5:14: Doing without the cavalry.

As she was seated at her small, square dining table, Dani gazed into the water of Diego's stone basin, where the muted images of Meridha and Hindy appeared.  Meridha was in plain clothes, with her unbound hair making a fluffy halo around her face.  Hindy, who had bound her hair back into a thick, puffy braid that morning, was curled up in Meridha's lap like a child a few years younger than she actually was.  Dani sighed sadly as she watched the soundless scene, considering the situation in which the cousins found themselves. 

"Either Meridha's advising her, telling her a story, or she's singing to her; I can't tell which without being able to hear them," she at last admitted to the man standing across from her.  "It just... seeing them this way... it reminds me that they're children."

On the other side of the table, with his clenched fists pressed onto its worn surface, Diego gave a bitter hum of understanding.

"You've done all for them but invoke parental right, which you can't," Dani said quietly, looking up from the water to gaze upon him.  "Don't be cross."

"I'm not," Diego cut in.  The moment the words left his lips, he heard his own tone, and regretted it.  "Well, I am, but not any of you."

"You won't do yourself any favours with that temper just barely under control," Dani reminded as gently as she could.  "Try to calm yourself.  Considering that you were rather blatant in both intent and action, you're lucky not to have been demoted, or stripped of the crest entirely.  Consider the mayhem that has become nearly normal as of late.  At least it seems the commanders are merely vaguely suspicious of the decisions of the one of the very few Skullwatch boys who fought his way up to a commanding position."

"That they're moved to harm others by vague suspicion of me is what's most irritating.  The single best performing College watch is being dismantled, and it couldn't have been at a worse time," Cimaretto replied, with the softest hint of a growl rumbling under his speaking voice.  "Reassigned to market duty, or to muck jail stalls, or replace border guards.  A pair were even shipped out to Westgate- Westgate!- without being permitted to take their personal belongings- I whisked their things all away to my own home, and surely enough, not an hour later, I was being questioned, no doubt because they intended to rifle through their things without anyone present to stop them."

Dani clamped her hands together in her lap and looked from Cimaretto down to the water in the bowl.  The phantom growl in his voice had broken her concentration, and the water showed her nothing but her own worried visage.  "It's not that I don't understand your point.  I of all people know what it is to rage against the decisions of the Dragons, when it comes to those I care about.  Westgate is... honestly like sending the poor children to the Isles themselves.  And if you were anyone else but you, I'd tell you to take whoever authorized the searching of someone's personal effects without their knowledge or consent straight to the Pillars," she frowned.  "But as it is, you must have lied to them, which any half-decent diviner will be able to suss out in open court.  You could lose your job, and dishonourably too, if anyone thinks to bring charges against you for obstructing their search."

"Their search for what?"  Diego nearly roared back.  Dani raised an eyebrow at his tone, and Diego took a deep breath before he spoke again.  "It's as though all the brass has gone thoroughly mad- first of all, there's absolutely no legal basis for them to be confiscating those officers' belongings, or to be rifling through my house!  Second, of course they would all have magic trinkets or tomes; I trained them specifically to work the evening shift on the College grounds.  Most nefarious plots are enacted at night- what sort of idiot would I be to let them go artless in an area where there are more mages of all types and skill levels per square foot than there are grains of sand in the same space of beach?"

"There's nothing to do for their idiocy but survive it," Dani said sternly.  "Your officers are likely to be no less upset than you, and thus, in need of your continued leadership by example.  Since you know where they've all gone, make the most of that blessing, and write to them."

"And allow more of my correspondence to be opened and inspected?" Diego replied with a laugh too harsh to be genuine.  He shook his head at the mere formation of Dani's rebuttal.  "There's no other way anyone would have known to specifically look for Boudica on those unmapped, winding trails.  Even old Ranclyffe couldn't have snatched that out of any of our brains."

"I'm sorry I didn't meet the woman," Dani offered, trying to put the fact that "old Ranclyffe" only had a few more years to him than she herself had.  She noticed that the tips of her fingers had become very pink, and consciously relaxed her clenched hands.  "I'm certain that even if she couldn't manage to cobble all these bits and bobs of research together to form a cohesive theory, she would at least have offered a different perspective on the one we already have."

Diego went silent for such a long while that Dani looked up from her hands to him again.  He had dropped his head down so that it hung between his shoulers, and knowing what she knew of him, Dani couldn't help but imagine him as a weary sheperding dog.  

"She's been dodging witchhunters all her life; she's unlikely to be put off helping her niece by one little scrape.  And wizards have crafty ways of hiding themselves," Diego breathed at last, looking up from the table to catch Dani staring meaningfully at him.  "Do I look so poorly?  Meridha had the same face before I left her bunk."

