[Closed] Myths and Legends; A Brunnholdian Tale

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Ezre Vks
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: better with the dead
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Tue Sep 10, 2019 4:10 pm

on campus
Midday on the 65th of Roalis, 2719
Champion of rhakor though the young Vks was, this entire situation felt as though someone had snatched some fibre of his being and tugged hard, slowly, mercilessly unraveling him. He was tired. He was full of unspoken things. He was excited. He was interested. He was stuck in the middle. He had done this all to himself.

Dark eyes focused on Madeleine, on her handkerchief, strangely relieved when Lilanee echoed his words. He would have smiled had it been appropriate, but there was just too much awkward surprise going on and Ezre was simply mediating it all, his etherial, lightweight Clairvoyant field the only thing that seemed to be keeping the dark-haired boy floating smoothly, even expression belying the tumultuous emotions meticulously hidden within.

"The Incumbent and I have met before, zjai. Also, he is an acquaintance of a Diplomat from my homeland. I am a sheltered temple boy from Kzecka, but sometimes, I have a surprise or two." There. Just a hint of humor. The black pools of his eyes shined with amusement and the hint of a smile passed over his tattooed lips. Brief and bright.

He said peer because he didn't know what else to say. It soured on his tongue. It had been the wrong word. The wrong choice.

What was he supposed to call her? His girlfriend? Here? Now? After almost an entire season apart? Did she even feel the same now? Did she miss him as he'd missed her? Did she—

Her hand moved toward Tom as if to shake his and she breathed her judgements with her praises. Had Ezre been the type to emote in public view, he would have winced, but instead his lips formed a thin line of thought when she repeated the word peer. It stung. He had hurt her again.

"Ultimately, everything has something to do with the Cycle, willingly or not." He murmured like some forgotten prophet, shifting on his feet to begin to flip through some of the notes, inked fingers tracing over some of the words and skimming down pages, sweat tickling down the back of his neck, beneath the wide collar of his linen layers in the Roalis sun.

The thought of first seeking out a passive seemed odd to the Hoxian, but, then again, never before had he been around so many of them here on Brunnhold's campus. Magicless births were so rare in his homeland, and while a few galdori chose to keep their passive children home, those that did end up in Frecksat were, for the most part, kept from public view. He knew they existed, he knew they served their galdori peers, but they were better praised quietly and out of sight.

Anaxas was a completely different kingdom.

He looked to Madeleine in her almost overwhelming flood of emotions, watching the girl nod. He felt them all. He read them all on her face as if he was scrying in a bowl of water: clear and direct.

He smirked at Tom, finding it very difficult to call the raen Incumbent Vauquelin because that was simply not who he truly knew him as. He felt the hint of betrayal in each of the skillful impressions that the man put on.

They were walking—

Ezre's steps purposeful, still attempting to process everything, notes still open in his hands. Lilanee was talking, but an elbow nudged him, sharp and purposeful. The dark-haired boy's eyes snapped up, over, narrowing for a moment before becoming wide, helpless, and obvious. What was he supposed to say? How could he say it?

G i r l f r i e n d.

He mouthed the word, slowly for emphasis, overly so, in a manner not unlike how Miss Gosselin had not-whispered her whisper previously. Blushing, he added out loud before looking away, "Perhaps not anymore, however."

The boy followed dutifully across campus, attempting to skim more notes, attempting to gather some semblance of focus on the task that he'd requested be investigated, after all. He couldn't help but notice the Poorman's Violets, the well-kept flowers, the cared for things. Passives were people, too. Even he knew that they had souls.

He hung back, however, not wanting to overwhelm a singular elderly man with the sheer weight of four fields, with the shocking surprise of three young students and a middle-aged galdor politician. Instead, he hovered in the shade of a trellis, well within earshot, watching and listening, hoping to make connections between whatever the old passive said and what others had said in passing, written already on the pages held in his hands.
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Lilanee Kuleda
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Wed Sep 18, 2019 5:39 pm

