marlowemuses | If you were Dracula, I'd be letting you take that bite

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If you were Dracula, I'd be letting you take that bite

Lenore's immediately curious about their 'guest' in the dungeons from what Striga had to say: a swordswoman of exceptional skill, the most satisfying fight Striga had enjoyed in years and she only regretted that the woman was so tired out already before Striga got to her, if she'd been fresher in the fight and had vampiric advantages, she would have been a 'true opponent'.

The soldiers who had survived the battle spoke of it like something out of legend, to the point that Lenore almost had to roll her eyes at the way the story was already getting embroidered and exaggerated. (She thought it very unlikely that their captive was eight feet tall with eyes of flame.) There was little useful information from any of them--run down castle practically in ruins, aging retainers, decrepit king and queen, none of them even healthy enough to save for feeding purposes. Morana had plenty to say about that, the waste of losing forty-seven good soldiers for the gain of an ugly, crumbling castle in an ugly, barren land and if she'd known it was going to be this much bother they would have just gone around. Carmilla had already expressed her opinion in the original conversation, and the entirety of that opinion was a disgusted scoff.

Thus armed with as much information as she was going to get, Lenore dressed herself elegantly and went to the kitchens to collect a basket of freshly baked spice cakes, temptingly aromatic, before she descended to the dungeon.

Only one of the cells was filled at this time--none of the sisters were especially inclined toward taking prisoners unless they were of political value in some way, and their food captives were kept elsewhere under relatively minimal restraint.

"Well," Lenore comments, stopping in front of the dungeon cell and looking over the captive within with interest, chained on her knees. A heavy collar around her throat was chained to a ring in the floor in front of her, while her wrists were pulled out to either side and secured to more heavy iron rings and the cuffs on her ankles were attached to a ball and chain. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone in quite that many chains."

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There's a surprised few seconds of silence in the wake of that explosion, though the silence is less brittle this time, a little more tolerant and perhaps even amused.

"Poor upbringing," Zohreh comments, entirely deadpan, but there's no edge or harshness to it. It's just Zohreh's bone-dry humor, her stony exterior that had shown only warmth underneath when it had cracked for Lenore.

Zohreh doesn't want to tread on whatever complicated nuances of handling Lenore's doing with this one. They all know the miracles Lenore can work with making friends out of enemies, and it's already enough of a miracle that the violent, enraged, feral creature that had been dragged into the dungeons mere days ago is now following Lenore around with puppy eyes. Zohreh doesn't dare question any of that. But she knows, too, that Lenore trusts her judgement and her command. Zohreh is a general, whose business is the management of soldiers, and she knows how to handle the difference between humor and insubordination. If Lenore hasn't given explicit instructions, then she will trust Zohreh's judgement.

It startles her just a touch to be spoken to by anyone other than Lenore. Since the moment she'd been dragged into the castle and chained up in the dungeon, the guards and soldiers had maintained a stony - if nervy - silence around her. She turns her aureate gaze on the woman, unsure how to take the comment. There's the small, sick part of her that thinks she ought to defend her former Kingdom, to answer back as bitingly as she would have done whilst caged.

She has to admit, though, that the desert-dry tone in which it's said is kinda funny, and just a little bit badass. Particularly given Gideon's reputation, and the fact that she is - right now - entirely unrestrained.

"Upbringing?" she says eventually, one brow raised high, "try updragging. Who even knows why they kept me around at all, really. It sure as hell wasn't out of the kindness of their hearts."

A few dry remarks flit through Zohreh's mind--and yet here you are parroting their remarks; how reassuring to know that the 'good guys' have no kindness in their hearts--but Zohreh always defaults to silence when she is not certain of the value of her comments. She does not wish to be drawn into a debate. She cannot shape logical arguments the way that Lenore does, loading guilt and empathy and persuasion into an irrefutable point.

So she simply jerks her head to indicate that Gideon might take the spot beside her, to be accepted and to ride companionably. Neither one answers to the other, only to Lenore, so Zohreh has no need to worry about showing favoritism. Gideon exists outside of the system of ranks, attached exclusively to Lenore. Zohreh may treat her accordingly.

