npc inbox: taravast

[groundrules]

NPC INBOX: TARAVAST

Reach out to your (not-so-)favourite NPC here, putting their name in the comment header. Try to keep it to just quick text/audio/written exchanges or inquiries that can accept summarised answers, please!

PREVIOUS NPC INBOX FOR ARC I: SA-HARETH & STAIRS OF SIGHS

	MACALUSO Earnest and moderate nephew of Bonaccorso, seeking to succeed his grandfather. A pursuer of astronomy, accountancy, diplomacy and elemental magic, with a long history of supporting the witches of Bessis. Champions firmer ties with foreign citadels to improve Taravast's access to armies and resources. Looking to choose a bride.
	VANNOZZA Beautiful and fierce niece of Bonaccorso, contending to become the next Ilia Doxe. Mind of a scientist and a lady of the hunt. A practitioner and frequent visitor of the necromantic and healing sectors. Has entertained and turned away more lovers than the heroine of a particularly sappy romance novel. Often indisposed.
	RIGARDA Lively, charismatic and gossip-prone lady of the highest echelons, received at every gathering. Can slaughter half a dozen reputations with the right twitch of her brows before breakfast. An associate of the Merchant's and old friend of the current Ilia Doxe of Taravast, Bonaccorso. Indifferent in the game of succession. Loathes crumpets and witches.
	THE LAVISH LOCALS From the witches of Bessis or Attaryl to academicians, politicians, nobles, servant folk, artists or protestors — if you’ve got a question, someone can surely supply an answer.
	THE MERCHANT The patron saint of etiquette and the eastbound getaway expedition. Seems to largely trade information alongside wares. Appreciates spices, strategy and collaboration. Has an eerie and overly cautious manner. Committed. Defends the benefit of the many, to the detriment of the few.
	KARSA Sorceress, young (?). Employed by the Merchant and deferential to him. Talented but fiery and frequently impatient, intolerant of fools. She will get today's job done yesterday. Struggles to sympathise with men, objections and those who cannot absorb information quickly. Enchanted the group's translation devices. Only available until 28/12.
	ASGEIRR The ghost of a scholar monk. Haunts the tattered execution cloak that the party stole from the La Rea bank in Sa-Hareth. Once a champion of equality and freedom, he faced ire for converting his followers against the regionally profitable trade of slavery. Soft-spoken but wise and just, slow to regain his strength. Will speak to those who visit his cloak in brief interludes. Favours necromancers.

SA-HARETH

"HALTHAM" | ANURR The undead warlord Anurr, previously posing as gentle-mannered giant Haltham. An embodiment of Sa-Hareth's cold storms and wind, who regained his territory from contender Unhalad with the inadvertent help of the party in Arc I. Frostily rational and amenable to some negotiation.

Comments

[aprescoup]

The lady is a frail creature, her beauty effervescent. The hour seems untimely for her: her attendants open her private quarters, where a knelt maid already fits her mistress in a gossamer robe of sheer spider silk, the silhouette of her body pleasantly perceptible and bare beneath. What is imagination? A ruse, for such moments.

If the lady Spina shares the flushed modesties of her virginal attendants, she does not show it. Indeed, she hardly shows any interest at all, but for a nod when Wei Wuxian inches close, a wave to one of her countless fainting sofas.

"Please. How many I assist you, my sweet?" But she smiles. "How handsome you are. May your womb be fertile."

[weifinder]

Imagination a ruse too often alluded to for his experiences in this city, since arriving; be it within his purview as this goddess reincarnate, or the way his eyes stay easily on her face, and his lips stay easily in their somewhat charming curve. Neither of them cut imposing figures, both more bone and skin and lengthy muscle, more lovely than stalwart, and part of that eats at him, comes as a concern mingled with so many factors in his mind as to settle him in his skin this moment.

"Handsome, perhaps, but it pales before beauty worn in such easy confidence."

To the sofa it is, then, and a now practised turn and swoosh of skirts as he sits, knees apart, feet inched under the sofa's lip.

"May yours be all the more so, to whatever degree you wish it. I'm happy to extend to you every blessing, Lady Vannozza, you need only ask." Blessings in a more earnest and less godly aspect, such as it is.

"Would you prefer me to remain masked?" A gesture toward his face, and no indication of discomfort either way. It's not hiding a blush or a flush or anything much, though he calculates he should see her, that's the effect here isn't it? Heavens above, he had not counted on seeing as many undressed women (or men, but what's exciting in that, he knows the male body, he's now visually, strikingly aware of the female) in the whole of his life as he has in little more than a month.

[aprescoup]

For a moment, he speaks, and her hands cradle the gaunt nothingness of her belly, as if to accept his blessing. To wear it. Then, she laughs. "Bare your face."

And, a measured gaze washes Wei Wuxian's body, lands squarely where his cloth bundles on his lap. "Bare everything, if you wish, I haven't known pleasure since mistress Wen's visit. I have the hour."

Vannozza's maid, for one, remembers to flush. Her mistress stays entirely unconcerned, extending a hand for the girl to ease of her rings. "Unless, of course, you did come burdened with purpose, and we have something to speak of."

[weifinder]

He loosens silk ties, allowing the mask to fall into waiting hand, settling to his side, propped up against a pillow. And he laughs, a light sound, lips curling up into a more generous smile as his eyes darken a touch.

"I came burdened with fruit and purpose, and should both those be dispensed with, make of me what you will. I'm equipped," he says, lazily, "Though compared to some artefacts, less hardy."

An even lazier turn of his hand to the rabbit mask, fecundity and dedication without pause in one.

