AND IT'S HERE! Quick content warning: Validar's creepiness in previous chapters was lighter than it is here.
Many thanks again to newmrsdewinter and ellisama, those tireless authors with brilliant minds. Please check out their fics too!
As so many craftswomen and mages had succumbed to the dangers of the weaving process, there was a shortage of ladies to attend to the wedding preparations and the bride's toilette. Fortunately, it was easily remedied, as small groups of women who had foolishly gone to collect water from the wells near the outer perimeter of the Walled City at night were snatched without a fuss. Robin could tell they knew what had happened to them, that a sudden recognition kept their mouths shut and their eyes down. She wanted to comfort them. It was easier said than done when she had to think about her own escape.
"I thought you said the Grimleal were just stories to make me behave," a little girl whispered fearfully to her mother as they were forced to card through piles of silk and cotton scarves.
"Hush, child."
The entire day before the wedding was spent in a beauty regimen that could be described best as a lighter form of torture. Robin could not show weakness. She did not cry when boiling wax was spread over her skin and ripped off every hair it could reach; she did not cry when she was submerged into several baths, freezing and scalding, and then scrubbed raw; she did not cry as her hair was pulled in all directions by the comb; she did not cry when her nose was pierced for the ring and her brows were meticulously shaped and plucked.
Validar almost pitched a fit of epic proportions when he discovered the dresses were missing. "Three years...three years in the making, three years of my accountants slaving away, three years of dead weavers...where are they? How am I to marry my bride if I cannot present her dowry myself?"
So there was groveling, there was pleading, there were promises to find them. When they were unable to locate the precious garments (safely hidden in the larder), there were hasty assurances of finding a suitable gown for Grima's vessel. After all, she had been worshipped as Grima before her situation was rectified, and as such the wardrobe reserved for her use in those times still had hundreds of pieces of clothing she had not even worn yet.
All the while, Robin was secluded in her quarters with her ladies and the rest sent as...supplements.
"Red henna would look better for your colouring, little bird." A feeble elder woman clucked over Robin with the term of endearment usually reserved for family members.
"That is not your place to decide," a servant hissed.
"I rather like the red," Robin rebutted in her own quiet way. The servant spluttered indignantly, then grumbled in resignation as she returned to lighting sticks of incense. Robin felt Tharja smirk behind her as she tied her hair into several small braids, twisting beads of turquoise, gold, and lapis lazuli at the ends while leaving a longer plait flowing down her back and weighted with a costly pin. It wasn't a form of rebellion, not really, but the act felt buoyant in its own way. And it helped to temper the rush of anxiety that had her tingling with the knowledge of what was about to happen.
"Hands please," the old woman croaked. Robin's nails were trimmed neatly and her hands washed again before the henna was applied in several fantastical designs: scorpions for protection, lions and dragons for strength, bees for industry and perseverance. Flowers and water were added for fertility and the process was repeated for her arms, legs and feet. After a moment's hesitation, the already existent Mark on her hand was circled to emphasise it.
Robin remembered that the people of the Walled City did not worship Grima, but that was only one of the reasons why the Grimleal scorned them so.
She grimaced, but did not cry, as the heavy jewelled ring was eased into the hole in her nostril after it was cleaned with ash paste. "That's a good girl. Lucky that your ears were already done."
"You are not to be so familiar with her ladyship. She is far beyond your miserable station," the old nurse spat at the cowering elder. "Get back to work. Do it properly this time."
So the rest of that afternoon was spent silently applying makeup and perfume. They were just about to begin the long and tedious process of dressing before a knock on the door interrupted. Robin was ushered behind a screen with Tharja.
The nurse returned with a package of filmy paper, unfolding it to reveal a vibrant dress, palatinate purple. "The thief has not yet been found, I'm sorry to report. Luckily, we were able to find a substitute and hope it is to your liking."
The flimsy thing was as revealing as it was stunning. The top was quite literally only held together by golden strings, while the middle was practically a glorified loincloth to preserve her modesty. Robin was thankful for the veils that would conceal her lower face and her hair, even if they were transparent. And so her sandals were tied, the necklaces and bracelets and cuffs piled onto each other, the rings slipped onto her fingers and the earrings fastened. As a final touch, a mask of solid gold with dragon's teeth and enormous antelope horns shaped into the metal was slipped over her face and strapped onto her scalp. It was uncomfortably reminiscent of a muzzle.
