Resurrected as a Drow Chapter 4

“Fynn, you have to retract your ether!” Tryss said as she dug her heels into the stone ground to try and help me gain some traction since I was barefoot.

“Nobody taught me how!” I growled as the sharp tugging in my chest grew sharper. “Literally, hours old here!”

If being tethered to the minotaur was like getting my woolen sweater snagged on a door post, I didn’t want to know what happened when I reached the end of the line.

I figured if ether was lumped into the same category as, oh, I don’t know, important things like bones, and blood, and fucking muscles, then my guess was that it was super bad.

“Ah!” Tryss’ heels were beginning to skid, and my toes were nearing the sharp ledge.

Just then, a whoosh of magical wind sailed past us and down over the side, and suddenly, the weight steadily pulling me to my death stopped.

“Drogu’s left tit,” I choked out, and for the first time since this little misfortune started, I felt as if I could finally take a full breath.

“Fynn, I share your sentiment, but maybe don’t blaspheme the Goddess’ name inside one of her Temples, hm?” Helera’s melodious and teasing voice sounded from behind the two of us.

“Helly!” Tryss said from her position still around my waist. Then she stood and gazed wide-eyed at her sister as Helera held both hands out like she was clutching an invisible orb by just her fingertips.

“Well, are you… going to help him retract his ether… or not?” Helera demanded, and it was clear by the unblinking expression on her normally animated face that she was focusing quite strongly on something.

As if the other woman’s words were the jolt she needed to snap out of her shock, Tryss snatched up my hand, and the warmth of her ether rubbing against mine soothed some of the jagged edges of my nerves.

With her help, I was able to feel how she followed the tangle of her tethered ether backward like watching water roll backwards up a window pane, and I pictured the same thing in my mind’s eye.

Finally, I felt that invisible thread untangle itself from the dead weight of the corpse, and simultaneously, I could feel how all three of us let our ether go. Then the body of the minotaur fell into the water’s embrace with a splash that couldn’t even be heard.

“Well, well, well.” Helera broke the silence, and when Tryss and I turned toward her, her pale blue lips curled up into a grin, and she had a superior expression on her heart-shaped face. “What were you getting up to, baby sister?”

“What are you even doing here, Helly?” Tryss demanded with a childish pout. “It’s just like you to insert yourself where you’re not wanted.”

“Excuse me?” the First Daughter scoffed. “I was sent by Mother to see what the fuck was taking you so long. And from where I was standing, it was a good thing too, because another second longer, and you and your little prized male would have gone straight into Subata’s loving arms. What the fuck, Tryskaylan? Where you doing what-- what the fuck were you doing?”

Helera glared at her younger sister with such fury, her cherry-red eyes actually cast a little of their own ambient glow like she would shoot lasers at Tryss if she could.

“There you go again, inserting--” Tryss said as she began to flounce back toward the sanctuary.

“Inserting?” Hel screeched as she rushed after her sister. “Nice of you to insult the one who just saved your skinny ass--”

“Um,” I said as I watched the two continue to bicker and leave me behind like I didn’t exist. Then I shook my head and muttered to myself. “Are you alright, Fynn? Why yes, Fynn, thank you for asking, but I admit that was a close one. Well, I will say, you were quite brave, Fynn. Why thank you, Fynn.”

I rolled my eyes and started to jog to catch up to them, but then I stopped as something occurred to me.

My ether.

I could feel it now like a physical tether not just inside of me, but through me and rooting me to the earth with every step I took. I couldn’t tell if I could suddenly feel it so prominently because it was unlocked somehow, or if I was just more aware of it.

Whatever the case, this new addition to my senses kind of made up for the fact that I seemed to be mostly blind in one eye.

Then there were the light powers I may or may not have had.

That would be something I would have to talk more to Tryss about when I could, but currently she was still arguing with an increasingly furious Hel, who was actually starting to smoke a little bit.

Well, as long as she wasn’t actually on fire yet, then I figured I had enough time to play Scientist before I possibly needed to keep Tryss from being scorched like an insect under the lens of Helera’s anger.

So, with one more glance at the feuding sisters, I closed my eyes and felt for that murmur constantly thrumming inside of me like a live wire. Then I focused on the feeling in my feet, and I… pushed down like I could use the energy to propel myself up.

