The River flows to Darkenhold

[Carnath-Emory]

"I disagree." As simply as that, but not so aggressively, and already she's dismissing that with a shake of her head. "But not that he was slain. For that there is only - mm. Gratitude. The boy he once was warranted better than the - thing he'd become; best an end was put to it. Conclusively." And for all that she had wished, wished that it was not Agnieszka's hand upon that sword, is even that quite right? If it was she herself - if it was something precious to her that had corrupted into a thing almost unrecognisable -

But then, that's not unfamiliar ground at all.

Here is a lift of her glass, then: quiet toast to a man slightly straightened in pride; a small salute, and one well-earned, and if it has managed to banish his sickly unease of moments ago then all the better. "Not unlike Myrken, in that respect. Do you think?" The way in which a state's innate brutalities will mold those few unfortunate enough to inhabit its lands. "I must think the better of your people, though. For that they have learned something from what is theirs. They must have, if each day is not simply surviving until the next. They must have learned something more than what it is to fight the very land - but don't mistake me. Stubborness? I don't reckon it insulting. Even when it's intended to be." And she's laughing then, actually laughing; alluring, he'd said, and she can imagine and she can absolutely not.

"May - "

It is the start of an echo of a thing he'd asked so casually that she can hardly believe he asked it at all. Her frown is almost incomprehending. And then it is nothing at all; the thin features relax into something like ease.

"No. You may not. Did she actually say 'soul-devouring'?" It seems a bit much. Then again, this is Agnieszka. And how terribly telling, that the rest of it she's accepted verbatim, and with no argument at all.

[BetaFlame]

At least she had taken the Aeryn thing well. He sighs and gives a little shake of his head. "I do not like killing, you know? Taking a life is something that weighs on me. I remember every face. Each one a burden I carry. I remember. Just in case no one else will. As long as I carry them here -" A small tap of a finger against his temple now, "-then they are not truly gone. My penance." The man does look like he carries a weight on his shoulders sometimes. His heart was too kind to carry deaths, even ones that richly deserved it. Who knows why he continues to walk the path he does. Yet, everyday he continues to tread down that road. He wishes he had the fortitude to take an oath of non-violence. To swear never to kill again. Whatever had taken his fate in hand was cruel.

"My people? My people are.." He purses his lips in consideration. "They are unlike me in everyway. Non-humans are slain. Magic users are either priests or worse. Or they are killed. No questions. To question the First Knight, the King is death. Rodel is an unkind place that has forged an unkind people. I try and redeem my people with my actions. I try and atone for their atrocities with every step and every thought. I see the beginnings of Rodel here, Ariane. I don't want to see that bit of history repeated." He softens then, smiling at her again, and shaking his head.

Then he laughs. Not the sort that he uses when he wants to set people at ease. This one comes from his belly and reaches his throat. He actually slaps his knee and pulls his glasses off, shaking his head.

"You think--No! Gods and lords, no! Agnie did not! I listen to whispers on the streets. Agnie says so little about you, her and Glenn both. That is what drew me here to meet you!" He laughs again, before he clears his throat, and does a fair imitation of Agnie's accent, "Ariane's a feckin' soul-stealin' monster! You take your sword! -" Then he clears throat and smiles, "No, she has not said over much about you. Hence, my curiosity about you."

If he is offended that she does not answer his question, he does not show it, instead he looks toward the able she took her drink from, "Is there water there? I do not drink liquor."

[Carnath-Emory]

I do not like killing, you know?
I do not like killing, he says, and the pity of it is that she cannot answer in kind.

What might they have said, these two, on the difficult matter of penance? If she knew this man as something more than a face, genial overtures, an attachment to young Agnieszka. With the weight of his internal struggles as a balancing force - a thing to which she is far from blind, a thing with which she is cripplingly familiar - but even so the fact remains that these are matters too personal, matters laced with an assortment of vulnerabilities that she would rather shed than harbour. That penance - and the leash which a single woman's name had become - had been some topic for conversation between she and Cinnabar had been a matter of necessity. And for all the good which might have come of that regretful need, this - and now -

No. Intolerable. Within the fortnight - the wait has already gone too long - she journeys to meet with the man that has become their Governor. She will not do that with a heart split wide by the memory of what should never have been.

