Rayla was eventually drawn out from under the covers by the sound of someone knocking on the door of her room.
"Rayla?" Callum called through the door. "Can I come in? I've bought Ez and Bait."
Glancing up at the ceiling, Rayla called back "Sure. Make yourselves at home, why don't you?"
Callum stepped through the door, cautiously, holding a brightly painted wooden box. As he stepped through the door, she briefly noticed the nervousness in the corner of his eyes. Ezran followed close behind, carrying a tray of pastries.
"I'm not going to hurt anyone. I gave your pa my word."
Callum smiled at that. "Well, I hope you'll still be feeling that way after someone has cleaned your clock at this!" He held up the box, for her inspection.
"Smugglers." She read, suddenly feeling a slight chill. "Sneak into Xadia and find the most resources before the sun rises… really? This is the sort of game you play as kids? Stealing magic from Xadia?"
Callum looked away and down, his cheeks colouring. "We… er… don't have many other games that are as interesting…"
"Well, it's not like I've ever played none of them, is it?"
"I suppose."
Callum disappeared with the box, leaving Rayla alone with Ezran. She glanced left and right, before ghosting over to the door to check if there was a sentry posted. When she saw the guard standing ten yards down the corridor, she grinned.
Sidling over to Ezran, she knelt down and whispered in his ear.
"Want to scare the life outta Callum?"
Ezran gave her a conspiratorial grin, before leading her (thankfully not by the hand, as his were covered in persimmon jam), to a section of wall.
"You see the square piece of stone? Press it."
She did, and it slid open to reveal a narrow corridor. Ezran, carrying Bait in his arms, stepped inside, and pressed a small switch to close the concealed door, with a huge grin.
Rayla bundled up some blankets and stuffed them under her covers, along with most of the pastries, and then sat at the table, deliberately projecting a nonchalant air. Unable to remember which of her wrist bindings was intended for Ezran, she worked her left glove off, barely managing to get it free, and pulled it over the binding.
When Callum returned, holding several more brightly coloured boxes, he looked around the room, noting that Rayla was holding the tray of pastries, and that most of them were missing.
"Rayla… where's Ez?"
"Oh, don't you worry. He's just popped out for a couple of minutes. He'll be fine." She deliberately exaggerated her accent, giving him the unsettling grin she'd spent hours practicing in a mirror. "Pastry?"
Callum glanced around the room, suspecting a trick, before stepping outside and briefly conferring with the guard.
When he stepped back in, he wasn't panicking, but she guessed that it wouldn't take him too long to start.
"He didn't go past the guard. In fact, no-one's left the room since I did… What happened to your left binding?"
"Oh, it just fell off. Must be around here somewhere."
"The magically sealed bindings that…" She watched as the cogs whirled, for an instant "RAYLA!"
She couldn't contain herself, at that point, and practically collapsed onto the table, laughing.
"Your face…"
Callum sighed. "Alright, Ez. Out you come."
Ezran popped out from behind a secret door, beaming from ear to ear. "Fooled ya!"
Callum pinched his nose and started up at the ceiling for a second.
"Please don't ever pretend to have murdered my brother again." He said. The crinkles in the corners of his eyes told her how close he was to collapsing with laughter, though.
"Yeah, sure. It won't have you convinced next time, anyway…"
She pulled her glove off, revealing that the binding was still in place. She tugged at it, finding she could barely slide the binding up her arm.
"Would you feel more comfortable if the bindings weren't visible?"
Callum looked away from an instant, before his face went slightly red.
"I see."
"Right, you were getting us some games that weren't about humans being humans."
Callum nodded, before placing a board down on the table. Brightly decorated, with sixty-three squares, the board was accompanied with a handful of brightly coloured pieces, and a pair of carved dice. Callum quickly explained the rules. "You roll the dice and move that many squares. If you land on a square with a tree, roll the dice again. If you land on a square with a bird, move that many squares again. If you land on one of the squares with a house on it, you need to stay there until everyone else has taken as many turns as the house has chimneys. If you land on the square with a barred window, or the one with a well, you stay there until another player rescues you. If you land on the squares with a skull and crossbones, you need to go back to the start."
