[Closed] Honey And Acid

[Yazad]

The Stacks

12th of Vortas, 2719; Mid-Noon

T oday was the day.

Time continued to languidly move on, his days continued to be mundanely peaceful, and Vortas continued to be awful. Yazad was none too thrilled about the cold weather, or the fact that his skin was suffering the dreadful decrease in moisture that came with such weather. Small blessings: only he could see his own legs. This was a mercifully snow-free day following a somewhat less dreadful and sun-deprived day, so the amount of frozen slush was at a tolerated minimum. Still, every inhale of breath felt like a reminder of how this is the sort of day to be spent with a cup of hot cocoa in hand, preferably near a fireplace.

Yet here he was, walking the streets of The Stacks with a decorated cream-colored envelope in hand, containing an invitation that he himself picked and penned in neat handwriting because Sophronios could not be bothered to do either. Frankly, it took a bit of convincing and a moment of silent staring for the galdor to give his approval, but approval had been had and that is what matters. The older man could use company that is not Yazad’s, and the passive himself had suggested a change of pace to Niccolette in their previous unplanned meeting. It seemed like a good enough idea to plan a dinner to which the galdor woman would be invited.

Early noon had come and passed, mostly spent serving a late breakfast and managing the daily chores of their dwelling. Not much aside from the regular cleaning and tidying, which the servant could have easily done later in the day if he did not know himself enough to be certain that he would feel terrible for the procrastination.

Palazzo di Rhodon, where Niccoletter stayed, was memorable enough. A very Bastian name and a very Bastian design to go with it. Just like before, there was an abundance of people around his age both in the wide road and in the cafes serving concoctions that he would not dare try. A gust of wind passed by, causing Yazad to hug his coat tighter against his body. No one else seemed as bothered as he was about the cool breeze.

Eagerness bubbled up within him when the passive passed through the hotel’s gates to a blessed warmer place. This was not his first time coming to Palazzo di Rhodon, but it is his first time inside it. For a moment, Yazad paused to evaluate the interior, a hand pressing the envelope against his chest while the other smoothed away some non-existent creases on his dark teal coat. The decor was a step above decent, which is more than he was coming to hope for in normal establishments within The Stacks. Only a handful of people were present, and the only reason Yazad took the liberty of eyeing them was to see if Niccolette could be found among them. She was not there. The reception, naturally, was his next step.

It had been a relatively quick affair to ask the sharply dressed young man standing behind the desk for Madam Niccolette Ibutatu’s room. There was a brief civil exchange preceding that, starting with the obligatory comments about the weather and ending with polite inquiries about who he was and what business he needed the madam for. Answers were given, the envelope and a permit were shown, and up on his way, Yazad went.

Just like the days of his life, the doors for hotel rooms looked all the same, as did the carpeted corridors. He was bound to find the door with the room number that he was given eventually, and thankfully it turned out to take less time for him to find it than he expected. The passive was smiling already, his round cheeks ruddy with a blush that looked to be there permanently. His pale green eyes double-checked the elegant bronze digits. Yes, this is the correct room. Niccolette had no way of knowing that he was coming to visit her today. She might not even be present inside the room, but he had made the trip and he can always hope that she is there. He was not going to take much of her time, Yazad told himself. Just deliver the invitation, check on her well-being, then leave.

Slender fingers closed knocked on the door with only enough force to generate an audible sound. The three gentle knocks were followed by the soft clearing of Yazad’s throat, and then a voice that was both courteous and bright. "Madam Niccolette? Please pardon my unannounced presence. It is Yazad." After the passive’s statement, he stood silently in polite anticipation.

Honey And Acid

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Noon, 12 Vortas, 2719
Niccolette's Room, Palazzo di Rhodon, the Stacks

The night before, Niccolette had shut her notebook, closing the pages full of her own curling handwriting, and tucked it away once more in the false bottom of the locked trunk at the foot of her bed. She had risen, then, and crossed to the small dressing room which she had never once used for its intended purpose.

