Wilderlands

Everyone is drenched to the bone. This is One of the oh so many minor inconveniences that the Wizard is racking their brains to manage. The latest attempted smiting by yet another local diety is another such “inconvenience.”

‘When did this become the routine,’ they sigh to theirself, ‘I am a bleeding Librarian, for Bridgette’s sake’

A brisk walk from their would-be watery grave and an extensive series of Prestidigitations later, everyone is comfortably cleaned up and dry. Finally done with the requisite chain-casting the Aasimar tries to settle into a book (a futile bid at some normalcy). Sadly, their is no rest for neither the wicked nor the divine. Their precocious Druid has been “borrowing” books from the city records over the last few days. But this was no mere book.

A shiver of unrestrained excitement races through the Aasimar librarian… followed immediately by hesitation. Then consternation. & finally: a choice.

Zache will snap the book closed and give Jinx a long, hard look. They start nibbling their lip in vexation before sighing in defeat, “You. Mewling. Am I to assume that you have never received formal schooling?”

Jinx, who has been circling the statue just for the sheer sake of curiosity, jerks her head up to look at Zache at the sharp sound of the book snapping closed within its bindings. She tilts her head at her Aasimar companion, one eyebrow clearly hitching as her right hand raises to point a clawed index finger toward her own chest. "ME? Formal schooling?" Her whiskers twitched before a laugh bubbled from her lips. "Oh, you're delightful. Do you think they have classrooms and libraries on merchant ships?" The laugh tricked down to a light chuckle and eventually stilled.

The stoney gaze Jinx receives might make one wonder if the Aasimar was carved from marble. They thumb the spine of the book almost covetously. Their freehand raises to cup the precocious kitten gently upon the cheek before rising to grab her by the ear and drag her off the path…

The Tabaxi's bemused expression transformed into curiosity and then to sheer confusion as she first witnessed the touch of Zache's hand against the side of her fur-covered cheek. A strange gesture of comfort that quickly turned into... something rather different and unexpected. A slight mew of protest along with a nearly silent grumble ghosted from her lips, but...she trusted Zache after all, and whatever the meaning behind all of this was, well, their justification for ear-grabbing better be a good one. The fur of her tail began to bristle.

Ignoring the meek protests of their captive, the scholar mage drags the young captain off into the bush and plops her down like a naughty child. They squat down centimeters away from her whiskers, locking @Jinx’s gaze with a stern stare.

“You will read one book a week, that’s one every five days,” Zache declares in a tone that brooks no argument, “beginning with THIS ONE.” A tome lands heavily in her lap.

“Cover to cover. One week. If you spend less than 48 hours in it, I will know and transmute your ship into a library. I will personally fill it with the most Boring books this continent has ever spawned. After you finish we move onto geography, calligraphy, map making, religion, and,” Zache visibly shudders, “Etiquette lessons.”

One minor fit of actual gagging later, “You will be graded. By which I mean you will be cut off from all gold, magic, and miscellaneous drugs if you slack off. Do we have an understanding, young lady?”

Back on the path, Jheri is casually trying not to be noticed during this conversation. She attempts to whistle. Turns out dragonborn mouths can't really do that.

An arm shoots out to point menacingly at @Jheri. A exact translucent facsimile of said hand appears right in front of her, poking Jheri in the snout. “Don’t think I’ve forgetten about you either!” Zache shouts from the side of the road without breaking the severe eye contact with their first victim, “Your lessons will also be resuming immediately.”

Jheri whines "but I don't WANT etiquette lessons!"

“NO ONE BLOODY WANTS ETIQUETTE LESSONS!” Zache bellows in response (raging more at the memory of their own such lessons beneath the watchful eyes of their paladin brother), “That is not the point!”

Jinx's eyes widen slightly at the sudden notion of dominance the Aasimar so suddenly sprung upon her, although any sense of immediate concern was quickly replace by, well, a bit more confusion as they both breached the tangled brush of nearby thickets and shrubbery where Zache held the young Tabaxi's attention as firmly as a guard dog on a very tight leash. She studied the features of their face, much closer now than they had ever been previously and also much sterner than ever. But why? Her pale green eyes locked with theirs as though seeking answers to questions she didn't quite know how to ask. Her lips parted, but she couldn't think of what to say quite yet. The weight of the book dropped upon her small lap caused her eyes to divert only for a moment before locking those green oculars back to the Aasimar. "Uuumm... okay... But...." she paused for a second and poked a clawed finger at Zache's shoulder. "...Why are we in the bushes??? "

