elsecall: (007.)

[personal profile] elsecall 2026-01-29 09:51 pm (UTC)(link)
A flourish of piano notes. And, as if Verso hadn't interjected at all:

"So the boy brought light for the first time in the village. Followed immediately by storms boiling over the wall. A price to be paid, maybe. The people within the walls suffered from the storms and their destruction. But each storm brought fresh light, for it could never be put back now that it had been taken. And the people, for all their hardship, would never choose to go back into the shadows. Not now that they could see."

Hoid ends the story with a sigh. As if, yes indeed, maybe the boy was stupid. Stupid and bold and brazen. Gently, he drops the lid on Verso's piano before holding out a hand — fingers curling in a pantomime of how he'd earlier asked for the envelope.

Now he wants it back.

"Just a moment, I've changed my mind about something," he muses.

And if Verso complies, Hoid pulls out the folded missive and — producing a bizarrely modern pen from inside his jacket pocket — he scratches one thing out and scribbles in another. Refolding the paper, he stuffs it back into the envelope and leaves it sitting on the piano lid.

Hoid stands. And offers a little, clownish bow.
elsecall: (007.)

[personal profile] elsecall 2026-01-29 11:01 pm (UTC)(link)
"Bonne chance," Hoid counters — speaking Verso's language lightly and easily for reasons we'll never know. But at least he's got absolutely no intentions of being around much longer. In fact, he intends to be out of the tower well before Jasnah ever finds out he was here. A bit of an over-inflated sense of his own importance, really, to think the queen would somehow give chase.

———

But back in her study, Jasnah is diligently at her desk. She's wrestling with the wording on a particularly delicate spanreed conversation with one of the higher-ranked ardents back in Kharbranth. Smoothing over tousled egos, given how quietly and quickly the queen had quit the city. She's fussing over a careful non-apology when there's a knock on her door.

"Enter," she calls out — tired but nevertheless alert. She's expecting a carafe of tea, and so doesn't even glance up from the page when the door opens.
elsecall: (021.)

[personal profile] elsecall 2026-01-29 11:14 pm (UTC)(link)
She doesn't look up. Not yet. Chewing her bottom lip — caught up in the problem she's trying to untangle — and seemingly far, far, far less on edge in these quarters than anywhere else they'd been together. There's a smaller thin-skinned bubble of safety in Urithiru. Not perfect and not trusted, but it allows her a bit more breathing room.

It's not until she realizes there hasn't actually been movement from the doorway (no one has entered and dropped off a well-deserved steaming hot beverage!) that her concentration twists into scowl and she raises her eyes, prepared to chew out some gawking attendant who's perhaps on her first errand to the queen's———

Oh. It's small, it's minor, but there's tug at the corner of her mouth. The scowl evaporates into curiosity. Jasnah sets the pen down and sits back, attention roving over him. Checking for...for whether there's something wrong?

Her head tilts.

"You're back."

Carefully neutral.
elsecall: (018.)

[personal profile] elsecall 2026-01-29 11:26 pm (UTC)(link)
...Oh, again. Some of the unplaced, nebulous not-quite-emotion on her face choses a direction. She had been (in her own less than expressive way) pleased to see him return. Naively, maybe, she'd expected to avoid revisiting the topic. Can't they just shut it away in a little box and put it on a shelf and let it collect dust?

Jasnah nearly bites out a very abrupt, ballista-style ...but why? before she manages to swallow it at the last possible moment.

"If you want Navani to like you," she offers, a little disappointed, "you're better off asking for a tour of her fabrial labs."

Like mother, like daughter.
elsecall: (185)

[personal profile] elsecall 2026-01-29 11:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Something in his response is dissatisfying. Utterly. And, yes, unfortunately for both of them it shows on her face. A slight curdling.

The only saving grace is the careful path she plots through her next few words: "Whether she likes you or not," Jasnah seems to test each phrase on its own. Slow and careful. "It's not important."

To me.

"You're not obligated. It's not — required."
elsecall: (076.)

[personal profile] elsecall 2026-01-30 12:26 am (UTC)(link)
Again, she wants to ask: why? Why should he care one speck for what Navani thinks of him? It's not Navani whose patronage will keep him gainfully employed.

She folds her hands on the desk — but not until after primly organizing papers, ink still drying, to the side.

"Why don't you take a seat." Jasnah asks in very not-at-all-asking kind of way. There's a chair to the side of the desk, vaguely facing it but not exactly pulled up to the opposite edge. "We'll talk."
elsecall: (013.)

[personal profile] elsecall 2026-01-30 12:49 am (UTC)(link)
Only now — as he pockets it — does she notice the envelope. An eyebrow lifts, but she doesn't ask. Instead, she sets to the minor task of moving a pile of books from one corner of the desk to another, presumably to free up her line of sight. It ought to be awkward to accomplish it with one hand sorta trapped in a buttoned sleeve, but years and years of practice allows her to make it look easy.

Whatever tension he feels is (mostly) absent for her. Or, at any rate, it's not that much different from the constant pedal note of something fraught and pulled tight. Cogs in the back of her mind still turning. To-do lists ticking themselves off-and-on even as she engages him in a question.

"A headmaster?" She asks. And this time it is a question. "Wait — I'll guess. Sounds like — an executioner."

