2023-05-10: Introductions and Insinuations
- Log: Introductions and Insinuations
- Cast: Ruth Pauling, Ida Everstead-Rey, Hannah Curie
- Where: Meria City - Central Commercial District
- Date: May 10, 2023
- Summary: While keeping an eye out for remnants of Odessa, Ruth spies a young Crest Sorceress with something unsettling to her magic. She seeks out the mage later and brings Ida along for moral support. Hannah, the mage in question, is none too happy to have her personal business pried into.
=================<* Meria City - Central Commercial District *>================= Maybe the heart of Meria City, the commercial district around the main castle is vibrant and lively indeed. Surrounded by a high fortress wall, perhaps a relic of a more warlike history, it contains inns, fine shops of various goods, cafes and restaurants, and includes even a Crest Sorcerer's laboratory and an official ARMs meister to the castle--both of whom work for passing civilians too, time permitting. While there are many popular destinations here, perhaps the most beloved feature of the Castle Town is not the ancient fountain at its center but the Irington bakery near the fortress walls, noted for fine staples but also delicious baked sweets. The long-standing family ownership of many of these shops and relatively low population relative to the rest of the city makes this section of the city almost a small-town feel in such an urban center, though this can mean a few troubles persist when some might imagine the nobility should have fixed them by now... like a certain notable hole in a particular inn's roof that never seems to stay fixed as local kids and some adults run about the tops of buildings here. BGM: Wild Arms 2 - A Town Where the West Wind Blows
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
SOME TIME AGO
Ruth Pauling, agent of ARMS in the present day though of a... storied, checkered history in different contexts, spends no small amount of time finding places out and about to herself to keep watch of the area around Meria. The final days of Odessa's organization were as difficult to respond to as their better-organized ones, what with cells throwing things into disarray almost entirely by the whim of whoever was left willing to carry on with Vinsfeld's war against the world. Even with things as they are now, and more imminent matters looming... sometimes, this turns out to be a good idea.
The (former) elf, on one particular day, caught sight of something from her lofty perch upon an overgrown tree overlooking the dilapidated ruins of a former church - a most curious display of potency she hasn't really seen in recent memory.
It's a sight she shares with the others of ARMS.
CURRENTLY
The vibrant community of Meria City is carrying on with cautious optimism following the fall of Heimdall Gazzo, though the fate of a hometown hero and other noteworthy companions are uncertain and worrisome for the public at large that care to pay attention to such things (or even know, for that matter - those that frequent a certain bakery have definitely felt the absence keenly).
It's a clear, temperate mid-day... day, bereft of the dramatic gravity one assigns noteworthy weather. Children are playing across the street... and along the roof of a specific inn... and Drifter business is booming a bit with all the small uncertainties of Heimdall Gazzo's destruction. Just some odds and ends. Some missing cargo here, looking for signs of missing people there, someone fix the damned roof mentioned earlier, etc, etc.
A branch of the Adventurer's Guild has its doors open to those of good standing to take up this kind of work and more! There's a few strange, rough, out-of-town sorts that always receive suspicion and concern just for being there, but that's normal business.
One of them isn't inside the Adventurer's Guild proper, but very close by at a nearby cafe. This particular instance of 'one of them' is Ruth, dressed in a heavy overcoat and a hooded shawl pulled over her head. A large, heavy sniper rifle is tied at her back, and the mid-day sun glints off of the Granasian rosary wrapped around her right forearm. She's been quietly sitting there for a while.
'A while' is defined as 'three different shifts of waiters tried to ask her to leave before giving up' and 'also there's now pigeons crowding around her.'
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
This has been a harrowing time for all of ARMS. Ida has made it her mission to care for herself, and this includes challenging the urge to hole up by herself. Today, she did some shopping in Meria, including a run to the butcher's and greengrocer's to help the kitchen staff at her uncle's family home. Having delivered those packages, she's ready to get a light lunch for herself.
Today, Ida has a friend with her.
To wit:
A very large, very sturdy bird makes his way down the street, talons clicking on the cobbles. Chocobos aren't... entirely unknown in Meria, if only because this one has been seen out and about with his human semi-regularly. Sterling is a draft animal, standing more than seven feet high, with pale golden feathers. He is carrying exactly one person at the moment. Ida Everstead-Rey is... well-known in Drifter and academic circles, and a little recognizable by virtue of being part of a famous family. She's been in the papers, usually in context of ARMS activities, and--scandalously--her advocacy for "Metal Demons" and workers.
