Story: Fires of Sigil (all chapters) — Deviant Hearts Archive

Sigil was experiencing a cold snap. Icy, foggy, humid air hung low over the city's cobbled streets, streaking stone walls with dank moisture. It was a bad day: grey and overcast, even more so than the residents of Sigil had come to expect from their foreboding, sunless sky. The snaking alleyway was icebound, the terrain slippery under Shesayne's feet.

But the petite half-elf was undeterred. Her movements were deft and she skipped expertly over the cracked paving. The paving was interwoven with little pools of freezing water, glazed with murky skins of blackened ice. Shesayne braced herself against the cutting wind and hugged herself close. Her wardrobe had not anticipated the sudden fall in temperature, so she had to settle for wearing one of Astrid's battered old grey overcoats. It was far too big for her. Shesayne was short, slender and so waifishly elfin that most mistook her for a full-blooded High Elf. Only her lightly tan skin gave her ancestry away. Otherwise, her impish smile and youthfully pretty features were precisely what one would expect from an Elf - and a very comely one at that. Her mouth was soft, always curled in amusement, her almond eyes turquoise-blue, her hair short, raven-dark, and casually held in place by a fine dragon-turtle shell comb. Her slim, delicate limbs were wiry and tense with excitement.

It was as though everything in the world fascinated her, even on a dreary evening. A fateful dreary evening, to be more precise, since Shesayne had managed to schedule herself a performing slot at the Celestial Ring - a moderately reputable night-haunt for Sigil's would-be intellectuals of modest means. It was, in other words, a place with aspirations - much like Shesayne herself.

The first few droplets of icy, needle-like rain began to fall as Shesayne reached the threshold of one of the tall, skeletally ramshackle buildings that hung menacingly over the alleyway. She reached under her overcoat and fumbled for her keys. Her fingers felt numb. Even with a thick, grey wool pullover and multichrome leggings under her coquettishly short breeches, it was still absolutely freezing. Shesayne rubbed her hands together. Her misting breath billowed in the looming twilight of the deserted street. Coming home, she reflected, could not have been so wonderful had it not been so miserable outside. The rickety door, framed in rusted iron, gave way and Shesayne dashed through the decaying entrance hall and up three flights of narrow, spiralling stairs. There, at the landing, she hastily unlocked the door to her apartment and let herself in.

Inside, it was pleasantly warm. Astrid had conjured up a prism of floating, orange light that cast a pleasantly homely glow on their tiny living room. As usual, chaos reigned. Astrid had disassembled a vastly complex piece of magical circuitry on their kitchen table. Metal and crystals, arranged in winding, circular patterns like an alien calligraphy were strewn around the table and its adjacent chairs. Much to her chagrin, Shesayne noted the dirty laundry on the divan waiting to be taken to wash was exactly where she had left it earlier that morning before leaving for work. Astrid, though, was deeply absorbed in her work.

Hunched over the table, a long, thin, adamantine needle in hand, she skilfully calibrated the circuitry of a burned faerie fire board. Although she was human, Astrid was a self-professed lover of all things Elven. Tall, slimly built, with a certain scholarly elegance, what made her particularly striking was her short-cropped azure-dyed hair, curious, emerald eyes and a fine, charming dusting of freckles on her nose and cheeks. Shesayne always found that they did much to soften Astrid's otherwise sharp, classically Northern, Ortho features. At least, Astrid appeared less the severe Valkyrie and more the cute, curious mage. That, naturally, suited Shesayne just fine. She had fallen in love with Astrid's odd, irreverent lust for life. Astrid at work, even in her creased white shirt and dark blue breeches, was irresistible.

Shesayne shut the door behind her, threw off her overcoat and gratefully kicked off her ankle boots, before pouncing, quite amiably, on Astrid, feathering the human woman's hair with kisses. "Having a dreary, depressing and unforgiving day?" Shesayne chimed. She spoke quickly, with just a rich hint of wondrous Elven musicality.

"Busy," Astrid replied curtly. She used a magical cantrip to mentally jam a storage crystal while she recalibrated its platinum feeds.

"Why so cold?" Shesayne pouted. "If you're going to be like this, I could've just as well stayed outside -- "

"Just trying to earn a living, Shesayne," Astrid retorted, more wearily than she would have wanted.

Shesayne released her playful grip of Astrid's taut belly and drew back, a little hurt. "Well, if I'm not welcome, I might as well make my way back into the cold and rain and try my luck to see if some kind soul'd share her food and fire with me -- "

"Dammit, Shesayne -- " Astrid groaned. Shesayne knew exactly how to manipulate her. The half-elf was an accomplished actress, so that whenever she put on the 'poor orphan girl' scene, complete with half-choked sobbing, Astrid could actually imagine her lover cold, hungry and alone on the streets. "Come here, then." She spun around and seized Shesayne by the waist, pulling the slender half-elf into her lap. Shesayne seized the opportunity, straddling Astrid's hips and tilting the human mage's chin to draw her into a searing, wet kiss. Defeated, Astrid's lips parted, her tongue flinging itself in a wanton dance. The half-elf's lips were soft, still a little cold, but welcoming and sweet, like water after a long drought. It had really been a long day.

"Y'see," Shesayne teased, cocking her head curiously to one side to observe Astrid's ever-fascinated expression, "that wasn't too hard now, was it? I guess I'm lucky 'cause it's so much easy-easier to be nice to me."

"Oh? And I suppose this is because you're such a sweet, modest girl who likes to help out her long-suffering, hard-working lover."

"Nope," Shesayne countered, "let's see -- I've done a little thieving, a little peeling of clueless berks and my favourite outfits are things that'd give my mother an apoplectic attack, but -- all in all, I think I'm a pretty sweet, lovely and unique find, what about you?"

"Granted," Astrid smiled and gave Shesayne's cheek a quick kiss. She smelled of peach blossoms. "Plus you have the added benefit of brightening up my day - nothing like a lovely half-elf to perk up an afternoon -- well, maybe a nice cup of proper tea, but we'll discuss that when they up my commission."

"Are you comparing your tea and your half-elf?" Shesayne purred, undulating her hips ever so subtly in Astrid's lap. " 'Cause with a half-elf, you can go from daily grind to daily grind - if you catch my drift."

"I do, but only because you're so witty and I'm so clever." Shesayne's good-natured bawdiness always made Astrid smile.

"Sure -- let's put it another way," Shesayne leaned forward to press her lips against Astrid's ear, her tongue flicking wetly against the human mage's soft, pale skin, "you're going to go back to work and I'll spread out on the couch, slip my hand into my breeches and start exploring my nicely wet inner petals -- then when you can't take it anymore, you'll strip me, mash your pussy against mine and fuck me till my throat aches from coming for being such a naughty, slutty little Elf."

"So -- I suppose the fact that our rent is in arrears doesn't bother you." Astrid felt her sex tighten with desire. Shesayne simply ignored her and renewed their kiss, her lips moist and pliant. Dextrous, nimble fingers slipped under the waistband of Astrid's breeches. Shesayne felt soft down, hot and damp with arousal. Body hair was a feature most Elves found disgusting, but Shesayne adored the blue-dyed thatch of Astrid's pussy, or the fine, golden hairs, like almost imperceptible wisps, that flowed up the human mage's arm. Elves were far too delicate - humans were earthy, thick with salt and musk. Astrid's sex felt soft, slick and molten under Shesayne's fingers. The human mage moaned and rolled her hips, her sighs absorbed by Shesayne's insistent kisses.

Shesayne began to unbutton Astrid's shirt, slowly at first, popping each link to reveal an ivory expanse of smooth skin, enriched here and there by a tantalising freckle. Shesayne kissed each dark point of flesh, her tongue leaving glistening trails. Astrid's shirt slipped open, revealing her small, beautifully proportioned breasts, each capped by a big, stiff cherry-pink nipple. Heat, pulsing heartbeat under Astrid's skin, dew-slick petals parting under Shesayne's fingers - it was spontaneous, almost urgent. Shesayne pulled her hand out and pressed her viscous fingers between her lips and Astrid's - thick, creamy nectar - salty, visceral, female, human. They licked it clean. Astrid caressed Shesayne's pointed ears, her thumbs tracing the delicate contours, flowing into the half-elven girl's high cheekbones. Astrid could taste her own flavour on her lips, her nostrils flooded by the scent of her inner dew - that slick secret that now pooled between her thighs and stained her breeches.

"You were saying something 'bout the rent -- " Shesayne said, her throat cloyed with passion. Her fingernails brushed against Astrid's nipples - sweet like firm berries. She shuddered as she heard the human mage mewl softly.

"Was I? Completely slipped from my mind." Astrid moved her hands under Shesayne's pullover. Soft wool gave way to smooth flesh. She traced the contours of the girl's hard belly and flanks, circling upwards to finally caress her soft, gorgeously rounded breasts. Shesayne's nipples pebbled against the wool of her pullover, tenting the fabric. Hot, lust-engorged flesh came under Astrid's fingertips. Shesayne drew a soft, sighing breath and smothered Astrid's lips, her kiss deliberately wet, deep and sensual. Astrid never ceased to be amazed by Shesayne's breasts, the way - like everything about the half-elf - they seemed to have the best of both worlds: compact and elegant, like an Elven woman, but with a certain ripe, human roundness.

"You're wetter than Oceanus," Shesayne murmured between kisses, her hips flowing sensuously in Astrid's lap. "I can smell you -- "

"What -- .?" Astrid blushed a rather endearing shade of pink, absentmindedly tracing the shape of Shesayne's stiff nipples under the girl's pullover.

"Humans -- when I'm this close, I can usually tell if you're wet - not just from your skin, 'cause it's warmer, but 'cause I can smell your pussy - like a wet forest floor and sea-salt drying on your skin."

"Should I be flattered?"

"Hmm -- yes, I want to taste you -- " Shesayne eased a hand back under the waistband of Astrid's breeches. She parted the slick, silky outer lips with a flick of her middle and forefinger. Astrid drew a sharp breath and drew Shesayne closer, so she could lick the half-elven girl's sensitive, pointed ear.

"Looks like this circuit board will have to wait -- I suppose there are benefits to being self-employed."

Shesayne rocked against Astrid, her tongue locked in a slick, hungry duel in her lover's mouth. She pressed the heel of her palm against the stiff little pearl of Astrid's clit and thrust forward, her fingers splayed and rubbing the swollen inner petals of the human mage's pussy. Astrid tugged off Shesayne's pullover and buried her face between the half-elf's breasts. She inhaled the scent of wool and fruity perfume. Her lips latched around a dark pink nipple - a turgid little berry, now moist in Astrid's mouth as she suckled, Shesayne bucking, sighing, ramming the heel of her hand harder against the human woman's hard clit - thrusting and rolling in delicious, lazy circles. Slick wetness flowed around Shesayne's fingers -a creamy, musky swamp. Shesayne wanted to lick Astrid out, but there was no interrupting what had already started.

They flowed together, the rich, ripe scent of lust-slick human pussy filling Shesayne's nostrils, making her heart throb with fiery intensity. Astrid surrendered herself and let the heat build in her loins, mounting with the friction from Shesayne's hand against her sodden sex. Blood, the frantic beating of Shesayne's heart, the soft, high-pitched whimpers from the half-elf's lips - everything flowed together, building in a tense nexus deep in Astrid's well. Astrid tensed, and felt a wave of relief begin to pulse outward from her sex, tautening her belly and calves. She dug her toes into the carpet and came in ragged, sobbing breaths against Shesayne's breast. Her clit throbbed, hard, slick and angry. Under her breeches, her pussy felt uncomfortably wet, as if it has fused with fabric and Shesayne's hand into a thick, oozing mass.

Astrid slumped back into her chair. Shesayne smiled and suckled her fingers clean. A few strands of sky-blue hair, still slick with nectar, framed the waistband of Astrid's breeches. Astrid did not bother to pull them up. "We're lucky we don't work in the same place," Astrid murmured dreamily, still trying to catch her breath, "I don't suppose we'd get much done."

"Definitely, truly, absolutely - I'd be changing my undergarments every toll of the Bell Tower and it'd all be your sodding fault."

"Speaking of which," Astrid took the occasion to chide Shesayne for the piles of clothing, dirty plates and glasses that were strewn around their living room-cum-kitchen. "You were supposed to bring your things to the laundry."

"That's where you're ever-so-terribly wrong," Shesayne teased, wrapping her arms around Astrid's neck. "You work at home, you could've brought them yourself."

"I've got better things to do than going around picking through your dirty slips," Astrid said defiantly.

"You don't seem to mind what's in them - plus they're not slips - honest." Shesayne gyrated her hips for emphasis and Astrid, despite herself, feathered her hands down the half-elf's back to cup the delectably pert swell of the girl's bottom. Shesayne's scandalous little cut-off breeches had been designed to complement those firm globes to perfection.

"Tell me, just tell me, what Elven woman would put up with you refusing to do your fair share of the housework? No really, I am most curious."

"Which is exactly why my girl's human - and, now that I come to think of it, you should probably be doing your fair share, too -- you were supposed to do the bathtub -- "

"Shesayne, my rare beauty, I have to work -- "

" -- make the bed -- "

"Do you want to try your hand at repairing a permanency-empowered faerie fire circuit?" Astrid challenged.

"Let's get this straight, clear and right to the point," Shesayne replied darkly. Her usually playful turquoise-blue gaze betrayed a hint of irritation, "I'm not a sodding housewife - we cuddle, we fuck, and we say all the honey-sweet, sappy 'I love you' screed before going to bed and first thing in the morning -- but, I'm not a kid and you're not my big sister." Shesayne dismounted from Astrid's lap and stormed off into the bathing chamber to change for the evening's performance.

"Fuck -- " Astrid hissed. She rose and adjusted her breeches. Once she was certain Shesayne was in the bathing nook with the sputtering jet of hot water drowning out any sound she might hear, Astrid stalked off the divan. A half-read, second-hand book of High Elven poetry sat amongst a discarded, burgundy bandeau and a matching, diagonally-cut skirt adorned with a stylised, Elven floral pattern. Astrid stuffed everything she could find of Shesayne's in an old leather backpack, before depositing it by the doorway. If Shesayne did not take it out the next morning, she would personally throttle her. That and the doorway was already a mess - Shesayne's collection of boots and sandals was scattered aimlessly, like an army of fallen toy soldiers. Astrid was hardly a stickler for neatness herself, but Shesayne took chaos to new levels.

"Astrid!" Shesayne called, her voice half-drowned out by the intermittent thundering of water.

"What?"

"Do you have any clean liners? I'm due in two days."

"As soon as you leave your stuff off at the fucking laundry, you'll have them," Astrid snarled and Shesayne fell quiet. Astrid was more anxious than she wanted to be. Earlier that morning, she had gone down for groceries and the blue-skinned, shaven-headed water genasi landlady had intercepted her with dark threats of eviction unless she settled the last sixty days of unpaid rent. Astrid, smiling through gritted teeth, had reassured her. Once the circuit board and the Wand of Wonder she had been contracted to repair were returned, she was fairly certain that they would have enough to squeeze through.

Soft, densely rhythmic Elven music began to waft through the air as the sounds of spraying water faded. Shesayne had turned on Astrid's Music Sphere. The floating, enchanted balls of aqua-coloured crystal had become popular with music enthusiasts in Sigil and commanded absurd prices. Astrid, with her facility for all things magical and mechanical, had managed to cobble one together from spare parts she found at a used artifact emporium. So, predictably, Shesayne had rushed out and wasted twenty days of food budget on recordings. Astrid paced back into the kitchenette and carefully arranged the circuit boards onto a smaller worktable to free the dining table surface. The last light of the late afternoon spilled through the oval kitchen window, flooding the stone counter with a rich, orange glow. Astrid rinsed out a dirty glass and opened the cold storage cabinet to pour herself some iced hibiscus tea

Robbery - she thought, sipping the astringent crimson tea by the windowsill, staring at the cracked wooden walls and the battered hardwood furniture. - Two hundred fucking Marks a week for a three room bedsit. -

Property prices in Sigil had simply become ridiculous. A cloud of steam flowed forth from the bathing chamber and Shesayne finally stepped out, wearing only a blue shawl around her shoulders. Water still dripped down her coal-black hair as it fell in short tendrils around her pointed ears.

The half-elven girl stood in the threshold, there in the cramped hall in front of the bedchamber, her dragon-turtle comb in hand. "You look really first rate pretty with your shirt undone," Shesayne remarked quietly.

"Thank you." Astrid set down her glass and padded over to Shesayne. She took the bathing shawl from the waifish half-elf's shoulders and began to dry her hair. Astrid's movements were fluid, gentle. Shesayne huddled closer and wrapped her arms around her lover's waist. Astrid's skin was ever so mildly fragrant, perhaps a tiny hint of detergent from the fresh shirt she had been wearing and a fine hint of new sweat.

"Sorry -- "

"No, it should be your day today. It's just that we humans sometimes get caught up in the more -- superficial things in life." Elven music continued to float through the silence. "Now show me what you're going to wear."

"With great and genuine pleasure," Shesayne chirped with her usual enthusiastic hyperbole, nuzzling the valley between Astrid's breasts.
They stepped into the bedchamber and Astrid commanded the magical moonstone pyramid on the bedside table to come to life and emit an otherworldly, lunar glow.

Shesayne skipped to her clothes chest and slipped on a sheer vermilion-rose sleeveless blouse that recalled the complex hues of the flower under starlight - cut so that the fabric appeared to flow around Shesayne's breasts and shoulders, whilst leaving the expanse of her belly and neck fully bared. Then came an even darker pair of succinct breeches, the colour of an ancient Fire Wyrm - that did little more than preserve Shesayne's modesty. Upon that she superimposed a flimsy, bronze-bordered skirt with the gossamer lightness of an Elven fabric, hanging in three petal-like sheets down about a quarter of the length of the half-elf's thigh. Astrid leaned by the doorway, arms crossed, as she watched Shesayne preen in the glowing silver mirror in front of the clothes chest.

"Lovely -- " Astrid breathed, though the inspiration for Shesayne's dress sense had always eluded her.

"Y'see what I'm trying to do," Shesayne explained, performing a dramatic turn to illustrate the brash sensuality of her outfit, "it's kind of a Sigil take on Elven styles - so I used High Elven fabrics, but with an imaginative cut - little inspirations I picked and pilfered here and there from humans, Drow, halflings -- "

"As a practitioner of the arcane arts, I probably shouldn't say this, but you really never do cease to amaze me."

"I know," Shesayne said with a smug smile. With the judicious addition of a little gold-dust and crushed lapis-lazuli powder around her eyelids and Shesayne looked very much like a shockingly urban take on Elven womanhood. Fae-like, yes, but unrepentantly sensual. Shesayne finished by arranging her short hair with her comb in a suitably functional style. The milky lamplight exalted the half-elven girl's skin, flowing into the chromatic complexity of her blouse. For an instant, Astrid could actually have believed that it was made of real rose petals.

