Fire and Silk (closed for Apollo Wilde)

[Baelnorn]

Valen Teliir examined his left hand again. He carefully prodded the swollen gash across the palm, his face contorting into a grimace at the pain. He had earned the injury three days ago in an ill-advised attempt at climbing up to a higher level in another cave. The smooth bluish-grey tone of his hand had turned a dark, angry purple, with a few streaks of black starting to show where the granite had cut into his flesh.

The young wizard knew that this was bad, but he worried less about the infection gestating within the wound, waiting to send him into a shivering fever. His immediate concern was how much flexibility he had lost in the fingers of his left hand because of the injury. The loss of manual dexterity would severely limit his options, forcing him to drop or stow whatever he was holding in his right hand if he wanted to cast almost any of his spells.

Valen furrowed his brow in frustration and cursed himself, ruing the second he had had the idea of climbing that cliff face. It hadn’t even been that tall, less than ten meters, and it didn’t look any more difficult than the obstacle courses he had to run as a part of his military training in service of House Teliir.

He thought he could manage, and he had little choice, since he had devoted almost all of his spell reserves to warding spells to cover his escape. There just wasn’t anything left for an incantation that would have helped him scale the wall. That, and the walls he had to climb once every few weeks with his fellow soldiers didn’t sport hidden razor-sharp edges that were out of sight from below.

“Kalash naktol,” he hissed through gritted teeth while swiping away the seeping blood with the already heavily soiled sleeve of his robe and reapplying the improvised bandage.

If only he had succeeded, then he could have forced the Matron Mother’s bloodhounds to split up and delayed them by several hours, potentially days. The upper level would have opened several more possible paths he could have taken, while the lower level continued to funnel him along into only a few narrow, winding tunnels.

But not all was lost; there was still some hope in him for a successful escape. Not much, but not nothing either. At least not yet. Mostly because Valen knew that they had to track him with mundane means, or at least were unable to bring their full arsenal to bear against him.

Otherwise he wouldn’t be alive. If the city’s priestesses had located him he would already have been killed – or worse, captured – several days ago. A single wizard on the run, no matter how careful, was no match for a whole Mergonnar hunting party.

He was barely done wrapping the bandage when he felt it. The familiar mental impact of another scrying ritual slamming into his wards with the subtlety of a charging landshark. It was a daily occurrence, sometimes happening even multiple times between his rests. He knew those rituals weren’t cheap, so if they knew where he was they wouldn’t keep wasting good gold and gems on trying to locate him.

But the young drow wasn’t prone to delusions, even in his current wretched state. He knew that he was playing a dangerous game and that eventually his luck would run out. His wards had to hold every single day, but their rituals only needed to break through once. If he couldn’t get away far enough, fast enough… he didn’t want to finish that thought.

With a resigned sigh Valen stood from the ground where he had rested for an hour. He hefted his backpack onto his shoulders, wincing when out of habit he still grabbed one of the leather straps with his wounded hand. It would take him more than three days to stop doing that.

He had to press on, no matter the cost. Mergonnar’s influence was sizable, but it didn’t reach far beyond its fortified walls. At some point they would let him go. They had to. They just had to. Spending so many resources on desperately chasing down a single runaway was all but an open admission of defeat, a clearly visible demonstration that he had successfully wounded their pride. And he had learned the hard way that Lolth despised such displays of weakness.

And so, Valen continued. He randomly chose his path through the few tunnel intersections, having left behind the territory he was even remotely familiar with from his patrols days ago. By now, he was treading unknown ground, uncertain of which dangers and horrors might lurk around the next corner. Valen tried his best to not stumble blindly into what he thought would be obvious traps, but he was certain that if there was anything waiting in ambush for him in his current condition, he’d be dead without seeing it coming.

Meanwhile, his hand had gotten worse. His fingers had swollen and were aching in every joint and with every tiny movement. The black streaks reached to his wrist now, and he was going through waves of feeling too hot and too cold, sweating and shivering as he stumbled along. The wizard’s head similarly alternated between feeling as if it were wrapped in cotton and ringing like a struck anvil.

It was in one of the few moments when the fever’s fog lifted from his mind that he realized his mistake. With a gasp he turned around, looking back down the slowly ascending spiral path he’d been following for… he didn’t remember how long. It must have been hours at this point. He didn’t recall any branches or intersections, and if he tried to go back and search for another way he’d probably run headfirst into the bloodhounds.

But he realized his even greater folly, the one that sealed his fate. With a weak whimper he dropped to his knees as his throat tightened. In his haze he had forgotten to renew his wards. Panic surged in his mind and threatened to drown out the last bits of reason, and for a moment he almost wanted to give in to despair. To just lie down and die, ending his escape, ending his pain. Maybe even save the bloodhounds the trouble and himself the suffering, and help it along with his dagger.

The stubborn part of his mind rebelled against the mere idea. He hadn’t defied the Matron Mother of his own house, thwarted her plans to feed him to a rival as a political bargaining chip, and escaped certain death by torture, only to now lie down and wait for death like a wounded animal.

“No. No! Not like this!”

With gritted teeth Valen forced himself up again, stumbling into the path’s roughly hewn wall. He looked ahead, his blurry vision following the spiral way in front of him. If he really had been climbing this path for hours he must be close to the surface.

A gentle shiver ran through his body, and he couldn’t tell if it was from the infection or the thought of really going to the surface. He assumed his kin wasn’t well received there. He couldn’t imagine otherwise, considering how often Mergonnar had sent raiders and slave hunters to the upper world in the last few decades. But still, the fate awaiting him there was less bleak than the one lurking in the dark of his former home.

The drow took a deep breath and staggered onward. Step after step after step, he forced himself to continue walking towards whatever or whoever awaited him at the end of the spiral.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

The rattling of an ancient temple bell made a brow twitch.

Perhaps it was a trick of her mind, pushed too long and too hard from being at her study. She thumbed to the next page.

The bell rattled again; sounding more insistent than before. It echoed deep within the recesses of her cave. No matter where she was in her territory, she would be able to hear it. Surely it wasn’t a figment of her imagination. The third time it rattled, sounding like bones inside of brass, she was up.

She set her book aside with the care one would give an infant, and snorted. It had been long, long years, decades, since something had triggered her ‘alarm system.’ Had been strong enough to do so, anyway. For a moment, giddiness flickered beneath her stoic form. A visitor; that was exciting. Not that she was bored, or lonely. She was beyond such things. No, the novelty of something new to break up the long study sessions, to give her an excuse to stretch her limbs that wasn’t an alarm of her own creation, that was something.

Stretching, limbs high overhead, her wings soon joined, and she rumbled in contentment. There was a bit of protest in her shoulders; she’d sat for too long. “A sound mind in a sound body,” she murmured to herself. What good would all the knowledge in the world do for a body that was too sluggish, too ill-used, to command it? And what if this new visitor (so she preferred to think) was someone who had malicious intent towards her? The thought made a small flicker of flame come to her mouth. It wasn’t outside of the realm of possibility, though she’d thought that the wars had long ended. But what was the life of humans, if not constant war? Conflict over something or the other, blood spilled and land lost and land regained and treaties sealed in marriage. And surely the world had progressed past the point of hunting her kind for acts of valor.

Best be prepared all the same.

As she meandered (for there was never need to rush into anything) through her tunnels, motes of light, triggered by her presence, flickered into warm dots. Not that she would need them; she knew her home well enough to be able to venture through entirely blind if circumstances had fallen that way. She’d been blinded a few times - it only took the first time for her to make the necessary adjustments. That had been long ago, long, long time ago. How many of her memories, her ‘adventures’, had passed from oral tradition to written history? The thought, fleeting as it was, made her chuckle, loosening the tightness in her shoulders.

Much like the lights, the rattling bells varied in pitch - louder as she got closer to the source of it, quieter as she moved further away. As she continued her journey, she would pause for brief moments, taking in the air. The closer she got, the more she would be able to tell the precise nature of what was coming for her. Poor visitor; it would be a shame if they were coming in malice. It would be over before they knew it. So many different ways to kill an intruder - at one point, it had been exciting for her to show her power, to let it crash over any and all in a sheer tidal wave; a force of nature that couldn’t be escaped. Fascinating, the look on sentient beings faces, when they knew that their end was at hand.

It might be better to think positively, she mentally chided herself. Beings could be, ultimately, surprising in how they addressed things. And, as the bells grew louder, she could pick up the scent of magic. Her nose wrinkled. It’d been ages since she smelled anything like this. Sour, it was, redolent of rot and dark damp places. Not that sharp, pleasant smell of river rocks or leaves returning to soil on the forest floor.

Drow, came the thought, noting, filing away. How odd. The next thought, little more than a fleeting thing. Those kind stuck to their own ways and their own depths. Though she would consider herself somewhat out of pace with the moving world, she hadn’t heard anything about them being on the move.

Just the one, her nose told her. Male. Wounded. For beneath the dampness, there was a different rot, organic, threaded through with blood. Worsening by the moment, and taking a toll on this male. She grimaced - inasmuch as her snout would allow her to. Some expressions (learned from humans, she had to admit), did not transfer well onto her natural form. Not that there was anyone around to see it.

As she came round a corner, the path rolled steadily, gently, downwards. Well, downwards for her. He’s traveled quite a bit, to make it this far. The last she checked, her den was decidedly isolated; the kind of isolated that made most sentient beings avoid her territory with a wide berth. She lived in a deep wood of legends, of ghost stories. Of spirits older than the trees, as old as the stars, sacred in its untouchable nature.

Had she played a part in setting up such tales? Why, of course she had. How else would she ensure that the land that she wanted would remain hers? Well, hers, and the animals. It had taken several generations for her and the forest creatures to become…used to one another, but over time, it had happened. She wouldn’t say that she was friendly with any of them, but they, like humans, had learned something close to worship, knew, intrinsically, to whisper news and of happenings to the underside of leaves so that the Red Beast would know. Few were brave enough to approach the main entrance, to peer into the darkness, and shout their announcements there. It tickled her.

It could’ve been considered odd that no one had announced this man’s presence, but he was so far from anything that could be considered ‘living.’ On a forgotten fringe of her land, buried so deep, not even earthworms would know of him. Clever, if he were trying to hide. There was remnants of magic on him, magic that made her raise her brow ridges. The smell of it was faint, lingering smoke after the camp fire had long gone out, but the fact that any lingered this far, well, that was something of note.

Soon enough, she would be upon him. And as old habits died hard, she kept herself hidden. Willed the lights to dim, the bells to stop. If he was strong enough, had that whisper of interest, he would hear the last of the bells fade away with the sound of wooden bones falling onto the floor.

“Do you mean harm?” The voice boomed, thrown against the walls to violently bounce back against the male’s ears. “Best speak of it now so we can finish this quickly. I was in the middle of something.”

The flickering light around her, responding to her will, painted her form in long outlines. Even in the dimmer light (far lower than when she used it to navigate), her immense size was readily apparent. That, and the sparkle of immaculately polished scales, rows and rows of deep fire opal, iridescent even in the low light. Talons of bronze, the small curls of smoke that escaped from the sides of her mouth, lined in fangs so white they seemed carved marble. In the midst of all of it were those eyes, molten gold, copper, and bronze, melting and twisting, one color into another, around the black slit pupil that studied him measuredly. She kept her wings folded against her back, knowing that her presence alone would render -most- beings into stillness.

