Private Tales The Lost Princess and The Exiled Prince

[Arun]

The drink was a strong one, close to a wine but made from a fruit found only in the center of the Falwood.

Though it was an intensely strong liquor, the fermentation process of this particular fruit also ensured that Oosqua remained incredibly sweet. In short, it tasted good and pack an incredibly punch. So much so that many humans couldn't handle more than a cup.

"Yes." He said as he placed the two cups down on the table in front of her with a smile, waiting for her to pour.

"I made it." Some thirty years ago. It had been aging since then, only increasing the already intense taste. "Though have not had a chance to share it with anyone."

The prospect strangely enough, excited him.

 

[Maeve]

Maeve had been standing her fathers brandy since she was 13 years old and had decided the mug of ale she was allowed at feasts was too boring. When she poured the cups it was almost to the brim, the traditional amount one of the Ilcinki filled their glasses to. She slid one cup over to him then took the other one with a surprisingly cheerful smile.

"Well, I'm glad I could be the person to share it with you Arun. Sláinte," she raised her glass and then took an experimental sip. It was much sweeter than she was expecting but not overbearingly so. "It's really good!" she sounded surprised and took a longer gulp of it this time.

 

[Arun]

Arun cringed slightly as she took the larger gulp of the drink. "W-wait."

It was too late.

"Oh boy." The Elf said quietly as he looked down at his own cup and took a sip, letting the flavor dance over his tongue before he slowly lowered it. Lips thinned as he watched for her reaction.

Like any alcohol it would take a second to kick in, but...well Oosqua acted fast, and it hit harder on humans than it did elves. She was fae-touched so that might help...or make it worse.

His eyes narrowed.

 

[Maeve]

Maeve was half way through her cup before she began to feel the warmth of the drink spreading through her body. It was like a rolling wave, ebbing and flowing until her whole body felt like it was on fire.

She coughed, eyes watering.

"That's... strong," it didn't seem to put her off though as she finished the rest of the cup and reached for the bottle. She saw the startled look on his face and smirked. "Come on Arun, keep up. Can't be out drunk by a human now can you?"

 

[Arun]

He supposed she was right about that.

Arun tipped his head back and emptied the drink down his throat. There was a pleasant tingling burn, and then he placed it down onto the table so that she could refill it. As soon as she did, Arun picked up the cup and down it again.

"There." The elf said as he motioned for yet another refill.

Maeve certainly was confident, something to be admired really. Though he was almost certain he'd end up with vomit on his floor.

He smiled at her as he took his third swig. "Your turn little human."

 

[Maeve]

Maeve had drunk with some of the worst lords of the Isles. Men who had easily gone 20 tankards in then walked in a straight line back home complaining of gas. She had no desire to be undone this quickly by an elf and some special wine he had concocted. So she instead of refilling his glass straight away she held up a finger and downed her own in a similar fashion. A grimace ran across her face but she poured them both a refill.

"Less of the li'le, tapadh leat," she hiccuped again and then downed the third. Her vision swam a little but she managed to keep the shot down and refilled her glass. "C'mon what's the most a human has done before?"

 

[Arun]

He tried to think for a moment, and then answered slowly. "I've never drank with a human."

It was so uncommon for their two races to share conversation much less drink that he was fairly sure this was some kind of a first. He frowned for a moment, downing another cup of the Oosqua before placing it down onto the table again.

"Five?" He guessed, already noting some of the color in her cheeks. She appeared a little flush, and he could see her wavering ever so slightly. Arun himself felt a tingle up his spine. "That seems a good guess."

The Elf commented. "Your constitutions are not as rigorous."

 

[Maeve]

Five? Well that meant Maeve was going to have to do ten didn't it?

"Maybe you should stop killing each other and drink with us more, s'how we solve our fights," she knocked back the fifth shot and shuddered. The tingles were everywhere now and she could definitely feel the flush crawling up her neck and into her cheeks.

"'N'ow I can show you that not all humans can't handle their drink!" she waited for him to down another of his glasses before refilling both of theirs. She could feel her tongues growing heavy and thick in her mouth but she hadn't reached the stage where she was worried just yet.

 

[Arun]

"Much better than running someone through with a sword." The Elf said with a smile. Then Arun took another shot, placing it on the table before her.

He wondered briefly when Maeve would realize that for the Elves this was a sipping drink, an entire bottle would be consumed by one person, much as an ale might be in human lands. Of course he felt pointing that out would be...bad.

She seemed very determined, and he didn't want to upset her. "You're doing a great job."

The Elf said with a smile, encouraging her, though he wasn't entirely sure he should have been doing so.

