Seraphina Tevien and Yoyo Blitz

That night, the sailors got drunk. It wasn’t really like them to get drunk. They were military men, and they hadn’t touched a drop the entire week they’d been out to sea, following the coastline further and further East.

It had once been the first mate’s cabin, but for this cruise, the sailors had christened it the Bride’s Cabin. None of them had looked upon the face of the concubine they were transporting across the Eastern Sea. Old Blind Ben took her meals to her and left them on the table. He told them she smelled like jasmine perfume and sandalwood incense and that she moved silently, like a ghost. There was a certain breed of sailor that felt a certain superstition to women on the ship, but these were military men, and when ordered by their Duke to carry his gift to the Emperor in the East, they found they could put any superstition aside. (The Duke had included a second gift for the Emperor, but one with less noticeably female and more noticeably criminal. They kept this one in the brig belowdecks, behind a heavy, locked door.)

Dark blue satin smoothed beneath her fingertips like water as the slave stretched across the featherbed and surveyed the room with cold, golden eyes. Though small, the cabin was well-appointed, with richly colored rugs hanging from the walls and spread across the floor. Other than her large, round bed, there was an armoire stuffed with gauzy robes of delicate lace and dresses made of fine silk, and a tall looking-glass with an ornately carved frame of rosewood. Bored with her surroundings, the slave turned her attention instead to the looking glass, and her own appearance, which she studied critically from each angle.

She was a tall woman, standing just below six feet in her slippers. The muscles in her legs were well-corded and long from hours of dance lessons at the slave house. As a Grimalkin, she had unusual grace and balance that lent itself well to dancing. Her racial heritage also blessed her with a pair of cat-like ears and a long tail, all covered in soft, white fur, the same pearlescent shade as her long, straight hair. Dressed in a transparent shift, and a golden collar with matching bracelets, she turned this way and that, considering each twitch of her hips, each flutter of her lashes.

She’d been born to a Grimalkin woman kept as a slave by the Duke of Radelle, in a small country far in the north of the territories, and then taken from that Grimalkin woman within a year of her birth. She had met her mother once after she was sent to the slave house to train as a concubine, when she’d been five. What she could remember of the woman was her exceptional beauty. There was a deliberate grace in every movement she made; the way she turned her head, or raised an arm to brush aside the transparent silks that hid her from view as she rode in a palanquin. She’d shifted ever so slightly and a belled anklet had chimed, just once, like a spirit’s call. She had looked upon her daughter, dressed in rich brocade and flimsy lace, carefully going through the motions of a tea ceremony in the garden of the Slave House. Whether she had been pleased or not, the slave did not know. She’d never seen her again.

She hadn’t seen the Duke, either, but had heard of him every day from the Mistress’s complaints. “You must pay more attention,” she would snap. “The Duke has entrusted your care and training to me, and I will beat the animal from you if it’s the last thing I do.” She would pace in circles around the slave with a riding crop, slapping at her calves, at her arms, at her back as the girl turned in slow pirouettes. “Hold your chin up,” she’d snap. “There must not be a single tremor in your body. You must be strong, but delicate. That is the nature of dancing. Don’t you know that the Duke intends you as a gift?” She would glare at her from a withered, painted face, the lines in her skin smoothed by how tightly her inky, dyed hair was pulled back into a bun. “Do not speak. The Duke and I both find your accent atrocious. You are to be seen, not heard.” A stiff tongue and rather sharp canines were another gift of her heritage; when she spoke the human tongue, it was nearly incomprehensible. She wondered if her mother sounded the same. She had never heard her speak.

She crossed the moonlit cabin to the armoire. Spread across its top were sticks of incense, a golden incense holder in the shape of a dancing elephant, and a collection of long tapers, one of which she took to the door. A slot in the door opened to reveal a barred window. Sliding the taper between the bars, she lit the end on a burning torch outside the door, and then returned to the armoire, where she used the taper to light a stick of incense. The thick, white smoke curled through the dark room, smelling of sandalwood and darkness and spice and-

Tobacco?

