Corisande: Sightseeing in Thraxos

How Bleys had been convinced to let Cori and Dulce take a study trip through one of his Trumps without a guardian, Cori wasn't quite sure. But he had been convinced, perhaps by Fiona. So there the two girls were in the shadow of Thraxos, dressed in long togas, with their hair done up in light chignons.

The city of Thraxos and the Queen's palace stood in the shadow of an ancient volcano. Cori eyed it suspciously, hoping that the slight trickle of smoke she saw from its top didn't mean it was about to erupt. An ignominious flight from a lava stream back to her father's waiting arms wasn't what she had in mind for today. She was in charge, and she would like to have this expedition end a little more successfully than those she took with her brother.

Cori looked at her younger cousin. "What would you like to see, Dulce?" she asked.

"Well, Mother sent a list of things to do; I have to write reports when I get back." Dulcifera looked serious and pulled a rolled sheet of paper out of a small white silken draw-string purse.

"Note number one. These people do not use books. They only use scrolls. So this is scrolly, not a notebook." Dulce waved the paper. Her brows knit, "Do they use paper here?! This should be palampsist shouldn't it? The scraped sheepskin stuff. Hmp."

"Okay, here we go: Number one: Observe architectural forms and materials. How do these relate to the land? How do these relate to the local economy? What can you tell about the art, religion, and culture of the people from the architecture? Number two: Observe market or trade area. What can you deduce about the local economy? Number three: Observe the people. What can you deduce about local hierarchy and social customs from them. List as many local social norms as possible. Number four: Enter an upper-class area. How do the markers of culture differ from lower-class area markers. Number five: attend a theatrical performance. Write a synopsis. Number six: Observe the geography. How has it influenced human behavior?"

Dulce lowered the list. "There's nothing on here about flora and fauna? I can't believe she left that off." Dulce is most sincere.

She looked at Cori, "I don't think it will be a problem if we don't get to all of it. It's just so we use our time 'wisely and well'."

She looked around, "Hey do you think that's a live volcano?!"

"I don't know. I'll have to look up the signs of a live volcano in the library if I mention it to Father, though, so I might as well put it on my list." Cori's list of things to learn wasn't written, but kept mentally. Despite the scattered nature of her lessons, she was a good student. Field practice like this, however, interested her as much as if not more than library studies.

"I think the scrolls here are going to be vellum. Palimpsests are reused scrolls. Anyway, the geography: I know they worship a fire goddess here, so I'd say that's one way the geography influenced the land. Let's go look at a temple, and see what we can get on the architecture question from it." Cori extended her hand to her cousin.

Dulcifera took Cori's extended hand and they began walking downhill. Dulce nearly tripped a few times because she was peering into the bushes and down at the grasses. "Will we be allowed inside a temple, do you think?" Dulce asked distractedly.

"We can at least look at it from the outside," Cori said. Dulce knew Cori could be ruthlessly practical, probably as a consequence of living with her brother, who was--not.

She spotted a likely-looking woman with children in tow in the square and led Dulce toward her. The woman seemed a little surprised that Cori and Dulce were on their own, but she answered Cori's question about the temple with directions and friendly advice. She also warned them that some of the animal-sellers in the temple yard would jack up the prices for sacrifices, and gave them the name of one who could be relied on to sell a bird for a fair price before bidding them good day.

"Oooh. What do we do with the bird? Do we get to watch them cut it's head off and read entrails, or do they do that in private? I'd like very much to get an explanation of entrail reading. Even if they save our bird for later, maybe we could find a talkative priest." Dulce was eager.

"I don't know. Let's find out," Cori said, and started off in the direction of the temple.

[OOC: If Dulce gets distracted, this is a good place for her to get distracted by something.]

There was something of a path on the way, wide enough for five men to walk shoulder to shoulder... Strange, though. In spite of the number of people they could make out in the distance, it was overgrown with vines and small plants. Trees to either side were broken, as if something great had moved through in a rush. To all sides were sigils woven out of branches, long since dead.

Corisande stepped forward, then fell forward as her foot found a sink hole. Her hand caught one of broken trees. It fell as well, and Corisande heard a series of snaps overhead.

Dulcifera was a few feet away, trying to replicate one of the wooden symbols in her scroll. Corisande's shout, the snapping, and the sudden rush of molded air inches from her face made her look up...

