Archive of Our Own ^beta

He should have known something was wrong the moment his request was approved.

Tybalt Leftpaw spent four hours psyching himself up for his application, then his appeal, then the appeal for that appeal and then, eventually, the larger appeal for that first appeal. In his head, he was already eight appeals deep when he took the file.

“... What do I do with this?”

The desk clerk chuffed, thumping his way through a pile of documents with a nearly-dry stamp. “You read it, Lightbringer.”

The clerk paused.

“Probationary Lightbringer,” he said. “You’ll need to prove—”

“I know how it works! Damn it, of course I do.” He held the file in his hand, brandishing it like a pike, “I’m a Lightbringer now!”

“Probationary.”

“I’m a probationary Lightbringer now! See you later, desk-jockeys, I’m off to be a hero.”

With that, he threw his arms out and left the chamber, slamming the door shut. There was silence and, after four minutes, the door creaked open. Tybalt peered from it. “Hey. Me again. That was uncalled for.”

“It’s okay. You’re excited. I know you didn’t mean it.”

“Thank you, Marco.”

“Don’t mention it. Congratulations, by the way.”

Tybalt chuckled, scratching his neck and leaving for real. As he made his way across Lion’s Arch to his chambers, he had to resist the urge to grip passing strangers by the shoulders and babble about really being in a secret society.

They probably wouldn’t believe him so if he seemed crazy enough, he could—

Nah. Nah, bad idea.

When he read the file, in the seclusion of his little room with the straw bed, he did so with an apple in hand. His assignment; run a greenie through a basic mission— gathering information, some human noble was in hot water— report back alive and with the same amount of limbs, maybe even more, graduate to real fieldwork, big hero, wrestle a dragon to death, big parade, adoration of millions.

He bit his apple, demolishing half, and chewed it thoughtlessly.

His success depended on someone he had never met.

Well, that wasn’t so bad. He liked to think he was good with people. Who was he getting, anyway? The Order picked up a lot of street kids, vagrants. People with skills other institutions considered ‘unseemly’.

A charr.

Uh oh.

Thirties, Blood legionnaire. Dishonourable discharge? Gladium with a friend in a high place? Throat band. All accounted for. Tybalt chewed his lip. At his old job— he waggled his head and sipped his beer— at his old job he processed gladia or entire warbands. A lone charr with a warband, a legionnaire at that, was downright unusual. Interesting!

Tybalt’s stomach churned. He set the beer down and stared at a plank of wood. He didn’t do great with hardasses. He either ended up in tears in the washroom or scattering them four hundred feet in every direction. Was it still stereotyping if he himself was a charr?

Yeah. Yeah, it was. He was being unfair. That was his fear talking, not him. There was no reason to assume...

He squinted.

… That Jozra was some warmongering brute.

Where had he heard that name?

Tybalt furrowed his brow, chewing. He was sure he had heard that name. Jozra, Jozro… Joz-something.

Jozrin? Yeah, Jozrin. Eh, he’d just ask. No big deal.

Good candidate for a field agent, eh? Well, it would take a hell of a lot more than…

He flicked through the pages.

… A meteoric rise through the ranks, a file of commendations so thick it could crush a field-mouse and a letter of recommendation from—

Tybalt goggled. He chugged the beer, draining it in ten brutal seconds. Brimstone? That Brimstone? The sword of yore heart-throb Brimstone? Aw, nuts, she was a good candidate for fieldwork. It was fine. He was fine. Another letter of recommendation. That was good, he told himself. It’s a good thing, to have so many commendations from charr brass.

He was a fool for only bringing one beer.

Blah blah blah, exemplary, blah blah blah, meritorious, signed…

Tybalt choked on a wad of apple. He found the divot under his ribcage and punched, driving it out.

Smodur! That Smodur? Smodur the Flinches Little? Smodur the Depth-Perception Lacking? That wasn’t even her imperator! She wasn’t just a charr, she was the charriest charr to ever charr. He was screwed. He was totally screwed. Charr hated Tybalt. He knew, he was both.

Another letter. Who was it this time, an ancient script from the Khan-Ur’s tomb all about how this Jozra invented the wheel?

Oh? It was for him.

He read the letter.

… Riel.

Huh.

That was…

Huh.

Tybalt pulled parchment and paper from his desk, dipping his claw in the inkwell and gently scratching. Omitting his name was good form. And if he used his real name he assumed the letter would be thrown and shot like a clay pigeon the moment it reached the Citadel.

‘You don’t know me, but I’ve been given to understand you have an interest in apples…’

Renting an apple cart was a difficult business expense to justify, but he made it work.

Tybalt tallied the coin in his palm, slipping it into the lock-box and handing over the bushel of apples. This was nice. When the world wasn’t dying, he might retire and sell apples. He took his post again. She’d be here soon, but looking at the view, that market, the people, he didn’t mind if she was late.

He caught sight of a slender figure down the stone steps. Tybalt just had to find a charr who looked like a shaman, whatever that meant. He wasn’t some zealot, not all shamans are gonna look like Flame Legion rej—

Oh, wow, really?

Dressed like that?

Little on the nose but, whatever, live and let live.

Good grief, she was tall. He brought his palm to his mouth.

“Apples for sale! Get your apples! Fresh apples at low, low prices! Apples for sale!”

One of her ears twitched, a movement he wouldn’t have seen if he wasn’t looking. Ooh, subtle. Good sign, good sign. She turned to face—

Tybalt twitched to throw his paw over his mouth but resisted the urge. He cringed before he could think. He meant to blink some apology for his rudeness but followed her gaze to his arm as she wound her eyes over the mottled burns creeping up and over his partial prosthetic, its bulk obvious. Common ground. Okay! He could work with that. Shared experience is shared experience and, good or bad, it bridges even the most distant points of view. She approached.

She spoke clearly, too clearly, the resonance of overcompensation. Was that painful? It sounded so painful, like her gullet was straining, pulled end to end.

“I’m here to join the secret society?”

Tybalt looked at her from under his brows in dark, stupid silence.

“I’m here to j—?”

“APPLES FOR SALE! APPLES! FRESH— shut up— FRESH APPLES!”

“You shut up.”

Tybalt muttered under his breath. He presented his good paw. “I’m—”

Probationary.

“— Lightbringer Tybalt Leftpaw. ‘Where’d you leave it?’, I hear you ask.”

Silence.

“Uh,” he croaked, “‘where’d you leave it?’, I hear—”

Her voice was deep and blunt, like a blow to the head. “I heard you.”

“... Oh. Okay, yeah. Uh, I like starting with a little joke else people feel awkward about the whole hand… Thing. I mean, with your jaw, I guess you get that.”

His face was stuck in that awkward smile. Hers was not.

“Excuse me?”

“Uh-oh.”

“Care to repeat that?”

“Uh… Yeah, I want to walk out of here alive, so if it’s all the same to you, I don’t think I will.”

She scoffed, a plume of smoke puffing from her nostrils. Oh, that was fun. He’d do that at parties if he could. And if he ever went to any. “I don’t shake hands.”

“Huh? Oh, right, human thing. You live in Lion’s Arch, you pick that up without even thinking. So… What do you do? Hand-clasp, elbow-grab, headbutt, though that’s a little formal… I mean, I’m a hugger if that’s your thing.”

“It’s not.”

“Just a joke. Not saying you should… Oh boy.”

She stood on her claws, rising to her full height and looking over the market. “Where are we going?”

“Whoa, hey, whoa. I’m here to vet you, y’know, figure out if you’re trustworthy? That’s not a two-second process.”

“I’m trustworthy.”

“Oh, you are! Great, ‘cause it’s my job to believe the first thing that comes out of your mouth, welcome aboard. No. It isn’t. You help me, then we start tomorrow all caught up. Got it?”

She walked off.

“Wh— hey! Aren’t you gonna introduce yourself?”

