Background noise

[Graybeard]

[OOC: I just can't help doing this, against the hope that Sareth comes back and finds out what I've done to his NPC. We miss you!]

Jasmine Porter clutched at the railing of the tramp steamer. This was the worst seasickness she'd ever had in her life. However, there were some things you just had to endure.

She'd been chasing her daughter for a good week. (And the week before that, and before that, and before that.) The hunt had taken her through half a dozen countries, at least two of which weren't even known to exist. She'd hijacked an airship in the Northern Confederacy (and would be sworn at in Tsuiraku until they figured out that the one that crashed the Tower of Artifex had been commandeered by someone else), "borrowed" an elven travel platform at gunpoint (well ... sort of), sailed the Farrel Sea, masqueraded as a nun in Veracia to infiltrate Delphiniel to check a rumor, skinned and eaten an Anuban swamp beast to prove her mettle to a reluctant source ... all in vain. Now she was somewhere between Kiyoka and the Southern Continent, going after the next rumor.

Damn, do I feel lousy, she thought. She'd been at sea often enough to have good sea legs, and the water wasn't too rough here. Why was she having so much trouble with the boat?

Surely it couldn't be ...

She thought back to that night she'd spent with the Green Elf. It had been ... fascinating. And athletic. And ... passionate. Orgasmically so. Several times. Many times.

Elves have low fertility, she thought. I have nothing to worry about. This can't be morning sickness, it's just that I'm getting too old for this. Dammit, Jamie, settle down so I can catch up to you! But I can't be pregnant by that weirdo.

She was wrong.

[Alberich]

This is just some Goriel aftermath. Whether it has consequences in the future, we shall see.

Lord Arman sat at Uncle Iokim's clunky stone chessboard, well pleased. This board was a personal triumph, being carved from a broken idol that had once belonged to the now-destroyed renegade Clan Gyermanov. Across from him sat his younger son, Valya Armanovich, the favored for the succession. Their gameplay had slowed to a crawl before crawling to a halt. Arman had been counseling the younger man on matters of State, and the younger man was deep in thought.

Spoiler: show

"So, father, the Yurkashev have fallen, permanently. The Gibazov are reeling. The Chepilesky have risen - and the Oprincheka are on the way up - and we are at the top as we always have been. So how did we benefit?"

"Many ways, my son. For a beginning, your cousin Malyuta has a chance of being married."

"How so?"

"The Yurkashev gained their prestige through their ancient lineage - as the Gibazov gained theirs through a show of wealth. But the Yurkashev had too little wealth to go with the lineage. How many sheep pastures would have to come with one of their girls, to make a suitable dowry? They didn't have it. The Gibazov are so tight-fisted with their mines, even before their recent casualties...they simply won't give a fitting dowry. Below the top clans, no one is a suitable bride for Malyuta.

"But now? The Chepilesky gained so much in council from their case against the Yurkashev - they have occasion to be grateful. And they do have some nice girls. And the Oprincheka, they would like to stand where the Chepilesky do now, or the Gibazov. And maybe we can help them to it, if they are bound to us the right way. Do you not see?"

"I do." The younger man was still troubled. "But there was more to it, wasn't there?"

"Of course," said the older man. "Do you not know the meaning of the saying - A king must stand on swords, or he will lie on swords? The Yurkashev had too much pride to go with their station. Anyone that close to you with that much pride must be humbled or killed. Or his knife will be in your back. Let them fight each other over the right to the Second Step, and have only a precarious hold on it. Then they daren't dream of reaching for the first."

"We were at peace..."

"Which means they were plotting."

"They seemed loyal..."

"They always do. If you wait 'til they seem disloyal, you have waited too long. They can't help themselves. There's no malice in it - they needed ambition to reach the Second Step, and if they stay there too long, they will reach for higher. Even among your own kin, you must watch." A long silence followed. "Now, what have you learned about the management of the geteroi?"

Valya's brow furrowed. "That's Chancellor's business, yes?"

"It is," said Lord Arman. "But it is for a reason, and you've got to understand it. Now, think, there was a slip - where the Cleiviein might've come to suspect, and pointed a finger of guilt our way."

Valya thought hard. "Not when we sent Leonid to observe? He was a legitimate guest..."

"No, among the geteroi."

Valya thought some more. "The Yurakshev just had the one with us, that Valentina..."

"Right," said Lord Arman. "Pay attention when I talk! And how had she been spending her nights?"

"With Cousin Iosif...until that last night...when he gave her gifts right in his bedchamber...and she was sent away the next morning."

"And is that the usual way?"

"No, we always gift them the next day, through the chancellor." Light slowly dawned in Valya's face. "So if he gifted her that night, it was because he knew she was leaving the next day...which means he knew the attack was coming, because that's why she had to leave..."

