Lexi had descended into a fitful sleep not long after Aoife had left her, waking regularly with a nagging sense of impending doom and by the time morning came she felt more exhausted than when she had first drifted off to sleep.
She winced as she sat up and rubbed her eyes, blinking blearily as she scanned the room and realizing that her bladder was uncomfortably full, she headed towards the bathroom.
"What in the fuck!" She exclaimed as she caught her reflection in the mirror and stared at the almost unrecognizable reflection in dismay, "What…no…what the fuck happened to me?!"
She groaned loudly after she had finished pulling and prodding at her hollow eyes and dull skin on her face, wrinkling her nose in disgust at the state of her hair.
"There's no way in hell that I'm letting my mother see me like this." she grumbled as she cast her eyes around the small bathroom, grateful that someone had at least stocked the bathroom with products for her to freshen up with.
She peeled back the dressing carefully on her chest and tutted loudly at the state of the skin underneath.
"Just wait till I get the opportunity to get my hands on you again you vile…" she hissed as Narcissa's face appeared in her thoughts, trailing off at the end as she turned towards the bath and turned it on, finally emptying her bladder on the toilet as she waited for the water to fill the bath and slowly peeling off her clothes.
She couldn't recall a time that she had ever felt this stale, her own skin felt uncomfortable to be in and as she sank into the welcoming and warm waters of the bath she sighed in ecstasy.
As she let the water soothe her skin, she chewed the inside of her cheek thoughtfully, trying desperately to think of a way that she could put an end to Eromaug's plans.
She felt sure that her father would be looking for her by now, but Aoife was right with what she had said last night. The shell she had become was not the Lexi that she had ever been.
Lexi's lips twisted into a bitter smile as she ran her fingers around the edges of the wound that Aoife had worked so hard at healing. She winced at the slight soreness that remained, but for the first time, she felt the faint echo of her souls somewhere deep inside her.
Her heart beat a little faster as she tried to grasp for them, closing her eyes to try and help with her concentration and hoping with everything that she had in her that she could feel a response to her probing, but they seemed almost as if they were just out of reach.
She sighed heavily as she tipped her head back in frustration, glowering at the ceiling as if she could burn a hole right through it.
"Fuck this." Lexi snorted to herself with a fierceness to her voice as she sat up abruptly, "I refuse to fucking live like this and I refuse to let my family suffer any longer."
She knew that wallowing in self pity and anger would get her nowhere. What she needed to do was find a way to make Eromaug think that she had accepted her fate, biding her time until the plan that Aoife had spoken of could be put into motion.
Lexi finished up in the bathroom, changing into the clean clothes that had been left in the room for her and nodded in satisfaction at her reflection. Although her complexion was far paler than usual, and her eyes still looked hollow, at least she wasn't covered in stale sweat now.
"Lexi? Are you in there?" Aoife's voice came from outside the bathroom.
"Yeah," she answered with a smile, "Give me a second and I'll be right out."
When Aoife's smiling face greeted her from the other side of the door, Lexi suddenly felt her emotions welling up, the ghost of the grief she had felt when she thought she had lost her. She had to stop herself from pinching her own arm to ensure that having her here again wasn't just a fever dream.
"Everything okay?" Aoife asked gently with a frown, "You look as though you've seen a ghost."
"You mean aside from the obvious?" Lexi smiled bitterly, "I'm just peachy. I'm still trying to convince myself that you're real, that's all."
Aoife's eyes lit with understanding as she nodded.
"I get it, don't worry. Come on, let me check those dressings that you've just wrecked in there. You shouldn't really be getting the area wet. I might have to leave it uncovered to dry out now." She frowned as they made their way over to the bed.
"We can still go down to the dungeons though, right?" Lexi asked, her voice tinged with panic.
Aoife cast a furtive glance across to the colossal sentinel that had remained outside of her room, standing guard over her as she slept, before turning her focus back to Lexi.
"If the wound needs to dry out then we won't be going down there today." Aoife answered quietly as Lexi hissed in frustration.
"But…"
"No 'but's'." Aoife said firmly, "If you could see the amount of grime down there you would be as concerned about reinfection as I am."
"So I have to sit here and do nothing again? Await my fate like a good little girl?" Lexi snapped in frustration as Aoife tended to her wound, smiling benignly.
"You could," she started in a soft voice, "Or, you could ask that hulking great brute to take you to the library and see if we can find any information on how to dispatch a Daemon Lord…permanently."
Lexi blinked down at Aoife, her frustration dissipating instantly.
"Well aren't you just full of surprises?" Lexi chuckled quietly before wrinkling her nose in thought, "Do you really think there will be information about that there though? I mean, surely Eromaug wouldn't keep information there that would threaten his own existence."
"You're forgetting two things though Lexi," Aoife grinned, "Eromaug is incredibly arrogant and clearly has a superiority complex. He wouldn't for a minute think that information like that would pose a threat to himself as he would simply assume that no one would be brave enough, or strong enough, to even attempt to pull it off in his own realm."
Lexi nodded thoughtfully, hissing as Aoife applied another layer of balm to her wound and set about recovering it.
"Okay, that's entirely possible. You said two things though, what's the second?" she asked through gritted teeth as Aoife sat back on her heels and grinned widely at her.
"Eromaug's library is watched over by the Djinn. Not only do the majority of them enjoy causing chaos, but they're also meticulous record keepers. There truly is no piece of information that is too small to record in their eyes, so it wouldn't surprise me if at some point, they had recorded the information purely out of spite."
Lexi's grin grew wider as she listened and she let loose a little laugh of surprise.
"Then I guess we will head to the library. At least then, perhaps, I can move this plan forward a little further. After all," she purred, her smile turning into one of maliciousness, "If it ends in Eromaug's death, I would sacrifice just about anything, even my own life."