agentlelog | walking in a field of fog

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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

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:

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?"

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[He doesn't bow or kneel, and this lack of deference doesn't bother her at all. She smiles as he joins her, the expression soft and warm. Shifting on the bench at the table, she gives him more room as he sits.]

Considerably better, thank you. [The male across from her snorts, and she shoots him A Look, the kind that says he's been fussing at her for a solid week and she would like nothing so much as to escape for a moment of quiet. When she turns back to Percy, her head tips to the side, a look of faint confusion on her face.] I wouldn't say Draega is cool so much as cold. But I'm gratified you find it pleasant. We've made many changes in the last decade.

[ he raises his eyebrows at her answer -- plus the other guy's reaction -- but manages to let it pass. he sure hopes she isn't considerably better, mainly because that implies she was in much worse shape than this a week ago. ]

No pun intended, [ he mutters, too late. then: ] Yeah? Like what?

[She gestures to the pavilion.] This, for example. Before the pavilion was here... [Her expression darkens, and she glances at the children.

They're all very involved in their work and not paying any attention. Even so, she places an aural shield around Percy and herself.]

The Blood haven't always been good caretakers. This land, here in the city center, was tainted by executions. The pain and terror soaked into the land and every could feel it. It was... uncomfortable. [Her tone suggests "uncomfortable" is an understatement.] The court and the people undertook a project to tear up the land, purify it, and build the pavilion.

[ HAHAHAHA YIKES ]

Quick question -- you aren't going to say the Blood built a new execution place somewhere else, right?

[ he's just....checking.... ]

[In spite of the warming spell, the temperature in the pavilion noticeably drops. Something in Fayura's eyes changes, turning softness to steel and fury. When she speaks, there's an odd quality to her voice, like the whisper of a midnight wind through a dark valley.

Across from them, Verim goes still, his expression wary and watchful. He isn't afraid, but he's coiled tight and ready to act in whatever way his lady demands.]

No. I will not let Draega be like that. We will not be like. [All at once that midnight change shifts back, and Fayura slumps at the table. She braces her head in one hand, grief etched into her features.

She's tired, so tired, and clearly afraid that she might fail.] No. No, the Ebon Council... they haven't. Even Lord Grejor isn't so foolish as to try to execute his enemies.

[ the first time fayura had spoken to percy, surrounded by mist and darkness, percy had thought she was a goddess.

he realizes, now, that he wasn't far off the mark.

whatever she actually is, her power, her abrupt mood change, all of it tells him that she's at least very like the gods he knows. the image she shows him here, of a friendly sick-looking mortal, is nowhere near the full picture -- there are hidden depths of her power, and whatever he sees now is what she chooses to show him. appearances mean nothing. he'd been on edge during his entire conversation with allairavar, but he realizes now it'd be stupid to let his guard down around her.

(he begins to understand, suddenly, the magnitude of the spell she must've wrought. he'd considered baiting allairavar by asking if he even had the power to do, or help with, what the queen had done -- but this is something else.)

fayura goes from terrifying darkness back to a tired woman, and percy breathes again. ]

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hit a sore spot.

The Blood have done terrible things. [Tired, she's so tired.] The landens are right to fear and hate us. But I wouldn't be here if all three peoples didn't want something more. Something better.

[Heaving a heavy sigh, she lifts her mug of coffee to her lips and takes a long, slow swallow.]

You... you did nothing wrong. You shouldn't apologize. [Her expression softens and turns almost wry.] We all doubt ourselves, don't we? It's nice to be provoked into remembering my convictions. I hope you continue to do that.

Uh, sure.

[ he says, mainly because he's not too eager to see her get angry again -- even if she's basically invited it. facing allairavar's temper had, by comparison, been a walk in the park. ]

That's something I've been trying to understand, [ he admits after a beat. ] I get that you brought us here to help. And, no offense, but I can see why you asked us in the first place. This whole thing with the Blood and the landens...not to mention this world. The land's literally dying. [ specified since -- he'd sort of thought she meant that metaphorically. ] Allairavar said it's been going on for thousands of years.

What I don't get is what you want us to do. I kind of thought there'd be a quest and, like, a monster to kill or a person to find or something.

It's my hope that because Strangers are neither Blood nor landen, you'll be able to bridge the gap between the two.

[Fay pours herself more coffee, using Craft to lift and tip the carafe. She pours a second mug for Percy, too, and then calls in cream and sugar since not everyone likes their coffee as black and bitter as she does.]

There's no foundation of trust between them, and understandably so. I've... [She purses her lips.] Well, I read in a book that sometimes a neutral third party helps with negotiations. I built my web to bring heroes to Terreille, people who would be noble in spirit. The kind of people who could form friendships with the landen and the Blood and build bridges between them.

[She looks out toward the city.]

And there's just too much work to be done in the city to make it a better place to live. Maybe I should have asked for farmers and craftsmen, not heroes. [Self-doubt flickers across her face.] Everything is clearer in retrospect.

