One Flame

Clephesia iníon Mab, Princess Heir of the Winter Court, Mayor of the Palace serving under the Sundered Throne of the Split Horizon, Grand Duchess of the Emerald Forest, Knight under Queen Mab, the Scion Unseelie, was covered in the shadow of a great sailing vessel before her, its wood painted so immaculately she wasn't sure if the ship was made of gold. Even as it cast shade over her, she felt like it was emitting light into her eyes, and her sister Alifa seemed to agree as she cast her gaze down.

Clephesia slapped the seed of her Living Armor against her chest. The seeds roots began to grow downward and wrap around her while the branches grew around her arms and up to her collarbone to grant her a protective shell. Her left hand twitched, impatient for her sword to grow.

Líf, however, shook her head at her sister. "We can't fight this," she insisted. "We need to get the crew to surrender."

"Surrender? A Knight of the Winter Court--"

"These people aren't Knights, Boots. They're refugees. Double refugees," Alifa reminded her. "They are going to die. We need to surrender and drop our sails. Glen! Does this ship have a sign of surrender?"

The former stowaway in the Crow's Nest shouted a yes.

"Show it! Bek! Weigh Anchor!"

"That means lift it," Bek informed her.

"Oh. Well... Sink Anchor! Saer! Drop the sails!" Alifa was a little proud of herself for getting that one right as the sails were lowered, rather than furled, to immediately lose the wind. The ship came to a very fast stop, throwing Alifa off of her feet, and the warship contrasted by bringing its motion to a smooth, graceful end nearly upon them. The crewman in their crow's nest moved a few handheld flags around, and Glen shouted down: "They've accepted our surrender and will be boarding us!"

"How does he know that?" Boots asked Alifa. "I thought the whole crew was stowaways."

"The Captain probably told him how to surrender," Alifa mused. "He knows that a crew of all land lovers on a merchant ship can't fight off basically anything." She looked down to her own sea green skin, then at Boots's more vibrant leaf-green tone. "Think we'll have time to disguise ourselves?"

"Not much point, Princess." The ship's Ledger, Zaria, told her. "Look up, those are telescopes trained right on you two." She squinted. "Mostly at Buataisí."

"Buataisí" was Clephesia's native Faerie for "boots," which was her family nickname. Alifa had let it slip before they could come up with a more human name, but it ended up not mattering when their disguises fell apart anyway.

"Well, I was always the looker," Clephesia teased Alifa.

"And now you're the one armed and armored. Put that away, you don't look like you've surrendered."

Clephesia's left hand closed around her wooden sword's hilt. She thought of drawing it, of heroically battling her way through the entirety of the enemy ship's crew! But the fact was... they'd have weapons of steel or iron. As a daughter of a nymph, Clephesia was a fae creature, particularly vulnerable to those alloys. Even having iron shavings thrown in her face could drain her. She kept her armor on, but didn't draw her weapon.

A wide plank was laid down across the ships, and the first two men to walk across it drove stakes through iron rings that stabbed into the deck of the ship, locking the walkway in place. The ships bobbed in the water, but remained in sync with one another. A half-dozen tall men, each bearing an identical bronze breastplate with an emblem of a mountain spewing fire. They were holding spears, with short swords strapped to their belts. The tips certainly looked like steel. Under the bronze, their raiment had long red sleeves ending in gloves matching the color of their breastplates.

Alifa stepped up to them, Clephesia a half-stride behind.

It ocurred to the Princess Heir that they might not share a language with these people. Prior to her mission that took her aboard the Canard, she thought there was only one human language. With the aid of her sister's magicks, she had learned the new Eastern Human language over the last week and a half. Who knew what these men could say.

"Greetings," she tried in Eastern Human.

Crisply, like it was the only sentence he really knew, the nearest of the soldiers responded in the same language: "You two go aboard. This ship's new Captain shall choose which of your crew follow."

"Who is the new captain?"

"You two go aboard," he said louder.

"Whoever they are, I hope they know the language better." Alifa unsteadily stepped on the plank and wobbled horribly, almost falling off until Clephesia held her. The two Princesses walked across together, leaving their crew behind... though Boots noticed a small, grinning creature in Lif's pack.

