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10^th of September, 497^th of NDE. Martial City of Skielvort, Saerrilith Heimrad.

“Quite the view. Almost feels terrifying.” Strange words – Valindra thought as she listened to Paulin, her fellow Sicario sent to the small martial city of Skielvort. A city which in size stood closer to a quaint town in the country side, especially with the northern architecture mixing the angularity with the symmetry humans and dwarves prefer.

Wooden roofs contrasting the bright and mostly colorful walls built from limestone, marble and in some cases like the headquarters, rare metals like solvganirium – metal that even in its natural state possesses a snow silver hue and a key component for nairenthian ceremonial armors worn by nobles, politicians and even the royal family. Windows varying from vertical rhombuses, rectangular and even triangular with thick glasses halting the march of cold and altering the rays of the sun to warmer, soothing shades.

“Terrifying in what way?” Valindra asked to entertain Paulin whose eyes stared at the mountains rising over the city in the distance. The two sat at a coffee in the main square of the city’s central district, waiting for their pray to pass by. “It is hard to say. It feels like standing in the shadow of an elder dragon.” The dashing franchoin man said in a perfect nairenthian accent as he lifted the porcelain cup over to his lips framed by his neatly trimmed dark beard.

For a moment, Valindra turned and stared at the gloomy, jagged walls, her gaze reaching even up to the Academy twisting around the highest peak disappearing in the peacefully floating clouds. “Have you ever faced even just an adult dragon?” Then she turned back a bit confused internally while still projecting her usual listless attitude. The dashing franchoin agent laughed softly as he placed down his coffee.

“Facing no. Cowering? At least twice just during the war.” He suddenly relapsed into silence, his striking blue and green eyes passing through Valindra. For a moment their eyes flared in a purplish blue aura, then Valindra reached for her own cup as she watched with his eyes as the fellow skielfrith kindred of hers draped in the sleek uniform of the academy guard walked down the ramp of the six-wheeled magicraft beast of a truck, the Sleipnoroth Class-II. A quite enormous vehicle with an angular, dark silhouette of mythrinite painted raven black while its trims glistened in snow silver graven with protective runes.

“Do they only wear their uniforms?” Paulin asked jokingly. “Of course not. Well mostly they wear it in cities because it saves a lot of troubles for beauties like them. Just imagine how many ruffians would impede them daily if not for the uniforms.” Valindra answered the rhetoric question while she watched and memorized the looks, the mannerisms of her fellow kindred, a beauty – but far from her.

Luxuriant hair trimmed short and meticulously trimmed, white as the snow blanketing the cobblestones of the square circling around the large fountain bearing the Aurhmangr The Great Dragon God of the North. At the center parted like curtains, framing her triangularly contoured face of white, unblemished elven epidermis. Almond framed eyes of a striking blue akin to the thick layers of ice lodging above the clean waters of lakes, rivers and the shores, with a hint of dawn red. Lips following the contoured lines of small bows, with a texture as soft as the silken dress shirt adorning her wiry, slender body beneath the issued coat, shimmering mildly in a cerulean hue pairing well with her snow white complexion.

On her body, the long Veurrieth Type-IV Coat cascaded stiffly, reaching down even to her knees, ending in an asymmetrical hem. The coat itself vaguely resembled a tuxedo coat, except it bore the typical elvish style of perfectly asymmetrical angularity the Black Roses incorporated into their stylish, militarily austere uniforms. The zipper running straight down the center, concealed by a foldable, slim panel embroidered with rosy patterns, provided with two slanting waist and straight breast pockets directly below the badge resembling a round shield of the ancient naurdians, and pin graven with her name – Geirwyn. And one the sides of the zipper, framing them were two, or well actually one panel resembling a stola with contrasting snow silvery colorization and dark trims and embroidery.

A bit above at the bosom, the enlarged lapels hung over them, standing stiffly as the cold draught brushed against their mildly thick, angular form while a bit above, from the pyramid neck rose the nearly cheek high cowl contoured zipped open collar with its upper walls and snow silvery piped trims and free of creases that made Valindra question the choice of name, though technically it did reminded her of the cowls on certain coats, though she saw these mostly on assassins, spies and thieves not sorceresses and guards.

