As Louise and Siesta, the former supporting the latter, made their way up to the tower, there were no shortage of onlookers who gawked at the two. Kirche, a redheaded young woman who was well acquainted with the girls, instinctively wished to sprint and embrace them as she had done so many times to Louise's annoyance, but was stopped by the gnarled, hook-ended staff of her comparatively short friend Tabitha, who shook her blue-hair-adorned head at her fiery-haired, dark-skinned friend. Guiche and Montmorency, two blondes who could almost be mistaken for siblings, too, wished nothing more than to give them cries of jubilation upon the return of Siesta, but felt it best to give them their space.
Louise and Siesta, after finally returning to their room, could not let each other go. Without needing to forcefully expel them, Louise's sisters had left them alone, with Eleonore bearing a surprising look of happy relief to see Siesta once more. Perhaps it was only for her sister's sake, but it was a genuine look of compassion and kindness nonetheless. Cattelya and Eleonore smiled at each other as they made their way from the room to leave them be.
Louise, finally feeling the comfort and safety of her wife in her arms, quickly fell into a restful slumber, which Siesta, also comforted by the touch of her wife, followed. The two rested until the night had overtaken the academy, and even until the sun made its triumphant return. As dawn broke, Louise felt more than the familiar feeling of her woman in her arms. She felt a strange nostalgia overtake her as the light seeped through the window to warm her skin and the springtime birds sang.
Louise was the first to open her eyes, looking directly at the still peacefully slumbering form of Siesta. She could not help herself as she could feel the burning sensation of tears well up once more and leaned forward to plant a kiss upon her wife. Siesta's eyes fluttered open at this, and she returned her display of affection. When they pulled away from each other, Siesta's eyes began to sting with the same feeling of tears as they were left in a joyous speechlessness that they were together once more.
"Hi," Siesta giggled as she blushed and stroked Louise's wild, currently unkempt hair. As Louise felt her struggle to move her fingers through it, she also blushed and broke her pink eyes away from her wife's raven-black ones, causing Siesta to give her a look of concern.
"Sorry… I can't remember the last time I bathed… I'm such a mess," Louise said sheepishly as she attempted to pull away from Siesta. Siesta, in response, wrapped her arms around her and pulled her in, tightly, causing Louise to grow even redder. "No! I'm all gross!"
"You're never gross," Siesta cooed reassuringly into her wife's ear before pulling back to stare into her beloved wife's brilliant pink eyes, their faces almost touching as she did. "You could never be gross. Not to me, darling." Siesta planted a deep kiss upon Louise's lips, which she resisted for only a moment before relaxing and reciprocating. They could both feel the passion welling up in them the same as when they first shared each other's bodies all those months ago. However, as Siesta stroked her hand down Louise's body to begin gifting her wife ecstasy, Louise gently stopped her.
"I appreciate that, I do," Louise said with a small, wry smile, "but I'd rather look and feel my best before we continue." Siesta, with no hesitation, returned a warm version of her wife's smile with a nod before she began exiting the bed.
"Shall I brush your hair just like before? Missus Valliere?" Siesta offered in a playful manner as she sat up and threw her legs off the bed before standing to look down on Louise, hands clasped together and giving the same demeanor as when she was but a maid and friend to the beautiful pink-haired noble she saw laying on the bed before her. Louise smiled as another wave of nostalgia washed over her before she sat up at the edge of the bed.
"That would be most appreciated, Missus Sasaki," Louise cheerfully confirmed with the same playfulness. Siesta gave a small bow to continue their bit, causing Louise to giggle in amusement, before she turned and collected Louise's hairbrush.
Meanwhile, below, the blonde, imposing, towering elf that was clad in a black, hard leather chestplate and black and red robes that reached just past her knees wearing matching black leggings underneath and hard leather gloves with each fingertip adorned with sharp metal claws was standing beneath a singular tree in this academy courtyard, arms crossed and a knee-high-booted leg upon the tree at her back.
What remaining few students here at this academy gawked at her both in fear and awe. Tif'narak was used to this. She had scarcely met humans tolerant of her kind. Feeling more confirmation of this caused her to breathe a disappointed sigh.
