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What Fascinates

A story for Dashnir

by Pyrasaur

Jhanna walked her patrol route by the light of the full moon. She passed a few fellow night guards and yet her hoofbeats were her only real company in the quiet. Walking a grid pattern through empty halls. Walking past vacant rooms hung with shadows.

She didn't mind working night patrol, truth be told. Jhanna was still new to the esteemed ranks of the royal guard but even she could think of far worse duties a fighting elk could be assigned. Tedium shed no one's blood. The expanses of white marble floor even soothed Jhanna's homesickness: they gleamed like snow in the moonlight.

Once her sweep of the castle interior was complete, she left through a door she locked behind her. The full moon bathed Jhanna's path as she and her hoofbeats patrolled toward the royal gardens.

More than anything, touring the king's realm-renowned gardens made up for any small boredom the rest of the night patrol might inflict. Floral and herbal scents on the wind made a lavish perfume even before the plants came into sight.

Jhanna paused to breathe in the full depth of it, wondering as she always did whether this was a minor theft of the king's bounty. Many folk coveted the plants kept here. Jhanna proceeded on a stride careful enough that her hooves fell nearly silent on the combed sand walkways, steady enough that her ring mail didn't jingle. This was still a patrol duty she walked, although a lovelier one.

She surveyed a dozen rows of strange-shaped leaves and stalks. Pivoting her long ears toward leaves in the wind, Jhanna heard only the crickets and night birds beyond the iron-edged castle walls. The rows were plenty spacious enough for a cervid and that, too, was a luxury.

She caught a fascinating, peppery scent, then. And she was stooping to sniff the petals of a flower she'd never seen before - when movement caught the edge of her vision. Someone's tail tip sliding out of sight between the rows. An intruder.

"Halt," Jhanna cried. She hurried in pursuit, raising herself tall and square-shouldered; any intruder with sense would quail from an armoured elk knight. She bellowed in a more sure tone, "Halt, trespasser!"

As she turned the corner past grasping leaves, Jhanna saw the tail again - attached to a winding bulk of scales that gleamed purple in the moonlight. The intruder was a naga large enough to fill the space between the flowered rows. She was touching the top branches of a shrub with delicate, clawed fingers, as though she hadn't heard Jhanna at all.

"In the name of the king," Jhanna snapped, "stop what you're doing. Obey and you will not be harmed."

The naga hummed mildly. "Good evening," came her voice, rich as piled silks from between painted lips. "Worry not, good soldier. I have no wish to harm you, either."

Much as Jhanna hated senseless bloodshed, that was not the point. She narrowed her eyes, her ears still pinned back. "You are trespassing in the royal gardens. Identify yourself."

The naga didn't answer at first. Only tapped a claw on something in the air in front of her - something that glimmered in crumpled strands for only an instant. It smelled dizzying, like illusion magic.

"Mm... My apologies for alarming you," the naga said. "This glamour spell could use work."

"_Identify_yourself," Jhanna repeated. She reached toward the handle of her mace, hoping that would be menace enough.

"Ah, well... You may have heard of me." She turned her human-like face, round as the moon, toward Jhanna. Her eyes were amused crescents, greener than any Jhanna had ever seen. "Most call me the Lorekeeper."

_ Lorekeeper_. Even green recruits to the royal guard had heard tell of this rogue mage. She was an enigma but demonstrably powerful, even by the high magicraft standards of nagas, and her serpent body was born better at grappling than any mammal. No matter. If this Lorekeeper came to the royal grounds this night with a sneak-thief's intent, Jhanna had to stop her.

"And... what are you doing on the castle grounds, Lorekeeper," Jhanna demanded. She considered her alarm whistle hanging around her neck - and before she knew she was doing it, her hand closed around her mace handle, thick nails biting her palm.

The Lorekeeper clucked her tongue, forked points flicking behind her flat teeth. "There's no need for that, good soldier. I only need this sprig of_zhehovasi. Y_our king surely won't even notice its absence."

She held up some leafy herb between her claws. Every plant in the royal garden was a rare treasure - but the Lorekeeper was holding a twig the size of her littlest finger.

"Only a sprig," Jhanna asked, flat as stone.

"I cut it clean, so the gardener won't take any notice. Not worth acting like beasts over, hmm?"

It did seem like a paltry amount. The intruder was right and her smile was unexpectedly lovely. Jhanna squared herself taller again, and released her grip on her weapon; attacking a mage head-on was poor strategy.

