her eyes betray a moment's startled uncertainty. "You took that sharp a blow to your skull? He - upon the stage, yes; in the very town square, and for as many ears as would suffer to hear him. He - "

A pause. A moment's swift, frowning assessment.

"You've hurt nobody." That, before anything else. To calm the fright in Genevieve's eyes; to set that fear firmly aside. "His speech was - not well-received. Not entirely. There came a - an altercation, in the crowd; an arguing, loud enough to incite worse. Near the end of it all," or, depending upon one's perspective, at the peak of that conflict, "Catch confronted him. Came directly at the stage," and her hands designate positioning; a series of tiny gestures mime out approach and defiance. "And this, by his reckoning, was the moment in which you worked your - talent - upon the crowd. Or perhaps only upon him. He spoke a warning at you - "

I think he did.
I think he really did.

" - and while his argument was with the Governor, he meant to see you stopped, you see? And so he flung the Governor at you. Somewhat more forcefully than he'd intended to, I think; quite the knock you took."
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Re: Waking Unrest

Postby Tolleson » Sat Jan 11, 2014 1:18 pm

Gloved or not, Genny knew the way into Ariane’s mind now. It was like a familiar path or a road on a map; is was courtesy, restraint, respect, perhaps even some small fear, especially now, that made her content in spoken words, as inefficient as they were. As for magic and pigs, it is true, it was difficult to learn about a thing such as this without experience and understanding, first-hand, some small part of it. Hands on experience and all.

She might have smiled to the mention of ‘conditionally’ at that point, but as their conversation shifted so to did her reaction. It was her turn then, to be the student, to try to calm a heart that leapt in her chest as much as her mind did, to a myriad of conclusions. Further more, with her fallen face and bloodless pallor she gaped, listening with the expectation of horror. Never before had dread been expressed so purely. It revealed much about her fears, not in others, but entirely of herself.

A sigh of relief came to know that no one had been hurt, but still, she was attentive, hearing the tale as an eager listener still unaware of the ending, rather than a participant. Glenn’s speech had gone poorly, not something she expected, despite the state of things, and so she frowns. An altercation, further furrows her brow. This was the moment. And in these words, more than any action before, Ariane was a storm. She was the still, electrified air before a summer rain, dark, purposeful, rolling thunder that clapped and drowned out all other things, she is steel glinting, striking fast as lightning. No magic, but a phenomenon of nature all herself.

And for Genny, there is nothing.

For a long, long moment, she is nothing.

She may well have lost a limb, been hemorrhaging blood, or simply found herself at the very precipice between sleep and waking. It is shock and she is utterly still. She wouldn’t have, would she? No, she couldn’t have. She had tried before, she had asked. Catch was adamant. Catch… Catch was precious.

It may have been as well to put a blade into her gut, to lay some blow for the stricken look upon her face. Ghostly and wavering then as if she might be sick, her limbs covered in goose flesh, she can only stare in silence.
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