Dangerous, but… Worth the risk 😳 Have you wondered what was going through Kei'than's head during his first meeting with Nebula? We have posted a short story on AO3 which explores these fateful moments ✨ You can read it here~ Story written by CaptainGremlin Animation by Wylfi
You take a deep breath. You don’t have a lot of time – the eyes of the guards grew too suspicious. Give them a bit more time, and they’d be happy to lump you with the drow in cages, letting any stray assassin get you on the tip of their blade.
You take a step inside the brothel, and the thoughts pour in. Memories and feelings of something that you have already experienced gnaw at you from the inside. Runt, useless, spare parts – your memories are chanting as you take a look around, keeping closer to the walls so as not to be mistaken for merchandise. Scoundrels would pay a fortune for snagging a drow as biteless as you.
The heavy smoke of incense almost undoes you. Suffocating, dominating – you’re crushed under the weight of expectations that might be your own, or of others placed upon you. You are still alive, despite it all, and you almost thank your god for that. Then you remember the crawling of eight clawed legs and shudder.
You are at the bottom of the deep blue sea, and you’re choking with nowhere to look but up.
“Up” looks back with a smug smirk and a glint of silver.
A drow. Here, out of all places. He is laughing at you – you know he is, how pathetic your situation is. Useless son, barely left alive by his own admission. You also know that he shouldn’t know this. Yet he does, nonetheless. Might as well fish out the remnants of information, the sliver of gossip he might be in a mood to share.
Surface drow stick together. Long enough to put a knife in each others’ backs – but, oh, your back is already crumbling under the weight. You are keenly aware of the sharp eyes of the personnel and the pressure that another drow’s presence puts on you. You long to forget the gazes of your kin – yet, here you are, stuck under the watchful eye of a being much stronger than you ever will be.
Now, this one might be the only way out – or back into the depths. Chasm peers at you from the corner of your mind, waiting. Familiar voices of your house, ready to tear you to pieces.
— Hello, Kei’than.
He knows your name, and it almost puts you on edge. You don’t crumble under the viscous weight of his gaze, and it almost puts him on edge, too. He must have spent ages entertaining the likes of you. Suspicious, dangerous, jumping at their own shadows.
You managed to get a scoff out of him. You are not sure if it’s a blessing or a curse.
He is confident – too confident. Perfect body, perfect face. A practised smile and muscles that would put any tiefling at the edge of despair – let alone a malnourished spare. The unfairness of it all should put you in despair. Your eyes go lower, trailing down his toned stomach and perfectly taut muscles.
— Wine?
He noticed. His smirk burns in your mind, but you can see the curiosity in his eyes. A weakness – and your glimmering chance at leaving this place unscathed. A few drops fall from the glass and drip down his chest – it looks almost deliberate, too dramatic not to be something he anticipated. But you refuse to debase yourself just yet.
— Drow?
Not that it would make much of a difference. You ask simply because you need to fill up the silence.
— Deep Blue Poisoned.
A shimmering blend. Dark and cool to the touch. Drops of nectar you thought you’d never try again, not after becoming a runaway. Sweat beads down your face as he offers you a drink. Perhaps, he wants – needs – you drunk and trusting. Perhaps it is simple courtesy, and your run has made you too paranoid.
— To the stars that allowed our paths to cross. A joke. No star is shining for a deep elf.
You can’t help but scoff at his dramatics. It’s so much like drow – to say that the wine is poisoned and still make his guest drink it. Make a jab at the gods that have forgotten about dark elves. Drinking from delicate glasses, as if his fingers aren’t big enough to easily snap the thin stem of the glass.
You will not back down. The silence stretches on for too long, and you are almost nervous in anticipation of a quip or a loaded question – surely, something about your past, or a passing mention about your preferences, or- — So why are you here, Kei’than?
If he truly doesn’t know, talking to him might be useless.
— Shouldn’t you already know that?
He smiles at the jab. He doesn’t see you as a threat, and you are not sure if you should enjoy it or fear it. Perhaps, a bit of both.
— Everything I know has a price.
Ah. You have prepared to speak with coin or with long forgotten physical arts, and it seems that he had picked a much favoured option. You don’t want to think about the other possibility. Instead, you push the pouch forward, letting him take a look.
The coin rolled from the pouch. Not much, but enough to pay for a loaded second of silence. Enough to make him stare, possibly calculating if a knife in your back would pay him more than whatever you had scrambled together on your journey. Enough to make the pause a bit awkward – to make you stare into his eyes and…
— About Lyssai…
You tense at the surprising casualness of his tone. This wasn’t what you were expecting – The coin loosened his inhibitors, or so it seems. Even the sharp gaze of his eyes doesn’t carry the same coldness it had a moment ago. He talks business, and your eyes narrow, seeking any hint of deceit.
— She is the matron of the House Auvry’rahel. They’ve been on the surface for a while.
He smiles as if the information was obvious. As if you didn’t risk it all by contacting him.
— A whole house… on the surface?
— Well, they did hunt down enough elves. So the Spider Queen allowed it.
Another bead of sweat trickles down your neck. Perhaps it is the suffocating nature of the brothel. Perhaps, it is the feeling of something – someone – approaching with no way of escaping it. You take a deliberate sip, focusing on the way his lips move. Searching for hints that he won’t reveal even for a price. He might look at you and think you have fallen for his little game of seduction. Let him.
