Wicked Game [Mature, PM to Join]

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Anaxas' main trade port; it is also the nation's criminal headquarters, home to the Bad Brothers and Silas Hawke, King of the Underworld. The small town of Plugit is nearby.

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Niccolette Ibutatu
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Thu Sep 05, 2019 10:02 pm

Very Late Evening, 19th Roalis 2719
The Elepha's Inn, Castle Hill
Whatever Niccolette thought of Xonia’s choice – whether she approved or disapproved – such thoughts remained locked in the galdor’s mind. There was no hint of an expression on the Bastian’s face, nothing but a faint furrowing of her brows as Niccolette began to contemplate the spell. Certainly, nothing of whatever Niccolette had felt slipped into her field; it remained as indectal as ever. The story of how this had happened did not matter for the spells Niccolette would cast, but she understood that the girl likely felt the need to speak of it.

The continued chatter was loud enough that Niccolette could not focus; she looked back at Xonia as she continued to explain, her lips pressed together tightly, and listened without comment. She had no more reaction to the news that Xonia had killed the man than all the rest of it. When Xonia said she had every reason to tell her to shut up, Niccolette simply shrugged. “I cannot cast until you do,” she pointed out. Her tone was – not harsh, exactly, though, despite the words. If anything, it was almost gentle.

“I shall try,” The living conversationalist offered, when Xonia repeated her wish. “I cannot promise to succeed.”

Niccolette inhaled, deeply, and exhaled again. She thought for a moment, then shifted to the floor, kneeling carefully on the ground again. Niccolette poured a bit of wine into her hand, and used her fingers to trace careful monite symbols on the ground, glistening and wet, creating a small plot around herself with the sweet brandy wine. She breathed steadily as she did, always holding to the same rhythm.

Once the plot was finished, Niccolette knelt in the center of it. She wiped her hands on the second of the (several) handkerchiefs she had brought with herself that night, and tossed it to the side, out of the plot. The galdor steadied herself, grasped tight her will, and began to cast, the words falling easily between the rhythmic breaths with the ease of long practice. Lucky for Xonia, Niccolette thought, that she had had occasion to look this spell up recently; lucky for Francoise, Niccolette knew, that she had not, in the end, needed to use it. Niccolette recited the monite into the steadily warming air of the room; it was a long cast, a difficult cast, and blood trickled from her nose as she continued, sliding down over her face, dripping from her chin onto the floor in front of her. Niccolette never paused; once the spell was begun, she could not pause for even a moment, and she did not dare even to reach outside the spell circle for the handkerchief.

Finally, Niccolette curled the spell. She closed her eyes, wobbling unsteadily against the floor, and reached out, grasping the edge of the bed. Her other hand fumbled for the handkerchief. She leaned forward slightly, and pinched the soft part of her nose with the handkerchief, the already wine-stained white cloth taking on a brighter red now. Niccolette's eyes closed, and she did not move or speak for several long moments, her head throbbing painfully.

“It has worked,” Niccolette said, once she could summon the strength to speak. She rose, stiff and aching once more, and wobbled more than walked back to the chair, collapsing back into place. She did not sleep, but stared out the window instead, watching the stars beyond, the stained handkerchief clutched lightly in one hand.

When Xonia spoke once more from the bed, Niccolette turned to look at her, lips pressing together for a long moment. “No,” The Bastian said, quietly, and left it there; she did not apologize, and nor did she explain. Xonia had not asked, in truth, but Niccolette responded as if she had. The Bastian looked away again, back out the window.

“You said you have a friend here,” Niccolette inhaled, slowly, and exhaled again. She closed her eyes for a moment, her head oddly heavy against her neck. She rubbed at her face with the back of her hand, and opened her eyes again, looking at Xonia once more. “Tell me their name, and I shall send word in the morning. You shall need a good deal of rest still, to heal.”