65th Roalis, 2719
COURTYARD | MID MORNING
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I​​​​ don’t like jokes.
​​
​​The suddenly blurted words from the sixth form gave Lilanee reason to glance at her, field caprising more properly the emotions that hung in the younger girls aura. Her blue eyes paid more attention to the curl of youthful shoulders and the expressions of damn near illness on her face. Her brow furrowed slightly, and she adjusted her glasses.
​​
​​Did Madeline think she was trying to make a joke?
​​
​​When the younger girl glanced back, the ninth form did her level best to give her what she hoped was a warm encouraging smile, letting the auburn girl have the floor.
​​
​​Yost knew that face. He knew that hang in her field, that dark blue shift that he only imagined he could have had. Once. A long, long time ago. He looked at Madeline, at the other girl, before sighing and shuffling across the room to pick up an old rag. Wiping his hands, the gardener was quiet for a while, before glancing at her again.
​​
​​ “I tell them folks up top not to let you baby gollies in that place. Yost tells them but they don’t care. They don’t listen. Needs to be got rid of, but Yost cuts one rose and ten come back the next day. They don’t like it, they don’t like people in that place.” Placing the rag down, he shook his head.
​​
​​ ”But you still go, and then this happens. One baby golly gets hurt and now they care.” Moving closer to the girls, Yost frowned, his milky blue eyes studying them both from behind his spectacles. He turned those same eyes on the Incumbent standing away from them, and quite suddenly his demeanour changed, as though realising the man was there for the first time.
​​
​​ “Sir, sorry sir. Yost wasn’t complaining sir. Yost doesn’t ever complain sir.” Turning rheumy eyes back on the two girls he frowned sadly.
​​
​​ “You said no joke, but you ask Yost secret things with big golly there. You do joke on Yost.” The elderly passive whispered, withered hands trembling and shoulders hunched in a respectful bow towards the man. Lilanee glanced at the red haired gentleman before looking back at the gardener.
​​
​​ “No, no Mister Yost. He’s here officially, our escort. I promise he’s—“
​​
​​ “You think your the first to come in here girl? First baby golly in here wanting Yost to gossip? Entertaining story to tell the others?" He reached up and took his glasses off.
​​
​​ "I got no time for gossip, and no time for trouble. The towhead girl. She went into the maze and Yost think she met Couldin. He mad, always always mad.” Glancing at the Incumbent again, Yost put the glasses back on and waved his hand.
​​
​​ “Find elsewhere to fill your head with stories. Yost is good worker. Yost is loyal worker. No stories here." It was clear he had more to say, his gaze drifting to Madeline and mouth opening and closing as though he would speak, but his years of service over rode his desire to tell them what he knew.
​​
​​ “Sad things. Sad sad things.” He muttered, turning to shuffle back towards his seedlings.
​​
​​Lilanee sucked on her teeth, contemplating for a moment, before moving to the Incumbent.
​​
​​ “Sir, I believe if you were to speak with him, we may have more success? He’s frightened. I think.” Moving towards Madeline, she placed a hand on the girls shoulder.
​​
​​ “I think you should go with him. There’s something there, I can feel it, and I don’t think he’s going to speak to me. A shame. I have so many things to ask. Couldin. What is Couldin? Does this happen a lot? How long has Yost worked here?” Giving the shoulder a squeeze, Lilanee backed away, before turning and approaching Ezre. As she came near her field flared mildly with nervous awkwardness, and she took a couple of calming breaths before reaching him with an all-business look on her face.
​​
​​ “Couldin. She met Couldin he said. Hopefully Incumbent Vaquelin and Maddie can get something more from him. Do you know what that means?” She asked quietly, repeating the name again a few times to memorise it.

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Tom Cooke
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Thu Sep 19, 2019 12:19 pm

The Courtyard Brunnhold
Mid-Morning on the 65th of Roalis, 2719
Girlfriend. Both Tom’s eyebrows shot up, but he got his face under control in no time, pressing that bland smile back onto it. He cast an idle glance at the Kuleda chip, going through his last conversation with Ezre in his head. It was fair clouded, being honest, owing to the shock and the tiredness and then the chan, but he hadn’t forgotten what the lad had brought up in that tentative, talking-around sort of way. This, he reckoned, was the friend Ezre’d said he was having superfluous and immature desires about.

Well, all this chroveshit made sense, then. Standing back (out of sight, he thought) as the darker-haired lass approached the old scrap, he heaved a deep sigh. He didn’t know what he’d expected. Inside himself, he was still bristling, and he planned to give Ezre Vks a piece of his mind the second he could – but right now just wasn’t the time. In any case, he reckoned Ezre’d be in enough trouble, soon as his girlfriend wanted to have a little chat about how he’d called her his peer. Small comforts.

Right now, the other golly lass was talking. Some funny waver in her voice, Tom thought. It drew his scattered attention back; as he watched, his brow furrowed.

Circle clock it, was she on the verge of tears? Tom felt a pang, glancing round at Ezre, Lilanee, then back to the the nanabo braid. Looked like her hands were shaking, too. He thought the others must’ve noticed, but they didn’t seem too concerned.

If she wasn’t, it was a damn good act, and it was working on Yost. That distracted Tom momentarily. Some kind of recognition lit up the scrap’s lined face; he seemed like he might actually open up to Gosselin. Despite himself, Tom leaned in a little. Dagka was rambling about roses, but then – Couldin? – he mad, he always mad – a few dusty gears in Tom’s head had started turning. Who was Couldin? The lass that’d gone off the deep end – had she met someone, someplace she shouldn’t be?

Then Yost caught sight of him, and started fumbling. Backtracking. Tom grit his teeth, lips twisting down in a grimace. He took a deep breath in through his nose, thought about saying something, but by then, the old gardener’d disappeared back into the shed.

He turned to Lilanee as she approached. All that sir rubbish was wearing at his nerves, but he couldn’t afford to let it show. “I’ll go. I don’t know if it’ll help,” he admitted. “I might just make him clam up even more. I suppose it’s worth a shot.”

Probably a better idea, he had to admit, than a bunch of golly bochi swarming the poor sod. He stood still, trying to think what to say, as Lilanee moved to Gosselin’s side. Put a hand on her shoulder. Tom felt something like relief; he reckoned she’d tell the younger student to go, tell her not to worry. Instead, he realized, she was telling her to go with him.

Then, she was turning and heading toward Ezre, like she was some kind of auntie’d just given orders to a new recruit. Tom watched her back, frown getting even deeper, brow furrowing. Then he turned to Madeleine and started toward her.

Stutter. The lass’ field hit him like a wall. Wasn’t that it was strong, but Tom couldn’t make sense of it, for a second; as his porven caprised the edges, fizzing at the contact, he felt the blue-shift wash over him like the skies’d opened up and started pouring rain. He suppressed a shiver, blinked a few times. He’d never felt a field like this before. Some gollies had better control over their fields than others, oes, but must’ve been every shade of misery this chip was feeling leaked out around her, the mona taken with it.

Blinking just a few more times, collecting himself, he moved closer, lowering his voice. “Are you all right to go in, Miss Gosselin?” he asked, quiet-like. “Listen, if any of this is making you uncomfortable, at any time, let me know, and I’ll… You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do today. All right?”