That doesn't, however, mean that Zohreh is particularly inclined to conversation. Just that she's willing to tolerate Gideon's presence and a minimum of prattling.

They stop sometime in the early morning, while dawn is still only the most distant of possibilities on the horizon, at a little town with a large enough inn. Lenore descends from her carriage, negotiating with the town's headwoman, her husband, and the innkeeper and his daughter. Within just a few minutes, accommodations are arranged for the day. Everyone in the town is human, but they seem on good terms with Lenore, and she knows several of them by name, asking about someone's daughter and someone else's elderly father and giving her sympathies when she finds that the father has died. She asks about food supplies and the distribution lines that run past the town, if they have enough to eat, if they've had any trouble, whether there are still bandit problems in the area.

The other villagers move off with various packs of soldiers, most of the soldiers--including Zohreh--staying in the inn, some--including Esfir--staying in private homes, and the last bunch--with Lenore, Gideon and the maid--to stay in the headwoman's home. Lenore walks with the headwoman while her soldiers and the townsfolk bustle around seeing to the practicalities of the day's stay. A few of the townsfolk seem skittish or scared of the vampires in general, but the sentiment toward Lenore is only one of fascination or awe, while the headwoman and the innkeeper show genuine friendliness toward Lenore and no fear at all of the others.

Within twenty minutes, Gideon and Lenore are seated in the headwoman's house with bowls of hot stew and goblets of wine. There's also a small bowl of lamb's blood for Lenore, which she sips daintily while continuing to talk business with the headwoman.

After an hour, Lenore retires upstairs to bed. The headwoman has surrendered her own room for Lenore's use, and Lenore's maid is seated at a table there with her own empty bowl and goblet and a book in hand. The large bed is freshly made up, while there's a makeshift bed of rug, blankets and pillow laid out in front of the fire, though it looks more like the maid's size than Gideon's. At her mistress' appearance, the maid hops up immediately and comes to help her with hair and gown. They undress Lenore to her skin, leaving only a pair of white panties, and then she's helped into a diaphanous nightdress.

Time stretches on less intolerably after that. Zohreh demonstrates no real inclination toward conversation, and Gideon finds herself unaccountably shy. The vampire is, from time to time, subjected to Gideon's sense of humour, or idle chat that mainly centres around swords. For once though - quite remarkably - Gideon feels disinclined to make too much of a nuisance of herself, and Zohreh's silence feels more akin to tolerant than stony or cold.

By the time they arrive at the little town, Gideon has had plenty of time to recall her promise; she'd said she would behave, that she'd be stoic and unyielding as one would expect a bodyguard to be if Lenore would take her along on this expedition. It's a promise that has been somewhat dented, but spaces opens up for her to amend that, now. So she keeps her mouth shut during the bustle of their arrival, remains a silent presence unless directly addressed throughout the course of the meal. All Lenore's talk is so far above her head that she can barely perceive it, but her strong and silent act gives her time to begin formulating opinions of the company she now keeps.

For the most part, both humans and vampires seem accepting of each other. More than that, they appear to be on almost friendly terms. There's some level of nervousness amongst some of the villagers, but no one is feeling for their lives. No one is being offered up as either banquet or appeasing sacrifice. The scenes that play out before her are starkly at odds with anything she'd ever been taught, and sure she'd known her life in Drearburh has been fucked up and wrong on a variety of levels, but this is her first real view of what life is like outside of the Kingdom's crumbling walls. She'd been swiftly ushered away on the rare occasion outsiders had ever entered into her orbit, both forbidden and physically prevented from initiating interaction. The full reasoning for which she'd never entirely been able to comprehend. As such, the humans here seem almost as alien to her as the vampires themselves, their interactions a universe away from what she'd been taught to expect.

