Completed [Solo] Business among snakes

Bethsyliss is punished for tardiness.

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A half-collapsed city of alabaster and gold fiercely governed by Eypharians. Even partially ruined, it is the crown of the desert and a worthy testament to old glories and rising powers.

[Solo] Business among snakes

Postby Bethsyliss on February 22nd, 2013, 3:07 pm

Day 86 of Winter, 512 AV.




Bethsyliss was awfully tired. She had spent the previous day trying to sort out her thoughts amidst the emotional storm brought about by her recent bonding with the Kelvic Ronin Invictus. Her night had been disturbed by dreams that required a great deal of her energy to upkeep without her being able to identify their purpose. Sleeping had proved to be more exhausting than regenerating. She had arrived late at work, which she considered a feat for managing to drag herself to The Scorched Skull where she had been hired as a barmaid several days ago, and had to suffer Ssahnya's reprimands. Although she was a viper Dhani like Syliss, Ssahnya had no pity for her coworkers. She took her job as head barmaid very seriously. While she was always friendly with Syliss outside of the workplace, she could prove to be harsh and merciless inside the tavern when rules weren't applied. Additionally, Syliss was subject all morning to Jaben's expressionless stares. Syliss had not figured out the head bartender of The Scorched Skull yet, because he always remained cold and almost never uttered a word. She did not know, therefore, whether the Benshira was mocking her or scowling at her. Either way, it was nothing to be proud of. Syliss sulked around the inn, sluggishly attending clients and trying to make herself as inconspicuous as she could.


On the strike of the fifteenth bell, Syliss's stomach began to growl. She had not eaten all day, and was dying for a bite. She was about to fetch herself a loaf of bread to nibble on, when Ssahnya came hissing at her. "Ssstop!" Her voice cackled like a slaver's whip. "Sylisss, you don't get to be late and then help yourssself to a meal." She paused, then added sardonically: "Don't think of it as a punissshment. Think of it as positive encouragement to help you get here on time next morning." Syliss moped around for a bit, her stomach producing increasingly distressing sounds. She was desperate for food.


Some time after the eighteenth bell had struck, The Scorched Skull suddenly became crowded with people looking to get drunk before supper. Syliss's eye caught Ssahnya. She was swamped in orders that kept coming at an alarming rate. The right thing to do would be to help her with the ordersss, she thought cunningly. The sssmart thing to do, though, would be to grab a piece of bread while she'sss too busy to look. I think I'll do the smart thing. Syliss crept discreetly behind the counter into the kitchens and sneaked her way towards the bread. She grabbed a loaf and wolfed it down voraciously. Still hungry, she helped herself to another, and got carried away. It so happened that while she sat in a corner eating the bread, Ssahnya barged into the kitchens to fetch an order. Syliss crouched down, hoping her boss wouldn't see her. But that failed. Ssahnya, her acute reptilian sense of smell tipping her off, spotted Syliss fairly easily. She walked up to her, fumes sputtering out of her eyes. She drew in her breath between gritted teeth, quite obviously containing her anger. "Maybe it is punissshment that you need," she hissed viciously. "Now that you've ssstocked up on energy, I want you to go and fetch a ssspecial delivery from Rasken. That way I won't have to do it. Sssee how that worksss?"


Syliss pouted slightly, but she knew better than to complain. Besides, this was a minor chastisement, and she rather liked the Dhani owner of The Serpent's Elixir who had recommended her to The Scorched Skull. It was a chore nonetheless. Syliss obediently replied: "Yes, ma'am," and slowly made her way out of the tavern's kitchens.


"Fassster," Ssahnya commanded. Syliss picked up the pace to a brisk walk. When she passed Jaben who was working at the counter, she caught a glimpse of his half-disinterested, half-amused look.


"I think it would be wiser to run," he whispered with the hint of mocking in his voice.


