Author's Note:
A Drow's Dilemma began as a one-on-one roleplaying project and has been converted into a chapter-by-chapter format for weekly posting with the permission and assistance from my partner. It will contain a considerable amount of sexual themes such as femdom, lesbian, straight, 'reverse' rape, BDSM, group sex, romance, and other themes. The main goal of the story, however, is to tell an epic tale of adventures, gods and goddesses, fae, and nymphomaniacs. This episode and every episode to come will be available for free on Literotica for the foreseeable future. All characters that engage in sexual or suggestive situations are mentally and sexually mature: the human equivalent of 18 for their race.
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Episode 40: Sleeping Beauty
The drow looked upon the view of The Shifting Halls of Eternity with a sort of stunned silence. It was a beautiful place to live, or at least it used to be. Selene was still of the opinion that it couldn't compete with the carved stone of her own home world, but it was tolerable enough, she supposed. They looked as one toward Caleldir when he declared that he was home. Both had that searching quality to their eyes as each gauged how Cal was dealing with the homecoming.
"Are you going to be okay?" Ashyr asked with concern clear in her voice.
A slightly deranged cackle erupted from Caleldir. "I am probably going to be okay." He laughed. "I mean, the closer I get to the epicenter of the curse, the more I can feel it eating away at my sanity, the more I feel my mind slipping into caustic madness, the more the shadows speak to the cruelty hidden in my soul, the louder the whispers of twelve hundred years spent as a lord of ghosts howling through endless cold halls become." He shivered. His tone dropped to a more even one. "But I will be able to control it." He said with certainty. "I just may need help. I..." He put one cold, white, translucent hand on Ashyr's warm, dark, opaque one. The other one stayed at the controls of the running spider. "I just need to use you two as anchors to keep me tethered. As long as you continued to provide sanity and warmth, I am at no risk. If you were to leave me, well, I would probably fall back into being a mad ghost-king in short order."
"I will not leave you, Caleldir." Ashyr said with her version of a warm smile - it was more warm in the naughty sort of way, but whatever. "Not of my own volition, anyway." Her hand gripped at his. She chose to ignore how translucent he was becoming. "And I'm sure Selene would promise the same thing if she didn't want to puke right now."
Selene glowered at the two of them. Her face was grey with her discomfort. The younger drow did not try to refute the older, though perhaps that was because she was afraid that a little more than words would exit her mouth. That sort of indignity would be far more insufferable than letting Caleldir believe (the truth) that she liked him enough not to abandon him at the earliest possible convenience.
Ashyr changed the topic of conversation. "I've been thinking about how to wake Althaia. When your 'wife' and I were dressing her, she seemed responsive to... uh... certain touches." Ashyr informed them with an only slightly guilty grin. "I think we mentioned before that she might, you know, wake up with enough of her favorite stimulation. Perhaps we should find a nice secluded spot and... try to get her up and moving before raiding for supplies. She could help carry stuff." Selene didn't respond to this, but by her expression she seemed all for the idea. She didn't want to have to carry a bunch of things. "We don't have to do it right now, but maybe later when the spider thing needs to cool off." Ashyr finished.
"Oh. The sex thing." Caleldir said without any pleasure. "I... well, if you want to try that. It does seem that is the surest way to wake her. Nymphs. Curse them and all their relations. Go ahead and try to wake the princess through a 'kiss' that is a little less child-friendly than the standard. I would really rather not do sexual things to a sleeping woman. But Althaia always seemed more interested in the girls than the guys at our stops, so you should be fine to waken her on your own."
"We'll try to wake her on our own, but we may need your help, love." Ashyr said. She seemed amused by the whole situation. "We'll just have to wait and see, though."
The spider ran across the fields and over rivers and streams, past the continuing wreckage of Caleldir's vanished civilization. The view was interesting and varied, but Caleldir paid little heed to it. He mostly looked straight ahead, guiding their arachnid steed onward. The drow remained silent as they continued their way through the beautiful terrain. It was hard to speak over the wind, and the sights were wonderful enough that they didn't particularly feel like having a conversation. Even Selene seemed to forget about her motion sickness as her eyes drank in the majestic sight of the mountains ahead. Ashyr also kept an eye on Caleldir, who seemed to be determined to look onward and nowhere else. Probably a good thing, considering how fast they were going.