"Seems fun." Rayla grinned, before snaffling the blue piece for herself. Callum selected the red piece, while Ezran grabbed the yellow piece. On her first roll, Rayla rolled, and a total of ten spots were showing.
"Ok, you can move ten spaces." Callum said.
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, ten." She counted.
Callum looked confused. "You only moved eight spaces."
"No, I moved ten. I'm not a wee elf. I can count. Also, what's eight, anyway?"
Callum looked baffled, before holding up his hands.
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten." He counted, tapping the tip of each finger twice.
"No, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, ten." Rayla counted.
And then they started at each other.
"You only have four fingers." Callum said, reaching out towards her hand.
"Uh, yeah, and no, not happening." Rayla said, pulling her hand away. For some reason, her cheeks felt the slightest bit hot, as she looked away from the human. "Tell you what… as this is a human game, I'll move one square for each dot on the dice. As long as you do the same if we ever play an elven game with dice."
"Deal." Callum said. "Ez, stop moving your token."
The younger human had been rolling the dice repeatedly and moving his token forward. Callum moved it back to the start, moved Rayla's two forwards, and then rolled the dice for himself. "Six…"
He moved his piece forward, landing on a square with a swallow. He moved another six squares, landing two ahead of Rayla. Ezran rolled an eight, landing with a tree between him and Rayla.
Rayla's second roll was two sixes. Grinning, she moved well ahead of the two humans, passing over a house with three chimneys. Callum's second roll was worse, only moving him five squares. Ezran landed on the same square a moment later. Rayla's next roll narrowly avoided her token ending up in the well.
After a couple more turns, Rayla, after landing on a square with a bird in it, ended up in the maze, and was sent back three squares. Her next roll took her past both squares, while Callum and Ezran tried their best to catch up with her. Callum briefly caught her, and then landed on a square with a duck, landing just short of the finish, narrowly avoiding a square that would have sent him back to the start. Ezran had ended up marooned miles behind the two teenagers. Rayla rolled well again, landing on the finishing square, provoking a groan of disappointment from Callum.
"These dice like me. Even if they are the wrong shape." Rayla grinned. "Another game? And I thought I was going to get bored stuck in here."
They played for several hours, with Rayla winning enough games that Callum swapped the dice twice, giving her a suspicious look each time. Finally, he snapped.
"Ok, how are you doing it?" He challenged, after Rayla (again) rolled exactly the number she needed.
She burst out laughing. "Oh, it's easy. You just throw the dice right, and they do whatever you want."
Callum gave her an exceptionally sceptical look.
"Ok, fine. We'll play one of my games." Rayla crossed over to where a Royal Guard had deposited her small satchel and extracted a small wooden case. Inside it were a number of sets of brightly painted wooden cards.
"So, rules are simple. Each card has an attack and defence value. You draw ten cards from the deck at the start of the match, after someone else has shuffled it. You can swap two of them for another card from the top of your deck each turn. Each player has…" Rayla paused. "As many hit points as I have fingers. Anyway, so, you can play two cards each turn…"
Further exposition of the rules was ended by a sudden clatter of armour from the stairs, followed by two humans bursting into the room, swords not-quite drawn.
Rayla was perched on top of her bed with her blades extended before her chair hit the ground.
The taller human glanced at her, before starting to make gestures at the other humans, and then glaring at Rayla.
"She'd like you to put the swords down, before she makes you." Callum translated.
Rayla just grinned and twirled them at the human, tauntingly.
Callum looked alarmed. "Just don't hurt her too much."
"I won't." Rayla said, bouncing on the bed, ready to spring.
Callum just shook his head. "I wasn't talking to you."
Then the woman charged forward, brandishing her large shield. Rayla darted back, blades bouncing off the shield, before she was sent flying with a single, shield-enhanced punch. She flipped back to her feet, using the wall, then used her momentum as a springboard to attack the human, only to have one of her swords caught in a cut-out at the top of the shield and twisted out of her hands.
