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Tweak says, "Damn, I chipped a tooth."

Petra Fortis (alchimia) wrote in caeleste,
@ 2010-12-12 19:32:00

Entry tags:

adward sharaf, petra fortis

rudeness (sharaf)
It was morning now, light was streaming inside of her cell and Petra was trying to ignore it. Everything still screamed that she was tired. Perhaps she shouldn't try falling asleep with her mind full of clutter. From thoughts to what they were going to do, to things she wished they were doing, Petra had been very awake long after Adward's breath drifted into that relaxed state of slumber. She couldn't tell the time in here, without a clear view of the stars and their alignment, but she had guessed more than once that it was long after midnight when she'd finally lost track and shut her eyes tight and drifted. Now she fought the light. Scrunching her eyes, rolling on the hard mattress and covering her head in the singular pillow as she used the crook of her arm for a place to rest her head. The thoughts came flooding back. She wasn't home. She wasn't anywhere near home and she had to find her work. That was what was important. Sleep could wait. Food could wait. Waking Adward was going to be her task for the morning. It wasn't that he was a sound sleeper, but he could really sleep when he wanted to.

Unlike her, who slept when she was too tired to work any longer.

One eye opened, face full of pillow, the next opened afterwards. She pushed the pillow aside and against the warm wall. Warm from the outside. It was probably already hot out there. Stifling hot. She wasn't going to enjoy running around the city. Not after yesterday. Nearly being killed and nearly watching a friend die. Friend? Well it wasn't lover. Ex-lover then? That sounded almost queer. She'd simply name him Adward in her head because she didn't know what she wanted to call him otherwise. There had been many names for him in the time she'd known him but now it was difficult. She shouldn't have been thinking so much about it. There were more important things to think about. Like getting her work back. Why it was so important, and who had stolen it in the first place. Making it rain in the desert was quite a feat, but the problem was how dangerous rain could be. Rain and storms. Maybe she should have told Adward what they were dealing with.

It could be quite dangerous. But he didn't want to know. Bastard wanted to figure it out for himself. Just like she'd wanted to figure out the sleeping roll herself until she was fed up and he told her and then she'd been grouchy about it and..

She rolled onto her side and looked out the bars. She expected to see the room empty but instead there was a man there. A man standing there and staring at her through the bars. Petra's hair was everywhere and sleep was still stuck in her eyes. She was only barely dressed and had been sleeping. She opened her mouth, thinking of screaming. But it caught in her throat. She stared at him. He stared back. Was he leering at her? Pretty girl in a bed? She couldn't tell. It was still too early for her to rationalize how people were looking at her and how they were not looking at her. What all of this meant was Petra was between her emotions. Fear. Anger. Confusion. More fear. Lots more anger. Even more confusion.

Finally she spoke.

"What are you staring at?" Her voice was flat and icy.

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sharaf
2010-12-14 04:45 am UTC (link)

He bounced the key to her cell in his palm, just outside of the closed door. There was a smile on his dimly-lit face. And there was something of malice in his eyes, even if those eyes could not clearly be seen.

So this was the one they called Petra. She might have given them up by now, if she could bring herself to tell the tracker the whole truth. She couldn't do that. Because she cared about the tracker? Because she cared about Wajih? Or because she was a glory-hound, searching for something that was going to give her the ultimate notoriety? No one was going to find out for sure. No one was going to find out because, finally, he was here. She was going to get this straight in her head before he left or she was going to be in a great deal of pain. All the same, there was no reason to hurt her if she cooperated. He was not just a reasonable man. He also did not enjoy inflicting pain.

He was not a monster.

"Master Sharaf has gone for a walk," the stranger said. "You know how young men can sometimes be, don't you, Lady Alchemist? You must have worked him into quite a lather last night. Well. He'll be back soon, so I thought I should have a word with you before he returns. I have no desire to have my face broken. Nor any other bones, lest you flippantly ask."

He took a seat on a stool which had materialized seemingly from nowhere. Young and thin, with a powerful jaw and short-cropped hair. Those malevolent eyes were blue as good skies and his collar nestled against his chin, almost as if it belonged there. The coat was fine and densely-woven wool, not loose at all like a farmer's coat might be.

