An Ironic Name [Anton]

[Vanessa Quill]

53 Ash 121

Michaelis Family Estate, West End, Zaichaer

Vanessa hated this part of being a bodyguard. She hated the long, slow hours of long, slow days that passed by without incident but with a necessity for her to remain alert. The Dread Mists themselves appearing had been of little concern, and Anton had previously mentioned wanting to venture into them if they were not too heavy. Though the mists themselves seemed relatively light this season, there were otherworldly howls echoing from inside the sealed city's gates. That had been enough for the both of them to call off the excursion. Vanessa would have ventured out herself, but risking Anton's safety was far too great a risk. Contrary to most of her actions, Vanessa did intend to keep him safe. She was getting better at that, at least in terms of bodily harm.

But this made Vanessa feel absolutely stir crazy. Nothing seemed to make the clocks move. She was preventing herself from drinking too heavily, what with those intermittent howls keeping her on edge. So now she paced down the halls of the mansion, shoulders hunched forward and looking utterly irritable. Her footsteps trailed from floor to floor, wing to wing, stopping only to try and strike up a conversation with anyone she crossed paths with. None were terribly interested in speaking with the lordling's guard dog, though at least their dismissal was polite.

Fruitlessly, Vanessa returned to where she knew she would find Anton, in the study. She did not know truly why she sought him out, she knew he was tending to his studies and would have little time to spare for conversation. But misery loved company, and so she opened the door to a loud creak, and let herself inside.

The room smelled of leather and paper. Even Vanessa found it to be pleasant, and was reminded of the map room she had kept on her ship all those years ago. While most people's eyes ran over bookshelves with interest, looking for a familiar name or an exciting title, Vanessa's merely looked as blank as Anton's often did.

It embarrassed her to be here, it always had. The unknown symbols on the spine of each book mocked Vanessa, jeering at her that a blind boy was able to understand them better than she. At first she kept her eyes down, as though trying to avoid drawing the attention of the books themselves. Then she swiveled her head to ensure the lordling was still at his post behind his desk.

Crossing the room, Vanessa sat down across the desk from Anton and simply stared at him. After only a few moments, Vanessa began to fidget uneasily. She shifted her weight from one arm to the chair to the other. Her legs crossed and uncrossed, boots lightly scuffing against the floor. All noises that could independently be ignored, but were perhaps a bit more pronounced to Anton. Finally, after a few minutes of this, Vanessa could stand it no longer, especially when she looked to the clock and saw precisely how little time had passed.

"Is there anything that needs doing in this house? I'm feeling my hairs turning grey one by one." Vanessa said, exasperated. Already she was standing again, pacing across the small room with one hand drumming on the pommel of her sword. "Makes me want to go fight whatever's out there just for revenge for making us sit around all day and night."

She looked to Anton for agreement, but was sure she would find none. Even if Anton were upset that their plans had been cancelled, she knew he would not have shown it in the same way. He was far too restrained for that.

[Anton]

The coming of the Dread Mists was in many ways a vacation for Anton, as absurd of a sentiment as that was. He knew that for most residents of the city the coming of the wild magic was a fearful time, and the inability to work or go out of doors for even a few days would be devastating for the most precarious. But for him, it was a break from Vanessa constantly dragging him out of doors, at last allowing him to go back to his typical routines and catch up on his reading.

He of course knew that the former pirate was going to be driven absolutely insane by their time stuck indoors, and had done his best to relieve her boredom. For some reason however his parents had vetoed his plan of having her entertain Amelia and Karl, which removed the best way for her to have something to do and also keep his precious time to himself. As a result, he was not surprised when she finally mad her way to the study, his arcane senses alerting him to her presence well before the litany of soft sounds - and certainly before she announced herself to him. Anton had been attempting to catch up on a book Stefan had recommended to him on chemical combustion, its text more often than not written in the explosive crash of cymbals through the arcane sight of Semblance.

But the time had come to admit that it was not to be, and he looked up at the clearly irate Vanessa with an apologetic expression upon his face. "No, the house is quite well fortified and all other projects have been put on hold for the duration. The household guards have the defense of the place well in hand, though I doubt you'd want to join them upon patrol anyway. Before you ask, drills with caster shot are expressly forbidden while the mists are about." A thought struck him as he closed the chemistry text, the man cocking his head as he examined the bored and frustrated woman. "You could perhaps gain an hour's entertainment sparring with anyone dumb enough to say yes?"

