As it turned out, their contact was someone Ástríðr also knew personally. Dame Rienna tol Ciencia, knight-captain of the Order of the Crown and the single greatest fighter in Her Grace the Prince’s service, was a woman almost equal to Ástríðr in stature, despite being disadvantaged in both height and musculature on account of her species. Her maroon eyes and close raven hair, arranged in what Katsumi would have called a pixie cut—though she knew not why that term sprung to mind, yet another of the gaps in her memory that were shrinking oh so very slowly—combined with her icy austerity to create an image like that of an ancient statue of some long-dead emperor given new life, and the armour she wore seemed somehow at odds with the rest of her appearance. Made up of what looked to be two different materials, her platemail fit the muscled contours of her body well without dangerous pitfalls like mammary armour, and appeared to be extremely expensive even absent the fact that it was polished to a fine reflective sheen, which must have been painstaking; the armour covered her from her neck to her feet with not a hint of non-metal materials exposed anywhere in between, and as mentioned before, she wasn’t a small woman.

They had proceeded to the Drunken Whore immediately after returning their raptors, with some terse words that Katsumi felt certain carried implied threats that she hadn’t caught, and Kyomi had taken it upon herself to explain the identity of who they were meeting at the bordello. They arrived just before their curfew, the sun dipping dangerously low on the horizon when they stepped over the threshold to see Madam Tsuyu, Tandem, and the knight-captain conversing genially. Katsumi had time to take in the woman and the massive shield, a scutum more than half her size and broader than she was, leaned up all but unattended against the bar, before the black-haired woman’s maroon eyes bolted her to the spot. There was a moment of profound unease, a feeling of exacting assessment sweeping over her, before the woman’s thin lips split into a smile too small to be welcoming and too large to be a smirk, that didn’t reach beyond her mouth, let alone to her eyes.

“Ah. That’s the drahn I’ve been looking for,” she said, and her voice was a caress like a dagger gliding over her flesh. Her teeth were straight, arranged perfectly, and just this side of inhumanly white, and they flashed every time her mouth moved. She walked towards Katsumi slowly, her stride an odd mix of a predator’s easy lope and a groom’s open, accommodating approach, and it did little and less to soothe Katsumi’s nerves as she heard the oiled mail and polished plates of her armour slide against each other with each step. One gauntleted hand rested on the pommel of a strange arming sword, too long to be a gladius, but similar in shape, resting in its scabbard secured to a belt buckled with a strange five-limbed symbol that oddly resembled a Christian cross with regards to the feeling it stirred within her. “Look up at me and meet my eyes, girl. Calm yourself, and be assured that I mean you no harm.”

Katsumi raised her head to look into the maroon of the woman’s gaze, impassive yet searching. It put ice down her spine, an aura of authority not even the dark knight could ignore coming off of the knight-captain in waves. Thankfully, whatever the woman sought, she found, and she then nodded with a certainty the drahn envied mightily. Katsumi’s hand twitched to reach for Deatheater, but she suppressed it; if she was to come to harm here, thusly surrounded by allies much more capable than she, she knew that even if she had a weapon to hand, it would do her no good.

“Maman, please. You’re scaring her.”

Ástríðr stiffened behind her, Katsumi noted, and oddly enough, so did Sonja. Curious.

Dame Rienna held her gaze for a moment longer before her smile became mirthful. She stepped aside, and from behind her stepped a hume woman who couldn’t have been more than twenty, her raven hair bound in a long single braid that rested over her shoulder and ran down her finery-clad front. Her dress’s sleeves were enlarged and billowed at the elbow, though an under-layer ran down the remainder of her arm, covering the better part of her hands but leaving the fingers free, together with her shoulders and collarbone. An elaborate metal choker, more decorative than functional, was closed around her neck, the deep red jewel displayed there swirling with unspoken mysteries in its precious depths. Her clothing consisted of layers of lavender, sable, and scarlet fabric, and though her gown was not so long that it reached the floor or excessively impeded her motion, it did give a fluid flow to her movements.

