Overdue Honesty (PF, Chloris and Inari)

Chloris leads Inari along to the baths, wherever those happen to be. Chloris would probably be willing to do whatever it might happen to take to ensure the pair of them are not disturbed, be it lies, bribery, or death threats. Of course, that's probably unnecessary, but all of those are certainly options she'd be willing to take if the need arose. In any case, they get their private space to talk.

The fox followed along. Many of her thoughts still a jumble as she thought of her own actions and where she went wrong, trying to keep at the same pace. "I-I don't understand."
"These are the bathing quarters. W-Why there of all places?" A golden eye looks up at her friend. Inari couldn't hide that she was nervous, evidenced by the tugging on her own sleeves.

Chloris answers in Aquan, preferring the tongue for a multitude of reasons, including the discretion it affords her. “We’ve got the smallest chance of being disturbed here.  Plus, I really do need a bath to de-stress after everything that’s happened today, as do you.  I’m not going to feel clean again otherwise and if I let you out of my sight, who’s to say you won’t just try to kill yourself again when my back is turned?”
Despite her words, Chloris seems at least a little hesitant to actually go about disrobing.

The kitsune tried to give them a response, but none came out of her as she walked past and she found herself in what would possibly be a common room. In that moment it took for her to realize her next step, the fox's face flushes with pink. "I'm sure you'd like your privacy, as do I, but if this is...customary, I suppose there shouldn't be a problem."
And such, she reaches towards her chest, partially revealed ever since she thought to enact the only way she knew was honorable of taking her own life. But, even then, as she reaches her collars to pull it off, her hands are quivering lightly, her eyes dodging her companion.

“Customary?” Chloris repeats, a note of faint confusion entering her voice for a moment before she gives another of those short, uncomfortable, and forced-sounding laughs of hers. “Well, I guess it’s hardly anything strange to share the water where I come from.  Since it’s not like you’ve been hiding your gender the way you have with your identity, I think this shouldn’t be too much of an issue.”
Once Inari starts on her clothing, Chloris is almost uncharacteristically casual in shedding some of her clothes.  Unlike the kitsune, she starts from the bottom, though the dark blue, multi-layered silken robe she wears manages to protect her modesty well enough after the pants come off.  The outermost layer of that too is discarded easily enough, but when her hands settle on the brown cloth that secures its inner layer, she really seems to hesitate, as if bracing herself.

The fox halts a bit, surprised at the ease of which the sorceress rid herself of clothing, and her flush deepened. Still wary, Inari attempted to keep the same pace, even if her hands quivered as her slightly reinforced silk robes slid down to reveal her chest wrapped in soft cloth, which was undone with a simple pull. Her swaying tails reflexively offered modesty as she made her chest bare, unable to look in her companion's direction at all, her face sporting a rare flush of pink.

"T-This isn't the best time to tell you I never shared waters with someone like this, r-right? I..." She attempts to calm her breath, having become heavy as she felt her heartbeat start to race. "I-In retrospective, the chain of events that led here are, w-well, rather, make me think of writing tropes written in novels, b-but the counterpart would be a man."

“Like this?” Chloris glances up during her pause, tilting her head at Inari’s embarrassment.  She seems about to say something that, based on her usual way of going about things, would have been terribly inconsiderate.  Instead, she somehow manages to reign it in for a change, though such an act comes at the cost of an expression suggesting she has just actually bitten down on her own tongue.  Rather than delivering a biting comment, she quietly admits, “I haven’t shared any waters like this, either.”
Shaking her head, the sorceress seats herself on a nearby bench and tugs her belt off.  Immediately and with remarkably little fanfare, her legs fuse together and grow, transmuting into a sizable and overtly fish-like tail, with scales colored a much murkier green than her hair.  For a couple seconds afterward, she positively glowers down at the tail, with all the disdain that one might hold for an old nemesis… rather than merely the amount she typically seems to regard other people with. “Ugh, this stupid thing…” She follows with a glance up at Inari, nervous, yet wanting to gauge her reaction.

Inari's eyes didn't gaze upon her friend's figure at first but at a momentary glance, she caught hold of the transformation, her eyes then unable to pry away from the still magical transformation. And for that moment the kitsune seemed enthralled by the sight before her. She had read of sea creatures lightly, but she never once thought she'd meet a mermaid. She could almost recall a book or two that were cheesy enough to have that romance with an air of cliché'd mysticism, but there was truly something to be said when it came to the sight of one. The kitsune stood, bare chested and visibly charmed for the moment she stared with her mouth slightly agape.
"You truly are hard to look away from." She thoughtlessly whispered, her posture relaxing slightly in complete distraction to her previous concerns, her tails swaying away slightly from being her piece of modesty in reflection of her mood.

Chloris soon follows by shedding the last of the robe.  She makes no effort to cover her chest, not that there’s really much of it there to cover.  Perhaps after just having revealed her nature as a merfolk, a less practical concern such as nudity seems pointless to her. “You know, I think this is the part where a normal person who wanted to be flirtatious might ask whether you like what you see?  Alas, I’m not looking to be seduced, here.  Or lied to, if that still bears mentioning.”
Of course, whether or not Inari happens to find her attractive, the nasty-looking cut running down from just below her neckline to the bottom of her ribs is impossible to miss, independent of how much or how little attention she’s paying to the sorceress’ skin in comparison to her lower half.  Despite that the bleeding probably stopped a fair while ago, it traces a dark red line down her body.  She’s incredibly fortunate that it was a shallow cut, considering it all but diagonally bisects her sternum.
Judging by how her eyes widen in surprise as she traces the line’s path with a fingertip, she hadn’t even bothered to take the time to have a look at it yet. “Holy hell, I knew I could all but taste that blade earlier…” She mutters under her breath.