 

[Maeve]

"You're sounding very patronising," Maeve frowned. She had managed to get a little of her mouth back under control so she wasn't slurring so badly. It helped it took actual mental effort to speak in the Common Tongue. She took a deep breath and leaned back against the sofa which was to her back for a moment. Half way. She looked at the drink in front of her and this time she decided to sip at it.

"Oh Gods it's nice not to be in pain," she sighed suddenly and let her head drop back a little. It was the first time since she could remember that she wasn't feeling the agony of wounds as her body tried to heal. Even when she had left the Isles it had been with an arrow in her side.

 

[Arun]

He smiled at her softly, ignoring her first comment. "You will be fine by the end of the week."

Judging by how she had healed so far as well as knowing how well the Salve would work. He did not want to give her false hope, but at the same time it gave him a sort of pain to know that she was still suffering through agony.

Slowly Arun sat himself down opposite her.

"Perhaps you've had enough though." The Elf said softly, wanting to ensure she did not end up falling over and injuring herself even more.

 

[Maeve]

Maeve lifted her head slightly as she felt him sit down opposite her. This was within the limits she had woken with after her ordeal that she apparently required people to be away from her. But... she said nothing and instead shook her head and finished off her sixth cup and held it out to him whilst rubbing her cheek against the sleeve of her tunic.

"C'mon don't spoil the most fun I've had in months," she pouted somewhat and then shook the cup as she looked up at him. There was only a slight haze to them but nothing serious as of yet. "So how'd you make this stuff?"

 

[Arun]

Arun let out a sigh, and then slowly leaned a bit closer to pour her another drink.

She was an adult, and who was he to deny her a bit of joy when her life had been nothing but misery for the last few months. "Alright just a little more."

Maeve would likely have quite the hangover in the morning, but perhaps he would make sure she got some water into her before she actually went off to bed.

"It's fermented from a very special fruit only found in the Falwood." He said as he took another drink himself. He had not eaten yet that day, and so even he was starting to feel the effects. "Usually it's poisonous."

A smile touched his lips. "It's what makes it so strong."

 

[Maeve]

Mae smiled brightly when he gave in and filled up her cup. She took it and sipped at it slowly like she would a whisky rather than a shot. It nestled in her hand and she swirled it as he told her how it was made. Her eyebrow rose somewhat when he informed her it was usually poisonous, tensing but a little bit. But she had seen him drink from the same bottle so it couldn't be that bad...

She relaxed again.

"It's weird how people do that - eat or drink things which are bad for them to make themselves stronger. There is a tribe on our Isle that deliberately get themselves bitten by a venomous snake - if you survive they see you fit to be a member. If you don't they just say you weren't worthy of being in it."

 

[Arun]

He blinked. "That seems...very foolish."

Who purposefully got themselves bitten by a snake? That was like if he went and decided that he could only become a man by fighting a displacer. His head shook, and he took another sip of his own cup before talking again.

"I think this was found during experiments with alchemy." He mused. "That or in the bedroom."

He frowned. "The outside of the plant causes some numbing and..."

Arun clamped his mouth shut as he realized what he was saying.

 

[Maeve]

Maeve waved a hand almost dismissively, clearly it was so common place for this tribe nobody battered an eyelid.

"Their Fae blessed their whole tribe centuries ago to be able to withstand poison. That's why they do the test," to keep the blood pure. The clan were not one of her favourites but they were incredible warriors. There was nobody on the field you wanted more at your back and less running towards you. In truth, it had been the Prince there she had thought her father would try to marry her off to. She had just finished the cup as he mentioned the other attributes of the plant causing her to splutter.

"Some numbing and what?" she might have been 'innocent' in the physical sense but she had been in another women's bathhouses to have heard enough stories that not many things shocked her anymore.

 

[Arun]

Arun coughed slightly, frowning and looking away from a moment. The Elf glanced down at the cup in his hand with a deep frown, looking at the liquid for a moment and wondering if he had somehow lost his tolerance.

Could over ten decades of not touching a drop of alcohol affected him that much? Concern creased his features. "I uhh..."

He coughed again.

"Someoversensitivity." Arun said into the cup. "Or so I have been told."

 

[Maeve]

"Hey," Maeve nudged him in the chest with her foot and gave him a thin lipped scowl. "No frowning," she held his gaze for a moment to make sure he understood the warning glint in her eyes before taking her foot off his chest and bending her knees back up to her chest.

So serious! She thought with a shake of her head. Drinking was meant to ease that. Clearly, he needed more, so she topped up his cup before he could protest.

"We have a plant like that back home, there's a single day they bloom and it's customary to slip it into the drink of the person you want to bed that night," her lips kicked up into a smirk.

 

[Arun]

Arun made a small shirking motion, not being entirely sure if such a practice was...okay. "Better than rubbing a flower all over yourself I suppose."

