The travelers' eyes were closing one by one as the sun waned from orange to pink and the fireflies emerged to float like lost ghosts. Her singing seemed to come from the forest all around them, far away. Lithe fingertips softly brushed the strings of her harp, and the scene in the quiet grotto blended their day's labors seamlessly into their dreams. The song's language was foreign to them, but as each of them drifted off it filled them with the treasured memories of their pasts and contentment that the future's mysteries would be happy ones. Her voice, the harp, and the ambiance of the forest were one wandering opera that did not cease until the travelers were asleep and the moon had bathed her in its pale blue light.
She let out a soft breath through her pale glistening lips and turned her face to the beams of the moon. She closed her eyes and let them wash over her. To her they were as the warming rays of the sun.
Tatiana was what they called her. She was a young half- drow, barely 57, and she favored her mother's elven features. Long slender ears pointed out from her frost- blue hair, wreathed in flowers. In the moonlight her skin was a pure snow white. Her delicate silken gown drifted about her silhouette in the breeze like the moon's own rays washing over her.
Tatiana placed her harp against the stone on which she languidly reposed and opened her eyes to the comforting sight of the full moon. Suddenly she gasped. The moon was dominating the horizon now as if it had bent down to the world to embrace her, but it was marred by the dark outline of the one who wouldn't be comforted by her song: the young human noble Severin of the House Greymor.
The figure was only a black shadow surrounded in the halo of the moon. Aside from the breeze swaying his wild hair and cape he was motionless. One hand rested on the pommel of his malevolent sword, its point against the earth, and the other held a rose to his face with two gloved fingertips. Presently he released the flower to tumble to the ground, and turned his face slightly toward her.
"It's time, drow." His voice dripped with the venom of arrogance and a core- deep hatred of her kind. She felt her pulse quicken and cold fear spreading outward from her heart. Tatiana glanced desperately at her comrades scattered in peaceful slumber in the grotto. She saw the dwarf Vlad's barrel chest rise and fall in the moonlight. Rictus was curled up with his wineskin, platinum hair wreathing his head. The ranger Thorne and the halfling Gnat were nowhere to be seen; dozing in the deepest shadows. Lyra the human wizard and Mouse the gnome were asleep together over the pages of some huge tome.
Reluctantly Tatiana turned her pale blue eyes back toward the fearsome warlock. Her lip quivered and she swallowed, then, accepting her fate, she extended her hand out to him. Severin reflexively turned his shoulders toward her, then stopped himself. Tatiana had calculated that his human traditions in a noble house would evoke his manners, and she was right. After a short battle between his contempt and his training, he extended a leather clad hand to hers and helped her to her feet.
"This way," he said coldly. She nodded with wide eyes and followed. The bells on her anklets were a merry sound, though her short walk was frightful. Her translucent gown swam over her pale curves as she followed the dreaded warlock into the forest.
Severin was young for a human, only 18. This was apparently his first journey from the house of his father into a world he regarded with condescension. He had brought with him his family's sense of superiority, their hereditary distrust of performers, and a bitterness for his fellows that was all his own. Still, Tatiana could tell that she disarmed him in some ephemeral way, and that whether for better or for worse, she was special to him. It was this last uncertain condition that she knew she must seize upon if she wanted to control what happened next.
It was only a short walk through the forest to where Severin had made his pyre. Pillars of moonlight penetrated the canopy and marked the way. Only the faraway sound of her bells filled the minutes. Soon she saw it; a stone ruin of some vulgar human structure on a small hilltop. The forest was reclaiming it. Severin's fire made it glow from the inside. Smoke with a curious green tint rose through great cracks in the roof.
Without offering an invitation, Severin entered and turned on a heel to face her. He stood, arms crossed, with his usual dour expression pointed at her as she hesitated in the door frame. Her wide blue eyes moved this way and that over the bare, ruined interior. The warlock was illuminated by the strange pyre flames and fully visible to the first time since the party had chosen that comforting clearing.
He had a shock of jet black hair, with locks that somehow formed sharp points and covered half of his pale face. His features were all cold, fine, and hard as though they had been chipped from flint, though they were the color of memorial marble. Below his thin neck he was clad to his toes in black leather armor crisscrossed in buckled straps.
He sighed impatiently. "Come in, drow. If I wanted to kill you..." he drew his wicked sword, "...I would have done it already."
