Disclamer: I own nothing in this world. Even the atoms in my weird head are rented stardust. Bioware claims to own Bishop and Casavir and Neverwinter Nights; good luck to them. Both the men would definitely have a few things to say about it. So, yeah:
Chapter 2. Bishop.
He could not wait until the night. Something was in the air. A summer storm had been brewing all day and erupted at sunset. As he strolled up the stairs to the Captain's chambers, skipping every other step, he looked out into the fields and saw the unpaved road eastwards. It was turning to mud rapidly. He contributed a smug thought to the riders. No warm bed or even a campfire for poor cold paladins out there tonight.
He entered without knocking and was pleased to see a low table set for two. The food was simple, but Ingrid had ordered some meat for him from the kitchens, and the wine was good. She also forwent silverware in order to keep company to his offhand table manners. She wanted him to feel at ease, and he immediately bristled. They ate in wary silence, with barely a few remarks on the weather and the food. All along the meal he kept his eyes on her, boring into her thoughts. She was evidently not bothered by his scowl, and it ignited his desire to push her out of this relaxed calm.
"So. What for did my lady want to have me here tonight?" He toasted her with his goblet and made 'my lady' sound like an insult.
Ingrid met his gaze and sipped at her wine thoughtfully. She had to attempt an honest conversation before… other methods.
"I need your advice. There is an important matter I am at a loss to solve."
He gestured for her to continue and yawned, the bastard.
"There is a man in this castle," Ingrid said simply. "A handsome man, deadly with his weapons and his wit, proud and strong, independent and competent. He could be anything in this castle – the head of my archers, the chief scout, my hand, my trusted friend. But he is restless and reckless, this man. He walks alone and respects no one. Wherever he is, he sows discord and enmity. Whatever I say, he ridicules. I was tempted to send him away, but he does not leave. I was willing to ask him to stay by me, but he does not promise. He prefers to be in a limbo. Everyone is finding their places, and he is discontent with any place I could offer him. I am at a loss. What do you want, Bishop?"
He squinted at her and picked at his nails.
"Everything and nothing," He smiled in that uncaring manner of his. "You. Come over here and I will show you what I may want."
She took a long drink of her wine and measured him with such an intense look that he cringed inwardly.
"You keep saying that, and I can't decide if you are serious or not." She rubbed her temple as if he was giving her a headache. Perhaps it would have been easier to kill him. "You keep flirting with everyone you see, and I think this is simply the only way you know how to talk to a woman. You are not serious."
"I am very serious," he echoed her mockingly and added with mischief. "I even paid a whore to cut her hair in the style you cut yours. And if I started paying, I am serious as hell."
She raised an eyebrow and took another long drink, leaning back. Casavir did not return, but neither did the raven, she thought, he is safe.
"Then show me how serious you are," she suggested regally. "Undress."
Bishop grinned and rose to his feet in a graceful motion. He took a strategic step to her bed to stand on its background – her chambers were really small, he thought, such close quarters to be with me, Ingrid dear. He shrugged off his leathers and sent her a smoldering glance as he touched the ties on his undershirt and pulled it off swiftly. He straightened his back and flexed his shoulders, offering her a full view of his tanned torso.
"The show is free, but touching is going to cost you some reciprocation," he warned her. "And I am getting cold, so think faster. Or, even better, stop thinking."
She stood up and circled him, so close behind him that he sensed her breath on his neck and shuddered in anticipation.
"Oh my, things are finally getting interesting." He remarked slyly.
"Not yet," Ingrid sighed and extended her right hand to the door, snapping her fingers. The door bolt fell into place with a click and magic sealed it. "But they may. I have three conditions, though."
"Like a good witch, you do," He agreed readily. "What are they, you teaser?"
"One. Our arrangement is for one night only. No repeats, no promises."
"Couldn't have put it better myself," He shrugged absently. "Agreed."
"Two," She paused, checking the words for possible misinterpretation. "We reciprocate. If you do something you want, I will do something I want next."
