[open post: thursday's eve]

[forgethertoo]

When the predetermined day and time for the night hunt comes around, Aornis kits herself out quite reasonably, though she secretly loathes every second of it. Sensible, dark clothes and sensible black shoes with no heels. Flashlight. Notebook and pen. A few other useful and routine tools -- and an odd contraption that she's holding in her hands. The outside of it is a glass bottle that once held a beverage of some sort, washed and cleaned thoroughly. Since she didn't want to appear to be the sort to waste food, she's filled it with different colored plastic beads that she discovered in one of the lounges. The bottle is sealed, with the cap on, as she waits for Claudius and Lan Wangji.

Alternatively, if anyone would like to speak with her while she waits for them, they are also more than welcome to -- though we can't particularly guarantee a scintillating conversation, as she's still masquerading as Thursday Next.

Comments

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji folds his hands together behind his back and prepares to listen. The detector looks like nothing in particular, but he knows better than to dismiss it on those grounds.

[forgethertoo]

"It's quite simple, really. You don't need much to make additional ones either. If entropy is normal, whatever you put inside will look like this," Aornis says, with a shake of the bottle. The beads rattle. "They're evenly mixed. Random. When entropy is being manipulated, when you shake it, you'll see an unrandomized pattern. Swirls, starbursts, color sorting... anything of the sort indicates manipulation."

[wickedwit]

"Fascinating. I suppose it would begin with simple things. Shen Yuan heard a song from his childhood, didn't he?" with a look in Lan Wangji's direction. "Let me ask -- does entropy manipulation build up over time? If one of our guard catches a coincidence this way, will they be in better shape to avoid more deadly coincidences?"

[lightbearinglord]

At Claudius' prompting glance, Lan Wangji nods. It was both the least and the most interesting coincidence Shen Yuan mentioned during his recounting of his death. The mansion produces improbabilities at regular intervals, but with everything they know about Aornis now, the mansion seems shockingly innocent.

He listens for Thursday's answers, but adds one question of his own: "Can anything about the nature of the threat be gleaned from the pattern displayed?"

[forgethertoo]

"Nothing about the pattern itself is meaningful, but entropy manipulation builds up from small coincidences at first ...until it's deadly," she tells them. There's finally a serious, harder edge to her mild tone. It could very well be interpreted as someone who's dedicated to her job.

[wickedwit]

"I see," Claudius says, head cocked and considering implications. He cuts them short by clapping his hands together, and says, "Well, let's give a trial run, then. If nothing happens, we can consider ourselves lucky. Wangji, care to walk us through your usual patrol?"

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn." Much of that patrol usually takes place in the air, but they can traverse Lan Wangji's customary path on foot instead. Even if Thursday were amenable to sword flight, he could not safely fit three people on Bichen's blade. He starts by launching into a brisk walk in the direction of the mansion side entrance nearest to the lake.

[forgethertoo]

Thursday follows along, easily keeping pace. "Is there anything in particular the two of you are watching out for?" She asks, after a moment.

[wickedwit]

It's a fun sort of cat-and-mouse game they're playing, where Claudius isn't sure who's the cat and who's the mouse. He waits patiently for Lan Wangji to answer.

[lightbearinglord]

After a beat precisely long enough for Lan Wangji to realize that Claudius is going to say nothing, he answers, "At first, I sought an exit." They step outside. It is late enough in the spring now that the night is no longer cold at first blush. "Now I look for any abnormalities. Some are expected. The mansion grounds shift. Others are not. Anything malevolent: resentful energy, killing intent, stagnation of qi."

[forgethertoo]

Aornis looks thoughtful as they begin to walk the grounds. "I see. Are there typically many malevolent abnormalities here?"

[wickedwit]

"We've one or two malevolent normalities," Claudius says, pleasantly casual, perhaps only to have it said. "Some of our residents have something of a sinister bent. But they've stopped short of murder¹, in the past. A bit of a misstep, for our most recent murderer -- she'll have more attention on her than ever. People are fascinated by irregularity."

¹ Manslaughter doesn't count.

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn," Lan Wangji says again. He won't belabor the point; Claudius is right. Death was common for him once, if never welcome. The first death in a world that has never seen it before, conversely, can hardly escape notice. He leads them toward the far side of the lake. "Abnormalities are rare." The rest of that sentiment, he leaves implied: they are rare, but not unheard of. Fierce corpses, the sudden appearance of half of the Yin Tiger Tally, the sudden shift in the aura of Galahad's sword.

[forgethertoo]

"I suppose the two of you are also included in those fascinated by irregularity," Aornis says, also pleasantly enough. At this point in the walk, she gives the container of beads a small shake. They stay dispersed randomly inside the container.

[wickedwit]

"Well, of course. I told you I was a gossip, didn't I?" He hums thoughtfully, making notes in his notebook. "Lately, however, I've begun to wonder my whether fascination with the unusual has lead to me missing something in plain sight. Something hidden, perhaps, within a semblance of regularity. Do you take my meaning? It's the most uncanny feeling," he admits, acknowledging he's talking about something abstract. "Like there's something I've forgotten."