"Good luck." Tharja drawled into her ear as Robin was left alone to meditate before the ceremony.
Being alone was still something of an oddity for her. It did not help to calm her, but at least it helped to organise her thoughts. Her final moments in this wretched place would not go out in a blaze of glory. Silence and subterfuge were the keys to success.
She hoped.
A noise at the door alerted her; she relaxed a bit when she saw it was Mustafa, dressed in his military finery. When their eyes met, his eyes softened in sadness.
"You look beautiful, love," Mustafa held her elbows in his giant hands. Robin remembered how much smaller she used to be when they had more time to each other, and pain stabbed her heart.
"For all the wrong reasons," she whispered bitterly.
"I know. I would have loved to give you away to someone more deserving of you. But now is not the time, Robin. Now you have to go and be brave with Henry. The world awaits."
"Don't leave me," she pleaded, tears shining in her kohl-rimmed eyes. Mustafa carefully wiped them away with a thumb and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
"You will smudge your makeup if you cry. And I know it will be difficult — gods, do I know — but you are courageous, and you have a clear head and a strong body." He enveloped Robin in a tight hug and cradled her head as he heaved a long-suffering sigh. "You are the daughter I never had. For that, I must let you go."
"You can come with us."
"Someone has to stay behind to clean up and cover your tracks." Mustafa kissed her again and, with great reluctance, made for the door. "Perhaps, in a few years, when I am able to return to my village as I have dreamed, I can send for you two."
And so he was gone, and Robin felt truly alone.
The cavernous temple burned with torchlight and heavy incense. No expense had been spared: every inch of stone had been draped in garish garlands and crimson pennants. The walkway to the dais had been carpeted in ash flower petals, soft under Robin's feet as she was passed along to the platform by each of Validar's generals.
As was the custom, the groom's attire had to contrast with the bride's, and he shone in a bright white and yellow shendyt. A thick leopard skin was draped over his impressively muscled chest, with onyx jewellery and a golden nemes adorned with curled ram's horns completing his ensemble. His smile was wide and pleased as he helped her to sit on the lavish bench prepared for them.
The priestess tasked with marrying them was heavily veiled and hunched under an enormous purple cape. It seemed strange of her to opt for such clothing when it was so hot and stuffy inside. Validar's eyes narrowed suspiciously. The old crone — for really, who else walked that way unless bent with age? — turned her head for a surreptitious hacking cough that, while it seemed to mollify his wariness, visibly annoyed him further to learn that she was not in good health and could spread her disease to the couple. Robin would have laughed if she could.
No matter. There was no time to be concerned over such things when they were finally at the altar. A solemn hush fell over the proceedings as the lights were dimmed.
"We are gathered to bear witness to a union most holy," the priestess wheezed in a strange voice. "For it has been decreed that, on this day, Grima's entry to this world would be assured with His vessel to be filled with the seed of all life."
"Hail," was the automatic response from those gathered.
"On this day —" her voice cracked, and then she dissolved into a fit of coughing that had Validar scowling hard. "On this day, we celebrate our High Priest Ahmose Henuttamehu, tenth of the name of Validar, and his binding to our Lady Hierophant, Ahmose Iset, eleventh of the name of Validar, given the name of Robin."
"Hail."
"We ask our Lord Grima to bless this man as He has blessed His vessel. We beg Him to cleanse them of their impurities so that they may be allowed to serve Him faithfully and without the taint of this world hindering His cause. We plead for them to aid His righteous fury and smite His enemies across this wretched land."
"Hail."
An eerie ululation hummed throughout the temple as the people began to pray. Out of the corner of her eye, Robin glanced at one of the exits, noticing that the women of the Walled City had been forced to attend the ceremony, with the young mother from before gripping her daughter's hand tightly.
