(A/N): The continuation continues with another continuation...!
It's funny actually, this chapter initially had a big ramble about AS Level results but then again I started writing this in August! So, I just pulled it out and filled it with this ramble to take up space xD
Anywho, hopefully this chapter lives up to the hype that my mind's been bestowing it, because I'm known for disappointing myself when it comes to such things ._.
Let's get kicking!
WARNING: Spelling errors, language, awkwardness, pathetic attempts at comedy and bizarre attempts at being edgy and original despite stating in the A/N of the first chapter that I was ripping off an episode of a popular British TV Show!
Chapter Two: A Matter of Perspective
More often than not a good pair of breasts was all Wonders needed to get his musk pumping over-time. However, elegant and colourful scales like the palette of an elven artist smacked off his face from skooma tended to seal the deal. Rest assured, if the Argonian beauty before him had any other hues in her myriad of tones she'd cause widespread seizures to onlookers with one bounce of her curvaceous bosom.
Mind you, he was already frothing from the mouth a tad.
The exotic beauty flashed her maw, practically blinding him with its glorious might. "Hmmm... I could say the same for you, Fangs." the Argonian dame hissed in response to his greeting, admiring the mage's well treated and pointed teeth. The Redguard often gave him weird looks for sharpening his jagged enamel with butter knives and tankard rims, but who was laughing now? "A magician and a Saxhleel, so deep into Skyrim... Enough to make one gasp!"
Silent-He-Wonders held onto a 'pfft' like a bout of comedic flatulence. "Oh, please." he joked, snorting and chuckling in a way that effortlessly combined the manly confidence of a knight in shining armour with the dorky nervousness of a teenager hiding an erection at a familial gathering. "These Nordic buffoons are nothing to me, my darling." Wonders purred, his tongue dangling from betwixt his rough gob. Her bust was so large and juicy that he was curious as to how she was able to stand without tipping over in perpetual motion, spinning forever in head over toe. "Nothing..." he eventually repeated, not quite sure how long he'd left it.
He wondered how they'd feel between finger and thumb.
Silently, of course, he wondered.
The dame blinked rapidly, the audible flutter of expertly curled eyelashes bearing such force that the snarky mage struggled to stay true in his seated position. "You're drooling, handsome." she pointed out in concern, leaning closer to accommodate her magnificent mammaries. "Are you okay?"
"Okay? Bah!" the magician eventually scoffed, batting a dismissive claw at the temptress. "I'm excellent! Fit as a towering oak!" he grinned, flexing his weedy arms and growling like the macho-ist infant in the playpen. After a brief silence he crossed his legs, resting his baggy sleeves over his lap. "... So you are called Destiny?"
"Destiny-In-Waters." the vixen noted, teasingly mimicking his posture – pressing her breasts up higher than the peak of The Throat of the World; her nipples no doubt the snow-capped points. She gestured back to the shadowed woodlands behind her, where deep within the grumpy and protective Redguard chopped for wood with the sharpness of his tongue, no doubt. "I wouldn't tell him my full name!"
Wonders snickered at her bluntness, glad that he wasn't the only one who didn't particularly enjoy tolerating the block-headed warrior. "He wouldn't be able to pronounce it, my dear." he pointed out, the dangerously curled talons upon his toes wiggling to a peculiar rhythm. "You know what men are like."
"Oh yes!" Destiny agreed enthusiastically, oblivious to the male's locked eyes bouncing to a beat. She hurriedly rested a hand upon her buxom bosom to restrain the twins, preventing Wonders from spewing out his dinner with dizziness and lust. "Of course, such perverts!" she eventually continued, "Always thinking with their crotches."
The mage took a moment to pull his jaw back into position, forcing some blood into his limp tongue. "Certainly!" he acknowledged like the kiss-arse he was, his nostrils flaring with barely suppressed contempt. "With their sweat and their hairs!" the male listed, shuddering with every vowel like a pompous noble bragging to the common rabble about his adventures in the Cloud District. "Only the Hist could know why they grow beards. To store ale perhaps?"
