Fast Forward to Something Like a Feeling

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Closed to Philomel / Celandine

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“It’s been a while, Raine.”

The girl turned, looking around quizzically and scratching her milky cheek with a single finger as she almost walked past Shinsou’s table. Her blue eyes flitted down and left to where the Telgradian was seated, and travelled up his thin face to meet his golden eyes. A smile crossed both of their faces as his former bodyguard, and one of the Gilded Quint’s former numbers, finally recognised him in the dim light.

“Oh, Shinsou!” Raine gasped, her trimmed fingernails brushing a crop of red hair behind her ear. The woman took a seat in a vacant chair opposite, pressing her back down into it neatly. “I’ve not seen you in ages! Since, uh…”

“Yeah, since after Radasanth. I know.” The Telgradian nodded sheepishly. Although it was very much a part of the past now, their last meeting had come at a time immediately after the failed Brotherhood siege of Radasanth. She had protected him from the fallout, for which he was grateful, but it was a taboo subject. At best, in public, the whole affair was an event that everyone currently seated in the Gilded Lily brothel, up to and including Shinsou Vaan Osiris, did not need reminding of.

There was a moment’s pause before Shinsou spoke up again, a warm tone to his voice. “So, how have you been? Has Philomel got you working long hours again?”

Raine shrugged and sat back in her chair. “Nah. I’m an independent security contractor now, if you’d believe it. I still come here though. In fact, most of my business flows through here. What about you?”

The pair were seated in a small alcove off the main corridor in Philomel’s main Lily brothel in Radasanth. All sorts of clientele walked in and out of this dim-lit, but otherwise clean and well kept establishment, so it was in Shinsou’s interest to keep his affairs somewhat discreet, lest an interested party pick up on his loose lips. He eyed a few patrons as they got their drinks, and their girls, conduct whatever business they had to, and left without a fuss.

“Well, it got a bit messy after you-know-what.“ Shinsou watched one guy walk past, his right arm full of mugs of ale and his left full of Lily whore. “Turns out I’m a bit of a trouble magnet when it comes to picking sub-ordinates. Someone who was working for me got ideas above his station and tried to bump us off the map.” He continued, almost chuckling at his pathetically abridged appraisal of the last eight months of hell with Arius Mephisto. If only it had all been that simple.

“I heard, yeah.” Said Raine, as she took a sip of her own drink. “You took care of it though, right?”

Shinsou set his half-emptied drink down on the table, letting the warm memories of Storm Veritas flash frying the bastard with all of his electrical fury flow back through his mind. “Eventually, we caught up to him, yeah. Whitevale’s being rebuilt at the moment, and I’m taking a well-earned rest.”

“Rebuilt? Gods…” Rained shifted, several strands of ginger hair falling out from her hair pin and across her face. “Well, if things were that bad, you definitely need a break. Are you here to see Philomel?”

“Yeah, she-“ Shinsou caught himself, and dropped his voice into a whisper. “She asked me to come over. I was going to visit soon anyway, being honest.”

Raine crossed her arms on the table and leaned forward. “You’re still sweet on her?”

Shin waved her off with a smile. “We’re not talking about that here. I’ve got a few things I want to discuss with her. If she’s got any time spare after that, then- well, it’s none of your concern.”

The woman’s eyes flashed and a smile widened with mirth as she nodded and held her hands up. “Alright, alright. Just leave enough for the rest of her clients is all I’m saying!”

The Telgradian leaned forward in kind and pointed a finger at her, smiling. “You’re unbelievable.”

She grinned and nodded as she rose from the table, having spotted someone she had presumably been waiting for. “Not the first time you’ve said that to me, eh?”

Shinsou, sipping from his mug, held his gaze tightly on her round buttocks as she swayed off into he reaches of the Lily’s den.

Nope, and I wasn’t wrong then, either.

This time she was going to do it right.

This time was going to be different.

This time ... She would be a mother.

Philomel sat in an upstairs room of the Reborn Tiger, which had been constructed upon the old ashes of the Hidden Tiger - the brothel her story had begun from, and that she had burnt down. Now it was a refuge, public house and high class courtesan establishment alike, where any woman of Corone could run to and claim sanctuary. It was well known that once there it was as holy and formidable as the most divine place. The woman was protected and it was only a truly madman who would try to assail the door.

With her hooves folded under her she lounged on the couch, the small form of her son beside her. He was asleep, curled into the warmth of her fur and with his flesh covered by a velvet blanket. Freely more her breasts hung, with only a beaded poncho to cover her top half. Exhausted from the long nights she tried not to fall asleep while Aderyn snuggled her like any faun would, and drank deep from the mug of bitter, hot, brown liquid she had grown so accustomed to.

"Ugh," she moaned, leaning her head on her hand. "Why?"

The door suddenly opened. In bounded the little russet red and vulpine form of her beloved heart's partner - the earth spirit Veridian. With a swish of his brush tail he leapt up onto the couch beside her and curled in around the babe. Making a grumpy face she stared at him as he took his own position of guard and comfort and was about to retort when a second face appeared at the door of the fine, small room.

"Ah mistress Matriarch," spoke the young dwarf, a member of the Quintet, who were Philomel's personal guard. She sounded strangely nervous, and her hand was in the handle still, declaring her as the actual culprit for opening it.

"Mmm?" The faun grunted, clearly not enamoured with being interrupted. She chugged back more coffee. "What? I thought I did I wasn't too be disturbed."

"You did," Veridian said quietly with a wicked grin, his eyes though already closed.

"I did?" She frowned at him, the shadows rich beneath her eyes. "Then why did you come in here?"

"Uh, mistress ..." The dwarf said uneasily.

"Because it's funny," the fox replied, laying his head by the baby's. "I find it funny."

"It's not funny annoying me," snapped the new mother. "Not funny. Not even if it's you. I-"

"Mistress!" came the yelp. Aderyn whimpered in his sleep, the noise starting to get to him.

"Ugh what?" Philomel glared at the dwarf as she slid a hand into her son's hair and began to stroke it to settle him. "What?"

"I'm sorry mistress, but - I needed to interrupt you."

"Why? What Drys-good reason would you have to interrupt his nap time?"

The warrior smiled awkwardly. "Well ... He's here Matriarch."

"He's here?" Philomel nodded to her side where the two men in her life lay curled. "Yes they are here."

"No .... Mistress ... him."

Confusion. "Him? Aderyn?"

"No, miss," a huff.

"Vaeron?"

"No, miss! It's -"

"But then Vaeron said he was staying up north Inn the fortress. He's got much to keep him busy up there. Why would he -"

"It's the Osiris ma'am!" The dwarf at last shouted, short on patience. The noise filled the room. Beneath Philomel's hang the small child began to stir and let out a soft moan that came before a cry.

"Mmhh mmmhh maaaaa!"

"Ugh," Philomel growled, rolling her eyes and putting down her coffee as full crying enshewed. Scooping up the baby she tucked him against her and began bouncing him, as Veridian at up, his golden eyes opening apparently just as disappointed that snuggle time was over.

"Send him in," the faun said with a sigh. "But tell him he's going to have to deal with the stink of poo."