The Estate to SaDiablo Hall and Back, The Wee Hours of Friday into Saturday, Fandom Time
So, the past six days had been...eventful.
There had been unrest in Sidra once word of the attempted assassination had gotten out; several aristo manors with known anti-Karla sentiment had been vandalized as had a handful of merchant buildings. No violence was reported, thank the Darkness, but Julian had sent out additional guards to keep the peace. Jono and Morton had managed to interview the driver once he'd made the transition to demon-dead, but hadn't been able to get much useful information out of him. He'd been approached by a footman in dark livery and offered a few rounds of cards and a drink or two to help kill the time while the Queen and the Court Healer and the First Escort had been at their luncheon. This was a common enough occurrence that he hadn't thought twice of it. Sadly, he wasn't able to describe the male who'd approached him and didn't recognize the livery, so that was a dead end.
Mallory had suggested forbidding all Coachmen and footmen from leaving the vehicles while they were waiting. Karla herself had vetoed the idea--why make them spend hours bored out of their minds while waiting to be needed. Instead, they'd agreed that all Coaches would be shielded by their drivers and if any of them showed signs of being tampered with, they would order a new one delivered from the estate before anyone was allowed to set foot inside.
The Coach had managed to be fished out of the river and inspected. There were multiple instances of Craft sabotage, but after four days of sitting at the bottom of the River Sid, any usable traces had long since been washed away.
To top it all off, Karla had spent the last several days completely miserable. She'd managed to hold it all together in the wake of everything, but on the fourth day out she'd just been done. She'd declared a half hour break from dealing with other humans and gone out into the garden for a bit, feeding some Craft into the land as it slowly woke to springtime when a bout of intense cramping had her curling up on her side for almost ten minutes. Stabbing and dull at the same time, the cramps were far more severe than anything she'd ever felt during her moontime.
Taking it as a hint that she was pushing herself more than she should be in the wake of nearly being murdered, Karla took herself off to bed as soon as she was able to get up, fending off any and all worry by saying that it was just a preventative rest, that she was trying to be good, that if people kept bugging her about it, she'd go back to ignoring her body's needs and running herself into the ground just to shut people up.
The day after that, just wearing her Jewels had caused her the same kind of pain as trying to use her Ebon-gray power during her moontime did. Even wearing her birthright Sapphire had made her queasy and she found herself limiting her use of Craft just to avoid further cramping and nausea. Then, this morning, she'd unthinkingly used a bit of Craft to float some papers from her desk and had ended up throwing up on the floor. That was before the dizziness and weakness kicked in--fortunately, she managed to topple over to the side, rather than face first into the mess she made on the rug.
So far, she'd succeeded in hiding how poorly she felt, brushing it off as lingering soreness or fatigue. But waking up from a dead faint next to a pool of sickness on the rug didn't bode well for how much longer she'd be able to continue to hide it. Especially if the sinking feeling in her stomach was a certainty over what was wrong with her, rather than what little was left of her breakfast trying to make a reappearance. She was a Healer, after all, and was capable of reading a calendar. And putting two and two together and coming up with Hell's fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness have mercy.
The first thing to do was to call for Raven. A brief trip to the Hall was in order. If both Raven and Jaenelle told her what was happening, then she'd have no choice but to believe them.
The second thing to do was figure out what the Hell she was going to do if her suspicions were correct.
[NFB, first two threads threads are for specific people, last thread for potentional phone calls.]
There had been unrest in Sidra once word of the attempted assassination had gotten out; several aristo manors with known anti-Karla sentiment had been vandalized as had a handful of merchant buildings. No violence was reported, thank the Darkness, but Julian had sent out additional guards to keep the peace. Jono and Morton had managed to interview the driver once he'd made the transition to demon-dead, but hadn't been able to get much useful information out of him. He'd been approached by a footman in dark livery and offered a few rounds of cards and a drink or two to help kill the time while the Queen and the Court Healer and the First Escort had been at their luncheon. This was a common enough occurrence that he hadn't thought twice of it. Sadly, he wasn't able to describe the male who'd approached him and didn't recognize the livery, so that was a dead end.
Mallory had suggested forbidding all Coachmen and footmen from leaving the vehicles while they were waiting. Karla herself had vetoed the idea--why make them spend hours bored out of their minds while waiting to be needed. Instead, they'd agreed that all Coaches would be shielded by their drivers and if any of them showed signs of being tampered with, they would order a new one delivered from the estate before anyone was allowed to set foot inside.
The Coach had managed to be fished out of the river and inspected. There were multiple instances of Craft sabotage, but after four days of sitting at the bottom of the River Sid, any usable traces had long since been washed away.
To top it all off, Karla had spent the last several days completely miserable. She'd managed to hold it all together in the wake of everything, but on the fourth day out she'd just been done. She'd declared a half hour break from dealing with other humans and gone out into the garden for a bit, feeding some Craft into the land as it slowly woke to springtime when a bout of intense cramping had her curling up on her side for almost ten minutes. Stabbing and dull at the same time, the cramps were far more severe than anything she'd ever felt during her moontime.
Taking it as a hint that she was pushing herself more than she should be in the wake of nearly being murdered, Karla took herself off to bed as soon as she was able to get up, fending off any and all worry by saying that it was just a preventative rest, that she was trying to be good, that if people kept bugging her about it, she'd go back to ignoring her body's needs and running herself into the ground just to shut people up.
The day after that, just wearing her Jewels had caused her the same kind of pain as trying to use her Ebon-gray power during her moontime did. Even wearing her birthright Sapphire had made her queasy and she found herself limiting her use of Craft just to avoid further cramping and nausea. Then, this morning, she'd unthinkingly used a bit of Craft to float some papers from her desk and had ended up throwing up on the floor. That was before the dizziness and weakness kicked in--fortunately, she managed to topple over to the side, rather than face first into the mess she made on the rug.
So far, she'd succeeded in hiding how poorly she felt, brushing it off as lingering soreness or fatigue. But waking up from a dead faint next to a pool of sickness on the rug didn't bode well for how much longer she'd be able to continue to hide it. Especially if the sinking feeling in her stomach was a certainty over what was wrong with her, rather than what little was left of her breakfast trying to make a reappearance. She was a Healer, after all, and was capable of reading a calendar. And putting two and two together and coming up with Hell's fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness have mercy.
The first thing to do was to call for Raven. A brief trip to the Hall was in order. If both Raven and Jaenelle told her what was happening, then she'd have no choice but to believe them.
The second thing to do was figure out what the Hell she was going to do if her suspicions were correct.
[NFB, first two threads threads are for specific people, last thread for potentional phone calls.]