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[littlesoul]

[She's perched on the highest spot she can find in the lobby, her journal clutched against her chest. This isn't anything like she's used to, nothing feels familiar. Her heart is beating hard in her chest and her hands want to start shaking.

Her mind is racing, filled with the thoughts of so many people around her. The night before, she had achieved some kind of calm, she remembered that, but now, with this new, strange turn of events, she's falling again, lost amidst the sea of thoughts around her.

She scribbles in her journal at a feverish pace, the words small and pushed together as she tries to hold back panic.]

Lost.

Lost, lost, lost, lost.

Fell into the black and landed here. Fell and fell and fell until I hit the ground. I can't remember how to get back, too lost to see clearly.

Can someone pick her up again? Can someone put her back where she belongs?

Too loud.

Can't go high enough, can't find a way out, can't find anything that I want.

Ship, she needs a ship again. She needs the sky.

Comments

[kethedammit]

[Mildmay shrugs, well, he guesses this means he isn't gonna get a name outta her. Or maybe she doesn't have one. Who the fuck knows, in this place.]

Yeah, okay. D'you wanna get to someplace safer?

[littlesoul]

{Her mind is racing too hard to provide a name, she's a story, a creature made of thought and word, not a girl, not something with a name. Not right now. She'll be a girl later, when she's in more quiet quarters.

A nod and a small, pleading smile.]> Quiet, quiet is better. Safer is better.

[kethedammit]

[Mildmay nods; he can certainly understand wanting to get away from people. The girl, apparently nameless, looks a bit like Jeanne-Mer down in Queensdock, except she's got all her fingers. Jeanne-Terre, Mildmay decides, is a respectable enough name for this girl to go on for now.]

C'mon, there's gotta be an antechamber to hide in somewhere 'round here. [Mildmay takes a few slow steps toward the hall, leaning a bit on the cane at his side. He looks over his shoulder out of warry habit, but also to make sure Jeanne-Terre is following.]

[littlesoul]

[She feels the naming in her mind and it doesn't bother her, not really. She's trying to focus on his mind alone, losing herself in his thoughts but it's only somewhat working. He's loudest in her head but there's still so much background noise.

Nodding her head, she follows him on light feet, uncertain that, if she used words right ow, they would not be a recitation of the noise going though her mind.]

[kethedammit]

[Mildmay's thought patterns are fairly straight-forward: little sentiment, some free association, but mostly cause and effect. He wanders down the hallway, looking for an empty room, one with large doors that Mildmay couldn't possibly block all on his own. Not that he thinks this girl is right enough in the head to wonder about a possible escape route if the carny freak redhead she just met turns out to be dangerous, but he wants her to have that option. It's just polite.]

[He finds such a room at the end of the hall, a quiet, lush little thing, homey and beautiful. There's a fireplace; Mildmay immediately moves the pokers out of Jeanne-Terre's reach.] Any better?

[littlesoul]

[It's the simplicity that she likes, the linear way his thoughts flow. It feels like something she can nest in, something she can follow compared to her own scattered, strange thoughts and the hodgepodge of noise that the rest of the castle gives her.

Moving into the room, she studies it carefully, turning around in the center and eying it all for a moment. Then she nods, brightening into a small smile] Soft. It's soft in here.

[kethedammit]

Guess so. [Mildmay shrugs, and leans back against the wall, trying to get the weight off his leg. He stands away from the door, making it clear that if the girl wants to bolt, he'll let her. Ingrained habit, the knowledge that the only way to be trustworthy is to acknowledge your own untrustworthiness.] D'you know if'n you're always like this? Did something happen? [He really hopes she's not a crazy hocus.]

[littlesoul]

[She looks away from him, staring at the fire instead ad tries not to think too hard before speaking. She doesn't want to answer, doesn't want to let him down.]

She's always cracked, always broken. Pieces went missing and now she's putting herself back together but the glass cuts her fingers and she's working in the dark.

[kethedammit]

Yeah, sounds familiar. [But, okay, so she's a full time loony. Good to know. Crazy hocuses, Mildmay has learned, can be fixed, though Mildmay would be fucked before he could tell you how that worked. But Felix ain't a jabbering mess no more, so clearly it did.]

[Of course, that leaves Mildmay alone in a room with a crazy girl. He wonders what he can even do for the poor thing-- a fine mess you've waltzed into this time, Milly-fox. It's not like he's gonna save her or nothing, this ain't a story.]

[But... that's an idea. Mildmay sits down against the wall, posture relaxed.] Hey, they got any good stories where you're from?

[littlesoul]

[She mimics him, settling in at the center of the room and taking up his posture. It feels good to fall into someone else for a while, to let them dictate what she does. It's not always good, sometimes it scares her, sometimes it sends her screaming because she can't stop but today isn't one of those days.]

We are made of stories, of mythologies we've picked up over time. We are lies and tall tales woven together into people.

[kethedammit]

Yeah, okay. [Mildmay nods along, not really paying undue credence to what she says. There's only so much meaning you're going to get out of someone like her, and Mildmay will keep listening for it, should it appear.] You ever heard the one about Jenico Sun-Eyes?

[littlesoul]

[She shakes her head, though her expression is almost eager. She likes stories, likes to hear them and feel them and smell them. Stories come alive in her mind, are entities beyond the words and are friends on the right days]

[kethedammit]

Okay. [Mildmay clears his throat a bit, and then begins the story of Jenico Sun-Eyes and his terrible journey to get back the heart of the Princess of Keys from the Clockman. It's a pretty simple story, mostly about how Jenico --] They call 'im Sun-Eyes cause his eyes're yellow, and he's got hair like mine, except, y'know, the rest of him's normal-looking. [-- is clever and gets himself out of traps that the Clockman sets for him along the way. At the end, Jenico returns the Princess of Keys to her husband, even though he's in love with her, and he serves her faithfully until the end of his days.]

