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"You've committed the Cardinal Sin of boring me, Hero. So I take my leave and retire to the shadows. Good luck." Emet-Selch's smirk and sardonic tone echoed in the wake of a finger-snap and the familiar tingling whoosh of a void-portal opening and the Ascian himself vanishing through it, unremarked by the Night's Blessed surrounding the party.
"Unbelievable," Thancred muttered.
"I know, right?" The Warrior crossed her arms and frowned at the empty space vacated by the former Garlean emperor. "If I could finger-bang myself into the void any time I wanted to, I sure as hell wouldn't waste my time conquering Garlemald and hanging out with the lot of us. Would you?"
Thancred snorted, half-smile tugging at his mouth. "Maybe he needs your interaction to kick-start himself. You can be quite...stimulating."
She flashed teeth. "I do try."
The Warrior of Light she may be, but she was not always the Warrior of Smart, and she knew that. Her value lay in having quick reflexes and decisive strikes, so if sometimes she was less-than-quick on the uptake, it rarely affected the outcome of her efforts with the Scions. People like Alphinaud and Urianger were there to take up the slack and explain later. But this particular problem did not involve the Scions, at least not more than tangentially, as far as their less-than-welcome companion, concerned them. But after having traveled the Rak'tika Greatwood with his intermittent company and (at least to her) rather revealing commentary, the Warrior realized something.
Emet-Selch was trying, in his odd, Ascian, inscrutable way, to seduce her.
Oh yes, he was very actively attempting to persuade the party to accept his wisdom and strength (Hah--the one time Minfilia asked him to help fight he vanished like someone had presented him with the bar tab, reminding them that he liked to watch). But between needling Thancred and tempting Urianger with the promise of forbidden, lost knowledge, or questioning the depths of Y'Shtola's most obscure knowledge of aetherology, the Ascian engaged her with bouts of strange familiarity, sometimes forgetting himself when pointing out a hidden ruin, a rock formation, or a heretofore unrecognizable species of plant life.
Invariably, he would come to his senses once she reacted with genuine pleasure or an observation that seemed to remind him that, despite his overtures, he really was still plotting something against them. His behavior would turn to the sly, sardonic tones of I-have-a-secret-and-you-don't-know, mixed with subtle, careful double entendres of suggestive nature, followed by careful side-glances of intense observation.
He was testing her defenses, probing for weaknesses in her walls, much as she'd do to an enemy with quick strikes or half-powered sneak attacks, only with words and gestures designed to tap into her emotions, knock her off-guard and out of balance. Tempt her into entertaining his point of view.
And she was already tempted, given her track record of collecting former adversaries, especially of the Garlean persuasion. Even Ascians, Lahabrea and Nabriales notwithstanding. Some things had happened in the flight to Ishgard when she'd been wanted for regicide, and at some point she was pretty sure that she and Elidibus still shared custody of that Ascian kid that was now acting as their Primal-sniffer back at the Source. Strange kid but good at heart and one day he'd find his place.
But either way, he didn't have to work so hard to get her to see his point of view--she was already hoping to bring him around, provided he wasn't too far gone 'round the bend with The Cackles like Lahabrea. There were times Emet-Selch seemed just...profoundly sad. Tired in a way she, too, felt, as if they were both pushing rocks uphill with no peak in sight. She wanted to offer him a break, to give him a reason to stop fighting whatever it was that he was fighting, to find a better way to get whatever it was he truly wanted.
She, too, would not mind alliance with a powerful former enemy. As she'd told Alphinaud and Thancred in the Ocular before they set out for Rak'tika, "Look, I've got enemies coming out my wazoo. If one of them wants to play at being an ally instead of oh--curb-stomping us with a flick of the wrist, then I'll take the break, temporary though it may be."
But she was coming to realize when, in the cavern after the third Lightwarden, Emet-Selch raked his gaze up and down her body and pronounced her "fighting fit" with a lingering emphasis on "fit" and a lingering gaze that was doing its best to subtly smolder, but only at her, that this particular enemy might be wanting to travel in the other direction as far as her wazoo was concerned.
And she might be inclined to let him attempt the journey.
But not if it was part of some nefarious plan of his to gain an upper hand of some sort. So she had to send a message the same way he was sending her messages.
Unfortunately (for him), she was also not the Warrior of Tact and Subtlety.
++
He may have been an immortal and an Ascian, but she was certain that he hadn't, in fact, paid much attention to his brethren's encounters with her for more than a passing awareness. Otherwise he might have understood that this was not her first rodeo, either. Others had tried to seduce her, threaten her, violate her boundaries in ways both overt and subtle since she had taken up the sword and staff for the Scions, and those others had learned the hard way not to trifle with her. Inexperienced as she might have been with court intrigues and foreign diplomacy between leaders of men and nations, she nevertheless had a far greater understanding of people from the bottom-up, so to speak.
Many of the greatest diplomats and statesmen and leaders had gone to their graves unsung when their talents never made it outside of the tavern, but their lessons had not gone unheard or unheeded and pity the crown that underestimated the ale-wench permitted to enter his orbit.
Minfilia's light shone upon the cavern that widened before them and revealed a brilliant display of ancient murals and a discussion about the paint turned into an encounter with the man himself, declaring that he was bored.
Well she was annoyed and they could both be miserable--except when he spotted the murals and recognized them she lost her annoyance and he seemed to lose his boredom. The tale he spun of a world on the brink of destruction and the desperate gamble of its people to save some of their number--and the tragedy of what he claimed was their first real division of unity--echoed with something profoundly heartbreaking in her own soul. He spoke of this Sundering as something that had been taken from them without their consent or awareness, and genuine sorrow colored his tone. And the aching sadness of his parting words twisted inside her. "Given that, wouldn't you want the same?"
