#half-orcs and pale folk is something else too

[aimless-passerby]

The fact there are goblins in lotro who look like hobbits is crazy. Mimicry game is too strong.

[peach-the-owl]

Hi! Hope you are having a great month! If possible can I make a request with a Godling (Godlings from The Witcher) Reader who travel with the Mighty Nein. How would having such a 'powerful' being (child-like) effect their relationship. Also, just as a guilty pleasure how would Lucien react to them-knowing their 'other' self raised/cared for them?

Since there isn’t much seen about godlings a few things will probably be a little more on the headcanon-y side of what I think they’re capable of. Hope you all enjoy regardless 😁

Godlings

Mighty Nein & Godling!Reader

Jester

Her childlike nature was what originally drew your attention to her, enjoying the little pranks she’d pull on unsuspecting folks you watched from a distance at first but drew in curiouser by the day. You were first discovered by the archfey that lingered near her who also liked to stay hidden, making a few rude comments when he practically shoved you into the open for her to see. When you got to know her better, you and Jester spent a lot of time singing songs together or causing absolute chaos, although you certainly were no follower to the "Traveler" and didn’t plan on it anytime soon. You were her new secret friend, always hiding yourself when another member of her party would come along. When you grew comfortable enough you finally decided you would join your friend on her adventures, much to Jester's delight. Everyone else was surprised by your sudden presence in the group, little was known to them about godlings aside from normally living in burrows, you argued that you were just a bird of a different feather.

Nott/Veth

The goblin reeked of an old crone's curse, you making that statement very clear when you hobble out of your burrow, scaring a few people in the group which you appropriately laughed at. At first they thought you could help break the curse on Nott, and while you did have means of breaking curses, this one in particular was cleverly crafted making it near impossible to break aside from the crone who placed it. You agreed to help them locate the witch seeing as you had nothing better to do and they promised food. Nott found you to be quite adorable with those big eyes and tended to be very motherly around you, now you could argue that you were much older then her but you weren’t going to pass up on this kind of free affection. When the curse was lifted you still decided to stick around wanting to see what all this trouble had been about. Newly freed from her curse, Veth still acted as a motherly figure towards you as she had before, and honestly you rather liked it sticking with her and blessing that good life be given to her family.

Caleb

Godlings were secretive and shy by nature yet kind and helpful so long as you gain their trust or you’ve peaked their interest, and Caleb was a very interesting man to you being almost as secretive as you were. When you made your presence known he was shocked to see such a rare being of once presumable myth approach him, but he also didn’t want to lose an opportunity to learn about your kind in more detail. You made a deal, you'd come along with him and he'd get to know everything he wanted about your kind so long as you got to learn more about him and play with the friendly little kitty he had with him. You were a lot more mature then Caleb expected hearing how godlings normally enjoy mischief and merriment, you told him you did like doing all those things but that didn’t mean you couldn’t be serious too. He learned more about you just by watching you interact with everything around you over you simply telling him different facts about yourself, and grew to really appreciate you more because of it. You grew appreciation and learned a lot about him through his interactions too, the stories he told did help some for context on certain things but you much preferred this visual over verbal learning.

Caduceus

You'd been a guardian for the Clay family and their home for generations, providing protection and care where you could, being given food and tools for your burrow as thanks by them. They were respectable folk, caring for the nature of the woods as much as you did. When the strange blight started plaguing your wooded home you did everything in your power to help push it back, but there was something unnatural about it that even you couldn’t hold it off forever. It got so bad that it overtook your burrow, forcing you out, thankfully the Clays were happy to house you, so while most of them left in search of a cure you stayed back with Caduceus still doing what you could to try taming or at least keeping back the plague. When adventurers came along you acted on the defence at first, being calmed by Caduceus to get a better grip of the situation. They were all surprised to see such a rare and normally secretive being like yourself be so comfortable and open once you'd dropped the defensive act, even more so when you asked if you could join them on their travels. Your home needed help, but it certainly wasn’t going to get any if you just sat there and did nothing, you managed to slow the growth of the strange blight hoping it’ll grant enough time for you to locate the cure you needed.

Fjord

Godlings were known to live in more wooded or boggy areas so finding one living by the sea was a rarer sight then your kind themselves were. You liked the sounds of the waves they were calming and you had many pretty seashells to do with as you wished. When you first met Fjord it was because he mistook your sandy burrow as an animals den, boy was he wrong and the reaction he had when you popped out scaring the daylights out of him was priceless. You smelled great opportunity for mischief from this, popping out of nowhere to scare the poor half-orc when he least expected it until one time when you had you realized the ship you snuck onto to scare him was now sailing across the sea, meaning you were now stuck here. Sure you knew how to swim but you had limits to yourself and would never be able to find your way back to shore. With less places to hide you were almost forced to interact with the crew, which Fjord learned made you rather uncomfortable but since you didn’t mind his presence he decided to pull you off to the side and have a privet conversation. Through this conversation you learned a little more about Fjord and started to grow respect for the guy, promising to stop scaring him so much, but not completely give up on it much to his dismay.

Beau

The Cobalt Soul had research on all sorts of creatures and different species that lived throughout all of Exandria, one of the few things they had little to no information on however were the rare and elusive creatures called godlings. They were beings said to have great power but were usual docile unless provoked, they were so rare some thought them to be only creatures of myth. Beau herself used to think nothing much of them until they were assigned to investigate a home that was "haunted" where she met you. Seeing your big bright eyes and pale blue skin was enough for her to see that you were in fact no myth but the real deal. Itching to get more information and payment for ridding the house of its "ghost" problem Beau was determined to befriend you, problem was she could be a bit aggressive and you were a bit more shy then she’d like. However with enough time and patients she was eventually able to lure you out and convince you to leave the home, promising if you came with her she’d be all the protection you’d need. You still didn’t fully trust her but you liked her confident attitude and her more childish side when she was willing to show it.

Yasha

Big, tough and silent, to you the woman was very intimidating, but she was picking the flowers all wrong so you’d have to suck it up and confront her about it. You march your way over to her and freeze when she turns to look at you, she looked confused by your appearance perhaps she didn’t know what you were but what did that matter right now. You start to scold her over her flower picking and to your surprise she apologizes, offering you one as a sorry, you puff out your cheeks and decline telling her that it was sloppily picked, and if she really wanted to say sorry she’d need to learn how to pluck flowers properly next time. To make sure she wouldn’t ruin the poor flowers again you show her the proper procedure to plucking them, when you were done she offered you a daisy, this one having been picked properly you accept and watch as she leaves. You lived life as normal only to one day see the same woman had returned she looked saddened as she plucked up some flowers, you carefully make your way over seeing she was using the technique you taught her. You sit in front of her and just watch until she finally notices you, you first saw recognition for in her eyes, guess she remembered you, but past that you could see pain, like she’d just lost someone important to her. Now that you thought about it she had a similar look to herself when you first met but this was different, it was recent. You pluck up and offer her a forget-me-not which she slowly takes from you and stores away into a little book, the two of you sit there in a silence of understanding before she eventually leaves again, you never even knew her name.

Molly

He discovered you on accident when the circus set up their show tent right over your burrow and you relentlessly caused problems for them. He felt bad for ruining your home so he asked if you’d like to come run away with the circus instead. You were hesitant at first, but his childish nature was oddly alluring and you’d fit right in with all the other crazy colourful characters so you figured why not. He didn’t quite know what you were and he didn’t really care, the two of you enjoying yourselves and causing mischief wherever you went. When the circus disbanded you were saddened because this was now the second home you lost although this group of adventurers were quite the delight in and of themselves. Still all good things come to an end, and losing Molly was the last straw, not only did these Iron Shepherds take away your friend but they kidnapped innocents and one of them actually ate children. All this infuriated you, and once those who had been enslaved were free people saw just how terrifyingly powerful an angered godling could be when the Sour Nest was reduced to nothing but rubble in the blink of an eye.

Bonus:

Lucien

He was almost jealous that the imposter inhabiting his body at the time had befriended such a powerful and mysterious creature. Knowledge on your kind was almost nonexistent, even the Somnovem had little information, this furthered Lucien’s curiosity and uncertainty. He knew his limits but not yours and from what he’d heard this group you were with talk about you could turn from docile to very dangerous if pushed the wrong way. This could spell bad news for his plans if what they said was true, but could also be a useful asset if on his side. Now all he had to do was figure out how to regain your favour…

[starkeaton]

the adventure zone: graduation character list

Well, i accidentally deleted the original graduation character list post, so here i am making another one. Oops. And as always, if anyone has important details i should add then feel free to suggest them!

Here are all the characters introduced in episodes 1-25. Named characters only!

Also i can’t hide spoilers! So, um..... I can’t put spoilers on this one. If you need the version with spoilers try this version of the post that i made on the adventure zone subreddit but youre not missing out on much.

# -EPISODE 1- (19 characters)

Hieronymous Wiggenstaff (he/him): Head of the Hero/Villain school. at least 400 years old. wears shining blue armor with gold accents. also an elf. according to Tomas, he led the charge at the "battle of blood valley", brought the Kingdoms of Rickart and Dawnbreak to a peace treaty, and founded the school. a little boastful, a little prideful, [SPOILERS OMITTED], and overall a pretty good dude.

Higglemas Wiggenstaff (he/him): Head of the Sidekick/Henchperson annex, cranky old elf. has a dog named hero who shows no signs of anything strange at all, ever. 

Gary (he/him): friendly room gargoyle. pseudo-hivemind.

Groundsy (he/him): the groundskeeper. a pretty nice fellow. don't go in his shed.

Hernandez (he/him): beautiful centaur professor of animal handling.

Jimson (he/him): human battlegrounds trainer for sidekicks/henchpeople, world famous featherweight champion, wields a staff. married to crushman.

Crushman (he/him): silver dragonborn with a sickle, and self-described beefy boy! heavyweight blood champion married to jimson. never lost a match for 8 years. full name Frostus Crushman.

Rolandus Fontaine (he/him): former prince, son of deposed king, kind of an asshole, maybe. wears a cape (important detail)

Zana (she/her): "terrifying" tiefling villain sorcerer, friend of rolandus. barkept the test tavern in ep2

Rhodes (she/her): hero ranger, friend of rolandus.

Buckminster Eden (he/him): hero guy. son of "The Iron Lord". their dad is stronger than rolandus's dad. his wiki page says rogue so i think hes a rogue? i never caught that and ive listened more times than i wish i did

Leon (he/him): softspoken buff, bald "fighter" (although i dont remember any clarification on how exactly he fights), sidekick of buckminster, around 28. anyone else keep forgetting he's bald? i keep forgetting it. >!gets sorta-drafted into becoming a falcon for higglemas and so far hasn't done much else.!<

Rainer Michelle (she/her): cheerful villainous necromancer with a floating chair. also, her name is pronounced "rainier" despite not being confirmed as such? travis ships her with fitzroy.

Tomas (he/him): human man with "kind eyes" and a good (psychic???) memory. guidance counselor.

Stewart LeBoeuf (he/him): brawny human man. serves food. there is no joke here, i promise

Mulligan (he/him): teaches potions. mentioned but doesn't appear yet. and we're like 25 episodes in. maybe we'll see him someday

Germaine, Victoria, Rattles (he/him,she/her,???/???): Skeleton crew. They live in the training room i guess, and as a result can never die, because "no one dies in the training room!" (note: someone now HAS to die in the training room). also their races are never explicitly stated but i guess they're probably human? in episode 3 travis brings up something about how many bones are in "the human body" and at this point i think i'm looking too deep into this so i'll just forget about it and you probably should too.

# -EPISODE 2- (9 characters)

Riveau (he/him): halfling, blame-taking teacher.

Mimi (they/them): gnome sidekick who builds cool robot prosthetics

Bartholemus (he/him): owl aarakocra accountant teacher, known for being the best accountant in the land and having a face some might describe as "smoochable". very pro capitalist :’( hope he gets better

Ramos (she/her): goliath teacher of shieldwork. *

Dip (she/her): sidekick, half-orc twin of pip

Pip (she/her): hero, half-orc twin of dip

Festo (they/them): fairy with "beautiful gossamer wings", independent study teacher of magic, loves to party

Snippers (he/him?): Let me tell you my story about Snippers the magic crab. When Travis gave the list of animals that Griffin could choose as Fitzroy's familiar's current form, he listed crab near the start, and this gave me excitement. Now i knew that crab was pretty unlikely but god i hoped that he would choose it. When the list went on- Bat, Cat, Crab, Frog, Hawk, Lizard, Owl, Poisonous Snake, Fish, Rat, Raven, Seahorse, Spider or Weasel- I nearly lost hope. I was hoping so hard that Griffin would choose the crab, but i was ready to accept a non-crab familiar. It was just buried in that list. It wasn't the most useful animal and it was an obscure pick. And as Travis informed him that it didn't have to keep the form for the whole campaign, Griffin said those five words i wanted to hear so, so badly. "Well then it's a crab." Folks, I do not often react physically when something happens in media. But in that moment, i remember very clearly, i fist-pumped and yelled, "YES!!!!!!"

so anyway, Fitzroy has a crab.

Jackle (he/him): kenku teacher of sneakery. creepy dude. apparently knows something about argo? also his name is not spelled "jackal" for some reason. Also in later episodes theyve started calling him "The Jackle" for some reason??? *

# -EPISODE 3- (1 character)

Dakota (they/them): tavern instructor, clad in black/red leather. no race stated? probably human. *

# -EPISODE 4- (6 characters)

Gerry & Tom (she/her, he/him): shopkeepers at barns and nobles who seem to have very bad names. also constantly competing for customers? these guys got dropped faster than the heathcliff quests, which is honestly just sad.

Barb (she/her): the bartender. runs Springs Eternal in Last Hope. has a sweet seeing-eye hawk familiar. 

Jaryd Reginald (he/him): owner of Reginald Ore. Wants the workers to be held responsible for the damage caused by the xorn. (fun fact: originally i wrote down "Jerrod" because i wanted it to sound like a fantasy name, then realized it was probably "Jared" because theyre named after listeners, but i was pleased to find it confirmed that it's actually "Jaryd")

Candice (she/her): A Miner. thought those werent allowed in bars but, i guess not. Wants the mine owner to be held responsible for the xorn's damage.

Jade Johnson Esq. (she/her): lawyer.

# -EPISODE 5- (1 character)

Xorn: a big hungry gem eating guy from the plane of earth Low-Down Deep with 3 arms and 3 legs. why did travis just say "multi-armed" instead of specifying it was 3? who knows! Anyway it leaves

# -EPISODE 6- (3 characters)

Osric (he/him): the man, the myth, the bursar. finally shows up after being mentioned in episodes 2 and 4. he's an elf. 

breeze through the willows (she/her): Pegasus attacked by demons, lost her parents. introduced in ep1 but gets a name here so fuck it. also in ep>!16!< we find out shes a "white arabian pegasus" and i dont think thats a spoiler bc we shouldve really known it from the beginning

Sabor (he/him): Librarian/research teacher. also a TORTLE. Really good at recalling stuff, i guess. kinda reminds me of Tomas's memory thing but i'm sure that's just a coincidence... *

# -EPISODE 7- (1 character)

Mosh (he/him): The goliath blacksmith who welcomes argo into the unbroken chain. Also, and this is specific to the tumblr version of this post, all the characters with an * at the end of their descriptions are also members of the unbroken chain. if someone knows how to do spoilers on tumblr please tell me

# -EPISODE 8-

:)

# -EPISODE 9- (2 characters)

Eeiïäá#æ&éñn (pronounced like "Ian") (he/him?): an imp but without a shitty voice. also happens to not be violent. what a coincidence?

Terence (he/him): a chain devil with a real demonic name. minor boss of the imps. very convincing and very threatening. has the frightening ability to make you zone out during his fight

# -EPISODE 10- (2 characters)

Althea Song (she/her): elf with autumn-orange hair. representative from heroic oversight guild. i'd like to personally thank travis for spelling her name out.

Crabtree (she/her): Artificing teacher. Long gray hair with a long grey beard. no mentioned race, one might guess dwarf but that would be an assumption i suppose. also unbroken chain member, presumably the dwarf argo didn't recognize in episode 7.

# -EPISODE 11- (3 characters)

Marie (she/her): Grey-haired elf woman. She's the school's physician, i guess. Member of the unbroken chain.

Dendra Maplecourt (she/her): Fitzroy's mom. Has hot mint gum, i guess. She was mentioned earlier but i wasn't convinced she was a real person until this episode

Cool Gary (he/him): AYY ITS ME GARYR

# -EPISODE 12-

no new characters again!

# -EPISODE 13- (7 characters hhhyyyuu)

Kale (???/???): Head of the Placement Department, in charge of real world assignments. First mentioned in Ep4 but i missed that the last few times bc it is so brief. Gives exposition about missions i guess????? is that the only reason this chara cter exists

satyr thief (unnamed) (he/him): tries to rob thundermen, dies instantly

Ogre (he/him): teamed up with the satyr. his name is ogre.

Moon (he/him): A Sidekick. small pale sullen guy. no mentioned race. Why is there another FUCKING sidekick WE HAD ENOUGH hhhyuuuuuu

Deanna (she/her): A bigoted centaur with an obnoxious voice. Malwin the Strong's second in command.

Malwin the Strong (she/her): Leader of the centaurs of the scarlet woods. Wants to appease the spirit of the scarlet woods so that thecentaurs of the scarlet woods will be protected in the scarlet woods. Had a relationship with Arturas in the past but their clashes are currently known to get pretty heated.

Arturas (he/him): Leader of the Centaurs of the Valley, i guess. Had a relationship with Malwin. Centaur. Did i mention centaur? i cant think of anything else about this character

# -EPISODE 14- (2 characters)

Calhain (he/him): Human wizard, Malwin's magical advisor. Kind of an amateur wizard in a job high above his skill level. Graduated Wigginstaff's as a hero.

Spirit of the Scarlet Woods: A spirit who requires sacrifice in order to keep Malwin's herd safe and prosperous. Not keen on dubiously canonical combos, i guess. i wouldnt be either. also apparently the sacrifice depends on personal value, not how much value it has to the spirit.

# -EPISODE 15- (2 characters)

Sylvia Nite (she/her): Fitzroy's magic theory teacher at knight night school, who he turned into a catfish by accident. oops!

Chaos (they/them, maybe more): Presumably a deity, gave Fitz his powers and wants him to give in to his chaotic desires. (physical desc: 9 foot tall, iridescent 'mother of pearl' skin, pure white eyes, fine burgundy cloak with gold/onyx lining. their physical form beyond that seems to change every time they show up.)

# -EPISODE 16-

none -w-

# -EPISODE 17-

some demins happened. the big dudes are called "Pit Fiends" and the armored demon ladies are called "Erinyes", by the way. that was incredibly hard for me to figure out the first time, especially without headphones, i thought travis was saying "pig feet" and i just could not discern what the other things were

# -EPISODE 18- (6 characters)

snow on the mountain: shire horse pegasus

storm at sea: peruvian paso pegasus, vehement defender of The Guardian. doesn't have a goofy voice.. but he could have....

thaw of the spring: a winged horse

night of no clouds: a winged hhorse

The Guardian: "An ancient and powerful being that guards the unknown forest." Has protected the flock from demons for many many years. apparently is the voice that was talking to our firbolg in episode 1?

Grey, the Demon Prince (he/him): wants to cause a war, originally wanted to kill hiero and higgs, forces the heroes to build an army to fight his. As "Fauxronimous", he has skin the *color and pattern of* (but not necessarily made of) slate splashed with liquid, pointed ears, sharp teeth, shining eyes, horns of unspecified shape. 12 fucking feet tall. wonder if the slate-looking skin is related to garys. plot twist detected? Also i recently looked at the episode descriptions and found out his name is spelled "Gray", but really does it truly matter?

# -EPISODE 19- (2 characters)

Shabree Keene (she/her): Argo's mom, killed on the Mariah, possibly by the Commodore. Long auburn hair, green eyes. Mentioned earlier but described here, so fuck it.

**Thomas** (he/him): Argo's first mate on the Mariah, as the Kraken, in his chaos-dream. may or may not actually exist.

# -EPISODE 20- (1 character)

The Commodore (he/him): Reknowned hero of the seas, military regalia, great naval hero, presumably responsible for the death of Shabree Keene. No mentioned race. Seriously, they never mention this guy's race. The only thing described about him is how he's dressed and his evil smile. Does that mean he's human? Elf? Dwarf??? Who knows! maybe it just doesnt matter. 

# -EPISODE 21-

none

# -EPISODE 22-

not any of them. not any.

# -EPISODE 23- (1 character)

Ozymondelius (sp???) (it/its): A warforged teacher who just so happens to like war or something? i guess its in the name. only mentioned in this episode, doesnt show up yet.

# -EPISODE 24-

they have a fight in the training room but nobody dies :\\ maybe next time. also no new characters. pog

# -EPISODE 25- (4 characters)

Gherkin (he/him): Tall lankier skeleton, has a scimitar and a merkin, which is a pubic wig... and he wears a jerkin? which i guess is a kind of coat? also i think hes mute 

Tibia (she/her?) : Shorter skeleton with gold teeth, and long canines. i think both of the skeletons are mute actually.

The Lich King aka Gordy (he/him): Rainer's dad. Commands armies of the undead. lives in The Crypt. described as a hooded, skull-faced man with intricate black lines on his face, but changes to a shaved-head man with dark skin and vetiligo. Abandoned as a babby, raised by traveling parents, had necromancy powers, took Rainier in. Not actually very scary at all i don't know why he did the creepy laugh. Kind of a warm fatherly figure actually. hm. also people are speculating Gordy might be short for Gordita and his parents are maybe supposed to be lup and barry but THAT S JUST A THEORY.

our firbolg's father (he/him): A firbolg who lived by the code and was there when our firbolg was banished. Came to respect our firbolg's interest in a new way of life, in his final moments.

TOTAL: 72 NPCS! (well, including 2 extra PCs, i guess.)

Average: 2.88 NPCs per episode.

i was gonna not include the bone-PCs and have it be 69 but our firbolg's dad was just too important to not respect with a spot on the list.

anyway as always make sure to smack me with a blunt object if i forgot any characters!!!!!