Currently, her highest priority is getting a sandwich an salad. She dismounts outside the door, and is about to hitch Sterling to a nearby lamppost when she notices Ruth. "...Ruth," Ida says, trying to hide a startled blink. (That woman can be positively statue-like when she wants to be, which is fitting.) "I didn't see you there. Have you been...?" 'Well' is probably too much to ask.
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
SOME TIME AGO
A red-tailed hawk soars past Ruth's perch far overhead, wholly unnoteworthy as it makes several large sweeping circles over the area.
Unnoteworthy... except, perhaps, for the fact that those circles seem to be loosely centered on a lone individual traveling by herself.
The figure is a girl, wrapped in a black cloak and heading somewhere with great intention, and proceeding with as much due haste as she can without literally running. She's scanning her environs in front of her, but seemingly not watching her back, despite being in a great haste... until suddenly she turns. (The turn might have been timed with the screech of the hawk but that's probably just a coincidence.) From under her cloak she pulls out a rifle (regular, not sniper), and draws a bead on the crest of the hill she just cleared. An Odessa soldier appears...
And immediately falls in time with the report of the rifle.
But his compatriots swarm after him, and the girl puts her rifle away, drawing something from her belt instead. A moment to activate a spell, the crest graph glowing a bright blue-white, and a hand to touch the ground, and ice begins to spread from her on the ground in a cone. It is aggressive, spiky and prickly and sharp, trapping a large contingent of the soldiers charging directly over the hill with ice that seems to immediately run up to their chests, trapping their arms but, thankfully, not their heads.
But there's several more swarming around them. The girl stands her ground, drawing another crest graph. This one grows bright yellow, and with a horizontal swipe she seems to stir the winds themselves into motion with the gesture. A brief but intense cyclone forms around her, with her perfectly in the center, and a high-pitched, eerie wailing that can, perhaps, be heard from a certain tree perch. Sharp, downright hostile winds tear up the dirt and ice around her, catching the reaining soldiers charging her (and a few of the ones trapped in ice) and knocking them around without mercy. The storm is brief but intense, but despite that the girl's cape barely moves.
They die down and she observes the results. Nobody's dead, but... neither are they in a condition to follow her. She turns and starts making her way to her destination again, quickly leaving the ambush behind her.
CURRENTLY
Thankfully, today is a far less stressful affair. Her previous job completed, it's time to find her next paycheck, which brings her into Meria. It seems to be a nice, pleasant day all around, though you wouldn't know it from looking at Hannah herself. She is wrapped, as ever, in her cloak, sticking to herself as she walks down the streets. She's watching her surroundings and the people around her, but not really making an effort to make eye contact with anyone. She's just trying to get through the crowds.
Completely coincidentally, a red-tailed hawk is perched on her shoulder, lightly preening at his feathers.
Hannah does stop, though, when she spots that Chocobo. It might be a usual sight around here for some, but she's hardly a regular face around here, and she takes a moment to stop and appreciate it. This, naturally, means she's looking right in Ida and Ruth's direction, and if her black cloak weren't distinctive enough, her bright pink hair certainly is. There is the faintest of smiles tugging at her lip as she admires the chocobo.
Then the hawk on her shoulder makes a soft squawk, and Hannah rolls her eyes. Quietly, she says, seemingly to noone in particular, "Come on, you know I'd never replace you, even if I could somehow afford one." She turns and resumes walking, making her way for the Adventurer's Guild.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
"I've been." So replies Ruth to Ida in a tone a bit warmer and more conversational than the norm between them, as the pigeons do not take off. It isn't because of any sort of warmth, or preference, or foodstuffs (on her person anyway, she's at a cafe, it's a matter of time). Merian pigeons just famously do not give a hoot about anything. They won't just go where they please. They'll leave when they please, too.
...
A red-tailed hawk is a wonderful invitation to take their leave, and they very much please to. Ruth's head turns up with the sudden uptinge of instinctual fear in so many tiny little creatures rising around her at once, her gaze following them for a time.
She rises from her seat with the gradual movement of someone who might have been contented to sit there at a measure of 'possibly forever, might not be an exaggeration' as she turns her head to see Sterling, and Ida together - and two others. A smile, one that might be genuine and not just what forms the emotional dam that keeps 'it' in check.
A soft 'squawk' disrupts the surprise lunch meeting, and Ruth leans a bit further to the side to see that bright pink hair and that manner of cloak.
