Intelligence, Maturity, and the Difference Between the Two

[Nymph and Dragon]

((Solo.))

It wasn’t often than Twyla had the opportunity to try her hand at high society, given that her usually social interactions took place in establishments that generously served alcohol and bawdy music, but the nymph was finding the change to be highly agreeable. The room she sat in was airy and smelled faintly of lilac, and every surface was covered with cushion or fine cloth as opposed to the rough, vomit-stained wood of tavern tables. Large windows let in an abundance of sunlight, and she was finding the soft tinkle of glassware to be a much-preferred background noise to the clatter of tin and steel. She could turn her head in every direction she wanted and the only weapon that would meet her gaze was an elaborate and probably dull sword that hung as decoration over the mantle.

Though the setting was undoubtedly superior, the company seemed to be working hard at making sure that the transition wasn’t entirely too easy. It usually wasn’t hard for Twyla to find something to say, but as she sat on a plush velvet sofa and listened to the women nattering around her, the thoughts that sprang to her mind adamantly resisted verbalization.

What the hell are they talking about?

There were five young women around the low coffee table in front of her, lounging in various and intentionally nonchalant poses on cushions, skirts spread and limbs resting with a careless grace that implied intentionality. They sipped tea from delicate cups and chatted in silky voices, their lively conversation interjected often with choruses of feminine laughter, though Twyla had yet to figure out what was supposed to be funny. She held her cup of tea in one hand and kept a politely interested expression on her face as she did her best to comprehend the women’s chatter.

They’re discussing their husbands, at the moment. The Elemental lay in a translucent puddle beneath her seat, using the nymph’s eyes to survey the drawing room around them.

Twyla hid her reflexive grimace behind her cup, returning to a blander expression as she lowered her hand back to her lap. She’d even gone through the trouble of cleaning her dress for this and though it wasn’t nearly as elaborate as those of the women around her, it was of fine material and outlandish enough that the others hadn’t seemed to notice its wear. The dress was made in a style that had been popular about seventy years ago, and though fancy embroidery seemed to be the current fashion, the swooping neckline and hanging sleeves hinted at a quiet dignity that the bosom-revealing gowns of the day lacked. The thin scarf that she wore across the bottom half of her face and tied loosely at the back of her neck beneath her hair had also, according to the Elemental, been dismissed as a fashion statement from another land, an acceptable quirk considering the number of passenger ships that passed through Knife Edge’s harbors. Though she’d been in the city for nearly two weeks, she had yet to figure out the reason behind the capital city’s unusual name. It certainly wasn’t titled for its size, else they would have had to call the place Giant Boat’s Bottom, and she had also gotten the impression that it wasn’t called such for the sharpness of its crime control, the Knife’s Edge Militia. True, the few she’d encountered had seemed at least capable of peace-keeping, but there certainly weren’t enough of them to keep track of the hundreds of thousands of people who roamed the twisted streets of the city.

“And what about you . . . Twilight, was it?”

The nymph turned her head quickly to the auburn-haired woman who sat beside her, increasing her smile to hide the loathing that welled up in her throat.

“It’s Twyla, actually,” she corrected in a saccharine voice. She’d been told the brunette’s name, but she hadn’t bothered with committing it to memory. The woman put an apologetic hand on her arm that Twyla had to force herself not to shake off. Her heavily made-up eyes widened with apology.

“Oh, do forgive me, Twyla dear. You seemed deep in thought, so I thought you might have something to share with the other ladies. Is your husband as protective as ours are?”

Husband? A resounding retort was on the tip of her tongue in an instant, but the Elemental, feeling her growing ire across their bond, quickly interceded.

Careful, Twyla, remember where you are, it warned. They were discussing how restraining their men can be, so pay attention. This is the Knife’s Edge Young Wives’ Club, remember? They expect you to be a wife.

Ridiculous, Twyla thought furiously. I only came to get insight into the daily lives of wealthy humans, but all I’m getting is a load of worthless blather from females too empty-headed to recognize their own inanity!

They’re waiting for you, it replied patiently.

What do I say?

You’re female, you should be good at making something up.

Twyla bit back her mental retort, turning her attention to the five faces that were pointed at her expectantly.

“Oh, yes, he’s very confining,” she replied aloud, searching her mind for something to say. “Ropes and chains every night.”

[Nymph and Dragon]

Her pronouncement was met with a shocked silence. The nymph’s blue eyes flickered from one stunned face to another, realizing belatedly that that might not have been the kind of ‘restraint’ they were referring to.

Uh, Snake . . . a little help here?

Try laughing, the dragon suggested.

What do you mean, “try?” You’re telepathic; tell me what they think they want!

They don’t know what they think!

Twyla let out a girlish titter, copying the noise one of the other women had emitted earlier. The brunette beside her giggled hesitantly after her, and then they were all laughing loudly, as if their mirth could drive away the awkwardness. The subject was quickly changed and the conversation moved on to a safer topic: fashion.

That was too close, Twyla thought sulkily. Why can’t you be more helpful when I’m in situations like that?

This is an old conversation, the Elemental replied wearily. I’ve told you a million times that human’s-

“Humans’ minds are their own,” she recited disdainfully. I know your silly little code. But if I get arrested for fraud and deceit, I just want you to know that my going to jail would be a bad reflection on your capacity as a bodyguard.

The puddle under her chair rippled with indignation. Ignoring your complete inability to take responsibility for your own actions, what makes you think I’m your bodyguard?

Oh, come on, what else are you good for? You won’t read people’s minds for me, you won’t control people’s minds for me, so the only thing you have left are those pathetic little claws to scratch at people for me. I didn’t say you were a good bodyguard.

Let’s get this straight, Twyla. I am not your subordinate. Bonding us was done to save your life, not mine!

The Elemental’s annoyance was flooding Twyla’s mind in clear waves. She was surprised at the intensity of its displeasure considering how docile it usually was, but she was too irritated that he would bring that up to leave the matter alone. Oh, that’s right, how noble of you. And I suppose—if you’d been asked—that you’d have done it even if that demon hadn't been keeping you in a jar on her shelf for the last millennium? It’s not like getting your sorry self bonded to me improved your life in any way. . .

I know that getting bonded was a good thing for me, it admitted, but that doesn’t make me your slave.

Aw, did I hurt your poor, little, cold-hearted feelings? Did the big bad Siren make the widdle snake cry?

You aren’t a Siren anymore, Twyla.

Her chest tightened, a wave of loss sweeping over her senses that she quickly pushed back with wrath. And which little monster do I have to thank for that? Oh, right, you. It's your fault that I'm stuck in situations like this, trying to make sense of idiotic non-entities instead of doing what comes naturally and killing them!

You just don’t get it, do you? The smooth voice echoing in her mind was bubbling with barely-contained anger. You can't even accept that you are not the center of the universe! When are you going to figure out that everything is not about-

Go find yourself another demon’s jar to mope in.

Twyla, stop being-

“Twyla, hon, are you all right?”

The nymph’s attention snapped away from the Elemental and back to the women around her, all of whom were looking at her with various degrees of concern melted onto their vapid faces. She realized that she was frowning, her cheeks hot and her lips pressed tightly together from the shouting battle that had been going on in her head. With a short laugh she smoothed her features, lifting one hand to press it against her temple.

“I’m fine, fine. Just a touch of a headache.”

“I’d be careful of those headaches,” called a dark-eyed woman from across the room. “I heard headaches are the first sign of pregnancy.”

A slim girl on the couch across the table squealed and clapped her hands. “Oh, Twilight, that’s wonderful! Gianna over there already has a babe, but the rest of us are just hoping to be where you are. A baby! How long have you been married?”

“It is a bad headache?” Interjected a busty blonde from her left. “I hear the really bad ones mean it’s a boy.”

“A son! That’s so wonderful!”

Twyla’s throat was clogging with revulsion at the almost-tangible glee that was filling the room. Why on earth would the thought of miniature men make these women happy?

“ I think I’ll go to the restroom, if that’s all right,” she said with a forced smile that she hoped would pass as mysterious. The women murmured in joyful assent as she rose, watching her as she stalked from the room with her temper held barely in check. The portrait-covered walls of the hall passed in a blur, the nymph’s mind fully concentrated on keeping herself from screaming. The nerve of that little serpent! What right did it have to question her behavior? Its sole purpose for existing was to keep her alive, a relatively simple task to perform in return for being freed from the ownership of that demon. Who did that worm think it was to complain if she asked it to do simple things that were well within its capacity? She was the one who’d saved his life.

It must be male she decided viciously. It thinks too much like a man not to be.

She poked covertly at the bond, wondering if the dragon had followed her, and found that the Elemental’s presence was gone, a faint and unreachable beacon too far away for her to feel. She ground her teeth. The little bugger had fled to his native realm, and she wouldn’t be able to yell at him more until he came back.

“Well, good riddance,” she muttered aloud. “Who needs his scaly butt? Not me.”

[Nymph and Dragon]

Pushing away the sudden loneliness that always sprang up when its continuous presence left her head, Twyla looked up and realized that her angry steps had carried her in the opposite direction of the restroom. She was now standing beneath a chandelier in the large foyer before the front door, the streets of the city less than ten feet away.

Twyla glanced back down the hall that she had come in by, debating her options. She could go back to that group of hens and listen to them blab on for a few more hours in the hopes of chancing upon some relatively intelligent material. The thought made her nose wrinkle with distaste. Why bother? It was pointless to even endure the torture of the women’s voices without the Elemental to translate their prattle.

The reminder of the dragon made her frown again, and she headed for the door without a second thought. He could enter this world anywhere he wanted, unfortunately, so it wasn’t as if she were abandoning him to the woman’s drawing room, but at least he would know that she didn’t rely on him at all to escort her from place to place. She almost smiled at the thought of getting attacked in a bar or on the street. It was early afternoon and the possibility of violence was limited, but it would serve him right if she was horribly beaten in his absence. The fact that he would feel the same beating only made her keener to find a seedy tavern to flaunt her money in. Her mind ran over the bars she’d been in since coming to down as she yanked open the heavy front door. There had been a liveried doorman to open it for her when she’d arrived, but he didn’t spring into vision until after she’d pulled open the wooden door.

Her eyes fell immediately to the blue-and-yellow cloth of the doorman’s apparel; it would have been hard to miss considering that his body was blocking the doorway. She was about to start yelling for immediate movement when she simultaneously noticed the crimson puddle beneath him and the darkly-clothed men in masks who stood on the porch in a rough semi-circle around the door. The six armed men stood frozen, staring for a brief moment at the equally stunned female in front of them, one man with an unsheathed sword in hand.

A part of Twyla’s mind noticed angrily that they wore their masks the same way she wore hers, but the forefront of her thoughts were driven by the ire that still raged in her blood from the Elemental's insults. Without real thought she charged forward with a snarl, hands lifted and fingers outstretched like claws. Her lunge was interrupted when her foot caught in the dead doorman’s side, and her lunge turned into a fall that sent her faster than she could have gone consciously towards one of the men, a tall, brown-haired brute who didn’t react quickly enough to get out of her way. Her out-flung arms hit his shoulders a moment before her face smashed against his throat, her momentum propelling them both to the hard marble of the porch.

Blinking away dizziness, her fingers scrabbled up and closed around the rough cloth of his mask, jerking it away so that her other hand could rise to claw at his eyes. Her nails raked across his face and through the pounding of blood in her ears she heard him yell an expletive before the rest of the men jerked her roughly off her victim and hauled her away. The mask was still in her hand and she growled at the man on his back, jerking against the arms that held her in an attempt to get another swing at his face.

The downed man got to his feet quickly, throwing one hand across the lower part of his face, though not fast enough to prevent Twyla from getting a good look at his features as he turned away with more oaths. He had a small mouth and a squared jaw, a straight nose that looked to have never once been punched and a scar that ran across his right cheek, pulling that side of his mouth up into a permanent sneer. He also had a new set of marks on his left cheek, a set of four shallow cots that were satisfyingly oozing blood.

Two of the men let go of her and the nymph was left to struggle against the one left holding her as he used one hand to push the scarf off her face and to press the gloved hand onto her mouth, pulling her back into the house by her jaw. Somebody snatched the mask out of her hand as the other men ran in, slamming the door behind the body of the doorman that they dragged in after them. The hand on her face stunk of sweat and leather and she lifted her own hands to yank it away from her mouth, trying not to stumble over the hem of her dress.

“Hold still,” a gruff voice said into her ear. He slammed an arm across her chest, leaving the other tightly pressed against her face. Twyla couldn’t even open her mouth to scream— not that she wanted her mouth to be open against that nasty hand—and she couldn’t lift her arms to reach her face. Even breathing through her nose was a struggle, but she could see, and she watched as the men raced down the hall, their feet leaving dusty footprints on the marble floor. The one holding her followed, jerking her roughly off her feet to half-carry, half-drag her after them. She flailed against his hold, but her squirming had little effect on her captor.

What the hell is going on?

There was, of course, no one there to answer.

[Nymph and Dragon]

“Nobody move!”

Twyla heard the bellowed order and the terrified shrieks that answered it before she was dragged back into the drawing room. She saw the women falling over the couches, fainting and flapping their hands in fearful astonishment at the men that suddenly surrounded them. There were more than there had been at the front door; they must have come in through the kitchen as well. Twyla counted eight, but men entered and exited at will, and with those masks on she couldn’t really tell them apart.

“We aren’t gonna hurt you, as long as you cooperate with us!” The voice was muffled behind a black cloth that was strapped across the face of the man who spoke, who stood with a crossbow pointed loosely at the gaggle of women, who were now crouching together in a whimpering huddle at the center of the room. The men were strung out along the walls, all wearing some kind of dangerous-looking weapon on their belts. All were dressed in similar outfits of black jerkins over numerous layers of cheap cloth, all a sooty enough color to have been dyed with coal.

A robbery? Twyla couldn’t imagine why they were making things so difficult. All they would have had to do was sneak around the bedrooms while the women were left to themselves in here. The women were all too dull to have noticed the men, anyway. The overwhelming stupidity of the room was beginning to press hard on the nymph’s nerves. She jerked in what she knew was a futile effort against the hand on her face, a movement that earned her a tightening of thick fingers against her cheek for the effort.

“This is the deal, ladies,” the man with the crossbow drawled, lifting the weapon to rest it against this shoulder. “We aren't going to kill you, we're taking y’all hostage, and when your hubbies catch wind of the deal we’re going to get them to pay quite handsomely for you, so obviously we don’t want you hurt. If you go along with us and just do as you're told, you’ll be treated well and get released to your men without a scratch. We don’t need any heroes because if everything goes as planned, this should all be over before dinner. Clear?”

The tear-streaked women stared at him with wide eyes, still too scared to speak. Twyla’s respect for her captors marginally increased. Two of the men came into the room carrying parchment, jars of ink, a lit wax candle, and fancy feather quills, which they set down on the coffee table after the tea paraphernalia had been swiped out of the way.

