Jasmine - For pleasure's sake
Orchis - Joy in Laughter


Jasmine... ah, there's adepts at Jasmine will leave you limp as a dishrag, half-drowned in the sweat of desire.

- Kushiel's Scion


He may have been her gift, but Mirette no Orchis possessed the secret of bestowing joy in the act of worshiping Naamah. That is the canon of Orchis House, and that secret she shared with Alcuin.

- Kushiel's Dart


Jasmine House is a twilit world, of blue-plumed incense smoking in bronze censers and colored silks that cut off the light. Of leaden looks, heavy with knowing, of lovers' sighs. Born and bred to it, it is almost everything Arianne needs. Almost. Betimes she takes herself to Orchis House, where laughter chases the shadows away and where Margaery no Orchis, spinning her toils, waits for her.

Her chin pillowed on her arms, Arianne watches her oldest friend toy with the stem of a gold rose, a patron-gift of rare workmanship. Beneath a pale green gown, molded to her figure, the younger girl is naked. The fabric is more water than silk, Arianne reflects, enjoying the view. It cups Margaery's small, high-set breasts and rounded buttocks. Behind a cornice of embroidered gold leaves, a pale nipple peeks out.

"Ohhh... visitors," Margaery says, propping herself on the window-seat. Arianne turns lazily, watching a pair of young lordlings dismount in the courtyard. She knows them of course, the uncle and nephew cast to the same mold, both red-haired and blue-eyed. "I will have the young one and you shall have the old."

She makes a moue of playful disappointment. "I know Edmure Tully," she sighs, clasping her armlets above and below her elbows. They are carved like snakes, their scales interleaving gold and ivory. No patron-gifts these but treasures brought from Bhodistan, a reminder of her heritage. Arianne watches Margaery take the measure of them, not even bothering to conceal how much she covets them. But then Margaery's grandmother was an adept of Bryony - little of value escapes her notice."We call him the Floppy Fish at House Jasmine."

"Why?" Margaery laughs, diverted. "Oh..." She reflects a moment. "The wolf-cub is sixteen and boys at that age are not apt to disappoint. Such a blushing beauty - oh but there is nothing more ticklish than innocence, is there, Arianne?"

If she had been anyone else, anyone but Olenna no Bryony's granddaughter, Arianne would have thought the words spoken in all innocence. Arys. The memory of her white swan is like vinegar in an open wound. As Margaery had doubtless intended.

How can you call her friend? Nym was wont to ask. She has the face of a flower and the heart of a snake. No, forgive me. That bitch has no heart. And Arianne had no answer for her cousin save the true one, the foolish one - that Margaery made her laugh. Aye, Nym had agreed with a sharp smile, that's what she's been trained to do. To laugh you into your ruin.

Arianne bends to lace her gilt sandles. They reach to her thighs and it is slow going with her trembling fingers. "Innocence is a precious gift," she murmurs, "to be treasured, not made mock of, Margaery. Be gentle with young Stark."

"He's a pretty thing," Margaery agrees, kneeling before Arianne to help her. She touches her knee in reassurance and then her fingers travel upwards, massaging her inner thighs. "It will be no hardship to be gentle with him." They have played this game before, Arianne thinks, jerking away from Margaery. And it has never gone well with her. Margaery, still kneeling at her feet, looks up with a teasing smile.

"We must not keep our visitors waiting," Arianne says breathlessly. In Jasmine House, they are never taught to give the lie to their desires - is it her fault that Margaery's touch makes her breath quicken?

"If you say so," Margaery only says, putting up her arm for Arianne to haul her to her feet.

The foyer is a riot of autumnal color - scarlet and umber leaves and golden flowers. Laughter and the music of harps ring through the marble hall as patrons and adepts chat and cup-bearers circulate with flutes of summerwine. In her flame-colored silks, Arianne feels a part of the display herself, even as Margaery in her gown of cool, springlike tints stands starkly out. Edmure Tully beckons her with a crook of his finger.