Dani huffed and bristled a bit, making business of smoothing her plain dress over her knees.  "Well, I imagine Meridha also told you to calm down before you left her side.  Did you suppose that the urbanized old biddy would have less to say about your obvious rage than your mountain-born pup?" Diego scoffed softly, and Dani continued.  "At any rate, the way things stand, I wonder hasn't your correspondence to the Bone College met some sort of del-"

"Ah, no; that hasn't.  I have their reply.  It's a rare soul who, knowing anything of the Bone College's history, would make themselves in any way a humbug to its business," Diego smirked as he finally leaned up from the table.  He easily fished a tightly folded bit of paper out of a purse strung over his rough leather belt.  "This was sent me by... Questioner Sabine Pritch... who says the vampire's 'court' is not easily or safely contacted, even by their Master Inquisitor.  The process- which could take up to an entire month- requires me not only to be in Urmlaspr in person, but to allow one of the students to make an offering of some of my blood to the ennobled creature."

Dani raised an eyebrow at Diego.  "The more I learn of Urmlaspyr these days, the more I believe that we should have left it a part of Sembia.  An offering of your blood- the very thought!"

Diego continued his thought as though Dani hadn't said anything.  "Rumour has it that this vampire led a few midnight attacks against the Semmites himself during the war.  I haven't heard whether he was made a lord prior to his monsterous turning or afterward- it's as though the matter makes no difference to the Urmlaspyr citizenry.  Some of the vampire's temper at my particular presence may be due to the fact that Cormyreans have not been the best of allies over his long lifetime, and especially recently.  Bear in mind that the brass did believe it right and righteous to replace the leader of the place's entire guard with one of the youngest, least experienced roadcaptains in the entire outfit- he can't have missed tell of the man's arrival to the place for that purpose."

Dani shrugged.  "We certainly spilled enough Cormite blood on that hamlet's behalf to deserve to have a say in its protection.  But, so long as that kennel of Sharran bitches keep to themselves this time, they can do as they like, experiments, slaves, and all; we have enough problems of our own."

"Unfortunately, it's possible that their problems may be our problems, especially where these recent missing persons are concerned," Diego clarified.  He strode over to one of the few windows in Dani's home and looked out as though he could see Urmlaspyr from there, then turned to look back at Dani.  "Michi spoke more than once of her suspicions that some clutch of Shadovar has managed to buy their way past our defenses.  If that's the case, what's been happening is only a symptom of what will soon be a much larger disease."

"Bless her, but that makes no sense to me," Dani said, rolling her eyes.  "We're looking, I think, for a Blighted One; I can't imagine what a priestess of Shar would be doing warding ancient magic texts with unknown, likely homebrewed, diseases."

"We're dealing with someone, or a bunch of someones, who deal both in curses and diseases; Sharrans are far more likely to enjoy both founts of suffering than Blighted Ones," Diego answered wearily as he walked back to the table and eased his right hand over the back of the chair next to Dani.  Both of them remembered at once that it was the chair most commonly occupied by Michi.  "Those two College boys were looking at flesh warding and other ancient magics, but it was a second notebook that gave them the same illness that struck Mitchi.  Those notes might link the magic that was being tested to its practical intent- to give us the 'why' of the matter.  Or if not that, it could at least point us toward some other research material that could make the intent of all the testing and research clearer.  If we could get at the evidence chest-"

"No!" Dani cried at once, her eyes jumping wide with alarm.  "Nevermind that you could be exposing yourself to dangerous magics or contagions, you are not putting your position and your honour in danger by stealing from evidence chests!  Imagine the circus you'd unleash, if you were to be caught, or even suspected!  The damage wouldn't limit itself to you alone; every enlisted soul from Skullwatch could find themselves the targets of vicious retalliation."

 

Diego pushed out a few gusts of air that would have been chuckles, if he could have managed to make them sound less like responses to thudding blows on his back.  "A fine opinion you have of the Purple Dragons and the Skullwatch Boys alike.  I am capable of stealth, you know."

"Absolutely not," Dani thundered, crossing her arms over her chest.  "I thank Lathander that in his mercy, he saw fit to sew a man so tightly to my daughter's heart that I cannot now bear to be rid of the unlooked for son.  I won't allow you to go playing at roguery.  If you were so good a sneak or a thief, you wouldn't make any kind of a successful guard at all, let alone a commander.  Now, come here to me.  You may sit on the floor, for once- come, let's think of cleaner ways to do this thing."

Diego's face took on a genuine smirk, and he walked over to Dani.  Dani sat back from the table and turned her chair so that she could put her hands on Diego's head.  Although he had a great deal of hair, it was soft and thin, so that it truly did feel a bit more like fur than hair.