“Now, ladies, I told you not to be afraid,” Crossbow Man said soothingly. “We really have no need to hurt you. Right now we’re going to sit down and write some ransom letters for your husbands. Include some woefully heart-wrenching greeting, a brief description of your situation, and the following information: Five hundred gold is to be brought by one— only one! — of your liveried servants, who will deliver the gold and then escort the lovely bride home. If my men catch any wind of the Militia or a trick, the wife of the offender will be immediately killed. You are all wearing signet rings, I assume? All right, let’s get writing. And go ahead and cry, the tearstains will make the letters even more convincing.”

[Nymph and Dragon]

“Go on, ladies, get writing.” Even though she couldn’t see his face, Twyla was fairly certain that the man was grinning beneath his mask. He seemed completely at ease, lifting his head to eye the chandelier overhead with an appraising eye. His cockiness annoyed her, but more pressing on her mind was the acknowledgement that she wasn’t wearing any kind of ring on her finger. The others all wore thick bands stamped with their husbands’ family seals, but Twyla’s only piece of jewelry was the medallion that she wore around her neck, and its loss would have been so devastating that she couldn’t even consider attempting to use it in some ploy.

Stupid men and their stupid symbols.

“And would you mind telling me why you were in such a hurry to leave as we came, little Hellcat?” Twyla looked away from the women, who were moving hesitantly towards the paper on the table, and focused her gaze on the brown eyes that were now about a foot away from hers. Crossbow Man was only a few inches taller than her, and his clothes smelled of sweat and cologne. Up close, she could see that his clothes were finer than those of the men around him, and he carried himself with the easy self-confidence of a man born into comfort. “Did you, perhaps, see us coming and decide to make a fast escape without worrying about your comrades?”

Twyla heard a slight gasp from one of the women behind him, a hurt little noise that made her eye-roll even more emphatic. Comrades? Them? Her mouth was still too tightly compressed to open, and the brown eyes flicked to the face behind hers as the silence stretched on. The hand loosened enough for Twyla to part her lips, and she did so with a shudder of revulsion. She could almost taste the leather of his glove.

“Actually, I had just realized that I’d lost my signet ring, and I was retracing my steps in an attempt to locate it.” The lie sprang out effortlessly and she had to hide the smile her own quickness elicited.

The man’s masked head tilted, his brows lowering. Twyla was surprised to see that he didn’t seem to believe her. “Your signet ring, huh? How long have you been married?”

“Long enough to know that it’s worth leaving a luncheon for,” she retorted, wishing her captor’s hand wasn’t in front of her face so that Crossbow Man could see her frown.

“What’s that take . . . two months, maybe?”

Twyla couldn’t understand where he was going with this. “No . . . eight months.” That seemed like a well-rounded number.

The man’s brown eyes lit up. “Eight months. Really?” The hand not holding the crossbow shot out and grabbed both of her wrists, pulling her hands away from where they had been tugging at the forearm across her chest. He peered down at her fingers, making it obvious that he wasn’t finding whatever it was he was looking for.

“If you’ve been married for eight months and know how important a signet ring can be to your survival, Hellcat, why hasn’t your ring left an imprint on one of your lovely little fingers?”

Blast.

[Nymph and Dragon]

Twyla jerked her hands free, straightening her spine and glaring at the smirking eyes of the man in front of her. She wished that the blasted lizard was there so that it could rip a new smile into his smug little face.

“Now, I don’t know what would make a young woman like you want to pretend to be a wife,” Crossbow Man continued, “but while the other women here were driven to the house by carriage, you walked up to the door without even an escort. This implies to me that you actually don’t have a wealthy young husband who will pay for your release, which puts me and my men into quite a dilemma, I’m sure you understand.”

Twyla grimaced behind the large hand that had reasserted itself over her face. The ring problem could have been explained away somehow, but if they’d been watching the house since even before the luncheon began, there was no way she’d be able to convince them of a husband.

“I can’t just let you go, see, because now that you’ve seen my face, you’re a liability.” He stepped closer, close enough for Twyla to see the tops of three oozing red lines on his left cheek, starting just above his mask. She wanted to grin. Not only had she randomly managed to tackle the mastermind of the whol operation, but she’d marked him, too!

“So what do you propose we do with you, then?”

Twyla was fairly sure that that was a rhetorical question, considering that the brute’s hand was still smashed against her face.

“Do you want me to take her out back and . . .?” The gruff voice coming from over her head made Twyla’s eyes narrow. If she ever got her claws into that face, he’d certainly be a bit more careful about how he manhandled nymphs in the future.

“Please, sir, I can vouch for her.” The timid voice made Crossbow Man turn. Twyla moved her head until she could peer around him, her gaze falling on the hunched form of the dark-skinned woman who’d been sitting across from her earlier, whom another had gestured to when she'd mentioned having a baby. She was standing with her hands clasped at her waist, eyes downcast. She licked her lips and spoke hesitantly. “I know her-,”

“Have you finished your letter?”

Crossbow Man’s interruption made her jump visibly, and her hands were shaking now, but she kept speaking. “I-I know her h-husband. Their carriage was recently r-ruined by a fire and they’ve been having some financial trouble, so they had to let their guards—”

Crossbow Man burst into a loud fit of laughter, bending over to slap his knee and glancing at the others, who guffawed after he did, though nowhere near as confidently.

“Well, Hellcat,” he drawled, wiping at an eye, “if your friends are desperate enough to lie for you, who am I to inflict needless psychological trauma on them?” His gaze lifted again to the man behind her. “Keep her with them for now.”

The other women were either staring aghast at the woman or gazing with horror at the men and Twyla. She sourly guessed that they were wondering why the kidnapper’s facial apparel looked so much like hers. Guilt by association. The forearm across her chest tightened as the man lifted her past the brown-eyed man and then shoved her towards the cluster of women. She landed awkwardly on her hands and knees a foot away from the table, her palms stinging as they rubbed against the carpet. She hoped the Elemental was getting a taste of the pain. If that didn’t bring him running, then he didn’t deserve to be called her bodyguard anyway.

Sitting back on her heels, she quickly pulled her sheer scarf up over her nose and mouth, glancing around to make sure none of the men had gotten a look at her face. Until she had a better idea of how many men there were around the grounds and house, it was probably better not to give away her best defense before the optimal time came to use it. Without having a face on every side of her head, there was no way she’d be able to Allure all the men in the room at once, and it was doubtful that she’d be able to sing for long enough to really trap them before one of them killed her. No, waiting definitely seemed the wisest course of action.

“Are you all right?” The one who'd spoken- Gianna, Twyla unexpectedly remembered- was kneeling next to her, her face worried and one hand on the nymph’s shoulder. Twyla nodded emphatically so that the woman would leave her alone. She needed time to think of a good plan.

“Good letters, good letters, ladies, you are all quite eloquent indeed.” Crossbow Man scooped up the letters and handed them to one of the other men, who headed with them for the door. Twyla frowned. If they were going to just deliver the wives into their husbands hands as the payments came in, what were they going to do with her once the women were all gone?

[Nymph and Dragon]

As soon as the bandit with the letters had left the room, Crossbow Man lifted his hand and the men against the walls stepped forward, six grabbing onto the upper arm of one of the women and the nymph and wordlessly herding them out of the room. The whimpering got louder and one of the girls fainted against her escort. Twyla scowled at the man holding her arm, but the eyes above the mask met hers implacably, his bruising grip on her arm never weakening. She gritted her teeth to contain her annoyance and tried to walk with as much dignity as she could manage. They were escorted in a line towards the kitchen, and then were none-too-gently pushed down a dark flight of stairs through a doorway against one of the kitchen’s walls. The underground room smelled of dust and wine, and the men turned and went back up the stairs as soon as their charges’ feet had hit the hard-packed dirt floor. When the door at the top of the stairs slammed shut, only two bandits remained, both hefty fellows with swords who stood at the foot of the stairs, watching the women flounder without expression.

Twyla stepped a few paces away from the flock, carefully taking note of her surroundings. Two lamps had been left to drive away the darkness of the cellar, and both were hanging from hooks within easy reach of the guards. The room was about forty paces wide and long, the ceiling low and so thin that the floorboards creaked with the passage of men overhead. The walls were of unrefined stone, obviously built more for stability and protection than for aesthetic appeal. The floor was covered with stacks of barrels, crates, and casks and fully-stocked shelves lined ever wall.

Twyla inspected the room slowly, checking for signs of hidden passageways or something equally useable in an escape attempt. When her search proved fruitless, she dragged reluctantly back to the gaggle of women, who were seated in a circle front of the shelves in the corner of theroom nearest to the door and light, fanning themselves and each other with their hands and weeping into their skirts. Their faces were streaked with whatever they’d used to darken their lashes, but judging from the hopeless expressions on their faces, the women weren’t too concerned with their appearances at the moment. None looked up as she came to stand near them, her arms crossed as she looked from one frightened face to the next.

“Oh, God, I don’t want to die,” blubbered the busty blonde who’d spoken to Twyla earlier.

“Hush, Jylin. Remember what their leader said? They aren’t going to kill us.” The speaker was the thin-lipped brunette who sat with dry eyes, though the fearful glances she darted at the guards and her quiet voice indicated that she wasn’t quite sure of what she was saying.

“Five hundred gold is a lot of money,” commented the woman who'd lied for Twyla earlier. “I’m not even sure my husband will be able to come up with that sum so quickly.”

“He’d better,” snapped one of the others pitilessly, “if he wants you alive.”

Twyla laughed under her breath, looking for the face of the first intelligent speaker she’d heard. The woman was one of the oldest, in her late twenties at best, large, red-cheeked, and still wiping tears from her eyes. Her dress was violently purple, covered in green flower-and-bird embroidery that screamed of excess wealth. A long streak of black make-up stained one sleeve, but she sat cross-legged with a self-pitying scowl on her face, meeting every glance with a fierce glower.

“There’s no need to be so harsh, Lidann,” chided the brunette. She had the head of the unconscious woman in her lap and was rubbing at the fainter’s temples with her index fingers. Twyla wished she could remember her name.

“I’m not being harsh, I’m being honest,” the other woman shot back. “There’s no doubt in my mind that they’ll kill us without a moment’s hesitation if we so much as spit without them telling us to. I don’t know how much exposure to the real world you lot have gotten, but I know that these men mean business, and I don’t want my life risked by any of your stupidity.”

A snort of laughter escaped Twyla’s self-control and every woman’s face swiveled to look up at her, their expressions for the most part becoming downright hostile. Only Gianna's gaze held no malice, but her brows were drawn down perplexedly.

“And what’s with this one, then?” the brunette demanded. “You aren’t married? What were you doing at our luncheon if you aren’t married?”

Twyla didn’t bother wasting a glare on the woman. She looked disdainfully away, shrugging lightly. She didn’t have to explain herself to this kind of sub-sentient being.

“You aren’t a spy, are you?” Jylin’s quavering voice was tinged with the threat of panic. She was looking from Twyla to the guards, undoubtedly noticing the similarity of their facial gear.

“Is that it, then?” Lidann pounced on the idea, her red cheeks growing redder as her voice got louder. “Were you their inside man? There to spy on us to make sure we were under control before running off to tell them when it was the best time to attack?”

“Be reasonable, Lidann,” Gianna objected soothingly. “They were going to kill her, remember? Why would they threaten her if she was one of them?”

“Maybe it’s a trap,” the woman spat. “Maybe they want her with us to make sure we don’t try to escape or something.”

“We aren’t going to try to escape!” Jylin’s screechy voice was loud enough to make the guards look at her, and she broke into another bout of sobs, burying her face in Gianna’s shoulder. The black-haired woman was frowning at Twyla, but her narrowed eyes were calculating rather than hateful like the others. She was the only one of the woman whose dress wasn’t an ostentatious shade of a gaudy color; she was clad in a relatively plain black gown with yellow embroidery on the hems. She distractedly patted the blonde’s head and was rolling her signet ring around one dark-skinned finger with the other.

“Please be quiet, Jylin. You’ll make the men nervous.” That only made the busty girl cry harder.

Twyla took a deep, steadying breath, wishing she had someone intelligent to at least talk to. Not one of the women here was a day over thirty, most probably barely out of their teens. She was tempted to leave the little cluster to piddle amongst itself in search of maturity.

“Tell us why you snuck into our luncheon!” Lidann’s voice was downright petulant. Twyla bristled at the order. She glanced at her with what she hoped was a neutral expression and smiled sweetly, even though the woman wouldn't be able to see it behind the veil.

“Keep frowning like that and you’re going to get wrinkles long before you age into the hag you’re shaping up to be.”

“Twyla, ladies, please!” The brunette’s crisp voice rose over the indignant huff from Lidann. She waited until the women were looking at her before fixing the large woman with a stern glare. “Let’s get one thing straight. This is my house and this was my luncheon, and Twyla is my guest—”

“So I guess that means this hostage situation is your fault?”

The brunette kept talking, not even raising her voice over the sarcastic interjection. “So I expect the rest of you to remember that though we are in a difficult situation and possibly at risk of losing our lives, we are still noblewomen from prominent houses and must behave in such a way that will reflect well on our families and husbands.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem for Miss Unwed there,” Lidann spoke sulkily, but her voice was quieter and had lost some of its heat. Twyla looked at the brunette with a newfound respect, already forming the thoughts in her mind that she would use Mindwrite to record later. Assuming there was a later. . .

[Nymph and Dragon]

In times of turmoil, human women seem to have the tendency to behave like whales in the wild. Without a male to lead them, the females immediately battle for the alpha position, after which the others are required to respect and obey the new leader’s commands.

“Oh, good, Kathryn’s coming around.” The brunette’s voice was overly-cheerful, but the others scooted closer with murmurs of relief at the announcement. The girl sitting up really was just that; she didn’t look a day over eighteen. Her flaxen hair was bound in tight braids against her skull and she blinked like a new-born dolphin, her eyes darting around as if in search of her mother.

“Where . . . where am I?”

Twyla sneered at her weak voice, turning to survey the room again, even though the one lookover she’d given it earlier had been enough to commit it to heart, trying to block out the fainter's sniveling. Another one whose every word would grate against her ears. She kept waiting for the Elemental’s voice to come bouncing into her skull, rebuking her for some rude thought or another, but her head was strangely silent. It wasn’t that it never left her- it was required to visit its home realm daily to maintain stay alive- but it had never been gone at such a needful time as this. It probably wouldn’t even believe her if she told it the whole story.

“So what do we do now?” Jylin’s weeping had ceased, and she now sat with frightfully red eyes, her generous bosom heaving with every shaky breath.

“Absolutely nothing,” Lidann barked before anyone else could open their mouth. “We sit here and wait for our husbands to send the money to rescue us. No tricks, no plans, no heroics.” She seemed to be directing her scowl at Twyla for this last part.