“A peculiar fashion choice.” She nodded as her gaze continued on to the dragonid leather pants and knee-high combat boots – she hated with a passion, though the reason evaded her. As she deep down didn’t hated the Black Roses’s or well dragonid leather ones thanks to its stiffness not resulting in the side zippers being a pain in the ass and were easy to move around compared to lesser or mundane materials.

“Time to move.” Paulin said as they watched Geirwyn and three of her Sisters head towards the northern street, where the statue’s muzzle pointed – and where one of their establishments mixing joy and alcohol was located at the end of the street.

**

Central Cafeteria on the 31^st Floor, Black Rose Academy.

“I think you are just tired out from the physical exams.” Tau’ria, Tepin’s fellow Sister and class mate said whilst lifting the piece of apple impaled on the silver fork, a part of the mixed fruit salad, towards her lips with a hint of green and a more prominent lower lip.

Her small, expressive round shaped eyes of a shimmering oaken brown excitedly stared at her rich, saccharine dish, the trims of her dress shirt’s collar brushing against her fair-earthen brown cheeks while her short, layered and dense hair’s verdant green locks hovered above the small bowl – and if they were longer would have melded in with the leaf decoration, sheeting Tepin herself taught as she looked at her kindred of fae-blood whose face also possessed a few bark like growths that gained a smoothness akin to her unblemished skin thanks to the Black Rose Concoction.

“Honestly, I quite agree with Tepin. Karina did display a few strange quirks since her return.” Wilhelmiira the umbral elven student of the Daorm-Class stood beside her as she laid back in her chair tilting the brink of her metallic cup towards her bow-shaped lips of a deep black almost matching with the collar, cuffs and hemline of her dress shirt tucked into her pants and the sleeveless, neckless variant of the corset vest.

Her dense hair of a mixture of jet black and boreal blue parted over the left side where it cascaded down in an elegant, oblique manner and ended in refined wisps near the threshold where the darkness of her hair and the corset vest’s shoulder ended and the snow silvery, smooth sleeve of her dress shirt began. Which remained creaseless even as she placed the cup back onto the tray empty, and folded her arms. The boreal pearls surrounded by the lake of darkness in the almond frames lingered on the cup, pondering as she sensed the killing intent two days before when she asked Karina if she saw Yasuko.

“Do you think she was brainwashed?” Yolanda, their northern sraudornian Sister and friend asked as her amber golden eyes of matching contours glanced at her inquisitively.

The youngest of the group, nearing only the ends of her thirties evident from her youthful face with slightly elvish contours, a mildly coffee-tanned skin bereft of imperfections and adorned with fine features like her delicate, long bridged nose pierced by three rings at its center like Wilhelmiira’s left nostril sporting a dark pearl. “A possibility, but I’m not sure.” As she answered, Yolanda glanced at the clock not far from them, then pulled her hair and quickly knotted the dense mane of a dawn orange and nightly black into a high ponytail while the blunt bangs remained undisturbed in front of her wide forehead.

“Woah, woah. Let’s wheel back on the grim possibilities.” Tau’ria said with six slices of orange grinded between her teeth, splattering a little of the caustically sweet juice on the table. “People change. Sometimes it happens suddenly and often it happens when we witness shit. No doubt she saw a few things during the program that led to her develop these quirks just to cope or well more like instinctively falling back to the habits of a pseudo-battlefield so to speak.”

“That is a valid point. But still…” Wilhelmiira raised her hand that slowly turned translucent, then completely vanished. “I think I shall keep an eye on her and see if it’s a grim possibility or just trauma carried back here.” She said with the corner of her lips curved up a bit, staring at Tau’ria who simply shrugged her shoulders, rustling the puffed sleeves of her dragonid leather blazer-coat.

**

“May I?” Valindra asked whilst her fingers already curled around the back seating’s metallic corners. Her voice clearly reaching Geirwyn’s ears who looked up from reading the menu and answered in a kind manner, eyeing her fellow kindred. “Sure thing.” Valindra recognized the faintly pensive look in those bluish-red eyes as ones weighing the next few words.

