15[22:41] Well. Not the best day to be a proud daughter of House Cynis. Or the best place. 15[22:41] What's on Dryas's mind? Where does it take her? [22:45] 07Unable to sleep, unwilling to further rouse suspicions, not much of an appetite, already took a bath, no good lays in town. No sense talking to Ratel. Not much else to say to the Hearth or the other crew - and certainly nothing to say to Piu. Sadako raised some reasonable concerns. What's Garnet up to? 15[22:47] Dryas catches Garnet on her way back into the suite she's sharing with the girls. She's cloaked and veiled, but Dryas can detect the scent of the soaps and incenses they use in the baths downstairs. [22:50] "Good evening, Lady Garnet," 07Dryas greets her. "Did you find the baths enjoyable?" 15[22:51] Garnet rolls her neck a bit. "Yes, I think I did. I haven't had a proper one in quite some time. Are you busy? You don't look dressed for bed." [22:53] 07Dryas: "Busy? Me? Of course not. Care to join me for a nightcap?" 15[22:53] Garnet: "I was just about to make the same offer. That would be lovely." 15[22:53] Your suite or hers? [22:54] 07Leave the girls be.  15[22:55] Very thoughtful. Dryas's suite, then-- "Do you mind if I take this shawl off? Piu did what she could but I'd like my hair to finish drying in open air." [22:57] "By all means," 07Dryas invites as she extracts a bottle of rum, silver traveling cups, and a pair of cigars from a saddlebag hanging across a sofa. 15[23:00] "What do you make of this Brightwork? I have no sense of the peculiar." Garnet takes both rum and cigar readily. [23:05] "I had the opportunity-" 07Dryas now fumbles for a light, because she's grown accustomed to carousing in the company of fire aspects - "to speak earlier with Lieutenant Peleps Catela, the Commodore's daughter. She left Abalone a day earlier than we did, and came here by a more direct path. She was in particularly poor spirits when I spoke with her in the afternoon. Said that this was a place bereft of beauty. After encountering [23:05] the groom's party, I cannot much disagree. Skeletal valets!" 15[23:07] After a contemplative puff and a little cough - Dryas immediately get the sense she doesn't smoke much - Garnet says, "Yes. Trafficking with the dead merits the sword - even the daimyos agreed on that. What brought the Commodore's daughter here so quickly? Is she on the same hunt you are?" [23:12] 07Dryas wets her mouth with a bit of rum. "She originally travelled with our quarry, in fact. It was an odd series of events - we found her marooned, with perhaps a hundred or so others, all under the glamour of an unusual object. Perhaps Daizo could explain it better. In fact, they were in the middle of an ecstatic orgy when we found them, and in breaking the spell all the others but her perished. She doesn't get on with her [23:12] mother, so I gave her command of my vessel." 15[23:13] Garnet: "Is that common where you're from? Not getting along with your mother." [23:18] 07Dryas takes a moment to think carefully. "In Pangu Prefecture? Well, I suppose about as common as anywhere else I've been. Although some other places I've been you might lose your head for asking." 15[23:18] "Would it be terribly personal to ask..." [23:22] 07Dryas: "About my mother? Cynis Umora?" 07A drag on the cigar. "She's rather famous, actually, as such things go. The most skilled physician on the Blessed Isle, which means she is the best doctor in Creation." 15[23:23] Garnet: "You sound proud of her." [23:27] 07Dryas: "I hope so. She is someone to be proud of; her accomplishments are bespoke." 15[23:28] "Is she of you?" 15[23:29] "The people I'm allowed to speak to all speak very highly of you." [23:37] 07Dryas stiffens. "That is very kind, Lady Garnet." 07Would that the true Scarlet Empress had such words for her! But perhaps without the questions!! "I... we... well, you see, it's not quite the right question." 15[23:38] Garnet winces a bit. "If I've overreached, I apologize. I just... I understand so little about the world I've walked into. The world I am expected to be part of. Not just the larger world, but yours as well." 15[23:39] "Piu's been very forthright with me. But she has a very particular point of view. One I don't imagine is widely shared." [23:46] 07Dryas: "She is a lucky find. Charming and mysterious, frequently underestimated. If she even is afraid of anything, I don't know what it could be. It's a recipe for a good friend." 15[23:50] Garnet: "As long as you hold no love in your heart for her victims." [23:54] 07Dryas takes a big drink: "Something like that. Rejecting, of course, any implication that she was culpable for the tragic events earlier today." 15[23:56] Garnet: "Do you think that woman's mother was proud of her?" [00:01] 07Dryas: "I expect you will have an opportunity to ask Cynis Falen yourself before long, if you desire. I don't know Falen well personally, but she is supposed to have a close relationship with her side of the family; there are salacious rumors about the degree of tutelage she provides. But Lena was nervous, she was in over her head with something here. That's not new for her, but she was usually better at getting out in time [00:01] to still look good." 15[00:05] Garnet: "Better at making sure someone else suffered the consequences of her actions." 