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“Again.”
Karlach spat out some blood-tinted spittle, glaring up at the unyielding mask of her erstwhile tormentor.
Eyes akin to the glacial chill of northern ice stared past a patrician nose, offering her no quarter. She’d just recovered from needing stitches in her side and her return to the local mercenary company’s salle was proving to bring with it far more pain than she had bargained for.
She’d shown up at the company dorms, eager to make up for the missed sevenday outing with Qat. Instead, she’d been informed that the company’s weapons master had decided to spend the morning drilling company recruits. What the fucking hells? She knew the woman was a hard taskmaster, but she was equally vocal about taking her rest when it was due, and Karlach knew it was due.
Karlach had memorised Qat’s schedule to the point where she had a better grasp of the elf’s daily itinerary than Qat herself, something that seemed to perplex the raven-haired fighter, if the expression the beauty had sent her way was anything to go by. But there had been a visible thawing of the icy gaze that the tiefling could see, and she knew it mattered to the taciturn woman that she’d bothered to collect such mundane information about the elf.
Boots polished to a shine scuffed at the packed dirt leading to the shaded and fenced in clearing that had been set aside for the company’s members to hone their martial skills. Amber eyes easily spotted the gracefully lithe form of her… The tiefling’s scarlet-tinted brows furrowed. They hadn’t put word to what they were, yet. After the afternoon spent napping together, followed by the very pleasant dinner of finger foods they had fed to one another, Qat had departed for another escort mission that had taken her out of the city for weeks.
It was why Karlach had been so looking forward to spending sevenday with the woman. To talk, and perhaps more. Her tail tip twitched in hopeful anticipation, the twitches spreading further and further up the appendage the closer she got to the salle and the rich, parade master’s voice that easily projected itself past the edges of the weapons salle.
Qat was in her shabbiest clothes, suited only for the rough and tumble of beating snot-nosed younglings into competent mercenaries, and Karlach immediately felt her breath quicken. Her forearms were encased in her ever-present vambraces, but the rest of her arms had been left bare, the sleeves of her rough linen shirt long since torn off from one tussle or another. The lean paleness of the woman’s limbs defied both sun and winter cold and the way her muscles shifted under skin Karlach knew to be sinfully soft had the tiefling swallowing against a throat gone dry.
The trews the elf wore had fared no better against the ravages of time and wear, the rips and tears peppered up and down the length of either side to where Karlach itched to dispose of it entirely, just to stop the teasing of her senses.
Spotting her on the sidelines, Qat had roped Karlach in for a demonstration as to why one should always keep one’s elbows close to one’s sides. Or so the elf had lectured, her no-nonsense contralto clipped and to the point.
Feeling as if she were being punished for sins unknown, the tiefling had reluctantly picked up a practice great-axe and faced off against the icy woman who had barely said two sentences to her. Hair tamed in a heavy braid that hung down to the small of her back, the elf kicked up a practice lathe and saluted Karlach with an off-handed flourish that acknowledged nothing of the relationship between them.
Irked, Karlach bared her elongated incisors and rushed at the deathly-still bladedancer who stood facing her, nothing in her expression but what felt like a deep-seated conviction to beat the ever-living tar out of the tiefling. Uncaring that her opponent was wearing her sevenday best, Qat neatly met the powerful attack with the base of her blade.
“Power is essential to every warrior’s abilities,” the elf intoned coolly, the heavy set of her shoulders bunching as she met the all-out rush head-on, only to side-step at the last moment to switch to a deflection that sent the broad-shouldered tiefling stumbling past as she over-balanced. “But where you can, channel your enemy’s power against them; let them work for it.”
Qat’s clinical observations took apart Karlach’s repeated attempts to break through the wall of defence the elf had raised against her, and that icy gaze never faltered from boring holes into the tiefling - As surely as the infuriatingly collected weapons master’s merciless counter attacks tore holes in Karlach’s own not insignificant blockades.
It felt as though they were strangers again, back in that sun-drenched clearing and sparring for the first time. Karlach hated it. Was Qat having second, or third thoughts? She had been gone for over a month. More than enough time to reconsider what had happened between them. Perhaps that was why the woman was treating her like a pell rather than a living, breathing person.
Snarling audibly, she ground her teeth and with her nicest boots drawing deep furrows into the dirt, Karlach made a concerted series of attacks that, wonders of wonders, began to drive the frustratingly expressionless elf back. A slight widening of those unreasonably large eyes was all the reaction the weapons master gave, but it still gave the tiefling a measure of satisfaction to show she was no longer the brash pushover from years past.
