A Missive Received at Calomel Hall.

[Carnath-Emory]

Poor taste. A blow to the head was exactly that man's intention! Oh, but the two of them are grinning alike, until it has her skin stinging - and then it's a hand to the cheek, a quite-amused wince; a sip of something potent to banish it all completely. "Preparations," she shapes carefully then; an approving nod. "Onion soup and well-boiled beef - so that you'll know you've already faced the worst the world has to offer. A few vile phrases will not compare." Ah, but a wag of her finger for him after it, a careful correction: "Ser Calomel, we swill jenever to soothe the callouses upon our souls.

Or whatever you imagine dwells behind a man's heart."

There: a thought upon which she can quieten, the better to digest what this man has offered her. 'Absolution' is not a word which she has learned; neither has 'panacea' featured amongst the lists of phrases which she and Syl Duquesne had exchanged each day for months. He'd defined only the words she'd heard spoken, after all, and these two are concepts almost wholly foreign to her existence. "Perhaps," she's murmured - at the conclusion of long thought. "Perhaps I'd have put it back into their hands. I think there might be a danger in - lauding - certain things," and haltingly now; this is unsteady ground. "I think perhaps government must only approve - publicly - what it would have imitated. No. I know who did it rightly, and that is Kerrak al'Nerun."

Years of sometimes-friendship have educated the woman; see, already lifting her hand to forestall a protest.

"If he'd been Helstone's man - for true - then Cinnabar, I'd have burned before I'd even begun." Not hanged. We do not propose a noose for necks garbed in iron. "If his allegiances were to Governor and Law; if he'd trusted me less. At my request, he risked everthing - "

Quieted, then. With eyes for sun-drenched lawns, the very distant sparkle of falling water.

"And now he receives the Governor's appointment - of what sort?" although she's chuckling even as she asks it. "It must make me think better of Myrken authorities, you know? Still - it was simpler with Phuri. The man was a living corruption, but - " there are no words for this; she surrenders with a shake of her head, and: "Simpler." Simple like a bribe, simple like a club to the head. "Simpler for me - but for anyone else? Cinnabar..." and she's laughing then, with her throat and with her smile and not with her eyes at all. "Cinnabar, perhaps I am what dooms Myrken Wood."

[Cinnabar]

"Soothe, or dissolve?" So harsh a drink would be better applied to stripping varnish from old furniture than sipping. "Enough of it might burn a man hollow."

And perhaps that is the point of it.

He only shrugs as she answers his suggestion of medals with talk of their return; he could imagine it, too, a gleaming token handed back quite firmly, enough that the gesture would never be mistaken for modesty. Enough that the hand giving it would know better than to insist.

Her raised hand is well-placed, and his breath drawn to argue is turned instead into a disapproving sigh. She can guess his thoughts on the matter well enough to anticipate that, so he does them both the favour of keeping them behind his teeth. For the most part.

"Maybe, with a Councillor for Defence worth his post, you'd've had no need to do anything worth pardoning." Anothing shift of his shoulder, and a wry stretch of his lips; not quite a smile, but acknowledging the futility of considering what might have been.

"Simple does not mean right. You know this already." She speaks of Governor Phuri, dead and gone long before Calomel found his way to Myrken. "Maybe you didn't know it as well then, but you know it now. Whatever your assassin knows of you, whatever Glenn knows of you, it's old. It's who you were, years ago. A simpler Ariane. Less subtle, less nuanced. Myrken Wood changes everyone."

So many horrors, so many battles. And yet each is survived, each leaves impressions in mind and flesh alike, and from every hurt comes an understanding. So many lessons. That they can stand here now, each knowing what they do of the other without blades drawn, is something close to incredible.

"You, I think, for the better."

[Carnath-Emory]

"Zabrisati," supplies the swordswoman; a clutch of buzzing consonants tempered by the satisfaction of her tiny smile. "Is like - obliteration. So, ser Calomel: your first lesson, and a very necessary word for we who live in Myrken Wood, mn? Do you like the taste of it? Or do we find summer-fruit blintzes to sweeten its sound."

Which is spoken with laughter enough that one might almost forgive what follows.