Bishop gave a bark of laughter.
"Ah. Bargaining for gratification." He caught her wrist, brought it up to his lips and inhaled her smell instead. "Don't worry, love, I'm feeling very generous today. Agreed."
Two could play that game and Ingrid was better at it.
"Three," She almost purred as she let her trapped wrist brush against his ribs. She stroked the middle of his chest almost all the way down and gladly noted how his breath hitched. "You will never tell. Anyone. At all."
"I can promise it, but how do you know I will keep my word?" He smirked, leaning into her almost-embrace. She kept her touch feather-light, teasing him into submission.
"You keep forgetting I am powerful," She breathed out to the back of his neck. "I will put a geas on you. You won't be able to say a word about this night. I think I don't even need your agreement at all; however, I'd rather you give it… freely."
He considered her words and realized that at this point he could not care less. He whirled around and trapped her against the wall.
"Bring it on and let us start already," he murmured and ducked his head to lick at the point where her collarbones met. She smiled and pushed him away, but in a playful manner that he recognised as part of the game. He had an idea, and while she let a soft white spell bloom above her palm and whispered to it, he splayed out on her bed and propped himself on his elbows to watch her.
Ingrid released the spell to burst into a swarm of tiny glowing specks. They floated to Bishop and he watched them sink into his skin suspiciously. The geas tickled slightly, and he gave a soft chuckle. It was done then.
"I think it is my turn to command you to undress, Your Ladyship," he suggested.
He watched her unfasten the clasps on her tunic and expose herself to his eyes. The set of her shoulders was proud and stubborn.
"Are you indeed so comely or is it magic?" he demanded, ogling her. She shrugged and with a flick of her wrist the room changed its focus. True vision, he made a guess, this is true vision. He ran a glance across the room, saw the light blue shimmer locking the door, the glimmer of his leathers on the floor, random swirls of all colours bursting from her desk. The most surprising change was Ingrid herself.
A second ago his eyes had been on a mortal woman; now he saw a radiant magical being. Milk-white glow laved her skin with rippling waves of pure energy. A bright silver fire shone through her flesh just below her neck, and an ugly scar drew a dark crack on top of it. The magical flame inside her seemed to be alive, it moved and swirled and fluttered. This must be the shard, he thought with awe, ah, did we bite off more than we can swallow? He shook it off quickly. The most luxurious gems were for the hands that dared to grab them. They sparkled just as nicely in the palm of a beggar as in the crown of a king. The rules of belonging had been made by those who already had everything – thus, they were not fair and were to be neglected.
The true vision faded, and she was but a woman again. His. He felt a pang of longing. Without thinking, he jumped to his feet and in three long strides was on her, grinding into her, pushing her to the bed, pinning her to the sheet. She did not miss a beat, she was eager for him, and he practically growled when he finally claimed her. Manipulation could wait, hatred could lie on its shelf. He had waited so fucking long and she wanted him. He brushed his teeth against the point where her neck met her shoulder and the sound of her surprised gasp was music. He bit into her flesh and drew blood, and the metallic taste excited him even more. His movements grew faster and erratic to the point of violence. She seemed to understand his thrill and clawed into his back, found his lips and bit him hard. Pain made it all the sweeter. The game of domination and pretend resistance always made him lose his head, so he grabbed her wrists and pinned them on either side of her head to demonstrate he could, but released his grip immediately to support his weight. Then he had no more thoughts and considerations, only a daze of urgency, need and bliss.
As the daze subsided and his head cleared out a little, he rolled off and stared at the ceiling, registering all the small changes in his state and not trusting himself to speak, because whatever he wanted to say so soon afterwards was typically stupid and not his style at all. For instance, he felt a pang of guilt for having been extremely selfish and immediately scoffed at himself that he was expected to be selfish. Also, the night was young, and he could think of many other things to do.
