open post.

She doesn't argue. That alone is a small concession, deliberate and noticed even by herself.

Instead, she adjusts her grip on him. Subtly at first. Fingers firming where they rest against the crook of his elbow, thumb finding purchase against the weave of his sleeve. Testing. Measuring. Her weight shifts, not dumped on him, not yet. Just enough to remind herself that he's solid, that he will hold if she asks him to. The knowledge settles somewhere low in her chest, grounding.

"All right," she agrees, quietly. They rise together. Slowly. She times her breath to the movement, jaw set as her body protests in muted, lingering echoes of pain. The first step is cautious. The second is steadier. By the third, she realizes that she is not shaking. Or not much.

The stairs give her pause.

Weeks ago, they had squeezed past one another on narrow storm-shelter steps, all sharp proximity and deliberate distance. Careful not to touch. Careful not to acknowledge how little space there truly was. Now, she angles herself into him without ceremony, shoulder brushing his chest, forearm braced lightly across his back as they face the descent. So much distance so erased.

"Noticeably stronger," she cheers herself on quietly. Step by careful step, letting herself lean just enough to borrow his balance while reclaiming her own. "Storms, it'll be good to see something other than Jochi's walls."

"You're doing well," he says softly, encouragingly, the way he'd motivated Alicia when she was still recovering from her burn injuries. She'd found it difficult to even get out of bed, although he wonders now if that wasn't more due to an emotional scarring than a physical one. Regardless, he'd been there every step of the way, brushing her hair and reading to her and bringing her food and water. Not so different from what he's done with Jasnah, honestly.

One step, then another. When they make it down to the first floor, he feels a little fatigued, too. The stress of worrying she's going to fall and reopen her wound is tiring, but admittedly a small price to pay for getting her up and moving. A minuscule price to pay for searching out Ivory.

"Good job." He reaches out to steady her with a hand against her arm, no pressure in his grip but there in case she needs something to lean against. "Do you need to rest?"

Does she need to rest? Almost certainly. Will she? Not yet.

Jasnah shakes her head, but she does at the very least close her gloved fingers around the hand he's using to steady her. Not to pull it away but to fix it in place. To claim the assistance rather than merely accept it. She braces herself more fully as they step through the small back door that bypasses Jochi's bakery altogether, out into the open street.

Thaylen fashion does her a quiet mercy: practical layers, muted colors. Her hair is simply braided — Verso's work, as always — with no ornamental pins, no gemstones, nothing that might catch the light or invite recognition. She looks, for once, profoundly unroyal. Anonymous.

She draws in a deep breath and the city hits her all at once. Salt and fish and hot stone. Footsteps, voices, the creak of rigging somewhere nearby. After days confined indoors, the sensory onslaught is almost dizzying. She squints against the sun, blinking until the brightness resolves into something manageable. Feels its warmth on mostly-bare shoulders, another thing to which she must acclimatize.

"You're more patient than I would have expected of you a week or two ago," she observes, tone quiet, measured and academic. As though she's recording data. A fact first. A compliment, perhaps, later.

Edited 2025-12-25 16:56 (UTC)

Jasnah doesn't want to rest, but Verso makes an executive decision that it's what they're going to do. It's been a week since she's been outside, and even then, it was during the early morning hours. The busy streets are bound to be overwhelming.

Instead of asking her if she needs a moment, he leans his back against the facade of the pastry shop. She won't be going anywhere without him, after all, and it's an excuse for her to do the same. Lean on the wall, lean on him. Whichever she needs to do.

"Alicia's convalescence was more painstaking than this." She'd been much more badly damaged. For a while there, he didn't think she would survive. Teasing: "You don't think I'm patient?"

Momentum carries her a step farther than he intends to go. It's nothing dramatic. Just a light tug on his arm, then an equally light recoil as she realizes he's stopped and she hasn't. His gravity asserts itself belatedly, drawing her back into alignment.

For now, she refuses both the wall and him. Her strategy (if it can be called that) is to remain upright on her own steam. Her own steam, plus a hand at his arm. Leaning still feels like a concession. And after a week of enforced stillness, the idea offends her on principle.

She cuts him a look, irritation flashing quick and sharp. But her mouth says something calmer than her eyes would suggest.

