2017-09-23: Connections
- Log: Connections
- Cast:Gwen Whitlock, Kestrel Apricity
- Where: November City: Market
- Date: 2017-09-23
- Summary: Gwen mistakes Kestrel for the recipient of one of her letters, and inadvertently becomes a figure of interest in the Chronographer's pursuit of -- whatever it is that she's pursuing.
<Pose Tracker> Kestrel Apricity has posed.
There's nowhere quite like a marketplace for watching the people of Filgaia. Mingling together here in November City are examples of every kind of life the breadth of the continent, a genuine vertical slice of the population. Not only can one find all manner and type of person here, but it's possible to watch interactions between groups so disparate that they wouldn't at any other time or place have cause to engage with one another at all: a very fertile landscape for someone whose whole life has been dedicated to the chronicling of history and the people who drive it.
Nearly a month out from an uncomfortable encounter in the hinterlands of Lacour, Kestrel shows no sign whatsoever of the violence inflicted on her person that day, strange as it was. She no longer has the sword she absconded with, either, but the incident still reigns supreme over her imagination, to the extent that, having discovered a stall selling watercolor pigments, she's found herself a place to sit in the hustle and bustle, brush in hand, and paint. And what she initially set out to paint was what she saw right in front of her -- people passing through -- but as has so often been the case of late, her imagination wanders back to the burning star of those bizarre interactions, and she finds herself rendering one more time scenes from that day. A man in grey, birds and wolves with wings, and a knight in white armor painful to look at, her own face a peach smear in one horn on that helmet...
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Super ordinary courier Gwen Whitlock was another unlikely soul that man with the painfully blue eyes met one quiet evening out east. Fortunately, there were no attacks for Gwen to bear any physical scars from. No blade was drawn. No bullets were shot. Just a warning from a dark-haired preteen boy tending a fire, in the middle of a flock of crows.
'He's going to come for you, you know. If you're not real enough... if you're not a person, he will just eat you up.'
Mental wounds are a totally different thing altogether. And those take longer to heal from.
The physical 'wounds' Gwen does have are from another event entirely, though it's oddly related, in a way. Bearing a bruise that's a nice shade of purple on her chin, Gwen just can't seem to get the handkerchief around her neck to cover it enough without looking like she's about to turn from courier to bandit. It doesn't stop her from trying, though, the redhead pausing every few minutes to readjust the colorful handkerchief. At least the *second* one Cassidy gave her was on the back of her head. That's covered by her hair and by a hat.
Which is what she's doing right now, as she approaches Kestrel, a leather bag slung over one shoulder. "Ah, hey! Gwen Whitlock, super courier here. Been lookin' for someone of your description." She fishes out a list. "Lessee, does your name happen to be..." She squints. "I shoulda crossed some of these off, gimme a moment..."
<Pose Tracker> Kestrel Apricity has posed.
They're taught to expect anything at the Spectorate Conclave. To be ready, to have a mind so open that history can pass into and through it without changing shape.
Her brows still leap upward in surprise when someone tells her they have a package for her. A package. For her. And hardly a soul in the world knows her well enough to send one. "Are you sure?" Her voice is accented Aquvy, and she's naturally soft-spoken, though it's somehow still easy enough to hear her over the ambient noise of Market Street's busy pedestrian traffic.
Some handful of heartbeats passes during which she studies the figure in front of her, silvery eyes trickling like mercury from her crown down to her chin and back again. Eventually, the corners of her mouth turn upward, a coral bow on fair skin. "What's a 'super courier?'"
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen knows those sorts of accents, if in a general sense. Aquvy. Home base of the Etones, as well as a number of weird miscellaneous bits of culture, wild life, and people.
All that ocean salt must just do weird things to anything living there, as far as Gwen is concerned.
"Are you Hester Luinn, by chance?" Gwen asks, a hopeful gleam in her storm grey eyes. "As for your question, well, I'm glad you asked!" Gwen playfully winks, raising a gloved finger. This person's from out of town; it's a great time for Gwen to sell her business. "Anyone can get a package from a to b, but when it comes to Drifters, that's when things get tricky. Not everybody sticks around in one spot, so that's when you hire a *super courier*. What better way t'get your package to a Drifter than by someone who is also a Drifter? This is my number one job, too."
Aside from a few others.
She pauses. "Just gotta... wait a bit if those people are hard to find. But who else y'gonna hire if not a person who's already real good at it, right?"
