The River flows to Darkenhold

[BetaFlame]

Aleksei was many things. Scholar and Knight. Scientist and Mage. But what defined him, that one quality that made him singularly Aleksei was his innate curiosity. That quality had finally spilled over. He had heard many, many things about Darkenhold and its lady, Ariane. Most of them conjecture and rumor. But this woman was linked to the two people in Myrken he had found himself constantly working with, and one he had now married. That is how he found himself here. Outside the gates.

He had considered sending a letter. He might not even been seen, just showing up like he was. But he felt this was more interesting. Surely the woman that had taught Glenn and Agnie was adaptable. But no, he felt this was better. If she kept abreast of things going on in Myrken, his name would have come up at some point. He had built wooden cranes to move large rocks after the earthquake caused by Catch. He had moved the statue from the bottom of the lake using chains, horses, and another crane. He was odd, but he was generous. He gave away huge amounts of building material to people after the earthquake. He helped with little problems here and there, offering advise and knowledge and asking nothing in exchange. He was known, now. He worked for Glenn, so surely he could be trusted by the people? Some thought yes, some thought no.

So he found himself in Darkenhold. His sword had been placed on the racks without question, even the runed staff left behind. He was a guest, and he would not argue their rules and traditions.

He found himself a little unsure now, standing here in the middle of it all. Should he do this, was this question? Perhaps he should visit the library, nose about and observe and leave. But no, he had walked this distance for a reason. So he moves to one of the more official looking sorts. A guard with slight decoration perhaps. Or a servant with more livery. Something that makes the person stand out.

"Excuse me. If, and pardon if I get the title incorrect?, If the Lady Ariane is here, perhaps you could ask her if she has time to meet with Aleksei River?" He would offer the same warm smile he gives to everyone. If he was rejected, it would not matter of course. Aleksei is not the sort to take offense to that sort of thing.

[Carnath-Emory]

If Aleksei River is a man of curiosity, then it can be no surprise that he's found so warm a welcome here.

It doesn't hurt, of course, that his timing is exemplary. To visit these walls a week ago would have been to find them much changed; to visit two months ago was to be confronted with edged weapons and hard eyes, and the sorts of questions that grow swiftly difficult even when one's answers are so innocuous. But these are different days - certainly improved - and the household has discarded such extremes as largely unnecessary. Aleksei River is greeted with a smile or two; with a curious up-and-down, and proves so obliging in turn that they are already ushering him towards the stronghold's tall doors. A title? Really? No, but they've waved aside his concern with a hand, with easy laughter; title doesn't much matter unless he has one of his own to share.

Oh, and does he? This fellow with the tall collar and beaten-bronze accoutrements would like to know, will linger 'til he has an answer and take it with him when he leaves. Ser River - what a name! - will perhaps have himself to one of the foyer's several benches as he waits, and might he like some tea? Perhaps a glass of wine? Of late Darkenhold is not always able to welcome visitors, but when this becomes possible it is glad to set them at ease. So that Aleksei is welcome to a his drinks and a comfortable seat, welcome to turn his eye towards one of the tall windows - and there are so many of these - to survey the gardens: they are less a matter of hardy winter flowers than of scattered trees, narrow pavements, well-manicured stretches of rich, dark grass and if he turns his head just so, a hint of delicately fountaining water -

"Welcome."

The adjacent doorway has produced a swordswoman: some tall, lean thing likely noteworthy for that it lacks any such sword at all. Bootsoles are soft upon polished tile; her approach somehow skirts the floor's complex mosaics, more a matter of old habits than of any conscious design.

"Aleksei River. To what end do you petition?"

And this is no confrontation, this is nothing like hostility. But simply this: that a man had come here for curiosity's sake, only to encounter some of the same in kind.

