“-so yeah, there’s a bunch of them out there. Currently, we’re looking for more data on correlations between rank and mask type, but we’re also keeping in mind-“ His friend was still talking, but Claudien had eyes only for a paper on the pinboard. Drawn to it, he stepped around the table to get closer, fingers reaching out and tracing the lines of the sketch.
The Ascian’s mask was rendered in blood red. A sharp, beaked thing. Beneath it was a faintly smiling mouth, perfectly innocuous and neutral, yet still exuding menace.
The lines of the mask… they were well drawn. It was as if he could touch the thing itself. Run his fingers over engraved lines, gently hook his fingers under and pull it off his face, feel the perfect symmetry and balanced weight, hold it reverently and with respect for the office it symbolized, and lift it and the responsibility from his shoulders-
Claudien blinked.
-------
“I’m just saying, maybe those sources aren’t so reliable. Or maybe we’re reading them wrong.”
“We’re not going into this again. The language doesn’t line up, the robe designs, the masks thing, and also the texts have been used by generations of Archons. We’re not!”
There was a moment of silence.
“But we don’t know for certain-“
“ASCIANS AREN’T MHACHI GHOSTS-“
Claudien closed the door, not slamming it, yet still on the loud side. If it caught their attention… good.
With bags under his bloodshot eyes, he returned to his pile of reference materials. He would find more on the white robed Ascian.
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“Claudien! Claudien!” The under-Archon in question heard, rapidly getting louder.
Out of breath, an old friend skidded to a stop, leaning against the hallway’s wall and panting for breath. “You…. You’re on that... aster project now. ….Right?” He gasped, and then continued without waiting for an answer. “The new tome translations… There’s a mention of… a white….”
Claudien blinked. And then was shoving himself off that very wall, splitting so fast that all his friend could confusedly register was a fading yell of thanks.
Claudien stumbled back into his office, eyes wide. He’d had to race two other underarchons from the same hall that had overheard his friend’s announcement of newly translated Allagan tomes. And then there’d been the queue of others in line at the translating team’s rooms…. And the fistfight that had broken out…
He had it, though. He held in his hand a parchment version of the text in question, along with the passages in the original high allagan, should anything have lost important nuance.
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