Aleksei and Mi'ishaen had together set up four long wooden structures in the Raibeart back yard, where the land's spine curled around the back side of the smithy like a large, green-furred, comfortable cat. At first, the constructions had looked like sawhorses. When Susanna noted that a few nosey neighbors had begun asking questions, the operation moved to a rooftop that Mi'ishaen selected. Through Sylvester's machinations and Salone's willingness to go to the market with memorized instructions, Mi'ishaen daily purchased leaves and buds that had to be cut, baked, and prepared in the same day; the tea satchels that resulted kept a flow of small coin just solid enough to keep the home owner beneath her hooves from disallowing the Tiefling's activities. Against Susanna's better counsel, Aleksei and Silveredge pooled all of their coin to purchase yarrow, nettle, elderberry and calendula. Pieces of twine had been tied to the long wood beams that were held up by their four legs, and the freshly cut sprigs of those herbs hung upside down from them, in bunches of various sizes.
Both Iona and Susanna worried that all the money would be wasted in Mi'ishaen's effort, but just as Iordyn had secretly told them might happen, Mi'ishaen set out not only to make good on everyone's investments, but to profit. With Stephen's quietly amused blessing, Salone and Sylvester worked together in the sitting room, selling neatly labeled poultices, ointments, and balms. Amadelle, much to her embarrassed parents' shock, made for quite the fearless marketing person, telling anyone who complained of any pain or illness to go to the Raibeart home and purchase some of Bliss's Blessings. As most Humans in Suzail ran short of Turathi culture and history lessons, Mi'ishaen's tongue-in-cheek name for the most honest operation in which she'd taken part in years absolutely escaped their awareness. Only Sylvester felt the need to cross promise himself against telling anyone, even his parents, that the awe-inspiring arboretum of Bliss had once been the campground of the rich in Vor Kragal. In return, Mi'ishaen promised not to knowingly brew anything harmful.
This day, a few days more than three weeks after the drying rigs had been built and placed, Mi'ishaen braided her hair tightly to the back of her head, tied the old dress that Susanna had loaned her up to her mid-thigh, then knelt next to a bundle of dried leafy stems to begin the slow, careful process of untying it from the calf-high wooden frame. As she worked, she muttered along with the drone of the Raven Queen's adherents, gathered in the building opposite the rooftop upon which she worked.
"Turn your face westward, children of eternal cold;
Cast down your dark gaze, lest the sun you should behold-"
"You've mixed that up," a voice said jokingly. "They're holed up in there so that they sun won't see them, not so that they won't see the sun."
Mi'ishaen didn't bother to look up. "Greyscale has the report."
Cypher, who hadn't expected Mi'ishaen to be quite that curt with her, sighed heavily as she continued to slowly walk past the low wooden fixtures. "Okay, you're still angry with me. You have every right to still be angry with me."
"I know, but I'm not," Mi'ishaen replied, undaunted, all her focus pinned to her work with the brittle branches in her hands. "What I am is busy. Greyscale has the report."
"He told me," Cypher argued, crossing her arms over her chest as she tried her hardest to find a collection of drying bunches more interesting than the others. "But this is an ongoing issue. And we're light on operatives that can do what you do."
Mi'ishaen stopped what she was doing and looked up at last, finding Cypher's eyes and staring into them with an unnerving calm. "If you and Cloud are going to use the same playbook on me, please tell one another when one of your maneuvers don't work. And don't touch any of these; I don't have another twenty days to wait for another set to dry properly."
Cypher glanced around herself again, then gave an approving huff, despite not recognizing a single plant, dried or not, on the entire roof. "All these specimens are well kept; you'd probably make a good alchemist's apprentice."
"That's 'cause I was one," Mi'ishaen sniped, her glare unmoving. "Tiefling alchemy is different to the greedy, gold-centric Human echo of it. Nothing back there on the table needs 'purifying' with blood or feces, and nothing drying over here gets anyone high. That's why you don't recognize anything."
Cypher looked around herself again uncomfortably, then walked back to the far side of the wooden drying stands to sit down. "Look, I asked Greyscale to give you some support. I've been on your side-"
"Don't start that shit," Mi'ishaen interrupted sharply. "You told Greyscale to pull me entirely."
"We were wrong, and I apologize," Cypher urged.
"You're not apologizing to me," Mi'ishaen argued. "You're apologizing to yourself; leave me out of that. Far as I'm concerned, I'm done." That said, the Tiefling turned her attentions back to the group of dried stems and blooms with which she'd been working, putting the stripped leaves and blossoms into a plate on her left side.