"H-Hey!" Tif'narak's ruminations were interrupted as she turned her head to cast her red-irised gaze upon, to her, a diminuitively short, blonde boy with a frilly white shirt he seemed to deliberately leave open to expose his slightly muscled, hairless chest. Beside and behind him cowered a girl with almost matching blonde hair, but waist length and in loose curls adorned with a large red bow on her head. Her freckled face was positively awash with fear as they approached her. It took her a moment to register it, but something about him seemed familiar.
"I remember you!" this boy cried out, thrusting a finger at her.
Tif'narak was positively scouring her memories for his face and became frustrated that she could not seem to place it. She took her foot off the tree, placed herself before him, and leaned down to scrutinize his face as her own twisted in concentration and she hummed. This boy seemed to be scared speechless as her face drew so close, but realized after a second his frozen, flushed demeanor had nothing to do with fear, but some other emotion that was caused by him peering down her robe as she leaned over. Feeling an immediate wave of disgust, she snapped up, crossing her arms defensively over her chest.
"You are ABSOLUTELY SHAMELESS, GUICHE!" the blonde woman shouted, enraged, at the boy next to her, landing blows with her fists upon him to punctuate each word.
"No! It wasn't-I didn't mean-PLEASE FORGIVE ME MONTMERENCY!" Guiche cried out in desperation to his violent companion.
As Tif'narak once again thought about where she had seen this boy, a hand upon her chin, it suddenly came to her.
"You," she said as she pointed to the battered Guiche before her, causing both him and his attacker to freeze and regard her with fear, "You were my first success." Once again Montmorency shot him a glare as she looked ready to strike him once more.
"W-what does she mean by that?!" Montmorency snarled at Guiche.
"She's the one who saved me! I swear! Please! Tell her!" Guiche pleaded to Tif'narak as he fell to his knees before her. She chuckled in amusement at this as she looked at them both and nodded.
"Yes," Tif'narak confirmed, causing both of them to look shocked, with Guiche looking equally relieved. "I found this one mortally wounded and managed to bring him back. It never worked before… though I suppose willpower or something else may have been a factor."
Tif'narak looked to Montmorency specifically, causing her to recoil in fear. Tif'narak felt a familiar pang of hurt by this as she looked away from them and turned to position herself back on the tree, crossing her arms.
"He clearly had something he wanted to live for more than anything," she mused as she stared forward at nothing in particular, "I can feel your desires, you know." At that statement, both Montmorency and Guiche snapped up in embarrassment. She looked at them both and gave them a warm smile, "Human life is much too short. Cherish your time together."
The two felt oddly… comforted by this towering elf that now turned her attention away from them. Guiche, who now found his confidence, cleared his throat.
"I am Guiche de Gramont," he started as he bowed his head to Tif'narak, "and I owe you my thanks and my life."
"Don't worry about it," Tif'narak nonchalantly assured him as she looked away from them, seemingly staring at nothing slightly to her left.
Guiche was a bit taken aback by this. He had hoped he would one day meet his savior so he could properly thank her. This reunion, however, turned out to be not as satisfying as he had hoped. He did also harbor a minor feeling of wanting to see her again because he remembered her beauty being positively otherworldly, but the feeling had now been shaken away as he looked at the transparently melancholy elf before him. Deciding to quit while he was ahead, he bowed his head once more to Tif'narak, took a stunned silent Montmorency by the hand, and left. As they did, Tif'narak breathed a shaky sigh of relief.
You are quite unlike most Tal'Darim, Zeratul, who appeared before her, observed. She was unsurprised by his sudden appearance, as Tif'narak was actually looking at him and not nothing as she stared off and away from the now leaving couple. She scrutinized him, from his digitigrade legs that had brassy armor that went up to the knees, with dark, grey wraps that reached up to his mid-thighs that led to a simple loin cloth of a dark shade of purple, to his cloak that was wrapped around his shoulders that obscured his chest and was held in place by two similarly brassy, green-jeweled-inlaid pauldrons.
"It is because, for the most part, I am not," Tif'narak kicked off the tree and stood, arms still crossed, before the old Nerazim Protoss warrior who stood less than a head taller than her and looked at her with his glowing green eyes upon his noseless, mouthless, earless face that was covered with naught but a thin black cloth.
Allow me to take this time to express my gratitude in returning my apprentice, Zeratul said with a small bow, placing a taloned, long, four-fingered hand from one of his arms that hung past his knees on his chest as he did. Tif'Narak reciprocated with a bow using only her head. Also allow me to apologize for my aggression.