Tom watched her for another few seconds, uncomfortable. That was what an older golly escorting a bunch of mung students was supposed to do, oes? Tom had no fucking clue. He tried another encouraging smile, then bowed his head and shoulders, then turned away.

Godsdamn, he thought, moving past her — godsdamn, but he could’ve used a drink right about now. His head was starting to ache something laoso, like somebody’d dropped a hammer on it. Might slip off to the Stacks after all this was done, maybe. Nobody’d have his head. Nobody’d need to know.

Deeper in the room, that smell of churned earth and growing, green things was thick in the air. Tom glanced around, appreciative and suddenly, terribly sad, all at once. Old wooden boards marked with the footprints of vines, gardening tools everywhere. Trowels and clippers stained green, dusted and smeared with dirt. It reminded him of – havakda, no. Not today.

Old man Yost was back in his seat, back peering down through his glasses at his seedlings. That look of concentration and tenderness was familiar. Tom felt like a tsuter for interrupting him, and he paused halfway, all his words sticking in his throat. He found himself wondering what hama would’ve looked like in his age, if he’d’ve –

Clearing his throat, he kicked himself back into motion, squaring his shoulders back. Clasping his hands behind his back, lifting his chin. Walking heel-to-toe, authoritative-like, with his eyes set on the old man.

“Mr. Yost,” he said as he came near, “I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot.” He stopped a few feet away, with the old scrap just at the edge of his field; he bowed deep, and when he rose, he continued, “My name is Anatole Vauquelin; I’m a visiting official, not — not Brunnhold faculty. I can assure you” — he tried to put every shred of confidence he didn’t feel into his voice — “I can assure you that nothing you say in my presence will be held against you. On the contrary, these four students are working on a… a very important project.

“This is Miss Madeleine Gosselin” – he gestured – “and if you could answer some of her questions, we would be very grateful.”
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Last edited by Tom Cooke on Wed Oct 02, 2019 10:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Madeleine Gosselin
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Thu Sep 19, 2019 8:30 pm

Mid-morning, 65th Roalis, 2719
The Gardening Shed
Madeleine was entirely unsure about being called a baby golly by a really, really old passive – even older than Incumbent Vauquelin – who didn’t talk very well and was hard to understand. The part of it she was most unsure about was that it felt – nice. There was something friendly in his tone, Madeleine was almost sure, even if it was hard to tell with how poorly he spoke, and – it was nice.

Madeleine rubbed her eyes very quickly on her arm – she was pretty sure that if she did it quickly enough, no one would see – and watched Mr. Yost, wide-eyed, trembling a little. Ten roses in a day? She didn’t know very much about roses but that sounded like a lot. Who was the they he meant? The teachers? The headmistress? Madeleine stared at Yost, wide-eyed, as he stared back at her, confused and not exactly sure what he meant.

Then Yost caught sight of Incumbent Vauquelin and grew nervous, very nervous. Madeleine felt a very odd pang of sympathy – she, too, still wasn’t entirely sure that Incumbent Vauquelin wasn’t there as some part of a complicated joke that she didn’t understand. She didn’t know what to say – she wanted to say something, she wanted to, but Lilanee spoke first.

Madeleine swallowed, hard. She’d tried, she promised herself. She’d tried and – she – they had wanted him to speak, hadn’t they? She’d tried and he’d spoken and it wasn’t her fault that it hadn’t worked out. Madeleine could almost convince herself to believe that Lilanee wouldn’t blame her, and she flinched with the other girl touched her shoulder, tears glistening in the corner of her eyes, hunching down a little, expecting Lilanee to be angry.

She wasn’t, but she wanted Madeleine to try again, and Madeleine didn’t – she couldn’t – she had already tried! Wasn’t it enough? But Madeleine didn’t know what to say, and so instead she nodded. What is Couldin, Madeleine repeated to herself. What is Couldin. Or who is Couldin? She couldn’t remember what Lilanee had said. She felt something strange at the edge of her field, and glanced over to Incumbent Vauquelin, eyes wide. She’d never felt a field like that before; it was odd, and jangly, and uncomfortable; it made her feel on edge, like it was scraping against her skin. Madeleine knew her field was bad, but she’d never felt anything like this before.

The Incumbent stepped closer, through the still blue-shifted air, and asked if she was all right.

“Oh,” Madeleine whispered, staring up at him. She was trembling, faintly; she didn’t know what to do. Part of her wanted to tell him yes, she was very uncomfortable; she knew him now, Madeleine thought. He was Eleanor’s father, wasn’t he? Eleanor Vauquelin. She was in physical conversation with Madeleine; she liked bugs, and Madeleine couldn’t think of anything else about her right now. Madeleine tried to imagine her father saying something like that, and she – she couldn’t.

Madeleine was aware that she’d been staring, and she didn’t know what to do. Was she supposed to nod, to say it was okay? Or to shake her head to say it wasn’t uncomfortable? No, he’d asked – if she was all right, twice, and so Madeleine just – did her best to nod. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve again, and Incumbent Vauquelin smiled at her again, that weird smile that didn’t seem to make her feel any better, and walked deeper into the room, towards Yost.

Madeleine glanced back over her shoulder at Lilanee and Ezre, eyes wide, and then slowly turned and followed after the Incumbent, her heart beating painfully hard in her chest. Were they talking about her, Madeleine wondered. Were they laughing at her? Was this the joke, to make her follow a passive and an Incumbent into a garden shed and ask him about ghosts? It wasn’t funny, if it was a joke – it wasn’t funny. No matter what anybody said, no matter how hard they laughed, they were wrong, and it wasn’t funny.

