[[open post and announcement: no mourners, no funerals]]

[ravkanwitch]

[cw: discussion of death!]

Nina knows that word of Shen Yuan's death has been slowly spreading. She tried to put out a general warning of danger right after it happened... but she's not sure how many people were warned by it. She wasn't in the right mind at the time, after all. This time, she's more careful and collected. With SecUnit's help, she's alerted and gathered everyone who's interested for an important announcement in the lobby of the mansion. Despite all appearances of bossiness and stubbornness - all quite true - Nina has never been in charge of anything so serious. Kaz, Zoya, and the King himself; she followed their lead. As people slowly begin to gather and she attempts to compose herself, she wonders why she decided to put herself up to this.

Deep breath, Zenik. Pretend that - well, that this is pretend. She's back in the orphanage as the official greeter, making an important announcement to all the other children. She's the governor of a small town, making sure that all the citizens are aware and prepared. It does have to be her, after all. She's playing a crucial role in everything. She also doesn't want anyone else to carry the emotional load.

"Hi," she tells everyone gathered, trying to paste on a somber but not-too-morose expression. "Thanks for coming. I'm sure some of you have heard part of this announcement already and I'm sorry that it took so long to pass this information onto everyone else... but there was an incident not too long ago. We're not sure what caused it, whether it was the house or whether it was an individual, but... Shen Yuan is dead." There's most likely a reaction at this point and Nina forges onwards as confidently as she can, pitching her voice above the hubbub.

"But there is a way that he can return. We're sure of it. We're just trying to figure out the details, which might take a while. If you want to know more about that, you can ask Magnus, but I'm not sure how much he can tell you. Also, if you encounter any signs of Shen Yuan's spirit, you can talk to--" Here she meets Aleksander's eyes almost instinctively; this line of conversation is something she's purposefully kept from him. "You can talk to myself. Or... to Lan Wangji. ...That's all. Thank you."

A confident start but slightly deflated by her last few sentences, Nina steps back and allows for conversation to happen. If anyone would like to speak to her, she's looking much less strained and grim than she has in a while.

[[Feel free to post a single comment reaction and/or start a thread with Nina in the comments!]]

Comments

[ravkanwitch]

Nina follows him, finally letting her shoulders slump slightly. She didn't realize how tightly she had been tensing them. "How did you find out?" She asks, quietly.

[sagramore]

"Claudius told us, and Galahad told him." It really does feel better to focus on Nina. "You found out from Luo Binghe?"

[ravkanwitch]

"SecUnit, actually." Nina still remembers how her heart had skipped a beat or two at those words, Shen Yuan's dead, as if a Heartrender had controlled it. "Magnus was already there, trying to heal him."

[sagramore]

He makes a mental note to check on Magnus too -- this can't have been easy, especially coming so soon on the heels of Magnus' own near-death experience and his complicated feelings about that. "Is it-- canst thou sense anything because of thy science?"

[ravkanwitch]

"I can sense something, sometimes. But... for some reason, I can't talk to him. I think it's because he doesn't have a resting place yet and I haven't found the place his spirit is tied to." She frowns a little, concerned. "It might be in the room where-- where it happened, but every time I go there, I seem to lose my train of thought."

[sagramore]

As he begins getting out the things he needs for hot chocolate and pancakes, Sagramore listens, frowning somewhat himself. "Lan Wangji knows something about spirits, and their resting-places-- could he help?"

[ravkanwitch]

Nina's expression falls and she's uncharacteristically silent for a long moment. "He could help," she finally says. With this, at least.

[sagramore]

Her silence makes him turn around from the stove, where he's preparing a pan. "Did something happen?"

[ravkanwitch]

"I wanted to try something that had the potential to... help," Nina says, quite miserably. "He said no. We argued. Well. I argued. He gave me a look that could have frozen me over. He didn't listen to me."

[sagramore]

"Nina. Would it have been dangerous to thee, this thing thou didst hope to try?"

(From what he knows of Lan Wangji, there's only one thing that would make him be cruel to Nina, and from what he knows of Nina she's quick to disregard her safety to help her friends.)

[ravkanwitch]

Nina not so much flinches as makes a face; Sagramore knows her too well. "It might have been dangerous to me. We don't know for certain," she says, stubbornly.

[sagramore]

"Better to do what thou didst write, and keep thee safe," firmly.

[ravkanwitch]

"Now it's easy to say, now that we know there's another way, but... at the time it seemed like the only way forward."

[sagramore]

"Wilt thou not be reconciled, then?" He asks it without judgement -- he of all people should understand breaking with someone, knowing reconciliation to be impossible.

[ravkanwitch]

Nina shakes her head, still upset about the argument and even mildly ashamed. She nearly begged him for the parem. "Maybe after Shen Yuan returns." Her eyes suddenly widen with a realization. "Please don't tell anyone else. Not even Laertes. If the wrong person finds out..." She primarily means Luo Binghe. If she had been that upset about being blocked from a way to bring Shen Yuan back, she can't imagine his ire -- though now that Sagramore has also mentioned it, part of her wonders how he'd feel about the risk factor involved.

[sagramore]

He'd gone back to the stove, but now he turns around again to look at her. Gently, "Laertes and Luo Binghe don't talk. I won't endanger thee to tell my own husband that Lan Wangji blocked thee from a path that might have hurt thee. Laertes and I both will have been glad to know it -- I know it chafes thee, to think thou couldst have helped and were not permitted, but I know Lan Wangji is just and kind, and if he thought this way intolerable then it was."

[ravkanwitch]

Nina sits for a moment in silence. She knows what Sagramore is saying makes sense and that he loves her and only wants the best for her, but the incredibly stubborn part of her is upset that he's taking Lan Wangji's side in the disagreement. Then again, she's very tired. Her emotions are mess. She sighs, relents for a moment. "There's a reason I brought him into the whole mess from the start."

[sagramore]

"From the start?"

[ravkanwitch]

"When... When I first found this other way." Her brows furrow slightly. "Have I told you about this?"

[sagramore]

"No, I don't know about this." He's whisking milk and chocolate together as he listens, the pale white streaking into brown as the chocolate melts.

[ravkanwitch]

"It's a long story," she says, "but I did something very stupid a while back. There wasn't an antidote for it at the time. I found the... same thing, the jurda parem, here at the mansion not too long after I got here and I needed to find someone to hold onto it for me." She's being a little vague because there's still danger in some residents discovering the parem -- but also, she's tired. The Nina Zenik that stood on the docks in Fjerda and made the decision to save her friends seems like someone from a hundred years ago.

[sagramore]

Sagramore frowns at the saucepan of milk. "It was some kind of -- drug, or potion?"

[ravkanwitch]

"A plant... made into a drug. It enhances the abilities of whoever takes it."

[sagramore]

"It would have made thy power greater?" Like Aleksander.

[ravkanwitch]

"That's what it does," Nina nods. She can guess what he's thinking about, though, and she frowns slightly. "It's not like an amplifier. Amplifiers are a more natural enhancement of a Grisha's ability. This is unnatural and it... allows us to do things we normally wouldn't be able to do. A Tidemaker can normally control water but after taking the parem, I've seen them be able to change the phase of their own body. They were able to turn into gas and travel across the room like that."