"I understand your hesitance, Nerazim," Tif'narak replied reassuringly.
Still, I must ask… why? Zeratul inquired, causing Tif'narak to look away from him for a second as she contemplated how to answer.
"I need her and the Void Mage's power," Tif'narak informed, "but I will explain more when they are ready to hear my plea. Can you wait until then?" There was a small pause between the two of them as Zeratul considered. The pause was lifted with the centuries-old Protoss warrior nodding his head in acknowledgement.
Meanwhile, in the school baths, which were scarcely populated these days, Tabitha and Kirche were relaxing. Tabitha, as usual, was nose-deep in a book she had enchanted to be waterproof. The two heard the door to the room open, as two familiar faces joined them.
"Louise! Siesta!" Kirche exclaimed as she jumped out of the bath and instinctively ran to embrace them. As she did, the slippery floor of the bath got the better of her and she felt time slow down as she observed the floor was coming to greet her.
Tabitha, with a sigh and wave of her gnarled staff, caused the flame-haired, excitable noble to be saved as a pocket of air cushioned her fall, reducing the damage to mostly psychological. She gave a sheepish chuckle as she stood up, taller than the two before her, and gave each of the girls a warm smile.
"Welcome home!" Kirche said as she squeezed the two of them, practically suffocating them in her ample chest.
After almost needing to be revived once more, Siesta found herself and Louise able to breathe again as they were mercifully let go. "Siesta," Kirche began as she looked directly at her friend she thought lost forever, "How dare you do that! To me! To Tabs! Not to mention Louise!" Kirche was giving quite the playfully exaggerated scowl to her as she chastised.
"I'm sorry," Siesta said with a sheepish chuckle. "I just… couldn't let anything happen to my wife." Kirche looked at the two, slack-jawed and eyes wide in shock as Siesta took the reddening Louise's, who was contemplating the floor, hand. Even Tabitha's mouth opened in surprise as they looked over at them.
"Y-You got MARRIED?!" Kirche positively squeed with delight at this new information as she once again dove in to suffocate them in her embrace, which the girls both sidestepped, causing Tabitha to have to intervene to save her exuberant friend once more. Once she had stood up, she looked at both of them with stars in her eyes.
"Wow, I can't believe it. Zero Louise gets married before me? And after all my conquests? WAAAAH!" Kirche cried out in exaggerated agony as Siesta looked at her with amusement and Louise looked to be getting increasingly annoyed.
After a moment, Kirche straightened herself out and gave Louise a warm look, "I'm woman enough to admit when I've lost, so," Kirche bowed her head before Louise, "clearly, you are the victor in matters of the heart, Louise."
Louise could feel a small sense of pride welling within her as she heard this, causing her to place her fists on her waist and puff out her chest.
"Hmph! And you would do well to remember it, barbarian! For what you had in quantity I made up for in quality." Louise pecked her wife on the cheek to really drive the stake into Kirche's heart and, seeing her look absolutely gutted by this, Louise broke into a smug smile.
"Now, now, Louise, no need to be mean," Siesta playfully chided as she smiled at her wife.
"Oh c'mon! After all those years of teasing? Let me have this!" Louise pleaded as she gave her wife puppy dog eyes.
"Oh my! How could I resist that face?" Siesta giggled. Seeing their loving interaction made Kirche's heart burst with envy as she fell to her hands and knees, feeling utterly defeated. After a moment of self-pity she raised her head and eyed her still-bathing friend with a mischievous grin, crawling back into the bath, sidling up to her.
"You know, Tabitha, you and I would probably make a great couple," Kirche "hinted" seductively as she winked at the studious blue-haired noble to her side.
"Not a chance," Tabitha replied, coldly, as she once again waved her staff, causing a block of ice to manifest itself above Kirche's head, which bonked her. Not when you ask like that… Tabitha thought to themselves, grateful that the heat and steam of the bath obscured their reddened face.
After Kirche had recovered from her mild head trauma, and the girls had joined them in the bath after scrubbing their bodies and washing their hair, Siesta felt it time to catch up.
"So," she began as she looked at everyone else, "what's been happening since I've been gone?" Louise looked down at the bath in shame as she had been rotting in bed mourning for she didn't know how long, while Kirche and Tabitha looked at her with concern.