“Woah!” I said when my right foot pushed up a little higher than my left, and I ended up stumbling back down to the ground like I’d missed a step at the top of the staircase.

It was jarring, and I actually bit my tongue a little with my sharp teeth that I was still getting used to, but I couldn’t help the large grin that stretched my lips wide at my triumph.

Levitation.

Aw, yes.

I was beginning to understand how to make myself fly around like a true drow, but it was definitely going to take some practice. For now, it was enough to just dip a toe into the process, and I would wait to either get Tryss to teach me more, or practice in secret later.

Given the little I’d gleaned from being a drow already, it seemed prudent to keep any more skills I gained or improved strictly to myself, and maybe Tryss, so I could utilize the element of surprise against anyone who underestimated me in the future.

So, with that decided, I finally caught up with the two women who’d stopped right in the doorway to continue their argument.

“Just admit it, Helly, you have set yourself up perfectly to blackmail me because deep down you’ve always been jealous--” Tryss was saying.

“Why would I be jealous of a ’Teenth?” Hel spat and lashed her long platinum braid off her shoulder like a whip, and the snap of it ended in a small spark and more smoke.

Tryss jolted back like that flaming strike had actually hit her, and I was confused by the reaction.

For a moment, Tryskaylan looked… hurt?

But this was a little at odds with what she’d just told me about how drow social dynamics worked. By all means, this whole argument was most likely a strategy of some sort, right? Like… a plot to. Um. Find the weakness of the enemy.

Or. Well.

It should be, considering false empathy as a tactic would be appropriate here. Also, for some reason, my dark brain randomly had this fun fact on hand, and I knew playing on emotions was something females were really apt at doing.

It was strange having bits of knowledge floating around my brain with no context or memories attached to them, and I couldn’t decide if this was a blessing or curse on Drogu’s part.

However, either Tryss was a really good pretender, or she really was hurt because even Hel’s eye widened in surprise.

Then Tryss regrouped and dragged me back out of my thoughts.

“If I’m such a worthless ’Teenth, why didn’t you let us go over the edge then?” she asked point blank.

Now, it was Helera’s turn to react as if she’d been struck.

The smoke coming from her finally stopped as if her ire had abruptly been smothered by a swathe of sand kicked onto the coals.

In fact, Hel was apparently shocked into silence, and the longer she gaped at her younger sister like a puzzled trout, the more she seemed to become aware of the grown silence ringing between them.

Based on how her cheeks flushed a darker blue than her normal complexion, it was clear Helera found the silence damning, and the smoldering dark aura that caused her to smoke earlier returned with a vengeance and the smell of burning hair.

“Fuck off, then,” Hel eventually responded with an eloquent grunt, and she turned on her heel so she could march away.

I could see the ends of her hair beginning to singe as she flounced back toward a dark corner to brood, and I arched an eyebrow at Tryss.

“Everything alright?” I asked.

“Fine,” the woman said as she continued to gaze placidly after her sister. “I needed to distract her from her line of questioning.”

“So, you were pushing her buttons on purpose,” I said. “Sly.”

“Yes,” Tryss said with that same flat affect as before, and I was back to thinking maybe it wasn’t solely a ruse after all. “Come, we do not want to be missed, and if Mother questions Helera about going to get us, my sister might forget she is angry and tell her about what we did.”

“So, your sister knows about how we… mingled?” I whispered, and Tryss finally tore her forlorn gaze away from Hel’s dark corner and looked at me with a frown.

I waggled my eyebrows for good measure and was pleased when the tightening of her top lip signaled how she was trying to hold back a smirk.

“Yes, unfortunately,” Tryss answered. “For as lackadaisical as she pretends to be, she is quite a studious priestess and knows how to sense stuff like that.”

“She’s a priestess too?” I asked as we continued into the sanctuary where the Matron Mother was addressing her remaining people.

“Helera passed her Test before her seventieth birthday, and she has been training to detect magicks that are… off limits,” Tryss whispered, and then she shushed me when we got up close to the Matron Mother.

“For the last time, Dagwyn, we must muster some forces before we can counter attack, and that does not mean relying on the meddling of the Council,” Mother Sevahtra said in a tone that clearly meant she was nearing the end of her patience.

