Fable - Ask A little slice of life [Dreadkids]

[Chasmine]

Click.

The door swung inward and Chas blinked out at Noel with a faint look of surprise, "Hello."

It was almost as if she'd completely forgotten Noel was out there. But then she blinked and smiled, "You can have the nice mug."

Chasmine's room was about exactly what one would expect from a girl such as herself: eclectic to the point of eccentricity. Though the Dreadlord Acolytes didn't have much in the way of personal belongings, Chas had apparently made a point to fill her room with found items and things. It was the epitome of kitsch cottagecore. There were trinkets and bobbles, many of which were broken, settled about high shelves. Books, books, books, and more books. Handmade things put together from nature. Feathers of all sizes and colors. Rocks - lots of rocks. Candles everywhere.

All the plants. In pots. Not in pots. Seeds. Drying blooms. Cut roots and leaves.

Symbols carved into the wooden wallboards and along the perimeter of her room.

Phials and jars filled with collected ingredients, tonics, and oddities. Dead things, too. There was, in fact, a dead crow on a desk off to the side that had it's wing feathers very painstakingly removed.

Her bedroom window looked out upon the Old Forest and the graveyard through a thicket of growing planets seeded into a makeshift flowerbox just beyond the panes, and an empty raven's nest sat off to one side.

"Melinda gave me a new variety of Gray Lady last week that I haven't tried yet," she said as she moved to her fireplace where the embers left from the early morning were still hot and red. Chas set a metal teapot into the embers and began to prepare the tea leaves, "she's so nice. Have you ever been to the Academy kitchens before?"

 

[Sable Pembroke]

Kristen's genuine curiosity and fascination did wonders for Sable's ego, something he'd been told to keep in check in the past. Well, it wasn't just his ego that was being tickled right now, but his own sense of wonder. Bards did not sing of Dreadlords deeds, not for a long time, and they certainly didn't care for unpracticed polliwogs that the initiates were. The only ones who would speak of the students' accomplishments were the students themselves.

Sable looked around to ensure that no one would overhear his next comment, then leaned down and whispered a name into Kristen's ear.
"Proctor Malvern..."
Then he promptly straightened back up and cleared his throat with a cough.

"That is to say, the only thing he failed to do was breach my barrier. He had been in the midst of handing me my proverbial buttocks on a silver platter in a sparring demonstration, you see. 'You can't rely on defense alone to seize victory, Initiate Pembroke!' He had told me." Sable rubbed the back of his head as the duo walked, somewhat embarrassed to recant the exact details of the tale. "So I put up my strongest wall to challenge that theory. Try as he might, he couldn't get through no matter how many of his magical drills he sent crashing into me."

It had been Sable's moment of glory. He still remembered the fury on Malvern's face, the indistinct lambasting he had laid upon Sable, and the amused looks of his peers as Malvern struck and struck and struck again, to no avail. Of course, it couldn't last.

"I did eventually run out of energy though, and boy did I pay for it afterwards. 'You want to be immovable? Fine, you can stand still on your head for the next twenty four hours!' I think I still have a head rush after all this time." He chuckled jovially. There hadn't been many that Sable had been able to brag about this to. Many had seen it or heard about it. Most had thought Sable was a fool for defying a proctor, others saw it as a sign of Malvern's age brewing weakness in him. Few actually allowed it to be seen as an accomplishment.

Just then, a thought occurred to Sable. Now he felt a bit sheepish for not having thought of it before.
"Uh, you know, Kristen...if you feel you're lagging behind, and that Proctor Magomo's...'teachings' aren't exactly effective...you and I could always spar together."

 

[Noel]

Chasmine was... unique. That was the nice way to put it. A less kind way might be weird or odd or batshit insane. Still, there was an endearing quality to the look she gave Noel when her door swung open. As if a doe had spotted a strange animal out in the woods.

"Oh, the nice mug, I'm so lucky," she had planned to drivel on and push the sarcasm a bit thicker until she stepped inside and took Chas' dorm in fully. She hadn't seen many of her classmate's accommodations but Noel was confident that no one else's room looked like this.

Months ago she'd accompanied Proctor Renou on a mission to abduct some alchemist who resided in a cabin in the Falwood. His home was filled with trinkets like this, scribblings and pages scattered, weird objects he'd crafted out of boredom (or some love for nature?). Renou had called him a hoarder.

Noel wondered if Chasmine was a hoarder too. Compared to her starkly clean room this place caused her stomach to tie itself into a knot. There was a coziness to it, certainly, but also a chaos that Noel absolutely detested.

"Your room is lovely," she said with as much warmth as she could muster.

Who was Melinda? The kitchens? Is that where the ghastly girl scampered off to during free periods? Noel hadn't spent any time back in the kitchens, there wasn't much of a point. It's not like the cooking staff could teach her how to thrust a blade or deflect a blow. "I haven't met Melinda yet," she admitted.

