[closed post: shadow and bone]

[ravkanwitch]

Nina is back in the library but with a different task in mind today. She has a couple books on weaponry spread out on the table in front of her this time and she's flipping through them idly, glancing at some designs. Weapons have never been her forte; who needs them when all you need to do is think and squeeze a hand and be able to incapacitate a man that way? But death - death is more fickle than life. She can't just defend herself with the concept of death, especially in a place that seems to lack it. No bodies to control, no graves with secrets to collect. She needs something more substantial.

And yet, it's a slow process. She finds herself distracted, thinking about the day of visitors. Seeing Kaz Brekker in the flesh again. Liu Mingyan. Speaking with Baghra about the Darkling. She's thinking about the long, long life that must have led to lead him to who he is now. She's not necessarily sad, just -- pensive. Lost in thought.

Comments

[ravkanwitch]

Nina puts hers away as well, trailing after him again curiously. "A room with bones?"

[timebethine]

"More skins than bones, but I do remember some skeletons in it. I was eager enough to be away--I was looking for something else at the time--but it may yet reveal better secrets to our scrutiny." It was between the library and the tailor-shop-turned-alchemy lab, he remembers, so he leads her in that direction until he recognizes the deep reddish wood of the door. After a peek inside to confirm that it is indeed the room he remembers, he opens it with a slow, grand flourish. "Behold: our menagerie."

[ravkanwitch]

Nina enters the room and spins in a slow circle, taking in all the shelves of taxidermied animals, odd skeletons interspersed here and there, and jars of who knows what. Dead animals don't give her the same sense as humans do, the way some people can sense which direction a body of water lies in -- but she can still manipulate their bones.

"What is this place?" She asks, in wonder, meaning both the room and the mansion. "Why are these here?"

[timebethine]

"I wish I knew," says Laertes. He steps fully into the room, studying a model of a raven with eerily realistic glass eyes. But for a thin patina of dust, it looks as though it might tilt its head and croak at him at any moment. "Perhaps for thee?"

[ravkanwitch]

"Me?" Nina asks him, a little startled. She touches a little skeleton model of some sort of rodent. "I mean, I'd like to think I'm wonderful -- but I'm not anyone special."

[timebethine]

"This place answers our wants, like an overeager lover showering us with gifts," says Laertes as he moves from beast to beast, searching for something with bones. "It gave Tress her spores, though there are no moons here to supply them; it gave Sagramore a place where Fenyes might be cared for as she deserves. Not all of its gifts are welcome, but some--like those--are needful. There may yet be needful gifts in here."

[ravkanwitch]

It's very telling that it wasn't the first thing on her mind, that she's grown comfortable here at the mansion and it isn't at the forefront of her thoughts, but Nina suddenly thinks of the jurda parem in Lan Wangji's possession and frowns, pausing in her search. "I did find something. It feels like so long ago. It was an... unwelcome gift."

[timebethine]

He turns away from a jar containing a preserved pair of lungs--when he looks at them too long, he could swear they're breathing. "Oh?"

[ravkanwitch]

"It was--" How does she begin to describe what happened? That she could have killed hundreds of men with just a twitch of her pinky finger? The weeks of recovery from addiction? She speaks carefully. "It was something from my world that is very dangerous to me. I was surprised to find it, but I gave it to Lan Wangji for safe-keeping."

She looks subdued and thoughtful for a second, but shakes it off with a smile, happy to change the subject. "Do you see anything that might be large enough?"

[timebethine]

Laertes pokes through a drawer that's full of tiny, perfect bird skulls, then another below it full of neatly labeled vertebrae. Working systematically down the body, he reaches a drawer full of femurs of various sizes, including one labeled ... "Would Temeraire find it ghoulish, if thou didst wield a blade of dragonbone?"

[ravkanwitch]

Nina makes a small face. "I don't think I should upset a dragon if I can help it." Then again, the bone shards that she normally uses are human bones, taking from a graveyard and fashioned into the shape that they are with the assistance of first, Wylan, and then, honed by one of the Fabrikators in the Little Palace.

[timebethine]

"Then take thy choice of these; I think these--" he glances at the largest label "--femurs are the nearest in length to a sword thou wilt find here."

[ravkanwitch]

Nina tries to pick up a rhino femur bone but it's quite heavy and wide. "It's heavy," she says. "It also feels denser than that of a human's."

A label on the next drawer catches her eye; the drawer is a lot wider and taller than the one they're currently looking at, too. "Dinosaurs?" She asks Laertes, reading the label out loud.

[timebethine]

"Some kind of lizard?" Laertes guesses, leaning on his Greek again. He would have studied that language far more diligently if he'd known how often he'd be using it! "A ... terrible lizard?"

[ravkanwitch]

"Terrible lizard," Nina repeats, opening up the drawer and staring at the bones. "These are gigantic."

[timebethine]

Laertes glances down, and swallows. "The creature to which they belong would be far larger than our Temeraire."

[ravkanwitch]

Nina picks up one of the bones out of curiosity. "Hadrosaur radius bone," she reads the label. It's two feet long and it's a slightly pock-marked, as if from wear and tear. "Does this seem long enough? It's slimmer than the rhino femur. I wonder if I can take other bone material and... somehow cement this together and make it stronger."

[timebethine]

"It would be a very short sword," says Laertes thoughtfully, eyeing the length of the bone. "More a long poniard than a rapier. But ay, it might do, and a band of metal to support the bone might be of great help."

[ravkanwitch]

Nina hefts it in her hand, debating. "Do you think we should try and find something longer? This sword is mostly-- With the undead, at first I felt a little helpless... until I figured out how to battle them. I'm worried I would be overwhelmed if I faced anything stronger. The sword doesn't have to be perfect, I think I just want an extra level of protection."

[timebethine]

"I felt as thou didst," Laertes admits. "Sagramore was eager to fight, but I had never faced true foes before that day. I had never before known true peril. It took some time for me to overcome that fear and truly glory in our combat."

[ravkanwitch]

"Combat can be fun sometimes," Nina admits. "A revenge scheme that doesn't involve anyone actually dying is even more fun. But if I'm going to be honest, I'd much rather eat waffles with friends."

[timebethine]

That change of subject lights him up a little. "Has Galahad brought thee thy waffles yet?"

[ravkanwitch]

Her expression brightens as well. "He made waffles?"

[timebethine]

"Ay, and I made cream for them, and Magnus made certain they were all thou deservest. I'm sure that, once the Christmastide fast ends, Galahad will make thee such a plate of waffles as will warm thy heart and stomach."

[ravkanwitch]

"I'll be very happy to have them. You can get them from the kitchen here, but they aren't quite the same as fresh." She hefts the bone in her hand again. "If you think this will work for a shorter sword, I'll start working on whittling it down."