searingbond

[ Upon arrival, Sciel is directed to the reserve library and then, when she responds to the directions with a pleasant smile and little else, guided more or less the whole way by a somewhat put-out ardent.

To be fair, she hasn’t actually been here before, and it’s honestly a bit of a labyrinth, now that she’s seen it with her own eyes.

Thankfully it isn’t too much longer, thanks to her coerced company, that she finds herself in the right place, as indicate by the presence of a strikingly beautiful and famously imposing woman who doesn’t turn at the sound of their approach.

Jasnah does chide her, though. Nothing new there. ]

Wouldn’t dream of keeping you waiting, Brightness. [ Sciel replies, eternally unbothered, and also around fifteen minutes late. As the ardent departs, the woman he’d delivered steps further within, producing the promised scarf with a flash of a smile.

Notably, but perhaps unsurprisingly, Sciel is dressed no differently than her usual: unsuited for any amount of cold. ]

Here you go! Hope this helps in your forgiving me for the delay.

[ her frown persists. briefly, uncharitably, she considers whether this edition is worth keeping — at best, it should be re-copied and annotated so future readers aren't misled by its inaccuracies. only she doesn't yet have shelf-space yet for filings things that need work.

— it's laughable that jasnah kholin is spearheading this action herself. likely even a terrible use of her time. except for the way it helps ease the pedal note turmoil of her thoughts. she devotes her conscious brain to this effort, hoping that her subconscious will begin to process the things it needs to process. ]

Hm. Thank you, I... [ she lifts her attention, reaching for the scarf and — oh. how does she feel about the fact that now she's the only one of the pair of them that's about to be wrapped up against the cold? jasnah measures the feeling in her stomach against her ego, taking the scarf with her freehand and snaking it around her shoulders.

the problem book has been forgotten, set aside. here is a different conundrum to unpack. ]

— You don't find it cold?

[ Sciel watches Jasnah with her easy green gaze, thinking (not for the first time) that this woman and Lune have a lot in common. And...that they'd either get along famously or be completely unable to stand each other with nothing in between.

When the other's attention seems to finally tear from the books and the (doubtless) web of thoughts associated with the stacks, Sciel meets her eyes with a little raise of her eyebrows as if it'd only just occurred to her that it might be cold. ]

Mm, no, not really. I run warm. [ She shrugs, unbothered. ] Besides, I thought there was a decent chance whatever you're going to tell me gets me fired up. "Smile more..." [ And here she scoffs, still smiling, but with an accompanying disdain for the man Jasnah had begun to tell her about. ] Very irritating.

[ There is, sadly, no shortage of people (read: men) like that in the world. ]

[ jasnah glances over the stacks. some organized, some not. she's looking for one she can comfortably assign to the other woman. one that's already been subjected to a once-over.

— a tremendous eye roll steals across her expression, as if sciel's reminder brings the irritation once more sharply into focus. a vicious, heated grumble: ] No one tells a king his edicts will be better received if he simply smiled more.

[ this opinion is not peer reviewed, no, but jasnah has a confident feeling about it. ]

[ Sciel follows Jasnah's gaze but remains where she is, waiting for further instruction. Even she knows better than to simply go for it in this situation, as the stacks have surely already been organized to some degree that her unasked interference would only mess with. ]

One of the many delights of being a queen, then, I'm sure. [ She still maintains the light, pleasant air, but the underlying fatigue of living in a society where things like this happen all the time -- and to one of the most powerful women in the world, no less -- is present. ] Maybe it'd be easier to propose a law outlawing smiling completely.

[ Hmm. That'd make it difficult to be herself, given that smiling is sort of her default state of being. Well, she's adaptable. She could figure it out.

Sciel shifts her weight a little, crossing her arms over her chest. ]

So...after that...'suggestion?' What happened?

[ a few final adjustments to the scarf, flattening it so it's not quite so bulky around the neck. she wears it a touch more like a shawl, thoughtless about the way the warmer roughspun wool contrasts against the higher quality fabric of the havah. ]

— I maneuvered it so that Ruthar challenged the Queen's Wit to a duel. Honestly, I knew he'd be easy to provoke. But that easy...?

[ a soft scoff.

of course, no highprince with quarter of a brain (and ruthar has at least that much) would follow-through, given the consequences of killing the wit. accidentally or otherwise. ]

I see. [ There's an almost satisfied hum to the response, and she shifts so one hand is braced against her hip. ] Well, I'm only sorry that any paperwork inevitably came out of the whole thing, given the unofficial -- and ridiculous -- duel.

[ (Accidental) worldhopper though she may be, Sciel has learned enough of Alethkar in her time on Roshar to know that the duel had been a fool's errand. So...really, it doesn't seem there had been much more to the story.