"Futile," she agrees - with things left unsaid - because they'd needed no words for them at all. "And worse: a finer mind than mine must determine how Myrken's defense may be managed; I am good for questions but not so much for answers. But to speak of so long ago, it is - strange." It is unsettling, but this is not a thing she will speak in Cinnabar's presence, or in anyone else's at all. "A truly excellent Councilor? Then perhaps I would not have done those things. Good for those cultists. Good for me, too; I would rather have lived than died, mn?"

Her smile is small and taut and already gone.

"Better in another sense as well, perhaps. You have it round and about, Cinnabar. If that assassin has learned of me from what is written by your Councilmen, then it is as you say: he only knows what is old, the doom which he senses was murdered years ago. But if he has learned of me from your Governor? Before I died, CInnabar, before those cultists, Glenn Burnie knew me as a name and a face and nothing more than that. Those lessons began - months later." When a woman's mind was still a softly-churning turmoil marked by empty, baffled voids. "What he has known - is not the simpler thing, the thing which would not have hesitated in slaying assassins."

And this is where she must pause; necessarily, because these are too many words with too tight a focus, and because Cinnabar's conclusion has left her briefly breathless. The sunlight is essential and she has turned her face back towards it a moment, has bathed her skin in its warmth and closed her eyes against the bright of it; against other things as well.

"We hadn't even gotten to chessboards," she's murmured; there's quiet laughter in the words, a shake of the head to follow it. "What a kindness you do me, Cinnabar. I hope - very much - that it is as you describe."

Impulse, abrupt and irresistable; both hands at her ear, loosening something small and liable to sparkle. "Your hand?" For she'll fold his fingers around this if he's willing: delicate silver, a flicker of pale blue sapphire.

[Cinnabar]

"Zabriz- zabrisati." The new word repeated a few times, slight variations in inflection, in emphasis, until it's a decent echo of the swordswoman's pronunciation; uttered quietly, conversationally, then growled once he has it correct, allowed to roll dramatically from his lips. Finally a small nod, a satisfied smile. "A good start?"

She describes how she was, before, and how she was when the mapmaker had first approached her, and after that; but he shakes his head, offering a correction:

"You have been gone from Myrken for a long while; that, too, can change you. Time away from constant crisis, hm? Time to think on things beyond what form the next horror might take. Time to heal." Though there's a wry roll of his eyes at that, a wave of fingertips for his damaged features and, by extension, her own. "Neither of us are who we were two years ago."

He demurs her talk of kindness with a light shrug, but offers his hand at her request; his fingers close easily around the item pressed into them, only to open again once released, that he might inspect this... what, this trinket, this token? This gesture, and though he might surmise some of the meaning behind it he's loath to make assumptions. So a moment to solemnly examine the thing, bright metal and gleaming crystal in the palm of his hand, before his gaze returns to the weapon who gifted it.

"Thank you." Acceptance, but well aware that it is more than mere jewelry. Everything has meaning. Symbols.

"Why this one?"

[Carnath-Emory]

"Nev'ebenny!" As the one-time Governor growls out something like cataclysm, and with an approving clap of her hands to punctuate it. "Is so good a start, and after it? You snap your fingers like that - " this demonstration happens a half-inch from his face, "and then perhaps you spit - " and she's mimed an exaggeration of that, as well. "Although I will warn you that the man who spits on my floors cleans them afterwards. "Is mm - ni za khuj sobachy. Troublemaking. Of which no good comes; best saved for the meetingplace of our esteemed politicians."

And nevermind that he'd once been one of them.

But hers are eyes which can concede a misunderstanding, even when her voice is loathe to apologise for it; eyes which are quiet in their consideration of his words, even when her mouth demures from their conclusions. "To heal," she echoes - with the lips some wry shape as he gestures towards such recent hurts. "But you know, I did not mean to leave, and I wonder if having left, I'd meant to return. One day becomes another, one month becomes a year; the world is so large and there were so many things towards which I might reach - "

A slow breath interrupts; a gradual exhale. And because there have been so many words already, and because these are things of which she is not ready to speak, and because this is company for which they are inappropriate and which was summoned here today for other things in any case, she will set this aside. Absolutely must, and turn her attention instead to the collar of her shirt, the turning back of loose linen to reveal the familiar sparkle of a dozen jumbled necklaces. An old habit, long abandoned and recently resumed.

