Chapter Three

Three years.

Carza blinked at her ceiling.

Three years.

That felt quick.

That felt unreasonably quick. In the grand scheme of things, she was relatively sure that years were meant to go significantly slower. There were so many days in them, no way they could pass without her at some point sitting up and realising 'oh goodness, such a length of time has passed, how remarkable yet predictable'. Instead, she just randomly came to herself and thought 'by all that's good and holy time is slipping by like... like sand falling through the fingers of a man with no hands'. She groaned. Three. Years. No way that had happened, she'd gotten... no, definitely three. She still remembered that night around the fire, burning her shift, listening to her colleagues talking about their aspirations, eager for the future... she hadn't really grown since then, not in the way she'd grown in the progression of eight to eighteen. There had been so many markers back then - the scars of womanhood rituals, the feeling of slow adjustment to living like a normal person, her first experience with a theatrophone, her first sighting of a train in the distance or the delivery of a rare cinematograph to the offices of one of the more eccentric scholars... those were proper markers, and they made time feel real. But the last three years... she could've been cut out of that night around the fire, a few more bags could've been drawn under her eyes, her hair lengthened a little and made ragged where she chewed strands out of stress, her fingers stained with more ink... and then pasted into her bed here, now, at this precise moment in time.

Which was not how time was meant to go. She thought. She studied anthropology, not chronology or historiography or... neurology? Given that she was talking about perceptions of time and maybe not its actual flow, and...

Get up.

She rolled out of bed clumsily.

Graduation. She still felt like she was coming off her matriculation into the Court's scholarly ranks a few years ago - wearing her first proper robe, kneeling at the feet of her elders and gently kissing a heavy golden ring which had supposedly once belonged to the Founder... and now she was coming to the end. Three years of study. The rest of her training would now be up to her - working in a collective with other young scholars to produce work under the mild supervision of seniors, gradually building a reputation... no secretaries until she was a bit older. Unfortunately. She thought she'd get assigned one out of the gate, but apparently not. Used to be the case, back when everyone wrote things down like normal people, but... she ran her hands over her typewriter. This thing had terrified the secretaries when it showed up... until the typing pools began, and they just started loathing it instead. Carza quite liked it. Solid, hefty metal, same kind the Court of Salt had imported for those beastly artillery pieces that thundered endlessly during their parades. Dark green coat for the metal chassis, and rounded keys with enamel coating, each letter slightly faded from continuous use, all unpainted metal components polished to a bright sheen. Carza vo Anka ran her thin fingers over the surface of the keys, feeling the way each one began to smoothly depress at the slightest touch, a little insect-like lever moving out slightly to strike at an invisible page. And her typewriter did seem like a large beetle - a shiny shell, and tiny metallic antennae and legs twitching at all moments, at the slightest provocation, and clicking when it had business to attend to .

She loved it.

In all honesty, it easily made up for not having a personal secretary. Personal secretaries didn't tend to like being stroked.

Nor did she particularly think she'd enjoy stroking one.

Early morning. Weird thoughts. She hesitated over her newest boxes of cigarillos... no, too early. Save it. Time for it after. A second of further hesitation... it would be very nice to stain herself with one of these... just a quick wheeze from one of her loyal cancers, and... she grunted. No. Definitely not. She grabbed a pencil from her desk, stuck it in her mouth, and began to chew. Better to have slightly graphite-stained teeth than baccy-stained. At least graphite came off quick and didn't smell too bad. Feh. Not as good as she'd like. She gnawed like a rat, and felt the imprints where her teeth had touched the pencil before. An unfresh pencil to begin her graduation day. Could be worse starts. For now, just... keep on moving. Just one of the most important moments of her life that hadn't yet sunk in. Well, things tended not to sink in until they were acknowledged by others.

And her room was conspicuously devoid of others.

Carza stared blankly ahead while dressing. Traditional garb for today - and sturdy shoes. For reasons that would soon become very apparent indeed. For female scholars, graduation meant a long, old-fashioned black skirt trailing to the ankles, an even more old-fashioned blouse which required a brooch to be properly sealed, all of which simply served the basic necessities - the real star was the robe. Her robe. Her lovely robe. She loved her robe. It was just such a... a robe. Made her feel large and more-swishy-than-average. Most other people weren't this swishy. Most other people didn't wear lavish robes. Well, it wasn't that lavish. It was black, trailed low, and was trimmed with a hint of slightly off-white fur. But she loved it all the same. The elders got better robes - silk, with colours and assortments of furs.