Yet the next time they encountered one another in the Crystarium, he'd been back to his carelessly mocking self. Crowding into her space, reminding her that he 'liked to watch' and all but daring her to take offense at his propositions so that he could claim innocent intent.
She could have told him that his words in the cavern went far deeper into her smallclothes than any of his suggestive entendres, but the lesson was one far better taught by example.
++
Her room at the Pendants was supposed to be a private one, but Ardbert spent enough time in there with her that she didn't want for company, and her former foe was proving to be a kindred spirit. Especially after she'd taken a few trips around il Mheg on behalf of the amaro and discovered Seto and Ardbert's soul-medallion.
The way the medallion vibrated and hummed in her hand, the warmth and familiarity, the way her very soul reached out to bring it closer--she was starting to suspect she and Ardbert were linked more closely than either of them realized.
When she told him of Seto that late night after the Exarch had left sandwiches--along with the rest of a spread that should have fed an entire squadron of the Crystarium guard, Ardbert was so grateful for the tale that his eyes spilled over and he spent a few minutes with his head buried in his hands.
"Aww, buddy, I didn't mean to upset you with the tale," she said. Trying to pat him with her hand passing right through, save for the slightest of whispers of sensation.
Ardbert shook his head. "No! It's just--I haven't been able to cry for a hundred years. Cry, laugh, feel anything at all. If crying it must be then I'd take it gladly and weep for a century to make up for it."
++
That made her think and with the downtime of much-needed rest in the physical, her mind needed something to work at, and Ardbert became her project.
"Oh no you don't," he said warily when she proposed her experiment. "I'm happy to tag along but I'll not be made into some sort of--charity case of yours. Especially when your burden is already too heavy but you insist on carrying it." He shook his head. "No, I'll not be one to add to it."
"At least let me figure out where our limits are," she protested. They were on the lakeshore near Sullen and she was fishing, which was one of the few times the Scions and the Crystarium guards left her alone. Mostly. There were one or two other guards who enjoyed the same pastime and occasionally joined her, but they both had duty this day and she was left alone with the biting fish and a satisfying catch was building up in her basket.
"Do you feel anything when I touch you like this?" She put a hand on his shoulder--or rather, through it, trying to maintain the approximation of where his shoulder would be. She felt a faint tingle when her hand passed through him but if she hadn't been looking for it, she wouldn't have noticed a thing.
Ardbert shrugged. "Like, maybe a little something?" He held out his hand. "Maybe try my bare skin."
"Close your eyes, first," she said. "Let's make sure we're not just imagining things." She placed her fingers near where she thought his palm would be, moving them in circles. Again, the tingle, but it seemed not to matter whether or not he had clothing.
"Same thing." He confirmed her observation. "Are you--making shapes?"
Her eyes snapped open. "Yes! That's a start!"
The start was interrupted when her fishing pole bobbed. "Oh!" She took up the pole. "Oh my, this is a big one!"
Experiment temporarily forgotten, she focused on working the line, letting some out and reeling it back in when the fish pulled to one side or the other. There was a trick to not breaking the line and losing the catch altogether. She rose from her chair to better focus, continuing to work the line as the fish twisted this way and that.
She was getting close when she spotted a darkening in the water. She watched in dismay as a large shadow passed where her line disappeared below the surface. Suddenly, the line jerked hard in the other direction, yanking her forward into the water's edge up to her knees, then the line snapped and she fell backwards on her rear end with a splash. Hook, bait, and catch all gone and now she was soaked through from the waist down. "Ahh, bugger!"
Ardbert, for his part, laughed. Hands on hips, head thrown back, mirth dancing in his eyes. She flicked water at him, for all the good it would do. The water caught the light as it passed through him, turning iridescent and brilliant. "I wish you could feel that," she grumbled.
He calmed. "Me, too."
"Aww, hells. I'm sorry."
"Ehh, don't be." He shrugged. "If it helps--" He dropped down to a sitting position next to her. "Funny thing--I can pass through walls, even floors of man-made structures sometimes, but I'm firm on the ground." He moved his hands through the water.
She glanced at his movements and the water. There were too many ripples to be sure but-- "I think--can you feel the water?"
He squinted and moved his hand. "It's--I think? More like a resistance than an actual feeling."
"Here, try something--" She scooted down further into the water. In for a gil, in for a gold bar. Seated as she was, the water here lapped up her shirt to just under her breasts. "Come here where it's a little deeper."
Ardbert shrugged and moved out with her. His clothing showed no signs of interacting with the water at all, only his own movements. "It's actually...a little harder than effortless to move through the water. Huh. Never noticed that before." He made a face. "Didn't seem to be a point in noticing."
She peered up at him. "Well, I'm here now, and I'm your point. Put your hands under the water and see if the extra resistance does anything when we touch." She held her hands out under the water.
He crouched down and stretched his arm out to meet hers, forearm-clasp style in the manner of warriors greeting comrades.
The dull aetherlight glow around him flared a bit brighter in her eyes and in the flare. "I feel your fingers!"
"I--" A look of wonder crossed Ardbert's face. "Yes! I can--I can feel!" Sudden tears shone in his cornflower blue eyes. "It's not--you don't feel as solid as my axe in my hands but--" He pressed his glowing fingers against her forearm.
She felt the resistance of his fingers passing through her skin. "It's like holding levin crystals when they're attuned." She glanced down. When his fingers passed into her, the glow around him flared. "It feels like there's a kind of--"
"A pull. Like I'm moving downhill. Like I'm sliding down and wherever you are is at the bottom" He glanced up and met her eyes.
"Do you think that's bad?" She pulled back.
He wobbled forward, but drew himself back. She felt a drag through her skin. Faint but distinct, and when his fingers moved away and above the surface of her skin, the resistance disappeared with a popping sensation.
