ꙮ One might think, and many do, that a castle as rather deliberately Ominous and Foreboding as the Queen’s could not possibly have ANY parts which are… cozy. But one would be wrong - even before Zaya decorated her quarters within the castle proper in a manner of her own choosing, with all the back-of-house that’s always going on, it’s possible that MORE of the castle is cozy than otherwise! There’s even a wing of guest residences for particularly valorous representatives of valorous clans, although frankly they’re more ostentatious than cozy. Comfortable, at least. But, no – there’s a corner of the castle that’s Zaya’s, accessible, if you know how, via the Secret Elevators up from the Queenstown ground level, and it is remarkably cozy indeed - draped with silks, hung with brushwork scrolls, art and calligraphy, a faint but carefully not overwhelming presence of incense in the air.
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← Active ScenesThe Coziest Part Of The Castle
does know how to get up to this portion of the castle, because of the secret elevators. She takes a moment to admire the silks and the brushwork scrolls. She herself has foregone the more foreboding gauntlets and pauldron and boots of her own outfit, opting instead for sandals and two bracelets with fluttery, translucent cloth that runs the length of her arms up to one of the metal rings the run along the back of her outfit. She stops to admire one of the brushwork scrolls near the elevator. Zaya told her where to meet her, but not where within this part of the castle to meet her.
ꙮ There’s two pieces, right next to each other, fairly central to a sitting-room with a flamed maple surface and (tasteful, careful) gilding and lacquerwork and two immensely soft-looking couches on one side. One’s calligraphy and the other’s a watercolor, and they look almost like they flow into one another, meant to be seen side by side.
is audibly smiling, from the other entrance to the sitting room. “Beautiful, aren’t they? My Aava and Papa gave them to me when I formally took up residence here.”
takes another moment to memorize the brushstrokes, the soft fall of watercolor, before turning and smiling at Saranzaya. “They’re outstanding.”
looks around the sitting room. “Also it’s surprisingly habitable in here.”
laughs, softly, looking around. One side of the room - one of the walls the couches are facing - has a collection of various musical instruments - there’s a spike fiddle, and a big metal drum in a stand that looks so much like an art piece rather than an instrument you’d be forgiven for mistaking it accordingly; she sidles into the room and makes herself comfortable on one of the couches, gently patting the seat next to her in invitation. “It can’t all be black and spiky and sexily ominous. At least, not with me around calling some of the aesthetic shots.”
laughs and joins Zaya on the couch, which is exceptionally comfortable. She sets the bag she was carrying on the floor beside her, and says, “the contrast heightens both aesthetics, I think. At least in my opinion.”
grins conspiratorially. “Jae got me to help redesign the guest suites. There’s definitely something about going -from- that into the great hall that– well. It can be fun to watch peoples’ faces.”
raises an eyebrow. “Oh. Well now I’m curious. The two of you get up to some shenanigans, don’t you?”
attempts to look innocent, and it’s an utterly lost cause. “Whatever could you mean?” It’s at this time that there’s a quiet throat-clearing noise and a metahuman girl with incredibly soft-looking, luxuriously floofy lynx ears comes in with a tray on which is balanced a large tetsubin, a pitcher of water, and a collection of snacks and small decorative boxes. She sets it down on the table with a shy curtsy to Salme and then takes her leave.
does give the servant a nod of gratitude, and then says, “I simply mean that you, Saranzaya, are an enabler.”
beams at Salme, reaching out, pouring some of the pitcher of water into the tetsubin, and then very carefully painting, in fire-red gnosis, a bright-hot cradle for the tetsubin, on top of a brass plate that’s on the serving tray; she places the tetsubin into the fire cradle and leans back into the couch. “Of course I am. Why would one be otherwise, given the chance?”
watches as she uses gnosis to paint, fascinated, before looking at Zaya with a slanted smile. “Good point,” before she nods at the tetsubin. “That’s beautiful. How you use your calligraphy to paint gnosis. I know you mentioned it, but I hadn’t seen you do it.”
smiles. “Technically, you saw it when we first met. I painted that entire structure that I used to get down into the crevice the world decided you ought to appear at the bottom of. But that was rather larger than I prefer to work.”
blinks. “Oh. Yes. I did.” She blushes. “Light, I … can’t believe I forgot. I suppose … I was distracted. Have been distracted.” She twines her empty hands together a little nervously. “I don’t know how to talk about this and not be weird, to be honest.”