"Wait- you're saying you're done working with Coalwater?" Cypher asked, frustration lacing her voice as she watched Mi'ishaen return her focus to her work.
"No, but you don't have work that I want right now, and I'm- okay, look. These are for pain poultices. The stuff on the table is for morning tea satchels. I'm also casing the taverns at night. Not easy to get away from the babysitter, but he's got a lot of something going on with his family, so he can't watch me every second. When I'm at a good pause point, and when Greyscale has a project that I'm interested in, I'll be back, okay?"
"He runs the whole operation, you know," Cypher sniped. "Your royal highness doesn't get to see him any time she wants. Cloud and I are good enough for you."
Mi'ishaen squeezed her eyes shut and allowed her hands to fall onto her lap. "And somehow, out of everything I just said, all you heard was me apparently slighting you in favor of Greyscale. If m'lady would be so kind as to fuck the hell off out of here, I'd be truly grateful."
"Fine!" Cypher spat, hopping up from her seated position. "To think I even worried about-"
And when she turned around, her words were stopped cold in her mouth by the sight of Silveredge's platinum eyed stare. Her hair was braided into a single strap and wound around her head like a crown, and she wore the simple stained cotton dress that Mi'ishaen had received as prison garb. It was too short for her, of course, and was only slightly better than being entirely unclothed.
"Good morning," the Shadar-kai soothed, knowing that her presence was more of a surprise than she'd planned. "May calm and good fortune follow you."
"Out, in case that part wasn't clear," Mi'ishaen added, laying the twine and bare branches to one side, then selecting another bunch with which to work. "May all that pleasant shit follow you out."
"So short of temper so soon?" Silveredge smiled genuinely, leaning slightly to the side in order to get a clear view of Mi'ishaen. "It's barely the ninth hour."
"What are you doing here?" Cypher managed, barely recovering from the fact that she hadn't heard Silveredge come up almost directly behind her. "We were supposed to meet later."
"I intended to spend this day with the most beloved," Silveredge replied, passing by Cypher entirely in favor of getting a closer look at Mi'ishaen's work. "I left everything upon which I have been working at the prescribed location. If additional work is required, I'll be happy to look at it with Niku tomorrow."
Cypher pressed her lips between her teeth for a few moments in the vain effort to calm herself. "If you're going to sit next to Mishka all day, you might try convincing her to finish the monitoring job. We could really use her skill."
Silveredge turned politely frigid eyes to Cypher with a hint of a smirk on her face. "Your handmaiden cannot find fault with the most beloved's refusal to return to that particular assignment."
"Oh, wow," Cypher groaned, rubbing the back of her neck and refocusing on the Tiefling. "Mishka, you're good at what you do. We were wrong to doubt your skills, and we really need you to finish this Illance job. I don't know what else you want me to say."
" 'Goodbye' works for me, but it's obvious that you don't get the 'why' of that yet," Mi'ishaen replied, looking up from the dried branches. With a resigned sigh, she carefully handed the branches off to Silveredge, stood up, and walked around the wooden stands to get to Cypher. "Item one: if I have to work with Cloud again, she's dead as soon as the project's finished. Item two: if you send me another letter, you better be prepared to check your bed for fire traps every night for the rest of your life. Item three: I abso-fucking-lutely will not do any type of favor or service, irrespective of any-fucking-body's net gain, for any-fucking-body who has in any fucking way benefitted from the slave trade. If you have a problem with any of that, tell Greyscale to fire me, like Cloud said she was going to do. I guarantee you he will remind you that I am a free agent, and wonder why you are being such a thrice damned, dried up, baby-eating bitch about it."
Cypher raised her right hand to slap Mi'ishaen, only to have that hand blocked by Mi'ishaen's powerful left forearm.
"Here's a thought- how come the raw handbag's suddenly okay with casually protecting a guy who arranged to have a pregnant woman sent to Sembia to do gods-know-what for gods-know-who, after you just served that same guy an open court worthy check on a game that was more than a year in the playing? 'The job's not commissioned.' Of course it's not. Or do you think what happened to the Sunfire can only happen to the Sunfire? Hmm, I wonder who Greyscale's Howler is- who might mean just that much to him. Wonder what they did- or maybe what they used to do, and for whom?"
"How delicate these blossoms are," Silveredge commented quietly as she gazed at the tea satchels on the low table behind her. "I nearly feel pity for the plant who believed that it would flower, only to have its tender buds cut so quickly and cleanly away."
