Salutations [Petra]

[Nnerka]

N N E R K A

53 Searing 121

When Nnerka agreed to this meeting, she had assumed that the results would be similar to those of last season. The memory of the man was not far from her mind. A brow quirked. She wondered if the person coming to see her today would be the same. An academic type, chasing knowledge as a sort of carnal pleasure. Maybe. She wasn’t sure what someone who sat in an office staring at books considered pleasure aside from their precious knowledge. She blinked, stared down at the wisp of silk that had unraveled from the webbing of threshold. Maybe this one was a deviant of some sort, and the interview a pretense.

The initial contact had been...interesting, to say the least. She hadn’t expected to be approached by a professor of some kind for something other than what the establishment was meant for. She had handled a professor in other ways, though.
She turned her attention to the other spider in her rooms. The little glowing creature peered up at her curiously from its corner. “You’ll be on your best behavior, won’t you?”[/ ] It chittered as if it had understood. Good enough for her.

The fae had never had to clean her rooms for company in this way. One of the hassles of civility, she supposed. Her grumbling was short-lived as the vibration of footsteps coursed through the many silken threads she’d left in the halls. Silver, nearly transparent threads that clung to the floors and walls. Ah, so they were already here.

Nnerka sighed as she brushed hair from her shoulder, pulling a thread to open the door to her room before the knock could sound. The other would behold a room lined in spider webs, with the bare minimum of furniture. Devoid of any remnants of meals, as her home would have been if she had remained with her family.

“Salutations.”

[Petra]

Two sets of footsteps, and one of them is decidedly strange. Inhuman. But that is far from unusual in the Velvet Cabaret. They come up the stairs quickly, the short one's legs pumping and the tall one's strides loping up the steps. The door opens on Petra with her hand raised to knock. She manages to turn it into something approaching a smooth half-bow.

"Salutations." Her voice is sharp, smooth, and unadorned. It is a pane of smooth glass, deadly only at the edges, and so brittle as to seem ready to crack. It is as hollow as her expression - aquiline features and a hawk's eyes are cast in a neutrality that would seem forced on a face not made used to wear it every moment.

Light shows through the cracks. Curiosity burns in her chartreuse eyes, as they rake up and down Nnerka's body. Curiosity, but no lust, not even a trace. A tense, guarded nervousness is just barely shown by her stiff shoulders and her wide stance, left entirely on display by a tight jacket and tighter leggings. No robe here, no mark of office. She shows none of her allegiance in her clothes, and shows it all in her stare.

"May the summer heat burn your woes to ash, and the spring wind scatter them as the dust." It's the closest she could get to a traditional fae greeting - one she saw in multiple books on the subject. The best she can do on somewhat short notice.

She steps in, an easy dancer's grace on her as she makes her way to a chair and sits, legs crossed. Only when she is seated does her companion enter.

The monster is shorter than Nnerka, but far taller than his master. A twisted shape of metal in the vague form of a man, it is quiet and heavy and looming. It stands between Petra and the light, casting half of her body in a protective shadow.

Petra seems unbothered by him. She does her best to put on the air of nonchalance with him whenever meeting someone new. She's found it usually best at proceeding quickly, far better than an explanation that rarely does her first impression any good.

"I am Petra. This is Yesod. Thank you for seeing me. I've come to learn from you - I'm very grateful for the opportunity." She pulls a purse from her belt and sets it on a table. Yesod pulls a satchel from her back and she reaches into it to produce palimpsest, stylus, and ink. Her header is written in a short and illegible script - a few words, no doubt just as laconic as the rest of her.

"I understand I'm not the first scholar to take an interest in you. I hope my questions are not tiresome. Please tell me if I'm walking well-trodden ground." The corner of Petra's lips curls up barely-perceptibly. An infinitesimal fraction of a smile. "The only thing worse than a wrong answer is a wrong question, I have found."

[Nnerka]

Eight eyes trained on the short woman that had entered her room, then to the creature that followed behind her. The information given upon the initial contact had been sparse, and certainly left out the woman’s strange pet and her apparent knowledge of old Fae greetings. Very old. The spider squinted down at her a moment, arms uncrossing as her legs carried her closer.

“As much as I like someone who gets down to business, you’re very small.” Without malice or challenge. “Come closer and let me see you, little one.” She beckoned Petra forward with one of her upper arms, lower arms spread out in invitation. The Fae tipped her head to the side as she began to appraise the other. Eyes raked over Petra’s frame, sizing her up.

By all accounts, Nnerka was curious about the little companion that had been brought with the scholar. Its stance, its form; it was almost protective. As if the little academic was valuable or it had been tasked with ensuring her safety. Did someone think her dangerous? That Nnerka might grow tired of the questions and silence them permanently? It was a thought that had crossed her mind before, but — it was gratifying to have someone think of her as a valuable source of knowledge. But still; she hadn’t expected a second visitor and certainly not one made of metal. She definitely couldn’t digest that, so perhaps whoever had the sense to caution to send a bodyguard with the scholar had known better than to make them someone of flesh and blood.

