[LN Event] The Garden's Promise

She should have been more vigilant that evening, she supposed. Work was the same as ever, chaos contained to a single building, spread through out several rooms. It made it hard to keep track of every little nuance and detail. A lesson learned. A regret taken to heart. She should have never accepted that drink - an occurance most common proffered to the dancers. It was often frowned upon to turn the offering down, let alone her own desire for such decadence that she didn't find from her own coin purse. It should have been fine, bubbly poured by the trusted hand of her staff colleagues, and perhaps it was. Maybe it was just that, an innocent incentive before those devilish fingers grazed the glass. Was that all it had taken? His mere caress to corrupt the liquid within? Had some other voodoo wrought the effects upon her mind? No matter what it had been, what had transpired, nothing changed the outcome.

Not as she woke, feeling not herself. No matter the frantic panic that should have rose within her like bile as her eyes opened to reveal her hands folded neatly within her lap. Not when she witnessed the nakedness of her skin splayed before her with her crown bowed as if in the depths of prayer. Not when her body refused to move. Even her eyes were trapped, prisoners within their sockets, her lids only moving in slow time, blinks she did not outright command. Movements far too placid and calm for how she should have felt. Even still, her cerebrum was a near empty chasm as well, as if it was occupied by not only she, but another as well. Her pulse remained even, a traitor that should have been rampaging out of control. Yet here she sat. Here she remained, a vestige of calm. Even the knowing that she should not be did little to instill the riot within her.

The door opens. She prickles at the cold, but doesn't offer any other indication. Not for a long moment, a beat drawn too long. Perhaps the figure she would see had knocked, maybe they had offered no such pleasantry before entering. As if she held any sway or care as to the particulars either way.

Then, she did move. Her frame seemed to shift of its own accord, her chin lifting slightly as did she from the rough discomfort of the chair. The chain that rattled from her neck the only sound the accompanied the ascension. She turned lightly towards the guest, her hands remaining folded before her just as they had while she was seated. She should run. She should flee. She should do anything! But she didn't. She only bowed before the one who opened the door, gilded gaze clouded gently as an unbidden smile curved the crimson of her painted lips upward. A wordless greeting, a silent, demure beckon.