Walls of Paper

LadyDeme-08/14/2016

Damona had a hall of maps. Tapestry maps, painted maps, old maps, new maps. Big maps, small maps. They hung from the walls so grandly the walls themselves became hard to see. It'd been the collection of generations, here in this little kingdom in what sometimes seemed like the center of the world. Or, perhaps, a little pocket within the world. One of the two. The maps reflected on the white marble floor, shining with the polish of what had to be a half-dozen suffering maids. Amongst this cartographical splender swayed a happy figure, down beneath a map of the Sacred Lake's shores with the water done in gold leaf. This figure in a fashionable blue gown seemed fully enjoying the freedom to wander the more public areas, her long blue braid swishing back and forth like the tail of a contented animal. She held up a pencil, her arm extended to its full length, her thumb being used as a measuring reference for the map itself. So the scale is... She sketched something down in a notebook she held in her hands, jotting down a few notes to go with it. In truth, this was the only part about a setting like this that the young lady really liked; she was glad to not be dealing with the mess in the throne room. She was seeing the world! She was doing new things! Her blue-green eyes darted about eagerly, looking for her next target. Yes, she was far away from home. But for the moment, she could enjoy the treasures of another place, and exist in the whorl of history. She could tell herself that, and briefly bite back that sad expression that threatened her face.

AOMRocks20-08/14/2016

Lorenzo slowly entered the map hall, intrigued as the armored knight slowly felt his way around the new, unfamiliar castle. He folded his arms, glancing from one map to another, brows raised in surprise. Perhaps an aside to the woman in the room, or simply to talk to himself, he sighed. "'Twould do little to build this paper wall, would it not, as rogues looking to take this castle would find that, in laying siege here they would take ease in slashing through that which they would mean to fling large boulders upon...?"

LadyDeme-08/14/2016

The voice jolted her from her thoughts, forcing even that slight indecision of mood from her face like a runner forcing pigeons into flight. Gameface time, after all. "But still, my friend," The woman said, not turning her head just yet. "For though they slash the paper -- they see the truth: no world's map stands the world's own equal -- the world itself is stone and plaster; the world itself will lie in wait beneath; the world itself endures whatever fleeting capture man inflicts upon it." She smiled broadly, until her ears caught something about what he said, and in the moment of it counted in her head. A small notch between her eyebrows appeared as she focused on remembering the whole of it. "Ooh, those were iambs, right? Well, most of them. It took you a little to find the rhythm." Out of the corner of her eye -- her gaze still focused on the map in theory -- she eyes the young man up and down. A soldier's tan, the thick dark hair. It was then she noticed just who the young man was -- they had last met in person some time ago, but she had a memory for faces. She didn't say anything, just yet -- instead, her expression grew perhaps a little mischevious, wondering when she herself would be caught.(edited)

AOMRocks20-08/14/2016

Lorenzo paused, fairly surprised at the other's inquiry. "They were, or made to be iambs, at least."

LadyDeme-08/14/2016

"Nice work, very nice, " she said, nodding appreciately. She considered her correction, her mouth moving back over her own words slightly, sussing out for recollection's sake the way the sounds rose and fell. As expected of her penpal, they had a lovely sound -- but not quite right. "You were just slightly foiled. It's Li-ttle, not li-ttle, and the 'would it not?' just really ruins the sort of wavelike motion of the verse. I think a little more care will see it through." He still hadn't caught her, though. Well. It'd be cruel to not mention it much longer, but she could give a little needle for the fun. She leaned a little closer to him, just to the side, her head tilted up as if her neck were the stem of an overburdened white and blue flower -- a delphinium, perhaps. "Is this what Floribian soldiers keep to, these days?"(edited)

AOMRocks20-08/14/2016

The armor knight shrugs, a shred of familiarity lodging itself in his mind as he stows the information away. "Most soldiers keep to running these days, Miss. But who are you? One who serves Damona?" Hrrm. Was that right? I aught to jot that down in my journal...