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Healing spell: SidekickBOTToday at 6:17 PM
@moralhazard: 1d6 = (6) = 6

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Xonia
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: Xonia the Nomad
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Fri Sep 06, 2019 11:04 am

Healing someone had to be exhausting, but being healed was also exhausting. She didn’t argue when Niccolette told her to stop talking. She remained silent for the duration of the spell casting. She could feel it curling around her in a tight fist, unpleasant but working. And then her eyes had a most relieved look in them when it was revealed that the child would be alright.

She remained quiet for a long time before she had asked her question, and again, did not argue when the healer said she wouldn’t talk about herself. She did frown though, looking at her with eyes that saw more than the girl let on. When asked about her other friends, or rather, friend, she said, “Corwyn. He was somewhere close to here when I last saw him. He took it upon himself to become a protector, I suppose. The details are fuzzy around that time, I don’t remember if he left or if he was still there when I went to search for some answers.” She relaxed against the pillows and continued, “I don’t even know how long I have been gone…” It could not have been any less than two months, which was how far along she seemed to be.

“Listen,” she was starting to fade, this chatty Cathy, but even still… “You should rest. You certainly didn’t have to help me to this extent and I don’t know why you did, but I am extremely grateful that you did… You’re free to ask me questions when we are both not falling over from fatigue.” She seemed more Wick than Galdor at the moment, concerned as she was for the well being of her rescuer.

And then there came another few hours of rest for a time until she woke up with a start. There had been another nightmare, it really bothered her when there was. But it couldn’t be helped. There were so many questions and she had no answers other than who killed Lorent.

She wrapped her arms around her legs and lay her head within the crook formed by her knees, and she began to weep silently while she stared at nothing in particular. All the fatigue, all of the pain, both emotional and otherwise seemed to hit her all at once. She had lived, she made it against the odds that were stacked against her. She shook as the sobs deepened into something that wrenched her guts, but she tried not to do it out loud to bother the woman.

Oh, but it wasn’t fair… She couldn’t even remember who she was, bad things happened because she went to look for answers, and now she was faced with things she didn’t know how to handle yet. It was frightening, to say the least. When she was done crying, she simply just stared off until her thoughts were interrupted by the loud growling of a belly that had been last filled maybe a few days prior from refuse she’d found on the ground such as half rotten fruit at the market. She had promptly purged it, of course, but even still, it was a tiny bit of sustenance that had been consumed.

She bit her lip, no longer swollen by dehydration and wounds alike. The girl looked surprisingly healthy given what she had been through, but that was thanks to Niccolette and her healing abilities.
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Niccolette Ibutatu
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Fri Sep 06, 2019 2:10 pm

Just Before Dawn, 20th Roalis 2719
The Elepha's Inn, Castle Hill
Corwynn?

Niccolette stared at the beautiful young girl on the bed for a long moment, and pressed her lips together. At least, the Bastian thought, Xonia had not said the child was his. After another moment, Niccolette simply nodded. "I know him," she said. Corwynn, at least, the Bad Brother knew how to find. This strange Xonia would become his problem, then, and not hers. Niccolette felt it the best possible solution.

The girl was still talking, but Niccolette heard the edges of sleep in her voice, and she doubted Xonia would be able to stay awake much longer. Xonia told Niccolette how grateful she was, yet again, and offered Niccolette the chance to ask questions once she had awoken. In truth, Niccolette wished she knew less already; she did not want to feel anything for the girl curled up between the blankets.

Niccolette wished, desperately, that Uzoji were here. Not that – well, that would have brought its own concerns, true enough, but she would gladly have traded for all of what she had thought was misery, even for another few minutes with him. She would suffer it all again, and be glad; and be grateful, this time, even in her anger. She ought to have always been grateful.

Niccolette shuddered. She glanced at the bed again; the girl was sleeping, Niccolette thought, and the Bastian was grateful for a few moments of privacy. Her head ached, fiercely; she felt drained, beyond tired, the faint glistening traces of the wine on the floor a faint reminder of the spell she had cast. It had felt almost like a dream; she knew she had pushed herself well beyond her own endurance, and she thought it likely she would pay for this for days to come.

