| Log Title |
| Summary: | Mercy finds Myrana in a market of the Ryaltan capital. |
| Date: | 1875-06-09 |
| Related: | Anything related to the assassination attempt on Queen Cynthia. |
| NPCs: | None |
| Players: |
  |
"Of course," Myrana says, slowly closing the inn room door whilst speaking to the guard on the other side of it. "I have everything I need. I'll just lie down for an hour or two in the nice cool shade, thank you. Thank you." Click.
She turns around and surveys the inn room with its nice cool bed beneath its lavish mosquito netting, shaded porch overlooking the busy street below, wicker furniture, fluttering wall-hangings at every window to keep it nice and cool against the day's muggy heat. A perfect room in Ryalta, the master port of the pirate queen Josephine, and in the nicest Inn.
"Nope," she finally sums it up to herself, and striding to the wooden balcony porch, throws a cushion right out the window and drops gingerly onto the street while her babysitter is still walking down the stairs. Her shoulder gives her a sharp reprimand as she picks up the cushion with stars in her eyes, and disappears into the crowd.
Some time by herself without supervision is what Myra needs, and so she goes about getting it without even an ounce of guilt. She'll be back before they know she's not napping. Definitely.
But it's hot, much too hot even for the lightweight linen kirtle she wears as she slips through the crowds, wandering deeper and deeper into the lawless marketplace full of pirates, criminals, and wanted men, white braid swaying behind her and Ardaigh bouncing low at one hip, black tricorn crammed on her head. Was it this hot the last time she was here? That acquaintance of Tavi's hanging all over Ramius was mostly what she remembered. She chucks the cushion at a passing young man's chest. It smacks into him and he catches it, blinking. Who the fuck just threw a pillow at him? But Myra's long gone.
Myra passes some stalls selling barbequed crocodile, and her stomach rumbles at the sticky sweet smell. It couldn't have been this hot. It's all she can do to pass the food by on her way to where she suspects some tailors and clothes-sellers might lurk in the colourful awnings and crammed, mad avenues of goods hanging from shop poles, dangling from the fingers of merchants sitting on little rugs in the shade of buildings and in the dust of passing feet.
Finally, she finds a merchant who, seeing the finely dressed young woman (though her kirtle is unadorned black, the fabric itself is fine flax linen), actually reaches out and catches Myra by the arm, startling her as he drags her wheedling and coaxing into his shop-front.
She looks around as he does this, blue eyes a little alarmed, but as she steps into the shop itself out of the flow of traffic, she's immediately relieved. There are clothes here, ready made of delicate, breezy silks and linens and raime.
"Maybe this is too, uh, thin…" But the second she puts her hands on the gauzy fabric itself, Myra realizes she's losing this battle.
So there she stays, and pawing through the folded and hanging clothes, starts losing track of time, with her back to the market traffic and her hands slipping luxuriously through fabrics and clothes that are all much too lightweight for the Aequoran climate. And, though she hasn't caught on yet, much more in the Ryaltan style, which hasn't got as much to do with prim manners as Aequoran fashions.
-
"Myrana d'Armaz." A low voice says as a long shadow is cast as the light from the doorway is blocked. "Should have stayed with yer heathens." The male voice says before a single gunshot is heard, and the 'bounty hunter' falls forward and behind him stands Mercy, with a now smoking hand cannon. "You are a hard bunny to find, and an even harder bunny to keep in one place." Mercy says as she slips the gun back into her coat.
"The more elegant ones have slits in the side, or, you could do the practical thing and get some trousers that are loose and breathe." She says as she tosses a few gold to some less than desirable men and they haul the body away. "Worry not, I paid him to find you, and now no one knows you were ever here, well, no one important anyway."
-
Myrana whirls around, clutching the silk to her chest.
As the man thumps over, dead as a doornail with a smoking keyhole through his chest, she looks up at Mercy holding the hand cannon with dread in her face.
"Mercy!" But the Arcadian slips the pistol back into her coat and Myrana relaxes a little, clearly quite shook up. "I didn't… I wasn't watching myself very carefully," she says, a little faintly and a lot guiltily. "H-how many bounty hunters have you commissioned to look for me?"