He could've sworn some Nords packed their lunches in those things.
Goat Leg, with sliced venison, salted beef, and a side dish of diced dog – with an extra helping of venison!
Stradlater had actually tried to grow a full on beard once, having initially had trouble adapting to the change of climate in Skyrim to his native Sentinel. Rest assured; the complaints of itchiness and lice were so common that Wonders had initially offered to burn the whole damn thing off free of charge. Ever since a particularly excruciating ordeal involving an elven dagger, a cup of troll fat, and an entire litre of healing tonic, the tanned fighter had settled for maintaining a decently well-kept set of facial hair; albeit a smug one that made his increasingly common grins look larger and nuttier than a mountain giant's first dump of the day.
He doubted there was even a need for a campfire at this point: the beauty of the dame deemed Destiny was intensifying. She sparkled cutely - both literally and metaphorically – and practically blinded him with her bright glow. As he continued to admire the female's frame with less effort to be stealthy about it than a dragon gnawing on a Watchtower, she calmly caressed her colourful, eye-catching body as if she were posing for a painting - although even the brushwork of the greatest artists of High Rock would never do her justice. "I've had plenty of men admiring my scales in the past, you know." she commented, all but acknowledging Wonder's googly eyes, "Without my permission!" Destiny exhaled hotly, the rise and fall of her chest steadying under the magician's 'vigilance'.
"Oh, you poor thing!" Wonders mumbled in understanding, the sincerity of his tone as trusting as a Dunmer thief with an affinity for sweet rolls. Eagerly he tilted his head, the glint of his eye increasing in magnitude as he investigated every womanly bump he could lay his – albeit perverted – sight on. "Men are a simple species, my jewel!" he continued to murmur, his skull practically merging with his scrawny chest and nuzzling within its cavity for a better view. "Alas, we are all forced to tolerate their hubris!"
Destiny hissed hotly, the lusty sound of acknowledgement sending shivers through Wonders spine, before taking a detour around his knees and ending slap-bang at the tip of his tail. "Mmmm…" she smiled, timidly caressing the male's angular cheeks with her rough, yet comfortable, palms. "Shameful, if you ask me. Too few noble, headstrong and wisened Saxhleel." she grinned, eying the magician's skinny and pathetic body as if he was a Nordic heavy lifter immortalised in a sculpture of the finest ebony.
For the longest of moments an uncharacteristic silence filled the air between the sex symbol, and Destiny. To be perfectly honest, Wonders had often thought about why some people were so obsessed and entranced by the purity of Argonian women folk. Not long ago Stradlater had competed with him for the hand of a gentle girl of his kind, and the Redguard was more aggressive over her ownership than a bull baron on the piss.
Just why on Nirn did he want Soft-Her-Scales to be his those weeks ago?
What had lured him to Destiny-In-Waters now?
Maybe because they were both cold-blooded?
He'd thought long and hard about theories, and one often resurfaced whenever they cleared out abandoned crypts or caves or castles filled with the kind of nerdy summoners and magicians who cut their own hair with bowls and hatchets. That perhaps, to some degree, he was a necrophile.
It made sense in theory. Why else was he so keen to shove his cutlass through the ribcages of reanimated skeletons, snuggling up close and wiggling it within to rattle what was left of its internal organs – waking up dust mites and causing a mass eviction of the undead's squatting residents?
The peculiar swordsman tended to give Draugr the most awkward of grins mid-combat, his lips tightening as he ran them through against the mossy walls of their burial grounds. No doubt he was a fan of having a choice of holes to penetrate with his throbbing, wetted weapon, mind.
No wonder why he polished it regularly.
He always wanted privacy when he did that.
That particular train of thought came careening to a halt like a horse and carriage trying to do an extreme drift and wheelie across the icy roads of Skyrim – a trick that the Argonian had reenacted several times himself. Destiny shuddered exaggeratedly, folding her arms upon her cleavage as if she was having trouble bearing their collective weight. "Brrrr!" she snickered, pining for his attention. Not that she needed to try. "These garments… So clingy."
Oh, he'd noticed.
How he'd noticed.
