Chapter 14: Adanias
The Time: Present Day (720 AE)
The Place: The city of Tsimeda, Hameze Province, Saimr
Ari can't help it: she falls asleep.
She's not trying to! Actually, she'd really wanted to stay awake, if only because it seems tremendously rude to cum so hard you cry and then leave your bedmate to handle themselves while you conk out in a drooling heap. Maybe she'd even been looking forward to taking Velnyr apart too, just a little bit. It's not like she'd spent ten years fantasizing about doing exactly that. Whatever.
But it isn't meant to be. The exhaustion, the emotional turmoil—they've drained her dry. One minute she's staring at the reddish tiled ceiling in a gooey daze, the next she's pulled so deep under that she doesn't even dream. It's hard to say precisely how long she sleeps, only that when she finally wakes, she's alone, stripped totally nude, and tucked cozily into her new sheets… And also her sweat-matted partially-unbound hair is at war with itself, her throat hurts, and her mouth feels (and tastes) like it's sprouting moss.
She wipes the grit from her eyes and squints up at the window above her bed. The sunlight beaming down at her is the dusky gold of late afternoon, but she's genuinely not sure if the lovely view out there is illusory. There's so much magic oozing out of every crevice of this place, so many uncountable layers of dizzyingly complex spellwork glued over every surface, that she's not confident she can rely on her Aethersight to tell her what's real and what isn't.
With a faint groan, Ari slaps a palm over her eyes—partly to block out the sun, which mostly works, and partly to block out the swelling rush of mortification threatening to drown her, which mostly doesn't.
Harlot! Coward! No morals, no principles, no backbone! She's so furious with herself she could combust on the spot. How could she have just—just spread her legs like that! What, all it takes is one… admittedly very impressive gesture of goodwill and youroll over and show your belly like a dumb animal begging for scraps?! Shameless! Oh, isn't it alright to whore yourself out to your old master just once, just for fun—come on, get real! If she gives that woman an inch, she'll take ten miles and keep pushing!
Ari wants to sink into this (soft, perfumed) mattress and never come out. She's angry, yes, but she's also… a lot of other things. Confused, ashamed, ecstatic, overwhelmed, touched, frightened—and yes, still a bit aroused. Even as she lies here beating herself black and blue emotionally, her free hand massages the line of her throat, squeezing just until she can feel the faint sting inside of muscles well-used.
(Ordinarily, her body would rid itself of such minor aches and pains quickly and easily—not in hours, but in minutes. That it hasn't done so yet makes her wonder if Velnyr had bothered to… to arrest her recovery, somehow. If she'd wanted Ari's body to remember what happened as clearly as her mind does. The idea makes her scalp prickle, not unpleasantly.)
It's good. It's a good feeling. She wishes it wasn't, because then it might be easier to convince herself she's never going to do this again, assuming she ever has the opportunity… Ugh. She'd never had much pride to start with, but she might as well toss what's left of it on a funeral pyre. That would be a more honorable send-off than it deserves.
(Was it good for Velnyr, too? Was it pleasing? Was she pleasing? Velnyr left without a word, so maybe—
Oh, you nitwit. Shut up.)
Her brain is like an over-filled soup pot, boiling and hissing and spilling on itself, every stir of the ladle forcing some new unwelcome thought to the surface to torment her.
She wants to know where her creedmates are. She wants to know if her disciples are okay. She wants to know what Lord Suyan is doing with Varul. She wants to know what the hell Velnyr is thinking. She wants to know what Velnyr is doing, right now, if she left because she was busy or because she regretted what happened or just because she didn't care enough to stay. She wants to know what the past five years have done to her master, for her behavior to change so drastically. She would very much like to know what she meant, earlier, when she called Ari her… her… her wife. Her heart.
Hah! Haha! Very funny! So funny, Ari forgot to laugh! Maybe this most clever and gracious master should come back and explain the joke for everyone to enjoy!
Ari huffs as she abruptly sits up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. As much as she might like to, she can't just keep wallowing here. She needs a bath and a change of clothes. Her old uniform is… not fit to wear right now. A meal would be nice, too; she hasn't eaten since… what, since she stuffed her face with those pomegranate seeds in the matrons' carriage yesterday? It feels like that happened weeks ago. Her stomach seems to agree, seeing as it grumbles painfully when she stands.
She'd love to go hunting for answers, too, but… But.
