[PM to Join] Newbrixton's Laws of Motion

[Nauleth Siordanti]

20th of Roalis, 2719
ROSAMINE WAY, The Stacks | Early MORNING

"You promised me this would be easy." The young albino frowned at the Anaxi young man from where she'd fallen in the grass for what felt like the millionth time, the whir of her bike wheels still spinning only adding to the drama of her distress. There were green stains on the knees of her borrowed pair of trowsers and a smudge of dirt on one elbow. Her palms stung, her cheeks were flushed red from the half a house they'd spent already out of doors, and she was just as sweaty as her companion.

It was hot even though the pair had snuck away from Nauleth's house early. The sun was bright, having risen in the Roalis sky at least an hour or two ago, and even though he was grateful to be back in the familiar temperate climate of Anaxas, he still didn't feel used to the open air and unfiltered sunshine. It was too open. It was too bright. Both odd sensations considering all he'd longed for even while facing the near-death terrors of the Deep was a cloudless afternoon and a stretch of Stacks cobblestone free of rickshaws and taxis with his bicycle.

After months of what could only be truthfully called intellectual and political captivity, not to mention excruciating physical recovery, in the dark, cold mountain depths of Qrieth, Gior, the redheaded physicist just wanted to be outdoors, away from the curiosities of colleagues who had eagerly welcomed him home without having a clocking clue to the realities of how the eldest Siordanti, his Bruthgrave fiancé, and a pair of disgraced, traitorous Da Huanes barely escaped with their lives.

"Once you get the hang of it, yes, it'll be easy, but it's all a matter of using Newbrixton's three laws of motion to your advantage, honestly." Nauleth smirked at Leyanak Da Huane (or was it just Huane? or was it even something else now that they were hiding here in Anaxas?), reaching to help the passive up only to have her glare at his hand and stand on her own. Months ago, he wouldn't have dared what he was doing. Perhaps he was still a little unsure, "I didn't promise learning would be the simplest part, however."

"You are attempting to shift the context of conversation, EyalteathMister Siordanti." The girl huffed, narrowing her violet-red eyes at the older galdor before picking back up her sunhat, squinting against the glare of this totally new Anaxi summer experience she found herself in.

"No, I'm not at all, seedayarchild. Would you prefer to go back inside instead? One more try—you went far last time. You almost have it." He offered awkwardly, glancing down the street again as if afraid someone who passed by would see them and immediately know the youth with him was both a passive and an illegal immigrant. From a distance, it was impossible to tell Leyanak from another young student—she was tall and willowy, pale but not as delicate as she seemed. Up close, of course, she had no field, but one could forget that sometimes—after peering into the Deep and surviving, the dangers of a passive's potential diablerie seemed minimal at best. Besides, she was just as much a fugitive as he was, "I'm going to get you going—"

It had been strange to be home again, back in his house as far away from campus as he had once so desperately wanted to be as both a student and professor. In his absence, his garden had been tended and nothing had really changed, though his housemates had moved out, moved on. Mateo had lingered, managing the staff, keeping things together, surprised that as soon as the eldest Siordanti returned in a whirlwind of chaos with so little he seemed able to talk about that he dismissed the three passives, going so far as to find them different employment and making sure they were sent away with a handsome bonus of money they most certainly didn't deserve as servants. The professor had wanted privacy, and his methods of finding it were admittedly unconventional in Anaxas.

Nauleth picked up the small bicycle he'd managed to find for sale in the Stacks after quite a bit of searching, holding it steady while the once Child Priestess of Imaan and youngest daughter of the ruling Da Huanes of Gior climbed carefully back onto it with a giggle and a grin.

This was wrong.

Or it would have been, half a year ago.

Today? Gods, was this even legal?

Who the clock cared?

With a shove, the redhead who was hardly significantly taller than an eleven-year-old Gioran sent the girl off, watching her wobble and squeal, pedaling furiously until she found her rhythm and balance there on the side street in the morning sun.

"Oh! I am doing the thing! Look at me!" Shouted Leyenak gleefully, completely without any intention of stopping as she took off, long legs moving faster, leaning into the motion of it all. The albino youth laughed, totally taking off toward one of the main thoroughfares, sun shining on the pale hair that slipped free from her sunhat.

