Chapter Text
The waves slap against the side of the vessel. These are not the warm waters of the shallow Anarchy. These are the waters of the Sea of Skulls, and they sit above a seabed fathoms before.
Perching atop the crow’s nest, the demon lady Calesco, the Midnight Whisper and the Queen of Dreams, daughter of the Silent Wind Adorjan sighs and shields her eyes against the wind-whipped sky streaked with white. Far to the north east, she can see the peak of the Pole of Earth. It seems to float, because the blue haze of the atmosphere obscures the rest of its bulk so only the very tip of the colossal spire can be seen.
This is a ship of demons she travels on; the captain one of her brother’s counts, the crew inhuman, her new aide Iroi still down in his cabin (likely with that sailor he took a liking to).
Normally, she would have already opened up the Carnation. She’d be giving the first of her lunchtime performances, probably. Or if it was one of Seresa’s days, she’d be out overseeing incoming deliveries. Or handling a dispute between the dancers. Or making that foolish god do his job if another divinity was sniffing around too closely.
She misses it. Calesco never thought she’d find that the Jade Carnation, a cabaret club, is the place that feels as much like home to her as her cave back in the Meadows. She misses the smell, the sounds, the routine.
Maybe she even misses Seresa. A little bit. That flimsy fool is at least easier on the eye than Mele.
The mast beneath her creaks as the wind shifts, setting off a flurry of motion below as the crew furls sails or hitches lines or weighs anchor or whatever the commands are. Rathan is the one who cares about that sort of thing, and while dear Marlina had done her best to teach Calesco the basics of boat nomenclature last month, the only things that have really stuck are the silly words for left and right onboard along with the names of a ship’s most important bits. About as much as Mother knows, in other words.
Surveying the sky with the eye of an amateur weather-witch, Calesco considers the shape of the clouds for a moment. Pulling down her hood and unfurling her wings from her back, she lets the wind catch her hair and fill her feathers, angling her coverts into the gust and letting it fill her span with billowing lift, feeling, assessing, evaluating. The weight on her feet lessens as the air takes her weight, and she closes her eyes to enjoy it for a moment, this half-hover at what feels like the peak of the world.
Then, with a quick exhalation, she spreads her wings to full extension, angles them further still, and lifts off the crow’s nest with the barest flex of her ankles. A perfectly controlled glide takes her backward and up as the ship moves on without her, then forward again on a smooth downward arc that lands her gently on the wooden railing around the quarterdeck, where Mele stands at the tiller. Rudder. Steering wheel thing.
“This new wind will last the rest of the afternoon,” she says, not bothering with formalities. “It’ll take the rain-heavy clouds to the south past us instead of overhead, though. Will that change our arrival time?”
He sniffs the air. “‘Fraid so, my fair lady,” he says. “The rainclouds were anchoring the wind that was carrying us. We’re going to have to tack more to track this route. And my heart breaks to have to tell you this, truly it does, but the ways of the gods are cruel indeed.”
Mele is taller than her, and the engravings that cover his arms and bare chest have been painted in bright colours that stand out clearly on his ivory skin. His horns are much larger and sharper than any of the other tidal raiders on this vessel. Three boxes sit on his broad belt, each one engraved with a portrait and inlaid with mother of pearl. Three artisans back home, but none on this ship.
Calesco looks down at them - and him; perched on the railing like this she stands above him despite his annoying tallness - with a curled lip. “I see,” she says sourly. “Well, I suppose there’s nothing to be done about it.” Her fingers itch to go loose a few arrows into a target butt as a way of passing the time, but even on a moderately sized junk like this there’s no space for an archery range, and she’s not willing to lose arrows to the fathomless sea. Maybe she can try to get some poetry done? But no, unless she wants to write some insipid thing about stormy skies and treacherous seas that’s been done a thousand times before, there’s nothing to really inspire her here. And while she could always try more romantic verses, thoughts of Marlina just aren’t inspiring the same excitement as they had two weeks ago. Really, if this ship was any less dominated by tiresome men, she’d probably have moved on by now.
“Oh, fear not, fear not, my fair lady,” Mele says amiably. “We can make up a smidge of that time by cutting our route to the north and us dashing sailors,” he hammers a fist into his chest, “put a little of ourselves into this. Anything for the most beautiful princess in all the lands - and more than that, the one more beautiful than even the All-Queen.”
This earns him an unimpressed eyeroll and a huff. “Save the flirting,” Calesco orders. “Even if I were interested in men, I’d have no time for a puffed-up braggart who hoards hearts like a miser.” She flexes her wings, feeling a few pinprick points of light from her feathered eyes striving to pierce the dark-skinned lies she’s veiled in.
“I flirt merely with the truth,” Mele says. “This is something acknowledged by all in the domain; your beauty is second to none, and unlike Princess Haneyl you do not give it away freely.” His long curled white hair catches the breeze, and the many studs in the rim of his ear catch the sunlight. “How can one not adore you from afar, for you are kinder even than your supernal beauty?”
Kohl-rimmed eyes narrow, and cruel white light strains harder against its smothering blanket of shadows. Already put in a bad mood by the delay, Calesco’s patience frays.
“Such pretty words,” she mocks. “Pretty, false words that flatter skin-deep beauty and fatuous praise of my ‘kindness’. I rather doubt you understand what my kindness is, Mele. If you did, you’d have freed those three,” a flutter of a dark-feathered wing indicates the boxes at his belt with a flick of long, sweeping pinions, “from the servitude you have them trapped in. You haven’t, because you care more about your own ego and aggrandisement than my brother’s vaunted ‘fairness’, and you flirt because you think you can win my goodwill as if I were nothing more than a vapid whore with no substance beyond carnal vice and vanity.”
His smile is easy; his shrug casual. But Calesco can see the hurt gleam in his eyes. “Your cutting words are what make you so unique and so fair in my eyes. And your highness, please, I would wish to assure you that the love of an artisan for their raider is no more slavery than any other form of love. It is a beautiful thing of long-lasting devotion, your highness - and, forgive me for speaking harsh truths in your manner, but I do not think you would call Duchess Oula one chained in servitude to your brother, least of all to her face.” There is something practiced about his rhetoric. “Any of my loves could take back their heart at any time they wished. This is a love of equals.”
Is that a lingering implication that hers aren’t, or is she just sufficiently irked with him?
Either way, it’s enough to make her bristle.
“Could, in theory,” she snaps. “But if you asked them, they’d each tell you they wish they were the only heart you held. What kind of ‘equal’ love ignores the wishes of one partner?”
She gives him no time to respond to that, spreading her wings out again and hopping up to catch the currents again, tilting sideways to glide around to the right of the ship - she might know the silly ‘port’ and ‘starboard’ terms, but she refuses to use them. A red figure up on the rigging catches her eye, and she beats her wings a few times to soar up alongside Fari, who is stubbornly tugging at a rope that’s become tangled with the bottom of one of the sails.
“Do you need some help there?” Calesco calls over, keeping position a wings-length away with a mix of micro-adjustments as she glides and the occasional flap. Fari has been a welcome reprieve from the annoyances of the journey so far. She’s a sweet little thing, and seems thankfully free of the toxic influence of her elder cousins onboard; her drive for justice is still pure and fierce in the defence of the weak and vulnerable. Calesco’s been making sure to talk to her at least once or twice every day, half to make sure she’s not learning any of the wrong lessons from boorish tidal raiders like Mele and half to reassure herself that Rathan’s keruby aren’t entirely mired in the awful culture he’s let them develop among themselves.
Fari seems to be torn between the determination to be a big girl and the recognition that she doesn’t have the leverage to really loosen the rope. It’s not that she’s not strong enough, because an orven is stronger than an adult man. It’s just her arms are too short.
“If you can hold this end, I can get up and untie it!” she decides, having found a way to justify not needing help to herself.
