A Drow's Dilemma Ep. 57: Closer

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 57: Closer

The morning came, as it always did. R.I.S.A. had taken to the habit of putting 'windows' in the walls of her dimension that were, in fact, scrying screens to the area where her Figurine had been used to open the portal, so sunlight did stream into the room, as implausible as that would have seemed. R.I.S.A. simply preferred sun as an alarm clock to anything else. Ashyr's eyes blinked open when she felt the familiar, annoying brightness hit them. Out the windows, the overgrown forest was treated to patches of sunlight mixed in with a light drizzle. It was one such patch of sunlight that the drow's eyes met. She was still pressed up against her cousin's back, and the both of them were still quite naked. It was odd for Ashyr to still be in bed, but she was feeling lazy after all the activity of the previous day. So she had been dozing.

Caleldir rose from bed, untangling his limbs from Selene's. He sniffed. "Do I smell... egg-battered toast?" He said in a pleased tone. It seemed that R.I.S.A. was cooking again. His stomach growled, and he rapidly washed and conjured up his clothing. Caleldir generally rose before Selene, which was expected, but rising before Ashyr was just about a first for him.

Ashyr was about to join Caleldir out of the bed, but then there was a Selene clinging to her as hard as she clung to sleep itself. "Come on, dearest. There's food. Can't you smell it?" She said with a grin.

That seemed to get the pregnant drow's attention. Selene still looked groggy, but managed to sit up and cast her usual morning cantrips that made her look put together. One such spell was even directed at Ashyr, and suddenly the older drow's hair wasn't horrendously bedraggled anymore.

"You probably want to clothe yourself, too; I'm going to drag your brother out to eat with us." The ranger said as she followed her own advice and made her ring cover her body with her standard under-armor attire of trousers and a loose fitting grey shirt. Bard came up to her, as excited as he usually was. "I'm going to take this one out for a couple minutes first, though." Ashyr told them as she gave the wolf's head an enthusiastic rub.

Caleldir had been watching the two rise affectionately. He opened his mouth to ask R.I.S.A. for a status report. But, after the previous night, he found himself unable to. He sighed, and turned to the drow again. "Tsabdrin will be joining us, then? I suppose that it will be good for him to feel included. At any rate, enjoy your morning run!"

"I will, my love. I won't take long." Ashyr said. She gave him a quick kiss and walked quickly into the other room. She probably could just exited wherever she wanted to, but it felt more natural to leave through what they usually used as a 'front door.'

Althaia was already sitting at the table, dressed in a modest but flattering (everything was flattering on Althaia...) white nightgown. The ranger only gave Althaia a brief, curious glance as she passed through the dining room. She looked rather pensive, a far cry from her normally bubbly self. When Caleldir came out right behind Ashyr, he wondered what was wrong with the nymph, but decided not to say anything. Instead, he sat down at the table across from her and gave the paladin a reassuring grin.

"Good morning, Ashyr, Caleldir." Althaia said in a subdued tone.

[Yes! A Very good morning to you!] Came R.I.S.A.'s cheerful voice. A portal appeared, and Ashyr exited with the literally bouncing-off-the-walls Bard. The A.I. glided into the wearing a modest housekeeper's uniform room and carrying a pot of tea. [The rest of the food is not ready yet, but it will be soon!] Smiling, the A.I. glided back out of the room.

There was a stunned look on Caleldir's face. He stared from the subdued nymph to the cheerfully forgetful A.I. "This is... odd." He finally muttered.

"Bring out my brother, R.I.S.A. You might as well make my brother's door permanent." Selene told the A.I. with a sigh of resignation. "As entertaining as it is to have him dropped into the main room, we may want to talk to him without asking you each time." As she spoke, she settled into the chair next to Caleldir. Selene either ignored or did not notice the peculiar behavior of the other females. All she really cared about were the smells of food and the hungry pit in her stomach.

[Of course, Lady Duskhaven.] R.I.S.A. said gracefully. [An excellent suggestion, Lady Selene. I will affix Tsabdrin's quarters to the main room. I am not certain why, but I feel a massive, massive excess of power today. Going over my logs, I cannot figure out where it came from, but I while I am searching for the inconsistencies I can still use the power. Today, I will be setting up the floor-plan Althaia and I designed. Speaking of which: Althaia? Do you mind staying inside me today?] There was no innuendo in her completely innocent tone.