The deck was somehow immaculate... the Canard seemed to have grime and odd smells all about it, but Boots could have been walking along the crystaline floors of her mother's Frigid Fortress, the Sodalite Citadel with how smooth and clean the slaughtered trees under her father's boots were. They were brought down the second staircase Boots had ever seen, to a set of doors with what appeared to be gold hinges, and windows that Boots could easily recognize the material of: Diamond.

They were opened by two women, one in silver chains making a mask in front of her eyes, almost like a half-veil of thin metal, with more of the same material looped around her neck with more chains wrapping around her body. It was very easy to see that she was not wearing a single thing underneath. The woman opening the other door was clad in a similar, though not identical, garb of gold chain with no corresponding veil. Clephesia found it very hard to focus on the rest of the room, which seemed to be mostly filled with soft cushions, though there was a circular table of an opaque, black, glass-like substance that the Princesses recognized from the volcanic lands of the Fomori: Obsidian. The circle dominated the front of the room, and upon closer inspection as the sisters were ushered in, it had a map carved into it with islands and landmasses Boots didn't recognize, with names she couldn't read.

Leaning on the table was a man who looked prim and proper, like those who had boarded, tapping at the map with a long pair of scissors for some reason. Behind him was a large bed with a woman seated atop it. Her skin was almost pearl white, a shade Clephesia had never seen on a human before. Every other one she'd ever seen was far darker, and she'd met only one nymph with pale skin, Chonaic. Both of them had skin that Clephesia would nearly describe as transparent.

The woman in the bed scooted forward in a most unregal gesture, seemingly more hungry than domineering. "And what are these? Actresses? Courtesans? People making some odd statement about plants and oceans?" She asked the question in fluent Eastern Human, so it seemed she at least knew that the ship she'd just captured was of that region. Alifa made a mental note not to underestimate this woman.

Clephesia gave a knightly bow. "Greetings. I am Clephesia iníon Mab, Princess Heir of the Winter Court, Mayor of the Palace serving under the Sundered Throne of the Split Horizon, Grand Duchess of the Emerald Forest, Knight under Queen Mab, the Scion Unseelie. And this is my sister--"

"Alifa," the younger princess interrupted.

"Well met. You are received by Her Royal Highness Tanaquil the Radiant, Divine Majesty over the Sea at the Center. Empress of Batillus Unas, Lady of Imis Ulus, Admiral of the Great Navy of the Eruption, Domina Flamecaller." She rattled off the titles, just as practiced as Boots. "And I believe I asked already... what are you? I will not repeat myself again."

Boots blushed, and Alifa went into a stone cold silence.

"We are half-nymphs, you might call us Áos Áilleacht, Áilleacht being another name for nymphs. Faerie is controlled by two separate Queendoms, each ruled by a Nymph. One--"

"Boots," Alifa interrupted. "Don't tell her that."

"'Buataisí," Tanaquil repeated. "That wasn't one of your titles, now was it?"

"Oh! Ah, that's my family nickname. It means 'Boots.'" Clephesia nodded down to her father's boots on her feet.

"I'm charmed to know you, Boots. Captain, please escort Alifa to her quarters and ask anything you need to know about the ship you'll be taking over. Boots..." She flashed a smile at Clephesia that got her heart doing a little dance. "Won't you stay with me for a while?"

Alifa leaned next to her sister and muttered in Faerie. "Be careful what you say to her. Tell her as little as possible." She went, with all the guards, out of the room. Boots was left with only herself, the Empress, and her two naked attendants.

"I'll need to take your bag, Princess," the Captain said, only half-joking with her title. His Eastern Human was crisp, and clearly not his first language.

"Oh, absolutely you may take my pack," Alifa said a bit louder than necessary, and passed it over. Her little friend remained quiet and still. Or maybe she'd already slipped out, unnoticed.

Wenny was a puca, a small creature approximating a wingless bat. She was sneaky, tricky, and a little too jovial for her own good. Alifa didn't know how Wenny thought about their new vessel, but she was worried Wenny was seeing this whole ship as a whole new group of people to torment.

"I don't want to upset the Empress," she added to the Captain, a bit too loud. It sort of fit the context, at least.

"Well, you could have tricked me back there. Your sister at least bowed."

"She's easily taken by a pretty face... and she bows a lot. As a Knight, not as a sign of submission."

"Well, that'll end soon." He led her into a brig, she recognized it from the similar group of cages in the Canard that they'd thrown the former captain onto. Except that these bars were clean and there was a bed with a mattress inside.