The girl’s face was beatific, though it stirred no attraction in Katsumi beyond the aesthetic acknowledgement of her gentle features, pale skin and a flawless complexion much like her own conforming to the structure of the girl’s face. Her lips were more plush than her mother’s, but not improperly so, and her brow was weaker than Katsumi’s, but not by much. Her eyes were startling, though, an aurum-hued gaze studying her passively. She smelled of incense and roses, and it stuck in Katsumi’s nose. The girl smiled, but it seemed almost like a mask, far too practised. “My name is Mercédès. It is good to finally meet you.”

“Finally? How do you know me?” Katsumi asked, wincing at how combative her voice sounded.

The girl, Mercédès, laughed, and it was like the peals of a bell. “Such suspicion! You are Katsumi of the Fallen Rain, are you not?”

Katsumi nodded uneasily. “To the best of my knowledge, I am, yes.”

“Well then!” She clapped her hands together. “Mother, do you know where Estinien wandered off to, by any chance?”

“No idea, Your Grace.”

“Maman…” Mercédès pouted, and then sighed. “So much for him, I suppose. You’ll have to leash your wayward squire one of these days, Maman. I’m no knight myself, but I’d wager a fair sum it’s hardly proper for him to be anywhere save close to hand. Oh well.”

Katsumi currently had two options. She could further inquire as to whether the girl and her mother had expected her that the word ‘finally’ was used, and have Mercédès avoid the question again, or she could possibly address the title that was just ascribed to the girl, and perhaps catch her off guard. “Excuse me, ‘your grace’?”

Mercédès froze, her eyes wide, and then closed them with a sigh, shaking her head. “Yes, indeed. My full name is Mercédès Charlotte Lucerne, and I have the dubious honour of serving the people of the Principality of Maelnaulde as their ruler. My mother, Dame Rienna, was…close…with my father, the previous prince, but as per his will, in his indefinite absence, I hold the office and title of prince. I had hoped to avoid this, as it usually ends with bowing and scraping and sycophancy, all of which being so very tiresome, but my mother continues to sabotage my efforts to that effect.”

Dame Rienna shrugged, wholly devoid of contrition. “She would have eventually discovered your ennoblement, and I daresay beginning relations with deception is at best poor manners, and is considered by most who are versed in diplomacy to be an act of startlingly bad faith. I won’t apologise for refusing to encourage bad habits.”

“…Be that as it may,” Mercédès sighed, colouring slightly from her mother’s seemingly casual, but firm, admonitions. She plastered another smile onto her face, this one radiating piety. “A dear friend of mine spoke of you at length, and, well, when Maman caught word from that odious little dwarf formerly running Maelnaulde’s Guild of Adventurers that you had shown up, I did my best to arrange a way to meet you face-to-face. And may I say, you do not disappoint.”

“‘Dear friend’? And who would that friend be?” asked Katsumi, tensing slightly as she ran through a mental list of everyone not herein assembled who had cause to be aware of her existence, and found only Apostles.

Mercédès cocked her head in confusion, but then the light of recollection blossomed behind her golden eyes. “Ah, yes, of course. She did say something like this was likely to happen. My dear, I speak of Mami of the Threefold Tomoe, your sister.”

The cogs that turned in Katsumi’s mind suddenly ground to a screeching halt. “My sister is dead.”

“She told me you might say that, yes,” Mercédès replied, nodding in understanding, and giving Katsumi the distinct impression that the prince was trying to console her. “Rest assured that I have been apprised of the…rather grisly…series of events that led to your separation. She laments it greatly. Why, when first I met her, all beaten and bruised, she simply could not stop speaking of you. I counselled her to have faith that you would survive without her intervention, and I am beyond pleased to know that I have not given the woman false hope. I have told entirely too many lies in the interest of keeping those who would rather die striving for happiness. I am glad that for once, I am not forced to add to that burden.”

Dimly, she became aware that she must be dissociating, as she could no longer feel her limbs, nor her torso, and indeed, she was certain that the prince was addressing someone else entirely with her words. Taking stock of the situation, she was aware of Ástríðr’s tension, standing as though a ramrod was aligning her spine, as well as the shock in the bearings of the other members of the party. Not at the fact that someone claiming to be her sister yet lived, though, but rather at the identity of that person. Apparently, Mami of the Threefold Tomoe was a household name in these parts. That was something she could latch onto, something far, far less world-shattering while still mostly relevant to the situation at hand.