Her lids narrowed over eyes enhanced by the color of the foliage surrounding them. "Heeeeey, wait just a minute..." She started to say. Her countenance played convincingly at a notion of suspicion, yet the tip of her tail swayed, rustling the dead underbrush and hinted at the underlying playfulness that always found her so organically. A coy smirk tugged one corner of her lips upward, shifting white whiskers off-kilter in an asymmetrically charming way. "...you're not trying to be a creepy pervert right now, are you?? Because you know what sorta people drag young ladies into bushes and tell them to do things that they don't really wanna do??" She leaned in close enough for her whiskers to tickle the folds of Zache's ear. "Creeeeeepy peeeeerrrrveeerrrrrts." She whispered through a fang-toothed grin that the Cheshire Cat themselves would have been proud of. Maybe it was subtle payback for that 'pirate' comment that was dropped just a few moments prior...perhaps not...who could really say what was truly going through the mind of that capricious catfolk at any given moment.

Slowly raising a single divinely manicured eyebrow, Zache snorts derisively at such juvenile teasing teasing. The Aasimar takes no pride whatsoever in being of noble birth. Even being Godsent is more of a laborious chore, that of a child being tasked to watch the slight younger siblings while the parents are out. They are certainly not proud of their… inexperience in more carnal matters. However, in this moment of epiphany, witnessing a certain precocious kitten attempting to get a rise out of them, Zache realizes that they do have a deep seeded pride in a certain few things. That pride has been affronted.

They were Zyla Amenadiel Carathis of House Exemplurium. Third of their name. Death’s Son. A Daughter of the Dawn. The concentrated lust of uncountable eons ran through their veins. Demure propriety or awkward inexperience aside, no charge of theirs was going to innuendo their way out of doing homework. Nine Hells, they were the living personification of innuendo!

Zache summons a mage hand under the mewlings linens and, bringing to bear every ounce of anatomical and/or tantric tidbits that they have ever read about Tabaxis, runs an ensorcelled finger up along that oh so sensitive length of a cat’s spine that makes their hair stand on end. Drawing themselves so close that the Jinx could taste the gentle scent of sunlight that perpetually radiated from the Aasimar’s near flawless skin, they give the Tabaxi’s ear a playful bite in the same place that they had pinched it. “Bad kitty,” a gravelly voice reverberated against the inside of her ear, “did no one ever tell you not to provoke any being that can reduce you to a quivering wreck of ecstasy with a wave of their hand.”

Watching the Aasimar’s golden brow lift upward, Jinx thought, for just a moment, that maybe she’d pushed their buttons just enough to get them to bugger off with all of that ‘education’ nonsense. Psh! Like she should need lessons in Geography! Ha!

But something told her that she’d thought quite wrong indeed and the charmingly confident smile vanished from her expression mere seconds later. That something was the enticing sensation of ghostly digits tracing their path upward along the ridge of her spine. Gooseflesh riddled her skin, causing the soft shafts of hair to raise before her entire back quivered with an involuntary chill. But she wasn’t cold, no not at all. On the contrary, she actually felt pleasantly warm as though she were bathing in a patch of sunlight on a midsummer day. It was in that instant Jinx realized just how close Zache had come and whatever small amount of distance remained between them was soon closed entirely as her back arched at the magehand’s touch, her body stopping only because theirs was there to keep it from moving any further. They smelled of earth warmed by sunshine and something she couldn’t quite place… if the radiance of a perfect summer day beneath a flawlessly clear sky could have it’s very own scent, Zache’s scent was the living embodiment of it.

A deep purr began to vibrate in the Tabaxi’s throat just before she settled her weight back to nestle herself against the unseen caress along her back. Pale green eyes blinked slowly as they kept their focus trained on the familiar, smooth perfections of the Aasimar’s face, something she perhaps hadn’t previously paid enough attention to appreciate in its entirety. They certainly had her attention now though…

It wasn’t until Zache leaned in even further and took the tip of her velvety ear between their teeth that her lids squeezed shut, that same warming chill suddenly returned, renewed and electrifying. A pointed canine slipped out over her bottom lip, biting down upon the supple cushion of flesh as though in mimicry. Her tail, which usually kept a steady pendular rhythm, lay perfectly still. Clawed fingers slowly kneaded dead leaves and bramble into nothing but dust as the sound of Zache’s voice reverberated within the curvatures of her ear with a certain distinguished gravitas… playful yet serious….enticing yet dangerous… like wispy tendrils of morning fog drifting across glimmering shards of broken glass. Jinx swallowed heavily.

