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 Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 9:15 pm
“They’re so. Easy!” Sytherina declared chipperly as she stretched back against a chaise that served as furniture for the open and lavishly decorated ‘common room’ of her designated place of work. The air was thick and heavy; hot from the daily temperatures the desert sun brought, and thoroughly saturated with the thick musk of oils, perfumes, incense, and sweat. She hummed softly, rubbing her bared shoulders against the smooth fabric and folding her legs neatly beneath the serrated edge of her skirt. “If women were half as easy, I don’t think there’d be a business to run.”
Naarhiji sat near the end of her perch, close enough that she could tuck her feet near his rear and piddle with the embroidered designs dangling from the bottom of his shirt. “You say that every time you get laid, Syth,” he complained as he rubbed at the corners of his eyes. “Every time. I admit you sounded very wise and practiced the first few times, but now… It’s really pretty annoying.” As much as Naar enjoyed the older woman’s companionship, something about the particular degree of smug that she exuded after visiting with his clients really put him off. He tried to convince himself it wasn’t because he wasn’t the one getting laid.
She notched a finger into the netting of his top and gave the younger boy’s side a jab, earning her a sharp, garbled intake of breath and a stiff jerk to the side. The quirk of her lips was amused, but when she spoke, it almost sounded like an admonishment, immediately setting the younger whore on edge. “They’d be easier for you if you didn’t have the prissy, haughty, disapproving, and unimpressed glower of a teenage girl,” Syth informed him curtly. “Unless you’ve got the tits to back that type of approach up, you’re better off being a little more… relaxed.”
The younger Oblivionite shuffled against her, lips puckering and attention slipping to glare at the intricately designed rug adorning the smooth cement floor. “I’m… relaxed. Very easy-going. Soft-spoken. Patient.”
By some great show of willpower, Sytherina withheld her snort until he was done speaking. “You’re a whole lot of none of those things. You’re stuck-up, snobby, perpetually dissatisfied-”
“Did this have a point, or are you just happy insulting me?” Naar quipped.
She leaned forward, mussing the back of his hair and pressing her forehead to his. Naar struggled to keep the frown off his face. “You’re such a cute kid, Naarhiji,” she cooed. “But you’re a grump. You’ll get more wrinkles that way, you know.” Syth kissed his nose, and Naarhiji scoffed irritably.
“Sytherina?” The pair of them looked up, off to the entryway where Remulus stood with his arms crossed. They stared at him… For a moment too long, apparently. “Don’t just sit there. Come here,” he ordered, tone cross. Syth hummed, flicked her hair over her shoulder, and made a great, slow show of rising from her seat. She skimmed her fingers over Naar’s leg as she left, and he took it as invitation to follow. When Syth drew within an arm’s length of Rem, close enough that she could be certain the spiteful glower on the owner’s face was for her, he hissed, “I told you to stop touching him. Stop touching my nephew.” With a final glance over his shoulder and a command of, “Stay, Naarhiji,” he took her hand lightly in his own and tugged her from the room.
Naar huffed, giving his hair a flippant toss and settling his hands on his hips. Of course he was going to do whatever he damn well pleased. Tilting his nose up indignantly, he strode after them.
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Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 9:16 pm
Dearly Beloved,
I hope this letter finds you well. I am sure the days keep you busy in a city that moves as fast as ours does, but even if you do not find time to do more than read, it warms me to think that however many miles of sand and sea might stretch between us, your eyes will at some time touch to this parchment that my fingers brush now.
Time here moves slower on some days, I think, but all is well and the company is good…
Malikai frowned. The tip of his quill hovered a long moment over the parchment beneath it, lingering in indecision before he grunted and struck a line through the last three words. It wouldn’t do him well to waste paper — or ink, for that matter — and it wasn’t as though he really thought his wife read the letters, now.
Perhaps she did.
But given that she had never written back in the decade or so since the loss of their second child. The letters were more for him than anything. A reminder to himself that out there, somewhere, was a woman that by some standards of ritual at least was supposed to be his. Somewhere out there was the place he called home. His city of birth, and his people.