"Ah—yes. Great job. You should turn around and—begads! No. Wait. Yaldyet!Shit! Wait, EeyMiss Hu—just give me a—Alioe have mercy." The youngest Huane disappeared down the street, and it was all Naul could do to scramble to his bicycle leaning against the garden wall, ignore the need to roll up a trouser leg, and hop on to chase after the Gioran child while she giggled and called out her excitement, her voice ringing out off garden walls and the stonework of neat little houses here on one of the more isolated neighborhoods of the Stacks,

"Slow down!"

"How do I do that—?"

Welcome to Brunnhold. Now go home.

[Abeline Ixbridge]

Unfortunately Prior to Morning Tea

It had been a long night--morning, technically, the doctor reminded herself. It had been morning when the house call came. Remarkably, it was still morning, and she'd still not had her tea.

Dr. Ixbridge politely bid adieu to the family and their now adequately healthy infant. She carefully walked down their front steps; she controlled her breathing as she approached their front gate; she listened for the creak of their front door as it closed, and she exhaled. Free of the pretense of dignity, Abe slouched out to the lane.

And a pleasant little lane it was. Songbirds were singing, flowers were blooming, and teens were wooshing by uncontrollably... Abeline paused to consider the juxtaposition just as a sunhat flew into her face.

"Squeeze the lever on the right handle," she called out automatically. The view from within the hat was not one like to apprise her of the status of the teen, but it had the advantage of being dark. A tad warm, but cozy enough to sleep in. Gradually, reluctantly, she let the hat slip into her waiting hand. She supposed she ought to return it.

Abe peered after the speeding Gioran. After judging the growing distance, she frowned ruefully at her own, quite stationary, bicycle. Heavily, her limbs moved into place. She drowsily entered the throughfare just as the teen's guardian rounded an ill-placed shrub.

The resulting chaos was anything but dignified.

[Nauleth Siordanti]

20th of Roalis, 2719
ROSAMINE WAY, The Stacks | Early MORNING

Nauleth hadn't been on a bicycle in months, seasons really, and had the moment not required so much of his focus to be on Leyenak and her overwhelming success at learning to ride, he would have certainly enjoyed himself. As it was, he simply took off after the Gioran youth, standing on the pedals for a better view and ignoring the sharp pang of objection that gnawed up his left arm and bit into his left shoulder with a grit of his teeth.

His better view couldn't clear all the shrubbery, however, for some rather ambitious members of the neighborhood gardening club took their topiaries very seriously in the summer months—competitively even, as if the glory of their greenery was some offering to the gods themselves—and so the redheaded professor eagerly attempting to catch up with his laughing, giggling albino ward totally whipped around the corner at full tilt without a clue of the living obstacles he might find waiting.

"Thanking you!" Came a thickly accented little trill, the once-priestess calling to the weary galdor emerging from a long night of midwifery duties as she sped past, her voice disappearing into the squeal of brakes as she applied them too harshly, miraculously managing not to be thrown from her small bicycle in the process.

Meanwhile, Naul's gold-rimmed eyes caught sight of a fluttering hat, a flash of white hair, and then the sparkle of the Roalis sun off of a stranger's spectacles—

"Watch out—er—Sorry—"

He warned, perhaps a little too late for himself more than for the other galdor, shifting his center of gravity with a twist of the handlebars and a lean of his entire body. The young Siordanti managed a rather deft and swift turn, but it was still a little too slow: his back tire skimmed the front wheel of the other woman's bicycle, altering his intended trajectory and sending the physics professor on a stomach-lurching investigation of Newbrixton's second law of motion while he careened toward one of the many carriage posts lining the tidy sidewalk.

Ingloriously exemplifying the third and final law, Nauleth smashed sidelong into a freshly varnished cast iron post, thick and sturdy and topped with a grinning kenser head, coming to a sudden stop with a grunt and a few impolite curses before toppling over onto the street.

Leyenak had stopped with a jolt, sure, but she'd been much more graceful about it. The Gioran youth turned to look over her shoulder after clumsily coming to rest on both feet, "EyalteathGioran: Mister Siordanti!" Her pink gaze flicked up to the woman holding her sunhat in barely contained horror and embarrassment and then back to the redhead in softer, genuine concern as he struggled beneath his bicycle, blushing furiously at such a public display of frivolity, "Ey aye yalthde!Gioran: I am sorry!"