[BetaFlame]

He is very pleased that he is not met with swords. That was the sort of thing one got used to living in this area. He declined the offer of tea or wine, asking for only water. It was a personality quirk. All he drank was water, unless he was ill then he took an herbal tea. He was an easy guest, content to wait on a bench and sip his water while he made notes on some of the designs here and there in the building. He was forever the student, and a fair hand at drawing. He found the architecture fascinating, and made detailed drawings of some of the things he saw, including notes in the language of his homeland. As good as having his own personal code, that.

The idea they were amused by his name curled a faint smile at his lips. He could explain how one is named where he is from. Knights are named for the natural thing their personality is most like. Aleksei was the River. Meandering, able to shift from calm and sedate to wild and raging. Given enough time, he could split even the mightiest mountain. But he just took it in stride. After all, the names here had been equally foreign to his ears. He was friendly, and found this place more suited to his personality than perhaps Myrkentown. But that had become his home, and would do what he had to for it.

When the lady of the estate would approach, she would find him seated, scribbling in his book. Her voice made him look up, and he closed the text, offering her the truly warm smile he had. No deception, no hidden games. He stands smoothly and bows his head in respect as she greets him.

"You must be Ariane Emory? Agnie and Glenn had mentioned you, but never described you." He tilts his head, pale blue eyes fixed on her and his nearly white hair falling to one side. Not the white of age, but the white that could be call platinum. "I.. did not come here for any particular purpose, I suppose. Your name keeps coming up when I am working on any number of projects. I find my fate is linked to Glenn Burnie and Agnieszka.. Kaczmarek. They mention you from time to time. I met a strange man named Altias Bromn, and Glenn implied you were linked to him. I just wanted to meet you, so I can put a person to the legend. To understand." Again, that open smile. Truly, it was frustrating to keep having a name mentioned over and over again and have nothing to place with the name. Would she notice the faint hesitation before he used Agnie's last name? "I keep feeling like a blind man someone is trying to describe the color blue, too."

The smile turns a little more amused and he gives a little shrug, only faintly perceived in that large cloak and mantle combination he wears. "Though, all that must make me sound a little.. eccentric."

[Carnath-Emory]

Oh, the things they might have told her of Aleksei River. Philanthropist. Husband. Engineer. That 'River' is as much a descriptor as a name. If they'd known the half of it. If they'd thought the rest of it relevant. And it is a comment on Darkenhold's unlikely focuses and Ariane's predilections that of all these things, what they tell her before she meets this man is that he's been sketching.

This is surely the first time that a swordswoman's eyes have bypassed a man's weapons in favour of his book.

"I am." The doorway frames a narrowly-made thing, all loose linens, colourless eyes, dark hair grown entirely too long. Despite what they might have told the man there is no weapon sheathed at her hip, no hostility grown immediate in her eyes, but simply a half-step forward: the beginnings of an approach, and one aborted abruptly when he speaks - when he continues to speak, and what might she have expected from this absolute stranger?

Anything but those words.

'Eccentric', he says. With that self-effacing little smile. Eccentric, but perhaps he imagines he's found his match here, for he's left the woman so completely taken aback that for a real and lasting moment she is a living, motionless silence. She is eyes which watch: eyes with their almost-frown, tilting between face and sketchbook and then towards the windows at his back; she is a breath of sound that's hardly a sound at all, and - no. Shakes it off then, physically shrugs it away with an impatient shift of the shoulder.

"I - "

This is patently ridiculous.

"Come. We'll walk a moment. My preference would be the gardens but - we're inches from winter, mn? This weather will not hold." With a tilt of her chin towards the tall windows through which pale sunlight streams even now, but what pale skies stretch overheard, what fragile spans of cloud. And here is a hand which beckons Aleksei to follow, for she's already turning back towards a broad corridor, all narrow carpeting and torchlight and the everywhere warmth with which this stronghold is always filled. It is so necessary that they put themselves into motion for a little time, just a little. Long enough for her to process what he'd given her: three shocks in quick succession, and a demeanour so disarmingly pleasant that her instinct is to immediately arm herself.

