Through Steam, Darkly

Requiem of the Moth #3

Content warnings¹

Usira nods to the keeper as he enters the bath. The haze of steam greets him in the changing rooms where he stashes his clothes in a cubby. One towel for drying off, another smaller one to pin his long braid on top of his head.

Inside, he rinses off twice, glad for the rough stone under his feet, a precaution against slipping in soapy puddles.

At eleventh drip, people are eager to wash off the dust of the day's work. Voices echo off the stone walls, decorated with glowshrooms and fragrant herb bundles. In the bath, Usira lets his gaze wander as he strolls between the pools. Men and women alike sit relaxing in the water, calling out to each other, laughing, joking, exchanging news. Taught from a young age to accept the naked body as natural state of being, Usira knows just when a look crosses the line between harmless and harassment.

"Over here!"

Usira nods to his cousins Velin and Selin, stretched out side by side in a rather cramped pool by the central pillar. He enters the one next to it, bowing to the other patrons before settling on a bench with a sigh. The water, warm thanks to underground hot springs, reaches up to his shoulders. Steam envelops the rest.

"What took you so long?" Selin asks, craning his neck.

"I was called for a meeting up the cliff."

"Climbing the ranks," Selin remarks without malice. If Usira finds favor up the cliff, as the clan quarter is called by commoners, that favor will trickle down to the rest of the family.

"Thanks for recommending this place," Velin says. "I saw some poetry books in the courtyard earlier."

They share a smile. Velin's taste for expensive poetry is all the more endearing for being so out of place in a moth catcher.

"It is something, isn't it? They even have one book by Ryliss," a girl in Usira's pool pipes up.

"Ryliss?" Velin's eyes shine through the steam. "Which one?"

The girl tilts her head in thought. One pale lavender lock has escaped her towel and artfully frames her oval face. Her large eyes are grey, possibly silver. Finally, she says: "My Verdant Mistress, I think."

"Truly? That one's so rare, I've never even seen it before!" All but salivating, Velin is already out of sight before the waves can settle again.

Usira inclines his head to the girl. "We'll have to drag him out by the nape of his neck later. Thank you, though. Few of our family and friends are willing to discuss poetry with him."

The girl shrugs. "You overestimate me, I'm afraid. My mistress knows I frequent this bath and had me donate some books in her name."

"Such generosity is rare. There are too many up the cliff who don't spare a single thought for us."

The girl tugs at her towel, adjusting it on top of her head. Her lavender lock bounces dangerously close to the water. "My mistress isn't like the others. I have been with her for a long time, I know she cares about me."

"Don't delude yourself, girl," an elder rasps from his corner. "You'll only make yourself unhappy. They only care about themselves, those high 'n mighty folks."

Trite. Usira wants to roll his eyes. The girl, however, shakes her head. "She'd never betray me."

"You're lucky," Usira replies before the elder can. "As you might've heard, I have found work up the cliff as well but I've yet to find favor like you have with your mistress."

"Want to hear my theory?" she offers. Meanwhile, the elder wades to the steps and exits the pool, shaking his head.

Usira scoots over. "Sure."

"They're lonely," she whispers gravely. "All of them. You see, they're not like us. We have our families and these ties are tighter than hemp rope. You know what I mean."

Thinking of his cousins, his driphouse, Usira nods. They work hand in hand every day, for if one of them prospers, the entire house does. Children of trade families only rarely seek employment elsewhere, only if their talent outshines the lack of communal knowledge and connections.

"Clans might look like families on the surface but they couldn't be more different. Children are taught from a young age to be selfish and ambitious. Everyone tries to secure as much power for themselves as possible. It's cut-throat. Blood isn't sacred, it's a way to tell the weak from the strong."

"Wouldn't your mistress sacrifice you if it would benefit her?" Usira asks, thinking of a certain pair of orange eyes burning with hunger.

"Oh, she would." The girl nods. "I wouldn't hold it against her though. It's all they know. Sometimes she confides in me though. I'm on the outside, you see, I'm not one of them to her and she knows I'd never betray her. She protects me and my people, and I listen."

"I bet you do more than just listen."

Either the girl doesn't catch his sarcasm or she ignores it. "I'm the only one she can trust. All the more because everyone else in that family drags their creepy puppets with them wherever they go. My mistress is the only one who sees the dangers of their art."

You said it yourself. Usira tucks her words away in his memory. He wonders if the girl—finally identified as Noe Vylira's maidservant—knows that her trust in her mistress is built on loose gravel. Surely she's too clever to be deluding herself like that?

"Guess I'll try and be more sympathetic to my clan contact as well," he finally says. "I appreciate your advice…"

"Yvara." She smiles. "Glad to help. I should go cool off now."

He nods in greeting as she exits the pool and her petite form disappears into the steam. Usira is getting light-headed too but he stays another moment to collect his thoughts.

