4606/Rough Awakenings

Rough Awakenings
Date of Scene:	26 September 2016
Location:	Hotel Somewhere
Synopsis:	Luc and Sarah discuss matters relating to magic, travel, and other things.
Cast of Characters:	237, 316

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Luc (237) has posed:
    Toran Castle
    Night

Luc went to be early that night. He did so uneasily, and was not able to articulate the reason for his uneasiness, so he didn't bother to try. Instead he had simply chosen to act like a cat, burrow into the blankets, and be on his way. On the whole he considered a poor choice in retrospect because it felt rather like allowing the unease to slip in through the window, as if he had sensed a fox among the chickens and opened the gate to let them in. It didn't really matter though. What's done is done. He wakes presently from a deeply unpleasant nightmare, the rhythmic pulsing of the rune upon his hand alerting him to the source of his misery at once. The dream was nothing special in itself.

The usual emptiness without limit.

He climbs out of bed abruptly, banishing the dream from his mind with a smattering of thoughts of a variety of other subjects. Sarah. The Castle. The Tablets. Leknaat. Previous Wars. Sarah. Harmonia. His brother. Bugs. Sarah's reaction to bugs. Sarah's reaction to exceptionally filthy taxi cabs.

Having his soul outside his body.

Wait, no, that one is creepier than the dream. Go back.

Luc padded outside of the bedroom into the surrounding floor. Toran Castle is a rough-hewn, cold-floored place, but it's comfortable enough this time of year that he doesn't bother putting on shoes. He leaves the door cracked, because likely as not Sarah's going to wake up and follow him sooner or later. No point closing it entirely, the courtesy is wasted. Assuming she's even among the blankets as he was, he didn't actually pay close attention to that.

The runic activity alone would probably stir her, if she wasn't busily being harassed by her own rune.

The Wind Mage paused alongside a window, folding his arms across his stomach and looking out over the lake. How to get back into sorts, he wonders?

Luc invokes the Water Rune he occasionally used, summoning up wave of chilly water to splash across him and settle onto the floor. If nothing else, he's sure THAT will wake Sarah up if she's asleep, not that he intends it to exactly.

"I'd threaten to cut off my hand," he remarks to the wind rune dryly, "but if I felt like killing myself I'd rather keep the hand on my way out the door."

A counterproductive jest to say the least, because Luc immediately starts blowdrying himself -- and the surrounding hall -- with warm air afterwards. Swatting his rune on the nose would work a lot better if he wasn't just using it afterwards anyway.

Sarah (316) has posed:
  "Cutting off your nose to spite your face is rarely a sensible solution."

  She hadn't made much sound, but then again, she usually doesn't. The nights are still reasonably warm over Toran Lake, and so Sarah isn't wearing much more than the grey slip she often wears to bed, and a thin robe pulled over that. Her hands are folded over her stomach much like Luc, and the slightly less tousled state of her hair suggests she's been up for a while, padding silently into the room behind him.

  Sarah's face shifts into a brief flicker of a smile, and he might feel her arms settle around behind him.

  Her voice is just foggy enough to suggest she did wake up recently. Maybe it was when he'd splashed himself with water; the cycling of energy through a rune wholly subservient to her own is something that flashes on her radar like a flood light through night vision goggles.

  He might also feel her head resting against his shoulder from behind; a breath sighed into his ear. "The Ashen Future?" When it comes down to it, Sarah doesn't really have to ask. She knows. That was exactly the thing that woke her up, but she doesn't necessarily hold it against the rune any more. She's more often of the belief that it's trying to tell her something. Warn her, somehow, in the only way that it knows how.

  It's not her fault if her human failings lack the means to understand it.

Luc (237) has posed:
"Yes, but it would be terribly cathartic up until the moment that the sensation of it reached my brain."

That's not a good argument, Luc. You'd know it before your hand hit the floor. He is perfectly content with Sarah's approach, increasing the air flow along the floor so that the water is parted away from her before she steps into it. She might have done that herself he supposes, but he felt like doing it anyway. It was after all his mess, and there was no need to have her clean it up in his stead.

He leans back into her embrace and shuts his eyes, swaying a little on the spot. It's not a terribly heavy burden for her to deal with, fortunately. Luc is only a little bigger than Sarah is and although he is significantly heavier, he still isn't /heavy/. Skinny as a beanpole and with about as much muscle.

But he doesn't lean heavily on her too long. She seems just as drowsy as he is, and he'd rather not drag them flopping onto the floor unintentionally.

Luc hums an affirmative noise in answer to Sarah's breath at his ear. What else would it be, he wonders, that could wake either of them in such a state? For Sarah, it would be that cursed mark of hers. For him, it might be the wars, and the fates that surround them, which are an issue altogether separate from the contents of the ashen future and the wars themselves.

"Besides," he adds amusedly, "my rune isn't on my face. That's your problem."

Sarah (316) has posed:
  "The sensation of it would reach your brain immediately," Sarah points out. She's such a killjoy, bringing logic to an argument. Settling in more closely, because he is comfortably warm and she is not, she looks out over the lake. It's still as glass and about as featureless. "Not a very sensible plan. Then again, I suppose a lot of things we do aren't very sensible."

  A simple effort of will banishes the water neatly, foregoing the mess entirely. She has the power to do that; to simply will water out of existence as freely as summoning it. Neither does she seem to mind when he leans back against her, standing firm in the wake of his laziness. Sarah must be more awake than she looks. Or, maybe she's just conveniently counterbalanced.

  It could have been the cursed mark, but she seems generally more accepting of her rune; it could also have been the terrible battle she had participated in. The suicide mission to Annu for the greater good had taken its toll on everyone who had gone. Such a thing would normally have been out of character for her... but the consequences if she /hadn't/ would have reached even this quiet lake, and it had prompted her to act -- and find a greater strength within herself than even she had known existed.

  But perhaps those who know her know that the woman has a core of steel and titanium.

  "Hmmm." It's a distracted sound, a gentle sound. "That much is true, but the Flowing Rune had never shown itself visually except under the most arduous of strain." Outside the Ceremonial Site in the Grasslands, mainly; when she had poured her last ounce of strength into summoning an army for Luc to keep his attackers busy. "It's been quiet since the True Water Rune. I suppose that's not much of a surprise."

  Sarah pauses, pressing a kiss to the side of his neck. "Would you like anything? Tea, maybe?" That always settles her nerves, at least a little.

  Besides, it wouldn't be like her not to ask.

Luc (237) has posed:
"Nonsense. I am the most rational person you'll ever meet."

Luc can be rational, but finds it more fun not to be. There's nothing really to be gained by it most of the time, and far more fun to be had by messing with people constantly and drifting where his whims take him. When he is being truly rational, he's usually being so in the most frightening fashion possible and plotting apocalypse-scale events in the basement. This is ordinarily an activity to be discouraged.

He loosens her arms momentarily to turn about and face her, encircling her own a moment later and dipping his head to press his lips briefly to hers. Luc doesn't linger that way for long, a contrast to his usual inclinations when she catches his attention so. He leans back, keeping his eyes squeezed shut and breathing steadily as he ponders the options that she gave him.

"Tea." He agrees, "Tea and a bath, I think. Perhaps I'll feel of a mind to go back to bed after."

The Wind Mage opens his eyes again, balefully gazing over towards the stairs. It's a long walk. They could use the elevator but he's not of a mind to do so just now. He'd rather walk, because at the very least that will keep his mind off of everything else that might come to it just now. He breaks away from Sarah's embrace, but draws his hand along her arm as he goes, to grasp at her hand and pull her along.

If I'm walking, so are you.

The wind blows and eerie melody through the windows of the staircases as they approach. Luc isn't in the mood to deal with cold floors, and he'll not subject Sarah to them just now either.

"Did it wake you or did I? You don't seem as miserable as me just now, but I think you cope better regardless of the source." He asks, his head twitching to one side to observe her from the corner of his eyes.

Sarah (316) has posed:
  At Luc's assertion, Sarah only laughs softly. There's no mockery in that or her faint smile. One could make the argument that she hasn't met very rational people, then, but there's no percentage in saying it. His straight-faced delivery is amusing to her all the same.

  She offers no protest when he turns about so he can face her, and she offers no protest to the kiss, returning it briefly in the instant's opportunity she has. When he leans away from her, she keeps her arms circled loosely around him, but she doesn't tug him closer or move to let him go. It's comfortable just to stand there like that for a moment.

  "Mm. That does sound good," she murmurs, considering, looking up as he glares at the stairs. Walking doesn't bother her very much. It's good exercise, and she makes a point of not teleporting most of the time, so she's slowly gotten used to the exertion of climbing or descending Toran Castle's many, many stairs.

  Did he wake her? She shrugs, faintly, not much more than a twitch of a narrow shoulder, slim hand turning to lace her fingers with his. "No. I had nightmares, but it wasn't the True Water Rune, this time. It was Annu." That's its own special brand of night-terrors. It's something she rarely talks about, even to Luc. "I suppose it doesn't really matter what it was. We're both awake, now."

  "Perhaps." This, to his comment of not being as miserable, and her colourless eyes flick sidelong to study him. "Or perhaps I've become better at hiding it than you are." Sarah looks forward again. Shrugging, she squeezes his hand, briefly. "Tea first, or a bath first?"