By the time they're ushered up to the headwoman's room, Gideon's head aches from the influx of new information. Exhaustion weighs heavy on her - mental and physical both - and it takes her a moment longer than it should to assess the situation; Lenore's maid has stripped the vampire down to her panties before Gideon's mind has caught up, and by this point she's had an eyeful of her owner's milk-white skin, the gorgeous curve of her breasts. Heat suffuses her abruptly, breath catching sharp in her throat. She turns away as the nightdress makes its appearance and forces herself to think of the hoary, plague-scarred retainers who had looked upon her with such unbridled hatred back in Drearburh. It’s the only thing she can think of to dampen her hot-blooded thoughts.

"I...I shouldn't...I mean, shouldn't I be outside? Like, on duty or something. Guarding the door?"

"What if someone comes in the window?" Lenore asks, light and unconcerned, just a casual retort to Gideon's suggestion. She fluffs out her hair, loosened from its crown braid. "You'll be here to react either way. I feel confident in our welcome in this village. While assassination attempts are always a risk, I doubt there will be anything organized. The soldiers will rotate watches--which also lowers the amount of beds we're all taking up--but you I'd rather have well-rested and at my side. So get ready for bed."

Fully aware of Gideon's flustered desire, Lenore slips into the bed, staying to one side so as to make it slightly more obvious that the other side is empty and expecting an occupant. The maid quietly busies herself with tidying up, making certain the window is securely covered, and then settling into her own little bed.

Gideon stands there stupidly for what feels - to her - like an inordinate length of time. Lenore slides sinuously into bed, the maid takes up her spot by the fire, and Gideon...prevaricates. At my side, is what Lenore had said. At my side with the space beside her left open and unfilled, when the vampire could sleep smack-bang in the middle if her heart so desired. She could take the floor at the foot of the bed - a suitable place for a royal bodyguard - it'd hardly be the worst night she'd ever spent. Days chained up and kneeling in a small, stone cell immediately come to mind.

But if Lenore wants her there, and she's trying to behave, then who the hell is Gideon to refuse her? The mental image of sliding beneath the heavy sheets with Lenore's barely-clothed body stretched out beside her is enough to have her heart beating fast, to send a sharp kick of lust to her cunt-- it's this, though, that has her come over shy.

She ought to be good and obey. She wants to atone for her earlier transgression. Her body thrums with a day packed full of exertion and yearns quite desperately for comfortable rest.

There's a hot almost-naked chick in the bed right now, expecting her to come join her.

Her uncertainty breaks, and Gideon makes relatively short work of stripping off her clothes. There's only one last moment of hesitation - standing motionless and awkward, her bruised, muscular body limned in the fire's quiet light - before she's gingerly sliding beneath the sheets dressed only in her underwear. She leaves space between her body and Lenore's yet feels achingly aware of her proximity, trying desperately to regulate her breathing and not think stupendously dirty thoughts.

Even once Gideon climbs into the bed, Lenore can feel her practically vibrating with intensity, which can't possibly be conducive to sleeping. Rolling over, Lenore lays a light arm over Gideon, hand falling between her breasts. "You do need to actually sleep in order to be well-rested," Lenore comments, voice soft but wry. "And you do not seem particularly relaxed. Are you going to be able to sleep, or am I going to have to make other arrangements?"

She's aware this is partly her own fault, since she's aware of Gideon's desire, and she's encouraged it, and she wants Gideon to stay by her side. But she also needs Gideon to be able to sleep, and Lenore's not sure if there's any quick, easy solution to get Gideon's brain to settle down and sleep.

The light drape of Lenore's arm against her overheated flesh leaves something alive and electric in its wake, has Gideon's heart leaping into her throat. Her nipples stiffen against the material of her bandeau, lust arrows hard straight to her groin…but she forces herself to take in a deep breath, then another. One, two.

Get it together Nav, for fuck's sake, are the words that echo around her head, and once again she tries forcing herself to think of the most unappealing sights imaginable. The ghastly old crones back in Drearburh, stalking the cold stone hallways like revenants, eyes rheumy and filled with hate. King Priamhark's wrinkly old ass. Okay, fucking gross, perhaps one step too far.

