Harika starts awake in a space of unfamiliar qualities; not enough street noise, and too much direct sunlight, filtered through curtains instead of leaking dismally through weathered shutters. It takes her long moments, heart stammering loudly within her ribcage, before she places herself.
Vespidine korvu by-Tenstone korvu Overmore kanru Tjenwater's bed. Alone: a blessing and — somewhat, guiltily — a regret.
The scant clothes she packed have been unpacked, cleaned, pressed, folded, and piled neatly on the dresser by a chambermage. Enough, at least, for Harri to attend the office.
Almost, she realises, as she swings her feet to the floor; she had left her building in her nightgown and shoeless, and in her distraught hurry to remove the dress to safety, had lost all thought of picking them up.
Harri closes her eyes and entombs behind her hand any temptation to scream.
This is fine.
She gingerly freshens herself, dresses, and skulks on stockinged feet to Vespidine's study, opening the door with silent care. Sure enough, the elf is asleep on the chaise with a spare pillow, her own footwear carelessly kicked off, last night's rumpled clothes apparent beneath a blanket slid largely floorward.
Harri eases the door closed again, and takes a slightly easier breath at the confirmed, brief lack of elven supervision. She steals downstairs, hurriedly gulps a glass of water in the kitchens, and steels herself to airily issue an instruction to one of the staff.
"I need Vespidine's driver to take me to my building," she says, managing the words with no more than a slight wobble and terrible self-loathing. "And then to deposit me at City Hall for the day."
"Of course, Miss."
She makes it nearly all the way to the door before an arm loops around her shoulder from behind, and inexorably pulls her back into Vespidine's chest. She feels as much as hears the growl in the elf's voice, against her back.
"What under the riven skies are you doing, Harika?"
Her courage evaporates; throat closes. "I don't have any shoes," she chokes out, high-pitched and distressingly near tears. "I need to go home—"
"Nobody is going into that building until it's been pronounced structurally safe," Vespidine says.
"Then I'll buy shoes."
Harri doesn't hear, but feels, Vespidine's long inhalation. "Do you have money for shoes?" the elf says, in a tone of polished neutrality.
"I'll go to the bank," Harri says, and then, "oh no—" perfectly envisioning crowds of damp and ragged unfortunates rushing the banks; tellers' windows shuttered and doors slammed to protect the city's monetary reserves.
"I spent the night browbeating the conjuration guilds," Vespidine says quietly. "Food, water, clothing, medicines. I had to threaten that if they left children to die in the gutters without, we'd have the first riots downtown in seventy years by the week's end, and I'd personally see that the mob had the names and addresses of anyone holding relief hostage to haggle over pennies."
Harika closes her eyes, tries not to let tears well. "I don't have any shoes," she whispers.
"You're not to go to work, in any case," Vespidine says matter-of-factly. "Anyone resident in one of the damaged blocks has been granted special compassionate leave."
The generosity of the gesture is hardly usual, and Harri's stomach clenches at the merest suspicion it may have been arranged to look as though it's not for her specific benefit. She dare not ask.
"But I don't have any shoes," she whispers again, because it's all she can.
"Harika," Vespidine says, "you're exhausted. You need to eat breakfast, and then I hope I can persuade you to sleep a little more, and — I will find you some shoes, while you do that. I promise."
Harri raises her hands to grip the arm around her, and lets herself sag, brain scrabbling tractionlessly, like an alarmed pet on slippery tile, against shoelessness and vulnerability. The inability to even walk away along the street, should she choose.
"Harri," Vespidine says, and her arm tightens a fraction, just for a moment. "You need more rest. I'll find you shoes while you're asleep, and then, if you need to be elsewhere, then — then you'll go. Anywhere. I don't need to know where, even, if that helps. You're not my prisoner."
The arm holding her back from the door doesn't exactly say prisoner; it doesn't precisely say free to go, either.
Harri is tired, still. Harri has been tired for weeks. It's possible that Harri has been tired ever since Cosimisa first spotted her, eyes narrowed and smile crooked, casual and so pretty; There's a terrible party I have to attend; I don't suppose—
Vespidine had looked at her when they arrived, eyes steady and dark and unreadable, in this very entry hall; openly sighed. My sister, Cos had smirked, and tugged Harri away.
Harri wonders if Vespidine is right; if Cos, delighted to get a rise out of her elder sibling, had instantly seized on a six-year whim, in the form of Harri's own person, just for the opportunity to rub her nose in it as often as it still worked.
She surprises herself with a sniffle.
"Harri," Vespidine says, quiet and ever-so-slightly uncertain.
"I knew I'd never get away from Cos," Harri says, in a strangled voice. "She'd get bored of me, perhaps, and then I'd be safe — but only ever until the whim took her again. I'd never get away. But there was always the possibility that if she — did something altogether too much, I could simply. Get up and walk away from her. Take the consequences later, of course, but in the moment, simply leave. And I don't — I don't have shoes...."
Vespidine is quiet for long seconds. Her thumb brushes over Harri's shoulder. "I see," she says finally. "Of course," and she slowly unwinds her arm from around Harri and steps past her to the door. Opening it, she turns a little, and carefully extends a hand, palm up. "You asked for the car to be brought round," she says. "We'll drive down, find you some shoes. Will you feel better, then?"
Harri stares at her outstreched hand. "I don't know," she says, in a small voice.
"I'm not attempting to simply buy you a sense of safety, Harri," Vespidine says, as unreadable as she's ever been. "You can have things you need from me. If that's shoes, more than sleep...."
"Yes," Harri says.
"I don't want you to hurt your feet," Vespidine says, still in her careful way. "Will you let me lift you across the gravel, between the steps and the car?"
"Yes," Harri says, and reaches shakily for her hand, allowing Vespidine to gently pull her to the doorway. The elf lifts her free hand as if to touch her, on the shoulder, or perhaps her face; but doesn't, quite.
"Ask me for things you need," Vespidine says, softly, and Harri can't help the wild scoff of laughter that tears out of her.
"I have to trust you, for that," she says. "If I need something you can't give me, you can't lie. And — you can't keep simply deciding what you think is better for me. If I wanted to be sent away with nothing and no word and lie awake worrying when you'll be back, that's — I can go back to Cosimisa, you know. She'd have me. She'd punish me, for this, for you. She'll be cruel, she'll hurt me. But at least I'd know what I was getting—"
"Don't," Vespidine says. "Don't ever go back to her. Not that, Harri."
"Then," Harri says, "then that's what I need, Vespidine."
"If I promise that I understand, and to do my sincere best," Vespidine says, voice rough, "is that enough? For now?"
Harri risks looking into her eyes. "For now," she agrees.
Vespidine nods sharply, hesitates. "Don't go back to her," she says, almost pleading.
"You're not naïve," Harri says. "There were things I liked. Even in her cruelty. Even in the fear of her. That's how she snared me to begin with." She looks away. "Be better to me."
Vespidine squeezes her hand. "If I can't be better to you than Cosimisa—" she begins bitterly, and chokes it off in a humourless laugh. "Shoes," she says, after a pause to regain some control of the tone of her voice. "And then — perhaps we'll buy breakfast in town, and talk a little."
Carried once again to the car and carefully settled into the rear seat, Harri takes a shaky breath as Vespidine slides in beside her, murmuring a brief instruction to the driver; turns her head and presses her face into the elf's shoulder.
