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**Solar - Ducal Palace **
Spacious enough to provide a meeting place of more familiar atmosphere to the residents of the Ducal Palace, the solar is of rectangular shape and generously lit during the day through a number of arched windows in the south wall. The opposite side is governed by a huge stone hearth, a fire crackling there during colder weather conditions. Above the hearth hangs a shield with the coat of arms of House Mereliot, flanked by a pair of exquisitely woven tapestries depicting naval scenes of ships on the sea, one in calm and tranquil weather conditions, the other one in a storm with heavy rain.
All furniture is made of oak, be it the long table in the middle of the room, or the number of high backed chairs arranged about it, flat cushions of blue brocade adding to the comfort of seating. The ceiling is a sophisticated rib vault, constructed of wood, the ribs painted in yellow. Depictions of a variety of sea animals have been added onto the light blue ceiling as well by an unknown artist. Several kinds of mediterranean fish adorn the spaces in between ribs, such as combers, groupers and flounders but also starfish and octopusses.
A door leads out onto a rooftop garden, and an archway opens into the upper hallway.
When looking out of the windows, you see: It is a spring evening. The weather is warm and raining.
There is nothing like an evening shower to ruin a walk through the gardens. Leaning against the door leading to the rooftop garden is the slender form of Bastien. The youth is humming softly as he looks out into the night air.
In no universe, rainy or no, was Ortolette this night going strolling in the garden. A roll to the solar, on the other hand, is both possible and wholly welcome to the young invalid, whose small chamber had been coming over quite stuffy from the rising warmth of incipient summertime mingling with the moisture of the spring rains. Here she is, in her invalid's chair, Girard at the handles, moving her slowly, unsure whether she is asleep or simply resting her eyes. But the open ventilation of the solar is not daunted by the downpour outside of its copious windows, and when the cool wash drifts across her face, it drags her breath with her and opens her eyes all at he same time, her heavy lids rising to notice, first, Bastien, standing by the garden step.
Out of the corner of his eye, Bastien sees the motion of Ortolette and Girard's entrance into the Solar. The young Mereliot is wearing a pair of dark brown breeches, tucked into a pair of high boots. He is wearing a royal blue poet's shirt, that moves in the breeze. As he turns to face the two, Bastien offers a polite bow towards the two, "Good eve, Lady Ortolette." As he rises, he smiles, "How do you fare, m'ladyy? I hope that you are doing well."
"Good evening, my Lord," answers the Ortolette with the formality required by her station, if perhaps the words are slackened by both exhaustion from the damp and a certain familiarity between them, born of their work together in her little chamber, under the observation of the eyeless sockets of her roommate. "I am in need of a taking-of-air," she explains her general attitude of lethargy as she sits with a frail hunch in her invalid's chair, turned at the lower back to rest against its cushioning and dressed, as usual, in her little baby-doll dress that renders the wisp of a girl even more shapeless. It's easier to don than getting her into anything more form-fitting or flattering, to be honest. "But the solar never disappoints," she adds with a weak smile, gazing across at him. "Is the damp bothering you, too?"
Bastien glances over his shoulder, then sighs most melodramatically. "Alas, I had hoped to stroll through the night blooms, but the rain seems to have other plans." The young lord smiles, framing his thin lips with the hints of dimples. "But, I do not believe that is what you meant. No, m'lady, the damp is not bothering me, except that it tends to make me feel… anxious. It has always done so, for some reason." He moves away from the doorway, stepping closer to the invalid girl.
"The damp always sits upon my chest, when the weather gets warmer," Ortolette explains her own relationship with this particular sort of weather with the short breaths of one rather afflicted at the lung, the words small and frail and… tired, setting out in pairs or in triads as she wearies her afflicted bosom with talking. "Come, sit by me by the win— dow," she gasps, nodding to Girard, who moves her over in the requisite direction. "Tell me how things stand with you."
Bastien nods and turns on his heels and moves to take a seat by which ever window that the young, delicate girl chooses. He sits down with a languid, most catlike grace. "Oh, things are." He cants his head slightly to the side, "I am beginning to understand the tedious world of economics." He chuckles softly, "No small thanks to your immense well of patience." He smiles, "I am beginning to feel a bit more comfortable with my station, or at least, I am beginning to accept it." He cants his head to the side, "And you, Lady Ortolette, apart from the rain, how do you fare?"
Ortolette closes her eyes again, but unfolds one of her hands from her lap, holding it at an angle to let Bastien know she is still awake and paying him heed, catching her breath while he takes the burden of the lungwork away from her in his turn in the conversation. Her lips quiver in a hint of a smile. "If it seems still tedious," she begins a parry, then pauses before finishing, "You haven't yet come to your full measure of understanding. Me? I am as ever," she offers. Neither alive nor dead, quite, but in limbo between. She had been doing so well, and now she can feel already in her bones how dire a summer is coming. But she wouldn't say so out loud.
Bastien watches the girl's ailment. He cannot help but to frown with worry and concern as she struggles to find and maintain her breath. He grins at her teasing, "I fear that I shall never come to my full measure of understanding then." The youth chews on his lower lip as he is bothered by her condition. He grins slightly, "I would hope so, m'lady. You as any other, would be a darkened day for all who know you."
"Or perhaps a brightened one," Ortolette draws both corners of her mouth upward in an uncomfortable shrug as she re-positions herself, drawing her arm up overhead and setting it down just overtop of herself, stretching out her side as she does so. "But I suppose it all hinges on the manner of my metamorphosis."
Bastien smiles, "I choose to imagine that it would be truly spectacular and you shall surprise everyone." He leans back in the seat with a bit more relaxed and familar posture. "Have you spoken to the temple of Eisheth recently on trying to aid in that metamrphosis? Not more than a week ago, a young man struck blind for almost a decade was healed of his condition and had his sight restored."
Ortolette still has her eyes shut, but she fancies she hears just the flavor of smile on offer, and she summons one up more fully where she lies at rest. It falters somewhat at the tale of the miracle in the temple. "I think that Eisheth has rendered adequate miracle unto me— already," she remarks, maybe a little bit wry, but no less truly grateful to their angelic patroness.
Bastien sighs slightly, "I hope that you do not take exception of me whispering a prayer or two to Eisheth that she might alleviate your suffering some, Lady Ortolette." He smiles to the girl. "I have grown rather fond of you and do not care to see you in any distress."
Ortolette opens her eyes, a slow gesture, like sunrise through the branches of a dense hicket of thorns. "I would thank you for such a gesture, my Lord," she whispers, finding whispering easier than speaking aloud, or else touched to the heart that he would take such measures. "You ease my distress, even now, just sitting by me and speaking so. Tell me more about the blind man," she requests. She had heard of it, but perhaps Bastien knows more than she has already heard.
Bastien smiles earnestly with a smile that brightens the room. "Then I will sit and converse with you until the sun must retire for evening." He smiles, "His name if Oliver de Basilisque. He was kicked in the head by a horse when he was nine years old. Almost a decade later, after he had all but given up any hope, he was healed. I have visited with him myself. It is not just the waggling tongues of chamber maids, but witnessed true by my own eyes."