"It seemed to me I have so many of these - each for its reason, mn? But I never give. So." A thin band of fine silver, a hint of pale colour; she's already let the hair fall so that the others may be curtained away again. "This one ... is the one that I can give. And it is complicated, so - when you understand the words which I speak, I will speak them for you. Yes?"

Oh, smug eyes.

"So. You tell me instead - who are you now, Cinnabar Calomel? Father; landowner. Occasional metalsmith? And what," with a glance at last towards that peculiar satchel, "have you brought?"

[Cinnabar]

Snippets of harsh Dauntless speech, and after each a quiet echo as her guest repeats them, feeling out the sound of them; he has a keen ear for accent, and there's clear enjoyment in his eyes at the act of learning, of understanding. Eyes which blink as he leans back just a touch, a reflex, away from fingers that snap a little too close to bruised flesh.

"And you have many words for those fine public figures, hm?" Grinning, well aware of the direction that language lesson would take, replete with turns of phrase both poetic and vile.

"But you've seen more of the world away from Myrken; that's healthy. Otherwise it's all too easy to think this" A wave of his hand high, over the encircling walls to the country beyond. "is all there is. All things are. Perspective is valuable. And easily lost."

So, with luck she has brought some of that perspective back with her; an understanding of how the world can be, away from Myrken Wood. Something to strive for. In the meantime there is the matter of this gift which he's admiring once more before carefully pinning it to his lapel for want of a hole in his ear, and a nod for her collection of necklaces - memories, meanings, symbols caught on thin chains and cords. He mock-frowns at that half of an explanation, that self-satisfied air, but it's followed by an equally smug grin a moment later.

"We're agreed, then - lessons. An hour a day? No? I'd not wish to impose." Ever so nonchalant, ever so pleased, for all that she's entirely within her rights to refuse. More playful, now that the conversation has moved on from the weightiest matters, and more youthful with it.

"All of those things, yes. Father, husband, those make up the best part of me. The very best, in all ways." Restrained, but only barely; he could wax eloquent on the matter, could fill the swordswoman's ears with giddy accounts of how he is without a doubt the happiest and most fortunate man alive, but once more that enthusiasm is tempered by the memory of an older conversation. Moving on, then.

"Landlord." He shrugs diffidently. "The farm runs itself - or rather, Dominik and the others run it, and are patient when I pester them with questions or insist on trying to help. So I work the forge, for the most part, mending tools and making nails and hinges. It keeps me out of trouble."

And it's as well that she's reminded him of that satchel, and takes quick steps to retrieve it from the bench where he'd left it. There's a touch of the theatrical as he opens it and withdraws an odd-shaped bundle wrapped in heavy paper, tied with rough twine; about a hand's length across in two directions, half that in the third, the parcel has a definite heft to it as he passes it to the swordswoman.

"It's, ah, not as fine as the others." A gesture for his throat, a glance for hers. "But you'll like it, I hope."

[Carnath-Emory]

"Mm. Not so many. Were you to spend your day writing these onto pages and binding them into books, you might break only - two of my library's shelves with their weight. So. You see? Not nearly enough," with a grin that's slightly broadened - because his reflexes are still excellent, and because it's always good to see him backstepped - if only very slightly.

"I have wondered at this; I have had two years to wonder at it," the hand feels reflexively for drink suited to such talk; finds none, and settles back to stillness upon the windowsill. "It was not always Myrken; you know this, mn? It was E'strielle for me - before Myrken; Sefall's assembly before that; it was Thessilane and regions further still, and it was Provincta just three years ago, amongst the Nnurians and their insurgencies. So, m'Ser Calomel - perhaps you look to your own health, mn?" With the edge of grin that's lingered, and some little lift of the brows as well. "I know what you say. And I reckon you have the right of it, but I think this as well: you would have it that the chessboard is as the world, mn? Lords and pawns and castles, all played out upon a little wooden board. And I say that this is so: that a chessboard may be Myrken - but that Myrken may be Provincta, and Provincta may be Trae Kelsa, and Myrken may also be all the world - it is all the same if you've chosen the right eyes with which to see it. Treacheries; deceits. Atrocities," a word with particular weight in this room; her mouth is solemn, accordingly, but the grey eyes are so distant. "Monsters and betrothals and children and - do you see?"

He mightn't. This is a danger which she can accept.