Niccolette reached down and eased her boots off, carefully, undoing the laces with shaking hands. She tucked her feet onto the hard chair, wrapped her arm around her legs, and rested her cheek against her knees. Then –

Then, the sobs came. Niccolette twisted, burying her face against her legs, and let them take her. She did not fight; she never fought, anymore. She simply wept, soft choking sobs that echoed from somewhere deep within her, and sent shudders through her whole body. She could not have said how long she cried, but eventually the tears slowed to a stop; eventually, she could uncurl herself, straighten up, and try to breathe once more.

Niccolette sniffled, weakly. She fished for another handkerchief – she had brought four tonight, trying to learn from her previous mistakes – and blew her nose softly into it, wiping at her damp face. She rubbed at her eyes with her hands, wiped her face a little more, and sighed. She wedged the crumpled white ball against the back of the chair, and rose, unsteadily, gripping the arm of the chair tight, and stumbling to the window. She stood there a few moments more, staring out into the darkness beyond.

Then, unable to bear the thought of sitting once more, Niccolette took Uzoji’s coat, and lay it gently on the ground. She curled up inside it, drawing half of it over herself, and smoothing her cheek against the lining. Her ear throbbed; the ground was still hard, beneath the thick wool, and the bed she had made for herself was not the least comfortable – but Niccolette could no better stay awake that Xonia had, and sleep was not so much something she had to find as something she yielded to, almost effortlessly, and let overtake her.

By the time Xonia had woken once more, had finished her weeping, it was morning already; not full morning, of course, but faint gray light edged with pink was seeping through the window, just brushing the edge of the faint traces of symbols Niccolette had left behind on the floor, lighting the handkerchiefs stained bright red.

The Bastian herself was still sleeping, soundly, curled up inside the man’s coat she had worn the night before, her thick dark hair spread out around her, extending onto the floor. One hand gripped the collar of the fabric, tightly; the other was curled against her chest. Her lashes lay against her cheek, her eyes still faintly red, and she shivered a little as she slept, shifting and curling deeper into the coat. Whatever it was Niccolette dreamt of, it did not seem as if she would awaken soon.

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Xonia
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: Xonia the Nomad
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Fri Sep 06, 2019 10:54 pm

Niccolette knew Corwynn… At last, she was closer to getting back to the man alive. She was starting to remember the caution he bade her and the fair warning that trouble would be afoot. Which is why she had the nightmare she’d just had, she thought. In retrospect, she should have listened. It could have happened to her anyways… She’d met somebody who said would help her find answers to her questions. He’d made her feel like she wasn’t alone. Xonia was alone again, at least for the moment.

She regarded the sleeping woman with no real surprise at the sight of her curled up in a coat. She too had cried, she noticed. Trying not to cry some more, Xonia unfolded her legs, limbs that were still weak but the pain had diminished, and scooted off the bed. She padded over with the blanket, gently laying it upon her legs before padding tiredly to the water closet again.

The girl would find her way back to bed and curl up under the flat sheet since she wasn’t particularly cold, and she would pass the next hours in silent contemplation. What would she say to him? Cor wasn’t exactly the kind of guy that would refrain from an “I told you so,” or so it seemed to her, but then she barely knew the guy. He’d been the one to offer her a landing place, a haven. She had no business being on her own with the forever injury to her head.

But she’d had to go… not knowing is worse than anything and she would have done whatever she had to, HAD done whatever needed to find Lorent’s killer. And oh, the things she knew now. She’d done that. Foolhardy, yes. Enlightening, yes.

She hiccupped and realized she had cried again, and shook her head at herself. Time to get yourself together, she thought. And then she remembered she was hungry, now famished, in fact… But she didn’t want to wake Niccolette at all, she looked like she needed another good hour or so. Another visit to the water closet later and she decided she would wake the woman.

If she had clothing besides the shift, she would have made herself do the work to get the food. But in any case, Nicco needed to eat just as much as she. She knelt and put her hand on her shoulder and gently spoke, “Ms. Ibutatu… I hate to wake you, but we should both eat. It’s morning. I would have gone and gotten food myself, but between being in a shift and feeling like I’ve been hit by Cor’s ship…” She faded off and backed away.

