...E-Rantel…
Skana had barely left her bed in days except under CZ's persistent demands, and then only to walk. "I've done all I can, the merchants have gone, popular support is everywhere… and if that merchant who started publishing slave narratives ever shows up at the Papal Estate, I swear I'll kiss them." She leaned on the balcony rail where she was watching the trial unfold and speaking passively, wearily, and not as herself at all. When Raymond's body fell and his neck snapped, her expression didn't change.
Nor did it change as the elf girl carried him away, nor as the pavilion emptied, her eye was glassed and hollow as she watched, she felt a kick within her belly. She touched the space where her child was growing, "It's OK, it isn't over yet… he was nothing little one, mother is just very tired."
CZ approached from behind her and put hands on Skana's shoulders. "There, I've stood up and walked around for a bit, really shouldn't have watched that just now though…" Skana reached up and touched her forehead as her breathing picked up the pace, all she could do is stare at the rope with the noose still intact lying alone on the stone floor.
"Come." CZ uttered and her tender but firm touch pulled Skana away from the rail.
Skana didn't even have it in her to nod, "Do you think she's OK? I don't believe for a moment she ran off but… you know how she is. She's even more bull headed than I am."
"Yes. She is strong." CZ responded and guided Skana to a chair to sit down.
The chair and the table at which it sat were of the finest most ornately carved mahogany, polished to a shine, and smooth as glass. Ornate patterns decorated the thick round sides, a close look at the intricate details revealed a story carved within, told purely in scenes, of a daring action that brought down a champion and won a treasure.
Skana barely noticed it, CZ reached for the silver carafe in the center of the table and poured out the contents into a silver goblet. "Milk?" Skana asked quizzically as she stared at the rich white flow and listened to the sound of the mild splash within.
"Good. For both." She said succinctly.
"Fine. Don't care for the stuff but this one comes first." Skana said and touched her ample belly, trailing the tips of her fingers over the round surface beneath the rich maroon cloth that made up the shirt she wore.
She took up the goblet and drank it deeply under CZ's watchful eye. She smacked her lips as she finished and slapped the goblet down. "Not usually my thing but I was thirstier than I thought." Skana smiled slightly and CZ touched the space just above her own lip.
"Oh, right." Skana wiped the milk mustache away on her sleeve, "Thanks." She muttered, her mouth opened to say more, but she froze when the gate opened. Worry made her skin form goosebumps and her hairs stand on in. She sucked in a deep breath of anticipation. 'Neia… please be Neia…' She had time to hope even as she dismissed the very idea.
Skana turned around, following Skana's expression and watched the gate stabilize for the moment it took before someone came through.
"Guten tag mein frualines!" Pandora's Actor said with a deep flourish of abow, flinging one hand in front of his waist as the gate vanished behind him. Typically he would have flung his other arm out parallel with his shoulder, but… this time he did not, as his hand was securely grasped by a very small unexpected sight.
Mu'Trieu looked around, her jaw dropped at the sight of the room in which she found herself, the colors, the richness, she crouched and touched the deep red carpet. "It's colored like the blood lady but… softer." She said as she stroked it with her little dark brown fingers.
"Pandora… ah, who is this?" Skana looked at the little minotaur girl patting the carpet. Her face was anxious, her hand went up to it, and fingers bent so that they curled to touch her lower lips, her eye was open far as they could be as she stared at the distressingly sudden appearance and unanswered mystery. "Shouldn't you be with Neia… oh god, has something happened…?!" Skana felt her breath increase rapidly until CZ began to rub her back mildly.
She forced herself to put her hand down on the table, and calmed herself by force of will, "No, forgive me, I've… I've been stressed out a lot lately with everything, please though, tell me what's happening?"
Pandora's Actor straightened up and let the brief and panicked tirade pass. "Your wife is fine mein guten frau, she has been very busy." He looked down at the minotaur child, "Come with me, Mu'Treiu." He whispered gently and led the little girl over to the table, he sat down and put her into his lap.
She stared with wide eyed awe down at the table, making faces into it to watch her reflection and running her hands over the, to her, impossibly smooth surface.
As the little girl entertained herself with the novelty, Pandora's Actor went over the story as he knew it, and Skana gritted her teeth with barely suppressed rage, rage she only suppressed because she was acutely aware of the little girl sitting on the lap of Pandora's Actor that was oblivious to everything but… seemingly how to be adorable.
"Those unmitigated bastards, those damn fools. You can't take a person like that and make them into a slave warrior, just how did they think that was going to work out? Well, I call dibs on Mu'Fidelius's head." Skana said with blunt mercilessness rolling off her tongue, her fingers clenched tight enough that her knuckles turned white.
"I believe that honor likely falls to mein vater." Pandora's Actor remarked glibly. "But that was not the last of it."
