Post by Liessel on Apr 2, 2024 13:23:39 GMT -5
The woman, white of skin and white of hair, slipped back in the pool again, away from the edge, her hair a trailing veil along the surface of the water. "Now to your business, Seer," she said, regarding Adam Larrow. She did not peer at him, or look him up and down, and met his halved gaze. "If you have not come to present me with the pearl you hide, why have you come?"
With attention of the white woman shifting to Adam, and if the weight of Adam's hand would allow, Liessel would be slowly rising from where she knelt. It was her turn to be silent, and that she could do well. Though, how good she'd be at disappearing into the background remained to be seen. At one time, and it could have been just yesterday, she was very good at not taking up space. Would she be just as good at it now, now that she had decided to stretch beyond the rules that had kept her stuffed up tight?
Through their contact, Liessel might feel the tension in Adam's arm in the half-second before he realized she was rising. Upon that realization, he relented instantly, the tension channeled elsewhere rather than bled away. And if she looked at him, she'd see the effort to exert control over himself. He had risen, too, and eventually his hand on Liessel's shoulder fell to his side.
"Come now, boy; you have Seen something."
Adam frowned at that. "It's something I couldn't See," he told her, as if doing so were instantly easier with a prompt. Or with the threat of Missus White's impatience. "A woman came to me--she and her husband, to have me read for the fate of their granddaughter. The pearl seems to...." He fumbled, and fought for a phrase or a word. "It seems to have something to show me," he settled on, looking unhappy with what he'd come up with. "It did not, at first, show me anything at all--I was blind, while others like Miss Erphale could see what it was doing. Now I see half-shadows while I read. I don't know how to use it. I think you do know."
The images she had seen, or rather the feeling of a life that wasn't her own stuck with her as she rose but it washed back like the ebb of a tide, or the returning ripples of water from a small pond leagues beneath the earth. With that receding came the ability for her to focus, once more, on what was around her as easily as she had done before kneeling by the water's edge. Her tears had stopped sometime between the moment that Adam had thrown his arm between her and Missus White, and the moment when she pushed herself to her feet. The remnants were there, and they were easily brushed aside with the quick flick of her fingers while Adam gave his answer.
After that, she didn't move, not to reach out to him, nor to recede herself. Liessel was there, and she was with him. She was paying attention to what he might need from her.
"Are you asking me what you aren't seeing, or are you asking me how to wield the pearl?" Missus White watched him with a languid curiosity sharply at odds with Adam's rigid attempt at control.
"I want to help the couple that came to me." It took him a moment to get that out. It had been another private juggling of possible replies.
"Send them to me," Missus White said easily.
"No." That came faster, more firmly.
She arched a brow at him that only resembled the fine hairs of a human brow.
"With respect," he said, "they came to me, and I'm here to ask for help on their behalf. And you looked at me the first time I was here... and you told me 'Sight for Sight.' The pearl is with me now, Missus White, because you wished it so and I made a choice. Help me to use it."
Strong in her silence, Liessel let her gaze drift out toward where Missus White was surrounded by the softly glowing water. She said nothing still but did raise her hand, the one nearer to Adam, her let it rest against his back.
He almost glanced at Liessel. The tiny start of it was there when he felt her hand against his back. He kept himself from doing it. Missus White was studying him, and he felt the need to look stronger than he felt.
"You speak of it as separate from yourself," she noted, as if it were a judgment. "Of course you can't see through it, boy. On the day that I bestowed it upon you, it was you indeed who should wield it. I was not wrong. The Alfar was friend to no one of these lands. No one of the stars adjacent. But now? It is my opinion that the artifact should sleep again. There is no great threat. Such things, loose, in clumsy hands, viewed by clouded minds, pose dangers."
"Are you saying it's not separate from me?" Had Adam even heard the rest? His one good eye was narrowed, as if Missus White had accidentally slipped a bit of gossip.
She yawned. "Boy, I am here to aid those who come to me. Send me your supplicants, and I will do what I can for them."
"They'd make it down," he heard himself say, and was surprised that his voice had more conviction in it than he could fake. "The grandmother, at least. They would come down here, but I won't ask it of them. They believe their granddaughter was taken, and that is what I saw too. Myself. I think she's in Faerie, and I know many who might be able to help her come home if you will work with me."
She eyed him.
Minutes passed.
"Did you bring gifts?" Missus White asked.
For a moment, Adam didn't move, and when he did it was as if he had to crack him limbs loose from a wax mold. He reached inside his waistcoat, and withdrew a small paper parcel that crinkled faintly. Carefully unrolling it, a small collection of feathers and fronds slid into his waiting hand. "I've never grown fruit," he said--without sounding like he was apologizing for that fact. "... but these are from the Circle Stone, from the banks of three rivers, and from High Solstice."
Liessel felt her brow draw inward as she listened, her attention slipping back toward where Adam stood. She was on the side of his good eye, his human eye, and from that angle she watched what played out against his expression. And it wasn't so much what was in his words, as it was what he was saying.