Founder, she was petty when she got this robe on. It made her actively dumber.

Founder, she needed a smoke.

No. Resist. Smoking for later.

She quietly slipped a cigarillo into her pocket, just for later. And some matches. Never one of those newfangled lighters, the scent of the fluid ruined the taste of the tobacco. Now her eyes turned towards the brandy and - no. Today was a day of virtue and success. Plus, she hadn't had breakfast, so any brandy would destroy her mental faculties with even more efficacy than the robe did. And her robe made her positively doltish. And with virtue at the forefront of her mind, she laced up her sturdiest boots and clumped off from her room, robe swishing impressively behind her.

The Court of Ivory was a winding labyrinth of dusty passages, and she loved each and every one of them as she moved, instinctively hunching very slightly and keeping her hands close to one another. Founder, she just started looking like more of a rodent when she was nervous. And she was quite nervous. Which didn't feel fair. She liked it here, she just... needed to go and culminate three years of study, no big deal. The Court had been built by generations of exceptionally weird architects, and none of them had particularly liked one another. It was a series of passages and strange rooms with unknowable purposes, which had gradually defaulted to being more studies and libraries as time went on. And now... now there were more books than ever. Copyists were out - printing presses were in. Newer printing presses that churned out work at an ever faster pace than the previous, clunky engines they'd been reliant on for the last few generations. And typewriters only worsened the problem. As had contact with the world beyond the secluded valley of ALD IOM. She had to squeeze through ominously leaning stacks, the spines of books turned outwards to blare titles in languages she didn't understand, on topics she barely comprehended.

The Court of Ivory was the attic of the city. It was where things wound up, sooner or later, and accumulated layer on layer, higher and higher and higher until the entire building would come crashing down under its own weight. It was too big and convoluted to clean properly, upgrades were rolled out in patchwork phases that never quite became omnipresent, and storage space never seemed quite up to the task. But she loved it all the same. She loved the way the halls swallowed sound, and the way the entire building changed as the seasons went on. In winter, the stones would soak up the cold and turn the place into one enormous coldroom, and she'd wrap herself up in layers and layers, huddle around fires and type with numb, gloved fingers... and in summer, the stones would dry and crack, and scholars would laze around in the many courtyards, enjoying the shade and the breeze. Some people hated those extremes. She adored them. Carza adored how nothing became truly stale, there was always a seasonal change to look forward to, always a shift that she could anticipate. In the deeper rooms, she thought, the stone was always delayed. If she was too hot, she could go there and the stone would remember winter, with its frosts clambering up the windows and the chill spreading through her bones. And in winter, she could come down and remember summer, as the stones seemed to sigh as they expanded in the heat, and dust hovered in the air like motes of gold...

Two appointments.

She had two appointments. Reason she'd skipped breakfast.

First... Melqua. Carza liked Melqua. Liked her a lot. More of an older sister - and now she was in her mid-thirties, had become a senior secretary in her own right, was quite the busy creature. Still wore the deafening earmuffs that the older secretaries liked to use when the clacking of typerwriters became too much. Carza knew that she was sharp-edged, sharp-featured, sharp-eyed - no soft corners or rounded edges, at least, not many. And Melqua, though... she was softer, rounder, and everything contributed to that. Her dirty blonde hair would puff out in a loose cloud around her head, while Carza's brown rat's nest would insist on spiking and shooting at strange, incongruous angles. Melqua wore heavy earmuffs and large, fuzzy slippers... while Carza's slippers always tapered to sharp points, and she never wore earmuffs. That would mean the typewriter had defeated her. And she insisted on conquering that damn machine, no matter how often the ink ribbons stained her fingers or the endless dings made her ears ring a little. Melqua was short, Carza was tall, Melqua was slow, Carza was quick, Melqua dithered and worried, and Carza... also dithered and worried, but in a more agitated way.