Dropping her bicycle there in the street with a clatter, the albino girl quickly moved to attempt to help.

"I'm fine—it's—no, really—" A few scrapes and a bit of blood, a couple of bruises and a sore ego were relatively minor in comparison to hatcher teeth and frozen mountainsides, after all, and Naul hid any real suffering behind a laugh and a grimace. Uncomfortable with a witness, suddenly so very self-aware, he made just as much of an attempt to shoo the Gioran back from his person as he did to get out from underneath his bicycle, murmuring awkwardly, "Please excuse the scene."

Welcome to Brunnhold. Now go home.

[Abeline Ixbridge]

Post-Post-Collision

Abeline observed the goings-on with the placidity of the tealess. She felt the bump to her tire, heard the screech of brakes, and smelt the lightly-disturbed varnish before she finally came to.

"Oh, dear," she said. A cursory glance was all she needed for a diagnosis; he was fine. Her field relaxed--for it had tensed before she'd realized what was happening--and it settled into a grateful, sandpapery texture. As the man shooed off his companion, Abeline took the opportunity to stand in place and be unhelpful. The moment did not last, however, as her brain shifted gears and she noticed his bicycle no longer could do the same.

"Your chain," she said, pointing. Once the fellow was free, Abe crouched by the bike, noting its make and model with a touch of dread. Quite a new bicycle, and quite an expensive one. It put her own mid-tier ride to shame, and her sense of impending paperwork fluttered page after page of bills before her eyes. She wasn't at fault, but the sort of person who could crash a brand-new Rovera Royale^TM was the same sort of person who could make it her fault.

"Hmm," she nosed out an inscrutable augury, honed by years in the medical profession. "It's excessively mangled for such a slight bump. I vaguely remember hearing the Royale^TM needed a part recalled. Roveras can be so finicky." After standing, she gestured down the street, sunhat still in-hand. She offered the hat back to its owner and continued, "I know a good shop not far from here. I can show you where it is. I'm headed that way, anyway."

[Nauleth Siordanti]

20th of Roalis, 2719
ROSAMINE WAY, The Stacks | Early MORNING

The young Siordanti rolled up his sleeves and glanced at blood oozing from his elbow, letting it dribble down his freckled wrist without any particular concern. Gods, it was really nothing, but he knew he'd feel the fall in his backside and spine tomorrow more than anywhere else. He’d almost seen his own insides. He’d felt tendons and muscles and bones knit themselves back together, half conscious. Rolling his shoulders, he realized quickly the woman who'd been both distraction and witness was not approaching in concern for his particular wellbeing so much as in concern for his bicycle. Naul smirked, wondering if he somehow cut a deserving figure, and then hummed at the indication of damage to more than just his person,

"I haven't ridden in months—" He admitted, inhaling quickly as if holding other words back and biting his lip. He'd been exploring airless caverns, meeting mythical beasts, being mauled by them, and fleeing from murderous tribal warlords disguised as wise galdori rulers. Gold-rimmed eyes slid toward Leyenak, expression softening enough that the girl was clearly welcomed closer. The young albino's eyes dipped to the red staining his scrapes and then back to his mangled bicycle, "—nothing that can't be taken care of at home, Leya. I suppose Miss Ixbridge here has already decided she's seen enough of me—oh yes, I haven't forgotten your face."

Nauleth grinned then, cheekily despite the lagging motion of the left side of his visage, and then he chuckled, dropping into a crouch with a hiss of pain and a grunt when Abeline spoke of a recall,

"—it was an impulse buy last fall before graduation, I'll be honest. I, uh, I quite liked the color at the time." The redheaded professor admitted shyly about the glorious green with gold and white pin-stripping, scraped and marred as it now was. There was no angry accusation in his tone so much as quite a bit of self-deprecation. Perhaps years ago, self-righteous and indignant, he would have been passing the blame with a raised voice, but that simply wasn't who he was anymore, "It's not even my favorite bike—"

He tilted his head toward the deep orange, well-loved Bastian Moretti that he'd been allowing the Gioran child priestess borrow given the eleven-year-old girl was certainly tall enough to do so,

"—I was apparently not in Brunnhold—nor in the Kingdom at all—for the recall. Was it recently? I've been—er—I have been in Gior until recently." Naul's jaw clenched briefly, cutting off any hint of reminiscing over some pleasant trip by changing the subject quickly, "I could probably fix it, but—oh."