Landing from a glide on rigging proves a little challenging, but not unduly so, and in a moment Calesco is dutifully holding the rope where Fari pointed while the little orven clambers up and hooks her knees over a sail-strut to hang down like a szel, water-cape spilling down behind her head. She spends a moment doing something complicated that turns a knotted tangle of rope and wood into a neatly coiled line and a properly-hanging sail, then slings the loop over her shoulder and climbs back down, beaming, to jump up and down once she’s back on the deck.
“Did you see, did you see?” she cheers. “I got it all fixed on the first try! I’m learning loads on this ship, it’s way bigger than the ones back home! I’ve prob’ly learned more about knots this past week than I have the whole month before it!”
Calesco pats her on her seashell-like head. “I did see,” she praises. “You worked very fast. And the way you hung down like that? A szelborn couldn’t have been more acrobatic.”
Fari beams at her. “I’m going to be the best captain ever when I grow up,” she informs Calesco.
“I believe you,” Calesco replies, which isn’t even really a lie given the calibre of the competition. She wanders up to the prow, Fari tagging along at her side, and sits down next to the bowsprit.
“Have the older keruby here been treating you well?” she asks. “Have any of them been saying cruel things or giving you bad advice? Or any advice,” she adds hastily, not quite willing to trust Fari’s judgement on what constitutes ‘bad’ advice. She might be a sweet, protective little thing, but she is still a child, and Mele’s skill at rhetoric could probably dizzy her into supporting something immoral.
Fari slips her legs over the sides, kicking. “They said I need to practice fighting and find some sziroms who can get me free books and basically be as cool as possible so someone thinks I’m really cool,” she reports.
Calesco huffs. “They’re trying to get you to grow up and be like them,” she advises. “You take your time. I like you just as you are now. You know orvens stop caring about justice as much as they get older,” she adds cunningly. “Just like how they don’t like music as much.”
“That doesn’t sound very cool,” Fari says considerately. “Justice makes stuff fair. If stuff isn’t fair, it sucks.”
“Exactly,” Calesco nods. “So don’t believe what your older cousins say, especially the ones with two or three heart-boxes.” She pats Fari’s hand. “Would you like to dance? I could use some singing practice, and as long as it’s just you, we won’t damage the ship.”
That gets the little girl springing to her feet. “I heard the captain say you’re the most beautiful woman alive,” she says shyly. “It’s true because you’d sing just for me!”
“The captain has said that to at least three other people besides me,” Calesco says derisively. “But measuring beauty by what people do instead of what they look like is a good rule to follow, so well done.”
She shifts backwards into the middle of the foredeck, giving Fari some room to run around her, and smiles at her. One of the really nice things about Fari is that she’s still far too young to mature in either direction; too immature for the love of another to push her raider-wards and too unconcerned with romance for her heart to overflow and become an artisan’s. It means Calesco can talk to her without any fear of sparking a crush that might force the poor girl down a path of adulthood she doesn’t want.
“This is a song I learned from a girl called Lui,” she confides, her smile turning fond at the reminder of her ex. Then, after a brief bar to clear her vocal chords, she launches into a Saatan sailing song, her high voice rising bright, strong and clear over the swell of the waves.
Fari squeaks eagerly, and starts to spin on the place, singing along loudly and off-tune when she guesses the words, or thinks that she can guess. But the raider-sailors aboard are watching, and there are chuckles at the activities of the excited child. Instead, one of them takes up a beat along with the song on a bit of sail he is repairing, straightening it out as a drum, and once the chorus has repeated they start to join in, their baritones a deep undernote that Calesco’s soprano can rise over.
With music uniting its infernal crew, the ship of demons sails on across the Sea of Skulls, both sail and song carried further from home by the wind from the southwest.
The estate of Danadu Mara has changed over the years. This is not the product of malice, or aforethought, or political exigency. No, it is simply a statement that a gentleman of a certain calibre does not simply collect things like some ill-tempered magpie, adding one thing and another to his collection with no ideas of theme, colour, or coordination. Only the very rich and those whose breeding is totally without question can just sit upon the ornaments and icons of yesterday, letting them acquire a patina of mouldering wealth. Those slightly down the social ladder must be much more savvy about their sense of style. A wise gentleman does not simply buy; he cultivates, he cultures, he invests in upcoming artists and may choose to - if he wishes - sell a work of art no more than a year after he buys it, after it has been the talk of society and then no longer has novelty. Indeed such a man, if he invests wisely and has an eye for fashion, might make a handsome little sum and also remain at the forefront of fashion for many a year.
Danadu Mara has not only stayed at the utmost forefront of fashion on Triumphant Air through his ability to spend his time cultivating artists and a sense of novelty when other men must work for a living, but he has also - in the years since his nasty little brush with death - acquired a certain amount of the estate of his once-neighbour, made some wise investments in the patronage of figures who will have likely later power on the isle, put on a trifle of weight, and picked up a trophy wife who is compliant, discreet, and will keep the eyes of society from wondering things about him that might lead to certain facets of his infernalism from being discovered.
All in all he is doing quite nicely for himself, and that much a man such as him can think quite happily as he takes an evening smoke on the veranda, overlooking the rolling countryside and that larksome place which was once his neighbour’s house before he had it demolished and turned into a carp pond.
“Your drink, sir,” a servant says, approaching with a tray. The evening is drawing in, and with the woman’s back to the oil lamps in the house, her face is cast in shadow. Her voice is soft, though. Low and husky, with a slight accent he can’t place offhand.
... he also, he belatedly realises, didn’t order a drink.
His hand goes for his short sword, half-drawing it as he steps back and away. “Who are you?”
“Your mistress sent me,” the servant says.
“Eniko is my wife!”
“Your other mistress.” The rasp in her voice is stronger now. She advances another step, and a point of light gleams from one eye in her shadowed face. The carp pond behind him throbs like a wound, and Mara hears again the pleas and denials of the men and women dragged off as accessories to infernalism. The memory feels like an arrow to the chest, sending him staggering, gasping, leaning heavily on the veranda wall for support.
The servant - who is most assuredly no servant - is unmoved. “The mistress whose brand you wear on your wrist,” she says. “The eye and throne, no? The mistress who you begged to save you from the Realm’s magistrate five years ago. The mistress you serve, not the mistress you married. The mistress who warned you I was coming in your dreams not two weeks ago.”
She takes another step forward, and now she is close enough that she is no longer a silhouette against the house lamps. The shadows leave her dimly lit, but he can see her face, and it is a vision of loveliness beyond what any mortal flesh could host, a heartbreaking beauty with blood-red eyes and dark brown skin. Her black hair falls freely over her shoulders, and the red belt she wears around her waist is a portent of bone-chilling doom.
The goddess - or rather more likely, demon - still holds the glass of wine on its silver tray. Somehow, without any apparent change in her posture, the offer looks more mocking than servile now.
It does not help that she is scowling.
“Oh Lelabet of the night, daughter of the darkling womb of the nameless queen of shadows, forgive me, forgive me.” He realises he still has his sword drawn, and sheaths it hastily. That the strange anathema servant of the demon king Ligier can send the shadow fiend Lelabet, beautiful and masked, patron of witches; it is a statement of the power of the one he is sworn to serve. Now, how best to use this, for Lelabet always aides the weaker party in any conflict...
The gorgeous demoness blinks slowly, almost seeming taken aback for a split-second - perhaps impressed at his knowledge of the lords and ladies of Hell. But she recovers herself before he’s even sure he saw the hesitation, and her scowl shifts slowly into a smile that lesser men would sell their souls for - and no doubt many have.
“Oh, very well,” she husks. “You are forgiven. This once. Now attend me, for your mistress has sent me to instruct you in your new duties. She wishes the cults you manage for your lord to be better woven into her spies throughout the Anarchy - and more than that, she wishes information on the Realm. On what they are doing. On where they are going. On who among them is righteous, and who might be... corrupted.”
The way her lips shape the word sends a shiver down his spine, and he gulps with a dry throat. She isn’t finished, though, and paces to join him at the edge of the veranda, further from the light. “She wishes, also, the names and routes of the slaver captains who supply the plantations from which they draw their wealth, and the magistrates who call down purges on towns they suspect might worship the lords of Hell. You will provide her these things, that she might act on them in the Yozi’s service.”
