Meeting with the Consortium

Meeting with the Consortium
 * - by Shame

The air tasted of smoke -- smokes rather. Some were acrid, lung-singeing, others as soft as scented fog. Some muddied the head, others cleared it. But all of them obscured the still swamp air - a haze in the breath, in the corner of one’s eyes. Her hair smelt of smoke, it lay curled and quiescent in the folded fabric of her robes. The druid was sleeping, finally without hints and murmurs of nightmares, a smile curving his lips now in a face sunken suddenly with age. When he opened his eyes they were clearer now, deeper, wells of luminescence and age she was afraid of studying too closely -- before now she had never thought of him as old. The boss was closeted with business -- closed doors and smoke tinged with brimstone -- working through sheaves of maps and atonement. The elf, after several days of raging against the bonds of the settlement like a tiger in a cage. had left again.

She was alone --

-- playing with smoke and vertigo on one of the places many balconies, eyes tracking lights near and far as they moved through the dim swamp -- her jittering, not as bad as on the Peninsula but unceasing since then -- held still by soft smoke and the heavy humidity of the air. When she moved smoke and sweat mingled perfume-like on her skin.

The innkeeper came up behind her, each gentle click of hooves like like a rat-tat-tatting on Shame’s flesh, breaking open her tension-quivering skin and letting her bones jump free ivory spiraling down into darkness.

“There’s someone here to see you,” the innkeeper said, words made heavy by her long-voweled accent.

“Who?” Shame asked, edges of irritation showing through her words. Edges, on edge. She looked down. Vertigo.

“One of the wind traders,” a note of disapproval in those heavy vowels.

Shame turned away from the edge, swamp, dim lights trailing their slow dance in murky air. She felt the edges shifting, smoothing, the knives her in smile now -- the rest an impenetrable skin. “Where is he?” she asked, cat-like mouse-pouncing note of eagerness in her voice.

“The lower balcony,” a pause, “He’s ordered sheesha and wine and fruit,” another down-turned sound, disapproval, warning.

“I’ll be with him in a moment.” She stood, bare feet pressed against the grain of the floor. A wind trader -- she’d heard stories from the various merchants she’d courted and questioned. She had not expected to meet one til she arrived at the great city to the south, Shattrath.

She descended through smoke and air to meet him.