He carried no visible weapons.

"You have a great many questions, I'm sure," the stranger went on. "I will answer reasonable questions, Lady Alchemist, as a show of good faith. Yet I must first tell you simply. The reason I have come here is to discourage you from pursuing your stolen materials any further. This is a recommendation that bears the utmost concern for your health."

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alchimia
2010-12-14 11:36 pm UTC (link)

"Discourage me?" Petra said flatly. She was awake now, fully so, and finally found the ability to sit up fully, though she pulled the blanket up with her as she swung her legs over the edge of the mattress. Her packs were there. But if she needed to be fast, could she be fast enough to mix up something to stop him from attacking her? The malice was not missed. He meant was not a nice man, no matter who he was. The way he said discourage put the hair on the back of her neck on end.

Did he mean to use force if he had to?

"They are my things, and my work, not to mention the work of far more alchemists. They do not belong in someone else's hand, especially thieves." She was watching him, but trying at the same time to get a better grasp as to what was going on around her. Sharaf wasn't here, good. Good for him. He should be gone if someone else decided to attack her over these things. She needed them found, and needed his help for that, bu she did not need him killed for it. What affection she held for him was buried, of course, and did not play across her face when the man spoke of him. Instead she simply watched.

How much did he know about her? That was the real question. Did he know enough about her to know that once she was determined that nothing would get in her way? That was they they left her, and she knew it. That's why friends, and family were distant. Because of her. But here they sat, staring at each other, maybe wondering about each other. What she wanted to do was be out of this cell and ready for him. Her second pack was further than the one filled with vials, but she thought she'd need the second one more. She didn't know why, but he put her on edge.

"And how do you propose you do that? They are my works. They belong to me. In Perava we do not steal, the law will be upheld."

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sharaf
2010-12-16 02:54 am UTC (link)

For a long moment the stranger seemed to consider that. He tapped the key against his chin, and he pursed his lips, and though the dangerous light never left his eyes he was watching her in a different way now. It was only at the end that he laughed. The laugh was one of incredible amusement, not malice, and he let it roll over her for a number of seconds before he spoke again. When he did, he was reaching into his coat at the same instant, and coming away with a cigar. Luxurious brown leaves surrounded the tobacco, which would make the smoke thick. A rare thing for the desert.

"Imagine if all alchemists were as selfish as you," and another chuckle escaped him. "We would have no progress at all, would we? That's what this is really about. You don't care about the law, or about theft. You were trying to make a name for yourself. I must admit, I admire that in a woman. Too many of them are pleased to sit by and watch while others do amazing things. Yet your singular nature also makes you transparent."

The cigar rolled between his teeth. He struck a match against the bars of her cell, which were currently holding her captive audience to him, and the fire threw more light on his face. The beginnings of a beard were there. Perfect white teeth greeted her in a grin - a rarity, unless the bearer of those teeth was noble-born. His eyes caught the light of that fire and gave off something more. A redness, hidden in the blue, that seemed only to show when the fire illuminated his face.

"Tell me the truth now, girl. If you were handed those materials tomorrow and told that you could only have them if the thieves were never brought to justice, would you accept that? What if I gave you the opposite choice? Give up the materials, and everyone involved would rot in prison for the rest of their natural lives. I know which you'd take, girl, so don't deny it. Be proud of who you are! It's that sort of attitude that makes everything work in the first place."

A puff of smoke. The match was shaken until it was deceased. Only the orange glow of his cigar cast shadows on his face, now, and those shadows were long.

"Truth be told, I considered offering you employment."

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alchimia
2010-12-16 07:55 am UTC (link)

He certainly wasn't the first person to call her selfish, and he certainly would not be the last. Petra knew she was selfish, but that only stretched so far, didn't it? It could make her rise from the right person, Adward for example, could make her angry by calling her selfish. This man would not accomplish such a thing. The reason she was angry at all was because she was locked in here, and because he'd laughed. She didn't like people laughing at her, laughing with her yes, laughing because she'd said something funny fine, but what she had said was neither funny nor meant to be. She did not rise from her place on her cot. She sat there staring at him with her green eyes slightly narrowed. Enough to glare at him. The problem was, of course, that the choice was impossible in the way that normal men would think. Have your possessions but never be able to capture the criminal? Give them up but have the criminals for life?