The words themselves didn’t even truly register in her brain at first until she suddenly felt the pressure at her spine dissipate and her body began to fall backwards. Eyelids pulled apart, pupils contracting back to narrow ellipsis as she caught herself on her own elbows and blinked multiple times up at the Aasimar who now stood over her as unfazed as ever.

“Now study,” Zache dictates with finality, rising to dust themselves off as if nothing had happened, “& I will have you know that I was wrought by one of the same Gods to whom ‘perverts’ pray. I can assure you that there is nothing ‘creepy’ about us. That said, consent is important, so I will apologize for my earlier forcefulness. I brought you over here because I foolishly thought that it would be easier for you to focus.”

If Jinx’s facial topography weren’t covered with a layer of tan and black-patterned fur, her cheeks would now appear obviously flushed with the blushing blood beneath the surface of her skin. ‘Maaaybe, just maybe she could do with a little extra learning?’ She suddenly thought to herself as she watched Zache step out of her field of vision. A deep breath was pulled into her lungs and released again, perhaps in an attempt to slow the quickened heartbeat that quaked within her chest.

Sure, in her young years, she had been exposed to a great deal of acts pertaining to desires of the flesh. After all, she’d grown up with a bunch of men stuck at sea for sometimes weeks at a time… And she’d seen almost each and every single one of them take full advantage of their shore-leave in both taverns and brothels alike. Once or twice the young Tabaxi had even encountered someone of ‘interest’, but when life is spent traveling from port to port, forming bonds with land-dwellers didn’t typically work out too well, and thus, never quite happened for her either. This… had been a new sensation… something no one else had ever made her feel before… and something that she would definitely need to spend some time thinking about.

As Zache walks back towards the path they hurl one last piece of advice at their precocious mewling, “But I really will transmute the Maverick into a library if you do not finish that book. I wonder how many treatises I can find on drying paint…”

Ears perked and twitched at the sound of Zache’s voice beyond the thicket of shrubbery (NI!!!!) about turning the Maverick into the most boring and drab library of the face of the planet. It was enough to snap her back to the present moment and caused her to jump up from her spot and dust the powdered leaves from the palms of her hands. “Yep! ..I mean Nope!.. no treatisis needed… I’ve got thiiisss…” She just suddenly realized that she had dropped the book when she rose up from where she had been sitting and bent down to retrieve the book within the flash of a mere second. “....this book about making friends and stuff that I’ll definitely be reading...Mmhhmmm, yep!” Jinx waved the tome about whilst stepping out of the brush, dried leaves still clinging to her coat and shedding away with each and every step.

Jheri ran ahead sometime in the middle of this, uh, discussion. She's scouting. Or something. Jheri calls back from ahead. "Is it safe for me to come back? Are you two done having a moment? I can keep scouting!"

“Oh, you’re not getting away either, Jheri! We’re going over arcana and etiquette as soon as we get back to our rooms”

Jinx: "HA!!!!!"

Jheri pokes her head out from behind a tree cautiously, following with her whole body when she sees that both Zache and Jinx are fully clothed and not particularly close to each other.

"Yeah. Uh-huh. Just seemed like maybe you are Jinx were going to be, uh, busy. When we got back to our rooms.

"oh, uh, do we need to rearrange rooms for the night? I think we got enough rooms for the two of you to have one to yourselves. For, uh. Studying."

“Oh please,” Zache snorts, completely missing the implication, “I think I am plenty capable of managing both of you for an evening.”

Jinx stands slack-jawed, listening to their verbal exchange and is awkwardly srcatching the back of her neck with the corner of the book in her hand.

Zache is a bit taken aback and genuinely confused, “Well I suppose we could hire a tutor for you but I cannot image anyone who would be more suited to either of those two subjects than I. Whatever works best for your learning style, I suppose…”

"…but in the sense of, like, a sword can be really gorgeous,” Jheri babbles on, desperately trying to clue in the well-meaning albeit slightly out-of-touch Aasimar, “I don't want to go, uh, make love to it. Or a tree. I like looking at trees, but I don't want to have sex with a tree…"

Jheri: “What?”

Zache: “What?”

Zache is well aware of their Dragonborn companion’s asexuality. Whey was she suddenly going on about having sex with trees and swords?

While the Aasimar blinks in genuine confusion, Jheri can't figure out how to get out of this conversation without making it worse. Turns out the dragonborn equivalent of blushing is that their neck frills flare out.