LadyDeme-08/14/2016

"Ha. Perhaps I ought to do that instead. I think I'd look splendid, tending a hall of maps or busts, a library of tomes." She shrugged a little, the shake of her head whipping her braid back and forth. In a playful tone, she answered, "No, I'm a person who was born for such a useless thing as a title -- you may have heard of me; I was once from your fine country -- finer now, that it may well exist only in the past, waiting to be renamed again." And then, almost laughingly, "Seriously, Lorenzo."

AOMRocks20-08/14/2016

A name finally digs itself from his mind, and he squints, thinking. "Wait... have the sands of time brought me... Delphine?" He says the line uncertainly, a bit nervous.

LadyDeme-08/14/2016

"Exactly! And you only needed me to basically tell you myself! It's good to see you hang to this beautiful veil of tears yet." She offered her pen-pal an arm for a sort of half-mast embrace as she finally fully turned, revealing her snub little nose and bright, wide blue-green eyes.(edited)

AOMRocks20-08/14/2016

Lorenzo chuckled, turning a bit pink as he wrapped his arms around her. "Oh gods, it's so delightful to see you again! It's been years!"

LadyDeme-08/14/2016

"It is, it has!" She gave him a fuller hug in return -- perhaps the single arm had only been a trap, and she laughed -- until the laugh trailed off, a little thoughtfully. "The circumstances could be a little less shit, though. I wanted to show you that new opera house they've built, not red-soaked battlefields." She'd written about that opera house -- it'd been a thing of beauty, commissioned largely on her own funds. The ceiling had been painted like stars, the holy attendants of Zyenar watching and holding up the dome of heaven above them. It had almost been ready for the first performance -- and then. Well, and then. She wasn't even sure if he'd gotten the letter. In spite of that thought, tugging at her wistfully, she kept a smirk on her face, a certain self-deriding quality to her voice.

AOMRocks20-08/14/2016

Lorenzo quickly let go, leaning against the wall. "Yes, yes! I so wanted to see that opera house once I could get time off. Honestly, that, ah... 'performance' you just saw was because the circumstances are so horrid." His almost-unnoticeable blush grows from embarrassment.(edited)

LadyDeme-08/14/2016

"Of course. Hard to watch your feet while your country is on fire," She said, slyly, accepting the premise with an artful nod. He'd get away with it for now. Besides, she got to see his pink face. "I'm relieved to see you made it, even if your ability to catch stress did not" she said, perhaps sounding a bit more earnest than she intended. This whole thing was making her a little sentimental, she supposed -- perhaps a dash unpleasantly. "Did you find it on the spot, or were you preparing for it, having heard of their grand map hall? I wanted to see it, of course."

AOMRocks20-08/14/2016

Lorenzo waves his hand dismissively, almost to an exaggerated degree. "Oh, please. When all you have for reading material is letters and military handbooks, even the baseline is enough for some people." He shakes his head at her question. "Quite honestly, this whole place feels like a labyrinth sometimes. I had a sort of plan for the map room, a dialogue perhaps, but had to think quickly. This whole hall is honestly quite impressive!"

LadyDeme-08/14/2016

"Oh, how you must suffer," She said, as if she were one to talk. She fanned a hand against her breast, as if her heart was truly moved. And then this was somewhat shunted aside for pure, raw, geeking out. "It is! Some of these are real treasures; they will remember these views of the world when you and I and I are dust." She pointed agressively to a few of her favorites, most of them more artistic than of true topographical merit, but there was one of a city on the shores of the sacred lake, that showed a temple that had long been lost in a fire, to prove her point.

AOMRocks20-08/14/2016

Lorenzo clunked his way over next to her, resting his hands on his hips as he looks over the map she indicated. He quips up cheerfully, "How depressing!"