Leaving the slightest of indentations upon the dew-gathering grass they sat upon, Destiny stealthily began to close the distance between them. "Those dastardly hooligans; leaving me in such a chilly, lonely chamber like that…" she whined, forming into a seductive crawl that did everything to flash the fresh cabbages. "The dampness of those caves was poor for my clothing..." the temptress sat up upon her knees, tugging at the underside of her ragged shirt and revealing the translucent fabric of her vest – a slender, slinking waist the colour of envy sheltering within. The garment was almost like her: showing everything up front, yet hiding everything all the same. "… Do you mind if I take these off?"
Perhaps she lacked a concept of basic social etiquette, because she'd already stripped down before Wonders could so much as make a witty comment. "A-A clever girl, I see!" he stuttered, her exposed collar bearing a surprising sense of mystery and intrigue to it. He'd spent so long staring at the obvious that he hadn't even considered the full package, for there was a lot more to beauty than the size of one's chest! "It's uhh… A bad idea to wear clothes… Damp! D-Damp clothes… In the cold…" he stammered, sounding like he was reciting some sort of arcane incantation involving frost magicks. He leant back stiffly, scooting a few inches away like a silent monk who'd wandered into the aftermath of an Orcish mating ritual only to learn that the chieftain was blind. "'less you want a cold!"
Her advance continued, the jiggling of her breast intensifying without the prison of her tight rags. "Saxhleel wisdom, hmmm?" she flirted, grasping onto the firm right-angle of his arm and caressing it within her grasp. The entire limb fell limp – no doubt the stiffness of it was needed elsewhere. "And I'm sure such a clever, well-endowed gentleman could tell me more?" Destiny cooed, resting her chin upon the point of Wonder's gawky shoulder, her twinkling gaze fixed on his reptilian grimace. The temptress pressed on, smiling at him expectantly like a young girl indirectly asking for a treat.
Wonders nodded autonomously, trying to stop himself from melting into a pile of mush and smelly scales at the mere sight of the woman before him. Childishly Destiny reached out her hand, tapping her angular talons at the mage's teeth in barely contained admiration. "They're…" the embarrassed Argonian mumbled, the subtle clink of her claws sending shocks down his spine with every tick and clack. He improvised – as he often did – like the charming devil he was. "… A-As sharp as my mind…?"
He'd seen Hagravens with better flirting skill.
Although to be honest, those creatures could be quite poetic. Providing you were drunk at the time.
Whatever the emotion that filled Destiny's features was, it certainly wasn't a negative one. More of a neutral, quizzical visage you'd expect on a local priest listening to a peasant prattle on about how hard their life was. "How… Poetic." she eventually settled on, pressing her boobage against Wonder's frozen arm. Like a deadly assassin of the Dark Brotherhood her claw silently grazed across his chest, moving downwards with renewed purpose. "You truly have a way with words, handsome." Destiny complimented, continuing down, down, down until - with confusion - she met something.
A firm, stubby shaft.
That certainly caught her off guard. "… What's this?"
'Twas Tater-Masher, his mace, strapped securely to his belt.
Eagerly she clutched onto his mighty weapon, squeezing its head and admiring its empowering girth. Wonders shifted uncomfortably; the mace's pommel was prodding his leg harshly, leaving pained marks upon its surface. "N-Nothing!" he yelped cowardly, his protests sounding more pitiful than an Orcish bard's attempt at reciting The Age of Oppression – in Solitude, as the Jarl and General Tullius watched on. The magician fidgeted on the spot impatiently, the chafing against his scales growing hotter and hotter in more ways than one, to be brutally honest. "You're making me uncomfortable…"
That just made her grin grow wider and fiercer; the sort of grin you'd expect from someone who could eat week old stale tavern bread without any mead. "What's wrong?" Destiny briefly pouted teasingly, running her talons across the dents and age-old cranial matter that comprised the rest of the enchanted mace's dome. For the briefest of moments she squeezed it, granting Wonders a mere moment within a moment to catch his breath, before returning to her unintended torture. "My, so cold and stiff…"
If Argonians could blush, he would've been redder than your average Mythic Dawn cultist who'd been told his arse was showing through a crude set of limericks. "B-Because no one's touched it before!" the pained male exhaled airily, a sign interpreted a tad bit incorrectly by his host for the hour.