This doesn't bother her. Instead, the former expeditioner steps further into the space and peers curiously at the stacks, gaze drifting idly up their spines. ]

But...that's nothing to do with why you're holed up here. Or is it?

No. Not quite.

[ conversation ebbs on. the duel with ruthar — however maneuvered — had ended with a would-be fatal wound and someone proficient enough with the surge of progression on standby to keep the man from actually dying. the highprinces would be in an uproar about it, certainly, but she can soothe them with the appropriate proposal to ban unofficial duels altogether. two chickens, one stone.

jasnah beckons sciel a few feet deeper into the room, laying a gloved hand on a thigh-high stack of books. ]

I thought I'd get a head-start getting all of these, [ she nods at the books, then the shelves, ] onto all of those. An ardent could do it. But...

[ but she feels a sort of possessiveness over these texts, no matter their misfit nature. ]

But I could use the excuse to keep my hands busy while my thoughts sort themselves out in the background. ...Do you ever get that feeling?

[ the kind where your brain needs a good shake up. like filtering wine, so the sediment stops pretending it's insight. ]

[ Sciel obliges when beckoned, moving with curiosity farther into the stacks, eyes falling on the pile that Jasnah indicates with a sweeping look up and down their spines.

"An ardent could do it, but..." It wouldn't be the other woman's way, Sciel thinks, smile twitching upward further. That Jasnah is so often inclined to do things like this with her own hands is one of the many qualities of the Alethi queen that she finds so endearing. ]

I do. [ She answers, after briefly mulling it over. ] Everyone feels that way at some point, don't you think? ...It isn't every day I miss the distraction that the Gestral Arena provided, but I will say: there's nothing like it.

[ This is her personal brand of managing an overly-busy mind: sparring, practicing with her scythe, and a host of other highly-physical activities that keep her body so engaged that her thoughts are drowned out. ]

Depending on the excuse, and...the thoughts, sometimes I've got to take other precautions. [ Drinking an excess of wine helps! ]

[ a quiet snort — something between laughter and scorn — as sciel invokes the idea of other precautions. it's not that she's dismissive of what might drive someone to those escapes, it's just...well, she'd rather not deal with the administrative headache that comes with pulling a drunken worldhopper out of jez's duty if things go too far.

to that end, jasnah follows up on an earlier suggestion: ] I spoke to Adolin about your chances joining the dueling lists. The official ones.

[ the more conservative highprinces won't like it. but that's part of the appeal for jasnah. ]

If you're still interested.

[ she meets sciel's eyes, briefly, and then finally settles on a particular stack of books. tapping it once, jasnah then gestures at a nearby shelf. this one and there. ]

Did you? [ If her tone is one of surprise, it's only because she knows how busy the queen is. ] Thank you. I'm definitely still interested.

[ Her limited experience in this place thus far is that the duels are better against other people, in 'friendly' bouts, than against the gestrals. Besides Golgra, nobody had ever really posed a challenge.

When the other woman indicates what she'd like a hand with, Sciel obliges with another easy smile, starting on her task. ]

All the thoughts that need sorting... Anything worth voicing?

[ Might as well ask, because although she can't necessarily help with all the myriad things that could trouble Jasnah, she's garnered a reputation as an good confidante for a reason. ]

[ — the queen most certainly is busy. but, when taking a mental step back from all these tasks, they inevitably all fall on the same axis: negotiating sciel into the dueling lists threatens alethi gender norms, eroding away a tradition that had already started to crumble with the refounding of the knights radiant. eroding tradition makes way for more progress, more reform, more new growth to replace the calcified parts she intends to chip away.

and it's those reform efforts that jumble up in her head, that need sorting. jasnah has many irons in the fire, and it's starting to feel like one loses shape as she tends to another. ]

It's a delicate balance. [ she hums, shaking her head. ] The war effort. Legal reform. One ought to make the other easier. Simpler. But I'm finding that's not the case.

[ There's some thoughtful nodding at that, head cocked slightly as she listens to the queen's concerns and internalizes them. It'd been a big change, coming from a comparatively tiny city 'ruled' by a Council of her peers, to...this. Hearing about the tangled extent of the kingdoms of Roshar...makes her deeply sympathetic to anyone at the top of the pile who actually gives a damn about order, and change. ]

I'm sure. [ Her tone is one of mingled earnestness and contemplation. As she continues the conversation she begins her task of moving the books around, careful to place them just so, knowing Jasnah's entrusting her with this task is significant in its own right. ] Even having grown up around...all this, you're still finding pieces of it that manage to surprise you?

[ There aren't enough things in life that are truly simple, she thinks. Having the sort of personality that Sciel does have, though, makes it easier to decide that something is simple even when that may not be the case. ]

Surprise might be too strong a word.