“I must agree with her,” the brunette said softly. “It’s too dangerous to risk our lives just to save our husbands a bit of gold. I’m sure we’re worth more to them than any amount of money anyway.”

Given her knowledge of human men, Twyla was inclined to doubt that, but she held her peace.

“This is bad,” Kathryn whimpered. “My husband’s in Corone for business and I know for a fact that my father-in-law won’t pay a copper to rescue me. He hates me! He’d leave me to die and then lie to his son, tell him I was killed by a disease or something.”

“My husband can’t pay either,” Jylin confessed, bursting into tears again. “He was t-terribly angry the other day because we’d lost a ship in a sudden storm, and we- we’ve been selling off heirlooms and clothes just to pay f-for food. We don’t have any money!”

Gianna’s hand slipped over the woman’s mouth, shushing her loudly and glancing worriedly at the guards, who were lounging on the steps of the stairs and playing some kind of dice game.

“Don’t let them catch you saying something like that or you’re dead, sugar.” Gianna’s voice was cool and controlled. “All of you, we need to stay calm and quiet. As long as there’s a chance that money is coming, the men will keep us alive, so let’s not bust that bubble quite yet, all right?”

Twyla frowned perplexedly as the other women nodded, though the brunette's frown didn't waver. What was this? Gianna was taking over the herd? Perhaps women weren’t even as organized as whales. Perhaps they merely assigned leadership responsibilities randomly and hoped for the best. Perhaps anyone could step up to take over the pack.

“Well, if we don’t have the money to pay for all of our freedom,” Gianna said in a low voice, “then I say we need to consider ourselves as not having enough money to pay for any of us.”

Dissension was on the tip of several tongues, but the dark woman’s gaze held them quiet. “Could any of you really get out alone and live the rest of your life knowing that you left one of your friends to die?”

Twyla saw darted glances around the circle as the women decided which ones they actually considered to be friends. The brunette’s eyes stayed fixed on Gianna, but her face darkened slightly and her mouth tightened. Gianna looked around and saw the uncertain looks.

“Then perhaps we need to be apart from each other,” she said sternly. “The ones whose families can pay for their freedom and who can justify their solitary escape, please leave the circle and disassociate yourself from the rest of us.”

Not one muscle twitched. Twyla considered stepping away, just to make sure that they understood that she was not associating herself with them, but she didn’t want to give up the ability to hear their conversation, so she stayed still. Guilt seemed to be a very effective tool of manipulation for women. Gianna’s stern look turned into a beaming smile.

“I’m so glad to see that courage and nobility are not dead.” Her expression turned serious. “Now, ladies, we need to collect our wits and come up with a plan for escape.”

[Nymph and Dragon]

Lidann squawked in protest, waving a fleshy arm at the nymph, who still stood on the outer edge of their huddle. “She’ll tell them! She has nothing to lose!”

“Nonsense,” Gianna said with a dismissing wave of her hand. “She won’t betray us.”

What makes you so sure of that? The betrayal idea had crossed her mind as a possible option for bargaining her way out of captivity, but she’d dismissed it as not being assured enough to risk the ire of six angry women. They were weak and relatively stupid, but their numbers practically guaranteed their victory if it ever came down to a fight.

“How can you be sure? She already lied about being married.”

“And about her signet ring,” Jylin added softly, her eyes on the handkerchief in her hands.

“I’m sure she had good reasons for deceiving us,” the brunette said with a slight frown. “I’m sorry, Twyla, but perhaps it would be best if you explained yourself a little.”

Twyla sighed heavily, tapping one of her sandaled feet against the dirt floor. Staying to hear their plan almost wasn’t worth the effort of coming up with more lies, but on the other hand, unless the Elemental decided to come back anytime soon, she didn’t have a way to escape herself. The women probably would be more hindrance than aid, but at least they could be used as a distraction, if nothing else.

“The truth is,” she said, lowering her voice and giving a theatrically furtive glance towards the men, “I am actually an undercover member of the Militia. We’d heard rumors that this group, the, uh, Black Masks, were planning some kind of heist in the city. We didn’t know what exactly they were planning, but we knew it had something to do with a hostage situation. I was instructed to monitor the most prominent young families in the city, so I lied so that I could get into your meeting to keep track of you all.”

She was running back over the lie as soon as it was out, testing it for holes. Judging by the dubious looks of the women, they were doing the same. Only Kathryn looked convinced, and the wide-eyed stupidity of her awed look only made Twyla feel more cautious.

“The ‘Black Masks,’ you say?” the brunette repeated doubtfully.

Twyla nodded solemnly.

“And you’re supposed to be . . . protecting us?” Jylin feebly questioned.

Twyla nodded again. “I don’t have real proof of my claim, of course, because it might have compromised my cover, but I can tell you that that’s why I’m wearing this mask, so that none of you will be endangered by having seen my face.” Seeing that they still looked doubtful, Twyla added, “And I was burned in a fire when I was young and I’m horribly disfigured.”

There. Maybe that would make them feel guilty enough to leave her alone.

“So you knew this attack was coming?” the brunette asked. “Why didn’t you just warn us to travel with extra guards and to be especially careful?”

Blast. Some of the women were smarter than she’d expected. “Because . . . we need to catch these men, and if we just scared them away then . . . they would come back another time with even more force and a more insidious plot.”

“I’ve never heard of them before,” the brunette muttered.

“Of course not,” Twyla answered amiably. “If you had, you’d be dead.”

“Well then, undercover militiaman- or is it militiawoman?- what do you suggest we do now?”

Twyla didn’t like the mocking edge in Lidann’s voice, but she ignored it and lifted her chin, glaring loftily down at the woman with all the self-possession she could muster.

“I feel that I must respectfully disagree with, um. . .” she still couldn’t remember the brunette’s name, “our hostess. These men may have told us that they wouldn’t harm us, but the truth is that the Black Masks are notorious for never leaving hostages alive.”

That was, perhaps, blunter than it could have been, as Jylin’s shriek and subsequent burst into tears proved, but it shook the other women’s confidences as well, making the gazes they turned up to her more pleading than they had been before. The more dependant they were on her, the easier it would be to control them. The brunette was the only one who didn’t show mounting panic. Her lips were pursed and she frowned at the nymph without a smidgen of evident fear.

“But how can we escape?” Kathryn whined. “We certainly can’t fight our way out!”

“Fighting is for men and animals,” Twyla snapped. She softened her tone and continued, “We . . . females have other weapons at our disposal.”

It took a moment for the implication of her words to sink in, and when they did Lidann gasped and shook her head, Kathryn blushed, and the brunette’s mouth fell open. Only Jylin was left staring blankly from one understanding face to another.

“I don’t know how to use any weapons,” the blonde sniveled.

“That’s too bad,” Twyla said dryly, “because you’re certainly the most well-armed.”

A chorus of hesitant giggles made the guards look up from their dice, and Twyla watched them out of the corner of her eye until they returned to their game. The women were looking at each other with questioning expressions, silently daring each other to refuse participation.

“So what’s the plan, Twyla?” Gianna whispered.

[Nymph and Dragon]

Was it really so easy to gain control of the flock? Twyla lifted her foot and pulled off her sandal, setting it onto a cask of wine before she began to pace back and forth along one side of the herd, liking the feeling of power that came with authority. No wonder men chased after it so avidly, it really was quite lovely.

“Whatever we do, it needs to be fast, because we have to escape before your husbands send the money. And it’d be pointless to just get out of the cellar and onto the porch and then got shot by those men that are waiting, so we need to do something that will get us clean away or that will attract the Militia to the house.”

“Other militiamen, right?” Lidann’s voice was dripping with sarcasm.

“Yes, attracting others of the Militia is probably our best option,” Twyla continued, ignoring her.

“You mean we wouldn’t be leaving?” The brunette sounded relieved, for some reason.

“No, but . . .,” Twyla searched her mind for inspiration, her gaze settling on one of the lamps. “I don’t usually suffer from pyromanic tendencies, but can we set your house on fire?”

“It won’t help us to attract the Militia if we all die before they can get here,” Lidann snapped.

“I’m not too keen on the idea of an uncontrolled fire,” Gianna murmured.

The nymph scowled. “It doesn’t have to be a big fire, just big enough to attract attention.”

“I’d rather if my family didn’t have to return home to a charred ruin, if that’s all right, Twyla,” the brunette said primly. “Maybe we can use some other kind of signal.”

“We could all scream at once as loud as we can,” suggested Jylin.

“But the Black Masks would hear us, too,” Kathryn objected. “We need to do something stealthy, something devious.”

“Let’s poison them,” Jylin piped up, her eyes bright with malice.

“Where are we going to get poison?” Gianna asked reasonably.

“I could stab a man if I had to,” Lidann said fiercely. “We can use those gardening tools in the corner over there.”

Twyla ground her teeth as the women all began whispering at once, each coming up with plans for escape more stupid than the last. She gave them a few seconds, then cleared her throat when she couldn’t take it anymore.

“Women! Let’s not get carried away by our own creativity here,” she said as loudly as she dared. “We need to be organized. We need-,”

“Oh, wait, I have it!” The brunette was showing an unusually high level of excitement, so Twyla bit her lip and let the woman speak. “There’s a secret passageway that runs from the drawing room to one of the bedrooms on the top floor of the house!”

Twyla rolled her eyes. How could she have forgotten something so essential?

“That’s excellent,” she said aloud. “We need to get out of the cellar, make our way to the drawing room, and then sneak up to that bedroom. Once there, we’ll be able to . . . hang signs from the window or something. Either way, we’ll be better off than we are down here, right?”

The women nodded in agreement, looking more chipper than they had all afternoon. Twyla stepped closer, making sure their eyes were on her before she painstakingly told them her plan.

[Nymph and Dragon]

________--_________=________--____________

“Excuse me, sir? I have . . . a problem.”

The guards looked up from their dice warily, but the dark-haired woman standing in front of them was the soul of docility. Her eyes were wide and innocent, her hands clasped meekly beneath her bosom.

“What is it?” One of the guards demanded warily.

“I . . . I need to use the restroom.”

The guards glanced painfully at each other. “Can’t you . . . find a bucket?”

Twyla could see the brunette’s cheeks redden from the other side of the room. The woman was either a very good actress or sincerely embarrassed. The nymph was leaning against the wall, pretending to listen to the artificial conversation that the women were having while she watched the guards. She had wanted Jylin to play the part of the damsel in distress, but the blonde had started trembling before the suggestion was fully out of her mouth and the brunette had insisted that it was well within her capabilities. The nymph had to admit that the brunette was doing a better job than she had expected, even though she didn’t have quite Jylin's considerable assets. Gianna stood on the wall perpendicular to her, arms hanging behind her back as she stared disapprovingly at her own feet. The others all still sat in a circle, their fine dresses streaked with dirt from the floor.

“Please, sir, I promise not to try anything stupid or valiant.” She seemed to be basing her character on Jylin, because her quavering voice sounded to be on the verge of tears.

The guards looked at each other again, then at the gaggle of immobile women in the corner. One shrugged and the other nodded.

“All right, I’ll take you. Make one wrong move and . . .” his hand rested on the pommel of his sword. The brunette nodded hard, following the man up the stairs without a backwards glance. The other put his dice into his pocket, watching his partner and the woman leave through the cellar door before standing and looking at the remaining prisoners with more alertness than he’d shown earlier.

Twyla smiled. Not only was her plan already going perfectly, but she’d learned that the guards didn’t lock the cellar door. That would make their escape even easier. Her gaze met Kathryn’s wide brown eyes, and she gave the girl a quick nod.

Kathryn, sitting with her back to the guard, nodded back before taking a deep breath and throwing herself face-forward onto the floor.

“Kathryn? Kathy dear? Are you all right?”

Twyla thought Lidann’s lines were coming out a bit forced, but Gianna’s acting was superb.

“Oh my God, I don’t think she’s breathing!” The dark woman’s voice was filled with panic, her hands fluttering uselessly over the prone girl’s back. “Help, somebody help!”

“What are we going to do? She’s dying!” Lidann was working harder. She spun towards the guard and beckoned desperately. “Please, help us!”

The commotion seemed pathetic enough to Twyla, and apparently the guard agreed. He stepped towards them, trying to peer through the flock of heads at the girl underneath. Gianna had rolled Kathryn onto her back, and the girl’s blank face was convincingly pale.

“What’s wrong with her?” the guard demanded, stopping a foot away from the huddle. Twyla met Gianna’s eyes, and the two began to edge in opposite directions along the wall.

“I think she’s dead,” wailed Jylin, grabbing the man’s pant leg. “Please do something!”

The man took a step even closer, using one hand to hold up his mask as he bent over the girl. Twyla’s smile grew. She stealthily grabbed a glass bottle off the shelf beside her and looked to Gianna, who uncertainly pulled a similar bottle from where she had been hiding it behind a fold in her skirt. She lifted her own and saw Gianna do likewise, but the woman’s fingers slipped and the bottle dropped to the floor and shattered noisily.

Blast!

The sound made the guard jump and turn, but as he did Twyla stepped quickly forward and smashed it down as hard as she could onto the back of the guard’s head. Her arm was weaker than she had thought, because the bottle just seemed to bounce off his skull. The man stumbled forward with an oath, though, falling to one knee for an instant before staggering to his feet and whirling around to face her. He charged at her with a roar, grabbing her wrist and twisting it sharply so that she dropped the bottle as he shoved her against the shelf she’d nicked the bottles from. The wood pressed against her back as he used his other hand to grab her throat, hissing angrily even though he had to blink hard to keep his eyes focused on her.

Twyla was already cursing the dark woman’s clumsiness and frantically trying to wiggle out of his grasp when the sound of more breaking glass reached her ears, followed by a shower of dark shards and a spray of wine that splattered against her face. The guard’s eyes lost focus completely and his grip on her neck loosened. He stumbled backwards, shaking his head dazedly, one hand outstretched as though he were trying to find a wall to lean against.

“Took you long enough,” Twyla snapped hoarsely at Gianna, who was holding the broken neck of a new bottle a little shame-facedly. Too weak in the knees to do more than lean weakly against the shelf, the nymph waved one hand imperiously towards the guard. Gianna nodded and picked the nymph’s bottle off the ground, stepped around the stumbling man, and walloped him soundly over the head with it.

The masked man fell sideway, landing with a thud on the pale form of Kathryn, who only let out a wheeze at the impact. The unconscious man’s chest had slammed into her stomach, which probably explained why she wasn’t screaming her lungs out, and the shocked expression on her face almost made Twyla want to laugh. She tentatively wiggled her fingers and winced at the pain in her wrist. Opening her mouth to give the order to move the man, she stopped when a noise at the top of the stairs caught her ears.