Click, click, click.
"How about you?" she urged, glad to see Wonders gritting his teeth as she hastened – a bit of his skin having flaked off like a scab torn from a freshly healed limb stump. The pain was mostly comparable to wiping your nostrils with your ragged robe sleeve on a cold Frostfall, leaving nothing but sore aches and snotty chunks for all to see. Her enthusiasm and encouragement growing, she spoke domineeringly with a husky voice. "Don't you hold it... Abundantly?"
Wonders fell silent shyly, suddenly feeling glad that he had a hood to shroud his insecurities for he couldn't dare to look her in the eye. Her pumping slowed to grant him solace, allowing him to collect his bearings and respond. "… E-Everyday…" he admitted hesitantly, hoping to keep the conversation going before the entirety of his leg was sawn off by the friction. "… Don't tell anyone, I beg of you."
That prompted an endearing giggle from her, and for the briefest of moments Wonders didn't care if he became a cripple if it would let him hear such an angelic chime once more. His snout flared with distaste: He was beginning to sound like Stradlater. "It's perfectly natural, Fangs!" Destiny placated, her rapid mill-like movements no doubt chipping and peeling the rust from the mace's neck in the same fashion as the plated scales atop Wonder's thigh! She whispered, "It's the best way to let out stress... And it feels so good."
How right she was.
Smashing skulls into pulp after frying their contents into a fine soup never got old.
Be it either a sign of salvation or damnation, a heavy rustle echoed through the surrounding foliage and canopies as a tall figure wrestled through the undergrowth with heavy hands. Wonders could taste the combined stench of cheap ale, boiling sweat, charred flesh and sexual frustration. That was more than enough to tell it was Stradlater from sixty paces. Like skooma salesmen scarpering from hold gates at sun-up, Wonders hastily yanked his weapon from the female's ardent grasp. She seemed unphased even with the smell.
"Hmmm?" she said, the sound somehow managing to roll off her tongue as if she'd invented an entirely new word.
Wonders couldn't believe she hadn't noticed. "That smell?" he pointed out, causing her to flare her nostrils in search of this apparent scent. Wonders shuffled away like a grounded horse when its rider wasn't looking as she was preoccupied, stifling the whimpers of his aching body. "You know, the one that stinks like the backend of an electrocuted skeever?"
Her blinks were louder than a foppish orange hat and rose pink outfit worn during a funeral parade. "… Oh." She eventually mumbled, as if coming to a sudden understanding. Her expression filled with the glow of comprehension, and her gaze snapped to the wounded male – who froze on the spot as if hit by a paralysing bolt. "Oh! Yes, I see… Or rather, smell!"
If his chuckle was any more condescending, it would've caused widespread depression within the local youth.
Breaking free from the surprising maze of the flatlands, the familiar Redguard stood with the sort of epic pose reserved by heroes and stage actors; chest out, and a back straighter than Wonder's sexual orientation. Hauled upon his shoulder sat a collection of strung logs, sitting snugly within the comforting curve of his biceps. The lack of an axe on hand or belt suggested two possibilities – either he'd conveniently 'found' the lumber strewn amongst the woods, or he'd sliced down an oak with a single swing of his mighty, thick skull.
The latter was far more likely.
Stradlater glared at his Argonian companion suspiciously for a time, his single coloured eye squinting with disgust. Satisfied that he'd filled the mage with enough fear and anxiety for the moment to get by he glanced back at Destiny, his face becoming softer than the woman's luscious bottom within an instant. "Did he do anything?"
The Bosmer shuffled towards him, tugging the Ra Gardan cloak draped across her back close. Staring at the boots of the towering man before her she spoke with a sense of guilt, as if she feared she had made the Redguard cross. "I-I was cold."
