• Mature • Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall

[Zana]

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37th Ymiden, 717

following this

Being back in work at the Lap of Luxury, the brothel where she had been employed since the first of the season, was strange. Zana had been viciously attacked on the 27th of the season and the bruises were not yet faded; she'd only come back to work yestertrial and Theo, her handler, was clear and unmoving. She was not working until he said she was. He was concerned that, should she go back to work too quickly, she would end up doing more harm than good.

So, she took slow steps and she knew it was the right thing to do, even as she found it frustrating.

The trial before, she had stayed in the reception area, but she was bored. Theo was there and he did his best but the other girls had seen what she did; she had killed one of the men who had attacked her. It wasn't just that, Zana knew. It was the fact that she had stumbled out of a room, covered in her own blood and made the man scream just by looking at him in a mirror. Then, when he had screamed and screamed, she had finally finished him.

Peter, the owner, could barely look at her.

That suited Zana fine, she was furious at Peter for letting it happen; she'd had a bad feeling about the two men who had attacked her after all. She'd told Peter too, but his greed had got in the way. So it was that Zana was still bruised and had killed another man. More, though, she was worried about Billie; the other girl Theo handled had been far less damaged physically and far more in every other way. Billie, or freckles as Zana called her, still woke up screaming most nights.

Of course, these trials, Zana was there in the bed with her to calm her down.

However, it didn't change the simple fact that Billie was damaged and Zana was worried. And bored. Oh so very bored. So, she'd come to this room. It was one of the bedrooms, currently not in use and Zana looked around and smiled. One whole wall was mirrors and that was exactly what she needed for what she had in mind.

Walking forward, Zana looked at herself. The bruises showed more than she would like, still, even after ten trials. But she wasn't thinking about them. She looked at herself, watched the way she walked and she smiled. Moving over to the bed, Zana kicked off her shoes and stood. Her hand trailed over the frame at the foot of the bed and Zana stood, holding on to the bar. She was between the bed and the mirror and she wrapped her right hand around the horizontal bar on the frame of the bed and lifted herself up on to her toes.

From the first time she had been given a lesson in dance, Zana had been able to stand on point, as her teacher called it. So, she did. For the count of four, then relax. Then the count of five, relax. So she continued until she was on point for a full ten count. It had been some time and it hurt at first, but it always did she knew so Zana just went with it. There was something instinctual for her about that position, her back arched in the balance and her feet were pointed, not bent.

That began her warm up, which would be slow and light, all things considered. However, she focused on warming up the muscles in her legs, stretching and bending. Keeping her feet flat on the floor, Zana leaned down and touched her toes. It took a few goes in order to do the movement properly and she was careful not to keep her legs so straight that she damaged herself as she moved out of the stretch. But as her fingers brushed the ground, she smiled.

Stretching, making herself more flexible and ensuring that her dance was what it should be, the best it could be, was important to the mortalborn. She watched herself in the mirror as she stood and stretched. The arching of her back was something that she had to work on and she watched that with care, noting it as she positioned her shoulders better and lifted her left arm.

Love, love, love is a dangerous drug.
You have to receive it and you still can't get enough of the stuff

[Theo Nji'Ryn]

It had been ten trials since both of his girls had been attacked, both at once, and Theo had grown restless. Much of it was his own doing. Even if both Billie and Zana had insisted they were ready to return to work as usual, he would have maintained they weren't. As their handler, it was his job to watch, reason, sense, and know the difference. He didn't regret the decision. But where he was concerned, for him it was couldn't help but result in a similar fate, of sorts. If a self imposed one.

He'd spent more breaks in the office, bent over ledgers and lists than all the time combined since he'd come to the Lap of Luxury. When not working in the office, he'd prowled the hallway upstairs between Zana and Billie's rooms, checking on them even if all it was, was a quiet knock on the door and the hopes of hearing an answer. And when not in the office or checking on them? He'd done a few shifts behind the bar.

This was just another trial when he had nothing to do in the office, his girls weren't on the floor and Peter himself was manning the bar. So Theo headed up the stairs to check on Billie and Zana. When he knocked on Zana's door there was no answer and he assumed that she was either sleeping, or she was off in Billie's room so he turned and headed that way. Ordinarily he wouldn't have thought twice about an unoccupied room with the door open and would have passed by without looking inside. It was movement in the mirror however which caught his eye and he paused there, looking on.

