Viconia slept with her sisters, once. A nest of scorpions ought to be bedded together, so they might poison only each other and the most powerful among them should rise to the top.
Viconia was dirt-caked and filthy, and slept with a comically vulnerable human.
"I thought we elves didn't need to sleep," Gavran of Candlekeep had told her, an irritating sun elf youth. His skin was almost dark enough to be a drow at first glance, but it was paired with vastly over-tall height and eyes a nasty forest green that marked him alien to Viconia's people. "I meditate in reverie. My father taught me, though he was human."
"Silly youth," Viconia had said, and tossed her twig-strewn head and turned away. Drow did not calm their minds, could not afford to. There was too much she could not think of. The Flaming Fist chased her through the woods; he would have strung her up from the nearest tree, had already bound her hands and flung the noose over a branch when Gavran came. Then Gavran, like any other human, pursued his own selfish goal and hunted bandits in the iron crisis. Viconia's devotion to the goddess Shar was of use to him and the group.
Viconia could not yet sleep, either, though she was at least in a bed. Indignity! She could console herself with the thought that the four males were themselves crammed together, and she at least was only forced to share with one. In the morrow, she vowed to herself, they should do far better; bribe one of the innkeepers to evict another band of travellers. At least Dynaheir of Rashemen did not snore, unlike that ridiculous hulking Minsc. She slept decently still and did not hog the blankets.
Viconia prickled at the dirt and sweat she still felt on her body, shifted grumpily around to get a better place. Against her will she drifted into an uneasy rest.
Dynaheir was singing when Viconia woke. In fact the song had waked her. Viconia mulled on a grumpy comment about the torture of such a disgustingly early hour, and yet the rhythm and melody were reasonably pleasing, in an exotic human way. The witch's sung voice was low and husky with a burr she did not have in everyday speech. Though the tempo was irrationally syncopated, the very unevenness drew one's ear. Viconia knew nothing of that particular human language, rich and full with mellow vowels and jagged, convoluted consonants.
The witch bent and straightened to fold clothing and lay out towels, her movements fluid and unhurried, graceful and wasting not an inch of unnecessary motion. She inclined her head to Viconia, and her face spread into a slow, measured grin. "I am glad of thy early awakening," she said. "Perhaps a plan to be carried out in secrecy should be of interest to thee?"
Even those so self assured of their own morality are clearly not above a little intrigue, Viconia thought. Would she join the human witch in a plot to overthrow the mere males, the surface-elf and the half witted barbarian and the annoying singer and the foul-smelling dwarf? They were certainly the two most sensible persons available, and of course as women they ought to be in charge ...
"I am told Nashkel has a marvellous bathing-house," Dynaheir said.
In the Underdark, Viconia would never have been obliged to carry her own towel and robe. Dewdrops hung on the town rafters and the horrid sun gleamed in the far east of a pale blue sky. If the glowing orb only kept that distance and no further, then the surface world would be almost tolerable; but Viconia knew to her cost that such was not the case.
Steam rose from a low-slung wooden building before them, round and plump like a mushroom.
It appeared all that dirt and suffering had led to some considerable ill-gotten gains after all, for Dynaheir paid coin and gemstones that delighted the well-scrubbed bath attendant, causing an avaricious shine in rather plain blue eyes.
Indoors, all was a clean hive of activity, steam, and soap. Viconia eyed the unfamiliar human surroundings to map as much as possible of it to drow ways. A peasant drow simply doused themselves and their lice in an underground river when ordered, risking being eaten by one of many kinds of Underdark aquatic predators, from sahuagin to tiny pyrimo flesh-eaters to moszauri, a kind of eel the size of a fire giant with teeth highly prized as jewellery. Nobles such as Viconia bathed in marble halls lit with red-hot coals, in glinting adamantine tubs from feet to shoulders, a slave or three combing rothe-fat cream through their hair. The Calishite merchant had bathed in different kinds of oil, each one more sickly-foul-smelling than the last as far as Viconia was concerned.
The humans looked at Viconia with the blend of curiosity and wariness to which she'd become accustomed. Viconia in turn kept a careful eye on them lest the wariness should turn to hate. But it seemed Dynaheir's bribe had been adequate to buy a semblance of courtesy to a drow.