[thelastspeecher]

D&D AU - Elf Kid Adventures, Finale

I’m calling this “Elf Kid Adventures” even tho the only person who is a kid for any amount of time in it is Stan, and it’s for like five minutes, because that’s what I called the previous installments of this story arc, here and here.

Do you want some D&D-themed angst?  Here’s some D&D-themed angst!  Plus more McGuckets trying to set up the good ship Stangie.  Enjoy.

——————————————————————————————

              Stan stood in front of Mrs. McGucket, nervously watching as she set out various spellcasting ingredients.  The McGucket parents had finally come up with a way to remove the curse, and Lute had suggested Stan go first.  Thankfully, the McGucket parents insisted that the spell be done without Angie or Lute observing, as they might cause distractions. As such, the siblings were inside the house while the spellcasting happened outside.  Mr. McGucket squeezed Stan’s shoulder.

              “Don’t worry, son.  Sally’s the best sorceress you’ll ever meet.  Even if the curse don’t get removed right, the sit’ation won’t get worse.”  Stan nodded.

              Dunno how much I believe that.  He had never informed the McGucket parents of his orcish heritage, so they were in for a surprise.  If the curse reversal worked properly.

              “All right, Mearl, get over here,” Mrs. McGucket said.  Mr. McGucket smiled reassuringly at Stan, then joined his wife.  “Ready, Stanaximus?”

              “As I’ll ever be,” Stan said weakly, excitement and dread warring within him.  Mrs. McGucket raised her hands.  Stan closed his eyes.  He let out a gasp at the sensation of being splashed with a bucket of cold water. This was quickly followed by all the growing pains he’d had in puberty, occurring at the same time.  He barely subdued the cry of pain at his tusks tearing through his gums.

              “Oh, no,” Mrs. McGucket whispered.  Stan opened his eyes.  The McGucket parents stared at him in horror.  Mrs. McGucket covered her mouth, tears sparkling in her silver eyes.  “Oh, no!”

              “Now, calm down, dear,” Mr. McGucket said quickly. “Stan actually told me not long ago he was the subject of an additional curse, passed down from his father.  This is prob’ly the result of that.”

              “I don’t-” Stan started.  He paused.  The distinctive rasp to his voice was back, as was its lower pitch.  Wordlessly, Mr. McGucket handed Stan a small mirror. Stan looked at his reflection.  A male orc with golden eyes, pale skin, and pointed ears looked back.  Weight he hadn’t realized he was carrying lifted from his shoulders.

              I’m me again.  Stan prodded his tusks, fighting back a smile.  Damn, I was dumb to think staying a kid was preferable to this.

              “Is Mearl right?” Mrs. McGucket asked.  Stan looked up.

              “About what?”

              “That yer appearance is from the curse ya got from yer father.”

              “No,” Stan said.  Mrs. McGucket let out a soft gasp.

              “I messed up!”

              “Should we try to put the curse back on him?” Mr. McGucket asked his wife.

              “No, don’t,” Stan said quickly.

              “Son, ya look like an orc,” Mr. McGucket said gently. Stan took a deep breath.

              It’s okay to tell them the truth.  They love you.  They even gave permission to court Angie.  Not that you needed it.

              “That’s because I am,” he confessed.  The McGuckets stared at him blankly.  “I’m half-elf and half-orc.  When I was a kid, I looked like my mom, but when I got older, I looked like my pops.”  The confusion on Mr. McGucket’s face warped into rage.  He grabbed his nearby staff and pointed it at Stan, the end of the weapon mere inches from Stan’s throat.

              “Leave,” he snarled.  Stan felt like he was being doused with cold water again.

              “What?”

              “Get off my property, boy!” Mr. McGucket roared. Stan looked to Mrs. McGucket for help, but she merely continued to stare at him in shock.

              “I’m-” Stan tried.  Mr. McGucket made a gesture.  Thorny vines burst out of the ground, lashing Stan’s ankles.  “Ow!”

              “You lied to us!”  The fatherly twinkle in Mr. McGucket’s eyes was gone.  “This whole time, you claimed to be an elf, but you were orc.  You pretended to be somethin’ you weren’t.”  At the harsh words from the previously gentle and warm Mr. McGucket, something snapped in Stan.

              “Fine!” he growled, baring his tusks.  Mr. McGucket blanched.  Stan felt a twisted satisfaction in causing the man to be visibly unnerved.  “You want me to go?  I’ll go! After everything you told me, that you never turn down people to help for their race, I expected better from you. But you’re just as bad as all the other elves I’ve met!”  Before he could see the effect of his words on the McGuckets, Stan turned on his heel, fleeing into the woods.

-----

              Stan slumped against the trunk of a large oak tree, staring up at the small bits of blue sky he could see through the forest’s thick canopy.  Desperately, he tried to hold back the tears prickling the corners of his eyes.

              You’re not gonna cry.  You’re not gonna cry.  Sure, the first person who acted like a halfway decent dad to you just chased you away from his home, but-  There was a faint rustling.  Stan reached for his dagger, only to find nothing there.  Shit.  I left my weapons at the farm.

              “Stan?” a voice said softly.  Stan looked over.  Angie melted out of the woods; like her father, she blended in with the trees almost perfectly.

              “I see you’re back to normal,” Stan grunted. Returned to her proper young adult age, Angie sat next to him.  The sunlight trickling through the leaves dappled her hair.  “How much of the shitshow did you hear?”

              “Not much.  But we were watchin’ from a window, so we saw it all,” Angie said.

              “We?”

              “Lute ‘n I.”

              “Great,” Stan muttered.  “The guy who hates me most saw your parents kick me off their property.”

              “Now, I highly doubt I hate ya more than anyone else in the world might,” Lute said, emerging from the woods to join his sister. He was also back to being a young adult. “What about all the people you’ve robbed?”  Stan rolled his eyes.  “Anyways, if I hated you, I wouldn’t have stuck up fer ya.”  Stan’s head whipped up.  “I’m surprised, too.”

              “The second we saw things goin’ south, we raced outside, but we were too late,” Angie said.  Lute sat next to her.  “You were already gone.  And Ma ‘n Pa were fit to fry.”

              “I shouldn’t have been surprised that they were racist.  Elves never treat orcs well,” Stan said.  Angie raised an eyebrow.  Stan sighed. “Present company excluded.”

              “They weren’t upset you were an orc, though they definitely don’t exactly have a good opinion of ‘em,” Angie said.  “They were upset you lied to ‘em.  Tellin’ the truth is important to ‘em.”

              “Then why didn’t you tell them I was an orc the second I started lying?”

              “It weren’t my truth to tell,” Angie said with a shrug.  “And…” She sighed.  “I was worried that yer concern was well-founded, that my folks wouldn’t respond well to the truth.”

              “Thanks for the heads-up.”

              “I’m sorry things went down the way they did.”

              “You should be,” Stan said shortly.  One of Lute’s eyes twitched.

              “Maybe in the future, you should also not try to hide somethin’ this big from allies,” he retorted.  Stan opened his mouth to argue, but couldn’t find fault in what Lute had said.

              “…Fair,” he muttered.  Angie put a hand on his shoulder.

              “Are ya ready to come back to the farm?” she asked. Stan shook his head.  “All right.”  Angie leaned against him.  Stan’s heart began to race.  “I’ll wait with ya until you are.”

-----

              Stan pulled the drawstrings of his pack tight. The bag was fit to burst, filled with enough provisions to last them the trip back three times over.  Angie and Lute had already left the kitchen, apparently because they knew the trick to packing all the food their parents insisted they take. Mrs. McGucket, hovering nearby, swooped in.

              “I do want to apologize again for our reaction to your adult form,” she said softly, resting a hand on Stan’s shoulder. Stan shrugged his pack on.

              “C’mon, Mrs. McGucket.  You’ve apologized a million times.  Where’s that sun elf dignity?” he teased.  Mrs. McGucket smiled.  After Stan had come back with Angie and Lute, the McGucket parents practically fell over themselves in apologizing.  Stan didn’t feel as positively about them as he had before the curse was removed, but he also didn’t feel as negatively as he had when they chased him off the farmstead. He could hear his mom’s voice in the back of his head.

              “There will be a lot of people who have a negative reaction when they first meet you.  If they don’t move on from it, by all means, hold it against them.  But if they try to grow as people, if they work to know you as the wonderful young man you are, let them.  Learning to be a better person is, I think, more important than being born one.”

              “I was never one to follow the sun elf ideals,” Mrs. McGucket said.  Stan nodded.

              “You’d get along with my mom,” he said.  Mrs. McGucket’s smile broadened.

              “From what you have told me, I agree,” she replied. Stan picked an apple off the kitchen table.  “Maybe I’ll have a chance to meet her at the wedding.”  The apple slipped out of Stan’s hand.

              “What?” he asked.  Mrs. McGucket sighed.

              “Mearl said he passed along that you have our blessing to court Angie.”

              “Well, yeah, but that was before you guys found out I was half-orc.”  Stan stared at her.  “You don’t have a problem with that?”  Mrs. McGucket shook her head.  “Really? No concerns about potential future grandchildren having orcish blood?”

              “Look, once Lute stood up for you, Mearl and I knew we had made a horrible mistake,” Mrs. McGucket said softly.  “For him to tell us we were wrong, after what he went through during ranger training…”  Mrs. McGucket trailed off.  Stan didn’t know the details, but apparently, Lute had some sort of traumatic experience involving orcs while training to be a ranger.  Angie claimed that was the reason Lute had hated Stan on sight.

              “Yeah, I was pretty surprised by that, too.”

              “You’re a good man, Stanaximus, half-orc or not. We’d be honored to have you join our family.”  Mrs. McGucket took a hold of his hand.  “Don’t be afraid to try.”

              Why do they keep pushing this?  I mean, yeah, I’d be an idiot to not make a move.  But they won’t stop telling me that!

              “Why won’t you and Mr. McGucket let this drop?”

              “Because I almost didn’t act on my feelings for Mearl.”

              “You didn’t?  With how you and Mearl talk about it, you abandoned your whole life on a whim.”

              “It felt like that, yes,” Mrs. McGucket said with a sigh.  “But in reality, I nearly lost my nerve.  It’s a big decision, leaving your family and everything you know.”

              “Yeah…” Stan said quietly, thinking of the day he left home.  Mrs. McGucket smiled ruefully.

              “Yes, I thought you would understand.”  Stan nodded.  “But I did leave my home for Mearl, and I’ve never felt that was a mistake, not even for a moment.  Don’t allow yourself to have regrets in love, Stanaximus.”  To Stan’s shock, Mrs. McGucket embraced him.  “Best of luck on your journey,” she said in Elvish.  Recognizing the traditional farewell, Stan completed it.

              “And best of joy while you stay,” he replied in Elvish.  Mrs. McGucket squeezed him as tightly as she could, which wasn’t much, given her sylph-like figure and how bulky Stan was.  She let him go.  Stan picked up the apple he’d dropped and exited the farmhouse.

              “It’s ‘bout time!” a voice said.  Stan turned.  Angie stood up from the stump she’d been sitting on.  “Ya took so long that Lute went ahead.”

              “Really?” Stan asked, pocketing his apple.

              “Yeah.”  Angie cocked her head, a ghost of a grin on her lips.  “But I knew you’d be hopelessly lost without a guide, so I stuck ‘round.”

              “I’d figure it out eventually,” Stan said dismissively.  “I definitely have enough food to last me for however long it’d take to find my way back.” Angie laughed.  Stan’s heart melted at the sound.

              “Yeah, Ma ‘n Pa go a bit nuts makin’ sure we’ve got supplies.  Now, c’mon, we can make it back ‘fore night falls, but only if we get goin’ now.”

              “All right, all right.”  Stan walked over.  The two headed into the forest.  “So, Lute’s really not gonna be going back with us?”

              “Nope!  Like I said, he went ahead.  My guess? He’s been so nice to you lately that he wants some time apart.  Can’t lose that important tough-guy image or whatever,” Angie said.  Stan snorted.  “It’s just us.”

              “Good,” Stan said.  Angie eyed him.

              “Why?” she asked warily.  Stan noticed, to his disgust, that his palms were sweaty.

              Really?  Still? I thought I left that behind when I stopped being a kid.  Well, whatever.  At least I’m not a mess of anxiety and hormones anymore.  Stan grinned at Angie.

              “I’ve got a question to ask you.”

[sweetteaanddragons]

The Undying

(Notes and explanations are at the bottom. Warnings for some violence and for canon typical character death.)

The first time he dies is at Alqualonde although he only figures that out later. At the time, the only thing he knows is that one moment there is a horrific pain at the back of his skull and then darkness. 

(Later he thinks, he felt something shatter, but that is a confused memory, not a fact, and so he ignores it.) 

The next thing he knows, he’s waking up in a pool of blood, and Huan is licking his face rather frantically.

Huan springs back and whines the moment Carnistir blinks back to bewildered life, but Carnistir has far more important things to worry about than whatever Huan’s problem is. 

Something is laying across his legs. He’s pretty sure it used to be a person.

He doesn’t recognize them. 

He still looks away.

He shoves himself up onto his elbows and tries to feel the back of his head. His hair is caked in blood, but he can’t feel a bump in his skull, and there’s no noticeable indentation either, so maybe the blood is someone else’s. 

He decides not to think about it.

“There you are!” Tyelkormo’s shout sounds almost angry, and Carnistir is about to snap back that he hasn’t exactly been hiding, he’s been unconscious, and what was he supposed to do exactly, but then his brother actually comes into view, and his face is far too pale for a rage. Tyelkormo’s hand is shaking a little as he rubs Huan’s head, and so Carnistir manages to for once bite back all the things he would almost certainly regret saying later. “You found him. Good dog. Thank you.”

Huan looks absurdly pleased with himself. 

“I assume we won?” Carnistir asks. He tries to yank his legs free from the - obstacle. He tries to forget the sensation the moment he’s successful.

Tyelkormo is there in a moment before he can even attempt to get up. “We did,” he assures him. “Don’t move just yet, let me check - “

“We can’t stay,” he says, half out of logic, half just to be contrary. He’s fine, he’s sure of it. 

Or he will be. He’d just - greatly prefer to be gone.

And it’s sensible, anyway. More of the Teleri will come soon.

“We’re loading the ships up now, and I will help you to one in a minute, but not before I check your head.”

Tyelkormo looks almost ill, and Carnistir wonders if his brother is hurt or if his own injury is truly that alarming.

But Tyelkromo looks fine, and Carnistir is sure he is too. His head doesn’t even hurt anymore.

He insists upon this point for much longer than he feels should be strictly necessary.

Tyelkormo looks doubtful, but he eventually concedes that if Carnistir is capable of insulting him that creatively, he is probably not too brain damaged and can possibly be trusted to stand.

. . .

This is the story as the Noldor tell it, though they do not realize they are doing so:

Sometimes their warriors burn with the power of a storm when they fall.

(They say Feanor burned when he died. Why shouldn’t the rest of them?)

Sometimes a warrior gets up when the healers had lost all hope.

(Manwe’s eagles have proven the Valar have not completely abandoned them. Why shouldn’t other blessings fall as well?)

Sometimes eternal youth is a bit more youthful than others.

(But really, who’s to say?)

. . .

He doesn’t think of it much. Why should he? With all the losses, all the horrors - a blow to the head that was a minor inconvenience at worst is nothing.

He does, admittedly, occasionally hear a buzzing noise with no visible source now. That . . . alright, that had never happened before Alqualonde. Possibly he should have let an actual healer look him over at some point after the ships set sail.

He can try one now, he supposes, but the buzzing isn’t that annoying, and it’s probably been too long to do anything. He can live with it. The Doom has promised far worse than this..

(And if an orc’s arrow hits him during a patrol, and he yanks it out before he can remember just why that’s such a bad idea, and the wound seals over before the skirmish ends - well, elves heal quickly. Everyone knows that. And it must have barely touched him, really, caught more in his armor than in his actual skin.)

(That must have been what happened.)

(And if he thinks, just for a moment that he saw something that looked remarkably like lightning flicker over his skin, then it’s nothing, nothing at all.)

. . .

This is the story as Men tell it before they know more of elves than the whispers of the Avari in the trees:

There are whispers in the forest, and the fey beings that make them are not always kind. 

There are whispers in the forest, and sometimes there are wails. If you follow the sound, you might not come back.

If you do, you will come back with a child.

Or at least something that looks like one.

. . .

He feels the buzzing even before the village of Men he has come to rescue comes into view. He thinks nothing of it until he sees the woman who is leading the Men’s charge go down with a spear in her chest.

This does not change the fact that when the fight is over, she is the one to approach him as their chief. 

He might think he saw a different woman - a sister or daughter, perhaps - but the blood is still thick on her tunic, and a hole is ripped through it where someone tore the spear out. 

The skin visible behind the rip is perfectly smooth.

The buzzing gets louder the closer he gets to her.

He offers her lands partly because he thinks it right and partly because he thinks it mutually beneficial. It is not one’s business but his just what one of those benefits would be.

But she turns him down, so he grits his teeth and at least convinces her to accept aid from their healers because he cannot, will not, leave without at least trying to figure out why there is lightning crackling under both of their skins.

She doesn’t object when he sits beside her outside of the tent the healers have erected to help the wounded. She is sitting in nothing but her undershirt and grimly scrubbing off as much of the blood off her tunic as she can, but the tear still gapes open.

“I can mend it, if you like,” he offers. He does not have nearly as many tools with him as he would at home, but a needle and thread are small enough and practical enough that he never travels without them.

She eyes him a little warily. “I didn’t think your folk’s princes did work like that.”

His cheeks redden a little, but he refuses to acknowledge the implication of insult in her tone. “Everyone has a craft,” he says, and the needle he pulls from his belt must be proof enough for her because she hands the tunic over easily enough.

Sewing is easy. Broaching the subject is harder, but he’s fortunate.

She does it for him.

“I didn’t think your people had any like us.”

“Like what?” he asks, unable to believe it could be this easy.

“Undying,” she says impatiently, as if this is obvious, and he doesn’t want to believe that it can be as all encompassing as she says.

She speaks into his silence. “The first time I died, I was eighteen,” she says. “I came back before the sun rose a degree higher in the sky. I didn’t want to believe my brother when he told me. But then he grew, and I - “ She gestures at herself.

He has seen her brother among the dead. He is not good at guessing Men’s ages, but her brother had looked old enough that he had mistaken him for her father.

“I guess your people don’t notice as much,” she adds thoughtfully, and she’s right. That much, at least, is a relief.

He is almost done mending the tear. He slows his work in case she leaves when he is done. “Are there others?”

She shrugs. “I’ve met one or two before you. I felt a third, but I couldn’t find them.” 

He thinks of the buzzing, like a warning before a storm, and knows exactly what she’s talking about.

He’s not sure whether it’s better or worse than a brain injury. 

He looks down and realizes that the tear is entirely gone. He hands the tunic back to her, his stitches nearly invisible.

She blinks at it.

She wanted it mended. He mended it. Why is she so surprised?

She doesn’t leave yet though. 

“You should know,” she says, “one of the one’s I met died. Head cut off by an orc. I don’t know if it was the weapon or the beheading or what, but you should know. Don’t get careless.”

He has no intention of doing so.

She stands to go, but she still lingers just a little. “There are stories that it’s something to do with your people, you know,” she says, almost too casually. “Since you don’t age, and there are rumors that if you die you’ll come back. Some people think you steal human children and switch them with your own, and that’s why we’re like this.”

The absurdity of this finally shocks him out of his silence. “Why in Arda would we do that?” he demands. He can’t imagine what he would want with a human child, or what would possess him to abandon his own should he be blessed with one.

Her lips twitch. “I have no idea. And it doesn’t make much sense if you’re like this too, and it’s not normal for your people. Still. Someone’s got to be leaving babies in the forest, and it isn’t us.”

For one horrible, horrible moment, he thinks that somehow Men have managed to get this far without figuring out where babies come from.

But her look is pitying, not naive. “You didn’t know?”

“Know what?” he demands.

“Our kind never have children,” she says. “And we’re never born properly either. Not where anyone can see us. We’re always just . . . found. Haldad found me at the edge of the forest as we travelled, and he couldn’t just leave a baby there, of course, so he took me in.” She shrugs. “All the others I’ve talked to have said the same.”

That’s not possible.

It’s a story her father had told her as a child, it must be, a story to cover some more terrible or awkward truth. These others she’s found must have been playing along or -

He doesn’t know. All he knows is that his father certainly didn’t find him at the edge of any woods.

“Who are these others?” he demands.

He is certain of the answers he will find, but still -

Still. He needs to ask.

. . .

This is the story as the Haladin tell it, as the legend of the woman who led them grows:

Their chief’s spear is as strong in her hand now as it was the day she first took it up and led us on to victory. She is just as swift, just as fierce, and just as beautiful because -

Because she is beloved of an elf, so he kissed her and preserved her youth forever -

Because she is blessed by the Valar, so they endued her with their light to show their favor -

Because the spirits of our honored dead dwell in her to give her strength -

Because she fought death and won -

Because -

Because.

. . .

What convinces him, in the end, are the dwarves. Dwarves are not in the habit of lying to spare children’s feelings. Words are sacred to them, and though they will lie, they do so only in great need, never for small politeness’s sake.

He has been trading with Vili for decades, considers him a friend and is considered one in return, and Vili still swears him to secrecy three times before he lowers his voice and whispers of a dwarvish smith who is blessed by their Maker. 

He has to swear a further three times not to tell Telchar where he got his information before he tracks him down.

In the end, Telchar demands no explanations. The buzzing is enough.  

His story is no more reassuring than Haleth’s.

Even if it is true for the dwarves - even if it is true for Men - it doesn’t mean it works that way for elves. It doesn’t.

No matter how many times he tells himself that, he can’t help wishing Amil or Atar were here to tell him just how ridiculous he is being for even entertaining this notion.

It’s nothing. It has to be. It -

. . .