Luc (237) has posed:
Luc doesn't mind the stairs as much as he pretends. Oh, he does prefer his shortcuts and cheats, but there are in fact some real memories here and elsewhere that make them worthwhile in their own way. Even if the shortcuts are, all the same, frequently his personal preference. It helps that he knows he'll never get old enough to make it difficult to traverse this sort of terrain, at least unless he really gets himself go. There will therefore, he reasons, always be another opportunity to inconvenience himself with the banality of normal life.

But there is always something to padding barefoot down a stone staircase. It's nostalgic, after a fashion, and he'd done it many times before in Leknaat's tower. The thought brought a smile that wasn't murderously creepy to his lips, though it vanishes just as quickly as Sarah explains what woke her in truth.

"Oh."

Luc's voice echoes down the staircase as he comes to a stop and looks at her properly. He considers asking about it, or saying something further. But then, as he always has, he decides against it and moves on. The first stop is the kitchen, which is higher up than the bath houses since it has to be closer to where everyone lives.

It was a restaurant / inn once, but most of its space is wasted now.

Luc releases Sarah to go rifle through their tea leaves. He expects she'll want to put the kettle on, and might plan to use her rune to skip some of the time they were otherwise looking at waiting. But he's unsure.

"Both at the same time, I think. We'll fix the tea then take it down to the bath." Luc answers, turning his head to look at her properly. "I'm feeling like blackberry I think. Would you like anything to nibble on along with it while we're here?"

The wind mage focuses on her intently for a moment. Has she just gotten better at hiding her misery? But... no, he decides. Even if that was the case her capacity to Just Deal is much higher than his. Water is much sturdier than the wind.

Sarah (316) has posed:
  Most of the time, Sarah prefers to take the long way to do things. It isn't that she dislikes things she perceives as cheating, but Leknaat instilled a certain respect for accomplishing tasks the long way around. It fosters a healthy respect for just how nice shortcuts make life; especially now, after her experiences in the multiverse.

  The water mage doesn't see his smile so much as sense it, briefly showing one of her own and squeezing his hand faintly. She had done the same thing, when they'd lived in Leknaat's tower. Even she had gone barefoot on the hot days of summer, savouring the cool of the stones underfoot. It's not like Luc would have cared about propriety, and Leknaat was blind. Even in Toran Castle she still does that, on the hottest days.

  Into the kitchen they go, and she follows him to do her own rifling through the tea stores. None of it quite catches her interest until he mentions the blackberry, and she nods, though it's without the customary clink of earrings -- she hadn't bothered to put them in, still dressed in her grey slip and thin robe. "Blackberry is fine." While he gathers up the tea, she sets the kettle on, this time without the familiar sensation of magic.

  "Very well. Something to eat? Mm. I think just the tea would be fine." Her fingers drum on the stone counter for a moment, considering. "Yes, just the tea."

  Watching the kettle as she is, she doesn't seem to notice that she's being watched. A bit odd, since she normally knows when he's looking at her -- she has an uncanny ability to sense when he's paying attention to her, even if she's not watching him at the time.

  She seems to notice, a few moments later than she might normally.

  "Hm?" One pale brow arches, and she looks over her shoulder at him. "Something the matter?"

Luc (237) has posed:
Luc cares about propriety about as much as a cat cares about clothes. His eyes flick towards her ears when he doesn't hear the clink he was expecting when she nodded. Ah. Well, it wouldn't make any sense for her to leave those in, would it? They'd catch on the pillows or sheets and that, he could only assume, would be dreadfully painful. He nods slightly in answer to her affirmative, bringing the pouches of blackberry tea over to her shortly after.

"Well, I wouldn't mind a..." He fishes some crackers out of a cabinet and tastes one. The wind mage screws up his face at the awful taste of it. This is old beyond old, and long gone. He steps away to the trash bin, spitting the sour cracker out with unnecessary vigor and discarding what remained of them in his hands. It tasted like vinegar and ick, with a lingering aftertaste that hung onto his tongue relentlessly.

He fetches himself some water, inadvertantly making a show of cleaning the awful out of his mouth by swishing it around before spitting into the nearby basin.

If nothing else, all of this has definitely freed him of the torment of the dream by the sheer /normal/ awful of it.

Only after all of that does Luc answer Sarah: "Nothing's the matter at the moment, I was just trying to determine whether or not you said the truth of it. On the whole I think not. You're just better at bearing it than I am. Water too is more firm than the wind."

He smacks his lips a few times, trying to make certain that he's free of the taste, and then finally focuses on Sarah properly again.

"And with you?" He asks.

Sarah (316) has posed:
  Both the earrings and the hairclip are finishing details. She only wears them once she's prepared herself to face the day, and they're an important part of her appearance, at least when she plans on spending any time in Crystal Valley on Luc's behalf. Besides that, they're an elegant touch even when she isn't in Harmonia. The earrings and hairclip both hold sentimental value to her -- aside from the value of them with their sapphires, they were originally a gift from Luc, even if a thoughtless one, and she's loathe to forget the significance of that.

  Right now, though, her ears are unadorned, and her hair is unbound. It's getting a bit long, in fact, although it's a look she wears well, even if slightly unkempt at the moment.

  Reaching out to take the tea, she deposits one in each cup, pouring from the kettle with a single practised motion of her wrist. Even at the worst of times, she's a careful person -- she may not move with the liquid grace of a born warrior, but she moves with her own sort of liquid grace that has nothing to do with her runes and everything to do with relentless fastidiousness. The kettle is set aside neatly as she eyes the steam curling from both cups.

  Half a glance is cast over her shoulder to Luc as he makes a blatant show about spitting out bits of awful cracker and rising the taste out of his mouth.

  "I could have told you that those had turned, and I intended to dispose of them in the morning." Sarah can't help a little bit of amusement from creeping into her voice. "On the whole, though, I think it was more amusing that way."

  Yeah, even she enjoys a little mirth at Luc's expense once in a while -- another thing she never would have done, years ago. Although she still places him on a pedestal, it's not quite as much of a vast gulf as it once was.

  "I'm not in the habit of lying to you, and I'm not about to start." Sarah dismisses his assessment with a flick of a slim hand, turning back to eye the teacups, gauging by sight whether the brewing is finished or not. Letting it go too long might result in a taste as pungent and sour as those stale crackers. "I will not pretend that Annu did not leave its own scars, unrelated to the mark between my shoulders; however, talking about it will not accomplish anything. You were not there. It would have no meaning to you. Nor, I think, would it even interest you precisely because you were not there."

  She considers as she neatly plucks the tea bags from the water, tossing them into the rubbish bin with a practised gesture. The movement is so fast she doesn't burn her fingers despite plucking them directly from piping hot water.

  A bit of sugar and a bit of cream are stirred into hers, and into Luc's as well if he indicates he wants some, although instead of a spoon she does cheat a bit, using the True Water Rune to incite a little bit of convection in the tea cups. "Perhaps. Perhaps not." Sarah lifts one shoulder faintly and lets it fall in a sort of half-shrug. "I am accustomed to bearing pain and discomfort in silence, though I suppose that is hardly a meter-stick."

  Even when she was dying, both in the Grasslands and in Annu, she did not offer up any complaint. The only indication she had given in Annu was to scream when the True Water Rune devoured her from within -- because it /had/ been unspeakably painful, agony on a level she could not even articulate at the time.

Sarah (316) has posed:
  "At the end of the day, I suppose Annu is to me what the True Wind Rune is to you. It is just as much a part of me, as much an indelible part of my soul, as the True Wind Rune is to you; except I think yours can be overcome." She takes her teacup in hand, already starting for the stairs again. "I do not think the True Runes to be inherently malicious. Rather, I believe they are trying to tell us something."

  "Perhaps even," she muses, "for our own preservation, for after all, to preserve their bearers is to preserve themselves." If they want to do more than be a lump on a log, anyway, and most of them do have that much ambition. "The memories of Annu, however, are not something that can be..." Sarah trails off, thinning her lips. It's rare for Sarah to trail off. She is usually composed. Seldom does she not already have what she plans on saying prepared in advance. "I do not think it can be reversed. I will bear that mark until I die, as surely as any True Rune."

Luc (237) has posed:
In truth the Wind Mage had chosen the accessories carefully, although he hadn't done so because they were meant to be dearly sentimental gifts. Crystal Valley is a place of modern sensibilities, as those things go in their world at all, and fashion is as important as lineage if you're not specifically military. Sarah was his personal assistant, that much was true, but she was set apart from the rest. He brought her with him, she wasn't a part of Harmonia. Therefore, she had to at least have the appearance necessary to stand tall over them.

However short she may be in form.

Luc reminisced on this a little as Sarah poured the tea, clasping his hands together behind his back and staring... not at her precisely, his gaze isn't focused enough for that.

His expression sours again when Sarah points out that she was planning on throwing those crackers out the next day. "Well," he says, "I've saved you the trouble and thrown myself on that particular grenade so there's no use worrying about it now."

But he does wonder how deliberate it was that she didn't say anything. Luc squints at Sarah a little, but however inquisitive he doesn't seem /bothered/.