Tears stung at Madeleine’s eyes a little more, and she wiped them on her sleeve again. A very important project, Incumbent Vauquelin called it, and Madeleine stared at the passive again. It smelled, she thought, terrible - like dirt. She didn’t know what to do, but Incumbent Vauquelin had introduced her like he would to somebody important, and so, uncomfortable regardless, Madeleine bowed politely to Mr. Yost.

“Please, Mr. Yost,” Madeleine whispered. She could hear the edge of tears in her own voice, and she was embarrassed, terribly embarrassed. It leaked out into her field, pale orange, bleeding through the edges of her blue, a sour, jangling note between the heavy sadness. Madeleine swallowed, hard, and rubbed her eyes on her sleeve again, looking up at the passive.

“It’s not a joke,” Madeleine said again, looking at the old passive with his dirty hands and his weird milky eyes. Madeleine swallowed, trembling, but she did her best to stay strong; she drew herself up to every inch of her five feet, and set her head and her back, making a long straight line with her spine just like dancing. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she tucked them behind her back – it felt wrong, though, so she brought them to the strap of her bag instead, holding it tightly. That felt better.

What had Lilanee wanted her to ask? Madeleine couldn’t remember. Couldin? Something about Couldin? “I don’t want to tell anyone,” Madeleine whispered. “I don’t – I wouldn’t gossip, and I don’t want anybody to get in trouble,” her voice trembled and caught in the word, because Madeleine was pretty sure that if anyone got in trouble for this, it would be her; probably they would go back outside and Lilanee and Ezre would have left to go hold hands, and she would get in trouble. “Who is Couldin? W-what – what happened to Miss Strutenbroke?”

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Ezre Vks
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: better with the dead
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Fri Sep 20, 2019 11:50 am

on campus
Midday on the 65th of Roalis, 2719
Ezre was sure as the Ten too travel logged for this entire investigative expedition. He'd been excited, curious, insatiably interested before he left, disappointed that it had been too late to change his departure date, frustrated and hurt by Lilanee's lack of understanding. Now, as he stood in the Roalis heat and let the comforting scent of earth and plants fill his nostrils, awash in Tom's familiar but angry, entropic field, drowning in all the colors of Madeleine's various emotions as if he'd had too much chan, and pressed upon by the sheer silence of everything the Hessean didn't or couldn't say in this moment, he felt dizzy and tired. He attempted to focus on the smells of the greenhouse and the old passive's voice, desperate to clear his head that began to swim with too many unrelated thoughts.

He'd been gone over half a season and here he was barely back a day from Hox and he wasn't sure he would actually survive Anaxas.

Closing his eyes, he listened, attempting to shut out everything else that threatened to overwhelm him while he sifted through the elderly Yost's somewhat disjointed words.

Roses—

One hand strayed to the chain that dangled from the cord of the wide, thick belt at his waist, inked fingers tracing their way to the pocket watch he'd had restored after that day in Bethas, pressing the curved metal against his hip with the heel of his palm while his dark eyes snapped open again. Restless spirits appeared to be attached to things or events or emotions or places or people. He'd seen it before, more than once now, and he'd come to realize that many ghosts still had powerful abilities that could affect the monic composition of the world around them and cause strange anomalies such as the overwhelming sorrow of the Magister's ghost in the Crypts or the watery, rippling form of the drowned man in Ghost Town. Could whatever was haunting the East Garden have an attachment to flowers? Or at least have some power over their growth as an extension of their post-Cyclic existence?

The Hexxos Guide was mulling these things over, listening to the way the elderly passive spoke with a nervous fear about a phenomenon he might have actually witnessed until Yost-vumash began to backpedal in the presence of Tom Cooke—

Oh, dru

In the presence of a middle-aged galdori politician, Incumbent Valquelin. Ezre's expression soured just a little, the well-practiced lack of emotion usually worn across his delicate features faltering and his lips curling just a little toward a frown—really, just a little—until Lilanee assured the old thing and he kept going for a few more important sentences.

Couldin.

Always mad.

Strong emotions. Particular attachments.

Did these sorts of things really matter or were they all simply coincidence? Was their a pattern to what kind of people found themselves denied a return to the Cycle, whether it was by their own stubborn willpower or some mystery of monic will? He didn't have any of those answers, and, like the ghosts themselves, these questions haunted him.

The Hoxian made mental notes as he acquiesced to backing away from the whole scene, but said nothing in the defense of his gathered companions about their sincerity nor attempted to dissuade the poor creature from his fears. He was, after all, a passive, and while Ezre knew they joined with everyone else in the Cycle just like humans and wicks did, while Ezre knew they were born of galdorkind and shared everything until they came of age, their seemingly non-magical existence still made him uncomfortable in his honest ignorance. It just was not a mystery that interested him, but perhaps it should have, had he known—

He blinked again and there was Lilanee, reassuring a rather terrified-looking young Gosselin-vumein and telling the Incumbent what to do as if she were his political adviser. It would have been curiously endearing had she not turned her nervous, fluttery attentions on him next, the brush of her field tentative against his own,

"Couldin sounds like a surname." He offered quietly, dark eyes searching the freckled face before him, searching behind the spectacles, "I would venture it is the name of someone who had a particular interest in roses."