"S-still, these are protected gardens, ma'am. Return that sprig, or else I must take you into custody."

The Lorekeeper regarded her, tilting her horned head. Looking down at Jhanna as contemplatively as she had at the shrub. And then she tucked the sprig of herb into the curvaceous depths under her robe. A truly flagrant theft.

Jhanna should have blown her whistle when she first sighted the intruder, she scolded herself - and she should have been blowing her whistle _now._Reinforcements were always a wise choice. The thought of bodily seizing this intruder's winding coils of body did raise a strange warmth in Jhanna's gut. Fear, surely.

The Lorekeeper slithered closer. Hair hackled on Jhanna's neck as the great naga approached: her scales' shushing against the pristine sand blended with the sound of wind-touched leaves. She was tall enough to blot out the moon and her round, pretty face nearly replaced it.

"I must apologize, good soldier," the Lorekeeper said. Her eyes were strange - too green, too luminous for the shadow they hid in. "What is your name, perchance?"

"Jhanna."

That was a mistake - she was taught better than to give her true name to mages, especially a maverick like this one. Jhanna could have just given her rank, but-

But the Lorekeeper smiled wider at her answer. The warmth in Jhanna's gut grew in answer.

"Jhanna..."

Oh, but her plain name sounded like a spiced dessert on the naga's tongue. This didn't feel like a mistake.

"I did not intend to be seen this night," the Lorekeeper told her, "and I will not be staying. But letting an intruder escape would reflect badly on you, would it not?"

"A-Ah..." It was hard to remember anything beyond this moment. Jhanna forced out of her mouth, "Yes. I must not allow lawbreakers to escape justice. That was my vow."

"Of course... Then, why don't I relieve you of the memory that this ever happened? A crime that goes unnoticed and harms no one isn't a crime at all, now is it?"

Jhanna ought to have argued with that - because the castle grounds were her sworn duty to defend, and her liege was too sacred to be questioned. But she found herself nodding.

"W-Wait," Jhanna then realised, "relieve me of... the memory?!"

"Hypnosis, my dear." The Lorekeeper's eyes glowed the eerie green of forest mushrooms, as she beamed at Jhanna. "My kind is quite good at it. Not without your agreement, of course - I'm no brute."

_ Don't_, whispered Jhanna's shining-armoured principles. But she didn't _want_to refuse. She didn't want to wield her weapon or summon any reinforcements, not when this Lorekeeper seemed so soft and civil and lovely.

"I... truly won't remember what happened?" Jhanna asked. Her voice had shrunk to that of a mouse.

"I'll only take these last few moments, starting from when you sighted me. And how could you be expected to report something you can't recall?"

Jhanna couldn't, of course. Plainly impossible.

"Shall we make this easy, Jhanna?" she said through smiling, painted lips.

She took a bolstering deep breath. Wondered for the last time if she was making a grave mistake, but she straightened to face her fate. Jhanna was awash in the great naga's presence as she decided, "Alright. J-Just these last few moments."

The Lorekeeper smiled broader. She moved then, slithering a rustling circle around Jhanna. Some far-away instinct tensed at the thought of snake's deadly constriction - but it never came. Jhanna stood within a tiny room made of the naga's muscular, sweet-musky body, the sky open above her but too far away to matter. Near-touch raised all of Jhanna's fur. The intensifying green of the Lorekeeper's eyes grew blinding as she leaned in closer.

"Jhanna. Brave little one."

"Y-Yes, ma'am," Jhanna gasped. She was little within the naga's grasp. She had never considered her cervid self to be small before, and it was a bizarre delight to her galloping heart.

"Empty your lungs," the Lorekeeper commanded. "On that departing breath, cast away your worries. Be in this moment only."

She tried to. Hissed out a shuddering breath and gratefully put aside all notions of attacking the Lorekeeper. With greater difficulty, she shoved away the possibility of blowing her whistle. This would be the least harmful path, she repeated to herself, and with each repetition it sounded more true.

As Jhanna was repeating that to herself, she inhaled - and a small, cool hand laid on her snout. Right on the sensitive velvet at the tip of her nose: she gasped at that, and the naga's scent unfolded into sweeter subtleties. The peppered green scent of the gardens faded into the same beyond that Jhanna's will had retired to. There was only the space between heartbeats and the Lorekeeper's gaze suspending her.

