Kiyoka, Douaga and beyond

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Alberich
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Re: Kiyoka, Douaga and beyond

Post by Alberich »

The only "direction" it sounded like to Anfisa's glands was the direction of "I'm going to put the blame on you when I throw you over for Therese." She'd been a girl before she'd been a getera, and while she might be weak in wiles, she'd seen a few things. Far too few, the way love was constrained in Goriel. But when new lovers started they couldn't get enough of each other for a while - days, weeks - if they were really lovers. In the zenana they'd had to keep away by day, to keep the secret from Irina, but it was supposed to be different now they were away. But there was a proverb along the lines of -- "After three days, men grow tired of a guest, a wench, and weather rainy." [OOC: Poor Rostik's Almanack?] If Desiree was tired of her after only three days or however many (she wasn't very good at counting - okay, that's not true, she could count to fifty all at once if the situation demanded it, though she had mnemonics to help)...was she then just a "wench" to her?

Desiree hadn't misremembered how things were, at least not between the geteroi themselves. Irina had enforced an ethic of mutual support in the Duravsky zenana, which extended to sojourners like Valentina and Desiree. When Dina and Valentina had overheard what Anfisa and Desiree were doing together, they'd come to the decision to keep it from Irina herself.

They'd also kept a wall of solidarity against the wives and other women who resented them - which in public had meant respectful silence but in private and hushed tones could be far less kind. Though doubtless not half so unkind as what the wives must have been saying about them.* In fact, that kind of cutting commiseration was what Anfisa had been trying to do when she talked about Tim - though she couldn't articulate it this way; like most of her life thus far, it had simply been the way things were done.

"We didn't treat that...priest like a sister," she said, at least managing to edit out the adjective. "He's not even a girl even if he...." -- she changed tracks in midsentence -- "When Tatiana came back and you'd left she told us how he came out of his bedroom buck naked acting scared to death of his own getera. And she was talking like he'd been a stud stallion all night. We had a laugh! She'd've said that even if he did nothing but pray to his stupid god" -- she thought that one was safe; Desiree hadn't come out with how Luminosita was her best friend too! -- "and play with himself all night.

"But anyway, I can be nice to him, if he comes back from saving this Eli and all" -- though I'll be just as happy if Eli himself stays away after being saved -- "maybe teach him something he needs to know..."

"And you haven't tried to be friends with the others. I can't be with you all the time - I'm sorry, I just can't. I'm not trying to get rid of you, but I need some time with other people and it's like I have to be here to take care of you all the time. Emotionally, I mean."

"Well, they haven't tried to be friends with me either, and it's like they all know each other and all the same people and like each other and I'm the odd one out. When you showed up we didn't treat you like that, did we? That priest is about the only one who even talked to me for half a moment, and he's gone," and all you have to do is not break my heart. "And anyway, what are we doing with these people now? Looking for another priest or something? Knocking on doors and asking 'Have you seen this priest?' or what? Everyone else knows all about it. Tell me too?"

___________________
* The girls had also talked discreetly among themselves about the foibles of the menfolk under their various concealing nicknames, with less respect than the men felt entitled to outside, but Desiree hadn't heard any real nastiness in that. Ah, but then, Desiree hadn't been there when anyone drew a night with Iokim -- in fact, did she but know it, she'd just missed that honor herself.
Last edited by Alberich on December 2nd, 2012, 8:44 pm, edited 8 times in total.
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Re: Kiyoka, Douaga and beyond

Post by Graybeard »

Meanwhile, Therese (plus a crystal-ball map gadget that she'd found in the first shop she entered) was approaching Sister Rose and Argus. "Was that Tigran, from Clan Vatnikov?" she asked the pair. "Son-in-law of the clan chief, I can't remember his -- oh, wait, you wouldn't know him, you weren't there. Decent enough man, just very much out of his element here. And what's this?"

She took the message from Argus and began to read, and she couldn't have gotten more than three sentences into it before Rose realized, from the look on her face, that this would be a good time to have an Empathy spell up, given Therese's capacity for masking even strong emotions. Another sentence or so, however, made it equally clear that no such spell would be necessary.

Therese gasped in horror as she read. The horror turned rapidly to grief, as most atypical tears started down her cheeks. She made an obvious attempt to compose herself as she continued, but she wasn't fooling anybody as more emotions marched across her face; anger, denial, desperation, they were all there. The Five Stages of Loss, Rose recognized. She's lost someone dear to her, the poor thing. Time to move into comforting-presence mode.

