WICKED FIC :: "Secrets Revealed: Part 1 - Chapter 1" [Elphaba/Glinda, Rain/Tip]
PLEASE SEE INDEX PAGE [ DW || LJ ] FOR DISCLAIMERS & OTHER CHAPTERS
Chapter 1: The Return
She never expected to be back in the Emerald City so soon after leaving it. In truth, she never expected to step foot inside the great glittering jewel of Oz in this or any other lifetime. She knew she wasn't lucky enough to live multiple lifetimes like Tip -- Her Highness -- did. Or whatever magical version of multiple lives it was that the reigning Ozma had been living all this time. There was no magic spell to give her the equivalent of immortality, and she certainly didn't want it if there was such a thing. It was hard enough dealing with the people who believed she was the reincarnation of Saint Aelphaba or, worse, of her dead grandmother.
It was that very connection to her grandmother that gave her pause. When she was just the broom girl at Mockbeggar Hall, no one knew anything about that connection. She didn't even know of the connection. It wasn't like her father had given her any sort of looking glass to view herself in. She'd always assumed she looked like everyone else, or so nondescript as to fade into the shadows. It wasn't until that damnable spell that Mombey cast that the reality of her life -- and her lineage -- was revealed to all and sundry.
And that included the revelation about Tip. Looking back, it seemed obvious that she should have guessed. Someone should have guessed. Tip. Tippetarius. How could anyone not make that connection? Was it because she'd been transformed into a boy? Then again, it wasn't like Mombey was all that forthcoming with the information, so how could anyone, including Tip, know the truth? And hadn't her own life and forced anonymity followed the same lack of comprehension?
She shook her head fiercely and forced any thoughts of -- Tip? Ozma? whatever? -- that time from her mind. There was no use in dwelling on something that could never, should never, be. It smacked too much of what she'd come to consider a fatal flaw in her lineage: that forbidden, hidden love. Perhaps it had something to do with past inbreeding within the line of the Eminent Thropps of Munchkinland. Perhaps it was just a curse brought down on her ancestors at some point. But she had four generations of this curse, including herself, so who was she to deny its veracity?
Shaking her head again, she took a deep breath and brought the broomstick -- her broomstick -- down outside the southern gate into the Emerald City. It would do her no good to die now. Or maybe it would. It would certainly put an end to the Thropp curse and all the attendant myths surrounding her heritage. Or maybe it wouldn't. It would put an end to the curse, that was a certainty. Neither Shell nor Nessarose had produced any heirs before their deaths; her parents certainly hadn't had any other children, and wouldn't ever again; and she was determined not to bring further issue into the world as she knew it.
*****
"Rain! It is good to see you again." Brr's voice was both comforting and painful to hear. "I had hoped you would return from your travels sooner rather than later."
She sighed, but accepted his suffocating embrace nevertheless. There was the briefest sting of tears in her eyes as she felt that well-known fur against her cheek again. It was softer, sleeker now. Clearly ruling Oz was beneficial to him. Good. He deserved to be treated well by these people who had scorned and ridiculed him for nearly his entire life. It had all started with her grandmother. Wasn't it funny how everything seemed to have started with her grandmother, or her great-grandmother?
"It wasn't my intention, but something compelled me," she finally said. And it was the truth. "I found your note at the Chancel of the Ladyfish and made my way here."
Brr nodded and closed his eyes for a moment. For all that his new position had made him look and feel far healthier, she could see the strain pulling at the corners of his great mouth, dulling the color in his kind eyes. She knew he missed Illianora greatly; her aunt's defection and death had been a nearly mortal blow to the great Lion. Perhaps he lived with the same hope of Illianora's return that Lady Glinda had lived with regarding her grandmother.
"I wish I could be greeting you with better news," he finally said, still not meeting her eyes just yet. "So much has happened, and yet so little has changed."
She snorted at that. "You speak in the same riddles that Lady Glinda did, Brr, just without the frivolous phraseologies." There was the faintest hint of a smile then, a tiny glint of amusement in his eyes. "You never treated me like a child before, please don't do it now."
"Very well. You are more like your gr--"
"Don't. Just tell me what was so important as to compel me back to this damnable place and let me be on my way."
Brr blinked at the ferocity in her tone, but did his best to cover it. To anyone who didn't know him, it would have gone unnoticed. She, however, had spent several years of her life in close proximity and was thus able to see the tiny crack in his armor.
