Private Tales When Fire Meets Shadow

[Azrakar]

Azrakar watched the drow casually crunch into the skittermaw with the same mild interest he might give a surface-dweller eating an apple. Practicality in the deeps was always admirable. Protein was rare down here.

When her armor came off piece by piece he watched until she stretched out on the bedroll, sleek and dangerous Her summons drew a slow, predatory smile to his lips.

He rose from his perch against the wall, moving across to tunnel. He suspected that this was so that she could torment him up close.

Many orcs had already settled into low, rumbling snores. Her drow kept their silent vigil. He crossed to her in a few long strides and lowered himself beside her bed roll. not crowding, but close enough that she would feel his warmth.

His gaze lingered on the curve of her hip, the stretch of dark fabric over toned muscle, then lifted to meet her eyes.

"A story from my earliest days," he echoed, amusement deepening. "Few ask for those."

He shifted closer, the heat of his body brushing her side like a caress.

"The world was orderly and ignorant," Azrakar said. "Humans had spread religious crusades across the world. They burned books and added to the ignorance of an ignorant age."

"I'm not so old, I never saw where the great machines we find dead in the deeps came from. Dwarves and elves hid. Orcs scattered."

Azrakar grinned. He was clearly pictured moments of glory. He did not know how he had been summoned into being from the fires at the heart of the world. Perhaps a natural counterweight to human kings imposing order and ignorance.

"I brought chaos back to the spine of the world."

 

[Vyx'aria]

“So nothing has changed,” she said with dry disdain. “Humans still clinging to ignorance. Destruction still mistaken for clarity.”

The heat of him pulsed behind her. She didn’t mind it, quite the opposite. She reached back to tug him down beside her with the intention of drawing him into her space.

A being his size didn’t move so easily. She frowned and yanked harder.

Nothing.

She grumbled, gave a huff, and without looking back, muttered, “Lie down already, furnace.”

Vyx’aria settled more deeply into the bedroll, her back brushing against his infernal heat, eyes half-lidded in the gloom of the tunnel. For a moment, she seemed content in the silence, until her voice cut through it again, low and thoughtful, with the sharp edge of inquiry cloaked in silk.

“If you were birthed into the world to answer a void,” she said slowly, “to be fire where there was none… how do you know your thoughts and desires are your own?”

She didn’t look back at him. Her voice was not accusatory, but searching, unsettling in its intimacy. “If your existence was shaped to fill a need, chaos to balance order, destruction to temper creation, then what part of you wasn’t forged for that purpose?”

She let the question hang in the dark between them, the weight of it undeniable.

“When the world changes… when kingdoms fall and rise and forget you… do your wants change with them? Or do they always spiral back to that single, central truth?”

Vyx’aria’s fingers idly traced the hem of her bedroll.

And then, quieter still: “Where does your will begin… and your reason for existing end?”

The cave was silent but for the distant crackle of torchlight, and the slow pulse of his body heat warming the tiny space between them. Her tone remained calm, but it was clear.

Azrakar

 

[Azrakar]

Azrakar allowed himself to be tugged, amusement flickering in his eyes at her impatient huff. When she yanked harder and grumbled, he finally yielded.

He lowered his massive frame to the bedroll beside her with surprising grace. He stretched out on his back at first, one arm folded beneath his head, the other resting at his side.

Only when she settled against him did he shift, rolling slightly toward her so the curve of his body formed a living wall of warmth at her back. His breath stirred the fine hairs at her nape, steady and unhurried.

Then came the questions.

For a long moment he was silent. He set his hand, large and heavy, across her shoulder.

"Did I come into this world for a purpose? Perhaps. How do you know your wants are your own?" he asked rhetorically.

"I tear down castles. I break the rule of law."

He paused, gaze fixed on the faint glow of bioluminescent veins overhead. Soon they would enter the true, absolute dark.

"But purpose and will are not the same chain. If something shaped me and gave me hunger and instinct to consume and renew, it did not tell me what to burn and what to build."

His arm moved then. He draped it lightly across her waist, not restraining, merely resting there.

He had expected more attempts to torment him, not to enquire as to his nature. She stared into the flames of his fire and was curious at how they danced. She was not horrified at how they consumed dead wood.

"Once I craved only dominion. Then I craved worthy enemies. Then worthy allies. Now..." His voice dropped to a rumble she could feel through her back. "...I find myself determined to have mortals tremble at my name once again. They have forgotten me."