"Are you certain you're ready? -- Since this would be your first time - singing in public, I mean."

Shesayne subconsciously tightened her fist. In all honesty, she was a little anxious. "I dunno - they seemed pleased and satisfied with me when I applied for the evening slot. It looks like people're very interested in this brand-new, new-wave fusion stuff. Faenya and me practiced a couple of days ago and it all worked out to go pretty top-shelf well, so -- I s'pose it's all up to Lady Luck."

"Faenya's going to be on the harp, correct?" Astrid took the opportunity to discard her shirt and breeches onto an old blue-upholstered armchair by Shesayne's dresser. She took the last clean bathing shawl and draped it across her shoulders.

"Yeah, we tried with a khalsyne lute but the sound was sort of sharp and jarring." Shesayne had teamed up with Faenya, the idle daughter of a wealthy family with musical aspirations of her own, to produce a contemporary, cosmopolitan take on traditional Elven music. Whatever the end result, it was one way to gain some exposure and earn a little money. Although she was not worried enough to say it openly, Shesayne knew that Astrid sometimes resented having to bear most of the expenses.

"I just hope she doesn't take it to be a game -- " Astrid mused, strolling across the narrow hall and into the bathing chamber. She did not trust Faenya one jot. The High Elven girl was a poseur and a spoiled brat. Just because Faenya dyed her hair, pierced her ears and - if Shesayne was to be believed - had a platinum stud fitted onto her clitoris did not mean that, all of a sudden she could lay claim to being a denizen of Sigil's smoky, alternative arts scene.

"Nah, she's as serious as a dragon guarding its hoard," Shesayne said, more as a prayer than as a statement of fact. “Plus, we’re both in it for passion, fame and glory - neither of us could stand being tied down all day at home fiddling with enchanted artifacts.”

Astrid sighed to herself in resignation. As much as she enjoyed Shesayne's company, there were times when she had the nagging feeling of being second in the half-elf’s heart. It was not quite jealousy, but a sensation of mild irritation every time Shesayne chose hedonism over duty. She resolved to ignore the comment. Instead, she turned on the sputtering porcelain water faucet and knelt in the oval bathtub, hoping that the sound of spraying water would silence
Shesayne's comments long enough for her to change the subject. Astrid had no such luck. Shesayne peered through the half-open door of the bathing chamber. Mist shrouded the stone walls and covered the brass-framed mirror with a sheen of misty condensation. The rotating Music Sphere floated just behind the bathtub, humming out a mournful Grey Elven ballad.

"Don’t take it personally, though, I know you do it for me." Shesayne sensed Astrid's frustration. But she could not help it. There were times when she wished for Astrid to be more uninhibited and more spontaneous, just as it was when they had first met. Now everything revolved around bills and expenses.

"Glad to hear it," Astrid replied coolly.

Shesayne silently closed the door and wandered back into the living room. Normally, she enjoyed watching Astrid bathe, observing the way the water caressed the human woman's long, supple limbs and matted her azure hair. But Astrid had been on edge lately. Shesayne lived with a visceral, unspoken fear that she was losing her. Her heart ached at the very thought of not being able to greet, tease and kiss Astrid each time she came home. But, Min had told her long ago, there were some forces in the Multiverse one had to accept, since even trying to understand them - let alone control them - would make one far unhappier than she already was. So Shesayne set out a fresh, sky-blue shirt and form-fitting beige breeches for Astrid on the Elven-embroidered bedspread crumpled across their bed. Then, almost as an afterthought, she made the bed.

Whenever Tahllea wanted to unwind, she went offworld. Imej – the great Elven city of a thousand and one gilded towers - was stifling. Imej was starchy, formalistic, full of schemers and hypocrites. Imej was heavy, repetitive and starchy. Sigil, though, pulsed with dangerous, heady life.

Thus, she had decided to take a couple of days for herself in Sigil, passing through a planar portal conjured up by a mage friend of hers. Once she had passed through the swirling arcs of blue cosmic light, Tahllea emerged on the other side in an Elven mirror shop. It was almost a relief to smell the stony, humid, smoky air of Sigil. There was life there: life in the cut-throats, assassins, pickpockets, whores and rent-boys who dotted the streets like fallen stars in a dead night sky.

Lithe and athletically muscular, Tahllea towered over most her fellow Elves. Short, elegantly curled raven-dark hair framed her sharp, handsome face. Her piercing, amber eyes were predatory. Girls and women of almost all of Sigil’s manifold races were caught rapt in that huntress’ gaze, like deer under a puma’s stare.

Tahllea was a warrior, a Bladesinger - mistress of the beautiful and deadly Elven art of fencing with the aid of powerful enchantments and spell-enhanced weapons. Her allure was that of the swashbuckler, arrogant and irresistible at the same time. Her lips curled in an ironic smile each time a curious human girl scampered across her path, pretending not to stare in awe. Tahllea prided herself in having more taste than any human male. Her pleated shirt was of the finest, pristine silk, crowned with a coquettish neckerchief. Her form-fitting breeches were gryphon-egret leather, custom-made so that the taut musculature of her long thighs rolled under the material with each step she took.

That night, as she strode imperiously through Sigil's dimly-lit back alleys, her ornate, blue-mithril blade as always by her hip, Tahllea stumbled, almost by chance, on the Celestial Ring. As expected, the clientele was almost entirely Elven. Tahllea felt a wave of warmth as she stepped inside the magically lit interior. Classically Elven arched, stucco ceilings gave way to a row of well-separated dining tables and a wide, elevated oblong stage. It would be a good hunting ground, Tahllea thought. Sensuality in Sigil was brash and raw and Tahllea desperately wanted to escape the stifling, stylised eroticism of her Elven homeland.

A chestnut-haired maiden - probably High Elven, came to take Tahllea's cloak and usher her into the dining room. Hushed silence, broken only by quiet whispers contrasted pleasantly with the din of Sigil's vibrant nightlife outside. Aromatic, bluish smoke filled the air, wafting from tall, phoenix-shaped censers placed on the four corners of the room. An elongated bar, the only concession to human design, was virtually empty, aside from a mournful looking tiefling with obsidian-black hair and red skin, who looked like she could have well been a starving poet seeking love and inspiration. In an instant, their gazes crossed. Tahllea gave a subtle nod. The tiefling had gorgeous hands – definitely a poet. With a melancholic undulation of her fingers, the alien, red-skinned woman gave her silent reply: not tonight.

"Welcome, milady. A cold evening, is it not?" the attendant maiden whispered in softly formal High Elven. She hung up Tahllea's cloak in a mahogany wardrobe and proffered a rose crystal goblet of heated pear-blossom wine.

"Quite -- " Tahllea replied indifferently. The attendant was pretty and had sartorial taste: amber-coloured robe consisting of numerous, interwoven strands of fabric which mirrored the effect of winding ivy. She was too soft, though, too inconsequential.

The attendant brought her to an empty table by the front row, between an interesting-looking blue-haired human woman and a muscular dwarf who looked almost comatose from drink. "Please, milady, make yourself comfortable," the attendant invited. "What may I serve you this evening?"

"Do you have partridge?" Tahllea ventured.

"Certainly, Madam."

"Then I shall have the pink-roast breast with a winter currant sauce and an oak-leaf salad." Tahllea smirked triumphantly. She had been craving bloody meat for months, but most Elves could not stand the sight of it, so she usually confined her vice to holidays in more carnivorous destinations.

The attendant bowed to take her leave. Tahllea drank in silence, watching the empty stage and fluttering motes of enchanted light that danced between the airily-painted arches of the ceiling. Beside her, the human woman watched intently. She seemed nervous. Tahllea stole a more attentive glance. It had been a long time since she had bedded a human and this one looked like she could be worth her while. Strong, green eyes, elegant, almost sculptural features - the mysterious human was probably of Ortho stock.

Tahllea drained her glass and watched the attendant gracefully make her way onto the stage. The lights re-focused and cast a deep, sapphire-blue glow on the performing floor. Curtains, shaped like giant lotus blossoms, bristled under the mental command of an unseen stage operator. "If I may beg for a moment of your attention," the chestnut-haired Elven maiden enunciated in a clear, lilting voice, "on behalf of your host, I am pleased to present the opening act of this evening's entertainment. With a blended, innovative sound that echoes the experiences of Elves in Sigil, we are most pleased to introduce Shesayne and Faenya."

Hushed whispers rolled across the room. A few latecomers, present for the show rather than for dinner, hastened through the door and settled in plush armchairs by the circular bar. Tahllea stretched in her chair and watched the curtains unfurl like a blooming flower. On stage, what appeared to be an Elven singer clad in a decidedly un-Elven outfit took her position in front of her partner, and an admittedly attractive High Elven woman with shoulder-length hair dyed rose-pink and flame-red, clad in a matching black, spiderweb patterned blouse and black breeches. Tahllea grimaced. Even Elven women became exhibitionist little harlots after staying around humans for too long.

Most scandalously, the harpist had three platinum rings in her left ear. That made Tahllea wonder where else the strumpet had seen fit to mutilate herself.

Silence, and then Faenya began strumming the first notes - quick, staccato and decidedly unconventional as an opening of an Elven ballad. Shesayne drew a quiet breath, imagined only Astrid was in the audience, and let the words pour from her lips. She focused on Astrid's encouraging gaze and, soon enough, as her tempo began to build, she felt the atmosphere warming to her. She and Faenya had compromised on the lyrics and arrangement, but certainly not on the multilayered nature of a traditional Elven piece. A brief human song was simply not satisfying for an Elven audience. So Shesayne was acutely conscious she had to maintain her pace in perfect synchronism with Faenya's increasingly rapid, strident harping.

It was then that Shesayne noticed someone at the table beside Astrid's observing her with the curious, predatory eye of a she-wolf. Shesayne saw those penetrating, golden eyes fixed on her. She saw the woman smile, take a sip of her wine and watch the constant motion of Shesayne's slender limbs to the rhythm of the harp. The woman crossed her legs and reclined back in her chair. Her gaze was fire. It commanded attention. Shesayne was no longer looking at Astrid. Her song gathered intensity and the blademistress nodded her head - a tiny, imperceptible tilt that told Shesayne that she knew.

Tahllea observed the singer. A strumpet, to be sure, but a delicious one. She was probably a High Elf, Tahllea concluded, with an impudent, girlish smile on lips she decided would be quite pleasant to devour. Tahllea pressed her thumb pensively against the rim of her glass. The singer's brash, suggestive smile told Tahllea one thing: the girl needed a little firm Elven discipline. The singer stepped forward, light sparkled from the enchanted anklet at the very top of her burgundy boot. Leaning forward, the singer's small, compact breasts strained against the tightness of her blouse. Tahllea did not even notice the attendant bringing her partridge. Her throat was dry, despite the wine. Her heartbeat quickened. Tension began to mount between her thighs. The first signs of dampness - the girl would pay for making her wet. The girl would lick her clean.

Shesayne brought her song to a sultry, understated climax, before Faenya channelled the piece to its conclusion with a humming, vibrant coda. Shesayne paused at the very edge of the stage, curtsied demurely and watched the blademistress. Golden eyes, fixed on her, just as they had been when the song began. Silence followed. Then, an approving murmur.

"Thank you," Shesayne said breathlessly. Elves manifested their approval silently, so that a performance's merit could be judged simply by concentrating on the aura given off by the audience. On all accounts, Shesayne and Faenya had been a resounding success. Astrid smiled warmly, very much moved by the palpable joy in Shesayne's expression. The human mage concluded that she had been too distant and too cold - it was time to show Shesayne how much their bond meant to her.

Shesayne and Faenya took their leave and melted backstage. Tahllea rose, as if she were going to the bathing chamber, but instead veered right in the shadows and infiltrated the backstage changing rooms. She made her way up a short, darkened stairway and heard Faenya and Shesayne exchange mutual compliments. Faenya's voice faded, declaring she desperately needed a drink. Tahllea stepped out of the stairwell just as Shesayne tried to return to the dining hall.

"Oh, hi!" Shesayne grinned, a little flattered and a little nervous.

"Impressive -- " Tahllea said in lightly-accented Common, taking a step forward.
"Thanks, it's always nice to hear an Elf say that, especially since we're not exactly run-of-the-mill conventional." Shesayne's heartbeat echoed between her temples. Tahllea's gaze was hypnotic.

"You would be Shesayne?"

"Yeah -- "

"Tahllea."

"Hmm, I guess I caught you staring, then, Tahllea -- " Shesayne began, before realising she had backed into a wall.

Tahllea cupped Shesayne's cheek and ran her thumb over the sensitive skin of the half-elf's ear. Shesayne shivered. Tahllea pounced and Shesayne, much to the Bladesinger's surprise, simply opened her lips and met the older woman's tongue halfway. For an instant, their kiss was exploratory, then Tahllea thrust Shesayne against the wall and hastily stripped off the girl's skirt to caress the pert curves of the half-elf's bottom, tantalisingly shrouded only by a thin barrier of red fabric. Shesayne groaned and hooked one leg around Tahllea's waist, grinding her sex against the High Elven woman‘s thigh. The Bladesinger was already fumbling for the waistband of her cut-off breeches. Tahllea's breath was hot in Shesayne mouth, sweet with wine, the older woman's tongue skilled and demanding.

"Wait -- wait -- " Shesayne breathed raggedly and Tahllea licked her ear from base to point, drawing a whimpering moan.

"What?" Tahllea had snuck a hand under Shesayne's breeches to cup the firm curve of the girl's bottom, tight and warm.

"Meet me on the dance floor."

"I don't dance," Tahllea snarled.

"D'you want to lick me out, or was it just my wishful thinking?"

"Very well, but be quick about it."

Downstairs, the lights had been dimmed further, with a few enthusiasts trying their hand at a ritualised Elven dancing in an illusory garden grove, conjured to simulate the atmosphere of a moonlit glade. Tahllea felt out of place, so she hovered in the shadows, leaning on a wall, scrutinising Shesayne intently across the dining hall. The girl skipped out into the dining hall, exchanged a few lively words and an intimate kiss with the human woman and then dived into the spiralling anonymity of Elven dancers, heading straight for Tahllea.

"Sorry, I just had to settle that." Shesayne seized Tahllea by the hand and dragged her into the wall. The fabric of the wood shifted, letting them both slip through. It was an optical illusion - a tiny planar gate carved into the side of the tavern.

Tahllea found herself in a deserted booth, covered in blue silk cushions, illuminated by a single prism of dull orange light. Shesayne pounced on her, her kiss fierce and hungry. Their breath and the wet dance of their lips were the only sounds to pierce the air. Tahllea tore off Shesayne's top and felt hard nipples pebble against her hands. Liquid lust surged in Tahllea's loins. She thrust Shesayne against a wall, forced the girl's thighs apart and roughly pulled down her breeches. Shesayne bit her lip as her swollen, juicing sex was exposed to the cool air. She kicked off her boots and stepped out of her breeches. Tahllea moistened her lips. Shesayne was creamy with desire. The Bladesinger slipped her thumbs against the plump, hairless mound of Shesane's sex and parted the lust-swollen flesh. A pink flower bloomed. Petals, thick and heavy with pearly nectar hung ripe, begging to be licked clean. Shesayne smelled delicious, like tulips with more earthy musk than Tahllea had expected from an Elf.

Shesayne trailed her fingers through Tahllea's soft hair as the Bladesinger began licking hungrily at her sex. No, not hungrily, ravenously. Tahllea's tongue lapped in long, slow licks over the whole salty-sweet furrow of Shesayne's pussy - from channel to clit. It was raw: wet, female arousal under Tahllea's lips without perfume, lubricating oils or fine silks. Just pretty nectar-slick petals that tasted of salt, earth, flowers and woman. She thrust three fingers, hard, into Shesayne's lust-sodden channel. The petite half-elf gasped and arched her back, grinding her pussy against Tahllea's lapping tongue and thrusting hand. The glistening little bud of Shesayne's clit burned under Tahllea's tongue, a little acorn free from its hood. Tahllea wound her fingers and pressed against the velvet of Shesayne's inner flesh. The half-elf let herself go. Her channel convulsed, spasmodic, hungry around Tahllea's fingers. Shesayne's mewling, high-pitched cries filled the air. She came hard and she needed more.

Tahllea seized Shesayne by the waist and cast her down on the cushions, her lips slick with the half-elf's juice. Shesayne giggled, delirious with pleasure as Tahllea pinned her down, face against the cushions. In the darkness, Shesayne felt Tahllea's strong hands part the globes of her bottom.

"Oh, wow -- you're moving fast -- " the half-elf chuckled as she felt Tahllea's tongue, wet and insistent, lapping at the tight, musky crevasse of her bottom.

Tahllea stripped off her shirt and held Shesayne's bottom open, tonguing the half-elf's knotted rosebud. Shesayne moaned and ground her sex against the cushions, leaving hot, slick trails. Tahllea's tongue dug in, coaxing the little star to relax, and before she knew it, Shesayne felt her bottom yield and something hot and wet slip just a fraction of an inch inside of her. She curled her toes into the cushions and began to gyrate her hips against Tahllea's mouth. Shesayne's rosebud glistened like the lips of her sex. Ferns and almondy earthiness delighted Tahllea's tongue - the girl was a perfect little toy. Shesayne squirmed, her nipples were stiff arrowheads, thrusts into the cushions.

"On your back, spread your legs," Tahllea ordered abruptly, giving Shesayne's loosened rosebud one final lick.

Shesayne scrambled to comply, reclining on the cushions, knees bent, thighs parted. The slickness of Shesayne's arousal stained the cushions beneath. Tahllea pulled off her boots and breeches and knelt between Shesayne's legs, sinking forwards to renew her wanton kiss with the half-elven girl. Shesayne felt the softness of Tahllea's elegant, conical little breasts, marvelling at how they merged into the hardness of the blademistress' flat, muscular belly. Tahllea positioned herself astride Shesayne, pussy to pussy – a silken kiss. Shesayne hooked a leg around the High Elven woman's neck and balanced herself on her back and bottom. Digging her feet into the cushions for support, Tahllea thrust forward, grinding her cunt, slick and heavy with nectar, against Shesayne.

Tahllea raised herself over Shesayne, mashing her silken sex against the half-elf's demurely parted sex. Tahllea's clit glided deliciously over sticky, swollen flesh, spurring her thrusts. Tahllea licked two fingers and cupped Shesayne's bottom. A little pressure and she entered the half-elf's yielding, wet rosebud, hot and tight and clenching around the base of her fingers. Shesayne mewled as Tahllea nipped hungrily at her ears, shoulders, licked the hollow of her neck, eliciting yet more sharp gasps from the half-elf.

"By Hanali, you are a loose little slattern," Tahllea said, halfway between a growl and a purr. Although she was too far gone to care much, Shesayne was not entirely flattered by Tahllea's tone.

