What Do You Know? (Philomena)

[Ignotus Everto]

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[Philomena]

Winter 35, 512 AV
Wright Memorial Library, Zeltiva
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The most beautiful time in the Wright Memorial Library is the first moment of the morning, on a clear, cold Winter day. The light streams down from the windows, and catches the motes of dust in the air like sunlight pulsing into solid flesh, the aisles are still, but for the occaisional grey head and quiet foot, like dust moths seeking their beds before the sun rises.

The library has only just opened, one of the library aides still jogging back down the center aisle with the great brass key he's just unbarred the front door with. There are a few chattering students near the front, preparing for a paper in a class on animation. There is an older man digging through the history section, muttering darkly.

But walk past this, and turn, into the eaves of the library, and there is a long stone hallway, leading out behind a a bank of mathematics texts. At the end of this hall is the office of one of the Full Librarians. Her name is lettered carefully on the wooden door, in black ink: Mara Capinsal. Its an old name, a proud one in the University - there are Capinsals on endowments throughout the library, and the West Wing. But the door is small, and quiet. And cracked just barely, with someone humming inside, a candle's light flickering through the door.

[Ignotus Everto]

Ignotus Everto had a problem. A very big problem. Someone was keeping a secret from him. While secrets kept were a part of most peoples' lives, it was not something Ignotus could accept. He simply could not, would not rest until he knew what was being hidden from him. So he started poking around. An aging linguistics professor, a couple caretakers from the Kennel, and now Mara Capinsal.

There was a quiet knock at the door before a dead man's head peeked into the room. Ignotus was not as extravagantly dressed as he was for the party. The gloves were still on his hands, but the cloak was gone, leaving only a long sleeved black shirt that was a little too big for him and matching pants. "Pardon, but is Mara Capinsal here?" the wizard asked as neutrally as he could. He was unable to completely filter the urgency from his voice, however. It was more than a little important for him to get answers and tools, and the sooner the better. What if she knew something damaging? What if she told some else? Then he'd have to find them as well and repeat the process all over again!

[Philomena]

The office of Mara Capinsal is low, cold, stone, but it is functionally decorated, and tremendously tidy. A long table at one side holds four chairs, and a series of inkpots and quills laid out in tidy rows. A lectern stands to one side. Cabinets hang on the walls, some with doors, some open and filled with books. Natural light seeps in one window, but only through the corners of a single window, heavily draped. The floor is flagged, and covered in braided rugs, all dull in color and inexpensive, but well made, adding just a hint of warmth.

The main light, now, is a single candle in a hurricane lamp, burning steadily atop the top of a last piece of furniture - a broad, beautifully wrought, dark wood desk, lined with tidy piles of papers, and a broad, black piece of slate inset on one side.

It is at this desk that two women sit - though neither faces the desk. One woman sits behind the other. She is a young-looking woman - though the subtle beginning of wrinkles behind her neck suggest that the woman's looks belie her true age. Her hair is a shining chestnut brown, and her neck is long and regal, matching well to her long, aquiline features, sharp and perceptive - a nose like a slender beak, cheekbones like dark and brooding cliffs.

She is immensely taller than the other woman - an intimidating height taller even than many men. The second woman is more familiar to the room's intruder - a tiny woman, her off-kilter braids pulled up into an ornate series of knots on the back of her head. She sits now, stripped down to only a pair of bloomers. Her back, bare, is faced towards the door - the long line of her vertebrae is knotted and tired, her skin is worn, and marked with a series of old, silver grey scars - tears, cuts, scratches, abrasions, burns, all the sorry marks of a painful childhood.

The taller woman - from the descriptions Iggy would have heard it must be Doctor Capinsal - dips the brush into the inkpot as Iggy is entering, and brushes it slowly, with the steady hand of an artist against her back, curling the finial onto a broad, sweeping lower case 'l', drawn across the tiny woman's back, nestled close between her shoulder blades. The back muscles go taut, quicken, and pulse into movement, making the letters written their waver, shimmer into movement like living things: "Eval", with space for the end of a name.

Minnie turns with a startled fear as the name enters the room. Her eyes are wide, and eminently vulnerable as she meets the eyes of Ignotus behind her.

"Tschut, Minnie. I smudged the 'l' now, Nervous Nellie," Mara chided her with the annoyance of the emotionally abstracted.

