A Drow's Dilemma Ep. 10: Frustration

The drow's visions while she slept had not been so pleasant as her companion's. Her brothers and cousins had been chasing after her. Sometimes the caught her and locked her up in a very small box until she starved. Sometimes they let her free, only to catch and rape her again and again. When she felt arms around her in the physical world, she jolted awake and scrambled away from him. Her breasts heaved with the panic of the moment before she could gather her wits. The fear in her face subsided when she saw that it was only Cal in all his naked glory.

"Aw, shit. I'm sorry." She apologized as she clutched her fist to her still-racing heart. "I guess I'm not used to sleeping with people." She explained. It was a half-truth. The drow could count the people she'd actually slept with on one hand; she really wasn't used to doing that. When she and Celeste had- well, there weren't dreams to disturb her mornings.

If Ashyr had not jumped away, Caleldir probably would have, despite the fact that he was underneath her would have made that movement a bit more difficult. So while he was slightly hurt he was mostly relieved when she scrambled away from him. "No need to apologize." He said simply. After ogling her for a second, he forced himself to look away. "If your dreams were anything like mine, I can hardly blame you." Caleldir could not guess that, while he dreams morally disturbed him and made him curse his mental weakness, Ashyr had been having straight up nightmares that he could barely imagine. Well, not barely. Brief snippets of his time as a mad ghost sometimes came back to him in nightmares of comparable horror.

The drow looked down. "Um. Your loincloth isn't very functional anymore." She mentioned. She found herself hoping that he'd pay more attention to that issue over how scared she had been because of a couple stupid dreams. That was another thing Ashyr wasn't used to. Being scared. Him calling her out on that was probably of a similar embarrassment level to the equally natural morning wood he sported.

Ashyr distracted him from memories of his dreams with her comment on the state of his clothing. At once, he was aware again of both his nudity and very obvious arousal. With a fierce blush of embarrassment, he grabbed the tattered rags of his loincloth and covered his erection. It was very difficult, and he quickly realized that until it subsided he was not going to be able to get his scraps of cloth together. Which was mortifying. He curled up a bit and decided to try to distract both of them. "So... what is our plan for today? Catch back up with the caravan, or something else?"

As much as she wanted to look, Ashyr quite politely looked away from her friend as he struggled to calm himself down. It was a long, hard battle, but she managed not to offer to help him get rid of his problem faster. Or at least in a more interesting way. Judging by his extreme embarrassment, she figured her advances would be unwelcome. Ashyr still felt guilty about what got him into this predicament in the first place. "I swear, Caleldir, I've never met anyone so damn embarrassed of their body." She muttered unhappily. For her part, she didn't make any extra effort to cover herself. Ashyr cast her gaze around the den and found the rest of her things.

"I am not embarrassed of my body!" Caleldir corrected somewhat pedantically. "I am embarrassed of my nudity." He knew that the distinction was lost on Ashyr, but he felt the need to point it out anyway. "Just a loincloth is bad enough, but nothing at all is... is... well, too exposing."

This time Ashyr put on her full gear, underwear and all. Too bad it was all too small to be practical for Cal to wear. The drow wouldn't have much of a problem marching into the troop naked until they could figure out proper coverings for the half elf. Well, she might get a little cold, but that was only a mild discomfort.

He tried to fiddle with his cloth scraps while Ashyr got dressed. The rags had somehow fallen apart even more during the night, and his shaky efforts to patch them up only made them worse. They were thoroughly, completely useless now. Frustrated, he dropped them. "What does your cousin have against cloth anyway? I suppose I will just have to get used to not wearing anything for awhile. Reconnect with my mother's side of the family."

Caleldir crept out of the den, and stood up. Ashyr followed him out into the grey morning light. She and Caleldir had slept quite a lot. The troop was likely somewhere ahead just begging to rise from their own slumber. Bard greeted them at the front of the den. He looked exhausted. Ashyr got the impression that he stayed up all night to make sure her nightmares didn't come true. The wolf had a lot of energy, but apparent even he could get tired out eventually. "Good boy, Bard." She said as she bent over to rub at his ears affectionately.