[ jasnah pushes another book into its next home, fingers touching the spine for a moment longer than necessary. a lifetime spent at the apex of alethi politics and scholarship couldn't have prepared her for the refounding of the knights radiant, or for odium's machinations. ]

But — yes, I used to think a lot about what I'd do differently. [ differently to elhokar. the late king and her little brother. ] I don't think I ever imagined I'd truly have the opportunity.

[ after all, her rise relied on her brother's death. ]

And what I did imagine? [ a long, slow exhale. ] It certainly didn't involve a people living in exile in a tower torn straight from myth and legend. You're new to this world, Sciel. You can be forgiven for not knowing how different things were even just seven years past. [ ... ] Storms, a year past.

[ There's another long pause at that during which Sciel does a bit of natural introspection. Everything -- or nearly everything -- Jasnah says resonates. ]

Trust me, I get it. [ Spoken on a sigh as she returns another book to its place. ] Before we left for our Expedition, I-... Well, you can't know what it'll be like, just from hearing stories. The reality was...quite different.

[ More death than anyone could imagine, even for someone like Sciel who is comparatively unbothered by the concept. ]

Not to mention ending up here. [ There's a laugh at that, followed by the slotting of another book in the space above. ] So...trust me, I understand. Maybe not completely, but...enough.

[ Her own home had been turned on its head in even less time. Though there is a lot that's unknowable and fantastical about this new world, her recent experiences (and fairly easygoing sensibilities) have made the transition all the easier. ]

[ jasnah nods. yes, she can accept that one univeral constant is the concept of change. ]

Stories are helpful. [ she picks one up! leafing through it, pausing to read someone else's marginalia. ] They give us lenses. It's up to us to decide which direction we point those lenses. Backwards, forwards, inwards.

[ softly, she closes the book and places it too on the shelf. ]

— Have any good stories you'd stomach telling now?

[ Recto, verso, as it were.

Sciel's lip twitches as her hand slows its work. There are so, so many stories she could tell: her 32 years have been full of people and moments that make for good tales.

She doesn't opt for any of those, though. ]

...During the Expedition, we'd come across these beaches. Gestral beaches. Don't ask me why they existed, or why there were so many... I'd say: much as they love fighting, they also love chaos. And these beaches...were chaos.

[ There's a long inhale punctuated by a sigh as she puts away one book and then pauses the task to cross her arms. ]

One in particular... They'd built a tower, impossibly high. And impossibly structured. Not exactly bound by the laws of physics. It was - [ Here she raises her hands, stretching them vertically before her to emphasize the height, the unsteadiness. ] built of...furniture, debris, a literal carousel. And it just stretched high up into the sky, so far you couldn't see the top.

[ A complete waste of time, some might say. And yet... ]

The Gestral at the bottom said there'd be a fabulous prize if you could make it to the top. And we tried, all of us. It was Maelle who finally managed it. I think being a little smaller helped.

[ Her expression here shifts into something like faux-seriousness, the eyes sharpening, though her smile remains. ]

And the 'fabulous prize?' [ pause for drama ] ...A swimsuit.

[ y'know. it's a good story. steeped in just enough hubris (an impossibly tall tower? and attempts to scale it?) to speak to some universal moral or lesson or tenant of human nature. or, perhaps, gestrals nature. jasnah can't be too sure; she's got only a loose understanding of what or who these menaces might be.

it's not lost on her that she's listening to sciel's description of one impossible tower while standing within another impossible tower. funny, how that motif crops up... ]

A suit. [ eventually, jasnah half-echoes. ] ...For swimming?

[ ACADEMICALLY, she can guess at what's being described. rationally, she can understand why this is the punchline to this grand little tale of striving and succeeding. but she's also a product of a deeply repressed society with rather crotchety moral dresscodes and she's having a hard time imagining what, exactly, this prize of a swimsuit is supposed to look like. ]

Ah. [ Right, all that stuff. If it's rude to have her navel on display in front of the Alethi queen, Sciel's probably only been told as much once, or twice, or - ] A...stretchy fabric worn for swimming. [ Swimming, which Sciel detests: something clear on her face as she describes the necessary getup. ] At most, they've got straps on the thinner side and cover the torso, stopping just about here to leave your legs free.

[ She gestures from around her clavicle to just below her hips to show the extent of coverage. ]

Either way, what I mean is: it was an awful prize. And the one they gave us wasn't even for us, but for the Gestral we traveled with.

[ She'll spare Jasnah the horror of hearing about a wooden dog-like creature wearing the tiniest imaginable suit. ]

[ Certainly someone, somewhere, has tried to tell Sciel that it's rude to have her navel on display in front of the Alethi queen; however, that someone has never been Jasnah. She might cleave quite strictly to the modest codes herself — full havah, complete with safehand sleeve — but she also understands the arbitrary ways in which those codes come to be. Sciel's fashion reminds her of what a Riran woman might wear.

