Darkenhold - Two brothers.

[Duquesne]

A morning to rise, a sun to reach up for an achievement of heights and the creation of long shadows. A morning for cold in the dark places, in the shadows beyond walls, beyond the bulk of this fastness, beyond trees' trunks and mountainsides. A morning for skies without clouds and one for the comfort of warmth where that sun shines without obstruction.

An early morning for a man who has taken two chambers among Darkenhold's many rooms, one for sleep, one for work. And the latter has some wall of windows to admit a new day's light, drapes cast far to each side to illuminate this slanted table, this architect who, with quill and ink, measure stick and mathematics, adds last touches to a project.

A knock upon his door penetrates a thoughtful fog, a mind forced from concentration by unexpected noise. Green eyes rise, dart in the direction of that iron-bound wood door and pupils adjust according to some fleeting reaction, some annoyance mingled with wonderment. "Come in," he calls with a rasp and attention returns to his calculations.

The door opens and Betzalel casually leans in, both hands cupping the doorframe. "Just thought you'd be interested to know, your brother is riding in."

"What?" Green eyes make a quick return and were Betzalel a little easier to fluster, this is precisely the kind of stare that would achieve it.

"He comes on the path from Aithne, lord, and he isn't alone." The builder bows his head to his employer and steps back from the doorway before turning to make his way down the corridor. It was time for breakfast and he knew something cooked well in the kitchens.

A man is left alone then, staring into the empty shape of that doorway, outward into the corridor beyond. A span of moments passes during which sound is reduced to a rhythm of heart beats, and no breath at all, and then he is leaving his work station with motion quick enough to disturb his stool into a screech of noise. A quill tinkers to the floor, note-filled paper swirls down, and the architect is quickly gone from the room.

[Carnath-Emory]

"It makes not one piece of sense to me. In fact, it makes so little sense that even its nonsense is nonsensical!"

This is how mornings begin in Darkenhold: in kitchens made spacious and well-appointed, and filled to the corners with a subtle aroma that speaks of no one particular thing, but surely promises a satisfaction for one's appetite. Its source is a good, stone oven; is also the smorgasbord of bowls and platters set out upon one accomodating countertop. Myrken fare features here, and more exotic things as well, and all of it in quantity.

It is the helpless habit of a onetime soldier to provide far more than Darkenhold's inhabitants can consume.

This is how mornings begin here: with bodies wandering in and out at those hours that suit their schedules and their selves. A teacher and her student feature amongst these, their routine requiring the two to meet here each day at a refreshingly early hour, so that by this point each has assembled some quantity of food upon a plate or two, and here sit across from each other at a long table.

"So you explain this to me, mn? That each time it is a little different, and I expect this; I am only beginning, I am very poor with this, mn? But still, it is always a green when it is blue with the yellow, it is always a darker or a lighter or some sort of green, yes? But if it is not yellow but red, it is all different. So different! What is the sense in this? It should not be that way."

And all the time, these two people quite unaware of what develops elsewhere in this broad fortress, they speak their words and sometimes pick at their food, and here she's gone and gestured a little wildly with her egg-laden fork. Such conversations, too, are a regular feature of these breakfasts. One may pity poor Glenn Burnie, who pays for the privelege of it.

[Wendy]

There is a carriage that arrives before the brother might. Inside are two people that have decided to accept an invitation to breakfast with friends at a place built so that others know desire.

The driver knows the way through the massive gates at Darkenhold and is soon to stop in front of the grand fortress. There is time for the governor to be helping the teahouse lady out of this cab by hand, and they are soon aimed for the door where their arrival will be recognized; persons will be notified and they may be led inside.

The faint rumbling of other hooves is a distant warning, but Cambree isn't paying heed to that. She's more full of ideas over what she might discuss for breakfast with the swords woman, and with Syl, and Burnie, if he is there, too.

Having gotten an early start on the morning, she is sleepy-eyed and a little unbalanced on soft-soled boots. Luckily, there is an arm to hang onto while they wait for permission to enter. The idea of a warm breakfast entertains, meanwhile.

