《Ignis》Chapter 6: Home Away From Home
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The bath feels delightful. you rest your head on the edge of the tub and let your eyes drift shut for a few minutes.
The water is room-temperature by the time you wake up. You stretch the crick out of your neck and finish washing up. Shopping can wait, you decide, it is more important to check in with your extended family. You aren't sure if the Terra Incarnadine is in orbit or not. Probably not you decide, She may be too big and important to risk, but also too useful to leave sitting around. Which would mean Aunt Yasha will be off with her.
Properly clean, you head back to the closet to select your robe. You leave your brown robe where it hangs. Its comfortable, durable, and tattered around the edges. Instead you select your blue robe. It’s a little less comfortable, but a little more dressy. You make a mental note to pick up a few more, perhaps even a dress or three, while you are here. Oasis Steel Thistle Silk is a wonderful material, by all accounts.
Before you leave the ground-side starport, you make sure to acquire a durable data-slate. Its a basic model, nothing fancy, in a durable and waterproof case. What it does have is a (relatively) quick CPU and good data read-write speeds. You are not sure exactly how the numbers stack up, or what each of those components do, but you know from having used many such devices that having a fast-ish CPU and data read-write speeds means that programs and files will load sooner. You intend to load the schematics you pulled up earlier onto it, turning it into a map-slate that you can carry around with you.
The private jitney drops you off at the Von Sebastion mansion. You tip the driver and head inside. Faunia beat you here by landing directly from orbit, but you deem the acquisition of the Data-slate worth the extra hassle of finding a jitney willing to take you. The poor fellow probably assumed you were an astropath, but was properly deferential to your noble status. Or simply scared shitless, but it doesn't matter overly much to you. He did his job competently and was properly compensated.
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Faunia greets you just inside the main door. "You really should land directly at your destination. Too many people out there aren't exactly psyker-friendly."
You raise one eyebrow. "Like the good Bishop Rynald?" You snort in contempt, "he doesn't have the balls to take a shot at me. Not with the local Ecclesiarchy, House Dannan, and House Von Sebastion ready to come down on his head if he even tries."
Faunia grips your shoulder in one strong hand. "It’s not his balls or lack thereof that concerns me cousin. It's his lack of brains."
You pat her hand gently. "You concern is noted, but unneeded. Relax Faunia, I'm not exactly helpless. Now who's home at the moment?"
"Just Odin, planetbound and tied up in managing this place as always. He'll be happy to have the company, if only to break up the monotony."
"Then let’s go join him!"
The next few hours flow by in pleasant conversation and a truly scrumptious 'welcome back' feast for Faunia and the Ignis. You have a position of honor, of course, but no-one, particularly yourself and Faunia, make anything of your relation to each other. It's known within the family, of course, but not much outside of it. Too much possible bad publicity, at least, if that fact was known. If nothing else, it would mean the Ignis would be taken into overt Inquisitorial service, and probably an Inquisitorial investigation into House Von Sebastion and House Dannan. The Houses would probably survive, but that is no certainty, and no-one wants to open that box of horrors.
The next day dawns bright and clear. You spend an hour or so stretching out all the aches and pains of you previous day's labors. Well, you aren't sure if it was just one 30-something hour day, longer, or shorter. Warp travel does that. You have a day or two yet on-planet while the Ignis finishes unloading the shipment of stones for the Bishop Rynald's cathedral. It'll be finished eventually, probably with too much ostentation and ego-polishing as always seems to be involved when the Ecclesiarchy has a hand in things.
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But that means you have a day or so for shopping, and every intention of making the most of it. Some practical robes are on your list, but you are strongly tempted to pick up something a bit more fashionable.
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