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[choicely]

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Voice

[princess_of_ida]

[There's some real exasperation in Ianthe's voice, her frustration making her phrase her question in the most stupid possible way.]

How does a fucking fireplace work?

voice;

[choicely]

[ yennefer at least has the place of mind to not sound like she’s been woken up from a doze — which might be closer to what’s happened. ]

Is that another name for a sexual position? [ considering how much she’s already learned from ianthe, it seems a question worth clarifying. ]

[princess_of_ida]

What? No. It's a fucking fireplace. Stick wood in it, light on fire, get heat. That's what's supposed to happen.

[choicely]

Mmm. [ her voice holds the tension of someone who’s stretching for a moment. ] Is the wood too damp?

[princess_of_ida]

[There's a bit of a pause.]

...I don't know. My neighbors gave it to me after this morning's cut. Said I needed to keep a stock of it. And then it got cold, so I put some logs in the fireplace and some smaller sticks to light. Got a little flame, but then it went out. I did it like three times and it kept going out, so I coated it with liquid fat and lit that on fire.

[Whee accelerant.]

Now it's all fucking smoky in my house and I still don't have heat.

[choicely]

Smaller sticks. Maybe leaves then for something else to catch flame? If it’s too smothered, it won’t burn. [ she pauses on a realization. ] Or I could simply come over and set it on fire for you.

[ not that it’ll solve the problem of ianthe starting her own fires, but at least she won’t freeze. ]

[princess_of_ida]

No, no, no... I need to fucking figure out how to do this. I'm not asking Gilia how.

[choicely]

Start with some dry logs. Smaller sticks if needed, then use the leaves to build up the flame and keep adding more in order to kindle it. [ a brief pause. ] You had no trouble asking me.

[princess_of_ida]

Okay... [She'll start rearranging the wood in the fireplace. She hadn't thought about leaves. Which meant Ianthe headed out while talking to Yennefer to find some leaves. Or get a kindling bundle from the neighbors.]

I don't care if you make fun of me. I'd prefer it to Gilia doing that tut tut thing and look at me like I'm a pathetic lost lamb that won't survive winter. She's real hung up on winter.

[choicely]

I’m not interested in making fun of you. [ she says it matter-of-factly, but there might be a small chuckle. ] At least not in the way you don’t already like.

So you don’t want her to pity you.

[princess_of_ida]

I don't want to prove her right that I'm not ready - in her mind - for winter. I don't get what the big deal about it is. We did fine when we were snowed in.

[And yes, Ianthe hated being pitied.]

[choicely]

Are harsh winters less common in your own sphere?

[ what yennefer fails to mention is that the reason she knows certain information along those lines is because she was forced into menial chores from a very young age, in part because of her disfigurement at the time. ]

[princess_of_ida]

For the most part, I live in a ship in space - among the stars. Gilia calls it Time's Realm. Weather is a terrestrial phenomenon, and even then, most terraformed places are climate controlled.

[choicely]

It doesn't get cold in space?

[princess_of_ida]

It's colder than you can even imagine. One step out of a ship, shuttle, or station and the body freezes instantly. There's also no air or pressure to keep the body intact or gravity. Inside it's climate controlled. With electric heaters.

My first time experiencing snow was the other month.

[choicely]

Was the snow more of an adjustment than anything else that's been demanded of us since we got here?

[princess_of_ida]

Yeah. Terrestrial weather is so weird. It's not the biggest adjustment, though.

That would be all the paper. I'm still not used to the feel.

[choicely]

This... ship of yours doesn't have any paper? What do you read or write on?

[princess_of_ida]

Flimsies - very thin pages of plastic. Whiteboards. Tablets - those are electronic devices that store countless digital books. [It was hard to explain it to someone that didn't know.]

We have paper, but it's a very rare luxury item usually reserved for official documents, proclamations, fancy invitations, or to impress someone with their wealth.

[choicely]

Strange to consider a sphere where paper is considered a luxury. Typically, it's something else that men will consider fighting over.

[ because it is always men who are the ones in place to fight over it, isn't it? not that she has any intention of being more philosophical in this conversation. ]

Though the ability to keep countless books in one object is something that I can envision my colleagues practically salivating over. [ istredd, especially, is who she's thinking of, and she'll send a mental image of him now by way of her connection to ianthe. ]

[princess_of_ida]

I typically work with flimsies, just because that's what necromancers use to scribble theorems, calculations, thoughts, and other notes on. Especially the Lyctors of Old. I spent most of my independent research on Resurrection Theeory. No one kept digital records of that. [Except God but she could never get her hands on John's tablet.]

Who's the hottie?

[choicely]

It must be beneficial to be able to keep all of your notes organized in one place, then, instead of having them scattered everywhere. [ such a thing would have made her think of istredd even if his face hadn't been summoned to her mind. ]

Someone I knew in my early years as a novice, before I ascended to sorceress. [ the word "knew" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. ] But he went on to specialize in research and archaeology. Digging up old ruins and understanding their significance.

[princess_of_ida]

I hope you got to fuck him sometime. Looks like he has a big dick. He sounds Sixth. Not the worst conversationalist out there to people like us.

So how much leaf kindling shit am I supposed to use? [Guess who's back at the fireplace.]

[choicely]

More than once. [ she'll admit that much; when they were novices, they'd fucked like overeager rabbits. never mind the fact that there had been other betrayals between them before her ascension, the kind that had caused them to fall out of touch for decades. ]

A handful, at first? Try scattering it around the logs, then use more to feed the flame so it'll grow.

[princess_of_ida]

Give me the dick deets. Long? Thick? Did it curve to the side?

[Ianthe followed the instructions with the leaves. She frowned and rearranged the logs so there was a little open space inside them. Some of the smaller sticks were stuck in there and some leaves, a few leaves outside. She lit the leaves and watched.]