He saw Serenia still, from time to time of course, when he was not stationed away. But as a soldier, life seemed to draw him to the far corners of deserts and icelands far too great a portion of the time for his liking. So it helped, to have some rock in familiarity.
And, on some tiny, selfish and unjustified level, it felt vindicating to him. As though, if he did this, took this time out, spent the cumulative thousand hours on his wife without response, then he had earned some room for sin. Earned reasons to be unfair to her in other ways.
It was a lie, of course. Nothing she’d done deserved his disloyalty, let alone in the amounts that he dished it out.
The day here was hot as any other…
Every day was hot. It was a desert. After a moment spent frowning again at his scrap of parchment, Malikai’s brow pinched tighter, and then, with a heavy sigh, he set his quill aside, put his palm to the center of the letter and crunched it, rumpling the full thing in his hand before standing and dumping it to his side. On his way past the small excuse for a desk that he’d been writing at, he reached, drawing a flask out from the space nested between his bed and the wall before unfastening the cork and moving to step out of the building entirely. It was a communal space, but used almost exclusively for sleeping amongst most of the fellow soldiers stationed there, and little wonder why—the twenty or so bunks that it housed took up ninety percent of its space and if many of them spent time in there for anything more active than sleeping simultaneously, it became hot enough to cook a man.
Not that it was a great deal more pleasant outdoors, but at least there was wind. Sometimes. And it smelled a little less like a communal bathroom.
More like a dirty city, but that was better than nothing.
Malikai watched the sun set. One of the rare things in life that was not only solidly dependable, but also beautiful no matter where on the earth he spent his night. On Eowyn, even the sun seemed to melt in its own heat, pooling like red wax from a full yellow ball as it collided with the horizon and then sank beneath in surrender. He had a full evening to himself, not having another shift to worry about until the coming late morning, and in the time it took for the sun to work its way from fully above the lip of the world to well beneath it, he had managed to work nurse away the last of the contents in his flask. He spent the better part of the next half hour in town resupplying himself as the rest of what he’d drank melted nicely into his system.
Then, by the time the stars were out, winking down amusedly at the mortal world in all its turmoil, Malik found himself lingering some half dozen steps in front of a familiar establishment. It wasn’t actually familiar to him — not this one in particular, yet — but its kind were all the same, for the greater part. The sounds, the scents. Rich. Too heavy. Heady and distracting, with coin-bought laughter and practiced merriment and affection.
Malikai thought for a moment about the first time he’d ever spent in a brothel. Not even fully understanding then what he was getting into. Not even on his own coin, but on that of a handful of friends who thought it high time he spent a moment alone with a woman who would do more than kiss him and get him banished—
Malik frowned, pursed his lips sharply and dismissed the thought. Because it wasn’t fair. Not to any party involved. After taking a generous sip from his other barely affordable vice, Malikai slipped the newly replenished flask back away at his belt, and stepped forward.
It’d been almost a week since being resituated and stationed at this particular site. The least he could do was sample the entertainment without ghosts bothering the corners of his mind. For one evening, anyway.
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Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 9:17 pm
“Sytherina, I need you to run an errand for me, just outside of town,” Remalus hummed as he guided his female companion along. His voice dipped a bit at ‘errand,’ darkening a fraction while he quirked the woman at his side a tell-tale brow. “I need you to be quick about it, so it’d be excellent if you didn’t drag your feet... Like you’re doing now.” The older Oblivionite took long, quick strides, the heels of his boots echoing down the painted concrete of the short corridor with an almost impatient sounding rhythm.
Sytherina, despite being tugged at by her employer, took slower, softer steps. The pads of her feet barely so much as disturbing the layer of dirt swept into the establishment by wind and use. She was not so easily swayed by Remalus’ flighty needs. “It’s already dark,” she complained shortly, bottom lip jutting out in a pout. “And you really should’ve given me more notice than this. I told you, I need a day to prepare for your silly assignments.” She sighed and raised a hand to carelessly fan her face. “I’m already all worn-out from the day’s activities. It wouldn’t do to go out now.”
