1867-04-08: Report to Queen Cynthia
Report to Queen Cynthia
Summary: Myrana goes over a long overdue report to the crown
Date: 1867-04-08
Related: Father Daughter Dinner, Sealing of Rikton, Trial for Sylvain
NPCs: {$npc}
Players:
Myrana  Cynthia  

The fine, almost tissue-thin paper crinkled beneath her delicate touch as Myrana looked once more over the report she had finally, finally made herself write. There were places where the green ink wavered and blotted unbecomingly, but at this point she was afraid that if she tried to start over again she might throw it into the river, like the attempts before it. That had been the bay in Rikton, though, and the highly water-soluble ink had vanished as soon as the cold waters had touched it, and the paper come apart into pulp.

It'd been almost a weekly ritual. First she'd write. Then, losing her nerve, she'd go with Ramius and one or two of his men (all lads from Gendiel, who'd nearly burst with the frustration of mountain people kept pent up in a city without escape or daylight) down to the dock outside the Inn. She'd toss it in and they'd go out into the streets, hunting unscuccessfully for the things she couldn't at the time bring herself to name. They found nothing but evidences of their enemy, bloodless and sometimes torn apart in alleys and homes where the doors were left open and creaking in the night, and the furniture straightened neatly; a divan might be put back onto its feet, leaving a conspicuous clean place on the floor where it'd been obviously knocked over. Ramius had been ready, MORE than ready, to call them what they were, but Myrana choked on it a little, and finally called them 'creatures'.

Even now, the word looked lurid. Ridiculous on the report to her majesty.

Ramius leaned over slightly in what he no doubt would consider an inobtrusive manner, keeping the reins loosely in his hands. Except the man was huge and he blocked the sun a little where it was coming down dapplelight through the trees. Myrana glanced up at him, but didn't try to cover up the report that she'd spread across her lap in the bench of the cart in a messy shuffle. He'd been there for most of it, after all, and she'd told him the parts that he wasn't. The road between the jagged Munitio province and Lyionesse, the shining capitol of rolling and picturesuqe hills, was wide and well maintained.

Like all reports of this kind, they began without proper address, as was appropriate for documents that one would rather not be linked to the Queen. She hadn't been entirely unable to avoid a nervous preamble, however, and read past it quickly with a sense of chagrin to the meat of the report:

The affair of the Sealing of Rikton I will attempt to describe to you just as I witnessed it.

The last date that we could be sure of was Novembre the 23, 1866 for that was when the sky froze with the Winter Moon high and the Summer Moon just barely out of sight, not yet risen. The night sky was cloudy, and I was in my rooms at the Mudfish, a dockside inn, waiting for the morning so that I could return home to Aequor once the Feast was over and Carnival concluded. I was looking up at the sky, as I was in a morose humor, when the Winter Moon changed its hue to a gory rouge and the clouds seemed to descend on the city all at once, made heavy and changing at once to a clinging mist. The blanket of them passed my window seat quite distinctly and all at once I was looking out over a city swathed in fog with red stars overhead, and all the lamps of every district had seemed to wink out in an instant, leaving the city quite dark.

Screams began to come from every quarter of the Docks and the sound of broken glass and furniture. I opened up my window and leaned out in alarm to better see what was happening, and all at once there was a sound of such horror that I lost my nerve and slammed it shut once more, locking it and getting ready for assault on my rooms: up the hill toward the wealthy districts there were cries much worse than down where I myself was lodged. Later I learned that there was some manner of attack on the grand feast hall, and many were injured and killed, and that the fighting broke out into the street. At the time though I was quite unwilling to go outside, for there were sounds so strange that I could not at all define them overhead, as of something striking the rooftop. I locked myself in for the night and waited for dawn. Cowardly of me, but I was without assistance, for I'd decided (maybe foolishly) to keep my lodgings secret from members of my house and the house of my intended fiancee.

Hours and hours passed, and I think I must have dozed even in my fright with my sword in my hand and my back against the door of my room, but when I woke and chanced to look out the window, everything was dark still, and the sky had not moved or changed in any way. There was chaos in the street still, and no way to tell time.

Eventually, after securing food for myself and the family of the Innkeeper (who was my new landlord for the forseeable future) I went out, and came eventually to the Romante Manse where my fiancee was sure to be staying. The guards admitted me after I was recognized by my fiancee's watchdog, and I claimed to be after checking on the wellness of my lady friend, who was either about to give birth, or had done so quite recently… like I said, strict time was gone from Rikton. And that was true; I was quite worried for her safety in all of this, as I owe her a life-debt and must do all I can to assure her well-being.

But in fact I had also come, in weakness, to seek shelter with my fiancee's household. He and I had become friends, bizzarrely, while I was in his power in Galenthia, in no small part thanks to our mutual natures where child-murderers are concerned; I had done some hotblooded thing and he didn't try to stop me. Surely our love will be storied and our children stranglers of nurses (if I do not lose my patience with his ridiculous Galenthian bullshit and leave forever for Partharia. That is a joke. No-one would believe I was innocent).

And if I had not encountered That Woman, I might have sought him out right away, but pride and a certain place in my side served me a cool drink of water, so I found my friend's husband and asked after her as cooly as I could, meaning to look in on her and tend her as I could before leaving again and returning to the Mudfish.