“If you were sent to meet me you already know my name.”

“Fine, J—”

“Not that one.”

He growled. “Lady, if we’re gonna be working together, we’re gonna need to get along.”

“Debatable.”

“What, that we don’t need to get along? What kind of legionnaire are you?”

“No,” she said. “That we’ll be working together when we’re done.”

He laughed, blustering in anger. “Listen, they wouldn’t give your case to me if you were little miss popul—”

She stopped and looked at him, willing him to finish that sentence. His nerve faltered. “Then why did they?”

“Because damn it, I can make this work. We’re going to make this work.”

“Don’t get dirt on my coattails.”

“What the hell is your problem, Ember?”

“‘Emberthroat’.”

“Yeah, that, Heartburn, whatever.”

“I’m shackled to an oaf.”

The nerve of this soldier! The gall!

“You’re worse than shackled,” he said, “you’re damn-near glued to this ‘oaf’. Your admission to the Order relies on you impressing me. That starts with basic courtesy.”

“Impressing you?”

“Yes. I’ll have you know my opinion holds a lot of—”

Provisionary.

“— Weight around here. So don’t go thinking you can suck up by being nice to offset how unpleasant you’ve been.”

“But my admission relies on impressing you.”

Tybalt chewed the inside of his cheek so hard it bled. “And?”

She spun on her heels, staff in hand, arms in a lazy shrug. “I’m as good as in.”

He was yelling. People were looking at them. “Don’t think I’m above throwing an apple straight at your big head!”

And with that, she disappeared down the stairs, expecting him to follow. Well, he wasn’t going to. She clearly wanted to call the shots and that just wasn’t happening, he didn’t toil for years just to be bossed around by some legionnaire who was more chip than shoulder.

… Damn it, she was going the right way.

“I want you to know that I’m following you by coincidence! Not because you told me to!”

“All the same to me, Leftpaw.”

He threw an apple. He hoped it hit her because he heard a thunk.

All that work and Tybalt’s heart was in the hand of this underfed, pyromaniacal nutjob.

“Ah, slag-iron...”

He rubbed his forehead. He glanced up at the people staring at him.

“Don’t mind me! Just had one of those classic… Apple… Spasms. You know how it is.”

They didn’t, but they left him to it. He sighed, glancing up.

“This is a long shot…” he muttered. “Any of you guys gonna help a cat out? You’d have a convert. Balthazar, Melandru, uh… Korma?”

Silence.

“Ah, screw you anyway.”

Tybalt prided himself on his ability to get along with anyone. Absolutely anyone. Except maybe an Elder Dragon. But Tybalt figured that, if it came down to that, he had a whole heap of other problems to worry about, so he didn’t count those.

He held his head in his hands. Finally hitting the field but being stuck with that awful, cruel woman.

It was with a heavy heart, with sorrow, with both grief and trepidation, that he realized this fucking ruled.

Tybalt cut a rope, sending him flying into the crow's nest of the ship with dramatic flair. He landed, turned to the pirate next to him and exclaimed, “did you just see that?”

"Uh—"

Tybalt remembered his duty and kicked her into the sea. Down his sights, he watched Emberthroat drunkenly stumble to the mouth of the cove, Demmi hoisted over her neck like a sandbag.

She did some kind of backflip and a man exploded. Gone. There, then not. Drunk out of her mind with a vocally unhappy human on her back.

Tybalt popped an approaching pirate between the eyes. He congratulated himself on a fantastic shot because she sure as hell wasn’t going to do it when they were done. She gave the signal and they were out. Tybalt, for the drama of it, held a cutlass in his teeth and descended, hooting.

Was this still a stealth mission? He was still in the pirate getup. Probably.

Then she found out he wasn’t really a Lightbringer yet and that took the wind of his sails.

Then he wore a dress.

Then he blew up a guy.

And when it was done, he saw her talking to Demmi at the mouth of the Chantry cave. He readied himself to swoop in with some excuse to save Demmi’s hide but found the conversation was…

Well, a conversation. Demmi said something, then Emberthroat said something, not that he could make it out.

So the problem really was him.

Why was it always him?

When they were done, Demmi walked over, rifle in shaking hands.

“Ah,” said Tybalt, “keep it.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. You’ve got a knack for it and I’ve got munitions to spare. Treat her well.”

“Thank you.”

Demmi vanished into the mouth of the Chantry. Tybalt felt a large, unpleasantly-hot presence and braced himself.

“She’s shrewd,” said Emberthroat.

“I’ll say. Hell of a head on that girl. If I had even half her brains at that age I’d have twice as many paws.”

“Groomed.”

“S’cuse me?”

“She’s been groomed to be like that.”

“Mm," Tybalt agreed. "Minister’s coffers’ll pay for the best tutors in every subject you get.”

“Right.”

“You think we’re being played?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I think she could if she wanted to. But she’s sincere.”

“Look at that! We agree on something.”

“She’s natured like him,” she said, ignoring him. “She’s Caduceus through and through. And she still turned out like that.”

“You make it sound like a big deal,” Tybalt said, raising a brow.

“It is.”

“It’s commendable, yeah,” he said, “but she’s not fighting some curse in a book for cubs— kissing a frog, forcing a charr to wear a pretty dress that really accentuates his bosom— she’s just Demmi. You take all those traits, put them in a bag, shake it up and open it, sometimes you get a Demmi, sometimes you get a Caduceus.”

“I doubt it’s so simple,” she said, ruefully.

Tybalt shrugged. “Why can’t it be?”

She stared into the cave. Emberthroat turned, opened her mouth like she was going to say something but lost heart, letting her mouth hang open. There was a softness in her eyes.

She shook her head and she was back.

“With me, desk-boy.”

He squinted at her.

He was gonna remember that, even when she pretended not to.

Tybalt’s military sheen lost its lustre long ago and he quickly came to realize that it was better to hand over the materials and let Emberthroat set up camp unimpeded. He had other skills, and what he lost could be regained through careful study.

It occurred to him how it looked when she glowered at him, hauling a log on her shoulder as he sat comfortably on a tree-stump.

“Aren’t you going to help?”

He suddenly decided he had studied enough today and that they were eating early. “I was gonna fetch water, hunt something and cook.”

“I prefer my meals still kicking.”

“Trust me. Might not be a soldier anymore but I can hunt, I can fish and I can certainly cook.” Tybalt stood, brushing his hands on his lap. “So, what do you want?”

“Anything, so long as it’s meat.” She let loose some guttural, plosive noise, igniting the campfire. “None of that weird fruit stuff.”

“Got it, got it. You good with rabbit?”

She grunted something he took to mean yes.

It was an odd routine they had.

He’d wake up early, go to the trouble of preparing food, shake her awake and greet her with a big, friendly smile. Then he would laugh when she looked at him like he had just strung her up by the horns to be eaten by an ettin. The nicer the gesture, the more sincere the compliment, the angrier it made her.

Damn it, it felt nice to do the riling for a change. Wasn’t his fault she reacted to his goodwill like a crazy person.

They’d bicker and snipe and mutter, then get out there and do the best work of their lives. Tybalt did the sweet-talking, often the novelty of a mild-mannered charr loosened lips without the need for violence, but he knew how to twist an arm or two.

If the arm-twisting didn’t work he’d step back ten paces, whistle and watch the show. Often with a bag of wine and a snack. It didn’t happen often but when it did, man, she happened the hell out of those guys.

Then he’d say, “good work,” and he’d mean it.

Then she’d get all weird about it.

Tybalt hauled the basket of rabbits to camp, digging his hand in and handing her the still-twitching ones. He skinned, gutted and skewered his, leaving one extra for her to roast over the fire. When they finished eating she tried not to look thankful. She stood, stretching.

“My staff is out of alignment,” she said. “Give me your tools.”

“‘Give me your tools’…?”