Ugh, she felt as weak as a kitten.

She did not sit down yet, she splashed water on her face to rid her skin of the itch that came from dried tears, some residual sniffles still maintaining residence even as she tried to make some semblance of the morning. She wiped her face and then she finally sat back down with a grateful sigh.
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Niccolette Ibutatu
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Sat Sep 07, 2019 10:22 am

Morning, 20th Roalis 2719
The Elepha's Inn, Castle Hill
Niccolette woke to the touch of a hand on her shoulder, the whisper of a soft voice. She jerked, tangling further in Uzoji’s coat and breathing hard, trembling for a few moments. There was a strange field in front of her, a galdor she didn’t recognize saying something about food -

The Bastian’s head throbbed, and she curled up a little tighter, resisting for a moment. She remembered; she had not drank so much as too forget. There was not enough black comfort in the Rose for that. She felt as if she had only just laid her head down, but there was light streaming in through the window, the bright summer sun, and so Niccolette knew it for morning.

“Yes,” Niccolette murmured, her tongue thick and swollen in her mouth. A headache was throbbing mercilessly through her temples, and nausea churned in her stomach. Too much brandy wine? Too much casting? Why not both?

The Bastian heaved herself to her feet with an unsteady hand against the wall, straightening up. Her ear hurt too, a dull, low throbbing that sometimes these days felt like part of the scenery. She left the coat and blanket behind in a little nest on the floor, and made her way from the room, slow and unsteady, as the girl disappeared into the bathroom once more.

Niccolette found the proprietor of the Elepha’s Inn, a tall, sturdy-looking woman, in the inn’s kitchen, stirring a massive pot of porridge, red-faced from the heat. Niccolette offered her a few words and coins both, then stumbled out into the back. She found the latrine pit, grimaced, setting one hand gingerly on the filthy wall behind it, and threw up, emptying what felt like the entire contents of her stomach, searing pain echoing through her head and ear. Niccolette gasped for breath, shuddered, and waited there until she could summon some moisture to her mouth. She grimaced and spat, doing her best to rid herself of the sour, acrid taste.

The Bastian made her way back up to the room, pale and clammy but considerably less nauseous. She glanced, wordless, at Xonia, then stepped into the small water closet. She used the small chamber pot herself, first, then washed her hands, scrubbing them clean with the small soap cake. Thus relieved, Niccolette splashed some water on her face, closing her eyes and letting it drip down, cool and cleansing. Next she took some in her cupped palm, and swished it around in her mouth and spitting it out, repeating the process a few times. She splashed another palmful of water on her face, and fished out another of her handkerchiefs, patting herself dry.

The Bastian held at the sink for a moment, trembling, then slowly raised her gaze to the cracked, black-spotted mirror in the small water closet. She stared at herself, silent, for a long few moments. Nausea churned in her stomach again, and Niccolette squeezed her eyes shut. She wanted to weep; she wanted to scream.

She did neither.

Instead, quietly, Niccolette wet the corner of her handkerchief, and set about removing the worst of the caked black make up from her eyes and cheeks. By the time she emerged, she looked - one could not quite say well, but there were no more messy remains of make up smeared on her face, no more blood caked at the edges of her nostrils.

The woman was just setting a tray down on the bed, with two bowls of steaming porridge, a little crock of milk, what looked like raisins, and a pot of tea with two cups.

“Madam,” she said, awkwardly, to Niccolette.

The galdor nodded, and the woman left.

Niccolette sat on the edge of the bed. She poured herself a glass of tea, steaming and dark, and picked it up, cradling it in her hands. The steam washed over her face, and Niccolette shut her eyes, holding still on the bed for a long moment. Her shoulders trembled; she sniffled, once, then cleared her throat, opened her eyes, and took a sip of the hot drink.

Slowly, Niccolette looked at Xonia once more. She took another sip of tea, studying the other galdor. If she thought on it, she had seen the improvement in the young woman’s movements. That she was hungry was a good sign; it meant the fever had not returned. “You are feeling better?” Niccolette asked, and took another sip of tea, ignoring the porridge for now.

