Solo A Spot of Luncheon

[Alses]

Timestamp: 45th Day of Spring, 513 A.V.

A fine early spring day in Lhavit, with the kariino trees in full, joyous bloom. Pink petals swirled in the mountain breezes, dancing playfully between the soaring spires of the city whilst the celestial skyglass glowed serenely under Syna's forgiving light.

All in all, a very pleasant day to be up and about in the Diamond of Kalea – for most people, that is. Not so much for Alses, however, hotfooting it down the broad avenues and sparing nary a glance for the floral magnificence burgeoning all around, hurrying through the courtyards and boulevards at a breakneck pace, not pausing to acknowledge the greetings and bows from the citizens in her path.

In one hand, she clutched a piece of thick, creamy paper, the source of most of her current troubles as she went flying across the arcing skyglass spans to the Zintia, making a beeline for an appointed meeting she'd only just managed to work out the time and location for.

'Damn you, Chiona Dusk,' was the predominant thought cycling again and again around her head as her feet hammered out toccata and fugue on the theme of 'rushing' against the shining skyglass flags.


A -Several Days Earlier- A


Alses and Mr. Secretary were engaged in a lengthy wrangle over the number of boxes versus letters she was being required to carry as of late. There were good points of contention on both sides, from the jewel-toned bruises that rarely had a chance to fade on Alses' back – and hadn't Mr. Secretary's face turned an interesting colour when she'd showed him? - to the fact that Mr. Secretary paid her wages and was the organ of the Powers that Be of the Dusk Tower, on whose munificence and grace Alses' own tutelage depended.

Mostly, their argument was for the sake of form and, at least in Alses' case, a form of prevarication. Mr. Secretary surely knew this, but he seemed to positively relish the occasional debate – Alses had found once a season was about the right level of frequency.

This time, she'd achieved a truly satisfying victory, although in truth it was mostly due to taking advantage of being the one to actually initiate the debate. She'd not bothered using Tanroa's Blessing for several days beforehand, and it had resulted in some spectacular bruises wrapping most of her lower back which had swung the argument in her favour this time. Mr. Secretary was a wily employer, however – he'd granted her victory and the prize that went with it – a lessening of boxes in favour of envelopes for a little while - but had remarked, eyes twinkling, that he'd be on-guard for that particular trick in the future.

It was as she was turning to head out and conclude the business of couriering that Mr. Secretary called her back, pawing through the orderly stacks of paper that colonised his desk on a regular basis. “Oh, and there was a message for you...can't believe I forgot it...” he riffled fruitlessly for another moment and then sprang up like a jack-in-the-box and strode over to one of the many cabinets which lined his office walls, rummaging there for a brief moment before a triumphal “Ah-HA!” signalled the fruition of his search.

He turned to her, brandishing a small envelope of thick, creamy paper with a rich purple seal affixed and powered across the marble to press it into her hands.

With wondering fingers – and a letter-opener commandeered from Mr. Secretary's desk – she slit it open and consulted the message.

Or rather, the lack of it; the envelope had contained only a blank sheet of paper. She peered inside, just to make sure – no, nothing there – then looked at the envelope itself again. The name was correct, written in a flowing hand, and the seal-

“Whose is this?” Alses asked, proferring it back to the dapper man. He squinted through his monocle for a split-second before handing it back.

“Lady Dusk, of course. The Patriarch's heir. She's written to you?”

“Not exactly,” Alses replied with a frown, turning the blank paper over and over in her hands. “It's blank; do you think I've got this by mistake? Or perhaps she didn't start writing...”

“And put it in an envelope, wrote your name on the outside and sealed it? Lady Dusk is many things, but 'stupid' isn't one of them.”

Alses sighed hugely, couriering forgotten. “So why in Syna's name has her ladyship sent me a blank sheet of paper?”

Mr. Secretary steepled his hands and cast his eyes skywards, considering. “Lady Dusk has a sense of humour,” he replied, eventually. “That paper might be more than it appears – although I confess I'm at a loss as to how that could be. I wouldn't throw it away out of hand, though, if I was you.”

