The Coquette and the Thane

PART III | Chapter XXVIII

3:28 | Of Peacocks and Puppy Dogs

“He what?!”

In retrospect, the inauspicious messenger cringing outside Desper’s bedroom door considered that perhaps agreeing to wake the fairy captain at such an early hour, rouse her groggily from her bed and demand her attention only to inform her that her most valuable prisoner had gotten free was not actually the best of ideas.  He shifted his weight, suddenly exceedingly anxious in the face of the tiny, fuming fae woman before him.

“He…he just disappeared cap-”

“Oh,” she cut him off, “…oh no, Kramer.  Clouds disappear,” she corrected icily, her hair amuck but her eyes sharply dangerous.  “Stars disappear when the sun rises in the sky and alcohol disappears when you put it in the center of a table surrounded by a bunch of carpet-chested, unwashed and trouble-hungry sailors.  Human.  Boys,” she gave each of the two words heavy, seething emphasis, “…on the other hand, do not ‘disappear.’  They.  Escape!”

Something crashed – or perhaps shattered – in the background at the enunciation of her last word, and the messenger, Kramer, gave startled jerk without meaning to, and then quickly cleared his throat to cover up for his insecurity.  “Ah, well, yes ma’am, but he-”

“Get.  Out of my way you incompetent,” She shoved by him as she spoke, knocking the air from his gut with impressive force for someone just over four feet tall, “…useless piece of cow-tongued, addle-brained muscle mass.”

“Er…” He blinked uncertainly after her as she stormed into the hallway, still loosely clad in a plain, oversized and formless nightgown.  “Cap’n…your…clothe-”

Whirling around in an about face, she swept back towards her chambers, and he watched in wisely kept silence as she slammed the door in his face, conducted some amount of moving about inside said chambers which resulted in no insignificant amount of colorful curses and rather gruesome sounding torture threats, and emerged approximately thirty seconds to a minute later, fully dressed – if a touch sloppily – and cross as a mother harpy with her eggs stolen.  At least this time he took console in the fact that she seemed to have forgotten about him entirely, and he followed at a wary distance when she started down the hall.

Minutes later, Dergund greeted her in her “office” a tucked away corner room, sparsely decorated, dark, and all but uninhabitable except that they didn’t intend to stay for long, so that made it bearable.  Cautious, he lingered by the door when he first arrived, standing in the frame and eyeing his captain from a distance, judging her mood. 

She sat in the room’s only chair, rocking it back on two of its four legs, her eyes shut, features folded into a scowl and legs crossed, propped up on the rickety desk before it.  As he watched, she repeatedly shoved her fingers tersely back through her short-cropped hair – it barely reached past her ears – closed her hands into fists, and then let go a moment later, as if tempted each time to rip it all out before deciding against it at the last minute.

He cleared his throat, and she dropped her chair with a crack onto all four legs, her hands landing flat on the desk before her.  “Derg.”

“Yes, captain.”

Something in her relaxed, and he stepped into the room.  “Are you any better informed at this point than I?” she asked, all business; her hair looked like a bird’s nest, and he pursed his lips.

“I don’t believe so, cap’n, but I don’t know what you’ve been told.  I know the boy escaped.  The lock wasn’t damaged, in fact it was still locked and securely in place when the guards came to feed him this morning.  He was just…gone.”

“Close the door behind you.”

He closed it.

“Anything else?” she asked.

“They found a boy unconscious in one of the servants’ halls that they use for trash disposal.  They could barely wake him.  I hear it took several buckets of cold water before he came jerking to and afterwards he was all astutter…goin’ on about a witch-boy who could carry light in his hand and a dark-”

“Wait,” Fern cut him off, lifting one hand from the desk pointedly.  “Where is this boy now?”

Derg blinked.  “The uhh…witch boy, cap’n, or-”

“No, no, no,” Fern snapped impatiently, “…the servant, of course.  I assume we have access to him?”

“Yes, captain,” Derg responded quickly.  “He was one of the smaller deck hands we brought with us on our last voya-”

“Good.  See to it that he’s brought to me immediately.”

“I did, captain.”

She looked up, surprised.

“They’ll be bringing him in short order now,” he continued.  “I told them that you would likely want to speak with him as soon as you’d been roused.”

She gave a tiny, twitch of a smile.  “How comforting, then, to know that not my entire crew is nauseatingly incompetent.”

“Thank you…captain.”  Silence fell between them for a long moment; her eyes drifted about the room and he watched her, followed the movement as she lifted a hand to rest her chin on it, two fingers coming up to cover her lips.  Then, sharply, her gaze flit back to him, and her eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch.  Suspicious.

“What are you looking at?”