: “You were all processing quite a bit at the time.” She smiles, easily. “And there’s nothing wrong with that? You watch enough people poleaxed by the Bazaar on their first visit to Queenstown, you understand that… there’s only so much we can ever take in at once, and that’s got to be alright. So… at your own pace, then. Nothing weird about that at all, in my books.”
: “My own pace …” she murmurs. She breathes and centers herself. Her hands still, and when she looks at Zaya her gaze is steady and sharp. “I had never seen Aurelius so overcome with emotion as when he first laid eyes on you. I suspected, even before he told me, that Annarr had loved you. And I felt it was very unfair, because you were beautiful and talented and ran an entire queendom. I did not resent you. I knew I’d like you very much once I got to know you. But I felt. Many ugly things about it.”
’s gaze flickers down and she pulls out a small pouch from her bag. “I still do, I think,” she says, setting the pouch on the table. “This is blend of fruit and herbal tea from Almachadta, if you’d like to try.”
shifts, slightly, orienting herself towards Salme to meet her gaze, and listen, and lean forward, ever so slightly. “And have you ever treated me with anything other than kindness? And if you have not, how could whatever you -felt- about the situation make any difference to me or anyone?” She turns, then, responding to a message the tetsubin had for her trained senses and hers only– she reaches out, and does something with her fingertips, and gnosis sheathes her hand like a glove, and she picks up the tetsubin by an unshielded handle, and pours just-under-boiling water into a smaller, enamelled vessel with a basket built in for tea leaves. “I’d very much like to try it. How much do you think I ought to use?”
watches her movements, finding some steadiness, some certainty, in them. She eyes the vessel, and then pours the correct amount of the mixture into her palm, and then into the small basket. “It was not a confession so much as. A relief. Once I realized you knew and I didn’t have to keep it hidden. I wanted to come here and offer you comfort, but I fear this might become a bit more about me than I intended.” She smiles wryly, mostly to herself. “Which is … perhaps an ongoing pattern for me.”
reaches out for the pouch, curiously; brings it to her face and takes a deep breath of it - a small, pleasured exhalation, and then another deep breath, before handing it back to Salme. “Oh, that is lovely.” She leans back, again. Looks thoughtful. “Then perhaps you still have something you need to say, or think through, at your own pace? And if that’s true, I think you should try to do just that. Nobody’ll bother us, we’ve the best tea of two worlds, and we’re both in good company, aren’t we?”
looks at her and gives a small laugh. “It’s all … things that don’t matter. ‘The world is full of complicated, incomplete stories,’ you said, and you were right. That is a thing I know, that I should understand, more than anyone. Why am I still wondering what would have happened if you had returned Annarr—or Aurelius’—feelings? Why do I wonder if a man who is gone would have liked me? Why do I keep looking at you and thinking I’m horribly inadequate?”
replies, “Because we’re not always the person that we’d like to be, if we knew what we liked and knew how to get there”, and then slowly pours a cup of tea for each of them. “You say ‘things that don’t matter’ like there’s anything that doesn’t matter, Salme. Those things matter to -you-. I could… I could, easily, say that the way Jae stares off into the distance like she’s already mourning me doesn’t matter, but it matters to me, so that’d be a lie, wouldn’t it?” She picks up a teacup, breathes it in, holds it in her hands, breathes it in. “So let yourself ask the question, without prefacing it with ‘it doesn’t matter’, and then the question will have been asked, and it will have mattered, even if it hasn’t got a proper answer.”
takes her own teacup and breathes it in. It smells like—home. “Who would ever choose me when they have an option like you?” She asks the teacup. “Before I knew how things would fall, I kept trying to imagine if it was us four instead of us three, and the thing is I couldn’t. I really couldn’t imagine him wanting me alongside you.”
