Scorched

5

It was dark by the time Cleo left Jezio's room. Night has fallen and blanketed the hot dry heat, leaving the air now cool and misty. Cleo doesn't like the cold. It made her feel weak and dead. Like she couldn't fend for herself, because the icy chilly would consume her until she turns into an icicle. She would rather obliterate her Elemental power than to be turned into ice.

She wrinkles her nose. The streets of the Markets and bungalows are quiet, save for a few late night party goers. But she reached the wooden barricade without any hustle. She unties the white ribbon, before clambering up and dropping onto the other side, and tying it back again. Helhard is heavily guarded tonight — four inside and outside guards, as most appaling villagers uses the night to escape to steal from the Court. Cleo couldn't blame them, when is a better time? If not the night when most courtesans are dead in their slumbers and has no care for anything  until morning? She would of done it herself. Pity it's her job to punish those who crossed the line. It would be punishing herself really, if she were to cross the line herself; oh she would draw a lava-filled bath and drown herself into its riches of fiery acid liquid until the next morning she is laying in nothing but ash.

                                                        °°°

Cleo reaches her bed chambers, her weed-filled head causing her to pass it three times. Yet  she made sure to pass all night duty maids and guards by dissolving into the shadows and hiding behind marble pillars. She felt hungry. But to raise less questions and suspicion she'll have Jezio's cake as a late night supper.

She immediately closes her doors behind her, and rolls her neck.
She feels stiff for some reason, it is most likely the trek back from the Village to her Quarters. On her way to the privy, she starts undressing herself, her clothes forming a trail behind her like wet footsteps when entering a dry place. She ties up her hair right to the top of her head before standing in front of the mirror and seizes up at her sweaty body. Her skin was more golden tonight, her eyes a darker shade of sea green and her plump lips decided to look more red and puffy as if someone bruised her lips by kissing them too hard. She pouts before running her bath, filling it with all her scents and powders and oils, leaving the now empty receptacles discarded on the steps.

The bath isn't the best. The maids bath definitely surpasses her own. Hers was grim compared to the maids bewildering waters. How absurd, Cleo must be sure to ask the maid how she gets it right. She wonders how the maid is as she comes to think of her. Perhaps she is sick with the cold or the little girl was nervous when she was in the presence of the Elemental and froze up.

The bath envelopes her in a warm blanket of glory. Cleo just has to groan out. Her stiff muscles becomes relaxed as she lays back in the bath and she stretches her legs against the end of the bathtub — succumbing to the heat. There was definitely nothing better than a hot bath. She closes her eyes gently and immediately flashes of the pauper comes to her mind. The poor man screamed and screamed, thinking he would lose his life because of pointless coin he was about to snatch. Cleo was on the verge of killing the man, so close. So damn close. Yet she thought the better of it. She was no killer, she was better than that. So she used intelligence.

Her thigh begins to throb again, she lifts her leg and scratches it hard. The itch has become so much more potent she questioned whether her thigh was really necessary at this point. She groans. The goddamns itch doesn't stop. She raises herself up and pulls her thigh towards her chest. She frowns. Her thigh is bare of a bitten bug mark or anything of the sort. Her thigh is only red from how intensely she's been scratching it, but otherwise her thigh is completely lucid. Not a single scratch or scab or a bump of a pauple dots her skin.

Is her body taking her for a jest? Is she some sort of clown  to be made fun of?

She wrinkles her nose. She will go to the Rose compartment, in hopes of some healers  possessing some   cream for irritation. She exits the bath in the most dramatic way possible — getting up hard and splashing water all around the edges and onto the floor. She grabs the wiper from where it was lounging on the staircase and wraps it around  herself. She will not clean anything. The maids must dwell in her frustrations with her.