Pre-dawn. It was a half-candlemark yet till the sixth hour. Hardly a bird had bothered to wake, sanely remaining in their perches and nests. Unfortunately, there was someone not quite that sane who was awake. Face mostly shrouded in shadow, the light of a flickering lamp glinted off of pale eyes and pointed ears, the floorboards barely creaking under her quiet footsteps. Coming up to the sleepy chambermaid, the figure clamped a hand over the girl's mouth before she could scream, "Shhh. Just me." Mmmphing in wide-eyed surprise as she recognised the figure, she nodded. Grinning, the figure released her hold over the girl's mouth and continued on to her destination. Drawing up to one particular door, she took a breath and burst in, yelling a cheery, "Morning!"
Perhaps surprisingly, the occupant was already awake.
Karlach was facing a mirror, looking down as she unwrapped a bandage on the right side of her abdomen. Her toned form was composed of contoured lines and lean planes and the sudden guest snapped her mouth closed at the sight. Lips pressing into a tight line, the elf gave the tiefling a narrow-eyed look. The emotion seeping into pale eyes made colourless in the dim of morning made her seem almost… angry. Still, her low voice was couched lightly; it was evident her anger wasn’t being directed at the dusk-complected tiefling.
“Again?”
Karlach shrugged, dressed in nothing more than her breast binding and leather loincloth. “Qat.” She said in an abbreviated greeting, her tail flicking in time to the stinging touches the tiefling kept visiting upon her wound in a futile attempt to stem the bleeding. “It’s not rare for a Lord to have enemies.” She cast the other woman a vaguely curious glance, “When did you get in?”
Chest rising and falling in a silent sigh, the elf began pulling off her vambraces, kicking the door closed behind her as she entered further into the bodyguard’s simply appointed room. “Yesterday afternoon. Took them a while to check the goods.” Dropping the stiff leather cuffs onto the scuffed wooden surface of the table set into the side of the wall, the raven-haired figure called Qat by the tiefling rolled up the sleeves of her loose linen shirt that was tucked into her high-waisted black cotton trews.
In the light of the fireplace, the angry scars encircling both of the elf’s wrists looked almost decorative and Karlach felt a twinge of surprise that Qat felt comfortable enough to reveal them to her. This was but the second time since knowing the woman that she had removed her ever-present vambraces, the first being that time the tiefling had accidentally stumbled upon the elf dressing herself in her quarters. She thought there had been more scars littering the lithe torso but the woman had been incredibly fast in pulling a shirt over her body.
And yet here she was, voluntarily baring her arms to the elbows for her. Somehow, this one small fact had Karlach feeling warm on the inside.
“Sit.” Contralto brooking no argument, Qat hooked a foot around the leg of a stool and dragged it over to the fireplace. The embers weren’t even banked, which informed the woman that the tiefling probably hadn’t slept the night, either.
Acknowledging that a rib wound was far too awkward to deal with on her own, Karlach submitted to the mercenary’s urging and padded barefoot to settle tiredly onto the stool, her injured side facing the fire. “I’m sorry.” Her tail lay despondently around her over the floorboards.
In the process of washing her hands and disposing of the soiled water down the waste receptacle installed by the washstand, the elf quirked a raven brow at the tiefling’s apology, “For?” The kettle left hanging over the fireplace was hooked over, its hot contents sloshing mutely from within. Grabbing the rags on the mantelpiece, the visitor tilted the heavy kettle with ease, the thick rope of her forearms belying her familiarity with heavy work.
“We were going to spend sevenday off together…” A faint snort of amusement greeted Karlach’s explanation, “You mean we still can’t?” The sounds of a cloth being rinsed out and wrung filled the hushed confines of the room, early morning lending an intimate quality to the goings on inside of the four walls.
Hissing through her teeth, she gave the worried eyes being cast her way a reassuring nod to continue. “Just stings a little.” Cleaning away the blood seeping out of the deep gash, the elf blew out the unkempt strands of sable hair falling into her eyes to better see the wound.