But they both liked the comedies that blared over the theatrophone every evening, they both split the cost of the subscriptions, they both were fascinated by the changes in the world beyond... and alarmed at them. They both complained about noise and space and the weather. Carza ran through her lines. Liked to prepare. Right, the weather was... cloudy, a little muggy, likely to clear up later. Complain about the heat, and sigh good-naturedly at the promise of a breeze later on. Mention that it was likely to rain later in the week, and this was good - the country wanted some rain, the flowers would enjoy it at least. Yes, her boots were fitting well. No, she didn't want any tea-cake, she had someone else to meet after this, and then... well, there was the possibility of post-graduation revelry with the others.

It could happen.

It was a non-zero chance.

And she'd be a bloody fool if she went around going 'oh I'm sorry I can't join the revelry I'm full of tea-cake and clotted cream and no my colleagues do not abandon me I am still fun and witty and my knees are elegantly sculpted' and so on and so forth.

So she'd stay hungry. Just in case.

Was that neurotic of her?

No, it was normal. Normal people worried about this. Worrying about this was what separated man from animal and scholar from man and her from the rest of the world and no these were very common worries.

She knocked sharply on Melqua's door, trying to distract herself. Well, this should be-

"Oh, hello Mel-"

Melqua buried her in the largest hug Carza had ever experienced. It was... how was there so much of her, she was quite short and not very large and why did she consume Carza's universe with such blinding power and argh. Oh, good heavens, she was being weepy.

"Oh, Carza, you look wonderful."

"Uh."

"Come on in, have some tea-cake, the coal-boy dropped it off this morning, it's rather good, you should definitely try some."

Refuse? Should refuse. She'd planned to refuse.

"Yes please."

Coward.

The tea-cake was actually pretty fantastic, she had to admit. Just one slice. Soft sponge, packed with raisins, sultanas, a few tiny nuts... and then slathered with marmalade. And it was tea cake, so it needed tea to go along with it, that was a given. And... now she was just having breakfast.

Nuts.

Melqua kept talking, while dabbing her cheeks with a lacy handkerchief.

"...oh, you look far too skinny, Carza. Are you eating enough?"

"Yes."

"I don't believe you, not one bit. Oh, you do look lovely - you suit that robe, you know?"

Carza mumbled around a mouthful of cake.

"Thanksh, Mel."

"Don't speak with your mouth full."

Melqua was more like an older sister than anything explicitly maternal. At least, until Carza spoke with her mouth full. Then she became surprisingly authoritative. Carza gulped down what remained, and wiped her mouth off with her sleeve... before a sharp glare made her pick up a napkin.

"Sorry."

"Quite alright, Carza, but try not to do that around your colleagues? Speaking of whom - any plans? I remember there being quite the fracas the last few times - so?"

Carza stared. Hm. How to get around this.

"I'll... see where people go."

"Oh, you must have some idea. You ought to light up the town, really - go to a beer hall, maybe a fine restaurant or two, perhaps snag a boat and potter around the canal..."

None of those sounded like a good time. Beer halls were loud. Restaurants were expensive. Boats were wet. And all three were outside the Court of Ivory. Why oh why didn't the Court just have its own bars, and... and oh, that made sense. If the Court had its own bar, no-one would leave it. She wouldn't, certainly. But... anyway. She'd improvise.

"...I'll improvise."

"...well, try not to get into too much trouble."

Melqua gave her a look.

"...you know, I'm very proud of you."

Carza was unable to meet her eyes.

"Really, I remember when you were a pile of skin and bones crawling through a window to steal biscuits and demand an education. And now... now you're a taller pile of skin and bones, and I haven't seen you crawl anywhere in years. Further than I got in the studium too... graduation, goodness. Well, I'm sure you'll keep a stable of secretaries very busy."

"Hm."

Carza was very bad with this.

"...dear, you could speak a bit more."

"Hm. Sorry. Yes. Thanks for the tea and cake. And... the compliments. And... everything else."

Melqua sniffed.

"Oh, go on, get out before I start weeping like an old woman."

"You're thirty."

Thirty-four, technically, but Melqua didn't like to be reminded of that.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"And in my day reaching thirty was impressive without catching cholera or rickets or something ghastly."

"I'm barely ten years younger than you."

"Yes! And in all that time, we've got theatrophones, typewriters, trains, all manner of strangeness. You'll stay safe, won't you? You're a promising scholar, you shouldn't mix with some of the odd sorts that are drifting around these days."