 

[Baelnorn]

The booming voice assaulted his senses and made him turn away, while he desperately tried to cover his ears. Valen staggered as if he had been struck by a monk’s fist, and the sheer volume of the voice forced him back a few steps. His head rang for a long moment even after the last echo faded, the fever turning his usually cunning mind into a sunken, sluggish morass that refused to follow his intentions. Once he was capable of holding on to a coherent thought, he replied with a shaky voice.

“I-I mean no harm, I merely seek passage. I beg forgiveness for my intrusion, I didn’t realize these parts of the tunnels w-were inha-”

Valen’s tongue stopped dead in its tracks when his mind finally caught up. He was responding to the unseen party in his own language out of habit and instinct, somehow assuming that in these tunnels he would naturally be understood. But a creeping thought took root in his mind – that was not the language of the disembodied voice. The voice had spoken in Draconic, the language of arcanists and – of course – dragons. As he realized it, an icy dread seized his chest.

“Were inhabited and claimed…,” The drow finished in Draconic, his voice quiet and trailing off into fear. He swallowed the bile threatening to rise in his throat, and summoned every ounce of courage he could find.

There was still a possibility that he hadn’t stumbled into what he feared he had. A chance, no matter how small, that he was beset by a trickster using magic or technique to make their voice louder and more potent than should be possible. A prospect of finding a deep gnome or mountain dwarf around the next bend, rather than certain doom with scales and claws.

Slowly he crept forward, inching along the wall until he could see around the next corner. And once he did, he wished he hadn’t. All hope abandoned him as he stared death in the face. The beast’s eyes glowed like orbs of molten metal, shifting currents of gold and copper and bronze slowly twisting and turning, endlessly flowing into each other. Its polished scales shimmered with the faint glow of smoldering coals and painted the shape of the dragon in fire and flame against the dark backdrop of the cavern walls.

It was magnificent. It was beautiful. It was terrifying.

Valen scrambled back from the hall-sized dragon, his eyes inescapably locked with those captivating molten orbs. He descended into a mental spiral, desperately trying to escape from this predicament. The wizard took inventory of his reserves and the spells he had prepared, the items on his body, how quickly he thought he could run – but then a terrible realization began to set in and he just stopped.

None of it mattered.

The spell to turn invisible? It didn’t matter since the dragon’s breath would flood the entire pathway with flame, either incinerating or asphyxiating him. The spell to protect against elemental damage? It didn’t matter since the dragon’s flame was hot enough to melt rock and metal into slag. Turning and running? It didn’t matter how fast he moved, when the dragon could leap forward and be upon him in the blink of an eye.

And even if he tried, his injured hand and swollen fingers would likely fumble the spells anyway.

Valen sank to the floor, the sleeve of his tattered robe snagging and tearing further on the rough rock of the wall beside him. A terrible sound escaped his throat as his resolve finally gave out, the pain and terror of the past nine days made audible. He wanted to curl into a ball and wish everything away, but it wouldn’t change the outcome.

This time there was no second wind of defiance. This time his luck had finally run out, but not the way he had thought. Perhaps it was the fever that had sapped his strength and grit, or the constant throbbing pain from his wounded palm. Whatever the reason, he couldn't summon another bout of determination. This was where he would die.

He had evaded the bloodhounds just long enough to run right into a dragon’s lair. There was nothing he could do anymore, no spell, no trick, no bargain, no cunning strategy to see him through. At least his death would be quick, he hoped.

“I…”

His backpack pressed uncomfortably into his shoulders, and he almost laughed. Such an insignificant thought in his final moments.

“I won’t struggle. Please… just make it quick.”

 

[Apollo Wilde]

He certainly sounded repentant enough. He was stumbling over his words - and she could not initially smell any sense of deceit. No, there was a further stink; that pungent oil of fear. That couldn’t be faked.

But he had presence enough of mind to switch languages. She felt herself lifting her brow ridges. That had been unexpected.

All the same, he was struggling to draw water from a well long since emptied - and though he had enough skill to set off her alarms, if left to his own devices, she suspected that the wound on him would eventually win out. She could, theoretically, simply leave him there.

The smell. And then the pests.

Think of his putrefying body and the creatures it would attract - a small curl of smoke escaped her nostril. Disgusting. He’s been polite enough to not warrant that at the very least.

Rolling his pleas about in her mind, she lowered the great head, her snout impossibly close to him. She moved as if she had all of the space in the world, and somehow, the tunnel seemed to shift and mold to her, growing, shrinking. Even the ground beneath him seemed to roll him upwards, all the closer to be inspected by an eye that was the size of a large boulder. At a distance, her size could be, failingly, described as a trick of the light. There was no way something so large could move so quietly, so easily - and yet here they were, and she was close enough to fill every one of his senses.

She smelt clean - of river stones washed in clear cool water, set out to bask in the sun. The static smell of earth warmed by the sun, perfumed by life. There was a faint trail of incense, kitchen herbs. Rosemary, mint, the dusty vanilla of old books. And obviously, she found him as no threat as she lowered her head to look at him. She would be putting herself within harm’s way, risking damage to her eye. His scent told her she had little to fear more than his words had.

Look at this little thing. Without fully realizing it, she delicately, little more than the touch of cotton, nudged him with her snout. So small. So pathetic. On the mighty neck, the head swiveled, her eyes raking over him as tangibly as if it were her claws. Her gaze was no less gentle than her physical touch. A wounded drow, imagine! At the moment, she was all the world a great cat inspecting prey that had landed in her lap.

His wound is festering, information she already knew, and he smells. He is weak.

“…At the very least, if you are going to be in my domain, we will have to get that smell off of you.” There was no imperious edge, no masterly command. If anything, there was the suggestion of a lip curled in disgust. “Up you go, then.”

Before he could protest, bury himself lower to the ground, he was being righted. The entire tunnel would grow dark as she enveloped him - really, leaning over further to grasp his backpack (and him) in her jaws. Suspended high above the ground, he would’ve looked as a wayward baby dragon being herded back to the nest.

With him securely in her jaws, she lifted her neck, and peered down the tunnel from whence he came. Though his drow stink and wound stink and all the tangled threads of magic he’d woven filled her nostrils, her senses were sharp enough to detect if there was anything else directly behind him. A flaring of the sharp scales, the warmth of her breath exhaled over him as she scented deeply, once, twice. A third time, and then, silence. The bells had stopped - the source of their agitation discovered - and she could not sense or scent anything behind him. There would be time for questioning him later. But first, she would need to get him into a state in which questions could be lobbied.


With less of a satisfied grunt and more of a resigned sigh, she turned and headed back towards the heart of the tunnels.

____

She could’ve blindfolded him, or, in retrospect, cast a spell to hamper his memory. Of course, such things didn’t occur to her until after she had plonked him, gently, down into a small-ish cavern. Small as it seemed to cage her in, the space breathing as she did - but she still managed to move this way and that.

It would be hard to tell what all glamours she cast in the cavern. All the same, it was….quaint, really. Frighteningly so. As if he’d been deposited in the center of a stylish cafe. The walls were lined with bookshelves carved into the stone, the floor covered in layers of jewel-colored carpets. A high backed chair, the wood shining from use, was pulled in close to a small table covered in a delicate lace table cloth. One almost expected a maid to suddenly appear, ushering in with a tray of treats and tea. However, it was just the two of them in the room, the light warm.

“I’m going to grant you the gift of modesty,” she murmured as she kept her head lowered to him, all the better to stare him down, “Unless you are so infirm that you require a bath attendant?” There was a sharp hint of humor there. It could be part of the joke - her leading him to what amounted to a library, no bathing chamber in sight. “Behind that curtain there,” her eyes shifted to a deep red curtain which seemed to have just materialized, “There is a heated pool for bathing. Wash yourself, and your wound. I can tend to it once you’ve become more palatable to be around.”

Less of an eyesore, came the uncharitable thought. Though perhaps “eyesore” wasn’t as accurate as “sad, nearly dead being.”

“There should be soap, linen, clothing, for you to attend to yourself. Should be, as it’s been a while since I’ve been this way. Rarer still for…guests.” The way she held the syllables on ‘guest’ suggested that she wasn’t entirely sure what to do with him. “I shall wait here, should you need assistance.”

If he thought she was going to leave him entirely to his own devices, well, surely must have been touched in the head. She lifted her head away from him now, watching him from her full height. The curtains billowed in an unseen wind, carrying the fresh smell of cedar and steaming water.

 

[Baelnorn]

The tunnel seemed to warp and shift as the dragon walked closer. It bent, stretched, grew to accommodate the approaching looming form. The beast effortlessly used its bulk to trap Valen against the pathway’s wall, and began to study him in a way that reminded the drow of a butcher examining a hanging carcass, with one of the dragon’s eyes coming so close it filled his whole field of view.

Valen could almost physically feel the dragon’s gaze caressing him, scrutinizing him to his very core. The giant molten orb moved with purpose and intent, leaving no spot on him unobserved. He flinched when the snout nudged him, a fleeting memory of giant spider pets and mounts in Mergonnar feeling and prodding their prospective meals serving as a painful reminder of who played which role in this encounter.

At this point Valen didn’t – no, couldn’t – care anymore. Whether he was torn apart by teeth the length of his arm, or had his flesh melted from his bones by fire, soon it would be over and he would never hurt again. He only tried to retain as much dignity as possible while waiting for the end with eyes firmly shut.

However, the pain he expected didn’t arrive. Instead he smelled fresh soil, herbs, and spices.

“Up you go, then,” the voice thundered again, but more like the heavy, rolling growl of a distant landslide this time. He understood fragments of it through the veil of despair and resignation, and suddenly felt the stone underneath his back and legs move and shift, pushing him upwards. A heartbeat later something caught his backpack and his clothes, and lifted him, eliciting a very undignified yelp from his throat.

Valen dared to open his eyes and immediately regretted it, as he saw himself being half-carried in the dragon’s maw. And from this close the teeth suddenly didn’t look like such a merciful end anymore, dealing a serious blow to his stoic acceptance of death from a few moments ago. A weak whimper escaped his lips as he was helplessly carried along high above the ground.

Even if he had paid attention, he’d have a hard time remembering the path they took. Left, right, left again, mostly up, but also a short section downward; it seemed that the dragon’s lair was a maze very unlike anything the wizard had imagined or read before. By now, the adrenaline had stopped surging in his veins, and the infection’s pain and fever had pushed to the front again, muddling his perception of time and space.

Some time later – Valen really couldn’t tell how much – he was set down. He stood on shaking legs and looked around, confusion contorting his expression when he found himself in a sort of library. The walls were covered with rows upon rows of books and the floor was layered with colorful, soft carpets. How did this fit in a dragon’s lair? He couldn’t even guess.

The dragon gestured at a red curtain Valen was sure hadn’t been there before, and told him to wash and make himself presentable. Cleanliness wasn’t foreign to him as a soldier, but it struck him like lightning that he hadn’t properly taken care of himself for several days. Since the fever’s haze had settled over his mind, causing him to wander aimlessly and making him forget his wards, he hadn’t cleaned himself or his clothes with his magic.

