Midnight Conversations
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Midnight Conversations
Cordula von Halstedt was woken up by an odd sensation. A disquiet, of the kind hard to describe yet known to every person in the Empire, when the Cursed Moon shined. Like a brush of something off, unnatural. Her eyes blearily searched the room and in the light of the half-moon found nothing but shadows. Her mouth tasted foul, sour like from a celebratory drink, so she roused from bed and made her way to her desk. A mug filled with tepid water helped alleviate her problem when she froze.
The moon cast a long shadow from the shutters, and her own stretched over the table. But it was not alone. Tendrils of shadow moved and danced on her desk, undulating like some wicked monster, stretching from behind her and she was suddenly certain she was not alone. Her lips opened involuntarily, yet before she could scream a calloused hand sealed them, without even a whisper of cloth.
With her heart hammering in her chest she would have struggled, fought, done something. But even past the monstrous shadow, another fact lodged in her brain and paralyzed her completely. The body she'd been pulled up against wasn't taller than her and had a distinct softness to it. As well, with how close they were she could just glimpse the edge of a Witch Hunters hat, in the edge of her view. But what paralyzed her was the mist. In the moonlight, it looked like the clouds come to earth. A chill wind entered through the open window, silently stirring her Grey Robes.
Cordula felt herself slowly spun about. She didn't resist. There was no resistance in her. Not even the thought of it. For it was said the Grey could read minds. The face she'd never seen in person, but she did not need the large hilt peeking over her back to name this one. She prayed, silently, to Sigmar. To deliver her from this, to show her where she had failed to earn this response and grant her mercy. She looked into those cold eyes and found none. Some sane part of her mind informed her she needed the privy.
Stuck between impossible choices, she silently giggled, overcome. Speak and die. Not speak, and she'd go mad. The blank empty eyes, the gates of death…blinked. The head tilted, leaving the hat comically askew and a calm and somewhat bemused voice asked: "Are you quite alright?" The gale of howling, hysterical laughter that triggered summoned company quite rapidly.
It took a while before she'd convinced everyone she was just having a nightmare. It helped, that she believed it. It was just a waking one. Who would she tell? And how would it make any difference? Once everyone was gone, the Grey Magister, Dame Mathilde Weber walked back out of the shadows behind her dresser. "We need to talk."
…
"Anton is a good man, and a dear friend. Now I'm glad he's standing up for himself, but he shouldn't have to face all this. He can be a miracle maker, he has worked miracles. Stirland, and all of the Empire owes him a debt for all the support he gathered for the campaign that finally put down Drakenfalls. He brought Asarnil. He was sent, expecting some pike, or other sellswords and he brought a Dragon. He brought the greatest concentration of cannon even seen. If you truly seek to become his wife, you need to understand what he did, for all of us."
The Magister remained calm, leisurely, like talking about the harvest.
"So understand me that I say this in friendship and out of kindness. I wish you well. I wish you happiness. I wish you the best. I wish this for whosoever becomes his wife in the end. He deserves it."
The tone didn't even change. "But understand as well. His gift has ever been one of friendship. He has friends. I hope we never have to meet like this again. But you understand yes? I have to be sure, because some people can be quite dense, certain in their own immortality, or that it will never be them, that they'll never be caught. I wish you well, I wish you the best."
Like a grandmother talking about her aching bones.
"But if you manage to beguile that man, abuse and humiliate him, for the debts I owe him, and his service to the Empire as a whole, I'll come again. And if I have fallen in some dark cave I'll leave instructions for another of mine to come. You'll never see the sun again, nor any other fool stupid enough to play such games. There are fates far worse than death in the Shadows of the College. Don't become one of them." Then she was gone. Disappeared in the blink of an eye.
In the morning she would think that perhaps she'd dreamt it all. If not for a silk grey shawl, left on her desk, with a silver pin in the shape of a great sword. Reminder and warning both. A number of such would appear at the next court ball. All in the hands of young maidens, the pins all fine dwarven craftsmanship. Yet no one was foolish enough to ask. It caused quite a stir. Those who were stupid enough, need but see all the color drain from their faces, to know better than to ask again. The few maidens pressed by their parents were presented shawl and pin, with blade prominent and given but a few whispered word: "Grey.Kiesinger."
Anton Kiesinger II, Baron of Blutdorf was quietly touched by the new fashion, as the pressures that had hounded him for months… well, they didn't stop. But they were really ,really polite and considerate now.
AN: Or Mat passing on the message of how much Anton has friends. So be nice. Or else.