Inari's eyes venture through her companion's body, and her eyes widen in tandem with a gasp of horror when she sees this slash. "Heavens..." She says, taking a step forward and reaching out towards it, but still feeling the slaps from before, she flinches and recoils, looking to the side. Her look changes as guilt stings at her like ill placed hot needles. "I... I’m so sorry." The kitsune goes as far to remove the bottom half of her garments, checking for wounds on herself, but finding none, and thus aggravating the circumstance in her head, her golden eyes ceasing to a close as she attempted to relieve her guilt through a sigh, sitting down on a bench across her friend.
Now bare, the fox's posture is strange. Her tails no longer covered her chest for modesty, but rather her own arm did, scantily so, her thighs kept pressed together and doing a similar effect. It seemed a pose too relaxed and easy to remove modesty from with just some effort, something that mismatched her look towards the floor.

Chloris looks up at Inari as the latter serves to remind her she’s not alone in the room.  Her expression seems… perhaps a little offended, maybe?  It can be hard to tell that from how she usually looks. “You know I don’t really give that much of a damn about this wound, right Inari?  This is maybe the third-worst attack upon my person I’ve suffered in about as many days and unlike the two that beat it out?  This won’t leave a scar… if I actually bother to get it healed, anyway.” As Chloris says all this, she looks and sounds like she means it.
“Seriously though, take an actual, up-close look and you’ll see it’s not even that bad.  In fact, it’s pretty much at the bottom of the list of reasons I was furious at you.” Saying that, Chloris pushes herself off the bench and starts to… slowly and awkwardly struggle to drag herself in the direction of the bath.  As she does so, she’s muttering what are probably curses in about three different languages.  One of them is clearly Aquan, though the others are probably not fit for a human tongue.

Inari's eyes look at the wound again, tracing its line across the sorceress' naked upper half of what is still a human body. As the mermaid drags herself in a slow fashion, from the kitsune's mouth come arcane words and her hands gesture on her own body, tracing from legs, upwards to her torso and chest. In a few seconds, Inari's body grows to that of a taller, more womanly version of herself, and she walks towards Chloris and offers a hand. "If you'll let me, I...can help." Her voice didn't change at all, but the image wasn't only slightly different from herself being short.
"I'm sure there's... many different reasons that justify your fury, that I am certain you'll relay to me, but..." Her eyes dart downwards, not wanting to gawk at her friend in a way that would be uncomfortable. Her flush wasn't fully gone, but her gaze wasn't focused on that subject. "And, I apologize for my shortcomings. I... truly have a lot to tell you about... why I was so upset about losing Leviticus.  I was so upset that... I may have forgotten to even check if you were okay.  To ask you, if you were okay, what happened in full."

Chloris considers the hand for a long moment, then takes it. “Before you strain something and accidentally drop me when you’re trying to help, I should warn you that I weigh more like this.  Like, almost half again what I normally do.  I hope I’m ruining some romantic mental image by telling you that this is half the reason Mer don’t tend to come up on land.  When it comes to lugging around so much fish ass on land, well… they just can’t be assed." If that was meant as a joke, she said it with a remarkably straight face.
“You know, yeah, you did forget to ask if I was okay in that freakout you were having.  Not like I was covered in three people’s blood or anything.  And as I’m sure you realize, I don’t have a very large circle of friends. It’s like three people, all of whom I effectively met on the island.” Chloris starts out sounding almost as angry as she did back in the room, but she can’t keep it up.  She’s been through a hell of an ordeal today and much as she might like to believe otherwise, even she can only so go through so much rage and adrenaline before her composure starts to crack. “H-how do you think that felt, when it really looked like I was worth less to you than your magic sword?”

Inari remained silent for a moment, and once gaining her consent, her strength seemed to be magically enhanced from what she usually has, and manages to pick up the mermaid in her arms in a bridal carry with a more relative ease, adjusting her shoulders right to make sure her friend's head is decently rested in one of them. Her chest pressed softly against the side of her friend, modestly average in dimension. "Crushing...I....would like to say that I wasn't worried at that moment because...Your smell was in my dreams. It...helped soothe my nightmare. I'm sorry I was so...self-absorbed." She adjusted her hold as if to signify a small embrace, and leaned her head against the sorceress'. "You mean a lot to me, Chloris. And to see you alive after all I've heard...It makes me sleep a little better at night, now that we have separate rooms and you're not..." But she stops there, as she reaches their shared destination.
"W-Well, I don't wish to humble you too much, if you want me to let you in at your own pace, please feel free to tell me to put you down." She says, her posture fixed but her hold steadfast for once, her three tails swaying around the two, gently, brushing softly upon the sorceress perhaps by accident.

As she’s being carried, Chloris probably feels a whole lot more vulnerable than she looks, hooking one arm behind Inari’s neck and gripping the girl’s shoulder with the other.  She turns her face away, not really wanting to be seen like this.  Ideally, she should feel like she were able to trust Inari fully, but well-honed instincts don’t go away quickly, even if she doesn’t really expect to be dropped.
Of course, holding Chloris close to herself no doubt causes Inari to spot a number of the largely faint scars adorning her front, as well as feel some of those upon her back.   Scars are nothing out of the ordinary for adventurers, but… Chloris’ fairly lax attitude toward her earlier near-death experience seems a bit off somehow.  Admittedly not terribly much more than many of the other things about her attitude, but she’s once or twice mentioned being eighteen, leaving a fairly short period in which to have developed an abundance of scars.
“Much as I appreciate the courtesy, I think I’d rather you just set me in the bath.  At worst, it’s going to bruise my pride less than flailing my way across the floor did at the start.” Chloris gives a twitch as the tails brush her. “Gods, if me and my awkward fish tail are a disappointment, I can’t wait to find out how incredibly un-fluffy your tails get when wet.”