Candles lined the floor, spiraling outward from the center in an elaborate plot; she picked her way through them with the ease of long practice, leaving behind her gray dressing gown folded by the door so that she wore only the white shift beneath. The candles gleamed against the white fabric and the bare skin of her ankles, against her hands and wrists and her hair as she reached forward to light them each one at a time, slowly and steadily.

By the time she was done, the room gleamed; it was well dark outside, and the candles glowed in it. Niccolette’s shadow shifted and waved against the wall as she settled in to kneel at the heart of the plot. She breathed in, deeply, and the candle flames flickered and bent towards her; she exhaled out, and they shifted away, as with the force of her breath, and the movement of her field.

For a long time, there was only her breath and the steady, counted rhythm of it, which never wavered.

She began to speak – to chant – and the harsh syllables of monite filled the air. She tucked them between the even breaths with the easy familiarity of long practice, and she turned herself over to it, thinking of nothing but the breaths and the words to come, and then not even that, so that she only was, with no need to think. Time passed, but she was not aware of it; she did not hold herself back from the mona so, but gave over unstintingly to the meditation, and let it fill all her awareness.

In time, she stopped chanting; in time her breathing smoothed back to normal. Niccolette exhaled a last word of monite, a single command, and the candles flickered out as one. She scraped up the white wax from the edges of the candles and the floor with a small knife, and left them in a wicker basket at the edge of the room. She went and bathed, in water as hot as she could stand, steam rising from it, and scrubbed the sweat of the fire from her skin; she rinsed out her hair and combed it through, and left it to dry over her shoulders.

By the time she had finished all these preparations and more, it was morning; gray light leaked in through the window, and shifted pale pink, and then grew yellow-white, glowing winter bright. She ordered breakfast with a pull of the bell, and ignored the toast and rashers of bacon, pouring a cup of tea and watching the steam drift from it into the air. She breathed in, and watched it trickle towards her face; she exhaled out, and it puffed and drifted away.

Niccolette went back to the chest, to the false bottom; she took out not her notebook, but rather a small cloth sachet, and from it a vial with a few pale pills. She turned out one onto her hand, and went back to the table, and set it before her.

Why Hesseans? Uzoji had asked her, once; she supposed she should remember when, though she did not. She thought it must have been in the years after Brunnhold, when they had gone sometimes to Mestigia or Drekkur, when she had begun to amass her collection. She had known him then, and he had known her, enough to understand that the question was deeper than it might appear.

Had they been on the Eqe Aqawe, half-asleep in the captain’s quarters? Had they been on Dzum, with the scent of the sea drifting in through the thick libray curtains, or in the Rose, sitting opposite one another at the breakfast table? She remembered the conversation, but she remembered it out of place, floating, drifting, amidst a sea of seven years of memories.

Because of the wars, she had told him, rather flippantly, though she had meant it. Living conversation was not, she had said, wryly, terribly conducive to practice. Hesseans, with their wars, had ample opportunity – more, perhaps, than other nations – and so the best, most innovative spells had come from them. Had come, she had explained, from those with the opportunity to practice them.

Over these last months, Niccolette thought, looking down at the pill before her, she had built up another sort of collection. All which remained, she supposed, was to practice. She took the pill in elegant fingers, and swallowed it with a sip of tea – unhesitatingly, and without even the faintest pang of remorse, and she sat, and she waited.

Then, too, she lost track of time. Two hours, she thought – two hours, but no more than a house – and then – but when she glanced at the clock, it seemed to twist out of sight, and she could not remember, quite, why it had seemed so important. She was warm all through, warm in a way she had not been since the Muluku Isles, and she felt herself an airship – once tied down, and now drifting, free, through the sky, the sun glinting off the metal of her chains –

The knock on the door interrupted her thoughts, or at least scattered them. Niccolette’s eyes fluttered open; she blinked, and then focused, slowly, on the door. She thought she had imagined it, like something from a dream, but familiar words filtered through, and, she supposed, a familiar voice, though not one she could have placed without the name.