"And whatever created me and my choices, I suppose tonight, Vyx’aria... it chooses to keep you warm while you sleep."

He didn't quite laugh. He managed to convey the sentiment just with the rhythm of his voice.

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria didn’t move at first. The weight of his arm at her waist settled over her warm and steady. She exhaled, not sharply, but quietly. Her breath caught halfway, arrested by sensation. She couldn't recall the last time she had been held like this, not seized, not bound, not grappled in battle or desire, but held.

And then she moved.

Not away. She shifted back with exquisite slowness, letting the heat of him engulf her spine, her back pressing against his body with silent deliberation. The sensation was like stepping into an overfull hot spring, a sting at first, too much, too fast, but then the ache dulled into something else. Something deep and comforting.

Even now, she found her small cruelties. Her little tortures. Her hips shifted back just slightly into him, a slow, mocking taunt that didn't need words.

And then, voice low and velvet, she asked: “You’ve seen countless would-be conquerors rise and fall. Empires smothered under their own weight. Pretenders to thrones burned to ash.” She paused. Her voice was calm, but something inside her twisted, a sliver of sincerity piercing through the mask. “What do you see for me?”

The question lingered. It was not meant as flattery. Not even as strategy.

It was something rarer.

Curiosity.

And when she finally closed her eyes, her expression tilted with a slow, dangerous smirk, as if she were drifting into sleep wrapped in the arms of a storm. “I know my thoughts are my own,” she murmured, voice trailing into a whisper meant only for him, “because only I’m mad enough to desire a demon.”

Azrakar

 

[Azrakar]

He had lived a long life. Despite the way he described the curse, it had been a relief when it had been broken. Some small voice had started to whisper that the trapping of the curse would be his eternity.

Azrakar felt the deliberate shift to taunt him. He let out a low sigh and held his position.

He did not tighten his arm around her waist. He let it rest there heavily.

When her question came he was silent for a long moment.

"I have watched empires rise on the bones of the last," he murmured at last, voice a low resonance she could feel through her back more than hear.

"I have seen queens and kings who thought themselves eternal reduced to footnotes in songs sung by their enemies. Most burn bright and brief: too much ambition, too little patience. They grasp for everything and hold nothing."

His thumb traced a slow, idle circle against the fabric over her stomach: absent, thoughtful.

"You might have learned some painful lessons," he said, trying not to go close enough to cause her to snap at him again. He wasn't in the mood to tease her now.

"If you do not grasp, but weave and grow...and keep me from burning the world... Then you may build something to last."

His breath stirred the fine hairs at her temple. As long as anything lasts, he thought to himself.

"And when the tales are told," he added, voice dropping to a velvet growl, "maybe they will say will talk of a drow who tamed a demon. But we will see."

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria let out a soft chuckle at his answer, the sound low and unguarded.
“Very diplomatic,” she murmured. “And annoyingly reasonable.”

She could understand it, though. To someone like him, causes and creeds must blur together after a time. Regimes rose and fell like tides; names, banners, and gods changed as often as the wind.

His thumb moved slowly against her stomach, and she stilled, not in resistance, but in surprise. The sensation was unfamiliar. Intimate in a way she wasn’t used to acknowledging. Her breath eased as she allowed herself to feel it.

After a moment, she lifted her hand, fingers idly tracing along his wrist where the infernal runes lay beneath her touch. She followed their lines with quiet curiosity, neither reverent nor afraid. “Why should I stop you from burning what you please?” she asked softly. “New empires rise from the bones of old as you say. Does it matter if the bones are scorched?”

A faint smirk curved her lips, unseen but unmistakable. “And why do you think I’d want you tamed?” she added.

 

[Azrakar]

Azrakar’s chest rumbled with quiet laughter at her words. One of his orcs sat more upright before settling back down.

"Diplomatic," he echoed, amusement thick in his voice. "I have been called many things across the ages, Vyx. Never diplomatic. You wound me."

The runes beneath her fingertips pulsed faintly in response to her touch, warm and alive. It was as if they acknowledged the rare hand bold enough to trace them without fear.

" Perhaps you do not want me tamed," he said, though she had been quite clear she had needed to claim him in front of her followers.

"You want me aimed. You do not want to be be consumed by fire."

He shifted slightly, the massive arm across her waist adjusting.

"It has been too long since I brought a city to its knees."

