[center][h1][colour=sandybrown]Janin[/colour][/h1][/center]

Summer nights on the coast of Tarren lent themselves perfectly to evening parties.  The heat of the desert clung to the humidity of the tropical shoreline, leaving the air warm long after the sun was gone.  Even when the cold came, the people would be filled with enough cheer and drink to notice it’s arrival. They were Janin’s favourite evenings for hosting; the stone courtyard of the palace was filled with music and laughter as people drank and gambled under fruit trees and firelight. The goddess herself remained in her true form, taking pleasure in the looks of fear and awe the appearance stirred in her guests.  She made quite a sight, towering over most who even stood beside her seated form, a gold circlet around her head and abundance of matching jewelry that flashed and chimed with every moment.

[i]“My father believes there may be even more workable land on the other side of the mountain, not the desert of course, but just under the cliffs...”[/i] The girl pushed against Janin’s side had a beautiful smile, but the conversation had grown tedious moments after it started. Janin had long since been watching a game of dice taking place to her left in favour of listening. They were quite obviously loaded to the observers, but the losing man had become too drunk to notice, and was trying to shake coin out from his empty purse.

[i]“Is that a cat?”[/i] The shrill voice of her companion drew attention again, sure enough a small black cat was resting on her lap.  It was an accustomed enough feeling it had gone unnoticed, she filled her glass again, glaring at the animal.  The cat in turn began kneading her thigh, purring gently. The woman reached for it and had her hand slapped away with what was possibly more force than necessary when used on a mortal. Janin stood with her wine, clutching the cat by the nape of its neck with her free hand, and walked from the music and laughter into her palace.  Slaves lined the entrance, and only watched as their mistress passed through the halls to her private rooms, here it was silent enough the only sound was her own jewelry and bare footsteps on stone.

Her room was large and open, three walls that opened to a second, much smaller courtyard than the one she had come from, shielded only with thin curtains, allowing the breeze to pass in.  There were few furnishings for a room of such size, but all elaborately decorated, and most seemed to grow from the floor itself.  The desk, wardrobe, lounge and bed where all fashioned from sandstone, with various images of animals, instruments, and humans carved in. Red and while fabrics draped from the ceiling, and matching cushions covered the lounge and bed.  The walls where the focus of attention; all were covered in murals, depicting Janin’s coming into being and her various deeds, some sorties more exaggerated than others. The east walls depicted Janin taming the desert with music, charming Desin into her service and using him to raise mountains to protect her people from exposure and the dreaded Scorpios. Janin sat on the only piece of wooden furniture; a velvet-lined chair to sit opposite the stone desk, and dropped the cat to the floor.

As Alek fell she changed back to her usual human shape, rubbing the back of her neck as she walked towards the small heap of clothing in the center of the room, her mother resumed drinking, good humor gone.

[i]“I am sorry mother but this is important,”[/i] Janin looked past her daughter, cool glass pressed again her flushed cheeks. The room was wavering and murals blurring, making it harder to focus on her daughter’s words, she already missed the loud sounds and distractions. 

[i]“The guardian is sending summons.”[/i] Alek finished dressing herself, [i]“Rieth is dead.”[/i] Whatever reaction she was expecting never came. Janin closed her eyes, suddenly feeling very drunk and very tired. It was expected, but that did not make the news any more welcome. Meetings with the gods could take months, and that was with Rieth’s oversight. She considered for a moment the consequences of not going, missing the first few days or so wouldn’t mean much, forgoing the preliminaries and polite niceties everyone would play at before falling back to old patterns and revisiting old wounds.

[i]“Cai”[/i] Quiet footsteps approached the goddess, and a slave in a white robe came to stand beside her, looking to the ground.  Someone had hit the girl, and the wonderful symmetry of her face that Janin had chosen her for was spoiled by a swollen purple bruise just above the eye.
[i]“We will be leaving within the hour.”[/i] The girl nodded and left the room quickly. Alek remained standing in the center of the room, hands clasped.

[i]“What is it Alek?”[/i]
[i]“Olek, he- he should be with us”[/i] This earned a snort of laughter.
[i]“You want him to come along? Of course! We’ll all go, holding hands and pay great respect to the old man’s corpse. Will you weep at the sight child? I know it’s been centuries since you’ve seen your dear grandfather.”[/i] Alek remained silent, but did not move.

[i]“I have a gift for you.”[/i] Janin finished the last of her drink before reaching to the heavy purse on her hip, and procuring a small key.  She used it unlock a small gold box on the desk, which opened to reveal a small medallion-shaped bronze piece.
[i]“Mother I-“[/i] Alek stopped, and was suddenly kneeling before her, head bent.

[i]“It is called an astrola-astro-”[/i] Janin blinked, and gave up. [i]“it is for charting by stars or some nonsense.  Too small for functional use but it is important to me you have it.”[/i] She pressed the trinket into the girl’s palm, who touched it with reverence. [i]“I need you to keep it safe while we’re gone.”[/i]

[i]“Of course”[/i] She closed her other hand around it and stood again.  [i]“But what of Olek?”[/i]
[i]“I don’t know where your brother is and he has made it perfectly clear I am not to find him. He’ll hear of the summit and come if he wills.”[/i] She stood, leaned on the desk for a moment, and waved her hand dismissively, the subject was closed for the time being.

[i]“I will take you back here to search for him if you like, but for now we leave”[/i] Cai re-entered the room at that moment, carrying a sword, lyre, and chalice with some difficulty; everything being made for a being more than twice the girl’s height. Janin took them without a word and stepped to the center of the room with her daughter. Alek nodded, still clutching her new gift in a grip tight enough to whiten knuckles.  Janin looped the sword across her back, handed Alek the lyre to carry under an arm and took a long drink from the chalice before taking her daughter’s free hand with her own.

Teleportation after heavy was never a particularly good idea. Whatever dignified entrance she had hoped to make was lost when she appeared directly behind the very wet, occupied seat of Aesis. There was a brief moment of swaying, and steadying on the part of Alek before she managed to move into the circle of thrones. There were more empty than full, but most of those that would come had already arrived, spaced between memories of the dead.  Janin barely looked at the coffin before striding across the room. 

[i]“Ki’ivara, it has been too long,”[/i] she smiled and stopped to briefly embrace her sister before moving on.  She spared only the briefest glance at Naqqash as she past his twisted form, not bothering to hide her revulsion at the sight. 
Her own ‘throne’ was built for comfort rather than to display power, the seat was wide enough for her to lounge and festooned with red and gold pillows.  The left armrest extended further than the right, a perfect place to rest her chalice.

[i]“Arhu,”[/i] she acknowledged, raising the glass toward the goddess and drinking deeply as she seated herself as comfortably as possible. The sight of two of her more favoured kin was almost enough to lift Janin’s spirits again. Small feet crawled along her back to rest around her neck, Alek had chosen the form of a ferret, apparently having already found a suitable spot to hide the astrolabe and clothing, the holy lyre and weapon were already resting again the leg of the seat. She brushed the creature away from her face, but made no serious effort to remove her from her perch.