Private Tales In the Warm Ale

[Everleigh Ebersol]

A second of hesitation before Everleigh bound for the chest, hand going to the small of her back to pull out a small wide-tooth comb made of bamboo. Everleigh was partial to hairbrushes and combs made of wood, even if the metal ones lasted longer, she thought the wood helped with absorbing oil on missions that went too long without a bath in between.

With Ralene’s back to her front, in between her legs, Everleigh hunched forward to begin the serious mission of smoothing out every single hair on Ralene’s head. With precision and a peculiar methodology, Everleigh started on the challenge before her.

“Your hair is thick.” She commented, observant and honest. “And you have a lot of hair.” Plenty of girls had little hair but thick hair, or thin hair and lots of hair, but Ralene had been blessed with thick hair and lots of it. “But metal will pull out more hair than needed.” Everleigh said before letting some quiet settle between them. She was gentle with her combing, sectioning hair one at a time so not to cause any discomfort to Ralene, or to shock her scalp.

“It’s easier to protect the hair you have than to wait for it to grow back, even if it’s supposed to be stronger than it was before.”


Samantha Black

 

[Samantha Black]

"Didn't use to have quite this much if you recall," she smirked at the thought. Her hair had certainly been through some changes in her life at the academy. Allowed to grow long from the age of 4 to 8, when she'd been selected to join the initiates chosen for training within the Knights it had been suggested to her at the time by the overseeing Commander to shorten it. She'd opted for a drastic change, shaving her sides completely and leveling the top portion of hair to no longer than jaw length.

It had remained that way for the duration of her tutelage at the academy, and only in her last year had she begun to let it grow out all over. Grow it did, and quickly. She couldn't be certain why, thought perhaps it had something to do with her diet and maybe the particular ingredients used in her tattoos but now it was well past her shoulders, thick, and at times a bit unruly. She kept it in check with plaits lined with leather strips and held by metal bands. But aside from washing and braiding, she didn't pay it a whole lot of attention.

Her eyes closed as she leaned back against the chest with a sigh, "Don't think I could manage it if it were as long as yours."

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

“It’s my stupid trophy.” Everleigh said, a wry quirk of her lips that would be unseen by Ralene but could be heard instead. “Helped me lie about being untouchable.” The proctors saw through it, but any adult could see through a child’s schemes with a single look.

She thought back to when she turned twenty, before graduation. The exhaustion she had felt from the tests seeped back, bones aching, muscles sore, shoulders and head too heavy. She could feel the cool breeze against her face as if she were walking away from the dining hall, lamenting over spilled milk. An initiate had cut off a lock of hair, smug and victorious. Even the initiates had found out later that it was a lie, too. Everleigh was too human, or that last year had made her too human.

“My mother’s hair was so thick,” she began, “that when she took it out of her braid at the end of the day, it would be straight again in half an hour.” Ralene’s hair was now smooth, manageable. Everleigh didn’t worry if her fingers would catch and tug on the jet black tresses, fingers pulling three small strands from the center-most part of Ralene’s brow. She used the teeth of the comb to tidy it up, enjoy the stark, straightness of fair skin that cut through the curtains of black.

This time she might have tugged too hard here and there, but her fingers were quick, the action almost as familiar as breathing.

“We’ll do something a little fancy,” Everleigh explained, after the third time she tugged by accident as she collected more hair to add to the braid. “Keep it to one braid so you’re comfortable but we can play with how the braid starts.” Another tug. “If it hurts, you can say so.” She added, trying to be more gentle. “I think my pain tolerance makes me forget how to be gentle sometimes.” A symptom usually found amongst the dreadlords.

Samantha Black

 

[Samantha Black]

Once the combing had finished and the fingers were in her hair, Ral closed her eyes and issued a contented hmmmm from deep within her chest. Having one's hair preened was one of those guilty pleasures she'd enjoyed at the hands of many bedmates and many a whore found in the various brothels she'd patronized over the years.

“If it hurts, you can say so.” She added, trying to be more gentle. “I think my pain tolerance makes me forget how to be gentle sometimes.” A symptom usually found amongst the dreadlords.

"You and me both," murmured in reply. It wasn't so much pain to her as it was simply rougher attention. It felt nice, even, as it pulled and plied her hair roots against the direction they'd been braided into for the past week or so. Soothing, painful relief, like an ice bath on tired and sore muscles.

"I paid extra for braids at the brothel I stayed at in Alliria," no shame in admitting to that, "the ladies were more than happy to spend the time playing with my hair, and I more than happy to let them. Pull as hard as you need to, it doesn't hurt."

