warm front

[cumulonimbus]

After Mathilde has left (and Stormy has her schedule for the next few days all written down), Stormy goes aprowl through the house again to make sure she's clear on the layout and see if anybody else wants to talk to her while she is still novel.

Comments

[calendarofcrime]

"I have temporarily stopped," she says.

[cumulonimbus]

"Do you want to talk? It's kind of hard to tell."

[calendarofcrime]

"Yes," she says. "I do and it is."

[cumulonimbus]

Stormy sits down. "What're you reading?" she asks.

[calendarofcrime]

Serahila shows her the title: Duke Vedris of Emelan.

"The Toren family is full of interesting people," she says. "This one was the predecessor of Duchess Amiliane's mother. Duchess Sandrilene had a biography commissioned after he died."

[cumulonimbus]

"What things made him interesting?"

[calendarofcrime]

"Before he inherited his title, and for some time afterward, he was a renowned pirate-chaser. Once he had settled in properly he had an amazingly sharp mind for resolving disputes and setting effective policies. And he disinherited all of his sons in favour of his great-niece because he expected her to be a better ruler than any of them. I think I would have liked him if I had met him."

[cumulonimbus]

"Were his sons mad?" wonders Stormy.

[calendarofcrime]

"Yes. But he dealt with their grumbling and it was all resolved peacefully, except for one assassination attempt."

[cumulonimbus]

"That's a pretty big 'except'. Were they trying to assassinate the duke or his niece?"

[calendarofcrime]

"The plot did not get far enough for them to conclusively tell. Sandrilene's theory, with which I find myself agreeing, is that they were both targets."

[cumulonimbus]

"Sandrilene was a mage, too, right?"

[calendarofcrime]

"Yes. A thread mage, educated at Winding Circle. I intend to read her biography next. Would you like to borrow this one when I am finished?"

[cumulonimbus]

"Sure."

[calendarofcrime]

She smiles.

[cumulonimbus]

"Mercy says you read a lot. Is it mostly biographies or all different stuff?"

[calendarofcrime]

"All different. I like books. They - stay still."

[cumulonimbus]

"What does that mean?"

[calendarofcrime]

"It means... they don't move, or make sounds, or change. When I read a book, the book is not doing anything. It is always exactly the same book, unless someone touched it and left a nick or a fold or a smear. Just a sequence of words waiting patiently for me to take them all in. They're very restful that way."

[cumulonimbus]

"Huh. I never thought about it that way."

[calendarofcrime]

"I don't think very many people do."

[cumulonimbus]

"I like books because I can read them as fast as I want and skip around in them if I feel like it. Sometimes teachers get impatient if I don't want to learn things in the order they have in mind. It's also easier to take notes out of books and I like having notes because that way I don't forget things but I don't have to go re-read things in their original book either, I can get them already-thought-about in my notes."

[calendarofcrime]

"Oh," she says. "I think I would like rereading things in the original book more than rereading notes I made about them. Even if my notes were very good, they wouldn't be exactly the same as the book, and if they were then it would be pointless to have them as long as the book was still available."

[cumulonimbus]

"The notes are what I have in my head after I read the book," explains Stormy. "If I re-read them it's mostly like re-reading - not exactly, because if I do re-read I get slightly different things, but it's much faster. They're the understanding and not the presentation."

[calendarofcrime]

"If I reread something it would be because I wanted to remember what it was," she says. "With all of its details just so. If I want to remember how I understood something, I remember it, and if I forget the understanding then I want to reread the thing itself and understand it again. Because otherwise I might miss something."