Hannah has a split-second in which she can see into Ruth's eyes under the hood before eye contact's broken with the dip of Ruth's head. They're gray like a raincloud ready to do what it's named for, and seem entirely bereft of outward joy or life.
"That's who I was waiting for to come by," Ruth says to Ida just as Hannah continues for the Adventurer's Guild. "The one I mentioned over the empathite earlier... that Crest Sorceress."
Capable and powerful, able to deal with a group of Odessa remnants who were reduced to being highwaymen... and something eerie. She knows her hearing in her left ear is gone, but something that carried in the wind seemed to reach her in a way that was uniquely disquieting.
Ruth saying something is disquieting is saying something.
"I'm going to speak with her," she says to Ida. "I don't mind if you come with." The over-dressed sharpshooter says as she starts towards the young woman en route to the Adventurer's Guild. Her right hand goes over her left shoulder as a surge of chronic pain protests the movement, as it has done for at least a decade by now, her approach slow and steady.
The red-tailed hawk might sense there's something uniquely predatory about it, the way Ruth's shadow seems to fall upon the black-cloaked woman before she verbally announces her presence.
"Excuse me," Ruth says to Hannah from a ways behind. "Could I have a moment of your time?"
For purposes of drama and a quirk of fate, Hannah can make out the exact model of sniper rifle on Ruth's back - the Gae Buidhe/Dearg DC4. A gunsmoke ARM with a limited run during the Celesti Civil War manufactured roughly 480 PC. (It's 505 PC now.) A model whose infamy rests largely with a single name with a blood-stained, frightening legacy attached. The name of whom can't possibly be coming out of nowhere to say 'hello' to her now, can it?
Ruth stands 5'8", right hand lowering from her left shoulder to clasp the opposite hand in front of herself.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
That's about what Ida expected. She nods to Ruth, sets Sterling's bucket down, and fills it with water from a saddlebag canteen. "Good bird," she says, as she scratches Sterling's neck and feeds him a handful of tuber chunks--sylkis roots. That beak could easily take a hand off, but Ida handles it with ease, letting Sterling pick the morsels out of her hand.
The pigeons' departure earns both Sterling and Ida's attention. The latter glances up, sees nothing, and then glances over to the approaching woman. A falconer? This wouldn't be the first person she's known with a companion like that. Then, Ruth speaks. "...That's her?" Ida says, her brow furrowing. "Of course."
Ida stands at Ruth's right flank as the sharpshooter approaches her. She's a little shorter, with grey-blue eyes and fine, aristocratic features. In contrast to Ruth's more subdued demeanor, she presents a warm, genuine smile.
Like she isn't standing next to an infamous (reformed?) war criminal.
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
That moment of almost sort of accidental eye contact is quickly ended on Hannah's part as she turns her attention to just getting to where she's going. Hannah herself pays the pigeons no mind as they scatter and flee, though the hawk does pause his preening to watch them take off. But just as quickly, anyone close to them would hear a very firm and very emphatic "No" coming from the girl.
Whatever the hell that's about.
Zephyr's head cranes to the side a little, and though it doesn't make a noise, Hannah stops, turning to face Ruth almost before she starts talking.
Hannah herself is shorter than the other two, about 5', and, up close, young. She might be barely into adulthood, but the cautious, wary look she gives Ruth fits right in with the girl who unknowingly put on a show some time ago and took out a whole group without flinching. Her eyes are bright green, and they drift over the woman for a moment before being drawn to that rifle. She scrutinizes it, first because it's just there, and second, because she notices some of the details...
Her eyes widen a bit as she recognizes the model, and she quickly looks to Ruth herself--and flinches back. One foot goes back half a step, so she's slightly turned, and under her cloak, a hand shifts, as if she's preparing to do something.
She weighs that question. She could just say 'no', but... Well, sometimes when someone asks for your time it's only proper to give it to them.
"Very well. What can I do for you?" she says, a bit tersely. She glances over to Ida, searching her face. There's something familiar but... she's far more concerned with the other woman right now.
Zephyr, meanwhile, is ruffling his feathers a bit as he prepares to take flight, just in case.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
"You're startled," Ruth says matter-of-factly, though there's just that... hint, of someone finding out that someone's put out a kind of soup they enjoy the aroma of. Ruth squeezes her right hand a moment later, though there's no discernible change to her outward posture or demeanor otherwise.
"It's all right. I won't hurt you." She won't hurt her, she repeats that in her mind. She turns to her right when she hears Ida following suit and providing useful (social) back-up.
