The morning sun stretched eager fingers over Silveredge's extended arms as she sat with her legs crossed beneath her and her eyes closed. For a few moments, Mi'ishaen gazed at the long stretches of beautiful blue flesh that the pitiful, thin white dress left exposed. Her crimson eyes lingered where the periwinkle of the skin deepened into a tone approaching sapphire- lines of demarcation low on the Shadar-kai's arms and across the middle of her shins; the places where the loose shirt and pants that she wore to work with the Sunfire Mercenaries ended. She stared at the slow pulsing of the cobalt center of the gal-ralan, and she reminded herself for the hundredth time that the intriguing piece of jewelry was digging metal fangs into the muscle of Silveredge's forearm in exchange for keeping some ephemeral part together with the physical part.
If there were good or kind gods, the Tiefling thought, she wouldn't have to resort to vampire-like jewelry to stay consciously alive. She wouldn't have to worry about shit like that- no one should have to worry about shit like that.
And then Mi'ishaen imagined angry, cruel gods- giant humanoid figures with smoky formless faces and stars for eyes, looking smugly at the blood-sucking bauble, deeming it a blessing for which Silveredge should give thanks instead of a life-long scourge for which she should curse them at the top of her lungs. A sensation similar to a passing breeze wafted over Mi'ishaen's body, and she shook her head clear. Fuck those imaginary shitbags, anyway.
"Are you in a restful position?" Silveredge asked gently, rousing Mi'ishaen from her musings.
"Huh? Uh... no," the Tiefling admitted. "I... guess I... got a little distracted."
"Oh?" Silveredge smiled, opening her eyes. "Your handmaiden wonders what could have possibly drawn your attention away from your holy quest."
Mi'ishaen felt herself blush, and huffed at herself. "Don't shit-talk me; I'll get there when I get there."
"You can, of course, enjoy the view all the way," Silveredge volleyed knowingly as she closed her eyes again, "since there is nowhere you can go that I won't."
"A threat so beautiful that it would sound like a wedding vow in any temple," Mi'ishaen purred quietly as a smile crept across her face. She began leaning toward Silveredge. "In fact-"
"You are too good a temptress, Shadow Child," Aleksei chuckled as he ambled toward the couple from the street behind them. "You will have your love laying in your lap here in the street before I can find anywhere for you to put door between your happiness and everyone else's eyes."
"Hey, give me more credit; there's plenty of space," Mi'ishaen argued, snapping sharply upright. "Dog could fit between us if he wanted to."
Silveredge opened her eyes, looked down at the scant foot between her left knee and Mi'ishaen's right, then closed her eyes again. Niku, peacefully lying off to the Shadar kai's right side, didn't even pick up his head.
"Not even Niku's shadow can be fitting there," Aleksei laughed outright. "You want to hear what this inkeeper is saying, or you want to tell me more stories?"
"Oh, go on," Mi'ishaen shot back, crossing her arms over her chest.
Aleksei leaned on the outside wall of the nearest house and directed his one functional eye to the street to check for passing guards. "He is saying that final offer is three gold and one silver per night. With this, you will have food, drink, one warm bath per day, and Niku can stay with you instead of sleeping in stable."
Silveredge opened her eyes again, with a shadow of doubt in the ever so slight raising of her thin right eyebrow. "But where will you be, Batya?"
Aleksei heaved a sigh that turned into a few short chuckles. "Somewhere else, Shadow child. This innkeeper does not want me under his roof even as servant or guardian."
"No deal, then," Mi'ishaen shot back. "Set of steel balls the guy's got, to say you can't stay while looking you dead in the face and talking right to you. Nuh-uh; no way. He said that to me, he wouldn't be saying much after."
"I know; this is why I am doing all the saying instead of you," Aleksei reminded Mi'ishaen gently.
Niku gave a short puff of breath through his nose, strong enough to kick up a bit of dry grass and dirt in front of him.
"What's next- that boat? Shaliber's, I think it's called?" Mi'ishaen asked quickly, feeling herself slightly embarrased.
"If it can be avoided, your handmaiden would prefer not to be on a ship of any kind," Silveredge admitted, turning her attentions to Mi'ishaen.
"Oh yeah, yeah, that's right," Mi'ishaen nodded. She rubbed at the nape of her neck a few times, then returned to a vague imitation of Silveredge's meditative pose. "Sorry about that; for a second there, I forgot how poorly you were feeling on the way here. I kind of put shitty stuff out of my head the second it's over."
"You are not the only one doing this with bad memories and feelings," Aleksei shrugged. "Many times, this is useful way of moving forward, adapting quickly. But, you will have to keep the bad things that are teaching lessons, or you will feel them again- and it will be feeling worse the second or third time than the first."
Mi'ishaen looked up at Aleksei, who still wasn't looking down at either of the women in front of him. "You say that like a man that's lived it," she said simply.
