recreatable | open post.

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.

Oh.

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..."

Hmm. She considers her words carefully.

"That strikes me as cruel."

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.

"Well, I told you. It's a curse."

— 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!

Edited 2025-12-01 16:09 (UTC)

The food thing is less important to him, primarily because he's still getting used to eating food that isn't foraged mushrooms slightly warmed over a campfire, but the color is very interesting! Verso has never quite had the passion for art that Maman, Renoir, Clea, or even Alicia do—but he does appreciate the power of color.

"Purple," he echoes with a little dry amusement. "Because it's the color of royalty?"

Is it the color of royalty here, too? He'd just assumed, with how much of it she wears.

Storms. Jasnah truly has never pulled so many subtly confused expressions in all her life before meeting this man. It's not him who's to blame, honestly. More like the small-and-not-so-small mismatches between their expectations, their norms, their touchstones.

"No." Simple, matter of fact. "I suppose the colour for royalty is blue. For Alethkar, at any rate. It's the Kholin colour."

Wait, it occurs to her he likely? probably? most certainly? doesn't know this next fact, so she elides it smoothly onto the conversation — gently nudging it away from topics that might tread back around to her favourite anything.

"The Alethi monarchy hasn't existed long enough to have a traditional royal colour. My father was the first king of a unified Alethkar in centuries."

Since the Sunmaker — the first Alethi king, a genocidal tyrant, and Gavilar Kholin's rolemodel.

Edited 2025-12-01 17:08 (UTC)

Funny, actually, that Jasnah would consider speaking of her family to be anything but personal. As far as Verso is concerned, family is the most personal thing there is—complex, messy, impossible for outsiders to ever understand. So, of course he latches onto this small mention of her father. He's still working through the earlier chapters of that history book (sorry), so he raises his eyebrows as if this is new information to him because, well, it is.

"Oh," he says. "That's nice." Maybe? A unified Alethkar sounds nice. "Sounds like he brought people together."

Honestly, he's talking out his ass. He has no clue of the political intricacies of Alethkar.

"You must have learned a lot from him," he ventures.

Oh, Gavilar had brought people together. For one brief reign all of the other highprinces had been threatened, manipulated, cajoled, or convinced to submit to his rule. Jasnah had been reared on stories of her parents, her uncle Dalinar, their confidant Sadeas — the tight knit group of them conspiring and then succeeding in conquering the ten princedoms.

Hard to say when she realized Gavilar Kholin had been the villain in more stories than just her own. Except...except it's hard to study a history like Alethkar's and then swallow your own family's part in it.

Regardless. She does not hold Verso accountable for the conclusion to which he leaps. Her father was a king; she is a queen. It might be natural of him to assume there was some effort spared in educating a young Kholin princess in politics, strategy, and rule. But Jasnah was never meant to inherit. All that expectation had fallen on poor Elhokar, ill-suited to the throne and crown. Jasnah's value was in her perfect performance of Vorin femininity and a convenient betrothal to Highprince Amaram. Gavilar was still trying to convince her to accept the marriage the night he died.

"I learned enough," she answers.

Learned not to look to her parents for help or comfort when she couldn't trust her own mind. Learned not to fall for propaganda buried in military reports. Learned that a crown is cruel in its neutrality, terrible or wonderful all depending on the head where it rested.

"I'll be the last one." She explains, simple and calm. Her hair is a little drier now than it was, and her fingers busy themselves with a thick, single braid. "The Alethi monarchy will end with me."

Edited 2025-12-01 18:49 (UTC)

Oh. He doesn't say it aloud this time, biting it back because he's starting to sound like an idiot. It's just surprising to hear Jasnah say; admittedly, he has very little political knowledge, particularly about monarchies. Lumière is run by a democratically elected head councilor and their council members, which does seem more fair than a monarchy, but Jasnah also seems like a dedicated queen. Not exactly worth overthrowing.

"You don't support the monarchy?" he asks, because that's what he's picking up here. "That's..." A tilt of his head. "Counter to expectations."

Again, he's not an expert on monarchies, but one would think a monarch would be a little more interested in keeping their bloodline on the throne.

Maybe now her detour interrogation into the political system of Lumière makes a bit more sense. She's shopping around. Trying to determine what can replace her once she inevitably, ideally steps down.

"Monarchy makes for benevolent tyrants at best. Dreadful ones at worst."

Storms, she might be a benevolent tyrant. Although she tries, so often, to gild her legal amendments in precedent. Her ban on dueling had been proposed in the aftermath of a duel she herself had fought — much to her opponent's humiliation.

"I intend to leave this nation better than how I found it. Better for its everyday people."

...For such a hard and realistic woman, she does indeed have a bright idealism that shines through from time to time. There's almost a smile as she says it. Sorry, Verso. Little Geneviève won't be a princess.

"My father would be disappointed. A grand legacy was all he wanted."

She doesn't sound too cut up about that fact.

Edited 2025-12-01 21:23 (UTC)

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i lied, sends this tag in another direction

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