She tucks her gloved left hand beneath her cheek — an improvised cushion, the soft heel of her palm wedged between chin and upholstery. Verso's lukewarm fair enough is proof enough that her instincts were right. None of it is half so interesting as he seems to think it is.
"I want to hear more about Alicia," she says. "Instead of the Continent."
Because a story has already been given. And, by her accounting, one is now owed in return.
Alicia would like that she'd asked that, too. She would pretend she wasn't happy about it, embarrassed, but she'd love to know that someone had an interest in her. She'd always been shown up by overachieving Clea and people-pleasing Verso, and as much as he'd tried to make her feel just as special and talented as the rest of her family, she'd struggled to feel that way. Even at school, she'd never had many friends. For a queen to be interested in her, though, it would have been like a dream come true.
He smiles again, although it's a softer tone in his voice than the wry amusement of before. Alicia always softens him. "All right."
There are things he can't say. Like how their mother made sure that the house fire still happened. That he was completely unscathed, but Alicia was still maimed by her burns. That he wanted more than anything for her to leave that manor and join him on the Continent instead.
But he can share this: "That song I hummed for you on the ship—she always used to hum along when I played piano. She had a beautiful voice."
Had. Not anymore.
"She had absolutely no interest in learning to play, though. I think she thought that if I taught her, then she wouldn't be able to make me sit around and play for her anymore."
Jasnah doesn't shut her eyes. Instead, she continues watching loosely, roughly, at the inky black space she assumes is Verso — sitting still on the floor at the midpoint of the divan.
Had, he says. And with a cluck of her tongue, she remembers the housefire he'd alluded to before. His sister's illness, mentioned in sympathetic counterpoint to her own. And maybe the causes were so, so different but her heart squeezes for someone else whose precious agency was stunted and tangled.
"She's very clever, yes." Always has been—perhaps due to her love of reading, perhaps a natural intelligence. She's always been smarter than she gives herself credit for, but of course she has; although she's nearly a century old now, she's forever sixteen where it counts.
"I wanted a duet partner, so I tried to bribe her," he laughs. "She saw through me."
Her right had drifts to her heart — somewhere loose above it, fingers knitting briefly into the gathered neckline of her (now habitual) Thaylen blouse. Silently, briefly, she feels for her own heartbeat. As if listening to it might make it hurt a little less. Little brothers and little sisters. Maybe she's more sentimental than usual, having reminded herself of Elhokar's stupid little axe-men carvings.
"...Tried to bribe her with what?"
She pokes, pries, asks. But it's a gentler bent, tonight. The curiosity tonight is less academic and more social.
"I told her I'd let her read the books in my room that our parents said were too adult for her." There's something wistful in his voice, a tone he's never been able to train himself out of. Not when it comes to Alicia. With a fond, affectionate laugh: "She told me she'd already snuck in and read them."
Oh, Alicia. She'd been so shy, but bold in many ways, too. More so, before the fire. He wonders sometimes if that's because his earlier memories are of the real Alicia, and his later ones are of the one Maman Painted as a companion. Softer, smaller, quieter. The way she saw Alicia, not the way Alicia really was.
He talks about Alicia like she's still alive. Is that grief, filtering through his grammar? Maybe. Most likely. Just like how is voice warms when he talks about her. The weight of evidence hasn't tipped far enough to make her suspicious, at any rate. But the tense does get noted, considered, and filed away. Because maybe his sister survived the fire, but unless she's afflicted by the same curse as Verso...
She frowns in the dark.
"She would thrive," Jasnah guesses. "A girl like that would make a fine ward."
She should know. She's denied and refused dozens each year.
Alicia would thrive here, Jasnah is right. Just as he has—for some given value of the word, anyway. Things here feel real. It's difficult to enjoy life knowing that your existence is just a poor facsimile of someone else's, but here Alicia could strike out on her own. Be somebody. Maybe even make friends. It kills him to know that he's reaping the benefits of being here while she's—
What? Is she even alive anymore, or has the entire Canvas been scrubbed clean with his absence? He'd been all right with them entering oblivion together, but it leaves a bad taste in his mouth that she might have had to go alone.
"—A ward?" he asks, shaking the unpleasant thoughts away. "You mean like the students you complain about?"
Being horizontal does odd things to a person's voice — to the diaphragm, the throat. Her characteristic thoughtful hum, offered in soft agreement to his question, comes out rougher this way. Thinner. Tired at the edges.