"I'm not going to run, Jaben," Syliss answered. She was met with a shrug that told her to suit herself. So, she ran.
Last edited by Bethsyliss on February 23rd, 2013, 3:01 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Bethsyliss
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Business among snakes

Postby Bethsyliss on February 22nd, 2013, 4:46 pm

Syliss reached the green-coloured tent in the Pavilion around the strike of the nineteenth bell. As usual, it was particularly crowded. She bypassed all the people who were queuing -- after all, she was here on official business -- and lifted the tent flap. A young, orderly four-armed Eypharian girl was by the entrance inside. She looked at Syliss and politely said: "Good evening! Please queue up with everybody else, your turn will arrive shortly."


Syliss had already gone through a similar encounter with the owner Rasken five days ago. This was starting to irritate her. "Hi, excuse-me, I'm not a cussstomer," she replied, trying her best to compose herself. After all, the diligent girl was only doing her job, and Syliss knew how difficult that could be with uncooperative people. "I'm here to pick up a ssspecial delivery for The Ssscorched Skull."


"Oh," the young worker said, a puzzled expression on her face. "Well, I'm terribly sorry, but we don't have any special deliveries for The Scorched Skull... We don't really make special deliveries, as much as I'm aware of, actually. Please wait in line."


What was she talking about? Ssahnya had explicitly sent Syliss to fetch a delivery from Rasken. Maybe I should ask for him directly, Syliss surmised. "I'd like to talk with Rasssken, if you don't mind. He'll know about it for sssure."


"I'm very sorry," the Eypharian girl repeated. "Rasken is busy inside at the moment, so I guess you'll just have to wait in line."


Now Syliss's patience started to wear thin. She wasn't going to get hampered on a chore she'd been sent to do as punishment for a silly mistake she'd made which she hardly even considered as being a mistake. "Get your massster now," she hissed. "Tell him Bethsyliss needs to ssspeak with him."


"I'm sorry, I have work to do. Please wait in line. You won't have to wait for long, I promise." That did it. Syliss wanted to unleash her anger at the young woman who was delaying her so. But she had already gone further inside, and was obviously very preoccupied with her tasks. Perhapsss I can creep inside without her noticing, she thought, remembering how successfully she had done so at the tavern, even though it hadn't worked out for her in the long run. As she was about to step into the tent, she was threateningly grabbed by the person closest to the entrance and told to wait for her turn. She sighed, understanding that she would just have to be patient, and waited among the dozen or so people who had arrived here before her.
Bethsyliss
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Business among snakes

Postby Bethsyliss on February 22nd, 2013, 6:23 pm

The wait seemed awfully long to Syliss. Evening turned to night as the chimes ticked away, Syliss's blood boiling with irritation. For just a little bit of tardiness, she had to go through such insufferable boredom? That was unfair. She could understand why Ssahnya wasn't particularly eager to do the chore, though. None of the people surrounding her seemed willing to have a chat, or else they were already engaged in conversation with someone they came with. Having a talk would have relieved the wait, even if it wouldn't have made it altogether pleasant. But, anyway, Syliss was not in the mood for idle chit-chat. She was tired, grumpy, sore from standing up in one place for too long, and still hungry from the incomplete meal she had been caught with hours ago. Satisfied customers waltzed out of the tent, some of them moving with a peculiar shuffling gait which clearly stated the kind of activity they were indulging in. As they left the establishment named The Serpent's Elixirs, others took their place inside. Their eyes were misty, their lips shaped into a dreamy smile, and most of them didn't walk straight. One of them even tripped and nearly collapsed on Syliss. She swore. How much longer was this going to have to go on for?


At one point, the only remaining customer that had arrived before Syliss, a burly Eypharian man, entered the tent. She was now in front of the line. While she waited a few more moments for someone to go out, she peeked inside, lifting the tent flap slightly to get a good look of what was happening. An atmosphere of mindless joy reigned inside, with mingled sounds of hysterical laughter, loud belching, and other, stranger noises. The floor was covered in a collage of rugs on which squat tables and stools were scattered without any sense of order. Syliss discerned snakelike patterns circling the edges of the tables. At least they have good tassste, she said to herself. The low furniture and cramped interior seemed rather uncomfortable, but nobody inside seemed to mind. They were probably too involved in the brightly-coloured beverages they sipped more or less liberally to notice their obvious discomfort.


