There really wasn't that much blood, really. Just enough to be a nuisance. Arete simply wiped it off before moving to her office to attend to her leftover work from yesterday before the interruption.
The queen found said interruption intruding in her workspace, hissing wordlessly at an angry messenger hawk while he stooped protectively over a stack of books he filched from her library.
Arete sighed the sound of a woman prepared for the day to be over with already. "Hydra, please leave the hawks alone. You can take the books, just please return them in good condition."
The manakete nodded (his hood is up, thank the void), absconding quickly, accompanied by a disturbing lack of footstep noises. Locking her door, Arete took a moment after calming the hawk down to examine the empty spaces marking where Hydra pilfered the tomes. From what she could remember, the ones he took were mostly ancient history. Perhaps he was trying to remember? Banishing thoughts of Hydra from her mind, she turned to the message the hawk had delivered; a letter from her husband, but with the wax seal of Valla's Steward as opposed to more personally penned letters.
This boded ill.
Breath held, Arete cracked open the seal and examined the contents thoroughly. The news was dire.
Lord Anankos had rampaged again, this time killing three acolytes and injuring a dozen more. In accordance to the dragon god's request that they lock him should he loose control again, Arete was called to perform the Song, the main force behind the spell that would seal him away. Hopefully, Matsya had added, long enough for Anankos to regain his senses, should it be within years or centuries.
Arete knew better. She had read the personal Vallite histories of the Twelve Ancients and the Dragon War. All examples from the past were clear on one thing.
There were no cases of dragon tribe progenitors regaining their minds once they fell to the Insanity. Matsya was likely the last human to see the water god in his natural state of mind.
Arete only took a few short moments to say farewells to her sister before flying off to Gyges, accompanied by two of the four guards of Glaucon. She reluctantly left Azura behind; despite how separation from her young heir pained her, should anything go catastrophically wrong, staying at the home with Mikoto was the safest place she could be.
The queen, just before the sealing ritual, found the god… lacking. His presence diminished, somehow smaller and more solid, as opposed to the water-like quality of rippling scales, fading in and out of human perception. The shifting expanse of the sphere in his mouth, previously outlines with parallel lines that intersected, impossible to look at directly without bleeding eyes, was dull and unmoving. Washed-out carmine eyes followed her movements as she inhaled, preparing to Sing.
This will be a mercy, she thought.
Isolde prided herself as being on top of the best gossip in Glaucon. For whatever it was worth, since there were only a few other servants, limited to herself, two others, the cook, and two guards. Frankly, the arrival of Queen Arete and her daughter was the most interesting thing to happen here in years. Really, Lord Anankos's increasingly clouded mind was a popular topic among most of the servants isolated here, but Isolde was more interested in the lives of people.
Such as the stranger Lady Mikoto brought back from her ride, merely a day before the queen's sudden departure.
Despite the festering desire to know everything that went on in Glaucon, Isolde, for once, felt slightly unsettled pursuing new and fresh topic. Hydra, as he was being called, unsettled her deeply for reasons she couldn't quite place. Oh, he was harmless enough, even with his cowl never rising above his nose. She even spied him in the garden, holding Princess Azura while Lady Mikoto was busy, humming a tune the servant had never heard before. Not precisely the image of someone to be feared.
Isolde was not fooled.
Or, at least, her instincts were not. She had an eye for detail that only rumor-mongers shared, and she knew a scaly, sea-brine smelling person for what they really were.
A dragon.
Not that this stopped Isolde from snooping whenever she could. Oh, yes, Hydra's presence seemed large and heavy, despite his relatively small stature, but not even an ancient apex predator could block Isolde's warpath to information. So the servant did what she best. She watched, and waited for something new to break the monotony.