— However…
He plays with his glass, expression almost bored. Still, the slight change of tone is making you sit straight in your seat as he continues.
— They’ve never set foot out of Tari’el. So her suddenly showing up unannounced, just to get her eyes on a certain someone… that only makes me more curious.
Your hand twitches slightly as you debate reaching for a dagger hidden in your gauntlet. You can’t reach it without alerting him, and the cool metal does little to soothe the way your hair stands at the back of your head. He smiles again, head tilted and eyes narrowing. He reads you like a particularly peculiar book.
He looks at you in the way a cat would stare at a mouse after tormenting it in sick curiosity.
— However it might be… you have left the palace party too early, Kei’than. Lyssai spoke with your new friend.
Ah.
So his eyes penetrated more than just the brothel’s walls.
— What does Baruk have to do with this?
He laces his hands under his chin, and you are filled with the desire to do… something about that confident smile of his.
— Do you want the short version or the exhausting version?
Oh, and how exhausting it was. Sitting in the soft lounge and listening to the deep, melodic voice reverberating the story of lust and betrayal. Knives in the back and the disappearing people at night. The spider’s laughter, as you didn’t know if the details were added for the drama or if it was something that truly happened.
He leans closer to you, his breath warm on your face. He doesn’t smell of alcohol despite drinking a lot more than you, and his eyes are no less cunning as he looms over. Not touching – and you refuse to give in, to imagine how easy it would be for him to just lean closer, capturing your chin in his slender fingers. You don’t want to imagine him – but you still do, despite all the attempts to silence the fantasy. How his manicured finger would caress your chin, swiping across the tattoo, and then dip down, right above your pulse point… and how much you wish to expel the thoughts from your mind.
You gulp, forcing your imagination to calm, to destroy the wayward fantasies. You’re not sure if it was terror or excitement – and you hope you’ll never return to feeling like this again. As if reading your mind, he leans back, relaxing in his seat. And speaks.
About the house. — You know how matrons can be. Isn’t that the reason you came here? — I had other reasons. — Buried deep with your dearest, perhaps. — How would you even… A smirk, and he takes another sip of his wine. Eyes shimmering with information you don’t want to know the source of. Might be a bit too much for one evening, however fascinating it might be.
— You seem to fill out the void quite nicely. The noble girl… It seems she is reckless enough to get a drow as an escort.
Ah. At once, your companions have been useful for…something. You do not wish to lean into an assumption of being a hired sword, but it is safer than any other option. At the very least, you can try to twist it in your favor.
— The girl wasn’t my contractor. His smirk vanishes momentarily. You are bluffing – but he doesn’t have to know that. Even if he understands it, it doesn’t make him want to take chances. Being an informant is a game of checks and balances, and you know he won’t let himself take the risk.
— Having such good friends is admirable. Perhaps, we should start with that. He tilts his head in curiosity, the drape of fabric around his chest gently moving down. You force yourself not to look, but you can’t help the tight coil at the bottom of your stomach. You can say that you are just admiring the way his muscles ripple under his skin, a physique surprising for a drow, but you can’t lie to yourself. Not anymore, at the very least.
— Alright then. Thanks. — Leaving already? You turn so you won’t get distracted by how captivating he looks from a higher perspective. How disgustingly beautiful his eyes are in the rare moment of almost-vulnerability. You don’t believe him – you can’t believe him. You have a head on your shoulders, and it wouldn’t let you think that his expression is anything other than a professional lover singing empty promises to a patron.
You don’t allow yourself to focus on that, and you wave your hand in dismissal. If only his gaze wasn’t burning holes in your back, you’d actually be convinced he would just let you go.
— Well, it was a pleasure knowing you…
You take a step forward, moving the heavy fabric of the entry out of the way. It smells like incense and sin, and your nose scrunches, ready to part with the heaviness of this play. You look forward to not returning to this place. You look forward to seeing him again.
Of course, there is something you need to clear up first.
— How much would it be… to keep an eye on her for me?
You finally turn to face him again, and already know it was a mistake. The casualness of his relaxed pose is gone – he is tense, despite the feigned lax posture, muscles on display for all to see. Confident smirk of a man who is still calculating what you’re worth to him unharmed.
— How much do you think your head is worth?
He captures the way your posture tightens, the grasp on the fabric covering the entrance trembles just a bit. You can almost hear the faint chuckle escaping him, as if he already got everything he wanted. Cat got the cream – and the mouse is drowning in it. Your blood runs colder with each minute.
— Forget it.
You answer in a curt nod.
— Consider this one a gift.
He smirks, the word “gift” dropping off his lips with practised ease.
You feel the room getting colder, the smile of the drow curling in sheer darkness. You gulp, the nerves finally getting to you. You can’t show weakness, but somehow, you feel like this doesn’t matter anymore. He had seen right through you, and he liked what he saw.
— That old hag is intruding on my territory, after all.
Somehow, you feel like he wasn’t just talking about the city. The way he kept looking at you with the ownership circling his gaze had indicated as much.
Somehow, you don’t feel like you’ve won.