Sorceress of the Second Sphere

11. White Road's Favourite Brothel - Loldirr

"We travel for a couple more hours," Loldirr eventually spoke, causing the animosity to briefly subside. "We rest at the Rose of White Road tonight, before travelling east in the morning."

The words of direction appeared to put both the Halfhand and the Chevalier De Présage at ease, yet it also appeared that the horse of the Widow Maker had slipped up alongside her without even making a sound.

Loldirr was startled causing her steed to briefly jolt before settling into a rhythm with the horse next to them.

"You plan to go through the Emerald Forest?" Sir Gervais Vanderbilt spoke, his accent feeling foreign and unnerving to the empress of Isovine.

"I do," Loldirr replied.

"The roads there are fraught with extreme danger, is it wise? People who enter, do not return."

"I spent eighteen winters living there, it is safe. Besides, we can travel two-thirds of the Empire without so much as a single soul seeing us. It is safer this way." Loldirr explained.

Sir Gervais Vanderbilt grabbed a hold of the reign of his horse, causing it to casually turn away from the Loldirr, as his eyes glared back at her his last words brought a chill to her spine "Are you sure?"

Loldirr sighed, she was tired of this journey and yet it had only really begun.

***

There was a curious satisfaction as Loldirr sat precariously in the corner of the Rose of White Road, her hood raised over her luscious red hair, eager for the prying eyes to stray away from her beauty.

This was where her adventures had officially begun. On this very bench, she recalled sitting across from the enigmatic Ethelston. His questions determined to obtain information about the sword that now sat proudly in her scabbard. Loldirr couldn't recall the tiredness that plagued her that day or the desire that she felt to rid herself of the man that was now like a brother to her, but as she looked across at the lifeless Gervais who sat opposite her, she wondered if her relationship with the Death Wraith would develop similarly.

Loldirr hated what this place stood for, an establishment for men to perform and receive sexual acts from women for coin. The degrading nature of the men that entered the establishment brought a certain disdain for their character, yet as much as she wanted to judge them, Loldirr felt she was not in a position to do so.

No man had uncrossed her legs, though many had tried. The very act of sex intrigued her immensely, and how its irrational hold on men could make the most powerful into instant subordinates, with the right motivation. It was something she felt she needed to understand and manipulate to protect herself from those who meant her harm.

As Sigurd Halfhand sat next to her, with Jeffry Thibodeaux placing himself beside Gervais, she spotted a noble entering the establishment and before he could even react, a younger man, probably no older than Loldirr, grabbed a hold of his hand and lead him towards the stairs.

There was truly so much that Loldirr didn't understand about places like this or the men that entered them.

Even now, as inconspicuous as she wanted to be, the blue eyes of Sigurd Halfhand were darting around the establishment, lustfully gazing at the various women, like a child in a sweet shop. The irrational behaviour had taken a hold of him, and there was very little anyone could do to reach him until his lust had been satisfied.

It irritated Loldirr, how his thoughts were only on the blonde pigtailed woman who had picked up on his gaze, but at the same time, it fascinated her. The pigtailed woman was a nobody, a commoner that they had never met before, yet at this very moment, she was more powerful than a Fæordic warlord, twisting his perversions like a spider with a web, and as she carefully rubbed her fingers just above her breast, Sigurd was but a fly, trapped within it.