Leresai stepped down from the saddle a mere dozen yards away from the steps where the guards stood.

She could have chosen to close the gate for some privacy as she tended to the horse's needs but that would arouse their curiosity even more than the display she gave them as she twisted her shoulders from side to side with her arms raised up and her breasts extended out.

She then gripped the back of her lower torso with both hands to pop her spine.

Leresai sashayed her haunches with exaggerated footfalls for the guards as she inspected the horse. Satisfied the beast sustained no wounds to body or hoof on the journey, she led it to a trough of water where it began to gulp eagerly.

Once done with his drink, she led the beast to a stall where she backed it in. She wrapped the lead rope to a hooked standing pole and tied the end into a false knot.

From a saddlebag she retrieved a small sack. Though an excellent rider Leresai was entirely apathetic towards the equine species. An elven spearmaiden of fey song and fairy tale was expected to possess a sentimental attachment towards animals.

Expectation being the basis of disguise, Leresai played the part. From the bag she produced a radish. As she fed the horse, her hands rubbed against the mane while singing a provincial elven tune as prettily as she was capable of affecting.

After the horse finished off the radish, there came a few carrots, and also an apple for it to munch on. Leresai noticed the horse's eyes resting half covered under lids and the beast's jowls slacking. The horse appeared too content.

"You better do as we practiced, she whispered in a husky growl, "or else I am feasting off of your rump for a week."

The horse lowered its head and sniffed at an empty bucket. She took a brush from the saddlebag and proceeded to comb out muss in it's caramel-colored mane. The beast responded with perked ears and swayed tail.

Leresai put her lips to its ears, singing a honey phrased melody for the benefit of the guards. She leaned against the horse's neck with her arse tilted into the air.

A memory made her smile as she held onto the horse.

"When I was a mere lass," she whispered to it once more, "there was nothing I enjoyed more than hunting wild ponies at high tide on the barrier islands along the Reiver's Coast.

"The water would rush up on us to rive the sand narrow, causing chaotic stampede. If the beasts turn on you, your mettle for the hunt better prove true, else backed up into the waters, an undertow would tumble you down to Domdaniel for all eternity."

She placed the brush back in her saddle bag.

"Lovely story, no," she asked with a kiss on the side of its head. "You weren't expecting a kiss now were you? Play along. Give those men a show. Pretend you enjoyed it. There, there, good boy."

The horse's name she did not bother to retain when she was told it by the trainer weeks earlier. It responded well enough to 'you' for it not to matter.

"You do not wander off. You don't move until you see the light. Stay."

With her obligation to the beast complete, she reached into the side bag where she hid the D'jestre cutlass along with her other weapons which had to stay sheathed and bagged on the palace grounds.

Beside it lay a package addressed to Lord Carro, Treasurer to House Lyoneid, city of Nevespora, Vistaraille Providence, Midvries.

With package in hand, Leresai strode up to the bottom of the steps.The guards appraised her with their eyelids drawn low and the hint of smirks on their faces suggested they had grown familiar with her already.

Spending so much time on horseback did wonders to shape her derierre, so she gathered.

"I have a package for the coinsman of the House Lyoneid," she announced.

The guard to her left leaned slightly forward.

"In the Midvries we refer to the coinsman as 'the treasurer'," he corrected, in a gentle helpful tone.

"Ah," she bowed her lips apart in an accentuated droop. "Thank you, sieur. I shan't forget."

"Quite all right." He turned to his companion. "Pikesman Genoa."

Following ages-old protocol, Leresai removed her helm; she held it in her left hand cusp and she held the package clasped against her right forearm.

Pikesman Genoa opened the doors of the palace west wing in the stead of her entrance. Leresai walked into a foray that could fit a well-stocked meadhall even in prosperous Tos-Fervarrynn.

Another set of guards stood at the end of the red carpet. Double brass doors secured behind them. Her earlier jest proved to be without merit as nothing in the hall appeared out of place for a tasteful interior of Midvries design.