"Something like that," she says after a moment. "It's customary for promising young girls, once they come of age, to petition older, established scholars for wardships. In practice, they're nearly mandatory for anyone serious about scholarship."
A pause. Her words imply little in the way of group classrooms or schoolhouses.
"A ward would work under her teacher. Learn proper research methods. Build foundational knowledge in a chosen field. Make the right connections." A faint emphasis there. "It's meant to be something more than mere instruction. More than being a student, really."
Hence ward. A scholar takes significant responsibility for her ward.
Promising young girls. He likes to hear Alicia referred to that way; it conjures something warm and proud in his chest. How long has it been since she'd been referred to that way in the present tense, and not 'what a pity—she was such a promising young girl, until the accident'.
"She'd like that, I think." Maybe not the more scientific aspects, but if perhaps she could learn under a master painter or author.
"...And what do promising young boys get to do? Hit each other with sticks?"
"Likely, if he's lighteyed. Even more so if his family has plate or blade to inherit."
And despite having had Ivory for six years now, Jasnah's only recently taken up sword lessons herself. She's little better than a novice student. Elhokar and Adolin had been assigned to the Kholin swordmaster at such a young age. Only Renarin had been held back — mostly due to his seizures. But even in the last few years, he'd been taking lessons with old Zahel.
"But there are plenty of trades available in the masculine arts. Carpentry, tailoring, cooking. There's a surgeons college in Kharbranth."
And then there's all the building, farming, fishing, shipping, etc., industries around the continent. But none of it quite has the same intense wardship arrangement as the feminine arts.
"If a young man wants to study, to write, to read — he almost certainly will be pushed towards the Stormwardens or the Ardentia."
A twist in her tone suggests how poorly she likely thinks of both options. What a bizarre way to sideline half of a population into illiteracy.
Ugh. Carpentry, tailoring, cooking—all things he is unfortunately bad at. There'd been no need to learn tailoring and cooking in his childhood, and it's not like he had anyone to impress out on the Continent. His carpentry skills are highly questionable, too, although he likes to think the hut he built isn't so bad for someone with absolutely no prior experience.
The point is— as a sensitive musician type, he truly does not belong among Alethi men.
He should tell her to go to sleep now, but he doesn't. "The Ardentia are the bald men," he says, because unfortunately he knows very little about them besides that. "The ones who read." What makes them different from other men, he's not yet sure. "Who are the stormwardens?"
A snort of laughter slips out of her — half-muffled, half-amused. Not at his expense, exactly, though she doesn't bother clarifying that. She's simply delighted by how efficiently he's reduced the entire Ardentia to being bald.
"Bald men and women," she corrects, gently but automatically. "It's the priesthood, and women can join it as readily as men. Once they do, they’re treated as something closer to genderless." A pause. "For instance, women in the Ardentia aren't required to cover their safehands. Men read and write."
The explanation settles into the dark between them, offered without ceremony — a bite-sized lecture. Even at this hour.
"As for stormwardens," she continues after a moment. "They claim to predict highstorms. Mostly charlatans. Their methods aren't especially sophisticated — and they're fond of attaching themselves to other kinds of nonsense. Like Digitology. The idea that you can determine someone's personality by the width of their fingers."
She lifts her hand into the dark, palm up. A vague, waggling shape in the barely-any-light.
"In case you were wondering," she says lightly, "it has yet to prove illuminating."
Hm. Verso holds his hand up in front of his face, squinting in the dark. He does believe you can tell things about someone from their fingers. For example, his are littered with calluses from repetitive piano-playing. Maybe not enough to tell his whole personality, but— there might be some small amount of truth in the pseudoscience.
"What would I be?" he asks, although he realizes the question is perhaps unclear. "If I were from here."
A nice little thought experiment. He likes to play with this sort of idea, pretend at being real.
She clarifies. Because here is a broad category. If he was Shin or Azish or even Thaylen he might have followed some similar path — musicianship. And while it's not impossible to imagine a man picking up an instrument (especially a two-handed one) the sort of man who might make his living that way would have much, much darker eyes. In fact...
"A brightlord of at least the sixth dahn, I suspect," she answers. Her guess is based on what she's been able to glean about his family status. Leisure enough to pursue hobbies. Landed lighteyes, the likes of which doesn't require a livelihood to keep a roof over their head or food in their belly.
But that's still a very abstract, impersonal guess. Jasnah pauses, considering the pure light tone of his eyes — higher dahn even than sixth, maybe.
"Highprince of Revels," she concludes with a smile.
