Disclaimer: Some internalized transphobia.
She’s on board. What a stupid and wild statement. Simone had volunteered her lover without her say, and she wasn’t even sure that Eremisa would agree that this was the best decision.
Clearly she wanted her to take the Aydin Boc name and change things, but she would need the right people surrounding her and supporting her.
And the scales seemed to tip in the reflection of humanity most recently, intolerance, greed and soulless replication. The hells was losing its touch and the rot was spreading from circle to circle.
Logically it made sense for the hells to create a new place on the surface and for Simone to escape with Eremisa, but…would she be on board knowing that her lover had been lying behind her back, even if it was to keep her safe.
No, Eremisa would be able to handle it. She just had to find the right moment.
The right moment was yesterday.
And yet Lila’s husband, their childhood friend Armeca wanted the gourmet. It didn’t’ make sense. The book could do wondrous, and miraculous things, but it couldn’t tip the scales.
She was so curious what he meant by that and yet it seemed definitive. It itched at her, gnawed at her, not having her lover to confide in so easily. She envied her sisters.
Still, Armeca’s words stirred as she tried to sleep in the torchlight nest above her lovers’ separate ones. Not even permitted to sleep with the one she loved. All of them, wearing white tunics, all of them held in the glow of the flaming torches maddeningly burning with voracious hunger.
Maybe it would have been different if she had stayed…no she was never a man, have to abandon that line thinking. She told herself. But sometimes it was difficult.
Maybe it would have been different if she had been born male. Maybe like Armeca she would have her wives in bed with her, smothered, never allowed to speak for themselves.
Fuck this.
She roughly pulled herself to her feet, the flames refusing to quench her fury as she gazed upon them, and knew exactly where her lover was. Eremisa was tucked beneath a garish torch like all the others, but at the bottom of the steps in the shadow of the fourth torch. She reached out a hand and extinguished the first flame, the torch burning long before she was alive.
Her first wife, Dyn turned in her nest, her cloak like melted wings curling around her. Women were meant to walk behind. According to the committee. Simone breathed in deeply before tearing the garb from Dyn’s body, meeting her face.
Eremisa might kill me for this. She bent down low and pressed her lips to her wife’s forehead.
Her hands flew up to her hair in shock even as she turned away, her hair a mess of writhing snakes. “Someday, I will return you to your family.” Without another explanation she turned away. “Or at least find a way to allow visitations.” The gorgon shook, but said nothing even as shocked whispers began to emerge throughout the room.
Simone turned towards the second torch. Her second wife had already shot to her feet. Hilette was a proud woman, and intolerable to be around, not as bad as Dyn and it was satisfying to hear the gorgon shriek after the kiss, but the harpy thought she didn’t notice that her wings were always tucked into her back.
Simone snuffed her torch by clapping through it, drawing the energy into her and curling it into her lips as she fed the fire to the harpy’s cheek, and then tore a hole through the cloak near her back where her wings could spread freely. “Fly little bird,” she whispered as Hillete flushed with crimson, indignation, embarrassment or…was there something there. Not that it mattered.
“You have an eye for detail and you’re often ignored. Also you’re more fun to be around than you let on.” That earned a deeper blush as she departed from her second wife.
Her third wife was on her feet before she touched the torch, pinching it between her fingers as she slowly absorbed the glow. She didn’t like to be touched and even from here Simone could feel her lover’s stare as she approached her third wife.
Ordreya. Like Hilette, she tore the cloak from her back so her wings could well not spring out, but gradually adjust and peak out. Even from here, she looked relieved as her bat wings extended, and Simone tore the cloak from her lower back, careful to sidestep the spindly tail that sliced back at her. She leaped back out of the way, nearly bowing to Ordreya as she watched her cover her face almost as if she was about to enter the ring, her fists raised like gloves.
Her cat ears flickering back and forth as she lowered her own hood, and drained the life from her own torch, returning the bow.
She raised an eyebrow, lowering her hands, and Simone knew that she if she took a step forward the bear’s paw, which she would summon in an instant, would have taken a chunk out of her. Avoiding her stone-cold gaze, almost as icy as Dyn’s , or no Eremisa whose gaze would melt her faster than Dyn’s could turn her to stone, Simone took a step forward where the manticore’s tail thrashed back and forth. She knelt before it, even as it hovered above her, looking upward. She stayed there in silence for what felt like an eternity and then stood.
“Your power is to be admired,” she said. And then turned away, not meeting her third wife’s face. “But your intellect is wasted when you are silent.”
Finally, she approached the final torch. Eremisa sat in the stunned silence, her gaze not cold, yet wondering, maybe even waiting for what she was about to say. She picked up the empusa and wordlessly carried her over to her nest even as Eremisa looked up at her, confused, before she set the empusa down in her nest. She didn’t say a word, almost afraid of what her reaction would be.