He must have reeked of that sickly sweet stench of sweat and disease. Shame bloomed on the drow’s cheeks as he imagined how badly his presence had to offend the dragon’s unnaturally keen senses.

Without protest he shuffled towards the curtain, and ducked under it. On the other side he found exactly what his host had promised – next to a pool of steaming water were various implements of personal hygiene arranged in neat rows: several bars of soap in different colors and scents, a washcloth, stacks of towels, and a simple white shirt and pants. He staggered deeper into the room and looked at the sight before him, when suddenly a chuckle burst from his throat before he could even think about stopping it.

This had to be a dream. Perhaps he was really dying in some gods-forsaken tunnel, the carrion crawlers already closing in on him. Perhaps the infection had reached his heart, and the notion of being taken in by a dragon and asked to bathe was nothing more than his failing mind’s last best effort, a feverish phantasm conjured in its final moments.

Valen decided with a weak smile on his face that if a hot bath was to be his last memory he wouldn’t fight it, and released the buckles and straps of his backpack and set it against the wall. With strained motions he began peeling off his ruined clothes. The boots went first, followed by his soiled and torn robe, his sweat-soaked shirt, and his dirty pants.

He glanced at his badly bandaged hand and remembered the dragon’s instruction that he also had to wash his wound. With gritted teeth he unwrapped the bandage, wincing when the crusted fabric took some of the gash’s scab along with it and sent a thin rivulet of blood trickling down his arm.

Fully naked, he took a deep breath and carefully stepped into the pool. The hot water immediately attacked his skin, and he let out a gasp. The water was hotter than it had looked, but there was no way back now. He moved in further, looking for a place to sit, and then finally sank into the pool. A deep, strained moan echoed in the chamber while his body soaked in the water.

After spending a few silent minutes just sitting there and letting the heat infuse his abused flesh, he remembered his task. Knowing that delaying wouldn’t help, he lowered his injured hand into the water. The throbbing pain in his palm momentarily intensified, but after some moments the sensation began to ebb and he visibly relaxed again.

With newfound determination Valen reached for the washcloth and a soap bar smelling of lavender and bergamot. He dipped the fabric in the pool and lathered it up with the soap until thick globs of foam clung heavily to the fibers, and then set out to scrub the grime and sweat off his body. Washing his injured hand still hurt so badly it drove tears into his eyes, but he dutifully performed his cleaning nevertheless.

When the worst of the dirt was gone, the drow quickly dipped his head below the pool’s surface and took the soap to his hair. Soon the oily and grimy mat gave way again to soft silvery fibers that flowed through his fingers like strands of silk. He scrubbed his body for a second time, not wanting to risk the dragon’s wrath by not performing to its satisfaction.

After about half an hour he was done, feeling clean and better than he had since… since… since before he fled. He stepped out of the pool and toweled himself down as best as he could. Seeing that his own clothing was currently in an unwearable state, he dressed in the simple clothing prepared for him and slowly shuffled back to the previous room.

“Hello?” he carefully called out in Draconic a moment before returning from behind the red curtain. “I did as you ordered.”

 

[Apollo Wilde]

“Ah, wonderful,” the voice that answered him was distinctly female - and not responding in Draconic at all, but rather, in Drow. “We can speak this way, if it’s easier for you to answer questions. Which, rest assured, I have plenty of.”

In the chair, her nose in a book, was a woman.

Well, not quite. She was human in form - two arms, two legs (partially hidden beneath the table), but there was no disguising the flared horns from her brow, or the unnatural sun-brilliance of her eyes. “I thought that this form would be better to discuss in,” a quick glance down to her body. “Less imposing.” A bit of imperiousness there, a quiet command for his appreciation of her going out of her way to make things easier for him. This form was of a handsome woman, her age truly indeterminable in the way of classic grand dames. Classical attractive, with features that brought to mind dusty paintings lining the hallway of a castle. All that seemed to be missing was a diadem marking her as the “royalty” she should’ve been.

Brown-skinned, long necked, with features symmetrical and sharp. Her hair was a mass of curls - swept up in an ornate updo. Shades of red, orange, yellow - dancing flame, unnatural and lustrous. Long curls were left stylishly loose on either side of slightly elongated ears, not so unlike his own. A small beauty mark at the left corner of her bow-shaped mouth, matching a second beneath the right eye. The attire she was in also belonged to an era long past - cut décolletage to further showcase the fine lines of her neck, shoulder, collarbones, the pillowy tops of breasts. The dress was satin yellow, a cheery color, trimmed in tan lace that ornately mimicked the curves of rose petals amongst the greenery.

Even under the faux candlelight of the room, she appeared dusted over in a fine mist of iridescent copper, lending her skin an ethereal glow. In his absence in the bath, she had set the table with refreshments - befittingly, tea and shortbread cookies. Across from her had appeared a second chair. At its place at the table was a small china cup and saucer, a plate for sharing the cookies. In the center of the table, next to the tea tray and cookies, were two ornate bottles, delicate as a butterfly’s wing and almost as brilliant in their gem-colors of blue and violet. “I took the liberty of bringing a few potions for that hand of yours. The blue is for healing, the violet is for restoration. Or it could be the other way around. Either way, neither will cause you harm. Tea?”

 

[Baelnorn]

Valen stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the scene in front of him with wide eyes. The sight of the woman – no, the dragon, as he had to forcefully remind himself – sitting at the table stole his breath, not only from shock but also from attraction.

He gaped at her form and drank in every detail, uncertain whether what he was seeing was real or a feverish hallucination. She was just as imposing, dominant, mysterious, and terrifying in this shape as in her true form. But the horns growing from her brow, the radiance of her eyes, and the subtle glow of her skin elevated her to a level far beyond mortal standards. This being was easily the most alluring woman he had ever laid eyes on, effortlessly eclipsing the cold, cruel beauty of every Matron Mother, Handmaiden, or priestess.

But the drow had learned the hard way that beauty and cruelty often went hand in hand. The regal dress sensually worshiping her every curve contrasted starkly with the plain clothes covering him, and reinforced the gnawing thought that he was nothing to her. He was a pauper before a queen, more nuisance than guest, and who knew what she’d do to him once she had the answers she was seeking to those many questions of hers.

Perhaps death by teeth or fire wasn’t completely ruled out yet, merely postponed.

Valen swallowed hard, and slowly, almost reluctantly, approached the empty chair. He examined the table, cataloging the items presented on it: a fine porcelain tea set for two with steam rising from the pot and curling gently into the air, an intricately decorated plate stacked with cookies, and two exceptionally ornate bottles holding liquids of blue and violet.

“...Either way, neither will cause you harm. Tea?”

He stared at her again, and after a few moments nodded.

“Yes, please,” he said, his voice sounding not nearly as confident as he would have liked. Carefully he sat on the chair, watching her like cornered prey expecting the fatal strike. He tried to calm himself with a deep breath, but to no avail. Every instinct screamed at him, trying to warn him that this would not end well.

When a Matron Mother or Handmaiden treated you well, there were always and without exception ulterior motives. You were either set up for a particularly cruel trap or punishment that would not only flay your flesh but also crush your spirit, or you’d be asked to sacrifice yourself for some political game the females were playing with your life at stake.

But since he was already in this situation, he might as well play the hand he’d been dealt. He tentatively reached for the two potions, instinctively using his left hand before he realized the futility. He pulled back his infected hand and reached out with his healthy one, his gaze carefully monitoring the dragon’s face for any sign of disapproval. When none came, he grabbed the two small bottles and pulled them into his lap, hurriedly working on opening the violet one first.

“You… you said you had questions for me?” Valen asked while struggling with the restoration potion’s seal. Trying to open it was much more difficult than he had expected, with his left hand reduced to an aching, throbbing lump of flesh. His manual dexterity was a far cry from what he was used to, and so it took several moments before the seal finally gave with a low pop.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

She stood his modest gaping without so much as a raised brow. If anything, she would merely acknowledge it with a languid blink, far too unconcerned with the world to be fully human. It had been quite some time since she had taken human form; much like slipping into a new pair of boots. The fit was there, if not a bit tight. In time it would feel much more comfortable.

“Excellent. I find that a bit of tea does wonders for healing the soul in addition to occasionally the body.” She reached over with the practiced elegance of royalty, and begin to pour him a cup. The tea, wreathed in steam, fell in a smooth arc without so much as a drop to mar tablecloth or saucer. “Rosemary and vanilla,” an answer to a question unasked. “Do you take yours with cream or sugar?”

He was still nervous. That was natural. Anticipated. And honest. The soap had done wonders for him - as had the water. It was easy to pick up on the cedar that clung to his skin, beneath the lavender and bergamot from his soaping. The old smell of clover and folded sunlight in his shirt and pants. For a moment, she was no longer there in the room. She was under the noon sun, flapping out recently wrung dry laundry, the light cutting and white among a sky so blue it glowed. There was laughter in the distance, the smell of crushed grass and sting of dandelions picked. Voices of other women around her, speaking around each other, around wooden clothing pegs in their mouths, teasing. Further off was the smell of woodsmoke, and the promise of roasted chicken.

Another languid blink, and she was back into the present, studying him, studying the fine embroidery around the collar of his shirt. The stitching on the left side was clumsy; threads not quite staying within visible lines. To her, it was giggles captured in floss, the warmth of steadier hands correcting inexperienced ones.

“But before that,” she was up, reaching across the table. Noticing his difficulty with the bottle, she chided herself briefly for being so unobservant. He’d worked open the violet one, so she took the blue one and with the deft flick of a thumb, opened it. Setting it down on the table before him, she had taken her seat. If her horns had not quite given her away, that smell of sun-warmed river rocks and herbs would.

“I should’ve opened that for you; my apologies.” With the way she was sitting, it hardly seemed that she had moved at all. A trick of the light, perhaps, as she flicked the corner of the table cloth, and from within the depths of the table, a small sugar bowl and cream pitcher shuffled to the top. They were of the same delicate china as the tea set, and she glanced down at them, then to him, indicating that they were free for him to take from.

Without waiting for his response, she would add sugar and cream, stirring with a dainty golden spoon that, too, seemed to have been birthed by the table cloth. It was not generative magic; not for items that already existed, but the causal magic of calling things to her from a distance. A kitchen magic, she would’ve called it, heard it called before. It didn’t apply to things that she did not already own, things that were not imbued with a bit of personality, if not love, from being well-handled and cherished. Small things, but a talent granted to her by the Goddess all the same.

“And yes, I have questions. Wouldn’t you?” Pointing to him with her spoon, she set it down on her saucer with the softest of clinks, before reaching for a shortbread cookie. There was a variety of them - plain in the shape of trefoils, checkered with the checks in chocolate and strawberry, some shaped as a hound laden with chunks of candied ginger. They were, of course, warm, lifted from some great and invisible oven. Picking up one shaped like a dog, she took a small bite, before her mouth crinkled in what could be described as nothing other than sheer pleasure. The butter rich cookie melted into her mouth with the first bite, leaving the bite of candied ginger.

“I love a good sweet,” she gushed, her left hand, unoccupied by a cookie, cupped her left cheek as she actually beamed. “Please, while they’re still warm. I insist.”