Naarhiji had to set his own pace at a trot to keep up with them, regardless of how adamantly Syth ‘dragged her feet.’ “Maybe I can go with you?” Naar interjected hopefully. “It’ll be more entertaining that way, and hopefully I can-”
“No,” Rem clipped abruptly, stopping in his stride and spinning to cut his nephew off with an open palm to his face. “I think you’ve had more than enough activity for one day.”
Naar’s expression shifted immediately from wide-eyed hopefulness to pinched disappointment. “That’s not even true; I’ve hardly done much of anything. Syth’s had more excitement, and you’re sending her-”
“Naarhiji, if you go to your room, and I don’t see you again for the rest of the night, I will allow this darling peach-” He spared a moment to give Syth’s cheek a pinch. She swatted back at him with a quiet huff and leaned a fraction of an inch away. “-to take you shopping tomorrow. How does that sound?”
“You really must think I don’t require some degree of actual sleep to keep me going,” Sytherina griped.
For the sake of arguing, Naar wanted to press his point. He wasn’t a child; he couldn’t be sent to his room and ignored until a more opportune time arose. On the other hand, Rem tended to dissuade Syth and Naarhiji from spending any time together. They’d know each other for years, of course, so it did him little good, but still. Shopping sounded pleasant. There would undoubtedly be sweets involved. Naar shifted indecisively from foot to foot. “You… promise..?” He asked at last.
Naarhiji should’ve smacked that smug look that sprung across Rem’s features right off his face. “Promise,” he hummed agreeably. “But you must convince Sytherina to do as I ask. And do it right,” he sent her a pointed look. “And in a timely manner.”
He had his reservations, but, “Please, Syth!” Naar begged, leaning toward the woman and fixing his best, most innocent pleading gaze on her. “We’ll have a great time tomorrow, and I’m sure you won’t even be out late tonight- Please!”
Her attention shifted imperceptibly toward the door. “Nnn… Naarhiji… You really should be on my side in this,” Syth stated somberly. She twisted a dark curl around her finger in mock thoughtfulness as her gaze travelled to the floor. “For you, I suppose it’s alright,” she decided with a sigh. She turned and headed for the door, hips sashaying to the side with every barefooted step. She tossed her mane of curls over her shoulder and glanced back at the men cheekily as she fingered the door handle. “Don’t wait up.”
Rem opened his mouth to argue that she wouldn’t be getting anywhere in a timely manner like that, but he clamped it shut as she flicked open the door and promptly full-body bumped into a rather large fellow that had the misfortune (or perhaps not) of entering at the same time she exited. Naarhiji bristled noticeably at his side.
Syth dipped her head abashedly as she combed fingers through her hair, doing her best to return them to- Really, nothing about it changed at all. It wasn’t any more disheveled from the run-in than it had originally been. “Ah, I’m sorry, I- I should’ve been paying more attention. I’m so careless. It’s no wonder-” She peeked up at him through her lashes, a shy smile ghosting over her face. “Hello, there.”
Annoyance speared through the younger Oblivionite like lightning, dampened only by the innate and perpetual nagging that surfaced every time he so much as looked at an Orderite. He shifted his weight toward his uncle, satisfied on some level that he stood at the rear of the group; putting a respectable amount of distance between him and… the stranger. Naar had never seen him before. So he’d likely never been here before. He didn’t even have the security of previous visitation.
Naarhiji pinched his cheek between his teeth as his attention met with the hilt of the blade that hung from the Orderite’s hip, then flit quickly elsewhere. Anywhere elsewhere. The floor. That seemed reasonable.