'Brightlord of the sixth dahn' sounds very fancy. Lumière hadn't had nobility, although he supposes if it had, he would have fallen under that category. The Dessendres had been undoubtedly the wealthiest family around, although it's not something he ever thought about when he still lived there. It had only been once he lost that lifestyle that he realized it was notable to begin with.
"That's not real," he accuses. Highprince of anything sounds fake. So— fantastical. Of course, he loves fantastical. "...Is it real?"
A huffed laugh— "That would've been fun." Although he has the feeling she'd have no interest in him at all if he weren't from another world. Sometimes he wonders if she doesn't just put up with him for the information she can glean. "Would the queen deign to come to my parties?"
It is real. Alright, so there hasn't been an Alethi Highprince of Revels since the brief stint of peace before her father was killed — but there had indeed been one. Nowadays, there are only Highprinces of War, of Information, of Commerce, of Works. But once there had been real appetite for art and delight.
She smiles in the dark at his incredulity. Or maybe she smiles at his incredulity because of the dark — the way it cloaks and hides that loosening of her composure. Still, it lingers in her voice even if she never answers his question about whether or not the position exists.
"Parties? No, I'm afraid not. I'd show my face for the bare minimum required and then retire."
At least she's honest about it.
"But any concerts organized and commissioned by the Highprince of Revels would be a different story.
Yes. That would have been fun. To have nothing to do all day but plan concerts and listen to music—no fighting, no sleeping on rickety floors with grass poking through. It's the life he'd once imagined leading back before the Fracture, and one he can't imagine leading now. All the same, he smiles and says, "Then I guess I should start organizing some concerts."
The conversation is probably at a close, but he feels somewhat reluctant to let it go, even knowing that he should. She needs her rest. Whether he enjoys this late night chat or not is irrelevant.
"...Try to get some sleep," he finally says, although not without some hesitation. "Maybe tomorrow we can take another walk."
She recognizes his offer for what it is, now. A bribe. Like cajoling his sister along with the promise of books. As if Jasnah couldn't or wouldn't find a way to take another walk without his auspices. Storms, doesn't he realize she could just as easily ask Jochi!
(But then again, she wouldn't do that to Jochi. Wouldn't risk being recognized in his company. Wouldn't risk the disruption to his personal, private life.)
Jasnah doesn't answer. Not for a long, long pause. But her breathing doesn't slow and the slight, wakeful tension doesn't leave her limbs. She's there, just there, behind him. And the words required to ask for what what she wants roll on the tip of her tongue, balling inside her cheek. It's both harder and easier to ask after his stories about Alicia.
Eventually, long after she should have already been trying in earnest to shut her eyes, she asks: "—Would you hum again?"
Satisfaction tugs on the corner of his mouth, pulling his smile wider. So many smiles today, here in the dark, that Jasnah will never know anything about. "Yeah," he says, feeling flattered and fluttery. Merde, this is really pathetic of him. Twitterpated over some woman who'll never feel the same. Even if she did, it would be doomed before it began; his priority is Jasnah, but Jasnah's priority is Roshar. "I don't have anywhere else to be."
He doesn't lie down. Doesn't pretend he's going to sleep like he usually does. She'll know he's awake by the humming, anyway. It's a soft sound, his voice low in the quiet of the night.
His voice is just enough. Like a story being told softly, without urgency — something to hook her attention, with a shape to follow, so she doesn't wander back toward worry and memory and fear when the room grows too quiet. She lies curled behind him in a loose c-shape, close enough that she can imagine she feels the vibration of his humming through the divan where it meets his spine. It reminds her of the tones she hears when soulcasting. Pure, ancient, resonant. The reminder is comforting. Grounding.
Still. Sleep is slow in coming.
She's already dozed through much of the afternoon and half the night besides; the familiar, sharp exhaustion isn't there to drag her under. At first, it takes discipline simply to listen. Not to fidget. Not to speak. To swallow the other questions, the other requests, the thousand small impulses to reach outward for procrastination rather than inward for rest.
Does Ivory hear it too? Listen. Find your way back.
It's the last coherent thought she has before sleep finally takes her. Her breathing lengthens, her jaw slackens, and she takes up just a little more space without meaning to. She steals an extra hour or two from the jaws of routine and reality.
Verso can tell she only sleeps for a small amount of time by the change in her breathing, but he doesn't acknowledge her waking before the sun rises. Once it does, he follows Jochi out and down the stairs, conversing pleasantly with him—mostly about Jasnah, a little bit about pastries—before returning yet again with breakfast. A brioche this time, something he's very familiar with.
