Watch the stars as they're dancin'
Like I'm caught in a trance and...
I will steal every one for you
See you on the horizon
I will be lightenin'
I will fly through the night for you
To tell you the truth
I'd die for you
I'm at the door screaming
Take me now!
-- "To tell you the Truth" ~ written by wolves.
This post is a continuation of Blood Beneath and it and it's precursors should be read first. What follows is another look into Auri as she slides, skids and bustles here way through another day. Our last look was unsettling and I sorry to tell you thing's aren't going to get better any time soon. That part is up to us. Will have to find out way through the dark.
Note, citations are as follows "Book:Chapter:page:Auri Day:Day". Consult the section at the end for more. This is useful for keeping track of time between events. Occasionally, I'll add Auri's location as well at the end.
You should recall from Auri's trip to Newarre that her Candle making concluded on Cendling, as if Tehlu willed it, as if it couldn't be any other way. By Auri's estimations Kvothe came early, she expected him on the 7th day but 6 was the lucky number. How easy it is to fool ourselves.... But she also expected him to only have one gift! Friendly falling fulcrum simple shattering shows the way of things.
If anything her grin grew wider then. Oh. Oh. Oh. Of course. It wasn’t something she was looking for. No wonder all her searching was for naught. No wonder everything was canted wrong. It was three things. He was bringing three, and so must she. Three perfect threes would be her gift for him. .
--SROST:9:134:A6:10:2072
But she learns that much later on her 6th day (Cendling), just in the nick of time! Until then she is all a tangle and a bustle. She was busy and at least three bees. She needs a gift for him. This she sets to it with a will, eyeing everything emphatically:
A nice thing to have settled early on, his gift all ready with his visit days away. Auri eyed the buckle sharply. **Was it a proper gift for him? ** He was a tangled sort. And he was much hidden, too. Nodding, she reached out to touch the cool dark metal. But no. It didn’t suit him. She should have known. He was not a one for fastening. For holding closed. Neither was he dark. Oh no. He was emberant. Incarnadine. He was bright with better bright beneath, like copper-gilded gold.
--SROST:1:23:A1:D5:PORT
So from buckles to gears she turns over all tings looking for that perfect gift for him.
Auri staggered just a bit, all sudden dizzy. After it passed, she walked slowly to Cricklet and took a long, deep drink. She felt the cool water run all along her insides with nothing to stop it. She felt hollow inside. Her stomach was an empty fist. Her feet wanted to go to Applecourt, but she knew there were no apples left. He wouldn’t be waiting there, anyway. Not until the seventh day. Which was good, really. She had nothing suitable to share. Nor nothing halfway good enough to be a proper gift.
--SROST:1:436:A2:6
She is nearly tipsy from all that looking. But the world doesn't stop just because there is a man, oh no. The Underthing won't tend to itself. What if things were to break? Clamor and Calamity. Boot's on stairs coming down... It must not happen.
So she moves things to their proper places, she opens doors that want opening and avoid those to shy or to black or brackish to consider. Let's now follow her to Wains, a wondrous place in her underground world. It has a colorful fresco, where she opens the 9th door for the first time and finds a sitting room. But we won't rest there for now, instead we follow her up the broken stars and into Tumbrel.
There she finds everything a apetalous young lady might need for a night out on the town.
In the unfallen portion of the room, there was a triune mirror vanity and a dark wooden wardrobe taller than a tall woman standing on her toes. Auri peered shyly through the wardrobe’s half-open doors. She glimpsed a dozen dresses there, all velvet and embroidery. Shoes. A robe of silk. Some gauzy bits of the sort the women wore in the frescoes down in Wains. The vanity was a rakish thing: garrulous and unashamed. The top was scattered with pots of powders, small brushes, sticks of eyepaint. Bracelets and rings. Combs of horn and ivory and wood. There were pins and pens and a dozen bottles, some substantial, some delicate as petals.
-- SROST:1:31:A1:D5:495:Tumbrel
Velvet is a soft, luxurious fabric that is characterized by a dense pile of evenly cut fibers that have a smooth nap. You often see it used with rich dark colors like burgundy.
Much later (but will mention it now) she will note the vanity also contains some gloves.
She removed the pair of gloves from the right-hand drawer and set them near the mirror by a pot of rouge.