"You're a beautiful butterfly," a customer said to Syliss as he was leaving the tent with an awkward grin. Syliss had to muster up a great deal of self-control to contain the urge to punch that man in the face. She absolutely hated butterflies. However, she quickly understood that she could now enter The Serpent's Elixirs and get on with her business. She let the delirious Eypharian man pass after he had figured out how to put one foot in front of the other and entered the tent, on the very strike of the twentieth bell.


The young four-armed woman who had forced her to wait in line was there. She barred her path and said: "I'm so sorry, but we're about to close, so we can't welcome any new customers. You can come tomorrow morning if you like. We're open pretty early."


That did it. Syliss had let the Eypharian girl get away with more than enough of this useless, time-consuming nonsense. Her patience broke. She yelled at her: "I will not stand here and take any more of this unfair abussse from a child who isn't even capable of doing her job properly. I want you to fetch the owner immediately, or I will --"


"What'sss going on?" a slithering voice came from the back of the tent and interrupted Syliss. It was Rasken. Unceremoniously stepping over the tables sprawled all over the carpets on the floor, he made his way to the entrance where they stood. "Oh, hello, Bethsylisss. How nice to sssee you here." Then he turned toward the Eypharian girl, who looked more confused than she had ever been in her life. "Hajirah, what is all thisss racket about?"


"Hajirah here made me wait outssside for more than an hour to tell me you're closing ssshop," Syliss replied aggressively. She was not in the mood for polite formalities, and the only thing on her mind now was getting her chore finished.


"Why didn't you sssend for me?" Rasken inquired. "I would've let you come in if I had known it was you." He shrugged. "Hajirah, back to work." Then he shook his head and said: "Ssso, what can I do for the beautiful daughter of Beth?"


"I'm here to pick up a special delivery for The Scorched Ssskull."


"What?" he replied. "I don't do that sssort of thing."


"You mussst be joking. Sssahnya sent me here to..." While she was speaking, Syliss realized what was going on. As a punishment for her arriving late at work, Ssahnya had sent Syliss to wait around in front of a shop for a package that didn't even exist.


"Oh," Rasken said apologetically. "Ssshe does that sometimes. I take it you were late this morning and ssshe wanted to take revenge." He spread out his hands. "You know how we viperss are about revenge. Get on a Dhani's bad ssside, and they have to get back at you. I doubt you're any different. I'm sssure you understand. You're lucky ssshe didn't pull one of her other tricks on you." Syliss knew perfectly well what Rasken was talking about, but she couldn't believe a viper could do it to another viper who happened to be her coworker. She was furious. "You look a little high-ssstrung, Bethsyliss," the owner of The Serpent's Elixirs said in his rasping voice. "Why don't you take a seat and I'll fix you an elixir?"


Syliss was slightly startled at Rasken's proposition. "No, thanksss all the same, Rasssken, but I really should get going." Ssahnya was bound to be angrier the more she lingered outside, and she definitely didn't want to make things worse.


"Ssstay a while," the Dhani man insisted. "Ssahnya will be all the more happier if she thinksss you've mucked about for even longer, and now that you're already here, you ssshould make the wait worthwhile. You do ssseem rather uptight."


"No, really, I ssshouldn't," she repeated, but, as she turned the idea over in her mind, it didn't seem so bad after all. "Well, alright. Jussst one, though. It'sss the first time I try any, and I don't want to feel sssick after."


