"Speaking in Rakahi"
"Speaking in Common"
2nd of Ymiden, 717"Speaking in Common"
morning
Hart awoke. Blinking his eyes open, he came to consciousness as he always did, at first very slowly. For a moment he laid still in the position he had woken in, and then he turned and rolled over onto his stomach, putting his arms beneath the pillow.
These days there was little rush for Hart to get out of bed, and so for a while as he did every morning he just took some time to look around. Reacquainting himself once again with the idea of living in a house. An actual house. With a floor that did not rock to the will of the sea and walls that were so impeccably straight and far away. And with nice furniture.
The first day Hart had come to stay in Oakleigh he had gone through Tristan's new mansion and looked for the smallest guest room possible. He'd ended up in a little space near the servants' quarters that some might have called cupboard-like, and yet to Hart the room still felt so big. Hart, who had lived on ships most if not all his life, could remember times he'd had so little living space that he had been confined to a hammock or a bunk so narrow that one person could barely fit. He'd had to lie entirely still and straight during those times, even while dead asleep, so as not to fall off the side of the bed.
Now his bed, in comparison, was wide enough to stretch in; he would go so far as it call it luxurious. He knew if he ever got the Jovy Akor back, his little sloop, that he would likely never again have as much room as he did now. He intended to appreciate it while he could.
---
It had been a relatively slow last three-quarters-season in Ashan, giving Hart ample time to explore his new surroundings and find the beauty in Oakleigh, and up until recently Hart had been mercifully left alone by the Alliance.
It had been so quiet in fact that he had begun to hope, to really hope that they had forgotten him, or at least lost track of him after the move. But as it turned out he had no such luck.
Ten trials ago, on an outing alone, he had been minding his own business when out of nowhere he had been cornered in the street by a large man, who had turned out to be a courier of unknown origin. This courier had handed Hart a small message scribbled on cheap paper. It had been a crude drawing of a pair of eyes.
Watching him. He had gotten the message immediately. At first he had attempted to engage the man for information about the Alliance but that had not worked well; the runner had not been friendly towards his advances, telling him in a calm, deliberate voice to back off. Taking yet another risk Hart had then proceeded to try to follow the man, keeping a discreet distance between them... but needless to say the courier had quickly lost him in the maze of streets and Hart had come home unsuccessful.
So it was that after that occurrence Hart and Tristan had gotten back to their anti-Alliance discussions. After some talking they had decided that before doing something on the offensive, like taking a trip to Andaris to talk to the girls who might know something at the House of Roses, it was best to try to find methods of protecting themselves first.
Hence, what Tristan called alchemy.
Hart, soon enough, was prompted fully awake by a knock at the door. As he had discovered throughout the days spent in the big house he had a lousy sense of not only time, always showing up for meetings impossibly late, but also for direction. It was a little perplexing because on a ship he could navigate just fine, and he doubted he would ever get lost on the sea... but lost in a city? Or inside a big building? That he was more than capable of.
Quickly he combed his fingers through his hair to make it not stick up so messily, brushed his teeth, and pulled on fresh clothes despite his fresh clothes still remaining quite rumpled. He didn't know how Tristan looked so presentable all the time. Then he and the person who had knocked, a servant girl he had talked to on many occasions, made their way through the house to the appropriate room. Deciding to forgo breakfast for now Hart gave the girl a thankful peck on the cheek for her help, making her smile. Smiling back, he knocked on the doorframe to announce himself and then stepped into the room.
"Tristan, morning," he said in greeting when he saw his half-brother, and just now realized that Jack, his little dog, was nowhere to be seen. He looked around. She must have run off somewhere. "So," he asked, "You said something about alchemy?" He was eager to get to work doing... whatever it was they were doing. The eyes on the piece of paper, which he kept on him at all times as a reminder, felt like they were burning a hole in his pocket. He found he wanted to do something about it all, and quickly. Before the Alliance themselves could move again.
