recreatable | open post.

She doesn't warn him further. Warning suggests she believes he might panic. She simply decides, quietly, that he's ready, and lifts her hand. A thin ribbon of stormlight escapes her skin, swirling toward her palm like mist pulled along a tide-line. It condenses, tightens, gathers shape. Edges sharpen. Angles emerge and a small dagger materializes in her grip. Midnight black, reflective only at the very edge of the blade. Stormlight continues to coil lazily around it, as though trying and failing to cling to its surface. Condensing, misting, condensing again. Her thumb grazes the blade — a gesture that is not affectionate, but deeply familiar.

"And Ivory," her voice softens, addressing the dagger. "You behave, too."

A ripple runs along the dagger. Ivory, she knows, is a shy creature. He used to expresses anxiety around other humans. But things were different then, and she'd needed to keep their bond a secret. Now that the Radiants have truly returned, he's gaining his confidence step by step. So the metal softens — not melting, but unmaking, like ink dissolving in water. The blade collapses into liquid shadow, reforming beside her on the table in a swirl of darkness.

A figure steps out. Small, carved from lines of shifting black oil. His features are sharp and elegant, like a calligrapher's flourish. He executes a stiff, formal bow. Hinged from the waist, impeccable in posture, stiff as a reed.

"Jasnah," Ivory intones, voice echoing like ink dripping into a deep well. "The ardent is watched. Suspicious is." The small figure trails off as he realizes they aren't alone in her alcove.

Jasnah arches a brow. "Ivory," she says, "Verso is my guest."

A pause from the spren. Not trusting. Not hostile. Just...unimpressed. "Hmm," Ivory hums, straightening with an exaggerated patience. "I shall refrain from calling him foolish until further evidence is."

Ivory might be (rightfully) unimpressed, but Verso (also rightfully) very much isn't. When the little creature emerges from the dark pool of liquid, his eyes light up in a way that Jasnah undoubtedly has not seen before. There's an almost boyish whimsy to it, earnest in a way he rarely is, nonperformative and, for the moment, unworried about how it might look to anyone else.

"My god," he breathes, grinning ear to ear. He's surprised, he realizes, which is a wonderful and entirely foreign feeling. It's been so long since there's been anything in life that didn't feel agonizingly rote and predictable; the last time he was astounded by something was decades ago, when everything on the Continent had still felt brand new and marvelous, when the Gestrals and Grandis and Esquie had been enough to excite him. Seeing this strange and astonishing creature appear before him, he feels—if only for a brief moment in time—impossibly and amazingly young again.

On his best behavior as promised, Verso extends just one finger, his index, for Ivory to shake. "Charmed to make your acquaintance, mon petit monsieur."

She watches him — really watches him — as delight unfurls across his face like sunrise over a coastline she's never seen. His whole posture changes: open, bright, unguarded. The boy he once was, the one she didn't know existed, flickers through him like a lantern behind thin paper. Something in her stomach tightens. Not sentimentality, but recognition.

But outwardly? Only the faintest adjustment of her expression. Her gaze sharpens to a rare, precise warmth, the kind she gives only to truths that surprise her in ways she cannot dismiss.

"Careful," she murmurs, voice low and gliding, "he'll decide you're tolerable if you keep staring at him like that."

Not teasing. Not exactly. Just...observant. And maybe definitely a little bit teasing. She glances at Ivory, then back to Verso, cataloguing every second of wonder like a priceless data point.

Ivory studies the extended finger like it's a diplomatic offer from a rival kingdom. A long, drawn-out silence. A tilt of his head. A soft huff that somehow manages to sound like hmph. Then, he steps forward with utmost ceremony and places one perfectly composed, impossibly delicate inky hand onto Verso's finger with a single, stiff shake.

"Yes," Ivory declares, withdrawing his hand with dignity intact. "Acceptable, is.”

He withdraws his finger, placing his hand in his lap, schooling his expression back to something a bit more restrained. Like retreating back behind a barrier. It isn't conscious—much of his behavior isn't—just habit, survival instinct. Still, there's a (now more subdued) smile playing on his lips, impossible to suppress.

Looking from the very discerning inkspren to the very discerning woman he's bonded with, that smile grows a little more crooked. "You two are quite similar." He can picture Jasnah doing just the same thing: staring with a judicious gaze, then finally declaring acceptable.

