Larsene108

TSL: Sjakal

By the Almighty, Nahla could not understand why Gimi was able to push her buttons, but whatever it was… She couldn’t just leave her sultan down there on her own in the streets, but maybe after she gets up here, they could-

Oh. Oh no.

Nahla dips behind the column with Gimi, their bodies pressed against each other firmly as Nahla begins to panic. She can’t let this host discover Grace-of-Heaven, Nahla’s heard such horrible things about what the Fire Wheels had done. Maybe if they just remain quiet here, let the Host pass, maybe Grace won’t cry out to see that everything is alright and draw attention to herself, they can just go back and not have to run into this-
Her thoughts are interrupted as she stumbles on a rock nearby, the smattering of pebbles clattering against each other intermixed with the sounds of broken glass. As Nahla hurried to adjust her hiding spot, she swore she could hear the Host grunt. This was bad, this was really bad, she couldn’t let Grace be kidnapped by the Fire Wheels while she was hiding in public like this, but she couldn’t leave the sultan alone. Maybe…

“Gimi,” spoke the girl in harsh hushed whispers, “you have to get back down there. Tell Grace to run, to hide, anything, but it’s not safe for her here, got it? I’ll distract this thing, just get down there fast and I swear to make it up to you later, okay?”
Nahla takes a deep breath, eyes closed. She counts to 10 as her hand wraps around the hilt of her blade before she leaps out, drawing her polished sword and pointing the end at Om. Before she can realize that Om’s back was facing towards her, she blurts out-

“Away, foul spirit! You shall not wreak your havoc here tonight!”

Her face pales as the realization sets in. The realization that she absolutely could have ran, and that in drawing attention to herself, she has forced herself into this course of actions. But at least she told Gimi to tell Grace-

…wait, what name did she say to Gimi? Did she… she didn’t, right? RIGHT?!

TSL: Sjakal

Iris takes Jasmine’s hand with her free one, ensuring the princess is there and not subject to the continued clammy grasp of this girl in the process. The more she stands near Gimi, the less she thinks she can fully keep herself this composed around this girl. The unwashed smell that wafts off of her, the clamminess of her hand. It was clear this girl had either little access or time to care for her hygiene to the extent that the sultan did, and her scrawny form made her wonder how well-fed this girl was. The stumbling, excitable noises she made were certainly charming in their own way, and Iris could find something cute about them if she could see past Gími’s faults. In fact, if she washed her up and gave her a meal or two, she’d be charming in her own way, buuuut maybe part of her rugged appeal was because of her sm-

What? No no no no NO, Iris nipped the thought before it could blossom, she would NOT entertain the idea of any sort of feelings for this poor, unfortunate… scrawny… sweaty… flustered…

“This seems like a rather sizable task, hm. Thank you so much for getting us here, Gími, but I’m afraid we’ll have to ask for your help further. If you can help me up this pillar, perhaps I could help pull up my friend, Jasmine, from above once you help her to the top? Neither of us are quite cut out for the guard or fire-wheels, but I probably fare a better chance helping her than vice-versa. Just… give me a second in private to limber up, if you would be so patient.”

Nahla walks around the opposite side of the pillar, stretching out her legs, tugging on her arms, the sound of fabric rustling as she drops into a deep squatting position, holds it, and stands up. A staggered pair of footsteps, and she walks back from around the pillar, hands pressed together at her midsection and face cherry red.

“Alright, if you would help me up first, Miss Gími?” As the urchin approaches her, she leans forward and takes her hand, nonchalantly placing something in her hand and leading it down to Gími’s pocket. Something silky, some bunched up fabric, and it’s warm…
“Some collateral, until I can fully repay your kindness,” she whispers. A quick lift of her mask, a peck on the cheek of Gími’s oily face, and another lipstick mark is left, this one bisected with half on her skin and half marking the edge of her veil.

“…and please try not to look up too much.”

TSL: Sjakal

Iris tries thinking on her toes. If Jasmine really wanted to get in there, and this person sounded like their only chance of getting in, she would do it! Surely the charm she would need to put on for this Gymie- Geemeye- Gími (seems her diction practices still had some places to improve, as she thought to herself about the foreign phonetics)- would be worth it in whatever rapport she could build with Jasmine. Besides, if this girl showed them her way in now, if they ever escaped again, she could get in without this person’s help. They just needed the one time, surely, and whatever was within such a grand structure was surely worth the means of access! Her hands reach out, both wrapping around the girl’s free hand and trying to ignore the sweatiness of her as she brings it to her chest.