She was expected to march the length of the carpet and stand between the guards. There would be a minute where she would be studied by an unseen observer, possibly the seneschal himself, before the next set of double doors would open.

Leresai stood with feigned indifference in line to the dictate of protocol. Many a spy had been betrayed by their own impatience brought about by conflicting agendas pressed upon them. She was well aware they may already know her true purpose. If so, there would be no reason to end the stalemate until she was brought to Lord Carro.

After the doors opened into the main hall of the wing an attendant marched up toward her. The woman was diminutive of body, as small as a Jezde, and wrapped in white silk with gold trim. She wore a matching head scarf.

The attendant carried a light blue ceramic pitcher and a large crystalline glass on a platter. Jagged emblems embedded in its side made the glass easy to grasp as she readied it for pouring.

The glass now held milk. Leresai smiled, her cheeks skewed severely to avoid a full smirk.

If I came here in the guise of an old dwarven crone they would have served me a pilge water stout poured into a dirty, wooden mug.

A trifle of a rite, but having her drink milk held an ulterior purpose. She was still being assessed. Leresai took that to be indicative that she was still an unknown quantity to the House Lyoneid.

They would likely have dispensed with this test altogether as not to put her on edge until the trap was sprung to their advantage if they had foreknowledge of her purpose.

Leresai bowed her head towards the woman in thanks. She proceeded to drink the glass of milk with her neck arched to suggest the constitutional delicateness of elvenkind with an exaggerated wrenching of her throat with every gulp.

It tasted of earthy grass, sweet wild winter chives and buttery cream. As a provincial born elf, as all elven spearmaidens were, she was expected to know from what animal the milk originated. She swallowed hard, then stopped. She needed to taste it slowly.

Do I need to evoke the silver? For something so facile?

The composition of the milk eluded her senses. With the final dram swishing in her mouth she simply did not know. The petite woman came to her aid with a knowing arch to her brow.

"The road must have been long and arduous, dear elf. Care for another fill?"

"Thank you," Leresai conceded, gratefully.

The attendant was evidently well-trained in the etiquette of diplomacy. She would naturally err on the side of avoiding embarrassment, so she poured another glass full.

Leresai accepted the glass. This time she gave the traditional toast of elven festival, "aie… à môüvis ayyiëz!" With rolling syllabication that only an elf would dare express.

Raising the glass to her lips, she closed her eyes to evoke the silver while sipping slowly. She felt a sudden rush of heat clear out her nostrils. When the heat lapsed, her sense of smell became more rarefied with no false analogs to muss her intuition.

She now knew.

With the giggle of a much youthful girl, Leresai blurted out, "a one corn billy!"

The silver dissipated rapidly. She now opened up her eyes, and looked directly into the attendant's own.

"It took me a moment as the beast is being housed nearby in an environ alien to her species. I detect a hint of the nettles from firs that came from the very grounds of this palace in its diet."

The attendant glanced over to a wall obscured by green tinted glass and grilled metal lattice work. She appeared pleased with herself. She bowed her head.

"When I was a mere lasmer," Leresai explained, "I had a corned billy of my own to love on and play catch. Thank you, ever so much."

She returned the glass to the serving tray. The attendant walked away.

From behind her back, Leresai heard, "come along, White Hawk."

A man in a long black gabardine robe strode past her. He held his hands clipped together behind his back. His fingers waved her forward. The stiff plaid collar of the shirt beneath his robe marked him as the seneschal of this palace wing.

Leresai followed him down a hall whose interior design was spare of intricacy with solid one tone panels in a shade lighter monochrome trim butted against the inlay of other solid panels.

Nothing busy, nor extravagant. Subtle equated to tasteful in the Midvries. Set in geometric dislocation, in a slight irregular pace along the walls, were oil medium portraits of royals composed of characteristic shadowed volumes.

The portrait paintings were made to contrast with the bright hewed pastel cityscapes set adjacent to them. One such showed the old temple's red plaster and rough oak walls aligned against distinctive parabolic buttresses arched up high, like the bones of a crown roast.