Inari only frowns as she spots these faded scars, feeling self-conscious that her own body sports nothing of the sort. In fact, her body is eerily immaculate of most imperfections. Many of her beauty-keeping rituals come to mind, and the kitsune's gaze seems disturbed, but her silent sigh washes away those thoughts. "Your appearance right now would make any writer want to base their next mystical romance or erotica based on you." She gives a bit of an amused smile at such a mention. "Oh they look horrifying. Had I no ears you'd think me an eldritch abomination." She puts her friend down by the water, allowing her spell to revert her back to her original height, that gave emphasis on her waist, less humble than her own chest. The kitsune stared at the waters with some hesitation. "What kind of climate did you come from? Cold waters?"

Chloris turns back toward Inari at the comment about her appearance, giving sickly grin. “My judgments about your taste in reading material aside, I pity the writer who tries to turn a profit using me in any sort of romantic context.  I’d find them and literally make them eat their manuscript, complete with ink and quills.”
She even manages a forced-sounding laugh when Inari answers back regarding her tails.  It’s really starting to seem like Chloris’ smiles and laughter might actually be sincere, despite seemingly ranging from artificial to unstable. “Oh really, ‘horrifying when wet’ and ‘eldritch’, are they?  With those sorts of descriptors, you might start attracting some abyss cultists.”
Rather more seriously, she considers the temperature question for a few moments before answering with, “Climate?  Guess it’d be tropical, but climate doesn’t matter in the sea the way you might think it does on land.  It’s all cold water once you go deep enough that light can’t quite reach.  Dunno how the other cities do it, but I think the slums stretched pretty damn deep for us.  Past a point, it's not just mer down there, much as they'd like to pretend otherwise.”

Inari seems to smile with less weariness than the one she came into the bath house with, giggling towards her more humorous remarks, while lightly stepping around her companion to dip a toe in the water, and almost reflexively, shivering in response and taking her foot out. The kitsune offers herself some modesty with her tails and crouches, seeming pensive about this subject, and what her friend said. "I must ask you, friend, if I can make things, well, steamier. But, you'll have to tell me you'll be find if it gets hot, as you may damage your body like that, and hence I won't do anything you won't consent to." She says this without looking at her, merely putting a hand in the water, and only afterwards turning to Chloris for approval. Her genuinely curious look seemed to not have realized how crudely those words can be taken.

Inari’s wording doesn’t seem to bother Chloris any, though she does raise an eyebrow at the unintentional innuendo. “By all means, heat the water however much you like, as long as it isn’t utterly boiling or anything.  I don’t believe I change any in terms of temperature sensitivity when I trade my legs for this tail.  Maybe you ought to think of me like a somewhat thicker-skinned, water-breathing human?”
Chloris shrugs. “As in, physically hardier, not just the usual way that phrase gets used.  Anything that a human could tolerate is something I can handle without injury.  More, even.  Like, you can probably imagine that my scales are harder to get through than my usual legs might be, but they’re not.  All my skin’s about on par with the scales, all the time.  Not like, ‘stop a crossbow bolt’ levels of hard, but it’s probably the reason I’m still kicking… so to speak.” She pokes at a scar beneath her ribs as she mentions crossbow bolts. “I guess most people don’t realize this, but crossbows can be made to work underwater without relying on magic.  They fire about the same on land, too.”

With now confirmed approval, the kitsune steps into the water, immediately tensing from its temperature but doing her best to reach the middle of the pool. "O-Okay t-this is freezing, I-I'm going to try to heat his water a-and then we can talk more calmly." And both her eyes and hands glow a crimson orange as she gestures and chants the mystical words to the spell Fiery Runes, as one appears in Inari's palms and she breathes in and closes her eyes, submerging herself completely to touch the ground of the pool.
And from the bottom of the pool, a glowing orange rune discharges, but as it is in water, lots of bubbles surface as does the fox, now completely drenched and shivering. "T-T-There t-the water w-w-wasn't c-cold a-at all!" She grins a bit, her hair covered her face and her chest by sticking to it, using a hand to offer herself modesty, as her tails rise like black tentacles with white tips, the fur now heavy with water and making a small cascade as they drip. "I-I'm sure I l-look like a ghoul o-of some sort."

Chloris is not quite impressed, though at first she recoils a bit before reluctantly dipping a hand into the water. “Come on, Inari.  I’m sure that was a very cleverly thought out bit of magic that certainly will have helped, but at least wait until your teeth stop chattering before you lie through them about it not feeling cold.  Or, you know, start being uncharacteristically honest, like me today… at least since we reached the baths.” She swirls the water around a bit with her hand, at least wanting to pretend she’s helping to mix the bathwater to ensure a more even temperature. “I’d peg you for some kind of drowned ghost, personally.  Either that or a deep mer.”

Inari takes the mass of black that is her hair and flips it backwards, allowing her to have vision again, but in turn took her modesty. Her friend didn't seem to care. She was no man she needed information out of either, so maybe, she could try and relax. She sat next to the sorceress, trying to focus and not be as cold, which came with relative ease due to prestidigitation. "I could honestly be warmer, and there's a few ways to go about it." She mused, as she waited with a foot in the water for it to warm enough.

“I’m guessing you’re about to say something about sharing body heat,” Chloris comments, rolling her eyes as she continues to slowly swirl a hand in the water. “…Though in this case, I suppose it wouldn’t really be an innuendo.”
While it’s likely enough that neither of them want to sour their moods again by talking about what happened today, Chloris isn’t one to dodge around the elephant in the room.  Still, the topic could use a bit of a lead-in. “…Honestly, I think that’s one of the most confusing things about you.  Seduction seems as if it’s just another tool in your arsenal, alongside magic and a blade.  Maybe it even works on a lot of people, but isn’t it a little too risky to you personally?”

