Thread: Across the Veil (NornSavant x Strangefate)

Etaine took in her answers with a subtle nod. Well, it seems I will not be punishing you, how clever to admit bringing these clothes. I think the queen may very well be correct about you. However... She leaned closer bring with her a sense of quiet vertigo. Never refer to yourself as nobody again. Only the queen may offer titles. He black eyes flashed with a hidden anger. Until then, you are you and than only. You have no name, no title and no significance. And then she smiled as sweetly as a lover from years again finding her heart once again. Except to me of course. Knock, who had ignored Etaine studiously, was gazing into Violet's exposed ear, one thoughtful finger in her chin. Come Said the Fae woman. We need to get you ready. She said ending the words in a hummed tune that seemed to ride the wind on its own. It was very nearly something half remembered from Violet's youth, maddeningly familiar but she just couldn't quite grasp it. Etaine turned and drifted up the steps without seeming to take a single step, past the open door and into the house. Violet had little choice but to follow. The interiors was quickly a maze of white washed walls crowded with elaborate frames and pictures of all manners of creatures, huge cats lounging beside small houses, red pool reflecting faces like a portrait, horrible smashups of features that might have been faces but inspired such revulsion it was hard to follow a single line of their forms. The all seemed a little deeper than a normal painting, as if Violet might reach into one and caress the image within. Etaine led her up a wide flight of stairs and then down a hall that might have belonged in a palace somewhere with its sumptuous carpets and statue collecting niches. Then they went up another smaller set of stair and then a spiral staircase that wound up past a wide open floor with dark walls and no furniture at all, up to yet another floor. The leaves the drifted from the edge of her dress fluttered back past Violet and lost themselves down the hallways or into the paintings, a few of them becoming permanent parts of the paintings unless they were there the whole time and Violet had just missed it. Surely there were not these many levels from outside, certainly there were only two or three stories but it was getting hard to remember. The scent from Etaine wafted around her like alcohol making Violet feel free and trapped at the same time. At some point Knock had flitted off and upon one or another turns in the tall labyrinth the fae woman turned and her eyes seemed the only real things in the whole scene. It occurred that perhaps they were all in a painting, just smudges of pigment to be appreciated from some snooty passer-by. It was a gigglesome thought. This is your room. Etaine said ushering Violet inside. As soon as she passed the door frame, the stupor lifted, Violets eyes unclouded and she breathed in the clean dusty air of a room long unused. A four poster bed sprawled from the corner out into the room with gauzy blue drapes falling from its canopy. Polished wood flooring described intricate diamond patterns and a series of two bureaus stood against the far wall. A mahogany door stood in the deep green wall beside them. A round floor length mirror stood tall just this side of the bed and two high backed chairs sat by the end of the bed looking like visitors from some other room. Are you alright? Travel through the house can be disorienting so I am told. She said seeking out Violet's eyes with her own.