Private Tales Vultures

[Fieravene]

Mirth bubbled behind those red eyes, teeth biting at her lower lip as the man leaned down to listen.

"You," a finger gently hooked him by the collar of his tunic while she spoke hushed words into his ear, "me, upstairs, my room."

And then eased back just a little, looking smug.

 

[Gaheris]

Maybe, just maybe, if she hadn't tugged on the collar of his tunic, Gaheris could have played it all off. The feeling of her breath on his nape hadn’t helped. Either or he could have done, but not both. Never both.

Gaheris cleared his throat and stood straight again. He looked as grim and collected as he always had, although now his face had taken on an unpleasant red hue. “Of course,” he said.

After all, who would carry that much gold on them all the time? “Lead the way.”

The armsmen were dull, but not that dull. Dense, but not oblivious. “Hey, boss…?”

“Watch Gamlek, please,” Gaheris said without looking at either man, “while I collect the payment.”

Shouldn’t have said payment. Too obvious, even considering. Saying “money” would have been less obvious. Would have been, if his face weren’t lit up like an Allirian firework.

To hell with the Guild’s money. Resisting base temptation wasn’t part of his contract.

 

[Fieravene]

"Fret not boys," Fiera finished off her mug and stood from her chair, procuring from a satchel at her hip a few coppers and tossing them to the table, "I won't keep him too long. Here, next round's on me." Apparently there were a few coins to spare.

She took up her cloak from the chair back and made way through the tightly-packed tables and patrons to the stairway at the back of the inn. Ascending without a word, the elf lead the way to the third room on the right, a cozy little abode with a view of the street below. Fiera hooked her cloak on a hook by the door as she stepped inside and made her way over to a small table set by two chairs and an open bottle of wine. Some bread and cheese sat half unwrapped beside it - travel rations, not food from the inn.

Her boots deftly tamped across worn wooden floorboards to the furthest chair where she took a seat and idly poured herself a fresh serving of wine. Settling in like a guilty cat in an empty birdnest, the elf turned an expectant gaze to the man and took a slow sip.

Perhaps she liked to watch.

 

[Gaheris]

Gaheris heard the coins clattering on the table but kept his eyes dead-ahead. It would not do to look back. The less his underlings saw of his tomato-esque complexion - temporary as it was - the better for him in the long run. Hopefully they would take her up on that offer. Most likely they would. If their commander was making by-far the worst indulgence of the night, then they could stand to commit some of their own.

In that case, Gamlek would probably escape. More power to him. How fortunate he had someone so generous looking after him.

Gaheris gingerly closed the door behind him, looking around the room, half-expecting an ambush. Shades? It would have been shades. What a miserable way to go. Perhaps this wasn't a good idea. Too late now. He'd gotten out of worse, anyway. This would be fine. Many long days of dragging corpses off of battlefields were behind him. Many more were doubtless ahead of him. So, in fact, he really, really wanted this to be fine.

He looked focus, like a carpenter preparing for a day's work. Gaheris shrugged off his cloak and allowed it fall to the ground in a crumple. The hook that Fieravene had stowed her cloak on was surprisingly far from his mind. His belt, and the stiletto sheathed in it, was still a work-in-progress when he noticed she was sitting. And some wine.

Gaheris frowned (as if he'd worn any other expression on his way up) and stopped what he was doing. "I had imagined you would be the one entertaining me, here..."

 

[Fieravene]

"Me? Entertaining you?" she gave a derisive laugh, "Oh sweet pea, who's the one earning the coin here, hm?"

Apparently sexism in the bedroom didn't exist where she came from. Fiera took another drink from her cup and promptly plopped her coinpurse on the small table. It landed with a ringing that sounded quite expensive.

"Plenty more where that came from, do go on," she gestured to the man as she refilled her glass, "strip."

 

[Gaheris]

Sweet pea?! And now Fieravene was laughing at him. It was one thing to be flush with anticipation, but now indignity had turned Gaheris paler than some of the corpses he worked with. Humiliation. The worst sort. It burned white hot, like a blade fresh from the forge, about to be hammered into shape.

In some aspects, yes, that was exactly what Gaheris was.

His mouth worked out the words, voice shrill with embarrassment. "That is... Not how debt works!"

Gaheris somehow found himself wishing she had just killed him.

 

[Fieravene]

"Oh, so a woman is expected to bare all at the whim of a man but as soon as she wishes the opposite it's mortification is it?"