"We have our Dream-Things and our Vraals, and all the chaos and the death which they make. But in Zwell we fought through streets gone bright with flame, and in Orvere we watched the oceans burn; even in splendid Provincta they slaughtered the noble-blood from father to grandchild, cornered the impoverished into tight regions where disease would fester, all to unsettle a city. What they effect is the same; where they are different is in their details. What monstered Provincta - " rots at this very moment forty feet beneath our boots and whispering at the walls " - would die very simply; what menaces Myrken..." Rarely does. She need not speak the words. Has spoken so many already. "But Myrken is not without its fine things as well - you know this," a smile threatens, "Father; Husband. The very best things can be had here as well as they may anywhere, except perhaps that we here have learned their value."

Which is when a swordswoman catches herself making a speech, and promptly stops. The mouth is caught in some tiny, soundless motion; it resolves into a crooked smile - and he saves her with easier things. With Dominik and forges and questions, and even as she's mulling the idea of these he's producing something that she'd not thought to expect at all. Perhaps this slight frown is inevitable. The question in her eyes certainly is. Her hands accept this thing almost gingerly, and with such care that its weight almost startles her into dropping it completely -

"But what..."

Not quite, though. Not at all. And when her fingertips have tugged away the twine, they fold back coarse paper and reveal to the sunlight a thing which catches its warmth and shines. A fierce incandescence, so that for an instant the eyes blink and she sees it only as a silhouette - and now she drops it.

So contrite a moment after, though, when she bends to reclaim it from her lap.

[Cinnabar]

He listens quietly to her account of lands beyond Myrken, of a world not entirely unlike this damned land with all its troubles. For two years he's scarcely looked beyond the walls of his farm, let alone further afield; turning inwards, away from all of that. For longer than that he'd imagined that things elsewhere must somehow be better, an impression strengthened by the shock and dismay of visitors to Myrken Wood. But apparently it's not only Myrken that's troubled.

A moment of tension, then, as she speaks atrocities and monsters and children in the same breath, and again he hears echoes of that fountainside conversation; dismissed in the next moment as a difficulty of language, for surely she'd not mean to say such things to his face. No, he'd misunderstood, and the spark of outrage is quickly quenched. Instead he listens with greater care, as the swordswoman labours with words that are clumsy tools at best. And there's satisfaction as she demonstrates a lesson learned, the skill of looking at a thing and seeing how it mirrors other things - similar, yet different.

"Microcosm." Another word for her list. "Small things mirror much larger things - the chessboard as Myrken, Myrken as the world. Patterns that repeat from small to large. Neighbouring villagers quarrel and come to blows; neighbouring nations feud and go to war." A word that she already understands, as she has demonstrated.

At the gift-giving he can't help but smile a little, as string and wrapping are pulled away; watching expectantly, pleased all over again as the thing is revealed. Wrought iron, worked with more care than skill, and in that moment he can relive the steps that went into it. Heating and hammering the billet into sinuous curves and curlicues, then welding limbs in order that it might stand; an arrow-shaped head with rolling eyes and fanged jaws agape to hold the base of a candle - that had taxed his abilities; finally rows of chiselled chevrons, hinting at a hide of overlapped plates and scales.

A small thing, almost heraldic with its arched spine and brandished claws; echoing the ornate basket hilt of his sword, the ring on his finger, the beast adopted as his own sigil. Something personal, worked by his own hand, replete with meaning.

And, of course, open to other unfortunate associations. There's a reason he'd taken a wire brush to it until iron gleamed like burnished silver, rather than leaving it forge-black. Even with that understanding he can't help a flash of dismay as the candlestick is dropped, a half-step forward in case he must save it from clattering noisily across the flagstones. Unnecessary, as it happens, and instead there's only an awkward quiet while he awaits her reaction.

[Carnath-Emory]

"Micro-cosm." Another word for her list. One which was quietly savoured; repeated so slowly, that she might learn the taste of its texture. And the woman was quiet for a time as he described it to her. Small is large; Myrken is the world is pieces upon a playing-board. Children are children and heartbreak is heartbreak, and there's an instant in which she means to speak on Ashfiends and their endless grieving; what emerges instead is: "It was not the world that I learned. It was that Myrken's madness - " its damnation, if you please " - is in its details. What I learned was that my pl - " And that was where the words ceased as abruptly as if he'd choked them from her. Several moments were lost to lips that soundless shaped the beginnings of words, rejecting one after another until she was lifting a forefinger to forestall it all.