The lich clearly hadn't satisfied him and Vyx, too, had only made his hunger worse. He needed to consume.

"What legacy would you leave?"

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria chuckled, low and smooth, the sound threading through the darkness between them like a silken blade.
“Vyx?” she repeated, voice curling with humor. “It’s been decades since someone called me that.” A pause. “Most are too afraid to shorten my name.” There was something pleased in the way she said it. Not quite soft, but… receptive.

Her fingers didn’t stop. They moved with idle ease along the curve of the runes etched into his wrist, lingering, tracing the warmth she felt pulsing there. Curious, almost intimate. When they reached his fingers, she let hers graze lightly along them, noting the heat, the callouses, the immensity of his hand compared to her own. The power coiled just beneath his skin.

Her voice dipped into a whisper, teasing and edged as he continued to guess at what she wanted of him. “Perhaps it’s you who longs to be tamed…just once. After a lifetime of subduing others, it might be novel to be claimed.” She let that hang in the air, a private joke between them, but one laced with barbs and meaning.

Vyx’aria quieted after that. His question lingered, heavier than the air. What legacy would she leave?

She inhaled slowly. “I want a legacy written in both name and blood,” she said at last, her voice no longer mocking but edged with steel. “Something that endures even as kingdoms fall and rise again. If the towers crumble, let the name remain. If the bloodline is hunted, let it still command fear.”

Her fingers curled faintly against his wrist, and a whisper of a grin tugged at her mouth once more. “Let the bards argue over whether I ruled with cruelty or grace. So long as they remember my name.”

 

[Azrakar]

"We will see to it then," he said.

Was she going to kill him in the night and take his throne - as little as it was worth now. Did she have the magical talent to make it permanent.

He was tired from battling the strength of the lich on his own territory. What was life without a little risk? He mused. His captivity had been too long for such minor concerns.

"Maybe it is novel. I have dealt woth drow matriarch's in the past and your approach was...novel," he said, finding no better word.

"I hope you can follow through on your threats. It will all be worth it in the end."

Immortalised in name. She bad the strength of will for it, he thought as he drifted to sleep.

 

[Vyx'aria]

Hours later, Vyx’aria stirred beneath the soft weight of his arm. For a moment, she simply lay there, cocooned in the strange warmth that had seeped into her bones overnight. Her muscles, so often tensed, were loose. Relaxed. She felt… well-rested. A rare sensation for a woman of her kind.

Carefully, she wiggled free of his hold, his arm heavy as stone and just as stubborn. But she was drow, and she was practiced at slipping out of bindings, both metaphorical and not. She rolled onto her knees and rose with a fluid stretch, the arch of her back deliberate. The hem of her armored skirt shifted just enough as she reached overhead, enough for him, should he be watching, to catch a flash of torment and promise. A glimpse. Nothing more.

By the time she bent to rinse her face from her waterskin and begin strapping her armor back into place, her expression was once again cool and composed. Her lips, however, still carried a trace of amusement.

As she fastened her vambrace, she tilted her head toward him without looking.
“Have you ever consider turning your fire northward?” she asked, casual as if discussing the weather. “There are whispers of ice giants in the Spine, monstrous things, frost-bitten and old. I wonder if they remember your name.”

A pause, then a smirk, sharp as a dagger’s edge.

“And if not… perhaps it’s time they learned it.”

She straightened, letting her fingers drum once against the pommel of her blade, ready to descend deeper.

 

[Azrakar]

Azrakar had not slept deeply. His kind rarely slept into deep, sleep producing sleep. When she stirred and slipped free, he let woke fully and watched her.

He watched her rise and stretch with unblinking crimson eyes. He saw the deliberate arch of her back. This time he didn't offer the satisfaction of a sound. She knew exactly what she was doing, and he savored the precision of her cruelty.

Only when she began armoring herself did he move, rising in one fluid motion to tower behind her once more. The camp stirred around them. Drow were gliding silently to their posts, orcs grunting as they shouldered packs. No creatures lingered around the camp.

"Ice giants," he echoed.

"Is that who has taken route in the north? The spine is almost a relic. A handful of dwarves still digging, no kingdoms bother to try and reclaim it."

"Northward then. Digging dwarves out of their mines takes resources. They'll lock themselves away and we can march on."

He slowly unfurled one enormous hand, then tapped a finger on his chin."

"Yes this could work."

