I realized a bit ago that I never uploaded Alaharel's reference to tumblr. Whoops! I'd been meaning to update it anyway, since I'd struggled to draw Alaharel's hair consistently since designing him and wanted to modify it to work better in my current style. So here are both the first drawing and the updated reference for the Guildmaster, long overdue!
I was having a deeply rough day yesterday, so I decided to be a good employee and write some self-indulgence on company time. That being the case this is pretty unpolished and not my best, but I had fun and that's what's important. Have some fluffy angst, if that oxymoron makes any sense. XD
Usually the guild members had to be careful about being seen together in public. Small cells were known to work together and be friendly- Alaharel and Jingle, of course, or Taless and Bay Porter. But as a larger bunch they would draw too much attention.
Public festivals and holidays, however, presented one of the few opportunities for them to interact in a casual setting without risking exposing their operations. Today in particular was Lammas, the Loaf Mass Festival. The guild was taking full advantage to celebrate with their friends openly, as most of the city poured into the River District.
Where better than the farmlands to hold a celebration to the harvest, after all?
Suaco still hadn't memorized all of these western holidays, though it probably didn't help that they'd spent the first four years of their time in Thrrasir living in the middle of the woods. The closest the Tsaltui Shehad had to Lammas was tsukimi, the moon viewing festival on the harvest moon, and it wasn't really all that similar.
Tanya, being a Thrrasir native, was well familiar with the local holidays, and had been showing Suaco the ropes since their return to civilization. He'd found that he wasn't fully alone in discovering the western holidays for the first time, though. Their guildmaster, Alaharel, had been living on the surface long enough to learn the local flavors, but had privately admitted to Suaco that he missed the celebrations of the Underdark.
Down there we don't have a proper day-night cycle, nor seasons as they're understood on the surface. Crops grow until they're ripe for harvest, and we plant them in staggered patterns so that there's always something coming ready to bring in. It's still kind of amazing to me, how society on the surface is built around when the right time is to plant, to tend, and to gather, and when none of those things can happen and you just have to wait out the return of the sun.
Suaco never would've considered himself an academic sort, but it was nice to listen to Al talk. He lit up when he really got going about something he was interested in. It was sweet, and stripped the years that rejection and loneliness had etched into his face.
As Tanya and Jingle were chattering eagerly with the farmer at the stall of whiskey they'd just stopped at, Suaco glanced around to where the drow in question was sitting on a low wall across the path. He was sharing a biscuit with his familiar, tearing off a piece and holding it out in his palm for the fae cat to delicately take. Pucca's tail swished and the drow chuckled, presumably at some silent comment his familiar had conveyed through their telepathic link. Then he took a hearty bite of the treat for himself. The crumbs lingered on his lips, bright against his dark skin, and Suaco found himself dropping his gaze as the temptation to swagger over and brush those crumbs away made his gut do somersaults.
Suaco hadn't even realized they'd stopped paying attention to the conversation between their companions until a thickly muscled arm impacted them gently in the shoulder. They jolted in surprise, looking up questioningly into the dancing oak-brown eyes of their partner, Tanya. The half-orc was looking back down at them with her eyes hooded, smirking.
"Yer so transparent, y'know that?" she mused, and they blushed hotly.
"I didn't say anything," he groused. She sniggered, and standing across from them so did the kenku Jingle.
"You are not needing to say anything, Coco," Jingle teased. "In fact is silence that is being to say plenty. We are seeing which way your eye goes."
He bit his tongue, face going even more red. Usually he was the one who did the teasing. It was just a relief that Tanya seemed more amused than angry. She'd have had every right to be. When she approved of the tryst between himself and the guildmaster, the pitch had been for exactly that- a tryst. Something casual, a bit of light fun. They- all three of them- had agreed to that.
Except that it seemed Suaco's head and their heart were not entirely in accord on that point.
He glanced in Alaharel's direction again self-consciously, only to find that at that exact moment the guildmaster had looked up towards him. Al's shoulders hitched and he looked away hurriedly, prompting a cackle from Jingle.
"Seems it is being mutual, hm? Why not go and be keeping him company? Neither of you is much for drinking anyway." She winked, lifting her own tankard meaningfully.
"That's because when I drink I start literally breathing fire," Suaco pointed out dryly. "Alcohol and fire dragons don't mix."
"Exactly," Tanya agreed genially, swatting him on the back so that he staggered a step- he was far from out of shape, but she easily outclassed even him in raw physical power. "The ladies will have our fun, ya go 'n have yers."
"I…" lowering his voice he hissed, "Tanya, are you sure? I… this isn't what we agreed to-"
"And if I had any reason to worry, ya wouldn't be cross-checkin' my consent, would ya?" she pointed out. More gently she added, "I'm not insecure about the fact that ya caught feelings, my star. 'N gods know, the man likes ya back, even if he can't say so out loud. I can share- both in and out of bed."