With an unspoken command, Tahllea summoned a ball of sparkling golden light between her straining belly and Shesayne's. Shesayne arched her back and drove her sex harder against Tahllea, losing herself in a spiral of raw, pulsing pleasure. A spark of electricity flew from the ball of energy and struck Shesayne's clit. The petite half-elf gasped and struggled to free herself, but Tahllea held her down with a rough thrust of her sex in admonishment. A second spark followed, and then a third, alternating between Shesayne's clit and Tahllea's wanton little bud. Sharp, jarring pain gave way to pleasure, a deep, visceral twinge in her sex, flowing through Tahllea's loins. Tahllea rode Shesayne for what seemed like an age, uncaring of the half-elf's almost agonised peaks of pleasure, the spasmodic contractions of the girl's rosebud around her invading fingers.

She ground possessively against Shesayne, her muscles strained, her neck and the valley between her breasts drenched with sweat, until she finally felt the surge of sparkling electricity in her loins overpower her. Tahllea groaned, biting her lip to stop herself from crying out. The first spasms were painful, as if her blood had become fire, and then, very slowly, a wave of long, profound satisfaction swept over her. She thrust herself a few more times against the sloppy, nectar-drenched juncture between their pussies, just to ride the last tremors of her climax.

Tahllea collapsed on top of Shesayne, panting, her sex aching. The Bladesinger feathered kisses down Shesayne's neck, over her cheek, butterfly-light, on the surface of her ear. It had been months since she had last felt so satisfied, so much in control of her lover. Shesayne was the perfect, submissive little plaything. Tahllea made a mental note to keep in touch.

"I never knew Elves could be so -- passionately raw -- " Shesayne gasped, idly stroking Tahllea's muscular back. "But, hey, I guess I didn't do so badly for a half-elf, right?"

Tahllea tensed. "What?"

"By the Abyss you Bladesingers can be a teeny-little-bit dense -- I said I don't think I did so badly for -- "

"I know what you said, you ridiculous girl," Tahllea roared, "you are a half-elf?"

"Well, y'see, the funny thing 'bout that is that I always thought of myself as half-human -- ah!" Shesayne cried as Tahllea seized her by the hair and dragged her to her feet.

"You impudent little harlot," Tahllea hissed.

"Hey, what the fuck's your problem?" Shesayne protested indignantly, deftly extricating herself from Tahllea‘s iron grip. "You barely introduce yourself before you stick your tongue in my mouth and I'm supposed to be the easy one? Fuck you, cunt!" The half-elf girl scrambled through her clothing, blinking back tears of rage.

"How shameless!" Tahllea said, softly but dangerously. "Halfbreed wretch, you are speaking to Tahllea of House Ahlirian!"

"Halfbreed wretch? Well isn't that grand, sweet and convenient, you didn't seem so put off when you had your tongue in my -- "

Tahllea hit her, hard. Shesayne crumpled to the floor, a trickle of blood issuing forth from her cut lip. "Open your mouth again and I shall gut you, understood?"

Shesayne sobbed and buried her face in the pillows. Tahllea dressed, briefly considered slapping Shesayne again for good measure, before deciding against it. Under the circumstances, she was the superior being. There was no point in stooping to Shesayne's level.

Chapter 2

Sigil was frozen. A fine patina of ice had formed on the cobblestones and Shesayne's breath misted in the air even as her tears dried on her cheeks. She hugged herself close and wondered aimlessly down an almost deserted street. A couple of drunken dwarves, singing out of tune, stumbled, balancing themselves against walls, clinging to one another as they proceeded raucously through the night. Shesayne could not go home. All that was right and good in the Multiverse would not allow it. Astrid deserved better.

A fire beckoned in the distance.

Shesayne approached, quietly, hugging the walls of the ramshackle, skeletal buildings that stretched off into the horizon. As always, it was a moonless, starless night. Points of light called warmly from the distant main streets, still full of revellers.

As she drew closer, Shesayne saw the fire flicker. By the porch of an abandoned building a girl, with short, red and golden flame-coloured hair, copper-tinted skin and swept, fey-like features warmed herself by a floating ball of flame. She was wild-looking, her enigmatic, but pretty face hidden by dust and soot, her clothing functional and clearly second-hand: a man's shirt too big for her and red breeches. "D'you mind?" Shesayne whispered, approaching with hesitant steps.

The girl shrugged. "Customer hit you?"

"No -- no, it's not that -- it‘s not what you think"

"Then why are you here?" The girl's gaze was burning - red eyes the colour of molten metal.

"I'm cold."

"You lost?"

"No, not really."

"Then go home."

"Huh?" Shesayne knelt by the fire and observed the girl. Her fingers were long, dextrous - like those of a sorceress or a thief.

"There's nothing here."

"What's your name?"

"Fia."

"What do you do?"

"Look." Fia waved her hand and the sphere of flame split into five equal balls. Their contours smoothed, so that they became like tiny planets - then, with a dramatic sweep of her hand, Fia made the spheres align and begin to orbit one another in a swiftly flowing, intricate pattern.

Shesayne smiled. "Having a late night?"

Fia shook her head. "Sometimes I wait here - because people are hungry, cold, lonely - they need to talk. They need to warm themselves."

"Well, here I am -- "

"This isn't a good place to be." Fia interrupted. "If I had a home and someone waiting for me in bed, I wouldn't be here."

"How do you -- "

"Go home. Your fire is there. This is the fire for those who have no-one. Someone'll pass here, soon - I can feel it - but it isn't to be you." Fia gave a wan smile and gathered her spheres of fire into a single globe, forging it to have spots, rays and fiery bursts, just like a sun.

Shesayne nodded and rose. "Will I see you again?"

"Could be," Fia said and sat back, watching the featureless sky.

Shesayne hurried home. The landing in front of her apartment was dark, save for a single lamp that flickered, casting low shadows. She knocked at the door. It would have been impossible to go in uninvited.

"Astrid!" Her voice trembled.

Something stirred in the apartment. Soft footsteps approached and the door opened. Shesayne swallowed a knot of emotion in her throat. "Astrid -- " she whimpered.

"What?" came the weary reply. Astrid stood in the doorway, still fully clothed. She looked exhausted.

"A hug would be nice -- "

"Shesayne, words cannot begin to describe how worried I was." Astrid said tersely. At least Shesayne was making an effort not to cry and paint herself as the victim.

"I don't deserve to come home, do I?" Shesayne did not dare meet Astrid's gaze.

"If you're here, then you clearly wanted to come back."

"I did something terrible -- " Shesayne's voice cracked. She hugged herself closer, staring resolutely at the floorboards.

"Come in," Astrid said at length.
Shesayne undressed, washed and prepared herself for bed in silence. Astrid locked the door, dimmed the lights, donned her night-shirt and watched Shesayne climb into her side of the bed and lie as close as possible to the edge.

"D'you think we should talk -- ?" Shesayne whispered.

"No. Not tonight." Astrid slid under the sheets and extinguished the light.

"Are you sad, angry, disappointed?"

"Maybe it's human to be a little of all three right now." Astrid replied, quite gently.

"I'm sorry -- "

"Hush, here, don't be silly -- " Shesayne felt Astrid draw her close. She could smell the human woman's skin, her hair, feel her soft, tickling breath. Shesayne snuggled close and buried her face against Astrid's heartbeat. "There we are," Astrid loosened Shesayne's comb and set it on the bedside table, "all nice and cosy."

"On Ortho there's this story, y‘know, the really sad-depressing one -- the ‘Little Match-Girl'" Shesayne breathed almost inaudibly.

"Yeah, I told it to you once -- "

"It made me cry."

"Me too -- when I was a child." Whatever Shesayne's faults were, it was intimate moments like this that made Astrid realise how important she was to her.

"It's just a story, right -- ?" For an instant Shesayne thought of Fia. Life imitating art, or something stranger still?

"Of course, now go to sleep, my treasure."

"Tonight's been a barmy, strange night -- "

"It doesn't matter - I'm just happy that we're both back here, where we belong."

Shesayne smiled through her tears. Astrid held her close. The lullaby of her heartbeat tenderly coaxed Shesayne into the world of dreams.

The next morning was cold and grey. Astrid awoke and found the bedchamber window had misted over. She squinted into the first light of day and instinctively reached under the covers for Shesayne. The mattress was still warm. Muted Elven music lilted in the air and the smell of hot almond oil and warm honey streamed from the kitchen. Astrid stretched and threw off the covers. Under her bare feet, the floor was cold and humid. She stepped into the living room and found Shesayne, still in her nightgown, carefully tending to a pan full of frying honey cakes. Clean, herbal vapours bubbled from a silver teapot set on the table with ceramic cups and an inviting pear compote.

"Morning, morning, morning." Shesayne called amiably. She served four honey cakes, golden-brown and oblong, onto a plate and poured some hot syrup on them. "Would you like some fresh tisane with that?"

"You shouldn't have." Astrid embraced Shesayne, and kissed the soft expanse of half-elf's coal-black hair.

"Thought I might as well try, y'know. It's my mother's recipe and I thought that seeing as I've been such a selfish bitch all this time, I'd better start showing that it's not just words when I say I love you."

Astrid smoothed Shesayne's hair with a loving caress and kissed the half-elf on the cheek. "Thanks, but you don't have to make me breakfast -- even if it is appreciated every once in a while."

"About last night -- "

"I don't want to know," Astrid interjected resolutely.

"Sure, another time then."

"Do you see us doing this, Shesayne -- I mean every morning - waking up together, having breakfast, making love, going to bed? I don't want us to end up as bitter old women who keep complaining how they never got their fair shot at happiness."

"Well, as long as we can be bitter and old together, I'm not too concerned or bothered." Shesayne said fervently. She poured Astrid a cup of cinnamon and citrus tisane and set it by her plate of honey cakes. "Now come on, otherwise they'll get cold and you'll never get to experience Chef Shesayne's peerless cooking skills."

"Do you see us -- " Astrid insisted.

Shesayne forced herself to smile. The shattering guilt of the previous evening's encounter had left her with the bittersweet sensation of having lost part of her innocence, of her joy for life. "I want to work on it. If we both work on it, me more than you - but if we both work on it, what we have can only grow better, I just wish it'd get easier -- "

"It doesn't." said Astrid with a hint of bitterness. "But life is at its most beautiful when it's at its most difficult. When I saw you come home last night, I realised that you were my life. You were never going to be easy to love, but the reason I'm not angry is that, in the end, the beauty you bring is so much greater than any worry or frustration I could imagine."

Shesayne drew a soft breath and forced herself to dispel the lump in her throat. "I made five hundred Marks yesterday -- " she said, swiftly changing the subject. A stray tear fell down her cheek. Astrid, quite discreetly, wiped it away with a flick of her thumb. Shesayne huddled closer to her lover, cursing herself for even having considered Tahllea a temporary substitute for the sheer joy that now swept through her.

"Please, let's not talk about money." Astrid took a seat at the table and began to attack Shesayne's honey cakes with some enthusiasm. They were a little oily, but otherwise perfect: feather-light and moist on the inside with the characteristic nuttiness of the almond oil.

"All right, but I'm bringing everything I earn home, understood -- "

"Duly noted," Astrid quipped, far more interested in savouring her breakfast.

"So -- if that's all resolved and settled, I've got to run."

By the time Astrid answered, Shesayne was already washing her face in the bathing chamber. "Since when do you have to turn up this early at work?"

"I don't, but today's my turn to do the laundry -- "

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

It was mid-morning by the time Astrid finally got her head around the capacitor circuit. The heating sphere, though, simply refused to cooperate. Inside its adamantine-wired depths, the source gem simply sputtered, flickered, sparked on and then, with an abrupt snap, sparked off. Astrid muttered soft curses and rose from the worktable. She wiped her hands on an oil-stained kitchen towel. The burnt oil still lay thick on her fingers, so she ran her palms against the fabric of her breeches and slumped back on the kitchen counter. It was going to be a long day. She fumbled for the handle of the ice-cabinet and took out a bottle of rose syrup sherbert. The ruby-red syrup had sunk to the bottom of the bottle, the thick layer of spiced milk sloshing noisily on top of it. Astrid shook the bottle until the contents went bright pink and took an indulgent sip. A long day indeed. Her shirt was a mess, she decided, but, when working with Fire-Elemental devices, it was inevitable. Soot went everywhere.

Astrid scowled and heard her home-made mechanical clock, crystal-bodied so one could admire the mechanism inside, chime. Time oozed on. She replaced the bottle in the ice-cabinet. It would be safe from Shesayne, at least. Shesayne seemed to have inherited almost everything from her Elven mother, including, Astrid thought smugly, extreme lactose intolerance.

Footsteps approached the door. Astrid instinctively reached for the hidden compartment under the kitchen counter. Her alchemical pistol was there. In that neighbourhood, there was no telling what would happen.

“Astrid!” Shesayne called excitedly, throwing the door open.

Astrid relaxed her shoulders. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

“Yeah, yeah, in a minute – first, though, y’know how you’re always complaining how hard it is to do all that mechanical, alchemical or whatever stuff alone? Well, I brought you an assistant.” Shesayne closed the door behind her and ushered Fia into the kitchen.

“What?” Astrid was in no mood for jokes. Her mind was still fixed on the godsforsaken capacitor circuit.

Shesayne beamed a smile, “This, my dear Astrid, is Fia.”

Astrid blinked once. Perhaps she was still sleeping and this was a surreal dream. Before her stood a girl – a fire genasi. Astrid leaned forward. The girl smiled shyly, her long fingers fidgeting nervously. She stood a head taller than Shesayne, long-limbed, thin, but wiry. Shesayne had insisted that Fia arranger her hair in a typical fire genasi fashion. The effect, Astrid had to admit, was striking: short, golden, ember-red and copper-brown tresses all melded together and swept upwards, like a licking tongue of fire. “Pleasure, I’m Astrid…” the human mage replied, not quite sure where to begin. “Shesayne…maybe you and I should…”

“Have a word?” Shesayne teased. “Nope, no way, I’ll be late for work. She’s into the dark and apt with all that arcane stuff, so she’ll definitely help you out.” With that, Shesayne slipped out and closed the door soundlessly behind her.

Fia fidgeted, but looked Astrid straight in the eye. Her gaze was like molten gold. Astrid approached, almost fearfully. The girl was odd, to be sure. She wore a thin, loose, sleeveless white blouse and matching, but decidedly unflattering, red shorts. Not Shesayne’s provocative cutoffs, Astrid noted, but simple, airy things, designed for comfort rather than titillation. The odd thing of course, though, was that it was absolutely freezing outside. Astrid said so, “Aren’t you cold, dressed like that?”

Fia shrugged. “No.”

“What did Shesayne tell you?” Astrid said wearily. She stepped back to the worktable and privately thought of changing her Red Steel tuning pin for a mithril alloy one a size bigger.

“That you repair artifacts for a living.”

“I do.”

“And that I can help you.” Fia stood at the entrance, still too sceptical to step inside. The house looked like a mess, but it was certainly infinitely better than the doorway she had been sleeping in. After a long soak in bubbling-hot water, though, Fia felt that it was time to come down to common sense: nothing wagered, nothing gained. “I’m good with magic,” she clarified.

“Are you now?” Astrid arched an eyebrow. “A nice, bold statement. I like that, especially because you’re going to find it damn hard to bluff your way around this if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Fia nodded. “You can try me. And if I’m unsuccessful, you can toss me back on the street. I’ve survived so far, so I’ll survive again.” Her tone had a certain, understated confidence to it. Not cocky, but quietly observant.

Astrid patted the disassembled heating sphere. “Try your hand at this and we’ll see. Come on, come in, I don’t want to spend all morning on this.”

Fia carefully stepped out of her simple, functional sandals and set them by the doorway. Astrid watched her move. The girl had a certain proud grace about her. As Fia stepped in front of the window, Astrid noted the play of light on her skin. The reddish-copper tint of her skin was otherworldly – not demonic, like a tiefling, but more pure, almost metallic.

Fia ignored Astrid’s perceptive gaze. She approached the sphere. It sat, forlorn, on the worktable, surrounded by a myriad of rune-engraved tools. Drills, picks, tuning pins, pliers, tweezers. Fia knelt on the floor, leaning her head and arms on the table, her pointed ear close against the wood, as if she were daydreaming. She inhaled and thought. She contemplated the surface, the metal and crystal. She scrutinised the mechanisms, the intricate adamantine circuitry. Then, she felt for the pulse of the source gem – a red agate, embedded deep in the device. Fia drew her fingers over the surface of the sphere and traced the internal circuitry, one segment at the time.

Astrid watched, bewildered. It was almost as if Fia were playing. The girl toyed with the sphere, never once shifting her gaze from the mechanism.

The fire genasi’s thoughts were fuzzy at first, but then, after a little reflection she began to make out the contours of the device. Little by little, the pieces fell into place. It was all a logic puzzle – a little game where there had to be a solution. One merely had to have the patience and the insight to find it.

Very carefully, Fia rose and knelt in the chair to lean over the sphere. Instinctively, she sought out a mithril tuning pin from the worktable. She cast a quick cantrip spell to block off three feed circuits and used the pin to widen two feed circuits from the source gem into the capacitor. Satisfied with that first step, Fia mentally sealed all the circuits emanating from the gem and rotated the red stone a half-revolution in its containment sphere. With a triumphant smile, she released the circuit blocks and activated the artifact.

Astrid felt a shiver run down her spine. The sphere snapped shut, blazed to life and levitated off the table, shrouded in a read nimbus of heat and light. Astrid stepped forward tentatively, eyes riveted on the sphere almost as if she expected it to break down again. “How did you…?”

“Simple. I thought about it,” Fia said, quite sincerely as if it were no big deal.

“No, really, what did you do?” Astrid was curious because she would never have dreamed of repairing the sphere with such deft ease.

“There was…uhm, an outer circuit that wasn’t feeding correctly to and from the gem. But to adjust it, you’ve got to follow the sequence of the circuit and it gets a bit tricky the closer you get to the gem…”

“You mean the feed circuit wasn’t properly calibrated to the capacitor?”

“Yeah, I guess…” Fia was embarrassed at her ignorance of the appropriate terminology. That was precisely why she was so eager to work under Astrid. She wanted books, diagrams and names: models to put words to things she knew but could not name.

“That was extraordinary.”

“Oh no, I’ll probably have a harder time with other things. This was a Fire-Elemental infused circuit, so those are the easiest ones for me to do, but I’ll work really hard on brushing up on everything else, if you’re willing to teach me…”

“Of course.” Astrid nodded, suppressing a soft, ironic chuckle. Sigil never failed to surprise her. “Provided you don’t mind the couch.”

“It’s a step up from a doorway.”

“Good…”

“And,” Fia added, “if I’m going to stay here, it’s not going to be charity. I want to work.”

“I can tell,” Astrid said warmly. “I’m sorry if I was a little rude, I was just a little…taken by surprise. Do you want something to drink?”

“Tea?”

“Sure.” Astrid rinsed out a mug in the washbasin and filled it with steaming, herbal tisane.

Fia stretched languidly, quite satisfied with her first impression. Astrid would be a good teacher, she sensed it. “I can do some shopping later, if you want,” she volunteered, almost as an afterthought. The conviction that Fia held dearest was that kindness should be repaid with even greater kindness.

