Zandru
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Registered: 10-2005
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Barabas' House - late night
Stepping outside the port was like - was - stepping into another world. It was near midnight, local time, and the sky was a flat black, none of the moons were up and there were few stars so far out on the rim. The cobblestone streets twisted away from the sensible order of the port's grid system, and were dark but for the eerie pale green light panels scattered at wealthier dwellings. Despite the hour and the darkness, the streets weren't entirely deserted. Thendara, especially around the port, was awake twenty-six hours a day; taverns and tourist shops did their best to empty the pockets of the ignorant and the two-block radius around the port wasn't under the curfew usually applied to Terrans. Barnabas brushed past all that, nearly invisible in his black security uniform.
At the end of the open district, Barnabas nodded to the Comyn guardsmen who materialized out of the shadows at his approach. Lightly dressed in summer kit with swords at their hips, they nodded back before fading into the dark again. Terranan or not, Barnabas had a house and family in Thendara and the guards wouldn't stop him from going home. It was not so far to his house, set in a moderately decent neighborhood; the lights were on despite the late hour. Yllana was awake, Barnabas' steps quickened.
Darkovans didn't knock and, actually, Barnabas couldn't recall the last time a Darkovan hadn't been at the door when he came to it and tonight was no different, the housegirl, Wena, was opening the door as Barnabas walked up the single stone step.
"Dom Delgado," she dropped him a quick curtsey and eased his jacket off his shoulders. It had taken him years to get used to someone stripping him down like that and he suspected he still didn't handle it with grace. Ducking his head, he strode up the narrow stairway that separated the small entry room - lower than the rest of the house to act as a cold trap - into the main room where Ylana waited with a meal for him.
He gathered Ylana's hands in his own and kissed them lightly, laughing as she hissed and pulled them away. "So cold-handed, Barr, and it's near to summer!"
"Ah, well, you know what Terrans say to that," he said with a wink. "Cold hands and warm -"
"Hush, Barr," Ylana turned him and pushed him gently down into a chair as Wena came in with a steaming bowl of soup. Barnabas shook his head in amusement and applied himself to the meal, no crass talk in front of the servants and never mind the fact that everyone knew Ylana was his mistress. His barragana, a word he avoided because the inflection ranged from 'alley-whore' to 'treasured lover' and he couldn't tell - or speak - the difference. He'd ended up in a fistfight with Ylana's brother, when they first met, over one ill-placed word.
Ylana shared firi with him and afterward, he stopped in to stare down at Alice. This late, she slept with the red-haired, red clad ragdoll every Darkovan little girl seemed to have. Tenerestis - good witch dolls and Alice had whined and complained until Barnabas had allowed her to have one, despite his misgivings about Darkovan superstitions. He didn't intend to lose Alice the way he had his other children, not even to her mother's people.
"She's made a little friend," Ylana leaned on his shoulder to whisper in his ear. "A girl-child from the Renunciates. Is this all right?"
"No trouble to me, Ylana," he murmured, shutting Alice's door. Good news, to his mind, he didn't want his little girl thinking she had to have a man to get by in life. Ylana kissed him and drew him to her room as he eased the clip out of her hair to let it fall free to her waist.
Ylana was beautiful, the home she made for him always welcoming but he didn't want his daughter to grow up like her mother.
END
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