Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah, I own nothing. And isn't that sad? Oh, and I'm still stealing dialogue (have you noticed how the entire SCENE is dialogue?)
A/N: I hadn't originally been sure if I was going to continue this—I pretty much started it as a writing exercise. But I guess it's pretty fun to write, so here's a second chapter, so please review (feed the author?). Although, actually, I don't love this chapter. I got really sick of that long scene by the time I was done with it, and I was really just too tired to add much more.
I reached the sunroom moments before a servant showed Meliara in. It was a room I occasionally used as a study, brightly lit by a wall of glass windows that opened out on a waterfall. I had crossed to them, about to step through onto the grass, when the door clicked open behind me.
"You do like being near water, don't you?" Meliara's voice sounded softly behind me. I stepped back, turned towards her, brushing the hair back from my forehead.
"Forgive me for not coming to the door. I must reluctantly admit that I have been somewhat preoccupied with the necessity of regaining my tranquility."
She took a few steps towards me, seemingly surprised. Well, hopefully that meant it wasn't immediately apparent that several minutes before I'd been shouting curses and smashing china.
"That wasn't caused by me, I hope?" she asked with a smile.
I shook my head, smiling a little. "Family argument. Forbearance is not, alas, a hallmark of the Merindar habit of mind."
She considered for a moment, but, whatever she thought, she merely said, "I'm sorry for it, then. Ought I to go? If the family's peace is cut up, I suppose a visitor won't be welcome."
What, going already? I supposed she was developing a habit of appearing unexpectedly and leaving rather precipitously, but I'd hoped for a conversation, at least.
"If you mean you'd rather not walk into my honored parent's temper—or, more to the point, my sister's—fear not. They departed early this morning to our family's estates. I am quite alone here." Thank life for that. "Would you like to lay aside your hat and gloves?"
"Not necessary," she answered, seeming to consider my words, or their implications. Well, all the better if she thought I wasn't a part of my mother's plan. She wouldn't even be wrong.
She looked up, met my eyes for a long moment, then lowered her eyes to the floor. She was blushing.
"I came to ask a favor of you," she said, sounding as though she'd been planning to say something completely different.
"Speak, then," I said, unable to keep a shade of laughter from my voice.
She looked up and sighed. "It concerns the party I must give for my brother's coming marriage," she said, glancing at me again, and back to the floor.
Oh? "You must forgive my obtuseness, but you could have requested your assistance by letter." Or had she come with some other reason in mind? More questions? Or—I couldn't see her coming to court me, but, well, here she was. And she was certainly blushing more than I'd expect of one on a political errand.
"I did," she said, confused, and then paused. "Oh. Oh!"
She looked horrified. No doubt she'd just experienced some interesting private revelation. Did she only just realize how her coming to see me might be interpreted?
I reached out and touched her wrist, traced the line of her arm. She shivered and closed her eyes, and I leaned forward and kissed her.
It lasted for just a moment—then she stumbled away, gasping, her hands shaking as she straightened her dress.
I'll admit that I was breathing just as hard as she was. I took a step back, resting my weight against the back of an elegantly carved couch, catching my breath. I was half-laughing again, for no real reason.
"Change your mind, little Countess?"
She nodded—shook her head—dropped her gaze to the floor so that that long hair almost hid her face, and finally shrugged. I laughed aloud. She looked like…
…so young. I caught my breath, took her hand to pull her back to the window, looking out over the water, shifting beneath the troubled clouds.
"It is not merely the sight of water that I find salubrious. Its function as a metaphor for study is as… as adaptable—"
"You were going to say fluid," she interrupted.
I smiled.
"I was not," I scolded. "I would never be so maladroit." And it was true, even if I had thought fluid. I would never have actually said it. "As adaptable, to resume our discourse," I continued, "as its inherent properties." For what, in the end, does not owe something to water? So much of the world is water…It is so much of ourselves. And every change it makes is so perfect, so fluid…It is always changing, and always the same, fitting itself to any prison without ever changing its essence. Indestructible. "The clarity, the swift change in movement, the ability to fill the boundaries it encounters, all these accommodating characteristics blind those who take its utility and artistry for granite and overlook its inexorable power." A mere trickle of water over time has the power to wear away mountains.
Thunder rumbled overhead, as the sky opened and water cascaded down the window in lacy streams, turning the world outside into a swimming haze of color. I looked back to Meliara, remembering that she'd come for a reason—and, self-flattery aside, it hadn't been to court me.
"How may I be of service?"
She took a breath. "My brother's party. I want it to be special. I just found out that it's a custom, and to cover my ignorance I would like to make it seem I've been planning it a long time, so I need some new idea. I want to know what the latest fashion in Sartor's—or Sles Adran's—court is, and I thought the best thing I could do would be to come to you."
"So you do not, in fact, regard me as an arbiter of taste?" I asked with a smile, knowing she did. "You wound me."
She blushed and gritted her teeth.
"You know you're an arbiter of taste, Flauvic. If you think I'm here just to get you to parrot out the latest fad in Nente, then you're, well, I know you don't believe it. And I didn't think you prodded for compliments."