“How do the rest of you know the name ‘Mami of the Threefold Tomoe?’” Katsumi heard herself asking, only just beginning to fight her way out of her dissociative haze.

“She’s a member of the Warriors of Light, the most famous adventuring company in the world,” explained Kyomi. “A white mage. The greatest of our generation.”

Kagura snorted.

“I said our generation, you magnificent dunce,” snapped Kyomi, punctuating it with a smack on her sister’s shoulder even as her voice ground with irritation. “Last time I checked, a thirty-five year age difference is way too broad for two people to be considered a part of the same generation!”

There was that chiming laugh again, though this time it was more of a giggle. “Your friends are very lively, Katsumi dear.”

Katsumi nodded. “They are. It took me off-guard, as my sister and I never… It was very different, how my sister and I interacted.”

“I can see that. Mami is very…how shall I say this…prickly?” Mercédès’s smile became one of commiseration. “Very particular about just about everything, and not exactly the most patient of people to boot.”

“That does indeed sound like my sister,” Katsumi remarked, a harsh chuff of mirthless laughter bubbling free of her gorge unbidden. “The sibling I know is very spirited. Or at least, she was, once…”

“Indeed. I will admit she only showed her true self after quite a bit of coaxing. Her recovery was a…difficult process. But she came out of the other end more or less whole.” The prince looked down for a moment, before returning her unsettlingly pleasant gaze to Katsumi. “Regardless, I wanted to see you for myself before telling my friend. She has quite enough to worry about without chasing smoke and mirrors and false alarms. Now that I am assured that the reports were accurate and that you do indeed yet live, I shall send word along to her. My mother has had the reward for the service you have done our fair city this day delivered, and as an additional show of goodwill, the dwarf Maerwhentt has been removed from his post, his predatory behaviours uncovered, and a report of his misconduct filed with the main branch in Rosenfaire. His sister Gwenett has been asked to substitute until such time as a new guild head has arrived, and has been suitably compensated for the task. As we now have full access to the deposed head’s ledgers, we have erased the incurred debts, as they were allotted to you in defiance of proper protocol. I, that is, we, expect no repayment, as this is done in observance of the debt of gratitude we owe your sister. May you continue to serve Maelnaulde, her people, and the citizens of the Free Cities.”

Katsumi nodded absently, and the prince nodded to her in turn, walking gracefully past her as her mother smoothly retrieved her shield, grabbing a full-length scarlet shoulder-cloak lined with gold filigree and secured with a clasp that strongly resembled a laurel vine, and fell in line just behind her daughter.

“Oh, and Sonja? Your presence is dearly missed at court. It is quite dull without my dearest companion. I trust I shall see more of you in the near future?”

Katsumi distantly heard Sonja gulp a little, occupied more with the shocking change of tone. Gone was the pleasant, pure piety, and in its place was a voice that was coquettish, but firm, and what it uttered was clearly anything but a request.

“I shall endeavour to not disappoint, Your Grace,” Sonja replied, her voice tight and high in her throat.

The prince made a small, prim noise of displeasure. “I suppose that shall do at present. Though I do hope that you will dispense with such formal nonsense upon our next meeting. Else, I am afraid I may be forced to detain you until you learn your error. Though, do not be overly alarmed—the dungeons are hardly conducive to the teaching of such lessons. Regardless, I bid you farewell, Uncle Tandem, Aunt Tsuyu. And…it was nice to meet you, Katsumi. Mami is as a sister to me, and if you and I were to be even half so well-acquainted, I would be elated. Ja ne!”

“Itterasshai,” Katsumi responded weakly.

The door opened and closed, and Katsumi’s knees faltered for a moment as the pressure swiftly abated the establishment, the sudden release stealing the tense strength from her body.

“Well then…”

Almost as one the band turned to the new, unfamiliar (to Katsumi) voice.

It was a woman. Her long, straight hair was inky-black, her skin a relatively light, yet vibrant, healthy tone, tanned but not especially deeply, more likely due to travel than farmwork or any sort of special activity to darken her flesh. Her facial structure was strong, still feminine, but unmistakably predatory, and more hardy than most, her voice quiet and softly sibilant like a drawn blade. And then the woman looked at Katsumi directly, locking eyes with her.

In that moment, Katsumi knew the woman bore the face of Death.

