STARLIGHT AND LACE, ch.5 - Sina the Explorer

Author's Notes: A part of the struggle of this story was getting new characters into it to flesh out the central aspect, Sina. With most other characters either being infrequent or only interacting with Sina in a specific way, it become clear that the roster needed to increase... this chapter introduces one of my favorite parts of this series. ^_^ Enjoy.

Have fun in Southworld, and to like/favorite it on Hentai-Foundry, it can be found here!

[story]

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It took some doing for Sina to squirm out of her cozy little dormitory, slithering out from under Issalana’s seemingly constant surveillance. The fact that the woman had absolutely no respect for anything resembling privacy made doing anything without her notice very challenging, barring a direct instruction to look away or leave the newly-minted basileia alone.

Nonetheless, with a bit of ingenuity and a carefully laid-out plan involving some dental floss and a squirrel, Sina managed to create a distraction that kept her bizarre maid occupied long enough for the Vay monarch to slip through the door of her tiny quarters, heading out into the hall without. Now in Castle Drathwyn and on her own initiative, Sina was immediately presented with a world of options -- where, exactly, would she go with her newfound, if temporary, freedom?

She didn’t feel like spending any more time in Castle Drathwyn, that much was for sure. It had been nearly a week since her arrival on the galleonea, but it already felt like it had been months. The ubiquitous nature of her “maid,” in tandem with the cold shoulder offered to her by her lawful husband, had left Sina feeling incredibly restless and dissatisfied. The food she was given was good, and while her room was comfortable enough, the over which she was technically partial ruler had started to feel like a prison. Mostly she was imprisoned by her own awkwardness and anxiety... but those things formed bars just as thick as anything else.

Lacing up her soft-soled boots on the way out, Sina ducked from hallway to hallway, avoiding maids, butlers, cooks, and other servants who would undoubtedly wonder what she was doing wandering around the castle on her own. She doubt they’d try to stop her, but didn’t feel like getting into the conversation nonetheless. Explaining herself had never exactly been a strong suit.

She cautiously slithered into the front hall, nodding briefly to one of the guards as she made her way past him. Please don’t stop me, please don’t stop me, please don’t stop me--

“Is there something I can help you with, your grace?” the guard rumbled in his low, booming voice, looking down through the visor of his helmet at the tiny Vay girl.

“N-no--” Sina paused, clearing her throat and attempting to deepen her own soft voice. “No. I’m just going out for some air.”

The man nodded, then turned to one of the other guards. “Form an honor guard for the basileia. It’s imperative that she stay safe, and--” Glancing back to where Sina had been, the man found her quite gone; already vanished through the gate the instant he’d turned away. There was something to be said for being tiny.

And then, just like that and far easier than she’d expected, she was free. Sure, there was a chance that someone might recognize her -- after all, a Vay that had to stand on tip-toes to hit the five foot mark tended to stick out in a crowd of what was primarily humans. The gateway leading from Castle Drathwyn led out into a massive city-courtyard, the first time Sina had actually seen it up close. She had read a bit about it, of course, both before and after actually arriving in Crannith: the castle had been constructed in the center of what was essentially a glorified mining town/trading post hybrid, an oligarchy of sorts forming when the wealthiest and most powerful settled in that epicenter. Eventually it had become Castle Drathwyn, leaving the rest of the city proper clustered claustrophobically close by.

And, to Sina’s wonder and mild surprise, that city proper was... amazing. Perhaps it was without the moonlit, natural charm of Sina’s own home, but there was something more to it, a manufactured majesty, a sort of dynamic clutter that created a sense of being lost in an unusual world. Lights seemed to be strung across every cramped structure, every business lit up by a sign that gaudily advertised its wares. Lofty, winding streets seemed to interconnect and overlap everywhere, bridging the narrow gaps between buildings and even layered on top of them -- a seemingly infinite network of paths and roads and bridges that Sina couldn’t even begin to imagine committing to memory.

Yet the citizens of this place appeared to have done exactly that, zipping this way and that on narrow, wheeled contraptions, some running on fuel and others manually propelled, but none holding more than a single passenger, as there simply wasn’t enough room for that on the thin, winding network of streets that connected the many layers of the city,

Still, while the higher stratum of the city became increasingly urban and industrious the loftier they soared, the ground level had a surprising amount of space to move around, likened in Sina’s mind more closely to a courtyard or bazaar than a city. While the bud-laced trees were short enough to cramp many of the humans walking to and fro, they were tall enough for Sina to move comfortably beneath them, finally giving her eyes a moment to rest from the blazing ball of light in the sky every human apparently insisted on living by.

