Darkness and light (LeatrixSage and Silver Star)

[Silver Star]

His morning prayers were interrupted by the entrance of four armed soldiers escorting none other than the archbishop himself and the king's hand. Aelir, who was kneeling in front of one of the many statues in honor to the god of light and healing, soon stood up to greet the men and offered a reverence to all of them. He had heard the rumors about the queen being under a terrible curse and many priests and wizards of all parts of the realm trying their best to help her with no success in the end. When the men in front of him started to talk about that particular situation, Aelir couldn't help it but to wonder why they were interested in him, since there were many other priests in the kingdom that possessed more knowledge and experience than him.

It didn't take too long for the men to explain Aelir the current situation and the orders that the king himself had issued. The young priest felt honored to be considered for a mission of such high importance, but he felt intimidated by the pressure that it carried. Were he to fail on the task, the queen herself would be paying his incompetence with her life, and it would be catastrophic for the whole kingdom. Of course, Aelir wasn't just a boy who only knew how to read books and mop a temple's floor, he had developed quite a large amount of skills related to healing, use of herbs, exorcism, and even a bit of diplomacy along the way. He was young and talented, all he was lacking was the experiences that the world outside the temple could provide, but that included many dangers and risks.

Almost all of his life, Aelir had been serving the priests as an apprentice, and soon enough, when he was ready, started following the bishop's footsteps. He tried to learn as much as possible and did his best to be considered a good example of a man of the light. That was why he was the first name that came to mind fo the archbishop when he had to assign the task of destroying the curse that was slowly consuming the queen. The problem was that he couldn't make the journey all by himself, no. It was far too dangerous for him to go alone, yet the king couldn't send an army of his men with him or it would raise suspicions. The mission was to be kept a secret, so the priest needed to travel with as few companions as possible.

And there was yet another complication to add to the whole thing. Aelir's destination was none other than the lands of the Drow, deep in the dark forests that lay east, very far from the kingdom's capital where Aelir had been living his whole life. To travel such a long distance that covered almost the whole land from one point to the other, he would need someone to guide him and protect him, someone capable of leading him to the place where the dark magic was being channeled so he could use his powers to cancel it and save the queen.

Now, even though the kingdom was very open in terms of receiving members of the other races within it's cities, the Drow weren't really very much welcome anywhere other than inside their circles. The other elves hated them, the dwarves didn't trust them, and most of the humans who met them along the way told stories of conflict with them. It seemed like they were in fact the black sheep of the elvish race after all. All of this mattered because, if Aelir was to enter a place where that kind of beings controlled everything, he'd be needing someone that could have at least a chance of gain entrance to the cities of the drow, someone they would trust. So, what kind of companion would the king assign to him then? Simple, someone coming from where his destination was... they needed a drow for the job.

Now, for better or for worse, just so happened that in the dungeons of the castle there was a prisoner who had all the necessary characteristics for the mission. A female drow had been captured not too long ago for trying to assassinate one of the members of the king's council. They tried questioning her but there was no use, she didn't tell them who ordered the attack. Knowing that they wouldn't get anything useful out of her, she was sentenced to death for her actions against the most loyal subjects in favor of the crown. She was only two days apart from meeting the axe, when the gates of her cell opened and the hand of the king himself entered and explained the situation to her. She'd get her life and freedom back, but she'd have to help Aelir save the queen. Once the mission was complete and Aelir returned to safety with good news, she'd be spared from all charges and offered a proper compensation for her inconveniences. In case she'd fail or betray Aelir, she'd be pursued, captured, and made an example for everyone in the realm to see.

Finally, when the time came, Aelir stood next to his horse at the entrance of the city and watched in silence how a figure approached him, apparently the one of the person in charge of keeping him safe. Even though the bishop and the king's hand explained to him all the details about what he had to do during the mission, they didn't tell him he'd be tagging along with a drow. Aelir had never seen one of them before, only thing he knew about them was what he read, and none of that was any good.

Blinking twice and scratching his jaw with his left hand, he stood there looking at the female getting closer and lifted the other hand to gesture her that it was him who she'd be riding with. It felt strange to have to intereact with such a strange creature, but he had to act as civil and respectful as possible, that was his duty. "Greetings... I am Aelir, the bishop's apprentice and priest in service of the lord of light. A-Are you to be my guardian for the duration of this journey?" He asked when the female was close enough to him, trying his best to not sound too nervous or intimidated, even though he was exactly that way at that time.

 

[LeatrixSage]

There was incense on the air. It swirled within the smoke from the charred remains that littered the courtyard, but it did nothing to cover the pungent scent of burnt flesh and death. It reeked in a way that little else in the world ever could. Beyond the courtyard the sounds of battle still rang out in steel meeting steel, shouted spells, and shrieks of pain. Liora Ro’thul, barely more than a child, stood among the wasted, withered bodies, a long, slender sword in each hand. Her white hair was matted and stuck to her skin in clumps where it was dyed pink and red from the blood of the slain. Her ashen skin shimmered in the light of the blue and purple faer fires that still raged, the light reflected in droplets of sweat. Her heart was hammering away like the drums of war in her ears, and yet there was a deadly calm about the Drow woman as she marched over the piles of slippery bodies.

Bones crunched and cracked beneath her booted feet as she walked toward a familiar shape near the courtyard wall. Huddled in crumpled and stained purple silk was her eldest sister, half hidden beneath the dead body of one of their house’s soldiers, and the older Drow was struggling to free herself from beneath the heavily armored male. She was trapped, and wounded, and Liora licked her lips in anticipation as she approached her sister.

“Byrberra,” she called out as she sheathed her swords at her hips. The elder Drow looked up at her with distrust shining in her bright red eyes, but Liora offered her a teasing smile as she reached down to help move the dead soldier that kept her legs pinned. Together, they shifted the weight of the large male until Byrberra was able to slide free, and the Liora reached out to help her to her feet.

“Don’t touch me,” the priestess hissed in disdain as she yanked her arm away from Liora, who watched the elder with amusement as she staggered on a broken leg and fell back to the ground. She was weak, vulnerable, and Liora trembled with excitement as she followed her sister as she crawled futilely along the edge of the wall in search of something to help her stand. The pitiful creature was the first daughter of their Matron, their mother’s favorite and heir, and a dangerous foe when she was whole and ready for a fight. What lucky twist of fate had put her at Liora’s feet was beyond her knowing.

“Poor Byrberra,” she murmured, waiting for her sister to look up at her before she put her booted foot over her broken leg and pressed down. Byrberra howled, and Liora sighed with something akin to ecstasy as she twisted her foot. One of the fractured bones popped through Byrberra’s flesh, and Liora laughed at the sight. It was nothing short of revenge for the endless mass of scars that her eldest sister had left crisscrossed and burned into her back, arms, and legs.

“Ah, look what you made me do. What a mess,” Liora sighed as she dragged her foot through the dirt to clean her sister’s blood off of her boot.

“You iblith,” the elder Drow hissed through her pain. It was an insult Liora had worn so many times that the word had lost its weight. If she was lower than shit, that was fine, she wasn’t the one drawling across the battlefield like a wounded dog.

“You’re weak,” Liora whispered as she stepped over her sister’s body and squatted down over her. “We know our Dark Mother despises weakness, Byrberra. Do you think she’ll save you?”

The Elder Drow’s eyes widened as Liora lifted a sacrificial Dagger high over her head. The handle was purple glass shaped into the body of Drow woman from the waist up, the blades where her legs, and they were eight sharp needles formed from a black, swirling steel shaped into the legs of a spider, and it burned Liora’s palm as she held it. Byrberra began to cry, to plead, and Liora’s titillation turned into disgust at the pitiful creature sobbing beneath her.

“Great Goddess, Lolth, Mother of the Dark, grant me the blood of my enemies for drink and their living hearts for meat,” Liora repeated the prayers she had heard thousands of times before, and then buried the eight needles of the dagger into Byrberra’s chest. Her sister screamed, and then gurgled, and then the light in her eyes began to fade. Liora twisted the sacrificial dagger to cut her heart free, and then lifted the still beating thing from her flesh.

There you are, my child.

The cold feminine voice cut through the smoke and ash, and all other sounds fell away as Liora stood, turned, and found herself in a lasting darkness that her eyes could not penetrate. The courtyard was gone, along the bodies and the battle. She stood alone, sightless, hearing nothing in the distance, and forced reach out into the darkness to try to feel something, anything, and finding nothing at all.

You can hide from me, but you will never be rid of me.

Out of the blackness reared a spider the size of a horse, it’s fore legs darting out to grab Liora and pull her in to its fangs. She screamed and thrashed against it, but it’s grip only tightened, and then she was falling.

Liora hit the cold stone floor of her cell with a groan, the meager sheet she had been given wrapped tightly around her. Pain flared in her hip as she passed from the dreaming memories into reality. She’d spent weeks in the damp, filthy cell, and yet the nightmare she’d just had was the only one she had suffered. Of course, faced with the prospect of returning to her people, it seemed only reasonable that she have a nightmare or two to get the journey started. Anything they touched as hell on earth, and their damnedable goddess was not one to let go easily.

“Filthy bitch,” Liora muttered as she got to her feet. Both the goddess she had sworn herself to, and the vengeance of her own mother, had been chasing her heels since the day she had come crawling up from the Underdark into the surface world. It had kept her moving, never staying in one place for too long, and now one botched job was sending her right back into their loving arms. The Drow woman shuddered at the thought, and then beat on the bars to her little cage.

“Ho, there,” a guard’s voice echoed from down the hall.

“What time is it?” she called back to him.

“Not yet dawn,” another voice called out. There was some murmuring and scuffling that she could not quite make out, and then one of those dandies that had shown up with the Hand of the King the night before came into view with a torch and a plate of the best smelling food she had seen in a month. “You should eat, I’ll tell them to ready a bath for you, and all of your belongings will be waiting for you.”

Sure enough, they let her eat their fancy food, brought her out of the cell and into the castle main to bathe and dress, and even allowed her to walk around without shackles. It was better treatment than she would provide to a pawn, and it made the Drow distrust the situation all the more. They promised her crimes would be forgiven, and hefty compensation if she succeeded in her babysitting duties and returned the little priest she was supposed to keep alive along the way. Liora did not believe them, not one whit, and had already come up with several options of how to get out of this by the time she was walking out to meet her charge.

A pair of the city’s Watchmen marched her all the way out to the main gate before they gave back her weapons. She had felt naked without them, even when wrapped in the supple leather that was her armor. Next to a pair of horses waited a young human man with a face that seemed as if it was made to frown in worry. He looked thin and small despite standing at least a head taller than Liora herself; his padded, priest’s robes doing little more than accenting how narrow he was. His hands looked lean and soft, made delicate through years of turning the pages of books. They matched his watery, doe-like eyes and gentle features. You could see hardship in man, and she saw nothing more than a spoiled, pampered clergy.

“Siyo, iblith, I am your babysitter,” she answered him in a mix of Drow and the common tongue as she passed him by to check the saddle bags on the horse that was to be hers. She found rations, water, flint and steel, all those sensible things. That was one less thing to worry about, and one more potential advantage to the idea of just killing the priest herself and riding hard for the east. They would have no way of knowing before it was too late. Maybe she’d wait a week, tolerate him for a time, and then just leave him during the night. If he was eaten by a shadow cat, they couldn’t call it murder.