Ezre glanced away for a moment, watching Madeleine wipe her eyes with her sleeve, feeling a heaviness in his heart, unsure of how to offer encouragement and strength to someone who seemed so nervous about bearing it. The girl was both difficult for him to read and overwhelming to interpret, overly expressive of emotions and yet also so tightly wound around them. He also watched as the not-Incumbent put on a brilliant show of himself, the hot sting of chagrin tingling against his tawny skin like the Roalis sun that beat down upon his linen layers of clothing, aware that he’d thrust the raen into this moment without giving him any hint or preparation. He’d not planned on Madeleine, but he didn’t begrudge her presence so much as fear it would be the unraveling of his careful veiled balance of reality and glossed-over truths when it came to the spiritual strangeness happening around Vita.

"I would like to know what species of roses grow in the East Garden as well as what years this Couldin was either a student, faculty, or staff. Perhaps Couldin was instead another passive servant instead of a galdor? I will also want at least one clipped flower from the Garden itself eventually." There was a renewed hint of enthusiasm in his tone, the dark-haired boy choosing to overlook the Hessean's awkwardness that shifted like a milky haze in her field and clung thickly to the airy etherealness of his own like tar.

The Hexxos Guide had very little fear of academic discipline for their current activities, somewhat assuming that Headmistress Servalis and most of the Brunnhold staff had very paltry interest in the spiritual anomalies on their beloved campus, considering the conditions of the Crypts, and wondered why the Everine were not also investigating. He considered using his new status in his order to make time with them, but he was unsure of their stance on ghosts—were they even aware of other entities like raen?

Was anyone?

Ezre glanced at the backs of Tom and Madeliene for a moment, visible as they were through the open door, before his dark eyes came back into focus on Lilanee, offering her a gentle smile as if attempting to slip through her business-like air of distance,

"Sometimes ghosts remember their names, but most only remember pieces of who they were. There are varying degrees of power in such spirits, but true memory would be undocumented. Or whatever has happened in the East Garden involves something more powerful than a ghost, in which case, it will be a unique experience in cataloguing fresh Cyclical anomalies."

He chose not to breathe the word raen, if only on behalf of their guest, carefully keeping his further curiosities quiet for the moment.

Shifting on his sandaled feet, he raised an inked hand to wipe sweat from his forehead, to run tattooed fingers along the shaved sides of his head and curl them against the bright, fresh terminus of a single line that was dark against the back of his neck. Cautioning a step closer, he made sure to brush a shoulder gently against Lilanee's, free hand trailing past hers in the most subtle and clandestine of attempts at reconnection before he stepped to hover just out of field range from the young Gosselin, Tom, and Yost-vumash so that he could listen.
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Lilanee Kuleda
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: Let's go on an adventure!!!
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Wed Oct 02, 2019 10:44 pm

65th Roalis, 2719
COURTYARD | MID MORNING
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"Asurname? That would imply that Yost not only believes that Tamika ran into a ghost, but that this ghost has a name, and that the passive is familiar with him. I don’t recall any rumors about anyone dying here, not from my time or from my fathers.” Lilanee nodded absently as Ezre commented on the possibilities of this new discovery, glancing back at the Incumbent and the younger galdor, before reaching for her satchel to draw out her notebook and a pencil.

“Well yes, one of the roses for certain. And I’m sure we can find out the species. If not from Yost, one of the junior passives would know. I mean, the old man doesn’t tend it all by himself. Surely? Oh, that is a good point. What if it isn’t a ghost, or even a surname? What if Yost has just given whatever it is a nickname of sorts? He doesn’t quite seem all….together.” Scribbling notes furiously as she talked, the Hessean lowered her hand to tap the pencil thoughtfully against her thigh, escaping her awkwardness by loosing herself in the problem at hand—or at least till he moved past her. The brush of the Hoxian’s shoulder, and the gentle sweep of fingertips against her own dragged the red head rapidly back into the moment. She couldn’t help turn her head to glance at the boy as he moved past, finger creeping to catch her lip between her teeth with a frown as though holding back all the words that begged to spill free.

Blinking rapidly, the teenager looked down at her notes again, struggling to pick up her previous train of thought. Tucking the pencil between the pages, she turned and stood just behind the Hoxian, blue gaze flicking between the back of his tattooed neck and the interaction between the two galdori and the passive.

As the raen spoke to the elderly man, his rheumy eyes focused on his seedlings, the passive would glance at him briefly, hands moving to re-pot a delicate green spout with tenderness that came from experience and age.

“Yost can help with the project, as long as there’s no problems. Yost like’s to help the baby gollies.” He said quietly, as though verbally working through whether he could accept the Incumbent’s explanation. Wiping his hands, the gardener turned around on his seat to look at Madeline, sympathy on his old face. A gentle smile crossed his lips, wrinkling his cheeks and the papery skin around his eyes.

“Don’t cry little golly. You cry, you let their jokes hurt you see. I know. Yost knows.” He tapped his temple, before offering her a wink as he sat back and sighed heavily. The smile faded as his gaze drifted behind thick spectacles, looking through them into somewhere far away.

“Yost was the just a baby scrap back then, put in the gardens because Yost talks funny. Yost always talk funny. Couldin was one of the hands, he about sixteen. Good person, strong like you wouldn't believe. Yost always imagined him more of a blacksmith than a gardener. But he had passion for plants. When he arrived, he made to make East Garden pretty. It was ugly, overgrown. No maze anymore, just all dead rose bushes and thorns. Always scare Yost. East Garden always feel wrong, and golly magic never work right. He clean it, make it look so good, gollies give him full time work there. Couldin tame the roses, find the maze under all thorns and dead things. He love that place." He shook his head, looking nostalgic. Sighing, he continued.

“He do good job, but no one want to go in gardens. Two, three year go by. Couldin disappear some days, just gone, no one find him. He think we not know, but we did. We all knew about Alysonia, who couldn't know. Every time they pass each other it like the feeling you get just before lighting hits. And they think their night time rendezvous in East Garden were secret, but they not as secret as they thought.” Yost chuckled suddenly, clutching his heart.

