{ pfsb } a letter and a meeting

[jaskoleczka]

Time is passing strangely for Ciri; it's difficult to tell if she has slept entire days or only a few hours. There is no way to mark the days aside from weather, and that changes quickly enough that it is wholly unreliable.

(The Bar, in her infinite kindness and usual sympathetic meddling, has in fact created a mild time loop in Ciri's room, giving her time to recover and somewhat ignoring the distressed flurry which has emanated out in ripples from her arrival.)

She comes downstairs, therefore, determined to more fully explore this strange place. There are stables she wishes to visit, and the woods remind her very slightly of those around Kaer Morhen...but her plans are abruptly canceled when, along with the strong hot tea she'd ordered, Lady Bar provides her also with a note.

Anyone watching would see Ciri rub at her forehead as if to quell a sudden headache, then lay a hand on the bartop and request something in a soft voice. Quill and pen appear, and she bends her head to write briskly and neatly:

Reverend Daughter,

I am terribly sorry for the distress I have caused. Please know it was not intentional.
I welcome your request for a meeting. I am at your disposal and shall visit Room 99 within the hour.

- Ciri

Folding the note, she looks for a waitrat to charge with its delivery and watches as the messenger scampers up the stairs before she turns with a sigh back to her tea.

Which she is now wishing was something a good deal stronger.

---

It's about half an hour later that she stands at the door of Room 99 with no idea of what to expect, knocking lightly with gloved knuckles.

Comments

[jaskoleczka]

She takes the first copy and tucks it carefully away in her wallet after reading through the contents.

(None of it makes sense to her. And none of it seems especially useful.)

"What are the others?"

[lightamidchaos]

"Music," he says, first. He is not sure whether or not that may need further explanation, given his previous playing.

"Archery. Mathematics. Rites - not only rituals, but proper understanding and practice of all social behavior. Chariotry, although we focus more on riding horses than driving them, and as a cultivation sect, on cultivation with the sword."

He finishes the second copy and moves to the third.

[jaskoleczka]

She turns slightly rueful green eyes on him. "Do all where you are from study music as a method of wielding magic?"

In her mind, what he describes is something like Aretuza: talented young people brought together and taught the ways of controlling Chaos, of bending it to their will.

It was what she was meant for, once.

[lightamidchaos]

"My sect does. Musical cultivation is a specialty of Gusu Lan."

It is not an accident that his family name and the name of the sect are the same, although he does not think to explain that.

"Cultivation with the sword is traditional among all sects."

[jaskoleczka]

So perhaps not like Aretuza. Perhaps more like the schools of the witchers...when such things existed.

"Gusu Lan?" she asks.

"Is your family the head of your sect?"

[lightamidchaos]

He finishes the third copy and sets it aside, then nods.

"Yes. Gusu is the region. My brother is the sect leader."

[jaskoleczka]

"Ah." She nods in wry understanding.

"The Twin Jades of Lan."

[lightamidchaos]

He nods again.

"He is the First Jade. I am the Second Jade."

It does not immediately occur to him to explain why they are called so.

[jaskoleczka]

"The elder and the younger."

She isn't very familiar with jade, but the context seems clear enough.

Cautiously: "Will you tell him, when you see him next? Would he believe you?"

[lightamidchaos]

“No.”

Quiet but firm.

“He does not know about the inn. And in my world, Wei Ying is dead.”

[jaskoleczka]

She nods and looks back to the bartop.

"Forewarned is forearmed, they say," she says, softly. "I have known many who do not believe in the workings of destiny, and as many who swear it rules us all." She turns her head to look at him, expression frank and open.

"But I think they can all agree it is better to have more information and not less."

[lightamidchaos]

“Yes.”

It is as steady as before, and he meets her gaze directly, without hesitation.

“Which is why I thank you for the warning.” A single beat of silence. "I do not blame you, Ciri. In any way."

[jaskoleczka]

That gets a small smile. He may be the only one, but one is often, as she's found, enough.

"Do you remember," she asks, after a moment, "the fate Doctor Ford saw, when she treated me? The White Frost and the Wolf's Blizzard?"

[lightamidchaos]

He nods.

"You were distressed."

[jaskoleczka]

"Aen Ithlinnespeath," she says. "A prophecy made by the elven healer Ithlinne Aegli aep Aevenien a very long time ago."

Her mouth tightens, but she continues. "I told you it was a long story. But that prophecy, and the actions taken because of it, is the sole reason for my existence."

"Believe me when I say I know how you feel."

[lightamidchaos]

He is quiet for several seconds, taking that in.

"I am sorry," he says, finally. "Not for your existence. Nor for having met you. But that you would be ... pursued... by such a thing."

[jaskoleczka]

"And yet without it, I would not be who I am," she says. "I would not have this scar, or this sword. I might not have ever been born at all.

"What I mean, Lan Wangji, is that I am not an expert on prophecy, or what can or cannot be averted. It may have been destiny that brought me here to you – or it may have been one of a million possibilities. I think...even if I am a child of destiny, I still have the right to my own choices and actions. And so do you."

[lightamidchaos]

He takes the time to consider this fully, sipping at his tea, even though it has grown cold.

"The vagaries of fortune are not unknown, where I am from," he says, finally. "I have never placed much weight on them. As you have said, it is what we do - or do not do - that determines who we are and how we choose to live. That is more important."

[jaskoleczka]

"I wish more on the Continent thought as you do," she says, frankly. "Instead, kings and queens, sorcerers and sorceresses, elves and men – they all cower to destiny's whims. There was once a prophecy that doom would come at the hands of sixty women born under an eclipse. So what did they do, the wise men of the Continent?"

She takes her mug of beer and rolls it between her palms, shaking her head. "They hunted down those girls. Some of them they killed and cut apart, looking for proof that they were cursed. Others they locked away in high towers, never to be seen again. Of those who escaped, many did turn cruel or insane, murderers and thieves. But would they, if they hadn't been treated that way from the start?"

[lightamidchaos]

Something shifts in his expression as the darkness of memory fills his eyes. He nods.

"To blame all for the actions of a few, to blame innocents for the actions or circumstances of others -- these things are wrong."

[jaskoleczka]

Her eyes narrow, studying him.

"It sounds as though you know something of these things in your own world."

[lightamidchaos]

"Yes."

His teacup is empty. He pushes it aside.

"There was a war. Cruelties during, and injustice after."

[jaskoleczka]

She nods in sympathetic recognition.

"This war, was it for resources? Or ideology?"

Or both, perhaps.

[lightamidchaos]

He thinks about it for a few moments, then shakes his head.

"Power. And the desire for more."

[jaskoleczka]

She's thinking of Emyhr var Emreis as she makes a small sound of understanding.

"And did they get it?"