“I mean…” Amber gaze meeting that of the woman kneeling at her side, Karlach found herself at a loss for words at the warmth infusing the ice-blue eyes of the other woman.
“Any time with you counts for me,” Qat stated quietly, “I just hate how often you need patching up. You’d think I’d be the one…” A sword-calloused hand clenched tightly around the bloodied rag Qat held, sending reddened droplets of water to trickle down the length of her pale forearm.
Karlach glanced over at the woman whom she had come to see as a mentor. It always filled her with a sense of wonder that the ethereal elf with light blue eyes and sin black hair bothered to give her time of day. She wasn’t blind to the eyes that followed the lithe woman when she moved through a room, not that the elf ever bothered with the trivialities of romantic dalliances.
“You should quit.” Qat muttered irritably, the cloth she was dabbing with was wielded with infinite care in contrast to the slight roughness entering a voice normally composed and buttery smooth. That voice shifted to hold a thread of persuasion, “The company should have an opening come spring. Darok keeps making sounds about retiring and he’s our heavy weapons guy.”
Jaw muscles working, Karlach’s expression took on a familiar stubborn cast, “You know I can’t, who'd guard Lord Gortash then?”
“He has the gold, he can find someone else.” Qat pointed out archly, resuming her cleaning of the tiefling’s wound. It was an old argument that neither party felt truly invested in winning. “Gods, this needs stitches. Why didn’t you go to the healers?” Frowning, the elf gave Karlach a look more suited for a child being reprimanded for being caught stealing cookies from a baking pan than a seasoned bodyguard of some years.
Hoping her natural colouring hid the warmth in her cheeks, Karlach glanced away to stare holes into the floorboards, “I didn’t want to worry you. If you got here and the room was empty…”
“Too late,” the warm burr of Qat’s contralto was closer than the tiefling had expected and she turned to find herself being scrutinised by shards of ice that seemed to strip her bare. The older woman was inspecting the rest of the tiefling to reassure herself that this nasty wound was all that they had to contend with.
All Karlach could do was swallow, her throat bobbing as her senses were filled with nothing but the faint earthy scent of the elf, like a field of wildflowers kissed by the dew of morning’s mist.
Drawing back with a relieved sigh to find no other injuries on the younger woman, Qat blinked when her elven senses picked up on the tiefling’s elevated heart rate. Was the child experiencing distress in her breathing? The mildly pleasant, natural musk of the tiefling’s scent tickled at her nostrils, reminiscent of sun dried laundry and equally comforting, and she blinked again at the extra dimension it held this time. No, this was no child. The tiefling was dressed in naught but her underclothes, displaying a womanly figure that dipped and curved in all the right places. Qat was reminded that time still moved for the rest of the races for all that she hardly felt the passage of it as an elf barely past her first century.
The gangly youth of years past had grown into a full-fledged warrior of repute. Gone were the bony elbows and knees of adolescence, and that coltish air of barely suppressed energy had been honed to that of a controlled excellence in no small part due to her own tutelage of the child, no, young woman. That she needed to self-correct at all came as a bit of a shock to the elf.
Settling back on her haunches, Qat studied the young woman with the dispassionate eye of a horse trader here to find fault at the slightest hint of an undesirable trait. …And she found nothing lacking. Tall and supple like a sapling ready to sink strong roots and flourish under the splendour of the sun’s rays of like colour to her brilliantly amber eyes, Qat was impressed with how well Karlach had grown.
Consciously putting a little more distance between herself and the barely-dressed tiefling, she offered a tight quirk of her lips to the bodyguard. Those same amber eyes were slightly hazy and the mercenary refused to believe that had anything to do with more than the obvious lack of sleep the woman displayed. “I’ll always worry over you, you stubborn git.” Her words held no rancour, merely an exasperated fondness and Karlach drank in the wonder of the attention the beautiful mercenary continued to grace her with.
