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Somewhere between his third puff off the hookah and sixth (seventh?) glass of plum wine, Thassarian had become convinced that Koltira had invited him to Quel'Thalas largely in an attempt to kill him.
Now, he couldn't say for sure why the ranger had decided to kill him, or why he couldn't have just slit his throat and been done with it, but between Thassarian's sudden hypersensitivity to sound and the warm, increasingly uncomfortable throb of his loins, it was the only logical conclusion to be drawn.
Normally neither of these afflictions would be any big deal - the sound sensitivity could be taken care of easily enough by simply removing himself to someplace quieter, and the sudden rigidity in his trousers could have been dealt with either on his own or with Koltira's expert assistance. In fact, both could have been managed, under normal circumstances, by simply absconding with Koltira to some quiet, out-of-the-way little nook or backroom for an hour or three. Surely Koltira would have paid mind to the way Thassarian winced at every word or sound that went beyond the acceptable volume for a private conversation. The elf could be a sadist in bed, but he wasn't a monster.
Or… so Thassarian had believed, in any event. Now, settled in a back corner of a pleasure house whose name he couldn't recall - one of dozens littered throughout Dawnspire, if Koltira was at all to be believed anymore - with his ears ringing, his pants becoming more uncomfortably tight by the minute, and surrounded on all sides by laughing, canoodling elves (and one dwarf, who looked not at all as terrified as Thassarian felt,) he was beginning to wonder if perhaps he had been mistaken all along about Koltira.
Maybe this had been Koltira's plan all along: Seduce some poor, helpless young soldier until he was practically eating out of the elf's hands, then lure him to his death by hookah smoke and drugged wine in the middle of an elvish brothel as some sort of mad ranger sport.
At least… he thought the wine was probably drugged. Then again, he'd never had plum wine before, so maybe it was just the tobacco in the hookah that he was reacting to - only he'd had tobacco before, chewed it and smoked it through wood pipes, so that couldn't be right, could it?
Perhaps the tobacco was drugged. Could hookah tobacco be drugged…?
There was a chuckle at his side, low and sultry in a manner that did nothing at all to help the… issue… in his trousers. Equally unhelpful was the languid shift of the warm, lithe body next to him, or the sudden wash of warm, wine-sweet breath across his ear as Koltira leaned much too close to him.
“Still with us, Thassarian?” Koltira asked, and Light, if his voice didn't sound like so much warm honey being poured from a perfect, handcrafted jar…
“Oh, he's with you, certainly,” another elf said - Jarrod, Thassarian thought. Another of Koltira's ranger friends, redheaded and ruddy-skinned and too damn loud. “Look at him. He's practically falling apart at the seams.”
“Maybe we should have warned him about the hookah.” That was a woman, speaking from somewhere behind Koltira. “Smoulder is a pretty strong blend, and you said he's new to this.”
“He's fine,” Koltira said, leaning away from Thassarian just enough to let a burst of cool air blow between them. Then he leaned close again, and asked in a softer tone: “You're fine, right? Still in there?”
His head felt light, and for some reason he had a bit of difficulty tracking movement with his eyes, but somehow Thassarian managed to turn to look at Koltira and, with all the dignity and poise he could muster, actually answered his question.
“Uhm,” Thassarian said, sounding quite confident to his own badly ringing ears. Then, because it felt important that this be clarified, he added, “Should I… be able to smell the color purple right now?”
It was a nice smell, purple, only he was relatively certain he hadn't previously been able to smell any colors. He was also relatively certain that this new development should perhaps bother him significantly more than it currently did.
“That depends,” another elf commented from across the low table, scratching his honey-colored goatee thoughtfully. “What's it smell like?”
Thassarian considered that.
“Kind of sweet,” he said after a moment. “Like… like honeysuckle and sandalwood. And tobacco.”
“Purple smells like tobacco, hm?” The elf - Thaerin, wasn't it? Saerin? Saeros? - nodded very seriously. “We've learned something new today.”
The dwarf across the room whooped suddenly, her fiery braids flying wildly about as she and a black-haired she-elf went toppling sideways across the cushioned booth they shared.