[Glenn]

Did he pay for this? Perhaps not in the literal sense, except for in that he received a free breakfast every morning just for staying at Darkenhold. No, he pays for what comes after, with swords and less words. Ariane was not at all one for banter while fighting or training. He likely would not pay for this, specifically, though he would certainly miss it were it not a part of his life.

And really, this particular bit of conversation WAS rather directly his fault. It was only fitting that he take responsibility for it, even though he had no good answers for her. His first instinct was to direct her towards Syl Duquesne. He had training in the arts, no? He was soon to be the Councilor of them! However, Glenn Burnie did NOT send Ariane to Syl Duquesne, not ever, except for one time when it was specifically a matter of architecture. No, if there was something to figure out, the two of them could do it without his help and they'd be better off for the effort.

That first sentence, though! Sense and nonsense and nonsensical (and was that not an excellent word for Ariane Emory to know!) If he were to say it to her, she would stop everything and they'd be working it out for the rest of the day, yet he was expected to follow it on the fly, to follow the working of the colors as she listed one after the next, to do all of this while managing not to drop his eggs off of his fork. So yes, perhaps he did pay in a more abstract sense as well.

"Oh, I don't know, Ariane." If he really reared back right now, he could probably hit her right between the eyes with those eggs. Was she a faster runner than him? She would have to get all the way to the other side of the table and... no, no. It's not a good idea. "I don't see why one thing is one color and another is another in the first place, even before you mix them. What makes red red and blue blue? At least it's consistant. It would be bad if you mixed red and yellow and got orange one time and blue another, right? It's not absolutely haphazard, at least."

This was Glenn, though, and now that she's raised the question (and it wasn't one that he often thought about. Glenn's mind was not particularly suited for science and such questions. He was more attuned to people and events), he was becoming curious. Hmm. I guess there does have to be a reason that green is green. I'll get you all the paint you need if that's what it takes to figure it out." Was that a dangerous offer? Likely not. She would get guilty about it within a couple of months. Probably.

[Carnath-Emory]

There is very little talk during those lessons. There is nothing like real conversation at all, for that hour is devoted to simpler pursuits, to the honing of muscle and nerve into a weapon capable of precise and systematic destruction. Her critiques are quietly-spoken and direct, and when the mapmaker responds to these it is not with words at all, but the subtle and necessary corrections that transform technique into militant art. During these times she communicates with ease, with fluid confidence, but more casual conversation...

Well. That's not quite so simple at all.

"But red's hardly red in any case," she's retorting now; an expressive sweep of the fork imperils its eggs, which after a glance are saved with a hasty delivery to her mouth. This ought to impede conversation for at least a few moments, but a soldier sets out more food than everyone can eat, and a soldier also talks with her mouth full.

Someone ought to be paying Glenn for this.

"In fact, it's barely red at all, it's -- No. If I add the slightest spot of yellow to the red, it's a different red entirely, and if I stir too much of the first red back into the second red, it becomes a third that's quite different from the first two. So -- " a gargantuan swallow "-- my question is this, Glenn Burnie: what is red? Is it the first that you bought, or the second that I made? They're both very nearly alike, but if you set them side-by-side, they're both of them quite distinctly different, so that now I wonder this thing: if you were to purchase this a second time, would the red still be this red, or might it be slightly different?"

Slumping back in her seat, she lifts her mug as if she meant to toast this notion, and he will recognise the slight narrowing of her grey eyes, the triumphant edge that haunts her small grin.

"In fact," she is concluding now, the grand climax of this entire venture, "I think that there is no red at all, neither no blue, nor yellow, nor any simple colour. These things do not exist at all, but only some thousand variations upon them."

Ah: that mug was for toasting after all; there's no mistaking the celebratory panache of her swallow from it, nor the smug satisfaction of the grin which follows. But the moment is mercifully short-lived, as they generally are, for here's a rather narrow glance to follow it, and some violence done to spiced potatoes meantime.

"I'm not sure that I learn such laws from blending one colour with another; I think perhaps there's not paint enough in Myrkentown for that. But come breakfast tomorrow, I will bring a large page upon which you will see twenty different sorts of very similar colours, and then, Glenn Burnie, you'll see that there's no 'red' at all."