-
Mercy smiles. "Just the one. You still have friends in Arcadia Myrana, One knows you wouldn't pull a stunt like that against her majesty." Mercy says as she tosses another gold to the shop keep. "Find me a black rose silk pattern, I believe you have one in the back." She says as she closes the door with her heel. Once they are alone, mercy removes her admiral's hat. "Myrana, What in the crow bitten abyss happened? And you were not watching yourself very well, I could just as soon taken you Prisoner, granted, You'd be too valuable to sell." She says as she leans against the door.
-
Myrana sighs, flushing and looking down at the rumpled silk in her arms. She does in fact look rather out of place. But she gives Mercy an appraising look as the Arcadian leans against the door, and seems to make a decision.
"I didn't shoot her majesty," she says, looking down again. Her ears are burning and Mercy would be able to hear the little tightening in her throat. "I just… opened a window during an audience with her."
Putting the silk down, she picks up a pair of linen trousers like Mercy suggested and unfolds them distractedly. They're much too long, the legs flopping onto the floor as she holds the waist up to herself for something to do with her hands and something to look at other than the other Aequoran. But her heart isn't in it, even if she must be sweltering in that kirtle. "A-a crossbow bolt came through the window, and struck her majesty. She fell and…"
Suddenly she puts the pants down, upset. "I wouldn't hurt her. But we had to run; everyone thought we'd done it. It was my fault, I never should have opened the window."
-
"It's better if you blouse them into a pair of boots, and of course you shouldn't have opened a window. Either someone wanted to set you up, and their plan worked, or, they are a horrible shot and failed their mission." Mercy says as she shakes her head. "Well, at this rate I'll be able to make New Kashmir a free city and the Crown won't have anyone to fight me on it." She says with a smirk. "Though I had planned on a different path, this might work as well." She says as she pushes off the door. "In anycase, you also failed, because you neglected to find the person who actually shot the crossbow. I'd have tortured a confession out of them that would make an inquisitor flinch." She says with a smirk.
-
Myrana looks up at Mercy, and the fear that the other woman will drag her to the Zephyr and take her to King Maris eases visibly from the line of her shoulders and leaves her frightened blue eyes. Instead of bolting into the back of the shop to look for another exit, as she'd clearly been considering, Myra drops the pants back onto the little table and steps up to Mercy, looking right up at her from just beyond arm's reach.
"Will you help me, Mercy?" She asks. "I cannot go back to Lyionesse to search for the marksman. It was all Ramius and I could do to escape with our skins, but… I know you hate the Falling Blade as much as I do. Have as much reason to hate it as I do," this veiled reference to her sorcerer son is put delicately. "If you hear anything that might lead us to the marksman who tried to kill the Queen- will you tell me?"
A pause, as she looks around the shop. "And uh- could you help me find something cooler to wear?" She picks at her kirtle, with its full length sleeves and skirt. It might've caught Mercy's eye, but now it's definitely obvious; Myra's right arm is hardly moving, and seems to be swollen. "I put my shoulder out yesterday, and I don't know what to buy, but I know I can't stand wearing this when its so hot. What would you buy?"
"I would've changed already," Myra adds, squirming with awkwardness at what she's about to ask Mercy. "But it has all these damn buttons up the back and I can't get them. Will, uh… Would you help me? Please?"
-
"Of course you can return to Lyionesse, well… My daughter could." Mercy says with a smirk. "You are about her size, little weed is growing so fast for her age." She says as she nods. "Yes I'll help, I'd like to take that flaming falling blade apart and turn it into a new ornament for the zephyr." She says with a smile. "Though I doubt being innocent is going to change Ramius' idea of being a king. He's still a pup."
-
With that, Myra gets Mercy's help getting gingerly out of her Aequoran kirtle, which in true Myra style has more hidden ruffles and Fiorello lace in its petticoats and chemise than was ever truly advisable, and starts trying on clothes that she won't boil to death in in this Ryaltan climate. The shopkeeper brings out the red and black rose printed silk that Mercy requested, then leaves these two women discretely to their business.
True to her word, Myra tries on anything Mercy suggests, leaving it up to her sensibilities for whatever reason. Perhaps she has no idea how to select clothes outside of the things she's used to by herself.
