Verso's offer is expected, polite, and conventional. And yet the courtesy catches faintly in her chest, somewhere between irritation and something softer she refuses to classify. The irritation is irrational, untraceable, and immediately discarded as useless data.
The door closes with a muted click. She pauses, considers throwing the deadbolt — very sincerely wants to — but leaves it unlocked. Better not to impede his entry if it becomes necessary.
Alone, she steps to the basin and eyes the pitiful fragment of soap Yann had produced. It is, she decides, the exact shade of despair. Her hand hovers over it. Stormlight flickers faintly in the room's lanterns — a reflexive tug. It would be so easy to at least try Soulcasting something clean, proper, civilized. But they are far from safety. Emergencies are not theoretical. And she knows too well the cost of being caught without stormlight to burn. So she chooses the wretched little bar — snaps it in half, keeps the less-offensive piece, and leaves the one with the embedded hair for...later. Or for Verso.
She peels off her safehand glove, sets it aside with deliberate care, then flexes her exposed fingers once — acclimating to the vulnerability, even in solitude. She wets the soap; it barely lathers. Thin suds cling to her palm, slipping between long, precise fingers.
Her hands first. Methodical, almost meditative. Then her face — brackish water stripping away smudged makeup and travel-grime, leaving her bare-featured. There's nothing to be done about cosmetics on a ship; she accepts that fact with a quiet, resigned exhale.
Next, she unbuttons the line of buttons from jaw to waist, lets her havah fall loose, and gives the rest of herself a brisk, efficient scrub. Hard, unforgiving bristles raise red lines on her skin. Cold water trickles down her ribs; her breath catches from the sharp bite of the chill.
Halfway through, she realizes she's humming. Clinging to a distraction as she tries not to think about why this ritual scrubbing is so important to her. Tries not to think too hard about why she hates the build-up of sweat and oils, like being left alone for days...So she hums. Just a fragment. A scrap of melody from Verso's midnight vigil — the one he restarted three times, hoping she slept. She cannot reproduce it accurately; her musical intuition is abysmal. But still it emerges, faint, tuneless, settling gradually into something steady.
When she finishes, she buttons herself back into propriety, rolls down sleeves, and slips once more into her safehand glove. Scrubbed raw, cleaned, recalibrated. She almost tells him through the door that she's done. Almost. But the ruse must remain intact; no husband stands sentinel like a servant. So instead she cracks the door, leans out into the corridor, black hair unbraided and falling in a heavy curtain.
Her expression shifts the moment she sees him — something like a quirk of amusement tugging at the corner of her mouth.
"I left you some soap."
Or rather: she left him the faint, philosophical concept of soap.
Verso looks at Jasnah—bare-faced, damp hair clinging to her forehead, smelling faintly of soap—and says nothing. When he enters their cabin again, he picks up the minuscule piece of soap between his thumb and forefinger, examining it. Carefully, he plucks the hair out. It's long and white, perhaps from one of the Thaylen men's eyebrows or beards. His nose wrinkles involuntarily.
"Merci," he says dryly.
Not keen on wasting time, he gets to work wetting his hair immediately. As his fingers run over his scalp, he lingers absentmindedly at the roots of his hair, wondering if the white is growing in yet. He'll have to find a new way to cover it up here; no more visits to the Gestral barber so that his apprentice can accidentally turn it purple. If there are salons in Urithiru, he doesn't know. Perhaps he should ask Jasnah, or even better, ask if she can do that special magic to turn his hair permanently black the way she transformed his wine.
He breaks off a piece of the already broken-up soap, like splitting atoms at this point, and rubs it between his palms before lathering—for some given value of lathering—it into his hair.
"You can just turn around," he offers. Paranoid as she's been these past few days, he figures she might prefer not to be left out in the hall alone. Besides, he's done his fair share of communal bathing in the river with Expeditioners—whatever preciousness he might have felt about it has been beaten out of him.
— You know, even before he offers for her to just turn around, she probably shouldn't have been watching. But she does watch. She watches him groom the soap. She watches him say that word that he sometimes says when people ordinarily say 'thank you,' whether sincerely or not. She watches him eke out whatever lather he can, and...
And, oh yeah, maybe she should extend him the same courtesy he extended her. It's not that she was eager to see more than she ought to, but she was caught up in thinking through the various linguistic distributional tests that led to her conclusion about what merci means.
Without a word, she turns slowly on a heel. There's no shyness or embarrassment. No blush, no fluster, no anything except a sense of fair play and equitable treatment. Well, apart from the fact that she got the first rinse of the water and he's stuck with the second. She stares at the cabin wall and squeezes water out of the damp ends of her hair.
"Above deck, I wanted to ask," Jasnah's low volume fights against the acoustics of their cabin and the muted splashing of water, "if there was much travelling done by sea on those...expeditions."
Can't simply let the man wash in peace. Maybe he should have asked her to step outside.
No, clearly he can't wash his hair in peace. The questions are charming when they aren't insistent and interrogative, though, when they don't bring to mind things he'd rather forget. So, he humors her.
Muffled, as he shucks his shirt off over his head: "Lumière is separated from the Continent by the sea." As he explains, he gets to work scrubbing down his top half, quick and perfunctory. Bathing is not a particularly luxurious experience for him, given that for the past 67 years he's been without indoor plumbing. "So, every Expedition has to sail a bit." Even the ones who make it no further than the beach.
