ꙮ Evening, after the Awoken’s fishing expedition. The baths were lovely and relaxing; Caion had to excuse himself rather earlier than he’d have preferred to because he had Another Meeting with Solei and the obstreperous members of the Circle to go to, after which point he found Salme, and told her that Solei had some time, late in the day, to speak with her in their laboratory, and gave her directions - it’s fairly easy to find, on the first floor of the Central tower, on the edge of the tower itself, with a huge curved crystal window directly facing the Sea.
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- The Dragon
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← Active ScenesThe Academician's Lab, II
#saint
#solei
considered opting to slightly more formal dress, then realized that would be silly, so instead is in her standard new Samudra clothing. She knocks firmly but politely on the door.
: “Come in!” They’re puttering around, enjoying a moment of solitude, and by the look on their face when Salme enters, Salme’s a welcome guest, whereas others potentially may not have been.
watches them puttering, and relaxes a little. They seem much more … natural in the lab than they had the previous two times they met. “Thank you for your time. Caion told you why I wanted to speak with you?”
is very much in their element, yes, it’s kind of remarkable how much more relaxed they look here. It being Salme at the door and not Elizet probably helps. “Yes! Yes, he did.” They straighten themselves up, put down the thing they were fiddling with.
peers at the thing they were fiddling with, curious, but stays focused on her task. “When did you first meet Tasna? Would you tell me? What she was like, and what you were like, back then?”
sits down, and motions for Salme to do the same; leans back in the chair with their arms over the corners of the back, looking up at the ceiling with a smile on their face. “She was already the Primus when I entered the Academy. And she still made time- to teach, to meet everyone who was coming in on their own terms, understand what they understood. I was…” They laugh. “I was full of piss and vinegar, my Tower was on the edge of formal breakaway at the time, we all had our own ideas about how things ought to be run, and I had no idea yet of what the Academy would be like, really. I wanted to understand it, and she taught me how.”
sits as well, crossing her legs and leaning forward, resting her elbow on her knee, her chin on propped up on her closed fist. “That sounds lovely,” she says, and means it. “So you had your own Tower before you formally entered the Academy?”
nods, a bit. “It was called Periegesis.” Given recent events- a flicker of sorrow, over their face. “There are- River, I don’t know how many, actually. There are Towers out there only the Kushtaka really keep in touch with. But there are outlying Towers that the Academy founds– small, nothing like this. A group of scholars who want to live their own life away from the hustle and bustle, who have a research project that they want to focus on, or which is dangerous and they don’t want to study it where it could potentially harm the Academy. And then, eventually, some of them drift away from us, and go their own way, and some don’t. Periegesis was, at the time, rather inclined towards drifting away.”
considers Solei for a long moment, and then laughs a little. “Full of piss and vinegar, with a Tower inclined to drifting away. And you ended up doing this?”
gestures not at the lab, but at the formal Circle above.
laughs, lightly. “The piss and the vinegar have all rather bubbled away by now, haven’t they? The Zeroth Circle is full of catalysts for that particular reaction.”
: “Have they bubbled away? The person I am as the Sword-Saint of Almachadta is rather different from the person I am as just Salme, whoever she is, but my piss and vinegar are very much still there. I’m sure yours are too.” Her words are light, but her gaze is serious and heavy. “It is worth remembering and loving those parts of yourself too.”
: “And,” she adds lightly, “bringing it out now and then as leverage.”
gives Salme an admiring look. “You sound like Caion, it’s no wonder the two of you get along. No, you’re right, and I shouldn’t sell myself short in that regard, even if Elizet feels like they’re turning me into chalk bell by bell.”
: “If Elizet is giving you problems, I’ve found that I am fairly convincing. You saw that firsthand, I think.” She lets that offer of assistance stand, and then says, “I think, perhaps, whatever Tasna was for you, Caion has been for me. I am not. Well-disposed to this kind of place, but I too want to understand everything, and he—“ She looks up, and there is a kind of burning certainty in her eyes. “He has opened the door to understanding Samudra with grace and kindness and humor for me. I will be forever grateful for that.”
laughs, again, and the smile doesn’t leave their face. “If you have the desire to understand, then you have everything the River asks of a person. The Academy and its rituals that must be observed, well.” They untangle themself from their chair. “Caion and I can work around those, although I might take you up on that offer tomorrow. And I’m very glad to hear he’s been that for you.”