"No. No. I do not know how to say this things. I do not know if I want to say these at all."

But within moments there was a gift in her hands, and within heartbeats she'd very nearly dropped it in a instant's uncharacteristic shock. Nearly had the thing tumbling to the floor, exactly as he'd feared - but no; there is a hand slid so very quickly beneath its strange surfaces, and something like apology runs fleetingly through her features. He may watch this now, this young once-Governor: how a woman who'd minutes ago turned a word about in her thoughts does the very same thing with the gift he's put into her hands: it is turned so slowly between her hands, nestled carefully against her knees that her fingertips might examine the texture of finely-etched chevrons. She is slow at this examination, tactile creature which she is - and when words come they are spoken so softly, not quite distant enough to be an afterthought at all.

"Arutheddau," she's breathed; a thing of soft subtleties which she shapes with the ease of long practice. "There is no Common word for this; it is for a thing which is - both wonderful and fearful; dangerous and fine. And it is those chevrons against which her fingertips have lingered, tracing over and again with the memory of firelit forges and a tumble of sparks, so that when these grey eyes lift to his again it is clear that she knows. "Silver," she's whispered to this pale-haired creature - and it's something like laughter now, as she rouses from her seat with this gift between her hands.

"Come. This must have its place immediately. And you, ser, must be patient, for I do not yet walk very well at all. Still." Something like a grin caught up in her eyes. "Shortcuts." And she is to the door.

[Cinnabar]

What she learned... so close to being said, but held back rather than spoken poorly. To which he can only nod, accepting that reluctance.

"Another time, maybe. When you have the words." Or the will.

Meanwhile there's the matter of that gift, wonderful and fearful, and there's plain relief in his features as she holds it, examines it, rather than casting it aside as he'd briefly feared. He'd made a similar examination during its crafting, fingertips searching for rough edges and sharp burrs that might catch the skin, taking a file to them until it was as satisfying to hold as to look upon.

"It's not a Dauntless word. The sound of it." Softer, more musical; lacking the coughing, buzzing harshness that leaps from throat to teeth. The second time she's spoken it to him, only this time explained, and her assertion that there is no equivalent for it in Common has him immediately searching for one. Awe, perhaps, is the sense such a word invokes. But to describe a thing? Awe-inspiring. Awesome. Awful. But even then it's a word for something great, something majestic and terrible rather than that which can be held in one's hand.

Silver, she murmurs, and on an impulse he offers a small bow, palms spread; acknowledgement. A brief thing, though, a tiny piece of whimsy, and he's stepping back a little to give her room to stand.

"It's made to be held - here, you see? By the tail." Pointing out a loop in the metal, at first glance only ornamental, but held thus it suddenly becomes a handle; balanced, fitted to palm and curled fingers such that it might be carried safely from place to place, wings flared to shield the hand from molten drops of wax. That demonstration made, not without a good bit of pride in the thing's cleverness, he falls into unhurried step after the swordswoman, hands folding neatly behind his back.

"Lead on."

[Carnath-Emory]

"It's not a Dauntless word," she confirms - at some point during their small trek through these halls; small, because this mention of shortcuts was no empty promise, although these are of the mundane sort. Narrow doors lead to narrow passageways, alcoves become corridors, and all of it very simple; there are no pressure-points involved, no hidden entryways at all. Such things exist, but exist privately, so that even the new Governor doesn't know all of them. Not quite all. There have been many opportunities for conversation, for her limp is sometimes pronounced and so their progress is a little slower than it ought to be. But this is the first that she's thought to fill with words: between one doorway and another, the narrow body leaned briefly against a wall until the burn at its ankle has receded. "'r Chylaud. Several of our household speak this way. I learn a little." As if butchering one language weren't quite enough to satisfy her. "Some of their words are very good; I keep these." And some are simply precious - but to detail further would be to give way to sentimentality, and she cannot. Cannot begin to do that at all.

A downwards glance, instead; her eyes lift with something like wry apology. "Do you know - I think if I'd known he meant to set us afire, I would have just killed him." It's laughter edged with disgust, and with a shake of the head she's stirring herself back into motion again. But he might note this: that in time she's come to hold this gift as if it were a lantern: not gingerly and not quite with caution, but as if a candle were already set into place and shedding fine light. In some way she must surely find the sight strange: the silvery coil of that dragon's tale wound about the wrist of a woman whose room houses trophies...