“But they in love. Oh my Alioe they in love." Suddenly the old man stood, groaning with pain and clutching his back.

"Yost should have stopped them, I should have! But they were so desperate, Yost so young and stupid. I say no." His voice wavered, and his jaw trembled. Leaning one hand against the bench, he covered his eyes with the other.

"Baby golly go into garden, she maybe see something bad. Something scare her. She no talk now.” He glanced at them again.

“But she not only one.” Taking his glasses off, the passive looked down at his table, eyes watering and lips trembling. He shook his head and waved a hand.

“You talk to Wentworth. Jasmine Wentworth. She work in library now, black hair. Stack books. She big golly, like Sir Incumbent here. You talk her. Yost want talk no more.” With that, the older man sat back down again, rubbing a shaky hand over his watery eyes.

“Well that was…something?” Lilanee said softly, her book open and notes sprawled across the pages.

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Tom Cooke
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Wed Oct 09, 2019 7:46 pm

The Courtyard Brunnhold
Mid-Morning on the 65th of Roalis, 2719
No problems,” confirmed Tom, trying to smile encouragingly at the passive, trying to keep his tone all clocking professional and proper – trying not to wilt with relief. He looked over at Gosselin, standing there and fidgeting with the strap of her bag.

Not that he needed to look, being honest: she was stamped all over the mona in caprising range, blue-shift and then yellow-shift and then – mottling every color like a bruise, bleeding out into the air like an open wound. She was staring at the old gardener intently, her blue eyes wide, and Tom’d just about needed to strain to hear her. All the better, he reckoned, ’cause Yost was eating it up.

Kov really felt for her, Tom thought with a pang. He reckoned they’d both thought they were part of some tsuter joke, this awkward lass and this scrap that couldn’t talk right. He felt like a kenser’s erse, again – felt another surge of anger – that they were bothering him in the first place, taking him away from his seedlings. Using the little nanabo to do it, when she looked just about as confused as he was. He still didn’t know what in the hell they were looking for. As Yost went on in his rough, funny way, in his aged and wavering voice, Tom caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Bouncing on his heels, he half-turned and caught sight of Ezre, stepping just close enough to listen without his field coming into range.

Before he turned back, Tom met Ezre’s eye and frowned slightly, raising a red eyebrow. Then, he did his best to focus on what the scrap was saying.

Couldin, one of the hands. Passion for plants. Tom’s heart sank, but he listened. So the East Garden’d been wrong, or some vodundun, before – whatever’d happened to Couldin. He frowned, trying to put together the pieces. Crimps in love, it sounded like. The story wasn’t complete, though, wasn’t finished. Couldin and Al – whatever the name’d been – trysts in the garden, Yost said no, and then Strutenbroke saw something that’d scared her. Tom frowned deeper. From what he’d seen, he reckoned the gated scraps weren’t allowed to fraternize. Had they got caught?

(Hell, Yost hadn’t said they’d died or nothing. Had this Tamika chip caught them fucking among the shrubs, and it’d drove her all moony? Ne, that didn’t sound right. Tom’s head hurt.)

Yost’s eyes were wet with tears; he was taking off his glasses. Tom looked down and away, uncomfortable – felt another stab of guilt, and shot another hard glance at Ezre and his girlfriend, who’d followed him closer. Some library chip knew more – big golly; now there was an oxymoron – and Tom reckoned he knew where Kuleda was going to suggest they go next. That, or the creepy-erse garden.

Clearing his throat, Tom bowed deeply to Yost. “Invaluable, Mr. Yost,” he said, smooth as he could. “Thank you. Benea light your path.” He smiled lightly at the Gosselin chip, then, but he met her eye for a moment longer, raising his brows as if to say, You want out, just say the word.

Then, he took a few steps away from the old passive. Best leave him to his seedlings, he thought. He cast that thin politician’s smile on Lilanee, though it might’ve been a pina strained. “Interesting, indeed,” he acknowledged blandly. His glance flicked to Ezre; that polite smile didn’t falter.

“Perhaps, at this point, it might be appropriate for Mr. Vks and I to have a word in private. This is all so very fascinating, but I have a number of immediate concerns that I wish to raise with the young master. Alone.” He bounced on his heels again, glancing at Lilanee. “Assuming I can borrow him for a hop and a skip, Miss Kuleda?” A hop and a skip was suffused with good cheer.
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Madeleine Gosselin
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Wed Oct 09, 2019 9:04 pm

Mid-morning, 65th Roalis, 2719
The Gardening Shed
Madeleine stared, wide-eyed, at Yost when he turned to look at her. He smiled at her, and Madeleine – she didn’t know what to make of it. She ducked her head a little. His face was so strange and wrinkly – his skin looked like her grandma’s had, but even worse. Madeleine hadn’t ever looked at anyone so wrinkly up close, she decided. But the strange part was that he looked – nice. When she looked at him, she saw the smile and the way it crinkled his eyes.

He told her not to cry, and Madeleine just stared a little more, her eyes widening further. She nodded, slowly, shoulders hunching up a little more. She didn’t mean to cry, and she nearly thought she would just then but it – he winked at her, and Madeleline blushed, a little, unaccustomed to the faint, strange feeling of warmth that eased through her chest. She let go of the strap of her bag, slowly; her shoulders lowered, some of the tension in her releasing, and the colors in the air around her faded, ever so slightly, streaming and wavering to faint, pale versions of themselves.

