Temptation Awaits
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The thin drizzle has been going for hours, covering everything in a sheen of water that isn't instead waterlogged. Edges of things drip larger drops constantly, making people either push closer under them or step farther out into the rain, using whatever they have at hand as impromptu water shields.
Or, you know, for those who can afford them, there's umbrellas.
Rajani, hovering uneasily in the nave of her Mother's house, finally braves the elements, opening and holding aloft a brilliant green umbrella of paper imbued with some kind of wax, causing the water to pearl and run off in all directions around her as she steps into the rain through the curtain of larger drops falling from the Church of Matraya's eaves.
The transition from trepidation to joy is sudden. Out in the rain she extends her arm from the shield overhead to catch the rain as it falls, the sleeve of her gown getting drenched as she plays with the water, walking along the street.
Behind her two hard-eyed swordsmen follow, keeping an eye on her.
Maeve is of a younger noble family, and the very opposite of humble. As such, she is prone to conspicuous displays of wealth. There is on the one hand her luxurious silk-and-velvet outfit and the emeralds affixed to her ears, while on the other hand there is the fact that she does not deign to hold her umbrella. A servant is doing this for her, whilst her face is partially shrouded by a lace veil. Maeve is an eye-catching sight even at the worst of times, what with her enormous height; she towers even by Santuan standards. She carries herself with a distracted and preoccupied air...until she runs into Rajani, at any rate.
A moment of hesitation follows, where she stands stock still, her attendant and single bodyguard both following suit. Neither asks a question--like the best servants, they anticipate their master's needs. It is ultimately Maeve herself who speaks up first, distracted by the sight of a certain woman traipsing along in the rain. She asks, simply: "...Rajani?"
The young woman takes a couple of seconds to register she's been addressed. She stops and looks around, eyes falling on Maeve and widening.
"Maeve? Is it really you?!"
The dark woman has grown quite a bit since the last time she and Maeve met, very clearly leaving the 'girl on the edge of womanhood' behind and into 'woman just out of girlhood'. Physically a woman, if only just, but, as the playing with the rainwater shows, mentally not quite there yet.
She does regain her composure quickly, though, in a manner that is quite alien to the girl Maeve knew. "Lady Maeve," she says in a grave voice. "We are happy to see you again." Wait, what? 'We'? "It would please us to hear of all that has transpired since our last meeting, should it please you." 'Us'? Why is she talking like a royal?
The formality drops away and again there is the cheerful, naive girl of the past. "How was that? Did it have enough proper gravitas? My Un- F-father..." She seems uncomfortable saying that title. "...tells me I need to work on my dignity. Did that work?"
Maeve is by contrast the sort of person who never really had a childhood. Her tutors treated her like an adult from the time she was a child, and an enormous amount of drive has left her a sophisticated sort from an early age. Which isn't to say she doesn't sometimes show a bit of childishness, it's just in other ways. Self-indulgence being one of them. The gigantic and visibly enchanted ring on one of her fingers is plenty evidence that habit hasn't changed.
"We," Maeve shapes the word slowly, looking at the guards for a moment before visibly piecing together that Rajani is speaking about herself. "Us," she says again. She blinks several times, momentarily at a loss.
"It sounded quite impressive," is what she ultimately elects to say, tipping up her chin slightly in a way that maximizes the way she is continuously looking down on everyone. The compliment seems earnest enough, at least. "I don't think you need to work on your dignity, so much as you probably need to work on its...consistency." She flashes a brief smile. "What strange twist of fate has elevated you to such a position that you must speak as royalty? Did you manage an advantageous marriage for yourself?"
Rajani visibly shrinks as she visibly ponders how to respond.
"I ... was always a royal..." She gulps. "...as it turns out." If her face were ghostly like her fellow Luminats she'd be visibly blushing right now. Her pitch dark skin, however, conceals that sign of discomfort forcing people to read her body language instead.
Luckily for said people she's as good at disguising her body language as ... well, similes fail here ... as a person who is very bad at disguising her body language. She's embarrassed.
"It was only recently announced. King Jaden is my father, it turns out, not my uncle. My father wasn't and my uncle is and now everything..." Her free hand raises and moves in a circle. "...is just topsy-turvy!"
A sigh as deep as the ocean.
"I'm finding myself having to unlearn everything I thought I knew and learn entirely new ways of doing things."
Maeve is not only good at controlling her body language, she's capable of fully transforming her body. She does her best statue impression for a few moments before she works out precisely how she intends to respond. "You seem somewhat less than pleased with this turn of affairs," is what she eventually says, both perplexed and empathetic at once. "Many young girls stay awake at night hoping they'll discover that they're secretly the long-lost daughter of some queen or lord."
