A stitch in time

[Altias_Bromn]

The governor sat in his favorite chair in the common room of the Broken Dagger. Long legs were sheathed in paper thin cotton pants of white, a lavender silk shirt was tied at the waist, baring a bit of his belly, and most of his chest. The arms of the shirt had been split down the sleeve, where they then tied at the wrists. His position in the chair was one of complete relaxation, his head over one chair arm, and his legs over the other.

Violet eyes were closed, arms folded over his stomach, he was the very picture of a lazy summer afternoon. Of course, it was not a summer afternoon; it was in fact a spring morning, though the heat would say otherwise.

It took a great deal of concentration to not think about Ariane, and the condition he had left her in. What more could he have done? He washed her wounds, stitched them too. She had made it quite clear to him, at least in his eyes, that she was not interested in his compassion. So he had made himself useful instead, and departed when he had finished.

His evening with Treadwell had been well spent, discussing politics and strategies. He was the governor; after all, certainly such things were to be expected of him. He had a missive to pen to the captain of the strange flying ship, and plans to be made with her. There was breakfast to be had.

~And then you have to go see Ariane.~

A frown crossed his features as that thought crept in, unbidden. A dismissive hand waving as if there were a bothersome fly nearby.

~You left her in pain. Don’t you care?â€

[Carnath-Emory]

This is going to hurt.

He hadn't lied. But then, Bromn was not a man inclined to easy falsehoods; she'd known that within the first weeks of their aquaintance, all those years ago.

There'd been a great deal of pain, over these last twelve hours.

The morning begins as every morning does: with legs untangling from sheets she hadn't dared draw up beyond her hips; with the gasping recognition that she has indeed woken to live for another day; with an attempt to refamiliarise herself with the events of the previous one.

It's the latter which proves to be challenging.

Recollection comes upon her not as a flood of memory, but a trickle of uncertainties. There is no linear progression of action and reaction, A refusing to connect to B, but instead twisting back upon itself, round and around. The Rememdium is the anchor in the center of it all: that she'd spent a considerable amount of time there is her one certainty, and the stitches in her back is proof of it. Those were Bromn's work, she recalls, and they're not as bad as they could have been. Liquor on the wounds, stitches to hold them closed, and then...

Then it had hurt, in too many ways to count; she cannot make out the specifics. But here is another certainty, discovered as she rises carefully from that bed: that at some point during the evening, a good dozen of those tiny threads had snapped.

Think.

Something had followed Bromn's work, something which she recalls only in unnerving vagaries. Fear. Comfort. A brief and welcome absence of pain -- but no details, nothing of use. She must work backwards instead, start at the point where she'd collapsed into her bed, and work back from that. That works: here is the torrent of recollection she'd wanted, so swift and sudden that it leaves her clinging, nauseous, to the back of her chair.

She had battered D'zir's door until its hinges groaned in protest. She had savaged the wood with her blade, a wordless cry wreaking agony on her throat. I need you. Had fled up those stairs with a cloak that barely covered her, had forsaken the kitchen's safety because the rage would not allow her to cower. Had escaped from the Rememdium, sprinting as if all the Perfect horrors of Kanpar had chased at her heels.Had whispered to the wind: Mine. And: You'll see the bargains I'm willing to make. And. And...

That is where sense ends and confusion begins anew, because her memory is of overwhelming anger, of furious grief, of determination the likes of which she's not known in years -- but there's no cause for any of it. The visitors she'd received in the Rememdium had been gracious and gentle. The doctor had salved the pain from her wounds. The woman had whispered something about love, and she'd smiled and agreed and almost wept, fool that she was.

Senseless anger. That had never been her way. But the determination which lingers even now, that is familiar. It is an instinct she's inclined to trust. So when she leaves the chair's safety, it's to rummage painfully in the trunk at the foot of her bed, and pluck a small, glass vial from within the few clothes that remain there. Its contents are swallowed with regret, but not a moment's hesitation.

[Treadwell]

Treadwell couldn't stop himself last night. A night of what amounted to prancing and gloating and gleefully nudging Altias Bromn into Treadwell-approved action seemed to go well, so he had no trouble rewarding himself with an after-midnight snack when he woke up at something like two in the morning. He needed such a reward. After all, he'd fallen asleep in his rocker by the fire--he and Altias had last been discussing Treadwell's daughter, Babette--and that meant a generally sore back and a leg that was a bit stiff from his not following the doctor's advice about how to handle it.