He commented, glancing over at her for a moment as if he were trying to gauge just how inebriated she actually was.

Arun wondered what his father would have said if he'd seen him now. Drinking with a Human. Granted Maeve was no Anirian, but the situation was still a strange one to be sure. Especially considering that Arun had been in exile for nearly a century.

Another play of fate?

"My people don't often speak of such things." Elves weren't prudes, just the opposite in fact, but most of the time the discussions were between partners and not other people. "Not with strangers at the very least."

It seemed humans were a tad more loose with their tongues.

Perhaps she was rubbing off on him.

 

[Maeve]

Maeve raised a brow when she caught the look he gave her, like he was trying to figure her out. Then when he explained understanding flooded across her face and she began to laugh. She was too open and he wasn't used to it. Tribes were a very close knit of people and nothing was truly secret or quiet. If you happened on a couple you just tried to disturb them as little as you could.

"Maybe we are more savage then, nothing is sacred in our tribes," she ran a hand through her thick red waves. "If you don't end up seeing it then you end up hearing about it from someone. It is a very close community," like one large family her father had always said.

"Nobody has really ever thought to teach me how to speak with outsiders," Mae shrugged. They had never thought she would have had the opportunity to meet an outsider without them coming to the Isle and that would have been an entirely different type of talking.

 

[Arun]

Arun leaned back slightly, very clearly intoxicated himself. " Maybe that's a good thing."

The elf was sure of himself in many things, but talking with other people wasn't one of them. At least not now. A century of isolation had him lose most of his social skills, before that he had been known as a charmer among his people, a man who could speak eloquently and convince even the most ardent opponents.

"I've been stuck here a hundred years." He frowned again, caught it, and then let himself smile at her. "Maybe I shouldn't be so quick to speak like I once did."

He frowned. "Besides, we're so damned uptight that most of us haven't fucked more than a handful of times."

It would be the first time shed hear him swear or be even a little crass

 

[Maeve]

Maeve stared at him wide eyed after his outburst.

"So elves do know how to cuss!" she fell about laughing until her broken ribs protested too much and the laughter petered off into a series of 'ow's'. Another drink and the pain slowly ebbed away. Three more till 10, she thought as she poured herself another cup with a little hiccup.

"How did you used to speak, ooooh were you one of these Princes who speak all high and mighty?" she switched her own tone of voice to reflect a 'posher' tone of voice for the phrase 'all high and mighty'. There were some of the Tribes - the ones often who held that they had more of a link to Liath - who liked to give themselves a far greater air than other leaders. They tended to speak in such a way. Like a rod was up their arse, as her father had once muttered into his cup at a banquet.

 

[Arun]

"Of course. Though it is difficult to replicate in the common tongue." The language of man was far too harsh and broken to actually communicate in properly.

There was something about it that just felt...wrong, even when everything should have been fine. He did not like it. His father had refused to speak it, even to the Anirian general that he'd played the game with. Arun himself was not so stubborn.

"It is mostly like this." The elvish flowed from his tongue like a beautiful song, raising into the air in an almost calming sensation that would drape over the room. "We elves must speak with eloquence and care."

He smiled at her and downed his drink, going to refill it before he found the bottle was now empty. "Even in seduction."

The words he spoke were all high Elvish, and to some of his tribal cousins he would have sounded a lord.

 

[Maeve]

For some reason it seemed even more bizarre that there were cuss words in elvish. Even the Tribal tongue had had a melody to it, a soft lilt that the trees had obviously preferred to the Common Tongue. It had been the only thing she had admired in a small way about them. It was only when he spoke again now in his native tongue that she realised it could sound even more beautiful. Whilst he spoke all she could do was stare at him, her face softening some what.

"I have no idea what you just said but it was very beautiful," she sighed. It had been like a lullaby and she found her eyes suddenly heavy with sleep. She stifled a yawn then finished up the rest of her drink and set the empty cup on the side.

"Tha do chànan a ’faireachdainn nas bòidhche, ach tha an Common Tongue fhathast a’ faireachdainn nas miosa na mise," Mae sighed to use her own language. Her eyes closed and for a brief moment her face looked the perfect picture of bliss.

 

[Arun]

Arun did not understand what she said, but he smiled as Maeve leaned back and for seemingly the first time since her arrival, relax.

It was a sight to behold in it's own sort of way, and the Elf leaned back in his chair. Oddly enough he felt a strange sense of satisfaction. Perhaps because he truly felt as though he'd actually managed to help her somehow. Besides saving her life of course.

"A prince and a princess." He mused, now on the common tongue. "Run aways and fools."

He mused. "Drunk together in a tree."

Arun took In a breath.

"Sounds like a barda song." Arun said as he ran a hand through his hair.