This room, as it happens: Calomel might recognise the door at which they've arrived. "At first I thought it should be the Vault. To guard what is kept there behind Ellspeth's seals, mn? But this..." the edge of her thumb stroked lightly across its scales. "It is not right that it should be locked away. It should not be left to get - dust, and old. So." And he remembers this interior or he does not; years, after all. A room of modest breadth and sparse decoration except that its few surfaces are covered with old keepsakes set into careful and deliberate arrangements. Above the windowsill hangs a single, crystal bird; the now-and-then breeze sends it into occasional motion, and its every spin darts splashes of colour across the room's walls. That's where she's headed, with this gift in hand; Calomel needn't actually follow although she's hardly barred the door to him.

"It has me think of a thing. Should I be - absent for a time," and perhaps this is not the word she wishes to use. "May I ask a thing of you? That you see to it this room is sealed? I have no concern for that Vault; Ellspeth's seals cannot be breached. But here, too, there are things which should not be touched by careless hands."

[Cinnabar]

Hidden passages, not so much secret as discreet; ways that servants might make their way to where they're needed without filling the grander hallways with their bustle. Paths that a visitor in haste might miss, but which a resident would know well. Other purposes too, matters of a more martial bent; how intruders might make their way down the great corridors, only to be surprised, ambushed, outflanked by those more intimately familiar with these subtler routes; how choke points might allow some small number to keep a much larger force at bay; how an invasion might become a slaughter, a rout.

Not only a palace, but a fortress.

Her guest is patient enough with the slow pace, the pauses and rests, taking the opportunity to admire this feature or that; tiled floors, elegant tapestries, tall windows that line a hallway with pools of tinted sunlight and shadow. Admiring, yes, and attentive; she rests rather than risk stumbling, but he keeps close enough to offer aid if she should request it.

Of course she doesn't; the weapon has her pride, after all.

On the matter of the assassin's use of fire his grin offers commiseration, for all that such wounds are unknowable to him. He'd made his own investigations, and found it to hold true for as hot as one could get the coals of a blacksmith's forge.

At last, their destination, and it has been years since he was here; he lingers just inside the door, enough that he can take in the trove of memories that fills the place. His gaze moves for the spot where he'd last seen a pair of boots that gleamed like black oil, but for a moment only.

"Mm. The vault'd be a poor place for it." More rustic than artistic, more quaint than strictly beautiful, and yet there is a pleasant solidity to it when held. "It's made to be used - wherever you need a little light, hm? Though I didn't think to bring candles to go with it."

Her request gives him pause, however, and garners her a searching look; still, he nods solemnly a moment later, looking to the door, to the frame, running fingertips over sturdy wood.

"I can make nails well enough. They'd do the job. I mean, I could probably manage something stronger, but I assume you'd want to get back in on your return?" A grin to accompany those words, but only half-joking. Perhaps there are memories that would be better sealed away for good.

[Carnath-Emory]

Quincy's notion, these; her sister determined that the structure must be cunning. Narrow passages; round-about corridors; the way in which an intruder might be tempted towards two different approaches while an ambush awaited at a third. To which a swordswoman had insisted upon only three points: that they must expect to be outnumbered; that they must anticipate overpowering weapons; that the structure must be riddled with escape routes. Darkenhold is not aggressive. But it is very much their response to an environment which is.

"Very poor," she's agreeing meantime, this swordswoman who's limped half the way here and very gratefully seats herself upon her room's windowsill. "I like the look of it, the... idea of it, you know? The fearsome dragon, guardian of a gate to things most foul," and it's a small, sudden grin shot his way at that. "It is a good picture. But that is all that it is. This - is a gift. We do not shut it away like that. My desk," with a nod of her chin towards it, there by the door: long and well-used, and surely the most cheerful point in all the room, adorned as it is with so many glass ink-bottles, each with its own vivid colour. "The second drawer; candles and a tinderbox. Would you?"

As she shifts upon this perch, legs dangling, and makes some small indecision about where the dragon should be placed. Here, where it may best catch the light - but interferes with the clarity of a bird's crystal flight. Or here, where the sunlight is less distinct, so that it will catch in the edges of tiny scales like living, golden sparks, and sheer russet drapes may tease at it slightly in the breeze...

