A month after Lady Dandridge returned from the Dominion with Lady Deveris and her children, that horrible feeling that all the Dandridge slaves had finally came to a head.
Kyrie jolted awake from a loud crashing sound, and with her brain still foggy from the grip of sleep, the only thing she could register was fear. Letting out a rather startled yelp, she clung to Isaac, her body trembling as she clenched her eyes shut after opening them. Kyrie was a relatively light sleeper, and even though Isaac wasn't, the sound made by Kyrie instantly woke him up as well. Pulling Kyrie in close, Isaac's eyes glared at the entrance to the room. However, when he saw the outline of Dessi's form there the hostility in his expression turned to confusion.
"Dessi?"
At the sound of this name, Kyrie tentatively peeked over towards the doorway, her grip loosening now that she knew this was someone familiar rather than an intruder. It was comforting to know this was Dessi, but once she saw the state that Dessi was in her heart leapt up to her throat. The older woman looked like she'd just run a marathon: her hair was disheveled, she had a small blanket hastily thrown over her shoulders over her nightgown, and the expression on her face reflected both urgency and fear. Upon hearing a voice respond to her she wasted no time in speaking her piece.
"Kyrie! Mae needs Undine brought to her right now!"
"Undine? Wh--"
Before Kyrie could even finish that inquiry, Dessi had run off, and Kyrie's eyes widened with anxiety as she disentangled herself from Isaac. She was shaking from the fear and adrenaline coursing through her body, and Isaac had felt it before she fully pulled away.
As Kyrie quickly threw her nightgown back over herself, Isaac had slipped out of the bed to put on his own pants. For some reason it hadn't occurred to Kyrie that he might get up as well, but now that she saw him moving relief flowed through her. She wouldn't have to do this alone... Whatever this was.
"I-Isaac?"
"I'm right here with you, Kyrie. I won't leave your side."
Gratitude and love for the man beside her flowed through her at those words, and she blinked a couple times to keep the moist emotion out of her eyes. Soon, Isaac was offering his hand to her, and Kyrie gently placed her hand in his before the two of them ran off towards the menagerie.
When they arrived, Kyrie instructed Isaac to stand near the door while she went to go find Undine. It wasn't exactly safe in the menagerie, strictly speaking, so he stood by the door and admired the scenery as Kyrie disappeared out of sight. He may be good with horses, sure, but what Kyrie did was much more admirable. There were so many different kinds of animals in here, even from what little he could see from the entrance. Isaac knew horses, but Kyrie had to know hundreds of different kinds of animals and he couldn't help admiring her for that. It wasn't long before the sound of Kyrie's footsteps were heard pattering back to him, and Isaac looked away from the scenery to fix his eyes on her once more.
Isaac practically jumped at what he saw though: there was Kyrie, with a rather sizable snake draped over her shoulders. She was careful to hold its head in a specific way, and when she joined up with Isaac again she made sure that Undine's face was pointed away from him.
"Don't get too close, she is venomous, not lethally so but her bite will definitely knock you out for a few days."
"O-oh."
Honestly, it was weirdly sexy seeing how confidently Kyrie handled that snake, and he quietly scolded himself for the thought. This was definitely neither the time nor place for such things. Thankful that Kyrie couldn't see into his mind, they promptly left the menagerie, heading up the stairs to help the lady.
Kyrie wasn't really sure what it was they were going to find in the lady's room, but she couldn't imagine it being even remotely good. Biting the inside of her lip hard enough to taste blood, she trembled more and more with anxiety and fear the closer they got to the bedroom. Isaac was quick to pick up on the discomfort, and even despite the fact that Kyrie had a poisonous snake on her, Isaac gently placed a hand on the small of her back. She gave him the briefest of smiles, glad to know that he was here for her, but she soon found that even Isaac's touch couldn't help prepare her for the horror that awaited.
The moment that Kyrie peered through the wide open door to Mae's bedroom, she was letting out a soft gasp at the scene before her. The first thing that really drew her eye was the blood: there was just so much of it! There was a particularly large splotch of it on the bed but a trail went all across the floor to the vanity where Mae was currently sitting, with a puddle slowly growing underneath the lady's chair; while the blood on the floor and sheets was quickly drying to become a darker color, the lady's nightgown still glistened as fresh blood oozed out of a cut on her arm. It had been haphazardly bandaged with a torn off piece of the lady's nightgown, but it clearly wasn't helping that much. It was impressive that the lady had even managed that much with only one functional hand. As if the blood wasn't awful enough, there was a mysterious man lying face down in the middle of the floor and Raine... Poor little Raine... She was writhing in some sort of immense pain on the bed while her mother worked with a concentrated fury at the distillery for her perfumes.
