[02/23 12:12am] <SPOON> Alandre Jeovanx is, perhaps, dreaming. He moves his head from side to side, small motions. His fingers twitch, his breathing quickens. He does not wake. From nowhere, a small breeze stirs his hair.
[02/23 12:23am] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty is rested now and still restive for it. She appears to check in on him and pauses. She takes in the room, Alandre, the box, and holds quiet and still - as if it would catch the moment.
[02/23 12:29am] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty sighs finally and comes loose.
[02/23 12:32am] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty fetches up the box to close it and set it aside on the table. She grasps the air as if it were a handle, twisting it away from herself. The back of Alandre's armchair reclines to a shallower grade.
[02/23 12:37am] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty conjures a light blanket, and on second thought, a footstool as well. She goes to leave. A third thought pauses her.
[02/23 12:39am] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty mutters something under her breath and disappears in her usual fashion, returning a moment later with a covered plate. She hasn't looked underneath and doesn't know what it might be.
[02/23 12:40am] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty knows that it will be hot and edible when he deigns to wake. That's enough. Off she goes again.
[02/23 03:15am] <SPOON> Alandre Jeovanx wakes, finds the blanket, the covered plate. She has been here. He lifts the cover, and laughs. Well, slightly scorched popcorn, with tea, makes for a perfectly nutritious breakfast.

[02/27 12:25am] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty has recently acquired a book. It's handsome, bound in fine leather with gilt edges. There is no title on the spine. There is no title on the cover. Just smooth-grained leather. Solid heft.
[02/27 12:26am] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty didn't mean to find it, but perhaps that's the way of things. A shell of a building in the Jungle, vine-strangled, with carcasses of forgotten books puffed and ruined by water.. and this, hidden.
[02/27 12:29am] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty carried it with her on impulse, as she might've in the days before Sessine taught her to read. It's easy to instinctively find beautiful what others have obviously valued. This book, it was a treasure.
[02/27 12:31am] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty forgot it for a while in one of her nooks – the same place she keeps the Gentleman's cane, stolen back from the fountain in CC404; the tabula; a certain laughter-spun cape. Other things.
[02/27 12:33am] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty found it again. She gingerly shoves it above her head, squinting in the dim. The book breaks through the floor like the fin of a shark before she prods it all the way through with a papery thud.
[02/27 12:35am] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty stretches to find sufficient purchase. For a moment, she's all disembodied hands in the interior of the room, then she levers herself up and through in a swift motion. The floor remains solid.
[02/27 12:36am] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty disentangles her feet, taking the book as she stands. She scuffs lightly at the floor, as if to nudge grit back into a hole, then surveys the room. Mn.
[02/27 12:38am] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty can wait. She takes a seat to drowse at the remaindered bits of popcorn.
[02/27 02:57am] <SPOON> Alandre Jeovanx walks in and sees Zolotisty drowsing in a chair. He stops immediately, not wanting to wake her, but of course she has already heard him.
[02/27 03:05am] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty resettles in the corner of the armchair, clearing the husk of sleepiness from her voice as she looks up. “How are you?” It's not a casual substitute for 'hello.'
[02/27 03:20am] <SPOON> Alandre Jeovanx isn't going to pretend all's well. Of course it isn't. “Coping,” he says, at last. “You?”
[02/27 03:24am] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty smiles, though it's small - wan. “Coping is a fair word for it.” She sniffs, palming her face, then reassesses him. “Do you have the inclination to sit a while?”
[02/27 03:27am] <SPOON> Alandre Jeovanx answers her by sitting. The back of this chair is still reclined – and it isn't a recliner, at least, there are no obvious controls – so he sits forward and leans his elbows on the table.
[02/27 03:37am] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty is comfortable with this quiet and so she's slow to speak. “Do you like stories?”
[02/27 03:51am] <SPOON> Alandre Jeovanx nods. “Always.” His mouth quirks. “Well, not living them, so much. People in stories don't lead easy lives. I wouldn't want to be Rosencrantz or Guildenstern.”
[02/27 03:58am] <SPOON> Alandre Jeovanx sees her blank look, and says, “Never mind, they're not important. They never were, that was the… Any particular story?”
[02/27 04:09am] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty blinks. (Just as well that Alandre let that one go. Z would spend an unreasonable amount of time protesting Hamlet's name, as he is neither small nor porcine.) “What do you mean, particular?”
[02/27 04:15am] <SPOON> Alandre Jeovanx says, “You asked if I liked stories. Are you going to tell me one?”
[02/27 04:19am] <SPOON> Alandre Jeovanx sessine is pretty sure Zolotisty would find Stoppard's version of that story much more interesting than Shakespeare's. But she doesn't say things idly. What story?
[02/27 04:19am] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty chuffs in quiet amusement. He answers the questions he wants to answer, doesn't he, then. “I don't know.” She tugs the book loose from between the arm of her chair and the cushion.
[02/27 04:21am] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty says, “And I say I don't know because I don't. Sometimes this is blank. Sometimes it's not.” She taps the cover. “So if there's a story to tell, I think so, yes.”
[02/27 04:37am] <SPOON> Alandre Jeovanx thinks about a book that is sometimes blank. If this were the cryptosphere, he'd ask… Well, it might transfer. “Any idea who's writing it?”
[02/27 08:33pm] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty shakes her head. “No. The stories I've seen, the composition has all been different.” She opens the book, riffling the pages as she might a squared deck of cards – blank until the middle.
[02/27 08:36pm] <DICE> The Soloist Zolotisty skims the first few lines. “It's the middle of something,” she says, turning the page to look for the end. “Do you want to hear it?” Z looks up, Alandre nods, and she leafs back to the beginning.