Only after she had tucked her swords securely into the blanket wrapped up at the back of her saddle and lashed her crossbow and quiver of bolts into place, did she turn her bright red eyes back to the man. It was nearing mid-day and they wouldn’t have time to make it past the Inn about a half day’s journey down the King’s Road before the sun began to set, so there wasn’t any hurry on this first leg of the journey. She wondered, as she watched him, if that would be good for his healthy or not.

“Can you even sit a horse, or do I need to help you up into the saddle?” she asked him as she gathered up the reigns of her own stallion and began to lead it out the gate and away from the prying eyes and ears that clung to them. “Just know now that I won’t help you, so if you can’t get into the saddle yourself, you’ll walk the whole journey.”

 

[Silver Star]

The tongue of the drow was not one Aelir had studied during the years he had been at the service of the temple of light. He had only learned some dwarvish language thanks to the presence of a nordic friend of the bishop, who stayed with the priests for a couple of years serving as a constructor and repair man. The nord was kind and wise, so Aelir used to spend time with him and learned as much as he could about his culture and way of life, including the tongue he spoke.

This time, however, the young priest was at the presence of someone completely strange to him. Her initial words made no sense in his mind, but he took them as some sort of introduction, they had to be that. Hopefully, if things went well along the journey, he would learn more about her and understand more of her words and her ways. Even though most of the people he knew talked about the drow as a dangerous and treacherous community, Aelir believed that no matter how dark a heart could be, there would always be a light of hope within it. He was willing to give her a chance, not judging her by her nature like most of his brothers and sisters did.

The looks of the female were quite interesting to the priest, to say the least. He had always lived secluded inside a monastery, leaving only for pilgrimages and requests done by the bishop from time to time, which usually led him to a village to help the sick and wounded or give a helping hand inside a temple. He was a man with little to no experience outside the gates of the city, so the number of times he stood in front of a woman had not been numerous. There had been a time where one of the young healers of the town of Westray smiled at him, blushing and giving him a sweet look while caring for the sick and wounded, but that was all it happened. Aelir felt like a sinner for having impure thoughts about that sweet girl and never again dared to look at a woman the same way, or at least he thought so.

The outfit that the drow had on top of her body was very generous to her curves, making the leather that covered her nudity present a very clear idea of how her frame was built. She even had a cleavage so pronounced that her breasts were very easily seen from the front. Anyone within a considerable distance would enjoy the wonderful sight of those two partially covered ebony wonders. Aelir, without even knowing what he was doing, took a good look for a second or two, before feeling ashamed. The priest never dared to sin with a woman, let alone let impure thoughts inside his head like a normal man would, so when he noticed her cleavage right in front of him, he immediately swallowed and turned his face the other way, clearing his head and blinking a couple of times to regain his composture.

"Y-yes, miss...I... I can mount my horse..." The priest said after he noticed how his companion passed him by, checked the equipment, and started the march on her own horse, almost like wanting to get out of that city as soon as possible. Aelir was surprised at how things were starting, as he had been taught to properly greet others and expect the same treatment in return most of the times. The drow seemed to be quite the opposite as him, so it took him a couple of seconds to realize there was not going to be a handshake or any sort of formal introduction happening.

Trying to get on his horse as fast as possible to prevent his guardian to leave him behind, the priest positioned himself next to his horse and mounted it, a little clumsy with his movements, but sitting straight on top of the animal after correcting his posture. "W-Wait for me, please..." Aelir asked as he tried to follow her lead with his horse and avoid falling behind.

He couldn't help but to notice the amount of weapons that she was carrying, which led him to worry about the dangers they could encounter along the way. He was completely in favor of peace and life, so fighting and killing were concepts he tried to keep as far as possible from his reach. Of course, he had been taught many times by his elders that the roads outside the city and the places nearby were not safe for a person like him, and that many terrible things happened out there on a daily basis... it terrified him.

Catching up with the drow, Aelir positioned his horse next to the woman's and looked at her with a worried look in his face. "I was told that you would be my guide on this journey. Should we expect many dangers ahead of us?" He asked the woman, looking at the blanked where she had stored her swords. "If I may ask one thing, I would request for us to avoid any kind of confrontation with others if possible..." He said, hoping those words would help in making the journey easier.

The ride was going to be a long one and only the gods knew what they could expect along the way. There had been rumors about an increasing activity of bandits and brigands stealing from caravans of merchants near the cities, but Aelir hoped they would remain that way, being rumors. Yes, the drow definitely looked like someone who could protect him from an attacker if given the situation, but against many foes at the same time...

Aelir shook his head, trying to clear all the worries and fears from his mind at least for a while, and looked at the woman, waiting to hear her responses to his questions. She could surely be intimidating and even frightening, but there was something about her... he just knew that she wasn't evil like everyone else believed. Maybe it was just a hunch, maybe it was the lord of light speaking to him, but Aelir firmly believed that the dark skinned beauty had a good heart under that tough exterior.

 

[LeatrixSage]

The Drow woman coaxed her horse into a trot before she flitted up into the saddle in a small leap to stretch muscles that had become stiff from weeks of inaction. Something in her back twinged painfully, but it passed quickly as she tucked her heels into the horse's side to press him into a fast canter and began to post in the saddle. The horses were fresh; keeping a quick pace early on would help to guarantee they made it to the Crossroads Inn before dusk. With word spreading far and wide about a cursed queen, there was little traffic in or out of the city. Hopefully, that meant there would be limited competition for a good bed that was also clean. Or, for that matter, a room with more than one bed, because she was almost certain her unfortunate companion would not survive sleeping next to her any better than he would sleeping on the floor.

Judging by his earlier discomfort, she felt it was safe to assume that the priest worshiped one of those gods that insisted all earthly desires were unclean. She must seem outlandish to him, the nasty little hypocrite. Despite their distaste for carnality, good food, and drink, all their priests seemed to wrap themselves in expensive clothes with plenty if gold and silver trimmings. Of course, some broke all those other rules, too, while they peddled their preaching and passed their judgement on the lowly followers of their sad faith.

Obviously she wasn't dressed for modesty, and she had modified the disgustingly chaste armor to be a little more like what she was accustomed to. The surface was absurdly hot more often than not, and yet humans were obsessed with covering as much of their flesh as they possibly could. Typically, that even meant multiple layers. Hell, their whores wore more material than Liora had worn into battle in the Underdark, and they all sweat so much that she could barely smell anything other than their body order.

Foul smelling creatures, one and all.

They were a weak, pathetic race of mongrels that breed like rabbits. It was the only thing they really had going for them, you couldn't kill them faster than they could reproduce. They grew so much faster than any other race, and yet lived such tiny lives compared to the Drow, or even the darthiir, the traitorous surface elves, the leaf lickers that built their homes in trees. She'd never met one that she liked, but she liked humanity even less, and their faithful she hated most of all.

It wasn't long until the little priest had worked his horse into a canter to catch up with her. As he urged his horse up along side of her, she reigned in to slow their pace. The poor man bounced around in the saddle in a way that reminded her of herself when she'd first sat one of the four-legged beasts. She didn't even him the aches and pains he would have if he didn't learn to post properly, or the ones he would have when he finally figured it out. The soft spot irked her, but looking at him, she couldn't get passed just how absurdly young he was, barely a man for the standards of his own race, and little more than frightened child to her own. She was going to have to get over that, treating him soft just made it more likely that he wouldn't survive outside the safety of libraries and temples. His questions and concerns simply drove that concept home.

His question was simply too painfully naive for her to bother answering. If this wasn't dangerous, they would have sent him off on his own, and she would probably be dead by now. Sure, she'd hatched an escape plan or two, but getting out a jail cell was nothing compared to escaping in a city where you were the only creature with white hair, black skin, and red eyes among millions of others. Her faer notwithstanding, magic could only get you so far. And as to his other concerns? Well, when she didn't answer that first questions, he asked her to avoid confrontation, as if that was an actual option available to them. Liora had to take a deep breath and reign in her disgust, making him wait a considerable amount of time before she finally relaxed in her saddle. She folded her hands over the horn, gripping it tightly to restrain the urge to reach out and slap the stupid notions out of his head.

Now there's a thought, a smile tugged at the corners of her lips as her perspective of their little situation changed. Maybe slapping the stupid out of him wasn't the best course of action. It was going to be a damnably long journey, and she was sure to get bored when there was nothing to fight or fuck to pass the time. Maybe warping the chaste little priest's world would keep her entertained. The arguments, at least, might provide her a good laugh. And, possibly, watching him come to terms with how pointless his faith really was would be a special treat indeed.

"Siyo... ah, yes," Liora addressed him once she had made her decision. "I wouldn't have weapons if there wasn't going to be danger ahead of us, iblith. And, to the other," her voice trailed off as she considered her words. It would likely be important later when he screeched about how she'd promised, how she'd agreed, and she'd have to correct him. "If it makes your delicate sensibilities feel better, I will not go out of my way to find confrontation."

Not that she would need to, anyway. Between them and their destination would be plenty of animals that could kill them in their sleep, barbarians in the plains, highwaymen along the main roads, bandits, the slant-eyed woodland sprites with long ears, and a slew of regular people that might want to try to kill her just because she was a Drow. Not that she blamed them, she was just as apt to kill any Drow she met as they all were. Her funny little priest was just the most recent fool to trust that she wouldn't kill him herself in due time.

"Ah, and I am not your guide, iblith," she went on as the great city slowly grew distant behind them. "I'm not taking you on a tour, or a holiday. I am here to kill the things that are going to want to kill you. Of course, if that offends your faith, well, I could always just let them kill you and then go along my way. Of course, that means your Queen will die from the curse. And the Drow that cast that curse, you will have to kill them, too. Does your god allow that, or will you be forever tarnished by such a disgusting act?"

Maybe that was laying things on a little thick, but she wanted to gauge just how faithful the little priest was. She'd met a few that would fall into frothing fits over such simple contradictions, but they were usually the lowest of their kind, those that protested and boasted a faith that wasn't really their own. Was he one of them, or a true believer that would rationalize the mind of his unknowable god into something that protected his small-minded world view? She waited to find out with bated breath.

 

[Silver Star]

Iblith, that word soon started to sound familiar, as she kept on using it to refer to him. Aelir had no idea what it meant before, but soon he found himself thinking that it meant something like 'man' or 'human', it suddenly became the first word he knew in her language. Maybe later, if they kept on having conversations and getting to know each other better, he'd be able to ask the woman to teach him more of her native tongue, as it could prove to be of help in the future.

Of course, he wasn't expecting to find the Drow woman willing to teach him anything, let alone wanting to bond with someone like him. He very well knew what most people considered priests to be, for they very openly and frequently said it to his face. Living a life of service and devotion wasn't for everyone, most considered it to be useless and very limiting, a choice that took much more than what it gave to the one embracing it. Something for cowards, for men without the courage and strength to take arms and fight.

