milliways_bar | (no subject)

We ride at the hour past dawn tomorrow.

Duke Roger's closing words continue to echo through Alanna's mind long after she should have been asleep. Tossing and turning begins to lose any appeal around midnight, so she checks her binding, pulls on her clothes and scoops up a sleepy Faithful. After buckling Lightning to her hips, Alanna pads out of her room, past Jonathan's, and only lets herself breathe once she's alone in the hallway.

The decisions made in the meeting of Duke Roger's commanders are making her extremely uneasy and a little ill. She knows Jonathan is angry at his new command, far from Fort Drell, but Alanna is upset for other reasons that have everything to do with a deep suspicion of the man who decided to place him there.

"Maybe a few hours at Milliways will allow me to rest," she murmurs to the heavy cat wrapped around her neck. "I doubt we'll be able to go there again for a long while, after all."

Faithful fails to respond.

She moves quietly through the halls and is careful to look around before slipping through the door to the bar. It's loud and bright after the quiet corridors of the sleeping palace, but she's glad of the noise, the life. If she can't get to the Dove, this is the next best thing.

Rubbing one of her eyes, Alanna settles into a chair by the fire and hopes a wait rat will happen by soon. She's awake, yet curiously far too tired and preoccupied to see about getting some tea herself.

[OOC: I wanted to go ahead and get this up. I will be around for a bit, but I'll need to beg slowtimes almost immediately this AM. It is open forever, however, and I will be around to tag as much as my super annoying body lets me! :) ]

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"I'm at the Herald Collegium. I'm to be a Herald when I'm old enough. I'll be a peace keeper and messenger for the King."

Alanna sits up, studying Ingress with more interest now.

"Like a knight?" Beat. "You have a king?"

"Not quite like a knight. There

are

knights, too, but they're different from us. We're chosen."

"By the king?" she asks in a quieter voice. "Or..."

Her hands spread like she's merely plucking a word from the air. Any word, not one of any particular importance.

"...a god?"

"The Companions who choose us magical, and some say that they are from the gods. The Companions don't say one way or another. My Companion, Megwyn, looks like a horse, but she's not."

"Oh."

Faithful lifts his head, studying Ingress with eyes just like Alanna's.

"Does she speak to you?" she asks, brow furrowed as she considers her own feline companion.

"Oh, yes. Through mindspeech. She's always right there in my head, even when I'm away."

"Huh."

Alanna smiles, not wanting Ingress to think she doesn't believe it to be true.

"This is Faithful," she says, pointing to her black cat. "He's sort of my companion. He's always with me, anyway. Moonlight's saddle even has a special cup for him."

"Oh, brilliant. Hullo, Faithful."

Ingress has no problem believing this, of course.

"Does he help you with things?"

"Mmmmm hmmmmm."

It's a vague sort of answer. Even as she gives it, Alanna remembers all the times he has helped her, like the time he fetched Sir Myles before Alex killed her, and wonders at Faithful anew.

"Do Heralds learn sword fighting?"

"Of course. I've been learning all sorts of styles way before school. I started when I was six."

A frown settles heavily on Alanna's features. Her brow wrinkles to the point of making her rub it, and she looks away from Ingress, embarrassed by, hating what she absolutely has to ask next.

Quietly, "But you're a girl. They let girls train for such tasks?"

There's something plaintive in her tone.

"Oh, yes, of course," she says, knowing that there are lots of worlds where that doesn't happen.

"It doesn't matter in Valdemar."

Of course.

It doesn't matter.

Alanna exhales, looking away. She hopes that one day she'll be able to say the same about Tortall.

"Valdemar seems like a progressive place."

It's approving.