Could this not be what he expected? A part of her knew that it wasn’t. Well, larger than a part of her. She could scent the doubt, confusion, wafting from him as certain as the lingering scent of his soap. There was still the pain of the wound, but…bewilderment. She supposed that she could kill him. It would be no great thing to do so. And have him dying after a bit of kindness after a rough road traveled would, in some circles, be considered an absolutely lovely and charitable way of getting rid of intruders. And perhaps, were this many, many years ago, she would’ve. As things were now, she felt that she had no reason to. Chaos wasn’t something she chose to pursue anymore.

“So, I will start with something simple. What is your name? It would be good for me to know how to address you.”

 

[Baelnorn]

“Do you take yours with cream or sugar?”

That was most certainly not the kind of question he had anticipated, and he furrowed his brow deeply as his mind tried to unearth any possible hidden meaning. In the end he came up empty-handed.

Valen nervously licked his lips and was about to reply, but before he could even formulate the words, she did… something. It took the wizard a few breaths to realize what had just happened, because for a moment it seemed that she hadn’t moved at all. And yet, the bottle that had been resting firmly closed in his lap was now standing open next to his cup of tea. Worse still – she apologized for not doing it earlier!

The whole situation became more unbelievable by the moment, and yet he had no option but to remain and see it through to the end. His mind was still reeling from the fact that the dragon had apologized to him, even after he had intruded into her lair. But she had already moved on to the next topic while she prepared her own cup of tea. Valen watched her undisguised delight over a small bite from a hound-shaped cookie, her luscious lips curling into a very pleased smile.

“So, I will start with something simple. What is your name? It would be good for me to know how to address you.”

The dragon’s question finally seemed to break the spell he had fallen under. He looked down, almost surprised to still find the restoration potion in his right hand. He took a deep breath, then put the vial against his lips and downed the potion in two big gulps.

The magical concoction immediately filled him with a comfortable, reassuring warmth, a power he couldn’t even begin to describe radiating out from his stomach. It was as if a veil had been lifted from his mind, and the sharp intellect he was used to returned.

The black streaks, which by now had reached past his left wrist, were swiftly pushed back and erased. Moments later his palm stopped being a purple, bloated, throbbing mess, and returned to its familiar form as the infection was driven back by the potion’s magic. The jagged cut remained in his flesh, but now it was a mere wound and not an infection sapping him of will and strength. With the illness purged from his body, the fever also vanished completely.

Valen let out a deep sigh, finally feeling like his true self again. Then he remembered the dragon’s question. He thought it best not to keep his host waiting more than necessary, since a dragon’s patience might hold for centuries and then snap in a heartbeat. He swallowed and began to answer.

“My… my name is Valen Teliir. I was born to House Teliir five decades ago with, at the time, over forty older siblings and cousins – mostly cousins – ahead of me. I am… was a member of Teliir’s house guard, and graduated from Mergonnar’s Academy just over twelve years ago.”

Valen shifted slightly in his chair, his eyes captivated by the steam slowly curling upwards from his cup. Not daring to look at the dragon’s face at that moment, he decided to simply continue. He imagined that all of this would be asked anyway – who he was, where he came from, why he was alone in the tunnels, and so forth – so it would be prudent to volunteer it now.

“I ran from my home… like a coward. I’ve disappointed my mother, betrayed my family, and made an enemy of the city I grew up in. But they… they planned to kill me. Be it fate or accident, I overheard Matron Teliir’s plan to send me to Matron Umnaar as part of a political agreement. I’m not blind, I’ve seen close acquaintances from the Academy enter Umnaar’s tower and never return, and nobody even spoke of them again. And… and… and…”

His voice hiccuped and a shiver gripped Valen’s body, the terror of his escape refusing to remain buried any longer and finally breaking free. He clutched the empty bottle with both hands, ignoring the gash’s painful protest, and held it to his chest as if his life depended on it.

“I heard the screams. I heard those… those horrible screams. Not even the slaves screamed like that when some guard took out his frustrations on them with a barbed whip. No… those screams… they were caused by something far worse than a whip, and I was destined to find out what it was with my own flesh!”

The tears were falling without the drow having noticed he was crying. He stared at the small wet spots on his hands now, a stray thought wondering where the water was falling from.

“I just couldn’t stay. I just couldn’t! So I ran. I didn’t have much time to prepare, and I couldn’t take many supplies, but I knew how the city guard worked. I knew when the patrols left and returned, when and how the watch changed. I knew which spells would help me, protect me, and ward m-”

Valen’s eyes suddenly widened when he remembered his failure. In an instant his expression changed from sorrow to deep concern, and his lips began to tremble.

“T-the bloodhounds are still after me! Before you… found me, the fever had clouded my mind so much I forgot to renew my wards. The priestesses were relentless with their scrying rituals, they were trying to find me every single day I was gone. I… I do not know if they succeeded in discerning my location. I…”

A pained sob escaped his throat.

“I’m sorry. You’ve shown me mercy I didn’t deserve, and I bring conflict to your home. I… I fully understand if you want to rid yourself of me. Regardless, I am grateful for your hospitality, Lady Dragon. Mistress?”

 

[Apollo Wilde]

He was confused. Confusion was good.

Well, at least when it came to interrogation. Still on the back foot, he was. In the dusty corners of her mind, where she rarely felt the need to tread, there was a feral flicker of…pleasure. Confused, lost, alone. Ripe prey. Too easy, almost. But my, had it been so long since she felt that.

I’m allowed to have these thoughts, she chided herself gently. Surely Kereska would give her that. Better the thought than the action. And to at least recognize that she had lived a long, long time.

Her eyes were caught by the shimmer of his hair as he drank the potion. It looked so fine. Almost like it was living on its own. Spiderweb at dawn. Lovely hair. Perhaps further observation, as the potion did its work, would reveal more…unsuspecting things. As it were, she gently nudged the blue bottle towards him, a silent reminder that he should drink it to heal his wound entirely. Finishing off her cookie, she pushed the plate towards him with the same hand, the gesture reading the same. This time, with speech behind it:

“Do take a cookie. Not to eat when being presented with refreshment is considered rude.” A snap back of brilliant eyes on him, the smile on her face no less social, but a whisper of command beneath it. “Valen Tellir.” The name was a dropping of stone. Not that she would recognize it; she kept…dealings with the drow few and far in-between. “Few” as in she could remember a time that she fought with them, reveling in the wanton destruction, the fear - lifetimes ago. Long enough so that the name of his school did not immediately register to her - not without more turning of the pages of her memory. Then, it began to sound vaguely familiar, half-dreamed.

A wizard. That would explain him triggering that alarm. And obviously of no small skill. Even in his weakened state, the system had been triggered. It would be a shame to do away with him. Time would tell his true skill, who he drew from - and with a slight furrow of her brow, she leaned back, crossing her arms as he continued to speak. Beneath the lace tablecloth, she crossed right leg over the left. The alarm was neutral - a way to alert her of strong magic in her hold; not of the kind of magic, or if the user meant her harm. Looking at the slip of a man in front of her, her heart lurched. Fear and sorrow leeched from him, unpleasant in their miasma of discomfort, but easy enough for her to set aside.

Pressing her tongue to the roof of her mouth, she was thoughtful. Then decided it would be best to speak plainly. “I will worry about the bloodhounds if and when they come. The fact that you have found yourself here is…fortuitous.” She would let the following silence answer his questions. A dragon who didn’t want to be found would not, unless under extreme circumstances, be found. She had no desire to be completely masked off from the world, but it didn’t mean that she hadn’t put things in place to ensure that she would have solitude. This was something that she wouldn’t have foreseen, let alone plan for. And the figure in front of her, the tears falling, hunched over, defeated…pathetic. Like finding a sparrow with a broken wing in the rain.

“And here you are,” she repeated, trying to figure out for herself what her next move was. Like the perceived broken-winged swallow, she knew that she could no less leave him. “Valen Tallir, in the home of Yokan.” A small lipped smile, smoke curling from her nostrils. How long had it been since she’d spoken that name? Again, a sun-dappled walk through the woods, the light diamond shaped on her shoulders, as she walked with others, hearing it called through the wind?

“You are quite brave,” and though her fingers itched to hand him a handkerchief for his tears, she stayed where she was. “And in that bravery, you now have a new life. What will you do with it?”

 

[Baelnorn]

“I will worry about the bloodhounds if and when they come. The fact that you have found yourself here is…fortuitous.”

Valen slowly raised his eyes, tentatively testing whether he could bear to face her gaze. She was still as mesmerizing as she had been before his breakdown, leaning back into her chair and in total control of the situation. She didn’t seem bothered by anything he had divulged, but rather… intrigued. Or maybe even amused?

Of course she wouldn’t be worried about the hunters, not with her power, not in her own lair. Here she was the undeniable huntress, and Mergonnar’s bloodhounds – should they dare enter these tunnels – would be the unwitting prey. He also now clearly remembered the encounter in the spiral pathway, and the dragon’s true size. A single breath would easily carry the flames down half a turn of the path, and he had no doubt that her fire burned just as hot as, if not hotter than, any evocation spell he could cast.

The drow put the empty restoration potion back on the table, and exchanged it for the healing potion. With a swift motion he placed it against his lips and gulped it down. A moment later he felt its power surging through his flesh, a pressure building in his injured hand to the point of being uncomfortable, and then – it was gone, and with it the wound. Smooth bluish-grey skin again covered his palm, no scar or any other trace of the jagged gash remaining.

“And here you are, Valen Teliir, in the home of Yokan.”

Yokan. Valen held that name in his thoughts, searching his memories for any trace of it, whether in conversation, in some text, or in any other form, but nothing came up. He could think of only three explanations, none of them more than an educated guess as to why her name was a complete unknown to him.

Perhaps she was so old, so ancient, that records about her had been lost to history. Or she was so new to this region, and lived in such secrecy, that no records could have been made yet. Or perhaps she simply had little renown in this part of the world. Be that as it may, he could not recall any particular knowledge about a dragon with that name.

When Yokan asked him what he’d do with the new life his escape had won him, he looked at her. Perhaps the first honest look he had given her, one unclouded by fever, or fear, or terror, or despair, or lust. She was a complete mystery to him, an unknowable entity like the old gods in those forgotten, accursed tales. And while he enjoyed puzzles now and then, he enjoyed them more when they didn’t hold power over his life or death.

“I…,” he started, then swallowed. “I don’t know. You say I have a new life, but all I can see is the one I lost. Would have lost one way or another. I don’t know what to do, or where to go.”

Valen looked at the table, his eye catching on the cookie plate. He remembered her insistence, and finally reached out and picked up one of the chocolate and strawberry ones. Now was as good a time as any. He studied the shortbread between his fingers, examining the flawless checkerboard layout of the black and red dough. A part of his mind briefly wandered off trying to discern how someone would make something like this, before he returned to their conversation with a heavy sigh.

“I guess I’ll have to try and make a living on the surface. If I’m lucky I’ll find a mercenary outfit to sign up with, because I doubt anyone else would have me. I’m sure that with their raiders and slavers my kin have seen to it that dark skin and silver hair are feared and loathed wherever we go. Still, my spells and knowledge should be quite useful for mercenaries. Such a company might just offer me enough coin and protection to not get slaughtered the moment I set foot within sight of a city.”

