Chapter Text
Rhea came to see then in the morning again. She brought some kind of tea and sweets to share, then stood there awkwardly when she remembered Xotchtil didn’t eat that kind of food. The elemental was happy to dispose of their portion for them. They fascinated themselves with her sense of taste while Rhea figured out how to articulate her request.
It was some kind of fruit in crystallized sugar to preserve it by controlling the moisture level. It had been wrapped in some kind of flaky glutinous crust. The tea had an herbal note to it cut with a mild sweetness of it’s own. Xotchtil wondered idly how House Blundyth sourced surface luxuries in the middle of Eryndlyn. She drank the tea and ate the entire tray before Rhea could being herself to eat one. They almost expected her to reach for the cup in Rhea’s hand. Thankfully, she did not, and Rhea was too preoccupied with whatever was on her mind to notice.
Rhea stared at the empty plate. “Mom’s… slipping. She’s been losing it for a century.”
Xotchtil didn’t know what to say to that. They just waited. The sylph flopped onto the bed and lay there contentedly.
Rhea kept talking. Faster now, like she wanted it over with. “It started small. Forgetting names. Mixing people up. Then she got angry. Frustrated over nothing. We stopped punishing the servants when she’d snap. We just had them work downstairs for a few days until she forgot.”
She paused. She looked at Xotchtil, almost pleading with them to figure out the point of all this so she could stop talking. Xotchtil didn’t know where to start.
Rhea swallowed and looked away, guilty. “Now she’s mostly just blank. Sometimes she wakes up, like when M–” She cut herself off.
“Noime swears she’s still in there. Castre and Taz gave up. And I…” She rubbed her arm. “It was actually kind of nice for that part in the middle. I was always her favorite so she listened to me the most. I got to run the house, but still blame her when things went wrong.”
She pointed at the empty tray again. “Then Maluarra Malthra showed up. Mom hated her mother, but she came to a party and Mom just… lit up. It’s the only time she smiles anymore. It was hard to watch. But now she’s giving Taz to her. If Maluarra is anything like her mother… he’s dead. Or worse. You know the Vhaeraunite rumors.”
Xotchtil had no idea who the Vhaeraunites were but was too afraid to ask. They’d find someone to pull the information from later. Rhea picked at her nails. There was a long silence before she finally found her point.
“Even if it is her time soon. I can’t back out of the deal for her. She has to do it before she… goes. But I can’t talk her out of things anymore. Not alone. I need help.”
You want me to compel her to break the deal?.
“No.” Rhea shook her head. “Not compel. Just… shift her back to listening to me. She’s suggestible enough with Malthra. It shouldn’t be hard for something like you to just get in her head and nudge her back the other way.”
Another long silence.
“And you’ll always be welcome in this house once I’m in control.”
Well that was that, they supposed.
They told the sylph to stay put again, but they weren’t as desperate about it this time. She’d managed to get clean clothing without even speaking the language; she could probably manage to not kill herself or anyone else for a few hours. Probably.
They decided the best approach was for Xotchtil to wait outside while Rhea provided a familiar presence and got her mother into a comfortable position. This would be easier if they could keep her calm and unaware. After a while Rhea carefully called out with her mind, letting them in juuust enough to silently cue them, then slammed her mind shut again.
Rhea had faced her mother’s chair away from the doorway and towards a window overlooking the city center. The city lights and overhead fungi glowed softly, turning the tiny overlapping ripples of the lake into a glittering spiderweb. She’d propped her mother’s feet up in a footstool and thrown a small blanket over her lap. There was a box containing a small mechanical device making some kind of noise that–oh. That was probably music (but they couldn’t be sure).
This was absolutely perfect. Where had Rhea been for the last twenty years of their life? They carefully walked up to stand behind the chair, still out of sight.
“Hi mom,” she put on a pained smile.
Absolutely no psionic imprint. Probably one of those ‘bad days.’ They’d see what Rhea got out of her though.
“I just wanted to talk to you about Taz.”
They did their best to stimulate some sense of love or even just responsibility, vague familiarity even! Nothing.
The ancient drow matron spoke softly, but clearly. “Did you really bring that thing in here to try to talk to me? You’re THAT much of a coward now?”
Still zero psionic output, even when she spoke a full sentence. Rhea looked confused. Xotchtil suddenly felt a sense of cold dread.
Rhea, I think we need to–
“How did my only decent child turn out to be male?”
“Y–yeah, Taz! He’s–”
“–the only one out of the four of you that’s not a complete idiot. Do you want to know why I sold him to her?”
Rhea was frozen, wide-eyed, at this point.
“It’s not for the deal; I probably won’t even live long enough to see the money.”
Dead air in the room.
“I would have given him to her for free. He has no chance of surviving whatever botched stupidity leads you idiots all killing each other when I finally happen to die. If my bloodline has to continue through a son, I guess it’s better than the complete nothing I’m going to get from any of you.”
“…she’ll kill him.”
“Maybe. Noime or Castre definitely will and you’ll stand around watching with that stupid look on your face.”
Rhea snapped her mouth closed.
“And at least he’ll probably have a child first which is DEFINITELY more than I’m going to get out of you. Yes, everyone knows you let that commoner bitch eat you every time she comes back around. You don’t even have the decency to be the woman in the relationship!”
Rhea’s face flushed. “Mom, what the fuck?”
“And for what?” Selca scoffed. “Because you think you have a future traveling to the overbright someday? I thought it was bad when Castre decided she wanted to be a musician instead of training at the temple. Your destiny is here, leading the house, or dead. That is how it has always been. Commoners get choices. People like us have destinies. Do you think I didn’t have cute ideas as a child? I’ve spent two hundred years raising you. How do you still act like an infant?”
Selca finally turned her head. She looked past Rhea, locking eyes with Xotchtil. Her expression was completely empty.
“You don’t even have the decency to kill me properly,” she said. “You brought that thing to fight your battle for you. You coward.”
She turned back to the window.
“The party is next week. Try to wear something nice while you watch me salvage what’s left of my legacy before you can completely burn it to the ground.”