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Xonia
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: Xonia the Nomad
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Sun Sep 08, 2019 10:34 am

She knew better than to get up and offer to steady Niccolette, she would probably get her hand swatted away should she try. The woman seemed to be so self reliant at the moment that giving help was a moot point. Or at least right then. The girl quietly watched the woman leave to go get the food and nearly fell asleep within a few moments of the door closing again.

Then the older woman was back and she started awake, but said nothing. She just watched as Nicco took herself off to the water closet, probably to clean up the same as she had. Not long after Nicco returned to the main room, the food arrived.

As soon as the food was in her possession, she began to put the porridge together, milk, raisins, if there was any salt she added just a little more, and she ate a healthy glob. She, who hardly ever got to eat a good, solid meal, was grateful for that bowl of gloop. She took it like it was the best meal in the world, and she ate it with relish the way any pregnant woman would relish food in general.

And the tea was also taken with gladness. She sipped only when it cooled enough to do so of course. When asked about feeling better, she said, “Mostly, though I still feel weak. I am assuming that is normal after not eating for a time and being so clocking ill.” She was finished with her food by that point and was now cradling the cup of tea, feeling slightly overfilled at the moment, forgetting that grains were very filling, specifically oats.

She set her bowl aside and fought back a wave of exhaustion. She was tired of sleeping, tired of being prone. “I would ask if you are alright but I know you’re dealing with something, though I am not going to ask what… You wouldn’t tell me if I did ask, would you?” She stared at the door for a moment and then it hit her that she was in the same room she stole from, and then she remembered that she stuck the money closer, rather than in the woods like she originally thought.

“Oh, I remember where my money is! I stuck it under a floorboard at the house Cor took me to… I thought I put it in the hollow of a tree, but that would have been stupid of me considering I would have forgotten that easier. If you take me there soon, I will give you whatever you paid for the room and food, and some extra. I think I grabbed the money so I could buy a horse."
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Niccolette Ibutatu
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Sun Sep 08, 2019 12:00 pm

Morning, 20th Roalis 2719
The Elepha's Inn, Castle Hill
Xonia ate her porridge with a single-minded intensity; it said much about her overall improvement, Niccolette thought. She was not so uninterested in healing not to feel a certain pride there. It was faint, buried beneath the throbbing ache in her head, the fuzzy taste of her tongue, the dryness in her nose, the faint resumption of the nausea swirling in her stomach, but Niccolette felt it, and she held on.

Niccolette could not profess to be terribly interested in the porridge herself. The tea she enjoyed; it was both oversteeped and watery, all at once, but Niccolette drank it thirstily, and savored every sip. She did her best with the oats, and managed a few raisin-studded bites before her stomach rebelled.

Xonia did not ask, but Niccolette answered her anyway. “It is,” she shrugged in response to the younger woman’s thoughts on feeling weak. “There is still pain?” The Bastian’s eyes swept over her, lingering on spots where the mona had told her that there had been breaks, dropping down to her leg for a moment, then looking back up at Xonia’s face.

Niccolette made a little face at Xonia’s loud not-asking. It was, she thought, a fairly graceless attempt at asking without asking. She supposed it was well meant, but it was hard not to be angry. Niccolette had given Xonia much; she had found her, lying filthy and half-dead on the floor of an alley, and she had brought her here and healed her. Niccolette would not have minded if Xonia had not been grateful, or at least she would not have minded terribly. She did not mind the thought of not being repaid whatever few birds she had spent on the men and the room; they were nothing to her.

But she did mind Xonia asking for more – twice now – asking Niccolette to open up to her, as though because she had chosen to bear herself, that Niccolette had some obligation to do the same. Niccolette had never asked; she did not need to know, and she had not wanted to know. And still less did she wish to cut herself open in front of Xonia, to rip through the black fabric of her dress and show the other woman how deeply she bled beneath it. She could not think of anything which appealed to her less.