His attention darted up from her mouth to meet her stare.  “Nothing…” A pause, “…er, captain.”

Lips pursing, she leaned back in her chair and dropped both arms to fold them over her chest, keen yellow eyes weighing him critically.  “I see.”

“It’s…your hair, captain.”

Her eyebrows jerked up, thoroughly startled.  “My hai-”

“It’s quite a mess.”  He stepped up, approaching her desk as she huffed, flabbergasted, in his general direction, but he continued, undeterred.  “If I may speak freely…captain?”

Her already narrowed gaze sharpened further, but after a strained, elongated moment, she clipped, “Speak.”

“I was your friend before I was your subordinate, Fern,” Dergund said, using her name but speaking quieter with respect to his current status with her.  “I knew you before you were ‘captain’ or even ‘Desper’…and I can honestly say that sometimes…men have trouble fully respecting people with bedheads that make them look as though an eagle just quit nesting there.”

Outwardly, she rolled her eyes, but her stance weakened, and she kept still as he came around behind the desk with her, clearly brooding, but saying nothing as he reached out and flicked his fingers efficiently through her hair.  He tamed the wildest stray bits first, tucking them down and into place while simultaneously paying particular attention to making sure it didn’t come off that he was touching her for any other reasons outside strict business.  After a moment too long, she scoffed, waving her hands back at him and swatting him away.

“Alright, alright,” she snapped.  “I’m not a peacock.  Surely, whatever you’ve accomplished is sufficient.”

He let his hands fall to his sides and eyed her thoughtfully, taking a step back.  “No,” he said after a moment.  “No, you are most definitely not a peacock.  Quite the opposite.”  When her eyes darted to him, subtle hurt just glimpse-able under a mask of irritated indifference, he blinked.  He hadn’t meant it as an insult to her appearance, but clearly she’d taken it as a slur on some level, and he hastened to correct himself.  “I didn’t mean that to say that you weren’t beau-”

“Shut…it, Dergund,” she retorted crisply, “…before you dig yourself into a deeper hole.  I don’t need to be beautiful to run a ship.  Men don’t respect pretty things.  They don’t respect silly things.  They don’t respect eyelash-batting, faint-hearted heroines who trip on their heels with the hopes of falling into the waiting arms of some dashing savoir.  The instant something opens itself to being available as a fuck toy, it is henceforth viewed as nothing but…and I have no desire to step into that category.  So.  If you would.  Back.  Off.  Go and…” She swept her hand in the general direction of the door, “…stand back over there where you were and don’t dare think to touch me for the next several days.”

Dergund cleared his throat, cheeks hot, and dipped his head, already moving back.  “Yes, my la—captain.”

He wanted to say that she was beautiful, whether she liked it or not.  That she was a woman, regardless of what she wore, said, drank, or how she threw her authority around and scared men into corners.  It was part of her, no matter how she hid and ignored and denied it, and not all men viewed women entirely as objects of sexual gratification.  But he knew the words would fall on deaf ears if he dared speak them.  He cared for her, and he found it better to stay by her side and watch over her – protect her, even, though she would be infuriated if she knew he ever thought of it in those terms – than to give up and allow her to live her life as solitarily as she seemed inclined.

In any case, it wasn’t as if he stood a chance to hope for much more than that.  Pretty fairy court maidens didn’t fall for ugly, battle-scarred orc soldiers, particularly not runaway fairy court maidens turned bloodthirsty, swashbuckling she-pirates.

The door opened, and a lanky, matted-haired and dirt smeared servant boy tumbled jelly-legged into the room.  Without the support of the two men dragging him in, he fell, shaking, to his hands and knees before he reached the center of the room.  Captain Ferna Desper laced her fingers before her, drawing calculating eyes in a quick, once-over swipe to take the boy in.

Then, she said, “Your name?”

“Ah—uhh…my…” He swallowed, and cleared his throat.  “Delan.  Miss.  Ma’am—cap-”

“Recount to me everything that happened to you last night, start to finish.”

“Ev—mm…everything?” he repeated uncertainly, and Fern held back an eye-roll, scowling instead.

“Everything,” she repeated with clearly strained patience, “…that you think I might possibly give one tiny, stinking rat’s arse about.  I’m looking for a missing prisoner, not looking to find out how many times you pissed, shat or stubbed your bloody toe over the course of the night.”

Cheeks lighting up like a red festival lantern, he swallowed again and nodded awkwardly, inclining his head.  “Y-yes…yes, ma’am.”

“Start.”

He did.  Shortly thereafter, she cut him off.

“Wait.  Explain to me, again, the part where there were two boys, not one?”

He blinked.  “Ahh…there…were…two boys?” he repeated, tentative.  “I…I don’t know how else to explain that bit, ma’a-”

“Describe them to me.”