Into the rotted eyes of a hanging skeleton, still dressed in its war-like finest.

Dulcifera shrieked and took two rapid steps backwards and tripped over a branch and landed on her backside. "Cori!" she called, and struggled to get to her feet rapidly, turning in Cori's direction.

Cori was nowhere to be seen, having fallen over the remnants of the broken tree and into a trench beyond it.

The groan that came from where Dulce had last seen her might have been her, or it might be something hungry, commenting on the appearance of dinner ...

[Dulce want to find out she shifted?]

Dulce scrambled reaching out to a branch in front of her to hoist her self up and get over to Cori. Seeing her arm before her eyes, she let out a strangled sort of squeak, at the thickened skin and hairs rising like tiny barbs. She stopped where she was, and with hunched shoulders, stared quickly at her hands and in the direction of the skeleton, and towards Corisande. "Cori" she squeaked, "where are you? Are you okay?"

Corisande roused to the sound of Dulcifera's quiet call, timid, fightened... and just slightly distorted.

All of this barely registered to Corisande as she found herself face to face with an adolescent jaguar, one paw pinning down each of her shoulders. Its breath stank of its last meal.

"Um," Cori replied in a voice that wasn't loud enough to yell, and was unnaturally even, "I've got a friend. A kitty cat."

She wrinkled her nose a little at the jaguar's rancid breath.

Dulce gots her bearings and took several steps away from the skeleton. Her breathing normalizes and the barbish hairs are shrinking rapidly. She looked around for Cori. "You found a kitty? What do you mean? Where are you?"

"I'm over here," said Cori, who was doing her damnedest not to let any fear show in her voice. "The kitty cat is hungry, Dulce. Have you got a spell to scare it off?"

Dulce turned and saw. "Oh" she said, in an unnaturally calm voice, like Cori had used. She took a deep breath. When she spoke again, her voice was more determined: "Cori, I'm going to get it off you. Umm. Maybe you shouldn't look. Probably, yes, you shouldn't."

Dulce reversed her shifting and began extending claws and and her balance moved forward. "HHSSSSH" she hissed at the cat to get its attention.

Cori did not, in fact, close her eyes, but waited to see what the jaguar was going to do.

The jaguar looked up, its white teeth bared. Corisande could feel its paws flexing, and the claws extending. They pressed against her skin, but didn't peirce. They were not for her.

"Ouch, sandles" Dulce mutters as she kicked one off and used a toe to get the other off, while keeping her eyes on the jaguar. Her eyes were bigger as she realized that the jaguar hadn't backed off and she had to commit further. "Cori, really. Don't look," she pleaded. Her claws continued to grow and her skin tone took on more blueish and greenish hues. She stood breathing awhile, hoping that Cori didn't see her feet.

Then she suddenly jumped 6 feet sideways and shouted, "YAAA", hoping to startle the cat away.

Cori couldn't see what Dulce was doing, but she jerked involuntarily when Dulce made the loud noise. She stifled a whimper of her own, and hoped the jaguar would keeps its claws to itself.

The jaguar hissed, his muscles flexing and teeth barred. For a moment, Dulcifera doubted it was going to give up its quarry.

Then she jumped.

The cat sprang back, hissing again, but there was fear in its eyes now. Flight had overtaken Fight, and the creature disappeared into the forest.

Dulce gave a sigh of relief and commenced to retracting claws, regaining human balance and and feet, and returning her color to normal as quickly as possible. She turned her back on Cori on the pretense of recovering her sandles. "You okay Cori?" she asks from her bent over her sandles position.

Cori stood and scrambled over the trench as quickly as she could, still shaking a little. "What did you do?" she asked Dulce. "You scared it but good."

Dulce was kneeling down fastening her sandles. "Oh. I yelled and jumped at it a bit," she said as nonchalantly as possible.

She was also, in that hunched position, trying to do a quick check on her skin tone, and trying to get everything else completely back to normal.

[waiting for GM assessment of what Cori sees]

As Corisande cleared the top of the trench, she saw Dulcifera crouched down...

At least, she was fairly certain it was Dulcifera...

Dulcifera had nice nails, but just moments ago, they hadn't been two inches long and retractable... and her skin, while usually soft, hadn't been quite that shade of purple and covered in a soft down of fur...

