Alera made a disgusted sound as Celeste collapsed to the forest floor. The childe had such promise and yet so little dignity as to strike her head on a rock before finishing her kill. Alera stared down at the three bodies beneath her and spat a single word: "Pathetic." Gyleon twitched again, as if startled by the noise, and Alera deigned pay him some of her attention. She was surprised he still clung to life after most men would have slipped their mortal coil. A quick look informed, however, that was barely the case. The life in his eyes had faded and he otherwise offered no recognition of the world he was leaving. Just shallow breaths and the occasional spasm of a mind shutting down. Alera had half a mind to stamp him out like the dying insect he was. But he wasn't worth that much effort.
Instead, she reached down, seized Celeste by the hair, and hauled the girl roughly to her feet. She dangled limply from Alera's grip like a puppet, and given the height difference between them, her toes barely scraped the leaves on the ground as Alera stalked away from the tree under which Celeste had collapsed. Her stride was precise but impatient, for her patiences with the childe had run out. It had been test enough to suffer the vapid company of her dear cousin and his endless talk of grain, the most dreay of trades, while she'd waited out the daylight. To have come all the way to Ketra and gone to such effort only for her prize to faint like a frightened goat was an irredeemable waste of immortality. So much effort only to find out how much more would be required for the childe to be useful. With an exasperated gesture, Alera summoned forth the dark mist once again and wrapped it around herself and Celeste, dematerializing their forms and allowing them to take flight into the midnight sky and streak south towards the Thunderblack Mountains.
The mist coalesced directly above the bloodsoaked crest sunk into the stone floor just beyond the threshold of Apocrypha's great entry doors. Alera drifted ceremoniously down the last few centimeters as she retook human form, her stilleto boots clicking lightly on the two-meter glass panel that covered the crest and enabled entrants to the castle to walk over it. The silent soldiers on watch around the entry hall snapped to attention at once, as if they had anticipated her arrival. Though Alera could not see their faces through the fiersome helmets of their uniform, they all still averted their eyes that they might not meet her gaze only to have her find something she decided displeased her. Or, perhaps, pleased her altogether too much. Alera's senechal also stood ready, the toes of his leather shoes precisely at the edge of the crest, gloved hands clapsed over his navel, awaiting her whim. Alera did not move to look at any of those assembled, or even so much as seem register their presence until she dropped Celeste's unconscious body like an unwanted sack and spoke.
"Have it cleaned up and given prepared chambers. None are to visit. I will see to it personally."
The senechal nodded his compliance, but Alera was already walking away as she made known her will. Personally indeed, since entrusting Celeste to even a devotee she thought competent had still required her direct involvement in the end. Still, Celeste would not wake for some time, and unlike other immortals, Alera was not wont to simply sit upon her throne and await the unfolding of events. She walked through the castle as its mistress and owner would, seeing everything but acknowledging nothing, placing her expectations upon those slaves and soldiers she passed.
And what slaves their were. The vast multitudes of mortalkind, all represented in some form or another. Specimens of all races and peoples served at Alera's command, for her tastes, broadly speaking, did little to discriminate. She simply desired the finest specimens: the most handsome, beautiful, muscular, svelte, exotic, intelligent, charming, brash, demure. A seemingly endless supply of mortal flesh for even the most discerning of desires bustled about the gothic stone corridors of the castle, seeing to all its needs and those of its inhabitants. They all bowed in reverence and lowered their eyes as Alera made her way to the east wing. She could have simply returned to mist and glided unnoticed through the castle's shadowy rafters and labyrinth of secret passages, she had no intention of stewing in her frustration in the quiet solitude of her chambers. No, the frustrations of the day would wash away much more pleasantly in the warmth of another. And while an entire section of the east wing had been given over to facilities for perusing such "anothers", Alera would occasionally find one that suited her fancy amongst the plebians in the halls. She would never know if she did not look.
As she passed the apothecarium, her eye caught a dark-skinned elf who was busy refilling the censers used to mask the noxious fumes from the experiments Alera's alchemists were conducting. She stopped, suddenly, but coolly and precisely, and turned to examine the slave, from their long shining black hair to the navel-deep neckline of their purple tunic. The slave froze in place, pinned on the spot by her glowing stare, and waited, barely breathing. The long match in their fingers, still lit, burned slowly downward, but they were too transfixed to notice.
