Timestamp: 70th Day of Summer, 513 A.V.
Location: Mhakula's Tea-House
“Ohh, I needed this,” Chiona admitted, drinking like a parched woman from the large cup placed in front of her, draining most of it off in one long gulp. There were bags on the bags under her eyes that no amount of discreet makeup could entirely hide, and under the habitual jasmine perfume there was still a hint, just a suggestion of the acrid reek of smoke and rock dust. She was dressed immaculately, of course, but those perfect clothes still hung on a tired and wrung-out frame. “We needed this,” Chiona continued, eyes half-lidded as she gazed across their customary table, appraising her apprentice through senses other than mundane sight; Ethaefal rarely changed or showed outward signs of fatigue, after all.
Alses' celestial form was, indeed, just as perfect and as unchanging as ever, showing little sign of the marathon efforts it had been subjected to over the past several days, but inside she was exhausted, a bone-deep ache that all the bathing in the world didn't seem able to shift, and her head still throbbed and thrummed from the massive exertions of her power on behalf of farmers and citizens trapped under the rubble from the earthquake. The bleeding from her eyes had stopped, thankfully – by the end of it she'd been crying bronze rain freely and the Catholicon had fussed mightily, repeating endlessly that she was lucky to still have her sight, that she shouldn't have pushed herself so hard.
That hadn't been an option; people had been trapped in the rubble of the hothouses and the reimancers had needed direction and guidance, to find and save people before the weight of wreckage crushed the survivors or the air ran out. Then, too, the reimancers themselves had needed watching, in order to save the toiling relief and rescue teams, the Dawn Tower itself and the survivors still under the rubble the carnage of mass overgiving once again.
Bleeding from the eyes, disjuncts to her senses and several days strapped down in the Catholicon and pumped full of sedatives was a small price to pay.
“I think we've just about weathered the storm,” Chiona remarked, still cradling her teacup as though it contained the elixir of eternal life.
“Syna above, we hope so,” Alses murmured fervently. “We're not sure how much more of this I can take. It's been a shock to the system, we don't mind telling you.”
Chiona pulled a face. “Yes. We like to think of ourselves as civilised, the shining beacon in the wilderness, but knock off the veneer and the barbarian comes out to play. We never anticipated earthquakes, though – the peaks are mostly granite from top to bottom, and when the city was built the records show they were pounded and pummelled by House Dawn's reimancers to close up caves and cracks before being levelled. We get the occasional grumble – Kalea's a hotbed of earthy activity, according to the Dawn Tower – but nothing to really cause us trouble. The skyglass has always – always - held before.”
A shake of the head, enough to set her earrings to jangling. “Still, we've pulled through, and the people have returned to sanity. Zintila and Syna and Leth and Tanroa and any other benevolent and listening god be praised.”
“Agreed,” Alses added fervently. “And to think, at the beginning of the season my biggest concern was how much longer the repairs to the Ethereal Opera were going to take.”
“Oh, to have the simplest of worries!” Chiona exclaimed with a trilling laugh, the smile bringing her tired face to something approximating its usual liveliness. “We did well, though, in the event,” she added, bringing the conversation back to something a little more sombre. “The Dusk Tower can be proud of its efforts.”
“All the Towers can,” Alses murmured, senses locked on the teacup and enjoying it to the fullest. “We'd have been sunk without the Dawn Tower's reimancers blasting paths for the rescue teams, and without the Twilight morphers shifting rubble where we couldn't risk a reimancer, for that matter.”
Chiona drained her cup in one elegant swallow and gestured for more; one of the Interchangeable Yhavaos who ran the tea-house replied with a bow and a solar-powered smile. Some things, it seemed, even when all about was fire and riot and panic, didn't change.
“Very true. All healed up now?” she asked, eyes dancing. “You were quite unwell when the Catholicon took you off.”
“Never better,” Alses replied. Physically, this was indeed the case, but mentally...that was a little more tricky. Still, as the city put itself back together, as teams of people who, scant days ago, had been tearing down the marketplace worked together to put it all back to rights, so too would she heal. Versatility, she was learning, the ability to take blows and shocks and swing serenely back onto an even keel, water flowing around and over an obstacle until it ceased to be, was something very necessary for a long and sane life.
“Liar,” Chiona replied lazily. “But you don't look too bad, so I'll let it go, this time. Ah, tea, thank you,” she said, attention shifting abruptly to a fresh cup of piping-hot heaven and the waitress who bore it over.