The color and fur and claws melted back into Dulcifera's body, and she looked up and saw Corisande looking at her.

Cori's eyes were wide, and she was sucking in a loud breath, almost a gasp.

"Dulce?" she asked, after a moment.

"Yes, Cori?" Dulce said, without turning around or getting up. "Are you okay?" she asked. "Uh. The cat didn't come back did it?" Dulce asks rather hopefully, hoping that the gasp didn't mean what she thought it meant.

"Dulce," Cori said, in kind of a whispery voice, "What did you do?"

"Well," said Dulce thinking hard, "I scared the jaguar. So I thought I should look scary. Did you see me? Ah, what did you see?" There was a note of desperation in Dulce's voice as she asked and her body was fidgety as she ran her hands over her arms, legs and face, as a sudden fear took her that perhaps she'd missed something.

"You were purple," said Cori, slowly and sort of half-whispering. "That's sooooooo cool! How did you do that?"

Dulce stood up and turned around. Dulcifera's eyes stared as her mind ran through various lies and whether they would hold up. "I.... I.... You weren't supposed to LOOK!" she wailed. "Oh Cori. You weren't supposed to SEE. Nobody is supposed to see. You're not supposed to know. This Is Terrible."

"Know what? That you can turn purple and have cool claws? I won't tell." Cori came over and took Dulce's hand. "I promise, I won't tell anybody."

Dulce was a bit molified. She squeezed Cori's hand and looked at her hopefully. "You promise? You really really have to mean it, because this is serious and if Mother ever found out that you knew, she would do more than throw an icey fit: she would talk to your Dad and she would Take Steps. Nobody is supposed to know. Nobody. Not even the King. It's that kind of secret." She looked at Cori seriously.

Dulce paused. "Your Dad already knows though. 'Cause he and Mother are close."

She squirmed her feet around in her sandles some more. "I'm glad you think the claws are cool. I like them. I wasn't actually trying to turn purple though. That was an accident. It's not good. It shows lack of control." she said dejectedly.

"I won't tell anyone at all. Not even Crispin," Cori said, squeezing Dulce's hand. "And you have to not tell your mother, too, which means she can't complain about 'lack of control'. It scared off the jaguar, and that's good enough for me!"

Dulce was awed and grateful. "You wouldn't even tell Crispin?! Oh, but you're twins. You're so close. He wouldn't talk, would he?"

Having recovered a bit more, Dulce inspected her toga for staining, and reached out to adjust the draping on Cori's.

Cori stood still to let Dulce straighten her clothes.

"It's just a secret between us girls, so I won't tell Crispin. We have some things separate, even if we are twins." She thought for a moment about Crispin's burgeoning interest in girls, and realized it was quite nice that they didn't share everything. In fact, she would just as soon Crispin shared less of that than he did.

"Oh Cori, you're a peach." Dulce looked very happy again.

"Look over here." Dulce started walking back to the hanging skeleton that had scared her. "There's skeleton in the trees. That's what scared me before. Why do you think he's here?"

"Are you okay from the fall?," she asked belatedly solicitous.

"My ankle's a bit sore, and I think I may have some bruises, but otherwise I'm fine. That cat was heavy!"

She came over to look at the skeleton. "Is he a he? How do you tell when you can't look at their, you know, bits? Maybe he was put there to warn people off the path with the dangerous cat."

"Well, I don't know, I guess. It's all dressed up as warrior; I just assumed." Dulce surveyed the skeleton more analytically, looking at it from different angles as she stepped carefully among the tangled branches.

"Cats move. More likely, the cat found habitat here because it was deserted. There are all these sigils. And the skeleton. Something happened here," she said pointing at some of the wooden sigils.

As she pointed up, she could see something strange going on in all the treetops... Some of the branches weren't moving like the others. They were hanging down, not out...

Then the light shifted, and they could see that the strange branches were more of the dried husks of skeletons, strung up among the canopy.

"I bet those sigils say 'Keep Out'," Cori opined, looking up at the trees' gruesome burden. "Did I misremember those directions?"

"Ah, Cori. Let's get out of here now." Dulce started to move off in the direction of the town. "We can ask somebody there about it all."

"Yeah, definitely," Cori said, and followed Dulce back toward the town, limping very slightly as she walked.

[OOC: GM, got anything for us or should we go back to improvising?]

