Always Time for Tea [Raithen]

[Hilana Chenzira]

Duty was duty. She knew that Raithen understood that well, and perhaps better than hers in some ways as he fell in line with what his family wanted. Hilana had fought hers until her father managed to grasp the one thing that she knew she wanted, and wouldn’t let his wild child win the next fight over it. But Hilana enjoyed her work, enjoyed her job, and working as much as she did meant she could scarper off sometimes, too. Had Vasilei been in then, she could have bounced off with Raithen for the day. But he wasn’t, and she was therefore minding the shop and doing her notes and readings. There was always lots to do - she knew, too, that by the end of the day they would be making some more antivenin to have it on hand.

But when he commented about keeping up with her, she just smiled at him across the table, her toes trailing up a bit higher yet. “You keep up with me better than anyone I’ve ever met,” she told him. It wasn't idle flattery, either; his energy made her own sing loudly. Like recognized like, after all. “You’ve got wildness too, you know. Even if no one calls it that.. But I think you’ve got your share. But I’d love to teach you. See what you know about first aid and medicine and go from there. I think it’s a good skill to have, and we all start somewhere,” the girl beamed at him.

“That’s true. I think Dominus Ædan tends to feel he’s superior to everyone because he’s told he is because he is Platinum. They’re holy, after all,” she shrugged. That must have been the one that she had left with the night before. “Do you encounter a lot of racism? Since you are Avialae and Sunborn?” Hilana was curious. While his mother was a Princess and Materfamilias of House Phaedryn... there was still the fact that he was not Re’hyaean like his brother and sister. Not that it mattered to her, because she adored him just the way he was, but she was curious if the treatment he might have received was as bad as it seemed like it could be. Tertium was more open in ways like that due to having the more varied population of Peregrini, but here? Plus there was the matter of being of Phaedryn’s line rather than the Unbroken Line... “If you think he’s worth another go if it happens, then we’ll at least have some fun with him.”

Tiaz didn’t go anywhere when he stretched, just shifted a bit with the movement and once he was back to a more normal posture, the python was exactly where he had been. “I don’t think there’s enough clothes in this city to ever make them stop eying you that way,” Hilana laughed. “You could be dressed in a sackcloth and they’d be stripping you with their eyes,” she teased, and her tone suggested that she would have, too. “But I’d love that. Dinner tonight, and then you can show me your place. Tomorrow, if you’re free... we’ll have dinner again, and I can show you mine.” She was perhaps getting ahead of herself, but fortune favoured the bold. She enjoyed spending time with him, and she hadn’t had the opportunity since they had gone to Vectria. Chances were, he’d be out in the far reaches of the Sands again before too long, and Hilana intended to seize the moment and hold on tight.

[Raithen]

Rai couldn't help the grin that raised him up as Hilana made her appreciation known both physically and verbally. The fact that he had 'wildness' in him wasn't something he'd ever been told before, so he gave it a moment's real consideration. It wasn't the word he would have chosen, and he wasn't sure it was right. He was as disciplined as a situation called for, he just preferred moments when the disciple required was of a physical sort. The kind that meant he needed to move and act rapidly, rather than think quickly or bow at just the right angle. He could do the bowing, had do it so often his mind did the calculation based on who he was bowing to without him needing to be involved anymore, but it wasn't where he preferred to be. Unless it was his mother he was making his obeisance to.

"Next time I'm in the city for more than a few days we'll have to schedule some lessons. Maybe I'll bring us back a corpse to sew on for practice." This was a joke, mostly. Dragging a body back from a raid that he'd been paid to stop would mean it'd be rotting before he reached the city. "I know a little, the Academy made sure we knew at least how to do patch up on major trauma. Keep each other alive before the healers arrives, sort of thing.

