《Constellation of Starlings- Reincarnation of the White Seraphim》32- Seneya- We're going to be ok.
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“Seneya? Seneya?” Dee gently coaxed her attention back to them. Seneya blinked her eyes as if lost in a reverie.
“Sorry, I—”
“No need to worry. We got you too relaxed.” Dee didn’t look like she believed what she said.
“Thank you,” Seneya said softly. Her voice grew a little more accented and quieter but confident. Her chin tilted up a little as she seemed to be taking in her surroundings with interest.
The two women dusted her off with soft, warm towels that they drew up and over her arms. Seneya had the first instinct to oil her skin, something she’d not done before. She aulted her hair, yes, but not her flesh. Before she could bring the first stroke of oil over her arm, Dee coaxed her hand out and tied her leather band down. Seneya reached over for the other and glanced down at the bands curiously. Finally, she rolled her wrists over.
“Feel better to be clean?” Dee smiled as she wandered over to the pile of Seneya’s clothing and stared down at the linens. Nothing could convince her that those clothes were clean no matter how they looked.
Kiri and Lyn worked on finishing Seneya’s hair. They combed it down again, more or less trying to keep Seneya entertained while Dee pulled something from her pocket, a slender stick that had been lacquered and carved, barely five inches in length. Dee angled her hand and touched the tip of the stick to Seneya’s clothes, and a thin white light flashed over the pile in a startling pulse. Seneya blinked, staring wide-eyed.
“Why you two don’t use magic to clean yourselves, I’ll never know.”
“I didn’t know we could.” Seneya’s cheeks tinged with embarrassment.
“Kael’s only had you a few months, so maybe he’s not got around to teaching you yet. It should be relatively easy to pick up because your kind are more tuned into the mana. We have to learn how and what to feel, how to turn the energy and weave it. Your body just… wills it and guides the power.”
“Can you show me?” Seneya blinked with surprise when Dee raised her hands and stepped back.
“No! Heavens no. No no. Our magic is like… like a match, yeah. You know matches, right?”
Seneya nodded.
“Now, your magic is fire, a flamethrower, a nuclear bomb. We have to strike ours, and sometimes it doesn’t go off, so we have to learn how to strike it. You merely need to be told to press the button and aim. I’m going to judge by those eyes that you’re a healer.”
“My eyes have nothing to do with my fire, but I am.”
“That fire is one of the more dangerous if not corralled. We’re not equipped to teach you, and it wouldn’t be safe to do so.” Dee explained calmly.
Seneya stared at her hand wearily. “I felt strange, out of place among mortals, and even with the equally strange, I constantly feel out of place.”
Dee shrugged and approached with her clothes in hand. “Clean as can be. Go get dressed, and we’ll see to your hair.”
“Is my hair not okay?” Seneya grabbed at it.
“It’s just choppy at the ends.”
“It kept tangling in my wings.” Seneya’s cheeks grew pink.
“That’s some long-ass hair, then,” Kiri said offhandedly and gasped before holding her hand over her mouth.
“I’m not going to get angry with anyone. Please stop being afraid of me. It’s just making me feel bad. I don’t even know what this whole lords and ladies system is. If you let me use the bath when Kael lets me come, I’d be happy with that.” Seneya said it all in a rush, her accent yoyoing between human and the teasing notes of her own kind.
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Dee shot Kiri a warning glance and gestured for them to leave as Seneya took her clothing back behind the screen to dress. Seneya slipped into her clothes and ached with the need to release her wings and tail. Holding them in amid all the magic surrounding her became stifling and tiresome.
Seneya stepped from behind the screen and followed Dee’s lead into the salon part then into a sturdy chair.
“My Lady, would you mind if we cast on you for your hair?” Willen seemed to fidget as his bluebird leaped upon the rim of the mirror before the chair. Seneya hadn’t gotten a chance to look at herself really in two months, and all the changes she saw surprised her. Her skin had no acne, porcelain perfect. Her cheeks were still a little sunken, eyes a little too dark, but the brightness in her eyes shone with life. Everything about herself seemed more alive and vibrant. She glanced over at the bluebird, then at Willen and Dee.
