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Post by demikara on Mar 18, 2020 18:45:13 GMT -6
Aerilyn smiled. "Where can I find them? If they were in your home, they may be in storage now." They could be spread over a storage unit, her place, or at Mr. Drulović's. "If you can tell me where in your home, I might know better where to look." She could do this. It was clearly important to Arianne, and it was something she could handle. A trip to the stars to reunite a family. And she'd be back before the trial. She had to be, had to be back so she could be there for her friend, who was like a mother to Ahmad and her.
"I'll be able to find Lenore Sampathkumar's grave in a registry, I imagine." If there was a gravesite, then there were likely people. And that meant records.
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Post by Ylanne on Mar 18, 2020 18:59:38 GMT -6
"I'd kept them in my garden at Fort Veritas," said Drulović, smiling sadly. "The urn is set beside the lilies, if they're alive now still." She let her gaze fall to the side. "I ought to be clearing out the old growth by now, you know. It's too easy to let weeds choke the flowers, easier still to mistake the weeds for garbage. They've their own kind of flowers." The two of them might easily have been mistaken for weeds, she mused. The garden at Fort Veritas ... when had she last seen it, tended to its scraggly undergrowth, poured water into the soil, arranged the rocks near it? Too long now. "I'd do it myself, as I promised I would. It shouldn't be your burden, or Mr. Fazari's trouble. Just mine. A sad duty to make good on a reckless promise I ought never have made." But those were all the promises she seemed to have left now.
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Post by demikara on Mar 18, 2020 19:06:52 GMT -6
"People are still taking care of the garden." She assured the old woman. "And I'll have Ahmad bring them to me. I'll get them to her mother for you. You know I don't mind fulfilling the promises you can't anymore." She considered it her duty to be honest, and it was one she was happy to fulfill. Someone had to take care of Arianne after all, and her hands with tied on so many things. This was a promise she could answer and it seemed like she may be uniquely suited to complete it as it was.
She had a sorcerer, assuming he agreed, so she needed a pilot and the ashes. And if she was lucky, she'd find a bored erutin pilot who didn't mind making a quick trip.
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Post by Ylanne on Mar 18, 2020 19:24:23 GMT -6
"I'm afraid those promises are so numerous they might outnumber the stars in our sky," Drulović said with a sigh. "I haven't numbers enough for them." She folded her right hand over left, almost a protective gesture. But alone on her side of the table, she seemed but a fragile, frail thing. "I'm afraid Ms. Sampathkumar's grave may not be so easy to find. There's no field, the way we might find gravesites here, only an arch." Covered in ivy, nearly flattened by the winds, looming in the foreboding moonlight. It had taken her breath away. For others, fatally. "It's a beautiful place, my friend, but a terrible one to linger." The leaves beckoned to her, curled bit by bit, enticing her closer and closer, wishing her never to leave, never to part. "Few travelers will go there. Some now say Ms. Sampathkumar haunts the place. Would that I might haunt some queer corner here when I finally go to meet my maker." Or perhaps simply disappear to nothing. To dust. "You'll find little peace there." No one ever had.
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Post by demikara on Mar 20, 2020 10:56:53 GMT -6
"Then I'll do what I can." She assured her friend. "I'll do what research I can before landing." She'd bother Ahmad to try and find the grave electronically. He was much better at that sort of thing than she was, as he should be. The woman managed a smile. "Or you know. I'll ask Ahmad to do so. He'll have better luck than me." They made a good team. Her smile became a bit more genuine at the thought of her husband. "He misses you terribly, you know." He badgered her for an update with every visit here. He wanted to pass on messages, but that had a short curtail to it. The damn justice department wasn't going to let a family talk until this trial was over with.
He was going to be so shocked when he saw the state of her though. "Any information you can give on where to find the arch would be helpful though."