Upon Kyrie's arrival sharp caws began resounding from up above, and even when Kyrie peered up into the darkness of the lady's ceiling she just couldn't see where Teru was. Mae looked up from her work at Teru's announcement though, reaching out her uninjured arm for Kyrie.
"Bring her to me. Now."
There was a brief pause before the lady said now, but the second sentence had definitely been needed because Kyrie had been rather slow to respond to the first. She jerkily moved forward at the second command, taking the snake off herself to hand to the lady. Mae snatched up Undine and managed to draw out some of the snake's venom into a vial that she had waiting on the vanity. With that the lady almost haphazardly tossed Undine atop the vanity, and Kyrie stumbled back towards the door into Isaac's waiting arms.
She didn't realize that she'd been losing strength in her legs, but thankfully as she backed up out of the room Isaac had caught her in a firm and loving embrace. She was breathing quickly as the gravity of the scene began to sink in all the more, and she could feel herself starting to panic. Isaac could feel it too, and he leaned his face down to rest against her cheek as he tightened his hold on her. He engulfed her smaller body with his larger one, keeping her in a nice and comforting hug. Kyrie was perhaps at her most comfortable when she was curled up tightly, and while she trembled something fierce in his arms, what Isaac was doing was helping.
Isaac gently kissed her head as she stared transfixed at the room before her; he was almost tempted to forcibly turn her gaze away from the room, but he felt like that would be a little too much. Kyrie had to have a chance to really take this in... He would only interfere if she started taking a turn for the worse again. For now he gave her more comforting kisses, acting as her support.
Even though the lady hadn't strictly dismissed her, Kyrie found herself thinking that she really didn't want to be here anymore. At the same time, she also wanted to be able to help. Clearly Raine was ailing, and the lady herself had been injured, these were both things that Kyrie felt she couldn't just ignore. Yet, she had no idea what to do. The only thing she could really think to do at the moment was stand by and wait for the lady to give her an order.
Isaac hadn't stepped into the room at all, but considering the lady's doorway was wide open he could see everything. Since he hadn't expressly been called it felt a little weird to be hovering outside the lady's doorway, but he suspected that Mae was beyond caring who exactly was near her so long as they weren't hostile. As Isaac's own eyes slowly took in the scene, he gently nuzzled the side of Kyrie's face, to which she let out a sound almost like a soft whimper as she closed her eyes. He could feel her trembling slowly abating, and he continued to hold her close even while trying to figure out what had happened in the room.
Clearly the lady had managed to kill the man on the floor... But how? He didn't really appear to be bleeding, at least from what Isaac could see without investigating, and then there was Raine... What exactly was wrong with her? She didn't look particularly wounded either but it was clear that she was having a hard time. Mae was discreet about it but Isaac caught the occasional glances that the older woman sent her daughter. Even with these occasional glances, the lady's own movements were steady as she continued about her work, acting for all the world as if her arm wasn't wounded and this wasn't a moment of extreme distress.
Isaac's gaze ended up snapping away from the room when footsteps were heard coming up the stairs, and when Vivian saw the state that Kyrie and Isaac were in her own face paled. Was the lady dead? Was she wounded? What was happening?! Renard felt this anxiety just as keenly as Vivian did, but he'd been barked at by Dessi to get some plants and he was sure that it was urgent with this visual reinforcement from Isaac and Kyrie. As a result, he brushed right on by the couple and basically shut off everything that he might've been feeling when he stepped into the room.
Honestly, he didn't really see what was wrong at first. He simply made a beeline for the lady, passed her the plants, and then stepped back out of the room. Now that his task was done though, his brain began to process everything that he'd just seen. There had been a bloody dagger on Mae's vanity, she was frantically working away with her distillery, and then he had stepped over what appeared to be a dead body on his way in. He hadn't noticed this on his initial rush in, but he could see now that Raine was sweating in the bed, looking for all the world like she was struggling with some illness, and he could hear Teru making an awful racket from somewhere up above. The lady wasn't even bothering to silence him so he continued on unimpeded.
Vivian had almost tentatively crept over to stand beside Kyrie and Isaac while Renard was passing off the plants, and when she saw the inside of the room her mouth opened slightly in shock. Her lip trembled a little before she lightly touched an exposed part of Kyrie's arm.
