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[we_bring_hell]

Harrowhark is in the bar, wearing the style of facepaint known as the Vanitas, with no lower teeth and sharp angular edges. It's good to be back in her makeup, even if the consecration was a greater undertaking than anticipated.

Although she is formally painted from the neck up, she is wearing some of the more informal clothes her room had supplied; soft trousers and a hoodie all in black. She is not wearing gloves today, because her palms are wrapped in bandages, but it is the kind of wound she is used to dealing with and it is healing quickly. The pinpricks of pain around her lips are worse, if only because it's been a very long time since she underwent the ritual of the Sewn Tongue.

She is diagramming spirals on paper, working in ink rather than blood right now. She can't spare any blood currently. She has refreshments to share, if you like faintly cucumber-flavored water and very bland, crumbly biscuits.

Comments

[we_bring_hell]

"Different types of intersections, then," she says. "Yes. Hm."

She sketches a circle with her pen, drawing ganglia at one-fifth intervals. "Is there a preferred sequence of elements?"

[acrookedpath]

The exhausted good humor fades to a blank mask.

It is right that she should be curious. She did not expect them to manifest any more than Wei Wuxian himself, and she has no reason whatsoever to recognize them. Of course she would ask for clarity. He should provide it, he thinks distantly, in case she needs his help again. In case they reappear.

"Yes." Quiet enough that one would have to strain to hear. "My shijie -- my sister. Her husband."

[we_bring_hell]

"I see," she says, in an equally low voice. "It was distressing, I imagine. I apologize."

Briskly: "I believe the key mistake was in using constructs to play the roles of the Houses--they were vulnerable to possession, especially once I was in the throes of the rite. Combined with some other unforeseen factors, the Ennumeration went beyond its normal boundaries."

[blue_ajah]

She has to consider that for several seconds.

"Not especially, I think," Moiraine decides, finally. "Often we build upon how the weaves were demonstrated, more than anything else. I would say that the sequence might be more determined by the construction itself, rather than which elements would be preferred."

Wryly, she adds, "But after a while, one can generate them so quickly that it might seem almost instantaneous."

[we_bring_hell]

"I see." She studies her diagram. "Would you like to begin coloring in, then? As you think is appropriate."

"I wanted to retrieve something from my room."

[acrookedpath]

The quick shift toward the technicalities of the ritual grasps Wei Wuxian by the collar, gently steering him away from the yawning pit of his worst thoughts. He nods, unable to meet the Ninth's eye right away, as he gulps down more tea to loosen the knot in his throat.

"What were the other factors?" he asks. "I know Lan Zhan worried that Inquiry may have been one of them."

[we_bring_hell]

"I agree I may have underestimated the impact of his music," she says. "For one who does not consider himself a necromancer, his power over spirits is remarkable."

[acrookedpath]

He exhales, and the barest smile finds its way back to his mouth. "It is more what one does with the spirits that draws the line between ordinary cultivation and necromancy," he says. "Necromancy is... an alliance, I suppose. A closer association. Cultivation holds the spirits at a greater distance, even when one communicates with them."

[blue_ajah]

"Certainly. Take your time."

She releases the weave and her hold on saidar both, then picks up the sky blue pencil.

After a moment's hesitation, she takes a blank sheet of paper first and begins attempting to draw the lattice there, rather than in the spiral.

[we_bring_hell]

She nods. "I have also discovered that the inlet itself connects to a liminal space. All in all, there were several intensifying factors in play, and perhaps too many changes to the ritual as I have performed it before."

She shakes her head. "I had intended to merely invoke the Locked Tomb through sacred geometry, not whatever... channeling of it we accomplished."

[we_bring_hell]

She returns fairly quickly. "A gift for you I had thought to craft. As I said, such things are traditional."

It is a pair of bone compasses, with a scapular joint carefully etched with degrees.

"They have not been inside of anyone," she promises, with studied seriousness. "I grew them from bone I carry with me. Sadly the pair I received as a girl are back on Drearburh. They were my great-grandmother's."

She does not mean that her great-grandmother owned them.

[acrookedpath]

"Yes."

He treads a bit more cautiously, now, both hands wrapping around the mug.

"The resentful energy of your Tomb was... enormous. I spent three months lost in a space with resentful energy so thick it could kill within days, and that was but a fraction of what I felt yesterday. I worried if I drew any to myself, I might disrupt the ritual, but apparently I could not fight through it by willpower alone, either."

His mouth twists wryly at the last.

[we_bring_hell]

"Mm. The energy of the Tomb is potent," she says, "but I suppose I am not sensitive to the resentment and revenant power it holds in the same way you are. By legend its fury is undying, hence why it must not wake."

"I did not intend for you to be exposed to it."

[blue_ajah]

Moiraine looks at first surprised, then delighted.

"That is very kind of you. Thank you, Lady Ninth."

[acrookedpath]

He nods.

Hesitant, then: "Lan Zhan... told me a little more of your Tomb. And the spirit inside."

[we_bring_hell]

Her ears redden briefly again. "It is a tradition, and the Ninth is nothing without its traditions," she says awkwardly.

She clears her throat and studies the diagram. "So--the weaves of Air overlap in a lattice at right angles, over then under, and expanding indefinitely."

"If we draw in the inner turns of the spiral and draw the spoke for Air--" She does so-- "Then at each intersection we should indicate the weaving." She marks these intersections with a quick line. "But that is only one row. I am not sure how to indicate the expansion in the second dimension. What do you think?"

[we_bring_hell]

"Yes?" she says blandly. "Is this perhaps a conversation we should have in private?"

[acrookedpath]

"If you want to have it at all." He scrapes a thumbnail along the side of the mug. "It is more that -- I wished you to know I know, and that I will keep it as I have kept your other secrets."

He still isn't sure how to approach the haunting, after all. If he does not have a plan, then he is only dredging up cruel memories the Ninth carries.

"But if you do wish to discuss it -- in private, yes." Remembering, then, "Or salt water, Lan Zhan said."

[we_bring_hell]

"Unless we get deeply into particulars, I think we can avoid bathing," she says grimly. "Let us adjourn to my room."

[blue_ajah]

She taps the tip of the pencil against the paper, considering.

"Something with arrows, perhaps? And a number, to indicate repetition or size?"

[we_bring_hell]

"Yes--or perhaps the ganglia at the top could use arrows to indicate that the weave will expand at right angles? And it would be assumed to expand in width as it expands in length with each rotation? But no, that would require the field to be square..."

[blue_ajah]

"We should not assume a square, I think," she says. "This weave is one that can be curved and bent around shapes."

[we_bring_hell]

"I agree--but there are so many variables in that case. The diagram will have to represent a generic example that can be adapted, I think."

"What if... what if the ganglia indicates a perpendicular expansion, but we mark the loop when the rows stop increasing and the columns continue? So if there are 12 loops, and we mark the fifth intersection, that indicates a 12 by 5 grid?"

[blue_ajah]

She studies the paper absently, a slight crease between her brows, below her kesiera, as she considers.

"I think... I think that will work."

[we_bring_hell]

"So..." She sketches that in loosely; perhaps they will not commit to these signifiers, but the idea is in place. "So this should convey the Air wall? Is that legible to you, as the adept?"

"If so, we can consider the Fire axis, I think?"