"Nah, I'm okay. I'm alright. You need me here, right? I just...need a minute," her voice is a heated whisper in the dark, painfully aware of the maid inn her bed beside the fire, "I've just...I’m usually alone. When I sleep. I’ve never slept this close to another person before."

Never mind one so breathtakingly attractive.

Lenore nods, smiling fondly at Gideon's determination, the focus upon Lenore needing her and the earnest desire to be what Lenore needs. "Yes," she confirms, soft and content, relaxing a little that there's no problem she needs to resolve. "I need you here."

Letting herself trust to the knowledge that Gideon will do her best to be what Lenore needs, she nestles in close, leaving her arm on Gideon's chest and tucking her face against Gideon's shoulder, letting her body relax. She's confident that Gideon won't let her down, and she knows from experience that the best thing she can do to further strengthen this bond is by trusting Gideon and giving her the freedom to do her best.

There are a smattering of long, drawn-out moments where Gideon fears she will now sleep at all. Not with Lenore nestled in close to her almost naked body, the faint heat from her skin pressing into Gideon and alighting a brighter fire in her. Lenore has been kind to her, in her way. Far kinder than anyone else has been in her short, unstable life. Sure, she may have been taken against her will, counted amongst the spoils of war, but she's already been given so much more than she's ever experienced before. It's wrong, isn't it? To lie neck-deep in lustful thoughts, her panties wet and clinging, when the vampire currently at her side sees her sees her as, what? A useful asset, a bodyguard, something owned. But something uncouth and poorly raised and horribly uneducated, probably.

But she's fucking exhausted, her body aches, and the room is so comfortable and warm. It's with her arm shyly slid around the narrow indent of Lenore's waist - for protection, obviously!! - and these shitty thoughts turning in her head that she does slide into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Pleased by Gideon's warmth and strength, Lenore sleeps easily beside her, lulled by the steady drumbeat of Gideon's heart.

She wakes at sunset, her maid Greta already bustling around the room to prepare for the day's journey. Stirring sleepily, Lenore sits up, lingering to trail her fingertips over Gideon's chest and belly for a few extra moments before rising properly. They don't have real privacy here, not least due to Greta's presence, and Lenore wants to hasten on to their destination. She feels skittish about this entire journey, uncertain whether this is a trap or a fool's errand, and still with no good plan. She has two partial plans, one of which she has been hesitating whether to ask Gideon, with Gideon's loyalty still so new-forged and fragile.

While Greta starts carrying things out to repack the sleigh, Lenore takes advantage of a moment's privacy with Gideon, probably the only moment of privacy they'll have for at least a night. Cupping Gideon's cheek with one hand, Lenore draws her down into a fierce, needy kiss. Passionate though it is, Lenore doesn't allow it to linger before she looks up at Gideon with a worried frown. "I have to ask something miserable of you."

Gideon wakes to the feel of fingertips trailing lightly across her body, and at first she doesn't open her eyes. Instead she lies still, enjoying the feel of someone else's hands on her, desperately wanting more of it. Her heartrate spikes, probably giving away the fact that she's no longer sleeping, and after a few moments have passed she finally looks up into Lenore's face-- just as her touch is withdrawn.

She yawns, streches massively, her body languid and loose as a particularly oversized cat in a spot of sunlight. It's possibly one of the deepest, most comfortable sleeps she's ever had, and the most gentle of wake-up calls to go with it. Energy thrums through her despite her still-healing injuries, ready for whatever the night might throw at them.

It still catches her by surprise though, when in the midst of preparing for their departure Lenore's delicate palm cups her cheek and she's pulled down to be kissed; it drags a small sound out of her, lips against lips, thrumming from her mouth to Lenore's, and all at once her head feels starry with pleasure. The vampire's lips feel so soft yet the kiss is so hard and for a moment that's all she can think about; it takes her addled brain a bit longer to catch up with what has just been said.

Despite that her eyes are still slightly hazed with desire, she manages to narrow them. Her face both heated and wary at the same time. "Something miserable is the story of my whole fucking life. So, shoot."