That right hand goes to adjust her handkerchief in the middle of her pitch. The glove on it is bound securely around the wrist with fabric and haphazardly sewn together along the hems, owing to the fact that it, compared to the worn but well-kept matching leather glove on Gwen's left hand, is singed and tattered. Like it exploded off her hand at some point, in fact.
Which it did.
<Pose Tracker> Kestrel Apricity has posed.
That bubbly, ready pitch meets with more delight and interest than it the average, one has to assume. Kestrel's eyes dance with some kind of quiet light while she watches Gwen's animated delivery, and the minute but genuine smile widens just a little. Flashes open entirely at the end, a pearl gleam, even as the slim figure with the copper-gold hair flicks a glance at the repaired glove. Noticing. Noticing everything.
"Oh, I'm sure you're very good at it," she agrees, with a warmth of delivery. It turns playful in the next beat: "Except for the bit where I'm not Hester Luinn." Some sly humor, sure. Some apology, too. "But that's alright. Your job sounds fascinating. My name is Kestrel, and I'm--" She pauses partway through looking for somewhere to set down her still saturated brush, and ultimately winds up offering her left hand, which is presumably not her dominant hand, for lack of anywhere to put the brush down without getting dirt in the bristles. "--I'm a chronographer for the Spectorate. We're historians, of a kind. A very unusual kind. Are you in a hurry to be somewhere? Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?"
One slender brow rises, and she gestures at the half-painted pages of the volume in her lap with the brush-holding hand. "I could paint your portrait."
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"Ah, a historian?" At Kestrel's reveal, some of that enthusiasm seen in Gwen seems to slowly deflate. "Bahh. Been graspin' at straws here; there's been a rash of letters for this lady and I'm gettin' nowhere tryin' to find her. From what I've been able to gather, she's some singer than's just wandered in from the southeast. Got caught on this side of Ignas like the rest of us due to the war, but boy, it seems to've really made her career! Got loads of packages from her. If someone's not willin' to use the Memory Cube to get their message across, y'know they mean business! Probably the real pretty sort, too, or the type that oozes charisma. Which is its own sorta pretty, y'know?"
Sometimes, by letting loose with a bit of public information, the courier has found leads on where to go. If nothing else, it's purely indulgent fun.
The sort of fun that allows a person to keep their mind off of more grim notions and news.
"M-my portrait?" The expression on Gwen's face dances between intrigue, vanity, and genuine surprise. "Gh... my face is still healin', though." There's that distinct lull between sentences, evidence of a mind looking for an easy explanation, or, well, lie. "Knocked my chin against a door." Regardless of that, her pale freckled cheeks color at the thought. "I suppose I could answer a few questions at least, bruise or not."
<Pose Tracker> Kestrel Apricity has posed.
"I'm afraid I haven't heard of her, but I've been traveling. If I do hear something, I'll be sure to send her your way." There's very little that Kestrel /doesn't/ seem interested in. She gives the appearance of hanging on every word, whatever those words might be...but she gives off the sense that she's paying as much attention to the person saying the words and how they're being said as she is the words themselves. "I don't have to paint you if you don't want to be painted. Though no one is likely to ever see it. No one save the clerks in Aquvy, when I send this volume back to them for safekeeping." Kestrel has an easy way about her, the kind of tractable willingness to follow the flow of events that makes her a low-pressure companion. She doesn't sound at all disappointed over Gwen's reluctance -- if anything, there's a deeper undercurrent of satisfaction, and it turns entirely on the prospect of being able to ask the redhead a few questions.
She gestures to one side, at the handful of empty chairs on the deep porch she's sitting on, more or less out of the way. They're all wooden and all of them are rickety, but it's cooler in the shade, and Kestrel, at least, looks like she might fry if she spent too much time under the full force of the sun. "Make yourself comfortable, Gwen, and why don't we start somewhere simple? Where are you from, originally? How did you find your way to where you are now?" Coppery lashes flicker upward off of her cheeks as she finishes painting the date in calligraphic aquamarine paint, small and perfect numbers and letters. The cast of her gaze is bright and not without a spark of humor. "How are super-couriers made?"
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"Oh, I'm bound to come across her sooner or later." Gwen chuckles. "It's just a matter of time."
The woman Gwen took for a 'Hester Luinn' is rather interesting herself, in a way. Peculiar, even; most people would be content to dismiss the courier and be on their way, promptly forgetting the young woman. At best, they'd think her a colorful, cheery businesswoman. And that, in itself, is something intentional for Gwen.