A large ram was led inside by a golden rope. When it saw the kepesh that one of the men was carrying, it panicked and bucked ferociously. A minor scuffle ensued when it rammed a cultist, requiring other men to subdue the animal until the blade was shoved into its windpipe and twisted; rusty hot blood shot out in powerful spurts, spraying everyone within its reach as the ram, still alive, was pushed to the floor and held there until it stopped twitching and the channels carved into the stone ran red. The hieroglyphs glowed a hellish scarlet, imbued with the power of sinister magic.
Cheers and shouts echoed loudly throughout, as the priestess collected some of the ram's blood in a golden chalice and mixed it with wine and oil for the couple to drink. The foul mixture had a distinctly coppery stench, but Robin could not refuse to drink it because the cup had already been shoved under her nose. It was tied to her and Validar's hand with a rope of white cotton.
"May this elixir grant you the strength and health needed for tonight," the priestess intoned, and bade them sign the contract that would bind them together.
There were more prayers recited, mostly of the variety that Grima smiled upon their union, and — disgustingly enough — that their marriage bed was blessed and would produce the Son they had longed for a thousand years ago. Amongst the cheering and the shouts, Robin spied the young mother gather up her daughter from the corner of her eyes and slip out of the nearest exit as the congregants began to throw petals at the couple. A guard followed silently behind her with a naked knife.
A lone tear dripped silently down Robin's cheek as the priestess smeared honey on their foreheads for sweet thoughts of their night together. "It pleases me to see you so overcome with emotion," Validar said pleasantly enough, but the way his hand squeezed hers tightly indicated the opposite.
And so the night progressed with much gaiety for everyone except the bride. The most time-consuming and expensive dishes had been prepared. Validar was especially pleased with the little pageants the children put on for them, his favourite being the one where Gangrel died a violent death to the tune of the lyre, sistrum and flute. Well-wishers offered them congratulations and gifts: Jamil, ever the bootlicker, presented Validar with a wyrmslayer sword ("smuggled in from a Feroxi convoy, milord"), and Robin soon had a puppy sleeping peacefully in her lap. It was strange to see him all smiles when he was one of the men who had wanted to marry her those three years ago.
When the last of the drummer's notes died down, and after the cones of perfumed oils distributed to the party-goers had melted, an air of expectancy fell upon the already ostentatious atmosphere of ceremonious decor. The priestess led the couple out of the temple and back to the residential quarters.
Robin was disrobed and her skin oiled in total silence and total dread, ignoring her nudity and trying to drown out Tharja's roaming hands and the heart-stopping terror she felt at what was to come for her soon, Validar's dark eyes and white toothed grin looming over her panic-fevered thoughts. Robin had a plan, Robin had a map and Henry and her mother's notes and a poisoned knife, and yet, and yet, and yet —
The maids filed out suddenly, obediently, and Validar was there at the door with obvious intent. He took in her loose braid-curled hair and the sheen of her oiled skin under her menat, her golden cuffs...and nothing else. He stalked toward her, eyes aflame with hunger, and pulled Robin up to his chest, groping her bottom powerfully, pushing her hips between his legs. Something was rock hard within his shendyt, it hurt as she was rubbed forcefully against it and as Validar bit his way up her shoulders and her neck, everything hurt as his iron hands clamped her arms to her sides and he pried her mouth open with his tongue —
"As gratifying as your enthusiasm is, milord, there are still matters to be discussed before you are to lie in your marriage bed."
Validar's expression was beyond murderous; the old priestess could not care less as she stared him down coolly from the doorway. The two goblets from before shook precariously on their golden tray as she walked to the couple unfazed.
"What I do with my bride is none of your concern. Leave immediately," he snarled and caged Robin possessively between his arms and naked chest.
"What you do with your bride will most likely leave her black and blue before she is even made to lie in a proper bed after her own wedding. Even though she has already passed the cusp of womanhood, she is still a virgin, is she not? And as the officiant, it is my duty to pass on my knowledge of the mysteries of her sex and what is expected of her before she is to conceive, as I did for your first wife, and your mother, and her mother before her. It would simply not do for Grima's vessel to be handled in such a manner if she is to be bedded."
Suspicion, still glinting in Validar's face, was mercifully not enough to make a case against the crone's words. She offered up the goblets to them.
"Drink...it shall prove most beneficial to you both. Though I can see that it has already made an effect on your lordship," she nodded pointedly at his crotch.
