Completed Suite Expectations Pt. 1

[Tazrae]

Timestamp: 60th of Fall, 522

The world had turned crazy quickly. Taz knew it without a shadow of a doubt as she finished the last of the breakfast dishes and prepped the ‘grab your own’ lunch bags to fill her large ice box. The guests might not be hungry again, but others would pop in for a quick portable meal when their stomachs started to rumble around the high point of the sun in the tropical sky. The Innkeeper always managed to make sure there were treats, portable lunches, and pitchers of fresh squeezed juice readily at hand for those in need. Some of the tourists took little day trips out to places like Swine Swells or Treasure Point. She liked to think they were well fed if they went. She also left a note about waterskins on the counter, so anyone needing to pack extra fresh drinking water could retrieve and fill a waterskin or two before making their trips.

Kami dropped by just as Tazrae was finishing. Her sister peeked into the crib that rested in a shadowy corner of the kitchen after grabbing a croissant off the table to nibble. The healer was about more now that they had something in common. “Hey Sis…” Taz said, setting her towel aside. “How are you today?” She asked, tilting her head.

The Panacea Healer glanced up, her mouth full of buttery pastry and smiled. She chewed rapidly, her features turning impish, and grinned. “Good. No one is bleeding to death. Not a snakebite in sight. The boss gave me the afternoon off. He suggested I come see you two. Want some company?” She asked, her straight caramel hair falling across her face as she reached into the crib and traced a finger across Khari’s already curling hair.

“I was just planning on a little time at Garden Beach. I had a project planned that I need to develop.” Taz said causally, fighting a nod.

“Need any help?” Her sister asked, touching the infant one more time before giving up and plucking the slumbering baby from the crib to cuddle. Taz didn’t say anything at all about it.

“Not really. I just have to sit and think… sketch… do some planning. I want to put a second story on The Protea. Not six more rooms though… more like vacation suites. I was thinking a place people could come to be pampered and live a little large while they are vacationing here.” She told the other woman. Taz and Kami shared features that left no mistake that the two women were sisters. They were not, however, identical. Some twins were just different from each other. Taz and Kam fell into that category. “She likes you. If I did that, she’d wake up screaming.” The Innkeeper said, offering her sister a smile.

“I like her too. Do you have bottles made up? I’ll stay with her here if you want to take a break and go do your planning alone. Or should I say brooding?” She asked, grinning. The grin made Kam’s freckles stand out. Both women had the bronze of their Benshira heritage, but only Kami had and acquired freckles. They made her look young and exquisitely beautiful. Taz watched her silently, thinking a moment. Then she nodded.

“That would be incredible. I don’t like having her out of my sight. I need to get used to the fact there are times she can’t come with me… that its just not safe. Garden Beach is safe, but this way I can return whenever I really can’t fight the urge to check on her any longer. “There are three bottles in the fridge. I swear I’m making more milk than one child can drink, but it doesn’t seem to slow down just because she doesn’t drink it. If her brother was here…. it would help.” Taz said softly.

[Tazrae]

“Don’t give up on Nyle That man doesn’t know how to quit,” Kamrae said softly, fiercely. “He’ll track us down here if it's safe to do so.”

Taz nodded. “I know what you say is true. It's just… a hard one to believe. With so much going wrong… It's hard to believe something will go right.” She added. “You sure you don’t mind hanging out this afternoon here?” She added.

Kami shook her head. “Not at all. The ice box is stocked, right? For the lunch crowd? I’ll serve anyone that drops by, but namely, I just want to be away from work. The sound of the sea here and the cool breeze is perfect. Plus I’ll have good company.” She said, rocking the infant in her arms, pressing the baby against her cheek. Khari, for her part, seemed oblivious and remained slumbering. Taz couldn’t help but be jealous. It’d taken her a half bell to get the baby down for a nap. It hadn’t mattered to Taz though, since she carried the infant in a sling and was slowly learning how to get everything done even with an infant in tow. But having Kami watch Khari for part of the day would be a blessing. She desperately needed to get out of her own head.