“Oh, umm…well…there was one – a bit bigger and…strange lookin’-”

“Strange?”

“He had skin like…dark, like mud or somethin’, an’…hay colored hair, but…he was strong, too, like hard strong, and he held me dow-”

“And the other?”

“He was mean.”

Fern pursed her lips, disapproving, and the boy blushed.

“He was the smaller of them two…slighter like, and pale…but he seemed to have his head about him better I guess.  Like there wasn’ nothin’ could scare ‘im, and…the bigger boy…he did ever’thing told to ‘im, all obedient and quick like, though…I think maybe it irrita-”

“Tell me more about this second boy,” Fern said.  “I heard you said something about him using magic?”

“He lit the halls, ma’am…they didn’ have no light on ‘em and when they startled me, I lost mine, but he kept it all right and bright – well, not bright, bright, but bright enough sos we could see ‘n that – and he was the one who put me out, like…said he was gonna and I didn’ wanna but next I knew there was icy water bein’ chucked at me-”

“Did they say anything about where they were going?  If they were meeting with someone?  Do you have any idea how the mage got into the complex?”

“Er…no ma’am, not that I reca-”

“Ylle brihnne,” Fern swore beneath her breath, and the boy blinked.

“Ma’a—?”

“Take the boy away!” she snapped, louder, and the two original handymen moved forward, instantly dragging the startled boy to his feet like a weightless ragdoll.  “Go…toss him in a cell for while…” The boy chirped, a wordless, helpless sound of objection at the injustice, “…let him stew on the consequences of traitors who aid the enemy.”

After the sputtering, wholly confused boy was taken away and the door shut in his wake, Dergund frowned and cleared his throat.  Fern, currently pinching the bridge of her nose, didn’t so much as spare him a glance before speaking.

“You have something to say.  Say it.”

Derg shifted his weight, vacillating on how exactly to word himself.  “It’s just…I can’t imagine that boy had much of a say in the matter…captain.”

“No…” Fern responded immediately, letting the word drag out as she lowered her hands to the desk before her and splayed her fingers, eyeing the surface critically as if there were a map spread out upon it, “…I can’t imagine a boy like that would have the strength of will or self to have much of a say in any matter where there was someone who might stand to oppose him.”

Though he tended to agree, Dergund pursed his lips, but said nothing.

“On the other hand,” For the first time since inviting him to speak, Fern lifted her head and met his eyes dead on, “…he looked like an abused rat, too weak on his feet to be of any use as a servant today, and I couldn’t very well give him a day off for helping my prisoner escape.  A day or two in a cell, however…off his feet, fed proper meals, given ample opportunity to lay in his cot and ‘contemplate his actions’…”  She tilted her head, inviting him to see her logic, and Dergund blinked.

“Every now and then, captain,” he said finally, “…you do impress me.”

The corner of her lip twitched up, and her eyes darted back down as she shook her head.  “Shut up, Dergund, truly.”  She pushed to a stand, her chair scraping against the hard wood floor as she did, and when she glanced to him again, the reluctant smile on her lips seemed to climb, all of its own accord, into something bright and laughing.  Bringing a hand to her mouth, she forced her gaze away, shaking her head again.  “An arse kisser,” she asserted stubbornly.  “That’s exactly what you are.  A bona fide, brown nosing, arse kisser.”

He watched her as she came around, heading towards the door.  “Only yours, Des.”

“Didn’t I say something about you and shutting up?”

“Should I get word out that the meeting with the boy’s brother should be cancelled?” he asked, ignoring the comment entirely and following after her as she walked out.

“No.”  Fern shook her head, suddenly all business.  “No…that boy was our strongest asset, not only because he was a bargaining chip, but because he was bait.  So long as the dog still thinks you have its treat, it will come to you.  The less his brother knows, the better.  Besides…the city isn’t that huge, and he’ll probably be inclined to stay in it as long as he thinks he’s safe.  How far can one little boy run off to?”

Carthak City, Unidentified Rooftop

Something hot, humid, and wet huffed through the hair by Rhyan’s ear, dragging his resisting body into a reluctant, befuddled state of wakefulness.  He reached out before fully escaping his sleep state, blindly seeking the source of the disturbance to physically ward off his unwelcome caller with his open palm.

“Go…away,” he groaned groggily, aching all over and increasingly more irritated with his conscious state every passing second, “…I don’t want…who—?”

When it registered that his palm had contacted fur – warm, bristly, coarse fur, attached presumably to a living, breathing creature – his mind jerked into awareness as sharply as if electrocuted, and he snapped his head around.  Finding himself, quite literally, nose to nose with the largest dog he had ever had the misfortune of seeing even from a distance, let alone up close, Rhyan screamed.