"Not at all." Althaia said distantly. "I have much to think of. Sitting around being a battery will give me time to consider things."

[Excellent.] R.I.S.A. nodded. [I will bring in Tsabdrin now.]

Tsabdrin rather dazedly walked out of the door he suddenly discovered and took turns staring at everyone. Caleldir, because he was almost a foot shorter and drow, R.I.S.A because she was... well, R.I.S.A, and finally, at Althaia. It was on the paladin that his eyes remained until he realized that he was staring. Even after he managed to look away, it was as if his eyes gravitated towards her. But his expression wasn't lustful. It was thoughtful, and maybe a bit confused.

Caleldir gave Tsabdrin a sheepish smile, and went back to sipping his tea. He was still trying to process what was going on with Althaia and R.I.S.A., and so did not notice what was going on with Tsabdrin. He did not know the male drow all that well anyway. At any rate, he had forgotten that he was drow too now. He vaguely knew that he was shorter, but was distracted.

Althaia continued to be pensive. When she noticed that Tsabdrin began staring at her, she turned her large, solemn blue eyes towards him. Her gaze was not hostile, but piercing enough to be intimidating. Tsabdrin, as soon as he met the blonde woman's eyes, turned his gaze toward the table in front of him rather than trying to stare her down. She stared at him for an uncomfortable length of time, until R.I.S.A. appeared at the table with several plates of egg-coated toast, boneless fried chicken, butter, and maple syrup. An odd combination, but apparently one that Deusterra had been fond of.

True to her word, Ashyr sauntered back in and sat next to the male ranger as R.I.S.A. brought out food and the staring came to an end. The wolf still was quite hyper, but not desperately so. It would have to suffice until the party went out traveling.

Ashyr thought upon the piercing gaze she thought she saw the end of. The eldest drow initially thought the paladin was looking at her for a brief moment out of the corner of her eye, since she was right next to the true object of the nymph's stare. The female ranger furrowed her brow, and looked between the two of them. Something must have happened after Althaia left the three of them. And it wasn't the something that Ashyr previously suspected. Althaia's eyes were blue. Not grey, not purple. What mood could that indicate?

The uncomfortable moment has passed, though. The drow set to eating immediately. They didn't seem to care about the strangeness of the food, nor did they go through their normal ritual of making sure that it wasn't poison. In fact, they hadn't worried about that since R.I.S.A. first started providing food. It was a subtle sign of trust that would go unnoticed by most surface dwellers. Even the male, after observing the other two true drow, ate his food without seeming to worry about its contents.

"So I take it you checked on Tsabdrin last night, Althaia." Ashyr said after (mostly) swallowing her first mouthful of food. Her crimson eyes flicked between the two people in question with open curiosity. "You didn't make an ass of yourself, did you Tsabdrin?" Why else would the two of them be acting so much more awkward than they ever did before?

"I dunno." Tsabdrin mumbled. He didn't seem to want to go into detail. In fact, he had no idea what he did or said. Everything that happened up until the point where the nymph left was mostly standard operations if he had been in the Underdark with a drow female. The next step was supposed to have been sexual aggression. Instead, she gave a speech and left him.

"Althaia?" Ashyr asked when it was clear she wouldn't get anything out of the younger male.

The nymph turned her gaze, still unnaturally intense, at Ashyr. "I am not a drow. I serve not the spider-goddess. Nor do I wish to do so. Tsabdrin has given me reason to reconsider my life in light of these facts." With that, she commenced to eating. A rather massive amount, even by her ordinary standards. Since it was physically impossible for her to be anything other than perfectly svelte, the nymph seemed to take stress-eating to heights unconceived of by races not so blessed. She always looked younger than the other nymphs, on account of her having been born rather than sprang full-grown from her pool, but a tinge of vulnerability had crept into her grace that made her slight form seem like that of a teenager.