Half of her hoped Eremisa would slap her and the other half wanted Eremisa to tug her into the bed next to her. But that was not her place, and yet to place another wife in her nest, to favor another wife over the others was blasphemy. She might as well had wished execution for her lover, but she took her hand and kissed her, whispering in her ear.
“Everyday you shall have me. I am yours. Never forget that.”
Her lover shuddered low in her throat and made a face like she wanted to either tear her apart or jump her bones. She still wasn’t sure which, but she kept her face still even as Eremisa grabbed for her hand, her eyes pleading with her to stay.
She knew her wives eyes’ and a few other snakes were at her back, so she gave Eremisa’s hand a squeeze, blowing out her own torch which had been aflame longer than this temple had been built and crept down low, slipping into Eremisa’s nest without her. She realized that the nest was not nearly as comfortable as her bed.
“You are all welcome to join her,” she said lazily, the words exaggerated and smooth, speaking like Armeca might have. “It’s far more comfortable than what tradition has offered you. And probably warmer.”
The whispers became frenetic.
“Talk amongst yourself, but not too long. If I am executed in the morning, I might as well get a full night’s rest.”
She left Eremisa’s torch glowing all through the night, hoping that her lover would see it.
The committee did not yank her awake as she expected, nor did they come smashing in her door. She imagined she would be cornered later, maybe even put to trial, and even that would be quick.
She could imagine it now, coated in iridium to match her lover’s leg and lowered between the molten shelf of Yidrenna, eternally sculpted to be engorged with magma, a type of pregnancy only she was….shut the fuck up, she hissed. I am changing my line of thinking. I am being positive.
“I am utterly stupid,” she said, her mouth dry even as she realized she was nearly surrounded. Dyn had tried to put her cloak together, but had failed miserably even as it dragged behind her. Nearly in tears, she pulled it around her, trying to cover her hair.
“Oh good morning to you too, Dyn,” she said, her throat crackling with early masc-morning voice as she lightly pet one of the many snake’s head. Dyn’s sank back, still watching her. All those whispers and hisses behind her back. “You really do have gorgeous hair. You should wear it down more.”
“I don’t think they would like that much…no I’m not supposed to be speaking to you! I…they’ll kill me, my lady.”
"You can talk to me as long as you want." She let that embouchure tint a bit.
And Dyn, hells bless her, made a strangled sound in the back of her throat like she had been gutted by Ordreya’s tail, which was nowhere in sight. In fact, only Dyn stood before her bed. Eremisa wasn’t here either. Oh hells, she had to be okay, and then she heard a lazy sigh as she spotted her wife nearly buried in her sheets, sniffing away at her…ehm…she chose to focus once more again on the angry gorgon.
“What can I do for you, my dear?”
“My dear! Did you really mean what you said last night about…”
“Of course I did! We should plan a trip to Ermose Linv as soon as we can. I hear the tropics are the nicest this time a year.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said, her voice hushed.
“About your family.”
“My family.”
“Yes, your kin,” she again emphasized Armeca’s drawl, and from here she could almost see Ermisa raising an eyebrow.
“I think we should…”
“It would be an idea. I think I feel faint, my Lady.”
“NO fainting, Dyn,” she said as she caught the gorgon around the hip. “At least not until we learn how to dance. I need to learn how to catch you when we dip.”
"Dip?"
"That's right."
“Well, when are we dancing.”
“When won’t we be?”
“When?”
“Exactly.” The gorgon’s eyes swung back and forth.
“She’s lost it,” Ordreya said, even as she returned to the room with a several plates of eggs. “Relax I didn’t steal them from Hilette,” she said, as the harpy glowered, flipping her the bird. “Oh, how touching,” and then she brought the plates over, her tail jutting forward and breaking through the center. She cursed even as the egg dripped down Dyn’s legs. “That was for my Lady.”
“Didn’t you used to be a waitress,” Hilette countered.
“Didn’t you used to have an aversion to mirrors and live on a rock? Alone.”
"I thought that was Dyn." Eremisa mused.
"I didn't live alone! And mirrors don't bother me, not anymore. It took some time."
“I hate mirrors,” Simone whispered, hoping that no one would hear, but she was pretty sure the manticore’s ears perked up, before she broke yet another plate with her claws getting egg on Simone.
"Really Ordreya? Really?"
But Ordreya didn't seem to hear the gorgon as she bowed low, scooping egg off the floor, or trying to. “My Lady!” she said before Simone picked up the egg off of the floor and popped it into her mouth.
Hilette hissed.
“Relax!” the Ordreya said. “We’ve all eaten worse things off the floor.”
Or better things on it.
And Ordreya puttered on as if no one had heard “..no just me. My Lady, I will take the floor-egg,” she said even as she brought the last unbroken plate and successfully lowered it into Simone’s lap.
