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agentlelog2019-01-31 01:03 pm
agentlenpc) wrote in agentlelog2019-01-31 01:03 pm
walking in a field of fog
Who: You and Fayura
When: Today, a week after the Strangers' arrivals
Where: The Queen's Residence and the Old Town Bazaar
What: Q&A
Warnings: n/a
When: Today, a week after the Strangers' arrivals
Where: The Queen's Residence and the Old Town Bazaar
What: Q&A
Warnings: n/a
EARLY MORNING, THE QUEEN'S RESIDENCE
The morning is cold and dark. Inhaling the frigid air is so shocking that those who aren't expecting it cough and wheeze with their first breath. No one really wants to make their way to the training field. Even the Queen's court moves sluggishly, but move they do with muttered recriminations against Allairavar. Cold weather doesn't stop training.
A warming spell around the field keeps it warm enough to practice, and bobbling witchlights and steady e-line floodlights keep the darkness at bay. All along one side of the practice area are weapons with blades live and dulled. The court eases onto the field alongside the Strangers with sighs and grumbles aplenty. No one likes practice on chilly mornings, but they like Allairavar's retaliation against tardiness even less.
Everyone has paired off by the time Allairavar strides out of the manor home with his arm around a woman's shoulders. In the harsh e-line lights and softer witchlight, it's clear she hasn't been well and still isn't entirely healed. Sunken golden eyes scan the field, and her expression is vaguely nauseated. She trembles, either from weakness or discomfort, as Allairavar pulls away and calls in two bladed sticks—weapons caught somewhere between sword and ax.
"Let's go," he tells her, and she takes one stick from his hand as court and Strangers alike look on.
Another male follows them in, sleekly predatory in his slow prowl around the practice field. A dangerous look glazes his eyes, and he circles the whole field once before making a second, tighter pass around the marked off area where Allairavar and the woman square off.
Members of the court trade wary looks, sharing them with the Strangers. More than a few murmur things like, "Verim will go for his throat if he pushes her too hard," and, "Should she even be out of bed yet?"
It seems Allairavar's rule for training is absolute. Even the Queen takes part. Under his watchful eye and tutelage, they run through a warm up that clearly exhausts her, but when he asks if they should stop, she snarls at him and pushes on for another five minutes. Only then does she sit off to the side of the field and begin stretching.
As she lifts from a leg stretch, she catches your eye and offers a small, shy smile. "Would you like to stretch with me? Allairavar's workouts are always hardest the first day back," she says softly.
Allairavar's exercises may be hard, but she looks like she's seconds from collapsing from exhaustion. If she spent this last week resting and still looks so wan and thin and weak, her initial injuries must have been severe.
MID-AFTERNOON, THE BAZAAR PAVILION
Snow drifts lazily through frigid air. Though temperatures hover around freezing, the Old Town Bazaar bustles with activity. Slowly, people rebuild homes and shops burned by the Hunter Guild, and for perhaps the first time in the past fifty years, sentiment has turned against the Hunters.
Strangers out and about in the Bazaar hear:
There's some commotion toward the center of the Bazaar, where the Queen has settled at the pavilion with a group of landen and Blood children. Her only guard seems to be the elegant man seated across from her at the pavilion's wooden table, his eyes watchful as the people pass by.
The Queen herself looks unwell. Though she wears a bright smile and her golden eyes glitter with laughter, they are sunken and dark smudges circle them. Her arms are thin, little more than skin wrapped around bone. In spite of the freezing weather, she wears a tunic with wide sleeves that pool around her elbows as she holds up a small plank of wood and tugs at a ribbon embedded in it. Here, in the chilly winter morning, the woman who brought some twenty Strangers across the vast distances of many worlds looks very human, very mortal, and very fragile.
Her eyes meet yours as she looks up, and you feel a gentle brush against your mind. No matter how familiar or strange mental communication is, no matter how disconcerting or easy you find it, the touch strikes you as incredibly polite. *We can talk, if you'd like,* she tells you over a psychic thread.
Should you join her, you find respite from the cold. A warming spell makes the pavilion pleasantly toasty, explaining why no one wears a jacket and, maybe, the Queen's clothes. She's dressed plainly in a loose, knitted tunic and fitted breaches. She wears no coronet and no visible jewelry except for a golden chain that tucks beneath her tunic.
Fayura offers a quick smile in your direction as she guides the end of the ribbon in her hand through the thin strip of wood in a twisting loop. She offers a soft-spoken explanation to the children before inviting them to try—and inviting the Blood to explain the magic to the landens, too.