"Tell me of this." Which is not the question she'd first meant to ask - in the midst of all this Rodel, a name for a land of which she'd never heard one word before now. But how abruptly he's narrowed her focus. "Tell me what it is to see Rodel made manifest in Myrken." And what a question this is, and how specific, so that she must be gladder than she'd expected when he falls into laughter. Grateful that he'd tempered the moment with something simpler - nevermind its origins - and: "It is only commonly heard upon the streets. Mm. This soothes," and that might have been some tiny motion at her mouth's corners; some hint of her own laughter, and perhaps it is ghastly that she makes no protest at all.

Perhaps he's not, after all, ill-acquainted with monsters of his own.

"There's no water here, but it can be had. Or apple juice, if you prefer. Do you like apples? If that's so you'll ride home with a crate of them this very day," and she's unwinding from her seat then, to move towards the doors. "She would not say much; it was ever - difficult, between us. She might have chosen a more apt teacher. Anyone at all." That much of a confession, back across her shoulder with just a half-turn of her head.

[BetaFlame]

"I do enjoy apples, but water is perfectly fine, thank you. Unlike most people, I enjoy the lack of taste that comes with water. Just the coolness of it on your tongue. It soothes. But a crate of apples? You are over generous." He considers her for a moment, watching that figure move. The placement of feet and hands. "No, I don't think she could have. I suspect in you, she found exactly what she needed of a teacher." But he would not elaborate that point, not right now.

She had asked about Rodel. That brought a crease of worry to his brow. Rodel.

He would wait for her to come back, with the water and he takes a drink before he starts. This might ramble on a bit.

Then he would continue. "First, there is a point you must understand. My country labored under a tyrant for hundred of years. A blood-mage of unending power, one that ruled with an iron fist. People were gutted and killed to fuel his power. His priests were monsters in the night. Anyone could be taken. It was a land ruled by fear." He would clear his throat here, and consider for a moment. He tried not to sound like teacher giving a lecture. "Its important to understand the history to understand the people, or I would not waste your time with this." He gives a soft smile and looks down into the water, thinking. "Sometime ago, twelve men rose up and found a new sort of power. They were all innate mages, power born in their blood. But they had no one to teach them. A man taught them the art of Binding. No one knows where this man came from. But the twelve took this power and bound various creatures to their body and souls. Angels, demons and elementals. The power they gained was vast." He pauses an takes another drink from the water, and tilts his head to one side. "I will skip forward a bit. They defeated the Blood King."

He sighs and flicks his eyes to meet hers over the top of his glasses. "Rodel had a chance to become a place of freedom. But.. the First. He decided to play on the new fears of the people, to ensure that no one could rise up against him. People traded liberty for security. Elves, dwarves - they had been our allies. But they were beasts of dread magic, and they were hunted and killed. Butchered like animals. Babes slain in their beds. If you were born with the talent you were tested. If you were powerful, you were trained to be a Host to one of the creatures. To serve as Legion. If you were strong, you might become one of the Twelve Knights of Rodel." He swallows a little and shakes his head. "If you were missed, and you grew to become an adult, if you were unfortunate enough to be discovered, you were killed. A man in a white cloak, possibly with glasses and blue eyes, would show at your door and murderer you over your laundry. Your home? Burned. Your children? Killed, least you have polluted them with your heretic ways."

He just tilts his head at her. He had been born and raised there. Trained there. Everything he knew was Rodel. How could he be here, in this land, and think the way he does? "I don't want Myrken to go down that path. I don't want to see the people here rise up and form lynch mobs because someone is born with a talent. I don't want to see fear turn into burning hate."

He smiles a little and shakes his head, "I am sorry, Ariane. I tend to ramble."