Zana. She was using the bed frame as some sort of support. Up on her toes, bent down and up again. Gracefully, and not without a great deal of appeal if he was honest. Though Theo didn't immediately recognize it as some sort of dance, or a prelude to one. He was raised in the Dust Quarter where survival was the word of the trial. First, middle and last. Exposure to or an appreciation for the finer arts hadn't quite figured into that equation, and his experience was lacking in that regard.

Still, appealing, and Theo smiled as he quietly moved into the door frame and leaned his shoulder against it. He watched her reflection in the mirror. He didn't want to disturb or startle her. But neither was he attempting to conceal himself. If she didn't look his way and see him directly, chances were she'd catch a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror while he watched hers.

[Zana]

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Once she was sure that she had stretched sufficiently, Zana was happy to begin her practice. Again, up on point on both feet, then she lifted her left leg off the floor. Her hand on the bar was loosely held there and Zana ensured that her arm was almost fully extended, just slightly bent at the elbow. As her left leg lifted, for a brief trill she held it, the toes of her left foot touching her right knee before extending the leg out in front of her. Held parallel to the ground she kept the knee bent, although her toes were pointing. Her left arm was lifted, curved but stretched to the maximum.

She held that position for a five count, feeling the burn of that in her calves and thighs then, with slow and fluid movements, she moved her left leg so that it was behind her, knee bending so that the sole of her foot was level with her head. Arm still raised, she held there for the same count. What pleased her was that her legs had not started to shake yet, she was building up endurance and that was good. However, doing all that meant that she was facing away from the door and Theo, but as she turned to look in the mirror, checking her posture and ensuring that the curve of her arm was a fluid continuation of the curve in her back, Zana caught sight of Theo in the mirror and smiled. She lowered her leg and turned to him. "Ballet," she said, as though it were obvious, "forward leg is an attitude devant. Leg backwards is an arabesque."

Gesturing to the mirrors, she gave a grin. "Daughter of Vanity. Room full of mirrors and a bar at the right height. I couldn't resist it." Stepping into his arms she kissed him deeply, pulling herself against him and then let out a chuckle. "Either you got taller or I took my heels off." It was most certainly the latter, her shoes were discarded on the floor. She lifted herself up so that she was once again standing on the tips of her toes. This close, it was obvious that she was standing on the tips, not the back of her toes. "That's better," she whispered and grinned wickedly at him.

"Were you looking for me?" Zana asked, moving over to pick up said shoes and sitting on the bed to put them back on. "I'm sorry, I should have left a note telling you where I was. Is everything alright?" The glance she gave towards the door had a trace of nerves to it. Out there, things weren't safe and she couldn't deny that there was that feeling in her still. However, it was lessening each trial and as she thought that, she realised something else, also to do with being safe. "Room full of mirrors and Delroth's daughter? I think you're the only person in this place who'd be prepared to be in this room with me."

Zana was a supremely confident woman and she really didn't care that the people here were unnerved by her. Victim was not in her psyche, it just wasn't her style at all. Still, she understood that it was difficult. "People are afraid of me. It's ironic, really. I'm still afraid most of the time," she admitted. There were very few people she would admit that to, but he was her handler and that only worked when they were honest with each other. "He was the first man you've killed?"

When he'd answered, however he did, Zana looked at Theo who had sat next to her and her hand moved to take his. "It wasn't mine. A similar circumstance but he was mid act," she shrugged slightly well aware that her words were cold. Yet, they were true. "It made it easier, really. He was distracted." Zana sighed and leaned against Theo, resting her head against him. "I guess we need to talk about my powers, don't we? I didn't know I could make it that sharp, the angle of the reflection." Her smile, which he could feel rather than see, was bitter. "Good job I didn't do that with Jaq, the first time I used it. He passed out as it was." Her voice lifted with amusement then, as her head lifted to look at him and her grin was wicked. "What a way to go."

However, that led up to a simple question for her. "How do you envision us using what I can do, Theo?"