The town, when Bleys had described it, was supposed to be filled with tan skinned Amazons, tall and powerful, with a harsh and yet beautiful tongue. He had lauded their weapons as beautiful arifacts, filled with magic and artistry.

But the town was not filled with lithe warrior women. There were men, bulky, dressed in too many clothes, all sweating as they moved from burnt huts to a growing pile of gold arifacts. Their tongue lilted, a version of Thari, made up of long vowels and constantants that spilt together.

Cori swallowed quietly and pulled Dulce close. "Something bad has happened, I think. This isn't at all what Father said to expect. We should be very careful or we'll get more answers to your mother's questions than we want, especially anything about war."

Dulce nodded, watching warily. "But that lady we saw earlier. She didn't say anything," Dulce whispered.

Dulcifera scanned the scene looking for signs of women and children or anybody wearing the sort of clothes that they expected the natives to be wearing.

Cori was also watching for women and children as she pulled Dulce out of plain sight, in hopes that they wouldn't be noticed and/or questioned by the men.

They caught sight of the odd woman, but they were hardly the fierce warriors Bleys had described. They lounged on barrels, sipping out of precious golden cups, admiring their fingers, gaudy with trinkets.

A soldier came running out of one of the pyramid temples. His shirtfront was bloody, but by the angry look on his face, the girls could guess it wasn't his. He came up to a barrell chested man who was surveying the treasure.

"Cortez! The natives just took down another guard!" The man tried to collect himself. "By the Virgin, they shouldn't be allowed to live another day. We have too few men to control them."

Cori sucked in her breath a little more loudly than she expected. Her eyes were wide.

She murmured to Dulce, "I wonder how long we were in the woods?"

Dulce was puzzled by Cori's comment but let it pass, busy staring as she was. "We have to get away from here to where there aren't any people. Or at least any who look like those," she whispered.

She took a quick look around. "Maybe back this way?" She pointed. " There's some cover from trees and bushes, but it's not back up to the skeletons. I wonder how old those were."

"I do too," Cori said, and began scrambling back in the direction that Dulce had indicated, keeping an eye out for both hungry cats and angry soldiers of Cortez.

Dulce followed Cori, stepping cautiously and frequently glancing around her.

When they had reached relative cover, Cori leaned over and whispered to Dulce, "Do you think we should use our Trump and go home? I'm not sure this is still safe."

In fact, she was quite sure it was unsafe, but she didn't want to alarm Dulce, not to mention her father and her aunt. The amount of discipline involved in crossing Aunt Fiona was painful to contemplate.

Dulce showed indecision. She knew it was unsafe. "It's not fair! We haven't seen anything yet. I mean, of the things we were supposed to see." she said in a huffy whisper. She looked back in the direction of the men and the town.

"Let's just go someplace farther away."

The jungle was quiet around them while they spoke, but slowly, they became aware of a strange shuffling, a whisper of noise that was too heavy to be just the breeze... It came from all around, and as they sat there, it grew louder.

The noise began to unnerve Cori, and she shuffled out her Trump of Bleys. "Unless you can give me a good reason not to. Dulce, I'm going to call my father and have him bring us home."

Dulcifera's eyes were getting wider, as her ears strained to isolate the source of the sounds. "Call your dad." she squeaked, "I think we're being hunted."

Cori concentrated on Bleys' image in the card with all her might.

She could feel the card begin to stir under her fingers... the coolness begin to expand.

Something sharp hit Corisande's shoulder, as something rushed all around her and Dulcifera. The card dropped, covered by a flurry of disturbed leaves. From every corner of the forest, people, women, were emerging, their skin tacky with mud and covered in leaves. They nearly ignored the two girls crouched in the brush as they rushed onward... towards the temples.

Dulce crouched, her arms and hands protecting the sides of her head, as she turned back in the direction they were going and watched them run.

"They're going to fight Cori! Do you think it's safe enough to go see some of that?"

"We've got to get the Trump!" Cori hissed. "I dropped it when they hit me, and if I don't find it, we can't get home!"

She waited until the last of the warriors had passed to begin to look for it.

In the distance, the first battlecries sounded... And the first throes of death. They couldn't tell for certain, but it seemed the dying were too high pitched to be male.