Carza nodded firmly.

"I won't. I like it here."

"I know you do, dear, I know you do. But... do try and have some fun tonight? And wear that blue dress, you look lovely in that thing."

"Hm."

She wasn't going to. She liked her robes. She liked simplicity and uniformity. Life was easier that way. Safer. Melqua buried her in another hug, and told her once more to leave before she broke down into tears. If this was before the waterworks started, then Carza should probably get to a safe distance very soon indeed, lest she be consumed by the rising salty waves. Still had to turn down taking the rest of the cake... idiot, she was trying to stay hungry, it kept her sharp, and now she was full of cake and tea and nuts, she still had someone else to meet.

She took a deep breath.

Not a big deal.

Just meeting her father.

Who refused to be called her father under any circumstances.

She remembered this hall. Remembered this room. The black-and-white chequered floor, the stable of four secretaries... three at the moment, Melqua had transferred to another scholar - one who was better at organising his work - and Yanis was still struggling to find a proper replacement. So three pairs of spectacled eyes glanced up, hands already reaching to remove their earmuffs - they too hadn't quite gotten used to the sheer noise of a typing pool. Mother, older and sterner. Cerys, taciturn and surly. Laris, who had a bad habit of never taking things seriously. The three blinked at her. She blinked back. And Mother pointed directly at her face.

"You have marmalade around your mouth, girl."

Always girl. Never 'Carza' or 'Miss vo Anka' or 'scholar'. These three had known her as a child, and weren't going to let that fact go under any circumstances. Carza immediately reached up, hesitated, then grabbed a handkerchief and began to wipe - no, dab, she could smell the judgement in the air - until Mother was looking marginally less... her. Cerys grinned, cracking her knuckles and reaching for her cup of tea.

"Alright, you little scrote. Here to see the big man?"

Laris smirked.

"Here for daddums are w- oh, you whore!"

Mother had smacked her in the back of the head with a rolled up pamphlet, fire flashing in her eyes. Still not meant to talk about that. Scholarly celibacy and all that. But... well, these days it was getting more and more uncertain if that would continue. Even Carza was aware of that, and she was as solitary as an oyster. Secretaries used to just be employed by the Court - but these days, everyone needed a typist, and the city echoed with endless typing pools, the markets were rich with money from foreign lands and all that money needed people to administrate it. And they tended to be paid better than the Court paid its secretaries, while not having so many social restrictions. Looking at these three, in their dusty room, with the cracks in the paint and the random pieces of administrative junk piled in the corners... rows and rows of books with ink-stained pages containing pointless ledgers and schedules... she wondered how long it was going to last. The world beyond was odd. Foreign lands had universities, her colleagues said. No religious mission at all, just... learning. Not so cloistered either. A part of her was terrified that one day, this room would be empty, the libraries would be opened up, and universities would suck out every scholar and student, until... well. The world was pecking away at her sheltered egg of existence, trying to breach and consume the runny yolk.

And she was just trying to enjoy as much of the dark warmth as she could.

A door opened... and Carza froze.

Her father. Her... founder, Laris had infected her with something, her daddums. Urgh. Hated Laris, hated her hated her hated her. Well, at this particular moment. Rest of the time she was relatively alright. Relatively. Her father stepped into the main chamber, chewing idly at a piece of dried sausage - like most men his age, he'd evidently decided to just give up on being a normal human and had resorted to consuming preserved foods exclusively. Easier to just keep in the office. She could see the crumbs on him, and felt an urge to walk forwards and swipe a few times at his front, just to clean him up slightly. The two locked eyes. He looked alarmed. She felt alarmed, but was fairly sure she wasn't showing it.

"...scholar, then?"

"Yes, sir."

Sir was safe. Brother felt too familiar - and she hadn't graduated yet, so they weren't technically equals. And calling him by his first name was just... no-one called their father by his first name, that would be strange.

"Some crumbs on your face."

Damn you, Melqua.

"Sorry, sir. I thought I would stop by before graduating, to thank you for all the help you've given me over the years."

Translation: thanks for being amenable to blackmail and accommodating with shoving her in the studium. And then not spilling the beans.

"Hm. Alright."

