“Why were you so late?” Faenya complained. The private bathing hall she had hired in the Great Gymnasium was already half-full of aromatic steam.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Shesayne replied airily, warm water lapped around her bare feet. The steam was invigorating. “Just ran into a couple of idiots, but Fia was here just about put the fear of the Abyss back into the fuckers, right Fia?”
The water at the large, heated central pool bubbled and Fia surfaced with a splash of near boiling water. She settled around the edge of the pool, arms crossed on the ledge, staring down at Shesayne and Faenya relaxing on a rocky outcrop bathed by the warm, fragrant tides that flowed into the chamber. Although the upper basin was normally only used to produce therapeutic steam, Fia found its burning waters more than congenial. They were positively sublime – definitely relaxing enough to forget about the day’s unpleasantness.
“They didn’t know what they had coming to them,” Fia boasted.
Faenya sat up on the smooth rock, carved in imitation of a sea-side shoal. “Come down here, I want to have a proper look at you.” Fia had undressed quickly and gratefully thrown herself into the bubbling pool the moment she had arrived at the Great Gymnasium. Faenya sympathised. It was bitterly cold outside.
Gingerly, Fia slipped out of the high pool, her body steaming, and stepped down the pumice-stone spiral staircase onto the shoal. She carefully sat down, still a little self-conscious, by Faenya’s side. Shesayne looked on, lying on her belly, kicking her feet aimlessly in the air.
Faenya chuckled to herself as she contemplated Fia. Not exactly her type, Shesayne was right about that, but the girl certainly had presence. Nice, hard abdominal muscles gave way to an enchanting thatch of rich copper and bronze curls and then long, smooth thighs. “Are you a runner?” Faenya inquired.
Fia shook her head.
“Well, we should get you into athletics, you’d make a killing. And you're by far the cutest fire mage I’ve ever seen.”
Shesayne interjected, knowing Fia’s temper, “Don’t patronise her, Fen, she’s liable to burn you!”
Fia smiled. She enjoyed the light banter between Shesayne and Faenya. It seemed unforced and naturally friendly. “Did that hurt?” Fia asked, pointing to the amethyst embedded in Faenya’s navel.
“A little…don’t you have any?”
“No…”
“That’s an absolute shame, look,” Faenya insisted, she traced a violet-painted fingernail over Fia’s nipple. It began to stiffen almost immediately – a plump, sweet berry, “you have gorgeous breasts. I really love a boyish torso and you could definitely pierce at least one nipple.”
“Y’know what, Fia,” Shesayne chimed in, “she’s right, lots of fire genasi girls have bronze or Red Steel rings – it goes with your skin colour. Nenna foryani, Fenselii? Nelin, you'd be a fantastic hit at the Labrys Foundry.” She spoke half to Faenya and half to Fia. Shesayne tried not to use too much Quessa when she was around non-fae like Fia, but speaking the Elven patois was natural to her around Faenya.
Fia squirmed. Faenya’s fingers had brought an unfamiliar jolt of sensation in her belly. She didn't mind the alien words, though. To her they were a mystery of the Multiverse to be relished. “How do you do it?”
“Easy,” Faenya answered, “a mithril needle and someone who knows what she’s doing.”
“But it hurts…” Fia noted.
“Yeah, but only weaklings take the potion – I had all mine done raw. The rush beats Paradise Moss any fucking day,” Faenya said, her tone a little too sanguine for Fia’s tastes.
“Tell you what,” Faenya added, “after our next show, we can all have a drink and a few Dreamsmokes together and I’ll do your right breast just to try and, if you like it, you can come back and we’ll discuss more.”
“All right,” Fia agreed with trepidation, “but when you say 'more'...”
Shesayne giggled. It was exactly the question Faenya had been waiting for. The Elven woman gave a wanton, predatory smile, turned to face Fia and parted her thighs. Fia gasped. Crowning the neat, peach-pink folds of Faenya’s nether lips was a glorious, platinum stud, intricately carved and embedded in the hood of her clit. The stiff little bud beneath peeked from its sheath, as if the stud were coaxing it out of its lair.
“Now that must have hurt,” Fia said for lack of anything more intelligent to say.
“In the best way imaginable,” Faenya shot back. “It’s nice, isn’t it?”
“Yeah…”
“Touch it,” Faenya invited.
Fia rubbed her hand nervously against her thigh. Something stirred inside her. Her heartbeat began to pulse in her head. All of a sudden, she became very aware of blood throbbing and knotting in her belly. “You sure?” Fia queried her voice unsteady.