Later, he shares a cup of chilled tea with Selin in the courtyard. "Did you know that girl?" his cousin asks. "You two were talking a long time."

"It might be good for me to get to know her better," Usira says slowly. Across the yard, Velin sits on the stone steps reading a poetry book—one of the books Noe Vylira has donated to the bath house.

---

"She's too loyal," Usira blurts out. When Zhiven held out the tray, he accepted a steaming cup but set it down without drinking.

"Is that your opinion?" Save for that first time when he offered Usira tea, Noe Yun always sits behind his desk. His office is furnished with only a handful of glowshrooms on the walls behind him, lighting up his visitors but leaving the Vessi himself in shadow. Usira has some ideas as to why he likes it that way.

"The way Yvara talks about Vylira, she worships the ground her mistress walks on. Maybe Vylira paid off her father's debt, some sort of grand gesture to tie Yvara to her using the girl's gratitude. She thinks she's the only one who listens to and understands her mistress."

Noe Yun scoffs. "That's what they all say, and then they turn around and blab the secrets they were asked to keep to their next-door neighbors."

Usira thinks back to his conversation with Yvara. "She didn't blab any secrets. She's devoted but also clever enough to stay out of trouble. She said she's been in Vylira's service since she was a child."

"I know." Yun sighs. "Well, keep chatting her up but be careful."

"I won't reveal who my clan contact is."

"Yet another advantage of having an office away from the rest of them." Yun's teeth flash when he grins. "You won't run into her on the job."

Every clan member would agree that the position of Vessi is highly desired but Usira wonders if Noe Yun cherishes the time and space away from his clan mansion even more than others would. In the weeks of their acquaintance, he's never seen Yun with another clan member or a servant. His two puppets are the only ones waiting on him.

Yun's smile vanishes. "It is surprising though. I've never known Vylira to confide in a mere servant. She can be pleasant, even playful, but she was fed politics and paranoia from a young age like all of us. Admittedly, I was fooled by her pretense to be my ally but even I'm not so foolish as to think her soft."

A mere servant. Usira, too, is a mere servant to the Vessi sitting before him. The trade of moth catching is highly respected thanks to its religious undertones but it remains a trade, and he a commoner. He physically leans back, remembering his place. Still, isn't Noe Yun confiding in him right now? Each and every word from his lips rings true. Hypnotizing.

"So it's true. This is how you live," he mutters.

Of course, Noe Yun hears. His mouth twitches. "Pathetic, isn't it? We are richer than you will ever be yet we're stuck looking over our shoulders, suspecting the walls and shadows in our very mansions, worrying and fearing endlessly the knife that might stab us in our sleep. At least we have our puppetry. I can't imagine what it must be like for the other clans, having all those servants underfoot at all times."

Suddenly Usira wants to escape this conversation. It's too much all at once. Does Noe Yun even realize his effect on Usira? In this office, he isn't the catcher, he's the moth caught in Yun's spidersilk net. "Sounds lonely."

Smiling, Noe Yun leans out of the shadows. His eyes are hot coals. "Unlike dear Vy, who doesn't have a bone of raw talent in her body, I have my puppets. They're superior in every way. I am never alone."

Alone isn't the same as lonely. But the moment has passed. "Understood," Usira says. There's nothing else to say.

He's dismissed soon after. Deep in thought, he strolls back to his driphouse. Yun's low opinion of not only servants but everyone around him, how he keeps his puppets close, the pride he takes in his skill—all of it is foreign to Usira. It's clear now that Noe Yun still doesn't trust him. Perhaps he never will. Yvara's advice doesn't apply to him.

Noe Yun is exceptional even among clanspeople, a world unto itself. More dangerous too. Everything in Usira screams at him to get out while he still can, instead he only finds himself more curious, mesmerized.

To catch a moth, one has to meticulously observe its personality and daily habits, get intimately acquainted with it, before laying out traps or planning its hunt. Knowledge is imperative in capturing the moth carefully so all parts can be used. Usira hates to brag but he is one of the best, after all. He will observe Noe Yun like he observes his moths. He wants to know everything about this man, tease out his contradictions.

Not good, he concludes as he arrives at the driphouse. This is not good at all.

Author's Note

This story is getting to the point where I usually sit down, gather my ideas and plot it out in more detail. I also kind of want to change the tense to present. Depending on what other changes come up, I might republish these first three chapters so everything is tightened up and consistent going forward. Or I might decide not to serialize after all, although it's been a lot of fun to hang out with Usira and Yun these past few weeks.

I'm not sure what to fill this space with in the meantime. I've been tinkering with a book review but I might also take more breaks to prep this story, give it the attention it deserves. We'll see! It's chaos right now but it's fine!

1. Elitism, emotional manipulation