But what other choice could a man like him have? He had been an orphan ever since he had a memory and it was the priests of the light who gave him a chance at becoming someone with a purpose. Within the stone walls of the temple that protected him from the cold and dangers of the outside world, Aelir found the love and comfort that the god of healing and compassion offered him.

Sure, he had never experienced the warmth of the loving arms of a woman around his neck. The embrace of passion and pleasure that all sinners craved and described as one of the best reasons a man had to be alive. Aelir stayed away from those things, for the lord of light demanded him to be pure and free of sin. The priests that took care of him made sure that he would understand that. In the lord of light he would find all the love and comfort he'd ever need, the path of salvation and righteousness was all a man could ever need.

That was one of the reasons why Aelir was more timid in front of women than men, for a part of his human nature and young spirit was designed to go against the strict orders of his religion. He obviously managed to control his impulses and behave properly at all times, but to say that he never had an impure thought during the course of his adulthood would be a complete fallacy. More than once he found himself staring at maids and farm girls longer than needed, but he knew how to correct his wrong thoughts and pray for forgiveness after such unworthy actions.

Anyway, he had no time to think about that kind of affairs at that moment. He was on a mission, he had to stay focused.

"I highly appreciate that... " Said Aelir as a response to the drow's explanations to consider not going out of her way to find confrontation. If it had been a human riding next to him, he'd probably wouldn't have felt the need to request that, but since he had been taught that the Drow were a very confrontational race by nature, he was afraid that some minor encounter with others along the road could cause the woman to lose her temper and bring problems to the both of them.

Fortunately for Aelir, his protector, who claimed not to be his guide, had some common sense. Those concepts about the Drow being purely evil creatures started to appear as nothing more than generalizations and unfair judgements than anything else. Of course, it was too early to jump into conclusions, but the priest felt like he had to give the woman a chance to make her own reputation instead of carrying the one achieved by his ancestors and other members of her community.

He hated to admit it, but the words that came out of the drow's mouth next got him thinking and doubting. It was a valid point, he had to save a life on his mission, a very important one, but considering they would surely meet enemies along the way, he could also be the cause of the loss of others.

"The god of light... he protects us from evil, teaches us to be kind and respect all forms of life. We try to bring peace and comfort to the living, to help the sick and heal the wounded. We, as priests, refuse to resort to violence, to... take lives..." Aelir frowned and looked down, clearly feeling conflicted by the mere thought of having to kill others, no matter if they were evil or not. The drow was right, in order to stop the curse from continuing the consumption that was killing the queen, he would have to nullify the source of the spell and, knowing how black magic worked, it would surely mean to slay the conjurer. "It is with heavy heart that I have accepted my fate as a sinner. If we succeed and I successfully destroy the source of the curse, I will be taking a life with my hands in the process." He closed his hands in fists while keeping the horse's reins with a tight grip. "Us priests of the light, we value all lives, no matter the past, present or future of the being. Every life is precious, and we vow to protect them all..." He took a deep breath and looked at the female, pausing for a moment before he'd finish his sentence. "I had been ordered to sin, and I accepted it. I will forever carry a stain on my soul because of it... and it pains me to accept it, but accept it I must... for the sake of the Queen, and everyone in the kingdom."

He looked away from the drow and again to his front, to the road that lay ahead of them. "I beg you to protect me during this journey. I understand what it means, and I take full responsibility for all the lives that you may be forced to take because of it... But I must not fail on my mission. I only hope that the lord can forgive me for what I will do..." He took a deep breath and remained silent after that. Would she consider him weak? Would she mock him like all of the others did?

The journey was barely starting and the two would be riding east until the sun would set over the horizon. He had very limited knowledge of the locations they'd be traveling to after leaving the city behind, but it seemed like their next stop would be safe, maybe a small town or someplace that will present them with a roof over their heads, a much better option than having to make camp out in the open, exposed to the dangers that could be waiting for them in the shadows of the night.

"So, where will this road lead us?" Aelir asked as they continued marching, hoping she'd give him good news. The farther they'd ventured, the riskier it'd be, but perhaps she knew of a path safe enough at least for that day.

 

[LeatrixSage]

“Who told you to sin against your God,” she asked mildly enough as he spoke, a smirk making the corners of her lips twitch, “A man, or your God?”

His fortitude was… commendable, she supposed. It took a certain kind of strength of character to actually believe the prattle he had been taught, and despite herself, she respected strength in all its forms. He was naïve, maybe even a little stupid considering he was trusting her with his life, but he wasn’t weak. At least, not exactly.

Well, not weak of character.

The thought made her left eye twitch. She would much rather it if he was pathetic and sniveling, a hypocrite like all the rest. Instead, she was beginning to suspect the man was actually dedicated to the nonsense that he was saying. It was equal parts annoying and intriguing. Annoying because she was going to have to listen to the Lord of Light shit for the next several weeks. Intriguing for the opportunity to see how that unshakeable faith held up against the trials ahead of them. She imagined the man having a heart attack if he caught her bathing and nearly laughed allowed. Again, she found herself wondering. It was slim pickings on the surface, and she avoided her own people and the Underdark like the plague they were. She’d shared her bed with a human or two, even a dwarf once, but never a virgin of any race, not even her own. The fact that he happened to be a pious little shit might actually make for some interesting sport, if she could see him was something more than that.

Her attentions snapped back to the man, and her eyes widened as he begged her to protect him, and then narrowed as she sneered at him for apologizing for the lives she might take in order to keep him alive. He was speaking partially to her, and partially to his God, as he claimed responsibility for her future sins, and then he went quiet. Liora was gripping the horn of her saddle so tightly that her fingers ached in protest, but if she let go, she was going to smack the little priest right off of his saddle. The man couldn’t kill for himself because someone had put a book into his hand instead of a sword. Her nose wrinkled as she made excuses for him. He was a man grown, now. Needing someone else to do his dirty work for him was a disgrace. Daring to presume to protect her soul by taking responsibility for her actions was more deeply insulting than she could articulate in a language that he could understand.



“Do me a favor,” she purred darkly once she could finally speak, “and don’t pray for me. I’ve killed more women, men, and children than you have known in your short little life, and I will kill many, many more. If you want to truly serve your God, you should end me, not try to take responsibility for the lives that I am going to take in the name of your God, your King, and you.”



There was more on her tongue, but Liora clenched her jaw shut against it. She shouldn’t be angry, there was no point to it, and her ire was not a thing either of them could afford. It wasn’t his fault his leaders were liars, thieves, and conmen. They promised her such sweet rewards when they returned, as if she were fool enough to believe them. It was bait to the trap, because if she ever went back, they’d kill her just as surely as she would have had their roles been reversed.

The Drow took a slow, deep breath, and then forced the emotions down. It was a waste of her energy to bother with them.

They traveled in silence for a time as the sun reached its zenith and then began its slow track back down to the western horizon. It was fortunate the winding road lead eastward so that they didn’t have to stare into the sun. Of course, that meant most of their mornings would be blinding for Liora. If she had her way, they’d be well on the road by the time the sun rose each morning, and hopefully it would spare her the vulnerability of being sleepy and blind.

As evening began to settle in around them, he spoke again to ask where the road would lead them. Liora stared at him, her bright red eyes looking for some hint of a joke before realizing that the little priest had never been outside the walls of the capital city. His entire world was half a day’s hard ride behind them.

“You mean you don’t know?” she asked slowly, simply to make sure that she wasn’t confused, and then chuckled as she shook her head. “You poor little man. This is the King’s Road, it runs from the capital to the Crossroads. At the Crossroads, there is the Crossroads Inn, and a road that leads out in each cardinal direction. The North Road will take you to the Moores before it breaks off to lead to smaller lairdships and fades away into forests and mountains. The West Road will take you to the coast, a collection of farms and fishing villages, and Sandbar, the trade city, or as you might know it, the City of Sin, that sits in the heart of the bay. South leads to sprawling farms and orchards that eventually give way to the Gardens of Dungraven, the largest city next to the King’s seat at the capital. East will take us through a few small lairdships, farms, over a couple rivers, into marsh lands and forests, and then to your villain.”

The Drow watched Aelir with a strange sense of kinship as she told him things he should already know. She’d thought priests were among the most educated humans, and the study of maps and knowledge of the kingdom he lived in seemed essential. And yet, when she had crawled her way out of V'elddrinnsshar, the Underdark beyond the city had been foreign to her, and the surface world so much more so. Was it really so unusual that he had not left the city of his birth any more than she had?

“When the road turns back to the west, we will crest that far hill, and the Inn will be on the other side. We’ll get a room and some warm food tonight. After that, well…” Liora smirked and shrugged as she went on, “there are few places that will allow a Drow to step foot inside, no matter what kind of coin you wave at them, but we might find some beds for you along the way.”

Strangely, she held no malice against humans that turned her away from their businesses and homes. The wise thing to do when a Drow came knocking at your door was to bolt it shut and pray it went somewhere else. And most humans did exactly that, ignored her and hoped she’d go away. Dwarves were less like to turn her down, partially because they felt it made them look small and weak, but mostly because of the kinship they shared as races of the Underdark. Leaf-licking surface elves, however, typically tried to kill her on sight. Of course, she tried, and usually succeeded, to do that very thing to them. The only thing that tempered that behavior was the laws in mixed cities that tried to foster a peace within their borders.

It was as things were, as they rightly should be, and it bothered her more to receive kindness than it did to catch hatred and distrust. The thought made her chuckle, particularly as it pertained to the priest. She distrusted kindness and all its trappings to the point of avoiding it and lashing out against it. Malevolence was so much more comfortable and familiar that she welcomed it when she encountered it, and the little priest was shaping up to be one of the least malevolent things she had ever met.

“Fucking Iblith,” she muttered the curse to herself as she tucked her heels into her horse’s side to finish up the last leg of the journey as quickly as possible. “Keep up,” she called out more loudly, “the sooner we get there, the sooner we can eat and sleep.”

 

[Silver Star]

The priest wasn't surprised when the Drow told him not to pray for her. He knew many people out there, specially of other races and communities, didn't trust the god of light and believed him to be nothing but a comforting escape for weak people. Even some of the humans that he met while running errands on the city mocked him for being a faithful servant of his deity, judging his worth by his lack of character and his unbearable kindness. They could insult him, push him around, embarass him and even laugh at his god, but Aelir would remain calm and give them no answer, no reaction that would match the level of their aggresiveness. Yes, there had been a time or two were Aelir thought about punching some very disrespectful men back then in his hometown, but he always held back, he always showed a perfect behavior. He had to be a good priest, and that meant keeping a peaceful atittude all the time. What kind of example would he give to the others if they'd seen him beating some random stranger on the head with a book or something similar?

Riding all that time surely came like a new experience to the priest, who had been on horse rides before on some occasions, but only for short distances and with plenty of rest between places. This was definitely the first time that he put himself under that kind of circumstances and he was starting to feel it on his body. His back hurt, his legs were a bit tired, and his crotch area... well, all that galloping didn't help much down there either.

The promise of finding food and shelter surely sounded good for the man. It wasn't like he expected the journey to be a comfortable one, for he knew that there would be many dangers and problems waiting for the both of them along the way, but starting slow with at least one secure stop would be very helpful to him. It was the first time he ventured far from the city. A whole world of dangers, experiences and temptations awaited for him, and he only hoped to be prepared to face it, to keep himself from losing himself on its path.