He needs rest, Ingrid reasoned to herself, watching him through her eyelashes secretly, he has more confidence, than competence, and he kisses like a village boy. He is a village boy. And judging by what he had said about villages and villagers in general, he had not had a happy life there.
However, the things she wanted to accomplish today did not let her give him a lot of rest. She turned over and glared at him, attracting his relaxed attention. He chuckled stupidly and turned over to face her, buried his hand in her black mane of curls and pulled her face closer. She smiled inwardly at how drunk he appeared to be and cringed at the thought that she was pleased with his vulnerability. That she was going to use and abuse his vulnerability. She was not going to be proud of herself in the morning.
He looked so young in the exhausted afterglow. The way he wanted to hurt and be hurt to reach it had sent her thoughts down the path of sad recognition. He knew her glare was pretense, but he assumed that unquenched desire lay underneath, while in truth she made her compassion reach out for him and her magic creep into his very bones. What are you, she inquired his core silently, desperately, what has been done to you that the normal paths of trust and loyalty are so broken in you, is there anything I can fix; is there anything I can anchor you to; is there any ghost of true feeling in there? She gagged at the wasteland and ruin she encountered. So much hatred, so much misery, so many dark thoughts. As soon as he wanted something and could not get it, he found fault with it and crushed the very image in his mind. As soon as he wanted something and got it, it started to taste of ash in his mouth. He hated the very presence of his mind in his head and was tired of his own company. What could she hope to construct of these ashes? She was flooded with his intense dissatisfaction and her prodding was starting to stir the emotions and push them to the surface of his mind. Moreover, the sense of such desolation threatened to bring about her tears. She abandoned her covert violation of his soul and was back into the present again.
She wanted him more tired and more distracted. She gave him a challenging look and kissed his fingers, pulled at his arm, rolled over, draped him over her back. He could not resist and shook off his daze to explore her welcoming body. His hands were slightly alien, but it was a rather pleasant sensation.
"Seeing how you did not shut up for five years, I thought you would be one to talk in bed," Ingrid laughed, and felt his smirk on her skin.
"Is there anything specific you would like me to say? I can tell you of all the brothels I have visited. Or I could talk dirty. I mean, dirtier than usual. Oh, I always wanted to see if I could make you cry when the paladin and the dwarf were not around to bully us out of a conversation."
What a charmer, this one.
"Or I can go take my dagger, have it at your throat and fuck you recounting everyone I killed with it. I am really curious if I can last longer than the list. Actually, I'm even more curious whether it will turn you on or scare you. I bet it will turn you on."
A dangerous animal out of its tethers, and she brought it to her chambers herself.
"Or I could magically shackle you to that wall and see if naked rangers are good target practice for fireballs," She remarked smugly. "Just so you know, I can do it right now, without standing up to look for a dagger."
"My, aren't we angry at some innocent comment to spice up the night." He licked a trace along her spine, and she shivered. "All right, I should not forget that a naked witch costs a fully clothed witch, and naked rangers are half the price."
He was rewarded with a huff of agreement and a gasp, and continued.
"If you wanted some more conservative pillow talk you should have invited the mighty knighty virgin. We could all listen to a fresh story of Old Owl Well –"
She drove her elbow into his stomach, and he choked.
"Don't." She ordered and turned to glare at him over her shoulder briefly, her eyes very large and full of emotion. "Don't you dare make fun of him."
He had evidently touched a nerve, he just did not understand which one. Ah.
'Why?" He rose an eyebrow and placed a kiss on her shoulder blade. "Is the poor smitten paladin so repulsive to you that bringing him up at this time is a stopper? I am sorry then."
"He is twice the man you are." She snapped back into the pillow with menace.
"Aaah, that would be very convincing, my lady, if twice the man had something twice as hard up here," He rubbed against her to make a point. "And he evidently does not."
Self-restraint, and control, and breathe, Ingrid. Don't let him get to you.
"If I knew you wanted him here, I would have invited both of you," She offered dryly, and thankfully he did not notice she was almost shaking. "And he would gladly give you something hard. Like a gauntlet fist in the mouth."