The amusement left his face again quite rapidly. He shakes his head and replies, "If you're of a mind to talk of it then I would listen but there's nothing I can say or do that wouldn't diminish or demean that sort of circumstance and curse." It was for that reason, rather than a general tendency of closed off behavior, that Luc has never pushed the subject. Some things weren't for him. That, he thought, was one of them.

Luc offers up his cup when sugar and cream are brought out. He smiles a little at her non-committal remark and says, "Perhaps /indeed/. I know my limits and yours well enough, especially if you're not concealing anything."

Luc lifts an eyebrow at Sarah's comparison between Annu and the True Wind Rune, and he wonders if she means Annu itself or the scar. The scar was a thing he could examine and identify, strung together from... well. It wasn't something he wished to think about overmuch. It was, he could tell, designed to be resolvable. But there is a great difference between the curse itself and having merely been there.

Ah. There it is.

"It's a death curse." He replies, tipping his head towards the door to indicate they should take their tea and move on, before carrying on towards the stairs himself, assuming that she'll follow. "And you're not wrong that it's permanent but it's more like..."

Luc struggles for a moment to fine the words. Looking at it was like looking at the tablet of the stars. He's had many opportunities since it is after all on her back and it is without a doubt a highly magical thing. Most times he was looking at her and not it, but sometimes he had looked, and understood.

He didn't continue until they reached the next landing down.

"In fairy tales," he begins, "you'll have stories where a witch or a faerie will place an enchantment or a curse. There will be some strings attached, with a termination clause for good or for ill. You don't see things like that much anymore, unless the stars are gathered together under the same banner. Most magic is very straightforward, like..."

The wind howls momentarily through the staircase, Luc's rune pulsing brilliantly as it does.

"That mark has a similar structure," he explains, "but I couldn't tell you what the termination clause is."

Sarah (316) has posed:
  "Very good. I had planned on replacing those soon, as well. Now I will have the space to do so." Sarah's serene acknowledgement belies the amusement in her eyes. She might have failed to say something about the crackers, and even felt a little guilty about it, but that doesn't stop her from being amused at Luc's expression when he'd bitten into that cracker.

  Her eyes drop to the teacup in her hands, unfocused, deep in thought.

  "No, there is nothing you could do that would diminish it. But, I suppose talking about it would help." Sarah shrugs as she walks. "Perhaps. Very well, then. Next time I will try that." A death curse? She lifts a brow, and she doesn't need to say anything to convey her curiosity.

  He's quick to oblige. She listens to his explanation, his attempt to understand the mark on her shoulders. Almost subconciously, she rolls one, as though something itched there or otherwise bothered her; the same as when she has to rub at the back of her right hand.

  "Oh, that sort of curse. Yes, I could see that. Whatever it is, though, it's powerful. Everyone who bears this mark, I suspect, has had difficulty bearing it." The only sound besides her naturally soft, whispery voice is the rustle of fabric from her robe. "I don't know what could reverse a death-curse like that. Not even the hundred eight Stars of Destiny."

  Sarah shrugs once more, squeezing her eyes shut at the sudden howling gust of wind. It seizes her hair and her robe, whipping both in its wake.

  "Otherwise, no, I don't know what would be a logical termination clause." Her lips thin. "It isn't meant to be easy, whatever it is. I know that much. Not in lgiht of what I'd done." True, she helped rescue a number of children, but was she really doing them a favour? And could saving some out of the many ever lessen the atrocity of what she and the others had done?

  She shoulders open the door to the bath house, setting her tea down and shrugging out of her robe. A gesture from her right hand sets the water to the basin, appearing from wherever it is she summons water. It swirls and sloshes in the basin, not quite in danger of spilling over, and as it settles steam begins to curl from its surface. A little help from Sarah stills it.

  Mist hovers invitingly over the water, and she's already shrugging off the rest of her night clothing and slipping into the water, unable to help shivering a little. It might still be warm, but those stones are cool underfoot.

  Settling in, she lets out a sigh and leans back in the water. "That," she points out languidly, "was a very good idea."

Luc (237) has posed:
"There are examples of relevant escape clauses, but I've no idea what sort would occur to a lunatic like that man, especially in his last moments. But you know the sort the stories will tend to have." Luc raises a hand and ticks off fingers as he speaks, "A kiss from one's true love despite being beastly, or a knight who can lose no battles so long as he remains virtuous. For the bad ones a negative condition will be tripped if a certain banned behavior is indulged, for the good ones the positive effects will be terminated if a banned behavior is indulged."

Luc pauses a moment to squint at Sarah again, over the matter of the crackers. He takes a sip of his tea and remarks, "I'm afraid that I've rubbed off on you in perhaps the wrong ways. Lady Leknaat would either be elated or incredibly pleased." He continues.

He leaves his thoughts on the difficulty of bearing the mark unsaid.

Luc sat his teacup down on the edge of the basin as he disrobed, leaving his nightclothes folded on a small stand designated for such things nearby. He observes quietly as she fills the basin, heats it, and climbs in herself. Then he joins her, easing in close by, but not too close for the moment.

He can feel the sweat building up already. Body heat on top of it just makes him uncomfortable and gross. Luc lowers himself in until only his head above water. Briefly he dips lower than that and gazes with dim, sleepy eyes at Sarah, before blowing a few bubbles into the water and rising back up again.

"When this was first built," He explains, folding his arms across himself beneath the water, "the baths were all barrels over a firepit, with a man to a barrel. I somehow suspect that it would not have agreed with you particularly well."

Sarah (316) has posed:
  "I doubt the concept of an escape clause even would occur to a person like that." Sarah sinks a little lower in the water as Luc lists off particular clauses, eyes hooding. The mist feels nice, but the heat is what does it. There's nothing more relaxing than a bath so hot one almost can't stand it.

  She tilts her head in half-hearted acknowledgement, aware of the sorts of things a story would discuss. She did spend fifteen years imprisoned in a library, after all.

  "Mm. You think? She could be horrified, too. One can't always tell with her." Sarah allows herself a chuckle. "And I suppose that would have been a little too close. It's better to make use of one broad basin, even if it's only just the two of us. Ah, something like this would have been nice in Harmonia, especially in winter." She'll have to handle accomodations the next time they're there, and make sure the place they're staying has a generously large, and private, hot tub.

  She shrugs, faintly. "I do not always like close confines, though, so I suppose you're right. This is more to my tastes. This entire castle, with only ourselves in it. I prefer quiet and calm, and we get it in abundance in this old castle by the lake." The villages nearby regard it as haunted, and she's not only okay with that, but encourages that opinion. It keeps people away. Her chimerae can take care of the rest. "Home. It's still a little strange to think of someplace that way."

  "Oh, that reminds me. I've found an interesting place to travel to."

Luc (237) has posed:
"... Incredibly /dis/pleased, pardon me." Luc corrects himself, though Sarah had already pointed out the flaw in his statement. "But I doubt sincerely that she would be horrified. She may have a sense of dignity about her that I do not, but she is aware of the necessity of... living." He spread his hands in front of him over the water, and gave a shrug. "I'm uncertain that she herself indulges in such trifles anymore, but if she did I would imagine she does it with other beings who are very old. I once saw her entertaining an odd woman in black--"

He frowns a little, fetching his tea to sip at it.

The Wind Mage smiles a little at the notion of large baths in Harmonia. "They," he says, "prefer private baths on the whole. At times they do have overlarge ones for personal entertainment purposes but their culture is not inclined towards bathhouses. It would involve too much mixing of the high with the low, even if there were different houses for different castes. To say nothing of oddities like the Bishops, or the Howling Voice Guild." Both of which lay outside normal social status in Harmonia.

Luc looked as common as it came in Crystal Valley, but because he was the progeny of Hikusaak, none could ultimately deny him status. He was almost a Prince, and Sarah... well. Strange though she was, she fit the look. A little too pale-haired perhaps, but the right eyes to match so that she wasn't too outstanding.

A little more yellow in her and she'd look quite the Harmonian lady.

He sat his teacup down on the edge of the basin, eyebrows lifted. They'd discussed a journey some while before, but it involved going to places he knew Sarah wished to avoid.

"Falena?" He asks, with a wicked, murderous smile. That's not the answer, of course. But he couldn't help himself.

Sarah (316) has posed:
  "Incredibly displeased," Sarah agrees, with a crooked half-smile. The blind astrologian would give no hint of her own disappointment or displeasure. "Disappointed, perhaps, that I've taken to such half-measures and deviousness. I always did have the impression that she preferred my obedience and adherence to social mores. Tractable. Then again, I had always obeyed her because I respected her. I had never needed or wanted to challenge her for anything."

  She lets herself sink a little, eyes half-closing. After a moment, a tendril of water rises from the basin, forming into a sinuous shape like a water dragon. It even sports little fins and tendrils; steam and frost alternatively give it feature and texture. It's shockingly detailed -- but perhaps not very shocking to Luc, who knows just how exacting his companion is when it comes to attention to detail.

  The dragon turns this way and that as Sarah adjusts its features. Below it, a miniature version of Crystal Valley sprouts from the surface of the water, perfect down to the detail of its tiny pressurised-water buildings. Even the One Temple complex is marked at the heart of the circular city.

