InkSkin

A Little Sister, A Long Lost Friend

Alsuha did not see the Prince for four days. She didn't know how he managed it, but he kept eluding her. Thanks to his presence in her mind Alsuha had quickly realized she could always roughly tell were the Prince was in relation to her. Yet, despite her mental compass, no matter what time of day or where he was, he seemed to be a step ahead of her and would just vanish before she could reach him. Alsuha was past her breaking point. Only the many different ways she concocted to maim and murder him kept her company as she stalked the palace halls day after day. She struck such a fierce image that the palace servants had begun to whisper about the Prince's unhinged Companion and would sidestep her whenever she would walk by them.

She growled to herself about annoyingly childish princes as she skulked through the evening shadows in search of one specific brat of a prince. She scratched at her head trying to reach the pressure that was LuSol in her mind. He had gotten exceptionally better at constructing his wall but she could still feel him. On occasion, she would still get a few trickles of thoughts, which she suspected only happened when he was asleep.

Alsuha focused on her anger at the Prince and shoved her other emotions away. She needed to find the prince. There were changes taking place. Changes she was not at all comfortable with and she needed him to give her answers. She needed to know what in all the Pitts he had done to her.

Her Ink itched something fierce and for the first time in two thousand years, she had fallen asleep for a few hours two nights ago. She had dreamed. Vividly clear dreams. Or at least what she assumed were dreams. Her dreams were always filled with him and things she'd never seen or known before. She had awakened this morning, as she had done for the past two days, confused and disoriented. She found herself having to reaffirm that she was indeed herself and not the creature she became while she dreamed.

As the fifth morning dawned Alsuha decided she was going to finally track the wayward Prince down. She would not accept failure. She wanted answers and would pound them out of him if she had to. She smiled as she replayed one of her favorite torture images she'd made-up just for LuSol in her mind. Her smile widened as she imagined the Prince's screams.

She was tired of the way her Ink itched all of the time now. She felt as though her skin didn't fit quite right anymore. She growled low in her throat and the smile slid off her face as she shifted her shoulders trying to relieve the itch she could not reach with her fingernails.

During her early explorations, she had discovered that the Prince's territory was limited to the height and width of a tower which, she had learned from the servants tasked with its upkeep, was simply referred to as the Prince's Tower.

She had seen more Companions on her brief explorations of the Prince's home the last few days. They had all seemed to complement their Bonded in one way or another and were almost too pretty to look at. Their clothes seemed to glisten and shine while their faces were painted to perfection, their hair always well coifed, all in a similar style. It bothered her to see her people treated like ornamental dolls but a part of her wanted to be thought well of and she would catch herself smoothing her hands down her thighs or tugging her robe or jacket so that it hung just right. She hated that part of herself. Why should she care how her captors and their slaves thought of her? But she did care. She told herself it was just how she needed to survive in this new world. She needed to blend in. She knew it for the lie that it was. She was a slave with a slave's mentality. But above all, she wanted to make LuSol proud and she wanted to show off her new clothes. She had never owned anything as fine before. How sick are you? Alsuha asked herself in mental disgust.

She shook herself and set about choosing her outfit with great care; with the opinions of others in mind. She chose charcoal gray leggings that molded to her body like a second skin, mostly because she worried that the wide set of the other trousers LuSol had purchased for her would impede her movements. She made a mental note to practice with her new clothes. She wondered why LuSol had ordered her only one pair of the tighter fitting leggings and fifteen of the looser ones. She paired the leggings with a navy blue tunic which molded itself against her breasts but hung loosely down her hips all the way to her knees. The tunic had purple, blue and silver bands which crisscrossed along the length of her torso, just beneath the swell of her breasts and just about the curve of her hips. She didn't have a mirror in her room, but she hoped she looked as put together as the other Companions she had glimpsed. She hadn't know, what to do with her hair so had she simply left it to curl however it wished.