"I have only traveled to the nearby villages and temples. My services to the lord have been always performed in the vicinity of the main city." Explained Aelir when the drow asked about his little knowloedge of the lands, to then remain silent and listen to her explanations. He had studied the maps before when he was younger, but since he was later assigned tasks of service to the wounded and the cure of diseases and curses, he eventually forgot about all things related to locations throughout the kingdom. The young man thought he'd live and die on the same place, that he'd lead a peaceful life helping others and spreading the word of the lord of light. His fate, however, was to be very different from that...

Even though the drow described quite a long road ahead and plenty of dangerous places to visit, it was a relief for the priest to know that she had a good idea of how to move around the places they'd need to visit to reach their destination. "I understand. Thank you." He replied after she basically described the whole map of the area with her words, giving the young man the chance to picture it inside his head and gain some sense of orientation along the way.

As soon as she began to ride faster for the sake of finding shelter before nightfall, Aelir did the same and tried his best to catch up to her and keep a similar pace. He was still somehow clumsy in the art of horseriding, so he sometimes looked like he was going to lose balance and fall from his mount. Fortunately for him, he didn't actually do that, but he surely shown signs of discomfort in his face as his back began to sore more than before because of the extended march they were taking part of.

"I understand that I might seem useless to you, but I have some abilities and knowledge that might prove to be useful if needed. If your methods don't work with some people we find along the road, maybe mine will...." Aelir said to Liora as they continued to ride towards the inn. "What I'm trying to say is that I want to be useful. I don't want you to have to do all the work if I can help in any way. You are here to help me, but I am also to help you too." He finished his words with a warm smile and a look of kindness in his face, one that someone like her probably would dislike.

Finally, just when the priest thought he'd be breaking his back because all that time on top of the horse, the inn appeared in front of them just where Liora said it'd be. Letting out a long sigh, the priest smiled and pointed at it, he was very happy to finally find himself in front on a safe and warm place. "We have arrived, this is wonderful." Aelir said with a big smile on his face, ignoring the fact that the place was somehow crowded and that finding two beds would surely be quite a challenge for them. Maybe, if Liora managed to get the owner to let them in and lend them a place to rest, they'd be having a roof over their heads.

"Should we just go inside?" Aelir asked his companion, waiting for her to decide and lead the way. She was far better than him with words and in dealing with people, that he knew from the second he saw her. He was just too nice, and people never took him very seriously because of that. But her, with such a strong character and confidence, surely would know how to get what she wanted and not let others take advantage of her trust.

 

[LeatrixSage]

The Crossroads Inn was always a busy place. Everyone that traveled passed that way eventually, and one could find every shape, size, race, and faith within its walls. Dwarves and men where the most numerous, but elves frequented occasionally, and Liora had not been the first Drow to be a guest, either. Normally, the Inn saw traveling minstrels and merchants as the common occupant, unless some great house was holding a tournament, and then small lords, knights, and mercenaries would pass through on their way to whatever coin purse they were chasing. Rarer still was the honest traveler that was off to visit friends or family and the Inn rest between them.

Thankfully for both of them, it seemed the Inn was busy, but not fit to bursting. When they ran out of rooms, people were like to pitch tents around the building as a place to fall after they ate and drank their fill. There was even room in their small stable for their horses, which meant the chances of their horses being stolen was greatly reduced. Liora was busying herself with collecting a few things to keep her mind from spending too much time considering the priest and his awe. He wanted to be useful, she sneered at the thought alone, imagining the man trying to swing a sword. Whatever abilities and knowledge he claimed to have, she couldn’t see how any of it could actually make him useful in a way that counted when it was life and death.

He was supposed to be a healer of some kind, but she doubted that meant much. She’d known human healers before. They were like to bleed you with leaches when what you needed was clean water and rest, killing you faster in their efforts to heal. She had little confidence that he was any different.

“It is an Inn,” Liora finally spoke again when he asked if they should just go inside. “Yes, we just go in.”

The blanket that contained her swords was slung over her shoulder as she left the stable, the priest left to chase her as she made her way into the Inn. It was as dark and crowded inside as she remembered. The large, open room that was the lower floor was filled with tables and benches. One the far-right wall was a massive hearth that burned with only a small fire for cooking. It was far too warm to need the fire to heat the Inn, and whatever was boiling away in the large kettle filled the room with a savory, herb-laden scent. In the back, beyond the tables, was a set of doors that led to a kitchen, and then the modest rooms of the Inn Keeper and his family. To the left was a set of stairs that led to the upper floors and the tiny rooms they rented out by the day.

“Keep,” Liora called out and waved to a young man that had greyed early in life when he looked up from serving drinks to a rowdy table. His eyes narrowed as they landed on her, and Liora wiggled her fingers at the man before flashing a couple of gold pieces. A broad smile creased his face at the sight, and Liora tucked them back away as he came over.

“Didn’t spect ta see you again, Drow,” he drawled in the bawdy voice as she stopped a good five feet away from her. The man was as broad as he was tall, with a fist nearly the size of Liora’s head, but he still kept a respectful distance from the woman, and he watched her like a dangerous insect that might bite him if it touched him.

“I need a room for the night, food, drink, and we’ll be gone by first light. Sooner, if you provide an early breakfast.” She was haggling, but only gently. He was a unique humor, allowing all kinds under his roof that had the coin to pay for it. But, if you disturbed the peace, the whole damn place would toss you out on your heard. She’d been astounded when she’d seen it happen, but it was evidently part of the culture of the Crossroads.

“If yer sepctin me ta be up o’for dawn, yer goin ta need more then two o’dose coins, Drow,” he was grinning, but his eyes weren’t so friendly. Liora considered hashing him out, but decided against it.

“Two beds?” she asked as she held up three gold coins. It was ten times what anyone else paid, but that was simply the way of things.

“One bed,” she tucked one of those coins away again and his hands came up in supplication as he shrugged. “They are all taken, already. I aint goin ta throw a payin customer out for you.”

“No, I expect that would be too much to ask,” she muttered, and then sighed dramatically as she handed the man three pieces of King’s gold for two meals and one good night’s sleep. “I expect food to be delivered before dawn. Not left overs, either. Fresh bread, cheese, and meat. Real meat, yeah?”

The man laughed and nodded as he pocketed the coins. “Fresh food, Drow, on my honor.”

As he left them, Liora peaked over her shoulder at the Priest with a little grin. “Seems we’re going to have to share a bed, but food,” she gestured toward an empty table by the hearth, “is right over there. Grab a bowl and get what you want from the hearth. You can eat your fill, they just add more to it.” Liora explained the custom as she led him to the hearth to get a bowl, which she filled and then handed to him before filling one for herself. It look like it was mostly rice and grain today, with a collection of herbs from the garden outside, maybe a potato or two, and some carrot in a brown gravy. Whatever meat had been used to make that gravy seemed to be long gone.

“Have a seat and eat,” she directed as she took a place at the empty table. There were eyes on them, many in fact, but Liora paid them no mind. The stares were expected, and in a way, appreciated. Whether they were looking because she was Drow or because she looked damn good in her armor didn’t really matter. What did was that they were looking. Liora was as conceited as a woman could be without being loathsome about it, and her ego needed a boost after fouling up what should have been an easy assassination.

Her first bowl went quickly, and she set it aside to let the first round settle while she appraised the priest yet again. Normally, she believed she was a decent judge of character, but she was having trouble pinning the man down. Mostly because she couldn’t wrap her head around how distastefully good he seemed to be. She wanted to believe it was an act, but thus far, he had been infallible in his performance if it was an act.

“May I ask you something, Iblith,” she asked slowly, unaware of the man that turned red faced somewhere behind her when he heard her addressed the priest as ‘excrement,’ “what else does your god ask you to sacrifice in his name? I mean, the mission of yours asks you to give up your soul, yes? What else does he demand you give up in life?”

 

[Silver Star]

They only needed to enter the place and pay for a place to be safe, that seemed unexpectedly easy. The priest had heard so many terrible stories from travelers and merchants about tavern fights and criminals among common folk in places like that inn, that he was somehow afraid that they could encounter trouble once they'd gotten themselves between its walls. However, as soon as Liora led the way and organized things with the keep, everything appeared to be much better than what he imagined.

The negotiations that the drow carried out with the man running the place ended up successful, they had a room to spend the night in. Aelir didn't care about the conditions of the place, the amount of beds or the luxuries it could have for them, as he was already used to live a life of humility. The priests at the service of the lord of light weren't allowed to have more possessions than the ones needed, nor could they accumulate riches or treasure for themselves. All their lives, in every single aspect, were devoted to the word of the lord and the work of the temple. They settled with that lifestyle, for it was all they knew.

After the drow finished speaking with the keep, Aelir walked with her towards the table and looked at the bowl she offered him, trying to recognize what kind of food it was. By the looks of it, it had many ingredients mixed to try and please most of the people that would go there with an empty belly. Seemed like a very decent meal for someone tired after a long journey, so he couldn't help but to smile at it and then at the drow for serving it to him. "Thank you for your generosity." He said as he took the bowl with both hands and sat in front of the table, facing her.

The man could hear his stomach growling under the fabric of his vestments. Even though he was used to eating only the necessary amounts of food to maintain his strength and energy, spending half a day horse riding and not eating anything on the way was starting to take it's toll on him. It wasn't until he smelt the aroma of the warm food in fron of him that he realized how hungry he actually was.

"Many eyes are on us..." Aelir said looking around, recognizing that many others were staring at them. She was the only drow in sight and he the only priest around. That, added to the fact that the two of them made a very unexpected kind of party, surely gave the strangers nearby a couple of reasons to be at least intrigued about their motives for being at that place sharing a meal.

Before he could continue with his observations though, the priest heard Liora asking him about his ways, about what he sacrificed to please his god. For a moment, Aelir remained silent thinking about it, but then he smiled gently to her and proceeded to give her a sincere answer. "Indeed. This mission will be my perdition. Once the darkness finds place in a man's heart, there is no getting it out of there... I am afraid that my soul will forever be corrupted and never again accepted under the blessings of our lord." The priest looked down at his own hands and sighed, clearly showing signs of despair in his face when remembering how his god would abandon him after the deed would be done and he'd taken a life to save the queen.

After a moment of silence, the priest looked up at Liora again and nodded. "Our holy father expects us to devote our lives to his cause, in every single aspect. We must not let greed corrupt us, so we can not have any possessions. That includes land, house and any kind of treasure or riches that may lead a man towards the wrong path. If a priest were to gain such things, he or she must donate it to the cause of the lord." Aelir was basically explaining to her that the priests were doomed to be poor, without actually saying or thinking that way. "Apart from that, we must never father a child or marry a woman. We already have the other priests as brothers and our lord as father. That is all the family we are allowed to have. Any previous bonds before entering the temple as a man of the lord is terminated once this new life begins. Even a noble man or the son of a king, when devoting himself to the lord of light, resigns all he has, including the people he called family before." He said, explaining how things worked for the priests back in the temple.