"Was that difficult to do? I don't want to put you in danger of--I don't know, getting sucked into me somehow." She made a little face. "I've already got one too many people up here." She tapped the side of her head. "Hydaelyn might not be talking, but I can feel Her, alongside the Echo and the Blessing of Light." She sighed. "A lingering trace of Nidhogg, a sizable fragment of Midgardsormr, too."
She'd told him about the dragons in one of their earlier sandwich-fueled late-night chats when they were comparing notes about How to Hero, and her seeming propensity to collect former adversaries. He had wondered if maybe the Source hadn't succumbed to a flood of Light like the First because she'd spared so many of her enemies instead of releasing their aether, but she told him about Carteneau and Dalamud, which led to her telling him about Midgardsormr and the First Brood and how there were real, actual dragons on the Source.
He shook his head. "No, it's not hard to pull out." At her snort, he smiled and shook his head. "Lamitt would have loved you."
She touched his hand underwater. The glow flared between them again and the ache of loss of his dear companion came to her. His head jerked up in alarm. "Did you--are you--"
She nodded and drew her hand back. "Sorry, I wasn't thinking. I just--"
"No!" He tried to take her hand. They fumbled a bit until they had a reasonable approximation of their palms touching.
She felt the levin current hum between them and then a deep, aching yearn crashed between them. Ardbert's loneliness swept over her and brought tears prickling at her eyes, then streaming down her cheeks. All she could think was, I'm here I'm here I'm here!
And in return the relief. You're here you're here you're here!
An involuntary laugh bubbled up from his throat, a little soggy, but strong. "It feels like--like a hug." He stared at their joined hands. "I can feel the water a little bit. Cold, moving. The sand scratches." He heaved a deep, shaky sigh. "It all still feels like there's a curtain--or a shroud--wrapped around me, but I can feel things coming through."
They stayed like that, in the lake, until the sun went down and night showed its twinkling stars. She was shivering, the water having long turned her hands and feet pruny, and her backside was numb, but she wouldn't move a muscle as long as the faint current remained.
Nevertheless, he finally pulled himself free of contact. The loss of the current left her feeling inexplicably sad. "Up you go," he said. "I know I'm tired which means you have got to be exhausted. I won't add getting the Warrior of Darkness sick with a head cold to my many sins."
Reluctantly, she clambered to her feet. "Oooh, I'm gonna feel that in the morning." As she gathered up her gear, she winced every time she had to bend a knee and her bum hip lodged a serious complaint with the Records Department of Old Wounds and Persistent Complaints.
"It's the Light, isn't it?" Ardbert asked.
"Aye." She bent at the waist, then stretched one leg out to the side, then twisted her torso gently. "It's making me stiff." She paused.
"Hur, hur."
"Now you're catching on." She grinned and Ardbert grinned back. A little curl of hope stretched out behind her ribcage. Moments like this and the Lightwardens sloshing around in her guts went quiet for a time.
++
She left Ardbert alone about their experiments for a bit. In the meantime, the people of the Crystarium engaged in tentative celebrations of their returned night and she'd taken to leaving her balcony doors open to the darkness.
The twins and Minfilia would stop by in the early evening whenever her doors were open. The teens took it as an invitation and since her sideboard remained loaded courtesy of the Exarch, she needed some help with all the food, and what better help were three hungry teenagers.
The twins bickered and Minfilia asked them hesitantly for stories of their Minfilia--the original one, the Oracle. Alphinaud told them the most stories, having known the Antecedent the longest, but the Warrior was able to interject her own adventures and impressions, and Alisaie had some recollections of the woman's time with Louisoix.
"Thancred won't speak of her," the girl said. "I know it hurts him, and that every time he looks at me he can only see her and all the ways I don't measure up."
"You stop that right now," the Warrior said. "You. Are. Enough." She was running a brush through Minfilia's long blonde tresses, still damp from the girl's bath before she'd joined them. She wove several hanks into intricate braids and pinned them in place. "Let them dry like that and take them out in the morning. You'll get lovely waves."
"I don't know if I ought," the girl said. "I don't want to remind Thancred--"
"Oh to hell with that," the Warrior said. "You can tell Thancred to bring his problem with your hair to me and I'll tell him where to stick it."
"The same place as Emet-Selch's ivory standard?" Alisaie quipped, having heard the story from both Minfilia and the Warrior herself.
The group laughed and the Warrior set out to teach Minfilia how to play cards. Once the girl mastered the basics they played until the sandwiches were gone, and the Warrior sent them off to bed with an admonishment to never, ever play with Urianger for more than shiny pebbles.
But with open doors came all manner of visitations. One of those strange Kholusian birds had decided to take up residence on or near her balcony. On its first visit, she did nothing but test its temperament with eye contact. She stared at it to determine if eye contact would spark aggression, but it seemed content to merely watch her. "You like to watch, I guess," she said to it. "Get in line behind the Garlean Ascian."
She'd tossed it a few shrimp from a shrimp cocktail and it stared at her as if she were mad. "Oh, forgive me, Your Grace. Allow me to plate them up properly next time."
True to her word, she put some bits of fruit and lettuce on one of the serving plates on her sideboard and set it out on the flagstone floor of the balcony with a little bow. "There you go."
The bird whose local name she'd learned was a shoebill hopped down from the balcony rail and did a slow, measured strut on its long legs towards the plate, where it stood over the meal and stared at her.
"Fine then, eat in peace." She turned away. "Would that you'd allow me to do the same." With her back to the bird, she dug into her own small plate of fruit and vegetables and cheeses. She'd taken to nibbly things since heavy meals seemed only to exacerbate the Light's churn within her. When she finished her snack she turned to retrieve the plate from the balcony but found the shoebill still standing over it.
When she approached, it lowered its head and clapped its beak together, making a hollow, clopping sound. With its head lowered and the yellow-eyed glower, she saw the resemblance and suddenly laughed out loud. "You look like an Ascian, friend. Perhaps you should take a page from his folio and spend more time napping in treetops."