For a moment Geirwyn reverted into reading the menu once more, letting the luminous red collars of her dress shirt brush against her tapering snow white jawline lit by the warm light. The coat still draped firmly on her form, though now the collar was pressed and folded elegantly onto the shoulders, pressing onto the rectangular straps decorated with pins carven to resemble dragon claws and a lotus rose at the center of each long piece.

“One Haufstadter and one apricot Dhalinka please.” Valindra took her order without hesitation, a choice of drinks that were popular even eight or nine centuries ago when she first visited Skielvort on a similar assignment. The big difference though was that at the time she wasn’t tasked with stopping the destruction of the Academy, but instead was sent to aid in it. The smaller was she wasn’t amongst the Coven’s members infiltrating, but simply aided in getting a few appearance and uniform donors for them, as a way to show how “genuine” she was.

“A fine choice. Gustav, could you get me the same two too?” The half-dwarf bartender nodded and disappeared under the counter for a moment to retrieve the bottle of one of the strongest northern alcohol. Dhalinka, a sort of liquir – though if asked many shall say it is not – made in at least a hundred different flavors, including even questionable ones like pimento or kraken tentacle which has its own distinct, slightly saccharine taste. Though not enough to justify making alcohol out of it.

“Nothing better to end a long day of walking around on.” Valindra said in a livelier manner compared to her usual listless behavior.

“New here? Or…” Geirwyn asked as she cracked her fingers, clearly tensing her voice to sound calm, measured while finishing the last of her previous order. Still far from drunk after seven glasses of Haufstadter and five hard drinks chugged one after another.

“Tourist.” Valindra answered while feigning interest. Though her eyes looked at Paulin staying at the corner, befriending another group of actual tourists using a quite authentic and hard grauburgian accent they also spoke in.

“Interesting. A martial city is a peculiar choice.” Geirwyn said what was on her heart. Martial cities themselves were not necessarily the perfect tourist destination, they still attracted the few interested in their histories. There were a few places worthy of visit in the city, including the bar Geirwyn and a few centuries before even Valindra frequented when she was attending the Academy. A bar which for all intents and purposes was the very first building of Skielvort. Though at the time it only served alcohol for travelers and not just pleasures and information.

“Just passing by as I visited the Kveikr Lake.” As she answered once more swiftly, Gustav gently placed the small glasses before them and poured the almost translucent beverage using levitation.

As soon as their Haufstadter beer arrived, they clinked them gently and took a short sip before downing the apricot Dhalinkas’ in one go. “Another please!” Valindra ordered one more round as they wrestled with the caustic nature of alcohol without straining their faces. After that, they drank four more rounds while slowly consuming the beer while talking.

First, they talked about the Kveikr Lake looming just a few dozen kilometers away from the martial city, talking about its long history as it housed one of the oldest monasteries of the Black Rose Order, one erected back in the day when they barely had a hundred members and were still led by the enigmatic beauty whose title served as the namesake of the Order.

Then topic shifted onto the Academy when Valindra asked Geirwyn why she opted for that rank instead of being a Drengriar or a clerk at some store of the commercial district. Geirwyn looked a bit pensive, but answered honestly as she began to feel a bit tipsy after the fourth drink, telling she wanted a bit of both and being a guard at an academy kind of fell into both. “Though I did not expect to be posted at the largest one. It is a pain in the ass sometimes making rounds in that fucking maze.” She said a bit chuckling as she added there were quite a few times she got lost in there in her first two weeks.

And at last feeling a bit of kinship – besides their shared cold blood – the topics turned much more personal, sensual before long the two found themselves heading up to the third floor where they booked the last remaining private room from Gustav. Valindra’s ears instinctively twitched at the soft sound of Geirwyn zipping down her coat as they ascended the wide stairs and had to remind herself where this all truly led. She gently cracked her fingers, flowing her mana in them as she prepared for the swift takedown.

When the door moaned whilst opening, she grabbed the leathery cuffs, slid her two fingers behind the wide waist belt accentuating Geirwyn’s delicate, honed form and pulled her closer, their lips quickly locking onto each other as she closed the door with her feet. “Quite the hasty one.” Geirwyn’s warm, minty breath breezed against her neck wedged between the spreading collars of her velvety mauve dress shirt under the loosely worn leather coat with furred trims.