For whatever reason, Dagwyn was not picking up the cue, and like a feisty obtuse hornet, she couldn’t resist diving back in.

“But we have Belia’s head!” she exclaimed with emphasis on the severed head that must have been in the makeshift sack she was holding. She even shook it slightly like she’d made this argument several times now. “Her. Head. That you bloody chopped off! Proof to wage all the war with our allies we need, and we wouldn’t even need to involve the Council. We can settle it Ra-ara-- House to House.”

“You are not understanding, Daughter,” Sevahtra said with a rusty snap to her voice like a bear-trap that meant business.

Tryss and I exchanged glances and tried not to snicker.

“Daggy can be a bit--”

“Good of you to join us, Tryskaylan,” the Matron Mother interceded before Tryss could finish what she was saying about Dagwyn, and the older drow pinned her youngest with her maroon stare. “Before you finish your criticism of your sister, perhaps you would like to inform all of us why you think slacking off from your fair share of work shouldn’t come with a nip off your ear?”

The younger female’s face paled, and her long ears angled downward in what was clearly a chastened and submissive behavior she probably wasn’t even conscious of doing. “N-No, Mother. I wanted to simply remind Dagwyn of your honorable sacrifice when it came to your Fidelity Spell.”

It was now Dagwyn’s turn to grow a shade lighter as if she suddenly remembered the gravity of Tryss’ point. “Mother… I apologize, I--”

“Now you understand there is more involved in this plot of vengeance than slaking your own need for justice, and this is why you will always be under her despite being twin-born with Helera,” the dark-elf queen stated as coldly as a blizzard, and Dagwyn’s ears angled toward the floor as well. Sevahtra continued to glared down at her daughter like she was waiting patiently for her to add anything else, but Dag just shifted her eyes away. “Since not all of us were present when this discussion began, I will go over the next steps now, and that will be the last time I repeat myself. Am I clear?”

Her hard garnet eyes swept over all who were present, but she lingered particularly on her errant Daughter.

“Yes, Matron Mother,” everyone echoed, me included.

Seva studied us all for another long moment, but then she let up on her glare, and it was like the very air pressure in the room became lighter and less overbearing.

When I saw I wasn’t the only one who was a little out of breath, I figured this had to be more magic stuff. Sevahtra’s stare was as intriguing as it was terrifying, and I did not envy Dagwyn for having borne the brunt of it.

“Now.” The Matron Mother settled back slightly after taking the weight of her powerful ether with her. “We have disposed of all the bodies, and I have taken precautions to set aside plain cloaks close to each of your individual fits. As you might observe, all of them are common Ozin-Na House cloaks. Why? Some of you might ask, and I will tell you. My plan is to stay undercover for as long as possible until I can gather forces of my choice. Force that I control, which the existence of has been on a need to know basis. This means none of you needed to know about this plan of mine until just now, a plan that will circumvent the need for the Council to muddy the waters of the Below. So, is anybody lost so far?”

With this sarcastic jab, the Matron Mother paused and aimed her gaze once more at Dagwyn with raised silver eyebrows, as if she was daring her daughter to respond, to which the younger woman wisely did not.

“I’m a little lost to be honest, Mistress--” the hobgoblin with the smushed dog snout-face said and was completely oblivious to the fact the question was rhetorical.

“Shut up, Fespius,” Sevahtra said, and she absently flicked her fingers in his direction so a gust of wind blasted him in the face and halted him from talking in mid-sentence. “As I was saying, you must keep your house Claden’Du cloak hidden beneath the one from Ozin-Na.”

“As well as our outer cloak?” Helera asked.

“Yes,” the Matron Mother answered with a nod of her flaxen head. “We will have the plain outer cloak to hide us in the darkness, but when we are in public, we should blend in by wearing the colors of Ozin-Na or else face busybodies who would like to make quick gold on any juicy gossip, like how the mighty Claden’Du of Oshara’s Noble Tower mingling down in the Thoroughfare with the riff-raff.”

“I get the need to blend in, but common people, Mother? Why couldn’t we be lesser Ozin nobles, or something?” Hel scrunched up her elfin nose. “And three cloaks? That’s going to be so suffocating.”

