(1873-12-28) Open Windows
Open Windows
Summary: Myrana confronts Thomas
Date: 28 Decembre, 1873 IE
Related: Mathis, Westwar
NPCs: None
Players:
Myrana  Thomas  

Officers' Study, Curwes
The senior officers' study in the Allied camp of Curwes, outside of Mathis.
28 Decembre, 1873 IE

Thomas has been busy over the last two weeks tightening the vice on the Rikton held town of Mathis, their stronghold in the Fallow Lands. Although rumours have had it since the battle that the garrison was considered surrendering, nothing has happened on that front yet. Skirmishes and raids between the Allied army and Rikton's forces have continued to go on, with the Holy States' troops always losing. Their morale is low and it's only a matter of time, now, especially now that their food supplies are completely cut off.

The majority of the troops are quartered in the village of Curwes, which has been fortified since the Allies arrived after the battle at Mathis. While many are out in small forts along the circumvallation surrounding Mathis or conducting raids, all will eventually rotate back here. There are few wounded, those having been long evacuated south, and life is generally comfortable here, at least for a winter campaign.

Thomas Chandus sits in his study, which he shares with Brigadier Dertan and some of the other senior officers of the force. It's located in what was once the town elder's home, now vacant. No one else is currently in the room, though, and instead of looking at a map he is staring deeply into the fire, sipping from a glass of amber liquid.

Relaxation comes so rarely for the military commander in the midst of war that it must be treasured.

That is why Myrana D'Armaz waits patiently, and in silence.

In fact, it may not be till Thomas happens to reach for the decanter of brandy that his hand finds empty space where the glass neck should be. If he looks behind him, she's standing there, holding the decanter in her hands like the world's least apologetic butler, staring expectantly at him. Out of NOWHERE.

"How luxurious of you, Chandus, I never would have credited it," she says, looking up at him though fluffy white bangs like the tiny, snowheaded reaper, a self-satisfied little smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. Ho-ho!

Myrana is wearing, it should be noted, a grey blouse tucked into a belted black skirt in the slightly flashy Aequoran riding style, reaching only to mid-calf. The better to show off those fabulous silver-toed black riding boots, you see. Very important. There's a ratty, gauzy scarf of charcoal silk wrapped about her in great tattery loops, pushed back off of her head and allowing her heavy braid to fall insolently off her back to swing behind her knees. There's a good deal of scarping on her knees and toes and belly; she came down off the roof, or scaled the wall.

Thomas is indeed finally enjoying a night, or at least a few hours, to himself. He'd got the Thrace brandywine all set up in a decanter (where did he even find that thing?) and is about to pour a second glass when… poof. Myrana. His eyebrows knit together, but, ever the gentleman, Chandus rises to his feet and dips his head at her. She is after all the scion of one of the West's most important and certainly richest family, a Duchess and heir to a County as well. "Your Grace. Hello… I. To what do I owe the pleasure?" He seems a bit lost for words.

A porp! as Myrana pops the top off of the decanter and pours some into Thomas' cup. Then, produced from the front of her tightly laced vest (YOU try shimmying down a building without some leather between your unmentionables and the wall), produces a small cup of her own. She sets it on the little table, and pours herself some as well, holding the cork out to the side and away from any condensed droplets touching her clothes.

"I came to apologize for shocking you…" a pause, and she tilts the decanter up a little to stop the flow, looking up at Thomas at the same time as if realizing what she's just said. "..By surprising you." Her eyes narrow. "…I don't think these things through very well."

Myrana puts the decanter down with a THUMP and faces Thomas, cup in hand. "Are you going to turn me in to the Inquisition?"

Thomas glances down at his now half full cup. It's half full, right? Things are going well? Perhaps he's unsure. He's got a skeptical look on his face that he is trying and failing to hide as Myrana explains her chain of thoughts leading up to now… it turns to surprise at the question. "What in the world would make you think that I would do such a bloody foolish thing? Have I even turned Viscountess Kaedon into the Inquisition after she called down sorcerous ice onto the Templars in Goldhollow five years ago? And she, a pagan and a human sacrificer?"