"As you please." She turned out the lights in the room and stripped down to her skivvies, then crawled into bed. "I'm turning in for the night so--tuck your beak under your wing if you will, or go find your Ascian twin." She folded her arms and let sleep take her.
++
He really intended on pursuing this, didn't he? What was his game? Convince her to make a fool of herself over him so he could reject her in the pettiest, most scathing way possible and crush her ego? Surely an immortal would be so far above a such a paltry demonstration of "Haha, fooled you" public embarrassment, and yet it seemed exactly the type of thing he would do in private.
Which would make it worse in her eyes. At least in public, she'd know they were both performing for an audience. If he broke her down where no one else could see, it'd be solely for his own pleasure and something soft and squishy within her had some Feelings about that. Enough that her internal armor slammed up around the squish.
She turned to him. "Was I not seductively flirtatious enough in the trash heap for you?" she asked dryly. "I would think you of all people might have a weakness for toxic women." Her smile was brittle and didn't reach her eyes. "You're certainly fond of the drama, are you not?"
A slight crinkle at the corners of his shadowed eyes was all the answer he gave her on that. "I am fond of people who make an effort to gain what they desire, rather than wandering aimlessly and relying on the efforts of others."
Given the amount of people who seemed to flock around her seeking her help in that very manner must be irritating as hell for him. Heh. "Well, I'm not going to be your favorite person tonight, then. I left the rest of my effort back in the sludge pit."
"Tsk, tsk, Hero." He stopped at the edge of the plaza, under a tree, and tugged her hand to stop her from moving forward. "If you've lost your taste for championing noble causes, I'm sure I can still find a use for you in...other ways."
She bristled. The suggestion in his tone was unmistakable to her ears, but if she said a single thing about it, he'd surely act as affronted as a society matron at an afternoon tea. Scandalized at her lascivious imagination, and immediately following with the accusation that her imagination reflected her secret desires. But neither could she let the hint of insult pass.
Which also worked in his favor, damn him. Once again, her inner resolve to put him in his place regarding the...alchemy between them steeled, even if a bit tiredly. "As it happens, I'm already booked for the rest of the night, so my education and my efforts will have to wait."
"Oh? And what is it that demands your attention this time? Someone needs a message delivered? Perhaps a hole dug into the ground for a reason that can only be satisfied by your personal attention to the matter?"
Against her will, a laugh escaped her at his apt description of her days of late. She shook her head. "It's a...research task," she said. "Embedded research."
"Do tell." He allowed her to move again, but at a slower pace than her usual "I have to be somewhere else" stride, tucking her hand into his elbow in a weird old-fashioned manner that reminded her of a time further back than she cared to admit. "Embedded research. And what, pray tell, is the nature of your research? As someone who likes to watch, I do have some experience with it."
She let his faint smirk wash over her and answered it with one of her own. "It's undercover embedded research." She mounted the steps to the Pendants. He followed, still keeping her hand tucked in his arm. She waved to the silent question in the concierge's look as they passed the desk and continued up the stairs to the third floor. She noticed that he steered her towards the east wing, where her room was, and again wondered how he knew.
"Undercover, embedded research," he said archly.
"Yes," she replied pertly. "I'm going under the covers and into my bed."
HIs smirk widened into an honest laugh. "Very clever, Hero."
"I'm taking a page from your book, Emet-Selch," she said. "I've made diplomatic overtures to the pillows and they agreed to welcome me into their company." They stopped at her door and she gave a dramatic sigh in imitation of his own signature ones. "Alas, ongoing negotiations in the uncertain state that they are, anyone else interested in similar...diplomacy...will have to engage in separate overtures."
He gave a low chuckle. "Oh, Hero, haven't you been paying attention? This whole exercise has been establishing diplomatic relations with the intent of negotiating my way into your bed." He bowed over her hand. As he rose to his full height, his eyelids remained at a smoldery half-mast and she'd be lying if she said she wasn't affected by that gaze. Or the fact that his bow had oh-so-conveniently given him the excuse to crowd her up against her door, trapping her there, close enough to feel the warmth radiating from his body. He paused on his rise back up to say, "And I'm already most of the way there." His breath danced over her neck, making her shiver
Languid heat washed through her at his proximity. Something long-buried deep inside her uncoiled and stretched an inquisitive tendril towards the heat coming from outside. Unbidden, her tongue flicked out to wet her lips. "Y-you still have to make it--" She fumbled behind her, fingers searching for the door latch as she pressed herself back against the wood. Steady...
His eyes dropped to her mouth before coming back up to pin her gaze to his.
"--past the pillows." She barely breathed enough air to put voice to her words. The maddening upturn to his mouth told her he knew exactly why she couldn't muster more than a murmur, and that he knew that she knew that he knew. And was clearly enjoying his effect on her.
Her fingers found the tiny panel of crystal above the latch and she sent a shot of aether through it. The tumblers spun open. She drew in another shallow breath, one that made her chest heave and her stomach flutter. "Don't push your diplomacy too far," she said. "Lest the pillows--declare war." She pushed the latch and the door cracked open. "And you find yourself with a pillow fight on your hands." She finished as she stumbled back across the threshold to her room.
Cheeks flaming, she rolled against the door panel and swung around behind it. "Good night, Emet-Selch." She shut the door firmly in his grinning face, pointedly ignoring the low laughter on the other side of it, and the way the sound, even muffled, rolled over her skin like fog coming in off the fens.
"Sweet dreams, Hero..."
++
Hours later, she woke up tangled in her sheets, flushed and sweaty, the thick humid breeze coming in from the open windows doing fuckall to cool her skin. "This cannot stand," she said to the empty room.
