The Drow Queen of Glaley [Very NSFW]

[NPCs]

A soft, dry laugh from the doorway hammers home the rebuttal, the younger of the two drow flushing. "A murderer then," she spits. "It is a completely different thing than being willing to kill for one's Familia." Head locked in place, Coquette is able to spot the minute rising of the Matriarch's eyebrow, just barely visibly through the eyehole of the mask, at Paerle's second comment.

[Coquette Blacquin]

"You must think very highly of me indeed, if you think I can harm so much as a hair on our Grandmother's head, she who was surviving assassins before my mother was even weaned."

[NPCs]

"How flattering a sentiment," Feythal murmurs wryly, not sounding all that flattered really. Perhaps amused, but not flattered.

"Of course you are no threat! That does not mean I would ever allow danger to pass me could I help it!" Paerle declares dramatically. 

[Coquette Blacquin]

"If I am no threat, where is the danger?" asks Coquette sweetly. "Help a simple, unworthy whore like myself understand, Sister."

[NPCs]

She gets a hiss in response. "You are no sister of mine, granddaughter or not," she seethes, shaking with fury.

"Enough. I care not what has unwommaned you so, but I am no longer entertained by this little squabble. Paerle, you are dismissed. Coquette, heel." Without another word, she turns to walk back inside her chambers, the force magic holding them both in place vanishing.

[Coquette Blacquin]

Coquette gives a sickly-sweet smirk to Pearie as she trots after the Matriarch, clearly considering herself the winner of that little showdown. 

[NPCs]

She's just in time to see the Matriarch vanishing through another door, barely giving Coquette even a few seconds to glance around at the hostilely luxurious tea room. Or something similar to a tea room anyway, though she's never seen one done in this particular style before. The coloring, patterns and aesthetic being different are expected and natural enough, given she's never seen a place decked out in true drow style before. But the sculpture of a fungal outcropping is particularly bizarre, the flowing swirl of crystal or diamond or something of that sort that's slowly twisting around itself is unsettlingly beautiful, and the chair made from humanoid hand bones is frankly horrifying. 

The next room, divided by a curtain, is far more austere. Still furnished at high cost, but far more simple; a wooden table imported from the surface big enough for four at most with matching chairs, a series of portraits showing various drow females that Coquette is able to guess is Feythal and her descendants but at younger stages, and a thick, lush carpet that banishes even the thought of hard, cold stone floors. Sitting herself at the table, Feythal gestures at the chair opposite her. "Sit, granddaughter. Would you care for wine or do you prefer tea?"

[Coquette Blacquin]

"Wine, if you please." Cindy would prefer tea, but Noire prefers red wine, the darker the better. 

[NPCs]

Nodding minutely, Feythal leans back in her chair. Without cause, Coquette sees a wine glass gently slide in front of her from a nearby serving table. A decanter follows, tipping over to pour a bright crimson wine into the glass. "Tell me of the life you had outside my sight," she is commanded as this occurs.

[Coquette Blacquin]

"Do you wish to know firstly of my life in Glaley or my life in Alyssa?" she asks, quietly but intently. "The former was only slightly longer than the latter, but it was some time ago."

[NPCs]

"I wish to know the shape and weave of your life. Speak of what threads you must for that."

[Coquette Blacquin]

Coquette takes a sip of her wine, as Cedric goes calling for Cindy to answer for their childhood, their early life. When they speak, they stare into the middle distance, as if seeing something long ago. 

"I was born in Glaley, to a mother whom I was told was pure elven, and a father who had considerable power in the way of humans. I was their firstborn, but I was not a son, and in the human cultures, it is the sons who inherit. So I was prepared my entire life to wed well, to secure more power for my family through my womb and the apparatus attached to it."

She bites her lip slightly, hating how that came out, but forges onward. She speaks of her fencing training, her training with the chief of the guard, her deportment and etiquette training. "But it was not enough, for my father. I was caught in a compromising position with one of my lady's maids, and in the way of humans, that was unacceptable -- not only that I was with a lady, but that I had bound her for my own pleasure. And so I was given in marriage to the most humiliating candidate my father could find: a drowess, outcast from her family and alone in the world. To someone raised in the human fashion, it was a terrifying prospect. I expected to be tortured to death and abandoned, but instead, I was drugged, bundled into a gown, and shipped to Alessa to be wed."

[NPCs]

"And the rest?" Feythal asks, voice narrowing to a lethal edge. "The threads you're attempting to hide in the shadows of your hands?" Their wine glasses are silently refilled, though the Matriarch doesn't take her eyes away from her guest's face. 

[Coquette Blacquin]

"I fought the institution of slavery. I thought I could destroy slavery in Glaley. I was wrong. I freed many, but after I was sent away I expect it rebounded heartily."

[NPCs]

Feythal nods after a moment. "I see. And why was that? Such a crusade is not the sort of thing that simply occurs to a young noblewoman."