Astrid laughed softly. Shesayne had to be forced to go grocery shopping and when she did, she always overspent. She turned and offered Fia the mug of fragrant tea. “You’re not too far short of making my day. I’ll make a list and give you some money this evening.”

Fia drank and Astrid let her gaze float over the fire genasi. Small, conical breasts pressed against the cotton of the blouse, so that Astrid could see the outline of a big, dark nipples underneath. Then the white fabric pooled around Fia’s waist, slack around the flatness of the girl’s belly. She had thin hips, like a runner or gymnast. Then the red fabric gave way to long, coppery thighs.

“You’re looking,” Fia observed.

“Yes, you’re a fire genasi, right?”

Fia cradled the burning hot mug in her hands. “Yeah…”

“I’ve never spoken to one of you before,” Astrid mused. She heard that fire genasi had a reputation for lively intelligence and Fia had certainly not disappointed.

“It’s fine – you looking, I mean. I know you’re a good soul – what I am doesn’t matter to you. Your lover’s a half-elf and she adores you, so I needn’t protect myself.”

“Hmm?”

“On the street,” Fia said, her voice soft, low and strangely entrancing, “if they look too long, you have to be wary. Sometimes, they wanted what I didn’t want to give them.”

Astrid tensed. She did not want to hit a sore spot. “It…it can be difficult out there, I guess…” she said, feeling very stupid.

Fia’s eyes lit up. Burgundy-dark lips stretched into a sardonic little smile. “Look.” She took a long, silvery tuning pin from the worktable between her thumb and forefinger. Astrid felt and immediate rush of warm air fill the room. A nimbus of fluid, burning energy surrounded Fia’s hand. The pin glowed, steamed and, with a simple flick of Fia’s finger, bent into half.

Astrid stared, wide-eyed, her heart thundering in her chest. “It’s that easy for you?”

Fia nodded. “I can project a fireball if you want…”

“No!” Astrid interjected. “I mean, I’ll take your word for it.”

“So, you see, this is why I don’t accept charity. I have all that I need to survive, here inside of me.”

“And…you’re positive that if you have no problem controlling fire?” Another thing that was said about fire genasi was that many vere pyromaniacs.

“This is my fire. It does what I tell it to do. But I would never, ever hurt you. Not even if you hurt me.”

“What?”

“I hear it is important to be disciplined and listen to your teacher. Inattentive students ought to be punished.” Fia recited.

Astrid sighed with relief. For a minute, she had that Fia was seriously unbalanced. “It’s nothing like that, Fia, we’re all friends here – I will teach you what I know and you can teach me what you think. The way your mind moves, because that’s just as wonderful as magic itself.”

“Really?” Fia beamed. Her teeth had an iridescent, almost metallic whiteness to them.

“Yes, now come on, shift,” Astrid ordered and Fia pounced off the seat to make room for her new teacher, “we still have plenty of work to do and you still have quite a lot to learn…which reminds me, you should probably get the bases of Water-Elemental magic straight before we proceed any further. A surprising number of circuits are empowered with undines nowadays, so it’s very important that you know your way around them…”

“Hot water?” Fia inquired expectantly.

“Nice try,” Astrid smirked, “try glacial.”

Fia made a face. She had expected that. “I suppose you can’t always learn what you like.”

“Tell me about it,” Astrid said – she was warming to Fia with each passing moment. “Now look,” she threw open a simple, leather-bound volume from the multitude of artifact manuals scattered over her worktable. “This is just for basics, but it shows you a sapphire Water-Elemental source gem in a pentagonal empowering field. These are the easiest ones to do, so pay attention now and you’ll get all of them right.”

Fia knelt eagerly by Astrid’s side, propping her elbows on the table and staring intently at the diagram in front of her.

“Right,” Astrid began, “if I tell you that three of these sector gates, the first, third and fifth are exclusive and the other three are binary, what does that mean for the output and feed circuits, assuming the source gem is working at full capacity?” It was a difficult question for a beginner, but there was no point in insulting Fia’s intelligence.

Fia grimaced and concentrated, shifting closer against the worktable. Astrid felt Fia’s hair brush against her forearm. The girl smelled of a faint, sandalwood shampoo. “Potential feed,” Fia began cautiously, silently tracing an unseen diagram with her forefingers, “exceeds actual output, so the gem is at full capacity, but output is lower than normal function, so it’s…uhm, waiting.”

“Now that is impressive.” Astrid said, not quite believing what she was hearing, “but in the business, we call waiting ‘standby’.”

“Standby,” Fia repeated carefully.

Astrid decided that it was time to skip the books entirely. Fia was exactly like Astrid had been when she, too, was learning artifact magic. Precocious, curious, and more inclined to practical rather than book-learning. Astrid decided that they would make a good team.

Chapter 5

Shesayne was late for work, but no-one noticed. Business was slow in the morning shift. The banking and financial services branch for which she worked as a receptionist served a part of the city where the denizens were primarily nocturnal. Dark Elves, monitor-lizard like Khaasta and less savoury beings still. The office was a brisk walk through a winding road of looming, rickety buildings that eventually led to a wide, hexagonal square. A crumbling, moss-grown fountain issued oddly pristine water from a grotesque spout, shaped like a writing dragon. In front of the fountain lay the black hole that sucked in most of Shesayne’s day.

The half-elf trudged in, hung up her overcoat and took her seat behind a broad, oval desk that overlooked an empty waiting room. Silence and the ticking of a mechanical clock filled the air. The lamps flickered. Inside, it was always half-dark penumbra. Shesayne opened the day’s register and started up the internal communication crystal that allowed her to speak with the back office. Then, she waited.

The only mildly amusing thing about her work was the irony of being employed by a Red Dragon. Emirinkol Credit and Insurance was part of a mushrooming series of dragon-owned enterprises that had sprung up around Sigil. With trade had come ever greater wealth-maximising opportunities for the great, covetous reptiles. Now, any dragon who simply sat on its hoard instead of investing it was simply viewed as backwards and foolish. If Shesayne’s mother knew that she worked for a Red Dragon, though, that would certainly have led to a crisis. The Elven kingdom from which Shesayne’s mother had fled to Sigil had been destroyed by a consortium of those tyrannical creatures. Shesayne still made it a point to add insult to injury. Not only did her dress sense scandalise her traditionalist, Elven mother, but she had grown very fond of red scale-pattern fabric as well.

The clock ticked. Shesayne reached into the pile of mail on her desk and opened the day’s edition of the Gazetteer. She read slowly, trying to make the time pass. It was warm so she tugged her pullover off. Underneath, she wore a crimson bandeau. The company had originally tried to wear something more modest. The powers that be, though, had noticed that ever since she had started work, they had actually begun to receive customers in the morning. So, Shesayne had become the envy of her co-workers by being the only one to escape the office’s dress code. That was cold comfort. Shesayne worked to pay the rent and put food on the table, not because she enjoyed being leered at like a caged animal.

“Shesayne!” A cold, officious voice called from behind her.

The half-elf gritted her teeth. “Fucker,” she whispered. It was the branch manager. She wearily rose to her feet.

The door behind her swung open and a short, bespectacled man entered into the reception hall. He wore a black and red uniform that simulated an almost military cut. The uniforms had quite clearly been designed by something inhuman, since they had no consideration for comfort or practicality. “Shesayne, we need to talk.”

“About what, sir?” Shesayne smiled sweetly. Privately, she wanted to use the branch manager’s head for target practice with her hand crossbow.

“We have a scheme to which we would like you to contribute.” The man was greying, his voice monotone. Believing that he and the company were one, he always referred to himself as ‘we’.

“I’d absolutely, positively love to, sir,” Shesayne lied through her teeth.

“Good, good, good,” the man muttered, adjusting the itching collar of his uniform, “we are launching a new insurance plan in ten days, targeted primarily at a younger market. We have a number of wealthy clients from a number of races whom, we understand, entertain risky lifestyles. We tailored this insurance policy to reflect this – His Excellency, the Supreme Director Emirinkol worked it out, so it works, but basically, they pay more than they think and, in case of the unmentionable, we pay less than they had envisioned.”

“That sounds superbly wonderful sir, but I’m not qualified to sell insurance.”

“Of course not,” the manager snorted, “but we require you for the product launch.”

“I don’t quite catch your drift, sir…” Shesayne shifted nervously, leaning back against her desk, as far from her manager as possible.

“The public relations department decided that we need a DragonGirl for the launch.”

“DragonGirl, sir?”

“Put simply, each branch has an opening ceremony with a DragonBoy and a DragonGirl so we cover all demographics and preferences, these are the concept sketches,” the manager continued swiftly, handing Shesayne a thin manila folder, “we expect you for the costume fitting the day after tomorrow.”

Shesayne numbly accepted the folder. “Who’s the DragonBoy, sir?” she inquired miserably.

“Nhilem from the message department,” the manager said dismissively and departed, closing the door behind him.

Shesayne collapsed back into her chair. Things could be worse. Nhilem was a sweet, amusing half-elf – one of the few people in the office Shesayne found tolerable. She flipped the folder open. So-called intelligent beings, Shesayne concluded, were very stupid indeed. The concept sketches showed DragonBoy wearing a short, red loincloth and DragonGirl with a ring of dragon-scales covering her nipples, and a four-inch long, see-through vermilion skirt. Anyone, Shesayne concluded, who bought insurance, or anything at all, for that matter, on the basis of a boy’s ass or a girl’s tits was clearly out of her mind. Under the odious sketches was a credit voucher for six hundred marks.

Shesayne forced a wan smile. At least it would allow her to buy Astrid and Fia something nice.

Shesayne’s thoughts were interrupted by a familiar voice. “Hey, Shas!” Faenya strolled into the empty reception hall.

“Morning, Fen.” Shesayne mumbled. Faenya was particularly iconoclastic that morning. Dark mauve lip-paint, violet highlights on her pale eyelids, faux-Dark Elf spidersilk top that left her lightly muscled midriff bare, smooth, inky-blck breeches and matching boots. Shesayne decided that it was only a matter of time before Faenya’s mother threw her out of the house.

Faenya leapt onto Shesayne’s desk and peered over her friend. “What’s wrong, Shas?” she inquired curiously in her usual, affected inner-city drawl.

“Take a peek and a look and you tell me,” Shesayne said glumly, handing Faenya the folder.

Faenya cracked it open, took a swift glance, and tossed it back on the desk. “Tell ‘em to go fuck themselves.” She shrugged and pulled back a strand of short, bright pink and ruby-red hair.

“It means six hundred marks to me.”

“If you need six hundred, all you’ve got to do is ask.” Faenya slipped off the desk to plant a sympathetic kiss on Shesayne’s hair.

“Nah, Fen, you know how pissed and sodding furious Astrid got last time when I told her you were chipping in.”

“On a brighter note, though, I just dropped in to say that we got rave reviews yesterday. Chant on the street is that we’re pretty top-shelf, so the Ring wants us again the fifteenth – we’re the first newbie act to get a second showing in the same Revolution.”

Shesayne felt a rush of private satisfaction. More shows meant more money which meant that Astrid would be less paranoid about the rent. It would also mean that she would be able to give being DragonGirl a pass. “That’s super-great to hear,” Shesayne smiled, “is that new?” she inquired, patting Faenya’s hard belly. A platinum stud capped with a small, perfect amethyst adorned the Elven girl’s navel.

“Yeah, you like it?”

Shesayne nodded enthusiastically. “Is it one of those double-use ones?”

“Absolutely,” Faenya replied proudly, “when I need to, I can transfer it to my tongue – if you want, we can give it a spin. If you don’t come in five moments, I’ll buy you lunch.” She winked lasciviously. Shesayne noticed Faenya was wearing her violet cosmetic lenses.

For an instant, Shesayne felt tempted. Then a shudder passsed through as she remembered Tahllea’s sneering face from the previous night. “Thanks, thanks and thanks again, but not today Fen, y’know how it is, Astrid’s human and she’d like to keep me on the straight and narrow.”

“Your loss. Anyway, I thought Astrid liked Elven culture and all that stuff.” The irony was, of course, that whilst Faenya was doing everything to be less Elven, Astrid seemed to be going in the opposite direction.

“She does, but at heart, she’s an Ortho girl.”

“Ah…nevermind then,” Faenya hoisted herself back on the desk and sat cross-legged, facing Shesayne, “so, are we going to have a songwriting session anytime soon are you just going to wear your life away in this place?”

“Let me wriggle out of this fucking DragonGirl screed and we’ll organise an evening or something…d’you mind if I bring a guest?”

“’Course not, who is it?”

“Don’t worry, you’ll like her, she’s fire genasi.”

“Wow, hot!” Faenya chuckled. “Get it…”

“Believe it or not, Fen, I do,” Shesayne shot back amiably, “but she’s just not quite your type, ‘least not your bedmate type.” Faenya’s latest fling was the towering, muscular, shaven-headed Unthara. A noble-featured, green skinned woman of immense presence, Unthara always reminded Shesayne of the idealised marble sculptures of female guardian-warriors in the temples of Artemis.

“Whatever, whatever, sure, bring her along, I’m sure she can inspire a verse or two.”

“Speaking of inspiration, Fen, d’you have any Paradise Moss?” Shesayne asked, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

“No, but if you come out to lunch, we’ll score some on the way.”

“Sounds top-shelf fantastic,” Shesayne purred. “You’re buying, right?”

“’Course. Anything and everything for Sigil’s newest rising star.”
***

Much to Astrid’s delighted surprise, Fia’s first shopping trip turned out to be faultless. Fia respected the shopping list down to the letter and came back with plenty of change to spare. She knew exactly where and when to find cheap, good quality bread and, after giving a dusty cookbook a swift glance, decided that the best way to save money was to prepare herself the dishes Astrid and Shesayne had previously purchased ready-made. Astrid simply sat back and admired Fia busying herself around the kitchen.

When Shesayne came home, she was greeted by the unfamiliar smell of fresh stew. Fia stood proudly over the dinner table, her shirt flecked with bits of carrot and stained with hot broth. Shesayne’s first reaction was one of profound surprise, “Fia, you can cook?”

“Not really,” Fia replied modestly, spooning out large helpings of dark, steaming stew, “but cooking is like alchemy – you can’t go wrong if you follow instructions.”

“Well,” Shesayne crowed, slipping off her ankle boots and tossing her overcoat and pullover haphazardly on the couch, “I see your new assistant’s working out, Astrid, now I believe the term is: ‘I told you so’ -- ”

“She’s almost as good as I was when I started out with artifact repair and that’s saying a lot,” Astrid said smugly. Fia smiled shyly and motioned for Shesayne to join them at the table.

The meal was as good as could be expected from a first time cook. Though stringy and a little greasy, the stew was finished in earnest and, without having to go through the nightly routine of arguing over who should do the dishes, Fia swiftly cleared the table and started up the washbasin. Astrid, feeling a little guilty, briefly considered helping out. But she swiftly discarded the idea. Fia needed to feel useful, to feel like she had a place. There was, perhaps, no better way of making her feel at home.

That night, Fia scrupulously cleared the couch and laid out a blanket and pillow, while Shesayne fussed over her, inviting her to change her dirty shirt for a short-sleeved, white cotton shift. Astrid sat at the kitchen table, idly paging through a book on High Elven linguistics. A cup of fresh, herbal tea steamed beside her. Astrid longed for real, bitter, dark tea, but at fifty marks a packet, she usually settled for the cheaper Elven variant Shesayne’s mother bought for them.

“Astrid,” Fia said tentatively. She sat on the couch, hugging her knees, the blanket shrouded over her.

“Yes?”

“Who raised you?”

“My mother,” Astrid said wryly. ‘Raised’ was an over-generous term.

“Was she good to you?”

“No, but my sister was wonderful, so that pretty much made up for it. I suppose I can’t ask everything from Lady Luck, so, in the end, if the choice was between having a good sister and a good mother, I’d take my sister anytime of the day.” Astrid took a sip of her tea and set her book aside. Fia drew the blanket closer around her shoulders.

“What did your mother do?”

“She was a botanist. You know, obsessed with plants. She had a great greenhouse, full of flowers in tens of thousands of different colours, odd ones, too, shaped like dragon’s heads or serpent’s tongue and everything. We weren’t allowed in there, of course, but, if you’re a botanist, I suppose you’re paranoid about your plants, almost by definition.”

Shesayne slipped back into the living room bearing a cotton shift, “Here, Fia, see if this fits better.” She tossed the garment over the couch and Fia caught it. Shesayne slipped off her dragon-turtle comb, carefully laid it down on the living room table, and slid under Fia’s blanket. “Hey, Astrid, you wouldn’t believe how nice, warm and cozy it is under here,” Shesayne teased.

Fia laughed gently. “Take care that you don’t burn yourself.” She let the blanket slip from around her shoulders.

Astrid tightened her hand around the handle of her mug. Fia’s small, elegant breasts stood proudly naked in the dim light of the heating sphere. Her nipples were dark, ripe and bronzy. Her torso was gorgeous: long, thin, flat and agile. Fia slipped the shift on and still her nipples pressed stubbornly, unselfconsciously against the thin fabric. Astrid’s mouth felt dry. She took a sip of tea before speaking.

“Shesayne, maybe we should go to bed and let Fia get some rest, I’d really hate to overwork her, especially since we’ve got a busy day tomorrow – you know how it is, no rest for the wicked…”

Shesayne shifted to rise to her feet, but Fia tensed for an instant. The petite half-elf smiled and patted Fia’s thigh reassuringly, “You want me to stay, don’t you?”

Fia nodded, looking away in embarrassment. “Would you? Just for tonight, of course.”

“Sure,” Shesayne was happy to concede – snuggling up with Fia would be infinitely better than any magical heating device, “you don’t mind, do you Astrid?”

“Why should I?” Astrid picked up her book and mug and de-activated the heating sphere, plunging the room into shadowy darkness. “Good night.”

In truth, Astrid did mind. As she lay in bed, the gleaming bedside lamp emitting a soft, lunar glow, all she could think about was the Shesayne-sized empty space next to her. There was no one to murmur, kick her in her sleep, or demand to be cuddled at the most godsforsaken hours before dawn. Astrid could make out the outlines of faint, conspiratorial whispers coming from the living room. Shesayne’s giggles, Fia’s softer, more pensive laughter.

Astrid opened her book and traced the outlines of Elven calligraphy, followed by a lengthy explanation in blocky, Common typeface. Astrid sighed, Elven was such a glorious language, but exceedingly difficult to master. Not so much because of the grammar, for that was relatively simple and freeform, but because each word, each figure of speech had a very specific meaning that could change, like the turn of a leaf in the wind, to something else entirely, depending on the context. Language reflected culture, so that Elves, themselves, were flighty and whimsical. Astrid sometimes wished she could know precisely what stirred in Shesayne’s mind. Reading about Elves certainly wouldn’t help. Shesayne was her own enigma and, doubtless, Astrid was an enigma for Shesayne.