"Do you make tea often?" A brief, very shallow, pit of empathy formed in her gut as she wondered if the poor wretch sat alone making tea up here. Carving her strange little décor and sneaking away to talk with kitchen staff.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen gasped, her smile unbroken. "Twenty-four hours? My, Sable, I do not know how you survived that!" She swung his arm to and fro excitedly, almost losing her balance, having immensely enjoyed the tale. Calming down, she said, "Ah, but what am I saying? Of all the initiates of our class, you I would have wagered first and foremost to endure Proctor Malvern's spiteful rebuttal."

Teehee. Proctor Malvern. If ever Kristen should make him cross with her again, and that was of course something very likely to occur, she could at the very least treasure the indignant look she imagined him to have in failing to break through Sable's most powerful barrier. That alone would make the torturous exercises Malvern so favored as punishment that much more bearable. And she could thank Sable for that.

They were getting close to the dormitories when Sable made her an offer. A surprising offer.

She looked up to him, almost star-struck. "R-Really? You would take time to help me? Oh, Sable, I'm honored!" She sighed, then explained, "I think Proctor Magomo means well, despite the exquisite roughness of his approach. But all the spars and combat training sessions he sets up...well, they do not last very long as I always find myself overmatched, and I scarcely learn a thing."

Kristen clapped his arm with her free hand. "But with your aid I may yet be able to enjoy some quality time honing my martial pursuits! I've..." she laughed sheepishly, "...got quite a lot of catching up to do, haven't I?"

Sable Pembroke

 

[Chasmine]

"Oh, yes. Every day. Tea is very good for you and it rebalances your Chakri," Chas replied, poking at the ruby coals to stoke the heat, her gentle, airy voice mingling with the slow simmer of water in the kettle, "Melinda has been working in the kitchens for over forty years. They took her son when he was four, so she got a job in the kitchens to try and be near him, but he died a few years later."

Standing, she turned to a open-face cabinet on the wall hung over a small table and stood up on her tip-toes to take down two mugs; one a very plain, simple, old wooden mug, and the other a rather nice hand-carved piece of art. On the next shelf down a tattered and worn gryphon stuffed animal watched Noel with dull, beady eyes.

"She's very nice and makes delicious pastries. We're not really supposed to go down to the kitchens, so I visit her at night sometimes. I can introduce you, if you like."

 

[Noel]

Noel wasn't sure if the babble about tea was true or not but she nodded along all the same.

"She worked here when her son died? And she stayed even after this place took her son?" Her voice was a bit bewildered. Noel had nothing but fond memories of her own father and desperately looked forward to seeing him again. She couldn't fathom him being here and seeing even a glimpse of what she'd been through.

A wayward look forced her vision onto a toy gryphon. It took an exorbitant amount of effort to break eye contact with the thing, his beady little gaze almost soothing in a lost childhood sort of way.

A smile formed on her face, "I'd go meet with her if it meant free pastries." The idea of sneaking out at night wasn't foreign to her but it was usually for additional sparring, not visiting academy staff.

"Oh!" a finger pointed at the ornate cup, "that's the nice mug! It really does look great, you're sure you don't want it?" Tea time was shaping up to be more fun than Noel had anticipated and she hadn't even tried the tea yet.

 

[Chasmine]

Chasmine nodded, "She lost her home when she moved here, so she had nowhere else to go. Then I encountered her son's spirit one night and was able to give her his message so that he could pass on. It was wonderful serendipity."

A sober, warm smile presented itself on her face, bringing some color to her otherwise sallow cheeks. "I'm sure she'd love to meet you. We can go on the weekend! I have to bring her more herbs and ingredients anyway."

The kettle began to whistle and sputter, its worn and bent cap rattling over the pressure. Chas quickly set the mugs down and leaned to pick up the pot by its padded handle, pouring out the tea into both and handing Noel the nice mug. "No, you should use it and then I can read your tea leaves. They're much easier to read in the nice mug since the carvings channel your Chakri better."

As if that were the most obvious fact of them all. She gently blew on her tea before very delicately sipping.

"Have you ever heard of Proctor Basmarc?"

 

[Noel]

"Wait, you can do that? Pass on messages, I mean?" It was a remarkably kind gesture, one that made Noel consider asking Chasmine to do it for her parents if it ever came to that.

Then there was a glimpse of something. Genuine joy shone on her classmate's face at the prospect of having someone join her on those little trips to the basement. "This weekend is perfect." Really, any time was perfect, Noel had no plans during the week other than her Tuesday and Thursday night sparring appointments with Proctor Pallatrix.

She chose not to comment on the tea leaf reading. It'd be fun to hear what Chas saw but Noel believed there wasn't any future she couldn't overcome. She had always carved her own path forward and no sort of tea, no matter how delicious, was going to change that.