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Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 9:18 pm
Malikai grunted, hands moving immediately in his startlement to catch at the smaller — female — shape that had bodily collided with his front, and his wings stretched from their confines as he did, unfurling to either side to steady them. Not that he had been much affected. She wasn’t especially large, except in a few…notable areas, of the class which might be expected of employees at an establishment such as thus. But, for the most part, small. Short in stature and narrow-waisted. His gaze flit down her, taking in the deep, dark red skin, full figure, and long, lavish red-brown locks coiling down in loose tumbles over her shoulders and down her back. After lingering several moments too long to be polite on her lips and generous bosom, Malikai lifted his eyes to hers and flashed her a lopsided, too-easy smile.
“Don’ need t’ ‘pologize,” he said. “If you’d been watchin’ your step, maybe I wouldn’a been so warmly greeted. Don’ tell me I’m too late an’ catchin’ you while you’re leavin’, rush as you were in?”
There had been a time, years ago, when Malikai had harbored the feelings his father did about the ‘soulless’ race of Magesc. Over the years, however, experience had tended towards teaching him that all the races bled, cried, and suffered, and though he was still necessarily wary on some level still of the race apparently structured as weapons, he no longer felt the need to draw lines as strictly, and there was a private appeal to indulgence in something so innately different.
And, there wasn’t an orderite brothel that he knew of in the area.
He tucked his wings in towards his back, folding them in without dissipating them into his tattoos as he gave his unanticipated door-greeter a more thorough once-over and took a half step back. Young. Enough so not to sport even her first set of wings or tail, but not as unnervingly young as some in her line of work — assuming she was in the business, purely on her choice of dress and way of holding herself — and beautiful. For an oblivionite. Lovely as their skin was in its own way, Malikai was not sure he would ever grow fully accustomed to their lack of eyes.
He cleared his throat. “An’, ah…iffin’ y’ are leavin’…don’ suppose you could point me in th’ right direction t’ find an introduction here? Y’ look like th’ sort o’ woman who knows ‘er way around…”
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Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 9:18 pm
Syth steadied herself against him, letting her slim fingers alight breezily on his chest while the Orderite gave her a blatantly obvious once-over. She knew what she was. She knew where she was. So while it wasn’t uncommon for her to be appraised like a piece of fine meat, Sytherina found that she rather enjoyed being looked at like she was the most delectable thing on the menu. Her lips curved up, and she shifted her weight to one side, giving her head a short shake to toss her hair out of her immediate vision.
“Seems like you’re in luck,” she hummed, trailing a digit up to finger a button at the Orderite’s throat. “I find I’m always willing to alter my schedule for tall, charming, handsome young men who have the decency to apologize to a lady for her own mistake. It’s very noble of you…?” She drew the word out expectantly, letting it linger there in the air as a hopeful bridge for introductions.
He was a new face. That much was true at least. But judging from his clothes, his blade, his smell, Syth suspected he was along with the next new batch of soldiers. Their presence here was decidedly not an uncommon thing; neither in the town, nor at the brothel in particular. She had to admit that she almost pitied the poor saps that were constantly sent away from home, forced to abandon the comfortable routine of family life in favor of a sandy desert and foreign whorehouses. Fortunately, it wasn’t much her problem, and seeing new people every once in a while did keep things interesting.
“My name’s Sytherina. Though ‘Syth’ is easier on the tongue, I think. And-” Her palms slipped down, down his chest and over his arms to catch both his hands in hers. “-I’d be happy to show you around.” She leaned back, giving him a gentle tug forward. “And if you see anything you like, we can-”
“We’re supposed to go shopping. Uncle won’t let you go with me if you don’t run his errand.”
Syth craned her head back, peering at the younger boy from over her shoulder from where he stood firmly at Remalus’ side, arms crossed, brows pinched, lids narrowed to annoyed slits. She sighed. “Naarhiji, baby, don’t be selfish,” she cooed softly. “There will be plenty of time for that, but I’m not going to be rude to the man-”
“You’re being rude to me,” Naar retorted. “You said you’d take me.”
Remalus gave his shoulder a shove, and Naar staggered a step away from him, huffing and turning a glare on the eldest Oblivionite. “I told you to go to your room, but you don’t do as I say, either.”
