Lush Women & Bittersweet Memories

When she arrived at Leonora's cabin, En struggled to juggle the tray to free a hand to knock, and ended up precariously balancing one side of the tray with her knee, as she quickly tapped at the door. There was predictably no answer, nor any sign of movement, so Lavender went through the process of juggling the tray once more, and knocked on the cabin door again.

This time the tray teetered, and En had to quickly grab it to stop her breakfast ending up on the floor. Thankfully, although the apples had rolled off the plate, the tin mugs had fallen over, and the wooden bowls of porridge had slid to one side, they had all been stopped from falling by the raised edge of the tray; and the pot of coffee although it had tipped, had hit the wall, and remained mostly upright.

Lavender carefully righted the tray, so that the coffee pot stood upright once more, only splashing a drop of liquid from the spout in the process, and angled the tray so that the mugs and the apples rolled to the opposite side to the bowls of porridge. Unfortunately, it was still heavier on one side than the other, and the resulting imbalance meant that she really needed to put the damned thing down before she really did end up dropping it.

Leonora was probably going to kill her, but En was running out of options, so she took a step backwards, and gently kicked the bottom of the door twice. En had no desire to damage her foot, or to break the door down, but the kicks were enough to rattle the door in its frame, and produce two loud bangs.

Luckily Leonora was the only person occupying the officer's quarters at the moment; she had one of the two larger cabins, the other belonging to the Captain, who was currently on the quarterdeck, and the two smaller cabins were her own, and that belonging to Tomo as the First Mate.

The only other person on this deck was Blakestaff in the Main Cabin at the end of the corridor, and En didn't really care if she did wake him up, since she was due to give him the Morning Report at Eight Bells anyway, not that he would bother to look into the corridor even if she did.

After only hearing some faint sounds of movement, even after kicking the door, Lavender sighed, knowing Leonora she'd probably just put her pillow over her head. "Auntie, its En... I know it's early, but it's really important."

More sounds of movement, but still no one came to the door; it was time to pull out the big guns. "I've got a big pot of coffee here, and breakfast too... so open the fricking door, before I damn well drop everything on your doorstep!!" En took a quick step backward when she heard the sound of bare feet, just in time, as the door was pulled open violently, and Leonora stood glaring darkly at En.

Leonora folded her arms underneath her breasts, and leaned one shoulder against the door. "Do... You... Know... What... Time... It... Is!!" Leonora bit the words out, slowly and with much force, but this wasn't something that Lavender hadn't seen before a hundred times, and would likely see a hundred times more, so she just grinned widely. "Good Morning Auntie... to answer your question the ship's bell just rang seven."

Leonora sighed and rolled her eyes, the days when she had been able to intimidate En were long gone, so she stepped back, and let Lavender enter the room with her tray of breakfast. "Come in quickly, I have no desire for Blakestaff to see me in my negligee."

[Chapter Illustration: tapas.io/episode/1693423]

En put the tray down on Leonora's dressing table, grabbed a bowl of the porridge, and sat on the chest that was at the bottom of the bed. "Is that what that frilly thing's called... you do know that it's almost see-through, right? I've got a shirt that's been washed so much that it's gone like that too." Leonora rolled her eyes, "It's supposed to be like that En… it's a little thing called sexy," she gave En's normal clothes a pointed once over, "something that seems to have passed you by somewhere on your way to adulthood."

"See-through I could pull off, but 'frilly' just ain't my thing." En watched Leonora pour herself a mug of the coffee, blow on it to cool it, then take several large gulps, and then she refilled the mug and took it, with her clothes, behind the screen which was on the other side of the bed. The sound of Leonora washing and dressing became background noise, as En stared at the bottom her bowl, the porridge had quickly disappeared inside her belly, whilst En had eaten automatically, lost in her thoughts.

Although Leonora was her Mother's old school friend, she was also her distant cousin, both of them being part of the Loriel Clan bloodline, and yet from what Lavender remembered of her Mother, they had been so very different.

In her memories, her Mother was kind and gentle, with soft hands that brushed her hair, yet she had her stubborn side. En had fond memories of her Mother stamping her foot as she bickered with her Father, then sweet words, hugs, and kisses, as they made up afterwards.