Alses gave him a wry smile and inclined her head, crown-of-horns catching the light and flashing to coruscant brilliance. “Advice noted, Mr. Secretary. And now...to business.”


A


Some time later, Alses finished her rounds and was able to consider Chiona's non-message at her leisure, comfortably ensconced in her chair back at the Respite and rocking back in it, staring pensively at the blank, expensive sheet of paper resting on her desk.

“So,” she announced, to the silent room at large, more as a way to order her thoughts than anything else. Bloodred sunshine lanced in through the windows, turning her horns into crimson spires of painful light, as she contemplated. “A message that is no message.” The sound of her mellifluous voice was swallowed up, drunk down and deadened in short order by the hungry, parched silence.

“Or at least...no obvious message,” she added, the sucking quiet drawing it out of her thoughts. 'She is a member of House Dusk, after all,' Alses reminded herself, and members of that House were notorious for their love affair with puzzles.

Fortunately, her room was conducive to relaxation, and it was so familiar to her that only the merest mental flash of focus and exclusion was needed to see them fade from her senses, wrapped in whip-thin strands of inverted djed, a filter of sorts through which the rest of her magic and her impressions sluiced.

She tasted wood on her tongue, the pillow-soft tickles of feathers dancing across her face – but only for an instant, before their shimmering, intangible auras twinkled and faded from her perception, leaving just the papery auristic expression of the missive – tinged with the greasy bitterness of wax coating her tongue (which wasn't pleasant) from the discarded envelope nearby, just in case the message was written in some fashion there.

'So, what hidden mysteries has Lady Dusk left for me?' Alses wondered, tasting, feeling, smelling, seeing every facet of the shimmering paperwork.

[Alses]

Mysteries indeed; on first examination the paper yielded nothing, no sign or missive that might betray the lady's thinking or instructions, and so Alses was forced to delve deeper. She was taking no chances, well-aware of the influence Lady Dusk could wield, were she of a mind to do so.

The paper thrummed and throbbed gently in her sight as she plunged deeper into synchrony with the djed of the world, attuning herself to the sovereign primal rhythm of the fundamental force which defined and drove the entire planet. Sparkling coronae unfurled before her eyes, then flamed and died as she added them expertly to the filters in her brain, sifting through the information borne to her on glittering wings of djed, a tapestry of surpassing beauty and intricacy unfurling before her eyes, always adjusting and refining and changing itself as the world reacted and reflected every action and reaction taken upon its surface.

That was the danger of deep synchrony, of course – it was so easy to get lost, which was why the cautious aurist, or one with an objective rather than a simple wonder at the world itself, never plunged themselves to the hilt, as it were, without at least some sort of filter, to help control and corral their senses.

As she gazed through the dying haze of auras at the innocuous piece of paper, the first glimmerings of its deeper mysteries expanding into prominence, the artist unseen pulling fantastical meaning from the mundane paper.

Impressions from times and places past unfurled for her as she put forth the effort of synchrony, a continual weave of personal and ambient djed, of endless integration and insinuating herself into the prevailing currents of the world. There was a breath, just a breath, of jasmine, wafting from the paper – Lady Dusk's perfume, perhaps, and the prevalent, pervading sense of serenity and duty that was so characteristic of the Dusk Tower in general, an aura so pervasive it had even sunk into the creamy paper – but what was that? That sharp, acidic thrill feathering and spiking at the very edges...

Alses leaned closer, more out of habit than anything else, eyes narrowed as she flushed djed up through the twining Yggdrasil-esque tracework of her body, gently pumping the primal energies into the conduits linked to her senses and her brain, by now so habituated to the extra power they gave with nary a whisper of protest – a smile curved her mouth as the magic laid itself bare before her intellect.

“What are you?” she asked, seeing the words curl away in red and blue into her own aura, expressions of intrigue and frustration both, djed streaming from every pore, a million million grasping spires that caught and pulled in the ambient and made sense of it all – was that fruit?

