Log: Aristarkh & Diana

["Donna Djordjevich" <thegr81@softcom.net>]

Log, dated: 22/2/01


~Diana
__________________________




Courtyard -- Chapter House (Kaitain)
A wide cobblestoned central alley with high grey stone walls leads from the
simple metal worked gate of the Bene Gesserit ChapterHouse to the geometric
harmony of the courtyard. Hexagonal in shape the courtyard has several
embellishments encompassing the outer area of the six points, while in the
center a simple granite fountain is covered by an ornate wooden gazebo. Six
carefully pruned trees are arrayed at the points of the hexagon providing
shade to benches, bushes, flowers and herb beds such as akarso,
spindlebrush, poppies, fern-tulips, yellow cedar to name but a few.
During the daylight hours in hushed silence young Sisters care for the trees
and plants. Tranquility flows here contrasting with the bustle of the city
of Kaitain.
Exits:
 Curved Path <E> leads to Emerald Lawn -- Chapter House (Kaitain)
 Staircase <U> leads to Tower Landing Pad -- Chapter House (Kaitain)
 Double Doors <N> leads to Public Atrium -- Chapter House (Kaitain)
 Courtyard <W> leads to Rathaus Square -- Northeast District (Kaitain)

Aristarkh descends the Staircase.
Aristarkh has arrived.
Aristarkh is now set 'In-Character.'
Aristarkh
        His features are smooth and even, sculpted into a heady beauty that
lends a sweet boyishness his hard demeanor will have none of. Large eyes of
brilliant, emerald green are fringed with dark lashes, eyebrows prefectly
arched above, to give him a perpetual look of inquiry - or perhaps
skepticism.
        His mouth is sensual, no matter how grim the line it seeks to hold,
and lends animated expression to each mood that might take him. His brown
hair, carefully combed back and styled.
        His blouse and trousers are printed with a camouflage pattern in
indigo, violet and burgundy. The blotches of color in varied shapes contrast
against each other on the material. The fluer-de-lis is the most prominent
symbol in badge sewn onto his upper right sleeve. The badge sewn on his
upper left sleeve shows a pair of silver wands, crossed against each other.

Aristarkh sits on a bench under the branches of a shading tree. And he
thinks...the squinted eyes and creased forhead of a ponderer...as his eyes
move about and fall on the five points that he can see...
...with his back towards the sixth.

Aristarkh just looked at you.
Diana

         Like a graceful dancer, Lady Diana stands tall amongst the
surroundings for one of her lithe stature. She hovers at 5'8", with
strikingly pale skin as white as the thickest milk and contrasting deep
auburn hair shaded with streaks of midnight. The hair folds loosely around
her head in thick waves, braiding back into a long and sweeping braided tail
ending mid-back. The tip of the hair is finished within a golden clip,
masking the ends. Dark eyes, rimmed with lines of kohl, gaze out with a
complacent stare hiding the electrifying alertness behind them. Her nose
slides down her face in a smooth line ending at her violet hued lips that
are split into a small smile.
         The body of the Bene Gesserit is garbed within a sweeping gown of
thick, inky, blackness. Across the hemline of the sleeves and around the
feet is faint golden embroidery. Underneath this flowing mess of fabric, she
is clad in a body-tight white suit with collar lifted high up her neck and
sleeves ending at her knuckles with slits cut open for thumb holes. Barely
noted peeking out from the pooling ripples of fabric around her feet are a
pair of dusty and worn leather slippers.

Down the slope of the mountain side, the layout of the city of Kaitain could
be made out. All the Embassies are clearly marked with their own flags,
architecture, noises, an aura of espionage. Yet this garden isn't without
its own characteristic markings. For all around, sometimes blotting out the
feeling of womanly warmpth, the Sisters of the Bene Gesserit weave
themselves about the intricate paths. All manner of woman, from newest
daughter to most the most sought after Sister manage to make an appearance,
and always the plants are tended to in their wake. Among this rippling array
of darkness, midnight hued robes against a canvans of verdant green, Diana
approaches Aristarkh. Within one of her hand is a lilly, another hidden
within a gardening glove holding a pair of scissors.

Aristarkh relaxes his brow and widens his eyes. "I asked for you...I thought
and you came. But I made it easy for myself, now haven't I?," but his
question isn't really meant to be answered. "My Lady," he abruptly stands
and bows, "It is well that I should see you again," he booms out
confidently.