He considers this. “Come with me. To my office, my lady, and we will see what I can dig up for you.”
She nods graciously, transferring the wine to her other hand and sipping at it herself. “Lead the way then, cultist-lord.”
He has his files on trade, on names, of people he has profiles on and who might be of use, and he makes a measured offering of these things to the demon lady.
She reads them over, nods at some, frowns at others. Sets them aside. Turns back to him.
“Is that all?”
She does not, unfortunately, sound impressed.
Demanding, mmm. Something to remember. But, “My Lady, my influence only extends so far into the Anarchy. I can likely gather some more for you, but it will take time. It is not so long before hurricane season starts to rumble, after all.”
She purses her lips. “And what of the Realm? You are sitting in their stronghold; it should not be so difficult for you to gather that information.”
It strikes him suddenly what it is about her accent that’s been puzzling him. This demon lord, older by far than the Realm in its modern state, nonetheless speaks with the eloquence and blueblood arrogance he’s heard among high-ranking Dynasts. Not just Dynasts, either - it’s a pattern of speech he’s heard from scions of the oldest Raraan Ge families and the princes of Choson city-states. She speaks like a born noble - and she has the attitude of one, too.
“My lady,” he tries again, “there are none in this place better connected than I am. But Triumphant Air is far from the Imperial City. We do not hear the latest gossip from there. It is often seasons old by the time it gets here, and twisted by its passage. I know who is in port and who is not; I know patrol routes, treasure ship timings, even the orders they send to the Commodores of the fleet. But these are things I have shown you, so I do not know exactly what you are looking for.”
The demon Lelabet paces his office, causing the shadows to shift and sway like tides tugged hither and to by her presence. Things chitter in them; long-legged insectile creatures in the corner of his eye that disappear where he glances at them directly. Sourceless heat seems to roll from her dark robes, not the crackling heat of flame but a smothering, enveloping heat that makes the office feel like it does in the depths of Fire, bringing sweat to his brow and strain to his breath.
“The movements of their fleets, the orders they send, these things are useful, but they cannot change Triumphant Air, only hurt it,” she murmurs. Her next words are quieter, slipping into soft, archaic Old Realm he cannot follow and then into wordless gestures that are full of meaning that he cannot decipher at all, for it is not meant for him. But eventually she speaks in Firetongue again.
“I want to see them,” she decides - demands, really - after some thought. “To know their hearts. To see who among them is strong and callous, and who is weak and pliable. To judge which of them is righteous and virtuous, and which of them might be corrupted or compromised. Yes.” She whirls on him, her blood-red belt reshaping itself into a sash. “Find me a way to cast my gaze on them, and take their measure as men and women.”
That is much more in his territory. “Well, then,” he says with a smile he has polished until it sparkles, “perhaps my lady would wish to accompany me to one of the galas I hold in the town, in a form which can pass as human. To observe and only observe, of course, for your spectacular beauty will draw attention enough and sometimes Immaculates from the temple attend. And their senses are keen and their fists unrestrained by their brutal abbess.”
“Hmph.” Lelabet flicks her hair, and yes, that’s definitely anger glimmering deep in her blood-red eyes at the thought of the Immaculate Faith. “I am not unaccustomed to going disguised around Dragonblooded and Immaculates. You need not fear my giving us away.”
Of course, the demon lord Calesco has other things that she has to do before she can go to any parties. She is, after all, formally here as Black Shawl, student of Cinnamon Tenne, and Black Shawl has her duties to her subordinates. She has accommodation to arrange for twenty five dancers, singers and performers.
And, as she swiftly discovers, Triumphant Air is not Saata.
In Saata, this would be a matter of simplicity. She would rent rooms in a boarding house, pay the taxes to register the performers with a favourable court, and matters would be done. Saata wanted to take your money, and she was more than talented enough to ensure that they didn’t run off with it.
But almost immediately, Black Shawl discovers that performers are considered troublemakers, ill-reputed, and not people that should be rented to in even lower-middle-class districts in the old magma tunnels.
“Twenty six dancers?” the third prospective landlady says dismissively. “All outsiders and none of them registered with the Venerable Office of Public Morals? Why don’t I just set up a blue lantern over the door? It’s the same thing as letting your lot in.”
“Office of- we’re here on contract for the Navy!” Calesco objects. “We’re performing at the shipyard inspections! I’m a Saatan priestess!”
“A Saatan priestess,” the landlady says, rhyming it with “pirate harlot” despite the lack of shared sounds. “So why d’you think that means you don’t need to get registered with the office given what you sorts are like - and what sailors are like, too!”
“I... urgh!” It’s very, very tempting to throw her hands in the air and storm off, or maybe punch the woman, but Calesco grits her teeth and remembers her training instead. Validate her feelings, find common ground, display virtue. “Alright, I... can see why you’re concerned. Could you tell me where to find the office so I can get my subordinates registered and find lodgings for them? I have a duty to do right by them, especially with such an important play coming up.”
The landlady is very unhelpful, but Calesco manages to find someone who’s less actively looking to not get money. And that leads her to the high-rise basalt administrative building that rises up above nicely contoured grasses and raked gravel.
Dressed in a neat black yukata, her red veil wrapped around her belt as an obi, her face made up as a doll-like Joyful Priestess, she presents herself before the middle-aged bureaucrat who she is directed to.
“Papers,” he says without looking up.
Iroi has been proving his usefulness, and so she already has the papers from Saata drawn up, arranged and signed off by the harbourmaster. She hands them over, favouring the man with a gorgeous smile.
“These are the documents for a non-resident outside worker... sorry, outside workers. Twenty six in total. Is that correct?”
“Yes, that’s correct. We’re here for the naval inspection performance.”
“Then I will require your sponsor’s form, as well as a security deposit of four yen per head. I will also require your residence for my records.”
This is a problem, Calesco thinks, gritting her teeth. Because landlords won’t rent to them until they have this registration.
“I... will return with them soon,” she grits out, and marches out before she can do something stupid. Her fingers curl, and she finds herself wishing she had her bow with her, rather than back on the ship. Punching someone is starting to feel more attractive, too.
Alright, fuck it. She’s caught in a stupid lockbox of a situation where her only options are to give up and accept the worst possible lodgings - out of the question - or to get clever about things. Fine. The rules here are obviously immoral anyway, and she has people to look after.
If the office won’t issue her a registration officially, she’ll just do it under the table instead.
That night, Calesco finds where this obnoxious little man’s superior is having dinner at one of the many fine restaurants of the top layer of the city. He is a plump man, in good quality pale silk robes with iron grey hair and spectacles. And Calesco knows he keeps two mistresses. She debates charming her way in, but the darkness of the night is kinder to her, so instead she arranges herself on a bench in a small park - barely a square, really - opposite the restaurant. The wood is dark and lacquered, some expensive hardwood from the southern Anarchy that Haneyl would recognise, and the frame is finely-wrought iron styled in the fashion of ivy and flowering vines. Her sister would appreciate its beauty, but Calesco only feels her lip curl a little at the expense that must have gone into this for nothing better than showing off the wealth of the upper city while the lower levels suffer.
Still, it’s a good spot, and when her target comes out - tipsy, full, his meeting with a colleague concluded - his eyes are drawn to the ethereal beauty sitting sadly in the park on her own and staring up at the sliver of the silver moon that sits above the wisps of cloud being chased from the sky by a cool dusk breeze. The temptation she radiates is too great to resist; a star come down to earth in all her midnight finery.
He weaves his way over to her, staggering somewhat.
“As bright water falls
below a inkblot sky
the night flowers bloom,” he begins. He might have fucked up the meter. He’s not sure.
Calesco’s eyes narrow slightly at his improper syllable count and lack of a cutting word, both of which Adelia would have immediately challenged him on. Calesco herself isn’t as passionate about proper poetic form as her second-ever girlfriend, but she still can’t bring herself to praise his efforts.