The words Rhoethella spoke as she carved the geas into Leresai's heart when they last met reverberated taut and strained now as she stared at the cityscape depiction of the temple.

The words returned to Leresai through the pulse resounding in her blood.

Yet, the sky still raves and the temple is no more.

The seneschal did not disturb her study. His arms rested loose behind his back, and with his shoulders aslant he seemed to have all the time in the world to humor her enthralled state of mind.

Once she caught up to him, with a nod of his head, he asked, "any one of those dictate to your heart's fancy, White Hawk?"

"Most definitely, good sieur,"she said with an appreciative nod, but without elaborating.

All that lie before her was laid out as expected of a palace of the Midvries. Until it wasn't.

As they approached the T-intersection connecting the wing with its twin a large figure dominated a niche in the wall they faced. The seneschal slowed as they approached the statue.

"I see your imagination is once again captive, White Hawk."

She knew that statue well. She even witnessed its excavation when she lay low in the Suüdlands march guarding Hosparr's excavation.

It was discovered beneath the hill near the fort ruins. Wyrjackels gathered there every night to howl. Once Leresai slayed the beast, it became evident their congress was ceremonial and something important lay beneath the grounds.

"It must be a thing of ancient days. What is she?" Leresai feigned ignorance.

"History only knows this goddess as the Bride. You see those rounded lips curved down revealing small but sabered canines? There is a bust whose top half is split in two that has survived of her as well. It is believed to have been broken apart by a mallet swung by Izdun, himself."

Leresai, of course, knew all of this from her close association with Hosparr. What was proper, however, for her to say, and reveal, and what T'nonnon'B would be expected to know were mutually irreconcilable.

"This," the seneschal continued with a sweep of his hand, "is the only fully formed visage mankind has of her in extent.

"We have it on loan from the College of Archeology at the University of Nevespora. It is here so we can keep it secure for them. The cost to do so at the university would cost a prohibitive fortune."

"She is strangely beautiful in her own fashion," Leresai commented. "Not at all in the way of lass or lassmer kind."

The seneschal grew animated in their discussion. He would make for an excellent curator, she thought, if it came to be that he was relieved of his duties for her upcoming actions.

"Note how she is posed in a curtsied bow. Right foot set forward, the other one with toes spread out. Her knees bent straight down, back arched and her modest bosom in lifted repose.

"An elegant, danseuse pose. A hint that she may have come from a nation of the Old Suüd.

"It is their honeymoon and she is in the midst of delighting the one who held her hand. The dance that preceded a million deaths is how it went down in legend."

"He forgave her the first time."

The seneschal raised his chin with a quick nod.

"Yes. For whatever her transgression may have been, Izdun still sent a fleet of chariots across the grazelands of the East to return her to his side."

Leresai paused for a moment to ask herself what would be the most evident notion to cross T'nonnon'B's mind.

"Her skin, is it naturally so green?"

"That is melted jade that glistens beneath a thin sheen of diamond to emulate what is reputed to be the natural luster of her skin. It is also the reason the statue cannot be kept at the University."

Leresai was taller than the seneschal by half a head. She stared down at him with wrinkled forehead and furled brows.

"There is no race of man nor mer whose skin is naturally green. What is she?"

The seneschal shrugged.

"My own speculation, the sirens come closest in dermal hew with their variance of light aquamarine and dark azure. Perhaps a mating of one with a man of the deep Suüd.

"A question for another day perhaps if you ever do grace these quarters again. Right this way, White Hawk. Let's not keep the treasurer waiting. Lord Carro hasn't received a single visit from the Elven Goddom since being appointed Treasurer. I'm sure he will find you to be the utmost good company."

"His first? I'm not diplomatic corps material. Just a simple lasmer remôsefully missing my maidenspear."

They approached a set of double doors with the placard marked Treasurer in Imperial.

"I'm certain you will do fine," the senechal said with casual laughter and reassuring smile.