blue_ajah: (Default)
Moiraine ([personal profile] blue_ajah) wrote2020-10-05 11:09 pm

[pfsb] investigations and explorations

Two days after Moiraine brought Wei Wuxian's talismans back to Twin Peaks, after she has taken the time necessary to review all of her notes as well as the histories she has been collecting, she calls Dale Cooper, who is still in Olympia, now, rather than Seattle.

All things considered, the conversation could have gone much, much worse.

She is well aware that they are going to have a much longer discussion after he returns in a few weeks, but he had agreed not to ask her to wait. She, in turn, had agreed, as before, not to go to Glastonbury Grove alone, or at night. She also agrees not to approach the pool closer than necessary to place the talismans, or to test it with her own weaving - not at present, anyway.

Hawk had been her next call.

A few days later, after he has had time to consider and to consult with the Bookhouse Boys, Hawk knocks on her apartment door and agrees to her request.

* * * * * * *

When Moiraine returns to Milliways, she leaves a sealed note with Bar, addressed to Wei Wuxian.

Master Wei--

I made the trial of your talismans according to your instructions. When I activated the one at the northernmost point, glowing red energy swept inward from the circle in a wave focused on the pool at its center.

The pool absorbed it all. It vanished into the depths without a ripple, and without a trace.

Nothing else has happened. Yet.

--Moiraine Sedai


That task completed, she settles at her preferred table with tea and begins sketching something in a notebook.
we_bring_hell: (Graphic: Epistaxis)

[personal profile] we_bring_hell 2020-10-12 02:16 pm (UTC)(link)
A gasp escapes her black lips before she regains control. "Yes," she says, eyes gleaming.

"I mean... I would appreciate... I do not know how I could ever repay it."
we_bring_hell: (Paint: Beguiling Corpse)

[personal profile] we_bring_hell 2020-10-12 02:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Moiraine does not define the second term, but Harrow has the bright child's horror of asking questions she can possibly solve through context clues. "It has been ten thousand years since the Emperor needed new disciples," she says. Her voice is quiet, but the vibrato of heavy emotional weather is calmed. She no longer fears to shatter or embarrass herself before the Aes Sedai.

"And it is the myriadic year; the exact year 10,000. I do not peddle in numerology but I admit feels... significant."

"I had the sense," she says slowly, "that the wards were more to... keep out, than keep in. They were powerful wards--From the first time I entered to the time I reached the Body was six months of patient unravelling--but if a ten year old girl, no matter how powerful or ruthlessly tutored, could breach them... If she is so powerful that God fears her, then..."

"When she visited me--if she visited me--she walked through them like air."
we_bring_hell: (Graphic: Taking Notes)

[personal profile] we_bring_hell 2020-10-12 03:05 pm (UTC)(link)
She hesitates. "The most reliable tales say that the Emperor was petitioned to defeat her by the Lyctors, speaking for their worlds. They were not powerful enough to stop her, so they begged him."

"It is said it was a titanic battle, and that it could not be done twice. That he lost much of his native power in the fight. He sustains our sun, but could he re-ignite it at need? Why do the ten billion yet lie dead? It is... in question, although to voice the question is blasphemy."

"It is said when she wakes again she will fight him again, and defeat him, and by killing him, kill all the Houses of Dominicus system. That is why she must not wake. When I first saw that--" She gestures at the Observation Window. "I thought, so this is what will happen when the Rock is rolled away at last."

"But why she was feared in the first place... only myths. No--all of this is myth. Only apocrypha."
Edited 2020-10-12 15:06 (UTC)
we_bring_hell: (Face: Clavicle)

[personal profile] we_bring_hell 2020-10-12 04:09 pm (UTC)(link)
"Some of the stories say she led an army against the Emperor. An agent of the colony worlds. Or that she was some kind of cosmic being, eldest of several, offended by the challenge to their hegemony."