Bishop laughed for real, a low rumbling sound that had reverberated through his bones. She could both hear and feel it. In a flurry of motion, he snatched a pillow and tucked it under her hip, wrapped her waist in his arms, sneaked one hand lower and helped himself enter. She hated to admit he knew what he was doing. After several thrusts she was writhing and trying to meet his every move. He chuckled and kept her in place.
"I know what got you so angry, Ingrid. I did not forget the second condition, don't you worry. Enough of third parties invading our thoughts. Say my name, Ingrid." He whispered hotly in her ear.
"I don't know your name." She parred breathlessly.
"Bishop's the name." He shifted slightly and she struggled to find any words at all.
"That's not even your real name."
"Perhaps; but what do names matter?" He added absently, fully focused on her delicious sounds, bathing his pride in them. "Amuse me, Ingrid."
She gave up and obeyed, again and again, and he was thrilled for some selfish, covetous reason. Mine, he thought to himself, not stupid enough to say that aloud. Mine. She exploded under his touch and he let himself follow, losing himself in the stolen glory. The wave of heat subsided, and he turned her over to face him, pressed her closer.
Ingrid swallowed and wondered if she was getting stuck in her own trap. She glanced at the open window. The raven did not return, and he is safe. She looked at the man that was crushing her in his arms now. His eyes were open, and he misinterpreted the signs.
"You have magic, you close it," He suggested lazily and buried his nose in her hair. "I am not standing up."
"No, it is fine. I was checking if it was open." She responded truthfully and kept the main reason to herself. "And the rain smells nice."
Bishop smiled with his eyes closed.
"Not nearly as nice as you do."
"Gods," She sounded amused despite herself. "I think that might be your first honest compliment."
His eyes flew open and he leaned back to have a better view of her face.
"So you want honest compliments," He said in a strange voice. "I have some. You are beautiful. You are delightfully direct. You are too brave. You are also too generous. You are too clever. You are so beautiful, so very beautiful, beautiful like… I don't know."
Ingrid had almost missed the moment she had been crafting so carefully all night, all because she was too selfish to let her guilt rest until the morning. Now that Bishop was so vulnerable that he babbled, she urged her magic to swell inside and pour out into him. Gently, a trickle of content, peace, safety.
Bishop shut up and blinked, confused at his own feelings. He felt like he was drunk and high at the same time. He felt like kissing her slowly and did. She smiled against his lips, and he soared.
Ingrid thought of all the things to love in her life and directed her love at this poor man pressed flush against her. The love pulsed and demanded to be released into practice. She stirred and ran her knuckles over the dark stubble on his jaw. He almost purred. Her tranquility must be like a drug to him, she thought.
"Thank you," She said quietly. "Now I want to do something to you."
"You will have to wait, cat." His voice had a touch of protest, but his heart was not in it. "I am exhausted."
She sat and ran her fingers across his shoulders, hovered over him, teased him with a small kiss to his forehead. Right where her rising magic concentrated. Pity his eyes were unable to see how beautiful he was in the glow of it. The man he could have been. The man she was shaping up, molding from the ashes, forging from her own force.
"You don't have to do anything, I promise. Rest. I want to make love to you."
He stared at her and opened his mouth, closed his mouth, opened it again.
"You don't love me, do you?"
A feeble attempt at scorn when you are cloaked in my peace, my Bishop.
"How can you know?" Ingrid smiled enigmatically and had an urge to reveal part of the truth. Magic was never one-sided. In affecting him, she was affected herself. "I feel like I do".
She straddled him and stroked his relaxed, slightly pronounced muscles. He shook his head in a disoriented way and made a much better attempt at hostility.
"What a night. Revelations after revelations. Next moment you say I am the man of your dreams, and all for a little tumbling in my precious company –"
"Bishop," She interrupted him with a kiss that took his breath away. "Keep silent now."