Mi'ishaen shoved Cypher's arm back and turned away sharply, denying herself the pleasure of allowing her red-eyed stare to further irritate the Human woman.
"You talk as if I'd snatched someone's child out of a cradle," she huffed as she made her way back to Silveredge's side. "Reflections in stones and the fragility of plants- between you and Aleksei, you'll make a nun out of me."
Cypher pushed her thick tongue around her dry mouth for a few moments, having been left with too much to think about and nothing to say.
"I could never force the most beloved into an order," Silveredge said slyly, handing the dried branches back to Mi'ishaen, purposefully brushing the side of the Tiefling's ruddy hand as she did. "But of course, if she will decide to become a dedicant to some god, I will rejoice with her."
For the first time, Cypher noticed that neither the Tiefling nor the Shadar-kai were armed or armored. The anguished jealousy that throbbed in her heart felt as though it would explode.
He couldn't do that even for a day, could he? Just be with me. For one day. And now this bitch makes me wonder why. It's not for lack of coin. And Dark does have a very light reign-holding hand.
After a few moments of awkward silence, Silveredge gently looked up at Cypher.
"Perhaps Yulian is looking for you, Dortana."
"Grey-" Mi'ishaen began to correct absent-mindedly as she put the bare dry branches that she held aside in favor of starting to untie a new bunch.
"No," Silveredge replied firmly. "Yulian."
Mi'ishaen looked up at Silveredge, looked at Cypher, gave a short grunt of satisfaction, and refocused on her work.
Cypher turned to leave, and both of the women left behind her sat in silence until her careful footfalls were too far to hear.
"Any shadows?" Mi'ishaen asked very quietly.
"Bright midday," Silveredge responded after a few seconds of wordless divination.
"Well, I'm guessing I won't hear from either her or Greyscale for a while," Mi'ishaen commented with a gusty sigh. "Hand me that dish?"
"If she suspected nothing before this moment, she must be struck," Silveredge replied as she traded the empty clay plate that was next to her for the one Mi'ishaen had filled with dried white flowers and leaves. "She is supposed to be his second in command, yet her face was empty of anything but pain; I don't envy her."
"He's smart, no matter how much he does the 'dumb lizard' thing," Mi'ishaen said with the faintest trace of concern. "I'm not surprised that he can get big stuff by her, but if he's stuck, he must be really stuck. She'd better get over herself and help him. And somebody'd better come clean to Dark."
"While I doubt our patron lady of twilight is truly without the necessary information, a few pieces of our more recent reading practice were scribed with the assumption that Greyscale will not come completely clean to either her or his wife," Silveredge replied. "Ser Bann is understandably tired of any shade of intrigue, and Ser Mordren and his shadow barely have heart for their own company, let alone anyone else's, but Ser Kronmyr has become quite interested in following up on certain details. To that end, he lends me his study for all my work, in exchange for a copy of it always finding its way to his hands. As his more trusted compatriots are currently weary or distracted, he has begun to whisper in the ear of Ser Howler, who is as attentive as any of his well-trained brothers. Since their separate recoveries, my lords' animosity for each other has been largely for show."
"Just being on speaking terms isn't trust. If I had gods, I'd pray," Mi'ishaen groaned quietly. "And be careful with the leaking. Dark's kids play cruel; that's why I can threaten lives and mean it."
"You are being friendly by offering advanced notice; Lyosha would approve," Silveredge said with a quiet firmness that reminded Mi'ishaen immediately of the strange jewelry seller in her dream-vision. The Shadar-kai ran a finger down the center of Mi'ishaen's dark, tightly woven hair. "Neither Cypher nor Ser Mordren suspect much of me, if anything at all, because I am not so kind. Also, both sets of current friends play familiar games. Ides-Raz made many enemies in the Underdark, where betrayal is thanked with a dinner party invitation sent to someone with an unmarked grave waiting outside the citadel. I learned much through silent observation."
Mi'ishaen stopped working and shot a wickedly pleased look at Silveredge. "I just love it when you get mean," she enthused. "You stop talking in spider webs and start sounding like cold steel."
"With such dangerous company, how could your handmaiden help but sound dangerous?" Silveredge grinned, gently placing the hand that had been caressing Mi'ishaen's hair across the Tiefling's forearms so that she would put the dried branches down. "I've always been ever so impressionable."
"Vaya, mentirosa," Mi'ishaen whispered, allowing herself to be slowly wrapped in Silveredge's chilly periwinkle blue arms and kissed.
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