The woman was pragmatic to a fault and found little use for ‘Grand Aspirations’ or having ‘A Calling’. Life was difficult enough as it was as a female sellsword, which was the basis of Karlach’s infrequent disagreements with the elf. To have found a place in the Lord’s retinue as his trusted bodyguard was a rare accomplishment and an opportunity the tiefling refused to turn down. True, it was dangerous work, as her fresh wound attested to, but it was steady income and respectable.
Respectable. Another thing Qat tended to scoff at. Coin and competence was all Qat respected. The elf’s whole life appeared to revolve around honing her skills, obtaining new ones, and putting them to good use earning honest coin. Respect would come and go, but coins and skills remained constant, as she would often say. Already, she had turned down the Lord’s offer of permanent work in his household, though that hadn’t stopped her from doing the odd job or three for him when it suited her. To be tied down? When she could better her skills outside of the city walls? The latter held a far greater lure to the mercenary.
Karlach suspected something more was holding the statuesque elf back. She was too familiar with the ways of the highborn, blending seamlessly into the company of nobility when work had her coming into contact with the Lord or others of similar station. The tiefling had never pried, always content with the attention the woman afforded her on the days when they could spend together sparring in the company’s weapons salle or venturing past the city’s walls to ‘touch grass’, as Qat liked to say.
"Mind the roots of others, lest you lose sight of thine own."
That was how the two had met, on one of the Lord’s forays into territory he had deemed too dangerous to rely on only his own people.
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Karlach was a fair hand with her great axe and took the trouble to hone her own skills in the early mornings before others woke to break camp. Feeling rather grown up at the grand old age of eighteen, the tiefling took her responsibility seriously and strove to prove herself to the Lord with the extra hours she put into improving herself.
Coming onto a nearby clearing on a hill, the youngster’s footsteps scraped to a halt to find someone else already there. Silhouetted by dawn’s first rays, the feminine figure stood with a careless grace, the piercing glare of icy shards stabbing into an enemy unseen. In a sudden flurry of movement, a bastard sword was drawn and in broad hands that wielded the hand-and-a-half blade with an interestingly delicate touch.
Mesmerised by the sight, Karlach watched in rapt attention, noting how the humble pommel of the flashing blade doubled as a bludgeoning tool in the hands of the woman whose loose black hair shimmered and gleamed in the strengthening rays of the rising sun. As if to warn her against becoming complacent, the woman began incorporating a series of leaps and tumbles into her routine, slicing at the air with an intent to maim or quarter enemies unseen.
When a tumble took the woman close to where Karlach stood, the tiefling made to move a pace back only to find the bastard sword coming right for her exposed throat.
“Head’s up!” The words were her only warning to raise her own great axe up to block the wickedly sharp edge coming towards her.
CLANG!!
Weapons clashing, wide-eyed amber met narrowed ice and the spar was on. Somersaulting over Karlach’s head, boots missing the tiefling’s horns by a hair, the woman Karlach could now clearly see was an elf landed behind her with a feral smile. Weaving a wall of steel that the flatfooted tiefling could only respond to at the very last moment, Karlach found herself skillfully driven back, her booted feet scuffing at the cropped grass while she frantically retreated.
“Hup!” With a certain twist of wrists thick from countless hours of weapon drills, the elf caught Karlach’s axe between the base of her blade and the crossguard of her sword. Realising they were of similar height, Karlach gave the grinning woman another wide-eyed stare past their tangled weapons before she found herself neatly disarmed, her axe flying through the mist to land unceremoniously blade-first into the soft loam of the dew-drenched clearing.
Barely winded, the elf flicked her weapon clear of Karlach’s immediate vicinity to indicate the spar was over and smoothly disengaged from the younger woman. A jaunty salute with her unconventional weapon was given to the speechless tiefling before she made her graceful way to where the axe was. Grabbing the haft one-handed, the elf tossed it back to Karlach with ease, finally speaking once more.
