oh i don't know, i was just told to write
so i sat down and wrote this
and i don't really understand but i present it to you
whatever
It was unbearably hot.
And how large of an understatement that was. The heat that had blown in was comparable to a desert; how the Dalmascans did it, no one will ever know. No, it must have been hotter than the desert, for a letter concerning a sudden heat wave an immediate drought had arrived at the Royal Palace of Archades from the Queen.
Archadia, a dramatic state, was unfailingly overreacting to the heat. The nobles all stayed indoors and ran messengers to the contacts of the higher powers, concerned about the "environment and lasting supply of water in the Empire". They were being silly, but the higher classes knew not of hardships and began to think of this change in temperature as the worst thing that had happened since the beginning of the Nethicite Wars.
The emperor of the state was away. He had been away for quite some time; visiting abroad the continents afloat in Purvama. His diplomatic mission kept him away from reliable couriers, and also the heat. He had been abroad, traveling with a good number of lesser Judges and one Magister, for at least thirty days. His return was to be imminent in the middle of this unnaturally warm weather, but the exact time and day was a mystery to everyone.
His Empress had been ruling the home country in his stead. She cared for the petitions and the paperwork, along with other important documents and giving short speeches and testimonies, and her final classes to juggle as well. The lady had been worn thin by the work, unused to it as she was.
Gabranth was a walking stick along the trail of the work. He did his best to influence her from the side, supplying her with choices and decisions that the Emperor himself would have made. The Judge Magister was no master of paperwork himself, but he had years of observation of the Emperor under his armor.
On this particular day, the temperatures blistered farther than they had previously. The sun was unbearable and the streets were absolutely silent; save the humming of the cooling machines on the floating shuttles. Old Archades sat still, with people lying about the streets with nothing to do but suffer the summer blast.
Back to upper Archades, the Empress was confined in her robes, giving another speech to the Senate. No one was listening to her. They would rather heed the word of the Emperor on a cool day, rather than the woman on a hot afternoon.
So she cut herself short and sent them on their way. She took a moment to rest, rather light-headed from her frustration and the heat of the robes, then collected her moot notes and paperwork and headed for the Imperial office. She took her time getting there, not overworking herself in her pace, and stopped halfway to damn imperial modesty and remove her outer robes. They dragged behind her as she carried them on her arm, and she threw them off to the ground just outside the office.
She nearly gasped out as she entered. The office had a wall of glass, letting the afternoon sun and the outside heat seep in. The air was stuffy and more heated than any other area of the palace she had been in that day; and today the heat was peaking.
She shuffled around inside the room, throwing the papers on the desk to be sorted later. Deciding the heat was finally unbearable, she summoned Gabranth to carry her bulky robes, for she was too tired to do herself, and they walked quietly with each other back across the palace to her room. Gabranth himself had early shed his deathly heated contraption, the metal nearly baking him alive as he traversed the palace grounds.
He opened the huge dark oak doors for her. The white and reds of the room were reflecting the sun nicely, leaving this room hot, but not as hot as the hallways. She opened the glass doors to the veranda, drawing the veiled curtains to keep the sunlight out but the barely noticeable breeze in, as the Judge walked to one of the large closets to hang the Empress's robes.
"Will you find me something suitable to wear in this heat, Your Honor?" Ria asked.
The man replied from inside the cooler closet. "I fear I am not a designer, milady. What I choose would hardly be appropriate for an empress."
"Then you shall have to remove yourself from my wardrobe, Judge Magister, for it seems to be the coolest place in Archadia, and I think I will have to live there 'till the blistering sun sets."
Basch sighed, not wishing to leave the most comfortable room he had been in for the past few days. He took his time searching his charge's racks of clothing for something that would cause her more comfort than heat and dug around until he accidentally kicked over a box of lingerie; then quickly decided it was time to leave the closet.
Outside, the sun was just setting over the horizon of the city; the buildings lit up a bright orange as the sun disappeared below the skyline. Ria lay across the bed, eyes still open, staring at the canopy enveloping the bed.
"Did you find something, my dear Judge?"
"Not a thing."
"Nothing but our stash of dainty underthings, Gabranth. Do you think I could not hear you rushing about in there? Be a wonderful help and bring them to me, surely they must be less constricting than anything else."
"I fear I cannot, milady. The emperor might have my hands cut off."
