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 Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 12:07 am
She curled up on the chair Babylon stuck her in, arranging her borrowed cloak around her like an aegis. “I would like a granola bar, please,” she said. If she went home after this, and didn’t come back for a while… would anyone really care? Mistral the laboratory, Mistral the Wonder, that was lost under probably a couple hundred tons of snow. There wasn’t anyone there, unless she had a force ghost too. Maybe she’d find something that could make her a better knight, but who could be sure?
Mistral fiddled with the ring on her finger, twisting it around and around and around. “I can’t read the journal,” she said. “I mean…” Maybe Abuela knew something about what it said, something about the line that Menachem referenced? She’d been talking about it since Mistral was a little girl, telling stories about an honorable knight and how they lit the candles before Friday night dinner to tell the guardians that they were alright. How there was magic in the blood of Mistral’s line, and some day the magic would come back. Her dad had always rolled his eyes behind Abuela’s back, but he lit the candles all the same.
“A lot of stuff got lost, I guess,” she said. But not that box or those papers. She tucked her feet under her on the chair and sighed. “Babylon, are you looking for something?”
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Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 12:08 am
Babylon had gotten distracted somewhere between the cupboard where he kept his stash of food and the back of the room, poking around on a high shelf on some sheer compulsion. But Mistral’s question brought him out of it, just as his fingers closed around something small and metal, close to the wall. “Oh,” he said, pulling it towards him. “I’m actually not sure.”
Hopping down, he looked to see what it was he’d retrieved - a small pewter carving of a seated big cat, less than an inch high, hanging on a leather strap. Quickly, almost on instinct, he looped it around his neck - why had he done that? He didn’t know. Anyway, he got the granola bar and returned to the table, handing it over to Mistral as he took a seat.
“I could read the journal,” said Menachem. “If you brought it here. It’s written in my hand. It’s been centuries. I could not repeat to you from memory what it says - but I could read it.”
Babylon glanced to Mistral. “Your call,” he said.
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Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 12:08 am
Mistral took the granola bar and eyeballed Babylon suspiciously. But she didn’t have any proof he’d actually been looking for something, so she opened her granola bar and started breaking small pieces off it. She wasn’t actually very hungry, but it was important to eat regularly, and she didn’t want to pass the ******** out while on Mercury. “I wish I had a watch,” she said, rather than addressing the possibility of being able to get a family heirloom translated by the ghost of her dead space uncle.
She hooked her hair behind her ears and considered Babylon; he was now doing something with small glass balls and a lantern. There actually seemed to be some kind of logic to that, but she wasn’t sure what it was. “I’d like to go see if I can find something,” she said. “Maybe I’ll stop getting distracted by it if I can prove to myself that it’s just not there.” Was that disrespectful? She slanted a glance at Space Ghost, who seemed… sad, mostly, but he’d looked sad almost since she’d asked ‘Home?’ so that wasn’t a big change.
“Being in here makes me sad,” she said, detangling herself from Babylon’s cloak to stand at the desk. “Like I’m leaving.”
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Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 12:09 am
He managed to not shatter any of the little globes before managing to keep one lit, so Babylon considered that an improvement. As Mistral stood, he tucked it away into his jacket pocket and followed her up, reaching to reposition to the cloak around her shoulders. “Let’s make the trip, then,” he said. “You want a ride?”
As they spilled back out onto the plaza, Menachem in tow, he crouched down and picked Mistral up onto his shoulders. Once she was settled with his lantern between her hands, they headed for the edge of the city, where the cobbled pavement gave way to a wall and a gate, and then to the icy wastes beyond. “Are you coming with us?” Babylon asked his ancestor, who he noticed had paused at the gate, rooted to the spot.
Menachem shook his head. “I am bound to the city. I may not leave its limits,” he said.
“Okay,” said Finn. “I’ll see you in a week or so.” And, after checking once more that his grip on Mistral was secure, set off.
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