She lowers her voice, despite the ward, as if she is repeating something illicit: "There is a heresy whispered on the Ninth, that she was God's... beloved... or his protector, and his Lyctors were jealous of her for her closeness to the Emperor and sowed dissent between them. But why would God need a bodyguard?"
we_bring_hell: (Paint: Daughter of the Tomb)

[personal profile] we_bring_hell 2020-10-12 04:27 pm (UTC)(link)
She begins to shake her head, then halts. "On the Ninth, there are apocryphal scriptures that contain the... approved legends," she says. "Heresies would not be compiled for teaching. It was always hushed up, as it fed animosity against the House."

"The Eighth might have records of heresies, they despise us. But I do not have such things with me at Canaan House."
we_bring_hell: (Face: Calavera)

[personal profile] we_bring_hell 2020-10-12 04:34 pm (UTC)(link)
She nods, and her hand tightens momentarily on Moiraine's, before she remembers herself. Embarrassed, she retracts it.

"Crux would know. He is loyal only to the Reverend Family--a hard man in many respects, but his kindness to me has been endless. And he is ancient and knows everything that happens on the Ninth. Between the scriptures and his memory we should be able to cover both the peri-canonical and the heretical."
we_bring_hell: (Default)

[personal profile] we_bring_hell 2020-10-12 05:53 pm (UTC)(link)
"I would like to see him again very much," she admits.

Even though he killed Ortus Ninegad and his mother.
we_bring_hell: (Paint: Beguiling Corpse)

[personal profile] we_bring_hell 2020-10-12 06:09 pm (UTC)(link)
She thinks. "The Tomb... at the center, beyond the wards. Let me describe it more fully."

"There is an expanse of salt water surrounding a central stone. It is a mystery in itself; there is no ocean on the Ninth. It moves in a tide much like the one here. Closer to the stone it becomes ice."

"She is chained there, the chains running through the stone. She holds her naked blade, and frost is on her skin. Her hair was wet. She was... beautiful." For a moment the expression on Harrow's face is entirely unguarded, but only for a moment.

"Her eyes were closed. In my initial... visitations, they seemed dark, like my mother's eyes, but when I have seen her here and in Canaan House--for the first time in many years--they are amber. Like Gideon Nav's." Her face flames under the paint.
Edited 2020-10-12 18:09 (UTC)
we_bring_hell: (Default)

[personal profile] we_bring_hell 2020-10-12 07:27 pm (UTC)(link)
"I have never been able to be certain," she says. "It is always wet. Something dark, yet not, I think black."

It feels so strange to talk about it--her--like an ordinary phenomenon. Unearthly, perhaps, but catalogable. Solid. "She is taller than me, but that is.... easily achieved."

"She speaks to me in the voices of the dead, when she speaks. Sometimes like my mother, or members of our parish. But that is rarely." She takes a breath, and then says: "She spoke to me here, once. When I touched your True Source, for just a moment."

She feels cold; like she has betrayed. But it is simple fact.
we_bring_hell: A jawless skull (Skulls: 9 for the tomb)

[personal profile] we_bring_hell 2020-10-12 08:46 pm (UTC)(link)
"'For a moment you went where I cannot follow'," she says soberly. "But she was proud."
Edited 2020-10-12 20:47 (UTC)
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[personal profile] we_bring_hell 2020-10-13 08:33 am (UTC)(link)
"I believe it must be," she says. "The tradition was my mother's, and I am certain she did not know the origin, but it is the only thing that makes sense."

"She maintained a salt water baptismal font we used when we discussed my origins or anything else that she considered a secret of the Reverend Family."

"She was Novenarius, descended from Samael Novenary, who served Anastasia the First; two hundredth Nova- in her line. It may have been passed down from those who remembered when the Rock was laid down."
we_bring_hell: (Default)

[personal profile] we_bring_hell 2020-10-13 01:58 pm (UTC)(link)
"I was not aware of that," she says. "Very possible, then."
we_bring_hell: (Default)

[personal profile] we_bring_hell 2020-10-13 03:15 pm (UTC)(link)
She nods, and her face is troubled. Torn. "What all accounts agree on is that she is an enemy of the Emperor. Certainly now, if not before he imprisoned her."

"If she kills him, Dominicus will be snuffed out and the Houses will die. I do not desire that. I pray she sleeps a long, long time. But I--" She swallows.

I am her creature.

"I cannot hate her. Perhaps there is a death appointed for us all, even God."

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