Corisande ran her fingers through the leaves, sifting for the lost card. It couldn't have gone far... She hadn't been hit that hard...

"Dulce!" Cori cried over the battle sounds.

"I can't find it! Help me!" She sounded more worried than Dulce had every heard her before. If they had to flee without the Trump, they would be lost here until Bleys and Fiona came to rescue them.

Dulcifera stooped and began to run her hands through the leaves to find the trump. "Don't worry, Cori. I'm sure everything will be fine." But she perked up like a rabbit at various cries when they sounded louder or closer.

[OOC: not to break up the drama, but Dulce probably has a trump too.]

[She has one of her mom, for emergencies... She want to use it?]

"Wait, Cori. I have a trump too!" Dulce cried. "You keep looking for yours."

Dulce opened up the little string purse again and pulled out a card. Still squatting down amidst the leaves she began concentrating on the card.

Cori continued frantically running her fingers through the leaves and grasses, picking up handfuls in hopes of finding the cold card.

This time, there was no rush of soldiers, though, to interupt the contact... Fiona sat in her scrying room, her hand poised over a roiling glass of green and blue. She didn't look surprised at the contact, and Dulce might have even called the look on her face relieved.

Corisande's fingers finally touched something cool and hard and flat... but stuck halfway into the mud. She pulled it out, mud dripping onto her already soiled costume. Not far away, she could hear the screams of the dying.

"Got it!" Cori exclaimed, and stood up. She ran over to where Dulce was standing and concentrating on the other card.

Dulcifera spoke to the card rapidly, "Mother. It's all gone horribly wrong; the women are dead and there's a battle, and skeletons in the trees and jaguars. And we need to come home now. And we didn't get any of the reports done."

Corisande's trump stirred instantly, and she was staring at her father's face. A picture's laughter had turned to something close to panic. To his back was Fiona's scrying room. He held out his hand...



Before Dulcifera could get through the traffic jam of words, Fiona had her hand, and pulled her forward. The toiling waters under her hand faded as she took Dulcifera's shoulders in her hands and began to look her over.

"Girls! What in the world happened? And Dulce! Where are your shoes?"

Dulce looked down at her feet wide-eyed. "My shoes?.... I put them back on after the jaguar. Did I lose them again?" She looked up wide-eyed again at her mother and tears rose to her eyes in embarrassment and delayed stress. "I don't know how I lost my shoes. I don't remember them coming off."

Cori stepped through at once, into her father's arms. "I'm sorry, Daddy, I didn't mean for it to go wrong. I didn't want to run away, but I didn't think it was safe for Dulce. And I'm all muddy."

"So I noticed..." He said as the aforementioned mud got onto his brocade vest. He sounded more amused than irritated, though, as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders.

"Fi, leave off about the shoes. I'll get her a whole closet of shoes."

"She doesn't need a closet of them," replied Fiona in clipped tones. "She needs shadows to learn in doesn't leave her coming back frantic and covered in mud."

"It was supposed to be safe!" Cori piped up in her father's defense. "How was he supposed to know that Cortez had arrived?" She blinked once or twice, and finally it dawned on her where she was.

"And if you knew," she added, "why didn't you call us back?" She glared at Fiona.

Dulcifera didn't say anything. She watched the others and gradually felt more relaxed being back in her mother's tower.

"You're still to young to have Trumps drawn of you," replied Fiona, her own grip on her daughter easing as she focused on Corisande. "And if one tries to go through a scrying pool, all you end up is wet."

Fiona drew in a breath, steadying herself. "I think we've had enough of lessons for the day. Girls, please get changed." She rose, and with fingers that only trembled slightly, started to realign her scrying pool to erase the image of dying Amazons.

Bleys took that as a cue, and ushered Dulcifera and Corisande out into the hall. "Cripsin will be jealous, you know," he said once the door was closed. "You having an adventure without him."

Cori blinked a couple of times, and said, "Yes, yes he will. Won't he?" She looked up at her father. "How long were you watching us? The whole time?"

Her eyes went to Dulcifera, thinking of her young cousin's secret.

Dulcifera looked downcast and bothered. "We didn't see anything of what we were supposed to. They were all too busy being killed," she complained.

"How terribly inconvenient..." Bleys patted Dulcifera's head before looking over to Corisande. "When you tried to Trump me, and it failed, I called Fiona for help. I had a spare of the shadow, but heavens only knew where you were, exactly."