He rose his eyebrows, but obeyed, because she somehow managed to rub her whole body against his in one fluid motion, and he had never experienced anything like that. Her hands kneaded his flesh, and she started to whisper wonderful things to him.
"Your body is a miracle," she breathed out, and he felt like one as she trailed kisses across his stomach. "Your chest is golden. Your eyes are smoldering, glowing in the dark. You are a gorgeous forest creature, a predator in his prime, lean and lithe and graceful. Your touch is gentle, and death by your hand is sweet. Imagine the night that covers the fields outside. You are its favorite child. A child of immense beauty and power."
"I think I have proven at least twice tonight that I am definitely not a child." He argued languidly.
"We are all children locked in our adult bodies," She countered seriously. "I am the responsible child with too much independence who always wanted to be needed and keeps looking for ways to sit in the warmth of a very big fire and be part of the story. Casavir is the disciplined child whose natural curiosity and softness were beaten out of him every time he took a step which was wrong in the eyes of his tyrant of a father. He was promised to his god before he was born, a child of duty. What kind of child are you?"
"A hungry one." Bishop bit her neck slightly and stretched like a wildcat, his whole body conveying the air of complete pleasure. Ingrid turned her head and stared at him strangely. Her silent incantation faltered for a second.
"I thought so," she said slowly, and he was suddenly gripped with the fear that his suggestive remark was also a truthful answer by accident. "You have never had enough. You grab and run. Your fingers are long, and your wrists are thin, yet you are not as tall as you could have been. Your light build screams of childhood of near starvation. You know everything about hunger, don't you?"
"All kinds of hunger," he smirked, for some reason unable to deny the truth for once and immediately rationalizing that her sympathy might be the key to her heart. "Ask me whatever you want about it, and I will have the answer. Do you want to know how you start chewing bark and grass and even try mud because plants feed on it somehow? Or do you want a story of going out into the frost to hunt the ghosts of deer you think you saw? Or shall I tell you how a family sells their older son into slavery for a small sack of wheat because nobody will buy the younger children?"
Ingrid embraced him tighter at these words, he noted with satisfaction and abandoned any conscious thought for the sake of pure, unadulterated sensation.
Her net of warm light was complete. It was sinking under his skin, and she stared at the dying glow sadly. He was a miracle. He deserved a better fate. How would she be able to let him go into the darkness and be swallowed by it? What she had wanted to do was done, the man was whole for once, all the missing parts in his soul reconstructed from her own echoes, and she hated the thought of breaking what she had just healed. If she were to keep it healed, he was going to need her as a crutch, every night, every day, and it was not in her power to sacrifice that much for him. There was still some time before dawn, and she made up her mind to give him another gift, another hour of her borrowed magical love.
His consciousness floated on the surface of a vast, peaceful ocean. The ocean moved and sighed and caressed him. It was so mild and placid that a thought ran across his mind: this would be a perfect time to die. Ingrid was there with him. He breathed her like air. She was absolutely, ultimately necessary. She was what kept the ocean peaceful and his mind on the surface. She was the truth, the key, the gods, the force that made everything run. She rocked, and he gasped with the rhythm. She smiled, he sensed her smile on his skin, and fireworks erupted against it. Everything was so far away it did not matter. He was boneless, his limbs weighed nothing. Surreal sensations flooded him and left. He wanted to cry. He wanted to pray. He wanted to laugh. There was no way he was losing her. He had been right to stay all these years. By some miraculous luck he had been more insightful than he trusted himself to be.
As the last wave of pleasure rolled of him, he opened his eyes and gazed into her face. She had tears rolling off her cheeks. He smiled up at her, a trusting, truthful smile, and hugged her tightly. They were silent for a long time.
"Leave with me." He said slowly. "I won't lose you to the King of Shadows now. We can leave the Sword Coast. I will take you to Anchorome, if necessary. I will find the way to other planes, if you want me to. Ingrid?"