"That's your sister. It's different," Jasnah replies. Plain. Obvious. As if the distinction needs no elaboration. Family is measured by a different calculus: patience expanded and generosity assumed. She has never doubted that he was patient with Alicia. That he was gentle. That he endured. None of that obligates him to the same here.

"I would think anyone could tire of caring for another person," she continues, voice level, thoughtful rather than defensive. "Patience doesn't necessarily compound with age."

A pause. Then, quieter: "It's a finite resource."

Although he's forever stunted with a little boy's—or perhaps a nervy young man's—restlessness, he's never found himself impatient interpersonally. He enjoys caring for other people. Feeling not just wanted but needed. Aline must have loved that about her son, how dutiful and attentive he was, because it's painted into every one of his cells.

So, his patience hasn't run thin at all. He likes this dynamic, and in fact he's a little sad that one day soon it'll run out.

"Ah," he says in a tone she might be familiar with by now, one that says he's about to say something completely made up. "I see where your misconception comes from. But actually, my patience regenerates with the rest of me."

The look she gives Verso makes it clear she doesn't believe him. Neither the obviously improvised notion that patience regenerates, nor the quieter implication tucked beneath it that he isn't impatient with her. Jasnah, who is ordinarily so self-possessed and so rarely insecure, can't help but feel this past week as a kind of paradox.

What a comfort it's been. What a kindness. Company during recovery, a well-lit room, hair tidied, dressings changed, questions indulged without complaint. A plush divan instead of padded restraints. And yet she gathers it all beneath her ribs as if it were something perishable. As if it might vanish the moment she relaxes her guard. He will tire of this. He, this person who has lived too long not to recognize patterns. And when she sees it coming, she'll have too much dignity to intervene against his boredom.

Immortals. Part of her suspects their attention will always eventually outgrow mortals the way scholars outgrow elementary texts.

But for now, she doesn't argue. Doesn't explain what she knows — that long lives tend to make ordinary human rhythms tedious — or how she knows it — that she has, once before, become tedious to someone who lived far too long. She'll make use of his patience while it's being offered. Why shouldn't she? Without it, she'd likely be three streets away already, exhausted and vulnerable to whatever found her first.

"I'll remember that," she says lightly, "the next time we play vingt-un," her pronunciation is markedly better this week than last, "and you're up a hand."

Because she's seen that nervy, overconfident streak in him when they play. It charms her as much as it unsettles her. Annoying how often those two things coincide.

Verso tilts his head at the skeptical Look™, somewhat puzzled by it. He's never once so much as suggested that caring for her is an inconvenience. He knows this because it isn't—he has absolutely nothing better to do with his time at the moment. There's not even anyone back in Urithiru who would notice his absence. His life, she may not realize, is really quite small here, and Jasnah has unwittingly become its focal point.

"Vingt-un's a... special exception."

While he may be patient interpersonally, he has little patience when it comes to matters of competition. Of course, she must know that. He's catching onto the fact that she enjoys being the one plucking at the strings of his impatience there.

As someone who is bitterly aware that he has no chance, he tries very hard not to find inappropriate pleasure in that.

Taking on a slightly more solemn tone: "There's a lot of people I've been unable to help. I don't mind helping you." He pushes off the wall. "Shall we go?"

Storms. Verso really does seem to have a lot of melancholy reactions, most of which she finds maddeningly difficult to map in real time. Did she offend him by suggesting she understands how dull it must be to play nursemaid for a grown woman? Jasnah is self-aware enough to know she would never have indulged him quite so thoroughly had the roles been reversed. She would have shared the space, certainly. Helped him to a chair, helped him into a clean shirt. But she would not have been attentive in his way. Present in his way.

— If Ivory were here, he would have murmured something pointed in her ear at that realization. Ah, he'd say, an opportunity to improve oneself is.

Whatever else she might have said, whatever further damage they might have done to one another in this conversational minefield, it's all neatly swept aside by the prospect of shall we go. She nods, fingers tightening on his arm with unmistakable anticipation as they set off again.

And then, in a tone that could just as easily be a peace offering as a fresh provocation, she adds: "When we make it back to Urithiru, you'll learn Towers. And I'll learn whether that, too, is a special exception."

His steps are slow, giving her time to walk at her own pace. They don't need to rush. After all, they've nothing else to do all day but wait. Besides, it must be good for her recovery to get a little fresh air and sunshine. Nothing wrong with lingering out here.