"And if you wanted to make it to the Paintress's Monolith"—which all Expeditions do, but few have—"you'd have to sail from the Stone Wave Cliffs to the old battlefield, then make your way to Old Lumière and disembark from there."
There's an almost rote quality to the way he describes the journey, like he's done it a hundred times before. He very nearly has.
"Obviously, that's not convenient," he continues, because nobody's lugging a giant ship across a monster-infested landmass like that; it's why he hasn't been on a ship in decades. "But you could also use... Esquie." A whole other can of worms, which Verso is half-certain he's going to regret opening. "He's, uh— imagine a giant, sentient marshmallow that can fly." Makes perfect sense, hopefully??
Hair well and truly squeeze-dried but still damp, and with nothing else to do while she stands turned away from him, Jasnah folds her hands behind her back. Her posture rocks gently with the swell and fall of the ship, muscles firing to keep her stable. Steady. Upright. And fixed enough in place that she successfully resists the urge to glance over her shoulder and ask, pointed, what's a marshmallow?
Distributional tests don't help her here. Is a marshmallow a kind of ship, but one that flies instead of sails? Like the Fourth Bridge. Except the Fourth Bridge isn't sentient, unless you count the spren used in its fabrials. There isn't enough context to narrow down his meaning, so the frowns at the wall and weighs whether it's worth asking after or whether she should continue down the original path of inquiry.
"Is that what you do?" She hems, haws, opts to ask about him directly even though she's had less luck discussing him than the broader context of his world. "Use...Esquie. Rather than sail."
She's talking around his seasickness, of course. Wondering whether it's an affliction he suffers often or avoids.
The hesitation is more out of the multitasking of bathing than it is reluctance to share. Esquie is one of his favorite things in the world. He misses him all the time, and the thought that Verso may never see him again—that Esquie may no longer even exist—is extremely unpleasant. Besides, there's no risk to sharing Esquie with her as there might have been with the Expeditioners. He doesn't have to worry about her climbing on Esquie's back and going home.
It's an incredibly cursory washing of his lower half, as he says, "Yeah. Most of the time. Esquie is my... friend."
Best friend, he can practically hear Esquie say.
He quickly pulls his clothes back on, shaking out his wet hair like a dog. Long-suffering and weary: "But he'll only fly for you if he has Soarrie— oh, that's, uh, his pet rock..." Is Jasnah following all of this?
Her head tilts. Her eyes trace the knots in the wooden walls as her thoughts trace the ups-and-downs of what Verso says. Okay, so Esquie can't be an airship (sentient or otherwise) if Esquie is his friend. His friend with a pet rock. Or — can he be? Her frown deepens, but only the wall gets to witness it. But, eh, who are we kidding? Verso can probably anticipate its existence by now.
Alright. Assumptions recalibrated. Instead of an airship, she imagines a Windrunner. Windrunners transport people all the time, these days. Carrying them long distances via surgebinding. An undignified way to travel, and one that Jasnah has managed to avoid thus far. She isn't sure she'd trust any of them, frankly. Not even Stormblessed. Especially not Stormblessed.
But wait. Didn't he say Esquie was also giant?
"His pet rock." Yep, there it is! Her frown, bending the vowels and consonants just so. "Is the pet rock relevant to the flying, or...?"
Verso, does your friend have an emotional support rock? She's not judging. Well, maybe she IS judging. Just a little. But who is she to throw stones (ha!) when she'd just as quickly admit that she doesn't...really have her own friends.
How do you say my best friend is a giant children's toy who was created by a little boy to help him when he was sad? You don't, obviously. Instead:
"It's— complicated," he says. Does Esquie actually need the rocks, or does he just think he does? Sometimes Verso wonders if it's all just an excuse to get him to go on weeks-long adventures looking for the damn things, but— no. Esquie is the most purehearted creature there is, and quite frankly, Verso doubts that he's capable of deception.
"He has all of these different rocks," he explains, except it doesn't really explain anything, "and he knows them all by name, and he... believes he needs them to do things like swim and fly." Whether he actually needs them or not is up for debate, but if nothing else, it's a psychological block.
"But he's always losing them," Verso finishes with a sigh. Always losing them.
A pause, and then he gently pokes her between the shoulder blades—carefully, so as not to frighten her with his approach. "He'd like you."
Storms, her mind races to formulate the next best question. Does Verso even realize this is the most cooperative and forthcoming he's been on a personal subject since they'd met? Oh, he'd said plenty about piano scores, about Lumière, about dogs. But even when he'd spoke at length about his sister, he'd...
Well. She doesn't dare break the spell. So she's thinking about asking Verso to catalogue the different uses of the different rocks, just to keep him talking. She enjoys him talking. When the conversation aligns just right, and she manages to set him on a tangent, he's just the right mix of quick and...
— Jasnah stiffens under his gentle prod. All his caution can't counteract the deeply alarmist current in her blood. A steep inhale, and the stormlight flickers and dims in the brazier on the wall. It hits her veins like ice, like instinct, although she recognizes seconds too late that it's just him. Letting her know it's 'safe' to turn around. Light leaks from her lips as she turns around, exhaling likely the same amount she would have needed to simply soulcast the damned soap. The light in the room stays dim.