"Certainly sounds like it, with all that stuttering." he smirked, oozing charm like pus from a whitened wound. Wonders pursed his non-existent lips with confusion, his curious and darting eyes remaining entirely ignored by the duo before him. Destiny certainly wasn't stuttering at the moment, that's for sure; she was speaking with the strength and composure of a strong, independent lady. Stradlater beckoned her over, falling to a crouch and slinging the logs over with a collection of dull clunks. "Come here, I'll start a fire. That'll warm you up."
As the wanderer got to work, Destiny took the briefest of moments to glance back at the magician. Teasingly she winked at him, gesturing to the knelt man in a judging manner. They shared a grin at his expense, before she returned to dealing with the selfish Redguard before her - her flawless rump and stretching tail swaying with confident grace.
He'd arranged the logs in a cone-like fashion, scraping the paste-like mud with dirtied hands to secure the base. Destiny knelt beside him, clinging onto her frail legs childishly as he perfected his craft. "You know, it's funny really." he muttered conversationally, sprinkling some make-shift tinder from the leaf-laden ground onto the lacklustre effigy before them. Licking his lips he dug into his pockets, the young girl's eyes following his every movement like an untrusting deer. "Building campfires… Always feels good."
Oh, please.
Was this really his attempt at flirting?
Following his example Destiny shyly picked at the grass, tossing small strands of green and beige onto the small fire-pit. Stradlater urged her on approvingly, glad to have assistance from someone no matter how small. Her delicate fingers struggled to tear even the thinnest blades of viridian and turf, the tips of her digits turning white with effort. "I-It's… Nice to build things…"
The Redguard nodded happily, at last procuring what he was after – a small striking flint he'd bought off a caravan during a brief stay in Rorikstead. Wonders had assured him that his magicks were far more reliable than such primitive devices, but if today was anything to go by he wouldn't always have the dastardly bastardly bastard on his side. "Better than destroying things, that's for sure." he grinned, slowly drawing his scimitar from the confines of his scabbard and laying it across the ground. "… A lesson a lot of people need to learn."
Destiny frowned with distaste, her stained hands rearing back from the monument of their combined efforts as Stradlater began the arduous process of striking flint-on-steel. Wonders watched on judgingly, wondering if the warrior had written a poetic speech for just this occasion. "It's bad…" she whispered gloomily, resting her gentle chin upon the knobs of her knees. The clink and spark of the Redguards strokes illuminated her eyes briefly, granting them an extraordinary twinkled under the moonlight. "… W-Why do people hurt eachother?"
To further their own goals, Wonders thought.
It's as simple as that, isn't it? Do the math.
Stradlater let loose a long, drawn-out sigh, his shoulders sagging as his lungs squeezed out every last drop of air they could contain. Wonders briefly feared that the desert nomad had just committed a rather elaborate form of suicide, only for him to speak up once more after an uncharacteristically long pause. "One of life's big questions, I suppose." he examined the flint, tapping at its tip to check for bluntness. "I've always thought it was because it was so easy."
The Bosmer gulped, glancing at him with an expression mixing shock, unease, and childlike concern. "… To… Kill?"
'Forlorn' wouldn't be a suitable word to describe his expression as he stoically glared at the non-existent flames before him, striking once more but to no avail. "It's far too easy..." he muttered, a twitch of frustration tugging at his nostrils.
There had been generations of bloodshed through the forging of his people, from their invasion of Western Hammerfell to the settlement of the deserts, from the disputes and civil wars between brothers and sisters to their final stand against the dreaded Aldmeri Dominion. Like so many of his kind he'd claimed a fair share of lives across the proving grounds of war.
But like so few of his kind, he found no enjoyment in it.
There was no joy to be found in killing, no matter how much the Forebears and Crowns prattled on about nationalism and the heat of battle. It was a strange thing how a life years long; full of memories, anger, relationships and more; could be ended with something as simple as a jagged shard of metal.
How many widows and orphans had he made?
This year?
This week?
Stradlater clenched his teeth, his grimace hidden by the flatness of his scarred visage. After a brief moment of tension his features relaxed – well, as relaxed as someone with a face sharper than the High King's haircut could look. The Redguard smiled at the Bosmeri comfortingly, as if her beauty alone drained all of the bitterness from his mind's eye."… You're still cold?"