Leyenak smiled at the return of her hat, cheeks already pink from the early morning Roalis sun. Pausing to arrange her long, bone-white hair before replacing the hat on her head for a bit of shade, she said thank you again, softer, suddenly shy like some wild animal so close to another Anaxi galdor. Aware that she acted nothing like their expectations when it came to passives—not gated, not marred with some tattoo, and totally free to be herself with the exception of being a fugitive from her own family and homeland—she seemed immediately more reserved once Nauleth admitted to knowing Miss Ixbridge.

What if she told on him?

"I think it's in my favor for someone else to take a look. I'd appreciate the guidance." He slid the mangled chain from the gears with only a bit of effort, biting his lip and ignoring the fact that he was already sweating—had he been in the cold for that long? Tugging it free and sliding it into one of his trouser pockets, he stood, smearing greasy, dirty fingers on his thighs before reaching to lift the Rovera up from the sidewalk.

"Oh! I want to go. Are we going?" Leyenak took the queue to go and fetch the bicycle she'd been riding from the street, smiling with excitement at the promise of peering into new shops, her thick accented words an octave higher with enthusiasm. Just as quickly, her expression faltered, "Am I allowed, Nauleth?"

"Why the clocking hell not—erm. Sorry. Well. Of course you are, Leya. You're my ward, after all. It will be fine. Ah, Miss Ixbridge, forgive me, this is Leyanak Huane." The young professor who'd almost lost his fiancé over passive rights, the legal guardian of a passive fugitive priestess just barely of age to be a student had they not lived in the kingdom of Anaxas. Yes. It all made total sense.

Nauleth might have been blushing, his field dampened and taut like a newly tuned drum. He cleared his throat and waved his hand in an invitation for Abeline to lead the way, "Still cleaning up messes ersehole students like I used to leave on the Lawn from the safety of the Infirmary or are you just a professional bicycle critic now-a-days?"

Welcome to Brunnhold. Now go home.

[Abeline Ixbridge]

Approaching Tea

"Oh, it's you," Abeline said after theatrically squinting at him. She genuinely hadn't recognized him until that damnable smirk showed up, but why admit ignorance when you can pretend you were faking it all along. "You still hold the record for worst manners at the Infirmary to this day. And yes, I am still patching up your ilk, but now I get to send an enormous bill." She turned to the girl and bowed deeply. "Doctor Ixbridge, at your service, Miss Huane."

How, why, and many other questions niggled at Abe regarding the Gioran ward. Siordani getting himself saddled with a babysitting job was certainly far-fetched, yet what was more surprising was that anyone thought the poor girl deserved it. Obviously, a thing or two had happened since they'd last traded barbs, but now was not the time to play catch up. Judging by the nerves on those two, the whole thing sniffed of Politics.

Such calculations occupied her mind while she was bowed and her face hidden. When she rose, she wore a damnable smirk of her own.

"Only an amateur bicycle critic," she said as she started to walk her bike up the hill. The cobbles here were excessively bumpy, and she was secretly grateful for an excuse not to ride. "I submitted a review of the Cabbie," she patted her machine; reliable, easily repaired, and a lovely shade of black, "to Cyclist Today. Mysteriously, they never published it."

With a huff, Abe heaved her bike over a curb and into an intersection. She glanced back at her charges and decided to take the back way. Snaking along access roads and back alleys, the party passed from one neighborhood to the next. Ironwork fences allowed view of well-kept floral gardens, which then became brick-walled yards of trimmed grass. Eventually, these gave way to wood fences with kitchen gardens barely visible through the slits.

"Nearly there."