There's an awkward shuffle. An adjusting of her havah, looking away from him as the glow seeps out of her eyes. Magic, wasted on her hair-trigger apprehension. Jasnah clears her throat.
"...—Why?"
Why would he like me? It's a dull, silly, thoughtless question. The kind of question she avoids. But right now, she'll ask it to smooth over the humiliation she feels for jumping at shadows.
A misstep, clearly. He'd meant his touch to be soft enough that it wouldn't frighten her, but even that had alarmed her. His mouth is open to say sorry, but then she speaks, obviously trying to sweep it under the rug. For just a moment, he flounders, mouth still open, before he steps back and allows her to pretend that didn't just happen.
"...Well, he likes everyone." He was made to love Verso, warts and all. Loving everyone else is easy comparatively. "But he likes my friends best of all."
He'd be happy Jasnah is keeping him company, really.
Friends. Knee-jerk skepticism flickers over her face. Jasnah doesn't have friends. She has family — for whom she'd do just about anything. And she has her colleagues, her fellow Veristitalians, whom she appropriately calls her sisters. Even Jochi, although he's a Theylan baker in his sixties and hides his identity for obvious reasons. Well. Obvious to her.
— It's Jochi who she intends to find the moment they make landfall in Theylan City.
But they're still at sea, Jasnah has just nearly iced Verso because of a different kind of knee-jerk reaction, and also he just implied they're friends. Are they? She stares at him a moment longer, only now noting his dripping hair. Some shadowy part of her brain takes note that this is what it looks like before it dries in thick, full waves.
Data points. All data points.
Her expression relaxes. Jasnah retreats behind a scoffing protest: "You can't possibly have suggested I'm too unfriendly this morning and then call us friends now."
It's not an unexpected response, and he bats back smoothly, "I said you were my friend. I didn't say I was yours."
He steps away after that, retreating to the bench and attempting to arrange his hair by feel. His hair is tricky business; if he's not careful, it'll dry fluffy. (Fluffier, anyway.)
"Esquie would like your questions," he continues, because it's true. Esquie loves enthusiasm and excitement. There'd be nothing more gratifying to him than witnessing Jasnah's academic spirit of inquiry. Maybe they have that in common. "But he'd answer too many of them in riddles."
He's silent for a moment, a little wistful. Fuck, does he miss Esquie and all of his ridiculous riddles.
"—Anyway. As I said, too much sea travel is inconvenient. It's much easier to hop on Esquie's back and fly places."
...Something in the firm set of her mouth quirks upward. Brief, quick, maybe a mixed result of his banter and the notion that Verso's flying-sentient-marshmallow-friend-whatever would like her questions. Or maybe she half-smiles because of how the brain sorts stutters and resets after a rush of adrenaline. Most likely, it's a little bit of everything, underpinned by the relief she feels along her scalp and skin after a good scrubbing.
Jasnah remains where she stands, but her eyes track Verso across the room. She doesn't hide how she watches him work and fuss over his hair. For the time being, it doesn't appear as though he needs her to step in again and correct anything.
"Hence your delicate stomach," she surmises. "No sea legs."
Rude!! But true. Even travelling the seas on Esquie had been different; much faster, for one, and no stomach-churning swaying like a boat.
"I prefer inexperienced stomach," he grouses, although without any actual offense. Yes, he has a delicate stomach. A few more attempts at getting his hair to fall just right—which will probably backfire once his hair actually dries, but at least he tried—and then he lets his hands fall into his lap.
"I guess immortality doesn't inoculate you against seasickness." At least, not his specific brand.
"My apologies," she says, not sounding sorry at all. "Inexperienced."
A step back, a step back, a step back, and her shoulders touch the cabin wall. It isn't personal — but in the aftermath of her slight surprise, she'd prefer to have her back against something solid.
"I wonder why not. Stormlight," her eyes cut to the dimmed brazier, "could almost certainly be burned to soothe an upset stomach. Even Radiants who have only sworn their order's first oath can access that kind of healing. If your immortality allows you to recover from fatal wounds but doesn't alleviate the mundane aches and illnesses..."
Verso raises his eyebrows, first because of the admission that she has healing abilities (that she decided not to use when he was suffering of seasickness) and then because of the accusation of cruelty. It's hard to argue against it, although he does feel the urge to. Not cruelty, just— thoughtlessness. Painters rarely seem to think of anyone but themselves, he thinks, although he feels a bit guilty for it right after.
"As cruel as letting me hold in vomit all night when even a first oath Radiant"—whatever that means—"could have soothed my sickness?"
It's a call-out, but a very light one. He lets it roll off of his shoulders.
— A light call-out, sure, but something approaching indignation crosses her face. It doesn't stick. It doesn't last. But she does feel compelled to correct him.
Of course she does.
"Only Edgedancers and Trutwatchers can heal others."
And by the way she says it, he can certainly surmise that she belongs to neither of those orders.
"With enough Stormlight, I can heal myself — up to a fatal blow to the head, I'm told. Fortunately, I haven't had to test that particular limit yet."
Oh, she's irritated, is she? Good that they're in the confines of their cabin, because that makes two of them. She lectures him on her abilities to heal herself, and Verso listens as his right eyebrow steadily rises.
"I thought that you were worried about an assassination attempt."
