i've got my heart right here. Who: Peony & Storm What: The councilwoman descries a loitering squire. Where: The Tower When: Today Rating: G Status: Complete
Since taking up Cure, the squire had found every reason to pass by the Tower. It had begun excusably enough. The Tower was at the heart of the city; surely it was inevitable that Storm would pass by it in his daily excursions. However, as the days passed, there was no explaining how far his dawdling had come. Presently, the boy had taken one of the benches near the Tower for his own. A book on birdwatching was propped open on his lap. (There was neither feather nor talon in the immediate vicinity.) Next to him lay his beaten rucksack, the hilt of a training sword peeking out from within.
If one bothered to invest the bag’s contents further, they would find a loaned tome on magicks, flags adorning pages a time mage might expound upon.
Peony would never be the sort of councilor to lock herself up in the highest reaches of the tower with her studies. With her most recent for with the Knights of the Peace complete, she might have taken the time to relax, read, even write; instead, she had found herself taking a slightly extended lunch to wander down to the Tower gardens, whereupon she had been surrounded almost immediately by strays. Their feeding seen to, she had left the grounds to replenish her stock at a nearby fishmonger’s. Quiz led the procession of cats that followed her back as she returned to the Tower with her packages; for all that she had expressed to them that feeding was over for the day, cats were not terribly obedient creatures even at the best of times, let alone when they smelled fish.
So it was that she came upon Gale’s brother, taking advantage of the unexpectedly warm autumn sunshine on a bench not far from the Tower entrance. She smiled as she approached him, quite ignoring her feline entourage. “Good day, Storm.” She wondered if he was there waiting for Gale (she did not see him here often, and though she did not pry, she felt the similarities to be enough that she sometimes wondered), or, perhaps, had found his way here merely by coincidence. As she beheld the book he studied, she doubted it, however; there were many better places in the city to spot birds.
The boy looked up then, startled. “Good day, councilwoman,” Storm said, respectfully snapping his book shut and rising. A curious glance was afforded the cats, but his eyes did not dally long. It would be rude to stare overlong, odd as he found the assemblage to be. Questioning the cats’ presence was likely to be intrusive as well, and so he racked his brain for a more appropriate topic of conversation. Fortunately, the packages she carried provided an adequate diversion. Hastily, he returned his book to the rucksack, closing the bag’s flap and slinging its straps over his shoulders.
“I hope the day finds you well.” He raised his arms courteously. “May I help you with your packages?”
“Very well, thank you,” she said. “I hope it finds you the same.”
She did not protest the offer of assistance, simply handed him the majority of what she carried with a smile. “You are very kind to offer,” she told him. “I hope that a short trip into the Tower is not too far out of your way? I would not wish to detain you.”
“Of—of course not.” The verbal slip, along with a nervous smile, revealed the squire’s trepidation, but he did not hesitate to walk alongside the mage, every so often looking over his shoulder at the stubborn parade of felines.
Having never run errands at the Bazaar or the Docks, Storm peered thoughtfully down at his new responsibilities. “These are quite cold,” he remarked. Equally unexposed to magicks, he ventured a guess: “Is this magicite, madam?”
Far lighter than he would have expected, were that the case. Then again, the magicite he had been exposed to was not especially cumbersome.
“No,” she said, her smile growing ever-so-slightly, the mild shift in expression equivalent to extreme good humor in most others. “Not magicite -- fish. It is why we have an escort.” At the tower doors, open into the cavernous lobby, she turned and said, “Tomorrow.”
Cats did not take orders from humes, but these were half-wild, in the end. Only Quiz followed her inside the doors, tail held high in a clear expression of his superiority.
“We will take the waystone to the ninth floor,” she said to the squire, steering him towards it. “How is your training progressing?” she added as they reached it. The touch of magicks that sent them to their destination was so familiar that it did not even interrupt the conversation. “My brother mentions you at times,” she finished, now standing in the quiet ninth floor hallway
He had been mentally composing a response to her inquiry when her last statement, along with the burst of magicks, took him off guard. The packages nearly slipped from his grasp, and Storm scrambled to maintain a firm hold.