It was the eyes, she knew. The pale blue of them was cold, not like ice, but like the feeling that steals into one’s limbs as they run out of air and begin to drown. It was creeping, calm, frightfully indifferent, plucking a particularly harmonious string of existential dread inside of her. And all of a sudden Katsumi could only see how gaunt the woman looked in a certain light, her cheeks a touch too angular, her cheekbones a touch too pronounced, her dark brows casting perhaps slightly deeper shadows over her gaze than absolutely necessary.

“That was certainly something.”

“Worth putting in the effort to arrive early, Yuri?”

The woman shrugged, lifting a porcelain saucer, an ochoko, Katsumi remembered, up to her lips and downing it in one go. “I’d say that much is still open for debate. Still. Very high-profile new stray you’ve gone and adopted, Tanny.”

Tandem winced at that. “You know I hate that nickname.”

“Yes, and turnabout is fair play. I hate being called Yuri, you hate being called Tanny. Now we’re even.” The woman picked up the tokkuri on the table before her and set to work refilling the ochoko. “You’ve also done a piss-poor job of teaching your brats to be polite, it seems. It’s been what, three, four years?”

“Hey, Aunt Yuriya,” Ástríðr greeted, her inflections unusually terse.

“Hey kid. Your sister grown a spine yet, or were you just taking one for the team?” the woman Katsumi realised must be Yuriya the Sword Saint asked with bluntness that would shame a warhammer.

“I’ve grown a spine, Aunt Yuriya,” Sonja protested weakly.

The Sword Saint’s eyebrows climbed slightly as she raised and knocked another drink back. “Hmm. I’ll believe that when I see it. Words are wind, kid, and steel sings ever so much more sweetly.”

Then Yuriya’s deathly gaze swung from the paladin to Katsumi, fixing on her almost automatically, before pausing, the Sword Saint’s eyes growing slightly wider. She looked away with a small grimace, placing down the white ochoko and standing from the table to approach Madam Tsuyu. Tandem’s sister leaned in to mutter something into Tsuyu’s ear, and it was as though everything, even the dust falling from the rafters, ceased.

The next moment, the Sword Saint was on her back, Madam Tsuyu’s clenched fist extended in the follow-through. There was a hardness to the madam’s gaze that made the admonition she had given Kagura that morning look spongy by comparison.

Yuriya recovered quickly, and looked to her brother, only to find almost literal daggers flying from Tandem’s eyes.

All of this murderous, stand-offish tension shattered a moment later.

“I had no idea you were a cuckquean, sis.”

Kyomi’s words were whispered, but by no means discreet, and it snapped the three older adults out of their immediate and overt enmity. The Sword Saint huffed, and strode briskly over to them. Effortlessly, she grabbed Kagura around the waist and lifted her up into something that looked like a bridal carry but felt like a fireman carry to look upon it, the swift motion exposing her tapered ear. A full sister, then, Katsumi registered. But then Yuriya stood before her, almost fully two heads taller than she, and fixed Katsumi with her gaze once more.

Something within her reacted, realised that this was no time for fear or trepidation, and looked back at her, meeting her gaze evenly. “Is there aught you wish to discuss?”

The silence persisted for several protracted, pregnant moments, but then a smile sharp as a blade cut across Yuriya’s face. It was slightly Cheshire, and not-so-slightly falconine, yet Katsumi was devoid of fear in that moment, and felt no need to back down.

Finally, she spoke.

“That look in your eyes is close. But you’re still just a cheap imitation.”

And like that, the bird of prey lost interest in her, turning away and walking up the stairs, presumably towards Kagura’s chambers. When Yuriya was out of sight, Katsumi was suddenly very much aware of how suffocating the atmosphere had become. She felt everyone’s eyes on her, felt the press of their emotions against her mind, and in turn began to suffocate, herself. She dared not look at Ástríðr, dared not meet the gaze boring holes into the back of her head. Oddly, Sonja’s own was much more comforting. There was disgust in there, revulsion, hatred, rage, for one shining moment before the elf’s composure reasserted itself, and Katsumi took solace in the knowledge that for whatever reason, Sonja despised her, and had simply been hiding it. That was familiar, much more so than the concern and care in the rest of them. She could ground herself in the withering scrutiny of Sonja’s hatred, and return to herself in time, compose the face she showed to the world one more time.

