milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

A tall woman in a severe grey dress sits by the fire. A cup of hot tea in one hand, she reads a book of mind puzzles while chewing on the end of her pen. Her icy blue eyes, pretty in their own way, intent on the task at hand.

Disturb the Forsaken at your own risk.

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Shelley wouldn't know not to, but is polite enough not to dream of disturbing Mesaana in any case. When the girl comes down, she quietly sits in another armchair - not too close, that would be rude. Besides, she wants to go through something anyways.

Within minutes, she is completely absorbed, jotting down notes in the back of her dream journal.

Mesaana removed the pen tip from her mouth. Her voice still those cold, crystalline chimes.

"Afternoon, Lady Shelley."

A sip of her tea.

Shelley glances up over the top of the book.

"Lady Selae. Good afternoon. How are you today?"

Mesaana turned her icy blue eyes to Shelley. The look on her face calm.

"I am well, Child."

A moment of pause.

"Yourself?"

"Well enough, thank you."

She carefully closes the diary, letting it rest in her lap.

"Do you know if you are Bound or not?"

Mesaana considered for a moment. The tip of her pen returning to her mouth during her contemplation.

"I am Bound."

She nods.

"I'm... sorry to hear that, I suppose. I know it can be inconvenient. Do you have a room to your liking, though?"

The bar had seen fit to give her an odd room number, n+1. Such a bizarre place, this bar.

"Yes, it was suitable enough. An air exchanger, a rudimentary stasis box... All the comforts of home despite the normally more rude appearance of this place."

Shelley smiles slightly.

"The bar is generally good about providing what patrons are used to."

Within reason, anyway.

Glancing over slightly, Mesaana spoke with a touch of curiosity. She could not pass an opportunity to use this girl to her advantage by.

"I see you are working on something. Pardon my curiosity for asking."

"Not working, really."

A trace of nervousness behind the smile.

"Just a journal. Keeping track of dreams, mainly."

Mesaana nods calmly. She smiles into her tea as she takes a sip. There was always a bit of excitement when a plan started coming together.

"A habit of the self-analytical. I cannot say I am surprised. Did you pick up that habit from Elan? It is something that I imagine him doing."

That almost feels like a stab of- something. Anger is in it. Pain too, and a sickening fear...

I am nothing like you.

Shelley keeps her face still with an effort. "No. I didn't start until after I returned here."

Mesaana's icy blue eyes watch her carefully. Ishamael was so dangerous and difficult to acquire information on. This girl was a window to his soul... presuming he still had one.

"I see."

Shelley, if asked, would likely argue against the existence of said soul.

"I don't think he kept one, though," says Shelley carefully.

If he had, she would definitely not have wanted to know what he dreamed about.

A sip of her tea.

"Ah."

Shelley nods, outwardly calm.

"As I said, he was often busy."

Mesaana nodded calmly as she made a note in the margin of the book of puzzles.

"I suppose that he would be."

Shelley shrugs slightly, leaning down to put the journal away in her bag. For some reason she doesn't feel like thinking about it any longer.

Catherine sits a short distance away, looking over at the woman with slight curiosity. The face is vaguely familiar, though she can't place it, and she turns back to her drink as soon as the woman's eyes swivel in her direction.

The woman, alas, does not look up. She is rather engrossed in her book of puzzles and cup of hot tea. Her dark brown hair is tucked gently behind her ear before she returns the hand with the pen near her face, and the pen tip to her mouth.

Since Catherine just loves to risk life and limb...

"What are you working on?"

The woman turned her icy blue eyes to Catherine. Her voice is clear, cold crystalline chimes.

"I have a fondness for puzzles of the mind, Child."

A sip of tea.

"I'm not a child." Catherine raises one eyebrow. "Not by my world's standards, at least..."

A windchime laugh.

"Child, I am over three hundred years old. You are but a child to me."

"I could be a thousand years old," Catherine returns adeptly. "You don't even know which world I'm from."

Mesaana gave her cold glance.

"Do not get impertinent with me, Child. I could tell if you were anything besides ordinary."

"Could you, now?" Catherine's not so easily cowed. "What's ordinary to you?"

Mesaana rolls her eyes, and returns to her book of puzzles. She takes a sip of tea.

"You."

"And you're extraordinary precisely why?" Both eyebrows up now, she's bristling slightly.

A slight sigh. Another soothing sip of tea.

"I am quickly growing tired of your incessant questioning."

"Oh, poor you," Catherine snaps. "What makes you so special?"

A deep breath. She had to remain calm despite the provocation of this little bitch. A soothing sip of her tea. Her voice icy and imperious.

"Your presence is no longer desired."

"Your presence won't be either, for very long..." Catherine's eyes are fiery against Mesaana's cold ones as she gets up and leaves in a fury.

Risk? Wowbagger is so there.

He looks over her shoulder to see what she's reading. "Ah. That one," he says mostly to himself as soon as he identifies the puzzle. "One of the harder ones of the type. What number is it? Seventy million something, I think."

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