“It may feel strange, but it’ll save time.” Dee offered with a shrug.
“Okay.” Seneya put her hands between her knees onto the edge of the chair and tensed a little as Willen approached.
“He’s an enchanter, like me. It runs in the family.” Dee puffed proudly as Willen’s bird flew to his shoulder. Then, he pulled his wand out, a small, slender thing like Dee’s, barely half a chopstick secured into a small ornate base. Seneya hadn’t seen Dee’s up close, but it appeared similar. Willen flicked his wand and grasped a handful of Seneya’s long hair.
The sensation of it was, indeed, strange. Seneya’s ikris twitched hard as the feeling prickled over her, but she kept it in check. Her hair rained down in short snips over the floor as Willen’s wand and hand toyed with a spinning light that seemed to shear the ragged ends of her hair into a smooth and soft transition.
“Of all the things, you two as enchanters are living out here.” Lyn busied herself with tidying up, sweeping up the hair as it fell into a metal dustpan. She acted like the hair was dangerous, and Seneya almost commented when a sharp rapping shook the door.
“FRIEND OR FOE!?” Willen snapped out and curled his lip.
“Foe if this gaff’a door doesn’t open immediately,” Kael announced.
Seneya perked. Her ikris twitched again, and Dee ushered him in. His eyes made it immediately to her, trailed from her wet hair to her softly cleansed skin in a quick assessment. Willen stepped away from Seneya and moved into a sharp yet apologetic bow.
“I could feel your damn wings twitching from out there!” Kael wilted in relief.
Dee shoved Kael and sneered. He didn’t even budge, but the sentiment got his attention. Dee bristled with anger. “She’s got no clue about how magic works and is just reacting to Willen’s fire.”
Willen cleared his throat nervously.
“It’s a miracle you kept them in, little starling,” Kael said.
She hadn’t quite gotten used to being called that in English, but his worry made her feel wanted and loved.
“Go on, Willen, just finish her up. Kael’s getting nervous.” Dee beckoned Kael to have a seat in one of the chairs lying around.
“If it’s all the same, I’ll just sit on the floor, yes?” Kael picked an unoccupied space and settled down with crossed legs and rounded shoulders.
“Do any good tonight?” Dee waved for Willen to continue, and he nervously started back working over Seneya’s hair. The same twinging prickles lit over her ikris and Kael’s eyes twitched.
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“For feather’s sake, girl. Just let them out, already.” Kael reached into his wallet and thumbed through a decent stack of bills. He handed dee the majority share of them. “That cover me?” Dee nodded, and the money disappeared with a casual slip of her hand, uncounted.
Willen froze, the magic leaving his hands as his pulse raced and cold sweat sheened over his arms.
“I didn’t know it was okay.” Seneya started tugging her shirt over her head and leaned forward.
“Holy shit!” Willen dropped his wand and stumbled back.
“Thought you said you were bathing her?” Kael raised a brow. “How have you not seen it?”
“He’s a man, Kael. She’s a young Lady.”
“But he’s a swan! And doesn’t he have a bondmate?”
“He’s had several,” Lyn muttered. Kiri’s eyes watered, and her cheeks went red as she tried not to laugh.
“Hey!” Willen feigned hurt.
“Kael. Dear… Do you make a habit of being indiscreet around her?” Dee’s lip curled.
“Feathers no,” Kael scoffed.
Seneya’s cheeks burned.
“Suffice it to say that we don’t allow male attendants,” Dee said this with a note of finality.
“I had female attendants back when I was king,” Kael said this as if it made things better.
“And look at you now. Still clueless.” Dee shook her head.
“King?” Seneya put a few things together as her mind rummaged over facts. He knew he had said that the tail meant royalty and called Sael a prince. She just never thought of Kael as a king. Especially as a wide toothy grin spread over his face.