[Nymph and Dragon]

“They’re coming back,” she mouthed instead, moving to get more bottles as the brunette appeared at the top of the stairs.

“But he’s not where he’s—” Twyla’s impatient wave interrupted Jylin, who was looking with dismay at the body on top of Kathryn.

“Just go with it,” the nymph whispered as the guard appeared behind the brunette. All of the women were standing now, pressed against the wall in feigned fear or buzzing around the room like lost beetles. Kathryn had caught her breath and began to kick and flounder beneath the guard, howling and thrashing like a caged cat.

“Hey, man, what are you doing?” The guard pulled the door shut behind him and hurried down the stairs, pushing around the brunette to get there faster. “He said to leave the women—”

He reached the ground level and was a pace away from his partner before confusion at the other man’s stillness hit his eyes, but he wasn’t fast enough to get out of Gianna’s way. Her first hit glanced off the side of his head, and he swung an arm at her before reaching for his sword.

Twyla grimaced. They didn’t stand a chance against a real weapon. She quickly stepped closer to the man, reaching up to pull down her scarf in the same stride. The guard was about to swing his fist at her, but his eyes landed on her face before his hand could. A quick smile was all it took to make him stop moving, his eyes slowly glazing over as the full effects of her Allure sunk in, her beauty stunning the thoughts right out of his head.

“Hit him,” she ordered, taking a step back and pulling her scarf back over her nose. As she stepped away his eyes cleared, but before he had fully regained awareness he caught a bottle full in the face, blood gushing instantly from his nose as he toppled to the floor.

For one moment the standing women just stared at the downed men, somehow shocked at the power they had never thought they possessed. Only the flaxen-haired fainter kept up a racket, squirming to escape the weight of the man on top of her. The brunette, still standing at the bottom of the stairs, looked up to gaze at Twyla with a mystified frown.

“Twyla,” she murmured, her voice low and scared, “what did you do to him?”

“Shut up, Kathryn,” Twyla snapped, ignoring the brunette and stepping over to help push the man off with one foot. Even though the Allure was involuntary, just the act of smiling had required more effort than she felt like expending, and she definitely was not in the mood to explain herself.

“Well done, ladies,” Jylin complimented in an impressed voice.

“We did it,” Gianna murmured in an awed voice. “I can’t believe we really did it.”

“We aren’t free yet, so stop gawking and let’s go. Move them into that corner behind the stairs.” Twyla barked the order harshly, the pain in her wrist making her irritable. “Come on, we need to get out of here before we attract attention.” She hoped the screaming hadn’t been too audible.

The women dragged the men into the corner of the room, then cautiously followed her up the stairs. Twyla pushed open the door and looked out, scanning the kitchen and then turning back to nod at the others before she pushed the door open and stepped onto the tiled floor. Why was the kitchen empty? It seemed like a rather obvious breech in security, but she accredited it to the men’s stupidity and stepped forward. Faint light came in through small windows over counters against the wall, light that bore the pale blue tint of evening. A small bucket of water sat against one of the walls, catching drops of water that leaked from a pipe leading into the ceiling. Twyla’s throat felt suddenly dry. She hadn’t had the chance to swim since the day before, and already her skin was starting to feel dry and crackly.

“Here, Twyla,” murmured Gianna from behind her, pressing a glass bottle into her hand. Every woman was carrying two; Lidann and Gianna had several more tucked into the decorative belts of their dresses. Twyla took the bottle with a nod and kept walking, bending low and lifting her skirt to make as little noise as possible. There would be time to swim as soon as she was free of this cesspool of stupidity. Her right wrist still throbbed from the manhandling, but she managed to hold the bottle and her skirts in her left, leaving the injured arm cradled against her stomach. The pain was much more manageable when she reminded herself that the Elemental would be feeling almost the same thing. A frown crossed her face when she considered that its absence from this world might dim the bond enough to muffle the pain, but she dismissed the thought. It had better be suffering as much as she was.

[Nymph and Dragon]

She darted a warning glance behind her when all five of the women were out of the cellar, then went alone to the open doorway, peeking her head out into the hall for a quick look. The kitchen doorway was situated at the corner of two halls, giving the nymph a clear look in two perpendicular directions.

Empty? How could there be no men keeping guard in the halls? Were the men so certain of themselves that they hadn’t even bothered to leave protection in case their guards fell? Twyla mentally shrugged. It was their loss and her gain, so who was she to complain?

“Coast’s clear,” she whispered. “I’ll watch this way while you run.”

She hoped the women would consider this action some kind of noble self-sacrifice, but the truth was that she wanted them to be the first ones the men saw if they happened to be waiting around a corner or behind a door. She pressed herself against the doorway and watched them run past her, one after the other. Their faces were flushed as they grabbed up their skirts and ran, their slippers making barely a whisper against the carpeted floor. Twyla’s own heart was pounding; she couldn’t ignore the thought that she’d missed something, overlooked some tiny detail that was going to come back to haunt her later.

Too bad the snake isn’t here to help with remembering.

At the thought, Twyla almost glanced around in search of the Elemental, but when she found its presence to still be distant and unreachable, she scowled and rolled her eyes. Thirstiness must have a negative effect on her mental functions.

When Kathryn’s slim form turned the corner in front of her, Twyla went after them, glancing behind herself occasionally as she walked. Her gaze caught on a large portrait of the brunette smiling prettily in front of a young man who glared sternly over her head towards the viewer. He had a strong jaw and angry-looking dark eyes, and Twyla shuddered and kept walking. Why on earth would women want to have a club to celebrate getting married? It seemed like nothing more than an impeding set of shackles. Perhaps female humans liked to be in a state of vulnerable subservience.

“Twyla!”

The nymph’s head whipped sideways at the call, and she looked into the doorway of a brightly-lit room and realized that she had almost walked right past the drawing room. Glad for the scarf that hid her blush, she stepped in and closed the door behind her, straightening her spine and nodding at the brunette, who was looking nervously out the windows, which overlooked the house’s gardens and backyard.

“Where are all the Black Masks?” Gianna asked, voicing the thought that was no doubt running through every other mind in the room.

“We can’t worry about that now,” Twyla answered, turning to the brunette. “The passageway, please?”

The dark-haired woman nodded and turned to the unlit fireplace, which was directly across from the door, crouching with a grimace to get beneath the mantle.

“When we get to that bedroom,” Twyla instructed, “I want all of you to be absolutely quiet. If the men aren’t down here, they must be upstairs, probably looting the bedrooms or something. Don’t make any noise in the passageway, either, because we obviously don’t want them to know where we are. If the situation gets desperate, it’s each woman for herself, and I want you all to run—”

The stricken expressions of the women looking at her stopped her tongue, as did the sudden rush of cold air against the back of her skirts. A hand fell gently onto her right shoulder.

“Run, run, run, as fast as they can?” His breath fanned against the back of her neck, his voice amused and angry at once. Twyla did her best not to wince.

[Nymph and Dragon]

“Something like that,” she replied coolly, keeping her eyes on the brunette, who was now crouched and unmoving in the hearth. Twyla’s eyes flickered from face to face, and their expressions convinced her that an impromptu rebellion was not going to be a success. Kathryn looked ready to faint, Jylin was already crying, and somehow even Gianna’s face was pale. Twyla started to take a step into the room, but the hand on her shoulder tightened, the fingers digging painfully into her collarbone, and she changed her mind. Humans and their love for physical force . . .

“I distinctly remember asking you ladies not to try anything heroic.” Crossbow Man’s voice was deadly quiet. Twyla heard the shuffling of leather and cloth behind him and did her best not to let her anger show. How had they known? “But now I find all of you, armed and dangerous, attempting to make an escape. How would you describe this situation to an innocent observer?”

A weepy hiccup from Jylin was his only answer. The fingers on her collarbone tightened, making Twyla suck in her breath before she could control herself.

“How would you describe this situation, Hellcat?”

“Rigged,” she spat, glaring at the women in front of her. Crossbow Man chuckled.

“Typical female behavior,” he sneered from behind her. “You’re so unable to take responsibility for failure that you’d turn on fellow prisoners to find someone to lay the blame.”

Twyla’s lips tightened beneath her veil. His words sounded obnoxiously similar to something the Elemental had said not too long ago. At least he hadn’t called her a woman.

“Judging from the way Hellcat here was barking orders, I take it that she was behind this little escape attempt. Is that a correct conclusion?”

The room was silent.

“Let me rephrase that,” Crossbow Man amended. “I’m going to kill whoever was in charge. So whose idea was this?”

None of the women moved, torn between loyalty and the desire to live. Twyla wished the dragon was there so that she could put money on her bet of which one would betray her.

“Actually, sir, it was a group effort,” Kathryn said softly, her bottles dangling from her hands. Her cheeks were white and her gaze stayed on the floor. “We all came up with the plan together.”

Twyla was shocked when none of the others contradicted her. She honestly hadn’t expected such a show of bravery from the women. It was a good thing the Elemental hadn’t been there, or she would have lost money. Why would the woman condemn themselves when they were being given a clear chance to get away? It was obvious that Crossbow Man had it in for her, so why were they taking the fall with her when he was obviously more than happy to bring her down alone? If it had been Twyla standing in the room and one of the others under the grip of the bandit, there was no doubt in her mind that she would have already been loudly avowing her own innocence. Were these weak and defenseless woman too stupid to know the first thing about self-preservation?

On the other hand, getting executed might not be that bad of a thing. Rather, their attempt to kill her might not end up as negatively as it could. Considering what she knew of the bandits, it was unlikely that they’d want to spill her blood on the carpets, so maybe they’d take her outside. Just the thought of open air made Twyla’s heart rate spike with excitement.

“Don’t bother lying for me, Kathryn, this one’s obviously much too clever to deceive.” She hoped her sarcasm was sharp enough to pierce his thick skull. “It was me, I admit it, I’m the brain behind the movement and the rest of them just stumbled stupidly after me like blind sheep.”

“As I thought.” His voice was definitely amused now. “You surprise me, Hellcat, but it’s good to see you taking responsibility, acting like a man.”

Twyla shuddered violently.

[Nymph and Dragon]

Crossbow Man stepped into the doorway and dragged Twyla to the side of the door so that she could watch as the other women were herded out. The men didn’t bother taking the women's wine bottles away from them, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely as they pushed the women into the hall. Each of the women glanced at her as they passed, none making the slightest attempt to hide their expressions. Twyla clucked her tongue at the lack of dignity. Kathryn’s eyes were anguished, like Jylin’s fast and grateful glance and Lidann’s look of downright guilt. Gianna met her eyes intently, as if the woman were promising her something, but it was the brunette’s gaze that almost confused her. Her expression was cautioning, but it rested for only a second on the nymph before her eyes jumped to those of Crossbow Man behind her. Then the women were gone, and it was just Twyla and the bandits and the cups of cold tea.

Twyla shifted uncomfortably, wishing the man would ease his grip on her shoulder. Her neck was starting to cramp. “So am I going to get a spanking?”

The man behind her chuckled softly, grinding his thumb into her back to push her forward. He shoved her to the coffee table and pushed her down onto the sofa, then stepped around the table to stand by the hearth with his hands behind his back. Twyla rolled her shoulder and glared at him, glancing around the room. There were two other bandits, one on either side of the door. There was no way she’d be able to Allure all of them at once, and the two at the door were holding the crossbows now.

“Oh, Hellcat. What am I going to do with you?” he asked softly.

Twyla couldn’t tell whether or not the question was rhetorical. “Whatever it is, you better be careful,” she warned mildly, leaning back against the cushions and crossing her legs. “My husband won’t pay for damaged property.”

“How do you think you should be punished?”

“I think a stern lecture will suffice,” she replied.

“Really? I remember giving you a lecture earlier today about lying, and once again you’re trying to tell me you’re married when I know for a fact that you aren’t.”

“I never told you that I wasn’t married, you decided that for yourself. And who am I to challenge the incorrigible logic of a man?”

“Incorrigible? Don’t you mean inviolable?”

Twyla could hear the snide smile behind his mask, and smiled sweetly in return, fighting her rising anger. “I say what I mean, halfwit, and I mean what I say.”

“Come, now, Hellcat, let’s be above petty name-calling.” He stepped away from the fireplace, moving to stand behind the couch opposite the one she sat in. “We have important matters to discuss.”

“Like how you’re going to convince the Militia that the stain the doorman left on the front porch is actually the blood of some kind of suicidal housepet?”

“No, my problem is a bit more immediate than that.” His eyes bored holes into her face as he turned to glare at her, pacing back towards the fireplace. “I don’t like killing people, especially if I think that person will cause me more trouble dead than they did alive. What I’m trying to decide at the moment is whether your death will end up being a hindrance or an aid.”

“Do you want my opinion?”

“Not particularly,” he turned his back to her, looking up at the hanging sword. “From where I’m standing, you’ve done nothing but make yourself a nuisance from the start. The only disadvantage that I can see from killing you would be that I would have to get rid of your corpse, which isn’t really all that much of a problem in a city this big. I could kill you easily and not think twice about it. But I’m in a really good mood today, Hellcat, so I’m going to give you a chance to convince me that your life really isn’t a burden. Can you do that?”

Twyla sighed loudly, throwing an aggravated look at the men at the door before she turned again to Crossbow Man, tapping her fingers against the forearm of her injured hand. The wrist still hurt, but she was able to bend it slightly without too much pain if she moved slowly. She tried to rotate it, fervently hoping that the experience was as painful for the Elemental as it was for her. Her mind was flying back over the day, trying to remember what it was that she had forgotten. There was no point in demeaning herself by trying to talk to this buffoon; like all human males he wouldn't take anything said by anyone else seriously anyway. But there was something she’d seen that was nagging at the edge of her mind, something that should be useful in getting her out of this blasted house.

“Well? Are you trying to think of good excuses?”

[Nymph and Dragon]

The nymph glanced towards the man, her eyes narrowing in annoyance again at the sight of his mask. The shape of his face made the wrapped style look awful; he had a totally wrong nose for it. Twyla frowned. She could actually picture the way the rest of his face ought to look beneath the mask, sneering upper lip and all, and the face was familiar in more ways than one. Hadn't she seen him before?

Only one way to be sure. It’d been a while since Twyla had had to weasel her way out of a dilemma, and she’d never had to charm her way out of a life-and-death situation before, but there was no doubt in the nymph’s mind that she would survive this encounter. It was laughable to suggest that some man would end up being the one to kill her, so inconceivable that the notion didn’t even deserve a laugh. It was almost with relish that she took a deep breath, controlling her expression and steeling herself for what she knew she had to do. At least now this time there was no critical Elemental to carp about misusing her abilities.

She stifled a groan at the effort it took to push herself off the couch, though she made sure her ascension was as languid and graceful as the rise of a cobra. Crossbow Man turned as she stood and the guards at the door stepped forward, but their leader waved them back, his eyes fixed curiously on the nymph.