Tut tut. Her lips pursed into a smirk, gaze sliding slowly up and down the man where he stood. His face was near as red as her eyes and this made her no less amused. The wine cup hit the table as she pushed herself to a stand, gently considering his embarrassment with a cutting stare. As gently as one might consider bleeding a lamb.

"I see, you would like some assistance then?"

Boots noked their way slowly across the floorboards again, coming to a halt in front of him. That same finger that had curled around his tunic hem from before now lightly coiled through a lock of his hair.

 

[Gaheris]

His brow knit together again, like she just asked him a riddle. "What? No, that's not what I..."

Suddenly she was out of the chair, marching towards him with borderline military precision. Gaheris swallowed. Hard. What was that? Nerves? Fear? Confusion? No. It had to be all three. Neatly packaged and served especially for him. Just his luck. He had seen that look in her eyes elsewhere. A lycanthrope he worked with once, just before caving to bloodlust.

He was no less relieved to see it here.

Fieravene entered his personal space uncontested, finger curling around his hair. Mixed emotions resulted - which was to say his posture was not the only thing that stiffened. "Ah," he managed to answer, "Certainly."

 

[Fieravene]

The elf's lips pulled into a smile of morbid amusement. Much as she would have enjoyed watching the man cull the layers on his own, she was nothing if not adaptable for the shy sorts. Honestly, it was endearing.

Having already doffed his cloak she set to work untucking his tunic, red gaze set upon him like a seething pool of magma. Soon enough it was off and tossed to the bed, Fiera taking a step back to admire that beautiful pale flesh. The skin of a man who worked by moonlight, no doubt. She made a sound that was not unlike a lycanthrope peeking interested in a meal.

Though not a man with a great deal of mass, he clearly carried his strength in compact brawn. She'd been expecting a scrappy sort, mincey but tough. Fi was pleasantly surprised. Fingers drew lightly up his front, skating across his abdomen and chest before sliding down his arm as she took a slow walk around him.

Squared shoulders, biceps big enough to lug inert bodies around, strong back (nails carved up the depression of his spine), and of course those lovely platinum locks. She stepped around him and took her seat again, crossing one leg languidly over the other and motioning to the empty chair across from her, "Well then, you'll do. Down to the real business. So," Fi took up her cup and studied it a moment before finding reason to fill it again, "approximately ten miles due southwest there is a trail that used to go through the mountain pass until a dragon took up residence there about mmm, six months ago or so, give or take depending on the sobriety of the person you ask."

 

[Gaheris]

Gaheris kept pawing at her as she went around, clearly looking for some sort of opening - the moment where skin would meet skin and all debts could be considered null and void. It never arrived, and he stared in silent bewilderment as she left him there again, now seated back where she started.

His spine tingled from where her nails had had traced, but he got the message. Not a very fun message to receive. Gaheris would be hard-pressed to rank it as the worst, but it had to be the top ten. Easily. Without his shirt on he felt a draft. Cold now. One might have assumed his own flush would keep him warm, but by this point the turmoil had ceased, and he was left only with the dull, lingering sensation of having been made the fool.

Gaheris. Played like a fiddle. Oh, the indignity.

There was the grimace again. Like it had never left. He plodded over and sat himself awkwardly, avoiding the back of the chair for fear of splinters. "Go on, then," he muttered.

 

[Fieravene]

"Well, dragons don't just appear for no good reason - wine?" the woman gestured with the bottle, filling an empty cup as he gave a nod.

"This valley is practically a deadzone - there's nothing here to draw a dragon in. No real sustainable source of prey unless of course you count the local populace, but humans are more trouble than their worth for your typical dragon. So what else could pull one in, I asked myself," she cut into her food rations and nibbled on a piece of bread, "there must be something up there worth the trouble."

And to this she gave her coinpurse a little push, allowing its contents to spill across the table. Gold, silver, small jewels. It looked to be of dwarvish make.

"That dragon has found a heretofore forgotten dwarvish ruin up in those mountains and is sitting on a very sizable hoard."

 

[Gaheris]

Gaheris wordlessly accepted the wine, imagining, briefly, that the substance might be used to quell his memory of this interaction quickly. He managed half the glass before he had to come back up for air. No such luck. Never such luck. He listened without looking at her for a spell, but his attention was drawn back when her coin-purse teetered over.