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

The only time others had touched Everleigh’s hair was to command control of her head, which granted them the momentum needed to push and pull her body one way or the other. When she went to the only brothel she dared to visit, even then her hair had been used against her. She had liked that, but not enough to ask Erland to braid her hair.

“Well, this is free,” Everleigh said, keeping her gaze on the swarth of midnight only disturbed by the contrast of her fingers. “Purposeful hair pulling is going to cost you extra.” A nervous jest that didn’t seem so nervous when said aloud and unable to see the sidelong glance Everleigh gave to the floor.

“But I’ll try being gentle.” Even if she didn’t ease her grip or dissuade herself from needing each strand folded around the others to be absolutely perfect. “Better to learn it at some point, maybe sooner rather than later.”

Samantha Black

 

[Samantha Black]

“Purposeful hair pulling is going to cost you extra.”

That got a chuckle out of her and she very nearly asked what the fee was, but held her tongue as Everleigh continued speaking. The smirk on her lips softened to think how such talk would never have passed in their earlier years at the academy. Not that she'd have let Everleigh anywhere near her to begin with in those days. Especially not for something as close and intimate as braiding her hair.

"Gentleness is nice, too," Ral admitted, thinking of her own experiences at brothels. There was a time and place for rough tumbles in the bed, and a time and place for gentle passion. She'd run the gamut of all styles and types since coming of age and wasn't sure which she preferred.

It had always really depended on her mood.

"Just pretend I'm one of the kids," Ral gave her head a playful little wobble side to side to imitate the exuberance of youth and reached to tug on the left leg of her pants, "I have to pee, Proctor Ebersol."

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

A snort and an unflattering chortle had Everleigh quickly biting her lower lip and looking away for a split second as if Ralene had eyes on the back of her head and could possibly see the flare of heat across her cheeks. Everleigh saw it as a joke, but it worked. The tension melted, heart soaring. There was something about being called proctor that she liked, and while she wasn’t sure why, she was certain it wasn’t because it was a title associated with cruelty and sadism.

“What a peculiar appetite you have, Banick. I’m afraid I’m not very good at roleplaying, either.” Everleigh pulled one section of the braid over, twisting it and tying it so she could get to the other side and begin the process all over again. The small sections, slowly growing bigger, bit by agonizing bit.

Samantha Black

 

[Samantha Black]

And with one simple word her smile vanished from her face.

The Lieutenant fell silent, suddenly lamenting her negligence of informing Everleigh about her new name. To be called Ralene by her old classmates was one thing, but the tie to House Banick would forever and always be a step too far for her liking. Was enough to make her go rigid, as if Everleigh had injected poison purposefully into the conversation.

She hadn't, of course, but it soured and stung all the same.

"That's not-" brow furrowed, lips drew thin within the pressure of a jaw clamping tightly shut on the anger attached to the sentiment. She bit it back and swallowed it like a bad pill and loosed a slow exhale.

"That's not my name anymore. I should have told you from the start... I just ... wasn't expecting the conversation to go on this long."

A silent beat, she shifted just enough that Ev would see the flash of cold blue peering back from within a thick outline of khol, "My name's Samantha Black, now. So far as the rest of the world is concerned, Ralene Banick died at graduation."

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

Everleigh believed every initiate at the Academy was a murderer, or would one day become one. All it took was one body, and even those who gravitated towards something was beneficial to making like healing… even the healers would become murderers. While Everleigh understood she had killed many, that her magic which was so evil it even rejected healing, she had never considered murdering her identity.

Everleigh Ebersol remembered her last name, her childhood, her parents, even the lullaby he mother sang to her while she was in the womb. Her name held such significance to her, something she labeled as the only good to her character. It was because she clung onto this goodness that she couldn’t give herself a new identity. She would immediately sully it with blood and confusion, poison and pain.

She tried to think about what potential this new name held for Ralene, even went as far to wondering what her old classmate thought of good and evil. If they were closer, perhaps she would have asked such a thing. But Everleigh knew her place, and then again, would having an answer even change Everleigh’s mind?

“I like the name Samantha,” Everleigh said finally. “Samantha Black. Has a nice ring to it. Actually, it suits you.” Everleigh wasn’t gentle in her tight grip, fastening the braids and rest of the hair together, placing pieces here and there before tightening it all in place. “This hair suits the name Samantha Black much better than Ralene Banick. Good riddance to her. Did I ever tell you that she used to make me nervous?” Her voice lowered into quiet conspiracy, matching the sly smile and squint of her violet eyes.