"Yes. It is." Inari replies immediately, her tone assertive in her statement, but once said, her gaze doesn't leave her own body. With that subject brought to mind, Inari only think of the many things she had to go through just to achieve what she thought would garner success in her attempts. "...And?" She adds, although lacking the confidence and assertiveness of the first set of words.
Her hands slide from her thighs down to her leg, and once having drifted off, she clenched them for a split second before relaxing.

“…And yet you do it anyway?” Chloris asks, looking strangely unsure herself as she tried to keep from sounding too judgmental. “That sort of thing would never have worked back where I come from, even if I wasn’t a…”
She hesitates, grimacing to herself for a moment. “…No, even if it had been an option, I wouldn’t have taken it.  It just seems so… needlessly risky and roundabout.  By now, I’d think that anyone that either of us might need something from could either be threatened or paid off.”
Chloris draws a finger across her throat. “Or, you know, killed and looted.”

Inari keeps her eyes down. She sighs wearily. "That's not the first time I hear that. I just...I have to. It's...It's my job. At the time when...when she..." Her voice falls mute as she recalls a lot from the years before the the edge of the continent. She grimaces and closes her eyes at the memories. "I've stabbed a man seven times in his skull in random places because I thought he was going to finish what I had started."
"You see, I...I thought it was easy. I thought all I had to do was play with them until I've gotten what I wanted and then leave. I even charmed him to stay a while, and asked all that I needed and forgot. W-When he grabbed my wrists with one hand I barely made one hand out when he was undoing his trousers and about to...to..."
The kitsune holds her own shoudlers in a shiver. "I-I didn't want to do it but I...my mind went completely blank and...when I came to, he was motionless and everything was red. B-But I had to keep going. I-I had to make up for travel time because the last one didn't give me anything I-I just needed to escape and forget about her, a-and..."
Inari falls silent again, but her eyes blink open, filled with regret.

Chloris winces as Inari continues and explains the close call she had.  It’s not pleasant to hear about something like that happening to her. “First off, how the hell is seduction your job?  You’re a spellcaster, aren’t you?  You should only be limited by your powers and ingenuity.”
“As for how you dealt with that guy, I’d say stabbing sounds like the right choice, there.” Chloris legitimately appears as though she doesn’t grasp why freaking out and stabbing someone to death would be something to feel regret over. “Think about it, Inari.  Killing an attempted rapist is really doing favor to some number of women down the line, isn’t it?  By that point, he earned it, anyway.”
Almost as an afterthought, the sorceress adds, “…I sure as shit won’t be losing sleep over having rammed that bastard’s sword through his neck today.”

The Kitsune turns to her friend with an apologetic smile. "Before I learned sword and spell, I had to make it somehow...She taught me how to dance, and how to stealthily follow...so I observed her a lot. It's...what she did." However, her frown returns quickly. "He...He said no. He told me to leave him alone. He told me he..." She breathes in deeply. "I saw his daughter. He...wouldn't do it if not under my charm...It was one of the first times I used it..."
Inari further shrinks in posture. "It was my fault. I murdered a guard with a family that I charmed, in terror he'd further corrupt my...I-I mean...rape...me."

“Wait, you mean that he wasn’t already interested in…” Chloris suppresses a shudder, looking a little sick now that she’s heard the reality of the situation. “You were… younger then, weren’t you?  More naïve and new with your power.  I’m sure you couldn’t have known what that spell might do if you weren’t careful enough.” She leans over and awkwardly pats Inari on the back.

The fox does not react much. "It was the only way I knew. I had to cross that border...and now, I realize how useless it was. They know I'm here. They're searching for me. It was...all fruitless."
Inari lifts her head and looks at Chloris. "The worst part of this is, it just slowed them down. Everything I did to get to this continent, lasted only to delay them slightly...They're here, and now if they ask, people will say they saw a three-tailed fox going around, and she'll perpetuate that I'm some sort of harbinger of doom for my kind," she says, her voice almost trying not to laugh, but fact is her expression was very different. "Mom will never be proud of me like this. Not that she even knows I exist, probably."

Chloris doesn’t keep her hand on Inari’s back for long, instead attempting to slowly pull herself into the bath. “Who the hell is here searching for you, anyway?  I’m pretty sure you were never too clear with that part, but if they’ve crossed the ocean to hunt you down, they’re awfully damn persistent.”
Depending on whether the bath is a raised tub or something built into the ground, Chloris might struggle somewhat, but eventually, she’s bound to succeed at leveraging herself in, even if it happens without Inari’s help. “As for the pursuers themselves, those shouldn’t be too much of a problem, right?  Not like it’s just you who’d be going up against them.”

Inari sighs, and drags herself back into the water once it's warm, allowing herself to slowly be submerged in it and closing her eyes once at neck level. "I suppose now is as good a time as any." She takes a deep breath as she looks up, trying to focus. "In my home, The Great Empire of the Wyrm, religious duty is passed down. Practitioners or acolytes are allowed to have lovers or even family as long as their firstborn is offered onto the faith and is taught in their ways." Inari looks down at the now swaying masses of black hair surrounding her. "The person's who is chasing me is the one that perpetuated that black features is a sign of spiritual impurity. Simple minded people like my mom took it at face value, and, well, retreated to the monastery to atone for me. Never saw her, that's what I concluded with what information I was given. I'm raised in secret to be one of them, as tradition states. I found my father spent all this time preparing me for my 'duty'. It's an unthinkable offence to abandon religious duty. And...that's what I did. Sometimes my home was searched by this lunatic that's tracking me, so Father sent me to a tavern next to the large road. I met my way out there, because they were kind enough to have brought me in after begging." Inari's face draws a small smile and a blush. "That's...when I met her."

“Your mentor, yeah?” Chloris allows herself to sink back into the bath, not quite settling to the bottom. “A dancer, seductress, and probably thief, going by what you’ve said of her so far.”
Before Inari gets offended by those presumptions, Chloris amends her statement with, “…Not that I think most of those aren’t perfectly valid professions.  Still probably a kinder role model than I ever had.” She scratches a bit at her back, looking a little uncomfortable with what she’s just said.