"Another card game?" Verso vaguely recalls it being mentioned on the ship, but a lot has happened since then. Hard to remember the specifics. Even their time on the ship sort of feels like a blur now: nausea, dry hardtack biscuits, humming at night. Most of the details seem unimportant.

"All right," he says, shrugging. "Provided you'll be a gracious loser when I win."

There's that nervy overconfidence again. 😇

As they turn the corner: "Hey. Have you ever played chess?"

She nods. Yes, another game. The one with its own bespoke cards — though, as far as Jasnah knows, the deck they've been using is also purpose-built for vingt-un and nothing else. What appeals to her about Towers is that she is only just beginning to master it herself. Oh, she understands the standard openings, the common gambits. But it is, at its heart, a game meant to teach war strategy to officers.

It is not unusual for women to learn Towers, though most often those women are captains' wives, serving as scribes and aides. Jasnah did not take a serious interest until she became queen and began attending the battlefield in earnest. Always with Dalinar beside her, of course. He is the true strategist. She's a scholar who is learning to think like one.

She is on the verge of explaining all this — diabolically hinting, too, at his very real chances of winning against her — when his question knocks her neatly off that path.

Chess?

"No," she answers, simply. "Is that also a card game?"

As they walk, she glances over at him every few steps. Attentive. Again.

"Uh, no, it's a... strategy game, I guess you would call it."

It's a bit challenging to explain without getting into the nitty-gritty details of all of the pieces, but he tries his best to sum it up: "Each player controls sixteen pieces, and the purpose of the game is to capture your opponent's king."

If she ever wants to play seriously, he'll have to sit down and actually teach her, but for now, just piquing her interest is good enough. They don't have a chess set, after all; he'd have to fashion one like he did the cards. Seems a project better saved for when they're back in Urithiru and he can source some decent art supplies.

"It's all about long-term planning and being able to predict what your opponent might do. Seems up your alley."

"...Oh."

It's not a disappointed oh but one of those wait, I'm buffering through a thought kinda ohs.

"Sounds a bit like Towers, actually."

The coincidence rounds out her voice, pulling some of the sharpness from her words. Like she's suddenly busy thinking about something else — like, how does the strategy of one game stack up against the other? Is there a chess equivalent to the Sunmaker's Gambit?

"—How would you rate yourself? Are you a good chess player?"

Be honest, Verso! C'mon!

Like a little shit: "Oh, I'm the Continent's resident chess champion. 67 years running."

😐

Having none of it, and already in such close proximity that it's almost laughably easy to accomplish, Jasnah jabs a finger into his side. A defiant, punishing poke. Hard, sure, but not violent. Downright friendly, maybe.

"Try again, Verso. How would you rate your chess skills?"

"Hey," he gripes, "I'm telling the truth." He is the Continent's resident chess champion! It's just that there's not exactly anyone else to play chess with. He'd spent time painstakingly teaching Monoco, but he's the only person Verso has to play against. The other gestrals have minimal interest in sitting down and thinking through chess moves, and Expeditioners don't have enough hours left for such time-consuming games.

"I'm better than Monoco. And Esquie's hands are too big to hold the pieces without crushing them." Poor guy doesn't know his own strength.

"I'm the best chess player you've ever met." Probably.

He may well be telling the truth, but Jasnah rankles at the way that truth insists on being expressed along a bell curve. Top of one's class, best on the continent, best you’ve ever met — all of it comparative, all of it anchored to a population she cannot evaluate. She can concede the last one, perhaps. Reluctantly. But the pattern still chafes. Dalinar could claim the finest handwriting among the highprinces; it would not prevent his script from resembling cremling scratches all the same.

"Well," she says instead, redirecting, "is it difficult to play?"

Chess. Perhaps she should ask about the game, rather than his aptitude for it. As she speaks, she gives his arm a light tap and tips her chin toward a narrow patch of cobbled space ahead. A bench tucked into the shade. A wordless request for a pause, now that they've managed another block.

"More difficult than vingt-un."

He did describe it as a strategy game, after all. Long-term planning.

"More difficult than vingt-un?" Verso laughs a little, sitting down on the bench and offering his arm to help steady her as she presumably lowers herself onto it, too. "Are we going to compare everything to vingt-un?"

He's played other games, you know!!! But admittedly, vingt-un seems to be their one area of shared understanding. She's taken to it quickly, although he knew she would. Jasnah is far too intelligent for a simple card game like that to trip her up. Once they're back, he looks forward to teaching her games with more complexity.