So he'd stuffed himself with some of the finest desserts he could whip up under short notice with what was left in the toy store's kitchen, then he'd fallen promptly back asleep.

He finally woke up a bit after lunch, the toy store itself being a veritable oven and he himself being swallowed up in sweat and sticky, damp clothes. Drawing in water from the well behind the shop was still possible--barely--so Treadwell did that and allowed himself a good long soak in his tub.

If there was one thing about Treadwell, it's that no matter the place, no matter the season, he would generally be able to weather it all in style and lavish excess. Granted, so much of his wealth at the moment was a matter of leeching from his beloved wife's inherited nobility and prestige outside Myrken, but that was hardly a problem. He was well set otherwise. While the toy store merely allowed for a modest padding of the purse (as any tradesman would agree it should), the tax collecting position was quite profitable. After a good forty years in politics and twenty more before those in which he laid around at home a large and mostly useless lump, he was used to living very high on the hog, as the saying goes, as evidenced in the fact he had more than just a couple suits of clothes and he had much more of a middle than all the other Myrken Wood folks.

Treadwell, it must be said, had long since grown used to success. His losing the mantle of Father Winter recently was not a success. But his past political aspirations? Ahhhh. Those were, and any set to follow him most definitely will be the same! From a meteoric rise through political positions back home to a similar sort of situations leading to his present circumstances here, Aloisius Horatio Treadwell has certainly ended up seeing himself as someone more than able to tell the governor what to do on a personal basis. Call it bravado. Call it foolishness. Call it taking advantage of a very good (for him) situation. For Tready, it's one more way of slipping his greasy self back into power. For Tready, it's all a matter of slipping back into being suitably underhanded while keeping up a lovely, delightful charade of being a kind-hearted, absent-minded, toymaking bumbler.

And he knew he could do it. He'd spent his early years working as an actor for a traveling company, presenting plays with his usual vehemence until that fateful day the rotten stage decided it couldn't quite hold his portly, stompy self up any longer. Rest assured those acting abilities were kept up, of course, over the years; half of politics is just putting on a good show for folks. The other half is just, as explained to Altias last night, being ruthless and unstoppable.

It's that odd little mix of qualities that Tready found himself meditating on as he soaked in his tub this afternoon. Through it all, he's impressed. Treadwell managed to keep the toy shop reasonably cool for the first few days into the stifling heat, he could still find funds for belly-stretching and artery-clogging desserts, and he still drew appropriate water for a reasonably warm bath. Most importantly, he could still be a slimey, selfish cuss when he needed to, untainted by his recent mythological failure and all the childish stuff around him.

It was good to be Treadwell.

[Carnath-Emory]

In distant E'strielle, they call it 'khet', a word as harsh and abrupt as the substance itself. It had been a favourite amongst the guards, although it was indulged in sparingly, if one had any sense at all. She... hadn't. But at the time it had seemed practical to take a small store of it with her, when she fled that exotic land, and since that time she'd used only a single vial of the stuff.

Kanpar Village, and the leg she'd broken there, had required it of her.

But there's no reason to dwell on such things right now. She need only appreciate its burn in her throat, the vigor which it sparks across her veins. The world... falls away, and snaps back a moment later with newfound clarity. Her ordinary disaste for the stuff is banished in these first moments, and its with brightened eye that she bends to the trunk once more, to sort through the few belongings there. Dressing takes only moments, once she's found what she'd sought; she is anything but sluggish.

It is a much-changed woman who finally leaves that room behind her, glad to be away from bloodied sheets and no safety at all. When she descends the inner steps, it's with a certain stiffness for sake of the stitches (damned if she'll wear their scars), and an eye swift in its surveying of the commons.

Really, it would have been easier if he hadn't been here. There's so much work to do...

But there is no defying coincidence, cruel thing that it is; in any case, she'd had to have sought him out eventually. Perhaps these matters are best addressed sooner than later. What approaches the Governor's seat is tall and gaunt, stark in a mercenary's unrelieved black from which the sleeves are already torn. Bruises blacken her cheek, one edge of her jaw; a faint network of scars splatter down the length of one thin arm. But there is an ease to her stride, for all that she holds shoulders stiffly, and the voice which addresses him is finally rid of its hoarse rasp.

"Good morning, Altias."