"I don't usually get home sick, but this?" Eztli said while carefully dodging another stinger strike. "Yeah I can't help but feel a bit nostalgic."
The lizardfolk was now heavily resenting the bad intel he and Vylesh had received for this "minor issue". A bit of extra money in return for dealing with a griffon infestation? Easy. Climbing up a precarious and mossy cliff to where the beast had made its nest? Still easy, if a bit slippery and harrowing. Finding out that cliffside cave actually belonged to a Wyvern who took exception to the intrusion into its nest? Well finding out was actually very easy. It mostly involved a lot of roaring and regret.
The part that involved dodging the claws, jaws, and highly poisonous tail stinger of a flying feral dragon was considerably more difficult.
"This makes you nostalgic?!" Vylesh wasn't so much angry as she was terribly shocked and overwhelmed. There was fear in that mix as well. All of which helped her quickly drop to the mossy stone ground just in time to avoid the poisonous stinger that had missed her boyfriend as it now swung in her direction.
Vylesh was immediately thankful for the blessed moss that cushioned her fall, the comparatively lessened pain allowing her to quickly roll onto her back and prop herself up on her elbow to send a flaming sphere at the beast. A slight slip on that same moss while propping herself up meant the sphere
only
clipped one of its wings instead of hitting it in the head.
Her druid training allowed her to appreciate two facts in this moment: Wyverns had no resistance to fire, and moss giveth as it taketh.
The beast roared again as its wing was singed by the flaming sphere, taking flight to put some distance between itself and the two adventurers. The cave ceiling just high enough to give it space to prepare a dive bomb.
"Oh very nostalgic. The wyverns back home were Awakened. Quite pleasant to talk to. Citizens of the Empire like any other and absolutely not overly aggressive beasts that want to eat us and all of those townsfolk." He all too casually noted as he picked himself up in time to hit the wyvern with a psionic assault to leave it dazed just as it was preparing to dive bomb the pair, stinger outstretched.
The beast roared again, eyes darting about as it felt as though its brain was on fire. It was distracting enough that its divebomb was instead turned into the beast crashing into the ground as Eztli and Vylesh quickly leapt out of the way. They steadied themselves on uneven rocks covered in yet more moss, looking to each other and sharing a nod before returning their focus to the wyvern now recovering from its failed landing.
Moss and rock were scattered about by the crash and the thrashing of the beast as Vylesh conjured vines to entangle the wyvern before it could recover. The magical vines only just barely held the beast as it thrashed about, stinger tail and snapping jaws still searching for any target they could find.
It was, however, just enough to give Eztli time to focus on the creature's mind. And focus he did as it wailed and roared louder and louder as the Psion's psychic assault was unrelenting. Still tangled by the vines it lashed out at the two. Its tail narrowly missing Eztli and its jaws coming dangerously close to Vylesh, still focused on binding it with the vines. A moment later, there was a pop as the creature's large head exploded into blood and bone and brain.
Vylesh only received mere seconds of relief at the beast no longer posing a threat. She was unable to even get so much as a cheer out before the chunky red paste that was formerly the wyvern's head now rained down on her and Eztli. Those seconds of relief were now replaced with what felt like an eternity of horror as she sat frozen in the glaze of draconic blood and brain covering her.
Eztli only breathed a heavy sigh of relief, being completely unphased by the gore shower. "Well, it wasn't a griffon and that could have gone better but we only received a few scratches from it! Not even a single sting!" He said quite happily before looking very concerned to the tiefling.
The fiery orange of her hair and light purple of her skin were now obscured by bits of wyvern. Her expression of horror was not, and was in fact plain as day even in the dimmed light of the cave the sun had long ago passed over.
He frowned, carefully walking over to her as he could now look down to watch his step amongst the rocks and moss and dragon chunks and blood that was still draining from the neck of the large beast into a crimson pool. The tall obsidian scaled lizardfolk stood a good head or two taller than the tiefling, leaning down to carefully brush off a mixture of moss, dirt, blood, brain, and bone shards.
"Mmmm, sorry about that. Psionics by their nature attack the head, and it turns out heads have a whole lot of blood going to them." He said while still trying to reveal more of his purple druidess by cleaning her off. "There's a dick joke in there somewhere but I'll pass on it." He said as he failed to realize that merely mentioning it still counted as making a poorly timed joke.
She may have only been wearing linen traveller's clothes for this short adventure but they would likely need to be replaced. His own leather attire had specifically been made to be blood resistant. Which in this case meant the blood would clean off well enough as opposed to needing to replace his clothes as he would need to do with Vylesh.
Vylesh simply pulled him into a hug, ignoring all the bloody mess as she held Eztli tight in her arms.
"That stinger almost got you, several times." She muttered into his chest, choosing to focus on worry as opposed to the sight of an exploding wyvern head and the subsequent effect of being covered in wyvern paste.
After
it had almost bit her face off.
