22. Fulsome

"Go on, I did not tell you you were finished." A quiet voice practically purred, the speaker comfortably reclined in an overstuffed chair a cup of overly sweetened milk tea fortified with brandy in his hands and a dessert plate scraped clean on the armrest beside him.

"Really? I don't know how many more ways I can tell you how pretty you are, Lebeaux. We've been at for half a bell already. My arms are starting to ache..."

26. Last

The last piece was finally there in his hands. It had taken well over a turn to procure all of the necessary pieces. To make the right contacts, to coerce them into unwittingly assisting. Keeping all of them in the dark as to what the others were up to. All of the planning, the manipulation and the blackmail leading up to this.

19. Weal

CW: Needles (non-hypodermic)

"If you do not stop squirming and whining I will give you something proper to whimper about." The chirurgeon threatened, fingers curling tightly around the wrist that he had pinned to the table. A small dining table where the remains of afternoon tea sat a short ways away growing cold in its neglect. Medical tools and tinctures scattered between plates and saucers. He gripped firmly enough that the points of nails manicured to wicked points began to bite into skin. "It is unseemly for a Knight." The title was spat as though it was a four-letter word.

The Knight forced himself to still, his gaze turned aside to avoid watching the other work. It was never pleasant and sometimes it was better not to know when treatment would resume. How many bells had this been dragging on for now? Barely even one, if the nearby chronometer was to be believed yet it had felt like an eternity.

13. Check

Midday breaks from duties tended to stretch on to half-day breaks on the few occasions Lebeaux and Rashk were getting on well enough to take them together. It was rare indeed to catch the catte skulking about the Order during daylight hours and rarer still that he did not flee via the most convenient escape route when he heard the familiar clicking of the Ishgardian's heels on polished marble floors. On those days bells were whiled away at a local cafe, sipping overly sugared teas and dueling dessert forks over last bites of sweets as they traded cutting commentary on the fashions of who wandered by on the nearby street. By the end of their extended break the cafe staff were oftentimes glad to see them leave.

This day was a bit stranger than usual. After they had long since worn out their welcomes a strange slip of paper arrived alongside the final dish of sweets. It was politely folded in half and placed face-down in the center of the table beside the plate. Rashk casually ignored it as he grabbed for a handful of tartlets while Lebeaux was staring at the slip of paper in open confusion.

12. Dowdy

The seventeenth sun of the second umbral moon was the most important day of the entire turn. The day after the feast of Saint Valentione. The morning of embarrassing walks home in the clothes one wore the previous night from a lover's abode, champagne and strawberries still on their breaths while sweet nothings echoing on around their head. The day of all unsold chocolates and confections being reduced drastically in price in an attempt to seduce the unpartnered into purchasing them for themselves... since they had no one to gift them the day prior. Decorations of hearts and pudgy cherubs were slowly removed from shop windows to make room for the next feast day. Yet more importantly than all of these other things, it was Lebeaux's Nameday.

7. Noisome

One last slip of parchment to be slipped in with the rest of the files. One last signature scrawled across a report. That was that. The end of his tasks for the day. It afforded him just enough time to return home and labor over his outfit choices for a bell before dressing and arriving fashionably late for the gala. Lennaux slid his chair back from the desk he'd been sitting at for what felt like eras. Sliding the completed paperwork aside for a clerk to tend to later. The gossip bulletin he'd spent the morning reading instead of working was folded up and tucked inside of his solemn black robes. Thus armed with the knowledge of who would be in attendance that night, he could plan his dance card accordingly.

Just as he reached for the door handle to escape the small office the door on the other side swung open. It brought with it what felt like a cool breeze, though it was imagined rather than real. But what was very real was the foul stench that rolled into the office. An odor that was all too familiar. The smell that came when living flesh festered, poisoning blood and spreading foul miasmas. Lennaux turned on his heel, lifting his hand to cover his mouth and nose with his sleeve as he narrowed his eyes to glare at the man who had just interrupted his escape.

5. Barbarous

"You are a vile, feral little backwater heathen." Lebeaux spat the accusations through bloodied lips. "A barbarous beast playing at being spoken." Despite the crimson streaked along his teeth and mouth, he seemed less concerned with that and far more concerned with scrubbing green-black bile spattered across his expensive white coat jacket. At least he assumed it was bile, considering it had been expelled from the maw of a carbuncle that was far less 'construct' and far more free-form aether experiment gone horrifically wrong. "Unfit for society, polite or otherwise. Drag yourself and your abomination back to your swamp, Rinha'li."

But which one is which...

Birthday gift from the obscenely talented @guttergodsknife

Birthday gift for Rashk! Toxic codependency ahoooy~

@guttergodsknife

1. Envoy

Fifteen turns was a terrible age. The age were the comfort of private lessons taken in the solitude of one's own home were being exchanged for 'real world' experiences. Squiring to an accomplished knight, apprenticing to a master craftsman or, in the case of Lennaux, enrolling in seminary. A terrible age to be cooped up with equally terrible children learning how to behave as adults in a terrible place. Studying theologies and the history of a war that had spanned for generations. Every student at the Scholasticate's fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers and so on had served that war effort in some way or another. When death and destruction were constant companions at birth, it was never a matter of 'if' bad news would happen but rather 'when'.

Don't believe any pretty 'truths' offered freely. Only those dragged from bloodied lips.