"And of course, we are supposed to behave properly. That means no fighting, no drinking, no gambling, and well... no..." He blinked rapidly and stared at Liora's chest, to then look away and complete his sentence with a nervous tone. "No lusting or laying with a woman." Scratching the back of his head to clear his mind of thoughts that would definitely be wrong to have for a person like him, he took a deep breath and sighed slowly. Out of all the things that his god expected of him, not being able to receive the warmth of a lover was the one that felt the most difficult to endure to him. Aelir was young, handsome, and was at an age where his nature gave him desires that proved him that he was still human, even if he had to fight against his urges or needs. Many times he found himself craving a soft touch, a smile of interest, or even a quick look of desire coming his way from a female. Even to his own shame, he had to confess and admit to his superiors that he had his penis growing hard and large when a young maid or healer was around him, mostly while he was helping the wounded during his trips to the villages near the temple. They forced him to repent from being a sinner, just because his manhood reacted like any normal man's would. Most of the priests were old men who had no use for their members other than to piss, so they somehow resented the young ones and expected them to also limit themselves the same way.

Clearing his throat, Aelir shook his head and then smiled at Liora, hoping she'd not notice his nervousness. "I.. ummm... What are your thoughts about that? I imagine you do not agree with that way of life, yes?" Aelir replied, nodding and then proceeding to eat from his bowl as he waited for the drow to speak her mind.

 

[LeatrixSage]

Generosity, she snorted at the notion, a very undignified sound, even for her. It was amusing to her to see it the situation from his perspective. Any small thing that could be perceived as kindness was blown out of proportion. Would it be fair to burst his bubble and explain that she only did what she did because it made life easier for her? Explaining how this worked now avoided the extensive list of annoying questions and leading him by the nose kept them from standing out any more than they already did. Not that a Drow ever went unnoticed. But, a Drow with a Priest of the Lord of Light, now there was indeed something you didn’t see every day. Maybe that rendered her argument moot, but Liora still wrinkled her nose at the very idea that she was generous.

Listening to the priest explain his way of life set the few missing pieces of the puzzle into place. His religion was as deeply restrictive as it was hypocritical, and somehow the man had managed to grow into adulthood actually keeping to the unreasonable tenants of his faith. In its own way, it mirrored her early faith, her blind trust and devotion to the spider queen. Her will to serve the desires of her Goddess had been paramount in her world, once. Perhaps that was why his devotion made her feel sick to her stomach.

“It sounds to be like a few miserable old men told you how to live your life, claimed that a God told them that was how things were to be, and you fell for their con just like everyone else.” Liora pushed her bowl farther away, her appetite curtailed by memories that she didn’t want to examine too closely. “Anything that brings joy, pleasure, or peace is sinful,” she murmured thoughtfully while she watched the priest eat. There was another aspect of their faith that amused her, that of boxing themselves off from anything that could threaten their faith. They couldn’t submit to greed, so they denied themselves any and all forms of wealth or belongings in order to never have to face temptation. Their faith was never tested, hidden behind their walls of devotion, and they never actually did anything for anyone other than themselves. Even their little jaunts out to local farms for healing was all about earning points with their God rather than doing any actual good.

“No, I don’t,” she admitted easily despite how her mood had soured. “First of all, that dick between your legs,” Liora leaned back on the bench to press one booted foot gently between the priest’s legs – not intent on doing him harm, but to bring his full attention to the body part in question, “was made to be used. If your God didn’t want you to fuck, then he shouldn’t have given you the tools and will to do so.” She gave him a little nudge before she put her foot back down. “And how can you claim to be able to resist greed if you have no wealthy to tempt you? Wouldn’t it be better to be wealthy and able to put coins into hands that need it most, than to be among the poor and unable to help those around you in any way that actually improves their lives? The only reason religion hates the wealthy is because the temple wants their gold. They pile on the shame and fearmongering, and good people hand over their livelihood for the forgiveness of a God that’s never done anything for them but call them disgusting and sinful.”

Liora’s outburst of distaste ended abruptly, her lips pressing into a thin line. Within the ordered chaos of the Inn was a slow, deliberate sound of a chair being carefully pushed back. The sound was out of place, but only because it was so quiet. People only tried to not be heard when they had something to hide, and she suspected the movement itself was what was meant to be hidden.

“To my eyes,” she went on as if nothing had happened, “Either your God is twisted, or your leaders are wrong, and they have taught you lies. Wouldn’t you better serve all the wishes of your Lord of Light by living outside the temple and alongside people that would benefit from you? If you can’t handle temptation, then you have no faith to begin with.” While she spoke, she listened to a rather artful dance taking place behind her. Slow footsteps, too light to be a drunk but staggering as if they belonged to one, wound their way casually closer. The idea that it was a casual, drunken assault seemed unlikely. It felt more like careful planning, a calculated assault, but that image faded, and her body relaxed when a man reeking of mulled cider dropped his hand on her shoulder.

“I heard you, Drow,” he sneered, red faced and dirty. He looked like your typical thug, hired to keep men just like him from steeling from merchant’s as their goods traveled between cities. “You think humans are filth, do yeh?” he was remarkably light on his feet for a drunk, but a drunk none the less. Under normal circumstances, she might have made an example out of the man – and possibly his friends – but she had made the damned priest a promise, hadn’t she?

“Only ones that are actually shite,” she replied neutrally. One could argue that it might not have been the best response, given the man’s sneer, but it was far kinder than what she would have said any other day, so Liora deemed it more than fair.

“Yer a mouthy bitch,” the drunk complained while his fellows back at his table laughed bawdily. It galled her to let them laugh, so much so that her hand settled on the haft of the little dagger on her thigh while she imagined it’s needle-like tip poking holes into them all until their blood drained out of them like water through a sieve.

“And you’re a drunk,” she growled, glaring straight forward at the priest.

“He got yo’ leash, dain’t he?” his stinking hand was still on her shoulder, and Liora was beginning to seethe at the suggestion that the priest had any control over her what so ever, particularly seeing as how he did, since she had given him her word not to go looking for trouble where there wasn’t any.

Well, I didn’t go looking for this, she thought with a grin as she jerked the dagger from its sheath, spun the blade in her hand, and stabbed backward into the knee closest her. The drunk howled, and as he fell, the little dagger slid right back out of his flesh. She drug the blade across her thigh to clean away the blood before she slipped it back into place.

“Careful there,” she called out as she leaned backward over the man. “I think you fell on a nail, Iblith. Bad luck, that. Might want to see someone about that hole in your knee.”

She was chuckling as she sat back up, her sour mood completely restored despite the tense hush that had fallen around them. As her red gaze met the priest’s eyes, however, she found herself raising her eyebrows curiously. “Are you going to heal him or just stare?”

 

[Silver Star]

Old men telling young ones how to live. Why did that statement made so much noise inside his head all of a sudden? It wasn't that he hadn't heard similar opinions about his way of life or the things that the priests in charge did to the ones with lesser ranks, but it seemed like Liora made sense, too much sense, with what she told him. Being out there, away from the place he called home and exposed to many dangers, was making it harder to stay focused, but he took it as another test to his faith, he had to stay devoted and act exactly how it was expected of him.

However, all that focus on his faith and determination to stay calm and walk the path of light suddenly shifted towards a whole new point of attention, right between his legs. The gentle touch of the female's boot on top of his manhood made the priest slightly jump on his seat and almost choke on the food that he was swallowing while listening to her. He never felt a direct touch from a woman on his groin, so it was all a huge surprise that shocked him immediately. His face turned red and his eyes opened wide in surprise. "I... No... Yes..." He coughed several times until he managed to regain his composure. Right when she moved her foot away from his growing manhood, which he hoped she'd not notice, he gave her an answer. "Us priests remain at the temple because we are needed there, the house of light always welcomes..." Trying to get back to his explanations, Aelir started to speak in hopes of putting his way of life back to a good position. However, as he began talking his part, an unexpected man approached them and interrupted the conversation.

As soon as he heard the exchange of words and threats between the other two, Aelir adopted a worried look in his face. He swallowed and left the bowl to a side, hoping to be able to intervene and calm both sides of the discussion before it would become more heated and something bad would happen. Before the priest could say anything, though, the drow acted quickly and attacked, hitting the drunk man on his leg, right there next to the table they were sharing. "Oh, dear lord..." Aelir sighed closing his eyes as he noticed how bad things were turning out to be and how they already got themselves in trouble on the very first night out there.

The drow soon spoke again, making Aelir's attention shift to her face once more. He made eye contact with her and heard her question, which had an obvious answer that he didn't need to speak. With a worried look in his eyes, the priest stood up, walked around the table and next to the drunk man, who was still on the ground grabbing his own leg and growling all sorts of curses against the dark skinned female. "My apologies, sir... but you musn't disrespect my partner. She is no one's possession, and she deserves respect as much as anyone else." Placing one knee on the ground next to the man, Aelir offered a friendly smile to the wounded man and put both his hands on the wounded part of his leg, trying to be gentle with his actions. "It is a deep cut and the wound could leave a permanent injury if not treated properly..." He analyzed the works of Liora, noticing how precise she had been with the blade, even though she was just at the table and not really fighting with any efforts. "But I can heal it, I have been instructed to do so." The priest said, trying to calm the man in front of him.

"Ya best fix it, ya hear meh! Or I'm killin' ya both!!" The drunk man threatened the priest and grabbed him by the neck of his robes with both hands, trying to make sure that Aelir would fix his knee as soon as possible. Before responding, though, Aelir looked at the drow and shook his head sideways, to let her know that she didn't need to intervene. She'd probably just stab him in the throat with a single movement and finish him right there and then if he didn't try and stop her. "Sir, I will heal your wounds. Just stay still, the lord of light has given me the faculties to do so." Trying to calm the drunk man down a bit, Aelir smiled again and moved his hands from his neck slowly, so he could work on fixing that bloody leg.

After ripping the fabric of the man's pants on the injured leg, Aelir placed one hand on top of the wound, and the other right to the other side where the dagger hadn't reached completely. "I call upon the Light to cure these wounds..." Aelir focused on the wounded part of the leg and soon enough a small glow of light came out of his hands while he kept them pressed against the injury. The warm sensation of the touch of the kind priest soon gave relief to the wounded man, who shifted his expressions from anger and pain to surprise and comfort. Soon enough, the blood stopped pouring and the wound closed, leaving the ripped pants and the red stains on the fabric as the only evidence of there ever being an injury. The healing had been so efficient that not even a scar was found on the leg of the human after the process, it was almost like the attack never happened.

"It is done, kind sir. You can now walk again..." Aelir sighed and stood up, offering a hand to the man to help him back up. Even though he had just fixed his leg, cleansing him from the effects of alcohol wasn't within his capabilities, so helping him back to his feet seemed to be necessary still. "Let me help you up." He offered, getting an almost immediate reaction from the other human, who still looked a bit confused at all that just had happened. "Now please, sir. I kindly ask you to apologize to my partner. I am sure that you didn't mean to disrespect her, that it was all just a misunderstanding." Aelir insisted, trying to have both parts make peace. Fortunately for him, the man nodded and gave her a simple "Sorry" as answer, before walking away like a dog with its tail between his legs.

