Idle Time

When she catches up, the caravan is almost at the city gates. They have stopped and Arsu is speaking with Rubellus, Nue a couple steps behind him and staring in Voa's direction like he had been waiting for her. As she nears, she catches words of the conversation and realizes Arsu is saying goodbye.

She keeps looking up as she nears the caravan, the walls are impressive and Voa can see the glimmer of the crossbows that the watchmen on the walls keep as weapons, always poised to shoot but only outside.

Arsu and Nue stay behind as the caravan moves along, entering the city walls in a slow but steady pace. Voa reaches them just as the final caravan disappears inside.

"What happened?" She asks as a greeting, curious but confused.

"I told them to enter without us, we have to talk about the plan and probably find somewhere to sleep tonight" explains Arsu "Tomorrow, we can go to the palace when we're properly rested and sure of what the next steps are of our…plan"

Voa nods and looks at Nue, that stares at the city with calm, assessing eyes. He unbuckles his masks and attaches it to his sash, hanging next to his pouch. Taking it as a sign, Voa takes off her own mask and together they follow Arsu as they finally enter the city of Olympea.

It's magnificent, even the initial streets of the city leave Voa breathless; people all around dressed colorfully and in stark white, vibrant as much as the buildings are in their red stone, mosaic decorations and turquoise painted wooden doors. Streets made of cobblestone that sometimes show decorations in darker stones, all well maintained and perfectly symmetrical.

Where Myrm looks lived in, Olympea stands like a new city, even though is the oldest city in Ethe. Not a brick out of place and every citizen perfectly dressed, the city smells of flowers, too sweet for Voa's nose, that has become accustomed to the arid sands of the desert and the salty stone smell that permeates Myrm. She can see that Nue and Arsu agree with her just by the way their noses wrinkle in almost perfect sync. Voa wonders what Babilim and Diyu smell like.

"An inn should be first order of business" declares Arsu, looking around the street "There should be one close to the walls, right?"

"Makes sense" shrugs Voa and also starts looking.

The street is more of a climb that a walk, Olympea is like another part of the mountains, the streets an almost vertical climb that make Voa's knees beg for mercy.

It takes what feels like kilometers to Voa's legs before they reach what's clearly an inn, Arsu breathing out heavily and Nue not showing any tiredness at all, lucky him. Kimara is tied at the small stable next to it and the three of them enter the open building of the inn.

The building itself is simple, even if the garden after they cross the threshold is a beauty to gawk at; flowers of every type hang out of ceramic pots and some even from the balcony over the garden from the second floor, it adds vibrancy to the white walls and white marble floors of the entire inside of the building.

Voa walks with her eyes on the flowers and high ceilings, and just before she crashes against a big ceramic pot, Arsu grabs her shoulder and redirects her at his side. With his other hand he palms at his waist and pulls out a leather sack that looks quite heavy. She had been wondering about that, but she is thankful Arsu is going to be paying for their stay, mainly since Voa had not brought any money and whatever Nue had left… it wouldn't be enough to pay an inn in Olympea and probably wouldn't be accepted by the innkeepers.

The desk that should be at the entrance is after the garden, in a tiny room next to a spiral staircase. The desk is pristine and the wall behind it covered in brass keys to all the rooms of the inn. The woman behind the desk is middle-aged, dressed in blue and with yellow hair collected into a careful hair bun covered in braids. The closer they get the more Voa can smell her, as excessively sweet and flowery as the rest of Olympea.

"Welcome to the Romneya Inn, I'm Verace, how may I assist you?" The woman drones, eyes unchangingly blank even as her voice sounds almost happy as she speaks. It's very creepy.

"We would like a room" says Arsu with a charming smile.

The woman raises an eyebrow and leans to the side to see Voa and Nue halfway hiding behind Arsu.

"Just one?" She asks, voice mocking or maybe teasing, it's hard to tell with that monotonous voice.

"Two, if you have them" Corrects Arsu, smile brighter, all teeth "Individual beds, if possible"

Arsu's charm falls short of doing any actual charming, as the woman merely looks down at the open book on the desk and then back to Arsu without any change in her face.