Twyla let her injured arm drop to her side, setting the other one imperturbably on her waist as she turned towards him, taking a deep breath and a languid step in his direction. “You may already have heard this,” she murmured softly, “but I’m actually an undercover member of the Militia, put here specifically to stop you.”

The man’s masked head tilted to the side, his eyes trailing along her posed figure. “Is that so?”

“It is,” she said, her voice going even lower as she took another step towards him. She had five, maybe six paces to convince him that she wasn’t going to kill him. Child’s play. She made her voice playful. “So I guess you might consider me to be something of a threat.”

His eyes were starting to show something other than mirth. “Is that so?”

“Yep.” She took another slow step, swaying her hips as she did, keeping her eyes fixed on his. “In fact, I’m downright dangerous.”

“And why are you telling me this?” His voice had dropped in volume, and though he was still watching her warily, his attention wasn’t entirely motivated by caution.

“Because I want to make sure you understand what it is you’re getting into when you try to take advantage of a lady like me.”

“A . . . lady?” He sounded unconvinced.

“A very dangerous lady,” Her next step put her close enough to see a bead of sweat on his temple.

A guard at the door cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Sir, are you—”

“Get out.” Crossbow Man didn’t even look up. Twyla heard the rustle of their clothes as they filed out, then the soft click of the door's closing. Her smile grew, and she took another step forward, widening her eyes and forcing all the heat she could into her gaze.

“You know, telling me you’re dangerous isn’t going to help keep you alive,” he said, but his voice was distracted enough to tell her otherwise.

“Well, what can I do to convince you of my innocence?” she crooned, closing the gap between them and lifting her good hand to pull his head down towards her. It felt slightly ridiculous to be kissing a man with two layers of cloth between them, but she forced herself to endure it, pushing her face against the general vicinity of his lips and hoping his imagination would take over the rest. Apparently it did, because his mouth pressed hard against hers, one hand snaking around her waist in a tight hold that jostled her arm and made her wrist throb. She let him kiss her, but as he did her hand moved to the edge of his mask, sliding it down his face and momentarily pulling her face away for long enough to jerk it over his mouth until it was resting at his throat.

This is too easy.

The nymph jerked her head back again and pushed away from his chest so that she could look up and get a good look at his face.

Or, more aptly, another good look at his face. The scratches she’d given him were still oozing, leaving thin trails of blood that ran down the side of his face that wasn’t marred up by the scar across his cheek.

“Hello, again,” she murmured, drawing a finger tauntingly along the cuts as understanding and fury dawned in his eyes. “Did I do that?”

Before he could move she reached up and pulled down her own mask, meeting his gaze with a mocking smile. She’d already learned that the expression on her face was almost irrelevant, and her innate Allure immediately had its desired effect. The malice that had glinted for an instant in his eyes was gone, and he swallowed hard, his mouth open as he stared hungrily at her face, confusion and lust fighting for prominence in his eyes.

That easily, he was hers.

[Nymph and Dragon]

“You’re . . .”

“Gorgeous? I know.” Twyla smirked and stepped even farther away from him, trying to think up a viable plan. Her Allure didn’t give her the level of mind-control that the Elemental had but mulishly wouldn’t use, but it pretty much ensured that Crossbow Man would have a very, very hard time ordering her death. She smiled at him and almost laughed at the way his breath caught in his throat. He seemed to be having a hard time deciding just what it was that he wanted to do. She could practically see the thoughts in his head dissipating as he drank in her face, and the power that his desire gave her over him made her want to laugh out loud.

Focus, Twyla, you need to think of a way to get out. Once again she almost looked around for the Elemental. It seemed that in its absence, she was starting to talk to herself the way it did, giving bossy and obnoxious orders designed to belittle and annoy.

Twyla hoped the bandit had enough control over himself to remain intelligible. “Do you think you could let me leave?”

“No . . . I think you should stay here with me,” Crossbow Man answered immediately. He lifted a hand towards her face.

"Don't touch me." Twyla grimaced. She’d hoped that his instant infatuation wouldn’t make him clingy. “Maybe we could leave together.” She was sure she could find a nice river to dump his body in once they were out of sight of the house. It took a moment for her words to sink in, and when they did he shook his head slowly, not taking his eyes off her face.

“We need to stay here so that I can get gold, and those women . . .” the thought apparently wasn’t important enough to be finished. Twyla bit her lip. Apparently her Allure was only strong enough to dim men’s perception and impair their judgment, not enough to make them forget themselves completely. What a pain.

“Then what can you do to help me?” she demanded peevishly. “I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to.”

"You can stay with me." The fire in his eyes made Twyla take a step away.

"Um, no. Anything else?"

“You can . . . stay with the other women,” he answered distractedly. Twyla groaned.

“Why on earth would I want that?” Crossbow Man didn’t have an answer, but he took a step towards her, his eyes beginning to smolder. The nymph took a step back. She apparently didn’t have long before he got to be dangerous. There was no way she could sing him into submission; she hadn't bothered to learn any songs in Common, and the lullabies she knew were in ancient languages that would undoubtedly make those guards think that she was casting a spell or something. But without singing it seemed that she couldn’t rattle his brain enough to make him really worthwhile.

“Stupid, useless human.” She took another step backwards. A quick consideration of her options told her that sticking around with this gent wasn’t the wisest course of action, and since he was apparently still adamant about keeping her captive, that left just one alternative. With a sigh, Twyla pulled her scarf back over her face, ignoring Crossbow Man’s sorrowful whimper, and told him what she wanted.

[Nymph and Dragon]

“Twyla!”

The shocked shrieks that met her made the nymph wish she’d stayed with the bandit. After she’d pulled his mask back over his face, being careful not to stay for too long within arms reach, he’d woodenly called in his confused guards and ordered them to take her to the rest of the women, per her instructions. Though they’d cringed when they grabbed her arms, the two men had escorted her out into the hall and upstairs rather than back towards the cellar. Three flights later they were at the top of the house, and one man opened the door while the other pushed her hurriedly into the room. Twyla stumbled forward, not regaining her balance in time to glare at the pusher before the door was slammed behind her.

“Twyla, you’re alive?” The voice was overjoyed and much louder than was necessary in the small room. Twyla surveyed it quickly, ignoring the women on the floor as she searched for some kind of means of escape. This time, the bandits hadn’t made the mistake of putting them in a room full of hard objects. They were in the attic, a space with white-washed walls so low that Twyla had to bend her head not to brush against the cobwebbed ceiling. There was one window, a tiny thing high on one wall that was paned with a plate of thick, cheap glass, so small that a full-grown cat wouldn’t have been able to fit through it. The floor was of plain wood, and the only inanimate object was a wooden bucket in one corner of the room that was obviously there to prevent a repetition of the early escape attempt premise. There were no obvious flaws in the prison, so Twyla reluctantly let her eyes fall to the other source of dismay, her fellow captives.

Once again, the ineffectual five were seated on the ground in a corner of the room, though this time they all had their backs against one or another of the walls. Their posture was decidedly less prim than it had been even in the cellar; most sat with their legs stretched out in front of them, their skirts carelessly strewn about their knees. More surprising than their posture was the identical looks that covered each face as they looked up at her. All wore matching expressions of affection and contentment, even Lidann, who had a beatific smile on her round face. Twyla quickly touched her cheek to make sure that she had her scarf up. It wasn’t her Allure that was making them affectionate, so what . . .?

“It’s sho good to shee you’re alive,” Kathryn drawled, dragging her head along the wall behind her.

Twyla frowned as she noticed their eyes. Though all of the women were definitely looking in her direction, not one seemed to be able to actually find her. There was an unmistakable smell in the air, and the nymph wasn’t surprised to see that all of them were still holding onto at least one of the bottles that had served as their trusty weapons.

“Oh God,” she muttered with aversion, looking around with horror. “Are you all drunk?”

[Nymph and Dragon]

“As a skunks,” Jylin giggled.

“In a funks,” Gianna chimed in happily. The others started laughing feebly, pausing often to take long swigs from their open bottles. Twyla didn’t even want to know how they’d gotten the corks out.

“You should . . . help yerself,” the brunette called, blinking up at the nymph. “There’s plenty to go around.”

“Those boys were so nice to let us keep our drinks,” Lidann sighed, tenderly stroking the half-empty bottle in her arms.

“God blesh them, every one,” Kathryn murmured. They all started laughing again, and Jylin slid over sideways until her back was on the floor, her mouth open as she stared raptly at the ceiling overhead. Gianna was humming the same line of a song over and over, tapping her hand against her thighs in a tempo that was only distantly related to her melody.

“You idiots!” Twyla ran her hands through her hair, trying to stay calm. “How the hell are we going to escape if you’re all too inebriated to even think?”

“’S’okay, Twilight,” Gianna said soothingly. “We’re just waiting for our princes to come.”

“To rescue us,” added Jylin from the floor.

“Cuz we’re their wives and they love ush.” Kathryn’s mouth pulled down and she looked blearily into her bottle. “Don’t they love ush?”

“ Course they do,” the brunette answered with certainty, pouring alcohol into her mouth. “How else would we be getting their money?”

“That’s a good question,” Gianna slurred, lifting one finger and spinning it in the air. “Here’s another one. If you live here, where’d you send your letter?”

The brunette started giggling and mimicked Jylin’s graceless plummet.

“I’m so glad I’m married,” Lidann moaned. “If I weren’t, I’d never have met you wonderful girls. And I love you all . . . so, so, so much!”

“I love you, too,” Jylin mumbled, bursting into tears. The whole group was quickly crying, reaching out to pat each other’s hands or legs or heads or whatever was close enough to touch without having to move.

“Don’t be stand-offish, Twilight,” Lidann ordered, pointing a finger in a direction that was a foot away from the glaring nymph. “That’s a purdy name, too. You should come have a drink with us. We love you even if you are a bi—”

“Lidann, be nice,” the brunette chided with a snigger.

“Eat rishe,” Kathryn added.

“Be polite,” Jylin sang.

“That didn’t rhyme, Jyllie-dear,” Kathryn said, her laugh interrupted by a belch that made her delicate face wrinkle afterwards. “’Scuse me.”

“We still love you,” Gianna murmured.

Twyla wished the window was big enough to jump through. “I can’t believe you morons. Is that really the way you want this to end? We spent all afternoon planning our escape, and we did a hell of a good job too, for the most part. I know you all struggle with your stupidity, and I was willing to help you overcome it, but after I go through all the trouble of keeping myself alive and even getting brought back to help your pathetic little horde, you’re all just going to give up and get completely drunk and utterly useless and just wait for your rich, stupid husbands to rescue you?”

“Sounds purdy good,” Lidann slurred amiably. She patted the ground beside her until her hand hit another bottle full of amber liquid, which she held up by the neck. “You seem to’ve lost yours. Wanna mine?”

Twyla glanced toward the window and the night sky that waited just beyond it. She was thirsty and tired and in pain and in no way prepared to deal with these women’s idiocy. How long would it take for her to be driven insane by these nincompoops? She ignored the outstretched bottle and sat down in the corner of the room, as far away from the women as she could get, crossing her ankles in front of her and doing her best to ignore the muddle on the other side of the small room. What had possessed them to start drinking? Surely they knew that alcohol befuddled one's wits, so why would they dim their already limited intelligences when their survival depended on their ability to think?

She had her answer in an instant. The women were getting drunk because they could afford to do so. Even the ones who'd been afraid that their husbands wouldn't pay had at least had the assurance that their husbands were willing to pay, that there was someone out there who cared to save their lives. They'd put in an effort at helping themselves, but when that attempt had failed they'd accepted the defeat and surrendered their fates to the hands of the men who they thought were capable enough to deal with them. It occurred to the nymph that there wasn't a person in the world who came to mind when she tried to think of someone like that for herself, who cared enough to try to save her life.

"Don't look sho shad, Twilight," Kathryn called from across the rum.

"Don't be mad," Jylin droned.

"Be glad," Lidann ordered, rolling a full bottle across the floor in her direction. The bottle stopped against her foot, the smooth surface reminding her of the glassy feel of water against her skin, reminding her in turn of how thirsty she was. A touch of depression was starting to settle over her head. How was she ever going to get the women to help with an escape when they couldn't even find the ends of their own noses? She exhaled heavily and picked up the bottle, looking it over with reluctant resignation.

“How do you get this thing open?”

[Nymph and Dragon]

_______-__________-________

The Elemental could tell that something was wrong the moment he returned to Twyla’s world. He was feeling a little guilty for having stayed away for so long, but the thought of having to put up with more of the nymph’s arrogance made him dally in his hunting and kept him from hurrying back. It wasn’t that she was always wrong in her assumptions and conclusions, it was just that she was always so hard-headed when it came to listening to advice or learning. She seemed to think she already knew everything, which made teaching or even suggesting impossible.

Still, he knew that leaving her alone for the entire day hadn’t been a very wise decision, especially if she’d succeeded in getting away from the Young Wives’ luncheon. Who knew what sort of trouble the nymph could get into on the streets? The dragon had felt a few twinges of pain during the afternoon, but it wouldn’t have been the first time that the nymph hurt herself just to make sure he knew she was angry. He was already beginning to dread the mouthful she’d undoubtedly deliver at his arrival when he realized that even though he was in her world, he could barely sense her presence. Usually the nymph acknowledged his return, accompanying the slap in the face of her overwhelmingly negative personality with a few caustic words of sarcastic greeting. This time, though . . .

His multi-faceted eyes turned a sharp green in the faint light that came in from a small window high overhead, the pinkish light of daybreak. The smell of wine and puke was strong enough to make him gag as he pushed against the bond, wondering at the thick layer of fog that seemed to lie between them, blocking him from her thoughts. He felt a touch of worry and considered taking a larger form than the usual pint-sized dragon, but decided against it when he picked up the faint trails of close minds. There were humans about, but where was she?

“If you’re not married,” a loud, slurring voice called suddenly from nearby, “then you don’t have any idea at all about wha’s involved. It is a completely different way of life, let me tell you.”

The Elemental pried into the woman’s mind, recoiling at the tainted mist that hung heavily in her head. She was as drunk as a virgin sailor, her thoughts a jumbled muddle of doubts and fears so warped that he couldn’t even find her name. The one detectable certainty in her mind was the topic she was talking about now, and she was so absolute in her belief that it drowned out any other concerns that might have made themselves evident.

“You don’t have to tell me cuz I know,” an equally swamped voice replied. He checked this one’s mind and found it to be similarly foggy, though the thoughts beneath the mist were random impressions of clothing and men instead of anything substantial.

“Yeah, she knows. Cuz she’s married too.” This mind was the foggiest yet, her consciousness a pile of tangled suspicions practically buried by the alcohol cloud. As altered as the heads were, the Elemental recognized the minds as ones that he’d scanned not much earlier, and the identification was both cheering and depressing. It was good to find out that Twyla wasn't alone, but what had changed the clear head that'd scanned earlier into the messes that he could see now?

