* 29 * 7/14/12

Zhjaeve was laughing. She really had not experienced anything like that before. Uncus the merchant had been howling at the dance performance the entire time, and she almost felt embarrassed. Almost.

She had not witnessed any of the events of that night besides those that had happened when everyone was still inside the Keep, and so looked puzzled when almost the entire group came in through the Keep's entrance all at once, Qara standing close to Lily and briskly walking toward their Leader's room. Lily made a motion with her hands and said something, and Qara stopped walking in her stride. Their Leader continued alone to her quarters, shutting the door behind her.

The elf ran to and jumped onto her bed. She turned over, staring up at the ceiling.

An hour passed. As it did, Lily grew sad. She thought she'd be happy to be away from the loudness of the night, but instead, she felt exceedingly lonely. Lying spread eagle, she flipped on her side and brought her knees to her chest.

Why had it all gone wrong? Was it because she locked onto Casavir like that? She felt terrible. Now tensions between the two rivals were even stronger. Would they ever be able to get along?

She wanted to go to the main hall and be with everyone again, but all she had done tonight is cause trouble. She sighed dejectedly to herself and stared ahead at the wall.

Unexpectedly, at that moment, she caught movement near her door. To her surprise, it opened, letting a figure in.

Lily mouthed his name quietly. "Bishop?"

In walked Bishop, closing the door behind him.

Lily sat up almost immediately, but still kept her knees close to her, feeling safer that way. "What do you want?" she demanded, more curtly than she had intended.

"Lily," was all he said, looking at her. She had never heard him say her name before. He seemed relatively calm, but the sun elf was skeptical. Nonetheless, she stood up, still keeping her distance.

His face is so serious.

He looked down to one side, seeming ashamed. "Why did you...hug the paladin like that?"

Lily folded her arms. "I hardly see how it's any of your business."

"It is my business! Quit acting like you actually wanted to!" he shouted, therewith dashing all pretense of being calm. "You were on the right track before you had to go and leave my room."

"What?! You told me to!"

"Because you looked completely lost," he explained, exasperated. Then, in a lower voice, as if talking to himself, he continued: "I thought it would change your damned reservations about letting yourself go."

Lily stopped dead in her tracks. "What?"

"The wine." The volume of his voice shot back up. "It was supposed to make you more suggestible, but it worked with the wrong person," he scowled.

She gasped, throwing her hand up to her mouth. "Bishop, you...?"

"Yeah, I drugged it. So what?"

"With...what?" Lily inquired, eyes wide.

"With an empathogenic substance. It makes you more susceptible to giving affection, among other things."

Lily had been feeling weird, but she thought it was just the alcohol. She couldn't remember alcohol ever feeling like that, though. Everything was starting to make a lot more sense now. "Why did you?"

"Because I..." Bishop looked back to Lily's face as he opened his mouth, but when he saw her questioning expression, he closed it again. He angrily put his hands up to his hair, ruffling it a bit. "How else am I supposed to get you to relax and stop being so uptight all the time?"

Lily didn't say anything, her lips pursed. Part of her wanted to be upset, but if Bishop was really trying to get her to loosen up, what was the harm? Even if he did it to satisfy his primal urges, was that really something so unheard of? As long as he didn't slit her throat or something afterwards, was there anything to be afraid of?

And, if Lily was being honest with herself, she thought the idea kind of...exciting.

Speaking of slitting throats, where was Bishop's dagger? He'd had it earlier that day.

Instead of cowering, Lily walked toward him. Bishop was taken aback, definitely not expecting her to move any closer after he had just admitted what he'd done.

She looked him straight in the eye. "Bishop, where's your skinning knife?"

Bishop, still surprised, tried to think of a quick excuse, his eyes shifting around the room. But Lily remained staring him down.

"Did you plan on killing me after seducing me?" she inquired, completely level-toned.

"No. Of course not," Bishop stated firmly, finally catching her gaze again, and holding it. He implored her with his amber eyes. "I wouldn't do something that stupid. That's a coward's way to avoid taking responsibility."

He did seem awfully convincing.

"I just..."

Lily latched onto that small fragment of a sentence. "Yes?"

The ranger broke his eyes away again, only occasionally daring to resume their staring contest. "I just can't stand that stupid royal dress you wear." He was lying. He liked the dress very much, but that didn't change his motives against it.

"You were planning to cut it off?"

