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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
What irritates her the most is that she sees a need for what he describes, provided it functions the way he wants it to.]
And who stops the untruthful stories? What stops Lord Grejor from bribing a writer with fresh fruit—or, more likely, blackmailing him into silence? What stops writers from learning and sharing secrets that damage the stability of the Territory? Or perhaps these editorials and this reporting will only divide the Blood and landen further. That doesn't help me.
[Fay props her chin on her hand, watching him.]
If you believe this will be helpful, show me. Prove it to me. My focus has to be on making sure the city is fed and doesn't tear itself apart.
no subject
And journalists who are unethical in some way - taking bribes - they usually get fired by the publisher or editor-in-chief responsible for the paper, usually someone that was hired because they've shown they're responsible. That also helps with blackmail - people can't blackmail a journalist if they're so squeaky clean they can't dig up any dirt on them. The big, juicy investigative articles - the ones that can cause the most damage - usually don't get handed to junior reporters. They're usually given to senior journalists that have spent years proving they're fair and unbiased.
[Some of the journalists he knew had their vices but most of them were pretty damn ethical. People like Ben Urich and Robbie Robertson were unshakable. Even Old Flat-Top had his principles on most things.]
But there are a few limits: it's illegal to encourage violence or illegal activity. It's illegal to say things that can cause damage to public safety. For instance, screaming "Fire" in a crowded theater if there isn't one isn't protected speech because it could risk a stampede. A lot of the same principles apply in print. You can't print things that would cause a public panic.
A lot of important things have rules and laws of confidentiality: private health information, certain confidential documents, state secrets. If someone in the president - that would our big leader - if someone in the president's cabinet leaks certain information the president has deemed confidential it can count as treason. They can go to jail.
[God, he's about to introduce the idea of the lawsuit, what's wrong with him?]
On a more personal level, there are laws against libel and slander. It means that if someone lies about someone else, and that someone else accuses them of libel - that's a written lie, or slander - a spoken one, the person that wrote the article has to defend what they wrote in court. If they have proof of what happened - multiple, reliable witnesses, maybe some kind of physical evidence - they can prove they told the truth. If they can't prove it's the truth, they have to pay a fine to the person they lied about. So journalists have to make sure it's provably accurate or all or a lot of their money - and even parts of future earnings - might have to go to who they lied about.
There are a bunch of little rules that help keep it from being total anarchy.
[He hopes he's made the sell.]
And don't knock editorials. The thing with them is they still have to be rooted in fact, which all the inflammatory gossip already going around isn't. Some papers also do something smart and provide editorials that have directly opposite opinions, so that both sides of the issue get their say. It means people can understand why both sides feel the way they do.
no subject
Your world seems very... [She pauses.] It has a lot of laws. [And a lot of concepts that don't exist at all in Draega.] If you think a newspaper would help, why don't you draft a proposal and bring it to Loren? I'm certainly not opposed to an exchange of ideas on paper as opposed to in taverns.
[Another pause, thoughtful and considering.]
I brought all of you here in the hopes that your lack of allegiance to the Guilds or the Council would help bridge the gap between the landens and the Blood. It's my hope that doing so is effective. But you must also understand that our world isn't yours. We do have laws, they're just not your laws, and the laws we have—and don't have—are the way they are for a reason.
no subject
[Maybe it'll at least be better than nothing.]
[He just hopes that's the only responsibility she expects out of him beyond the hero stuff. Please God.]
As for your laws...
[This one is harder to agree to.]
Laws - or a purposeful lack thereof - are always for reasons. That doesn't always mean the reasons are good ones.
[If they were good, maybe this world wouldn't be dying, locked into a 10,000 year downward spiral that she's claiming is culture.]
Why don't you have a law against killing for any reason other than self defense?
no subject
Warlord Princes are notoriously temperamental creatures. [Instead of taking offense to this, Verim nods.] And they deal with threats very simply: by removing them. This can be anything from a table I stubbed my toe on— [At this, Verim interjects, with a sputtered, "You hate that table!"] —to the much more understandable woman forcing herself on him. Often, his first reaction will be to turn the table to kindling, and since it was cherry wood, it smelled quite delightful. Or, in the case of the woman, to turn her to pulp.
[She sips her coffee, clearly unbothered by the situations she's explaining.]
If the woman did try to force herself on him, no price will be demanded by the woman's family or the Queen who presides over the immediate area. Even the dead can't hide from a Black Widow's tangled web, and the truth will out. But if he killed her simply because he could, then a price will be demanded to repay the loss. Sometimes, that's a life for a life. Sometimes, it's a request for service. Regardless, a price will be paid.
Our society balances on a knife-edge of trust. A good Queen protects the males who serve her and cultivates an atmosphere where behavior like the woman's isn't tolerated. But we've had so many bad Queens, and then no Queens at all, that we've forgotten what we are and how we should behave.
no subject
[It's not hard to pick up. Even the way that dumb auction was handled, the way the landens he and Percy fixed the roof of, acted. It spoke volumes about this society. And that poor half-blooded kid...]
Where do you think their hate comes from, your majesty? It may be unfair how bad it is or how far they spread it but I think you know it has roots in something real, in how they feel they're not valued. And even if you fix the culture, if there's not something enduring to protect people - all people, landen and Blood alike - like laws that are difficult to change, it might change back by the next queen.
no subject
I will not wipe out all the Blood to start fresh. [Her voice is soft and filled with sorrow.] I will not end one people to protect another. So I will consider your laws and how I might adapt them to my world. [Because she asked for the help of these people, and to disregard them would be petty and stupid no matter how much she now wants to.] Perhaps in your proposal to Loren for a newspaper, you would also include some of what we've discussed?
[She calls in a notebook and a fountain pen. Verim takes both from her. "Do you want me...?" he asks, and she nods. He starts writing in the books, jotting down some of the topics Peter has brought up.]
And, please. Call me Fayura. I don't like to stand on formalities. [This line that she has said to so many now seems like a paltry thing, a reminder of how small and insignificant she is in the face of this looming change.]
no subject
[With great power, etc cetera et cetera. This is a massive responsibility to be saddled with - saving a world. It has to be painful watching things fail.]
[He knows hat that feels like, albeit on a much less apocalyptic scale and with conflicts that are more easily foiled by one man. You carry a weight and it never leaves your shoulders, you can never set it down, it's just there.]
[And the failures never leave you.]
That's not a bad idea. Your world probably needs to change because it wouldn't have gotten this bad if things worked the way they are. But it's still your world and if you lift a few ideas they still have to be ones that work for it.
It has its own past and that means it'll need have its own future.
[It can't be a carbon copy of somewhere else - and it's not like his world isn't without its flaws either.]
I'll try to give you as much as I can. I'm not the most qualified but I can get some basics together. [He feels like he's caused her enough anger, so he gets up to leave.] Wow, I really just got myself assigned a lot of homework, huh.
[Self-burn.]
no subject
Perhaps laws that will protect us from ourselves. A new Protocol, since much of the old one has been lost.
[Fay laughs a bit at his homework comment, inclining her head.]
At least the assignment came from me and not Loren. Thank you for the ideas, Peter, even when they upset me. It's important to have people disagree with me. [Verim snorts. Fay ignores him to give Peter a wave.] Enjoy the rest of your day.
and wrap?
Leaders that like being disagreed with... well, there might be hope for this place.
[He hopes she means it. It's just always so hard to tell. But if she does...]
[He walks away, muttering to himself:]
Now all you have to do is try to rewrite the bill of rights and a list of journalistic ethics. From memory.