"How may I serve, my lord?" she breathes, kneeling abeyante at his side.

He curls a tendril of her black hair around his finger. "You must be from Jasmine House."

"My lord is correct."

"I have little use for Jasmine House." He grimaces. "A woman there once played me false."

Meaning you could not please her and she was fool enough to spread the word. Of all the houses, the adepts of Jasmine are the least like to hold their tongues or to submit to any desires save their own. "My lord must not judge us all by a single woman. Perhaps I might change your mind?" She bats her eyelashes at him and he relents with a young man's good nature.

"Just this once then, sweetling," he says, tumbling her on to his lap and nestling his face in the crook of her neck. "Cinnamon and cloves... Blessed Elua, you smell like a spice market. Exotic." Margaery will smell of roses, Arianne thinks. From as long as she can remember she has always done so. As she curls her hands through Edmure's thick auburn hair, she longs to bury her lips in Margaery's, to sate herself with her scent and taste.

From the corner of her eye she watches Margaery perched on the armrest of Robb Stark's chair. In the middle of a most animated story, she begins to wave her hands about to illustrate her point but Robb has eyes only for his uncle. He squirms uneasily as though the sight of them discomfit him in some way and Margaery breaks off in the middle of her story. The boy does not even notice until she raps him sharply on the head and clucks at him.

"My lord," she complains and then giggles when he blushes and turns again to her. "I have had the most naughty idea, my lord. Will you list to me?" She bends forward, a curtain of brown curls shielding her face but not Robb Stark's. It turns quite as red as his hair when she finishes and addresses herself to Edmure. "A showing!" she says brightly. "Of the greatest beauties of Orchis and Jasmine."

"I am not sure we are the greatest beauties-" Arianne begins to say. Her uncle Oberyn and his second daughter, Nymeria - none can match them for beauty, for dazzle in Jasmine House. And in Orchis House, Margaery's wit and vivacity is accounted of greater worth than her looks which most are wont to describe as only passably pretty. There are prettier girls, Shae for one, Elinor for another.

"-the most skilled then," Margaery says quickly, "the most desirable."

"I like it," Edmure Tully announces. His nephew looks as though he has been sitting on a porcupine. "Oh come, come, Robb," Edmure clucks, "you're not a babe in swaddling any longer. You're of age and I mean for you to enjoy yourself!"

"My lord father-"

"-is a good man in his own way but never was one less suited for the city." Edmure claps his hand on Robb's shoulder. "You know all you need to of country living, Ned's seen to it. Now I say you put your faith in your uncle just as I put my faith in mine when I was your age. Live a little. Learn to love."

"And to laugh," Margaery murmurs, trailing a finger along his lips. "At the world and at yourself, young lordship." I'd like to see this one laugh at himself, Arianne thinks. Margaery tugs at her hand. "But now is the time for lust, I think. Come, come with us."

"A private showing?" Arianne hisses in Margaery's ear as they escort the lordlings to the payment rooms.

"Don't you want it?" Margaery whispers back, not in the least abashed. "I thought they might enjoy it... the trout because it'd take the onus of performing off him and the wolfling because... well, I think he's the kind that likes to sit back and watch like a king."

"And what about me and what I want?" She cannot help the plaintive note that creeps into her voice.

"Oh," Margaery murmurs, slipping an arm around Arianne's waist. Her fingers slide beneath the loose silk and rise to cup her breasts and her already stiffening nipples. Margaery gives one a little tweak and whispers, "I already know what you want, love. Me."

She has not even the will to step back. A doll, she thinks, I am little more than her doll. "And what do you want, Margaery?"

"To laugh." Her brown eyes, almond-shaped and fringed with thick dark lashes like a doe's, sparkle. "To spread joy."

To profit, Arianne thinks, noting the way her friend's eyes dart to Robb Stark. Assessing, measuring, reflecting.