Dust and grime cling to every crack of skin by the time the three women make it back to Solveigard; utterly filthy is an understated description of what they look and feel. It had poured for an entire day of the trek and the sticky, suffocating humidity that had followed only ensured that every bog of mud and muck they slipped in and waded through stuck to them like a second layer of skin.

Their disastrous appearance achieves quizzical looks when they cross over that indefinable line into the upper echelon of Solveigard City. Surely they know better, surely they know that such appearances cannot be accepted here, in the good part of town, but Fae has such a look on her face that, even with the thick cake of muck making her unrecognizable, no one does much but look aghast as they pass.

The Solveigard native leads the other two down one of the wealthier streets, past pristine brick houses and intricate iron fences to a grand, sweeping one, with gold tipped locks and immaculate landscaping.

"Well, shit, Fae," Tara says, looking up at it.

Fae grunts, underwhelmed by the image.

"Let's go through the back," she says, walking over to the servant's entrance. "Someone can make us baths."

Baths? Tara mouths at Allayria, wonder crossing her face.

Oh yes, here there will be baths—not one bath, with the victor of a haggling and guilt-tripping struggle taking the first turn—there will be a bath for each of them. For the first time in a long time, Allayria is stupidly happy to be in a place like this.

They walk past an elegantly cultivated garden and back to a door on the side of the house. Fae stoops, hand curling up below the bottom ledge of a window, and pulls out a small silver key. In quick order she has the door open and walks inside.

Someone screams.

Tara and Allayria burst in after her, hands curling into fists, but there is only a plump, wide-eyed woman, dressed in a crinkled apron, her hair spattered with flyaway strands. She has both hands clamped on either side of her wide face and a basket lies upended at her feet, white linen strewn across the floor.

"Ester, really," Fae sighs. "I've been gone only six months. You can't have forgotten me yet."

"Mistress Fae?" the woman squeaks, fingers curling down around her chin. "Mistress Fae, is that really–? You look like a cretin–"

"You really do," Tara agrees, scratching at her ear. A rather sizable chunk of dried mud falls on the floor.

"Uh, yes," Fae admits, looking down at her grimy clothes. They hadn't always been brown. "Ester, we need baths."

"Oh. Oh, yes," Ester says, her head bobbing up and down frantically. "Right away. Would it–? Could we–?"

"We'll bathe down here, Ester," Fae answers with a nod. "Just find us unoccupied tubs."

Tara flashes a grin toward Allayria at this.

"Well, I mean," the Beast-caller says in a low voice that doesn't reach Ester's ears, "depending on who's in them they don't have to be unoccupied..."

When Ester returns she leads them down to their respective rooms. She shows Allayria to what must be the male servants' bath, making repeated assurances that the other servants had been ordered to leave the room undisturbed while she uses it.

It doesn't matter to Allayria; she strips down, casting off her filthy clothes with a hiss of relief and stepping into the tepid wash.

Brown bleeds into the water as she slides in and, seizing a scrubber on the flat lip of the tub, she works at her limbs, uncovering pinkened skin as she goes. She pauses when her eyes alight on the wooden bracelet around her wrist. She twists it, feeling the grain underneath her fingers. She visualizes its metal twin, the smooth coldness of it, the fine edge of the rims. Pressing down on her own bracelet, she imagines two dots on his, then a line.

Everything is fine.

Check in with me.

A moment passes, and then she feels the press of two circles against her skin in answer. Then, after a breath, she feels something strange and takes off the bracelet. The "R" is just pressing into place as she turns the bracelet over, and a few seconds later she's peering down at:

THERE?

She Skills out the affirmation and then sets the bracelet aside, reaching instead for the nearby bar of soap.

When she is reasonably cleaned, her hands clamp down on either side and she lifts herself up, feeling the aches and twinges across her body as the water seeps off of it.