"Ramius can do it," Myra says, faithfully, changing behind a screen into the first thing that Mercy suggested to her. "Though, uh, I admit I was a little shocked when I returned to Gendiel and found the lords all swearing to him again. I left soon after the announcement was made to come here, but I have faith he can make sense of it."
-
"That would make you queen yes? You ARE his wife." Mercy says as she moves to change as well, her uniform folded neatly and she comes out in a dress with slits on wither side and a pair of black stockings that hide the skin on her legs. Her weapons belt still around her waist with a silk fan tucked into it and a purple cloak around her shoulders.
She gave Myrana the same type of outfit, save that the outfit is white and purple instead of black and red, with a white cloak. "Been quite a while since I wore one of these, though, I almost wore one in court." She says with a snicker. She also gives Myrana a black mask, a skull like mask with silver where scars would be, and places a similar one, though with gold instead of silver, on her own face. "Oh, and the Zephyr isn't here, only the Sea Dragon. Also, what in the one's toes are Pooka?"
-
Myrana comes out from the screen tugging at the slit skirts of the lightweight… dress? surcoat? Tunic? She doesn't know what to call this Ryaltan fashion and she's too embarrassed to ask Mercy.
"B-breezy," she says, trying to figure out how to walk without her thighs flashing.
It is impossible. But by god she's gonna give it a try! Flustered, she clears her throat and tries instead now to yank one of the stockings up on one side.
"You almost wore this in court?" She looks at Mercy in amazement. "The pooka? Oh, uh…" She puts the mask on, fumbling nervously with it as she tries to think of how to describe the pooka without sounding like a crazy person.
"They're a… tribe," she says, carefully, and not particularly convincingly, peeking up at Mercy to see if she's buying it. "Uh, they were sort of… under our noses."
-
"Myrana, the Idea is to show off the thighs, besides, I bet you feel a lot more comfortable." Mercy says as she shows the woman how to walk. "You have to walk like you command the dress, and outward from there to give off the sense that you are, in fact, in command." She says with a smile. "It wouldn't have anything to do with that strange headdress thing you were wearing that day in d'Picot would it?" She asks and slips the mask onto Myrana. "There, now you look like a pirate, no one will think to find a Myrana in a den of pirates."
-
Myrana tries to guess how she looks by looking up at Mercy's expression, totally out of her depth. "Walk like- Oh! Uh…" Pausing, she gives it a try, mimicking the Arcadian haltingly. But it's something she knows how to do; to mimic other people's body language for a while, giving the appearance of being someone quite different than Myrana D'Armaz.
"It is more comfortable," she agrees a little reluctantly, still eyeing the inches of exposed white thigh that's seen about as much sun as the strange fish rumored to live at the bottom of the sea. But if she doesn't look at herself, it is really comfortable.
"I will give it a try," she says, and lets Mercy put the mask on her. But she takes off the white cloak, and drapess it on a table, leaving her arms bare but for the layers of bracelets and armbands that clatter about her delicate wrists and glint on her forearms like beetled armor. "But I don't know about showing off my legs. How do you hide anything when you wear this? Nevermind. Oh, that hood?" She looks up with colour in her cheeks. The twin-liripiped hood of soft angora. "U-uh, w-well! Yes! It was a, um, political gift. It's a little silly looking I guess, but Ramius said I should wear it. And it's very warm." She sighs. "Alright, I admit; this is way more comfortable." She puts her hat back on over the mask and gives a little hop to settle the slit skirts of of the outfit more comfortably, and rocks a little in her thin, cool sandals.
"Will you really try to separate from Aeqour?" She asks, nervously.
-
"His majesty isn't making things easy for us. Eventually there will be no one who will trade with Aequor, and my people depend on that trade. I may have loyalty to the crown, but my people and my family come first." She says as she moves to the door. "Come, I have some snacks on the Dragon, Besides, it would be a good place to watch your guards freaking out trying to find you." She says with a smile as she loops her arm in Myrana's and proceeds to walk out. "Hopefully maris comes to his senses and I don't have to deal with the whole headake of him declaring me a villianous traitor. Treason isn;t really my sort of villiany anyway." She says with a smile, though.. is she joking or not?