"I can give you one room with two beds" entones the woman "We're out of anything else"

"Errr" mumbled Arsu looking back at Voa and then his gaze shifting to the last person in their group and turning pained.

"We'll take it!" Interrupts Voa as she leans forward and stares at the woman straight in the eyes, daring her to say anything against it.

"Five rhodons a night" says the innkeeper as she turns and grabs one of the many keys "Pay on your last day and the key stays here when you leave the inn during the day. Second floor, room four"

Arsu nods, but he swallows nervously as Voa excitedly grabs the iron key and starts climbing the spiral staircase, Arsu following her in a daze and Nue trailing behind them absentmindedly, eyes more on the garden than where he's going.

The upper floor is as nice as the bottom one, a wide hallway, rooms on the north and south parts of the buildings, leaving the sides as an open and shared space with a nice view to the garden below thanks to the balcony. Voa hurries up ahead, looking at each door until she finds number four, on the north side, and opens it immediately.

She knows she is probably dragging sand inside just by standing there, but she cannot help but drop in one of the narrow beds and sigh in absolute pleasure. The baths must be on the lower floor, probably common ones, but a bath is a bath, a Voa desperately needs one.

Voa opens her eyes when she hears a thump, Arsu has finally followed her in and has dropped his bag to the carpeted floor, head tilted upwards and looking as tired as Voa feels. As she watches, Arsu stares at the remaining bed and frowns, then when he turns to look at Voa, she pouts.

"I call dibs" she mumbles, hand grabbing at the blanket on her bed like a claw, she won't be dragged away. She needs a bed, needs it like all living things need water.

"I wasn't going to take it" huffs Arsu, rolling his eyes as he takes off his cloak and drops it in the single chair in the room at the end of Voa's bed.

"You thought about it" hisses Voa jokingly with narrowed eyes "I could see it"

Arsu rolls his eyes again and Voa is sure he is seeing the back of his skull with how hard he is rolling them.

"We should all probably bathe and then rest" says Nue from the threshold to the still open door, Arsu turns to look at him while Voa rolls in the bed just enough to see him. The assassin stares at Arsu and then at the bed "I'll sleep on the floor"

"What!? No way! They're big enough to share!" Exclaims Voa as she pats the bed, they are narrow, but still big enough to fit two people, though they would have to squash together a bit.

"It's fine, after sleeping in the desert I just want a roof over my head" Says Nue as he enters the room bypassing Arsu, that still stands in the middle, and putting down his sack and the feet of the other bed, taking off his beige cloak and putting it on the floor folded like a pillow "There, comfort"

Voa pouts but doesn't really know what to say. She doesn't want to force anything, mostly because she is not comfortable enough with sharing her bed or forcing Arsu and Nue to share, but she also doesn't want either of them to sleep on the floor.

Before she can ponder about the topic any further, Nue surprises them both by continuing to undress, this time taking off his upper blue robe but, thankfully, showing that he has a tight black shirt underneath. It looks simple enough, tied at the back of his neck and at his lower back, leaving the rest of his back bare, showing off another set of red marks down his spine--a bigger one under his neck, angled like an arrowhead but no bigger than Voa's hand, he has a few more along his spine, smaller in size until the last one, on the small of his back, that is the size of a nail —Voa blinks, she hadn't known Yaonites had more markings. After that, he starts to pull out weapons out of his pants and sash.

A small crossbow Voa had thought lost during their little scuffle at the Pillar, a couple arrow bolts, many, many knives, all small and very sharp looking, some kind of thin knitting needles that looked weird from a weapon standpoint—what would one do with those?—and finally, some cool looking hand scythe and a short sword.

Voa gapes at them, all of the weapons now laid on top of the bed look lethal and at no point Voa has suspected Nue was carrying all of that! There were at least ten knives! For what she can see, Arsu is also gaping at the assassin, that is folding his blue robe carefully on the bed, besides his many, many weapons.

Nue turns and tilts his head when he notices they're both looking at him.