“Okay… I just need to grab a few things then I’ll be off.” Taz replied, moving out of the kitchen and starting to make a pass of the workshop area and storage where she kept her special bag. She loaded it up for the short trip to Garden Beach and stopped to give her baby daughter and twin a kiss. “I’ll just be at the Palapa if you need anything. Send a note with an Ixam or tell one of the bigger birds you need me. They should understand enough to deliver it.” And with that, Taz was off, across the gathering room, out onto the deck and down onto the sand. She didn’t take the well-traveled trail to the six acre piece of property next door. Instead, she walked along the beach.

The gentle murmur of the waves soothed her. There was a unique sound the surf created splashing up on the beach when the wind was calm and the heat was just starting to build on Syka’s coast. The smell too… it was a raw salty fresh scent blowing onshore from the sea. In the evening, the winds would change and the scent of wet earth and vegetation would travel from the jungle out across the water. Home. It smelled like home. She’d missed it… even though from the perspective of the Settlement, she’d only been gone most of a day. To her, the absence had been a year.

[Tazrae]

Taz had received what she thought was a gift from Riverfall… in the form of a huge sea chest. Unafraid, stupid maybe, she’d opened the thing. It had been a magical trap that had pulled her in as soon as its seal was cracked. It had sucked her across time and space… landing her in a magically created pocket of space called a Dominion, where everything changed. It was built by her grandfather, a once noble man that currently housed a pre-valterrian monster called Sran’Tuka. Time had passed differently in the Dominion. It moved swiftly, faster, designed to do so by the ministrations of her bloodline. There, terrible things had happened to her. Those events had resulted in her pregnancy and the birth of a set of twins. The father? Her twin sister’s husband.

There had been no torrid affair, no whispers of love, no seduction, no romance. It had just been a stud put to a mare to produce the desired offspring the monster inside her Grandfather wanted. Taz hadn’t cared at the time. He’d collared her with a magic item that took her emotions away. And slowly, despite what he was doing at the orders of her grandfather, Nyle had given them back…. ironically slowly muting the affects of the choker until she regained her ability to think, to feel, to process. Nyle would have given them back all at once – those terrible feelings of hopelessness and rage – but he’d been worried what it would do to her psyche. So carefully, slowly, defiantly, he’d freed her from the bonds Sran’Tuka had hung on her.

Then, when the unthinkable happened, she’d escaped. Dominions were rare things, products of a lost discipline of magic that the Gods hated. They stole pieces of the realm of the Gods for the mortals to use as they saw fit. Inside them, those same mortals became Gods because they could control the environment of a Dominion with just a thought. But those same mages aged, died, or were killed. Massive amounts of mages died during the Valterrian, unanchoring multiple Dominions to drift through the Ukalas untethered and left to their own devices to develop and grow as they saw fit. Sometimes those unattached Dominions could be found, reclaimed, and tamed. But other times, rarely, they slammed into an active Dominion in use by a Domineer Mage. And when that happened, the reality of each of those two Dominions collided, sometimes shattered, and it was like a mini Valterrian within them.

Taz didn’t know if it was just chance or if something had intervened. But when she’d went into labor and pushed her son into the world followed quickly by her daughter, a rogue abandoned Dominion had slammed into her Grandfather’s Dominion and chaos had ensued. While the world was shattering around her, Lira and Nyle had not only gotten her out, but they’d given her the artifact that made it possible for Sran’Tuka to change bodies. It was something the Gods wanted back badly. Taz had to make a quick decision and she’d been only able to carry one child along with the huge hourglass artifact.

Nyle had screamed a frantic oath to protect the other so, against all her instinct, she’d fled. It was only when she arrived safely back at Syka did she realize the child she saved was Khari… her daughter. Taz had no idea what had happened to Nyle, Lira, and most importantly her son. She was reasonably sure, however, that Kaysen was safe from Sran’Tuka as long as she had the hourglass. So the first thing she’d done when she’d recovered her senses enough to think it through, was put it someplace safe.

