Suki and the Baroness
The moon hung low in the sky, a romantic backdrop for the shadowy figure scaling the sheer rock face of the dread tower. Nimble was the intruder who rose higher into the sky and the thinning air before she slipped secretly into the highest window opening and tumbled into a roll onto the cobble stone floor.
It was as the ransom note indicated; an enormous ruby on a central pedestal, the focal point of all attention in this cylindrical library. Its radiance seemed to dance like water across the sea of books surrounding the ninja. Alone here in the highest point of the tower it was safe to pull off the black mask. Shadowy black hair spilled out like a waterfall of silk, a pale face gifted a red hue from the fabulously expensive ruby she needed to free her husband and daughter. Suki wet her full pink lips in anticipation and crept ever closer to the jewel, her dark eyes filling with its red glow.
Her hands rose up, fingers outstretched to caress the air between her fingertips and the smooth ruby surfaces as she examined the area more carefully. Something this valuable always had a trap, though Suki could find none. This close she could feel the resonance of the jewel, a low, barely audible hum of sonic movement and an endless wave that was not detectable further away but now it seemed to croon to the beautiful ninja in a constant droning whisper. Suki listened.
Downstairs, the Baroness slipped a fine silk robe over her shoulders to cover her alabaster skin, quietly left her bedchambers and climbed the stairwell to the highest peak. Sleep had not come easily to the noble woman for many years; since her cousin fell by the sword of his friend and the Crown passed to the Prince of Knives. Baroness Julia had been spared in the ensuing massacre; a sycophant rarely is killed when their beliefs are so easily discarded. She was not, however, immune to her family’s mark of shame. The Prince, in his wisdom, stationed the Baroness to the fields of China to treat with the Dragon Empire.
So Baroness Julia found her sleep fleeting these days, alone in this tower surrounded by a foreign nation. Her life was so tedious, remiss of the decadent parties and exciting gossip. She would come to the library at night to read tales of adventure and intrigue. When her manicured fingers gently pushed the door to her highest library open, a smile crept over her face. The Baroness Julia found adventure had come to her.
In her peripherals Suki could see someone enter but she was hopelessly surrounded by colour and hum. She had been here for hours, long past the drop off window her briefing discussed. Tears streamed down the jewel thief’s face as she realized she was trapped, helpless, and surely this noble would have her killed. She thought of her husband and her child praying for rescue, and it made her sick.
“Lovely, is it not?” the Baroness Julia said after a short inhale and a mental pep talk. She would indulge herself. She would tease the girl and put to practice all the skills she ought to have learned from countless stories of adventure, romance, and politic in this vast library.
“P.please...” is all Suki could manage before her focus fell back under the endless red ocean of droning vibration and relentless colour.
Oh the poor dear looks so scared, Julia thought, as she slowly walked around the circular room and brushed her fingers over some of her favourite books. The blonde Baroness would glance at the girl from time to time taking care to avoid the ruby’s call. Julia had found the ruby’s call to be most alluring, and she made it her own little adventure to overcome the effects, to resist by focusing on all these stories. The servants however, could not help themselves. Julia was horrified to find Mei Yin had succumbed to the ruby’s demand last season, prostrated as Suki was now before the ruby, her mind an endless midnight. The poor girl’s family was devastated, Mei Yin was to be married, but instead nothing remained of the bride-to-be except wide eyes and a compliant grin. The hum had called to innocent Mei Yin even while she swept at the bottom of the tower. So Baroness Julia surrounded the dominant gem of an old age with books to sound proof the area. That served at least, to make infrequent the heart-wrenching news she had to deliver to families of her mindless servants.
“Oh sweet plum it is much too late, I’m afraid,” the Baroness teased as she reached out to run her fingernails over the back of Suki’s neck, sending the poor Japanese girl into shivers. “The pretty ruby has you and I bet you won’t let go, will you?”