Rising from his seat, he turned his back on Vanessa to place the book back where he had taken it, hiding his smile from her as well. "Were you merely Vanessa Quill, I would not stop you from wetting your blade. But you are not merely Vanessa Quill anymore, are you? You are my knight, and you are needed by my side, not throwing your life away at growls in the dark. Let the Order do their actual job for once instead of tormenting the poor and the weak." His smile fell at the last thought, just in time for him to turn about and scan the rows of books surrounding them.

"Why not try some reading yourself? We must have something in here you would like," he asked innocently.

[Vanessa Quill]

Vanessa had been expecting such a response, and so she did not look truly crestfallen to hear it put into words. No, she was merely speaking to Anton for the sake of it. She had always enjoyed his company, even now as he did little more than lecture her on all of the things that she could not do. "No one to spar with." Vanessa noted, though the house did not lack for guards. "Spar with men and they'll just use it as an excuse to grab and squeeze. Turns into a proper fight after that, and I'd hate to get blood all over your furniture." She spoke with lightheartedness, but did not seem to be lying about her rationale.


"Needed by your side, what for?" Vanessa now joked, "Oh right, the books. One of them falls on your head and I'll need to start ripping pages out as revenge." She added, chuckling. "Ah, but you're right. Always are, gods damn you for it." She stopped pacing, standing across from him again. "Let's hope whatever's out there likes the taste of Reconciliator blood. These mists may not be so bad if that's what they've got cooked up, eh? Would make our lives more than a bit easier, at least." Even in the safety of his estate and surrounded by the Dread Mists, Vanessa merely whispered her low opinion of the Order.

When asked about the books, Vanessa replied as she always did. "Bah, never liked reading." It was a natural response for a woman of her skills. No one would have thought her well read, clever as she was. But the words were not what sounded off. Vanessa's entire aura shifted under Anton's eyes. Ever had it been uniquely her own, loud, brazen and forthright. But not now. The aura wilted, drawing in as her mood soured. Such emotional shifts were common enough in the average person, but not Vanessa, and especially not when asked something so innocent. Something was wrong. Even at the most dismally boring social events, Vanessa's aura had not suffered as much as a darkening, but with a single question, Anton had managed to stagger it entirely.

The fractured, disjointed display lasted for only a few seconds, and then Vanessa recovered herself. As quickly as they had gone, Vanessa's usual accompaniment of instruments returned to her.

She was lying. Worse still, she could not even tell that may have given herself away. Instead, she simply stepped over back towards the door, her boredom momentarily soothed. "Well, you're probably busy, so I'll leave you to it. If I go gibbering mad afore the dawn, I'll let you know."

[Anton]

"I wonder if father would let you teach the basics to Amelia if I supervised you," Anton wondered. The girl's clear desire to join the ranks of her father and uncle in the Defense Corps was somewhat awkward, for she was yet too young to be entrusted with a gun or a blade and not a single man among the guard dared lay a hand upon their Duke's daughter. Vanessa, he knew, had no such scruples about putting a child onto the mat. "Mother would call for your head though. Perhaps mine as well." He did not sound as if he was joking.

"The Order of Reconciliation guides and protects the fair citizens of Zaichaer from all aberrant anomalies that reside beyond the domain of science. Its Minders investigate the unnatural and devise how best to destroy it, while its Watchers are our sword and shield. Truly we are blessed to live under their auspices, to be guarded at all times by such vigilant souls," Anton said with exaggerated affect, spreading his arms wide in mock theatricality. "If a monster is in those mists, let them handle it," he finished, levity draining from his face as he too suppressed darker thoughts about the Order.

He took her dismissal of reading at face value at first, the sound of her words processed before the sound of her soul. It made sense after all, even if he assumed she'd enjoy the occasional copper dreadful or swashbuckling adventure. And then the song soured, dark notes permeating her entire being in a display he had never seen from her. It did not take a genius to realize he had struck a nerve, one that she had clearly taken pains to hide from him. One that she was willing to lie to him about.

"Vanessa." His voice cut through the quiet of the study, in that moment the man sounding every inch his father's son. "Tell me the truth."

[Vanessa Quill]

Vanessa froze, hand on the doorknob when Anton spoke to her with intensity rarely seen. She knew that voice, and knew she had been caught. She wanted to lie, but now she knew that it would do her no good. The embarrassment made her cheeks burn hot, and she could feel her palms getting clammy already. Vanessa was a dire woman, ever able to fight her way out of problems, but not now. When violence or outright denial were removed as options, she floundered.