Why fruit, of all things? There wasn't an ink made from fruit, was there? Well, there were oak galls, but they weren't a fruit – some monster made those, didn't they? Or was it an ant?

Then again, maybe Chiona Dusk had been eating whilst writing – or whatever it was she'd actually done with the message. There were no glyphs Alses could see or sense – and she was getting rather good at spotting that sort of thing, these days – she'd scrutinized the paper from every angle and under all sorts of light, so what in the name of Syna had the woman done?

Moreover, what was she playing at? Maybe this was her idea of a joke – Mr. Secretary had said she had 'a sense of humour', after all. Alses was beginning to interpret that in a whole new light, however, as 'whimsically cruel' . That was the strange thing about money and influence; poor people were mad, rude and arrogant, whilst the wealthy were 'eccentric', 'honest and forthright' and 'righteous'. Alses shook her head with a sigh, trying to clear it of the unworthy thoughts. She could have got the wrong end of the stick, after all.

After several bells – and with the Change starting its evening surge up her body – she was drained and tired, her head reverberating to a thousand phantom sounds and her eyes strobed and dazed by the melting kaleidoscopic maze of the auras she'd examined, right down to the fundamentals. She'd gone so deep there had been flashes of forests and the arboreal patterns of growth, the slow dance of the seasons and then, suddenly, the sharp bite of the woodsman's axe and the stepped transformation from tree to paper.

The only thing to suggest this was anything, anything at all other than a perfectly innocuous piece of paper was that niggling acidic flutter, just brushing the edge of the aura, continually catching at her perceptions, drawing her attentions again and again and again.

She wasn't sat comfortably in her chair any more, instead slumped forward with her head resting on her arm, nose just inches from the paper itself. 'I give up,' she thought, exasperated and fuzzy-headed. 'Who on earth do I know who knows anything about fruit?'

She was so tired the answer took some time to percolate up from the depths of her consciousness, bubbling to the surface of her brain and waving until the tiny part still vaguely functional took notice.

'Cook,' she decided. 'I'll ask Cook. Perhaps tomorrow...or the day after...'


A


Cook had listened to her dilemma with crossed arms and a raised eyebrow, and a smile tugging at once corner of his mouth. Oh, he tried to hide it, but it kept reappearing, despite his best efforts.

“Well, she's set you a conundrum and no mistake,” he replied to her plaintive plea for assistance. “For you, at least. You've never used invisible ink, have you?”

Alses closed her eyes. “Invisible ink?”

Cook heard the groaning disbelief in her voice and grinned hugely, clearly enjoying this perhaps a bit more than, strictly speaking, he felt he should. “It's nothing, really. A children's trick - if 'm right, o'course. Lemon juice – the source of the fruits you mentioned, I'd wager - dries clear, which makes it perfect for invisible ink.”

“So how do you make it...visible?” Alses asked, sceptical.

He grinned again, flourishing the missive in one banana hand and striding over to one of the enormous kitchen ovens. “Heat,” he replied, offhand, turning and turning Chiona's message in the scorching heat radiating off it.

Before Alses' astonished eyes – and Cook's amused ones – parts of the creamy paper began to darken, to brown and form into words and numbers, a simple and short message emerging from what appeared to be a blank page.

In a few short chimes, Cook presented her with the slightly heat-wrinkled missive, its previously-hidden message clear.

“Meet me for a spot of lunch at Mhakula's Tea-house. 45th Day of Spring, twelfth bell of the day. Regards, Chiona Dusk,” Alses read, in mounting – though nebulous horror.

“It's the forty-fifth today, isn't it?” she asked, slightly wildly, already plunging for the door.

[Alses]

Thus, it was a rather ruby-faced Ethaefal who slowed to a gasping, undignified halt near the gilded dome of Mhakula's Tea House, pausing just on the other side of the dense hedges which delineated the property for long moments to get her breath back; she doubted Lady Dusk would be particularly impressed with a red-faced and panting Alses.

