Trinket (Reverse Harem)

Tentacles

Whatever half a tide was, it felt too long. I fidgeted in the luxurious quarters for I had no idea how long (long enough to feel my hair growing, I think) until I decided that screw it, I wasn't Ormiss' pet. I was his consort, and well... I wasn't just going to sit around like some trinket on a shelf.

I stepped out of the quarters. No guards at my door. Already better than expected.

"Which way..." I murmured. My choices were left and right, and the hallways were endless and snaking. My quarters overlooked a walled garden and gave me no view of anything useful on the other side. So I had no idea where I was or where I wanted to go.

I did know I didn't want to bump into Her Majesty the Queen again. That was high on my list of priorities. I also didn't want to go too far just in case Korr took a sudden turn for the worse or Itek tried to peck out someone's eyeballs.

I chose left for the sake of variety and worried a fingernail with my teeth. How badly had I messed up fucking Ormiss? Probably pretty badly. I just hadn't been thinking clearly the night before. If I'd been thinking clearly I just would have humped a sponge and told Ormiss to take care of himself.

"Damn," I whispered. A few hippocamp moved around the corridors and gave me looks ranging from polite looks of inquiry to outright *what are you doing here* hostility. From how they were dressed, they looked like other nobles or courtiers, although I did see what looked like servants and pages bustling about. They did not look at me except a passing glance before hurrying on their way in the *I am too busy and important to bother with you* way that servants had.

Upper house servants. Snobs.

Every corridor mostly looked the same and I promptly got lost. There was also a lack of doors to poke my head in, just snaking corridors that branched and twisted and snaked without ever seeming to go up or down. Where the heck were all the stairs in this place? The palace had multiple levels, so how did I get down? Or up? Did I have to jump out a window?

I felt like jumping out of a window.

"Lady-Consort Theia," a voice said behind me. A female voice.

I half-turned. "Yes?"

A female hippocamp came over to me. Where the hell had she come from? I was in a long curling corridor with only two doors and no windows, and she had just sort of... appeared.

She looked a bit older, maybe the Queen's age or thereabouts, with deep green-blue hair of a rich shade, ornately arranged on top of her head so it curled down around her breasts in cascades like waves. It was adorned with pearls and pins topped in an ornate white substance that looked like clusters of bubbles, giving her hair the impression of crashing waves on the shore. She had deep purple eyes shot through with cracks of black, similar to Ormiss, and was bedecked in necklaces and rings that had chains that looped back to ornate bands on her wrists. She was taller than I was, and the way she stood made me feel even smaller and grubbier than usual.

There wasn't anything mean or nasty in her expression, it was just the usual guarded expression of a noblewoman. If anything, she seemed to smile a bit, a warmth in her dark eyes.

I resisted the urge to fidget and duck my head and shove my hands behind my back and mumble something, expecting a sharp word or cuff behind the skull.

Ormiss' mother, perhaps?

She paced closer to me, her dress swishing about her hips. Like mine, it was in many layers of sea-silk gossamer, hers in muted shades of peach and storm gray.

"Are you looking for something?" she inquired.

"Just looking," I replied. "Ormiss is occupied, so I thought I'd occupy myself."