“She said-”
“Don’t mind him,” Syth said, turning back to her new companion with an apologetic smile. “He’s just being a brat, but c’mon-” She resumed her attempts at tugging the much larger male after her. “-we can easily find somewhere else to be, I’m sure.”
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Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 9:19 pm
Malik blinked, his eye immediately moving to trail the path that the woman’s finger made as it traversed his chest. At her follow up speech, a small flush crawled into his cheeks. It was a lead-in, of course, he was not quite so foolish as to not recognize that much. But he found that it didn’t detract much from the overall effect. The words managed to sound sincere enough, and to let himself be fooled was why he walked into such establishments, after all.
“Malikai,” he said. “Not a touch more noble’n th’ next, but ‘s an honor, m’sure, t’ meet you…”
Sytherina. It sounded almost serpentine, and drew to mind a red snake, coy and sultry. Potentially poisonous. He forgot the thought as her fingers curled his, and his gaze made its way back down her front. It didn’t take much encouragement to get him moving. At her first pull, he was already stepping with her, only half-hearing the rest of the conversation going on about them and not bothering to look about much. The effect of the alcohol he’d already taken in was beginning to apply itself, warming his skin and relaxing over-stiff muscles, and it made it simplest just to follow.
“Think you’ve gone ‘n made th’ searchin’ bit easy on me…” Malik tilted in with the statement, coiling an arm loosely around the woman — Syth — and appreciating how the sheerness of the fabric of her dress made it so that he could nearly feel her skin through it. “Can’t imagine seein’ anythin’ I like much more’n you.” A pause. “An’ s’alright…kids fuss, yeah? Less cranky once they’ve been put t’ bed an’ gotten some rest in ‘em…” His gaze trailed the shape of her waving hair like a dark, coiling ribbon to oblivion. “Where’d you ‘ave in mind?”
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Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 9:20 pm
“Oh?” Syth prompted, tossing a coy grin over her shoulder as she stepped away from the main entryway, bare feet padding softly against the concrete with movements akin to dancing. Each delicate tilt of her frame was practiced and deliberate, every swish of her hips somehow managing to reveal just a touch more skin than previously shown. “You flatter me, Malikai,” she hummed, sweeping past Naar and Rem without so much as another glance. “To think you’d find yourself fascinated by someone like little ole me.”
She sighed dramatically, raising a hand to settle her cheek against. “If I wasn’t so selfish, I’d show you otherwise. Unfortunately-” She stalled at the threshold of the hallway, turning to face him with a sheepish smile; head tipped down, shoulders shrugged, curls falling over her shoulders in every which way. “-I’d rather keep you to myself, if you’d let me.”
Cranky. Naar’s lips puckered, shoulders bunching tersely and lids narrowed in annoyance. He wasn’t cranky (or in need of a nap - he wasn’t eight), but he was being wronged, and that just wasn’t fair. But he supposed he could understand how ‘cranky’ was the first word that popped into the head of some drunken, crippled, overweight forty-year-old stranger. Arguing hardly seemed worth the time and effort. And there would be opportunities to voice his complaints (not crankiness) to Syth in the future.
He wrenched his arm free of Remalus’ restraining hold and strode away from him. “I’m going to bathe,” Naar muttered tartly.
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Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 9:21 pm
‘Allowing’ Sytherina to keep him to herself posed no problem whatsoever. Between her flick-swish barefoot dance-walk across the floor to the hall and the come-hither hypnotist’s sway of her body line, Malik felt no need to bother looking at or considering anything else. On his last pass towards her, his eyes did spare one, brief flick towards the youngest there at the boy’s parting comment, and he wondered — in passing — if the child was family of one of the…employees.
He soon dismissed the thought in favor of more pressing matters.
For all of the rest of life’s tendency to complicate things, Malikai found that brothels, in his experience, were one of the few places where the culture and rituals were blessedly simple, and satisfying, and he needn’t really worry about much else during the course of his time spent at them. Though a modest establishment, Malik found the same to be true of the current find, and the company to be ‘welcoming’ in all the right ways—his only concern being that with the tide of things heading as they were, a whorehouse staffed by oblivionites struck him as a risky business. They seemed, though, to be managing, and he didn’t suppose it was his ordeal to worry about.