The middle of the middle is perhaps not the best place to begin a story but the book is only doing as lives do - starting in the midst of older histories. Z traces a claw across her lip as she rereads the first paragraph. Then she nods. “And so,” she begins softly, “they came into the domain of the sky and stood before the seat of the sun, and as they stood there, Dimas was among them. Seeing him, Sun said, 'Ah! You are bold to the last. But are you so bold to think you've earned the right to pass my throne?'

“And Dimas boldly answering said, 'Please, sir. I've gone 'round the world and threaded your stars themselves. Lend me your ear a moment and I'll prove I've not wasted the life you gave me.'

“And Sun said to him, 'I've often lent my ear to your indiscretions and I know what happens to that which you are lent. I need nothing of your proofs.'

“And Dimas answering said, 'Sir, my indiscretions? I do admit, I may have used the voice you gave me to deceive those who might deceive me. But have I feared you in vain?'

“And vain Sun, though he was a Power, feared those who did not fear him. He cast forth his hand and the earth below withered in his light. So blinded, the men fell to their knees but Dimas shielded his eyes. And Sun said to him, 'Have you feared me in vain?'

“And Dimas answering said, 'I have.'

“Aflame in his fury, Sun gazed upon Dimas and said to him, 'Take your hand from your eyes and gaze upon me, then say you have feared in vain.'

“So Dimas took his hand from his eyes and he gazed upon Sun. For a time, he said nothing. Then answering, he said, 'I have feared in vain.'” Z pauses to wet her lips. Alandre's arms have by now fallen to the table. He rests his chin against his wrist. ”'All the way 'round the world and through the threads of your sky itself, I have thought hard on what I might say to persuade a just Power that the life given to me did not go wasted. Now I know I need not have wasted the thought. You are no Judge.”

“The -” Z pauses to give the book a skantwise stare. Alandre waits patiently and then recognizes the problem.

“Let me see?”

“Mn.” Z tips the book toward him, underlining the word with her claw.

“Firmament,” he says.

“The firmament,” Z continues, “shook in his rage. And Sun said to he who was upright among all the men, 'I am just. Speak! I'll lend my ear to you, you who are not blinded, and then I will destroy you. I will cast you from my light and you will moulder in the dark.'

“And so warned, Dimas spoke with the tongue Sun gave him. He recounted his perils in the house of the sea and the time he spent in the company of the healer Arom. He recounted his charities to those whom Sun had given nothing but life, and his fight against the shadow of the mountain. He recounted his journey to regain the magic stolen from the dawn by the dusk and he named his friends and those who had shown him kindness. And from the halls beyond the great throne came an audience of souls. They knelt and they listened, and as they listened, and as Dimas spoke, Sun fell asleep. Night came on the earth below.

“The doors to the halls beyond the great throne stood open as Sun slept. And Dimas said to they who knelt, 'Come. This is not your time to disappear.' He bade them rise and led them down and away from the seat of the sun and to those who waited and watched from the firmament below, it seemed a shower of light across the sky..”

It's still raining outside.

Z turns a page. “Blank,” she says, leaning to put the book on the table.