“Oh, you kind soul! We live on the other side of the city, and we find ourselves so busy we almost NEVER get the chance to enjoy ourselves!” 78 Heavens was a place to relax, right? Definitely no misunderstandings in ‘enjoy ourselves’ whatsoever. “Please, Gími, we could not bear to trek- er, walk all the way back to our home and back tonight! I promise you, if you would be so graceful as to show us the way in, I swear to you that we will come back next time with our purses to repay you, for your troubles and for your generosity. And in the meantime-”

She gently lifts Gími’s hand, her head bowing gently as she closed what little distance there was between the two of them. Undoubtedly, her recent performance from the palace did not merit enough sweat to eradicate the lingering sweet scent of the soaps and perfumes from the Sultan’s bathing room. Her veil draping away from her lowering face, Iris plants her lips to the back of the urchin’s hand, leaving a solid print of her lipstick and a mental note to herself not to habitually lick her lips for the next… until she could wash her face.
“-in the meantime, I would be happy to show just how grateful I am for your help.”

Her grayish blue eyes, like the cloudy sky before an incoming storm, looked deeply into Gími's, looking for her approval, for however she may feel about this performance of a desperate, grateful woman looking for a night on the town. What Gími probably saw, was a woman deeply thanking her for a service she had yet to even elaborate upon, kissing the back of her hand, and looking deeply into her eyes.

My Hider

Oh gosh, rolled to entice on top of "be their dream." 1+2+2= 5. Down Beat...

TSL: Sjakal

Iris wraps her arms around Jasmine, fully reciprocating the embrace the excited girl had given her. In many ways, she understood exactly what she saw in that moment. It was beautiful, after all- but it was beautiful in part because of that unfamiliarity. Iris spent most of her life in the mountainous northern kingdom, where you were lucky to see a spring or a stream. And here, there was simply a vast outstretch of water, a great expanse that stretched out to nothingness, the lights of the city reflecting off of it. The beauty that she saw from all of this, the wonder of the city and its night lights and the coast and what lays beyond, they would be unappreciated if she lived here. And yet, Jasmine, who spent her life here, was as awestruck as she was.
“We did, Jasmine. It’s Sjakal. And it will all be yours, someday.”
A hand gently massages the sultan’s back as Iris looks out on the city.
“There’s a lot more to see, up close, beyond this statue,” she offers. “We can travel to the water, if it pleases you. Feel the sand beneath you, the ocean at your feet. This… ‘beach’ where the land meets water, or perhaps…” The concubine pauses. She wanted to help her Mistress, but sometimes the language differences between the kingdoms and misunderstanding snuck into her statements. The faithful around here praised the Almighty for all that they thought was good in the world, of course, so if she wanted to discover the greatest places to visit in Sjakal, she needed only to turn to the naming- a place named after celestial bodies.

“When I first came here, I passed someone mentioning some place, 78 Heavens? They must have feared others coveting this place, because the tones were hushed. Perhaps that will be a place to best enjoy our… 'visit' to Sjakal.”

TSL: Sjakal

Nahla slips into her unassuming disguise for the night as Grace-of-Heaven removes her collar. It felt nice to not have it on, though Nahla tried not to rub her hand over her bare neck too much in front of the Sultan. Her garments were similarly plain to Grace-of-Heaven’s, wearing a beige long-sleeved belted dress.

As she heard the sultan’s ramblings, Nahla couldn’t help but blush slightly at the thought of being called “darling.” She also feel a small twinge of… something else. Frustration? Disappointment? Pity? She had barely spent any time in Sjakal before she was confined to the palace as a distraction for the Sultan, yet she had seemed to have a better grasp on names than her Mistress. Part of her considered that it was in large part yet another sign of the detriments of the sultan’s isolation, of being trapped in her palace. Another part of her, a part she quickly tried to smother down, the side that could remember being the plaything to a naïve royal once before, saw it in a less positive light.