Inari nods at such a statement, then regards Chloris with curiosity, going her way. "She's the most precious person I've ever had...and she suffered a fate most ill." She looks up again as she reminisces. "Her dusky skin was immaculate. Her hair was as red as a sunset and her eyes this..gorgeous emerald colour. She was a mentor, a friend, and if I didn't know better I...I'd say she was...t-the...first person I-I was in love with." Her words seem a little uncertain, but her embarrassment is self-evident in the fact she lets herself sink further.
The kitsune avoids eye contact at all, but a moment after she stands upwards, her chest now being at the level her eyes used to be. "B-But nevermind that, what mentor did you have?"

Chloris rubs a bit at the wound on her chest, cleaning some of the dried blood away without making it bleed again. “There was little enough place for me within my family, I had to look elsewhere.  Even if I’m not the most stealthy sort, it was easy enough to slip away and have it be overlooked.  As long as I didn’t disappear for too long, my parents were perfectly happy to pretend I didn’t exist as a stain upon their bloodline.”
She turns away, resting her arms and chin on the edge of the bath and leaning her chin on them.  Most of the more noticeable scars upon her back seem to resemble burns of some sort, save for a small, but rather sinister-looking emblem that’s carved in between her shoulderblades. “I’ve said I’m almost completely self-taught when it comes to magic, but much like a lot of other unfortunates and outcasts, there came a point where I was desperate enough to look to religion.  The nobility don’t look kindly on the thought of any divinely empowered rivals, but the chance to spite my parents just made joining a cult all the more appealing.”

For a small moment, the kitsune tenses. At home, cults were but a tall tale, made by the same people who chase her from across the continent to hunt her. But if they were true... "What was it like?" She asks slightly eager, her curiosity taking the front lines instead of wariness and caution.
In the meantime, Inari sloshed around the water and sat down with her thighs clamped together, her legs sideways as she leaned in with a bit of a gleam in her eyes.

“It had its ups and downs,” Chloris answers, giving a shrug. “Whether it was great or awful really depended upon the day.  Dagon is the Demon Lord of the Sea, meaning I met a lot of unsavory types, crazies, and people with deformities.  Most of the other cultists weren’t actually mer, so a fair chunk of them scorned me as one of their oppressors until the priests decided I was worth keeping.  Still, it took a good while for me to prove myself.  I have to admit, I appreciate how well the various trials and rituals managed to toughen me up in preparation for what I’ve gone up against since leaving home.”
She sighs as she eases her human half back down into the water, then flips around to float on her back. “I guess if there was one person I could call a mentor there, it was one of the cult’s acolytes, not a full-on priest.  He seemed close enough to a mer to me, but maybe he was some sort of cross-breed.  All the scars made it a little hard to tell.  Guess he wasn’t truly the most devout sort, but he was clever and liked hurting people, so maybe he saw something of himself in me.  Didn’t make him go easy on me in any of the initiation rituals, but he did teach me more than just that devotion is pain.  I also picked up a lot about intimidation, a couple of the darker languages, and a bit about other religions, not just the stuff that had to do with the cult itself.”
Chloris tilts her head back to look at Inari as she starts to slowly drift toward her. “Of course, in the end, the cult mostly just wanted to take advantage of me to get info on the nobles.  Being a non-person in those upper circles might’ve been what drove me to join the cults in the first place, but it also meant there were lots of times where I could eavesdrop without really needing to hide.  I’d long since learned to lie through my teeth any time it would get me out of trouble, so it wasn’t like I had to do much of anything different in that regard.”
As the mer sorceress drifted away from Inari, her eyes followed, curious, and just slightly worried. A cult, despite being a place she could perhaps call home better than, well, home, she had learned things of it that were about as unsettling as they would get. And as she drifted back, Inari's golden eyes focused on her friend's, a part of her wanting to study the mystery that was Chloris' bare body, a compulsion that she knew not from whence it came.
However, her sight kept focused and true, and with this newfound information, the Kitsune thinks to herself that a cult of Calistria wouldn't be uncommon. From there, she would perfect her art and perhaps be a better blade for the mistress of lust and vengeance. But, in her core, she felt something give. She knew such a feeling was not her own, just a quick way of knowing comfort that her actions were not frowned upon by all of the Gods. She didn't want to portray herself in such a way. She was humble, intact and mostly untouched where it mattered...right? These concerns showed on her face as her eyes subtly observed the scars scarcely. She could be worse off, she wasn't stabbed or branded...by cultists But men have used us. Touched us. Their ragged breaths to the sway of our hips was evidence enough. Why deny it? They were right where you wanted them... But Inari just shuts her eyes and sighs with a scowl, attempting to silence and deny her own workings.
"That sounds... like a difficult time. It honestly explains why you're a bigger tower of age- frozen steel than the Inquisitor." As she opens her eyes, she attempts a gentle smile, but her eyes look disturbed all the same. "It grows tiresome to feel through the cracks when all I want is to reach out and touch."

Chloris doesn’t seem to pay Inari’s staring any mind, not making to cover herself up any.  Inari might notice a few small, faintly blue, and irregularly placed circles marking Chloris’ otherwise pale chest.  They clearly aren’t bruises, but rather the marks of some manner of magic.  She arrests her momentum just before she would bump into Inari, though her hair has already done so at that point.  Moving over somewhat, she eventually settles into a seated position beside her friend.
“Age-frozen steel?  Not sure I follow, but I’m guessing you mean how I’ve gone until today without really being honest with you about all this stuff?  For one thing, Corselle, my half-sister…,” Chloris has a dark at that word, “…she doesn’t exactly know about the cult stuff.  Considering I played a part in causing some of the shit that we left to get away from, it’s best she never finds out.  We don’t really talk as it is, but even though she didn’t hate me when we were younger, I’m sure she would if she knew I probably deprived her of her cushy noble life.”
Chloris shakes her head. “Between the two of us, I doubt it matters who wins if the city devolves into war.  Either way, someone’s going to want to hunt at least one of us down.”