Well, not exactly empty. That fucking bird had come into the room via the open doors leading to the balcony sometime during the night. It perched on one of the dining table stools and stared at her. It was the first thing she saw when she sat up on the edge of the bed, its odd, washed-out eyes gleaming in the faint light from the nighttime glow of the Crystal Tower.
Still flushed from whatever she'd been dreaming about (not Emet-Selch. Not those hands or those eyes or the knowing curl of that pair of lips). Certainly not dreaming about--oh who the hell was she kidding? There was nobody here to lie to except the bird, and he seemed to be judging her already. "Shoo, you," she said. "I'll dream about whatever I want."
The bird didn't respond.
She checked the table, pulling the sheet after her as she crawled out of bed. The food was still there, untouched except for what she'd dipped into last night right before bed. The Exarch had made sandwiches again and in spite of her ambivalent feelings towards her friend and his insistence on going to Eulmore to Do Diplomacy in the most unprepared way ever...he did have a knack for putting together a good sandwich. And if that bird shits on my sandwiches or ate them--
As if she'd voiced the question out loud, Ardbert appeared. "It didn't touch anything," he said. "It came in about four bells ago, landed on the stool and has been staring at you ever since."
Her head jerked up, the rest of her still only half-awake. He glowed subtly in the darkness. "Oh, hey," she said. "You here to watch the late show, featuring me not-sleeping?" She dropped the sheet, along with the half-formed plan to drape it over the bird and somehow toss the thing out the window. Instead, she stumbled to the table and poured herself a glass of water from the still-sweating pitcher. It had a lovely, lacy, crocheted cover over the top of it to keep things from dropping into it. Tiny beads on the edges of the snowflake shape clinked against the pitcher's sides. She really hoped the Exarch hadn't been making doilies for her, too.
The cool water helped and she no longer felt like she was burning up. She was already in her smalls and a loose-fitting breastband with straps too thin to hold her tits in decently, but it was Ardbert and she'd long since lost any shyness around him. Even having him look at her felt more like...catching a glimpse of herself in a mirror as she walked past, and noticing something new about herself. Startling sometimes, but never something she would hide from.
In truth, sometimes it was the only way she felt seen at all.
"I hang about," he said. "Patrol, for all the good it does." He began a slow pace back and forth through the table. She noticed he avoided the bird but stood close by the water pitcher, sticking his hand into it. She raised an eyebrow. He ducked his head. "I think back to Lakeland a lot these days. The water--how it's different. Resistant. I was actually hoping..." he trailed off. "Naah." He waved a hand. "Sounds mental. And that's saying something coming from a ghost."
"Come on," she said, beckoning for him to just spill, already.
He rolled his eyes. "I thought--well, I don't go through floors or walls unless I concentrate, right? I can pass through doors, but I can't sit on furniture. But the other day, in the lake? I know it sounds mental, but...I thought maybe if I could get into some water."
"You could go anywhere, can't you? Why not the lake or the sea?" The bird blinked at her. She wanted to tell it not you but something kept her--it didn't matter anyway, it was just a stupid bird.
Ardbert shook his head. "The fuath spit me back out of all the fresh water and the sea is...closed to me." He shook his head. "Literally can't. It's like a wall. Even tried walking off the balcony in Eulmore once. I just...stayed there. Like it was ground. But something smaller, maybe. Like..." Now he looked down. Toed the floor like a bashful kid caught making mischief. It was endearing. "A...bathtub?"
Her eyes widened and she nodded slowly. "This isn't the penthouse suite here, but it does have its own bathing area." She nodded. "I could--" She picked at a few dates beneath the fine netting of the covered fruit plate. Peeked under a solid cover and found cheeses set out between a thin line of slender ice-aspected aethercrystals placed on a bed of gysahl green leaves. It looked like there were some spinach tarts on the plate at the far end of the table, but she'd have to reach around the bird to get at them and when she moved too close, it turned its head and tracked her.
The tarts could wait. "Yes," she said. "A bath, I think." She narrowed her eyes. "And then a broom with a nice long handle for you," she said to the bird. She went around the far end of the table and lowered the lights of the main room, then stepped towards the dais where the sleeping and dressing area lay two steps up from the main floor. Opposite the bed, there was a large, round-fronted built-in cabinet. She pulled some latches and the door swung outward to reveal a hidden washroom nook.
The corner of the nook had a narrow door set flush with the wall. Her own water-closet, which made it much easier to hide the spells where Light-aspected ichor forced its way up her throat. She'd taken to keeping a folded towel on the floor to cushion her knees and a cleaning solution in the cubicle. It wouldn't do for the chambermaids to have to clean up her toxic mess. Or to carry tales about it.
But the bulk of the shallow room hidden by the cabinet was taken up with a claw-footed tub.
Two pink-tinted glowlights shaped like lilies were mounted on the wall above the tub. She sent some aether into the lightning-aspected crystals at their bases and they flared to a gentle pinkish light. "There," she said.
She turned the two handles above the faucet and dropped the plug into the bottom. Water began gushing out of the spigot. Ardbert drifted through the door and looked down into the tub. "It looks angry."
She chuckled. The slightly curved handles were angled up on the outsides, making them indeed look angry. "At least mildly annoyed," she murmured. Not unlike the winged brows above a certain Garlean's eyes, although she couldn't imagine him deigning to throw up water in such grand quantities.
"A mildly annoyed sin eater," she amended. The white porcelain and the brass claw feet made it look like a rather ungainly sin-eater with a wide, startled mouth spitting water. Ew. Her imagination was in quite the state tonight.
A few minutes later, when the tub had filled, she turned the water off. The water held there stilled gradually, slightly steamy above the surface. The sudden silence after the rush of water stretched out between them.