“Well met. T’was a good spar for one so new to the martial art.” Walking back to face the tiefling, head tilting one side so raven tresses that reached the small of her back spilled over one shoulder, she stretched out one vambraced forearm, “Qatalina Qaline Qianru,” she said, introducing herself, and added with a faint quirk of her full lips, “Qat for short.”
“Er, Karlach Cliffgate." She clasped the forearm, her shake met with one that was equally firm.
“A strong name for a strong warrior. I like it.” Contralto warm like the dark, melted treat so popular with the noble ladies of Baldur's Gate, Qat's comment was offhanded but no less sincere. Releasing the tiefling's arm, the mercenary inspected the leather-wrapped hilt of what appeared to be her favoured weapon with a critical eye.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Feeling her cheeks warm for no discernible reason, Karlach brought her fingers around the haft of her axe, calloused hands tightening around the notched hardwood. “You’re with the mercs?”
“Mmmhmm. Care for another round?” A glint of challenge pinned the tiefling where she stood, pricking easily at the younger woman’s pride. “You’re on,” she retorted with a toothy grin of her own, discovering she had actually enjoyed the impromptu face-off with the bladedancer.
According the tiefling due respect, the elf propped her blade against herself and pulled out a strip of leather. Gathering her hair up into a tail, she secured it out of the way and brought her heavy blade back up to salute Karlach once again, the weapon appearing featherlight in the hands of the mercenary.
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Back in the present, Qat pawed contemplatively through the healer’s kit Karlach kept in her room. Wasn’t it perfectly natural to be upset when your erstwhile student got hurt? ‘You hardly bat an eye when someone in your company is wounded,’ her treacherous mind supplied unhelpfully. ‘But that’s because they have the sense to get to a healer,’ she argued with herself.
Should she increase the intensity of their weapons drills? Was she lacking as a mentor, hence why the tiefling was constantly getting hurt? Nostrils flaring at that, to her, frankly ridiculous notion, she gave a small shake of her head, prompting the subject of her ruminations to ask, “Is it missing? I could have sworn I just restocked its supplies.”
Nudged out of her reverie, Qat blinked the clouds out her usually crystalline gaze. How unlike her to be so unfocussed when there was someone needing tending to. “No, it’s here,” she murmured, surprised at the sudden husk in her voice. Clearing her throat, the elf fished out the sealed clay jar and cracked it open. A sniff confirmed the salve was fresh and so she knelt by the wounded woman again to begin spreading the slippery goop across the far too deep slice.
A part of her studied the carefully hidden distress she felt, along with the deep relief to see the salve doing its work to stem the constant bleeding.
“Feels good.”
Head shooting up, Qat stared up at the arresting amber of the eyes peering down at her and she swiftly affected a light snort, “Would have told you to demand your money back, otherwise.” She kept her touch gentle while she applied the salve, “Does it still hurt?”
A mute shake of her head was all Karlach could offer in response to the distracting touch and she shivered.
Qat’s cursedly sharp elven vision revealed the presence of gooseflesh spread over the bodyguard’s skin and she exhaled a slow, quiet breath. Unbeknownst to her, that sent a warmly moist gust over suddenly sensitive skin and the low gasp that escaped the tiefling’s lips almost had Qat dropping the jar of salve.
Standing quickly in a move that lacked her usual cool grace, Qat turned away to set the jar aside, the thick braid of her hair whipping through the air in her haste to create some distance between intriguingly warm skin and herself. ‘Intriguing?’ Impatiently raking back the forelock that had fallen again into her eyes, the elf wiped any residue from her fingers.
“Lie down,” Qat ordered gruffly over her shoulder, digging through the pack to pull out a leather-bound pack of needle and thread, “We’re going to have to stitch it up.” Fussing with thread and needle, she listened to the quiet rustle indicating the tiefling’s switch from stool to bed. Sternly reminding herself that this youth was depending on her for treatment, Qat pivoted on the ball of her foot, eyes meeting Karlach’s faintly glowing gaze of gold with a reluctance that stemmed from the gods only knew where.