This is the story as the dwarves tell it, though they tell it only to their own people, trusting no others:

Long ago, Mahal made our fathers from stone.

When he is pleased with us, or when he knows our need is great, sometimes he takes up his old tools again. He leaves his work in mineshaft and mountain passes for a blessed family to find.

The children he makes are strong and long-lived, and they unleash their wrath upon their enemies when they die. 

. . .

Dear Maedhros,

Don’t you dare laugh at me for this, and don’t ask questions. 

Were you there when I was -

Do you remember -

You would have told me if -

I look like Atar, don’t I?

He crumples the letter up in his hand and tosses it into the fire.

It’s nonsense, and he won’t spend any more time on it.

. . .

He hears Haleth is dead. In battle, he hears.

He doesn’t ask if she was beheaded.

(She is decades older than Beor was when she dies.)

. . .

He wakes up in a pool of blood at Doriath.

Celegorm is lying across his legs. 

Celegorm does not wake up.

Neither does Curufin.

Dior does not wake up either. Caranthir cuts his head off anyway because he woke up in a pool of his brothers’ blood, and it was Dior’s sword buried in Celegorm’s stomach.

Celegorm had been standing in front of him. Celegorm had been protecting him. If he had just told him, told them - 

There is a buzzing in his head.

It is not anyone he hoped it would be.

It’s just a guard, one in Doriath’s uniform, and it is almost painfully easy to remove his head.

For just a moment the whole world is fire.

It’s only his imagination that the lightning brings forth a surge of power in his veins. It’s only - 

It’s nothing.

He staggers to his feet and goes to search for Dior’s children and tells himself that the sensations flickering at the edge of his mind have nothing to do with this decision at all.

He finds Maedhros.

Neither of them find the children.

(At Sirion, he is very careful not to make the same mistake again. He saves the children and tells himself it is entirely his own idea, or, if not, that the only other originator is Maglor.)

(He still loses two more brothers.)

. . .

This is the story as the Valar tell it: They don’t. Whether this is because they know too much or too little is anyone’s guess.

. . .

“We could still steal them,” he says without enthusiasm when the Silmarils fall into the hands of the victorious army from Valinor. The Oath is a burning goad within him, when he pays attention to it, but mostly it’s hidden behind the burn of the lightning in his veins.

(There had been another two, at Sirion. Another two that had buzzed with lightning till the very end.)

He can ignore the Oath. He wants to ignore the Oath although he tries to tell himself he doesn’t.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to see it fulfilled, he does.

It’s just -

He wonders, if he takes up a gem, if his brothers’ Oaths will recognize him as kin.

He doesn’t want to find out the answer.

“We would do more ill in the keeping than the breaking,” Maglor says, and he looks impossibly weary as he says it.

He tells himself that’s why he’s making this argument.

That, and no other reason.

But Maedhros will not surrender, will not flee, and Maglor will not argue with him, so he trails after them and lets them be the first to pick up the SIlmarils. 

Maedhros burns without a hint of lightning of his own will, and Caranthir wishes he had fought harder to forget the gems, forget the Valar, and just drag them all somewhere impossibly far away.

Maglor throws his into the ocean, and Caranthir’s Oath burns, but he is so, so relieved that Maglor never pressed his refusal to touch it.

(“Do you remember the day I was born?” he asks when the night is dark, and the only Silmaril within even the illusion of reach is the one shining high overhead.

If Maglor is curious about the sudden topic, his voice gives no hint. “I remember getting the letter,” he says thoughtfully. “I wasn’t there at the time, of course, I was already training in Alqualonde. Why?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says.

It doesn’t. It can’t. It won’t.

He’ll make sure of it.)

. . .

Notes: So yes, this is a Highlander crossover. I elected to keep the Game out of it since knowledge of it doesn’t seem to be instinctual to new immortals which implies to me that it’s something imposed upon them/created by them, not something that necessarily has to be implicit, so in this AU, the Game has not yet begun. Caranthir will not be impressed by it when it is.

He will, on the other hand, be privately amused by Methos. When anyone asks, he will assure them that other immortal is, indeed, the oldest Man alive. No one ever quite catches the particular emphasis he puts on that word.

(In this AU, Fingon finds Gil-Galad in the woods. Caranthir studiously avoids noticing all possible implications. He also avoids Gil-Galad.)

[thepetulantpen]

Class Swap AU

(Yeah, this doesn’t really fit any of the prompts, but I wanted to do a class swap so I suppose it’s day 7 of @widofjordweek . Late, I know, but here’s the intro to what could be a longer fic. Featuring barbarian!Fjord and rogue!Caleb.)

People don’t usually think much of Fjord. He doesn’t look nearly as strong as he is, doesn’t act nearly as angry as he can be. He’s polite, mild-mannered- a half-orc of average build, working an average job on the docks.

He spends a lot of time listening and watching, laying low. He doesn’t want to be bothered and doesn’t want to lose control of himself- his abilities should not be exploited by people so naturally obnoxious that they think they can annoy him into a rage.

It’s this way of life that means he’s the first to notice the newcomer at the docks.

The stranger lurking around buildings in dark alleys is a small thing. Swamped in a dark, sweeping cloak, with the hood pulled over his head. Skinny, and pale, from what snatches of skin Fjord can see.

Fjord would peg him as a simple thief, but he never seems to stray too close to people. He doesn’t stick to one place either, flitting between buildings, so he’s not casing something. Maybe he’s following someone? Maybe he’s an assassin- though, that might be a little too exciting for a port town.

After a week of him lurking, and Fjord spotting him in new hiding spots, Fjord’s thin sense of self-restraint loses the battle against his curiosity. His shift ends and he loiters around the docks, waiting for the stranger to move from his sentry position, perched on a nearby rooftop.

It only takes a few minutes- Fjord glances up and finds the figure gone. There’s a shadow another alley over and Fjord follows it. He’s not as stealthy, but he’s in plain clothes and he has a good smile for anybody he passes- nobody looks at him twice.

He manages to duck into an alley and loop around, so he’s behind the cloaked figure, squatting next to a wall, pressed close to the stonework. Fjord grabs the back of the cloak and the collar of the shirt beneath and pulls, dragging them a good distance before they can even yelp.

“Hey,” he starts, shoving them up against the wall, “Who are you?”

The- he’s pretty sure it’s a man, is human. Small and pale, like he saw, with red hair peeking out of the hood as it slides back. A black mask is pulled up over his nose, which doesn’t cover brilliant blue eyes, wide and surprised.

“What’s it to you?”

Fjord shrugs, which makes the stranger’s face- the half he can see- scrunch, around a frown or snarl. “Don’t know yet. You’ve been stalking my dock, though.”

“You saw me?” He curses in a language Fjord doesn’t know- or, he assumes it’s curse, from the way he spits it.

“I don’t think anyone else did, if that makes you feel better.”

“It doesn’t.” He wipes a hand over his face, pulling the mask down with it to reveal a very exasperated frown. “It means they could’ve seen me.”

“They?” Fjord asks, followed by silence. He lets go but doesn’t step away, crowding him against the wall without restraining him. A new question, then, the first that comes to mind, “Are you an assassin?”

“No. I just- I’m tracking this-“ he waves his hands, vaguely, like he’s looking for a word, or irritated with Fjord’s ignorance.

His accent is pretty thick- maybe he should give the benefit of the doubt and assume there’s a language barrier.

“Organization? Cult? Secret government agents?”

He groans, putting his head in his hands for the count of ten, then raises it, reluctantly. “Do you know of the Cerberus Assembly?”

Cerberus? That sounds... somewhat familiar. “The fancy folks harassing magic people?”

People in uniforms have been congregating around the wizard tower for days now, trying to find a door to knock on. They’ve left notes and, on one memorable day, tried shouting. Fjord doesn’t know the wizard, obviously, but he respects the man’s patience- if it were him, he would’ve started cracking skulls some time ago.

“Right, that’s... mostly right. They’re corrupt, rotten, and I’m going to help fix things.”

“By assassinating them?”

“No, I’m not suicidal.” A glint in his eyes, narrowed to severe, says it’s not far out of the question, despite his denial. “I’m going to steal something very important from one of their leaders.”

It sounds, to Fjord, like he might as well just kill someone. Sure, he’s not an advocate for murder, but he’s pretty sure it’d honestly have less ramifications than stealing, in this case.

Nonetheless, he nods, following so far. This is the most interesting thing that’s happened to him in a long time. Working the docks is fine, but there’s a barely restrained energy, that can’t be released hauling ship parts.

“Do you have a team?”

“A team?”

“Yeah,” Fjord shifts, a little self conscious, “It sounds like this is pretty major. You’ll need backup, at least.”

He squints at Fjord skeptically. “Are you offering?”

He shouldn’t be. This is stupid, even for him, and he’s not exactly... good at precision. Not like stealthy, cloaked assassins. Still- bored, restless, impulsive.

“Sure. Just tell me what you need me to do.”

The thief’s mouth twists into a weird frown, confused and displeased at once. Fjord gets the impression that he might be backed into a corner- literally and figuratively- because he relents, after a moment. “Fine, just meet me here. Tomorrow, at noon.”

He slips out of the small gap Fjord left between himself and the wall, as if there was nothing in the way at all. Crouching- to jump up, Fjord thinks- and pulling up his mask, he faces the wall, and the window sill above them.

“Wait.” Fjord grabs his sleeve, stopping him. “Can I get your name, at least?”

There’s a pause long enough that Fjord thinks he’ll just escape again, apparently not heeded by Fjord’s clumsy attempts, but he sighs and faces Fjord. “Caleb Widogast.“

He doesn’t need to see his whole face or be an expert on body language to know that’s bullshit, but he doesn’t get a chance to ask. Caleb hops up and grabs the sill, hoisting himself up and onto the roof, disappearing over it.

He’s already gone, but Fjord calls out after him, to be polite, “I’m Fjord! It was great to meet you.”

He swears he hears a distant laugh.

[monstersandmaw]

Orctober #3 - male half-orc x male character (nsfw) ‘Bait’

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

Orctober stories One and Two are up on Patreon (linked below), and this has been previewed on there too, and has had some truly wonderful comments that just made my day, so there might be a part two in the offing now. We’ll see.

Anyway, it’s a bit different in terms of format - it's not a reader insert, but I hope that doesn't matter.

It's a whopping 6914 words long, and I had an absolute blast writing it, so I really hope you enjoy reading it!! I know that 'Josslyn' is a female sounding name, but it's what this prince wanted to be called, so that's his name. :) I think it suits him anyway.

1. 'Ring' - male orc (Liam) x plus size female reader (very light nsfw) 2. 'Mindless’ - female orc (Khara) x male reader (nsfw)

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A silver-trimmed banner caught and snagged in the night breeze as the crown prince strode along the battlements of his father’s castle. The old king’s words still rang in his ears and he ground his teeth, breathing hard and fighting the urge to shout, to yell, to cry. Where was the man who had raised him? The man who had played with him, taught him to ride his first pony, and helped him with his tutor’s tasks when he’d struggled? The man who had taught him the meaning of the ideals of justice and loyalty, of servitude to the people? How could old age ravage a man so much in the mind while taking so little from his body?

The king was in his seventies, having had Josslyn later in life than many had expected, after his first queen had died in childbirth, leaving no heir. The king had the body of a man ten years younger, but the mind of a man a decade older. Joss had tried to keep his father’s unpredictable nature hidden from the council and from the people, and so far all that they had suspected was that the long-running war with the orcish peoples in the neighbouring kingdom was taking its toll on him, forcing him to become harder, stricter in a time of strife.

A guard nodded his resepcts at him as he passed and muttered, “Highness,” to which the prince responded with a small smile and a bow of his head as he swept past, his long, night blue cloak swirling behind him, the wind lifting his long black hair off his face.

A shout and commotion from the courtyard below brought two guards hurrying to his side as he peered down from the wall, but he waved them away with a gentle gesture and watched as a tall, rather bedraggled figure was hauled out from the guards’ supply room in the outer bailey and dumped in the freezing mud beside the castle well. Spear-tips were poised at his throat immediately, and as the flickering light of a wrought-iron brazier illuminated his features, Josslyn saw that he looked orcish, though somewhat more delicate than the brutes who currently inhabited the castle dungeons and gladiatorial rings across the country.

Scuttling silently down one of the nearby stone staircases, the prince emerged in time to hear the guards demanding who the creature was and what the hell he was doing sneaking around the royal castle at midnight. Josslyn wanted to know how the hell he’d got into the castle to begin with.

“Please,” the captive choked, his eyes screwed almost shut as a spear point hovered above his Adam’s apple, “Please, I only came looking… for… for work… I thought…”

“You thought we’d hire something like you? The king doesn’t employ beasts, not even to clean the latrines!” one of the guards sneered.

The prince approached at a steady walk, partly cloaked by the shadows of the courtyard and partly by the thick fabric of his heavy robes. “Why did you come here of all places?” he demanded of the orc and the guards startled at his sudden appearance.

“Your Highness, please,” one of them warned, holding out a protective arm between the captive and the crown prince. “We caught this half-breed orc sniffing around our supplies.”

“He managed to find a way past the gates - outwitting all the guards - and he speaks intelligently,” the prince said, staring at him with hard, black eyes, “And yet you still treat him like a cornered granary rat.”

“They’re all vermin,” the guard said, cheeks flushed with humiliation, jabbing the half-orc in the sternum with the butt of his spear and driving the wind from his chest.

“Stop,” Josslyn said in a voice of quiet command that stilled them all instantly. “Take him to the upper cells, and see that he’s fed and given water and a blanket, and some clean, dry clothes. I want to know exactly what he was doing here, but he’s in no condition to be questioned at the moment. Look at him.”

The guards returned their attention to their miserable captive and saw the way he shivered, his clothes sodden - presumably from swimming the moat - with the fabric clinging to his relatively slim body. With orcish blood, he should have been built like a mythical hero from a maiden’s tale, but Josslyn suspected that he saw high elf in the half-breed’s slender ears and delicate bone-structure. No high elf could bulk up, no matter how much meat he ate or how many press-ups he did, and unfortunately for the orc, it seemed he had inherited that trait from his elven parent.

“Highness?” the guard with his spear at the half-orc’s throat whispered. “You… You cannot be serious…?”

Josslyn simply turned his polished jet eyes on the guard and the man nodded once.

“Of course. Forgive me. It will be done as you say.”

The crown prince watched them haul the mysterious half-breed to his feet and lead him away. He stumbled and staggered, shaking violently from the cold as the chill of the mid-autumn night sank into his sodden clothes and skin, but he risked a glance over his shoulder and smiled gratefully at Josslyn. In answer, the prince nodded once and let his eyes fall to the spot in the mud where he’d been lying, his mind working.

An hour later, fighting the prickling tiredness in his eyes as midnight became one in the morning, Joss headed down to the cells and as he peered through the barred opening in the heavy wooden door of the cell, he found that the prisoner had been housed exactly as he’d commanded. He’d wrapped himself in a moth-eaten blanket but beneath it Joss could see the royal blue of a guard’s uniform, and beside the low, rickety bed was an empty wooden plate and set neatly atop it was a wooden beaker.

The prince had the guards unlock it and then he knocked before stepping inside. A guard tried to follow him in, only obeying protocol, but Josslyn asked her to wait outside. Reluctantly, the woman obeyed, and left the crown prince, the sole heir of the entire kingdom alone in a cell with a strange half-orc.

“Are you warmer now?” the prince asked as the orc rose shakily, woken by the rattling key in the lock.

“Yes, thank you, Highness,” he said, bowing low.

“Rise,” he snapped. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“My name is Tamas,” he said in a croaky baritone. Everything about him spoke of submission; the slope of his hunched shoulders, the angle of his head, his down-turned gaze - it was as if he were perpetually awaiting a blow to the back of the head. His hair was a muddy brown, shaved above his pointed ear on the left side of his head and falling loose and long to his shoulder on the right. He had a small, pale scar on his left cheekbone, and his skin was a muddy green, not dissimilar to the colour of the moat in high summer.

“And what are you doing here?” the prince pressed patiently.

Tamas took a deep breath and said, “I… I ran away from… I’ve been travelling for months… I thought…”

“Sit down,” the prince commanded, and the orc dropped heavily onto the bed behind him, knees simply giving way. His exhaustion appeared to be more mental than physical. “You are not full orc, are you?” the prince asked and Tamas shook his head.

“No, Highness. My mother was a woodland elf. Her people left me to die in the way of all unwanted elven children; she set me adrift in a basket on the river and I was picked up by an orcish mother miles downstream. She had lost her own child and thought to raise me. But… orcs are not kind to those of ‘watered down blood’. I…” he turned his gaze up and the prince was surprised to note that his eyes were a dark sapphire blue. In a strange way, he was quite beautiful, he supposed; a thought which surprised him all over again. All this he kept carefully hidden behind his usual mask of calm control.

“So you finally ran away,” the prince supplied. “And you decided to come here? To the enemy of your father’s people? Hardly the safest choice for you, I’d wager…”

Tamas nodded. “I had nowhere else to go.”

“Alight,” the prince said, folding his arms across his chest. “What services could you offer the crown?”

The half-orc lowered his head again and stared at his hands. The index finger of his left hand was crooked, as though it had been badly broken in the past and poorly set. He sighed, rubbing the knuckle, and said, “I am good with horses and animals,” he said, “But I can read and write and do arithmetic. I could help wherever is needed.”

“I doubt my father will make you his personal valet,” the prince snorted, amused. “But I will think on where to place you. For now, rest. The guards have been instructed not to bother you, but you understand why I must keep you in here a little longer?”

Again, he nodded. “I do, Highness. And… thank you…”

“I haven’t made you any promises,” he warned him.

“Perhaps not, but you have given me a chance. You’re the first person to treat me… well… not like an animal, since the border.”

“I presume folks thought you were a runaway slave?”

“Yes,” he said and shuddered.

With a final nod, the prince left him and gratefully began to make his way up to his chambers. Undressing alone in the simple finery of his room, he thought about the half-orc and realised he had had no idea how orcs treated their own. For all that they had been at war for nearly six years now, he knew next to nothing about their culture. As he lay down beneath the soft sheets and let the deep pillows cushion his royal head, he mused that it might be wise to use this half-orc to learn about their enemy’s culture. Surely if he’d been treated so abominably that he’d run straight to their enemy’s stronghold for shelter, Tamas would be willing to help him?

Thus a hesitant relationship was forged between prince and captive. Tamas was housed in a room in the servants’ quarters - much to their distaste - and to begin with, for an hour every day, he was released and attended the prince in his own chambers to instruct him in the nature and traditions of the orcish nation.

Josslyn was surprised to learn that Tamas had a wicked sense of humour, and that he was also rather fond of reading. After that, the prince asked him to accompany him to the library, and in a relatively short couple of months, the two had become tentative friends. Josslyn encouraged Tamas to speak out truthfully with his opinions to the prince, though only in private, and the two frequently engaged in lengthy and in-depth discussions late into the night. Josslyn still carried a dagger with him at all times, but he soon forgot about it. In time, the half-orc became something of a legend in the castle - the ‘sentient beast’ and the ‘prince’s pet’ were two of the kinder titles he acquired, but he promised Josslyn that he didn’t mind.

“I’m happy to have a roof over my head and a purpose before me,” he said meekly one afternoon when the prince brought it up again as the two of them sat in comfortable chairs in a side room of the library. It was a rare day off for the prince, and having spent the last week in the infirmary visiting the soldiers who returned from the front with horrific injuries, dealt largely by orcish weapons, he was grateful for the quiet and peace of the ancient hall of learning.

Tamas had offered to accompany him, but the prince had suggested that his might not be a face to show to the recently-returned warriors, and the half-orc had accepted without question, apologising for his insensitivity.

The prince felt those sapphire blue eyes on him again and he glanced up from his book to find his new friend staring at him. “What?” he asked gently.

The half-orc smiled, the gesture stretching around the short, almost slender tusks which protruded from his lower jaw. “I haven’t seen you this relaxed in weeks, that’s all,” he said, a warmth to his tone that struck Joss deeply. “It’s nice.”

He snorted and then drew in a deep breath. “I’m tired, Tam. I’m tired of this war and I’m tired of the toll it’s taking on my people. I want an end to it, but I don’t know how. I don’t know - after all I’ve learned from you and from visiting the front myself - how we can make a bridge with them, make peace with a culture so different.”

Tamas’ face showed obvious surprise and a small amount of shock. He closed the book in his hands and leaned forwards, resting his elbows on his knees. His gaze met the prince’s directly. “You’ve visited the front?”

“Of course,” Joss said, a frown playing on his dark brows. “I wouldn’t  be much of a leader if I sat at home in my comfortable castle while my people threw themselves at the orcish lines like the sea against the cliffs, would I?”

“Forgive me,” Tam murmured. “I… I didn’t mean to question your integrity. I’m just surprised. I’m sorry.”

Josslyn laughed and set his book down on the table beside his chair. “Come, let’s get a glass of wine. The sun’s going down and we’ve been sat here for hours. I need to stretch my legs.”

Tam stood, still looking a little stunned, as though his every belief had been called into question.

He was slow to follow his friend and the prince paused. “You alight?” Josslyn asked, laying a hand on Tam’s elbow.

The orc swallowed visibly and turned his searing blue gaze to the point where the two of them touched. His eyes then darted up to meet the prince’s and he smiled, though his dark skin still looked a little pallid. “Yes,” he croaked. “I’m sorry. Yes.”

“Come then,” he said again and walked away, leaving Tamas to stare after him for a moment before hurrying to catch up.

One evening, after the Beltane feast that marked the start of summer, Josslyn left the feast early. His father was being truly obnoxious, though mercifully this time he was only trying to get the crown prince to flirt with some visiting duchess or other, but Josslyn was having none of it. Tamas had not been invited to the celebrations, for obvious reasons, and Josslyn found himself aching for the easy rapport the two of them had built over the seven months or so that they had now known each other.

Instead of going to the servants’ quarters and bothering them all like a fox in a chicken coop, the prince headed to the privacy of the royal courtyard garden at the rear of the castle. Only those who tended the plants and members of the royal family were allowed here, and yet, as he sat on a stone bench with his head in his hands, he heard footsteps approaching.