"Come on in, let me know if you need the privy." A prison guard opened it up for her, and Alifa strode in as impassively as she could, head high. He closed it and she heard the sound of metal on metal as he twisted a key to lock her exit behind her.

"What are these bars made of?" She asked, trying to sound curious rather than concerned.

"Iron," the captain said casually.

Alifa took a shaky step away from the bars.

"I have no questions, Princess. Enjoy your accommodations while I go through your crew and decide which will stay with me, and which will join you."

Alifa tried to remain stoic, but a mass of iron greater than she'd ever seen in front of her face had her visibly spooked.

"See you back home... my home, that is."

"Mirai, bring over the wine." The woman in silver chains bowed and departed. "Cleïs, draw a bath." Another bow, and Clephesia was alone standing across from the domineering woman who was eying her green skin with profound interest.

"Your shade is new to me as well," Clephesia said, trying to break the silence.

"'Nymph,' I recognize," the Empress mused. "'Áilleacht' is a new word. Why are there two ways to refer to your mother's kind?"

"Many of our peoples have multiple names," Clephesia explained. "We were formed when the Scorched Bird planted the groves and carved the rivers that would make our land, but many of us spread out from there. It was only after we began to be hunted that most of our kind fled back to Faerie. We remember the names we were called, each individual might have a different favorite."

"Scorched bird?" the Empress prompted.

"Oh, she is The Morrigan, the Raven. Once a resplendent being blessed with the powers of light and creation, she made Faerie to be a realm of beauty. However, she also built into those lands the volcanic refuge for the surviving Fomori. She had the blood of the Fomori, and the blood of the Tuath Dé, twin families with great power and great enmity. When the Tuath Dé discovered she was sheltering her defeated kin, she was burned, charred black. Now she is a being of darkness and death... many of us think that she is dead, and her remnant is her wandering ghost."

"Faerie, you call it a realm of beauty... ah, thank you Mirai." Tanaquil accepted one wine glass and Clephesia was offered the other by the demure servant. She took it.

"Tell me more about Faerie."

Boots didn't drink the wine, she simply tried and failed to catch the eyes of the woman responding so easily and silently to the demands, not even given the dignity of a sheet to cover herself with. Back at the Sodalite Citadel, many went bare. Boots herself often did not want to go to the effort of dressing and undressing, and her half-brother Relliss had never taken to anything other than complete nudity. From what she'd seen of human society, they treated it differently, and Boots had never before seen any human naked, even her own father. Perhaps the Batillus Unas were more like Faerie in this way.

"Is she..."

"Oh, how could I have neglected her. This is Lady Mirai of Aberria. Aberria is one of the nations within the Empire of the Batillus Unas."

Confusion filled Clephesia's face. "You're a noble?"

"I was," Mirai answered. "But my house is no longer standing."

"Oh, yes, when she was a noble, Aberria wasn't within the Empire. Two things have changed."

Two and two made four. "You... conquered Aberria. And made her... what, your slave?"

"Mirai," Tanaquil intoned gently, and the once-noble quickly moved to be at her side. The empress gripped her chin and kissed her firmly. Clephesia swallowed watching it, and with a glint in her eye Tanaquil released Mirai and motioned her to the side.

"There's no one in this room who doesn't want to be here, Princess." The word 'princess' came out of her mouth excitedly, like it was a special treat. "Had it not been for me and my husband, Mirai here would have been sold off as a slave just the same, used as a bargaining tool to unite two noble families in a marriage. She would have served a husband and born his children, without anyone asking her once what she actually wanted. Mirai, what do you want?"

The woman shrank at the question, blushing slightly at Boots as if this would be the source of embarrassment. "I want to make you proud, Empress."

"And you do. Every day," Tanaquil insisted. She smiled to Clephesia.

"You see, Princess, most people in this world are... uncertain. Afraid that they're doing the wrong thing. So desperate to shrug off responsibility for their actions that they'll turn to anyone -- a king, a god, a father -- to tell them what to do. They're just looking for someone to surrender themselves to, and praying that that someone will be kind and merciful. I like to think of myself as someone who... offers these people that. A kind and merciful hand that will instruct them down the right path. I protect them from uncertainty, give them a simple goal, and tell them how they measured up. That is what I bring to this world, Clephesia: Simplicity." She lifted her glass. "Cheers." She finished off her wine, and Clephesia took her first sip.