"Alright," she said finally. "Let's do this." She shimmied out of her smalls, tossing the breastband over towards the dresser. Ardbert turned his back out of belated courtesy. She rolled her eyes as she flicked a foot and her skivvies went flying towards the dresser.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the shoebill's head turn, as if tracking the trajectory of her underwear, then its gaze turned to her and stayed, fixed. Just...watching her. She turned her back, determined to ignore it. With her foot still lifted, she dipped it in the steaming water. "Yeowch!"
"Too hot?"
"I just need to get used to it." She slid her leg in further, stirring the water with her leg. The heat made it murky, aerated with bubbles and the faint tang of mineral salts from wherever they pumped the hot water.
A few more minutes of swirling the mix among the faint hiss of bubbles and it had cooled down enough for her to sink into the water. From an array of bottles on a narrow shelf, she sprinkled a handful of crystals of lavender bath salts and a warm sandalwood-scented oil into the water, then sank all the way into it. "Ohhh, that feels good." She sighed, closing her eyes. She draped her arms along the edges of the tub, letting the cool air meet the hot water beading on her skin. "Anytime you're ready."
"Right." She heard his voice from the dining area. Then, with no warning, she felt sparks tingling up her spine and his voice right in her ear. "Is this okay?"
"Oh!" She couldn't keep the involuntary exclamation entirely quiet. Her eyes flew open just in time to see Ardbert's arms wrapping around her body. "I can--" Prickles were breaking out all over her body as she saw his ghostly figure shifting, trying to align his limbs to hers so that they matched up as best as they could. "I can feel where you're going through me."
"I'm shorter than you," he groused. "But thicker. I think--yes, I feel where my body touches yours, but nothing where yours isn't."
She peered down, not quite able to resolve the strange experience of having someone else's body occupying the same space as hers. She felt the slight pull again, and the water seemed to glow a little, but nothing near what the lake had felt like.
"Interesting." He tried to wrap his arms around her body, but when they passed through both her and the tub, he gave up and let them flop uselessly. "The more of me that touches you, the less that downhill slide feeling happens. It's like I've naturally settled into where I'm supposed to be."
She slid her own arms back down into the water and let them rest in her lap. Her dusky blue skin was faded and blurry, distorted by both the water and the foggy outlines of Ardbert's clothes. "You're not 'supposed to be' in a bath in full dress armor," she said.
He shrugged and huffed. "I can't help it. I'm either completely incorporeal or fully-clothed." He paused, shifting slightly, unnerving her with the way the water didn't slosh with his movements.
"Ouch. So that means you haven't seen--"
"Yes. I haven't seen my own dick in a century."
Together, they laughed. The heave of her chest sent the bath water sloshing around. "I wasn't going to--"
"Oh, yes, you were," he retorted, chuckling. "You couldn't not say it."
"You're right, dammit." She peered down into the water. "Well, I'm sure it's a nice one."
He chuckled again. "Well if we're dealing in compliments, you've got an impressive pair of tits."
"Why thank you, I'm rather proud of them...when my armor's not pinching them and they're not all sweaty underneath."
"Ugh, if there's one thing I don't miss, it's blisters and chafing from sweaty armor." He groaned. "No, that's not entirely true. If I had the chance to feel even that again, I would."
"Oh." A wash of melancholy filled her. "Well, can you feel anything like this? We had good luck at the lake." She saw his body shift, limbs arranging themselves to match hers. "I can feel when you pass through me. Like prickles. Tingles."
"Yes, I can feel. It's not--it's not intense, but it's there. It's nice to be aware of anything so I'm not complaining at all."
They stayed quiet for a bit, and she gradually noticed that the burning churn of Light trapped in her guts seemed to feel slightly less corrosive. "Even if it's not much more than my imagination and a few nerve endings," she said, "It still feels nice to be held."
Ardbert sighed and she imagined she felt his breath on her cheek. "Aye. I can't hug or hold, but it is nice to feel some resistance. Like I'm touching something--someone--else, even if it's just a light brush." He was silent for a moment before speaking up again. "I know why I'm touch-starved, but you--people would fight over the chance to spoon you, let alone anything more."
Her low rumble of a laugh made the water lap at her breasts. "No, they want the Warrior of Light. Or Darkness. I feel like I'd have to show up in costume or something. Have lines." She thought of Emet-Selch's challenge to her. "Even my adversaries give me a role to play. Emet-Selch thinks I'm lacking in the charm department because I haven't sweet-talked him into helping the Exarch avoid an assassination attempt when he goes to Eulmore."
"Somehow, that does not surprise me one single bit. The man has such a flair for the dramatic I'm surprised he doesn't carry around his own stage."
She snorted. "He could just magic one right out of the aether any time he wanted. Probably an adoring audience, too, for that matter." She shook her head. "Yet he chose violence and conquest in a military society for eighty years."
Ardbert huffed. "I almost understand that. Sometimes you avoid the thing that gives you comfort because the pain just comes back worse afterward."
"Or you just make sure the good thing is so good that it's worth the pain."
"I think they call that livin'," he retorted. "For what it's worth, being here with you like this, even if it's faint, is still worth it to me."
An idea came to her. "What if we could make it more intense?"
Ardbert perked up. She could tell by the shift of the prickling through her. "You have an idea about that?"
"I do. Just promise me you won't laugh." A twinge of vulnerability twisted inside her. She waved it away by running her hand down the center of her chest, over her sternum.
"I won't laugh unless you're funny."
"Let's try for ticklish first." She trailed a hand over her ribcage, right over the spots where she'd always been ticklish.
"You can't tickle yourself," he protested. "Are you trying to--tickle me?" He paused. "Still only feeling faint, but it's moving around." He tried moving his hands with hers, making scratching gestures along their ribcage. "I think it helps when we move together."
"Good. That's something we learned." She moved her hand slowly down to her belly, gratified to feel soothing rather than soreness. Except right there, where a stubborn cut had scabbed over and stubbornly kept pulling, puckering her flesh just to the side of her navel. She rubbed at it, hoping to soften up the scar tissue.
