driftfleet | (001)

Entry tags:

(001)

Who: katsa & you
Broadcast: fleetwide
Action: marsiva hospitality deck
When: now

—think you can do this to me again after all this time, but you can take your blazing courts and shards and shove it up your—

[ There's an audible thud as Katsa kicks a cot in front of her, bumping the bed a few feet and skewing it sideways into one nearby. Her rather angry string of anger cuts through the faint tinkling of bland, simple music in the background.

She certainly doesn't look like someone who'd be suited for an adventure in space, dressed in ragtag leather and furs that look as though she's thrown them together herself from a variety of dead animals. She also doesn't seem to be aware that anyone might be watching her; or perhaps it's more than she doesn't particularly care, for she scrubs the back of her hand across her eyes and scowls through what is very obviously only a half-hearted attempt at holding back tears. ]

You don't need me here. You can dress this up all you like—I don't have to do this. Whatever's outside that window, I shouldn't be the only one who gets to see it.

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You're a Graceling.

[ Katsa says this with only the barest hint of doubt in her voice. And then again, insistent: ]

You must be.

[ Perhaps he's not from any one of her Seven Kingdoms, nor the strange place immediately on the other side of the uncrossable Estillan mountains, but the world is bigger than only those places. And no matter where they are now, if he's something familiar, then all she's holding back about the feeling of being on this clean, silent deck among the empty stars doesn't have to overwhelm her when it finally hits. ]

Not like the rat I mentioned. I don't know exactly what those are, either. But your eyes are those of a Graceling, so you must have a Grace, and so we must be—well, at least from somewhere similar. Who are you, then?

[Her conviction lends a sliver of doubt on his end. He wasn't lying when he said he wasn't an expect on geography. While he knew about Corambis, he'd known nothing about what was there until he'd gone there, and that was only on the other side of the Perblanches. What could be beyond the ocean to the west? Or beyond Troia? He could not say for sure that she was wrong.]

My name is Felix Harrowgate, and you have me at a disadvantage. [Said somewhat unhappily. He really could not use more uncomfortable revelations about his heritage.]

Who might you be and what is a Graceling?

I am the Lady Katsa, of the Middluns. [ She gives her title out of habit still—for the number of times her uncle has disowned and reinstated her, and for how little Katsa actually cares about land and status, it's merely decoration to her name. ] I'm a Graceling as well.

[ It's been nearly a decade since she's had to answer the question of what a Graceling might be, for everyone in her home kingdoms simply knows. She has less trouble answering it this time, however, than she did the first time she was asked when she found herself in a wholly different world, and it comes with a strong sense of deja vu. ]

Our eyes—two different colors, any colors. Every Graceling child's eyes settle like this. And with it is the Grace itself. You must have a skill, something that you can do far better than any Ungraced person could, anything from baking to—to mind-reading. [ She hesitates a little on that. ] That would be your own Grace.

[He leans a bit closer for a moment, as if that would help him see her much clearer]

I'm not sure what that could be. [His tone isn't nearly as certain as his words, because his greatest skills are neither unique nor ones he'd like to advertise.]

Other than the physical attribute, how would you be certain something isn't merely a great talent? What separates a talented baker from one with a Grace?

[ This causes her to hesitate. It's so natural for Katsa to understand what separates a Grace from the merely skilled. Explaining it leaves her almost at a loss. ]

Even the greatest Ungraced baker in the world learns his skill. A Graceling child knows his craft without ever once before touching the dough. An Ungraced baker might make a delicious cake, but a Graced one will make it flawlessly, every time, and often know without being told how to flavor it just to match the tastes of every person who ever eats his food.

A Graced swimmer could hold his breath for hours, or dive deeper than anyone, or swim longer and further without tiring. A climber might know all the safe and treacherous paths without ever once seeing nor testing his route before, and he could not explain how he knows. And those are just the mundane Graces. Then there are the unnatural Graces: the prescient ones, the mind-readers, the physically impossible. No Ungraced could ever hope even to appear to do what they do.

Even if one pretends to have another Grace, or thinks his Grace is something it isn't, the real Grace must always be there helping it along to make it seem like truth. They're strange things, Graces, even for a Graceling, but the difference between them and a natural skill is always clear.

[He listens quiet, pensive, but longer she goes on the more the pinscratch frown between his eyes deepens. The concept of it is fascinating, but the idea of that being another part of him seems uncomfortable as it is remote.]

I have never heard of such a thing. If indeed Gracelings exist in my world, it is a very closely held secret. Which...I admit...would not surprise me entirely. But...it strikes me as particularly unfair that I would have such a gift when I am already also a wizard. A gift that is not uncommon where I come from, I might add.

[ Katsa smiles, then covers it with a hand. ]

Forgive me. I don't mean to mock or make light. But the way Graces are viewed where I'm from—most would not consider it a gift.

[ She wants to keep pressing the topic, asking about him and the possibilities of a Grace, but the mention of his own home raises enough questions to distract Katsa from it for the moment. ]

But you say you're a wizard? There's magic in your home lands?

[He takes the smile in stride, and responds to it with a small one of his own.]