"I'm going to bathe" announces Nue as he raises his hands and undoes his hair from its bun, allowing it to fall into a long curtain of black silk that reaches his waist easily. Voa wishes she had hair like that, the only nice thing about hers is the color, a nice turquoise, like her mother's, that fit perfectly—in her opinion—with her amber eyes and lightly tanned skin, and while the color was pretty, it easily tangled and the dry air of the desert made it brittle, just for that she normally kept it short. But Yaonites seemed to have supernaturally good hair, all the ones she had seen in Myrm at the marketplace always had long hair that looked perfect, it was the envy of every person in Myrm and, she was sure, the rest of the continent.

"Okay" mumbles Voa, she watches as Nue leaves, closing the door behind him and leaving Voa and Arsu alone. Arsu had not spoken since Nue entered and now stares at what will be his bed, covered in weapons and the folded robe. His face looks pained and one of his hands reaches towards his chest and the belt that crosses it and that's filled with throwing knives and the metal ornament. His hand grips the ornament and he frowns, untying it with forceful movements that slow him instead of making him go faster, when he finally frees the ornament he drops it on the pile of weapons and he turns away from the bed, crouching next to his bag and fiddling with whatever is inside.

Voa raises an eyebrow at the whole…moment he had there, but doesn't say anything about it, preferring instead to look at the wooden ceiling and wander in her mind about what's coming.

They need to get inside the palace, they need to convince the king to allow them to stay inside for a few days at least and they need to be in the throne room alone.

They need to steal something from the king of Ethe.

Voa swallows, suddenly nervous. If they fail, they'll be surely executed—no, she realizes, Ethe values peace with the other countries above all, Arsu and Nue won't be killed, but Voa…

She'll be killed as publicly as one can be.

If they fail, of course.

—-

The communal bathroom is slightly less nice than the rest of the building.

Mostly white tiles with some blue and orange thrown in to add some flavor to an otherwise simple room. A line of low fountains with a multitude of faucets and some buckets, stools and towels. All very simple, but useful.

Voa had waited until Nue had returned from his own bath, looking fresh and drying his hair with a soft looking towel, before trying to brave the bathroom. She was very thankful that Arsu had insisted that he would bathe before going to bed, as she could go alone without making things awkward.

The bathroom is almost empty, just an old woman and small child finishing up. The sun is not down yet, but the residents of the inn have started to drift back, seeking a warm bed to rest, but—As Voa can check on her own skin—not a warm bath, since the water is freezing cold. Even the water at Myrm are tepid from the pipes, but this one makes Voa squeal as she dips a finger in her filled bucket.

This…this is going to be torture.

She decides her hair can wait, she won't wet it and then suffer through it clinging to her head like a pile of snow. She won't. Voa splashes at her body and scrubs with her loofah—she was glad she always carried one, you never knew when you would be able to clean yourself in the desert—and refuses to touch the piece of soap on top of the fountain.

After torturing herself with the cold water, she grabs a clean towel and dries herself as fast as her hands allow her, wishing to put on her clothes again. Voa had only one change of clothes, and that means she should probably wash her discarded clothing for the next time she bathes, something she is not looking forward too.

By the time is done, more people have started to trickle in the bathroom, and Voa just grabs her things and hurries up the stairs back to their room. The sun is finally down and she should warn Arsu that the bathroom is filling up in case he wants to wash himself in a more relaxing environment than the one he will find if he waits another hour to bathe.

Voa opens their door without knocking and drops her things on her bed, taking notice that Arsu is missing and Nue is sitting on the floor between the beds and slowly putting something on his hair.

She blinks at him curiously, taking a deep breath and humming at the pleasant smell, she can't describe it, but it reminds her of the deepest wards in Myrm, like a water cavern but with a lingering herbal scent.

"What's that?" She asks sitting on her bed cross legged, Nue stops his careful spreading of the liquid and looks at her.

"Hmm? Oh, this? It's blue moss oil" He explains, taking a small vial from the floor next to him and offering it to Voa "It helps maintain the hair hydrated"

"Uhhhh" says Voa in awe as she turns the vial in her hands and smells the open orifice. The pleasant smell filling her nose with fresh watery herbal scent, not quite spicy, but something near to it. Inside, the oil is smooth looking and a pretty dark blue.