-- SROST:6:97:1531:A4:D8:Tumbrel
Such lovely items, feel the sly softness of the gloves. Imagine what they might feel like against... Ahem.. sorry. Let's move on.
On her second day we followed her to Newarre. On the third day she wept (we have all had those kinds of days) and we see here again on the fourth day, though she is still, if you will forgive the expression, a bit of mess. She needs music, laughter and fire.
She had been sitting like this, empty as eggshell. Hollow and chest-heavy in the angry dark when she’d first heard him playing. Back before he’d given her her sweet new perfect name. A piece of sun that never left her. It was a bite of bread. A flower in her heart. Thinking of this made it easier for her to stand.
-- SROST:5:80:1246
But her gift isn't ready. Not proper at all.
Three days. He would come visiting in three short days. And for all her work and wander, she hadn’t found a proper present for him yet. For all that she was wise about the way of things, she hadn’t caught an empty echo of anything that she could bring. No proper gift nor nothing yet to share. It simply wouldn’t do.
-- SROST:5:81:1257
Auri has so little time and she is so little herself. She is so hollow and empty and upset with all of everything. Without music or love, with darkness as your only neighbor what else can any of us turn to? ...she gets something to eat of course, what were you expecting?
She heads to Tree, which has more tools then treats, more the pity. She eats a turnip and her last fit. She is visited by the smell of nutmeg, which seems reasonable, there are nutmeg pittems in the room.
Then she sat down on the floor and ate the turnip in small bites. Then she ate her last remaining fig. Her tiny face was grave. The smell of nutmeg prickled in the air.
-- SROST:6:5:1283:A4:D8:Tree:1285
We have reached another turning point. From here things start to blur, gold into black. Forming a haze, a hole, wanting for all the world to feel the safety of strong hands, the caress of soft skin and the promise of a bright morning. But darkness comes before the light, and cannot mend what we do not understand.
onward we go then.
Kvothe, on the same day, at Ankers, can relate to the sudden smell of nutmeg in the air.
I could suddenly smell nutmeg and plum.
-- TMWF:1:64:A4:D8
He is inadvertently iridescent, He will have things to rights. It's Auri that's amiss and missing the notes the world is playing for her. It's admissions day for Kvothe, he will dazzle the masters and shortly be off to see Auri. But she needs more time. It simply won't do...
For all that she was wise about the way of things, she hadn’t caught an empty echo of anything that she could bring. No proper gift nor nothing yet to share. It simply wouldn’t do.
--SROST:1:81:A4:D8
So a young lady does what she must, whiners fuss, but winers now the way of things, some times you have to crush a few grapes to turn things to sweet...
I looked up to see a woman sitting at the bar. She wasn’t dressed like a student. She wore an elaborate burgundy dress with long skirts, a tight waist, and matching burgundy gloves that rose all the way to her elbows. Moving deliberately, she managed to get down off the stool without tangling her feet and made her way over to stand next to my table. Her blonde hair was artfully curled, and her lips were a deeply painted red. I couldn’t help wondering what she was doing in a place like Anker ’s. “Are you the one who broke the arm of that brat Ambrose Jakis?” she asked. She spoke Aturan with a thick, musical Modegan accent. While it made her a little difficult to understand, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find it attractive. The Modegan accent practically sweats sex. “I did,” I said. “It wasn’t entirely on purpose. But I did.” “Then you must let me buy you a drink,” she said in the tone of a woman who usually gets her way. I smiled at her, wishing I’d been awake more than ten minutes so my wits weren’t quite so fuddled. “You wouldn’t be the first to buy me one on that account,” I said honestly. “If you insist, I’ll have a Greysdale mead.” I watched her turn and walk back to the bar. If she was a student, she was new. If she’d been here more than a handful of days I would have heard about it from Sim, who kept tabs on all the prettiest girls in town, courting them with artless enthusiasm.