Like chess.

"I'd say it's more difficult, yeah. Some people dedicate their entire lives to mastering it."

It remains remarkable how quickly he's become almost an extension of her. She keeps her hold on his arm as she lowers herself onto the bench beside him, the grip easing from his sleeve to his wrist and settling there. Loose, habitual, half-familiar and half-precaution. As if she's keeping a lifeline, should they need to move quickly, despite the city's complete and obvious indifference as it hums past them.

"Yes," she says, dry as ever, "we're going to compare everything to vingt-un until we acquire a fresh data point."

They've left the fiction of their marriage behind on Torreth's ship — though, in hindsight, it was likely only ever the rank-and-file who believed it — but some habits linger. Two weeks ago, she would never have kept a hand on him in public. Two weeks ago, the closest she'd come was sitting beside him at his piano.

"Hard to imagine anyone spending their entire life mastering a game," she continues, thoughtful. She knows his homeworld isn't peaceful, not by his account, but it still strikes her as strange. Devoting that much time to a single pursuit that does not materially affect or improve the world state itself. Not unlike music, or the visual arts, admittedly, though experience has taught her not to voice that comparison aloud. People don't like it when you all their art frivolous.

Verso's fingers twitch as he thinks about—and then violently dismisses—how easy it would be to hold her hand right now.

"Well. Lives are shorter now."

Thanks to the Gommage. It hasn't escaped his notice that Jasnah would likely already be gone, were she in Lumière. Although there's a tinge of melancholy to his voice, he mostly sounds resigned. Vanishingly shorter lives aren't news to him. No use crying over it now. Not until he's drunk.

"Anyway," he says, "I think you'd like it. It's... complex. Requires quite a bit of cleverness."

Oh. Right. The Gommage. To her credit, her expression does pinch with a brief, diluted regret when he reminds her how much shorter a life would be back. The empathy flickers (real, if restrained) but it doesn't meaningfully alter her conclusion. If anything, it seems like more reason to devote one's time to pursuits with lasting value. She has the good sense not to say that aloud, either.

Nor does she linger on the other thing he says. It is, after all, a compliment. He must think her clever if he's recommending the game to her. But it doesn't land the way it might for him. Yes, she's clever. That's settled knowledge. Her mind slips instead to a more practical curiosity: how long it will take her to beat him, once she learns it?

"—So many games," she muses, thoughtful rather than impressed. It's not as though the Alethi lack pastimes of their own; they just seem...pedestrian, by comparison. A side effect, perhaps, of a nation that has long prioritized warfare over nearly everything else.

"And artistic pursuits," she continues, then tilts her head slightly. "What about science? Was there much invention after the Fracture? Do you know?"

Sometimes he knows. Sometimes, she suspects, he doesn't. Half the goal is to watch for what catches him up.

"Necessity is the mother of invention, no?"

That is to say— with the Gommage and the Expeditions, invention has been necessary. "I've seen Expeditioners come with grappling hooks. Airships. Automobiles." Some of which he's more familiar with than others. No need for ships and cars when you've got an Esquie to ride everywhere on.

"I've even heard there's a man at the Expeditioner Academy working on a device to convert Nevrons' chroma into a more usable resource."

You know, Navani would love these topics. Jasnah had accepted whatever-in-Damnation chroma was without much complaint or investigation; her mother, on the other hand, would have been just as insufferable on that topic as Jasnah has been with some of the others. She'd want to know what powered their airships, given how the Fourth Bridge relied on stormlightt and fabrials.

On this topic, however, Jasnah's questions are decidedly novice.

"—What's an automobile?"

She knows what everything else in that list is, at any rate.

"Oh. It's like—"

He gestures vaguely. How to describe something that he himself has nearly no experience with?

"It's a machine with four wheels, powered by some sort of motor." He thinks??? Look, he's not a car guy. In lieu of having anything actually useful to say on this topic (sorry, Jasnah), he says, "...They're for travel, I believe."

"...Like a wagon that doesn't require a chull?"

She connects the dots. Easily, really. Despite Verso's slightly-worrying uncertainty. Or rather, it's less worrying that he's uncertain and more worrying that he'll name a thing quite so cavalierly only to have it turn out that he can't actually elaborate on what that thing is.

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