"It's been a couple of months," Kirche began to explain, causing Louise yet another pang of shame that she had lost so much time. Kirche and Tabitha relayed to both of them the situation of the outside world. Albion had not officially surrendered, but no further attacks or contact had been had with the continent since the Protoss had quarantined it. Jacobin activity had been on the rise, and gaining steam as nobles were coming out in support of them. The academy was on the verge of shutting down completely, with the only reason it still stayed active being the insistence of Queen Henrietta. Colbert had resigned his position to go pursue his dreams of invention. "And that's about all we can think of," Kirche finished with a sigh.
Both Siesta and Louise were stunned by this information, and they took some time to process it all. While they did, Tabitha rose to be the first one out of the bath, with Kirche looking at her, confused.
"You're getting pruney," Tabitha pointed out to Kirche, who looked at her hands, gave a small, horrified gasp, and jumped out of the bath to go with her. "Good to see you again," Tabitha said, bowing her head to Siesta and giving the smallest of smiles before wrapping herself in a towel and leaving, with Kirche in tow. The girls sat together in the bath, holding hands and mulling over the information. As they were lost in thought, Louise was the first to speak up.
"Hey," she started as she gave Siesta a serious and anxious look.
"Yes?" Siesta replied, now worried.
"What do you know about her? Tif'narak, I mean," Louise asked. Siesta took a moment to think as she hummed in contemplation.
"I don't really remember much… it all feels so… hazy," Siesta closed her eyes and rubbed her rubbed her brow, trying to summon images of her rescue but only coming up with flashes of being dragged through a moonlit forest and the occasional view of what she assumed to be Tif'narak from behind as she seemed to work on something.
The more she dug, however, the more the images of the nightmarish onslaught of teeth, claws, and flesh that swarmed upon her took over her mind, with the last image being of a scythe-like claw coming down to send her to her fate. She gave a horrified gasp as she instinctively gripped herself while her eyes flew wide open. In that moment, she could not feel the bath's warmth, only a chill of terror as she shivered in fear and her heart raced. She began frantically looking herself over for evidence of the injuries she remembered sustaining.
"Siesta, it's okay, it's over, I'm here, you're home." Louise rapidly reassured her wife as she held her close. She could feel Siesta's breathing and heart rate begin to slow as she held her, while Siesta took shaky, deep breaths.
She did remember one thing, however, that she was still afraid to tell Louise. Siesta looked to her left hand. Now devoid of the Protoss Khalani runes that used to be her moniker: "Akhundelar", or "Gandalfr" according to Halkeginian religious doctrine. She felt powerlessness wash over her as she regarded its absence, which Louise noticed too fast for Siesta to hide.
Louise snatched Siesta's hand and looked at it, noticing the conspicuously absent runes as well. "No way," she whispered in disbelief as she scrutinized Siesta's hand over and over. Never finding a trace of the runes. Giving up, she gave Siesta a desperate look, which Siesta looked away from.
"I'm sorry…" Siesta apologized as her eyes began to feel the sting of oncoming tears once more. Louise, starting to feel it as well, reached for Siesta's face, turning it to her.
"Hey," Louise began with as comforting and reassuring a tone as she could, "we'll figure this out, I promise." Louise softly declared this as she planted a kiss on Siesta's left hand, then upon her lips. "In the meantime… All that matters to me is that you're home, Missus Sasaki." Louise gave her a teary, reassuring look as she kissed her once again.
"Yes," Siesta said, breathlessly, as she began to get lost in passion for her wife. "I'm finally home, Missus Valliere." Siesta practically tackled her girlfriend with her affections as they both squealed with delight for each other, threepeating their performance they had back at Louise's family home all those months ago.
As the girls left the bath, clad in bathrobes as they made their way back to their room in the afternoon sun, they found themselves in a sudden shadow as Tif'Narak, who seemed to have an anxious look upon her face, loomed over them. Louise instinctively hid behind Siesta, who was unsure of how to feel about this figure that was looking down upon them.
"I-I'm sorry if i'm disturbing you," Tif'narak stammered and apologized as she bowed her head at them, causing them both to become visibly confused, "But I really must speak to you about my request."
"Can't it wait? We're just barely getting time together again," Siesta asked, a hint of irritance and desperation in her tone.