‘Qat is pissed,’ Karlach thought. The furrow marring the smoothness of the elf’s brow appeared permanently etched into the other woman’s face and the tiefling wondered if it was because she had been careless enough to let herself get hurt.
“I’ll get better,” Karlach promised in an attempt to appease the elf who had invested so much time and practise in her. Granted, she had never been formally acknowledged to be the other woman’s apprentice, all the bodyguard wanted was to make the dark-haired elf proud.
‘Get your bloody self under control. What would others think of you, acting like a babe of fifty?’ Castigating herself silently, Qat smoothed away her frown, “You’re fine,” she assured the tiefling, clasping a wrist as thick as her own to lift Karlach’s arm up and over her head to allow her better access to the wound. When had the girl caught up to her??
This morning’s innocuous plan to go for a run was turning into a time of unwelcome introspection that Qat had not at all asked for. Yet, here she was.
“I’m just annoyed with myself.” Qat told the tiefling honestly. Karlach couldn’t really tell, but it felt as if those crystal eyes were looking at her for the first time and she had to fight back an urge to squirm.
Carrying the stool over, the elf sat by the bed, gaze running down the prone form laid under her with more than just a clinical eye despite herself. Built the way she was, Karlach could easily have her pick of paramours in Baldur’s Gate. What on earth was the child doing looking at her like that? Had she unknowingly given Karlach the wrong impression?
Pressing the rent flesh together, Qat firmed her jaw and set aside her questions to focus on the task at hand. With a quick glance of warning, she started sewing the gash closed, confident the salve would deaden the sting of the needle and thread pulling through flesh that had absolutely no right to be cut open like so.
“Yourself?” Karlach prompted, voice strained more from the sure but soft touches to her side, than any discomfort the process was causing.
“It’s nothing important,” Qat lied smoothly, which for once did not satisfy the usually accepting tiefling. The tiefling's tail tip was twitching and jerking in time to the elf's touches and the older woman wasn't exactly sure how to feel about that.
“What concerns you concerns me,” Karlach stressed lowly, eyes seeking out the pale blue gaze that refused to meet her own.
“And why should it?” Qat muttered, contralto betraying her annoyance with herself. Not that Karlach could tell.
“Is that how little you think of our friendship? You certainly look pissed enough for the both of us over this trifling cut.” The bodyguard’s tenacious nature refused to allow the other woman any room to obfuscate and Qat found her mouth opening and closing, rendered speechless by Karlach’s direct words. This is why her people avoided the other races, a tiny part of her thought irritably, one could never trust them to employ subtlety when a direct route could be chosen. Perhaps their shorter lifespans forced them to always be in a rush.
Huffing out a breath, she pinned the supine form with a sharp look, “Don’t you be putting words in my mouth, child . You’re a century early to be pulling that nonsense on someone who still puts you on your arse with one arm tied behind her back.”
Karlach shrugged off the elf’s tone of warning, emboldened by the obvious care those hands still took in administering the stitches to her body. “Well, what am I supposed to think?" The tiefling shot back, tail lashing in agitation against the bed covers. "You say one word when others babble ten, and I still don’t know why your wrists are a mess! Haven’t I earned your trust yet? It’s been THREE years!” Karlach’s frustration at being treated like a child had been bubbling just beneath the tiefling’s volatile surface and it spilled out in a growl past teeth bared at the elf.
Expression pinched and lips pursed, Qat refused to respond immediately. How dare this youngling try to rile her up. Wait. Was she riled up? Thoroughly disliking this sudden attempt to delve past the surface level familiarity that she had carefully constructed, Qat tied off the final stitch and leaned down to quickly bite off the excess thread so she could get up and away from the source of this discomfort.
Only to find the tables turned as lean muscles bunched and Karlach surged up to topple the elf over. Afraid the needle would stab either one of them, Qat had no choice but to hold her dominant hand out to the side, leaving herself open to the move her student pulled on her. Oofing, she fell back onto the foot of the bed, spreadeagled beneath the dusk-red form of the bodyguard, her scarred wrists pinned to the covers. Karlach loomed over her and Qat could make out the tiefling's tail whipping aggressively at thin air behind her broad form, belying the other woman's state of mind.