He shuffled from foot to foot, picking a piece of sausage out from between his teeth.

"Splendid. Good on you. You're doing... archaeology?"

"Anthropology. Sir."

"Oh. Good subject, that. Fun."

He rocked back and forth on his heels, clearly deeply uncomfortable. Carza wanted to fidget. She really wanted to fidget. But scholars didn't fidget, and nor would she. Plus, the last thing she needed right now was mussed up robes.

"...well, best of luck. I see you've already eaten."

Damn you, Melqua.

"So I'll let you be on your way. Best of luck, again. I'm sure you'll do wonderfully in the future, feel free to stop by if you need anything."

He slapped her heavily on the shoulder, making her stumble slightly. An apologetic grimace crossed his face, before a mask of vague awkwardness returned. The two stared at one another. Carza's mouth twisted.

"...thank you, sir. I will."

"Good. Good good."

A long, painful silence, broken only when her father clapped his hands loudly.

"...sorry, I... really have some work to be getting on with. One man works while another relaxes, eh? And you should probably get do the latter, so... I'll attend to the former."

"Yes. Of course. Sorry for the interruption, sir."

Another pause.

"...splendid. Good luck with graduation."

That made three wishes of good luck. Splendid indeed. Triple luck was definitely wonderful, especially on a day like today. Her father nodded again, chewed another piece of sausage... and then clapped his hands once more and walked slowly backwards, shrugging helplessly - really not his fault, he had ever so much work to do. She didn't begrudge him that, not one little bit. A final awkward wave, and the door closed. The three secretaries glanced at one another. Carza straightened her back, confident that all the crumbs and marmalade were gone from her face and she was a safe, secure, dignified individual who had many academic achievements to her name and knew enough obscure facts to fill up a moderately-sized book. And her father had just given her triple good luck. So what if he hadn't actually said her name, or had really figured out how to address her at all... anyway. She straightened, brushed down her robe, twitched a few fingers through her hair to make sure it wasn't going completely insane, and-

And Laris burst out laughing.

Cerys followed suit.

Even Mother cracked a tiny smile.

Carza glared with all the intensity she could muster. It only worsened the situation. Laris snorted a few times, trying to get her breath under control.

"...go on, knock on his door again and ask him something personal, it'll be hilarious."

Cerys cackled.

"You two are lovely. I can really sense the family bond you two share."

"I need to go."

Laris clapped sharply and shrugged in an exaggerated approximation of her father. The cheek. And Cerys nodded her head repeatedly while going: 'good luck, best of luck, splendid luck' until Carza simply turned on her heel and left, face burning. Out of that room with its junk, its typewriters, its ancient samovar. She still remembered going there as a child, and she distinctly remembered the giggles of the secretaries. She could easily imagine her father burying himself in one of his books, cheeks flushed with agitation, eyebrows drawn low and scowl developing... she knew because the two of them were peas in a pod when it came to being profoundly bad with people, and she was doing all of this. Which was unfortunate. Her eyebrows were impressive. Her scowl was deep. And when she flushed she looked like she was about to bite someone. Which she didn't do, because biting people was a very ineffective way of getting them to piss off - you were literally performing an action designed to keep them close, biting was awful. Not that she had any experience in that. At all. She was an honoured scholar of twenty-one, she knew multiple languages, she was not this utterly useless. A few damn sentences. Moron, shouldn't have had that cake... no, no, she could imagine the tea her dad would've served her. Some cheap stuff from the samovar, a few apologies, a scrap of whatever meal had been left for him the day before...

Then she'd get him onto the topic of his latest work, and he'd start rambling while she nodded and went 'hm' and 'ah' and 'oh' and 'really' at all the right places.

She didn't cry or anything of the sort, of course - nothing so dramatic. Carza vo Anka was not a crying person, crying was something that infants did, and she was far too tall. And she was used to this - the awkward interactions, the curt engagements, the way neither of them knew how to talk to each other and were no longer able to learn. She didn't feel unusually distraught or weepy. But she felt... she felt the cold sweat of nervousness in the small of her back, the kind which made her feel like she had replaced all her skin with yellowed, frigid chickenflesh. Her fingers felt clumsy, and she kept running them through her hair. Damn tufts, impossible to keep in line, she loathed... anyway. Graduation. A bony hand fell on her shoulder, making her jump a solid inch into the air, squeaking in alarm. More embarrassment. Mother was standing there - older, more hunched, and more efficient in her movements. Her fingers were bruised around the knuckles where she still struggled with the typewriters.