Robin was jolted out of staring dumbly at the priestess and accepted the foul brew with trembling hands. She tipped it back, nearly coughing it up, still disgusted the second time she tasted it. Validar's response was much more measured, though his dislike was evident.
The old crone stood with her face trained expectantly on Validar's, and he soon tired of her silence. "Anything else?"
"You are to leave as we speak. Women's mysteries are not for mens' ears."
As clear as his desire to defy her was, he had no grounds for it, and so he departed from Robin's quarters after leaving her with the remains of a wet kiss on her brow. When it was certain that he was long gone, the woman's skin melted into Henry's face and he straightened his back with a loud painful crack from having to have been hunched over for such a prolonged time. Robin fell into him with a sob.
"It's okay Robby, he's gone now," Henry crooned as they sank to the floor and he paid no mind to her nakedness as he stroked her back. "He's vile and disgusting and I swear I'll kill him for you. Just...not today. Right now, we gotta go. Remember, Robby? We have almost all our stuff packed and ready, we're gonna leave this place and never look back."
Robin hiccupped. His words were a soothing balm, the shining promise of freedom just at their fingertips, and it was welcomed after the treatment she was subjected to. She rose on unsteady legs, leaning heavily on Henry and holding an arm over her exposed breasts as she was made to sit on her bed. He began rifling through her wardrobe for clothes: trousers, a sleeveless shirt, sturdy boots, bracers and a bolero. She dressed quickly and gratefully. A sudden nagging sensation gave her pause...looking up, the thousandfur robe hung in her dresser with an almost foreboding air to it...and yet, something about it beckoned to her.
Robin remembered Validar claiming that it was magicked and a useful defensive tool. But no, could something made from components as evil as Grima's feathers be of any protective use? The very recent and all too fresh memories of being groped, being pushed about and having his hands all over her…it was the last thing she wanted to remember at the moment. Without even thinking, Robin grabbed the robe off its peg and slid into it, hooking the closures together and pulling the hood over her eyes. The garment seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, settling itself tighter around her body.
"Before I forget, and since it'd be a real shame if you got your clothes all yucked up, you need to eat this," Henry produced a puce coloured pastille and handed it to Robin.
"What for? It smells terrible." She wrinkled her nose.
"Look, if I didn't drug you, then Validar would have known. Since he could tell that you tasted the weird flavour too, then he didn't really have much of a reason to suspect being poisoned, did he?"
"What did you put in the drink?" Robin said, horrified.
"Just a little something I cooked up! It's not lethal, I promise. The guy looks like he does a line of stronger stuff for breakfast with that gross grey skin of his. But I did put a ton of it in your cups, so hopefully he drops dead in bed — hey, that rhymes! — instead of just falling asleep. But since we gotta go fast, you're going to need to back it all up, like, now." Henry grinned as he held a bowl up to her face.
Robin was dry heaving and red-faced from vomiting, so it was a relief when Henry checked the fouled contents of the bowl and declared her "fit for travel!" They made sure to stuff Robin's jewellery into the satchels Henry brought back from their hiding place so they could barter for food and supplies if need be. Another quick bag check, and they shouldered the heavy packs before setting down the torchlit halls.
"Oh hey, I almost forgot about you!" Henry giggled as he picked up the puppy. Robin had forgotten about it as soon as she set foot in her bedroom.
"No."
"But Robin, it —" he checked quickly between her legs, "she was a present! It's rude to refuse presents."
"We don't have the time or the resources to take care of a dog, Henry. She'll slow us down."
"No she won't! We'll take good care of her and she'll take good care of us!" Henry wheedled in his most persuasive voice as the gangly thing licked and licked at his face.
What was he thinking, giving her that look? This was not a part of their plan. They had directions and maps that they needed to stick to, not adding more worries on to their already precarious journey.
But Henry, always the animal lover, raised by wolves, for the love of the gods, would never forgive her if they left without it.
Robin sighed. "Fine. But we have to keep her quiet."
With the dog safely strapped into Henry's pack, they moved deeper into the darkness of the inner earth. Thank goodness that most were still attending the celebrations.