The emotional sort would take the second choice. Her father would take the second choice. Better to uphold the law and give Wajih's son some sort of peace. Take the first and you're as close to being an emotionless monster as ever. She knew which she'd pick without thinking about it for long. The first choice would always be the one she took. Not because she thought that bringing the thieves to justice wasn't a noble pursuit, it was, but because she thought the advancement would better all of them. Not just her. She wanted the notoriety, of course. But not for the reasons everyone thought she wanted them for. For herself? Partly. For her mother? More so. For her father to be proud of her, ten times more. The calculations and figures could fly past her fingers with a quill in hand and a parchment on her leg. Neither she had and neither she would reach for.

Instead she stared at him. Quiet in the way Petra liked to be. Thinking, always thinking. The solutions which came to her could be written in smoke. One lunge at her bag would produce a vial of blue-green liquid, highly flammable, a perfect throw would break against his face, or better the bars! The liquid would ignite and he would burn to death. Not before the floor did, and the explosion would probably kill her. Scratch that one. Another vial, purple but see-through, would ignite and burn not enough to melt the bars but not explode and kill her. Better. But she'd ruin the jail and to explain such a thing.

Delay him long enough and Adward might show up. Delay him and she would find out if she should have killed him. Locked in here and what if he turned out to be powerful enough to overtake Adward? Kill him before she could get herself out?

"I prefer to work alone." She said instead. Answering only his final statement. "I also prefer not to be referred to as girl. I'm old enough to be called by my name."

Her fingers hooked onto the edge of the cot, as if she was going to pull herself up. She wondered if he'd move if she did. What if she went for her pack? Was he planning on attacking her or was be planning to bore her to death with his examples of knowing her. Common knowledge that she was selfish. Common knowledge that she was a forward thinker with a bend toward herself. She was trying to convince herself that he wasn't as dangerous as he appeared, but she still wanted to have one of those packs with something at he ready. She couldn't shake the feeling that the look in his eyes spoke of deaths. Whether he committed them or ordered them didn't matter.

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sharaf
2010-12-24 04:36 am UTC (link)

The man nodded, but it was a slight nod. Meant only as an acknowledgment of her point. So it seemed.

"Quite right, Petra," he agreed somberly. "You avoided my question. I suppose because you think that it's possible for you to be entirely selfless, and you think I'm stalling. Or perhaps it's because you truly believe you are selfless? Would a selfless person keep her friend in the dark? Would a selfless person have allowed him to come along and endanger his life?"

A laugh, then, as her eyes widened. Not fear. Anger and surprise. The stranger spun the keys on his outstretched finger. They made one loop. Two, three. Another grin graced his face. Yet he was not looking at her, now. His eyes were boring into the wall as though searching for something. The right words? The right piece of information? The answer to a question that had not been asked? His eyebrows were steady on his forehead. Almost as though the grin were entirely false. It never touched his eyes. Never folded the skin on his forehead.

"Perhaps I'm making too strong a pitch," he said, before she could answer him. "You wouldn't accept in any case. The young - and you are young, Petra, regardless of what you think - they don't think about how their own illusions affect their perceptions. If you are honest about the kind of person you are, it opens a world to you that you never knew existed. I fear it will be some time before you see that world, Petra. As you are I doubt you would know it when you saw it."

A shifting on the stool.

"Oh, yes, my point," he continued. "Your lives are very much in danger. If you persist, you will die. You and your friend. Clever as he is, he isn't nearly good enough to have his way with us."

