{ pfsb } by the fireside

[for_tradition]

A fireside – the proper kind, with the scent and crackle of flames as they transmogrify the passive energy of wood into heat and light – is something one just really can't have without wood to burn. 

The swimming fish are an added bonus, but really don't lend much to the ambience beyond novelty. 

It's very pleasant to sit by this fireside, real or magicked up as it might be, while ferociously taking notes. The warm, flickering light of the flames reflects off Abigail Pent's smooth brown hair and the silk of her skirts – the rich brown of excellent milk chocolate, struck through with gold – and illuminates her neat, slightly cramped handwriting. So engrossed is she that when the waitrat arrives with her ordered tea, she doesn't notice until the creature gives a polite half-cough, half-squeak.

Glancing up, she peers myopically at the proffered tea set. (She is wearing two sets of spectacles, but forgotten to put either over her eyes. One sits lightly on her hair, the other hangs around her neck off a cord of brown silk.)

"That doesn't look right," she tells the waitrat. It certainly is tea, but the stunted white pot and small, handle-less cups don't look at all like the bone china she'd expected.

She looks about, searching – ah. Getting to her feet in a rustle of fabric, she accepts the tray from the waitrat and makes her way over to the table she'd spotted, where a tall, slim young man has received a bone china tea service and plate of iced biscuits. "Pardon me," Abigail says, smiling as she approaches him. "I believe our orders were switched."

Comments

[for_tradition]

"Spirit magic," she explains. "Although my strengths really lie in spirit summoning. You'd really want the Sixth for a thorny question like how does this place work? I daresay the Master Warden would be fascinated."

[lightamidchaos]

The Fifth, she had said, when mentioning her brother, and now the Sixth, in the context of spirits and the deceased.

Very, very slowly, Lan Wangji says, "... Five for tradition and debts to the dead?"

[for_tradition]

"Goodness," she chuckles, warmly. "You are one for formality, aren't you? Don't take that the wrong way; I adore formality. And of course you are correct. I am -- was -- the Scion of the Fifth House, and those are our words."

[lightamidchaos]

It has been some time since he has seen Harrow, and he is not certain who among her associates is aware of her visits to the inn, besides Gideon, if indeed anyone is.

He settles for a fractional nod. "Spirit summoning?" he asks.

[for_tradition]

"I am a Speaker to the Dead," she says, as though this might explain anything. "Not to brag, but I could summon a five hundred year old revenant from a pencil he once chewed on."

She studies him, curious. "Are you familiar with the Houses?"

[lightamidchaos]

"Mn," he affirms.

"I also have some skill at summoning and speaking with spirits. Through music."

[for_tradition]

She looks very much as though she'd like to make another note, but reaches for her teacup instead.

"Through music," she says, thoughtful. "Now that is interesting. Is it the call or the structure or the tithe or all three at once?"

[lightamidchaos]

"It is the melody," he says. "Inquiry. When backed with spiritual energy of sufficient strength, a spirit will answer. Once they have, I can communicate with them through the ancient language of the qin, by careful selection of notes."

He considers, then adds, "I do not know what you mean by the tithe. Or the structure, beyond the melody itself."

[for_tradition]

She waves a hand, dismissing the details -- for the moment, only, as she passionately loves details. "When I summon a spirit," she tells him, "I require -- usually -- an item to use as a grounding force -- or a structured ward -- along with something to offer the spirit. Something to eat, usually, or something that reminds it of life. Blood is the classic tithe."

Now she does open her notebook again, scribbling in the margins of what she'd written before. "It sounds to me as though your music is the call, the offering, and the grounding force, all in one. Very efficient."

[lightamidchaos]

He listens attentively, then nods. "The music, and the spiritual energy, together," he corrects.

[for_tradition]

"Spiritual energy," she revises, and studies him with intent brown eyes that go just a bit too long without blinking.

"Not necromancy?"

[lightamidchaos]

Very simply, he explains, "I am not a necromancer. I am a cultivator, but not of that path."

[for_tradition]

"Ah," she says, understanding. Her cup makes a tiny clink as she sets it back on the saucer. "Another thalergetic adept."

She says this the way other people might say: Christmas.

[lightamidchaos]

Lan Wangji gives her a mildly surprised look. "Another?"

[for_tradition]

"Yes, I met one here, earlier," Abigail says, comfortably. "Fascinating stuff. But then everything has an opposing side, doesn't it?"

[lightamidchaos]

He nods, at that. "All things seek the harmony of balance."

[for_tradition]

"It makes you wonder where the fulcrum is, doesn't it?"

She gives him a warm smile and reaches for the rest of her little cake. "These are lovely, by the way."

[lightamidchaos]

"Osmanthus cakes," he says, and silently indicates her teacup with an offer to refill it. "I am glad you enjoy them."

"I am not certain it is as simple as a single fulcrum for all things, but perhaps many small points of balance to achieve a harmonious whole."

[for_tradition]

"Oh, not all things," she tells him, nudging her cup and saucer forward so he can easily reach them. "But thalergy and thanergy, one could study how the one shifts into the other until they're blue in the face. I'm certain plenty on the Sixth have."

[lightamidchaos]

"Not only among them," he observes.

Six for the truth over solace in lies, he muses, as he lifts her teapot and refills her cup with unconscious grace. "They are all scholars, then?"

[for_tradition]

"So much so that 'Scholar' is an earned title among them," Abigail tells him, accepting her cup and saucer back. She leans an elbow on the table and her chin on her palm and gazes at him with clear, bright-eyed interest.

"With the way you dress, I'd have thought you were of the Eighth... and they do love their rules and formalities on the Eighth. They'd have been better off with someone like you rather than that ninny Silas Octakiseron, though."

[lightamidchaos]

It is not an unfamiliar comparison, as it happens.

"Mn," Lan Wangji says, setting her pot aside and refilling his own tea separately. "I do not know Silas Octakiseron." Certainly they have never met, at least. "Gusu Lan has many precepts to guide our disciples in proper behavior and right action. But we are far from perfect."

[for_tradition]

"Well, he isn't someone I'd call social."

She tips cream into her tea and swirls it in with the silver spoon, then taps the spoon clean against the edge of the cup's mouth and lifts her tea for a sip. "And he's always been a bit too concerned with the righteousness of the Eighth... another iced biscuit?"

She offers the plate out with a smile.

[lightamidchaos]

He knows that neither Harrow nor Gideon thinks highly of the man. Listening to Lady Pent, Lan Wangji wonders for a moment if it is similar to how he knows others have regarded him-- unsocial, cold, unfeeling, overly concerned with discipline. The once-perfect disciple of Lan.

He tries not to let the complexity of his emotions wash over and drown him at the thought, and pushes it aside.

"Thank you," he says, accepting. It is not excessive to have only two, he thinks. "He was not the cause of your ... state..., was he?"

[for_tradition]

"No," she tells him, smiling and pleased as he takes a second biscuit, though she's watching him closely. "The Eighth has their biases, but not against my House. Silas and Colum even came to our dinner party."

Abigail sets the plate down and considers him with the frank appraisal of a societal equal and the warmth of the egregious busybody with an over-active maternal instinct. "You seem concerned, Hanguang-jun. Why is that?"