And so that was what she did.

In. Out.

Inhale. Exhale.

“How may I be of aid tonight, Madam Tsuyu?”

Her question seemed to cause some of them to recoil ever so slightly, and still surprised the rest, save for the madam herself, whose gaze, while understanding, strongly resembled the expression of someone who had just swallowed a lemon. “You’ll be working the floor as a server tonight, Katsumi. Sonja, you’re upstairs, and pay close attention. The last thing we need is a corpse to dispose of because some drunken sod walked in on what’s going on in Kagura’s room. Ástríðr, you make sure to guard Kyomi. It’s likely with less active workers tonight, the chances of someone attempting something truly unwise are higher than normal.”

“…!” Ástríðr’s wordless, almost reflexive, protest was as apparent as it was perplexing. What was wrong with the security arrangements for the night…? Had Ástríðr thought to go out whoring on her own tonight?

The thought set frost to crusting the insides of Katsumi’s lungs, but she shoved the unpleasant sensation from her mind. Of course Ástríðr visited whorehouses and brothels and bordellos. Had she not said as much? It would be ludicrous of her to insist that that practise cease, and only slightly less nonsensical to feel uncomfortable at the prospect of its continuation. Control yourself. Don’t let your mind run away with you. You’ll only get yourself hurt. Again.

“Don’t, Ástríðr. I’m really not in the mood to argue this with you,” said Madam Tsuyu, her tone terse, her diction harsh and slightly accented. “Not tonight.”

Ástríðr’s tension was a palpable, physical force that ran through Katsumi even from a distance. When she spoke, her words were clipped, as though passing through gritted teeth. “Yes, Mother.”

With that, the three of them that remained dispersed to their posts, and Katsumi approached Madam Tsuyu. “Is there aught of which I should be made aware that concerns my task for tonight?”

Madam Tsuyu sighed, and her slender, elegant fingers began to pinch the bridge of her nose. “Yes, I suppose I cannot expect you to serve adequately if you are not made aware of what your job entails. Let’s be about it, then.”

Seething. It was the only word that really captured her feelings on the current situation.

Before tonight, Ástríðr had always…well, not liked; she was fairly certain that only the surviving members of her parents’ old adventuring company and Kagura actually liked Yuriya the Sword Saint, but respected her aunt. Indeed, Ástríðr had always respected her aunt, respected her prowess, her honesty, her directness, her strength, and many other things besides, even as she was put on edge at the sight of her. That wasn’t uncommon; the title of ‘Sword Saint’ was hardly saintly in the conventional sense, instead speaking of an almost unrivalled trail of mutilated corpses in the wake of the one who bore the moniker, after all, and so the danger that Yuriya posed, given that she freely, remorselessly, and with relative impunity engaged in the acts that had made her famous initially, was readily apparent even to the dimmest of dullards.

That had all changed tonight.

How.

DARE.

She.

The only consolation was that Mother had punched the bitch almost across the room at her comment, at the threat that Yuriya had made against Katsumi’s life.

You keep adopting mongrels, and I’ll have to start culling the herd.

The memory of those words, picked up by her ears, the ears of a trained musician, set her blood to a roaring, frothing boil every time she had managed to wrestle it back down to even a moderately-belligerent simmer. It took everything she had in that moment to restrain herself from stepping forth and trying to bludgeon Yuriya to death, so much so that no amount of risk assessment was able to help, and had Mother not immediately decked the cunt, the bard was certain that the fraying tether she had on her rage would have snapped.

And then Sonja…!

No. She shut that line of thought, and all of them that ran concurrent, down ruthlessly. She was on the verge, she knew, her rage heightening to such an intensity that it began to grind against itself like a whetstone and blade, on the sheerest possible edge of the tranquil fury that was the origin of many of the scars she now bore upon her body. No thoughts. No emotions. Not a one. Complete lockdown.

It seemed only the space of a breath had passed before the scent on the air hit her nose. Poison, she immediately knew, but it was not airborne; it was the smell of a specific flower, but somehow not at all floral. It was belladonna, the aroma that reached her, but cut with the tang of blood and overwhelmingly carnal. She recognised this smell, she realised. It was not some perfume or extract, but rather, impossibly, the smell of Katsumi’s hair and skin, wiped clean of the scented rose oils her mother had used to bathe the girl.