But the courier never minded a little bit of attention from someone who *seemed* harmless, especially those who are scholars. "I suppose it ain't like it's some sort of pretty picture, then." Gwen considers, then laughs. "Aw heck, why not. You've probably drawn an assorted lot of people from all over. Me and my imperfections ain't gonna stand out that much."
Moving to the porch, Gwen takes a seat at one of the offered empty chairs, all too happy to get out of brutal rays the hot afternoon sun. "Whew!" Her brimmed hat is knocked off her head with a flip of a thumb, resting against her back as she adjusts the ties around her neck. A hand then goes to scratch through the top of her pale red hair with a small sigh of relief from Gwen. "Sure, we can do that."
Oh. right. 'Where is she from'. "Oh, just from a small town down in the southern part of the Badlands," Gwen says. "Don't care to name it. There's a lot of little towns that way that tend to come and go with weird names. Hate t'seem like I'm from someplace I'm ain't from. Got adopted around the time I was eleven or so. Not too long after that, my auntie and I moved to Boot Hill. Nice little place. She's a scholar too, so you might've heard of her! Goes by Frea, mostly, though she kinda took up my last name onna account of people just assumin' it always was her last name." Those parts, at least, are the truth.
Frea Whitlock, a woman of an age that makes someone seem immortal, if only because no one could quite place how old she actually is. Yet, for some time, she was there. A scholar. A Digger. A woman whose anti-social habits, intellect, and devotion to science made her a bane to some that she's come into contact with.
"Well, ah, how are super couriers made?" Gwen chuckles uneasily. "It really came about as some clerk decidin' that I couldn't just say 'i'm a courier' all the time. It was a damn fine idea, really, as it does make people pay attention!" She itches her chin out of habit, wincing as the finger strays close to her bruise. "-Ah. Well, What about you? What's this society you're a part of?"
<Pose Tracker> Kestrel Apricity has posed.
Kestrel's laugh is too quiet to be heard, but it's evident in the shake of her shoulders and the way her lashes narrow over her pale eyes. "I've drawn some, when I feel like drawing." After that she quiets, and splits her attention between the volume she's brushing words into and the woman whose words they are, favoring the latter over the former. She doesn't speak up again until mention of Frea, and the possibility that Kestrel might be familiar with the name.
"Sadly not. I understand from conversations with other academics I've met since leaving Aquvy that our education at the Spectorate is somewhat unique in scope."
Silence again after that. Listening to the second part of what she asked, though she doesn't pen any of it down into the book. "The Spectorate are...archivists. We believe it's important to document the decline of Filgaia. History is useful only if we remember it, and often the smallest details are symptoms of greater ills and fortunes. The way of things doesn't always turn on the actions of an elite few; everyone has a part to play. The Conclave casts its agents wide, and we're tasked with preserving things of value. People, places, happenings." The corners of her mouth turn up, but it's a formal sort of smile. "Not work for most, but I believe in what we do."
She lets herself settle back against the back of her seat, and regards her impromptu companion for some moments. "A very canny pitch, yes. But I meant, I think -- why you? Why a courier, why that? A drifter makes a fine courier, as you say, but drifters make many fine things. Not all of them choose to ferry things from one person to another, and you did. Why?"
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"Y'do? Pretty neat skill, if y'ask me. I don't got an eye for that stuff. Can't make somethin' that's real fit on a page with a pencil and make it look convincin'." Hearing that Kestrel hadn't heard of her aunt, Gwen waves a hand, relaxing back into her chair, the motion making it creak. "Nah, nah, it's fine! Honestly, I never quite know, so I'm always askin' other scholarly types to see if they've ever met her before."
The topic casts a subtle melancholy sheen to the courier's merry expression, shown in the ways her eyelids crease just so, her smile flattening by a minute measure.
The talkative courier goes quiet as Kestrel explains the Spectorate, nodding along with increasing levels of rapt interest. It's not until Kestrel finishes that Gwen opts to speak again, her head tilting to a slight, thoughtful angle. "It makes sense, though. You can count an anthill as a whole, but it's the grains of sand that make it as tall as it gets. The taller, the more stories." She spectulates on this, shifting in her chair with her mouth slanted in an unsure line. "Though I guess that analogy doesn't really work unless there's really tall anthills? I read someplace there was. Maybe at one time, or another. But y'get what I'm sayin'?"
