| Eggs that go Boom in the Night |
| Summary: | Myrana and Ivo catch a few minutes conversation. Sorcery happens. |
| Date: | Various (end 23-05-2019) |
| Related: | None |
| NPCs: | None |
| Players: |
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| Sorcerer's Academy - Four Corners |
| See Text |
| 1875-05-18 |
It's late, not the kind of late where everyone is tucked up asleep, but late enough that the streets are quieter and the heat of the day has started to dissipate. Having just got back to safe waters after another attempt to locate Deverot (even if not for the reasons the King might like) Ivo has decided to put into Four Corners and let his crew sleep, rather than sail through the night to Fiorello. That it also gives him time to visit the Academy and try a couple of new tricks out is an added bonus and so he's passed over the option of a night of wine and partners of negotiable affection and is instead dressed as his sorcerous persona, Afon, as he arrives at the Academy via one of the routes through the slums.
New tunnels have been created to ease comings-and-goings from the Academy, and most of them let out into the grounds of the estate, bewilderingly far from any sign of a building or laid out path in the thick of the trees. Though students and administrators rarely see them, the Watchers at these exits and entrances can sometimes be felt by the sorcerers themselves; a little prickle of magic resonance like a moth in the dark, tickling at the senses. There are rumors about what they look like, who they might be. Some students have made fantastic ideas that scare their fellows about weird alchemic experiments or creatures of magic caught by some instructor and chained in the woods nearby, eating any witch-hunters that manage to find these hidden pathways.
Myrana doesn't really know if she believes those stories that she hears some of the other students whispering, that there's a Snatcher in the estate woods. But she doesn't precisely disbelieve them.
Waiting for one of the instructors to pass her by, a tall figure in a hammered tin owl mask and flowing robes covered in Alchemical writing, Myrana crams her shoulder deeper into the brickwork to hide herself in the shadow of the door.
The Instructor turns their face this way, and that way, paused in the light spilling out into the tree-shadowed courtyard. A lamp hangs in a gloved hand, and the little creaks of the handle are eerily loud in the early twilight. Night will fall quickly, and many places in the Academy are poorly lit and dangerous to walk in without a lamp.
"Afon!" the instructor sees the sorcerer approach, and the smile in his voice is apparent even without the benefit of a halfmask to show his mouth, only a carved slit in the owl's beak to allow his voice to come through. "Welcome back. Did you find the way easily?"
"Easily enough," Afon replies as he appraoches the Instructor, not yet spotting the other figure hiding in the shadows, "the woods are quiet, but I am sure the path gets longer each time I take it." With the chill of the evening setting in he has his cloak wrapped tight around him, wishing furvently it could be the warm blue one he uses elsewhere, but that sort of garb is just too identifiable. "Are the fires lit in the refecotry?" he asks, knowing his fellow sorceror will understand how he feels the cold more than many others, "a little warmth would be most welcome before I have to set my mind to complex matters."
"Indeed it is," the instructor amiably bows a little at the waist and turns around to go back inside, clearing the way for Afon to follow him if he wished. "I thought I felt something, but it must have been my imagination. The moons are beautiful tonight, yes? Well, nevertheless…"
Taking a little brass bell from his sleeve, the instructor raises it and gives it a bright shake. From somewhere out there, a birdwhistle responds.
Out of sight for the moment, Myrana stifles a growl. So much for sneaking around!
If Afon steps in once the instructor makes the way clear again, Nightbird appears just a step back from his shoulder with nothing so much as a murmur of skirts to announce that someone's behind him, nudging her halfmask and fingering the silk ties of her starry veil.
"It's cold outside, isn't it?" she brrs for good measure, bootheels tapping along now on the stone floor. "There are no rugs here!"
"Lady Nightbird," the instructor greets, and one can almost sense the stony glare he gives her, which she does not seem to notice behind her own halfmask if the innocent smile is to be believed.
"Or you are more perceptive than I," Afon replies, prefering the Instructor to err on the side of paranoia over taking his personal word as read. "It has been a long few days, I am possibly lucky I didn't fail to see a tree infront of me." Long, and tiring. He looks questioningly at the bell for a moment, then turns to hear the birdcall reply and guesses at the purpose before turning back to follow the other man inside. He doesn't hear the silk, he's too focused on his thoughts, but the voice at his ear has him spinning and instinctively reaching for the main gouche that oft sits in the small of his back. It's a fraction of a second later that his brain makes the identification though and he stops. He wants to embrace his cousin in welcome and relief, but relucatantly draws his arm back and offers her a bow instead. "Lady Nightbird," he offers as neutrally as he can, as if greeting a mere acquaintance, the pretense is killing him, but he doesn't want to Instructor to link them.