“Sure as sure can be.” Faenya swept back her bright, multichrome hair. Cherry blossoms, cherry fruit and cherry jam all mingled in one.
Fia’s long, dextrous fingers trailed down Faenya’s flat belly and tentatively traced the outline of the fat, hairless mound of the girl’s sex. Faenya smiled conspiratorially. Fia took a quick breath and gently tapped the tip of the stud with her forefinger. Faenya bit her lip. Emboldened, Fia pressed her middle and forefinger against the stud and stroked it, applying sudden pressure on Faenya’s glistening, slick clit. Faenya drew a sharp breath. Her tiny bud was free from its hood, angry like an awakened serpent.
“Does it…uhm, feel good?” Fia asked, feeling foolish.
“Lisse – delicious, baby,” Faenya said huskily. “Now watch.”
The skin on Faenya’s belly began to ripple and, little by little, a complex pattern of roses and thorns, illustrated with bright, striking colours, began to form around her navel. The living tattoo grew, spreading its tendrils around Faenya’s upper thighs and all over her back and abdomen. It was stylised Elven calligraphy; each letter a plant or a flower - each word a shrub or a briar. Even when fully formed, the tattoo ebbed and flowed, as if swaying under an imperceptible wind. The tendrils and vines arched and danced, drawing Fia's eye to follow the weave of the words, even if she couldn't understand them.
“Incredible,” Fia mouthed.
“Not really,” Shesayne interrupted, “just the best way for a highborn Elven girl to get some body art without being thrown out of the house.”
“Something like that,” Faenya noted ruefully, “I got locked in my room for twenty fucking days for getting these.” She ran her hand over the three platinum rings that studded her pointed ear. A highly erogenous zone for Elves, ears were even covered up with elaborate hairstyles by the sons and daughters of conservative High Elven families. Now Faenya kept her hair defiantly short.
Fia was still staring at the stud in Faenya’s clit, wondering what it would feel like to have something like that embedded in her. Faenya caught Fia staring. “I can do your clit too, if you like.” She used the human term – the Elven equivalent, Ahanamiri - ‘Hanali’s Jewel’, was far too stylised for her tastes.
Fia cocked her head to one side. Faenya was all about the fusion of metal, gems and ink. Her toe rings and piercings glistened in the suffused light, slick with condensation. In a way, it was perversely fascinating. As if Faenya's body were a canvas upon which her eclectic tastes could be given free rein. “Maybe it would be better if we started out slow,” Fia concluded.
“Sure. Ring’s on me then,” Faenya said, souding pleased that she had persuaded Fia in at least one matter, “it’ll be something really special, I promise.”
“Thanks. I think.” Fia was still unsure as to whether or not she should be grateful.
“So, are you just going to stare all day?” Faenya complained. Shesayne would have caught on by now.
“Huh?” Fia tapped her fingers nervously against the rock beneath her.
Shesayne was overcome by half-suppressed laughter. “Hey, don’t force and coerce her, Fen, maybe you’re not her type – the fucking Multiverse doesn’t revolve around you, y’know.”
Faenya ignored her. “If you lick me out, you’ll see just how great it is to have one of these,” she purred.
Fia felt her throat constrict. The song of her heart had become deafening. “I…I’ve never done this before,” she said at length.
Faenya sighed in disappointment. What plane of existence had Fia been living on? “Well, it’s never too late to learn. If you do a good job, I’ll show you something special in return.”
“So that’s what you’re really after,” Shesayne teased, “hot, spicy and ten times better than ginger tea?” She mimicked Faenya’s affected accent. Those had, after all, been Faenya’s words after her first intimate encounter with a fire genasi woman. The first of many.
Fia hesitated. She was caught between the desire to dive between Faenya’s legs and nuzzle that damp, silky softness and the need to control herself. Faenya was manipulating her. Still – the air around them had become rich with strangely flowery female musk. An intoxicating aroma that tightened the knot in Fia's sex.
Faenya rolled her hips, her belly straining. Fia had beautiful, burgundy lips. How she wanted them against her inflamed pussy. “Fine, I get it,” Faenya smiled, “we’ll save this for another time. But you, you’ve got to loosen up.” Faenya playfully ran a hand through Fia’s hair and stole a quick kiss from her sculptural cheek.
Fia breathed a sigh of relief as Faenya closed her legs and dived into the bathing pool below. She turned to meet Shesayne’s bemused gaze. “Did I do something wrong?” Fia asked.
“’Course not,” Shesayne snorted, crawling up the shoal to huddle by Fia’s side. “She just thinks the whole Multiverse from the Seventh Heaven to the pit of the Abyss is dying to go down on her.”