Being what she is, the woman has given him her back instead, clear invitation for a knife between the shoulderblades should he be harbouring that need, and then it will be done with. Another matter settled in haste and steel by a woman whose preference is long conversations over very good wine, as if she weren't by nature made more for the violence Myrken unerringly demands.

[BetaFlame]

He blinks a little and pushes those thin framed glasses up his nose,then gives a slight shrug and follows her. He walks quietly for a moment, hands folded inside his cloak. Really, he wore it more out of habit anymore. He was no longer the Third Knight of Rodel. The cloak was a badge of honor, given to those that became Knights, that took up the burden. But he liked it. It was warm and comfortable. And most of all, it let him fidget with a tiny thread inside the cloak when he was nervous. He felt he has.. offended the woman in someway. Glenn told him he did not have a way with people. As if he needed Glenn to tell him that.

He understand demons and angels better than he does people.

He had really not know what to expect when he met the woman. So far, she had been quiet, leaving him to wonder. So he walks. "Yes, and in Myrken it always feels like there is a storm, doesn't it?" Again, that smile. This one a little rueful. "Perhaps I should apologize. I did not mean to suddenly appear on your doorstep."

His eyes flicker at her as they walk. He had left his weapons, hung up in the racks. It would never occur to him to carry a concealed dagger to bury between her shoulderblades. "I also tend to ramble on when I am nervous. I.. am going to be quiet." Another glance and he just shakes his head, letting his eyes admire the workmanship of the building. Those blue eyes scan and take in all in with the slightly wide wonder of a man seeing a new type of craftsmanship.

But he has an awareness. His feet never falter, and he matches her stride almost perfectly. He's been at court in his life, part of it is ingrained into his being. You walk at the pace set by your host.

This time, he left it for her to open the conversation. He might not be the best at social functions, but he could tell there was something on her mind.. something she expected. He seemed to have surprised her.

[Carnath-Emory]

There is no manner in which he has not surprised her.

They offer the man a weapons rack; he stows not only his sword but the staff as well. They seat him in the foyer; he produces a sketchbook. They demure from titles and he discards their use immediately, and having arrived here with a headful of information gleaned from the most dangerous sources imaginable he furnishes her with a smile and all but apologises for having come here at all.

The cloak. The eyeglasses! Her unarmoured back, presented while they passed through a corridor with ample elbow-room and an easy exit. And why not? Agnieszka, he'd said; Glenn Burnie, Bromn. A hundred places that knife could've been hidden, a hundred second-hand reasons to use it.

How unlikely, that he hasn't.

"I think that you should not apologise." And these are the words which break the long silence that had fallen between them as they walked; she had listened to his words, but she had also indeed let him wonder. It seemed only fair. "What you have done is what you meant to do - yes? Arriving here. Very suddenly." It is not an accusation. If he's inclined to judge the words by her expression - this sidelong glance, the tiny motion at her mouth's corner - it might actually have been amusement. "Do you think, were you unwelcome, that those gates would have opened?"

They take a corner, and then another; they passed one closed door and then the next, emerge into a passageway that's more polished wood than stone, its rich texture capturing torchlight in a manner that whispers of the different shapes which warmth can take. The sight of it had not surprised her in those beginning days, when the stronghold's interior first began to acquire some shape, some details. Its designers had such a lasting familiarity with the darkest sorts of oubliettes, with Trae Kelsa's coldest reaches; they have learned very well the ways in which such spirits can be banished.