"I already swiped some stuff from the sick ward," Henry said cheerily as he scratched the dog behind its ears and minded his step. From the way he carried himself, she would have expected to be going on a picnic, not escaping from the Grimleal stronghold. "So we're good on that."
"Nicely done," Robin whispered.
She pushed him to the wall abruptly and peeked around the corner: the patrol stationed outside the tunnel that lead to Validar's study showed little signs of fatigue and were heavily armed, never mind the fact that the squad leader looked as though he ate entire camels in one sitting. Robin had no desire of killing anyone tonight...but what to do? Fighting them would possibly mean alerting someone to the their movements. Sneaking by was not possible given that they had yet to master cloaking spells, and they had virtually no way of coming up with a distraction because there was only Validar's study behind them, and the wall hiding her and Henry before them. Unless they had a tonic at hand to knock them out…
"Do you have the poison Mustafa gave you?" Robin asked. She found a small amount of paper and foil in her satchel and balled them up, making sure to leave a small hole in the centre, and dug up a small amount of soil from the floor, remembering that it was treated with saltpeter.
Henry produced the vial and she poured some in after grinding up the dirt and a small charcoal writing stick into a fine powder. The poison was left in liquid form so that it would not burn too quickly, Robin having timed its flash point. The final touch was a bunched up loose thread that would act as a fuse. Henry stretched out his hand wordlessly for the smoke bomb and snapped his fingers a few times until a spark was produced and the fuse lit. He grinned cockily, left the dog with her, stowed the ball in the pocket of his coat, and walked out boldly to the bored soldiers.
The men frowned at the sight of him. Their leader, a hulking mass of flesh with a bald head that shone in the torchlight and numerous scars crisscrossing his bare torso rose to his full height, nearly brushing the tunnel ceiling. "Oi, runt. Don't you know acolytes ain't allowed down here? You're up past yer curfew."
Henry took their bad mood in stride. "First off, I'm not a kid! I just look small for my age. I don't need a curfew to tell me when I should be sleepy. And today's a celebration! On the other hand, I did get tired of all that partying, so I just thought I'd have a little walk and explore the place. Walking is a good way to get the stomach settled after dinner. And lemme tell ya, that was some feast up there! I hope you guys got something at least; that marinade on the gorgon heart was delicious! I love sweetbreads, even if the littler kids get freaked out when you wave some tendons and stuff in their faces. I like my meat rare; what about you guys?"
Well, if there was one thing that was certain, it was that the grunts did not expect Henry's chattiness, especially at so late an hour. They glanced back uneasily to their leader.
"Look, kid," he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "We already ate. Just...go back to sleep. We're not planning on gettin' in trouble just because some runt wandered into a restricted area." He made to shoo him away.
Little grey spirals of smoke began to puff innocently out of Henry's pocket, stopping the men in their tracks. "Kid...are you smoking?"
"Now that is something I think I'm a little too young for. But it's not for me!" The young mage cheerfully produced the smoke bomb and plopped it into the leader's open palm, dropping to the floor and covering his face as it burst into a cloud of enormous toxic purple fumes. Robin heard some of the foot soldiers retching and coughing violently. Others howled in pain as the poison undoubtedly assaulted their open eyes, and then there was only the sounds of heavy bodies dropping to the floor.
After making sure the smoke dissipated, she walked to him tentatively, keeping the dog wrapped securely within her robes lest it breathe in some residual poison, and tugged on the back of Henry's collar to prompt him up. The pair wove their way around the collapsed men lying in pools of their own blood and vomit, with the heavy door to the study soon in sight. Robin was surprised that stronger magicks were not employed in the protection of the lock, but who was she to complain? Barring the entrance with a treasure chest and a pair of stools, they set the dog and their belongings down for a brief rest, and to survey the darkened room quickly.
"Hurry. We have to grab as much as we can."
"On it!" Henry grinned as he tossed a Thoron tome into his mokeskin pouch.
They collected a fair amount of swords, lances, potions, tomes, staves, axes, bows, arrows, what-have-you from the macabre miscellany that was the study. Henry strapped a pair of dark books of Mire to his belt and tucked them under his cape. Robin almost decided on the shockstick that was impaled upon the skeleton mounted behind the desk. But there was something sad and dark about it that gave her pause and bade her look elsewhere, until the chest underneath the desk revealed a rarer prize still: a levin sword.