The elf was by no means short, though Karlach was some inches taller with a huskier build compared to the elegantly lean lines of the elven blademistress. The tiefling sought to use her greater bulk to press her advantage and she had it, for a time. Both women forgot the silent spectators, their eyes only for the other in the dance that while not deadly, still held a fair measure of danger at the speed and power the two were clashing head-on with.
Still, the decades of experience Qat held over Karlach was too great a hurdle for the tiefling to get past, and that was how she found herself bruised and spitting out blood - In her eagerness to show the elf her progress, she had forgotten how much of a punch a simple practice lathe’s pommel could pack in the calloused hands of the tall elf.
“Again,” came the flat command, and Karlach got her feet back under her, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge her ache in her jaw or the ringing in her ears. The blazing fire of her amber gaze met Qat’s frigid tranquillity, the tiefling refusing to back down from the challenge the weapons master had set before her.
She could feel her fine linen shirt sticking to her back, the blinding white muddied and brown from the mix of perspiration and dirt now covering her from head to toe. At least the elf looked no better, the fringe usually held back by the leather braided around her head having escaped to fall into the woman’s eyes.
Ravens strands matted by sweat lay in haphazard spikes across the elf’s forehead and with an impatient toss of her head to jerk them out of her eyes, Qat tucked her chin down and surged forward. It was a classic move to protect the most vulnerable part of her throat, giving away her intent to end the spar in a decisive fashion to the tiefling who had observed the elf’s very sparse, but still present tells over the course of their many practice fights.
No, not this time. Ducking beneath Qat’s flickering attack, her axe was already up and ready to tangle blade to blade with the weapons master’s. Veins popping in her wrists and hands, Karlach locked the elf’s weapon between the haft and underside of her practice axe’s blade and with a scraping turn that was surely going to render her boots into her second-best pair now, her tail whipped out and hooked bruisingly around her opponent’s ankle. Allowing the woman no time to react to the unorthodox use of her extra appendage, she shot straight back up to her feet, the move yanking Qat’s leg out from under her.
Thudding over onto her back, Karlach could hear the breath whooshing out past lips that had been thinned and severe the entire time and she scrambled, knowing her window of opportunity would last only a split second. Disarming the woman with a twist of her wrists that she’d learned from Qat in their very first match, she clambered up the length of the other woman and pressed the ‘blade’ of her axe to a jugular now fully exposed.
“Uncle, or I fucking behead ye, right ‘ere, right now,” she growled, panting, beads of perspiration dripping down the square of her jaw to splatter on her pinned enemy’s cheeks. Golden gaze narrowed, their bodies plastered front to front, Karlach could tell Qat meant to attempt a turnaround from the minute tensing of muscles she could feel pinned beneath her. The blade pressed harder into soft skin, enough that the tiefling could feel the unfettered trammel of the pulsing vein being kissed by the practice weapon.
“SAY IT.” She snarled past teeth bared, her long incisors lending credence to her threat, practice weapon be damned.
At last, the body under hers went limp, the lathe falling from the woman’s hand to thump mutely into the dirt. Dirt formed a small cloud as Qat slapped it in surrender, “Uncle,” To her credit, she called it out with the same parade master’s voice she had used to instruct the class of recruits, leaving no doubt that she’d yielded to the tiefling.
Remembering that they had an audience, Karlach shoved off of the elf’s distractingly warm body to leap back to her feet. Uncertain what was to come next, she maintained a combat stance, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet, axe held firmly in both hands before her. She was sweat-soaked but more than ready to go multiple rounds.
“Enough.” Qat said, retrieving her lathe and levering herself back up in one smooth movement and nodding a stiff thanks to the tiefling. Throwing the beat-up practice sword to her second, a stocky dwarf with tree trunks for arms, she instructed him to get the wide-eyed kids paired off to spar with one another and strode off to the barracks.
Barely noticing the hushed stares of respect the youths were giving her, Karlach shoved the practice weapon she’d been using into the dour-faced second’s hands and hustled after the departing elf. The woman’s stride was longer than hers but not by much.
“The fuck was that?!” In a few bounds, she’d caught up to Qat who was just dragging open the badly fitting door to the barracks’ interior, the loud creak unable to drown out the tiefling’s words. The elf wasn’t even looking at her as she stalked past the few mercenaries holding down the fort. One and all appeared confused to see the weapons master around on her precious day off, though she didn’t acknowledge a single one of them.
At the end of her patience, Karlach made a grab for Qat’s wrist just as the woman was reaching her private quarters. Instead of pulling free, the elf yanked open her much better maintained door which swung open easily on well-oiled hinges. Using the tiefling’s hold on her wrist to drag the dusk-skinned warrior in after her, she slammed the door closed behind them, then slammed Karlach against the same door with a pale hand that felt and looked carved from marble.