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Post by Ylanne on Mar 20, 2020 11:30:34 GMT -6
"I wish he wouldn't feel so sad about it all," Drulović said, shaking her head. Exhaustion seeped into her voice, crept slow around her haggard eyes. "I hate to disappoint him with the inevitability of my absence." She paused, moving her hands from the table to her lap, pressing back into the chair, the distance between the two widening. "The arch moves, you know. The winds there are so wicked and violent, their force alone moves the continents, which crash and collide so easily into each other. The winds aren't the only beast to fear, I'm afraid. The damn world shakes and spits and coughs. The land moves as restless as a toddler kept at home." Or a dragon. "But few live there now. They're mostly fled." With what few bags they could take with them, escaping on the last of the ships equipped with enough magical treatment to escape the atmosphere so violent it threatened to down ships before they ever broke orbital range. She remembered. Kings and seers alike spoke only ill of the place. Only the dead and dying remained now.
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Post by demikara on Mar 20, 2020 11:40:11 GMT -6
"You're important to us both. You know we love you." Her absence and imprisonment certainly didn't change that at all. "And I suppose as close to the arch as I can get then." This was not going to be an easy journey. She'd definitely need her abilities, if they had a moving target. "Hopefully it doesn't move too far or too fast." All this to reunite one set of ashes with another. If anyone else was asking, she never would have done it. As it was, she was wondering what task she had taken on and she knew her eyes reflected her uncertainty as to this task. Even getting to the planet was no small thing, apparently, and from the sounds of it, finding the gravesite from there would be difficult as well. And they'd need to be careful to be quick. They wouldn't have long at all, assuming the equipment even could scan the planet.
"Your requests are never boring, Arianne. I'll give you that."
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Post by Ylanne on Mar 20, 2020 12:36:57 GMT -6
Drulović laughed, entirely without mirth. "As I said before, I'd have done it on my own," she said. "I'd been fixing to make the trip sometime later this year. Unfortunately, I'm afraid it won't be possible for me to go anymore. Otherwise, I wouldn't make this sad, strange request of you." Some would call it a fool's errand, no doubt. "You'll have little trouble finding the arch once you arrive, I suspect. It's like to be more difficult to find it at a time the winds are calm enough to approach. Someone I'd spoken to about it believes that Ms. Sampathkumar herself enchanted the winds before her death, that they were not so wild before then." And well she could believe it. She remembered their edge, the wind cutting straight through even a thick woolen coat, destroying a soldier's force field, chilling her to the bone, in places she hadn't felt so cold since Lipjan. It was a merciless, crying wind. "She might have meant to kill."
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Post by demikara on Mar 20, 2020 12:57:51 GMT -6
Enchanted. Of course it was enchanted. Arianne didn't make things simple, did she? Hopefully Aerilyn's own magic could stand up to enchanted, angry winds that were strong enough to kill. She'd probably want some sort of amplifier wouldn't she? Something attached to more than just a hat. She'd have to see about finding a decent one on a necklace, perhaps. A sturdy necklace that wouldn't break if it was tugged at. Maybe some glue to glue it to her chest too. This was definitely going to require a lot of planning.
"I'll remember that." She said simply and then laughed. "It'll be an adventure. Exactly what I needed, I think." She hadn't done anything exciting in what felt like absolute ages. Hopefully she was in decent enough shape to manage this one. She had kept up her routine, of course, but a routine alone was hardly enough to stay in shape.
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Post by Ylanne on Mar 20, 2020 13:13:05 GMT -6
"I'm glad you can think of it that way," said Drulović, her shoulders sinking a bit. "For me, it's another broken promise, needling my soul to pay it some mind. You'll accumulate a great deal of them, too, by the time you get to be my age." She sighed, staring vacantly at the wall behind Aerilyn. Other people's movement made the semi-rigid glass walls ripple ever so slightly, as words and motion bounced against the material. In the distance, daylight burned almost white, but too far removed for them to touch it. She tried to walk now, sometimes, when allowed in the yard, but it was difficult and painful, and she had to stop more often than she was able to start. No one spoke to her, neither strangers nor those familiar. "I appreciate your willingness to do this - and I appreciate your trust. It is, as I said, no small thing." Few were, anymore.