This news deepened her frown. She, herself, could think of no less than three people who would have been more than willing to give a hand with this. She knew that Adam knew them as well.
She remained quiet, still, her hand against Adam's back light as a feather and soft of touch. The only way he'd truly feel the presence of it, after that initial touch, was when he moved to bring forth his own offering for the white woman in the water.
Missus White's gaze lingered on the feathers and the green stems. They'd survived the crush of his vest and his immersion in the spring very well, for the most part, their soft curves and edges of down. "I like these," she told him, with a note that might have been dismay among the softness. "I thank you. Leave them on the stone."
No arm of water rose; Adam, unsure if he'd managed something or not, took a knee and laid out his small offerings. Missus White watched him steadily, uninterested in any unease the unblinking, cool observation might create. Her voice was more gentle when she told him, "I know how to be with the pearl when the pearl is with me, but I cannot go above. I do not know what it is up there, or what it is in your skull, boy. I knew what I knew when I knew it, and I took one eye and gave you another."
He hadn't risen, but his head had come up. "It didn't come from down here," he said quietly. "You called it Amrilaine's pearl. There's knowledge about it somewhere, or how would you have 'known what you knew'?"
"A human confusion," said Missus White, "not a confusion known to me. You believe knowledge must be somewhere. That is not the way it is."
When Adam had knelt, Liessel let her hand drop from where she had poised it against his back. She stayed there, standing in place, her gaze having fallen to where Adam laid out his offerings.
There was a difference here in how Missus White was treating Adam versus how she had treated Liessel. Liessel could hear it. She could feel it. But from where did it come, and what to do with it now that she was aware of it?
"So it is a thing of feeling, then, of -- intuition." The words slipped from her quietly, "You know it not because it has been written somewhere, but because it is felt somewhere within, it is known as a surety and not gained knowledge."
"I am one who knows when I know." Missus White's eyes met Liessel's, and it was Liessel who got the nod. "You should be his counselor, my wise friend, not the disrespectful girl who was here before."
Liessel gave Missus White a small smile while she lifted her hand to place it down lightly against his shoulder, "I am honored that you say so, great Lady. He knows well that he has my ear should he be in need, however I am not well versed in the world you know, nor am I of his. My experience is a drop of water, a smudge of dew. I am endeavoring to learn so that I might be of better use in that regard, but I have long way to go."
Adam did twist this time to look back at Liessel, opening his mouth to say--
--but Missus White was saying, "This is the resonant humility of one who would learn the ways. Would you learn the ways, Liessel Erphale? It has been long since I had a student from above."
Her head turned, her chin dropping as Adam turned back over his shoulder to look up her way. She had caught the motion and looked to meet his gaze as Missus White was answering.
What did she try to feed to him through that brief meeting of eyes before she was looking back up toward where Missus White was?
It will be alright.
"Would you grant me these next three days to consider your offer, kind Lady? It feels as if this is not an undertaking to be decided in one night alone."
"What undertaking is this?"
From behind them, across the stone, back where the tight little passage emerged into the chamber, came the voice of Amrilaine the Once-Warden.
Missus White peered past legs and past Adam as he got to his feet with a backwards step for balance. "Amrilaine, my old friend, welcome. It has been long since you came to me."
When Adam rose, Liessel's hand slipped from his shoulder. It happened just as she turned, herself, to see the keeper of that voice though she knew who it was.
Missus White made her greeting, and as she did, Liessel greeted the Once-Warden by lifting her hand to her heart before saying, "The offer has been made to teach me 'the ways'."
Though there was plenty of room there for Amrilaine to come forward, Liessel found herself shifting away from Adam to make room for the timeless woman.
Amrilaine's wet hair had been dried to damp and braided back in several plaits, twisted together at the crown of her head. She wore still the white robe she'd been given at the water's edge above, but from her own clothes beneath it she'd changed into a simple purple dress that looked wrapped about her, and now she had a mother of pearl snake in one ear. She was barefoot on the cool stone of Missus White's chamber.
"Nelell, dear one," Dame Ashbroom said in return to Missus White. She took in the look on Adam's face, and then regarded Liessel, before looking again to the white-haired woman in the pool. "An honor, such an offer. She must have impressed you, old friend."
"I am well-pleased with her," Missus White said easily. "She has old tides in her, and names--a touch changed--on her lips that I remember. I should like the company. She would make for a wiser protegee than yours."
Liessel looked very much the same as Amrilaine had last seen her, if a little bit dryer. Her hair was still a sloppy mess of a braid, tufts of blond pulled from the strands of it where it had come loose. Some pins had been lost in their travel through the spring, so it hung from her head and she had not cared to fix it. There had been no time to set aside enough for her to fix it. Vanity was a thing that could wait in situations like this.
The compliment came, and Liessel bowed her head forward to it, accepting it with the silent grace of her station -- the air and breath of a Sister of the Seven, though she did manage to sneak in a glance Adam's way as if to offer silent apology to him for the white woman's words, and for the fact that she had utterly derailed his business with Missus White.