15[00:05] "I've heard that your House controls the slave trade. Is that true?" 15[00:06] This turned from a nightcap into an interrogation pretty fast. [00:10] 07Dryas rattles this one off by rote: "By decree of the Scarlet Empress, it is illegal to enslave anyone in the Realm. However, the Threshold is materially as well as spiritually impoverished compared to the Blessed Isle, and it is House Cynis's sole, solemn, burden to manage any such trade, to the exclusion of any other House or body of the Realm." [00:15] 07Dryas: "So, the answer to your question is: Yes, to the degree that it's not controlled by someone outside the Realm, like the Guild. That was why Lena was here, when this is an independent tributary kingdom rather than a satrapy. Although I don't believe I've seen too many slaves here except that fellow when we first arrived." 15[00:16] Garnet's expression hardens, and she's silent for a long moment. 15[00:17] "But what do you think?" 15[00:17] "Born and raised in-- you must have thought about it. Necessity demands you take a position. You're too smart to ignore it." [00:26] 07Dryas prickles. "Born in it?!" 07She holds her breath for a moment. "My maternal grandmother was a slave." 15[00:27] Garnet's eyes widen. Whatever retort she had cooking dies on her lips. [00:36] 07Dryas takes a big swig. "I'm not a philosopher. Do I think slavery is disgusting? Yes. Are many other things disgusting? Yes. Did they tell you we found Sadako in a pile of Cynis-branded slaves? That's what kept the zealots on board from throwing her overboard immediately; the claim that she was my House's property. They still tried to kill her later, of course. Do I engage in the flesh trade?" 07Her jaw locks up. 15[00:39] Garnet's face is wreathed in smoke as she draws fiercely on her cigar. [00:42] 07Dryas gets quiet and cryptic. "I have someone in a cage right now. The buyer arrives tomorrow. When we leave this place, ask me again my thoughts on my House's monopoly." 15[00:43] Garnet: "...I will." 15[00:46] "...I owe you an apology. I owe you several. Some I'm not even aware of yet." 15[00:47] "It's strange to know so little of a woman, and to be so deeply certain that I have failed her." [01:06] 07Dryas: "Xia Lan, what is failure or success? Life is not about success or failure. It's about the chase, the effort, the struggle." 15[01:07] Xia Lan: "Then success is continuing to fight. And failure is giving up." 15[01:07] "Has your Empress not given up on you?" 15[01:08] "If she has, don't you think she owes you an apology?" 15[01:08] "For leaving this behind?" [01:14] 07Dryas: "We will know much more soon, I hope. Perhaps it is a test. Perhaps there are some things beyond even an Empress's control. If she is anything like you, though, I find it hard to believe she would have simply given up like that." 15[01:14] Garnet: "Thank you for saying so. There's... a great deal that I find hard to believe." 15[01:16] "But I believe you. You strike me as an honorable woman." [01:17] 07Dryas: "Thank you... but is the world really that much changed from the Shogunate? Was it a time of great justice?" 15[01:18] Garnet: "Far from it. But I often imagined it could have been, if those in power had wanted it to be." 15[01:19] "I told Piu that my deepest wish was to have a family of my own, one I could run as I saw fit. But if you gave me another couple of wishes... I would have liked to prove that true." 15[01:20] "So to discover that these wishes were granted, and that the world is so little different... was I wrong then? Am I wrong now? Or was I simply not equal to the challenges I hoped to face?" [01:29] 07Dryas is reassuring: "They say there is no triumph without sacrifice. And the Realm, for all its failings, is still the greatest nation in the world. Simply compare the alternative offered by these necromongers. All of those failures are because the Realm is weak. That strength, that honor must be restored. Although I suppose nearly everyone agrees about that and only disagrees on the tiny little specifics," 07teeny tiny [01:29] 07 specifics. 15[01:30] "Does that make the disagreements calmer, or just pettier?" [01:33] 07Dryas: "It depends if you are in one of the houses Mnemon would purge, or the ones V'Neef would put to the sword. Or the Gods know who else has plans." 15[01:34] "What of the woman who runs your house?" [01:37] 07Dryas: "Women, three. Cynis died long ago, we have a troika. Falen, Wisel, Belar. I don't think we are really 'in the running,' ourselves, so to speak. Rather we are more... looking for a good horse to back." 15[01:37] "Ah. Have you an opinion?" 15[01:37] "On the horse or your troika?" [01:42] 07Dryas: "Are you sure you aren't the real Empress in disguise, looking for information? The troika does a good job, for what it has to work with. We have a bad reputation, as you surmised quickly enough. As far as horses go... I just hope that Furia was right, or that the Empress reveals herself again. I don't want to see what a civil war would look like." 15[01:43] Garnet: "Thank you for your candor. I'm not. Sure, that is."