“To use your… wise ideas as a basis, perhaps it best we be a touch more precise. Flower, for example, perhaps it would be better to go with a type of flower. Perhaps it would be more unassuming if you were called Jasmine. As for me… Iris, perhaps.”

Taking the sultan’s hand, the concubine gently nudges the door open, ensuring that no guards were patrolling the hallway so late at night. She lead ‘Jasmine’ through the hallways, the guards being far fewer in patrol this late. Eventually, she found her way out- a large cart seemingly stuffed to the brim with the worn garments of the various groups that occupy the palace grounds.

“Alright, remember, ‘Jasmine,’ hold your breath. For our plan, and for your own comfort, hold your breath.” With that, ‘Iris’ shoves her blade in its scabbard against the sultan’s chest before pushing her into the cart, making sure to ruffle up the laundry atop to ensure a heavy layer obscuring the sultan that looked undisturbed. With her means of transporting the sultan out secured, Iris lifts the handles and begins trekking the cart through the entrance, confident that no guard would want to thoroughly inspect the dirty laundry of the rambunctious occupants. A bit of playing up the urgency of keeping such a heavy load moving (it wasn’t all false- she was hiding an entire person, after all), added to the clear lack of anything being smuggled out on the transporter’s person, and the pair had successfully escaped. Tilting the massive wagon over near an alley, Nahla reasoned that someone else, perhaps another palace servant, would just assume that whoever was moving the cart accidentally knocked it over and gave up on trying to lift it up. A problem for someone else, but not for them.

TSL: Sjakal

Nahla freezes for all but a moment at the thought of being alone with Ruz. The Vizier was a nightmare by what she had heard from her Mistress, but after the embarrassment Grace-of-Heaven had endured to achieve this, a single meeting with Ruz would be nothing. The servant gives a convincing performance, wincing and whining as the Sultana pulls her away. Her eyes darted about, waiting until there were no observers before turning and leading her Mistress in the room. Her arms wrapped around Grace-of-Heaven, holding the half-bare lady in a tight embrace.

“We did it, my Sultan!” Nahla exclaims in assuring whispers. “We had to improvise a bit, but we’ve successfully earned our alibi for the night, and you can see the beauty of Sjakal at night. When we return, we can begin to plan out how we will handle Lady Ruz. But for now, it is time for the finishing touches to our preparations, and then we’ve won!"

She opened an unassuming barrel in the private punishment room, containing within it a set of new, unassuming clothes for the two of them. Along with clothes for disguise, a small vial of the fragrant soap she had lathered the sultan with, which she began to dab in small amounts on the ground and walls to ensure the room carried the scent of the Sultan should anyone investigate the room. Stripping away her performance clothing, Nahla dons the clothes of a commoner and a hooded cloak.

“Now then, we may wait a moment to allow the palace to settle down, and then we shall away when they are unassuming. Are you prepared, Grace-of-Heaven? Hmm… perhaps it best that we use some sort of false names out there if speaking to each other?”

My Hider

Rolling Emotional Support +Heart: 6+5+2= 13

TSL: Sjakal

Grace-of-Heaven was beginning to stumble. If Nahla didn’t play along with this, she would be in trouble, their plan would be all for nothing! Her eyes darted over to the vizier, that look on her face. That phrase, Dragon-Daughter, it made her hairs stand on end. She wasn’t just an assistant or distraction of the Sultan, she was some unenlightened foreigner, a barbarian as her own Grace-of-Heaven had worded it. She needed to create something, some excuse to get her Mistress all the more frustrated without seeming too impudent to be kept around the princess. Something that merited punishment, that played into the insolent outsider, all without seeming too treasonous…

“I don’t see why you need apologies, I meant only to compliment my Lady’s fair and bountiful chest. If the Almighty herself should grace the sultan with such a delightful chest, than is it not my duty as a servant to my lady and the Almighty to display her perfect form? Or is it that my lady is displeased that I should name her bosom her greatest part? A thousand apologies, Grace-of-Heaven, my Sultan, for daring to ever neglect your hips!” Nahla drops to her knees, a clear over-exaggeration of any speck of guilt she may carry if such an incident were genuine. Her hands smack at the Sultan’s rear, a head rubbing against her thigh. “Please, my Sultan, accept my apology in not finishing the job! By the will of the Almighty, I swear to finish the job, to strip you bare so that we may see that the Almighty has blessed every square inch of your body!”