“Water droplets fall
from dark skies and lowered eyes
mournfully weeping,” she replies, ducking her head to hide the scorn in her eyes and affecting an air of tragedy quite at odds with her inner smugness. This man probably won’t get it, but she’ll have to recount this to Iroi later; her ex-agya aide will appreciate the way she made her leading line a seasonal reference, an emotional metaphor and a response to his opening poem all at once.
That draws a barking laugh from him.
“A pretty raven
perches below Luna’s eye.
Such joyful Water!” is his response.
She shrugs ruefully, acknowledging his compliment with a calculated smile that lets a hint of real weariness show. She’s caught his attention, now to get his interest. And with his mind already on entertainment - both in and out of the bedroom...
“Water separates
southern cities from singers,
tired dancers from dreams.”
He blinks at her with bleary, drunken eyes, his mind already overtaxed now that they have left the space of memorised verses and now this beautiful stranger is expecting him to respond to hers.
“Uh,” he begins, and clears his throat to buy more time.
“Pens waltz over
empty paper, leaving only
sunny clear wisdom,” he tries, despite the only marginal relevance to what she had just said.
Calesco favours him with a polite laugh, and rises from the bench to curtsey. “I am Black Shawl, sir,” she says. “A pleasure.”
He puts some weight on the bench, partly to get closer to her but mostly to keep himself from leaning too far sideways. “‘M Jococo. Raim Jococo. T’ pleasure is all mine.”
Calesco remembers that name from her aide’s notes. It’s one of the big land owning families here, but she doesn’t know the man. Likely someone who married into a branch family, and married a younger sister rather than an heiress.
Marriage is one of those social conventions Calesco doesn’t really get the point of, or at least as more than a Nexan marriage (which is just common sense). Love is like a bird in the hand that comes and goes when it sees fit, and if you hold onto it tightly, you’ll crush its bones.
“Will you sit with me and admire the moon, Mr Raim?” she asks, reeling him in. The patterns of nobility are as natural to her as they are to Rathan, and the posture and refined speech come easily, lulling him along with the shadows and her subtle body language to ignore the reputation that saw her turned away from landlords’ doors. “I have a terrible problem weighing on my shoulders, and your company might raise my spirits.”
A drunken man with a fondness for women is no contest for the ways of a night demon, and he is more than happy to canoodle with her. That isn’t on offer yet, but it’s clear from his attitude and looks at her that he expects it to be.
Calesco gently removes her knee from the path of his drifting hand, resisting the urge to break all his fingers with the ease of long practice, and stops it wandering any further by taking it between her own. “You see, I’m here for the great performance that’s being put on for the naval inspection,” she says, subtly manipulating a few pressure points to put him further at his ease and quicken his pulse a fraction, pulling his attention out of the drunken daze and back to something that can pass for clarity in a poor light. “And I’m most eager to find lodgings for my subordinates, who will be entertaining the great and the mighty there - they are my responsibility to care for, after all. Oh, but the bureaucracy on this island is so complex, and I’m afraid I’ve been left in a terrible confusion - and without the correct permits and licences, nowhere will give us lodgings. I fear the inspection may be ruined.”
She sighs mournfully, maybe exaggerating it a little to get the message across, and then smiles up wanly at him, still holding his hand. “Oh, but thank you so much for hearing my woes. You are a good listener. I’m sure your friends must be very lucky to know you.”
Raim Jococo nods through the fog of good food and strong alcohol and blatant flattery. Yes, his friends are very lucky to know him, that’s definitely true. And he’s sure he’s a good listener. Or at least he must be, because this beautiful woman is saying so, and surely she wouldn’t be saying so if it weren’t true, would she? And then the thought comes to him, slowly, that her troubles - which must be very terrible and very troubling indeed - seem to be connected to the matter of Triumphant Air’s bureaucracy, and specifically, by the Dragons’ grace, that part of it that he himself is an official over. Perhaps, the idea softly croons, he could simplify the process for her - a poor foreigner cannot, after all, be justly expected to deal with the sophisticated practices of a Realm satrapy.
And if he were to wave her through some unimportant paper-pushing... well, she would no doubt be grateful, and perhaps smile at him some more, and that would be a very fine thing! A very fine thing indeed!
In his sudden clarity, below the moon overhead, he is struck by a singular obsession. He must arrange this, must ensure that everything is right for this beautiful woman. Not right now, no no; it is late enough that the offices will be closed. But first thing in the morning, he should see to it, for morning is not a time for women as beautiful as this and so if matters are resolved in the morning, she will be ready for him at nightfall.
The dark lady curtseys gratefully as she rises, thanking him again for sitting with her and listening to her troubles. And then she’s gone, off into the night, and Raim is left only with the fierce commitment to his decision and a mild headache from all the wine.
But above the little garden opposite the restaurant, a white-feathered owl rises silently upwards with slow beats of pale wings, and wide red eyes take in the whole breadth of Triumphant Air sprawling out below. The estates of the rich, the docks and shipyards of the navy, the monastery of the faithful, the harbours of the merchants, the slums and magma tubes of the poor.
A single red feather of bloody fabric stands out in the night-bird’s tail as she banks and catches a salt-tinged breeze, rising further up and considering the geography of this outpost of imperialistic exploitation. Planning her next move.
By the time that Calesco is pulled out of bed by her aide just before noon the next day, it appears that the whole licensing issue has cleared up and he has spent the morning filling out the required paperwork and co-signing documentation and paying a few minor bribes.
“I am keeping a full list of expenses to claim back from your mother,” he imparts, and considers. “Well, actually I’ll just submit the expense report to Duke Rounen. Getting money out of your mother is apparently the work of heroes.”
“Please,” Calesco scoffs. “Heroes would fall short of the mark. Mother elevates greed to an art form.” She rotates her head and shoulders, feeling her vertebrae click and the mild ache at the base of her neck where her arms protest the amount of flying and spying she did last night. “Have we had any word from our fledglings, or is their arrival time still up to the winds?”
He clears his throat. “Nothing yet, though I took the liberty of speaking with the harbour weather witches - who were very cooperative because they believed me to be a travelling Dynast - and they believe that over the next few days, a strong wind will blow from the south.” He smiles fondly. “From what I remember of messing around on boats in the Isles and the Sea as a boy, we should be seeing them in the next couple of days if the weather holds and the forecast is right.”
“Good.” Now, what to wear her sash as today? She’s not feeling it as a belt, and the shawl is too eye-catching. After a moment’s thought, she resizes it into a choker and wraps it around her neck, slanting an amused glance at Iroi as she does. “And the less said about trying to float coracles on the Meadow tarpits, the better, right?”
“In my very real defence, miss, tar is denser than water, and we thought that would open up new ways to do things with boats. And the plan was solid.” He gives her a wry smile. “We had simply forgotten that tar is sticky.”
Calesco chuckles, and picks up her longbow from where it’s leaning on the wall next to the bed, starting the well-practiced routine of care and maintenance for the star-imbued wood. She can sort of see why Haneyl was so insistent that a friend with no risk of romance would be good for her; teasing Iroi helps take her mind off the simmering annoyance of this island’s injustices, and distracts her from how much she’s starting to need a new girlfriend.
“Alright, well, if you can arrange for lodgings to be ready when they get here, I’ll keep Mother’s cultist-lord distracted.” She rolls her eyes. “Entitled fool that he is, he’s too knowledgeable about demons to trust. He knew enough to guess at who I was, and even if he did guess wrong, it was only because I’m born of Mother. If I’d actually been of Hell, he’d have recognised me.” She extends the bow to poke Iroi in the chest. “Stay away from him. There’s no way to keep him from connecting me to the Jade Carnation, not when I’m performing as Black Shawl, but I don’t want him seeing you.”
“Yes, miss,” Iroi says, his politeness somewhat reduced by his idle swatting of her poking bow. “Trust me, I have been briefed thoroughly and,” he rolls his eyes, “at great length by Duke Rounen and Duchess Ellyssivera at the ways to hide one's nature when dragonblooded are around. Mostly by him. She doesn’t say much. But did tell me that if I got you caught by being sloppy and somehow survived, she’d eat me. Fogsventkae, eh?”