The recognition brought her back to herself despite her efforts, and anew did her rage begin to rise and surge. She was fuming at what had happened all over when Katsumi entered her view, standing before her, eyes shifting anywhere but her, until with a concerted effort, the girl looked the bard in the face, resolute.

“I wanted to apologise, first of all. It was not my intention to put your planned…activities for tonight on hold,” she began, and Ástríðr’s rage all at once halted and reversed into what she could only call profound confusion. “I am unaware, I’m afraid, of the…of the going rate for the type of…companion with whom you typically occupy yourself on nights such as this, but as I hold myself at least partly culpable for the current state of affairs that affronts you so, and find myself powerless to ameliorate the situation unilaterally, I feel it would only be proper for me to compensate you for such things so that you can…indulge tomorrow night.

“To that end,” she said, taking a deep breath, clearly struggling with what she was saying even as Ástríðr was still entirely nonplussed on what she was attempting to communicate, “I have decided to relinquish my share of the quest’s earnings to you, that I might repay the balance of how my presence has caused you to be inconvenienced tonight. I pray that that will be sufficient, as I currently am devoid of alternate means to achieve the same goal, but that shall, I suppose, ultimately be at your discretion. Despite that, I pray you have a…a tolerable night, Ástríðr. Now, I must go. We shall shortly be open, as I understand it, and Madam Tsuyu is awaiting my return.”

Katsumi bowed stiffly at the waist, and then walked away with a touch more celerity than was strictly necessary as she left the corridor and walked down the stairs. The footfalls of her deliberate gait got more and more distant, until they changed subtly, impacting on the floorboards of the ground level, the tavern. It wasn’t until she heard the beginnings of the usual crowd of patrons trickling in to start their night that Katsumi’s words finally caught up to her, and her mind finally registered what the girl meant to articulate.

And then, it clicked. It was as though a veil lifted from her eyes, realisation, revelation striking her like a black mage’s Thundaga, the gears clicking together, finally in their proper place, and the picture it painted of the day’s events until that point was so agonisingly simple and so painfully obvious that she felt like an absolute imbecile for not realising it sooner.

Despite this, for the first time in what felt like an eternity, Ástríðr smiled.

It was clear to her, now, how Katsumi felt. As she reviewed every word, every motion, every action, every reaction the girl had taken over the course of the day, it was as obvious as the sunrise how she felt and what she thought, how deeply she had misjudged how Ástríðr felt, misinterpreted every word out of the elf’s own mouth, and in turn caused the bard to misjudge her. It was a trap, she realised, an overt and self-evident double bind, resulting from the fact that Katsumi was very good—though far from perfect—at not displaying her feelings to the world; she could compartmentalise and school her expressions, appear impassive and unaffected regardless of what her actual level of investment in the situation truly was, and Ástríðr would be kicking herself viciously for falling for it were she not already grinning like a fool.

The problem was clear as day. Katsumi did not understand how Ástríðr felt about her. And as self-evident as the problem was the solution.

Her heart raced, beating out of time as Ástríðr moved swiftly and with purpose to the stairwell, studiously avoiding the suspicion in her sister’s pointed gaze. She would deal with Sonja later. Much later, preferably. She had more important things to worry about, like not stumbling down the stairs because she was too excited by the euphoria welling up to bursting in her chest and raging through her veins, clouding her mind with such riotous emotions she felt like they were moments from erupting through her skin; she planted her feet on each step, taking each stride forth down the stairs deliberately enough to not slip while not slowing her procession overmuch, and restrained a sigh of relief when she finally stepped onto the tavern floor.