The ruckus they stirred up carried easily over the din of the bustling pleasure house and was soon followed by a swell of drunken leers and laughter, and Thassarian's ears rang painfully with the noise - though he was pleased to see that he didn't seem to be the only one unhappy with the commotion. Three of his four elvish companions cringed, as well; if the lady elf with them reacted, Thassarian couldn't see it with Koltira sitting where he was. They'd all smoked off the same hookah, though, and for all the wine Thassarian had drunk, at least two of the elves had had more still. He knew Koltira had downed at least an entire bottle on his own.
“Maybe we should go somewhere a bit… quieter,” Koltira said, still wincing. His long, slender ears were pinned back against his head in clear agitation, and his body no longer lay slumped quite so fluidly against Thassarian's side.
“We have a room reserved,” the lady elf commented. “Upstairs - if nothing else, we can try to wait out all the noise,” she added, and somehow she sounded doubtful.
“It'd be a waste of a room,” Jarrod snorted. “Sit around and do… what? Play pachisi until everyone else screws each other into a drunken coma?”
The throb in Thassarian's loins picked up at that, deep and intense enough that he was sure he could feel his face twisting in response - not so much from the discomfort, but from the sudden need that came with it.
Was sex an option…?
Koltira twitched beside him, and his long ears began to turn a wonderful, peachy shade of pink at the tips as he shot Thassarian a pointed look.
“Well, we could always have a go at each other,” the lady elf was saying. She still sounded uncertain. “Only… we went and got Koltira's human all turned about. I'd hate to take advantage.”
“I wouldn't,” Thassarian heard himself say through the low thrumming in his ears.
Four elvish heads craned about to fix him with looks that ranged from incredulous to deeply contemplative, and Thassarian found himself thoroughly distracted by their gleaming, crystalline eyes. Like stars, they were - bright, clever stars, far too clever for something so very pretty--
“Wouldn't… what, exactly?” Koltira asked, leaning close again and looking up at Thassarian through his long, pale eyelashes. There was something endearing about the expression on his face, and Thassarian suddenly had to work very hard not to lean down and plant a soft kiss on the elf's full lips… though, at the moment, he wasn't sure why he was resisting the urge at all. Propriety was a foreign, half-forgotten concept, and nothing else occurred to him at all that might be a decent reason not to simply pounce Koltira and be done with it.
Perhaps it was muscle memory. Damn the thing.
“I wouldn't mind,” Thassarian said, low and careful, “being taken advantage of, just at the moment.”
Koltira's eyes darkened with lust, and Thassarian very nearly lost the battle to refrain from snapping forward and pinning Koltira back against the cushions. He succeeded only because Koltira beat him to the punch, lunging forward and claiming his lips in a kiss that was mostly teeth while his momentum sent them both tumbling across the booth in a heap.
Like a dam bursting, the throbbing, driving heat in his loins spread into his limbs all at once, inflaming him as all the world began to blur away into a thick haze. All he could register now were the sharp teeth at his lips, and the hands sliding up his shirt and down beneath the waistband of his trousers, and the swift-burning heat that seared his flesh in their wake.
“Well, isn't this a lovely sight to stumble across.”
Koltira startled, then shoved away with a hiss. Thassarian followed suit; he didn't quite recognize the voice that had spoken, but he was in elf lands and trusted Koltira enough besides to follow his lead when the ranger started acting like a cat on a hot tin roof.
The other elves at their table were as stock-still as Koltira, and when he followed their guilty looks to the cause Thassarian understood why. It probably wasn't every day that a ranger captain came along to watch them canoodle in the back of a pleasure house, let alone their own captain. Halduron Brightwing might be rumored to be one of the most laid-back elves among the Ranger Corps, but he was respected and feared in equal measure - with good reason, if any trace of Koltira's horror stories were to be believed.
That Halduron was smiling gently down at them didn't help matters one bit.
“Captain… Brightwing,” the lady elf managed to choke out. “Er… Good afternoon, sir.”
“And a happy Feast to you,” Halduron returned, and his gentle smile widened to show perhaps a few too many teeth as he turned his attention squarely on the lady elf.
The lady elf's ears flicked nervously, and she couldn't seem to manage more than an uncomfortable fluttering of her eyelashes before Halduron turned back to the group at large.
“You certainly seem to be making the most of your holiday,” Halduron said, sliding down onto a cushion between Saeros and Jarrod and looking so at ease that, for just a moment, Thassarian decided the other elves were simply overreacting. Surely their captain was just here to check in, or perhaps toss back some wine or take a drag from the hookah.