“I am fine,” Niccolette said, coldly. She was well aware that she ought not to have answered at all, but at least she had managed not to say more. She poured herself another cup of tea and rose, her right hand crossing her body and settling on her side, gripping tight at the waist of her dress. She blew on the tea cup, and took another sip, turning her back to the bed, fighting hard to keep the anger from her field, to keep even the faintest hint of red-shifting from crackling in the air around her. She put a little more space between them, so that Xonia was out of range of her field.

Clocking hell, but she was exhausted. The thought of facing Corwynn like this was a miserable one; he was not a friend, Niccolette thought tiredly, not as such. He was not a person she wished to see her weak, and yet – of course, he had. It was hard to remember sometimes; it was hard to think of herself in the after. Niccolette took another sip of tea.

Xonia was talking again; Niccolette had not cared about the money when it was in a tree, and she did not care about it now that it was beneath a floorboard. She turned back, quickly enough that she nearly stumbled. Her lips pressed together, and Niccolette felt the fragile vestiges of her control slipping away.

“I shall take you to Corwynn,” The Bastian snapped. “I do not give one godsdamned chime about the clocking money. You may keep it all, if you can refrain from asking about me,” The last words Niccolette had nearly spat. She gritted her teeth; a faint flicker of red snapped through the air around her, and Niccolette shuddered. She pulled herself back under control, and turned away, her shoulders trembling, the color seeping softly from the air around her.

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Xonia
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: Xonia the Nomad
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Mon Sep 09, 2019 10:32 am

The woman turned on her and instead of being upset or angry that someone was being upset or angry with her, she simply threw her hands up, “I didn’t ask at all this time, I commented. All you had to do was ignore it. I’m so sorry,” she added dryly, “For caring.” With that, she got up, and not caring how weak she felt at the moment, and wrapped herself in the sheet.

She knew it would probably piss the woman off more that she just said what she said, but she had no filter and she was a chatterbox as it was. Xonia couldn’t help asking or being disruptive… and instead of excusing it away, she owned up to the fact that she had no filter and sometimes couldn’t control her own talking.

“Forget I said anything,” she said flatly and padded to the armoire (or closet) to see if someone left some clothing. That would be a hard no. But… at least there was a pair of slippers? She sighed and pulled them on. She turned about to notice that her rescuer was still angry, and then she decided that enough was enough already.

She sat down on the bed and grabbed for her mostly empty and now tepid tea to finish, not saying another word for the next hour or so while she silently contemplated her next course of action. What was she going to do once she bumped into Cor again? He had pushed her boundaries way too far last time and caused some things to happen, but he was still a good cat for taking her in the way he did.

When she got up again, she was feeling a little stronger even, and she padded to the door, then she opened it and hailed a passing maid, “Could you find some clothing for me? Something clean but abandoned? I can’t very well walk out of here in a shift and slippers. And would you mind finding shoes too?” When the maid nodded and was off, she leaned against the door jam and gave a heavy sigh.

Her head hurt.

She lay her head against the door after closing it and then pulled away to move to sit in the chair. She cast a dark look toward the grieving woman and pointed to the bed, “Sleep.” It wasn’t a request. “You took care of me, now sleep. I am fine.”
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Niccolette Ibutatu
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Mon Sep 09, 2019 12:19 pm

Morning, 20th Roalis 2719
The Elepha's Inn, Castle Hill
Niccolette was shaking; she stared out the window, hands fisted tight in the skirt of her dark dress. She did not look back at Xonia; the girl’s words washed over her like so much noise. Some corner of her mind seethed at the sarcasm, at the girl’s pathetic excuse; some part of her wanted to turn and scream, louder this time – to hurl the teacup gripped in her hand against the ground – to let her anger flood her field, to feel the satisfying heat rising in the air around her, to know that conquest –

But the rest of her drowned it out. The Bastian’s hands tightened in her skirt, a little harder, and then relaxed. She could not sustain the anger; it drained out of her, and left her weaker and limper than before. She could hear the girl moving across the room behind her; she did not look then, either, her gaze fixed out the window.