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work

[Theo Nji'Ryn]

Attitude devant and arabesque. Such fancy phrases. Theo grinned dryly from his spot in the doorway, where he leaned with his shoulder propping up the frame and his arms crossed over his chest. "Now those are words you don't hear every trial, over in the dust quarter," he said, pushed himself off the door frame and strolled in. "Ballet either, but I know what it is. It's nice. Very graceful." It must take a lot of practice and discipline, he thought, to do it well. "You're shrinking. I'm sure of it," he claimed, growled out at the end in a distracted groan as she lifted her arms round his neck and he pulled her against him.

"It's slow downstairs and I was just checking," he said when she asked if he'd been looking for her. This was progress though, Theo thought. She was out of her room and in another with the door wide open, albeit in a room full of mirrors. It would be awfully hard to sneak up on her that way. "I like to live dangerously," he said, teasing her when she referred to all the others that went out of their way to avoid her these trials. It was true in a sense. Theo did often favor risk. Therein lay, sometimes, the greatest rewards. But he also knew why Zana had done what she'd done. He'd been in the room where she'd been attacked and had seen for himself.

Not that it wasn't shocking, or worrying. But he saw something the others didn't. "What they saw, was a wounded girl who struck out blindly, pushed by pain, fear and emotion," Theo told her. "The most dangerous creature is a cornered one, or one lashing out because it's in pain or protecting something that it values more than it's own life. That frightens people." And what about him?

He sat down on the bed beside her and shrugged. "The bastard deserved every bit of what he got. But what I saw was raw power and ability at work. Chaotic, uncontrolled. Something that can be as much a danger to you as to others. Me?" Theo asked and grinned, shrugged. "I'm the lucky, or unlucky bastard who drew the card that says I'm your handler. But I think that that raw ability and power can be a thing of wonder with a little polish and finesse. If I didn't think so, I wouldn't be sitting beside you in a roomful of mirrors."

As for the man he killed, he nodded. "Yes. And just like the other one, he had it coming." But that wasn't why he was here. "I think that what you can do, well, I don't at all think it's usefulness is limited to the bedroom or dealing out justice to those who've harmed you," Theo considered. "You already know you can kill, and beguile, but perhaps it might be useful for extracting information from those not ordinarily inclined to share," he suggested. It was just one of many uses, he guessed. The possibilities were boundless. "Polish, control, finesse, subtlety, that's what we need to work on," he suggested.

[Zana]

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When he growled deeply in his throat and groaned out the last words, Zana pulled herself against him, holding on to him and just, for a moment, allowing herself to react, to feel his hands on her. "I suppose the jury's out still on whether you are lucky or unlucky?" Her hand moved, touching the small silver pendant shaped like a bird she wore almost all the time. Zana smiled and her movements against him changed, she placed her hands in his, leaning her body against his; she was seeking comfort. "What they saw was right. To an extent. I used my ability because I wanted to hurt him and that hurt him more than simply stabbing him." Her smile seemed a little sad, considering she was talking about murdering someone, but there it was.

When he said what he saw, and how that meant that he was prepared to sit here with her, Zana glanced at him. There was a flash of something in that glance, but she swallowed it quickly. However, her voice betrayed her emotion when she spoke. "I told you I wouldn't use it on you. I won't. Not unless you know it's coming and have agreed." He knew that though, or he believed that it was worth the risk.

Collecting information? Zana raised an eyebrow and considered. "The breath ability, that one imparts emotions. But Jaq was a pleasure seeker." She shrugged slightly. "I used it with him because he liked it. Only when he asked," she added quickly. With a slight twist of irony in her expression, she added the truth. "I don't like using it. I'm a pleasure seeker too, I suppose. It's why I love my job. When I use it, I don't feel anything, it's like I'm dead." Shrugging slightly and with a frown which told him just how confused she was by what she said next, Zana explained. "That just made it more pleasurable for Jaq. He said it was like I put all of the enjoyment into him and it felt awesome."

Shrugging, she considered. "As someone who is paid to have sex with men for a living, I don't suppose I can really criticise him wanting that. Finesse? I can try, but I need to practice. At the moment I can exhale onto your arm and make you desire me more than you have ever desired anyone, lust after me or hate me. Any emotion for you at the expense of my own. How do we fine tune that?" After all, she pointed out, the emotion in question, no matter what it was, was amplified and then some. "I've been thinking about it, and I can't think of the equivalent of cold for that. Any overwhelming emotion is just that. Overwhelming."