"What's... What's wrong with Raine?"
The sound of Vivian's own horror helped draw Kyrie out of hers, and Kyrie looked briefly at Vivian before turning to look at Raine once more. Kyrie had been focusing more on Mae than she had been on Raine: even though she knew that the lady was working so frantically to help Raine, Mae had been the one that Kyrie's concern gravitated to more. Kyrie had more contact with Mae than perhaps most of the other slaves, and to add to that Mae was the active party right now so she clearly drew the eye. Yet, Vivian's eye had been drawn to Raine, and for the briefest of moments Kyrie couldn't help thinking that Vivian really had come so far.
She knew that Vivian's anxiety would only increase the longer she was silent though, so Kyrie gently placed a hand on Isaac's arm, a silent plea for him to let her go. He was reluctant to do so, but his arms loosened around her enough to allow Kyrie to gently hold on to Vivian's arm, sticking close to her friend as she responded.
"We're not sure, but Lady Dandridge certainly knows, I imagine that's what she's working on at the vanity."
Vivian held tight to Kyrie as her eyes turned to Mae now, and she bit her bottom lip softly. Kyrie could feel Vivian trembling and Kyrie tightened her hold from this feeling. Heavy footsteps could be heard coming up the stairs, and both young women startled a little before looking towards the stairs with wide eyes. When they saw that it was just Dessi coming up with a pot and a bucket, they relaxed slightly. Kyrie noticed how much the older woman was exerting herself though, and with a slight pull to get Vivian to follow, Kyrie let her go and reached out a hand for the pot.
Almost mechanically, Vivian followed Kyrie's lead by taking the bucket, leaving Dessi with a bowl that had an assortment of medical supplies in it along with towels. With one last look at each other almost to steady themselves, the three women then entered the room again.
Isaac had his arms crossed, his eyes protectively following Kyrie as she moved. Renard, on the other hand, wasn't looking at anything in particular: his eyes kept flitting towards the doorway, and he couldn't seem to decide whether he wanted his arms crossed or at his side or whether he should be in this position or that. What remained constant between the two of them was that neither was walking away until they had sufficiently resolved this whole thing.
Despite Teru once again announcing the presence of the slaves entering the room, it didn't seem like the lady would acknowledge them at all with how intensely she was working. The sound of her voice soon dispelled that misconception though.
"Wipe down Raine with the cold water without moving her; keep her as comfortable as you can."
Kyrie and Vivian promptly headed over towards the bed, taking the cold water with them and passing the pot full of water to Dessi. Dessi went the opposite direction to hang the pot over the fireplace, presumably because the lady had asked for some hot water as well. Isaac watched all of the activity with a level gaze, and as each of the slave women went about their work, he watched now as the lady picked up the dagger on her vanity. The lady was slowly turning the bloodied thing over in her hands, practically glaring at it as she waited for her distillery to finish.
"I need more light."
Dessi was quick to oblige the request made by the lady, and while the two older women waited for something in the distillery to finish, Isaac's eyes turned back to his lover.
Kyrie had her full attention on Raine, and she was rather thankful for the lady's order because it gave her less idle time to just think. Vivian was also crouched down by the bed, and she was dabbing away at Raine's face, uttering words of reassurance that she certainly didn't feel. Kyrie settled in besides her friend and picked up a cloth of her own. Dampening it with the cold water, she pushed the blankets off of Raine so that she could wipe down the rest of the girl's body. She was... She was incredibly hot, and Kyrie's heart clenched for the younger girl. Vivian was just barely holding back tears, and Kyrie gave her fellow a brief hug which bolstered Vivian enough to be able to do her work.
How Isaac wished that he was up close to Kyrie again. She was doing alright for now, but it was likely because Vivian was doing worse so Kyrie felt like she had to help her friend. Isaac's eyes were soon drawn away from his lover though when he noticed movement from the lady. She'd set the dagger in her hands down before picking up a custom made ladle that had one side of it tapered into something that could easily fit into the small glass flasks for her perfume. Mae used her uninjured arm to help her stand up, and even though the lady's expression remained level, her body trembled from the strain that she was putting it under. Still, her determination was unwavering as she made her way over towards the pot of water on the fire. Carefully ladling up some of the water, she turned back to the vial that she had on the table and held the ladle up to the mouth of the flask. With a steady hand (since she was using her uninjured right hand to pour) Mae dripped some of the water into it.
