"No! Why don't you do it?!"
"Dil'andau, quit being so stubborn!" Rose cried, following after the fighter as he attempted to walk away from her. "Would it kill you to teach him?"
"No, but it might kill him," Dil'andau replied darkly, frowning over at where Mezzen had managed to bury himself in Zoe's pack and was once again looking for books to read (or pretend to read at least since most of the books Zoe carried were far beyond Mezzen's current level of comprehension). "You teach him. I'm not a knife guy, Rose. You know how to use those dinky little things. You teach him. Besides," he added, almost as an afterthought, "he's your stupid kid." She frowned at him.
"Dil, he's not going to be using a knife forever," she said flatly, crossing her arms. "Sooner or later he'll need something bigger and I'm not good enough with the bigger weapons to teach him properly. You have to do it."
"Why me?!" He demanded shrilly, whirling around to face her, ignoring the startled looks the cry awarded him from the rest of the party. She raised an eyebrow.
"I should think that would be fairly obvious by now," she responded primly. "Zojikoe's a mage, not a fighter. Ka's a psion, not a fighter. I'm a priestess, not a fighter. You're a fighter. You fight. You use weapons. And you'll teach Mezzen to use weapons."
"I will not," he repeated, but his tone was more sullen than stubborn now. She'd been pestering him for the past day and half and he was starting to cave. He tried to edge away from her but she followed. "Kid doesn't need to know anything. Why doesn't Zoe teach him to be a pansy little mage like him?" Rose frowned at him.
"He will," she answered. "But you're going to teach him to be a fighter at the same time. He can do both."
"Kid's gonna give me a attitude," he tried, glaring at the priestess. "Always does. I can't teach a kid who won't respect his elders." He turned to walk away again, attempting to make that the final word, but Rose (who thought that statement was kind of hypocritical coming from Dil'andau) refused to give up.
"I'll have a talk with him," she answered. "He'll listen to me. Dil'andau, please, just teach him. It doesn't have to be a lot right now, but he needs to learn something. He spent too much time with the illithids and he doesn't know anything about anything important. If we ever make it back to the city, he's never going to be able to survive there without knowing how to fight at least a bit. And what if Kirisstind does catch up to us?! What if she goes for him before she goes for any of us?! What if she's got a million lackeys with her and they jump us and none of us can protect Mezzen and he can't protect himself?!" She looked like she was about to pull a Mezzen and hyperventilate. He continued to glare at her and she stamped her foot almost petulantly. "Dammit, Dil'andau! I said please! What more do you want?!"
"I want you to leave me alone!" Dil'andau cried. "I thought you were still mad at me for forgetting about the map. Why are you even talking to me?!"
"I'll go away if you promise to teach Mezzen to fight," she said. "But until you do I will hound you until we both drop from exhaustion." Her eyes flashed, backing up the veracity of her statement. Dil'andau cried out in frustration and threw his hands into the air.
"FINE!" He shouted. "Lloth! I'll teach the stupid kid to fight! Now leave me alone!"
"Excellent!" Rose cried, clapping delightedly. "I'll go tell him. You can start tonight when we set up camp."
***
"You know," Zoe said thoughtfully as he and his sister crouched behind a rock and watched the large, colorful, pointless-looking bird dip its head down for a drink from the small pool it was standing at. Their food supplies were starting to run low despite the refills Rain had given them when they'd left the illithid city (Dil'andau and Mezzen had shown an amazing ability to pack away more than twice their share of food if allowed) and it had been decided (mostly by Rose, though in this case at least the others had found little cause to disagree) that if they could find something else to eat when they stopped, they should. The bird (the same kind Mezzen had hyperventilated over) was the first thing that Ka and Zojikoe had found and it looked as good a bet as anything else. "Why are we still trying to find the Rose, exactly? I mean . . . it's not like you can just go home with it and expect to be welcomed with open arms. Irrialishae obviously sent you out here hoping you'd do something stupid like get yourself enslaved, or eaten, or just trip over your own two feet and crack your head hard enough to kill yourself. And all things considered that may yet happen since, thanks to your boy-toy's idiocy, we have no idea what we're walking into."
"Lloth, you're annoying. Why did I have to go with you?" Ka demanded sullenly. "Why didn't Rose go with you?"
"Because Rose stayed to make sure you're stupid boy-toy didn't kill Mezzen during their lesson, and we obviously can't trust you to watch him, since you tried to kill him too, the other night."
