> (First four verses are spoken in a soft lullaby, more narrated than hummed and usually no louder than a whisper)
>
> -
>
>
>
> In the feast’s silence ‘Claret’* gaits softly
>
> Fakes at sorrow then builds up a sigh
>
> In dance’s steps her scent catches yer eye
>
> Whispers o’ morrow, her laughter… oh so courtly
>
> … … …
>
> (Sing it Luffy!)
>
> Thy breath alike a delicate gale
>
> Hides in dawn’s breeze ‘n twilight’s quail
>
> For yer like no other
>
> Sheer bodice ‘n wicked touch of Oras dwale
>
> Blatantly concealed tease behind a veil
>
> Thy Goddess has a lover
>
>
>
> -
>
> No other
>
> (Goddess has a lover)
>
> Sir Dominique Valwarin,
>
> The Carmine Bard.
>
> Born 45 NC in Jelin, the Crabs (Duchy of Tollor)
>
> – Died 109 NC in Eplas, Altarinport (Duchy of Raoz)
>
>
>
> -
> (Rhythmic ballad. One of Carmine Band’s most popular melodies. Rumored that it was written for the then High Priestess of Naossis, renowned Augusta Leda. His muse and rumored to be his best friend’s paramour. Here the later also popular cover-version in the typical JB-Luff’s ‘Strings on grass’ style, which was less vulgar than the original but also more boisterous with the addition of a Banjo, a Mandolin and a large Bass, instead of Valwarin’s two Lutes and a Violin original.)
>
>
>
> -
>
> *Yer (jargon) you are.
>
> **Dwale (Archaic) Poisonous flower, Belladonna.
>
> ***Dominique Valwarin toured extensively in both continents in the latter part of his life escorted by a large troupe of musicians. Especially after the ‘Wicked Quartet’ split up and everyone went their own way. The ‘richest bard that ever lived’ used music whilst narrating his adventures with Ebenezer Framtond in ‘near and far away lands’ mesmerizing his initially distrustful audience. With ‘Beyond Elauthin’ getting printed throughout Jelin and even Eplas after 100 NC, the now well-versed in the story crowds that gathered to witness the bard from up close slowly started paying attention and appreciate his music as well. JB-Luff considered Valwarin’s, way beyond his time unfiltered but elegant music with the shocking use of words out of their proper context or the use of conflicting plugs in weird order, the platform ‘the rest of us free spirits use to stand on.’
>
> **** Claret (rich, very dark red color. Darker than blood. Observed in strong wine. According to the scholars and fans that studied Valwarin’s work and ‘Beyond Elauthin’ to separate truth from fiction an intimate moniker referring to priestess Leda’s very-rare hair color mostly used by Ebenezer Framtond. Quite shockingly Lussiel Inis-Mir’s curls real color has been likewise described by eye-witnesses and the army’s intelligence. Painters might have taken liberties elsewhere with Lussiel (Wetull’s fêted princess obviously doesn’t have big ears) but this isn’t the case here.
>
>
-
----------------------------------------
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Augusta Flavia
High Priestess of Naossis
Fair Lady of the Waters Idole
(Common name 'Flavia' Juliana Vidrix)
Al’Den
Part II
-Your Goddess has a mother-
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The old Hag had chilled the bath’s water on purpose. Flavia could feel the cold penetrating her skin from the toes to the tips of her breasts. ‘Leirda’ raised a dark eyebrow, her face the color of dark cream up to the surface of the pool but a pale white underneath it.
“It’s real,” Leirda assured her upon seeing Flavia’s gaze straying lower. “No magic needed there.”
“I know there is a way,” Flavia retorted a little peeved. The Hag was way older than she was and looked younger than her by a lot. It needed a very-strong willed woman to not be annoyed and while Flavia wasn’t an insecure maiden by any stretch of the imagination, she felt a tang of jealousy tiptoeing near her.
“I know your lot knows. The baths have been loosening tongues since the dawn of time. But it’s a road few dare travel. It makes everything more difficult,” the sorceress replied and glanced at JB-Luff tuning his lute on a large couch nearby. Nard snoring raucously next to him, the boy’s mouth hanging open and drool running down his chin. “What did you do to him?”