"If I'm right and we need to replace the mayor," Lenore says, speaking low and swift. "We need to find a replacement, and we need to find one swiftly under his nose. My first plan is to claim that my maid is pregnant and that she needs a healer, in hopes that a doctor or midwife would be educated enough and well-connected enough to either fit my criteria themselves or know someone who would. But that's just desperate hoping, and I need a backup plan."

Her fingers curl on Gideon's shoulders, protective and worried, and her eyes are both pleading and apologetic. "If there's someone who met my criteria enough that the mayor saw them as a threat, then it's very likely they're in his dungeons. So we claim that you accosted us on the road and I want you thrown in the dungeons. My soldiers will escort you, to prevent you from being searched, so that we can smuggle you in with an iron file and a dagger or two, in case things go wrong and you need them. One day. You talk to everyone within shouting distance in that dungeon, and then we come get you out and anyone else in that dungeon who doesn't actually deserve to be there. Will you do this for me?"

Gideon eyes Lenore coolly, her mouth a tight-pressed line. The heat from the kiss still burns on her lips, but--

"I know I kinda come off like I'm dumb as all hell, but I'm not that much of a goon," she says slowly, after a one long, extended moment of silence, "Like, it's not the worst plan I've ever heard, but how am I supposed to know you won't just leave me down there to rot?"

Granted, it seems like rather an elaborate method of torture; allowing her to think she's needed, then just throw her in some other dungeon altogether. But one has to consider the possibility.

"You'll have the file and a dagger. I'll give you a pair of my hairpins if we can't find lockpicks. They don't know how strong and dangerous you are, so they won't take any special precautions against you," Lenore assures her, tone coaxing and eyes pleading.

The door opens as Greta returns, and Lenore takes a step away, turning to see what her maid has brought. Two sheathed daggers and a heavy iron file, which she holds out.

"No lockpicks?" Lenore asks, as she takes the items.

Greta shakes her head. "Too specialized. The blacksmith said he'd have to make them up special."

Nodding, Lenore turns and offers the three items to Gideon while Greta picks up another bundle to take out to the sleigh.

Gideon's expression stays tight as Greta re-enters the room. There are more questions to be answered here, like how can I trust you'll really stop them from searching me? But no matter what ground she tries to cover, it's likely Lenore could tell her a convenient lie as easily as she could tell her the truth. There's no real way to know for certain. Only trust-- something she has in short supply, with so little past experience with trustworthiness to go on.

In the end, she blows air rudely between her lips, rolls her eyes as far back into her head as they will go. Nevertheless, she's takes the items being held out to her. "Fiiiiine. But I feel like I deserve some kind of extra incentive for letting you have me locked up all the time."

Lenore nods easy agreement to the request, happy to heap more favors upon her champion. "Anything. Within the terms of our agreement. And if it's anything that takes more than ten minutes, then it's to be fulfilled after this situation is resolved."

She fetches a pair of hair pins from her jewelry box and brings them over. One silver, with a bird on the end, and the other gold, with a rose on the end, the plainest Lenore owns. "If you don't know how to pick locks, I'll go over the basics while we ride."

Gideon mulls over Lenore's promise as she brings her the hairpins, realises she's quite at a loss as to what she should even ask for. Is loathe to admit that a please and a thank you, and a Gideon you're the absolute best and also very fucking hot is enough to get her to do a dazzling array of things. So for now she just nods her agreement, and after stashing the other tools on her person, reaches to take the hairpins. They seem far to fine a thing to be used for such a rough job, she isn't about to complain.

"Oh Night Mistress, I am a pro at picking locks," she says it with a crooked-pin smile. Fuck knows she's freed herself from many a locked room before, and Lenore and her clan are lucky in that she'd been searched and restrained so thoroughly.

"Good." Lenore smiles warmly at her, pleased and reassured that she's willing to go along with this plan. While they still have an extra moment of privacy, Lenore pressed close again, face against Gideon's chest and a little tremor in her body.