She had grown up here. This place was her home, and there was no greater reminder of that than the sight before her, the warm lighting setting the room in joyous hues fit for carousing, fitting for the sanctuary that it was, the tables packed with the downtrodden of all walks, from down-on-their-luck craftsmen to old, grizzled sellswords to boys, orphans most like, still wet behind the ears but carrying the distinct pallour and sickly countenance that came with a recent first bloodying. They were gearing up to get into full swing, and Katsumi was already weaving her way deftly among them, her baldric and satchel shed to leave her in an appearance that would not look out of place on a true, professional barmaid. Tankards went down, and young hands began to wander until older hands slapped them away, the experienced patrons knowing that it would be a uniquely bad idea to overstay their welcome in such a fashion and not willing to risk ejection from their Edenian haven. The fire of the oven in the kitchen surged through the area, a little marvel of her home’s design that channelled heat into the rest of the building to ward off the biting night chill, and Mother stood in the corner of the room, her jade eyes fixed on Katsumi as she wove her way through, the look in her eyes one of instruction and assessment, a gaze with which the elf twins had much familiarity, having gone through childhood and adolescence under its exacting yet fair scrutiny. Her luscious, plum-hued lips embraced the end of her kiseru as she nursed at it in deliberation, while Father worked behind the bar, pouring the contents of multiple kegs of liquid courage.

Before tonight, in a situation on which much hinged, she would down a tankard herself, finding the pleasant buzzing burn in her gut emboldening. She found she needed no such encouragement tonight; the fury that had so troubled her earlier was now raging within as fiery, ravenous desire, surging through her limbs and down her core, and none of the fears that had plagued and unbalanced her in the mithril mines could reach her now. Not tonight. Not with her newfound understanding branded into the forefront of her mind, written in flame upon the very fabric of her soul.

A breath. She started forward again. This was her home, certainly, but that didn’t matter. Nor did the wry quirk of Mother’s lips that she spied in her periphery move her from her course. Not now, and she found it difficult to comprehend the idea that it might ever again in the days and years to follow. There was a yawning emptiness, a hunger unlike any other, that dominated her every thought, and the only sustenance that could slake it stood before her, her eyes like amethysts glinting in the gentle luminescence even as they widened in stunned surprise, her petite mouth with its full lips parted ever so slightly, strong yet slender dark brows climbing into her forehead.

She was a vision.

Five steps. Four. Three. Two. One. One arm surged about the girl’s waist as the other caught her upper back, across her oddly avian shoulder-blades, enveloping their span. Their bodies crashed against each other, her lover’s svelte form pressed up against her in slight helplessness, in wondrous, supple supplication, slightly stiff in surprise and shock. Ástríðr’s control did not snap; it shattered into thousands of miniscule shards that tinkled in her mind’s eye like little bells in beatifically destructive harmony. She lunged forth, passing through the set of curling horns undeterred to claim Katsumi’s mouth in a searing, devouring kiss, and the girl froze for the barest flicker of a moment before her body relaxed, moulding to the elf’s own in what was, despite Ástríðr’s extensive experience in the arena, the most overwhelmingly and profoundly erotic display to which she had ever borne witness.

Ecstasy ripped through her, sharpening every sense and painting the world around her in wondrous contrasts and halcyon hues, but it was not enough; her appetite was whetted, her desperate, wild craving blazed to primal refulgence, the crowd’s roaring cheers providing a magnificent accompaniment to the redoubling crescendo of her need. Her hand clasped into a claw-like grip at the lithe yet full swell of her lover’s scaled hip, her fingers squeezing greedily to the point of pain, eliciting a small, sharp gasp from the girl in her grasp, the girl she would never release, never relinquish, could never even consider the possibility of rejecting without feeling intensely, mortally sick. Something bestial and base roused insistently within her, constricting mercilessly in the base of her abdomen at the sound, and yet she wanted more.

She broke the kiss suddenly, and as though burned, her hand at the girl’s waist sprung away, lunging forth to the low neckline of her blouse, not nearly low enough. With a single monstrous tug, she tore it open, the odd foreign breast-binding Katsumi seemed to like giving way together with it without so much as a heartbeat’s span of resistance. Katsumi gave a sound of protest, but Ástríðr could barely discern it over the roaring rush of blood in her ears, the incessant percussive pounding of her heart that sent intoxicating fulmination sparking in a mad, senseless frenzy through her veins coupling with the low vibration she felt emerging from her diaphragm, unbidden.

She tightened her hold on the girl’s shoulder, and in the grips of a sudden passion, a lunatic impulse, whirled her around so abruptly Ástríðr would have been concerned about dislocating her shoulder in any other context. Her arm reasserted its control, conquering the span of her lover’s collarbone and pressing the not-inconsiderable swell of the girl’s tailed posterior flush against her own furious member, whose painful engorging she had not had the awareness to take notice of before the soft, supple give of Katsumi’s flesh touched against it, sending sparks thundering throughout her with a small hiss.