“Hungry ones ain’t so bad,” Fari pipes up from where she’s been busily applying herself to a jigsaw puzzle, legs kicking in the air as she sprawls out on her stomach with the edges of her water-cape dampening the floor. “They gotta thing about paying for stuff if they think they’re gonna deal with you again, so as long as you make a big thing about ‘oh yes it was well easy getting you here, I’ll be around to take you back next week’ every time you deal with ‘em, they’ll treat you good.” She scowls. “It’s them over-ego’d maglyaszentkae you gotta watch. They’ll get all snooty ‘bout how they think you took too long to take ‘em through orca waters and now they got less time than they wanted to do set-up for their big performance and want ten percent off or they’ll complain to your captain.” A tiny nacre fist thumps the floor. “It’s totally unfair!”
Iroi sighs dreamily. “Yes, but when I was a kid, before I was a szirom, they’d literally pay us to come to their shows. You have to love someone who loves art like a fleshless flame does. Growing up there, on the Isles-Swamp border, is basically the best place in the world for entertainment. And food.” He glanced over at Calesco. “Hey, boss, when this is all over - uh, if it isn’t improper to suggest it - we should all take a few easy free weeks on the beaches there. The kid can come too. There’s no shortage of pretty people on the beaches, and they’ll be falling over each other to treat you good. Which means the three of us will get the best of everything. You can talk to all the prettiest ladies and I’m sure there’s going to be some handsome men who want to hear stories about far off Creation. And if Fari picks up some nice trinkets here, everyone will want to be her friends.”
Calesco hums for a moment, considering it, and then nods. “If you like,” she says. “I’ll make sure there are no problems in the Meadows first, but then... yes, some time on the beach could be nice.” She rolls her eyes. “If nothing else, it’ll be something to look forward to during however many unbearable Dynastic parties I have to attend here.”
How can one describe a party of the elite of Triumphant Air? The great and the good of the island all come together to drink wine and take the pleasurable substances that come from the far South West - in moderation, of course, of course. The walls are painted in many bright colours over tropical hardwoods, and bedecked with little fragments of mirrors so the candles and the oil lamps gleam and cast reflections all around the room. It is highly fashionable to bring in potted plants from the gardens, so the already limited floorspace is even more cramped. The bodies that fill the place only add more heat to the tropical warmth. It is noisy, between the musicians and the voices and the laughter. It is only so much a question of pleasure. These parties are where weddings, affairs, contracts are truly sealed.
But if these are hot, loud, unpleasant places, imagine how terrible it must be to not be invited, they say to one another. Why, this party is the equal of anything on the blessed isles. They’re not poor provincial cousins, not threshold barbarians. They are the most civilised people in the region, the last outpost of culture, and anyone should be honoured to be attending this soirée.
Anyone, perhaps, besides the courtesan-priestess and Saatan entertainer Black Shawl, in truth a demon lord born from the mind of a Hellish champion whose shadow lies heavy and unseen over the Gulf of Strife and the western Anarchy. She has seen far grander events than this, if only through the eyes of her mother back before she began spending her Calibrations covering for her in Creation. She’s been in hotter and rowdier gatherings as well; mostly impromptu ones thrown by her sister that toe the line between ‘unwanted party’ and ‘invasion’. And while she has perhaps not been in such noble company by the standards of Creation before, it must be said that rank and privilege are hardly things that Black Shawl respects in her innermost heart of hearts.
Nevertheless, Calesco Kerisdokht is here to do a job, and so she has accepted Danadu Mara’s invitation to attend the soirée on his arm as a plus-one - for an entertainer such as she would never receive an invitation of her own to such an exclusive event, not as a guest rather than an entertainer. But by coming here with the cultist-lord, she can scope out the social strata before her boys and girls arrive, choosing her marks and assessing her targets without the distraction of having to perform for them on stage.
Mara, despite being an obnoxious and morally bankrupt reprobate, is proving useful in this.
“And who is that?” Calesco asks, carefully using Mara, a wall and a potted fern as bulwarks on three sides to keep the press of bodies - and the hands of any partygoers entranced by her beauty - at bay. Her nod indicates a tall man with features she recognises from her trip to Taira as southeastern, as well as the bark-brown hair and blossom-pink eyes of a Wood Aspect.
“That...” Mara follows her gaze, struggling for a moment to pick out who she’s referencing through the crowd. “... ah, yes! That is Taym Alou, the commodore of Bear Squadron. He’s a glory chaser, I can tell you that much - a Lost Egg who doesn’t much like the other two.”
“Hmm.” Calesco gives the Dragonblood an assessing look. He holds himself proudly, and his gaze is marked by the gnawing bite of envy on his heart. Someone to mention to mother, perhaps. There’s potential there for corruption, or at least an opportunity for more strife to be sown between the Realm’s forces here.
She dismisses him after only a moment’s glance, not bothering to look deeper. “What about the satrap?” she prods. “Where’s he?”
Mara chuckles at that. “Not in this room, though it’s entirely forgivable to miss the man. He’s shorter than most women, and I do declare that I have never seen a man with a more forgettable face. He’ll be here, because he’s been here long enough that he’s a fixture on the island, but goodness knows in what dull corner he’s hiding himself.”
“Oh?” Calesco raises an eyebrow, thinking of Sasimana. “Is he the sort who lets his wife handle his affairs, then?” Her smile becomes a touch sultrier. “I do enjoy the chance to meet an interesting married woman.”
That draws a chuckle from the man. “His official wife died of the red blush nearly a decade ago. And he would probably agree with you about the interesting nature of married women, considering what he has had going on with Timkul Maylada for, what, two decades now? Of course, she’s still a beauty, while the most going for that man is his title.”
A long-standing affair? A beauty in the satrap’s innermost circle? Calesco perks up. In the shadows cast by the oil lamps, the quirk of her eyebrows and the slant of her lips is hypnotic, and more than one of Triumphant Air’s gentry trip over themselves or stumble as their desire to stop and watch her wars with the currents of movement pushing them around the room.
“Really now?” she purrs, the husk in her voice deepening. “And is she within sight? If not, I think I might suggest we leave our little corner here and go looking for an introduction.”
She is not in this room, Mara imparts, but they go looking for her and while they do Mara has plenty of gossip about Timkul Maylada, who was already involved with the satrap before her marriage to her husband Joni. The Timkuls are one of the richest families on the island, especially with the decline of Cadet House Parmi, which has nearly entirely been adopted into House Tepet and its scions have left the island. Only one member remains, a senile old sorceress living up on the mountain. They say - he says - she’s forgotten what clothes are for and has quite the incredible number of cats. But oh, darling, where was he? Oh yes, Maylada. Quite the society beauty in her youth, and even now in her forties with three children under her belt she’s quite the looker. Though on the subject of her children, well, there are questions about their parentage, he says with raised eyebrows. A certain Dynastic look about them. Of course, the Timkuls were once a branch of the aristocracy of the Blue Monkey Shogunate, but all of Maylada’s daughters have the dragon’s look about them and something almost Northern about their features. And the satrap might not be a dragonchild, but his mother was one and from the North too!
Calesco listens to the gossip with half an ear, nods thoughtfully at some of it, stores other tidbits away to follow up on later. Or maybe have Iroi investigate. It really is nice to remember every so often that she has him around to delegate to.
The rest of her attention is idly scanning the room, though. There are so many people here, and even without peering into their souls and desires like her sibling Zanara, there was much she could glean from their mannerisms and dress - and in the occasional bright-eyed glance at the hearts of those who stood out.
Calesco does not, it must be said, learn all that much about the complex geopolitical status of Triumphant Air and how it relates to its position as one of the southernmost reliable Realm naval ports that is facing the relative contraction back to the imperial core. But in fairness, she has her mother’s inclination to care about politics - which is even less than her father’s.
On the other hand, the hearts of men and women are on full, figurative display in the here and now, and that is something which has greatly interested her for her whole life. Choice conversations drift over through the noise, fragments of a whole.