Nervous, he's said. And what would it be if she could see that habit, this matter of tiny threads? How stunningly familiar the sight would have seemed, but even nervous is enough; just that, and at the last possible moment they take a turn she'd not initially intended. Diverge from the original path in a manner which leads them towards taller ceilings, and of a sudden to twin doors, richly detailed -

"I will tell you a thing, so that you need not have this nervousness." For they pause here, she and this Aleksei, just short of these inviting doors. "People come to us - with one need or another." Petitioners. Hah. "And when they have arrived here they look to me because they think that this is mine." An encompassing sweep of the hand; it takes in walls, ceilings; a stronghold and its unlikely grounds. "This is not precisely so, and what they need for is seldom any thing that I can supply; I am good for a single thing only, and if it's Agnieszka you've listened to then I imagine you know very well what that thing is. Still. We do what we're able to, and all that I mean by this is that - ser River," and it's her turn to very slightly smile, "I do not intend to put you ill at ease, but you see? That your purpose here is unusual; that it has very much surprised me."

And that her first and most powerful instinct was to redirect him; was simply that there were other people so much better suited for this fellow with his glasses, his keen eyes, his sketching. An architect. An engineer. His builder. What conversations those four might have! And how is any of this something that she can actually say? So that instead the woman must conclude with a tiny shift of the shoulder, with a smile that has just slightly broadened - and turning upon one heel, she's setting that shoulder against these doors, for they require some coaxing.

"I think - " a real shove; hinges prove cooperative. " - that this is best for you."

And when the heavy doors part what they reveal is a pervasive gloom, but a little of the corridor's light filters into this space; just enough to tease the eyes with a hint of broad dimensions, distant walls, and - does he recognise this? Surely he cannot mistake it: a breath of polished leather on the air, and the very subtle mustiness of so many books.

"Come. I'll fetch some light."

[BetaFlame]

Sometimes, being who he is he thinks people have forgotten, or abjured entirely, manners. In moments of absent mindedness, he forgets things like sending a letter ahead before he arrives a place. He did it to Agnie once, and now to her teacher. He's even done it to Glenn. He moves with the need of the moment not with a plan. But when you reach a place, you follow their rules. Weapons are put away, if they seem uncomfortable with titles you cease. You adapt to their circumstances. The river didn't always cut a path through the rock. Sometimes, it flows around it.

Her commentary on him be allowed here just brings a smile to his lips. Not the disarming, sort. One that genuinely reaches his eyes, brightening them even more as he turns those orbs toward her. "No, I suppose I very well would have found myself with a much different reception." Probably one that involved arrows. Or fire. His mind follows the twists and turns easily, mapping it out in his head. He knows where he is, where the front door is and how he could get there. He has no doubt that any number of things could happen at any moment, but he doesn't let what might be eat at his person. If someone is always in a state of worry they can never be in a state of wonder. Aleksei likes being in a state of wonder. He likes seeing the world through freash eyes. As if he were still a child. Perhaps that is what makes him open and honest, almost to a fault. Child-like wonder at how everything fits together.

He hears what says says as they stand before the doors, even as his eyes take in the details of it. They flicker between her and the massive carving rapidly. More than hears. He listens. They are not just words, they have meaning and depth. Even as they open the air rushes past him, flicking another grin at his lips. A grin like a boy getting his first toy sword. "Dear lady, I think you do not do yourself enough credit at providing what people seek. If you did not do well, they would not come to you. If even a hint of what I see in my mind's eye is what is here, I could spend my years here." His eyes hold a hint of envy. What he wouldn't give for a collection like this.

"Is is truely so odd that you get a guest that merely wants to meet you, then?" He finds that odd, for some reason. She was a fixture in the history of the place. More than that, she had almost the status of a legend it seemed. "Ser River is far too formal. Aleksei, please."

[Carnath-Emory]

Aleksei River, child-like in his wonder - and what a thing she's given him to wonder at: a swordswoman without a sword, a stronghold whose stern exterior houses a library of such magnitude.