“Now.”

He rolled his eyes, gesturing to his bag. “Knock yourself out. If you melt any of ‘em, you’re paying.”

She waved him off, rooting through his belongings. She unfurled his toolbelt, pulling her staff closer and setting it down.

“Seriously,” he muttered, picking at his rabbit, “knock yourself out.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“Real magnanimous.”

Emberthroat looked down the staff’s length like the barrel of a rifle, clucking her tongue. Spying some flaw Tybalt couldn’t place, she fiddled with the ribbons at the top that held the glistering stones.

Humans had an overdeveloped sense of modesty. And it was contagious. The thought of wearing his old gear, the barely-there stuff for kicking around the barracks when he was younger, made Tybalt want to shrivel up and die.

Emberthroat came straight from the Citadel. From an asura gate, too. She didn’t even get the caravan ride.

So when she bent over to get a better angle, he saw everything.

She saw him gawping at her rear—

He saw everything. Everything.

— And didn’t even have the decency to make him feel bad about it. She saw him staring, shrugged and resumed her work. So he got to look some more.

At everything.

He didn’t march over, shuffle down his pants and stick her. Of course not. He bedded women that liked him as much as he liked them. He wasn’t some animal.

When was the last time he...

He counted on his fingers, then his stumps.

… A while.

Paid for it, too, if he remembered...

But did he think about marching over, shuffling down his pants and spearing her like spiced meat on a kebab? Over and over again? Over and over and over and over—

Yeah.

Even when she stood, smoothing over her robe, picking some far-off target in the ocean and hurling a bolt of magma at it. It hit the water with a distant plop. He saw her smile for the first time.

“Better.”

She turned to face him, smile gone.

“I’m turning in for the night. Do you need the fire?”

Tybalt coughed, leaning with one leg on the other, elbow on his knee. Words did not come easy.

“Actually, I was gonna sleep—”

She clapped her hands and the fire dimmed. She lay on her bedroll, tucked her tail over her eyes and remained still. Tybalt did the same, shakily finding his place. The sky went black and the sea went black with it, but sleep didn’t come.

It was biology in action. He had nothing to be ashamed of. Even if she was awful— she was— even if he’d never give her the time of day— he wouldn’t— arousal was a normal, physiological reaction to a viable sexual partner. He approached this scientifically. She was a female charr. He liked female charr. In fact, he considered himself a bonafide female charr appreciator. The soft, swishing tails, all fluffy at the end, the raw strength, the wide shoulders, a nice, big pair of—

His breath hitched.

— Claws! Claws, definitely claws. And if it wasn’t, tonight wouldn’t be the night he unpacked that. Claws.

She was fit, healthy and about his age. And had a nice mane. Strong, shiny horns. No flaking on those at all. Always immaculately groomed. She always smelled real good, too… Fresh, but with a little heat in. Like the dirty burn of a blown-out candle, hydrocarbon writhing to bits ‘til it finally cools.

That smoke, all the time.

That spinning, burling smoke...

Tybalt rolled up a fistful of cloth and jammed it in his mouth. His blood felt like running silk in his hips, pushing and pulling and binding him. He fumbled with his buckle and shoved his good hand in his breeches.

Oh, hell, was he a creep? He didn’t want to be a creep. She was right there. It’s not like he was doing it over her, but...

He was just taking care of something. Like clawing at an itch, or belching. Not pretty, but felt good. A shuffling hand out the corner of your eye was never a big deal in the Citadel, not when you’re holed up with thirty other ‘bandmates. He picked a rationalization and hurled himself headfirst into it.

He drew up some rules.

If he jerked off— quietly— on his bedroll, facing out into the forest, well, that was fine. He could think of her, sure, but it wasn’t about her. He’d take care of business and roll over to sleep.

If he jerked off to her— if he looked at her, stared at her when she was asleep— then he was a creep. He wasn’t a creep. Creeps didn’t have long, protracted debates with themselves regarding the ethics of masturbating over unconscious women.

He glanced back to make sure she was really asleep.

She lay still, facing away. He was glad he filed his horns, didn’t have to contort himself to sleep.

Her robes flopped up and over her thighs, a leg kicked back.

His eyes were drawn to the soft rise and fall of her chest. To the plush fur of her tail.

To that sliver of pink between her hips.

He gasped and rolled back, staring at a knot in a tree. The rag did little to quiet his breathing. The sound of wet friction made all his ears burn and twitch.

Well, great.

Now he was a creep.

No, he thought. He could still save this. He just had to think about something else. There were plenty of charr women out there. He just had to think of them— or make one up, even— get this over with, roll over and sleep before he died of embarrassment. He had to think of anything but her thighs. The soft fur of her legs. How it would feel to cram his head between them. He had to think of anything but that.

Anything.

Anything but how she might grab his horns, tightening her grip and squeezing his neck as he ate her alive.

Anything.

Anything, like…

Like...

Anything but her mouth. Snarled and downturned and scowling at him, her lips guarding misaligned, shredding teeth, opening softly to peck his cheek, his forehead, his lips. Maybe throwing him a damn compliment every once in a while, nothing lavish, but he did a lot more than she gave him credit for, that stuck-up snob, that bull-headed, intolerant woman, that soft— she looked really soft...

Maybe being a creep wasn’t so bad. He could start a group. He and a bunch of other slimy bastards could get together and feel disgusting. All the creepy people.

He’d call them creeple!

She’d take that mouth of hers and drag it slowly down his body. Over his neck, his nipples, his hips. Then she’d wrap those lips around—

He winced. Gah, no, no, not with those fangs! Even in his dreams, he couldn’t make that work.

… Her tongue?

Yeah, the little crook in her tongue… That’d feel nice. All warm and wet. The spikes’d nip a little but hey, that might be fun...

He licked his thumb until it was drenched, rubbed it over his prick and imagined. He sported a fluttering, shaky smile. Yeah. Real nice. He’d be in a bar, and he’d say ‘you come here often?’ and something to break the ice, something she’d be all over. Something Tybalt didn’t know because he hadn’t figured it out yet, but it would definitely work.

She had really pretty eyes… He didn’t know what shaman eyes typically looked like, they were always on fire when he shot them, but man… He figured hers were special. She could stomp and huff and smoulder about being a pyromancer all she wanted, but there was a little sea in ‘em.

Ember’d take him by the paws, he had both, to some swanky hotel by the water, the kind that leaves mints on pillows. She’d turn to him with those seafoam eyes and purr, ‘there are mints on the pillows,’ and he’d purr, ‘this hotel is swanky’ and then he’d mount her like a wild animal and put her head through the bed-frame. From the front, or from the back?

Tybalt squeezed his eyes shut. The rag nearly fell from his mouth when he moaned but he caught it in time. He focused again, thinking about the big bed, the view, her opalescent eyes.

Her fat ass.

Behind. Front after. In the morning. After some water and a snack. Not breakfast, that’d be too big. A handful of chicken livers, or something. A few apples.

Did she like apples?

He hoped she liked apples.

“Focus, Tybalt,” he muttered, “focus...”

She’d like apples, lead him to the bed, push him back and climb on. She’d pull her robes aside and sit on him, but they’d be so bunched up he couldn’t see what was going on. That was important. He’d feel every little thing but wouldn’t see. She’d pant in his ear. Scratch up his horns a little. Stroke him. Bite him. Stick a finger in his ass.

Tybalt slowed, missing his rhythm before catching up.

“Huh. That’s… New.”

She didn’t speak to him often but he could hear her voice in his head, oh, that buttery, contralto voice… He could make her say anything he wanted. Whatever twisted thing crossed his mind.

“You looked nice today,” she’d say. “It warms my heart to see you so happy. I’m glad we get to spend time together, I always look forward to seeing you.”

Yes! Yes, the really sick shit!

“I want you. I need you.”

