NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilex" data-source="post: 5869850" data-attributes="member: 82687">27x06“So, how was last night?”  Rose asked.  It was a familiar question.  For most of their lives, Twiggy and Rose had enjoyed the same morning ritual, recapping the doings of the night before in the servants’ quarters and family rooms, respectively, as Twiggy dressed Rose and styled her hair for the day ahead.  Over the years, Twiggy had learned about Hennan politics, and fashion, and public works, and the pressures of society life.  In recent months, their topics had broadened, but even here on the other side of the world, the ritual stood.  Twiggy picked up a silk ribbon to twine into Rose’s silver braid.  “It was . . . good, I think.”  Twiggy rocked her neck back and forth gently.  She felt a freedom of movement she hadn’t recalled before, as if all of her muscles had sorted themselves out overnight.  “To be honest, I don’t remember much of it.  But I think I enjoyed it.”Rose turned her head.  “What do you mean, you don’t remember?”“Hey, stay still,” Twiggy laughed.  “I’m trying to braid.  What I mean is, once we got Tanaka to agree, this woman came up to me and asked me the one thing I wanted most in the world.  I said I wanted a break from thinking.  And then she handed me this pill, and said it would let me experience that.  She said it was safe.  I guess I believed the bit Tanaka said at the beginning, about the party being a time without rules, and . . . I took it.”  “Risky,” Rose replied. “And what was it like?”“I . . . well, good, I suppose.  I can’t be sure what I did.  I can only tell you what Arden told me.  She said she found me curled up, asleep, with my head in the lap of someone who looked exactly like <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/5298630-post274.html" target="_blank">my mother</a>.”  “So, unburdened by higher brain function, you went and found someone who looked like Aunt Mariela?”  Rose laughed.“No,”  Twiggy replied, “apparently it wasn’t just a look-alike.  I gather I found someone willing to become her.  Not that that’s any better.”  Twiggy paused for a long time, and tried to focus on the braid.  “I do feel better, somehow, for having done it.”  Twiggy tied the braid with a thin leather cord.  “How was the—where did you say you went last night? A puppet show?”Rose turned in her seat and her voice took a conspiratorial tone.  “It wasn’t a puppet show.”  She paused for effect.  “Savina just told everyone that so I could have time alone with Taku.”“Wait.  What?”  Twiggy stepped back.  “I have questions.  First:  how long were you planning this?”“A few days,”  Rose said.“So you lied to me? To us?”“I never lied,”  Rose replied, “I just didn’t tell the truth.  But—yes, Savina lied.  But for good reasons,” Rose continued.  “We didn’t want you worrying about us.  And anyway, everything turned out well.”  “I still wish you’d said something ahead of time.”  Twiggy tried to brush off the deception; it hurt more than she wanted to admit.  “But moving on.  By ‘Taku,’ do you mean Uroki Takumi?”   Twiggy remembered meeting a young Sovereign man with that name at one of the Peerage events.  At the time, of course, he had been “Uroki-san.”   “Yes,” Rose blushed slightly.“And by ‘time alone,’ you mean . . . time alone?”“Yes,” Rose grinned.  “And don’t worry.  He knows I’ll have to leave, and he’s Sovereign, so there won’t be any family repercussions.  But we had a lovely night together.  We had dinner, and read poetry, and then we . . . and to be honest, I figured that whatever the Agent of Destruction has planned for me, I wanted to live a little first.”Risky,  Twiggy thought.  “And it was good?”  She asked.“It was good,” Rose replied with a smile.“Then I’m glad.”###Kormick eased his way into a chair in the common room, trying not to jostle his head.  Across the room, Mena, Tavi, and Nyoko looked as hung-over as he felt.  Even the teetotaler murder slave had the grace to look tired.  Only Twiggy looked suspiciously perky.Mena groaned.  "I'm going outside to drill."  She pushed back from the table and stalked toward the courtyard.Savina and Rose walked in together, saw the group, and hurried over. "How did it go?" asked Savina.  Working together, they gave her a disjointed but generally accurate summary of the evening.  "And you?" asked Kormick.  "Did you have a nice night at your puppet show?"Savina and Rose shared a glance.  "We did," said Savina. "Adorable," Kormick said, just as the innkeeper arrived with several mugs of his special hangover remedy.  "Ah, good man, good man."Unsuku flounced into the room and stood over the table proudly.  "I stand ready to Witness your activities today," she declared."I trust you had a rewarding evening?" Nyoko asked."Very," said Unsuku.  "And may I say, your performance was … creditable.""I'm sure much of the credit goes to you."  Kormick was vaguely aware that this was one of those passive-aggressive Adept conversations in which every polite phrase carried some kind of egregious insult, but he couldn't be bothered to figure it all out."If I am not mistaken," he said to the table at large, "we have, at the cost of wonderful, terrible indulgence last night, successfully gone as <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/5430818-post324.html" target="_blank">far around</a> the <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/5188540-post247.html" target="_blank">Circle</a> as we can go. Borders, Military, the Peerage, and Lands are all with us, which means the Adepts will be with us, too. All that remains is to confront the Mother Superior, yes?""Not quite yet, I think,” suggested Twiggy, just as if her mind was clear and relaxed and not throbbing agonizingly in time to her heartbeat.  "We need the whole Synod to agree with us if we’re going to pull this off.  We can be pretty sure that Brother Burnout will go along with us.  We know that the official Alirrian member of the Synod is just a figurehead and won't help, but the true leader of the Alirrians in Cauldron said she might, and she’d contact us when she had news.  Given <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/5734538-post426.html" target="_blank">what happened </a>to Sister Sweet Scent, we have work to do with the Sedellans.  And—probably at the last minute—we should communicate with the Kettenite leader, Brother <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-hour/251423-rose-wind-saga-halmae-updated-february-29-2012-a-26.html#post5601442" target="_blank">Ono Arato</a>.”"There's also the Tide, gentlefolk," added Arden.  "We suspect that someone’s been leaking information to them from within the Inquisition, and we know someone fast-tracked the torture of Sister Sweet Scent just to make trouble.  My Tide contact clearly thinks I'm good for little else than gloating to. We can't rely on my charade to do us much more good. I think it's time to identify exactly who, within the Inquisition, is causing us trouble.""So: religious leaders and the Tide," said Kormick.  "Let's get started. The sooner we begin, the sooner we can go back to bed."</blockquote>

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