The Drow Queen of Glaley [Very NSFW]

[Coquette Blacquin]

Dammit. I hate when they cry. Cedric, now all awkward fumbles, moves to kneel beside her. "Hey, hey, it's okay. I know a place you can go. That's why I asked. You seemed... lost."

[Jessica Alton]

Jessi looks up, eyes gleaming with tears and lips quivering. She 'eeps' softly, a new expression forming that's a very bizarre mix; Cedric sees shock, of course, but also fear, awe, shame and... some kind of softer emotion. Amusement perhaps, and... something. A puff of warm air on his neck makes it clear, if the clomping somehow had not, that Bull is right behind him, also kneeling. "Saves people," he grunts, voice tight and weary. "Saved me. Gave..." He takes a careful breath. "Save my life, took me in, gave me a home. Family. Never regretted."

[Coquette Blacquin]

"I'm meant to be staffing my household," he admits. "So you'd be doing me a favor, really. Are you any good at tying those infernal corset laces?"

[Jessica Alton]

Jessi blinks, the strangeness of the question breaking through her shock briefly. "Yeesss? I-- I mean, I've done it before but not-- not professionally?"

[Coquette Blacquin]

"And how are you at ironing?"

[Jessica Alton]

"Umm. I've... watched a servant do it once? Or twice?" She looks almost ashamed at the admission, as if embarrassed at disappointing the Oni. "I, umm, I've never really done servant work. Household work, I mean."

[Coquette Blacquin]

"What about children? We have a nanny but she might be grateful for an assistant?"

[Jessica Alton]

"I helped take care of my s- cousins," Jessica offers, wincing at whatever she'd been about to say almost slipping out. "They-- I'm eight years older, so... I helped." Heartbreak in her eyes, she whispers, "I used to read to them. We'd just started Willow by Brook and Field when... when I left home." That's a very common elven tale, one for children. It's that often used to teach children the basics of the very complicated system elves use to describe the relative location of two subjects to each other.

[Coquette Blacquin]

"Excellent. Amphretite is horrid at doing the voices. Poor Primera will grow up with no love of literature at all. You're hired."

[The Iron Bull]

Bull snorts loudly. "Naw, she's good at three voices; simper, bitchy and bored."

[Coquette Blacquin]

Cedric stands, reaching for Bull's hand. "Come on, I'll show you the way. Do you need to make any stops?"

[Jessica Alton]

Jessi bites her lip, then shakes her head despairingly. "No," she admits. "All my things were-- I don't have anything." She laughs brokenly. "Not even the clothes on my back." 

Bull, without letting go of Cedric's hand, reaches out to pat the startled but not displeased Jessi on the head. "Wanna help me loot ta place first then? Don't think I saw but the one woman and she a dwarf, but some men's clothes can pass for women's. Plus, ya know, we could sell it all."

[Coquette Blacquin]

"I doubt you'll find anything here worth more than a silver or two," he says dismissively. 

But he's wrong. They make a tidy profit of gold from the ritual daggers, bowls, and prepared potion vials ready for catching the blood they were to bleed from Cedric's throat, though the drying rack for his skin is pretty worthless. They take Jessi back to the house and get her settled in the servant's quarters, and the next day she begins learning how best to assist the nursemaid with the baby, allowing for her to take time off from time to time as well. 

Cyndi is especially grateful a week later, when she can't seem to stop throwing up one morning. Jessi helps hold a cloth to her head while Bull calls for the healer. The cause is easily determined, though Cyndi protests. "I was never this sick with Primera!" 

[NPCs]

The healer, a trifle annoyed about having been nearly carried here at eight in the morning, tssks loudly. "Well, the babe isn't Primera, now is she? Like as not, that'll mean she's not the same race as your other babe. Mothers often that that to be the case, though it's no guarente, of course."

[Coquette Blacquin]

"You're certain that's all? I'm not pregnant and ill, perhaps? Maybe I've -- urp! -- maybe I've got the Toukami Fever?"