Beneath the low, dim canopy of foliage filtering out the harsh sunlight above, Sina let out a deep, slow breath that she hadn’t realized she was holding, closing her eyes for a moment. Nobody expecting anything from her, nobody watching her, nobody bowing or scraping or keeping her safe or prettying her up. Just Sina and the tiny, pale orange flower petals that had fallen from the short trees and bushes, creating a soft pathway along the roughly-worked cobblestone. There was a strange dissonance of sorts, with the sound of bustling people and mechanical vehicles outside, yet a dimly-lit scene of contained nature that seemed almost outside of it. A much better fit for the Vay girl.

“Ya get lost, li’l fairy thing?” came a somewhat odd voice from in front of her, causing Sina to look up to the short ledge bridging the walkway and the trees themselves. Perched on the edge of it, her hard-booted legs dangling just a few inches above the petal-littered path, was a girl -- human, from what Sina could tell, and likely Kaldric in spite of the reddish tinge to her golden hair.

“No,” Sina shot back, her voice somewhat guarded, folding her arms across her flat chest and looking up at the human girl. Being mostly obscured in shadow may have made examining her difficult for another human, but for the nocturnal Sina it was quite easy to take in every bit of the human’s eclectic ensemble. A slimming corset, short pants, goggles, and multiple straps of wildly varying colors and fabrics made up her strange appearance, her hair a little shorter and more wild than Sina’s. Petite for a human, perhaps, she nonetheless loomed over Sina by a good several inches and likely had twenty or thirty pounds on the basileia. “Why, do I seem lost?”

“Seem lost? Yeesh, everyone seems lost. I’m lost, as far as I can tell,” the girl let out a quiet chuckle, not moving from her spot, her legs swaying back and forth as she looked down at Sina. “That’s why I come here. Easier to ignore the noise and think.”

Sina narrowed her eyes, sizing the human up a little more before slowly approaching, climbing up onto the same ledge that the girl was sitting on and perching down on it herself. “Yeah, it’s nice. I used to love to just wander, before.”

“Before you came here, you mean?” the girl nodded slightly, tilting her torso to face Sina. “How is, um... what is it again? Farwood?”

“Endwood,” Sina corrected. “It’s lovely last I checked. Very different from Crannith.”

“That’s right, Endwood. Always shoulda liked to visit it.” Scooting a little closer, the red-haired human extended her hand to Sina to shake, offering a small smile. “My name’s Leli. Erm, Lelada. But Leli works.”

Sina was immediately met with a moment of uncertainty. Did she give her real name? Would the human girl recognize it as the new co-ruler of this city and the entire island it rested on? She didn’t feel like much of a ruler of anything, at this point, but it remained the same. She’d come out here to relax and pretend that none of this had happened. Then again, if this girl had any knowledge of current politics, she may have taken special notice of a strange Vay in the Drathwyn courtyard.

“Sina T’i,” she finally answered, reaching her small hand out to take and lightly squeeze Leli’s. Coming out with “Endon,” whether or not it was her proper surname, probably wasn’t the best way to stay anonymous.

“A pleasure,” the human girl smiled, shaking back before looking back up to the shroud of flowering trees. “Rare we see a Vay here...” Sina tensed slightly, waiting for that inevitable question as to what, exactly, her business in Crannith was. Before she could properly prepare a lie, the actual question came, and it was far more pleasant. “...Ya’ve tried the Volcano Aurox yet?”

The basileia blinked, those velvety green eyes of hers widening slightly as she mulled it over. Not only had she not tried it, she’d never heard of it. As such, her answer was predictably simple: “Volcano Aurox?”

“Ya came all the way to the Townyard and ya don’t even know what Volcano Aurox is? Why’d ya even come?” Visibly taken aback, Leli hopped off of the little ledge, favoring her right leg as she reached out to take Sina’s hand once more. “Alright, li’l fairy thing, you’re comin’ with me.”

