It was by right a miracle that she’d escaped through the masses of Terminus when the magister, Eximium, was murdered right in front of virtually everyone who ever lived and the whole party was blown up, quite literally, to hysterical proportions. If it weren’t for the fact that she was not a native of Terminus, and that she sort of gave of this whole ‘I’ll kill you in your sleep’ vibe when people looked upon her and her garments, she definitely would’ve stayed and enjoyed the show.
As it stood now, though, she had no real reason to stay anywhere near the place of the crime.
It did somewhat surprise her that she didn’t get a bounty placed on her head, though. It hadn’t been too long after the incident had taken place, but already bounties had been placed on anyone leaving the scene. Everyone, except for her, which was probably a godsend if she ever did believe in on. Instead, she decided that it was just her luck finally coming to fruition.
First things first, though, even if she was free from the clutches of Terminus’s political intricacies for now, she was still noticeable to anyone who’d seen her during the whole shebang. She had to get rid of her increasingly more ornamental dress - seriously, this was probably the fourth incarnation of this same dress, and it became frillier with every iteration. Apart from the fact that being unrecognizable meant ditching the clothing she was last seen in, her dresses were also not actually that mobile to move in.
It was a nice enough red, velvet dress that fell to her ankles and ended in a v-shape near her neck, but she only wore it because she went to a party - one she didn’t expect to end in a murder, otherwise she would’ve worn something more stylish and appropriate. Like a black, velvet dress with matching accessories to make it seem like she was here for a mourning.
Finally finding her way back to the room she’d hired in some shady looking part of town, she eventually managed to undo herself of her dress - it turned out to be quite the hassle still - and found a nice place to burn it to a crisp, namely the fireplace in her room.
“Aaah,” she said to herself as she stretched her arms and legs for a bit and paraded around her four by four room in just her underwear. “How I love the smell of bad decisions and excessive measures!”
In hindsight, burning her dress was probably not something she really had to do, but somehow it felt great, good even. Besides, it was time for something else, something new and exciting. Astra non Obligant had sent things spiralling down into hysteria, and Rosa honestly couldn’t be happier with it. Civil, or in this political wars were always filled with deaths aplenty, and it just so happened Rosa had a patent on all things deceased.
It was a shame then that she didn’t get the chance to add the magister, Eximium, to her collection, but she’d rather stay out of sight than let all eyes be on her. Besides, if she’d tried to get to the podium and actually do her thing to the magister, she probably would’ve been the second case of death on that day - or at least captured, tortured and then killed. Moreover, unfortunately for her, she had not yet mastered the arts of not being deceased so she really didn’t want to take her chances.
As the smouldering remains of her dress kept the room relatively warm, she walked over to her wardrobe and took out a new set of clothes. It was something her mother had made for her - or had commissioned for her, she wasn’t sure which of the two it was - and really gave off the whole necromancer look quite well. The chest piece was made of leather, with some bone plates near her neck, and had a right sleeve that ended in a fingerless glove adorned with two sockets for, she presumed, magic eyeballs.
It also came with a pauldron for her right shoulder in the form of a skull with feathers acting like some kind of ‘hair’-extension. It was held to the chest piece by thick ropes interlocking with the bone plate near her neck. The chest piece itself fell to just over her belly button, leaving a little bit of skin up for show until her skirt started.
Unlike what she usually wore, this skirt was actually simple in design. Pleated and easy to wear, the skirt lacked many of the outrageous designs Rosa usually wore in favour of ease of movement. She did not really mind it, though, and, as she put it on, she found it falling to just around her knees. Overall, the skirt in combination with the chest piece made for an interesting look. The only problem was that her feathery hair was kind of getting in the way now.
“Guess I won’t be needing your charms any longer,” she said to herself as she found the nearest pair of scissors she could find - she had quite a lot, because they made for easy tools of war - and made short work of her ridiculously long hair until there was nothing more than a pixie cut left.
As she placed the scissors down again, she stepped over towards one of many broken mirrors in her room and gazed at her ‘new’ self. What was this now, the third time that she decided on a new look? Honestly, her cut hair did not look half as bad as she thought it might look given that she was not actually a hairdresser of any kind. If anything, though, her feathery hair really seemed to complement her stormy grey eyes rather well.
Grabbing a bunch of the jewellery Kincaid had given her for one reason or another; she adorned her neck with all but the armbands and tugged the rest on her left arm. What her left side had lacked in terms of cool accessories, like a skull pauldron and a sleeve with glove, it made up for with jewellery. Overall, it didn’t look too shabby.
Looking around her bare room - it only had one closet for her clothes, one creaky bed a desk and a bunch of broken mirrors - she looked at the hollowed out, top-half of a beast’s skull and wondered if she could wear it as some kind of headdress to really complete her look. She probably could, and probably would, but not now, not today. She had work to do still and while she didn’t mind standing out a little, adding a headdress to her attire would probably be a bit too much for now.
“Wolfram,” the voice of Aranea echoed through the halls of Castle Vahlmore as the leader of the cult of the same name strode onwards.
“Lady Aetius,” Elara called from the dining room just as Aranea entered, hastily standing up to greet her guest. “You seek my father? I am not sure where he went, but if you would like I can pour you something to drink and we can wait together? I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”
“Very well,” Aranea responded, resigning herself to the wait.
Taking a chair opposite Elara, she sat down rather lazily and took a good, hard look at her surroundings. While it hadn’t been that long ago since she’d last been to the castle, she’d never really taken the time to get properly acquainted with it. Now that she was trying to, she could kind of see why she hadn’t before. Despite its grandiose look on the outside, it was rather simple looking from the inside.