Cordula von Halstedt was woken up by an odd sensation. A disquiet, of the kind hard to describe yet known to every person in the Empire, when the Cursed Moon shined. Like a brush of something off, unnatural. Her eyes blearily searched the room and in the light of the half-moon found nothing but shadows. Her mouth tasted foul, sour like from a celebratory drink, so she roused from bed and made her way to her desk. A mug filled with tepid water helped alleviate her problem when she froze.
The moon cast a long shadow from the shutters, and her own stretched over the table. But it was not alone. Tendrils of shadow moved and danced on her desk, undulating like some wicked monster, stretching from behind her and she was suddenly certain she was not alone. Her lips opened involuntarily, yet before she could scream a calloused hand sealed them, without even a whisper of cloth.
With her heart hammering in her chest she would have struggled, fought, done something. But even past the monstrous shadow, another fact lodged in her brain and paralyzed her completely. The body she'd been pulled up against wasn't taller than her and had a distinct softness to it. As well, with how close they were she could just glimpse the edge of a Witch Hunters hat, in the edge of her view. But what paralyzed her was the mist. In the moonlight, it looked like the clouds come to earth. A chill wind entered through the open window, silently stirring her Grey Robes.
Cordula felt herself slowly spun about. She didn't resist. There was no resistance in her. Not even the thought of it. For it was said the Grey could read minds. The face she'd never seen in person, but she did not need the large hilt peeking over her back to name this one. She prayed, silently, to Sigmar. To deliver her from this, to show her where she had failed to earn this response and grant her mercy. She looked into those cold eyes and found none. Some sane part of her mind informed her she needed the privy.
Stuck between impossible choices, she silently giggled, overcome. Speak and die. Not speak, and she'd go mad. The blank empty eyes, the gates of death…blinked. The head tilted, leaving the hat comically askew and a calm and somewhat bemused voice asked: "Are you quite alright?" The gale of howling, hysterical laughter that triggered summoned company quite rapidly.
It took a while before she'd convinced everyone she was just having a nightmare. It helped, that she believed it. It was just a waking one. Who would she tell? And how would it make any difference? Once everyone was gone, the Grey Magister, Dame Mathilde Weber walked back out of the shadows behind her dresser. "We need to talk."
…
"Anton is a good man, and a dear friend. Now I'm glad he's standing up for himself, but he shouldn't have to face all this. He can be a miracle maker, he has worked miracles. Stirland, and all of the Empire owes him a debt for all the support he gathered for the campaign that finally put down Drakenfalls. He brought Asarnil. He was sent, expecting some pike, or other sellswords and he brought a Dragon. He brought the greatest concentration of cannon even seen. If you truly seek to become his wife, you need to understand what he did, for all of us."
The Magister remained calm, leisurely, like talking about the harvest.
"So understand me that I say this in friendship and out of kindness. I wish you well. I wish you happiness. I wish you the best. I wish this for whosoever becomes his wife in the end. He deserves it."
The tone didn't even change. "But understand as well. His gift has ever been one of friendship. He has friends. I hope we never have to meet like this again. But you understand yes? I have to be sure, because some people can be quite dense, certain in their own immortality, or that it will never be them, that they'll never be caught. I wish you well, I wish you the best."
Like a grandmother talking about her aching bones.
"But if you manage to beguile that man, abuse and humiliate him, for the debts I owe him, and his service to the Empire as a whole, I'll come again. And if I have fallen in some dark cave I'll leave instructions for another of mine to come. You'll never see the sun again, nor any other fool stupid enough to play such games. There are fates far worse than death in the Shadows of the College. Don't become one of them." Then she was gone. Disappeared in the blink of an eye.
In the morning she would think that perhaps she'd dreamt it all. If not for a silk grey shawl, left on her desk, with a silver pin in the shape of a great sword. Reminder and warning both. A number of such would appear at the next court ball. All in the hands of young maidens, the pins all fine dwarven craftsmanship. Yet no one was foolish enough to ask. It caused quite a stir. Those who were stupid enough, need but see all the color drain from their faces, to know better than to ask again. The few maidens pressed by their parents were presented shawl and pin, with blade prominent and given but a few whispered word: "Grey.Kiesinger."
Anton Kiesinger II, Baron of Blutdorf was quietly touched by the new fashion, as the pressures that had hounded him for months… well, they didn't stop. But they were really ,really polite and considerate now.
AN: Or Mat passing on the message of how much Anton has friends. So be nice. Or else.
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