Her hands in his tightened, almost possessively. "In ballet finesse and control are key. I can practice those alone." But this? She really didn't know how to proceed."I tried to use it without a person. The reflection one," she explained, "I got the headache, although less, and nothing more. The breath, though. I'll need to learn how to pretend, if I'm going to use it to get information." The side effects of it were such that, once she'd done it, she really didn't care one way or another.

"I'm concerned that, if we work together on it, it's going to batter you. Both of them. All three." Zana knew the power she had, there was no doubt. "To the point that you won't be able to deal with it. With me. It's more of a risk for you, Theo." Which meant that, fundamentally, it was his call. Very much, it was him in the driving seat. The only other options as she saw them, she said, was that she practiced on him and used emotions which could be satisfied immediately, or she practiced on others, probably with the same, and he observed.. She was, it had to be said, entirely calm and perfectly happy with either of those as options, she just wanted to learn the finesse she needed to. To her mind, she explained, when he was teaching her or at least helping her with how to deal with the side effects, it would probably have to be after she'd used it on someone else. Otherwise, he'd be too wound up in the emotion he was feeling himself.

Put your head on my pillow, we're finally alone,
Put your hands in my hair now, I don't care now, you'll never get home.

[Theo Nji'Ryn]

"You told me before, and I believe you," Theo said when he sat down on the bed, and she repeated her earlier vow not to use her abilities on him without him knowing. "If I didn't, we might not be having this conversation now." It might have sounded like a statement woven purely out of selfishness and self-preservation. It wasn't though. Without trust, him in her and her in him, this simply wouldn't work. "The others don't though," he added with a frown, and then shrugged. "What they witnessed, they perceived to be something impulsive and out of control."

The same was true for him, in a sense. But the difference was that Theo believed she could learn to control it, and he trusted Zana to respect the boundaries that they'd put together. It was a shock for the others, they couldn't possibly feels as assured as he did. "So the breath imparts emotion," he considered with a curious frown. "Of your choosing? Or, does it reflect your own emotion or maybe enhance the target's? One they're already experiencing, I mean." That, in a sense, was what he meant when he insisted that she needed to learn to control her gift. To give it finesse and versatility.

"If you could learn to do that, then maybe the backlash, the impact on you wouldn't be so severe." At least where the ability using mirrors was concerned, it had seemed to be all or nothing. The second time with him had been less severe, but he still wondered if she could better isolate the effect. When she worried again about the effects of practicing on him, he smiled.

"I told you before, I grew up rough. I'd rather not lose my head, it would be harder to identify or offer any suggestions that way. Physical sensations however? Long as I keep my head about me. And a small amount of losing his head might work, except that the moment there was still that problem of all or nothing. You know, there are plenty of men in the dust quarter who'd subject themselves to just about anything for a handful of coin. We might find someone?" he suggested.

[Zana]

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She glanced at him as he said that he knew, that she'd told him and he believed her. "I know. I'm just pouting because I'm bored of people looking at me like I'm about to find and stab their granny." She gave a grin, then and chuckled. In fairness, if the money was right, she would do exactly that. Her hand in his held firm and she rested her head against his shoulder as he asked about her ability.

"The breath imparts emotions," she confirmed. "Of my choosing. Not my emotions, any. They have to be emotions I understand, though." Zana smiled against him as she explained it. Questions, so many questions. "In terms of whether it enhances what they're already feeling, I'm not sure." She lifted her head and looked at him with as unapologetic a look on her face. "Jaq liked it, it made him feel powerful to have me enhance his desire and lose my own. I've used it to give emotions I'm not feeling, so I know that. If I use it more than once, though, in a break, it knocks me. Like the first time it makes me emotionally exhausted. The second time, physically."

So, she knew that she could impart emotions and it had to be via breath. She hadn't tried to control the intensity of those emotions, but she also knew that she could do it once per trial only.

His idea about men in the Dust Quarter, though, that made sense. Zana nodded, thinking it through. "So, we pay them, I practice, then we repeat the next trial. Or, I go twice and you carry me home." She poked at his upper arms with a smile. "It'll build your muscles. Maybe you could hire a wheelbarrow." Nodding her head, she thought back to the times she'd used it before. Certainly, this one she'd used more than the others.