"Tired of pastries yet?" he asks as he sets a slice wrapped in paper down on the end table, although it's a rhetorical question. Of course she is. Even he is by now, and he went nearly 7 decades without good food.
So, instead of waiting on a response, he follows up with, "Where do you want to go today?" On the promised walk.
In the brief stretch of morning solitude — the time Verso spends downstairs — Jasnah allows herself a few small liberties. She attends to minor grooming: a change of clothes, careful and unhurried; washing her face. And, most importantly, she draws the end-table drawer a little farther open to check on Ivory's condition.
Still unresponsive, if unconscious is even the right word for a being composed entirely of thought. But he can't be entirely gone given the once-again thin sip of stormlight she manages to draw from the spheres tucked beside him brings a welcome jolt. If she had to guess, whatever she's taken in thus far has shaved hours — perhaps even days — off what would otherwise be a far slower recovery.
When Verso returns upstairs, she's seated upright at the end table, loose hair spilling over her freshly changed blouse. The spanreed waits in front of her. After all, she'd resolved to return to correspondence in the morning. She clicks her tongue and nudges the pen and its paper aside when he sets down the brioche. The plate promptly claims an outsized portion of the table's limited space.
She is so, so tired of pastries. But it feels churlish to say as much. Food is food, and she does understand how precarious that can be. After months stranded in Shadesmar, where the only edible things had been the contents of strange tin cans ferried along absurd, off-world trade routes. Still. Storms, what she wouldn't give for a spiced curry.
Dutiful — to Jochi's craft, if not her own appetite — she tears into the brioche.
"You tell me," she says, mild but pointed. "Given how often you've been out exploring in the evenings, you may actually be more familiar with the city than I am."
He wouldn't say 'exploring'. More aimlessly wandering and trying to get some air, but that sounds a lot less interesting and a bit more pathetic than exploring, so— sure. Verso doesn't argue with her on that point.
Perching on the far edge of the divan, trying not to take up too much of the room she needs to stretch out, he says, "You know, I used to be something of a professional tour guide."
Ha. It's barely sarcastic. He was a guide and a babysitter, and for very little return on investment.
"We could go looking for a place that doesn't serve pastries for lunch."
One barely-restrained grumble of agreement. Yes, please. Jasnah nods and voices the thing she previously thought but didn't say aloud: "I'd kill for a curry."
A bit dramatic, sure. But her stomach even rumbles at the thought. She sniffs and tries to silence it with a mouthful of brioche. Chewing, thinking, swallowing. It doesn't quite satisfy. Jochi's baking is plenty good, and it's miles better than porridge made from tasteless soulcast grain, but she misses meat skewers and peppered chicken and roasted vegetables and curries hot enough to make you sweat. Not that she expects she'll be served the latter in Thaylen City. But as she chews another bite, she watches Verso and wonders — if they found a good curry house — he'd swap dishes with her.
"...What do you like?" She asks, a little awkward about it until she hones her quest with a follow-up. "To eat. Do you have a favourite dish?"
She braces herself. Will this be like asking a favourite colour all over again? Maybe she can get ahead of the discomfort by simply stating her curiosity like this.
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"I want to hear more about Alicia," she says. "Instead of the Continent."
Because a story has already been given. And, by her accounting, one is now owed in return.
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He smiles again, although it's a softer tone in his voice than the wry amusement of before. Alicia always softens him. "All right."
There are things he can't say. Like how their mother made sure that the house fire still happened. That he was completely unscathed, but Alicia was still maimed by her burns. That he wanted more than anything for her to leave that manor and join him on the Continent instead.
But he can share this: "That song I hummed for you on the ship—she always used to hum along when I played piano. She had a beautiful voice."
Had. Not anymore.
"She had absolutely no interest in learning to play, though. I think she thought that if I taught her, then she wouldn't be able to make me sit around and play for her anymore."
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Had, he says. And with a cluck of her tongue, she remembers the housefire he'd alluded to before. His sister's illness, mentioned in sympathetic counterpoint to her own. And maybe the causes were so, so different but her heart squeezes for someone else whose precious agency was stunted and tangled.
"Smart girl," she says.
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"I wanted a duet partner, so I tried to bribe her," he laughs. "She saw through me."
A shrug. "Still no duets."
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"...Tried to bribe her with what?"
She pokes, pries, asks. But it's a gentler bent, tonight. The curiosity tonight is less academic and more social.