With a simple motion, the waist belt came undone and she pulled the zipper down fully, revealing the magnetically closed off drauclar corset vest. “Let me help with that.” Geirwyn released her right arm looping around Valindra’s waist and pressed her index and middle finger tips against the finely scale textured placket of the corset vest at her small but shapely bosom, a bit above the abdomen and the abdomen itself. With a soft click it swung open like a curtain revealing the glistening, smooth and snow silver surface of the dress shirt’s front.

“Thanks, that saves me sometime.” Valindra began to shape the mana in her hands and as she pulled Geirwyn close as they lips locked together, their tongues twisted, molded into one in passion, etheric needles grew from the tips of her fingers. Then a muffled groan emanated shortly from Geirwyn when Valindra inserted it into her nape hidden by the angular, vermillion red stand of her collar. Her body twitched and went limp in seconds in Valindra’s arms who slowly lowered her to the room’s wooden floor.

She quickly escaped the confines of her own long coat and flung it across the room, onto the double bed. First, she grabbed Geirwyn’s cuffs and used a bit of telekinesis to slip her out from the issued coat. Though she quickly realized the futility of a minor telekinesis, and instead poured her processed mana into the floor from her foot. Hands made out from the same polished oaken rose from the floor and helped slowly ridding the sleeping snow beauty from her coat, then sensing her annoyance towards the breeches and boots, moved there next and unbuckled the first and removed the two boots in tandem.

She walked over Geirwyn and swiftly flapped the veiling panel pressed over the button placket and undone it in a few seconds whilst the conjured hands rid the shapely legs from the tyranny of the dragonid leather breeches with silken lining. “Not a bad choice.” Valindra commented staring at the black silken net nicely thrown over the petite breasts as she pulled the now completely unbuttoned dress shirt out. With their job done, the hands retreated and molded back to the rest of the wood after Valindra threw the last pieces of the uniform onto the bed.

“Now where did Gustav put it?” the question came to her mind as soon as she looked through the small room with steep roof windows. “Ah, yes in the cupboard.” pulling it open, she immediately came face to face with the coils of rope and roll of silver sealing tape. She quickly grabbed the white siphoning ropes and walked back to Geirwyn still laying a few steps from the entrance. With her foot, she rolled her onto her back and quickly secured her wrists first, then as per protocol, went for the ankles.

Then she grabbed one of the larger coils she dropped beside themselves, and looped it around Geirwyn’s abdomen, tightening her arms to her back and bottom with a tight knot. Geirwyn’s form curled elegantly by the telekinesis while Valindra winded the rope across and between her bosom, across her shoulders and finished it off with an elaborate and lengthy knot that quite gracefully twisted into itself. The last coil she used to connect the wrist and ankle bindings, putting Geirwyn into a hogtie which she enjoyed little evident from the soft, dreamy moan she let out when Valindra fixed the tie firmly.

“Sorry, but has to be sure.” Valindra said in her listless manner to the unconscious Geirwyn as she ripped the roll of sealing tape open. Its outer surface glistened under the warm light of the room, and after she attached it to Geirwyn’s left cheek, not sparing the hair to be under the clingy tyranny of tape, wrapped it around her head at least ten to fifteen times. Her eyes, her face remained calm, stoic even as the tape loudly squealed through the whole room bathed in a barrier of silence. For a few seconds after separation, Valindra watched as the tape tightened onto Geirwyn’s hair, cheeks and lips which her fellow kindred seemed to enjoy a bit more, evident from the pleased moans amalgamated with the soft crinkling of the tape.

Finished with securing Geirwyn, Valindra stared at the uniform in a quite presentable state even after she carelessly thrown them onto the bed, let out a loud sigh as she began to unbutton her own, slightly duller dress shirt. “Let’s do this.”

Author's Note:

And another one. This time a bit of tailing, merging in with the crowd, the more mundane espionage stuff.

This one uniform gave me a bit of headache as I went through at least three versions before settling on a semi tailcoat design in the Northern Style of perfectly asymmetrical angularity, which I plan to give a better name down the line. But I am still going through ideas to justify the strange design. The one I am leaning closest to is them evoking the duality of their origins - being the children of a monstrous dragon god and a goddess of beauty whose true form can burn into one's gaze for an eternity.

But anyhow I'll end the rambling here. Thank you for reading this and take care folks!

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