"...best of luck with your graduation, girl. You've done yourself proud."

Carza stared at her. Down at her, that was... strange. But... yes, Carza was taller than a woman who had towered in her imagination for most of her life. Distant and unassailable, and terrifying in a way that only a small child could really understand.

"Thanks."

"Thank you, girl. There are two words in that phrase, use them."

"Yes, ma'am. Of course. Thank you."

Mother nodded sharply.

"Good. Now go on your way. And if you need any letters of recommendation, I'll withhold the samovar from Brother Yanis until he writes one out - and then I'll make sure it's properly spelled and has no jam stains marring it."

Carza cracked a tiny smile.

"Thank you, ma'am."

"Chin up. No-one likes a hunching young scholar, you have plenty of years to develop a proper hump like the rest of them."

"Yes, ma'am."

She tilted her head up a few degrees... and a sharp hand forced it up the rest of the way, before patting her cheek in a vague approximation of tenderness, and swiping away a few stray crumbs, muttering darkly about messy eaters and how they were the ruin of the age. Everything was the ruin of the age. Typewriters and printing presses that put honest copyists out of a job and turned quiet offices into nauseatingly loud typing pools... foreigners with strange accents and no sense of politeness or propriety... young people with no respect, old people who didn't act their age, middle-aged people who couldn't make up their mind on whether they were going to stay young or accept their fate... buildings which had steep stairs... romantic dramas... foreigners again... the age was pretty thoroughly ruined. Carza liked her pessimism, it was pleasingly constant. Everything could get worse, but that wasn't any reason not to stand around waving one's arms frantically while telling the modern world to politely piss off and take its ghastly children with it.

Carza liked Mother. The two were similarly grim.

"Now, get a move on."

"Yes, ma'am."

Mother nodded sharply, turned on her heel, and returned to her desk while snapping rude things at the other two secretaries, who hadn't stopped laughing. Well. She felt a little better now. Her boots were polished and ready for the long hike she'd have to do. Her robes were un-bespeckled by crumbs or marmalade, her lips were clean, her teeth were brushed, her hair was... there, and her clothes in general were in a state of decent repair. She was ready. Other students were starting to filter down to the hall where students became full-fledged scholars, and had the tattoo of the Court placed on their foreheads. She brushed her hair aside, enjoying the feeling of cool air on her face... before advancing into the gathering crowd. Like huge black bats, they moved in a swarm down to through the lower halls... graduation wasn't just one ritual. It was multiple. And some of them were indescribably tiny, but unutterably important - even as important as the other ones. With her colleagues, she bowed solemnly to a statue in a forgotten courtyard filled to the brim with broken pots and straggling weeds, she accepted a tiny glass of sherry from an impeccable silver platter in the hall of the owl... and in that hall, where silver statues of owls granted to the Court of Ivory many hundreds of years ago glared imperiously down from their slender pillars with jewelled eyes, Carza met someone. She noticed him for one reason - he was the only scholar to take three glasses of sherry instead of one, downing them one after the other with the pleasurable shudders of the faintly addicted.

Carza stared.

The other student glanced over. light brown hair lightly tousled by his journey over. She'd seen him once or twice - not in her field, though, so... not really someone she interacted with all too often. The first impression that struck her was one of breadth. He wasn't fat, but he was broad, and had a powerful frame which made her think of a rugby player or a wrestler. Heavy fists dangled pendulously at the end of long arms, and his face was slightly twisted by a whorl of deformed flesh on his left cheek, which dragged his mouth up into a small smile and one of his eyes downwards, so he looked a little like he was wearing a party mask for an event she had no interest in attending. He hiccuped, and she saw that his eyes were slightly bleary, and were just a little monkey-like - close-set and watchful.

"...I won't tell if you won't."

Carza blinked.

She wasn't a drunkard. She didn't want more sherry.

"I'm alright. Thank you."

"Suit yourself. You're going to get the tattoo, then?"

"Yes."