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Oh, Alicia. She'd been so shy, but bold in many ways, too. More so, before the fire. He wonders sometimes if that's because his earlier memories are of the real Alicia, and his later ones are of the one Maman Painted as a companion. Softer, smaller, quieter. The way she saw Alicia, not the way Alicia really was.
"She would love it here."
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She frowns in the dark.
"She would thrive," Jasnah guesses. "A girl like that would make a fine ward."
She should know. She's denied and refused dozens each year.
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What? Is she even alive anymore, or has the entire Canvas been scrubbed clean with his absence? He'd been all right with them entering oblivion together, but it leaves a bad taste in his mouth that she might have had to go alone.
"—A ward?" he asks, shaking the unpleasant thoughts away. "You mean like the students you complain about?"
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"Something like that," she says after a moment. "It's customary for promising young girls, once they come of age, to petition older, established scholars for wardships. In practice, they're nearly mandatory for anyone serious about scholarship."
A pause. Her words imply little in the way of group classrooms or schoolhouses.
"A ward would work under her teacher. Learn proper research methods. Build foundational knowledge in a chosen field. Make the right connections." A faint emphasis there. "It's meant to be something more than mere instruction. More than being a student, really."
Hence ward. A scholar takes significant responsibility for her ward.
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"She'd like that, I think." Maybe not the more scientific aspects, but if perhaps she could learn under a master painter or author.
"...And what do promising young boys get to do? Hit each other with sticks?"
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And despite having had Ivory for six years now, Jasnah's only recently taken up sword lessons herself. She's little better than a novice student. Elhokar and Adolin had been assigned to the Kholin swordmaster at such a young age. Only Renarin had been held back — mostly due to his seizures. But even in the last few years, he'd been taking lessons with old Zahel.
"But there are plenty of trades available in the masculine arts. Carpentry, tailoring, cooking. There's a surgeons college in Kharbranth."
And then there's all the building, farming, fishing, shipping, etc., industries around the continent. But none of it quite has the same intense wardship arrangement as the feminine arts.
"If a young man wants to study, to write, to read — he almost certainly will be pushed towards the Stormwardens or the Ardentia."
A twist in her tone suggests how poorly she likely thinks of both options. What a bizarre way to sideline half of a population into illiteracy.
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The point is— as a sensitive musician type, he truly does not belong among Alethi men.
He should tell her to go to sleep now, but he doesn't. "The Ardentia are the bald men," he says, because unfortunately he knows very little about them besides that. "The ones who read." What makes them different from other men, he's not yet sure. "Who are the stormwardens?"
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"Bald men and women," she corrects, gently but automatically. "It's the priesthood, and women can join it as readily as men. Once they do, they’re treated as something closer to genderless." A pause. "For instance, women in the Ardentia aren't required to cover their safehands. Men read and write."
The explanation settles into the dark between them, offered without ceremony — a bite-sized lecture. Even at this hour.
"As for stormwardens," she continues after a moment. "They claim to predict highstorms. Mostly charlatans. Their methods aren't especially sophisticated — and they're fond of attaching themselves to other kinds of nonsense. Like Digitology. The idea that you can determine someone's personality by the width of their fingers."
She lifts her hand into the dark, palm up. A vague, waggling shape in the barely-any-light.
"In case you were wondering," she says lightly, "it has yet to prove illuminating."
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"What would I be?" he asks, although he realizes the question is perhaps unclear. "If I were from here."
A nice little thought experiment. He likes to play with this sort of idea, pretend at being real.
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She clarifies. Because here is a broad category. If he was Shin or Azish or even Thaylen he might have followed some similar path — musicianship. And while it's not impossible to imagine a man picking up an instrument (especially a two-handed one) the sort of man who might make his living that way would have much, much darker eyes. In fact...
"A brightlord of at least the sixth dahn, I suspect," she answers. Her guess is based on what she's been able to glean about his family status. Leisure enough to pursue hobbies. Landed lighteyes, the likes of which doesn't require a livelihood to keep a roof over their head or food in their belly.
But that's still a very abstract, impersonal guess. Jasnah pauses, considering the pure light tone of his eyes — higher dahn even than sixth, maybe.
"Highprince of Revels," she concludes with a smile.
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"That's not real," he accuses. Highprince of anything sounds fake. So— fantastical. Of course, he loves fantastical. "...Is it real?"
A huffed laugh— "That would've been fun." Although he has the feeling she'd have no interest in him at all if he weren't from another world. Sometimes he wonders if she doesn't just put up with him for the information she can glean. "Would the queen deign to come to my parties?"