He will better appreciate it when she draws back these heavy drapes: tall windows for tall walls, and the fabric has weight enough that she must tie each of these curtains back with its own glossy tassels. The result is worth its effort: the slow rush of sunlight illuminates tall ceilings and the rich carpets underfoot; allows a leisurely view of shelves and then more shelves, one after the next crowded with a motley collection of dictionaries, diagrams, histories and the occasional outlandish fiction. His eyes will find a scattering of gilded bindings, all a-glitter in the morning sunlight; will find books bound in worn cloth and books the worse for a scorching, and far across the room a series of shorter shelves have been devoted exclusively to scrolls. Has he a head for heights? For available to him are steps which better resemble ladders, wheeled so that one need only roll them from one tall shelf to the next or, if the aspiring reader is one of two very reckless sisters, climb to the very top and push -

"Ariane," she's countered - turning back from one of the windows. In answer to his correction, and to more besides, for: "Neither Dear, nor Lady. Yes?" But this is not entirely hostile; she's returning towards him now, pausing a moment only to adjust the wick of one of the room's small lamps as if there weren't quite light enough yet to suit them. "I wonder - Aleksei." Since he'd insisted; a small nod concedes that. "Are you newly come to Myrken? But I think you must be, if you don't imagine that its people have known desperation enough to look almost anywhere for - "

The words fall away.

'Demons', Dulcie had said. Days ago, like a request.
'Doom', an assassin had said. Weeks ago. A regretful condemnation.

The hand fusses with the lamp; no, already she's shaking the moment aside and straightening, a glance turned sidelong towards the man.

" - some answer to their needs. For any answer." And does he understand what she says so clumsily? For this one, long moment the pale eyes watch this man; really watch, as: "What I mean to say, Aleksei, is that a dying man will accept almost anything that does not hasten that death. I do not provide them with what they seek. That is for - governors, yes? Councils. Detecting constables. I provide when there is nothing else, and what I provide is not even the half of what they actually sought."

Her student. That training room. Each morning without fail.
The way a collision of bodies reveals a thing gone terribly wrong.
The way a scar is not a scar but a thing from which even she recoiled in shock -

Dangerous. A splash of wildfire across her nerves, burning hot and cold and swallowed back like the rest.

"But this is so morbid." The smile is very small; it is a concession and perhaps it is also an apology. "No. Tell me - tell me of Agnieszka."

[BetaFlame]

There is a smile for her, spared as he gazes around. "May I?" Assuming he receives permission for this, he will remove his cloak from his shoulders and lay it over the back of a chair, turning just to take in the entire thing. Oh, Aleksei has a head for heights, be assured. "This is really amazing, Ariane. I did not think this sort of collection existed outside of the larger cities on the mainland." He turns to her now. Ariane is why he is here. To meet the woman so he can understand what goes on with.. well. Mostly with Agnie. She was a link to the person he cared most for. He considers carefully what she says about the Myrken folk, and their need.

Had she never considered that they come to her not for answers.. but for comfort? The comfort of something familiar, or just a moment away from whatever ails them in the rest of the world. Ariane provides what they need, even if the person doesn't know it. She provides solace, and perhaps even peace. And that was something that was hard to find in these lands.

Agnie. Gods, she asked about Agnie. Would she notice the way he smiles at that name? The slight flush of his face? Perhaps the light is just dim enough for her to not notice. Then again, he doesn't credit that as very likely.

He leans against the back of the chair supporting his cloak before he speaks.

"Agnie.. is. She is strong willed, hard headed, stubborn and.." He just laughs then, and shakes his head, the smile filling his face. "And I love her." Is it too much? Who knows. But he came here to learn about the woman before him, so why not share of himself. "She does well here, I think. She is thriving, even. Chairwoman of the Defense Committee under Glenn Burnie as Governor. Kerrak serves with her, and there was another named Renea Sundance. Renea was recently.. removed, however." He glances down at his hands, looking at his warn palms for a moment. Swordsman's hands, not those of a man that spends all his time with books. Being here, in this room reminds him of what he wishes he was, instead of what he is. "She is easily the strongest person I have met here. She holds together and faces down daemons, monsters and people with more skill and more brains than her. She never flinches away and never falters." He looks up at the swordswoman before him, wondering if perhaps he had answered her.