"Little parasite blocked me, Zoe," she growled. "We've been over this. I can't just let something like that go. And stop calling Dil my boy-toy."
"Why?" Zojikoe demanded, glaring flatly ahead. "That's what he is, isn't it? It had better be, Ka, because if you take this . . . relationship," the word came out the same way 'mutated-oozing-baby-corpses' might have come out, "any further than boy-toy, I'm not just going to kill you, I'm going to cut you into tiny little pieces and feed you to your illithid friend." He shuddered. "As if you'd pollute our gene pool with Dil'andau." Again, the word came out the same way that 'mutated-oozing-baby-corpses' would have. Ka glared at him.
"We're not having the Dil'andau conversation again," she said flatly.
"I hate you," Zoe hissed at her. "I hate you for doing that."
"Did you even hear me?" She demanded, then frowned as the bird looked up suddenly, peering in their direction with narrowed eyes.
"Uuuwa," it called uncertainly. Zoe and Ka held their breath until it ruffled it's colorful feathers in irritation and looked back down at the water.
"Never mind that," Ka said. "Just . . . hurry up and kill the bird." Zoe turned back to the bird and forced himself away from the mental image of his sister and Dil'andau wrapping their hands around anything that wasn't each other's throats. He closed his eyes and focused, softly chanting the words to the first-spell that came to his mind. Ka frowned slightly at the time it was taking and looked over at him just as his eyes flashed open and he released the spell. The bird didn't even have time for a startled Uuwaa! before it toppled over, dead as a stone. Ka punched her brother on the shoulder.
"An insta-death spell?!" She demanded. "Was that even necessary?! You probably could of flamestruck the stupid thing and scared it to death!" Zoe rolled his eyes.
"Oh like it matters," he said. "We're going to bed in a bit anyway. It's not like we're going to need my high-level spells today. All I need to do is re-memorize it tonight and we're good to go. Besides," he added, getting to his feet and cracking his knuckles, "it's been a long time since I used that one and I felt like it. Now help me drag this stupid thing back to camp so we can eat it."
"Maybe we should pluck it here first," Ka suggested wryly, getting to her feet as well. "Lest your boy decide to take another fit . . ."
***
By the time the Venorik'Z'ress siblings returned to camp, Rose was holding a bruised and battered Mezzen in her arms and healing him, and Dil'andau was nursing a bruised shin.
"How'd the lesson go?" Ka asked brightly, undaunted by the dark looks shot at her by both Dil and Mezzen.
"Little brat kicked my shin when I tried to teach him how to block an attack," Dil'andau growled, glaring darkly at Mezzen who returned the glare openly from the shelter of Rose's arms.
"It was an accident!" He cried.
"How do you accidentally kick someone in the shins?!" Dil'andau shouted back.
"How do you teach someone to block by trying to kick their head in?!" Mezzen shouted back.
"We've only been gone maybe a half-hour," Zoe said incredulously, interrupting the shouting match. "I thought the lesson would be longer."
"Any longer," Rose said with painfully false cheerfulness, "and one of them would have wound up dead. We'll work on that, though, won't we boys?" She backed up her question with a pointed look at both Mezzen and Dil.
"Two words," Ka said, dropping her half of the carcass to shoo Slayer away from it. She moved to pick it back up then thought better of it, and left Zoe to tend to the cleaning and cutting of it, "anger management." Mezzen frowned at her, then pulled Rose's face down so he could whisper something to her: no doubt a question about the definition of anger management.
"You're one to talk," Dil'andau said. "You flip out as often as I do."
"Only when I need to, lover," Ka answered glibly. Dil'andau brightened at the pet name (though whether Ka had used it out of actual sincerity, the desire to brighten his mood, or the desire to darken her brother's he didn't know, nor did he really care). Zoe, making an obvious effort to ignore his sister and Dil'andau, walked over to Rose and Mezzen (who by this point was fully healed) and held out his hand to the boy. In it was an unnecessarily large and gaudy feather. Mezzen's eyes widened and immediately all thoughts of the beating he'd received during the short lesson with Dil'andau faded into the background and a slew of questions roared to the front.
"What's this?! Where'd it come from? Did it come from that?" He pointed at the carcass. "Was it a bird? How did you kill it? What does it taste like? Can I have the feather? What is it made of? Does it do anything? Was the bird dangerous? Did you have to fight it? I bet you were cool! Did you use magic? What spell did you use?! Can I learn it?! How come it's naked? Shouldn't it have feathers? Are we gonna eat the beak? What about the feet? They don't look very good." He made a face and Zoe took advantage of the momentary lapse in questions to laugh and set the feather in his hands.
"Of course I was cool," he said. "I'm always cool." Dil and Ka both started laughing as though he'd told a joke. Mezzen frowned.
"What are they –"
"Nothing," Zoe said quickly, pulling him out of Rose's arms. "Come on and I'll show you how to prepare an animal for eating."
"Are you gonna suck out its brains? Like the illithids do? Is that how you eat it?" Rose smiled as Zoe attempted to fend off Mezzen's questions (questions she assumed would only grow more enthusiastic and fast-paced once the mage actually cut the bird open) and then turned to Dil'andau.
"Do you need me to take a look at your shin?" She asked, raising an eyebrow at him. "He kicked you pretty hard." Dil'andau looked at her suspiciously.
"Why?" He asked. "What's the catch?" She frowned at him.
"Well aren't we trusting," she said. "No catch. Are you hurt or not?" Dil frowned at the question, but Ka (having already been picking through his mind) answered for him.
"He's fine Rose," she answered. "He's just being a baby and looking for attention. His pride's bruised more than his ego." Dil'andau glared at her.
"Someday I'll get mind powers too and then we'll see who's cool," he growled.
"You need a mind first," Rose and Ka chimed in at the same time.
"Speaking of psions," Ka said, ignoring Dil's frown, "Rain contacted me on my way back. Mezzen's old master agreed to the mental link and I'm supposed to set it up ASAP." Rose's expression melted into one that suggested she smelled something bad. Ka raised an eyebrow at her. "Hey," she said, "I can always insist on yours and Zoe's first-born child, you know. Assuming you two ever manage to get that far." Dil's frown flipped itself and took on a mean tint.
"You mean you haven't?!" He asked, looking at Rose, who's silence was all the confirmation he needed, and then turned his gaze towards Zoe and Mezzen. His eyes lit up. "I think I'm gonna go help Zoe with that bird . . ." He was on his feet before either of the females could stop him, and ignoring both of their demands to sit back down leave the mage alone. Rose stared after him, fuming.
"No respect," she muttered. "How can you stand him, Ka? Why do you stand him?" Ka ignored the question.
"You still haven't said anything on the mental link idea," Ka said. "You want me to set it up or not?" Rose gave a disgruntled sigh and lay back, staring up at the roof of the cavern.
"I suppose I've little choice if I want to keep him and the rest of my children," she said. "So long as the squid-thing doesn't try and take him away from me. Closet or no closet I'll go back there and kill them all, I swear to Lloth."
"My, my, aren't we attached," Ka said dryly.
Meanwhile, Zojikoe watched Dil'andau's approach with narrowed eyes. His robes were pulled all the way up past his elbows and tied there and his hands were covered in blood, one holding a knife. He held the weapon out and frowned at the fighter. "What do you want?" He demanded.
"Nothing much," Dil'andau said congenially enough. "You looked like you could use a hand, and this is a pretty big carcass. Besides," he added, shoving the mage aside, "I'm better with a knife than you are."
"Zoe's better at everything than you are," Mezzen piped up, then immediately hid behind Zoe's robes. Dil'andau frowned at him and pointed the knife in much the same way as Zojikoe had done.
"Shut up kid," he said flatly. "You're not in on this conversation." He turned back to continuing the job Zoe had been doing. Zoe continued to stare at him suspiciously.
"What is this about, Dil'andau?" He demanded. "Why are you being so nice?" Dil'andau felt a twinge of the same irritation Rose had felt with him upon his suspicion of her motives.
"What?" He demanded. "I can't be nice once in a while?"
"No," Zoe said flatly. "You're not nice. If you were, my sister wouldn't even spare you a second glance let alone . . . you know, so why are you pretending you are? If you're looking to get even more on her good side, being nice to me isn't going to help that at all so you might as well stop it. You're scaring the kid."
"I'm not afraid," Mezzen insisted, but stayed behind Zoe's robe.
"I'll change that next lesson," Dil'andau promised grimly. "And as for getting on Ka's good side, I don't need to, I already am. At least . . . I think I am. Hard to tell with her."
"Tell me about it," Zoe grumbled, shooting his sister a hooded glare.
"There is something, though, that I'm wondering about . . ." Zoe watched him warily, with the same look he usually reserved for Slayer. "Why is it that you and Rose haven't –" He cut himself off when he saw Mezzen's eyes glittering brightly at him from the folds of Zoe's robes. He frowned and looked up at Zoe.
"Get rid of the kid," he said flatly. "It's time you and I had a man to man talk, and the kid's not part of it." Zoe frowned, having already guessed the purpose of Dil'andau's 'help.' If he was right then Mezzen might be the only protection he had.
"No," he said. "I promised to show Mezzen how to –"
"Mezzen!" Rose called from where she was. "Come here! Ka and I need to speak with you."
"Coming!" Mezzen called. He shot Zoe an apologetic look, Dil a frown, and then bolted over to Rose, climbing into her lap like he owned it.
"See," Dil'andau said as they watched him go, "the problem, as I see it, is that the kid spends more time there, than you do." Zojikoe glared at him.
"I hardly see it as a problem at all, let alone one of yours," he said stiffly. "If you've come to gloat over the conquest of my sister, then gloat and be done with it, but leave Rose and I out of it." Dil'andau snorted.
"It was hardly a conquest," he said. "First off, it was her idea. Like I was going to say no. Second off, I wouldn't gloat about that. What I would gloat about is the fact that she and I went that far, conquest or no, and you and Rose still haven't. What I would gloat about is the fact that you're a pansy ass mage who's probably never even seen a female without her robes, let alone done anything with one naked."
"I had a bath with Rose," Zoe offered as a weak defense, feeling heat rise up in his cheeks. Dil narrowed his eyes.
"No you didn't," he said flatly. "You stood knee deep in water with her and the kid and didn't do anything about it. You probably didn't even wash did you? No. You probably got so choked up at the sight of a female with no clothes on you went stupid, brainiac or not. Goddess! Don't they teach you anything at mage school?"
"I don't need to take this from you," Zoe hissed. "I'm going over with Rose and Ka now."
"Why?" Dil'andau demanded. "So you can sit beside her and do nothing about anything like you've been doing since you met her? Dammit man! What's wrong with you?! Look," he said before Zoe could reply, "the fact of the matter is, there are a lot of things that I could gloat about. A lot. And normally, I would, but suddenly I find that I just can't." Zoe frowned at this. "Because you're just too pathetic to gloat over," Dil answered the unspoken question. "If you were some kind of competition then it would be worth gloating over but you're not. You're a skinny little wuss who probably wouldn't even know what to do with a girl who wanted him if he could get a girl to want him."
"The fact of the matter," Zoe said coldly, "is that what I do and don't do with anyone, least of all with Rose, is none of your business."
"Have you even kissed her?" Dil'andau demanded. Zoe's dark look was all the answer he needed. "Lloth man! You're a disgrace! I've seen you making your stupid, dopey, lovesick faces at her like some kind of surface Elf." Zoe balked at the insult but Dil'andau continued relentlessly. "Chicks don't go for that, man. If she wanted a slave, she'd have one. She has plenty at home. Or did," he corrected himself, "back when she had a House. And I suppose when we go back dear old Mumsy will be forced to adopt her too, and then she'll have plenty of slaves again. If all you're going to be is a slave to her, you're going to stop being special the instant we get back home and she has a million of them at her beck and call."
Despite the amount his words stung, Zojikoe was impressed with the logic behind his words. They almost sounded too smart for Dil. Then again, the two things the man spent most of his time thinking about were weapons, and females, so he supposed some kind of expertise should be expected.
"So what, exactly, do you suggest I do about it?!" He demanded shrilly, then lowered his voice when the girls looked at him in surprise. "Just walk up to her and rape her?! 'Cause that'll go over well. She'll turn me into a drider and that'll be that."
"Bah," Dil'andau said. "Amateur. Rape's no fun." The tone of his voice suggested some kind of previous experience that Zoe didn't want to think much about. "And besides, I'm pretty sure she'd have an easier time doing that to you. No, Zojikoe, what you need to do is submit yourself to my teaching."
"Absolutely not," Zoe said with a frown. "You couldn't teach a stick to float. And I'm not going to trust you on this one. Stick to teaching Mezzen to fight." He turned to walk away.
"You know," Dil'andau called after him, "fighting's not a whole lot different than loving. Stick to your own ways if you like, but they haven't gotten you much farther than a pat on the head and a 'Good boy.' If you come to your senses and decide to be a man, you know where to come." Zoe threw him a rude gesture that only made Dil'andau grin.
He'd be back.
They always came back.
***
Zojikoe paced agitatedly at his turn on watch. Normally Ka stayed up most of the night, seeing as she didn't sleep anyway, but tonight she'd been worn out from establishing the mental link between Mezzen and his previous master (a taxing action considering the distance and the fact that she had had to act as a go between for a bit) and had wanted to sleep. Zoe, not feeling at all like sleeping since his talk with Dil'andau, had volunteered for the watch.
Not that he was watching much except Rose.
His eyes kept stealing back to the priestess' sleeping form of their own accord. Mezzen was wrapped tightly in her arms, though the boy didn't appear to be sleeping either. He was staring up at the ceiling with the vacant look that Ka usually had when exercising her mind powers. Having an animated conversation with his previous master no doubt about everything he'd done since he'd left home. Rose, on the other hand, was dead to the world; eyes closed, chest rising and falling rhythmically, every now and then stirring from the events of a dream world beyond him.
He couldn't quite manage to get the image of her without clothes out of his head. It was very distracting. He almost wished he'd never seen her that way.
Almost . . . but not quite.
He thought about what Dil'andau had said to him. That as soon as they got back to civilization (Drow civilization) she'd stop needing him. And as soon as she stopped needing him her interest in him would begin to dwindle. He didn't want that to happen. He liked being needed. He liked Rose. He really liked being needed by Rose.
But when they got back home? She wouldn't need him anymore. Not in the slightest. She almost didn't need him now, and he was pretty sure that she might just be pretending half the time she did need him for his sake. But who cared. He still liked her (a lot), and he kind of suspected she might sort of like him. But . . . how long would that last when they got back home. Back to a world full of bigger, stronger, better-looking males. Where she could have her pick. Out here it was just him and Dil'andau, and he had a strong feeling she'd die before she'd pick Dil'andau.
Which made the fighter right about one thing . . .
If he wanted Rose to continue liking him, then he would have to do something to take their relationship past the comfortable zone it was in. He wasn't entirely sure he could handle that, but it was better than losing her entirely.
But how?
"Why don't you just stop staring at her," asked a dull voice from his side, "and admit you need my help?" Zoe whipped around, his denials already on his lips but he couldn't force them out. He stared at Dil'andau, who met him with the most neutral gaze he could muster (which still somehow managed to be insufferably superior and condescending), and then hung his head.
"Fine," he said quietly. "You've got one chance to make this happen. But only one!"
"One's all I need," Dil'andau said with a grin, then rolled over. "We'll start tomorrow." Zojikoe stared at the fighter's back for a moment, horrified at himself for going so far below his standards it hurt physically, then shook his head and gave up on it.
If losing his dignity was what it took to get Rose, then so be it.
He moved back over to his pack and flipped through it, looking for his spell book. Might as well do something useful and re-memorize the spell he'd used on the bird. He had a long watch ahead of him and it was complicated enough to fill up the time. He found the book his was looking for, flipped it open, and was surprised when it fell open on the exact page he wanted.
His heart sank when he realized why, however.
Someone had colored all over the page, obscuring the important, high-level spell underneath. In the picture was a bunch of stick figures (one with a spider on its head which was probably Rose, holding the hand of the smallest stick figure with the happy grin which was probably Mezzen, who was also holding the hand of the stick figure with triangle robes which was most likely Zoe. Crammed into the corner was two other, nondescript figures with nothing to identify them as Ka and Dil save the angry face drawn on the one that was probably Ka, and the fact that the other was savagely scribbled over in a violent shade of orange. Out of the side of the scribble was thrust a stick hand, holding what looked suspiciously like Dil'andau's own stick). Zoe stared at the picture in horror. His spell! His precious spell! He heard a sound in front of him and looked up, meeting Mezzen's bright smile.
"Do you like it?" He asked. "I drew it for you!" He frowned. "I scribbled out Dil'andau 'cause he's mean. I almost scribbled out Ka, too, but she was nice to me once, so I figured she could stay for now. If she's mean to me again though, I'll scribble her out too." He looked at Zoe, waiting for some kind of praise or criticism. Zojikoe met his hopeful, trusting eyes and swallowed thickly.
"It's . . . I love it," he said, trying to keep his dismay out of his voice as he stared down at the mess that had been his spell. "It's . . . beautiful . . ."
"Really?!" Mezzen asked brightly. "Great! I drew other ones too! In your other books!" Zoe whimpered softly and pressed his hand to his temple.
It was going to be one of those nights.