Numero Dos

The vaulted halls of the fair Countess' estate seem to suck all manner of sound from the very air for a time-- Lacey pauses for a moment, letting the deafening silence descend from the high enameled ceilings like a smothering blanket, muffling everything in an austere and noble solemness. She is very much aware of the significance of the pause between them, the lull before the warm, humid breeze that grows into the patter of raindrops that beget a rumbling summer thunderstorm. Yes, now is the time to savor the gentle, tropical wafts against the cheeks with eyes closed and arms wide-- for the weather could be quite unpredictable when a certain Aog Ridir was involved.

Her eyes again meet his, for longer, and she almost allows the quiet to last too long, interrupting it just short of the painfully awkward. "I'm well. As one can be, I suppose. Still mending," she says in her even-toned, pleasant contralto, a voice at once silvery and grounded, like her irises. The little woman shifts within the confines of her peculiar chair, straightening her slight slouch and inclining a delicate chin ever so slightly. "All the better, now that you've arrived," she adds in a tone that is as genuinely amiable as it is incredibly subtle. Her single hand gently clutches the rim of her left wheel, absentmindedly tugging it back and forth so that her wheeled-chair seems for all the world to be nervously adjusting its weight from foot to foot.

"Would you care to push me?" This after another considerable silence. "I shall be your guide, if you'd like."

Beetle-shell eyes glint from within a sudden shadow that, seemingly, crawls from the Wizard's occiput to coat the top of his face in an evil, barely visible crescent; Aog spies the back of the Countess' chair, directly through her, piercing the very foundation of her estate beneath them -- an invisible, infinite, over-directed lance through the firmament and surety. He doesn't miss a beat of his banter, despite the instant of distance, whipping his hips weakly about his center-line, the pole of which rests beneath the ball of his ostentatiously-appointed foot, so that the hem of his heavy robing flares just so. Aog rounds Lacey's throne, extending his hand to rest fingertips upon the line of its top.

A lissome neck rotates ever so subtly to track the loose-limbed stride about her chair-- the motion exudes a sort of svelte, confident grace, restrained as it is. As the dusky robes slip out of her periphery, she does not stretch the movement to extend the ambit of her vision over her shoulder. Rather, there is a pressing together of lips, something suspiciously resembling a nervously coy simper.

"My fee for counsel and the curing of agues is exorbitant, Countess," comes his voice, dry ice in the thick, nigh-silent half-second's breadth, and, with a drumming of his digits in sequence, the Wizard instills motion into Lacey's wheels, sounding a faint squeal that rings against the enameled corridors and flights. "But there are some maladies out of even my considerable reach." The heft of his words lies solely in implication; if Aog were cruel and tactless enough (at the moment) to speak plainly of Lacey's actual wounds, then the effect would be lost! He does, however, stop short of an open explanation. What would be the point, otherwise?

An unseen impulse inches Lacey forward, with her charge taking a dutiful step that's wide enough only to keep pace, while ensuring she remains imminent between the pair; he'd never let her stew in his wake. "The push comes. Now, all it needs is a guide! Where might I take you, O! dear Countess?"

The end of the hall was growing slowly, and the fair Countess took in a little breath and glanced downwards, being very particular not to shift forwards too much. She cinched her quilt a bit tighter around her trunk with her arm, crossing it across her front and pulling it snug under the bosom.

"... goodness me," Lacey remarked. She swallowed, and glanced upwards to his face-- her small mouth a small, bright beam of a smile that couldn't completely conceal a bit of giddy apprehension. "Ahm...the atrium is as good a place to start the excursion as any, I suppose?"

She reluctantly extended her arm towards him, palm upturned and bony fingers slightly curled. Her pinned sleeved pawed around so that the little armlet attached to her right shoulder again restrained the coverlet from falling by its corner.

Aog's ears hop in their fasten to the sides of his head, in detecting the scanty eddies through the stifling tension -- it's an extension through their shared pressure, a dense, mutual rigidity born of symmetric awkwardness. Lacey's hand, he thinks, and, with an easy swiveling of his head, as though no anchor of bone nor tendon held the Wizard together, Aog confirms as much; of course he was right. It's not like he had much of a chance of guessing incorrectly, after all.

"A little forum for our morning stroll," he observes, settling the heft of his hand in the Countess' proffered palm. Aog mirrors his host's configuration, keeping his digits curved in, tip-to-palm. The rancor in his chest is well-hidden, he thinks. And when was the last time he'd guessed wrongly?

The pair's slow, straight-hafted excursion continues. A wheel creaks on its spindle.

Lacey swallows-- the creaking is accusatory, almost, and she wishes she'd asked to have the wheels oiled again. Inwardly, she allowed herself a small wallowing in self pity; nobody else had to oil their legs to stop them making irksome little noises. And nobody especially was forced to fill strained silences with idle chatter because of them.

"...so," she begins, weakly clutching him...afraid to even twitch a tendon in her hand, really. "...how is Illanora?" Illanora, of course, was their mutual friend of some years, a smallish, tanned creature with short sandy colored hair and a dusting of freckles across middle of a birdlike face, upon which there was always an impish mien. She was incredibly gifted in the realm of the magical and Lacey had always considered her a close confidant and inspiration and for one confused night, a lover, the knowledge of which she hoped Aog did not possess. Women were not so rare as in the Accord as in the Order but even Illanora had something of a subversive air about her and Lacey almost regretted that distance parted them, the black Tower and the white Citadel so different and removed from the other that anything resembling a relationship was doomed, surely.

Yet he, too was from that place and was no less eccentric-- Lacey supposed she was bad at heeding warnings (as her stubbornly squeaky means of conveyance attested). She wondered how things might have differed if she'd taken her own doubts at face value and perhaps joined the other two, by that rain-slicked obsidian column at the end of the isles... Lacey had been too greedy. Lacey had wanted to startle and confuse and assert, and the shocking was envisioned by all to emanate from that place. Even his subtly disquieting effeminacy seemed less unusual when one looked at his robes and, yes, hm, "I suppose he would be of that sort..." and the like.

"...I hope the news hasn't shaken her up too rudely," she murmured. She wondered if her standing proudly among the squires, taller than most, during their knighting had been worth this. The presenting of her sword, with all eyes upon her and the headmaster in the center of the Citadel's courtyard, had been truly the greatest of her days. But she wondered now, that if she had taken the easy path, the dimmer path, the warmer path, if she and he and Illanora would have been lying in a tangle of sweaty limbs together the very moment the beast had descended from behind and ended that life.