Myrana curtseys to Afon. "Since you've just arrived as well, would you care to go with me to find something to eat? Oh- don't mind us," she siezes his elbow through the cloak, as much to shove her frozen death claws into warm fiber as to bully her fellow student as she sweeps them bossily past the dead silent instructor. "I'd invite you, master Alchemist, but I'm sure it must be very difficult to enjoy some things with a full mask. You could just have the upper beak, you know, and shave your beard. Much better in the summer, I'm sure."
"Welcome back," he grounds, one hand jerking a little as if to deliver a hell of a slap or tuck the little curls of red peeking out from under the owl, but masters himself. He soon peels off into a dark hallway off to another side, taking the lamplight with him.
"How rude," she wonders, lightly.
Afon tilts his head respectfully after the Instructor as the man departs. Myrana may be winding the man up, but he is happy enough to keep the man on-side. Once he's gone though he can contain himself no long and envelops his cousin in a all encompassing hug. He's been worried, deeply so, and it is a deep relief to see her again safe and well, even if it is through masks. "Are you alright," he mutters close to her ear, "is there anything you need?"
Myrana reaches up and returns the embrace warmly. Her shoulders are thinner with grief and a month's hard travel, making the little Armaz seem smaller, frailer than she was the last time they met, before the audience with the Queen. Her Arrani husband probably bore the journey a deal better than her once they were on solid land, but that was doubtless where she faltered. Myra was raised in indescribable luxury by Adriono; a month in the frozen wastes north of Aequor should have killed her, however sturdy she's proven to be.
"I'm so glad you're here," she sighs, and shakes her head to his question. "I'm alright; Gendiel is a hornet's nest. They've been putting Inquisitors to the sword. I've never seen the Arrani so angry, and the Slegrias…" she shudders. "They don't hang people there like we do in Fiorello. There are lords calling honor duels there publically, and carrying them out in the throneroom in front of everyone, both their houses."
"Seeker is at the dock," Afon mutters back, "if you need to go anywhere. I have work to do for the Old Man," Adriono, "but other elements are not in position yet, so there is time for whatever you need." He doesn't want to break the hug, but he's aware that they're still close to the door, and others could come up on them at any time, so he reluctantly draws back, but keeps his hands on her shoulders, looking to see just how much of a toll the past month has been. "I need to eat something," he states, implying without outright saying that she does too, "come, we can talk as we walk." Listening to the situation in Gendiel his expression is grim behind the mask and when she's done he mutters quietly, "there is word that your father has received letters from Lyionesse. I am not privy to their contents, nor any reply if it's been given. I've been busy making a show of hunting for Deverot at sea and along the coast, he's keeping himself well hidden though as I've heard no news of any sightings."
Myrana's masked face snaps up to Ivo at mention of letters from the King, but she tucks her chin back down and nods, walking alongside him.
"If I were to guess, I'd say he's in Ryalta… If Queen Josephine hasn't hanged him. They have some history or other, but he's very shy about it.
Since they've been standing in the dark, it's easier to see now as they walk. As they pass by a sideboard, Myrana fumbles about til she finds a candelabra and lights it by a sconce further down the hall.
"Then there's been no public censure of Armaz yet? That's good…" Myrana sighs, and holds the candelabra to light their way, clearly trying not to think about what the king might have written. Does the Queen still live? Her eyes darken and she swallows past a lump in her throat.
"Have you ever been to Ryalta?" She asks as they come closer to the kitchen and the smell of something left out. And the shy scuttle of rats in the dark. Myra stops, and shudders with revulsion.
"I hope they left the cloches on," she mutters. "Once I came here at night and there were mice all over the porridge pot."
"I'll be sure to keep my hunt to the mainland coasts then," Afon replies with a slow nod, "and yes, but never for long enough to get any real contacts there. I can recommend a few dockside taverns, and I seem to recall at least one brothel that didn't give half the crew the pox, but more than half a mile or so from the water and I have no real knowledge." As they approach the kitchens he frowns slightly at the comment about mice and says, "perhaps we should gift tham a cat or two? It's not like Fiorello is lacking in them." As for censure though he shakes his head, "not publically. What pressure your father is feeling privately I can't say though." With the light from the candelabra bouncing off his plain white mask he adds, sounding a little more cheery, "did I tell you I've been working on a new trick?"