"If I could manifest outside my armor, I'd show you mine--I have one almost exactly like it, in that same place."
"Huh," she replied. "I sometimes step in when I'm blocking a blow. It throws most people off-balance to see someone lean into a blade, but if I do it right, it misses me altogether." She peered down. "I didn't do it quite right that time. Caught an edge on the way back out." She rubbed the scar again. The tender skin twinged with a dull throb.
"Oh!" Ardbert suddenly gasped. "Do that again?"
She lifted her head. "You mean--touch the scar?"
"Yes. Whatever you just did--I felt more than just a resistance."
From there, they moved away from poking at her wounds ("Wouldn't want to get the bathwater all grotty," Ardbert said) and settled for trying different pressures on different parts of her body--she raked her nails over her thighs, used the scrub-sponge down one arm and then the other, ran the flannel across her nipples--
"You, uh--" His voice trembled just the slightest bit.
"Shut up," she said. "Did that feel any different?"
"Yes! But--"
"I can practically hear you blushing," she said. "It's okay." Pampering herself, even this little bit, set aside the burden of what awaited her. It lurked there, along with all the other grief and dread, just waiting to be picked back up again, but for now, her mind cleared and focused. She was the Warrior of Light and Darkness, and she was helping someone.
She moved her hands down further, gliding them over the tops of her thighs and running them back up along the insides. She dragged a finger casually over the juncture, just an exploratory brush.
"Hello." Ardbert bolted upright, staring down, then twisting around to look at her. Even in his ghostly form, she could see a washed-out red creeping up his cheeks.
She smiled. It was all teeth. "Back down. We're doing this for science. I'll need your full attention."
"Oh, you have it, all right." Ardbert settled back into the same space she occupied.
She dragged her fingers over her folds again once, twice, enjoying the beginning stir of desire. The third time, Ardbert clumsily attempted to keep his hands in alignment with hers. "Tell me what you feel," she said, keeping up an even motion so he could follow.
Ardbert's reply is breathy. "I'm--it's getting more--ah, intense."
For me too, she thought. "It's been a minute since I--" She tried to remember. Something hasty in a tent outside the Ghimlyt Dark, more to help her sleep than anything else. That had been fast and furtive. She could take her time here. Be loud if she wanted to without disturbing anyone.
"Do I need to--belabor the obvious?" he drawled.
"No, you're right." She parted her folds, still moving steady fingers down and around the sensitive flesh, and moved her other hand back up to brush over a nipple.
Ardbert followed her movements. "Feels a little...like touching...a lightning shard."
"I always thought so, too," she murmured. Her hands on her body were beginning to trigger images behind her eyes--some were obvious memories of times and partners from her recent past, while others featured limbs, faces, places she didn't quite recognize. "Can you feel when I touch?" To punctuate her question, she gave a firm, two-fingered stroke over her clit that made her gasp.
He echoed the sound. She opened her eyes to see his ghostly hand curled into a loose fist. The outline of his clothing obscured her view when his hand seemed to collide with it. "I hadn't considered the--different parts," she murmured.
"No time like the present," he said. "I'd always wondered if I was doing it right from the other side. I could tell with another man, but with a woman, I don't know the feeling."
"Pay attention, then," she said, with some cheek, before sliding two fingers inside. The familiar sensation she'd known most of her adult life skirled through her. Her breath caught at the shivers racing through her as he attempted to mimic her gesture.
"This is--it's hot."
She gave a breathless laugh and began to move her fingers faster. Not too fast, as she didn't want to rush, but her body wanted something more than what it was getting at her current pace. "Of course it's hot," she said. "That's--the idea."
"I mean physically. I haven't felt heat--nor cold--in so long." He might not have needed to breathe, but he clearly remembered how and when to, because he was panting. "Can I--can I move and you follow?"
Her eyes widened and she nodded. "Go slow at first."
He began his own motions, running one hand over her breasts, gently pinching one nipple, then the other. Cupping her breasts with both hands--or making the motions to do so, which she attempted to oblige. She discovered he had a thing for running his thumbs over her nipples.
"Does that--feel good to you?" he asked.
"For now," she replied, "Until they get too sensitive."
He took the hint and moved one hand back down to her belly, just making stroking motions there for the time being. His other moved upwards and her neck began to prickle. "It's almost like touching," he murmured. "But as if I had gloves on. I can feel resistance--" His fingers pressed against her abdomen.
An answering pressure localized the tingles they shared, amplifying the sensation. "It feels like--handling charged lightning shards," she said. "It doesn't feel like fingers, but it's not unpleasant." A line of sparking sensations traveled down her neck and back to curl around one breast. "Not unpleasant at all."
Her nerve endings were all coming to stand to attention, making the energy from his ghostly touch seem even more solid. She let herself be mesmerized by the paths their hands traced over her skin, following her tattoos, tracing her scars. His fingers leading with tiny twinges, hers trailing in his wake with real touches. Nothing broke the silence but her breathing and the faint lap of water at the edge of the tub.
Until she heard something else. A flapping noise and sudden air currents playing over her skin. What-- She turned her head at the same time Ardbert did.
He made a chuffing noise. "Nothing to be alarmed about," he said. "The shoebill's moved to the balcony."
"Is it looking at me?" She didn't care if it was, but the bird's intense gaze carried enough weight to be felt.
"He is, but I don't think he'll be carrying tales, though. They're notoriously tight-lipped. Tight-beaked."
"Pervy, though." But she wasn't about to let the intrusive creature disrupt her. "Now where were we?" She settled back into her slouch, this time slinging one leg over the rim of the tub to let her foot dangle in the open air. The hot water was nice, but she didn't want to overdo it, especially now her core was beginning to heat up.
"Your turn," Ardbert murmured. "Show me how you like it."
