Rose points at the letter on the table. "It's from Master Cedric. I saw him die. He was stabbed. He was ill. I stood by his bed next to Master Dominic and Mistress Lila when he died." Her voice is shakey and uncertain.
//PM incoming
Bree takes up the letter in one hand and paces slowly around the room as she reads it...twice for clarity...before setting it back down on the table and turning her attention to Rose.
"This means nothing, Dear," Bree says. "You're with the Temple now."
"But if I am, and if he's not dead... why is he writing me?" Rose shakes her head, obviously confused. " I don't understand it."
"He is trying to get to you," Bree says. "Now that the Temple has taken such an interest in you, he understand what he had to lose." She takes up the note again and shakes her head. "I know a few people who would be interested in this..."
Rose nods. "I don't want it."
"Of course you don't, Dear," Bree says, refolding the note but keeping it in her hand, her voice kind. "Now, sit and eat your dinner and leave this to fall from your mind. If you cannot...I will give you something else to think about."
Rose still seems shaken as she eats her dinner. She is quiet and pensive, and gladly accepts any distraction that Bree offers to take her mind off of the letter.
Bree sends Rose to bed in a state of near exhaustion, and the next morning Bree returns to a more strict regimen of tasks and expectations for Rose. This continues until Rose shows control over herself again.
Though the letter set her back a bit in her routine, it isn't too long before she settles back into how things were before.
Though she does so more cautiously and gradually this time, Bree eventually dials back her demands on Rose, giving her more responsibility for herself as the weeks march foreward.
As Bree grows more comfortable and confident in Rose's state and ability, her visits become less regular and less frequent again over the course of many more weeks.
Over the weeks Rose settles into the routine, working herself in the morning, working for the Mistress through the bulk of the day and then again at night doing both her exercises and her cleaning. She gradually puts on a little more weight and a lot more stamina.
After a couple of months time here, Rose's Mistress begins to actively train Rose's gift. First there was an addition to her routine. The hands-on based study she had been receiving now came into play as Rose was given items to study, one at a time over the weeks. Each item served a magical purpose, a focus, an mild anchor, even an item to center her constantly shifting gift. Under the strict monitoring of her Mistress, Rose studied each for a portion of her afternoon.
Second, Rose was given an assignment for her evening time. Sometimes it was reading (always a challenging amount of text to cover each night) sometimes it was a centering exercise for her to practice every night for an hour or more.
Third, and perhaps most special, Rose gets the allowance to watch some of the other group magic works. Though she is expected to observe and learn, the experience is often exhilarating. Most of what she witnesses are group efforts of enchantment, sometimes focused on a single item, sometimes focused on a more distant location. Occasionally she is allowed to watch illusion works, set ups for a particularly well connected exhibition or fete.
There are no more letters, no more distractions from the outside world. In fact, Rose sees little Kartherian at all, apart from the temple's inner grounds. Once or twice she accompanies her Mistress out to learn of some magical practice first hand. Sometimes she is called upon to serve others in menial work when the temple's staff appear to be short handed.
During one of training Rose's training sessions, several months in, Rose senses something strange in the nebulous 'out there' of her senses. It pulls at her in a somewhat familiar way, hinting at her waking dreams and the stretches of her reality.
Rose pauses in what she is doing and tilts her head, focusing her senses on the strange, yet so familiar sensation.
The draw of power, nearly beckons her to come and See something. It takes her only a moment to feel a strong thread of power associated with the sensation. Intoxicating. Inviting. Long absent.
She intakes a long breath, then exhales slowly, closing her eyes as she places a hand on the table to steady herself. "Mistress... I can feel it calling me. There's something I'm supposed to see." She lets out another slow breath. "Oh, I've missed this..." she whispers.
“-What- are you talking about?” the Mistress snaps, sounding irritated at the interruption.
Rose seems unconcerned about her Mistress's irritation, her attention focused on something else as she moves towards a scrying glass and touches its edge and looks into the reflective surface. "It's calling me. I'm supposed to See this."
The Mistress frowns at Rose but her eyes narrow and she only watches for a few moments.
As Rose draws nearer and nearer the edge of the long absent power grows sharper, almost beginning to sting her in some way. With the low burn of pain the room she's in begins to drift somewhere Between in Rose's senses. Between here, or there... probably now but maybe later... Like the many days in times gone by, it becomes utterly unimportant when, or why she is. Only that her whole self seems both fluid and floating as the little surge becomes greater and other times flash before her eyes.
A fog clears out of the path of her Sight, something she didn't really realize was there. A goblet sits on an alabaster table, filled with a fluid so dark and thick it almost seems black. For a moment there is nothing but this, in a space that has no sound. There is a Forever in length before something changes, little ripples in the fluid as of something heavy moved near by. One stomp...
.
Another set of ripples....
Another...
Then the glass shatters and Rose throws her hands up in front of her face to deflect the incoming shrapnel and fluid. She feels the sharp burning of the glass cutting her, burning her as if coated in acid. The fluid speckles her skin, steaming on the table, scented of something... awful... perhaps wasting away but not quite dead.
And then... Blackness.
When Rose comes to once again, she's in her room though it takes her several minutes to realize where exactly she is.
Rose stares at the ceiling in confusion for some time before she finally sits up with a start, looking herself over for injury, and looking for her Mistress.
Her room is empty but for herself. It is dark and quiet, the grey haze of night with the light of the moons filtering in from her shuttered window. Vaguely she makes out the familiar shapes of everything she knows, being where it should be, and a covered tray sitting on the table.
Rose gets out of bed and semi-cautiously moves to the table, uncovering the tray.
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Topic: Rose's Forum CDQ (Read 3477 times)