Dulcifera recollected her manners, starting to shake off the lingering echoes of screams from her ears. But her voice is still subdued.

"Cori, you can come to my room to get changed if you want."

"Okay," Cori replied. She took a moment to find a bit of clean toga and wipe some of the mud from her father's vest before following Dulcifera up to her chamber.

Dulcifera led Cori up the icy stairs of the tower, through sleek hallways whose white walls were unmarred by decorative clutter. Up a few further stairs and past a few doors, Dulce threw open her own. Her room was far more cosy than the rest of the tower. A blue and white flowered quilt was on the bed and lace curtains hung at the windows. Dresser and vanity were covered with knicknacks and a large mirror in a heavy wooden frame stood to one side.

"Zot! Tozz! I'm home!" Dulce called to the air. "This is Cousin Cori, Prince Bleys' daughter. You've see her before probably. We are covered with mud. We need new clothes. Zot, can you see if there's something in my closet that Cori can wear."

Dulce looked at Cori appraisingly. "You're still a bit bigger than me. Maybe there's a loose shift, with an outer pinafore or something. It's likely to be short though."

Dulce's closet door swung open, apparently by itself, and the clothes began to rustle.

"The bathroom is through there. Tozz can draw a bath, or at least some warm water to wipe down with." Dulce gestured at a door. "Tozz, you did hear that."

The door opened and sounds of water splashing began in that room.

Dulce faced Cori but her voice seemed pitched a bit louder than would be needed just for Cori's hearing. "That was completely frustrating! We didn't see anything on the lists. We saw some cool things, like the skeleton, and sigals, but they weren't really explained. I mean, " (Dulce shivered) "I suppose that we know about the skeleton. I wonder how old it was though..."

Dulce walked to a table beneath a window and began unpacking the drawstring purse. She pulled out a small jar with what appeared to be cotton balls in it and set it down next to a dozen or so larger jars that appeared to contain insects.

"It could have been very recent, if Cortez and his men put it up. People do funny things during wars," Cori replied.

"I'm going to take a quick bath, if that's OK," she continued. She started to strip off her muddy toga, then realized she didn't know where to put it and stopped. "Where should I put this?"

The invisible servants didn't seem to faze Cori at all.

"Go right ahead. Just dump it on the bathroom floor. It'll be rinsed out." Dulce pulled her clothes off and put on a kimono wrap to wait her turn.

"Okay," Cori replied, and went into the bathroom to follow Dulce's instructions.

[OOC: Bathroom description, please?]

The bathroom is quite simple really. White tile, white tub. Wooden washstand with white basin. [I think we're allowed a plumbed-in toilet. There are various bottles of shampoos, soaps of various smells and colors. Maybe a candle. Towels.]

Dulce sat on her bed, and addressed the ghosts. "We got there and I nearly walked right into a skeleton. I was so startled I fell backwards. We don't know how long it was there, but it was a skeleton alright. No meaty bits."

Cori bathed as quickly as she could, washing the mud off with sweet-smelling soaps and out of her hair with a shampoo scented with forest herbs. When she got out, she took the towel that the invisible servant handed her.

"Thank you," she told it, and began to dry herself. A few moments later, damp and slick-haired, she went back out into the bedroom.

The spirits were whipping up a whirlwind around Dulce, primping her now clean clothes and coming the tangles out of her hair.

"A skeleton--!" started one, then stopped when Corisande came into the room.

Cori said, "Don't mind me," and began looking for clean clothes to put on.

"It's okay," Dulce said. "You can talk in front of Corisande. She can be trusted. She even saw me shift," Dulce said in a mock whisper. "I didn't mean for it to happen that way, but I needed to scare away a jaguar."

The air swirled two dresses past Cori for her perusal.

Cori looked at the two dresses. "That one, please. I can get it on without any help, thank you." She turned around and dropped the towel, and quickly put her choice on. Then she picked up the towel again and gave her hair a quick towel-press to make sure it was dry.

"Who are your friends?" she asked Dulce.

"These are Zot," Dulce waved a right hand, "And Tozz," and she waved her left hand.

"They're my ghosties. Mother has lots of animi around the tower to do work for her. Most of them aren't very smart and don't talk at all. But these are mine, and they're very smart and help me with everything." Dulcifera looked very proud.