As his time spent with Syth came to its natural closing, he found himself reluctant as ever to move. Beds were warm, women were warm, and his station cot was frustratingly small and stiff. But then, the establishment charged by the hour, and regrettably, he could not afford to pay for night of idle holding and a warm, complacent sleeping companion. He tucked a muted grunt against the niche of her throat and shoulder before kissing her cheek and slipping from the bed to make himself presentable. After leaving his dues in the form of smattering of coins, and downing a swallow of rancid whiskey to aid with the sleep process once he did make it to his quarters, he made his way out.
He paused, hand stilling near to the doorframe to steady himself as his attention landed on a familiar face waiting not but a handful of paces away. Tilting his head, he offered the boy a lopsided grin. “Done now, kid. All yours if y’re still waitin’ on tha’ shoppin’ trip…” After a thought and another pause, he squinted a fraction, shifting his weight but not relinquishing the stability of the wall. “How long’ve you been there, oi? She yer mum or somethin’…? Kina weird standin’ tha’ close t’ her sex life…maybe get a hobby or somethin’.”
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Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 9:22 pm
There was absolutely nothing to be upset about, Naarhiji told himself as he smoothed lilac-scented soap over his skin. Sytherina could complete Uncle’s mystery task on any given day, which would promptly be followed by a small mountain of sweets, and shoes, and clothes, and jewelry the next day. What did it matter if it happened tomorrow or the day after? Anticipation made it that much sweeter-
Except that bit was a lie.
Instant and repeated gratification was piles sweeter, more rewarding on a whole. He dipped his head back into the water, skimming his fingers through the floating tendrils to dissuade tangles. Always Orderites. It was always Orderites that had that special breed of talent to mess anything up without even trying. Dumb, careless birds. Not a problem to be had. Too good for a mere mortal’s problems, certainly. Naar grumbled into the water, flicking at insects that fluttered too close and deeming it appropriate to shield himself from them with mounds of sweet-smelling oils. Needless to say, it wasn’t long afterwards that he decided to leave the waters.
“Damn bugs, damn birds, damn- damn, damn, damn,” he groused. After slicking as much of the water from his hair as he could and ‘dressing’ as considered to be by the barest extent of the word, he slipped back inside. There was no gouging the passing of time. Baths could be as long or short as necessary to effectively cleanse the day’s… irritations away, and by the time he stepped down the hall leading to his and Sytherina’s rooms, it occurred to him that she may very well have finished the unfortunate task she’d taken on.
The pads of his fingers slipped over her doorknob, giving just the lightest pressure as he leaned in to very politely check if his assumptions were true. Except there was rustling, decidedly heavier, clumsier sounds than Syth would make on her own. Naar huffed, took a pace back, crossed his arms. ‘Leave’ seemed like a sound, reasonable thing to do. Unfortunately it didn’t quite compete with other options like, ‘stare balefully at a closed door until someone worthy of complaint appeared.’
It didn’t take long.
“You,” Naar asserted immediately upon the man’s appearance, “Don’t grin at me as though-” There was simply not enough agitation to fully express his concerns toward the situation. Naar cut himself off, and searched for something more suitable. He huffed, tossed his hair, became mildly irritated that wet hair did not behave in the same flippant fashion as dry hair, shifted his weight to one side, and put his hands on his hips. “Do. Not-” It simply wasn’t meant to be.
His lips pursed as lids narrowed to dark, irate slits at the offhand commentary concerning his relationship with Sytherina. “My…” Heat swam like fish in a river up his neck, through his cheeks and to the tips of his ears, as Naar’s brow furrowed and his posture stiffened. The male was likely more wasted than he’d originally anticipated. “You think she’s my mother?” He demanded hotly, voice rising several more octaves than was necessary to hear him from the foyer. “She- She isn’t! You can’t expect she’s that old! How dare you speak of a lady in such a manner!”