Astrid took a deep breath, drained her mug of tea and closed the book. She fell asleep to the comforting rhythm of Shesayne’s distant whispering.

Chapter 6

[Author's notes: To the original readers of this story, before I had to re-upload, this is where the new material begins. Since this novel is still in beta-phase, any feedback and suggestions would be most appreciated. Thanks,

CL]

When Fia told Astrid that it had already been ten days that they had been working together, the human mage could not quite believe it. Fia had fitted in seamlessly into Astrid’s life. Fia was polite, considerate, even when she was eccentric and answered in cryptic sentences. Fia never spent more than the allocated shopping budget. Fia always cooked, cleaned and did the dishes. Fia always picked up her dirty clothes, and Shesayne’s and Astrid’s, and brought everything to the laundry. Each morning, Shesayne and Astrid woke the smell of cooking breakfast and to the soft hum of the music sphere. For the first time since she had settled in the apartment, the living room was clean and liveable, the ice cabinet fully stocked, and the laundry basket never overflowing.

Astrid began to notice the little things. Fia was not vain, but liked it when Astrid complimented her appearance. She sought Astrid’s attention as much as she sought Shesayne’s friendship. It was if their roles had been pre-determined. Fia treated Shesayne like a confidante, while Astrid was more like her teacher or elder sister. Someone whom she held in awe and admiration. In her spare time, Fia leafed through the editions of the Gazetteer that Shesayne brought home from work. At first, it was more of an opportunity to discover the vast, cosmopolitan spread of life in Sigil. Then, Fia began to investigate the puzzles and problems page. When Astrid took her lunch break, Fia would eat quickly and settle on the couch with a few pages ripped from the Gazetteer, murmuring softly to herself, her fingers dancing on air. Then, she would take a piece of scrap wood, burn its tip, and scribe careful calculations on a piece of paper. When she had solved all of the mathematical and geometry puzzles, she would deposit the bundle of papers on Astrid’s worktable. Astrid would smile, compliment her and Fia would nod, grateful in the knowledge that she could not blush.

Astrid observed other things, too. She noticed the way Fia knelt by her side while she explained things. The way Fia leaned her head on the worktable and scrutinised each motion of Astrid’s fingers, followed each movement of the human woman’s lips. Fia learned quickly, almost frighteningly so. She clearly preferred Fire-Elemental magic, just as she had a few difficulties picking up some of the more intricate details of mainly mechanical artifacts, but her overall progress was stunning. Astrid found that, in very little time, she had almost doubled her work-rate.

So it was, one late morning, with some dim, cool light filtering through the oval kitchen window, that Astrid decided to take a quick break. She rose from the worktable and settled on the couch. Fia’s pillow and blanket were neatly folded at the opposite end. Fia followed, almost instinctively. The fire genasi padded soundlessly on the wooden floor and took a seat by Astrid’s side. Wordlessly, she huddled close to Astrid and lay her head in the human woman’s lap.

Astrid stroked Fia’s hair and stared through the window at the vast expanse of skeletal buildings before her. Fia never made it too evident, but she craved physical affection. Astrid had been hesitant at first, fearful of unnerving Fia or giving her the wrong impression. But one fateful day, she had complimented Fia on her work and the genasi girl had fallen into her arms, with quiet dignity, and Astrid could do nothing but hold her.

Astrid’s fingers traced the outline of Fia’s pointed ear. The coppery richness of the genasi girl’s skin gave way so naturally to bright golden, flame red and dark bronze tresses. Although she always dressed simply - white shift, blousy shorts without even a hint of jewellery or cosmetics, Astrid was convinced that there were few sights more beautiful in Sigil.

“Fia,” Astrid whispered, almost as if she were afraid of disrupting the connection between them.

“Hmm?” Fia hummed. She snuggled close to Astrid. Astrid smelled of mineral soap and machine oil. It was an oddly intoxicating combination.

“You never said much about yourself…your past, I mean. I can’t help but think that there’s this great blackness that you hide in your soul – something you don’t want to reveal.”

“If I don’t want to talk about it, perhaps there’s a reason, no?” Fia mused.

“What happened to your parents?”

“If you had a bastard child, would you keep her?”

“Yes, because she’d still be mine.”

“You’re a good person,” Fia murmured, “whoever conceived me and abandoned me wasn’t.”

“Sigil’s like that,” Astrid remarked sadly, “it’s cold and dark, but not always in a bad way. The darker the night, the brighter the light that burns, right?”

“My first memories,” Fia breathed, “are of cold place. Some people – some of the women, were nice to me. One of them was a healer, she helped me, taught me about the fire inside of me. Taught me to read and write, so I could one day learn words of power – magic. Then, one day, it was time for me to go. She said, ‘you are a woman now, Fia’, that was the name she gave me, ‘a woman makes her own way in the world’.”

“Hey, c’mon, don’t be so downcast about it, perhaps she knew you would end up in a better place.”

“Yeah, I guess she did. I owe her everything.”

“Fia…that’s a lovely name, though. She must have liked you, otherwise, she wouldn't have had such a pretty thought when she decided to name you.”

Fia smiled. “My name…ah, my name. It means ‘little flame’ in a human tongue.”

Astrid caressed Fia’s cheek. The girl’s skin was warm, almost as if she had a fever. “My little flame, then.”

“Your little flame?” Fia challenged.

“Yeah, you’ve made my long and, frankly, fucking boring workdays worthwhile. I don’t have to feel alone anymore when Shesayne is out of the house and, if you think about it, it’s a pretty impressive feat for anyone to make up for Shesayne’s absence.”

“So that makes me your little flame?” Fia pondered. Pinpricks ran down her spine each time Astrid’s fingernails brushed against the sensitive skin of her pointed ear.

“Of course, Shesayne was right – you really are the Match-Girl.”

“What?”

“Even on the darkest, coldest winter’s night, there’s always someone out there trying to light a fire.”

“Right,” Fia said, with a flush of satisfaction, “my fire.”

“Your fire belongs here, now.” Astrid said, not quite aware of the power her words would have on Fia’s mind. It was an invitation, a final, unconditional acceptance of what had formed between them. “I don’t ever want to see it leave.”

***

Fia felt awkward. Going out with Shesayne always meant being near the centre of attention. That unnerved her. Shesayne had chosen to take her out for a quick excursion, promising a steaming bath as a reward. That was Fia’s one weakness. So she followed the provocative half-elf through the thronging streets of a bourgeois ward of Sigil. It was cold, and a half-sleet, half-snow blanket of grey ice covered the cobbled streets. Market stalls smoked. Vendors sold steaming tea, hot wine, dark, dense liquid molasses and piquant soup. Fia felt her senses overwhelmed. She wanted to be anonymous and was perfectly comfortable in her shirt and breeches, melding in to the chattering crowds. Elves, half-elves, humans and beings which resembled upright mantises with artistically decorated chitin-shells and hulking, menacing reptilian brutes – they all merged into an endless sea of life.

Shesayne, though, managed to make a show of herself even in an overcoat. She skipped, joked, flirted and gossiped briefly with passing acquaintances, so that Fia began to be under the impression that Shesayne knew everyone in the city.

They made their way down a wide, commercial street, where some of the most renowned tailors in the city had set up shop. All manner of clothing, often cut from rare, exotic materials, was on display. Gossamer, silk, translucent and enchanted fabrics offered dizzying variety. Advertising displays had been set along the side of the street – brilliant, garish posters made of magical light that shifted and melded into one another. Snow crunched under Fia’s boots. It was time to ask the inevitable question.

“Shesayne, what are we actually doing here?”

“Oh, just little bit of fact-finding. Fen and me have another performance coming up soon, so I just thought I’d see whether this season’s offerings could offer me some ideas and inspiration.” Shesayne replied, a little distractedly. She was far too busy mentally building her new outfit.

“Another dress?” Surely the endless selection of bewildering clothing Shesayne kept in her wardrobe was more than enough. Especially since, as Fia understood it, Astrid was trying to economise.

“Why shouldn’t I treat myself?” Shesayne pouted. Her body was in perpetual motion as she intermittently swung around to address Fia, and then swept back in an entirely different direction to contemplate the shop windows.

“Astrid says you spend too much.”

“Sod it,” Shesayne groaned, “she’s gotten to you too? Y’know, Astrid used to be fancy-free and always fun to be around when I first met her, but ever since we moved in together, it’s been a whole different chant.”

“She only wants to make you happy,” Fia remarked.

“Relationship advice, huh?” Shesayne insinuated.

Fia fidgeted and shifted her eyes from Shesayne’s snide glance. “Sorry, just a thought.”

“You think far too much, now c’mon,” Shesayne seized Fia’s hand and dragged her through the crowd, “you have to be confident, give the impression you know where you’re going…like here,” she stopped before the entrance of a cavernous boutique, its exposition space housing a selection of glossy, pastel fabrics.

“We can’t afford this stuff!” Fia hissed quietly.

“I know, but it’s fun to pretend and act like we can. Now just follow my lead.”

Shesayne stepped inside the narrow entrance hall and prepared her sweetest smile and best bourgeois accent. Fia followed, stooping slightly so as not to draw attention to herself. She felt uncomfortable. The smell of polished wood and heaped fabrics was unfamiliar, menacing.

A middle-aged woman intercepted them. She was greying, bespectacled, clad in a long, ornate robe so that she very much resembled a wizard. Shesayne concluded that she was probably the head of her tailor’s guild. So she launched straight into her well-oiled trickster’s routine.

“Greetings, we could not help but notice your splendid cobalt blue…” Shesayne began.

The guildmistress cut her off with a stern, raised palm. “I am very sorry, dears, there is nothing for you here.”

“Sure, sure,” Shesayne resolved to laugh it off, “I get it, I’m pretty short, but you definitely have something for my friend here…”

“Frankly, dear,” the woman’s voice was a low, patronising monotone that reminded Shesayne of her branch director, “I think not. I imagine there are other places for those of your kind.”

Fia raised her gaze. Her eyes were smouldering. “What kind would that be?”

“Goodness, girl,” the guildmistress said impatiently, “you should know your place – we would rather not serve halfbreed urchins like –“

Fia flared her fingers open and a sheet of flame projected from the palm of her hand, dancing a foot in the air like a hypnotised serpent. “Like what?” Fia said, her voice low, dangerous.

Shesayne intervened, whipping around to thrust Fia out of the door before the situation went out of control. “Fia, no!” she cautioned sternly, even if she understood the genasi’s frustration. “It’s not worth it here, trust me, I know.”

“Out of here, both of you, this instant!” the woman cried, “Belphamon,” she called, and a hulking minotaur, his bovine head crowned with a heavy, golden chain, poked into the entrance corridor. “Please escort the ladies outside.”

The minotaur approached, his heavy leather uniform straining over his massive, bulky musculature. He bellowed and snorted, hooves tapping a threatening rhythm into the floorboards. Fia stood defiantly, a nimbus of fire spreading around her, shrouding her body in a silhouette of burning energy.

“Fia, please!” Shesayne begged. “Just let it go…it’s my fault, just let it go.”

At last, Fia gave way. She dispelled the fires that she had summoned, swept around and strode out of the emporium, Shesayne behind her. The minotaur followed them up to the door. Shesayne whipped around to cover their backs. The minotaur nodded and snorted again. For an instant, Shesayne saw a spark of something resembling sympathy in the bestial humanoid’s savage eyes.

Outside, Fia stared glumly at Shesayne, ashamed at her lapse in self-control. “I’m sorry.” Fia could tolerate most overt insults directed at her, but she would never allow Shesayne to be demeaned in her presence.

Shesayne simply embraced her and held her close for a long, pregnant moment. Fia’s heart beat madly in her chest. Shesayne realised that the situation could have turned into tragedy very quickly. There was no telling how Fia would deploy her fire in an adrenaline rush. But the girl had power, that much was certain. Even the minotaur had been frightened, as if he feared becoming roast beef at a flick of Fia’s fingers. “You just calm down, breathe and relax, all right, treasure?” Shesayne whispered. Her breath misted in the cold air. Fia kept her warm.

Chapter 7

“Why were you so late?” Faenya complained. The private bathing hall she had hired in the Great Gymnasium was already half-full of aromatic steam.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Shesayne replied airily, warm water lapped around her bare feet. The steam was invigorating. “Just ran into a couple of idiots, but Fia was here just about put the fear of the Abyss back into the fuckers, right Fia?”

The water at the large, heated central pool bubbled and Fia surfaced with a splash of near boiling water. She settled around the edge of the pool, arms crossed on the ledge, staring down at Shesayne and Faenya relaxing on a rocky outcrop bathed by the warm, fragrant tides that flowed into the chamber. Although the upper basin was normally only used to produce therapeutic steam, Fia found its burning waters more than congenial. They were positively sublime – definitely relaxing enough to forget about the day’s unpleasantness.

“They didn’t know what they had coming to them,” Fia boasted.

Faenya sat up on the smooth rock, carved in imitation of a sea-side shoal. “Come down here, I want to have a proper look at you.” Fia had undressed quickly and gratefully thrown herself into the bubbling pool the moment she had arrived at the Great Gymnasium. Faenya sympathised. It was bitterly cold outside.

Gingerly, Fia slipped out of the high pool, her body steaming, and stepped down the pumice-stone spiral staircase onto the shoal. She carefully sat down, still a little self-conscious, by Faenya’s side. Shesayne looked on, lying on her belly, kicking her feet aimlessly in the air.

Faenya chuckled to herself as she contemplated Fia. Not exactly her type, Shesayne was right about that, but the girl certainly had presence. Nice, hard abdominal muscles gave way to an enchanting thatch of rich copper and bronze curls and then long, smooth thighs. “Are you a runner?” Faenya inquired.

Fia shook her head.

“Well, we should get you into athletics, you’d make a killing. And you're by far the cutest fire mage I’ve ever seen.”

Shesayne interjected, knowing Fia’s temper, “Don’t patronise her, Fen, she’s liable to burn you!”

Fia smiled. She enjoyed the light banter between Shesayne and Faenya. It seemed unforced and naturally friendly. “Did that hurt?” Fia asked, pointing to the amethyst embedded in Faenya’s navel.

“A little…don’t you have any?”

“No…”

“That’s an absolute shame, look,” Faenya insisted, she traced a violet-painted fingernail over Fia’s nipple. It began to stiffen almost immediately – a plump, sweet berry, “you have gorgeous breasts. I really love a boyish torso and you could definitely pierce at least one nipple.”

“Y’know what, Fia,” Shesayne chimed in, “she’s right, lots of fire genasi girls have bronze or Red Steel rings – it goes with your skin colour. Nenna foryani, Fenselii? Nelin, you'd be a fantastic hit at the Labrys Foundry.” She spoke half to Faenya and half to Fia. Shesayne tried not to use too much Quessa when she was around non-fae like Fia, but speaking the Elven patois was natural to her around Faenya.

Fia squirmed. Faenya’s fingers had brought an unfamiliar jolt of sensation in her belly. She didn't mind the alien words, though. To her they were a mystery of the Multiverse to be relished. “How do you do it?”

“Easy,” Faenya answered, “a mithril needle and someone who knows what she’s doing.”

“But it hurts…” Fia noted.

“Yeah, but only weaklings take the potion – I had all mine done raw. The rush beats Paradise Moss any fucking day,” Faenya said, her tone a little too sanguine for Fia’s tastes.

“Tell you what,” Faenya added, “after our next show, we can all have a drink and a few Dreamsmokes together and I’ll do your right breast just to try and, if you like it, you can come back and we’ll discuss more.”

“All right,” Fia agreed with trepidation, “but when you say 'more'...”

Shesayne giggled. It was exactly the question Faenya had been waiting for. The Elven woman gave a wanton, predatory smile, turned to face Fia and parted her thighs. Fia gasped. Crowning the neat, peach-pink folds of Faenya’s nether lips was a glorious, platinum stud, intricately carved and embedded in the hood of her clit. The stiff little bud beneath peeked from its sheath, as if the stud were coaxing it out of its lair.

“Now that must have hurt,” Fia said for lack of anything more intelligent to say.

“In the best way imaginable,” Faenya shot back. “It’s nice, isn’t it?”

“Yeah…”

“Touch it,” Faenya invited.

Fia rubbed her hand nervously against her thigh. Something stirred inside her. Her heartbeat began to pulse in her head. All of a sudden, she became very aware of blood throbbing and knotting in her belly. “You sure?” Fia queried her voice unsteady.

“Sure as sure can be.” Faenya swept back her bright, multichrome hair. Cherry blossoms, cherry fruit and cherry jam all mingled in one.

Fia’s long, dextrous fingers trailed down Faenya’s flat belly and tentatively traced the outline of the fat, hairless mound of the girl’s sex. Faenya smiled conspiratorially. Fia took a quick breath and gently tapped the tip of the stud with her forefinger. Faenya bit her lip. Emboldened, Fia pressed her middle and forefinger against the stud and stroked it, applying sudden pressure on Faenya’s glistening, slick clit. Faenya drew a sharp breath. Her tiny bud was free from its hood, angry like an awakened serpent.

“Does it…uhm, feel good?” Fia asked, feeling foolish.

“Lisse – delicious, baby,” Faenya said huskily. “Now watch.”
The skin on Faenya’s belly began to ripple and, little by little, a complex pattern of roses and thorns, illustrated with bright, striking colours, began to form around her navel. The living tattoo grew, spreading its tendrils around Faenya’s upper thighs and all over her back and abdomen. It was stylised Elven calligraphy; each letter a plant or a flower - each word a shrub or a briar. Even when fully formed, the tattoo ebbed and flowed, as if swaying under an imperceptible wind. The tendrils and vines arched and danced, drawing Fia's eye to follow the weave of the words, even if she couldn't understand them.

“Incredible,” Fia mouthed.

“Not really,” Shesayne interrupted, “just the best way for a highborn Elven girl to get some body art without being thrown out of the house.”

“Something like that,” Faenya noted ruefully, “I got locked in my room for twenty fucking days for getting these.” She ran her hand over the three platinum rings that studded her pointed ear. A highly erogenous zone for Elves, ears were even covered up with elaborate hairstyles by the sons and daughters of conservative High Elven families. Now Faenya kept her hair defiantly short.

Fia was still staring at the stud in Faenya’s clit, wondering what it would feel like to have something like that embedded in her. Faenya caught Fia staring. “I can do your clit too, if you like.” She used the human term – the Elven equivalent, Ahanamiri - ‘Hanali’s Jewel’, was far too stylised for her tastes.

Fia cocked her head to one side. Faenya was all about the fusion of metal, gems and ink. Her toe rings and piercings glistened in the suffused light, slick with condensation. In a way, it was perversely fascinating. As if Faenya's body were a canvas upon which her eclectic tastes could be given free rein. “Maybe it would be better if we started out slow,” Fia concluded.

“Sure. Ring’s on me then,” Faenya said, souding pleased that she had persuaded Fia in at least one matter, “it’ll be something really special, I promise.”