Glancing up, his hand twitching towards the dagger at his hip, he nearly shot to his feet before he realised who it was. “Tamas?” he breathed. “What are you doing in here? You know this place is off limits…”

“Invite me to stay and I won’t be trespassing,” he smiled playfully. “But seriously, I’ll go if you want to be alone.”

“No,” Joss sighed, his spine slackening as he slumped back down on his bench. “Don’t go. How did you know to come here?”

“I was on my way back from the library when I saw you leaving the great hall. You looked thoroughly miserable… May I sit?”

“Of course,” he said, gesturing at the bench beside him. “Did you find anything interesting to read?”

“Mmm,” he hummed quietly, the deep sound somehow going straight through Josslyn. The quiet warmth of Tam’s presence beside him comforted him beyond expressing, and he leaned sideways and rested his body against Tamas’ side, his head falling to lie on Tam’s shoulder.

The half-orc’s hand suddenly slid over his own where it lay in his lap and he squeezed the prince’s fingers gently in his large grip.

“Tam,” Josslyn rasped, tears filling his eyes. “I’m so tired…”

“I know,” he said. “I can see it in your eyes every day. You give so much of yourself to your people. You take no time for yourself.”

There was soft wonder in his tone and Josslyn barked a quiet laugh. “It’s my duty as crown prince, Tam. My father, before he began to change, made me learn my duties young.” He sighed again and added, “I learned the oath I’ll take when I ascend the throne when I was only five. I had no idea what it meant then, but I do now.”

Tam’s arm came round his shoulders then and he held him close. “My people were entirely wrong about you,” he said very quietly.

“How so?”

He didn’t speak immediately, but the silence told Josslyn he was considering his words carefully. Another stereotype shattered, he thought as he realised just how deeply this half-orc cared about the words he spoke and the meaning behind them. “The orcs say you are little more than a spoiled, selfish brat of a princeling who spends his days watching orcs fight in the pits or being tended to by a harem of naked elven women… They did get one thing right about you though,” he added with a wry smile.

“Oh?” Joss asked, too tired to respond to the first comments, ridiculous as they were.

Tam chuckled and said, “They say you’re as beautiful as one of the fae. Apparently because your previous queen died and the kingdom had no heir, your father made a pact with the fae for you.”

Josslyn’s laugh rang around the courtyard, echoing off the statuary. He sat up and regarded Tamas with glittering dark eyes. “And here I thought ‘beauty’ to an orc was brute strength and an unquenchable bloodlust…”

Tamas shrugged. “Good thing I’m not a full orc then.”

The chill evening air had gradually become charged during their conversation, and Josslyn felt his lips parting slightly as he stared up at Tamas. The half-orc wasn’t much taller than the crown prince, but he had a few inches on him; enough to make Josslyn tilt his head back so that his hair fell down to tickle the hand that Tamas still had pressed to his back, though now it rested at the base of his spine.

Slowly, hesitantly, as though he would be shot full of arrows from the rooftops if he dared go through with it, Tamas leaned down and the two brushed their lips together in the briefest of kisses. The fleeting touch sent the blood straight to Joss’ groin and his breath hitched in his chest. “Tam,” he breathed.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped, wide-eyed, wrenching himself back and standing, staggering as he half turning to go. “I’m… I shouldn’t…”

“Wait,” Josslyn commanded, standing and drawing himself to his full height. “Wait,” he said again, more gently, stepping over to him. He took his hand and tightened his grip.

The kiss that followed was all fierce, pent-up emotion and passion, and Josslyn found himself backed against the huge marble plinth of a statue of a faun, with Tamas chasing kiss after kiss. The half-orc hooked one of Joss’ legs around his hips and then picked him up, pinning him against the masonry hard enough to knock the breath from him. The prince gasped as Tamas ground his solid length against his own hardening cock through their trousers, and his head rolled back. Tamas shot out a hand to cup the back of the prince’s head before he clonked it on the stonework behind him, and Joss smiled bashfully at him.

They paused then, frozen in place, both breathing hard. “You… You want…?” Tamas asked uncertainly.

“Yes,” the prince whispered.

Kissing him one last time, Tamas backed off, setting the prince back on his feet, and the two of them readjusted themselves sheepishly as best they could before making their way through back stairwells and corridors to his private chambers.

No sooner had the door closed and the latch locked than the two of them were entangled again. They shed their clothes between the door and the bed, and Josslyn ran his palms over Tamas’ slim, lean chest, marvelling at the wiry strength of the half-orc who shuddered and gasped beneath the explorative touches of the prince. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, and as his chest heaved, Joss could see the muscles move beneath his green skin, his dark nipples hard and his cock dampening a spot in his underwear.

They fell backwards onto his huge bed in a tangle of limbs, and Joss tugged off the last of Tam’s clothes to free his impressive erection. Hard, the vein along its length full and prominent, his cock wept pre-come freely now, twitching as Josslyn stared openly at him.

“How… How do you want to do this?” the prince asked breathily.

In answer, Tamas parted his legs a little and the prince smiled, reaching across the orc’s prone body to his bedside drawers for a small vial of oil. Somehow he hadn’t expected Tamas to be the one wanting to take it, but he was too worked up to comment or mind.

When he slicked one finger with oil and slid it inside the orc, Tamas grunted and drove his head back into the bed, his legs falling wider apart, his cock bobbing eagerly as his hips bucked upwards into the intrusion. With his free hand, Joss dribbled more oil down the length of Tamas’ cock and then worked him with both hands until Tam was panting and grunting and cursing in orcish.

Josslyn knew only enough of the language to recognise it as orcish, and he leaned forwards, sliding his fingers out of Tam for a moment and earning a keening whine from him at the loss. In his sensitive ear he whispered, “You’re going to have to translate that for me, Tamas.”

“I said…” he gasped, struggling to speak as the prince returned his finger to him and caressed the bundle of sensitive nerves inside him, “I… I need to you fuck me… Highness.” His voice was beautifully unsteady and his eyes were screwed shut. His cock wept pre-come onto his hard abs, and he was squirming, desperate for more.

“You’re not quite ready yet,” Josslyn said, and this time he slid three fingers into the orc, stretching him, working him open until he was growling openly at him to fuck him.

Running his slick palm over his own cock and gasping at the sudden stimulation, Josslyn lined himself up and nudged into the ready heat. Already Tamas’ head lolled to one side. “Please?” he hissed, bucking weakly upwards, eyes opening a little as he half sat up in an attempt to guide Josslyn further inside him.

In one motion, Josslyn seated himself to the hilt inside Tam and the orc yelled with pleasure and immediately began to shake.

“Please, please, please,” he chanted until Joss began to move.

Slowly at first, he savoured the immense tightness of the orc around him, the heat, the shaking muscles desperate for release, but then he changed his angle slightly and Tamas let out another bellow of pleasure. Hitting him repeatedly in that sweet spot, the prince picked up his pace and lowered his head with the effort. His long hair fell forwards and started to stick to the sheen of sweat that had begun to form on Tam’s chest as he got more and more worked up.

The orc’s cock bounced between them, untouched and drooling as he clutched at the sheets beneath him and growled incoherently. “I’m…” he snarled. “Please!” Despite the pleasure of Joss’ cock repeatedly pounding into his prostate, it wasn’t quite enough.

“Are you going to come for me if I touch you?” Joss hissed, breathless and sweaty with exertion and pleasure.

“Yes!” he gasped.

“I’m close,” the prince admitted, the rhythm of his hips faltering.

“Don’t stop,” Tam demanded, but when Joss’ hand wrapped around Tamas’ cock and worked his shaft once, twice, he suddenly went rigid beneath him and spilled over his stomach with a barely stifled scream. His tusks bit deep into the back of his wrist as he fought to keep quiet as he clenched and twitched, and the combination of sound, sight, and sensation tipped the prince over the edge too. He came almost silently, a blinding heat ripping through him as he emptied himself into the half-orc.

Trembling in the aftermath of his orgasm, Josslyn fell forwards onto Tamas’ heaving chest and he whined as he landed on the mess of release smeared over his abs, but he was too tired and too blissed out to care just yet. Tamas’ heartbeat thundered in his ear as he laid his head on his chest and the orc lay there, lax and spent beneath him, breathing hard, eyes closed, one arm on Josslyn’s back, the other palm up and limp on the sheets beside him.

Eventually they grew chilly, and Joss disappeared to clean up in the adjacent bathroom. When he emerged, swathed in a rich black and gold, silk dressing gown, he found that Tamas had fallen asleep exactly where he’d left him, and the prince chuckled fondly. The half-orc was as large as most human warriors, with clearly defined muscles, but the green tone of his skin, the tusks - however small -, the heavy jaw and under-bite, and the tapering of his ears marked him as orcish as clearly as Josslyn’s crown announced his royal blood. The wiry slenderness to Tamas’ body, however, spoke of his elven lineage too. Always an outcast, never belonging, Tamas had nowhere to call home.

Leaning over him, Joss wiped the warm washcloth over the ridges of his abs and over his sharply-defined hips. With a jolt, Tamas woke and sat up and blinked at him for just a heartbeat before he laughed. “You shouldn’t be doing that for me,” he chided groggily, holding out his hand for the cloth.

The prince shook his head, his long hair in disarray.

“Gods, you look so beautiful like that,” Tamas hissed as he stared him up and down.

Josslyn blushed hard and threw the wash cloth at his chest, where it landed with a wet ‘flap’.

Things changed for them after that.

They kept the nature of their relationship a secret, and continued with life in the castle as best they could whilst maintaining their charade. They still held their discussions about orcish culture, though there wasn’t much more for Tamas to teach him by now, though the two had begun studying the language now too. Josslyn had been surprised to learn that it wasn’t the series of simplistic, guttural sounds that he’d always taken it for, and while his grasp of the vocabulary and grammar was solid, Tamas insisted that his accent was appalling.

“I promise not to speak it,” Josslyn murmured one evening as they sat in each other’s arms on the sofa in his private apartment in the castle.

Tamas ran his fingertip over the prince’s lips and whispered, “I wouldn’t want you to sully your beautiful mouth with the language of such brutes,” which earned him a smack on the chest and a playful kiss for his efforts at romance.

As high summer tipped towards autumn again and Tamas remarked that he’d been at the castle for nearly a year, the prince suggested that they go out hunting together. It was customary for there to be a royal hunt as the festival of Mabon approached, and the Royal Guard had just about come to terms with the fact that Tamas wasn’t going to assassinate their beloved prince if left unattended, so the pair of them mounted up amid the baying of hounds and the clatter of hooves on the flagstones of the upper bailey.

The king’s health was not strong enough for him to ride out, but he insisted on being hauled out in his wheeled throne to bless the hunters and wish them success because it was tradition.

The large party of nobles and courtiers and guards all rode out into the woods about a mile from the castle, and the whole thing soon became the usual chaos of bugles and barking, of horses stamping and men shouting.

Tamas guided his large mare expertly up to Josslyn’s side and murmured, “Is this what passes for a hunt amongst humans?”

The prince laughed, knowing it was the large silken tents and the army of servants standing in the field behind waiting to welcome then back to which he was referring. He shrugged. “A royal one, yes.”

“You want to get out of here?”

With a glint in his eye, the prince galloped away with his lover, following old game trails he knew well from adventures as a boy. The two of them soon left the chaos of the hunt well behind, and slowed their mounts to a trot and then an easy walk.

They headed north in companionable silence, enjoying the late summer light beneath the trees, but soon Joss began to notice that Tamas was tense. His horse skittered beneath him, shying at nothing, reacting to the tension and fear in her rider’s posture, snorting and sidestepping.

“Tam?” he asked, his heart rate picking up. “What is it?”

With his heavy jaw set and his eyes fixed on the path ahead, Tamas didn’t reply and Josslyn realised then just how far they had strayed.

“Tamas, we should go back,” he said with more confidence than he felt, reining his horse around. Everything felt wrong. His skin crawled and prickled, and Arrow danced nervously beneath him, the stallion snorting too.

The half-orc held his own mare in place and didn’t follow. He seemed to be warring with himself, his eyes darting back and forth. His chest heaved and his skin had gone deathly pale.

“Tam?” the prince insisted. “What -?”

“Go,” he finally hissed. “Ride. Gallop for home and don’t look back.”

“What?”

“GO!” he roared as the undergrowth erupted behind him and an orcish war horn sounded.

Terror flooded through the prince and he spurred his horse to a flat out gallop as arrows and bolts whistled around them. He heard a scream and a heavy crash from behind him and glanced back to see Tam’s mare go down, throwing him from the saddle.

“No!” he yelled, immediately wheeling Arrow round. The well-trained warhorse obeyed instantly, and as the prince leaned down out of his saddle like a child at a gymkhana, extending his hand to Tam who was sitting up, winded and with an arrow through his shoulder, Joss caught sight of the orcs barrelling towards them through the trees. “Take my hand!” he shouted.

“Go!” Tam gasped.

“I’m not leaving you.”

And with tremendous effort, the half-orc rose and swung himself onto Arrow’s back.

Slowed by the extra weight, the big stallion charged as best he could through the woods. It was a long, painful ride for Tamas, but by the time they erupted out into the meadow, the sounds of pursuit had faded and the orcs appeared to have given up for now. Evening lengthened the shadows as Tamas slumped against Josslyn’s back, breathing hard and holding tight with only one arm.

Once he was sure that they were alone, the prince slowed his sweat-foamed horse to a walk, letting him breathe and stretch out, and he turned his head to look over his shoulder. Slowly, in a voice laced with fear and trepidation, he asked, “Tamas, what was that?”

“An orcish outpost,” he said dully.

A horrible thought plunged through the prince’s mind and he forced himself to ask, “Did… Did you know it was there?”

Silence stretched between them before he felt Tamas nod. “Yes.”

“Why?” he gasped, fighting off tears as the world spun around him. “Was that the plan all along? You were going to betray me all along?”

Tam’s arm tightened briefly around the prince’s slim waist before it slackened a little and he pressed his cheek against the soft leather of his riding jerkin. His breath wheezed and rattled wetly as he answered, “I was the bait. I…” but before he could continue, a retinue of guards cantered over the nearest grassy rise towards them.

“My prince?” the captain called. “What… What happened?”

“Orc ambush,” the prince said, his tone hard as steel, miraculously revealing nothing of his emotions.

The captain snarled and signalled to his men. “Seize him,” he said, pointing at Tam. “Get him away from the prince.”

“No,” Josslyn said in that eerily calm voice. “No. He saved my life. Escort us to the palace. He needs medical treatment.”

Tamas had gone very still behind him, but the prince suspected that it wasn’t because he’d lost consciousness.

The events of the next few hours passed in a daze for the prince. The news of the attack on the crown prince weakened the king’s condition so severely that the physicians feared he was not long for this world, and Josslyn spent the next two hours at his father’s side, though he didn’t stir once. Still too numb and empty from the shock of Tamas’ actions to feel anything much for his father, he wandered the castle until he found himself in the infirmary.

Tamas was sleeping in a bed at the far end, his shoulder bandaged, his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling rapidly. No one was about, but there had been guards posted at the doors he noted.

Grabbing a chair and silently setting it down beside the bed, the prince stared at the person he’d thought was his friend. His lover. After all they’d shared, Tamas had just been… bait? He couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe it.

After perhaps five minutes, Tamas’ blue eyes fluttered open and he stared at Josslyn.

“Why?” The whispered question fell from the prince’s lips before he could stop himself. “Why didn’t you just stab me in my sleep while we lay together all those nights?” His fury mounted inside him and it was a miracle he kept it in check. “If you wanted me dead, why -” he faltered, choking up.

“I don’t,” Tam hissed back. “I mean… I did… That was why I was sent here, but I-”

“They sent you? So everything you told me about yourself was a lie? You manipulated me… Gods,” he said, lurching to his feet and turning away, fists clenched. “I was so stupid.”

The sheets rustled and Tamas sat up awkwardly, resting his back against the wooden headboard behind him as a wave of dizziness swept through him. He breathed hoarsely for a moment, the pain in his shoulder evident. “I was sent here,” he confirmed. “I was supposed to gather information on the castle and household, and then return. But when you took an interest in me… I couldn’t let that opportunity pass. I…” he paused, trying to catch his breath before going on. Josslyn stood there and glared at him. “I sent word of what had changed, and they told me to earn your trust and bring you to that outpost whenever I could.”

The prince’s vision swam and he bit the inside of his cheeks hard enough to taste the ferrous tang of blood. “Why didn't you go through with it then?” he finally whispered.

“Because… I…” Tamas’ blue eyes dropped to the sheets and he stared blankly at them. “Because I never imagined I’d fall in love with you.”

“No,” he snarled. “You don’t get to say something like that after what you did.”

“I know,” he said evenly. “But you asked me why I didn’t let them do it. I never should have led you away from the hunt, but once I had, I felt like there was no going back. My people were counting on me, but then I saw how afraid you were when… how… how what I had done would hurt you more than being taken by them, and…”

“‘Taken’…”

“They weren’t going to kill you,” Tamas said quietly. “They were going to hold you to ransom.”

“Then why the arrows?” he retorted bitterly as he recalled flashes of that dreadful flight through the trees. His eyes landed on the bandages. “They nearly killed you.”

“You didn’t hear what they were shouting after me. They’d kill me now, for sure. If you let me go, they’ll…”

“It’s no more than you deserve,” he growled, but somehow the words didn’t feel right, even as he spoke them aloud.

Tamas looked up at the prince with his eyes glistening. “May I ask you something?”

The prince made a non-committal shrug.

“Why did you your guards that I saved your life? Why am I not hanging from a gallows right now?”

“Because I loved you,” he said. “And because you did save my life. Admittedly, that was immediately after trying to get me killed…”

“‘Loved’?” Of course he’d fixated upon that word. That tense.

Josslyn’s shoulders dropped and he closed his eyes, head bowing. “Love,” he amended. “You hurt me, but… I think… as insane as it sounds, I think I understand why you did it.”

“What?”

“You remember when I told you that I’m a prince but I serve my people?”

Tamas nodded, looking stunned.

“You came here to do for your people what I would do for mine. It’s not my fault that we’re on opposite sides of a war, Tamas.”

Tamas let out the breath he’d been holding and said in a shaky voice, “Months ago, you said that you wanted to bring an end to this war, and you said that you wished you could talk with my people. You wished you could find a way to end it peacefully…”

“I still do,” he said, his hand gripping the back of the chair to keep himself upright. It was all too much to take in in one go.

Tam’s mind was clearly working well enough though. “Perhaps we can do it together?”

“How? The orcs will kill you on sight for betraying them like that.”

“I’ll find a way to explain it,” he said hopelessly.

“Alright, so I herald you as my saviour, the ‘orc with a conscience’… and then what? You think my father will merrily trot over there and ask to begin a peace conference? Don’t be absurd…”

Tamas laughed softly but cut off with a wince. “We would have to wait until you became king,” he said very quietly. “It would take time, but…” he looked up at him. “I hated humans before I met you. You made me fall in love with you despite everything I tried to tell myself. If anyone can win them round, it’s you.”

“You love me despite your better judgement? Is that it?” Josslyn laughed, feeling his chest lighten somehow. He sank down onto the bed beside Tamas and took up his hand, frowning at the way it trembled.

“I love you despite my former judgement,” he corrected. His eyelids fluttered with exhaustion. He was clearly fighting to stay awake. “There’s a difference. I know I’ve got a lot of work to do to rebuild your trust in me. I don’t know if you’ll ever trust me again, but… still I think we can make this work between our people…”

Josslyn smiled. “I saw the look on your face back there in the trees too,” he said. “You didn’t want to do it. I know regret when I see it, and the expression of fear I saw in you when they came for me was genuine. I understand.”

Tears tracked silently down Tamas’ face from his dark blue eyes.

“Rest,” Josslyn murmured, helping him to lie back down again and sweeping his hair back out of his eyes once he was supine again. “We’ll talk more when you’ve healed.”

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

The prince smiled softly and leaned down, pressing a kiss into his slackening lips. “I know. Now, get some sleep.”

“Yes, Highness,” he slurred with a smile and slipped into unconsciousness a moment later.

As Josslyn walked away from the infirmary he felt wrung out and weak-kneed, but there was a light at the end of the tunnel now. There was the potential to end the conflict that had ravaged his land for the best part of six years, and he was going to take it.

As if to confirm his new resolve, a low, mournful bell began to toll throughout the castle and his footsteps faltered, knowing it could only mean one thing.

In the morning, there would be a new king.

—

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[the-durin-boys]

Mushrooms..? -- Thorin x Reader

Howdy yall I hope you like this I got this idea when I was falling asleep and u know those dreams where ur like half awake and half asleep? It was like that, and I was dreaming about this. So I got up and wrote it. 

Enjoy!

--- The morning hunt was not as successful as it could have been, Fili and Kili only bringing back two small rabbits that would, in no way, feed fifteen people. Everyone was, of course, disappointed and hungry, but all had the better mind to not complain. 

So not the best start to your day. You knew that when you signed that contract that you would be going on an adventure where the next place that you sleep, eat, and drink, would not be known or assured, so of course you knew that there would be some days where there would be little to no food. You aren’t an idiot. 

But by the gods. This. This is just awful. Just a truly awful experience.

The day before the company of Thorin Oakenshield had been run down and then chased through a field full of hidden rocks and roots, the hunters being a pack of Orcs (again). This forced the company into hiding, without a fire, and without movement for several hours. By the time the Orc pack had left, it was far too late into the night to actually go out and successfully and safely hunt for dinner. Thorin forbid the use of a fire that night, so everyone went to sleep tired, cold, and hungry, hoping that the dawn of tomorrow would bring about food and peaceful travel. And as you can see, that is not how things went down. 

Balin rationalized the lack of game in the forest to the forest just being run dry by other hunters and hungry folk. So the day started off less than lackluster, and as the company slowly and hungirly packs up their bags, the Master Burglar, Bilbo Baggins, has an idea. 