Niccolette went to rise; she stumbled, finding it harder than expected. Her hip jostled the breakfast tray, and it clattered to the ground; cold tea splattered against the carpet, the noise of the metal tray hitting the table echoing through the room, alongside the shattering of the empty tea cup.

Niccolette looked down at it for a long moment, clinging to the table with one hand. She giggled, strangely high-pitched, and found she could not quite stop.

[Yazad]

Palazzo di Rhodon

12th of Vortas, 2719; Noon

Y azad stood still, like a tree in human form planted before the ornate wooden door. He was good at it; standing still and with a tight straight back, sometimes for prolonged periods of time. The passive servant allowed himself a satisfied glance at his perfectly filed nails while his ears listened in, but no immediate response had come.

It could be that she went out, despite the good gentleman at the reception desk claiming that Niccolette should be present in her room. People can be wrong, mistakes can happen. That, of course, includes him possibly reading the numbers wrong. But no--another close look, another replay of the conversation earlier, and he was certain that this must be the one. The lack of an answer could simply be because the room’s inhabitant was asleep, though judging by their previous meeting, he did not take Niccolette for someone who is likely to be slumbering at this time of day.

There was the option of slipping the envelope through the gap beneath the door for Niccolete to later discover, but then that would be just so gracelessly impersonal. Why, Yazad’s face twisted slightly in distaste at the mere thought. No, he shall knock again, and see if he can get any response his time.

His hand went up again, fingers closing into a fist for another round of raps, but Yazad found himself flinching and then tensing up as the sound of clanking metal and shattering porcelain reached the corridor. One good thing: this means that the room is indeed occupied. One not-so-good thing: items breaking was never a good indication. "Madam Niccolette…?" The passive’s concerned call gained in volume, his hand now resting against the door as if it would open just because he wanted it to.

Yazad was a man of sensations, and an odd feeling that he knew better than to dismiss was beginning to rise within him. Like goosebumps creeping up one’s spine when exposed to chilling winds. But he was indoors where it was nice and warm, and the servant knew that the trepidation he felt had nothing to do with the weather. Something was amiss, and not only because Niccolette could have made a clumsy move and dropped a cup of tea.

And then, the giggling followed.

Happiness and joy were contagious emotions, so easily shared when one felt them strongly enough. But the laughter he was hearing--it did not sound like the product of delight. The tone of voice was similar enough to Niccolette’s -it was definitely female-, but his mind struggled to picture the stoic galdor woman giggling in such a manner. Normally, he would have thought this to be nothing but amusing, and possibly worthy of some good-hearted ribbing, but not now. The gnawing feeling, the one that is like an unpleasant smell very much present but without a known source, was far too strong.

"What is the matter, madam? I came to deliver something for you, but it seems that--please open up." Another round of knocks, this time with slightly more force behind them. The growing worry in Yazad’s voice was hardly suppressed through his need to maintain public decorum while in the middle of a hotel’s corridor.

Honey And Acid

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Noon, 12 Vortas, 2719
Niccolette's Room, Palazzo di Rhodon, the Stacks

Niccolette giggled, and then the giggling itself seemed quite amusing. Every time she thought to stop, she could not remember why she could do so, and could think, instead, only that the act of laughing itself was quite funny.

There was another knock on the door; she glanced up from the shards of teacup on the floor, blinking. There was a dampness on her cheeks, around her eyes. Reflexive tears, Niccolette thought, from the shaking which accompanied laughter. She wrapped her arms around herself, breathing a little unsteadily.

What was the hour? She turned and looked at the clock; the shards of the cup crunched beneath her feet as she took a few steps. She felt it, but she felt it as she felt all the pain and aches of the last months: distant, as if they had happened to someone else, as if they were on the ground and waving at her as she soared away.