“... and then she’s involved with her maid, can you believe it?” A giggling younger woman with sea-blue hair, close to another woman who had to be a relative from the shared features.
“Oh, that poor dear, to think that her son is riding out with Ji-ha’s girl! And with such a wedding arranged!” That one was an older woman with a black curled wig that did not match her lined face.
“...is that Mara? I really must speak with him later, but no, no, do carry on. You know how these things can be. And who is that pretty thing with him?” A woman, slender, with blood that had to come from the Silent Crescent.
“And so-so-so I told her, there’s no way I’m selling my stake in the docks for less then three talents. She doesn’t realise the price is falling, though-” A portly woman, deep in her cups.
“Oh, mama, we must simply arrange for me to dance with Kuso or I will surely die!” A young man, his makeup covering his spots, with his harassed-looking mother who is dressed in a short black dress that might have fit her a decade ago.
“Listen to these ingrates! Can they not appreciate the music? Well, surely, to an aesthete’s ear such as my own, I can pick out the finesse of the notes.” That one in particular was said by an older man to a very bored looking younger man.
“You cur! I didn’t ask for rice wine!” A young braying woman.
And on and on the conversations went, as the moderately talented musicians played on and on, the lights gleaming in the many mirrors which were attached all over the walls.
“Will you favour me with a turn out on the floor, my lady?” Mara asks, as the music changes and the flow of people shifts to clear a space that ladies and gentlemen immediately start filling. “I will be able to point out more important names as we dance.”
Calesco rolls her eyes and reconsiders for the dozenth time whether letting a hint of her light out might stop his attempts to suck up by flirting with her. He wants to have her in his corner - and also just to have her, in the crudest sense - and he’s being an oily little slime about it. But it has been a while since she’s danced properly, and while he’s a cad of the lowest order, Mara is probably at least a reasonably skilled partner in that.
“Very well,” she sighs, extending her hand and letting herself be led out among the other couples.
Surprisingly, it isn’t unenjoyable. The music is a fairly quick-paced thing with gourd drums giving a beat to a lively bubbling tune on the flutes and harps, and Mara proves himself light enough on his feet that Calesco can relax into the simple joy of the dance. So much so, in fact, that she’s disappointed when the music shifts slower and he moves in closer to murmur to her.
“To our right,” he says. “By the statue. The woman in deep reds with the white gloves is Maylada Timkul; the man with her is the satrap, Tepet Linaro. The pair with them are her eldest children, Lilana and Evynn. Officially her husband’s, but everyone knows they’re his, and Joni Timkul spends most of his time out at sea to avoid the laughter and mockery over his cuckolding.”
He spins them carefully - he at least has the sense to keep his hands discreetly on her upper arms - and gives her a better view over his shoulder. Time seems to slow.
She sees a staid, slightly portly man in rich clothes and Realm features that she thinks correspond to the northernmost of the Isles. She sees the woman he’s talking to; comfortably middle-aged and clearly wealthy in her own right; her figure showing the marks of several children but still a beauty to turn heads. She sees the young boy - probably fourteen or fifteen - who is clearly bored here and paying more attention to his plate.
And she sees the girl - older than her brother; just past the cusp of adulthood.
She’s beautiful.
Her basalt-black hair is pinned up in an elaborate coiffure that allows a few shining strands to artfully frame a stubborn face - as clearly Realm as her blood father, but where his features are water-smoothed coastline, hers are the volcanic rocks and stones of her birthplace. The low neckline of her dress bares a sinfully tantalising half-circle of smooth, pale collarbone, and her shoulders are squared with fierce strength and deeply-held frustration. As Mara - entirely forgotten in the heat of the moment - completes the turn, her dark eyes catch Calesco’s directly.
Calesco’s heart slams against her ribs, and her vision tints arterial crimson as the red light of love love love drenches this gorgeous, passionate stranger. Her breath catches in her throat, and she can do nothing but stare. Mara says something that she ignores entirely, and she shakes him off as he tries to continue the dance, retreating to the edge of the dance floor.
Lilana, she thought. Lilana. A beautiful name for a beautiful girl. She isn’t looking at Calesco anymore, but she’d felt something too when their eyes had met. Oh, her heart must be something special; Calesco can’t wait to get enough privacy to peek past her lies and see it properly.
Now, she thinks with giddy anticipation. How to start a conversation with her?
The world is a place of shadows, grey and depthless and transitory; nothing compared to the red threads tying her to the illegitimate daughter of the satrap. It is so hard to focus on Mara’s words, his buzzing, his shadow whisper, but she resolves it eventually as “... did you see something, lady? Something to worry you?”
“Love is breathlessness,” Calesco breathes, the adoration filling her chest so completely as to leave no space for air.
“A madness drowning reason,
In hurricane waves.”
“Ah.” From the direction of her rakish companion’s gaze, he has put things together. And is getting in the way. “So you’ve taken quite a liking for young Lilana? Or Ana, as she likes to call herself. It is somewhat improper, but she is not exactly the most proper young lady. Her tongue is...” he considers his phrasing, “caustic.”
“Caustic?” Calesco repeats faintly, barely acknowledging him. Can’t he see he’s not wanted here? “No,” she adds, frowning at his presumption. Caustic is a word that implies ugliness, and her Lilana - no, her Ana; her love is right, the contraction of her name is so much prettier - she could never be ugly. Sharp, perhaps, but sharpness... Calesco shivers. Sharpness can be beautiful. Oh, it would be beautiful to watch her tear into these primped and perfumed popinjays. Perhaps she would enjoy Calesco letting hints of her starlight through to flay puffed-up egos in turn.
She sneaks another glance. Ana is talking to some... man; a lazy-eyed peacock who’s nodding along to whatever she’s asking him and interrupting to gesture towards someone among the dancers. Envy burns deep in Calesco’s heart. How dare he talk over her? Yet at the same time, what cruel fate that he gets to listen to her at all?
“That man sits equal to the gods,” she murmurs, coruscating inspiration gripping her in a fit of lovelorn melancholy,
“Who sits by you and listens close
“To your sweet voice and laughter clear,
“But I cannot, and so, morose
“I watch in frozen silent want;
“My tongue a numb and lacking thing,
“My skin scorched raw by jealous flame,
“My ears made deaf by vain longing.
“My eyes are blind to all but you,
“A cold sweat takes me in its chains;
“I tremble, touched by desperate love
“And yearn to meet your gaze again.”
“And were you looking for a new consort when you left your... homeland and came to this island?” Mara enquires tactfully. “Or did you come to seek her out specifically on the orders of others?”
Calesco reluctantly looks away from her new love to give the irritating little cockalorum a look of deep irritation. “The lady I serve,” she emphasises, “understands that when love strikes me in the midst of my duties, I must embrace it. All of my past lovers pale before her beauty. Tonight’s business is not so important that I cannot lay it aside for something more important. Now unless you have more to tell me of her, begone; I...”
She turns back and gasps, low and hurt. Ana is gone, though her brother is still where he was and her parents are proceeding out onto the dance floor. Has she been swept up for a dance by some disgusting local aristocrat? But no, a quick scan of the dancers shows no sign of her. Perhaps she just went to get another glass of something, then, or to powder her nose. Dismissing Mara with a flick of her hand, Calesco starts to make her way through the crowd towards the spot she’d last seen her, applying one or two expertly-hidden elbows to get through the crush where necessary.
The music is all around her, rising up, a strangely telling note joining. A note that is not played by any of the mortals, though the guests here have not realised that the shadows have started to sing along with her, the darkness joining in with her to add elements to the music that should not be there. That could not be played by any mortal instrument.
Reaching the edge of the ballroom and still seeing no sign of Ana, Calesco changes direction and goes for the brightly-decorated fop her love had been talking to just before disappearing. Maybe he insulted her somehow - in which case she’ll come up with a fitting punishment for his nerve - and if not, he might at least know where she went.
She corners the man in one of the corridors that connect the more spacious parts of the structure. There is something about him that makes her think that he is the kind of man who likes tight corners. But not in a cat-like way. More the way of scurrying things to find tunnels. He’s of Realm origin and family, with dark green hair slicked back, and - her eyes pick out - a thatch woven in to cover out thinning on top.