[Nauleth Siordanti]

20th of Roalis, 2719
ROSAMINE WAY, The Stacks | Early MORNING

"Mister Siordanti had bad manners as a child? Then he has not changed." Leyenak, for an eleven year old passive child, youngest of the Da Huane children, and former Priestess of Imaan, had a remarkable grasp of sarcasm. Nauleth glanced toward the pale child, her translucent skin already burnished shades of pink from the Roalis sun, and his blue-green eyes widened slightly before narrowing again. The albino youth who was nearly as tall as her adult guardian gave a solemn bow in response to Abeline's introduction, pausing there in the street with her bicycle balanced just so in order for her fluid motion to use her whole body,

"Aghala eate deuee(ahghal-ah eh-ahte deu-ohee) - "It's good to meet you!" or "Well met!" - can be used both for meeting someone for the first time and seeing someone again after a long time, Doctor Ixbridge. It's good to meet you." She smiled afterward, but it was a strangely severe expression instead of a particularly warm one, perhaps some mockery of her matriarch and mother's own stern face.

"I've reformed, I'll have you know. Only slightly, though." The redhead grunted in response, tilting a bruised elbow to see that his scrapes were beginning to congeal well enough, "Though one could venture to suggest our Doctor Ixbridge here was one of the few privileged with seeing me at my worst."

Naul had the gall to flash a grin, stupid and sweaty on his freckled face, before he looked away again, skittish and flighty. His gold-rimmed gaze flicked over the scenery, noting buildings, glancing at faces, the polarity of his field taut not in content friendliness but a strange, insatiable wariness. Despite such tension, however, the eldest Siordanti snorted at Abeline's admission that she'd not been published,

"I'd say the editors most likely have some bizarre old-fashioned bias. Half of them were probably confused a Miss Abeline Ixbridge could ride a bicycle at all, let alone possess a fully-fledged medical degree." He meant it, clearly, and the condemnation in the deep tone of his voice revealed his stance on such a mindset. While he'd just crawled from some opposite form of tribal, matriarchal savagery, Naul could say with confidence that he no longer believed in a fairer sex. Sorcery was sorcery, powerful regardless of what gender wielded it, but he was much more unclear on the general hierarchy of races, especially as they walked together in the fleeting shade of well-tended hedges and carefully trimmed trees.

The other galdor led them through an intersection and behind houses, and Nauleth hobbled along with all the bravado he'd been known for since childhood, albeit with much more unusual experience than a mere backlash to fuel his endurance these days. The alleys in this part of the Stacks neatly kept and smelling of early Roalis garden bounty—herbs and flowers, buzzing with bees.

It was a pleasant scene, and even with the strange vacuous brush of Leyanak's lack of a noticeable field next to him, the former- and most likely future-professor of Physical Conversation was, bruises aside, glad for a moment to be back in Anaxas and far from Gior.

Just that tiny hint of politics made the young former-Huane frown a little, following the conversation with an emotional sensitivity that someone her age usually wasn't known to possess, especially for a Gioran.

"Anaxi women are not supposed to ride bikes?" The girl looked to Abeline. Then to Naul.

"No. Anaxi men don't necessarily believe their women to be capable of much."

"Ridiculous! Evyedy!Stupid! Even your university has a Headmistress—" Leyanak had met her, after all. Kind Ophelia, she called her in Gioran.

"—and so many Incumbents resent that, though things are changing. Have changed. Will keep changing. Slowly." The eldest Siordanti glanced at the Doctor, perhaps in question of her opinion, perhaps in apology for the conversation. He shrugged.

Welcome to Brunnhold. Now go home.

[Abeline Ixbridge]

Almost Tea

Abeline half-listened to the diatribe, nodding along. Despite his fine breeding, Siordandi occasionally had the right idea. The fact he had ideas at all was a rarity in the upper crust. A working brain was what made him marginally tolerable--quite a feat, given his.. everything else.

As they walked, Abe would sometimes glance at the young woman with what could only be called suppressed curiosity. Her brows were furrowed, yes, but far from hostile, and the downward turn of her lips spoke more of puzzlement than disapproval. Then, her eyes would retreat to the safety of the path ahead. Which had ended.

"Here we are!" Abeline extended her arm with an exaggerated flourish, directing attention to the repair shop before them. It was easy to miss from this angle, as the corner of the alley turned sharply, and, notably, this was the back entrance. No sign was hung above the door, and the only hint of the shop's purpose was the excess of rusting bicycle parts strewn behind the building. A veritable graveyard of the things. Abeline made a quick holy gesture, only partly in jest, before knocking at the door.