[Carnath-Emory]

"Have them anyway." Back across her shoulder as a figure appears at the doorway; as words are exchanged there. "Eat them yourself. Bake them into pies, feed them to orphans. Give them to Agnieszka with not a word as to their origins; we are besieged," and she's laughing then as she turns, pitcher and mug in hands, "by an excess of apples. This year, every year; there is an orchard, it is - mm. Abundant." The appropriate word, borrowed from an architect and delivered to an - well. To Aleksei. Whatever he might be, and if one's to judge him by the story which follows what he might be is a great many things, most of them complicated.

What strange things he says.

In the midst of a tale of tyranny she's returning to her seat, a water-filled pitcher for his hand and the glass still very much present in her own. As he mentions blood-mages she's taking a sterner sip from that stuff; by the time his telling has turned to angels she's drained half the glass. It is perhaps to her credit that there is no tremble in the hand which holds it. Less-so, the thin creases forming at the corners of a mouth which has begun slowly to clench. It draws the scarring into sharp relief, lends new angles to features already inclined to a certain coldness when not animated by gentler things: a smile, a thought; the laughter which has always been so rare.

At some point: "How - "

And only that; the lips seal closed over whatever words there might have been, and really there mightn't have been any at all; really, this might have been nothing but questioning, thrust directly into the midst of a horror that this man recites as a chain of cause and effect. As if it could be no other way. As if it were all so obvious. Angels and bindings - of course. Liberty and elves - naturally. Legion and Hosts and white-cloaked specters; her gaze cuts sharp towards the pretty, pale thing that he'd laid across the back of some chair, and it is the most motion she's demonstrated throughout this; such a still thing she is, even when the body is so acutely restless, even when it wants most to move.

It is a particular, necessary restraint. Everything he knows is Rodel. And he is in every sense Agnieszka's, a girl whose life she had very much promised not to interrupt - again. Everything he knows is Rodel, and now he finds himself cast adrift in Myrken Wood, where the monsters must seem so mild and the conflicts so small, so hopelessly naive. Turn this Aleksei against the Ashfiend and discover - what? A man capable of cool, measured murder, and not much inclined to grieve for the corpses come out of their graves; not until the killing's done. Turn him against the Baie, and - what then? The answer seems so clear. Even when she is so very aware that this is only speculation.

"You exchanged one monster for another."

Sometimes the words come unbidden. This time it is almost so. The hundred things that she has considered and discarded. The hundred furious interjections that she's stifled with clenched lips and all the self-control which a woman, a weapon, can marshal. She has schooled her features to quietness, but there must at least be this. This, and: "For twelve, in fact, twelve monsters gone hungry enough to learn anything from anyone, and then - what, a Legion? A Host? Institutionalised madness," thank you, ser Architect, "over and again, eating down children and strangers and anything at all which catches its eye and seems a likely prospect. How, how does anyone at all stand to live under this? How does no-one end this? Is - "

A hand waves aside his apology; impatient, uninterested.

"Is this what you see when you look upon Myrken? Having come here from a place where unfettered talent gave rise to the - the obscene, the grotesque and slaughtering - do you flinch when Myrken means to stop such senselessness before it can happen? Is that what you see?"

[BetaFlame]

He leans forward, intent now. The glass of water is set down and he watches the woman. "It did not happen instantly. No, it was a thousand slow deaths. Liberty and freedoms traded for peace and security. Before we get into the what I see, let me tell the other side of the coin. What the face of all this madness and blood is." He leans back, then settling in and looking at ease. He can see where Glenn gets his distrust of things arcane now.

"First, there is almost no crime in Rodel. Murder, as a crime, is unheard of. Stealing? Unneeded. Food is raised and grown, sold to the State, and given to all. No one goes hungry. But everyone works. Every child learns to read and write, learns their basic numbers. Children with a gift continue to be educated. There are no classes. No nobles and no commoners." He shakes his head a little and looks up at the ceiling again, taking a moment to collect himself. "Just because one is born into a farming family, does not mean you are a farmer. You have opportunity to be anything."

He straightens a little and takes another drink of the water, refilling from the pitcher.