Gemstones, silver pieces, gold coins - these always looked good. Context irrelevant. There looked to be enough wealth just in that coinpurse to pay off the debt of four Gamleks. Imagine that: four Gamleks. Probably get even less work out of them than just the one. Unless your work was losing money, in which case...

He looked back to her. "Am I expected to risk my own life and limb over Gamlek's debt, or...?"

There might have been a more professional, authoritative air to that statement if he weren't so woefully shirtless. Maybe this was a negotiating strategy. And he'd blundered right into it.

He drank again.

 

[Fieravene]

"Seven hells, of course not," Fiera eyed the man over her cup before finishing it off, "but you might for your own assured future of riches. I'm not after the hoard, you can take it all. I'm after the dragon's eggs."

 

[Gaheris]

Gaheris nearly spat wine back into his glass, but soldiered through and finished the thing. He rubbed his forehead. Yes. A headache next. He could feel it coming on already. "And what, pray tell, could you possibly need a dragon's eggs for?"

He did not know them to have any special value outside of eventually turning into a dragon. While he was no expert, Gaheris often suspected that the process of feeding, caring for, and taming a dragon was best left to... Other dragons.

 

[Fieravene]

"Clearly you've never eaten a dragon's egg omelette."

Fiera made a sound of delight.

"Simply divine."

 

[Gaheris]

A dragon's egg omelette? Gaheris' face scrunched at the notion. A chicken's egg omelette, certainly, that he could understand. Chickens did not grow into thinking, speaking creatures with varied emotional responses. Dragons could. Sometimes. Depended on the type.

Gaheris would no sooner eat a dragon egg than he would a Merfolk's.

"I am here without the comfort of my shirt," Gaheris shifted in his chair, fiddling with the empty wine glass. "The least you can do now is answer honestly."

Part of him wouldn't have been surprised if that was the truth. It would be far from the worst cruelty he had seen her inflict. That title was safely awarded to the experience of the past few minutes. Those wounded soldiers with spirits in them could get bent, far as Gaheris was concerned.

 

[Fieravene]

Oh, but the man was upset. Poor poppet.

It had nothing to do with being shirtless. It had everything to do with expectations versus reality. Fiera responded with a pout, "Have I upset you? Lured you in on the premise of skin and offered you a King's riches instead. How very poor of me. Bad Fi."

The elf slipped from her chair reaching to fill his cup again and setting the bottle down with a distinctly sharp klunk that made the jewels and coins on the table bounce. Then she was standing before him leaning over with her hands on his knees, "All I want," she pushed his knees apart, palms sliding up his thighs as she lowered herself to her own knees and slunk up between his legs, "are the dragon eggs. And I'm willing to pay you very generously for your assistance,"

Leaning forward, she nuzzled her way up along his bare front from naval to chest, turning heady red eyes up at him, "but I'm not part of that package deal. You can have one or the other. Skin," the tiniest kiss to his chest, "or coin?"

Just how badly did he need Gamlek's debt paid off.

 

[Gaheris]

If Gaheris grit his teeth any harder, they might have shattered on the spot. He found himself leaning back in the chair now, careless of the splinters, as she settled down where she was. He twitched at her touch. This should have been nicer. Now it felt more like an interrogation.

Gaheris forced himself to look at her, one arm deliberately fumbling across the table, probably looking to steady himself. His chest burned where her lips had met it and his head pounded like a war-drum. This was unbearable. Of the three possible F-responses, flight was starting to look the most appealing.

"How," he started, but it came out like a squeak and he had to clear his throat, "How far is the - where in the mountains is the ruin?"

Fieravene had been right about one thing: she hadn't kept him long.

 

[Fieravene]

Ohhh, there it is. Fiera pursed her lips into a pleased smirk, eyes gleaming with mirth. Arms crossed along his lap quite suddenly in a manner that was rather more business-like than a woman aught to look in the position she was in.

"Less than a day's ride up the pass. The footpath to the ruins is hidden and only I know where to find it."

She eyed him, one brow quirking at the manflesh before her with nothing less than an obvious hint of appreciation. Handsome and twitchy - she was hitting all tens today. One arm pivoted on the elbow resting on his thigh, drawing a finger lightly across his chest to linger in the blond hair there, "Do we have an accord?"

 

[Gaheris]

It was a footpath. How hard could that be to find? Especially if it was along the main pass into the mountains. Could be time consuming, sure, but, but, but - maybe he'd prefer her be the one to show where it was exactly. Although he might not look it at the moment.