"I noticed you were attacked by former members of Odessa," Ruth says, "not long ago." She doesn't take any steps closer to the younger, shorter woman who is presently being accosted by a kind-of-unknown-but-strongly-suspected individual.
"I was keeping watch over the area for such a thing," Ruth says. "I hope you weren't hurt. Had I caught them a moment sooner..."
She knows exactly what would have happened, herself. Her right hand parts from her other hand to go over her heart, showing off her rosary directly.
"I'm Ruth." That's a red flag, for attaching names to identified weapons. A Ruth did terrible things in Celesti with that weapon. She turns to her right. "This is my friend," she'll let Ida say her name, but to say this of her should say a lot given what happened between them along the way.
"And you are...?" Both to Hannah, and her companion.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
This turned out to be a fortuitous meeting. Ida trusts Ruth, but she is also deeply aware of her history, and knows she'd have difficulty meeting a stranger without factoring in the rest of her situation. Ida sees that hesitation, that recoil--and she glances sidelong at Ruth, gauging her reaction. It goes... much like Ida thought it would, thankfully.
"Ida," she says, when Ruth prompts her to speak. "I'm with ARMS. I... didn't know you were attacked." Her face slowly curls in a frown. She glances back at Ruth. "I'm not surprised Odessa's severed limbs are active, though. Can you tell me anything more about what happened?" Ida puts on a more pleasant face, perhaps contrasting with Ruth. Ruth actually saw the event, but... talking to Ruth directly might not be the easiest ask for the obviously-jittery Hannah.
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
'Startled' is putting it mildly. 'Alarmed' might be better a better word. Or, depending on how this goes, 'panicked' might become apt.
"We're in a city," she says flatly. "You should really have that wrapped up." It's a simple enough statement, yet it almost comes out a bit accusatory. Her eyes look very pointedly at the sniper rifle, just to make it clear that yes, she's seen it. And it might also explain some of her current consternation.
She blinks a bit as the other woman references her recent encounter. Her eyes narrow a bit. "There wasn't anybody else around--" she stops herself mid-sentence.
Sniper rifle. Right. She wouldn't have to be close.
"Hmm. I warned them first, but they didn't back down." Is that a justification for her decisions? "Is that what this is about?"
The giving of the name doesn't do anything to relax her. She doesn't move much, but there is just a little bit of a lean back, a little bit more tensing of muscles. Under her cloak, her hand opens a flap on a pouch.
She looks over to Ida as she introduces herself, and the look of vague recognition from earlier comes into focus. It takes her a moment of looking between the two ass he considers. Finally she stands upright again, trying her best to regain her composure.
She leaves the belt pouch unbuttoned, though.
"Hannah," she offers. "Not much to tell. I was tasked with retrieving a delivery that had been waylaid. They wanted to keep it. We were unable to resolve the situation to our mutual satisfaction."
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
"Hm." Ruth stifles the beginnings of a little laugh at the idea of having 'that' wrapped up, and Hannah's not wrong. As Hannah reasons about how there wasn't anybody else around, Ruth's smile widens. Just a hint of teeth.
"You're not being accused." The smile softens. She doesn't hear the minute detail of a sound of a flap opening on the pouch - in a pinch, if it came to it, Hannah might be faster on the draw. Faster, to draw on something to get herself out of danger... until that seems to fade, and names are given.
"You let them live." Ruth says of it, hand at her chest curling the pinky and ring fingers inwards at mention of it. "The sorcery you used was... powerful. Crest Sorcery, wasn't it?" She's sure she saw at least a Crest of Wing. Ruth knows her eyes haven't failed her yet when it comes to the world of the now.
"Powerful... but restrained. I don't know if even Venetia or Eleanor could have managed both like that," it's an accidental slip on the older woman's part to drop names like that.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida shows Hannah her hands--open, palms out. A little gesture she hopes is reassuring, and she gives Ruth another sidelong glance. She sees that tension in Hannah's frame. She knows she could be going for something beneath that cloak, like a gun or a knife or a Crest Graph.
"We're not here to hurt you," Ida says, point-blank. She sucks in a breath as Ruth drops the names.
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Hannah's own rifle is wrapped up! It's under her cloak, though. But the wrapping might become visible if she gestures enough to draw the cloak back from her.
"I did," she says with a short nod. "Not especially inclined towards taking lives. Roughing them up, though..." And another nod, to confirm the question regarding Crest Sorcery. "Yes." It's not a great secret--she's been hired onto digs and jobs with others, it's only inevitable someone would see, eventually.