Fortunately, recovery did not take long and soon, whilst those damnable butterflies were doing their level best to fly out of her mouth, whichever one of the Interchangeable Yhavaos that was currently manning the doors bestowed her with one of the solar-powered smiles that seemed to be a family hallmark and bowed her into the tearoom proper.

Even nervous, Alses took a moment to appreciate the atmosphere of the place, bathing in the wave of warmth and the smell of tea – a gently-mixing melange of orange and bergamot and mint and many other scents all underpinned by the indefinable aroma of the humble leaf itself. All around, casual conversation rose and fell like the tide and Alses basked in it, delighting in the atmosphere of easy camaraderie – the shared sense of 'we're all here to take a bell or two out of the hectic world and devote all our attention to tea and conversation'. Not that Alses generally managed much of the latter – talking to oneself was still frowned upon.

“Your pardon, but is Lady Dusk here?” Alses asked the attendant, hovering nearby. Surprise registered for a moment, but then her face cleared and the sunbeam-smile returned, full-force.

“Ah, her ladyship did say she was expecting someone.” Discreetly, the Interchangeable Yhavao gestured towards one of the tables further into the teahouse, flooded with light from the windows and with a stately figure seated demurely there.

The lairs of Relic monsters, those leviathan ancients from the stygian depths of time, didn't hold as much fear for Alses as did that simple, small table in a relatively secluded section of the teashop, half-obscured by decorative screens that allowed some degree of privacy for those behind their intricately-worked panels.

As Alses rounded the last of the screens, heart in her mouth even though, logically speaking, she knew she'd done nothing wrong or contrary to the interests of the Tower, she came face to face at last with the heiress presumptive to House Dusk and its Tower, Lady Chiona Dusk.

Her ladyship was not physically prepossessing – but then, blunt muscle wasn't Lhavit's way. Instead, her doughty citizens went in for lithe musculature, brought about by healthful traipsing all over the nearer mountains and sword practice, often rolled into the same activity in the case of the Shinya and their more dedicated imitators. The Towers, in particular, took this sort of physical education very seriously, and – as an arm extended to sip tea showed – Chiona Dusk hadn't been spared its rigours either. She dressed exquisitely, of course – as was to be expected from one of the wealthiest people in the city – but what caught Alses' notice as she came into Chiona's regard was her eyes, liquid gold and afire with intelligence and a certain amount of amusement.

“My lady?” Alses tried to say; the words dried in her throat and she had to clear it before trying again. This time, fortunately, her voice sang forth easily, rich and clear, even as she bent into a half-bow. Respect cost her nothing, after all. “My lady? You-” 'Don't strangle her ladyship,' Alses thoughts murmured, remembering the invisible ink stunt “-sent for us?”

Chiona rose in a whisper of silk and precious metal. Her voice was light and breathy, with a rippling cadence that suggested – to the trained ear, anyway – some form of elocution lessons in the past. “Us? Is there more than one of you?” There was a smile tugging at one corner of her lips, a wryly flippant amusement, but Alses – in her nervous state – was in no position to notice the subtleties of body language, even something so obvious as a smile.

She flushed deeply at being caught out in one of her little failings, suddenly very grateful for the privacy screens. “I find the personal pronoun difficult,” she admitted. “We – sorry, I – remember many lives, so I feel like many people all rolled into one.”

One perfectly arched eyebrow rose even as Chiona sat back down. “Interesting,” was all that was forthcoming from her, however, as she waved one languid hand at the empty chair opposite her. “Do forgive me – it's one thing to know I was meeting an Ethaefal today, but the reality is still...somewhat overwhelming.” A short pause, in which Alses fidgeted uncomfortably, and then she said, shaking her head as though to dismiss a reverie: “Do sit down, Alses.”

Evidently she noticed the absolute shock on Alses' face as the Ethaefal dropped bonelessly into the seat across from her, for the smile grew wider and more wry. “Did you think I wouldn't know your name? And after I invited you here, too.” Her grin – and it was a grin – became conspiratorial. “Did you enjoy my little puzzle?”

“Puzzle? The lemon ink, you mean?”