And a private room. Viconia sat beside Dynaheir on a smooth wooden bench, clouds of steam surrounding them. Wax candles imbued with honey released their scent into the heavy air. Jars that smelt of grasses, lemon, balsam, and oil waited before them. Dynaheir had shed her clothing in favour of a towel, and began to rub the scented oil into her skin. She completed one arm, then reached for the strigil on a shelf; she scraped oil and ordure alike away. Viconia reflected with a stab of resentment that the stuck-up human was deliberately showing her how to do it; as if she had mistaken a drow noble for some pathetic know-nothing peasant. Viconia delivered the witch a frosty glare that she was either too simple to notice or deliberately chose to ignore, and did the same actions for herself.
"Would thou prefer a different scent?" Dynaheir said. "Vetiver can be strong. I believe they offer rose, bergamot, sandalwood or thyme."
The vetiver was nothing like the heavy musks favoured in the Underdark; foresty and fresh with an undertone as if mixed with citrus, considered a food delicacy to the drow.
"I am not accustomed to human scents," Viconia returned haughtily. "But I suppose I could walk further and fare even worse."
Viconia rubbed the oil into her limbs in the way Dynaheir had done. Not without relief, she felt the dirt scrape away from her, warmed and cleansed by the steam. She allowed her eyelids to droop as she sat in the steam, covered only by the towel. A foolish thing to do. The witch could perhaps stab me in the back - although if she were hiding a dagger somewhere, I have absolutely no idea how that could be possible. Or use hostile magic upon me. Or an assassin in the shadows could perhaps burn this building around our heads - although it is far too damp for it to take. Viconia breathed in steam until she was ready for a change in temperature; she woke from her drowsiness to see Dynaheir loosing the last of her reddish hair from its bands.
They slipped into a cooler bath, a large tub of water and bubbling soap. A sort of small rooftop was drawn over them; Viconia relaxed at the enclosed space. It was almost comfortable. In the Underdark she might rail about the possibility of splinters on a noble's sacrosanct skin; she might demand the human witch to serve her; but she did neither of of those things. She and Dynaheir were equals in this strange surface world. Viconia washed her hair and wrung it out slowly, releasing the trapped soaps in it. She revelled in the feeling of finally shedding her travelling grime; of being cleaner than she'd ever felt since leaving the Underdark. A slave behind them adjusted the pipes to send fresh hot water into the bath. Dynaheir dunked her head underwater and looked up with an almost wicked grin.
"Were Minsc here, he would now be finding how much water he and Boo could cause to fall out with a single plunge from a height," Dynaheir said. "He and I are second cousins, family of the same Rashemi tribe. In the past he would splash us all half to death in the forest stream. Once he and other warriors led a raiding party of sorts through the underground springs. They left a dreadful mess. I admit I conspired against him this morning because I wished to be quiet. Yet think'st thou that one misses those close to one's heart, even when briefly away?"
The witch's careless words and the setting summoned a childhood memory to Viconia, rising in her like a glittering soap bubble. Her brother Valas, sneaking a yellow alchemical powder into the bathing water and leaving her and all her sisters with sun-gold hair like surface elves. It had been horribly embarrassing. Viconia had been the only one who'd known the perpetrator's identity; she got Valas back by bribing the laundress to shrink all his mage robes. They were young and careless then, playing with each other and coming to trust the other not to resort to deadly force, determined to get the best of each other on wit alone. Viconia had grown into playing more sophisticated and lethal games with other nobles, yet she and Valas had kept an old alliance concealed as neatly as a stiletto piercing, a compact to do each other no harm.
A compact that Viconia had been the one to break. Her last memory of Valas was a half-drow half-spider, deformed and mutilated, screaming at her to run. She shook off such a memory as that.
"To need others is weakness," Viconia said.
"The magely arts are my domain and I have some small skill in treating wounds and cleansing poison. Yet I have not a quarter of thy healing skill," Dynaheir complimented her. "Mayhaps I am overproud of my skill and wit, yet I am humble enough to know that a forest of companions is a stronger protection than a lone tree-branch."
These weak human philosophies were not to Viconia's taste; they turned her stomach. She suspected something of heresy to Shar in them, and thus did not care to look at them too closely. "The water here grows cold. The slaves could be more attentive," she pronounced.