At the forward doors of this fortress, a nameless somebody has received the governor and his lady, and these are two souls which are admitted without hesitation into its broad foyer. They are familiar with this interior, with the gleam of marble and glass and polished wood, but there are directions offered them nonetheless: via that corridor one reaches the training rooms; at the conclusion of this one, a person finds the kitchens and a waiting breakfast.

Really, you'd think he'd warn them of what else awaits there...

[Duquesne]

Such a morning, begun decidedly fairer than it will end and there are but two souls inside Darkenhold who inevitably understand this fate--the one, a determined brother and the other, a hungry builder.

The latter, because his goings-in and his comings-out are dictated by the condition of his stomach, is taking a route to the kitchens which he has tread in the least a dozen times more than anyone else, save the kitchen staff, and it is with a careless whistle of a tune that he approaches. Eurian Betzalel doffs his short-brimmed slouch cap and folds its sunburned cloth into his back pocket as he comes to the kitchen's entry, stepping inside with jovial anticipation.

And there he shall see friends. "A grand mornin'," he says, greeting both Glenn and Ariane with his insatiable good humor and contagious grin beside. "The sun shines on another day, my friends." Despite the shadow that approaches on horseback, as even now a warrior-brother and his two grim, leatherclad companions riding to his either side have Darkenhold's gates in their view and open to their coming.

The builder sets about some collection of food for himself, happily eating as he goes and taking care to stow cloth-wrapped portions into a satchel slung across him from one shoulder to one hip, all the while the morning's guests, the governor and the lady on his arm, have been shown inside and directed to those places where they will find their friends awaiting them.

**

Such a morning and one that has seen two brothers, similar in their habits, risen early when the landscape still retained its cold blue shades before the welcome onslaught of the sun. Brothers who adhere to the same quiet rituals and meditations of a day's beginnings. Brothers whose maintenance of their tribe's roots is a whisper today in comparison to the heavy voice it had been once upon a time, decades, centuries ago. The tribe is a dying thing, its blood-bearers scattered or dead, its status now more a legend, lurking deep in a beautiful but vicious desert.

And where there ought be unity according to this tribe's dwindling, there is conflict among its sons.

Ethan Duquesne rides his war-mare through that carved gate, green eyes moving within the wolf-brimmed helm upon his head and he sees the influence of his culture upon this place, sees the influence of other cultures mingled and does not know them. Yet he easily grasps the sight of his brother's style here and he reins his grey-mottled mare to a halt on the cobbles which her hooves have scraped, takes a silent moment to survey and admire.

Behind him his two men, who have accompanied him here for no other reason than to see this place themselves, have slowed to halt and their heads turn and lift, eyes plainly roving. Ethan's eyes lower from Darkenhold's heights and fix themselves upon the front doors, the steps which lead upward to them, the fountain in the center of the courtyard from which steam subtly wafts according to its somewhat heated state, as the morning retains a chill. He turns his head, noting the stables yonder. A gloved hand tightens upon its braided rein, stitched with shell and carved bone, and he angles his mare in that direction. His soldiers follow.

And when they have achieved that destination, when they are in the midst of dismounting and hitching their horses to a rail outside the stables, the architect is entering the entrance hall with particular focus, his eyes locked on the front doors--he has missed the entrance of Cinnabar and Cambree by nothing more than a minute. The servant who had admitted them, however, is approaching from the great hall, intending to inform him of the arrival of the guests.

"Sir," but the information stops short upon the servant's lips according to the calm gesture which the architect offers him. An upraised hand, its first fingers straightened, is request enough and Duquesne's determined movement for the front doors does not slow nor waver in any degree.

[Wendy]

Cambree leads by three or four steps as the matter of handing over cloak and coat has slowed the governor down. Empty handed, the teahouse proprietress, and friend to this pair, arrives in time to hear Ariane preaching her philosophy of color. Listening to it has Cambree subdued for a time, then her eyes move to study the student. Before he might reply, she offers an explanation that could be of worth to his teacher, bearing in mind that she has only heard the latter portion of their talk about true colors.

"...but, there are colors, Ari. They do exist. There is one true red from which all of its likenesses deviate. To show you which red is the truest, I'd have to crack your nose with a hard fist." Something Cambree could not do. She shudders at the thought before a weak smile forms for the student, " Good morning, Burnie." and his teacher, "Ari..."