“The only one,” the first voice continued, “who doesn’t know what it’s like to be tied to a man is Twilight, and that’s cuz she lied about being a secret member of the Militia and doesn’t like anybody.”

“Not true at all,” an even more familiar voice garbled from across the room. The Elemental spun to face it, crawling quickly towards the speaker. “I like people just fine, so long as they’re people who aren’t just stupid like you. And I know exactly what it’s like to be married. Fact, I have it worse than any of you useless hens. I have a snake living in my head, see? How’s that for miserable?”

“Snakes,” drawled a voice from near the floor, bursting into a fit of giggles.

“Shtakesh,” another chimed.

“Rakes!”

He tried to ignore them as they kept up their mumbling, making his way determinedly towards the blue-gowned figure that was slouched against the wall. If he could have spoken aloud, he would have muttered a curse at the sight that met his eyes. She was nearly horizontal, with only her shoulders and the back of her head against the wall while the rest of her was extended out onto the wooden floor. Her feet were bare and her skirt was hiked up carelessly above her knees. A nearly-empty bottle of golden liquid rested in the crook of her arm, and an empty one lay across her stomach, rocking as she breathed slowly in and out. Her normally sharp blue eyes were heavy-lidded and dull, staring vacantly across the room beneath a curtain of tangled hair that fell over her bare face. Her scarf was wrapped around one of her arms, and her mouth was hanging open, closing only as she continued to mumble absentmindedly to herself. If there was any way he could have mistaken her face, the dragon would have been sure that the wreck in front of him wasn’t his nymph. Unfortunately . . .

Twyla?

[Nymph and Dragon]

Her eyes drifted downwards, resting on the bottle across her stomach. “Oh, hey, look, it’s it,” she called feebly. “Come see my snake.”

“I’ll bet my shnake ish bigger.”

“No competition. Mine has got to be the biggest of all. No doubt.”

“Your snake would have[i] to be bigger than mine.” One woman sniffled. “I don’t even think mine’s full-grown!”

“No, you dumb hussies, my snake is here. The real one.” She lifted her left hand and flopped it against the floor, her fingers twitching. “Hey, little smart-ass,” she murmured fondly.

[i]Twyla, what are you doing? He wasn’t even sure if she could hear him through the thick fog in her mind. Her drunkenness was starting to carry across their bond, giving him blurry vision that he had to shake his head to clear.

“Snake, are you a boy? Can you be a girl so that you don’t have to be my husband?” The nymph’s eyes welled up with tears.

“We love you, Twilight,” called the jumble-head from across the room. “You should marry my husband too, and then we can share.”

“I don’t want a husband,” she yelled, flopping both hands against the floor. A jolt of sharp pain shot through the Elemental’s forearm and he jumped back with a hiss as Twyla hollered, rolling onto her side and cradling her right hand and the bottle of wine.

What did you do to your—

“Look at what you did,” she shouted at him accusingly. “He hurt me and you were too useless to do anything to help me!”

There was suddenly real emotion coming across the bond to accompany the flood of tears that dripped off the nymph’s face. He was slightly stunned at the waves she was involuntarily sending. She’d never let him teach her how to keep her emotions to herself, but she probably wouldn’t have been able to stem the loneliness and hurt of the afternoon that was washing over him, making him feel even more guilty for leaving her than he already did.

Twyla, what happened? The fog in her head was still preventing him from having access to her mind and memory.

“I don’t know,” she bawled. “I just want to go swimming and drink . . .” she lifted the bottle in her hands towards her lips, but the Elemental quickly turned into a shapeless blob of water and shot forward, scooping the bottle out of her hands and depositing it a few feet away before he returned to her side in dragon form. The nymph glared at him, her eyes crossed as she tried to focus on him.

Twyla, I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on. He could hear a non-trashed mind nearby, male, but the owner was asleep and dreaming heavily, and it was always hard to scan memories when images from the dreams kept bouncing into the way.

“It is too just like a stupid man,” she spat bitterly towards the women. “Always taking away my fun and making my life miserable.”

You’ve never liked the taste of alcohol, he answered shortly. And when you’re sober I can promise that you won't remember this little episode as a bundle of laughs.

Anger cascaded down the bond, and the Elemental noticed that her wrath helped to drive some of the fog away. He flexed his claws cheerfully. If getting mad was all it took to get rid of the block, getting Twyla sober was going to be easier than he’d thought.

[Nymph and Dragon]

Twyla could see the green-scaled hide of the dragon a few inches away from her face, and even though she distantly remembered that there had been several rather important things that she’d needed to say to him, she couldn’t bother with disturbing the pleasant lull in her mind to figure out what they were. She could hear its voice in her head, as distant and faraway as if it had been whispering from across an active battlefield.

Hey, Twyla, guess what? its voice murmured in her skull.

“I don’t wanna play a guessing game,” she moaned in reply. Her thoughts had been drifting happily at the bottom of the ocean, frolicking with her sisters as a violent storm on the surface overhead tossed drowning sailors into the depths for them to play with. She missed her sisters so much!

You’re drunk.

The dreamy vision disappeared in a flash of indignation. “No’m not.”

You haven't puked yet, so I'm thinking that you must have a pretty resilient stomach, but you certainly don't handle your wine as well as a man could. Guess that means there are things that humans are better than you at, huh?

Annoyance pushed its way to the forefront of Twyla’s mind. “What’re you talking about? There i’n’t nothin’ that a human can do better’n me.”

“Who’re you talking to, Twilight?” the brunette chirped uncaringly from the other side of the room.

“My snake thinks I drink worse’n a man,” she answered indignantly. “How would you know? You’ve never been as thirsty’s I am . . . was . . . am. Can I have my bottle back?”

You know alcohol will just make you thirstier. The dragon’s derisive chuckle echoed in her skull. You sound just like one of those alley-bound drunks that you used to laugh at behind taverns. I suppose you’ll treat them with a little more respect now that you’re one of them.

Anger seared through Twyla’s head. “I am not one of them!” She pushed herself into a seated position, swaying unsteadily as her vision swam at the change in altitude. The dragon beside her took an unsteady step sideways, shaking its head and hissing softly.

Twyla cackled vindictively. “You’re just as snogged as I am!”

I think you should stop behaving like a spoiled infant and start acting your age, he growled.

“Acting my age?” The thought made the nymph giggle, and Lidann next to her joined in, looking around for what was funny. “D’you even know how old I am? If I started acting my age in human years, I’d be dead!”

So that’s your excuse for drinking, is it? You want to be like a human?

Twyla was still, the dragon’s last question bouncing around in her head. It was such a preposterous suggestion that it made the nymph pause, the alcohol-induced fog lifting just enough for her instant contradiction to surface.

“Never.” Her eyes were feverishly bright. “Never, never, never, never, never!”

“Clever,” Gianna hummed.

“Leather?”

“Closhe, Jylin, that wash really closhe.”

A soft touch fell on the edge of her consciousness, and suddenly images from the afternoon were racing across her vision, standing before her eyes for an instant before melding back into the jumbled pot of her memories. For a second she could smell the dust from the cellar again, feel Crossbow Man’s fingers digging into her shoulder, taste the sour brew of ale as it burned its way down her throat. Twyla blinked, following along the foreign presence until she was looking down at the glistening dragon beside her, whose pointed ears were laid flat against its head as it stared up at her with bright green eyes. She would have sworn that the thing was frowning, if lizards had lips.

“What’ve I told you about staying out of my head?” she slurred, barely mad enough to make speech worthwhile.

I don’t know how you managed to get yourself in trouble the moment I left . . . A thread of exasperation trickled into her thoughts from the Elemental’s mind. Just stay here, all right? I’ll be back in a minute.

Twyla watched the sinuous creature take three steps away before a wave of vertigo hit her, and she watched as the dragon inexplicably tumbled sideways, its forked tail lashing out behind it as it fell onto its side.

“Oops, my bad,” the nymph grinned unrepentantly.

[Nymph and Dragon]

The Elemental stood carefully, its short legs barely lifting it off the ground as it snaked back to her side. There was a vein of annoyance flowing through her murky thoughts, and she was pretty sure that it was coming from him. Twyla, I need you to get sober. I can’t take care of your captors if I can’t even walk in a straight line!

“I don’t need you to take care of my captors,” she retorted. “I have everything under control. Isn’t that right, hens?”

Calls of agreement came weakly from the two conscious women remaining. Loud snores were coming from Jylin and Lidann, and Twyla was pretty sure that the brunette was merely asleep and not as dead as she looked.

You’re going to hate me for this, but I need to get the alcohol out of your head.

“Who says I want it gone?” the nymph demanded waspishly. “I put it there, didn’t I? I can take care of myself, thanks very much.”

Your current situation is indication of the contrary. Just hold still.

Twyla eyed the Elemental suspiciously at its scaled form melted into a dragon-shaped glob of water. What had been the head began to lengthen and extend, flowing into the air and heading for the nymph.

“What’re you doing? Stay away from me.” She feebly slapped at the tendril, but it twisted around her hand, snaking around her neck and twining in loose coils over her face. The feeling of cold liquid on her skin made her shiver, her throat going dry at the reminder of how long it’d been since she’d last swam.

“Get off me,” she mumbled against the strip of water across her mouth. Every blink made her eyelashes drag through the Elemental’s matter, and no matter how pleasant water felt, knowing that the water was actually the dragon took away the majority of the enjoyment.

Sorry. A second later, Twyla screamed louder than she ever had in all of her long life. Her hands tightened like claws and her legs kicked against the floor as heaving gasps rattled her lungs and made her spasm like a dying fish. Her head felt as though it were being sliced clear across by icy knives that drilled into her skull and set her brain on fire before sucking it out and replacing it with ice monsters that stabbed tiny swords into every nerve in her head. A violent swooshing noise filled her ears, like the sound of a thousand stormy waves trapped inside of a tiny bottle and released directly against the side of her face.

It was over in less than three seconds, but those three seconds were the worst of Twyla’s life. The Elemental retreated quickly when he was done, reforming himself into dragon form, though he maintained the aqueous consistency and appearance. Twyla slouched against the wall behind her, panting for air with her eyes closed as she tried to forget what had just happened.

The foggy lull that had kept her company throughout the night was gone, leaving an absence that was quickly replaced with the emotions and dilemmas that had plagued her the night before that the alcohol had been mercifully shoving down. Her thoughts clamored for attention, but her focus remained on the hundred of tiny demons that seemed to be beating hammers against the back of her eyes. She could feel the dragon’s consciousness hovering next to her own, the thick link of their bond like an anchor that was only put there to keep her from running away.

And . . . she’s sober.

“What . . .” her voice croaked, and the nymph paused to lick her lips and try again. “What the hell did you just do to me?”

I cleansed your head, It told her proudly. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it since I’ve only ever done it before for humans and your head can store a whole lot more alcohol than any I’ve ever come across. The faintest hint of satisfaction drifted to her across the bond, and if Twyla hadn’t felt too weak to move, she would have reached over and smacked it.

Don’t be mad; I did you a favor. Now you can go back to claiming to be better than the women around you.

Twyla’s eyes slitted open to peer at the wretched state of her fellow prisoners, the early morning light that trickled in from the window enough to make the little demons bang harder against her eyes. Why don’t you turn yourself into a block of ice and melt.

I'm glad you're feeling better. Try not to do anything stupid while I’m gone.

[Nymph and Dragon]

She watched the Elemental slither away, its legs melting into its body as it went so that it could flatten and slide beneath the door and out into the hall, then tried to turn her attention to ordering the thoughts in her head, a difficult task since she was having trouble remembering what had happened after she’d been dumped in this room.

“You okay over there, Twilight?” the brunette questioned. All five of the women were awake again, looking at her with various degrees of annoyance and concern.

“You sure are a loud one,” Lidann complained, tipping a bottle against her lips and then frowning when nothing came out.

“Shut up,” Twyla groaned. Their booming voices were driving the hammer-demons crazy. She sat still for a moment, taking deep breaths to clear her head.

“I’m thirsty,” Kathryn whined, making Twyla suddenly aware of the cotton farm that had been planted in her throat. She swallowed, but the motion of her head just made the demons angrier. As much pain as she was in, the nymph knew that she was more aware of her surroundings than she had been all night. A wisp of memory darted forward with the painful recollection of some kind of sing-a-long with herself animatedly leading the chorus, but she shook the memory away, wincing at the pain in her skull. She wasn’t sure which was worse, the aching daggers in her wrist or the pulsing fire in her skull.

“I hafta pee,” Kathryn announced. “D’you think they’ll let me out if I promish to be good?”

“Maybe we’ll get invisible visitors like Twilight,” Gianna grumbled jealously. “I wouldn’t mind seeing someone who isn’t wearing a dress or a mask.”

"If he was invisible, how could you see him?" the brunette chortled.

“Maybe our snakes will rescue us today.” Jylin’s tremulous voice was wistful.

Twyla scowled, forcing herself to sit up against the wall and closing her eyes to fight the wave of nausea that made her stomach twist. She could smell somebody’s vomit, and she hoped desperately that it wasn’t her own. Leaving her eyes shut, she untwined her scarf from around her arm and wrapped it around the lower half of her head.

“We don’t need any snakes,” she snapped, nearly fainting as the sound of her voice made the demons go even more feverishly hammer-happy.

Twyla, stop it! The Elemental’s voice was distracted and a jolt of pain went through her side, feeling uncomfortably like the slash of a knife across her ribs.

“What are you doing?” She yelled the question aloud because it made her head hurt more, a pain that she hoped translated a hundred times worse to the dragon. I didn’t ask you to rescue me! She could sense his presence a few paces to her left and down, but his position kept changing, seeming to move as if he were ducking or dodging. Twyla ground her teeth. He must have gone out of the room to “take care” of the bandits. The thought of the lizard running after her bandits like some kind of rescuing knight made the pain of her headache easier to bear as she stood up, leaning against the wall to keep the room from spinning.

“What’re you talking about, Twilight?” Gianna mumbled from below.

“Come on,” she ordered, forcing her eyes open and taking a staggering step away from the wall. She stumbled forward as a rounded object bashed hard against her—not her, the Elemental’s— shoulder, barely managing to catch her balance to avoid falling onto the flat form of Jylin.

Would you be careful, please? she snapped. I’ve had enough pain to last me the day, thank you!

The dragon’s distracted mind didn’t send her a response, so she blinked in a failing attempt to drive away the demons and stood over the women, hands on her hips as she glared down at the despicable lot. As far as she was concerned, drinking the wine had been their idea, so getting as drunk and stupid as they had made her was likewise their fault. She bent down to pick up an empty bottle, refusing to make herself actually touch one of the women as she prepared herself to wade into their midst to motivate them to action. She felt something hit her lower back, but she ignored it, eying them with a frown that promised retribution. Migraine or no, there was no way she would let some worthless viper come in and save her when she perfectly capable of rescuing herself.