Poor Suki, her pale cheeks stained with tears, shook her head no. “Help me,” she pleaded with a quiet sob as her fingers twitched, hovered around the bedazzling gem. The ninja hadn’t moved in hours and her position there had become shaky. Frankly this marked the first time Julia had found a person still active. In the past her poor servants who fell for the ruby’s power had been found collapsed; their minds vacant. This little thief had her physical conditioning to thank for her sanity. Once the victim collapsed, their minds were torn away to stay with their beloved ruby. Nothing falls to the floor with the body.
So the Baroness found her curiosity peaked. This truly was her time for wonder and adventure it seemed. She would have to save this naughty little ninja from her own foolish greed. “Perhaps,” she said, drawing out another agonizing sob from the enraptured Asian woman. “Who are you?”
Oh god she meant to interrogate, Suki realized with terror. She felt herself sink beneath the waves of this glorious red gem and her thoughts turned to her daughter and husband. “M.m.y name is Suki, of the Jade Spear,” she confessed quickly, having resolved immediately to betray her clan in favour of holding her child once more. “I... I have a baby, a husband, a life. Please, my lady, please help me. It is too beautiful.”
Baroness Julia bit her lower lip, her eyes focused on the pale and lovely Japanese woman as she confessed her sins and begged for her aid. This was such a delicious situation oh and what tragedy, a family! “I am so sorry, Suki. I will help you get home to your family, but you must trust me.”
Suki nodded, “Y.yes I understand.”
“Yes you do understand you must trust me. You know that if you trust me you will see your baby,” Julia reaffirmed as she continued her endless spiral around the latest victim of the ruby’s power. The woman’s lovely almond-shaped eyes strained to follow the tall white woman but they failed to pull away from the beauty of the ruby. Suki’s pupils glowed in its light.
“I w.will trust you,” Suki accepted, her thoughts on her child, on the man who rescued her from an army and gave her the gift of child. She must save them. Baroness Julia must be trusted.
The tall and slender blonde woman wearing the fine silk robe smiled and gave a curt nod. Her icy blue eyes wandered her trapped intruder’s lithe body through form fitting black ninja apparel, amused at how the transfixed Japanese girl remained so still in a squatting position. “Now what’s your name, poor girl?” the wealthy Baroness asked.
“Ssssuki,” the ninja managed with shallow pants as her brow glistened with the sweat of continuous effort maintaining her balance.
“You’re tired, Suki,” Julia said flatly. The poor woman was trembling; she would soon tumble and become lost forever. Julia took position behind the shaking ninja and carefully kneeled down to the floor, thighs spread wide enough to accommodate the much smaller woman between her. “I’m going to help you, but if you fall your mind will vanish. Relax into my arms, sweet girl, and trust that I will save you.”
Suki shook with the whispers the Baroness poured into her ear. Panting, confused, she knew there was little she could do. She had to trust the Baroness completely, and so, with a sigh, she rocked backwards and tumbled down into the wealthy white woman’s embrace.
“Good girl,” Julia praised to the cooing girl. “You must be so tired, but you can rest now. Rest for me so I can save you.”
Oh and it did feel so very good to rest. Suki’s tears could stop, she’d no longer be in pain. She could just stare mesmerized by the giant ruby, safe in the arms of the Baroness. “That’s a good girl, you can trust me,” the Baroness’ voice cooed, and Suki felt safe.
“Let me guide you through your confusion. The ruby will release when you do,” Baroness explained. Her elegant fingers danced down the Japanese captive’s body and slipped into the darkness of her black tights to touch the place only Suki’s husband had adored.
This was very wrong, but Suki was so helplessly lost into the ruby. “I trust you, Baroness, b.but I do not desire a woman’s touch. I am married!” the Japanese woman confessed in an effort to let the statuesque blonde woman down easy.
“Not for long you aren’t,” Julia slithered a whisper into Suki’s ear as her skilled fingers taught poor Suki something Sapphic to make her moan.