As he went on with the story, he rested a hand on Mu'Treiu's head, and she looked up from her distraction, craning her long head up to look at Pandora's Actor when she recognized she was suddenly relevant.
"So now, she has adopted this one, with her mother dead and her fate to be thrown to a village buffet or a fortress one for Devor raiders, she couldn't let that go. She has asked that you accept her until, and if, she can come home." Pandora's Actor finally finished and let out a sharp exhale.
Skana looked down at the little girl. "So, I guess that would make you the 'Mu'Treiu' of the story, wouldn't it?" Skana said and slid a hand over the table to touch that of the little one that was barely more than a toddler.
"What did my wife tell you?" Skana asked.
"The blood lady?" Mu'Treiu asked innocently. Skana could only snort a laugh at her question and could not refrain from a big smile at the childish innocence.
"Yes, the blood lady. What did she say?" Skana asked and closed her mouth but kept the smile.
"I could kill them all." The little girl could not smile as humans did, but the slightly more open lips and the way her mouth drew back ever so slightly, suggested in tandem with her sing-song voice that she liked the idea.
"Well, you're a chip off the old block, aren't you? Yes, stay with me, and I'll teach you everything you need to know, and when she comes back, she will too. And when you're all grown up, big and strong, if my wife was right, and she rarely isn't, then yes, you can go back the way you came, and make them all pay. So… do you want to stay with me and my wife, the blood lady?"
Mu'Treiu chewed on her lower lip for a moment, "Can you tell stories?" She asked as she fidgeted with her fingertips.
"Yes, very good ones." Skana said as she tilted her head up proudly, "I'll have you know aside from being the best dancer in my village growing up," she put her hand proudly to her chest, "I was also one of the best storytellers too!"
Mu'Treiu's eyes shone like stars, "OK, but Blood Lady promised me more than one every day!" She insisted fervently, prompting a mild chuckle from the Blood Lady's wife.
"It'll be fine, I've never run out of stories, not once in my whole life." Skana said with an exaggerated look of confidence. "What else is there to do in a village when you've brought in the harvest and…" She trailed off.
Pandora's Actor and CZ were staring at her.
"Other than 'that' I mean!" She laughed deeply and blushed a little when she saw the little minotaur girl looking at her cockeyed.
"What?" Mu'Treiu asked.
Her heart all but burst with warmth, it felt good to laugh, her nerves began to settle, and the wide eyed innocent little girl certainly didn't hurt. "Nothing, Mu'Treiu, I'll explain it to you when you're older." Skana managed to gasp out between her guffaws.
"I suppose we should get her settled in over at the estate, and then, well what else is there, there can't be much left, can there?" Skana asked anxiously, "How much…" She looked at the innocent eyes of Mu'Treiu, and stopped her question, she felt her emotions running wild within, and turned to CZ, "Could you take Mu'Treiu and help her get a bath, we'll get her settled into her own room at home soon, but I'm sure she's had a difficult few days, a bath would do her good."
Mu'Treiu looked down the length of her snout at the one eyed girl dressed as a maid and though she was tense, reluctantly allowed herself to be picked up and carried into another room. The sound of a squealing, excited minotaur girl soon echoed from beyond the closed door, along with clapping hands and a clamoring of muffled questions, and Skana was alone with Pandora's Actor.
"How much more can they do to her… tell me the truth, does my wife have any chance at all?" Skana asked anxiously. "Believe me, I can take it, we both can." She said urgently, leaning forward slightly over the table.
Pandora's Actor leaned forward in turn and gave a slow, grave nod of his head. "Yes, we seem to have pre-empted Demiurge's plans, from what Albedo briefed me on, what happens next will determine her fate once and for all, but the chance to tilt the scales decisively against her, has passed away. All that remains is to hear from our investigators, and then, I will return her to court… with best evidence in tow. What she did… Das vas ein guten day."
"I hope so." Skana said, letting a breath go that she hadn't realized she'd been holding in, "Seeing like that was hard. I'll never forgive Enri or Gagaran for their part in this." Her one green eye turned hard, but didn't meet the eyes of the treasury guardian, instead she looked down at her reflection in the table, "You know, a long time ago, god, it feels like a lifetime, I wanted Neia to die screaming, because then I'd know she was feeling the same fear I felt. Now here I am, and when she screams in pain, I die inside, and all I feel is fear for her. I want to do for her now, what I could not do for her then, and drag her away from danger, or if I can't, then draw my sword and face it with her, like the day we put down that bitch Remedios."
"Things are more complicated now, ja?" Pandora's Actor said sympathetically as he reached out and took her hand.
"Yes, no wonder nations resort to war, it's so simple, kill enough of one side and you get your way, this is complicated, uncertain, and even if you're right, you can lose." Skana's face became more than a little bitter, her one eyelid partially shut as she stared down at the burnished table surface.
