10-06-2013, 08:07 AM
((This post takes place after Seth departs, and is meant to converge back onto the storyline with Aria's studies))
Aria was never truly alone with her thoughts. The Atharim went to great lengths to secure her privacy, however Armande also took great measures to ensure proper records of her progess. One of the major deficits of his predecessors was thin recordkeeping. The Atharim were masters of documenting the external, but monitoring their own internal members was dismal at best. There was no excuse for this failure, and under Armande's reign, would not be allowed to continue. Father Dmitri was part of the process, as was Father Joseph before him. There were even events of Atharm Initiation under Regus Wilhelm Ravid where no record of the newly initiated member's identity was known. That bothered Armande immensely. That there could be Atharim in the world unbound to their overseeing body of authority. Not only were these loosely held members liabilities, but it could impede the search for his own successor; a tradition of the Regus was to identify and train his own successor.
Armande glanced at the time, and noted how many hours Aria had been asleep. There were moments during the review of her video when he sat forward on his seat, silently willing her to come to a conclusion. She frequently took notes, and thankfully her words were transcribed immediately to the Atharim's network, synced by the penstylus she used.
It was one such screen that Armande closed. He'd taken his own notations overlaid on hers, questions, clarifications, even circling phrases that were of questionable legibility as she grew more and more fatigued.
The library was cool, held at a temperature and humidity slightly beneath comfort level to protect the contents of the room. Armande stood over the table where Aria worked those long hours, absorbing what events had been imprinted here. The child was an essential tool to breaking this code. Neither he himself, a master linguist and historian, nor a talent such as the burgeoning celebrity John Smith, would be able to translate the Voynich Manuscript. Of this Armande was confident. It took a furia, a very sensitive furia, to read the words. For they must be of Tongues, glossolalia. There was no other explanation.
Turning, he studied the child curled in a corner chair. So young and burdened by the world around her, a frightened baby calf struggling to gain its footing. Yet Armande did not sympathize with her. She was a keeper of secrets few in the world were worthy of holding. Father Dmitri's caretaking was meant to protect her, and by extension, the Atharim as a whole. Armande as Regus was a tool of their society as much as Aria as Empathic Furia, in mind they could not be any more different from one another, yet in function, the two were exactly alike. His life had been chosen for him as much as hers.
"Wake child." He spoke coolly, careful to maintain his emotions steady in her presence. It had been a failure on his part to behave as he had with Mr. Marx in front of her. He would not repeat the same mistake twice.
When she aroused, he requested her impressions of the work rather than her interpretation. It was not an academic translation he was seeking, it was the scent and mind of empathy itself, something alien.
Aria was never truly alone with her thoughts. The Atharim went to great lengths to secure her privacy, however Armande also took great measures to ensure proper records of her progess. One of the major deficits of his predecessors was thin recordkeeping. The Atharim were masters of documenting the external, but monitoring their own internal members was dismal at best. There was no excuse for this failure, and under Armande's reign, would not be allowed to continue. Father Dmitri was part of the process, as was Father Joseph before him. There were even events of Atharm Initiation under Regus Wilhelm Ravid where no record of the newly initiated member's identity was known. That bothered Armande immensely. That there could be Atharim in the world unbound to their overseeing body of authority. Not only were these loosely held members liabilities, but it could impede the search for his own successor; a tradition of the Regus was to identify and train his own successor.
Armande glanced at the time, and noted how many hours Aria had been asleep. There were moments during the review of her video when he sat forward on his seat, silently willing her to come to a conclusion. She frequently took notes, and thankfully her words were transcribed immediately to the Atharim's network, synced by the penstylus she used.
It was one such screen that Armande closed. He'd taken his own notations overlaid on hers, questions, clarifications, even circling phrases that were of questionable legibility as she grew more and more fatigued.
The library was cool, held at a temperature and humidity slightly beneath comfort level to protect the contents of the room. Armande stood over the table where Aria worked those long hours, absorbing what events had been imprinted here. The child was an essential tool to breaking this code. Neither he himself, a master linguist and historian, nor a talent such as the burgeoning celebrity John Smith, would be able to translate the Voynich Manuscript. Of this Armande was confident. It took a furia, a very sensitive furia, to read the words. For they must be of Tongues, glossolalia. There was no other explanation.
Turning, he studied the child curled in a corner chair. So young and burdened by the world around her, a frightened baby calf struggling to gain its footing. Yet Armande did not sympathize with her. She was a keeper of secrets few in the world were worthy of holding. Father Dmitri's caretaking was meant to protect her, and by extension, the Atharim as a whole. Armande as Regus was a tool of their society as much as Aria as Empathic Furia, in mind they could not be any more different from one another, yet in function, the two were exactly alike. His life had been chosen for him as much as hers.
"Wake child." He spoke coolly, careful to maintain his emotions steady in her presence. It had been a failure on his part to behave as he had with Mr. Marx in front of her. He would not repeat the same mistake twice.
When she aroused, he requested her impressions of the work rather than her interpretation. It was not an academic translation he was seeking, it was the scent and mind of empathy itself, something alien.