"The King loves his people, Ariane. I met the man. I saw it in his eyes. At the start, the intent was good, but it all went out of control. 'What if,' they would ask 'we took this one small freedom and gave you this large security instead?' And the people would rejoice. After a thousand years of suffering, what is being forced into testing to see if you have the spark of magic?" Had it really started so simply? Even Aleksei had a hard time believing it. "But these lessons I give you now, on Rodel, they did not come from texts. They came from my Master. He was one of the twelve, you see. He spoke against these things." The man did love the sound of his voice.

"What I see here in Myrken? I see a brave, strong people. People that are desperate. Demons, witches, shapechanging monsters all laying waste to them. Being forced to burn their loved ones to keep from having to die at their lifeless hands." He looks down at his hands and looks almost sad. "I see them on the cusp, Ariane. I see the hopelessness standing at the edge, waiting and nagging at them. And I dread that the question will come 'Can we give up this, to get this?'"

He quirks his lips in a wry smile, he had not intended for his visit to become so heavy. Not on their first meeting. But here he was, telling her of what he feared for Myrken, and why? Because she might be able to help him prevent it.

[Carnath-Emory]

These lessons he gives her, before which she is an uneasy student, inclined to sip from her glass now and then between his words; no, more frequently than that. But attentive, in her way. A quiet listener, at the very least, until the rhythm of his words reaches something like a conclusion.

"Murder - as a crime - is unheard of." A particular emphasis, and only so that he will know that she grasps the nuance of what he describes. And: "There is to be a school here," she offers after a time. "Or so I am told, but this was months ago and perhaps it is already built, perhaps children attend to this already, busy about their letters and their pages." And all this time later the idea still seems exotic; there had been a tutor for her brother, lessons over which he'd laboured, ill-tempered and largely disinterested. She had not envied him those hours. "How - " and she pauses here, because the idea is so strange, a new thing for her limited imagination to wrap itself about. "How does one persuade the noble-born to surrender what they've prized so highly? The things owed to them due to their blood, their name; how is a House compelled to surrender its position? With violence? With threat? Who would dare? But perhaps this, this - magicking," the word drips distaste; she has not bothered to restrain herself this time, "perhaps it changes everything. Even that."

"When did you meet this man? When did you look into his eyes and imagine to see kindness there. When this was first begun? Or when Rodel were already fallen into this horror?" Moments ago she'd dismissed his apologies without a word; now the wave of her hand sets aside huge swathes of his explanations, insists upon matters set into an order which suit the narrowing of her focus. Rodel. Myrken. Two sides upon the chessboard marked only with the few necessary lines of demarcation. Onto this Aleksei pours great handfuls of colour and sound; she sweeps them away like this, the better to see what lies beneath. Legions? Hosts? Demons? These things only complicate. But what remains...

"So this man, your Master - he was worth something, then." Judgement passed, unyielding. "And worth something more if he'd done more than speak," but a shake of her head then; for all her conviction on the matter, the words were too harsh. This Aleksei has deserved better than that. "You see it well. This Myrken, this place which it has become." Through Blights and Baie and the riot on Haberdasher's Row, and there might be no need to detail such things; 'files', he'd said, and she has no interest in cluttering what is already a complicated discussion of straightforward things. "Tell me this, though - neglect these elves and dwarves and blood - things. Tell me this instead:

"What is it you believe that Myrken means to give up? What has you seeing this - cusp. Now, and not a year ago."

[BetaFlame]

He considers her questions carefully. He knows he treads dangerously here, for this is her home and he is all but attacking it with his words. Saying that the people that live here, and the people that lead it, could merrily skip down the path to bloodshed while singing songs of happiness. That they could coldly trade their blood for their safety. But had not Rodel done the same thing?

"Yes, the school. I hope to teach there. I am going to speak to Rhaena about it, I love to show children the wonder that comes with numbers." He offers a light smile there, and a look at his hands again. Hands that should hold books, not weapons. "Nobles? They were all loyal to the Blood King, and where killed. It was not difficult to establish a new social order when you dissolve the old so effectively. No, that was amongst the easiest."