The question brings the topic back to Gwen herself. She smiles warmly. "I wanted to see the world. And make money, but do it in a way that I'd get to see all those things and meet people. And not do it in a way where I'd be gettin' too famous for my own good or anythin'- not that there was ever a danger of that happenin'. I was sick for a part of my childhood, so my view of the world was kinda limited to what I heard in stories n' all that. Plus, well, it seemed to be a way of helpin' people. Some towns in the Badlands barely get anybody goin' to and from them. If I can manage it, that's a level of communication that they may not otherwise get, unless someone else is brave enough. And well, maybe somebody will be, since I was able to do it. Not that it's easy work, but y'get what I mean. The Memory Cubes are fine n' good, but they can't transfer a person's essence and feeling like a hand-written letter or a package of fine sweets."
<Pose Tracker> Kestrel Apricity has posed.
On anthills: a spark of amusement alights in pale eyes as Kestrel watches Gwen hesitate, suddenly uncertain as to the existence of tall ones. It lingers in the shape of the upward tilt to one corner of her mouth as she drops her eyes again, flicking words into existence across the page. "Yes. I understand what you mean."
Underneath the thoughtful cadence of Gwen's answer to Kestrel's pointed questions, the sounds of November City's market unfold all around them. People call for this and that item; children squall when they're forbidden something they see and want to claim; everywhere the evidence of that most basic of equations: supply and demand. Fitting, given the nature of Gwen's occupation, always originating with supply, following to demand. The brush whispers over the page, a less wieldy instrument for writing than the fountain pen she favors, but she's deft with it all the same. When she's punctuated the final sentence, she places the tip of the brush handle between her lips, clasped lightly in her teeth, pensive for some moments.
And then she looks up, and her head tilts. "How do you think that happened? That being sick compelled you to seek horizons? Do you think you were lonely in your illness, or do you seek others for another reason?" A pause, brief. "And what is it about a tangible delivery that you think captures a person's essence?" Pause. Her brows rise, and her eyes glitter, wholly interested: "What do you think a person's essence is?"
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"O-oh, good! Haha. Thought I was bein' a bit too silly there." Drawing a small handkerchief out of her vest, she dots at the sweat around her face and the underside of her chin, taking care to not dislodge the cloth wrapped around her neck despite the warm weather. "Glad yer on the same wavelength as me. Is that how the sayin' goes? Anyway."
Waiting for Kestrel to resume her questions after writing her notes down, Gwen glances towards the crowds beyond them, her eyes flicking from face to face with the casual countenance of someone used to watching people flow around her, like a rock in a stream bed. At Kestrel's next few questions, she looks back, blue-grey eyes gazing back at Kestrel's own. "... Oh, no, if anythin', being sick compelled me to stay in one spot. I, er, well, I guess I wasn't specific." Gwen reaches a hand to rub through the hair along the nape of her neck, her eyes flicking downwards. "I had a heart condition. There was... other stuff too, that limited me movin' around a lot as a kid. But when I was fine, that's when the world opened up to me. I guess I just never could see beyond what I could get to, before then." The world of Little Twister did a lot to hurt that yearning, for all she loved the stories of Drifters like Nightburn Acklund, among many others.
Was she lonely? The question brings a small, nostalgic smile to Gwen's lips. "Naw. Not really. There was a gang of kids I'd run around with when I was little. When I got adopted, I guess I was kinda lonely, since I moved out of town, but other things kinda cropped up." Other things, like an actual education beyond the meager offerings of the orphanage. There was also the matter of her condition worsening. And then-
No. She *was* lonely, after the surgey that gave her her ARM, wasn't she? Lonely enough to go beyond the set boundaries of her job, and make friends, even if it came with risks, like the wrong people finding out about her abilities. "Hm. What is a person's essence?" She shifts back in her chair, folding one leg over the other. "I suppose a large part of it is their connections to others, n' how they relate to the world. Though, I guess if someone's a hermit, they'd still have an essence, right? Maybe... their experiences, then? All the things that make them up into the person they are. No man's an island, even a hermit, I suppose. I suppose bonds could also mean ones to animals, or to the land. Not always other people. Er." Noticing the excited gleam in Kestrel's eyes, Gwen adds, "What do you think it is, if y'don't mind me askin'? I guess this is breakin' the format, but you look like you might have a few interestin' thoughts of yer own."
<Pose Tracker> Kestrel Apricity has posed.