"They turn pages for me when I'm playing music and we read books together and do dramatic readings and they help me drill for my studies. They feed my insects and spiders when I'm gone. And they pick up my clothes when I throw them on the floor and stuff like that."

"Hello, Zot. Hello, Tozz. I'm pleased to meet you. Thank you for helping me with my things," Cori said, watching her towel float back to the bathroom.

She knew that Fiona had animi, but this was different. It was too bad that she obviously wasn't supposed to know, much less ask her father about them.

"Did you hear that they weren't watching us the whole time? I don't think they saw you shift," Cori said to Dulce, by way of changing the subject. She sat down on the bed, drawing her chin up under her knees, and tried not to drip on the white quilt.

"You shifted!"

"Without the Mistress!"

"Ohmy... And this one knows?"

The rustle of voices, two that Corisande could pick out, descended into worried mumbling.

Dulce was abashed.

"I didn't mean to. I know. That's bad. And it's good that Mother and your Dad didn't see," she added quickly in Cori's direction.

"It was just the skeleton... I was taken by surprise," she said lamely.

"And then I needed to scare the jaguar off of Corisande, you see. So I had to look fierce. And Cori wasn't supposed to look, but I suppose she couldn't help it."

"I promised I wouldn't tell anyone," Cori told the spirits. "Not even my twin brother. Dulce probably saved my life."

One of the spirits gasped.

"She... saved you? She's a hero!"

"She can't be a hero! Boys are heros! You've seen the books!"

There was a small scuffle of air, and the spirits drifted off to sulk their respective corners a few degrees colder.

Whatever spell Fiona had for these, it was nowhere near as colorful as what Bleys had lying around.

"Girls can too be heroes. You need better books," Cori told the sulky spirits before turning her attention back to Dulce.

She politely didn't say anything comparing them to her father's spells.

"Hero-ine, Hero-ine. There are lots of books with heroines and some of them even carry swords," Dulce corrected the ghosties.

"But I don't think I was one. The amazons were all dying and we ran away. I don't suppose there's anything we could have done. And if I'd shifted in front of anybody else I'm sure I would have gotten spears thrown at me from all sides," Dulce sighed and she began to put on some eyeshadow.

One of the spirits, Zot most likely, bristled. Dulcifera felt something tug at the powder in her hand, trying to yank it away.

"No! First shifting, and now this! Mistress said you're too young for this, either!"

Dulce's face registered surprise which hardened into determination as she clenched the eyeshadow.

"Give that back! It's mine! You're supposed to do what I tell you!"

She yanked the small compact apparently free of the air. She started to put it into a dresser drawer but thought better of it and put it into her pocket with a defiant expression.

"If Mother takes it away that's one thing. But you are not to take away my make-up," she said commandingly.

"I need it. To practice. All girls learn how to put on make-up. It's a skill. I'm learning. Learning skills is good." She paused to see how her explanation would go over.

Cori, who had no interest in cosmetics--in fact thought of them as something to be dreaded--kept out of the argument between Dulce and the spirits.

If only the spirits had agreed.

"Look! Look at her! She doesn't paint herself up and she's older!" Dulcifera felt another tug at her lip gloss, though not as strong. Another anomoly, Corisande noted... Bleys's automotons never disobeyed a direct order.

Cori watched with interest, although she kept her expression bland. Had Aunt Fiona intended the spirits to obey Dulce's will, or were they bound to obey Dulce's mother when the two were in opposition?

This was either a failed spell with interesting consequences or a complex one with unexpected parameters.

Dulce was furious.

"Well, that's her own business," Dulce retorted. "Stop it!" She stamped her feet. "Go. Go...," Dulce stewed and thought for a moment.

She put a blank look on her face, straightened up and announced, "I have missions for you both. Toz, go forth and find my mother and Uncle Bleys and see if you can determine if there is any schedule - if Bleys will be leaving soon, or if he has already left. Zot, please go to the library and see what books can be found there about Thraxos. Report back here."

There was a shifting in the air, going from damp and warm to chilled and downright wet, smelling of rotting autumn and deep forests. A little sniff, and the ghosts departed.

Dulce sighed.

"That seems to have worked." She relaxed and sat on the bed.