Trading the ladle for the vial, Mae returned the vial to the distillery just in time for it to begin dripping its own liquid into it. Glancing over towards her daughter briefly, the lady's brow furrowed even more before she returned to the flask, and her hand hovered nearby to snatch it up immediately once it was done. Raine didn't look that much worse than she had when they'd first entered the room, but Isaac certainly wasn't well versed in such matters. Renard knew a little more about the plants that he worked with, namely he knew that the plants the lady had asked for had antidote properties, but he'd never really dabbled in the medicinal qualities of plants. He was all about what they looked like, less about what they actually did. All both men really knew for sure was that Raine was on a ticking clock: the changes in her may be subtle and nonexistent to most of them, but whatever the lady saw clearly made her concerned.
As much as Mae tried to be completely unfeeling, they all knew just how much she loved Raine. Losing her child... While Mae likely wouldn't obviously express it, she would be devastated and enraged by such a blow. If her daughter was to be the successful target of an assassination, Isaac realized with a chill that their lady would set out to destroy whoever it was that had ordered it. Not just kill them though: killing is quick, and even if it isn't painless there is an end. No... Lady Dandridge would utterly and completely ruin whoever her daughter's murderer was, she would never give them the sweet release of death.
The room was tense but silent as Mae waited for her elixir to finish. Isaac's eyes slowly trailed down to the man on the floor again, but this time he really tried to study him. The man's body was mostly covered save for a thin strip along his eyes that revealed that he was lighter skinned, meaning that he was likely from the Terra Kingdom. That was about all that Isaac could really determine. Still, this did tell him one thing: this was unlikely to be another attack from the Dominion. The unrest in the city had finally spilled over, and by the looks of it they were lucky that it hadn't ended in Mae's death.
Isaac sent a glare in the direction of the guards that had been standing near the doorway this whole time. They didn't usually meet people's eyes when they were looked at, nor did they really move, but now they pointedly looked away from Isaac. What the hell had they been doing out here?! Sleeping on the fucking job?
Though... Isaac knew that if this man had come through the hallway he would've been seen and dealt with. He must've come in through the window despite the lady's room being on the 3rd floor. There were supposed to be guards patrolling on the grounds though! How could they not have seen him?
… He was projecting his frustrations and he knew it, but he couldn't help thinking that all these guards were horribly incompetent. Never mind the fact that the guards acted as good deterrent for larger attacks. How could Mae have overlooked these infiltration missions though? As Isaac stared at the man on the floor again, his anger quelled a little bit when he realized she hadn't. She would be dead now if she had overlooked them. Running his hand through his hair with a soft sigh, his attention was drawn upwards again when he saw that Mae was moving.
She had snatched up the flask that had been under the distillery before rushing to the side of her daughter. Kyrie and Vivian just barely managed to move away in time as Mae submerged the flask into the cold water: she didn't do it to fill up the flask with cold water, she was just doing it to help try and cool the contents of the flask. There was a slight hissing sound as the heat from the liquid inside the bottle came in contact with the cold water, and only once it stopped did Mae pull it back out.
Raine's breathing was slowly getting more and more labored, as if she was truly struggling to get air into her lungs. At first Mae put the flask up to her daughter's mouth, but it became clear that Raine just wasn't aware enough to be able to take it. Once again furrowing her brow, there was absolutely no hesitation as Mae put the draught in her own mouth. Plugging up Raine's nose with one hand, she leaned over and gave her daughter the medicine in a way that would have to go down. Even as Raine struggled from the lack of air, Mae didn't pull away from her until the little girl had swallowed. Mae then sat on her own legs, her eyes watching Raine like a hawk for a tense couple minutes more as the young girl continued to struggle.
Thankfully, instead of Raine succumbing further into her fever, her breathing became smoother once more, and the sweat on her brow was no longer forming. All of the slaves let out a collective sigh of relief to see this, and even Mae's shoulders slumped a little now that Raine was out of the thick of it.
The little girl's eyes heavily peeled open, and when she saw her mother leaning over her, she reached out her hand.
"Mother?"
Her voice was thick with exhaustion: not only had she likely just witnessed a brutal attack, but she'd also just barely managed to fend off some sort of toxin that had been ravaging her system. Mae gently took her daughter's hand, though Kyrie couldn't help but notice that the lady was angling herself in such a way as to hide her own wound from her daughter.
Using her other hand to brush away the sweat from her daughter's brow and push her hair away from her face a little, Mae spoke softly.