"Actually, she is the reason I decided to come here. She had suggested coming to see you once.. then things happened, and we didn't make it. I wanted to meet the woman that had helped temper her into the woman she is today." He gives a rueful grin at her and shrugs a little, "Then I realized I have no idea what I am really seeking here, but it is still very nice to meet you."

[Carnath-Emory]

This is so morbid.

It is the truth that is the slightest sliver of the truth. It is the edge before the fall. Such books. To look upwards for too long is to imagine the shelves curving over, high above your head; is to picture a tumbling cascade, an avalanche of paper and ink and gilt. And perhaps this is only the function of her own thoughts; morbid, she'd said, a word to stand in the place of all the words that have no place between she and Aleksei at all. It's all due to the Governor, she might have said after all. All due to young Glenn Burnie, tasked by an architect and a teacher to procure the most interesting, the most unusual titles for what had been empty shelves. Because it was a job so well suited to that brilliant young mind; because it was a job which he would relish, and here are the fruits of it, catching the eye of a man who imagines her capable of comforting.

"Our architect will be glad of that," she answers his praise, and this is something like a smile; she is turning aside the moment after to address herself to some adjacent table and its small burden of glasses and decanter. And isn't this a gift for timing? For of a sudden he's said a thing that has her splashing entirely too much into this short glass; has from her a sudden glance across one shoulder, and a mouth that cannot decide whether it wants to smile or smile.

It was, after all, the question she'd asked of Cinnabar Calomel not two weeks ago.
And Aleksei's reply is everything for which she had not quite dared to hope.

For a time she is glad simply to listen; to smother the surprise and the smile with the edge of this glass and sip lightly enough of its contents as he speaks. It is not the words which surprise - Calomel had explained the essentials of Agnieszka's circumstances. It is the texture of with which he speaks them, the quiet, fierce passion with which he infuses one description and then the next, this young stranger who'd claimed to love the girl who was once her student. And who very clearly does.

"Are you good to her?"

That, now. From the midst of a hundred other concerns - that Agnieszka had suggested they visit, that at some point she has been described in the most unfathomable terms - it must be that. Because he has gently quieted a fear without knowing of its existence, so that there is only one question that matters at all.

[BetaFlame]

Are you good to her?

What a question. Truly, Aleksei didn't know how to answer that. Again, his eyes cast down to his hands. Murderer hands. Was he? Was he good to her? He knew he tried, but this was not something that happened where he was from. Not for people like him. He would have been paired for breeding with a woman, and then never would have seen her or the child again.

His hands close and he looks up to meet her eyes, "I try to be. I hope I am." The most honest answer he could give the woman, and that was importent. The honesty and the openness.

He turns again and walks toward one of the shelves, running his fingers over the leather bound volumes gently. His eyes scan the titles as he considers for a few moments. He hoped Agnie was happy with him. He knew that they were complicated. "She and I are so totally different, I am shocked we have not killed each other yet." He turns and smiles at her again and just shakes his head. Agnie had a temper, and Aleksei was the picture of calm serenity. They were chaos and order, clashing at each others bountries and yet without one the other seemed pointless.

After a few more moments to examine the books he walks forward and leans against that chair again and just looks at the woman before him.

"Before I came here, I could have read all the files in the Myrken meetinghouse about you. I could have asked any number of people about you. But I didn't, because I like to draw my own conclusions. So far, I like you. Tell me a little about yourself.. how you met Agnie, perhaps? If I am not being to forward." He hoped that by giving a little of himself up without question or comment, the woman would do the same. But this was a land where those sorts of gifts were not always returned. He could only wait and hope.

[Carnath-Emory]

The woman's natural inclination is towards questioning. And once it very much hadn't been, but this is how a very peculiar death will sometimes change a person; questions had fueled each morning that she and a young student had spent upon swordsmanship and so much else besides; questions had near to deafened an architect's ears, day after night after day, and that he'd endured them for so long is a living testament to his extraordinary sense of patience. Things she'd wanted to know, things she'd burned to understand. This, though, is something other than curiosity. This is the question that you ask to see what a person will do with it.