Giants were not always the most intelligent of creatures. They could be stubborn. Ice giants were powerful creatures. He would need raw power to match human armies if they still knew how to make war.

He straightened, gaze sweeping the tunnel ahead where faint geothermal warmth pulsed.

"Lead on, Vyx’aria. The deeps await... and we have an entire spine of the world which needs to be reminded of my name."

 

[Vyx'aria]

The descent was a slow, spiraling path of slick stone and ancient heat. Steam hissed from cracks in the earth, and the deeper they went, the more the light of Azrakar’s smoldering presence felt necessary rather than ornamental.

Vyx’aria was about to issue another command to her forward scouts when a shuffle of sound made her pause. She held out a hand, signaling the column to halt. “…That’s not a predator,” she muttered.

A moment later, the source revealed itself.

A squat little procession emerged from a side tunnel like a caravan lost on the way to a market stall. Deep gnomes. Four of them, no weapons drawn, no fear in their steps, just big ears, bigger noses, and the world-weary expressions of traders who had seen everything and cared for none of it.

The one at the front, wearing a dusty violet hood and several belts too many, squinted up at Vyx’aria with an intense, studious expression as if trying to place a name to a face he hadn’t seen since some surface-world scandal.

Vyx’aria’s brow twitched. She stepped forward and bared her teeth. "If you breathe a word of this to anyone," she said, voice low and deadly, "you and your kin die screaming."

The gnome blinked slowly. Twice. Then scratched the side of his nose with one grubby finger. "...So is that a no on the gems, then?" He nodded behind him, and one of his companions immediately opened a crate full of glittering baubles, cracked sapphires, and suspiciously warm opals.

"Good rates. Two for one on cursed amethysts if your, uh… manservant here carries them himself." He added, staring at Azrakar with mild curiosity.

Vyx’aria blinked, then slowly exhaled through her nose.

 

[Azrakar]

Azrakar halted at her signal, the column of orcs and drow falling silent behind him. The distant drip of water and the shuffling of the orcs were the only sounds until the gnomes came into line of sight.

It was remarkable how silent the drow were compared to the orcs. Simple standing still, he couldn't even hear a breath.

He watched the deep gnomes emerge with mild curiosity. A flicker of shadow and he was a male drow, standing subservient at Vyx’aria's shoulder.

He grew interested at the mention of gems. He remembered a time when kingdoms had brought fine jewels as a tithe to keep him at bay. He felt a flash of greed.

"Of course I am at her Lady's command, but I would rather not handle a curse without knowing what kind?"

If there was one thing lower than a male drow, it was any other species.

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria sighed to herself when Azrakar almost eagerly stepped forth.

The gnome leader stared up at her after the male drow addressed him. The other gnomes stared open-mouthed, not accustomed to seeing such a tall male Drow towering over an already tall and imposing female. She tilted her head and let the silence stretch long enough to imply danger. Then, with regal detachment, she drawled, “Proceed.”

The gnome lit up like a fungus lamp.

“Yes, right, thank you, my lady! We've got a dazzling variety today,” he chirped, motioning for his assistant to haul open a battered case. “Each with a guarantee of some form of magical efficacy. Minor side effects. Mostly minor.”

The assistant, a twitchy, bespectacled creature with wild tufts of hair, began pulling out gems and rattling them off with far too much enthusiasm. “This one summons water!” he declared, holding up a cloudy blue shard. “Pure spring water, clean as the mountains! But, uh, repeated use may cause… ah… intestinal distress. Severe belly gurgles.”

“And this one!” The gnome now held aloft a pulsing yellow stone. “The Gem of Endless Light! Shines brighter than the sun itself for six hours straight. Only drawback is it does start to sear the flesh of whoever’s holding it. But quite popular with spelunkers!”

The next was a lump of crystal that gave off a faint musical hum. “This gem,” the assistant said reverently, “translates animal speech! Unfortunately, only in the form of orcish opera.”

Vyx’aria pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Ah! But now for the real beauties,” the leader said quickly, seeing her patience wear thin. He gestured to a velvet-lined box, revealing a set of exquisitely cut stones- violet, emerald, obsidian, and glimmering silver, each one etched with natural mineral whorls.

“These were pulled from the Dyar Caverns,” he said with surprising reverence. “Undergems. Said to form in places of ancient death and slumber. The one there,” he pointed to a deep crimson stone threaded with black, “is a fireheart geode. Warms the skin to the touch, even in the deepest cold. The green is a whisperstone, said to catch the last words of the dead when held close to the ear.”