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alchimia
2010-12-26 07:54 pm UTC (link)

Petra stared at him, the anger and surprise in her eyes was hard to mask. That moment of weakness was enough for the man. She did care about Adward, and it didn't matter what this man thought, not at all, he could think she was entirely selfish. The rest of the world did. They didn't understand what she was trying to do. Her accomplishments were never just for her, and would never just be for her. Sure, the world would benefit from them in it's own way, but it was the memory of a mother which drove her to continue. If she could master that next thing, could she master death? Was it foolish to think such a thing was possible? Probably. Did that stop her? No. So maybe she was selfish. She certainly wasn't selfless. Petra could never claim to be selfless. She did enjoy getting her way. She did manipulate people to make things easier. But she wasn't entirely selfish.

Just to a larger degree than one might call normal. Petra let her bare feet touch the ground now as she stared at the man. Now what he was saying seemed much more like a threat. Petra could deal with threats. But what was he? An Alchemist? A mage, maybe? Doubtful, mages didn't run around out here in the desert unless they had to. Immortal? Human? Was he of importance? Their lives were in danger! As if Petra thought that they hadn't been when she'd crossed the desert. Adward knew there were consequences to his job, just as he'd seen yesterday. Only, he didn't believe in fighting to the death. Petra did. It was eat or be eaten. Kill or be killed. The world was full of very clear examples as such. Religion waned you to believe that killing your fellow humans, immortals, elves, or whatever, was a sin. That it would damn you to a hell. Well, if there were Gods, then maybe that would be a worry.

But there wasn't. So there was no hell, and no heaven. Those scripts could be taken as tales. Morality tales written in hopes o bending the sheep into the correct shape. Make them fit, and submit. If her life was on the line then she would fight to be alive. She could kill if she had to. That was how the world worked. The very cities they lived in were examples of such.

"If I'm so selfish, why are you trying to use him against me? A selfish person would not care, am I right? Why waste your breath?" Petra raised an eyebrow, staring at him. Her eyes were darkening, even in the sunlight. The threat was there. She had no need for idle prattle if he was threatening her life. Petra would always choose to live.

"I'm not exactly the kind of girl you want to threaten. Perhaps if you'd done your research better, then you would have known I love a challenge." She couldn't order Adward to stand down. She couldn't convince him not to follow her, or to abandon his duty. The man was stubborn to a fault. That's probably why she enjoyed his company and hated it. Because he was like her in a way he would never admit. He enjoyed challenges, he was stubborn, and most of all Adward was selfish. Not to her degree, maybe, but he was.

They made quite a pair.

"I'm not leaving without my research and potions." She said flatly, this time her hand slid along the bed, closer to her pack. She would need to move very fast if he intended to kill her here and now.

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sharaf
2010-12-28 02:52 pm UTC (link)

"Well," he said.

There seemed to be something on his mind, now. For a long moment his blank face did not change. The keys looped around his finger again and again as he watched. There was very little, precious little, in his eyes. He seemed just then to drink everything in without relating it to himself. Or, if he did, those thoughts were kept hidden away somewhere. With that blank face he stared first at her face. Then at her eyes. Then at the pack she kept close by. He did not mirror her movement. There was no scramble for weaponry or a naked, aggressive threat to try and keep her from reaching for her own. His look was one, ultimately, of dissection. Taking something apart to see how it worked and what it could do.

Finally, he laughed.

"A challenge," he mused. "I suppose it could be interpreted that way. Simple advice, Petra. But remember this. I predict three things will come of this. You will never have your work back. Someone will die because you refuse to stand aside in the face of history. And you will not tell Adward precisely what it is that you're chasing. You can prove me wrong on the third prediction simply by being contrary. Then again, two out of three is not bad. I suppose I would call that a win."

Now his face seemed to light up. Animated as he was, strangers had a difficult time believing that his face could go blank as it had before.

"Remember that, for later. Remember that I gave you a chance to stop what is coming, and you refused. Remember that if you were not so arrogant, none of the wicked things soon to befall you would have happened. And if you live a thousand years or more, Petra, remember most of all my face. If you live one thousand, I will live ten. I certainly will not forget the willful girl who ruined her life to prove a point."