"I met the man some years ago, Ariane. When I was Knighted the Third Knight, replacement to my Master who was retiring. He spoke of his land and his people. I do not even think he sees it as wrong, truly. He is a man determined to see the mistakes of the past not repeated, but he goes about it in a way that creates all new horrors." He shakes his head slowly, taking a long drink from his water. Walking the razor's edge. He had that tingle. He had told her he was at once an accessory and perpetrator to the crimes of his people. But not proudly, otherwise why would he be here? "My Master met him when the horror started. When it was done with the best of intent, because how else could we prevent mages from ruining is with the magics again. Then slowly, one more was added. He shakes his head slowly and looks very, very sad. He cold tell her of how things were added like layers to make Rodel into the place it was now. Layer upon layer of law meant to secure, but ultimately take away freedom and liberty.

Security over liberty. That was Rodel's legacy now. He wanted Myrken to be better.

"I see it everywhere I look. I see it everytime there is a hurry to burn a corpse instead of a moment to grieve. I see it when people gather in a hushed corner to whisper about if a man can use magic, and if it is dangerous. I see it when I walk down the street and still get worried looks, and a mother hides her child because I am foreign. All these fears can turn to terror, can can lead to atrocity."

[Carnath-Emory]

There is a point at which she is almost out of her seat. Like that, it would have been, stiff-spined and bristling with cold words, brutal demands. And indeed, "How many - " she's begun - but only that; the mouth snaps closed again, as a man speaks of Knights and Masters; the body keeps to its seat after all, even when the recitation grows grueling, even when it demands nothing more than that she bring a weapon into her hand just to explain to this Aleksei its other purpose.

But then, to do that justice would have required a journey; would have required Orvere.

"We do burn our corpses."

It is where she begins, when she becomes able to begin at all; there has been some lasting silence in the wake of his words, and she has filled it with a small sip from her glass, a quiet contemplation of her trouser-knees. Those eyes have lifted again now, however, have set their gaze firmly back upon his own.

"And if I perish here tomorrow they'll burn what remains of me and leave the mourning for after the ashes have cooled. I approve of this. I would not have it otherwise. And what of it? We shutter our windows against the rain, don scarves and cloaks against the cold, and it is only the same thing. Myrken corpses are apt to rise - murderously. As for the rest," some narrow wave of the glass, "what of it? These people which one horror or another has fancied for prey, they have learned something of caution. What, and would you have them bare their throats, offer their children for the stealing? No, consider this: that here before me sits a man who has seen Myrken folk wonder if his grasp for magicking is dangerous - when he has just explained to me precisely how it is."

[BetaFlame]

The first words. How Many. He had heard them, but he did not want to answer. But he would. A ragged breath he drew in and lifted eyes to hers. Meeting her gaze level, steady. But there was a deep biting sadness in his soul. His voice was barely a whisper, "Fifteen, before I realized what my Master to be teaching me for those years." The voice that says it is raspy with pain and sorrow, and it is his turn to downcast his eyes. But his is from shame.


He raises an eyebrow at her, slowly. Her last statement made the least sense. "Truly? You think magic, the ability do things, makes a man evil? Makes his heart cold?" He gestures toward himself. "I could have been a mage. I was tested, and found with the talent. Instead I was brought to the Courts. I was raised and turned into a monster by the very people that had slain the Blood King." He shakes his head firmly. "No, that is not so. No more than lifting a sword makes you evil. I do not want a blind eye turned toward the fact that a man with power is dangerous, Ariane. I'm not a fool. But I do not want the land of Myrken to become a land so bent by fear that it feels the need to drive away a man for being different. I was not driven away, nor welcomed. I was given the cold shoulder. I do not want to see that final push. He hopes, hopes! she understands.

"I will grant you the same concession I granted Glenn Burnie. Magic is dangerous. People fear it. In that fear, they push the users away from them. Some people use it for ill." He looks at his hands. For a moment, he can see them awash in blood. The blood of the innocents he had slain in the name of the Holy Crusade. "Does this apply to all? No, of course not. Anymore than you can say all elves are nature lovers, or all farmers are stupid.

What I want, Ariane Emory, is to turn Myrken into a place of Freedom. A place were differences are encouraged and explored safely and morally for the betterment of all. So that a cult, or a twisted man or woman cannot come in and prey upon those that are shunned by the differences."