“We could go foraging. For food that is.” He pauses and looks around the lightly wooded area that the company hid in. Bilbo’s hands are at his hips as he quickly surveys the trees. “There might be some edible mushrooms and possibly some berries that might make up for a lack of breakfast.” Thorin steps forward, a stern look on his face but a gleam in his eye. 

“Well why didn’t you speak up earlier?” Thorin’s shadow all but hides the poor hobbit, who can do nothing but squeak until Bofur claps a friendly hand on his shoulder. 

“Ah, he’s only jokin’ with ya, Bilbo! Now, what were you sayin’ about those mushrooms?” 

--

It doesn’t take long for a small pack of dwarves to form, and then they’re off, being led into the forest by Bilbo. Left behind in the camp are you (you have no idea what mushrooms are good, bad, and drugs), Ori, Thorin, Dwalin, Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur. You kept yourself busy, puttering around the little camp, mending clothing that needed it, filling up water sacks, the like. You always did little things like this, and thus, quickly became cherished by those around you. It had gotten to such a state where the others would actually jump on your chores, and help you out. A few even asked if they could do anything for you. You politely declined, saying that you enjoyed the work, and that you are grateful for something to keep you busy, as you never liked to dottle. 

“Thorin.” You approach the king who sits smoking his pipe. Thorin quirks an eyebrow up at your funny little mannerisms and sees a small, folded stack of (just washed, your friends are considerate of you.) clothes. “You have anything that needs mending?” The lilt of your tongue always surprised him, he doesn’t know why. There’s nothing too odd or off about the way that you speak, or the grammar that you use, and maybe it’s just because Thorin’s used to hearing the gruff sounds of words being pushed past bearded lips. That’s not to say that he is complaining, no, it’s far from that. Each time you spoke Thorin could feel himself being drawn towards you, and he just wanted to sit and listen to you talk. The feelings that Thorin feels aren’t absolutely unknown, just old and dusty from not having been used in many a year. You blink down at Thorin who only just notices that he’s being staring at your lips a little bit too long, with Dwalin trying to hide his laughter behind a gulp of water. 

“Ah, no. Thank you, (Y/N).” Thorin then busies himself with smoking his pipe, and looking at the grain of the wood which suddenly got very interesting. You purse your lips and look down at Thorin, but elect to say nothing to the slight quiver of his voice, and choose to turn to Dwalin. 

“Have anything for me, Dwalin?” Dwalin rests his hand on his back, and gives you a smile. 

“All good here, lassie.” You return his smile and move to a shaded spot under a little tree, leaving Thorin and Dwalin to talk. “So. Thorin.” Thorin takes in a deep breath and promptly sputters on the smoke. Dwalin snorts at watching his King and friend get flustered like a dwarfling over the kindest of the Company. 

“Leave it, Dwalin.” The sternness that Thorin was going for gets lost in translation as he chokes on another lungful of smoke, twice now. In one day. More in one day than in an entire year. Dwalin chuckles to himself but leaves the subject be. 

--

In the forest, the rest of the dwarves and Bilbo have successfully managed to fill several sacks with wild mushrooms of all assortments. Several times throughout the little field trip Bilbo was questioned about the different types of mushrooms, giving a variety of different lessons on the types of wild mushrooms (he thought that the dwarves would have known a bit more about forest living, but that’s quite alright.), and gave many reassurances that the mushrooms that they were going to eat would not in any way get them stone, killed, or in any other way affect their health. As the group not-so-stealthily makes their way back to camp, the air seems to lift and the thought of hunger is soon to be forgotten.  

--

The boisterous noise of the small group alerted the attention of you and the others at camp, and soon, you were up with everyone else to help distribute whatever findings they had. 

There was a long debate on how the mushrooms should be cooked - and if at all. The argument was that there would have to be a fire and that there would be no point in cooking them as it would only take up time, energy, and resources. On the other hand, the mushrooms should be cooked because it would be easier to digest and would bring out the flavor of the mushrooms, and that would be a pleasant change from the tasteless water soups and dried meats that everyone had grown accustomed to. Bilbo eventually settled the debate by saying that it would probably be best to eat them raw as while it was safe to ingest, the fumes would not be too safe to inhale. 

Each portion was dished out equally and the company sat and ate the mushrooms, thankful that they had something to fill their empty bellies, though something…..odd, started to happen. Only to you, apparently. About ten minutes after you finished your portion of mushrooms, all of the colors seemed...brighter? Your body adopts this new sense of freedom, like there’s helium being pumped through your veins and it’s lifting you off the ground. You feel the days, and the yesterdays, stresses melt off of you and you giggle. Just a little giggle. A few more minutes pass and the textures of the things around you start to shift and move, and for some reason, this sends you into a fit of side-peeling laughter, and in turn, this gets the attention of literally everyone in a forty mile vicinity. 

“What’s so funny lassie?” Bofur, your best friend through this whole thing, asks, eyebrow quirked and smile on his face. 

“I don’t even know! I-” Your face pales very quickly and you almost dry heave, clapping a hand over your mouth in an instant. The rest of the company, who was watching this entire ordeal, jumps to their feet at your sudden deterioration in health. Thorin is by your side in a flash, quickly pulling your hair out of your face as Bofur turns you so that you vomit into the grassy underbrush of the forest, gagging up the little meal that you had. All Thorin could do was gently rub your back and hold your hair while you topple forward, spinning where you sat. Thorin doesn’t know when Oin arrived, but he lets him take over and do his job, whilst he moves aside to watch. 

--

Oin had eventually declared that the mushrooms were the things that had this effect on you, but “not anyone else, which is as strange as it is fascinating!”, and it had been ruled that these mushrooms had a similar effect that one of his medicines had, and he had stated that while these mushrooms had no effect on anyone else, the makeup of the human body made it so it was more like a drug than a food, and that you had simply had too much and needed to let your system calm down and clear out, which would only take about twenty to thirty minutes for the initial high, and from there, he isn’t as sure. 

Fili, Kili, and Bilbo have tasked themselves with watching you and keeping you company. Bilbo does so because he feels at fault for this situation, even though he has been assured many a time that it was not his fault that you reacted differently. Fili and Kili stayed because the way you laugh at nothing is probably the most amusing thing they have seen in a long time. Bilbo eventually moved away, taking up the stitching that you were doing to make up for what had happened. 

You had been quiet for a few minutes, staring pensively off into the distance, eyes wide and full of an unknown knowledge, something that would probably be lost as soon as your high was gone. Fili and Kili continue to jest and joke, but stop abruptly when they here you sniffle. 

“Hey hey hey hey, (Y/N). What’s wrong?” Fili asks scooting a bit closer to you. Fili doesn’t know what he did or what set you off, but as soon as he said those words, fat hot tears burst and roll down your cheeks as you start to sob. Thorin, who was walking nearby, quickly walks over and stands above his nephews. 

"What did you do?" Fili and kili look panicked. 

"We didn't do anything!" Fili cries. "She just started to cry!" Kili is just as baffled as his brother, frozen and unsure as what should be done. Thorin sighs and crouches down next to you, gently taking your hands in his. 

"(Y/N), what's wrong?" You don't look at Thorin. "(Y/N)?" Thorin tries again by gently turning your chin with his thumb and forefinger. You blink up at him with big watery eyes and Thorin can only ignore the pang in his heart. "What's wrong?" You sniffle and more tears well up in your eyes. 

"It's not fair!" Thorin's voice is smooth and gentle, unlike anything Fili and Kili have ever heard before as they stand and move away from their uncle and friend. 

"What's not fair?" You almost start to wail, and Thorin moves a bit closer, his temple braids brushing your hands.

"You have SUCH pretty hair!” Thorin freezes but you continue. “And I can't touch it and I can't play with it and I can’t even say anything about it.." your voice breaks and your lip quivers. Thorin almost laughs but manages to keep himself composed. 

"Really? You think my hair is pretty?" You grip Thorin's hands in your own and lean forward.

"Very." Your expression is dead serious for only a minute before a wide smile spreads across your face and you laugh, letting your head drop into Thorin's shoulder. "I'm feeling' tired." Thorin doesn't even try to stop the smile from spreading across his face. 

"Then I guess you best be off to bed then, huh?" 

"I guess.." you hum into his coat, letting Thorin gently pull you off of him, but your already fast asleep in Thorin's arms, leaving a very happy Thorin, and a very confused company, behind.

--

Word count: 2,092

I hope you enjoyed reading! If you want to see something specific or see a certain pairing, feel free to make requests!

Love and best to all,

-ya gorl

[okayloki]

4, 13 and 14 for the DND asks?? 📨

Thankyou for the ask ily

4. You current campaign

We’re currently technically playing storm king thunder but as of the last few sessions its gone off the rails and we’ve been doing personal or zombie quests!

13.  Introduce your current party 

TLDR; Crocodile Dundee, boomer wizard, Feral druid, ex-soldier rogue, good boy paladin, good but shady nerd cleric. 

Extended version under cut ! 

Ask me things about dnd! 

Our currently party is called ‘fight club’ because of an underground illegal fight club that we found and then… won. 

-Reigning champ of fight club is DUNDEE, our crocodile lizardfolk ranger who speaks with the worst Australia accent. This character is everything you’d expect from someone who’s adopted father is canonly steve irwin. 

- QUAZAR is the responsible high-elf wizard of the group, always caring about whats good and trying to find a cure for his sick wife and kids. 

Quazar gets bullied a bit by MIRI because he’s a fatherly person and she doesn’t want anyone trying to replace her dad. 

- MIRI is our feral human druid who probably definitely needs a bath after living in the woods her whole life since her father died. She lived her years in the forest on an overlap from the mortal world into the feywild, causing her to have dreams, memory gaps and her mind played with by the Fey Queen Titania (who we calls tits). Who was also the person to send warriors to destroy her village and family. Which is why Miri has decided to help CASSIUS on his revenge quest

- CASSIUS is me! Neutral evil arcane trickster eladrin rogue with a +9 to all stealth abilities. Cassius grew up in the feywild and earned (fought) his way up the ranks to become a powerful figure in Queen Titania’s court; her right hand, commander of armies and assassin if needed. Oh how far he’s fallen since falling in love with an enemy soldier. He certainly didn’t see what he did as high treason but literally everyone else did. After Titania killed his wife and banished him to the mortal realm he vowed revenge and will kill her or die trying, attempting to take the throne and make the feywild better. But he needs to gain strength first; and to find how to get back.

- RHOGAR is our lawful good dragonborn paladin with a heart of gold and a curse that causes flowers to grow in his lungs, he has about 3 months left at this stage and occasionally coughs them up. He used to be a folk hero and guard of his childhood friend (also the princess) that he fell in love with. He was cursed while saving her and left the kingdom in order to live his final days helping people. 

- SKUNK. Nobody knows much about Skunk. Our half-orc nerd cleric with vitiligo that gives his a pale stripe down his face. He’s so baby and takes notes on everything but something is definitely UP with this character as he’s actively supported my character doing very bad things. He’s pointed out things and implied that i should steal. He’s given all his coin to buy things for people (i now have a magic sword) and NOBODY knows why. Because of the outside he’s so good but when you look closer? There might be something chaotic. Who knows.

We have a character called Althea but they are very new and we haven’t done much with them yet. if i did 14 this would be way too long+ there isnt much too my other party yet. 

[dicebox]

Paying it Forward (Fic)

Brawdr raised his shield in plenty of time to catch his attacker’s blow, hardly even needing to think about it. There was potential there, sure, but his opponent had a lot more to learn. “Your every swing screams louder than you do, short-stack!”

His opponent, a twelve-year-old girl with messy black hair and a stern expression, looked even more stern when she frowned. Brawdr stifled a laugh. It was rare that he could call a human short, even a young human, but he had a good six inches on the child. Brawdr was on the tall end of dwarven height, and he wasn’t sure this Crestwind girl was ever going to be that much taller than him. Still, for all she still telegraphed her weightier strikes, she was coming along well for someone Brawdr had first seen hitting a lamp post with a stick. 

Brawdr shook his head and raised his practice sword, a gesture that indicated an end to their bout. “You got that swat and riposte move down, anyway. Let’s see how well you retain it after a day’s running about. Off with you; I’m sure your folks got chores for you.”

Young Crestwind looked disappointed, but she raised her own practice blade to acknowledge the end of combat. She slid the blade into her belt, slung her practice shield across her back, and gave Brawdr one of her rare smiles – a flash of small, solid teeth with awkward warmth at the edges. “See you tomorrow, Brawdr,” she said, before heading off to the more residential parts of town; to her family, their bakery, and her tiny fluffball of a dog. To a life she was making every preparation to leave behind her for more exciting things as soon as she could get away with it. 

Brawdr watched her go, shaking his head. “Kid’s got no notion of what she’s getting herself into.”

“So why teach her?” Kallad, a weather-beaten dwarf with a voice as grizzled and rough as his beard, spoke up from the hay wagon he was using as a makeshift day bed. “Didn’t think you went for them that young.”

Brawdr gave Kallad a flat, ice-cold look. “Not like that, you pile of cloaker shit. Kid wanted some lessons. Call it paying it forward. It’d surprise you how much potential teenage human girls can have, if you bring it out of them.”

Kallad frowned at Brawdr over the edge of the hay wagon. “This something to do with what happened to the rest of your Shield-Splitters? ‘Cos you been sitting on that one for two months now.”

“I’m not getting out of this one, am I?” If Brawdr was honest, he didn’t entirely want to. He was going to have to tell that one eventually. The wound in his heart caused by the loss of his squad would fester if he didn’t let the pain flow free.

Still, it was hard. So when Kallad simply fixed Brawdr with a steady expectant look, Brawdr had to take a moment to collect himself with closed eyes and a deep, slightly ragged breath before he could begin.

It was as much shock as anything else that got Brawdr to open his eyes. He hadn’t had another breath in him, and he knew it – some things even a dwarven constitution couldn’t handle, and whatever he’d just drunk was clearly one of those things on top of the rest of his injuries. But there had been another breath, dragged out of him by a feeling of light and cleansing healing that he recognised from the few times he’d had cleric healing. Of course, if we’d had a cleric on this run, when the harpies attacked, we wouldn’t be in this mess.

With an effort to focus his mind back on the present danger, Brawdr turned his attention to what his eyes were telling him. The power that pulled him back from the edge of death, however slightly, was divine, and so was the face in front of him – young, hair that looked like someone spun it from winter sunlight and white gold, eyes the same pale clear blue as a Damyl winter sky. Those eyes started worried but shaded through relief at his breathing to a combination of rage, grief and betrayal at the situation. Brawdr, staggered and almost dead, didn’t understand that expression at all. If he was honest, he didn’t want to.

A voice came from behind her, then: male, gravelly, with the inflections marking a resident of the less prosperous districts of Belarys. “Step away from them, girl. We’ve got looting to do, and a throat to cut. Then we’re going to talk about what you did just then.”

Brawdr, still staggered by the poison, could only watch as the girl – who, he realized when he got a better look at her, couldn’t be more than thirteen – grabbed Trey’s axe and staggered to her feet with it clutched in her hands, a thin human shield between Brawdr and the mid-height portly human and the somewhat pinch-faced woman who was probably his wife, neither of whom seemed to share much in the way of family resemblance to their self-confessed daughter. Brawdr spent little time on that bit of trivia, so shaken was he by the sure and certain knowledge that Trey was dead. He would never have let his axe fall if he lived. Apparently even a half-orc’s ability to bounce back from certain death got trumped by a good solid poison.

Then the girl said something that froze Brawdr’s blood. “Leave them alone, Dad! You don’t get to reward yourself for this! Anyway, we saw your workbench, me and Edrik. He’s taking all the evidence to the guard right now. Run, and maybe you won’t have to go to jail forever.”

The pinch-faced woman grumbled a particularly nasty string of profanities while the man lunged forward too fast for the girl to so much as raise the axe in self-defense. Her father slapped the axe out of her hands with one hand and grabbed her wrist with the other. For all the girl dragged her heels on the boards of the airship docking tower, it wasn’t enough, and Brawdr could only watch as the man flung his own daughter off the edge of the tower, towards the ocean-side cliff face and its jagged rocks hundreds of feet below.

The man turned away from the murder of his daughter, producing a knife from seemingly nowhere … and then the sky lit up behind him and the teenage girl with the faintly celestial look rose to the platform, borne away from her death by a pair of ephemeral white-gold wings. The three still-living people on the dock stared as she landed next to the axe, picked it up again and stood, wings bent in an unconscious mantling gesture of protection. “Leave. Them. Alone, Dad.”

The man backed away in the general direction of his wife. With a snarl at the winged little girl he’d apparently fathered, he said, “We’ll be back. And you’d better not be here when we are because if I see you again, I finish it with blades, not a fall. I’ll make it stick next time, abomination. I—”

That broke the girl’s badly-fraying calm and left a spark of purest rage, and she bellowed “LEAVE!” at him.

Her parents – her presumed parents – ran. Because apparently they had enough sense to retreat when something that looked so close to divine was that angry at them.

The rage abated quickly after that, and left only a thin, too-blonde girl who turned back to Brawdr on trembling legs. “I’m sorry. About them, and that I couldn’t do more. I … didn’t want Edrik to lose you.” With that, she offered Brawdr a hand. Brawdr took it, noting with amusement that she managed to hold a two-handed battle-axe with one hand while pulling a good-sized dwarf in full armour to his feet with the other. Strong kid, he thought. And I’ve never seen a weapon attune to someone that fast.

The amusement was faint and short-lived, though; it died when he turned around to look at what had become of his team. They all lay sprawled at the foot of the boarding ramp, where the criminal pair had set up their impromptu ‘mercy stall’. Trey, their dim-witted but kind-hearted barbarian whose axe had saved the last of the Shield-splitters even when he himself could not. Ardren, a gnome thief who could vanish surprisingly well for a man with beacon-bright red hair and more freckles than stars in the sky. Jerhen, Brawdr’s shield-brother since they were toddling. Even the newest addition to their band, a lilac-skinned tiefling bard called Mockery, who had been hurt so badly in their fight with the harpies that all they could do was stabilise her until they could get her to a healer … or a potion. Mockery was the only reason they’d bought the potions in the first place. No matter how much Trey wanted to be in fighting shape for a good carouse, they wouldn’t have bought from an untried source if Mockery’s life hadn’t been on the line. Brawdr was the leader. He’d given it the go-ahead. In trying to save Mockery’s life, he’d doomed them all … or almost all.

The girl followed Brawdr’s look and then looked away, disgusted. “This is what my parents do when they need to lie low after a big break-in,” she told him. “Usually it’s just water and some herbs to give it colour and stuff – won’t heal you, but won’t hurt you either. This time … I want to say they used the wrong herbs, but…”

Brawdr shook his head. “This isn’t your fault any more than it is mine, kid. We both just get the consequences. I look for a new crew. You, though … word gets around, and no one in those circles likes a snitch. What’ll you do now?”

The girl shrugged, still not looking at Brawdr – not even when the effort of shrugging reminded her of the weight of two-handed great axe in her hand. She offered it to Brawdr. “Sorry. You should have this back.”

“No. It’s yours now.” Then, watching the ice magic play along the blade of the axe, he smiled a little. “And I think I’ve got an idea of where you can go.”

__________

“North’s not a bad bet, for a kid.” Kallad conceded the wisdom of Brawdr’s eventual decision in a thoughtful sort of way. “The People give everyone who wants one a shot, and clan’s almost like family. Better than the one she had, anyway.”

Brawdr nodded. “Good weapon, a general direction, and all of Trey’s part of the pay. Least I could do. Pretty much literally.” He sighed. “I owe her my life, and I couldn’t take her in. Hell, I had to send Edrik to my in-laws, and they’re racist pricks when it comes to humans.”

After a long moment of silence, Kallad pointed out, “You do know the kid probably wasn’t human, yeah?”

Brawdr pondered the wisdom of flagging up that if his in-laws were pricks about human, they were hardly going to be more accepting of a faintly celestial-looking humanoid with occasional wings. He decided against it, and stuck with, “Not my business what she was, except kind and brave and … well, timely.”

Kallad chewed on his bit of straw for another long, quiet moment before he nodded, conceding the wisdom in that point of view as well. Then he changed the subject, largely out of tact. “So what does this have to do with you teaching the Crestwind girl? Totally different situation there. You hear stories – the Crestwinds are the most stable, balanced parents in the province. Maybe the country. The day they fling their precious little girl off an airship tower is the day I sprout wings and fly.”

“I sent a little girl out with a weapon she was lucky to lift, a bag of gold, and courage for three.” Brawdr heaved himself into the hay wagon at Kallad’s feet. “I think about her sometimes. If she managed. If she even got to the People. Guess you could say it haunts me. The Crestwind girl’s got big plans to shake the dust of her district off her boots soon as she can. So that’s two girls of an age on their own in the world; one by necessity, one by choice. If I couldn’t give the first one the tools she needs to survive out there, I can the second. Paying it forward, maybe.” Then he chuckled. “Besides, bet those two’d run in similar circles, one day. Maybe what I teach Crestwind’ll help that other one, too.”

Kallad, cleric of Istus the Fateweaver, gave a non-committal sort of smile, and said nothing.

[levynthevariant]

The Ladder to Self-discovery (a repost)

((CW: Piercing/needles, genitals))

One thing Levyn understood was the sway of ritual and the bonding it created. Years of studying the Darkspear, integrating himself into their culture and teaching them about the use of the Light and language had resulted (to some distant personal trauma he cared only to forget) in his upheld title of Emissary. As a half-elf, he was less likely to be subjected to the criticisms related to the Sin’dorei, jeered at in good-natured ribbing on the subject of his parents’ rutting and yet respected enough to be allowed within their huts and way of life.

Without dwelling too much on the one negative experience that had shifted his perspectives on life, he often reveled in the fact that he was able to share so many enlightening and pleasant experiences with the Trolls. Tonight would be one to mark as high-ranking affair, where his unusual experiences were concerned, and he was mixed with trepidation and excitement.

The early evening was spent gathered around a bonfire with his peers, a feast of roasted boar sating the others while he plucked at his piece (a steadfast vegetarian) and claimed it was just nerves.