Madeleine listened to all the things Yost said then, because she didn’t want to be rude. She had asked him to talk about Couldin – another passive? – and so she thought she had better listen, but she thought he might be a bit confused. The mona were everywhere, naturally; they made up all the world around them. So it couldn’t be the case that magic didn’t work properly in a garden; it didn’t make any sense to Madeleine. But, she thought, it wasn’t Yost’s fault that he was confused, or maybe just superstitious. He was a passive, after all.

The feeling of lightning in the air was electricity, Madeleine thought, but she didn’t correct him. It wasn’t the passive’s fault, after all. She didn’t exactly understand why there would have been electricity between this Couldin and this Alysonia, or what they would be doing at night in the East Garden. It seemed terribly dangerous to Madeleine to go into a garden at night, even if you were in love. Were they passives? Madeleine thought they must have been, and that made the whole story feel terribly uncomfortable; passives weren’t meant to do so things.

Madeleine’s hands crept back up to her strap, and blue wavered more heavily in the air around her as she watched Yost – as she listened to him. He looked very tired, then, and the smile he’d had for her before was gone. Madeleine thought maybe he was crying, a little, and her lips trembled too, along with his, although she didn’t exactly know why. She didn’t understand it, any of it.

Incumbent Vauquelin called it invaluable, and thanked Yost, and offered him a blessing. He glanced at Madeleine and he raised his eyebrows and Madeleine looked down and away, not understanding in the slightest. What had she done wrong? Had she made a mistake? She had tried so hard, and she – she still didn’t understand any of it.

Madeleine held there a moment longer, her hands trembling on the strap of her bag. “Thank you, Mr. Yost,” Madeleine said, finally. She bowed again, her braid tumbling over her shoulder, and straightened back up. She wanted to say – she wanted to – Madeleine didn’t know what to do, and a brief flicker of deep blue misery lanced through her field. She wanted to make him feel better, she thought, miserably, but she didn’t know how.

After a moment, Madeleine took a step back, and then another, and she rubbed her eyes on her sleeve, and left the passive behind, following Incumbent Vauquelin back to Ezre and Lilanee. Madeleine wrapped her arms around herself, crossing them over her front, gripping the arms of her uniform in her hands. She glanced at the Incumbent as he suggested that he and Ezre talk, and then she glanced at Lilanee.

Madeleine supposed they – she lowered her eyes. Lilanee would go to the library, Madeleine thought, like Yost had said to. Madeleine was pretty sure by now that this wasn’t all some kind of joke, but she didn’t know what it was instead. Ghosts – weren’t real. Yost was a nice old passive, but he was confused; he had to be. Nothing else made sense of it all, and she didn’t understand why Ezre, Lilanee and Incumbent (!) Vauquelin were talking as though it wasn’t all crazy.

Ezre and Incumbent Vauquelin would go and talk. He was scary, Madeleine thought, the Incumbent, even when she thought he was trying to be nice. She was happy to leave him to Ezre. And Lilanee would go to the library, and – what was she supposed to do? Madeleine doubted they would want her here anymore; Lilanee had said she wanted Madeleine’s help talking with Yost, and Madeleine wasn’t sure she’d done a good job, but she had tried. She’d tried very hard.

Madeleine wanted to ask; she wanted to. But she didn’t – if she asked, Madeleine thought, then she’d have to listen to the answer. Better to wait; maybe they wouldn’t tell her to go, and she could just slip away by herself. They were all so close together now – abruptly self-aware and more than a little self-conscious, Madeleine took a deep breath and dampened her field, doetoeing it close to her skin, hazy dark blue fluttering just a few inches from her. She tried not to – she knew she wasn’t supposed to – but it was better than all of them feeling it, wasn’t it? It ached to do hold it in, somewhere in her chest, and Madeleine could feel her lips trembling again.

“I want to go too,” Madeleine blurted out, her field still clutched tight against her. She hadn’t thought she’d say anything, and she hadn’t – she didn’t – but it was too late, she’d already stared, and so she fixed her eyes on Lilanee, shoulders tensing up as if being ready might soften the weight of the rebuke, when it came. “To the library. Please.”

Madeleine didn’t know why she’d asked; she didn’t understand anything that was happening, and part of her wanted very much to go home. But… if it wasn’t a joke, if all of this wasn’t some kind of strange joke at her expense, then that meant it was serious. And if it was serious – that meant that, at least for a little while, Lilanee really had wanted her help with something. Maybe, Madeleine thought, fragile hope beating in her chest – maybe she still would.

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Ezre Vks
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: better with the dead
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Wed Oct 09, 2019 9:37 pm

on campus
Midday on the 65th of Roalis, 2719
"Of course a ghost would have a name." Ezre riposted quietly, not interrupting so much as speaking under the longer sentence of the Hessean as she continued her thoughts out loud. As if he was instead a member of the Society for Passive Equality claiming passives were people, too, there was the faintest of edges to his otherwise unemotional tone. Lilanee moved to write things down and his dark eyes followed the motion of her hands while his mind attempted to chase down the trails as they spread in so many different directions from her lips only to find himself distracted for a moment—

Tom was frowning at him. He caught the raen's pale gaze for a moment and returned the arched eyebrow in almost uncharacteristic rebelliousness. Even from here, he could tell the man was upset with him, for the Hoxian was far more sensitive to the emotions of others than his rhakor made obvious.

"I will hold my judgment on the situation until I am presented with more evidence." He spoke almost tersely, flustered more by what was unspoken between himself and the freckled young woman in front of him than he was by her exploration of all possibilities. He raised a hand and rubbed a palm across his forehead, curling tattooed fingers against the shaved side of his scalp as he sifted through what other conclusions could be drawn from all the old groundskeeper had said thus far.