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alchimia
2011-01-03 06:59 am UTC (link)

Petra could have said a thousand different things. She could have been angry and lashed out against him, either physically or verbally. She knew how both could sting. She could have been upset, even willingly shed some of the blockade she built around herself. Maybe laughed in his face. But she didn't know which to do, or how exactly to react. She watched him, she listened to him, but mostly she studied him. He talked a lot, for someone who had her locked in a cell. He did not act enough for someone who threatened, without really threatening enough. What was he doing here, why was he here, and who had sent him? There was nothing overly distinguishing about him. Not a mark in the way people of Perava marked themselves. He could not have been native, could he?

But how could she really be so arrogant? She thought what she was doing was to help everyone. If it benefited her in the end, fine, but not the money. She didn't care about the money. Advancing the age. Pushing the bounds. Creating and destroying. The work, some said, of Gods. Petra didn't believe in them so she simply thought it was the work of mankind, or Immortal-kind. Dwarves, men, immortals, whoever else found their way into alchemy. She was working for them. She did things for them.

Selfish, she may have been in most aspects of her life, she thought she wasn't selfish in this. She never stopped to spare any one's feelings, let alone her own. It seemed this man thought the very worst of her.

"Why are you warning me at all, if you don't care about the outcome? Why not just allow me to continue on my way? Guilty conscience?" Petra asked, watching him with a calm face. "Why should I believe you?"

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sharaf
2011-01-06 02:54 am UTC (link)

He seemed to consider that for a long moment. The key in his hand earned some of his dire stare, then - he watched it as if waiting for an answer to spring out of the old iron and reveal itself to him. When the answers were not forthcoming - a few seconds, only - he turned his gaze back to her. For the first time those eyes of his showed something other than the cool, collected mask he'd been wearing. Now there were traces of anger in his gaze, and in his lips. His sharp, slanted nose seemed almost beak-like when his brows drew down. The anger was not directed at her. It was almost as though he was looking through her.

"You misunderstand, my dear girl," he finally whispered. "The outcome is terribly important. I know what you were working on, Petra, even if your loyal friend does not. To change the skies, to alter the weather? You think of what you want to do with it. You think of all who could be helped by it. Yet you do not think of how such a thing could be misused. You do not think of what ambitious men would do with such a treasure. That is why you are, first and foremost, selfish. That is why the outcome is so terribly important."

A smile.

"One other thing, before I take my leave," and now he leaned forward, closer to the bars. "You should not always do a thing simply because it is in your power to do so. If your reasons are not righteous, you will fail, and you will bring about the destruction of those things which you love. I will kill you, if I must, but I would prefer to see you devote your considerable talents to something of use to the people. Something that cannot be so mindlessly and wildly exploited."

The smile faded. He leaned back.

"And now I've said my piece," the fellow seemed calm again. "It seems only respectful to let you do the same. Unless you'd rather I let you out of there?"

The key performed another loop around his finger.

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alchimia
2011-01-09 08:37 pm UTC (link)

Petra stared at him for a long time. He thought that she hadn't considered what she was working on as a dangerous thing, or he didn't consider that she was trying to get the dangerous parts out of the equation. The problem was that she was having difficulty doing such, and on a broad scale she would have much more difficulty than a little jolt of lightning in her workshop. She'd have it arc across the skies and kill people if she wasn't very very careful. Of course she considered such things. That was why she was laughing now, whether it earned her a glare or not she didn't care.

"You think I haven't been trying to take the power out of it? Or that I haven't considered how dangerous it could be. of course I have. My figures, numbers, all of the experiments were trying to wheedle out what was wrong with it. Making it rain, of course, would be an amazing thing, and what it could do for Perava would be more than any stupid weapon of war I've wasted my time on, or that any of us have wasted our time on. More people die, in Perava, from simply not having enough water in their lifetime, no matter what we do, or waiting on food that we simply can't have here. The people who trade, or travel for such things wouldn't die trying to bring such things back anymore. I've weighed the options, I suppose you'd call that foolish, but I think that if I could get the dangerous aspects out of it, it could be incredible." She stopped smiling.

Mostly because she knew it seemed so impossible to take the danger out of the equation.

There was only so much she could do to make it safe for people to use. But would she ever trust someone else using it besides her? Petra was staring past him and thinking about it. Still she sat there half in the blankets and half out of them. Thinking, considering, and wondering. That was what she did. Normally she would have been tinkering with something while thinking but here she was not home. Here she didn't have a quill, ink, and parchment ready to write on.