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She smiles in the dark at his incredulity. Or maybe she smiles at his incredulity because of the dark — the way it cloaks and hides that loosening of her composure. Still, it lingers in her voice even if she never answers his question about whether or not the position exists.
"Parties? No, I'm afraid not. I'd show my face for the bare minimum required and then retire."
At least she's honest about it.
"But any concerts organized and commissioned by the Highprince of Revels would be a different story.
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The conversation is probably at a close, but he feels somewhat reluctant to let it go, even knowing that he should. She needs her rest. Whether he enjoys this late night chat or not is irrelevant.
"...Try to get some sleep," he finally says, although not without some hesitation. "Maybe tomorrow we can take another walk."
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(But then again, she wouldn't do that to Jochi. Wouldn't risk being recognized in his company. Wouldn't risk the disruption to his personal, private life.)
Jasnah doesn't answer. Not for a long, long pause. But her breathing doesn't slow and the slight, wakeful tension doesn't leave her limbs. She's there, just there, behind him. And the words required to ask for what what she wants roll on the tip of her tongue, balling inside her cheek. It's both harder and easier to ask after his stories about Alicia.
Eventually, long after she should have already been trying in earnest to shut her eyes, she asks: "—Would you hum again?"
Like he did on the ship.
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He doesn't lie down. Doesn't pretend he's going to sleep like he usually does. She'll know he's awake by the humming, anyway. It's a soft sound, his voice low in the quiet of the night.
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Still. Sleep is slow in coming.
She's already dozed through much of the afternoon and half the night besides; the familiar, sharp exhaustion isn't there to drag her under. At first, it takes discipline simply to listen. Not to fidget. Not to speak. To swallow the other questions, the other requests, the thousand small impulses to reach outward for procrastination rather than inward for rest.
Does Ivory hear it too? Listen. Find your way back.
It's the last coherent thought she has before sleep finally takes her. Her breathing lengthens, her jaw slackens, and she takes up just a little more space without meaning to. She steals an extra hour or two from the jaws of routine and reality.
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"Tired of pastries yet?" he asks as he sets a slice wrapped in paper down on the end table, although it's a rhetorical question. Of course she is. Even he is by now, and he went nearly 7 decades without good food.
So, instead of waiting on a response, he follows up with, "Where do you want to go today?" On the promised walk.
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Still unresponsive, if unconscious is even the right word for a being composed entirely of thought. But he can't be entirely gone given the once-again thin sip of stormlight she manages to draw from the spheres tucked beside him brings a welcome jolt. If she had to guess, whatever she's taken in thus far has shaved hours — perhaps even days — off what would otherwise be a far slower recovery.
When Verso returns upstairs, she's seated upright at the end table, loose hair spilling over her freshly changed blouse. The spanreed waits in front of her. After all, she'd resolved to return to correspondence in the morning. She clicks her tongue and nudges the pen and its paper aside when he sets down the brioche. The plate promptly claims an outsized portion of the table's limited space.
She is so, so tired of pastries. But it feels churlish to say as much. Food is food, and she does understand how precarious that can be. After months stranded in Shadesmar, where the only edible things had been the contents of strange tin cans ferried along absurd, off-world trade routes. Still. Storms, what she wouldn't give for a spiced curry.
Dutiful — to Jochi's craft, if not her own appetite — she tears into the brioche.
"You tell me," she says, mild but pointed. "Given how often you've been out exploring in the evenings, you may actually be more familiar with the city than I am."
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Perching on the far edge of the divan, trying not to take up too much of the room she needs to stretch out, he says, "You know, I used to be something of a professional tour guide."
Ha. It's barely sarcastic. He was a guide and a babysitter, and for very little return on investment.
"We could go looking for a place that doesn't serve pastries for lunch."
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A bit dramatic, sure. But her stomach even rumbles at the thought. She sniffs and tries to silence it with a mouthful of brioche. Chewing, thinking, swallowing. It doesn't quite satisfy. Jochi's baking is plenty good, and it's miles better than porridge made from tasteless soulcast grain, but she misses meat skewers and peppered chicken and roasted vegetables and curries hot enough to make you sweat. Not that she expects she'll be served the latter in Thaylen City. But as she chews another bite, she watches Verso and wonders — if they found a good curry house — he'd swap dishes with her.
"...What do you like?" She asks, a little awkward about it until she hones her quest with a follow-up. "To eat. Do you have a favourite dish?"
She braces herself. Will this be like asking a favourite colour all over again? Maybe she can get ahead of the discomfort by simply stating her curiosity like this.
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