"Nails," she's nodding - almost absently. "Or you might just fasten the locks. None would seek this out," this room, its motley contents, "and what is dangerous is sealed. But there are some useful things which I would not lend to clumsy hands or unkind intentions."

[Cinnabar]

"Oh, locks." How terribly pedestrian. A glance behind him confirms that the door does indeed have them. He'd imagined that for whatever reason she might not consider them sufficient; what's asked for is more a matter of reassurance. Peace of mind, maybe. A favour easily granted, a promise readily made. "Certainly so. Though I hope there'll be no need for it, at least not for a while?"

On the matter of the candlestick, meanwhile, things are less simple. Layered. When a thing is too great, too terrible to be viewed directly it must instead be veiled, wrapped in shrouds that allow one to look upon the shape of it without being overwhelmed.

Arutheddau.

"It's a fine picture, but perhaps suited to a different beast." He steps over to the desk, as directed, a moment taken to regard the inks, the signs of diligent wear on the desk's surface, weighing this against what he knows of the woman who finds writing to be an ordeal. Unexpected, but pleasing.

"What a dragon protects it often claims." A toothy grin, glancing sidelong as he searches the drawer for a candle and the means to light it. "Jealous creatures. Famously bad at sharing."

There, a cylinder of wax and a little tin box, and he's bringing both across the room for the sake of her still-healing legs; her indecision is noted as she seeks a home for this new possession, somewhere appropriate.

"This one, I think," A nod for the candlestick. "cares less than most for guarding gates or claiming hoards. He carries fire instead. Illumination." The candle and tinderbox are held out in one hand for the swordswoman to take. A casual gesture, betrayed by a too-steady gaze.

"Light in a dark time; warmth in a cold world."

[Carnath-Emory]

"I told you this, Cinnabar." Some sidelong glance, to-and-fro between her friend and her doorframe. "I do not know what will come of these things. But," some tiniest quirk of a smile, "I cannot imagine what cataclysm you might not survive. So it falls to you, mn? This burdensome responsibilities," and the woman is laughing as she turns her attention back to this curious gift. She'd known, of course - once her initial shock had passed. Had known very well what he'd given to her, had understood very clearly that this was no simple gift; how many hours had they spent over chessboards and colours and symbols? And hadn't that been his very first gift to her, a playing-piece which straddled the lines between simplistic blacks and whites? No; now as then, this thing had meaning hidden behind the blaze of its scales.

When a thing is too large, too broad in scope to be directly viewed, it must be circled; it must be approached from one angle and then another, piecemeal, until a hundred different perspectives can be knit into some understanding of the whole.

"And what it claims, it Hoardes," she's adding at some point - with another glance back towards the man. "I know this; it is written in not one but three of the books on our library shelves, and another from the Mudd." So authoritative! Perhaps she's joking. Given the quality of her humour and the habits of her features, it's really not easy to tell. "So - ser Dragon," she's addressed this pretty piece, "it cannot be the Vault for you. What it holds are dangerous - particularly for your sort. But they are also mine." Oh, this glance; 'jealous', he'd said, and has a mirror of it here -

No. She's almost certainly joking.

But look at how the moment changes; how gently it quietens, and the quality of her eyes likewise until they've become a gentler watch of him. She will busy herself for a time now with candle and tinder - it's as well that the man is patient - but as she heats the candle's base, wax softening: "I was never certain before - about you and the Governorship. You did well with it, mn? Better than any the others might have. But was it kind to you? Did it suit you? Mm. Think on that." As if he hadn't already. "Cinnabar Calomel, and all his... extraordinary capacities, trapped in a room with a desk. Do you see?"

Tiny droplets of wax to fill the space where the candle will sit, and her words will pause now - a teacher's habit if he wishes his student to ponder, but in fact she's just trying to not burn herself. And see? Around flips the candle at just the right moment, secured into its place and held there to dry; now she can look back towards him.

"Light in a dark time; a torch for narrow corridors, so that we do not - stumble, mn?" The eyes consider this; clearly assess; this is something like a smile. "Mm. I remember... Cinnabar Calomel, searching for the means to provide service to all the things for which he cared. Government was the obvious choice - but was it only, I wonder, because of government's prominence?" Government's flaws, too; the eyes concede this.