feredar: (riluke)
The Farglass Cycle ([personal profile] feredar) wrote2014-01-02 05:54 pm

Observation

Story: Observation
Characters: Riluke
Warnings: Political violence, manipulation


When Riluke was little, observation was a game, a sort of extension of playing with dolls—she liked to make up stories for why this lady was rushing from one place to another, or why that lord looked so annoyed, stories that involved vast, overdramatic epics of love and death, all for her own amusement.


When she was just entering into her wildfire years, Riluke realized that the game was far more fun if she had actual facts to base her stories on; weaving together snippets of half-overheard conversations and patterns of movement to uncover the minor scandals buried underneath.


It wasn’t much of a leap, from observation to manipulation—sending trinkets of information down the channels Riluke had found years ago to smooth things over and secure her own position.


As a young woman in her grandfather’s court, it became a matter of survival—the minor scandals led to active plots, some to cover them up before the minor scandals became larger, some to encourage them, many, she feared, likely to end in blood.


After being appointed Ambassador to the Islands, Riluke had an entire new set of behaviors and rules to learn, but the basic rules were the same—more than a game, more even than survival, observing and analyzing became her life, and she loved it.

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