[Mildmay tells the story well, with more enthusiasm and spirit than he'd used before-- he speaks with a convivial poise he generally lacks. When he's finished, he sits back and waits for Jeanne-Terre's reaction. Maybe she doesn't like adventure stories.]

[littlesoul]

[She listens, taking in his mind, the way his voice weaves the words together with the thoughts in his head. It makes her a little lightheaded, a little giddy and she's grinning before long, eyes bright.

She likes the story, likes the way ti feels against her, likes the way it echoes in her head. She wants to keep this moment, keep everything about the tale an the teller close but she knows it will trickle away, get lost in the shuffle of her brain.

By the end she's leaning forward, actively listening with a pleased expression on her face. When it comes to an end, she applauds, grinning. and obviously craving more.]

[kethedammit]

[Mildmay doesn't smile-- the muscles in his face, warped as they are by his scar, become contorted gruesomely if he ever attempts it-- but his hard, impassive expression softens slightly. He likes making people happy. He's not very good at it.]

They got stories where you come from?

[littlesoul]

[She considers the question, knowing what he wants and trying hard to give to to them.] All kinds of stories, war stories ad mythology and stories about flying. Lies too but they're different. We have bible stories and stories of Earth That Was and fairytales too.

[kethedammit]

[Mildmay idly wonders what a 'Bible' is.] I ain't never heard none of 'em, probably, if'n you feel like spilling. [Mildmay has no ulterior motive-- he just really loves stories, with a hungry and eager curiosity. He'd like to see what stories he could collect here, and hopes Jeanne-Terre is out of the well enough to maybe tell one.]

[littlesoul]

She closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath, careful with her words.

Words spill out about her history, about Earth That Was, about the Unification about everything. It's not so much a story as a collection of scenes but it paints a picture of the world all the same. She makes it a point to gloss over some things, over the Academy, over things she's involved with, but she paints a broad picture of the world that she came from, the world that made her.]

[kethedammit]

[Mildmay struggles to keep up-- this is definitely the story a crazy person would tell, but there are fun ideas all the same. The idea that people can go out into the stars is a nice one, and the idea of everyone having just one ruling body is another. It's amusing, even if it takes a little guesswork to keep up with.]

Okay. Thanks. [Stifled, but genuine gratitude. Mildmay will never scorn a story.] You like spooky stories any?

[littlesoul]

Like what they can tell about you. <[She smiles a little.] We reveal ourselves in our stories if we're not careful.

[kethedammit]

[That'd almost be creepy if Mildmay hadn't dealt with way creepier shit. Nikah, when he was alive, always used to love to add spooky shit onto the end of stories, all and this will haunt you to the end of your days. Mildmay figured out that was just Nikah being Nikah by the end of his first septad.] Yeah, okay. I'll lay off on tallowman stories, then. You ever heard the story of the Boneprince?

[littlesoul]

[She smiles a little, shaking her head[ My stories and yours don't meet in the middle, they go different places.

[kethedammit]

[Mildmay shrugs that right off like a duck with water. Half what this girl says, Mildmay's sure doesn't matter, the other half probably only matters to her. Actually, maybe that's all of it, and it's the rest of the world that's gotta scramble to make sense of things. There's a though.]

[Anyway. The Boneprince.] This story's true. I mean, as true as can be. It happened, anyway. [He clears his throat.] So there's this cemetery, where I live. Uh, lived. It's supposed to be called Adrian's Park, but we all call it the Boneprince, and here's why...

[Again, Mildmay becomes animated, excited, interested in the conversation, his own words. He comes out from behind the veneer of stoicism. He talks about old King Mathurin Open-Handed,] He's called that 'cause he was all generous with the poor and shit. Only king who was, in all twenty great septads. [Mildmay talks about Mathurin's two sons, twins Richard and Adrian, and how Richard was born just a few minutes before Adrian. And Adrian was jealous. He waited years and years, and then he tried to kill Richard in his sleep, and he failed, waking up Richard's mistress on the way to their bed. King Mathurin had Adrian arrested, but he'd committed suicide before the trial.]

Now, as it was, Mathurin'd built a pleasure walk, a nice big garden, when the boys'd hit their second septad. Then, the day after Adrian done offed himself, Mathurin goes out and he says, from this day on, Adrian's Park shall be a cemetery set aside especially for the likes of thieves and murderers. [For the voice of the king, Mildmay does a half-hearted imitation of Felix's flash accent, vowels all clipped and pretty, nothing slurred.] And just like that, Adrian was the first burial. We all call it the Boneprince, though, on account of, well, you can guess.

There's a big damn statue of Adrian right at the front. When they got it put in, it had these lapis lazuli eyes along of Adrian's being real bright blue. Of course, those things got carved out and stole first thing off, and now he stares out at night with empty sockets. Some folks say it's a mercy, so he can't see the place where he would'a been king, since of course the statue's facing up that way.

[littlesoul]

[She listens wrapped up in the tale ad it's telling. She can see it unfold on her ind, feel the words pull her down into the images and even though its not a nice story, it's one she likes. It's history, maybe not her own, but that grants it a special place in her heart]

Thank you. [It's soft but sincere, her gratitude obvious on her face. She can feel the last of her nerves ebbing away, not because of where they are but because of what he's giving her to focus on.] It's not the good men who tell the best tales but the honest ones.

[kethedammit]

[Mildmay frowns. But then, he sure ain't good. Maybe it was some kind of backhanded compliment.]

[Or maybe this girl's crazy, Milly-fox. Way to take it personal.] Uh, well, 'm glad you liked it?