we_bring_hell: (Face: Niqab)
[personal profile] we_bring_hell
The room is spartan; sufficient to her needs. There is a single painting on the wall, painstakingly straight. It seems to be a mounted jigsaw puzzle of a tower at sunset. There is the faintest smell; some kind of organic ash, mixed with the oil of a mechanism. It's not unpleasant.

Her robe has somehow transitioned to the closet, and there's a skeleton on a stand in the corner; she recognizes the ribs. It grins at her familiarly. In the closet there are rows of long-sleeved shirts much like her usual habit, and some other shirts she frowns at. In a drawer there are trousers and spare niqabs and gloves and socks. Her journal is here on the desk.

This is all burying the lede: perpendicular to the white, crisp bed is a second one. There is also a set of free weights in one corner for some reason.

On the table by the bed is a device she only vaguely recognizes the function of, but it seems to be active. She presses the universal glyph for play. After listening to the strange yet familiar apocalyptic hymn, she lets the songs keep playing, but only the second one holds her interest.

She finds another CD in the drawer and puts it in; the first words send prickles up her spine; it's about running away and checking into a spartan room to hide from loss.

Half the words she hears mean nothing to her, but the other half pierce her through.

I write down good reasons to freeze to death
In my spiral ring notebook
But in the long tresses of your hair
I am a babbling brook


She plays it all the way through, and then again, and then again, and then again, and then she listens to the seventh song until she knows it word-perfect, even the words that are gibberish to her.




A new Milliways day finds Harrowhark at a table in the bar, studying her notes, black trousers and shirt and niqab. The key to room 99 is on the table before her, and she sings tunelessly under her breath, when that day is coming who can say, who can say. In Canaan House, time is frozen.
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Date: 2020-09-03 03:10 am (UTC)
glib_tongue: (ssssssssss)
From: [personal profile] glib_tongue
Dorian Pavus, in contrast, looks askew.

Fresh out of the Emerald Graves, he's ruffled, with a few grass stains on his knees and a curl out of place. He looks tired. His collar isn't perfectly starched. His kohl could stand a little reapplication.

The Herald's Rest is too loud. The Liberalum arrived via Sister Nightingale's little birds in his absence. Dorian very badly wants some decent wine as he starts his work.

Speaking of little birds, the veil might well mean he's incorrect, but -- "Lady Nonagesimus? Ninth?"

Date: 2020-09-03 03:29 am (UTC)
glib_tongue: (house pavus)
From: [personal profile] glib_tongue
Dorian hikes the massive tome under his arm so it sits more securely. "And to you, Ninth. I trust you've been well?"

Date: 2020-09-03 04:03 am (UTC)
glib_tongue: (ssssssssss)
From: [personal profile] glib_tongue
"If you wouldn't mind. This is quite heavy." Dorian sits; it's not as though he slams the book down, but there's still a quite solid pfuh as leather hits wood.

She's not troubling to disguise her interest. Dorian figures he might as well save her the trouble. "It's not much that's likely to be of interest to anyone without a reason to be curious about the ancestral lineages of Tevinter's oldest houses. I've a little project I'm working on, that's all."

Date: 2020-09-03 04:25 am (UTC)
glib_tongue: (i'll explain this once)
From: [personal profile] glib_tongue
"Profligate? Perhaps." Dorian squares up the book in front of him, and then carefully opens it to a random page in the middle. The handwriting is crabbed, in a runic-looking script, and tiny. Very tiny.

"It's over two thousand years of inbreeding, internecine conflict, murder, and assorted eugenical fuckery, however, so perhaps it's a true miracle it isn't three times as long." Dorian taps the page. "House Erasthenes. One I'll be examining quite closely -- but not without a bottle of wine or three."

The way he speaks, it's clear he loves him some SAT words. Like tiny throwing stars, aimed at the throat of everything loathsome about his homeland.

Date: 2020-09-04 02:36 pm (UTC)
glib_tongue: (i can do this all day)
From: [personal profile] glib_tongue
Up goes one beautifully sculpted eyebrow. "Even with all the house's necromantic skill? The histories are reduced to mere begats?"

Date: 2020-09-04 03:23 pm (UTC)
blue_ajah: (Default)
From: [personal profile] blue_ajah
The last time she had seen Harrowhark Nonagesimus, the young woman had fled from her at a run.

From her own table, Moiraine watches as she settles in, and considers her approach.

Date: 2020-09-04 03:42 pm (UTC)
blue_ajah: (Default)
From: [personal profile] blue_ajah
Time, perhaps, will do what is necessary, she thinks. She is willing to wait and see what might happen, at least for now.

(She has nowhere else that she needs to be right now. Dale is in Seattle, and even if he were not there is an understanding between them when it comes to matters involving Milliways and the worlds beyond.)

She opens the anthology of poetry that she had been given here and pages through it, searching for one verse in particular.

Date: 2020-09-04 04:00 pm (UTC)
blue_ajah: (Default)
From: [personal profile] blue_ajah
"Lady Ninth. Light illumine."

Moiraine closes her book and gestures toward a seat at her table.

"Would you care to join me?"

Date: 2020-09-04 04:42 pm (UTC)
blue_ajah: (Default)
From: [personal profile] blue_ajah
"Certainly," the Aes Sedai says, with no sign of hesitation.

She beckons to a nearby waitrat and gives it charge of her book. It, in turn, squeaks affirmatively at her and carries its cargo off to the bar for temporary storage.

Moiraine stands, gracefully, and inclines her head to the other woman.

"Lead the way."

Date: 2020-09-04 04:58 pm (UTC)
blue_ajah: (Default)
From: [personal profile] blue_ajah
"You would not be the first."

Moiraine knows this room. The look Harrow gets as she opens the wards is sharply considering.

"I myself have used Milliways as a place of study and preparation, as it happens."

The Aes Sedai glides through the open wards, the open door, and into the middle of the room. Her gaze falls on the image of the tower in its field, and a faint, almost rueful smile curves her lips.

Date: 2020-09-04 05:24 pm (UTC)
blue_ajah: (Default)
From: [personal profile] blue_ajah
"You were greatly distressed when last we spoke," she says.

It is an understatement, to be sure, and she is certain that they both know it. It is also an invitation to explain, if Harrow wishes.

In case she does not, however, Moiraine offers an alternative by saying,

"And Gideon? Has she recovered as expected?"

Date: 2020-09-04 05:39 pm (UTC)
blue_ajah: (Default)
From: [personal profile] blue_ajah
"I see," she says, not unkindly.

"If there is aught that you would tell me, I would listen, and offer what advice I may."

Date: 2020-09-04 06:27 pm (UTC)
blue_ajah: (Default)
From: [personal profile] blue_ajah
Moiraine listens in silence as she speaks, then considers her for a few moments afterward before she replies.

"It can be very, very difficult for the exceptionally talented when they make mistakes. Especially when the results are fatal."

A beat of silence.

"Perhaps you might consider that you have come here not to hide, but to learn."
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