Samantha Black

 

[Samantha Black]

Leave it to Everleigh to make light of what was otherwise a tense moment. Briefly, it annoyed Sam, but in the next breath as her companion pushed forward and through, it came as a relief. In that moment an immediate and immense amount of pressure had flooded her chest and skull only to have it immediately released with the mildest prick of humor.

Sam blinked, slowly released the breath she'd been holding through her nose, and let that exhale turn into a derisive snort, which then turned into a chuckle that shook her shoulders against Everleigh's legs and her skull against the hold of her hands.

"Is that so?" she made a thoughtful noise but forewent the opportunity to brag on just how many Initiates she used to make nervous, "Well, it was never personal. Just wanted to survive."

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

“Didn’t we all?” The dreadlord agreed, a solemn nod to accompany her words that wafted from a wan smile. There was no bad blood between survivors, Everleigh concluded. They did what they had to do, even up to the last year when so many changes were implemented but the outcome had been the same: fighting to the death, another fight for their lives.

“When they brought us out there, into the Wood, I was thinking of who my opponent would be. I didn’t think it would be a proctor.” She was now braiding away from Ralene’s scalp. This process was much quicker as her fingers threaded the black tresses up and over each other. “I just knew I had to survive, like all the years before… you think, if we were in a place— a place that didn’t force you to survive— that we would have played together as kids?”

Samantha Black

 

[Samantha Black]

Reliving their graduation was not something Samantha liked to do but that seemed to be the subject of the hour any time anyone first learned of her origins, or when she ran into a familiar face. She kept her silence on the matter, waiting for Everleigh to move the conversation past it into a territory rather unexpected.

What ifs.

She didn't particularly like what-ifs because she'd spent a good deal of her formative years stewing in them at the Academy.

What if she'd been born without magic.

What if she'd been born a boy.

What if she'd been born into any family other than the Banicks.

What if she tried to run away.

What if she just gave up and let Edric kill her.

What if... had never taken her any place good and never provided any source of inspiration or aid to her plight. So the day she decided she meant to survive, she stopped thinking in what-if-isms. Yet this one was a curious hypothetical. A large part of her was skeptical about such a dream if only because the concept of playing as children and making friends were so incredibly foreign. Friendship was something she still puzzled out on the daily.

Sam felt her answer brewing in the pit of her stomach where disgust and disinterest were usually born. Before it could form words, though, something else to precedent. A slow draw of air into her lungs lifted her thoughts and sentiments. Could she have played with Everleigh as a young girl? If survival hadn't been so paramount to their daily life, if she'd been offered a life as a girl and not as a tool or a weapon, might play and laughter and gossip and all those things that defined young friendships have blossomed?

"Yeah," she said at length, voiced gentled, as she recalled just how utterly lonely life at the Academy had been for so many years, "I think we would have." The words left on an easy smile before she gave a short chortle, "Maybe I'd have left my hair long then instead of chopping it off for all those years."

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

The final twist had been made, the braid tied tight. Everleigh didn't realize it until now, but it was cathartic working with her hands, even if it was as simple as turning loose hair into a neat pair of braids. With Sam's answer said aloud, soft as silk like her inky tresses, Everleigh felt at ease.

She moved from behind Sam, her face close to hers, and inspected the hairline to see if anything was out of place. She smoothed out a curl of new hair, not long enough to be weighed now. The pad of her thumb lingered at Sam's temple. Everleigh grinned as her mask lifted.

"Yeah, I think you look good with long hair. But I'm biased."

Samantha Black

 

[Samantha Black]

And just like that the hairwork was done. Sam found herself lamenting the end of such a relaxing and pleasing effort. The novel nature of it all, given the person with whom she had for company this evening, made it even more ethereal. Not in all the years at the Academy had she ever imagined sharing space and time like this with Everleigh Ebersol and yet - she was glad for it.

It might be the last time they share space and time at all.

Frigid blue settled on somber violet, a keen awareness held for the thumb that lingered along her hairline. The compliment was off-handed and not one she'd take to heart, but Sam appreciated the proximity between them even more. Gave her a chance to see the girl up close, take in her scent, notice little details. Like the way that mask of distance and ennui somehow slipped off between drinks and braids. She liked this version of Everleigh better - the one she wagered few got to see for themselves. It was almost a shame it had taken so long to see it.