The look on Kestrel's face wobbles once, as though she's trying to contain a laugh. Eventually that effort seems to fail, and she does laugh. "No...I didn't mean-- ah. I meant, having been forced to stay in one place by illness, and limited in what you could see or know, when you recovered, I thought perhaps the memory of the arrangement was part of what drove you to do what you couldn't do before. And if whether, that being true, it was loneliness from isolation or some other thing that made far places and new faces pull you toward them." She lifts her brush holding hand and gestures, waving it off. "It's enough to be excited just to travel, of course. The world is an interesting place."
Between penning things down that Gwen says, Kestrel works in shadows and light at the upper corner of the page, rendering the redhead with efficient lines and soft contours. The need to change the colors of paint she's using doesn't slow her ability to record what's said in the least; she simply adds the next sentence or handful of the same in whatever color she's using in the portrait, with the net result that the text on the page becomes a quilt of many colors.
"There's no format." Pause. "Mmm...actually, I suppose that's not strictly true. I do need to learn things, and put them down in the book. But how we arrive at those things is entirely malleable. These things are always a little bit give and take, though. It's only natural for people to want something back in exchange for sharing their thoughts. It helps people feel at ease if you're willing to offer something, too. That makes it a conversation rather than an interrogation."
Still, it's some moments before she does finally answer, taking the time to finish what she's doing with the brush so that she can set the brush down and look her guest in the eye.
"A difficult question, isn't it? If I had to distill my life's work down to one thing, it would be answering that question. If we could understand the essence of sentience, wouldn't so many other things become clear? But as I travel, and I learn -- and I learn through that learning just how little I know -- I find that I must first cut my teeth on knowing one soul at a time. One person, and then another, and so on." She sits back against the back of her chair, and the breeze toys with the loose tendrils of her hair, dragging strands of copper and gold across her brow. "But if you were to ask me to venture my opinion, knowing as I do and openly admitting that it's flawed and incomplete, I would say..." Silence for some heartbeats, and a slow, delicate smile. "I think a person's essence lies in the seam between their deepest need and their darkest fear." Pause. "And I was wondering," she continues conversationally, once more dipping her brush into paint, "When you said a person's essence travels with you, a courier, in the things they send from place to place, how that might work. What you might see in it that other people may not see. Memory cubes carry words, but not things. And so, is a person's essence inextricably bound up with the physical reality of it all? Is evidence that we exist, something that can be touched and held, part of this deeper identity?"
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"Oh!" Gwen chuckles. "I gotcha. Sorry. I guess it's a lotta those things, really, now that I think 'bout it." A lot of things that require more details than Gwen cares to necessarily give out, right now. How it wasn't just simply a recovery; there were many things Gwen could do now that she doubted she could do had she never had a condition at all, much less dealt with the slow healing process that happens with major burns. "Maybe it was the memory."
Nodding along with Kestrel's explanation, Gwen says, "Alright. That makes sense. Y'just seem interesting yerself, with this organization yer a part of n' all that. Seems the world's still full of neat little surprises like that.
And indeed, it is a difficult question. Gwen supposes Kestrel may have refused, if only to avoid influencing the very person she's interviewing. But maybe that's more a scientific stance on observation, rather that the stance she's taking right now?
And Kestrel's answer thoroughly surprises the courier, making her instantly glad she gave her own answer first instead of turning the question around. "Like weaving a blanket," she supposes aloud. "Taking each soul you interview and weaving them into a larger picture of things. That's a pretty good way of goin' about things, I say." But the further Kestrel delves into her own view, Gwen's own posture gains a subtle, minute stiffness, barely noticeable in how she's already holding herself on the chair. An incomplete conclusion, perhaps, but one Gwen never thought she'd hear from a casual encounter. "Between need... and fear?" The redhead muses over it, something vague and tense skipping through her eyes as she looks down to the tabletop.
If Gwen was a braver, less benevolent person, she'd ask Kestrel if she had ever met the boy with the crows, a being she doesn't have a name for, just yet, but if she did, it'd possibly be Isiris. "That's a... pretty dark place, but not an entirely wrong one, when I think about it. I've..." She stops, her lips puckering as if tasting something bitter. "Let's just say I'm met someone who'd probably have lots t'say about that, but they ain't the sorts people should meet, even scholarly types like yourself. I got away there because they let me. Someone interestin' like yourself'd be less likely to."
Nevermind Kestrel has met that person, and not only that, they managed to *survive* that person at their worst. Gwen was merely too unripe to be of interest, just yet.