“Thanks. I think.” Fia was still unsure as to whether or not she should be grateful.

“So, are you just going to stare all day?” Faenya complained. Shesayne would have caught on by now.

“Huh?” Fia tapped her fingers nervously against the rock beneath her.

Shesayne was overcome by half-suppressed laughter. “Hey, don’t force and coerce her, Fen, maybe you’re not her type – the fucking Multiverse doesn’t revolve around you, y’know.”

Faenya ignored her. “If you lick me out, you’ll see just how great it is to have one of these,” she purred.

Fia felt her throat constrict. The song of her heart had become deafening. “I…I’ve never done this before,” she said at length.

Faenya sighed in disappointment. What plane of existence had Fia been living on? “Well, it’s never too late to learn. If you do a good job, I’ll show you something special in return.”

“So that’s what you’re really after,” Shesayne teased, “hot, spicy and ten times better than ginger tea?” She mimicked Faenya’s affected accent. Those had, after all, been Faenya’s words after her first intimate encounter with a fire genasi woman. The first of many.

Fia hesitated. She was caught between the desire to dive between Faenya’s legs and nuzzle that damp, silky softness and the need to control herself. Faenya was manipulating her. Still – the air around them had become rich with strangely flowery female musk. An intoxicating aroma that tightened the knot in Fia's sex.
Faenya rolled her hips, her belly straining. Fia had beautiful, burgundy lips. How she wanted them against her inflamed pussy. “Fine, I get it,” Faenya smiled, “we’ll save this for another time. But you, you’ve got to loosen up.” Faenya playfully ran a hand through Fia’s hair and stole a quick kiss from her sculptural cheek.

Fia breathed a sigh of relief as Faenya closed her legs and dived into the bathing pool below. She turned to meet Shesayne’s bemused gaze. “Did I do something wrong?” Fia asked.

“’Course not,” Shesayne snorted, crawling up the shoal to huddle by Fia’s side. “She just thinks the whole Multiverse from the Seventh Heaven to the pit of the Abyss is dying to go down on her.”

“But…she’s an Elf,” Fia objected. The Elves she had met when she still plied her heating services on the street were all decent, generous people. None ever threatened her or withheld payment and they certainly were nowhere near as brash as Faenya.

“So am I, in a way, but this city’ll do that to you. You wake up one day and you find that you’re not comfortable being an Elf anymore – if you really, truly, genuinely want to know this place, you’ve got to let go of what you were or what your parents were and become something else.”

In the steaming pool below the rock-shoal, Faenya swam deftly. Wet, pink and red tendrils occasionally bobbed above the green, murky surface of the mineral-infused waters. Fia watched, as if in dream. “Is she unhappy with who she is?”
“I guess. Yeah, she is – things like language and dress and food, they only mean something when they are where they belong. You can't just take someone to this city and tell them to live like they was still somewhere else. Eventually, you drop out of the nest. Faenya just dropped faster than most.”

Fia nodded. “I’m not like her, but I understand her. I, too, was unhappy with who I was. It made people suspicious of me, afraid. But for you and Astrid, it’s a good thing that I’m a fire genasi. Maybe if she found people who thought it was good to be an Elf, she would be more like the high-up sorceresses in the Lady’s Ward.”

“Don’t count on it,” Shesayne said, dipping her toes tentatively in the water. “I’ve known her for some time and, the dark of the matter is, she thinks she hates her family.”

“What did they do?” Fia interjected.

“Dunno, paid for the best Elven school in Sigil, gave her thousands of marks whenever she asked for them…”

“That’s not all there is in life,” Fia noted.

“Guess not, but she’s a good one. We set up our act together and she paid for everything. You just don’t have to take her too personally, or too seriously and you’ll be fine. Friends like her can be hard to come by in Sigil, even when they’re pretty sodding annoying.”
“I'd want to be taken seriously, though.”
“Yes, but you're clever. You're different.”
With a burst of water, Faenya surfaced under Shesayne’s feet. “What are you two jabbering on about?”

“Elven spoiled brats who dress like Drow to piss their parents off,” Shesayne snapped.

“What about half-elven brats who have to parade as Dragon Girl?” Faenya riposted.

Shesayne kicked a spray of water in Faenya face and rose to her feet on the shoal. Faenya hissed a curse and hoisted herself back on the rock. “And just for being so nasty,” Shesayne said, affecting a wounded voice, “you’re buying at the bar.”

“Done deal,” Faenya concluded. “D’you two girls want dinner?”

Shesayne looked sceptical. “Last time it was fucking awful, what was that green, slimy, gloopy stuff that sticks to your teeth.”

“Some kind of grass,” Faenya said, “and yeah, it was pretty vile, how about some Iris Wine on the panoramic terrace while we discuss next show’s arrangements.”

“Sounds top-shelf, you game, Fia?” Shesayne replied.

Fia nodded.

“Say,” Faenya remarked, “Fia, what d’you know about music?”

“Music is like a geometry – first you understand the system, then you place the components, or notes,” Fia said enthusiastically.

“You and me, we should’ve traded places,” Faenya quipped, “you’d have been great in school. Anyway, I expect to see you there with Astrid at our next show – front row, understood?”

“Consider me there.” Fia smiled.

Shesayne said, “Are we going to invite her to the…y’know, after?”

“After?” said Fia.

“Absolutely – it’s going to be splendid. With your new ring, you’ll be the envy of the festivities,” Faenya boasted.

Fia bit her lips, betraying her nerves. She tentatively tapped the surface of her bronzy nipple and imagined what it would feel like to have a mithril needle go through it. A deal, though, was a deal. Faenya was, in her own way, both threatening and alluring. She represented a world that Fia saw as decadent, but strangely magnetic.

“Hey, Fen, now that I think of it, I should meet up with Kadda and make sure she’s got everything we need.” Shesayne said.

“Can you do that tomorrow? I’d love to drop by, but my family has this fucking poetry social and my presence is, allegedly, compulsory,” Faenya complained, though she took some pride in being scowled upon by her fellow Elves.

“No problem – we said Dreamsmoke, Fire Orchid, Black Lotus…”

“The more the better,” Faenya encouraged. “Hey, Fia, do you like Dreamsmoke?”

Fia looked perplexed. “I don’t know, never tried. Anything with ‘smoke’ in its name is usually fine by me, though.”

“Leave it, Fen,” Shesayne chided, “you don’t want to give her anything that’ll excite her, trust me.”

Chapter 8

The Styx Boatman tavern was alive with its teeming, cosmopolitan clientele. A group of large, eight-legged sentient insects, their carapaces adorned with ornate metal plates, chittered continuously by the bar. They drank gelatinous globules of honey which they placed between their mandibles, sucking slowly, until the outer membrane became as loose and empty as a broken balloon. Luminescent wires and streamers hung from the low ceiling, casting a suitably impersonal light on the mixed and often sinister patrons. A barrel-chested dwarf, his beard split into a fork, stood bare-chested at the bar. His immense pectorals strained as he reached for mugs and glasses, pouring the requested drinks with expert aplomb.

Shesayne had chosen an unassuming corner of the bar, far from prying eyes and curious ears. A glass of sweet, amber wine sat half-empty on the bar beside her. Kadda was late. The chittering of the mantis-creatures was hypnotic, almost soporific. Shesayne took another sip of her wine and examined the crowd. Still no sign of Kadda.

“Shas!”

Shesayne almost jumped in her seat. Kadda had sneaked up behind. She whipped around. “Fuck! Y’know that’s not funny when we’re handling this kind of stuff.”

“Easy, easy,” Kadda reproached. She leapt onto the bar and sat in front of Shesayne, her feet leaning on the empty stool beside the half-elf.

Kadda refused to submit to indignity of having her legs dangling in the air. She was a halfling, little more than four feet tall, but graced with a wiry, agile build – the always tense, always nervous body of a rogue. Unlike dwarves, halflings were proportioned as humans. Yet they nurtured a certain disdain for those whom they dismissively called ‘the big folk’. Kadda occasionally gave the wrong impression. Her oval face, lightly pointed ears, button nose and charming features put many off-guard. Kadda, though, was a first-rate thief. Behind those soft, chocolate-brown eyes was the soul of an adventurer. As always, she wore dark, functional outfits: the tight, multi-pocketed jerkin and grey breeches of an opportunist. Her midnight-dark hair was cropped short and gathered tight against her scalp in neat, braided rows.

“So, how in the Nine Hells did you get in?” Shesayne hissed.

Kadda tapped her boots together and stretched out against the bar, pretending to think. “Snuck in ‘round back.” she said. Her tone was smug, as if her genius were evident for all to see. The light seemed to fuse with her pale skin. Her ancestors had come from a nomadic clan of river-folk from the northern reaches of a distant world. That no longer mattered. Kadda’s clan had been in Sigil for as long as any of its members could remember.

“Figures why I didn’t notice you, you’re below my field of vision,” Shesayne taunted.

Kadda burst out with mock laughter. “Hmm - taunting a halfling for her height, you are so fucking original. Ever consider doing stand-up?”

“No. Ever consider making an honest living? You always manage to look like you’re an assassin on the prowl.”

“You always look like you’re ready to hit Magpie Lane.” Kadda playfully tapped Shesayne’s bared midriff with the tip of her boot.

“You just watch out. Before you know it, you’ll be plump and pulling cider for your hairy, halfling husband.” The tendency for otherwise slender halflings to put on weight in middle age was infamous.

“Now why in the Abyss would I need a halfling husband when I have you?” Kadda said. She leaned over the bar and pressed her rosy lips against Shesayne’s mouth. Shesayne was in a playful mood – the kiss of greeting became open, wet and sensual. Kadda leaned in, her tongue absorbed in a lusty dance in Shesayne’s mouth.

Shesayne drew her thumb along the sensitive surface of Kadda’s pointed ear as she broke the kiss. Kadda drew a sigh of pleasure. Shesayne smirked and licked her lips. “Nah, half-elf and halfling would never, ever work.”

“Fucking spoil-sport. Two thieves, lots of jink, lots of drink, lots of Dreamsmoke, top-shelf daggers – couldn’t get much better than that.”

“Anyway, guess who sent me?” Shesayne said, changing the subject. Kadda always took her jokes about marrying Shesayne to unnerving lengths.

“Fen-YA!” Kadda chimed.

“Right, how’d you guess? Anyways, we’re interested in your next delivery, provided you’ve got it.”

“Cat’s in the bag,” Kadda said. Halfling expressions could be so quaint. “But Fen seems to think that I’ve got Fire Orchids growing out of my cunt, pardon the expression.”

“They’re all the rage, though, Fen’s willing to pay fifteen hundred each thal-weight, so if we re-sell at three thousand, which is feasible, we’d be making some really, truly serious jink.”

“I can shift two thal-weights, max. Civic Security doesn't usually check halfling barges, so I can sneak it under a shipment of dried apples at the Grand Canal.”

“All right, I’ll leave that up to you. As for re-sale, we’re in the shop-front together, right?”

“As usual, my sweet, as usual.” Kadda pounced into Shesayne’s lap, resting her head on the half-elf’s shoulder. “But why right now? I thought you quit our little enterprise when you got together with Astrid.”

“Jink’s jink and if the most honest living a half-elf can make is dressing like an idiot to get other barmy leatherheads to buy insurance, then I’ll go back to doing what I do best,” Shesayne said with defiance. A good sale would mean that Astrid could put off worrying about the rent for a long time.

Kadda reminded her of a more footloose, exciting past. Thieving and living in the shadows may have occasionally been dangerous, but it provided a swell of satisfaction which sitting at a reception desk could not even begin to equal. Kadda’s style had been hard and direct: thieving was about taking objects. Shesayne, however, took the confidence-trickster approach. There was very little most males and many females of any race wouldn’t do for a sweetly smiling, pretty little Elf.

Kadda helped herself to a sip of Shesayne’s wine. “I take it they’ve cooked up some new humiliation for you at the bank.”

Shesayne breathed a dramatic sigh. “Let’s just not mention or talk about it.”

“Ah, you’ll sort it out – with all the cutters we’ll be peeling, you won’t have to worry about a thing.”

“The venue is the private festhalls under the Celestial Ring, as usual. Faenya’ll let you in at the service entrance.”

“That’s all screed, you know I could do this blindfolded…and so could you, so much for making a sodding honest living.”

“You never know,” Shesayne said, the horrifying image of the DragonGirl costume springing back to mind, “I might just consider thinking ‘bout joining you back in the shadows.”

“That’s my girl.” Kadda leapt off Shesayne’s onto the adjacent bar stool and sat, cross legged, staring intently. She always sized up whomever she met, even if it was a friend. “How’s Astrid?”

“Fine, good, busy-busy all the time, but she still has time for me.”

“She still doesn’t like me, right?” Kadda said. It was a rhetorical question.

“Aw, c’mon Kadda, that’s not fair, you know she loathes and detests you.”

“Just ‘cause I’m a halfling, right?” Kadda joked.

“Exactly.”

“By the by, I heard that Astrid’s employing the Match-Girl.”

“Yeah, Fia – she’s smarter than both of us put together, I'd wager. But something tells me there's something not quite right and on balance with her. Y’see, remember that Cranium Rat infestation back at our place?”

“How could I forget – tricky sods, those.”

“Well, after a while, I gave up shooting them down with my hand crossbow – just too many of them. So, one day Fia goes up to the top of the stairs and sees a whole nest of the bastards feasting on some rubbish. She kneels down and blows on the palm of her hand…and whoosh! This stuff that looks like burning, fiery dust flies out into the air. At first it’s just a mist, then it becomes like a sandstorm. Only that the sand's fire – each grain's a flaming cinder. The firestorm surrounds the rats, like wrapping them in paper, and burns them. The survivors just run away, scampering like mad, but the fire-cloud follows them, all the way into their dens. Haven’t seen a rat since.”

“By Grandfather’s cock! I s’pose you’d call that the kiss of death.”

“Yeah, she’s sweet, calm and sort of demure, but don’t ever, ever, ever piss her off,” Shesayne warned.

“Don’t piss a fire genasi off, and that’s the end of it. Back when she was on the streets, some berk tried to peel her for all the jink she was worth.”

“I know where this is going…”

“Burned a circle five inches wide in his chest. Said he didn’t even see what hit him, the fire had already blinded him,” Kadda said knowingly. Sigil was a death-trap. Even the most unassuming encounter with a passer-by could turn out to be your last.

“Fuck. Civic Security never took a look-see?”

“What was he going to tell them, huh? I tried to rob a penniless half-breed girl sleeping rough and oh, by the way, arrest her for burning a hole in me in self-defence.”

“She’s got a temper, but Fia’s no liability.” Shesayne sounded as if she were trying to convince herself.

“Nah, don’t worry about her. Fire genasi are a protective lot: they either like you or they don’t: if they don’t you’re fucked, or more specifically, burned to a cinder, if they do, then you can pretty much sleep nice and safe at night.”

Shesayne looked relieved. “Astrid seems to have taken a shine to her.”

“If she’s clever, then she’s Astrid’s type. Everything all right between you two?” It was no secret that Kadda wanted the answer to be ‘no’.

“’Course.”

“Lemme guess, less intimacy since Fia arrived, hmm?” Kadda insinuated.

Shesayne paused. Kadda had a point. It had been twenty days, give or take, and she could count the times she and Astrid had made love on one hand. Part of the problem, of course, was that Tahllea was still lurking unpleasantly at the back of Shesayne’s mind. That was the unmentionable. The sneering face that peered out in the darkness. She and Astrid had even had a subtle, unspoken quarrel when Shesayne professed herself too tired one evening.

“I had a nasty run-in after my show,” Shesayne confessed, “I’d still like to take the time to sort myself out, y’know, it’s got nothing to do with Fia.”

“Makes sense, I s’pose,” Kadda backed off. She knew better than to emotionally corner Shesayne. “Look, tomorrow we’re just going to sit down, unwind and have a chat after your show, all right?”

“No Faenya?”

“No Faenya,” Kadda agreed.

Chapter 9

[Author's notes: Apologies for the length between this update and the last. Life, as always, can scupper our best laid plans. Thank you to those who continue to read and review my work. Your feedback is always encouraging.]

The show was nothing short of a triumph even before it started. The Celestial Ring was packed, both with suffering, impoverished artists eager to feel the pulse of Sigil’s cultural life and with casual onlookers. Astrid and Fia enjoyed the spectacle from a table directly in front of the stage. The lights went dark and then stirred to life again with a low, crimson brilliance. Shesayne, clad in a red scale-pattern top that clung tightly to her torso, but left her back bare, complete with matching cut-off breeches and boots, immediately commanded the audience’s bemused attention. Faenya, hovered behind Shesayne, a long, fluidly carved lute borne lazily in her hands. Faenya had gone further down the iconoclastic road. She wore a succinct grey spidersilk top emblazoned with an irreverent, some would say blasphemous, Elven pun, and low-riding skintight and inky-black breeches made from the skin of a swamp-dwelling serpent.

A hush spread over the room, followed by a murmur of disapproval by some of the more curious, but traditionalist Elves. Then Faenya’s strumming picked up tempo. It was not an Elven rhythm, but something distinctly tinged with the rapid beats of halfling nomadic music. Alternatively mournful and playful, the opening bars gave way to Shesayne’s high, mockingly ironic voice – a play on the typical timbre associated with Elven bards. Cryptic, scornful lyrics about Red Dragons and their undead minions followed. Anger poured from Shesayne and that was her catharsis. All sublimated in the swift, often improvised, variations Faenya gave to the core melody. The audience watched, rapt. Fia imagined each note to be a geometric shape, with colour establishing pitch and length, and saw a great, confusing, abstract tableau spread in her mind’s eye. If there was method to the madness, the secrets of Faenya and Shesayne’s song writing would not relinquish themselves willingly.

Astrid was spellbound. She did not even sip her Feywine, but simply watched the violent, brash motions of Shesayne’s body as she dominated the stage. Despite her diminutive frame, she had captured the entire establishment’s attention with but a flick of her wrist. The lights were magically calibrated to react to Shesayne’s mood, so that they flashed sympathetically: violet, purple, deep blue with each line.

By the end of the song, as the final winding down on Faenya’s virtuoso lute seized the audience’s attention one last time, Fia felt as if she had been in a daze. There was simply no keeping up with the tempo of the song. It had flown by so quickly, leaving nothing but a longing, mental trace.

Shesayne paused, surreptitiously caught her breath and bowed. The murmur of approval was instant, sometimes heated, sometimes qualified with prudish criticism, but always amazed. Shesayne felt a wave of relief sweep over her. She never got nervous on stage. As a natural exhibitionist, she relished the opportunity to perform. Still, there were always misgivings when the music was experimental. With a simple “thank you”, she and Faenya bade the crowd farewell and retreated backstage.

In an instant, the chattering din of a crowded tavern returned to its normal pitch. The lights on the stage dimmed and the usual ambient lighting flooded the dining hall with a more sociable, golden glow.