A pause, then he furrows his brow in thought. "Has he been here the entire time?" he asks Jasnah, before turning his attention back to Ivory. "Have you been here the entire time?" What, exactly, have you overheard?

"Privacy, is." Ivory insists — appearing perhaps a bit offended by the implication that he's been hanging around, listening. Jasnah chuckles dryly, knowing that while Ivory was most certainly somewhere else during their conversation today, he's been present for others.

Ivory marches back across the table. When he reaches the edge, as he steps off, he vanishes from the air and reappears up on Jasnah's shoulder. She tilts her head, presumably to receive a guarded whisper from the little spren.

And with that, he disappears in earnest. Shy indeed.

"He doesn't need to be nearby for me to — summon him. And I find it useful to have him elsewhere." Listening, but she doesn't say it aloud. "It makes me wonder whether your Gestrals are similar constructs. Fragment of the powers of creation, having gained sentience over time."

"Maybe." Verso shrugs, noncommittal. "They've just sort of... always been around." Since before humanity, since before him. Since this world was just a playground for a little boy and his sister, a place to meet strange creatures and have wondrous adventures. Maybe that's why there's a part of him that still longs for that sort of thing.

He scrunches up his nose. "Did I piss him off?" He'd disappeared pretty fast!

Ivory had vanished the moment Verso's attention landed too squarely on him, and Jasnah doesn't bother hiding the faint exhale that passes for amusement.

"He wasn't offended," she says, tone even. "Ivory is...cautious. Most inkspren are. Their history with humans is complicated, and not without reason."

She considers the depth of history lesson her explanation might require.

"Long ago, bonds between our kinds were more common. But... something happened. Oaths were broken. Some spren remember that. Some are the offspring of those who remember." A small, almost fond tilt of her head. "Ivory errs on the side of wariness. To him, every stranger is a potential risk until proven otherwise. He risked a lot when he came to me seven years ago."

She glances at Verso then, briefly, measuring.

"Give him time. He warms to people slowly. But he does warm." A hint of wryness touches her mouth. "You're hardly the first person he's fled from. Nor will you be the last."

He warms to people slowly. Verso thinks but decidedly does not say, so he takes after you, then?

"Yeah, betrayal can really erode the ability to trust." He can relate to that feeling, understand the wariness. Entirely hypocritically, there's a legion of people he's been that same traitor to—but fortunately, they won't have any issues trusting again; they won't be doing anything again, ever.

"You must be very special to him."

She answers him without flinching, but there is a shift — something quieter in the way her voice settles, as though the air itself understands that what she is about to say carries weight older than the library they sit in.

"Special isn't the word I'd use," she says. "Necessary, perhaps "

Ivory once described her as a stone. Stable, he'd said, compared to other humans.

"Do you remember reading about the Recreance?" she asks. "A single day, ancient now, when the Knights Radiant laid down their oaths. They abandoned their charge...and in doing so, severed the bonds that sustained their spren."

There is no drama in her tone. It is too grave for that. Too factual.

"When a spren's Radiant breaks their oath, it does not simply wound them. It doesn't kill them. Not exactly. But it's as close as they come to death. Thousands of spren fell that day. Their last moments were filled with betrayal."

A pause. Just long enough for him to feel the shape of those consequences. So yes, Ivory is wary. Most inkspren are. They have earned that caution.

"He approached me despite that history. Despite his kin urging him not to. He saw what was coming. He chose to bind himself to me long before it was wise to do so."

Ivory did not choose her because she was special. Rather, he judged that she was the lowest risk option. She does not intend to prove him wrong.

"Other spren can be more...personable. Honorspren are particularly gregarious."

Well, Verso chooses not to linger on the concept of breaking oaths and last moments filled with betrayal. It makes something in his stomach twist, makes him feel a little ill.

"Mm," he acknowledges, although he isn't particularly swayed by her very practical, very utilitarian view of things. Although Verso is certainly the sensible type, he can't dismiss emotion out of hand, either. Obviously—he's a musician, and he feels it all so very deeply. "Do you want to know what I think?"

Doesn't matter. She's going to hear it anyway.

"I think that he took a risk, and you showed him that there are people still worth trusting. I think that does make you special."

When she speaks again, her voice has lost a fraction of its usual polish, the edges softened by something quieter, warmer.