She’d lean down, they’d take a quiet moment in the middle, and she’d purr.

“I love you.”

He shot six feet and pulled a muscle in his thigh, squeaking her name into the rag. Tybalt blinked, exhausted. He followed the trail. Yeah. End-to-end, six feet.

“Damn,” he said. Tybalt flopped back, spent. “Damn. Damn…”

Tybalt giggled, adrift in a sea of endorphins. He felt himself slowly sink, headfirst, into sleep, his blood still fizzing in his veins, bumping against his arteries and making him squirm and shiver.

The pleasant fog faded. Reality hit like a sledgehammer to his neck.

Creeple.

He looked over at her, still and facing away, gently breathing. He slammed his paw over his face.

She had completely overtaken his fantasies.

Now Tybalt wasn’t a prude by any means. But he was set in his ways. He’d tug himself off two, maybe three times a week, nothing extravagant. Tybalt didn’t really ‘do’ extravagant, or at least didn’t do ‘over the top.’

He had masturbated every night, on the dot, for three weeks. Viciously. He was pulling muscles he didn’t know he had. He was fighting himself and winning and losing all at once.

They’d argue over something stupid; he’d ‘improve’ a plan and forget to tell her, she’d storm in and disregarding whatever threadbare plan they had anyway. They’d bicker ‘til they were hoarse, bunker down and Tybalt would thrash himself raw. He didn’t know if it was the frustration, or proximity, or what it was. He didn’t even know if it was healthy. But he did it anyway. And it’d be amazing.

There was something in there. And he didn’t know what to call it, or even what it was, but there was something in there when she let her guard down. When she woke up, or read something, or looked out over the horizon. When she wasn’t looking at him.

But it was definitely there.

Every time, every single time, he’d mutter and thrash and moan about how it couldn’t possibly— not in million years— feel better than it did at that moment.

Then the high would wear off.

Then he’d feel guilty.

Then it’d happen again and it’d feel even better. He’d notice more about her. Little mundane things. Maybe her hips. Her muscular shoulders, toned chest. He liked a well-built lady.

Her eyes.

Her eyes...

No matter the problem, no matter the absurdly mismatched assignment they’d muddle through and somehow, through some miracle, align. Of all the neophyte Lightbringers they were by far the most successful. Two charr helping a tribe of grawl find god. It was a setup and a punchline all in one.

On their last check-in, Marco asked if they wanted to break away and find other partners.

“No,” Emberthroat blurted before Tybalt could consider the question. And he did. And then what she said sank in. He looked at her quizzically, looking for that something. Yeah. There it was.

He squinted.

What the hell was that?

“Yeah,” Tybalt said. “Yeah. Not ‘yeah’ as in ‘transferring’, yeah as in… Uh, ‘yeah’. We’re sticking together.”

Her posture loosened a little. She brushed her mane back.

Marco, not paid enough to untangle whatever this was, filed away their report and handed them their next. Something about quaggan. The papers crumpled, the text completely illegible save for ‘Falooaloo’ and ‘bad ice’. Tybalt made out flipper-prints.

The trek took days. It was gruelling, painful and stripped the skin from his paws. ‘Bad ice’ was difficult to find, all this ice was terrible.

Emberthroat spoke to him, unprompted, on the fifth day.

“Leftpaw?”

Tybalt was so engrossed in his work that he barely noticed. Pins sat between his teeth, his prosthetic arm waterlogged and rusting at the hinges, chewed at by the cold and the moisture in the air. He tinkered at the joints, taking care not to slip and drive a pin into his lap. “Hm?”

“What do you know about the quaggan?”

His ears bobbed and pointed towards her. She held a book, covered in runes he couldn’t parse and still open in her hands, as if the question dropped out of her with no warning.

Tybalt slipped the bulk of his arm inside the glove and clipped it into place with dense, heavy snaps, conceding there were things he simply couldn’t do without a workbench. “Quaggan, quaggan… Well, they’re amphibious, but given we’re packing rebreathers I’m sure you already guessed that. Monotheistic, legendary fighters, what else… Only ever call themselves ‘quaggan’, ‘me’ or ‘I’ is vulgar so it makes keeping track of who’s who a nightmare.” He lit up. “Oh, and the calves are cute as buttons.”

“Hm.”

“Uh…”

He blustered, looking around, finding something to keep the fire going. “There’s another cloak in my backpack,” he said, nodding to it, “if you need to borrow it. How do norn live like this? You think the fur would help us out, huh?”

She got that cagey look in her eyes. Ah, must be something about her powers. Tybalt pitied her, he guessed. Emberthroat looked around, picking at her claws, and forced something out to Tybalt’s surprise.

“... I don’t get cold.”

Tybalt raised his brows. “Ever?”

“As far as I’m aware.”

“That’s…”

She flinched as if struck.

“Pretty cool,” said Tybalt. “I was never any good at that magic stuff. That’s really interesting.”

Emberthroat studied him. He couldn’t parse her expression but he figured he at least owed her something for that factoid. Reassurance, acknowledgement, something. He had plenty of legitimate reasons to dislike her and he wasn’t going to buy into the High Legion’s bigotry.

“So, that a pyromancer thing or a general elementalist thing?”

“... I don’t know,” she admitted.

“Really?”

“It’s illegal for magic-users to congregate in or around the Citadel.”

Tybalt’s brow set in a deep, deep frown. “I didn’t know that.”

“How many magic-users did you know?”

He shook his head. “... Huh. Yeah, you’re right. That’s… Depressing. So you’re self-taught?”

“Yes.”

“You’re very good.”

“I know.”

He chuckled. “Humble, too. Thanks for sharing,” he said, making a point to meet her gaze. “Uh… I don’t want to pry, but that’s clearly a big deal f—”

“Quaggan fight?” she asked, curt.

Tybalt blinked, finding his train of thought. “See,” he said, “that’s the thing. They’re pacifists. If we walked into the village and asked them to move they would pack up their whole lives just to avoid drawing blood.”

“Then why don’t they do that?”

Tybalt shook his head. “They did. A hundred times. They have nowhere else. Krait on one side, dragon-minions on the other. Slavery or slavery, but, uh... Colder. I feel for them. I can’t imagine what that’s like. Maybe let me do the talking.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, when I say ‘pacifist’, what I really mean is ‘conflict-averse’. And when I say ‘conflict-averse’, I mean ‘disagreement-averse’. And when I say ‘disagreement averse’ I really just mean ‘averse to anything even kind of unpleasant’. They’ll accommodate anything if they think they’re being ‘polite’. All it takes is one poorly thought out conversation to get a lot of innocent quaggan killed.”

“And you’re implying I’m not sensitive?”

“No,” he said, quickly, palms up, “no, no, no. Not at all, no. That’s too subtle. I’m telling you you’re not sensitive.”

She harrumphed. Tybalt suppressed a little laugh.

“So if the Icebrood get them,” she said, “Jormag gains an army of nigh-unkillable, super strong, water-breathing soldiers?”

“Correct.”

“And if we get them... We get conflict-averse pacifists who would rather move than fight?”

“Yes. Well... ‘Mooooove’.”

“You don’t see anything wrong with that?”

Tybalt’s hackles raised, making him look puffy and soft and not threatening in the least, to his ire. “Don’t think we’ve got the right to call it ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. It is what it is. They need help, we can give help. That’s all it needs to be. And if they help us, well, that’s a bonus.”

Emberthroat held her chin, cool and distant. He already knew what she was going to say. He kept quiet in case he was wrong. But he knew.

“Then they’re a liability,” she said. “All the resources we pour into an army that can’t even fight could go somewhere else. Beyond that, if we lose them to Jormag, we have a real problem. Aren’t they better off dead—?”

“Are you gonna do it?” he said, firmly.

Emberthroat clicked her tongue. “I wasn’t done.”