"Mmm," Was his hummed response to the mention of Platinum elves being holy. It wasn't that he didn't believe it, exactly, but it sat in a similar place to the idea that he was a prince. Technically true, yes, but realistically he could make just as much of an ass of himself as anyone else, and so could the Plats he'd met. Then, again, in a different tone in answer to her question about him,

"Mmm, not really? I mean, yes but it is in a positive way? Can you be racist in a positive way? Once in a while people will see my wings before my face and might have a rude moment about it, but I think the Sunborn thing tends to cut it short before it goes too far. In upper society I'm treated as my mother's son, so, if people are feeling racist about my paternal bits, they are wise enough not to show it. Lower society doesn't seem to get the intricacies of the difference between myself and my siblings, if people even realize who I am. If they don't then they ere on the side of assuming I'm high born, and if they do then they think I'm a prince, which, again, is technically true.

Under the table he had spread his knees further apart even than he was used to doing when seated at a table, allowing access to whatever might be so interesting to the Vastiana. He laughed too, deep and fully, at the comment as to how to fish wives viewed him. "You never know, I could go full monk robes, no skin showing, no shape to them? I'd over heat in a minute, but if there was ever a reason to hide, might be worth a shot."

He laughed again and then sighed,

"Tomorrow night I'm saying goodbye to my mother, if nothing more important has come up that she has to see to. Then I'm off the morning after. I try to time my returns for when she might want me for something, like last night. My place is quite impressive and fancy, but I'm rarely there, nor have been for years, so it sort of feels like staying at an expensive inn, or visiting a relative. Which, is basically what it is. Even when I'm in the city now I usually find myself bedding down... elsewhere."

He hadn't slept in the rooms that were kept for him in his mother's house this whole trip back to the city yet, so it would be something new for them both, should Hilana want.

[Hilana Chenzira]

“You could,” Hilana said cheerfully. The girl was apparently wholly unbothered by the concept of working on a corpse, which probably would have been questionable for many, but she was pretty good at what she did and she understood poisons, so she surely wasn’t that bothered by death and corpses. But she nodded along as he mentioned his experience there at the Academy. At least they learned something there that she would have liked, apparently.

“I started learning how to do that in the Sands before I started under my Great-Aunt in Tertium,” she explained. “Out there, I learned on sandcocks, and then eventually graduated up to pig shanks... then practiced on anyone and everyone that needed it. In the city, though... There's no shortage of bodies for those who want them for such a thing. But when you’re back in town, we’ll get a chicken from the market and we can work on it from there. And when you’re ready? We’ll get a body,” the Vastiana grinned at him. “Or a couple, really... practice suturing, practice setting bones... have you ever had to put a joint back into place?” she wanted to know. That was always a valuable lesson.

Hilana listened with interest to him as he talked of his experience with others, of castes like hers and under, and castes like his. She was sure most Equestrians would have known exactly who he was to see him, considering how many probably memorized the royal family trees and appearances so that they knew who was who in case they came across one of them somewhere. And Raithen definitely stuck out. There was no denying that. Hilana hadn’t known about her friend’s status until the night before, but she figured that if he had felt it was important for her to know before, he would have told her. He’d had ample opportunity, and since he hadn’t, she was perfectly content to follow his lead. Despite his wings and status... he was so down-to-earth, and that pleased her to no end.

But when she felt his legs part, Hilana’s foot trailed up past his knee towards his thigh, her touch light and her movements easy. The girl knew just how much pressure to apply - she certainly wanted him to have something to think about when he was taking that bath. She trailed her toes up closer and higher still, pressing along towards the top of his leg, moving back down as she sipped her tea, considering as she watched him, her eyes bright and focused on him. She could give him some herbs and flowers for that bath that he might like. She could have gone with an energetic pick-me-up, but the Avialae certainly did need a nap, if only because Hilana intended to keep him busy all night long while she had the opportunity. But chamomile, passionflower, and maybe some valerian root...