Indeed. And in nearly all of the surrounding lands that I'm aware of.

[He is fairly easily diverted when the topic of magic comes up, but not enough to forget how they arrived here]

Gift is just a word. There are plenty of wizards who would call it a curse as well. Such is any burden of power that one cannot escape. Most of it depends on circumstances of birth. In some places the ability to use magic is reviled to the point that you'd be killed, while in others you might be elevated. Superstition and politics.

Is it something like that...for Gracelings?

Something like that. In most kingdoms, Gracelings are given to their king for him to use them as he sees fit. They have no freedom of their own, and no one likes the Graced. No family wishes for a Graceling child. The only exception to this is Lienid, and recently Monsea, but that's because the Monsean queen is the niece of the Lienid king. They honor the Graced in Lienid. They are notoriously a strange people.

[ She says that, but it's with a look that might be considered fond. ]

I suppose it is much the same as your magic. It seems unnatural, and dangerous, and people fear it. Understandably.

Were you reviled, then? Or elevated?

[ It's an intensely personal question. She asks it mildly. ]

Edited 2016-08-28 22:40 (UTC)

[The other kingdoms sounds a bit like Kekropia to him in that regard, and with that comes a distant ache. The thought it easy enough to brush off in favor of her questions, as personal as they might be.]

A little of both, perhaps. [He looks distant for a moment, then smiles ruefully] But the former didn't have much to do with my magic.

[A beat as he considers his next words] I was born poor. Most wizards born in that circumstance don't have much choice for instruction. They are either destroyed by their own power or apprentice to whoever the can find. Or whoever finds them. I was lucky, in a sense. Someone found me...mentored and trained me....and helped me gain induction to the Cabaline school, earning me rank and title. [It's isn't the entire truth, but it's enough]

[ It sounds to Katsa much like children with dangerous Graces, children who do not know how to control them. Usually parents give such children to the court as soon as possible, where they would be trained, but sometimes the king doesn't want them, either. Katsa shudders, wondering what might have happened to her if Randa had not seized on the possibilities of her Grace when he had and given her the means to learn to control it.

She must talk to Po when she returns home, she decides. They ought to look into the fates of these children with the Council. ]

I'm glad you were found, then, and spared something worse. [ She leans in. ] How were you found? How did you earn rank through a school?

[ It's clear that Katsa has few boundaries about asking the questions, but at the very least she acknowledges that it's his decision actually to answer them. ]

['Something worse'. He wonders, sometimes, what that might have been. If he had remained there, the brothel would probably have killed him one way or another, but it was just as likely that if Malkar had not found him, another wizard would have. He hates thinking that his master might have actually saved his life - at least before he tried to destroy him]

It was happenstance, really. [That much is true, but he can't quite bring himself to divulge the particulars, especially over the open network.]

The Cabaline school doesn't refer to an institution, but a doctrine. The way that magic is thought about and taught, but it isn't a university. Traditionally, learning magic is a master-apprentice arrangement. Magic and politics are often closely interwoven, and few so closely as it is in Marathat. The Cabalines form one-third of the government. They advise the Lord Protector and maintain the spells that protect the city. Anyone that manages to get inducted into the school and takes the oaths also gains a title.

[ She frowns. ]

That sounds... well, unnecessarily complicated. Does no one worry about people with so much capacity for power being given even more a sense of their own importance, without question? It makes sense that they would protect the city with what they could, and that some might become more important than others. It isn't that no one should be given titles. I'm sure some deserve it. But other men, when they've so much power already...

[ Monsea still struggles eight years after the end of Leck's reign, for what he did. Katsa still does not know if power makes men mad, or if it's mad men who are drawn to it. ]

[He laughs, flatly] Unnecessarily complicated is the bread and butter of Cabalines.

There are reasons for it, though. Not all of them good and well thought out, but reasons. You'd have to understand the way Marathat was before the Cabal was founded.

[He waves that away, however. He isn't great with history, and if need be he'll get back to the Wizard's Coup before long]

We take our oaths very seriously, Lady Katsa, and to be fair, most Cabalines were in some line of nobility somewhere. The title and wealth we gain is power, yes, but there are limits. The very foundation of Cabaline doctrine prohibits us from using magic directly on any person, for any reason. Ever. To do so is usually punished with death. [As he speaks, he rolls back one of his sleeves, revealing the garishly bright tattoos of vines trailing from knuckles and up the forearm. They aren't faded in the least by time] Also, every sworn Cabaline has these tattoos. These...aren't merely a badge of office. They identify us immediately, no matter where we go. In the lands of our enemies, it can be a death sentence on their own.

I was always glad that no one ever expected me to involve myself in politics. One of the few benefits of having been born a woman, and only ever the daughter of someone's sister, at that.

[ Never minding her continued involvement with nobles and monarchs and the rules of the kingdoms—that is, of course, through a far less official and rule-abiding channel.

These tattoos, however, are interesting, and Katsa peers as closely as she can for a better look. She knows a little about being identified for being something dangerous on sight: she can't hide her Graceling eyes, of course. There's nothing to be done about those. But tattoos, something not inherently present on the skin... ]

They make doubly sure you're marked as something different. Something to make others wary.