  It's no more than idle effort, and it's not even enough for her to sound distracted. Her ability to recall locations is almost scary. "They do, but only first-class citisens generally have access to baths as luxurious as this. Even this is better than what can be found in Crystal Valley." She lifts a hand, flicking water across her hydrokinetic sea-dragon; when it spatters the construct, the water freezes, marking it in frosty ice.

  With a gesture and a swirl of mist, the lot of it fades away and Sarah lets her hands settle back into the water. "No, not Falena." A precise flick of her hand sends a jet of water at Luc. It doesn't have the backing of the rune behind it, not just yet. "Definitely not Falena. Putting aside the Sun Rune, it's far too hot and dry there; hotter and drier than the Grasslands." And he saw how wilty she got there. "Hm."

  "The best I can find for the name of the city is the Tiered City of Seven Jewels. I admit I'm a bit puzzled by the name. From what I recall of the maps I had studied, it isn't anywhere near a mountain, so I don't know what sort of tiers it references. And I'm to understand the jewels reference seven relics of the city, not necessarily all jewels." Sarah lifts her right hand, idly studying the back of it, where the True Water Rune glows softly. "I suppose we'll find out. I've already made arrangements for the finest lodgings in the city." She manages a brief flicker of a smile. "I'm certain they'll be impressive."

Luc (237) has posed:
Luc considers Sarah's words regarding Lady Leknaat's assessment of her, and shakes his head a little, smiling as he does so. "She would be neither displeased or disappointed." He says, confidently. Though they both hold her in high regard, he felt sure of himself in this and gesticulated at Sarah with his teacup, "Lady Leknaat took us both in from very dire circumstances. I would say that you adjusted better than I did, but the point of it is that we adjusted. She wasn't trying to mold us in her image, though that was the only thing she knew how to mold us into to start with. She just wanted us to be able to function as relatively normal people."

"She would not," he says, "be disappointed or displeased because you took pleasure in cheating with your talents or being a little less of a 'proper' woman or whatever else you might think would cause her to become troubled by your behavior. She was not even all that hard on us when we tried to blow ourselves up."

"She seems like that kind of woman, but she really is a very easygoing person." This is not, Luc realized, how almost anyone would describe Leknaat. And yet he thought it to be reasonably true, even if she did scold him for misusing his magic on more than one occasion.

The wind mage makes an annoyed little noise regarding what sort of baths /do/ exist in Crystal Valley. Though he does like his privacy, he has a great deal more tolerance for a lack of it in certain departments of his life than was perhaps ideal for Sarah. In particular, he didn't mind bath houses at all. Luc had experienced this sort of thing as a community matter enough that it just didn't weird him out like it did a lot of people.

Harmonia was not like that at all. They were so... /closed off/.

Luc blinks very rapidly as the jet of water boops him on the nose. He glares over towards Sarah, but doesn't retaliate because his tea is much more important to him just now.

"You can build a city up or down without the help of a mountain. The Elves used to--" He pauses here a moment, looking contemplative. "Where did you find for us to stay in this place? What tier? Centrally located, or--"

Luc may be trying to feel it out based on that. He supposes if Sarah wasn't sure of the details though, he probably won't fare any better.

Sarah (316) has posed:
  "I suppose you're right." Sarah watches the mist curl over the surface of the water, eyes falling to half-mast. Their colour is pale even in the dim bath house. Although blue, if he looks close enough, a pale colour like sunlight on ice, it's such a pale colour that the hue could be missed entirely. "She wouldn't have minded that much. In my own mind, she might have. I had never wanted to disappoint her." It's why she'd dithered over the ceremonial candle holders, eventually leading Luc to take the blame for that whole incident. Unsurprisingly, Sarah had felt terrible about it -- both for disappointing Leknaat and then for Luc taking the blame.

  It's been a long time since she's thought of that; the memory brings a faint half-smile to flicker across her face. "She is." Leknaat had to be easygoing, to put up with Luc in his more colourful moments, before he had grown embittered. Privately, she thinks Leknaat had definitely needed to be easygoing, to be so patient with Sarah in the early days.

  In the early days, she'd been an entirely different person. Sarah had come to Leknaat's tower in Luc's company, meek and submissive and quiet. She didn't make eye contact with her rescuers, at first, and seemed to flich when spoken to.

  These days, she thinks, she wouldn't recognise herself when held up against what she had been.

  At Luc's glaring, though, she offers a lopsided smile. Of course she has rather good aim. The water in this basin, as well as the lake, rivers, and rain around them, and the ocean beyond, are hers. There's too much ambient moisture in the air here for her not to be able to sense things with a preternatural precision.

  "Apparently it's on some place called the Sapphire Tier. Each tier is named after a jewel. From what information I could find, it's the highest tier in the city." Sarah considers for a moment. "Oh, and one more thing. It's built over what would seem to be a river, of some kind, but other information I'd found claims it's an ocean. I'm not certain which it is."

  She frowns, slightly, draining her teacup and setting the empty porcelain aside. "An intriguing and slightly mysterious place. They apparently value learning and magic highly, and have impressive libraries. I'm hoping that they'll be willing to part with a few volumes."

Luc (237) has posed:
"Lady Leknaat is much more kind than many people give her credit for." Luc remarks, setting his teacup aside and sinking back into the water until it's right up beneath his chin. He stares over towards Sarah, taking in her pondering for a moment before his eyes slide out of focus and settle on nothing in particular. He snorts a little, the air of it sending tiny ripples chasing through the water beneath him. "They think she's frightening for the same reason they thought you were frightening, only she was powerful enough already that they couldn't stop her doing it. The ones who recognized what she was would seek her out for help."

"But you weren't around when the Scarlet Moon Empire was actively soliciting her for horoscopes, were you?" He smiles a little at the thought. "It's how I got involved in all of this, you know. McDohl was sent to the tower with a Dragon Knight to retrieve the annual horoscope. I was to see them in, and decided at the time that I would test them rather than making it particularly easy."

"So I sent a rock golem at them." Why a rock golem, he couldn't say. It was an out-of-character choice for him, that he'd eventually ascribed to the whims of fate.

Luc pushes away from his solitary resting spot to drift over next to Sarah. The water's cool enough for it now, or at the very least he's used to it enough that it doesn't much bother him to deal with body heat on top of the heat of the water. He issues a heavy, satisfied sigh. This was, in fact, a good idea.

"Could be both. A river or lake big enough could be called an ocean." He was unsurprised she'd choose a place like that. "But if we're on the upper levels then I suspect it'll make no difference. If you wish to obtain something of interest though, you should take something to trade with you."

"Copies, not originals, would do. They get something new and foreign, you get something new and foreign." He adds, plainly.

Sarah (316) has posed:
  "She took each of us in, didn't she?" Sarah arches her brows at Luc's observation. There had to be some kind of inherent kindness behind that action; there was no percentage otherwise in rescuing and virtually adopting the two stray magicians. "I think we understand better than anyone else her kindness just for that alone. There's nothing frightening about her abilities. A little strange, perhaps, and a little different from most. But not frightening."

  Maybe she intimidated Sarah a little at times, but that was more a product of Sarah's timid personality than it was a product of Leknaat being formidable. True, Leknaat /could/ be formidable if she was actually trying to leave an impression on somebody, but most of the time Sarah had considered her as a gentle, thoughtful, and somewhat introspective woman.

  Just the kind of person she would have wanted in a mother, really. These days, she remembers nothing of her mother beyond a vague sensation of anxiety. She had never been comfortable around her own blood relations. Leknaat had become her family.

  Sarah reaches up to run her fingers through her hair, closing her eyes and ducking beneath the water for a moment. The water just seems to slide from her when she resurfaces, and a slight gleam from her right hand suggests it's being given a little encouragement.

  "Hm. That part I had never understood. If there are any elements that truly oppose wind, it would be earth. I could understand your brother going immediately for a summoned creature such as those, but you?" Sarah eyes him, speculative. "I would have expected a winged chimera or gryphon or some kind of bird-like creature as an instinctive summoned creature. Not a rock golem."

  She lets herself lean a little closer to him when he approaches; not necessarily because she saw him drifting her way, but because she can sense it through the water. It's an odd way to sense a person, but it's something she's gotten used to over the years.

  Her head tilts slightly to one side, even as she moves to slip an arm loosely around him. "Hm? That much is true. The maps don't paint a very good picture of the area, I'm afraid. I suppose it will be a surprise for both of us. I'm sure it'll be interesting, though." She pauses, smiling slyly. "And I've heard they have top-notch cuisine, too. Particularly sweet pastries and delicacies. Renowned throughout their world, according to the research I'd done on the city."

Luc (237) has posed:
"You don't think her power is frightening?" Luc smiles at this, a little grimly. He had some talent for the same things that Lady Leknaat did, though he didn't realize /why/. It was one of the things that had troubled him gravely enough to attempt to destroy his Rune, and end the cycle. It wasn't something he talked about very often, though. His focus was on the Ashen Future, not his reaction to the things that he saw in the tablets as he fought alongside McDohl and Riou. He swallows a little harshly and continues his thoughts, "I think that Leknaat is far more frightening than we ever were, though it is true that in a contest of martial magic she would fail before either of us at this point."