Inari's eyes divert directly at those circles very blatantly, desperately seeking something that wouldn't let herself ponder about the things she did, attempting to listen. "It doesn't sound like you should tell her at all. What I meant was that advances upon you from me have to be slow worked and a response from you that wasn't a scowl or a minor deviation of that expression." She looks back up to Chloris and leans forward a little. "I don't think I've ever made you blush in the island, now did I?" She stares for a short moment until she shrugs it off. "Well, nonetheless. You've expressed you'd help me with my chasers, I'll help with yours. If they come before I find my blade, well, I'll have to use my...one of her scimitars." And she sighs again, a pang of sadness across her features, looking down at her knees. "She was sold off to the highest bidder as what they called a concubine, but who are we kidding. They were selling sex slaves, and... she was just more merchandise." Inari let her words hang in the air for a bit further, until she turned to Chloris, putting her outermost hand on the ground as she pushed herself a little closer. "Have you ever trusted someone in a scale you find hard to think you could?"

Chloris follows Inari’s gaze down to the blue circles, seeming to freeze up for a moment as she spots them.  Fortunately, Inari doesn’t comment on them immediately, so she’s able to go back to pretending they don’t exist.  Of course, when Inari shifts topics to what became of her mentor, she can’t can’t keep from looking appalled. “If we ever have a run-in with slavers, we’re killing them.  They’re disgusting and don’t deserve the slightest mercy.”
After saying that, she responds to Inari’s next question with a slow nod. “I’ve spent my whole life learning not to trust people.  I fully expect them to try and use me in one way or another, but… I don’t really feel that way with you.  It’s like you’re more honest with me than you are with anyone else, so I guess that means I trust you enough to feel like I can be the same way?”
Chloris leans her head back, averting her eyes from both herself and Inari. “You know, when it felt like you didn’t care, I… I didn’t handle it well.  It hurt more than anything and I wanted to make you suffer enough that you’d apologize.  Only, when you did, I…” She trails off, letting her words hang in the air.
As she leans back, Inari leans further without realizing it. "You...?" She adds, her soft, warm breathing clashing gently upon the sorceress' skin. The kitsune's tails, now moist, poofy and cold, sway gently, brushing around the two, in an almost enveloping motion. Her eyes glistened as she awaited the end of her sentence. She felt compelled to look at Chloris' lips, and for a moment steals a small glance but looks back up as a pink flush returns to her features. Much as she felt she should, Inari did not budge from her closeness.
"T-To some extent, I try to trust everyone... right now, YOU are the one that has ever had full disclosure upon my story and... w-well, simply put, t-the naked truth." She says, taking care to not breathe as hard in her direction. using the small window Chloris gave with her hung words.

“I don’t really have what you might call a guilty conscience, nor much of a conscience at all.  Normally, there’s very little I do that I ever feel worse about than simply being annoyed at my own mistake, but… after I said things that hurt you, I somehow felt so much worse.”
The sorceress shakes her head, her attention focusing back on Inari. “Ugh, I hate it.  I don’t like doubting myself, but I’m forced to admit that my only way of how to help someone who’s upset is to find the person who wronged them and grind that person’s face into the dirt.  With you, half the time it’s me that’s upsetting you, but even though I’m not going to hurt myself over that, it still feels like part of me means to suffer for it anyway.”
Chloris clenches her hands into fists, looking terribly frustrated with herself. “I don’t really understand people in a lot of ways, but I guess I… sort of want to apologize?  At least, I’m hoping it’ll help.”

Inari is stunned at Chloris' words. For as long as she got to know this one, the one thing she didn't expect at all is happening right before her widened eyes. She tries to say, gesture, back away, anything, but she was caught entirely off-guard. After a small moment, Inari gives Chloris a warm smile, as she puts a hand over the mer's, blinking slowly and squeezing gently- "I... You have no idea how surprised I am to hear that, but, before I am caught entirely in the moment, I have to ask, what...made you feel that way?" She tilts her head a little as she asks, her saddened eyes slowly returning to their glistening, cheerful nature, with something slightly different. "W-Would you say you...care about how I... feel?" She asks with some reluctance and hope.

Chloris lowers her head rather than meet Inari’s gaze. “Somehow, it’s a little uncomfortable for you to put it like that, but… that’s probably about right.  It would probably be easier on me if I didn’t, yet…” A hand goes to her head and she slowly looks back up at Inari, biting her lip for a moment as her mouth starts to settle into a slightly sick, uneasy sort of smile. “I guess it’s making you happier right now, so maybe it’s not really as much of a glaring weakness as I’d been figuring it for.”

Inari takes a hand to the sorcerer's cheek slowly, her smile a little wider than it was before. "I want you to realize, Chloris, that what you're doing right now, it's...it means a lot to me. You mean a lot to me." Her fingers softly caress the pale girl's cheek with a practiced tenderness, but the fox seemed the most honest she could be, as she doesn't look nervous at all. "I know I...I was incredibly self-absorbed today. I was just scared. But never, for a second, think that I'd trade your life, and meeting, and your safety, for a sword. I'll never deliberately forget you. This is no weakness. You're not a heartless, cold, monster from the depths of the ocean, and I'll yearn that you manifest this side, no, your true self, to me, as I will I to you."