“No,” Tybalt said, “you are. Are you gonna do it?”

“Well—”

“So this village sends for help and instead of, I don’t know, helping them, you propose killing them? What’s wrong with you? No, don’t answer, because I already know.” He threw his arm up. “Unbelievable. I don’t even know what to say.”

She chewed her cheek, smoke trickling from her mouth. “I’m not saying it’s pretty, but—”

“I’m not even entertaining this. Never. Never, ever. Go to sleep.”

With that, he rolled over, pulling his cloak over himself. She could hear him grit his teeth, hackles perfectly straight.

“I don’t get you,” she said.

“You’ve made that abundantly clear. That’s what I get for working with a charr. You’re all like this.”

She snorted. “‘You’? ‘We’, Tybalt. You’re a charr. File your horns, you won’t ever be a human.”

“I don’t want to be human.”

“Then what do you want? Why all...” she waved her paw dismissively. “This?”

“To do good. That’s all. Something you clearly don’t understand.”

“It’s a thought exercise.”

“That revolves around killing innocent people. Don’t pretend you didn’t mean every damn word.”

“And what if I did? I'm right.”

Tybalt’s thoughts turned to blood and bile. He didn’t ward them off this time, let his voice raise and his teeth bare because damn it, damn it all, he was right. He was yelling at her, his brother, his sister, his legionnaire, hundreds of them, hundreds of hers who just weren’t worth the effort. “All the best heroes cut down civilians, yeah, I get it. Congratulations. I’m sure you’ll go far without me cramping your style with my— what was it— morals?”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so sanctimonious.”

“You’re willing to sell out everything and everyone just to make things easier for you. Y’know what, I don’t claim to understand Elder Dragons, but they might not know what they’re doing. You have a choice. You know what that makes you?”

“Smarter.”

“Worse.”

She made a weird noise. Tybalt hurt the feelings she apparently had.

“When we get back,” he said, “I’m transferring. We’re done here. I can’t be around someone who thinks the way you do and thinks it’s fine. Don’t talk to me. Don’t even look at me. We’re done.”

With that, he finally rolled over. The fire popped. He heard it wheeze and stutter in time with her breathing and he didn’t care.

She sounded small.

“We do good work.”

“Now it’s ‘we’. You’re something else, you know that? I thought maybe, for a minute, you might have something resembling a heart in there. Well, I’m sorry for making that mistake and I’m sorry for burdening you with this 'oaf’.”

“They’ll make you a desk clerk again. You need me.”

“You know what, in some weird way, I thought we were friends. My warband had to be around me and they made it clear they hated every minute. You… You could have left whenever. But you didn’t. You stayed. That means you’re the closest thing to a friend I’ve ever had.” Tybalt swallowed thickly. He felt his head fill, rubbing his eyes. “Isn’t that pathetic?”

She sounded like she was... Pleading?

“You don’t have anyone else.”

“I’ve got me. If that’s all I ever get, fine. I’ll live with me. You’ve gotta live with being you. And I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

The air was thick, claggy with anger. Emberthroat retreated to her side of the fire and sat in silence. From the moon, Tybalt guessed an hour had passed. The flames groaned and snapped.

Emberthroat gently shook his shoulder. “Leftpaw. Are you awake?”

“No,” he grunted.

“Talking like that. Thinking like that. It’s all I was trained to do.”

“Yeah. Me too. That’s why it’s a bad excuse.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m here to apologize. For what I said. For how I’ve been acting.”

Tybalt paused. The anger was still there, but confusion buffed the worst of it. He looked at her, her shattered jaw, her gem. The remorse in her eyes.

Charr like her… Didn’t really apologize. He’d never been apologized to.

“You aren’t… Gonna make some excuse?” he scoffed. “‘Charr way’, or whatever?”

“It is the charr way.”

“There it is...”

“It doesn’t excuse it. They won’t demote you. And you aren’t an oaf. I wanted to hurt your feelings. I know I’m still here because you’ve been putting up with me. They like you. I’m there. I kill things. Anyone can kill things.”

“Don’t try to guilt me. That ain’t gonna fly. You kneaded your grass and now you’ve gotta lie in it.”

“I’m stating facts,” she said.

“You’ll be fine in Ascalon. You fit in there.”

“No. No, I don’t.”

She scratched her neck. Her expression would harden then she’d let it slip, over and over. Tybalt bet that she didn’t even know she did that. Stuck cycling between fear, then nothing, then fear again.

“I thought it was an act, you know. This whole time. I wondered what your angle was. What you wanted. Pretending to be nice, like that. To everyone. To me. Even me. One of your jokes that I just couldn’t get in on.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because I don’t, and have never, deserved it.”

His heart twisted in his chest.

Shit.

“When you shake that bag and tip it out,” she continued, “sometimes you don’t get a Demmi. Sometimes you get another Caduceus. And I thought I made peace with that. And you screwed that all up for me.”

“I…”

Tybalt sat up, scratching his mane and averting his eyes.

“Look… Look, we’ve had our disagreements, but I’m not gonna begrudge you basic courtesy.”

“You should. You were right. I wondered what your breaking point was. What little thing would set you off and blow your act to bits. But it’s not an act at all, is it? You really are… Nice, aren’t you? No strings attached.”

“Not as nice as you think I am. Damn it, I...”

He rubbed his forehead.

“I don’t know the procedure for transferring,” she said, “but I’ll vouch for you. You’re good at what you do. And you really can get along with just about anyone. Your new partner will be lucky. So I just… Wanted to say all that before I go.”

“Why have you been acting like this?”

She wrung her robes. “... Envy.”

He blustered. “What? Why?”

“You have a lot to envy,” she said, surprised he would ask such an obvious question.

“That isn’t fair.”

“I… I know,” Emberthroat admitted. Her movements were less guarded, her expressions plainer, even her voice seemed a little different, rounding her harsher consonants off with a slight lisp. “It’s so childish, saying it out loud. You make it seem so easy.”

“‘It’?”

Emberthroat chewed on her top lip, opening a well-bitten scab. “Being like you.”

“I mean,” he said, “have you tried?”

“Being like you?”

“No,” he said, quickly, “no, no. Not like me. One of me’s already too much.”

Emberthroat moved to speak but stopped, unsure of what to say. She tilted her head. She squeezed his shoulder again and, in a fit of impulse, stroked his cheek. Tybalt’s mouth dried, a torrent of disparate emotions flooding him. Before he could pick one and stick with it she crawled away to sleep, leaving him with a lingering look.

Tybalt wasn’t sure how much she really slept, but he didn’t. He rose when the sky tinted and attended to the mundane business of outdoor existence. When he was done he stood over Emberthroat. He picked up her staff and poked her shoulder with the pointier end. “Psst. Hey. Up and at ‘em.”

She roused. She looked at him, bleary, her blue eyes a whole lot redder. He suppressed the pang of guilt.

“Caught a couple fish,” he said, “got the scales off.” He held one out to her. “Top half, right?”

She looked at it, weary, taking it and gnawing on the head. “Yeah. The eyes are the best part.”

Tybalt shuddered. “If you say so. Heh, really do think I’ve been out of the Cit too long.” He took a mouthful of raw meat, bones jabbing at the inside of his mouth. He swallowed painfully. “I prefer them cooked, but we don’t have the time.”

Emberthroat swooped forward with leonine speed and snatched the fishtails from his paw.

“Hey!” Tybalt barked, “I already gave you your—”

She carved deep crosses in the meat with her claws, brought them to her mouth and blew, producing a flame as tight and focused as a welder’s torch. The meat curled, splitting from bone. She flipped it and did the same again, charring the skin black and the meat white. Emberthroat gingerly handed it back.

“Oh,” he said. “I should have figured you could do that.”

“It is in the name.”

He took a bite. He smiled. “That is better. Thanks.”