That caused her incessant blushing to take an all new level of red, putting the knight's namesake to test, no doubt. Reaching for her shoulders she tugged at Stradlater's cloak, wrapping it even tighter across her frame as if she were preparing herself to be mummified and tossed into a sarcophagus. "N-No…" she mewled, the chattering of her spotless teeth ruining her attempts at putting on a face.
The distant Argonian felt like a Nord in Windhelm, staring across the street at the animal enclosures where all the Dunmer were crammed together in horrendous conditions and insulted by passers by. If anything that was the one redeeming factor of those greasy Stormcloaks: They may have gotten the racial superiority thing wrong, but they did know how to treat a Dark Elf properly!
Silently he watched on, wondering how much longer Destiny would be able to cope before her hands wrapped around his rusted shaft, tugged hard, and clubbed the irritating Redguard across the chops with his throbbing mace.
With one last strike the fire burst to life, instantly spreading across the sprinkled tinder and casting a warm glow brighter than a Dominion soldier in the middle of being electrocuted. Stradlater, always fond of corniness, rubbed his hands together alongside the dancing flames. "Try it." he recommended, flipping his palms and heating his burnt and cracked knuckles. "Nice and toasty, isn't it?"
He certainly wasn't the perfect example for fire safety, was he?
The mage couldn't help but snicker in the background, prompting Stradlater to roll his eyes. He too wanted to warm himself without the effort of setting something on fire, but he was too nervous to face the Redguard's overprotective wrath - his breath itself was boiling enough, if that was any consolation. "You certainly smell toasty." he commented rudely, staring at the wanderer's nose to avoid the bile and distaste of his eye. He could see Destiny grinning at his witty comment - the sole audient to his comedy gold. He gazed into the jewels of her eyes, gesturing to the smelly oaf critically. "Great thing to wake up to in the morning, if you have some honey."
Stradlater was mature enough to ignore him - more for the girl's sake than his. It was clear that Wonders just wanted some attention, and he wasn't going to give the damned lizard the satisfaction. Playfully nudging the Bosmeri's shoulder with his elbow, she nodded her head and complied - concentration filling her cutesy face. "L-Like…" she raised her delicate, pasty hands; if she were any more cautious she wouldn't be so much as breathing. Gradually her shivering slowed as she spread her hands near the fire, letting colour fill her frozen palms with life and warmth. Her arms continuing to shake, she whimpered for his support. "… This?"
He patted her shoulder fatherly, finding her smile of pride more infectious than a rabid wolfhound pumped with rockjoint - an analogy that he quickly pushed out of his mind's eye. "That's it." he acknowledged, hoping to steady her limbs. "Easy now."
He sounded like an owner pampering his pet.
Who was it that coined the phrase "Give a dog a bone"?
The Redguard could've sworn that the Bosmer had never seen fire before, her eyes permanently aglow with youthful curiosity; and her lips pursed, as if letting out a silent "Ooooo" for all eternity. Destiny's fingers twitched as if plucking at the strings of an oversized fiddle, tempting fate to get just a bit closer to the fascinating event before her. To be brutally honest Stradlater probably would've stopped her from burning a digit if he wasn't too busy having an internal monologue and commentating on every movement she made.
"Careful!" her protector howled in sudden panic, his loudness and concern bringing more fear and discomfort to the girl than the sear itself. Wonders watched on with confusion - one of his few functional facial expressions - plastered upon his face. He couldn't quite remember the last time that the Redguard had become so worked up about such a trivial occurrence; even around attractive women. Hurriedly Stradlater tugged at his belt, pouring some water from his leather waterskin and dampening the small injury. A whimper of worry and guilt from the girl brought him back to his senses, "Shhhh..." he hissed lowly, like a grass snake slinking across a meadow in search of children to terrify. Within moments she had snuggled against him, hiding behind the ever-present shroud of his maroon cloak. "There." he chuckled forcefully, like a craftsman pretending to be impressed by his apprentice's birthday gift. "Nothing too bad."
