Prent and Elshon arrive together, only a few minutes early, and survey the damaged den with displeasure. Elshon has the look of a Las Vegas performer. Wait, a what? El… John? He’s five foot eight, and has a herculean flamboyance about him. His current garb is garishly clashing colors that he wears with absolute indifference to visual sensibilities. He seems to set his own trends, blaze his own style trail. He’s visually loud, and proud, and, to the observant, very into scoping out Prent and Lil. His gaze takes me in, but apparently finds me not masculine enough to keep from settling back on the two men in the room when he thinks no one’s looking. He’s subtle about it, behind darkened, wildly framed sunglasses. I just have more senses than most.
I guess he might be proud in another way as well, if he’s out, but I don’t want to out him if he’s not. I also don’t want to imply something that might get Prent in trouble if it isn’t true, about their arriving together. The fact that I’ve been catching them carefully adjusting their attire over the last few seconds, since our arrival, gives me a sneaking suspicion, but I don’t know the dynamics in play, and I don’t want anyone getting hurt, especially not needlessly based on dramatic conjecture.
If I thought the signs were obvious that Prent and Elshon may have been fooling around before arrival, when Burshis and Nietru arrive within my sensory range, purposely standing apart, looking disheveled, and out of breath, well—. The fact that Burshis kisses Nietru on the cheek, and whispers something about hanging back almost clinches it. Then she hastily adjusts her blouse, and proceeds the rest of the way towards the den first, attempting to appear as if she’s arriving separately from Nietru. That my dear, is a dead giveaway. I feel bad for paying attention to my extra senses, and learning these things. But it’s also such silly needless drama. Maybe it’s just a game and they don’t really mind what their partners are doing, but they find thrill in the act of trying to not get caught or something.
Oh boy, is this ever going to shake things up for them. I can’t help it as I drop my face to my right hand, shaking my head. I start to chuckle. Nietru arrives while I’m shaking my head incredulously, and she tenses nervously, glancing at Burshis to see if the jig is up, but Burshis just offers the tiniest shrug, and flicks her eyes towards Prent, directing Nietru to the other side of the room. Nietru follows the suggestion, and rushes to cling on to Prent’s right arm, displacing Elshon by a few inches, who had been standing fairly close. Snrk. Master strategists at hiding their dalliances they are not.
Lady Kinzul is attempting to keep her mirth locked down while she listens in on my silent observations, so I just keep shaking my head while smiling and chuckling. Nobody says anything as we turn to walk towards Kinzul’s private study.
As I begin to cast the telepathic bond, immediately constructing the passive-broadcast blocking walls, I offer up verbally, “Just in case it might become relevant, should you not wish for everyone within your telepathic bond to hear your every thought, you can opt for a less intimate connection, and you also have the ability to set up mental barriers, walls that block passive broadcast of your thoughts. They’ll never stop an incoming or outgoing direct message to one of the members of this subnetwork. Rather, they’ll simply— keep your stray thoughts private.”
The speed with which the four opt for the less intimate connection is telling on so many levels. Kinzul and I both fight our laughter, while Miraina and Lil seem oblivious, because I’ve had my mental barriers up so that they’re not hearing my every last thought. Since I don’t want to stir up any drama, I won’t offer this quad my more affectionate application of the permanency enhancement enchantment runes. I will say though that Prent is incredibly handsome, Elshon has confidence in spades, and Nietru and Burshis are both gorgeous as hell.
Despite being Draconiacs, Nietru and Burshis, now that I see them up close, present feminine much more strongly than others I’d seen. They have rather pleasing busts, and choose flattering clothing that accentuates them further. Not necessarily the same as mammals, because there’s no cleavage, and no, well, globes, but a very lovely, slightly rounded shelf of pectoral ridge that appears more supple than the surrounding area. Having seen Nietru and Burshis, I now wonder if Errissa might have more of this soft pectoral ridge than she presents, due to her tight-fitting leathers, and how tightly she was bandaged. Come to think of it, Nala did have a tiny hint of this pectoral ridge as well. Oh, and Geskae had a soft pectoral ridge as well, almost as full as Nietru and Burshis have, I think I tried to avoid looking at her bare torso, since she was very pointedly with Aaront. Regardless, I’m going to keep those thoughts from going obsessive, and keep them private as well.