"You don't care to use it yourself. You're trying to stop everyone from using it?"

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sharaf
2011-01-10 04:46 am UTC (link)

"You can't simply design a thing," the fellow stood up at last, moved toward the door of her cell. "You must keep it safe. We stole it from your workshop easily enough, Petra. If we could do it, imagine what could be done by someone with malice? They could have flooded this city by now. Thousands dead or displaced. Perhaps more. All because you felt certain you knew the right thing to do."

The key rasped into the lock. Iron on iron. Heavy grinding greeted both of their ears as he turned it. The door did not spring open immediately. He was leaning against it, not far from her now, staring down at her with eyes of light blue. They seemed to shine in the darkness - and suddenly there was not so much malice in them as there was anger, and desire. His entire face had twisted into it. Less outwardly threatening than before - and yet most would have agreed there was something far more disturbing about this face. A face of earnest belief. A face of assumed power.

"If an alchemist does anything they should not, I and my associates are there, in the name of the old ones," he said quietly. "Many have the strength and not the wisdom to act. Those two things are entirely separate, yet they're treated as one and the same. For all of the wrong reasons, my dear Petra, those who are strong believe they know what is right. They never do."

Now he pulled on the bars. The door eased open, with one final squeak.

"I'm going to leave you, now," the bright-eyed stranger informed her. "Excellence requires it of me. As a courtesy, I ask that you do not follow me. I can ask more forcefully, if I must. I would prefer not to. I am sure you understand."

The figure slowly turned, cast the key down to the stone, and began to walk away.

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alchimia
2011-01-11 03:13 am UTC (link)

"I don't understand." Petra said as she rose finally from the bed, quickly moving, she left her packs behind. Abandoning them for a moment of utter confusion. She did like knowing the answers to all of her questions, sometimes finding such things were the best parts of her day, but something told her she didn't want to know everything. She was barefoot and barely dressed, but she still moved, closer to the door now. All of her thoughts were coming together i her head, like a strange puzzle. She just had to find the right solution.

"You killed Wajih, because he didn't care about things? Or because he wanted to misuse what I was working on? Do you know what you did to his son?" Petra suddenly found her fury in every step she took. "He's going to rot in a prison for the rest of his life because you, or whoever you work with or for, said it was my fault that he was dead. How could anyone think that's the right way to do things?" Petra was angry, it was written across her face, her green eyes darkened with grey.

"You sound like a religious zealot, is that it? Studying ancient beings that don't really exist and thinking your beliefs are so much better than everyone else's. So you kill, you murder people in order to get your way." Petra's hand was closing on the door to shove it open wider.

"And you think I'm terrible." Petra spat after him.

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sharaf
2011-01-11 08:51 pm UTC (link)

The man stopped as though he were considering her words. Up until that point, it had seemed as though little of her words had registered with him. Yet something she'd said in her tirade staggered him - made him pause, and made him hesitate on the threshold. He did not turn, and there was no other outward sign. His shoulders did not hitch. His waist did not turn. His fists did not clench. He merely stopped. There he stood, in the act of considering her words, for a handful of seconds. When they'd slipped away as sand he turned, halfway, to face her. There was no sign of emotion on his face - the intensity and the feeling were both gone from him as though drained.

"That you would ask these questions," he said slowly. "Only demonstrates how little you truly know, Petra. Perhaps one day you will understand. No decisions can or should be made without as much information as humanly possible. Since you have less than nothing - incorrect assumptions are any proclaimed scientist's enemy - I would urge you to go home, and work on another project to the betterment of our people."

Another step forward, and he stopped again.

"One more thing, before I go," he did not turn this time. "When and if you are interested in speaking further on this subject - reasonably, I might add - I would direct you to the house in Charisat. You can ask for the Blue Man when you arrive. A man like that will know within ten minutes of the question being asked who you are and what you want. You need not trouble him with over-explanations. Consider that an invitation to enlightenment, if you someday seek such a thing."

Then he was gone.

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