“But…she’s an Elf,” Fia objected. The Elves she had met when she still plied her heating services on the street were all decent, generous people. None ever threatened her or withheld payment and they certainly were nowhere near as brash as Faenya.
“So am I, in a way, but this city’ll do that to you. You wake up one day and you find that you’re not comfortable being an Elf anymore – if you really, truly, genuinely want to know this place, you’ve got to let go of what you were or what your parents were and become something else.”
In the steaming pool below the rock-shoal, Faenya swam deftly. Wet, pink and red tendrils occasionally bobbed above the green, murky surface of the mineral-infused waters. Fia watched, as if in dream. “Is she unhappy with who she is?”
“I guess. Yeah, she is – things like language and dress and food, they only mean something when they are where they belong. You can't just take someone to this city and tell them to live like they was still somewhere else. Eventually, you drop out of the nest. Faenya just dropped faster than most.”
Fia nodded. “I’m not like her, but I understand her. I, too, was unhappy with who I was. It made people suspicious of me, afraid. But for you and Astrid, it’s a good thing that I’m a fire genasi. Maybe if she found people who thought it was good to be an Elf, she would be more like the high-up sorceresses in the Lady’s Ward.”
“Don’t count on it,” Shesayne said, dipping her toes tentatively in the water. “I’ve known her for some time and, the dark of the matter is, she thinks she hates her family.”
“What did they do?” Fia interjected.
“Dunno, paid for the best Elven school in Sigil, gave her thousands of marks whenever she asked for them…”
“That’s not all there is in life,” Fia noted.
“Guess not, but she’s a good one. We set up our act together and she paid for everything. You just don’t have to take her too personally, or too seriously and you’ll be fine. Friends like her can be hard to come by in Sigil, even when they’re pretty sodding annoying.”
“I'd want to be taken seriously, though.”
“Yes, but you're clever. You're different.”
With a burst of water, Faenya surfaced under Shesayne’s feet. “What are you two jabbering on about?”
“Elven spoiled brats who dress like Drow to piss their parents off,” Shesayne snapped.
“What about half-elven brats who have to parade as Dragon Girl?” Faenya riposted.
Shesayne kicked a spray of water in Faenya face and rose to her feet on the shoal. Faenya hissed a curse and hoisted herself back on the rock. “And just for being so nasty,” Shesayne said, affecting a wounded voice, “you’re buying at the bar.”
“Done deal,” Faenya concluded. “D’you two girls want dinner?”
Shesayne looked sceptical. “Last time it was fucking awful, what was that green, slimy, gloopy stuff that sticks to your teeth.”
“Some kind of grass,” Faenya said, “and yeah, it was pretty vile, how about some Iris Wine on the panoramic terrace while we discuss next show’s arrangements.”
“Sounds top-shelf, you game, Fia?” Shesayne replied.
Fia nodded.
“Say,” Faenya remarked, “Fia, what d’you know about music?”
“Music is like a geometry – first you understand the system, then you place the components, or notes,” Fia said enthusiastically.
“You and me, we should’ve traded places,” Faenya quipped, “you’d have been great in school. Anyway, I expect to see you there with Astrid at our next show – front row, understood?”
“Consider me there.” Fia smiled.
Shesayne said, “Are we going to invite her to the…y’know, after?”
“After?” said Fia.
“Absolutely – it’s going to be splendid. With your new ring, you’ll be the envy of the festivities,” Faenya boasted.
Fia bit her lips, betraying her nerves. She tentatively tapped the surface of her bronzy nipple and imagined what it would feel like to have a mithril needle go through it. A deal, though, was a deal. Faenya was, in her own way, both threatening and alluring. She represented a world that Fia saw as decadent, but strangely magnetic.
“Hey, Fen, now that I think of it, I should meet up with Kadda and make sure she’s got everything we need.” Shesayne said.
“Can you do that tomorrow? I’d love to drop by, but my family has this fucking poetry social and my presence is, allegedly, compulsory,” Faenya complained, though she took some pride in being scowled upon by her fellow Elves.
“No problem – we said Dreamsmoke, Fire Orchid, Black Lotus…”
“The more the better,” Faenya encouraged. “Hey, Fia, do you like Dreamsmoke?”
Fia looked perplexed. “I don’t know, never tried. Anything with ‘smoke’ in its name is usually fine by me, though.”
“Leave it, Fen,” Shesayne chided, “you don’t want to give her anything that’ll excite her, trust me.”
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