“Quit your whining, Hel,” Sevahtra said with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “If you can actually manage to be bothered, you could maybe use all of the training Nodrin and I pounded into you and use a simple mending spell, that would be wonderful. Then maybe you won’t feel so strangled.”

“And if I still don’t like it?” Hel challenged like she couldn’t not be obstinate.

“Then I will show you what true strangulation feels like,” the scary Matron promised with another one of those dead-eyed smiles.

I had to repress a shudder that wanted to crawl up the ladder of my spine, especially when Tryss called the austere woman’s attention to me a moment later.

“Mother, do you have a cloak set aside for Fynn as well?” she asked.

“Yes, I didn’t forget about your pet,” Sevahtra said as she gave me a mild once-over and then grimaced. “But take him behind the Effigy where the pool is so he may be cleansed of the blood of our enemies. It wouldn’t be favorable to Drogu to blatantly flout about the minor mass-murder you committed against another House in service to her, no matter how treacherous they were to Claden’Du.”

At this third jab once again fired unsubtly in Dagwyn’s direction, the middle daughter stomped away like she’d finally had enough of her Mother’s constant ribbing. “I get it!”

Sevahtra seemed to smirk privately to herself, and for a brief second, her unbending countenance softened as she watched her headstrong second daughter huff and try to kick one of the pews. When Dagwyn hastily covered the fact she did more damage to her foot than the object she kicked, the older woman’s expression softened even more as she shook her head.

But like the weak winter rays fading back behind a foreboding cloud, the Matron Mother’s typical stern expression settled back on her beautiful face, and the moment passed.

“When you’ve cleaned up your male, meet us in the auxiliary antechamber on the floor below us facing east,” the Matron Mother instructed, and both Tryss and I nodded to let her know we understood.

Then, with nothing further, the Matron Mother of Claden’Du shooed us both to the back of the Temple where I’d previously missed the large obsidian statue of the majestic Spider Lady.

For good reason, though, because the eight-legged madam was actually carved right into the stone above the archway of some dimly lit alcove. Her human arms were spread wide as she perched her eight spider legs above the entrance, and the cascade of her ruby eyes sparkled in contrast to the blue glow emanating from the small antechamber beyond.

As we passed under Drogu’s likeness, I looked up into her malicious smiling face and wondered just what she was thinking when she plucked me from wherever I was before this and plopped me down here.

“You know, you’re very lucky,” Tryss said in a low murmur as we both entered the small cave-like room.

“Why’s that?” I asked, and I gazed around at the dramatic architecture the drow seemed fond of. “I get to see all of the interior decorating secrets of Claden’Du?”

“One of these days, that mouth is going to get you in trouble,” Tryss commented, and her voice echoed off the high ceilings that were dripping with more stalactites, only these ones were a lot smaller than the ones I was able to spy from the Egress Platform.

“I have a feeling you aren’t the first person to tell me that,” I joked, but I made sure to keep my voice lowered to a reverent burr.

The delicate almost crystalline structures of the stalactites were softly dripping their cool water down on us, and I didn’t want to disturb this peaceful holy place.

The sound of the droplets splashing against the surface of the serene pool only added to the ethereal feeling of the place, and I knew without being told that the antechamber was somehow sacred.

“I’m serious,” Tyrss said and shot me a completely unserious grin over one of her shoulders, and I stopped in my tracks at the sight of that beautiful smile on full display.

I could tell this type of unfettered expression was rarely out in the open, so I took advantage of seeing it for what it was: a treasure.

“What were we talking about? I got distracted,” I admitted, and her faint blush told me she was reading my expression correctly, so I decided to push it. “You were saying something about my mouth? And how it gets me into trouble? Would you like to see what else it can get into?”

“You-- t-that’s-- just get into the water, male,” she stumbled over her words and then tried to make up for it by being extra bossy.

“Alright, alright, you don’t have to tell me twice,” I chuckled. I was also quite sick of being not only naked but filthy and spattered in blood and dust as much as I was, so it wasn’t a hardship to wade out into the steamy water. “Oh, wow.”

Tryss grinned when my eyes nearly rolled to the back of my head, and the miraculous feeling of the soothing water enveloped me in its embrace.

It was clear something magical and healing was with this water becauseI never wanted to leave.