"As you wish. Your lifelong benefactor, Lady Glinda Upland Chuffrey, has succumbed to the vagaries of Southstairs."
That revelation was enough to send her crashing to the floor in disbelief. Never again would she hear Lady Glinda's voice, feel those impossibly soft hands caress her hair, have the only real family she'd ever known again. And then the anger set in, and she was instantly on her feet again, batting away his outstretched paws. "Succumbed to the vagaries of Southstairs? What a grand and gloriously benign way of saying that prison killed her."
"Rain--"
"What happened to your promise, Brr? What happened to your grand gesture of releasing her as soon as possible? Of giving her the very best treatment possible while you forced her to live in that hellacious place just to appease the citizens of Oz? You're no better than anyone else who has taken over rulership of this damnable place. It's just as cursed as I am. Maybe I'd have been better off going to Kanzizz when Dorothy left."
"Rain, please," was all Brr would say.
"Please what? Please understand that you're new to this whole throne ministership? You've been at it for more than a year now. Please don't hate you for doing what was best for Oz? How do you, or anyone else, know what's best for Oz? Have you asked anyone? Or have you just let your advisors turn you into a puppet leader? Please let you put your royal spin on things I can't begin to understand? You have no idea what I can or cannot understand. Please what, Brr?"
"Please let me explain."
She stared at him for a long moment, breathing heavily in the wake of her rising anger. Even those four simple words did little to ease her ire over this situation. And yet, there was a sadness in the Lion's eyes that bespoke more than she was willing to give him credit for at the moment. With a great huff of emotion, she dropped to the floor again, wrapping her arms around knees drawn up tightly to her chest. The broomstick almost vibrated at her side.
"Then explain."
As Brr launched into his explanation of what happened in the year and more than she'd been away from the Emerald City, she heard his words, but wasn't entirely sure she was listening to them. She did know the distinction, after all. General Cherrystone and Lady Glinda had both sought to teach her to think and process things beyond being the lowly broom girl at Mockbeggar Hall.
Just the thought of Lady Glinda's name brought about such a pang of heartache as to nearly lay her flat on her back from the overwhelming pain of it. She wanted nothing more in that instant than to go back in time, back to when life was simpler and the most pressing things in her life were keeping the floors swept and learning her letters from both Cherrystone and Glinda. No, learning her letters was what started all of this hell that had become her life. She wanted nothing more than to be that innocent, stupid little broom girl again. Everything would be set to rights again, and she would simply refuse to learn her letters if asked again.
A parade of memories, like the movie pictures Dorothy had once spoken of, began to play in her mind's eye. She found herself reliving so many memories of her childhood and young adulthood, all of them directly related to Lady Glinda in some way or another.
With a kiss upon the seal…
She blinked suddenly at the softly spoken words. It was a voice she didn't recognize, but it brought back vivid memories of Lady Glinda's voice uttering the same words. What came next? She knew there was more to it, but couldn't remember the rest of the words she knew followed.
"Rain, I apologize for everything that has happened." Brr's words finally pierce through the veil of memories clouding her perception. "Please don't be angry with me. I did everything I could to make sure that Lady Glinda was treated well in Southstairs, but--"
"Did you visit her?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"You heard me, Brr. Did you visit her? Make sure she was being treated well?"
He started to answer, then stopped. He scratched behind one ear, then the other, before he spoke again. "I admit that I did not visit Lady Glinda in Southstairs during her incarceration. Initially, it didn't seem appropriate for the Ozma Regent and Throne Minister to be visiting a perceived enemy of the state. But messages were sent back and forth between us, and she seemed in good health. She was given the best treatment for the entire duration of her incarceration; I have this on the highest authority, Rain. But things grew busier, and my advisors assured me that she was being taken care of. I took them at their word, because--"
"Because it was the easy way out," she said, cutting in smoothly. "Did she at least get a decent burial? A royal pardon?" When he didn't say anything further, she scowled. "Was that your choice or hers?"
Brr sighed and looked down for a moment. He turned around and walked toward the throne of state. She watched him fumbling with something, but his great cloak prevented her from seeing it. She began to pick at the dirt caked along the hem of her own cloak, wanting to be anywhere but there.