This time Suaco was the one to thwack her, though they were grinning as they did so. "None of that tonight. If I'm actually going to have this conversation with him I don't want to send mixed signals."
"I'll put it on yer tab," she said, rolling her broad shoulders in a shrug. "Now stop making us wretch with yer longin' glances and git."
Suaco huffed softly out of his nose, but it was with a distinct sense of relief that he approached Alaharel. The drow saw him coming and smiled, shifting a little to indicate that the human could sit on his opposite side from Pucca.
"I couldn't be hearing what all was being said, but I was getting the impression fun was being made," he said, raising a brow. Suaco chuckled, taking a seat.
"Of me, not you," he assured his friend. "And you can drop the fakery, you know, your common's better than mine when you want it to be."
He shrugged. "Ah, but it is giving me comfort to be speaking this way. Less obvious it is being, that I am very educated in Common."
"And less likely people will guess you were taught it so well specifically you could blend in better as a spy," Suaco finished. "Even after two-hundred years, part of you is still afraid of these people."
"Can you blaming me?" the drow asked sadly. "The elves, the gnomes, and many others are living long enough to remember the war. To be resenting me for what I am, never mind what I did."
"Not at all," Suaco admitted, his fingers curling into fists in his lap. "If I'd had to live on the imperial mainland, I don't think I'd ever have felt safe, even before I…"
Alaharel cast an understanding look Suaco's way. He knew, of course, about the crime that had gotten them chased from their homeland, and forced to flee to the opposite side of the planet. It was a story they shared with few, but in this as in so many things, they'd found an empathetic ear in their fellow exile.
They traced the intricate seam of their attush sleeve, looking down at their hands instead of Alaharel's face. "I… do hope that I'm someone you feel safe around, though."
Alaharel put a hand over the one Suaco was anxiously using to trace his sleeve. In a hushed tone he murmured, "Of course you are, Suaco. Never doubt it for a moment. I just don't know if I'm someone you should trust. There's so much I've done that you don't know about- maybe never will, much though I wish I could tell you."
They looked up at him with a frown. "Only because that damn spell stops you. And you know I'm no cherub either. It's not for nothing that the shoguns want me hanged."
He twisted his hand around to clasp his fingers through Alaharel's mottled purple and white ones. Stridently, he went on, "We were abducted as children, Al. Stolen from our homes by systems designed to take advantage of the desperation of our families and mold us into perfect toy soldiers. I'm not better than you because my abusers were so unsubtle in their cruelty that I woke up to the puppet strings sooner than you did."
Alaharel sighed, lifting a hand to the blue feather on his hat. "I just… it feels like anyone who's ever depended on me ends up suffering for it. I don't want that for you. Not when I can't even speak my heart to you, to tell you how much I care."
Suaco punched the drow on the upper arm so that he yelped, then flexed with a wry smile. "I can look after myself, Mother. I'm not one of your students or one of your spies." More softly they added, "I'm your equal. Or at least, I want to be, if you want it too. You don't have to do everything on your own, y'know?"
Alaharel smiled sheepishly. "This is why I didn't want to take Speakeasy's position. I take too much on my own shoulders, and I can never seem to keep the people I… value safe."
"We've all lost people we love, Al," Suaco replied, emphasizing the word that Alaharel's curse wouldn't let him say out loud. "Tanya's kids, your spies, Jingle's siblings, my mother- this world is shit and life is unfair. But we find reasons to keep living. Tanya is one of my reasons; if you're okay with it, I'd like very much for you to join her."
The drow shivered. "I… Maybe you're right. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, not to always be the one in charge. To have equals."
"I mean, we already know you were attracted to me because I was strong enough to put you in your place," Suaco teased with a grin. "You're all officer-guildmaster at Sanctuary, but between the sheets you purr like a kitten when you're told what to do."
He laughed, the last of the old grief fading from his eyes. "You're an asshole, Suaco. But luckily for you, 'asshole' happens to be exactly my type."
Suaco brushed a finger along Alaharel's chin. "I'm the asshole? We agreed to be friends with benefits and you went and wooed me. That was very unfair of you."
Alaharel didn't reply with words, catching Suaco's hand and planting a gentle kiss on their palm. There was a yearning behind his golden eyes, the stifled frustration of everything he wanted desperately to say, but could not without ruining the moment.
Suaco gently plucked the hat from the drow's head, setting it aside and kissing him full on the mouth. The drow melted against them, his unspoken feelings loud and clear in the fervor behind his kiss and the possessive way his fingers clasped in Suaco's.
When they pulled away, Suaco winked. "I love you, too."
Alaharel's breath caught, and he slumped his forehead against Suaco's shoulder with a strangled whimper that was somehow both frustration and release.