"Ah," the Lorekeeper murmured, her smile pulling her glowing eyes into sharper shapes. "Very good."

"Yes, ma'am." Jhanna couldn't remember how to speak any other words. The hair falling around the naga's eyes shone like river currents; the weight of her body hung all around; the fingertips shifting on Jhanna's furred nose felt impossibly good.

"Now," the Lorekeeper murmured, "open your mind for me."

Jhanna didn't think she knew how, but it happened regardless. A swinging open of her unlocked will - like this was no more complicated than unlocking a door and pushing it forth to let the light in. And within Jhanna's armoured fortress of a body, she was no more resistant than pooled water as the Lorekeeper smiled into her. In front of Jhanna but inside her, too. Across the threshold and perceiving what was inside.

The Lorekeeper took exactly what she said she would. Picked up the memories of moments ago, seconds ago, this second. She was pure susurrating movement, picking up a cube of place and time that broke away cleanly. She was a commanding presence so absolute that Jhanna couldn't move, as though the scaled coils had tightened on her.

"You do not need these memories," the Lorekeeper said. "I will dispose of them."

Jhanna was a recipient of orders and nothing more. "Yes, ma'am," she agreed. She was not meant to think, and the relief of that notion sweetened the fragrant air.

The Lorekeeper gestured then, with a rippling of light nowhere near as fascinating as her eyes. And her fingers shifted on Jhanna's nose, pulling a whimper from the odd physicality that was her own throat.

The naga chuckled, curling her withdrawn fingers. Considering Jhanna like she had considered the leaves of... something Jhanna couldn't keep grasp on in her memory. Each moment was spooling away into the Lorekeeper's hands as it happened; there was no time except now and those eyes were guiding stars.

"So obedient," the great one murmured.

Jhanna was. She liked to obey. She drifted in the moment, eyelids heavy, wanting nothing more than the second gentle touch that glimmered across her nose. She might have sighed at the sensation: she had no way to map what transpired whole instants ago. Nagas really were powerful. This one could do whatever she wished to Jhanna.

She didn't know how long she stood like that. But she felt radiantly warm when the Lorekeeper finally said:

"Jhanna. Take a deep breath. As much as you can."

She did, her very organs responding to the order.

As her lungs filled to their limit, the goddess Lorekeeper gave command: "Hold that as long as you can. When you release this breath, so too will this encounter leave you."

She didn't want to. This was too peaceful and right to ever stop. But the her mouth was uttering another yes, ma'am.

The Lorekeeper smirked, rustling all around as she unwound herself. "You've done well, dear," came her silk touch of a voice. For your sake, may we never meet again."

She slithered away, then, as easily as flowing water. Jhanna hadn't been blinking during this ritual, said her hazy, burning eyes as she watched the distance between them growing. She blinked now, around her tightly pent last breath and her heart thundering like running hooves. The Lorekeeper was raising her claws toward the sky, and gesturing - and something at the edge of Jhanna's perception was glowing in the air. Then the Lorekeeper was slithering upward on square loops of her coils. Climbing an invisible staircase that took her over the outer wall.

She paused at the top. Cast a last glance at Jhanna like an unsaid question. And then she was away, tailtip slipping over the stony edge, vanishing into the night.

Jhanna held that aching breath as long as she could. Clung fiercely to the details: that contraband spring slipped between robe and scaled body; the timbre of that voice; the touches and near-touches, and that intoxicating scent she could fall forever into. Jhanna spent those precious seconds wondering if she would ever see that enchanting woman again.

But she couldn't avoid it forever. Couldn't fight the drumming of her heart or the dizziness eating blackly into her vision. She let go and gasped hurriedly the cool, pepper-scented air; something disintigrated behind her eyes, then. Something that had never been there was all.

And then Jhanna was standing alone in the royal gardens. She couldn't remember walking there. Her face was glowing hot, her whole body limbered for... something. Her fingers wrapped loosely the shape of her whistle, but why? No one else was there.

Jhanna stood staring at the leaves for a while longer, at the nodding blooms in the moonlight, and she couldn't identify the bizarre new trace of a scent before the wind swept it away. She pushed her hooves to motion. Kept walking the perimeter of the royal gardens, and found all to seem well. She had done well here, said an imprint of a feeling.

Every patrol shift afterward, Jhanna patrolled the gardens with particular care. She watched closely between the plants standing in rows. Listened for something silent, and searched for a scent she could nearly remember.