Being called out for being powerful yet restrained, however, is another red flag for her. Her expression grows a bit darker. "My magic is what it is." But then Ruth drops those names and... there's a startled blink, and her expression seems to lighten again. Well, not lighten, but there's a little glance away, as if she's recalling something.
"She can do whatever she sets her mind to, I'm sure," she says quietly, her voice far softer than it's been before. 'She', not 'They'. Curious.
But it firms up again as she looks back to the two. She does not reciprocate the gesture, but she doesn't tense up again, either. "Fine. Then what is it you do want? I already reported the brigands I ran into, so if you want to know about that I'm sure those with your resources could get the report quite easily."
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth nods along the once at Ida's reaffirmation that they're not here to hurt her. (Ruth would probably do well to step to the side so her shadow isn't being cast over Hannah and her companion. This does not come to mind in the moment.)
In that startled blink and turn of the head, and the aside... Ruth's head tilts upward as if an idea strikes her in the moment while Hannah - rightfully - asks what it is Ruth and Ida want out of her.
Ruth knows Hannah doesn't look nor act like she's from Guild Galad, nor did what she see match Venetia's own methodologies in that particular school of sorcery.
"You know of... Eleanor?" She asks, as if the idea itself were a complete coincidence and new to her, hand lowering from her chest. "Were you friends?"
'Were?'
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Hannah is getting more and more agitated. Ida's sense for conflict is going off like an alarm right next to her ear. "Ruth," she says, her voice gentle, but concerned--she reaches out with a hand, but it doesn't come close to touching the older woman. "What... did you want?" If it's simple concern that Hannah is okay, that matter seems to have been addressed. But...
'You know of... Eleanor?'
Ida glances between the two of them. That polite smile grows a bit exasperated--or rather, the exasperation eats away at that polite smile--as she looks at Ruth. "Ruth, I--think we might best be..." There is no way out of this that is not awkward.
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Hannah would feel better if she didn't have to look up so much to continue this conversation with Ruth. But she's not making any motions tensing up for an attack, at least.
It's a reasonable series of deductions. Not one that Hannah feels inclined to confirm, however.
"Lots of people know of her," she says, and this time her voice mostly stays flat, like before. Though that perpetual frown is deepening some. "Hard not to know about a family that has a city named after them."
Nobody's mentioned Eleanor's last name, though.
She takes a step backwards. Not defensive this time, just preparing to leave. "So if you wanted to take a popularity poll, then you've done that. If there's nothing else, I'll be on my way."
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
What did Ruth want out of this? Somehow, this question appears to have gotten waylaid by a simple set of name drops, as Ida is making motions that there's no way to disengage from this strange change in subject without some form of incredible awkwardness and poor first impressions!
A part of Ruth can - and should - recognize how close this comes to touching at the particular spiral of desires and contradictory ideas in which to go about them, but that's a spiral that needs not elaboration lest it become a challenge to figure out where the exit point in that thought process is. (If there ever is one.)
"So," Ruth murmurs aloud, because when gnawing thoughts get loud enough you kind of have to in order to hear yourself over them, her right hand raised over her face partially as a defensive measure to keep it out of Ida touching range. (Even if Ida is already conscientious and respecting it.)
"So what you performed must be a normal practice in Sielje's schooling...?" Ruth asks aloud, but she knows she's never heard that kind of strange wailing noise when Eleanor cast her spells. She looks off into some other irrelevant direction as to not meet eyes, this in itself a safeguard.
...
...
"I'm a Crest Sorceress too," Ruth says, chancing more aches in her left arm to dig inside her overcoat and produce some Crests herself. All of them have Muse on them, somewhere, prominently. It's like she's only proficient in a specific quadrant. Like a student several years Hannah's junior.
"So... I was curious, is all."
Curious, and a little frightened.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Nobody mentioned Eleanor's last name. And that brief thought Hannah voiced aloud resurfaces in Ida's mind. She takes in a deep breath, stepping back--looking, for a moment, like she's going to let Hannah leave without further incident. The part of her that is terrified of leaving a bad impression on someone--smaller than it was, but still present--is insisting she do so immediately. But after Ruth makes her inquiry, Ida...
Rips off the bandage.
"Eleanor Klein is a dear friend, and a valued colleague," Ida says. At worst, she's telling someone irrelevant information about someone they don't know. But...
Summer. Is this like Summer?
"She's missing. We're trying to find her."
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
There's a growing impatience as Hannah waits for somebody to make some sort of point or end the conversation, or at the very least convince her to keep talking.
