Ghislaine Étoileur

Under the Weather

The dismal morning drizzled outside her windows, gently rocking the runed framework of her Rustberg manse on reckless, seafaring winds. Rain-spattered portals to the grey beyond, they afforded a blurry look into another dreary attempt at dockside daybreak- fitting for how Ghislaine’s world swayed around her even before she lifted her head.

Silk bed sheets pooled at her feet as she rolled bitterly from their warmth, spilling onto the marbled flooring as though its smooth, cool surface might ground the disquiet in her belly. She had never been prone to sickness- had rarely suffered much more than a rueful morning, with an herbal draught and a splash of arcwine in her orange juice to get her through. But a a few days had passed with this tiresome bug and thoughts of breakfast were about as welcome as the swirling patterns of bathroom tiles pressing into her knees.

Her appointments had been cancelled, of course, a last-ditch effort to grant herself plenty of opportunity for rest, in hopes that she’d finally get the better of this thing that plagued her. She was not in the business of entertaining the nagging worry that occasionally clenched icy fingers in her breast, either. A simple chill, of the kind that often emerged with a bout of flu, and nothing more.

Presently, she slumped into the yielding comfort of her favourite chair, cradled within plush, velvet arms with the faint taste of mint on her tongue. The pleasant magefire crackling in the alabaster fireplace granted a welcome warmth, reminiscent of her girlhood Suramar, all lavender tendrils of light playing about the faded stars of her complexion. 

She’d ventured far from Suramar by choice, of course. And she was content with what she’d found beyond the bastille, no matter the attention to fine detail her people favoured. Rustberg itself was far from aesthetically pleasing, though she’d been granted glimpses here and there, peeks into an ageless beauty caught in the collision of silvery waves and moonlit mist drifting across speckled, wet sand. There was far more there than the worn, wooden buildings and weary forests could ever show, she knew.

But it was the people here she enjoyed most of all. With her brethren in the ranks of the Duskwatch and the grand halls they fought so hard to ‘protect’, she had easily been swept up in the strict social hierarchy upon which their enchanted existence was built. A vain, wicked little thing from the start, or so her devout nursemaid had been fond of saying, it came easy to her, the act of reigning over others. She even liked it, most of the time, and arguably so did they. Grand entrances and gossamer gowns were easy fodder for the grapevines, and Goddess knew they did so enjoy their wine.

Here, though, she’d found herself surrounded by so much freedom, so few tethers to the status quo. She’d found tatters of a generous spirit in the wake of the Resistance, washed up on the rocky shore with dented armour and a dulled blade. She’d found a friend in Melisande, the effervescent keeper of hearth and home at the local tavern. She’d reunited with family, what threads remained at least- her cousins, Isa and the disgraced ‘Serazyth’ as he was now called, slowly finding grace again in the grey. His sympathetic companion, ‘Shade’- surely not the name she was born to either- seemed a strangely fitting complement to his more severe nature. 

More than that- more than the home she’d built for herself, and the opportunities that yet lay ahead- she had found a great deal to be thankful for in Audemus. Worldly, witty- and wily to a fault- they’d gravitated towards one another’s company, by turns frivolous and every bit the vain children they both were. She’d found in her friend an equal, rather than simply another servant to the structure, and she treasured the hours they spent with one another, trading all manner of conquests like playing cards. She sighed to think she’d had to cancel his appointment as well; they did so enjoy a chat, as much as a bit of after-hours fun, when he came for his weekly session at the salon- 

Oh.. no. All at once, her stomach lurched, sitting her upright and ready to run. Pallid complexion paling all the more, she managed to ease through the worst of it all the same, swallowing air with a palm soothing over the flat of her belly while the other began fumbling about the coffee table. Elegant fingers, caught in a tremor, swept past a plate of plain toast, sending an empty teacup spiralling towards the floor as she sought out the baby blue book that kept her dates.

Neither porcelain shattering on polished marble, nor the spatter of rainfall heedlessly knocking on her windows had anything to do with the way she froze, the grip of frigid fear that stole across her features as she flipped the inky pages, faster and faster, all but tearing through the past few weeks and into the previous month. Nothing… there was nothing. No telltale red ‘X’ scratched into the boxes. A vain and wicked girl from the start… but how could she be so stupid?

She knew, just as she knew when she was being spoken of seconds before entering a room, the same way she knew the range of a man’s tastes in a single glance across a smoky tavern, or that the Moon was clearer here, close enough to touch even behind the thick cloud covering. And now this. Her vision swam, a blurry look into pristine white and arcane glow that was every bit a part of her as her love of beauty and the kind of party ruled by extravagant textures, discreet lines of shimmering  powder and a succession of strangers in her bed.

The date book crackled and hissed in protest as it sank into the violet flames, and Ghislaine herself sank down beside it.