With a kiss upon the seal…
And that unknown voice came back again, echoed by a far more familiar voice. Again, that aching stab pierced her chest until she was trembling. From the corner of her eye, something came into sharp focus. A moderately sized folio lay on the ground next to her, just on the other side of the broomstick. Brr's paw slid back out of her field of vision, replaced briefly by the fluffy tip of his tail that stuck out from beneath his cloak.
"Clearly I cannot speak with you of these things at this time, Rain," he said, sadness seemed to seep from every pore of his being. "I will leave you alone for now to digest this information. When it was discovered that she had passed, her belongings were gathered together. Her one request throughout this entire episode was that you receive all of her worldly possessions, being the closest thing to family that she had left. Ozma Tippetarius has been storing the items in her custody at Madame Teastane's Female Seminary, waiting for your eventual return to give them to you. That folio contains a copy of her final wishes, as well as an inventory of what was found in her cell. As for the items purported to be at Mockbeggar Hall, I have no way of verifying their existence at all."
She flinched at the mention of Tip's name, but otherwise made no moves of any kind. She heard him sigh, could almost imagine that he wanted to reach out and take her in his great paws again, just as he had once or twice when she'd first come into his care. A part of her wished he would, but the rest of her knew he wouldn't. It wasn't their way.
"When you're ready to talk, come find me. We have much to catch up on. Until then, you are free to stay here in the palace. If not, your accommodations will be taken care of wherever you choose to stay while you're still in the Emerald City. Just offer the innkeeper the top sheet in the folio. Goodbye for now, Rain."
And then she was alone in the receiving room.
*****
She wasn't sure how long she sat on the floor of the receiving room, just staring at the folio Brr had left. She was curious to know what Lady Glinda's last wishes were and how they affected her; of course, she was curious. Lady Glinda was the only family she'd had until Brr, and Illianora, and the crew of the Time Clock Dragon, and her parents, and Tay, and Tip. She needed some sort of closure, but she didn't want to make everything so real and final either.
Finally, hunger and a numb bottom got her up and moving. It took several moments before the sensation of pins and needles completely abandoned her lower extremities. She was grateful for the offspring of her grandmother's broomstick and the stability it offered. By the time she felt vaguely normal again, there was a suspicious wetness coating her lashes. Scrubbing at her eyes with a fist, she leaned over to pick up the folio and moved to a side table with a chair. Settling on the edge of the seat, as if afraid of taking root in this land of opulence and ostentation, she opened the folio and began to read the pages within.
By the time she finished, there were honest to goodness tears in her eyes. She didn't realize that she'd meant so much to Lady Glinda all these years. Oh, she understood on a purely logical level that an appearance of indifference to the lowest of her staff was necessary to keeping safe the girl in her charge. But once they'd been thrust into close quarters by General Cherrystone, and her abilities at reading the Grimmerie were discovered, things had changed. Perhaps Lady Glinda had always felt that way about her, but she'd just never paid it the slightest bit of attention because she didn't know any better. To be listed as the woman's only living relation only brought more questions than answers. Did Lady Glinda feel that way because of her or because of her grandmother?
With a soft sigh, she replaced all of the sheets within the folio, then stowed it in her travel pouch. She would need to find lodging and food soon, and she knew she couldn't stay in the palace. It was too confining, too much a reminder of the curse of her lineage. She raised herself to her full height and walked out of the receiving room. Heading down the corridor, she stopped the first servant she found and gained a way out of the palace itself.
With the same long, ground-eating strides she'd learned while in the company of Brr and the others, she put as much distance as possible between herself and the palace. She let whim and her nose guide her through the city, knowing that she only had to take to the sky if she got herself lost at all. She found herself in the market district, surrounded by the heady aromas of countless food stalls. There was just enough money in her pouch to purchase a bit of a meal. She withstood the stares and whispered conversations around her, glaring at anyone who might consider starting up either conversation or confrontation with her.
When the sun began to set, her feet led her to a modest enough inn. Once inside, she spoke with the innkeeper and offered him the sheet Brr had mentioned. She was shown to the best room in the entire place. It offered her privacy and a quiet sanctuary away from the bawdy folk down in the common room. It made her think of her time in the haunted boys' dormitory at St. Prowd's. But that only made her think of Tay and Tip, and she didn't want to do that just yet. She ate a meal larger than she was used to, followed by a decadently long soak in the tub in water hot enough to steam the windows. Physically sated, she crawled into the sumptuous bed and fell asleep almost instantly.