He leaned in, whispering dramatically, “One once spoke to me in rhyme for six days straight.”

Vyx’aria stared at him. She turned to Azrakar with dry amusement glinting in her gaze. “If you want trinkets, choose quickly. Otherwise, I’ll feed them their orcish opera translator and see what noises come out.”

Azrakar

 

[Azrakar]

“This gem,” the assistant said reverently, “translates animal speech! Unfortunately, only in the form of orcish opera.”

Behind her, Azrakar had to grimace. He tilted his head down and covered his mouth. It was perhaps the single most amusing phrase he had heard in five hundred years.

He wanted those dearly, but speaking again would draw attention. He could live with Vyx’aria's ire and punishments, but not with the gnomes attempting to detect illusions.

Vyx’aria stared at him. She turned to Azrakar with dry amusement glinting in her gaze. “If you want trinkets, choose quickly. Otherwise, I’ll feed them their orcish opera translator and see what noises come out.”

"Is both of those things an option?" he enquired.

He bowed nice and deep, keeping his eyes on the floor. Was this, he thought to himself, good enough for how a make drow behaved? It had been a long time.

"The fireheart geode perhaps," he said. There wasn't much magic in it, but he would need every drop to transform the forge of the deep dwarves.

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria caught the flicker of his reaction despite herself, the faint hitch, the barely restrained grimace at the mention of orcish opera. Her face didn’t change. Not a muscle. But the corner of her mind filed it away with quiet satisfaction.

She gave a small, imperious nod. “The fireheart geode,” she echoed, as if confirming an already-made decision.

The gnomes all but vibrated with relief, hands darting to wrap the crimson-veined stone and slide it across with reverence. Vyx’aria waited until it was safely in Azrakar’s possession before adding, casually, “Oh and throw in the opera gem. Two-for-one, wasn’t it?”

The gnomes blinked. Then grinned.
“Of course, my lady! Of course!” the assistant chirped, already stuffing the offending stone into the trade pile with far too much enthusiasm.

As the exchange finished, Vyx’aria leaned in just enough that the lead gnome stiffened, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous murmur. “You lot been granted passage through Zar’Ahal?”

The gnome shifted. Scratched his ear. Shifted again. “W–well… no, my lady,” he admitted at last. “Queen Dalrithia’s been burning the settlements. Ours too. Pushing outward. Toward Bhathairk under-city.”

Something dark curled behind Vyx’aria’s eyes. She straightened, the sound she made more a growl than a breath.

She turned away without ceremony. “Run along.”

The gnomes didn’t need to be told twice.
They resumed their march, boots crunching softly against stone.

After a few steps, Vyx’aria flicked her wrist and casually tossed the animal-speech gem back over her shoulder to Azrakar. “Don’t say I don’t spoil you,” she remarked dryly.

 

[Azrakar]

Azrakar caught the tossed opera gem with one hand, turning the small, iridescent stone over in his palm as the gnomes scurried back into their side tunnel.

In his glamoured drow form, he kept his posture deferential: eyes downcast, shoulders slightly bowed. The faint curl at the corner of his mouth betrayed his amusement.

She was observant and cruel. A sharp tongue dark elf of ambition and desire.

He slipped the gem into a pouch at his belt, voice pitched low for her ears alone as the column resumed its march.

"Spoiling me already?" he murmured, falling into step just behind her left shoulder.

He was far back enough to maintain the illusion of subservience for any lingering gnome eyes.

"You may come to regret this when I find an opportunity to use it. Orcs prefer stories to singing. An opera would be an acquired taste. A shame we won't find a flock of sheep down here."

The fireheart geode rested heavy in his other pouch, its subtle warmth already pulsing in rhythm with his own.

"This geode..." He patted the pouch lightly. "...I will expend it's magic when I work upon the duergar forgets"

Azrakar inclined his head, the picture of loyal deference.

"Dalrithia burns toward Bhathairk," he said quietly, tone shifting to something more serious.

"A queen expanding her reach while we walk her shadows. Opportunity or obstacle?"

He glanced sideways at her, crimson eyes gleaming in the gloom.

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria didn’t answer him at once.