As the children turn to their task, Fayura turns to you. "I'm glad to see you made it through the Hunters' attack relatively unscathed." She sets her plank down and taps her mug. Steam beings to rise from it and she lifts it to her lips with a sigh. "And I apologize that I wasn't there to greet you." A wry smile tugs at her lips; her appearance is, in her mind, enough of an explanation for why. "How have you found Draega?"
The morning is cold and dark. Inhaling the frigid air is so shocking that those who aren't expecting it cough and wheeze with their first breath. No one really wants to make their way to the training field. Even the Queen's court moves sluggishly, but move they do with muttered recriminations against Allairavar. Cold weather doesn't stop training.
A warming spell around the field keeps it warm enough to practice, and bobbling witchlights and steady e-line floodlights keep the darkness at bay. All along one side of the practice area are weapons with blades live and dulled. The court eases onto the field alongside the Strangers with sighs and grumbles aplenty. No one likes practice on chilly mornings, but they like Allairavar's retaliation against tardiness even less.
Everyone has paired off by the time Allairavar strides out of the manor home with his arm around a woman's shoulders. In the harsh e-line lights and softer witchlight, it's clear she hasn't been well and still isn't entirely healed. Sunken golden eyes scan the field, and her expression is vaguely nauseated. She trembles, either from weakness or discomfort, as Allairavar pulls away and calls in two bladed sticks—weapons caught somewhere between sword and ax.
"Let's go," he tells her, and she takes one stick from his hand as court and Strangers alike look on.
Another male follows them in, sleekly predatory in his slow prowl around the practice field. A dangerous look glazes his eyes, and he circles the whole field once before making a second, tighter pass around the marked off area where Allairavar and the woman square off.
Members of the court trade wary looks, sharing them with the Strangers. More than a few murmur things like, "Verim will go for his throat if he pushes her too hard," and, "Should she even be out of bed yet?"
It seems Allairavar's rule for training is absolute. Even the Queen takes part. Under his watchful eye and tutelage, they run through a warm up that clearly exhausts her, but when he asks if they should stop, she snarls at him and pushes on for another five minutes. Only then does she sit off to the side of the field and begin stretching.
As she lifts from a leg stretch, she catches your eye and offers a small, shy smile. "Would you like to stretch with me? Allairavar's workouts are always hardest the first day back," she says softly.
Allairavar's exercises may be hard, but she looks like she's seconds from collapsing from exhaustion. If she spent this last week resting and still looks so wan and thin and weak, her initial injuries must have been severe.
MID-AFTERNOON, THE BAZAAR PAVILION
Snow drifts lazily through frigid air. Though temperatures hover around freezing, the Old Town Bazaar bustles with activity. Slowly, people rebuild homes and shops burned by the Hunter Guild, and for perhaps the first time in the past fifty years, sentiment has turned against the Hunters.
Strangers out and about in the Bazaar hear:
A landen woman, to her friend: It's not right what the Hunters did, burning down our homes, too.
A well-to-do Blood male, at a food stall: …believe what that pompous Grand Master has to say about a Queen of the Blood.
There's some commotion toward the center of the Bazaar, where the Queen has settled at the pavilion with a group of landen and Blood children. Her only guard seems to be the elegant man seated across from her at the pavilion's wooden table, his eyes watchful as the people pass by.
The Queen herself looks unwell. Though she wears a bright smile and her golden eyes glitter with laughter, they are sunken and dark smudges circle them. Her arms are thin, little more than skin wrapped around bone. In spite of the freezing weather, she wears a tunic with wide sleeves that pool around her elbows as she holds up a small plank of wood and tugs at a ribbon embedded in it. Here, in the chilly winter morning, the woman who brought some twenty Strangers across the vast distances of many worlds looks very human, very mortal, and very fragile.
Her eyes meet yours as she looks up, and you feel a gentle brush against your mind. No matter how familiar or strange mental communication is, no matter how disconcerting or easy you find it, the touch strikes you as incredibly polite. *We can talk, if you'd like,* she tells you over a psychic thread.
Should you join her, you find respite from the cold. A warming spell makes the pavilion pleasantly toasty, explaining why no one wears a jacket and, maybe, the Queen's clothes. She's dressed plainly in a loose, knitted tunic and fitted breaches. She wears no coronet and no visible jewelry except for a golden chain that tucks beneath her tunic.
