[Semi-Closed Post: Aornis Is a Real Headache]

[timebethine]

Somewhere around midnight, a migraine descended on Laertes like a thunderhead, and he still hasn't come out from beneath its anvil. He's spent most of the day hiding in bed with the curtains drawn, feeling as though he's about to be sick--and that feeling's only grown worse as the sun has drifted sluggishly to a low apex in the sky.

It isn't until mid-afternoon that he feels well enough to make progress on all his plans. He needs to speak to SecUnit about its drones, to Dionysus about whether Avernus (that is her name, isn't it?) is a goddess, and to Nightingale about whether he can offer magical support in case their confrontation goes sour. He needs to talk with Claudius about what to say when he does speak to her.

So it is that he starts making his rounds through the mansion and its grounds, seeking out friends old and new, clinging grimly to the thermos of coffee that smells sickeningly strong but also helps drive back the pain. His face is wan, his eyes shadowed. He would rather be doing anything but this.

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[timebethine]

"The credit is Sagramore's," says Laertes immediately. "I only helped him to prepare for it."

[wickedwit]

"The credit belongs to you both, for what you both accomplished together. Like training Szarka together, or any other end thou dost share."

[timebethine]

It's on the tip of Laertes's tongue to say, But Sagramore has full charge of Szarka's training--but that will only get him the same argument from Claudius, so he subsides. "I'd also meant to ask thee what I should say, when I speak to Avernus,"¹ he says. "The time is nigh when I mean to do it. What wouldst thou learn of her?"

¹ Pong!

[wickedwit]

Claudius turns on his side, then, so he can look Laertes in the face again. "Avernus? Ah -- thou wouldst do well to call her that. I learned something very interesting about her, during the last round of changes we had. She can sense whenever her name's spoken, even from a distance."

[timebethine]

"She can--what?"

[wickedwit]

"Wangji told me¹," Claudius says simply. "Because of all the shuffling around that happened, Magnus ended up in her body and noticed it. It's made me question some of my earlier assumptions ... which means my questions for her are likely to change. I started a whispering campaign about her, more or less. But she knew every time her name was spoken. Was I playing into her hands? Did she want a certain reputation to spread, even if it was one that made people wary of her? And the list where your and Sagramore's names were circled ... well, when I think of what I would do, if I had the power to tell whenever people were talking about me, dropping a mysterious list and seeing if it starts any gossip wouldn't be beyond me."

¹ And would confirm he did. Absolutely.

[timebethine]

"Thou wouldst." Laertes inhales through his nose. "Let us assume that she shares some of thy temperament, then. What would I say, to make thee reveal thy plans? What would be best calculated to make thee drop the veil?"

[wickedwit]

“I’m softer now than I once was,” Claudius says, affecting droll tones. “Thou wouldst have to convince me thou wert on my side.”

[timebethine]

"How would I do that, not knowing which side was thine?"

[wickedwit]

“Show thou canst be molded to my side.” Claudius thinks it over further, and sighs. “Don’t play dumb. We were going to take advantage of the fact thou hast not met her, but thou canst not pretend thou hast never heard of her. She knows she’s being spoken about. I've started a whispering campaign, let it grow, and let discerning minds filter information back to me, but I've no doubt the rumors have taken more alarming shapes. Be open about what you've heard, and open to hearing the truth as she would tell it. But temper your expectations -- she's unlikely to reveal everything at the first conversation. If she reveals anything at all, it's because she believes she has an advantage. It's worth finding out what those areas of advantage are."

[timebethine]

"Then I'll go to her, an anxious young man willing to be soothed." There are normally very sweet actors cast in your role, Dionysus had said; he can be that sweet actor for her. "Afraid that she'll take me back to Elsinore, begging her to let me stay where I've found happiness. She may find my pleading pathetic, but perhaps that will assure her of her power. She may let more information slip, either to assure me or simply to quiet my pleading. Thou wouldst draw a curtain on that act by changing the subject; we will see where her inclinations direct her, if she does the same. Then--still pathetic, but now pathetically grateful--I'll let her lead me where she will."

[wickedwit]

"We've a plan," Claudius says, assured by it. The more pathetic Laertes appears, the less he'll look like a threat to be taken care of. It's a difficult balance to strike. Too unassuming, too nonconfrontational, and they won't learn anything. Too direct, too close to the target, and he'll put himself in danger. Claudius can share what little information he has, at least. "At Enjolras's meeting of minds, I did sound out her approach to conflict. She's the type to assess weaknesses and exploit them efficiently. Someone like her is likely to hold her cards close to the chest, then play them all when she sees a winning hand. If she shifts from conversation to open conflict, it will seem to happen quickly. So take care. And," he says, reinforcing the plan, "show her the weakness you want her to focus on. She'll be looking for it, anyway."

[timebethine]

"I fear that," Laertes says softly, "for my greatest weaknesses are those I love, and I fear she will hurt them, as she may have hurt Galahad."

[wickedwit]

For a moment, Claudius was considering asking Laertes whether he truly wanted to do this, when facts are so thin on the ground. (Thinner than they should be, honestly, even relying on Sagramore's discretion and Lan Wangji's prudence.) That moment ends abruptly. Slow and and even, he asks, "What has she done to Galahad?"