Her servant is still there next to her holding the umbrella. "Perhaps we might go stand someplace where we are not being rained on? I have an open schedule for the afternoon, and it sounds rather like you would benefit from an extended and full-throated session of complaint."
Rajani laughs, eyes twinkling. "I have been informed that if I do it now it is not 'complaint' but rather 'frank criticism'." Mirth crinkles the edges of her eyes. "But rather than such frank criticism, perhaps we, that's you and I, not the other kind--and this gets CONFUSING!--could sit down and you can... maybe..." Her voice falls and becomes increasingly uncertain. "...give me some advice?
She snorts and puts on a wry face. "I mean yes, waking up one day and being a princess is ... very much a little girl's dream. Then you find out how ... different ... from your imaginings being a princess actually is. And I was not ... taught ... for this."
She looks around and points at a random tavern that seems nice.
"Perhaps in there?"
Maeve does not seem to be aware that Rajani is partially divine on top of everything else. Chances are she not be quite so very poised if she had to handle that revelation on top of everything else. "From what I have been told of royal etiquette, the royal plural is to be used whenever you are appearing in an official capacity, but the normal singular is quite all right in private among friends, and I would like to believe I am something approximating a friend."
Her eyes sweep over towards the nearby tavern. She seems to recognize it, and her lips purse, just so. "Mmmn. That place will be adequate," she decides, which given Maeve's high standards means it must be a rather nice place, all things considered. She starts ambling in that direction. "What sort of advice do you think I would be able to give? I know I act a bit like it, but I am not, in fact, a princess. I'm barely a noble, as far as some people back home are concerned."
Rajani remains silent to that question as they approach the inn. Behind her the hard-eyed swordsmen follow, and as the entourage enters, they take up position outside the doorway, one on each side, scanning the passing crowd.
Inside the tavern the newly-minted princess looks around, taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of the place.
"We'll take that table," she says to the tavern's owner as he bustles up. The table by a window so she can peek at the world without being seen herself, it seems.
Once settled at the table she answers the question finally. "You understand courtly life. The where and whats and whos and whys and above all the hows. Maybe not a princess, but you circulate with them." She looks out the window and her voice grows distant. "It's so much different than home." Beat. "My old home, I mean. This is home now."
Her eyes swivel back to Maeve. "I don't understand it. I mean I spent the last three days learning about cutlery because people laughed at my first banquet."
Maeve settles into the tavern with all the grace a seven-foot-tall woman is capable of, which unfortunately has its limits. She has to stoop to get in the door. Most of the buildings around here were not made with Santuan folk in mind. Still, she takes it in stride, letting her attendant brush off her seat before she deigns to sit in it. It looks a little small for her. "Unfortunately," she tells Rajani, "You will be under higher levels of scrutiny precisely because you are new to all of this. While the court hereabouts is nowhere near as cutthroat as the court back home, people look for advantages where they can find them, and often one's mastery of seemingly irrelevant details carries connotations about one's competence in matters of actual substance. So I advise you to take all the etiquette seriously. That said...your family is likely to shield you from any especially high-intensity situations before they feel you are ready."
She makes a vague gesture to her attendant, who scuttles off to fetch something for her, perhaps speaking on the staff on her behalf. "There is a hierarchy to these things, of course. You have a massive advantage in that you are indeed royalty. Meanwhile I am low nobility and only recently ennobled. The further back one's pedigree goes, the more connected to the blessings of the gods it is, the more other things will slide." She points out, raising a finger, "The gods themselves have been seen more than once in this city in this generation, would you believe it? I even beheld one with my own eyes."
That line of conversation definitely causes Rajani to cough and look anywhere else right now. Something about the topic is uncomfortable, it seems. Probably jealousy that she, a princess, hasn't seen one, right?
"My F-father has been very good about shielding me. Perhaps too good. All this tedious reading and tutoring would be better-served with some praxis, don't you agree? Certainly I will make stumbles, but I stumbled, too, when learning to walk.
Maeve gestures with one hand. "Yes, but you were a child, and it is quite charming when a child struggles. Unfortunately, people do not feel quite so generous towards adults." She chews at the inside of her mouth, apparently having missed the entire business with Rajani being uncomfortable. "How about you host a formal tea party or something and invite me? I'm a suitable guest and I won't judge you harshly."
"Perhaps I'll have you seated next to me so you can kick my leg when I'm doing things wrong... though if that were the case I would likely never be able to walk again afterward."
Self-deprecating humour is not very princessey, is it?