Fayura offers a quick smile in your direction as she guides the end of the ribbon in her hand through the thin strip of wood in a twisting loop. She offers a soft-spoken explanation to the children before inviting them to try—and inviting the Blood to explain the magic to the landens, too.
As the children turn to their task, Fayura turns to you. "I'm glad to see you made it through the Hunters' attack relatively unscathed." She sets her plank down and taps her mug. Steam beings to rise from it and she lifts it to her lips with a sigh. "And I apologize that I wasn't there to greet you." A wry smile tugs at her lips; her appearance is, in her mind, enough of an explanation for why. "How have you found Draega?"
no subject
Using Craft, she poured Takame a mug of coffee and topped off her own. Even with the warming spell, the coffee had cooled, and so she warmed both cups with little tongues of witchfire so the coffee would be palatable. "Here." She pushed his mug toward him. "And if anyone gives you trouble, please let me know? Be wary of Lord Grejor. He, in particular, believes the Blood... should be pure." Her expression twisted with distaste.
no subject
"Thank you, my lady." He says, referring to both the drink and the offer of help she would graciously provide even if he could handle a fair bit of trouble. He didn't realize that he'd fallen back on formality, especially after she mentioned a name he'd not heard yet.
"Lord Grejor..." he repeated, again to commit the name to memory. "Is he part of the court?" It was good enough to have a name to be wary of for Takame, but the decision to press came out of him by reflex. He did need information after all, but just by mention of this lord's belief of "purity" did he already imagine an all too familiar sort of person.
no subject
"Mother Night, no," she says quickly. "Lord Grejor will never be a part of my court. He's not mine." A pause. "We don't get along." It's far more than that, and the severity of her reaction belies her mild words. "He finds me uncomfortable. Disquieting." Which seems to make her a sad.
Verim, though, just looks pissed off at the last. "You're not weird," he mutters darkly.
That makes Fay laugh, and she shrugs. "Oh, I am weird by most standards of the Blood. But I'm not like him. Grejor and I... we aren't the same."
no subject
"If you are not the same, he must be quite cruel." His basis for this is on his knowledge of more inflexible Garleans he'd encountered, but kami forbid anyone should learn of that. Least of all Fauyra and her Steward. "He holds influence elsewhere, then?"
no subject
Fay sips her coffee, thinking. She hesitates to call Grejor cruel because she hesitates to speak poorly of anyone, but Grejor is not a nice man. "He's indifferent," She finally says. "Grejor sees suffering and doesn't care unless calling attention to it helps his agenda. He looks at the schism between Blood and landen and sees the landens as a useful tool. They're his favorite scapegoat for all that goes wrong. If we didn't have the landens to feed, there would be more food—and this is true. But it presupposes that the landens aren't worth the food we eat. And they are."
no subject
But to do so through demonizing the lesser... that isn't what a good person does, is it? It certainly wasn't the path Fayura wished to walk. There is a long pause and another sip of coffee from Takame before he responded again.
"It is clear how the rift between the Blood and landen was driven so deep then. But shifting blame solves nothing."
no subject
She ran a hand through her hair and exhaled heavily. She was sighing a lot, these days. But she knew this would be hard. "It's my hope that people's views will change, but I worry there isn't much time left before the Realm has nothing left. I might be able to put off the final death, but if they don't change, I'm only delaying the inevitable."
no subject
Even if not, he was brought here to see this wish Fauyra had to reality, to help her dying land. Him along with many others. They would not have been brought here if it were completely impossible. He would see this duty done, it didn't matter how far out of reach it was.
"Is that not why you brought us here? We... Strangers. To make this change possible?"
no subject
That was a heavy ask and a great burden, but she knew it. Until she brought the Strangers, she'd borne that on her own shoulders.
With another heavy sigh, she set down her cup. "If you don't have any more questions, I think I should return to the residence." As soon as the words left her mouth, Verim was on his feet with a blanket in his hands. He draped it carefully over her shoulders, as if he might wound her grievously if he moved wrong. "It was a pleasure, Takame."
no subject
Takame didn't want to get in their way. He had kept her for a long while after all. He didn't mean to, but she insisted upon remaining outside. He would keep her for no longer, after all he's been given a good sum of information on this place. He would need time to process it all. Either way he bowed respectfully to both of them.
"The pleasure has been mine, my lady. You've been most kind to teach me more of Draega. May the kami bless you with a swift recovery."