"Da," Aleksei replied, almost without any detectable emotion in his voice. But, to Silveredge, who just barely turned her eyes enough to see him, that single word carried beneath it a deep, vast undertone of regret. Perhaps sensing her gaze, the Dragonborn at last turned his head.
"How about The Roving Dragon?" the Shadar-kai asked meekly, returning to the subject at hand before Aleksei could hide away what little of his deepest self she was capable of divining.
"Wait, wasn't that the place that said Niku had to sleep outside in the street with the other dogs?" Mi'ishaen countered.
"No; we haven't tried visiting The Roving Dragon as yet," Silveredge reminded gently. "You're thinking of the Leaning Post."
"Oh yeah," Mi'ishaen said thoughtfully. And then, as if to cover for the distance of her tone, she spat, "A total crap shack. So many itchy mercs, of course you have to just lean. Lay down, and you wake up dead."
Aleksei made a short formless sound that could neither be interpreted as support for or an argument against Mi'ishaen's opinion.
"The prices were at least approaching reasonable," Silveredge shrugged. "We may have to choose between spending an unsustainable amount of coin to stay in a decent place, and spending a more affordable sum in order to eat, drink, and sleep on less than desirable things."
"Okay, the second one, obviously," Mi'ishaen sighed. "Maybe it's the name that makes me itchy, yeah? Rather not be any closer to any guards around here than I have to be, even in name."
"The innkeeper also is speaking of place called The Hidden Lady, eh?" Aleksei suggested. "Maybe that name will make you less itchy?"
Niku made a round, pitchy noise of complain.
"What? This is only little gentle teasing. I am not meaning to make upset," said Aleksei, raising the scaled ridge of his eyebrow
"Don't worry about it, Dog; my skin's not eggshell," Mi'ishaen puffed as she laid back so that she could look at the serene blueness of the clear morning sky.
"It's not stone, either," Silveredge noted. "Are you feeling upset?"
"I'm fine... it's just... fuck that guy, y'know?" Mi'ishaen said. "The inkeeper, not Lyosha."
"I know this," Aleksei nodded, turning his gaze toward the street again.
Mi'ishaen took a hint that the Dragonborn may not have even realized he was giving, and lowered her voice as she continued. "I mean, this is, like, the third inn we've tried, and it's just... it's completely ridiculous. In Kragal, you could sleep in innkeeper's own bed with his wife still in it, if you paid him enough. Nobody refused you; they just raised the price until it was worth their while to accept you. Meanwhile, this guy feels within his right to look at the Dragonborn and tell him that he's less worthy to sleep inside than the actual dog- after I offered to trade poultices and salves, you offered to trade some entertainment time, and Lyosha legit offered to be the guy's bouncer for free, all on top of the actual coin we'd still have to pay! Just... what is the matter with these people? What do they want? We all get paid in their coin, and we exchanged the Urmlaspyr metal long ago, so our money should be good enough for them now, right?"
"We are in their land, and we are strange," Silveredge replied simply. "We frighten them, so when we ask for any favour, even so small a favour as somewhere to eat, bathe, or rest, they will treat us as they wish, in order to feel in control and safe. In Sunderhope, my people would also treat you this way. In fact, they very much treated me that way, because I am sufficiently different to most of them. It is easy to fear what is different, and fear causes people to act... perhaps a bit unkindly towards us."
" 'Unkindly' is not the word for what's happening right now. And it's not our fault that we scare them!" Mi'ishaen argued, her voice tight with frustration. "Who they fear is entirely a 'them' problem. We shouldn't have to smile, be extra nice, just about get down on our knees and beg for their approval, so that they decide we 'aren't that bad', and they can be so gracious as to allow us to all live like decent folk. Like, this is basic, basement level consideration, just let us have somewhere safe to live, and they don't even want to do that without an argument? Sometimes I get Bahzair's point, just killing them outright, no questions asked. They deserve it."
"And what do we deserve, for tricking them, and stealing from them?" Silveredge countered.
"We wouldn't have to do that if we got treated like people!" Mi'ishaen hollered back, sitting sharply up, her hands curled into furious fists. "I have never, literally not once, been treated like an actual person by anyone in this entire fucking city! Has Aleksei? Have you? No, right? No. So, fuck them. Every last one of them; fuck them."
There was a silence during which Silveredge and Mi'ishaen realized together that she wasn't talking about just that one innkeeper, or even the people of Suzail, or Cormyr. The two were stranded in their too-close distance, each unable to decide on the safest way to touch the rawness of the moment.
"I know a man who truly has killed with his lovemaking," Aleksei offered dryly without taking his watchful eye away from the street. "I do not know if he will be having enough energy to kill all the people treating us in this way, however. Also, it will take a long time for him to get around to everyone- are you sure we will be staying in this city so long?"