Chloris instinctively starts to recoil from Inari’s touch, much more nervous than her friend is.  Even so, she soon manages to muster her willpower toward resisting that instinct. “If you swear not to tell anyone, then… I guess it’s fine for me to be a little more honest whenever you’re the only one around.”
She glances down at her hands, now resting limp at her sides, rather than being held up as a barrier to keep Inari away. “Maybe that job a few days ago was worse on me in a number of ways, but today was still… terrifying.  You brought me to a strange environment, for reasons I didn’t fully understand.  I was just following your lead even though I didn’t want to be there, then you lead me into a situation where, if I wasn’t always rightly suspicious of others and didn’t hate alcohol, you know you could have easily gotten both of us…” Chloris gives a painful swallow. “And yet, if I hadn’t followed along with you, then…”
Blunt as she normally is, she can’t bring herself to say it. “I just want to pretend the bad parts of today never happened.  We’re going to recover our stuff that we left behind at the gambling hall, including your sword.  Afterward, I’m probably going to need you to try and convince me not to burn it down so that we aren’t arrested.  If it turns out that your pursuer caught wind of this, we’ll deal with her too.  That sound fair to you?”

Inari lets the mer adapt to her touch. For once, she can understand her reluctance, fear, and distrust. At the eyes of many of those who do not belong, a cult is their only family, and how they are affects deeply how one develops. Inari has had time to marinate in her own thoughts, practice conversations and the doctrines of her home without even knowing it, but she doesn't share her timespan. Learning the ways of the world, in whatever version of it it was, was an evidenced uphill battle for her. The slightly feral gold of her eyes scanned the scars with a deliberately slow pace, to remember their places, her eyes scanning for a little longer the faint blue circles on her chest. Inari's eyes seemed yearning as she look back up. "Yes...under one condition..." She said, drawing out her words slowly in a breathy voice without realizing it. She could feel herself being pulled. 'Claim her. You two are close...Wait for her to ask, and claim your rightful place in her thoughts. Plague her mind with a kiss. It'll only take one small moment for it to last in her head for as long as she lives.' Inari could feel her own heartbeat race, the core of her being enticed by the promise of lasting forever in someone's memory, inching ever so closer but halting as she claimed her thoughts back, her breath once more upon the sorceress' skin, slightly ragged and her features sporting a pink shade, coupled with a wide smile and a glistening gaze.

“…And that… that condition is… what, exactly?” Chloris looked plainly reluctant to agree to anything until she knew what it was.  Perhaps she didn’t give terribly much thought to modesty, but the way Inari was looking at her made her somehow… nervous?  Usually, the sorceress was fairly decisive in most respects, but now a clear note of vulnerability shone through.
As she thinks about it, Chloris realizes that it might well be the type of request she’s not sure she’s ready to grant.  At least, not out of the blue like this. “Er… just don’t go asking anything too unreasonable, alright?”

And her own voice echoes again, as seductively as she had just been unwittingly. 'You're alone. She's nervous. Act first. Claim your place next to The Lady in the Room...Make use of your practice...Could she say no, to you? You've gone such lengths for more, hesitate not, now of all moments. Inari struggles with herself. She had just uncovered so much in trust, but, just to be safe... "Come now, you trust me...don't you?" She whispers now, her voice but a soft hum.

“Enough to share most of my best kept secrets with you, yes.” That question didn’t exactly serve to calm Chloris’ uncertainty. If anything, it did the opposite. Regardless, this was surely the most vulnerable that Inari had seen her.

"Then..." She inches just a little closer, her warm breath felt on the Chloris' own lips. "A favour..." She whispers as her eyes close a small bit. "Close your eyes..."

“Must I?” Chloris plainly doesn’t want to, but… this is a show of trust.  She does trust Inari… more-or-less, so… this much should be fine, right?  At least, that’s what she tells herself. “Well, if you insist…”

As Chloris does so, Inari's hand moves to place a slender finger on the center of the sorceress' lips, then closing her eyes, inhaling a bit nervously, but inching the rest of the way to place a kiss on Chloris, interposed by her own thin finger. If she could, it would last but a small moment, as she pulled away, sporting a bright pink shade upon her pale cheeks, along with a meek little smile. "Your slaps hurt more than just my face. Please don't do it again. That's all I ask..."

Chloris opened her eyes after Inari had finished her not-quite kiss.  Though she isn’t entirely sure what Inari just did, the kitsune isn’t the only one left blushing. “Then… you better not try to... to off yourself again, alright?  With how our lives tend to go, I know I can’t ask you to never die at all, but… you should at least have the decency to do so in a way that lets me avenge you.” The words come out more pleading than she might have liked, but for the moment, she can't quite bring herself to care.

Inari sees this reaction and feels tempted to not hold herself back at all, her hesitation present in a gentle back and forth sway. "I won't if you-" But she holds her tongue. The kitsune looks away from the mer, biting her lips in slight insatisfaction, but sighs through her nose as she begins to cope with the fact she didn't go as far as part of her wished she would. "Your backhand is surprisingly strong, I deserve compensation, don't you think?"

A slight twinge of annoyance comes over Chloris’ face. “Oh, you must be joking.  I hurt myself trying to rouse you from your drug-induced sleep, earlier.  Besides, I think that after literally carrying you back to the guildhall, I've paid any debt I owed.”

Inari's blush deepens, but in frustration as she pouts a little. It wasn't what she meant at all. "W-Well... y-you have a point…"
The kitsune cannot hide the fact she is biting her lower lip, but she tries to not make it painfully obvious she's stealing glances at the sorceress' lips. 'You should've done that instead, now writhe or finish what you've started.'

“Come now, Inari,” Chloris says, starting to recline back again. “I can tell that you’re feeling a bit put out by that response, but can’t we just relax and have a bath?  Leave all the demands and expectations and ulterior motives at the door.  It’s exhausting having to deal with them all the time, especially if we’re meant to be honest with each other.”

