Lust and Legends - Chapter 2 - Part 1

Chapter 2 - Part 1

Rolling his shoulders, Julius eyed the copse of trees that lay a dozen or so yards from the side of the road. With a thoughtful little frown, the big man shifted his feet a touch, hefting his warhammer in one hand as he ran the other through his deep auburn hair to push the shoulder-length mass back from his face. After a few more seconds of apparent consideration, he took a good, solid, two-hand grip on the weapon, drew it back, and...

With a satisfying ‘thock' noise, the skull took off from where it had laid at his feet, arcing through the air with a fair bit of hammer-imparted speed. Sadly, not being designed for smooth and stable flight, its tumbling soon had it veering off course and thumping into the grass a notable distance short of the target.

"Nuts," Julius muttered to himself, then shrugged and nudged another skull into place with a foot. "Better than the last one, though."

"Do I even want to ask what you're doing?"

The feminine voice from behind him was ignored for a moment, his attention on lining up his shot. When that one went even further astray, though, he huffed out an irritated breath and turned his green-eyed gaze toward who'd spoken. "Just practising my swing," he said as rested the hammer against his mailed shoulder, ambling over to where his cloaked and hooded companion was sat on a log by the other side of the road.

As he walked, Julius made sure not to step on any of the other bits and pieces of skeleton that lay strewn about, though he did pause to scoop up an old, rusty sword. He weighed it in one hand, turning it this way and that as he ran a critical eye over the dirty, pitted blade, then grunted and tossed the thing away. It was hardly a shock that there'd be nothing even remotely worth scavenging, given the nature of what they'd been ambushed by - if you could call such sloppy execution an ambush - but there was the occasional glimmer of hope...

"I would have thought you did enough of that when they attacked us," his companion observed, and he gave her a shrug before dropping his powerful bulk onto the log a polite distance away from her.

"Nah, that was totally different. Not that wandering skeletons make for good exercise anyway. Certainly not when there's only a half dozen or so of ‘em."

And even more so when he'd only had the chance to smack three into pieces. The others had been less viable as targets after spontaneously exploding into scorched fragments. And speaking of which...

"By the way, a little warning might be nice next time, Lethiel. A smoking thigh bone is not a fun thing to see coming right at your face during a fight."

"Ah," she replied, lifting a silk-gloved hand, and he could hear the smile on her lips even if the hood meant he couldn't see it. "But it wasn't my face."

"You know what I meant," he grumbled, earning himself a laugh that seemed to shiver down his spine - and not in a bad way.

"So serious... Most humans I've known had at least a little sense of humour."

"Most humans you've known have probably been more interested in running away from you."

His companion pushed back her hood, and Julius fought down the sigh that threatened to escape when he saw the look of irritation on her face. Not that his observation was going to be that far from the truth - deep elves had a reputation, after all, and it would take longer than the couple of centuries since their rather sharp change in religion to dim the collective memories of those they'd spent so much time being downright evil at.

Hell, there was a good chance that Lethiel was old enough to have been around then, though it was hard to tell with elves. There was certainly no hint of anything but vibrant youth in her coal-black features, and the amber, almond-shaped eyes that regarded him silently definitely held more in their depths than her apparent age might suggest.

Still, it was probably not a great notion to remind her of that sort of thing. Not if he wanted to keep the job she'd hired him for.

"One reason why you caught my eye," she said after a few moments, then glanced up at the sky. "Worth pressing on, do you think?"

The change of topic caught Julius a little by surprise, but he quickly caught up and gave it some thought. At which point he simply shrugged. "Depends if you want to keep hiking during the night. Gonna be getting on for dark in an hour or so anyway, and it'll be at least another four or five before we get to where we're meeting her."

Though, now he thought about it, the idea of travelling in the darkness probably held little concern at all for the elf.

"I'm sure she won't mind waiting," Lethiel said casually, dropping her gaze to survey the remains of the minor undead that they'd demolished. "Not given how much I'm paying you both for the job."

"True," Julius grunted.

"We'll press on. But I'm feeling a little peckish, so see about clearing things up. I'll attend to some food."

There was no mistaking the elf's tone, and the way she obviously expected to be obeyed. Part of it, he was sure, was the natural tendency of the pointy-eared types to assume they were so much better than everyone else, but there was also more than a hint that this particular one was very much used to having her wishes accommodated without question. Which was hardly a stunning revelation, given what he knew of their culture...

He didn't raise any comment, though, and simply got to work unpacking what was going to be needed from the saddle bags of their horses, as well as making sure the mounts themselves were properly looked after and secured. A minute or two after he started, he paused, shooting a suspicious look at the elf - who returned it blandly, tucking one of the multitude of braids her snowy hair was woven into behind on delicately pointed ear and turning her attention back to the fire that she'd just called forth in front of her. With a sigh at the way magic users seemed unable to resist showing off, he hauled the packages of food over to her, setting them down on the log before heading for the scattered remains of the skeletons that littered the road.

It never ceased to surprise him that apparently nobody had ever managed to work out why the blasted things kept popping up in this region. Never in numbers, and just as rarely anything that a drunken farmer couldn't do in with a pitchfork, but nevertheless they cropped up like weeds... He shrugged the thought off, concentrating instead on finishing off the job. All in all, it didn't actually take that long before the mess was tidied up, though the light was definitely beginning to fade by the time he sat himself down by the fire again. Whatever it was Lethiel was been working on was bubbling away nicely in its pot over the flames, and he would have been happy to admit that it smelled great.

