isleofavalon | [OPEN] the stuff of montages

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original: cecelia ardenbury

[OPEN] the stuff of montages

🧙 WHO: Cecelia Ardenbury, OPEN
⚔️️ WHAT: A space for magical training/assessment and the viewing of the Calamity (ref: network announcement)
🕒 WHEN: Oct
🗺️ WHERE: The Ambassador office (Camelot), Red Spring, End of the World
⚠️ WARNINGS: In subject headers as needed

SIGN IN HERE is written just above the lines of names and dates of previous visits.

There is a small table setting by the window on the opposite side, where tea is still piping hot and waiting - just in case anyone is inclined to it. Miss Ardenbury prefers spiced, robust dark brews to anything light or floral, so novice tea tongues beware.

Where once was an empty wall is now a length of engineer's drafting paper, and upon it is the sketching of two views: One, the top-down topography of the calamitous end of the world; the other being a more man's-eye view of the location. There are a few representations of the fluctuating starburst in the sky as well, alongside some peculiar, indecipherable shorthand notes in small, neat lettering.

Miss Ardenbury herself sits at an oak desk further in amongst her stack of borrowed books and personal journals, likely still scratching away or having herself some of that tea. She doesn't even look up right away to greet - the bell was signal enough for her to call:

"Do be sure to sign in, thank you. What business do you have here today?"

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"I doubt I need to assure you I'll do likewise for your sake--" She arches an eyebrow. "Such gossip does me no favors, after all."

"You mean you're NOT a fount of endless gossip?" Morgan slapped his hands to his cheeks in incredible faux-shock. "I can't believe it!"

"Believe as you wish," she retorts lightly, sitting back in her chair. "Makes little difference to me as it is, mm? I'd have to be privy to the sort of places where gossip has meaning, but as it stands..."

As it stands, being Ambassador does not grant one seat at the king's table. And that's irritating for her.

"And you're definitely not a high-school cheerleader." Though gossip counted in politics and offices too... "Truthfully, you're the only person I know who is positioned to have an insight and is perfectly trustworthy, so I can't imagine what I'd gain from talking to anyone else about it anyway."

"That's disheartening," she scoffs, flicking her gaze past him and toward the front window. "Are there really no others among the outworlders who are reliable?"

"And positioned to have an insight." Morgan's tone wasn't sharp, per se -- perhaps simply more heavy, with emphasis. "Plenty of people are trustworthy, but you must admit your position is rather unique."

"It doesn't give the leg up you would imagine," she says, a touch flat, her eyes flitting down to the bangle on her wrist. "At least, it shouldn't, so long as many take advantage of what this trinket can do for them.

"But very few seem keen to, more focused on the day-to-day, or...whatever nonsense of the month crops up. And as far as access to more details from the crown? It leaves much to be desired."

"Those are important too, those details." Morgan did his best to work both ends, and was particularly grateful for the strength and energy to do so. "I really do wish we were more in the loop, though. We seem to be just... average citizens, all things considered."

"Average citizens tasked with the private mastery over magic not born of ourselves, at that." No, she doesn't like it a bit. And that's to say nothing of the members of the outworlder community who never encountered magic before!

"No, it's...not an ideal situation, to say the very least. Though at this stage I'm wondering how much push I can do before I am ultimately shut out by the effort."

"A good question." One he had faith she could answer, though, if she were careful. And very patient. "That's why I'm not engaging on that front -- I'm not nearly as good at that sort of thing as I need to be. Would you believe it's so much easier to get a good, fair deal for everyone involved when everyone is only looking out for themselves?"

That was business, at least how Morgan conducted business, and it had served him well. Politics such as kingdoms and titles, well, that was not much good at all.

"So long as everyone wants more or less similar things."

It's easier when it comes down to base things like survival...not so much as time progresses. The devil, as they say, is in the details.

"If this does become a generations-long endeavor as I suspect, I doubt it'll be easier as it goes..."

"Man, if that does happen I'll have to have kids or something." Morgan just couldn't help grinning. "And here I thought the whole corporate inheritance would be a painful burden. Now it's the fate of reality!"

Gads. More little Morgans scampering about? Would things be more or less tolerable?

Her mouth tugs on one side briefly, his prize for the notion, before it's back to neutrality.

"Perhaps that facet will remain on pause until this matter is resolved."

"Oh, and here I was gonna ask for your help." No, he wasn't really, and his wicked grin said as much. As lovely as Cecelia really was, she was... well, not exactly maternal material right now!

"Atrocious man," she scoffs, her tone unchanging, but the eye roll and smirk is quite implied. Maternal? Not now, not ever. Perish the thought. "Were there other burning questions on your plate to share, beyond the matter of our...personhood?"

Considering everything they'd been through? And the incredibly different nature of their personalities? Morgan had expected a sharper reaction to his rather shameless joke, and that amused tolerance felt like a victory of incredible proportions.

"It doesn't have to be now, but at some point, I'd love to learn how you cast magic. I get the impression that it's different enough from how I do it, how I think of it at least, that I can pick up some very valuable things by coming to understand it."

That request gives her reason to tilt her head.

"A process review?" Huh. "Have you found hiccups or deficiencies in your own?"

"Not anything you'd consider as such, no. But if I don't see how others do it, how do I know I'm not missing something obvious or drastic? Everything..." He twitched his fingers, looking for a proper description, then interlaced them as he held up his hands. "It's synthesis. Taking what works, discarding what doesn't. Learning everything you can, because everything you learn teaches you something about everything."

The Akashic philosophy, as embraced by Morgan Knight, wasn't easy to describe, and he had yet to successfully do it to anyone here. Not for lack of trying, but connecting aikido to financial planning was just not the sort of mental gymnastics most people were prepared to take.

It's a valid enough perspective, though she wonders where he sets his boundaries amidst all of that. If he has any for himself at all. He can be rather hard to discern, but...that's not entirely novel, is it? The novelty is really the longevity of their acquaintance at this point.

"I suppose I don't mind," she replies. "Next time I am off to private study, you're welcome to join...though I keep late hours, given my need for rest is rather different to human needs."

Boundaries? That's the thing, Cecelia -- there are none. The boundaries between soul and mind, between mind and body, they're all artifical. The boundaries between "you" and "me", between "us" and "them", between anything and anything, they're all artificial too. One is all, all is one. A river is water; water forms a river. So everything has a lesson to teach, and everything is a lesson to be learned.

Morgan waved off her concern. "It's fine, I sleep like crap here anyway but I'm too stubborn to slow down. Hard work and exercise, of any sort, are some of the best ways to get me in the mood for rest!"

"Of course," she sighs, shaking her head. "You would be yet another troublesome man who would rather vex me than mind their own limits. You are far less light than the previous fool I've had to drag back to safety and clean up, so don't expect any special treatment should you drop unawares."

"Please, you knew I was that already. But don't underestimate me too much. I'm stubborn, after all." Too stubborn to ever let himself be dragged back, not for the sake of mere training at the very least!

"To a depth I've yet to see, and likely never shall." Gads. He has the air of a multi-volume epic's protagonist about him, for better or worse.

"I don't know if you had seen my network notice, but if you do mean to engage in any collaboration with training, I would ask a little support as far as totems go. That won't be trouble for you, will it?"

"I'll make some arrangements for that, you've no fear. Financial investments go a long way towards opening doors." Though he really ought to learn to make the things himself, and save a lot of grief...

"Ah, right--" She sits back in her seat. "You've got yourself a comfortable relationship with money here. It's a detail I tend to neglect within the whole scope of recollecting you. Fair enough, though, so long as I needn't walk all the way back from Red Springs, I've no complaints."

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