[lightbearinglord]

Despite the abrupt sharpening of his attention on Thursday, Lan Wangji makes no external acquiescence to his keen interest in her answer. He only keeps walking at an efficient but unhurried pace, past Nightingale's vacant summer house, skirting Magnus and Alex's camp. This is the side of him Claudius rarely sees now, calm and distant and cold, but it is still easy to access.

[forgethertoo]

"Oh, really?" Aornis asks, tone noncommittal but with a touch of worry. "I'm sure you've discovered that another facet of this individual's abilities is memory manipulation. If not, I... apologize if this is how you're discovering it. That might be what you're sensing."

[wickedwit]

There's a split second where Claudius considers playing up his shock, really exploring how much he's gotten out of Dionysus's acting classes -- but it's better to be in-character. A slight widening of the eyes, before he folds away his vulnerability like closing up a fan. He fiddles with his pen, keeps his tone deliberately light. "Well," he says. "That does answer one or two questions for me. Memory manipulation?"

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji's face stays unreadable, like a bowl of still water. "What are the parameters of this power?" They're coming closer to the edge of the woods, and darkness is encroaching; without comment, he plucks an illumination talisman from his sleeve, lights it with a flare of qi, and passes it to Thursday.

[forgethertoo]

"Oh, it's all quite terrifying," Aornis says with a touch of worry, taking the talisman with a nod of thanks. "The entire Hades family have different abilities and this one somehow landed with one of the worst. Changing memories, erasing memories, and even ...inserting brand new memories that never happened."

[wickedwit]

Claudius has, to be fair, been avoiding confronting that particular existential terror in the face. Now is as good a time as any to let a shudder pass through him, and wonder how many memories are his own. Treasured memories, and nightmares — traumas that shaped the man he is today.

On the other hand, it’s like any lie. Tell it often enough, and it becomes good as truth. Would learning the lie of a memory change how he truly felt about it? (That picture that struck him so suddenly, that dogged him during Dark, of Sagramore and Luo Binghe together — it could’ve been a memory handed down to him. The whole affair could’ve been an invention, to drive Claudius and Sagramore apart. Yet it didn’t drive them apart, because of a choice Sagramore made. For every memory, there’s a choice, and the choice is what next?)

“I couldn’t find the motive,” he says, the slow way he does when he’s thinking something through out loud. “The only person I’ve known here to make threats would never raise a hand against Shen Yuan. And though he could grate on a man, Shen Yuan was nevertheless well-liked. I knew no one who seriously quarreled with him. Perhaps she’d hidden it well … or perhaps I simply forgot. Perhaps I’ve forgotten her altogether. I’ve never heard the family name Hades.”

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji doesn't have to smooth this reaction into nothingness. If the game they are playing posits that this is new information, he can let his jaw clench with the same thrill of fear he felt when first he heard Wangji's strings thrumming with the notes that told him Aornis can create false memories, that Shen Yuan felt it happening to him.

It appears that Claudius has this well in hand. They've stepped into the woods, now. Here, if he had not already done so, he would -- on any given morning -- sling Bichen into the air and step onto the blade. Since he can't do that tonight, he winds his way through the woods, keeping a brisk clip as he walks and trusting they will both keep up. The illumination talisman in Thursday's hand casts a steady, warm glow around all three of them, casting long shadows that flicker from tree to tree.

[forgethertoo]

Who knows how much of this game Aornis is aware of; who knows if she's digging herself deeper into this lie because it's cruel, because it's fun, or because she's bored -- or all of the above. Her face is easily impassive as Thursday as they walk along, trained by many years of simply not being remembered. She's never had to show emotion to anyone.

"Most of the members of the Hades family don't need a reason or a motive. They're evil for the sake of being evil. I recently faced Acheron, the oldest brother. Then there's Styx, Cocytus, Phlegethon, and -- well. She's the only sister and the youngest." Her tone is professional, detached. "Lethe is considered the white sheep of the family."

[wickedwit]

"An intriguing family portrait," Claudius murmurs as they walk, eyes fixed ahead to follow the gleaming light of Bichen through the darkening woods. "Is there more you could tell me? I tend to look for the motive, in cases like these -- it makes it easier to guess what a person will do next. With your work in search and containment, I'm sure you understand. But in the absence of a motive, it helps to know where someone is from -- what her family life was like, and how these brothers influenced her."

[lightbearinglord]

Claudius might or might not realize it, but this is not quite Lan Wangji's usual route. He avoided several of the places he usually momentarily stops for the sake of putting eyes on them: Magnus and Alex's camp, Sagramore and Laertes' house, Mothwing's den. He won't take them to the part of the woods that houses the clearing where Claudius watched him bleed his anger out through his sword. If this was ever anything but an intricate excuse to tease out more information under several half-transparent layers of pretense, it is no longer. Evil for the sake of being evil. He still balks at accepting that. Even Wen Ruohan wanted something.

Between the warm light of the talisman and Bichen's naked blade with its cold sword glare, the woods are as easy to navigate as they are during broad daylight. It could almost be a true night-hunt, one of the hundreds he has behind him, but there is no resentful energy here. He might, on any other hunt, expect to glimpse the tattered edges of a ghost's incorporeal robes or the luminous flash of a monster's eyes in the dark. He might listen for distant laughter or scratching claws. Here, he hears only their footfalls and he sees only the flitter of wings as bats embark on their own shorter hunts.