"But knowing is its own terror. I saw... many things, following her instruction. I am sure that she saw much more than I ever did. People think that looking into the future is a desirable thing," He draws his hand up from the water, observing droplets trickling down his fingers to splash lightly before him, "but it's really not. Especially with a major confluence of powers in progress. When it's /happening/-- when you're /watching/ it-- people are like gloves being worn by the Runes, forced to act out their conflicts."

"I never watched /our/ war that way," He added, lowering his hand into the water again, "and I don't think I'd like to. My point is they should be scared of her, but not for the reasons they think. Asking to know is foolishness."

"But I know you don't need to be told that she's a good person," Luc flicked water towards Sarah idly, "I was just thinking aloud."

The Wind Mage looks pensive for a moment in answer to Sarah's questioning of the rock golem, but all he can some up with is a comical 'lol donno' look and a deliberately exaggerated shrug. "Perhaps," he says, "the universe felt that irony was necessary in my magic at the time. Even I like something bitter now and again. I'll bet that little shit was busily summoning an air golem on the other side of the continent at the time."

"Hm-- oh? That's good." He inclines his head in Sarah's direction, but didn't seem to be paying attention. It's fine, he usually doesn't have much bad to say about the places they visit.

Sarah (316) has posed:
  "I think her power is frightening," Sarah agrees, with a wan smile, "but it's in a much more specific context. Mistress Leknaat's abilities aren't the kind of thing most people are going to think about as frightening, but I would be more wary of such a gift than I would of any elemental power."

  She shrugs faintly. "That's to say nothing of the Gate Rune. I can only imagine the sorts of things she can drag from the World of Emptiness with a rune like that." Disgustingly powerful abominations from the unreality, probably. The sorts of things Sarah can do, but orders of magnitude stronger. "I would be more concerned about her clairvoyance. At least, anybody in their right mind should be concerned about that, as it pertains to them."

  "I can't speak for anyone else, Sarah murmurs, "but I certainly don't want to know what lies in store for me. Better to find out like anyone else, as I go along."

  Her smile is wan; almost bitter. "People aren't meant to know what lies ahead. There's a reason why talents like hers are so vanishingly rare."

  Luc's answer regarding the earth golem only earns a shrug from Sarah. In honesty, she wasn't expecting he had any reason at all, so his answer isn't very surprising. Sometimes he does things just because the whim takes him; like a leaf being blown this way and that by the wind.

  The water flicked at her merely parts; it never so much as touches her.

  Sarah is totally cheating.

  Reaching out a hand, she cups it, catching the water Luc had flicked; the droplets form a neat sphere on her palm. She rolls the sphere about this way and that as she considers. "Hm. Admittedly, the location was one reason I wanted to go there. I'm told it's quite a feat of engineering both mundane and magical, too. I'm curious to see that. But most of all, they have an interesting library. The best in their world, if my research is correct."

Luc (237) has posed:
"What is a true oddity," Luc continues to meander, "is that to the best of my knowledge her abilities have very little to do with her half of the gate rune. I'm not certain where such traits spring from. I've some talent with them myself, or I'd think that it was simply a lesser known property of the gate rune. I've often wondered if, perhaps, runebearers possess a sort of..."

"A sort of bridge between their current, past, and future selves, which continues on towards future and past rune bearers." He pauses here, smiling faintly at Sarah. "Oddly I do not believe she is capable of summoning abominations in the manner you describe. I think that is a property of the other half of the gate rune. She can transport herself wherever she pleases and I've seen her banish whole armies without issue, but she does not summon them."

"I have seen her bridge wildly separate points in space-time, with assistance of others, but that is another matter altogether." He adds thoughtfully, shrugging a little. "I suppose she could probably send people /into/ the world of emptiness if she saw fit to do so, but I do not think it is a combat-applicable task unless it is a denizen of those worlds to begin with. Otherwise she would have had a firm advantage over either of us in a contest."

"And we know that she did not have that."

Luc offers another tiny shrug in answer to the matter of clairvoyance being rare. "Do you think so? I think that their existence at all speaks to much the opposite, and with care fate can be changed, though it is rare for it to do so. I've often wondered if that's something she intended for me."

"Or if she was just tired of taking care of the damn tablets herself."

Luc blinks a little at the water Sarah caught. He wonders what kind of Shit (tm) he could cause by using his own water rune. He knew he couldn't override /her/ commands, but he could probably rile the damn things up enough to make the water do whatever it damn well pleased anyway.

It seemed too small and petty a reason to deliberately antagonize her rune, though. Mischief vanishing from his face, he asks, "Wasn't the last place we went to also on the water?"

Sarah (316) has posed:
  "In fairness, my abilities are much the same, and hardly align with the runes that I possess," Sarah remarks, letting one hand trail absently in the water. "I've always been able to use those abilities, too, so I think it's more a mark of the person, rather than a mark of the runes. Their potential with such things, if you will. Perhaps Mistress Leknaat also possesses those qualities, and she can use techniques beyond her runes, as I do. Though, I admit that teleportation is a bit rare, and illusory arts are almost unheard of. Did you know? I've since dug through the One Temple's archives, and I could find no references to such a thing. If what you've said about those bridges is true, I wonder why that is?"

  The question is an idle one, though, and she doesn't seem too interested in pursuing it seriously. She probably could seriously research such a phenomenon, with her connections and perceived Harmonian authority, but there isn't much point. It is as it is; what would hypotheses and theories change?

  Meanwhile, the idea of being cast into the World of Emptiness is a chilling thought. Sarah doesn't quite shiver, but she does have to stifle the impulse. It's a place wholly inhospitable to the average person -- that Yuber was rumoured to come from it is no surprise at all to her -- and she isn't even positive a person really could live there. A normal person, anyway. Yuber very emphatically does not count... either as 'normal' or as 'a person,' as far as she's concerned.

  "I think so. At least, a talent as potent as Mistress Leknaat's. Not because it's rare, but because it takes a certain temperament to be able to cope with such a talent." Sarah settles those colourless eyes on Luc, quiet and serious. "Think about it. Your exposure to that drove you to seek the True a Wind Rune's destruction. Certainly, there were other factors, but it couldn't have helped. And even Mistress Leknaat herself seemed a little melancholy, sometimes, in her own way. Imagine what she must have seen over the years." It's a sobering thought. "It's why her having taken us in means so much to me. That she could be exposed constantly to the worst visions imaginable, and still have the compassion and motivation to take us in, is impressive."

  Also immediately personally relevant, because gods know where she would be by now if not for their intervention, but she doesn't need to mention that part.

  She tilts her head a little, watching him as he watches her handle the sphere of water. Wordlessly, she offers it to him, it's form holding with a little subconscious effort. "The last time? I believe so." Sarah smiles a faintly impish little smile. "Since you leave the travel arrangements to me, why shouldn't I choose a place near water? It's the smart thing to do, anyway."

Luc (237) has posed:
The Wind Mage offers a faint shrug on the subject of illusory arts. He says, "Sorcery outside the domain of runic magic is difficult and it is my experience that those who handle it the best are those who are born under certain signs. You and I are among those, as are Crowley and Mazus, and most of their prentices. I've no reckoning of whether or not this is universally true but I imagine that you would find a similar pattern if you looked elsewhere. There are other beings who practice such magic or who can be invoked by it, but I think some of them are simply not of this world."

"Yuber is an obvious example." He adds, "but it is true for instance that Dragons exist apart from our reality and the Dragon Rune merely gives them substance to exist here, rather than creating them wholesale or permitting them 'life'. And of course there are the entities within the World of Emptiness and other such sub-dimensions, who certainly do not obey all the same rules that we do."

"... For instance, elementals, which require no runes to give action to whatever it is that composes their physical make-up."

"My point being," Luc concludes, "that it hardly surprises me that certain areas of magic are simply unexplored, particularly when the most practical application of magery for the purposes of most of Harmonia is the implementation of safe and consistent combat magery. Even if illusions were a thing they researched -- I do not doubt that they are -- it would not do to allow access to it to most of their mages. Too many opportunities for mischief."

"Masterminding a multinational false flag attack and starting a massive war for instance."

Luc considers the matter of the influence looking into the future had on him, but offers a dismissive wave. "Just because my idea was radical does not make it insane. If we presume that the Runes are a contributor towards an inevitable poor ending for humanity then smiting one of them out of existence certainly has merit even if it has a locally devastating effect. The fact that it would blow me up in the process was a bonus of course and in that regard I was a little insane to be sure."

"But I do not think my meanderings on the ill omens of the rune are madness." He says, sighing exasperatedly. It was a tough pitch, he knew, but the whole thing had utterly incalculable consequences whether it was executed (and a rune thereby destroyed) or not (and the runes continued as they were). It was a dire turning point for a certainty. He wonders precisely what he might have caused by falling short of it in 'reality'.

Luc smiles bitterly at Sarah's observation that Leknaat must have seen many /different/ things over the years. He reaches over with his index finger to *boop* her on the tip of her nose and says, "You would think that but it's not all that different from one iteration to the next. The faces change but the stars don't. A Rune unexpectedly changes hands, and its unique pattern is pressed into motion. A Nation's state lies in the balance... and if the stars are /right/, an old nation falls and a new one rises in its place."