"Indeed Master Moritani. It is to be a most fufilling pleasure." Her hands
hide themselves behind her back as she bows at the waist to him, a deep bow,
one of esteemed regard. Bringing her shoulders back, Diana tilts her head
towards the Mentat, a tight grin of pleasantries pulled taught across her
lips, "What has brought you here? For I doubt it is the scent of our
Sisterhood's garden - as I am sure your Embassy holds such splendors, though
I have not witnessed." Her robes, those trademark Bene Gesserit clothing,
just roll voluptiously around her frame like thick and full waves of
shadows.

Aristarkh pulls the scent up with a heave through his nostrils. And the air
fills his bosom and he exhales. "I am only now remembering to enjoy such
things."

"Without the threat of poisons, correct?" she asks good naturedly, a toying
grin forming across her lips. The Sister brings the lilly towards her lips,
gliding the petal across gently, the contrast like milk poured down a
crimson tapestry of hidden meanings and imagery. She then moves the flower
towards him, taking it upon herself to pin it against his blouse before
standing back to look at out the flower suits him. Nodding once to herself,
the thickly bound braid rolling over her shoulder, Diana asks, "With your
new founded enjoyment, what do you plan on doing?"

Aristarkh inclines his head down. "Such a flower. When one looks at it one
*can* tell its value. It says, 'What we are striving for is greatest, what
we are striving for is most beautiful. This is the symbol of our
apserations...," his words move to inaudible tones. He turns his head to the
left and looks. And turns it right to look. "Yes. But maybe the poisons are
different in this garden." His eyes trail a Sister, a pretty young one, as
she walks past. "I don't know why I'm here. I ask myself, and I calculate
myself. But I don't know."

Diana's grin remains a complacent line across her well trained face, the
corner of her eyes watching as Toriana moves past. She will certainly be a
concubine of great leverage when she completes her studies. Of this, the
entire Chapter House is aware of. Fixating her attention back on the Mentat,
Diana only starts with a chuckle, his self calculations met with dry humor,
"Why do not you ask, instead of fervently calculating?" Both eyebrows lift
in questioning graces before she reaches upwards the fluff the flower a bit,
making sure the petals rest just-so.
Aristarkh allows your hands to move to the flower...close enough to
kill...and without the surge of concern that he should feel. The flesh of
his hands rub hard against each other. Fingers rubbing over and inbetween
each other nervously. "Sit please my lady," his voice is pleading, "sit with
me here."

After slipping one gardening glove off after another, Diana sets them on the
ground beside the bench. Her ever alert eyes lock on a Sister in the
distance, and for a moment in time they seem to share a conversation that
lasted a century. When the distant BG turns and dissolves into the garden's
fiolage, Diana returns her attention to Aristarkh, "If you wish." she
murmurs, voice like a hissing fog. Gathering up her robes about her ankles,
the darkness seamless as it bulges in her arms, she then seats herself
delicatly on the edge of the bench, the robes pooling out around her legs as
she settles herself.

Aristarkh walks a pace and sits. Laying hands on himself...on his forehead.
Fingertips knead the skin in small circles. Thumbs massage temples tense
with stress. "How does one know when one's sanity is slipping?," he asks.

Both of her delicate hands, the frail bone-thin structures, rest folded upon
her lap. Diana tilts her head towards the Mentat, a single eyebrow notched
at such a question. "Surely, as a Mentant, you have driven others into
instanity. I would suspect that it is the same as you would observe, but
experienced." She blinks, thick eyelashes shuddering over her eyes at him,
all of his movements heavily documented and calculated in her witch-like
Sisterhood way. "Tell me what you have experienced...perhaps I can inform
you deffinitivly of your...sanity.."

Aristarkh closes his eyes. His body shudders at the thought. "...or maybe of
my insanity," forms in his mind. Opening eyes try to look at you straight on
and having a hard time. "I'm failing to calculate...my movements make no
sense...they've lost there connections."

Diana remains silent, her breath so shallow it is as though she virtually
doesn't breathe. "When did you begin experiencing this?" comes a question,
finally, minutes later, hesitant at first. The Sister now watches his
movements with an even greater scrutinty, searching, delving, for any hint
of what could be outwardly wrong.

His eyes bounce from place to place on the ground. And don't know where to
look. In your silence he chances to look up and quickly turns them away.
"Kaitain!," he exclaims when you question him. "Kaitain...this lily has been
*my* burden. A symbol that weighs heavily on me." His hand grasps his
shoulder right upper sleeve. "I don't sleep anymore...I worry...I think...I
question..."