He takes a deep breath and looks across at her, eyes earnest now. "I do not expect you to help me. A stranger. I do not expect you to trust my words are honest and true. I just hope you will hear them, judge them with your experience. I came to you with this because you are the teacher of the two people I respect the most, and care for the most, in this world." He smiles a little at her then, softening that pained and earnest expression. "I did not mean for our conversation to turn this weighty on our first meeting. I had hoped to charm you into liking me first."

He considers all they had said together in a moment, then smirks and leans back in his chair, hand folding against his toned stomach. "You must think me a deranged fool."

[Carnath-Emory]

She is not without sympathy. For a man who is very much Agnieszka's, which places him into a particular and demanding category of people; for a man who is very much newly arrived at her door and who has taken such pains to be nothing but pleasant. For a man, most of all, who has committed grievous wrongs due to a critical error of understanding. So that even as he spoke these terrible words, even as he confessed this thing he was answered with some murmured assent, and pale eyes which for a time simply watch, knowing.

"Magic - no, magicking itself need not make a monster of a man. Except of course if that man is a channeler - are you familiar?" A questioning glance from a woman who's already continuing. "It begins with wonder and ends in filth, in corruption and madness. I have known several of these; not one of them was capable of anything less than - " some small wave of the hand. "Cataclysm. Even that does not properly describe. Were I to bring you to Golben, to Orvere at the height of its conflict, then you might see. Or perhaps," and the eyes fix back upon his own, "you have seen quite well enough, mn?" Hosts. Legions. Blood Kings and butchery. And she is eased back in her seat again, with some very necessary sip from her glass.

"Why do you imagine that people fear this magicking? Because it is dangerous? Because it may slaughter them far more efficiently than any sword? Because it has consumed their homes into ash, lifted their families from their graves? Because it has carved eyes from heads, left a crater where Golben once stood?" Each item hard on the heels of the other, quiet and unrelenting. "Because it is the threat against which they cannot raise arms, barricade doors; because it is the threat that they cannot even recognise - might it even be that? Spot the sword at a man's side from twenty yards, but if he has this magicking for his weapon - " the tiniest motion of her shoulder. "They realise it soon enough to run, or else in the moments that they die; perhaps this is why they fear. Do you think that it might be?

Aleksei," and here she's leaned a little forward again, here the eyes absolutely engage. "You say this thing, that Rodel insists upon the abolishing of 'classes'. No noble-born, no indentured unfortunates. We might reckon that a good start, mn? But Aleksei, in any land that magickers tread, despite anyone's efforts, two classes do exist: men who can slaughter hundreds with a glance. And men that cannot."

It quietens, then. In the wake of so very many words, all in the midst of a conversation with familiar overtures, a matter which she has not broached in years. So many words, so that when she has drained the last of this from her glass it's his pitcher that she reaches for, to replace warming liquor with simple water. A necessity for a woman not much given to speeches and certainly not well-practiced in the art, and when she looks towards him again perhaps there is the slightest edge of chagrin to her eyes; no, perhaps it is just some wry amusement.

"I think that your words are honest, Aleksei. And perhaps it's better this than the other, mn? For you know, I am not so easily charmed," and for just a moment the eyes had become solemn after all. "But I do not reckon you a fool. Not slightly. And I do not reckon you mad. I think that you examine these things from - inside yourself," the vocabulary has its limits; read it in the slight press of her lips, in this fleeting frown. "I wonder if you have forgotten what it is to be vulnerable. More pressingly," a little jab of her glass towards him, "you have not answered my question. You would speak of things sacrificed in the name of safety, mn? But everything you describe is old behaviour, lessons hard learned and long ago. No. It must be something new, something recent. And then we see if your concerns align with my own."

[BetaFlame]

She sees into his heart well. She seems to understand that he wants to be here to help and that he wants to deflect the course of Rodel away from the course of Myrken. Take the things they did right and temper the land here into a better one. Turn Myrken from a land ruled by fear and make a land that other countries envy. Maybe it was too grand a dream, but it was a dream. One he had thought was shared by Glenn.