"I suppose that I will borrow something from Gurzan when we catch up with the caravan. I have no money to pay for new clothing in town. Until then, I suppose that I will just practice my subterfuge. I will be as subtle and unnoticeable as a snowman in the summer." Despite himself, Caleldir began to laugh. "It is actually pretty funny, when you think about it. Feel free to look, if the light bouncing off me is not too blinding for Drow eyes." His voice was a mixture of sarcasm, resignation, and a surprising amount of genuine mirth. "At any rate, I will be following your lead. Personally, I think we should track down your cousin and steal a set of her robes. It would serve her right, and those things were loose enough on her that I could make a tight tunic out of them." His tone showed that he was joking. Probably.

Ashyr laughed aloud, glad to see that Caleldir had recovered enough to joke around. "Yes, give her a taste of her own medicine. Though I fear that she would actually see that as a reward." The drow knew very well that that was not what Caleldir meant, but she was also joking.

His expression turned into confusion. "Why would she like having a set of clothing stolen?" He asked. "If I found that someone had snuck in in the middle of the night and made off with half my wardrobe, I would not see that as a reward at all." He shook his head. "Sometimes I do not understand what you mean when you say things like that."

Ashyr grinned, shook her head, and moved on. She didn't want to explain things further. She wanted to get going. "Anyway, we'll head toward the troop. Maybe I can hide you somewhere then explain to Gurzan that you need clothes. Then only he will suffer through being blinded by all your pale skin. If he doesn't misconstrue the situation and try to kill me." She said with a shrug. She began walking at a quick pace toward where she suspected they were. It would probably be a good three hour walk before they caught up. "Um. We should also decide how much you want the troop to know about how you got this way."

He looked relieved when she changed the topic to getting back to the caravan. He was no longer as aroused as he had been when Ashyr was naked, but thinking about Selene for any length of time was not helping. If he dwelt on Ashyr's cousin too long, flashes of her flowing platinum hair and glorious nude obsidian body violently riding his cock flashed irresistibly in his memory: coming both with intense shame and renewed arousal. He slapped himself in the head. That image had seared his dreams enough without troubling every waking hour with its potent cocktail of guilt and desire. He tried to chase that image out of his head by focusing on Ashyr in front of him, but his mind automatically undressed her in his memories: remembering her obvious lust and arousal while tied nude to that tree mixed with feelings of how her naked skin had felt against his own this morning. Especially how her thighs had wrapped around his manhood. The predictable happened, which made walking just a little bit harder. He resisted the urge to try to cover his new horniness with his hands and simply hoped that Ashyr would not spend much time looking back at him.

"Tell Gurzan only that I ran into some 'issues' and require a change of clothing." He said shortly. "If you imply that some poor section of forest was turned to ash, he will not ask further questions." Caleldir hated lying, but deceit by implication came naturally to him. "Once he sends some clothes my way, I will simply walk in as if nothing had happened. It will not be the first time that I vanished from the troupe and returned in different clothing, and I always have a ridiculous enough story about it that no one asks why looking for a genuine answer anymore."

Ashyr nodded. Carry on like nothing unusual happened. She could manage that. The drow had passable skill at deceit in the Underdark, which meant she was pretty good on the surface. Something told her that she never really managed to be very effective with Gurzan, but the big lug actually was more suspicious of her than he needed to be. Mostly. Certainly now that was the case. There's would be no more Ashyr cooperation for the Duskhavens until they got their shit together.

Luckily for Caleldir (or unluckily, depending on the perspective,) Ashyr was too focused on getting them both out of the forest without getting lost to spend too much time looking back at him. He made enough noise for her to be confident that he was keeping up. Instead of running freely through the forest as he normally did, Bard stayed at his master's heel with his head and tail hung tiredly. At one point she took pity on the poor adolescent wolf, picked him up, and put him on her shoulders. She wasn't a particularly strong elf, but for now he wasn't too heavy to be carried. His tail thumped against her chest in gratitude. "You lazy oaf. Making me carry you." She muttered affectionately as she reached up to ruffle the fur on his blond head.