Only a handful of paintings of old Vahlmoran leaders adorned the walls here and there, and the ceiling was some kind of see-through substance that made it possible to see the night sky above - which was a nice touch, admittedly - but other than that the whole castle was made out of marble and stone, and it just didn’t really interest her whatsoever.
“Lady Aetius?” Elara asked with a surprisingly innocent look on her face.
“Hmm?”
“I was wondering if you’d like tea…?”
“Coffee please,” she said. “Unlike my daughter, I can’t really get through the day without a good dose of caffeine.”
“Of course,” Elara replied and went off to fetch a cup of coffee for her guest.
Listening to the footsteps leaving the room, she could hear a second pair come through a door to the right of her. The heavy steps were rather unmistakable, and while it did not immediately cause her to turn around, she was glad she didn’t have to wait as long as she thought she might’ve had to. After all, Wolfram was known for letting people wait.
“Wolfram of Vahlmore,” Aranea spoke in a slightly more dignified tone of voice this time as she turned around and faced the man known to most only as The Crow. “I hope you don’t mind that I took the liberty of… intruding on your household.”
“Ahh, Aranea,” Wolfram responded. “You always were a good listener. No, I do not mind. I suspect we have a lot to talk about anyway. I heard your daughter has made it safely to Terminus?”
“Hmm,” Aranea managed before finding Elara returning with her cup of coffee. “She’s been sending me a couple of letters now and again to keep me up to speed with what’s happening around and about the place. I think she’s found a room out somewhere in one of the slums, or something.”
“Fitting,” Wolfram commented as he send Elara back for another cup of coffee. “While she might enjoy the niceties of expensive clothing and a warm, hot bath, I always can’t help but feel she’s better suited for the Dark.”
“You’re not wrong, Wolfram.” Though she agreed with the man, she couldn’t help but feel a little hesitant. “I just hope she doesn’t step off the path I set her out on.”
Receiving his drink from his daughter, Wolfram waved Elara away with a simple hand motion and then he leaned in forward towards Aranea. It wasn’t until he waited for Elara to sit down again in her seat opposite the two adults that he spoke up again.
“Do you think she’s… caught onto the plan then?”
“I don’t think so,” Aranea responded. “At least, I’m fairly certain she doesn’t have a clue as of yet. The problem is, you can never really know with necromancers. A point which I’m sure you’re all too familiar with.”
“Hrm.” Wolfram couldn’t really refute the woman’s words, even if it didn’t really work entirely like she thought it did. There were, like with every other manner of magic, certain protocols and steps one must undertake to really get anything, or anywhere.
“How is she doing?” he finally, perhaps a little sudden, asked.
“Dormant,” Aranea said. “Dormant, yet stirring. The spider’s are growing restless, Wolfram. Every day webs and nests spout near the tomb; it seems they’re all gathering there for her resurgence.”
“We just need Rosa to be ready, is that right?” Wolfram quipped as he glanced over to his daughter.
Despite the fact that Rosa was Elara’s only friend, and perhaps his daughter saw Rosa as even more than just a friend, he was still impressed with the fact that the young heiress was just going along with Aranea’s ploys. It had been about four years now since Aranea had made her plot known to them, and at first he’d assumed Elara would be devastated with the news, but somehow it had actually made her excited?
It was both strange, and reassuring at the same time.
Aranea, in all her infinite wisdom, simply nodded and took a sip from her coffee. The white-haired woman had always been something of an enigma to him, but years ago when she’d come to him asking for a place to stay he did not have it in him to refuse her. Something about her entourage and the way she presented herself made him curious. Now that all of her plans were starting to come to fruition, Wolfram felt the same kind of excitement and curiosity coursing through his veins as he did back then.
Chuckling softly at something that popped up in his head as he watched Aranea, the tower of a man found only a, “What?” from the woman on his receipt.
“No,” he said, shaking his head softly. “I was just thinking that despite the fact that you and Rosa are not blood-related, you share so many similarities.”
“Well,” she began. “I was the one to raise her up, so I would expect that to happen.”
“Ah, but have you ever noticed that she has your eyes? She has that same, stormy grey look in her eyes every time she’s thinking up some new kind of plan. I don’t know, Aranea, I always found it interesting how, despite the obvious difference in physicality, you two look so much alike.
“Are you sure you’re not actually part enlil, yourself?”
“Shut it, Crow.”
“All right, all right,” he conceded, holding his hands up in the air in defeat. “I get it, it’s still a difficult subject for you, but you’ve got to come to terms with it one day, Aranea. You can’t live your entire life lying to her.”
“And what is it that I’ve been doing my entire life then?” she asked, clearly frustrated and annoyed by now.
“...”
“That’s right, weaving lies, Wolfram! I am this close to waking her up. I don’t care if I have to create even more lies than I’ve already done. She will obey me, Wolfram, I’ve come too far to have her slip from right under my nose.”
Taking a deep breath, Wolfram took his time responding to Aranea. Though he had said the words partially in jest, he realized that by doing so he heard some things he wasn’t sure he had really ever wanted to hear. While a lot of it didn’t make sense to him, what little he did understand made him think.
What if…?
No, there was no point in dwelling on it at this point.
“I’m sorry,” he said, bowing his head slightly. “I should not have pushed you.”
“It’s… okay,” Aranea responded, catching her breath. “I… I just need her to believe in my lies for a little longer, and everything will be fine.