Mi'ishaen's only reply was to flop backward so that she was looking up at the sky again, and Niku padded over to sniff at her immediately.
"Holy shit- I'm fine, Dog," Mi'ishaen groaned. "Lyosha was making a joke- or do you really think there's a guy alive who can fuck someone to death? Don't worry about me. I'll get over it. Always do."
"And in your recovery, perhaps you will be relieving some generous people of the extra coin that it will take to pay for whatever inn does allow us the basement level consideration, yes?" Aleksei smiled gently, turning his attention directly to Silveredge. "In my recovery, I will be drinking beer. Not expensive, to be careful of our coin."
Silveredge tilted her head to the side, and her thick braid slid across her back. "I... have made myself very... distant. I can watch life from outside of myself, like a bird watches from a high tree branch. I believe I would be a water weaver, except I made myself so cold in Sunderhope that the magic had no choice but to freeze along with me. I learned to pretend that the masters, or others who had control, were nothing but air, or a gentle rain, or something else that I could feel on my skin, but could firmly lock out of my waking self. Perhaps... in my recovery, I will... continue to relegate the existence of harmful people to the farthest borders of my mind?"
"Amazing- fuck meditation, I want to learn to do that," Mi'ishaen replied, sitting back up. "I mean, when I see somebody, I can size them up, get a feel for what they might be like and how much they might have, how I can talk my way around them, but... they always exist. I can't just imagine that they don't exist."
"They always exist," Silveredge corrected. "However, you don't have to allow them space in your inner being. The more attention you pay to them, the more of your energy you lend them, and in turn, the more powerful they become. It's as though you handed them your own daggers to stab you. So... don't pay attention to their looks or words directly. Focus only on to how to outmaneuver their actions, how to escape or pervert their intentions. Listen closely to the paths of their minds, and then knowingly step out of them. In that way, you are prepared to avoid being hurt by them, but because of your analytical distance, they cannot twist your mind or emotions in their favour. They cannot even enter your sleeping consciousness, your most tender and hidden self, if you don't permit it- but I had... many hard years to learn to do that. For you, it might take actual spellwork."
There was a beat of empty silence.
Mi'ishaen bit her lips and rubbed at the nape of her neck again. "That was very serious and important information, but holy shit, coming from you, it was the most beautiful collection of words I have ever heard in my life. You're going to have write shit like that down so that I can read it without... without feeling... I mean, I dunno..."
Silveredge leaned over and kissed Mi'ishaen on the shoulder with the same intensity as she might have joyously bitten a ripe fruit. "Your handmaiden is not certain why you want to separate learning from pleasure so much. Why would anyone want to learn anything- in fact, why would any teacher want to teach- if there were not some enjoyment gained from the learning and the teaching?"
And Mi'ishaen thought of her ruined apprenticeship to Iti'idre versus what she'd learned on her own, then what she'd learned from the children in prisons versus what she'd learned from her brother. "I dunno. I'm not used to thinking of learning as pleasant. It's like, if I enjoy it, I'm not trying hard enough, or something."
"It will do little good, our learning, if the ones who are fearing us do not also learn. But who will be teaching them?" Aleksei noted so quietly that his normally sonorous voice went almost entirely unheard. Niku snorted as though something undesirable had gotten into his nose, and the musing Dragonborn thought nothing of it.
"I'll be happy to continue telling you serious and important things once we have someplace to truly rest; we are all clearly in need of it," Silveredge smiled. "Of the places we've actually visited, the Wailing Wheel has been closest to amenable."
"Why pay stranger for poisoning when Bahlzair is willing to do it for free?" Aleksei quipped, speaking loudly enough for the ladies to hear him. "But instead, let us try Hidden Lady as this innkeeper is suggesting. Maybe he is doing us quiet favour, pointing us in better direction."
Silveredge got up purposefully. "We can at least take a look- perhaps this innkeeper doesn't want us under his roof due to pressure from somewhere else, but doesn't necessarily want to force us to find an alley to sleep in."
"It is only thought," Aleksei shrugged when he caught sight of Mi'ishaen's glower. "Now, Hidden Lady is far from your jobs; it is all the way on the docks, the innkeeper is saying."
"We'll just have to get up earlier," Silveredge noted. "Mishka is always racing the fingers of the dawn witch anyway, so it won't be difficult for her."
"It'll suck for you, if you ever catch a hangover," Mi'ishaen shot back at Aleksei.
"It is good for me that I do not do this," Aleksei replied simply. "You do, because you are needing practice at drinking."
"Oh no, no, no; no way am I going to drinking classes too," Mi'ishaen protested. "Meditation, okay. Locking people out of my mind, or whatever- fine. But learning to suckle a keg is off limits."
No comments:
Post a Comment