“One for three. You must have been a star.” Hilette squawked before covering up her mouth.
“She used to be a waitress for my family before she ascended to head chef at one of my parents restaurants,” Simone said loudly and with her mouth full, and that seemed to shut Hilette up.
“So…Dyn said…what was all of that…your grand romantic gestures. Might have meant something before the committee finds out what you’ve done.”
“Simple. Your my wives. I want a cordial relationship with each of you. And you’re all in my court so you share my nest.”
“Careful,” Dyn hissed.
“Now you’re just starting to sound like Hilette.” Ordreya countered. “Who is missing out on some five star eggs by the way.”
“I will not eat my own kind.”
“That’s clearly a lie,” Dyn chimed in.
“Bullies,” Hillete ruffled her feathers and turned over.
“Ignore her, hmm,” Dyn said, shoveling some of Ordreya’s eggs onto her own plate who just simply shrugged, although her manticore tail seemed to lash faster and faster like a disturbed cat. Maybe we should think about getting one of those, Simone thought. A fifth wife could be fun. Still Eremisa had not approached her old nest as it was semi-covered in egg. Simone could not blame her. Maybe she was playing it up too much, but Eremisa...she envied her intellect.
“So you said something about dancing?”
“There’s a gala coming up.”
“Simone!” Eremisa’s voice cut through the air.
“There’s no dancing at galas, that’s ridiculous,” Dyn said, her many heads agreeing with hers.
“There will be at this one.”
“Simone!”
“What? Eremisa you’re invited as well.”
“Did she just call you by your name? I swear she said, well I can't say it. It would be improper.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way. Please, all of you can say it.”
“Quite a change, My Lady.” Hilette yawned.
“I like it. Simone,” Ordreya said with finality as Hilette and Dyn hissed. “I’ve never danced.”
“You won’t be doing any dancing. It is a gala!”
“Oh hush, Dyn,” Hilette said. “Not as if we’ll ever be allowed to attend.”
“You are in my court.”
“A fool’s court!” Hilette said.
“She’s not wrong,” Eremisa shouted.
“I think a fool’s court could be fun.”
“See, Ordreya’s got the right idea.”
“As long as there’s dancing.”
“There won’t be dancing,” Dyn spat as a trail of venom laced through the eggs.
“Okay...they’re all yours,” Ordreya said, dumping the rest of the plate onto Dyn’s broken one.
“There’s nothing wrong with my venom.” Dyn said.
“It’s your spit!” Hilette said. “That’s disgusting Dynna.”
Sometimes it’s not. Simone mused as she decided it would be impossible to approach Eremisa, but she seemed satisfied if not a bit rankled. She probably wouldn’t be too jealous that she was spending more time with the other wives, or that she was throwing a bit of a rock, okay hunchback’s testicle at tradition, but she probably wasn’t too happy at the rate at which they would be surprised by the committee, but that was the point.
“Don’t you dare call me by my name in public!”
“You’re among friends,” Hilette with a smug look on her face.
“I’m going to go bathe alone,” Ordreya said. “Unless you want to come Eremisa.”
“I think that would be a fond idea since you can’t seem to handle a little spit,” Dyn said, and the rest of her snakes were fifty-fifty on that one. Some nodded and others made no motion. Simone tried to keep from laughing. It looked as if the gorgon’s hair had rippled.
“I can handle spit,” Eremisa said, sticking her tongue out before winking at Simone who felt as if she had swallowed well…a hunchback’s—.
“Did she just wink at you? I swear that she did,” Hilette mused, her feathers molting even as she slightly shook.
“Why on earth would that girl wink at me? She’s asexual isn’t she?”
Eremisa colored, and for a second Simone thought that a vein might pop out of her head as she strode over to Hilette and kissed her deeply, and left her with her tongue. Ordreya stifled a laugh, all of Dyn's snakes stuck their tongues out and as Eremisa left for the baths all Simone could think about how much she loved her wife. Ordreya followed, but she paused and turned heel, locking eyes on the gorgon who seemed speechless.
“It’s not nice to out people, Dyn,” Ordreya said, sticking out her tongue. ‘Besides you have your wives mixed up!” She strode out of the room rather emphatically.
“I didn’t mean...well now I've hurt her,” Dyn said as she was a loss for words. “I…have to apologize. Please forgive me, my Lady,” Dyn said rising as all of her snakes nodded in agreement.
Meanwhile Hilette seemed stunned, her hands still on her mouth where Eremisa had kissed her.
"Useless lesbians," Dyn muttered before also leaving the room.
Goddess, she loved that girl, and maybe she was starting to get a feel for this court. When it didn't feel so absolutely...torchless. Simone was in trouble, and yet these next few days would be more fun than she could have imagined. At least until the committee caught them all and made them a cautionary tale. But that was the point right?
It was time. It had been for a while. She was ready.... kind of.