Before I could leave, however, there was an attack on the Romante manse that seemed to come out of nowhere. A sharp-eyed troubador of my aqquaintence called out the presence of an assassin, and suddenly the wall was swarmed by men climbing ladders in great swift numbers. It was dark, you must remember, and even trained soldiers were out of sorts thanks to the timeless, frightening gloom. I joined with the Galenthians in the battle against these invaders, and just as it seemed we might have cleared the wall of the enemy, a man appeared who carried not even a knife on his person, but who began flinging the trained soldiers of my friend's husband this way and that with his bare hands. He menaced the good knight, and promised vile things to the newly born twins, claiming that he had come for them and nothing at all would stop him. The knight fought quite bravely with him, and the troubador showed his worth quite the same; the three of us knew that this man was not as he seemed. Too fast, and unarmed, he raked the troubador with his claws terribly and when he at last opened his mouth where the torchlight caught him, I saw his face:

I thought at once of the demon that had gripped Son of Horse, for this man was not human. He had appeared so at first, but his face was grotesque and twisted into a bestial thing with jutting teeth and black eyes. Drool looped from his lipless maw like a hound's spittle and I could see that he had claws like a cat and they were drenched up to the wrist in blood. I should have run right away, but I felt spurred by the shame of hiding that first night and terror on behalf of my friend and her newborn children, so I lunged at him and by God's grace ran the sword that R made for me through his chest; not because I am some grand swordsman but I think because he had discounted me thanks to the presence of so many noble knights. And it should have killed him, if he were a man. But he did scream, and that almost made me drop my sword by itself for I froze like a bird before a snake, and the creature grabbed me.

I woke up later (the battle was quite over, but beyond that I can't say how long I was unconscious), weak and hardly able to walk. My friend the troubador tied my sword to my side over my shift and told me that the creature— the Vampire (I must call it by that name once, even if I feel I will soon be put in one of the Inquisitions little holes)— had left me all but bloodless on the wall before leaping away, wounded but not dead. It had not liked the lightsilver, he said, and cursed when it wounded him. I begged him to bring me to the Mudfish before my fiancee's watchdog kknew I had woken, as I had no strength to resist her tender ministrations should she decide to question me again, especially about the sword. Besides for the blacksmithing mastery of the man who made it for me (and the precious material, of course), it is not really special, I feel. It is no holy relic, and I am hardly a saint called by God to fight abominations, infused with burning righteousness.

But I was loathe, VERY loathe, to let her put her hands on it. He did as I asked, and I locked myself away for what might have been a week, afraid of the stories that I'd heard and sure that I was about to undergo some vile transformation. I threw myself into the mercy of God and prayed for deliverance. Nothing happened to me after that, and I had no monsterous visitation, so I suppose the One must have heard my prayers, or the stories I feared following the third night after being bitten were false. In any case, even after my strength slowly returned, I was still human, and thankful for that.

"One's breath but that's a longass letter."

Myrana blinked, roused from the report by the voice to her right. Samuel, one of her guards, walked alongside the cart. She put her hand quickly down over the sensitive paper and gave him a glare.

"Nosey Sam," she waggled a finger at him. "Must be why it faces the wrong way."

"Its so I can smell 'round corners," he said unperturbed and sunny as the day was long. He gave his head a merry shake and offered up a small apple. "We'll probably be in Lyionesse proper in a day or two. Faster if M'Lord would ride, of course."

"The cart is perfectly comfortable," Myrana was loyal, if not totally honest. Sitting with Ramius on the horsecart was nice, though. Maybe not expedient, and she did enjoy riding. But she could ride Sage any time.

Mollified, she accepted the apple. Sam couldn't read, though his husband (her cousin) Ravio could. Biting into it, she reshuffled the papers. The report went on and on, but she skipped reading some of it, the part where Ramius and she were reunited in dark Rikton especially, consicous that the Arrani in question would possibly see and read that part. She'd been brief on it, but it was still a little embarrassing. The next page she selected was once they had begun hunting the vampire, and had learned that there were likely more of them. How they'd looked for the creatures but been unable to pick up anything more than a cold trail, despite what she now knew to be months of hunting. Her suspicion that Cardinal Teleko knew of their existance and how she'd run afoul of one was reluctantly recorded there as well. How the Sealing had broken a little at first, allowing the sky to move, and then all at once with an earthquake, during the battle with the Templars under Teleko's orders, who had accused Prince Sylvain of black sorcery and had made attacks on the Aequoran manse. How she was back on the search for Jean Paul and the Powerful Man, but she had no evidence yet. A dissapointing, FRUSTRATING end to a painful report. Well I spent months of uninterrupted time locked in the holy city with terrifying monsters and no doubt the Powerful Man who must have called the Sealing down for his mysterious purpsoses, but I found shit all! Ramius and I hunted monsters and came up with nothing but fish white complexions and me looking like a fucking ghost and a permanent fashion addiction to chokers and scarves! Thanks for reading and enjoy your husband's senilty! Long live the Queen!

Myrana growled under her throat, and at last folded the report neatly and tied it with ribbon, reflecting that that conclusion would have at least been honest. Instead, the report was ended with her signature, a hasty -M. She just hoped the Queen would read it quickly and not send her directly to the Inquisition.

"Well," she began, and then "H-HEY!" as Ramius leaned over without letting go of the cart-horse's reins, and took a huge remorseless bite out of the small apple in her hand. More than half of it straight dissapeared. "That was mine!"

"Appreciate life's impermanent joys," he intoned thorugh a mouthful of apple.

"I'll show you impermanent joy, you huge ass!"

"Oop that's my cue," said Sam, and promptly let the cart outpace him on the sunny countryside road.

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