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Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 9:22 pm
Malikai squinted. Half because the boy’s face seemed to be swimming vaguely in and out of focus and half because the pitch of his shrieking was making it difficult to process—well, anything, really. After opening his mouth once, closing it, squinting further, and then giving up a moment to gather his thoughts, Malik lifted a hand, rubbing thumb and forefinger over shut eyes in a futile attempt to dispense with his budding headache—the hurt certainly not helped in the least by his company.
“Mother…” he mumbled. “Hm? Oh, no,” he said. “I don’—I didn’ say she was old,” he defended, frowning. “An’ y’ don’ have t’ say it that loud. It hurts for one an’ I’m half sure she could hear it if you were across th’ town in ‘ddition to me…but tha’ aside…” He shook his head. What had he been saying? Oh, yes. “How’m I supposed t’ know how old she is? Or you. Dunno how your kind works. Could be you was…”
He lifted a hand of fingers, attempting for a moment to count, and then quickly abandoning the endeavor, deeming it not worth the effort to be that precise.
“Could be your sort start real early like, make th’ most you can and move forward so she might…be like twice a dozen years an’ you, ah…” He eyed the boy across from him. ‘Wet’ was all that came to mind. Which wasn’t helpful in the least. His gaze trailed a drop of water that slipped from the boy’s hair, down his throat, over his collar bone, down his—
Malik shut his eyes.
“Fiftee…een summers give or take…? Y’ don’ look so old…just you dress like your…not-mother. Dunno why y’re so offended, neither, she’s lovely…real lovely.”
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Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 9:22 pm
’Your kind.’ Naar’s head cocked sharply and critically to the side, lips parting the barest fraction as he stared at the taller man. What was that supposed to- ’Your sort.’ He said it again. So whatever it meant, it bore repeating a second time in hardly more than a breath. As if this bumbling, feathered creature thought… Naar didn’t rightly know what he thought. That Oblivionites bred in some innately and fundamentally different way that Orderites? Or that they simply aged differently? Maybe just that mistreating young girls was not a frowned-upon practice?
He sucked in a breath, leaned to perch forward just a half-pace, close enough that he felt comfortable in the thought that he was completely absorbing all the bird’s attention. “Let me see if I understand you properly,” he commented lowly, enunciating each word slowly and clearly for the drunken Orderite’s benefit. “Because I strongly doubt you fully grasp what you’re spewing.” Really, people should not be allowed to ******** unless they were right in the head.
And they certainly shouldn’t be allowed to ******** other species labeled as ‘your kind.’ But that was neither here nor there and nothing Naar could do in a lifetime would stop that, so he returned his focus to the inebriated one.
“You think my… ‘not-mother’ is- Let’s say around twenty-four years of age. And I myself am somewhere in the nearby vicinity of fifteen. We’ll ignore for a moment that you’re wrong on both fronts. But, in your mind, my kind deems it acceptable and perhaps even commonplace to breed. Their women. At nine,” Naar demanded hotly. “Does this sound like what you were getting at?”
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Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 9:23 pm
Malikai opened his mouth, then shut it. Opened it. And shut it again. After a long moment, his eyes narrowed another half-fraction — not accusing, but assessing, since the long train of words which, if nothing else, sounded fairly accusatory, still all took a frustrating amount of effort to process, even given that the young oblivionite seemed to be taking steps to make them more manageable. Which he appreciated.
When the boy finished, Malikai held up a finger, begging a moment as he worked through the other’s assessment of his own words.
“Nine,” he repeated at length, and then reached up, thumbing over his furrowed brow in an effort to dispel the throbbing there, without success. “No, tha’…doesn’ sound…I don’ think so? Seems as though tha’ wouldn’…is ‘at wha’ I said…? M’sorry, y’ sound…’ffended, didn’ mean t’ offend, was just…y’look…young, an’ seemed to ‘ave a liking to ‘er. S’all. I dunno wha’ you deem, er…commonplace.”