Just nearly the fifteenth hour, Niccolette thought, looking at the clock. She couldn’t remember, quite, what time she had thought it should be. She couldn’t remember, either, what Yazad had said at the door, or whether she had meant to open it or not.

“Stripes!” Niccolette said, looking down at her bare feet, and the faint smear of blood on the floor behind them. She blinked, looking at them again.

Porcelain was sharp.

She knew better; she had broken cups and plates before, and stepped in the shattered remains before too. She had pulled bits of porcelain from her feet, and once from Uzoji’s feet. She thought the memory should have hurt; her eyes were watering away. Niccolette turned away, looking past the clock, her arms crossed over her chest to hold the robe tight.

She didn’t know whether to call it laughing or crying; she didn’t think she should cry. She was distant, floating off away over the ground, and she thought she should be able to think of Uzoji, and the time he had walked over shattered plates to hold her close, without tears.

Niccolette was shaking, all the same; her breath choked in her throat, and there was a dampness to her cheeks. It was not the squalls of the last months, the unexpected tear storms which swept through her. It was something different, though she did not know if she would have said better or worse.

Fumbling, Niccolette dropped down into one of the chairs of the room, the big armchair close to the clock, and pressed her face into her hands. She didn’t try to stop it, whatever it was: laughter, tears, joy, sadness. She couldn’t have named it, and she couldn’t bring herself to care. She shook with it, and tears trickled from the edges of her eyes, and whether it was laughter or crying which hitched her breath, she could not be sure.

[Yazad]

Palazzo di Rhodon

12th of Vortas, 2719; Noon

W orry gradually mounted within Yazad’s mind, like the worst of Achtus snow piling in to suffocate the earth. Once again, the passive received no reply to indicate that Niccolette had acknowledged his words, or even heard them. The eerie slew of giggles continued, and then ceased; that was, in itself, also concerning enough.

He thought that the woman was coming to the door. He assumed that Niccolette must have been reading a particularly humorous publication, and only now managed to stop her indulgence in words and respond to the man knocking on her door. Instead, what he got was a loud exclamation of ’Stripes!’ that left the passive even more baffled. "Pardon…?" Yazad called back, his hand sliding down the finished wood to the ornate brass handle. Any doubt he had that something was amiss had dissipated like the morning’s fog.

It was a spontaneous and instinctive reaction, really. Yazad did not expect much when he pressed down on the handle with rising trepidation. It was improper in many ways to be entering someone else’s dwelling without spoken permission, and any self-respecting gentleman would frown upon himself for the impolite intrusion upon a lady’s chambers. Yazad was one such man, but he was also a man who was fresh out of any other options.

Yazad could only murmur an awkward ’Excuse me’ as he stuck his head in first, followed reluctantly by the rest of his body. In different circumstances, he would have taken the time to admire the rather neat decor, but he simply did not have the mind for that right now. The passive’s pale green eyes inspected the room with the invitation held tightly against his chest. There was a metal tray, no doubt the culprit of the sound he heard first. There were pieces of porcelain littering part of the floor, like breadcrumbs asking him to follow the trail. And follow he did. There was red. Fresh, glistening red that smelled suspiciously of iron, and streaked the otherwise clean floor. This was not good for his heart. It made the passive feel as if he was outside again, feeling a chill that soaked to his bones.

And then, there was Niccolette at the end of the trail.

"Hurte above--!" Yazad was not certain when exactly he had dropped the gilded envelope--only that he was suddenly reaching for the seated, hunching woman with both of his hands. Accidents happen, of course. He had a number of these in the kitchen and around the house at various times during his life, but nothing that had ever made him giggle and cry simultaneously while bleeding. "Show it to me, madam." Yazad did not waste a tick of time and made his request with earnest urgency, despite the quiver in his hands and the pounding of his heart. The man knelt down before the sitting galdor, his gloved hands hovering closely by what he assumed was her injured foot. Asking foolish questions like ‘what happened’ was as pointless as it was idiotic. And for all of his faults, the passive liked to think that he was not quite that gormless.

Honey And Acid