LadyDeme-08/14/2016

She laughed in agrement. Or in something. "You think? I think it's really kind of wonderful. Are you saying you wouldn't want that verse -- well, not that verse, find a better one -- to be said on the breath of someone who never met you -- and for a moment, they know who you are, right now?" She asked, a little intently. She reached down and picked up the book she'd put down when she'd hugged him. It wasn't so much that she cared to be, personally, remembered forever -- but she saw something beautiful in the act of remembering. "'Time in its irresistable and ceaseless flow carries along on its flood all created things and drowns them in the depths of obscurity, after all.'"(edited)

AOMRocks20-08/14/2016

"Oh, of course I would want that. I would just rather not think about that. Perhaps for you, but there is a considerable chance that I could be dust at the end of the month. And there's a chance that Prince Phineas will simply leave me with an unmarked grave, survived by a sorrow-struck sister and a good friend who had the luck to survive." He waves his hands, talking nonchalantly, almost cheerfully. "What's that you've got with you there?"

LadyDeme-08/14/2016

"As if I wouldn't be in any worse shape then," she said, with a little shake of her head. It was scarier then she was willing to admit. But what else should she do? Well. There was what everyone wanted her to do.... But that? That was worse. No, better to laugh the fear away, and pen it. She gestured to the book in her hands, a weighty matter indeed. "Well. I have no interest in allowing others to tell this story -- to be the bulwark against the irrestible flow of time, as it were; what if their stuff gets lost and no one knows I died a miserable death in a ditch, or whatever? So... I thought I'd write down what I could. About everything that will happen, and what I'll see."(edited)

AOMRocks20-08/14/2016

"Oh, so you keep a journal, too?" Lorenzo's face lit up as he fiddled with various straps of his armor. "I've gotten something like that, too! Though I've stopped writing about the days in it, because quite frankly the average soldier's life is so boring that more often than not planting a sword through your stomach offers more excitement in your last moments than your whole lifetime. Instead I use it to sort of... guide myself through the art of acting on the battlefield."

LadyDeme-08/14/2016

"I only started when I left Arcais. I didn't really consider the matter -- that this time might need a voice now -- until then." After all, until then, she thought there'd be time. She thought there'd be years. She thought all sorts of things. She'd be a wrinkly old lady, by the time she needed to say what the days she was living in now were like -- because she'd assumed they'd be days just like before. This was easy to shake off, though. She was doing all she could. Delphine leaned forward, curious about what exactly he was intending to do with that armor. "Acting? What, 'All the battlefield's a stage'?"

AOMRocks20-08/14/2016

"What? Goodness, no! Thinking like that is a surefire way to make yourself a pincushion, Delphine." He unstraps his gauntlets, shuffling them around and finally placing them back on. "There are times when you can focus on bringing yourself out, letting the men watch you, and times when you need to plant a blade in someone's gut."

LadyDeme-08/14/2016

"I see; tactical theatre, then -- the acting of morale, as it were?" She could see it, her eyes narrowing in recollection -- after all, military history was full of commanders emboldening their men with opportune things, bits of political -- moral -- tactical theatre confounding foes, convincing haggard soldiers of the rightness of their actions. Probably nothing as grand as that, considering all that had happened. But useful -- for its time and place. She wasn't a soldier, much, but she had some rough ideas -- and when the odds weren't good, that was when such things mattered most. "...Well, we may end up with a force that'd need such a thing very much."(edited)

AOMRocks20-08/14/2016

"Oh, yes!" He quickly loosens the piece of armor protecting his hips, quickly pulling out a small black book and tapping it. "Yes! Yes, yes, yes! That's exactly the point! And believe me--our forces are absolutely going to need it."

LadyDeme-08/14/2016

"So that's where it was. I thought I was going to get a show before you got to it," she said with a smile. It seemed to her a good travelling notebook, and she regretted the slightly larger volume in her arms. Then again, she had to admit as she shifted it to her hip, she was unlikely to be marching with a shield, or with too much concern for a bag. She was, after all, clearly best behind the front lines. "Agreed! Well, then, I will be sure that it's remembered for the clever strategem you might offer -- and tighten up your meter, while I'm there," she said with a warm laugh, making that little jab distinct in her voice. Not meanly. Not too meanly, anyway.

AOMRocks20-08/14/2016

"Eh?" Lorenzo paused, the comment adding another layer of pink, but quickly nodded. "Oh, certainly. All the training has me getting rusty, honestly. If you did help me, it would be greatly appreciated."