“Shesayne told me to meet her backstage, do you want to come?” Fia said, raising her voice to make herself heard over a particularly noisy table of half-elves beside them.

“Maybe you should go ahead,” Astrid invited, “I like the atmosphere out here…”

“You want to practice your Elven?” Fia asked curiously.

Astrid blushed. Her language skills were improving, but still far from perfect. She did not want anyone, least of all Shesayne or Fia, to catch her stumbling clumsily through the meanders of an Elven conversation. The Celestial Ring, though, was the closest equivalent of full immersion that Sigil had to offer. “They say it’s the best way – you know, interacting with native speakers and the like. Elven is such a complex, multi-layered language, you do know that if I asked you to pour me a glass of wine, that sentence, in itself, would immediately tell the listener what our relationship, social background and level of intimacy were…it really is amazingly interesting.”

“Makes sense…” Fia said. She had given Astrid’s Elven language books a quick glance. The language, though, was often illogical. Exceptions were arbitrary, the changes in grammatical voice and tone often subject to seemingly irrelevant or random factors.

“You go ahead, have fun and tell Shesayne to save some Dreamsmoke for me – I could really use some, not ‘cause I’m addicted or anything, mind you, but it’s cold, the nights are long…”

Fia shrugged. Astrid did not need to justify herself. So she rose, and left Astrid to strike up conversation with a passing Elven cupbearer.

Inside the bowels of the Celestial Ring, the warm glow that flooded the backstage corridor beckoned from the stairwell. Fia ascended. She was very much aware of what she was going for. Trepidation, perhaps, fear filled her – that and a tense knot in her throat. Shesayne had told her she was underdressed. Fia disagreed: a plain white sleeveless cotton shift and loose, comfortable dark blue canvas breeches and she felt absolutely fine.

With quiet, cautious steps, Fia made her way down the corridor into the dressing room. A sickly-sweet, aromatic smoke filled the air. Dense, like burning cinnamon and caramel, it wafted throughout the air in a bluish mist. Faenya and Shesayne were waiting. A vast, overstuffed couch dominated the room, flanked by a tall, floating mirror and a glossy, hardwood wardrobe. Assorted Elven fabrics lay cast around the room, like rags.

“So, what d’you say, how’s our little duo?” Shesayne called. Fia closed the door behind her. The smoke was heady and emanated from an ornate silver censer that floated in mid-air.

“I never heard anything quite like it,” Fia confessed, “it was new…fresh, it made me think.”

“Thanks,” Shesayne smiled – she was doubly flattered that Fia had liked it; a woman of Fia’s intellect doubtless knew what she was talking about, “in case you’re wondering ‘bout the smoke, this is just for starters – a little Elysian Delirium-Honey – it’ll make you light headed, but if you don’t like the feeling, you can always have a drink or two when we go downstairs, Feywine wards all the effects off in no time.”

“It’s…fine,” Fia said. Her heart felt as though it were beating in her throat.

Faenya took a deep lungful of smoke straight from the censer and said, “C’mon, don’t be nervous, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? Here, sit down.”

Fia obeyed. Shesayne made room, settling on the far arm of the couch, eagerly awaiting Faenya’s next move. Fia eased herself on a sea of silken cushions and stared at the levitating mirror in front of her. Faenya smiled and soothingly stroked Fia’s hair.

“Here,” the Elven woman invited, “I picked this one out for you.” From a cedarwood box she produced a small, bronze ring, expertly inlaid with runes Fia recognised as Ignan – the ancestral language of Elemental Fire.

Shesayne’s eyes widened. She had never seen anything quite like it: it’s surface seemed to wind in harmony with the curves of the runes. “Must’ve cost a Celestial Ocean of jink…”

“Price tags are for pathetic materialists,” Faenya snorted. “D’you like it Fia? It’s top-shelf fire genasi stuff, so we won’t be straying too far from your heritage.”

Fia swallowed. “It’s quite lovely,” she ventured.

“Great! I knew my aesthetic eye was infallible,” Faenya crowed, “now c’mon, get that shift off.”

Fia took a deep breath and felt her muscles begin to relax. Despite the tension she knew ought to be building in the back of her mind, she was beginning to feel at ease. With a quick, matter-of-fact tug, she pulled off her shift and tossed it on the couch. Her coppery skin gleamed in the enchanted firelight.

Faenya produced a small alabaster jar and a long, mithril needle. Fia licked her lips nervously. Faenya smiled, “Lean back, relax, trust me,” she whispered.

Fia let herself sink into the pillow. Faenya hovered over her. Moist, violet lips wrapped around Fia’s nipple in a wet, suckling kiss. Fia whimpered and watched as the dark peak grew stiff.

Shesayne shifted nervously. “You sure ‘bout having it hard first?”

Faenya chuckled and applied some antiseptic unguent from the alabaster jar to Fia’s nipple. The liquid was cold. Fia gasped and felt a rush of heat between her thighs. “She’s a big girl, she can handle it – something tells me she’ll even appreciate it.”

Fia’s breathing quickened. Faenya prepared the needle and immersed it in the antiseptic fluid. Then, she mentally commanded the ring to unravel, so that it became like a bar, with two spherical ends. She attached the bar to the base of the needle and straddled Fia’s thighs. “Now listen,” Faenya whispered, “this is going to hurt like the Abyss at first, but you have to stay absolutely still, all right?”

Fia took another breath of the fragrant smoke and nodded. Faenya tapped the bronzy nipple twice with her thumb. With a swift, fluid motion, she threaded the needle into Fia’s nipple.

Fia bit her lip. The pain was searing, hot, tearing through her breast. Faenya pounced and kissed her, hard, on the lips. “Look at me, kitten, look at me,” she cooed.

Fia mastered herself. The pain was but an illusion, a figment of her mind. In two deep breaths, all she felt was a dull, burning throb. The sharp, searing agony was gone. Faenya nodded approvingly and sat back. With practiced hands, she threaded the needle all the way through until all that was left inside the nipple was the distended ring. She detached the needle and commanded the ring to return to its original shape. The bronze twisted and snapped shut. The ring was a perfect fit. Fia slumped back. The pain was almost nonexistent now. Doubtless, the ring bore a mild healing enchantment.

Shesayne drew a sigh of relief. “All done, finished and settled and I’ve got to say it looks first-rate great.”

Fia grinned with satisfaction. Faenya admired her handiwork, gave the ring a final wet flick with her tongue, and finally rose to her feet. “Not even a single solitary tear, really not bad for a first-timer,” Faenya said with a tinge of admiration, “but now, we really ought to be meeting Kadda downstairs.”

Fia reached for her shift. Shesayne stopped her. “Leave it, trust me.”

“But…” Fia objected.

Shesayne was too uninhibited by the Delirium-Honey to even register an objection. “C’mon, show yourself off – sweet, boyish fire genasi get more than their fair share of attention, if you catch my drift -- ”

Fia resigned herself and let Faenya lead her out. There was no point in objecting any more.

Downstairs, it was like descending into an ocean of vivid colours and crackling smoke. A wide oval hall, ringed by burning braziers of pungent, bittersweet Dreamsmoke, housed a score of revellers. Males, females, and those who were beyond such distinctions all congregated, chatting, drinking, touching. Fia reached for Shesayne’s hand. She was led through the thronging crowd: whip-thin, blue-skinned air genasi; full-breasted, wide-hipped Dark Elven women; muscled, tanned Wood Elven men.

Shesayne led them down a corridor, deeper still into the Celestial Ring’s underground. The smell of smoke mingled with the sweeter aromas of narcotic al-Zakharan incense.

It was time to meet Kadda. Shesayne turned and kissed Fia’s anxious, clenching hand. “I’ve got to run now, treasure, but Fen’ll take care of you and I’ll be back in no time, I promise.”

Fia nodded and tried to get her head around the chaos. A low, thumping drumbeat began to pulse through the walls, conveyed by strategically placed music spheres. Shesayne disappeared down the hallway. Faenya's lips curled into a sly smile and she and bade Fia to follow her.

They walked through a wall that warped and twisted to accommodate their forms and stepped into a cooler, quieter room of low-slung, blue crystal lamps. A blond Elven boy was bent over on a couch, firm, tight bottom spread while a bigger, dusky Wood Elf drove his slick phallus into his lover’s bottom. Fia stared. The movements were hypnotic, the Wood Elf’s cock thick, veined and hard as it mastered the boy’s stretched rosebud. The boy grunted, his own hairless organ throbbing between his legs, its rosy-pink head slick with arousal. There was poetry in those hard bodies melding and thrusting together and music in the submissive boy's plaintive moans.

The Wood Elven man laughed and flexed his slim, powerful pectorals. Chestnut hair fell around his shoulders. “Do you want to be next?” he called, “a boy is best, but I’ll make an exception for the genasi.”

Fia fidgeted. Her heartbeat was deafening. Faenya shook her head and led Fia on. Fia’s gaze, though, was still riveted on the scene. Her plump nipples were hard. The ring chafed. Her sex tightened, heavy with the molten lead that stirred in her.

Faenya whispered, “You like that don’t you?” It was a hiss.

The submissive boy grunted and thrust his hard bottom against his lover's cock. A jet of silvery come jetted out of the boy's cock. The boy's seed fell in heavy droplets on the wooden floor. His tan belly was streaked with sweat and come.

Fia forced herself to tear her gaze away and followed Faenya through another wall. A row of seven doors greeted them. The room was both a crossroads and a bar, set out with a row of stools and an odd selection of exotic liquids.

Faenya spoke, “Get something to drink and explore…I’ll be right back and…whatever you do, don’t get lost.” Her smile was wicked.

Fia assented. She could take care of herself. Faenya disappeared through the fifth door and Fia took a seat at the bar. The short, green-haired and aqua-skinned woman who tended the bar greeted Fia. Her build was impressive – wide shoulders, muscular hips and lightly curved belly under matching coral-red blouse and breeches. “Are you drinking anything?” Her teeth were brilliant – like pearls.

“Tea – hot,” Fia replied. She felt detached from her body. The smoke was overwhelming. The air itself began to feel heavy and pulse, so that she was no longer walking, but swimming.

“Figures,” the woman said and poured a dragon-shaped mug full of steaming tisane, topping it up with amber-coloured brandy, “you can light it.”

Fia flicked her forefinger and a spark issued forth. A swift, blue flame leapt from the mug. Fia drank.

The bartender had a curious eye. “Did you just get that done?” She pointed to Fia’s shimmering ring.

“Yeah.”

“Impressive, very impressive.”

“Thanks.”

“Do you like Steam?” the bartender asked nonchalantly, a smile on her turquoise lips.

“Huh?” Fia nervously stroked the form of her cup, feeling the dragon’s ridges.

“Steam!” the bartender clarified. The echoing drumbeat was clearly a little loud for her tastes.

“I’m sorry…”

“You know, fire and water genasi. We’re not getting many customers here, so if you’re up for it, we can take a room.”

It slowly dawned on Fia what the bartender meant. “Not right now,” she said evasively. “I’m waiting for a friend.”

“Your loss,” the bartender shrugged with a hint of disappointment. “You're cute, kid, but tall and lanky as you are, you're probably more into those waifish air genasi girls with their protruding hipbones and prominent ribs.”

Fia shrugged. “Dunno – I'm new here.”

“There’s a nice air genasi who likes Sunshine, I’ll send her your way when I see her.”

“Thanks,” Fia finished her drink and rose from the bar to avoid further embarrassment, “I think.”

The alcohol merged with the throbbing in her head. She stumbled into the door Faenya had chosen. Billowing dark blue curtains surrounded her. Fia breathed in a heady, metallic smell. Cool, blue light flowed through a comfortable sea of cushions surrounding a circular wooden table. Fia peered through the curtains and made out Faenya’s form next to an armour stand where a gleaming suit of adamantine plate-mail had been set to rest.

A tall, imposing emerald-skinned woman stood naked in front of Faenya. She was shaven-headed, with a stern, but benevolent expression on her noble, sculpted features. A shimmering tattoo shaped like a stylised, radiant sword dominated the woman’s muscular back. Her bottom was so hard it would have put any man to shame.

“Unthara…” Faenya purred submissively.

Fia adjusted her position. Unthara meant business. A thick, slick dildo protruded from her hairless sex. Faenya was already on her knees. She stripped off her top, her small, pert breasts capped with wantonly stiff, pink nipples. Unthara stood triumphantly above Faeyna. A conquering heroine. The muscles of the woman’s belly rippled – it was nothing short of a carved dragon-turtle shell.

Unthara cupped Faenya’s face and drew the Elven woman's lips close to the tip of the dildo. Violet-painted lips touched the living wood. Unthara groaned. The dildo was organic and sympathetic, mapping each sensation onto Unthara's sex.

Fia gripped the curtain as she watched Faenya slide her lips down the length of the dildo. It was effortless. With two bobs of her head, Faenya’s lips were pressed against Unthara’s steaming, musky temple. Unthara's powerful grip held Faenya’s head in place, relishing the tightness of the wanton Elf’s mouth.

Faenya squirmed, but submitted. The tip of the shaft was buried in her throat. Her lips were pressed against Unthara’s clit, so she could admire the stretched fount of the mighty woman’s cunt where the dildo had taken root. Unthara began to fuck her mouth, slowly, testing her. Each time, Faenya took Unthara’s shaft from tip to root with well-practiced ease.

Fia felt the pang of desire in her loins expand, flooding her. For the first time that evening, she became very conscious of the fact that she was wet. Hot, sticky liquid flecked her sex. She could feel it. She was thankful that her breeches were loose, if not they would have been stained long ago. Fia brushed her pierced nipple with two fingers and bit her lip to stop herself from groaning. She watched Unthara withdraw from Faenya’s mouth, leaving a wet, sticky trail on the rod.

Faenya gasped for air. Unthara laughed gently and watched Faenya rise to her feet, kick of her boots and pull off her breeches. Then Fia heard Unthara speak, her voice was powerful, like an angel’s, “On the table, girl, knees against your breasts.”

Faenya scrambled to comply. Fia’s knees felt weak. She knelt and watched Faenya present. Her pussy lay open, pouting, glistening in the light, her clit-stud prominent atop her silky nether lips. Unthara began to lick her. Faenya mewled softly. Fia realised that Unthara must have been flicking the stud with her tongue. Faenya balanced her calves around Unthara’s strong, wide shoulders and let herself be licked out. It was sheer wantonness. For that moment, Faenya existed to take Unthara’s dildo, or her fist, in any place the warrior chose.

When the warrior was satisfied with her work, she rose and, without much ceremony, filled Faenya’s sopping temple with two, brisk thrusts. Faenya grunted and curled her toes against Unthara’s smooth skin. The warrior fucked her with long, piercing thrusts. Fia watched in amazement as the dildo brought Faenya’s dewy blossom into full bloom with each imperious movement of Unthara's hips. Faenya’s mewling turned into whimpering. The Elven woman diddled her clit, pressing on the platinum stud as she watched Unthara tense and thrust with perfect tempo. Each time, Unthara bottomed out, pussy slapped wetly against pussy.

Fia’s blood felt like magma. She slipped her fingers under the waistband of her breeches and felt a liquid heat. The bronzy curls between her thighs were matted with juice. She could smell herself: spicy, fragrant and richly female. She settled on her knees, thighs spread, and rolled two fingers against the hard ruby of her clit. The jolt was immediate.

Then Unthara spoke, her voice firm, authoritative. “Know that this is a fertility rod, my little Elven harlot,” she said between thrusts, a light, playful smile on her lips, “I could leave you with my child any time I wished it.”

Faenya moaned and flicked her clit harder. Fia bit her lip. Faenya was obviously excited by the fact that Unthara had the power to impregnate her. Shesayne had been right – Faenya truly knew no shame.

Faenya gathered enough coherent thought to reply, “Yes…whatever you choose to give me…anything!” She pressed her feet against Unthara’s muscled breast for support bracing herself against the powerful, wet thrusts.

Unthara lauged mirthfully. Her mighty bottom tensed, rippling with a warrior’s musculature. Faenya tugged on her clit-stud, begging to be seeded. Then Unthara withdrew, still unsatiated, from the loose, sodden tunnel of Faenya’s pussy. Faenya gave a sigh of disappointment. Unthara was quick to reassure her, “You will take my essence, girl, but this time, I shall be merciful.”

Faenya rolled off the table and collapsed to her knees. Unthara seized her Elven lover’s head in her strong, rough hands and worked the dildo into Faenya’s mouth. Faenya did not need the help. Her lips parted, teeth rasping down the sympathetic shaft. She took Unthara to the hilt in a fluid, expert motion. Unthara ran her thumbs down Faenya’s ears, gave a quick thrust, and then exhaled roughly. Faenya gurgled and swallowed.

Fia continued watching. Unthara grunted rhythmically and then withdrew. Translucent fertility-nectar and the milkier dew from Faenya’s pussy trickled down Faenya’s lips. She lapped it up. Unthara gathered her breath, commanding the sympathetic dildo to uproot itself from her sex. Faenya wiped her mouth, a look of pure ecstasy on her face, her head rolled to one side. She spotted Fia behind the curtains. Faenya smiled lasciviously and gave an approving nod. Fia’s eyes widened. This was too much. She bolted and ran.

She wiped her wet hand on her breeches and stumbled back inside the bar. A tall, dark-haired Elven woman was at the stool Fia had previously occupied, sipping a glass of pale pear distillate. Fia paced groggily eased herself at the woman’s side and called for another tea.

“You are not quite the type for a place such as this,” the strange woman spoke in a melodiously accented Common, “I can tell.”

“No…that much is true,” Fia admitted. The strange woman was, admittedly, rather dashing. She was dressed like a swashbuckler or a noble duellist of the kind Fia had read about in discarded books.

“Tahllea,” the woman said, extending her hand.

“Fia,” the girl raised her hand to meet Tahllea’s. Much to her surprise, Tahllea raised it to her lips to kiss.

“Human culture has such bizarre customs.” Tahllea laughed and stroked Fia’s cheek. “I am hardly fit for this place either, so, I suppose, that makes two of us.”

“Yeah…” Fia traced the rim of her mug of tea and set the brandy alight.

“What have we here, a fire mage?”

“Something like that.”

“You have some Elf in you, right?” Tahllea asked because with Sigil’s mongrel population, it was always difficult to figure out someone’s ancestry.

“Maybe,” Fia said – it hardly mattered to her. It was doubtless the ears that gave her away. “A long time ago, though, now I’m simply fire genasi.”

“I misjudged this place, Fia.” Tahllea confided. “This, too, is life, of a sort. I should have known better than to mistreat those who are simply stumbling through life themselves. A blademistress is sworn to protect, not to degrade or humiliate.”

“Sure…I guess she is.” Fia was not quite certain what Tahllea was getting at.

“You confuse me, child,” Tahllea remarked, “you are dressed brashly, but present yourself demurely and something tells me it isn’t a ploy.”

Fia gave a short chuckle. She had completely forgotten that she was bare-breasted. “Don’t you like the contrast?”