And then Halduron's sharp, silvery-blue gaze flicked to Thassarian, and Thassarian dazedly marveled at the speed with which his life passed before his eyes.
“And I see you've invited a friend along this year,” Halduron continued, and the winsome, ostensibly welcoming look he trained on Thassarian sent a prickle of genuine unease racing down the latter’s spine. “Thassarian, wasn't it? How wonderful to see you again! I hope the festivities haven't been too… extravagant for you; we tend to be rather enthusiastic about our springtime holidays, and you wouldn't be the first outsider caught off guard by it all.”
Thassarian blinked.
“I, uh…” Damn the drugs and damn his tongue. Maybe Halduron would be merciful and kill him quickly if he stammered long enough.
Halduron grinned, and again Thassarian was struck by the impression that the expression was toothier than it strictly needed to be as the captain laughed and said, “I see you've already had a hit or two from the hookah. I hope my men haven't given you anything too potent; you don't strike me as the smoking type.”
“Naw,” Thassarian said, slurring his consonants and slipping into a light drawl as he scrambled to sound as relaxed as Halduron looked. “I smoke a wood pipe back ‘ome. ‘M jus’ not used to… uh… think they called it ‘smoulder’…”
Four elvish heads ducked back as though they'd had flicked with cold water; beside him, Thassarian distinctly heard Koltira make a soft, keening little whine in the back of his throat, sounding like nothing so much as a dog nursing a bad leg as Halduron's eyes flashed with sudden interest.
“They gave you Smoulder?” Halduron asked, leaning forward just a hair. “Really? How do you find it?”
Thassarian considered that for a moment, largely because he had to figure out what the grinning elf sitting across from him meant by “finding it.”
“Kinda sweet,” he finally said. “Smoky-sweet. Pretty good stuff, actually; think I took a couple hits of it,” he added with a grin. There; surely that would put Halduron at ease, right? It wasn't like his rangers had forced anything nefarious on Thassarian. He'd sucked down whatever blend they were burning all under his own power, completely of his own volition.
Halduron grinned again at Thassarian's companions.
“This must be a gentler blend of Smoulder than I'm familiar with,” Halduron said, catching and holding the gaze of each ranger in their turn, “if you all thought it a good idea to let him take multiple draws of it - alongside a serving or three of wine, no less, from the looks of your table.”
The silence that settled around the group became thick, nearly palpable, and suddenly none of the other elves seemed able to meet Halduron's bright eyes any longer.
Thassarian frowned as he took in their behavior, and slowly began to wonder if perhaps he should not have mentioned what kind of tobacco he'd been smoking. Somehow he had the impression that Halduron wasn't as unconcerned by the information as he looked, and by now Koltira and the other elves all looked as though they were about twenty second from receiving a death sentence.
Maybe it was wiser not to correct the captain's guess about the amount of wine he'd had to drink…
“Shall I take your silence as a ‘no,’ then?” Halduron asked, and for all he sounded friendly, even conspiratorial, Thassarian imagined he heard the slightest edge to the captain's voice.
Four sets of red-tipped ears pinned back uncomfortably, but it was Saeros who ultimately spoke up.
“It, ah,” the blond stammered. “It's… the usual stuff, Captain. Same amount. Same, ah… potency.”
Addled as he was by the heat still slogging through his veins, even Thassarian could guess that this was a bad thing to have admitted to Halduron. They should really have tried lying to the captain, although it was probably too late to change tack now.
“In their defense, they all smoked it, too,” Thassarian put in, because surely if he knew everybody here was intoxicated, Halduron would be less inclined to think badly of his rangers.
Koltira made the whining noise again, and this time Thassarian distinctly felt a long fingernail jab him urgently just under the ribs.
Halduron turned another gentle smile on Thassarian, and this time the prickle it sent along the human's spine was one of fear.
“Oh, dear, we have been naughty,” Halduron said once the silence had grown uncomfortable, and now his voice was soft, too - soft like steam coming off a cup of hot cider, soft like the clearest and last warning anyone was going to get before one wrong word brought disaster down upon their heads.
Thassarian chewed down on the inside of his cheek and resolved to stop talking.