She ate her fish in silence, bathed and packed up her belongings, hands shaking. She hauled her satchel over her shoulder and walked away, not looking back.

“Where are you going?” Tybalt called.

She stopped.

“The village is this way. We better get a move on. Y’know, quaggan to save? We’re already late.”

Tybalt couldn’t see her face.

"Right."

She jogged to catch up, jangling with pots and potions, not meeting his gaze. The red tinge had spread to her cheeks, the thin band of skin under her eyes before her thick fur started in earnest.

Embarrassment. That’s normal. Well, Tybalt wasn’t one to hold grudges, not with that paw. He reached over and clapped her shoulder, twice, keeping it there. “Hey,” he said, “let’s get in there and show them what we can do.”

Her breath quickened at his touch. The red bloomed to a deep scarlet. “Why are you doing this?”

“You aren’t the only one who’s been acting like a jackass,” he said. “But if we tally marks we’ll be here all year. So let’s skip it and get right to the fresh start, huh?”

He presented his hand to shake.

“I’m—”

Exemplary.

“— Lightbringer Tybalt Leftpaw. ‘Where’d you leave it?’, I hear—”

Emberthroat grasped it, fumbled the grip and instinctually headbutted him, a short, sharp bonk that rattled her more than him. She walked on ahead, leaving the faint scent of smoke on his fur.

“Hey”, said Tybalt, thoroughly amused. “What kind of introduction is that? Aren’t you gonna give me your—?”

She threw her head over her shoulder to bark at him. It didn’t feel like sniping, not with the way she stammered.

“You already know my name!”

Tybalt watched her go, hand on his hip. The proof would be in saving those quaggan and they’d go from there, but from prior experience...

A period of weeks is a long time for a first impression but y’know, he figured she wasn’t so bad.

Bombs really were a work of art.

Firearms were amazing feats of engineering, sure, but they just weren’t the same. They operated on the same principles.

But they weren’t the same.

Load a gun, aim and fire. There are variables with a gun. Powder quality, wind, hell, even the factory that cast the metals all go into a shot.

Only one of two things ever happen with a bomb.

And they’re easy to remember.

The air becomes overpressurized.

Every infinitesimal speck turned inside out and fired like a hundred billion bullets from a hundred million guns in all directions.

Every molecule, an invisible bullet.

Then there are the shockwaves. There’s no way to prevent a shockwave hitting. Magic, protective clothing, nothing. A lot of the time, they make them worse. And the waves pick up debris and throw it at whatever poor bastard is still standing.

That’s fragmentation.

Then those fragments break into fragments.

That’s secondary fragmentation.

Then the change in air pressure sucks all that shrapnel back in.

The bomb-blast isn’t over when the explosion dissipates. The shockwave hits, saturates and unfurls in the body. Black powder steeping like tea in innards.

In bones.

In whatever fingers are left.

It’s cold, too. He’d spent so long around Emberthroat that he almost forgot fire was supposed to be hot. Taking a shockwave is belly-flopping in ice water from thirty feet up. It’s freezing, it’ll probably kill you and if it didn’t you’ll sure as hell wish it did.

When the shockwave hit him, it hit him anew.

It wasn’t natural, what he did.

What he knew how to do, had been doing this whole time.

That’s what art does, he reckoned. Does what nature just can’t do.

Was he dead?

He felt dead.

Tybalt looked around at the dozens of skritt scuttling too and fro, chirruping and barking and speaking so fast he couldn’t hear. He probably wasn’t dead and if he was he was in one of the weirder afterlives. His body was a blur to him, arms shaking in front of his eyes.

One was handing him… A spoon? He didn’t want— oh, to keep? It was shiny, he guessed. He supposed he better take it.

He swallowed his tears and they clumped in his black-powder throat. He was going to choke to death. All that and he was going to choke.

“Hey.”

He looked up at Emberthroat. She stood battered, bruised, her well-groomed mane clumped around her neck, her robes black at the edges. She gripped her ribs and slowly sat to join him. This was the closest thing to failure they courted, both at a profound disadvantage against destroyers. It was only through luck that they were alive, and they still lost the village.

“If you’re here to tell me to suck it up, I don’t want to hear it, alright?”

She sat, looking at him, and didn’t say anything.

“Let me run through the options,” he said. “‘Pull yourself together’, ‘weakling’, ‘quit bellyaching for once in your miserable life’. Yeah, I’ve heard them all. Now pick one and leave me to cry. I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“Well, I will be. I bet you want to take me down a peg, huh? Come on,” he goaded. “Do it. Call me weak. Call me pathetic. We won and I’m crying like a cub. Do it.”

She looked at him softly. They were testing each other. To see how bad it could get. To see when they could peacefully kill whatever thing they were nurturing and move on.

“Please,” he begged. “Call me weak. Spit on me. Hit me. Something.”

“Why do you want that?”

“I don’t want it, it’s just… It’s just what you do, y’know? It’s just what happens. Not ‘you’ you, but…”

"You never did tell me about your warband."

He scoffed so hard it sounded like the bark of a beaten pup. He clung tightly to her ribs. He didn’t mean to, and she let out a hiccup when he did.

“Oh, Leftpaw, look, I’m not really much of…”

Her face softened. How pathetic did he look, to inspire that expression? She stroked his cheek again. Emberthroat’s eyes drifted to his lips, brow furrowed as if she was tossing over some notion. She shook her head, taking the whim with it. She rested her chin on his forehead, embracing him with a sigh.

Both of them were stuck orbiting some fixed point in their lives, bumping against one another and taking up their loops like planets stuck to dire suns. Marked. Changed. He looked at her eyes, those nice, blue eyes, and saw recognition. He wasn’t going to ask. She wouldn’t tell him. Just like he wouldn’t tell her, either. Tybalt wiped his eyes. The judders that threatened to squeeze his stomach out of his mouth lessened to manageable shakes. “You get it, huh?”

She adjusted her position, grasping tighter. Her teeth jabbed him, her jaw clicked and crunched.

Tybalt felt safe in a way he didn’t know he needed.

“Yeah,” she admitted.

“Think you can make the shot?”

Tybalt peered down his rifle. “Little dicey.”

“You’ve made harder.”

“That I have, but fending off pirates is a whole other sport. Only get one shot here.”

He braced his paw to the trigger. The deer chewed at the grass. Emberthroat’s breath puffed at his ears, her voice low and rasping. He cleared his throat, distracted.

“We could rush it and tear it to bits.”

“We could,” he said, “but it’s hardly sporting.”

“The deer will be dead either way. I doubt it cares.”

“I care,” he said. “Come on now, we’ve all got hobbies.”

“Fine,” she chuckled, “but if I miss out on fresh meat because of your chivalry I’ll—”

The crack of the rifle rang out across the plain, reverberating on the trees and scattering the herd, a flurry of legs and thrashing bodies bounding away from them. Tybalt stood, paw to brow, and grinned.

“Right in the neck,” Tybalt crowed, pointing at the twitching deer. “Quick, clean and painless.”

“I’ll be damned.” She clapped his shoulder. “Good shot.”

Colour flooded his cheeks. “Aw, shucks...”

“Dibs on the guts.”

“Eurgh, you can keep ‘em. I’ll take the flank and loin, we’ll dry the rest. When have you ever seen me go for the gut?”

She smiled, dropping down the incline and landing on all-fours. She stayed in that pose, craning her neck back to shout at him. “I don’t want to be caught short the day you start.”

Tybalt tentatively braced a paw to the hill, slipped and fell, landing beside her with a thump. Emberthroat pretended she didn’t see. As he righted himself she bound away and had already punctured its belly and eaten the liver by the time he arrived. Tybalt hauled it back to camp over his shoulder, let it hit the ground with a crack, skinned and cooked his share, saving some flesh to dry for rations. He looked out over the horizon, at the distant purple glimmer of the brand, at the fires of the ogre camps, at the picked-clean skeletons of discarded tanks and charr outposts. He picked his teeth, full. “Feels weird, being back here.”