A wick's head popped out. His face was covered in grease; it appeared he had already been working for some time. He was young, not much older than Leyanak, with unkempt hair that may have been blonde beneath the grease. His light eyes immediately swivelled to the bicycles. "Cabbie's made some friends," he said. He jerked his head and lurched awkwardly back in. "C'mon. Kettle's cold, but ye ken where it is."

Abeline tipped her hat to the swiftly-disappearing wick boy. She smiled to the vehicular patient, then looked to Naul and nodded sharply. "That's Rob, the son. The father is--"

"ROBERT JUNIOR MCDUFF! You can damn well put the kettle on!" came a voice from further in.

"--Robert Senior. Welcome to Robert and Son's," Abeline said with an exasperated, if fond, sigh. Before long, she was drawn to the bijou kitchen at the back of the shop, as if by gravity, and began to orbit the tiny stove and its glorious kettle. All the world was kettle, and the future began and ended with tea. Dark, hot clarity. Gentle perfection.

TEA.

[Nauleth Siordanti]

20th of Roalis, 2719
ROSAMINE WAY, The Stacks | Early MORNING

Leyanak was mostly oblivious to the concern and curiosity of their companion, much more fascinated by the scenery that passed by and amused by her guardian's limping than anything else. Their level of familiarity was certainly more than unusual here in Anaxas, and Naul's obvious level of comfort with a passive child seemed completely out of character for someone of his upbringing, let alone his perceived intellectual status.

He didn't once speak to her as a servant, as a lesser creature. His tone was more like addressing a younger sibling (of which the eldest Siordanti had experience with) or a cousin, and there wasn't a shred of sarcasm or superiority in his words with her. He'd seen those gilded skulls in the deep, larger eye sockets denoting them as children, empty and hollow, sacrificed for nothing.

They'd not kept him safe from the jaws of hatchers, but Leyanak had put her young life on the line to get him out of Gior instead.

Their walk fell into that summer hum of insects and birds, humidity cloying at their clothes and sun leaving its mark on the albino child's face, uncaring of her attempts at protection. Abeline lead them as she'd promised to the back alley side entrance of a quaint little bicycle repair shop. Naul's gold-rimmed eyes skimmed over parts and it was clear by his sweaty, only slightly pained and lopsided expression that he was doing his best not to judge the entire business based on the wick's face that peered from behind the door.

A young wick at that.

Leyanak, used to the superior fields of galdori and the vacant sensation of her own kind, had never felt the brush of a wick's glamour before. Never this close, anyway. Her violet gaze widened at the grease-smeared youth's face, squinting at his words and looking to the Anaxi professor next to her as if for guidance,

"I don't understand." She whispered in Gioran.

Her freckled guardian only chuckled, suddenly just as aware as she was, and whispered back, frowning slightly at the words he spoke in her own language because he knew the double entendre of aybehay also meant abomination as much as it meant, "He's a wick, child."

The once-Huane's face wrinkled in a mixture of surprise and a hint of disgust, but she didn't lose grip on her bike nor did she say anything else. She giggled, nervously, and stepped closer to Nauleth instead of toward the threshold of the door, wanting to hide her fear. He tsk'd, leaning over her to lean her bike against the back wall, stumbling at her closeness while still keeping a hold on his own broken bicycle, ignoring the bloodied stains now darkening his scraped up clothes,

"It's fine. They're safe."

"They're—"

"Shh." He placed a hand on the passive child's shoulder warmly, leading them into the back part of the shop with the faintest hint of a cordial smile. The gravity of his field seemed to settle heavily into the room, drowning out the glamours with its strength even without him caprising the occupants. He nodded in turn as father and son were introduced, bobbing his head in a bow of greeting,

"I'm Mister Siordanti, thank you, and this is Miss—Miss Danika. I seem to be in need of your skills." Naul tilted his head toward the cycle he'd also led in with them, the broken chain as obvious as the red smears on his well-tailored garments.

He was also looking forward to tea at this point, "Miss Ixbridge here highly recommends you."

Leyanak had curled a hand into her guardian's shirt, unfazed by the sweat and dirt. Wide-eyed, she watched the younger wick with some mixture of fascination and horror, not even acknowledging her false name with even a bow in the elder Robert's direction.

Welcome to Brunnhold. Now go home.