Nostrils flaring, she stared into eyes of confused amber, her own stormy and overcast from a riot of emotions roiling just beneath her cold exterior. Karlach opened her mouth, meaning to ask once more what in the hells was going on with the elf, when she felt lushly soft lips crashing over her own. The kiss was hard and desperate, and the tiefling’s tail immediately stiffened in surprise at the sudden but very welcome assault.
Sensing that words weren’t required just yet, Karlach melted back against the hard wood she was shoved up against, opening herself to the elf’s tumultuous greeting. Her arms slipped around the strong, sweat-slicked column of Qat’s neck, lips parting to grant the other woman’s demanding tongue entrance. The approving purr that greeted her action sent frissons of pleasure skittering through a body that was already forgetting the abuse it had endured in the salle. There was nothing but the beautiful elf covering her mouth with her own, tasting of sweet mulled wine and equally intoxicating.
Hard hands were around her middle, the muscles in her abdomen clenching needfully from the touch. Feeling herself being lifted, she clamped her legs around the elf who easily moved them to the old leather chaise set facing an unlit fireplace. Lips locked to the tiefling’s the entire time she’d been striding through the room, Qat eventually broke the kiss to lower Karlach to the soft, weathered quilts covering the furniture, an utter contrast to how she had acted in the salle.
The tiefling’s legs remained locked around Qat’s middle and glistening lips released a low gasp when Karlach flexed the taut muscles holding the elf prisoner against the scalding warmth of the younger woman’s centre. Feeling close to combusting from the mere closeness of the person she’d been yearning for every waking moment they’d been apart, Karlach still took a moment to drop one arm to cup the elegantly beautiful visage hovering over her.
Those eyes were still roiling with the darkness of clouds ready to unleash their anger onto the world and it troubled the tiefling to see her normally sanguine mentor like this. Heartened that the woman hadn’t shut her out completely, that she’d instead sought physical comfort with Karlach, she slowly unhooked her legs, and tail, from around the elf.
“Talk to me, ay?” She brushed her thumb across one delicately high cheekbone, encouraging the woman to use her for more than just a tumble or a salle pell. She could see that leonine throat bobbing as Qat swallowed against a lump that’d formed inside. A hand normally so steady that she could hook up fish from the river with ease shook, and continued to shake, as it lifted to trace the small lump in the jaw that Karlach had earned during their earlier spar.
The breaking of the dam was almost audible to Karlach as pale eyes misted over. Leaning close, Qat pressed regretful kisses to the lump and every other developing bruise not covered by the tiefling’s clothes. The woman’s memory was exacting, and she knew every single spot that had been hurt. Offering no resistance, the tiefling allowed her ruined shirt to be pulled off. Again, lips whispering words of apology visited each mark and contusion, their path littered with warm salty droplets escaping the poor prison that were full eyes and clumped lashes.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…” Contralto thick with tears, Qat repeated the words like a mantra.
Torn between desire and a need to comfort the obviously distraught woman, Karlach gently caught the hands trailing fire over her skin and took a deep breath to calm the racing heart that was a slave to the elf’s touches. Curling up to a sitting position, the muscles in her abdomen standing out in stark relief, she slipped an arm around the woman instead.
“I’m a fast healer, you know that. C’mon then, tell me who’s the dickhead what hurt you. I’ll fucking hurt them back twice over so their mom wouldn’t know their head from their arse.”
Qat choked out a laugh at the image Karlach painted despite herself and the tiefling felt a measure of pride that she’d been able to choose the right words this time. Better known for her skill with the axe than with words, the bodyguard hid a faint but nagging sense of not being cultured or learned enough to be a good match to the obviously noble-born elf. To be needed like this helped soothe those doubts away, though her focus remained solely on the other woman who was being nothing like her usual self.
Face burrowed into the crook of her neck, the raven-haired woman had been silent for some time though the drip of tears remained unceasing while Karlach cuddled her close. The arm slung around her middle had hooked itself possessively around her, seeming to clutch at the tiefling with a desperation at odds with the self-possessed mercenary’s demeanour.
“...We lost Casey.” The voice was so soft, muffled and whispered into Karlach’s skin, that the tiefling almost missed hearing it.
Sucking in a shocked breath, Karlach stiffened, her mind easily recalling the cheery human who’d been saving to open up her own tavern with her betrothed Dahren, a cook who worked the kitchens in Lord Gortash’s manor. If she remembered correctly, the nimble woman with the sword and shield was…
“She was your age.” Calloused fingers dug convulsively into Karlach’s side and the tiefling felt her shoulder dampened with a fresh fall of tears. Golden gaze widening in some understanding, she squeezed the elf before drawing back, needing to see the mercenary’s face, her own scrunched in a mask of concern.