Perhaps it was the drink. Maybe it was the idea of an unknown forbidden fruit now dangled temptingly before her. Could have simply just been a passing urge given the time and location. Or was it just to see what came of it? Sam's eyes dropped to Everleigh's lips and she gave in to the desire: she leaned in, slowly and with a tentative glance back up to give the girl all the opportunity to back away or reject her. Given no barriers, Sam would move in for a kiss.

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

"I'm poison." A whimper that was supposed to be a whisper, but these two simple words hurt her worse than a punch to the gut ever could. With this knowledge came the teetering walk along a rocky cliff of semantics and philosophy. She was poison, so dangerous even her body had changed to make others stay away. But for those who ignored the purple, it meant she wasn't strong enough to evoke fear, and she failed as a dreadlord. Or worse, they were too foolish to care.

She was reminded of Tinker, Liliana, and Zael; even gentle Henk and hopeful Salak weren't immune. What would she do to Erland, whom she wanted to help? What would she do to Miklan, whom she wanted to save?

"I destroy everything I touch." But her hand went from the soft temple to hold onto a braid, grasping for something more than deprivation.

Samantha Black

 

[Samantha Black]

At the first sign of resistance, Sam paused, hovering in that place of curiosity and want. For every one thing she knew about Everleigh there were a hundred things she did not, but the unknown did not frighten her. Sam had stared down the maw of a raging dragon with her heart hammering in her chest, every hair on the back of her neck standing on end, her feet as heavy as boulders, and her palms slicked with sweat - and then marched straight into what should have been certain death.

She'd come out in one piece in the end, though not necessarily unscathed.

Compared to that, the frisson of energy coursing through her veins presently was but a static shock.

Everleigh's words were the same warning call she'd heard from plenty of others. The danger they represented for all the horrible things they'd done and could or would still do. Sam was feeling bold with the warmth of drink in her belly, but not so bold as to miss all the signs. She calmly studied the other Dreadlord's face and took in the intensity of her gaze to the wilted voice. Her glacial eyes shifted then to the delicate hand that claimed her hair and her own hand lifted to greet hers in kind. A gentle touch of fingers roughed over by the lifestyle of a warrior.

"I dunno..." Sam gently pressed Ev's hand and bowed her head towards it for a short nuzzle at her wrist, "my hair turned out alright."

When she looked back she was smiling easily, patiently, but not without want.

"Have you ever tried?"

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

With Samantha’s warm hand, the tension in her muscles slowly melted away, but Everleigh’s grip remained tight. It didn’t soften until Everleigh saw that smile that matched her blue eyes. Her eyes flickered to their hands but then back into Sam’s eyes. There was a slight quirk to Everleigh’s lips as she held back a scoff? Alright? Everleigh did a much better job than alright. But that was forgotten for now.

A question lingered between them and Everleigh’s brows furrowed together.

“Tried what?” It may have hurt her pride to not know what Sam was suggesting, but her curiosity won out in the end. It always did.

Samantha Black

 

[Samantha Black]

Could see that flicker of offense in her eyes and it very nearly drew out a humored smirk from her. She kept it in check, allowing herself to be distracted by the pull on her hair - which was quite easy to do. Her eyes closed for a moment to enjoy the tug on her scalp, perhaps Everleigh's subconscious means of telling her that her work had been more than alright, and eased an exhale of breath from her nose over a gentle hum.

"Being close," Sam opened her eyes again, half-lidded as she eased just that much closer so that purple bangs tickled her eyelashes, "intimate with someone."

She had no knowledge of Everleigh's private life where romance or desires of the flesh were involved. It would make some sense to her if the girl had never attempted such things before for fear of inadvertently poisoning someone through swapping spit. But given the tenure of their days at the Academy, it would surprise Sam to learn if Evie had so little control over her powers that she couldn't withhold such things through will alone.

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

A breath hitched in her throat, which seemed to clog up, as if closeness and intimacy were things she was allergic to. Warmth bloomed in her chest as her eyes fluttered. She was soon rosy-cheeked and malleable, bending to make way for Sam, even if it meant Everleigh made herself smaller. Violet eyes fell shut, the fan of thick lashes creating long shadows down her cheeks, looking like fingers that wanted to stretch and caress Sam.

There was the fear that if she reached for Sam with her own hands once more, she would fall back, forever out of reach, no matter how great Everleigh's desire and will.