The drow took a bite from the cookie, and it crumbled perfectly in his mouth. The chocolate and fruit melded into a delicious whole, which drew a low, involuntary sound of pleasure from him. This was perhaps the best thing he had tasted in years. He greedily devoured the rest of the cookie and strategically eyed another one on the plate while licking his lips.

“If I’m not so lucky… then I fear death by disease or a violent end at the hands of some city’s patrol or adventurers may still be waiting for me out there. I cannot stay here either, of course. You have done so much more for me than I could have ever asked for, and I would not wish to overstay my welcome. What choice do I have?”

 

[Apollo Wilde]

This was shaping up to be quite the interesting encounter. How long ago had she dealt with the Drow? It must’ve been centuries, at least. A different life, certainly, and a far different temperament. It wasn’t what she would’ve called a long lasting partnership by any means, either. Their goals happened to align, and she had made it quite clear that what she laid claim to would not only be determined once they were through, but were not to be questioned. They’d been easy enough to deal with under those terms, but not so easy in that she would readily deal with them again. However, at the time, she had a faint admiration to their single-minded devoting - and, at the time, how they seemed to embrace all of the worst traits that humans had, and simply accepted them as the way things were - and leaned into it.

Things…had changed. Thinking of the sad “young” man in front of her now, there was a ghost of guilt. He probably would’ve been what she thought of at the time as nothing more than fodder. Hard to imagine the drow men as living beings, with their own emotions, thoughts, and desires.

Maybe this is a sign from Kereska herself. The brief thought made her smile. It did seem fitting, after all. After all of this time, out of all of the places he could’ve found himself…She found herself drawn to the lines of his throat as he swallowed the second potion. After his bath, he did look much refreshed, though she suspected he would need much more care before he was entirely certain on his feet. And besides, her interest was peaked. In all of her years, she’d never heard, let alone seen, such a thing. Such an occasion was not to be wasted - or treated poorly.

“Both of those options sound entirely miserable,” very frank behind her tea cup as she lifted it to her lips. The flavor was smooth, almost sugary on its own, but following the additional sweet of the cookie, it was pleasantly warm, the slight bitterness of the tea completely eradicated. “And I assure you, there is much more than just those options.” She feigned being thoughtful for a brief moment, going so far as to tap a finger to her chin and look skyward, then, back at him, “Why don’t you stay here until you have it figured out? I certainly mean you no harm - and your tale is full of pathos, strong will, and bravery! As fond as I am of a good tale, it would be entirely foolish of me to not ensure that this one, yours, has a satisfying ending. And for you, in turn, to figure out what your ending will be. Your own ending - not what I might want, and certainly not for your past…affiliates might want.”

Her eyes, heavily-lidded, lit up with joy when he so clearly enjoyed the cookie. “I told you, didn’t I? A good sweet, a good cup of tea - they have a wonderful effect on the soul. Please, have as many as you like. We’re now in no rush. Eat, drink, and we shall discuss terms further once you feel adequately rested.” Of course, it was all extremely presumptuous - that he would stay, that he would feel comfortable. That he wouldn’t try to run as soon as he could. However, the undercurrent of sovereignty in her words made it clear that this was not a suggestion.

 

[Baelnorn]

Valen quirked a brow, because he couldn’t possibly be hearing what he thought he was hearing. There was no chance Yokan was actually asking him to stay in her lair while he was figuring out what to do. His future had become a wholly undiscovered country, and here, right at its border, he already faced his first crossroads.

While he was listening to her explain that she wanted his tale to have a satisfying ending – even more so, an ending of his own design and choosing – he reached for the sugar bowl and swiftly shoveled two teaspoons into his tea. He stirred the drink briefly, then lifted the cup to his lips and took a sip of the warm, smooth liquid.

The wizard placed the cup back on the table, then took a deep breath and wiped the last of his tears from his cheeks. The lady dragon’s enthusiasm about the cookies and her encouragement for him to eat more of them were almost contagious, and his lips curled unbidden into a smile as he reached for another checkerboard shortbread.

“My Lady, I appreciate your offer. I really do. It is more than generous…”

Valen hadn’t failed to notice an undercurrent in the dragon’s voice, her words not laced with poison or deceit but rather with an absolute certainty. If she insisted on him staying for a while, so be it. He would be ill advised to rouse her anger, and he was quite convinced that she didn’t harbor any malicious intentions towards him. After all, if she had really wanted to hurt him, she could have easily done so already.

He took a bite out of the fresh cookie in his hand and swallowed with a soft hum of delight.

“…and it sounds as if you have already made up your mind. Though I still feel a little as if I am wasting your time, if you really wish for me to stay I shall gratefully accept your invitation. I will try my best not to be more of a nuisance to you than I already am. Should you permit it, I would ask for a little time to check my own possessions. Before the bath they were in as much of a sorry state as I was, and they certainly need some maintenance.”

The drow carefully watched Yokan’s reaction to his words, because some part of him – scarred and frightened and buried deep inside his mind – still expected the sting of betrayal to make itself known.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Ah, now he was beginning to come to life. And to think, he’d limited himself to such a meager and disposable end! She smiled, the imperious and playfully haughty nature blown away. Deeply sincere, it reached those heavily lidded eyes, added an additional spark to their luminescence.

“Oh, you won’t be wasting my time, because you won’t be staying here free of charge.” And there was the hammer. She drummed the fingers of her free hand against the top of the table. On the long limbs, she wore no bracelets, no rings: oddly out of place with the silk of her dress, the regalia of her general attire. The motion would draw attention to her hands: fine-boned things, long taper fingers with claws. If it was a conscious choice in the moment or something she neglected in her human form, who could tell? They were as finely shaped as her fingers; could potentially be seen as some ornate lacquer. “I’ll have tasks for you; simple things. None so imposing as what you’re used to.”

Setting down her cup, she drew a languid circle around the lip of her tea cup. Contemplated the small bit of tea at the bottom, before reaching over to help herself to a refill. She let the quiet hold, her senses tightened. It wasn’t meant to be a cruel teasing - she best not let it go on for too long. Before he could stammer a response, she gave a carefree wave of her left hand. “I could use some help cataloguing and re-organizing my books. I’ve got quite a few, as you can imagine, of all sorts. I also wouldn’t mind help with the chores. Yes, there are chores here - cooking, cleaning, tidying. Magic though I may be, these do not come about out of thin air,” she lifted a trefoil cookie, before taking a small bite. Again, the quirk of a pleased smile as she set it down.

“You’ll probably have to learn a few new skills. Like gardening. Do you have an eye for herbs? I use quite a bit here. Whatever you do not know, I will teach you. I do not keep any animals, so no husbandry will be required, but if you find that one day you have become deeply interested in the manners and character of chickens, I will be sure to procure some for you. But,” a lifting of her pointer finger as she took a sip of her tea, “their care, feeding, and tending to will be all of your responsibility. Including, sad to say, the day that I decide that I desire a bit of roast chicken with garlic and potatoes. Lovely dish. Very simple but complex in its flavors. Ah,” and she set the cup down, folding her hands into each other, “Do you cook? Ah, never mind all that," a dismissive wave of her hand, "You'll learn. Mmm, - your things. Do bring them out here, so that we may inspect them together."

An open-ended question, but as she spoke, her mind was also whirring along. She would have to prepare quarters for him. Somewhere close to her, a "door down," if such things could be thought of in her lair. As a part of those quarters, he would need more materials to bathe, to tend to himself. Clothing, she thought she had, though it would take time to find it. Something he could help with, as she thought of it. It would be interesting, yes, quite interesting, to see what he was, and would be, capable of - given some time.

 

[Baelnorn]

“Oh, you won’t be wasting my time, because you won’t be staying here free of charge.”

He intently watched her face, and for a brief moment her smile captivated him and lulled him into a sense of safety. But then he heard her words and his heart almost stopped. Of course the offer, or rather demand, had been a little too good to be true, and now the sword he had felt hanging over him was finally falling. It wasn’t completely unexpected, though, as he had already anticipated some kind of price he’d have to pay eventually.

Valen closed his eyes and held his breath, forcing himself to stay calm in the face of whatever fate the dragon had decided to visit upon him. Allowing panic to take hold now would only make things worse, and so he controlled his reactions until he’d heard her entire… proposal.

“I’ll have tasks for you; simple things. None so imposing as what you’re used to.”

The wizard opened his eyes again and tilted his head slightly as he looked at Yokan. Simple tasks? She then continued with her list. She mentioned organizing her library, helping with typical household chores he really hadn’t expected to be an issue for a dragon, gardening, raising chickens… whatever those might be, and cooking – potentially said chickens.

Being completely honest with himself, he had been waiting for something significantly worse. In his former home a domestic slave would have been tasked with taking care of such things, and now it would become his duty, but without the beatings and whippings, and with better care and company. A dark part of his soul raged at the suggestion, crying out against the perceived disrespect and denigration, labeling the mere prospect an insult to his pride… but the simple memory of the ignoble end he’d most likely have met without Yokan’s intervention made it easy to quiet that voice.

“That… doesn’t sound as bad as what I imagined only moments ago. It’s almost agreeable, even though I am unsure how valuable my contributions can be. Helping with your library is probably the task my talents are best suited to. Cleaning, tidying, washing are chores I’m used to handling with an invocation or two. And those… chickens? I do not know the animals you speak of, so you’ll have to excuse my ignorance here. But if you wish me to tend to a herd of them, I think I can learn.”

When the dragon asked him to produce his possessions for her to inspect, he nodded and stood.

“Of course, just a moment please.”

When he stepped back behind the red curtain, his nose was immediately assaulted by the sickly sweet stench of his soiled clothes mixed with the hot scented steam of the pool into a truly abominable smell. The drow scrunched up his nose and shook his head. His belongings smelled even worse than he had imagined.

Without hesitation Valen signed the finger glyph and vocalized the syllables for a simple utility spell that allowed him to clean the worst of the offending stench from the pile of his clothes. He repeated the invocation for his backpack, which was mostly just grimy, but which he still didn’t want to set down unclean before his host.

With all items reasonably clean, at least to the point where you could touch them without bile immediately rising in your throat, he slung his backpack over his shoulder, picked up his clothes, and returned to Yokan.

Valen looked at the table and decided that it wasn’t the proper place to unpack his old life. Instead, he sorted his boots, pants, shirt, and robe – which had suffered the most during his escape, and was rather torn up in places – on the ground next to each other. Then he went to unpack his backpack, which turned out to produce more items than expected, and at the same time less than he remembered packing.

Strapped across the top was a heavy, thick blanket, woven from the dark brown wool of rothé, which had been his only comfort whenever he rested during his escape. The side pouches yielded a metal canteen each, four in total, with one of them still holding water he had collected in a tunnel before his fateful climbing attempt.

The first thing he pulled out from the inside was a wrapped package still holding a few bars of nuts, dried mushrooms and fruit, and some strips of rothé jerky. They were simple rations commonly issued to patrols scouting the tunnels around Mergonnar; each bar was densely pressed and good for about a day’s nourishment.