"Hurry, hurry," she urged as she tucked the sword into her belts. Robin directed Henry to the other end of the cabinet behind the desk, and together they tried to slide the heavy furniture off to the side. For a few tense moments, it seemed as though nothing happened, and the puppy's whimpering only added to the suspense.
And then, she felt the earth underneath give way.
Bit by bit, the cabinet slowly, agonisingly, opened up hints of the passageway it concealed. What Robin felt was nearly indescribable, an almost unbearable lightness of being that threatened to carry her off into the clouds, buoyant, hopeful in a way that she had never experienced. When the stairs behind the tunnel came into view, her hands trembled as they gathered up their bags, closed their robes tightly, and slid the cabinet back into place.
Their spelled fire lit the way as they raced up the damp stairs. This is it, Robin thought, this was the moment they had been waiting for all those years. If hope was the burn in their legs as they climbed higher and higher, she could only imagine what freedom felt like again.
Bursting out of a rocky crag tucked under the skull, the desert opened up around them, infinitely vast as the stars glittered all around them in the black sky. It had been years since they had been outside. To return to the open, to the world itself, was like returning from the dead, no longer buried deep under the cold earth. They were faced with the dizzying immensity of the land around them. The night air seared her mouth and lungs with its purity. Robin wanted to taste more, and she gulped down deep breaths with a fierce desperation, the sudden weight of her reunion with the outside world crushing and liberating all at once.
Her heart soared.
"Come on!" Henry took her hand and launched them uphill towards the Walled City.
Their short trek was deathly silent. Even the pebbles giving way to their feet sounded oddly muffled as they tumbled behind them. Fear and excitement pounded hard in her bloodstream and rushed painfully to her head as they approached the city gates: the sounds and lights of a grand festival bubbled up joyously from behind the colossal walls, manned by heavily armed soldiers that paced along its parapets and surveyed the desert from the loopholes set into the stones. There was little time to think up a way of somehow avoiding them all, so it was agreed that hiding their weapons in the mokeskin and making themselves known was the best choice.
Robin turned her robes inside out, wisely hiding the three-eyed sleeves, and bade Henry do the same with his own clothes.
"HALT," the magically amplified command boomed out as Robin and Henry stepped into the light illuminating the doorway. The creak of bowstrings drawn from above was audible in spite of the music. "STATE YOUR NAMES AND PURPOSE. YOU WILL BE SUBJECTED TO A REVISION BY THE GUARD IF YOU WISH TO PASS THESE WALLS."
"Henry and...Iset." Robin replied complacently. "And yes, we do wish to enter the city."
"FOR WHAT PURPOSE?"
Robin stumbled, but Henry caught her sentence just in time. "We've come a long way for the party. It sounds nice from here!"
A long pause. There was a sudden, loud clanking from cantankerous mechanics pushed into action as a smaller set of doors built into the larger gates groaned open. Four men stepped out, two to the door and two to inspect Robin and Henry. She noticed, with no small amount of trepidation, that the edges of the throwing axes harnessed to their belts were sharp.
"Stand still," a man a little older than her ordered. "Your bags open and on the ground."
Henry was remarkably composed and only moved once to bounce the puppy in his arms as another guard swept his hands over his body and under the hem of his clothes. Thankfully, the mokeskin was kept well hidden in his trousers.
Robin presented a problem to the men. She shed her robes and kept her face respectfully lowered, conscious of the discussion between the soldiers.
"We still have to check her too."
"We don't have time to make them wait while we fetch Rania's squad to look at her for us. They only have the dog and a bag with travel supplies and no food or water, no weapons. The papers they carry don't look to be too sensitive. And besides," the elder of the pair argued, "look at them. They seem to be around my childrens' age."
"Your kids are practically babies. And she looks very much a woman to me," the younger muttered.
"And yet they are still very young. Coming all the way here unsupervised, not part of a caravan...is their family nearby?"
"Maybe they're not blood related...might be married. If so, then her husband looks a little too young for my tastes."
