A Reasonable Reaction

[bythegrace]

WHO: Johanna and Adhemmar, but also concurrent threads for anyone who is likely to visit her.
WHAT: She is not taking that public execution well.
WHEN: After the execution.
WHERE: Johanna's house, newly built, just outside town.
NOTES: None yet, will update.

Johanna's house is small and wide, built of heavy stones and cement, half atop a deck of hewn logs and a foundation of brick. The waterwheel attached to it moves sluggishly in the water and the quiet scraping knock it makes is a persistent sound. It is loud enough that, once one approaches her door, they might not hear through it. On any other day that would be true, but today she is very upset and she has decided to take that anger out on the furnishings in her home. There are crashes and clangs, shattering sounds and frustrated cursing and they, like the waterwheel, persist.

It is fortunate her home is not precisely inside town and, apart from a precious few folk, there are none who would travel to the river to bother her without good reason.

It is not quite sunset when she finally stops her tantrum (for what else could she call it but that?) and the building goes quiet.

Comments

[pestler]

Finian smiles brightly when the door opens, and it fades only a little with the brusque introduction. "I," he stammers, determined to persevere through any unpleasantness, "brought by some tea, to... to help soothe the spirits." He thrusts the basket toward her, inviting her to take a packet.
"...we all had a hard day yesterday."

[bythegrace]

Johanna peers at the boy for a few moments and, despite her grimness, her expression softens with a sort of resignation. She has a terrible hangover, she is still stewing in anger and bitterness and the trauma of what they all witnessed...but this boy had danced with her so happily when she was so very sad. He is a sweet sort and looks it and lashing out at him will do no good.

"What kind of tea is it?" She asks, even as she takes a package. Her door opens further and she gestures for him to follow.

"Come inside already, it is too bright to talk out here."

[pestler]

"Rose and chamomile," the boy replies, coming in when invited. He's able to get a better look at Johanna now, and notices the redness of her eyes, the puffiness: a hangover, though it's not always safe to identify them as such in women.

"If... you like, you can swing by the apothecary for some ginger tea later," he says innocently, "or I can go get it for you."

[bythegrace]

The inside of her home is clean, very recently done, and very spartan. There are no chairs around her table and a low bench sits on the wall. It looks like it must go with a different table, but it is hard to say. There are precious few small curios about.

She moves to the fireplace, where a low flame is burning, and pushes an iron kettle over it. She tosses the small bag of tea in without thought.

"I can give you the coin if you're willing to run the errand for me," she says, not eager to step outside into the sunlight herself.

"Would you like some tea or bread?"

[pestler]

"Oh, I don't need the coin," Finny assures her, coming over to park himself on the bench, his pointy knees sticking out. "And the tea's for you, ma'am, I've got more than enough to myself. In fact, I ought to keep passing it out, but I just wanted to make sure first that you're getting on all right."

[bythegrace]

"Nonsense," she says offhandedly and looks back at the fire. After a second of consideration she plucks up a small bit of wood, heavy kindling really, and wedges it beneath the kettle.

"You'll take the coin to pay and keep the extra, because I am not a rude old hag who mistreats messengers, and you will have tea and bread with me before you go--" she looks back over her shoulder at him. "How old are you?"

She would offer him ale or something stronger but she has no idea how young people in Maireglenne conduct themselves.

[pestler]

"You're not--" he begins to argue, but stops with a sheepish smile when she asks him his age. "Twenty," he replies, "and I'm not so much a messenger, ma'am, I run the apothecary. Really, it's my treat."

[bythegrace]

"Twenty?" She asks, surprised. She would not have put him a day over sixteen. She rises from the fire with the kettle and sets it on the table.

"Then you will take a bottle of spirits in trade, that way you cannot possibly return with change."

She moves to retrieve two cups from the cabinets and pulls a loaf of bread from a shelf as well.

"Let me be polite, moi garcon. Now come have tea."

[pestler]

He gets that reaction a lot from out-of-towners, but chalk it up to his youthful bearing. He's still smiling, but a little more self-consciously now.

"Oh-- um-- all right." Remaining where he is for a moment, Finian is somewhat intimidated by the idea of possessing a bottle of spirits. He'll have an ale here and there, but nothing that would inhibit his ability to work at a moment's notice.
After a pause, he gets up and goes to the table, acquiescing easily enough. It doesn't take much to boss him around, but he doesn't seem to mind.

[bythegrace]

For all her bristly nature and the residual impatience her hangover has left her with, Johanna pours tea very carefully and delicately. She uses motions that would not be out of place with delicate porcelain or glass pots and cups. She hands him a cup of tea gently and a piece of bread to go with it, and picks up her own tea to drink with him.

She hates tea, honestly, but he has brought her a gift and she will enjoy it with him because to do otherwise would be unbearably rude. She offers him a smile that is just a bit flat in the face of her headache and takes a considerable drink from the steaming cup.

"This is very good," she assures him and it's only half a lie. "Thank you."