"Not that it's any of your business, but I'll tell you anyway," Vanessa began, her sharp tone matching his own. She could not help it, and instead lashed out by instinct to sooth her wounded pride. Still though, she stalled for time, grumbling wordlessly and trying to figure out how best to put it. A part of her hoped that he would have given up and let her loose, but she knew better than to rely upon that. No, Vanessa was stuck. there were no half-truths she could tell, no easy ways to redirect the conversation. She hated that feeling most of all, that sinking feeling when she knew she had lost, and that there was nothing for it but to accept that fact and move on

Defeated, Vanessa slumped back down in the chair, and put her head in her hands. She said only a single sentence, and did so without her usual brash tone. Vanessa all but whispered it, just loudly enough for Anton to have heard.

"I can't read."

Then she leaned back in her chair, dragging her palms down her face in frustration. She knew she should have told him sooner, but when would have been the proper time? It had never come up in the time before she had become officially sworn to him, and admitting as such now felt even worse.

"Never had someone to teach me." she offered as reasoning, weak as it was. Though it was true, it was largely an attempt by her to save face.

[Anton]

"Is-" Anton began, almost immediately cutting himself off with a sharp bite to his tongue, leaving the that all left unsaid. She clearly found her inability embarrassing, he did not need Semblance to know that, and he doubted a lack of concern on his part would be taken well. "-that so?" he finished instead, hoping that the delay wasn't too noticeable.

"We shall have to fix that then," he continued, focused entirely upon resolving this. It wasn't just for her sake either, though he would've acted the same regardless, at least he thought he would. "I cannot have an attendant who cannot read, and I will not accept any other than Vanessa Quill. Therefore, Vanessa Quill must learn how to read," he said simply, as if he were declaring that the sky was blue and the grass was green. "You say that no one has taught you, therefore you will be taught," he continued, nodding to himself as he made his way across the study.

Not every book upon the shelves was a scientific text or a political or philosophical treatise. Trawling the stacks, Anton searched for the familiar aura of childhood comforts, his back to Vanessa as he did. It was not enough to find a book intended for children, it also had to be one that she wouldn't be insulted to read. Something simple, ideally exciting, but that she wouldn't find condescending. He knew just the one.

"Are you familiar at all with Queen of the Clouds?" Anton asked as he finally grasped the book, the slim volume appearing well worn. It was not his favorite book, but by now he knew it by heart regardless, for it was instead his sister's. He elected not to inform the scourge of the skies that he was going to try and teach her to read with his six year old sister's favorite adventure story. "It follows a young girl who runs away from her old life to serve aboard an airship, eventually becoming captain of her own. I think you may like it."

[Vanessa Quill]

Vanessa felt utterly rancid. Everything about this was wrong. She had half wanted him to get mad, to yell and slam his desk and get fire in his belly, but he denied her even that. That did not upset her so much as it gave her little else to do but linger on her feelings. If he had gotten riled up, then Vanessa could have matched him, the underlying cause for their verbal altercation forgotten in the trading of insults. That Anton was too considerate and too smart for that merely made Vanessa's ineptitude stand out more starkly.

Worse still, she found herself wanting to prove herself to him. It was a confusing feeling, one she had only rarely felt in the past. Vanessa was fueled by many things, but seldom was she driven to action by someone else's insistence of what she must do. It had only recently begun to happen, with the first being when she had taken her vows.

In viewing it that way, Vanessa was able to reconcile the feelings. This was not merely learning to read, it was upholding the sacred trust that Anton had placed in her. And so, she sat up again, and managed to look at him again with only a lingering sliver of shame. "Aye, I'm not planning on letting you put me out to pasture over this either, so I'm glad we're agreed." Her demeanor had changed dramatically. She was certainly forcing it a bit to save face, but she did seem an eager student, at least.

"Oh, is that who people were comparing me to all those years?" Vanessa asked, suddenly interested just as he suspected. "Some of my crew would call me that, didn't seem like an insult so I never questioned it." She was second guessing that decision now, but ultimately decided that if Anton enjoyed the book then it could not have been meant as a jeer.

She beckoned him with her hands, before seeming to realize he may have turned off his rune and would not see the change in her aura. "Bring it here." she said while cleaning off a spot on the desk.

[Anton]

Anton did his very best to hide his smile as he noticed the change in Vanessa's aura. Oh, the sounds were strained just a bit, the woman forcing herself to be about such business, but the effort in and of itself was commendable. She perhaps did not want to read, or go through the process of learning, but she certainly wanted to prove herself to him. Which mattered far, far more as far as he was concerned.

"Please. You'll be dead before you'll let anyone say you're retired," Anton said with a laugh at the notion of putting her out to pasture, setting aside the sudden shift in her mood. She wouldn't want it to be pointed out anyway. As far as her being compared to the heroine of a children's adventure novel, again, discretion was by far the best possible choice available to him. Instead he was mostly surprised that members of her crew could and did read the book, but he supposed a man's private life was his own. Even a pirate's.