LadyDeme-08/14/2016

"But of course. It'll be much faster this way than over mail, anyway," She gave a satisfied nod, pleased at that color of blush. It wasn't like she was keeping score at how embaressed she could make her friend. Nope. She could almost whistle, she was so innocent -- instead, she tucked the book behind her back and nodded. "Anyway, it'll be easier to read at volume if the meter's got a solid rhythmic foundation."

AOMRocks20-08/14/2016

"Mm?" Lorenzo blinked, rolling his head around his neck. "Sorry, could you say that again? I lost my train of thought."

...what exactly did she mean by a 'show'...?

LadyDeme-08/14/2016

"Don't worry. I was only saying you'll do a better job being fearsome and inspiring and all the rest if we can make sure it reads well," she gave him a sympathetic pat on the back for her friend's slippery mind. She was pretty sure she'd looked the maps over, gotten her sketches. "Do you know the way out? You're right -- this place is a labrynth."(edited)

AOMRocks20-08/14/2016

"Ah, yes. But it's not quite read than it is sound, is it?" He shook his head, quickly returning to that reality. Why did that remark trip him up so much...? "Oh, I know how to... well, leave the hall, at least. Not so much the castle, but the hall."

LadyDeme-08/14/2016

"That will do." She shrugged and considered it for a moment -- the subtle distinction between reading and sounding which, save for a few forms of verse, might as well be indistinct. She shook her head and then nodded it, a sure expression on her face. "If it reads well, it will sound good -- do the words not have a heartbeat in your mind? And if it sounds good, it will read well, for the two are conjoined as twins."

AOMRocks20-08/14/2016

"Oh, certainly. Although I don't expect these soldiers to actually read what I say--mostly because they can't. But, you're right." He punctuates his But with a clap. "Are you thinking of heading out of here?"

LadyDeme-08/14/2016

"Really. Something ought to be done about that," she said with something of a more serious glare than before -- it was an uncommon expression on her face. She didn't doubt him -- she knew. But the state of learning in Floribar hardly pleased her; it was a matter she'd always been clear about. There'd been a little classroom, of sorts, made from a parlor in Castle Amana that had been a project of hers -- for a while. Now, she supposed, it was a soldier's barracks. "I believe so; there's more palace to see, after all. They've kept the peace well -- until fate spins her wheel once more," she adds, considering the way the war could very well drift here; peace talks had fallen already, and the young queen was eying her chances in the war. She didn't talk politics -- she hated them -- but she kept up. The people in the towns were thinking of it, too.(edited)

AOMRocks20-08/14/2016

"Oh, for sure. Honestly I'm surprised they make all those handbooks if they can't even read them." He nods in agreement. "Mm, yes, fate. Hopefully fate doesn't drive Ethysia to drive a blade through here soon. Would you like to explore the palace together?"

LadyDeme-08/14/2016

"I suppose they're more intended for officers to pass on -- though that's really not enough." In the end, there was nothing she could do right now; maybe there would be nothing she could do forever, but that sounded like a load of bullshit. Totally unsatisfying and boring. But for now, she just had to shrug, and smile, and set it aside. She offered her penpal her arm, waving the folded limb once in a vaguely encouraging, vaguely sort of stupid manner. She was glad it was so easy to pick things off, as if the letters had mended a distance more than she'd expected. Or, perhaps, the urgency. Time could well drown them all in an instant, now. "That sounds like a wonderful idea."

AOMRocks20-08/14/2016

He chuckled at the offering, his smile widening. "How gentlemanly of you. Let's head off, then." He quickly took the arm, glancing around before beginning to head towards the exit.

LadyDeme-08/14/2016

"A lady must always be sure to behave like a gentleman," as they walked off, she imated the tone of -- well, it sounded like her father. Not a great impression, as the words didn't come from a barell chest, but she made best with what she could. And so the two headed off into the palace, speaking of what caught their attention -- and metric feet.

AOMRocks20-08/14/2016

==END RP==