She tried to keep things short. Easier that way. The man pushed himself off one of the pillars, mumbled an apology to the wobbling owl atop it, and stumped in her general directions, hands thrust firmly into his pockets.

"Wouldn't mind if I hitched my horse to your cart? Place is a damn maze."

"...if you'd like to."

That felt polite, but distant. The man nodded absent-mindedly, and followed her. He was a little hunched, almost ashamed of his own height - which was quite something, now she came to think about it. He moved carefully when his wits came back to him, afraid of breaking things. Fair enough. He looked like a shatter-prone person. She kept her distance, stepping along in her long, thin way, while he stumped after in his loping, staggering way. She moved like a spider, she found - her own self becoming easier to define when next to someone so diametrically opposed. Easier to know what she was when she knew what she was not. Trying to know one without the other was like trying to clap with one hand or to eat a whole roast side of beef with only one piece of cutlery - a fork, a knife, a spoon, a hacksaw, a nutcracker, a cork-borer.

The man spoke. His voice had a low rumble to it that she didn't dislike, but she found that it set her back aching for some inexplicable reason.

"Sorry for my soused state back there. Had a night."

They all did. Nights tended to be pretty well omnipresent. Oh, no, wait, he'd been talking about a social night of social engagements. Play it cool, play it cool...

"Any good?"

"Decent, decent. Yara dragged us down to her chambers for the... whatchamacallit, the theatrophone. Put on one of those laughies and served brandy. By the time we were done, the broadcast was over, and we were still drinking. And when the drink ran out, we left. And here I am. Hair of the dog that bit you, and all that."

He laughed quickly, and winced at the loud noise.

"...say, I've seen you around, never caught your name."

"Carza vo Anka."

"Nice to meet you, Carza vo Anka. Hull va Trochi. What do you read?"

"Anthropology and linguistics. Yourself?"

"Oh, I do... did, I suppose, I did Horn-era Studies."

She blinked.

"...oh?"

"Yeah, fun stuff. Bit of language business, but enjoyable. Anthropology... that sounds like a laugh, I'll say that. Suppose it makes sense, us not seeing each other. Still, nice to catch up on lost time - best of luck with this graduation business. Plans for later?"

"I'll... do the walk, like they told us to."

Hull blinked.

"...no, I mean, like, anything else? I heard Halla's doing something fun round Qavesah street, no idea if that's going to be any good... honestly, Halla's a bit of a handful, her laugh, I can't handle it with this headache."

Carza hesitated. Did she know a Halla? Was Halla some resident of some awful cat-house nearby, or... no, no, must be a student or a scholar or something along those lines... definitely graduating if she was being so... ribald. Qavesah street was full of beer halls and gambling dens, from what she'd gathered from Melqua's embarrassed explanations. Steered away from it when she was... no, not thinking about the past. The present, the future, that was what mattered. Hull shrugged lightly.

"Still, might as well if there's nothing better. You?"

"...I was going to do the walk. And... perhaps get some lunch."

Hull snorted.

"Alright, alright, but really, what are you getting up to? Don't worry, I won't crash it if you don't want me to, I'm not a complete arse."

Nuts, corks, damn. She was already terrified of the walk, she wasn't remotely looking forward to it, the only consolation was that she'd run through the maps a half dozen times (lie, she'd run through them half a dozen dozen times) and had assumed she could run with others, but if they were going to their cat-houses and gambling-dens and beer-halls and whatever else people did outside the Court, then... then... oh, cow.

"...I didn't really... uh..."

Hull stopped dead in his tracks.

"It's graduation day. Gotta have something."

"...do I?"

She sounded genuinely curious.

"Yeah. Definitely."

"I'm not one for parties."

Hull sighed.

"You know what, damn it, I'm not in the mood for one either. Went too hard last night, I cannot do anything until this evening. A walk and a big lunch would do me good. Mind if I tag along?"