“He overcommitted to the stimulus,” Flavia replied with a grimace. “It takes ages to warm the pool back up. Can’t you stop this?”
“Use a smaller bathtub,” Leirda taunted then added just to rile her up a bit more. “I’m doing it for you dear. Cold tightens up all that loose flesh.”
“There is no loose flesh,” Flavia snapped but breathed out seeing Drusilla approaching them. The priestess paused seeing Leirda in the pool with Augusta and then went to sit on a wide marble stool near the busy Luffy.
“I have a mandolin,” Drusilla said to initiate conversation. “We could pray together.”
Luffy turned his head to stare at the statuesque young priestess and Drusilla crossed her legs suggestively, whilst putting her arms on the stool to angle away from him. Her robes parting to her bejeweled navel as Drusilla had sneakily unbuttoned them whilst Luffy was staring at her long legs. The bard pursed his mouth and started striking a couple of cords that turned into a tune seamlessly.
Flavia glanced at the frowning Leirda and Drusilla let out a chuckle recognizing the song.
“Mmm,” the young priestess hummed standing up to approach the bard. She knelt before him, Luffy keeping his eyes on her all the time. “You’re playing too fast,” she pointed and the bard’s mouth split into an idiot’s idea of a flirty grin. “Naughty,” Drusilla responded with the patience of a seasoned professional.
In the feast’s silence Claret gaits softly, Flavia mused and the water turned to boiling almost, when Drusilla stooped near the bard’s ear and purred.
“Sing it for me Luffy.”
Inauspicious timing dear.
“Drusilla call Brigitte for me,” Flavia ordered interrupting them.
“I’m entertaining your guests Augusta,” Drusilla protested civilly.
“Come here,” Leirda said abruptly.
“It isn’t polite to intrude on Augusta’s sessions,” Drusilla replied. She really didn’t like the liberties taken by the Hag.
“Not where I’m from,” Leirda replied and got a long dark leg out of the ungodly hot waters. “I wanted a massage priestess.”
“This isn’t how—”
“Get in the water. Use your mouth,” Leirda cut her off.
Drusilla stared at Flavia hurt. “You have my permission,” she told her and Drusilla’s eyes opened in shock. The next moment she bowed her blond head low.
“Yes Augusta,” she said evenly and started disrobing taking her time as a protest.
“You should send her away,” Leirda murmured so only Flavia could hear and the waters of the pool turned lukewarm again. It coincided with Luffy losing a string and getting forced to stop playing.
“You are not running the Temple,” Flavia reminded her frostily and Leirda pushed herself out of the water. Using her hands the sorceress parked at the edge of the pool but kept her legs in the water to get the peeved Drusilla fully wet.
“It’s your head,” Leirda replied with a chuckle. She then pushed her foot near the waiting naked Drusilla’s face and wiggled her toes. The priestess opened her mouth. “That’s how I remember it. Wider,” Leirda ordered. “That’s what you’re good for.”
“It’s silly holding a grudge against the Temple,” Flavia scolded the sorceress and stood up out of the water much to the gawking Luffy’s glee. The bard was staring at the lewd scene totally absorbed, the broken string in one hand, and his forgotten lute in the other.
“I’m holding a grudge against your line,” Leirda hissed working her foot deeper into Drusilla’s mouth. “And against this brothel you call a Temple.”
“You shall respect the Goddess in her home!” Flavia admonished her and Leirda’s face cracked momentarily, her eyes glowing. Everyone else missed it.
“Like you do?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Flavia snapped angrily before she could control herself. She stepped out of the pool using the side steps, water dripping down her body and her reflection showing the small imperfections that age brought to all mortals.
“You should keep away from the Alden King,” Leirda said and Flavia breathed out slowly.
“A Lucius cast us away. A Lucius will open the seas for us again. It makes sense,” Flavia told her squarely.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“He didn’t cast you away,” Leirda hissed and got her foot out of Drusilla’s mouth. She pressed on the priestess’s naked breast next, nimble toes trapping a red nipple and twisting it. Drusilla gasped but stayed still. “He cast her away.”