Rasken grinned hard. "Make yourssself at home. Sssit wherever you like, and I'll be right with you." Syliss looked around the room for open spaces, but the tent was very tightly packed with people. She spotted a single free stool and snaked her way across the littered tent floor towards it.
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Business among snakes

Postby Bethsyliss on February 22nd, 2013, 11:00 pm

Syliss had been sitting on the stool for quite a few moments now. She had taken the time to observe her surroundings more closely. She had identified three main categories of people: the sprightly type, the groggy type, and the ordinary type. Those who fell under the third category, she noticed, all had a near-full glass or hadn't received their drinks at all yet, and tended to rather quickly shift into one of the remaining two types. She worked out that, seen from an outsider, she probably came across as the ordinary, nondescript type, and she was more than curious as to which type she'd turn into when Rasken brought her one of his concoctions. She hoped it was the overexcited type, for lack of any better options.


Those whom she tagged as belonging to the hyperactive type bore a number of common characteristics. First and foremost, they were all hyperactive. Their arms, whichever the number of limbs on their body, flailed wildly about them with more or less jerkiness in a semblance of body language communication. In the more extreme cases, the legs were also involved in those seemingly random movement patterns. Their faces all conveyed a sense of intense happiness, ranging from exhilarated expressions to wide grins. But the pleasure Syliss saw in their eyes was usually a grimacing sort of gaze rather than an authentic emotion. She shuddered inwardly at the thought of those people's states of mind. Straining her ear, she managed to catch a few of the sentences they pronounced. None of them made any kind of sense, however far Syliss was willing to stretch their meaning to draw any sort of understanding from them. At one point, one of the men from that category which Syliss could not locate exclaimed: "The bananas are growing wings next season," and exploded in unending gales of laughter. Syliss could not help but chuckle at the nonsense she heard from all around her. Furthermore, those people of the merry type were particularly prone to dancing, spinning, and, in a general manner, falling over -- which didn't seem to stop their invincible mirth.


Then, there was the droopy type. Those belonging to that category had sadness written all over their faces, expressed in a number of ways. Some had their cheeks streaked with tears and were openly sobbing, others looked like they had witnessed a terrible tragedy that they couldn't process and remained still and somber, and others then had their faces contorted into masks of pain. The people of that type, Syliss observed after a while, were either on their way to the happy type, and so they were just going through an initial phase after drinking their mixtures down, or had fallen from an elated state into bleakness. Those were usually waiting on additional drinks, she had figured out, and appeared to be willing to withstand emotional roller coasters just for the kick of their few minutes of delight. I really hope I don't end up like one of thossse, she thought anxiously, even though she was prepared to take a chance just for the sake of personal experimentation. Anyway, I'm not planning on having more than one, ssso I can't get to the point where I'm addicted to the elixirsss. Mother used to have a lot of fun with those, ssso I've got not reason to be frightened. She fought off a shudder that was creeping up on her unsuspecting body.


Rasken came over to Syliss's table when she was starting to get bored and slightly freaked out by her observation game. "Thisss used to be one of your mother'sss favouritesss," he hissed, a glass in his hand. "Drink it up in one go for maximum effect," he advised.


Syliss looked at the concoction as Rasken set it on the table. It presented as a thick, dark red liquid with a visual texture not unlike that of honey. Syliss glanced up at Rasken for reassurance and was met with a wink from the Dhani professional. She shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant about the whole affair, then grabbed the drink, tipped her head sharply backwards, and sipped it all in one gulp. The gelatinous liquid had neither the taste nor the feel of honey. It gave a slimy sensation as it slid down her throat and left a bizarre salty-sweet taste on her tongue. Syliss coughed a bit because of the unexpected concoction. She frowned, not feeling anything strange about her, and said to Rasken: "I don't feel any different. What's sssupposed to happen?"