He finds his lips dry now and he takes a long drink from his water. He reaches to refill his own and takes a deep breath. "I agree. People fear magic, and to a degree they should. Men can do terrible things with it. Men are inclined to do terrible things with it, because it makes them feel like they are so much more than others. I would like to make a place where people like me can teach those people how to use their power for betterment of all, instead of conquering. I would like for men with magic to be someone that a farmer can approach when they find a rock to large to remove in their field." He smiles at her then, and gives a shrug of one shoulder. Maybe a little sadly, with that movement. There is an edge of sorrow to his eyes. Magic had been use so long to oppress and hurt, maybe it was time to find ways to make it uplift and heal. "It could be this is a dream, but I feel it in my heart Ariane. There has to be a better way for men."

He sighs and looks at his hands again. Bloody hands his, and she had reminded him so much of that. The images of those poor people he had murdered in cold blood now flashed through his mind. The imagines of their children, of their burning homes. He had changed since then, he knew. But it was still his hands that held the sword. He would never forgive himself, he knew that. But he hoped to save other lives to make up for it.

"I will tell you what I see then. I hope you will not judge me to harshly for it. I see a man with a deep desire to make this place better. I see him sitting at his desk, piles of papers before him. Files and notes on everything that happens here. I see a man that wants this place to be better with all his heart. But he has an emptiness in him, that makes him lack compassion. His emotions are things that do not run deeply, and it makes him cold. If he must trade lives for betterment, he will. And that in itself is not wrong, but he will not feel the pain of it.. and he will not think to seek other options." His eyes meet hers then. Will she know? Will she strike him down for what he says? "I see a man that gave up too much of himself, and now lives disconnected from the emotions of others, passing judgement on what is right and wrong, but doing it coldly with no heart."

[Carnath-Emory]

"And I would like this place which you would build to be very far away from here." There ought to be laughter, after something like that. She's given him another little jab of the glass, instead. "I understand the need for education very well. How else did - " Pauses, then. Because unless Agnieszka has been so very forthcoming - a thing she can hardly imagine - he doesn't know. The lips pause parted on the edge of decisions; several things are discarded very hurriedly, and instead: "I have seen what its lack will do. The name of it was E'strielle: a city-state so very far from here. Authorities had come to learn of some few men with more talent than sense; talent of a particular sort, you understand. A place is given them where they may gather to learn, and by 'learn' what is meant is that each would teach to the others what little he himself knew. A collaboration, you see? And a highly successful one, from the perspective of an authority with an interest in - gain, in conquest; like any other head which has worn a crown, mn?" A thin smile. "I think that you, of all people, would understand what came of it. Unfettered exploration, tempered by very little caution at all; the building came apart, and then so did the crowd below. A very few survived intact. Fewer than that survived unchanged, and for their part mostly envied the dead."

The narrow body leans a little, then. Just far enough that when she extends this hand, he will see the thin beads of sweat covering its palm; will see, if his eyes are keen behind their glasses, its silvery colour, and how even now thin filaments of the same are leaking from the skin's very pores. How they coalesce into some gleaming, glutinous whole, mercurial and clinging -

"Myself? Most fortunate. I can still walk; still breathe, see, hear. The first shock of it very nearly ended that. And then again several days later when a crowd half-mad with fear saw what I had become. I will wear the scars of that my whole life, and understand, Aleksei, that I cannot fault them what they did. They could not discern between the victims of that horror and the styervo ebannoye who began it. They were hasty to be rid of them, and rightly so. If it's a school that you would build, build it far from here; so far that an accident cannot reach what you've left behind. So far as Golben and then still further yet."

Bloody hands, his. And hers as well, for all that one's lost to living steel just now - but not for so very much longer. If he has eyes for the stuff yet she will let it linger, let it swell there upon her palm until it seems fit to drown her fingers and overflow to the carpets below. But it never does, this guardian iron; just clings jealously instead until the moment comes that she forces it back again beneath her flesh.