Emberthroat nodded to where he was looking, eating a loin he ‘accidentally’ left out. “Ebonhawke?”

“Mhmm. The siege. Off and on, two years or so. Not to ruin the surprise,” he said, “but we didn’t win.”

Emberthroat laughed, bundling the last strips of meat down her gullet. “Which one of these camps is ours?”

“None, we’ve got a ways yet. Wouldn’t want to knock on the door to the wrong kraal.”

“Think we’ll hit trouble? The war didn’t end for everyone.”

“Why’d you think we’re taking the long route? Renegades, separatists, they’re stretched too thin for the normal military rigmarole. We’re gonna be hard-pressed to find patrols. If we keep a low profile we’ll be fine. Plus I figure we can bluff our way past any charr separatists we find.”

“Let me do the talking if we do.”

“You know,” he said, “I didn’t want to be mean about it...”

She chuckled. “Hey, Leftpaw. C’mere.”

“‘Come here'…?”

“Now.”

He rolled his eyes. He stood and walked over, sitting beside her. She turned to face away.

“Oh,” he said. “Uh, are you… Sure?”

“We’ve known each other for months. It’s weird that we haven’t.”

“I… I guess it is, yeah. Let me tell you, you stop offering real quick in Lion’s Arch. Not the done thing outside of charr—”

“Well, we aren’t in Lion’s Arch and we are charr.”

She unclasped her pauldrons, slipping them off. Her breastplate followed, leaving her naked back, streaked with welts and scars, under Tybalt. She loosened the strings of buns along her mane, letting it fall and curtaining her head. She shivered when his breath reached her neck.

“If you don’t want—”

“No,” he said, “no. This is one of the few things I missed. Uh...” His hands hovered over her shoulders, her back. What was the best way to do this? He was cleaning her, not blindly groping—

She gripped his hands, pulled them around her waist and yanked him forward until his head shunted the back of hers. He lay flush to her, her body fitting snugly in the divots of his chest. He wondered if she could feel his heart thunder through the fabric of his shirt.

“Thanks,” he croaked.

“You’d be there all day,” she grunted. “Start between my shoulder blades.”

He complied. He groomed her, his snout to her skin, his tongue dragging lines over her fur. She was soft. She even tasted nice. A little like a burnt match. Emberthroat groaned when he passed a particularly sensitive scar.

“You’ve got a lot of these,” he murmured.

“I should. I am Blood Legion, after all.”

“Most Bloods… Have ‘em on the front.”

“They do, don’t they..."

He stroked her shoulder.

"Hold on," she said, "let me re-adjust.”

She scooted backwards to get comfortable, sitting on his hard cock. Emberthroat froze.

Oh shit.

Oh fuck.

Here she was extending an offer of friendship and he made it weird. “Sorry about—”

“It’s fine,” she said, in an odd tone of voice. “It happens. Not like you can help it. You like females, right?”

“Right,” he said, somehow more embarrassed. “It’s—”

“Natural, yeah. Like if I groomed you and got turned on. It’s instinct.”

“Yeah. Instinct.”

“Do my neck. Under my ears.”

He did. His horns jostled hers. Tybalt panted and bit her, hands clawing at her waist. “Sorry,” he murmured. “Burn me, it’s been so long.”

“It’d be fine, right?”

It was getting so hard to think. He felt some pressure on his pelvis. Was she wet? Was that all him? “What would be?”

“If I groomed you. If I got turned on.”

Don’t be desperate don’t be desperate if she moved again he was going to cum buckets. She stood, leaving him splayed underneath. Before he could protest and hide his shame she sat on him again, this time facing him. “What do you want?”

He couldn’t imagine how red he looked. “Do whatever you’re comfortable with.”

She cleaned his neck, running her hands over his muscles, under his shirt.

"Touch me."

He held her hips.

“Show me your cock,” she murmured.

His brain was gone.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” he said, “I’m very clean.”

“... Leftpaw?”

“Yeah?”

She looked so, so tired. “This is a come-on. I’m coming onto you.”

Tybalt looked at the half-naked female nestled firmly on his lap, demanding he touch her and grinding on his prick.

“Burn me!” he exclaimed, with the same exuberant tone he would sport after solving a difficult crossword. “So it is!”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

She gripped him by the horns like an unruly bull and smashed her head to his, yanking him into a terrible, too-wet kiss. She tasted like fresh blood, his kill still on her tongue, stirring something in Tybalt and conjuring some electric fuzz in the back of his head. Her teeth poked sharply at his muzzle and when she peeled herself off she had to flick away saliva. He blustered like he had a mouth full of feathers.

“Leftpaw, I have had to put up with you jerking off to me and you don’t even have the decency to make the first move! Do you have any idea how aggravating that is? How aggravating you are?”

A sheepish smile spread across his face. “Oh. Whoops.”

“I’ve wanted to— I’ve been thinking about y— ugh, how are you so, so oblivious?”

“I’m not used to being fawned over by pretty ladies!”

Her ears shot up at ‘pretty’. She covered her face, as red as him. “Shut up! Just— ugh— stay still!” She gripped his prick with a level of force that approached painful, squeezing the fabric so hard she felt his heartbeat. “This is mine now,” she snarled. “Got it?”

Tybalt looked at her, paws tucked politely to his side.

“... Okay!” he chirped.

She shoved him back and bundled up her robes, just enough to get them out of the way. She looked furious, shredding at his belt buckle. “Tell me when you’re gonna cum.”

“Wait,” he blinked, “wait, wait, wait, I dunno if that’s a good—”

His claws found her breasts again, then her hips, her legs, her horns, anything he could get a handle on.

He could feel her breathe.

“What?” she panted.

“Just some gentle encouragement,” he squawked, eyes shut, “go for it, engage, whatever, just do it and do it now.”

“Tell me when you’re gonna cum.”

“I will! I’ll crawl over hot coals naked, just move already!”

His nerves became alight, feeling rippling like fireworks, bursting from his core and drifting down his limbs like settling soot.

This, what was happening right now, was already a terrible idea. A fantastic, soft, wet, terrible, stupid, great idea— how did she feel that warm— but finishing inside her was absolutely a no-no. Absolutely, categorically, one hundred per cent not happening. He had been a part of enough terrible plans to sense one right out the gate.

… Maybe not that bad.

He scowled at himself. No! It was! Stupid biology, yes, it was! He had a higher brain for a reason!

She found her rhythm, arching back— oh no that felt even better.

“Harder, harder, more, more—!”

“Ember,” he croaked, “it’s a finite amount.”

“More, more, fucking more!”

“I know you’re not in the right mindset to hear this but the well is dry. You’ve got all I can give.”

She clenched her teeth and punched the earth, one claw on each side of his head. He watched the ground swallow them up to her wrists and thought about gently applauding before he figured out what it was she was doing.

“If you do that,” he pleaded, “I dunno how long I can hold—”

Emberthroat used her grip to leverage her entire body against his, driving him deeper and harder inside her. She was gonna wear him away to nothing. His hips were gonna be so bruised he’d have a hard time walking.

Tybalt worked frantically to think of something, anything. Something distracting, but easy enough to remember that he could recite it even when she did—

She drove herself down again, forcing a long, loud shout from his mouth.

— Even when she did that.

There are many kinds of steel, each with their own unique applications. In metallurgy, there is no such thing as one size fits all.

She cried out, pleading to be touched, held, pinned down.

Now austenitic steel, that’s the go-to for Iron Legion, rightfully so. Ah, good old eighteen-eight. Eighteen per cent chromium, eight per cent nickel. Tough, sturdy and near-impervious to rust. Of course, ferritic chromium has its uses, Tybalt had endured many heated conversations about it and chloride stress-corrosion tanks a tank faster than anyone could say ‘you were right, Tybalt’.