Arman nodded. "Which is the danger of letting a sojourner getera stay too many nights with one man. You must always be careful with a woman not your wife, and even with her. It's a weakness of men -- make love too many times to one woman and you grow fond. Grow fond and you do favors, and let things slip. If they'd figured out that we knew the attack in advance, and told the Yurkahsev and the Gibazov..."

"It would've been war against us. What would we have done?"

"Probably allied ourselves with the Zukalin to stay on top. That would be disagreeable. But from our height we cannot afford to fall. And all this from letting a man grow too fond of a getera. Now do you see why their placement is a matter of state, and a prime duty of the Chancellor?"

"Yes, father. But what then of the one who absconded? There's been no sign of her and there's been talk..."

"We must have satisfaction. And your cousin Malyuta is away on that very mission." The chess game resumed. Arman won. He usually did.

[Graybeard]

[OOC: So an update on what's going on in the background with the BBEG:]

"The operation was a success," Gryffyd said in his liquid (of course) accent. Several voices on the conference call emitted simultaneous, spontaneous sighs of relief.

"Good," the scary man said. "Where is the subject now?"

"In a secure place," the mutated man answered. "I will not give details in this medium. The fewer people know the answer, the less risk of compromise."

There was a pause during which a goodly number of people held their breath, and then the scary man spoke again. "Very well. Inform me later." (Elke and her husband both covered their respective crystal balls for their own, deeper sighs of relief. Pursuing that line of questioning could have been ... troublesome.) He continued, "Speaking of security risks, I assume the agents responsible will be disposed of?"

"Yes, sir," the Seeadler man said. "They are expendable." Indeed, one of them was being expended, very messily, even as the conference proceeded. Nobody who knew the details was yet prepared to reveal to the scary man the reason why, of course; everyone on the call knew that they, too, were expendable under certain circumstances.

"You will inform me when that detail has been dealt with," the scary man commanded. "Meanwhile, has there been any progress in locating the other candidate?"

That was Peter's problem, and the Eisenfaust-Seeadler rivalry still existed, even if it was taking a back seat to other things at the moment. It was therefore with some satisfaction that the Eisenfaust boss and the boatsman listened to the answer that she knew, from her own intelligence apparatus, that the Gewehr capo was going to have to give. "No, sir. There has been an unfortunate development. Some damn fool crashed an airship into a tower in Tsuirakushiti, and they're treating it as an act of terrorism. There's a news blackout and not much is coming out of Tsuiraku. We still don't have a reliable source there." That almost went without saying, actually; if they had a "source" in Tsuiraku, they wouldn't need a "candidate" from the place. "We think we'll pick him up if he starts to move, though. He isn't very good at covering his tracks."

"Very well," the scary man said, after a pause that was just long enough to be frightening. "Redouble your efforts to cultivate a source. I'll expect progress the next time we talk." Elke fancied she could hear, over the crystal-ball link, the sound of Peter filling his pants at that ... but now it was her turn. "And news of the Man in the Middle?" the scary man asked.

Damn, Elke thought. I was hoping the Artifex cluster-fluster would get his mind off that one. How do I explain --

"Elke?" that voice asked again, with just enough edge in it that she couldn't dodge the question any more. She gulped and tried to frame the response.

"Well, sir, there has been a -- complication."

[Drusia]

The previous night.

I spot Therese, alone at last, sitting with Rose. As gracefully as possible, I extract myself from Anfisa. "I promised her a dance yesterday," I remind Anfisa before heading over to Therese. Hopefully Anfisa will find another partner - she certainly doesn't have a shortage of offers. Then again, neither does Therese.

"I promised you a dance," I remind Therese, leaning over her shoulder, my breath against her ear.

She shivers. I grin. "See," I tell her, "that is why real speech is better than mindspeech."

-- Desiree

[Graybeard]

Therese felt as though every nerve in her body had come alive with that touch.

"I -- I'm not a very experienced dancer," she got out. "Will you lead?"

And then she glanced over Desiree's shoulder ... and saw the look on Anfisa's face.

[OOC: This is back at the Leaping Lizard, part of the action that got fast-forwarded over. A, please feel free to describe the look on Anfisa's face as you wish; she's your character, after all.]

[Alberich]

Therese saw -- nothing at all. Anfisa had lived her whole life in surroundings where a face that betrayed the heart could betray the whole woman to disgrace and early death. She could not only dance, but give her most intimate favors to someone she loathed, showing nothing but extreme sweetness on the surface. Now, if Therese had been using the empathy spell Rose knew so well, she'd have found the sight a little scary. At least until she remembered that Anfisa had no power to go with the passion.