— Look. He's not wrong. In so many ways, he's quite right. But she vividly remembers what happened on the Wind's Pleasure two years ago. Ghostbloods (or mercenaries hired by them) snuck into her cabin, tried to knock her out, and — when she was playing unconscious on the floor — stabbed her. She can still feel the phantom memory of the blade grinding against her ribs, exaggerate further by time and fixation. The little bit of Stormlight she'd had in her body had kept her alive, yes, but they'd left the knife in her. She'd laid there, curled into a ball, playing dead until she could escape to Shadesmar. She swears she glimpsed death. Helplessness, panic, darkness. Whatever she'd experienced in that moment, it fueled a maelstrom of neuroses that followed.
"It's not—" she grinds out a protest, stammering in a manner so deeply unlike her. She drives one hand against the other, as if the punctuation helps make her point. "Stormlight is finite. I can't hold it in my body indefinitely, always. And I can't — I can't hold it when I sleep."
Ah.
There, the shoe drops. Yes, she can heal. But for fatal blows, the Stormlight needs to already be in her system. And it requires active, conscious effort to hold Stormlight without it leaking, steaming, misting away. An effort she can't make if she's asleep. No wonder she doesn't. She has managed to sharpen all her fear, all her dread, into what happens when her brain shuts off to rest and restart.
Even the fits and snatches of it last night — drifting to the background sound of his humming — where a gift.
"You could have said something," he says, although he knows it's hypocritical. After all, it was only yesterday that he admitted his immortality to her, and there's still so much he hasn't shared. But she had misled him, perhaps deliberately, into thinking that there was nothing she could do if someone decided to attack her in the night, and—
He's really, really tired now. The dark circles under his eyes are even darker than usual, which he thankfully doesn't have a mirror to see.
"Are there any other abilities of yours worth mentioning?"
At first, Jasnah simply nods. Yes, I could have said something. But she didn't. Why not? She could play dumb and suggest that it's such common knowledge what even the lowliest squires can do that she didn't think to mention it. Or she could admit to a years of feeling safer, more secure, keeping those cards close to her chest.
She chooses to say nothing. At least, not in defense of her omission. She's thinking along similar lines to him: this behaviour has cut both ways, and neither of them will come out looking clean if they start slinging those particular accusations around.
So, instead! His question. Any other abilities? Her cheeks puff out with a sigh. This would have been easier if she'd assigned him Words of Radiance for casual reading back in Urithiru rather than an Alethi history.
Her voice slips into a a curt, teacherly tone.
"Elsecallers have access to the Surges of Transformation and Transportation. You've experienced Transformation already — colloquially known as Soulcasting." She trusts he remembers his wine back in the Shattered Plains. "As for Transportation," she huffs, speeding into an explanation before he gets the wrong idea and thinks she's also put them on this boat needlessly. "It allows me to leave the Physical Realm and enter Shadesmar. In theory, I should be able to create my own Oathgates — although they are restricted with fixed beginning and end-points."
If possible, the tone of her lecture turns even more clipped. A little self-conscious, maybe.
"Unfortunately, although I can Elsecall to Shadesmar, my ideals are not sufficient enough to reliably return. Last time, I was stuck on the other side for nearly a year. When we fled Kharbranth, I concluded the risk of getting lost there wasn't worth it — which is why we're on a ship."
...It's entirely possible that she's purposefully seeded her explanation with more jargon than was strictly necessary. Petty! And also willfully leaving out the bit about being able to summon a suit of armour alongside that sword she's already shown him.
Verso does typically enjoy listening to Jasnah's educational tangents; there's something very appealing about the confidence with which she speaks, every word crisp and clear. He can easily imagine her as a teacher back at the academy, rapping her blackboard pointer against a sleeping student's desk and humiliating them in front of the entire class. That's oddly appealing, too.
This is less enjoyable than usual, though, because she's not attempting to describe things in a way that she thinks he'll understand. She hardly defines anything, moves quickly past concepts before he's even gotten a chance to wrap his head around them. He'd almost think it was on purpose.
"Right," he says slowly. "What do you mean, your ideals aren't sufficient?"
She almost winces. Storms, of course he would seize on that — the part she allowed to slip, the part about not yet being enough. Ivory murmurs something soft and fervently disagreeable near her ear, oily silhouette flickering at the edge of her perception, but she silences him with a too-sharp shake of her head.
"You’ve met Ivory."
The reminder lands like a stone. She rarely speaks of him aloud. The shy one. Her little streak of oil and shadow who prefers corners over company.
"Knights Radiant gain their abilities through the bond with their spren," she continues, tone measured, as if pacing herself through dangerous terrain. "Spren...choose us. And in choosing, they grant the ability to make certain oaths, via Ideals."
Her thumb brushes once over the back of her safehand glove — an unconscious, grounding glide. Slow, cautious.
"The first Ideal binds all Radiants. Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination."
A quiet recitation. Almost ritual.
"Those words are the threshold. The point at which a spren becomes a living bond rather than a passing curiosity. The first Ideal allows us to summon them. Blade, shield, tool — whatever shape the pact permits."
She pauses there. Lets the silence sit. Ordinarily, she might summon Ivory in demonstration. But she can hear the little spren protesting.
"The Ideals that follow..." Her jaw tightens minutely. "They're not uniform. Each Order shapes them differently. Some Ideals are declarations of what you will be. What you intend to uphold. Others," a thin breath, almost a laugh without humor, "are confessions of what you refuse to be."