Even after a few hours of walking through the woods, Caleldir still was not comfortable or happy with his situation. Unlike most people in a similar state: there was no physical discomfort: his fey heritage ensured that he did not actually need clothing for any of the usual reasons. Nothing scraped or scratched him, bugs did not bite, and he did not feel the cold. Strictly speaking, he was completely fine walking around naked outside. His issue came with the fact that he was naked outside with another person, and that person was a woman he was almost irresistibly attracted to. His main relief was that Ashyr seemed more interested in tracking the caravan than she did ogling him.

When they were close enough to hear the tired chatter of the traveling troop, Ashyr let Bard back down. "You two stay here. I'll go talk to Gurzan."

"As you say." He replied to Ashyr. "I will be right here."

Then she jogged a little bit ahead of the group before she emerged from the brush with her hands up in a non-threatening gesture. "Hey guys." She said with a confident smirk.

"Girl! We were worried about you when Cal ran off with your wolf! Are you okay? Where is he?" Artur said with a happy grin.

"Everything's fine. I'm sure he's around somewhere." She said with a shrug of nonchalance, "I need to talk to Gurzan. Go on, we'll catch up."

"Ahm. Okay." Artur said, seeming to accept this after only a moment's thought. He continued with the rest of the troop down the path. Generally Ashyr and Gurzan didn't speak much, but ever since she'd gotten her wolf companion there was a little more communication going on between them. Most figured it to be a ranger or a guard thing.

Gurzan noted Ashyr's return. For a moment, he almost showed something like gladness, before he noticed that Caleldir had not returned with her. That was suspicious. He had occasionally wondered what had happened since the pale elf ran after the dusky one, but Ashyr's return without her companions raised even more questions. His suspicions turned to worry when he heard Ashyr ask directly after him, and away from the caravan. If the Drow had been up to something nefarious, she was cunning enough to know that getting him alone and trying to manipulate him into helping her was a terrible plan. The fact that she was seeking him out indicated that something was going on, probably something to do with Caleldir, since he was not with her, and probably something sensitive, or she would not have to get him alone.

So it was that when the caravan had moved on, leaving Gurzan alone with Ashyr on the road, the half-orc turned to her and directly addressed the issue. "How did Caleldir die this time?" He bluntly asked.

Ashyr blinked at Gurzan's very blunt question. She didn't have any predetermined lie in her head to try to tell the half-orc. She didn't even attempt to come up with something on the spot. Instead, she gave him a half-shrug and a half-grin. "I'm sure he would prefer to tell the story of his absence himself." Everyone knew that Caleldir was a great fan of telling extravagant and wildly untrue stories.

"Anyway, he needs a change of clothes if you have anything to spare. It's why I'm out here and he's back in there." She said as she gestured to the trees from whence she came. Her mouth twisted briefly in contemplation. She was about to say that she could lead the half-orc there, but she was pretty sure the suspicious man would assume it to be a trap. A drow similar to her could take down each of the guards one at a time that way. Ashyr wasn't sure why anyone, good or evil, would attempt to take down a theater troupe that already lost all their possessions. Seemed to her like a lot of effort for very little reward. Besides, she already had custody of the only one worth enslaving (Caleldir, obviously.) "I'll lead you to him unless you're too afraid it's a trap. In which case, I can just take your clothes now." This she couldn't say without a very naughty grin. Damn she was horny.

"You require... clothes." He shook his head. "Caleldir may not remember, but this will not be the first time that this has happened. Once he got himself killed fighting a forest fire. After his ghost self turned the untouched part of the forest to dust, I found him lying in the ashes with all of his clothing completely burnt off. I suppose that he will have a completely silly explanation as to what supposedly offed him this time."

"Fighting an entire forest fire? Damn." She said with an impressed grin. "I would have let that shit burn. Can't just stop a forest fire."

"Caleldir has access to a bit more, and more complex, magic than he pretends to." Sighing, the half-orc pulled off his surcoat. "Here. I am much bigger than Cal. With this belt he will be able to tie this up as a robe. I do not suspect you of a trap, Drow, for I know that you would not be that foolish or malicious, but I have to catch back up with the caravan. Unlike some people I am not in the habit of shirking my duties."

With that the disgruntled old orc turned back towards the departing troop, leaving Ashyr with an oversized belt and overcoat.