The witch's clipped eyebrows drew together. Viconia read the signs of impending righteous indignation. She had not meant to provoke excessively, though admitting that in itself would be weakness.
"The workers here are free men and women. To name them such is offence," Dynaheir said. "Was thy intended meaning that all humans are or ought to be enslaved, or is it a subtlety of the Common tongue that has hitherto escaped thee?"
"Slavery is law among the drow and among Calishite humans," Viconia said. "I presumed that these workers were such. It is the way of the world, human or drow and presumably fire giant and jinn and demonkin too. The strong rule over the weak and assign them to menial tasks."
"In Rashemen we draw no such lines," said the witch, sticking out a stubborn jaw. "All must play a part in the survival of our nation, for we face nigh constant attacks from enslaving Thay. Slavery is an evil and a tyranny that we resist to the last drop of heart's blood. Be it work with one's hands or work with one's mind, all work is honourable. I respect skills I do not possess. The labourers here have well earnt their coin - or could thou compound a soap mixture like this?"
Viconia shrugged. Doubtless she could learn such things if she attempted it. She was exclusively trained as a priestess; alchemy was lowly men's work amongst the drow.
"You isolate me from the herd in order to prey on me with your weak thinking," she told the witch, and smiled with sleek white teeth. Viconia had only been slow to detect the manipulation because drow ways had taught Viconia superiority to such crude manipulations; the witch's callow attempt was too blatant, and that was the only reason why she had not immediately cut it off.
"I wished to enjoy a relaxing bath with a friend," Dynaheir said. "Though mayhaps, I'll admit, I would begin to convince thee to a better way of thinking ... "
"Such arrogance from a childish human," Viconia said. The witch was fully grown but far younger than her solemn mien wanted to suggest to the world; she was no match for a woman whose age numbered in centuries of intrigue among the drow rather than pitiful years in some distant wilderness. "If you wished to seize power from Gavran of Candlekeep, I would be more likely to support you. Instead you show yourself weak. It is Gavran that my abilities benefit, and as long as he continues leader I will comply with his wishes and not yours."
Viconia turned her face from the witch, showing her back in contempt - as if you would dare to stab me- and finished washing her hair. The two women walked in silence to the next stage of the bathing house, where masseurs waited for them.
In the past Viconia had had her flesh and limbs turned, tautened, trimmed and tantalised by trained pleasure slaves who would be sold for more than fifty bath houses like this. Nevertheless, the particular amateur human above her was not doing poorly as he massaged her strained muscles. The witch's coin, no doubt, still held good to convince him that he ought to put in an effort. She and Dynaheir had taken opposite benches in the room, feuding against further discussion.
"Lady." The male customer next to Viconia turned his head and smiled widely. He was comely, for a human, with smooth warm skin, regular features, sleek hair, and all his teeth. "Forgive me. One is not often honoured with the presence of such as yourself. And I am among those who say it is an honour. I have an affinity for darkness."
Viconia shifted her position lazily, knowing that the movement caused her body to ripple in a pleasing way to others. "What is the nature of this affinity? I serve the goddess Shar," she said. Shar, unlike certain other gods, was safe to avow in public; the primal deity of darkness might be looked down upon by some, but was too ancient and respected for even a human to ignore or ban.
"I too," the man admitted. "My work takes me often into darkness. The blessings of the Nightsinger are most ... suitable."
"You are some sort of mercenary," Viconia said. The man had well developed muscles despite his slim build, and old scars that he had made some efforts to conceal with cosmetics. He would be not such a bad slave, if one set aside his propensity to babble.
"I take it that you, like Nimbul, follow what is ... profitable ... on the road," the man said in a deliberately husky, seductive voice. He had a silly name, difficult for Viconia to wrap her tongue about. His deliberate pauses were an irritating speech tic. On the other side of the room, Dynaheir ignored the conversation as if she were truly a stranger to them both.
It was incredibly rare for Viconia to meet a human who at least seemed to treat her with honour and respect, and so she relished the opportunity. "I certainly follow what profits me, and those I deem worthy to share in my profits," Viconia said. "At present I am a trifle bored, I confess. What have you to offer me?"
Nimbul gave Viconia a slow smile. "A bounty," he said. "I am told the prey travels with a group, so two may indeed be better than one. Do you wish to hear more?"