[Nymph and Dragon]

The Elemental had an easy time dispatching the guards who prowled the hallways; it was an easy matter to sneak up behind people and clobber them over the head. It didn’t hurt if you could take the form of a seven-foot tall aqueous orc with chunks of ice for hands. He figured the odds were evened by the sharp throbbing that waxed and waned in his head and the ache of his right forearm.

The problem came when he stumbled onto a large group of them sitting together in one of the house’s many sitting rooms on the second floor. He detected their minds from the hallway and slid under the door as a stream of water, and though there were nine men standing along the edges of the room, they were already riled up and didn't notice his entry, weapons halfway drawn and voices raised as they argued about the women one floor up.

“No, you’ve really gone too far this time,” one of the men was saying in a low hiss. All nine of the men had black scarves around their necks that reminded him of Twyla’s favorite facial covering, though only one had the mask pulled over the lower part of his face, a meaty fellow who lounged on a divan in the corner beside the door. The divan was the only furniture in the room beside a coffee table in the center. At the other end of the room, standing with a wide swatch of empty carpet around him, was a man who stood with his arms crossed, his stance indicating that he was, in his opinion at least, the leader.

“I’m with him on this one, man,” another bandit said, jerking his head towards the one who had just spoken. “You said you was gonna kill her, and then you just let her go back to the others. What’s gonna stop ‘em from trying to escape again?”

“The hellcat is none of your concern,” the standing man said firmly. He was marked on both cheeks, on one side with a single scar that seemed to have healed badly many years ago and a set of parallel stripes on the other side that were fresh enough to have been inflicted within the last day or so.

“He’s right,” said the man on the divan. “What should be concerning you is that none of their husbands have so much as blinked in response to the ransom notes. The messengers tell me that even the ones that are within walking distance haven’t changed their habits in the slightest and made no effort whatsoever to even inquire after where the letters had come from. Don’t you think that’s a bit more troubling than the matter of that woman?”

“Noblemen are merely not as hasty or impatient as a gang of hired ruffians,” the standing man said, aiming for an unworried scowl and failing. His words set the other men to muttering, but the leader’s thoughts screamed of an entirely unrelated subject. He was vaguely worried about the hostage situation, but the only clear ideas running through his head were ones that involved himself, Twyla, and a disturbing lack of clothes.

The dragon stifled a burst of anger. She’d been using her Allure again, even after he’d told her how devastating it could be to the humans who viewed her face!

“So what do you suggest?” demanded a thin bandit with some kind of skin disease. “Do you wanna just let the women go with a pat on their bottoms and tell them to skip home like good little girls?”

[Nymph and Dragon]

“He can’t do that,” another answered with a sneer. “He let the one who’s seen his face live. Forget whether or not she’s got a rich hubby, there’s no way she can get out of here alive.”

“No one will touch her,” the leader snarled. The Elemental heard the silent except for me that he mentally tacked onto the end of it and growled under his breath at the insinuation.

“This is foolish,” snarled the man on the divan. He didn’t have to be standing for his authority to be obvious; every bandit in the room immediately turned to him when he spoke. “I’m giving you one more day, and then me and my men are leaving, going back to that street that you hired us 'ruffians' from.”

“If you leave before I get the ransoms, you know you won’t be paid.”

“That’s not concerning me so much right now,” the seated man answered patronizingly, “because from what you just told us, those husbands don’t give a bloody rat’s ass about their stinkin’ wives. You can go back to whatever it is you rich folk do to make money, because your kidnapping scheme's a complete failure.”

“The men will pay.” The firm tone of his voice contradicted the doubt that raged in his mind. He was asking himself whether or not he’d pay in their shoes. His own answer only made him more nervous. The dragon was getting the impression that the scheme actually hadn’t been his, but he didn’t want to view the man’s fantasies for any longer than was absolutely necessary. He’d have a hard enough time getting Twyla to forgive him for what he’d already done; the last thing he needed was for some slip in control to let an image like that slip from his memory into her mind.

“Here’s what we’ll do; a compromise.” The man shifted on his seat, sitting forward and rubbing his hands together. “I’m going to take a few of my men, and we’ll go up and check on the beauties. We’ll go in all nice-like and cut off a finger from each one. Then we’ll send the fingers out to the husbands with another letter—”

“Who’s going to write the letters if the women are missing fingers?”

Interrupting apparently didn’t fall under the category of acceptable behaviors from the bandits’ employer, because the look that the seated man gave the scarred “leader” would have sent a weaker man running in terror. Or, if not weaker, one whose mind was more focused on the situation at hand. Every serious thought was accompanied by an image if Twyla wearing only one of her all-too-familiar sneers or a mocking grin. Didn’t the man realize that the nymph never once bared her teeth out of real, mirthful amusement?

“Boys,” the seated man said, “go get me some fingers.”

It would have been an easy matter to simply take over the human minds and force them into submission, but the Elemental had found that it was usually more pleasant not to have to become so intimate with the inner thoughts of human men. He was—and believed that he would always remain—reluctant to use his ability to override another person’s consciousness, no matter how many times the nymph tried to convince him that humans weren’t deserving of the respect that he accorded them. Considering how easy it was to destroy the physical matter of another’s body, it only felt right to at least allow them to retain the sanctity of their minds.

As seven men pulled up their masks and moved towards the door, the Elemental quickly slid in front of it, expanding his translucent form upwards until he was once again had the shape of a seven-foot orc, though this time he’d given himself another set of ice-block-ended arms.

The bandits stopped moving, their eyes over the cloth of their masks widening with terror.

I don’t want to hurt you any more than I have to, he projected into their heads.

“It’s a demon! Kill it!”

[Nymph and Dragon]

Swords, maces, and crossbows were out before he could deliver an ultimatum. A man on his left sliced his blade across the Elemental’s stomach, but he simply morphed himself around the blade, tightening a portion of his middle into a block of ice to ensnare the blade and wrench the weapon out of the man’s hands. He could only do that as long as he was aware of the hit that was coming, a requirement that rarely proved to be an inhibition since most humans mentally screamed their intentions whenever they were in combative situations. He wouldn't pry into their heads, but he wasn’t going to ignore a warning if they were uncontrolled enough to call one out. The disarmed man stepped back and none rushed forward to take his place, eyes stuck on the hilt that jutted out of his abdomen.

As I was saying, I don’t want to— He lurched involuntarily forward, his vision blurry and his head suddenly spinning as Twyla’s headache suddenly doubled in intensity. What was that fool nymph doing?

Twyla, stop it!

The men seized on his falter, jumping forward with warcries and swinging their weapons with terrified zeal. He heard a man plan to slice at his arm and moved the appendage to avoid it, but he didn’t hear the dagger-bearer’s plan until after he felt the blade nick across the area where his ribs would have been, making a streak of red swirl into the clear fluid of his torso.

What are you doing? I didn’t ask you to rescue me! He could tell from a change in timbre that she’d spoken the first part of that rejoinder out loud, but he was concentrating too hard on hearing the men in the room to bother with answering her. A fast swing caught two bandits across their heads, their mental shouts fading to silence almost instantly, but the five left closed in around him, forcing him to step away from the door and towards the center of the room. A mace caught him on the shoulder from behind and he stumbled forward with a grunt, turning his iced middle back to liquid so that he could hit the coffee table without breaking it, a needless gesture since the mace-man’s next swing took a chunk out of the polished wood as he turned into a dog-sized version of his solid dragon form and pounced with outstretched claws on the man with the daggers.

Would you be careful, please? Twyla’s voice shrieked into his mind, I’ve had enough pain to last me the day, thank you!

His draconic torso was long enough to wrap completely around the upper body of a man with a crossbow, and he squeezed just hard enough to keep the man’s ribs from expanding until his thoughts faded into unconsciousness, twining his equally long tail around the head of a swordsman and pulling the man into the path of the remaining archer, who dropped his crossbow and tried unsuccessfully to get out of the blinded and flailing bandit’s way. The one he was wrapped around collapsed before he could get clear and he landed on his back with the man on top of him, then quickly morphed around his body to get to his feet. He waited until the colliders had fallen in a heap before converting himself back to his aqueous orc, smacking each one’s head with an icy fist before turning to the last man standing. It was the thin fellow who’d spoken earlier, his skin disease was evident even with the mask on. He stood empty-handed, visibly trembling as he gaped up at the Elemental. His thoughts were a screeching mantra of prayers, devoid of the will to even attempt to lift a weapon against the monster before him. The Elemental turned to the two men who hadn’t moved, and the thin bandit took the motion as a sign of imminent death and fainted.

Every man on the floor was alive, but from what he could tell of the darkness in their skulls he had a good while before any of them would awake. The sudden silence was almost intimidating as he stretched himself back into the eight-foot form of a green dragon, keeping his gaze on the seated leader. The other was too obsessed with Twyla to pose as much of a threat to her, considering that even after the skirmish his thoughts were still peppered with flashes of the nymph. He had backed up and stood with his back against the wall, his distracted thoughts fearful without ever reaching panic.

The seated leader was smiling, his thoughts calm and introverted. He was silently reciting some kind of death prayer, but there was even a touch of eagerness to lighten the mournful words. The dragon was surprised. Did the man want to die?

Not to be rude, he projected to both, but I’m going to need some information, and quickly. We can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way. The minds were too blank with astonishment at the intrusion to answer, so he took their silences as opting for the former.

He turned his head to look at the standing man, who stared back with a distractedly terrified grimace. First things first. Why again is there a group of drunk women in the attic?

[Nymph and Dragon]

“Twilight, I’m tired.”

“I want some water.”

“I shtill hafta pee.”

The nymph gritted her teeth and clenched her left hand into a tight fist that she forced herself not to swing at the closest head. It was hard enough just to walk with the blasted demons without having to put up with the ceaseless whining and complaining that came from the women. They were halfway down the hall on the second floor and Twyla was already peeved by the unconscious bandits that they had to keep stepping over. She made sure to give each one a vicious kick as she passed, but the abuse felt trivial when she remembered that it had been that confounded snake that’d gotten to actually knock them out.

“Shut up and come on,” she snapped over her shoulder, wincing at the movement. She kept her right elbow resting against the wall, sliding it along to keep her balance as she stepped forward. She wasn’t even moving quickly and the drunks were still having trouble keeping up! “And my name is Twyla.”

“That sure is purdy,” Lidann said with a smile, tripping over the carpet and falling onto her face with a surprised grunt.

“Keep it down, idiots,” she ordered, not bothering to turn around. She’d probably lost one or two along the way, but she wasn’t in the mood to check. She couldn’t even figure out what had made her bring them in the first place. Escape would have been at least nominally easier if she didn’t have these miserable wretches to slow her down. And if Jylin brought up water one more time . . .

“Where are we going?” the brunette’s voice was on the edge of tears.

“I said, shut up.”

“You’re so mean.”

“You got that right, you sniveling ingrate. I’m getting you out of this place.” She turned the corner and caught sight of the banister leading down to the first floor. Her smile at the stairway turned into a grimace as she glimpsed the boot of yet another unconscious man on the stairs. “Don’t trip on the way down; I don’t want you attracting attention to us.”

“But all the men we’ve seen are dead,” Gianna protested sleepily.

“Don’t I wish,” Twyla muttered. She knew the Elemental didn’t have the guts to kill them off. It’d probably even used physical force to render them so rather than just fiddling with their brains. Stupid snake and his stupid morals. . .

Limping down the stairs was much louder and took far longer than Twyla wanted, but the six were finally again at ground level, and this time there was no masked escort hovering behind their shoulders. She led them down the halls, almost surprised that she remembered the way. The kitchen door was still open and bright morning sunlight filtered in, hurting the nymph’s eyes. She stepped quickly past that doorway and shuffled on, trying to keep her breathing steady so that the hammers in her head would stop trying to pound out her eyeballs.

“Oh, look, the drawing room.”

“We had such lovely tea yesterday.”

“Mmhmm, we should definitely do it again sometime.”

Twyla spun around and grimaced as her vision went blurry, her mouth dropping open when she saw that the women as a unit were staggering in through a doorway that she'd passed, smiling pleasantly as they lurched into the room. Twyla stalked inafter them, staring with disbelief as the bedraggled women threw themselves onto the couches around the coffee table, giggling and chatting as if they had nothing more to worry about than what kind of tea they wanted to drink.

“I honestly cannot believe how absolutely moronic you are,” she exploded, picking her elbow off the wall so that she could slam it against the doorway to emphasize her point. The impact turned her wrist’s aching into a pulsing burn, but she ignored the pain and stepped into the room, hands slightly outstretched to keep her balance. “Considering all the crap that went on in this room and all the times your very lives were threatened in here, how can you be so stupid as to want to stay? This kind of behavior just supports my claim that human females are just like sheep; big, furry, stupid sheep without the smidgen of intelligence needed to preserve your own lives. That’s why men treat you like possessions to be bartered and traded, because you are all too dumb to do anything but let them because you don’t have the self-conservation skills of a newborn lamb!”

Five faces were turned towards her, each one giving her an equally mild smile.

“Baa?”

[Nymph and Dragon]

Anger made Twyla’s vision too blurry to see who’d uttered it, but all five broke into gales of laughter that threatened to shatter the nymph’s sanity.

“You want to sit here and rot in your own filth? That’s fine.” She turned on her heel, stumbling before she could catch herself, and shuffled back to the hallway, muttering insults under her breath. The fool women could stay there until they sobered, and then the headaches they would undoubtedly have would make them regret being such hideously rude dimwits in the first place. They'd remember all that she'd done for them and how completely useless they'd been in helping her to help them escape.

She was halfway across the foyer before she paused, struck by a flash of inspiration. The Elemental may have taken care of her captors before she’d had the chance to, but there was more than one way that she could avenge herself on her enemies. Turning around, she hobbled back to the drawing room and waited in the doorway until the laughin subsided and the women were groggily looking at her.

She turned a sweet smile onto the vacant-faced brunette, who had risen from her seat to stare at a scenery painting on the wall beside the doorway. “You don’t mind if I set your house on fire, do you?”

The woman blinked and frowned slowly. “I think I do . . . but why would you do that?”

Twyla let the smile slide off her face. “You know perfectly well why, you lying turncoat.”

The woman scratched at an ear, looking confused. “What are you talking about?”

Twyla turned away from her and looked among the others for the one with the most alert-looking eyes. “Go get that lamp and bring it to me,” she ordered Kathryn, pointing to an oil lantern with a large base that was sitting on the mantle beneath the sword. She wasn't feeling up to a walk across the room.

The brunette frowned. “I think I should go find my husband.”

“Yeah, you go and do that, numbskull,” Twyla muttered, watching Kathryn’s gradual venture and approach. When the thin girl was near enough, Twyla snatched the container out of her hands and quickly unscrewed the lid.