“Leda had nothing to do with Ebe returning—”
“He came back for her!” Leirda snapped cutting her off. Drusilla cried in pain and stood back, her breast bleeding where the witch’s toenails had cut the soft flesh.
“No one knows what you’re talking about,” Flavia reminded her. “Your past is ancient history for us.”
“Here’s a little history for you,” Leirda hissed getting up, the moist dark patch of hair between her legs turning white for a moment. “For I saw it happen before your kin twisted his mind! I saw him a Lord in Wetull!”
“What is she talking about?” Drusilla cried out, a hand clasping at the bleeding cut.
“Shush you!” Leirda barked and the young priestess froze with her mouth hanging open and only her eyes moving scared. The sorceress grimaced and glanced at the bewildered bard. “Luffy go outside to fix your lute.”
“Ahm, I can do it here Leirda,” Luffy assured her with a nervous glance at the unmoving Drusilla.
“Luffy remember when you put your cock in my bottom?” She asked and the Bard gulped down with a glance at his snoring friend. “I’m going to do the same if you don’t listen.”
“Put yer cock in my arse?” The bewildered bard asked.
“My arm.”
“I’m about to go and work on this outside,” Luffy announced quickly with a shiver. “You girls do… what you do and I’ll be right back,” he added recovering his wit.
“You won’t,” Leirda hissed.
“I won’t,” Luffy agreed readily and then walked away stiffly, since he sported a rather visible erection tenting his breeches.
“Whilst I don’t care about you,” Leirda the sorceress told Flavia tautly. “Your Goddess does. Eh…” she paused for a moment staring thoughtfully at one of the doors leading outside the Baths. The one JB-Luff had used to shuffle away. “What a stupid song that other idiot wrote… goodness me. Thy Goddess has a lover… ah, for all the gods! I should have pierced his heels and strung him by a tree that very first day, let fishes eat his stupid face!”
“You are a really hateful person on the inside.” Flavia noted deictically. “I can’t fathom what the Duke saw in you.”
The sorceress cast her a peeved side glance. Then dropped her disguise.
“Hmm,” Flavia murmured, fear grabbing her by the throat. The naked Zilan was much taller than she had anticipated. Stunning in an icily menacing way. “He saw you like this?” She croaked, a hand touching her throat to feel the pulse beating wild underneath.
The magnificent white-haired Zilan witch sighed as if in regret. “Alas no, he just saw Leda and it did the trick since men are stupid.”
----------------------------------------
Many hours later Flavia stared at Laila and Acqer displeased. The Temple’s assassins standing with their eyes lowered to the floor, not daring to gaze at the Augusta sitting on Naossis Embrace, her ivory throne and altar.
“A day may come when the First Idole will issue orders under this roof,” she told them, glaring at the scowling Drusilla. “But it isn’t today for that young lady must sit on this throne first and clearly she hasn’t yet.”
“Yes Augusta,” Laila whispered.
“Has our agent removed the poison?”
“He did. But some of the crew had some already,” Laila replied.
“How long?”
“Two or three days. They won’t suspect it.”
Flavia pursed her mouth in anger. Anger forms wrinkles on the skin that are difficult to cover and ugly, she thought and pushed back on the hard throne. “Leirda is a sorceress and a Sheer. She can’t be killed by poison. Hurting a ship full of people to get to her was a stupid idea. You think others haven’t thought of that? That they didn’t try? The Duke of Pascor poisoned the whole Fenlands at some point. Almost wiped out the Fishfolk and many of his people. Drusilla you study at the Temple’s Library. Have you learned nothing? Leave us. You’ll work for Hermione digging the fields for a month as punishment. Not you Drusilla.”
Flavia waited for them to leave and then sent Brigitte away as well.
“She’s a monster. Priestess Leda wrote it clearly,” Drusilla hissed and the current Augusta made a tired gesture for her to stop talking.