“Don’t act so surprised, Princess.” Kael gave her a demure flourish of his hand and short sitting bow.
Seneya laughed, ticked for the first time in a while, but Kael’s expression just went soft. He wasn’t joking.
“I told you that tail was royal blood! How much more plain did I need to make it?” Kael jerked his shirt up and over his head and rolled his shoulders. His great wings slid free, and with a shiver, his tail roiling out. Every eye in the room moved to him with awe.
“I just thought it meant I was related to royalty.” Seneya’s ikris tingled and twitched, wanting out. She couldn’t do it in the chair that Willen had seated her in.
“Put her backward in a chair or on a stool or something.” Kael waved towards Kiri and Lyn with an authoritative air. “Yeah, you are related. Only the firstborn child of a seraph is a seraph. So, by proxy, you’re direct line. You are a princess. Congratulations.”
Kiri nodded and went to the back before bringing out a stool. Willen gave Seneya a hand to stand, and she moved up and onto it, shirt bunched in her lap as she reached a hand back to pull one of her linen’s straps away a bit and let her ominous wings spread free, great red and grey things. A few ratty feathers rained free before she also let her tail slip out. She sighed with relief.
“I—” Seneya’s cheeks stayed red as she bunched the shirt in her lap nervously.
“Just move your tail out of the way and let him finish what he has to do for your hair.” Kael sighed.
“Why did you think Sael wore that whole costume when he came to visit?” Kael’s amusement over her ignorance stung.
Willen slid behind Seneya and held his wand in a shaking hand as he continued his work. A tingling heat suffused his hands, and he used his fingers to comb through her locks.
Seneya shrugged.
“We’ll talk more about it later, little starling. I didn’t want to get too deep into politics with you. You should enjoy a childhood while you have it.” Kael curled his tail about, eyes drifting as that sad look came over him. Anxiety flicked for a moment and then subdued. Seneya would have her work cut out for her if Kael slipped into having one of his ‘bad days.’ They grew fewer by the day, though.
“She’s orphaned, then?” Dee glanced between Seneya and Kael, a soft smile curling over her lips. She put stress on that word.
“Best I can figure, that’s why I took the liberty of keeping her. Nobody else to take her that’s safe at the moment.”
“Well, I bet you’re going to have to chase the boys away from her. She’s gorgeous.” Dee winked at Seneya, and she turned her head away, shrinking further into her seat.
“She already had one ‘boy’ checking his prospects.” Kael’s foul mood turned to mischief as Seneya pursed her lips.
“Oh, do tell!” Dee leaned in. “She’s a healer, right? That’s what she said, anyway.”
“Sael tried his hand at her on accident, and they didn’t clash. I was surprised as anything.”
“Sael’s in his thirties, at least.” Dee gasped, glaring daggers at Kael.
“He’s very young by our standards, still a child in some ways to me. But you think of testing fires as this sex thing. It’s barely kissing by our standards. It’s not like they chased them,” Kael waved Dee’s concerned look off.
“And she’s a half breed, too. Wouldn’t that be a scandal for him?”
“That’s why I shooed him off. It’s about time he started looking for a bondmate, seriously. He’s on it, I assure you.” Kael seemed pleased to say this, but a simultaneous pang of relief and sadness rose within her. She had liked Sael’s fires.
Kael stood and stretched, letting his wings slip back in. Seneya worked hers back in with a little more effort and heard a collective sigh of relief in the room.
“I’m going to go back out. Bring her once she’s done here.” Kael shrugged his shirt back on, and nobody bothered to tell him that he had it on backward. Seneya started to say something, but the door shut too fast.
“What is he paying you for?” Seneya changed her focus and shook her head in equal exasperation with Dee.
“Food, clothes, damages to the pit.” Dee named it off. “alcohol.”
Willen wrinkled his nose. “We shouldn’t be charging him at all, auntie.”
