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[swordmaid-saint.livejournal.com]

Date: July 30
Status: Public
Setting: Entryway, Corridors
Summary: Joan arrives.


Joan knocked wearily on the manor door. When no one answered, she dragged it open and walked in. She supposed she should go find that Adam boy and get a room, but she felt too ennervated at the moment. With all the misdirections, protections, and illusions surrounding the manor, she had been going in circles around it for weeks.

Is it this hard for everyone to get into? she wondered, or just people who are officially bound to fight? She laughed to herself. Maybe I should have called in a reservation, she thought sardonicly.

She slumped to the ground inside the doorway and leaned against the wall. She would get up and get herself situated in a minute. For the moment, however, she had reached her destination, and she could finally take a bit of rest.
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Comments

[swordmaid-saint.livejournal.com]

The Severer. Polite, petite, and unmistakably pregnant.

Wow, thought Joan, I really have been out of the loop. Stupid tournament. More importantly, when did that happen?

Joan had no intention of saying anything so insensitive, if for no better reason than a distinct fear of being drafted for babycare duties if she brought the subject up. Revelations and revolutions she could handle; children scared her.

She considered the small angel in front of her. She had Felled Michael, after all. Then again, Joan certainly knew how impossible it was to get out of a task once the Almighty gets it into His head to appoint you to it. And Uriel had been Michael's friend for centuries before Joan's birth. Of course, if she'd abandoned him, that made it even worse, but they seemed to be on decent sppeaking terms, at least...

Well. She would reserve judgement on the Severer.

"I plan on staying here for a while. I suppose I'll need a room, and if anyone wants to fill me in on the ground rules around here, I'd be grateful."

[bipolar-uriel.livejournal.com]

Uriel smiled, relieved that Joan apparently didn't hate her. Yet, anyway. Heading for the front desk, she began looking at her papers for a free room for Joan.

"The rules are quite simple," she said. "Don't hurt anyone and don't destroy anything you can't fix. Aside from that, there aren't rules, really. Just stand the people around you and don't cause trouble. If you fight too much, you'll get kicked out."

She looked at the paper in her hands. "Would you like a room next to Mictain's?" she asked, figuring the saint would say yes.

[swordmaid-saint.livejournal.com]

"Um."

Joan adored Michael, really she did, but -

He had been her commanding officer. It was like rooming next to her mother. Except that Isabelle Romee had never whacked her on the behind with the flat of a sword as a lesson to move faster. Or appearred blazing with righteous fire when one of her corporals kissed her drunk. Not that Michael was likely to act like a chaperone now but...

"I rather think we might be a bad combination, if we aren't supposed to break things. I've missed interacting with other-" sane "humans after so long Up There, maybe you could put me near some of them?"

[bipolar-uriel.livejournal.com]

Uriel shrugged, a bit surprised but not letting it bother her. "However you'd like it. There are quite a few humans on the third floor, so you should have no trouble finding them there."

A glance at another paper told her that there was a room free relatively close to her own. "If it doesn't bother you to live two doors from my room, here's one room you could have," she said. "Should you agree to it, just sign here. Mictain can surely show you the way there."

She smiled, trying to show that she had no ill intention.

[swordmaid-saint.livejournal.com]

Joan frowned slightly, reading over the paper Uriel had had indicated. It seemed innocuous enough, just an agreement to abide by the rules Uriel had mentioned and that her right to remain in the mansion would be forfeit if she broke them. Still, she hesitated. Joan didn't like signing things. She'd been forced to sign a confession of heresy during her farcical trial at Rouens. She'd recanted, and this was hardly the same thing, but she didn't have to like it.

But she did have to do it. Orders were orders, after all. Bite the bit, Jeanie, she reprimanded herself sternly. Are you going to let Michael see you go squeamish over something as insignificant as a rent contract in the face of duty?

She suppressed a grimace and signed her real, French name, though she'd intended to just write Joan of Arc.

"It's fine," she added to the anxious angel, wondering why she seemed so nervous. What was an Archangel the level of the Severer worried about?

Maybe it was a pregnancy thing. Thank God for making me a soldier, Joan thought fervently.

[bipolar-uriel.livejournal.com]

Uriel was surprised to see Joan hesitating about signing the paper. Really, what did she have to nervous about? As the saint did do it at last, though, she smiled, even more so as she heard Joan's simple reassurance.

"Sometimes, I wonder whether anything is fine anymore," she said in return, though. "Other times I decide nothing ever was."

She would have been surprised to know Joan's thoughts, however. After all, she did consider herself a warrior, and that hadn't stopped her from getting pregnant. She didn't know what Joan was thinking, though, and thus there was no further surprise or confusion to be seen on her face.

Uriel looked at the demon now, trying to hide her still-present fear. Once, she could have hidden almost any emotion. Now, it seemed it was impossible.

"The way there should be easy enough," she said. "Two doors to the right from my room. I trust you can guide her there?"

In return, Mictain smirked, cocking his head to one side. "I'll try not to get us both lost," he said.