Tatiana was the picture of helplessness and innocence with her pouting lower lip as she took a few steps into the bare ruin. She did her best to widen her eyes and swing her shoulders as she stepped over a few fallen stones.
"Now," he held the ugly weapon between them in both hands, "as I commanded. Blood, and hair."
Tatiana's wide eyes shifted to the pyre beside them. Between the dancing flames, could she make out a figure? It burned in green, barely visible if she focused on it, yet she was sure she could see something as insubstantial as the flames themselves.
"Is that..." her voice nearly cracked.
"My patron," he replied. "This is so he knows who you are. That's the only way I can ever trust you."
She took one more step toward the warlock, her head down, eyes wide and fixed on the blade that hovered before her face.
"As you wish, m'lord," she purred softly. Her full lips parted and she extended the tip of her tongue to the blade's edge. Severin expression hardened and he raised one eyebrow. her eyes never left his as she gave the blade a quick, gentle lick and a single drop of her dark ruby blood raced down the edge. At this he blinked and took half a step back before straightening up and clearing his throat.
"And now..." he began. Interrupting him, she took a thin lock of her sky colored hair and sheared it off on the blade.
"They are yours, my lord." Turning her eyes to the fire, she said, "and yours."
Severin's eyes narrowed and he seemed stuck to the floor for a moment. Then he frowned and turned his eyes to the flames. He cut through the air with his blade, whipping her blood drop into the fire. She followed by tossing in the severed blue lock. At this the flames rose higher, greener, and the shape of two bat like wings seemed to rise from the pyre wood and disappear into the night sky above. From the flames came a gravelly voice that said just one word, in Tatiana's native under- common language.
It said, "Aunrae," and was gone.
When Severin heard this an evil grin spread across his thin lips and he spun around to face her. He found her closer and he stalled for a moment as his eyes met hers. She took another step and pressed herself totally against him. Her shift was as gossamer and despite his leather shell, he could feel her body as if the two of them were bare. Before he could even react, her hand was coiling around his, which was in turn clutching the pommel of his sword. Her other hand was already smoothly working loose of the buckles that crossed his slim form.
"Amongst my people," he could feel her breath, her words on his lips, "we have other ways of making peace." His sword clattered to the stone floor. "They are more pleasant than yours," the buckle popped open and his jerkin, strapped so tightly to his form, yawned open to reveal his hard, lithe chest. "...for both of us." Her last words here a whisper, her lips only barely brushing against his own.
Severin could barely muster a protest as she slid her gentle hand against his chest. She breathed a sigh of pleasure as she caressed it, fingertips gliding over the taut muscles. Her other hand worked loose another buckle and she slid the thick leather down over his shoulders. His form was slight, but wiry. The firelight glowed over his chest and seemed to make it even more defined.
The warlock took a step back and found himself against the wall. "What... what is the meaning..."
She put one bare foot before the other as though she were walking a tight rope, and she knew that in a way she was. Her eyes had taken on the demeanor of a hungry wolf as she wrapped both hands around his waist belt. Their eyes locked, a scant few inches apart, she opened his trousers and began to work them down his slender hips.
"Not like this... not... with a drow..."
Tatiana was sliding the glove from his sword hand. "Then touch only my human side," she placed his naked hand over her breast and relished his moan. It was working; even this vile human would soon be swooning for her and begging. Careful, she thought. No one knows what could happen with an emotional, sensitive young human.
She leaned back to study his face in the firelight. His eyes were darting over her generous curves, searching for where the fabric clung close enough to her body, or to the edges to see even just a little more of her exotic skin.
He caught her gaze and she returned her most gentle smile. She moistened her lips with her tongue slowly. He withdrew his hand with reluctance, and Tatiana reached down to grasp his open belt again. She struggled to pull them lower while he panted.
Finally the swollen head of his young, thirsty cock wriggled into view above his waist. At this he threw his head back and moaned out loud. Tatiana suppressed a giggle at this. Human boys are so fragile. They want you to believe they are fearless warriors, but they can be controlled completely by only a small patch of their flesh. Well, not so small... she smiled.
She raised her index finger to his lips. His eyes were glassy and his bare hairless chest rose and fell quickly.
"You are... a witch..." he struggled with the words.
"And you are my warlock," came her soft retort. She softly pressed her finger between his lips and he closed them around it, sucking and licking it despite himself. Soon she withdrew it and traced it down the front of his heaving chest. First, over his heartbeat pounding like horse's hooves. Still slick with his spit, it slid over his washboard stomach and to his sensitive navel.