Chiona nodded, after taking an elegant sip from her tea. The scrape of china on china was the loudest thing in the vicinity, apart from perhaps Alses' own heart, pounding in her chest. “Just so. You figured it out in time, I see – or else you wouldn't be here. Well done.”

Alses bit back a scathing reply on its childishness and simply inclined her head instead. “Thank you, m'lady.”

“Chiona will do, Alses. I cannot have a pupil who won't use my name, after all.” Her eyes were twinkling. “Can I get you a drink, perhaps? Maybe some cake?”

Alses' thought processes – such as they were at this point – screeched to a halt. “Pupil?” she said, somewhere between a whisper and a hoarse shriek.

“Oh, I am enjoying this,” Chiona said, with a trilling laugh. “It's been far too long since I took on a student. Father was right, I think, to have me consider teaching again.” She cradled her head on her hands, considering Alses for long moments with burning tawny eyes.

“Yes, you'll be my student.” A brief grin. “A little birdie tells me you're not over-fond of your current teacher, and in any case you've outstripped her skills, so it's only fair someone else takes a turn, no?”

Alses found her voice again, after blinking stupidly for several seconds at Lady Dusk. “This is all very sudden,” she objected. “Not that we're not flattered, but...Does my instructor know? I mean-”

Chiona flapped an elegant hand. “Indeed she does. In truth, all this was worked out towards the end of Winter, but there have been many demands on my time lately – and I insisted on making sure I had a good run of time to get to know you before we did the changeover. Both of you were getting heartily sick of one another – yes, the staff do talk to one another – and to be honest I was intrigued about you. They said you had a prodigious natural ability, and the day of testing I had you subjected you to confirmed that, and much else besides. I was watching with great interest – the Tower's riddled with secret passages and bolt-holes that are perfect for surreptitious watching. Relics of our more suspicious past. Very cloak and dagger, I know, watching and pulling the strings from the shadows, but I was reminded that sitting on the examining panel myself would have been grossly unfair. Bad enough we sprung a surprise assessment on you without me there to add undue pressure on you.”

Alses blinked for several moments, trying to process the flood of new information, but she hadn't survived so long as a mage and associate member of the Dusk Tower by being inflexible. “But why pick me?” she asked, curious.

Chiona tipped her teacup to her lips, so all that was visible of her face for several seconds were her tawny eyes, intelligent and direct. “Several reasons,” she murmured after a time, the ceramic making her voice distort oddly before she placed it back down. “Firstly, you're an Ethaefal, and the favoured Ethaefal are arrogant enough to disregard the provenance of every mortal, no matter what their own status.”

Alses took an outraged breath, an outburst brewing behind the dam of her teeth, but Chiona continued serenely. “Perhaps arrogant was the wrong word, although arrogance is certainly how it appears to some.” There was no clue or hint in her voice, nor even in her aura, as to her own opinion. “Otherworldly might be a more acceptable term. Secondly, you learn frighteningly quickly. You outstripped your instructor in a matter of seasons, rather than decades. Third, father asked me to take up teaching again, and I had no good reason to tell him 'no'. Beyond perversity, of course. Fourthly, and finally, you passed my test. Few enough manage it that I snap you up when you come by.” She waved an airy hand – which served a dual purpose, Alses realised a few moments later, noticing an Interchangeable Yhavao approaching with intent.

“In essence, it boils down to you being in the right place at the right time, and being the right sort of person.” Chiona Dusk, laurelled heiress presumptive to the Dusk Tower entire, clapped her hands briskly just as the Yhavao coasted to a gentle stop at the table edge.

“So. What can I get you?”

[Alses]

At this point, Alses welcomed any distraction, and moreover any chance to obtain further distractions, and so she readily rattled off an order to the beaming waitress.

“A cup of Sunrise, please,” she murmured. Her favourite blend, Twilight Dawn, had brandy in it, after all, and even auristically-experienced brandy had a distracting kick to it. Not something she thought was appropriate for a conversation with Lady Dusk, still less for a talk with someone who was her tutor. “Oh, and a slice of chocolate cake, if you don't mind.”

