losttruths (losttruths) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-01-27 07:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, peony min, perdita arkady |
Who: Perdita & Peony
What: A few questions
Where: Peony’s office
When: This afternoon
Rating: Disney
Status: Complete!
(From the planner of P. Arkady: entry marked “Monday, Aquarius 8th”) 9:15 AM to 9:45 AM: Elementary Elementalism 10:00 AM to 10:30 AM: Meditation 10:30 AM to 11:30 AM: Spell-Casting Practice LUNCH 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM: Office assistance for Peony Min, other CMs. Perdita Arkady was one of those odd people who enjoyed organizing things. Not just event-planning, mind you, but actually tidying things up, arranging things not just in alphabetical order, but also color-coding them. For her, it was soothing. Sure, Perdita was older than most of her fellow Scholars, and her spell-casting still needed improvement, but by Faram, could she organize! It wasn’t a useless skill, either, as Perdita now spent her afternoons assisting Peony Min with her paperwork. The job made Perdita feel useful, and it gave her a little confidence in her abilities. This afternoon, Perdita found herself at the door to Peony’s office, a stack of papers in hand. She gingerly shifted her load to one hand, and knocked on the door with the other. “Councilor Min?” Peony looked up from the book she was perusing -- another ancient history text, so far of no aid in what she wished to know -- and offered the scholar at her door a small smile. “Please come in, Perdita.” The young woman had come to her as a blessing in one of the guild’s most troubled times; although Peony had to keep some of her work away from inquisitive young eyes, there was a great deal of busywork she could delegate, and she had never had a secretary, so the aid had freed her up for other duties. It was amazing how many hours she had spent on such trivial tasks -- and Perdita was tidy, which was an added boon. “Are those from Sven?” she asked. The fellow mage had been set on a research path by her into something fairly innocuous (but, perhaps, relevant to the whole) -- no doubt he had completed his preliminary investigation at last. “Indeed it is!” Perdita nodded to the stack. “Sven’s findings from the Guild and St. Iocus libraries,” she added, sliding the sheaf onto a tray on the corner of Peony’s desk. “He failed to organize it beyond putting it in page order, but I found some ribbon to keep the papers from moving around too much.” The scholar fidgeted for a moment. “Councilor Min,” she said, “If you’re not terribly busy, might I ask you a question?” “It is of no concern,” Peony assured. Sven was haphazard by nature, but there were bound to be obscure things in his research, which was exactly why she had set him the task in the first place. His tendency to allow his mind to wander along tangents had the potential to do far more good than ill here. She took the papers and set them aside to be reviewed at a later time (as a personal project of sorts, this had to be secondary to the day-to-day running of the guild), then looked again at Perdita, who seemed a little hesitant, if Peony didn’t entirely miss her mark. Unusual, for this scholar. “You may always ask.” What good would any of her work be if she was too busy to be available to the members of the guild, after all? Perdita sat down in the chair in front of Peony Min’s desk. She smoothed her skirt (another surprisingly flashy charity shop item: tulle, with white and yellow flowers against a green background), took a breath, and spoke. “I was wondering if the Council had learned anything about the attacker from last month,” Perdita asked. “If you are allowed to discuss such matters openly, of course,” she added hastily. “I’m just, just, well, I’m quite curious about what happened, actually. The attack was so sudden, and no one I’ve spoken to seems quite sure who the culprit was. I’ve heard dishes of gossip, but nothing, well, factual! I was hoping you could shed some light on the situation.” “There is little I can tell you that is verified fact,” Peony said. She had heard this question levied at her often these last few weeks, but of course, her conjecture remained behind closed doors, for now, and the facts were few and far between. “I try not to speculate when I do not know -- when my words are so often taken as fact, and there is much I do not know.” It was unfortunate that there was little else she could say. “I can only offer some small reassurance,” she said after a moment. “The tower was not breached, and the threat was vanquished. If trouble comes to our doors again, we will similarly stand to defend the city, and everyone in it. Unfortunately, this is the only promise I can make at this time.” Your conjecture is still probably more factual than anything I’ve heard so far, Perdita thought. This came out as: “I understand, Councilor. Thank you.” Perdita was enthusiastic and determined, but Metis would always be a little reluctant to push boundaries. Besides, Perdita admired Peony; if the Councilor thought that there were good reasons not to discuss her thoughts yet, then she wouldn’t inquire further. Perdita got up from her chair. “Now that my dreadful interrogation is done,” she said, rolling her eyes, sounding much more cheerful than she had been just a moment earlier, “Is there anything you require assistance with? My shift is not yet over.” “Hardly dreadful,” Peony said with an indulgent smile. “I apologize that my answers were not more enlightening. I would counsel -- as always -- employing caution outside the tower walls. It is rarely wasted.” And this was the closest that she would or could come to acknowledging that she believed Emillion’s problems to be far from over. “If you are willing,” she added after a moment of thought, “I’ve a number of items to be returned to the library.” Not the more dangerous of the texts, of course (though Perdita seemed the type to refrain from reading if so instructed), but there were plenty of others, more innocuous. Histories, primarily. “Would you be so kind?” Perdita nodded. “I was planning to visit the library once my shift was over!” she said “It would be no trouble at all.” Later, as she walked down the hall to the nearest stairwell, Perdita stopped to look at the titles of the texts. Civilizations of Ivalice, Struggle and Strife: Ivalice in Millenias Past, Before Ajora The Beasts of Ivalice, Creatures of Mist: Extinct and Legendary Species... They were, as Peony had told Perdita, innocuous books. Perdita needed no special permission to check these books out once she returned them. If Councilor Min did not feel comfortable sharing her conjectures out loud, perhaps Perdita could learn from Peony another way... |