Caleldir sighed. "Well, it seems as if some drama went down last night, but I consider it not our business. I trust Althaia not to do anything too wrong, and Tsabdrin poses absolutely no threat to her, so let us not worry about them. They are both adults - well, Tsabdrin is. Althaia, I am not so sure of anything other than post-pubescent - and capable of working this out."

Ashyr sighed. Sure, they were adults who could figure it out on their own. But Ashyr was just so curious. How did Tsabdrin manage to make the bubbly paladin so serious?

She would have been disappointed by the real answer, of course: just a couple words said at the wrong (right?) time.

[Althaia the Nymph has seen eighteen summers.] R.I.S.A. cheerfully noted. [Pureborn Nymphs go through childhood at twice the speed of humans, although they-]

"Thank you, R.I.S.A." Caleldir gently interrupted. "Another time." It was his fault, he probably should not have made any reference to Althaia's age.

Every single one of the drow got a funny look on their faces when R.I.S.A. informed them just how young Althaia was. By their standards, she shouldn't even be let out of the house without some sort of guardian to watch her every move. Intellectually, they knew that it shouldn't have mattered much. They already knew she had to be pretty young. She was mentally and biologically an adult - at least that was what they all assumed by looking at her and watching her act. But for a brief, horrible moment, all of them imagined themselves with an adolescent. Even drow had their limits. As one, they focused a bit more on the food in front of them. It was good food. Selene was the exception when she saw how much the paladin was eating.

"Althaia. We don't have an unlimited supply of food." The mage said with disapproval. It was mostly her own stomach that Selene thought about, of course. She didn't care whether it would affect the other woman's figure or not.

"We have enough." Althaia said laconically.

[We do indeed.] R.I.S.A. concurred. [And Althaia will need the extra energy today. I need her to provide the catalyst to process the power for the re-creation of this dimension. Ashyr will remember how draining that was.] Despite the obvious reference, there was nothing even vaguely suggestive about R.I.S.A.'s tone of body language. It was as if the A.I. had completely stopped being a virtual succubus, and was simply talking about a clinical transference of energy. Caleldir found this very odd, but Althaia did not.

Althaia finished her eighth slice of egg-battered toast, and stood up. "R.I.S.A.? Shall we get to work on refitting this dimension?"

[Oh! Yes please!] R.I.S.A. said with anticipation. [But... The Mr. Duskhaven will not have a good time of it while the dimension is in flux. Would it be possible for Lady Duskhaven and Lady Selene to take their kinsman with them on the journey today?]

"Oh fuck yes. Please take me with you." Tsabdrin said emphatically. "Ah. I mean. Er. It would be nice to have some fresh air." And it would be nice to get out of this madhouse for a little while. Wait... did R.I.S.A. call him The Mr. Duskhaven? Weird. On so many levels. His eyes narrowed at her.

"You seem awfully eager. You're not planning an escape, are you?" Came Selene's suspicious question.

"Don't worry, dearest. I'll keep an eye on him." Ashyr promised. She looked amused. "Pretty sure I can outrun him. Look how skinny he is." To demonstrate, she grabbed his skinny arm and waved it for the party to see - until he snatched it back from her with an annoyed and embarrassed expression. "Well, are we ready to get going?" Ashyr asked the party who would be traveling that day. She stood and whipped out the figurine of the wolf she'd been given.

Washing down the last of his meal with a swig of chilled water, Caleldir stood up. "I am prepared. Let us depart. If the terrain is not too demanding, we should be able to make Port Afron by nightfall." He blinked, then sighed. His body twisted and pulsated, and he was back in his normal form. "I should probably approach looking like this. If we are all drow, they might get suspicious."

"Before you get to the city, let me know." Althaia said shortly. "I will approach with you, and we will put Tsabdrin back under house-arrest. The druids will probably be happier to see me than him." She gave Tsabdrin a sad, apologetic smile, though he didn't seem too put out by her words. "No offense intended." She sighed, then tossed him a figurine of an ostrich-like bird. "You get to ride on a Chocobo today."

The female ranger snatched the weird bird-like figurine from the air before the male had a chance to catch it. She was healthier, her reflexes were just a bit quicker than his, and Tsabdrin had been distracted. Ashyr hid away the figurine somewhere on her person - even watching her, it was hard to tell where. "Sorry, handsome. Althaia may trust you with your own mount, but I'm not so sure. But you won't complain too much about riding behind me, will you?" Ashyr winked at the male, who had his arms half-raised to catch the chocobo.