"If the stars are /wrong/ the runes play out their drama but things don't change that much. One player enters and another player exits and things change forever in a number of spiderwebbing ways that lead to further trouble down the road, but then that's /next/ generation's problem."

"The people," He rambles on," have less to do with it than they'd like to think, and then it's over."

Luc does not reflect on the notion that this is a fairly maddening way to look at things, and no /less/ maddening if it also happens to be true. He just boops Sarah on the nose again, and slides his fingers across her cheek and down her jaw. "Let's try a flying city some day, but make certain nothing important is going on at the time. If it is, it'll be the day it falls out of the sky. And /yes/, it is the smart thing to do."

"Sometimes you have to plan on being able to kill everyone in town."

It's hard to tell if he's joking.

Sarah (316) has posed:
  "Yuber was in a class of his own." Sarah's statement is both disdainful and dismissive.

  In the Grasslands, she had made no secret of how little she enjoyed working with him, and the two were constantly at one another's throats. In fact, he was one of the only people who could incite her to actual /anger/. Between his casual insinuations about her relationship with Luc (even if true) and dismissal of Luc's methods and plans (which was the final straw), it had been all she could do to hold a civil conversation. Even Luc in his preoccupied state had noticed how curt and stilted she'd been.

  He's a great example, all right... of a total freak of nature.

  Some part of her almost wants to meet Pesmerga, and shake his hand. Whoever or whatever he is, he'd be doing the world a favour to permanently remove Yuber from it.

  Sarah shakes her head, slightly, and returns to the present. "Well, I suppose so. It still struck me as odd that in the four thousand years of city history and records contained in the One Temple, give or take a century or two, such a thing isn't mentioned at all. I know," she adds, eyebrows rising. "I looked. Though, I suppose Mistress Leknaat certainly had to know something of such things. She did teach me how to hone them."

  There's a faint shrug given. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. Whether it's studied by others or not doesn't change the fact that it exists; or her own mastery over the lost arts.

  She lifts her right hand and splays her fingers, studying the True Water Rune across the back of her hand with hooded eyes. It glows, very faintly, with blue-white light. "Ah. Yes. The politicians. I suppose I hadn't thought of that, ironically." Despite the fact that they'd basically done the same thing, she hadn't really thought about it in terms of an institutionalised technique. It's not surprising. Harmonian politics are cutthroat enough without something like that running loose in it.

  ]"I still hold that they're trying to warn us; that they aren't the direct result of this Ashen Future. That it's a face they're trying to escape." She considers her rune, tilting her head the other way. "Why would they contribute to a future in which they cannot express themselves? For a lot of those True Runes, I would imagine it would be as bad as, if not worse than, not existing at all."

  It might bear investigation, somehow. Maybe, someday, she'll ask Leknaat about it; perhaps the blind astrologist might be able to shed some light on the subject. It's a curious one, and one she wouldn't mind having the answer to. Purely for science, of course.

  Before she can react, her nose is tapped by Luc's forefinger, and she crosses her eyes to try and look at it.

  Sarah doesn't quite stammer, brow furrowing a bit as he continues his explanation. "I suppose I'll have to take your words for it. I was busy spending some quality time with a book at the time the last war was waged," she adds, dryly. That is to say, it's a good chance she was at the time locked up in the One Temple's extensive library. "I can believe that, though. Even putting aside the matter of True Runes, history has a tendency to repeat itself. I imagine that it was not so interchangeable, myself; perhaps the people do not matter, but the things that they do while they wield those True Runes can still be important."

Sarah (316) has posed:
  And lasting, too. Imagine what a piqued Runebearer might do to a nation on their way out -- like what was done with Lordlake, in the Queendom of Falena. Perhaps the lake was re-established, but it was a good example of the terrifying, awesome power of a True Rune; its account survived down through history.

  "That seems unduly pessimistic, all the same, even for you. We were able to avert a war, in a manner of speaking. We ultimately chose not to pursue inciting war against the Grasslands and the Zexen Federation. If you look at it from a historian's point of view, it's all the difference in the world. Perhaps as a result, the next great war that happens will not be as devastating as it could have been. Perhaps it may be more of a massacre. Who are we to say, truly, what effect we have on history?"

  It's an idle comment, though, and her tone nonetheless suggests she's more or less done with the subject. It makes her head hurt to think about True Runes and their associated longevity too long.

  And then she's booped on the nose again, snorting, though her eyes flutter closed as his fingers trail across the line of her cheekbone; down the line of her jaw. She leans against his hand, reaching up to take his hand in hers. "Hm. Certainly. A flying city. Actually, I take that back. A flying city with excellent vintage in its inns." She allows herself a half-smile, opening her eyes, regarding Luc through a veil of pale lashes.

  Sarah smiles in answer to his last comment. It is a deceptively sweet expression; the smile of the innocent. With that much water, and the right kind of threat, any city perched over an abyssal ocean is going to be a weapon in her hands.

  Shifting, she pulls herself up and out of the water, though she pulls away from him with obvious reluctance. A glimmer of the True Water Rune at her right hand, and the water clinging to her simply... dismisses itself, as she shrugs into a bathrobe. Sarah offers him a brief smile. "I'll meet you upstairs; I'll pour the wine."

  Which is precisely what she does. By the time he rejoins her, whenever that happens to be, he'll find her perched on the edge of the bed, wine glass in hand. Her expression is, for the moment, thoughtful.

Luc (237) has posed:
"Living in the World of Emptiness will make an individual a class of their own." Luc points out, with a devilish grin. The idea had only moments before inspired a near-shudder from the Water Mage, he didn't doubt that she would fully comprehend the implications of somebody with a humanesque mind (if a twisted one) managing to survive and even thrive there. They would have to be something exceptional or it would be like living in a tiger's cage at a menagerie.

With regards to the One Temple's records, the Wind Mage flicks water towards the other end of the basin and remarks, "Those sorts of records live or die at the whims of people like me, and people like me don't like useful secrets lying around for enemies to discover. Speaking of, if you ever find any records like those please destroy them quietly and replace them with forgeries that offer cookie recipes or something. Something they'd imagine is actually code but is just what it appears to be." As for Lady Leknaat...

"She knows something of every thing, I think."

Luc just looks sour on the topic of the ashen future. He doesn't really know what to believe, but he's lived with it long enough that he doesn't much care for the difference. He was bitter at the runes even without consideration towards his torturing him periodically, it didn't take much for him to take these things the wrong way. Most runes don't even need help becoming despised. The Night Rune was positively rude.

With regards to the Grasslands he replies, "It doesn't matter much. The Fire Rune is still there, and that place is a tinderbox with or without a rune at hand. Harmonia's treaties that forbade it to invade will expire in a handful of years and something will happen whether we've a hand in it or no. Since the Fire Rune is there, they've every incentive to stick their hands in that particular cookie jar."

"Most likely the HSDF will be commissioned to band together with the Karaya Clan -- old friends of Harmonia via Highland -- and assist Crystal Valley in marching on the Grasslands. Le Buque will be given the opportunity to earn its way towards proper Harmonian citizenship in the coming conflict. The Zexen Confederacy will only have a hand in it insofar as it is threatened by the overall situation, but they've no True Rune and they're natural enemies of the grasslanders."

"Without our false flag operation being unveiled and pushing them together, they'll stay that way."

Luc seems distracted by this line of thinking, and when she releases his hand to climb out of the water Sarah might easily mistake his staring into space as staring at her. He presses his hands together thoughtfully and then snaps back to reality to say, "We might need to go trick the Grasslanders and Zexen Confederation into fighting Harmonia instead of each other."

He might not think she's right, but apparently he finds indulging her ideas preferable to the alternative. A moment later he realizes she's leaving and registers her actual words.

It takes him a little while to catch up, and by the time he does Luc is wearing a robe of his own and looks deeply torn by his options. He glances towards the empty stretch of bed behind Sarah, then towards her.

"You should put that down. You're going to spill it." He advises her, sitting down next to her and looping his arm around her waist. That is all the warning Luc sees fit to offer her before he leans over and plants a light kiss on her neck, just beneath her ear.

It didn't matter much. She'd probably just abuse her powers to siphon the wine out.

Sarah (316) has posed:
  Securing the curtains and the windows, and pouring two glasses of wine, seems to take enough time for Luc to catch up to her. Eventually. Getting distracted and forgetting that he was up to isn't too uncommon, so Sarah is fairly patient with the lag time between him realising she left and him arriving in the quarters.

  With her hair down and her bathrobe loose, she looks different from her usual tidy appearance; a bit less severe, a little softer around the edges. She looks up when he approaches, arching her brows, about to respond to his caution. A flicker of a notion of questioning why reaches her, but she has no time to voice that complaint before he sends her train of thought skipping right off the rails.

  It takes Sarah a few seconds to recover -- during which she's inordinately pleased to note she /hasn't/ dropped the wine, at least yet -- and eye him as though speculatively.

