“Come on, girl,” Snag said, starting back towards their cabin at a pitiful shuffle. “I’m gonna ice to death If we dawdle out here any longer.”
A smirk pulled at the corner of Daana’s mouth as she followed. While the majority of Rasp’s idioms had stood the test of time, she suspected Snag had started to invent some of his own. He wouldn’t admit it, but there was no way anyone, not even Rasp, could have possibly taught Snag so many wrong expressions in such little time.
A fierce wind had picked up, blowing banks of fog across the sparse deck, making it impossible to see anything more than a few paces ahead or behind. The only sailors topside were those with the misfortune of being on duty. They stood bundled in all their layers, huddled against the elements, looking like stone sentinels in the shifting gray light as Daana and Snag made their way to the cabin.
The door was locked, as requested. Snag suddenly didn’t seem too concerned with witnessing another crime against the senses as he pounded his fist against the splintered wood, shouting to be let in. A set of heavy footsteps approached from the inside. Daana assumed it was Ashwyn as Ellisar would have played a drawn-out game of what’s-the-password purely for her own entertainment. The draw bar lifted away and the heavy door swung open with an agonized creak, aided by the blustering wind. Snag dipped inside first, followed swiftly by Daana, who had to brace her shoulder against the door in order to get it shut again.
Snag’s gaze settled on Ellisar’s still form. “You still alive over there, kitchen tongs?”
Ashwyn and Ellisar’s bed consisted of a pile of blankets shoved in the corner nearest the door. Ellisar was currently sprawled beneath the topmost cover, with an arm draped over her face and a bare foot sticking out over the edge of the nest. She spoke without moving. “Do you ever stop and wonder if your insults make sense before they come bumbling out of your mouth?”
Snag’s shit-eating grin was back, wider than before. His yellow eyes darted to Ashwyn. “It’s an inside joke. Had to be there, I guess.”
“Jokes are supposed to be funny, Snag.”
Ashwyn’s wide-eyed gaze pleaded with him for it to remain an inside joke.
Snag must have been in an especially forgiving mood because he conceded the issue with a wave. “You’re right, El. My mistake.”
Still wearing the smuggest smile Daana had seen in ages, the goblin swaggered over to the cabin’s only bunk and disappeared beneath the covers. Considering it was his money that’d secured them passage, no one had the guts, much less poor manners, to fight him for use of the bed.
With a relieved sigh, Ashwyn returned to the game of cards she had laid out across the table.
Daana joined her, trying not to appear too eager.
The orc noticed regardless of Daana’s noble attempts to keep a straight face. Ashwyn swept up the cards with practiced ease. “You look like you’re in the mood to lose some more money, Peaches. Ready to try your luck again?”
Daana shrugged one shoulder. “I mean, if you want to. Sure.”
Totally nailing this whole passive disinterest thing.
Card games were one of the few ways they had to pass the time and Daana was getting increasingly better at it. The trick to bluffing, she discovered, was to pretend you didn’t know what you were doing. Which really wasn’t all that hard because she barely understood the rules of the game as it were. It didn’t help that the rules seemed to change depending on whom she was playing against.
“You hear that, Ellie?” Ashwyn called over her shoulder. “I am successfully corrupting her one hand at a time.”
“Robbing her blind does not qualify as corrupting,” Ellisar’s voice uttered from beneath the arm draped over her face.
Ashwyn winked knowingly at Daana. “She’s still a little sore over you calling her bluff last time.”
Daana watched Ashwyn shuffle the deck with a practiced hand, absolutely mesmerized. It was like street magic, except in this case the dealer was upfront about wanting to steal your pocket money from the start. Daana hadn’t had any experience with cards prior to the trip. Card games had been looked down upon in the capital, and while a number of the students got together to play at the academy, she’d never been invited to join. She didn’t care so much about winning–even though she was starting to show a knack for it. She liked the shit-talking part of the event, particularly where she got to practice hers.