"You," Alera said at last. "Make yourself ready and go to my chambers. I would have you for dinner."
The slave did not register her words for a moment, then their eyes went wide as if they had been blessed personally by a deity from on high. For in the slave's mind, that is what Alera was. Unfortunately for them, like all the others, in their blind ignorance, they could not grasp the truth of her words and intentions.
Instead, she reached down, seized Celeste by the hair, and hauled the girl roughly to her feet. She dangled limply from Alera's grip like a puppet, and given the height difference between them, her toes barely scraped the leaves on the ground as Alera stalked away from the tree under which Celeste had collapsed. Her stride was precise but impatient, for her patiences with the childe had run out. It had been test enough to suffer the vapid company of her dear cousin and his endless talk of grain, the most dreay of trades, while she'd waited out the daylight. To have come all the way to Ketra and gone to such effort only for her prize to faint like a frightened goat was an irredeemable waste of immortality. So much effort only to find out how much more would be required for the childe to be useful. With an exasperated gesture, Alera summoned forth the dark mist once again and wrapped it around herself and Celeste, dematerializing their forms and allowing them to take flight into the midnight sky and streak south towards the Thunderblack Mountains.
The mist coalesced directly above the bloodsoaked crest sunk into the stone floor just beyond the threshold of Apocrypha's great entry doors. Alera drifted ceremoniously down the last few centimeters as she retook human form, her stilleto boots clicking lightly on the two-meter glass panel that covered the crest and enabled entrants to the castle to walk over it. The silent soldiers on watch around the entry hall snapped to attention at once, as if they had anticipated her arrival. Though Alera could not see their faces through the fiersome helmets of their uniform, they all still averted their eyes that they might not meet her gaze only to have her find something she decided displeased her. Or, perhaps, pleased her altogether too much. Alera's senechal also stood ready, the toes of his leather shoes precisely at the edge of the crest, gloved hands clapsed over his navel, awaiting her whim. Alera did not move to look at any of those assembled, or even so much as seem register their presence until she dropped Celeste's unconscious body like an unwanted sack and spoke.
"Have it cleaned up and given prepared chambers. None are to visit. I will see to it personally."
The senechal nodded his compliance, but Alera was already walking away as she made known her will. Personally indeed, since entrusting Celeste to even a devotee she thought competent had still required her direct involvement in the end. Still, Celeste would not wake for some time, and unlike other immortals, Alera was not wont to simply sit upon her throne and await the unfolding of events. She walked through the castle as its mistress and owner would, seeing everything but acknowledging nothing, placing her expectations upon those slaves and soldiers she passed.
And what slaves their were. The vast multitudes of mortalkind, all represented in some form or another. Specimens of all races and peoples served at Alera's command, for her tastes, broadly speaking, did little to discriminate. She simply desired the finest specimens: the most handsome, beautiful, muscular, svelte, exotic, intelligent, charming, brash, demure. A seemingly endless supply of mortal flesh for even the most discerning of desires bustled about the gothic stone corridors of the castle, seeing to all its needs and those of its inhabitants. They all bowed in reverence and lowered their eyes as Alera made her way to the east wing. She could have simply returned to mist and glided unnoticed through the castle's shadowy rafters and labyrinth of secret passages, she had no intention of stewing in her frustration in the quiet solitude of her chambers. No, the frustrations of the day would wash away much more pleasantly in the warmth of another. And while an entire section of the east wing had been given over to facilities for perusing such "anothers", Alera would occasionally find one that suited her fancy amongst the plebians in the halls. She would never know if she did not look.
As she passed the apothecarium, her eye caught a dark-skinned elf who was busy refilling the censers used to mask the noxious fumes from the experiments Alera's alchemists were conducting. She stopped, suddenly, but coolly and precisely, and turned to examine the slave, from their long shining black hair to the navel-deep neckline of their purple tunic. The slave froze in place, pinned on the spot by her glowing stare, and waited, barely breathing. The long match in their fingers, still lit, burned slowly downward, but they were too transfixed to notice.
"You," Alera said at last. "Make yourself ready and go to my chambers. I would have you for dinner."
The slave did not register her words for a moment, then their eyes went wide as if they had been blessed personally by a deity from on high. For in the slave's mind, that is what Alera was. Unfortunately for them, like all the others, in their blind ignorance, they could not grasp the truth of her words and intentions.