“She’s a Zilan. A Sheer. One of the three Sibyls of the Coven probably,” Flavia started, thinking on the conversation she had with ‘Leirda’. “I won’t attempt to guess her name for it isn’t important at this moment. We work for the Temple Drusilla. Dedicate our lives to spread the Goddess’ message to the realm. How is us behaving like Ora’s disciples doing her justice?”
“Augusta. We don’t know what she wants.”
“A Sheer shall follow her visions to the bitter end. I know what I want. You do. Haven’t we worked hard to change the realm’s perception? You think I haven’t performed for people I found to be revolting? Look how close we are now. Vita knew that.”
“It didn’t help her much.”
“You are not listening. We wanted to bring the Duke closer to us. His daughter was a good first step but Vita over-committed. A Priestess can’t give her heart to anyone but the Goddess. I allowed it but I shouldn’t have. A priestess can’t belong to anyone noble or not.”
“But then the Alden King came,” Drusilla noted with a grimace. “And took Monica for himself.”
“Better to have a King’s favor than the Duke’s. The matter is resolved,” Flavia scolded her.
“Vita is my pupil. I love her as a sister,” Drusilla hissed passionately. “She's not to be discarded after being used and with her heart in pieces.”
“She’s an instrument of the Goddess and so are you. Myself included. We provide pleasure and we give solace to troubled souls. We use our words and our bodies to serve. We don’t think of ourselves but of the Divine’s wishes. We feel no shame and we humble ourselves all hours of the day and all veiled hours of each night. Without complaint.”
Drusilla gulped down, her eyes foggy and then bowed deeply.
Flavia got up with a sigh and walked to her. She took the gloomy priestess in her arms and held her tight. Drusilla’s body relaxed in her embrace. “Vita will find her way. She has enough gold to open a business and the Goddess won’t leave her lost. When her mind clears, she’ll find happiness again.”
“What about Sister Monica?”
“She’ll serve the king. The Goddess allowed it,” Flavia whispered in her ear.
“What did the Sheer said?”
“She needs the King but fears our presence might change the future.”
“The future is a book filled with moving pictures,” Drusilla recited what Leda had written more than a hundred years ago. Each depicting the same scene you divinate with variations. Each time you attempt to reveal it or copy it on paper, the scene you create washes away into nothingness and another takes its place. To know the future is to keep it in your heart. A secret. For if you attempt to speak about it in warning what you fear or try to prevent shall come to pass in another way.
“Umm,” Flavia murmured and pulled away, her eyes wandering on the gilded and ivory statue of Naossis in her birth suit coming out of the waters. “For all her knowledge Leda’s heart led her astray and the Sheer has been affected by the same affliction.”
“The sorceress has a heart?” Drusilla retorted with a grimace.
“Every creature in this Realm or all others has,” Flavia reminded her. “Be it a mortal or a God. A humble peasant or a mighty king. A naughty priestess or an ancient sheer. They can hate and they can love the same.”
Of course all realm's creatures had something else in common.
> ‘The Goddess you serve favors you Augusta and doesn’t want to see you hurt. As all beings your Goddess has a mother that heeds to her offspring’s plight and wishes me to warn you. If I do tell you what will happen though, the future might change or it might not. Nesande doesn’t care, but I’m an old soul set in my ways and fear my people would be led astray. Never to recover. For I saw the great deceiver wearing the face of another.’
>
> Flavia stared in the depressed and serious alien face unsure.
>
> ‘A deceiver can make things appear different,’ she told her. ‘Especially if he senses someone watching and you were never subtle.’
>
> ‘Nothing I saw hints at another. No one breathing can do what you propose.’ The sorcerer had replied afore continuing.
>
> ‘The Tiger mustn’t stop. Let him roam angrily, don’t attempt to mend his wounds for you won’t be successful and only inflict him greater harm in the end. Don’t make him stall or stop to be something more. Generals are wasted in peace. You don’t want to see what’s coming next in both your futures.’