“Your brother?” It took him a slack-jawed moment to put the pieces together. Councilor Peony Min. “By chance,” he said hesitantly, “are you the twins’ elder sister?”
The squire thought back to the lively pair of boys, regarding the poised mage askance. Despite all evidence, it seemed an unlikely relation (how many times, Storm had to wonder idly, had others thought the same of him and his own sister?).
“Yes,” she confirmed. She was not surprised that they would not mention her when she, it seemed, mentioned them at every opportunity. But it did make her a little sad. “I should not be surprised that you know them both; they are very close.”
She withdrew her key from her cloak pocket and set it in the lock. “Please,” she said, “come in. I will take these now, and thank you for your timely assistance.” It would not take long to store them away in the icebox. Her voice came moments later from the kitchen: “Do you also happen to enjoy chocolate muffins?” She had taken to keeping them around for the infrequent but cherished visits by the boys, both of whom seemed particularly fond of the treats.
“I do,” he admitted, raising his voice slightly so that she might hear him, for he had not taken a seat nor gone further inside. Perhaps there was no need to have been so reserved, but Storm rarely found that it hurt to take the extra step for etiquette. The boy therefore occupied himself by taking in his surroundings, waiting patiently as the councilwoman moved about the space. He had not ventured so deeply (or highly, as it were) into the Tower before. It was enlightening (unsettling, he decided honestly) to see more of the world his sister had chosen for her own.
“Do you…” He sucked his lips in, deliberating. “Do you,” he tried again, “speak with my sister often?”
Fish stored, hands washed, and a trio of muffins wrapped in a cloth, she emerged from the kitchen just in time to hear his question. And there, she thought, was the true heart of the matter. She placed the wrapped muffins in his hands and said, “On occasion.” Perhaps more often than he -- much as she suspected that he had more contact with Pyr, perhaps even Sky, than she did.
She thought she might understand him, perhaps better than she understood her own brothers.
“I happen to know that she is out this afternoon,” Peony said. She had given the assignment herself, after all. “But she should be back within the half hour, I think.” And perhaps a bit longer away from her office would harm little; the papers would still be there upon her return. “As you have done me a favor today, perhaps I can return it?” she asked. “I can take you down to her floor and wait for her return, if you prefer not to stay alone.” She knew that not everyone was comfortable in these halls that she -- and Gale -- called home.
“Thank you,” Storm said, for both the muffins and the offer. Dare he go to see Gale after all? Swallowing, he nodded mutely.
“Although,” was softly added after a clumsy beat, “I did bring along some materials for reading. Please do not feel obliged to accompany me during the wait.” It was too much, he felt, to ask so esteemed a personage to idly while an hour away with him. No doubt the mage had myriad duties to attend to, all more significant than a simple visit. And that was, Storm tried to tell himself, what this would be. A simple visit.
“You have already been so kind, councilwoman.”
“It is no trouble,” she assured him. “But if you prefer, I can leave you in the reading area.” All floors had them, for all that the main library was on the first floor; mages were nearly all notoriously fond of their books. “She will come by when she returns; you will be bound to see her.”
“Very well, madam.”
At this assent, Peony led the squire back into the hallway, directing him once more to the waystone. The jolt of magicks startled Storm less than it had the first time, and instantaneously did they reach Gale’s floor. He repeated his thanks profusely as they neared the reading area, the mage receiving his gratitude with her trademark equanimity before leaving the boy to his reading.
Storm spent the better part of the half hour in the reading area, one hand perched on the tome Lex had lent him, the other holding a muffin to his mouth (exceedingly tasty, he had been happy to note, not without pondering if Peony had made them herself). He had finished both muffins and chapter by the time twenty minutes had passed. Only ten minutes more, he thought, and his sister would pass by the glass doors.