“Joo gonna pass out like’a maiden at da sight’a blood if ya don't eat,” his contact and companion Jez’ako stated with a snicker, plucking a hunk of Levyn’s meat away and inserting it into his own gullet. The half-elf elbowed him and joined in the laugh, a shake of his head rattling the now-braid-and-beaded sections of his blond hair.

“You always count me out before the game has begun,” he started with a wrinkling of his nose. “I’ll remind you that I would have beaten you at the last sparring match if you hadn't stepped on my fucking foot first.” They both knew it was partially a lie, though he was improving, and the small group whooped and bantered about it in boisterous cackling as the meal finished up.

There were some stories told around the flames, a tradition not easily lost amongst the tribal folk and Levyn found himself relaxing in the presence of new and old friends alike. It was only after that was finished that the lurch of his stomach began anew, a tiny group of them headed to a specific location with Lev in tow. The female Orc he remembered from their last expedition was giving him an eyeful, he could feel it burning the side of his face as they walked. It was only when he turned his pale hazel eyes up to her in acknowledgement that she spoke, her voice riddled with dark pleasure.

“You ever do something like this before, boy? You can always change your mind, you know.” He rolled his eyes and made a sweeping gesture to his point-blunted ears, adorned with a plethora of piercings and stretched lobes.

“Are you going first then?” he shot back, setting a hand to his hip for a moment before entering the large tent they were all siphoning into. She just snorted in response, shaking her head and giving him a wink.

It smelled heavily of incense already, the few peers he trusted already finding a spot to settle in. He wasn't looking forward to being on display in such a way but the ends justified the means where this type of rite was concerned. Jez draped a gangly limb over his shoulder, the half-breed being more of an arm rest at their difference in height, giving him a good-natured poke to the stomach.

“Joo know da drill. Dis time it jus’ be yer ass in da hot seat.”

Levyn swallowed hard and nodded, pulling down his thick cloth pants with no real fanfare. Until the adolescent cheering sounded out. As his Troll associate started to set out what was needed, the blond laid down on the woven blanket in the middle of where all the others were perched and centered his mind while watching the curling smoke of the scented cones nearby. His mind was drawn to what his husband would think, a curl of his plump lips at the most obvious response that would be given. Still, this was for no one else but himself.

The Troll squatted down alongside, finally, a crooked smile on his broken-tusked face as he lifted Levyn’s flaccid member without warning and cleaned the underside area in preparation. Another awkward discomfort. He heard the Orcess whisper a teasing comment to one of the others, which set them into another giddy fit of laughter. He took it in stride and stared up at Jez who, by the serious look on his green face, was ready to go. He patted Lev bracingly on the arm, letting out a small chortle of his own.

“Jus’ take dat breath an’ hold it bruddah. I tease ya but’joo know dere’s respect. Let's get da party started!” Another cacophony of positive vocal jousting rose up, though Levyn closed his lids and took a few stabilizing seconds to calm. He only nodded when he was prepared, Jez waiting for the loud suck of air before forcing the needle through the sensitive skin in one deft motion. It was a strong hot sear that lit every nerve on fire for a split second, hissing out the pain through gritted teeth. He felt hands clap on his bare thigh and foot from different angles, the revelry of his associates lessening the hurt. That is, until it happened again. Then once more. By that point, he felt physically ravaged even as the crew congratulated him on making it through with a few more penis quips slipped in for good measure. As he laid there on the cool woven covering, wiping at renegade stray tears from the corner of his eyes that arose simply in physical response, his thoughts turned to the future. The unknown.

He would no longer be a victim to falling. He now had the ladder to prove it. Zandalar would be within reach some day soon. He just had to keep climbing.

[happyorogeny]

The Gossip Chapter 10

(~3800 words)(Illidan, Kael’thas, Rommath)(tw violence, near drowning, substance abuse like behaviours)

Rommath didn’t get the chance to go challenge Akama over what, exactly, he’d said. Kargath stood and cried out what sounded like a ritual challenge. Rommath wasn’t quite sure of the correct response, but he found the nature of these things tended to hold true across all languages and instantly snapped back a classic Sin’dorei acceptance, to many delighted ohhs and ahhs from the surrounding crowd.  

Rommath was ready to start there and then- only nobles needed to wait until dawn to get their act together- but apparently the orcs had regulations about this kind of thing. Five of the elders immediately called out for a halt, bringing both him and Kargath to a rather abrupt stop. Wait, they could just challenge their leaders decisions openly like this and it brought everything to a standstill? How did they ever get anything done?

The issue of his obvious illness was raised, rapidly followed by whether or not an underling could accept a challenge on behalf of their prince. He bristled as one rather withered looking man waved a cane at him.

“Tis a mage. It’s not right to fight a skinny mage.”

“I am not skinny!”

The woman who had handed him a mug when he first entered the hall appeared at the old man’s elbow.

“The elves tend towards a slender frame when compared to ourselves. That might well be normal for him.”

This garnered him a number of sympathetic glances, and three elderly women near him put their heads together and started to speak rapidly to one another. Some interactions transcended all language barriers. He wasn’t getting out of here without a meal.

It was immediately decided that the circle needed to be an oval, so that Rommath had enough time to get his spells ready, and that he also needed a second and at least one assistant. No, he most certainly was not going to drag any poor unfortunates into this nonsense!

“There’s no need for such theatrics. I’m a busy man. Let us end this.”

“It wouldn’t be fair. Name your second.”

Romamth flatly refused. And it was at this point that Akama decided to get involved.

“Why not that courtesan you spend so much time with?”

Rommath felt himself pale. Mei’le was quick with her little knife but she wasn’t a fighter, not the way the average orc was, and Xi’an was a scholar. Neither of them were fit for this kind of work. Let him send for Kayn if he had to. But he was gone, and though he knew the second in command of the guards her name quite slipped his mind- worrying in and of itself, for his memory was usually ironclad- and the courtesans were too brave for their own good, and the courier was sent to summon them before he could stop them.

So now he had to worry about that, too. Great. He already had precisely one white hair at the back of his head and he wanted no more.

Mei’le appeared in the most practical blouse she owned and couldn’t quite resist cracking a number of lewd jokes as she offered to help him grease up. Xi’an couldn’t quite keep the worry off his face, but was clever enough to hide his expression with a fan.

“He’s huge.”

“I’ve fought larger.”

They both shot him an odd look. Honestly. Folk tended to assume an affinity for the magical arts left someone physically inept. As if! In fact if a person was anything like himself, they immediately noticed such a weakness and took steps to render themselves adept in physical combat. A feature that had led to the assassin’s guild in Qual’thalas refusing to accept contracts on him. Rommath was bad for business, they said. Made them look incompetent.

“Please let me fetch one of the soldiers, or a duelist-”

“No.” He kept his response short. More rushing around would only weaken his position, and possibly his ability to actually fight this fool. Besides, he needed to concentrate on this potion.

The Sin’dorei at large tended to disregard potions. It had always struck him as strange, given how much they loved their cooking, their weaving, their brewing. A potion was all these things with extra arcane added in. Everyone ought to have excelled in potion craft, but no, and now they looked at him askance as he called for a vintner, for the tea set from the Den, for coffee and a number of dried herbs, and laid them all out with the four multicoloured flasks he brought with him wherever he went.

Halduron had called him paranoid for bringing these to Outland. Just as well he had nerves of glass. He fussed at Xi’an and Mei’le until they were opposite each other, one with the wine and one with the coffee. This had to be done just so or it all tended to go a little askew. Himself and Kael’thas had designed and perfected this potion themselves, in order to constantly function through nightly study sessions and ornate balls and magi exams that had made up their life for so long.

He set the four flasks around an empty carafe and stood. His magic grumbled. It was as weary as he was, and to think he would have no rest when he returned, only a million jobs needing personal attention and-

Come on. Once more into the breach.

The courtesans poured together and he brought his hands up, lifting the potions out of the flasks and weaving all six streams into one with a quick motion. It was somewhat rewarding to have the crowd gasp and cheer at such a complex display, but the bulk of his attention was focused on the potion.

It was icy cold as he drank it, enough to make his stomach clench. He made himself relax, finishing it to the last drop. Not a pleasant draught. Not something he liked to rely on. But it was perfectly suitable for situations like this, or perhaps to bolster himself and Kael’thas through their final mage exams. All at once his lungs and muscles forgot he was yet recovering from an illness. So this was what it felt like to breathe easily once more!

He would of course suffer for this over the next few days. The last time he’d done this he’d ended up bedridden, never mind while still unwell. But such were the requirements of duty. All going well, Kael’thas would arrive back any minute now and stop this before it started. He had an instinctive sense of dramatic timing.  

He waited for the doors to burst open.

Nothing.

His ears went flat with annoyance. Fine.

The orc’s had an insistence upon fighting shirtless and greased. This struck him as profoundly unsportsmanlike. Was it not a show of skill to get a grip on someone they couldn’t escape from?

He didn’t particularly like disrobing in public. But so be it.

The angular scarlet tattoos on his arms remained still, vivid and unyielding. But they were the ones he’d inked last, after he perfected the process. Those geometric patterns on his chest, his stomach, his back and his neck, they moved. Not with the fluid grace or sinuosity of living things but in a strange and fractal pattern, spinning and splitting in angles and lines, hexagons and whirling squares that swelled and merged to form shapes anew. He’d used his favorite sewing needle to etch them and thus enchanted himself quite without realizing.

An extremely intricate crosswork of triangles unfurled across his chest and stomach as he tucked his hair into a bun. They fit together as close as armour and nearly resembled the scales of a dragon.

Kargath’s second was the very same woman who’d pushed a drink on him as he came in, alerting him to the chalk circle. She glared at him from across the battlefield. Anyone else would have thought it a glare, at least. But he was a gaze, very intent and very focused. A spotlight rather than a glow.

Rommath suddenly felt himself in the presence of a fellow spirit.

What is it? What are you trying to show me?

She inclined her head, just slightly.

Akama? What about him?

He had no time to demand clarification, for the orc managing the fight slapped the ground to signal the start of the match. Rommath startled everyone by charging Kargath head on, ducking under his guard and punching him in the kidneys. The trick with a big fellow like this was to get in close, where they couldn’t use their long reach and greater strength to full advantage. Distantly, he heard Xi’an whoop.

Kargath’s back was covered in stitches. Poorly done ones at that- the healer mustn’t have liked him very much. Or perhaps he was the kind of fool who would barely give a healer time to do their job.

“So, the lapdog has teeth.”

Rommath resisted the urge to bite him in retaliation and skipped back out of range as the orc closed on him. He was damned fast for such a big man.

“Why did you try to lure Prince Kael’thas here for a duel?” A damned silly idea that was, in and of itself.

“He dishonours us with his behaviour.”

“What are you talking about!?”

Kargath took advantage of his good will by tripping him and Rommath suddenly found himself pinned.

Spending so much time around Kael’thas had caused his magic to shift, subtly, over the centuries. The princes magic was gregarious thing, mingling with the powers of nearby mages and altering them, if mildly. Kargath recoiled with a curse as he burst into crackling flames, jerking loose.

“I fear we are been set at each others throats, to weaken the Temple.” He squinted meaningfully at Akama.

“The shaman is more honourable than all of you combined! I’ve noticed how the orcs are abandoned but for war- we’ll not become the fodder of another demon!”

“There is no secret from which you are excluded!”

“No? Then where is the Highlord? Where is the Prince?”

Mei’le’s face slipped into his mind.

“They’ve eloped.”

Kargath blinked, but he didn’t laugh or instantly become suspicious. What in the name of the Sunwell were they doing, that this was a commonly held notion? Rommath pushed his advantage.

“Think, why would they vanish alone in the dead of night with no guard?”

Kargath frowned, face suddenly thoughtful, and then twisted so that half his stitches burst loose. Rommath winced even as the referee called a halt.

“Go, take water,” Kargath said, voice meaningful. For Akama was slipping away down a side passage at a remarkably quick pace for an old man with a limp. Despite his growing suspicion Rommath couldn’t help but admire the cloak. It was very finely made, indeed, and…

He frowned. The…wool didn’t just unravel when cut like that. It frayed as well, turning into a fluffy mass.

While illusions weren’t his favourite thing to dabble in, Rommath had made it his business to be competent in the eight major schools of magic, as well as having a strong understanding of the magics utilized by sorcerers, druids, shamans.

This felt wrong.

That wasn’t Akama.

…

“FOOL! YOU’VE FLOWN INTO MY TRAP!”

Illidan, already in mid-air so as to avoid Maiev’s attack, started as the demonic voice boomed through his head. A burning purple shape hurling itself out of the lake at him and he recognized the Nathrezim immediately, having killed this one once already. Xas’icus was a brute and an assassin, somewhat heftier than him and infinitely more awkward in the air on account of his short wings. What was that wretched creature doing here-

Ah. Demonic politics. The council of incubus was low-ranking in the Legions army, usually the servants and footsoldiers to the shivarra and the succubi. Ma’niqu had been sent after him in an effort to boost their reputation. But clearly the Nathrezim wanted the honour of killing him for themselves, and had stationed an operative here to snatch the prize away. All the information he had about the demon flicked to the forefront of his mind in a matter of seconds and he forgot Maiev, forgot about everything as he turned to face the attack.

“YOU WILL DIE HERE, ALONE-”

Kael’thas knocked the demon out of mid-air with a spectacularly explosive fireball, cackling as it went skidding over the ice. Maiev turned her furious gaze on the demon, then to him, then to Kael’thas, briefly torn in her choice of targets.

“Get in line, demon! His head is mine!”

“What fool are you to come between the Legion and their prey?!” Xas straightened out of the snow and snarled as a dozen arrows rebounded off his armour and sank deep into the joints of his wings. Illidan knew a surge of glee. Let them have at each other and he would very graciously bow out, snatch Kael’thas away from this nonsense and dash through the temple towards home. But sadly it wasn’t to be. The skin of his arms prickled in warning of portal magic and he flicked himself away as Xas tried to cut him in half.

Imbecile. That hadn’t worked the last three times he had tried it.

And Illidan, much to his frustration, still hadn’t figured out precisely how he did it. But now an opportunity presented itself. For when he fed on demons it sated more than his hunger for magic- he devoured fragments of their memories, of their spells. And Xas was very adept with his portal work.

He dived upon Xas as the demon left the ground, harrying him over the ice, and behind him metal sang as Kael’thas unsheathed his sword and turned to face the wardens.

…

“Ladies, please! There’s plenty of me to go around!”

The wardens plainly didn’t appreciate his attempts at politeness for he almost immediately lost an eye. He hurled a fireball at the offending warrior, then threw himself flat and rolled up as metal hissed through the air behind him. These Kaldorei threw the circular glaives one handed as if they weighed nothing, bouncing them off the heavy armour of their mounts so that they ricocheted in from unexpected angles. The women themselves attacked him head on with short blades so that he was in a virtual vortex of weaponry, testing his wards and armour for weak points. A distant part of him now understood why Illidan had so many scars.

A trio of throwing knives bounced off his wards, striking sparks. One of the wardens let loose a ringing cry and bulled through his ward on saberback. So determined was she that she managed to knock him across the head before his magic threw her back. The spell after that was almost instinctive, flash heating the upper layer of ice so that it burst into steam around them. The scalding cloud was harmless to him, and it gave him a moment to breathe as the wardens twitched back.

Illidan was brawling with the demon in mid-air, beating it around the head with his wings. The dreadlord tried to shout some spell at him only for Illidan to immediately kick it in the midriff, winding it and bullying him back further. Illidan was much more adept in the air to Kael’thas eye, his wings rotating in their sockets to pull him just out of range before diving back into the fray. One ear tilted towards him and he half turned, hovering.

Idiot. He wouldn’t be able to disengage without leaving his back completely open to attack.

“I’m fine! Kill it!”

And then he had no more time for the largest warden shook herself and leaped through the steam to chase him. He gave her his most dazzling smile as he moved back, step by step, steady and sweet as a dance. Five. He counted only five of them and their mounts prowling along in the edges of his vision. Where was Maiev-

Something smacked into his side. He looked down in confusion. A feathered shaft jutted out of his ribs, gleaming with anti-magic runes. His armour had slowed it, but not enough to-

Ah. There was the pain.

He blinked away from them, thirty feet to the left. Maiev observed him as he tried to force himself upright and stumbled. Content that he wasn’t going to escape her, she turned back to study Illidan. The other wardens eyed him briefly and came to a swift decision amongst themselves, for two of them drew long, incredibly sharp knives from their belts and moved towards him, one circling left and one circling right, before their outlines blurred and vanished into the snow. Ah, yes, all the night elves could do that. Unfortunate.

Plainly they thought to kill him and let Illidan and the demon maul one another, before sweeping in to finish them off. And to think folk had the nerve to call the Sin’dorei arrogant.

Gritting his teeth, he wrenched the arrow out and burned the wound closed in one swift motion. For a minute the agony rendered him nearly blind. That was a lot of blood. And that piece of flesh there rather seemed like it should be inside him. Perhaps this wasn’t his best plan.

Illidan seemed to have gained the upper hand. Having driven the dreadlord through the air above the lake he now harried the demon against the mountainside, pinning him against the temple steps. His wings were spread wide and his tattoos blazed as streamers of green mana flowed from the demon into him.

He was eating it.

Ah. No wonder he hadn’t wanted breakfast, part of him thought distantly. He’d probably eaten enough of Ma’niqu to keep himself going for a few days.

Now that he was distracted, Maiev whistled to her sisters and they all took off across the ice. A nasty trio of daggers gleamed between her fingers. He gathered himself, blinked forwards and bashed into Maiev’s shoulder as she threw her weapons, sending them skittering over the ice.

“May I have this dance?”

She punched him in the head and only his wards protected him from a cracked skull.

“Get out of my way and I may allow you to leave.”

The hell she would.

“Illidan comes with me.”

“You realize that isn’t Illidan, do you not?”

“If that’s the case you really ought to go figure out where he really is.”

“I would rather he didn’t claim another victim, even a Highbourne as wretched as yourself.” Maiev swayed slightly on her feet, testing his reactions. Her sisters circled past, ignoring them, racing to attack Illidan while he was distracted.

“Illidan? You have houseguests.” Aloud he said;

“The term you’re looking for is Sin’dorei, there’s an emphasis on the S.” He barely deflected the boot dagger she tossed towards his eyes and had to lock Felo’melorn into the grooves of her vambraces to prevent her scalping him. Maiev leaned into him, unbelievably and inevitably strong.

“He’s corrupted, just the same as everyone that touches fel and thinks they can master it.” She spoke with an absolute certainty and Kael’thas felt himself quail a little. He had suspected as much, deep down. Fel magic was famed for its corruptive qualities, and elves well known to be particularly weak to its lure. And Illidan had been alone with that and nothing else for endless ages.

“If you’ll forgive me saying so, ma’am, you may not be the most reliable source of information.” But it was important to present a united front. He radiated enough heat to melt the outer layers of Maiev’s armour and it trickled down his sword, dripped onto his hands, into his hair. He was briefly glad for his magic, protecting him from burns.

Maiev had no such power and she didn’t seem to care a whit.

“You think he’d want to be a vector for such a thing? It’s a mercy to kill him. More than he deserves.”

Demonic energies were well known to drive the bearer to madness. Illidan might well believe he was battling the Legion, rather than spreading it’s contagion to many other worlds. That would explain why he had yielded to Kil’jaden so easily, how the demon overlord had found them in the first place. Why he allowed demons into the Temple.

And yet. He hesitated in teaching the Sin’dorei how to feed on fel, concerned they wouldn’t be able to control it. That seemed somewhat counterproductive, did it not? And Kael’thas had touched the magic and minds of creatures corrupted by fel. All of them lived in a state of chaos, a churn of energies. Not the sensations he’d felt from Illidan last night, an orderly if idiosyncratic library.

“He tells you he can control it, promised that there’s a cure for your hunger? Lies. It ate him up from the inside just the same as his mother, the same as you will be in time. You are lost.”

Lost? Did she think he would be here if he had any other choice?

He had always had something of a temper, but largely controlled it. A fire mage with a hot temper was too much of a cliché for him to play into. But all at once it came bursting out.

“You don’t remember, do you? I wrote you letters pleading with you to take and train some of the women, so that they’d have food and shelter.” Rage flared through him. “Illidan brought aid and rescue where you and your precious Kaldorei would have let us hang, where the humans let us starve. We needed refuge and in the grimmest hour of our existence everyone turned away.”

And he still couldn’t understand it. What had they ever done that was so wrong that the whole world abandoned them? No sympathy for them, no compassion, nothing.

It was the oldest damn trick in the book, yet he fell for it. Maiev suddenly stopped pushing him back and he lurched forwards towards her. She grabbed his ears and spun him to slam into the ice, pressing a knee into his chest. It splintered beneath him. Icy water soaked into his hair, slipped around his throat as she shoved his head underwater. He slammed the pommel into her helm to no avail, and she tilted her head so as to catch it against her shoulder so he couldn’t strike her again. Her hand tightened around his gorget as he boiled the water around them, trying to clear it away from his face.

And then suddenly the pressure was gone and he was falling, through a portal, to land completely winded on the ground. Illidan’s voice echoed in his mind as he rolled to avoid a deluge of lake water.

“Kael’thas!” And he recoiled at the sound, half-deafened. Illidan rattled off a stream of incomprehensible demonic. Since when could he make portals!? That would have made this whole thing so much easier!

He lurched upright, coughing, in time to see the portal snap closed.

[gillytweed]

Hanged Men and Angels - A Critical Role oneshot

Whoop whoop, finished another one. This time around it’s an AU about how Molly met Yasha. I see so many fics making Molly the one who’s suffering so I decided to switch it up a bit. Feel free to see it as shipping, but personally I see them having a close sibling vibe.

It was interesting what one came across when you traveled everywhere. Small town, large city, tiny settlement that couldn’t even be called a hamlet, they all had secrets. Some were boring, like the typical “Miller cheated with the Farmer’s daughter,” others were unsurprising like “Young Nobleman dead after being far too involved with the local crime,” and then there was this town. A small close knit town a ways down south. Seemed normal enough, a few odd characters here and there on the road, but really who was he to judge. However, the closer they moved towards the town, the more uneasy he grew.