"Yeah, why not?" he stated matter-of-factly with manufactured overconfidence, though the elf caught a shade that wasn't quite the ranger's skin tone coming to color his face.

"I see. So you hid the dagger so I wouldn't be able to take it once I found out your motives, or so you could surprise me when I thought you didn't have it?"

"Both."

"So where is it, ranger?" she pressed, drawing closer.

He put his right hand behind him to grab it from a latch on the back of his cloak, but Lily caught his wrist and leaned up into him. His mouth hung open, baffled by her action, and his eyes darted from her hold on him to her face – which was steadily getting closer to his – and back.

Lily put a considerable amount of pressure on the inside of his wrist to make him drop the knife into her left hand, then brought it slowly around to his front, placing it in between their faces.

Bishop stood still, shocked. He had no idea what she was doing, but he watched in curiosity and awe all the same.

She pushed the flat side up against his lips, closing his mouth with the instrument. She then neared the dagger herself and placed her lips on the other side.

Bishop was growing anxious, and her proximity to him while doing such things made the heat in his cheeks move lower. She was being very bewitching, and it bothered him. He didn't feel in control at all.

Weakly trying to dispel the mood, he said, with his lips still partially pressed against the dagger: "You don't know where this thing's been, what it's cut open."

"I don't care. I've tasted raw animal before," she said. The ranger couldn't help but interpret her words in a very different way from how she probably meant them.

Bishop was mostly nonplussed, but he managed to incredulously ask: "Are you still drugged?"

"Partially. But that doesn't make my words any less true, or my intentions, for that matter."

Was she...toying with him?

To test her, he turned his head and bit the dagger from her grasp, grabbing her waist very suddenly with both hands. She didn't flinch, but instead just looked amused, like he was just playing a game with her.

While he analyzed her reaction, he took the knife out of his mouth with his right hand and placed it safely back in the holder near the back of his cloak. Her expression hadn't changed into fear or disgust. She had instead actually begun smirking, challenging him with her probing eyes.

He placed his hand back on her firmly and walked as if straight through her, taking her along with him. After a step or two, he broke into a jog, forcing his weight against her until she had no more ground to stand on, losing her balance once her knees reached the edge of her bed. He fell on top of her and pinned her wrists above her head, staring into her face with a fiery sparkle of challenge in his eyes.

"What now, Leader? You have nowhere to go, no knight in shining armor to save you from being ravaged by the beast," he taunted quietly, nudging the cloth away from her neck with his nose and lowering his lips to the crook of her neck to breathe out against the sensitive skin there.

"I presume now you take me," she whispered simply into his ear.

Bishop laughed. "Come on." He grinned humorously and lifted his head back up to see her expression. But she looked quite serious, her beguiling green eyes seeming to stare right through him, almost into his soul. His grin faded and he cleared his throat, his heartbeat quickening to a pounding.

Was she serious?

One thing was for sure: this position on top of her was clearly driving him mad more than it teased her, and his mental faculties were fading quickly. He either had to get off now or...do exactly what he'd been wanting to do for a long while. It didn't help that the smell and feel of her skin was so entrancing.

Not being able to decide fast enough, his body played the safest reaction, which was to quickly extricate himself from her and stand up.

His breaths were rapid and short, and he looked at her with a scowl. "You're playing a dangerous game, elf." Unsure of how his tantalized mind hadn't simply gone for it, he felt shaken. He didn't like it.

Lily shrugged and got back to her feet. "I thought you wanted to have a little fun with me."

Bishop was completely speechless again. As if invited, he looked from her hair to her boots, eyeing her figure. After awhile, he shook his head.

"No. You don't want that; you just like seeing me squirm," he asserted seemingly confidently, but on the inside, he was deeply bothered. He disliked admitting that he was squirming. It made him sound weak, but he didn't know what else to call it. Her actions didn't make any sense to him, even for the drugged state she was in. He was racking his brain trying to make sense of what she was doing, but nothing added up.

Lily shook her head in turn, eyebrows raised in defeat. "Whatever you say, Bishop." She turned to her mirror and fixed her dress. "If that's all, then kindly leave."

Bishop couldn't believe his ears. He had drugged her and nearly forced himself on her – twice – and she responded almost entirely nonchalantly, telling him only to leave if he had no more to say and wasn't going to...take her.

If that's all, then kindly leave.

Despite all this, and his bafflement, he smirked.

"You're a tough nut to crack, elf." With that, he left, and Lily smiled to herself.