She took the offered clothing with a thankful nod. The orc did have a point about actually doing his work as a guard. Ashyr hadn't been doing that great of a job. She didn't feel too bad about it, though. The caravan needed food, and, for the most part, she was the only provider. Ashyr would have to be more careful in the future of course. And then there was the issue of her brothers potentially being out to get here. Well, Gurzan will have to have the satisfaction of seeing her around more often than she had been. She didn't know how to feel about his opinion on her level of maliciousness. Ashyr was a drow. Of course she was malicious. It was what she normally wanted people to think, anyway. Now she was acting damn near charitable. Maybe she was losing her touch?

The drow shook her head at herself with an amused grin as she made her way back to the forest where Caleldir waited. "Cal?" She called out quietly when she got near the spot she left him. Ashyr didn't want to startle him, not after all he'd been through. "Gurzan did have clothes for you." Sort of. He would be completely naked under all that. Just a brief gust of wind -

Damn it, Ashyr Duskhaven, can you think of nothing else? she thought to herself.

While Ashyr had gone off to talk with Artur and Gurzan, Caleldir had decided, in a fit of supreme maturity, to climb a tree. Keeping enough in the shadows that he did not glint in the sun, he climbed high enough to observe the exchange, shaking his head when Gurzan simply undid his surcoat. Of course that was all the extra clothing he had: they had just lost everything in Port Afron. It was a good thing that Artur apparently knew a place where they could go to recover, so they were not completely screwed. Well, he had already been. Completely screwed, that is. Caleldir groaned. His mind had to go there. The event itself was not bad enough: his conscience had to flog him with guilt for the breaking of his age-old vow every few minutes even as his body desperately wished to repeat it.

He softly dropped to the ground next to Ashyr. Standing upright, he tried without success to cover his erection with his hand. He really preferred that Ashyr not know about the near-constant horniness that had plagued him all day long. "I am glad." He said. "Could you give them to me?"

Ashyr saw the state his of distress. She couldn't really help it, with his dick just out there for the world to see and hard seemingly more often than not. It seemed he was almost as horny as she was. But it was really time to get back to the caravan. Otherwise Gurzan might really worry about the state of his friend and take it upon himself to go find them. That, and he seemed desperate for his clothes rather than asking her to help him with what Ashyr viewed as his real problem. So with an exasperated sigh, she held out his new set of clothes to him.

"Just hurry up and put these on before I jump you." She said. She couldn't help herself.

Caleldir blushed even more heavily when he saw beyond a doubt that Ashyr had noticed his arousal. "You and your cousin both, apparently." He shot back after her remark. Which made very little sense, actually, seeing as Selene had not raped him merely because he was naked, and Ashyr had not raped him at all. He was not even sure what he meant by his unthinking comeback, only that the drow he had had sex with and the drow he really wanted to have sex with were occupying most of his mind at the moment.

With a little bit of embarrassment from his stupid comment, Caleldir threw on his new clothes, making them into a sort of sleeveless tunic that ended about his knees. It left his sides, from his arms to his thighs, exposed practically every other step, but was far better than nothing. "Come on Gurzan." He said mildly. "How am I going to explain this get-up?" He shook his head.

The drow got a little distracted even from the most distracting thing in the universe right now when Bard came up to her. The poor wolf was so tired the feeling kind of bled over to her and made her yawn. After handing over Caleldir's makeshift robes she picked the puppy back up and returned him to his place on her shoulders. "I'm sorry darling." She said soothingly. One of her dark hands rose to stroke his ears. "Come on. Let's get back to the rest of the group."

"Yes, let us get back to the group." Caleldir agreed.

--

Caleldir's fears were justified; his abrupt return to the caravan dressed in such a revealing outfit - and with the same Dark Elf he had run after - very quickly gave rise to the usual and predictable gleeful suspicions. He tried to distract from the obvious implication by telling a typical tale involving a duo of dueling fire and water spirits that he had to intervene between, culminating in an epic and improbable battle that ended with the fire spirit successfully setting him on fire, but the water spirit doused and healed him, resulting in the incineration of his clothing and the necessity to improvise. Gurzan mused aloud that he considered it more likely that Caleldir had decided to go swimming, and that someone (not implied to not be Ashyr) had stolen his clothing. The old orc followed up his speculations by providing Caleldir with a blanket to wear in conjunction with the surcoat in order to create an outfit not quite so embarrassing.