"But yes. Something small like an intimate tea party. With just people I know mixed with people of influence who can shape opinion. That sounds nice."
Rajani flashes a smile. "You have much good advice. I envy you living in this world all your life. I understand why I couldn't, but it does make me feel I missed out on important things."
She tilts her head and regards Maeve. "I remember you were quite adept with that sword thing of yours. Have you had any more thrilling adventures you could regale me with since the last time?"
Maeve holds up one of her arms and grins as she pats the opposite hand to her bicep, a laugh escaping her. "Yes, well, training with the house guard isn't exactly ladylike, either, but that's never stopped me." Her outfit does not exactly show off her physique to greatest effect, but it's there, all right. "You've got exactly the right of it, I'm quite good with the sword. Thrilling adventures, though...? Unless you count ill-advised magical experiments, some of which were even successful, there hasn't been too much to write home about. I did go abroad to hunt down the perfect gemstones for a new deal I'm putting together, and it looked for a minute like there might be pirates in the area, but nothing exciting wound up happening. I did wind up stuck with four arms instead of two for a while after a failed piece of conjuring, but it did make me very good at multi-tasking, so there's that, at least."
<FS3> Maeve rolls Body+melee: Amazing Success. (7 2 8 3 1 7 3 3 5 7 6 8 6 7 6 2)
<FS3> Maeve rolls Spirituality+magic: Good Success. (1 6 1 7 1 3 3 5 8 4 2 2)
<FS3> Rajani rolls Magic: Good Success. (1 8 1 7 5 3 3 4)
<FS3> Rajani rolls Spears: Success. (4 7 6 2)
"Oh, that's too bad," Rajani says, disappointed. "You seem to enjoy these sorts of things. I would love to have heard stories of daring deeds done. While I regaled you with tales of ... skinning my knee while playing with a ball."
Someone's feeling inadequate.
"Or of course that time I woke up from my bed and turned left instead of right because I was in a new place and wound up walking into the kitchen instead of the privy. We still laugh over that at home." Where 'we' is probably 'they' and she's just being polite.
Maeve clicks her tongue lightly. "Let's see. I did have a very exciting piece of magical adventuring with a friend of mine some months ago. Her gift, interestingly enough, allows her to transform into a bird. Working together, and channeling something of my own power into her, we were able to get her to transform only partially, such that she had a great big pair of wings even in her normal, human form. It was only temporary, and we both spent a whole day feeling awful afterwards, but it was a bit of a triumph and now she can even do it without my help." She rolls a finger in a circle, as if this might somehow provide insight into however she works her arcane doings. "As for fighting, if you are truly inspired by seeing me at arms, perhaps I could enter one of the city's various tournaments under an assumed identity? It's very easy for me to assume identities, after all." She adds, a touch darker, "A little too easy. I get stuck in them sometimes. But I've one or two that should be safe to use."
Rajani's eyes widen, along with her smile (the latter well into a grin). "Why did you need a pair of wings like that?" she asks curiously. "Were you trying to get into a well-guarded keep undetected so chose to come at it from above?" Someone has been reading too many dogbound books with their cheap storytelling of thrills and danger. "I would very much like to go on such adventures sometime. I don't think my Father..." She's capitalizing the word somehow while speaking, yes. "...would let me do that, though," she says wistfully. "I had to sneak out to answer the call of Mo... ah... Matraya and free the golems."
Maeve confesses brazenly, a smirk quirking up the corner of her mouth, "I think we were mostly trying to look exotic and half-divine for portrait paintings, but pushing the boundaries of magic, our individual gifts from on high, is a thing which I believe should be pursued for its own sake. So long as the price is not too steep, one's power, used often enough, can blossom into new and unexpected branches. The power grasped in early life can for some people be the seed of many interrelated abilities." Maeve is, aside from all of her other indulgent interests, something of a magic nerd. She has a collection of improbable and largely useless magical artifacts simply kept for their curiosity value alone. "But if you need more adventure in your life, perhaps it's not a tea party that's appropriate," she proclaims lazily. "Perhaps rather I should be kidnapping -you- undected from a well-guarded keep." Her eyebrows bounce playfully for a moment.
"I don't think Father would like me being kidnapped. He was upset when I answered Matraya's call to free the golems. I rode off on a nice gelding and met one of Matraya's priests and together we freed the golems from the gaes they were under." Rajani is being very circumspect about things. Like not mentioning talking to Matraya...
"It was such a nice feeling freeing those poor stupid creatures from their slavery. If this is what adventure feels like, it's worth the twisted ankle and torn gown."