The Modegan woman returned a moment later and sat across from me, sliding a wooden mug across the table. Anker must have just finished washing it, as the fingers of her burgundy glove were wet where they had gripped the handle. She raised her own glass, filled with a deep red wine. “To Ambrose Jakis,” she said with sudden fierceness. “May he fall into a well and die.” I picked up the mug and took a drink, wondering if there was a woman within fifty miles of the University Ambrose hadn’t treated badly. I wiped my hand discreetly on my pants. The woman took a deep drink of her wine and set her glass down hard. Her pupils were huge. Early as it was, she must have already been doing a fair piece of drinking. I could suddenly smell nutmeg and plum. I sniffed at my mug, then looked at the tabletop, thinking someone might have spilled a drink. But there was nothing. The woman across from me suddenly burst into tears. This was no gentle weeping, either. It was like someone had turned a spigot. She looked down at her gloved hands and shook her head. She peeled off the wet one, looked at me, and sobbed out a dozen words of Modegan. “I’m sorry,” I said helplessly. “I don’t speak—”
-- TWMF:1:63:A4:D8
Auri washed her face her hand her feet. She put on her new unashmed embroidered burgundy dress and matching glove. Combed golden hair with Ivory and wood and wood. She dusted her self delicately with powers, just enough color to give herself a healthy look, well, maybe a bit more then healthy, she has a heartbeat and who can blame a girl. She touched her eyebrows delicately with brushes, though out of practice, it's like riding a horse... she picked lovely dark eye paint full of midnight star gazing and secret glances. Finally she dawned her brackets and rings and one more thing.... will cover later.
She went from beneath the Underthing up on top of things, all a glamoured, adorned and asweat. Auri cheated time and fate, seeing him early and giving herself wiggle room to find his gifts... She regrets it, oh the improper nature of the world forces her to be wicked at times. Her eyes are red and she is ridged. She has cried like a turned spigot and Auri knows all about pipes and turnings. Knows all about the kinds of mess a spill can make. She hates hates the way it must be. She is wishes the cruel way of it would fall into the dark and die.
She raised her own glass, filled with a deep red wine. “To Ambrose Jakis,” she said with sudden fierceness. “May he fall into a well and die.”
-- TWMF:7:64:A4:D8
She hoped it's hit its awful self inside-out and backward, then fell into a crack and lost its name and died alone and hollowempty in the angry dark. She threw the tuft of fur down on the floor.
--SROST:4:84:A4:D8
She peels off her gloves wet with tears and unbound principles.
An unwashed, red-eyed, tangled mess. She removed the pair of gloves from the right-hand drawer and set them near the mirror by a pot of rouge.
-- SROST:6:97:A4:D8:Tumbrel
The conclusion here is heartbreaking and bitter. We want darkness to be an angry bear, a restless beast and nameless face. But it's here, it's within us. It's lost love, it's lonely nights, tangled thoughts, and desperate hopeless need. It's a mirror...
...here was a triune mirror vanity...
-- SROST:1:31:487:A1:D5:Tumbrel
we cannot face.
Full of looming fear and disappointment. And when her eyes passed over the vanity, she saw it differently. It was not rakish now. In the shifting light she saw it had a sinister bent, and caught a glimpse of what was turning it from true. She could feel the tattered edges of its disarray. But tanglehaired and sticky, all unwashed and hollow as she was, she was hardly in the proper state for mending. She was in no mood to tend to the ungrateful thing.
-- SROST:4:91::A4:D8:Tumbrel
Auri isn't ever cruel... no, that's not true. She can be that, we all can. But she is that and more. She is also beautiful and broken. She comes to Kvothe, she knows all is not right...
Then there came a small tapping at my window. A sound so tiny I didn’t notice it until it stopped. Then I heard the window ease open behind me. “Kvothe?” Auri said softly. I clenched my teeth against the sobbing and lay still as I could, hoping she would think I was asleep and leave. “Kvothe?” she called again. “I brought you—” There was a moment of silence, then she said, “Oh.” I heard a soft sound behind me. The moonlight showed her tiny shadow on the wall as she climbed through the window. I felt the bed move as she settled onto it. A small, cool hand brushed the side of my face. “It’s okay,” she said quietly. “Come here.” I began to cry quietly, and she gently uncurled the tight knot of me until my head lay in her lap. She murmured, brushing my hair away from my forehead, her hands cool against my hot face. “I know,” she said sadly. “It’s bad sometimes, isn’t it?” She stroked my hair gently, and it only made me cry harder. I could not remember the last time someone had touched me in a loving way. “I know,” she said. “You have a stone in your heart, and some days it’s so heavy there is nothing to
be done. But you don’t have to be alone for it. You should have come to me. I understand.” My body clenched and suddenly the taste of plum filled my mouth again. “I miss her,” I said before I realized I was speaking. Then I bit it off before I could say anything else. I clenched my teeth and shook my head furiously, like a horse fighting its reins. “You can say it,” Auri said gently. I shook again, tasted plum, and suddenly the words were pouring out of me. “She said I sang before I spoke. She said when I was just a baby she had the habit of humming when she held me. Nothing like a song. Just a descending third. Just a soothing sound. Then one day she was walking me around the camp, and she heard me echo it back to her. Two octaves higher. A tiny piping third. She said it was my first song. We sang it back and forth to each other. For years.” I choked and clenched my teeth. “You can say it,” Auri said softly. “It’s okay if you say it.” “I’m never going to see her again,” I choked out. Then I began to cry in earnest. “It’s okay,” Auri said softly. “I’m here. You’re safe.”