However, Rose was wrong about that last part. Therese's face moved rapidly to the "acceptance" stage -- and then to something beyond. The red-headed woman was studying the second page of the carefully hand-written letter as though every symbol on the page held a secret meaning. Two or three times she nodded grimly. When she finished, she folded it up with great deliberation and care, and handed it to Rose.

"Here," she said. "You will want to read this too, and sooner than later. Now I understand about your lost priest. We had better get on with finding him ... and we don't have much time."

[OOC: Big Reveal coming later this weekend; it's going to take me some time to write ... and then things are going to start moving rather faster.]
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Drusia
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Re: Kiyoka, Douaga and beyond

Post by Drusia »

OOC: Sorry for the delay - it's finals week here and I'm buried under papers.

Also, my usual baby sitter is sick.

Just wanted to let you guys know.
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Re: Kiyoka, Douaga and beyond

Post by Drannin »

(OOC: I hear ya, Dru. Has some tests, myself)
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Re: Kiyoka, Douaga and beyond

Post by Graybeard »

[OOC: No prob, D; priorities and all that, and it's a busy time for others as well. Let me get this long thing written to set further developments; we're moving inexorably toward the BBEG, and the movement is starting to accelerate. Sorry this is long, but I think a dying old lady can be excused for rambling...]

"Here," said a stoic-looking Therese as she handed Sister Rose the letter. "I think we'd better lay in some cold-weather gear while we're in town..."

Flamme:

By the time you read this, I will be no more. Don't mourn for me. I had a long, interesting life, far more so than a woman born in Albigenish and married into a Goriel clan could ever expect to have.
(Now some things fall into place. She must have been one of the agents who worked for us on the Albigenish Incident, thought Rose. I never knew ... and it's just too bad that I couldn't have arranged a medal for her before she died, although I'm not sure she would have accepted it.) Now that it is time to go, I am choosing to do it on my own terms, gracefully and without pain. As you could probably guess the last time I saw you, the cancer has spread to my bones. I could still get around, and for short bursts at a time, I could even be as active as I used to be, but I could tell it wasn't going to be that way for very much longer, and then the pain would have started -- Luminosita's Nethers, it has started already, I'm just too damn stubborn to let it stop me, or at least I have been until now. Tell your friend Rose -- I can tell she's one of the good guys, by the way, keep working with her and fight the good fight -- that the "one for pain, two for Luminosita" business applies to us old people as well as to the mortally wounded. I have her colleagues to thank for that. (Yes, I was right, Rose thought.)

Before I go, though, there are some things you need to know about the Underground Railway, and about that other quest you have, the one you think I don't know about. I know you better than that, Flamme. I also know things about your "Convergence" that I've never revealed to you until now. I thought it would be better that way, because you are still hurting so much over the loss of your Melusine. You're absolutely right: they killed her somehow, although I don't know how they did it. Now that you have found a possible new love, as we discussed in our last meeting on this side of the Divide, I think you will have the strength to move on and do what you must. Good for you; if they're as nasty a bunch as I think they are, the Five Great Mothers know somebody needs to take them on.

I'm rambling. Back to the Railway. I have made sure that my granddaughter knows about it, and how to use it in safety. She has sworn never to reveal that knowledge to her oaf of a father, or any other man in Goriel. Feel compassion for her, Flamme, and know that there are others of her generation who are not as willing to be trampled under the Gorielite male feet as their mothers. Their time is coming. I just wish I could be here to see it.

I'm rambling again, must be the accursed pain medicine. Back to the Railway. When I told Zlata that she, not I, would be dealing with you from now on, she surprised me with something. It turns out that she has taken some trips on the system herself. I would hardly have expected otherwise -- she has always been an adventurous child -- but I was not expecting it when she told me where she has gone. The railway is a great deal more extensive than you and I ever suspected. She says there are terminals all over the Confederacy, and some in the islands of Tsuiraku, and even one or two in the Southern Continent. (It never reached Veracia or Farrel, for some reason. Wonder why that was? Was there something there that the dwarves didn't want any part of?)
(The elves, thought Rose. Events would also prove the letter wrong about the network not reaching Farrel, although the dying old woman would never know that.) Many of the distant ones, she says, are in ruins, in no condition for anyone to use, let alone get out of and go exploring, although that didn't seem to stop her. The stories she told me of the islands of Tsuiraku... Not many sixteen-year-olds have experiences like that.