[timebethine]

A frown--they'd spoken of the possibility that she might hurt Galahad before, when Laertes had found the fallen page without Aornis's name on it, but they hadn't spoken of it again afterward, and then time had bled like ink into water, and Laertes had managed to forget that that conversation hadn't been about Galahad's dreams. "I know not that she has," says Laertes hastily. "Only that Sagramore had it from Lan Wangji that someone was sending Galahad nightmares, and and that after some scrupulous investigation, they'd had no better suspects."

[wickedwit]

Ah. Two thoughts connect. “Lan Wangji was concerned about starting a witch hunt,” he says. “Against Luo Binghe, in fact. Galahad tried to fight Luo Binghe on my behalf … and his anger was clarifying for me. To everyone else, I'm sure I seemed reeling and unreasonable for unearthing a settled grudge. But I’d never expected anyone to take my part the way Galahad had. I’d never been told, in the way Galahad told me, that my pain mattered. I was alert for consequences. Galahad's nightmares were it, I thought -- petty cruelties to salve Luo Binghe's wounded pride. But I confided in Lan Wangji, and it's for my peace of mind that he's been investigating. He and I both interviewed Shen Yuan, and we both came to the same conclusion. Luo Binghe wouldn't harm one of Shen Yuan's friends. To Shen Yuan, I'm sure I seemed as unreasonable for suspecting it as I am for still dwelling on any harm Luo Binghe's done to me."

Another reason, Claudius thinks, not to push the feelings he's tried to suppress on Sagramore. It's safer for him to be Shen Yuan's friend, and safer to be Luo Binghe's friend, too. This is the peace you wanted, he reminds himself. Sighing, he says, “It’s true Lan Wangji hasn’t found other suspects. But she wasn’t on the list to be considered. She was on the list of victims. She spoke of bad dreams ... and I confess I encouraged her to think of them as Luo Binghe’s doing. She mentioned them to Lan Wangji before me -- and Luo Binghe was also his first thought, for all the effort we’ve gone to clear his name.” And so? How did it all circle back here? Was it just the inevitable tangle of information, rumormongering gone awry, conflating victim and suspect in the end? If Luo Binghe seemed so obvious, and yet was cleared of suspicion by the two who suspected him first, why suspect Aornis without even a flicker of a motive? What motive could there be? Claudius forces himself to think.

“Was it ... provocation, perhaps?” he muses aloud. “Or if not provocation, pulling strings, to see how they connect. Speak of dreams, and see whose name is mentioned. Send dreams, and see who’s blamed for them.”

[timebethine]

"If she's looked for connections, she'll surely see that Sagramore and I lie at the center of a web of them--we've hosted the last two major events, and participated in the one before them." It's not a boast; the fact that this might reflect well on Laertes seems not even to occur to him. "If she means to rattle the entire web, she may do worse than starting with me."

[wickedwit]

Claudius thinks again of the list, where both their names were circled. As a private notation, it might’ve marked them as centers of the web … but as provocation, it would make those names stand out, make someone more likely to stoop over and look closer, as they recognized the name of a friend.

There’s still too many ifs. Claudius corrals his speculation, and says, “During our tête-à-tête, she came up with quite a cunning plan to theoretically oust the mansion spirits by exploiting their attachment to us. It’s not beyond her. But if that’s the case, the poison is also the antidote, in its way. Our loved ones are our weakness, but the more care and attention we pay each other, the more likely we are to notice when something’s awry. Even an ordinarily private pain, like a nightmare.”

[timebethine]

"Pay heed to me," says Laertes quietly. "I may lack the perspective to see my pains as they are."

[wickedwit]

“I promise thee I will.” He curls his fingers against Laertes’s cheek. “How dost thou fare? How is thy head, and how is thy heart?”

[timebethine]

"My head is well, though my heart is ill at ease," he answers, and turns to kiss Claudius's knuckles. "And thine?"

[wickedwit]

"Miserable," Claudius admits, even as he smiles through it. "But even so thou art like a shelter to me. I want to stay in thy arms until the storm passes."

[timebethine]

"Here, then." And he draws Claudius's head down against his chest, gathering him in as though he's no more than a shivering kitten.

[wickedwit]

He curls there like a cat would, stealing heat and holding it in, drawing comfort from the solid body under him. It's too many thoughts, as always, and a bright streak of self-awareness that's too blinding in the dark to chart a clear path by. To thine own self be true is the maxim, but Claudius never found it useful. He doesn't know what the truth of himself is, whether he's come closer to it or farther away. But he closes his eyes, and comes to a conclusion. "Whenever thou dost need to speak on something," he says, "know that thou canst speak to me. I will try always to understand thee, even when thou know'st not thyself what thou art feeling. And thou canst chide me for condescension, as thou need'st."

[timebethine]

"I will," says Laertes. "Thou knowest as well as I that I was not raised to confide my hurts in others--they were matters to be locked within the safe sphere of the family, and managed by that family's head. It was worse for thee; even the sphere of the family was not a safe place for thy hurts, so they had no compass but within thine unquiet breast. But perhaps we can learn another way together."