He let is gaze drift to study the back of the not-Incumbent with his fading red hair and formal dress, unable to separate what he now knew as truth from what he was forced to present as true in its place. Yost spoke up again, perhaps more out of sympathy for the younger Gosselin than out of any respect to the older galdor masquerading as an authority figure in the students' midst.

No one was joking, and the continued confusion over this felt like sand beneath the delicate layers of the Hoxian's rhakor, irritating in the obvious lack of emotional control Anaxi seemed to have by comparison. Ezre had thought he had lived in the Kingdom long enough to not experience a bit of culture shock upon his return, and yet there was something about the emotion in the elderly passive's voice and in his facial expressions that reminded the dark-haired boy that he'd been away just long enough to find it all almost overwhelming.

He strained to listen, to follow Yost's way of speaking in third person while carefully navigating his story. Couldin was a person—one of the hands—another passive.

The East Garden always felt wrong.

Those words caught the Hexxos Guide off-guard in the peculiarity of the specifics. There were theories about ley lines not only in the bodies of magical beings but also in Vita itself, crossing the world as monic channels of energy. Hoxians had embraced this for centuries, supposedly, both in their mundane day to day life as well as in their academic approach. There were places that simply seemed to be stronger wells of monic concentration, and it would make sense if Brunnhold's architects two thousand-odd years ago had been keen to center their fortress in a place of power.

It obviously had its consequences.

Yost said another name and Ezre's brows drew together and he slowly drew a breath as if preparing to ask a question, biting his lip instead, teeth against the ink beneath his skin. He chose to let the elderly passive finish first, taking in the rest of his words—love, attachment, and a relationship that was forbidden whether this Alysonia was a galdor or a passive like her lover Couldin—for those were all signs to the dark-haired boy that pointed to the possibility of restless spirits, of fragments left behind. Then the groundskeeper seemed to reach too far inward, to stumble into a place of too much feeling and too much fear, and the old man quickly stopped himself from speaking further on the matter, much to the Hoxian's visible disappointment.

Yost's mention of the library somewhat soured things further, for Ezre knew Rosie the Scryer had no love for the boy who skipped Red Ties—dark eyes darted to Madeleine at the memory and he sighed, centering himself once again in the present.

"Something is an understatement." He whispered so only Lilanee could really hear him, though she was most likely too distracted to sense the privilege of him sharing and most likely still too angry with him anyway. Stepping a little closer, he spoke up to the old groundskeeper,

"Thank you for your time, Mister Yost."

Aware that he was standing well behind Tom and the others, he still expressed his gratitude with more formality than most Anaxi would have granted the non-magical servant, nodding his head, hoping someone else would ask whether Alysonia was another passive so he wouldn't have to press further. Looking to those who were now a part of the story whether they wanted to be or not, the Hexxos Guide would have offered a smile had Tom not turned toward him with that pasted-on expression that spoke volumes about what he was hiding beneath that borrowed face.

Ezre's dark brows drew together instead of arching and his eyes narrowed instead of widening, the boy raising one inked hand toward his tattooed face to suppress a yawn. He nodded firmly, not cowed by the anger that was perhaps concealed by less threatening Anaxi body language to everyone but the Hexxos Guide who knew better, and waved the hand that had been in front of his face in the direction of the library,

"Zjai, Incumbent Vauquelin, please allow me to acquiesce to your request. As it is, we seem to have more than one direction to follow, and, I will admit, I have an interest in both investigating the East Garden as well as meeting Wentworth-vumein in the Library." His expression warmed as he turned to Madeleine first and then to Lilanee, "Perhaps you two should prepare the way for the rest of us and find her, as I have a feeling you will have better rapport with Opkins-vumein than myself. In fact, I know very well that Madeleine is a superior communicator with the Library staff."

He meant the compliment, though perhaps such sincerity was lost on a girl who couldn't entirely understand the Hoxian's lack of emotion in public. With no small amount of impishness in his voice, he added,

"I will allow myself to be borrowed—"

Ezre looked to the Incumbent and did his best not to call him Cooke-vumash, not to call him Tom, though the raen's name was right there on the tip of his tongue. He felt the hints of Clairvoyant mona in the other man's field when he stepped closer, curious and assuring, but managed to keep everything mundane and focused in his words, though there was a lilt to his voice that lingered in the consonant-heavy accent to weigh down his very subtle joke in the raen's direction, though the dark-haired boy did not smile,

"Would you be so kind as to accompany me to the Garden for a glimpse of a few roses before we reconvene at the Library, Incumbent Vauquelin? We can talk on—"

The young Gosselin blurted her request and the ninth form smiled, really smiled, though it was just a brief flash in the moment like the lighting of a match before the expression faded from his face. Dark eyes shifted to Lilanee, reluctant to leave her freckled features and the pale hues of her gaze behind her glasses, biting his lower lip for a moment before he offered one more firm nod and glanced to Tom, tilting his head in the direction of the East Garden and moving to take the lead, if only because he was quite sure the not-Incumbent wouldn't actually have a clue where anything was on campus.

"—it is settled then. We will meet in the library again shortly."

True to himself, Ezre would dutifully walk away in silence, saying nothing else until he was sure that he and the raen were out of earshot of everyone else. The sun felt too bright here, the air too thick with humidity and heat, and Campus so large while he followed one of many sidewalks that led toward the overgrown, strangest of gardens on Brunnhold's campus. He waited a little longer than someone else might have, the Hexxos Guide wanting to be careful with his words,

"You are displeased, Tom, and full of questions."
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