"Humans are creatures of legend here." She spoke softly to their air. "Few are those that have seen one. Fewer are those that know what they can do... or cannot do." She let the comment hang in the air before continuing. "We all know what the pale ones are capable of." She said with distaste as she glanced at the Eltharian lady. "They only inspire fear in their own homes. Here, alone, enslaved, they are pitiful." With the toe of her red leather boot she rolled the lady onto her back.
"What am I to do with you?" She pressed her toe to the lady's cheek and rolled her head to the side. Mule knew she was not talking about the elf.
"I claimed a service. I will serve." Mule stated flatly. He couldn't help but look at the back of The Majestic's neck. One quick grab, and this devil women would be dead without a sound. He could take his charge and run, he knew the way out. But something inside him said simply - 'wait'.
"Yes. You will." The Majestic again let the comment hang in the air. "It would serve you well, to maintain the mystery of humans, and reveal nothing." She never looked at him as she turned to leave. "Outside this door, my servant will take you to your new apartments. She will see to it you are cleaned and clothed appropriately." Mule helped the elf to her feet and helped her follow the Mistress.
"It would also serve you well to rid yourself of the one person in this city that knows what a human is truly capable of." A cold chill immediately ran down the elf lady's spine as The Majestic spelled out Mule's weakness in their little game.
But when she looked up at him, he wouldn't meet her gaze.
* * * * *
Mule looked at the tub in question. The water steamed up in the already warm air, dictating that the temperature would be too high for his liking. The mistress had commanded that he be bathed and cleaned so he would be tolerable to the nobility. But the attendant had taken some liberal assumptions about how to do that. Mule glanced over his shoulder at the serving girl. She was Zecarin, but disfigured, like Boil. The left side of her head and shoulder was completely scarred, probably from a fire. She grew her hair long to cover that side of her face and always kept her gaze downward. Even now as she scrubbed mules back with a porous stone she was watching his heels. Mule had been lathered by her ministrations in a oily-soapy residue. It smelled musky, and made his skin slick. The dried blood, sweat, dirt, and other grime of the last few weeks were being scrubbed off along with a layer of skin. It left finished areas freshly pink and tender. Behind them, the Eltharian lady watched in quiet study.
The three of them were the only ones in this bathing room. The stone tiled floors were rough, absorbing the moisture from the feet that tread across them. Whereas the tub itself was recessed into the floor and made of scintillating colored glass that reflected and refracted the light from a source underneath it. The tub glowed, casting its array of colors onto the walls and ceilings, yet leaving most of the rest of the room dim. This chamber was meant for royalty, and the serving girl was part of it. This was not something Mule would likely see again, but in it was a lesson to be learned. His Mistress was teaching him things without saying the words herself. It was Boil who first gave him that lesson - "Listen to what is not said, more than what is said."
This bath house was luxurious. The Unkillable mentioned he was headed to the pool gardens when he left the audience chamber. If a male like him, a warrior, also indulged himself like this, then he was a soldier that had earned it. Zecarin's earned everything through conquest - status, desires, wealth. The Unkillable was dangerous. That was what his Mistress was trying to show him -- through a measure of what the male Zecarin earned for himself.
A cascade of cold water shattered his train of thought as it poured over him washing away the oily soap. He jerked involuntarily and clenched his fists tight as well as his teeth. Wet, brown curls dripped into his eyes and he shook his head violently to send water droplets out away from his face. The attendant placed her hands on his back and ran her fingertips down his flexing muscles in a soothing fashion. Her arms wrapped around him as she pulled herself against his back. Her warm bare skin pressed up against his chilled nerves.
It did the trick of instantly soothing him back into a relaxed state. The contrast of cold and warmth was another one of her skilled ministrations for relaxation. His head lifted back reflexively and nestled against the top of her head as his neck sought out more of her to warm him. It was an instant later he remembered who he was and where he was that he sat up straight again and pulled away from her.
Mule looked down to his arms, and the raw tender skin was showing the veins in his arms clearly. The constricting cold had jarred his circulation into pumping faster, and the clenching of his muscles caused the veins to distort grotesquely above his skin. He looked down his bare body and was amazed that the effect was not limited to his arms.
The attendant crossed his field of view and brought his thoughts back to the now. She took his hands and led him slowly into the steaming tub. Her naked form started to disappear below the low lying fog. In that moment Mule noticed how beautiful she looked, her hair perfectly masked her deformity so long as she kept her gaze down. And as she led him into the water, there was a certain allure to her that he struggled to fight back. It wasn't until he was waste deep in the bath that he realized the water wasn't as scalding as he anticipated. It was in fact very preferable and relaxing. The floor under the water stepped off sharply about a foot making a ledge or seat.
The attendant placed her hands on his shoulders and pushed him down onto it, submerging the rest of his torso up to his armpits. Slowly she circled around him and positioned herself to sit behind him with her legs under her. Each instruction she had given him had been with her hands, she never said a word to him, her hands did that for her. So he stared out at the water as he had done and waited. Her hands touched his neck and started to rub the tension and pain away. Her hands spoke to him "Surrender To Me."
Her arms made no splash in the water as they worked nor did she make any sound other than the light breathing of her slender form. The room was silent. The light was pleasingly low yet enough to navigate around. The temperature was constantly warm. The smells were subtly musky from the soap and lightly herbal from incense burners in the corners. This had all been planned out to an art form - this was a room for seduction.
The thought had no sooner occurred to him than a soft wet sensation stole his mind back to the bath. The attendant's lips were on his neck kissing softly up the curve of the muscle and tendon towards the ear. It was a sensation that sent all kinds of nerve impulses throughout his body. Part of him had already been seduced by her attention and begged for more, and yet the other wanted to push her way. His muscles tensed drastically. The attendant sensed his discomfort and backed away, her fingers replaced her lips and started to rub and kneed those tensing muscles back into submission.
Mule turned his head slightly and glanced back to the corner of the room where his companion sat watching them. Her face was stoic, and unemotional, and she watched them both as instructed. This was a lesson for her as well as for Mule. Since he had claimed her, The Majestic had commanded that she attend to him in their fashion, so that Mule would learn their ways and live as one of them. She was to attend to him, as the scarred Zecarin now did, and this was her first lesson.
The attendant's lips found the back of Mule's neck again, this time he didn't resist. Her hands roamed over his shoulders and down his arms, rubbing and kneading with a surprising firmness that overwhelmed his senses and he found himself taking deep sharp breaths in elation. Her thumbs pressed into the large muscles between his shoulder blades that ran down his spine and worked away the knots. She put her weight into it as she rose forward onto her knees and used her body's entire motion to work out the tension in Mule. The effect was immediate. His shoulder's slumped forward and he let a soft moan escape his lips. The lower her hands went the farther forward he leaned to accommodate her. When they reached his waistline she slid forward and pressed forward against his back. Her small breasts were firm enough to illicit an immediate response from Mule as he sat back up, but only to pressing against her. Her strong fingertips found their away around him to his manhood, and took him in her grasp.