Halduron shifted, drawing one knee up to prop under his arm and leaning back on his other hand as he watched the group squirm for another moment. Desperate not to meet the man's shining gaze again, Thassarian let his attention wander to the rest of the pleasure house. Nobody else seemed even to notice that Halduron was here; the rest of the place was still alive with rowdy laughter and drunken canoodling. The dwarf lady was sandwiched now between two very enthusiastic elves where she lay sprawled across a low table, and yet it still seemed that she was the one in control as they…
Thassarian swallowed hard and looked away, but the look had already done its damage, stoking the warmth in his loins once more and making his limbs feel at once leaden and weightless as he looked down at the innocuous table before him.
It was a nice table. Good, sturdy wood, well-polished and soft under his calloused hand, low enough to the floor that it might almost be a bed frame rather than a place to eat - although, of course, there was quite an array of delicacies surrounding him either way, and he could imagine they were all simply bursting with warmth and sweetness…
There was a loud slap of skin against wood, and Thassarian jerked out of his spiraling thoughts to see Halduron leaning forward and smiling at him again, starlike eyes glittering from under a pair of delicately sweeping eyebrows raised nearly to his hairline.
“Stay with us, Thassarian,” the captain ordered, and… and yes, it did register as an order, just enough for Thassarian's spine to straighten of its own accord, though the throbbing lower down didn't relent in the slightest as Halduron continued, “We don't want you making a mess of yourself out in front of the whole house.”
“…Right,” Thassarian muttered, scratching at his jaw in an attempt to distract himself from thoughts of messiness.
“I would imagine the same is true of your friends,” Halduron added, though his gaze rested squarely on Koltira as he spoke. “I'm quite certain none of them intended to drag you into a drug-addled orgy in the middle of such a crowded space. Behind closed doors, maybe, but certainly not in the middle of the lounge in one of Dawnspire's busiest pleasure houses - on one of the most ardent days of the year, no less.”
Somebody whooped from the dwarf’s table, and one of Halduron's long ears twitched ever so slightly towards the sound.
“We aren't dwarves, after all,” Halduron said, the corner of his mouth twitching for an instant. “Nor noble-bred idiots with more silk than we know what to do with. We ought to at least pretend to have some scrap of dignity.”
We. He kept saying we, and try as he might Thassarian couldn't help but be distracted by that tiny little detail.
“We did have a room reserved.” That was the lady elf, speaking up again for the first time since Halduron had arrived. “We were about to head for it, only…”
“We were… distracted,” Koltira said.
His voice seemed to shudder through Thassarian's very bones. With its passing, what little sense Thassarian had left evaporated again, and he moved to close with Koltira once more - only to stop as Koltira placed a firm hand against his chest and shook his head. Confusion, more than any conscious decision to behave, kept Thassarian pinned in place. Why was Koltira stopping him…?
“Ah,” Halduron said, though he sounded much farther away as Thassarian stared hard at Koltira's reddened face. “I see the problem: We have a mated pair in our midst.”
Koltira's blush spread down to his lithe neck, and were it not for the hand he kept against Thassarian's chest the human might lean down to steal a kiss or three along the corded muscles there. Koltira certainly didn't look as though he would have minded…
Someone clapped retur hands, once and loudly so, and the sound was just enough to startle Thassarian back to reality, even if only for an instant.
“Right then,” Halduron said, rising to his feet and beckoning for the group to follow him. “Let's us be off, hmm? It seems as though Thassarian can't hold out much longer, and I think it might be cruel to try to make him. Show me this room you've got, and let's try not to take the scenic route, if it can at all be helped.”
“You're… coming along?” Jarrod asked, pausing as he helped Thassarian to his feet to stare at Halduron.
“I think it might be wise,” Halduron replied, and for once his smile seemed more roguish than faintly menacing. “Someone has to play the responsible adult - which is to say, poor Thassarian may need some help keeping the four of you at bay, and if my holiday must be impacted by my own foolish rangers, I think I deserve at least some sort of compensation.”
Koltira began towing Thassarian away then, laying his warm, sharp-nailed hands on the bare skin of Thassarian's arm, and whatever hazy compunctions Thassarian might have had about Halduron tagging along vanished in another heady undertow as he let himself be led into the bowels of the pleasure house.
Strange creatures, elves - but beautiful enough it didn't matter, he supposed.