"I'm right here Raine. I always will be."
The assurance that her mother was still around and able to speak to her sent relief flowing through Raine's features. Needing no more permission than that to sink back into unconsciousness, her heavy eyelids closed shut while her grip on her mother loosened. Raine had already fallen asleep once more.
Placing her daughter's hand on the bed, Mae then leaned over the bed, one hand resting against the side of her own face, covering up her eyes from the side. Kyrie heard the lady let out a shuddering sigh, and for a moment Kyrie wondered if she was holding back tears. No doubt she was happy to see that her daughter was still alive, and this whole evening had probably been an emotional trip for their lady. If that's what she'd been doing though, there was absolutely no evidence of it as Mae removed her hand from her face to sit up. Usually this action inspired awe and respect from the people around her, but this time it just seemed to make the lady's paleness even more pronounced than it already was.
"Kyrie, Vivian, I need you two to clean up Raine fully while trying not to wake her. I don't know how much blood got on her, but she can't sleep in this bed, not with the state it's in right now. Bundle her up and put her on the large lounge chair in my sitting room just next door."
The two slaves in question had been standing by arm in arm; it had just naturally happened in an effort to comfort each other as they'd moved away. This situation was just too out there, too beyond even what their wildest imaginations could've come up with. Or rather, if they had come up with it, they never truly believed that it would actually happen. At the lady's command though, the two young women separated from each other to begin their work.
Carefully moving around the lady, Vivian gently hoisted Raine up into her arms, maneuvering the girl's arms around her neck while Kyrie picked up the water, washcloths and a fresh nightgown. Vivian was blinking back tears again as she held Raine close, and she stroked the back of Raine's head, pressing her own cheek against the girl's head as well. She was ok... Raine was going to be ok.
In the time that it took Kyrie and Vivian to gather Raine up, Mae had shifted on the floor so that she was sitting with her back being supported by the bed. Her gaze was unfocused as she watched Kyrie and Vivian move, and she slowly closed her eyes once she was satisfied with the care they were giving her daughter.
"Dessi, tend to me."
Dessi gave the two men waiting outside a bit of a glare, and Isaac certainly got the hint and closed the door to the lady's bedroom to let her properly deal with Mae's wound.
Kyrie and Vivian were too preoccupied with Raine to really be paying attention to what Dessi was doing even though the door to the sitting room remained open. Dessi was undoubtably sewing up the lady's wound, but there was hardly a sound coming from the master bedroom as the time ticked by. It made it easy to forget the awful things that had happened in there, especially when Kyrie and Vivian were no longer in the bedroom.
Vivian stripped Raine of the nightgown she was currently wearing (it had a bit of blood on it, but a quick once over of Raine told the two women that it was Mae's blood, not Raine's), and with Kyrie's help they cleaned her off with the water. Throughout all this, they still weren't sure what had caused Raine to almost die: there had been a very slight cut on her cheek but that couldn't have been it, could it? It had looked no worse than a paper cut, like the sort of thing you get without even realizing you cut yourself. Still... Poison didn't need much of an entry to work, did it?
By the time the two of them had finished putting her in a new nightgown and covered her with a fresh blanket, they spotted Dessi coming in with a bit of a grunt since she had Mae draped over her shoulder. Mae was unconscious now, which was a little strange to see because neither Kyrie nor Vivian had ever actually seen her asleep before: she seemed so small with her eyes closed, small and weirdly vulnerable. Her arm was cleanly bandaged up though, she was in a new nightgown, and she was no longer bleeding, so she was no doubt on the road to recovery. Kyrie rushed to help lessen Dessi's load but Vivian stayed by Raine's side a little longer.
As the combined forces of Dessi and Kyrie laid Mae down on a sofa near her daughter, Vivian was once again gently stroking Raine's forehead before leaning down to kiss it. Raine was alive. Not only was Raine alive though, but so was Mae.
The relief that flowed through her at these thoughts caused her to curl up on herself a little, her hands covering up her eyes as she continued to hold back the tears. When a gentle hand touched her shoulder she flinched a little.
"Come on, Vivian. Let's let them sleep."
It was Dessi's voice speaking to her, and she looked up almost heartbroken to have to leave. Kyrie's heart once again went out to her friend, and she gently grabbed hold of one of Vivian's arms to help her get up. Vivian didn't protest this action even if she was slow on the uptake, and with one last look into the room with their sleeping masters, they closed the doors to let them be.