[Tazrae]

She’d tried to give that terrible relic, that Hourglass, to the Nymkarta she loved. But after confessing the whole story to him, he’d turned his back and buried himself in a bottle and hadn’t come out. She didn’t blame him. A child of Sunberth, she should have known he was not made of the stuff she needed a partner to be made of to stand beside her. Besides, she was soiled goods. So Taz had taken it and given it to Mathias, a priest of Xhyvas whom kept other things safe. Taz hadn’t seen them, but Mathias had assured her that an army of invisible creatures lurked at his cabana and protected its contents effectively. She believed him.

And so here she quietly walked, trekking south along the beach to her home, a large drykas-style pavilion erected on a deck she’d built herself. It was a pretty place, one she admired as she walked up the trail from the beach to the little homestead. It was her house-before-her-house, a place to crash while she planned her big build. The Mulgan had promised to teach her off-world magic and she was slowly picking up a new discipline she called Florabundance. It involved using djed to magically manipulate plants, create new plants, and basically landscape and build with the discipline. She was slowly practicing, getting better, and working towards an actual home one day. Until then, this little mini-settlement was a godsend.

Just above the sand, tucked into the palms, was her permanent camp. It had a distinctive Benshira flare to it, despite the Drykas Pavilion. Taz was resourceful, but the pavilion was all she could get her hands on. She’d decked it out to loft it above the scorpions, spiders, and ants that wreaked havoc on anything and everything that got in their way.

Not a fan of biting insects, Taz pitched the pavilion which was a monstrous thing far large enough to hold an enormous bedroom, a small sitting room, a place to keep her clothing, a weapons rack, a large table and chairs, and a small space to cook. Before it sat a palapa, a small covered lounge that held a thick mattress and extended out far enough that Taz had hung a cradle for her daughter. Behind and beyond was room for expansion and a separate deck that held a huge copper tub.

Taz loved baths, but often took showers at The Protea when she was too hot and tired to make the trek back to Garden Beach and then magic the water into place at the perfect temperature. But that wasn’t often. Far more often she found the time and energy. Self-care was important.

[Tazrae]

Here, maybe at last, she could start working on the plans she had for The Protea’s expansion. Her bag contained parchment she could lay out on the table and sketch out, developing her ideas more fully so she could take them to Standing Tall and see what the whole mess would cost her. Entering her camp proper, Taz noted a shadow passing overhead and glanced up, seeing the flash of white wings. Jaelis. Taz couldn’t help but smile. His company wouldn’t be wholly unwelcome. He tended to bring the unusual and unexpected to the table.

Offering him a wave, Taz continued what she was doing… jogging up the steps of the pavilion deck and stopping at her planning table. She pulled rolls of parchment out of her bag which she sat down on one end of the table, and began assembling the things she’d need to plan. She didn’t turn at the sound of bare feet padding up the stairs and walking into the shadowy coolness of the pavilion. “Hey” She greeted without turning.

The slim but well-built man settled into one of the chairs, tossing his silvery white hair over one shoulder. “I saw you walking the beach. I thought you could use some company. Khari with Kami?” He asked, tilting his head birdlike. Blue eyes glowed in the shadows cast by the canvas redirecting the midday sun.

Taz looked thoughtful a moment and nodded, her questioning expression turning into a pleasurable smile. “Yes, she is. Kami’s at the Inn watching her for a while. I was just going to sit down and work out what exactly I wanted to do for the Inn expansion. You are welcome to help if you want. I’d be grateful for the sounding board and a second opinion.” She added, offering the Kelvic a smile. Jaelis was her friend, like many of the other people in Syka, she trusted his thoughts on things. He was around but didn’t make himself a pest. He usually showed up when physical or emotional support was needed.

Jaelis had a knack at good timing.

It had been the Kelvic who had found her after she’d vomited back out of the chest where it still sat on her deck. He’d been the one to assess she needed medical help, and that by some baffling magical circumstance, had just given birth. It had also been Jaelis that had been there when Alric had turned his back on her and buried himself in a bottle instead of manning up to offer any comfort or care.


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