She smiles warmly at the arrival of the builder. "Good morning, Mister Betzalel." Her voice is cheerful again. With thought enough for a look behind her, Cambree maintains her smile for Cinnabar, then decidedly turns back to join the small group.

There are strawberries in the spread of fine foods. Red. The first color that the eyes see. A color that is hungered for. She grins at that, and wanders toward the favored basket of fruit, with a touch of a hello in passing for Ari's shoulder. "Please, save us a seat nearby." This, in case a work crew will soon be filing in and taking up space.

[Duquesne]

And the builder, chewing shamelessly on something baked and invariably soft, has eyes that glint in good humor, enjoying the banter which this kitchen hosts this morning.

"Here's this to further muddle your minds," he offers, reaching onto the table for a fine apple, mottled green and red, "that the eyes in the head of every person might not see color the same." He stuffs the apple into his satchel and reaches for a mug and a pot of steaming cider. "No two things are alike, not even the definitions of what is Red. Ariane might say, 'True red is the color of the reddest apple.' Cambree might say, 'True red is the color of the reddest tea.'" He has filled his mug now and looks up at them all over the rim of it, grinning his finest grin. "And I might say, 'True red is the color of a pretty girl's lips.' And, my dears, perhaps we would all be right."

[Glenn]

The temptation to flick some of those eggs into Ariane's hair was there again as she went on and on about reds that weren't reds but were, of course. Restraint. He could manage it, especially because otherwise, she might make him pay for it during training. More likely, she would make him pay for it immediately, though. And she had more eggs left than he did. It was a matter of inferior ammunition, really.

There was something of a muttering instead. "I absolutely think that the first color I bought you was red and everything else is not quite red." It was mostly under his breath, but not so much so that she would not hear it. She would have just made him repeat it anyway. He knew that by now. "Simple, no?" Still, despite the faux grumpiness, there was a smile on his face. He was very glad that she was enjoying herself with the paints, even if she was enjoying herself all the way to frustration and horribly abstract thought.

"So, I will come back, and I will see these twenty shades, and I will be sufficiently awed, and then, on the day following, you can try to actually paint something, and I will see that? ... Hrimfax, I think. That would be a good first subject, no?" Did he really not get paid for his time with her? Oh, he did. Absolutely, if only for the occasional look on her face.

"I really think that's the only way I'm going to know which red is true red. I don't think you can learn through experimentation al..." He was about to go in for the proverbial kill when Betzalel came in and stopped him in his tracks. "Oh. Uh... Good morning, Mister Beta.. uh.. Betzalel." And somehow, Glenn had to find some semblance of relaxed professionalism. He meant to have a real talk with this man one of these days and he wasn't about to let his guard down completely until they did. It was a matter of professional respect. Though one really did get the sense that it was best not to talk business with Betzalel while he was eating.

Still, Glenn did not always have good sense and he was about to do just that when Cambree appeared on in. There was a smile for her but no little surprise. Really, this was turning into a party.... a party that was almost certainly going to encroach upon his training. It was all he could do not to look jealous and possessive for a moment. A cough covered that up nicely as he recovered his composure. "Hello, Cambree." And by the time he could get that out, they had already moved back to red. He was just listening now.

[Carnath-Emory]

There is in addition this matter of the potatoes; an excess of egg remains, but the potatoes are a formidable threat, and there's something to the way in which she's been prodding them about her plate with that fork. Still, how good could her aim be? He's seen her with a crossbow, after all. The end result is nothing very spectacular.

Which means that his initial guess might be right after all. There are ways of making that lesson dismal.

Still, a person could be mistaken for thinking otherwise, for that's a rather wry look she's given the young man, and the fork's jabbed almost resentfully at the air between them. "Oh, I think you would not be awed, mn? I think perhaps this is such common talk, for Glenn Burnie the ... the Urbane Artiste. I think you must know so many of these reds or not-reds; perhaps you fetch them for me in turn, mn? And -- "

On the other hand, that blink just then was quite disarming.