Like he's waiting for the gallows, maybe? No. That can't be right.
Edited 2026-01-30 00:51 (UTC)
elsecall: (076.)

[personal profile] elsecall 2026-01-30 01:05 am (UTC)(link)
Appearing entirely more comfortable with being painted as a scolding teacher than an executioner, Jasnah sinks back in her chair — her posture doesn't lose its iron, per se, but it's an iron that molds to her position. Composed, instead of stiff.

Of course, she's comfortable playing the executioner too. But that topic hasn't exactly been raised before now. And she's in no rush to flaunt it.

"This is my fault," she announces — oh so entirely in that same tone the headmistress might take when they're plying the old not-angry-just-disappointed tactic. "I left you ill-equipped for the role you're walking into. It was on me to set the expectation long before we touched back down at Urithiru."

This is it, buddy. This is the little speech she's been ruminating on in the back of her brain while trying to get real work done.
elsecall: (200)

[personal profile] elsecall 2026-01-30 01:29 am (UTC)(link)
"Expectations," she echoes in confirmation.

Jasnah glances at the doorway — only because she's wondering whether this discussion is going to be interrupted when the expected carafe does arrive. But she ignores that little ticking timer like an itch pinned just off-centre of her focus. Another plate, spinning.

"And how they might shift between private and public arenas. I likely should have better prepared you for it during the trip back."

You know, instead of another riveting academic discussion about trade goods and treaties. Her mistake.
elsecall: (015.)

[personal profile] elsecall 2026-01-30 01:52 am (UTC)(link)
Jasnah inhales slowly, deliberately, as if choosing each word were an act of statecraft rather than something painfully personal. Spelling it out is an uncomfortable necessity and she bleeds her tone dry for it. Nevertheless, it must be honest.

"In Thaylen City, we were afforded a kind of anonymity. A temporary vacuum. Borrowed walls. That is not the world we've returned to."

She leans her palm on the desk, fingertip tapping between phrases.

"As Queen's Wit, you are expected to be sharp, perceptive, charming when required," she continues. "You already are those things. But the role also demands restraint. Deference. In public, when I decide, you must follow my lead without hesitation. We cannot appear divided. Not even subtly."

There are no kind ways to put it. If he proceeds in this role, then he is a dagger on her hip and a jewel in her hair. An extension of her — a depth of involvement she now wonders whether she undersold. Well. Like she said. Her fault for not preparing him.

"That does not mean you are silent." A faint edge enters her voice, precise as a scalpel. His earlier accusation — seen and not heard — had stuck with her. "It means that disagreement happens in private. Where I will rely on it."

Jasnah does not need obedience everywhere. But she needs it where it protects her — protects them both, really, given the nature of this court. And then behind closed doors she will require his honest dissent. After all, it was exactly that dissent that kept her on track for recovery back in Thaylen City.
elsecall: (070.)

[personal profile] elsecall 2026-01-30 02:17 am (UTC)(link)
He gets it. Good. She exhales a breath she didn't quite realize she'd been holding — all her calm, cool control disrupted by the electric anxiety of having to explain the very concept of working in service to royalty. There will be no casual discussions of her injury in front of Windrunners, for one. That's a whole other loophole he'd snuck his way through that honestly...honestly, she hopes she doesn't have to raise as another uncomfortable instance.

"This power stands on uneven ground," she explains. "And a slip can be as deadly as a knife, in the end. Controversy doesn't frighten me. Unlike when we were on the run, so to speak, I invite you to read and write and perform as boldly as you like. Make the highprinces question their arbitrary divisions — I'd welcome it. But there's controversy and then there's weakness. I don't dare show them weakness."

They'll eat her alive. Like they'd started to eat Elhokar, picking away at his power and influence.
elsecall: (147)

[personal profile] elsecall 2026-01-30 02:36 am (UTC)(link)
"Your...things."

She repeats. Half-lost, half-suspicious. Yet again, she senses something amiss. Like a bridge that's just a few feet too short to cross the chasm. A slant; a hitch; a problem. She doesn't know where. Or how. All she'd done was explain to him that — as far as she's concerned — he is about the become the single most critical individual in her court. The one variable upon which she can rely. It's a massive ask. Too massive, maybe.

Maybe the responsibility is scaring him off.

Jasnah suddenly leans forward, elbows on the desk. Fingers tented at her chin, bare against sleeved.

"If your mind has changed..." That's okay. "Tell me."
Edited 2026-01-30 02:36 (UTC)
elsecall: (210)

[personal profile] elsecall 2026-01-30 02:57 am (UTC)(link)
Jasnah watches him retreat into himself like armour hastily buckled into place. Too quick, too sharp. It bothers her more than she lets show.

"Verso," she deploys his name in two careful syllables, but without raising her voice. Just enough to stop him (she thinks) if he's going to be stopped. "As I said — it was my fault. I should apologize for not explaining..."

Jasnah sees the envelope. Properly, this time. Sitting like a sleeping chasmfiend on the corner of her desk. The outer paper is addressed in a very distinct script. One that makes her mouth go dry. Storms alight, she thinks in silence as she reaches — slow, so as not to betray her apprehension — for the letter.

She does a relatively fine job at asking, idly, as she works the paper out of the envelope.

"Who asked you to deliver this?"
Edited 2026-01-30 02:57 (UTC)

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