Jinx, after taking a much needed drink from her flask, darts up to the two, sensing that Jheri might be feeling slightly uncomfortable. "OOOOOKAAAYYYY! Why don't we save that for another time when we're all nice and sauced, eh? Maybe we should think about what we're gonna do about getting back into the city without my new crewmate being completely ostracized and ...ya know... thrown into this arena they keep talking about?" She looks between the dragonborn and the aasimar, smiling sheepishly "Eh?... "

"Oh don't worry about me,” said new crew mate offers, “please continue."

Jinx turns and gives them the 'Shush' gesture.

“Seriously, what is the deal with this arena?” Zache asks, turning to their once oarsperson turned accomplice ala grand theft dragon egg.

Jheri seizes on this change of topic enthusiastically. "Yes, please tell us about this arena. What happens if you get sent into the arena and you win?"

Jinx chimes in as well, tucking the book under her arm. "And, most importantly, HOW does one win??"

"Anyone convicted for a crime of property or fraud or, well, any crime short of murder, really, goes to arena. It's how one pays one's debt to society. Every 3rd Earthday of the month pretty much the whole town turns out for the arena. For most crimes you are freed if you fight truly and win, and if you don't, well, it usually doesn't matter, because the fights are usually to the death. For most crimes it is only necessary to win one fight, but for the worst crimes you might be sentenced to have to win multiple fights before being set free."

"oh, that's a problem,” Jheri thinks aloud, "are they known to pit convicts who worked together against each other?"

"Is this not how one pays one's debt to society everywhere?" the oarsperson asks. Having lived in Modron for so long, the church of Mitra’s dictates had simply become the norm.

"nah, usually they either kill you, maim you, or make you pay a fine,” Jheri offers in explanation, "sometimes they imprison you for awhile, but that's expensive."

"Or ya go to the stockades...sometimes..." the Tabaxi chimes.

“Not that we would know about that or anything…” the Aasimar immediately interjects.

Jheri continues on, "well, usually, they employ someone to do the killing and maiming and it's done in a ritualized way."

"How barbaric." The oarsperson seems aghast at the customs of ‘law & order’ beyond their city walls.

"Oh, and don't forget about the keel-hauling...” Jinx shrugs her narrow shoulders, almost dropping the book tucked in her armpit, “that's just for mutineers and traitors though..."

"I... uh... I shall bear it in mind. I have no intention of ever being a mutineer though." Jinx’s newest recruit waves his hands as if to banish the notion entirely.

Jinx's eyebrow raises "But traitor is on the table eh?"

"No. I see no difference between the two,” affirms the oarsperson.

She laughs and shakes her head, patting him on the shoulder "Relax. Good answer, by the way. I knew there's I reason why i like you."

"Aaaaanywaaaayyy.... so what's our brilliant plan then?" Her eyes dart between Jheri and Zache, lingering on the dragon born a bit longer than on the Aasimar.

“What plan?” Zache butts in, cringingly tone-deaf, as per usual, “God literally only knows what we’ve been up to. I have a job in the city records and we have 4 days to kill/study before Aelie’s potion is ready.”

(Jinx is seemingly waaaaay too excited by that... she's getting 'happy tail')

As for our new friend, they took the other party out as their contract stipulated. They cannot be held liable for actual acts of God. Anyway, absolute Worst case scenario, we pop into the arena real quick and overturn their entire legal system. I see this as an absolute win.”

Suddenly, as if summoned by the invocation of their name, their genderqueer Bard-cum-Death-Cleric apparates into their midst with a pop and the sizzling of ozone, “What’d I miss?”

Days later, house arrest: Compulsory lessons continue.

Between busking, Aelie has been helping to tutor Jinx (which mostly boils down to keeping an eye on their easily distracted cat folk). Jheri, for her part, has been placated with a book on dragons. Whenever possible, for however short as she will tolerate it, Zache tries to slip in tidbits on the decorum of nobility. Even if she never sees herself as a card carrying member of House Exemplurium, hopefully she will at least be able to lie like a noble.

With Zache’s familiar (now with new and improved ten-tacle action) keeping vigil in the estuary, holding impromptu classes for their younger party members, and deciphering the dense spellbook that Eloreth found/procured, holding nightly rites of worshipful observation for the reportedly dead God…. the wizard has precious little time for anything else—including sleep. Dark smudges highlight the dancing gold behind and around their pupils, the seemingly perfectly feathered smoky eye given their entire countenance a haunting allure.

At least have the decency to let me look tired, the Aasimar grumbled to no one in particular, If nothing else, our face at least has the right to complain about it!

Even while immersed in the forever quest to craft the perfect complement of keep-everyone-from-dying-horribly spells, they can tell that the Tabaxi captain desires words about their strict “curriculum.” Perhaps they are starting to suspect something….