“Molly, when we get in take Bosin and get a replacement wheel for the cart.” Desmond strode by, barking out orders to everyone he passed. Molly simply exchanged glances with Bosin and nodded. It wasn’t an unreasonable order, if delivered a little sharply. One of the carts back wheels had been damaged when they’d road over some particularly rough terrain, and at best it looked like it would survive a few more miles before properly breaking, thus getting a replacement before the inevitable would be wise.

Once they’d set up camp, the large carnival tent looming tall, he and Bosin made their way further into town. The unease grew, feeling like a tightness in his chest and a slight shake in his limbs. He hid it behind his usual swagger and grin, but he couldn’t help how his eyes darted everywhere, the need to be cautious pressing on his mind.

He stayed near Bosin, asking around the small market square until they, with some difficulty and wary looks, managed to find the only wainwright in town. The man lived almost on the very edge of the settlement, only a road away from farmland and the local lumber mill, but as he and Bosin continued with their task the tightness in his chest grew, almost becoming a tugging that pushed him forward.

They came to the wainwrights workshop, a large building that almost resembled a barn with a bold hanging sign that declared the shops name and services. A ways past it, a bridge arched over a twisting river, the road curving around a gnarled old oak tree, before stopping at the doors to the lumber mill.

The sight of the building made him pause, making Bosin swerve with a huff to avoid running into him. The half-Orc looked at him for a moment, debating whether he should ask, but instead turned with a sigh, pushing into the shop and leaving the Tiefling alone.

Leaning against the short fence that ringed the workshops front yard, he took out his cards and began to shuffle. The urge to keep his hands busy was overwhelming as he looked at the lumber mill. He shuffled the cards several ways, eyes never leaving the lumber mill. It was like any other mill, a large wheel turned by the roaring waters of the river, tall sturdy supports, nothing remarkable whatsoever, but it intrigued him.

“Molly,” Bosin’s voice jolted him from his thoughts, two cards slipping from his fingers and fluttering to the ground. “Got the wheel, lets go.” Bosin didn’t wait as he hefted the new wheel over his shoulder and began walking. Molly bent and scooped up his cards, pausing for a moment to check what they were.

The Angel and the Hanged-man.

Molly couldn’t sit still as the Carnival began. His leg bounced as he read fortunes, his smile a little more forced than usual whenever the Angel or the Hanged-man was drawn. Even Orna commented on his odd behaviour, which he waved off like everyone else’s inquiries.

The tightness in his chest hadn’t eased, instead it had grown worse. It was like a tugging on his lungs, hooking on his ribs as it tried to pull him with great urgency. He had a hunch about where it wanted him to go, and as soon as the last of the evening’s patrons were through the entrance, he was off.

This late at night, the town square was essentially empty, just two of the local guard on patrol and a few alley cats skulking in the shadows. It was rather simple slipping past, staying just out of the lights reach as he skirted the edges of buildings and darted between patches of darkness. The rest of the streets were similarly quiet, a guard or two, maybe a night creature, but nothing more. No candles flickered in cottage windows, and the hanging lamps at each street corner were weak and guttering. If he didn’t know better, he’d think that the local folk had fled, leaving their homes empty and abandoned.

Despite the easy travel, the way to the wainwrights felt far longer than it had that morning. Maybe it was because of his sense of urgency, or the slow closing of his throat, but the time seemed to stretch on forever as the moon slowly ascended in the sky, casting silver shadows across the ground.

When he did finally reach the workshop, equally silent like the rest of the town, the tightness eased and for the first time that night he managed to take a deep, shaky, breath. The tugging continued, more gently now, almost like a guiding hand resting on the small of his back, directing him further down the road, over the bridge, and up to the doors of the lumber mill.

A flickering light shone from beneath the door. Odd, considering the rest of the town was eerily dark. Pressing close to the door, he tried to hear if anyone was inside. It was quiet, the only sounds being the rustling of the wind in the trees.

Then a piercing scream of pain had him jerking back.

Hands on his scimitars handles, he slunk around the side searching for a window, and attempted to peek inside when he found one. The glass was far too dirty to properly see through, coated in dirt and sawdust, but shadows moved across the space, intangible and imposing. Swallowing, he scrubbed away the dirt in one small corner, allowing for a slightly clearer view.

Inside there was the expected equipment, the smudged outline of the large table saws and lumber piled on the far wall. In the middle of the room were two figures, one kneeling and restrained by chains that stretched their arms out and away from their body, the other one tall and muscled as they circled the other predatorily. He couldn’t discern the sex of either, the glass still too filthy to see much detail.

He flinched when the standing figures hand darted out, grabbing something on the kneeling ones back and yanking, drawing another agonizing scream. He felt the tugging in his chest again, like claws digging deep into his flesh were pulling him back towards the entrance. He wasn’t even aware of what he was doing until he’d pulled open the mill doors and drawn his blades.

Now properly able to see the situation, his breath caught in his throat.

A young woman knelt in chains, crimson blood pooling around her knees. It dripped down her arms from where her wrists were bound by manacles, the metal having worn into the skin. Her head hung against her chest, dark hair falling to cover her face. A man stood behind her, hands bloody and eyes wide in shock.

Molly stepped into the mill slowly, shoulders hunched as he held his swords ready at his sides. His thoughts raced and a foreign anger crawling up his throat. There was no conceivable reason he could think of that would justify this.

Finally coming to stand in front of the woman, he could see the resemblance between the two. Sharp features, pale skin, and dark hair, although now he could see the black faded into white in the long hair of the woman. He felt the skin of his face and chest burn with rage

“Is this your daughter?” The man was far too old to be her brother and the physical similarities were undeniable. The man swallowed visibly, his eyes never leaving the tiefling and his glinting blades.

“Is this what you do to your family?” Molly stepped forward, raising his swords to a more threatening stance. He didn’t remember his birth family, but the very thought of someone hurting anyone at the Carnival, his new family, made his blood boil. To hurt someone you were supposed to love and cherish was unthinkable to him.

The man turned quickly, lunging for one of the axes hanging on the wall. Molly, lifted his swords to defend, but darted forward, nearly slipping on the slick floor, when the man swung towards the chained woman.

He managed to swipe the axe away with one of his swords just before it hit the woman’s back, and with another swing the handle was sliced through. The metal head fell with a thud as a spray of fresh blood splattered on the floor. The man tumbled back, falling and slumping against the wall as blood bubbled and dripped from his mouth.

Molly didn’t move, blades at the ready until the man stopped twitching, body going limp. Lowering his swords, he looked down, surprised to see two different coloured eyes looking up at him, one green and the other a soft lavender, both clouded with pain. Suddenly the adrenaline seemed to drain out of him, now replaced with worry and concern.

Licking his lips nervously, he sheathed his blades and knelt down so they were eye level. Closer now, she seemed younger, more a girl than a fully grown woman. Bringing his hand up to brush hair away from her eyes, he felt pity squeeze his heart when she flinched away from his touch.

“Hello,” He spoke softly, like he would when Toya came to him after a bad dream. “My name’s Molly.” The girl remained silent as he looked at the chains binding her wrists, the skin torn and bleeding from the harsh metal. “Let’s get you out of these, hm?”

More silence as he glanced around quickly for the keys before drawing a lockpick from one of his coats many pockets. It took a few moments of careful maneuvering but the lock came undone easily enough with a soft click before the cuff fell open.

The girl let out a pained breath, wet sounding like she was close to tears, as he carefully removed the cuff and helped her tuck her arm tight against her body. He was surprised she wasn’t in tears already, considering the blood and obvious agony.

The other cuff came off with the same amount of ease and the girl practically collapses against him once she was free. His arms circled her torso instinctively, but he was quick to lift them from her back when she let out a pitiful whimper of pain. His breath caught at the mess of bloody feathers that came away on his hand, everything clicking into place.

She was an Aasimar.

“Oh you poor thing,” He murmured softly as he adjusted his hold on her to offer more support. One of his hands found her hair, fingers running through it in slow gentle strokes. She slumped against him, her body growing limp as she gave in to her obvious exhaustion. When he pulled away, tilting her head just a little to see her face, she looked barely conscious, eyes glassy and half lidded.

“I’m going to get you out of here, alright?” She gave an almost imperceptible nod in response as she struggled to remain in the waking world. “Can you tell me your name?”

She blinked up at him, then managed to breath out “Yasha” before her eyes fluttered closed. Her breathing evened as she fell into unconsciousness, and Molly heaved a deep sigh as he tugged her on to his back, realizing how tall she was as her feet brushed the ground. He wasn’t a particularly strong man, but he was determined not to leave the poor girl. Groaning with effort, he stood, bouncing a little until she settled more comfortably, then without looking back at the gruesome interior of the mill, slipped out the door.

Returning to the Carnival took a long while, needing to take time to rest as well as waiting for the perfect moments to dart past any wandering guards, but he managed. He could still hear the show going when he made it back to camp, the sound of objects being crushed and broken telling him it was nearing its end.

Being as gentle as he could, Molly hoisted Yasha into the bed of the main cart and up onto the cot Gustav generally slept on, laying her on her stomach so she wasn’t pressing on her wounds. He pulled out the Carnival’s healer’s kit from under the cot, tossing the lid open and grimacing at the lack of supplies within. There were a few bandages and a pot of salve, but that was it.

Looking Yasha over, he winced at the mess that was her back. Bloody and broken clumps of feathers, torn skin, and what looked like the small shafts of growing feathers littered her shoulder blades. Her head rested on a lumpy pillow, her face turned towards him. Even in sleep her face was creased with pain, eyes flickering restlessly under their lids.

Sitting for a moment, he gathered himself. First, he needed to get rid of the blood, then he could worry about tending the wounds.

Grabbing a bowl of water and cloth, he set about wiping away the bloody mess. For the first bit, the cloth would catch on the broken feather shafts, making Yasha whimper in pain and him feel a stab of guilt. He quickly realised that following the direction of the feathers caused the least pain, and clumps of blood and feathers soon came away, falling to the floor in limp piles.

He was half way done when Gustav hopped up into the cart, the man paused at the bloody sight before him. “Do I want to ask?” He simply sounded tired when he spoke, resigned more than anything.

“Probably not,” Molly shrugged as he got back to work, making more feather clumps fall. Gustav sighed, grinding his palms into his eyes before dragging his hands down his face.

“I’ll go get Orna.”

Molly sat with his back resting against Yasha’s cot, listening to the soothing rhythm of her breathing as he shuffled his cards idly. She’d fallen in and out of consciousness over the last couple days, but she looked better than the night he’d found her. While still pale, her skin was cleaned of blood, and the broken feathers had been removed.

The feathers that had managed to survive where small and soft, downy and newly grown. That, along with the scars that littered her skin, told him that what he’d stumbled upon hadn’t been the first time. The thought made his skin crawl with anger, and for a moment he wished he’d left the man alive, simply so he could go make his death far more agonizing.

A small groan had him turning, a small smile quirking his lips when he saw Yasha’s eyes open. Her gaze was unfocused for a few moments, but sharpened when she let out a small cough, the jolt shifting her back.

“How do you feel?” Molly asked, keeping his voice soft and movements relaxed.

“Awful,” The answer was blunt, her voice a croaking groan. “Like someone ripped my back open.”

“Well, you’re not wrong,” Molly shifted onto his knees so he could get a better look at Yasha’s back. He and Orna had decided against bandages, not wanting to accidentally damage the remaining feathers, so instead they’d soaked cloths in water mixed with the last of the salve and laid them over the wounds. “But I think you’ll live.”

That drew a soft huffing laugh from her, then a groan as her back shifted. He sighed empathetically as he adjusted the cloths. It would take a long while for her to heal, the only issue being with whom.

“Do you have anyone in town that could help you?” She stiffened at his question, her lavender eye gazed at him critically. He could practically see her mind turning as she tried to find the meaning behind his question.

“It was a public mill.” She replied, promptly turning her head away from him, but it was all he needed to know. If the mill was public then anyone could use it, meaning the entire town probably had known what had been happening yet had done nothing. He was suddenly very glad they were leaving soon.

This girl had no one, much like him when he’d woken weak and ill on the side of the road, memory gone other than the whisper of his name. The Carnival had shown him kindness, so he was determined to pass the kindness on.

“Well then, I guess-” He was interrupted by the appearance of Orna hopping into the cart, her face stony.

“Guards are coming from the town. Do we need to hide her?” Yasha turned back to look at them both, gaze wary, and slightly fearful if he had to guess. Molly watched her for a moment, chewing his lip. The guards would be looking for her, and if they were caught the entire Carnival would be in deep shit.

“Ah fuck it,” He huffed a sigh and properly stood, stepping over to the large chest where they stored the performance tents canvas. “In here.” Orna considered him for a moment, eyes narrowing suspiciously, then nodded.

He began shifting the canvas to create a sort of nest for Yasha to lay in while Orna helped her sit up and don a large shirt that had been graciously donated by Bosin. Together they helped the tall girl stand and shuffle over to the chest, easing her down as gently as they could. Yasha held in her pain well, only letting out soft grunts and gasps. She groaned tiredly once she’d been settled in the canvas, curled  with her knees tucked up against her chest. It was a tight space, but it would have to do.

“I’m going to cover you as best I can. Don’t move until we tell you, even if we open the lid got it?” Molly waited for her to nod, then began covering her in layer upon layer of fabric until it looked just as it had before. Finally, he stuffed his coin purse in one of the chests corners near her feet, closing the lid just as a guard clambered up into the cart. His weight made it shake, armour clanking as they swayed side to side.

“Oi, what’s in there?” His voice drew another guard over, the man peering in over the carts edge. “Open it up.”

Molly tried not to let his nervousness show. Glancing back at Orna, he saw her perched on the bed, space miraculously clear of the medical supplies they’d been using. Silently sending a thankful prayer to the heavens, he began stuttering out an excuse, trying to remember all he’d ever learned about redirection and trickery.

“Well, I- you see gentlemen, I hardly think you need to-”

“Oh we need to, we’re investigating a murder, and nothing is to be overlooked.” The guards gaze hardened, eyes glinting.

Molly fumbled with words for a moment, then he heaved a sigh, making it sound like he’d been caught red handed. He turned with slow shuffling steps and lifted the chests lid fully to reveal the mass of canvas. “We use this to store the tent, but I-” He reached down and grabbed the coin purse, hand gently brushing Yasha’s foot.

He hefted the bag, the coins clinking within. He smiled sheepishly and the guard rolled his eyes with a huff, interest now lost. He did a cursory scan of cart, eyeing the two Carnies before turning on his heel and hopping down. Once they were gone, both he and Orna let out relieved sighs.

In case he needed to repeat the act, he returned the coin purse to the chest, resting his fingers on Yasha’s ankle gently. “Stay in here until I come back, we’ll handle this.” He felt the touch of fingers on his wrist, gentle, like she was trying to convey a million things in the brief moment of contact before he drew his hand away.

They’d been delayed in leaving for a few hours, but once they were on the road and several miles from the town, Molly lifted the chests lid and shifted the canvas aside. He couldn’t help but smile when Yasha’s face was revealed, relaxed and soft in restful sleep. Once again, she reminded him of Toya, someone who needed care and protection. Until she was healed at least.

He’d saw and felt her muscles as he’d tended to her. There was little doubt that she was strong and capable, simply weak from her injuries. A little time and she’d be back on her feet, able to do who knows what. The signs of her strength meant it was no doubt impressive, and he was sure she’d fit right in if she decided to stay.

‘Maybe she’d want to join the Carnival as a strong woman?’ He thought to himself idly, setting the chests lid off to the side before settling on the bed. He wasn’t foolish enough to try and move her on his own, so it was best that he left her to sleep.

His fingers brushed through newly grown feathers carefully, applying salve to the last of the healing scars. He felt Yasha shiver under his touch, hunching a little bit away, then straightening to allow him to continue. He shuffled a little bit closer on the bedroll, his crossed legs almost pressed against her back. Flickering candle light filled their tent, allowing him to find the places without salve rather easily.

After a good month on the road, Yasha had healed well. The wounds had closed, leaving raised ridges of knotted scar tissue, but her feathers had grown back to create a soft dark covering on her shoulders. Some places were a bit patchy where the scars were a bit too thick, but overall they were barely noticeable with how densely the rest of the feathers had grown in.

Once he was done, he patted her shoulder gently then moved to put away the healing supplies. As he did so, Yasha slipped her shirt back on, then her cloak. He’d discovered she was much the opposite of him. Quiet and prefered to cover her oddities where as he was loud and proud about his own. It was an interesting dynamic, but one that worked well, or at least he thought so.

“Shall we go get dinner?” He asked as he stretched, making his back pop deliciously. Yasha nodded, heaving a deep sigh as she stood, then pulled him to his feet. They’d started sharing a tent a week or so after they’d left her hometown, a good arrangement considering it seemed like Yasha was the only one besides Toya who could handle Molly’s presence for such a long period of time.

They slipped out of the tent after putting out the candle, and joined everyone else around the evening fire. A spiced stew was bubbling over the flames, the strong smell making his stomach grumble in want. Without a word they sat down on any spots available, squishing onto the two logs that Bosin and Yasha had dragged over earlier in the evening.

Molly smiled as Toya skipped over to Yasha, who smiled kindly as Toya began chattering softly then clapped happily when Yasha allowed her to braid her hair. He’d been right when he thought that she’d fit right in. Toya had taken to her almost immediately, and the rest quickly followed, even Desmond had seemed to like her, or at least tolerated her better than he did Molly.

Taking out his deck of cards, he began shuffling, letting the action soothe him as he reveled in the feeling of being surrounded by his family. A strange family, but family nonetheless. He felt relaxed and protected with no need to worry knowing that they all had his back. They took care of their own after all.  

[refulgentice]

Light it Up

“Pa, I have to show you something!”

Glasha all but bounded up to the older elf, excitement burning in her eyes. She grabbed his hand with an eager urgency.

Iolrath looked at her hand, then at her, an eyebrow raised. It was like she didn’t see the dead, half-skinned deer at his feet, nor the knife in the hand she grabbed. The half-orc was bouncing in place incessantly, so he sighed, his body relaxing. “Can it wait five minutes, little leaf? I was in the middle of something.”

Glasha looked down, then let go of his hands, stepping back. “Oh, shi—” Iolrath gave her a pointed stare. She shrugged. “I can wait. But hurry, it’s important.”

Iolrath held up a hand. “What have I told you about patience, Glasha?”

She deflated a bit. “Patience leads to greater rewards than recklessness,” she responded with an eyeroll, waving him off. Iolrath smiled, shaking his head and kneeling back down to finish his deer. He worked methodically, slowly, something that had always bothered Glasha. She always needed to move, to do, and standing in the middle of a dead quiet forest waiting for her father was not something she excelled in.

Thirty minutes later, the elf gave a small prayer to the deer as he finished his butchering, wrapped up the individual pieces and left the carcass so it could return to the earth. He stood up, holding his hands out at his daughter who was half-asleep against a nearby tree. “Well?” he asked loudly. Glasha woke with a start, smoothing her hair to hide her slight blush. “What is so important that you would attempt to stab yourself on my knife?”

Glasha beamed and rushed forward, grabbing his hand and leading them through the forest. “This way, we’re going to town.”

“Town?” Iolrath stopped, ripping his hand away from her. He scowled. “Glasha, you cannot go into town. It is small, the people there, they will not understand you. They do not understand you.” The flash of steel, a terrified scream, the pull of a drawstring, and a yelled threat ran through his head. He pursed his lips. Hands gently and tentatively folding over his snapped him back to the present. He looked at the half-orc with a knotted brow. “Nothing is more important than your life. You mustn’t take these risks.”

She smiled sadly. “Pa, I’m getting older. You can’t protect me forever. I need to show you I can take care of myself.” She put a hand to his scarred face. He held it here. He stared at the small scar that traveled down her brow bone, the one reminder of his only failure. “I’ve already been back there. The man from before—he was a travelling merchant. The people there are kinder. They were wary at first, but...well, it’s better if I show you myself.”

Iolrath sighed, but gave in and allowed her to lead him into the small town of Julkoun. She immediately took him to The Jester’s Pride, a well-to-do inn that benefited from being one of the few stops between Daggerford and Secomber. When they entered, the tavern was almost full with human and halfling patrons, boisterous and at least partially drunk. The room turned when they entered, some giving skeptical looks, others a little more fearful. It was uncomfortably quiet when the barkeep, an imposing man with an eyepatch and a missing tooth and no hair save for the giant beard, came around the bar and straight towards the half-orc. Glasha stood her ground, staring the man down. They stood like that for what seemed like an eternity for Iolrath, then the man broke into a big grin.

“Glasha!” he cried, clapping her on the back. “Good t’see you again, lass. Come to regale us with another tale?”

The half-orc laughed, waving him off. “No, Rudy, I’m here to put on a show tonight. Oh, and to introduce you to my father.” She gestured to the elf.

Rudy stared for a good moment, then stuck out his hand. “And good t’meet you, sir. Got to admit, I was expectin’ someone a little more—”

“Green?” Iolrath was rubbing his fingers together, picking at the skin slightly. He hadn’t been around people in a while. Glasha smirked and his discomfort. “I have been told that a lot.”

Rudy laughed, getting between the pair and putting his arms around their shoulders. “I’d imagine. Still, thought you’d be an orc, y’don’t see the non-orc parent too often.”

“You misunderstand, I found Glasha in the forest when she was a babe. I raised her, I am her father.”

The man pushed them forward, nodding his head. “Kind soul.” He leaned in close to the elf, mumbling. “Most folks would’ve just killed the thing the moment they saw tusks. Glad t’see you’re different.” He moved the two through the tavern as the people whispered excitedly to each other. He heard “show” and “amazing” pass between a few lips, though what they meant was lost on him.

Glasha, on the other hand, was electric. She was grinning from ear to ear, practically skipping to the front of the tavern, pausing here and there to say a word or two to the patrons. Rudy shooed them away quickly. “You don’t have to do that, big guy. They’re just excited.”