The most important thing, though, is that there is also a terminal in the Far North, so far up in the frozen wastes that no sane man would ever go there -- although, obviously, the dwarves did. And so, if my guess is correct, have your foes, the Convergence. Fortunately, Zlata's teenaged explorations never took her up there for more than a minute to pop her head out and see the surroundings; she says she doesn't like the cold. Thank the Mothers for that, because the men behind the Convergence would surely have killed her if she'd been seen ... as they did Melusine. (Sorry.) Anyway, she will help you and the Sisterhood to the limits of her abilities, which are considerable. Please protect this knowledge, and her, as you did me -- but I don't need to tell you that, do I?

And now we get to the other part, which I think you and your new friends must know.

I couldn't possibly let my uppity granddaughter think that Grandma was scared to do as she has done, so I started to check out that northern connection myself. However, to my complete astonishment, there was other traffic on the railway. There were five men in the car that I saw, maybe more but that was all I could make out, as the lighting was poor. I think one of them was wearing the robes of your friend Rose's church, robes that I saw back in my old adventurous days -- "old," Luminosita's Nethers, some of them were as "new" as ten years ago, Rose might be able to tell you about some of that, although she'd be guessing (correctly). And it didn't look like he was traveling voluntarily. I heard his voice, in groggy, slurred Veracian, cursing them, saying "Luminosita will curse your misdeeds, heathens," that kind of thing, until one of the others flashed some magic and the car got quiet again. Fortunately, they weren't looking outside the car; I think they must have figured that nobody else in the world knew about the dwarven system. Well, they are almost right ... They also said something about "The Redoubt," but then the car left the terminal and I didn't follow, of course. I assume you will know what they mean by that name; I don't.

It is getting time to go. I don't want them to go back over that terminal and find out that I was there. Between what you said, and what you thought -- bet you didn't know I had that magical skill, did you? -- I am pretty sure that those people are connected to your Convergence, and also, that they are evildoers on a level that those buffoons in Goriel, or even Albigenish, could never approach. Accept this knowledge as my parting present to you -- as a thank-you for the many gifts you gave me, notably the opportunity to have an interesting life in my final years. I never expected that before your Sisterhood (i.e., you) came into my life, and for it I am profoundly grateful, as I cross the Divide to begin my eternal set of adventures.

Go in peace for now, with my best wishes for your new love life. When you are ready, talk to Zlata about the way north, and then go and kick some Convergence ass. I have left some other information with her that will help you. Karel, the Rosteriel man who gave you this message, knows nothing of all this -- how could we share it with a man of our country? -- but he is a good man and will help you as well, to the best of his limited abilities.

One last thing, then I have some medicine to take. Tell your friend Rose "Semper Fi" for me. She'll know what it means. For you, happiness until we meet once more, for a final, eternal time.

(s) Malgorzata Vatnikov
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Drusia
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Re: Kiyoka, Douaga and beyond

Post by Drusia »

"Well, they haven't tried to be friends with me either, and it's like they all know each other and all the same people and like each other and I'm the odd one out. When you showed up we didn't treat you like that, did we? That priest is about the only one who even talked to me for half a moment, and he's gone, And anyway, what are we doing with these people now? Looking for another priest or something? Knocking on doors and asking 'Have you seen this priest?' or what? Everyone else knows all about it. Tell me too?"

I sigh. She makes a good point about that one. No one has tried to be her friend.

"Actually, I'm not sure where we're going next either," I reply. "I'm supposed to be 'seeing the world' so it doesn't really matter to me most of the time what the mission is."

I shake my head.

"As for the others, you're right, they haven't made much of an effort," I tell her. "But you haven't made one either. I think maybe they see you with me and don't want to interupt us or something. But, if you haven't realized it yet, you should know - Rose is really nice. I think you'd get along well with her if you took some time to speak with her. And Therese too. She goes around to the minor clans and helps women who want to leave to run away. She's helped lots of other women like you." I thought Anfisa already knew that, but maybe not - those were pretty hectic days.

I sit down - in a chair. "As for Tim... I'm sorry about that," I tell her. "You're right, I was mean to him too. I'm just feeling sensitive right now. The whole thing with Eli has me upset, and Tim... as much of a jerk as he is, he is risking his life to try to bring Eli back to us. And when you said you hoped he'd die - that Eli would kill him - I just..." I shake my head.

"I know that isn't how you meant it," I continue. "You just don't want him to bother me anymore. You didn't know the details. But when you said what you said, that's what I heard. And, while I wouldn't mind slapping Tim until his brain resets, I don't want him to die. And I really don't want Eli to kill anyone else."

