|
[ rules ] [ setting ] [ players ] [ archives ]
trainee is waiting for her when she leaves the room. Instead of jenachen daggers, he wears training sticks. An inexperienced trainee, then, not to be trusted with edged weapons. He salutes her awkwardly, then says, "This way to your room. You'll have kayan in a few hours, and at qevyan I'll bring Lynx to meet you." [GM's note: Qenaren and Ezinen society serve 4 meals, not three: esyan at daybreak, bhuyan toward noon, kayan in the afternoon, qevyan near sundown. The four meals are also used as rough divisions of time.] She waves him off in dismissal, wondering bemusedly whether she had ever been such an awkward arrangement of knees and elbows and inexperience. The trainee flushes and moves off. The room is in the guests' wing, more luxurious than she's used to: rice-paper screens partitioning the room from unwanted eyes, calligraphy scrolls hanging from the walls, a large bed. She's slept on her share of floors and beneath the stars, after all. Marika looks it all over with a cynical eye. Of course they can offer her one of the better rooms--she's getting kicked out of it soon enough. In a rare moment of honesty with herself she admits that she feels stifled here. She wants her own room, her own commander, her own mission. Not that griping will change anything, but she feels on edge, as if her body is wondering why she is in a strange building during the daytime and why she isn't slipping down a hallway. One of the calligraphy scrolls says, rather sententiously: "Beware the man who deals only in shadows." *That* was a good choice of sayings to put in *her* room. [GM's note: "man" is used in a gender-neutral sense. Chevraqis makes no distinction between male and female in the pronoun.] She grumbles under her breath, blaming her uneasiness on, of course, Rahen. Her antidote: a good bath to get off the stink of the road and then however much sleep she can snatch. The bath, at least, is pleasant: good hot water, all the soap she could wish for--and not the harsh soap that they get out near the border, either. At kayan a simple meal is brought her, but at least the rice isn't three days old and the pickled cabbage isn't going bad yet. And at qevyan, the trainee arrives with two trays and a sober-looking spellsworn. Lynx, Marika guesses. His eyes are hazel, not really lynx-yellow, and the spellsworn's cross at his collar is crooked. He gives Marika a slight bow, straight-faced, and then grins. It's when he bows that she notices the patch on his sleeve: a wheel, signifying the engineering corps. He takes his boots off, as does the trainee--no small feat when balancing two trays. Marika watches him warily without echoing his expression. She's not quite scowling, but she's certainly not leaping up to greet him with a blinding smile and a comradely embrace. His grin falters slightly, but he patches it up with aplomb. The trainee excuses himself after setting the trays down on a table. Without invitation, Lynx sits down, nearly spills his chopsticks by jostling the tray, barely catches them before they hit the floor. "I heard from Magistrate Ejien that we're to travel together," he says. "I hope it's no trouble to you." He grimaces. "I have strict orders to keep my toes out of anything that could be compromised by a klutz tripping over cobbles or dropping a pitcher of water." Marika watches all this with something nearing despair. She would rather face a mage without this fool than with. "Trouble? You? Only as much as, say, a walking tornado. Or perhaps just as much as a third chopstick--those are always useful." She sits on the other side of the table, pointedly picking up her chopsticks without incident. An entire qevyan with this man. The greatest of joys. Unfortunately, he seems oblivious to her scathing words--no good sign; it implies he's heard the like from others so often the words no longer register. "I've always found it so," Lynx agrees. "I mean, I've dropped chopsticks so often it's handy to have a third around." At least he doesn't drop anything essential as he eats...and besides, he's on the other side of the table. "And a fourth, and a fifth?" she asks archly. Then she shakes her head, not wanting to see his overeager nod of agreement, and applies herself to her food. Maybe, she thinks hopefully, if she ignores him, he'll go away. "The more the merrier," he answers in all earnestness, "though I've found that after a point the redundancy becomes encumbering. You can solve equations for minima and maxima, sometimes--but I shouldn't bore you with my studies." She frowns, his babbling having passed into incomprehension for her, but nods curtly as if minima and maxima *are* old, boring stuff for her. What is he, anyway? An engineer? At least he doesn't drop anything essential as he eats...and besides, he's on the other side of the table. But if he makes a mess on the floor of this nice room they assigned to her, she vows, he's going to be the wiping it up. Miraculously, for all his fumbling and *her* certainty that something will end up on the floor, nothing does. Marika fights the urge to solemnly congratulate him. After all, he shouldn't gain the impression that she's actually grateful to him for anything. His expression is self-deprecating as he looks at Marika and says, "What's your specialty, then? I'm Lynx. And you?" "Marika Erren," she says grudgingly. "Infiltration. How much do you know about the whole situation?"
Back: Marika's Prologue 5 Tower graphic courtesy of Clipart Castle.
|