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Post by demikara on Mar 21, 2020 17:30:43 GMT -6
"Hopefully I'll have someone willing to help me fulfill mine, as I get older." She'd have Ahmad of course, but someone else as well. "Though I suspect first I'll have to go out and make friends beyond the handful I made at Gambits." Wonderful people, of course, but working at Gambit's was not for the people who were going to live long. It was a wonderful community, though at times violent. But she was one of the older members for a reason. You didn't tend to live long if you frequented Gambit's. And the few who did had seen a few too many things to be all there.
Aerilyn wondered what that said about her, that she was still alive. Though of course, she had seen a few too many things herself. But she had her husband when things got tough for her, and so many didn't even have that.
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Post by Ylanne on Mar 21, 2020 17:52:04 GMT -6
"I'm sure you'll have plenty more besides," said Drulović. Heavy-lidded eyes stared wistful and vacant. What dreams she did have were more often nightmares, but instead of waking to brighter days, she'd woken into the same nightmares now for decades. None of their voices ever left her. "It's a funny thing, how easily sycophants and allies can pass themselves for friends, only to be quick to turn tail and run precisely when friends would be most welcome help. I can't say I've ever had too many friends. But you and Mr. Fazari, you're fortunate to lead lives quite different from mine. Enjoy it, for however long it lasts." What happiness wasn't fleeting? Or merely an illusion cast to temporarily dispel the sobering realities the old woman had long since resigned herself to accepting. Living was the single greatest predictor for loss. And what losses they had borne. How enormous. How heavy.
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Post by demikara on Mar 21, 2020 18:31:59 GMT -6
"You'll always have Ahmad and me as friends." She assured the other and smiled. "But I need to get going if I'm going to do this. I have a husband to talk to and a sorcerer to track down." And convince to help her. Hopefully mentioning it was a favor for Arianne would be enough. She had no idea if it would or not though. "Among other things. But don't worry. I'll get this sorted for you and write you the whole time." She had been faithful with her letters at least, even when she hadn't been able to get to the other. Hopefully it helped with the solitude at least some.
Assuming the other was even well enough to read the letters.
"I'll be thinking of you the entire time. Please, make sure to eat every day. I'll talk to the warden before I leave." For what good it would do.
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Post by Ylanne on Mar 21, 2020 19:08:34 GMT -6
"I appreciate your help with the ashes," said Drulović, bowing her head a moment. She exhaled, then stood slowly, grabbing the back of the chair with white knuckles to steady herself. "See if Ms. Whatcott-Joyner bothers at all. I doubt she cares much." Eva never did. Drulović offered Aerilyn a small, wan smile. "Travel safely, and watch after Mr. Fazari for me. I trust I'll see you both on your return home." After all this time, still, she could hear the winds roaring at her back, whipping hair about her face, cutting straight through them, bending trees so low they seemed to prostrate in obeisance. It was a wild, terrible place that stank of death and rot. She'd been only too glad to leave it. For now, the guard stepped over to take the old woman's arm, and she only paused to turn briefly toward Aerilyn, grim, for their final embrace, what little they were allowed, what little it resembled the kind of embrace they would have wanted.
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Post by demikara on Mar 24, 2020 10:21:44 GMT -6
Aerilyn lingered in the hug as much as she could get away with, until the guard cleared his throat. She stepped back reluctantly. "I'll be back for your trial for sure, and I'll send you e-mail while I'm gone. I know you won't get a chance to check it often, but I'll still do it." The prison had rules on that as well, and with Arianne's health, Aerilyn doubted she would even manage it once a week. How was the other even keeping up with anything at all? Was she?
Probably not.
Aerilyn watched her friend be escorted out and left herself. Once her car was on, she started the phone call, aiming to call her husband first. She'd need to speak to her husband first after all. She couldn't exactly leave the planet without telling him first, and besides, she needed his help to contact the sorcerer and get the ashes.
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