Or, more accurately, he choked on a scream and promptly snapped his hand over his mouth to muzzle it the next second because, as soon as the sound left his mouth, the beast barked at him.  The deep, guttural booming seemed to shake its entire body, opening its mouth and baring its teeth – which looked fully capable of ripping through copious amounts of flesh or snapping bones without much effort – and Rhyan’s heart, already stuttering at an unnaturally heightened pace, threatened to suffocate him in his throat.

He was going to die.  Right here, right now, he was going to be eaten alive by some salivating, flea infested, stray all because no one saw fit to detain it properly.  He’d have his throat torn out, his face mangled, his fragile bones crushed like eggs under a brick, his-

A high pitched, piercing whistle sounded.

As riveted as the beast’s attention had been a second before, it broke instantly, and Rhyan watched, dumbfounded, as it bounded off towards the source of the sound-

Zyric.

“Hey, Bobo!” the blonde greeted enthusiastically as he finished climbing over the lip of the wall and onto the roof, his smile broad and friendly as though the thing hadn’t just tried to turn Rhyan into its morning meal.  “Whatcha doin’, huh big puppy?  Did’ja miss me?” 

He was touching it, ruffling his hand over the beast’s head to shuffle its ears back and forth, and – to Rhyan’s open shock – the thing just stood there, happily accepting the treatment, tongue lolling out and dripping drool.  After some short period, Zyric’s attention lifted to settle on Rhyan, and his smile widened further to a grin.

“Hey, you’re awake!”

“Nyuhh…”  Realizing he was still on his back, half propped up on his elbows and trembling from the shock of his waking near death experience, Rhyan blushed hot.  “I…uhh…”

“’Bout time,” Zyric continued unawares, apparently completely oblivious of Rhyan’s shell shocked state and fully happy to ramble cheerfully on without any intelligent input on Rhyan’s part.  “I fetched us some breakfast.”  That explained where he was returning from, at least.  “Did you meet Bobo?” 

Rhyan swallowed dryly, attempting with limited success to reign in control of his motor functions and racing pulse.  “Bo…?”  Surely, Zyric hadn’t named it…

“Not sure what his real name is, o’course,” Zyric admitted, “…but it didn’t feel right just calling ‘im ‘Mr. Big Dog’ all the time,” and Rhyan shut his eyes.  Scratch that, of course Zyric had named it.  “He came over ‘n said hello to me this morning…I’m guessin’ he musta been sleepin’ up here already, prolly on the other side and we just didn’t see ‘im.”  Oh, gods, he was coming closer, and the thing was following him.  “He’s gotta belong to whoever lives here, or so I’d suppose, ‘cause…”  Zyric trailed off.  “You alright?”

“Nnnh…”  It was an embarrassingly meek sound.  The thing was looking at him again, salivating, panting, coming closer, and Rhyan sort of wanted to curl up into a ball and disappear in a puff of smoke.  He scrambled to sit up and stand instead.  “No, don’t…come any nearer, just get—keep that…beast…away from me-”

Zyric’s eyebrows jerked up, baldly surprised.  “What, the dog?  You’re scared of ‘im?”

“Sca—?  No!  N-no, I’m…of course I’m not scared,” Rhyan insisted.  “It’s just…he…it…”  Closer.  Fuck.  The backs of his heels hit brick – the low wall circling the roof – and a small sound caught in his throat as the beast continued to approach despite Zyric stopping.  “Zyric…” he called warily, the thing far too close for his comfort already when it leaned down, head lowering nearly to its forepaws, and Rhyan’s body, already tense, went rigid as a plank.  It barked.  “Zyric!”

Zyric whistled, calling it back, and Rhyan sank – not weak-kneed, no – just relieved, against the low wall behind him, elbows on the lip holding him up.  In front of him, Zyric tisked at the beast, stooping to a crouch and wrapping one arm around its neck, presumably to keep it from going for Rhyan again.

“Heya, Bobo, what’s up with you, huh?” he scolded lightly.  “Rhyan ain’t a baddie…he’s our friend, you hear?”  There, he leaned down, whispering something close to the dog’s ear as if diverging secret information to the animal, and Rhyan pursed his lips.  His irritation mounted as Zyric continued, eyes flicking every now and then to Rhyan before he’d cup his hand over his mouth and conspire again with the dog.

Eventually, Rhyan caved, fed up.  “What in the stars’ names do you think you’re doing?” he clipped, and Zyric looked up, all wide-eyed innocence.

“What?”

“You—with that-”

“C’mere,” Zyric invited, casual, and Rhyan tensed again, gripping the side wall.