-- TWMF:7:75:A4 night:D8? night
She came in the night on either Chaen (her unnamed day) or felling , she brought him... a stone of regret and the comfort of touch. Some of the motives are clear, the means are within Auri's grasp, the time and locations are within reason. Though we might not want to admit it, the story remains It does not go simply because we wish to see it.
| Chpt | AD | Name | D | Day Name | Auri | Kvothe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Far below | 1 | Finding | 5 | Orden | ||
| look-entails | 2 | Turning | 6 | Hepten | ||
| Hollow | 3 | 7 | Chaen* | wept | Plumed | |
| Angry dark | 4 | Burning | 8 | Felling | crying | crying |
| Ash & Ember | 5 | 9 | Reaving | crying | crying | |
| Coda | 6 | 10 | Cendling | candle | candle |
As a quick recap Kvothe first draws his tile on Felling/8:
“Kvothe, Arliden’s son,” I said. The bored-looking woman marked my name and I drew a smooth ivory tile out of the black velvet bag. It read: FELLING —NOON. Eighth day of admissions. ~ Chapter 3
but trades to Chaen/7 a day earlier
“You’re a day later than me.” He held out his tile. “I’ll trade you for a jot.” I hesitated. ...We traded tiles... I shook my head. “I think I’ll keep this slot.” ~ Chapter 3
Were ragging and weary, but we must have a full accounting. To do that we must talk a bit about Devi and Ambrose. Or at least I must acknowledge there roles and relationships.
“What’s more,” I said, meeting her eye. “It is entirely possible that my irrational behavior might have been partially due to the lingering effect of an alchemical poison I was subjected to earlier this term.” Devi’s expression went stiff. “What?”
She hadn’t known then. That was something of a relief. “Ambrose arranged to have me dosed with the plum bob about an hour before my admissions interview,” I said. “And you sold him the formula.” “You have a lot of gall!” Devi’s pixie face was outraged and indignant, but it wasn’t convincing. She was off balance and trying too hard.
“What I have,” I said calmly, “is the lingering taste of plum and nutmeg in my mouth, and the occasional irrational desire to choke people for doing nothing more offensive than jostling me on the street.” Her false outrage fell away. “You can’t prove anything,” she said. “I don’t need to prove anything,” I said. “I have no desire to see you in trouble with the masters or up against the iron law.” I looked at her. “I just thought you might be interested in the fact that I was poisoned.” Devi sat very still. She fought to maintain her composure, but guilt was creeping onto her expression. “Was it bad?” “It was,” I said quietly. Devi looked away and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I didn’t know it was for Ambrose,” she said. “Some rich tosh came around. Made a stunningly good offer. . . .” She looked back at me. Now that the chilly anger had left her, she looked surprisingly small. “I’d never do business with Ambrose,” she said. “And I didn’t know it was for you. I swear.” “You knew it was for someone,” I said.
-- TMMF:42:310
What's important note is that Devi claims a rich tosh came around to buy it. Kvothe assumes it wasn't Ambrose directly, which is likely the case. As an aside, tosh is an interesting word.
It's used once more when Kvothe refers to Ambrose:
“Rich tosh. Get whatever yeh can off him, that’s what I say.”
-- TMWF:147:965
There are enough meanings to the word that it would be had for me to make a persuasive claim on which one was intended by Rothfuss. Could it be derive from the British etymology and mean crown, a 5 shilling silver coin, the slang rubbish? Or he Scottish use to make tidy. It doesn't give us much to go on.
The deal was for at least a full set of books._
But the fellow offered me a full set of the Vautium Tegnostae.” She waved to the bookshelves. “Normally I’d never make something like that, but unexpurgated copies are just impossible to find.”