Still, ever patient, ever statuesque, Diana regards the quickly unwraveling
man beside her with a dispondant aire. "I could mix a solution that may aid
in your sleep." she offers, beliving it to be a rather trite solution. She
says such, too. "There is no harm in questioning, or thinking. It is a sign
of intillect. Though, sleep and worry are critical in the proper doses..."
obvious, that. Her hand, reaches up to his right shoulder, gently tugging
his hand away from the marking of his House - exposing it once more, "Is Her
Excellency overworking you? Is the Siridar-Countess...well?"

He hangs on every word you speak. The focus of his eyes are on you...widened
horrifically...pleadingly...but on you. "No...no, she is strong and
foolish," he says, "She needs me. I feel I can tell her anything...and I
will have no faults." He frowns, "And yet sometimes I where she will
go...and if she thinks...can she even see?," he asks in an airy voice of
undirected speech.
(OOC) Aristarkh says, "And yet sometimes I wonder where she will go...and if
she thinks..."

"Not in here." Diana assures with a slight play on words, her steely gaze
unfaltering against his paranoid one. Of course the Countess cannot see in
the Chapter House...but her own path? "Perhaps she needs a new set of eyes.
One she can trust, ones that will not lie. Ones that will guide as the best
of their abilities...Do not all strong Houses have such a set?" tilting her
head, Diana reaches a hand up to delicatly trace down along her braid. Her
fingertips weave delicatly through the thickness, ashen skin like a dreamy
fog against the dark embers of her hair. "Do you fear your abilities? Is
your doubt your bane?"

A cough pushes itself up inside the throat and is swallowed. "I must
overcome...," he replies defiantly against the implications of such an
idea...the dreadful thought he shuns away. "I must overcome this nausea of
the mind. This flu...this headache." He straightens up, "You have a remedy
for me? For my sleep?"
Diana looks at him firmly, her eyes narrowed and lips sunken into a deep
line of displeasure. "You do not appear to be handling
this...flu....properly. However, I could develop something to aid in your
sleeping patterns, it may help in your dreaming and thought. I am not
certain, though, and I fear your addiction."

Impatience now, that is what grows inside of him to be out of your presence.
"Please, please...I must get over this."

Diana now smiles slightly, a grin formerly unnotcied. It is the smile of a
witch. One that coils up around the face, like a snake resting upon a warm
boulder, it is one that forms thin lines from her eyes and shadows her face.
It isn't angered, or spiteful, just...cold and indifferent. A mask of pure
emptiness but a disjointed kink of..strangeness. "There is an herb that goes
by the name of, 'Melatonin'. It has an ability to regulate body rhythms and
promote normal sleep. From your symptoms, this may help. However, be aware
of the side effects. Your dreams may become more..vibrant....I will need to
ask my Sisters to donate me some for you, if you are willing to...wait."

He presses his palms against his face. Sliding down and pressing, hands
stretch the skin. "Yes...," and a heave of air, a sigh of a taciturn
emotion.

Gliding off the bench, glancing over her shoulder at the man, Diana turns to
speak with another Sister. She appears to tell the girl how to make such a
poultice, a potion from the demons themselves. Returning to the Mentat,
standing beside him, so close that the hem of her robes licks at the toes of
his boots, she murmurs, "It will be here shortly.." before kneeling beside
him, slipping a frail hand through his hair, "Breathe easy...You need to
save your strength if you are to appear well for your enemies.."

"The sisterhood is an asset to us all...," the 'us' being exclusive
ofcourse. "Thank you my lady."

She tilts her head from side to side, trying to lock her eyes with his once
more. But Diana is interrupted by the arrival of the other Sister who gives
her a velvet bag containing the monsterous potion. Taking it, Diana pulls
one of Aristarkh's hands from his face and guides it to the bag. "Twenty
minutes before you wish to sleep, take a small bit of this with a glass of
tea." she perscribes before lifting herself to her feet and asking with a
hint of concern, "Will you need to be escorted back to your Embassy?"

Aristarkh sits looking at this velvet bag. "No...no I will be just fine My
Lady," already coming to his feet. "I *will* find a proper way reciprocate
this kindness."

"It is unnecessary." Diana replies, bowing her head to him as he stands, "As
I stated at our first meeting. I consider this a friendship. And friends do
not owe one another." She folds her hands together, resting them delicatly
infront of her, before grinning a polite grin, "Do sleep well, when you find
the means to, Master Moritani. It is my hope to find you in better spirits
soonly.."

Lowers his head slightly to you...and turns to walk across this
hexagon...away from this place.

Aristarkh is now set 'Out-of-Character.'
Aristarkh goes home.
Aristarkh has left.

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