“Sweet tooth?”

“Of a sort,” Alses replied serenely – she wasn't about to explain her little idiosyncrasies in re: food and drink just yet.

Silence reigned for several moments, each one examining the other. Chiona's clothes glittered and shimmered almost as much as Alses' fire-opal skin, and her aura shone brightly all around her, reflecting the absolute assurance of someone accustomed to power and authority.

“Isn't this nice?” Chiona said after a little while. “I always try to get to know my students as proper people, you see. The joys of being a more experienced instructor; I get to pick and choose who I teach. Hence,” she said grandly, gesturing with a teacup “Why we're not in the Dusk Tower and why we're going to eat cake and drink tea and hopefully along the way teach you to argue with me properly. Almost nobody does, you know.”

'I'm not surprised,' snapped Alses' dominant inner voice. 'You're the heir to the Dusk Tower, the next Matriarch of House Dusk, one of the three wealthiest and most influential families in the city – of course no-one argues with you!'

She must have signally failed to keep her expression blank – either that or Chiona was using her auristics to read her aura, for she said: “You might as well say it. I shan't be offended, I promise.”

Alses raised an eyebrow, but went for broke anyway. “Very well then, madam. You're the next Matriarch of House Dusk, with the Tower millions behind you. The Tower owns a substantial slice of Lhavit the city, and still more farmland in the Misty Peaks, and you're well known to be an experienced aurist. In a few years, His Excellency might well pass on the rate of the patriarchy to you. Small wonder no-one wants to offend you by arguing. Even when you're being childish or downright wrong. My lady.”

Chiona's voice was quiet. “And what about you? I could poison your advancement in the Tower, you know.”

Alses nodded, her eyes reflecting the light of her burning bridges. “Certainly you could, m'lady, and we should be sorry to have to say goodbye to Mr. Secretary and the gardeners, but there are plenty of opportunities in Lhavit that don't rely on the Dusk Tower's munificence.” She paused briefly, for effect. “The Twilight Tower, perhaps?” she suggested wickedly; a small smile flickered at the edges of her lips – House Dusk had...differences...with House Twilight, on occasion, and that was no secret to members of the Tower, even such lowly ones as Alses.

Her gamble paid off – Chiona laughed briefly. “At last we see a real person!” she exclaimed. “I was worried you were deferential to the core for a moment there. I don't need or want a mouse for a student.”

At this point, the Interchangeable Yhavao returned bearing a tray – Alses was glad of the distraction, eagerly picking up the tea-bowl and inhaling the uncurling scents of bergamot orange and that indefinable aroma of tea with unalloyed delight. The chocolate cake, looking meltingly delicious on its plate, was a close second. Chiona watched Alses' appreciation for several chimes with an indulgent smile on her face.

“Anyone would think you hadn't eaten in a month,” she joked. Alses replied, unthinking:

“Oh, much longer than that.”

Chiona blinked, looking uncertainly unable to believe her earring-bedecked ears. “Come again?”

“We did mention our little idiosyncrasies, didn't we? I'm a Synaborn, Ch-Chiona.” Alses choked a little over the name, but relaxed slightly in her chair as the impressions of hot tea sluiced over her tastebuds and down her gullet, sending a wave of phantom warmth rushing into her. Tea: the great fortifier.

“Yes, you're very radiant, that I'll happily admit, but what does it have to do with not eating?”

“We can feed on light when in our celestial form. Syna's radiance sustains us, comforts us, banishes hunger and thirst and all the other imperfections of being mortal.” Alses paused, realising she'd made something of a tactical error. “Ah, no offence intended, m'lady.”

A crinkling of her painted eyes – restrained amusement? “Keep calling me Chiona and I'll forget about it. So you don't actually need the tea and cake?”

Alses shook her head. “No. Not whilst we're like this,” she said, gesturing vaguely towards the crown-of-horns adorning her head. Chiona nodded, hutched forward on her seat and with eyes intent. “Besides, I'm not so fond of eating and drinking in any case. Bad experiences,” she qualified, seeing the puzzled look Chiona fired her way. “We use auristics all the time, to gorge on cake and tea and the finest of foodstuffs Lhavit has to offer, without actually having to put the stuff in our mouth. I still like the taste of food, even if we don't actually need it, or like physically eating it.”

