Sequestered ((Solo))

[DarkDelights]

Part 2

The Duchy of Aeric, 42 Miles South-East of Stonevale

The glittering waves breached on the wave breakers in the main harbour of the Duchy of Aeric. Several Galleys bobbed lazily, anchored further out to sea, their crews ready to do battle with pirates at the sound of a bell. Secretly, they all hoped it would be another lazy day in the bustling port town.

Tiers of roads ran parallel to the waterfront, and wagons clattered and horses clopped as merchants purchased and sold wares at the harbour and carted them to their shops or stalls in the market. Fishwives and gentlemen exchanged pleasantries in passing, and whispered in hushed gossip when a stranger disembarking one of the many ferries walked the street. The Dutchy's geographical importance to greater Scara Brae afforded it a great degree of prosperity and it was fast becoming a bustling hub with more and more ships chartering courses to Aeric and back directly than ever before. It was exactly those transitory properties of the region that had brought the Witch to Aeric in the first place.

The sun had just crested the Eastern side of the island, and filtered rays shone through the muslin drapes of the hotel room facing the bay. The Siren's Song Inn on Walleye St. was taller than it was wide, nearly five stories, but only a pair of narrow glass windows framing a bright blue door with a faded wooden sign atop it as a store front. The Witch had taken the attic room on the fifth floor that had a bay window hanging over the busy street below, and a private watercloset.

A lush jungle of black eyelashes parted, and watery emerald irises widened as her pupils contracted to ward off the morning sun.

There came a metallic “click” as a key slid into the lock in the room door at the summit of the Siren's Song. The Woman in Black sat up from her white sheets and stretched as tumblers slipped into alignment and the door opened a crack.

“Good morning Miss, I'm starting my cleaning rounds. The day's getting away from you, you know. I've already put away breakfast, but I saved you a plate,” a squat woman in a powder-pink smock and with a mop of brown and grey hair said cheerfully with a heavy accent. Althea Perkins was the sole proprietor, executive chef, bartender, and friendly face of the Siren. The matron prided herself on the individual attention she provided her guests, which the Witch surmised, included a wake-up call at sun-up. The elderly innkeeper methodically began to place cleaning supplies at the mouth of the room, then did a double take and screamed, staring at the Witch in disbelief, her hands covering her mouth.

The Woman in Black stared back, not quite understanding.

“Your face!” Althea began, her hands parting from her mouth, exposing an exaggerated look astonishment. “I've had hundreds of guests in my day, but I've never had one wake-up looking like they've put in a full morning of routine! My goodness, you're a beauty. Could you tell Auntie Althy your secret dear?” she concluded with a chuckle.

The Witch shrugged, taking in for the first time, that she was fully dressed, face highlighted and contoured, and her raven hair fell in a tumble over her left eye like a starlet.

“A pagan blood sacrifice to a Cenobite Hell-Dutchess, involving a steel straight razor,” she mumbled offhandedly, as she stepped out of bed already clad in fine, low-cut stiletto boots. The innkeeper's jaw slackened at the Witch's half-joke. The Woman in Black picked some sleep out of the corner of her eye with her manicured pinky fingernail that was painted the colour of the night sky. She looked at the elderly woman and smiled fakely. “I woke up early and went for a run, then I went back to sleep for a bit,” she lied.

The innkeeper eyed her heeled boots skeptically, and her brown eyes followed vertically as her patron rose from the crisp white bed. Her legs were bare from calf to thigh, where they met the neat, black hem of a pencil skirt. The curve of her hips were accentuated greatly by the constrictive boning of a tightly laced black corset, made from some cheap, silky material. By some miracle of fashion, with the blessing of illusionary magic, she managed to remain stuffed into the garment that came to an abrupt end in the middle of her chest. An obsidian cameo hung low on a thin steel chain, resting on her cleavage, and her shoulders and collarbones were bare. The tattoos that covered her like a second skin were nowhere to be seen, save for the book and chains on her throat that she wore unaccentuated and openly, as she envisioned when she beseeched the blessing the evening prior. Her one visible gleaming emerald orb was framed in a wave of angular inky liner that contrasted darkly with her porcelain skin, and her lips were as her nails, midnight black.

“You went for a run, dressed like that,” Althea reiterated flatly.

“Yes, I went for a run, dressed like this. My, you're awefully inquisitive for a person inexplicably standing in my bedroom first thing in the morning. ...Did you say something about breakfast?”