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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
But as someone who's been thrown off the side of a mountain [ -ish, a canyon is almost a mountain and a ship is not but when it flies what's the difference ] I gotta say, it's totally effective.
[ and then, after a pause, ] ... touche. So what does it mean? [ it's a question absolutely sincerely asked. he's been pointed out to have a biased view in this, and so he's setting it right by asking her to tell him her point of view. ]
no subject
Fussing is... that cloying, overbearing male need to make sure everything is perfect. It puts you in a bubble. It's when they fluff your pillow the fifth time, even though you can fluff it yourself, or they think they need to reorganize your closet when you can't find your sock even though you don't mind that half the pair is missing. That's fussing.
[Verim wears a scowl. He clearly disagrees but isn't about to insert himself into this conversation.]
But it's well-intentioned, and so I try to endure. Is it not like that in your world?
no subject
[ leo scratches his cheek, before grinning wryly. ] I mean, clearly anyone who thinks that has never met the girls I know, they're all either smart, or terrifying, or terrifyingly smart. And kickass. And definitely capable of taking care of themselves.
[ and he knows all of them, annabeth, piper, hazel, and calypso most of all, would definitely scowl at him if he even thought to think they'd need him to take care of any of them. being a friend (or a boyfriend, for calypso) is different than... well, fussing.
which is why he says, with an understanding tone, ]
No one likes to feel like they can't take care of themselves. [ himself included. ]
no subject
That's why Allairavar insists on training. [Fay folds her hands around her coffee cup with a faint smile.] So that we can take care of ourselves until help arrives.
[She pauses for a moment and then continues, giving him something she hopes he'll find insightful.]
Among the Blood, males step onto a battlefield for a good reason: their tempers are quicker to rise as a general rule, but those tempers are hot fury. If you stand opposite a witch when blood's about to be shed, she will be far more merciless than any Warlord Prince would ever be.
no subject
[ there's a wry note in his tone, but he's impressed, still, and doesn't mind her knowing about it. she's great at what she does, clearly.
great at telling him useful things, too, leo thinks as he listens to her. ]
... yeah. Fire burns hot, but it doesn't burn long. [ and he takes her words for what they are — advice, as much as they are a warning. to know what to expect, here. ]
no subject
[She realizes how malicious that could sound to someone as soon as she speaks, and lifts both hands in a conciliatory gesture.]
By which I mean I've heard of how you helped with the fires. Verim kept me apprised of the situation.
no subject
he knows it wasn't his fault, but it doesn't make the memory hurt any less.
it takes him a moment to manage a shaky smile at her. ]
Yeah, right. I mean, of course, that's what we're here for. To help people.
no subject
It isn't hard to intuit that something about his Craft upsets him; she's seen that here, in Draega. Lady Jesiree's family disowned her and her mother when they realized the mother had spread her legs for a Blood male.]
What you are, what you can do? It's amazing, Leo. No matter what you come from, in Draega and in my court your Jewel and your abilities are an asset. Sometimes, by virtue of what this world is, you will tear things down, but I hope that you and I will be able to build and grow much more than we are forced to dismantle.
no subject
[ he shudders as he searches for words, blinks away the burning in his eyes. he'd been wondering, before, if it hadn't been a mistake to agree to help the queen, leaving calypso and apollo alone back in their home, about to undertake a quest that could go horribly wrong.
it wasn't, he thinks now. not a mistake. if this is what the queen is truly like, she deserves all the help they can give. ]
Yeah. [ slowly, he holds out his hand too, taking hers with a smile — not one of his wide, joking ones, but one that is small and sincere. ] Thanks.
I'm going to help fix things here, I promise.
no subject
All I can ask for is your help, and I hope for our success. I'm glad you're one of the Strangers who answered my call. You have a good heart.
[Another squeeze of her hands, and then she draws back to give him his space once more. The soothing spell eases entirely as she does so.]
If there's anything I can do to help you settle in, let me know? I know this whole thing is very vague and open-ended, and I don't want anyone to feel too disoriented.
no subject
... thanks. I'm glad you asked us for help. [ I'm glad I can do something to help, he thinks.
as she draws back, he summons a grin that's almost as bright as his usual ones to direct at her. ]
Sure, I will. And when you know what we can do to make things better, you'll let us know too, right?
no subject
[She smiles back at him, and a psychic warmth fills the pavilion. Though Fayura keeps her mind tightly shielded, she lets out this small taste of her mood.]
Thank you, Leo.