"When you inherit leadership of the citadel, what are your plans for keeping it in the hands of the living?"

[aprescoup]

Fruit. The maid seems beguiled, chasing the abandoned fruit basket with the rapt attention of a girl who, unlike her mistress, seldom receives gift. With a nod, Vannozza allows her to attack the offerings, shivered hands gathered around a fig.

The lady Spina herself stays distant, walking the room before sitting at Wei Wuxian's side to tease the outline of his dismissed mask.

"When, you say. Not if. I like that. Though, I am forced to remind you, I win what I have. I earn. I do not merely... inherit." She dons the rabbit mask, holding it up sooner than knotting it behind her head. "But... when I seize control, we will no longer stand oblivious, or on the defensive. We are armed with considerable, inexhaustible magic. We need not wait for the dead to come to us. And we can demand handsome pay of our neighbours, to serve as true death on their behalf."

[weifinder]

The fig splits under the maid's attention, ripe and heavy with juice that flies at her face and drips down her fingers, aching for a ready mouth.

Wei Wuxian allows a lazy observation of the lady as she approaches, the appreciative look that is her due, paired with a nod, and then nothing else about it less than focussed on person, rather than the portrait she paints in sheer gossamer and silk.

"Winning an inheritance, as it is. Lines of protocol are what they are, and never let it be said you did not fight for what you earn." No, not for a family with undead haunting their private grounds, and at that, his lips tick up at the corners. "I must admit, I've never had a private encounter quite as laced with adrenaline as the one I was recently enough invited to by shared pleasant company. Scintillating times."

But, of greater import:

"You already have those ways? I admit it's a comfort to think barren fields may not be left to remain so indefinitely."

[aprescoup]

"My dear boy, my sweet lady," she murmurs, and it seems the humour's known to both: a man, housing the spirit of a goddess, and Vannozza Spina's eyes sparkling with knowledge more. "You ask a great deal of my secrets. Allow me to say only this: where there is a will, there are ways. And I am a wilful creature."

And her will turns to dismissing the mask once more, thrown absently on the sofa again. "You're not of Taravast. You'll leave with the season. What matter is this of yours?"

[weifinder]

"Death is only fertile for the mushrooms, the insects, and the scavengers. Death that doesn't acknowledge itself isn't fertile for anything but the breeding of war, and one tires of war, for any people."

He clucks his tongue, shakes his head. "Very bad for the business of future generations if everyone's perishing in this one. While Taravast won't be my final resting place," and oh, his smile drags into something sardonic at that, "I can hope that as you seize its moments, your will remains strong enough to ensure it won't be in its final throes. If Taravast is the light held up to illuminate this world, then may it not be swallowed by the shadows of its own casting."

Yet he laughs, waving his hand, posture relaxed and careless. Eyes less so, sliding her way, and he winks. "It needn't be my life or my people's lives for me to find the preservation of it precious. To what extent one passing through can offer assistance, Lady Spina, that's the simplicity of what one might do."

[aprescoup]

"Of course, of course. We must think of the children." And she returns the wink, hand soft, circling his knee. What does she want? Some might call the answer plain, following the latest invitation, only the lady does not persist.

"I have my ways, sir. As you do yours. And haven't we found that the finest magic is explored discreetly? We are all performers. Allow me to perform."

[weifinder]

He doesn't even blink, simply keeps smiling, until her hand subsides and her words are what linger between them. Then, he might lay a hand over hers, should it remain on his person. He doesn't hunt after touch, either way.

"The stage, my dear lady, is yours." Mercenary, to profit from any that might still survive and not have sold themselves into the undead lord brothers of Unhalad's services. What in it is just, ah? Except that war always costs, and Taravast is not so secure as all that. Ducking his head a touch, what would be boyish charm if one chooses to see it as such, smiling at her with a touch of sympathy.

For who, or what, is hard to say.

"May it be a stunningly subtle performance."

[aprescoup]

"We are certainly visions of subtlety in Taravast. Ask my good friend Wen Qing." But she turns her hand to squeeze his, childishly, emptily playful. Content in her own way, negotiating intimacy. "When I was a child, I asked my grandfather why we wear masks in the street. Is it protection? Is it to show our wealth? He said, Vannozza, it is to protect the world from our monstrous faces."

She laughs first, late. Shrill. "Isn't that funny?"

[weifinder]

He smiles, because part of him does find it funny, in the same way that anything horrific has an undertone of the darkly amusing.

"Funny, ah? At least that way we can pretend the only mask is physical."

The truly monstrous reality as he leaves his hand to be played with like a bone, is how faces are their own masks, public to private, and internal to external. Visions of subtlety indeed, Lady Spina, Lady Wen, and Wei Wuxian.

"As it is, Lady Spina, I won't continue to occupy your time. You've been more gracious." He has a cold bed to go crawl into, it's going to be great.

[aprescoup]

"Ah. So soon." But her hand withdraws, with the bittersweet resignation of one whose distant hopes and dreams have been entirely suandered.

"I suppose you've exhausted yourself enough already with all the calls to your... duty that another would overwhelm." She does gaze for a moment, long and mean and measuring of the goddess' body. Then, she waves the servant to finish her feast and open young master Wei Wuxian his doors. "Next time. For now, a good night."

[weifinder]

Super exhausting, he had a whole attempted conversation with the man he's unaware he's married to earlier, even more of a trial than the enthused couple the night before trying to pull him into blessing their bed personally. The utter boldness of these people.

He smiles, nodding his head to her and catching up his rabbit mask if he can.

"Unlike the goddess, I can only boast a mortal's flesh and all it's limitations. Good evening, Lady Spina."

Take him away, fruit devouring maid!