Her head came back up, and she said, "I have asked for the next three days to consider the offer, as I have continuing obligations that I must take into account before agreeing."
Her father.
Flynn and Flynn, and their associates -- her friends. Her family.
The matters of her heart.
The life she was just discovering.
The People of Harroway.
Those words of warning that Aurelia had breathed to her.
No, this was not as simple as it would take to give a quick and easy 'yes'. This required deliberation. Careful deliberation.
Charlotte Carlson, Yesterday 8:24 PM
Amrilaine nodded, but Missus White said, "Three days, for I hope to enquire after the health of the Yew."
Dame Ashbroom's eyebrows rose in surprise. "It is well! The Yew lives. --You did not know? Forgive me; I did not realize how the news must flow, and fail to flow. The Yew is well and wise."
"Then that is who I suggest she visit. She spoke names that are, of a form, known to me. But little different, at any rate, but they are not the only names. I do not know if the Yew will speak, but if any of us might know the other names brought here, it would be the Yew."
A look of puzzlement came to the Dame, who asked, "Why would that be?"
"It was to the Yew that Gwydda and Irda entrusted the breaths."
"I never knew," whispered the ancient Once-Warden in wonder. "I did not know how that had moved away."
"You were young yet," Missus White said kindly. "Barely new-come."
Liessel settled back into silence, back into listening, and back into watching.
It stuck to her, though, the feeling of those hands that were not her own and the coolness of the water those hands had touched. The sorrow that had filled her. It was there, still, in the back of her mind. Awareness of it made it difficult to not feel off balance a bit.
Adam hadn't seen the look she'd thrown him. If he might have tried to wrench the topic back, it was doubly hard now that the Dame had arrived, with business of her own. He stood in place, only edges of what he was feeling showing in tiny ways that might be interpreted any number of ways. Unhappiness, impatience--not wholly either.
Amrilaine nodded, apparently struck by a new sense of something, and with a lilt of surprise said to Liessel, "If the Yew has those gifts, then Missus White is right: you might do well there. --Does she know yet where to go?"
"I know not the name," the woman in the water told her.
"Fortingall," the Dame then told Liessel gently. "In Scotland."
"Fortingall, Scotland," the location was repeated on a soft breath once before she repeated it two more times mentally, a nod given to the stone room, and the two ancient women who had been talking, "Thank you, both. I will make arrangements for a trip there." She had more questions, but they could wait for a moment with the Dame. "I believe, though, that I have sidetracked Mister Larrow's efforts to ask for some aid, himself. For that," She found herself looking toward Adam, the gentle motion of her hand lifting to her heart was spared only a moment, "I am sorry."
Though his reactions were tangled up, Adam was able to keep clear of them his sense of what had happened. The nod he gave Liessel was accompanied by a, "No need, Miss Erphale."
"Can you aid him, Nelell?" the Dame asked, picking that turn up. "I know your feelings on the matter, but--"
"How much can he want to aid those who came to him," Missus White posited softly, "if he dismisses out of hand the notion of bringing them to me?"
"Would you even see such strangers?" Amrilaine asked in counterpoint.
"I might. It would depend on what I see, and how I see it."
"The alternative was teaching me more about the pearl," Adam asserted quickly, laying that out in the Dame's presence.
Her apology made, the floor opened back up to Adam and his request, gave Liessel the space to fall silent again. He needed this room. She had taken it from him before, quite without intention of doing so, and now he had it back. Back to listening it was for her, back to watching, back to trying to think past the haze of what she'd seen when she'd looked into the water.
With the Dame here, Adam might have someone in his corner who understood more than she did. That was her hope.
"I have not forgotten the disrespect with which I was treated by your protegee, Amrilaine, and I sense that this boy has been impressionable. I have no wish to instruct him."
The Dame's gaze happened to drop down to the feathers and blades of grass that Adam had brought as gifts. "I'm not sure that I would call Aurelia my 'protegee,'" she said. "She is the right one. I saw her. I dreamed her. She appeared. Whatever is afoot in the mixing of our fates now, I have yet to doubt. She has, in fact, indirectly come to me with a question. I have been told that you and the Dark Mother of the Wood are familiar with one another."
Aurelia.
She had forgotten! She had absolutely forgotten that Aurelia was learning from Lady Ashbroom! And here, Missus White had compared Liessel to the red-headed beauty? As it snapped into place for her Liessel's eyes flashed wide for a second, and she lowered her chin and stiffened her jaw to keep herself from reacting outwardly.
She wanted to blame that disconnect on what she had seen. But the truth was that she simply did not think of Aurelia as the student of anyone and so hadn't made the connection. Aurelia was Aurelia. Beautiful. Bold. Kind. Caring. Smart and wonderful.
She tightened up inside straight down to her stomach and forced herself to breathe out smoothly enough as Amrilaine brought before Missus White the matter of Mother Blackthorn.