Varanis — 1626 0803 Candle11

????, Earth Season, Season/Fertility Week

Context

Earth Season/Fertility Week/Waterday [[[s02:session-7|Session 7]]]
Temple of Humakt

Events

Morning approaches on Waterday. Berra, who was either sleeping or meditating outside, claps to see if Varanis is ready yet. Then she knocks, thus identifying herself precisely.

Varanis lets her in. She’s drinking some kind of earthy smelling tea, though it appears to be cold. The Vingan is most of the way in her armour already.

The little songbirds are beginning to wake up. They aren’t yet in full song. Berra goes over to look at the cage. “Ready?” she asks. Maybe she’s asking the birds, but probably not. Tweet. Chirp. The birds are not great conversationalists.

“Yes. But, before we go, I want to show you something.”

Berra gives her attention to the bird in the larger cage, the one in Vingan plumage. “Mhm?”

Varanis opens the box that contains a set of papyrus notes. “I came home to this one last night. It was on my floor with a broken cup. It’s a love poem of sorts, but speaks of endings.”

“Oh. I… is that good? Probably good.” Berra peers. “You don’t need to keep them, you know? And you can scrape the ink off, I think. Vestra told me.”

“They are finely crafted pieces of poetry, Berra. Discarding them casually feels wrong to me.” Varanis adds, “Xenofos is concerned about Garin. He mentioned it when he read the last poem to me. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about, but I thought I should tell you.”

“And it was on the floor? So someone got paid to leave mess in your room.” Berra gives Varanis a nod. “Well, I’ll be your guard for the next few days anyhow. I can come to the parties if you like.”¹Berra makes two rolls and two specials: Death and Battle. Death: The last papyrus has death like qualities. The ink seems familiar. Sticky, brown. Blood. Battle: It could have come through balcony doors even though the place is high it would be easy to just sling it in if the door was open. And this time of year it usually is.

“You could join the guards who have been accompanying me. But if I bring a guard inside, I risk causing offence to my hosts.”

“I can do that. I was planning to sleep through it, anyhow. How broken was the cup? Like it had been thrown in?”

“It could have been thrown in. That makes more sense. Than someone getting into my room. It was about there,” Varanis says, indicating a place not too far from the balcony door.

“If you fold the papyrus into the cup to throw it… that chips, the papyrus falls out… How usual is it to write in blood?”

Varanis blinks. “You’d have to ask Xenofos, but I can’t imagine it being common.” A look of worry crosses her expression. “Blood? Really?”

“That one there looks a lot like when blood splashes onto something and gets left to dry.” Berra shrugs. “It might be a special sort of ink used for that sort of thing to really look like blood, but I’ve seen blood on papyrus before.” She adds, “The library was burning, but it was daylight, so that didn’t change what I was seeing much.”

Varanis shakes her head. “It’s probably nothing. He’s just disappointed that I didn’t fall at his feet. He’ll move on now.”

“Well, yeah. But he wants to be loved for moving on. He wants you to know it. He’s probably going to declaim it loudly and maybe track you down to make sure you know. I mean, I’m not worried, but you might have to punch a few people.” Berra shrugs, and heads for the door. “Time to be going.”

Varanis nods and follows Berra out.

At the Temple of Humakt Varanis does fine when she’s allowed to move. The sword drills and physical tests seem to be good for her. Once again she is brought into the depths of the building and told to meditate on Death, Separation, and the Sword. The concepts elude her for a long time and it is a relief when she is finally allowed to depart.

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  Berra makes two rolls and two specials: Death and Battle. Death: The last papyrus has death like qualities. The ink seems familiar. Sticky, brown. Blood. Battle: It could have come through balcony doors even though the place is high it would be easy to just sling it in if the door was open. And this time of year it usually is.