"If they are married, well, they do things differently out in the sticks. I think they look to be siblings. Probably got ahead of their caravan because they got too impatient to wait for the festival."
Mollified, the guards beckoned them and escorted them over to the gates. The man who had argued on their behalf was about Mustafa's age and had kind eyes. "Have fun," he told them as they passed through several inner walls before finally reaching the city entrance.
The Walled City was bursting with colour, music, and cheer, delicious scents wafting from the numerous food stalls lining the streets and people throwing confetti and flower petals from their terraces. Children shrieked and ran between the adults as they played with their toy swords and wooden dragons. A few sat by the doorways to eat with their families while watching the numerous dancers, musicians, tumblers and magicians entertaining them. A fire-breather nearly singed their hair as Robin and Henry ducked beneath an arch to survey the proceedings. They had never seen such festivity, at least not one related to the Grimleal; the very sight of such good-natured chaos was new and exciting. Staying to watch was out of the question, no matter how badly they wanted to enjoy themselves.
"What'd you think they're celebrating?" Henry had to shout his question.
"Kid, you been livin' under a rock or something?" A street peddler standing by them caught his words and gave him an incredulous look. "The last harvest festival of the year is always the biggest."
"And King Gangrel is to be wedded soon?" Robin asked cautiously. Henry almost slipped up badly with his ignorance: it would not do to mark them as outsiders given the circumstances.
"In a fortnight. That Aversa of his is a real beauty, she is. Likes to take morning walks around the promenade if you ever want to get a look at her. Say...you two feelin' hungry?"
Scarfing down the sticky-sweet marchpane they had purchased from the peddler (who had been amazed at the large golden coin they produced as payment), Robin and Henry sat at the lip of an enormous public fountain to fill their waterskins and rest their aching feet. Henry was laughing at the spouts shaped like hippopotami that poured water from their carved stone nipples and vulvas that they held open with lioness paws. Children were being scolded by their parents for attempting to cool their feet in the fountain, a cat groomed itself lazily by a stall selling fortunes...for a brief moment, Robin pretended that this was their life. That they were perhaps the children of craftsmen, or farmers, or builders visiting the city to enjoy the festival and toss petals and coins to bless Gangrel's marriage like the other citizens were doing. That her mother and Robert, whatever they looked like, would round the corner any moment now with treats for them, Mustafa close by and not trapped behind in the Grimleal's hideout.
Instead of normalcy, she was rewarded with the threat of future ruination.
"Come on," she muttered, distracting Henry from his task of shredding stray flower petals that had floated in the water. "It's time we get a move on and search for more food."
"Good idea! Let's start with the omelette stand first — it looks eggscellent, ha ha."
After collecting a veritable feast sure to last them some time at least (merguez sausages, jerky, dried and fresh fruit, bread, olives, sorghum, wine, purple carrots and cabbages) feeding the dog and then indulging in honey feteer and more marchpane, the pair set about finding transport. Stealing horses from the heavily guarded barracks would have meant a one-way trip to the dungeons, so they decided on finding taverns along the main street and hoped that at least one would have stables attached. The third time proved the charm and they snuck into it from the back.
"I'm not going to lie: doing this makes me feel incredibly guilty," Robin admitted as they stripped the animals of any distinctive badges and saddled them. The puppy was strapped into saddlebag and her head lolled out curiously.
"It's not stealing if you pay," Henry said wisely as he left a pair of necklaces in their place.
Leading them out through the alleys and back to the city gates, Robin was relieved to find that the guard had been changed, meaning that they were not familiar to the new faces and thus had no reason to be questioned as to why they suddenly had horses. Her heart pounded with fear, trepidation, and hope as they passed the inspection and were allowed free passage back outside.
Feeling lighter than she had for the longest time, Robin spurred her horse into a gallop with Henry close behind. A course was set for the western port of Tel Kharra, with the stars as their map and their dreams of freedom guiding them to a new life.
I enjoyed researching a little bit about what ancient Egyptian weddings were like for the brief ceremony scene, but what I liked best was to finally get here outta there! That's a bit of a load off my back...
As an added note, the inspiration for Robin's dress came from The mask she wears is based off a burqa face mask, which are usually worn in the southern part of the Arab peninsula.