"Well, she doesn't look like you. That's a relief." Wonders interjected, winking at Destiny in a way that resembled more of an insane twitch than a charming gesture. He could feel Stradlater's glare piercing through him like a bodkin arrow, yet for some reason a sense of audacity and challenge filled him out of absolutely nowhere - and he looked the intimidating warrior in the eye challengingly. "Wouldn't want her scales to look like the back end of a troll's scrotum now, would we?"
Stradlater both scowled and snarled, the corner of his brown lips flinching with welled anger. He brushed Destiny's flowing hair to try and relieve his stress, the girl remaining reserved within the comfort of her makeshift shelter. "You sure those bees in your satchel aren't stinging your arse?" The Redguard asked with mock concern, "Because you're really sore right now, Argonian."
He did have a sore arse - for plenty of reasons, with energetic bees eager to mate being one of the latter. "I've been sitting on it all day while your pranced around like a giant high off tree sap." he growled in response, his nostrils flaring with irritation. The Redguard could've at least learned how to insult people first. "What else can I say?"
Perhaps Stradlater felt threatened by his sheer bodacity - a word he insisted was real, despite the denial of every scholar and gambler he'd met. Eventually he settled on silence, the harsh redness of rage simmering down and returning to the soft redness of dorky romance. "Nothing." he muttered calmly, making sure to squeeze in just the right dosage of contempt to get his point across. The Redguard pulled Destiny towards him with a protective embrace, yet she didn't seem to mind the feeling of security - nor did he. "Don't listen to him." the nomad whispered conspiratorially, resting his chin upon the soft mat of her well-kept hair. The vulnerable woman nodded - more to make him happy than in understanding - as she snuggled into his warm, coiling arms.
Wonders felt like the third friend as a group walked down a narrow corridor - something he had essentially became in no less than a few minutes. "Nothing different to your usual, eh?" he snickered dryly, turning his back on his 'friend' and gazing at his own prize - his treasure chest, filled with all sorts of loot and plunder just waiting to be sold to the General Store in Whiterun. Sometimes he thought about what the shop owner could possibly do with the sort of junk he shoved onto his shelves, but he'd seen plenty of strange things sold across the various markets of Tamriel.
Ever seen someone buy a dog pelt that still had a collar on?
The Argonian arrogantly strode towards his possessions, muttering to himself madly as he popped the chest open, reaching around the festering corpse within it to sort through what he had. "Ungrateful git." he snarled audibly, peeking back to see that Stradlater was too wrapped up in his affairs to deal with his intelligent friend's noble and fair counsel at the moment. "You really are."
The warrior was having no trouble blocking out the childish repitilian mage, until he suddenly began to hum to himself rather incessantly - off key and more cracked than a funeral urn crafted by a potter's paralysed grandmother. With a prod of his sandaled foot he nudged the fire's foundations, getting the flames to crackle and roar with greater intensity. "How's the finger?"
Destiny pouted childishly, her voice muffled by the Redguard's brawny chest - which she'd taken to clinging onto rather tightly. "... Numb."
"Can I see?" Stradlater questioned curiously, pinching onto the ends of his cloak and experimentally tugging it away, taking the lack of resistance as a sign of acceptance. While he wasn't quite the Grand Paladin of the Vigilants of Stendarr, he'd seen plenty of burns in the past to differentiate the various degrees and severities. Encompassing her entire palm within the confines of his own, he examined her injured finger. It was merely red, with no singes to be seen across the perfection of her flesh. Cautiously he tapped the digit, and - strangely enough - she wriggled it in response.
Destiny gazed at him with a glint of trickery gracing her usually unconfident expression. With swaying grace she continued to flex her finger before him, yet his eyes didn't follow the limb - they were far too entranced by her beauty. "I-I... Just wanted you to warm it up..."
He couldn't quite tell if it was a sense of affection in the air that jogged him back to his senses, or the fact that Wonders had just reached his favourite part of the chorus in Ragnar the Red. Rest assured, a small part of him felt sorry for the Argonian - even if he was an arse, sometimes he didn't mean to be.