What Aleksei River does is contemplate.
And the sight of this is infinitely more important than any words he could have spoken at all.

Seating had been arranged in this room with careful thought; she'd sunk into one of those cushioned chairs as Aleksei read wordless things from the spread of his palms, and it affords her an easy view of the man now as he moves amongst the shelves. Let him walk; there is something quietly gratifying in watching the man's slow explorations. "So am I," she's murmuring after a while - when he speaks of shock; when he turns that glance back towards her, so that he is smiling and she very nearly is. "Different is - good, I think. Has she spoken with you of Aeryn?" And already the lift of a hand, a motion to pause, for: "You need not answer that. Only if you wish to, and I speak the name only because Aeryn - was not different. You see?"

Perhaps he does.
If Agnieszka's mentioned a thing or two.

"The files." A crooked press of the lips; another, necessary, sip from that glass. "Of all the things which I might hold against Cinnabar Calomel, that - " And she's waving it away with a motion of the glass, with some thin, dismissive breath of sound. "Six years ago there were no files. Read them later, if you want to. Why not? Worse sorts than you have already had their fill." The tone is not precisely resentful. Perhaps it is only resigned. Although: "Before your meal rather than after, I think."

Because he's Agnieszka's. And because he's been pleasant enough so far. It seems only right to warn him.

"Has she spoken to you of Northern Dauntless? We share a homeland. So I suppose that is where it begins."

[BetaFlame]

Aeryn. The name makes him flinch a little, and he moves to sink into that seat, turning a bit pale. Well, the man was already a bit pale, perhaps it would be better to say he turned a bit green. Could she not know? Not know of Kharnagar? No, more likely was that she knew, but did not know of his involvement. Of what he did. He had helped Agnie kill her former lover, then absorbed the very thing that drove him mad.

He steadies himself, even as the daemon writhes in his mind, as if he own thought woke it. His memories of a massive corrupted Aeryn, swinging the axe and breaking all those around him. Killing and maiming to try and free the monster inside. The moment he broke the chain holding it. The moment Aeryn dropped it. The moment Agnie killed the monster. And the portal that drew Kharngar into his soul. "I know much of that part of her life." Still, it raged and writhed in his head. But shoved to the side. Agnie's words echoed in his head.. "How can you.." Just the faintest hint of a smile. Being a prison was what he was used to, after all. Gaoler and Gaol, Glenn had called him. Now the cell held two.

Her words about the files brought an even larger grin to his lips. "Cinnabar Calomel. Another from the past returned that I need to meet. And my stomach is quite strong. Perhaps I will read then with a nice fish dinner." He gives her a little wink. A joke? The man was very, very odd most of the time. "If I read them at all. I tend to find them tainted by the perceptions of the writer. Almost unless, sometimes." He much prefer ed observation. Sometimes, that was dangerous however. What if she had decided he was here to kill her and struck first, after all.

Perfectly pleasant, still. Even with a being that survived on murder, rape and death raging in his mind. Telling him to strike her down. But feeling it makes him feel.. sick inside. Like he has oil pouring through his veins instead of blood.

"No, she never has. I met her mother once, and I knew where the language they spoke was from. She has mentioned in passing they came to this area from a war, and.. other details of their arrival here." How much did Ariane know? That was the question. Now he had to dance around promises to not speak of things that she had told him in confidence.

But now he just leans forward to hear the start of the tail, eyes eager.

[Carnath-Emory]

What if she had decided he was here to kill her? And she might have - a month ago, a week ago. A different Darkenhold, then. A different swordswoman, too, lame in the arm and in every way on fire. These, now, are simpler moments. Time enough has passed to smooth some of her raw edges, and Aleksei himself is so unwaveringly pleasant, so completely unlike anything she might have associated with the bundle of ferocity that was once her first student...