Original post @ Dreamwidth with
comments. Commenting is welcome on either post.
Chapter 1: The Return
She never expected to be back in the Emerald City so soon after leaving it. In truth, she never expected to step foot inside the great glittering jewel of Oz in this or any other lifetime. She knew she wasn't lucky enough to live multiple lifetimes like Tip -- Her Highness -- did. Or whatever magical version of multiple lives it was that the reigning Ozma had been living all this time. There was no magic spell to give her the equivalent of immortality, and she certainly didn't want it if there was such a thing. It was hard enough dealing with the people who believed she was the reincarnation of Saint Aelphaba or, worse, of her dead grandmother.
It was that very connection to her grandmother that gave her pause. When she was just the broom girl at Mockbeggar Hall, no one knew anything about that connection. She didn't even know of the connection. It wasn't like her father had given her any sort of looking glass to view herself in. She'd always assumed she looked like everyone else, or so nondescript as to fade into the shadows. It wasn't until that damnable spell that Mombey cast that the reality of her life -- and her lineage -- was revealed to all and sundry.
And that included the revelation about Tip. Looking back, it seemed obvious that she should have guessed. Someone should have guessed. Tip. Tippetarius. How could anyone not make that connection? Was it because she'd been transformed into a boy? Then again, it wasn't like Mombey was all that forthcoming with the information, so how could anyone, including Tip, know the truth? And hadn't her own life and forced anonymity followed the same lack of comprehension?
She shook her head fiercely and forced any thoughts of -- Tip? Ozma? whatever? -- that time from her mind. There was no use in dwelling on something that could never, should never, be. It smacked too much of what she'd come to consider a fatal flaw in her lineage: that forbidden, hidden love. Perhaps it had something to do with past inbreeding within the line of the Eminent Thropps of Munchkinland. Perhaps it was just a curse brought down on her ancestors at some point. But she had four generations of this curse, including herself, so who was she to deny its veracity?
Shaking her head again, she took a deep breath and brought the broomstick -- her broomstick -- down outside the southern gate into the Emerald City. It would do her no good to die now. Or maybe it would. It would certainly put an end to the Thropp curse and all the attendant myths surrounding her heritage. Or maybe it wouldn't. It would put an end to the curse, that was a certainty. Neither Shell nor Nessarose had produced any heirs before their deaths; her parents certainly hadn't had any other children, and wouldn't ever again; and she was determined not to bring further issue into the world as she knew it.
*****
"Rain! It is good to see you again." Brr's voice was both comforting and painful to hear. "I had hoped you would return from your travels sooner rather than later."
She sighed, but accepted his suffocating embrace nevertheless. There was the briefest sting of tears in her eyes as she felt that well-known fur against her cheek again. It was softer, sleeker now. Clearly ruling Oz was beneficial to him. Good. He deserved to be treated well by these people who had scorned and ridiculed him for nearly his entire life. It had all started with her grandmother. Wasn't it funny how everything seemed to have started with her grandmother, or her great-grandmother?
"It wasn't my intention, but something compelled me," she finally said. And it was the truth. "I found your note at the Chancel of the Ladyfish and made my way here."
Brr nodded and closed his eyes for a moment. For all that his new position had made him look and feel far healthier, she could see the strain pulling at the corners of his great mouth, dulling the color in his kind eyes. She knew he missed Illianora greatly; her aunt's defection and death had been a nearly mortal blow to the great Lion. Perhaps he lived with the same hope of Illianora's return that Lady Glinda had lived with regarding her grandmother.
"I wish I could be greeting you with better news," he finally said, still not meeting her eyes just yet. "So much has happened, and yet so little has changed."
She snorted at that. "You speak in the same riddles that Lady Glinda did, Brr, just without the frivolous phraseologies." There was the faintest hint of a smile then, a tiny glint of amusement in his eyes. "You never treated me like a child before, please don't do it now."
"Very well. You are more like your gr--"
"Don't. Just tell me what was so important as to compel me back to this damnable place and let me be on my way."
Brr blinked at the ferocity in her tone, but did his best to cover it. To anyone who didn't know him, it would have gone unnoticed. She, however, had spent several years of her life in close proximity and was thus able to see the tiny crack in his armor.
"As you wish. Your lifelong benefactor, Lady Glinda Upland Chuffrey, has succumbed to the vagaries of Southstairs."