Minnie paled slightly. But then, that is more than likely simply the awkwardness of her situation, her arms wrapped across her bare chest protectively. The front of her is faced away from the light - there is ink drawn over it too, in swoops below the breasts, but they are difficult to read without openly staring or the addition of magic in the deep shadow.

"Mara... you didn't... shut the door..." she offers, stupidly.

[Ignotus Everto]

The lack of clothing did not faze Ignotus. He was a Nuit, and among the first things to go as a Nuit happened to be the sex instinct. As such, bare anything was met with complete and utter apathy from him. However, he knew that human beings were quite prickly about their privacy, and would have shut the door immediately... If it weren't for him spying a certain lettering by chance on Philomena's back: "Eval"

Suddenly, Mara Capinsal was unimportant. Indeed, she was an obstacle. Ignotus swooped into the room, the ebony cane from the party clutched in his right hand. "OUT!" he roared at Mara, jabbing a bony finger in her direction, a shockwave of Djed following it. For a moment, the candle flame seemed to shiver slightly. The color ran out of the larger woman's face almost immediately, and she raced out soon after.

She knew. She had to know. Why else would she start painting herself and writing down Evalin's name? He would find out. She would tell him, or she would burn.

Azure Res leaked from the Nuit's sleeves and swung in a horizontal arc by the door, slamming it shut with a gust of wind. "Where did you learn that name..." Ignotus growled as he strode in Minnie's direction, the coil of Res winding around his shoulders like a serpent. If she tried to escape, it would swing at her, attracting air to it all the while, and attempt to blow her back. The Hypnotist was not in a patient mood, or in a very subtle one, and the air itself seemed charged, heavier. Terror permeated the entire room, Philomena's entire being as the laws of perception itself bent to Ignotus' will."Speak!"

For the first time in seasons, Ignotus was afraid.

[Philomena]

Terror is not an unfamiliar feeling to Minnie, and not a hard one ton inspire as she sits half-naked on a chair, while her only ally is driven from the room, and a man whom she knows to be a murderer stares at her with ugly, red hate in his eyes. Her one hand stays clamped over her bareness, and the other swipes wildly across the still wet ink lacing words below her chest, smearing it into secrecy before it can be clearly read. She leaps to her feet, watching with horror as Mara leaves.

//Send for the Guard, Mara, send for the Guard… oh petch me, I have never until now wanted a policeman to barge into my life… but what good what it do? They wouldn't trust me! This man… this man is a hero to them!//

She clutched her dress, a white linen shift, and clutched it to her - it stained now with the ink ugly smears coming through the bodice, like black blood oozing from a stab to the heart.

Her eyes are wild, and dance around the room, seeking some exit. There are none. Her lips search for words, and cannot find any. Her braids swing wildly over her back, one of them flying over her shoulder as she stepped jerkily backward, to smack the side of her face and one lens of her glasses with a smear of black.

And then, the command comes, to speak. Even as the horrified knowledge that this man can take control of her mind is fully confirmed in the center of her mind, the outside of it pulses wildly with the compulsion to spit words out. She has none at the ready. What does one say? Her mind fishes wildly, then, throwing half prepared thoughts out.

"We were doing nothing… this is her room, I have done nothing wrong, nothing, nothing… Oh, Evalin, Evalin, Evalin, where are you now? Oh Qalaya, Qalaya… please, here in your temple, come, and protect me… What have I done? What did I do? Please, please, do not touch me, it is not mine, this body, it is not mine…"

[Ignotus Everto]

Philomena's babble got a blank stare from Ignotus, as well as a thankful cessation of outside influence. "What the petch are you jabbering about?" he asked incredulously before his faculties caught up with him.

"Hush, fool! She's spilling everything. I didn't know she worshiped Qalaya... And Evalin as well, apparently? Perhaps she too has some skeletons in her closet. Just relax and guide her in the right direction... Or you'll probably burst into flame."

Hijacking someone else's emotions, while readily describable as "awesome", was also incredibly taxing on Ignotus, and he would only exhaust himself again if he continued. He would have to be gentler. Smarter. Like he was when he wasn't quite as powerful.

"Right. Evalin. The Returned. The Chained One. Where do you know her from?"
He couldn't quite change tack at the speed of light... But he could ease out of his current stance.

[Philomena]

Minnie's mind feels the sudden release of pressure against it, like a strangling hand released of a sudden, and it sends her mind reeling and light-headed, gasping. Imposed terror departs, and self-generated terror floods in - and the terrors we make for ourselves, after all, are ever so much more potent than what others can make for us. Her mind whirls wildly, seeking some footing, some safe place, looking for the demons she needs to fight against - or mroe likely, cringe from and plead for mercy with.

