@ravenouswreckage sent: Ah. There comes again, a soft vibration in Vera's pocket, a gentle chime, betraying a message from her wife before even checking the screen. Hardly unusual. Typical, even. Miranda's no stranger to messages, and certainly no stranger to thinking of Vera when the gorgon's not around, and both mean that it's hardly unusual to see that she's left Vera a little video, just for her.
It starts off looking at a tank. Saltwater, surely, even if very small for one — maybe five gallons, at the most? Taller than it is wide, wider than it is shallow, and the sound there is betrays the soft mechanical hum of water pumps and of a heater.
It's sitting on some dedicated shelf, crafted of a dark wood, outlined in gold in fantastical designs, the wallpaper behind it dark blue and patterned with branching designs surely more commonly found within the Merkingdom than on land. There's a light above it, shining down, a little spotlight just to show off what's inside, forming a sort of enclave solely for the tank and leaving room to reach in through the top.
Oddly, it's not a part of the castle Vera might recognize, even if it's just this one little slice of the room.
There's a plaque on the front of the shelf, sitting in front of the tank and its saltwater, brassy colors with a darker background to make the colors pop even more in the light.
All it reads is 'gorgon'.
Inside the tank, there are no fish. There are no decorations. The bottom is strange, a series of several brightly-colored holes where tubes would connect in from the bottom, but it's not clear what they're pumping into the water, if anything.
The only thing sitting in there is a double-pronged shape of a familiar color. Two heads, sitting proudly atop two thick shafts, connected down to a thicker base where the two would, otherwise, have a slit that they would fit into, but all that's there are branching, ribbon-like structures, paler in color, fleshy and long and waving slightly in the current. Tendrils which connect down, to the base of the tank, fitting into some groove specifically made for them.
They're perfect, down to every last vein, which throb as they pump blood that shouldn't be there, moving and standing tall at attention without even a heart to keep them alive. So familiar that to see them divorced from context like this is strange, let alone from this angle, one that Vera would never naturally see on her own.
A pink, clawed hand descends down from above, slipping beneath the water's surface. Every ridge that she caresses is perfect, every throb and stiffening to attention, the way that her double thumbs run all the way down to the base and up again, tense and tight and making a definite pearlesent something dissolve into the water near their heads, matches with ease the same way that exact hand had touched Vera herself.
They respond in the same way as Vera's own equipment. They look, to the dot, like Vera's. Everything is exact, perfect, and in a saltwater tank currently being played with by the merprincess.
Her messages, while reassuring that this is intended for Vera's eyes, are nonetheless still esoteric and explain nothing.
[ txt ]: I required something to keep me through your long absences, my dear.
[ txt ]: Highly looking forward to showing you exactly that which you could be doing to me, while you are so busy! 💝
One of her snakes reacts before she does, at least overtly. Those in the call, that she was going to be speaking to in person soon as she was driven there after her jet landed, might notice a slight perk to her lips, however minute, before she took a moment to excuse herself as the others were certainly rambling more than enough to carry it on their own. Getting a notification in that familiar chime was always enough to excite her, even before she saw it was a video. A brief flick to ensure the mic was off and, once sure, she played the video.
It didn't surprise her that much that it was taken somewhere in the castle she was unawares of. Whilst she's surely seen more of it than many could claim, it was still vast enough that there was no doubt she wouldn't see every nook and cranny. Speaking of said nook, it was peculiar to say the least. A little shift to bring it closer, just in time to process the word on the tank.
It's recognizable in an instant to her, of course. Vera's seen her own toolkit more times than she can count. Not at this angle, no, she's never yet had footage of her released-- at least far as she's aware. How many would clamber at the bit for it, of course, is another matter for another day.
It both is and isn't surprising to her, truthfully, to see this. Surprising in the sense that, ah yes, that's surely her exotic members, being so lovingly toyed with by her beloved. Not so in the sense that, ah, Miranda did something seemingly difficult to impossible and just waved it off like a novelty.
What more to home, of course, is remembering the sensations of that hand upon her. How it brought cool body to a boil and left warmth flooding her. The natural response her body does to lure mammals in or, in this case, when she's excited. Having to shift in her seat just so when she felt the proper members sliding out from their home despite her best efforts.
It's so distracting, in fact, that she failed to register the video had ended. More so still that, oh, she's being spoken to. All her snakes had been enraptured by the show, too, and that had left none to pay attention to the call that was going on-- Poor Rora chattering to people after Vera had been silently staring with darkening cheeks at her phone.
[To: My Miri 💗]
[txt] i swear you send me things such as this during meetings of all things on purpose.
[txt] one of these days you're going to be the one having trouble walking after from the aftershocks if you keep this up.💕
Perhaps a hollow threat, though one she intended to try and keep one day; impossible as it may be for her to achieve such a feat.
Now, however, she had to try and collect herself before a very important meeting while that is going to be playing on repeat in the back of her head the entire time. Lovely.