Her gaze fixes on some indeterminate point on the cabin wall, as if the wood grain might spare her the vulnerability of eye contact, for once.
"Every Ideal spoken deepens the bond. Strengthens the spren. Strengthens the Radiant. Opens more of what we can do. But failing to live up to your Ideals? That can...harm a spren. And deprive the Radiant of her abilities. Regardless, the Ideals must be spoken at the right time. For the right reason. Truths spoken too soon are lies in another shape. And I—"
She catches herself before the confession overshoots. Ivory flickers again, a sympathetic pulse of light that she ignores.
"I have not spoken all of mine." She draws the last words with clinical precision.
Because she won't swear what she can't stand on. Other Radiants rush headlong, claiming the words as if the recitation alone makes them honest. It does not.
It's interesting what Jasnah is willing to share extensively about and what she isn't. A reflection of Verso, in a way; he's more than willing to exposit about Esquie and travel across the Continent, but far less eager to share anything personal about himself. If he were in Jasnah's position, he'd probably do the same. Talk at length about the things that don't actually reveal anything, then clam up when it becomes too close for comfort.
Despite his best efforts, he laughs.
He can't help it—he would if he could! Obviously, he knows that laughing in response to Jasnah sharing something so serious will go down like a lead balloon. He tries his best to suppress it, but it bubbles up anyway, and perhaps his attempts to resist it even make it stronger.
"Sorry," he says, and he is. "It's just— you've told me all of this in great detail, but I don't even know your favorite color."
All of this, and you won't even call me your friend.
Verso might be disappointed to learn that little of what she's shared thus far would count as personal details. Maybe a year or two ago, her status as a Radiant would have been considered a secret. More people know about it, these days. The powers of an Elsecaller are detailed, albeit in annoyingly florid language, in Words of Radiance. And the Ideals...
Well. He never asked about her Ideals. She can be storming grateful for that. Instead he asks — well, actually, he doesn't actually ask — about her favourite colour.
Jasnah blinks, taken aback.
"Why would I have a favourite colour?"
She responds, instinctively dismissive. As if it would be childish, superficial, frivolous. Except...except he's got one, doesn't he? And if she doesn't quickly say something else, she can already sense the squabble they'll have.
"I — I like purple. Violet, actually. And if I had to choose. I like my food spiced, although they never serve it that way at the women's table."
Look! A spare personal detail, thrown in for free!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Verso's offer is expected, polite, and conventional. And yet the courtesy catches faintly in her chest, somewhere between irritation and something softer she refuses to classify. The irritation is irrational, untraceable, and immediately discarded as useless data.
The door closes with a muted click. She pauses, considers throwing the deadbolt — very sincerely wants to — but leaves it unlocked. Better not to impede his entry if it becomes necessary.
Alone, she steps to the basin and eyes the pitiful fragment of soap Yann had produced. It is, she decides, the exact shade of despair. Her hand hovers over it. Stormlight flickers faintly in the room's lanterns — a reflexive tug. It would be so easy to at least try Soulcasting something clean, proper, civilized. But they are far from safety. Emergencies are not theoretical. And she knows too well the cost of being caught without stormlight to burn. So she chooses the wretched little bar — snaps it in half, keeps the less-offensive piece, and leaves the one with the embedded hair for...later. Or for Verso.
She peels off her safehand glove, sets it aside with deliberate care, then flexes her exposed fingers once — acclimating to the vulnerability, even in solitude. She wets the soap; it barely lathers. Thin suds cling to her palm, slipping between long, precise fingers.
Her hands first. Methodical, almost meditative. Then her face — brackish water stripping away smudged makeup and travel-grime, leaving her bare-featured. There's nothing to be done about cosmetics on a ship; she accepts that fact with a quiet, resigned exhale.
Next, she unbuttons the line of buttons from jaw to waist, lets her havah fall loose, and gives the rest of herself a brisk, efficient scrub. Hard, unforgiving bristles raise red lines on her skin. Cold water trickles down her ribs; her breath catches from the sharp bite of the chill.
Halfway through, she realizes she's humming. Clinging to a distraction as she tries not to think about why this ritual scrubbing is so important to her. Tries not to think too hard about why she hates the build-up of sweat and oils, like being left alone for days...So she hums. Just a fragment. A scrap of melody from Verso's midnight vigil — the one he restarted three times, hoping she slept. She cannot reproduce it accurately; her musical intuition is abysmal. But still it emerges, faint, tuneless, settling gradually into something steady.
When she finishes, she buttons herself back into propriety, rolls down sleeves, and slips once more into her safehand glove. Scrubbed raw, cleaned, recalibrated. She almost tells him through the door that she's done. Almost. But the ruse must remain intact; no husband stands sentinel like a servant. So instead she cracks the door, leans out into the corridor, black hair unbraided and falling in a heavy curtain.
Her expression shifts the moment she sees him — something like a quirk of amusement tugging at the corner of her mouth.
"I left you some soap."
Or rather: she left him the faint, philosophical concept of soap.
no subject
"Merci," he says dryly.