Gwen seems just a bit too willing to keep moving. "Yeah. Intentions, too. Memories. What the packages symbolize in a person's mind. I mean, the monetary value of a ragdoll may not be all that much compared to some fine doll made of porcelain from the east, but to the person gettin' the former..." Gwen tilts her head, tapping a gloved finger idly on the table. "Though I guess that's a more romantic way of lookin' at it. I don't always get to see inside my packages. Many times, I don't, and bein' professional means I shouldn't even if I have a chance to. Privacy's a thing people want. But the times I do get to see the outcomes, they say enough. The world's too big for us to show our intentions to one another, and a message read by a Cube can't be enough to convey everything. Packages are a step up from that. Without that communication, we don't get the full picture. That, n', well, it's kinda fun to be goin' to all these small places off the beaten path, n' to have a reason for doin' so. There's a surprisin' amount of villages that don't take well to an outsider comin' in unless they got a reason to be there, y'know?"
<Pose Tracker> Kestrel Apricity has posed.
A dark place, Gwen calls it, and Kestrel doesn't debate the point. "Those two things rule over us at a level deeper than all others, I think. We grow to be defined by how they shape us. There are a surprising number of people out there who wonder about these things," she agrees, in a tone that cannot possibly encompass the encounters of which she's thinking. "But you're wrong if you don't think you're interesting, Gwen Whitlock. You may hope other people think so..." Silvery eyes dip down to the scarf, so incongruous in its circling of the woman's throat in the heat of a Filgaian summer, and the glove with its strange damage, inexplicable by most logic, "But that's the way of the world. All people are interesting, but most are interesting in ways they hope nobody realizes, and they try to be interesting in ways that they aren't." Conveniently, a wealthy couple strolls past, decked to the nines, and Kestrel gestures that way vaguely, as though they could be stand-ins for the superficial things human beings prioritize.
But whatever she's noticed about the woman's unusual, inexplicable qualities, she doesn't ask. It's part of the contract, perhaps; part of that give and take she was talking about earlier. Quiet, and with soft eyes, she listens to Gwen muse on the nature of human connection, the curve of her mouth sweet. "Always, we are trying to know one another. Between each of us there is a gulf of distance we cannot cross in any way, all that we think we know of others taken from what reaches us across that gulf. The unknowable spaces that arise in all relationships -- spaces we must conquer. But it's difficult, isn't it? Misunderstandings happen so easily in spite of our best efforts. I think the work of a courier like yourself may be in part bound up with that. With...connection."
She finishes printing letters onto the page, then leans to dip her hand into the leather rucksack propped against her chair, withdrawing a clean sheet of vellum. Setting the paintbrush down, she scares up her fountain pen from the same bag, and begins to scrawl words onto the sheet instead, in a vastly different style of script. "I'd like you to deliver a letter for me, actually. If you wouldn't mind. This conversation's reminded me of outstanding business I have, and you've been so good to share your time with me -- I'd be remiss not to employ your services at least once."
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
There have been times before that Gwen would feign surprise at being not very interesting compared to other Drifters. It was a part of the act, and a good way to fish for possible reactions from strangers. Usually their responses would range from assurances that she was very interesting, or confirmations that Gwen was, as a courier, led a boring, normal life, with the addition of how much of a blessing that really is in this day and age.
Kestrel's response presses right on past that to a place Gwen isn't as comfortable hearing. 'You may hope other people think so..' Bull's eye. The parts about how everyone in interesting (a concept Gwen would very much agree with), and how most are interesting in the very ways they hope no one picks up on. ... And how they try to be interesting in other ways, but fail, like a flash of a brilliantly colored bird's wings attempting to lead a predator away from a nest.
But isn't that the way of the world?
"... Yes." Connections. Couriers. They really are bound, aren't they? To witness life, but at a distance, and to be bound by the same forces weaving connections from one soul to another, but set apart. "Maybe I'm not that different from you," Gwen admits, with a nervous laugh. "Snooping into people's lives just enough to see their stories. It really wasn't until this year that I started gettin' more involved. Not sure it was the safest direction, but it certainly was the best. I guess you have yer own ways that you're bound up in connection."
A letter. Gwen blinks, surprised, then smiles. "Alright. Where to? I charge a fee, of course, but we can discuss that stuff once you tell me more." Is this, too, a part of the interview? Maybe. It's a perfect demonstration. "... Also, uh, could I, er, see that drawing you did? I guess I'm a little vain."