Myrana gives Ivo a horrified look. "The other half got the pox, though?" But he distracts her immediately with a more tantalizing subject.
The kitchen is dark, but she goes and climbs delicately onto a counter and pushes the shutters of the long windows open. They give way with a cough of splinters and dust, causing her to cough and fan the cloud from herself before turning about and sitting properly on the edge of the wide counter. Her own halfmask glints as she faces Ivo, legs dangling over the edge and elbows propping on her knees as she watches the scuttling escape of vermin from the floor, disturbed by the light and their presence.
"You've been practicing?" she asks, brightening and scooting the candelabra a little ways down the counter, though she doesn't hop down. A few cloches are set out nearby. She lifts one with a panng of metal to reveal a bowl of hardboiled eggs. This is not the grandoise reveal she was hoping for.
"About," Afon replies, tilting his head slightly from side to side to indicate that he's not sure of the exact numbers, but that he feels it's a reasonable approximation. He does not however, state if he was afflcited or not though. Leaning against the doorframe and folding his arms across his chest in a relaxed manner he watches the mice too, "definitely cats. I'll remember to bring some next time I'm passing. A pair do you think, so they can start their own dynasty?" Then, at her question he smile sbehind the mask again before replying sarcastically, "no, I just come here for the good of my health." Looking around to find a bowl he then half fills it with water from a jug and sets it down near her. "Fog, is super saturated air," he starts, "meaning that it's full of water, not dry like you find up in the mountains. It's why sea fogs are so common, and, if I can get it to work reliably, means I should be able to creat my own. It'll be hard work, to get something large enough, but it'll help Seeker pass unseen when she needs to." Explaination given he turns his focus to the bowl, and clears his mind, trying to produce just that same effect, if only in small scale.
Myrana blinks, watching Ivo go about getting the pitcher of water and listening with interest. "Last time you said you wanted to supress it if you could." She plucks an egg from the bowl and taps it on the counter, though she stops as he brings the pitcher over and sets it next to her.
Could it be that she's a tiny bit nervous? As Ivo steps back, she tries to listen to his explanation about how fog works and why it works, but she's mostly trying to decide whether that pitcher of water is about to do something really exciting and possibly dangerous.
A waft of mist rises up out of the pitcher and drips with ghostly faintness from the spout, dropping a thin stream of fog onto the countertop.
Myrana watches this with interest once it's clear it's not about to break the crockery, gasping. "Oh! Can you do that with people's drinks, do you think?" She is excited, immediately, and leaving the egg to roll and wobble on the counter reaches cautious fingers into the little well of fog.
"Most of the time yes," Afon replies as he watches a disappointingly small amount of fog appear, and then slowly fade, "but there are times when it could be useful. Don't get me wrong, if I could turn the years back and change it somehow so I wasn't cursed then I likely would, but the damage is done now, and I have to live with it as best I can." Trying not to be too disheartened with the result he tells himself it's hardly the ideal circumstances, then tips the water from the bowl out the window and uses an edge of his cloak to dry it out so he can place a couple fo the eggs inside. Tapping the first against the rim so he can peel away the shell he raises an eyebrow slightly at the question, then shrugs slightly, "maybe, if it was water. I'm more interested in trying to use it to cover an area of water though, for a ship or boat to pass through. Or," he adds, raising a finger to punctuate his thoughts, "or to try and see if I can make it form inside a ship. Specifically in the powder store if I could. That's a long way off though, if that degree of control is possible at all."
“It’s incredible, Afon,” Nightbird grins under her mask and gives her egg a tap on the counter. “I’m sorry; I get excited… maybe I could help you train, when it's safe to be seen again." She looks down, rolling the egg under her palm with a tiny sound of spreading cracks.
"… Are clouds the same? Just, higher?" She asks cautiously, thoughtfully. This sounds like something a tutor once told her, but at the time she'd been fantasizing about something related, but essentially besides the point of natural phenomena. "Sometimes, when I use my magic, I notice that clouds start building overhead. It must just be because lightning needs clouds, most of the time." Nightbird looks at Avon seriously now. "Maybe if you centered it to yourself, your pulse," she pokes his shoulder with a little jingle. "Maybe you could draw fog to you, instead of to a place away from you to start."
"That's a good idea," she adds, in a low voice. "The cats. As long as those creepy teachers don't… use them for something. Brr! It’s bad enough when they take out those horrible leeches."