"Well." Myrana's blue eyes cool from their warm if dry amusement to a more somber consideration, half-lidded and studying Thomas' face calmly. Thoughtfully. "She is your countryman."

Thomas has been aqquainted with Myrana for some years now, through wars and the Senate of Four Corners. Her voice has always been rather quiet, and a little soft. Now, it is smokey. For five years it has been, ever since Magic came back to Tirth, roughened by something. Maybe all that battlefield shouting. It's fortunate that the study is quiet, for her tone is similar to the low crackle of the fire at times, and easily lost in a louder room unless she raises it.

"You'd lose very little if you did turn me in; they don't explain themselves." She takes a sip of the brandywine, and her eyes crinkle at the corners, but she doesn't cough. "But more importantly, I know your Queen has bidden you to get along with one another while your kingdom is threatened like this. And my house has already taken aggression against Galenthian soil."

"If you're trying to find reasons for me to turn you into the Inquisition, you are doing a poor job at it." Thomas replies, walking to the other side of the chair to be face to face with Myrana. Not uncomfortably close, but close enough to speak without talking loudly. Despite her voice. "My views on sorcery are nuanced. The Inquisition is not nuanced. It is a broken institution, as is much of the Church. It must be reformed. We are fighting to reform the Church. Why would I turn YOU, an ally who I've fought with for years, to the enemy? I do not understand your line of reasoning."

Myrana's fingers tighten a little on the cup.

"If I were not…" She stops, and starts again: "…If I were not… a witch," she says, slowly, and carefully. "I would turn one in."

"I have never had to question the Church before. I'm not… confident." She swallows against a dry throat, but keeps her expression calm, even as there's a faint crackle that didn't come from the fireplace. Static doesn't seem to evidence itself in her clothes or hair, but its possible to feel it plucking at a sleeve, at a stray mote of doghair on the rug underfoot, where it rolls across the nap to find the heel of her boot and cling to it.

"But I am learning, and examining my beliefs." A silent sigh relaxes the hard, coiled line of her shoulders to a more peacable slope as she relaxes, settling her weight back onto her heels again and subtly off of the balls of her feet. "Please forgive my question, Chandus. I don't even know if my brother Nicolo knows. I am frankly afraid that if anyone does turn me in, it will be him. Or if he is preventing anyone from reporting me so that our father will not suspect him of having been the source. Already, he's been told." She unconsciously flickers her pinky out from the cup, but puts it back down before she takes a sip.

"Sonya was there, you know."

"The Church is a solid foundation. It just needs its attic refurbished. The rest of the building will stay. Please. Take drink. Sit. What do we do by standing?" Thomas is indeed only armed with his dirk at his belt. He's unarmoured. Vulnerable. He doesn't appear to have anything to hide. "We do our ancestors and the One great shame if we advocate for the tearing down of the Church. The Inquisition, such as it is right now, is not good. There is evil in this world. The Inquistion must focus on the evil."

He doesn't appear to notice the hints of static… he never has. He's not been perceptive to magic much at all, since it's come back, though he's certainly seen its results. The idea that Myrana is a witch doesn't seem to phase him. "Sorcery was contained, your Grace, for reasons we know not. That it is dangerous has been established beyond a doubt. But where would we be today, if our side had not sorcerors to counter the evil? We would be thralls. Sorcery must be controlled, but we delude ourselves if we think suppressing entirely it is wise. Our enemies will surely laugh as they slay us."

His eyebrows inch upwards. "Told of what?"

Myrana sits as she's bid, dusting the bits of brickdust from her clothes with a casual swat at her belly and skirts before she does so.

"Our family motto," Myrana smiles wrily at Thomas, and sniffs at the brandywine, talking for a second into the bowl of it with a slight magnification: "Without magic returned, this battle would never have taken such a toll. We fought monsters before, but never so many. They were small. Isolated. Or called here by heathens."