"Cheeky." he smirked at her dubiously, continuing to tap and nudge her trembling, miniscule finger. He had absolutely no idea where the sudden compulsion came from, but before he could even comprehend his actions he'd leant forward and began blowing gentle torrents of air towards the wounded digit. Like a deaf bard being forced to improvise at a royal event, he stammered awkwardly "... H-How about this?"
Either Wonders had fallen quieter, or he had been taken in entirely.
Perhaps this, today and tomorrow, was his Destiny?
Shuddering with ticklishness, the Bosmeri helplessly tried to squeeze her fingers, the powerful grasp of the muscular man like a vice about her frail form. She began to push towards him, confident that his standing stone of a body could bear her insubstantial weight. "M-Mmhmm." she exhaled airily, her flowery fragrance mingling with the crackles of the flame to relax his body. "Sir..." she whispered needily, pressing herself against him softly. Her lips pursed with a sense of expectation; that of a naive and nervous girl with no idea what to do. "... S-Sir...?"
If it was anything, it was bestial.
Destiny was begging for him.
He had to oblige. How couldn't he? Could he call himself an honourable man if he left this poor woman by herself? He'd give her what she wanted - what she needed from him. He'd keep her safe, nurture her, and make sure that no one laid a finger on her. The infant curls of a smile tugged at her masterfully sculpted lips as he leant closer, a sudden glow of fiery crimson compassion flashing across her eyes.
Literally.
Stradlater may have not been a particularly well versed biologist of the Bosmer, but he was pretty certain that in most cases having your eyes flash red wasn't a sign of love or affection - or of nature, to be exact.
Now that he thought about it, just about everything seemed off. Hadn't Wonders spoke of colourful, radiant scales shielding Destiny from head to toe? Wasn't he the sort of peculiar ultra-nationalist that was so obsessed with his identity, that he'd sooner shag a rather mossy-looking chunk of stone than flirt with someone - or rather something - that wasn't Argonian?
What exactly was he seeing in his Destiny?
Stradlater's body continued exploring without his mind to hold it back, but like a conscience at a drunken festival he desperately tugged at the reigns and leaned back with all of his strength. He clawed and he scratched, desperate to prevent this sudden threat from claiming him.
A sudden sense of violation filled him.
Alongside a sense of mild embarrassment, really.
He'd been a total fool.
The Redguard found himself caressing her gentle features, admiring the tenderness of the young girl's cheeks under the rough touch of his palms. Destiny's fluttering eyelids at last settled, sealing closed with the combined sound of the roaring fire and Stradlater's calming breaths soothing her senses and bringing her to a state of tranquility. The Redguard's palms slid away from her beautiful form, the timid girl escaping his clutches for the briefest of moments.
And with the creak and tear of the cheapest of clothing, he pulled back his arm and swung at her with a single, light-shattering punch - the sort reserved for people who owed you a substantial sum of septims, or had lied to you profusely for their own gain. Thrown to the floor by the unexpected force, Destiny blacked out faster than an Imperial with a gambling addiction when the mead sales were on. She'd be seeing stars above, even with the shroud of the forest canopy.
Wonders lazily turned from his neatly arranged treasure chest at this sudden racket, hastily shovelling the grey and increasingly gangrenous bandit carcass back into its rightful spot and throwing himself upon it to appear as if he'd been paying attention. The sudden clank and clunk of the container's fragile contents jumbling into a terrible mess only caused his following scoff to gain in strength, as he glared at the towering Redguard standing over the perverted and over-sexed Argonian temptress
At times like this, there was one word that fit all.
"Gay."
X
(A/N): Apologies there: This was eventually going to be a single chapter, but it ended up so long that I divided it into one more... Which is where stuff actually happens! X_X
All in all not particularly proud about how this part turned out... It's harder to get a good balance than I initially thought, and the end result is a story that's weak on all fronts!
Oh well! Catch us later for the final chapter of Destiny, where our dubious duo at last realise the trickery that stands before them!