She looked thoughtful as he mentioned that he would be heading out tomorrow, that he hadn’t been to his home in years, and usually preferred to bed down elsewhere. “We’ll go to mine, then. It’s nothing big or fancy... it’s a two-bedroom apartment in the Antiquine district,” she explained. It likely wasn’t what one expected when they thought of the Equestrian caste; they were far more likely to imagine her father’s estate in Tertium. It wasn’t big or fancy, but it was hers, and she was perfectly comfortable and happy there... and she didn’t think that Raithen would mind it too much. “The freedom to come and go is the best part, isn’t it? Are you close with your siblings?” She had noticed that he had said that he would say goodbye to his mother... but no mention of Prince Phocion or Princess Valaera.

[Raithen]

Raithen, though an effort of will that he kept from his face due to the exacting training of his mother, did not ask precisely what Hilana had learned on sandcocks.

He made a little face at the idea of actually dissecting anything,

"I don't think I need to know where all the organs are or what they are for exactly. If it is to the point of needing to put any of them back or set them to right due to an injury we'll need more than the type of medicine anyone is going to be willing to allow out in the sands with my group. If someone is that bad off and we're out of alchemical potions we'll need a healer, or a priest and I'm not planning on taking up either one as a profession. I'd like to know how to clean and close wounds, how to set bones, enough herblore not to poison my friends, maybe?"

He looked thoughtful, but, for the moment, couldn't think of anything else. As sad as it was, when you put your life in danger, sometimes you lost it. This was the will of the gods and if you were too far from a healer to contest them over the facts, Raithen wasn't the one to look to.

As she went on about what she intended to instruct, he nodded,

"I've put fingers back in place, toes, a shoulder once." He frowned at the memory. Rough housing and having to pull a finger back into place so no one got into trouble was one thing. Watching someone fall and not being fast enough to catch them was something else entirely. "I can burn a wound shut but that doesn't always work with bigger ones, or in certain places where you want to keep mobility. I mean, if it's your life or that, then, yeah, burn it, but having another option would be better."

The young Avialae was starkly practical for someone who was comfortable in the highest court functions in the land. He ran a hand through his still perfumed hair, the magical pomade causing it to fall artfully back into place, looking somehow intentional and natural at once. Having never asked Hilana's caste, he wasn't expecting anything in particular. He'd sort of imagined she might live above the shop, but had to keep reminding himself it wasn't actually her shop. Except it was totally her shop.

He leaned back with one arm over the back of the chair when his familial relationships came up.

"My sister was already practically and adult, or at least always away training for her vocation when I was a child, but there is nothing negative between us. I wanted to be Phocion when I was little," Laughter at himself spiced the memory, "Which would never have worked. We're the same in some ways but those are more instinct and blood than ability."

Raithen knew his closer relationship with their shared parent had not been easy on his older brother, but the ability, even the desire, to speak of the family's interpersonal relationships had been worked out of him so long ago he probably didn't even realize he was avoiding saying anything that might lead someone to places where rifts could be created.

"He indulged me, and when I became too annoying he had his own lessons to do. I was spoiled." There was no shame in the admission, if anything, he seemed at peace with the knowledge. "But I wasn't trueborn, so mother could afford to spoil me. I think, considering I now find out I have another brother as well, who also had what seems to have been a harder childhood, I got the candied end of the stick."

There was no laugh at this jest, but he was still smiling. Information about his sudden sibling had not yet been forthcoming, and this was, as even, unquestionably by design. He was told what he needed to know, and digging for more had never been his way.

"And you? Did you leave home for work as you pine for your family, or are you working as an excuse to be away?" Women her age, he knew, were usually married, whether they were working or not. For all he knew, Hilana was married. The thought did not trouble him.

