open RP: Renata finds Robin
She still could not say how she had come to Hogwarts. What she did know for certain was that whatever travel might have brought her here, it left her sorely fatigued, all the more so after the strangeness of the Sorting into which she had immediately been cast. When she returned home, she thought, she would have at least this story to tell, that she had passed a trial by embroidery!
This castle was not entirely without good help. In short order Renata had a chamber, more akin to the accommodations of a Tower novice than anything like her apartments in Castle Aldaran, and adequate clothing and linens, again more befitting a novice's work than a lady's station. It sufficed; she had no complaints. At the same time, she thought it not at all strange that the Hat should have cited her noble blood as the reason for her house placement. Comyn and Hali'imyn alike were set apart from the common run, Hali'imyn if anything a rarefied subset of the Comyn.
This was not to say she had no questions about Slytherin House. For one thing, Robin of Loxley had seemed reticent on the subject of that House, and uncomfortable concerning his own placement therein. Should there be a stigma upon her new residence, she wished to know it, and to know why. She would not have it be a hindrance to her work.
For she had work to do here, she knew. Already she had met a young woman burdened with entirely uncontrolled laran or something like it, and a man confronted with an unexplained double who desired deep monitoring for both himself and that double. Hogwarts was some sort of a school, and she had met other telepaths here who seemed in no need of training, yet no laranzu'in and no evidence of specific avenues for teaching or using these gifts presented themselves. The words of Lord Commander Snow stayed with her as she soaked in a hot bath and prepared for sleep. Renata had not come to Hogwarts purposely. The place might well be drawing people to itself, for a purpose of its own, or even unthinking, when the need arose. There was magic in these stones ...
Well, she had her matrix, and she would do her best, as befitted a comynara and leronis. Tramontana could continue its work in her absence, doubtless; she might be its most skilled monitor (false modesty not a luxury permitted in such intimate and grueling work), but she was not the only competent monitor at that Tower, and even if she were, Neskaya could spare one to hold her place. As for the Aldaran domain, well, the succession of Donal's son was in no question, whatever might befall Mikhail. The Storns or the Scathfell kindred might make some ill-conceived attempt at unrest, but none could stand against the might of the Hasturs, and the connection to Allart might well check such an attempt even before it could begin. No, Renata had no misgivings as to how her kin might fare without her near. If she had, she would not have been at Tramontana at all; she would have been at Castle Aldaran, or in Thendara. A sad state of affairs it was, she thought ruefully, that the work for which she was trained had now become in itself a luxury, something she could pursue only by Mikhail's grace and blessing, and when she was not needed elsewhere for reasons of state.
Now it seemed she was to take up that work in a new place, without benefit of a circle, without any tools other than her own matrix. So be it; Renata Leynier had never shied from a challenge. Clean and rested, she awoke and dressed herself in the robes of Hogwarts, and set out from her little Slytherin dormitory room to go about what business she might have.
She needed to find Gillian, and to find Sidney Reilly. She recalled being told that owls were used in this place, for the people to communicate one with another. It seemed to her wasteful, when a woman had her own two legs to walk upon. Yet she did not know where to find these people. Robin of Loxley had promised to act as guide to her; perhaps he could guide her at least to the place where the owls were kept, and she could send word to these others to let them know where she might be found, until such time as she got her own bearings.
By the grace of Evanda, it so happened Robin was the first person Renata saw upon her emergence from the dormitory. Her path took her through the Slytherin common room, where he sat before the hearth with a tray of sand at his feet and a branch of some wood Renata did not know in his hands. She recognised his work: he had fashioned the branch into a weapon, which he had carved, and was now sanding the carvings. Perhaps he had been at this for some time, and Renata was almost loath to disturb him. It was the habit of a telepath that made her speak to him regardless; had she been among her own, they would have sensed her presence at once, whether she spoke or no, and it would have been foolish to pass by as though she were not there.
"How goes the work?" she said, simply. No need to preface the words with formality.