Rahela didn't need any more encouragement. She crawled out of the tent with more speed than a spider reaching its captured prey, although she felt she certainly didn't have that hypothetical spider's confidence. If anything, Rahela thought she was more likely to become the prey.
There the Traveling Tall Maiden was, her back to the Emperor, who stood some feet away. That maiden had her front pointed towards the disturbed horse and mule, and both of those creatures seemed nervous. Their ears were quickly swiveling. Ureche was pawing at the earth. Both of their mouths were tight. Their eyes were darting about. Rahela was afraid they'd attack out of desperation, since they were both unable to flee from any danger.
Her hand against her bosom, vaguely feeling her own heart pulse as if it was close to collapsing, she watched and listened as the Emperor firmly but not exactly hatefully said, "I won't let you have the horse, nor the mule. Regardless, they shouldn't have a pleasing taste. Wouldn't you rather have something else?" One of his hands rose, fingers closed, as he made a light gesture. "If you'll have some patience, I could send you a lovingly simmered stew, or a well grilled steak."
As if someone had flicked her nose, or tugged her earlobe, or slapped her shoulder, Rahela's mind was suddenly jerked over to something she probably should've thought of before. She turned back to the tent and partially crawled back in. She snatched up the previously forgotten fish gelatin from the tent's cloth floor. Then, shaky and feeling weak, Rahela stood back outside, tore the wrapping away from the snack, and held it out and up as if she expected a bird to take it from her grasp.
Possibly having heard Rahela's feet and skirts disturbing the forest floor, His Majesty turned his head over his shoulder to get a look at her. His eyebrows were higher than normal, but not outrageously so. Rahela chose to ignore him. He wasn't her target.
She used her free hand to pick up her skirts so her legs could have more freedom. She hurried over to a spot vaguely between the Emperor and the Tall Maiden, who still seemed to be looking at the horse and mule. Well, Rahela assumed she was.
Still holding her snack out, Rahela forced down a lump of saliva and blurted out words that were nearly crude. "I have something!"
The Maiden's reaction was quick enough. Her feet moving with expertise, she turned her whole body around. Her skirt barely moved. Goodness, the forest litter was hardly even rustled!
Rahela made a mistake here.
She craned her hear up to look at the Maiden's eyes.
Only ...
There were grand, dark pits there. Stretching the skin around themselves. Wide. Seemingly bottomless. With a horrible swirling, pulsing feeling from inside. Or was it a feeling at all?
Cold. Dizzy. Rahela couldn't move yet she knew she'd faint if allowed.
The Maiden's face lowered and approached. Closer and closer.
Until all Rahela could see, all she could know, was that darkness, that peculiar, breathing darkness.
"Awaken!"
Finally, she could know something else. Nausea. Vomiting. She was vomiting. She felt something on her palm. Leaves and twigs. Then something on her knees.
Clothing and more forest litter. She was on her hands and knees. She was vomiting. There was a world. She was part of it. Never before had she ever been so relieved to be vomiting!
"Water. Have this water."
She was sitting now. Her backside made a little puff of air and rattling noises on the busy earth. Someone was putting something to her mouth and tilting her head back.
Water! Cool and exciting in her mouth! Rahela greedily swallowed.
Finally, she coughed and gasped, and she could see the cold forest and sky. Then the nervous horse and mule. Then she looked up and around to see the Emperor.
His dark eyes were tight and narrow. His jaw was tighter than that. Rahela looked back down. He was holding a flask of water. She could smell and taste it, her vomit too.
"My ... My Lord?" She pawed at her belt's accessories, looking for something to wipe her mouth with. "Where is ... the Maiden?"
His Majesty snapped his flask closed and put it away. "She moved towards you. I thought everything was well. She plucked your food from your fingers, but there was a grave issue. You seemed to be entranced, nearly dead, but also frozen in place. Not only that, the Maiden's face was grossly horrifying. Her pupils, or I assume they were pupils, stretched open ... so wide that the rest of her eyes disappeared."
A hand moving to a temple, dealing with a growing headache, Rahela said, "The pupils of the eyes ... are they not little holes? And ... I believe what actually controls their sizes ... are the irises? So ..." here, she gasped a few times and groaned, "the irises are what opened the holes? And what of her corneas?"