That revelation was enough to send her crashing to the floor in disbelief. Never again would she hear Lady Glinda's voice, feel those impossibly soft hands caress her hair, have the only real family she'd ever known again. And then the anger set in, and she was instantly on her feet again, batting away his outstretched paws. "Succumbed to the vagaries of Southstairs? What a grand and gloriously benign way of saying that prison killed her."
"Rain--"
"What happened to your promise, Brr? What happened to your grand gesture of releasing her as soon as possible? Of giving her the very best treatment possible while you forced her to live in that hellacious place just to appease the citizens of Oz? You're no better than anyone else who has taken over rulership of this damnable place. It's just as cursed as I am. Maybe I'd have been better off going to Kanzizz when Dorothy left."
"Rain, please," was all Brr would say.
"Please what? Please understand that you're new to this whole throne ministership? You've been at it for more than a year now. Please don't hate you for doing what was best for Oz? How do you, or anyone else, know what's best for Oz? Have you asked anyone? Or have you just let your advisors turn you into a puppet leader? Please let you put your royal spin on things I can't begin to understand? You have no idea what I can or cannot understand. Please what, Brr?"
"Please let me explain."
She stared at him for a long moment, breathing heavily in the wake of her rising anger. Even those four simple words did little to ease her ire over this situation. And yet, there was a sadness in the Lion's eyes that bespoke more than she was willing to give him credit for at the moment. With a great huff of emotion, she dropped to the floor again, wrapping her arms around knees drawn up tightly to her chest. The broomstick almost vibrated at her side.
"Then explain."
As Brr launched into his explanation of what happened in the year and more than she'd been away from the Emerald City, she heard his words, but wasn't entirely sure she was listening to them. She did know the distinction, after all. General Cherrystone and Lady Glinda had both sought to teach her to think and process things beyond being the lowly broom girl at Mockbeggar Hall.
Just the thought of Lady Glinda's name brought about such a pang of heartache as to nearly lay her flat on her back from the overwhelming pain of it. She wanted nothing more in that instant than to go back in time, back to when life was simpler and the most pressing things in her life were keeping the floors swept and learning her letters from both Cherrystone and Glinda. No, learning her letters was what started all of this hell that had become her life. She wanted nothing more than to be that innocent, stupid little broom girl again. Everything would be set to rights again, and she would simply refuse to learn her letters if asked again.
A parade of memories, like the movie pictures Dorothy had once spoken of, began to play in her mind's eye. She found herself reliving so many memories of her childhood and young adulthood, all of them directly related to Lady Glinda in some way or another.
With a kiss upon the seal…
She blinked suddenly at the softly spoken words. It was a voice she didn't recognize, but it brought back vivid memories of Lady Glinda's voice uttering the same words. What came next? She knew there was more to it, but couldn't remember the rest of the words she knew followed.
"Rain, I apologize for everything that has happened." Brr's words finally pierce through the veil of memories clouding her perception. "Please don't be angry with me. I did everything I could to make sure that Lady Glinda was treated well in Southstairs, but--"
"Did you visit her?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"You heard me, Brr. Did you visit her? Make sure she was being treated well?"
He started to answer, then stopped. He scratched behind one ear, then the other, before he spoke again. "I admit that I did not visit Lady Glinda in Southstairs during her incarceration. Initially, it didn't seem appropriate for the Ozma Regent and Throne Minister to be visiting a perceived enemy of the state. But messages were sent back and forth between us, and she seemed in good health. She was given the best treatment for the entire duration of her incarceration; I have this on the highest authority, Rain. But things grew busier, and my advisors assured me that she was being taken care of. I took them at their word, because--"
"Because it was the easy way out," she said, cutting in smoothly. "Did she at least get a decent burial? A royal pardon?" When he didn't say anything further, she scowled. "Was that your choice or hers?"
Brr sighed and looked down for a moment. He turned around and walked toward the throne of state. She watched him fumbling with something, but his great cloak prevented her from seeing it. She began to pick at the dirt caked along the hem of her own cloak, wanting to be anywhere but there.
With a kiss upon the seal…
And that unknown voice came back again, echoed by a far more familiar voice. Again, that aching stab pierced her chest until she was trembling. From the corner of her eye, something came into sharp focus. A moderately sized folio lay on the ground next to her, just on the other side of the broomstick. Brr's paw slid back out of her field of vision, replaced briefly by the fluffy tip of his tail that stuck out from beneath his cloak.