Thomas doesn't seem to understand what she's getting at with the family motto. "By love or by fear?" He tries to steer the conversation back to what he knows; the battle. "The battle was won. The only place we lost it in was Ashedown. We'll recover Lord Ashedown. But for Teleko's tricks… what is done is done, your Grace. How will we know what happened? All I am aware is that magic is here. I fought a wave of were creatures, a wave of the living dead and a wave of vampires, regular troops beside. Our soldiers bested them." He seems proud of this fact.

Myrana rests her chin in her hand, propping an elbow on an arm of her chair. "Hmm…" She looks at Thomas, then seems to realize something: Thomas has no idea that she came here to find out if she needed to silence him. Her gaze flicks up to the cieling very briefly. This is rude of her, somehow. Ruder than coming to maybe kill someone who at least knows what's going on when an Armaz shows up in your study at night wearing a deal of monochromatics and brickdust. A swirl of the brandywine, and she returns her gaze to Thomas.

"They did," and just like that, her tone is pleasant, even congratulatory. Not a note of deception in it; after all, it's perfectly true, and that battle was a horror. "Without them, we'd certainly have been overwhelmed. Teleko did not expect to be repelled, and his forces routed." She smiles warmly, and her blue eyes are almost black in the firelight. "Well done indeed." Sipping the last of her very modest glass, she stands up, and puts it back away. "Thank you for keeping what I am, and the others, a secret from the Inquisition. They'll certainly learn someday, but for now I must think of what I will do when that time comes."

"You are a comrade, your Grace. There is no other choice; nor, if I had a choice, would I make it any other way." Whatever Thomas's perceptive abilities, he is certainly fixed in his ways and loyalty to one's lieges, friends and comrades is one thing that he does not compromise on. His watery blue eyes begin to take in what Myrana is wearing, and then looks around the room. "We will win this war. When we do, we will ensure that the Inquisition is… modified. To hunt real evil, as it should be. Perhaps we put the Vigil in charge of them." He winces within a moment. Does she know about the Vigil? Well, she does now. "Say, your Grace… how did you get in here?"

"What do you mean?" Myrana radiates aggressive ignorance.

"I didn't hear a knock on the door, and the soldiers are instructed to announce visitors. Of course you would have been let in but…" His voice trails off, hands folding in front of him. Thomas sort of stares at Myrana expectantly.

Myrana is a creature without human guilt. She tilts her shoulders at an angle, though her heels stay planted, a supremely Aequoran bit of snobbery as if to say 'what, MOI?' at Thomas, cocking her head aslant as well with a little flash of the gold bolt earrings that Dario made for her, the only bit of jewelry visible besides that cursed bell pendant, which she must have had to hold at times to keep silent.

"You ought to put a guard under your window," she says, unapologetically. "You are perfectly welcome for the free assessment of your terrible Galenthian security measures."

"I see." Thomas is, unsurprisingly, unsettled by this idea. But perhaps where a Duchess of the Allied Powers can go, an enemy agent might not be able to… he hopes. "Uh. Right. Teleko. Please. I know you had news for his Grace. He never told me what that was." He is desparately trying to change the subject.

"Ah! Yes, dear Gauvain," Myrana smiles wickedly, unable to help being delighted with herself, and particularly pleased to call the famously cantankerous and pissy old bastard 'dear'. Their friendship is bizzarre and probably inadvisable, one must imagine. "I had just discovered evidence to suggest what Teleko is. I will gladly share it with you, and the others in command." Having begun to walk towards the door out of the study (for in fact she is much too tired after her climb UP to even consider a climb DOWN, and in this weather!), she suddenly goes Ah! and turns back around. "Please tell your fellows that I have taken possession of one of the empty houses in the town. The blacksmith's." She rolls her eyes. "My life is one long sooty bin of coal after the other. "If they will join us there two days from now at dinner time, I will share what I told Gauvain."

"I see. And I will. Please convey my wishes of best health to your husband, your Grace. I will be be shortly to do so in person… and One keep you. Pray hard for this to be over." Thomas seemes earnest in these, at least.

Myrana curtseys deeply to Thomas, then leaves by the door.

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