"I've always wondered if I could maybe... I know what I have to do to make it the strongest I can. I've done that, lots of times." It was hard to explain, she said, but then she lit upon the best example.

"I sing. I've had training, do it properly. In the lessons I've had, I was taught to breathe from my stomach, not my chest. That's what I have to do. Let out a deep breath, as long as I can for maximum. It makes sense that a shallow and short out breath would have the effect we're looking for. We could try it, if you want? But not if you don't." She was quick to add that last bit, just in case. In truth, she was thinking about saving themselves money. If they were going to do what they wanted to do.

"The good thing, I suppose, about the third power is that we don't want to make people obsess about me a little. That's an on or off sort of thing." Although, as she said that, she thought that maybe that one too, could be better controlled in order to make for regular, repeat customers. "Although, maybe not."

Whichever he wanted to do, whether he wanted to try the short, shallow breath or visit the Dust Quarter, that was up to him. If he did want to try it? The emotion in question was his choice, too.

She gives me hot then cold fever,
She leaves me in a cold, cold sweat.

[Theo Nji'Ryn]

So, Zana could choose what emotions; fears, terror, passions, even joy she subjected someone to, with just her breath released against their flesh. That was good. It also appeared that she could control how much to an extent. Also good. "It doesn't matter," Theo supposed, when she said she didn't believe she could identify and then enhance what her subject was feeling. So far as he was concerned, those two would align themselves or they wouldn't. "If you can choose the emotion, then what they were feeling already makes no difference." Jaq, as an aside, sounded like a real ass, though Theo didn't say it.

"So," he considered with a curious frown when she explained what the process did to her. "For practical purposes, you're like a well that empties temporarily as you fill another with a feeling of choice. A well that refills itself gradually, after the fact." It was hard on her then, no matter which ability she used. "The intensity," Theo asked as they sat together, "It's like the difference between blowing on them, as if you're blowing out a lamp or candle, or, breathing gently on exposed skin?" He believed he understood, or at least enough to get them by.

He grinned though when she suggested that if she overextended herself while they were out, he could simply carry her home. "If you're interested in seeing just how quickly the Knights can cut me down or haul me off to the stocks, then it's a fine idea," he quipped dryly, conjuring up the image of a questionable looking young man bodily hauling an unconscious young woman out of the Dust Quarter and into the streets. In a wheelbarrow? Measurably worse, Theo imagined.

Either once, in the Dust Quarter. Or if more, it would be better if the subjects were brought to the Lap. For pay either in nels, or even services in exchange, he suggested. "You know, Peter is fixated on this idea that I can control you if only I tried harder. We might even convince him to pay the men off himself." As for himself? "Can you control the extent of the obsession, or at least the duration of it?" he asked, regarding the other talent she'd mentioned. Did it wear off, he meant, after some time. Or could she control how much, essence for lack of a better word, she imparted. In either case, Theo saw no other way, really, if he was to offer her feedback in response and help her improve. It was the sort of thing one needed to experience for themselves, in order to truly understand.

Better if it was a just a little if he was being honest, when it came to him. "So, if you can control how much breath, and the extent of the emotion imparted, then I'm willing," he said and told her. "Just a little at first, so that I won't be overwhelmed by it and can offer you feedback." Her choice as to what emotion she chose, he added. Otherwise his own expectations risked influencing what he ultimately made of it.

[Zana]

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His description of what might happen, were he to carry her home caused a laugh. "I hadn't considered that." Zana admitted and chuckled, her eyes dancing with amusement. "The wheelbarrow is a definite no, then." But yes, she said, that was how the control of the passing on of emotion via breath worked, or so she believed.

When he said, though, that Peter was fixated on the idea that he could control her, Zana smile changed to something far more sultry. "And what do you think, Theo?" Zana asked, lifting her hand to his chin and tilting his head so that he was looking at her. "Do you think you" she leaned forward and kissed him softly, "can control me" another, feather light and gentle kiss as she touched her nose to his, her eyes showing her desire for him, "if only you tried harder?" Her hand moved to his chest and her kiss changed from gentle and teasing to much more passionate, pulling herself close to him.