“It has its charm, but it doesn’t fit you,” Tahllea noted. Her sharp, amber gaze scrutinised Fia. Dextrous, fencer’s fingers traced the tiny, firm hillock of Fia’s breast and came to rest against the bronze ring. “Interesting touch.”

“D’you like it?” Fia felt the dull throb between her thighs return with a vengeance.

“At least it isn’t in your ear.” Tahllea said diplomatically. “On a completely unrelated note, do you know a certain Shesayne?”

“Yes, of course, she’s been kind enough to give me a place to stay…”

“Typical,” Tahllea drained her glass and asked for another. Fia counted six empty glasses beside the one Tahllea had just drained. “I have bypassed the age of stupid things. Tell her that, although she behaved like an adolescent girl at a fertility rite, I did too. And since a woman, unlike a girl, must take her responsibilities, it was my fault. Tell her that I am sorry and that she deserved a better Tahllea than the one she encountered that night.”

Fia could only sit in silent, confused agreement. Life had become infinitely stranger since meeting Shesayne, that much was certain.

“The quality of a race, child, is in how they treat the lowliest amongst them.” Tahllea drained her glass once more and set a tear-drop shaped piece of amber on the bar counter. “For Shesyane, I trust you to see that she gets it.” Tahllea rose, very steadily despite the quantity of pear distillate in her system. “Take care of yourself, child.”

“I will…” Fia watched Tahllea leave. The blademistress’ stride was imposing. None dared stand in her way.

Behind Fia, the bartender called, “There she is.”

Fia whipped around, almost spilling her mug of tea. Before her stood a tall, improbably thin woman. She looked ethereal, with milky white skin, dark blue eyes and a thin, fine face, her features so sharp she looked like a faerie. Black, blue and violet hair, like a fresh bruise, stood straight, as if held up by a breeze. The woman wore loose, iridescent gossamer fabrics that melded together in a gown that left little to the imagination. Her hands and bare feet were almost impossibly delicate. When she spoke, her voice sounded like tinkling wind chimes, “Hi, I’m Arima.”

Fia resigned herself to a long, strange night. “Fia…”

“So I hear you like Sunshine,” Arima said, floating onto a stool.

“Uhm…”

“All right, here, look,” Arima said. She playfully stuck out her tongue. A perfectly spherical pearl was embedded in the glistening pink flesh. “Pearl against pearl, hmm…, what d’you say?” She spoke almost as quickly as Shesayne.

“Look, I’m really sorry,” Fia protested, “everyone seems to have the wrong impression…”

Arima slumped back, her gossamer gown rustling, “Aw, fuck Hyyla,” she chided the bartender, “don’t you see I’m probably too girly for her – she needs Unthara or Hildr.”

“No, it’s not that,” Fia interjected, “it’s just that I’m a little new to…uhm, this place.”

Arima’s smile returned. Feather-light fingers breezed affectionately over Fia’s pierced breast. Fia shivered involuntarily. Arima went in for the kill, “What about I initiate you? You’ve never been licked out, unless you’ve been licked out by an air genasi, you’ve got my word on that.”

Fia tapped her forefinger lightly against her breeches, as if seeking answers in the fabric. None came. Only the dull, uninhibited pulsing of her addled mind. Her sex tightened once more. She pressed her thighs together and felt oozing wetness. “Wh-where?” Fia breathed.

Arima smiled and kissed Fia. Fia’s burgundy lips, burning and moist, merged with Arima’s. The air genasi’s tongue was cool, like a new spring breeze. That soft, wet, pearl-studded tongue explored the sensual curves of Fia’s mouth. Fia leaned back and let her lips dreamily follow Arima’s lead. Their essences melded – air and fire. A spark of passion lit in Fia’s heart. It felt right.

Arima gently withdrew her lips and leaned forward to kiss the fevered skin of Fia’s bared shoulder. She flicked the girl’s stiff, ring-pierced nipple with her tongue. Pearl against bronze. Fia felt her sex throb. The ring and her nipple shimmered with slickness.

Arima said, “C’mon, d’you want me to get a room or are you one of those exhibitionist types? Not like that’s a problem, though, I can lick you out here, too, if you want.”

Fia took the leap. “Let’s go.”

Arima rose and took Fia by the hand. They passed through a door and found a pleasant little alcove, furnished with red and black silks. A towering, flame coloured armchair was framed by a massive, starburst mosaic on the wall behind it. A soft rain of tiny drops of light fell from an unseen source, illuminating the chamber.

Arima ushered Fia onto the armchair and knelt at her feet. She eased Fia’s sandals off and began to pull down the fire genasi’s breeches. Fia slipped a hand between her legs, grinding her palm against her clit. Arima chuckled softly. It was halfway between covering herself up and pleasuring herself. Fia sighed and rolled her hips against her hand. Lush wetness on silk spread against her fingers. The bronzy curls between her thighs were soaked.

Arima said, “Are you going to let me take care of you or what?” If Fia was playing innocent, she was doing an excellent job.

In a daze, Fia shifted her hand, leaving a trail of come on her taut belly. Arima settled between Fia’s spread thighs and inhaled. A strong, female aroma, mingled with salt, ginger and thick spices. Arima began licking. Fia’s toes curled into the armchair’s upholstery. Her gasps were low and ragged. Arima licked expertly, drawing her tongue against Fia’s dew-streaked inner lips and then flicking the girl’s inflamed clit with her pearl-stud. The rhythm grew. Fia grunted and tugged, hard, on her freshly pierced breast. She saw stars. Pain mingled with ecstasy. The pearl against her glistening, hard clit hurt like a spark of electricity released directly into her loins.

Fia bit her lip. Arima devoured her, lips stained with milky, spicy juice. “Fuck, you were wet for me, weren’t you!” Arima said, catching her breath between licks.

“Please…go on…” Fia said, her voice more confident now. Arima desired her and that meant that Fia, too, had power.

Arima nodded and continued to flick Fia’s clit with the pearl. “By Morwen, I love it when you fire-girls take charge!” Arima enthused, hoping Fia would get the hint.

Fia was not listening. Her peak tore through her loins like a firestorm. She bucked hard against Arima’s lips and thrust her hips forward, grinding her molten sex against the air genasi’s delicate mouth. At first the pleasure burned in hard, jarring swells. Arima lapped on, undeterred, her tongue coated in Fia’s come. Then Fia felt the ecstatic wave of release. She slumped back into her chair, her breath ragged.

Fia sat proudly, thighs spread, letting Arima worship her pussy. Arima raised her cobalt-blue gaze. “I could eat you all night long,” she said fervently. Arima rose, licked her lips clean and began unlacing her gown.

Fia toyed pensively with her bronze ring, before finally speaking. “Thank you, that was -- fascinating. I - I’m glad you enjoyed it, too.”

Arima laughed airily. Her gown finally fell to the floor. “I live for fire genasi pussy and you, my dear, are a ruby in a pile of red glass – are you engaged with anyone?”

“No.” Fia felt another bout of light-headedness overcome her. Dreamsmoke was wafting through the door that led to the bar.

“Great,” Arima hummed. She fell to her hands and knees and nestled her head submissively between Fia’s thighs, “I work at the Law-Courts, so why don’t you drop by tomorrow?”

“Uhm…”

“Good, now what does my fiery mistress want?” Arima pressed a wet kiss on Fia’s navel, leaving a little puddle of wetness.

“Sorry…” Fia slumped back into the couch. The colours around her began to flow into a vast, exotic forest of hues. Arima’s voice faded into the distance.

Chapter 10

“Seven thousand, all counted.” Kadda said, she fumbled for the straps of her jerkin. Shesayne was already on the cushions, her hand in her cutoff breeches, watching Kadda reveal her tiny, conical breasts to the dim light of the room.

“Fuck that…” Shesayne tasted the bittersweet juice of the Black Lotus tablet dissolving under her tongue. “Lick my ears.” The inside of her breeches felt like a swamp. She giggled at the thought that she might have wet herself.

“Oh, I’ll do better than that…” Kadda threatened with a mock growl. She pulled off her boots and began peeling down her leggings.

Shesayne giggled and ran her free hand under her top to press against the engorged berries of her nipples. She writhed on the bed, feeling her need course hotly between in her loins. A pipe-shaped like a tulip sat on a low table, belching red Fire Orchid smoke. “Oh, wow, you halflings really have to fight to the death with your hair, don’t you?”

Kadda grimaced. She preferred to strip her legs and underarms clean, but no razor, magical or otherwise, was going near her sex. A rich thatch of raven-dark curls crowned the plump mound of her sex. “Only ‘cause you Elf-sluts make such a fucking fuss about it.” Kadda shot back.

“Aw, c’mon, I’m super-sorry, let me make it up to you…” Shesayne eased her top off and drew her foot enticingly over Kadda’s thigh.

Kadda pounced. She was light, so she could easily be supported in Shesayne’s arms. Their lips flowed together in a wet, violent kiss. Shesayne continued to rub her clit under her breeches, her free hand now around Kadda’s back, fingernails digging into the halfling’s firm shouder. Kadda growled and nipped at Shesayne’s ear.

Shesayne felt another rush, whether from the Black Lotus or from Kadda’s tongue in her ear she did not know. Shesayne reached for another tab, crushed it between her teeth and kissed Kadda once more, transferring a mouthful of the narcotic fluid into the halfling’s mouth.
Kadda pressed Shesayne against the cushions. Her skin smelled of leather from the jerkin. Shesayne smiled – Kadda’s nipples were like two, light brown bullets, hard and begging to be suckled on her delicately curved chest. Kadda murmured huskily, “Y’like halfling cunt?”

“Love it, love it, love it.” Shesayne replied dreamily.

Kadda straddled Shesayne’s shoulders and thrust her slick pussy against the half-elf’s face. Shesayne mewled, finally extracted her hand from her breeches and held Kadda’s pussy open. Slick, black hairs gave way to a rich, powerfully musky sex – dark pink and glistening with thick come. Shesayne licked hungrily. Her fingers dug into the silky, swollen surface of Kadda’s nether lips. Her tongue flared against the tiny, gleaming jewel of the halfling’s clit. Kadda rolled her hips and thrust forward. Shesayne’s tongue was much bigger than a Kadda’s, so that her licks went from the base of Kadda’s sex to the tip of her clit in one motion. Kadda’s taste was certainly not diminutive. Her pussy was fragrant with salt, earth and womanhood, her taste richer even than a human woman.

Shesayne licked while Kadda groaned and took intermittent drags from the Fire Orchid pipe. Kadda did not even try to delay her climax. She needed it. Shesayne grasped the halfling’s hips and held her still as Kadda entered the spasms of her climax. Her moans were high, sharp and wailing – music to Shesayne’s ears.

They rolled on the pillows, kissing, mingling Black Lotus juice with Kadda’s thick nectar. Kadda pulled down Shesayne’s breeches and tossed them aside. Shesayne spread for her halfling lover, knees wide, hands around her ankles. Kadda knew what to do. Shesayne was bracing to be fucked. Her hand was small, so a quick squirt of aromatic oil from a dispenser in a jerkin pocket and she was ready. Shesayne briefly considered taking a drag of Fire Orchid, but, then again, Kadda was not that big.

Kadda held Shesayne’s pussy open with one hand, light-pink lips heavy with dew. For all Shesayne’s boasting that she was going to get a clit-stud like Faenya, Kadda noted wryly that the half-elf had yet to pluck up the courage to follow through. Shesayne strummed her nipples and watched, eyes delirious with Red Orchid. Kadda nodded and entered her.

The first thrust was agonising. Kadda went in with five bunched fingers. Shesayne braced herself, digging her nails into her ankles. Her belly rolled, tensed and finally relaxed. Shesayne cursed and gritted her teeth. Kadda waited for the indignant spasms of Shesayne’s pussy to subside and then began to work her knuckles into the spread half-elf. Shesayne’s nether lips opened, parted stretched and rolled to accommodate the halfling’s hand. Shesayne felt her agony melt into a low, rhythmic throbbing in her sex. Kadda was inside her.

“Move your fingers…” Shesayne hissed.

Kadda smiled and traced her name in halfling script against the inner walls of Shesayne’s stretched canal. The half-elf whimpered. More heat, more fire stirred in her. Kadda had found her sweet spot. Each time the halfling flicked it, Shesayne felt the colours of her vision burst into an ocean of brightness.

Kadda paused. “Wanna take two?”

“Only ‘cause you’re a halfling…” Shesayne tried to put two logical thoughts together and failed, “whatever, go slow…”

“On your belly, then.”

Shesayne shifted and buried her face in the pillows, hips raised, pussy obscenely spread, drooling nectar. With a hard, dominant thrust, Kadda entered her sex again with her hand. Shesayne grunted and dug her toes into the pillows. Her thighs were taut with tension.

Kadda spread the pert globes of Shesayne’s bottom. The tight little rosebud nestled in that musky valley winked at her. “Sheeria’s Mercy, I love Elven ass,” she purred and dipped her tongue against Shesayne’s nether portal. Shesayne moaned and spread her knees wider, her sex convulsing around Kadda’s hand.

Kadda reached for her canvas oil pouch, tore the stopper out with her teeth and thrust the dispenser into Shesayne’s bottom. Shesayne bit the pillow. Kadda squirted the entire contents of the pouch into her. Cool oil flooded her insides. It was divine. Kadda watched Shesayne’s rosebud tense, pout and bubble out some oil, so that the surface of the sweet little muscle was covered in fluid.

Kadda shook her head in admiration. “I know half-elves are legendary slatterns, but you are something special.”

Shesayne chuckled, putting on her ‘poor little orphan girl voice’ she said, “What’s a poor, cute half-Elf to do in Sigil without a trick like that…?”

Kadda gave Shesayne’s firm bottom a quick, playful bite and moved three fingers against the half-elf’s rosebud. Shesayne breathed, relaxed, and let Kadda slide in. There was no pain. Just in case, she reached for another drag of Fire Orchid. Kadda screwed her fingers in and added her thumb.

Shesayne felt a sharp jolt of pain. Her sex contracted again around Kadda’s fist. Kadda took her time, thrusting, testing. Her hands were small and nimble, but she still had to proceed with caution. After a few, exploratory thrusts, Kadda slipped the fifth finger in and quickly ran her hand down the blooming rosebud of Shesayne’s bottom.

Shesayne gave a low, moaning sigh. Kadda reassured her, “Almost done.”

Shesayne steeled herself and rocked her hips back against Kadda’s hands. Seizing the momentum, Kadda gave a last push. Shesayne felt a burst of light from her loins. Kadda was wrist deep in her pussy and bottom. She could feel the halfling’s quick fingers at play between the thin membrane that separated Kadda’s hands, pressing against her sweet spot, exploring, testing.

Shesayne simply allowed herself to be swallowed by her climax. A tide of molten ecstasy spread through her. Her pussy and rosebud contracted spasmodically around Kadda’s wrists, but to no avail. She was defeated. The halfling owned her.

Kadda thrust and Shesayne could not stop the jarring swells of release that overcame her. It was merciless. Shesayne pressed her nether ring around Kadda’s wrist, desperately trying to expel the invading hand. Kadda ignored her.

“Please, pretty please…” Shesayne whimpered.
Those hands inside of her were so delectable they hurt. Each time her climax caused a contraction, Kadda would stand firm, refusing to yield to the spasms that overtook Shesayne’s canal.

Kadda remained unmoved. Only when Shesayne’s hips finally slumped and the half-elf’s cries turned to softer, ragged breaths, did Kadda relent. She slowly, carefully withdrew. Shesayne must have come at least two or three times. She had the Fire Orchid to thank for that.

Shesayne fell onto the pillows, her sex deliciously stretched, her slack nether portal trickling out oil. She turned onto her back and before she knew it Kadda was in her arms. “Nice celebration, huh?” the halfling teased.

“Three-five a head, right, since Faenya’s volunteering her share.” Shesayne repeated.

“Yeah, that’s right.” Kadda smiled and kissed each one of Shesayne’s nipples in turn.

“I don’t know about you, but I really, truly, definitely need the bathing chamber.” Shesayne moaned, sitting up unsteadily. It was definitely going to hurt in the morning.

“Well, there y’see the advantages of having a halfling lover, right?” Kadda quipped. She trailed her delicate foot slowly between Shesayne’s breasts. “And this halfling lover says that you’re not going anywhere.”

“Makes sense,” Shesayne purred, kissing the tips of Kadda’s toes.
Kadda groaned and began to diddle her clit. Halfling feet were almost as erogenous as Elven ears. “How ‘bout you get it ready for a second round,” Kadda suggested.

Shesayne cocked her head pensively to one side and flicked the tip of Kadda’s big toe with her tongue. The last time Kadda had persuaded Shesayne to take a foot in her pussy, the soreness the following morning had been unholy. Still, there was no harm in trying again. “Sure, yeah, just let me take another drag of…”

The door burst open. Kadda scrambled for her daggers. Shesayne dived for her hand crossbow. It was too late.

Civic Security flooded into the room. Xixchil – big, infernal-red upright mantises standing on tall, bent legs, like a raptor with the scaled, muscled body of a reptile. Immune to humanoid toxins, they were generally employed in narcotics raids.

A low, unpleasant, buzzing voice came from the lead guardsman’s mechanical voice-box, “You are under arrest by authority of the Great Council, throw down your weapons, put your faces to the floor, cooperate, do not oppose resistance – resistance will be met with lethal force.”

Kadda groaned and complied. Shesayne followed. They were manacled, hauled to their feet and the premises inspected. Shesayne could not help but laugh, the Xixchil looked like something out of a bad dream.

“Silence!” a voice box buzzed. “No talking, no communicating.”

“The stuff’s for personal use only…” Kadda volunteered.

“Silence!” the droning, insectoid voice repeated. “We have ascertained your intention to profit from the sale of banned narcotic and hallucinogenic substances, we have ascertained your guilt, we have witnesses who will testify to your guilt.”

Incomprehensible chittering followed. The lead Xixchil spoke to one of its subordinates. A strong, acid smell followed – pheremonal communication.

The lead guardsman spoke, “You are in possession of Red Orchid?”

Kadda tried to draw enough breath to respond, “Yes…”

“This is a Category Seven banned substance – environmental, psychotropic and social hazard. You will be escorted to a detention centre. If you do not possess adequate resources to employ legal counsel, such counsel will be provided. You may now stand up. Follow the path set out for you. Do not speak. Obey.”

“Fuck this!” Kadda protested, “Let me put something on, it’s freezing out there…” a pike butt to the belly silenced her.

“Do not argue with the competent authorities. You will be provided with standard detention attire at such time as is deemed appropriate. Comply.”

Outside, the revels were being wound down. Most partygoers had made a swift escape. The staff were more indifferent. They knew how things worked. The Celestial Ring would offer monetary incentives in the right direction and the lower level would be re-opened in no time. Scapegoats could always be found. Unfortunately, Shesayne realised as she was paraded ignominiously out into a mobile containment cell, this time, she and Kadda would be the scapegoats.