Roanapur Connection

Peace Sells But Who's Buying Act 2

"I look forward to our speaking more once the talks officially begin," Hui Ying said. She rose from her curtsy, a movement she'd practiced to perfection in anticipation of a day like today when she'd have cause to use it. It took all her willpower not to squint at the intense sunlight boring into her eyes from between two towering men's shoulders.

"Likewise," said the shorter of the two men, Charles. Both men shifted on their feet, the various silver buttons and polished buckles of their attire flashing mercilessly in Hui Ying's eyes.

Hui Ying held out until both men turned away. Once Hui Ying no longer sensed their attention on her, she shuffled away, her vision so blurred and aching from the sun it mattered little whether her eyes were open or closed.

Luckily the eastern half of the hall was sparsely populated, making it a simple matter for her to walk without colliding with anyone. With her vision gradually returning, Hui Ying kept her gaze trained ahead. She did it to avoid the dozens of sets of judging eyes which stared at her with their piercing gazes and drilled into her mind their unhidden thoughts: 'What point is there in someone like her attending these talks?'

One quiet corner, enveloped in the combined shade of several support pillars which spiraled into a trunklike knot of bronze steel, particularly attracted Hui Ying.

She stepped into the shady metal alcove and, out of sight of anyone else in the room, rested her shoulder against one of the cool pillars.

Hui Ying lifted her hands. Her sleeves slipped, revealing her immaculately manicured fingers and pale skin which hadn't known a day's physical labor. Her face convulsed and morphed into a twisted and revolted expression, one she couldn't possibly show publicly, much less express to the object of her revulsion.

Hui Ying layered her shaking hands over each other and proceeded to rub her knuckles raw where that accursed Charles zi Britannia's lips dared to touch her skin.

'Vile, disgusting, horrid, dirty...!'

Hui Ying's paper-thin skin quickly gave way beneath her fingernails, her knuckles becoming a patchwork of her own bloody claw marks. But no matter how harshly she scraped, she couldn't seem to erase from her flesh the memory of the wetness of Charles' spittle, the roughness of his chapped lips, and the hoary scraping of his bearded chin.

Hui Ying lost track of how long she stood in the darkness as she desperately tried to claw the Britannian scum from her hand. But eventually she noticed, along with the sound of her scraping fingernails, a peculiar sound whose origins seemed to be close by. It was an unmistakable sound, made all the more noteworthy for how unprepared Hui Ying was to hear the slow, papery swo-wo-wo-wo-osh of...

'Cards shuffling?'

Hui Ying lifted her eyes from her bloodied fingers. She focused her gaze in the direction of the sound. Although Hui Ying couldn't see much in the shadowy, cherry red twilight, the flashing of glossy white paper drew her eyes like a cat's to a shiny bell.

"My... what an unexpected turn of events," said a voice too deep and throaty to call feminine, yet also too nasally and airy to call masculine. "I never considered anyone else would find fit to wander into the shadows here, much less you, Princess."

A ripple in the darkness helped Hui Ying make out not ten feet away from her a tall, bulky form. The figure blended seamlessly with their surroundings, the glossy black cloak draping from their padded shoulders glistening ruddy and gold from the light reflecting off the bronze pillars. A boardlike sword hung from their side. It was a sword of a type similar to the sort Hui Ying's brother once introduced her to in their youth, during an era when he was expected to master a new martial weapon every week. While Hui Ying mostly ignored her brother's ravings about this and that blade, she remembered this sword was called a rapier.