AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is pretty much the same as just plain "Cynosure Confidential," with the crucial difference of containing fics with a higher rating. I thought it would be best to give these their own series, so as not to drag up the rating on the original.

Again, the Realms aren't mine.

And now to start off this new venture in the grand tradition of the original, with yet another Shevarash fic.

Triad

(Set some time before the Time of Troubles, somewhat crackish, semi-slash, threesome, implied sex)

Sharess's voice rises. "Elikarashae –"

"Zandilar," Shevarash breathes in reply, and in that moment he doesn't sound nearly so much like the scarred mortalborn he is. He makes up for it in the next breath when he says, "What he did to you, how could he do that to you –"

"What?" says Sharess. "What did who do to me?" Hoar, listening from his position at Shevarash's back, can't tell if she's really forgotten or if she just wants Shevarash to shut up and get on with it.

If the latter, it doesn't work very well, because Shevarash keeps talking. "The drow, the thief." The one Hoar has sometimes glimpsed slipping in and out of Shar's domain, sometimes just shy of Shevarash himself. "He defiled you –"

"He did?" says Sharess. "Oh yes, he tried to kill me, didn't he? Kill Zandilar, that is?" Hoar thinks he sees her move her hands on Shevarash's chest. He moves his own hands on Shevarash's back, though he entirely lacks her level of expertise and soon his motions start to spell out Ramman must die in the language of Chessenta.

At any rate, neither of them distracts Shevarash. "He made you bear his spiderspawn –"

"Did he now? Funny, you'd think I'd remember something like that."

The twins Selune and Shar may be two sides of a coin, thinks Hoar, but Shar herself is a coin of sorts. With one hand she brings forgetting, and with her other she brings long memories, though Hoar is not sure Shevarash needs a longer one.

"I remember it," Shevarash is saying now. "I remember even if you don't –"

Sharess tumbles over Shevarash, interposing herself between him and Hoar and leaving Hoar's hands poised just barely against her skin, in the middle of tracing Ramman's detested name once more. She puts her lips to the side of Hoar's face, just before his ear, and mouths against his skin, "Why don't you give it a try now?"

Hoar gives it a try. Sharess shudders and murmurs; she seems suddenly frail in his arms. There are gods worse off than he is; he only truly realizes this now. He draws away without realizing it, and she yanks him back with sudden strength in her limbs.

"You're too thin," she says as she pushes him to his back and presses one hand to his cheekbone. She tightens her other hand's grip on his wrist for emphasis, rubbing her thumb against the bone. "You worry too much." Then she's on him, and from the lightning campaign she wages he can see how at least part of her was once Anhur's lieutenant.

"Go on," she's saying a good bit later. Hoar can only blink dumbly at her until she pulls him up. She kisses him again with such force that he almost thinks she will rip his tongue from his mouth and into hers. "At least you can smile," she says. "Go on. Give that silly vow of his a proper challenge, why don't you."

Shevarash sits on the opposite side of the bed, cross-legged and half-dressed, eyes unfocused; perhaps Sharess's doings have knocked them out of alignment. He looks past Hoar to Sharess and his eyes focus somewhat. "He has to pay," he says.

"But of course," says Hoar, making his way across the sheets.

"He can't get away with it. All of them, skulking in the deep. I wouldn't do that to you, never, no true elf would, those drow, those traitors, they can't be allow–"

Hoar lunges. It is not in the same class as Sharess's pounce, but it serves its purpose, and once Hoar's tongue is down his throat Shevarash stops talking, and Hoar reaches around and continues tracing out Ramman must die, which perhaps is not quite in the spirit of things, but it gets a sigh from Shevarash which Hoar feels in his own mouth.

"Yes, yes," says Sharess; she's come around behind Shevarash and starts reaching around from her side. "Well, now I remember he paid for it all right. I made sure of that. It was absolutely poetic." She winks at Hoar over his shoulder.

Shevarash lets out another low sigh and extricates his mouth. "Did you really?"

"Oh yes." She nods, her head positioned so that her chin bumps Shevarash's shoulder with each downward movement. Some of her hair has fallen in her face and her eyes blaze from behind it. "He won't be inconveniencing any other goddesses anytime soon. He won't even inconvenience his own hand. Not before Cania melts."

Hoar chuckles. Shevarash sucks in a breath and says, "You didn't really do that?"

"Well, no," says Sharess, "but it's fun to think of, isn't it? In hindsight and that? You think so," she addresses Hoar, "don't you?"

"Yes," says Hoar.

"There, you see?"

"That would be… poetic justice, yes," says Shevarash, positively squirming. "If it happened. My lady, I don't believe I should be here."

"Really now." Sharess embraces him from behind, Hoar from the front. "That's why I asked you here. No tears now. Let me take care of your suffering." This, Hoar remembers, is much what she told him at the start of their encounter. Then, with another wink, she'd called Hoar evenhanded. "You fret too much." Then they're all falling back onto the sheets, proceeding without further interruption.

Shevarash takes his leave some time afterward, muttering about impending raiders. Hoar almost wishes him good luck, but then he remembers his own opinion of Tymora and gives Shevarash another quick kiss instead. Shevarash stumbles out of the room, throwing his clothes back on as he goes. He looks like he's had a sudden amputation instead of having sex – but then, Hoar can't think of any expression of satisfaction that would not involve that forbidden curve of the lip.

Sharess sighs and draws Hoar back to her again. At the thought of yet another go so soon, however pleasurable the experience, he has the urge to flee after Shevarash. Instead Sharess sighs and leans against him. "I can't believe it," she says. "Tired already." He can tell it's not a complaint about him. He embraces her with one arm and she leans further back, pressing her head against his chest.

"He's a lovely boy," she says. "Pity about that vow."

"Yes."

"I do wish he wouldn't talk about that," she says. "That kind of talk always makes me tired. Oh hello, my lady."

Hoar looks up and nods to Shar in acknowledgement as she continues to stand in the doorway. His free hand searches for a covering, but there are no blankets on the bed and Sharess does not seem to care. Anyway, Shar could have been watching her three allies the entire time they were in her domain.

He starts chuckling at that thought, and from what he can see of Shar's face she seems to understand completely.