Chiona shook her head in wonderment. “You're certainly...unique,” she settled on, after a while. “D'you mind if I snaffle a piece of that cake? It looks rather divine, and if you're not going to actually eat it...” she tailed off expectantly, and Alses had to cover a smile.

“By all means,” she replied generously, gesturing towards the slab of chocolatey goodness enthroned in gastronomic splendour on its china plate. Chiona's fork flashed out almost quicker than the eye could follow and a substantial chunk of it vanished into her mouth even as a rapturous expression – for a Dusk, anyway - suffused her features.

After chewing and swallowing and washing it all down with copious amounts of tea, her ladyship smiled happily over the rim of her cup. Some of the stiffness in her bearing had melted away as they'd been talking, some insubstantial burden lifted. 'What on Mizahar could have been worrying her ladyship?' Alses wondered idly, but there was no time for further introspection.

“Now, there are just a few more things we need to sort out, Alses, before I shall have to call this little get-together to a close – family business, you understand. I'm afraid my schedule is...somewhat haphazard, but I'll endeavour to keep a bell or two free a day for us – more when I can wrangle it.” She paused, briefly. “Do you happen to have any commitments other than the Tower?” she asked delicately.

Alses thought. “Well...we help out at the Towers Respite, but that's flexible enough – but I do courier for Mr. Secretary, and I shouldn't like to let him down...” she tailed off in the face of Chiona's intimidating tawny gaze, a look which seemed to bore right through Alses' skin and into her brain.

“Ah, yes. That brings me to the other matter...you'll be teaching a few novices as part of your new duties and status within the Tower, rather than carting messages around the place like a drudge. I've had some very edifying chats with your 'Mr. Secretary'.” There was, again, a suggestion of a smile around Chiona's lips as she spoke, finding amusement in her student's peccadilloes and failings.

Alses, however, had got stuck on the word 'teaching'.

“We're going to what?”

[Alses]

“Teach,” Chiona replied placidly. “It's an excellent way to learn, and we're always looking for experienced people to instruct the next generation.”

“But but but I don't know anything about how to teach!” Alses near-wailed. “I've never taught before!” 'Lu doesn't count,' she added, in the privacy of her own head – that was one-to-one and quite informal, not standing up and giving lectures to impressionable young people.

“Well, look upon it as a learning experience,” Chiona replied with the smile of someone contemplating an unpleasant task for someone else – or at least, that was how Alses read it. “Recall how you were taught the rudiments, what you liked, what you struggled with, and work out a better method.” Another smile touched Chiona's laughing face as she continued: “Your arguments in the library with our textbooks are well-known – they've even reached the family wing of the Tower – so perhaps you could look on this as a way to enhance the quality of our books and our teaching methods?”

Seeing Alses about to protest further, she sighed. “This is as much about benefiting you as it is about helping out the Tower. You might find that teaching refines your perspective on your talents – and students do have an uncanny knack for searching out the weaknesses and flaws in anything you tell them unless you're sharp. Keeps you on your toes. Really, it's not too difficult – presentation and appearing like you know what you're talking about is three-quarters of all teaching.”

Her eyes were frankly appraising as they swept up and down Alses' form; she squirmed slightly under the scrutiny. “Mind, I think your main problem will be keeping their minds on what you're teaching them. I don't suppose you have anything a little more...loose-fitting?”

Alses looked down at herself, unable to see anything glaringly straining. “Just a few dresses like this, Chiona.” It was still very odd to call her that. “I'm saving my kina, so my wardrobe isn't exactly diverse.”

“Hm.” Chiona's face was impassive and distant as she thought. “See about acquiring some robes, please. The Tower does normally allow its masters to teach in whatever they like, but you're still my apprentice and I should like you dressed appropriate to your station. The raise in salary should more than cover any expenditure on clothes, in any case.”