It’s.. a work in progress,” Afon replies with a shrug before finishing off his first egg, “but there’s potential.” Demonstration over he indicates that Myrana should shift up a bit, then hauls himself up to sit on the countertop too as he ponders her question on clouds. “I don’t know precisely,” is his honest reply, “they must be similar, for rain comes from them, so there is water up there. I’ll have to look out of the airship next time I’m flying through one and see if it’s the same as being in fog on a ship.” Breaking the shell of the second egg he listens to her next thoughts, “worth a try at least. Might make it easier to get the basics down that way, then see what else can be done. It needn’t be restricted to sea either mind, I suspect that if it can be done large scale then a slow enough moving river, or a lake would do as well. It makes it easier to approach a castle with troops if there’s fog just as much as it makes slipping boats past sentries easier after all. That’s a long way off though, as you saw.” He might just have been able to hide an egg in what he created a few moments ago, but not much else. Her last words have him frowning slightly though. “Cousin,” he starts, turning to face her a fraction, “your lesson shere must be very different to mine… But I think I know the perfect moggy. You know the old ginger tom down by the Crown and Anchor? I’ll need to pay some brave men good money to round him up, but he’d put the fear of The One into just about any of the Instructors if they tried anything, and he’d see for the rats.”
Myra scoots over with a hup! kick! to propel herself sideways as she munches the egg. At first she seems pretty disinterested in eating (and doing so primarily ""because even the little Armaz can sense when something was less of a suggestion than a direction), but soon its vanished and she's taking another. This one she looks at pensively, holding it in the palm of her hand. "The Whitehallers are using something like that, I think. It was smoke. They're so much further than us in their art…"
"Oh, I know the cat you mean," she laughs, shaking her head to clear it with a jingle. Copper beads are sewn into the fabric of her kirtle sleeves and spark in the veils arranged artfully to hide her hair, picking up tiny charges and dispersing them with harmless little sparks of light like sleepy, inebriated fireflies. "Good luck."
"Hey, look at this," she adds, and holds up the egg with a devil's grin. "Ever had a roast egg?" Uh oh.
“I’ve not seen them use anything like that,” Ivo says after a moment to think, “but at least if there are then it shows it can be done.” Always look on the bright side, or something. “I do want to be able to just make it rain in someone’s powder store though, it’d just be beautiful.” Biting into his own second egg he munches away then shrugs slightly, “we could call it a training exercise for some of the squires knocking about the place. It’d be a learning experience for them.” An experience he fully intends to watch from the nearest dockside tavern. He might even sell tickets. As she lifts her own egg he eyes it, then her grin and carefully slides down the bench, “…no?”
"WELL!" She cannot be deterred, it is a freight-train to disaster. "Prepare yourself, Afon, for GUSTATORY AMAZEMENT!"
There's a keening sound from the air around them and Myra's bones shine neon bright from fingers nearly to her elbow for a moment through meat and tailor's tears before the egg in her hand starts to steam and the shell darken. Magic!
"Behold!" She announces. "My newest dish! EGG AR-"
Then the egg explodes.
Myra yelps and all but pitches backwards off the counter as hardboiled egg splatters every conceivable surface with herself at ground zero and Ivo at a close ground 0.5.
"Augh!" She shakes hot egg off her hand an arm, which are smoking profusely and her many copper bangles and bits spitting tiny sparks. "Damnit! It worked once!!"
Once,” Afon replies as he straightens up from where he’d ducked in a vain attempt to save himself from the worst of the eggsplosion. “At least it was hard boiled already…” Surveying himself, her, and then the room he takes a deep breath then lets it out slowly, shaking his his as he does so. “Does it come out?” he asks, trying to pick fragments of egg from his tunic. Then, glancing up to her he adds in an amused tone, “it’s a good job I’ve no idea who you might be beneath that mask, or I’d be sending you the bill for the replacements if it doesn’t” He doesn’t approach for a moment though, letting whatever charge might remain settle first, but then he shuffles back across and eyes the what’s left of his second egg that’s now covered in Myrana’s. “You know,” he starts, tossing it over his shoulder, “I’m not hungry anymore. Do you want to talk about Lyionese, or shall we retire to the common room and find some wine?”
That charge fizzles out visibly and Nightbird slaps egg from her clothes with an embarrassed stream of grumble and apology, even picking a piece from her mask.
"It… um!" She picks egg off of her cousin. "Will probably come out!"
"L-lets go to the common room, anyway." she says at last. "I don't want to tell you in the dark." And besides, eggs are terribly dry for the throat. Ivo knows what a lightweight she is for drink, and always has been. But where has it got to go? "I promise to tell you though, Afon, soon."