Inari ponders the sorceress' words for a visible moment, and upon such fixates her eyes on Chloris. "You...have a point again. Excuse me." And she places her two hands upon the mer's cheeks, placing a felt kiss on her lips, lasting the same small moment as before, pulling back deliberately slow. "You've done...more for me today than fifty years of my people and two years of those that helped me sell myself. You've saved me, slapped sense into me, cared for me, and hell, I believe even reluctantly, you'd feed me if I couldn't. And most of all, you respect me even as you read me better than anyone else. This is the most honest I've ever been to myself, with this. I just..." She smiles nervously. "I-I just hope, that you don't think I used it as a tool. I-I know that...a whore's kiss is a vague promise, but...You're the closest I've had to a knight in shining armour for the past month or two, and I don't know how else to reward you more honestly..."
With that, the kitsune sighs out all she has been thinking for the past minute or so, relaxing considerably but still a little uncertain.

Though Chloris’ uncertainty is all but a tangible taste upon her lips, she makes no move to stop Inari.  Though most people could scarcely even touch her without provoking her ire, Inari was somehow… different. “You shouldn’t feel as though you need to reward me for anything.  I guess that maybe saying that runs contrary to how I normally act, but even so…,” the sorceress looks down, fidgeting a bit, “I’m not like most people, so even if you… kiss me or anything like that, I… I don’t really know how to react?”

The kitsune only smiles in response. "If you don't know, then take your time, or don't react at all. You...certainly have the freedom to make it a passing occurrence of no importance, or to attribute the highest honor...We are, after all, both fair maidens, so I don't think there's stories or tales that accurately portray the dynamic of such an aftermath..." She slides back down to the water's level smoothly. "I don't feel like I need to, I wanted to. And I did." She sighs out the rest of her uncertainty. "Now, I can relax." And she lets herself sink into the waters with a satisfied smile. "Let it be known, you'll be the first I have deliberately kissed without ulterior motive. I...had thoughts that gave me such, due to the nature I've fostered for the sake of making it way back when, but...This time, and only this time, I did it because I genuinely wanted to. I-I don't know how to feel about that, but I am happy about it, as it stands right now."
But as she figures out what it means, she turns around to look Chloris with an embarassed look. "K-Keep it between you and me. I-I know that's the third condition at this point b-but bare with me..."

Chloris sighs, giving a nod as she assents to her friend’s request. “I guess if you did what you want and you’re happy with that, then I can’t really complain either way, can I?  At least, not if there’s no pressure on me to decide how to respond right away.” She sinks back down into the water, letting it cover almost up to her chin. “N-not like I’d go and tell anyone, regardless.  Even if I had someone else that I could actually tell, you’re the first person who’s ever…”

The kitsune puts on her characteristic sly smile. "First person who's ever? Go on, it's just you and me after all~" She playfully comments, crossing her arms and nudging a little bit. "It'll be our very well kept secret, promise~!"

“If you insist, then,” Chloris mutters, frowning at Inari, though it was obvious enough that the expression was little more than a token effort. “You are the first to have kissed me and the first to have been so considerate of my feelings.  Don’t ask me to decide which of those is the more embarrassing one.”

Inari swims over to the mer and leans on her with her sly smile still, sporting shades of pink and closing her eyes in satisfaction. "There's a first time for everything, my dear, and I am glad I was the one on both. I must ask however," And an eye opens looking blatantly at her. "Other than your lovely bosom, I have noticed you have strange glowing marks. Mind if I ask what is it that compliments thy chest so well?"

“Glowing marks?  You mean these… things?” Chloris indicates one of the pale blue dots. “Those are… recent.  A couple days ago, in fact.  That little witch girl who you’ve somehow taken a liking to had no shortage of traps filling her lair, meaning I ran afoul of a curse.”
The sorceress closes her eyes, giving a slight shiver. “I don’t really want to talk about that.  It got… bad.”

Inari's gaze travels between the shivering mer and the marks. Without hesitation, the kitsune places a kiss on the circles, and leans on Chloris, swimming a little closer. "I'm sorry you had to deal with that on your own."
"And rest assured, the little one will not harm you any further. She can't use sorceries anymore."

“It wasn’t quite on my own.  If not for Carlynn, I would have died horribly.” Though she tries to sound very matter-of-fact about her brush with death, the way her fingernails are digging into her arms makes it quite obvious how much her ordeal really rattled her. “I sure hope you’re right about the witch kid.  I’d rather not come to regret being merciful toward her after I had the chance to go for the throat and didn’t take it.”

Inari embraces Chloris tightly, her arms sloshing in the water as they wrap around the sorceress. "How about you don't go anywhere without me and vice versa?"

Chloris doesn’t return the embrace at first, but after some deliberation, her arms rise to uncomfortably wrap around Inari’s back. “I’m not sure if that’s going to be possible as a long-term strategy, but I think that’s fair to request for at least a couple days.  We seem to get into trouble whether we’re around each other or not, but… when we’re together, at least we can better cover for each other’s failings.”

Inari squeezes her a bit in the embrace "Hearing that makes me happy..." And she doesn't let go, not for a few moments, after which she looks down at the chest area of the two and compares with a raised eyebrow. "Here I thought I was the most humble of the two." She mumbles, but the short distance they're sharing makes it nearly impossible not to hear.

“Rude,” Chloris complains, lightly bonking her forehead against Inari’s.  It isn’t forcefully enough to cause either of them any pain, but it still serves to punctuate her not-quite-protest. “For your information, I didn’t always eat well as a child.  This is simply the natural outcome of that.”

Inari protests with a small whine and huffs, looking between the two interesting sights that are her eyes and her chest. "Well you could always eat-" But the fox holds her tongue as she just smiles. "Possibly not the best moment for such a joke. But I find them very cute."

Chloris merely answers with a roll of her eyes.  She wasn’t about to seem grateful for the compliment, but rejecting it would just lead to Inari trying to compliment her more, something the sorceress isn’t entirely comfortable with.
---End Scene---