“Would I leave myself this vulnerable with someone I didn’t trust?” Qat snapped, glaring up at the woman holding her down, hard hands like shackles around her wrist. Even so, the fingers were kept consciously gentle around the scars found there, a fact that didn't escape the elf. Modulating her contralto to one of soft persuasion, the elf tried to intercede on both their behalves, not liking the look in the tiefling’s eyes one bit. “Come on, child, get off so I can bind that wound up.” She could easily break out the tiefling’s hold, but not without endangering those fresh stitches, something she was loath to do.
“Sod that noise,” Karlach ground past her clenched jaw. Throwing caution to the wind, she pressed her advantage and darted forward to kiss lips she had been fantasising about for over a year.
Stiffening in shock at the bodyguard’s bold advance, Qat sank back into the mattress, amazed at how soft the urgently devouring lips were against her own. This was wrong. This should not be happening. Why was her traitorous body responding to this?! Scrambling for coherent thought, Qat turned her head aside, trying to get a word in edgewise. “Child, no, you aren’t thinking clearly.”
“Shut up, I’m not a child.” Silencing the elf with another kiss, Karlach’s head tilted, deepening their connection further as her body settled warmly onto the exquisitely lithe form under her. Her tail moved of its own volition to twine warmly around one pants-clad leg, squeezing softly.
The sound of the needle hitting the floorboards was deafening in a silence punctuated by gasping breaths and the wet meeting of lips and tongue. The tiefling was giving Qat no quarter, her tongue teasing past the seam of the elf’s lips in an invitation the dazed woman could not resist and when her mouth was invaded, she felt the hairs on her bared forearms stand.
Karlach had released the elf’s wrists to slip an arm around her tight waist, pulling their middles closer together. Their hips fit together perfectly and she groaned hotly into the elf’s mouth, her tail's grasp around the other woman's leg undulating and massaging that taut limb. Her other hand was curling around the back of that leonine neck, supporting the other woman while their tongues fought for dominance.
The fiery kisses were making clear thought a distant thing and tendrils of fire emanating from the body pressed pleasantly on top of her sent Qat arching sensually up against the tiefling’s heated form in an instinctive drive to increase the sensations that were overwhelming the elf’s higher functions. Something kept nagging at the back of the elf’s mind, however, until at last, the memory of split flesh imposed itself back to the fore of Qat’s consciousness.
Eyes that had drifted closed flew open as she exclaimed, “Binding!”
Having abandoned the lush splendour of Qat’s lips to taste the delectable length of the elf’s alabaster neck, Karlach was drunk on the delicate salt gracing her tongue. The elf’s exclamation garnered little more than a distracted mumble, “So soon? We’ve only just started…” Sharp incisors found the join between her shoulder and neck and the elf jerked under the delicious sting.
“Not that !” Qat panted, working to get her hands between them to try and slow things down. Gods, the other woman was strong and the feel of her tail around the elf's leg was far more pleasurable than the elf could have ever guessed.
“Hngh, what?” Amber gaze reduced to mere slivers wrapped around the darkest black stared fuzzily down at the elven vision splayed out beneath her. Kiss-swollen lips were moving, making sounds, but all Karlach craved was to claim them again. Neck craning to renew their kiss, she blinked to find her progress halted against an unyielding palm.
Karlach was strong, but Qat was still stronger. If only the feel of the other woman pressed against her would cease sapping the elf of her strength.
Girding herself against the immense temptation the tiefling was offering, Qat gently but firmly rolled the bodyguard over. Now it was her turn to pin the tiefling’s wrists to the bed. Believing this to be a continuation, Karlach undulated under the other woman, dark eyes luring the elf in with an irresistible pull. Indeed, the raven-haired woman was leaning close, only to press a kiss of benediction to the sensitive base of one horn.