[ She doesn't like the sound of that. ]

And if you ever wished to leave? If you grew up knowing nothing else, but desired your own life?

[ But then there would be those who wished to abuse their power, whether there were laws against it or not. With the power they had, how would it be possible to stop it, to know everyone?

...Not for the first time, Katsa is glad that at least no magic exists in her kingdoms. It seems too troublesome. ]

We do have allies. Wizards can, and often do, travel those lands to study or act as ambassadors, but you'd always be in some way be in service to the Protectorate.

[Or you could always get exiled, like he did. It seemed to work well in that regard.]

And what about you and other Gracelings? Tattoos can be hidden to some degree, but short of blinding yourself, it's not something easy for one to conceal.

Even blinding may not hide it.

[ It's a slow response, and Katsa looks for a moment as though she's going to add something, but she changes her mind and shakes her head instead. ]

There's no way for a Graceling to hide, really. I might cover an eye as though I've lost one, and it may fool some, but not many Gracelings have eyes with common colors like mine. Most are like yours, with stranger ones. Even mine are brighter than most. And they'd wonder what I were hiding beneath whatever it was I used to cover an eye anyway, for they know to expect a Grace to be the reason one might cover an eye. It's most troublesome for families that have Graced children who have more useless Graces, whose kings return them home.

Only one man has successfully fooled thousands of people about a Grace by covering an eye, and he had the Grace of lies.

[ Katsa still shudders sometimes, remembering the cloud of falseness on her mind. It had been so much more than simple lies. ]

Lies are powerful things. I can imagine how terrible someone with that kind of Grace could be.

[His own life had been propped on quite a few lies, though not all of them of his own making. He knows all to well what willful lies can accomplish]

You mentioned there were places that more freely accepted people like yourself. Is the Middluns part of either of those kingdoms?

[He wagers it must have been, for her to carry a title as well]

[ Katsa laughs. ]

No. Being born King Randa's niece did nothing for his hold over me and my Grace, and certainly not for my reputation. The majority of the Middluns still considers Gracelings to be as unnatural as ever. I imagine the Middluns will be the last to be comfortable with the notion of walking freely among the Graced, even once my cousin is king. [ And she part of the reason for it. ]

Still, there are people everywhere more accepting than others. It's changing, little by little. Perhaps one day things might change for your wizards.

That may be true, but very far in the future for my world. I recently traveled to another country, however, that seems strangely comfortable with magic, and even incorporate some forms of it into their daily live. Their magicians, as they call them there, are highly respected but not feared as we are elsewhere. I imagine that if Marathat continues to make strides in working with the community rather than ignoring it, we could be much the same some day. [Not that he's likely to ever know, for many reasons]

But, that's neither here nor there. I think you'll find that, on the fleet, there are people with unusual abilities and talents aplenty. There are some days I feel practically mundane.

[ This other country sounds a little like Lienid in that regard, if Katsa understands things correctly. She hums a little in thought and agreement. ]

I hope you will be. No people should be treated as tools, with only the illusion of freedom.

[ She leans in a little closer to her communicator, as though her nearness with it will cause Felix to hear her better. ]

This is not the first time I've arrived in a place other than any of the known seven kingdoms, with people who could do all sorts of absurd and impossible things. I expect I'm to see men turning purple whenever I round a corner, or talking mice preparing my breakfast.

I don't know about mice, but there are ponies...

[He pauses, tilting his head in mild curiosity]

...where were you last?

[ Her brow furrows and she starts to ask, but Katsa abandons her question in favor of his. She'll find out eventually. ]

A place called Allaidh Darach. The Drabwurld. [ Strange how pronouncing the curious language still comes easily to her nearly a decade later, though she cannot for the life of her truly remember how to speak it. ] Everything that breathed there was magical, and then some. There is no magic in my kingdoms, but even I could have used it there. I did use it there, a little. It was pure madness.

[Not the castle, then, though her description didn't fit the bill entirely. He didn't know her, but it could always have been possible that she came from a time far before or after him. Even leaving it so far behind, the history and fate of Nostos still occupied his thoughts from time to time.]

Madness? Why? Simply because of the existence of magic, or because of what happened there?

I meant the magic, and the feeling of using it. Having something like that at my fingertips.

[ Katsa brings a hand over her heart, as though she'd feel the strange warmth that flared there every time she touched the power of the jewel, so long ago. She'd held fire once without it burning her and bent it to her will—and she almost laughs again at how ridiculous that sounds to anyone with sense. Her Grace protects her from plenty, but she's certain even she should have burned. ]

But both are true. I might I wonder if I'm not the mad fool, for the memory of it, if others weren't as raving as I am to remember the same. Well, it wouldn't have been the first time I'd simply lost my senses.

[ Again, she waves it off. What good would it do to dwell on things that happened so long in the past when she can do nothing about them now? No matter how much she regrets anything, she cannot change it. ]

What does it feel like for you? To use magic.

(001)

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that was terribly on the nose and unconscious on my part I swear

bahahaha i legitimately could not tell if you'd done that on purpose or not

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