In the coming months, Isolde discovered having a dragon living at the hidden royal retreat was quite a few leagues more boring than she expected. Even the cook, Tethys, had gotten used to more raw fish worming its way into her beloved dishes. This, Rodmilla mused, was unfortunate: Tethys was a minuscule devil of a woman, sharp and ruling with her ladle as a dictator would wield their scepter. That she had actually acquiesced to the horrors of raw food exiting her domain was near proof the world was to break apart (Rodmilla didn't have the heart to tell her that raw fish was essential in some Hoshidan delicacies).
She was also the servant most interested in Isolde's gossip, and might even be considered a friend. If the price for conversing with her was to listen to her infinite complaints, Isolde was more than willing to acquiesce.
As she paced towards the kitchens to hear her friend's latest woes, Isolde passed a sight that was becoming increasingly common: Lady Mikoto, with her niece in her lap, playing the fastest game of chess the servant had ever seen, Hydra's webbed hands keeping up with her smooth movements, but still never able to best the princess. Isolde simply moved on, she had other destinations in mind. Besides, with the increasing amount of time Lady Mikoto was spending with Hydra, the sight became far less interesting to Isolde.
Before reaching the kitchens, Isolde was called aside by a rather smudgy-looking Lancer guard: apparently they needed help redirecting the pipeline from the primary well to an older, smaller well. When she asked why, the guard heaved his shoulders in a perplexed shrug before stating that "For some reason that well started spouting up seawater; didn't even know until the soup was way too salty."
He shivered minutely. "I'd hate to be in the room when Miss Tethys found out. I'm quite fond of all my limbs being attached to me, you see."
Isolde had one of her most fantastic ideas yet: she bargained out of physical labor, making the young guard do her portion of well-herding in exchange for keeping Tethys out of their vicinity. The guard readily agreed, the relief of not having to face Glaucon's deadliest (deadliest human, anyways) while fixing her well.
The months continued as monotonously as Isolde had feared they would, though plagued by a few . . . unnatural incidences. The well soon returned to its usual freshwater offerings, with no trace of what made it sea-brine in the first place. Just a few days ago it felt as if gravity intensified immensely, bearing down on the shoulders of everything that lived at Glaucon.
Regardless, Isolde was over the moon. She had, just last night, been in the perfect place to witness Lady Mikoto take Hydra into her rooms. Now, the servant acknowledged that it could be anything, perhaps they simply wished to take tea together (privately) or sharpen themselves on board games, but Isolde had risen before the sun the next morning just to see for herself.
Unable to resist waiting in silence, Isolde crept up and carefully placed her ear to the door, filtering in the legible parts of her lady's conversation with the dragon.
"Mikoto, I truly do think you should write your sister."
"That sounds like an awful idea."
"Perhaps I'm being selfish, and just don't wish to be in the same room with her when you tell her."
"Hmm. I will admit she can be a bit… overprotective at times. I'll think about it."
"That she can be."
A few moments of silence persisted, Isolde straining to catch the lingering ends of the exchange.
"…"
"Would you be impartial to doing it again?"
A flustered, hissing sputtering echoed from the manakete.
Isolde, feeling a bit flustered herself, left soon after hearing Lady Mikoto add the quip: "I love you dearly, but you need some... practice."
"Please refrain from touching my gills, then I will consider it."
Isolde knew everything possible about everyone in this retreat.
But this was shaping up to be something larger than she could handle.
Author's notes: you know for being one of the big focuses of this, anankos doesn't get many lines does he. Anyways, poor dude is a bit oblivious to the power incontinence thats causing everyone grief. Also writing Mikoto with some snark is the best. And did you really think mikoto and anankos's first time would be nice fanfic stuff nah son he's awful at it. He's both a dragon and the World's Oldest Virgin i don't think it would be anything to write home about).
you can find what Anankos's eyes look like here (thanks to sarurunkamui, u a pal.)
and a brief note: Arete's dream is not a premonition of any kind: simply it occurs because when you have such a huge power split a god's mind there's going to be some psychic backlash, particularly for the people holding blood pacts with him.
also the whole fic is complete at this time so y'all don't have to deal with my perpetually late updates (rip after the end's finish date estimate)