"But she still stands, and I think she will not fall. Have faith, you will hold her again, she will hold the young you bear for you both, and you will live long, and happy lives. Mein vater has asked much, but of whom much is asked, much is also given, and after this, I believe he will give you what you want most." Pandora's Actor said with resolute confidence.
"What we want most…" Skana uttered barely above a whisper.
"Ja, peace, he will find some way, somehow, so that you need never venture into the mouth of hell again. This is the end of your journey, and the start of the adventure of life, the life you earned. Our divine lord will not abandon you." Skana managed to start to smile again, slowly, as she clasped his hand on the table.
"Thank you, I am grateful." Skana replied gently, and turned away when a knock came at the door.
"Who is it?" Skana asked after quickly clearing her throat to rid herself of any hint of undesired emotion.
"Lakyus." The voice beyond didn't even need to say the name.
"It's open, come in." Skana said pleasantly, and then a quick click of the handle, and the door was open, in strode Lakyus, who wasted not a moment, pushing the door sharply and walking into the room without needing to ensure it closed behind her. It closed with a click as she strode to the table.
She was brought up short when she saw Pandora's Actor, her eyes filled with sudden fear, and her hairs stood on end. She jabbed her finger down towards Skana, "I promise she doesn't know anything! 'I' told Neia to run for it, Skana here can tell you nothing. I'll swear to it on anything you like, there's no need to interrogate her…"
"You have good friends." Pandora's Actor said in a slow voice of deep approval.
"I do. I really do." Skana practically glowed as she recognized what Lakyus had thought.
"No, it's nothing like that Lakyus," Skana said and reached up to take her by the arm, then she drew the blonde warrior over to a chair and gestured to it. "Please sit."
It was then that Lakyus heard the loud splashing and sing song voice of a little girl in the bathroom.
"I know where Neia is, and she did not run, not that way. She found herself embroiled in the plots of a duplicitous other, and did what she always does when that happens." Pandora's Actor could barely keep back his amusement as he spoke.
"Killed everyone responsible or nearly, then lit a nice big fire so everybody for miles and miles around would know what she'd done?" Lakyus asked bluntly. She then rubbed her temple as she made herself comfortable at the table. "I swear, now that I say that out loud like it's a damn routine… I need some new friends, quiet ones, maybe ones who sew." She sighed with relief as much as with exasperation as she got out her sarcastic quip.
"Ah, something like that, yes." Pandora's Actor said, briefly flustered by the deadpan answer of the veteran adventurer. "But why are you here?"
"Truth? I heard Neia ran so I came to get 'her' out." She looked over to Skana briefly, then went on, "Frankly I should have known better, but it's everywhere, all over the city, the temples, the pope on trial is one thing, the Pope running from trial is another. Kind of embarrassed that I thought it was even possible for that one to run… but I was still upset over… well it doesn't matter right now. But can someone tell me about the splashing?" Lakyus asked. "You 'clearly' haven't had your kid yet." She said as she looked down at the ample belly on the wife of the Pope, and managed a very relieved laugh to answer Skana's mild blush.
Skana folded her arms and looked indignant with a furrowed brow at her friend, "That's all baby there I'll have you know, I'll be combat ready in a few months after I get my body back to working condition again."
"As for who that is…" Skana answered as she and Pandora's Actor explained the truth of the events as they understood them to be, Lakyus's face turned dark and brooding.
"So… the Ard Rhi is as good as dead, that was a really dumb idea." Lakyus said with finality in her voice, "But now what about the girl?"
"She's adorable, and Neia sent her to me, so… I'm going to take her home to my estate, get her settled in, and then, well then I guess you've got no choice but to go take Neia back to prison." Skana took a deep breath and tensed sharply as she said it, only for two befuddled faces to meet him when he shook his head.
"Nein, mein fraus, I am not taking her back to prison, the master stroke, the counterstrike of Albedo and myself is going to hit home, and hit home hard, and for that to happen, prison is her very last stop, not her very first." Pandora's Actor wore no evident face, but despite that, they readily picked upon his emotional state, and he sounded very proud and pleased with himself, however before they could inquire further as to just what he meant, the bathroom door opened, and a damp little minotaur girl wrapped up in a towel came out.
"That was amazing! I love baths! I wish I could have them every single day forever and ever!" Mu'Treiu exclaimed excitedly and threw her little arms up into the air, droplets flew from her and struck forward and backward, CZ stood behind the little girl, largely drenched, but not in poor spirits.
"Don't worry, you can." CZ said, and then taking a sticker from the pocket of her maid outfit, she leaned down and put it just on top of Mu'Treiu's snout, and said simply, "Cute."
