What Do You Know? (Philomena)

[Ignotus Everto]

That was better. Revolting, but better. She wasn't babbling. She was malleable. This could transfer quite readily into a state that would be conducive to his goals. All it took would take was a bit of coaxing...

"Look at me, Minnie." Ignotus said, his fingers tracing their way up to her temples. "Look at me, and just let your mind go blank..."

He just needed some eye contact. Her consent. Then it was all a matter of precision. Precision that needed to be fast. He didn't know how much longer he could maintain such a calm state in Philomena, nor did he know how long it would be before Wave Guards came in. He could explain to them- But that would also require Djed, and if he overgave... By Sagallius, if he overgave, there would be hell to pay.

"Mara is safe. You are safe. All of life's little problems are just fading away..." she had to look at him.

[Philomena]

The fingers tracing over Minnie's temples made her shudder strangely, and her eyes grew confused, "Evalin? No... no, you are not the Evalin... The Evalin, she is not here... she is not here, please, please... please don't touch my face... please... please..." The plea is dreamy and distant now, her spectacles sliding farther down her nose, her eyes unfocused and vague. Her mouth murmurs the words she speaks, sloppily, awkwardly. Emptily. Emptiness, everything in her is empty and torpid.

"The Evalin is gone... my Gypa he is gone... Hannah is gone, Charm... Charm she will leave... and my sister, she is gone, gone, gone until the end. Mara, she is all there is left now, Mara and Qalaya. Mara and Qalaya..."

Consent... consent... Minnie's eyes fought, tried hard to focus, tried to think, tried to pulse toward a knowledge, "You... you... you... you... I... why am... why am I naked? Why am I..."

She peered hard into the mans eyes, for just an instant, but the focus was too much, it drifted the mind is too exhausted to focus so hard on a single thing...

"No... No... Minnie-Wren... No, Minnie-Wren, put tha tin the box... yes, put that in a box, and yes... yes.... lie still, Minnie Wren, noone, noone, little noone..."

And then, in her horrible, reedy, queerly nasal voice, seh sang, vaguely, absently, unfocused, an aria, half of the lines missing.

"The heart is pierced with arrows,
But you cannot see them bleed.
The heart is pierced with arrows,
But you cannot see them bleed.

I...

I am...


I am the sister of your forgotten things,
I am the mother of your lusts,
I am the grand inquisitor of your epiphanies,

...

But mostly, oh beloved, I am your child,
Pierced with arrows,
But you cannot see them bleed."

[Ignotus Everto]

"Never mind. This is hopeless."
After committing Minnie's nonsense to memory, Ignotus steeled himself for one final push. "Sleep..." he whispered as his hands took leave of her temples. A wave of drowsiness washed over Philomena, hopefully coupling with the already present exhaustion to put her out. Simultaneously, soft strokes of her subconscious served to put the reality of the situation into doubt. It's all just a dream. Just a nightmare. Another nightmare...

He had failed. He hadn't just failed- He had catastrophically failed. An almighty Hypnotist capable of bending entire crowds to his will- And he broke a single person. This wasn't just embarrassing, this was unacceptable. He would do better. If Sagallius and Qalaya were kind and he had a semblance of a chance, he would do better.

When Philomena was sufficiently docile, Ignotus stood up, straightened out his clothes, turned on his heel, and strolled out to meet the Wave Guards. The Res dissolved. Transmuted into air and became part of the library. Mara was already rushing into the library with two of them. Ignotus received them both with a kind nod and a gentle word, calmly denying Ms. Capinsal's claims to behavior whilst graciously reminding her what actually happened.

"Oh, you can remember, can't you? Of course you can. Think back..."
Of course, the instant she showed signs of doing so, Ignotus kindly supplied his own versions of events in the form of images. Moments of hallucination vague and insubstantial enough to be passed off as memory.
"Yes..." Mara muttered confusedly, "She just started crying all of a sudden..."
"And then?"
"You stepped forward and started talking, and she panicked."
"And then?"
"I ran to get help... Petch, sorry Ignotus," Mara said with a shake of her head, still quietly turning events over in her head to justify the change of narrative.
"It's nothing to worry about, my dear." he said with a shrug of his shoulders, "We all worry when those we love have... Fits."

"And what of Professor Lefting now?" one of the Wave Guards asked.
"She was tranquil when I left her. I'd send our dear Mara in first, though." Ignotus remarked with a grimace. "She's not looking her best. I'm no doctor, but I think she could do with some bed rest. She works ever so hard, you know."

And with that and a tap of his cane, Ignotus departed. Minnie-Wren... Minnie-Wren... A box?
"I'll need a professor just to understand this professor. And Minnie-Wren?"

[Philomena]

Minnie's mind had been pleading for this, for rest, for sleep, and when it comes it is not so much that she must be convinced, as that she must be allowed. She mewls, softly, and murmurs, "Yes... yes... yes, sleep... please..."

Mara entered a few minutes later, to find her slumped in the corner, her dress smeared black, her face a mess of ink and tears, her body shivering, bare-skinned and cold against the stones. Mara was fuzzy headed, and confused, disoriented. But she knew that Minnie was not well, this much she divined. She went to her, and sat her gently up - Minnie opened her eyes, but they close again - one not even pulling all the way open on the left side, where the ink has dried the lashes together. Mara goes into a drawer, and draws out one of her own dresses - she has spent more than one long night at the library in the middle of something she simply could not leave, after all, and kept a few things around. She had a moment of instinctual revulsion at laying her dress - ever so much finer than anything Minnie wears - over the ink-smeared body. But she did it, gently, like a blanket, and taking the tiny woman, slowly, carefully dressed her.