“What are you talking abo-ahhhh!” Sina yelped as she was dragged from the ledge, stumbling to her feet as she was dragged from the little nook back out into the rest of the city proper. Or, as Leli had called it, the “Townyard.” The human’s noticeable limp made it easy for Sina to keep up, and after a moment to adjust to one another’s walking pace, their quest for the Volcano Aurox began.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The Volcano Aurox, it turned out, was a bizarre baked food, containing meat Sina wasn’t familiar with that had been baked in some form of batter that Sina also wasn’t familiar with it. Formed into an oblong shaped, the meat itself was stuffed with a gooey center of cheese, various seasonings, and some sort of peppers that gave the “volcano” its name. Where the “aurox” came from, Sina was fully unsure. What she was sure of was that it was absolutely wonderful.

While it was nearly inedible due to how hot it was, it was nonetheless amazingly tasty, and Sina managed to eat the entire thing despite her small size. Washing it down with a cold, frothy beer with a cheaply flowery taste, Sina and Leli began to explore a little more around the Townyard, with the human girl showing off some of the more obvious landmarks and points of interest, such as the Manta Roost and the Manufactory, and core of industry and technology where Leli herself worked as an engineer.

“Nowadays I just work here, makin’ watches an’ flashcams an’ shit,” Leli rambled. She seemed to enjoy talking about herself, which was convenient for the guarded Sina, who didn’t feel like explaining any more about herself than was absolutely necessary. “After the war and the... leg, an’ everything, I’m alright just takin’ it easy. Like, yeah I’d love to travel around and whatever, but it just ain’t in the stones for me anymore.”

“I was going to ask about that,” Sina murmured, sipping from her drink and clumsily licking the foam from her top lip as she nodded to the human girl’s left leg, which she never put her weight on. “What war are you talking about?”

“Wasn’t supposed to be on the front lines at all,” Leli admitted before clarifying. “Ya didn’t think a small, wealthy island like Crannith wouldn’t have a war every now’n again? I’m surprised it hasn’t been completely conquered yet, to be honest. The Nathenet came with their sky platoons and started sending in squad after squad of paraknights, all at once, no warning.” She paused, then sighed with a little shrug of her shoulders as she turned away from the Manufactory, heading back down one of the thin, winding streets and avoiding people on bikes. “I was just s’posed to be a maintenance engineer, making sure all our anti-siege weapons and vehicles were in tip-top shape. Did a damn fine job, too, ‘til those Endon shitbags saw their soldiers dyin’ left an’ right, had one of LowKal officers put a Railer in my hand and send me out into the fray.”

With each passing word, Sina began to realize how little she really knew about the world she was now such an integral part of. LowKal? Railer? A war with the Nathenet? And, perhaps most importantly, a draft of non-combatants? Looking up at the other girl with a bit of uncertainty, she finally chose one thing and asked, “LowKal?”

“Lower Kaldric, like me.”

So the reddish hair and the accent meant something. Racial segregation. Nice.

“Hey, sorry, I didn’t mean to talk your ear off or nothin’. Kinda jumped at the chance, didn’t I?” Leli sighed quietly, then shrugged. “Just interesting to talk with someone who ain’t from around here, y’know? Even if you are pretty quiet.”

“Just private,” Sina said with a small smile, then glanced up into the sky -- it was starting to get dimmer by the second. Having left early in the afternoon, that meant Sina had been out in the Townyard for quite a lot longer than she’d initially anticipated. It had been pleasant, and she made a note to do so again when she got the opportunity. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Lelada--”

“Jus’ Leli.”

“--Leli. I need to start heading to my...” Castle. “...Apartment, but I’ll come find you one of these days if you want to talk again.”

“That’d be cool,” the human girl said with a small smile. She paused then, her deep blue eyes becoming oddly focused for a moment before she finally reached into one of the heavier pouches lining her belt. Rummaging through for a moment, she withdrew a strangely oblong item of unclear purpose, though it appeared smooth and multi-segmented. “Here, take this,” she said, handing it over to Sina. “It’s a puzzle node I made a couple days ago. Already beat it and reshuffled it, so I’ll let you figure it out.” Her lips spread into a little grin. “Have it done by the time we meet next.”

“I’ll give it a shot,” Sina said, not genuinely planning to, though who could tell -- she spent a lot of time alone, or functionally alone, in her room. It might be worth it to have a toy on hand. “I’ll see you when... well, when next I do.”

“When you finish the puzzle!”

“When I finish the puzzle,” Sina said, smiling back as she started to change paths with Leli, heading down to the ground level of the Townyard and then, finally, making her way back to Castle Drathwyn. Something told her she’d have a lot of explaining to do when she arrived -- to Issalana if nobody else. It’d be worth it. She’d had fun today.