Cup of tea in hand, Chiona regarded her student and friend cautiously. “A little birdie tells me, though, that you're looking into Animation,” she observed, voice light. “The art of bringing life to the lifeless, if I understand its principles aright.” Her gaze was steady, probing.
“It's an interesting discipline,” Alses agreed, perhaps a little too fast. Maybe she'd relaxed prematurely. “We like the challenge of world magic.”
A sigh. “I know you quite well, my friend-” Alses blinked; Chiona seldom claimed friendship “-and this sudden interest worries me. Not the magic itself, that's benign enough, but...You're not still haunted by Hayani, are you?”
A flash of dead, staring, accusative eyes, and Alses looked away. “Perhaps a little,” she admitted. It wasn't just Hayani, either, though her severed head was prominent. It was the crushed farmer, the dead-eyed, thousand-mile stare of the deceased, of anyone unfortunate enough to be inside the hothouses when they shattered in a deadly blizzard of skyglass fragments and tumbled rock. “But I stand by what we said of Animation's challenges. All magic interests us, delights us.”
A sigh, a swish of silk, motion – Chiona had her hand in a warm clasp all of a sudden. “Hayani deserved her death, Alses. She killed-”
“I know,” Alses replied, surfing her voice over her mentor's. “I know. But in hindsight, especially since she's dead, it's hard not to feel a little sorry for her.”
Chiona blinked at her, surprise in every line of her face. “I don't,” she observed. “She killed Ethaefal and tried to kill you. My sympathy for her is non-existent, frankly. She was lucky to get such a clean death.”
“We can easily see why insanity set in, though. Five centuries of life and work, and all of it for nothing. Everything she did came tumbling down, everything she wanted slipped out of her grasp. I think its first seeds were set long, long ago: she loved Aysel, did you know? I daresay she had hopes of...of...” Alses waved a vague hand, trying to capture her thoughts “...stickiness, and with Aysel and Talora not on the best of terms at first...” she tailed off, suggestively; the inference was clear enough.
“But then our Lord and Lady worked through their differences and grew closer as they ruled and time passed. Hayani was Zintila's Anchorite, her Champion; her dominion was the spiritual well-being of the city, not its secular ruling. She was supplanted in Aysel's life, a figure on the outside looking in, as Aysel and Talora grew closer, thanks to their shared duties and difficulties. When they went away, pulled apart by the demands of their gods...I suppose she saw her chance. An opportunity to prove herself in the secular sphere, so to speak, and somewhere along the line she lost her way. Saw true worth as nothing more than piles of kina in a vault, or in a glowing export manifest, forgot the value of souls – especially to the gods – over shiny metal. And then when Aysel and Talora returned, instead of the admiration she was expecting, they tore down all she'd built and hung her, like a banner, as an example and a warning to all and sundry. Why Zintila didn't step in we don't know and don't care to question; it happened. But. Hayani.”
Alses began to tick points off on her fingers. “No Aysel. No longer Champion. No purpose. No place. And above all, no friends.” she shook her head. “A desperately lonely creature, come the finish, and it broke her.”
Chiona looked away. “That's as may be,” she replied, “But it doesn't excuse her conduct, even so.”
Alses smiled, slightly sadly. “Indeed not,” she agreed, “But the Ethaefal are dropping like flies in this city. Forty-six, now.”
“Hopefully not to drop any further,” Chiona agreed with a shudder. “Change of subject, please, right now; this is becoming too morbid for my tastes.”
Sensing an opportunity, Alses nodded out of the closest window, which had a spectacular view of the tower-studded Shinyama Peak, most especially the newest of them all, the Radiant Tower, which was to be home to an expanded city government, more accessible than the Day Lady and Night Lord. “Seen the Radiant Tower?” she asked, more rhetorically than anything – it was almost impossible to miss the elegant construction that had suddenly thrust its way into Lhavit's crowded upper skyline, a battery of subsidiary turrets and minarets surrounding the grand central spire.
That was the thing about skyglass construction; it was fast. All the time went into fitting out the interiors, laying down wood and marble and soft furnishings of every size and shape, of boring down to subterranean water and bringing it to the surface in elegantly-controlled profusion and much else besides, so whilst the great Tower might have looked complete from the outside, it was really nothing more than a shell, busily attended by a small army of workmen.