: “Would you ever think to ask why someone would want Aurelius alongside the Awoken, or vice versa?” She raises an eyebrow.
blinks. “No.”
peers at Salme through tea-haze. “Why not?”
: “They’re different people—very different. In some ways complete opposites. In some ways they’re the only two who get each other. But also they’re both amazing. They compliment each other as partners. And I see what you’re trying to say, but I met them at the same time. There’s no history there. Not a lifetime of care and devotion.”
takes a very slow, and very small, sip of the tea. A bit hastily, but she can’t stop herself. Exhales, again, eyes closed. For a brief moment, whatever she was about to say takes second seat to her experience of this gift, this taste of a world she may never see except through Salme’s words– she smiles. “Come with me on a journey, Salme. If I were to say that, between you and I, it’d be easy for me to understand if someone chose you. You, who leaps between worlds, who casually builds wonders, who embraces the unknown with abandon and utter love, you whose eyes are like fire. If, for some reason, a choice were to have to be made, permanent and irrevocable, rather than greedily having us both, which would, of course, be the ideal solution for everyone involved.” Her toes do something complicated, pressing against the soft red velvet of the couch. “Why do you think so little of yourself that you find that hard to imagine?”
thinks, for a brief moment, of all those book recommendations about longing, about wanting, but she doesn’t mention them, not now. “Well, that’s never been what matters to him. He doesn’t want leaping between worlds or wonders or wild abandon. That’s never much impressed him, I don’t think.” She tilts the liquid in her cup one direction, almost, but not quite, spilling it over the edge. “He likes. Steadiness. Constancy. Small acts of care. The kind of things only time can build, I think.” She tilts her cup the other direction, again bringing the hot tea to the edge but not quite spilling it over the edge. “But even ignoring that, it’s because there’s an empty hole where any self-confidence should be.”
: “In me, I mean. And I thought it was getting better, and then.” She laughs and finally takes a small sip of her tea, closes her eyes, savors it, doesn’t finish the sentence.
smiles, softly. “Two things. First, I think you’re doing the very thing you’ve been upset at other people, because you’ve worried they were doing it. Not being able to see a difference between Annarr, and Aurelius. I don’t have a long, deep history of caring for him. Stars, even Midra doesn’t even have a long, deep history of caring for Aurelius, and if anyone can claim to have been the one at Annarr’s side come fiend or famine, it was him, far more than me. But.” She takes another sip of the tea, slowly. “Self-confidence is another thing that only time can build, and it sounds like you’ve got quite the construction project before you. But I want you to think about all of those things I said about you, and I’d like you to try to spend some time remembering that there’s someone in the world who did look at you and see those things and marvel at them. Yes? So perhaps you need to listen to the people who admire you, rather than to the voice in your head screaming that you’re trash, and that’s a skill, it’s not something you wake up one morning Better From. Not for anyone.”
nods thoughtfully, and files away Zaya’s words to turn over later. “I do know that you don’t have that history. I know Zaed doesn’t. I know Aurelius is drawing a bright line between Annarr and himself. I still just get caught on that moment, seeing him like that. He doesn’t have all of Annarr’s memories, but he often has Annarr’s feelings. Which makes sense. Our bodies sometimes remember things our minds don’t. What I need to remember is that a feeling is just a feeling if it is not acted upon.” She turns the cup in her hands. “What did you mean, when you talked about owing Annarr an apology he might not accept?”
scrunches up her face and then breathes in the tea like the tea will remind her, and then somehow, miraculously, it works. “Oh. Just–“ -she laughs, softly. “You know, he came to me when he figured out. What Midra wanted that he wouldn’t be able to give him. He felt awful, he was scared he’d lose Midra about it, we– had an entire conversation about how you can be close to someone, and value them, even if the closeness is fraught, even if you’ll never be the person the other person wished you -wanted- to be. And the whole time, he was carrying a torch for me every bit as bright. And so it’s– it’s not an apology, because it’s not something I could apologise for, or ever did him wrong by. But… Midra got a kind of closure that Annarr must never have had, and I feel regret about that, and… ah, I don’t know. It’d be easier if we were all voracious omnivores like Jae, I suppose.”