"What we must do is get the Dragons to work as we wish them to, somehow," Dani breathed as she smoothed her hans over Diego's hair.  "Find some excuse to have them give us access to those notes."

"Open trial would force them to be produced as evidence," Diego reminded.  "But as far as the Dragons are concerned, the matter deadends at the College boundary."

"And they'd have to come to the same conclusions that we have about the source of that poor boy's lycanthropy to want to bother the War Wizards for any studies on the matter, at this point," Dani noted as she absent-mindedly began braiding Diego's hair.

Diego, who smiled genuinely at the familiar pulling on his scalp, didn't shy away from Dani's thoughtless fingers.  "That's the size of it, based on Garimond's last conversation with Michi.  It's she who brought up the possibility of the enaction of an extremely zealous expel and expunge order, and he promised not to run her in to the Alarphons for mentioning it."

"Expel and expunge orders don't wipe out all proof of a mage and their actions," Dani frowned, pausing halfway through a plait.  "If they did, there would be no telling what the order was even for."

"Yes, that's what Michi said," Diego nodded carefully, making sure not to pull his hair out of Dani's grasp.  He began speaking again once Dani returned to braiding.  "Unfortunately, now that she's gone, I don't know that Garimond is willing to send anyone else down that path."

"He's very good at shutting the gates of empty stalls, isn't he?"  Dani finished the single braid and then realized what she'd done.

"Don't take it out," Diego said, bowing forward as soon as he could to keep his head just far enough out of Dani's reach.  "My grandfather braided our hair- mine and my father's'- before we went to track anything.  He said it helped him to tell the difference between the backs of our heads and the hindquarters of a deer in the foliage, but I think he simply liked to be as close to us as his honour would allow him, in his old and rare age."

Dani sat quietly for a few moments, allowing that information to float just above her active thoughts like a mist spreading over a river.  She lightly rested her hands on Diego's shoulders.  "How shall we get Garimond back on the trail of making the proper connections?"

Diego shook his head.  "I don't know yet.  I doubt he's simply let the matter rest, as I can guarantee you the family still wants someone to prosecute for the loss of their kinsman, but what avenues of logic he's travelling at this point- I'm the last to know them."

"I suppose I can prosecute the loss of Michi," Dani frowned, folding her hands in her lap again.

Diego hummed sadly.  "Well, Michi left us notes about the writing that she was attempting to study, so as to prevent us having to come into contact with it again.  It would be more effective if the women who lost their sons brought suit against the War Wizards for negligence, since the College would then be forced to produce the notebook that caused the illness, but putting aside that it will most certainly be kept under guard when presented... getting those women to bring suit in and of itself... may be easier said than done.  All of these losses are very fresh, and while you have mettle enough to want to look the cause of your grief in the face... not everyone is made of such stuff."

"Well I'd rather that than have you digging about in the-" Dani broke her own thought process.  "Have you considered the fact that, sneaking around as you would have to do, you couldn't cast any sort of protections against whatever charm of illness the second notebook has on it?  That's another reason not to resort to thieving from evidence chests and the like."

"We might make allies of those who have greater access to the notebooks than we do," Diego mused, putting Dani's last statements out of his mind.  "I'd bet anything they're still under watch on campus somewhere.  I'm known, if not beloved, by those on College grounds; perhaps I can make a convincing case to whichever wizard has crowned themself warden."

"Are there any ranking War Wizards who feel more kindly toward you than others?" Dani asked, leaning sideways a bit to try to catch Diego's gaze.  "I know you just said you weren't beloved, but certainly there had to be someone who at least cast a smile your way."

"That's quite a low bar; most of the campus could clear it," Diego replied as he looked up into Dani's eyes.  "If you're looking for someone who would at least entertain the idea of a conversation, as opposed to someone who merely smirks at me every so often, then I'd have to say Magister Cualoth-Ra.  Doesn't run the conjuration hall, but is damn near close to doing so.  She was Michi's friend first; I just tagged along for the ride.  She has... interesting opinions... on what she believes Vici is, and in her position, she's entitled to them.  That's what most of our conversations have been about."

"Then someone did know about Skullwatch magics," Dani said, sitting back in her chair and pursing her lips.  "In her position, if I'd seen or heard of Vici, I wouldn't keep the knowledge to myself."

"She's likely to have, if for no other reason than she has few companions," Diego noted.  "I hadn't bothered her before because, frankly, some people, even other war wizards and magisters, are genuinely afraid of her.  She's the only Gith on campus, and for many, the only Gith they've ever seen."

Dani blinked and frowned, then sighed.  "Alright; we go to town on the cart that's passing, then.  Let's see what the good madam is willing to do for you as far as clearing your way toward a protected viewing of that second notebook is concerned."