"Trust is not an emotion I give lightly," she says. "And not one I expect from others. But Ivory...disagrees with me on occasion."

As if on cue, a faint ripple of shadow gathers at her shoulder. The briefest shimmer of inkspren presence before it slips away again. Not a full appearance. More like a shy acknowledgment.

"He wishes me to tell you," Jasnah continues, "that your interpretation is...acceptable."

She betrays a hint of amusement. Subtle, but undeniably fond.

"I have done what I can to honour his risk If he finds something admirable in that..." She lifts one shoulder in a quiet, unguarded shrug. "I suppose I will not insult him by disputing it."

Then, a softer note — rare, fleeting: "Nor will I dispute you."

It hangs between them for just a heartbeat before her composure settles back into place, refined and precise.

"But special or not, trust must be maintained. Ivory's. Mine. Anyone's. It is work. And work rarely flatters."

"You're right, trust is work," he acquiesces. Verso knows well how hard it can be to build up trust. Even with decades of experience cultivating it, it's still a difficult thing to grow. Maybe he's just inherently untrustworthy.

"But I've been looking for a job, if you recall." A faint smile, the play on words for her amusement alone. He leans back in his chair, regarding her with a slight tilt to his head. "What do you think of my chances of hire?"

His indirect, meandering way of asking, could you trust me?

Jasnah studies him for a long, deliberate moment. Long enough that Verso might wonder whether shecs weighing his words, or weighing him. Or both.

"Your chances are...decent,” she says at last. No flourish, no smile — just calm, reasoned judgment. "I do not offer trust easily, but I do not waste potential when I see it."

Her gaze sharpens, thoughtful.

"You described yourself as an Expeditioner before. That title carries a great many implications. But very little clarity." She folds her hands, bare over sleeved. "So before I decide precisely how to employ you, I want to know what that means. The skills. The training. The...expectations."

A soft tilt of her head. Curious.

"What does an Expeditioner do? And more importantly, what do you believe you do best? Outside of waltzing."

"An Expeditioner—" Verso pauses for a moment, visibly contemplative. The Expeditions are such a fact of life in Lumière that it's difficult to explain to someone who doesn't have all the context. "Navigates the Continent. Dashingly vanquishes monsters." A quirk of his lips, at that. "And searches for a way to reach the Paintress in her Monolith and defeat her."

As he'd said before, that's the whole goal of these Expeditions. Find the Paintress and kill her. End the Gommage, or so Lumièrans believe.

"But mostly, it's just setting things up for... those who come after." For those who come after, the Expedition slogan. "For example, Expedition 69 left behind handholds on the cliffs to make climbing easier for future generations." They'd known they wouldn't be the final Expedition.

"I guess my skills lie in"—babysitting Expeditioners, showing them where to go, making sure they don't instantly die—"navigation. And survivalism. Knowing which mushrooms are poisonous, and which just taste bad." From prior experience.

Jasnah listens as though she's assembling a lattice: slotting each of his skills into structure and counter-structure, eliminating what is irrelevant, sharpening what remains. When she finally speaks, it's with the calm clarity of someone drafting strategy, not offering praise.

"Navigation," she begins. "That has value. Urithiru is not fully understood. It has more than a hundred stories; its forgotten passages collapse and reopen; even our scholars disagree on the safest routes between sections. It isn't quite like wildnerness terrain, but you'd adapt."

A soft scribble, like an idle thought, before she continues.

"Survival experience suggests field competence. I could assign you to accompany research parties — those who travel into the Plains, or the Herdazian border, or any of the unclaimed lands. There, we lose people not to blades, but to ignorance."

Another possibility presents itself.

"And there is the Cobalt Guard. Someone whose whose first instinct is to assess a situation, not react blindly to it, would be useful in their number. Someone capable of anticipating danger and acting without political hesitation."

She lets that settle. Three clear shapes. Three potential futures.

Then, more softly, more deliberately: "But those are merely the applications I can imagine. I'm not interested in placing you where you'll resent the work." She leans in, even as he leans back, signaling her genuine inquiry. "What would you find fulfilling? Where would your abilities be more than simple labour?"

"I don't know. Guess I've never really thought about... fulfillment."