<Pose Tracker> Kestrel Apricity has posed.
Not sure it was the safest direction.
Kestrel laughs, a bright sound, and warm. Her eyes dance with light. "No. Intimacy with other people is never safe. But nothing worthwhile ever is, Miss Whitlock." This remark plays into the statement about Kestrel's own bindings to connection; self-explanatory, really, and she lets it stand on its own.
"I don't know where, but you are a super courier, yes? So I expect you'll find them eventually. The last place I saw them was in the Hinterlands of Lacour, but it has been some time since that singular encounter. I'll show you what they look like in a moment."
She takes her time finishing the letter, then folds it, tucks it into an envelope, and proceeds to seal it with a wax seal -- all of the materials for which she keeps in her bag, as one might expect of a scribe. Once the wax has cooled enough, she hands the envelope across, caps her pen and places it in her bag, and uses both hands to lift her book and turn it to face Gwen, to show her the painting.
It's suggestive rather than realistic: a portrait of a woman done in highlights and shadow, in colors like to those of Gwen's skin, hair and eyes, but abstract enough that no one who saw it and did not know Gwen would ever be able to connect the two.
She's rendered the freckles with a flick of the brush, tiny dark droplets spattered not only across the portrait's face, but off into the white page beside it, as though the breeze were carrying some of them away.
And, having shown her the painting -- "I hope this meets with your satisfaction!" -- she turns the page back one, to the image she had been working on earlier, amongst which is included the depiction of a figure in white, shining armor, the helm equipped with two horns. "This is the individual to whom I would like you to bring the letter."
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"Yeah." Gwen's smile grows warm at the confession of it, despite her weak bid to hide it behind a neutral mask. "I'd like to think I'm better for it, though I suppose there'd be people who'd disagree with that."
So many dangers, but in the end, it was all worth it. The joy, the pain, the way those bonds draw her to the center of the very dangers she tried to stay out of, and also, to the tender moments of closeness to people. The affirmations of kindness, and how it's been received back tenfold.
"Ah, so no location? A Drifter. My specialty." Gwen's well buttered up for the catch by this point, her head full of warmth, bravado, and confidence as she glances at the portrait.
"I never thought I could look so mysterious." The courier's cheeks color, pleased with the result of Kestrel's artistry. "Well, maybe not mysterious, but, it's real beautiful how you did the colorin', if that makes sense? It's really impressive." As the page flips from her portrait to another, far more serious looking visage, Gwen frowns.
Where has she seen this person before? "This is..." It's someone she's seen before, enough that something in the back of her mind stirs at the sight, but the exact details of whatever those memories are blurry. Could be someone dangerous, either way. A Metal Demon, perhaps.
She squints. "... Hm. Any other details you can tell me? They look kinda scary, but, I suppose I've delivered to a lotta people who fit that description. If y'don't have anythin' else, I know a few people I can ask. And if I find out this might be more than I can chew, I'll hand the letter back over to you, unopened. Will that work?" And if it does turn out to be someone Gwen cannot safely deliver to, it'd just be a matter of returning the letter. Kestrel would be disappointed, perhaps, but it'd be a risk she'd have to take on.
As Gwen internally debates, it may be clear that her ignorance of the man's identity is showing, perhaps, in that she doesn't simply refuse on the spot. That, or she's foolhardy enough to approach it as a normal job.
<Pose Tracker> Kestrel Apricity has posed.
"The only thing I have is a name -- and it may not be their name." Kestrel reaches out long enough to turn the envelope over, exposing the non-seal side: 'K.K.' are the letters penned there, in flowing script. "This is all I have. I'm sorry I can't give you more. For whatever it's worth, this person eased my pain when I was injured. I have no doubt that they're dangerous, but I think not without provocation. But, yes. If it turns out even a super-courier is not enough to track them down...I won't hold it against you. You can always bring the letter back."
Plucking up her set-aside brush, Kestrel reaches over to wash the bristles in a small cup of water on the table beside her chair, and wipes it dry on a pad beside that, beginning to collect the paints and sort her things. "I'm glad you like the portrait. I would give it to you, but...I think it's nice to have a face to put beside the words, don't you? A little something more. Proof that you wandered this continent for a time, and had things to say."
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"If it's one they'll answer to, it should be enough," Gwen says, examining the smoothly written script. "Augh, yer remindin' me that cursive was one thing I could never get the hang of. Even simple names like this look real official when you do em' up all pretty like this."
