The Gardener and The Orc

Chapter 11

[We're done with the obsessive world-building and back to our regularly scheduled smut-programming beginning with the last ¼ of this chapter. If you're new here and only around for the smut, also check out chapters 4, 5, and 7. As always, I'll never judge! Artist for the picture used is ilustrAriane]

Lilith's tipsy trek up the 4-story tall winding staircase was completed with ease after 6 or 7 years of thorough practice. She did not drink often these days, but it was still practically muscle memory for her. She carefully closed and locked the doors of her living quarters before uncorking the bottle of wine she'd swiped from the feast preparations and setting it on her nightstand. It was barely 7 o'clock in the evening but she was content to spend the rest of the night getting inebriated in her rooms and turning in early, hoping to catch up on the sleep she missed by riding with the caravan the entire night prior.

With a glass of wine in hand, she tidied up her living quarters of all the clothes she had thrown around the rooms while undressing and redressing earlier in the day, only stopping once everything was back in place and her cup was drained. She began peeling off her current attire, leaving them in a woven basket beside her armoire and swapping them out for a short silk and gauzy sleeping shift that went to mid-thigh and a long sleeved matching robe that tied at her waist and pooled at the ground by her feet -- a most excellent outfit for feeling dramatic and getting drunk, she chuckled to herself and poured another glass of wine.

Lilith unceremoniously plopped down into the tall leather wing-backed chair of her bedroom desk, setting her cup down. She unlocked a drawer with a small brass key and unlatched a hidden compartment concealed at the very back, dragging out a large jewelry box so she could set it front and center. Inside it was a velvet grid of boxes where loose gems were organized by hue alone to keep things simple -- this was her personal collection that she would utilize to have pieces custom-made. Her jeweler's loupe, the gold bangle from her cellar the orc had left, and his precious stones sat in the slot that unsorted gems were temporarily kept, and she found herself plucking the large and intricately carved emerald to set upon the table top. She was frowning at the stone as if it had personally offended her and swirled her glass of wine, lost in thought as she stared.

The sudden sound of scraping stone caught her attention, making Lilith rapidly rise from her chair and cautiously approach one of her windows. It sat in close proximity to the very end of the plateau's cliffside, evident by being just left of the smoothed stone wall that made up the right half of this rear room where her bed and bathing alcove resided. "I swear to gods, if it's another ram I am having mutton for dinner tomorrow" she muttered to herself -- she was once awoken by an escaped sheep ram braying happily outside her 4th story window, hopping precariously from narrow crevice to crevice along the sheer drop of rock. But she saw nothing except the inky blackness of night, save for the faint glow cast onto the gray cliffside wall by the various candelabras that kept her rooms lit.

Lilith's eyes were involuntarily drawn to a jutting of stone with shadows that resembled a face... until a flash of white teeth appeared in a savage grin, causing her to drop her half-finished glass and swear loudly. Gareth's pale gray skin and long thick black hair had blended into the rockface of the cliff seamlessly, so she had no idea how long he had been there...or how often, she realized, reflecting back to his claims that he watched her -- hunted her.

She gaped with wide eyes as a single black claw slid up the gap of her window pane doors, lifting the simple hook-and-latch that held them closed. Lilith dashed forward grabbing the handles to keep them pulled shut, stepping in broken glass and cussing along the way, but she was still able to hold them closed. "What the fuck are you doing?" she exclaimed through the glass, sure he could hear her just fine even if muffled by the window. "And what is *with* you and sneaking up on me? There's a fucking door you kno -- fuck!" she hissed with pain, instinctively looking down at her foot and the blood now trickling beneath it.