  "Hmm. Now that's an intriguing idea," she says, to all appearances quite serious. "While neither entity would present a serious threat to Harmonia, it would keep them busy for quite some time. It would certainly constitute a suitable threat in concert with other angles of attack." She leans against him, though she does drain her wine glass -- a bit too quickly, perhaps -- before setting it aside. "Better still if we could convince the Zexens and the Grasslanders to not only turn against Harmonia, but ally with each other; instead of two disparate entities attacking Crystal Valley, there would be a single unit."

  That's intriguing, apparently. Food for thought. She's half entertained the idea of wrecking Harmonia from within, in the past; that angle isn't something she had particularly thought of, but it's an interesting one, and one that isn't too far outside the realm of possibility.

  Only belatedly does she seem to remember that he's there. They're alike in that regard. Once something's got their attention, it can be all-consuming. Fingers trail lightly through his hair; she pauses to press a kiss just below his ear, as he had done to her. "Hm. I'm interested in that. I wonder who else would have the courage to stand against Harmonia? To form an alliance, even? They would have to," she reasons, more to herself than to Luc. "The opposition would be overwhelming to any one entity alone. They've proven that well enough over the years."

  An empire does not reach several thousand years just from having a pretty flag. Harmonia's armies boast a great number of trained magicians, and a great number of trained soldiers; putting these two together makes for an army that very few, if any, are foolish enough to provoke.

  "In the meantime," she murmurs, settling her hand over the arm around his waist, "I'm glad no one's decided that this place is interesting. It's good to travel, but Toran Castle is a good base of operations." It's remote, and Sarah likes remote. That it lords over a very large lake is of course just another benefit of the castle's location. "I also like being able to see the stars. Even if they aren't as meaningful to me as they are to Lady Leknaat, I enjoy looking at them. They're still beautiful, in their own way."

  The stars, on a bright clear night, have a way of making one feel very small in the face of the cosmos. Sarah is appreciative of that feeling -- it keeps her perspective about where it ought to be.

  The overwhelming strength of a True Rune could drive someone to madness, drunk on their own power, but those starlit nights do well to remind her of her place in the universe.

  An insignificant speck.

Luc (237) has posed:
"They're not real threats either way." Luc corrects quietly, "the armies dispatched with Sasarai and myself were nothing compared to what's garrisoned, but Harmonia doesn't make a habit of deploying full force into regions it is attempting to push into or take something from. One of the True Runes is worth an effort but they will not risk even a tenth of their overall strength on it." Which really says something about how daunting even a single Harmonian legion really is.

"For that matter, they won't risk more than one True Rune to obtain another True Rune." He adds, thoughtfully. His own rune had not been a part of the calculation since it was not widely known to be in the Masked Bishop's possession. Already it was considered a 'lost asset' for most practical purposes. Only the True Earth Rune was on the table.

"As a collective force the Grasslands pose a sufficient enough threat to dissuade Harmonia from expending the effort required to crush them. To offer a similar comparison," Luc pointedly steadied Sarah's glass with his own hand as he continued speaking, "They deployed Sasarai to Highland as well, but retreated at once when I unsealed the True Wind Rune and depleted his troops to nearly nothing. A similar situation was in play there. Highland was very friendly with Harmonia and had at least two wild True Runes, but they weren't willing to gamble a couple of maybes for the possibility of losing what they assuredly had."

Some days he wishes he had managed to ace Sasarai in that battle, personally as well as militarily.

He sighs a little and concludes, "All I meant is we should make sure the Grasslands stay the Grasslands and be certain that Harmonia doesn't claim the True Fire Rune. They haven't the context required to unite independently of our interference."

Luc leans in to rest his head against Sarah's, listening to her in silence for a small while. After a while he says, "Toran Castle is well enough but I wouldn't get too used to it. Eventually, I'm sure, some fool of a boy will go looking for someplace to start building his resistance movement. As sure as the sea swallows the shore, he'll come looking here, and we'd be daft not to give it to him."

"Probably be a century or two."

"Do you suppose we can construct a spooky tower that moves around by then?" Luc asks with a snort, drooping a bit so that his cheek is pressed to her neck, one eye obscured and shut.

Sarah (316) has posed:
  "No, I suppose not." Sarah lets her eyes hood. Harmonia is hardly cowardly, but it prefers caution in any sort of situation, consistently choosing the solution that earns them the most gain with the least risk. It's not at all sympathy for the common soldier -- at best, it's sympathy for the resources that that soldier cost the kingdom.

  Of course they aren't going to commit their full force to anything. The common army is nonetheless better-trained and leagues better-equipped than any other major fighting force in their world, except maybe the Dragon Knights, and dragons always throw interesting wrenches into calculations.

  Sarah seems to consider. "A little encouragement this way or that, for either side, would certainly hold them to an alliance with each other without trying to murder one another in their sleep." The leaders of the Zexen Federation and the leaders of the Grasslands could both be manipulated easily, experience has proven; a little illusion-work and she could have both of them eating from the palm of her hand.

  Her arm curls loosely around Luc when he leans his head against hers, tilting her head at about the same time he rests his cheek against her neck. "Mmmn. That still gives us a century or two with it, and until someone actually has any kind of need for a tumbledown old castle by a lake, it's a good place to be."

  That assessment has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it's by a lake. Probably. Maybe.

  Absently running her fingers down the line of his back, she considers for a moment, before blinking somewhat owlishly at him. "What? No. And would you really trust being on something that could feasibly fall out of the sky at any time? That seems like an ill-conceived sort of base of operations, to me."

Luc (237) has posed:
"Discrete Rune theft is what the Howling Voice Guild is for. And assassinations, but they go hand-in-hand." Luc adds with a tiny shrug. "I've dealt with a few of those fellows during the last couple of wars but they've all been interested in other things. It so happens that the only real active members have been busily trying to seek revenge on one another for the murder of their master or... some such nonsense, I never really paid much mind to it because they weren't interested in anything of actual worth during those wars."

"And then there's Latjke, but he's a whole different story. Weaselly little bastard."

The Wind Mage still isn't quite certain what he was up to. They said after the second war that he'd taken the vampire woman for his wife, but he could have seen that merely being a ploy to steal away her True Rune for Harmonia. It wasn't a matter he was interested in questioning in depth regardless.

He gives a small affirmative noise that Sarah can only really distinguish because he's so close to her. Luc has a rather nasty feeling that manipulating the situation in this way is a bad idea but he's uncertain why. True, it had ended badly the first time, when they intended only to burn the world down getting rid of the True Wind Rune, but the manipulation of fate based on prior knowledge established in a parallel reality that hadn't quite taken place...

He was unsure of that.

"Oh, it's not tumbledown at all."

Luc waves a hand towards the surrounding windows, "This wasn't cleared out at all, and there were no bridges leading to the adjacent towers. Frankly I'm surprised everybody packed up and left. They didn't do that for North Window. Still a functioning town these days, with most of the same old faces."

"I suppose being able to leave without taking a ferry is rather an advantage. And a problem that we do not have."

Luc frowns a little at Sarah's reaction. "Moving doesn't mean flying." He points out. "Didn't I just say earlier to avoid flying places that had anything going on? They always drop out of the sky when something dramatic happens."

"Always."

Sarah (316) has posed:
  There's no telling what it was that Latjke really wanted. His intentions had been a mystery to everyone but himself in the few times that she had had opportunity to interact with him. He had been friendly enough, but something about that friendly nature had been off-putting.

  Either her instincts were trying to tell her something about him, or they were reminding her that she doesn't like overly-extroverted personalities very much. When someone deflects attention away from themselves so quickly, it means they have something to hide, in her experience.

  Thankfully, her musings on uniting the various disparate nations against Harmonia seems to be an idle flight of fancy at best; she's already lost interest in it as a plausible course of action. It depended on too many variables; variables she could not guarantee.

  She tilts her head, regarding the stars beyond the window. As far from towns as it is, the stars over the lake are fantastically clear and bright. The pale woman only shrugs. She prefers avoiding places that have questionable technology, and there's quite a bit of it that she considers questionable.

  "Probably." She leans on him, sighing through her nose; it seems more of a contented sound than anything else. "Mm. Pity, too. I wouldn't mind seeing a city that manages to fly. I'm sure that would be a sight. I suppose good wine out of a place like that would be too much to ask for, unless they had built terraced vineyards. Hmm." Sarah makes a thoughtful, somewhat sleepy sort of sound. "I'm sure somewhere out there in the multiverse, something like that exists."

Luc (237) has posed:
"Most likely any civilization that troubles with a flying city has altogether different problems than we're used to." Luc replies, leaning back to lie against the bed and look up towards the ceiling. There aren't any stars there, but he doesn't feel very inclined to be upright for much longer regardless, wine or no wine. He mumbles something inaudible before generating a gleaming image of what must be his idea of a flying island.

It's more of a diamond shape in effect, because he's not really trying very hard. A surface that tapers off to a point along the bottom. He gestures towards it, "I've heard of one that hosts a magic school and isn't very friendly to much of anybody else. You know how /they/ produce anything and everything. They just conjure it right up like--"

He activates his Blue Gate Rune. The glow is muffled by his robes and his back being pressed into the sheets. A portal opens up, dispensing not monsters but a bunch of pots and pans that came from ... somewhere. They clatter semi-noisily onto the rug around the bed, which Luc had eventually insisted on when the floor was simply too cold in mornings.