"I'm scared," she murmurs. "If it is a trap. If I'm setting up this plan and putting my best fighter out of my own reach. I hate this. But I've been searching my brains for the past two days and this gamble is the best idea I have."

Looking up again, scared and unhappy, Lenore's hands tighten around Gideon's waist. "Once we get home, I'm not leaving for a week. If something else needs to be dealt with in that time, someone else can fucking deal with it."

If she'd already been prepared to go through with the vampire’s plan despite her reservations, this seals her fate. Lenore feels so achingly delicate as she presses herself against Gideon's chest, and maybe she hasn't yet worked out when to push and when it's best to do as she's told, but it's impossible not to hold her in this moment. Her hand moves to the small of Lenore's back and any further questions bleed right out of her, because who in their right fucking mind could resist a request made like this?

Not Gideon Nav, that's for sure.

"Hey. Hey, it's okay," she says, her voice steady, her heartbeat swift and fierce, "Just...I dunno. Make sure you have your best guards with you? I can handle myself. I'm sure that great big sister of yours told you that."

A pause, just the length of a heartbeat. It seems such a dumb thing to say, gives more of herself away than truly means to, but-- "And you'll stay with me? All of that week, when we’re back?"

Lenore nods, smile soft and tentative, pleased at how much Gideon wants her. "You're my bodyguard. I need you by my side."

Lifting herself up on her toes, she kisses Gideon again, just as fierce but still not letting herself linger. Her expression is regretful as she pulls away, giving Gideon one last hug and then letting go, returning herself to her role as queen.

The party is moving again quickly, back to the pattern they'd set yesterday, and Lenore is riding once again, eyes alert. There's not as far to travel this time, and it's before lunch that they're arriving at what is a very obviously burnt mill.

Lenore keeps Gideon by her side as she speaks to the miller, who is elderly and who trembles as he speaks to them, looking around warily as though he expects to be hit. He's unwilling to speak at first, but Lenore eventually coaxes out of him a story even worse than what she'd expected. The man calling himself the mayor had been a mere criminal before, running loan and 'protection' schemes, but in the power vacuum he ran rampant.

The crops haven't been good, but they haven't been especially bad the past year, either, but the mayor had been increasing their 'taxes' and saying that it was the vampire queens who were demanding more. The miller had struggled to pay and had refused to give up the grain of other farmers that had just been left with him for the milling, so the mayor had punished him by burning his mill and taking his daughter, saying it was a 'warning' to others.

By the end of the story, Lenore has gone absolutely stony with rage. She gives him some of the food they have and a few coins, and promises that they'll get his daughter back.

Then she draws Zohreh, Esfir, Greta and Gideon aside to speak, explaining the plan. They will be killing the mayor and carrying out a coup, but they still need to get their replacement if at all possible. The miller had no suggestions to offer about a replacement other than a priest, which Lenore isn't willing to consider.

"Give Zohreh your sword, Gideon," Lenore says, voice hard and bitter with what they have to do. "I'm sorry, but you'll be walking the rest of the way."

The simple words I need you by my side somehow manage to quietly buoy her up for the remainder of the ride. The fierce kiss she'd been gifted with winds up taking centre stage in many of her idle fantasies, which - unlike the night before - have very little to do with slaughtering the entire royal guard out of petty vengeance. She spends the journey mostly silent - if only because her mind is occupied with other, more wanton things - only making the occasional lewd joke when the opportunity proves too significant not to take.

By the time they reach the mill she's ready to step into the role she'd initially promised; she stands a step behind Lenore throughout the length of her interrogation...although interrogation transpires not to be quite the right word. She listens to the old miller, subtly observes Lenore's expression-- and the tale opens up a space in her which leads to uncomfortable questions. It's less the rampant corruption that shocks her, the rotten black core of the governing body in this town; these are things she knows, bone-deep, from her own experience. It's the genuine concern she sees painted on faces she has been taught are little more than vicious monsters.