“Says you! We pay our taxes to the crown, and Halreth isn’t paying me to support Kael. He’s banished, remember? Besides, it makes him feel like he’s doing something, and I don’t even count what he gives me. Don’t you tell Kael that. But, he does better when he has a purpose, and he’s doing so well now, Seneya. He’s got you.”
Willen quieted and moved back over to Seneya’s hair. “May I?”
Seneya nodded and sat straighter as Willen brought his wand back out, but he didn’t cut; he wound heat over his hands as his fingers drew apart strands of her hair. He drew her long golden wet locks into dry strands of manageable tresses. Seneya glanced up at the mirror occasionally, almost shocked at her hair’s length. Despite having cut so much away. She blinked at how vibrant the color had gotten. Her hair fell in thick straight locks down her back, dusting just above where her wingbases would be.
“Not quite as red as some Phoenix I’ve seen, but it’s beautiful,” Willen told her as he twisted his lips in contemplation. “I need to oil it a bit to hold the style, but you do better with your Ault, right?”
Seneya nodded. That oil had kept her hair from getting a lot worse. The oil kept her wings clean with Kael’s help. She was still learning how to groom them slowly but surely.
She started untying her bands one by one and reached up to touch her hair, but Willen seemed to have his own idea in mind. “Just get it on my hands, and I’ll spread it right.” Seneya obliged and held her wrists up for him to swipe over, bewildered and wide-eyed. Somewhere deep inside herself, Sohken bristled with indignation.
Kiri and Lyn stared at one another.
Dee raised a hand and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Willen, remind me to have a talk with you later.”
Seneya sat there with her hands out, letting Willen swipe and stroke her hair, lock by lock, spreading in the brightening oil. “You smell like roses, you know?”
“So I’ve been told,” Seneya muttered.
Willen worked quietly, finishing the ends of her hair, then scalp, before stepping back. Dee grabbed a rag and held it out to him, then blanched as Willen just wiped his hands down the sides of his shirt and pants.
“Oh, good lord.” Dee sighed exasperatedly, and Lyn stepped outside with the dustpan full of Seneya’s trimmed hair and shed feathers. She dumped it in a coffee can by the door and watched as smoke curled inside.
“Why are you burning it?” Seneya asked.
“It burns itself, dear. If there’s not enough mana around, your feathers, hair, anything just singes away.”
Seneya recalled Kael saying something about it before and nodded. She just hadn’t seen it happen.
Dee coaxed her out and back towards the kitchen and room where she and Kael had eaten earlier before her eyes had betrayed her. That small back room had grown more crowded, and Kael sat back at the table, toying with some man deadlocked in a grip. Kael genuinely seemed to be trying. His glance flicked over to the three walking in. Kael waved Seneya over and finished his match with a jerk of his wrist. The defeated man glared at him with shimmering golden eyes before sulking off. A few bills lay spilled across the table.
“They cleaned you up nice, little starling.” Kael’s nose twitched, and he glanced about. He gazed around Seneya curiously. “Dee, come here.”
Dee sauntered up with a wry smile. “I know. I didn’t have time to stop him.”
“This will be the first and only time that swan has had a woman’s mark upon him.” Kael glared at Willen, then peered back at Seneya. “Let’s say you try a few, huh?” He grinned again, and the brightness of his eyes gleamed. Dee smiled and sauntered off, dragging Willen with her by his shirt.
“Don’t go up against her; it’s a trick.” The man from before threw something over at them, a wadded-up napkin or something. Seneya stared at it on the ground then back over to the man. Every instinct within her raised. She had old impulses to recoil and withdraw that steadily morphed into these violent urges and need to assert her dominance. It scared her when those urges came with their own cool, collected calm.
“I learned from the best.” She tossed her hand up over her shoulder and extended her middle finger. Kael laughed and beckoned her into the opposite chair of him.
“Come on, throw your hand up here instead, yep. Let’s try!”
“Ready to lose!”
“That’s the spirit!”
Their hands grasped, the count to three sounded, and Seneya braced herself hard. Kael found there to be some resistance there, and he raised an eyebrow with surprise. However, his arm didn’t resist like a steel rod like she expected, even as she strained.
