{ 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

[lightamidchaos]

He hasn't really thought about it before, but suspects she may be right.

"In the inn, it might not be as much of an advantage," he offers, as gently and respectfully as he can. "Are you content here?"

[for_tradition]

"I'd be more content if my husband would join me, but he says moving across the liminal planes tickles."

She says this comfortably as she carefully arranges her skirts. "But for the most part, yes, I am. Look at this place! All the time and resources in the world to continue my research."

[lightamidchaos]

Lan Wangji blinks at that. "Moving across the liminal planes?" he repeats, not certain he has heard her correctly. "Are you - forgive me, are you saying that you are able to travel freely between the ghost realm and this place?"

[for_tradition]

Abigail nods at the door. "There is nowhere else for me to go but back to the River," she says. "Or across it. But that's another story."

She pops a piece of fruit into her mouth and chews with evident enjoyment. "I admit it's a bit unusual, but I like to think that maybe someone here thought I wish Abigail Pent were here and give me an inroad."

[lightamidchaos]

Wei Ying does not even see a door, he knows, although returning to their world is an impossibility and he does not think he would wish to depart elsewhere. The idea of moving back and forth between the ghost realm and here is not one that had occurred to him before.

"It might be," he says, cautiously, thinking of Harrow's work in the library, of mentions of a spirit magician's skills. "I have not known others such as yourself who were able to move between the realms as you describe. Nor do I know your River."

[for_tradition]

"Well," Abigail says, sparkling and warm, "I don't mean to brag, but I'm the greatest spirit magician of my generation. But the River!"

She lights with a scholar's passion, warming to her subject. "What happens to the spirits in your world, do you know?"

[lightamidchaos]

"When a person dies, for most, their spirit enters the cycle of reincarnation," Lan Wangji tells her. "There, depending on their beliefs and actions while living, they may journey to Diyu, the underworld, for judgment and eventually be reborn."

Quiet grief flickers in his glance for an instant, but his tone is ruthlessly calm as he continues. "If a person dies with resentment, they may become an angry ghost. Unless such a spirit can be liberated and set free to rejoin the cycle, they may be lost."

[for_tradition]

She watches the way his gaze flickers, but chooses not to interrogate it, this time.

"The resentfulness is familiar," she says, instead. "As is, I'm sorry to say, the loss. But the rest of it... well, it would be a bit awkward to summon a soul that had been reincarnated, wouldn't it?"

She gestures in the air, tracing an invisible shoreline. "The River is a very real place, if dimensionally complicated. Souls enter the River on death, unless they hang around as a revenant. And that is where most accepted knowledge believes they stay."

[lightamidchaos]

His gaze narrows very slightly as he considers that.

"Most accepted knowledge," he repeats, and looks curiously at her.

[for_tradition]

Her warm brown eyes twinkle at him.

"Then there are those mad heretics who still believe in the place beyond the River," she says, cheerfully. "I'm afraid it's gone quite out of style, but I have to admit that now I'm dead, I believe more fervently than ever."

[lightamidchaos]

"What is the place beyond the River?"

It almost feels rude to ask, but she clearly does not seem upset in the slightest at discussing such things, despite her own state.

[for_tradition]

"I don't know," she says, with rapturous delight. "Not a very satisfying answer, I know – but I intend to find out."

[lightamidchaos]

That delight at the possibility of discovery, at the presence of a question to be answered or a mystery to be solved - it rings very, very familiar. Lan Wangji is unconscious of the tiny smile that touches the corner of his mouth.

"Then I wish you luck. Is there assistance I might offer?"

[for_tradition]

"Really?

She looks pleased and a little amused. "Why, are you a mad heretic, too?"

[lightamidchaos]

He can practically hear his uncle's denunciation ringing in his ears as the blows of the discipline whip fell on his back; he can taste the memory of blood in his mouth as he had refused to remain silent.

(I dare ask you, shufu - who is right? who is wrong?)

"Perhaps," he murmurs. "But I am sure of one thing, and that is that often those who claim absolute knowledge do not wish to hear other possibilities. It does not make them right."

[for_tradition]

"Oh, I like you," Abigail says, warmly. "Who wants absolute knowledge, anyway, when learning is half the fun?"

She says this with perfect sincerity as she dips a biscuit into her tea, before taking a satisfied bite.

[lightamidchaos]

The shell of his ear flushes faintest pink again. "Mn. I have heard others say something similar - about learning," he hastens to clarify.

[for_tradition]

"Of course."

She finishes her biscuit and delicately wipes her lips with a napkin. "And you, Hanguang-jun? Do you have a speciality?"

[lightamidchaos]

"Musical cultivation. Inquiry, the melody I mentioned before, and others as well," he explains.

[for_tradition]

"I'd be very interested to see your musical cultivation in action," Abigail tells him, looking as though that would be the best thing that could ever happen to her.

"Could I beg a demonstration at some point?"

[lightamidchaos]

"I would be glad to play for you," he says. Tranquility should be safe, spirit or not, and Clarity if properly managed, which he is certainly capable of doing.

"Even now, if you wish."

[for_tradition]

"Oh, no," she demurs. "Certainly it can wait until after we've had our tea, or even later still. Perhaps, in the meantime, you'd favor me with some discussion on the technique?"

[lightamidchaos]

"Of course," he says, and looks thoughtful for a moment as he considers. "You mentioned speaking with another thalergetic adept. A cultivator?"

[for_tradition]

"No," Abigail tells him, and looks thoughtful. "What was the term she used...? Oh, Aes Sedai."

[lightamidchaos]

“Mn.” Somehow, he manages to keep from letting out the deep sigh of frustration that wants to escape. “Then you will not have discussed core formation.”