I laughed aloud, and when I looked back at Meliara she wore a very strange expression. I bit back curiosity.
"There's never any one fad," I told her. "Or if there is, it changes from day to day. A current taste is for assuming the mask of the past."
"Like?" she asked, gazing into the distance as though she could see the past through the rain shimmering and threading itself down the window panes.
"Like choosing a time from history, say—six hundred years ago, and everyone who comes must assume the guise of an ancestor."
She bit her lip. "Well, my mother was a Calahanras, but it seems to me—and I know I'm not exactly subtle—that it would not be in the best of taste to assume the guise of royalty for this party."
"You have your father's family as well. Family Astiar and Family Chamadis have intermarried, ah, twice that I know of. One of those was a love match, almost three hundred years ago—Thirav Astiar and Haratha Chamadis. It would also be a compliment to Nimiar, for it was her ancestor Haratha who considerably boosted the family's prestige by her part in the Treaty of the Seven Rivers."
"Oh!" she exclaimed, her face lighting up. "I knew you'd think of something! But is there a part for me? I have to be prominent, being hostess."
I raised my eyebrows.
"You don't know your own family's history?"
She flushed, delight turning to annoyance. "We barbarians are ignorant, yes, mostly because my father burned most of our books after my mother died."
"He did?" What had sent the old Countess to her death, that her husband had rebelled against her books? "Do you know why?"
"I don't have any idea. Probably will never find out. Anyway, there was no history of any kind for me to read until I began last year by ordering new ones, and very few of those mention the Astiar family."
I bowed an apology, feeling clumsy—for inadvertently bringing up her mother's death, for showing her my magic, for my inability to understand her…because she'd pulled away from me. Life, didn't I have enough problems without trying to court the stubborn, wayward, barefoot Countess of Tlanth?
"Forgive me. I had not known. As for your part, that's a shade more difficult, for Thirav had no sisters. However, there were two female cousins, either of whom you might assume the guise of." I thought back to my reading—and of the same morning. "Ardis was the more prominent of the two."
Not that her character suited Meliara. But—why not a challenge? She had, or could have had, great influence over the court, and yet she did nothing. Why?
"Ardis," she mused. "I suppose there are no portraits—"
"But you could safely order a gown based on court fashions of the time. The point here is, if people are to get their costumes ordered in time, you must be speedy with your invitations."
She smiled tartly. "Costumes are easily ordered. What you mean is, to give everyone time to dive into their family histories if they aren't as well read as you are."
"Precisely. It is a shame that so few have the time or inclination for scholarship these days. There is much amusement to be afforded in perusing the mistakes of our forebears." And much insight, too.
I'd spoken lightly, but her expression had changed to wariness by the time I was done.
"For what purpose?" she asked.
"More curiosity," I replied. "I never involve myself in political brangles." Which was, at the best, a barefaced lie, but she didn't need to know that.
She sighed, then put on an expression of somewhat forced cheerfulness. She shouldn't try to lie; she did it so badly.
"Thanks for the advice. I'd better get to my own studies."
"You don't wish to stay for some refreshment?"
She shook her head and gestured to the now-sunny outdoors. "I think I'd better go now, before it comes back."
I walked her to the door and saw her leave.
Whatever reason she'd come for, it hadn't been merely to ask me about her brother's party, or refuse to let me kiss her. I could only surmise that she hadn't gotten it. So she left, and I stayed, and we both went unsatisfied.
I wished that I could count her on my side, but she didn't trust me. I read that in her face—when she'd asked about my warning, when she'd pulled away form my kiss, when she'd heard me speak of long-ago mistakes and heard the tone of my true purpose. She might be the only one with all the pieces and inclination to guess at my plan, if she thought to do so.
And yet I couldn't stop playing with her, couldn't help but underestimate her, even as I knew she suspected me. But then didn't everyone?
My house was a self-imposed prison. For the next month, I went no farther from the Merindar residence than a short stroll through the gardens could take me, and that alone. I had no visitors, save servants and Ezrin, and I visited no one.
My mother had met with the Duke of Grumareth on her journey back to Merindar, but I didn't care what they'd spoken of; I knew her plans by heart anyway. The soldiers would move in a month; then I, too, would move. Spies now brought me correspondence from my mother as well, or I used charms to listen to her meetings at Merindar. I watched her plans drawing together, swift and futile.
And things at Athanarel drew together as well. An invitation to Meliara's party arrived. It would be the night Mother's troops were scheduled to move. I debated with myself for a time—but why not? The entire court would be there—and it seemed a fitting gesture of disdain for Arthal's plan.
I worked late into the night, practicing spells. I read. The spell I needed could be anchored, sustaining itself at least in part. I needed it to last. I practiced the casting, practiced holding it in my mind until I thought I would scream with the endless preparation.
My plans were finished. I had only to wait on Arthal, who would be my disguise. And the wait, for me, was endless.
I was ready. When would Mother move?
A/N: Yeah, I'm back, good job if you're still here. I did warn you it wasn't great, but please review anyway (I WILL shamelessly beg, plead, cajole, and threaten to get reviews, so just humor me and press the little button-thing.)