"Wh -- Glenn Burnie, I have told you this already, that I have no intention of painting anything at all. I have told you this more than once, and I don't mean to have myself look a fool and a clumsy one, and all of it on account of your lapsed - good morning, Betzalel."

As quick recoveries go, this one is neither expert nor subtle. But certainly it is determined, and in its wake she is sinking back into her seat and her silence, more the content to let their growing number speak amongst themselves. Cambree Swinton, just as recently-arrived, is familiar with this habit; the builder and her student less-so. But there's at least the now-and-then *crack* of bitten apple to punctuate her words, and in the wake of Cambree's suggestion, such a sound that one might imagine she'd choked upon the fruit.

Clearly not: there is a sharpness to the gaze that she's set upon Cambree now, narrowed and intent, and the whole of her leaned a little forward in that seat after all. Terribly gauche, to rest her elbow on the tabletop like that; wholly careless, that it's come so close to overturning her water-mug.

"But this is remarkable. It does not allow for doubt at all -- " Back towards Betzalel, and with a stab of her fork in Cambree's direction all the same.

"Oh, but I am not so sure of this. I might search a, a -- a hundred orchards, and fetch from them two thousand apples, and still I could not say which was the most exceedingly red from amongst them. It would be two thousand reds, and each one different from the one aside it.

"But -- " and there is some small, fierce edge to this sudden grin "-- I could bleed two thousand men, and there'd be so very little difference from one to the next. In fact, I'd wager coin that they'd not differ at all."

There! The matter solved, or some small portion of it at least, and she is slouching back in her seat with some glint of triumph for the grey of her eyes. This *crunch* of apple is no less triumphant, even if the whole of it quietens a moment after, for Swinton's made a reasonable request. Towards Betzalel then, she adds:

"Have we more on their way?"

[Duquesne]

Eurian Betzalel can only grin behind his mug at the bewildering prospect of visiting a thousand orchards and gathering a thousand apples, solely for isolating the reddest red among them all. He liked innocently muddling with minds and that seemed like it might do the trick, at least in degrees. He takes a drink of heated cider from this mug and looks across at Ariane as she asks him a question, seems to muse on it for a moment before raising a shoulder slightly and replying: "My work relates to Aithne today, so none of my men will crowd into your midst and devour all this food." A ready grin for this and then he takes another drink before next words. "As for my lord, something just rode up he'll be interested in tending to."

The builder turns somewhat in preparation for the exit, taking some steps toward it and looking back. "I can probably assume Lord Duquesne won't be inviting his brother to breakfast just yet. They've something to hash out, I think, and I don't mean potatoes. Anyways, a splendid day to you all." A gesture with this mug here to accommodate all present and an unbothered grin to follow. "I'm off to work now." Thus, the man turns 'round and moves toward the kitchen door.

[Wendy]

The builder's comment forms her initial grin and it holds while Cambree listens to continued conversation. Her thoughts include their jokes while her fingers carefully claim a breakfast plate and select the brightest strawberries to form a cluster in its center. Unfortunately, she misses the accentuating of that fork in the air, but turns a look at Ariane in time to see her expression after that statement.

"See, there is a true red," she nods once, quickly, and stifles a yawn before continuing, "And you can kill as many men as all that for proof of it." Happy to give permission, she moves along to other fresh picks, taking a sweet roll from Darkenhold's offerings of warm breads. All else is considered, but is deemed unnecessary for this one, so she sets the plate aside.

Taking another, she gives Burnie a look. It's difficult to assess his mood, and his meaning a lot of the time, but somehow he communicates well with this woman that Cambree constantly misunderstands. It makes her grin a little, thinking of it, but then she's stopped looking at Burnie - was merely listening to him - and turns back to this spread of food.

It takes little time to prepare a second plate of richer foods - samplings of meats and other, heartier things - though she adds one strawberry as a decorative effect (in an attempt to keep her own from being stolen.)

Armed with enough breakfast for herself and Cinnabar, she returns for the spaces Ariane should have managed to protect for them, and eyes the table where the swordswoman and Burnie are sitting. There is some question attached to the raising of a brow that she aims at her female friend.