This couples dancing was not a Gorielian form. In the Duravsky compound, Anfisa had learned only single, demonstrative forms, to entertain the household before entertaining a Lord of the Evening. But she had a quick ear for music and a body that learned others' ways easily, so that within a few minutes she and the strange Tsuirakuan boy she'd paired with were going swiftly in time. She'd given the nod to a shy lad - the kind who'd be happy just to be accepted for a dance, and have no illusions of more. Not because she found him alluring, but because he'd be easy to ditch. And perhaps informative.

"So tell me," she said as they whirled, "If your best girl is dancing with someone else, and you want her to stop, how do you do it? Is it a duel?"

His face registered shock and gawky awe. "Err..no - you just cut in..."

"And how do you do that?" He explained. It was a few minutes more when she understood.

"Show me - with these girls here. You take the redhead and I'll take the blonde."

"Err...right you are, miss." They broke apart as if they'd been rehearsing for weeks, and he asked Therese as she asked Desiree. "Promise kept!" said she.

[OOC: Done! Never let it be said I'm less than obliging.]

[Graybeard]

Therese tried not to let her shoulders sag, but she knew exactly what was going on. She'd helped in the rescue of enough geteroi over the years to recognize that diplomatic mask when it went up. In a setting like this, she had very little doubt as to what it meant.

The young man now whirling her through the steps -- very young, she guessed he'd be barely of legal drinking age -- was a proficient enough dancer, and for a while she was content to surrender herself to the music and the rhythmic motions, even though it was not really her preferred entertainment. She successfully fought the temptation to gaze across the room to see how Desiree was doing with her new/old partner. Of course, she didn't really need to see them to know.

Nor to come to another realization, as a somewhat older man tapped to cut in. I'm going to let them be. I'm not going to seek my own happiness, my own pleasure, at the expense of someone else's ... no matter how much I want to.

The swirling, lilting music for dancing couples came to an end, to be replaced almost immediately by a boisterous galop that caused the other couples in the room to drop their partners and form up for a line dance. Well, that was good, she thought; she might not know the steps, but that wouldn't matter much ... and it would give her some time to figure out what to do next.

[Drusia]

"I -- I'm not a very experienced dancer," she got out. "Will you lead?"

"Of course," I say, smiling. Sometimes, being tall among humans has it's advantages. I position her arms around my neck, as I did for Anfisa the other day, and hold her close. It isn't exactly the same as the couples here use, but it's close. We slide around the dance floor, almost nose to nose.

"Feel that pressure," I ask, squeezing her slightly. "That's how I show you which way I'm planning to go next. I was going to show you this before, but I didn't have a chance." I demonstrate by leading her in a slightly more complex patern - a loopy triangle.

Rather than saying something inane like "got that?" I decide to make use of this time. "So, we haven't had much of a chance to talk lately. I was wondering - "

There's a tap at my shoulder. I blink and turn to see Anfisa and some guy. Before I know what's happening, he whirls away with Therese. Anfisa slips her hands around my neck.

"Promise kept!" Anfisa says.

"Not really," I reply, frowning. "I only just finished showing her how. We hadn't actually got to the dancing part of the dance." Well, okay, we were just starting to, but... I wanted to talk with her.

"That wasn't very nice," I add. "You've already danced with me quite a lot this evening. If you were going to cut in -" which I'm not very happy about - "you should have at least cut in with Therese and danced with her. She's going to think you don't like her."

-- Desiree

[Graybeard]

The galop didn't last long at all; it was mainly a chance, Therese guessed, for the dancers to rearrange themselves and find new partners of opportunity ... if they weren't already irretrievably paired up. She hazarded a glance toward Desiree and Anfisa, seeing exactly what she expected to see.

Well, damn.

Once again, she swallowed her pride, and her annoyance with Anfisa, as the music started up again, this time a deliberate, dignified, almost plaintive tune in duple time, in a form that she did not recognize. [OOC: think Pavane. /OOC] Momentarily a slender Tsuirakuan was at her side, and she did her best to duplicate with him the formal, almost ritualized steps that she saw the other couples taking to begin the dance ... but her heart wasn't in it.

[Alberich]

"That wasn't very nice. You've already danced with me quite a lot this evening. If you were going to cut in, you should have at least cut in with Therese and danced with her. She's going to think you don't like her."

"I'm sorry," said Anfisa, softly, looking away.

These words were, beyond a doubt, the blackest, extremest, completest lie that had ever slipped off the young woman's smooth tongue. Had the Luminositan Scientist from the morning's hearing been present with his spell up, he'd have collapsed to the floor clutching his ears while he bled to death through his nose. But no one without an empathy spell could penetrate the mask Anfisa wore.

She danced more and talked less. She also picked up the steps of the next dance easily and kept a hand in Desiree's whenever she could.