"Oh that?" Eztli said while kicking at the now limp stinger. "Plenty of things back home that are far more poisonous and horrifying." He said while wrapping his arms around her, patting her lightly on the back. "Plus, I'm not going to die as long as I have you. That would involve leaving you and there's no way in all the Hells I'm doing that."
Vylesh sighed into his chest, her tail quickly finding his and holding onto it as though her life depended on it. "Well I still worry..." she lightly complained.
"Yes and my lovely girlfriend is an incredible druid who I can always count on to get me through anything." He said with a chuckle, pulling away slightly and bringing a hand to lift her chin enough to look into her eyes, using a bit of telekinesis to move some blood caked hair out of her face. "This just comes with adventuring, we go and get into danger and we have each other's backs. And there's no one I'd rather have my back in life or death situations than the woman I love."
The still thoroughly shook tiefling looked up into Eztli's silver eyes. Though she was in a haze, she listened to his words intently nodding along. This was the adventuring life, and she was happy to be with Eztli. They could keep each other safe and always fighting harder. The part about loving her took a moment to actually process.
Then it took several moments more.
Then it took enough moments and her expression was blank enough that Eztli started to worry he had horribly misjudged things.
The blush turning her from purple to maroon and the smile spreading across her lips gave much needed relief. Vylesh felt a small part at the back of her mind telling her she had misheard him, that obviously he had said something else. That no one would ever feel that way about her. That none of the things they had done together counted. All that he had done, all that he had said, all that she had felt all spoke much louder as she felt her eyes getting misty.
"I-...I love you too Eztli." She said with a happy smile as she gave a slight laugh. "I...wish circumstances were...slightly different though. I'd kiss you but all the blood and go- oh!"
She could only protest so much as Eztli leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, ignoring the fact both of them were covered in blood and focusing only on her. Vylesh quickly lost herself in the kiss, eyes drifting shut as she found it easy to focus on his own long tongue invading her mouth and wrapping around her own tongue as opposed to the bits of what she assumed to be wyvern blood that she could taste. Her arms wrapped around his neck, gripping at his turquoise crest while her tail coiled around his tightly in a mirror the dance their tongues were engaged in. By the time he pulled away, she found herself in yet another haze as they gazed into one another's eyes.
Both searched for something to say until finally Eztli was the one to blunder through the silence. "So, how about we just fly back home so we can get cleaned up all the faster?" He said with a slight chuckle.
Vylesh couldn't help but join him in the laugh, feeling a bit self conscious about being covered in gore but brushing the thought aside. He loved her, and a little bit of a lot of gore wasn't going to get in the way of that. She nodded and stepped away from him, focusing and channeling the raw power of nature itself to turn herself into a hawk.
Eztli in turn noted the beautiful simplicity of magic, as he focused on the more visceral complexity of psionics. He rolled his shoulders, bracing himself for the odd sensation that came with temporarily altering one's own form at the cellular level as two pterodactyl style wings sprouted from his back through two carefully placed slits in his vest that allowed for such a transformation. A transformation that never stopped feeling weird as flesh and bone rapidly restructured and nerves linked appendages that his body normally lacked to his brain. He was, however, practiced at this. Enough so that within seconds of his wings sprouting from his back he gave a nod to the hawk perched beside him.
A hawk that had a very distinct shade of fiery orange feathers covering her head.
The hawk waited as Eztli gave a pause and took out a knife to collect the wyvern's stinger tail from the corpse. Proof for completing their quest. On any other day, Eztli would have spent time harvesting all usable parts from the slain beast. And all parts would be usable in some way or another, even if merely for food. His father had taught him this lesson well. However he had also been taught that sometimes there was simply no time to make the most of one's kill. Two lovers being desperate to return to their room after a happy confession counted well enough in this situation as he carefully pocketed the stinger in a pouch, wary of the still deadly poison it contained.
With a quick nod of acknowledgement and a running start, both took off from the cliffside cave and set into a leisurely soar above the forest. Under different circumstances, they most likely would have engaged in a race and a playful wager or two between them. Who gives oral to who first, who's on top this time, who has to do some bold act in public. That playfulness had to step aside in the face of a physically and mentally exhausting day.
The only contest they engaged in for the moment was one between the desire to flap more and get to their destination sooner, or to just lazily soar to their destination with the absolute bare minimum of effort. The afternoon sun feeling comfortably warm on their backs and providing a lovely lighting of the tall evergreen forest beneath them allowed them to lie to themselves that the relaxation and scenery were worth not arriving so fast. It was a decision that both arrived at without a single word or bit of telepathy between them. A decision born from sore muscles, tired minds, love confessions, and the quiet laziness that goes with them.
They lost track of time, and as they arrived at the village they had been sent to help they were only vaguely aware of the sun now starting to fade from the sky. The adrenaline high was finally starting to wear off at about the time that they were being thanked and paid for their hard monster slaying work.