In the distorted echo of the mirror, her body is an ashen atlas of bruises and scars, purple blotting up her side and across her hips, marking all the places she had fallen or been hit. The wound on her head is a purple-red blot and the white scar across her sternum stretches like a bisection line. She looks at it all for a moment, and then she pulls on her robe, walking to the door.

"Do you have a clean pair of pants and a shirt?" she asks Ester, who seems to have spent the entire time hovering anxiously in the hallway.

"P-pants?" she repeats, taking in Allayria's long, dripping hair and her curves beneath the robe. "Miss, I–"

"Pants will be sufficient," Allayria interjects. "Some bindings as well, if you don't mind. They can be servants' clothes; I don't mind."

"I– well–" she sputters, but scampers away, a quick dart of anxiety.

Allayria retreats back into the room, twisting droplets of water from her hair into the tub to pass time. A moment later, the door opens, but it's not Ester who walks in. This woman is tall and thin, her features hawkish and sharp, attentive. Her dark attire and high collar mark her not as a family member but a higher staff member, perhaps the head housekeeper. She doesn't carry any clothes.

"My maid informed me that you requested pants," she states succinctly and Allayria raises a brow.

"Yes. Is there an issue?"

The woman surveys her for a moment.

"It is an unconventional thing for a woman of status to wear in a respectable house," she says after a moment.

"Yes, well, I'm an unconventional woman," Allayria returns, uninterested in carrying the conversation much further. "I only ask to borrow some until I can go out and purchase my own. If that is impossible then I'll simply walk to the store naked."

This has the desired effect: bright, harsh pink spots appear on the woman's cheeks and her breath inhales sharply through her nose. Her eyes narrow, fixed on Allayria's face, and she holds out in the silence for a minute longer before saying, grudging: "We will be able to find a pair for you here. There is no need to make a spectacle."

"Excellent," Allayria returns, standing up and smoothing the front of her robe. "I appreciate your assistance."

The woman returns with the promised pants and shirt, and even with some wrappings to bind around her chest. Allayria makes a point to drop her robe in front of her, a promise of what she would do in public if pressed, and ignores the sharp look at her injuries as she dresses.

The woman clears her throat after a minute.

"Do you require a doctor?" she inquires stiffly.

"No, I am fine, thank you," Allayria returns, buttoning up the front of her shirt. "Is Fae or our other traveling companion done yet?"

"They are sitting in the drawing room," the woman answers, stepping aside to indicate that Allayria should go out the door.

The housekeeper leads her down the hall and up a cramped, twisting staircase to a finer, wider hall with rich carpeting and cherry wood crown molding. She holds open a door and Allayria strides inside, spying her two companions on the other end of the room. Fae is dressed in a pretty, floating pink dress, her shoulders set back and hair braided around the curve of her neck. Tara's been squashed into a yellow daffodil concoction, clearly unnerved by the frills and restrictive bodice. She stands as if her arms are pinned to her sides and she glares at Allayria, furious at the sight of her attire.

"The picture of elegance and grace," Allayria says in way of greeting, poking at Tara's pluming skirt as she comes to a stop beside them.

"How did you manage it?" Tara hisses through gritted teeth as Fae laughs.

"I threatened to walk down naked to a tailor if they didn't give them to me."

"You didn't," Fae gasps, a grin spreading across her face. "You didn't say that to Helen. You didn't."

Allayria arches a brow.

"Oh, she'll never forgive you," Fae says, a manic laugh escaping her lips. "She'll never— Oh, Gods, when Leo hears he'll—"

"I'll what?" calls a loud cheerful voice and they turn.

A/N: Solveigard City's smoky skyline makes its debut in the header this week. In fun bookkeeping news, we're getting close to the end of Part 1 of Partisan. And by close I mean we're within 15 chapters. It's close to me, guys. :)

(If you're wondering how close to the end of Partisan we are, by my rough calculations we'll be a little over half way there at the end of Part 1. I'm thinking it's going to be around 75 chapters total. I KNOW.)