: “Oh,” she says softly, and then she reaches out and brushes a finger against Zaya’s wrist, just a bit of comfort. “If it helps he … didn’t know? Which sounds ridiculous, but it took Aurelius who—is very good at sorting himself out, all on his own, to realize that was what was going on with Annarr.”
lets out a soft, gentle snort, and shakes her head, and then it turns into an actual, fond, if perplexed smile. “Well.” She sips at her tea, and lets that one just roll around, for a moment or two. “Look at both of us, spending this much time worrying about… what someone who no longer even exists didn’t ever know he felt.” She raises her teacup, slightly, in salute. “To Annarr, then. And to -us- still here to feel things and use our words to talk about them. This tea really is magnificent, Salme, thank you for sharing it with me.”
laughs a little and lifts her teacup in a matching salute. “To Annarr, as kind and constant as he was clueless,” and then she smiles at Zaya, “And to us, for building a friendship despite things being painfully weird.”
takes another sip of tea. “Have you gotten a chance to speak with Wolf, yet, by the way?”
laughs. “I feel like more than one friendship’s been built that way, honestly. And I’m glad of it. And, yes! He gallantly rescued me from another star-shunned copper purity dispute, it was lovely.”
laughs. “Well. I don’t know if he … since you both dream, I thought he might have shared some memories with you. I wanted to give him first go, but. I did come bearing more than just tea and sad feelings about Annarr.” She reaches into her bag and pulls out the smooth irrica rectangle of the tablet, and an intricate knot of pearls held together with gnosis. “I was thinking. If you’d like, I could share the memory of the duel I had with Jae. I also brought the tablet in the event you wanted to go inside, and I also—“ her hand hovers over the knot of pearls. “Some of us have songs written into the fabric of the world. I was wondering if you’d like to hear yours. Or Jae’s. Or anyone else’s.”
: “Yes, he did, it was… incredible. And it’s… so strange to have dreamed of something, -felt- like it should be… something other people -must- have seen, been told that dreams don’t work that way, felt alone in the whole world, and then– find out that all along, you were -right-, that there -are- other people who dream the same.” She shakes her head, but then leans forward to peer curiously at the tablet, and everything else. “…oh. You can just…” She’s read references, to all of these things, by this point, most certainly, and yet seeing it is still another thing entirely. “I’d love that, if you’re willing to share.”
: “Not only that dream the same, but dream of a truth so ancient that almost everyone else has forgotten,” she says softly. “Where would you like to start?”
: “Mmmm. I’ll leave that up to the expert, I think? Although I’m– most curious about the duel? I’d like to experience that, since I couldn’t watch it in person.”
grins at her. “All right then. Take my hand?”
reaches out, curious and delighted.
takes her hand and imagines the trellis of pellucid wrapping around their hands, and then vining nasturtium blooms linking them together, and Salme invites her into her home.
ꙮ It keeps getting easier, each time - and Saranzaya’s leaning into it, with her own mind and her own gnosis, and – it’s still unfamiliar territory. But it’s rapidly becoming less so. [Take Half] Describe the impression of the memory you recall, for me?
starts not with the duel in the Queen’s palace, but at the end of a different one. A dance—Jae’s joyful laugh spiraling into the skies and Wolf a whirl of blades and gnosis and something within herself pulsing—certain, burning, wanting. Recognition that she had felt the moment the Scorpion Queen had laid eyes on her at the station, transformed into something greater than that when Jae had confirmed her identity. She starts with that memory. And then. ⁂
walks, purpose, certainty, and want aligned in her, honed into a edge sharp enough to slice the smallest nuances from the fabric of reality. She climbs the stairs of the castle, embers and stars in her wake, sandals echoing on ground designed to catch and amplify echoes, the blood-red dueling circle and the knowledge of her impending loss. The truth that she will win in the way that matters to her. And also the knowledge that she has come to do harm, and she is not certain the toll it will take. She will make this worth it. She is, after all, a performer. In the memory, she sweeps her skirts to the side in a low, low, low dramatic curtsy. She holds the curtsy but looks up, up, up at the Scorpion Queen on her throne, beautiful and terrible and already part of her heart. “Stings and Kills, Angel of Hope, Scorpion Queen, True Hero of the Beast. Do you know why I’ve come here?”🙧
gasps, softly, and laughs in– delight, and more than just that, a blush rising to her cheeks which she does not Studiously Ignore, that is not her style, it is just a new fact about her world that she is experiencing in this moment, in all its delight alongside the memory itself, which continues - through the duel, through to the melting of the sword, and only then does Salme let go of her hand, and she -falls- backwards against the blessed velvet couch in a near-daze. “Oh. Oh, -stars-. I -see-. Oh, you are brilliant, aren’t you?”
