Sunday, 24th July 2016, 20:57 by Arrhythmia
Lamia slithered out of her barding gratefully, the cool rock of the Pits' walls soothing her sore muscles. How many orbs to kill a minotaur, these days? The Greater Naga Council had given her a respite from directing the clean-up, and in her private chambers below the Hall of the Caduceus she had dismissed the salamanders minding the coals under the stone floors. Now she could rest. Her armour followed, her venomous glaive already propped in the corner.
She had already drifted off to the cold damp sounds of the Pits rising above her when a flash of violet light on her eyelids brought her back to full awareness. She held her hands out, the pale swirling energy already gathering within its magical envelope.
"You wouldn't destroy your favorite pupil, would you my Queen?" said a voice Lamia hadn't heard in years. Its owner glided in accompanied by a puff of purple smoke, and Lamia let the energy dissipate with a fond grin. Vashnia had returned.
But who was this dangerous looking nagess? Lamia remembered guiding her to the lowest levels of the Dungeon, conducting the necessary transactions to reach Abyssal gateways safely, packing the meat rations and scrolls she would need to find her way through that confusing plane. That Vashnia had worn the gilded barding of her mothers, had kept her gorgeous hair up twisted around a wand of haste, a wand she had zapped at her mentor to goad her. At her lover to spur her to greater heights.
Lamia reached out her hand to brush Vashnia's cheek. Above the young warrior's eyes, a bandana held back wild tangles; below the smug smile, a snug dress made of some unidentifiable Abyssal creature's scales hugged her bosom. Lamia's hand wandered. "Your queen--"
"Lamia--"
The Queen of the Naga's hand found a fistful of hair. Lamia pulled Vashnia to her, drew her into a kiss, her body snaking around her subject's. "We do not intend," Lamia said against Vashnia's lips, "to listen to long tales of Abyssal training, of translocative lessons learned--"
"Lamia, list--"
"Of lessons learned by young marksnaga who should've been home--" Lamia felt a jolt in her stomach and gasped. She pulled back, her hands both falling away from Vashnia's neck to the crossbow in her pupil's hands, her lover's hands, her killer's.
"Lamia," Vashnia said, coiling herself around Lamia's back even as she fit another arrow against the crossbow's string. "As usual, too in a hurry to listen." Lamia coughed and Vashnia smiled at the spray of blood; her bandana's dye required constant attention. "Too in a hurry to notice your own dethroning."
Lamia could only take a halting breath in response. "Trog's Teat--" she managed.
"I did learn lessons, Lamia." The door to Lamia's chambers opened wider, a squad of marksnagas looking around the door. "Lessons at the hands of the ancient liches that built these halls. Do you know what they whispered in those dusty voices worn down by the ages?"
Lamia found herself searching Vashnia's hair, feeling for the wand that could save her, but she could hardly see the faces of the marksnagas gathering about her, couldn't feel their arrows sinking into her chest. That other Vashnia, such a pretty naga. With the bright knob of that quick wand flashing above her head.
The ruler's body slumped to the ground. Vashnia dropped her crossbow to adjust a strand of the golden hair framing her old lover's face. "The queen is dead," she said, moving the hair about. "Long live the queen."
take it easy
- For this message the author Arrhythmia has received thanks: 3
- Cheibrodos, DracheReborn, scorpionwarrior