“You and the rest of your brainless brood may want to step outside,” she said with a smirk. “It’s about to get hot in here.”

[Nymph and Dragon]

“It was her idea, I swear! I have a gambling problem; we’ve been in debt for a couple of years, but I was getting out on my own. We’ve been living a little on the conservative side, but we were going to make it just fine. They she tells me that she’s going to go to my father about my problem if I don’t start making enough money to buy her things, and she has this crazy plan for kidnapping these women and . . .”

The standing man was now on his knees, sweat pouring down his face as he spilled his heart out to the dragon. The Elemental was trying to give the man the attention his confession deserved, but he kept getting distracted by the thoughts that were coming from the seated bandit. The man had stopped saying the death prayer, and with the hope of survival his mind was now subconsciously screaming threats and malevolent promises.

“. . . were never going to hurt them. I’ve played cards with some of their husbands, I know they can spare a little gold . . .”

Gonna stick you like a pig.

“. . . really thought they’d just send over the money for their wives and that the whole thing would be over before nightfall; I’m only dressed the way they are because she wanted us to participate, like this was some kind of play or something . . .”

Gonna kill you, you freaking’ monster.

“ . . . didn’t invite that one! I still don’t even know who the hell she is, but I swear, I would never hurt her now because I love her more and she as good as told me that she loves me and I was thinking that once I had the gold we could . . .”

I’m going to stand up and stab you with this dagger that’s in my belt.

“. . . not even angry that she scratched me because I’m sure I can come up with a good lie for it and I promise I never meant any harm. This was all just a big mistake . . .”

You have your back to me and the dagger’s in my hand and I’m jumping forward—

The Elemental turned his body to water as the bandit leaped, molding his side around the metal as the knife slid into him. He waited until the man was elbow-deep in his aqueous side, then he turned to ice around the man’s arm, his solid neck cracking like a rumbling storm cloud as he snaked his head around to look at him. The bandit stared at him with an open mouth and bulging eyes, his thoughts screaming even louder of fear and panic.

Did you decide that you wanted the hard way after all? He asked softly, ignoring the blubbering of the scarred man behind him. The one trapped in his side subconsciously shouted resistance. With a sigh the dragon steeled his nerves and forced his way into the bandit’s mind.

[Nymph and Dragon]

Twyla!

The nymph yelped aloud and jumped back like a child caught red-handed in a cookie jar, quickly shutting her eyes so that the dragon wouldn’t be able to see what she was doing through them. Her hands were tightly clenched around a tinder and flint, the only fire-starting tools that the drunken wives had been able to find.

What do you want? She put more annoyance into the thought than she was actually feeling to hide the frantic beating of her heart.

The lead bandit, the one you scratched across the face; he’s Sora’s husband!

Who the crap is “Sora?”

It’s . . . her. The image of the brown-haired hostess floated into her mind, matching the slack visage of the woman who was now slouching against the hallway wall. She had left the room before Twyla had sent the rest off after more lamps and fire-starting material, then wandered back in and rejoined the flock, all of whom were now sitting in the hall, making animal noises and laughing at each other.

Oh, her? I knew that. She held her breath, hoping that was all it’d wanted to tell her.

You knew that?

Twyla didn’t like the note of dubious incredulity in his voice. I’m not stupid, viper. I got to peek under the mask a couple of times, and his picture’s hanging in the hallway. And she’s the only one who could have warned the bandits when we tried to escape.

It would have been nice of you to tell me that.

Hey, I had to work for that information. You would’ve had to promise me at least a year of silence in return for it.

His presence in her mind suddenly grew sharper. What are you doing?

Nothing. Her reply was rushed, and she followed it by quickly sending images of naked Sirens from her memories across their link, pictures that usually made him prudishly back off from her mind. This time the distraction didn’t work.

Stop that. What are you doing?

None of your business, she retorted. Get out of my head and leave me alone!

There was a pause in which its presence did retreat a little and Twyla almost breathed a sigh of relief. Then the mistrusting worry brought him scurrying back.

I’m coming down there.

“Blast!” The Elemental’s physical presence was getting nearer. Twyla opened her eyes and quickly struck flint and tinder together, haste making her fingers clumsy so that it took three tries before she was able to get a spark to hit the trail of oil that ended in front of where she sat in the doorway.

The spark flared to life, and she watched with a triumphant smile as the blaze raced along the path of oil that she’d made on the carpet, zipping forward until it reached the damp cushions of the couches, where it then burst into a bright and cheerful bonfire that rapidly spread across the entire pile that she had made of all the tables and chairs that she and her drunken crew had been able to push together. Twyla sat back on her heels and gazed with admiration at her work, wishing there was someone of acknowledgeable intelligence whom she could appreciate the moment with.

[Nymph and Dragon]

A cold tendril wrapped around her waist and jerked her backwards into the hallway, lifting her to her feet and setting her roughly against the wall. Dizzy from the rush of blood out of her head, she didn’t even have time to object before an aqueous figure rushed past her into the burning room.

Why are you so childish?

The anger in its voice made her stomp forward, and she looked into the room in time to see a giant blanket of water come crashing down over the furniture pile that she had worked so hard to assemble. She felt a flash of fiery pain across her face and the front of her torso, and then the water that had smothered her beautiful fire was coalescing in front of her into a humanoid form that insolently mirrored her hands-on-hips stance. Smoke drifted in lazy swirls near the ceiling and the smell of charred wood filled her nose. Where was she going to get more oil? The dragon’s anger simmered just on the edge of her consciousness, but she made no effort to keep her own fury from flooding across the bond.

“You had no right to do that to my fire,” she declared hotly.

You didn’t have the right to set the house on fire in the first place. There's a Militia patrol coming this way, and considering that you've just committed vandal and attempted murder, I think it's time that we left.

“Who are you to tell me-"

Twyla, it said, voice ripe with patronizing patience, shut up.

She blinked, her mouth opening and then shutting beneath her veil.

“You’re just like a woman, you know that?" she spat. "You can’t take responsibility for your own actions and you always try to put the blame on someone, anyone else, so long as you don’t have to be held accountable!”

The Elemental didn’t answer, but her mind was suddenly filled with an image of herself slouched against a wall, balancing a bottle on her stomach and staring dully at another in her hand. Her cheeks went hot beneath her scarf, but no matter how hard she tried to push it away the image stayed fixed in her thoughts. Twyla uttered an indignant squeak and glared furiously at the dragon. So much for his aversion to mind-control!

The Elemental shook its watery head in frustration. It was definitely a mistake to leave you alone.

Twyla couldn't believe that it was still arguing with her, but the curtness of its voice made her think that this was a battle that she might not be able to win.

“Well," she snapped haughtily, "As long as you can admit that you were wrong.” She sniffed haughtily and turned away from the Elemental, striding off down the hall without a backwards glance. Whether or not there was a patrol coming, she had already decided that it was time to depart. She was going to get herself out of the house, whether or not the drunk women and the bossy Elemental followed.

When she reached the foyer she briefly wondered whether there were more bandits outside, waiting to shoot anyone who exited without permission, but she ignored the thought and pulled open the front door, cringing against the brightness of the sun as she stepped onto the blood-stained porch. If there were more murderous bandits, the Elemental could do its job and take care of them for her.

He had to be good for something.

[Nymph and Dragon]

______-______-______-_____

Twyla stood beneath the eaves of a building and watched as members of the Militia bustled in and out through the front door of the large house across the street, one hand shadowing her eyes to save them from the sun's burning light. Every militiaman coming out escorted a dark-clothed figure, all of whom were being forcibly loaded into a large, box-like wagon whose sides were more iron bar than they were wood.

A few feet away from the front porch, the head of the Militia patrol was standing with a group of four young couples, listening avidly to a busty blonde who was tearfully describing some harrowing event or other in a muted voice. A tall, thin man had an arm protectively around her shoulders, and Twyla snickered. The husbands had come running when they’d received note that the guards had rescued their wives, and they’d all greeted their spouses with adoring and appropriately relieved displays of affection. The Elemental had refused to tell her whether or not any of them actually meant what they said, and Twyla had decided not to press the question too far.

Twyla looked up in time to see the only dark-skinned woman in the group suddenly double over and retch noisily onto the ground in front of her feet. Kathryn's hand flew to her mouth and she jerked out of her husband's hold to spin and copy Gianna. The nymph grimaced vindictively as the other two exhibited similar symptoms of wine-induced nausea, leaving their confused husbands to pat their shoulders and give each other confused looks. It served them right. She turned to watch the last of the Militia file out of the house, pushing the last bandit into the cart before it was slammed shut and locked.

“There were only sixteen,” she commented scornfully as the full wagon rumbled away.

Eighteen, if you count Sora’s husband and the bandits’ leader.

“Where are they? I hope you killed them.”

I didn’t. They’re being questioned inside.

She scowled. “What about the brunette?”

Sora?

“Whatever. Where is she?”

She’s inside too. The Lord General knows about the conspiracy.

Twyla snorted. “Did you leave an anonymous tip?”

The Elemental’s eyes flashed with amusement. Direct deposit. It actually registered more as a flash of inspiration when she saw his portrait, but the man seemed more than willing to confess anyway, so it all amounts to the same thing.

“And what is that?”

A happy ending, he said with facetious solemnity.

The nymph rolled her eyes. “The random bandits get locked away for obeying a stupid man's orders, a bunch of stupid young women with a newfound penchant for wine are reunited with their shallow and equally stupid husbands, and the only intelligent entity involved is injured and still stuck with the stupid and obnoxious presence of a talking serpent. Happy ending, my ass.” She turned and set off down the street.

Where are you going?

“None of your business."

His pointed silence made Twyla uncomfortable, but she waited for a few seconds before continuing. "What are you, my keeper? I'm going to find someplace to swim, and then I'm going back to work, if that's okay with you. I took all that trouble to sneak into their dumb club and didn’t find out anything except that they, like all humans, are idiots, which I already knew. So I’m going to find a bar and get some real research done.”

And here I thought you'd learned a lesson from your last little alcoholic episode.

Twyla missed a step and stumbled to catch her balance, straightening with an arrogant flick of her hair. She studiously ignored him and continued her nonchalant glide down the street. The Elemental looked back to the group of four couples, feeling a touch of empathy for the ones who felt subconscious and well-hidden disappointment at their brides' safe return. Such were the risks of every permanent partnership, be it voluntary or not. He looked down the street after the blue-gowned figure of the nymph, who was muttering vulgarities under her breath as she walked away. A few paces ahead of her a man's mind start yelling about how he would take the approaching "young woman" into the alley behind him for "a good time."

The Elemental sighed. He already knew that trying to warn her would just make her more stubborn about walking on. He would teach her how to behave, even if he had to endure all the same injuries she recieved to get the lesson across. He flexed his claws and used her eyes to gauge the distance between the nymph and the waiting assailant. Aside from the need for instruction, her snooty refusal to communicate had been getting on his nerves. Two could play that game.

Three.

A flash of annoyance floated across the bond. What?

Two.

What the hell are you counting?

One.

The nymph's petrified shriek came just as he sent a zero flying into her head.

"SNAKE!"

He watched through her eyes as the man grabbed her shoulders and shoved her backwards into the alley, following with a rotten-toothed leer and reaching for the neckline of her dress. The Elemental darted forward then, melting into an aqueous version of his draconic form as he sped across the cobbles.

A keeper, he repeated to himself as he snaked around the corner with his fangs bared. Maybe that's exactly what I am.















Spoils: None.

[Massacre]

Let me start off with saying, wow. This is quite long but despite that and reading it on a computer screen, I thought it was very well done. I'll include things you did well and things you can improve upon. Here goes--


STORY - Overall, the story was a common theme (then again, what isn't?) and I like the twist you put on it, that the woman was actually involved is well, that really got me at the end.

Continuity 7/10 ~ I'm not sure how Twyla and the Dragon got to Knife's Edge but that didn't deter me from the story very much. I thought that the reason why she was actually at the small gathering could have been included somewhere in the thread, but that could be revealed in a sequel. For the most part, you left off very nicely into what could be another Salvaran adventure.

Setting 7/10 ~ I felt you did this well, nice descriptions for the most part. The only thing was that I didn't have a real sense of how big or small the rooms really were except your "forty paces" description. Also, when you're in Salvar it's usually wise to make mention of the snow, those noblewomen probably would try and stay on the deck if it was snowy out. Nice job overall though.

Pacing 7/10 ~ I thought this was done very well. I read straight through except when I needed to get up from the computer for something else, it read like a novel would most of the time, some of the character switching wasn't well marked though - I'll address that in clarity.

CHARACTER

Dialogue 7/10 ~ Let me say this - dialogue seems to be one of your strong points. Twyla's harsh words stayed consistent and she displayed her disgust well, the dragon's (does he have a name, I can't seem to recall one) cool and collective patience was shown through his dialogue. Some of the bandit things seemed like the usual things you hear from a bandit, but then again, bandits aren't the most creative and well versed of speakers. There are some complaints about the way it was written that will be addressed in the writing style area of the judging.

Action 8/10 ~ Very well done, I found myself understanding everything that went on, the bandits pushing the women around, the dragon's actions, everything.

Persona 6/10 ~ While you displayed Twyla's emotions very well, I think that the women were a bit generic, you used a description to have a go at them all a couple times and that seemed a bit boring - I found myself skimming through that. Overall though, Twyla's misanthropy, the dragon's cool, collective self, and the whole crew were pretty well done.

WRITING STYLE

Mechanics 6/10 ~ There were occasional spelling errors and one instance were you had the BB code showing because you forgot your slash on the second part to end it. For the most part you did fine on spelling. There were a few grammar errors here and there and I remember thinking that some of the sentences could be re-worded or put together to flow better.

Technique 6/10 ~ Most of your sentences flowed well, some rhymed and that really kept the reading smooth. No real complaints except the following example that applies to both mechanics and technique.

"It’d been a while since Twyla had had to weasel her way out of a dilemma, and she’d never had to charm her way out of a life-and-death situation before..." [Post 16]

You do this a lot, using those dashes where they're unnecessary.

"...out of a life and death situation..." looks much cleaner and is technically proper. If you're unsure about this from now on, consult someone (I'd be happy to look over posts or point more of these out) or just don't use the dashes at all. Like a comma, "When in doubt, leave it out."

Clarity 6/10 ~ Like mentioned in setting, you did it well for the most part but a few descriptions were lacking or on occasion, a bit too much.

Wild Card 7/10 ~ I thought it was a good read despite the time it took to to do! I wish I had read this without having to look closer at it. Maybe some day when I'm not judging it I'll take another look. Very solid effort overall. Nice job.

The total is: 70/100

Nymph and Dragon earns 1377 EXP and 462 GP

Congratulations!

[Cyrus the virus]

EXP and gold added!