<strong>Will of the One</strong><br/><strong>Location</strong>: Guest Quarters, Civic Festhall, Sigil<br/><strong>Time</strong>: Mid-morning<br/><strong>Tagged</strong>: Closed for Ihaana & Bryseis<br/><br/>Ihaana said, "I think I'll be all right," and that was true.  She wasn't feeling<em>great</em>by any stretch, but the walk had cleared her head a little bit, or anyway it had helped her to ground herself back to the realm in which her body resided after so much time lost in the rushing winds of her own drug-addled brain.  In that way, the trip back had been like waking up from a comfortable nap: it had taken a little while, and maybe she was still a little groggy, but at least she was awake, present.  "My kip is closer, I think," she confessed.  Ending up at Rysse's place wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, and even if that place wasn't terribly spacious and if maybe the floors smelled of whiskey or rum, so what?  Ihaana had fallen back to seedier places for an evening's respite since she'd reached Sigil, and certainly that part of her life was not passed.<br/><br/>Ihaana had held out a hand and caught a few of the dirty raindrops in her palm; she was looking at them intently when Rysse's practicality pulled her back from the sky.  Some of these drops were so heavy with the residue of Sigil that she could see the specs and flakes they carried in them.  When she was Clueless, she lived in a land where the rain only came during the day, and the clouds never hid the sun.  She would sit on the high temple balcony and watch the city below, as the rain covered it in a shimmering skin that threw back the golden light of the sun.<br/><br/>And her kip<em>was</em>closer, true enough: their little dip into the alley didn't take long (though long enough for one alley to give way to another), and then they were there.  The door was unbarred and wooden, a few stone steps up from the cobbled alley, one door amongst many in the alley that all entered into buildings built so tightly together that it was hard to tell that any of them had been built apart to begin with.  That door led into a wooden stairwell that climbed as well as descended; Ihaana was blessed to live one story below the streets of Sigil.<br/><br/>The door into Ihaana's flat was indistinct from the others throughout the building (though it had the privilege of being the only one beneath the rest of the building.)  She rapped on that door with a practiced, well-rehearsed beat.  She didn't have much in the way of home security, but at least she had that little trick.  It wouldn't keep out anyone really dedicated, but it gave her some piece of mind.  As her hand clasped the doorknob, she reflected aloud to her guest, "Before I came to Sigil, I'd never once had to open a door for myself.  Can you believe?"  She rolled her eyes and twisted the knob.  Those eyes, a deep brown that bordered on black, reflected an untarnished soul, someone had once told her.<br/><br/>Ihaana's little flop was a sight of peeling paint.  There was a jar on a wooden shelf near the door that held the flakes that Ihaana occasionally found on the floors.  Most of the den was dominated by two aging sofas and the low table they faced, and the room was still scented by the remnants of the incense stick that Ihaana had left to burn itself out the night before.  In back, a doorway led into the bedroom.  Ihaana used her place as little more than a place to sleep, a safe spot she could escape to.  There was no kitchen, no stove: Ihaana much preferred to pick up her meals when she was out in the city.  The only thing she could look to as any sort of pantry was a liquor cabinet that was often home to two or three half-empty bottles.<br/><br/>There were no windows down there; Ihaana's flat was dark, and it was darker yet after she closed the door behind them.  Somewhere, there was a lamp, unlit and doing nobody any good.  She didn't strictly need it, but some of her visitors couldn't see without it.   She said, "Here we are," and quietly knocked on the door behind them.  "In one piece.  Thanks to you, I think.  I'm not sure I could have made it without you."  She squeezed Rysse's hand, the one she'd been holding onto for most of their trip through the city, before letting go.  She meant to find that lamp; her eyes would adjust to the dark eventually, but it just wasn't the same.