[Hilana Chenzira]

Had he asked her, Hilana could have explained how the textures of sandcock meat and skin were similar to those of a Vastii or an Elf. They were plentiful enough that they were often able to get them fairly regularly, and so once it was butchered and plucked, a leg was usually cut off and given to the girl. She could practice her sutures on it, cutting into it and stitching up the layers as best as she could. Then when she was done, the thread could be removed, washed, and let to dry for the next round of practice. The leg didn’t go to waste either, as it went to Risdra to eat. The large, bengal cat could certainly hunt for herself, but if the humans wanted to provide for her, well then. No queen would say no to that. She had done her share of playing surgeon on corpses in Tertium - her Great-Aunt felt that it was the best way for her to learn. Not just how to do surgery and learn her anatomy, but to see how different poisons impacted the victim. It was a grisly education, but few would deny Eliana’s skill with poisons and how to target some part of the body or another with the same grace as surgeon or a master swordsman.

But as he explained what he wanted to learn, Hilana nodded approvingly, her toes grazing along his upper thigh once more. That she could certainly teach him. “I’d say you’re right about that, though I hope that’s never necessary,” she smiled at him and sipped her tea. “You aren’t likely to find a bearer of Mendicus out here,” the girl was thoughtful. “I’ve only ever met one and that was in Tertium before they disappeared,” she admitted. “I think they didn’t like our culture very much and had hoped to find followers for Ioniri and hadn’t realized when they had come what an uphill struggle that was going to be here. The rest of us just have to make do,” she indicated the herbs and plants all around them. But emblem or no emblem, Hilana still considered herself a healer.

When he confirmed he had put joints back in sockets before, she nodded. That would have been one of the first things for her to teach him, if only because accidents did happen out there and rough hits and falls made for a paralyzing problem. “All of that, I can teach you. And provide you with some other things, too, to take out there as your own kit,” she smiled at him. She’d much rather the handsome Avialae come back alive, after all, each time he went out. “But it is better to burn something shut if it’s a matter of life and death... we can always fix them once you get them back here, but if they bleed out in the Sands? There’s no coming back from that.” Hilana watched as he ran his hand through his hair. Gods, but he was something. There’d been no denying the fun they’d had that night when they had camped out a few weeks ago, and she was certainly ready for more.

She listened with curious interest as he explained about his family. It was an interesting set of dynamics, and she was glad that he trusted her enough to humour her with an answer. She hadn’t been expecting much of one, considering the difference in their stations, but Raithen did indulge her. It was good that he had role models and good relationships, it seemed, with his siblings. But with the mention of yet another brother, Hilana’s head tilted in question. But if no more was volunteered, she wasn’t about to pry. She’d learned plenty more than she had earlier, and maybe she would find out more another time.

The Vastiana considered his question. “More the latter than anything. I have three sisters, and I’m the black sheep of the flock, if you will,” she grinned at that. “There’s no love lost between us, but you know how things are for appearances. I was raised in the Sands outside of the cities because of the Wildness that I mentioned earlier... I did have to go back into Tertium because I wanted to learn herbalism with my mother’s tribe, and my father refused to allow it. He would only agree to let me study under his aunt in the city. My father was trying to arrange my marriage, and that’s why he wanted me there, sadly. His last pick didn’t work out, it turned out that my intended’s father was actually doing deals with the Ecithian Commonwealth... My own father was not about to let that get attached to his name, so that engagement was broken off before it was even publicly announced, praises and thanks to Deus and Domina,” she didn’t sound upset about it at all. “I’m glad of it. He was the only person Tiaz has ever bitten,” Hilana smiled at her snake, who was still contentedly enjoying Raithen's broad shoulders. “But out of sight is out of mind, so he sent me here for the time being to make sure that scandal doesn’t get attached to his name. But I enjoy being here more than I ever did Tertium, and hopefully it bought me another year or so here.” And no family in the city, either, for her to have to deal with.

She had her friends, and that was enough.

[Raithen]

Raithen didn't recall ever having met a follower of Ioniri but it wasn't as if people went around with signs explaining their religious beliefs, so, perhaps he had. The last of the substances he'd been riding high on throughout the hours of the night were draining out of him as his body turned it's energies to the digestion of pastry and cream. The Avialae was beginning to droop, literally, as his wings no longer held themselves upright and were sort of leaning against their owner's shoulders. He didn't look displeased at all, only as though he might soon begin to snore softly with his head on his arms.