[ percy has to close his eyes and take a deep breath.

because while fayura speaks, what he hears isn't her voice at all -- it's that of his least favorite goddess, hera. (or juno, whatever. she's equally annoying either way.) hera had said once that he and jason were to unite the two camps of demigods; percy, a greek, had become a hero among the romans, while jason, a roman, had earned the trust of camp half-blood. they were meant to be the bridge, and they'd succeeded, sort of. it wasn't until the return of the athena parthenos that the grudge between the two camps was truly mended -- and a civil war averted -- but they'd opened the door.

and all it took was hera plucking them out of their lives, erasing their memories, and dropping them among strangers to get there. percy gets why she'd done it, but that doesn't mean he isn't still bitter.

he has to remind himself that he isn't angry at fayura, exactly, before he looks back at her.

(but he is angry. it's easy for her to say that hindsight is 20/20, or that she got her idea out of a book. but he also agreed to this. she asked, and he said yes.) ]

Believe it or not, you aren't the first person to ask me to do something like that.

[ he doesn't mention jason -- he wants to see if she's already aware of this and chose them deliberately. and if she doesn't, he doesn't want to tell her something about jason without his okay. ]

[The bitterness in Percy's voice stops her from asking whether or not he'd succeeded at the task he'd been asked to accomplish.

Fays deflates a little—because she intuits that what she's done, so similar to something that happened to him, will cause more bitterness.]

It's unfair of me to ask. [Her voice is soft and small, and she doesn't look at him. It was unfair. She'd picked a group of people who were predisposed to helping others by their very nature, dangled a wish in front of them, and then told them they had a choice.] But I won't make you do anything you don't want to do. Forcing people into service is how the Blood got themselves into this position. If you think my methods are wrong, I want you to challenge me, because it's not about me or my pride. It's about Draega. It's about Terreille.

[ and that's the thing, isn't it? it'd be easy to walk away if it was about her. but it isn't that simple. now that percy's here, he can't ditch his friends. that wouldn't be fair to leo, or to jason, who's also been through this before. and it's not like he could turn his back on the others fayura's brought here, or even the people of draega, terreille. now that he's seen their situation, he can't sit back and do nothing. if the queen had been clearer when they'd first spoke, if she'd explicitly said she wanted this, he might've turned her down then. but it's too late now.

he says, wearily, ] I promised to help you, and I will. You aren't wrong about your people needing it.

[ considerations of his wish had, truthfully, started to fall to the wayside even back when he talked to fayura's master of the guard. ]

But there's something I do want to talk to you about. You know Allairavar doesn't want you sending us back, right?

[ normally, he might feel kind of bad phrasing it that way. but he'd be really surprised if allairavar hadn't said more or less exactly that to her by now.

late, he accepts the mug of coffee -- he won't be turning down caffeine -- and mixes in some of the cream and sugar. (what he wouldn't give for some soda around here.) ]

Believe me, I do. The Steward— [The way she pronounces the title makes it very clear that she draws a distinction between Loren as a Warlord Prince and Loren as the Steward of her court.] —drew the short straw and got to yell at me about the spell. But he doesn't yell so much as he patiently explains, and he had a list. They gave him a list.

[She points an accusing finger at Verim.]

You had three points on that list.

[Verim turns a look back on her that's too toothy to be called a smile.

Huffing, Fay turns back to Percy. More seriously, she continues.]

Included in that list were Allairavar's concerns about me sending you back. He thinks it'll do as much damage as bringing you here. [She purses her lips.] I... don't necessarily disagree with him, but I think I could mitigate the damage more. That requires testing, though, and I'm pretty sure if I tried to test these spells, he'd hang me from the Black Mountain by my fingernails.

[ if he were in a better mood, percy might've actually laughed at that exchange. as it is, he raises his eyebrows at the whole thing. ]

I can see that, [ admitted. both about the steward, and about the list. verim actually sort of surprises him -- but fayura doesn't seem like the type of queen who encourages people to be overly deferent to her. ]

Honestly? I agree with him. Not about not sending us back -- can't speak for everyone, but I want to go home, and I'm pretty sure my friends do too -- but there has to be a better way than you nearly dying. [ or actually dying, that'd also be bad. ] I want to help find it.

[ he hesitates, then adds, ]

But I'm gonna need you to be honest with me. Do you really intend to send us back home?

Yes.

[No hesitation in her voice. Steely determination in her eyes.

The Blood guard their minds carefully, keeping their thoughts walled away behind mental shields. The core of the self rests within the mind, and a mind left unguarded is a mind that can be broken. But as she speaks to Percy, Fay releases some of those shields. Surface thoughts flit around her, whispers of her immediate concerns—she's a little hungry, she actually would like to nap but won't give her Prince the satisfaction of admitting it.

Beneath the surface thoughts, more ingrained patterns of behavior and the flavor of her words. With her mental shields lowered, there can be no lies, and she does not intend to lie to the Strangers. She's asked for their help, but she will not coerce it with lies or demand it by force.]

Yes, I absolutely intend to send you home. And I wouldn't have brought anyone here if I didn't think I could send you back.