tilts her head to look at her. “I have my moments,” she says, because she’s not really very good at taking compliments but she is trying. “Glad you enjoyed it?”
lets the corners of her mouth curl up in a smile. “And now I understand why Jae was in such a state. Let me know if you want more tea? Also, what laws of reality do I have to learn how to break to set up a trade caravan between Queenstown and the Courtyard?” Is she intentionally distracting herself from thinking about the duel memory? The world may never know!
: “Oh, I’d love to try one of the blends from the Beast if you don’t mind. And there’s … already a train between Almachadta and Samudra. We’ll set up the line to the Beast once we find the door. I expect … hm. V and her friends probably know. I don’t know if the line is safe for anyone other than us—Aurelius thinks it should be, if I recall correctly, but we haven’t tried—but it can definitely be done. I’m working on getting Jae something from Samudra myself.”
sets about preparing a kind of tea that’s– quite different from Salme’s in every way possible, bold and dark, once it’s steeped, that tastes like a campfire burning pine needles, bearing the imprint of a long journey over the Beast, preserved for the journey, the old, Reacher way, even though it’s shipped on trains, now– it’s a bit love-it-or-hate-it, and in a second pot, Zaya prepares a black tea that’s surprisingly delicate and honeyed without having anything added to it at all. “Well, that’s tremendously exciting. I can’t begin to think about how we’ll expand the Bazaar accordingly, but that’ll be a lovely problem to have reason to solve, won’t it?”
: “It will be,” she says softly. “Imagining it is … beautiful.” She picks up the knot of pearls then, carefully running her fingers over their surface, and says, “this song is yours, by the way. I quoted part of it, the first time we spoke. But. It’s yours.”
, as the song plays, takes a cup of the bold, dark tea and takes a sip.
- You hear — and your Star hears — a song, echoing from the stillness: Huǒyàn Yǒng Bù Xīmiè
leans back, and listens - and she can’t help but flicker her eyes to the hammered, tuned steel drum in the corner of the room, with a quiet laugh. “And you can– understand what’s being sung, here? If you could, I’d like– could you tell me, later, on the linkpearl, what it is? It’s… hah. It’s beautiful, though.”
: “I can absolutely tell you on the linkpearl.” Her eyes follow Zaya’s to the drum. “Is that … instrument significant?”
: “Oh, it’s just– sometimes, when Jae’s feeling up to it, we play together, and that– the melodic drum in that song, it sounds like the kind of thing Jae’d play. Maybe I’m just telling myself that, but”, she laughs, “It’s nice to tell myself that, so I’m not going to stop.”
considers, considers for a long, long moment, and then says, “I don’t think you’re just telling yourself that. I think—it must be hard, with your mortal lifespan and Jae’s near-infinite one. You alluded to it, and I know you were helping me with my problems, but I did hear—but I also think your love for her, and hers for you, matters. And I think it matters on a grand and cosmic scale.” ⁂
: “And if it doesn’t then … I’ll find a way to make it matter. I’ll tell the story of you and her over and over and over again until it’s inscribed in the stars.” She nods to herself, decided on that, and takes another sip of the strong, dark tea. “Would you like to hear any other songs? We have time and very, very good tea and great company.” 🙧
blushes, again, and takes refuge in the tea. She thinks Salme’s right, about it already mattering, of course; she couldn’t believe otherwise, and still be herself. “Indeed we do, Salme. That would be lovely.”