Not keen on wasting time, he gets to work wetting his hair immediately. As his fingers run over his scalp, he lingers absentmindedly at the roots of his hair, wondering if the white is growing in yet. He'll have to find a new way to cover it up here; no more visits to the Gestral barber so that his apprentice can accidentally turn it purple. If there are salons in Urithiru, he doesn't know. Perhaps he should ask Jasnah, or even better, ask if she can do that special magic to turn his hair permanently black the way she transformed his wine.
He breaks off a piece of the already broken-up soap, like splitting atoms at this point, and rubs it between his palms before lathering—for some given value of lathering—it into his hair.
"You can just turn around," he offers. Paranoid as she's been these past few days, he figures she might prefer not to be left out in the hall alone. Besides, he's done his fair share of communal bathing in the river with Expeditioners—whatever preciousness he might have felt about it has been beaten out of him.
no subject
And, oh yeah, maybe she should extend him the same courtesy he extended her. It's not that she was eager to see more than she ought to, but she was caught up in thinking through the various linguistic distributional tests that led to her conclusion about what merci means.
Without a word, she turns slowly on a heel. There's no shyness or embarrassment. No blush, no fluster, no anything except a sense of fair play and equitable treatment. Well, apart from the fact that she got the first rinse of the water and he's stuck with the second. She stares at the cabin wall and squeezes water out of the damp ends of her hair.
"Above deck, I wanted to ask," Jasnah's low volume fights against the acoustics of their cabin and the muted splashing of water, "if there was much travelling done by sea on those...expeditions."
Can't simply let the man wash in peace. Maybe he should have asked her to step outside.
no subject
No, clearly he can't wash his hair in peace. The questions are charming when they aren't insistent and interrogative, though, when they don't bring to mind things he'd rather forget. So, he humors her.
Muffled, as he shucks his shirt off over his head: "Lumière is separated from the Continent by the sea." As he explains, he gets to work scrubbing down his top half, quick and perfunctory. Bathing is not a particularly luxurious experience for him, given that for the past 67 years he's been without indoor plumbing. "So, every Expedition has to sail a bit." Even the ones who make it no further than the beach.
"And if you wanted to make it to the Paintress's Monolith"—which all Expeditions do, but few have—"you'd have to sail from the Stone Wave Cliffs to the old battlefield, then make your way to Old Lumière and disembark from there."
There's an almost rote quality to the way he describes the journey, like he's done it a hundred times before. He very nearly has.
"Obviously, that's not convenient," he continues, because nobody's lugging a giant ship across a monster-infested landmass like that; it's why he hasn't been on a ship in decades. "But you could also use... Esquie." A whole other can of worms, which Verso is half-certain he's going to regret opening. "He's, uh— imagine a giant, sentient marshmallow that can fly." Makes perfect sense, hopefully??
no subject
Distributional tests don't help her here. Is a marshmallow a kind of ship, but one that flies instead of sails? Like the Fourth Bridge. Except the Fourth Bridge isn't sentient, unless you count the spren used in its fabrials. There isn't enough context to narrow down his meaning, so the frowns at the wall and weighs whether it's worth asking after or whether she should continue down the original path of inquiry.
"Is that what you do?" She hems, haws, opts to ask about him directly even though she's had less luck discussing him than the broader context of his world. "Use...Esquie. Rather than sail."
She's talking around his seasickness, of course. Wondering whether it's an affliction he suffers often or avoids.
no subject
The hesitation is more out of the multitasking of bathing than it is reluctance to share. Esquie is one of his favorite things in the world. He misses him all the time, and the thought that Verso may never see him again—that Esquie may no longer even exist—is extremely unpleasant. Besides, there's no risk to sharing Esquie with her as there might have been with the Expeditioners. He doesn't have to worry about her climbing on Esquie's back and going home.
It's an incredibly cursory washing of his lower half, as he says, "Yeah. Most of the time. Esquie is my... friend."
Best friend, he can practically hear Esquie say.
He quickly pulls his clothes back on, shaking out his wet hair like a dog. Long-suffering and weary: "But he'll only fly for you if he has Soarrie— oh, that's, uh, his pet rock..." Is Jasnah following all of this?
no subject
Alright. Assumptions recalibrated. Instead of an airship, she imagines a Windrunner. Windrunners transport people all the time, these days. Carrying them long distances via surgebinding. An undignified way to travel, and one that Jasnah has managed to avoid thus far. She isn't sure she'd trust any of them, frankly. Not even Stormblessed. Especially not Stormblessed.
But wait. Didn't he say Esquie was also giant?
"His pet rock." Yep, there it is! Her frown, bending the vowels and consonants just so. "Is the pet rock relevant to the flying, or...?"
Verso, does your friend have an emotional support rock? She's not judging. Well, maybe she IS judging. Just a little. But who is she to throw stones (ha!) when she'd just as quickly admit that she doesn't...really have her own friends.
no subject
"It's— complicated," he says. Does Esquie actually need the rocks, or does he just think he does? Sometimes Verso wonders if it's all just an excuse to get him to go on weeks-long adventures looking for the damn things, but— no. Esquie is the most purehearted creature there is, and quite frankly, Verso doubts that he's capable of deception.
"He has all of these different rocks," he explains, except it doesn't really explain anything, "and he knows them all by name, and he... believes he needs them to do things like swim and fly." Whether he actually needs them or not is up for debate, but if nothing else, it's a psychological block.
"But he's always losing them," Verso finishes with a sigh. Always losing them.