I’m incredibly glad for Lady Kinzul’s discretion on my roving train of thoughts. There’s a bit of an uncomfortable silence during this particular subnetwork of our psychic network. At least, there was.
Pawn breaks the silence, “You guys are all so silly. Why even try to hide stuff?”
There’s a massive wave of tension that hits the room, and worried glances from the quad, as Pawn chirps a lie, “I don’t hide anything at all, that’s why I keep taking this version of the bond. Maybe you’re afraid for the next games tournament? In case you have to face each other? Oh well, what do I know, I’m just a kid.”
So much for Miraina being oblivious. Hah. It takes a massive amount of willpower to not burst out laughing as Pawn subtly called out the quad, while making it seem like innocent conjecture. I mean, I’m pretty sure that she’s far more observant than she let on in those statements. What’s great is, by throwing them under the bus to each other, she cements herself as innocently completely trustworthy, with that remark about not hiding anything.
There are telling coughs, and mumbles of agreement about not wanting to face a psychic opponent that knows their moves in the next strategy games tournament. I’m internally giggling, and Kinzul is struggling to contain her mirth. What’s more, is the quad are now praising Pawn for being so smart as to guess their motivations. Pawn gets praise, for a thing that’s true about her, which she loves, but she earns it covertly for something she said that’s untrue. Wow she’s good!
Now that they’ve had to break the silence, and are sticking to the story about being worried about strategy games, Elshon and Prent actually begin to talk strategy, while Burshis and Nietru correct them occasionally. The topic comes around to the actual upcoming war, and the battles we’ll likely fight.
Prent, his voice low and serious, asks, “After the latest portent we have, what do you think their next move will be?”
Elshon gnaws on his lip, casting Prent a furtive glance before responding, “Anyone’s guess really. Terrorzin had been playing the long game. It’s surprising enough that it took him this long to do something as stupid as declare the world unfit to survive past his own life honestly. I can’t think of someone more simultaneously predictably asinine, yet unpredictable.”
Burshis, her hand on her breast-ridge, quips, “That’s not entirely true about the surprise. We knew he was being cowed, held back by something.”
Lady Kinzul doesn’t outwardly show it, but she, like me, mentally tenses up, now that we’re pretty certain what had been keeping Terrorzin from lashing out before.
Nietru gives Burshis an approving nod before she offers, “If anything, I think we should look at the bigger picture. We will get Terrorzin, no doubt, hell, it’s prophecized. but his loyalists are legion, they are many. He’s had most of Rayileklia’s history to shape subtle things that we still might not even know about. He let the damn Felgre horde out for crying out loud. Who knows what other armies and creatures he could unleash in his final months?”
Prent nods thoughtfully, tapping his claws on an end-table near his seat. Scratching his chin, he suggests, “We should be prepared for anything. The safety of our people, our world, depends on it.”
Elshon sighs, somewhere between dreamily, and exasperatedly, before commenting, “Wise, but also an old vaguery that gets one nowhere. There is no such thing as prepared for anything. We should be listing the situations we know will arise, situations we hope won’t arise, situations that only our imaginations could dream up, and plotting contingencies for all of them. Specific action strategies, courses of action we can commit to my lad.”
Not entirely disagreeing, but correcting Elshon, Burshis adds, “While it is true that one cannot truly be prepared for absolutely everything, and we all know the adage that no plan survives first contact with the enemy, we can hope to have a wide-enough array of plans in place to carry out necessary contingencies even in wildest-nightmare scenarios. From what I hear, we have Schism to thank for some bizarre contingencies.”
Glancing at me, then casting her eyes aside quickly as our gazes meet, Nietru stands and excitedly interjects in to agree with Burshis, “Yes exactly! Schism’s out of the box thinking, and bending or breaking the rules of reality is one hell of a way to be prepared for anything!” she actually flusters, and blushes while glancing my way during her praise.