She laid a finger on him now, as if everything before hadn't been too much already. Meanwhile, Gaheris' own fingers were digging into the underside of his chair. The piece of wooden furniture creaked in misery as its occupant tested the limits to which it would lean back and away from Fieravene . "We do, yes," he replied with rising urgency, "We do."

 

[Fieravene]

"Mmmarvelous."

The broad sneer that accompanied the response could hardly be attributed to anything other than a dark mirth. The elf pressed the heels of her hands into his thighs as she shifted back to a stand, bent at the hips over him with her fingers gently squeezing the muscle beneath them. Leaning in towards the man's face, dark lips still stretched in a smirk, she locked sanguine eyes with his mealy gaze.

"We're going to have a lot of fun, you and I."

She tapped a finger gently at the end of his nose before straightening and giving him his much-desired personal space back.

"Meet me on the south road an hour before dawn. The timing," a pause as she poured herself another glass of red, "must be perfect."

 

[Gaheris]

Gaheris waited until she had gotten up and off of him to reply. Although that, perhaps, implied more agency than he rightfully could claim. It would be more accurate to say that once she was gone, he stopped holding his breath so violently, and could now physically respond.

"I have no doubt of that," he muttered, with the sort of wheezy airishness one could expect from a man who had, up until recently, been in a great deal of distress.

Now it was only a small deal of distress.

He quit his chair quickly and gracelessly, first collecting his shirt off the bed and donning that quickly, before scraping his cloak off the ground. Gaheris noted with some displeasure that Fieravene was pouring wine while he capered about. Damned, smirking woman!

Gaheris might have grunted an affirmation as he left, shutting the door behind him even has he struggled into his cloak. Or it could have been a more regular grunt of effort. In either event, he was gone now, and would remain so until the appointed hour arrived.

 

[Fieravene]

"There you are, turtledove," Fieravene's voice slithered through the wane dark of pre-dawn like a snake through dew-covered grasses. Two red opals faintly luminescent peered at him from beneath a pulled hood, no doubt the slight scrunch from beneath and the flash of teeth in lantern light hinting to the pleased smirk they slithered from.

The elf's black-clad figure sat astride her black horse, barely visible within the creeping silhouette of the landscape behind her. There were no shades bobbling about to be seen and the hour was eerily silent. Not a hopper chirp or a dewfrog croak. Not even the groan of town drunks. Just the echo of hooves and boots dying out in the ether. The faint smell of death crept on the air - not wholly uncommon given the locale.

Somewhere off in the distance from a town in the foothills to the east, the soft clang of a bell marked the hour before dawn.

"Right then, look alive," reining her horse about to the south road exit, she spurred it on at a clipped walk, "we've exactly one hour to get where we need to be."

Gamlek yanked on the lead of a pack-mule and its trappings to follow, beady eyes glinting at Gaheris in the dark beneath the torch raised in his other hand.

 

[Gaheris]

Gaheris had not come alone. He led a trio of armsmen - two from yesterday, and a new one. They all looked much the same. Red cowls and masks, sinister weapons. The new man had a falchion strapped at his side, and it was he who carried the lantern. A busy little device - it had no business casting as much light as it did.

What it revealed was not too impressive. Their horses looked sickly, and Gaheris' only marginally better.

Speaking of Gaheris, he did not have to wait long to see if he would regret this. Turtledove. The necromancer looked like he had been slapped for a moment. The armsman with the mace guffawed loudly, soliciting a snicker from his colleague with the paired knives. Gaheris glared at them both.

"Watch Gamlek," he ordered, and spurred his horse forward, coming up alongside Fieravene .

"Lead on."

His expression had changed back to its usual inscrutability. Alas, his poor pride - beaten and flogged, given no time to heal. None at all.

 

[Fieravene]

There was a certain satisfaction to the laughter of his men. The smirk may have been hidden in the dark of her cowl but it was incapable of staying subtle as he rode up alongside her. Lips split into a broad grin, flashing his way for a moment as she took him in under the waning moonlight, "My but you cut a handsome shadow, darling."

It was almost romantic, this little twilight dalliance of theirs. The dour expression on his face, the way his skin and hair shone like a ghoul in the mists, the glint of weapons trailing their wake. Really, the only thing better might be the wailing of poor, unfortunate souls at their back in a nighttime serenade.

"I bet the women line up out the door when you come to call."