Sighing once more, Aelir passed his right forearm over his forehead and wiped the sweat from it. Using his healing powers consumed energy, so no matter the amount of effort he had to put into healing, be it to fix a simple cut or heal a broken bone, it always tired him. Fortunately for him, he was still young and in good shape despite his routine of little physical efforts. "Can we go to our room after we finish eating? I am not sure that I can keep on healing more wounds if we stay here much longer." Speaking to Liora again, Aelir walked next to her and sat in front of the table once more, hoping they could at least finish their bowls in peace. "I... have never shared room with a woman, so you will excuse me if I make a mistake or act innapropiately. I... will try my best to adapt to your preferences." The priest said, hoping she'd undestand his lack of experience in that kind of interactions between people, specially two of different sex and race at the same time.

 

[LeatrixSage]

“Oh, so you are, then?” Liora was genuinely surprised when the priest stood up and began to walk around the table, and she swiveled where she sat to follow his progress. “He’s just going to try to fight you, too.”

Eventually her back was to the table and she leaned back against it while the priest kneeled beside the man to examine his wound. The Drow sneered at his back while he apologized to the drunk and then lectured him for how he had spoken to her. It seemed like such a silly waste of energy to try and teach the drunken wretch anything, particularly while she was staring down his twitchy friends a few tables over. While the priest worked, Liora gave them a wink and a little kiss, enjoying the way their pale faces turned bright red with anger or shame, or became even flatly whiter with fear, as one did before falling from his seat.

The useless threats from the drunk brought the Drow’s attention back down to the pair by her feet. For not the first time, she thought that if human men spent more time at the feet of their women, their entire race would know a happier existence. Just as she had predicted, however, the drunk reached up to try to throttle the priest, still trying to fight despite his injury because the man was just that stupid. She was about to kick the man in the head when the priest looked back to her to wave her off. Rolling her eyes, she waved a hand at the drunk, motioning for the priest to get on with it, and then snatched her bowl to get up and ladle herself some more of the stew.

As she came back, the priest had freed his neck from the drunkard’s grip and ripped the man’s pants to get to the clean, round wound her stiletto dagger had created. Curiosity kept her interest enough that she kept an eye on the priest while she ate. Liora had seen many versions of healers among humanity, and they were limited in comparison to her own people. More often than naught, they had the strange idea that if they prayed and stuffed some common cooking herbs into the wound, the healing would be miraculous. Most ended up losing whatever limb they were trying to save, and most often, their lives as well. She was trying to decide which herb she thought the priest might be partial to when he began to pray and a soft faer light blossomed beneath his hands.

Liora stiffened at the clean scent of ozone that sparked from the use of faer, or what humans called magic, and glared at the back of the priest as he worked. His prayer worked like chant, directing his energy to his goal much like a mage or wizard, despite how rare their ilk was on the surface. Her eyes narrowed on his back as she set her bowl down once more. It wasn’t some god that reached down and healed the drunk, it was Aelir himself, and she was betting he had no idea how he was used and manipulated by the faith that had gotten their hands on him to support the existence of their God.

She watched silently as the priest helped the drunkard to his feet with a sense of resentment that only grew as the drunk muttered an apology before he tottled back to the small bunch of men that had been watching the proceedings. Liora’s bright red eyes jumped back to the priest as he swept his sleeve across his forehead, noticing the physical cost of his actions for the first time. It reinforced her assumption that the man was actually a mage of some kind that had been taught to use his gifts as if they were the actions or gifts of a God instead of his own, naturally talents.

When he sat down next to her, instead of across from her, Liora nearly pulled away from him. She was not stager to faer, she used it herself from time to time, but she had a distaste the habitual user that made her uneasy about the priest. It was only by dent of will that she remained where she was in spite of her discomfort. While he made pointless apologizes about how he might behave sharing a room with a woman, Liora was watching the man he had healed and his companions while they gathered up their little party and began to stagger their way upstairs.

Without the rowdy group, the Inn began to quiet to a dull, murmuring roar of polite conversation. A bard took up position by the hearth and started a little song about some yellow-haired woman, and a general calm replaced the tension of before. It was disconcerting how quickly the shift took place, and far from what Liora would have wanted. It reflected the fact that she was uncomfortable with calm, and far more at home in violence, and she resented the priest for curtailing what could have been a decent outlet for her stress over the situation she found herself in.

“It wasn’t a miscommunication,” Liora told the priest as she stood from the table. “Iblith, it means shite, or excrement, and he was right, I was calling you shit the whole time because all humans are shit.” The Drow patted the priest on the back before she began to walk away. “I think you’re safe enough. When you finish eating, our room is on the second floor. Leave the bowls on the table.”

With that, Liora walked away, still chomping at the bit for a proper fight but finding not a single taker as she made her way to the stairs. All eyes avoided her gaze, and her mood was turning dark when she was left with nothing better to do than to retire to their room. She left to door ajar for the priest to find his way and crossed the small space to drop her small collection of belongings on the straw bed. The last time she had slept in the inn she had found their beds were at least free from lice even if they weren’t the most comfortable, so she didn’t worry about unrolling her own blanket over the worn sheets already on the bed. Evening was wearing on, the sun long past the horizon and the sky growing dark outside the room’s small window. The darkness was quite comfortable and familiar to the Drow, so she didn’t bother lighting the candle that sat on the window sill, and instead set to unbuckling and unwrapping the layers of leather that served as her armor and dropped it on the floor beside the bed. It left the draw standing in light linen pants and shirt that were damp with her sweat and clinging to her dark skin. The inn didn’t have a common bath, or tubs in the rooms, so she knew there was no point to asking, but she longed for hot water and a bar of soap.

The best she could do for the time being was to strip the linen off and lay it over the end of the bed to let it dry and crack open the window to let the cool night air in to kiss the sweat off her skin. At least she did not stink so badly as humans, and she was able to find some comfort as she sat on the edge of the bed and pulled one of her twin blades across her lap. She sword was light and slender and slightly curved, but they were not directly twins of each other. The sword of black steel shown with a purple light as she unsheathed it. The back of the black was etched with many crawling spiders whose legs shifted and danced as if they crawled along the blade toward the handle as her fingers passed over it. Its blade ran along the outside of its curve, where as its silver sister’s blade ran along the inside of the curve and shown with the light the color of freshly split blood. They had been made for her according to her father’s design before her mother had killed him for giving her a daughter when she had sought a son. Liora had only lived on some inconsequential superstition about Lolth’s desires. Her mother had promised a male sacrifice, and they had surmised that Liora’s father had fulfilled that promise, and Lolth might be insulted by a powerful female baby being wasted. The spider Goddess of the Drow had been her savior, they told her. The only reason she was alive was the will of her Goddess, so she had given everything she was to the treacherous, deadly, and changeable goddess. In turn, Liora had reaped betrayal, and torment, and a list of sin so long that not even hell – if such a place existed – would have allowed her entry.

Liora allowed the memories to rise, and the emotions that came with them. They swirled on the air, and then she let them pass through her as water through sand as she turned her attention to oiling the beautiful, black sword and its crawling, biting spiders until the purple shine shimmered like faer fire.

 

[Silver Star]

It meant shit. Not human, not person, excrement. Aelir was somehow surprised to know she had been calling him like that the whole way, thinking that the actual meaning of the word was more of a racial thing than anything else. But considering that she though of humans of something of the like, probably made it a racial matter after all.

The priest did not care too much about that sort of things. All his life he had been labeled and called many insulting things. Being a priest usually meant having others looking down at one, so being called a shit was not something he had not experienced before. Luckily for Aelir, it made him develop some sort of thick skin against insults and contempt. Besides, of course, he never was a proud individual, so he did not have an ego to protect or an image to maintain to the eyes of others.

All of that, of course, couldn't be said about the rest of the human population, which contained a large amount of prideful men among its numbers. It all made more sense when the drow gave that explanation, for it gave a reason to the drunk man to approach them after all. Of course, Aelir did not believe in using violence and threats as a way of solving any kind of problem, but at least he could understand why that man felt insulted and decided to confront Liora.

Offering no answer to the drow's final words, Aelir nodded and watched her getting up from the seat an leaving the scene for the moment. He noticed then that almost all eyes in the room were on him, that the small altercation with the drunk human had become a spectacle for the curious eyes surrounding them.

Trying to eat faster than normal, so that he could stop being exposed for too long, he took big spoonfuls of his meal and swallowed the food as if he hadn't eaten in days. The bowl in front of him soon remained empty and his became stomach full as a result. It wasn't something he was used to, for the priests, back at the monastery, used to take their time while eating, making sure they'd digest the food they consumed with patience and care.

Being done with that, Aelir stood up, placing the bowls to a side as Liora suggested, and walked away from the dinning room, leaving all curious eyes behind him. He could hear some voices mumbling and whispering about what he had done and how unusual it was to see a drow with a human traveling together. It didn't bother him at all, but made him hope that drawing too much attention wouldn't be something that'd happen everywhere they'd go.

The mission was supposed to be secret, that was the reason why Liora was his only companion. The king could have easily deployed his army and marched towards the territory of the Drow, demanding that the conjurer of the queen's curse be handed to him and executed for the crime. However, doing that would not only lead him in the opposite way, but also create an even bigger conflict with a race and community that was almost always hostile to humans.

Having reached the second floor, the priest walked towards the room where he was supposed to rest for the night, noticing that the door was slightly open for him. Even if she called him shit, at least she showed some amiability with that, he thought to himself. Or maybe she just didn't wanted him getting lost and didn't really care about him that much... He decided to think she did that out of kindness.

Pushing the door with one hand, the priest entered the room and then turned around to close it, facing the wood and not looking at the woman still. It was all so dark in there that for a second he thought she had already fallen asleep. Soon enough, however, Aelir heard the sounds she was making while handling the blades, so it became clear that she was still awake.

Turning around, the human decided to speak again, hoping to ask about how they would share a room like that since he wasn't used to anything similar with a woman. He did not want to be disrespectful or do anything that would cross some sort of line, specially since he did not know about her traditions. Maybe sharing a bed with a drow meant something he was not aware of, he had to be careful.

"How do we..." Finding her at the edge of the bed, Aelir tried to ask Liora about her preferences but once he noticed that her vestments were off and the leather no longer covering her ebony skin, he froze immediately. His eyes opened wide, his jaw dropped, and he even stopped breathing for a moment or two. He had never seen so much female skin before his eyes, so it felt not only intimidating, but also forbidden... sinful.

"I am sorry, please forgive me... I did not mean to stare at you like that... My apologies!" The priest quickly turned around and walked to a side of the room, facing a small table that was against the wall. On top of the table was a small basket with fruit, a couple of oranges, an apple, and a banana. He tried to make it look like he was actually interested in some fruit, so he took one and apple and clumsily organized the other fruits, pretending to not be thinking about her almost complete nudity.

"I umm..." His mind was blank, his heart was racing. Trying to gain some more time, Aelir gave the apple a small bite and immediately left it back on the table. It didn't taste good, and his stomach was already full... he clearly didn't want to eat it. Maybe the absence of light helped hiding the red of his face, but it surely didn't help revealing the dark colors of the semi-rotten apple he just bit.