Velnyr hadn't mentioned any parts of the palace being off-limits, but did she need to? She'd shown Ari only her wing. She likely didn't intend for her new "guest" to wander outside of its bounds unattended, and knowing Velnyr, she wouldn't leave anything up to chance or the honor code: anywhere Ari isn't supposed to go will be completely inaccessible. With the soul bond in place, trying to slip her leash anyway would be pointless—Velnyr will be able to tell where she is exactly at any given moment, and she can probably give that leash a good hard yank from a distance if she discovers Ari doing something she doesn't like.
As much as she wants information, she can't risk drawing her master's sincere ire in the process. So far, Velnyr has been… pretty lenient with her. She doesn't wanna find out what happens if that changes.
Ari sighs. Maybe she'll feel better once she's clean and fed.
***
As she expected, the wooden dividing screen is in fact hiding a very spacious and comfortable washroom. There's a fancy-looking toilet and some kind of washbowl with a spigot, and taking up nearly an entire wall is a pool of steaming, softly burbling water set into the creamy tile floor. Amazing, of course, but here it's just another little miracle, easily overshadowed.
Still, now that she has some time to herself, Ari takes a few minutes just to admire it all. The many plants in their clay pots reaching towards the warm light filtering through another window above the pool, the glyphs carved into the tiles that must keep the water warm and fresh, the rack stocked with clean fluffy towels, the basket of oils and soaps and sponges.
Curiously, Ari picks a bottle at random and uncorks it, lifting it to her nose for a sniff. She's not sure what she's expecting—maybe something like the sweet, floral aromas Velnyr favors? But no, the oil in this bottle smells rather more woodsy, warm and a little spicy. She likes it. Upon further investigation, the other scents are similar, obviously selected to complement one another.
Ari taps her fingernail on the lid of the bottle in her hand, smiling despite herself. Credit where credit is due: if these quarters are meant to be a conciliatory gesture, then it's a damn good one. Looking at this place, she can't help feeling like one of the characters from her amma's stories—the peasant girl who nurses a wounded prince in disguise and afterwards finds herself whisked away to a life of luxury to reward her for her kindness.
Only when she was very young had Ari dared to dream of such a life for herself, and even then her idea of luxury had only been a house with enough space for her to have her own bedroom, a purse just heavy enough with coin that her mother didn't have to weave until her fingers bled anymore and her father didn't get a pinched look on his face come winter when the storehouses were emptier than they ought to be.
If only that child could see her now. Dropped into a mystical storybook palace completely alone, with only a capricious tyrant for company. What a stupendous trade-off.
When Ari finally eases into the pool, she groans in honest appreciation. Ah, how wonderful! The water is incredibly hot, but that doesn't bother her. That scalding heat sinks deep into her muscles, melting away weeks of stress and tension (along with the thin layer of sweat and… other fluids left behind by her earlier activities). For several long, syrupy minutes, Ari simply closes her eyes and soaks, the clamor in her brain quieted to a murmur. Only once the tips of her fingers and toes begin to prune does she hasten to make use of the soaps and sponges, scrubbing herself until it feels like the top layer of her skin has sloughed off.
It takes a bit of doing to detangle her hair (with the help of a wide-toothed ivory comb she finds in the basket), but after she's done she diligently scrubs it into a lather as well, grimacing as she tugs out several knots the comb alone couldn't handle.
By the time she finally emerges from that pool, squeaky clean and loose-limbed, the light coming through the windows has dimmed considerably, but she feels much more like herself and less like a leaf being tossed around in a typhoon. She finds some sort of thick cream that smells like sandalwood in the basket and massages it into her skin until she feels soft as a baby's downy cheek all over, and then she wraps a towel around herself and heads back to the main room to check the wardrobe. Hopefully Velnyr remembered to provide her with a couple of things to change into…?
When she tugs open the wardrobe's doors, she discovers that yes, she certainly has been gifted a couple of new outfits—a couple dozen! With an expression of mounting alarm, Ari pulls out masterpiece after masterpiece: long, high-collared coats with dashingly tapered waists; heavy capes, richly embroidered; slim, sturdy trousers with crisp seams; belts and sashes and boots and gloves and headpieces; almost all of these reams of fabric dyed black, black, black with the occasional hint of deepest red or shining gold. Everything is tailored perfectly to her size (even the underclothes!) and designed according to her tastes, though naturally of a much higher quality than she's accustomed to! She's afraid to even look at some of these garments too hard in case her gaze stains them!
