Ciel sat up and scrubbed tiredly at her eyes. As comforting as her companion's presence was, the current of her thoughts kept her from sinking too far into the depths of sleep. Hesitant to move too far, she smiled down at the Duskwight still sound asleep next to her and softly brushed a few stray locks of dark hair away from his face with her fingertips. She had work to do, and if not for him, she might never have sought rest to begin with.
The songstress chewed on that thought for a moment, realizing where that left her. She had often found herself worrying over others who went days on end with little or no proper rest, and warning them against exhaustion. Warren, among them, always looked ready to keel over were it not for his usual pillar propping him up. But then it was her own turn to wear herself down to bare threads, and she found her own advice to be something of a novelty.
Careful not to disturb her love, Ciel crawled to the end of the bed and drew her soft, silken robe across her shoulders. The thought of brewing a pot of tea to help pass the wee morning bells crossed her mind, but she had no desire to risk waking anyone else in the Hall. She would do without.
Bare feet carried her a few fulms across the room to her desk, where she sank into the chair and peered blearily at the hand-scrawled notes haphazardly piled there. She had two problems yet to resolve, the first being the missing artifact. On the eve of one of her performances, Stillglade Fane had recalled her to track down and return some sort of orb, and she had spent the next seven suns tracking a thief who no one seems to have seen. This made it all the more difficult, but all signs pointed back to Ul'dah, and then the trail went completely cold.
Ciel shuffled a couple of the papers aside, frowning at her inability to pick up the thief's trail. The Fane saw fit to be a royal pain in the songstress' arse so long as she maintained a debt to them, and taking on this investigation was meant only to buy her more time in solving her other problem in finding the Berunda's remains. And that precious time would only be bought if she could find the thief and return the Conjurer's Orb to Stillglade Fane.
'How much longer can I remain in Ul'dah and simply hope these things come to me instead?' she wondered. Patient, she may be, but idleness was beginning to grate on her nerves.
The songstress chewed on that thought for a moment, realizing where that left her. She had often found herself worrying over others who went days on end with little or no proper rest, and warning them against exhaustion. Warren, among them, always looked ready to keel over were it not for his usual pillar propping him up. But then it was her own turn to wear herself down to bare threads, and she found her own advice to be something of a novelty.
Careful not to disturb her love, Ciel crawled to the end of the bed and drew her soft, silken robe across her shoulders. The thought of brewing a pot of tea to help pass the wee morning bells crossed her mind, but she had no desire to risk waking anyone else in the Hall. She would do without.
Bare feet carried her a few fulms across the room to her desk, where she sank into the chair and peered blearily at the hand-scrawled notes haphazardly piled there. She had two problems yet to resolve, the first being the missing artifact. On the eve of one of her performances, Stillglade Fane had recalled her to track down and return some sort of orb, and she had spent the next seven suns tracking a thief who no one seems to have seen. This made it all the more difficult, but all signs pointed back to Ul'dah, and then the trail went completely cold.
Ciel shuffled a couple of the papers aside, frowning at her inability to pick up the thief's trail. The Fane saw fit to be a royal pain in the songstress' arse so long as she maintained a debt to them, and taking on this investigation was meant only to buy her more time in solving her other problem in finding the Berunda's remains. And that precious time would only be bought if she could find the thief and return the Conjurer's Orb to Stillglade Fane.
'How much longer can I remain in Ul'dah and simply hope these things come to me instead?' she wondered. Patient, she may be, but idleness was beginning to grate on her nerves.