“What?”  He shook his head.  “No.  No, I will not go anywhere, not so long as that…animal-”

“If you introduce yourself,” Zyric said, “…he’ll like you better.  Now c’mon…come over and show him your hand.”

“So it can bite it off?”

“So he can sniff it-”

“I don’t think so,” Rhyan clipped back.  “I’m not putting my valuable body parts anywhere near his slobbering maw and…fangs…so just…just take the dog-”

“He was here first,” Zyric reminded him, much to Rhyan’s chagrin, and when Rhyan opened his mouth again, Zyric continued.  “And anyway, he won’t hurt you…”

“He tried to eat me just this-”

Zyric burst out laughing, and Rhyan grit his teeth.  “Eat you?”  Clearly, the other boy was failing to take him seriously.  “Sorry,” Zyric cleared his throat, obviously struggling to reign in his snickers, “…I just…okay.”  He drew a breath.  “Look…I know he’s big…but he’s not mean-”

Rhyan opened his mouth.

“-just look at his tail!”  Zyric patted the dog’s rump, just ahead of its enthusiastically swaying tail.  “All that wagging means he’s happy,” Zyric emphasized.  “And if you want more proof, check this out…”  Without a second’s hesitation, Zyric – already crouched – rolled completely onto his back, flopping back and tapping his chest.  “C’mere Bobo,” he called, and Rhyan stared, wide eyed as the beast clamored atop him without hesitation, and Zyric didn’t so much as tense.  Quite the opposite in fact, he tilted his head to the side, giggling and laughing as the thing lapped freely at his neck and chin.

Rhyan struggled and failed to drag his eyes away.

“Okay, okay, get…off,” Zyric grunted as he pushed the dog off, still snickering.  “You’re fat, big buddy,” he accused, but the dog didn’t seem to mind, and he moved off accordingly after some amount of shoving, allowing Zyric to sit up.  “So.”  There, Zyric’s eyes turned on Rhyan, devilishly amused in a way Rhyan absolutely did not trust.  “Your turn.”

Something stopped up in Rhyan’s throat, and the sound he made probably wouldn’t have passed as a word in many circles.

Seeing his continued hesitance, Zyric rolled his eyes.  “Come on…you said you weren’t afraid.  Where’s the big, powerful, wooogity boogity magician boy I met a few days ago, huh?”  Rhyan narrowed his eyes.  “Look here,” Zyric insisted, “…if he makes a lunge for you, I swear to our Great Mother, I will body tackle him to the ground, wrestle him into submission, and put my life on the line if need be to ‘protect’ you from his slobbery, drooling, umm…sharply fanged clutches.  Or whatever.”

“‘Or whatever,’” Rhyan repeated disbelievingly.  “You begin a sentence with a vow to the Mother Goddess and end it with ‘or whatever.’”

Zyric grinned sheepishly.  Rhyan wanted to kick something.  Or throw a rock at it.  Instead, he broodingly stepped forward, still wary, and he kept his eyes locked on the beast despite Zyric’s arm securely wrapped over its neck and back, ready to hold it at bay.

“Good, like that,” Zyric encouraged, “…now come in slow and crouch…and hold out your hand-”

“B-”

Before Rhyan got anywhere with his objection, one of Zyric’s hands closed over his own, drawing it forward, and his sentence dried up, his face blooming pink—because of his nervousness about the dog, not the fact that Zyric was cradling his fingers like a man might catch the hand of a lady at court before drawing it to his lips.

“Rhyan?”

Rhyan’s eyes jerked almost violently upward, to Zyric’s face.  “Yes.  What?”

Zyric blinked, his wide blue eyes striking and entirely too innocent.  “You all there?” he asked, and Rhyan grit his teeth, diverting his gaze.

“Yes.  Of course I’m all here,” he clipped, blatantly irritable and forcefully zeroing his concentration on a loose chip of concrete some odd number of feet away.  “Wherever else would I be?”

Carelessly, Zyric shrugged and Rhyan watched the motion out of the corner of his eye.  “I dunno.  Somewhere.  Off in…Tillylana Land.”

Rhyan frowned and looked back.  “In what?”

“Nothin’,” Zyric hastened to correct himself.  “Made up place.  Stupid.  Umm…my m—ah…my mother used to…mention it, when I was really little just to get me to go to sleep, tell made up stories and-” Zyric cleared his throat, the lines on his face suddenly more acute, his every motion tenser than a moment before.  Abruptly, he shook his head.  “Just, nevermind.  Forget I said it.  Bring your hand in closer…”

Silently, Rhyan catalogued the moment, focusing on the way the happy, carefree aura that Zyric carried about him like a cloud seemed to evaporate in an instant, replaced by something sadder.  Quietly wounded, even.  He let Zyric lead his hand closer without complaint.  Humid, warm breath huffed over his fingers, and seconds later a wet, coarse tongue lapped out, tasting his invading hand.  Instinctively, Rhyan grimaced.