There was also the added fact that it was easier to pry information out of Ashwyn when she was trying to cheat at cards. The orc dealt the appropriate number and got right to business, adopting what she thought was an unreadable poker face. Out of courtesy, Daana threw a few hands before she started to fish for information. “So,” she started, her gaze moving across the room to Ellisar’s nest of blankets across from her. “You never did tell me the story of how you two met.”
Ashwyn continued to stare intently at her hand. “Work.”
“Back at the tower you said you met Ellisar during an arrest.”
Apparently this statement was pointed enough to break Ashwyn’s undivided attention. She peeked up from over the top of her cards, imparting a devious grin. “Did I, now? Oh dear me, it’s been so long I hardly remember.”
Ellisar flipped over with a grunt but said nothing of substance.
Her wife continued, undeterred. “Although, now that you mention it, it does sound a little familiar. Something about an arrest, yes. I think you’re right, Peaches. Oh, if only I could remember the specifics. I daresay, it’s probably an incredible story, brimming with scandal, intrigue, and betrayal–”
“Sweet goddess!” Ellisar threw her hands into the air above her head in exasperation. “Just get it over with. You’re obviously dying to tell her.”
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“Don’t act like you don’t love the story as much as I do.” She thumped the top of her leg, beckoning for Ellisar to come sit. “Remove your ass from that bed and come plant it here. My retelling just isn’t the same without you constantly correcting my every detail.”
Wearing the thin blanket as a robe, Ellisar stood and trudged over. She settled into an open chair instead, meeting Ashwyn’s disappointed pout with a wolfish smile.
Their silent standoff lasted only a few moments before Ashwyn gave in with a reluctant sigh. She drummed her fingertips against the wood table, wondering aloud, “Now where to begin?”
“Most people start at the beginning,” Ellisar replied.
“Well aren’t you just full of piss and vinegar today.” Ashwyn extended her hand in her partner’s direction in a silent request for some romantic hand-holding. She got a foot instead. Undeterred, the orc clamped her hands around Ellisar’s ankle and used it to pull her closer. “As my lovely partner suggested, I suppose we should start at the beginning. I was born into a family of four: a mother, father, and an older sister. Mother died in some war before I learned to walk and Father succumbed to heartbreak during my pre adolescent years. Our aunt took Ra-Ra and I in–”
“Not that beginning.” Realizing her error, Ellisar braced her other foot against the planked flooring to avoid being yanked into her wife’s awaiting lap. For someone so determined to put up a fight, the teasing smile formed across the elf’s lips spoke of another truth. Ellisar was playing her own game. “Get to the good part.”
“Are you insinuating that my life was boring before I met you?”
“Tragically boring. You put me to sleep every time you talk about it.”
“Fine. Skipping several hundred not boring years ahead, I found myself employed as a bounty hunter in the service of the United Territories of the Realm. I’m not one to blow my own horn here, but I was pretty good at it too.”
“Debatable,” Ellisar countered as her chair continued to scoot across the rickety floor with an obnoxious screech.
Ellisar was nearly within reach now. Instead of grabbing her, Ashwyn let the elf flail, unable to free herself from the trap of her own doing. Whatever strange game it was, they both seemed in on it, delighted to play their respective parts.
Ashwyn continued, “At the time, I’d just gotten a good lead on a mid-level bandit that had been giving the realm the runaround. Unbeknownst to me and the rest of the law-abiding world, Ellie here was only a pirate half the year. She’d dock Before the Fall every winter and go find some other way to cause mayhem. She operated under a number of different criminal aliases, of course. Which is why when I discovered her well on her way to being drunk at her favorite seedy tavern, I had no idea what sort of mess I’d just gotten myself into.”
Daana’s eyes widened. “You arrested her at a tavern?”
“Oh no, no, no. That would have been too obvious. She’d earned herself quite a reputation for being a slippery devil when it came to arrests. So I bought her a drink first, and then another, and another. According to my information, it wasn’t unusual for her to leave in the company of a stranger for a night or two. I figured if I could get her to leave with me willingly, I could get a good two day lead before the rest of her gang realized she was missing.”
“You flirted your way into an arrest?”