Strands of hair slipped over her shoulders once more, brushed back with the same ease as they had been before. There was something more pressing, though:

“Do I frighten you?”

Nnerka had no problems with it if she did. Would prefer it, really. A person scared knew better than to say something untoward, or were at least more vigilant. But someone unafraid could be arrogant, even. And it would be shame if she had to eat another person for being rude. Truth of the matter, she could have eaten someone for less — and had — but this interview would be beneficial if her mandibles didn’t get anywhere near Petra. Unless she consented.

“There’s no shame in being afraid. Prey is always scared of a predator, even if they aren’t on the menu for the night.”

[Petra]

"In whole concept? Slightly. You're very large. But now? No." Petra comes closer, scooting her chair around the table to sit nearer to Nnerka. She shows no hesitation on her unmarked edifice of an expression. Neither reluctance nor dread as she repositions herself and resumes her writing. She doesn't seem to need to look down at her paper while she scratches the tiny words - a very useful skill indeed, and no doubt hard-practiced.

"To be a demonologist is to understand desire. Demons are manifestations, foremost, of will. You have everything to lose by hurting me, and little to gain. Why would you want to do so?" Petra shrugs, as if that logic is all she needs.

Inwardly, she is glad for Yesod. The monster will keep her safe here, she is confident. Safe enough to make a timely escape, most likely. The inward terror, the natural revulsion, they are there. They claw at her spine and make her hair stand on end. She spends little time looking straight at Nnerka. She admires the room, the furniture, the scent, the lighting - the environs is comprehensible to her, and that settles her nerves.

"I have enough to be afraid of. An interesting woman with whom I have exchanged goods for services? I do not think she belongs on the list." Petra scratches a line on her paper, for emphasis, and dips her pen back into her ink. She leaves it there, the wooden implement rocking to and fro.

Yesod steps ever so slightly closer. Whether or not the demon could even feel fear, it evidently felt protective. A strange trait for a monster to display.

"...that was a very good question. I think we will get along very well." Petra folds her hands on the table, fingers motionless, posture stiff. Her long braid of hair hangs down the chair, tickling Petra's waist.

"But I was speaking of desire. That's what I'm here for. Scholarship rarely features detail of intimate desire. It is either too private, or too taboo, or too unimportant. I want to understand it in detail. I am, however, not the type to excite such passions in most people." That tiny flicker of a smile returns, as she glances sardonically at a body that, in the right light and unfavorable tailoring, could be mistaken for an adolescent boy's. "So, in short, I am asking you to kiss and tell. I do not need names or details of clients, only what they want, and why. If this is too much of a breach of privacy, I understand entirely."

[Nnerka]

Small, so small. Nnerka figured there would be little trouble in fitting her jaws around the scholar’s head. No resistance; Petra seemed smart enough. Or stupid — there was a fine line there. One she crossed with her assertion that there would be nothing gained. Funny, considering the purpose of her visit in the first place. To learn of desire, something with no rationality at its basest forms.

Her movement was slow and intentional. Lower arms moved so that her hands would cup the elbows of her upper arms, which cupped her face in turn. A soft hum skipped before a musical giggle as the fae seemed to consider what the little scholar had to say. Good posturing, but posturing all the same. A front. There were plenty of people who had trouble looking at her, one of the greatest tells of fear. But they tried, at least. Didn’t seem quite as jittery even for all Petra’s stoicism.

“Loss, gain...fear is not such a rational thing.” Her smile widened, the threat of the slits by her mouth opening with its size. “You weigh these choices like in the grand scheme of things they matter. If I desired turning you into a meal as I’ve done to others.” She paused, eyes turned toward the ceiling as she considered how many years had passed since she’d last had the delicacy of human flesh before they turned back to the scholar. “ — in the past, what exactly stops me? Not these gains or losses you speak of. Maybe your pet. But what can he do?”

The first peek of her mandibles pushing forth as she grinned came as she leaned in. “If you’re not afraid, look me in the eyes. Doesn’t matter which one; any set will do.” Perhaps it was unfair to force someone afraid to be reminded of that fear. But that was good; it would push Petra back across the line she crossed.

“I will let you in on a secret that will begin to answer your question.” Her height, as she towered over the girl and stared down her nose at the scholar, only seemed to prove her point. Shadows cast on her face, the faintest shine from the darkness of her eyes and the gleam of her teeth. One hand patted the girl’s head as if she were a pet that had done something endearing, sliding down to encompass the entirety of the side of her face. Claws mere centimeters away from flesh that could so easily part beneath them. “You should always be afraid of me.”