"You can use some, if you want" offers Nue with a gentle smile.

Voa is nodding before Nue even finishes speaking, yes, she wants nice hair too. She puts a drop of the oil on her hand and copies Nue as he smooths the oil over his hands and then spreads it on his hair, making sure it reaches every single strand. It's easier for Voa, who's own hair is short, she scratches at her head with her oily hands and massages her scalp. She sighs as she does, so, so nice.

"Where's Arsu?" She asks after a few moments of companionable silence.

"He left to find the bathroom" responds Nue, then, he frowns "I think. He didn't say it with words, but he left a few minutes ago"

Weird, maybe there's another set of stairs on the other side of the building, since she hadn't seen him, or maybe he had gotten distracted with something else.

Half an hour after Voa and Nue finish their hair care routine, Arsu appears, looking incredibly annoyed. His facial hair, that had been looking wilder with the passage of time, had been groomed into a respectable beard and his hair was still slightly wet, but clean and slicked back. He had put back on his old clothes, but they didn't look as bad as Voa's had.

"Cold….water" hisses out Arsu, teeth still clattering with cold.

Voa laughs at him, internally feeling understood, Nue had not shown any discomfort about the water when he had returned from his bath, making Voa speculate that cold water baths must be a normal thing in Yaon.

"Yeah! It was terrible wasn't it?" Giggles Voa, collapsing on her bed and on the fluffy pillow that felt amazing on her neck. She had missed her bed immensely after a few days of sleeping on sand.

Arsu grimaces and shudder, making Voa laugh harder. He blows the candle by the door and approaches his bed, blinking at the covers that are no longer covered in weapons but with the ornament he had left behind it still there, Arsu shakes his head, grabs the metal stick, drops it on top of his bag and falls face first on the bed, groaning loudly.

"Let's just…sleep it off" says Arsu with his voice muffled by the pillow and not even bothering to raise his head to speak.

And almost like its an order directly to her brain, Voa yawns, feeling the tiredness of her body. She leans over the bed and stares at Nue, that's laid on the floor in between their beds, using his cloak as a pillow, eyes already closed.

"Good night" she mumbles, Nue humming in response. Voa climbs under the covers and curls her body into a ball, putting the blanket up to her nose.

"Good' ight" mumbles Arsu, he had not bothered to cover himself, but Voa is sure at some point of the night he will, it always get cold at night.

Voa drifts and drifts farther into dreamland. Incomprehensible and fuzzy dreams filling her mind, at some point, the fuzziness turns sharper and before it can turn into a nightmare, Voa becomes slightly conscious, but maybe it was the low whispers that now occupy the room what had woken her up.

She doesn't open her eyes and keeps her breathing deep, preferring to listen. Arsu and Nue never talk, not unless they intent to insult the other, they mostly ignore each other and just talk to Voa, trying to imagine the other is not there.

So she really wants to hear what's going on. She catches the end of a sentence and keeps on listening after that, still sleepy but paying all the attention she can muster in her current state.

"…so stop being so fucking stubborn and get in here" is whispering Arsu furiously "I can feel my neck cramping up just by looking at you"

"No"

"Were you always like this? I don't remember you this annoying" huffs Arsu, he sounds angry and Voa is tempted to give herself away just to stop a possible fight.

"I'm a great actor" States Nue Blankly from the floor, voice lower than Arsu's but sounding as annoyed as Arsu did.

"Bullshit" spits Arsu bitterly, then, slightly softer, "Come here"

"I won't. it's not wide enough for the both of us" answers Nue curtly and Voa almost groans, they would fit! She was sure of it, not a very comfortable fit since Arsu was much muscular than Nue, but enough to sleep a night in one go.

"…"

"Just…come here" sighs Arsu, defeated, like he's making a terrible decision "I'll turn around"

More silence answers him and Voa awaits in nervous anticipation at the conclusion of their little debacle. But then, a swooshing sound reaches her ears and then a loud sigh and the whine of the bed as Nue—finally!—caves in.

Voa cannot help herself and smiles widely before concentrating on falling asleep again.

Tomorrow….Tomorrow the real quest begins.