[Cinnabar]

Save polite greetings to those whom he and Cambree come to join, the Governor has remained quiet throughout this convoluted debate - listening to the positions laid out, the proposals made, the points raised and disputed. Denial of absolutes from Ariane, as one might expect; Glenn, with his patience - mostly - at the swordswoman's obtuse arguments. A thoroughly muddy debate, not aided by Betzalel's deliberate efforts to stir matters further by raising the matter of subjectivity, and that alone earns the builder a grin before Cinnabar accepts that plate from Cambree with murmured thanks. After a moment, though, he clears his throat quietly, apparently having understood the general gist of the conversation.

"Might I suggest that there is a fundamental error being made - that is, the assumption that the property of redness exists as an absolute trait that can be measured. Take a shilling, and a good goldsmith can tell you precisely how much of it is silver, and how much of it is something else - copper, say, or tin, or whatever else is used to make more coins from a given weight of silver. The silverness of it can be measured, because silver is silver. A given coin might be more or less silverish than another, but you can take out what is not silver, and what you have left is the pure metal. It is undeniably silver, and if the refiner is competent one cannot look at it and say 'hm, well, no, I think it's a little bit brass'." Taking a moment to pull out Cambree's chair for her, a little gesture of courtesy perhaps out of place in these more casual surroundings. He takes his own seat a moment after, though, before continuing.

"Now, take an ounce of something - anything. Flour, say." A shrug, nodding for a small sack of said comestible. "It is undeniably an ounce of flour, hm? Its flourishness is beyond question, and weigh it on any honest shopkeeper's scales, and it'll weigh one ounce, no more, no less. Weigh it on a jeweller's more precise scales, if you prefer." A small grin as he finally comes to his point, lifting a fork to emphasise his words. "But is there an innate property of ounceness that one can extract and refine, stripping away that which is insufficiently ounce-ish to end up with The Ultimate Ounce? What is there that makes it an ounce of flour?"

Definitely a grin, there, and a pause for those present to consider their answers while he makes a brave assault upon his breakfast. It's a long ride from town, after all.

[Ymir]

It appeared that this morning in Darkenhold had been quite busy. Staff milling about, and the traffic of visitors outside. All this did little to disturb the half-breed in his morning ritual, which included an extensive touring of the grounds on foot, as well as causing quite a bit of racket in the training room for a few early hours.

The end of this ritual found him entering the kitchen in the midst of hearing words such as 'Flourishness', and 'Ounceness'. Taking a moment to eye the occupants of the kitchen, and a particular table, he arched a hairless brow, a rivulet of perspiration rolling down and dropping from it's precarious edge onto his cheek. "Evidently, I've walked through a magic portal and come into a land where nothing makes sense." A jest perhaps, but the Mul's face never changed from it's stoic expression, before he waded further into the kitchen in search of food and, with a quick victory in that regard, began to pile some upon a plate.

Dressed in a sweat soaked short-sleeve white tunic and dark breeches, very different from the formal clothing in which he worked, bandages covered his right hand continuing up his entire arm and disappearing into the sleeve of the tunic. No words would pass from the half-dwarf's lips and he would, once finished gathering nourishment, begin eating in a different area of the kitchen. Leaving the occupants to continue their conversation, debate, or whatever it was they were speaking of in relative peace. Though his brows would remain furrowed, expecting some kind of strangeness to be overheard at one point or another.

[Glenn]

The groaning started about midway through Cinnabar's explanation, and if Glenn hadn't finished devouring most of his food, something would have certainly been flung towards the Governor. He was having too much fun with this, and in the process he was going to feed Ariane philosophical fodder to last her a week. Would Cinnabar Calomel have to deal with the fallout of that? No. He would be cozily hidden at the farm and in his offices. No, it would be Syl Duquesne and Glenn Burnie who weathered the storm. There was the spoon left. Maybe he could reach Calomel's eye from here, if the angle was just...

No, no... nothing so traumatic in front of Cambree. Instead he turned to Ymir. "I thought that you either walked or rode here, but you've certainly arrived in a land where nothing makes sense. Welcome to Myrken Wood." In fact, he was doing more than just turning to the man. He was picking up his plate and heading towards him, ready to join him in the land of relative sanity. It was the equivilent of abandoning a sinking ship.