"As you wish, my lady." He told her... but his voice wasn't as polite as the words implied. They sounded more sarcastic.

"I am inclined to agree with Ashyr on this." Caleldir said. "Tsabdrin should probably spend some time with his cousin." He trusted, to some extent, Althaia's judgement on this sort of thing, and so if the nymph wanted to give the drow a magical mount, he would not overrule her, but he trusted Ashyr more, and still harboured some worry about the male Duskhaven. Also, with how strange Althaia had been behaving this morning, he was not sure if she tried to give the drow a chocobo because she had seen that he would not escape, or for some other, stranger reason having to do with the odd looks that they were sharing. Honestly, he was curious as to what was going on between them too, even if he was trying to give them space. If the two of them had had sex, or something like that, and were dealing with some sort of strange after-effects, that he could understand. But it seemed to be nothing of the sort.

All of them walked out of the portal, but not before Tsabdrin turned back to give the strange nymph one last look. "Bard, go see if you can find a better path." Ashyr told her animal companion when the portal was closed. He looked more than happy to comply, and shot off like an arrow. Then Ashyr summoned her mount, hopped on it's back, and in one surprisingly fluid, practiced motion, Ashyr pulled on Tsabdrin's arm, and he swung a leg over the summoned beast's back behind the female. He wrapped his arms around her waist, refraining from touching her anywhere less appropriate. The male ranger's expression was completely guarded, making it hard to determine what he was thinking.

The way was much easier now that the rain wasn't so heavy. It was still choked with vines enough that the party couldn't take full advantage of the speed of their mounts. Caleldir was rather quiet. It was not the strange sulking of yesterday, more a reflective silence where he would rather listen and learn than rattle on. He followed on his (still rather boring comparatively) horse behind the cool wolf and cooler spider. He found his thoughts drifting to the arena of sex (with Selene, with Ashyr, with Risa...)

Ashyr interrupted his musings when she spoke up. "Bard found something. Come on." And then she led the group towards the river that everyone except Selene knew would continue onward to flow past Port Afron. The river was much as it was. Next to it, however, was a newly trodden path worn enough that quite a large force must have passed by. It followed the river as far as any of the party could see in both directions. "I think we may have some mercenaries joining us at Port Afron; someone from the town must have sent them a message. Pretty sure I mentioned something to someone from the town before we left." Ashyr commented, mostly just thinking aloud. Her mouth twisted in contemplation. The ranger didn't seem so sure of herself. "Thankfully, they beat down a trail for us..."

"It seems that they have cleared the road somewhat. Whoever they are working for, we can at least surmise that they came after the druids." He spurred his horse onward. With a path cleared, their travel time was just about halved. They could make Port Afron by late afternoon, if they hurried.

With Althaia currently not present, the drow conversed in undercommon as they discussed the terrain near the river.

"I'm just glad we don't have to walk through this mud." Selene observed. Her spider was partially braced against a couple small trees just outside the newfound path, where she had been guiding the summoned arachnid for most of the travel through the artificial temperate rainforest. That was much easier than getting tripped up on the brush below. The mage even seemed to be enjoying herself now that she had control of the spider's movement. It was quite muddy on the pathway; it wasn't quite on top of the road that had been somewhere around the area. Most of the actual road had been deliberately destroyed and suspended above the ground in some places.

"So you still managed to get the mercenaries to attack the city?" Tsabdrin asked Ashyr. "They were so pissed at you the first time that failed horribly."

"Yeah. I wonder why that was." Selene responded in short, biting words.

Ashyr began to urge her riding wolf down the path. The mud from it didn't quite reach the mounted pair's feet. The rest of the party wouldn't have as much problem with mud splatter as they would. "Yes. They already have a grudge on Faust. The anger they held toward me, I redirected towards you - well, towards the males of Duskhaven." It was really too bad that the male ranger couldn't see the female's catlike grin. It was a good one. "That was what I was arranging before you tried your best to valiantly fuck it up."