Setting the book down in front of Vanessa, the most obvious thing about it was that it was much smaller than anything she had ever seen him read. It was clearly an expensive one as well, the cover thick and the paper still crisp despite the many times it had been read. Opening it up to the first page, it was illustrated as well, the pair of them greeted by a block print of a girl around his own age standing upon the rigging of an airship's main mast.

"What did your crew say about you anyway?" he asked innocently, curiosity finally getting the better of him. Flipping the page, the reverse of the first was printed as well, the same girl now appearing much younger in age and dressed in tattered rags, standing within a far more constrained space, its walls painted all grey. Its adjoining page was covered in text, large letters meant for ease of reading.

"Do you know what this word is? What about the letters in it?" Anton asked, pointing at the very first word in the entire book: There. To his own aether fueled sight, the medley of sounds that created the letter were far more difficult to describe, so he hoped that she could at least name the letters in isolation.

[Vanessa Quill]

"They always said I was as clever as I was mad." Vanessa barked a laugh. "Can't say I blame 'em though. Tried to have pirates, not just mine either, follow a damned code to keep us all safe. Should'a seen how those captains laughed at me." Her spirits rose now, glad that she could share a kernel of knowledge with him instead of it ever being the inverse. "Dotted all over Karnor, there are places that tolerate pirates. Either places full'a cutthroats, or people willing to take their coin. Problem is, government finds out? Suddenly a lot of pirates start disappearing, a whole bunch of innocent folk get killed, and that place becomes a honeypot." She sat back in her chair, looking mighty satisfied. "I had the bright idea to never retreat from a battle or a haul back towards one of these ports, and got into the habit of burning any maps if it seemed we might be boarded. They thought I was a damned savant when I could finally explain myself. I hear folks are still calling it The Queen's Edict, even folk that picked up the trade after she went down."

The idea was not a foolproof one, and pirates were often fools, but Vanessa was very clearly proud of the mark she had made on the history of her ignoble trade. "Folk called me loyal, too, and cruel. Never much saw myself as that second one, though. You wrong me, I get what I'm owed. They just saw it as cruel because I was in charge." But that was a dangerous line of thinking, Vanessa now knew as much with her exposure to the Order.

Back to the book, Vanessa looked down at the page. First she admired the picture, and then she looked at the symbols on the opposite page. The letters themselves were familiar, but only through exposure. "I've seen them before." She said, trying not to sound too defeated. To illustrate her point, Vanessa used a sheet of paper to write out her first and last name, and then beneath it her uncle Arthur's. This ability did not come from a true understanding of how each letter interacted with another, but instead was simple repetition of a pattern, similar to how one might just begin to learn a new language.

On the words she wrote, Vanessa underlined each letter in the word 'There.' She looked between her writing, and the book, a look of consternation on her face. Her aura dampened just a bit under the strain, but still her determination came through brightest. "...Theory?" she finally guessed. To her, there was no need for 'silent' letters, and so the second 'E' must have been said precisely the same as the first. Otherwise, what was it doing there?

[Anton]

Anton seemed to pay close attention to Vanessa's explanation on how to avoid interception by the authorities, more so perhaps than someone of his station ought to. Then again, he had concerns that most in his class did not, and he was not foolish enough to think he might never need such information. "Once a place is known, avoid it from then on. That sounds simple enough, but I imagine that it is not the first response of many a captain. Men are wont to return to familiar places in times of trouble after all," he said with a nod of his head, attempting to commit to memory what painful experience had forced Vanessa to learn.

"The line between cruelty and authority is often a matter of perspective - typically the end from which one is viewing a blade or a gun," Anton pointed out. "Then again, a pirate's crew seems like a place where one joins knowing the score. I imagine that you had little patience for those who signed on and then complained about the deal," he mused, cocking his head at the former pirate as his thoughts continued. "Loyal though, yes, absolutely."

The conversation was far less positive when they at last were forced to focus upon the book, Anton sympathetically wilting when he noticed the downturn in Vanessa's own aura. He was loathe to upset her, and he knew that even forcing her to expose her inability to him had done so, but this needed to be done. He had just hoped that they would get a bit further along before he had to correct her. Her letters at least seemed correct, or at least as correct as he could tell. His own situation made him far less capable of discerning such, but the scrawlings had the correct feeling to them.

"Close. The word is 'there'. The first sentence reads, there once was a girl who loved the sky. How many of those words can you make out?"