XD A roleplay post....
Ira didn't sleep.
As she had first planned, she teleported herself back to her own private hideout, which had remained delightfully intact. She hastily collected up her belongings, at least those that she would need, and left behind the rest… books, remnants, random articles of clothing she saw no need for any longer. Not a scrap of anything worthwhile was left behind, in the event that someone unwittingly managed to discover her secret chambers—Radovid, primarily. By the time she had returned to her room in Toussaint, the books were neatly set out upon her bedside and she went to work organizing the room to her fitting. The candles gave far less illumination than her own magic would have, yet it was all her eyes could take.
By the flickering yellow, the room remained mostly dark. The shapes of the furniture became discernible but the colours so muted that they were almost grey. It reminded her of the hearth in the days gone by, when the King's men would bring in the firewood and they'd warm themselves before the bare flames in the dead of winter, basking in the glow and praying not to be struck by stray embers. Sometime past midnight, her room and clothing organized, her megascope properly adjusted, Ira found herself staring into the flickering flames absently as memories consumed her. She reached out, touching her fingers to the baby flame to feel the warmth and half smile, half break—memories, warm and cold all at once, the ointment and the knife.
Blinking, Ira broke from her trance. "Books, of course," she muttered to herself, slipping her cloak away from her shoulders and letting it fall on to the bed as she moved to pick through the literature brought to her. She began at the beginning: Research Laboratory Day One and read all the way through to dawn.
The candles had extinguished out in to pools of leftover wax by the time the sun came up on the horizon. The sky glowed like a summer peach and the sun was pure gold in the sky. The colours of the foliage returned to green and the air warmed to an ambient twenty or so. It was the perfect dawn, one to be savored instead of squandered. Ira had yet to finish all the literature brought to her, though she had gotten through the lion's share of it. She hastily set the books aside and rose. Her dress was changed and a maid saw to her later in the morning to help pull the corset tight and brush through her long, black, curly locks of hair before pinning it back and up.
It had been an awfully long time since Ira had last had help from anyone, let alone a maid.
"Breakfast has been prepared, m'lady," the meek maid spoke and Ira dismissed her with a wave of the hand.
"Very well, I shall be down shortly, thank you."