She went. On an adventure. In a gown. What's next? Entering battle in her underthings?
"But ... if I mention to my father that you could be my arms instructor, I'm sure he would reward you greatly and we could go off on quests together as part of my instruction?" She glances at Maeve's sword. "I'm better with spears, though. I'm sure we could figure something out, though."
Maeve leans back from the table as the staff arrive to lay out a platter of cheese, nuts, bread, and sliced ham, not to mention tea. It's pretty straightforward fare but very nice by the standards of commoners. She is, on the whole, trying her best not to look too amused. "Rajani, darling. Or should I say, Rajani, your highness? The purpose of me kidnapping you would be to let you go on an adventure without your father's knowledge and consent. It's hardly an adventure if you have to ask for everyone's permission and fill out a bunch of forms before going, now is it?" She takes up her teacup and puffs on it a few times. "I know a thing or two about how to use a spear, at least."
"You ... have a point. And as Princess I should be taking initiative, right? Going out and solving problems for the kingdom without being told what to do. I'm a leader, after all." She seems to be talking herself into shenanigans. This ... could go badly. Or very, very well. Depending on your viewpoint. "That doesn't mean you can't be appointed as my arms instructor, however, right? I mean arms instructor to royalty ... that should please YOUR family (and probably get them off your back, right?)."
Maeve considers all this in silence for quite some time as she nurses her tea. "Well, you know, I'm good enough to be an arms instructor, but I'm not entirely certain I have time in my schedule for it. But from the perspective of accruing merits and honors, you may have a point. Still, I worry you would find my style harsh and overbearing, and that it might strain our acquaintance." She sips again and sets the cup down. "Anyway, perhaps we can go explore some of the ruins outside of the city. There's quite a lot of them and some are worth seeing just for the sight-seeing value. I'm not sure my friend with the wings is on hand to assist, but I'm quite capable on my own."
"So ... when do we go?" Rajani looks at Maeve in dead earnestness. "We'd have to figure out how to get rid of my protectors..." She gestures to the door where the two bodyguards wait outside. "But once we do, we can be on our way before they know there's anything to be wary of."
The thought of what her protectors might have happen to them if she ditches them is not crossing her mind.
"I mean the only reason Father let me out today is because I wanted to talk to Mother, so ..." She shrugs, completely unaware of what she's potentially leaked. "... if I go back to the mansion I'll be cloistered again and who knows when we can head out."
She chuckles, eyes twinkling.
"Unless you mean to seriously kidnap me."
Maeve has a certain mischievous gleam in her eye as he lips slowly part in an ever-wider smile. "I believe I am fully capable of removing you from your mansion after I have time to make a plan and wear something more adventurous," she proclaims, wiggling the fingers of one hand as she gestures off in the direction that a mansion may or may not be waiting. "Perhaps I'll grow wings and fly through your window. Surely you must agree it's slightly more thrilling if you vanish with none the wiser as to the time it happened. This will also leave you time to write a polite note telling your father you've set out on an adventure and will return in a few days, which should keep him from declaring martial law and combing the streets looking to murder the person who kidnapped you. Which I would generally prefer to avoid, since you seem to like him, and giving him a heart attack is probably not the smartest idea overall."
"Then it's a deal. You take me out on an adventure and I shall have it." She pauses and wrinkles her forehead. "That sounds wrong now that I say it out loud. What do I do for you in this?"
She looks Maeve over, pursing her lips. "I can forget to mention that you 'kidnapped' me and call you my rescuer. That will give you some status with Father."
Maeve gets a little bit of that sort of mad witch gleam in her eyes as she steepls her fingers together. Too innocently, she suggests: "You could let me try and turn you into something? It would be so very useful for my research." Her 'research' is almost certainly not very scientific.
Anybody else would have huge alarm bells going off at about this point. Anybody with worldly experience would know that this is not a wise thing to agree to. Rajani has no such experience to draw upon.
Done!" she says, grinning happily. She's made her friend happy and that can only go good places, right?
Maeve gets a little bit of that sort of mad witch gleam in her eyes as she steepls her fingers together. Too innocently, she suggests: "You could let me try and turn you into something? It would be so very useful for my research." Her 'research' is almost certainly not very scientific.
Anybody else would have huge alarm bells going off at about this point. Anybody with worldly experience would know that this is not a wise thing to agree to. Rajani has no such experience to draw upon.
Done!" she says, grinning happily. She's made her friend happy and that can only go good places, right?
"So if you let me know what I should prepare, I'll get it together and get ready for your 'kidnapping'. Then we can go out and have our adventure together and I will do something good and learn something!"