It was well past the middle of the night, and the Baron of Corvana ought rightfully have been sleeping.
Or perhaps he ought to have been reveling. That was what most members of the gentry were doing at this time of night, dancing and drinking and being seen. Looking for husbands, looking for wives. Long, productive nights of parties, before waking in the afternoon to do it all again.
The thought made his skin crawl, when he thought of it at all.
Mostly, he did not think of it. Did not think of anything that did not glow or spark or burn, fire without heat, light without fire. He did not have a dedicated office, because he preferred to keep his desk in the middle of his library, walls covered in shelves. It was like a cocoon of magic, relics and artifacts and books. Pages printed on living wood and stamped in blood and bound in skin, runes carved into bone, metal contraptions that seemed to move of their own accord.
The desk itself was lit with the glow of crystals, not faint and crude as so many of the lights in Akvero; these were perfect spheres of radiant light, balanced on elaborately twisted metalwork. Here it was easy to lose track of time, despite the many clocks he kept – but then, many of the clocks kept time for different places. It was hard to tell which was local, to look at them.
Dressed in his usual finery, he looked despite his predilections as if he had just come from a party somewhere. He hadn't even taken off his jacket. Moreover, he hadn't taken off his mask. The way he moved suggested that he was long past being accustomed to the presence of the beak it gave him. His every motion accommodated for its presence as easily as if it were a part of him, not even brushing it with the voluminous feather of his quill.
His head was, however, drooping. As the night had worn on his back had bent, leaning lower and lower over his desk, nearer and nearer to the paper on which he wrote.
There were two ways to tell that he had fallen asleep. The first was that his pen had stilled, ink slowly blossoming outward from the nib of his quill in an unsightly splotch.
The other was that the lights went out.
Or perhaps he ought to have been reveling. That was what most members of the gentry were doing at this time of night, dancing and drinking and being seen. Looking for husbands, looking for wives. Long, productive nights of parties, before waking in the afternoon to do it all again.
The thought made his skin crawl, when he thought of it at all.
Mostly, he did not think of it. Did not think of anything that did not glow or spark or burn, fire without heat, light without fire. He did not have a dedicated office, because he preferred to keep his desk in the middle of his library, walls covered in shelves. It was like a cocoon of magic, relics and artifacts and books. Pages printed on living wood and stamped in blood and bound in skin, runes carved into bone, metal contraptions that seemed to move of their own accord.
The desk itself was lit with the glow of crystals, not faint and crude as so many of the lights in Akvero; these were perfect spheres of radiant light, balanced on elaborately twisted metalwork. Here it was easy to lose track of time, despite the many clocks he kept – but then, many of the clocks kept time for different places. It was hard to tell which was local, to look at them.
Dressed in his usual finery, he looked despite his predilections as if he had just come from a party somewhere. He hadn't even taken off his jacket. Moreover, he hadn't taken off his mask. The way he moved suggested that he was long past being accustomed to the presence of the beak it gave him. His every motion accommodated for its presence as easily as if it were a part of him, not even brushing it with the voluminous feather of his quill.
His head was, however, drooping. As the night had worn on his back had bent, leaning lower and lower over his desk, nearer and nearer to the paper on which he wrote.
There were two ways to tell that he had fallen asleep. The first was that his pen had stilled, ink slowly blossoming outward from the nib of his quill in an unsightly splotch.
The other was that the lights went out.
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Luminalia [Closed] - by Tindome - 01-27-2016, 10:44 PM
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RE: Luminalia [Closed] - by Tindome - 03-15-2016, 11:55 AM
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RE: Luminalia [Closed] - by Tindome - 03-17-2016, 11:40 AM
RE: Luminalia [Closed] - by megs - 05-02-2016, 02:36 PM
RE: Luminalia [Closed] - by Tindome - 06-28-2016, 02:39 AM
RE: Luminalia [Closed] - by megs - 06-28-2016, 11:30 AM
RE: Luminalia [Closed] - by Tindome - 08-30-2016, 01:49 PM
RE: Luminalia [Closed] - by megs - 09-04-2016, 11:36 PM
RE: Luminalia [Closed] - by Tindome - 03-14-2017, 01:20 AM
RE: Luminalia [Closed] - by megs - 04-09-2017, 02:25 PM
RE: Luminalia [Closed] - by Tindome - 04-14-2017, 11:05 PM
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RE: Luminalia [Closed] - by Tindome - 11-26-2018, 12:37 PM
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RE: Luminalia [Closed] - by megs - 11-17-2019, 02:18 PM
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RE: Luminalia [Closed] - by megs - 04-30-2020, 01:27 PM