"Yes," Viconia breathed. She said it in the Calishite tongue.
"A fine choice! I too know this beautiful language extremely very well," Nimbul said clumsily. "Do-gooders and heroes, awful people to our kind. A bounty is on one Gavran of Candlekeep's head relating to a little matter on an underground mine. Would you assist me to claim it? Perhaps you could seduce the boy and then I stab him in the back ... "
How could Viconia not readily agree to such an offer as that? The witch stalked away, completely ignoring their conversation in a different tongue, as if Viconia had never seen her before in her life. Viconia accompanied Nimbul to the changing rooms. She nodded in satisfaction.
"Perhaps you could lend me a cloak, beautiful dark lady - " began Nimbul, as he noticed his clothes were missing.
Dynaheir of Rashemen, Viconia was told by the others in the group, spoke Common with an atrocious accent and highly old-fashioned phraseology. This was because she learnt her different tongues from books rather than speech. She understood far better than she talked. In fact Dynaheir understood most common Faerunian tongues, from Mulhorandi to Calishite and even Jotun, even though in archaic forms. She had sensibly taken the liberty of stealing Nimbul's things.
"In Shar's name: freeze where you stand!" Viconia commanded Nimbul. He was weak and unworthy to serve my goddess anyway. She snatched the towel away from him for good measure. Then Dynaheir moved from her hiding place behind the door.
"Harm one hair of the boy from Candlekeep's head, and thy own head shall fall," she promised Nimbul grimly. She gestured, and the naked man seemed to disappear in a haze of light.
"Gavran might find it amusing to come upon his wouldbe assassin running naked through the main street of town," Dynaheir suggested demurely. She studied a charcoal parchment taken from Nimbul's possessions. It had a more or less accurate head of Gavran drawn upon it. The witch pursed her lips in deep thought. She handed the bounty notice freely to Viconia when she was done.
Viconia wished to make limb or lich of understanding of this. A bounty on a lowly surface elf's head - an obscure boy who had lived in a library. She had no understanding of the young elf who had saved her, and her knowledge of the surface world was not enough to guess. Among the drow she would have instantly understood a scheme like this by pure instinct. She cursed herself.
"This Nimbul shall not be the last, and these others shall be less amusingly dealt with," Dynaheir said. "I fear Gavran of Candlekeep has a strange and lonely destiny. I would see him spared, for the kindness and rescue he showed me and showed thou, for the brightness of his laughter and innocence in his smile. I would defend him 'til the last.
"If to preserve thy life is the only goal, Viconia, then this bounty would be best claimed by thee 'fore another comes. If thou hast considered another goal is worthy, then I would be pleased to work with thee again."
Dynaheir extended her hand, wearing her towel as if it were a royal robe. Viconia raised an eyebrow.
"If you thought I would engage in bedsport with the likes of that, you are much mistaken," Viconia said. "I would prefer a different partnership. We are powerful women who work effectively together, and I wish to continue travelling as an equal freewoman." She echoed Dynaheir's language that to be a slave was an insult; Viconia had sworn never to find herself in such a position again. She found the witch's smile at that as open and guileless as a child's, as if Dynaheir truly meant to welcome and warm and comfort her. It is only fools who trust, Viconia thought, and yet she felt her mood inexplicably rise as she stepped clean and dry and refreshed to the streets of Nashkel.
They shortly came upon their four males by stepping into the tavern that had lodged them; like typical men, it seemed they'd slept in. Gavran of Candlekeep and Kagain of Beregost, Minsc the protector of witches and Garrick the vagabond singer. The males had not been so fortunate as Viconia and Dynaheir. Though they were unharmed, they were still stained with the dirt of their journey, their clothes wrinkled and depressed.
"Comrades! Boo has been missing you both," Minsc greeted. Dynaheir went to exchange words with him and perhaps deliver an address on hygiene.
"Viccy ... " Gavran greeted her, horridly shortening her name. "Good news! We found a better room for you and Dynaheir. The innkeeper had a sudden vacancy. Something about a mad guest running naked through the main street and getting arrested for public indecency. So we stole his room. Please don't have moral scruples?"
"We would not dream of it," Dynaheir said, and led them leisurely out to face the day.
—
Written for Yuletide 2018 for Depresane.