"Again, I'm sorry," Tif'narak said once more as she kept her head bowed, "but I at least want you to know what I am asking so I can let you two have as much time to decide as possible." There was a moment of awkward silence as the tall elf continued bowing before them. Louise was slightly less afraid than she was, initially, as her fear and prejudice about elves was slowly starting to dissolve.
So they're not just warmongering sadists? Louise thought to herself.
"A lot of my people are, but it's not their fault!" Tif'narak practically shouted, defensively, as she lifted her head and gave the girls a pleading look, causing them both to be taken aback by this being they did not know could hear their thoughts, "They've been brainwashed by our tyrant of a leader! And-" She stopped herself before she got too riled up and breathed a shaky, deep breath as she gathered herself.
"I'm sorry," she said once more, "just… I'd like to talk about this with you two and the Nerazim-Zeratul? I think his name was?-As soon as possible." The girls, at first a bit hesitant, looked to each other for reassurance. Finding it, they looked at her and nodded, causing her to give them a wide, relieved smile.
After the girls had returned to their room and dressed themselves, Zeratul greeted them the way he usually did. In a whirl of shadows that faded to reveal his presence. Tif'narak, meanwhile, opted to merely knock on the door.
"Um, I feel that Zeratul is with you and can sense you're both ready but just wanted to knock and make sure," Tif'narak sheepishly announced herself.
"You may enter," Louise announced, to which Tif'narak opened the door, ducked to enter the room, and gently closed it behind her. She then stood before the trio, looking anxious as she did earlier.
"Thank you for being willing to hear my plea," Tif'narak said with yet another humble, bashful bow. "I don't know if you are aware, but my people are victims of a being from another world." She looked to Zeratul, "Your world, specifically."
What do you mean by this, Tal'Darim? Zeratul asked. Everyone in the room could clearly see that last word, even without the venom that Zeratul had used with it yesterday, caused her to flinch.
"A being from your universe, a Protoss, named Ma'lash has been ruling our people with an iron fist for millennia," Tif'narak explained.
Impossible, Zeratul plainly denied. Our people very seldom live past a single millennium. Let alone survive into multiple. It is unheard of.
"And yet," Tif'narak retorted, "it is happening. Ma'lash is like a god to my people. Ever powerful and never aging. I cannot explain how, but within all my people's records? He has existed. The first mention of him is when he suddenly rose to power about six thousand years ago." That number caused Louise and Siesta to both gasp.
What sort of forbidden power must he draw upon to extend his life like this? Zeratul wondered.
"I know he drains the life force of his victims to empower himself," Tif'narak pointed out.
That is a standard Tal'Darim power for those high on the Chain of Ascension, Zeratul dismissed. It would not explain his unnaturally long life.
"Regardless," Tif'narak continued, "my plea to you…" Tif'narak looked directly to Louise with her pleading red eyes, "You, especially," she addressed to Louise, "is that you lend me your power as the legendary Void Mage to liberate my people."
Upon delivering her request, she kneeled, as she did at the academy entrance yesterday, and took a deep bow. Louise looked to Siesta and Zeratul, completely unsure of what to do. She knew she could not just abandon someone in need. Especially one right in front of her, but she also knew that this was completely unknown territory for her. A completely new thing to worry about that she had no idea how she would even begin to tackle. It felt like her brain was short-circuiting with her deep catastrophizing. Siesta, sensing this, placed a reassuring hand on hers. Louise looked at her and, upon meeting her usual reassuring look and smile, felt calmed before she gathered herself to look down at the kneeling elf before her.
"At the very least," Louise began as she stood up and walked to Tif'narak, extending her hand to her as she looked up at the pink-haired mage before her. "We will try."
Tif'narak immediately began to feel overwhelmed with emotion as she took her hand and tears welled up in her eyes. She could not help it as she stood up, massively dwarfing the petite pinkette before her, and embraced Louise tightly. "Thankthankyouthankyouthankyou!" Tif'narak excitedly exclaimed as Louise floundered in panic from being smothered by this towering being. Siesta rushed up to free her, and as Louise heaved deep breaths of recovery she looked up at the now sheepish-looking Tif'narak.
"Do you have a plan?" Louise asked. Tif'narak returned her gaze with one of determination.
"Yes," Tif'narak's eyes positively burned with conviction, "but first, I need your help for a little something else first, if you don't mind."