She remained like this for a moment before she withdrew. “That is why some people visit me. Because they want to be reminded that they can be made to feel fear. That they are nothing more than their baser instincts. Even if they don’t hold a drop of rathari blood, they will always crawl towards the animals that they are.”

[Petra]

Strange, so very strange, to feel one's own animal instincts. Strange to find the burning, awful compulsion to flee in a whorehouse. Strange that people would pay for it. Petra scratches another note on her palimpsest and looks up into those eyes.

She blinks, and blinks again. She keeps on looking. Straight in her chair, she feels the fire run down her spine, and the lightning answer in her gut. It is a strange, and familiar sensation. One she thought she gave up long ago.

A part of her tells her to get up a leave. But that part is called restraint, and it is no longer hers. Like Nnerka's body, it has been purchased by another, but unlike her, the ownership is quite permanent. Petra cannot answer it. There is a greater fear at her back. Like a princess taken by pirates, she has a sword at her back and the ocean before her. Only one is guaranteed to kill her.

So when the hand touches her, it pushes her through her fear. Terrible, for a moment. All-consuming. But fear is just a state of mind, morphable into others. First comes disgust at the contact. Then anger. Scalding, vicious, painful anger. The sort of rage that drove her into the arms of a demon. The anger that she holds for the world.

It does not show on her face. She is as still and placid as the grave. But her eyes show it. Sharp, narrowed, and acrid. The spark of her ambition tells her that she would rather die than be told what to do, and for a valuable moment, that conviction, that desire to be killed just to prove a point, carries her through the disgust and dread she feels towards the consummate performance of this manipulative prostitute.

"Please don't consider it an insult to your impressive performance if I ask you to not tell me of what I should or should not be afraid." The hand made the suggestion a command to Petra, and Petra had long since grown tired of the chafing of chains and manacles.

Her pen scratches. Notes in the silence of the room. Her eyes look at Nnerka's, anger fading back into curiosity. Both are enough to keep her anchored in this room. "I hadn't considered emotional intensity in general enough to earn a living. I had thought your Johns would be more selective in their experiences. Fascinating..."

Petra takes a ragged breath, and takes faster notes, pen scritch-scratching in a fearsomely fast hand. "In general, are the people who come to you to be made afraid the sorts who have felt a great deal of fear in their lives already? Or are they neophytes to the emotion?" Petra forces herself to drive on with the interview, even as the cocktail of emotions boils inside of her. She is a professional, and further, she has made her decision.

Yesod, looming above her, reminds her silently what will happen if she walks back on it now.

[Nnerka]

Nnerka realized, with some displeasure, that Petra’s curiosity reminded her of someone else. In her curiosity was ignorance of an order to things. While, yes, she sought knowledge, she asked questions that missed the entirety of the point. Something she also seemed to lack within herself. And so, the fae stared down at the scholar for a moment, before several eyes flicked over to the creature she’d referred to as Yesod.

Something was holding her back. Or maybe she was doing it herself.

She was by no means a wise woman. Nnerka would readily offer this information about herself. That had never been her lot. Her...desire as Petra had made a point of this visit. It was instead the satisfaction of a full stomach and the safety that came with an assured place at the top of the food chain. But that would always be seen as something base. Primal, rudimentary — whatever anyone wanted to call it.

“Fear is taught.” So sweet, her voice. Like a mother cooing at a child, soothing them to sleep. “It is one of the first things instilled into us when we are born. To know that we have something to be afraid of is like reminding us that we are mortal. Even if I could certainly live much longer than you, death shall come for me just as it will come for you.” Ah, she’d said something like this before. It left a bitter taste in her mouth. “But to be taught fear, one must have the basic instinct of wanting to survive.”

“Emotional intensity, you said? When a creature is afraid there are several options given to it by its mind.” A pause as she held up a hand to count, each digit uncurling as she spoke. “Fight, flee, or fuck. Though, that last one isn’t often spoken of. I’ve always wondered why.” Nnerka looked thoughtful a moment.

“Little bird and her metal puppet.” She sighed, considered the situation. She was no teacher. Not like this, at least. “You asked me to steer you away from wrong questions. Stupid questions.” All eyes narrowed. “No one is a neo— neo-fight? Neofit? — what in the hell does that mean?”

Another sigh, though pointedly more frustrated. With the musicality of Valasren, it wouldn’t seem as though she were frustrated at all. A lilting song rather than a short tirade. “Why do scholars insist on showing off like this when they’re so stupid?” It was almost directed at Yesod, but not really. More, thrown in the direction of the silver spider that lived in her room. She imagined its little legs moving in a shrug, but she knew better than to think it could understand her fully yet. They would work on that soon. “Or maybe it’s just the city. People forget what the order is, and then they forget everything else. Little bird, you know the answers.”