Hey, this was working!

“Leftpaw,” she murmured, “I’m so close, please—”

Shit, nevermind.

Emberthroat went rigid on top of him, crying out, and when he— whoa! Whoa, that was what that felt like. Real… Grippy. Like a slow, firm squeeze. Aw, she looked happy. That was nice.

She flopped heavily on his chest, panting. Finally, a break. He couldn’t keep that up, he could pretend he had some stamina and wasn’t hanging on tooth and claw.

“Stay still,” she barked, “I’m not done.”

“You don’t need a break?”

“No.”

He lamented. “Are you a machine?”

Nickel steels! Nickel, good, reliable, not-sexy nickel. Four per cent, or roundabouts. Scale resistant, good for machining.

“Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me—”

“I’m doing it, lady!”

Tybalt was glad he was already a qualified engineer because this woman screaming his name and riding him like a mechanical bull made it remarkably difficult to focus on basic metallurgic principles.

“Leftpaw,” she gasped, “Leftpaw, Leftpaw—!”

— Austenitic stainless steels were corrosion-resistant. Heat-resistant, too. Useful, strong and damn-near unbreakable, but pricey. It’s good for piping, shafts, drills…

He swallowed thickly. She guided his hand to rub that sliver of pink between her hips.

“You want me to talk dirty, Leftpaw?”

No! No, that would only make the problem worse!

“Yeah,” he stammered.

Gah!

“How dirty?”

Plain! Barely-there!

“Gimme your all. As dirty as it gets.”

Great. He was going to last fifteen seconds and it was going to be his own fault.

“Mm, you’re moaning like some two-copper scorta with bills to pay. I like that.”

“Oh. You know. I… I try. I’d be the expensive kind. Upmarket.”

“Yeah,” she purred, “you would. Everyone would want a turn on you. They wouldn’t get it. You know why?”

“Why?”

“You’re mine. I…”

For a moment, a single, solitary moment, she let her guard down. She looked just as blundering and inept as he felt. Whatever lust she meant to put behind those words fell apart and Tybalt realized that they were the same, she was just better at hiding it. And she let it happen.

To him.

For him.

“I need you, y’know?”

He couldn’t cry during sex. He couldn’t. This was every fantasy he had come true and he couldn’t ruin it with his stupid—

“Oh,” he warbled, holding back tears, “that’s nice. That’s swell of you.”

“Leftpaw?”

“Yeah?”

Emberthroat kissed his cheek, moving slowly. “You don’t do this a lot, do you?”

“How could you tell?”

“Well, you started crying and calling things ‘swell’.”

“Please go back to talking dirty.”

She grinned, an apex predator on prey. “You like that? You— fucking— like that?”

He wanted to pin her down and whisper all the dirty, filthy things he’d been thinking about her. Run her through the list, moment-by-moment, make her squirm and beg for all of them.

“Yuh-huh,” he honked.

He could feel her suppressing laughter, on the inside. Her expression didn’t change. That Blood Legion conditioning was really pulling its weight. “You like it when I do this? Huh?”

“Mhmm…”

“You fucking like it, you slut? You like being used?”

“Just said so. Twice, even. It’s cute that you check-in,” he said.

“It’s not cute. It’s sexy.”

“Protesting? Downright adorable. You’re actually a big softie, huh? Put up a tough front all you like, I’ve seen what’s under there.”

She gripped his mane and yanked hard enough to make him squeal. “Would someone soft do this?”

“Yeah,” he said, smug. “With your big marshmallow hands. You sap.”

“You’re trying to piss me off,” she growled.

“Succeeding, too.” He kissed her cheek gently, lingering there. “Do you like ‘sweetheart’ or d’you want something else? ‘Honey’? ‘Apple-bloom’? Ooh,” he giggled, “Emmy!”

She looked like she would pop, like a magma bubble. “I— would you stop that!”

He kissed her chin. “You’re not the only one that can do the flustering,” he bragged. “I’m out of practice, not naive.”

She pinned him down and redoubled her efforts.

“Hey,” he said. “Look at me.”

Emberthroat did.

Oh, those eyes.

“You gotta get off,” he whimpered. “You gotta get off.”

“I am getting off.”

“No, I mean, you gotta get—”

“Cum inside me,” she said, firmly.

“Come again?” Tybalt replied.

“Cum inside me. Right now. Cum inside me.”

“You told me to tell you when I was gonna— I mean— are we not pulling out?”

“Cum inside me, cum inside me, c—”

“I’m getting mixed messages!”

“Give it to me. Make me take it all. Cum inside me, Tybalt.”

Something about hearing his name like that drove him over the edge. Authoritative. Confident.

If she thought it was a good idea, how bad could it really be?

“... Y’know what?” he said, dreamily. “Okay.”

It wasn’t a bad idea at all. In fact, it was the best idea he had ever had. Past Tybalt didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. That square. That fool.

She panted in his ears, she scratched at his horns, she stroked him and pulled him and gripped him and it felt just as amazing as he could have dared dream.

“I’m cumming,” he croaked.

Emberthroat slowed, stopping on top of him. Her mane tickled his chest. “You’re gonna cum?”

“No,” he stammered, writhing under her, “I’m cumming. Ember, I’m cumming, I’m—”

His hips bucked, lifting her off the ground. Tybalt let out a loud, guttural curse and flopped back, laughing, euphoric and utterly spent.

“... Did you just cum in me?”

“You’re welcome,” he hummed, kissing her neck. “You’re so soft. So snuggly. That was great. You’re great. I’m glad we did this, my big, fluffy—”

“You son of a bitch, did you actually cum?”

“As requested. I hope you aren’t expecting an encore.” Tybalt smoothed back his mane. “You’re fifteen years too late for that kind of trick. Studpaw… Aged like wine but there’s only so much vintage in the cask, y’know?” he said with an exaggerated wink as if there were any possible ambiguity.

“You,” she blustered, “you idiot!” She threw her leg over him, sliding him out, and did an undignified squat to check the evidence. “Damn it! Damn it, damn it. Shit. Shit. Shit! I told you to warn me. Shit, fucking...” She ran her claw through her mane. “Shit, shit. Tyb, this is bad. This is really bad.”

“You said ‘cum inside me’ thirty times.”

“Yeah, but that was— people say dumb shit during, that doesn’t mean you do it.”

“What did you mean, then?”

She looked meek. Even she didn’t think she could pull this off. “... ‘Pull out’?”

“You did not,” he protested, ”you did not and you know it. C’mere.” He threw his arms around her chest, bringing his head to it. His purr was a loud, deep rumble. He wanted to squeeze her so bad it nearly hurt. “That was amazing. You’re amazing.”

“I…”

She sighed, resting her head on his. Her purr was the quieter kind. The low rev of a battle-car. Tybalt wanted to be nowhere else. She pulled him into a kiss again, not much better than the first, but so earnest that he let himself sink into it.

When she pulled away she wore a look of resignation. He licked her cheek.

“Hey,” he said. “Hey, why so down?”

“You’re wonderful.”

“... Yeesh, no need to sound so upset about it.”

“No,” she said, “you’re wonderful. And Tribune Brimstone’s gonna kill me.”

He nuzzled into her soft fur again, a contented smile on his face. Yeah. Like smoke. Candle-smoke, specifically. “You’re getting ahead of yourself. Okay, fine, it happened. But it’s just a close call. I mean,” he laughed, “it’s not like you’re in heat—”

It occurred to Tybalt what might have finally given her the shove necessary to swallow her courage and climb on top of him, pride be damned.

Emberthroat grimaced at him, pulling air through her teeth.

“... Whuh-oh,” he wheezed.

His heart was in the hand of this underfed, pyromaniacal nutjob.

Slag-iron, how he wanted her to have it.