She walked a few more paces in silence, boots whispering over stone, the underrealm opening and closing around them in slow, ancient breaths. His words lingered and her mind turned them over a few times over.

At last, she glanced sideways at him.

“To what end?” she asked quietly.

Her pace slowed just enough that he was forced to match it. Her voice was calm, but the tension beneath it was unmistakable. “I could reclaim Zar’Ahal,” she continued, more to herself than to him. “Take back the throne that was stripped from me. Rule again.”

A pause. “But my reach would end there,” she said. “The underrealm is vast… but it is still a cage.”

Her jaw tightened. Her ambitions had outgrown it, and she could feel that truth now, pressing against her ribs like something that wanted out.

She stopped walking and turned fully on him then, eyes flashing red as she fixed him with a hard glare. “Why?” she asked sharply. “Do you have an opinion on this?”

Azrakar

 

[Azrakar]

He drew to a halt and fell into silence. He wouldn't shirk from that glare. He held it. There was a weight of age, experience and ambition behind his own gaze.

"No," he said finally.

"I have little insight on the city and it's position."

Nor on your past, he did not say.

"It is easy to say that the your kind are the main obstacle to the drow waging war on the world. I have two questions for you."

"If they are scouting surface cities are they a threat to our plans for the Spine? If they overreach can you bring more drow to your side?"

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria didn’t flinch from his questions, nor from the weight of his gaze. She held it just as fiercely, the glow of the forge-light catching the angles of her face and gilding them in quiet resolve.

“The surface has always been a target for our raids,” she said at last, voice even. “But nothing more. We strike, we vanish. We do not hold. That is the flaw in every House that has ever dared reach for more. They bleed in the sunlight. They go mad under the stars. The Spine? The Spine is snow, light, wind…death to drow who’ve never seen the sky.”

Her fingers tapped once on the stone beside her, a thoughtful rhythm. “But should it come to that,” she continued, “we’ll have something no other House ever did. A forge powered by infernal flame. Weapons that sear through steel, runes that whisper in the dark. That’s the kind of fire even Matron Mothers can’t ignore.”

A faint smirk curved her lips.

“Especially when Queen Dalrithia is busy making enemies of her own allies. That kind of recklessness... is an opportunity waiting to be carved open.”

Their footsteps echoed as they pressed on, silence falling again until they reached the overlook.

Vyx’aria stopped.

Below them stretched the vast city of Dhubnor, a marvel of obsidian architecture and subterranean might. Towering stone structures rose in sharp spires, each etched with runes that pulsed faintly. At its heart, the Forge Crucible roared like a captive god, rivers of molten light running through iron channels and lighting the undercity in hues of red and gold.

She gazed out over it with something like hunger in her eyes.

“There it is,” she said softly.

 

[Azrakar]

Azrakar came to a halt beside her at the overlook, the heat of his presence a steady counterpoint to the forge-glow rising from the city below.

For a long moment he said nothing, simply letting his gaze sweep across Dhubnor. He had never seen it. The obsidian spires marked a city that had been designed around the forge. The influx of metals and the export of weapons. It could be defended easily too.

"Beautiful," he rumbled at last. His voice converted resonant, genuine appreciation.

He turned his head slightly, crimson eyes finding hers in the crimson light.

"You took this alone," he said, not a question, but quiet acknowledgment.

A slow, predatory smile curved his lips. "Let me stand at the mouth of the forge. Let me breathe new fire into it."

"You want me to wait here or at the city's edge whilst you find its guardian?"

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria stared out over Dhubnor in silence. The glow of the forge lit her in fractured crimson and gold, as if the undercity itself recognized something kindred in her. She didn’t smile at his question. But her eyes softened, just slightly.

“Not alone,” she murmured, barely louder than the breath she exhaled. “Never alone.”

It wasn’t a correction. The words carried pain from the followers she lost along the way.

When he spoke again, she glanced at him sidelong, the corner of her lip tugging upward into a crooked, knowing smirk. “There are few things that nettle a drow female more than a lone male prancing about unclaimed,” she drawled. Her fingers flexed, recalling the sharp weight of her blades.

“You, Azrakar, are going to make a delightful nuisance of yourself.”

She turned fully now, eyes glittering. “While you prance around as if you own the place, I’ll move into position while she’s distracted. It’ll be a quick, clean kill.”

She glanced down at the gemstone she bought for him. “You may even use that,” she said, and the smirk bloomed into something wicked. “An orcish opera would grate on her nerves even more, and I’m sure the rats skittering about have a lot to say.”