The mind takes in the rush of adrenaline and fear, and tries to act reasonably with it, tries to provide information and instinct, to allow for escape. But the mind moves too quickly, now, andhas no guiding principle so ends up grabbing whatever is handy and throwing it out the lips. Minnie does not speak so much as vomit information.

"The Evalin, the Evalin... oh... he has her, now, he has her now, does he? He has her now, chained down, chained down, the dark god, just as before, just as before, just as before, chained, chained down... Oh, my heart! Mother Evalin! How I wish I could have kept you safe inside my room... she is gone, now, she is gone now, and I will be gone, now, I will be gone... I will be gone, and my books are not written, I will be gone, and my love is still lost, I will be gone and I..."

Force finally fails, and her face freezes, seeking the release of breathing, of reasonable emotion, of sympathy, of understanding. Her body finds none, and it collapses, falling to sit on the floor, her buttock tucked into the corner of wall and wooden floor. She pulls her left hand to her face, leaving a smeared black handprint across her cheek, knocking her spectacles to the floor before her. She starts to rock gently, then faster, then faster, murmuring soft to herself:

"Qalaya, Qalaya, I will write this down, Qalaya, Qalaya, I will write this down, Qalaya, Qalaya, I will... I will--"

And the last control melts, and and seh buries her face in her knees, and sobs, not sorrow, just overwhelmed vulnerability and terror.

[Ignotus Everto]

"This woman ought to be in a madhouse..." Ignotus thought as his upper lip curled into a sneer.
Evidently she had an obsession with Evalin. "Mother?"
A very strange obsession. He would have to send his dear undead a letter.But until then, he needed to do something about the madwoman on the floor.

Slowly, the contempt in his face leaked out to be replaced with a kindly old smile. He'd look the picture of a cliche grandfather, if it weren't for the vestige of disgust behind his eyes. The coil of Res misted and surrounded Minnie like a blanket, curiously warm for a gas. Djed gathered in a haze around Philomena, gently ebbing her worries and fears away, leaving a fluffy pink cloud of bliss in its place. "There, there..." Ignotus murmured as he knelt before Minnie. "There's no need to fear..."

No need to think either. A hand reached out to touch her shoulder, and another flood of fuzzy contentedness followed. "You're safe, and secure." So he said it, so Philomena felt. It was draining on par with Reimancy- another chime and he'd be overgiving- But there was nothing else to be done. He had to get Minnie in shape to talk. "There... Better?" Ignotus asked two ticks later, a packet of Djed destined for the professor's snarled subconscious taking flight. Ignotus did this. Ignotus was this. Ignotus was safe. Ignotus was peace.

[Philomena]

Everything in Minnie's frame, everything in her mind strained against the sudden, overpowering feeling. Minnie had had no grandfatherly figures in her life, and physical contact outside of very special circumstances was associated in her mind with a threat rather than affection. And she knew this man - she KNEW him. Knew, somewhere in her mind just what he was doing. And then, everything in her heart cried out 'Panic! Panic! You are vulnerable! You will be hurt, here! This is the end of you!'

This conflict filled her face, filled her face, overpowered the terror in her eyes with something else - pure, unbridled hatred, just an instant of it, just a horrible, foreign instant, but very real, for that single flash.

//No! Petch it, no! No! No! No! Petch you! No!//

But.

It was not enough. Minnie's mind was being not so much coaxed now as shoved into a corner. The mind shuffled wildly, taking every piece of her it could, and boxing it up, retreat, retreat into calm, but... it was inexorable, this force on her mind, like a powerful anesthetic. And her eyes flickered, then grew dormant, slack. She stared at Iggywith docile stupidity of a sheep, dreamy, distant, faint, half-assembled and broken, but still. Still. Calm and still. HEr body felt distant, dream-like, her mind pulling out the wires that connected her with a wild, distant, inconsolable avidity. Her hands slipped, and her back melted into the wall. The right hand let go of the dress, leaving her drugged and with a single bare breast, and swiped across her face, as if clearing something from before her eyes. It left sticky, black ink clumping her lashes, and made queer of black pigment and shadow light around her face, making it harder to read.

"Tired... I'm... I'm tired... Mara... Mara, is she alright? She is alright.... she is alright? So tired..."