The arm that had torn the blouse to little more than ribbons now raced around Katsumi’s narrow waist once more, dropping lower to span her hips from one lush curve to the other. The modest, perfect swell of the new girl’s bosom elicited wolf-whistles and other such appreciative gestures that were entirely lascivious to various diminishing degrees of decency, and it would have boiled Ástríðr’s blood mere hours ago. Yet the bard’s inner beast, the savage, ravenous monster that brought the storm, revelled in it, in the displaying of her absolute dominance of what these men and patrons saw and audibly desired, but could never have, basked in the glorious futility of their entreaties.

Ástríðr drew closer over Katsumi’s shoulder, the elf dragging her tongue up the side of her lover’s face, and muttering a hair’s breadth from the girl’s horn. “Look at them all. They covet that which they cannot have. And they cannot have you, I won’t allow them to even consider it, not for one second more. You honestly thought that your money was worth more to me than you? How cute. Keep it. I will bed you tonight. Right now.”

The shudder that went down the girl’s elegant spine sent such delicious sensations through Ástríðr’s body where they pressed against each other, and from the profuse flush that set Katsumi’s cheeks ablaze together with the glassy haze that shrouded her eyes, Ástríðr knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was not from revulsion or any sort of true fear. At the girl’s halting, unsteady nod, Ástríðr grinned from ear to ear, and all but dragged the girl back up the stairwell. Her mother and the rest of the tavern could respectfully get bent for all she cared at that precise moment, and any moon-addled bastard who thought it a capital idea to take liberties with Kyomi deserved what was coming to him.

There was no way to express the sensation roiling inside her. Triumph was too small. All other words failed. Like a woman possessed did she eventually lift and carry Katsumi up the steps and down the corridor into her own chambers, almost giddy as she swept across the threshold.

It was a whirling maelstrom as soon as she kicked the door closed, her lover landing on Ástríðr’s bed with a sharp exhale, and not a heartbeat passed before Ástríðr was once more upon her, unable to get enough, the feeling of her skin and scales, the smell and texture of her flesh and hair, the sounds of her pleasured whimpers and stifled moans exciting her craving, her addiction, yes, she had partaken once and now could not think to live without it, to rage higher and hotter.

“You are mine, my love. Do you hear me? Mine, and no other’s. I will not be separated from you. We will not be parted. You are mine, and you will continue to be mine long after your final breath has passed between your lips. You are mine, to ravish, to adore, to love, to devour, and I will hear no protest on the matter!” Ástríðr sounded half-mad in her sudden impassioned ravings to her own ears, but as Katsumi’s face erupted in shock, then melted into welling tears and a smile that was blinding despite its size and its tenderness, she knew with certainty that they had been exactly what her love had needed to hear. Which was brilliant, because Ástríðr did not believe that she could have stopped herself from saying them, and the extent and intensity of her absolute conviction in their truth made apostasy out of fanaticism.

A charged, rosy tint settled upon her view, obscuring her awareness, and suddenly Katsumi’s moans became harder to bite back, whimpers turning into pleas, rapture stealing throughout Ástríðr as she heard the almost incoherent ramblings tumble from the girl’s perfect lips that she longed to bruise and swell with her own, the flexing and tensing muscles that shifted beneath pale flesh stoking the elf’s longing to spend an eternity inscribing the extent of her need onto every ilm of her lover’s skin—figuratively, of course, she would never blaspheme the uninterrupted alabaster of her pliant form with a blade—to a fevered, maddening pitch.

Incensed, Ástríðr’s hips finally lurched forward; and when she felt Katsumi’s womanly warmth enclose around her as she buried herself into her love’s innermost depths, the draconian girl’s body arching upwards into her like the bent limbs of a bow, the entire expanse of Ástríðr’s mind went blessedly blank, her every thought enveloped and subsumed into the white void that spanned indefinitely in every direction. A slow expression of senseless paradise shifted her features, and as she looked down, she saw the moon and the stars in her love’s eyes.

God is in His Heaven, and all’s right with the world…