“Are you even trying?” Seneya grumbled as she forced her hand back against his own and found him actually having to fight back against her.
“Yep. You know you’re going to lose, right?” Kael didn’t seem like he was trying. Seneya, unconvinced, worked her shoulder into the momentum of it and watched with frustration as Kael slowly worked her arm down to slap against the table.
“You weren’t trying.” She pouted.
“Stop sulking.” Kael stood and patted her on the shoulder. He threw twenty bucks on the table. “Have fun.”
“Who wants to go at the lady?” Kael announced before wandering off, leaving her there alone, the object of stares from many men in the room. Kael grabbed the man that had thrown something at her by his shirt collar. Then, he dragged the drunkard with him out the back door.
Seneya blinked up as a silver-eyed enai man with long blonde hair sidled into the seat and extended his arm. He had thin arms, but Seneya knew looks could be deceiving. He laid another twenty on the table and offered his hand to her.
“A Lady, huh?”
Seneya shrugged but laced her fingers with his and the familiar thrum of magic running through his skin greeted her. It caught her off guard for a moment, and they were already saying ‘three’ by the time she caught her hand halfway to being bent back. She braced her arm and put her best into it as she wrenched it back to equal footing.
“I suppose.” Seneya flexed her wrist and twisted her hand just a little as she brought her arm against him. She gave the same energy she gave to Kael earlier, but he slowly succumbed to her pressure.
“Never knew a lady that would participate—” he huffed a breath and strained back into his arm, “In such debauchery.”
“Nor have I.” Seneya’s mouth twisted into a crooked grin as her lip rolled up over her filed teeth.
Dee wandered by, tending to the onlookers as the stranger struggled against her arm, losing purchase. She watched the display for a moment before cutting off to go handle other customers. Seneya found energy welling up within her, and in a flash, Seneya slammed his arm down. She surprised herself and gazed up with a bright-eyed grin. She had to check to make sure her eyes weren’t aglow.
Just like that, Seneya’s twenty had become forty! Another man came to challenge her, a human after that, then another Enai. She acted cautiously with the Enai and a little more frivolous with the humans. She lost a few times, straining against a burly Enai man for several seconds before getting her arm slammed back down. She lost a few twenties that way, but on the whole, she walked with about two hundred dollars when Kael finally patted her on the shoulder.
“You have no idea how happy you’ve made a few of the locals. They get bragging rights for life on this one, little starling.” He waved her off as she tried to hand him her winnings.
“It just means I need to work harder for next time.” For the first time, he saw her lips spread wide into a cocky, self-confident grin. She’d barely had a smile for Kael, and only in the weeks recent had she been jovial. She slipped the money away into her pocket.
“Now, are we okay to come back here occasionally?” Kael squeezed her shoulder and smiled when she grinned wider and nodded.
“Brilliant. Now come!” Kael waved as she leaped up and followed him in tow.
“I forgot to thank them.” Seneya wilted, and Kael stared at her funny.
“The fact that you allowed them to touch you and speak to you as such was a privilege that most would never have.”
“Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t thank them.” Seneya gave Kael a withering stare that he conceded to almost immediately.
“Fine!” He shrugged her off in the direction of the kitchens, then back to the salon. Seneya bid them farewell and thanked them for their help and service. Their delight made her smile, and because she was beaming so hard, it made Kael smile. He liked this new dynamic. It made him long for the day that Sael would have a child for him to tend to if he’d allow it.
Sael would have to let Kael because nobody else was strong enough to tend to the firstborn of a seraph inhabited by the spirit of Vrahe. Sael would go mad long before that child would get their fires. It stole the thunder from his moment, and he paused as they made their way towards the edge of town and the woods. Kael’s aura of anxiety spiked. Seneya didn’t need more of a signal than that before she shoved as hard as she could into his side and squeezed around his chest in a tight hug. The aura dropped, his reverie silenced, and he started smiling once more.
“We’re going to be okay,” Kael said softly.
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