She let her fingers return to the apex of her legs. Light strokes, delicate touches turned more purposeful. She slipped one, then two fingers inside briefly, shifting her hips for a better angle, moving carefully so as not to spill bathwater everywhere.
She thought she might feel self-conscious with Ardbert around, but he was occupying the same space with her, their movements coming into synchronicity so well that he stopped feeling like a different person altogether. He was part of her. Breathing with her as her fingers moved faster and the tension coiled in her core. Moving with her as she shifted her hips to chase sensations.
She could even believe he was sharing the fragmented scenes in her own mind, because some of them didn't feel entirely hers--the scent of fletcher's glue, getting lost in lavender light. Lean, deft hands and a firm touch. She caught a dark violet flash behind her eyelids in one memory that felt familiar, the suggestion of ley lines and a delicately pointed ear close enough to bite and a fleeting memory that he kept close company with a pointy-eared thaumaturge while her own experience with ley lines had involved silver-tipped ears and a tail.
Her eyes drifted open as her fingers sparked levin at her core and she realized the bathwater had begun to glow, centered where Ardbert's hands overlaid hers. Moving slightly differently, but still close enough for them to share the overall sensation. And what a sensation it was--the lightning feeling danced across her skin as her opposite hand stroked up the column of her throat and over her lips to dip in between them at his insistence.
"I can't kiss you," he murmured. "But this is so much more than I'd ever hoped--"
"Do you remember what it feels like?" she asked.
She heard a thump behind her, the sound of the balcony door gently bumping against the railing in the night air. The breeze kicked up again and she failed to remember Ardbert was a shade until the rustle resolved itself into the dry sound of wings.
The reminder of the shoebill put her in mind of someone else with a remarkably similar expression. She didn't want to be thinking of him but she was also of a mind that trying to avoid those thoughts would only make them more persistent. Pretending like they didn't exist only presented him with opportunity to put the lie to her.
"It doesn't matter," Ardbert replied. "I can tell you're close. It's--it's so bright--" Hearing his voice tremble and shake and catch breathless sent a warm flush of unfettered joy through her.
Another slithering breeze stirred the waters of the tub in shivers that had nothing to do with the smooth gliding motions of her hands and Ardbert's ghosting along beside hers and everything to do with Emet-Selch's voice in her head. I like to watch.
Ardbert gasped. "Feels like I'm--I can feel--really feel, oh, Gods be good, it's--"
The tension at her core wound more tightly. Dimly, she heard the bird's heavy claws clacking on the floor as it shifted yet again on its own business. Probably trying to get a better view. An impish, wicked thought brought a tiny giggle to her lips.
"What?" Ardbert murmured hoarsely.
"Watch this," she whispered, barely audible. It didn't matter, he could hear her, close as he was.
She curled her fingers, knowing what she needed at the last. She arched in the water, chasing that sensation of coming home, of the world righting itself. It swelled in her breast, filling her to the tips of her fingers and toes before arrowing down into a thick, heavy, sweet pressure that bubbled up and overflowed in hot waves.
"Gods!" Ardbert gasped.
Sensation fired off all her nerve endings at once. She gathered a breath and cried out loud enough to be heard out the window. "Oh! Emet-Selch!"
A sudden, dusty flurry of wing beats followed by the thump of the balcony door banging against the wall, and more distantly a sensation of hurried movement--rustle of fabric, whisper of footsteps, and there! The telltale pressure-pop of a void portal snapping open and closed. Hah! Caught you peeking, you cheeky bastard.
Ardbert gasped. "You did not!"
She was still riding the crest, floating gently down as little aftershocks rippled through her and erupted as breathless little giggles.
Ardbert sputtered. "Did you-- Were you--"
"I can feel you blushing," she murmured, between helpless giggles (and the honey-thick thud of her slowing pulse). "And not--not exactly." Telltale heat crept up her cheeks now. "I just--I have this feeling--that shoebill--" Her giggles subsided in the wake of post-orgasmic lassitude. "Is more than just an annoying bird that likes to watch."
"Ohh. You think it's a-a familiar of some kind?"
"Mm-hmm." Her eyes drifted closed for a long moment. "I think he spies on me. Or rather, he spies on me, too." She snorted. "At this rate, I feel like my private life should be part of the mummers' circuit. Three shows nightly and a matinee on the weekend." She opened her eyes again to catch Ardbert's form fuzzing around the edges of her own. "I heard that damn bird and I couldn't resist tweaking his aristocratic nose. If you happen to be lurking about when next we meet, keep a close eye on him. I want him to know that I know he's watching, and I want him to know that I know that he knows...or I want to know that he knows that I know that he knows or--"
Ardbert's laugh rumbled in her own chest. "You've got the post-rut sillies." His voice was warm and affectionate.
"I thought it was supposed to clear your head." A silly grin did, indeed, pull at her lips. "Well, did you have a good time, too, I hope?"
"I--" his voice cracked. "I--thank you. I can't tell you how grateful I am. Truly." He huffed. "I confess, I am feeling just a little giddy. I have been set apart from--from everything for so long!"
She was surprised to feel the sting of tears at the corners of her eyes, even as a swell of joy filled her. Even the brittle sting of the Light inside her felt somehow blunted, even if only temporarily. "I'm here, now," she said shakily. "I've got you." Suffused with an uncontrollable swell of--rightness--she made a promise. "You've got me. You don't ever have to be apart or alone." Tears, but not sad ones, spilled over her lashes. "I'm with you, now and always. And--"
"Don't cry, please. Not so soon after--"
"They're happy tears," she assured him. "Because we are doing this again tomorrow night. And the night after that, and the night after that--"
He let out a startled laugh. "I can't bring myself to object. But tomorrow night," he said, wickedness dripping from his tone, "You should call out the Exarch's name. Because Emet-Selch's not the only one spying on you."