The slave’s head whipped around at the tapping noise behind her. Sprawled across her fine satin sheets was a girl, tapping out a long pipe against the side of her boot. She was not the sort of girl the slave had grown used to in her concubine training. There was age and wisdom wrapped around her, but she didn’t look like one of the tall, wizened instructors, courtesans who had outlived their beauty. Instead, she had jarringly young features: cherubic cheeks, a fae-like chin, a lithe, lean body that couldn’t have been much over five feet tall, if that. These contrasted with a sharp, dangerous smile and a light in her green eyes, neither of which were childish. She had the long ears of an elf, which the slave had seen in her training, and the slender build of one, and she moved as silently and gracefully as an elf as she swung her legs off the bed and sat up, raising a finger to her gleaming smile to indicate that quiet was needed.

Her hands, in fingerless leather gloves, turned the pipe over and over with nimble, narrow fingers. She had a short cap of black hair with a streak of white at her brow that turned incandescent in the torchlight, beaming bright as her eyes. For a minute, the slave was afraid, though she couldn’t really understand why. The elf was tiny, nothing more than a slender girl in a ragged, black cloak, a dingy leather tunic that reached her thighs, and mismatched boots.

She paused and reappraised the girl as she came to a stop before the slave. Short, yes, but there was something else there. Old, some instinct she’d been beaten for once whispered to her. Dangerous.

Making for the door, the elf peered through the barred windows, her ears raising and twitching independently of one another in a way the slave recognized. She’d done the same with her own ears, to attune her hearing to different directions, but had been trained to stop. She wasn’t supposed to do that, it seemed inelegant. The elf seemed satisfied that they were alone, because it was then she turned back to the Grimalkin slave and, grinning sheepishly, began in a quiet, lilting voice.

“So, this isn’t the armory, is it? Hah, no, it wouldn’t be, hm. Judging by that collar and cuffs you’ve got going on, you probably haven’t got any weapons lying about, do you?”

“Espetta fai’?” the slave murmured quietly, but was shocked when the elf replied, “not unless one of them notices I’m out of my cell, but I’ll still need something to cut a boat free with. I think we’re close enough to shore that I should be able to row it. We’re not far from a cove some friends of mine use from time to time.” No one ever understood what she was saying, the slave thought to herself, eyes widened in surprise, but the elf didn’t seem fazed in the slightest by the way she spoke. The elf didn’t even seem terribly surprised by her ears and tail, though she’d never seen another Grimalkin than her own mother. The elf thrust a small hand towards her, breaking the slave’s concentration.

“Seraphina Tevien, my dear lady, mummer, acrobat, minstrel, daredevil, and thief, at your service.” When the slave took her hand, Seraphina swept herself into a courtier’s bow and pressed a warm, brief kiss to her knuckle. “Most call me Sera,” she added, glancing up at her through her lashes. Flushing slightly, the Grimalkin answered quickly with the title she had been given at the slave house.

“Wai’ syik flaer inna munlai’,” she blurted, embarrassed by how her own tongue couldn’t seem to form the words. Sera raised an eyebrow and then shook her head.

“No, no, a slave name for so lovely and rare a beauty? If you don’t mind me saying so, it doesn’t suit you,” she said, straightening. She traipsed back to the bed where she retrieved a wide-brimmed hat she’d left on one of the pillows, dusting it off while turning in careless circles. “I rather think you’re more a Yoyo. A more traditional Grimalkin name, Yoyo is. I knew a Grimalkin once, Toba, who told me if he had a daughter, he would name her Yoyo for the Grimalkin Goddess of grace and beauty.”

“Yoyo?” the slave whispered. Sera grinned at her, putting on her hat and straightening the brim.

“That and you can say it.” Sera looked about the room, peeking into the armoire and coming up with a large, ornamental fan. She swung it through the air and slapped it against her palm a few times before nodding, pleased with it, and stuck it through her belt. “Well, now, let’s see what we can do about that collar, shall we?”