-- TMMF:42:311
Unexpurgated, meaning uncensored. I'm terrible curious what those books might be about and who would censoring them. She lets Kvothe look through them, so he knows. My quick attempts at translation yielded nothing. Nor are they mentioned again.
Kvothe finds out Devi made the plum bob her self.
I turned to look at her, surprised. “You made it for him?” “It’s better than handing over the formula,” Devi said defensively. Part of me felt like I should be angry, but the majority of me was simply happy that I was warm and dry, with no threat of death hanging over me. I shrugged it off. “Simmon says you can’t factor worth half a damn,” I said conversationally.
-- TMMF:42:311
What in the world gives him the idea Devi didn't intend the lingering effects. We have some vague sense that Auri got involved to buy herself more time for making her candle. Our rich tosh could have been hired by Amborse and then passed it off to Auri, playing the role of distraught vengefully Modegan
Likely many of you are busy tearing your hair out thinking of the obvious differences physical differences between those from Modeg and Auri. Kvothe never comments on the Modegan woman's skin tone, so will assume its typically. The stories suggest Modegan's are typically olive or have darker complexions. Fela certainly isn't pale like Auri:
“Keh,” Wil said. “Too pale. Fela.
-- TMWF:All this knowing.
This is likely an issue an clever girl, and Auri is that in spades, could overcome with the powders on her new found vanity. Especially to trick a drowsy young man whose mind is on admissions. But I'll go as far to suggest that Auri is more then wise in the ways of womenly enchanment. She also likely knows a bit of fae craft. She thinks of Alchemy in terms of art and craft the same words used by Bast to describe the magic fae do.
Whoever wrought and factored this was living proof that alchemy was art. It showed pure mastery of craft. --Auri SROST:2:52
She can use waystones, so imagine the kinds of places she might have visited and who she might have talked to along the way. With just a touch of glammourie she would likely slide past most people with ease. Which is likely why she can't bare to look in the flickering light of the mirror as it shows her for who she truly is...
In the shifting light she saw it had a sinister bent, and caught a glimpse of what was turning it from true. She could feel the tattered edges of its disarray. -- Auri SROST:4:91::A4:D8:Tumbrel
Shifting light seems to undo glammouries effects, which we learn from Bast:
Beneath the water, a careful observer might note the young man’s legs looked somewhat … odd. But it was shady there, and everyone knows that water bends light strangely, making things look other than they are. But it was shady there, and everyone knows that water bends light strangely, making things look other than they are.
-- Bast TLT:749
But while Kvothe's waking mind might be tricked, his sleeping mind tries to give him a hint, as it likens her eye's to a turned on spigot. But even without that, were left with a more then a scattered puzzle pieces. That we don't know the picture it's forming doesn't discount the fit even if it leaves us a bit tight in the throat.
The timelines sync, Auri has the wardrobe: dress, gloves, powders and eyeliner. Making pale golden hair into curly blonde doesn't even require glamor, which I suspect she has more then a passing knowledge of. We have motive, even if abstract. However, were left with more whys then why we started.
“Nothing but the truth could break me. What is harder than the truth?”
-- Kvothe NOTW:6:47
All this, the trip to Newarre, explaining the magic, traveling with Auri through the Underthing. Hearing her struggled breath, watching breathless as she does the unthinkable....
All this. A prelude, a curtain, a door. We find our hands pressed firmly upon it's black surface. Though to push it open or keep what's inside out, we know not. The pressure builds and our heart beat drowns out everything. We relax, draw ourselves into the heart of stone, and look again. Their is no door, only darkness, we hear the first notes of melody in the distance. It lays deep in the stone archway, in the cold clear light of the moon and in the bare feet of a tiny broken girl. It's the broken luting lonely sound of a woman waiting for love, her tiny figure casting shadows on the Wal.
citations are as follows: Book:Chapter:page:Auri Day: Day
Note i'll be citing the books OH and TLT by just Book::Page leaving out the chapter sense each story is just one chapter itself
Bonus books, it would be proper to have them, but not strictly necessary:
SROST Chapters so I can use numbers:
Credit to u/playtheboard for pointing the plum to crystal potential link.
The crystal Auri finds, though this already enough meaning tied to it:
compared to a picture of a plumb bob:
Here is another, the frame pictured in SROST
compared to a plumb square