Apart from the personality, Leonora was the complete opposite... En was tall, the same height as her Mother, and yet Leonora barely came up to her chin; Mother's hair had been platinum blond, long and straight, and usually worn in a braid, Leonora's was a mass of short curls, the colour of honey; one was pale like marble, and the other though pale, was the golden white of the thick cream they used in those fancy Empire cakes she'd seen in shop windows.

However, the biggest difference was that her Mother was slim and elegant, and Leonora was most definitely not... To describe Leonora completely in one word, both physically, and personality-wise, Lavender would definitely choose the word 'lush'; a good one to describe her figure would be 'voluptuous', and 'decadent' for her personality; and En was pretty sure that none of those adjectives would have ever been used to describe her Mother.

As Lavender went to put her empty bowl on the tray, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror on the dressing table. En had her Mother's height, and had similar features, but she was as dark, as her Mother had been pale. Lavender's hair was the same dark brown as her Father's, she shared his jade green eyes, and had also inherited her healthy physique from his side of the family too.

En's was a body that had been moulded to be a fighter, a creation of lean muscle; though she still had enough curves to be considered sexy (or so she'd been told), with ample breasts that she'd actually found annoying growing up. Until she had got used to them, and found ways to deal with them, so they didn't feel like two mad rats trying to escape from a sack when she ran.

Lavender poured herself a cup of coffee, and picked up one of the apples. Just as she was about to sit back down, a whistle came from the perch that stood between the wardrobe and the bed, where a white bird stood that looked similar to a cockatoo.

En went over and stroked its crest, "I'm sorry Lucy, was I ignoring you, how about some apple to make up for it." Leonora came out from behind the screen, "You know most people wouldn't be able to hear her begging for food, never mind see her, and fuss over her... she can have all of my apple, so don't give her any of yours."

Lavender pulled a knife from the sheath in her boot, cut the apple into slices, and started to feed them to Lucy. "I thought I said that I would give her my apple, En... and how many of those knives do you have anyway?!" En clucked Lucy underneath the beak, and continued to feed her the apple, "I'll take the one still on the tray and as for the knives..."

Lucy finished the apple, and En wiped the juice off the blade with the cuff of her sleeve, "there are two of these knives, just like I have two boots, Dad had them both specially made for me." Returning the knife to its sheath in her boot, En continued, "As to how many throwing knives I have on my person... that is a closely guarded secret."

Leonora rolled her eyes, and started to run a brush through her golden curls, Lavender continued to speak, "Being able to interact with Lucy... that is one of the few advantages of being abnormal." Leonora turned sharply, and smacked Lavender on her upper arm, with the back of the hairbrush. "YOU are NOT abnormal... if Lavinia heard you say that, she would be utterly heartbroken."

Lavender rubbed her arm, that had actually hurt a bit. "Master's definition of a 'True Shadow' is... 'One who was born with a high shadow affinity, where neither parent possesses that trait, caused by the mother being corrupted by contact with a dark object during pregnancy. The higher the affinity of the child, the more corrupting contact during gestation, this later leads to illness, and often death for the mother, usually between one and two decades after giving birth to the child'... Most people would consider me a monster, which caused the death of my own mother."

There was silence for a moment, "Lavinia knew what she did back then was going to be dangerous... but she never thought that it would have such a lasting effect on you in her womb. It was her greatest regret... that, and the fact that she wouldn't get to see you grow up." Lavender felt like there was a lump in her throat at Leonora's words, not because of her Mother, that was an old pain, but watching Leonora sneakily wiping a tear from her eye, she knew that she was thinking of her own regrets.

Both of their gazes were drawn to the expensive looking carriage clock on the dressing table, Leonora ran a finger gently, almost lovingly, over the engraved plate at the bottom, and En knew that it read 'To My Dearest Leonora, Congratulations on the birth of our son, Raymond Richards'. As the clock delicately started to chime the half hour, Leonora stood, and took her mage robe from the wardrobe. "Well, it's a good job I didn't have time to put any make up on isn't it... Guess I'd better be off to make the wind blow us into port." En couldn't really say anything to that, so she just nodded, downed her coffee, picked up her apple, and followed Leonora out of the door.