Ruth's question is not what she was expecting.
There's a moment of stunned silence, as she tries to just process the question. But it only lasts a moment before some agitation starts to bubble up under the surface. She scowls and takes another step back--and this one is most definitely defensive.
Very carefully, and very deliberately, she says, "Fine. I studied at Sielje. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
She knows it's not, because she's not answering the real question. But to answer that, well...
When Ruth goes for her own crest graphs, though, Hannah doesn't wait. She grabs something from under her cloak and then pulls it out, arm sticking out from under her cloak to reveal a crest graph held defensively, as if she's ready to cast it. The mark of Fray is visible on it, though those knowledgeable in such things might notice the formulation of the graph is a bit off.
But Ruth is just showing her some crest graphs, and she does look to them for a moment. Scrutinizing them in the same way that she did that sniper rifle. All Muse... Her eyes slide back up to look Ruth in the eye, or at least as close as she can manage. "If you want a tutor, then I must firmly decline."
And while she's still trying to process that, Ida comes in from a different angle, and once again she's a bit flummoxed. She looks between the two, trying to process everything that's just been laid on her. "I... what? ... I haven't seen her, if that's what you're asking." She's not sure it is, though.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
If it is like Summer - if it's Malevolence - Ruth didn't say so over empathite. That wouldn't be something she'd ever have any reason to conceal. Not before one of the few individuals alive with the ability to decisively rescue those willing to be cleansed of it.
A tense stand-off follows as Hannah defensively draws a Crest against what Ruth herself is sharing, showing face-up their metaphorical hands. There are eyes staring around the street, adding to the weight of the building awkwardness that yet threatens to encompass the street surrounding the Adventurer's Guild.
(The pigeons from earlier are back, despite presence of something that can and will eat them. Merian pigeons, sometimes!!)
Hannah's bid to look Ruth in the eye doesn't last long, though Ruth's features from that glance haven't changed any. The same gray, the same distant, haunting look. Ruth's the one who bows her head to break it.
As if looking at the Crest itself, and the way it's formulated. Can she ascertain that for sure, seeing where her lesser proficiencies lie?
...
Ruth's hand lowers, holding her Crests close to herself as Hannah states she hasn't seen her. No one has, thus far, but Eleanor insisted in her last words to them that things that happened, happened the way they should.
"..." Ruth's voice trails quietly in such a way that a 'hm' doesn't really capture its subtleties. She takes in a breath that never quite leaves.
She shakes her head.
"It's kind of you to think that," she dismisses the tutor response at least three seconds past where it would be (further!) awkward to answer. "It's hard enough to be that, isn't it, sometimes."
Ruth looks up, over her right shoulder to Ida. "I won't keep either of you further."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
This is not a catastrophe, Ida reminds herself. Ruth wanted to look into something. The young lady she wanted to talk to was understandably suspicious talking to her. This is not a catastrophe.
Ida's posture changes, subtly--instinctively--as that Crest Graph comes out. For an instant, she wonders if she's going to have to subdue Hannah, or Ruth, or both. But though she looks at the interaction with too-alert eyes and bated breath, no violence happens. Slowly, the tension starts to leave her shoulders, replaced by embarrassment.
"I--I thought that you might want to know, if you knew her. But I apologize for the intrusion, and the stress." She lowers her head in a sincere bow. She can't apologize for Ruth. "Good day to both of you." With that, Ida turns and heads out of the Guild, into the cafe Ruth had staked out. She still has to get lunch, after all.
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Hannah normally tries to keep her emotions in check. That makes it easier to keep her magic in check and to make sure it does exactly what she wants it to do--and nothing more. But with the awkward encounter, two seemingly unrelated strains of conversation, Ruth coming oh so close to making an accusation but never quite making one...
She's more than a bit tense. And even a little defensive. There's something roiling under the surface of her magic, that the two, if they're perceptive to such things, might pick up on after spending these few moments in her proximity.
It's not Malevolence, though. It would be a lot easier for Hannah if it were.
When both of the others seem to finally be willing to let the conversation end, she drops her hand under her cloak... but there's nothing indicating she's put the crest graph away just yet. The hawk on her is eying the crowd around them, and Hannah just gives it a little nod as if confirming something.
"Lots of people know her," states Hannah bluntly. Which is, again, not a denial. "... Good luck with finding her." At that she finally does put her crest graph away and turn to leave, though... she seems to be walking past the Adventurer's Guild, now.