Cori ran her fingers through her damp hair as she turned to face Dulce. "Are they always that way? I'm not used to animi who have complex command tiers."

Dulce looked embarrassed. ''We usually get along like butter and syrup on pancakes. Of course, they've looked out for me since I was quite little. And when I was small, you know, they would have to make sure I didn't get into trouble. But they shouldn't have to do that now," she said with great firmness.

"Do you have your own animi?" she asked eagerly.

"We have them around. Not like that, though." Cori shrugged. "My father uses them more often than not for simple tasks. And he'd be annoyed if I trusted my braiding to them, much less actual makeup. He's very picky about how we look when we go out."

She added, "I don't see what they're complaining about. If you want to wear makeup, that is. Here, let me." She reached out to take the compact from Dulce's hand.

"Oh, I'd be delighted." She gave Cori the compact, and pulled a vanity stool next to the bed so that they could both sit down.

"Mother has lots, and many of them just have one job. But mine are more complicated since they have to help me with my studies and things. They're quite good at doing hair actually. "

"Hunh," Cori said. "I can't imagine letting an animus do my hair."

She didn't have a lot of interest in hair and makeup, but no child of Bleys could avoid learning how to look good and what added and detracted from one's appearance. Her father didn't choose her wardrobe any more, but Cori had benefitted from his expertise in the matter, and overheard his critiques and Aunt Flora's of the appearance of various members of the court often enough that she was confident of her ability to make Dulce look good.

Cori opened the compact and looked at the colors. The lighter of the eyeshadow shades went better with Dulce's complexion, she thought. "Close your eyes," she instructed, and lightly brushed the wand across the powder.

Dulce sat, eyes closed, face forward.

"Well, Mother doesn't generally have time to do my hair. Mostly I do it myself of course, but it's hard to get everything smooth in the back if I want a complicated braid or something. Mostly the ghosties are the only ones around here. They used to play dolls with me, but I don't play dolls anymore. So we do more reading aloud - when I go into Amber I pick up books. Romances and adventure stories. Mother brings in all the serious books. We read those too, but one can't read them all the time."

Cori dabbed a tiny bit of the darker shadow in the outer corners of Dulce's eyes. Then she wet her fingertip with her tongue and lightly blended the colors together.

"It's really hard to get complex braids right yourself," she agreed. "It's why I wear mine short. That and I'd have to get up a lot earlier and my brother won't let me sleep in as it is. I wish I had a mother to do my hair, but I'm glad I have a brother instead of ghosties. Even if he does make me get up early."

"Yes, I think it would be fun to have a brother... maybe. I mean, Crispin seems like loads of fun, but a brother could get into your stuff and mess it all up. And maybe find your journal and read it out loud in funny voices and make fun of you. That would be horrid. Crispin doesn't do things like that to you, does he?" Dulce asked with eyes closed.

She opened her eyes and blinked them, looked at the mirror and smiled.

"Not if he doesn't want his secrets exposed to our father. Or worse, to Uncle Random," Cori said with a slightly feral grin. "Even when we argue, we have a mutual nonaggression pact."

Dulce nodded. "That seems very sensible. And you'd have help managing your dad, you know, if you need to. Two on one. It's hard to get things past Mother. One on one, but sometimes she's very busy and doesn't notice things. But you see how Zot and Tozz behaved. " She gave a brief annoyed look at the door whence the ghosties had left.

"I suppose it would be even harder to do things the way we want to if we had two parents."

"I don't know. My father says we'd be a handful for anybody. And Lex seems to do well enough even though he has a mother and a father both. But he has an older brother too ..." Cori trailed off.

"So does your mother ever talk about your father?"

Dulcifera looked solemn.

"Not a word. I don't even know his name. She'll pile on extra work just for asking questions. I wish she'd say something, but she doesn't."

"What about you? Do you know your mother?"

Cori shook her head. "We found a name. Jessica. That's all."

She looked at Dulce thoughtfully. "Maybe we should work on each other's parents. I could ask my father about your father, and you could ask your mother about mine."

"And act all innocent about it? Somehow I don't think that would get us anywhere; they'd see through it. But I suppose they wouldn't feel as able to get mad at a niece for asking," Dulce said.

She sighed and then got up.

"Well, what do you want to do now? We could go see my study?"

"We could do that," Cori said, and rose, running her fingers through her almost-dry hair.