-- Desiree
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Re: Kiyoka, Douaga and beyond

Post by Graybeard »

Sister Rose handed the letter to Argus. "This doesn't look good. Coincidence, that she saw what looked like the abduction of a Veracian priest right after we got word about Brother Dalton? I don't think so, even with it being half a world away. There just aren't that many of us in places so extreme."

They headed back to the inn, the side trip to the vineyard off the table for the moment. (I still want to take him there before we leave town, she thought, but first things first.) Shortly afterward, they were knocking on Desiree's and Anfisa's room's door. "Bad news," she said when it opened. "Our trip south just got a bit more urgent. And if Tim isn't back by the time our airship leaves in the morning -- well, we're just going to have to go without him."
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Re: Kiyoka, Douaga and beyond

Post by Alberich »

"And, while I wouldn't mind slapping Tim until his brain resets, I don't want him to die. And I really don't want Eli to kill anyone else."

"Neither do I," said Anfisa simply. She felt the tension was down and she wasn't being rejected anymore, at least not right this moment she wasn't. Sitting as she was, she offered both her hands to the half-elf. "So should we go find Rose and get some answers about what we're doing? Or just wait for her?"

According to how Desiree applied pressure to Anfisa's hands, she could raise her up from the bed to go out, or end up on it with her, in which case she would be gently cuddled. But before either option had time to go far, there came Rose's knock.

"Bad news. Our trip south just got a bit more urgent. And if Tim isn't back by the time our airship leaves in the morning -- well, we're just going to have to go without him."

Deciding to show her goodwill, Anfisa waved Rose in and invited her to sit. "Can you tell us more about this trip?" she said, demure but friendly. "We're both a little lost on what we're supposed to do." If she could help it, Desiree would end up sitting touching-close to her on the bed while Rose sat somewhere else and laid it all out straight. Oh, and that Therese was there too. Well, if she insisted on coming in too, Anfisa couldn't exactly stop her.
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Re: Kiyoka, Douaga and beyond

Post by Graybeard »

OOC: Actual thread content a bit later, but in the spirit of the season, I will say that when I wrote this:
Graybeard wrote: The man's face brightened. "Ah! This case over here! You must come see!" He took her arm, Therese resisting the urge to throw him over her shoulder and out into the street, and steered her to a display case. "Our most sacred possession, religious vestments from the Dwarves Themselves, imported at great expense from the Southern Continent!"

Therese cast a professional glance at the tattered outfit in the case. Religious vestments, my ass. This is armor. I'm not familiar with the design and origins, and the proportions certainly don't fit any human I've ever met ... but armor is armor. Might as well humor him for the moment, though. She gestured at a belt crossing the misshapen chest, culminating in what could only be a holster for a sidearm. "And this is a -- holder for a holy water dispenser, I reckon?"

Delight spread across the man's face. "Thank you, sister! We've wondered about the function of that holy device ever since we got these vestments, but now it's obvious, you nailed it! I would love to talk to you some more, when I'm done helping your colleagues." Without waiting for a reply, he bustled over to where Desiree and Anfisa were examining one of the other Dwarven Artifacts on display. [OOC: Over to you what this artifact is, and what happens from here...]
... I did not intend this.

However, if I had known about it, I would have. Holy water dispenser, indeed!
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Re: Kiyoka, Douaga and beyond

Post by Drannin »

Graybeard wrote:OOC: Actual thread content a bit later, but in the spirit of the season, I will say that when I wrote this:
Graybeard wrote: The man's face brightened. "Ah! This case over here! You must come see!" He took her arm, Therese resisting the urge to throw him over her shoulder and out into the street, and steered her to a display case. "Our most sacred possession, religious vestments from the Dwarves Themselves, imported at great expense from the Southern Continent!"

Therese cast a professional glance at the tattered outfit in the case. Religious vestments, my ass. This is armor. I'm not familiar with the design and origins, and the proportions certainly don't fit any human I've ever met ... but armor is armor. Might as well humor him for the moment, though. She gestured at a belt crossing the misshapen chest, culminating in what could only be a holster for a sidearm. "And this is a -- holder for a holy water dispenser, I reckon?"

Delight spread across the man's face. "Thank you, sister! We've wondered about the function of that holy device ever since we got these vestments, but now it's obvious, you nailed it! I would love to talk to you some more, when I'm done helping your colleagues." Without waiting for a reply, he bustled over to where Desiree and Anfisa were examining one of the other Dwarven Artifacts on display. [OOC: Over to you what this artifact is, and what happens from here...]
... I did not intend this.

However, if I had known about it, I would have. Holy water dispenser, indeed!
Now I know what to get my father for Christmas!
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