“This way,” Sarestra called, and without waiting, she’d taken Halena’s hand and was pulling her, onl semi-reluctantly, out into the corridor that led to the world beyond. “We’ll call this a trade-off. You tell me about yourself and I’ll get you whatever it is that you want to eat, and as much of it as you want.”
“What?” Halena balked. “I’m not that special.” She stumbled a bit and Sarestra paused, turning to look back with that sharp, almost aristocratic gaze.
Was it aristocratic?
“Of course you are,” she said, and pulled Halena to the side. She pointed with her still free hand back the way they’d come. “That door was so sealed up that I didn’t even know it was there. No one has been through there in an eternity.” Her hand swept around, gesturing to encompass the outdoors beyond their corridor, the bright light of day flooding in. “No one has lived in the forests exclusively for generations. Why would they, when the great goddess Teykaneska helped us to build the most astounding city in whole of civilization? Why would you and your family choose that?” To complete the circle, her hand came back and tapped Halena on the chest. “You are a curiosity. You’re a relic, or at least a mimic of a relic, and I want to know why.”
Halena’s ears flipped back and she pulled away from the probing finger. “I’m… I’m a person, too. Just a Tieke like you, and not… I’m not descended from…”
That finger lifted, spread into a flat hand, a call for silence. Halena couldn’t help but notice how clean and shining her claws were, how smooth and callous-free the pads of her hand.
“Save it.” Sarestra nodded back towards the light. “Save your stories, however mundane you insist they are, and come with me. We’ll talk while we eat and no sooner.”
She reached for Halena’s hand again, but Halena pulled back. Her actions were rewarded with a look of challenge. She raised her own hands, palm out, only two aware of how comparatively ragged and rough they were. One of her claws was broken, all of them were dirty, and her palms were creased with cracks from too much time spend handling the earth. “Let me go on my own,” she said. “I don’t want to be dragged around like you own me.”
At that, Sarestra smirked. “But I very well might,” she said.
Halena took another half-step back. “What?”
“My family,” Sarestra said, never losing the smile, “is very influential. We’re very powerful, both among the Temple’s elite and the city itself and we have been for many generations, in a line that stretches back to when the Seradin came from the skies the very first time and my many generations removed mother’s mother was there to greet her first.” She stood a little taller, a girl doing her best impression of a woman. “We’re not ready yet, but when the time comes, my family plans to make a bid a for rulership of Tieke City, for placing me, once I’m old enough, in the position of Kantreska. So you see, it’s good for me to learn about the unknown fringes of those who will live beneath me.” She tilted her head, “And it’s good for you to know me, too.”
Halena frowned, crossed her arms, and stepped back. “I’m not sure I like you,” she said. “I’m just going to come out and say it, but there’s something you need to learn, then, and it’s how to be less… intimidating.”
As soon as she said it, she regretted it deep in her gut. A look flashed across Sarestra’s face, somewhere between insult and surprise. She took an abrupt step forward, eyes sharper than ever, her mouth open to speak. Before any words could come out, Halena reacted. In a move that was purely reflex, she dropped right out of Sarestra’s view, down into to a defensive crouch, ears back and teeth bared. She hissed and the woman who would be queen danced right back the way she came.
For a moment, they were both quiet, staring each other down. Halena started calculating in her head if she could get back to the tunnel and outrun the strange woman if she really and truly wanted to attack her, or kidnap her, or whatever it was that she was after. Probably, she thought, but only because in a fight between the two of them there was no contest. Those perfect claws could leave nasty scratches, she was sure, but her own had knowledge behind them that this one lacked.
And then Sarestra laughed. It was enough to startled Halena out of her thoughts.
“All right, all right,” Sarestra said. “You’ve made a point.” She crouched down in the hallway. “My parents won’t be looking for me for a few hours to come. If you want to keep your distance, then do so. We can sit here and talk. What do you think of that?”
“I think I’d like to go home.”
“And I’ll let you, but first, we talk. And I’ll give you this – to start off, you can ask me anything. We’ll trade.”
Halena scrutinized her, but she was already relaxing, slowly realizing that she wouldn’t have to fight her after all, it seemed. That was a relief. Sarestra had some very strange ideas about how to behave – but she was, still, very pretty to look at. She’d have been sad to bloody her.
“All right,” Halena agreed eventually.
She looked briefly out to the light, listening in case others might come, and thinking on what she’d ask.
There’d been a word Sarestra had said. It was one her father mentioned once in a while, but always without context.
So after a moment of mulling, she chose her next words; “Okay. Tell me, then. Who or what is a Teykaneska?”