[ percy watches her with inscrutable sea-green eyes.

at first it isn't clear what she's doing, but as more of her filters through the connection, he starts to realize. percy doesn't overstep, doesn't try to push -- he'd hate it if someone tried to do that to him, and he has no interest in intruding -- but lets the sensation of her honesty wash over him.

and when she answers, he has to admit he can't sense a trace of deception on her.

he wraps his hands around his mug, tapping the side with his fingers idly. ]

Then if there's anything I can do to help you, I'll do it.

[Fay withdraws, rebuilding her shields and ignoring Verim's tight-lipped look of displeasure for the moment.]

Thank you, Percy. If you find any books on old Craft... [She sighs and shakes her head.] We've lost so much. The longer you live, the more chances you have to forget, I suppose.

[She sips her coffee, watching the children idly.]

Do you have any other questions for me? Can I help you with anything else right now?

[ books, he thinks, great. that's a job annabeth would be much better at than he is; she's the one with the knowledge and strategy, who loves reading, while percy's more the guy you point at a monster that needs killing.

but since that's the only suggestion fayura has for him about this, he's going to have to try.

there's a moment where he opens his mouth to say something, and then notices a couple walking by. they're giving him a pretty dirty glare, and he frowns back in turn, turning back to take a sip of his coffee with a grumble.

he! apologized! about the fountains! but some people just can't let it go...blah blah blah, been on the property for centuries, blah blah family heirloom, blah blah priceless. ]

Think you could help with some landen with hardcore grudges?

[ he's kidding, really. ]

[She bursts out laughing at his question.]

Isn't that why you're here?

[Smiling, she nods her head toward the landen couple.]

If apologies aren't working, perhaps bribery will?

So I hear, anyway.

[ he says, frowning; and his frown only deepens at her suggestion. ]

Uh, even if it would, I don't have anything to bribe them with. I'm not exactly rolling in cash, and they made it pretty clear their fountain I wrecked is, like, priceless.

[ if he sounds dubious, well...it's a fountain. it wasn't even that nice-looking before percy destroyed it. ]

That makes two of us.

[She taps her finger against the table, thinking.]

Bribes don't have to be money. As my Prince well knows, the right kind of treat— [Verim makes a sweeping gesture toward the coffee as Fay speaks.] —can be even more effective. As for the fountain, it certainly wasn't priceless. Lives are priceless, things are not, but things are hard to repair and replace. [She's taking his side.

But, then, her fountain wasn't the one destroyed.] Maybe time is the best bandage for this wound.

You might be right about that.

[ it'd be easier if fayura were easier to dislike. she says lives are priceless, as if she cares what happens to her people, what happens to them. she says i won't make you do anything; she says i absolutely intend to send you home, and opens her mind to make her honesty clear.

it's possible that she's just that good an actress. but percy doesn't get that sense off her.

(it doesn't hurt that she's taking his side, but that's not really the thing that matters here.) ]

Okay, I do have questions, [ he says after a beat. ] Why did the Hunter Guild try to kill us? Why do they hate you so bad? -- uh. No offense.

[Ah, the Hunter Guild.

Fay's expression doesn't shut down, but it pinches. This isn't a topic she enjoys because it's hard. It points to the problems that her people caused.]

The Hunters hate the Blood. They are the zealous, the fervent, the maniacal. [She pauses.] Well. Most of them. Master Hunter Raya certainly fits that description, though others, you'll find, burn cold instead of hot.

They take in the angriest landens, the ones who have been personally wronged by the Blood in horrible ways, and turn that very understandable anger into insanity. They coax it to grow until it eclipses all reason at the same time they teach someone how to kill.

So, part of it is simply that they are what they are. But part of it is certainly that what I want to do, healing the rift between the Blood and the landens? That will take away what gives them meaning. If they can't point to the Blood as the source of all their woes and misfortune, they will lose their identity. To be honest with you, I use their hatred of me as a barometer. The more they loathe me, the more I must be doing something right.

[ he listens to all that with his head canted, eyebrows furrowed. ]

So, in other words, they're psycho assassins who want to kill the Blood, including you -- and us -- but don't want to stop fighting, either.

[ that isn't too hard to imagine, to understand. he just has to think back to the likes of luke castellan, ethan nakamura, half-bloods who were so embittered by the gods' mistakes they were willing to ally with kronos and try destroying the world.

(didn't you realize how useless it all is? all the heroics -- being pawns of the gods. they should've been overthrown thousands of years ago.) ]

They knew what you were doing -- or they knew something was going on that night you brought us here. But Allairavar said you barely told anyone anything.

Yes, that about sums it up.

[She nods. Verim does as well, though now he watches the roofs of the buildings around them with even more hawkish intensity.]

I didn't tell anyone until the morning of. Not telling the court at all would have been worse, but I knew they'd figure out a way to stop me if they knew too far in advance. By then, parts of the Craft had already been set in motion. It had to be finished.

[Fayura runs her finger around the lip of her mug in slow revolutions.]

And, of course, they insisted I bring an escort, so I took Verim. He's the only one who'd understand the web.

[Verim's expression darkens. He hates that web for what it did to her, how it could have destroyed her.]

walking in a field of fog

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