The boy was closer. When had that happened? Malikai’s eyes moved down him, distracted for a period by how very sleek water seemed to make deep green skin look.
“Don’ think she looked old,” he repeated, this time softer and more musing. “An’ you’re both very…” ‘Attractive? Swish-hip-y? Punctuated with words?’ Malik’s gaze found a stray trail of a dark lock clinging damply to the oblivionite’s throat, “…wet…?” Immediately, that didn’t seem right, and he cleared his throat, shaking his head and frowning. “Er, no. Y’re wet. She wasn’ wet. Well, she was, but tha’ isn’—maybe shoulda stopped at sorry. Sorry. Dunno why you’re standin’ so close, I’m done fer the night an’ leastways I don’ sleep with…”
‘Man’ seemed like a generous term, when it came to describing the effete male in front of him. Malikai searched for a more accurate descriptor to get the general point across.
“…people w’thout…breasts…”
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Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 9:23 pm
It was impossible to know if he was always a babbling idiot, if it occurred only with a helpful splash of overpoweringly scented liquor, or if it was some side effect of sexual gratification. Naarhiji was inclined to assume the first, though it seemed unlikely that rest rest didn’t play some sort of meager role. What was worse was that the Orderite didn’t seem to have any filter to help weed sputtered half-sentences from useful conversation. He just… kept going. Naar blinked back at him, giving slow, pinched shakes of his head as if this would dissuade further commentary.
It didn’t.
Wasted, Naarhiji reminded himself. Just irreparably wasted. This was why he couldn’t bring himself to drink (aside from the acrid tang of alcohol). It had a way of making Magescians rapidly devolve. At least the bird had the decency to offer him some sort of apology. That was new. And nice. And unexpected. But also completely ruined by further discussion.
“Wet?” Naar repeated hesitantly. “That’s what you came up with?” It was hopeless. He was hopeless. And it was with amusement tugging at the corners of his lips that the younger man held up a hand to silence him. “You must be joking. You can’t possibly-” He gave a short, chopped laugh, before admitting with some bemusement, “It seems we’re both out of luck, as I don’t sleep with men with no control over their-” He grinned, quirked his hips to the side, and made a slow show of swiping his tongue across his lower lip. “-tongue.”
He turned on his heel, putting his back to the Orderite and striding down the path he’d intended before being so rudely interrupted. “You have a good night, Malikai.”
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Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 9:24 pm
Whatever remained of anything Mailikai might have said petered off, trailing into utterly forgotten non-existence because—
His eyes followed the sweep of what was, yes, most definitely the younger man — boy’s — tongue, and it seemed peculiar, and even improper somehow to find the single motion so wholeheartedly distracting. Then it finished, the boy turned, and Malikai shifted his weight, glancing in spite of himself and twisting like some pathetically mesmerized prey animal to watch the luring swish-shift of the young oblivionite’s barely veiled a**…ets. He squinted, miffed, as though it were somehow the fault of draping, poorly-strung-together gauze cloth and dark skin that he found such things even worth observing in the first place.
It was not until the boy was well down the hall and likely out of earshot that the full meaning of what he had actually said while still standing in front of Malikai sank in, and Malik frowned. “Do ‘ave some control over my tongue,” he muttered beneath his breath, the words likely even sloppier and more sluggish to behold than they already felt leaving his mouth. “Sometimes. Just ask yer…not-mum.”
Then, he was alone in the hall, and Malik grunted, forcing himself up and out on his way. It likely was high time he headed out. It wasn’t until he’d made it halfway home that he realized several things: first, that the boy had bid him goodnight, which, while likely dosed in some amount of sarcasm — he couldn’t recall — seemed pleasant in its own way, and second, he had been referred to by name. When had the boy learned his name? And had he ever learned the oblivionite’s name? It seemed as though he must have, at some point. He felt that surely the woman — Sytherina — had mentioned his name earlier, but it had long-since slipped from his memory, and — if it was already gone now — he felt certain there would be no recalling it come morning.
He would have to ask, and perhaps apologize again, next they encountered one another.
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