Vampires drink people's blood. They eat babies. They descend on unsuspecting villages and murder everyone in sight before engaging in orgies amongst the corpses. Okay sure, she'd always suspected that last one was the product of Drearburh's guards' perverted imaginations. Yet it still makes something go ping! in her head, forces her to wonder how much she might have been wrong about.

By the time Lenore requests she relinquish her sword, Gideon is feeling less incalcitrant than anyone may expect from her. There is - of course - a moment of wary delay. A sidelong glance cast in Zohreh's direction, like she suspects the woman of coveting her sword and planning to squirrel it away from her forever. But she voices no complaints, doesn't even roll her eyes, only hands it over with restrained reluctance.

"I could do with a walk anyway. My butt is killing me after all this riding," she says, because 'of course, my Queen' are words that apparently don't exist in her lexicon. "It can hardly be worse than the way I arrived in Styria."

The circumstances are certainly far gentler than the way she arrived in Styria. There's very brief discussion as to whether Gideon needs a little bit of fresh bruising and bloodying to be convincing, but it's determined that she still looks bruised enough. Time is taken for a quick lunch for everyone, and then they prepare to leave.

Esfir ties Gideon's wrists, but she ties a slip knot, silently but clearly showing Gideon how to hold it convincingly tight and how to loosen it in an instant. The end of the rope is tied to the horse of one of the soldiers, a pair of whom are given authority over Gideon and explained that they're to deliver her to the dungeons and make very sure that she's not searched or accosted at all by the mayor's people on the way there. Gideon's fine black horse is swapped out with another soldier's, so that the horse going spare is one that looks more convincingly like a pack horse.

Lenore climbs into the sleigh for the final leg of their journey, leaving Zohreh to handle everything else. There's not far at all to go, since the mill is just on the edge of town, but it is a miserable mile's walk for Gideon through the deep snows that are difficult for even the horses to traverse. As they arrive to the walled, medium-size town, bells are rung and the gates are opened, welcoming the group within. The men guarding the gates are only lightly armed and armored, with leather and padded cloth rather than the full plate armor worn by Lenore's soldiers. The expressions of the town guards are variously wary, shifty, bored, and hostile, but they exchange only a few brusque words before allowing Lenore's party to continue on.

There are stone walls around the town and a winding path up a hill, but it's still tiny enough that one could throw a stone from the entry gate to the small town square, the church to one side and a stone manor to the other, with other houses and shops clustered tight all around. Lights flick on in a few buildings, and unlit faces peek out of a few more buildings, gawping at the passing soldiers and the fine covered sleigh.

Finally, at the stone manor house, Lenore emerges from the sleigh and they're welcomed by the mayor himself, who looks like he's only barely restraining yawns. Unlike her earlier warmth with the village headwoman and the miller, Lenore is cool and aloof with the town mayor, all regal dignity. She glances over at Gideon only once, expression impassive, before Lenore turns to enter the manor and Gideon is led away to the town's jail.

The walk to the town is a miserable one. Despite her fine, warm clothes the cold still manages to penetrate once she's slogging through deep snow. That it has at least been churned up by the horses is something, but that means that it is - in parts - compacted and slippery, not at all fun to walk through. Yet other than the occasional expletive muttered underneath her breath, she stays relatively silent, trying to act the part of sullen and cowed captive rather than anyone likely to give the approaching township a problem.

It's an experience, entering this new place. Just as the village they'd stopped in overnight had been an experience; a first real look at the outside world, how people other than the gnarled and twisted ones she'd been enslaved by live. There's a certain heaviness about the atmosphere as they're finally granted admittance; shadowy faces peering out at them from stony apertures and doorways, expressions difficult to read in the night's dimly illuminated gloom.

A shiver of emotion runs through her as Lenore surveys her so coolly before turning away, though it's one she isn't sure how to interpret. Concern? For herself, or for the vampire? Maybe she's just fucking cold and it doesn't mean anything at all.

