#bellveil

Another night had passed without issue. The investor left the Lotus Lounge largely to its own devices, and business was at a steady pace for the venue’s proprietor. She had bluffed and blustered well enough to extort the investment and the hands-off approach from a young and terrified heiress of a fallen house of Ishgard. The redheaded woman had lost much, and cruelly, Y’mheena had twisted the dagger just enough to bleed her a little more. That twist was for her role in the Miqo’te’s disfigurement.

They hardly noticed her missing finger when she served them, her clients. That one token from Verad Bellveil that she would never-- could never-- forget. Verad hadn’t been the one to strike the digit clean off her hand, but the monster who wanted to hurt Verad had determined it would prove more advantageous to go through her to get to him.

The courtesan started her bath and looked in the mirror. She had grown turns older, she could notice it in her still-vibrant lavender eyes. She was starting to feel the pressure of time in her joints, on stormy nights. She pulled off her ornate gold prosthetic, a gilded thing that did well the obfuscate her missing finger. The finger that symbolized an oath of love-- without it, there could be no such oath, yes?

This was what she convinced herself of. Nightly, she’d have clients come and beg to be allowed to ‘free’ her from this life if only she’d become their kept woman. Offers that she laughed off and danced around, all smiles and pride at what she did for a living. 

Did Verad ever feel that way? Did the middle-aged Duskwight ever get offers of freedom from peddling asinine garbage to impressionable adventurers? Did Verad begrudge Y’mheena for her expert usurpation of Cactu-puncture? 

The water filled the tub, steaming and clean, and she disrobed before taking a vial of essential oils: lavender and vanilla and spicy clove to drip them into the water. She wondered if the smell of her bath oils still haunted the old man. She’d heard he’d wed a former partner of hers, one who was more business than passion. And she heard he seemed... different... from before. Sadder, perhaps resigned.

Y’mheena convinced herself that extorting the redheaded Ishgardian was as much revenge for whatever happened to her as well as what had happened to Verad. The one swiving man that she could never free from her mind.