Grain... Country of Pesok
The whirling lights continued on as if nothing else had been. It was as if nothing else had ever been there. The lights swirled, and the songs where all that was supposed to be there. She was not sure what it was that her name was at that moment, but it was very important to her. The world that was when there was another sound. A point in the center was blackness, and the blackness slowly began to get larger and then, it took over everything...
...Amaretto fell through the sky and the first thing that she saw was sand. Then she felt the ground hit her with a forceful thunk. Amaretto looked up and then saw that the sky was filled with a large sun of boiling hot mass. The sun baked the area all around and the heat felt stifling. Amaretto rolled over onto her back and then sat up. She coughed and then looked around her surroundings. Blinking her eyes, she saw her aunt standing there in front of her with another woman. Katherine had her hair flying behind her in a rather brusque wind. Her aunt took a moment to brush her hair away from her face and smiled at her.
"Well then. I think that we are all here aren't we?" Katherine looked at the next woman and then nodded. The other woman smiled and simply nodded.
Amaretto looked at her aunt and then said, "Wait, where are the clothes you where wearing?"
Katherine was dressed in a rather bilious blouse made of blue silk. That was when she noticed the pants. There was a pair of pants that her aunt was wearing that was a little like a pair of parachutes. They too were blue and the moment she looked at them she realized that her aunt looked a little ridiculous and out of a really bad Disney cartoon. That was when it hit her.
"Oh my god, those are harem pants. Why are you wearing harem pants?"
There was a moment while Katherine looked at her and then said, "At least call them by their original name. They are to be called sharovary." Katherine's voice was a little annoyed, but she didn't look at it.
Amaretto raised an eyebrow and then looked at herself. She was still dressed in corset and all too large dress, and she was beginning to sweat quite a bit. Her voice was a little dry as she spoke. "Wait a minute, you might have the awesome clothes, but why am I still in these?" Amaretto motioned to her own clothing and then motioned to her aunt's. Katherine looked at her own fairly breezy outfit and then seemed to remember that Amaretto was still in her dress from the Second Great British Empire.
"Oh goodness, I forgot. You must be baking to death in all of that. Here, hold on just a moment; let me have Isarra get you something to wear." Katherine clapped her hands and the other woman made a deep bow and then hurried off. Katherine moved the short distance between her and her god-daughter and then smiled at Amaretto.
"Sorry about that. I forgot for a moment how hot the country we are in is. We are in Pesok. I believe it means sand. Even still, it's almost midday. I hope you don't bake to death."
"It is rather hot," Amaretto agreed to glumly. "Where are we?"
Katherine shrugged. "From what I have been able to gather we are in the county of Sand. Here they call it Pesok, but it still is nothing more than just desert it seems. On the other hand, I have still not been able to make contact with Tempus. It seems as if he has been cut off."
Amaretto looked at her finger and noticed that the pearl ring was still there. "Do you think that it could work?" She lifted it up to the sky and then watched it as it sparkled in the sun. She brought it back down to her lips and then said, "Tempus can you hear me?"
All that she heard in her mind was a faint sort of static that seemed to encompass all she said. She looked to her aunt and then shook her head. "I can't seem to reach him. It's like its just static there, nothing else."
Katherine pursed her lips and then nodded her head. "I thought as much. I wasn't sure, but I figured that the magick that Johanna released at the end might have affected the bonds between the rings and everything else. I still have to admit though; there are a few things I would like to question him about. For example, I want to know what the next coordinate is supposed to look like."
Amaretto looked at her aunt with worried eyes. "Are you sure that it is even here?"
Katherine nodded her head. "I don't think that we would have made it to Pesok if it was not."
Amaretto grimaced. She could feel the heat now. It was slowly creeping into her skin and filling the whole of her body. She could feel the beads of sweat on her brow. The sun was high in the sky and it was almost unbearable. Almost before she could open her mouth to complain about it though, Isarra came back. She bowed in her green and black silks before the both of them before she spoke.
"I have made the arrangements necessary for you."
Katherine smiled and then said, "Thank you Isarra." She looked at Amaretto and then said, "Well, let's get you ready then shall we?"
Amaretto simply stared at her aunt before allowing herself to be dragged off the roof she was on. Amaretto allowed herself be led from the rooftop, down a flight of stone steps that deposited them all into a long hallway. The hallway was stone as well, but many archways had been cut into the call, showing Amaretto that she was at least four stories up. She looked out the massive stone arches and looked out to a sprawling city below her. A metropolis unlike any she had ever seen before. Hundreds of thousands of buildings were everywhere. Adobe white walls glistened in the hot and sweltering sun. Domes of gold and other materials blazed like beacons and the sounds of people could be heard everywhere. It was a sprawling city and just at the edge of the city, Amaretto could see large white walls. Beyond the walls, she saw nothing but sand.