Gwen picks up the letter between the thumb and index fingers of her right hand, hesitating as Kestrel explains. Gwen's expression softens. "... Well. I suppose that seals it, then! A thoughtful letter to a thoughtful person. You just may've stumbled across the right courier for this job. I'm a pretty harmless person!"
It's ignorance. Pure, blissful ignorance. But maybe, that's what's needed. At least, that would be something Gwen would say, if she fully knew who K.K. is. Or was. "I'll give it a shot. Even if this person is dangerous, an act of kindness should be something recongized."
And there. That's where Kestrel got Gwen. K.K. may be the most dangerous of clients Gwen has ever been asked to deliver for (and not refused outright), but with this framing, it feels.... right.
Time will tell if Gwen will remain in this frame of mind for very long.
When Kestrel mentions her portrait, Gwen waves her left hand, placing the envelope securely inside her vest. "It's alright. It's enough that I saw it. The memory of it is enough for me. Besides, I'd hate to be in charge of it n' lose it." Will she gaze on it again, someday? The way Kestrel puts it makes her feel small, if only in the way it acknowledges the fact that memory, like so many things, can fade away.
Like a lot of things, Gwen shoves the notions aside, focusing instead on a more positive topic. "Here's t'hopin' you get a lot more people to put there, so I don't get lonely, then."
<Pose Tracker> Kestrel Apricity has posed.
Kestrel doesn't know who, or what, K.K. is, either -- but neither has she lied. The truth of what she says informs her expression, ever-interested, almost always open. Warm. Warm with a warmth that is real, and not feigned.
"There are so many people, Miss Whitlock, that I'll never meet even a fraction of the number I'd like. Elves are long-lived, but variably so. Even if I lived forever, and I'm not sure that I would want to, but...even if I did..." She rolls her shoulders, smiles with her eyes. "I'd still never meet all of the interesting people there are to meet. You'll be in very good company here, I think." She pats the book's cover lovingly as she folds it closed.
"Oh, and--! Let me do this now, because it may be some time before you're able to find me again." She leans, dipping her hand into her bag, and retrieves a pouch. Graceful fingers slip into it and retrieve gella to an amount slightly over what most would pay, though not so much so that it's outlandish. She hands these across in a cupped palm. "I'll pay the other half when the note's been delivered, and if you bring it back to me for lack of being able to find them, we'll consider this payment for you going to the trouble."
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Every warning sign that comes up is met with an equally powerful sign of why Gwen should attempt to see through this job. Kestrel's reasons seem good enough, and the feeling behind her words, at least at first glance, seem real enough for Gwen.
Maybe they're both fools, but Gwen will ensure that at least Kestrel's gratitude doesn't go unheard. It's an important thread of communication in the fabric being woven here, and Gwen intends to make it happen.
At least until she's convinced otherwise. But maybe she'll find K.K. before then, or before she can give Kestrel the letter back?
"Yeah, there are." Pale red eyelashes cover Gwen's eyes halfway as she looks down at the gella offered. "But that's what makes the world so colorful, right? All these threads, making a colorful tapestry. Even if you don't get to alla them, you'll be able to look back at it all and appreciate it for the wonder that it is, y'know?" She palms the gella, hefting it in her palm a few times before placing it into a secured pocket in her vest. "Good enough for me." With a playful wink, she adds, "If I knew I'd get great clients this way, I'd make more mistakes. See ya around, hopefully minus one letter."
<Pose Tracker> Kestrel Apricity has posed.
Carefully, Kestrel slides the leather-bound tome with its fresh paintings into the rucksack beside her chair. The case containing the paints is flipped closed and added to the mix. Soiled water, a muddy brown from comingled colors, splashes into the dirt as she empties the cup, and then cup and brush go into the pack, as well, all while Gwen muses her way through their parting sentiments. By the time the courier is ready to go, Kestrel is as well, and she hefts the bag with greater strength than her willowy frame suggests it contains, shrugging it on one shoulder at a time.
"Mistakes lead to awfully interesting places. It's a shame that people are so frightened of them. Take care of yourself on the trail, Miss Whitlock, and I'm sure I'll see you on the other end of an adventure or two." Whether the adventure will be hers or Gwen's she fails to specify. Both, perhaps.
The crowd is eager to swallow her up, and once the two part ways, no glimpse of her can be had in all of that milling, vibrant humanity.