"Mm. Wrong of me to ask, I think." Regarding Aeryn. And very much the way in which she'd phrased it, and that it was so absolutely the question of a woman absent long enough that her understanding of that boy's madness was second-hand and tainted with impersonal regret. All the same, Aleksei might consider this a tribute to his genial nature: that within less than an hour of introductions, a swordswoman's seldom inclined to apologies has offered him one already. The sudden sickness in his eyes, after all. The quiet distraction in his words when he says the very few things which he must. The hint of old, dark patterns drawn just beneath her skin - and it is only a hint, stirring into motion as the memory seizes him, subsiding back into pallour soon after, and in this moment, in this uneven light, he might never realise that it had happened at all.

Certainly she hardly has.

"Cinnabar Calomel," because she will steer them away from her error immediately, "is certainly worth the meeting. And I think that he might be glad of the conversation. Too long a recluse, that one." And not made for such seclusion, in her opinion - but then her capacity for such judgements is notoriously odd. "Oh, your stomach's your own concern," and was that almost a smile? A little unkind, perhaps; a little wry. "I know one of the writers. But as for the rest? Mm. I have never read these; I have never wanted to. The rumours they told - back then - were worse than what might've found its way into Meetinghouse records, I think. People and their - superstitions. Yes?"

That, as the young man fills some small gaps in her understandings. As he sketches the outline of a thing which she could not have stood to guess at. And when he slightly leans, afterwards, when his features take on a cast of something like anticipation: "But what is this? - No, this is no story, and despite the strangeness of this encounter the swordswoman is almost laughing; has lifted a hand, demuring, and leans a little back in her seat after it. "It is only - mm. Travel North. As far as you can go, and then a little further. Snow as far as the eye can see." This very small smile; this fleeting distance in her eyes. "I am told that the word for our home should have been 'Deprivation'. If you would know a thing of stubborness, picture land grown rocky and hard with misuse and with ice; picture mines that yield coarse stone, trash. Each year is another turn of starving, each year even the finest Houses turn their firstborn into the fields to take their turn at the ploughs -

Imagine that despite this these people stay. Year after year, unless they've the sense of Sera Kaczmarek and her brood," and this time it's a smile for true, small and warm, and for no reason at all except that her respect for Magda Kaczmarek has not once waned. "So that when you say that Agnieszka is strong-willed and hard-headed - well."

Now he knows.
Just the smallest part.

[BetaFlame]

He considers, eyes sparkling a bit. Ah, no story today it seems. "It is never wrong to ask, Ariane. It is only wrong to expect you know the answer, or that you will receive one." He reaches up to scrub his hand back through his locks, pushing them away from eyes so he can see her more clearly. "I helped her kill him. His daemon twisted a corrupted form." His chin lifts a little. Not pride, so much, but she had known Aeryn. Did she know of the twisting of his body and soul at the hand of Kharnagar? He did not know if she did himself. "In doing so, we freed him." There had been no saving the man, of that much Aleksei was certain. Aeryn had chosen to become that monster, to take it all inside himself.

The tale of her homeland makes him nod as he considers. "A hard land, that forges only hard people. My homeland is similar, and different. It is an island with limited resources and space. Farm land long over used. But we - they thrive there." Aleksei was no longer welcome there, no longer Rodellian. He was Myrken now, if he was anything. He leans back, smiling that same bright smile at her, then turns into a grin. "And please, do not take hard headed and stubborn as an insult. Its one of the very things I have so alluring and attractive about her."

He finds all the hushed tones used about the woman strange. Here, she seemed perfectly pleasant, even welcoming. It was almost as if she were reflecting some of his nature back at him. He found all this very odd.

"May I ask.. why did you decide to teach Agnie and Glenn? There had to have been something that drew you toward them in particular. I think, perhaps, that is what I came here to find. And of course, you see if you were really a soul devouring monster." The last bit is said with a twisted smile.