Her incarceration, at least, runs smooth as flowing water. Her vampire guards are guided to the town's jail by two of the city's own, both of whom seem cold and disinterested in either herself or the soldiers. There's barely a fuss made at all as she's led into the jail proper - one large, barred cell scattered with stinking straw, and a cluster of miserable prisoners eyeing her coolly contained within. They don't even ask to search her - only insist that she opens her mouth and shows her teeth before she's ushered inside - a request that draws an arch look from the vampires, shared between themselves. It’s also punctuated by the hissed threat from Gideon that if any fingers get near her face she'll bite them the fuck off. It's a threat that draws only muffled laughter, and apparently satisfied, she's shooed inside the dim and reeking cell without so much as a cuff about the head.

It's not hard to begin striking up conversation. Lenore's guard are led back out again, and the men set to guard the prisoners skulk off to whatever they'd been doing before her arrival. Which looks - from Gideon's partially occluded perspective - like napping, and playing cards. No one is paying her a blind bit of attention.

She finds herself confined with two criminals so petty that what they'd done is barely worthy of the word crime, and two others who seemed to have done nothing more than vocally oppose the mayor. One prisoner tells her to mind her own fucking business and go to sleep, whilst another - the only other occupant of the room - watches Gideon with a calm assessing gaze, and asks to see her bruises. She wants to know, apparently, how badly she's been hurt.

This last is an older woman, dark hair shot through with steely grey, and Gideon relents to her requests to check her over if only because she likes the straight-forward authority in her voice, and the fact she seems more concerned with Gideon's injuries than what she's in for. Her attitude is one that commands no nonsense underlain with something akin to kindness, and so it's hard to know for sure whether Gideon's judgements are accurate; small acts of human warmth threaten to melt her defences entirely. Yet the conversation she strikes up with the woman makes her think she could be onto something. She is not the best person for this job, it's a risky ploy of Lenore's at best, because what little she knows of people is hardness and an ugly rot that extends deeper even than bones. But when this woman tells her she's a respected wise woman and healer, that she'd wound up in jail for quietly undermining the current mayor to people who could be useful-- it's something.

If she has no interest in running the town herself, then perhaps she might know who would.

Lenore's stress increases every step that she takes into the town, more when she sends Gideon away, more again when she enters the mayor's house and feels her skin prickling with dread. It doesn't seem organized enough to be a trap. There are too many open exits, not enough soldiers. If it's a trap, it's a bad one, poorly planned and poorly researched, ignorant of the real abilities of vampires. But what makes her paranoid is that it's a gambit of some kind. It doesn't have to be a good trap in order to successfully end her life or that of some of her people.

There's slimy diplomacy to wade through, the most exhausting kind. He doesn't want to make deals, he isn't trying to win her over. He's just lying to her face, with a shit-eating smile like he thinks she's too stupid to see through it or just is so convinced of his own superiority that he can't see the holes in his own arguments.

They only have a few hours before dawn, so triggering anything now is a risk, but she's all the more worried that if she waits until dawn it will be the opportunity they're waiting for to trigger their own plans. So she signals Greta with a twitch of her finger, and her maid doubles over with a cry of pain, providing the excuse Lenore needs to ask for a healer. Except that the man they bring to the guest rooms is an apothecary who looks panicked at the thought of tending to a pregnant woman, and Lenore feels like she's going to explode with frustration and anxiety. Who delivers the babies in this town? Why wasn't that person brought? The apothecary only starts to squirm under her questions, and when Lenore storms back out to demand the same of the self-made mayor, she gets only lies and evasions.

She knows that she's panicking. She has no further plans. She feels like they can't afford to wait.

Zohreh and her soldiers make quick work of the mayor and his men, and then Esfir hangs back with the majority of the soldiers, holding the mayor's house like it's a fortress, while Zohreh, Lenore, and a handful of guards move swiftly to the jail. One of Lenore's soldiers snatches the keys off the guard, holding both guards at swordpoint while Lenore yanks the jail door open and Zohreh tosses Gideon's sheathed sword to her.

"Gideon?" Lenore demands, demeanor like a cat with its fur all puffed up with panic. "What have you got for me?"

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