And...frankly, her description of a swimming costume trends in a similar direction. Jasnah isn't offended or surprised, but she does listen with a kind of attentive, fascinated expression. It's all data points, all the way down. ]

Perhaps the climb was the true prize. Or the boasting rights.

[ Journey before destination, Radiant! ]

[ That assessment earns the queen a pleased, upward tug of her lips as Sciel returns to her task. ]

Exactly. That's my takeaway, anyway. [ Up goes one book, then another. ] Not everyone in our group had that perspective, though.

[ Read: Lune had been pissed. ]

Honestly, it was...a nice distraction. [ Back when diversions had been pretty damn necessary to keep your head on straight, otherwise surrounded by death and nightmares as they were. ] Their games made me think of my students. How they would've loved it all.

[ That she misses her class is plain on her face, in the way she grows a touch reflective. ]

[ The doctrine of aspiration, or even one of iterative improvement, is not an easy thing to swallow. Yes, Jasnah can imagine — without knowing the details of Sciel's group — that some might be disappointed in a challenge for it's own sake. Jasnah herself doesn't love the idea of wasted effort. But it's a practice, day in and day out, to remind herself of her oaths.

Her thoughts catch and snag there for a moment longer, idly shelving books, until Sciel says something else that's just a bit more tempting to chase. Her students? ]

I didn't realize you were a teacher.

[ She doesn't mean to sound so...doubtful. It's just that Sciel isn't quite like the scholar-tutors common to Alethi culture. Or even Rosharan as a whole. ]

I was. Before the Expedition. [ Sciel slows her work just enough to brush an idle hand across the bracelets that line her right arm. ] I loved it, and I miss those kids...so much.

[ Though she'd come to Roshar by accident, she's found happiness here (though Sciel is capable of doing that in nearly any situation). There's so much to see and do, so much life and vibrancy and, in many ways, a stability the likes of which she hasn't known...ever. But there are obviously parts of home that maintain their holes in her heart.

She glances briefly to Jasnah, smile present, though twinged with the lingering emotions of the loss. As if sensing the other woman's questions, she adds: ] Wasn't a lot of...choice, with our dwindling population. So we had some unconventional teachers.

[ Sciel included, maybe, though those who'd observed her in the role would argue otherwise. In the end, she'd fit the role so naturally you'd think she'd been born to be a maîtresse. ]

[ If Jasnah feels a pang of shame for the question she doesn't ask — but Sciel nevertheless anticipates — she does well not to show it. It's not that Sciel isn't clever or capable...but. Well. Perhaps Jasnah's expectations are unfairly high for tutors as it is for wards. For what it's worth, she doesn't consider herself to be a terribly good teacher either. There's a reason why she's accepted so few students in her lifetime. ]

I have no doubt you did well by those children.

[ Easy to tell the truth. Jasnah understands, now, that it's not just about the information you can put into someone's head — but how you put it there. ]

And — [ a pause like she's testing out the way empathy tastes on her tongue. ] I'm sorry. I won't complain that you're here, now, but I imagine it's hard to consider what you've left behind.

[ Before the Expedition or otherwise. ]

[ The words earn the other woman a deeper smile still as Sciel picks up a book, thumbing across the cover for a moment as she reminisces. The last class before she'd had to hang it up for a final stretch of serious training had been...such a sweet memory. Something she's held close through the worst of things. A mismatch of students with mingled faces of adoration and tears, a homemade banner strung among them, clutching at her legs and begging her not to go.

"In another life," as Sophie used to say. Maybe she'd have stayed. If the Expedition hadn't been to secure them all a future, then...yeah. She'd have stayed. ]

Thank you. I like to think so. [ There's a soft chuckle as she finds the tome a spot in the stack, continuing on without giving it much thought (beyond what's necessary, anyway). ] They were incredible.

[ All of them, in their own ways. It'd been an honour to help guide their lives, even for just a few years. ]

Oh -- [ The apology, though a sort of formality, surprises her. Sciel turns more fully to Jasnah now, waving it away with an easy brush of her hand through the air. ] No, that's all right. I'm very happy here. And you've been...a big part of that, I hope you know.

[ Presumptuous to assume some degree of friendship with the queen, her voice carries only the honest sincerity that Jasnah will have come to know from Sciel. ]

"Tomorrow comes." [ She echoes the words with a gentle pride. ] I'm still focused on helping build the future.

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shamelessly cribs this subplot from rhythm of war.

i actually just started RoW so you are free to crib the whole plot lD

you're in for a treat! all i'll say is watch out for: "harsher, wit"

eyes emoji...

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