"Proctor Basmarc?" A finger came up to rub at her chin. "Isn't that the one we told stories about as kids? Stay out of the 'forbidden woods' or the ghost of Basmarc will snatch you." Noel used a funny voice and waved one of her hands in the air as she said the last part. Joking around was something she hadn't done since she was a girl and it only dawned on her after she said it that, "oh, wait, your magic. Is... is Basmarc real?"

Noel suddenly found herself drawn in and interested.

 

[Chasmine]

A bright excitement filtered into Chasmine's face as weekend plans were made and set. How wonderful it would be to do one of her favorite things with company! Tea still a bit too hot to drink in earnest, Chas moved to sit on the foot of her bed, leaving the chair at the table open for Noel.

"Yes," she nodded about the childhood stories, both hands hugging her mug for the additional warmth against the chill of her dorm, "well ... I haven't come across his ghost personally. Not in any places I expected him to be. There are a lot of things in the forbidden woods, but Proctor Basmarc does not seem to be one of them. I looked for a headstone in the ground cemetery, but there's not one there for him."

 

[Noel]

Noel took her seat at the empty chair and placed her nose just over the rim of the mug. It was scalding, far too hot to drink, but she liked to feel the steam on her face. She like to smell the hints of citrus flood from the black tea.

"Huh," she muttered once Chasmine had finished. She'd gotten excited, though that maybe the ghost stories were true. "Maybe there's no headstone because he's completely made up." A childhood story, or one crafted by Proctors, that wasn't even based on a person who had died.

 

[Chasmine]

"That's what I thought," she looked thoughtful staring into her own tea, "but then I found a painting of him down in the catacombs in one of the storage closets along with a chest of his belongings. He was really into whittling."

 

[Noel]

"Whittling?"

Of all the hobbies a Proctor of the academy could have whittling sounded like the least likely one. Calloused hands that were used to whip a teenager by day used to carve figurines of cute animals by night. It sounded absurd.

"You'll have to let me know if you see him," Noel sipped at her tea. It really was quite good, maybe this Melinda was worth meeting afterall. "Ask him to stop haunting our school grounds too, while you're at it."

 

[Chasmine]

"I'm not sure it works that way," Chas looked studiously thoughtful at that last request, "otherwise there'd probably be a lot less ghosts on the academy grounds, but I'll be sure to try."

A cheery smile met Noel - Chasmine would be happy to do such things for someone as nice as her. They had only a few more minutes of time to sup their tea before the bell for the day's next class period echoed through the halls. Chasmine bid Noel to down her tea so she could read her leaves later before the pair of them made haste to get where they needed to be.

 

[Sable Pembroke]

Sable laughed, rubbing a nearly embarrassed hand behind his head. Others could say what they would about Kristen, but she was nothing if not earnest. Perhaps that was the charm and pride of a noblewoman. Kristen was consistently the butt of everyone else's ridicule and torment in her time at the Academy, and yet she continued to push herself and keep a stiff upper lip despite the insurmountable challenge that she'd been presented with. Wasn't that, in itself, an act of true honor? By his own, he could hardly stand by and watch.

"The honor will be mine, milady," He offered with a smile, which struggled to not turn itself into a frown at her mention of Magomo's...methods. "I find that one learns much more from a narrow defeat than a crushing one. Proctor Magomo oft needs to dial it down, but doesn't seem to know how."

Kristen's hangdog confession earned an encouraging clap on the back from Sable in return. It seemed nobody was more aware of her condition than she was; good. That meant she wasn't ignorant or in denial of reality, cold as it was. That was a great place to start.
"Indeed. But that's a hill you don't have to climb alone."

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Oh! Kristen was caught by mild surprise following the clap on her back. The power contained in a single, restrained hand from Sable was astonishing, almost alarming. Sparring with him was sure to be instructive, thanks wholly to his ability to exercise some forbearance, but, goodness, she could only imagine the struggle she would face when their weapons clashed.

They stood at the foot of the dormitories. Ignatius Voll came out of the front doors, licking each of the five fingers of his right hand in turn, and walked around the two as if he did not notice them at all.

Indeed. But that's a hill you don't have to climb alone.

"And I am glad for it," she said.

Kristen let out a huff of exhausted breath, shifted her weight from leaning against Sable's arm. There was a saying that father sometimes used, one he picked up from the common vernacular: "dog tired." Today, Kristen knew exquisitely the definition of dog tired, in her legs especially and throughout her body as a whole. She still had to freshen up, and that wouldn't leave much time left in today's free period.

"Tomorrow, perhaps? During free period or after classes? Provided, of course, that neither of us are abducted by Proctors for some dreary personal instruction."

Sable Pembroke

 

[Sable Pembroke]

Another chuckle issued forth from Sable's prodigious chest, and he offered Kristen a hearty grin.
"Tomorrow it is. Let's aim for after classes." Sable declared. She'd need some proper rest, that much was certain.