The entire time, Nahla’s form is pressed against the sultan’s legs, rubbing pleadingly as her chest heaves in dramatic breaths and pleas. A lewd, blasphemous foreigner whose cheeky apology is clearly to further taunt the mandate of heaven- in other words, everything Nahla believed Ruz wants her to be.

My Hider

Entice Ruz: 4+1+2= 7

TSL: Sjakal

My Hider

(Mirror Ball (+Heart): 2d6+2= 3+6+2= 11, both player and influencer choose 1. "You get +1 forward to Entice while performing. Optionally, the influencer gets credit for the performance" and "Your audience is rapt")

“Oh, were it not for Grace-of-Heaven’s encouragement and guidance, my dance tonight would be nowhere near how far it has progressed. My performance is dedicated to you, as trained by our lovely sultan!”

If Ruz’s expression were anything, she needed to increase the association between her performance and the simple joys between herself and the sultan than any wisdom or ambition within the girl. A few lingering glances back to Grace-of-Heaven, looking at her with an expression she had seen modeled all too often by Taima, and the gifted girl was certain she was playing the role Ruz expected of her. After drinks had been poured and dinner had been served (after all, if their trick were to play out, it seemed unreasonable that the princes would spend the entire night punishing her concubine on an empty stomach and not once call for food), Nahla made her way to the front of the room, before each of the three who had come to dinner, as well as the slaves flitting in and out of the room to take plates, pour more drinks, and so on.

Nahla took a deep breath before closing her eyes. Her thumb pops the guard of her blade just barely out of the scabbard, displaying a small gleam of the blade within. With a sudden twirl, the metal shing of her blade sliding out echoes through the room, her hand lashing out and holding onto the sword as the flat reflects the lights and colors of the room, the setting sun over the gardens. A sword from the Northern kingdoms that has seen nearly no use, wielded by a concubine in Sjakal garments. As Nahla dances, the hilt rests against the crook of her neck, the solid, sharp metal twirling with her, the handle rolling over the back of her neck for her to grasp on the opposite side. The entire performance is a spectacle, of a blade to represent the rigid harshness of the northern lands, that no matter how hardened they may be, the flow of the coastal waters shall never fall to them. Fluid movements, intermittently switching direction and intensity much like the tide that pulls in and pushes out onto the sands, her sword flashing glimpses of the world around them like a weaponized mirror.

Eventually, she had gotten enough spectacle out of the blade, twirling once to the right and ending the spin with holstering the weapon. Then, as though the halt was merely the pause of an object unspinning one way just to build enough force to spin the other, a flourish to the left as the scabbard was removed from her person, raised high into the air, and gently slid to the floor behind her. In all her theatrics with such a blade, there was nary a cut on the girl, nor on the floor around her. The threat was contained, concealed, and retreated within this tale within her interpretive dance, and as the wind billows over the ocean to the lands of Sjakal, so too did Nahla swirl towards the Sultan of those lands. Her footwork was impressive, near immaculate with each rotation. If this had ended as it should, she would leap into the air, seemingly striking downward with her entire body to land on her elbows and knees before the Sultan’s feet, a sign that all of Sjakal and all of the elements that should aid them in pushing back against their enemies would bend bow to the mandate of heaven.

Instead, she tripped. All by plan, once her feet had kicked off the ground mid-spin, her ankles had hit each other, throwing her off her concentration. With an unfortunate slam, Nahla reaches out and grips fabric to play into instinctively steadying her fall, the sound of both party’s discomfort in the sudden impact interlaced with the ripping of thread. The sudden downward motion had also incidentally lead to an unintended consequence- as she landed on the sultan, her veil had fluttered upwards, and in that brief moment, she had realized her lips were placed firmly against Grace-of-Heaven’s. Pulling away, a bit red in the face, laying on the couch in the sultan’s lap, and with her bare form now left exposed for Soot and Ruz to see from the hips upward, Nahla stuck to the plan and awkwardly stumbled out,

“Well, if the artist is to capture your essence, it’s best that she behold your best assets.”