"A few more minutes," she announced, giving the pot a little stir.

Julius nodded, content to wait, and before long his thoughts had drifted to just what he - and that pestilential fiendling - had been hired to do. It hadn't sounded like a hard job, which had certainly got his attention when the deep elf had announced her requirements in Ostvale's tavern. Oddly, though, he'd been the only one to actually approach her for more information. Initially, he'd been a bit wary of that, but then he'd put it down to the simple nature of who'd been doing the offering...

And then he'd been wary for a whole other reason. An escort job was a simple enough objective, even bearing in mind where to, but there had been just a little too much money offered for him to just nod and agree. Not enough to make him properly suspicious, or he'd not still be here two days later, but it was one of those niggling little things that sometimes bothered him. Once they met up with Kira, though, he knew there'd be no point mentioning it. All she'd care about was the money.

Actually, that wasn't entirely true. His fiendling partner let herself be distracted from shiny things quite often, really, and she was hardly a stranger to doing things for those she cared about - even if those things did not, all told, go the way she'd had in mind. The incident with that blind date she'd arranged sprang to mind rather forcefully, and he felt his jaw clench in annoyance as he remembered just what the fallout from that little scheme had been.

Okay, sure, the woman had been hot as hell, and there was no denying that the way she'd sucked him off under the restaurant table had been... memorable, but everything else? Yeah, he could have lived without that. The undead slime he'd ended up covered in was the least of his problems in the wake of that night, and he still had no idea how the hells he was supposed to get rid of the more lingering problem.

Plus, the other problem of the fact that Kira seemed to find the whole thing hilarious as all fuck.

Spirits alone know why I still put up with the crazy bitch.

That was a thought that should maybe have carried more heat behind it than it actually did. Yes, she was annoying at times, and had only a very casual understanding of things like property ownership, but she was damned good at what she did, fun to be around when he didn't want to strangle her with her own tail... and reminded him a whole lot of his little sister.

The little stab of pain at the thought of Sharley was familiar, and so was the wave of sadness that accompanied it.

"It is ready."

The announcement nudged him back to the present, and he looked over at Lethiel, who was ladling a generous portion of the stew-like stuff she'd cooked up into a bowl. Fishing out the spoon he'd stuck in his pocket, he took the bowl when it was offered, giving the elf a nod of thanks, and making sure there was no hint at all that he might be hesitant about eating something prepared for him by a member of a race known for their facility with all manner of poisons. Which, to be fair, wasn't hard at all given just how appetising it looked and smelled. He definitely did pause, though, after he'd taken his first taste.

"Problem?" Lethiel asked tartly, and he quickly shook his head.

"Not at all. I'm just thinking that I've paid good money for far worse than this."

That seemed to satisfy her, and she started on her own portion ass Julius reminded himself not to simply stick his face in the bowl and inhale, which was was what that first taste tempted him to do. The enjoyment of the food was put on hold about half way through the bowl, however, when he frowned and looked like he was trying to work something out. There was something buried in the flavours, something familiar, but he couldn't quite place it...

"Stop pulling faces," Lethiel muttered. "The mushrooms are perfectly safe."

"It's not that," Julius said after a second or so. "But... Is there lemon in this?"

The elf looked faintly impressed as she swallowed the mouthful she'd just taken. "There is, yes. Most surfacers can't spot it amongst the rest, though."

Whatever reaction she might have expected from him, it probably wasn't a deep, utterly heartfelt groan as he set the bowl on the ground and put his head in his hands.

"Oh, shit..."

"Uhhh... what?"

Totally ignoring Lethiel's rather bemused request for some sort of explanation, Julius surged to his feet, looking around wildly. Before the elf could react any further, he was off, dashing toward a nearby bush. After a few blinks of surprise, Lethiel set her bowl aside and scooped up his, taking a quick taste of the contents. A moment later, she shrugged, her gaze turning back toward the bush Julius was now well and truly hidden behind.

For his part, Julius really couldn't care less what the elf was doing. Not when he had a fr more pressing matter demanding his attention, and right then he counted himself exceptionally lucky that there'd been something to hide himself behind. Not that this was going help at all very soon, but as depressingly familiar feelings began to ripple though his body, worrying about anything like that was...

"Crap," he muttered, eyes screwing shut as he offered a rather plaintive prayer to anyone who'd listen Not that it seemed anyone did, since nothing that he wanted to stop did so. In fact, the pressure building under his mail shirt was getting increasingly uncomfortable, and he knew all to well that it wasn't going to stop there. With a sigh, he grabbed at his belt, working it loose with frantic haste before starting on his boots. And then everything else, too, simply because it would hurt less that way...

He'd never really known how long passed before the changes had run their course, only that it felt like an eternity. A very painful one at that, unless he made sure he was naked - which he suspected had little to do with the changes themselves, and more with the mentality of who was responsible for them. It all seemed done now, though, which left him able to think straight again... and realise that there really was no way he was going to be able to talk his way out of the deep elf nearby getting a very good idea of what had just happened.

Or some of it, at any rate...

"You okay back there?"

And speaking of the elf, guess who'd just decided to call over to him. Biting his lip, Julius stayed silent, hoping rather feebly that she'd just give up and go away.

"Are you alive back there?"

Continued in Chapter 2 - Part 2

---