It was accompanied by two daggers; one was more tool than weapon, but the other one was engraved with the sigil of the Academy and carried a faint enchantment that sharpened its edge beyond what a whetstone could accomplish. He remembered his decision to stow the weapon away when his hand got worse, since he didn’t want to risk losing it, and if he ended up in a fight where a dagger was his best hope, he’d already be dead.

Next came a large package wrapped in a sturdy linen sheet – his spellbook. Valen’s lip trembled soundlessly as he carefully unwrapped it and revealed the heavy book with dark leather binding and the embossed Academy sigil on the cover. He gently traced the lines with his fingers before putting the tome aside.

The last item Valen produced was a small wooden jewelry box. With reverent motions he opened the cover and revealed a simple ring, a dark brushed metal circle with a black opal embedded into its crown. Next to it was a roughly hand-sized shard from a flail snail’s shell. The piece was a scintillating kaleidoscope of colors on one side, and on the other a muted pearly white with two sets of initials carved side by side – VT and NR.

With shaking hands the wizard set the last pieces on the floor, then stood. He took a deep breath, desperately willing them to still, though he didn’t quite succeed.

“A life of fifty-three years, reduced to a smattering of items. This is all I have left.”

 

[Apollo Wilde]

The air within the chamber had changed - momentarily, the temperature dropped. Enough to raise gooseflesh on his arms. The sense of dread he held onto had slipped into the environment, quick enough to let her know that her jape had perhaps, as she feared, been a bit too harsh.

“I would imagine so. I have no servants, no slaves; all that is here is the result of my own hands.” Her own magic as well, but that went without saying. “I have lived a long time, Valen, and in such time, have learned many, many things.” Looking down, she studied the wavering reflection of her face in the tea cup. “I have failed at a great many things, and though I could be considered proficient in most, I have had the great benefit of learning from those whose talents will forever eclipse my own. That is how we grow. This is how we learn. This is how we become better. And so I expect you to fail at these tasks, as I have myself. But I would expect you to learn and become better in time.”

Meant to be comforting, she blinked when he mentioned not being familiar with chickens. Then, a light laugh - not mocking, not mean. “Well! We shall introduce you to chickens, and several other species of birds. Sans geese, perhaps. They’re aggressive, nasty things. Do you know I’ve been bitten by geese more than any other animal? The only way they justify themselves is when they have gotten good and plump and are ready for the fire.”

Watching him stand, she smiled again behind her cup, draining the rest of it. She could feel his use of magic, a low vibration in her horns, in her back molars. Similar to the distant rumble of thunder in a humid summer sky, it was mild enough not to cause her concern. It was simple enough, and she had faith that he would not be treacherous. He was too small, too beaten down, for it. And despite that - here he was.

When he returned, she stood - and moved the table over with a nudge of her hips. The wood groaned against the floor in protest, and seemed to return to silence the minute she said, “Oh, hush! I haven’t hurt you one bit,” then, with another warm smile, she rubbed the top of the table. With another slight push of her hips, the table moved a few more inches in silence, giving Valen ample space to go through his things. She remained standing above him, not so much as imposing, but to have a better sense of what he would be showing her.

Her nose wrinkled at his old clothing - the smell had lessened considerably, but not enough to be entirely unnoticed by her senses. Polite of him to do so.

“New clothes, for sure.” And with that being said, he’ll have to learn how to mend his clothing if he doesn’t already know how. That would be a good place to start. I think I can find a bolt of cloth somewhere in here. When was the last time I purchased linen? “The blanket, I think, can do for a few good washings. I’ll show you how to do that, too, if you do not know how.” Some sunlight to get rid of the last of that Underdark stink. It may do him some good, some sunlight, allow him to feel more…alive, I suppose. Maybe I’ll make him be my sun-bathing attendant. The thought made her nose crinkle in mirth, and to her credit, she carefully re-arranged her face into neutral interest by the time he could look at her again.

The daggers did not surprise or spook her; she gave them a quick once-over, noting the presence of magic. He has some forethought - and an eye for practicality. He might make for a wonderful tailor. Can you imagine, Kereska, this young creature becoming an accomplished tailor? The like to serve kings and queens! It was only partially in jest that she thought this - she honestly could see no legitimate reason why he wouldn’t become a tailor. There might have been more of a problem with imagining human kings and queens wanting the services of a drow, but it would be their loss, if he turned out to be magnificent. Oh, I’m being uncharitable. He might be a better gem-worker.

Her brows lifted with some interest at the spell book - as such things were always bound to draw her attention. The lift seemed to shift her horns higher on her forehead, and she leaned over to get a better look at it. It reeked of the Underdark; enough so that she couldn’t hold back the distasteful flaring of her nostrils, but it felt neutral. That alone was intriguing.

“Are you not one for curses?” She glanced over at him - before the glittering thing caught her eye. Like a crow eyeing a bit of sparkling ribbon, she seemed to simply materialize next to him, kneeling as she picked it up, unable to help herself. Her thumb traced over the initials - and, without a sound, she placed it delicately back in the wooden jewelry box. Now, it was an interesting reversal of roles: her on the ground, and him standing. She shifted, folding her legs beneath her as she took in all of the objects as a whole. Nothing that would inherently harm her - though it might be possible that the book could cause a problem. Not entirely dependent on what was within it and how it could be used, but if it could have a tracker; some enchantment that could be fine enough to slip through her defenses. The idea was enough to almost make her laugh, but she didn’t get to such a great age by not being careful.

“…Well, if I didn’t think better on it, I believe you’ve just insulted me,” her tone was light as she reached for the spell book. Picking it up, she looked at him over her shoulder, the long fringe of her eyelashes over half-lidded eyes casting shadows against the dancing flame of her iris. “Because yes, the materials are few, but you came to my door with something you still have, and would not have, if you had stayed.” A beat, waiting for him to answer her curious riddle. It didn’t last long. “Your life, Valen. You have that. And as long as you’ve got that, you can collect new things.” She made no move to stand, simply setting the spell book on her lap. Through its darkness, it seemed to shimmer a bit, as if warming up to her as if it were a sentient being. "Unless, of course, you would like for me to claim your life as well. In a more literal sense." And when she smiled at him now, it was to bear sharp fangs, the human cast of teeth giving way to a maw full of homodont teeth. "I'm at least kind enough to give you that choice."

 

[Baelnorn]

Yokan stood nearby, inspecting and commenting on his meager possessions as he unpacked them.

She talked about getting a new wardrobe for him. He quirked a brow in response, wondering what style and kind of fabrics the dragon would clothe him in. She mentioned washing the blanket, and he wholeheartedly agreed. His cleaning spell, while typically enough to keep items in everyday use maintained and clean, was fighting a losing battle against filth this deep.

“Are you not one for curses?”

He wondered what she meant by this remark; did she think his spellbook was trapped? There were times when he had certainly wished it were so, but alas the Academy’s council did not permit their students to hold any secrets from it or their houses. The only enchantments found on the tome were to ease its weight and keep the pages clean. At least the ones he knew of, and he had studied the book and its magic extensively.

But before he could put his thoughts into words, Yokan rushed over and examined the shimmering shard from the opened jewelry box he had just put on the ground. For a moment he was a little concerned about his keepsake, but then he watched her return it to the box with a tenderness he hadn’t quite expected from her.

However, the moment didn’t hold. The dragon suddenly spoke of an insult, which confused Valen greatly. He couldn’t possibly decipher what had offended his host so much that she was now chiding him like a child, apparently feeling the need to explain the obvious.

Of course he could collect new items while he was alive. But to him that had never been the question! Did she not understand? Or could she simply not understand due to her age and power? Perhaps she had never been in a situation where she had lost something of great personal value.

“I know, but that-”

He tried to answer, but he never got to finish. The unexpected threat combined with the sight of her maw made his blood freeze, and he took two quick steps back. His arms came up instantly, futile as the gesture might have been. But it was her next words that caused his expression to darken.

“I'm at least kind enough to give you that choice.”

Valen’s eyes narrowed, the skin on his face furrowing into almost ugly lines. An agitated breath rushed through his nose; her words had carelessly reopened a wound he hadn’t even realized was there. He was struggling to keep his suddenly surging emotions contained, and he was slipping. He took another two steps away from Yokan and turned his back on her, his voice raised and shaking as he spoke.

“Hah, choice! What choice do I have? Only the mad willingly seek death. You ask me if I want to live? Yes, of course I do! But a choice where the alternative is suffering or death is not a choice – it’s coercion. I would know, because that was my reality for almost my entire life. That was how discipline and obedience had been drilled into us mercilessly. That was how we enforced compliance among the slaves. That was how Mergonnar’s leadership conducted business with other houses and factions.”

The drow shook his head in… disbelief? Disappointment?

“You think I’m mourning the items I had to leave behind? No. I’m mourning the few good memories I had of that place. I’m mourning the few relationships I had there with people I dared call friends. I’m mourning the few things I was allowed to enjoy, because most others thought them insignificant or worthless. That is what I grieve, with painful awareness that none of it will ever come back.”

Valen’s gaze rose from the ground, drifting along the myriad books lining the shelves hewn into the chamber’s walls. He wondered if any of them held personal value to the dragon, or whether they were pure practicality.

“I watched you handle the shard, so you clearly understand at least some of it. And yet you still hold a dagger to my throat and ask me to choose the direction of the cut.”

He took a deep breath… and then flinched briefly as he remembered who he was talking to, who sat four steps behind his back. No matter – the words had been spoken and there was no way to take them back. He had cast the die; now he had to accept how it landed.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

While she was going through his things, it became clear that she was only half-mindful of him, thinking a few steps ahead. The preparation that a responsible owner would do when thinking of bringing a new pet home. The excitement, not necessarily for a new being to love, but for a change in her schedule, was first and foremost. The practicality of it all trailing behind, slow and limping.

His anger, like his fear, changed the temperature of the room. It warmed, almost imperceptibly, and she simply looked back at him, making him the object of her full attention. The direct line of her gaze, even through what would now be known as their naturally heavily lidded shape, was as tangible as a pack filled with rocks on his shoulders.

But.

There was no hostility behind it, no annoyance. Perhaps the faintest, faintest bit of amusement. A parent bemusedly looking at a toddler throwing a tantrum over the most mundane of things. Though to Valen it pricked a nerve, sliced it, really, to her….it was inscrutable.

It was her turn to stand now, with the same silent grace she’d shown regardless of her form. Now there was a whisper of deadly intent. It truly would be nothing for her to take that proverbial knife and end him. Who was this little creature to bare his puppy teeth at her?

“Well,” was that possibly bemusement? Still inscrutable, she was, “You are most welcome to leave, with your few possessions and sorrow-laden memories. I certainly will not stop you.” She didn’t close the gap that he’d put between them; her aura alone already filled the room, growing with each inhale. Her human form was all the more of an illusion, the reality of the flame colored dragon growing like a shadow behind her. She wasn’t insulted, nor aggrieved. There was, however, the smallest twinge of…guilt. Obviously she’d pushed him too hard; she thought she was being comforting. Maybe she had truly spent too much time on her own. It had been centuries since she felt personally threatened, fear. Of other emotions that cut deeper, she had locked away, shoved down. Placed weights and locks on those doors and forbade herself from exploring them further.