“Don’t get used to it,” Tryss said as she climbed up to sit on the edge of the pool so she could dip her feet in. “As I was saying. You are quite lucky because not many male drow are allowed to bathe in the ether pools. So, enjoy it now.”

“I’d enjoy it a little more if you came in here with me all the way,” I murmured as I closed my eyes and sank just a little deeper.

“We do not have time for such frivolities, and even if we did, the sacred ether pool under Drogu’s Effigy is not the place,” Tyss chuckled, and I tracked her voice as it moved behind me.

She had come to shuffle next to me, and with a small nudge, she made me lean forward so she could maneuver her legs on either side of my broad shoulders.

I still kept my eyes closed because I was curious about what she was up to.

“What do we have time for?” I asked as I reached out with my freakishly good hearing to try and figure out what she was doing. So far, it sounded like she’d opened something, and when I inhaled, a spicy scent mingled with the steam.

Instead of answering, Tryss suddenly began to scrub me quite roughly with a cloth that had some sort of astringent agent on it that caused my skin to tingle and burn.

“Hold still,” Tryss said and dumped handfuls of water onto my head, and I spluttered.

“Not so rough!” I said as I tried to squirm away, but she grabbed me by my shoulders and dunked me under the water before I could get too far away.

When I came back up, both of my eyes were stinging, and I coughed a few times.

“This is nothing compared to some of the braiding sessions I’ve been witness to, so just hope you never have to have that torture done to your scalp,” she said as she poured something over the crown of my head.

“You’re doing a-- ow!-- a fair job at the torture thing yourself, there,” I said as she dragged a comb through my long locks.

“For now, I will just do your hair in the standard style for the subservient male drow,” Tyrss said as she did did a few twists and such until she’d braided my hair in a half-up style, and then she pushed my head forward so she could wash behind my neck.

“Hhaa!” I hissed through my teeth when she came to the burning brand at the base of my neck. “What is that, by the way? All I kept hearing about was a mark.”

“Drogu’s mark,” Tryss confirmed and prodded the soreness on my skin again, but this time, her fingers were coated in something slick like a type of ointment.

“What does it look like?” I asked curiously and reached back to inspect it with my fingers. It was raised and bumpy like it really was burned into my skin, and it felt circular and jagged even though whatever slippery salve Tryss gave me numbed it up pretty well.

“It is Drogu’s symbol, which is a circle with eight legs,” she said and nudged me so I could get the hint that bath time was over, and I regretfully stopped leaning back against her smooth legs so she could get out and hand me a towel.

“I know it’s special, somewhat, but I’m not sure why,” I said and climbed out after her as she lifted herself up on tip-toe so she could reach a silken robe on a high hook. By the time she turned around, I’d gotten just a little too close into her space, and our noses almost touched.

“Oh.” Tyrss’s eyes were drawn to my bare chest, and I glanced down to see what was so fascinating.

I guess it was a nice chest.

Toned and broad like a barrel.

Dark gray skin dotted with beads of water.

Strong pectorals attached to even stronger arms with rippling biceps.

Yeah, I was a snack, but I’d also been running around naked since… well.

Birth.

So, I wasn’t sure why she was now eyeing me with something akin to hunger as she shamelessly let her gaze rake up and down my body.

“So…” I said and twitched one of those pecs just to see her pupils dilate in the low burning braziers lining the walls of the smallish chamber. “What’s special about Drogu’s mark?”

“Hm?” she hummed and stepped a little closer to me. “What mark?”

“Do you like what you see?” I rumbled in amusement and decided to forgo my previous line of questionion.

“You are quite a bit…” Her eyes wanted to dip down below my waist, I could tell, and that slight flicker had a particular organ thickening despite my efforts to keep everything…

Tame.

“A bit?” I encouraged.

“Bigger than a typical male… in some areas,” Tryss stammered as more of that gorgeous heat suffused her lavender cheeks.

“In the areas that count, hopefully,” I teased and gently tugged the robe she still had in her hands. “Are you going to give me this, or would you prefer I strut around like this for all to see? I don’t mind either way.”

Suddenly, Tryss’ eyes flashed up to mine with a fury I had yet to truly see from the novice priestess.

“You are mine,” she growled, and then she all but attacked me with an angry passion.

The robe hit the stone floor.