“They can swarm you after the show,” the man said. He got them to the front, then went back behind the bar. “Now, after last night, people’ll’ve been talking. Hope you have something good planned.”

“Don’t you worry, I’ve been practicing,” Glasha said, pulling out a small drum from her knapsack and hooked it to her belt. Iolrath looked at her curiously, sitting down on a nearby stool and crossing his arms over his chest. She grinned at him. “I hope you’re ready for this, Pa.”

She moved to what could essentially be center stage in front of the bar, took a deep breath to calm her shaking hands as the crowd fell silent, then began playing. Slowly, her hands beat softly against the leather, then started to pick up speed. She began dancing, fluidly moving her hips in a slightly seductive motion, humming a tune to the beat of the drums. And then, she sang.

Stand up like a solider, darling. I know you're built like that. Fight them like a solider, darling. Show them, say you're wicked like that. We live where the war is raging; Chasing our crazy dreams Hoping that the bridge won't cave in. Tonight we let it all go free.

Almost immediately, the telltale signs of arcane energy crackled from her fingertips. Iolrath stood up in a bolt, almost knocking over the bar stool. Glasha began casting small, harmless explosions from her hands, exciting the crowd as she moved gracefully through them. They cheered her on as she played a complicated set of beats and hummed melodically along; as her father stood by, dumbfounded. She caught his eye from the other side of the room and winked.

Show them you're flame to the fire. It's written like your name on a flyer. They want to tame your desire, But you light it up, now your aims are getting higher. And they wait for a messiah But until that day, I will rise up high. I put my light in the air; I want to see everywhere.

Glasha threw a hand  up, sending out a star-like light from her hand, illuminating the entire tavern in a dramatic flair with the final beat of the song. The audience cheered, and Rudy clapped her on the back in congratulations. She just sat in the middle of it all, beaming and soaking up all of the attention. Iolrath stood stiff, pale as the moon.  Glasha looked over, and her smiling face crumpled. She rushed over to the elf, pushing through the admiring crowd. “Pa?” She stopped right before him. “Pa, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“We will talk later. Stay with your admirers.” He bowed his head and ducked out of The Jester’s Pride, leaving the half-orc reaching her hand out, wet-eyed and confused, surrounded by people who didn’t understand.

It took Glasha a good amount of time to escape the inn; after a while, the praise felt like it was personally mocking her. She made her way out of town, cloak covering her face as she disappeared into the surrounding forest. Luckily, Iolrath hadn’t covered his tracks very well, so it was fairly easy for her to track him through dense trees. Whether it was because he didn’t want her to get lost or because he was too upset to care, she didn’t know. She followed the tracks to a small clearing, where they suddenly stopped. She sighed. “I know you’re up there. Please come talk to me.”

“If you wish to speak, you can climb the tree,” Iolrath called down. Glasha sighed louder, grumbling as she walked to the tree where the voice came from. She climbed up, putting herself on a branch with a huff. “Good to see magic has not muddled my survival lessons.”

She looked up to see him lounging against the trunk and playing with a knife. She huffed again. “This is very childish, I hope you know.”

“I am aware.” He stabbed the knife into the branch he was sitting on and looked down. “Glasha, the arcane is dangerous. You are adding another target to your back.”

“It’s the bardic arts, Pa. Everyone loves a good bard! Everyone!”

“Not everyone knows the difference between sorcery and bardic arts.”

“I know they don’t! But I don’t have the patience to be a druid or a ranger or whatever else everyone wanted me to be!” Glasha didn’t notice that she had been leaning into each word, the rage welling up inside of her.  She sat back down, breathing slowly. Iolrath stared, quiet. After a minute of tense silence, Glasha sighed. “I know you’re worried about me. I know that every time you look at me, all you see is that five-year-old scar and how people look at me. I thought that maybe you’d be proud of me.”

Iolrath closed his eyes, focusing to keep his breathing steady. “I have spent my entire life attempting to keep you alive.” His mind unconsciously traveled to that fateful day in the forest near a small farming village on the outskirts of Neverwinter. How he followed the loud crying to a carefully concealed bundle in the underbrush. How his partners told him to just kill the thing before it grew into a monster and the flash of anger that shone behind his eyes. The arguing, threats, and the escape into the forest. He remembered looking down at the orcish babe and seeing everything she could be, if only she was given a real chance.

He let out a deep breath. “When I found you, I promised you that I would protect you, raise you, and ensure you grow to your full potential. In all honesty, you have grown into something so marvelous and talented that I find myself questioning whether or not you are truly mine.” He got up, moving down to her branch lightly. He smiled and cupped her face in his hands, pressing his forehead against hers. “I am proud of you, little leaf, and I promise you this: you are going to a legend.”

Glasha wrapped him in a massive hug. She felt him hug her back. She pulled away wiping away her sudden tears with a smile. “Thank you, Pa.”

They began climbing back down, and Iolrath looked up, a sudden thought running through his head. “Where did you learn the bardic arts?” Glasha stopped her decent, letting the question hang in the air. “Glasha, how long have you been going into towns without my permission?”

“I had to learn different skills!”

“Glasha.”

They argued into the night, Glasha yelling about the stop near Waterdeep, and Iolrath quietly scolding her for her recklessness as they made their way into the cover of the trees.

[dunmerofskyrim]

37

Downriver a line crossed the water. A slack rope that traced over the fine skin of ice near the banks, and trailed beneath the surface in the middle of its slow dark flow. A flat square barge was moored up on the far side. Its frame was lashed together from wood and a patchwork of leather and cloth stretched between the spars to form a kind of deck. At waterlevel, leather bladders tight-full with air kept the barge afloat.

“Fucking boatmer…” Simra grumbled under his breath. His purse had barely recovered from the route they’d taken down the Balda. “Fucking pirates, all of them…”

“Ho!” The cry came across the water. Already the ferryman was picking the rope from the water with leathermittened hands and beginning to pull. “Ho there trav’lers! Fine fair mornin’!”

Tammunei looked skyward and frowned. The weather was tin-grey and threatened drizzle. No sky for how thick it was banked in clouds and all the colour of cinders. The sort of sun you had to search for, active and earnest, squinting after some small change in light. And all around the river, the grasses were bearded with frost, the reeds frozen stiff and pale.

“You think so?” Simra called back.

“Nothin’ too bad, nothin’ too bad at all… Still workin’, am I not? A dear fine mornin’, then! A fine dear fair morning…”

A fine fair blighted grey morning to squeeze coin out of the choiceless, Simra reckoned. They were in the crutch of two rivers now, the better part of a day’s travel deep, and could either cross the water or else turn round and hope to skirt it. Fording the flow was scarce any choice at all in this cold and the ferryman knew it. That accounted for his grin, Simra thought, as the barge drew up closer. Or might be that was just his teeth.

The ferryman was Orsimer. Tall and broad in the shoulders but otherwise rangy as a skinned hare, to reckon what you could through the heavy outdoor clothes he wore. A short waxed cape, its hem tasselled with beads, was draped round his shoulders and chest, front and back. It hung to his waist and clattered as he moved. He wore a short coat under it of parchment yellow roughcloth, quilted and padded into squares and diamonds. Almost an arming garment, Simra reckoned — almost a soldier’s aketon. A long grey kilt was belted over that, its skirts girded up and backward between his legs, to show his wiry-haired calves and bare green-grey feet. From out the back of his broad conical farmer’s hat, a thick braid of black hair hung heavy over one shoulder and down his chest, to end in a clattering black iron bell. Like you’d collar a cow with, Simra thought. How long since he’d last seen a cow? He’d seen ‘beef’ for sale in Narsis – he’d never eaten it; wouldn’t know the difference after all – but if beef was dear in Skyrim, whatever passed as cowflesh in Morrowind was sold at thrice the cost. He’d seen no cattle in years…

A wheeze of filled air-skins; a grind of silt. The barge bumped onto the near bank. Its ferryman looked them over, counting them slow and careful. He stood on the boatside like it was a rampart, and he looking down from the high-ground. Confident as anything, swagger even in his stillness as he put hands to hips and leaned in, nodding slow as he spoke:

“Three of you, is it? Mmmh. And two o’ them, hm? Guars…” He drawled over the word, butchering its plural. Simra noticed one of his hands rested casual near a bone handle wrapped into the folds of his kilt’s belt. A half-hidden knife.

“How much?” Noor said.

“Hold on.” Simra shuffled and slipped from the back of the guar he and Tammunei shared. He stumped the butt of his spear against the sod. Strolled in reach of the ferryman. Stumped the spear again into the dirt, ponderish, and looking at the rusted spike as it bothered the frosty grass. “Conversation first. Fine morning for it, right? What’s closed Senie up so tight? What’s that?”

Simra pointed with his free hand downriver, towards the fork where Senie sat on its hill and behind its walls. Smoke rose from the river’s opposite side, trails on trails into the sky where they hung together, mingling in the windless heights. Simra’s hand flashed silver proudflesh and three pale fingers as he gestured. Red beads around the wrist, and plaited silk threads hung with teardrop pendants of green trueglass. Then the rags that bound his sleeves in, to wrap and safeguard the warmth of his body.

“Depends as what it’s worth to you, knowing,” said the ferryman.

“Nothing overmuch,” said Simra. “Except that it’ll help us decide if we want to cross or turn back. Use your fine-looking boat or not.”

The Orsimer stuck out his jaw and twitched his lower lip. “Not heard then, have you?”

“No news from down the road our way, no.”

“Huh. Overtaken, Senie is. Some scuffle inside, two months back might’ve been. All I know’s their lord and council — they strung them from the walls. Hooks in them. Bled or parched to death, all of them by now.”

“Why?”

“Something about their gods. Your gods. What-you-will.” The Orsimer shrugged. “Want to be left alone is how it seems to me.”

“Know the feeling, but never so much that I’d shoot at someone who came too close.”

“Not hurt, are you?” The ferryman sounded almost concerned. “Could be I’d have saved you that near scraping. Don’t go downstream, that’s what I say, but there’s been plenty crossing down here.”

“Which gods?” said Tammunei.

“Eh?” Another shrug from the ferryman. “How should I know? Three of them.”

“Which three?”

“Ffah. How should I know?”

“Hm. And them camped on the far side of the fork,” said Simra. “Who’s that?”

“Some army brought in from eastward over the mountains.”

“Indoril then,” Simra said.

“Some scouts of theirs I ferried over. Oh, two yest’days back and of a mornin’. If they’ve come back since then, it’s not been with me. What they’d be doin’ over from eastward and here in Winter, I surely don’t know… They were asked here’s what they said.”

“That all they said?”

“That and something about pulling some priest out the fort by his hair. They said plenty ‘bout that.”

Borderguards and ferrymen, bridge and gate sentries — you could always trust them to have news worth sharing. Seemed this ferryman wasn’t yet well-versed in that side of his chosen career.

“Been here long?” Simra asked. “At this pitch with your boat?”

“Long enough,” said the ferryman, defensive. “Work’s good lately. Picked right up, it has. Not used to folk wantin’ so much of a chat though, can’t say I am. Most part it’s that they’re in too much of a hurry to cross. You? Two journeys, I’d say. You and your beast, then yous and yours. Extra, that is.”

“How much?”

The two crossings came to a yera and two in total. A shil per passenger and another two for each journey over. Simra had been gouged worse before, but he’d also known plenty work for longer than this ferryman and earn less for it. Still, fair’s fair, even when it’s not fair to you. Given the one boat on this bridgeless length of river, Simra would’ve charged higher — that if only for the boredom of being a ferryman in the first blighted place.

First Simra, Tammunei, their lighter-laden guar. Then Noor and the packguar. Simra watched over the water as the ferryman’s mouth moved, trying for talk, his jaw jutting and juddering. Noor’s mouth stayed firm shut. The beasts peered over the boatsides, one staring deep into its own murky reflection, the other peeking and balking and shying from the water until it was sound and stable-footed on the other bank once more.

On this side of the river, the fields were stripped bare. Paddies deep with frozen mud and ice-chased standing water. Ditches to draw the river and feed the crops stooped much the same: gutters of filth and frost. Rows of fruit-shrubs, bare and stiff, skinny at the trunk and skinny at the limbs. A path of stripped earth ran along beside the water.

Tammunei didn’t remount the guar. Give it a rest, they said, after the water and carrying two riders for so long. The three of them and their two mounts plodded along at footpace. They tended towards the smoke, downriver to the fork and the camp. A wordless verdict between them.

“Is there any need?” Noor said.

“To go through the camp?” Simra said. “A few needs, yeah.” Not that he liked it any more than she did, though he fancied their reasons differed. “Food’s the foremost, if you want to know.”

“We can forage. Hunt. Ghosts preserve me but surely you can go a few days without rice.”

“Forage.” Simra snorted. “In the wake of all them? You heard the orc. They came from eastward. We’ll be tracking back the way they marched from, down the Davon’s Watch road. If you think there’ll be anything left to glean where an army’s foraged through..? Nchow. The pickings’ll be poorer than piss-poor. I’d bet on it. Gold or glass, I’d bet on it any day.”

“You said they were Indoril,” Tammunei began. “New Temple Ordinators…”

“Some of them. The officers maybe. I’d say mercenaries and levies for the rest.”

“I’d have thought Ordinators would mean honour, discipline, restraint…”

“They’re no guarantee of good behaviour, if that’s what you mean. Or good supply lines for that matter. Some people, you give them a bronze mask and they’ll hide all they can behind it. Do whatever they’d never dared to do, and say, no, now it’s for the cause…”

“Will it be safe then?”

“We’re wisewomer,” said Noor. “Sacred servants of the oldest ancestors, the oldest gods. The baelathri Temple reclaimed them only lately, but we’ve given the gods their due since Veloth’s day. They love us now as much as they hated us before. Of course we’ll be safe.”

“Mmh. They love the idea of you fine enough,” muttered Simra. “It’s when you’re there before their eyes, all skins and beads and braids, they decide they’ve got a problem…”

Tammunei shied close to their guar, edging into its neck and putting both hands on its leading-bridle.

“We’ll be safe,” Noor repeated, firmer now.

“Course we will,” said Simra, “if we keep each other that way.”

Senie’s outer walls showed smooth and slightly sloping in the nearing distance. Brick and mortar the colour of bones til they seamed down into the sides of the hill the fort-town had its roots on. There the incline slacked and tumbled in heather and crags of stone to the brown waters where the rivers combined.

Around the three on the riverside path, a feeble breeze picked up, fretting with their hair and the hems of their clothes. None were dressed for Winter, or a journey slow-leading into lands with colder climes. Stupid of them, Simra reckoned. Of him most of all. Noor in her tasselled blanket-cloak and shawl, her ragged threadbare riding-coat — she was best prepared, for all she looked like a small and lope-stepping scarecrow in those tatters. But Tammunei had only the coat Simra had given them, ocean-coloured, with a recent-patched hole in the gut of it. And Simra himself had no coat, no cloak at all.

“What’re the other reasons?” said Tammunei.

“Hm?”

“We could just carry on past. Follow the road when it turns east. But we won’t because of food, and what else?”

“Oh.” Simra shrugged, and fidgeted with his fingers and the shaft of his spear. “Sheer bloodyminded curiosity. Wanna know what’s happening here. We got less than half a story from that bastard ferryman. I want the whole fucking thing.”

[x-fantasy-is-my-reality-x]

Red of Rivendell

Aragorn, son of Arathorn, was but a child to the eyes of an elf at the mere age of thirty-four when he had his first taste of wine.

It wasn’t his idea to get drunk really, it was more of his foster brothers’, Elladan and Elrohir, who were less wise and home more often back then. But, it was definitely not something he would forget for a while.

It was the Elvish New Year, where all the elves gathered to feast and drink neath the blanket of shining stars. As most folks know, elven wine was more potent to Men than most others, but Estel, as was his name back then, did not know.

Just in luck, the twins had returned from tracking several orc packs backs across the valley and journeyed back to Rivendell in high spirits in time for one of the biggest festivals they’ve had in at least a century, for Gandalf, one of the five wizards who had arrived a few days earlier with his famous fireworks.

Lines of blooming flowers were draped about the open square, bright lights visible at every corner. Fireworks of all the colors one could imagine lit up the sky with beauty and activity. The sweet sound of laughter, singing, and silken voices could be heard throughout the Last Homely House. Estel, who did not usually attend these parties could be seen sitting alone on a bench, observing the merrymaking around him with a small smile curving his face. His two brothers had come in formal robes worn for festivals and plastered themselves one to each side of the man.

Knowing they were probably not here to just converse, he sighed. “Elladan, Elrohir, have you any business with me?”

They shared a knowing look behind his back.

“Yes brother, since you have come of age in the eyes of a human, we thought you would like to try some of the best wine in Rivendell,” Elladan said, while Elrohir placed an intricately carved silver goblet into his hands, a deep crimson liquid sloshing inside.

It smelled strongly of fruit and had an intoxicating scent that drew most drinkers, but he never had an interest in becoming drunk, especially not there and now.

Yes, it was the best wine in the region, loved by all elves, but if one drank too much or any other person with a low alcohol tolerance, then they could be intoxicated for days on end and end up with a massive hangover that some described as “splitting your skull open”. It was definitely not designed to be consumed by anyone without Elven blood, for it was powerful even to elves who had a much higher tolerance rate than any other race.

Even without knowing any of this, the future king was still suspicious of his older siblings, for they had pulled many tricks on him in the past, involving food and drink and other mischiefs.

Once as a child they had lied to him about rosy berries in the garden, saying they would be delicious once he tasted them, but instead it had stained his mouth and fingers and face with a dull green and extremely noticeable juice for four days and had tasted worse than mud from a marsh. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only time he had been a victim of their deceit, and over time, he had learned to avoid most of their gimmicks, though occasionally one would slip through his defenses.

This was one of those instances.

“Are you sure brother?” Elladan insisted.

“Yes Elladan, I’m quite certain,” Aragorn sighed, resisting the urge to walk away to stay with more desirable company.

Still not discouraged, Elrohir shoved the lip of the cup to Estel’s lips, prompting him for a sip.

“What, too cowardly to try some? Can you not handle it?” He mocked. “Elladan! Estel can’t even handle a bit of wine! Even elleth younger than him can drink more than he!”

Just to make them go away, he downed the entire cup in one gulp and slammed the goblet down.

“There brothers! Satisfied now?” Aragorn spat at them. In reality, it stung the back of his throat like smoldering fire, but he managed to keep it to himself.

Though it does not take hold immediately, it usually does in a couple minutes for weaker systems.

Fuming, Estel left the twins and threaded through the dancing crowd, feeling slightly light-headed as a fuzziness wrapped around his mind. He sat down with a groan, knowing he would probably soon be intoxicated.

“Stupid Elladan and Elrohir,” Aragorn grumbled under his breath, massaging his temple.

It didn’t take long for all reason the reason to leave him. Completely unconscious of his actions now, he drunkenly strode onto a mostly unoccupied table, drawing the attention of his elven friends.

The man flung off his tunic and shirt into some unfortunate elf’s face and proceeded to dance and sing horribly on the table, stomping loudly in the process. By then, a lot of the ellons and elleth were inebriated as well, and joined him, though much more gracefully.

All of this was witnessed by Elladan and Elrohir, who sat in the shadows in absolute hysterics.

The rest of the night whizzed by in a flurry of chaos and noise.

                                                           ***

The next morning, a thin stream of sunlight rested on his face, but instead it felt like someone was shining a light directly into his eyes and pounding on his skull. Moaning, Aragorn rolled over just in the nick of time and emptied the contents of his stomach onto the floor.

Elrond is going to kill me. He thought despairingly.

“What, couldn’t handle a little bit of wine, brother?” The voice was seemingly too loud and all it served to do was make his migraine worse.

“W-what happened?” Was all he managed to get out before retching again, and the two brothers jumped back to avoid it.

“Well for starters Estel, you jumped on a table half naked and sang in the most off- tune voice I have ever been unfortunate to hear, and not to mention what you did afterward,” one of them replied, smirking.

“W-what? What do you mean?” The human was beginning to be increasingly worried by the second, and sweat was starting to form on his brow. “What did I do?”

They looked at each other than at Aragorn, and burst into laughter that resounded through his skull.

Elladan was rolling on the floor (Avoiding his vomit of course), and Elrohir was bent over so that his hair touched the ground. It took five minutes for them to finally calm down.

“Should we tell him?” Elrohir turned towards his brother, wiping tears out of his eyes.

“Tell me what?” His eyes narrowed at them, feeling anger slowly bubble to the surface. “What did I do?”

“Alright fine, calm down!” Elladan was growing red again, trying to suppress his smile.

“Y-you kissed Lindir!” Both of them lost it at the same time, resuming their earlier positions on the ground.

“In front of father too!” One of them in between breaths. “And Gandalf the Gray!”

The soon-to-be-Ranger paled, all the color draining from his face like water in a drain, and a look of sheer horror twisted across his features. Could it get any worse?

“A-and then y-you stripped naked and ran around the fountain!” Their howling increased in volume and for a moment Estel was worried that they might pop a vein or destroy something (Mostly likely his alcohol-induced brain and eardrums) in their mirth.

Lifting up his covers to check the truth behind that statement, he was horrified to find that they were. He was as naked as an underground mole rat, and the soles of his feet were slightly scratched and scarred. His clothes were nowhere in sight, and neither were his shoes.

“Did I do anything else?” He asked shakily, feeling faint.

“Luckily no, or else Ada would have skinned you and fed you to the orcs!”

After a while of more teasing, they finally let him get some rest, though he still felt the aftermath of the drink in his head.

He recovered in a couple of days, swearing by then never to drink again or to be victim to another one of their pranks. (Though neither of those promises lasted too long.) It took him quite a few days to finally find and apologize to the minstrel, as Lindir was undoubtedly avoiding him after the accident.

The poor elf had flushed a bright berry red and refused to make eye contact, squeaking a quiet “It’s okay!” and making an excuse to hurry off to some errand or another.

The other elves didn’t forget his performance either. It took a few months for him to be able to stroll by without initiating snickers or giggles.

He would definitely be getting those two back for this.