“See?” Zyric said softly, smiling – though, for once, the look didn’t entirely reach his eyes.  “No biting…he ain’t mean.”  Rhyan nearly forgot his repulsion with the saliva on his fingers when Zyric dipped his head, hiding his face for a moment in the coarse fur at the back of the dog’s neck as though curling into the animal for support, clinging to it.  Barely audible to Rhyan’s ears due to its softness, he whispered, “Good dog…” and it was the first time Rhyan felt powerfully compelled to offer support of his own – in whatever form was needed – to banish the hurt in the heart of another person.

A moment before he opened his mouth, Zyric’s fingers tensed once, briefly, and then he let go of the dog and stood, taking Rhyan with him.  “We should go,” he said, his eyes on the ladder they’d scaled the night before, avoiding facing Rhyan entirely.  “Whoever lives here will be coming up soon, and-”

“Zyric-”

“-they prolly wouldn’ be too happy t’ find us here-”

“Zyric…”

“-lollygaggin’ about on their property without-”

“Zyric.”

The blonde’s eyes darted around to his, his expression half guilty, half anxious.  “Yeah,” he responded, “…what?”

Rhyan shook his head.  “What’s wrong?”

For a moment, Zyric’s eyebrows knit together, his frown complex and thoughtful, and when he opened his mouth, Rhyan expected an answer.  Then, though, he shut it again, reluctant, and he shook his head.  “Nothin’.  It’s nothin’.”

Rhyan pursed his lips.  “Obviously,” he stressed, “it is not ‘nothi-”

“It ain’t nothin’ fer right now, a’ight?” Zyric snapped it.  Or, the closest thing to a snap Rhyan had experienced from the typically easy going boy thus far, and his surprise must have shown, because an instant later, Zyric’s shoulders sank.  “I didn’ mean it like that.  Not to be harsh.  I just…it’s…I don’t need to be worryin’ you over it now and it’s…personal, and I jus-”

Rhyan swallowed and then shrugged, shaking his head.  “No, it’s alright,” he said.  “It’s perfectly alright.  If it’s personal, it’s personal, I won’t…” He drew a breath, “…push it.  And…I certainly don’t mean to upset you further.”

After a long moment, he reached out and uncertainly, almost awkwardly, placed what he hoped was a comforting hand on Zyric’s shoulder.  Zyric, for his part, blinked, at least doubly surprised as he was by the action.  A second later, he gave a short, curious laugh, and his face broke into the closest thing to a genuine smile since the first dip in his permanent good cheer.

“So,” he said, expression gently teasing, “it can make human contact after all.”

Rhyan’s uncertainty vanished in the face of a tight-lipped scowl, and he withdrew his hand to fold his arms over his chest.  “I’m just unused to seeing you looking like anything but a bubbling ray of sunshine, goodness,” he defended himself.   “You’re always so sickeningly happy.  It was unnerving to have it disappear that quickly.  You go from…rainbows and sugar plums to…moping about like a puppy who lost his mother, and I-”

Zyric’s fragile cheer crumpled, and realization hit Rhyan like a lead weight to the gut.

Oh.

By the time his breath caught up with him, Zyric was at the ladder, and over the edge.

“Fuck…” Rhyan swore to himself.  “Brilliant job, Rhyan,” he hissed.  “Flawlessly handled.  Way to be personable.  And I wonder why I don’t have any friends?  No.  No, this is exactly why…” 

He followed after a moment later.

Carthak City, Western Quarter Tunnel System

In the first second after the knock on the door, Kedean swore he felt Baisyl’s annoyance like a tangible force.  Barely a flicker of it, but very real and very there, in addition to and yet entirely separate from his own emotions.  And then just as quickly it vanished.

“Yes?” he called, not yet moving from his position on the bed, over Baisyl, and Natara’s voice answered from the opposite side of the door.

“Oh, you are still in there.  I hadn’t thought that you would be by now, still…but Jerith suggested that I check.  He’s requested to see you and-”

Kedean heard the door start to open, and his first, overpowering thought was that she should not come in.  Before any warning left his mouth, though, a ripple of energy pulsed through the room, and the door slammed forcibly back shut on her from a distance.  The crack of its wood, the creak of its hinges, and her startled sound from the other side suggested that it had not been a gentle push, either. 

“We’re busy,” Baisyl snapped immediately afterward, answering the ‘what,’ ‘where,’ and ‘why’ portions of the question.  At Kedean’s sharp look, Baisyl grit his teeth and reluctantly amended, “Very well, technically we’re ‘not presentable at this time’…” and Kedean shut his eyes, but kept his wince to himself, “…making it a particularly inopportune moment for you to enter the room.”

