Chapter Text
The middle sister, Castre, suddenly slipped out of the crowd. She had the intricately embroidered strap of a bag over her shoulder, either on her way to or from home, before or after some light morning shopping. She stepped between them and the bristling guards, smiling a thin, empty smile. “Sorry, everyone” she said, waving a hand dismissively at the guards. “My sister’s housepets got out. I’ll get them back home right away.” The sylph had a flash of memory. This was the lady she’d sang with in the manor courtyard.
The guards were hesitant, but clearly recognized (and respected) her. They backed off, muttering amongst themselves annoyance. Castre gestured at the two of them to follow her up the hill, which they did.
As they went Xotchtil tried to passively listen to her as much as possible. They hadn’t seen her more than in passing on the other side of the room or the other end of a hall. They didn’t want her to notice them listening, but they also hated the feeling of not knowing what to expect. All they got was emptiness but not in the same way as the Matron. They could tell what she was feeling, and the feeling was emptiness.
The sylph had given them that impression at times, back in the dragon’s colony, but it was at the depths of her despair. This was oddly contented somehow, as though Castre had (probably over the course of several decades or even a century) both made peace with it and even started to take comfort in it.
They didn’t know what to do with that. They weren’t sure they could compel her but it was nice to have as a possibility. To do that, they needed a deep desire or deep fear to push her to or away from. At a cursory glance she had neither. They didn’t like that.
As they passed through the courtyard into the main hall, they turned to thank Castre before they went up to their room. She suddenly pressed into their space in a way that… didn’t seem culturally appropriate for a drow. That, her internal sensation of emptiness, and the slightly too-wide smile on her face was unnerving. They stumbled back into the sylph and they both fell back into a short, dead end hall, cornered.
“I didn’t realize she could dance! Make her do it again.”
Out in the wider hall Tazennin passed through. He glanced their way and froze, face falling blank. He turned away and hurried along his path.
See? the sylph thought, pointedly, Asshole.
Honestly, we’re both a bit tired, said Xotchtil to Castre, We should really get ourselves back upstairs.
“Oh she can dance for strangers but not her Matron House? I’m sure she has a little more energy in her.”
I bet I can take her thought the sylph.
“If you can’t make her dance, I bet I can.” Castre reached for the whip of snakes at her hip.
I almost guarantee you can’t, and I’m not going to be any help.
Because you can’t, or WON’T?
“Castre! I didn’t expect you back so soon!” Rhea strode over, Tazennin a few steps behind her.
This broke Castre’s attention just enough that she took a half step back, but not enough to let them slip past.
“Your pets were going to dance for me.” It was an almost childlike statement, somehow.
Xotchtil felt a sharp sliver of… not panic, from Rhea… a rapid, but focused calculation? Formulating her words, probably. “You know, I think we just brought some slaves in from the surface who can. There’s probably a half dozen or so, a whole troupe!”
While Castre looked back towards Rhea thoughtfully, Tazennin urgently gestured at them to try to slip past her. Xotchtil was able to leverage Rhea’s distraction into a slightly widened visual and proprioceptive blindspot for them to slip through. Tazennin ushered them down the hall towards the stairs.
The sylph was… elevated. All the excitement of singing and dancing out in the market had crashed sideways into fear and anger and indignance. She was happy she’d gotten out of the manor but angry that it hadn’t ended well, irritated to run into Tazennin, and angry at Xotchtil’s lack of assistance all at once. She stormed off down the hall ahead of them.
Rhea caught up to them just as Tazennin shrugged and slunk off to wherever it was he’d been headed in the first place. “Do you… do you actually have any control over that thing?”
…it’s complicated.
Rhea shook her head. It took her a few tries to figure out what to say,“Goddess is testing me again. I did this to myself. I’ve kept order so long she has to test me against chaos.”
She pointed back the way they’d come. “Castre? Castre is chaos. At some point she just fell all the way into it and–” She paced a few steps before turning and coming back. “th–the only reason she doesn’t have goddess’ favor has to be–” she stared blankly for a long moment “we’re pretty sure she’s made some kind of infernal pact. It’s not like that’s strictly forbidden by the goddess but she’s probably not… y’know. Pleased.”
She started rambling again, talking with her hands,“She’s indestructible. Noie’s been poisoning her for a century–badly, sure, but still. I’ve arranged a dozen accidents. Nothing sticks. I’ve managed to sneak into her rooms a few times, and so has Taz, looking for the contract. She’s got so much junk laying around, some of it magic some of it not, and we never have time to really search. We started thinking we were imagining it until the raid.”
She stopped and stared them down,“She was in that courtyard, long before the lightning. She was dead center piling up bodies. I didn’t realize until after but not a drop of that blood was hers. There wasn’t a scratch on her, not even a singed hair from the lightning, nothing. She’s got some kind of deal that’s granted her invulnerability and I don’t stand a chance until it’s broken. She’s older than me so even if Noime and Mom die, the house still goes to her before me.”
I don’t know what you want me to do about it.
“Figure out where the contract is! Read people’s minds if you have to, just don’t get caught. When you find it, tell me or Taz and we can handle it.”
She was sitting on the bed when they got back, legs dangling out the window. Her head was that raw spinning emptiness that manifested sometimes when she was upset and didn’t know how to process it. They sat on the corner of the bed.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to help. I genuinely don’t think I could have! Even Rhea– they cut themselves off. They were just irritating her more. They tried a different angle, It’s like I said before; it’s not safe here either I just don’t know where else to go. The surface maye but–
She did panic at that, but in a controlled way. Her legs froze mid swing. At this point they knew better than to press, but they wondered what could possibly happen to make the wind afraid of the sky. They changed the subject.
We could read about plants or mushrooms, or the funnier parts of the academic drama.
She shrugged ambivalently. They reached out a hand to playfully ruffle her hair but she flinched away violently. They fought the urge to yank her back from the windowsill and she glared back at them hatefully. As annoying as her physical presence had been lately, it hadn’t even occurred to them that they would miss it.