The silence lasted a long while. Niccolette could not have said how long, but for once, she did not feel fidgety, she did not feel ansty. She could not settle her mind; she could not have found the words to describe her thoughts, in those moments. There was the distant shifting light of morning rising in the Rose; it crept in over a faint ring of clouds at the edge of the sky, and scattered across the buildings before her. Niccolette watched it, and found the smooth, steady rhythm of her breath once more; she found the thread that connected her to the world, and held fast to it, and slowly, the throbbing in her temples began to ease.

At some point, Niccolette had finished her tea; she set the empty cup down without another word. She came back to herself only at the sound of the girl’s voice in the empty room once more, and turned to see her requesting – abandoned clothing? From the maid? Niccolette pressed her lips together in a faint, thin line. Abandoned clothing, here in the Rose? The Bastian rubbed her face with one hand.

Xonia was looking at her again, and commanded her to sleep.

Niccolette sighed, soft and irritated. She swept Uzoji’s coat up from the floor, brushing it off, and folded it over her arms. “I shall wait outside,” Niccolette said, flatly. “Come when you are ready.”

The Bastian swept past Xonia, left the room, and shut the door firmly behind herself. Her headache had returned, and she rubbed at her temples with her fingers; she knew better than to try to cast it away. Instead, she tracked down the cleaning woman that Xonia had made her request of, and gave her a handful of coins – enough to buy something worth wearing from one of the guests, more than it could possibly be worth. Niccolette did not bother to tell the woman how to divide up the birds between herself and whoever she took the clothing from; if she chose to steal and keep the money, that was nothing to Niccolette, but she had told the woman to be quick about it.

Next, the Bastian found the boy who was the son of the owner, the one who had fetched her supplies from the chemist, gave him a few more coins, and tasked him with finding a carriage. He gripped them, eagerly, babbling about an old Bastian he knew, and Niccolette sent him off with a wave, too tired to listen. She took another cup of tea from the owner – hot, once more – and carried it with her outside, along with a few fresh handkerchiefs (if not of the same quality as her own, they were at least clean).

Niccolette inhaled, deeply, glad not to be in Xonia’s sickroom any longer. She had trained in the Brunnhold hospital; she had spent more than her fair share of time in sickrooms. But the sickly sweet smell of blood and medical alcohol never turned her stomach any less, and the sour reek of fever sweat was not so pleasant either. The living conversationalist settled her back against the outside wall of the inn and sipped at the hot tea, Uzoji's coat still over her arm.

It was well past daybreak now, and into morning; the Elepha's Inn was not on one of the largest streets of Castle Hill, but no part of the busy neighborhood was exactly quiet at this hour of the day. People bustled past, with satchels and carts and coaches, rattling steadily over the uneven cobblestone streets. The smell of fish drifted up from the harbor below, not yet starting to reek in the heavy sun. Niccolette held well out of the way, back against the wall of the inn in the shade, and she watched, and she waited.

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Xonia
Posts: 44
Joined: Thu Nov 08, 2018 10:06 am
Topics: 8
Race: Galdor
: Xonia the Nomad
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Plot Notes: Plot Notes
Writer: Kimmie
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Mon Sep 09, 2019 12:48 pm

She sighed at the woman, wanting to tackle her back down to the bed. She simply pressed her lips together. Little did she know that Nicco was paying more damned money and taking it upon herself to help Xonnie. If she knew, she would ask why. When the clothing came to her, it wasn’t what she expected—a pair of slacks and a shirt maybe, but this was some outfit of higher quality.

She didn’t question it, she simply pulled the clothing on once she was alone to do so. She sighed and brushed her hair with her fingers, then tied it in a knot at the top of her head to keep it from her face.

When she finally arrived in the coach, she curled up in one of the very corners of the seats and didn’t look at her rescuer right away whenever she might have followed into the carriage. Finally she said softly, “I am sorry that I overstepped my boundaries.” She didn’t offer an excuse or an exclamation right off the bat, deciding to do her best to stay quiet. She was too tired feeling anyways and imagined that Niccolette wanted her to be gone by some point.

And to some degree, she understood. She could be obnoxious and she knew it… not that she tried to be.

And then she decided she would simply fall into a light sleep for the short trip to Cor’s.
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