Application for Renata Leynier (Darkover canon)

[renata_leynier]

A mist swirls in the middle of the Sorting Room. Out of this mist steps a young woman in long woolen skirts, her copper hair held back from her face with a butterfly clasp. She looks uncertain, though not disoriented or distraught, and she answers aloud the questions posed to her. A Dictaquill takes down the answers so that persons who arrive at

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[joachim_armster]

((Renata may or may not sense that Joachim is also an accomplished telepath; your choice. She'd be able to freely 'read' his surface thoughts, but nothing deeper.))

"Being squibbed is the equivalent of a death sentence in this place. Assuming you've no masochistic tendencies, it is something best avoided," Joachim murmured distractedly. He watched the woman with interest, head tilted slightly, as though listening intently.

[renata_leynier]

(( Thanks for the heads-up -- this could be Interesting! ))

Renata too seemed distracted, almost absent, as though she too were listening to something, something unheard by the others in the room. Then she peered at the uncannily ... pretty? and disturbing? man who, it occurred to her, had been addressing her aloud after all.

"Thank you for the warning, then, vai dom," she said, automatically giving him the honorific, because laran was a gift of the aristocratic caste.

[joachim_armster]

Joachim might have appreciated being addressed so highly, had he any knowledge of the language the woman had used. He could infer only so much from her tone.

"Perhaps now you understand the importance of those 'bribes'," he said, smiling faintly. "May I ask the meaning of that? 'Vai dom.' You've used several terms in your application that did not fully translate. There seems to exist a spell here that actively translates spoken and written words into a common tongue, allowing beings to understand one another despite any language barriers. Things do slip through on occasion."

[renata_leynier]

"To demand gifts from one's guests under threat of violence seems to me nigh sacrilegious," Renata said soberly. "The explanation is appreciated, nonetheless. As for the matter of languages -- it does seem to me I must not be speaking the languages of my country, if I can understand you all, and you can understand me; yet some concepts seem not to permeate what veil or field makes this mutual comprehensibility possible. I will translate for myself as best I may, then," she offered, with a little smile at the apparent absurdity of the offer. "I hope it is not indelicate to say that I am aware you possess laran or a gift like it -- no, something like it, not the same," she clarified to herself. "Among the people of the Seven Domains, it is the Comyn, the noble families, that possess such gifts, and so I have addressed you as one such. Vai dom is a title -- well, how can I explain it? 'Lord,' I suppose. That is dom, and vai is an ... intensifier? No, not that

[joachim_armster]

"Laran, is that an ability of the mind? For I, too, can sense your power as plainly as though it were a physical feature. I suspect you must be highly skilled," he added, noting how controlled -- almost restricted -- her power felt to him. He exhibited perhaps less learned discipline and mastery despite likely being several times the woman's age; he knew only what he'd taught himself, and the sheer strength of his ability had always made up for any proficiency he lacked.

His expression darkened when she went on to describe her people and land, though he made an effort to keep his own telepathic barrier firmly in place, so as to not broadcast his wangsty emo woe emotions. "In my own realm, I'm indeed of noble birth, but it is this very gift, as you call it, that marked me as an outsider and led to my ostracisation. Exiled, because humans feared what they could neither understand nor control. I was a child then." A trace of old bitterness had bled into his voice.

"You are a teacher, I take it? What are these towers you speak of?"

[renata_leynier]

Renata bowed her head, accepting his assessment of her skill nonverbally as it would be immodest to confirm it aloud. "I have taught," she said, "though my work in the circles is mainly as a monitor." She maintained her own barriers, firm and professional; even so, it would not have taken an empath to discern the sadness in the emo man's voice (was he a man? there was something about him that almost reminded her of the chieri; not that he could be at all chieri, but he did not seem entirely human) when he spoke of his childhood and his exile.

"In the Seven Domains, you would not have been exiled, but tested by a leronis and brought to the Towers for training," she said. "We live apart from others, but it is no exile to us, to live among our kind and work for the betterment of our people. We maintain the relays for communication between the Domains, and we mine the earth for metals

[joachim_armster]

((How weird! XD Going by that description, I can see how he might almost be mistaken for a chieri, minus two digits.))

Her words stirred in him an undeniable longing, almost a jealousy, but for what, he couldn't have said. To have been born in her world? What would be the point? He could grieve endlessly for what might have been, but it would change nothing, he knew. Vengeance would never be his, nor retribution for the great waste of years he'd spent imprisoned. No, not merely years. Several lifetimes, all well beyond his reach now.

"Your world sounds more advanced and far more civilised than the one I hail from," he replied, his tone lighter than before. Her grin was both somehow heartening and slightly infectious, and he found himself smiling in turn. Had he known that she was also an empath, he would have fully blamed his eased mood on that. He always reacted strangely to empaths, after all...

"I should like to know more about you, though. Beginning with your name and why you sought this place out." He offered a simple, yet

[renata_leynier]

"Ah, we too are capable of our barbarities," Renata said. "But that does not bring me here. Indeed I am not sure at all what brings me here!" she confessed, laughing. With a curtsey she gave him her name: "I am called Renata." The first name only, because he had given his, and because between the laran-gifted when not in the court or the councils of Comyn, Tower etiquette seemed infinitely more sensible to Renata.