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Aribis sat in her relatively small two story home, sure it had two floors but the actual floor space wasn’t all that spacious, not that the size of the home mattered to her that much since she was rarely home for long enough to enjoy it. She sat on the couch in the main room/kitchen and was carefully painting the base on her newest decoration, the skull of a troll, though if anyone asked the tiefling she’d deny it being a real skull of course, the stab wound in the forehead is just decorative.
One of her cats lay curled up on the couch beside her, the cats loved climbing all over her most of the time, couldn’t get enough of the warmth she emitted. They did at least know when to stay off of her, whenever she was working on something where they’d be getting in the way, and on the days where contact was unwelcome, where sudden sounds and movements would set Aribis into a state, heart racing, knife held tight in her grasp, vanishing into the house’s dark shadows.
Aribis loved her cats and her home. Her pets were a near constant source of comfort at home and the building itself was suited so well to her tastes, dark in so many places, little natural lighting in most areas of the house except the main room/kitchen. Perfect for a tiefling of her profession. She loved that her cats could safely be left outside whilst she was away and she could trust that they’d be waiting for her at home when she returned, safe and healthy, curling around her feet in a display of affection.
Finishing up she laid back against the couch back, basking in the warmth of the sun on the back of her neck, warming her pink-sunset hair, and smiling to herself as the cat climbed into her lap. She absently stroked the cat’s back and looked around the room, taking in the rather unique combination of decorations, many paintings hung around the walls and several skulls painted various colours or with different designs scribbled onto them used as decoration, candle holders, the legs of the coffee table were skulls stacked atop each other… and some of them were just carvings.
Aribis loved her home, truly. But she hated being here when it was empty. She missed the soft humming, the scribble of pencil on paper, the muttered calculations, the almost constant noise coming from the kitchen area. All the telltale sounds of her wife filling their home with love, the nearly two feet taller blue hair tiefling made this house her home, and it always felt empty when she wasn’t here.
Aribis had purposefully timed her last job so she’d be home after her wife returned from her latest expedition out to some swamp area with a very unique flower, she was interested in it’s potential alchemical properties that may be influenced by the time since it had been picked. She said she’d only be gone for a week not counting travel time, so 5 weeks total. Already far too long but Aribis disappeared for longer amounts of time too frequently that she felt she had no right to complain.
Closing her eyes with a sigh Aribis shrugged and not for the first time considered trying to get her hands on a pair of sending stones so that the two of them could check on the other whilst they were apart. Slowly she drifted off to a light slumber thinking of what she could make herself for dinner.
A few hours later, just as Aribis was getting up to go get food for the cats and herself there was the sound of the door being unlocked. Aribis stepped into a shadow and vanished from sight, waiting to see if it was a threat or her wife, paranoid? Yes. Justified? Also yes.
Aribis was not however prepared for the sight that walked in through the door after it opened. The sight of her wife was welcome, but the state she was in was horrifying, Nyx was covered in scars and bruises, she was wearing a new outfit that left her muscular arms bared but otherwise looked a lot like the type of sturdy clothes Aribis might wear when needing to travel through dangerous environments, the type she usually wore beneath her armour. The scar that sealed her eye shut was huge, reaching from her hairline all the way down to her jaw, it wasn’t jagged at all which suggested it was a blade and not some creatures claw that did it. Her left arm was bruised a sickly grey-yellow against her dark skin, several small scars from what looked like various claws, fangs, and weapons that had left their marks on her. The most worrying though was her right arm. It was gone, and in its place was a monstrous claw that looked to have been made of rusted scrap metal attached to the stump of her arm, just above her elbow. Nyx’s visible eye also seemed to glow when Aribis stared at it, though like everything else involving her wife and light and shadows, it didn’t seem to be visible except when staring directly at it, markings that looked like lightning ran up what remained of her right arm and disappeared under her top.
Nyx stepped into the house and looked around before removing her arm and setting it on the counter with a heavy sigh, starting to peel her top off with her remaining arm. That’s when Aribis saw the caked blood causing the cloth to remain stiff and cling to her wife’s abdomen. Rushing out of the shadows to help her, Aribis was taken by surprise as Nyx suddenly had a butchers knife in her hand pointed at her, she seemed to take a moment before recognising Aribis at which point she dropped the knife and shrugged apologetically, wincing in pain.
“So uh. You’ll have to tell me the story about that Bard you used to know again. Cause I think I’ve got more scars than she had now.” Nyx tried for a sheepish grin, but just ended up looking like more of a grimace and then with a little sing-song voice.
“An adventurer’s life for me~, eh?”