Ria sighed and turned her head to face him. He stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, as he often did, as standing awkwardly seemed to be the thing he was best at. She had heard stories that he was one of the best knightly fighters in all of Ivalice, but she had yet to watch him parry, and yearned to see the Judge do something other than stand or do paperwork.
"He very well would cut your hands off if he ever arrived back."
Gabranth nodded. "Lord Larsa will return home soon. You wait patiently for his return, and you manage the work well."
"Do you think he was harmed?"
"We surely would have had word of it, had he been injured on the way. Do not fret, he is a capable and well man, and can take care of himself almost as much as you can."
"He is strong, not immortal. I may still worry for him if I wish."
Gabranth bowed to her and moved for the door. "I suggest you get your sleep, milady. It may be early in the evening yet, but the heat has drained your energy." She nodded faintly and he departed.
Ria groaned as she got up, too sluggish to move any faster than a crawl. Her imperial propriety fell and she dragged her feet to the wardrobe; the exhaustion of the past weeks slowly catching up to her. She picked up the fallen box of unmentionables and collected from it a black lacey thing to change into. Once changed, she collapsed atop the sheets, too hot to crawl under, and watched the veiled canopy again.
Larsa had been away far too long. The two hadn't much time together when he was courting her, and they thought that marriage as the sure way to be together, but as soon as the couple was wed, the State began mandating more and more from both of them. It was taxing on them, but not their relationship, and they loved each other dearly; it was possible that their near constant separation had made them grow fonder of each other.
She drifted off, thinking of his return and what may follow. She was worried for his health and well-being, and worried of her work and what he would think. Maybe he would banish her for a wrong decision; or possibly just execute her for some dumb speech she had read incorrectly.
It was sometime in the early morning when she awoke. Not quite dawn, the air was still cool from the night and it breezed in from the still-open patio doors. The Empress heard a whoosh of air as a weight hit the bed next to her.
The Emperor had fallen face-first into the pillows of the bed. A muffled "finally home" came from under the fluffy cushions and he turned over to embrace his half-asleep wife.
"I thank you for dressing so well for my homecoming, milady," he murmured, dropping his head onto her shoulder, "but I think we'll have to celebrate sometime tomorrow, after I nap." He had clearly not shaved for days and scratchy stubble was what touched her skin. He was half way to dreams when Ria finally connected together the pieces of what had happened, settling closer to him and enjoying his presence.
She awoke a little more when she caught a whiff of him. "Larsa." He was too close to sleep to pay attention to her.
"Larsa," she moaned louder. "Larsa."
He continued to sleep through her callings.
"Larsa! You horrible, filthy beast, you smell like death!"
He turned away from her. "I'll bathe in the morning."
"You will bathe now or you'll sleep on the floor. You smell horrid, and you'll get out of my bed."
He ignored her and continued to drift off to sleep. The Empress stood not for it and used her sleepy strength to kick him off the edge of the bed and fell back onto the pillows.
Gabranth had opened the door to the noise, and worried for his charge, he had rushed to stand gawkily at the door frame. He investigated the scene, then addressed the fallen Emperor. "Ah, Your Excellency. Had I known you were the dirty monster I heard of in milady's screams, I would not have hurried so. I welcome you home either way."
"Not the greeting I had been waiting for," Larsa admitted from the floor. "Yet I should have expected no less."
Ria made a grumpy but approving noise from her spot on the bed. "Should've known better," she muttered. Gabranth decided not to make a half-hearted snarky comment on her dress and left the bickering couple alone.
"Please let me up," he begged. "I'm so tired." She did not reply. He peeped his head above the edge to see her breathing evening out, and he wondered if she was just as exhausted as he was.
He tried sitting on the bed, but she woke more and simply said "if you persist in ignoring my demands, we'll be up all morning," so he gave up and went to the bathroom. Ria joined him not a few minutes later, saying they might as well save the water; and she needed to go to the Akademy early to finish a few lessons, anyway.
She did lost only a few hours of sleep, but she could make that up the next night. She spent the time in the bathroom attending to Larsa, keeping him from drifting asleep in the bathtub and focusing on ridding him of the rather unsightly grime and lurid smell. She helped him to bed after he was very clean, pondering how one could get so dirty in Purvama, then dressed for another hot day that was to be spent at the Akademy.
Larsa finally awoke from his nap in the late afternoon, traversing the grounds in the late sunlight to find Judge Gabranth and ask him a very important question.
"Your Honor, why is it so very unbearably hot here?"