"Oh, you'll find out sssoon enough, dear child," he cryptically replied. "You might want to pay me now though, in case you have to leave in a russsh when it kicks in. It's one silver miza for a regular drink." She lifted her left eyebrow, the one with the golden streak on it, in a quizzical expression, but, seeing that he wasn't going to be any more specific, she shrugged and reached into her pocket to find some change. She put one silver-rimmed coin into Rasken's hand. In that motion, her fingers lightly brushed his. An irrepressible desire for lust suddenly flared up inside of her like a fire that had just been fed litres of pure alcohol. Her wide eyes lit up like sparks and the golden streak on her left eyebrow burned with the need to satisfy her intense hunger. Rasken laughed heartily. "Potent, isssn't it? Worked wondersss with your mother."


"What do you call thisss thing?" Syliss demanded, panting.


Rasken laughed again. "The Lasssh," he answered proudly. "Now go home and sssatisfy your needs before you make any mistakesss with anyone."


Syliss nodded jerkily. Wordlessly, she waved Rasken goodbye, unintentionally flailing her arms about her more than necessary. She left the tent of The Serpent's Elixirs with an urge that had never been stronger fueling her body and her mind with renewed energy.
Bethsyliss
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Business among snakes

Postby Bethsyliss on February 23rd, 2013, 2:57 pm

What is thisss, Bethsyliss said to herself, her mind flaming with eroticism. Never had she been stricken by lust so strong as that which now animated her entire body. It wasn't altogether unpleasant, but it called desperately for immediate satisfaction, and grew with each passing second. Her lower stomach was particularly warm and mushy, organic proof of what she needed so badly if she ever doubted that these intense desires were only her imagination. Anyway, it wouldn't matter if they were, because she knew there was only one way to quench them. That certainly didn't involve returning to The Scorched Skull, never mind the consequences. There were currently more pressing matters at hand.


Syliss had not understood what Rasken had said about making mistakes with other people on the spot, but she was now painfully aware of the full meaning of his words. Since the moment her hand had come into contact with his, the desperate yearning had been ignited, and there wasn't enough willpower in the whole of Mizahar to calm it down. She uncontrollably considered every person she passed in a sexual light, regardless of race or gender, picturing them in intimate scenarios involving them and her -- and usually more than one at a time, since the crowded streets of evening Ahnatep gave her plenty of opportunities to cram whole battalions of strangers into her fantasies. Even the owner of The Serpent's Elixirs was present in her personal staged fabrications.


Syliss ran across the city as fast as she could; not because she was afraid that her lust would grow so strong that she wouldn't be able to control herself any longer, but precisely because she didn't control herself, and her body was fueled with the inextinguishable energy of desire. Even though she could potentially satisfy herself with any of the passers-by, the Kelvic bond she shared with Ronin made him the ultimate object of her fantasies. Wherever he was and whatever he was doing at the moment, she was absolutely certain that he too could feel her molten emotions crying out for relief. And so she ran, her legs mechanically sprinting over the long distance from the Pavilion to her home. It was all the more tormenting because every time she happened to skim past somebody, the infinitesimally small spot where her body had come into contact with another expanded and electrified her entire flesh with the desire to hold someone tightly against it. But she ran nevertheless, elbowing her way past the thicker crowds and nearly colliding into a number of isolated citizens, her lust growing evermore.


She finally reached the area of The Pillars of Dust where she lived. Although she was panting heavily, she continued her frantic race over the ultimate portion of the track. She must have been giving off some kind of a natural aura of attractiveness, because the streets resounded with the suggestive whistles of drunks and Scorpions. She needed a great deal of self-control to resist those enticing calls, and her self-control was wavering dangerously. Snakes were known to be cold-blooded animals, but she knew there was nothing remotely cool about her blood right now. She had nearly reached her second-floor apartment when she passed a Lark. Syliss stopped, spun round, grabbed the Eypharian prostitute with both hands and kissed her soundly on the lips without a moment's notice. "Thank you," she said to the confused Lark, and continued darting towards her home. She ascended the wooden staircase almost at once, swung the creaking door open, and, without even looking at what her Kelvic companion was doing of if he even was there, she commanded: "Ronin. Sssex. Now," and slammed the door shut behind her.




*end*
Bethsyliss
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