"Wouldn't want to go there, myself. Whole damn city full of cranky people like us? I even heard there was a sort of entry exam at the teleporter. You have to prove you're /magical/ enough to gain entry." This wasn't entirely unheard of even around here. For instance, Luc's dumb little story of testing McDohl and his companions at Leknaat's tower.

"Either that or they import everything. Which can be interesting." He seems to consider banishing all the crap he summoned, but it involves sitting up enough to see it properly. So he decides to just do it later.

Sarah (316) has posed:
  "I would imagine so, considering they've already gone so far as to ignore gravity." Sarah withdraws her right hand, studying the True Rune on the back of her hand thoughtfully. "Whatever other concerns they have are not going to be normal from the perspective of a society that doesn't live on a flying automaton or airship or -- whatever it is a society like that would build.

  One wonders what sorts of things they would fret over. Probably the integrity of their flying base of operations, she would guess.

  Settling against him as he lies back and looks up, she rests her head on his chest, letting her eyes drift to half-mast. "Mmn--" Before she can comment further there's a harsh clatter of pots and pans, and she winces. "--yes. Although that object lesson wasn't quite necessary. In any case, I'm not going to stay someplace where the population is just as erudite and elitist as Harmonia. If I wanted that, I'd go to Crystal Valley." Sarah wrinkles her nose in clear distaste. "And generally, I prefer not to unless I absolutely have to."

  "I have to admit that the economics of a place like that ought to be interesting, considering how much one must rely on imported food with such limited supplies on hand." Sarah considers that for a moment. "Exports ought to be interesting. Mechanical gadgets, I'd guess, or artifacts related to magic somehow."

Luc (237) has posed:
"You teleport all the time. That's a /much/ more basic violation of the principles of physics than defying gravity with an adequate expenditure of power." Luc points out with an amused smirk. "Matter of fact I just violated those principles a great deal more than flying just now. And you're a summoner so you do it as regularly as you do anything. The amount of energy that would be required to power a gateway between here and the World of Emptiness without the use of magic would be colossal and impossible. You'd have to crack open the planet or harvest energy from a star up close."

He wondered if the Sun was animate, and just as much of an imperious lunatic as the Sun Rune to whom it was conceptually related.

Luc dismissed the thought with a sigh and shut his eyes, squeezing Sarah firmly with the arm that had stayed around her this whole time. "I think," he says, "they're generally better-natured than Crystal Valley. If I had to take a stab at their export it would simply be magical expertise. If you can make a city fly and set up an elaborate labyrinthe to guard the entrance against those who do not have anything to contribute to your society..."

"It seems to me you would have a very valuable thing indeed to offer to whomever you did business with. Magic in exchange for... well, anything really. Look at Rune shops. They do the richest business in any town you'll come across and the magic that most people can express through a rune is a minor trick compared to what's possible."

"By comparison Crystal Valley concerns itself primarily with combat mages, as we've discussed." He chuckles a bit. "Flying magical island-ettes with upkeep in exchange for regular payments of whatever the city needs. Have to be expensive, or else they'd blot out the sky."

Sarah (316) has posed:
  "When I teleport, I'm only drawing on power and therefore breaking the laws of physics in short bursts," Sarah explains, absently tracing an idle pattern over his chest with a forefinger. "Something like a flying island is relying on a much more monstrous output. I can't even imagine the kind of energy that would be needed to sustain something like that. It isn't really feasible unless they have an astonishing sort of power source."

  Such exercises are interesting, but not ultimately enough to hold her attention indefinitely. She's a water mage and a scholar, but not an engineer. Machinery doesn't interest her very much, and in a lot of cases she actively dislikes it.

  Her expression goes a bit ashen. "Ugh. I just had a terrible thought. Harmonia, in possession of the kind of technology or magic used to power a floating island. The world as we know it would be under Harmonia's boot heel, I think, unless the rest of the world could drum up a handful of True Runes."

  Shrugging, she settles against him, twisting to press an absent kiss to the side of his neck. "Well, the city I intend to take you to ought to have some interesting feats of engineering itself. I heard something about substantial water locks on an unimaginable scale. I guess we'll see just what kind of scale they mean when I see them."

Luc (237) has posed:
"Yes, but the amount of conventional energy--" Luc began to object for a moment, and then seemed to think better of it. He shrugs lightly and adds, "I think that once you've reached a point where you can make a flying city at all that you've most likely exceeded anything resembling a normal amount of energy generated. You're thinking about... hm, exclusivity and such. Think about how effective aerial attackers are in our own world."

"The Dragon Knights are the great aerial power of this world, and usually no one can gainsay them there. Summoners may conjure up flying monsters to contest them but for the most part that niche is filled by the elite few. Floating a city prior to a specific point of technological development is very clever." He drums his fingers against her side while pondering the subject. "In a more modern world it would be better to land and erect a forcefield or some other terrestrial deterrant, since the technology to get overhead would be more developed and the energy spent flying could be used better to keep things out a little more conventionally."

"... And I expect that Harmonia could do that if they really wished to do so, but it isn't worth the price. Sasarai and I could most likely do such a thing together if we wanted to." He gestures at the surrounding castle walls. "But I wouldn't. Like I keep saying. Things like that hang in the air until the exact moment something important happens. Then they come crashing down as violently as you can imagine."

Luc shuts his eyes, quietly losing himself in the sensation of her kiss for a moment, goosebumps raising on his skin as he does. But there is one thing he's curious about before that. He cracks an eye.

"The hell's a water lock?"

Sarah (316) has posed:
  "Conventional energy or unconventional energy, it's still a question of footprint. Teleporting a single person from one linear point to another is certainly a drain, but powering the consistent lift for something with tonnage I can't even begin to guess at?" Sarah gestures, as though to pull something down. "It would come crashing down at the slightest failure. You wouldn't even need to destroy the power source; merely interrupt it. I imagine such a place would have paranoia about such facilities on the level of the grandest sort of paranoia. They'd have to."

  The kind of security over a mechanism like that would probably be phenomenal, and rightly deserved. Nobody would want to live in a place that could literally plummet from the sky at any moment at the slightest act of sabotage.

  Also, a place like that with weak security probably wouldn't last long enough to spread travellers' tales, anyway.

  Sarah leans back a little, settling more comfortably and twitching a bit when he drums fingers against her side. Hey, that's a little ticklish. "I imagine a floating city would have defenses even against things like the Dragon Knights. Anti-aerial emplacements, perhaps, or dedicated combat mages, if we're talking about magic. If it's purely mechanical, well." The water mage shudders. No, thanks. "At least magic implies a certain level of esoterism. One needs to have a certain degree of instruction if they hope to hold any sway in practical application."

  In other words, an idiot with a wrench could break a mechanical structure, but an idiot with a magic wand probably wouldn't have much effect against ensorcelled mechanisms (unless their wardings were really bad, or they had a really absurdly powerful magic wand).

  That would be the ideal scenario, anyway... but things are usually not ideal when they're being dealt with on a multiversal scale. Sometimes she's convinced the cosmos have a sense of humour, and it's really twisted.

  "Mmm. Maybe. I think something like that also defies the Circle Rune, and lest we forget, that's what's in charge right now. At least, I'm reasonably certain it is. There's a fairly equal fifty-fifty chance that Hikusaak has been subsumed by the Circle Rune. If that's truly the case, it's safe to assume that nobody's going to bother building anything that defies tradition, breaks new ground, or otherwise shows innovation on a grand scale. The Circle Rune likes the constancy and the comfort of established routine." If it ain't broke, don't fix it. "I wonder sometimes what Harmonia might look like if that rune were out of the picture, though."

  Maybe the Circle Rune is what drives it on its relentless conquest of those powers it feels it can subdue -- to bring into order and conformity that which is not. It's an interesting thought, one that grabs her attention long enough that she doesn't realise right away that Luc's started talking again. Sarah blinks, colourless eyes a little blank for a moment--

Sarah (316) has posed:
  "Oh. Water locks." She raises a hand, gesturing delicately. A small terraced hill with a river coursing around it springs into being, drawn from glimmering motes; an illustrative illusion. "Imagine, if you will, a town that sprawls over numerous levels of elevation with access to a substantial, or even a small, river. Moving large numbers of goods is difficult if not impossible over changes in elevation like that; the river would grow too violent, and moving ships up or down would also constitute a significant engineering challenge."

  She gestures, and the river changes, sprouting little canal walls. Gates like solid blocks are built into two parts of the canal, forming a chamber; the upper set, which is higher up on a different plane, remain closed. The little boat rows into the chamber, the doors close behind it, and the water stars rising; the boat floats until it's level with the top gates.

  "Hence the lock. Locks are built into canals to control the level of water in a canal. It allows engineers to build a canal that doesn't need to snake all over the landscape just to account for steep hills or deep valleys." The top gates open on her little illusory explanation, and the little boat continues sailing on its merry way, now a plane of elevation above where it started, and the gates close behind it.

  The illusion dissolves into glimmering motes at a gesture from Sarah. "It's actually quite ingenious. None of the places we've been here have particularly needed them, thanks to relatively level terrain; but the technology does exist. At least, it existed when I was in the One Temple. There were a number of texts detailing the basic premise, and how to construct one."