“... and so I spoke to his man of business, of course I did, and what did I hear but that he was dealing with the Baltoo family out of Saata? How did they think they could hide it from me? Quite ridiculous, utterly so in fact!”
He’s talking to someone. Calesco doesn’t care. She marches round the corner and strides up to him, taking in the man he’s talking to - rough-looking, with a nose that’s been broken several times and clothes that are nearly, but not quite, a match to those of the Realm naval officers she’s seen here.
Giving him no more than a cursory inspection, Calesco pins the first man, her target, under her gaze. In the gloom of the corridor, the music clings to her, spilling out of the ballroom on the mothlike wings and squirming legs of her beloved shadows. The men don’t notice. To them, it’s just the sound carrying from the dance. But it makes her lovely, and that makes her hard to say no to.
“You were speaking with Lilana Timkul,” she says, taking care to keep her words in Black Shawl’s Saatan accent. “Can you introduce me to her? I would be very grateful.” Temptation wraps her words - not the corruptive lure of the Shadow of All Things, not yet, but certainly the will-swaying inflections of a priestess who knows the little magics that seduce and convince and beguile men by their lusts.
Both men look her up and down - or, rather, given their heights, down and further down. And she can see from their hearts that both of them would have done this even if she wasn’t veiled in the gentle shadows of Erembour.
“O! I do declare, this is a pretty little thing and more so,” says the broken-nosed man.
“I have been following the rumours, and have already heard of her,” says the Realm man. “Yes, quite so. A few of my friends at another party mentioned that there is a Saatan courtesan here dressed in black with a most exquisitely beautiful face, and lo! I did see such a woman here at this party in the company of Danadu Mara, who is a man most likely to entertain ladies of the Saatan docks. Tell me, oh fair one, are you staying with Mara? We’re old friends, you know, friends going a long way back and - ah! - it is such a shame to hear that he did not tell me about the beautiful black rose of Saata he had invited to share his estate. Should that be true, of course. Though there are more than a few dark rumours about that man, oh yes, of exotic tastes - do you think you are one of those tastes, a beautiful stranger who might perhaps have been lured to his estate under false pretences? O! Oh lamentous day, such a scandal!” he prattles on, holding a handkerchief soaked in floral perfume to his brow.
“No,” says Calesco flatly. “I’m not staying with Mara. Nor has he lured me anywhere. Lilana Timkul,” she repeats, stepping closer and thrusting her chin out aggressively to fix them with a piercing stare. Inheriting her mother’s height means Calesco is no stranger to glaring up at someone until they give way under her scowl, and this pair is not going to be an exception to the rule. “You were telling me how you could give me an introduction.”
“Outrageous,” the man blusters. “I had heard that Saatan women were forwards, but this is something else! You don’t have an introduction to me, so how can I introduce you to others!”
Calesco raises an eyebrow. It is a very unintimidated eyebrow. “Introduce yourself to me, then,” she says simply. “Unless you can’t help me, in which case I’ll take my leave. Gentlemen.” She dips a brief curtsey, and steps back, turning as if to depart.
They let her go. But as she leaves, she hears the Realm-looking man say, “Well, I never. To think Mara invited such a shameless Saatan hussy with him to a refined party like this - as his guest, no less! I can’t believe he would be so classless. And o! I am sure that other people will be just as shocked to find out this shameful display!”
That is, she considers irritably, probably going to be a pain later on. Perhaps she should have been more tactful. But her patience for these... these fops has been fraying ever since she arrived at this stupid party, and Mara’s pestering has been wearing it down faster than usual. She’s used to repulsive men trying to flatter their way into her bed from her work in the Carnation, but in Saata she’s at least respected as a priestess. Here, Mara thinks she’s a demon born of Hell, and the rest...
Bristling, Calesco gives serious consideration to visiting the Realm man in his dreams and dispensing some retribution for the sneering condescension in his voice at nothing more than the city she came from. So what if she’d been forward! If she’d been able to pass as a Dynast like Haneyl, they’d have fallen over themselves to excuse her as being ‘eccentric’ or ‘admirably forthright’. But she sounds Saatan and she’s a priestess of a profession they don’t respect, so instead she’s a classless hussy.
Fists clenched and teeth gritted, she stalks away. Even thoughts of Ana Timkul are briefly forgotten under the simmering rage.
It is dark outside, but the veranda is well lit. Many little paper lanterns decorate the trees and the wooden balconades, and the braziers take the edge off the night coolness, burning sweet perfumed wood. And over past the veranda are the gardens, and those twinkle like a starfield with all the little flames placed among the topiaries and the ponds and the gravel arrangements, making them look like strange constellations.
Her fingers itch. She doesn’t have her bow with her, but she raises her left hand anyway, fingers curling around the imagined shaft of star-wood. Her right hand brushes her wrist, picturing an arrow shaft, then traces back to feign the motions of drawing, holding, sighting. The knuckle of her thumb touches the familiar anchorpoint on her cheekbone, and she stands with perfect posture for a moment, letting the routine calm her, enjoying the meditative space where everything narrows down to a single line and a target.
She looses. There’s no bow and no arrow, but so fierce is her concentration and so perfect her form that the thwip of the string and the hiss of the arrow cuts the quiet of the empty veranda anyway, rustling her hair in a phantom wind. There’s an ephemeral flicker of movement as the eye insists that something that is not there flashes out into the gardens, and one of the flames flickers for a moment as if briefly confused that it hasn’t been struck. Calesco tilts her hand in the proper follow-through for a longbow and breathes out, lowering her arms with a sigh.
She feels a little better. Perhaps she loosed some of her humiliated anger with that daydreamed shot.
What to do next? That is indeed the question. This party is worse than one of her sister’s. Than Eko or Haneyl’s parties, really, because at least people are having fun there. People here seem to just spending their time being catty and hurtful.
Her lips purse, and she considers. Trying to mingle again is clearly not going to go well. Now that she’s cooled down, Calesco can admit that she may have been... recklessly straightforward in the flush of newborn love, but even without that, the disrespect towards her profession that these people hold will quickly rouse her temper again even if she goes back in and tries to be more conciliatory. Mother would try to do damage control and save her reputation - Calesco isn’t a fool; she knows that perfumed fop will be spreading vile rumours about her, and possibly poisoning Ana against her - but Mother has tools that Calesco does not. Her own skills lie more towards single targets than groups, unless she’s...
... unless she’s performing.
Now there’s a thought.
With a studied air of distraction, still looking out over the gardens, Calesco starts to sing. Soft at first, but then rising and adding volume, she shapes her words to carry, weaving it into the music filtering out of the ballroom and adding layers of sincere devotion to noble ends, of the grace and compassion to be found in those who do the gods’ work out at the world’s edge, of the brave reserve and dignity shown by those put down by others.
Calesco’s ears are not her sister’s, nor her mother’s. But she hears the faint murmurs behind her as people poke their heads out to see where the song is coming from and are caught, enraptured by the sound. It’s far from everyone - inside the room, the bustle is loud and the crowds stifling. But those passing the doors to the little veranda can hear, and as they emerge in ones and twos, they are graced with a very different first impression of the Saatan priestess who arrived with Danadu Mara.
There are amber gleaming words hidden in the soft, sinuous syllables that are aimed at spiteful tongues and cruel minds. Little things to dissuade people from petty cruelties - and from ever talking to those who are cruel and petty. Like that dreadful, dreadful gossip-mongering man.
And the listeners walk away with the feeling that, perhaps, this beautiful woman is a precious, delicate thing to protect from slander and that the rumours which are already spreading through the party must be the work of someone with a mean little heart.
Calesco watches them go, feeling satisfied. She’ll probably leave this out of her report. Well, she’ll tell Iroi, if only so he can agree with her that the man was an ass, but this way she can also tell him that she recovered from her impasse and-
One of the watching listeners isn’t drifting back into the party. In fact, given where she’s placed on the veranda, a little back and out of sight of the crowd who’d come out for the song, Calesco isn’t entirely sure she wasn’t here all along. How thoroughly had she checked when she stormed out here? She’d certainly glanced around, but... not closely enough to spot someone else hiding in an alcove or behind a potted plant to get some privacy.