That doesn't seem a thing within his reach. It certainly hadn't back in Lumière or on the Continent. Even before the trouble began and the truth came out, he'd always felt a nagging sense of wrongness. He still feels that wrongness, bone-deep now, seeped into the marrow. There's no fulfillment to be found here, just existence.

"I used to want to be a—" He cringes a little, because this is embarrassing. "Famous composer." Not merely a 'composer'. Specifically a famous one. Universally beloved by fans.

"But," he adds, since she'd already dismissed the idea of putting him up on a stage, "it looks like the 'court musician' position is closed."

Edited 2025-11-16 19:00 (UTC)

...Her knuckles rap against the table. Biding time, buying the space to think. It's complicated. The Coalition, of which Alethkar is a central participant, is at war. Beyond that, war is coming for the whole planet. It's — difficult to justify putting anyone in positions that aren't martial. Practical. Additive.

She'd described to him, once, a role that was something like a court musician: a jester, a storyteller, a sword. An emotional shield, of sorts, for the monarch. Carefully, cautiously, she did not link that position to the man they'd discussed earlier.

"The seat of the Queen's Wit remains vacant. I don't see why you'd want it but — it's the closest we come to any kind of artistic patronage during these times."

Is she...wincing? Maybe like she feels as though to outright offer it could actually offend him.

Verso blinks. Not offended at the suggestion by any means, but perhaps a bit offended at something else—

"You really know how to flatter a man." Since she already sounds as if she's trying to talk him out of it. "Is my playing so bad?"

"Not in the slightest," Jasnah answers. She doesn't rush to reassure him or correct him, but she does firmly dispel the notion. "I quite enjoy your playing. But I can't imagine you'd want this particular position — no matter how much music it might entail."

Moments like these — earnest, sincere, and easily shared — make it clearer and clearer that she doesn't withhold praise on purpose. Rather, she's grading by a different rubric.

"You should understand. It's not a glamorous appointment. The Wit must be sharp enough to survive court politics. Expected to speak boldly where others stay silent, only to be despised for the very honesty that protects them. It is undignified. Unpopular. Spending most days at the sovereign's side — sitting through petitions, negotiations, the indescribable tedium of administrative reform. All on the off-chance their sensibilities — story, poetry, music — might one day be required. Either to delight envoys or to interrupt a moment of political tension."

Or to simply entertain her. He would be expected to watch her read, review endless reports, annotate policy drafts — waiting patiently for the moment she might want his craft. He would do it all in her shadow. Day after day. Whether he is bored. Or irritated. Or invisible. Given his current state — trailing after her like an axehound — Jasnah assumed his request for gainful employment meant he wanted out from under her thumb. The role she describes couldn't be further from the truth. By dissuading him, she believes she's saving him from a miserable fate.

"People will resent you for the influence they imagine you wield. They will sneer at you for the foolishness they think you must embody. And they will forget your name the moment you leave the room."

Finally, she inclines her head, expression unreadable but not unkind.

"If you seek fame or appreciation, look elsewhere. If you want meaningful work...then we can continue this conversation."

Mm. No, it doesn't really sound like fun. None of the adoring fans he'd always wanted, back when he still had dreams. But—

There is one thing he has found fulfillment in, for some given value of the word. He has, in fact, been undignified and unpopular, suffered and burdened himself for one singular thing. A greater cause. One he's lost now that the Canvas and its people are gone to him. He could dedicate himself to another cause, he thinks. If his existence is poison, then the least he can do is a little bloodletting to help create the antidote.

"And that's useful to you?" he asks, leaning forward once more in interest. "To have someone to do that for you?"

Girl, run, he's about to recontextualize his whole life around being unhappy to please you.

Jasnah had been so meticulous not to refer to herself within the job description. Obliquely, she'd mentioned the sovereign, the duties, the influence. It was easy enough to read between her lines, but she still hadn't expected his question to be so...incisive: would it be useful to have someone do that for you?

Showing a rare twinge of awkwardness, Jasnah clears her throat.

"I-I," uncharacteristically, she stammers. Statements like these are foreign on her tongue. Jasnah is very good at giving commands and expecting discipline from those around. She's much, much less accomplished at asking for things that are truly just for her. "I like for there to be music when drafting legislation. Or reviewing correspondence."