[Petra]

Petra takes careful notes, not looking up as she answers Nnerka's last question. "Neophyte. A newcomer to something, with a connotation of religiosity." Her pen scratches, and with a huff she sets it down. The knife is in her hand a moment later - a sharp and curved thing, it is designed for the skinning of sheep. Petra uses it to scratch her index finger. Blood wells, and a fat drop plummets towards her page. Before it hits the palimpsest, there is a wobble in the air, as if above a fire, and then a tear appears. A tear in reality, a hole to hell. The blood vanishes, and Petra speaks a name, low and quiet, but not quiet enough to hide the guttural, infernal character.

The creatures that pulls through is a collection of sticks, vaguely humanoid and six-armed. It is as black as midnight, and it seems to ooze ink along its skin, if one can even call it that. A foot tall, fragile, and twitchy, it sets two of its arms on the page after an urging from Petra. Where it touches her, it stains her a vantablack shade, an uttermost darkness that lets no light escape. A very peculiar sort of magical secretion - almost a parodical exaggeration of ink.

"Atramentiel, Demon of Ink. My stenographer." Petra sucks her finger, the blood filling her mouth warm and salty. It tastes of power, and of mortality. A noxious and fascinating titillation. "Ignore him." The demon scratches on paper, his handwriting perfect and shockingly fast.

"How does fear inform the sex act? What do people want when they are afraid, carnally? Does it change from client to client, or is there a throughline that can be traced between the terrified?"

Petra hands her pen back to Yesod, who takes it and tucks it in her satchel. Half guard-dog, half servant. The monster groans as its metal limbs shift. Disgusting, in its own, industrial fashion.

[Nnerka]

“You could have just said that.” The exasperation in her tone could not be picked up, but it would be with the roll of her eyes.

She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised with the continued showing off. Petra had no means of doing so in a way that truly mattered to Nnerka — she was small and may have had speed, but if it came down to it, the spider would surely overpower her. Snatch her up like a lesser spider would a fly on their web. She plucked absently at a loose thread of webbing, snapping it from its place. She pulled on it, watching it grow taut between her fingers.

“It is the...rush. That beating of your heart when you think your life has come to an end. Not peacefully, of course. Violent and bloody. Gruesome, really. When you are staring down the maw of a creature you have no hope of besting or watching the flash of the blade that would surely slide deep inside and spill your blood upon the ground too quickly for someone to help you, even if you called out into an empty, starless night.” She sighed, almost wistful. Fond memories were had where she was the creature people feared in the dark.

“But, you have never had sex, have you?” It might have come out as a question, but she meant it like a statement. Without judgment, but pointed with teasing. Her smile turned sharp, her gaze moving from the silk in her hands to Petra’s face.

“The rush is the same, but you would need to experience it to fully understand, I think.” Another sigh, neither frustrated nor fond in any manner of speaking, but almost like a decision being made. “Maybe you ought to find someone to do it with once, and maybe your search for the root of desire will be answered, somewhat.”

The thread snapped as she pulled just a little harder. “Little bird, you said before you aren’t the type to excite passions the way I do in someone else. But have you ever tried?” A moment of thought, then: “Well, I can guess that you have not.” There was a pointed appraisal of the other’s clothing to punctuate the assumption.

[Petra]

Petra was very much not ready for the question. It slips under her guard and leaves her static for a moment. She considers how to answer. Truth, like wealth, is something easily spent but hard to recover. It is also profoundly counterproductive to be evasive when trying to extract answers from someone else. How would she feel if an interviewer lied to her?

"No. I've never had sex before. It has never held the appeal for me that it does for other people. I've pleasured myself when the need takes me. That is enough for now."

Petra prods her ink-demon, and it continues to take notes. Perhaps it paused just out of courtesy, or perhaps it needed to be reminded who is mistress and who slave. Petra ensures it understands well enough, and then returns her full attention to Nnerka.

I wonder if she'll ever give me straight answers. But perhaps I don't need them for what I want to learn. The scenic path still arrives at its destination, and meandering rivers eventually reach the sea.

"Perhaps professional curiosity will eventually bring someone to my bed. But I have experienced precisely that sort of fear. I have also inflicted it. I took no joy in either."

She remembers being the hunter. Tracking down a mark, stalking him, binding him, skinning him. All for a reward. She took no joy in it. She felt only revulsion, and a fear for herself should she turn back for a moment.

She remembers being prey. Lost in hell. Pursued by demons. Hungered for by the denizens of the Dreadlands, or fragments of the Aetherium itself. Tearing off her own limbs, cutting off fragments of her soul, all to avoid the snapping jaws that would bite her and drag her to hell.

"I am here because I suspect my personal experience is unhelpfully incomplete. I've come for your advice. I look forward to being able to take it. A maidenhead is a precious gift for a demon. I eagerly await having a cause worth its spending."