After that, Rayla started attacking far more cautiously, and quickly found herself pinned into a corner. A final punch with the shield slammed her into the wall, and she lost her grip on the other sword.
The human grinned at the elf as she stuck a winded, stunned and painfully sore Rayla's blades through her belt. Rayla tried to grab for them, weakly, only to find herself face-down on the ground, with her left arm wrapped around her own neck, and her right extended behind her, in about a second.
She just managed to reach the human's forearm in order to tap out with her left hand.
Her opponent released her, as Rayla tried to get her breath back.
"Rayla, this is my aunt, Amaya. Amaya, this is Rayla."
Amaya made several gestures with her hands, one of which seemed exceptionally forceful. "She says you could use some real training. And also, that if you try to attack her with those toothpicks again that…" Callum glanced at Amaya, red-faced, as she repeated the gesture. "That you'll end up very uncomfortable."
Glancing around the room, Amaya noticed the sets of cards on the table, and swooped in on them, grabbing one of the decks, and gesturing to the chair opposite.
"Do you want her to explain the rules?" Callum asked.
Amaya just shook her head, before gesturing to Rayla and the seat opposite, and handing Callum the deck to shuffle.
Amaya grinned at a suddenly nervous Rayla as she drew her first cards.
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
"I can't believe how easily she beat me." Rayla said. She, Ezran and Callum had repaired to a bay window, with Rayla sprawled across the centre of it, clutching her temples. "It's like I was a wee elf!"
"She's good at strategy. She's not my father's top general for nothing." Callum pointed out.
"And she won't give me my blades back."
"The precise wording was 'If you want them back, you'll have to take them back."
Rayla looked at Callum for a moment, before shrinking back into the cushions. "She's so much better than me…" Rayla protested. "I mean I know Runaan wasn't trying that hard to kill me, but he wasn't exactly holding back that much…"
Callum looked at her for a second. Rayla almost seemed more embarrassed than anything else how easily the human general had taken her down. "She'll warm up to you."
"Sure, she will…" Rayla said, holding her head gingerly. "Probably right after she's killed me."
"She liked you!"
"You're kidding me. She practically knocked my brains out."
"You went at her with live blades, and you're not dead or currently nursing two broken arms."
"And?"
"And then she sat down to play cards with you."
"And she beat me at that as well. How did she even learn the rules for Teng?"
"I tend not to ask these things."
Rayla still looked unconvinced, as Callum handed her what looked like a cup of indeterminate tea. Their fingers brushed very slightly, and she looked away out of the window.
"Drink this." He told her. "It'll make your headache go away a bit."
When she took a first, cautious sip, it tasted vaguely woody. To her surprise, though, the warm liquid began to make her feel better almost immediately.
"What's in this, anyway?"
"Willow bark, tea leaves and some herbs."
Rayla just sipped at it, looking out of the window again.
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
Rayla got her next surprise when she returned to her room. Two soldiers were standing outside, who opened the door for her. Her head was still spinning from that gesture when she found herself looking at an older, female human.
"So, you're the elf." She said.
"I am." Rayla's chin rose, proudly.
"Oh, you don't need to posture with me, darling. I'm just here to get you ready for tonight."
"What's happening tonight?"
"For shame… no-one's told you?"
Rayla's baffled face was all the answer she needed.
"Which of you lunks was supposed to tell her?" She shouted at the door, as Rayla covered her ears.
There was some quiet muttering, and awkward clanking, before one of them opened the door, holding a roll of paper, sealed with a blob of red wax.
Popping open the scroll, Rayla read a surprisingly short missive.
"Rayla, daughter of Tiadrin and Lain, of the Moonshadow Kindred, is hereby invited to attend a ball to celebrate the survival of the King of Katolis after an assassination attempt…" She read. "But I…"
"Saved his life, according to what I heard." The human said. "I'm Sadie. I did for her Majesty, Queen Sarai, rest her soul, before she passed."
"Did for?"
"Sewing, laundry, that sort of business that a proper lady can't be soiling her hands with."