Finally, practically in the shadow of the incomprehensibly large monastery now barely four miles away, he came to a stop next to what was once a picture-perfect small town. Even now it had a homey beauty to it, and seemed far more welcoming than any of the places they had yet been in."Churchgate is not haunted." Caleldir stated. "One of the only places in this country that is not. It used to be an adventurer town, a setting-off for those brave enough to search through the ruins, but the last of its inhabitants finally drifted away about a decade ago. Occasionally people return now, but there does not seem to be anyone here at the moment." As if to belie his words, a small golem trundled past. Caleldir gave it a look, and shrugged. "The place is completely automated. I heard that one of the first adventuring groups to challenge the monastery refined on the automation already here to keep this place in its current condition. We should be able to find a place to stay in the inn up ahead."
"Thank Lolth for this place. You might like riding this horrid thing, Ashyr, but I am quite literally sick of it." Selene said in her usual grumpy fashion.
"I'm sorry, dearest." Ashyr apologized. She rubbed Selene's back in slow, soothing motions. "Better hurry us on to the inn, then, my love."
"Perhaps next time, if there is a next time, I will work up some sort of anti-motion-sickness treatment. That might help." Caleldir said to Selene as the ill drow got off the spider. "But yes, let us hurry to the inn."
The inn was a building that somewhat resembled those common in the neighboring kingdom, but on a much larger scale. The ceilings were tall enough and halls wide enough to admit giants. It was a full six stories high, and another eight deep, with a number of large rooms that did not seem to serve any real purpose. Caleldir's people, which, strangely, he had yet to give an actual name, liked to build everything bigger than it needed to be, after all. They were greeted at the door by a golem that took their baggage, and another that brought them food. Said food was the sort of unappetizing trail rations that had a shelf life of ten thousand years, but it was something. Caleldir chose to ignore the golems, and simply headed up four long flights of stairs to a suite with two large beds and a good view of the town. As the drow had much better food that the dyrad had cooked for them, they weren't at all interested in what the golems tried to serve them. Nor did they particularly want to give their belongings to the things. They were drow, after all, and did not easily trust anything. They both followed Caleldir up the stairs and into the room that he had chosen. Both worked together to get Althaia onto one of the beds.
"I slept here a few times as a boy." Caleldir said casually. "Although not in this exact room. Things sure have changed. I used to know everyone that lived here..." He looked nostalgic, before shaking it off. "But not matter! Everything here has been well-preserved. It is only mid-afternoon, but perhaps we can still rest for the remainder of the day, and raid the storehouse tomorrow. It takes a password to get in, so I am confident that adventurers have not yet cleaned it out."
"I wouldn't mind the rest." Selene admitted. "We didn't get much sleep while we were looking for you." Which was mostly Ashyr's fault. The younger drow shot a quick glare over at her cousin as evidence of that.
"I did not sleep all that well either." Caleldir admitted. "Although I was rather forced to stay put and not go anywhere. Which was terribly annoying. Still, I would not compare my enforced rest with you restlessness, as draining as it was."
"Speaking of sleep, before we try to wake Althaia up..." Ashyr began. In quick motions, she forced Caleldir to sit upon the bed and followed until she sat on his lap. Then she grabbed the back of his head, pulled his face forward to meet hers, and treated him to a long, molten kiss that only ended when her lungs demanded that she pull away to breathe properly. Caleldir met Ashyr's kiss at first as best as he could. The passionate drow had a tendency to overwhelm him, after all, overpowering his defenses even when he did not have any against her. But towards the end, the participant who did not, strictly speaking, actually need to breathe was able to be the more aggressive one, returning her kiss with fervor. He pulled away only in response to her need for air. "Gods, I missed being able to do that." Ashyr whispered through labored breath. "Damn near killed me when I wasn't allowed to join you and Naliira." The hand that was at the back of his head pulled forward slightly until her thumb could brush against the edge of Caleldir's ear.
"I missed it as well." He replied in the same breathy tone. He chuckled. "For one thing, Naliira is not half so good of a kisser."
While the two others did this, Selene sat on the bed that Althaia was on and pretended (poorly) not to watch with interest. The way her teeth caught at the lower edge of her lips suggested that she very much wanted a chance to do exactly what Ashyr had done, but was too proud to cut in.