"Clearly I cannot speak with you of these things at this time, Rain," he said, sadness seemed to seep from every pore of his being. "I will leave you alone for now to digest this information. When it was discovered that she had passed, her belongings were gathered together. Her one request throughout this entire episode was that you receive all of her worldly possessions, being the closest thing to family that she had left. Ozma Tippetarius has been storing the items in her custody at Madame Teastane's Female Seminary, waiting for your eventual return to give them to you. That folio contains a copy of her final wishes, as well as an inventory of what was found in her cell. As for the items purported to be at Mockbeggar Hall, I have no way of verifying their existence at all."
She flinched at the mention of Tip's name, but otherwise made no moves of any kind. She heard him sigh, could almost imagine that he wanted to reach out and take her in his great paws again, just as he had once or twice when she'd first come into his care. A part of her wished he would, but the rest of her knew he wouldn't. It wasn't their way.
"When you're ready to talk, come find me. We have much to catch up on. Until then, you are free to stay here in the palace. If not, your accommodations will be taken care of wherever you choose to stay while you're still in the Emerald City. Just offer the innkeeper the top sheet in the folio. Goodbye for now, Rain."
And then she was alone in the receiving room.
*****
She wasn't sure how long she sat on the floor of the receiving room, just staring at the folio Brr had left. She was curious to know what Lady Glinda's last wishes were and how they affected her; of course, she was curious. Lady Glinda was the only family she'd had until Brr, and Illianora, and the crew of the Time Clock Dragon, and her parents, and Tay, and Tip. She needed some sort of closure, but she didn't want to make everything so real and final either.
Finally, hunger and a numb bottom got her up and moving. It took several moments before the sensation of pins and needles completely abandoned her lower extremities. She was grateful for the offspring of her grandmother's broomstick and the stability it offered. By the time she felt vaguely normal again, there was a suspicious wetness coating her lashes. Scrubbing at her eyes with a fist, she leaned over to pick up the folio and moved to a side table with a chair. Settling on the edge of the seat, as if afraid of taking root in this land of opulence and ostentation, she opened the folio and began to read the pages within.
By the time she finished, there were honest to goodness tears in her eyes. She didn't realize that she'd meant so much to Lady Glinda all these years. Oh, she understood on a purely logical level that an appearance of indifference to the lowest of her staff was necessary to keeping safe the girl in her charge. But once they'd been thrust into close quarters by General Cherrystone, and her abilities at reading the Grimmerie were discovered, things had changed. Perhaps Lady Glinda had always felt that way about her, but she'd just never paid it the slightest bit of attention because she didn't know any better. To be listed as the woman's only living relation only brought more questions than answers. Did Lady Glinda feel that way because of her or because of her grandmother?
With a soft sigh, she replaced all of the sheets within the folio, then stowed it in her travel pouch. She would need to find lodging and food soon, and she knew she couldn't stay in the palace. It was too confining, too much a reminder of the curse of her lineage. She raised herself to her full height and walked out of the receiving room. Heading down the corridor, she stopped the first servant she found and gained a way out of the palace itself.
With the same long, ground-eating strides she'd learned while in the company of Brr and the others, she put as much distance as possible between herself and the palace. She let whim and her nose guide her through the city, knowing that she only had to take to the sky if she got herself lost at all. She found herself in the market district, surrounded by the heady aromas of countless food stalls. There was just enough money in her pouch to purchase a bit of a meal. She withstood the stares and whispered conversations around her, glaring at anyone who might consider starting up either conversation or confrontation with her.
When the sun began to set, her feet led her to a modest enough inn. Once inside, she spoke with the innkeeper and offered him the sheet Brr had mentioned. She was shown to the best room in the entire place. It offered her privacy and a quiet sanctuary away from the bawdy folk down in the common room. It made her think of her time in the haunted boys' dormitory at St. Prowd's. But that only made her think of Tay and Tip, and she didn't want to do that just yet. She ate a meal larger than she was used to, followed by a decadently long soak in the tub in water hot enough to steam the windows. Physically sated, she crawled into the sumptuous bed and fell asleep almost instantly.
Original post @ Dreamwidth with
comments. Commenting is welcome on either post.