Making every effort to continue to listen he made himself sit up straight and at least nod along to the information being imparted concerning doctoring and the like. It was perhaps indecorous that he was now lightly pressing his crotch in, seeking the pleasing pressure of Hilana's offered limb, but it served to keep him, if not alert, more so. The inappropriateness was emphasized as she began to discuss her family, but as it did not seem to make her pull away, he wasn't going to either.

The story of her almost-marriage was interesting enough that he was paying intent attention enough that, when she mentioned Tiaz biting her intended his own laughter startled him and he had to sigh at himself.

"I'm sorry. I'm fading. So, you don't think your father will call you back to push you onto another suitor any time soon?" Raithen would happily pay a bride price to keep Hilana in the city, though his own marriage was not in his hands any more than Hilana's was legally in hers. His friend was no slave, but she did have value, and while there was no chance, nor any desire, for them to be bound in a wedding people of his station nearly always had consorts who were lovers and often had other useful gifts and skills. While Raithen had never considered having one before, if it was a question of losing his friend or giving her some sort of title in association with himself, the answer was obvious.

Standing he stretched again, this time more carefully, not because he was beginning to remember not to knock anything over, but because Tiaz was still on him. Carefully lifting the serpent he placed him back on his preferred perch. "I'm going for a bath, and a nap, hopefully in that order."

His laughter rang softly again and he sketched a playful bow, "Till this evening, then, my Lady?"

[Hilana Chenzira]

Hilana felt him pressing back against her foot, and she rewarded that ardour with more of the same. She stroked him with deceptive casualness, the look on her face completely innocent of exactly what her outstretched limb was doing. It might have been her physical conditioning, but there was no wavering in her movements. That she was talking of her family at the same time didn’t even come into it for her, it was just her and Raithen. She did notice that he was definitely starting to flag, and it was about time to let him go take a break and rest. She would have him soon enough, and then all night long. If he wasn’t tired tomorrow morning before he went to say goodbye to his mother, then she was doing something wrong.

“Don’t apologize, you had a very, very busy night,” the girl chuckled. “My great-aunt thought I’d have until Searing of 123 before my father demands I return or tries to line someone else up, but we’ll see what happens. He’ll doubtless find out that I was at the ball last night, and he’ll either be pleased or livid; not sure which yet. He did tell me to keep a low profile here,” she laughed. “All the better not to do any more damage to the family name. But I’ll have a better idea come Glade about what he is doing and planning… If all goes well, I want to race Hayima’el in the annual derby in Tertium, and that means stopping by the family estate there.” She could avoid it, but the snub would just make things worse for her situation overall.

When he made to get up, she trailed her toes from his upper thigh and back down his leg to his ankle before letting her foot soundlessly settle on the floor once more. As he began to lift Tiaz, the snake promptly made himself dead weight in Raithen’s hands as if to protest being robbed of his new basking post, but would settle on his branch and wriggle up onto it to get comfortable once again when he realized that it wasn’t going to work. But Hilana got up and came around the table, brushing herself rather deliberately past him, smiling at him. Her fingers trailing over his side as she slipped beneath his wing in order to select a packet off of the rack.

She was back once he bowed, drawing herself up in postures he had seen many times at formal events. But the way her eyes danced and she was grinning gave her away, as she bowed in turn, sweeping out her skirts before offering him the paper package. ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ was written on it. Apparently, it was a tea to help him get a nice rest. Once he’d taken it, she stepped up to him, pressing herself against his chest, and claiming his lips in kiss. “Until this evening, my Lord,” she promised him, her lips brushing his as her fingers touched his cheek. It may not have been the proper title, but it went just fine with ‘Lady’. “For when you are done your bath.”

[Rune]

R E V I E W

Lore:
Hilana: 14
Raithen: 13

Points: 10 each, may be used for magic

Injuries/Ailments: None

Loot: Affection?

Notes: