New day, new chapter.
Working on the adult parts for the AOO version of this story. Will be more active about posting it there once they're done. As always, thanks for the reviews and the favs. Today is a bit of a short chapter, but I hope everyone enjoys.
Chapter 19
Ron was happy with the fresh ingredients and perishables and set about cooking with renewed zeal. Astrid forced Blackwolf to come out and eat with them, and he sat there placidly. Shego had initially taken the man's blankness or joviality at face value, but after her talk with Astrid she paid more attention and noticed the subtle hints. He wasn't being deceptive, she decided, putting on a false persona. The person he'd been around them, was him. But the best analogy should could put together was if a person made a mask of their own face, and then wore that mask.
'Like an person playing themselves in a movie,' she thought, 'it's them, but it's them as a role, not them as a person.'
Ron's mood soured, of course. Not that she blamed him. It's not easy to be in a place with someone who has a problem with something inherent about you, especially when that something was being Jewish and the long history of pain attached to it. And while Shego didn't doubt that Blackwolf believed his stated reason for disliking Jews, she also suspected it had a lot to with the Israelis had done to the woman he loved. Astrid hadn't said it, but Shego was sure that David had had the support of his superiors in Mossad. No one hates in a vacuum, Blackwolf had said.
So she cuddled and nuzzled her Master, and made sure that she served the food. Ron was a nice person, but even nice people can be mean sometimes, and she didn't want to risk slights that would bring more harm to the situation if she could help it. Ron gave her a look, but she merely kissed him and asked him to trust her.
Astrid had also brought back booze. Nothing hard, which the valkyrian woman complained about, just a variety ranging from a twenty four packs of cheep beer, to six packs of various flavored drinks, to 20 oz cans of yuengling, which Blackwolf practically tore into. Astrid was enjoying hard lemonade, Shego went with some blue smirnoff thing, and after some debate which ended with Blackwolf saying 'Kid's gonna die like a man, might as well let him drink like one,' Ron was also having a hard lemonade as well.
Dinner itself was a house salad from a bag, grilled chicken with broccoli and carrots, and a lemon cake for dessert from a premade box. Blackwolf had apparently told Astrid that Ron cooked, but hadn't told her that Ron was a gourmet cook, which annoyed her.
"I could have had fine dining!" She said accusingly, her fourth lemonade waving in the air, "how could you not mention it!"
Blackwolf, who was on his sixth can of yuengling and looking to be honestly, if slightly, happy pouted. "I only had his profile to go on!" he protested, "It said he enjoyed cooking and had invented the nacco! It didn't say anything about him doing five star restaurant stuff!"
Shego stifled a giggle behind her hand. "If you think missing out on his food is bad," she said, "you should try his German chocolate cake." Ron looked at her in horror.
Astrid twisted to face her, "What's so special about the cake."
Shego leaned towards the other woman. "The first time he made it for me, I came so close to cumming I basically blacked out in pleasure the entire time I ate it." she told Astrid in a false whisper, giggling as the woman's eyes opened wide.
"You!" She spun on Blackwolf, yelling in a deep Scottish accent, "You have wronged me you Elven bastard! This is going in The Book!"
"Fee!" Blackwolf shot back, "Fee on you and your book of grudges, you dawi bitch! May your beards be shaved and your holds fall to goblins!"
"You wanna go!" Astrid "Because I'll take you on right now!"
"I'll send you back under the ground, dawi!" Blackwolf challenged.
"Fine, it's on!" Astrid yelled, leaping up from the table and staggering over to her pack. Blackwolf did the same, though he was much more stable as he headed to the bedroom.
Ron and Shego looked on in bewilderment as the two burst around the house. Soon, a four by four area on the floor was covered in little buildings made out of books and cd cases, with a pair of spiral bound books set off to the side, loose papers, dice, and a dozen or so tiny figures beside each of them.
"The hell?" Ron asked. Shego shook her head, just as confused. Clearly it was a game, but not one she recognized. She did figure out pretty quickly that the small bearded men beside Astrid were dwarves. Blackwolf's figures were lean and spiky.
"Where you at?" Astrid asked.
"240." Luke said, checking one of the papers.
"Damn it, I'm 260. I guess you're rolling for the mission."
"What are you guys playing?" Shego asked.
"Mordheim baby!" Blackwolf said, with actual happiness. He rolled some dice. "Wyrdstone hunt!" He handed over some tokens as Astrid gave a dramatic sigh.
It turned out mordheim was a really old, out of production game based on creating tiny bands of fighters that nominally were supposed to fight each other, though doing that was apparently a terrible idea because 'your dudes' could get hurt or killed like that. The story was the battles were set in a city that had been destroyed by a magic comet made of something called wyrdstone, and that basically started a massive gold rush like run on the ruins.
And despite his growing dislike for Blackwolf, Ron rapidly got into the game, taking turns reading the rules when they weren't being consulted by the gamers. Even Shego, who had no interest in such things normally, found herself drawn in at the brutality of the combat, the highs and lows of fickle dice, the shouts of victory and the cries of painful losses.
Astrid did, in fact, play dwarves, and they were apparently tough little bastards. But they faced off against Blackwolf's Dark Elves, who despite being fragile were vicious killers. The dwarf leader went down, but took two of the elven pirates with him, and seriously injured a third in the effort. Soon they were taking "break tests" where a warband who had lost too many had to fight their moral to stay in.
"Screw that!" Astrid challenged, "you've wronged me and denied me sex cake! No way I'm letting this grudge go unanswered!"
More elves fell, leaving only four of Luke's heroes, the other two and all his henchmen out of the action. But the price of that was high. He'd started with twelve models, but Astrid had only had seven and she was down to her last two. A lucky magic spell took out one, and then the other fell beneath the wicked blades of his enemies.
Then the manual was reclaimed from Ron with small protest and they learned that the game had a second phase, where you found out what happened after the battle, leveled up, and bought new things. Once again the dice gods were fickle, and Luke lost one of his heroes and two of his henchmen, but came away with great wealth in both stones and found items. The dwarves lost two heroes, and even Shego found herself laughing as Astrid cried out in mock despair and swore vengeance for her fallen men in a thick Scottish accent. Luke managed to buy back his hero, but not his henchmen, and Astrid it turned out was just shy of the coin to do anything meaningful.
"This has been a terrible night!" Astrid proclaimed, "first I fail to get sex cake, and now my men are crippled!"
"The last one is your own fault," Blackwolf said mildly as he packed his warband in a foam lined box, "Too brave and prideful, that's your problem."
"It's called being courageous!" Astrid said proudly, throwing her head back and sniffing.
"It's called having the brains of a hammer, just like your God," Luke teased. "And seeing a world made of nails."
"So how long have you guys been playing this?" Shego asked, leaning against Ron and cuddled under his arm.
"Couple of years," Astrid said. "We don't get to meet up and play that often. I got introduced to it during some long steak out thing we were doing." She smiled, eyes distant. "Of course all we had were the rules on a tablet, and Luke here made all the buildings out of scrap that was lying around, and even did these silly little stick figures on bits of cardboard for minis. Spent days teaching me and Heather how to play after she got bored of just gazing at Luke enough to join in."
"It was kinda funny when she found out about the skaven and decided she wanted an entire army of adorable little mice." Luke said with a soft chuckle, "I don't think she is still willing to admit what they are." Astrid threw back her head and laughed.
"When was the last time you fought the Warriors of Nym?" She asked.
"I ran into her a couple months back, but we didn't get the chance to play," Luke said, growing sober.
"You didn't say something to her, did you?" Astrid asked gently. Luke shook his head.
"No," he said softly, "But I think I would rather it have been that instead of her getting hurt because of my screw up."
Astrid gave him a gently look. "Is that what you're upset about? She doesn't blame you, Luke," she said softly. "As far as she's concerned it was her own screw up that got her injured, not you."
Luke made a noncommittal grunt and finished packing his stuff away in the little case. Astrid sighed and went back to putting her own things away. Shego saw a chance.
"What happened?" she asked softly. Astrid shot her a hot look, but it was Luke answered.
"Heather was in Sweden for a vacation," he said softly, "but because vacations are for normal people she ended up finding people who were having problem with some wights. I was passing by for...reasons, and ran into her. She's nice to me, so I wanted to help, since I deal with the dead."
"What he means to say is she's actually sweet on him like dark on Svartalfheim," Astrid interjected, "But our boy here is married to the job and ain't got no time for love." Shego saw past the bullshit though. Blackwolf was still too in love with Maggie, and too terrified about something similar happening to someone else, to allow anyone close again.
"Anyway," Blackwolf said, showing only the slightest reaction to Astrid's words, "I try to help. Turned out there was a wanna be necromancer stirring things up. We managed to handle it okay. Decide to grab a bite to eat before she got back to her vacation and I left."
"Please tell me you gave the poor girl something more than a meal!" Astrid asked dramatically, pantomiming a swoon. "I fear the poor girl's heart shall wilt like a flower in the summer sun if she is not graced with the rain soon!"
Luke gave her a flat look before growing sad again. "Can you not?" He asked.
"Don't give me that look, it's far more poetic than what she said when I talked to her," Astrid said, sticking out her tongue. "Her exact words were 'what good is being the Jarl of Hospitality if I can't even get him to give my fire a good stoke."
Ron snorted and Shego let out a peal of laughter. Luke just sighed and colored lightly. Astrid grinned, sipping another lemonade. "I'm telling you she doesn't blame you. She just wants to fuck you and is too polite to press the issue." the blonde woman said, "you're not a psychic, you couldn't have known some idiot was going to chuck a grenade at the restaurant." Blackwolf remained silent, just picked up his stuff and retreated to the bedroom. Astrid looked after him sadly.
The valkyrian woman shooed them off after that, saying she could take care of the dishes in exchange for dinner. Shego shared a sad smile with the woman. She wasn't sure if she liked Luke, or trusted him and the warrior woman, but she had to admit the man had a hard life. It wasn't much of a wonder he was the way he was.
She felt ice in her heart at the thought of Ron suffering even a fraction of what she'd heard, and knew the full story of the dark haired man was probably even worse. She watched Ron getting ready for bed while she got ready and then from the bed.
Despite his protests about the thin walls, and trying to be as quiet as they could, she made love to him. Slow, sweet, precious love, savoring every inch of him, drinking him as much as she possibly could. At one point he'd tried to stop her and ask why she was crying, but she promised to tell him later and begged him to let her keep going. The poor boy was in no state to argue and relented quickly. They reached completion with her riding on top of him, and despite her best efforts to remain quiet, she finished, her back arching as she let out a the most mournful howl imaginable.
Somewhere out in the woods, wolves howled an answer back to her.