20 - Greva 03 - A Thing of Beauty

Greva sat back, a tinge of frustration mingled with the growing anticipation for the coming hunt. She supposed that it was bound to happen, for the port warden to learn of the nature of her employer. Still, Greva would have rather the naive little selkie not have had that particular bubble popped. Well meaning individuals were so much easier to handle when they thought they were working for a righteous being. It wasn’t even as though Greva had requested the port warden to do anything the young one would even consider immoral.

After her scale soak this morning, where she had continued to think about what to do with her depressed Fae problem, she had started to seek out Clarize through her network. It had taken longer than anticipated, the search taking her into lunch time, where Greva had stubbornly pushed on, determined to find the lady and her annoying companion snake. It was just as the sun was beginning to touch the City’s skyline that she found the lady of the gate, nearby the port warden. It was immediately after concluding that conversation, as Greva was beginning to fade the connection to the relevant golem, that she caught the exchange revealing her identity to the port warden. It was of limited consequence, she told herself as she pushed herself out of her chair, stretching after so much sitting. The house would need to be readied, and that includes those within.

As Greva neared Lesnia’s chambers, she noted a distinct difference. Gone were the small constructions of odds and ends, endlessly underfoot. Instead, it seems, Lesnia had chosen to return to her somewhat literal roots as a Fae. The centuries old hardwood trim had once again joined the living. Small branches had sprouted leaves and delicate flowers came from footboards near her room, with the doorframe boasting a particularly dense covering of foliage, obscuring the wood beneath, and extending far beyond, such that the door itself was actually not in view. Greva pushed a scaly hand through the greenery in the place where the doorknob used to be visible, and found it still there, albeit covered with bark that hadn’t been there yesterday. Giving a bit of a push, Greva swung the door ajar, aware of the faint sound of ripping as small organic connections were severed by the door’s movement.

Greva spoke into the cracked door. “I see that you’ve regained some holdings into the magick you lacked even yesterday. This is good. I’ve spoken to Clarize, and I am expecting her and the port warden sometime in the near future. As such, I expect you to be presentable-” the door swung open, cutting short Greva’s request.

Lesnia’s voice came from behind the doorframe’s foliage, sounding much perkier than before, “Come in!” Greva pushed her frame through the leafy boundary, and stopped at the sight of the room. Thick branches hung throughout the room, while roots snaked across the floor. The windows and skylight were entirely tinted green with the masses of leaves pressed against them, angling for all the sunshine they could get. Lesnia’s standard bed had turned into a canopy bed, a cascade of broad leaves obscuring the bed itself from view. As Greva was taking it all in, Lesnia’s pale thin legs poked out from the bed, and the rest of her body followed as she shimmied through the leaves. Greva was dumbfounded. While last night Lesnia’s subtle magicks was non-existent, they were in full force now, not in obscuring her true form, but amplifying her already present beauty to a radiance.

“I’d say I’ve already made myself quite presentable, thank you,” Lesnia said with a confident smirk. Her barely clothed state from yesterday was replaced with an outfit that seemed to be mostly one piece, in a style Greva was unfamiliar with. However, it was dark green, with bright bronze elements contrasting beautifully. Her dark hair was similarly contrasted by a bright bronze hairpiece.

Greva swallowed. “I’m not quite sure /what/ you're presenting, but that will do,” she amended. “It’s called a romper, isn’t it fun?” Lesnia gleefully responded, gently rotating her body so the garment slid and shifted subtly over her body. “I’m not always a fan of human fashion trends, but this one is positively /delightful/. I discovered it when I was out at a garden fair, although I think humans call it a farmer’s market, and it looked so lovely on a woman selling some carrots. I asked her about it, and she told me all about it, and I was so excited! So I went to the shop, and I had them make me a custom one! They said they usually didn’t do that, but I persuaded them heehee, that was loads of fun.”

Lesnia surfaced from her memories, and seemed to look at Greva for the first time since she’d entered. “I think you telling /me/ to look presentable is a little presumptuous of you, when you look like /that/,” she remarked with a grin. Greva looked down at herself. She had neglected to change out of her robe post soak before starting the search for Clarize. Her stomach rumbled. Looking at Lesnia, she conceded the point, and invited Lesnia to share a dinner with her, which Lesnia happily accepted.

It was only after the dinner had concluded that Greva realized that Clarize and the port warden had never arrived. Whether something had held them up, or they had simply decided to show up, Greva didn’t know, but she was too tired, and content from her dinner with Lesnia to care. She resolved to look into it in the morning.