After a short pause, retreating footsteps marked her departure without comment, and Kedean sighed.

“Thank you, Baisyl,” he muttered beneath his breath, “…for that…eloquent warning.”

“Sarcasm,” Baisyl observed thinly.  “You don’t use it often, but you use it well.”  In a quick, efficient motion, he slid out from under Kedean, threw his legs over the lip of the cot and stood up off the bed.  “So you would rather it if I had…let her into the room?” he asked, his tone clipped and precise, and as Kedean watched, Baisyl called various articles of clothing to him, lifting them up with a twitch of his fingers from their folded place in the opposite side of the room where Kedean had stacked them the night before and drawing them to him through the air like miniature flying carpets, effortlessly, as if this were something he did every day. 

“Let her walk in to see me,” Baisyl continued, “…naked as the day I was born with you looming over me-” He drew on his underclothes and pants and then shrugged into a loose, buttoned white top and coat and tugged sharply on the front lapels to straighten them, “-cock hanging proudly out like you’d just finished-”

“No,” Kedean cut in gently, and then frowned, inherently aware of Baisyl’s irritation, evident in both his stormy expression and rigid, mechanical body language.  He put himself together and stood from the bed, following Baisyl’s lead in starting to dress.  “I wasn’t…suggesting that you should have let her in.  It was…good that you kept her out.  It’s just, I…”

Impulsively, he caught Baisyl’s hands, stilling them on their way up the front of his shirt as he buttoned it and silently brushing them aside to take over the job for him.  Deciding not to continue his train of thought in the direction it inevitably lead – i.e., defending Natara’s right to civil interactions in front of a piqued and openly cross Baisyl – he changed tactics.

“I’ve never seen you use so much magic at once.  I thought you could only accomplish very small feats?  Now you’re calling your pendant to you without blinking an eye, slamming doors shut from twenty feet away and summoning your clothes from across the room…”

Baisyl blinked, as if the change in his behavior hadn’t so much as registered with him.  “I…suppose I did that all automatically.  I didn’t put much, or…any thought into it.  But you’re right, I don’t usually…”  Trailing off, he frowned and glanced down to his fingers, examining them as if they held the answers to his question; answers capable of being unearthed through study.  “It started this morning,” he continued after a moment, musing aloud.  “It was different this morning than it’s ever been before, more…natural…as well as just more, period, as though I have a larger source to draw from.  I don’t know how else to explain it.”  He glanced up.  “Does it unnerve you?  Because I can stop if-”

“I was merely curious.”  Kedean dipped his head, brushing his lips across Baisyl’s upturned forehead and taking solace in the familiarity of his skin.  When his fingers finished with Baisyl’s shirtfront, his lover blinked downwards.

“Why did you do that?”

“Do what?” Kedean asked as he straightened, and Baisyl nudged his head down, indicating his clothes.

“My shirt.”  The corner of his lip curved up the barest fraction.  “I am actually quite capable of dressing myself, you know.”

Kedean’s mouth answered the motion, but he shook his head.  “It had nothing to do with my doubting your ability to dress yourself.  You were…” He hesitated, “…frustrated and distracted.”  His hands had been shaking, but Kedean decided to omit that factor.  “I wanted to make sure I had your attention.”  ‘And distract you from whatever was upsetting you.’

Baisyl scoffed softly.  “You always have my full attention.”

Kedean blinked, and a moment later, Baisyl’s neutral expression faltered and he cleared his throat rapidly, dipping his chin as he cheeks warmed and shoving a hand back through his hair, shaking his head.

“That is—I meant, you can always have my attention,” he corrected himself.  “You’re always welcome to my attention.  You need only ask for it.  I won’t deny you an audience.”

Gradually, like something bubbling up of its own regard from his chest, Kedean found himself chuckling, and he watched the steady progression of Baisyl’s expression from subtle embarrassment to something else entirely.  It took him a moment to register that Baisyl was, quite literally, pouting.

“You’re making fun of me,” he accused, blatantly doleful, and Kedean’s chuckle became a grin.

He shook his head.  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said and reached up to fit his hand neatly beneath Baisyl’s chin, “…but I would ask that you do me one favor…” Curving a thumb up, he traced the very slightly exaggerated bud of Baisyl’s lower lip, warm amusement dancing in his eyes.  “You really mustn’t pout, Baisyl…you’re impossibly difficult to resist as is.”