He can sense her clumsiness, and he adjusts unconsciously, almost imperceptibly, for her comfort: pulling back just slightly, both physically and in emotional intensity. Avoiding the dreaded crime of being too much. Verso tilts back so that he doesn't crowd her, expression milder now, more neutral. Tone light and casual.

"All right," he says with a shrug. "I could provide you with some background music."

I could be useful to you.

The side of his boot taps against hers, playful. Another one of those little searches for the friendly physical contact he's gone without for a long time. "Since you're so fond of my playing."

Jasnah doesn't recoil. She doesn't even shift. Just registers the brush of his boot with the faintest, almost imperceptible stillness, like someone cataloguing an unexpected variable but deciding it isn't a threat.

If anything, she allows it. For a moment.

"Background music," she repeats, dry as old paper, but not dismissive. The corner of her mouth softens, just enough to suggest she understands exactly what he's offering beneath the joke. Use.

A trial run, then. Temporary. Controlled.

"That will do," she says at last. Not warm; not cold; simply decisive. "We'll consider it an evaluation period once we return to Urithiru."

She clears her throat once again, not awkwardly this time, but instead with the crispness of someone returning herself to the task at hand.

"I have work to finish," she continues, turning to the map with that quiet, unshakeable composure of hers. "Stay and read, if you like. Let's see how you manage the tedium."

"Tedium?" he asks with a mock-skeptical expression, reaching out to take An Accountability of Virtue in hand again. Amused: "I'd hardly consider what Wema and Sterling are getting up to to be tedious."

And, besides, he's quite invested in the story. There's something deeply relatable about a protagonist caught between her own happiness and her familial duty. He'd rather like to pluck Wema out of the story and have a long conversation with her. As that's not possible, though, he'll make do with devouring the story at a startling speed.

Which is what he does, flipping through the story at a breakneck rate, reacting visibly to the various plot developments (and plot-what-plot developments). A wrinkled nose and rolled eyes at the Brightlord Vadam, a very quiet but very exasperated scoff at Wema's indecision, raised eyebrows at a very generous description of Sterling's physical attributes.

On occasion, he glances up at Jasnah, perhaps curious if there's any chance he'll catch her glancing up at him, too. But he is on his best behavior, so he does not at any point speak or interrupt her work, not until she's indicated that it's finished.

Edited (sometimes you just have to say 'enough is enough' with the commas) 2025-11-16 21:35 (UTC)

Jasnah settles into the rhythm of her work with the same precision she's brought to nearly everything else thus far. The map sprawled across the table is nearly as tall as she is, layered with translucent sheets of notation. Lines marking hypothesized boundaries, glyph combinations denoting pre-Recreance architecture, the faint shimmer of stormlight on a few key points where she's left spheres like tiny anchor-stones. Holding pages in place.

Verso's presence registers only at the edges of her awareness as he turns pages with enthusiasm, huffs with amusement or disbelief that punctuates the romantic fiction, or shifts occasionally in his seat. She doesn't look at him, but she hears him. And when she needs more space on the bench to reach a distant corner, she simply sets a hand on his shoulder and nudges him down without ceremony.

Standing now, she leans over the northeastern quadrant of the map's wide span, tracing with one fingertip the hypothetical location of a Dawncity that doesn't correlate with any known settlements. The scratch of her pen, the soft rustle of Verso's page-turning, the quiet hush of the alcove curtain. Together, they form an accidental harmony.

It is almost peaceful.

It ends when Ivory ripples into being just long enough for her to feel him — an anxious cold brush of ink against her jaw, a muted pulse of warning. He vanishes before Verso can catch more than a suggestion of movement, but the message is clear. Something is happening

A moment later, a tentative "ahem" fractures the quiet. Jasnah straightens at once.

The curtain draws back and an ardent peers inside, sheepish, eyes darting to Verso and then immediately away from him. Her robe is wrinkled from having been run in; her hands twist anxiously in the fabric at her waist.

"Brightness," she begins, stumbling over the honorific. "Forgive the intrusion, but —there's been...an incident. King Taravangian sends his regrets."

Her posture goes absolute still. "What incident?"

"The Oathgate," the ardent says in a rush, as if the words burn on the tongue. "It's...stopped working."

The air in the alcove seems to contract, the library holding its breath. Jasnah drops the square of charcoal she'd been using with controlled finality, and turns fully toward the doorway. "Storms," she swears.

And the room is no longer peaceful at all.

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