: “He’s amazing. I’ve gotten to known Archie, and he’s lovely, but Caion is—I’ve never had a friend before. At least not in such an uncomplicated, easy way.” Tilts her head. “Though Tasna was more like a mentor, I’m guessing? And. I think sometimes, better than to ask about the parts of her that you loved—when did she drive you absolutely nuts?”
nods. “A teacher, a mentor.” And they smile. “She asked a lot of me, and I didn’t handle it as well as I could have, at least not at first. And she was…” They look distant. “‘Reckless’ is the wrong word. She led Expeditions to the corners of the Sea, to the Septentrione, to Towers thought lost, and none of them ever went wrong until one did. But she was fearless in a way that challenged my eidesis. I was full of ideas, but I was never fearless like she was.” A beat. “Like she is.”
: “Like she is,” she says. “Did Caion … explain? About the Rites?”
nods, and then shakes their head in mild disbelief. “Made me wonder what other things were sitting there right in front of me this whole time that I just didn’t know how to look at the right way.”
laughs and laughs and laughs. “Oh, you and me both. I thought. Terrible secrets and sacred roles aside, I thought I was just a fairly unimpressive village kid from Almachadta, and then suddenly—all of this. I feel like I can’t keep up. But that’s amazing too, in a way.”
: “I’m not fearless. I live with fear beside me every day. It’s an old friend. People like Tasna, or people like Awoken, those that are fearless, they’re something else. But feeling fear doesn’t make you lesser. Sometimes it lets you provide roots where they’re badly needed, you know?”
gives Salme a Look with an eyebrow raised, but laughs with her. “And I thought I was an idealist from a breakaway Tower that wanted to bring back as much of the Academy’s hands-on experimental techniques as I could before we went our own seperate ways, and look at us both now.” And they listen, and they nod. “Trying to find– to be the balance between–“ -they scowl, slightly. “I love Elizet dearly, but they are ruled by their fear. And they’re not, by any means, the only one. And I say this knowing I’ve been, in my time, more often and more frequently than I’d care to admit. And I know why, and forgive myself for it, as I forgive them.”
: “If you need a lighter touch, Wolf is great at bringing out the best in most people, and helping them through their fear. I almost wonder if Samudra would benefit from yeresh in the way Almachadta has, though Wolf himself is … I met a yeresh once, as a young girl, and she was magnificent. Stern and certain, but she laughed like bells and could draw everyone into her confidences, and make them forget why they were upset in the first place. I’ve known many yeresh since, and Wolf is the only one who—reminds me of her. Of that awesome ability to bring people together.”
adds, more softly, “I understand being afraid. Here especially. Caion taught me how to—Bubble, and I can’t stop doing it.”
: “But fear itself is, in some ways, what threatens to be your undoing. And I wish I had a solution.”
: “Mmmm. I believe in our ability to find a solution, eventually. Or, at least, to never stop trying, even if we don’t have a working theory for what the shape of the solution would be. You all are certainly a previously-unaccounted-for variable.” Another smile, gentle. “Did Caion tell you that when he learnt how to Bubble, he constantly did it, over and over again, too? Said he was practicing, said he wanted to always be able to bring one up, if someone needed it. I never questioned it.”
: “No but,” she laughs. “Of course. He’s. Of course.”
breathes out. “Did you ever fight against Tasna, in the Rite?”
: “I did. I loved sparring with her. I didn’t do very well! Ended up tripping and falling right into her gambits even when trying to account for them.”
laughs. “So tricky and fearless.” Gives Solei a small smile. “I also recently tripped and fell straight into a gambit recently. It was amazing. And you learn. Or at least I try to.”
: “What else. If someone wanted to understand her, what else would you say?”
looks thoughtful, for a few moments. “That she always seemed to have a contingency plan for everything, but that she was making it up on the fly about as often as she actually had a book written already in her back pocket to pull out. That… she was pulled in two directions.” They look distant, look past Salme. “She always wanted to explore, to set off in a random direction and see what was waiting for her there. But I think she also very much wanted to just slow down and spend time around the people she cared about, and I don’t think she gave herself permission to do that. So… I hope that wherever she is, and whatever she’s doing there, she’s had that chance.”