Azrakar

 

[Azrakar]

"And when did you come up with this plan?" Azrakar mused. The question was rhetorical.

He had known the taste of loss, but he was a truly selfish creature. His own imprisonment hurt him far more than losing any of his followers through any of his reigns.

His own lips curved in a slow, fanged grin that promised exactly the chaos she described.

"A delightful nuisance then," he repeated, tasting the phrase with evident pleasure.

"I have been called worse. Consider me leashed to your whim," he said.

He plucked the opera gem from his pouch, rolling it between clawed fingers until it caught the forge-glow and sparkled like a tiny, malevolent star.

---

"What...what is he doing?"

A small group of duergar talked in their own language. On the other side of the street, passed the rails for carts full of ore, was a dark elf male on all fours.

"I am trying to find a group of them!" he called back in their own language.

The bravest of the group walked forwards and change into a reasonable use of the dark elf tongue.

"Could we...help you?"

The hatred in his voice was evident. They disliked drow intensely, but now they were forced into working for them.

"Indeed!" Azrakar called, turning around and standing straight. He had borrowed a short sword from one of Vyx’aria's dark elves to complete his appearance. Iron and steel were so resistant to magic and hard for him to even conjure as part of his appearance.

"Go and tell your mistress I have summoned her. I am Az'a'drehk of House Kilsett."

They blanched, but one started running.

"Now..." Azrakar turned back to here he had found some rats beneath one of the storage buildings. He decided to test the gem.

 

[Vyx'aria]

A sound rose that should never have existed. It was song, if one could call it that, bellowed in harsh, guttural Orcish, stretched and warped into something theatrical and profoundly offensive to the ear. The opera gem flared, translating the frantic squeaks of nearby rats into full, resonant verse.

“SCRITCH SCRATCH IN THE DARK WE RUN,
STEAL THE GRAIN, OH SWEET FUN,
TAIL IN GREASE AND TEETH IN SACK,
BITE THE BOOT, THEN SCURRY BACK!”​

The melody lurched wildly, swinging between war chant and funeral dirge, punctuated by dramatic vibrato where no vibrato had ever belonged. Several duergar clapped their hands over their ears. One dropped his crate of ore. Another whispered a prayer.

Then came the shriek. A female drow burst from a side passage, white hair flying loose, eyes blazing like coals. She was so furious she was compelled to use verbal speech.

“WHAT BLASPHEMY IS THIS-” she began, then stopped dead as she spotted him. Her gaze raked over Azrakar, from the blade to the audacity of his posture. “How,” she demanded in Drow, “did you wander into Dhubnor, male?”

Behind a stack of heavy crates, Vyx’aria slid into position, her movements silent, precise. She pressed her back to the cold stone, peering through a narrow gap as the scene unfolded.

The opera continued, now adapting to Dhunbor’s ward.

“DARK WOMAN OF STONE SMELLS LIKE OLD CHEESE-”​

Vyx’aria winced, her sensitive ears tormented.

I am going to murder Azrakar, she thought flatly. And then possibly her. I haven’t decided the order.

She drew in a slow breath and let the noise fade into the background as her focus sharpened. Magic gathered in her palm, dark and dense, shaping itself into the sleek outline of a spear. The air around it hummed softly, restrained violence waiting for release.

Her eyes locked onto the raging drow woman.

Keep her distracted, Vyx’aria thought, teeth grinding as the opera hit another crescendo.

Azrakar

 

[Azrakar]

"It is not so bad," went Azrakar.

He gave a small shrug. Art was, after all, an expression of creativity. He didn't know if the orcs had ever conducted an opera of if this was the notion from a deranged wizard.

He had to resist comment on the rat's opinion of her scent. He needed to keep her distracted and engaged. Enraging her to the point that she went for a killing strike would force him to reveal himself.

"I can only apologise," he said. He offered a deep bow, though he never dropped his gaze from her hand.

There was polite and there was so stupid you simply invited death.

They stomp our nests and steal our cheese, the filthy, stinking cheats!

"A piece of magic that has gone wrong. I was simply here to deliver a message."

We'll bite their toes and piss in boots, we'll gnaw their packs to shreds.

Even for Azrakar, the discordant collection of voices was starting to grate on his senses.

"If you permit me a moment, I will try and find the charm I dropped."