"Ugh... why would they serve this?!" Coughing, he spit the part he previously had in his mouth and immediately went to the next table for a jar of water, serving a cup to himself and gulping at it to try and get the taste out of his tongue. Luckily for him, there were also some grapes next to it, and those weren't bad like the apples, so he didn't wast too much time and ate a few.

"I... can sleep on the floor if you prefer... I don't mind." He finished, offering Liora the more comfortable option available, all to herself. He did not expect her to resign the bed to him or even share it, after all he was just an Iblith in her eyes. Besides, laying close to a woman was a big temptation and he knew he had to try and avoid putting himself in situations like that one. He couldn't even turn around and see her directly, how could he even imagine to lie next to her between sheets? Oh no, it was too much... he'd be too tempted to sin.

 

[LeatrixSage]

The priest’s subtle footsteps on the stairs spoke of one who was used to being unhurried. He was not exactly stealthy, so much as he was quiet. His movements were those of one accustomed to dusty shelves, mountains of books, and congregations of other men reading in a silence that was not to be disturbed. There was a certain refined nature about him that meant he made less noise than most, but Liora knew he was coming long before the door creaked, or the man spoke.

The Drow felt his eyes on her skin as assuredly as the cool night air that was rolling in through the window. The moon had yet to rise and the room was dark, so Liora felt certain he didn’t see near as much as he seemed to think he saw. But, she supposed if he had never seen a woman naked, any amount of extra skin would make his collar burn. She smiled as the man flustered, going about finishing the caretaking to keep the steel of her weapons strong with a leisurely dedication while Aelir fiddled about and tried not to look her. Liora choked on a laugh when the priest chomped into a rotten apple, his flustered state and his inability to see clearly working together to condemn him to suffering. He found his way to the water pitcher well enough, and the fresh grapes as well, while Liora finished up her work.

“You can sleep on the bed,” she answered him as she sheathed the gleaming swords and set them aside. “I’m be sleeping against the door.” Liora pulled the linen that served as the buffer between her skin and her armor toward her to test the material. It was cool and dry, so she stood to get dressed again. “There’s no bar on the door, if you hadn’t noticed,” she explained in an attempt to answer his questions before he could ask them. “My job is to keep you alive, part of that is making sure you are secure and safe. If I sleep against the door, no one can pick it open without my knowing, and I’ll be opposite that window,” she paused in pulling on the padded leather that was the pants portion of her armor to point at the window, “to face anyone that might come crawling in.”

Liora wasn’t the least bit fond of sleeping in her armor or being in a position where she had to set her comfort aside for the wellbeing of someone else. It was galling and went counter to her nature, but it was necessary. At the very least, she couldn’t let the little priest die on the first day. News would reach the city so fast she’d never make it to the next village, let alone crossing the border of the kingdom. If the man was going to die, it would have to be where no one would ever know it had happened until Liora was long gone from this place and the reach of their laws.

“I suggest you get as much rest as you can,” the Drow sighed as she buckled the last bit of her armor into place, crossed the small room, and sat down on the floor to lean back against the door. She leaned forward to drag her long, white hair over her shoulder while her bright red eyes glowed softly in the darkness. She could sleep in her saddle come the morning. Not even Bandits enjoyed getting up before the sun, and as soon as the keep brought their food, they could be on their way. The only real question was how well the priest would seat his saddle in the morning.

Liora smirked as she imagined the man’s aches and pains. She’d never experienced a discomfort that seemed so all consuming as saddle-sores, and she was already wondering how he’d react to the tight muscles and tender portions when he woke. Someone had once been kind enough to warn her about it – although she had ignored the warning – and told her to stretch before she went to sleep and let her muscles become cold and stiff. The cramping had been horrible, and as the memory surface, Liora rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. What did she care if the man suffered a little? It’d be damned funny to watch.

Still.

“Priest,” she snipped, irritation bleeding into her tone even though it wasn’t the priest she was frustrated with. “Before you go crawling into bed, take some time to stretch your legs a bit. It will make your morning a little less painful.”

--

Blessedly, there had been nothing to crawl down the hallway but a rat or to, and nothing had seen fit to come slithering into the cracked window, so that when the first rays of dawn began to lighten the sky outside, Liora hadn’t had reason to move. She’d dozed a touch over the last few hours while she had listened to the priest sleep and her mind had wondered. The brightening sky would seem still dark and black to the human eye, but it was already a vibrant, early-morning purple to the Drow’s eyes. Downstairs, in the kitchen, she could hear the sounds of domestic work filtering up through the floor, and when the Inn Keep began his jaunt up the stairs, Liora uncoiled and stood to stretch out the kinks that sitting on the floor all night had given her.

Crossing the room, Liora snapped her fingers to create a bit of Faer fire that she used to light the candle on the window sill before she shut the window. She wouldn’t need the light, but the Keep would be more comfortable for it, and she suspect the priest would be as well. Before the big bear of a man could beat on the door, Liora pulled it open to great him. As he had promised, two freshly made meals were handed over to her, each wrapped in terrycloth so that they could travel with them.

“Yer on yer way out, yeah,” he asked quietly, and not unkindly.

“We’ll be gone soon,” Liora agreed with a smirk. “Horses ready?”

“Aye, they be that,” the big man grinned, ever undaunted by the oddities that passed through his Inn. “Be seein yeh, Liora.”

“Good bye, Broc,” the Drow gave the man a wink as he waved her off, and then pressed the door closed again. She set the food on the nightstand as she came back to the sleeping priest to lean across the bed and give him a little shake. “Wake up, Iblith,” she fussed on a hissed whisper as she rolled him onto his back and grabbed his shoulders to shake him. “It is time to go.”

 

[Silver Star]

As much as he tried to be polite and offer Liora the bed, the point that she made regarding safety and precautions sounded very convincing to the man, so he couldn't really say anything that would come as a better idea at the moment. He didn't know what kind of troubles they could expect on a place like that one, but considering that they already had a confrontation of sorts with one of the locals, it was better not to try their luck any further. If Liora considered that guarding the door with her body was the best option, Aelir would have to agree and let the expert call the shots. That was why, when she explained the reasons for a different approach at the situation, he simply nodded and agreed.

"Yes, I shall do my best and recover as much as possible. All the day riding has surely made my back and legs tired... and well, healing that man's leg basically took all the energy I had left. I am indeed exhausted." The priest had no problem confessing that sort of things. Another man, standing in front of an attractive woman like her, would surely try harder to maintain a tough image, to be perceived as someone strong and interesting. Aelir, however, wasn't used to doing that kind of things, so he was naturally honest with what happened to him, even if it made him seem weak or inferior to others. Being honest was sometimes bad for the impressions he caused on others, but he felt no need to impress anyone, he was a humble man after all.

Soon enough, the priest sat at the edge of the bed and took off his boots, leaving them neatly organized next to one of the bed's legs. He sighed as he felt his feet free again, for he wasn't used to wear boots that often, only when he had to travel and be exposed to different kinds of ground that would require better protection to walk them without worrying. Right after that, Aelir took his robe off and left it on top of a table next to the be, again, taking his time to organize it and fold it perfectly, making sure it would be in condition to be worn the following day.

All that time, the priest did the best he could to avoid looking at the Drow, for the sight of her exposed skin was a tough challenge to his faith and the promise that he made of not lusting and desiring a female. But once her enchanting voice was heard again, he couldn't help it but to turn his face in her direction and pay attention to her immediately. "Stretch?... Oh... I see... for the sore muscles..." The woman was right, after a whole day riding, for someone like him who wasn't used to that kind of efforts, it would surely help reducing the pains the next day. "Yes, that is a very helpful advice. Thank you..." And right after he finished his words, he smiled at her. It was probably the first act of pure kindness he received from her, even if it looked like she didn't enjoy giving it that much.

Following Liora's advice, Aelir got back up to his feet and proceeded to stretch his legs. He took at least five minutes of his time to dedicate himself to the work of his muscles, specially on the thigh region, that was feeling quite sore already. Once he felt that he had stretched enough, he got on his knees right next to the bed and joined his hands in front of his face, closing his eyes for a midnight prayer. "Lord of the light, who guide us through the night and protect us from the dark. I ask of you to give me strength, help me continue on my way to save the life of an innocent. Give me, and my partner, your blessing... and protect us from those who wish to prevent our work to be done. You have always answered my calls, always kept me under the shining light of your kindness and glory. I ask of you to do the same with my companion now. I, your humble servant, will always be grateful for your generosity, and will dedicate my life follow the path of righteousness you so generously laid in front of us, men of faith." With a small gesture of his hand on top of his own forehead, running his fingertips from his hairline to the start of his nose, Aelir nodded and smiled, his prayed had been finished.

Right after that, the man got on top of the bed and closed his eyes. He was so tired and fatigued after such a long day traveling that he fell asleep almost immediately. It was one of those nights where he couldn't even remember having a dream, it felt like all the lights simply went off and didn't return until Liora approached him and brought him back to the world of conciousness.

"Eh?.... What?... what is it?" For a moment or two, Aelir seemed quite confused about what was going on. His eyes still couldn't focus the image of what was happening in front of him, so his hearing took on the role of making him know that it was Liora who was waking him up. "Ah... Liora?" He blinked twice, pressing his eyes hard when his lids shut, and opening them wide as he separated them. And so, by doing that, he could see them. Yes, the big beautiful dark breasts of the female right next to him, as she was with both her hands on his shoulders and was almost leaning on him.

Most men, when they wake up, have a natural flow of blood directed to the body part that is located right between their legs. Aelir, lucky or not, was one of them, so as soon as Liora had turned him round and laid him on his back, well... it seemed like he had gone camping and brought the tent incorporated. Being aware of his condition and also of the very short distance between her body and his own, made the priest almost jump out of bed to a side. "Ahh! What? Is it morning already?" He tried his best to talk his way out of that uncomfortable situation, but soon enough something changed the plan for him instantly.

Yes, at the very moment he moved his hips to a side and separated his legs wide, a great amount of pain invaded his senses, coming from all sorts of muscles located on his lower half, including a couple of his back as well. "Ughhhh... my...." He had to remain still to stop the terrible pain from getting worse. He could feel everything, from his calves to his thighs, even his glutes included, getting hard and sore. But the worst part was the crotch area. Even his manhood and his ballsack felt affected by all that horse riding that had been done the day before. "This... can't be normal... Ughhhh.... Do riders go through this much pain every single day?" He asked, clumsily trying to sit on the bed with a face of pain that was unable to be discimulated.

"I can... barely move..." Again he complained, this time looking at Liora again, trying to sit straight and stretch some of the muscles of his lower back, which also hurt like hell to him. "Have you... slept? How are you feeling? I can't make myself feel better on my own, but... maybe I could help you somehow if you are also sore." He asked, genuinely interested on how she would be feeling that morning. Guarding a door all night couldn't have been good for her, no matter how strong or healthy she'd be, not being able to regain energies properly would take its toll on anyone.