Heart pounding in her chest, Calesco stares across a distance of twenty feet or so into the dark, sharp eyes of Lilana Timkul. For a long moment, neither speaks as the veranda empties. Then the outer door swings to, and they’re left alone again.
“Well.” This is the first time she has heard Lilana speak, and the first thing that registers properly this time is that she is speaking in a very High Realm manner. It isn’t quite perfect, and there are traces of the local Seatongue and how it influences the way the local aristocrats speak. And given that she didn’t sound quite like that before, she must be making an effort with the affect. “That was quite a little performance. I dare say that our hosts might be somewhat irked at being upstaged - or at least that you didn’t give that performance in a place where they could claim credit for it.”
One of the benefits of having past experience with love is that one learns - at least to some extent - how to cope with the flutterings of moths in one’s chest and the nervous energy in one’s hands around the object of one’s affections. Calesco leans back on the low wall of the veranda and lets the smile come naturally, crimson eyes drinking in every detail of her Ana’s face.
“I find that music comes most naturally when one is in the grip of the moment,” she replies, falling easily back into the speech patterns of the nobility now that her temper is settled and she’s addressing someone she actually wants to talk to. “Performances for pay simply cannot equal the passion of someone who truly feels their subject, don’t you think?”
“I think that is exactly what someone who is paid to make music, and who has not been paid by our current hosts, would say,” Lilana says cuttingly.
“My lady!” Calesco says, smile spreading. She doesn’t tend to follow Keris or Haneyl’s example in her relationships; play-fighting isn’t her bread and butter the way it is for them. But there’s still something thrilling about matching wits with an intellectual equal, and it’s been quite some time since she had a love who could meet her at that level. “I assure you, I am an entertainer second and a priestess first. Besides,” she smirks, “can you disagree with me, even if I speak from self-interest? Or are you championing the melody of our hosts’ account books,” she gestures back towards the dance, “over mine?”
The other woman leans back against her wall. “Such a quick tongue,” she observes.
“Skilled, too,” Calesco shoots back, her tone allowing either interpretation as her eyes sparkle. “I apologise if I intruded on your privacy out here. If I had known you needed a respite from the gala, I would have left you in peace.” A lie, and a challenge. Neither of them subtle.
“Perhaps a skilled tongue can sit in a less-wise head, if the speaker would so willingly seek out conflict with Nellens Kuro,” Lilana replies instantly.
“The balding peacock with the perfumed clothes?” Calesco asks, raising a critical eyebrow. “I know a gossip when I’m insulted by one. If earning his ire is reckless, I wonder what virtue you would claim unites his friends?”
“A gossip serves an important role on this dull island; they keep everyone amused, while Nellens Kuro waves his faded glory of once having served in the Imperial court,” Lilana says. “And his friends are anyone he can attach himself to.”
“And yet I find you out here, despite his best efforts,” Calesco says, pushing off the veranda wall and stalking closer. Ana is taller than her, which is nothing new, but it sends a pleasant thrill through her all the same. This is a woman she might not mind taking the lead from her, assuming she can take it fairly. “Unattached,” she finishes in a low husk, halting just out of arm’s reach and looking up through her lashes. “I wonder why?”
“Nellens Kuro was making claims that you were a forwards woman,” Lilana says, not answering that question. “I do so wonder where he got that impression. Don’t you?”
“Nellens Kuro,” says Calesco, “thinks every woman south of the Gulf is either a pirate, a prostitute or a primitive savage, under varying layers of polite fiction.” She doesn’t actually know this for a fact, but it’s not a hard conclusion to come to after even minimal contact with the man. “I wouldn’t dare to speculate where he got his ideas about Saata, let alone Saatan priestesses.”
“Well, that would be because I do not doubt that man is intimately familiar with all three varieties of Anarchy inhabitant, especially the first two,” Lilana says. “There is a reason that such a sordid little man has the contacts he does.”
Her bluntness draws a laugh out of Calesco, brief and throaty. “I confess, I may have asked him about you,” she admits. “I noticed him buzzing around you, and then you were gone; I thought he might have made some uncouth offence against you. But I see now that you’re perfectly capable of sending anyone of his calibre fleeing with words alone, Miss Timkul.”
“Do you insult me with the claim that my tongue is only able to whip a dog like him?”
“You, not I, took that as the limit of your ability and not the foundation.” Oh, this is proving fun. Calesco shifts in another half step, jutting her chin up to hold Ana’s gaze.
“Such a forwards woman, to act in this way without an introduction.”
“Are you requesting one? I would be glad to oblige you.”
“I am saying,” Lilana says, a fire in her dark eyes, “it would be dreadfully rude to not offer one.”
The air between their gazes seems to spark, electric and exhilarating. And then, with a dancer’s grace, Calesco steps back. She sweeps a deep curtsey, spreading her skirts, and silhouetted against the night as she is, her loveliness is heartstopping in the pitifully dim glow of the oil lamps through the screens.
“Saata knows me as Black Shawl,” she murmurs, catching Ana’s eyes again. “But my mother named me Calesco when she first beheld me, and that name I save only for those who earn it.”
It’s true. Dark lady, pale mistress, night’s grace, queen of dreams... her lovers have many names and titles for her, but her true name is one she shares with very few. This is not the first time she has given it to a girl of special character, but even counting Kuha, she can number them on the fingers of one hand.
“Not a Realm name,” Lilana says, softly. “Nor a Raraan Ge one. And you sing... uncannily well.”
“You flatter me,” Calesco replies, equally low. “Shall I now lavish compliments on you in turn, or am I to take this as a gift?”
The answer is Lilana’s hand coming out, to touch Calesco below the chin, lifting it up further. “Your look is not a Saatan one. Not truly,” she murmurs softly, her nails - feeling more like volcanic glass than human nails - only separated from Calesco’s bare skin by her veil.
“Is there truly any such thing? Saata has long been a melting pot,” Calesco manages, the contact sending shivers down her spine. “But please, Miss Timkul. If you have a question, ask it.”
“I suppose one question might be this; you come as the guest of Danadu Mara, but ignore him all evening. You pick fights with Nellens Kuro, despite the fact that you had apparently never met him before. You sing for the guests, but not at the request of our hosts.” She pauses for a moment, still keeping Calesco’s head tilted back. “So I suppose my question is, Calesco,” and is that a purr, “what do you want?”
Calesco takes a breath, enjoying the earthen, faintly smoky scent cut with the sweet spice of aniseed perfume. Ana’s attention is wholly on her; they’re alone, in the dark, with verbal knives drawn and a blazing heat between them that chases the chill of the night away. In the course of the night so far, she’s ignored the man she’s meant to be here to contact, stumbled into a gaffe with the island’s biggest gossip and revealed her name to a near-total stranger.
But she’s also won the interest of the woman she loves, and now they stand mere inches apart. This young woman is stubborn, sharp-witted, merciless on the attack and more than a little suspicious of her, and she has Calesco at the tip of her sharpened nails, unsure if she’s an enemy or a future friend.
There’s nowhere else in the world Calesco would rather be.
“Right now, Miss Timkul,” she purrs, letting her eyes slip lazily closed as she leans in, letting those sharp nails press into the underside of her chin to the point of pain, “I can think of nothing I want more than to stay here and keep your company.”
“So awfully forward,” Lilana can only say.
“But,” Calesco counters with a grin, cracking her eyes open again to give her a lidded stare. “is it so forward that you will leave me wanting?”
She glances up at the clock. “Well, I suppose I can give you half an hour of my time. If no one else more interesting finds me.”
The subtext is barely hidden. Be interesting, Lilana all but demands.
“Well then, Miss Timkul,” Calesco smiles lasciviously. She’s always been willing to take up a challenge for the sake of love. “Prepare to be enthralled.”