TSL: Sjakal

"Ah, Lady Ruz, how kind of you to grace us with your presence this evening!"
Nahla bowed her head before the Vizier, finding faux hospitality to be the best tool within her toolshed for tonight. If they were to pull this off, they needed the Vizier in a place of comfort in order to more likely buy their trick.

"I do not see your charming daughter, is Lady Rosethal preoccupied for the evening?" Her veil served as a saving grace, hiding the faint hints of a sneer of contempt for the aforementioned girl. And this new girl, whoever she was, she seemed somewhat troublesome to read. She looked at Grace-of-Heaven with an awe, and approached with an unexpected awkwardness. If her language was anything to go off of, perhaps she was an art curator? The gaze aimed at the sultan was an observational one that admired her beauty. This combined with Ruz' dirty tricks before made Nahla worry that this guest may have been invited to this private dinner to do some humiliating or unsavory thing- yet, her gaze was not lustful as Nahla would expect if that were the case. If Ruz had brought her here, then kissing up to the vizier also meant kissing up to her, and if she was studying Grace-of-Heaven not with a lustful eye, then-

"Entire galleries, you say? That's quite the claim you make. Do you think yourself the artist with the proficiency to do such? Of course, if your artistry has satisfied Lady Ruz, I would be delighted to see what 'messages' you may gleam from my Sultan. Ah, but where are my manners! I am Nahla, lady-in-waiting to the sultan, and for tonight, I shall be your entertainment."

Nahla bowed to the painter, a practiced motion that she had gone through so often throughout her life that it had become second nature. Beneath her veil, her cheeks shifted upwards as she gave the artist an unseen (but hopefully not unfelt) radiant smile.

TSL: Sjakal

Nahla simply smiles in return to Grace-of-Heaven. She could let the kiss gnaw at the back of her mind as she remembers the last royalty to- nope. She could, but she won’t, so she does not so much as finish entertaining the thought before locking it a way in a mental box labelled “for later consideration,” a “later” that would never become “now.”

For the current now, the preparations were to be made for the Sultan’s appearance. The dress, a deep blue halter dress, made sense for their purposes. It was fine enough as clothing for the sultan, and a strategic weakening of the fabric near the neck made it easy to tear down, while also hiding any signs of sabotage with Grace-of-Heaven’s beautiful, soft hair, the long dark brown locks were brushed out and left freely down her otherwise exposed back. A gold chain necklace with an amethyst pendant shone against her chest, which would draw one’s eye to the fact that this dress may have been a size or two too small for the princess with how it clung to her torso.

While Nahla did focus her efforts to what she believed the best suited their secret plan, she could not allow the other girls to grow suspicious by excluding them from preparing the princess. Each member of the sultan’s concubine was considered a close confidante and assistant to the sultan herself, and each would assist Grace-of-Heaven in being as presentable as possible. Taima’s hands gently brushed against the sultan’s legs, gingerly swiping a razor against any errant stubble of body hair until her limbs had been as smooth as her silk veil. Taima’s hands, admittedly, did feel up against the sultan’s physique a tad longer than she should have. Taima had a bit more of a lustful side, even compared to the other concubines.

Lila, on the other hand, relished in the luxury and wealth and power of being close to the sultan, and she lent her discerning eye and attentive hand to applying the allure of their lady’s makeup. Lastly, Yasmin examined her overall appearance and ensured that the sultan emanated Faithful virtue, slicking into place any out-of-place hair, pulling the fabric of the dress taught over her hips and bosom to eliminate any wrinkles, and deciding to instead swap out the amethyst pendant for one with a deep sapphire gem (“The sapphire carries within it the blue of our waters. Our Sultan’s beauty is itself a prayer, may the Almighty bless our ports.”).

Each of the women were charming and helpful in their own ways.

And each of them, for their own reasons, would report Grace-of-Heaven’s plans to Ruz in a heartbeat if they knew what would happen soon.

Nahla, on the other hand, prepared herself scantily. She had no jewels or extravagant makeup like Grace-of-Heaven. Instead, she simply wore a simple black veil and a matching two-piece outfit that would be fitting on a belly dancer. With a gentle, reassuring pat to the bare flesh of her lady's back, she whispered, "It is nearly time."