"Peter is an idiot," she whispered, dropping her hand and pulling back with a regretful smile. Not here, she knew, "who fails to recognise the fundamental nature of the relationship between a handler and his girl, when done right. But so long as we both know how things are, that's all that matters to me." Peter ignited the kind of fury in her which had not abated at all, simply grew worse whenever Billie woke screaming in the night. It all made Zana feel vulnerable in a way that she did not appreciate and she looked at Theo with a very genuine expression. She'd told him more than once how grateful she was for giving them somewhere to live, so she didn't repeat that. "I like living with you. I'll show you when we get home, if you like."

But right now, they were working and she listened to what he said about the "Trinket of Desire" ability. Zana nodded, "Yes, for that one I just need something of yours that you have an attachment to. I don't know if I can control how obsessed you get, but I can switch it off." However, before they considered that ability, they wanted to explore the "Breath of Life" and find out if she could make it impart a more subtle emotion.

When he said he was willing to try it, Zana smiled at him and leaned forward to kiss him again. "Thank you, Theo," were her only words, then she took his hand and lifted it, pulling back his shirt sleeve so that she could exhale on his arm. That she did, just a gentle, shallow out breath that set the hairs on his arm to stand upright as she imparted just a gentle, small amount of a very particular emotion. Joy. Happiness, delight, call it what he would. Not overwhelming, not at all, but very significantly and obviously there.

Lifting her head, Zana looked at him and her expression was unlike it had ever been before. She looked cold. When she spoke of it, she described it as feeling emotionally dead, and that was exactly how she appeared. Sitting up, she folded her hands in her lap and asked, in a very different voice than her usual. "Did it work?"

I could make you laugh, I could make you smile.
I'll make you beg, baby, it's more my style

[Theo Nji'Ryn]

Theo smiled somewhat crookedly when Zana placed a few fingers under his chin, and their eyes met, locked one set up on the other. His own, a brilliant blue ordinarily, seemed to swim and swirl with similar shades of indigo and purple. "I can't quite say," he considered, while his hands drifted to the small of her waist and wandered upwards. Of course they both knew the nature of the relationship, and any control he appeared to have over her was for appearance sake. So far it had been enough to convince Peter. But then she'd yet to go back to work. Theo grinned again and declared, "but I'm not at all inclined to stop trying."

The closeness itself and the temptation that came with it was in itself a dangerous game. He'd resolved already, not until she was healed, not until she was ready. It was a strange sense of relief then when she drew back. Theo considered himself to be a fairly disciplined individual. But some temptations were much harder to resist than others. As for Peter's expectations and the man's sense of how things ought to be, Theo shrugged. "I get the sense that he doesn't necessarily approve of my methods, and is convinced that I'm doing it wrong." However, with Zana's assistance Theo had managed to convince Peter that no matter his way of doing things, it was working. All the more a fool, then.

Something he had an attachment to? Theo had never considered himself to be that type. Not the sort of man who kept and collected sentimental things. At first he'd have been hard pressed to think of a thing, and appeared damned if he could think of a thing she could use. Then again, "My mother once gave me a belt, a leather one that she said had belonged to my father. But I don't have any attachment to that. I never met him, and he's never met me." Still, "There's one thing maybe. My mother's wedding ring that she put in my hand before she died and said I should keep it. I have," he admitted, "so I guess you could say there's a sort of attachment there."

When she took his hand in hers and her breath brushed his exposed arm, it wasn't just the movement of air that caused the small hairs there to raise. But Theo also knew that this probably didn't require any focus or effort from him, in order to work. And then in a heartbeat, in spite of himself Theo smiled and his eyes flashed gold and for him, a rarer mix of green. It wasn't something he'd anticipated, he couldn't have claimed that in that brief moment, there was anything artificial or contrived about it. Happiness, joy. He laughed, and while it stopped short when she looked at him, it was discipline that caused it and not the absence of what was a fairly unfamiliar emotion. At least it wasn't one he'd experienced regularly since he'd been very young and hadn't recognized yet just how unfair and harsh life the Dust Quarter could be.

The feeling abated, seeped away and he frowned curiously, looking back at Zana as he recognized what the cost was for her. Theo took her hand, perhaps with a misguided sense that he could transfer some of his own sense of well being to her, in order to fill the void. "It worked," he said quietly.