Abruptly feeling quite unsettled for no reason she can name, Ari hastily returns the too-lovely outfits to their proper places and selects the plainest coat she can find. It's black, of course, with the high collar and belted waist she prefers, its bodice edged with gold and a short, handsome little capelet fluttering from its shoulders. She finds solid dark trousers and calf-length leather boots to match, and then she plops down on the stool before the dressing table to wrestle her damp hair into a low, untidy bun.
The table is also loaded down with all manner of items: face creams and delicate glass bottles of perfume, sticks of kohl and pads of rouge, thin horsehair brushes and tiny jars of crushed pigment for her eyes and lips. She discovers a drawer filled with elaborate hairpieces and jewelry that she immediately closes, and another with more combs and pins and hair ties and vials of oil. She's never used most of these things in her life, and frankly she's too apprehensive about them to start today.
It's as she's standing from the vanity that the knock on the door comes—loud enough to be heard from anywhere in the room, but not so loud as to be impolite.
Ari pauses. Well. That certainly isn't Velnyr, but she hadn't seen any servants in this wing earlier. Maybe it's Mellie…?
On instinct, she taps her Aethersight to get a peek at her visitor's aura and immediately regrets it: it feels like she's just spent a week in a pitch-black cave and opened her eyes for the first time aboveground to stare directly at the noon sun. Alright! Lesson learned! She'd been able to examine the Amnion earlier without much trouble, but anything more granular is strictly off-limits!
Should she tell them to come in? Can they come in? Those wards on the door are serious business, and she isn't sure if Velnyr trusts even her most senior attendants with dismantling them.
Eyes still watering, Ari crosses over to the door and cautiously opens it.
There's a friendly greeting on her lips. It never makes it out. What she says instead is "Aughhhghghgh!!!" and leaps half a foot in the air.
SPIDER!!!!!! DROW!!!!!! DROW-SPIDER!!!!!! SPIDER WHO IS ALSO A DROW!!!!!!
The man looming in her doorway holding a tray of food covered in a clear glass cloche is, like, only half a man. The top half, specifically. The rest is just spider. Eight furry gray legs, each as long and thick as an oak sapling, support a bulbous arachnid abdomen and a lithe male torso clothed in a very respectable dark tunic. The face atop the nightmarish body is handsome and beaming, violet-skinned and red-eyed and framed by a silky curtain of snow-white hair, although the warm smile the young man wears is rapidly fading into an expression of blatant concern.
"Goodness," the spider-drow says in heavily-accented but posh Saimerian, two of his LEEEEEEGS OH GODS lifting and rubbing together in a gesture that seems almost bashful if you ignore the little glossy black claws at the end of each… foot. "This humble servant apologizes, my lady. I certainly didn't mean to startle you."
He's being so polite that Ari feels compelled to say something reassuring, but she really can't manage it. Her heart is galloping in her chest, her entire body tensed to sprint away at the slightest provocation.
Tray still in hand, the… man… spider… bows at the waist (though he still towers over her, even taller than Velnyr), his long pale hair curtaining his face. "This servant is called Adanias Tethadin, my lady. I serve our Most Holy as Her loyal chamberlain. I'm so very pleased to meet you!"
Ari's instinctive wariness thaws just a bit. What a… respectful young man.
Oh. Oh, wait, Adanias? Mellie mentioned this guy, right? She couldn't have maybe also mentioned he was part spider?!
Valiantly maintaining his friendly, harmless demeanor, Adanias carefully extends the tray in her direction. "Ah, Her Worship sent me to ensure you had your supper, and to speak to you, and to make you comfortable, and to fulfill any requests you might have. This humble servant is honored to be at your beck and call, Esteemed Consort; please make use of me as you see fit!"
It's this that finally shocks Ari out of her petrified stupor.
She opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. "Sorry, that's… I… W-What did you just call me? Sorry. Uh, nice to meet you too. Did you say consort?"
Adanias looks at her with faint surprise. "I… well, yes, of course. You are to be Most Holy's lady wife, are you not?"
Ari stares at Adanias. Adanias stares back at her.
Ari blinks. Wets her lips with her tongue. "Not. To my knowledge."
Adanias stares at her, again.
He stares.
He stares more.
His violet face pales to something like lavender. "Oh. Oh dear."
Moving on stiff legs, Ari steps back with a rictus smile, opening the door wider. "Why… Why don't you come in. I get the feeling we have… plenty to talk about."