Surprised usurped discontent as Baisyl’s eyebrows arched upwards.  Then, a familiar, at once smug and curious expression took over, curling its way up onto his lips.  “Now…why ever would I want to agree to something silly like that?  It sounds more like a useful bit of information that I ought to keep stowed away for use at a later date…”

Kedean opened his mouth, but Baisyl cut him off with a gentle downward tug at the front of his clothes, his eyes on Kedean’s lips.  Kedean felt his pulse respond to that alone, before Baisyl’s next words even left his mouth.

Then, “Kiss me,” he said, softly.  “You’re too tall.  Have I mentioned that?”

And, smiling helplessly, Kedean answered, “Once or twice, perhaps…” and he dipped his head to oblige. 

Musingly he wondered if it were strange to feel wholly certain that kissing this man came easier than breathing, and that he never wanted to partake in the action with anyone else.  It seemed impossible that anything else could hope to compete. 

That it would be like holding a candle to the sun.

When they broke, they lingered together a moment – chest to chest, hip to hip, toe to toe – breathing one another’s air and holding to each other’s space as if reluctant to lose something in parting. 

Then, Baisyl’s gaze flicked down and sidelong, to the door, and he said, “We ought to go…” and Kedean nodded.

“We should,” he agreed.

“We oughtn’t keep your…acquaintances waiting.”

Reaching up, Kedean drew his fingers lightly through the outermost layer of Baisyl’s hair, taming the stray tendrils upset by Baisyl’s hand a half minute before.  Then, quieter he said, “No…no, we shouldn’t.”

It was Baisyl who took the first step back.  Kedean watched him, thoughtful, and then frowned, something occurring to him again as Baisyl reached for the door.

“Baisyl…”

His lover stilled, hand pausing before the door and then dropping to his side as he turned, gracing Kedean with a shouldered glance.  “What is it?”

“Before she knocked,” Kedean said, “…you were in the middle of saying something to me…or were about to say something.  What was it?”

He tracked the progression as Baisyl looked first considerate and puzzled, next comprehending and aware, and finally uncertain – reluctant and wary in a way Kedean rarely saw him look. 

Finally, Baisyl answered, “It was something that…will be meaningless if today’s events amount to what I fear they will.”  And with that, he stepped out of the room. 

After some frustratingly unfruitful deliberation on what that might possibly mean, Kedean gave up and followed after.

---

A/N: Sometimes I’m convinced this entire story is about gender identity.  Well, that and interclass relations and social conflict, race, and personal identity.  Then I remember I’m writing a story about gay sex, and seriously, where did all that other stuff come from?  Ah, well.  You can tell what I’m interested in outside of the porn world.  ;]

More important: no, Baisyl’s upsurge in magic and Kedean’s foggy ability to sorta-kina feel what Baisyl’s feeling have nothing to do with the pregnancy.  They do have to do with something else that happened that same night (you remember Baisyl playing around with his magic and sinking it into Kedean ‘on accident?’), yeah that.  It’ll be explained properly in the story later.

Also, to answer attackegg’s concern, no, Baisyl’s headache and nausea were not supposed to be pregnancy related.  He really was just hung over.  XD  I’m going to try to use the all encompassing excuse “dragons” as little as possible, since I hate those type of easy escapes.  ;)

Questions!

Does Myles come from the same mother as Baisyl and Rhyan (Anon)? (One from last time I forgot, sorry! *-*)

Yes. I understand why you wonder, but yes, he does, and that will come into play later (believe it or not, he’s actually still important to this story, just shoved into the background atm).

How can Baisyl still be pregnant as a guy (Writer 11377)?

I’ll preface my answer by saying that I never should have gone with the word “illusion” to describe the mechanics of the curse, because in practice I see it working like a fully functioning, co-dominant body type that exists and will continue to exist side by side with his male one until the curse is fully removed.  In that vein, I see it as being subject to, on occasion, certain biological cycles that “trump” even the normal workings of the curse (I’m thinking specifically, before he was pregnant, obviously, when it came time for his ahh…’time of the month’ he could be standing in the rain and still be a woman, because his female body would take “precedence” of sorts over his male one in that particular case since it had specific biological needs to attend to; you can imagine how much that annoyed him).

In that way, I see his body “recognizing” the first time he put the pendant back on after conceiving that it was already carrying the start of a baby and thus keeping all the biological attributes absolutely necessary to grow that baby even as his outer appearances changed.  Sort of a survivalist technique, nature over science/magic and/or the trump card of nature’s endless desire to procreate, yada yada.  (You could argue that technically it should have resisted the change altogether, buuuut…I wouldn’t have a very happy readership if I didn’t let him go back to “mostly” [for all practical purposes] male just because he was pregnant.)

Any further details/complications I’ma lean back on the “it’s magic” excuse.  8D  (Hopefully that explanation made sense; it makes sense in my head.  x___x)