Carza looked him up and down. Large, but in an unassuming way. Looked solid. Good meat-shield. He didn't seem to have any ulterior motives... and honestly, he was a fellow student. She'd assess him during the graduation, make sure he wasn't some bizarrely relaxed monster or a complete freak... but to be perfectly blunt, the idea of having an escort for her walk made her feel much better about it. Protection. Guidance. Someone to split the bill for lunch. She hated leaving the Court, never did it if she had a choice in the matter. She left to pick up packages and to send letters, that was it. And the occasional run for cigarillos. But that was all. Nothing too audacious. And the walk was longer than anything she'd ever done for... for years, really. Not since her very early childhood, that she could barely remember at this point. The walk was the final rite of graduation - where scholars were given a handful of ceremonial tokens and sent to deliver them to the other courts. Ivory, Slate, Salt and Axe. Chalk, Flint, Horn and Wax. Seven tokens for the seven remaining courts in ALD IOM. Part of an old agreement - the courts were always paranoid of one another, and liked to have an insight into the functions of their rivals. Supposedly an elaboration of something the Court of the Axe had done when they invaded centuries ago - a sign of tribute, a privilege expanded to the other courts as times changed.

A long walk.

Some were close. Some were nearby. Trams made it easier, but... she'd never taken one before, and they alarmed her. It would be safe, obviously, but... but it was still panic-inducing. She'd been keeping it buried in her mind all day. Refused to engage with it. Thought the others would walk straight out and get on with their walk, not dally around touring from pub to pub until they had become thoroughly soused. Panic rose up again. Didn't want to do it alone. And he looked... he looked moderately reasonable. Plus, she could... could use him to find some more people to go with, right? Right. Form a nice group, a good crowd of people that could meander around and do what they were meant to do with all due haste.

And now..

Hm.

She shrugged lightly.

"I'll see. If there's anyone else you think would like to accompany us, that'd be ideal."

"Cracking. I'll ask around."

It was infuriating how casual he was about this. Carza's boots clicked out a steady rhythm - turning to a series of echoing clacks as they switched from floorboards to parquet flooring - each individual piece clicking and clacking like some horrendously out-of-tune musical instrument. Carza knew this hall - she liked it, honestly. Liked the change which demanded a shift in her movements. Gave some character to an otherwise barren hallway. But Hull clumped along without shifting his gait, pinching his brow and seeming, for a moment, like a seriously contemplative scholar. Until he groaned and asked politely for the sun to stop shining. How on earth did someone find the time? When she drank too much her stomach was always upset, and if she had an upset stomach then focus became completely impossible, she was fundamentally unstable and off-balance. And with studying and work and little engagements and little necessities - how did people find the time to live lives of dissolution and debauchery?

Dissolution and debauchery were not time-efficient activities! They consumed much of it, and then consumed time after it for recovery. It was beyond wasteful.

She wasn't spiteful of the fact that this was one of the longest and most involved conversations she'd had in years, shut up.

"...do you like theatrophones?"

She could talk about this. This was safe. This involved no spite.

"Hm? Oh. They're alright. Bit scratchy around the ears, and the subscriptions are expensive."

A flush of superiority.

"I have a subscription."

Hull glanced over, eyes a little less cloudy than before.

"Oh, nice. Worth it?"

"Yes. I like comedies."

"...which ones?"

Hm. Right. Well, she did have a favourite, but it would be wise to play it safe, just in case his own appreciations were... of a passionate nature. She'd heard things about some of the fans of the weepies.

"The... The Ministerial Fellows?"

"...that's bloody ancient, Carza."

A flush of indignation.

"It is not. There's new episodes every week."

"Yeah, but I remember that from years back. Nah, I like that stuff about... you know, it's the one where a cat-house lady ends up posing as a rich man's wife for reasons, and they have hijinks together. It's called 'Blonde and Gold'. It's good."

Carza had to resist a gasp.

"But that one's scandalous. It's... rude."

"...it's really not."

"It really is."

"And the Ministerial Fellows is the peak of comedy, is it?"

"It's funny."

"Carza, are you an old man?"

She had to resist the old urge to snarl at him.

No-taste-having hard-partying heavy-drinking weird-face-having cad.

...she actually wanted to have lunch with him now. His opinions were so wrong that they demanded correction. If she could lure him in with the promise of food, then she could convince him that his opinions were awful and he shouldn't have them. Blonde and Gold... that was ribaldry, pure and simple, and an offence against good taste. And she wasn't an old man, she was a young woman with all of her teeth and all of her hair and a wonderful robe that she kept better than this awful-opinion-having heel.

...somehow, this counted as an improvement to her day.