Confused, he watched her cry. Ingrid shook her head, and his spirit sank. She cried and cried, and he felt his peace crumble and shatter. He had a vague picture of a charred wasteland lingering in his mind, and was scared to feel it growing, consuming him. His eyes widened in sudden panic, and he clung to her for dear life.
"What is going on –" He started and broke off, shaken. He struggled to find the words, because anger competed in his gut with black, sticky despair. "It was all magic, wasn't it?"
She nodded.
"You don't love me, do you?" He could not help his wish to confirm that.
"I don't. This was … borrowed." Ingrid responded softly.
Bishop took a deep breath and tried to return into his usual self. He managed to reconstruct his hatred, his nonchalance, his undertones and even his smugness at being so quick at it. The only thing that missed was the honest emotion, but he was a master of camouflage.
"You tell me I'm finally stealing something from the paladin, and he won't even know. How invigorating." He sounded completely like himself again, if very tired.
"Do you steal the air you breathe as well?" Ingrid stated calmly, not fooled.
"No. But there is plenty of air."
She smiled at him with that expectant look of womanly superiority men were so afraid of, the look that said that they were waiting for you to make the absolutely obvious connection.
"I bet the paladin would disagree. What would he say if he knew I was here before him and claimed you?" He smirked and ran his hands across her back and to her stomach, cupped one breast and kissed the other. The magic was still there. If only he could tear it from her.
"Casavir knows he will not be my first, as you are not my first. But he will be my last, and that is much more." She answered quietly.
"Can we stop talking about the big, troubled and deprived while I'm doing this?" He complained. It did not work. He needed to sleep. Perhaps if he slept, he could wake up himself. And then get drunk. He wondered if there was enough ale in Faerun to drown this.
"I will marry Casavir," She stated calmly, lying in his arms, and he was frightened to admit that it hurt like hells. "I love him. I could love you, too; but you are not a man to love, Bishop. You are a man to bring suffering and pain, a faithless crow who will claw a woman's heart out just to see if it is red and raw as you imagined it."
"Isn't that too dark to say now?" He tried to retort, but she had tricked him fair and square. He was still safely cocooned in her soothing magic, and there was not enough spite in this remark. She had him at her mercy and she was destroying him the way he had planned to destroy her. Oh, the irony of it, he thought with bitter amusement.
"It is a dark truth to be said at any moment of our lives, why not lay it all bare now and be done with it?" Ingrid shook her head and kissed the crook of his arm tenderly. "Your heart is black, Bishop. Your core is shattered. The only thing that gives you some temporary comfort is the road, the feeling of walking and walking for miles with a clear, simple purpose in mind. Of all things, you crave death most of all, and you are scared of it most of all. You hold nothing dear because you think you are unable to keep it. And you are unable to keep it because your touch will destroy everything way too soon. You are free to go now."
"Then stop talking, Ingrid, and kill me now," he offered darkly, and it sounded like a really good idea, too. "You are being so generous with deeply insightful insults that I start to believe that murder was what you wanted to do all the way."
"You are not listening to me," Ingrid smiled sadly and inhaled his smell, weaving around him like a treacherous vine. "I am telling you that you are free to leave us now. You've had me, and I understand you need to be on the run to keep the illusion of your peace. Your destiny is to always be hungry. I would gladly feed my people with my own flesh if need be, but nothing will ever make you content."
"Is that what you did tonight?" he inquired acidly and despised the woolen ball in his throat. He wanted to push her off him and was unable to leave her soft aura, so he gripped her closer, almost to the point of pain. "Fed me with your own flesh to give it a try?"
"It is just a body." She answered simply, and he shuddered with humiliation. Again, he had mistaken himself for the hunter, but he had been the prey all this time. "I will belong to Casavir when he asks me. You needed me. This is all I could give you."
She inhaled deeply, steeled her will and delivered the final blow as she stood up from the bed.
"I know you have overstepped a lot of your boundaries in order to help me. Here was your reward. I know you will betray me before this year dies and eat yourself raw trying to understand why. Here is your reason."