She saw the change in Alses' expression, and let out a low chuckle. “Raises are always welcome, no?”

The city bells began to chime out their accord on the second bell of the afternoon and Chiona looked around, startled. “My, how time flies when you're having fun. Two o'clock and I have a meeting with some merchants. Contract work,” she clarified, “Just to keep my hand in. The fees are quite handsome, although the work is irregular. Something to think about when you're settled into your new position...Instructor.”

She rose in a whispering waterfall of silk and gems. “The secretary will have all the particulars for you by tomorrow – breakdown of students, suggested bells for lessons, all that sort of thing. He knows them all, too, I believe – he may be able to point out the most...” here, Chiona paused, selecting her words with care. “...interesting students, shall we say?”

“Like me, you mean?” Alses blurted, unable to stop herself. Lady Dusk's laugh rang out again, free and clear and utterly unlike the marble-carved instructor Alses had resigned herself to.

“Yes, like you. Talent and troublemaking often go hand in hand, for some reason. Zintila alone knows why.” A wry smile flashed out, and was just as quickly suppressed, returning Chiona's exquisite face to impassivity. Evidently taking pity on Alses' still slightly-panicky expression, she relented a little.

“Look...if you're that worried about teaching, prepare a plan of what you're going to do in the first lesson or two and I'll find the time to look over them somehow. Leave them with Mr. Secretary, as you call him – I'll make sure he's briefed to bring them to me as a priority. Will that suit?”

Alses gulped and managed: “Thank you very much,” in a more-or-less ordinary tone.

The susurrus of silken garments whispered once more as she bent into a shallow bow. “Good. Good.” Her voice was brisk and her tone suggested their time was up. “Well, nice to have had this little meeting, Alses. I think you'll do. I think you'll do very nicely, actually. I'll see you in a couple of days for our first proper lesson.”

Chiona Dusk sailed forth elegantly from the tearoom, accepting the bows and deference granted her with the casual ease of one used to such things, leaving behind a shellshocked – but gratified and oddly curious – Ethaefal, absently cradling a cup of cold tea and staring blindly into a future much more uncertain and full of responsibility than it had been that morning.

'Still,' thought one part of her brain 'If they're turning me loose on actual students, then that's a vote of confidence, yes? And from Chiona Dusk no less!'

Resolutely, Alses pushed all thoughts of failure and the consequences thereof – as well as a brief fantasy about taking the next ship out of Port Tranquil to wherever it might carry her – out of her mind and set it to worrying at the problem of how to teach, dredging up from the depths of her memory recollections of how she'd been taught and, inevitably, memories from past lives of learning, most prominently a welter of confusing impressions of a place with a thousand dreaming spires and scrollworked floors, of D-wired classrooms and haughty instructors, of magic mirrors that reflected one's state of mind and much else besides – the vanished Royal Academy of Magic in old Alahea, had Alses but known.

“Can we get another pot of tea?” she asked plaintively of the hovering waitress. “I have much to think about and that cup's gone cold.”

A blazing smile. “Right away. On Lady Dusk's account?”

Alses smiled, wickedly, but it faded after a moment as she reconsidered. “No, better not,” she said with a sigh. “On mine. We don't think she'd mind, but it's a bit much to presume on the strength of one meeting.”

“It won't be long,” the Yhavao reassured her, and shimmered off into the arcane depths of the tea-house as Alses relaxed bonelessly back in her chair and considered her next move in comfort.

No sense in rushing things.

END

[Elysium]

Alses

XP:
Auristics +3
Investigation +3
Observation +3
Rhetoric +4

Lore:
Chiona's Mysterious Summons
How to Identify Invisible Ink
An Unexpected Promotion
Mhakula's: A Cup of Sunrise

Notes: You've come so far since I've been a storyteller and I must say, I'm impressed. Congrats on your promotion - I'm very interested to see where you take it! I also enjoyed your portrayal of Chiona. You definitely captured that proud, mischievous spirit I'd envisioned all along. Let me know if this grade works for you!

and so, the journey continues...