Alifa wasn't visited until Zaria and a few others of her crew were escorted into her cell with her. They were carefully watched, but Alifa knew that very few of the crew could speak Eastern Human. She tried out a few insults with a smile and got no reactions, so she felt safe having a hushed conversation with Zaria.

"Do you know where they're taking us?"

"If this is the Empress's ship... that just captured a pair of fairy princesses... I'd guess we're going to the Capitol."

One of their guards seemed to recognize the word Capitol.

"Imis Ulus, the greatest city in this or any age," he confirmed.

Alifa swore in Faerie. "Conand's Cock-slime. I don't suppose there's any easy way to escape from that place?"

"I wouldn't bet on it," Zaria said, leaning on the metal bars. "No, once we're there we'd need to be released to ever leave."

"That won't do." Alifa traced on the ground and condensation gathered into the letters of Faerie.

"What's that?"

"I think I heard a whale," Alifa said, signaling for Zaria to move into the guards' sightline.

It was a gamble if Wenny could even read... in Faerie words were not seen as a method of passing information or communication, they were a medium for art and poetry. Most of their history was largely figurative and the only way to politely send a message was in a series of riddles. Alifa didn't have the time or patience for that at the moment. Wenny's ability to virtually disappear was their only chance... well, that and a sleep spell that Alifa could hopefully pull off subtly.

When Clephesia's wine was finished, the Empress, not her pet nobles, approached to take the glass away. She took it in both hands and lifted it out of the princess's grasp.

"Call me a conqueror, an empress, whatever you will... but once I control you, I'll never make you do anything... anything you aren't dripping at the thought of." She leaned in until Clephesia could smell her lips. "Kiss me," Tanaquil ordered. Boots gave in and tasted the Empress in her mouth. She was battered into submission one flick of Tanaquil's tongue at a time... then it was taken away, and Boots felt... empty. She lunged forward for another kiss, but Tanaquil's hand landed gently on her living armor and held her back.

"Take off your armor," she ordered.

Boots's mouth opened and closed a few times, but then she sang the song that slowly drew her still-breathing wooden protection back into its seed. The plain wool she'd gotten from a peasant made her a little ashamed to stand before this empress. She looked at the ground, but the Empress's fingers tilted her head back up and she was allowed to sample Tanaquil's tongue again.

"Time for a bath," Domina Flamecaller whispered into her face.

Cleïs and Mirai rubbed soaps and oils on Clephesia while Tanaquil watched from the edge, delighting in the sight of her new Princess getting to know her other pets. Boots cooed at the gentle touch of Tanaquil's noble servants. Often in hot baths like this one she would close her eyes and relax in the warm water until it grew too cool for her... but with three beautiful women surrounding her, and the Empress clearly looking over her naked body, her eyes remained wide open. Clephesia would never forgive herself for missing a second of this.

"Are you not coming in, Empress?"

Tanaquil tugged at her robe, and Clephesia leaned forward to catch as much skin as she could see. The robe itself was beautiful, a purple fabric Clephesia was unfamiliar with that was soft and smooth and clung tightly to the Empress's frame. Though the Princess was certain that she'd rather see the Empress without it.

"That depends on how much you want me to." It was said with a teasing smile, but Clephesia caught herself getting infuriated. She lowered her head and rolled her eyes to look up at the Empress, gently moving in a manner that she hoped was cute.

"Please, Empress Tanaquil, will you join us in the bath?"

Domina Flamecaller put a finger to her chin in an exaggerated thinking pose. "Well, since you asked so sweetly."

Clephesia drank in every second of the Empress's robes coming off. She was barely able to register in her peripheral vision that the other two women present were doing the same thing. Somewhere in the Princess Heir's mind she knew that the nymphs of Faerie, raw expressions of beauty made manifest, and her various half-nymph siblings had this woman beat in terms of being pretty, if such a thing could be objectively measured. But of course, that was very different. For one, every half-nymph she knew was also her sibling (at least paternal). For another, most of the nymphs she knew were the mothers of her siblings and she had grown up calling them her aunts. Adventuring around Faerie was more than just a chance to build up her reputation as a worthy heir to the Throne of Air and Darkness, it was also, though Clephesia had never admitted this even to Alifa, a chance to try her luck with people who were wholly unrelated to her, and had probably never lain with her father or mother.