: “The story I’ve pieced together … it seems like there is comradery there. Warmth. Love, even. The Rite [Maintenance]? I think there is that.” Looks at Solei. “And if someone wanted to understand you, what would you say? What do you want, aside from a long nap and a break from meetings?”
focuses, intently, for a moment- and then, they smile. “Oh. Oh, that’s… yes.” They draw in a breath, and let it go, and try to answer Salme’s question. “More than anything? I want an answer to the question of fear, one that works for my world with its apparently-unique properties. It’s a big project.” A beat. “Also, and purely selfishly, I want to spend more time in my lab. I did come here to absorb as much as I could about experimental procedures and it wasn’t entirely because I wanted to benefit Periegesis.”
Nods. “I think. The answer to the question of fear is,” she looks up, not at anything in particular. “Did I say, about the cycles and the Mask? The lesson it most values teaching?”
tilts their head to the side. “I’d be interested to hear.”
: “When you first wear the Mask, the first time you become the Sword-Saint, it shows you how the cycles end—in hunger, but in … satiation too. Ours is a world of plenty, filled with flourishing gnosis, but at some point it overgrows itself. There is hunger, and then there is fire, and then there is nothing at all. The second thing the Mask always shows a new Sword-Saint is how futile it is to try to change that. We’ve tried so many things. Archie proposed that it’s a kind of cancer, that the right mix of Pellucid and Burning gnosis might cut the cancer out, but there simply isn’t enough on Almachadta. We tried that early. Sword-Saints have warned everyone, to mass panic. Sword-Saints have warned only who they thought could handle the truth, and the fear has devoured them in the end. The Mask teaches its new Sword-Saint that they, and only they, can bear this fear and sorrow, and so we learn to bear it alone.”
taps her nails against the arm of the chair. “Almachadta hasn’t solved the problem of fear either. I don’t know what the solution is, and it is uniquely threatening on Samudra, due to the nature of the thoughtstorms, but. It is still a problem where I come from.”
listens, and… frowns, their lips go in a line and their eyebrows, also, go in a line, and they don’t say anything until Salme’s done, but give her a profoundly sympathetic look. “…then it sounds to me like we ought to be working the problem together. And I look forward to doing so.”
: “So do I.” She takes a breath. “And, to be sure, I plan for it be different this time. I am trying to guard against the eventuality that it might not be, but my companions have led me to believe, have helped me believe, that we can change this. Whether it’s by unifying the worlds, or opening channels between them, or something we’ve not yet dreamed of—I do truly believe that.”
gives Solei a small smile. “And maybe you’ll get Tasna back soon enough you can make her sit through some of your interminable meetings.”
nods, a bit. “Virtue of Humility, without… letting the Virtue of Humility unhinge its jaw and consume all the others. Which. Is a hole I’ve fallen into and not been able to pull myself up out of.” A wry look– and then a delighted laugh. “Oh, she’d never forgive me. Instead, we’d conspire and make Caion run a tide of meetings while we hared off to see the other worlds and catalogue their contents.”
: “Maybe use some of that piss and vinegar to stay out of the hole,” she says with a smile, and then: “You can’t chain Caion to a tide of meetings permanently. I too want him to see our world, and hopefully the rest of them.”
stands, and curtsies. “Thank you for your time, Solei. And your Counsel. And … it was nice just to talk, and to get to know you a bit better.”
: “Oh, just a tide! As in the measure of time, and then I’m sure he’d have his revenge on me so he could go and see your world. He’s talked about how lovely you showed him it was.” They smile. “Thank you for coming to see me, it was– it was good to talk, and it was good to be able to tell someone about Tasna without it being horribly fraught.”
: “If you think of anything else, I would like to know. I am,” pauses, considers, says, “despite my inadequacies when it comes to many things, I am reasonably good at greeting new information without it becoming fraught. And.”
hesitates, and then says, “on Almachadta, nearly every story we tell is about death, or grief, in some way. Like fear, it is not a stranger but a companion. The beautiful and warm and loving is not diminished by the other.”
: “Good luck, Solei,” and then she takes her leave.
: “Good luck and swift currents to you, Salme.” They sit back down, and turn back to their work with a smile on their face.