A pause, and then he gently pokes her between the shoulder blades—carefully, so as not to frighten her with his approach. "He'd like you."
no subject
Well. She doesn't dare break the spell. So she's thinking about asking Verso to catalogue the different uses of the different rocks, just to keep him talking. She enjoys him talking. When the conversation aligns just right, and she manages to set him on a tangent, he's just the right mix of quick and...
— Jasnah stiffens under his gentle prod. All his caution can't counteract the deeply alarmist current in her blood. A steep inhale, and the stormlight flickers and dims in the brazier on the wall. It hits her veins like ice, like instinct, although she recognizes seconds too late that it's just him. Letting her know it's 'safe' to turn around. Light leaks from her lips as she turns around, exhaling likely the same amount she would have needed to simply soulcast the damned soap. The light in the room stays dim.
There's an awkward shuffle. An adjusting of her havah, looking away from him as the glow seeps out of her eyes. Magic, wasted on her hair-trigger apprehension. Jasnah clears her throat.
"...—Why?"
Why would he like me? It's a dull, silly, thoughtless question. The kind of question she avoids. But right now, she'll ask it to smooth over the humiliation she feels for jumping at shadows.
no subject
A misstep, clearly. He'd meant his touch to be soft enough that it wouldn't frighten her, but even that had alarmed her. His mouth is open to say sorry, but then she speaks, obviously trying to sweep it under the rug. For just a moment, he flounders, mouth still open, before he steps back and allows her to pretend that didn't just happen.
"...Well, he likes everyone." He was made to love Verso, warts and all. Loving everyone else is easy comparatively. "But he likes my friends best of all."
He'd be happy Jasnah is keeping him company, really.
no subject
— It's Jochi who she intends to find the moment they make landfall in Theylan City.
But they're still at sea, Jasnah has just nearly iced Verso because of a different kind of knee-jerk reaction, and also he just implied they're friends. Are they? She stares at him a moment longer, only now noting his dripping hair. Some shadowy part of her brain takes note that this is what it looks like before it dries in thick, full waves.
Data points. All data points.
Her expression relaxes. Jasnah retreats behind a scoffing protest: "You can't possibly have suggested I'm too unfriendly this morning and then call us friends now."
no subject
He steps away after that, retreating to the bench and attempting to arrange his hair by feel. His hair is tricky business; if he's not careful, it'll dry fluffy. (Fluffier, anyway.)
"Esquie would like your questions," he continues, because it's true. Esquie loves enthusiasm and excitement. There'd be nothing more gratifying to him than witnessing Jasnah's academic spirit of inquiry. Maybe they have that in common. "But he'd answer too many of them in riddles."
He's silent for a moment, a little wistful. Fuck, does he miss Esquie and all of his ridiculous riddles.
"—Anyway. As I said, too much sea travel is inconvenient. It's much easier to hop on Esquie's back and fly places."
no subject
Jasnah remains where she stands, but her eyes track Verso across the room. She doesn't hide how she watches him work and fuss over his hair. For the time being, it doesn't appear as though he needs her to step in again and correct anything.
"Hence your delicate stomach," she surmises. "No sea legs."
no subject
"I prefer inexperienced stomach," he grouses, although without any actual offense. Yes, he has a delicate stomach. A few more attempts at getting his hair to fall just right—which will probably backfire once his hair actually dries, but at least he tried—and then he lets his hands fall into his lap.
"I guess immortality doesn't inoculate you against seasickness." At least, not his specific brand.
no subject
A step back, a step back, a step back, and her shoulders touch the cabin wall. It isn't personal — but in the aftermath of her slight surprise, she'd prefer to have her back against something solid.
"I wonder why not. Stormlight," her eyes cut to the dimmed brazier, "could almost certainly be burned to soothe an upset stomach. Even Radiants who have only sworn their order's first oath can access that kind of healing. If your immortality allows you to recover from fatal wounds but doesn't alleviate the mundane aches and illnesses..."
Hmm. She considers her words carefully.
"That strikes me as cruel."
no subject
"As cruel as letting me hold in vomit all night when even a first oath Radiant"—whatever that means—"could have soothed my sickness?"
It's a call-out, but a very light one. He lets it roll off of his shoulders.
"Well, I told you. It's a curse."
no subject
Of course she does.
"Only Edgedancers and Trutwatchers can heal others."
And by the way she says it, he can certainly surmise that she belongs to neither of those orders.
"With enough Stormlight, I can heal myself — up to a fatal blow to the head, I'm told. Fortunately, I haven't had to test that particular limit yet."
no subject
"I thought that you were worried about an assassination attempt."
no subject
"It's not—" she grinds out a protest, stammering in a manner so deeply unlike her. She drives one hand against the other, as if the punctuation helps make her point. "Stormlight is finite. I can't hold it in my body indefinitely, always. And I can't — I can't hold it when I sleep."
Ah.
There, the shoe drops. Yes, she can heal. But for fatal blows, the Stormlight needs to already be in her system. And it requires active, conscious effort to hold Stormlight without it leaking, steaming, misting away. An effort she can't make if she's asleep. No wonder she doesn't. She has managed to sharpen all her fear, all her dread, into what happens when her brain shuts off to rest and restart.
