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    "text": "Ysayle. (In the Arms of Sleep)",
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          "alt": "Gisele smiled, and retrieved her comb once more, tapping it lightly upon her palm. \"Shall I braid yours for the night, then? You simply cannot sleep with it free, it would grow hopelessly tangled.\"\nThe flush of crimson that spread across Ysayle's pallid cheeks was unmistakable then, and somewhat in Gisele grew warm to see her so bashful of a moment. \"I shall not trouble you with such a thing..\"\n\"Tis no trouble, cherie, when I am offering,\" Gisele insisted. \"Come here.\"\nYsayle placed a thin, scarlet ribbon between the pages of her small book, and shut it, turning her back to Gisele. Only a small amount of oil did Gisele tip into her palm from the small decanter, mayhap a gil coin's worth, and she gently ran her fingers through Ysayle's wealth of thick, silvery locks, working the oil from root to tip. She felt her eyes growing heavier as she did, so soothing the repetitive motion was, and hummed once more as she ran her ivory comb through it. It was magnificent, in truth, and she could not deny how she had yearned to do this—to simply sit with her in silence. Once or twice, even as the thunder rolled and hailstones pummeled the rattling window, Gisele had to gently tap Ysayle, for her head grew slack and heavy as though she were dozing.\n\"You've not oft been treated with such tenderness, I think,\" Gisele mused softly, as she combed Ysayle's locks.\nSilence, then, was her response at first; mayhap Gisele had overstepped, she feared, but then Ysayle spoke.\n\"Not oft,\" she murmured, rather languorously.",
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          "alt": "\"Tis unfortunate, to be so bereft of simple kindnesses. All are worthy of them, you know,\" Gisele said.\nYsayle snorted softly. \"Even I?\"\n\"Yes,\" Gisele whispered, and could not help but stroke the crown of her hair with a tender hand.\n\"Even you, my Lady Iceheart.\"\nA soft, imperceptible sigh of pleasure escaped Ysayle's lips, at the gentleness of Gisele's fingers raking softly through her long, silky locks, finding her scalp to massage tiny circles upon it. She was well-pleased by her touch, it seemed; would that Gisele might skim her fingers lower, tracing the elegant line of her neck. But she found restraint, and remained fixed upon those silvery locks instead.\n\"Do you truly believe such a thing? That I am at all worthy of tenderness, much less from one such as you, beloved of an Ishgardian knight and the heir to a High House?\" Ysayle asked. \"I, who have raised arms against you and your Scions?\"\n\"Why should I not believe it? You wish to bring an end to suffering, do you not? And such is our common purpose, the very reason we have laid down the arms we once raised against one another?\"\n\"Yes, of course.\"\n\"Well, there is enough cruelty in the world, cherie.\nMayhap if tenderness took its place, there should be no need for war and the suffering it begets, no?\" Gisele asked, gently unraveling a small tangle, before the comb ran freely once more through her thick hair.\nHer words were chosen with deliberate care, calling back to Ysayle's that day in the amphitheatre, when she revealed she had seen Gisele's past through the Echo.",
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          "alt": "\"Mayhap,\" Ysayle murmured, surely noting it well.\n\"Tis...difficult to fathom, I suppose, that you have lived such a life yet still hold fast to this belief. That your heart has not been hardened by bitterness is beyond my ken,\" she admitted.\n\"When I was but a tiny girl-child in Ferelden, I believed Hydaelyn to be little more than a Spirit of Love, come from the Fade. And I knew her before I knew mine own name,\" Gisele replied softly, stroking her hair. \"Always do I choose love, for I can do naught else-tis my very nature. I loved my homeland, though it loved me not; but I knew joy there, even amidst the suffering, I knew beauty. The stars would not shine so brightly were they hung in a luminescent sky, no? And I would shine like them, in the darkness.\"\nTwas with great reluctance in the end that Gisele ceased her combing at last, then, and began to weave Ysayle's silky locks into a thick braid.\n\"You were not at all what I expected, Warrior of Light,\" Ysayle mused quietly, as the rains pounded against the window, hail tapping against the glass.\n\"Nine fulms tall and breathing fire, or...?\" Gisele asked dryly, with a quirk of her silvery brow.\nYsayle raised a hand to her mouth, trembling softly with laughter, and Gisele gently tugged her hair, to nudge her head back to position. But warmth spread through Gisele's chest to hear it, so soft and rich it was; like velvet, enfolding her. Twas a beautiful sound, and she shut her eyes but the briefest of moments to savor it.\n\"Nay. I labor to find the words for it, I confess. But I assure you that you were utterly the last person I expected to see, when I met the violet smoke.\"",
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          "alt": "Gisele smiled. \"When was the last time you were aught beside Lady Iceheart?\" she asked softly, as she tied off the end of the braid, at last, with a small length of thick cord looped into a bow.\n\"Years,\" Ysayle admitted. Her gaze became distant then, and she turned from Gisele. \"I-but it is of no moment. Thank you kindly for your ministrations, but we must needs rest if we shall leave at first light.\"\nGisele nodded, though some part of her yearned to speak longer. Creators willing, there would be more opportunities as yet to do so, for the journey before them was long indeed, by Ysayle's recounting. But twas not the journey which filled Gisele's mind, just then.\nTwas the memory of Ysayle's soft laughter.",
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    "createdAt": "2025-05-09T15:18:25.388Z"
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