“Insolent… woman.” Qat whispered throatily, “I’ll not have you undoing all my hard work because of your animal urges.”
“Let me go, ay?” Karlach pleaded, needing to feel more of the elf. That one brief taste had only served to whet her appetite and it was obvious Qat was not adverse to her touches. Unfortunately for the tiefling, the elf’s goal to tend to her wound was paramount, the woman refusing to budge despite the serious temptations Karlach’s supple body was presenting.
“Only if you promise to behave.” Ducking her head, Qat’s crystal blue eyes bore into yearning amber, and she hardened her heart for the other woman’s sake, “I mean it, Sweeting. We can… talk about this, us, later.” She promised, surprised how easily the endearment fell from her lips.
Armed with the promise that the elf wouldn’t sweep what the two had just shared under the rug, Karlach finally gave in with a reluctant nod, bolstered by the woman calling her by something other than her name.
Cautiously peeling herself off of the tiefling, Qat bit back a groan when that caused their hips to grind together momentarily. That tail was refusing to release her despite what Karlach had promised, forcing the elf to reach down to seize that disobedient appendage. Eyes pinning Karlach where she lay, the raven-haired mercenary slowly drew the tiefling's tail up to press a kiss to the side of its highest ridge, sealing the promise that Qat made to the dusk-shaded woman.
The bodyguard was faring no better if the sudden catch in her breath from that unexpected kiss was any clue. Wondering just what the hells had gotten into her, Qat dropped the tail and fought to get her breathing under control. The elf combed stiff fingers through hair utterly mussed by their lust-filled encounter, not realising how much more alluring her unusually dishevelled appearance made her to the tiefling.
“Right, bandages…”
Tying off the strips laid blindingly white against the velvet dusk of Karlach’s skin, Qat patted the tiefling’s knee, “I’ll ask the kitchens to put together a platter for you.” Standing to leave, the elf found her scarred wrist caught in the shackle of one rough hand. Curious how Karlach’s touch around the sensitive reminders of mistakes long past elicited nothing but a pleasurable tingle, instead of a self-conscious withdrawal.
“Not hungry for anythin' else.” Those sun-kissed eyes told Qat all about what Karlach was hungering for, and a morning repast wasn’t it.
“Karlach…” Contralto threaded with a hint of scolding, the elf seemed about to lecture the bodyguard, when the hand around her wrist squeezed a tad, “I just… Could we maybe just nap? I’ll behave, promise." The brash tiefling had softened her brogue to a persuasive whisper, her tawny gaze unable to meet the crystal blue of Qat's though that tail was curling even more needily around her calf.
Studying the blushing figure whose gaze had fallen bashfully to one side, Qat sighed at her too bloody soft heart. “Fine. You need the rest, anyway.” Amber eyes snapped back to glow mutely at the elf.
‘Honestly,’ Qat thought crankily to herself, ‘You’re far too old to be this easily affected.’
Kicking off her unlaced boots, Qat drew back the covers from under the bandaged woman and gingerly slipped in beside the far warmer body. Raven brow cocked as if to ask ‘Now what?’, she blinked when long arms reached forth to pull her close. How novel. Tucked against the younger woman’s uninjured side, she found the covers and tugged them over the both of them. The soft weight of the tiefling's tail could be felt settling comfortably around her lower half, and the elf pondered how she had never given that particular part of Karlach much thought at all.
“Is this all right?” Karlach whispered, tentatively nuzzling the silken tresses spilling over her shoulder. A long moment of silence met her query, and she felt her nervousness building way beyond the heat of their earlier kisses. Slowly, she felt one pale arm reaching across her to hook itself around her middle, far from where her wound lay. “Acceptable,” came the muffled voice of her living blanket. Face split into a stupidly huge grin, Karlach buried her nose into the sweetly scented bundle curled into her. Soon, she found her lids growing heavy and with a final brush of her lips to the top of the dark head pillowed on her shoulder, Karlach fell into a dreamless, healing sleep. But not before she felt a returned kiss brushing lightly across her collarbone.