Even the fits and snatches of it last night — drifting to the background sound of his humming — where a gift.
no subject
He's really, really tired now. The dark circles under his eyes are even darker than usual, which he thankfully doesn't have a mirror to see.
"Are there any other abilities of yours worth mentioning?"
no subject
She chooses to say nothing. At least, not in defense of her omission. She's thinking along similar lines to him: this behaviour has cut both ways, and neither of them will come out looking clean if they start slinging those particular accusations around.
So, instead! His question. Any other abilities? Her cheeks puff out with a sigh. This would have been easier if she'd assigned him Words of Radiance for casual reading back in Urithiru rather than an Alethi history.
Her voice slips into a a curt, teacherly tone.
"Elsecallers have access to the Surges of Transformation and Transportation. You've experienced Transformation already — colloquially known as Soulcasting." She trusts he remembers his wine back in the Shattered Plains. "As for Transportation," she huffs, speeding into an explanation before he gets the wrong idea and thinks she's also put them on this boat needlessly. "It allows me to leave the Physical Realm and enter Shadesmar. In theory, I should be able to create my own Oathgates — although they are restricted with fixed beginning and end-points."
If possible, the tone of her lecture turns even more clipped. A little self-conscious, maybe.
"Unfortunately, although I can Elsecall to Shadesmar, my ideals are not sufficient enough to reliably return. Last time, I was stuck on the other side for nearly a year. When we fled Kharbranth, I concluded the risk of getting lost there wasn't worth it — which is why we're on a ship."
...It's entirely possible that she's purposefully seeded her explanation with more jargon than was strictly necessary. Petty! And also willfully leaving out the bit about being able to summon a suit of armour alongside that sword she's already shown him.
no subject
This is less enjoyable than usual, though, because she's not attempting to describe things in a way that she thinks he'll understand. She hardly defines anything, moves quickly past concepts before he's even gotten a chance to wrap his head around them. He'd almost think it was on purpose.
"Right," he says slowly. "What do you mean, your ideals aren't sufficient?"
no subject
She almost winces. Storms, of course he would seize on that — the part she allowed to slip, the part about not yet being enough. Ivory murmurs something soft and fervently disagreeable near her ear, oily silhouette flickering at the edge of her perception, but she silences him with a too-sharp shake of her head.
"You’ve met Ivory."
The reminder lands like a stone. She rarely speaks of him aloud. The shy one. Her little streak of oil and shadow who prefers corners over company.
"Knights Radiant gain their abilities through the bond with their spren," she continues, tone measured, as if pacing herself through dangerous terrain. "Spren...choose us. And in choosing, they grant the ability to make certain oaths, via Ideals."
Her thumb brushes once over the back of her safehand glove — an unconscious, grounding glide. Slow, cautious.
"The first Ideal binds all Radiants. Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination."
A quiet recitation. Almost ritual.
"Those words are the threshold. The point at which a spren becomes a living bond rather than a passing curiosity. The first Ideal allows us to summon them. Blade, shield, tool — whatever shape the pact permits."
She pauses there. Lets the silence sit. Ordinarily, she might summon Ivory in demonstration. But she can hear the little spren protesting.
"The Ideals that follow..." Her jaw tightens minutely. "They're not uniform. Each Order shapes them differently. Some Ideals are declarations of what you will be. What you intend to uphold. Others," a thin breath, almost a laugh without humor, "are confessions of what you refuse to be."
Her gaze fixes on some indeterminate point on the cabin wall, as if the wood grain might spare her the vulnerability of eye contact, for once.
"Every Ideal spoken deepens the bond. Strengthens the spren. Strengthens the Radiant. Opens more of what we can do. But failing to live up to your Ideals? That can...harm a spren. And deprive the Radiant of her abilities. Regardless, the Ideals must be spoken at the right time. For the right reason. Truths spoken too soon are lies in another shape. And I—"
She catches herself before the confession overshoots. Ivory flickers again, a sympathetic pulse of light that she ignores.
"I have not spoken all of mine." She draws the last words with clinical precision.
Because she won't swear what she can't stand on. Other Radiants rush headlong, claiming the words as if the recitation alone makes them honest. It does not.
i lied, sends this tag in another direction
Despite his best efforts, he laughs.
He can't help it—he would if he could! Obviously, he knows that laughing in response to Jasnah sharing something so serious will go down like a lead balloon. He tries his best to suppress it, but it bubbles up anyway, and perhaps his attempts to resist it even make it stronger.
"Sorry," he says, and he is. "It's just— you've told me all of this in great detail, but I don't even know your favorite color."
All of this, and you won't even call me your friend.
no subject
Well. He never asked about her Ideals. She can be storming grateful for that. Instead he asks — well, actually, he doesn't actually ask — about her favourite colour.
Jasnah blinks, taken aback.
"Why would I have a favourite colour?"
She responds, instinctively dismissive. As if it would be childish, superficial, frivolous. Except...except he's got one, doesn't he? And if she doesn't quickly say something else, she can already sense the squabble they'll have.
"I — I like purple. Violet, actually. And if I had to choose. I like my food spiced, although they never serve it that way at the women's table."
Look! A spare personal detail, thrown in for free!
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
a short but very meaningful tag
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
my turn for a short but effective tag.
mom said it's my turn
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
look i couldn't find a way to make him taking another card more interesting
FAIR.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
slides back in here
the fun never stops!!
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...