“If you find my advice, freely given, so trivial that is not applicable to you, then, again, by all means, you are free to leave.” She moved back to the table, resting her right hand on the top of it, soothing a fearful child. Her own emotions, she was not entirely sure of. Guilt was there, yes, but…another thing, too. More unpleasant. Was she capable of understanding his words, truly understanding them? He had been through a lot, yes. And she understood that. But…she couldn’t feel much more than he was that broken winged sparrow in the rain, now having dared to peck at her helping hand. He had life in him still; she acknowledged that with a bit of interest. Now, she was unsure of what to say next. Perhaps an apology? It would be the polite thing to do. Only if she meant it, and now, she was not entirely sure that she would. It would be a flimsy attempt at keeping things light, in good spirits, to remain the kind benefactor with no deeper connection to this sad creature other than turning him into a project under the auspices of her goddess.

The air now was heavy. Her lost in her thoughts, him, reeking of fear and anger and life. Well. Life. She had to give him that.

“Hrm.” Not much of a response, fringed with a small curl of smoke from her human nose.

 

[Baelnorn]

Valen braced for a lashing, word or whip or claw, that never arrived. Instead, he found a sensation all too familiar – the weight of a superior female’s gaze drilling holes into his back. Unpleasant memories surged to the surface of his mind, and he forced his eyes firmly shut in an attempt to banish those thoughts back into the depths where they belonged.

Then he heard Yokan give him permission to leave, and another sour wrinkle crossed his forehead. That was nothing like what she had told him just minutes ago, when she had sounded quite imperious about him staying and becoming… yes, what exactly? Her servant? Her pet?

She now offered what he had been asking for, and yet he couldn’t fully understand – and worse, trust – her intentions. The fact alone that she was now seemingly changing her mind and going back on her statements irked him, another behavior he was painfully familiar with.

“Hrm.”

That simple sound, coming from a dragon, was so absurd that it tugged on the corners of his mouth and curled them into an ever so slight smile before he realized it. He knew that neither saying nothing to each other nor verbally lashing out would resolve the situation, but there was a serious need for an honest conversation without pretenses or performances. After one more moment of brooding, he squared his shoulders against her gaze and turned around.

The wizard found his host standing next to the table, now even further away than the four steps he had put between them. Her brilliant gaze appeared dimmed somewhat, as if she were distracted or lost in her own thoughts. He cleared his throat and began.

“I apologize for my outburst. It was ill-considered, disrespectful, and born from a life where words like the ones you spoke were not teasing, but torture. You helped me at my lowest point, and I am sincerely grateful for that gracious act of mercy. I understand and accept that my words may have severed the tether between us, and I will depart within the hour if that is your wish. That being said, if you still want me to stay then I ask for an honest exchange between us.”

Valen quickly licked his lips, for now came the moment to make his demand.

“I must know what I am to you. It seems neither of us knows what to do with each other; in but a few short minutes we went from sharing cookies, to you baring your fangs at me, to me accusing you of coercion. How did we get to this point so quickly? You know little of me, and make assumptions about me. I know little of you, and must guess at what you want of me.”

He shook his head, his gaze dropping to the floor.

“Neither is sustainable or desirable if you want me to stay. I’m not so delusional as to expect to hear the words equal or partner, but if I were just a toy, token, or distraction to you I would honestly prefer to take my leave and try my luck on the surface. I… I cannot stay if staying means trading one cage for another.”

 

[Apollo Wilde]

His apology was eloquent and meaningful. A bit of explanation in there as well - that, she had appreciated. Her dealings with the Drow, after all, had been so long ago, and their males had been little more than shadows. Though she was not unfamiliar with those who were oppressed, it had been a while, and her distance, while incredibly helpful for her studies, would serve to continue to slice away at the little bit of humanity she had gathered, the steady path of a river eating through a mountainside.

So, she would listen, until one little turn of phrase caught her as a fish hook in the mouth. In the blink of an eye, she was not only in front of him, but entirely in front of him, filling all of his senses. The heat of her body pressed against his was unnaturally warm, nearly burning, though she kept her arms at her side. In this human form, she was shorter than him, but the rippling of her magic, the way her form filled the room, was another reminder that this was her domain, and every inch of it was filled to the brim with her magic.

“Young man,” her voice less smooth, less welcoming. Softness of it rubbed rough against reptilian scales, “I have not yet begun to bare my fangs at you.” Looking up at him, she held his gaze unwaveringly. Less than mimicking the flicker of fire, her irises now were flame themselves, threatening to spill out of the corners of her eyes. Her teeth were fully homodont, rows of polished, glittering fangs and canines. Now, she would grasp his chin, possessive - gentle. Turning his face to ensure that he could not look away, she kept him there for an uncomfortably long beat of time. She no longer seemed to be looking at him, but through him, into him. Her horns touched against the curve of his forehead. They too, were warm, despite the smooth scales that covered them. And this close, the rainbow fire of them was all the more brilliant and subtle in its shifting.

“You stumbled into my home, and thusly, provided me with a break in my long routine.” He had asked for honesty; she would give it to him. “It is by my new path in life that I was to treat you with kindness, rather than dispatch of you as I would have in years past. Offer advice, which is what some used to come to my kind for. I provide you with both, and you turn your nose up at it.” Hm. Perhaps she had been a bit more insulted than she had let on. And here she thought that she had been past that. “You have wounded my pride, and that, Valen, is a dangerous, dangerous thing.” She caressed his lower lip with her thumb, the gesture entirely sensual and devoid of malice. “But you possess this…” a pressing on that lower lip, an unspoken request for him to lean further into her touch, to indulge in it, “spark of bravery, indolence, will, that I cannot overlook. You have caught my interest - in a way that I myself am not sure I understand. There was the desire to take care of, to mend, and perhaps turn out into the world much improved than when I first found him. But that was presumptuous of me.”

The thumb moved to the corner of his mouth, her eyes still not leaving his. It would be the closest to an apology that he’d get from her. “And so, Valen, I offer you again: you can stay here until you figure out what to do with yourself, or you can leave. Either way that you decide, it is a gift of your own will and kismet.” Then, the smallest flicker of a smile. “You interest me; I have no greater truth than that to offer. My kind does not keep…pets,” the word was spat out, insult renewed, “nor do I have great interest in toys that are momentarily interesting. I am far, far, too old for that.”

Her hand left his face, the sudden chill of the departure of her closeness would have been startling. Again, as if a trick of the light, she was on the other side of the room, her presence carefully folded and tucked away in the form of that grand dame. “If we have a mutual interest, that is good enough reason for me to keep each other around. If it is one-sided, on my behalf, then, again, I will not keep you. Though,” and a slyness entered those eyes, “I would be remiss in not calling you a supreme fool in having escaped such tribulations, and now, having the interest of a dragon that could protect and nurture you, in turning down the latter. Do you know how many beings have longed for, fought for, breathed for, the knowledge and wisdom of a dragon?” There was a hint of teasing facetiousness in her words; she was aware that he might take it as a condescending insult. And if she were being honest with herself, she had meant for a bit of it to sting: both in practicality and in a return for him wounding her pride. He’d asked for honesty, and, even with the swell of her pride, she knew that said pride was born out of a place of truth. She did have much to offer, and in times past, she would not have been so kind in wanting to share. And him - in fishing out the clothes, in prepping the area for him, she had been reminded of those she had met….those she had loved. Feelings that had been pressed for so long between the pages of her memories that they were brittle flowers, translucent and tremulous to the touch.

“But, it is your hard earned right, to choose what you wish to do.” All that was missing was a fan in her hand, communicating either dismissal or a silent invitation. “All I have done so far was to help get you to a point that would better enable you to decide.” There it was again, that infuriating slip of a true smile; one that was as complex as she. Part mocking, part pitying, part indulgent, part infuriating.

 

[Baelnorn]

She crossed the space between them in a heartbeat, making him flinch and scuttle half a step back. He wasn’t quick enough to escape her reach, and her hand firmly grasped his chin. This close, the heat emanating from her body easily seeped through the thin layer of his clothes. It was as intense as standing right at the edge of a bonfire, but without the immediate sting of the flame. And her eyes… had become radiant furnaces that seemed to burn mercilessly at his very soul.

Valen listened intently to her words, not that he really had any other option. He quickly understood that this hadn’t always been her disposition, character, and demeanor. The dragon didn’t elaborate on when her outlook had changed, and he wasn’t sure by how many years he had managed to miss her wrathful past self. He also didn’t really want to find out.

“You have caught my interest - in a way that I myself am not sure I understand.”

That sentence made his eyebrows rise. It was an admission of something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Uncertainty? Honesty? Vulnerability? No matter – this was a more sincere statement than he had expected to hear from her, followed by the expression of a desire to mend and improve him. When she then added that she didn’t keep pets or temporary toys, one of his greatest concerns was lifted off his shoulders – if he could find it in himself to invest his trust in her words.

Yokan then withdrew, her heat leaving him along with her touch. For a moment he felt bereft of her warmth, struggling to suppress the deep longing to follow her. Once the distance between them finally settled in, a subtle shiver raised the delicate hairs on his forearms.

Her suggestion of a mutual interest sounded good, and immediately set his mind into motion. What common interest could he possibly share with her? What thing, or activity, or place could be shared between a drow and a dragon? What could he possibly offer that could be interesting to a being as old and powerful as she was, who had already seen and experienced and learned so much?

The drow couldn’t find a definite answer in that moment. His gaze briefly returned to the rows of books, and he recalled her mentioning her personal library, but whether or not that alone was sufficient to tether them both would have to remain a conundrum for now.

But her teasing, her sly remark that he would be a supreme fool to squander this unique opportunity, easily found its mark. Valen knew that Yokan knew exactly how to bait him, and both knew that the opportunity to learn from or with a dragon was something no wizard could easily cast to the wind. And her smile readily confirmed his suspicion.

“But, it is your hard earned right, to choose what you wish to do.”

Valen patiently waited for her to finish. In the moments of silence that followed he carefully observed her, taking in the grandeur of her form and how her mere presence filled the room more thoroughly than any Matron Mother ever could.

“You are right. I would be a fool to reject this opportunity. But I have been a fool my entire life, so that would be nothing new. I foolishly believed that I could endure Mergonnar. I foolishly believed that if I just worked diligently enough I could rise and earn myself rank and respect. I foolishly believed that if I just prayed fervently enough, the females would tolerate me and leave me alone. All my foolishness earned me was the prospect of an ugly death.”

The wizard took a couple of tentative steps towards the table where the dragon waited.

“While I still do not see what exactly I could offer a being like you, I am willing to try and find out. Perhaps this fool can still find some wisdom that way.”

 

[Apollo Wilde]

The air, once more, had settled - faintly carrying the air of forgotten cedar, the lavender bergamot of his hair, his soap. Warm hay and clover on the linen that he wore, the ghost of rosemary tea, and always that vaguely metallic, slightly cold, scent of river stones. From her careful distance, she watched, still with that smile, still waiting to hear what he would agree to. It would be too easy for her to scent the air, have him tell her without saying a word. She couldn’t entirely turn her senses off, but she could choose to limit just how much she could take in.

What she hadn’t quite expected was the slim hint of attraction? Maybe she was reading it wrong. She very well could be; it had been so long since she had to take other emotions into consideration. This conversation, with all of its dips and highs, had been blowing the dust off of long forgotten skills. Like wearing this glamour, she mused, it would take some getting used to.