>
> ‘I wish him no harm and I asked for no divination Sorceress. He’s much more than what you just described. Not a lifelike drawing in a book with many other drawings that look like him but a real living and breathing person. There’s goodness in his eyes and whatever it is you fear I’m sure he’ll prevent without any goading. Let the realm be. We are all the same. We live and feel. If we make mistakes we can correct them.’
>
> ‘Eh. That’s just great. Ena had told me something similar in the past. She ended up a mangled, melted and insane shell of herself, dead inside before she stopped living. Must I do everything myself?’ The Sheer had griped very frustrated.
>
> ‘Mayhap you shouldn’t do anything,’ Flavia had replied sympathetically.
>
> Leirda had stared in her face for a long moment and then scrunched her half-breed’s nose, the colors changing and the illusion cracking again. Then with a fatalistic deep shy she had added.
>
> ‘Don’t sleep in cold water.’
Months later Flavia had arrived in the city of Alden again sailing in an ancient Issir ship, braved the knights standing guard outside the Royal Catacombs and walked inside. When the priestess witnessed the King’s sorrow firsthand, her heart wept and knew she had done the right thing. She was needed. This Lucius shall make everything right, she had decided and got to work.
Goddess is a lover.
Goddess is a healer.
Goddess is a servant.
Goddess washes the sins away.
Goddess prays for those led astray.
Cleanses the soul and drags the sleigh…
…out o’ sorrow's way.
“Let me help,” Flavia had told the grief-stricken King of Regia.
Despite the effort the priestess put forth in order to follow her own advice, keep quiet or ask for nothing in return, she couldn’t. It is said that those that entered the King’s domain, Lucius’ divine aura ensnared them. So when he asked for her counsel, Flavia had offered her insight.
Much as she understood it.
-
> The High Dictat of the Triads, his influence now reaching from Kraken’s Gulf to the Trident, King Lucius the third and the ‘Bloody Third’, crossed Maiden’s Bridge on the 5th of Quintus, the fifth month of 194 NC, the last month of Spring. The Legion’s crimson banners marched at a fast pace towards Rosebush and the large port city of Illirium where the eager to reunite with his growing family Lucius was to get his first sight of Regia’s southernmost shores in years.
>
> A day before reaching the city’s walls Brim ‘Stout’ Solomon the 3rd Legion’s Signifer stabbed the long gilded staff down at the edge of the coastal road. The misty Trident’s west leg barely visible into the sanguine blue of the open ocean. When the annoyed King rode to the front to query on the reason for the army stopping so early in the day, the Nord officer replied staunchly that ‘given the dreadful heat milord and the absence of enemies waiting at the front, the men need a breather.’
>
> Lucius agreed after a thoughtful pause, glanced at his entourage that had Augusta Flavia added back in Alden and then gestured for Tribune Trupo to erect a camp. The taken aback mustached staff officer and military scribe had objected in a guarded manner stating that ‘the Legion always marches until noon, when on campaign my Lord.’
>
> ‘Indeed it does,’ Lucius had replied as civilly, a hint of razz in his voice. ‘But I’m told we are in campaign no more for quite a while now mister Trupo. Allow the men to rest if you be so kind and we’ll meet with the Admiral’s people on the morrow well-rested.’
>
>
>
>
>
> And so the Eighteen Months Offensive ended without any further fanfare, 586 days after it had begun.
>
>
>
>
>
> Lord Sirio Veturius
>
> The Fall of Heroes
>
> Chapter II
>
> (Lord Lucius Alden,
>
> -Also addressed-
>
> Legatus Omnis Legionis, Praetor Maximus, King Lucius the Third
>
> Southern campaigns
>
> Sixth year
>
> Volume XI
>
> Eighteen Months Offensive
>
> Finale
>
> Circa 5th of Quintus, Spring of 194 NC
>
> Followed by ‘the Horselords question’, the ‘salty Aegium Affair’ and ‘Scorned hearts see no reason’. Prelude to the ‘Tiger’s wrath.’
>
> Circa summer of 194 NC to summer-fall of 195 NC
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read it at Royalroad : https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/46739/touch-o-luck-the-old-realms
& https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/47919/lure-o-war-the-old-realms
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