At this point, the quad begins to sort of murmur and mutter to themselves as the conversation loses steam. They continue to cast individual glances my way, now that I’ve been made the subject. I’m feeling a bit under the spotlight, a place I dearly do not like to be, but I can’t think of anything to divert the conversation at the moment, since I’m focusing on so many things. I’m trying to enchant permanency into bonds while maintaining the psychic bonding spell, while continuing my daily rune-crafting towards mastering runes, while maintaining several passive-broadcasting walls, while contemplating my ability to contribute to an overall war effort, while trying to keep my mind steered away from various chests and other physical attributes of handsome and lovely people such as Kinzul and her daughter Illy, while also—. I’m a bit busy at the moment to try to come up with a quip to say the very least.
Thankfully, despite my slight discomfort, no one really puts me on the spot by asking anything. There’s an unspoken acknowledgment that I’m likely the cause of the destruction of the den. While they might not have noticed me noticing their attempts to hide their various cavorting engagements, I’m fairly certain they did notice my sorrow and apologetic attitude as I casted glances around the destroyed den. It’s not long before I can tell that there’s a silent agreement amongst the quad.
The quad, as soon as each of them is cleared to go, leave one by one, not waiting for the others to receive the permanent enhancement enchantment, taking off in entirely different directions. That leaves me with Lil, Kinzul, and Pawn to have to finish up the permanency with. Shortly after Nietru, the last member of the quad, leaves, Pawn bursts into a fit of the giggles.
Lady Kinzul covers her mouth and tries to prevent her belly from shaking, and Lil, sweet, precious, pure Lil, asks, “Huh? What’s so funny?”
We end up giggling at the question, but we can’t fill Lil in, so we avoid the truth as we say, “They just seemed in a really big hurry is all, and it’s funny, because it’s not like the rest of the mountain is going anywhere.”
Lil contorts his face, mildly confused at how that could be so humorous, declaring, “Oh,” but he chuckles along with us for a bit anyway. I feel bad for my buddy being left out of the loop, but I also don’t want to spoil his innocence. I love him so much and want him to just be as happy as he can be for as long as he can. I resolve to try extra hard to pass affection into his backrub while I’m finishing up the permanency of this particular subnetwork.
Up next is The Paradox Dormir, and I selfishly want to save Iylynila til last amongst all of the bonds to enchant her permanency into during that subnetwork. My heart flutters a bit at the idea of being alone together with her again, especially due to the constant hints of, “Maybe tomorrow,” she had dropped yesterday. The tomorrow, which is of course, today holds several promising possibilities. If nothing else, I enjoy getting to speak with her, and I recognize that she’s more confident and energetic the fewer people are around.
Illy also got more and more excitable, the more romantic drama she thought I had been able to develop in as quickly as a single day. Which, to be fair, that’s one of her primary interests, and she does read romance novels apparently, probably smutty ones based on what she said after the event. Also to be fair, I don’t exactly have zero romantic drama after only a single day here, especially after the event, but even just considering only my unintentional obsession over Spymaster due to the whammy which probably triggers a tingle for her drama senses. Or something like that. Regardless, she has more fun teasing the more romantic attachments her target has, by the way it seems. I’m fine being the target of that teasing, hell, I enjoy it.
Still, I finish up the permanency enhancement enchantments on Lil, Miraina, and Kinzul, trying to give each of them appropriate levels of attention. Kinzul catches my left hand at her shoulder for a moment, and holds it in place before I can withdraw it. She simply leans her cheek against my hand while she holds my fingers in place with her strong, yet delicate digits. There’s an unspoken sorrow, an apology to me for having put me in a position where my wrath triggered, and perhaps an overall apology for her inability to help with my emotional instabilities and neurodivergencies, if not at least perhaps an apology for the fact that she will be throwing me headlong into the most battles of the upcoming conflict.
I sigh, and almost wish I could lean in and kiss Kinzul lovingly to assuage her worries about the need to apologize to me. Our Lady shouldn’t have to burden herself with so much worry over just one of us—. I don’t want people worrying about me is the truth behind the issue I guess. It’s not fair of me to think that way though. After a shuddering breath, I sigh belatedly. I’d better finish up quick and head to the den, the Dormir will be arriving soon, and I don’t want Illy to have a heart attack.