He had the initiative to call out my nature. That, as well, is something that I’m not entirely sure that he’s realized that he’s done. Brave, brave, pathetic thing. Her smile grew. How could she not be interested? And there was always the likelihood of him knowing some magic spell or the other that she was either unfamiliar with, or, novel enough, might be entirely new.

“Well, if we are speaking honestly,” moving from the side of the table, she crossed the room to stand in front of him again. Not so much as intruding on his space before, but so close that it would take a mere push for her hips to bump against his. “There is wisdom in acknowledging when one is a fool. And fools do have a surprising habit of observing things for what they are, rather than what they might wish to be.” She reached out again, unable to help herself, to grasp her chin. Rather than hold him in place as before, this was a caress; a tracing of the line of his chin. She was careful not to let it be too much of an appraisal - she had mistakenly treated him as his captors, and she was loathe to be thought of so poorly again.

“And I am curious - is your hair as soft as it looks? It’s been a maddening thought since you came from the bath. Would you allow me to touch it?” A strange ask, considering that she had so causally brought herself onto his person (in what world would touching hair be considered less intimate than touching his face?), but she was trying to do better. Now that the air had eased between them - she would speak again. “You will…” A pause, as she tried to scrape the words from her teeth. He had said that she would not see him as an equal or a partner, and he had been correct. Interest did not imply equality. And her pride had always been a sore spot - one that she wasn’t entirely ready to soothe. “Excuse me,” this came a bit easier, “It has been quite some time since I last conversed with…another being.” There, that was polite enough, “And it may take me some time to reacquaint myself with social graces. Do not take it personally.” There. That was enough of an apology. It recognized her guilt, and if not further excused such faux-pas, at least prepared him to expect something of the same in the future.

And truly, it was without malice.

“Which brings me back to my important point, before I am to give you a tour,” a return back to the subject at hand, the silk over his shoulders that seemed to reflect the firelight of her eyes, “May I touch your hair?”

 

[Baelnorn]

“There is wisdom in acknowledging when one is a fool. And fools do have a surprising habit of observing things for what they are, rather than what they might wish to be.”

Valen let out a gasp at the gentle but sudden caress she bestowed upon his chin. For a moment he had expected her grasp to be as firm as it had been a minute ago, but instead she traced his face like a soft feather. Luckily he wasn’t ticklish on his face, or he might have begun to squirm and laugh under her fingers.

While he enjoyed the sensation of her touch, he marveled at how different their lives must have been for her to arrive at such a view. His home in the world’s underbelly didn’t suffer fools for long, no matter how discerning their observations were. Appearances and pretenses often mattered more than truth; he had learned that lesson very painfully himself.

A part of him even envied her ability to hold such an outlook. Perhaps, the drow mused quietly, in due time he could join her in that? His mind darkened for a heartbeat. The mere thought that he might never let go of his mental scars, and that they might one day make Yokan despise or reject him, dragged up emotions he didn’t like at all. But by her own admission she had managed to turn away from her callous past self. And if a dragon could change, certainly a drow could as well, no?

“And I am curious - is your hair as soft as it looks? It’s been a maddening thought since you came from the bath. Would you allow me to touch it?”

A simple request, presented to him matter-of-factly. But Yokan quickly followed with an apology, explaining that she had lived alone for a long time, and her manners had suffered a little for it. And then she repeated her question, the words of which drew an easy smile to his face. It was such a simple, almost silly, thing to ask for, especially from a dragon; how could his hair be so fascinating to her?

Heat bloomed in Valen’s cheeks, an unfamiliar sensation of flattery and appreciation making itself known. He swallowed, his own violet eyes seeking the dragon’s fiery gaze.

“I-if touching my hair is what you wish, then you shall have it. Do you… want me to sit down for you?”

 

[Apollo Wilde]

His skin was deceptively soft under her hands. The set of his mouth, the curve of his jaw, the arc of his ears. Resisting the urge to turn his face this way and that to take her pleasure in looking at him, she again, let her thumb run under his lower lip.

It would probably be too forward to ask if he’s ever bedded someone. Surely he has, with a face like that. And if what I remember of the drow is correct. I’ll have to look that up later.

Not that she had such needs. Or felt like she should; not after this long. But, if she were going to be completely honest with herself, there had been that small dancing in the pit of her stomach that traveled a bit lower in this human form when he smiled. Though there was no change in the heavy weight of her eyes, her nostrils widened a bit as she exhaled, a bit louder than she had intended. No problem; if he questioned it, she could simply pass it off as her senses still getting used to him. Trying to suss out his smell and mentally pin it so it would be easily recognizable. Though he was scented nicely from the bath and his clothes, there was still the Underdark that clung to him. A bit hard to determine who he was at present.

“If sitting would make you more comfortable. I would like to run my fingers through it.” That, she thought, with the small twitch of her mouth, was a lie.

All the same, she let go of his face, slipping her fingers down and off in a lingering touch before she gestured for him to have a seat. In the time it would take for him to sit and get himself comfortable - she wouldn’t hover over him - she had stepped away, leaving a faint trail of river stone smell behind her. When she appeared again, it was from the red curtain, bearing a humble wooden and boar bristle brush. “If I am to speak of ‘improving’ you, presumption aside, I would be derelict in said duty if I did not at least tend to your hair.” That coy smile again, knowing that she’d double backed, twisted up, her own words to her benefit. Not quite speaking in riddles - she was not that patient - but double meanings and addendums only known to her. Besides, she could do both: finger comb to get rid of larger mats or fairy knots, and then loosen further with the brush. It would be good practice to lure dexterity back into this form.

Once he was seated, she moved to stand behind him, setting the brush down on the table beside him. Her left hand, steadying but not restraining, was on his left shoulder, her right, soon resting at the crown of his head. Slowly, she ran her hand down the length of his head, fingers slowly slipping into his hair, across the edge of his ears. Down his back in a touch that seemed little more than the light nipping of nails across his skin. “Your hair is truly lovely,” a low murmur as she lowered her lips down to his ear. “Permit me to indulge a bit more by adding a brush to my efforts.”

With the same softness of hand, she retrieved the brush, and, starting again at the crown, would collect the fall of his hair over her left arm as she brushed it through using her right, ensuring that each strand was attended to, root to tip. The room was quiet, pleasantly warm again, only slightly broken on occasion with a low, rumbling sound that could be described as a rusty purr. She was quite pleased her task; she’d forgotten how pleasant touch could be. “Thank you…for indulging me,” her voice, rather than shattering the quiet, wove through it. “I’d forgotten how pleasant touch could be.” There, that was honest, and perhaps not so rude sounding. It wasn’t, after all, as if she asked him to strip naked and then touch him all over.

Though maybe I could.

A small snort of amusement, a curl of flame from the corner of her mouth - the suddenness of the laugh sparking fire from her - though it wouldn’t so much as even singe the air close to him. Taking her eyes away from the fall of his hair, she glanced over at the table. There were, after all, still tea and cookies.

Tea and cookies… “Ah,” she suddenly interjected, my goddess, I am poor at this. If I was ever good at it at any point, “You must be hungry. The potions are effective at healing and restoration, but they can’t solve an empty stomach. And you surely must be tired as well. I will need to set up quarters for you; this place is a bit of trickery: a collection of paths to somewhere else without being any of them.” She would leave it at that; there could be more explanation further. “A precaution, if you will.”

 

[Baelnorn]

“If sitting would make you more comfortable. I would like to run my fingers through it.”

The drow merely nodded in response to her question, because he couldn’t force his thoughts into words no matter how hard he tried. The whole situation still eluded every attempt to find rhyme or reason in it, and considering their conversation from not so long ago, Valen could only swim along wherever the currents might take him.

The touch of the dragon was soft and tender in a way he hadn’t expected, while she explored his features. If he was honest with himself, which he most certainly couldn’t be in that moment, he’d have had to admit that it ended far too soon for his liking when she offered him a seat and vanished behind the red curtain.

Valen looked after her longingly as her warmth receded, taking in the signature scent she seemed to leave behind whenever she moved, then stepped towards the chair. He shook his head, trying to clear another kind of fog slowly making its way into his thoughts. The drow was convinced that no matter how gentle her words and how soft her touch, she would never see him in that way.

How had she put it? He had captured her interest? That could mean everything and nothing, and when you compared how long either of them could live it was clear to him which one it was. He was but a mayfly to her, a flickering candle in an eternally raging storm.

He took his place on the chair and didn’t have to wait long for Yokan to return. She swished past the curtain, with brush in hand, and approached him looking eager, almost excited, for what was to come next.

“If I am to speak of ‘improving’ you, presumption aside, I would be derelict in said duty if I did not at least tend to your hair.”

He blushed again at her words, unused to so much attention from a female without some trace of malice and cruelty attached. The blush deepened further when he felt her hands on him, and Valen hoped she wouldn’t notice since he was certain it would lead to conversations he wasn’t sure he could survive.

A shiver raced down his spine when the dragon started stroking his head, running her fingers over the sensitive skin beneath his silver mane. She unhurriedly explored the strands on his head, her fingers brushing innocently against the edges of his ears making him go stiff for a heartbeat or two.

“Your hair is truly lovely. Permit me to indulge a bit more by adding a brush to my efforts.”

She spoke so close that he could feel the warmth of her words stir the tiny hairs around his ear and along his neck. His next breath came out with a tremble he couldn’t suppress.

“Of course. I-I’m glad you like it.”

Even if his life depended on it, which it honestly still did in a confusing and convoluted manner, he couldn’t have told whether she was actively trying to seduce him with her charms or whether she was simply enjoying his hair. Regardless, Valen was fighting his own personal battle with closed eyes, taking deep breaths every so often and trying to keep his emotions from rousing anything that would be exceptionally awkward for both of them to deal with.

Yokan’s brush followed the same path as her fingers had before, revisiting his crown, his neck, and his ears. The bristles easily separated the individual hairs of his strands, straightening them out and working out the small tangles they had inherited from his bath.

The only sounds he perceived were the thumping of his heart, soon threatening to jump out of his chest; the sound of her brush moving through his hair with a silken swoosh; and a deep, resonating rumble akin to a… purr? If he hadn’t been so distracted he’d probably have paid more attention to that last one.

And then… it was over. It took him a moment and a few heartbeats to realize that she had stopped brushing his hair. Only the sound of her voice, perfectly filling the space the previous sounds had vacated as if it belonged there, pulled him out of his daze.

“Thank you…for indulging me. I’d forgotten how pleasant touch could be.”

Valen blinked, several times, his mind searching for purchase on the nearest thought, but before he could vocalize anything, Yokan had already pounced on her next prey – the topics of a proper meal and a proper place for him to stay. Until now he hadn’t even considered having his own chamber inside the dragon’s domain; he would have accepted a few blankets in a corner somewhere.

“Uhm… the pleasure was all mine. I really did enjoy it,” he stammered more honestly than he had intended, sensing the heat on his face that stubbornly refused to fade despite his desperate wishes. “If… if you wish to do this again sometime, perhaps this could be one of those things you mentioned before – one of the things I needed to learn – and I could return the favor?”