"Her eyelids were much wider," the Emperor said as he helped her up to her feet, keeping behind her. Rahela felt her plaits on her back. It seemed that he'd kept her hair away from her vomit. Of course. He wouldn't want anything defiling such a beloved part of his wife's beauty.
"I thought her eyes had turned black and grown," he said. "Perhaps even breaking out past her face." His voice hushed as he said this, and he let a hand stay on Rahela's shoulder. The fingertips massaged her for a second or more. "I couldn't move, or no ... not quickly. My legs were lead and my arms weren't better. For a time I could only stare at that ... that fairy."
Rahela sighed. "My Lord ... was there a time when you could do more than stare?"
His hand made two pats on her. Then he said, "Yes. I can't be certain how long I needed, but soon I could move again. I was heavy and ill, but I was earnest. I realized you were still entranced by the Maiden, your arm high. Then I saw that Maiden move to you. She took your gelatin from your hand and held it up to her face, and then she disappeared. Only then could I move with strength, and only then did you fall."
"If you wouldn't mind speculating, My Lord, how much time passed?"
His hand rose away from her. He cleared his throat. "At first, time felt as if it was clawing at the air, clumsier and weaker than the oldest people I've seen. Now, I believe only less than a minute had passed until the Maiden had left."
Rahela took a moment to give a painful little moan with tight lips. Then she swallowed down budding saliva in her throat and said, "It's been confirmed. Food can be used to advantage where that fairy is concerned."
This time, he patted the top of her head, right through her veil. Rahela flinched at that.
"We have no reason to speak of his encounter to anyone else," the Emperor told her.
***
Ammas' thick leather shoes didn't make much noise as they were pressed against a brown rug with every step. Back and forth, he slowly paced, his shoulders and chin high. His shadow was harsh in the afternoon's cool light. His voice was calm but still very firm.
"Not long ago, the Empress Consort handed me a package of money, and she told me to leave for a holiday. Later, I discovered a message she'd left a secret letter hidden in the package." He gave a light nod to himself as he remembered the Empress' precise yet soft handwriting. "The message held instructions for traveling off to learn important information concerning a certain noblewoman that boldly assumed she could trick and betray the Empress Consort."
His feet halted roughly in the center of the rug. Then his feet shifted to turn his body around. Ammas was then facing the new recruits. A man and a woman. Aside from their healthy and athletic figures, they seemed average. Their clothing was normal. Their faces were normal. Their easy-going expressions and relaxed eyes were normal too. It wasn't healthy for a bodyguard to always be tense, or that's what Ammas believed. Too much stress will make anyone useless.
"This fact should remind you of how important your new positions are," Ammas told the duo. "The Empress Consort is incredibly valuable to Yahsin. To lose such a thorough asset, that would only be dangerous for us. We can't allow the Empress to come to any harm."
Ammas gave another nod, although he was certain it wasn't necessary. The people before him seemed unfazed by his short tale. One of his shoulders quirked up as he said, "Tonight will be a fine test for the both of you. The feast will be a pleasant evening, but it will also be lively. We must never lose sight of our Empress."
And the feast seemed pleasant indeed.
The new female bodyguard sat fairly close to the Empress Consort, sipping a honey flavored beverage and munching on thick puddings. The new male body guard sat a few seats away, keeping an eye out for anyone that would approach in a suspicious matter. Ammas stood a bit behind the Empress Consort, occasionally chewing on some tart or putting a palm's worth of dried fruits into his mouth.
One of the Empress Consort's ladies-in-waiting, the blonde one, she often turned her head back to look up at Ammas. There was almost always a tiny smile on her bright face. Ammas didn't know why, but he did occasionally think to himself, "What a silly child that is!" Honestly, he knew he wasn't worth caring much about, or at least not to that child.
Sometimes he wanted to approach, grab one of the few dangling strings of beads on her headdress, and drag her face right back where it belonged. Perhaps she'd been gossiping about him recently? That wasn't a far-fetched concept. She'd always seemed to be a gregarious little thing.
There was a slightly rigid little moment blurred within the merriment. A servant went up to the smiling Emperor and said something that was apparently important in his ear. At this apparently important something, the Emperor's face darkened. Deep lines grew under his nose and around his lips. He waved the servant away and turned to the Empress Consort.