 

[LeatrixSage]

All the Drow could do was stand back, cross her arms over her chest, and watch the man with a detached amusement that was threatening to spill over into obnoxious laughter. When he had undressed the night before, she’d been treated to the surprise. Beneath his robes was not the soft, fleshy body so typical of his ilk. He wasn’t a man of action, or a creature that had seen very much hard labor, but he was leanly muscled and finely toned in a way she hadn’t expected. There was a certain untapped strength there that she found particularly amusing as it applied to the man’s current suffering. She couldn’t imagine how much the saddle-sore he was suffering from was worsened by the prominent erection he was sporting, and she was certain if she felt more pity or amusement in that moment.

“It’s normal,” Liora smirked, her head tilting to the right while her bright red eyes admired the fact that, without the robes, the priest was more physically impressive than he had realized before. If she was so inclined, and if he knew how to use the blessing he was given, he had the potential to be a capable lover. “But, only new riders usually suffer badly enough for it to slow them down. I spend more time on horseback than on my own feet, so it doesn’t bother me anymore.”

While she watched the man struggling to walk or sit, Liora realized they weren’t going anywhere as quickly as she would have liked if she didn’t help him. Part of her felt he deserved every ache for daring to pray for her despite her insistence that he didn’t, but the more rational part of her mind knew that they’d end up wasting an entire day and a small fortune along the way for what the Inn Keep would demand for the inconvenience. With a resigned sigh, Liora walked around the bed to kneel down between the priest’s legs. She ignored the hard-on he was so shy about as she lifted one of his legs to set his foot on her knee so that her hands could worked the knotted tissue of his calf to encourage the muscles to release.

“A hot bath would do better,” she muttered, her temper was shortening, and irritation found its way into her tone because of the position of service she found herself in. “But, we don’t have the time for that.” The Drow bent her mind to what her task required to break her thoughts away from her distaste for it. Not that touching the priest was distasteful, but that being of service to him was. It wiggled under her skin and pricked her ire through memories of similarly demeaning tasks dropped on her as a lower member of her family. It made her feel petulant, but her hands were sure and steady as they worked up the man’s leg. She ignored his protests and his discomfort, even going so far as to dig her fingers into his flesh to increase his discomfort when she ordered him to sit still. Once he gave up on trying to escape her, the task didn’t take very long. The priest’s body was toned, but the muscles weren’t very thick, and that made working out the knots and sore places much easier.

“No,” she reverted back to his questions from before to distract them both. “I didn’t sleep, that would defeat the purpose of being your guard, wouldn’t it? But, I rested. That’s enough for now.” Taking the time to explain that she didn’t need as much food or sleep as he did had seemed like a waste of time, so she didn’t bother to elaborate further. His concern for her physical well-being was nearly as amusing as his discomfort with her physical nearness, and equally as exasperating. “No, I don’t need your help, I’m not sore.”

It wasn’t entirely a lie. Her neck ached, but she didn’t need his help. Compared to the wounds from her past, the minor pain was little more than an inconvenience. It was far more important that he could walk and ride. When she was done with her task, she stepped back to collect the priest’s robes and set them on the bed next to him.

“Come on,” she told him as she walked around the bed to collect her belongings and the food that would be their breakfast as they got on the road, “get dressed and meet me outside. We’ll walk the horses while be breakfast, give you time to stretch your legs. We’ll have to make up the lost time later on.” Liora left him quickly in her attempt to avoid his perpetual need to thank her for everything she said or did that was relevant to his existence. Outside the Inn, their horses were stabled and waiting for them. Liora tied one of the sacks to her saddle and one to his. Every road leading to the Inn, and by extension, the capital, was known to have its share of highwaymen and bandits that waited to catch the unwary traveler. Most reserved their energy for merchant caravans or overconfident nobles, but she still wanted to stay ahead of them.

Liora was running these things through her mind to distract herself from the fact that her mind kept trying to turn back to the naked man. She was determinedly ignoring the fact that beneath the safety of her armor there was physical proof of how his nakedness had affected her. She could overlook the fact that her heart rate had increased and that her skin had warmed, but that warmth had spread to tighten her nipples into taunt buds that ached for attention. The sensation was a mirror’s image to the subtle yearning that left her pressing her legs together in an attempt to smother it.

He was a human, and a small one at that. It was beneath her to have an attraction to something so frail, and yet that didn’t stop the need that pulsed insistently between her thighs. Liora frowned as she stood waiting with the horses for the man to appear. She had the sense that this was going to be an itch that didn’t leave until she scratched it. Given the priest’s discomfort with such a sinful lust, it could prove entertaining in more ways than one. The Drow grinned as she made up her mind. She wanted to know what it would take to break such a devotedly religious man’s convictions, and she was going to find out.

 

[Silver Star]

Aelir was almost scared to death when he realized that he was having an erection in front of Liora. It already was shameful for him to have his body reacting that way, let alone in front of a female. The priests in the monastery told him many times that it was nothing more than him being unworthy of the grace of the lord and that whenever something like that happened, it was because his nature of sinner was still inside him. Many times he had to repent and ask for forgiveness only because he woke up with a stiff cock and the older men of his order disliked to see such a thing.

The young priest felt bad for the drow, for she had not slept that night only to make sure there would be no trouble, to keep him safe while he recovered from the fatigue. He was used to be the one helping others, not the other way around, so a feeling of guilt soon came to take a place inside his heart. Even if she called him shit all along, she proved to be someone trust worthy and even caring despite her not willing to admit it.

"I see.. then it should be a matter of getting used to it..." The man replied when the dark woman answered to his questions. It was a good thing to know that the pains of riding for long distances would somehow become less troubling as he would get accostumed to it.

Soon enough he found himself sitting again on the bed and having Liora kneeling, so dangerously close to his embarassing body reaction that it felt intimidating. He gulped and nodded nervously, allowing the drow to take hold of one of his legs and work her fingers on his sore muscles.

Aelir, despite not being a man that trained his body to be strong and resistant, was in very decent shape. Not only because he was young and at the peak of his human nature, but also due to the many tasks the older priests ordered him to do. Being one of the youngest in the order, he had to serve and do all the heavy work around the temple. That meant carrying heavy buckets of water and crates of food, fixing stone walls and columns, and plenty of other tasks that the older and most prestigious members of the group didn't bother themselves doing. Without even knowing it, all those actions helped tone his muscles and make him different from his frail and weak brothers, even if he didn't notice it due to all of them always hiding their shapes under robes.

"Aghh..." The pain was clearly uncomfortable, but the young man tried his best to prevent himself from being too much of a weakling in front of her. Yes, priests like him wouldn't even care about something like that, but maybe, just maybe, he didn't want her to look at him like if he was just a baby. It felt strange... he never cared about anything remotely similar to it.

Frowning and doing his best efforts to overcome the pain that her hands on his sore muscles were giving him, he remained sitting and did not move until she released him. He trusted that Liora knew what she was doing, so he thanked her as soon as she finished and watched her storm out of the room with a gentle smile on his face, one that she may have missed if she didn't look back at him.

Despite her clear decision of not wanting him to relieve her from pain somehow with his abilities, he felt that she wasn't speaking the whole truth with her last comment. She surely had raised a wall around her heart, he could tell by the way he looked at him, or at anyone actually... he imagined that she must have had a difficult life before their meeting. Maybe later along the way he could get to know more about her, to maybe understand her reasons better.

Determined to start the morning and follow the plans for the day, Aelir got up from the bed and put his robes on, followed by his boots. Right after that, he grabbed the bag of books and items he was carrying everywhere he went to and tied it around his waist, and soon enough exited the inn, making his slow and painful way towards the stable where the horses were waiting for them.

"Mphhh... I'm here..." He said stating the obvious, with a smile on his face that hid some discomfort because he was just not used to so much physical activity all in one day. "It is a beautiful morning this one. Ah, I think walking towards our next destination will prove to be refreshing, yes...' Aelir said trying to be positive, as he always did, and soon enough tied his bag on his horse's saddle, next to the bag she previously put there as well.

The priest tried his best to keep the worries and bad thoughts out of his head, but no matter how hard he tried, they were still there. The inn where they stopped for the night was supposed to be the first step, the safest stop along their way, and already in that one blood had been shed and trouble found. Aelir only hoped that it would not become a pattern from that moment on.

"I know that you don't want me to help you, but if something hurts... I can also assist you. Consider it please. I won't insist, but the offer still stands." Taking hold of the horse's reins, he stood next to Liora with a kind smile, just looking at her red eyes in hopes of getting some directions from that point on. He was still inside the kingdom that saw him grow, but wasn't all too familiar outside the cities and villages.

"Shall we march, then?"

 

[LeatrixSage]

"One could be convinced that you were looking for an excuse to put your hands on me, priest," Liora teased with with a new found humor as she gathered her horse's reins and began to walk down the road. He would keep up, she was sure, and she busied herself with chewing at a dried piece of meat while her mind turned over this new direction that she had decided upon. Despite the fact that she reserved the right to change her mind and kill him later anyway, the thought of bending the man to her will and thoroughly defiling him in the eyes of his God was too tempting to let go of.

But, how go about it? For now, the man was saddle sore and would likely be rather useless to direct advances. Although, glancing sideways at him, she realized that his pain hadn't done much to keep him from sporting an impressive hard on that morning. Ah, no, better not to rush things. If she wanted to play a game, she should play for the long term and enjoy the journey.

They would reach the village near nightfall given their late start. There had been a small Inn at the halfway point once, but it was little more than a crumbling ruin. It would a good place to stop and have a midday meal all the same. Set back off the road, the ruin was generally safe. The threat of retribution from the capital kept highwaymen and bandits from straying too close to the crossroads. Anything within a day's journey was typically safe, but after that the more desperate or bloodthirsty would risk it. She could hope they looked poor enough to ignore, but priests were known to carry more coin than their pious talk suggested.

After that there were a spattering of lairdships that should keep the roads clear. At least, unless there was anything more sinister than bandits that wanted the man, or if any beasts crossed their path. Liora frowned at the thought, but didn't remark on it. She hadn't decided yet if she would risk her life for the man. Bandits were nothing but meat for her swords, but more than that?

Liora turned her mind away from the unpleasant bent of her thoughts. The morning was crisp and the early dawn light was beautifully arrayed in pinks and greens on the horizon. Better to enjoy the pepper steak on her tongue and the cool air that kissed her skin. The cold night air would soon fade away to the suffocating, humid heat that was still lingering from summer days that were not yet want to allow autumn to have full sway. There journey eastward would take them beyond the border of the human kingdom and into uncharted territory for the both of them. For the now, she chose to enjoy the little moment of sweetness.

"When your legs are warm and you've walked out the soreness, we'll take back to the saddle," the drow spoke around another bite of dried meat to further distract herself from her wayward thoughts and their want to turn to dark things. "We'll find a ruined old Inn along the way. We'll lunch there, give you some time to stretch your legs." She decided not to tell him that the next morning could very well be worse for him, mostly because she wanted to see how he reacted. But, it would also provide an opportunity for him to get more comfortable with her closeness. If she played her cards right, she hoped it'd make him a little less skittish when it came time to push his limits.

"So," the Drow went on as they walked down the road and the sun slowly rose; the brilliant, orange sphere just beginning to crest the horizon, "how are you feeling about your glimpse of the rest of the world so far?"