[pestler]

He accepts the cup with a smile, lifting it in a little toast before inhaling the steam-- yes, that's the right balance-- and setting it down to let it cool for a little bit.
"So you're from Haguenne," he says pleasantly, folding his arms on the table, "what brings you here? Pilgrimage?"

[bythegrace]

The first time she'd been asked that, she had laughed at the audacity of it, the presumption was so very wrong that she couldn't begin to correct it. Now, after months in this place, she had answered that question often enough that it barely merited a reaction.

"Yes," she lies and feels a bit bad about it as his bright young face stares back at her.

"I lost...quite a few people. I came here in their memory," she answers and feels better about that. It is the truth, however depressing. "It was your Vicar who talked me into remaining."

[pestler]

[JUST A NOTE FOR ANYONE READING BACKLOGS THAT HIS AGE WAS RETCONNED AND NOW HE'S 17, DON'T BE MAD]

Working with medicine has made Finian pretty good at reading people, and he senses the hesitation, but his smile doesn't budge and he seems willing to hear whatever Johanna has to say regardless of whether or not it's the entire truth-- sometimes, when someone says the salve is for their knee, everyone's better off if you just choose to believe them.

"I'm sorry," he says, a gravity entering his expression, "but I'm glad you've found a way to move forward. Most of us here have lost someone."

[bythegrace]

Honestly, she isn't certain why she asks--it might be the hangover, or what inspired the hangover, but suddenly she is very curious and her thoughts have become more than a touch macabre.

"Has there ever been a terrible illness here?" She asks, well aware that the boy is too young to have seen anything in his lifetime...but he might have heard tale of something.

[pestler]

"An illness?" he answers, and shakes his head thoughtfully. "Not widespread, not that I can think of. Obviously people become ill from time to time, we'll get head colds and the flux going around the whole town, but nothing on the scale of... of like... well what do you mean?"

[bythegrace]

She grimaces as she considers how to clarify. The rest of her tea, hot though it remains, is downed in one move and she turns to walk to the shelves on the wall. It is easy enough to pluck another bottle from them.

"Something a bit more...concerning than the flu," she says and it does nothing to make her previous question less vague. She has not had enough alcohol for this conversation, nor is she keen on describing horrors to a boy so young, but she was curious and the bracing flavor of the liquor is enough to shock her into something resembling functionality. She doesn't take the bottle back to the table with her, but she does sit once she returns.

"Where I came from, before here," she prefaces and speaks with the slow cadence of someone translating a tale from one language to another. "We had a...how do you say in Glennich? I am not sure. Everyone was sick. The whole of the town had the same illness."

[pestler]

The boy's face falls. "A plague," he says, looking down at his tea and taking a sip from it. "I think... up here, something about the mountain air keeps people healthier. Down in Woodsedge, though, I hear they had to block off a whole city to keep people from traveling. Everywhere a sick person went, it went with them."

He taps his index fingers on his teacup, biting his lip. "If something like that happened here... I don't know. We'd deal with it. Master Parykelsus and I would figure it out." Whether that's genuine confidence or just youthful bravado, perhaps it doesn't matter; neither will necessarily be of any use in such a scenario, but it's not nice to dwell on it.

[bythegrace]

Just there, as he describes a town being barricaded, the fear of illness traveling, a pained look comes over her face. She takes a drink to hide it and hisses a bit as it hits the back of her throat. She is distracted when he assures her, enough that she misses the name of his master, but catches the tone in his voice.

He is confident.

She could not stop herself from looking pained and she cannot prevent the fond, almost patronizing look she levels at him then. She had heard that confidence before--many times, in fact, and all those people were dead.

"Fortunate then that there is no plague here," she says and does not dispute his claim that he would solve it. "I will hope that you and your...apothecary master? Do not need to deal with such things."

[pestler]

"I hope so too." He looks down at his tea, then meets Johanna's eyes again, sensing that the topic is quite a sensitive one.
"...you don't have to talk about it," he says quietly, "but you can. If you like."

[bythegrace]

"No, not today I think," Johanna declines but it is a gentle refusal, gentler than she has been with him thus far. She sets her cup aside and swipes a hand across her forehead. Her headache is ever-present and more than enough excuse to stop pondering.

"But you have my thanks," she adds, as almost an afterthought. "And my thanks again if you will fetch that remedy for this splitting pain in my head."

It is a dismissal, asking him to leave, but she is not cross. Hopefully Maireglenne is not so removed from normal politesse that they don't have this sort of interaction. Apologizing to him later will be terribly awkward, if that is the case.

[pestler]

"Of course."

The smile twitches back onto Finian's face, and, after taking one final sip of his tea, he rises. "I'll be back in a bit. Try to put something cold on it in the meantime, yeah?"

Someday, perhaps, he'll try to glean more information about this plague, about what measures, if any, can be taken. But in the meantime, someone just died, they all want their lives to move forward, and he has an errand to run.
"Take care," he calls from the door, mindful to keep his voice down.