"With a man," Everleigh whispered as her eyes opened, locking onto the shape of the jaw right where it would branch up to her ear. Was it shadow or dark hair that made the gleam of skin all the more tantalizing, a cusp of moonbeam against the dark side of a cloud? "Never with a woman." Though she had thought about it when she saw Liliana naked when the two of them had become close in those hot waters that disguised Everleigh's own heat. Everleigh tilted her head down and to the side, the bridge of her nose pressed against the sharp cut of her jaw that had momentarily mesmerized her.

She inhaled her scent, the heat growing as familiar notes of something soapy and skin-like, musky yet sweet. Something rich and smoky cut through the powdery scent that Everleigh found in most skin, but instead of being sharp and jarring, it was a finish that made Ralene stand out from others she had been close to. Quite frankly, it was intoxicating, a subtle, dangerous feminity that pulled Everleigh in, much to her surprise.

Samantha Black

 

[Samantha Black]

With a man.

Zael, perhaps? They had seemed close. Sam remembered the look on Everleigh's face in the forest when she'd offered to carry Zael in. Then, later on, the look she'd received when she informed her that Zael was awake and would pull through.

Those were the emotions of someone who cared far more deeply than skin level.

"Do you remember..." she began in a low voice. Not a whisper - this wasn't a secret, merely the depth of a mind recalling events from years ago.

"...when the Proctors carted us all off to the brothel for the first time?" Her own memory didn't tell her if Everleigh had been in attendance. She'd been far too engrossed in the very new and sudden situation presented to them: physicality without savagery. Attention without violence.

By that time she had already cemented herself as a real and true threat within their class. As Ralene, she'd found herself in her strength and lethality. She'd already killed several of her fellow initiates.

"I remember thinking 'how?'" Sam continued, head tucking just enough to look down at her right hand she now held up between them, fingers slowly curling into a fist, "How do I touch someone without hurting them?"

"All I know how to do is break things."

She lifted the same hand and gingerly brushed her curled pointer finger along the length of Everleigh's slender neck, slowly drawing it up toward her jaw. Her eyes followed the progression of her hand, head tilting, frozen eyes half-lidded.

"My first was a woman," Sam admitted, "I remember everything about her. She was beautiful."

"I remember the color of her eyes and the smell of her perfume. There were crinkles in her curls from being up in braids," if Everleigh allowed it, her hand continued along her jaw like a feather, smoothing up just before her chin to pass the pad of her thumb over her lips, "her lips were the color of wilted roses."

Shifting just slightly, Sam leveled her gaze with Everleigh's once more, "Most of all I remember how gentle she was." After everything the academy had put her through, tenderness had become some forbidden fruit that most of the Initiates could not even recognize.

"I learned how to be gentle so I could have moments like these without fear of breaking things," indeed the hand that glided along the other side of Everleigh's jaw was fully capable of crushing it like glass, "I'd like to show you."

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

A lying nod for she had never been invited to a brothel, Proctor Marianne Goetsch didn’t find it suitable for her at the time. She still didn’t even if she had been the one to tell Everleigh of the brothel in Vel Luin. With each passing second of being touched, Everleigh became limp and malleable beneath Sam’s fingertips. Her half lidded eyes might have had Sam think she wasn’t listening but every now and then she’d tilt her head in understanding, a brief nod for Sam to continue.

Everleigh swallowed a hard lump in her throat, nearly choking on the words that were begging to come out. Her hands hand found themselves on Ralene, one on her shoulder, the other on her thigh, creeping up to the width of a strong hip. She’d have to stop the world to stop this feeling, a desire so deeply ingrained in her blood that it was a tale as old as water.

“I don’t like kissing.” She had kissed Zael months ago and a voice in the back of her head and planted an entire garden of worry that she was no good at it. Like many who had gone to the Academy, if she wasn’t the best at something, it made her stress over it so much that sometimes it was best to be avoided. “But everything else… yeah, I like everything else.” Passivity would fade, a white-hot agency overtaking Everleigh’s body and mind, pushing her toward’s Sam’s offering of something gentle, something new, something else for Everleigh to lament in the weeks to come.

But right now, Everleigh didn’t care if she’d come to regret it, the need to feel good and see someone else feel good because of her too tempting of an escape. In a flurry of rosy red desire, which had once only represented violence to the Dreadlords, dark violets would be brushed aside for fluttering, trembling wisteria and orchids; delicate and petal soft in spite of a slanted gaze witnessing the testament of sharp icy blues. Despite the gentleness of it all, the end was the same as it always would be: a moment of gratitude before regret sunk in and Everleigh snuck away.

Samantha Black