It will be of Glenn Burnie that they'll speak then, subject of a question which he'd halfway spoken and which she hadn't quite answered at all. Governor Burnie, who Aleksei describe in terms not dissimilar to the very words Calomel had spoken to her weeks ago and in a room not far from this one. Lives for betterment. Urns for conquest. Bloodless atrocities. And she is so silent throughout this, so steady with her watch of this man's eyes, of his features as he speaks the things he must, and when she speaks at all herself it is only to ask:

"This emptiness which you think to see. What is its source? This is what I would have answered. Guess, if you must."

[BetaFlame]

He listens to her words carefully and when she extends her hand, he looks down at it. He watches as she.. exudes silver, watching it turn and change. How it leaves her body and seems to cling to it all at the same time. He glances up at her face, searching for.. something. A sign it hurts? Anything. But its obvious why she distrusts magic. The same reason he does. It can corrupt and change everything around it. "You have my word. If I can build it all, it will be away. We will temper exploration with caution and knowledge with wisdom." What was his word to her? He supposes now he will find out what she truly things of him. He offers nothing but his oath on this. "So long as I live, the knowledge of what is there will only be given to those wise enough to use it morally and cautiously. My oath on it."

Now it is the man's turn to lean forward, lips pressing together. He has to take a few moment to consider this and then he just nods.

"I will tell you what I know. Nothing held back. I know only bits and pieces that I have been able to put together. But I will tell you." He moves to rest his arms on his knees, shifting his weight forward. His voice drops a little. He did not like talking about this. He had not told any one, not even his dear Agnie. "When I was looking for answers about Catch, and getting his horn from the bottom of Silver Lake, I did some research. He had contact with a Lady Lamai of Thessilane." He knows what most people here think of that name and place, "I trust her. She has been very helpful, and has never proven false to me. She offered me a single warning about Glenn. That his soul was no longer connected to him. Call it what you like, but there is a bit of us that makes us human. Soul, heart, or compassion. The name isn't important."

He leans back then and looks into her eyes now, "But you tell me. You know him, and I assume you will met with him at some point. Look into his eyes and tell me.. does he look hollow?"

[Carnath-Emory]

To search the woman's features was to be disappointed; there was nothing remarkable for his eyes to find there. Not in her own, which instead of focusing some concentration down onto what her skin manifested had involved themselves in watching him. Not in her features, which one might easily have expected to seem strained, and which evidenced nothing much like effort, nothing like pain at all. As if the woman were braiding her hair rather than loosing iron from her veins. "If," she'd echoed him, even as the gleaming stuff withdrew into the pale of her palm. "A significant condition, mn? I think that they may have you visit to Golben first, and call it Instructional. For my part, I hope it is the first of many demands which they make before permitting this thing. One of them might be this: what gift is yours, that you may peer into the hearts of men to see whether wisdom dwells there? Is this, too, a thing which you can teach? For that might be of use..."

It is almost a smile. It is very nearly a body resting back into its own seat, and surely would have been in the moment he began to lean towards her if not for the words he had spoken so immediately. If not for the way in which his voice had dropped, his posture becoming something different, something almost casual. No. Conspiratorial. It is possible that she has misunderstood so much of what he has said to her this morning, so much of what he has described. It is possible that throughout this most unlikely morning she has misled him quite inadvertantly, that she has said the half of what she'd meant to and a great many things that she didn't; this is the hazard of engaging in conversation a woman who is simply not adept with words. But there is no mistake in her now; there is no error at all. The lean of him is clearer to her eyes than words on a page ever could be, and when he speaks now she listens.

He meets a condition she had not named. He answers an concern she had not begun to voice.

And call it soul, call it compassion; call it the essential self hid deep within a boy's heart - call it what you will, but when a healer's single, specific caution is shared between these two conspirators, the swordswoman's pale eyes are fixed hard upon Aleksei's own, stunned and knowing.

"There is a thing to which I must attend." It is so long before she speaks at all, and when she does it's with a voice gone distant, gone quietly preoccupied. Her eyes have not left his own, do not even as she begins to stand - until the body's turned away from him entirely. "You're free to stay a time if you like." Her hand upon the door; the brief backward glance of eyes so grave. "Someone will see to your needs."

The quiet finality of a door falling closed behind her.