Sand stretched from beyond the walls all the way to the line of the horizon. She stopped and could not help but stare. She looked to her aunt and Katherine slowly nodded. "I do think there are other places here, but not for a very far off ways. This country only has the once city and the next closest city is weeks away, if not months through the sands."
Amaretto turned back around to look once again over the sprawling city and shook her head. "It looks like something out of the Arabian Nights," she whispered softly.
Katherine nodded. "It very well could be. However, I still think you will thank me for the bath you are about to receive."
Amaretto perked up at that. "I think I would like that, if only to stop sweating for a moment." She smiled and Katherine smiled back as she grabbed her hand and continued to lead her down the hallway. Up ahead of them, Isarra had stopped and looked back at them without any expression on her face. A coolness that Amaretto would expect from a monk was what she was seeing. Amaretto thought for a moment and then realized that Isarra was probably a servant, and the question came to her of whose she could be, but before she could ask, Katherine whisked her into the room that Isarra was standing outside of at the moment. As soon as she did, she almost gasped in amazement.
The whole room was circular all the way around and had been made out of large slabs of marble of three different kinds. Black, white, and green, the whole of the room was pillared and centered around a small pool which was at least waist high on Amaretto. The large pool had to be almost six feet in diameter. Above it a large canopy had been erected over the top of the bath. Steam rolled off the top of the bath and Amaretto looked at it with eyes that seemed to almost crave the water.
At that moment she saw several women dressed as skimpily as possible and then she felt hands all over herself and then the dress that she had been wearing was slowly taken off, button for button till all she had left on was her skin. The heat was bearable by that time, but there was nothing to be said for the sweat that immediately began to bead on her skin. Amaretto soon found herself being led to the pool and immersed with gentle care. The women who were around her began massaging and kneading her skin with in their powerful hands and soon, Amaretto felt like she was in heaven. They gently washed her hair and caressed her skin with soft oils. It was almost a good half hour before she was even let go out of the tub.
While she was being washed, her aunt chattered idly about this and that, the need for a colorful wardrobe, the fifteen uses of a hairbrush in self defense, and also the ingenious uses of beautification products in the modern woman. Even throughout all of that nattering however, Amaretto did catch her aunt Katherine talking about odd things like the joys of proper running shoes, the uses of peroxide as a chemical accelerate... it made Amaretto think that her aunt was more than a little crazy.
The bath continued on however, without so much as a bent fingernail. After the women were done bathing her, they sprayed her with perfumed oils that Amaretto swore smelled like jasmine and lilacs. She was a little surprised that they would have such flowers, but she realized that it would have had to come from trading with someone. That meant there had to be someone else in the world. That was not something that needed to be discussed at the moment as Amaretto was soon dressed in a costume much akin to her aunts, only hers were in deep yellows that made her a little giddy. They also made her eyes swim a little. She was also draped with a head covering that was made out of cream colored silk that was see through and had it draped in place like a veil and two long combs to trap it and keep it in place.
Her aunt beamed and then smiled once more at her and pointed to her new costume. "It looks stunning on you."
Amaretto blushed just a little and then nodded to the surroundings. "Pesok? Don't you mean "Kingdom of perpetual beach? Have they ever even heard of the ocean here?"
"Oh come now Amaretto, we know we are in the right place. We just have to somehow make contact with Tempus."
"That may be so, but who are these people? They are treating us as if we are royalty?" At the mention of this, Amaretto's voice went from panicked to incredulous.
Katherine smiled. "We did fall from the sky you know," she said wryly.
"Through no fault of our own that was!" At that Amaretto expressed a gasp. "Listen to me! I sound like one of the people from New Machina!" The last came out a hiss.
Katherine chuckled. "Perhaps Johanna had more of an effect on you than you thought?"
Amaretto glared at her aunt for a moment. "I still think this whole idea was a set up."
"Perhaps it was, but I am determined that at some point, you will enjoy yourself. As for the treating us like royalty, that is impossible, because we fell from the sky, we are simply good omens. Now, if you would kindly tell me what happened to the ring, perhaps we can get Tempus."
Amaretto sighed. "We can't get to Tempus. All I get is static."
Katherine frowned and then shook her head. "That is not good at all. Who knows what will happen next without the proper knowledge..." she trailed off for a moment and continued to look perplexed.
"You still didn't answer my question," Amaretto said.
Katherine answered rather distractedly. "What question was that?"
"How was all of this possible? This doesn't belong to you, so who does it belong to."
Katherine smiled again and this time, her smile seemed a little off. "Oh you shall see."