Ellisar gave in to exhaustion and went limp, unwilling to fight the inevitable any longer. “The mung weed helped, too.”
“She was supposed to be a decent fighter even when shitfaced, so I thought it best to take precautions.” Ashwyn’s resulting smile was triumphant. She leaned forward and caught Ellisar around the waist, pulling her into her lap with ease. The elf automatically went limp like a dead fish. “I tried to be stealthy and lace her drink with liquid mung weed, but she saw me pull it out of my pocket and downed the whole vial for the fun of it. That much mung weed would’ve killed a normal person. El of course knocked back a whole round of drinks before offering to walk me back to the inn. I got her around the back and threw her onto my horse and we stole away into the night. She was surprisingly docile the first few days on the road. On account of the withdrawals, I later learned.”
For someone who had fought tooth and nail not to be there, Ellisar looked extraordinarily comfortable lounged across Ashwyn’s lap. She even stopped checking over her wife’s cards long enough to offer Daana a suitable explanation. “My diet at the time consisted of booze and various types of…what’s your big-brained word for it?”
Daana rolled her eyes. “I only called it illicit substances once.”
“Yeah, that’s the stuff.”
“I am reluctant to admit that her docility lulled me into a false sense of accomplishment,” Ashwyn said. “I thought I really had outsmarted the area’s most wanted criminal. Turns out, she just liked the attention. I didn’t come to find out she was only playing nice until we were three days out from our destination. I’d made camp and had just bedded down for the night when we got jumped by the local wanna-be-bandit baddies. These weren’t Ellie’s people, mind you. A real ragtag operation, but they had numbers on their side.
“I only managed to get two or three down before the rest of the gang rushed me. Just as I feared I was done for, this beauty here came cutting through their ranks. She’d slipped her manacles and borrowed a blade from an unsuspecting bandit. I should have been scared out of my wits, but all I could think of was how hot it was. Together, we made short work of the bandits before the rest ran off with their tails tucked between their legs.”
Ashwyn lifted her hand and cupped Ellisar’s chin lovingly. “Do you remember what happened next?”
“You dropped your sword and asked if you could kiss me.”
“Really?” Daana said.
“And then when she leaned in, I took her blade and clamped the irons back on her.” Ashwyn broke into a fit of laughter, barely able to get the rest of her words out. “Goddess almighty, you should have heard the mouth on her. She was beyond pissed. I’d never heard such colorful language in all my life. I gathered our stuff and threw her back onto the horse. The little pissant dug her heels into the horse and took off without me. Unfortunately, with her hands chained behind her back, she wasn’t able to hold on for long and I found herself upside down in a ditch half a mile down. I hauled her to her feet and told her ‘anymore of that, miss, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to get cross with you’.”
There was a strange, dreamy look to Ellisar’s face as she practically melted in Ashwyn’s lap. “And that’s the moment I knew I was going to corrupt you.”
Remembering she was the one who asked about the story, Daana decided against uttering ‘gross’ out loud.
“The rest of the journey was uneventful after that. Ellie behaved herself long enough for me to get her to the city and collect my reward. I’d never felt bad about turning in a bounty before, but I still believed in civic duty and all that nonsense at that time. With the hanging due to commence the following day, I rode out of that city as hard and as far as I could. Got myself a nice little room in an inn along the road and drowned my troubles in a couple stiff drinks. I could barely walk when I made it back up the stairs. Imagine my surprise when I opened the door to find this one in bed waiting for me.”
Ellisar was back to studying her wife’s cards, all while her hand stealthily reached across the table to pocket the money pool. “I thought it would be polite to wait until after she handed me over to escape for real.”
“I about had a heart attack. I thought maybe she’d come to kill me. Instead, little miss bright eyes over here sits up with a grin split from ear to ear and says ‘That was the easiest money I’ve ever made. Want to collect a few more of my bounties before they catch on?’” She readjusted Ellisar in her lap, preventing her from pocketing the money. Ashwyn gazed deep in her eyes, ignoring the bratty tongue Ellisar was sticking out at her. “All the rest is history.”