"I'm… an elf. An assassin."
"You're a guest of the king. It wouldn't be done for you to walk into a royal ball dressed like that, anyway."
"What's wrong with me clothes?"
Sadie took that as her cue to start bustling around Rayla, who was too startled to put up any resistance as she was prodded and pulled.
"Is this intended as armour… the quality of the weave is exceptional… this is far too close-fitting to be decent for a young lady… the colours are a little… drab." She sniffed the air. "And when, exactly, was the last time you bathed? Corporal, go and start heating some water!"
Rayla covered her ears as the order was given, before gulping.
"Now, while they're sorting that out, I'm going to take some measurements. I may not be as young as I used to be, but I've made a couple of dresses for General Amaya in my day, and I know what sort of thing she favours. Stand still. Arms at shoulder level."
Rayla just stood there, feeling like a jackalope in the path of a dragon, as a measure spiralled around her body, while Sadie scribbled notes on a scrap of paper.
Behind her, she could hear buckets of water being tipped from buckets into a wooden bath that had emerged from somewhere. Her stomach began to fill with butterflies as another guard wrestled a screen into the room and set it up between the door and window.
Easy, Rayla. It's just a wee bath. Nothing to be afraid of. Just a bath. You can't be out of your depth, and the water's going to be warm. Just a bath. Just a bath.
She began trembling very slightly, and momentarily felt cold, damp, and miserable, with sore muscles and a throat aching from screams.
No, Rayla. No. It's just a nice, warm, shallow, safe bath. Absolutely nothing to be afraid of. Runaan… Runaan isn't here… because you stabbed him in the back. No, don't think about that. It's a nice, warm, safe bath, which you are going to climb into entirely of your own volition, with no-one throwing you into it until you master front crawl to his satisfaction… No, you don't need to worry.
"Are you alright, love?"
Rayla realised she'd been standing there frozen, staring at the bath. "I'm fine. Just thinking deep thoughts, you know. I'm not scared of the bath or anything."
Sadie looked away for a second. "It's not optional, duck. And I'm not leaving until you're in the bath."
Rayla glanced around, looking for windows, before remembering that she'd be lucky to get her arm through any of them. She glanced at the door, before noticing that there was no way out through it.
"Could I just… wash meself? Without getting in the bath?"
"It's not an option. It's not going to bite you, if you slip in slowly."
Rayla finally looked at her, rather than the floor or the bath. Her eyes were wide, with her violent iris' surrounding almost pinpoint pupils. Her shoulders were heaving.
"Oh." Sadie moved closer, slowly. "I see. Corporal, get a cup of tea. Make it nice and strong. Just a little bit of milk."
Gently, she guided Rayla onto a seat looking out of the window, not crowding, or rushing her.
"It'll be ok, love."
Rayla felt like she'd taken her first breath in an hour when the cup. After sipping it, and letting the warmth sink in through her hands, she sat back, starting to feel a lot more relaxed.
"Shall we try again?" Sadie asked, watching her charge's shoulders relax as she finished the cup. "I won't push you. We'll just go at your pace, whatever that turns out to be.
This time, Rayla was able to, with a little trepidation and nausea, climb into the bath, with Sadie standing behind the screen. Her clothes were whisked away, and a simple, full-length dress left on the bed, where she could see it, along with a new set of wraps. A towel was draped over a bronze dome, next to the bath.
Somehow, she actually enjoyed the warmth, almost dropping off to sleep for handful of blissful moments. It was a liberating experience for the elf. Water, without fear.
Afterwards, she clambered into the dress, wrapping her chest first, and just relaxed. It was quite different from anything she would have worn back in Xadia. The dress was loose, with no pockets or layers of protection. It was comfortable, if a little strange, for someone unused to ventilation below the waist.
A few minutes later, she was sitting next to a window, watching the world go by, nibbling on one of the persimmon pastries she'd cached earlier. It wasn't as good as a moonberry surprise, but she was learning to like the honey-like flavour of the jam.
AN: I'd like to thank TheFranninator and BlackDragon829 for their feedback.