Her sable fringe had fallen over her eyes as Qat reluctantly removed herself from the tiefling’s side, her head bowed. Of course Karlach wouldn’t want to be with her, not after she’d been such an abject failure at her job. Drawing her arm back, she stared down at the incongruously bright quilts under them, the patterns blurred from eyes still full.
The soft rasp of a calloused, dusk-shaded finger under her chin had her blinking and she watched darkened circles form from yet more heated droplets that had escaped her eyes. The finger refused her the indulgence, however, and soon she was forced to look up. The softly compassionate look in those lovingly warm eyes was enough to untether her from her tenuous hold on any semblance of composure.
Crumpling helplessly into Karlach’s open arms, Qat wailed her guilt and anguish into the tiefling’s broad shoulder, the claws of her fingers bruising in her need to lose herself in the woman. Nonsense words trickled comfortingly into her pointed ear, the scent of Karlach’s uniquely sweet musk, reminiscent of sun-dried laundry, surrounding the elf as securely as the toned arms preventing her from falling apart completely.
Morning turned to afternoon, and the unceasing patience with which the younger woman showed to the elf was a balm to Qat’s soul. Unable to shake off the guilt but wrung completely dry of tears, she half lay on the tiefling’s wonderfully supple and curvaceous form, feeling entirely undeserving of the simple pleasure she took doing just that.
Her braid had come undone in the interim, and the feel of Karlach’s blunt-clawed fingers combing through her hair was enough to brighten eyes she thought had finally run out of tears. Feeling childish in the extreme, Qat inhaled a long breath and pushed herself up and off of the marvelous bed that was Karlach.
Pale cheeks dusted a faint pink from her unseemly display, still hiccoughing on occasion, she glanced down, meaning to apologise. Only to find herself caught in Karlach’s honeyed gaze, the tiefling’s beautifully arched brows drawn together slightly as if to ask if Qat was truly all right and ready to face the world.
The pull was annoyingly strong and Qat found that she had to be extra stern with herself to turn down the offer of further indulgence. What was she doing, taking advantage of the younger woman’s endless patience with an elf who’d lost all ability to act like a grown-up? Unfortunately, the arms around her middle were now like steel bands, imprisoning her atop of her delightful bed, one that seemed wholly disinclined to release her.
“‘Lachlann… Let me go.” Surprised at how rough her voice sounded, Qat barely registered the endearment that fell unconsciously from lush lips now pursed as the elf found herself stymied in her attempt to put some distance between them.
Warmed by the nickname, Karlach mentally tucked it away with all the other precious bits and bobs she’d collected that were Qat-related. Stubbornly maintaining her hold, she hugged the elf to herself, “You’ve lost others before. Why now?” Her words were simple and unadorned, leaving the elf absolutely no wiggle room to prevaricate. Honestly, how was she to anyway, plastered against the tiefling this way?
A hand was stroking the strong features under her, tracing the smooth brow still creased because of her ridiculous behaviour. Qat realised belatedly that it belonged to her, the mercenary unable to put aside the need to memorise the face that had come to mean so much to her. Too much. Feeling another guilty stab to her heart, she looked away, unwilling to see the disappointment in that softly inviting visage.
Karlach could see the nervous bobbing in Qat’s throat, the woman fighting to get words past whatever had taken residence there. “W-When I heard… My first thought wasn’t about her, or even of Dahren…” The tiefling trailed her tail comfortingly over the elf’s calves, encouraging the woman to keep talking. At last, those ice-blue eyes met hers once more. They were shadowed with more than simple grief, that much Karlach could tell.
“What were you thinking?” She whispered back, unwilling to break past the hushed intimacy of the moment. More so than a simple tumble, this was what she wanted, to be Qat’s equal in everything, to be the true partner she wanted and needed.
Again, those fingers were on her face, trailing a gentle path over the bridge of her nose, to her lips where the lower had split from one of their clashes in the salle. “I was thinking thank the gods you’d turned me down.” Her breath hitched as she finished in a shamed whisper, “Otherwise it might have been you.” The hot splash of another tear stung the cut still raw and healing before it was covered by the elf’s own lips, the slight pain easily subsumed by the toe-curling wonder that the elf would admit that much to Karlach.
The fingers that had never left Qat’s midnight tresses dug in deeper, pulling the older woman closer, their kiss deepening to the point that the tiefling felt her breath was being stolen, she felt lightheaded as all the heat began pooling low in her belly. Oh gods, was it finally happening? All those nights tossing and turning, daydreaming and more about the elf taking her just the way she wanted, needed .
To Karlach’s eternal frustration, Qat was pulling back, however, her long, elegant fingers still cupping her cheek with an ineffable gentleness. Unable to hold back the growl rumbling deep in her chest, the tiefling stared hungrily up at the woman hovering so tantalisingly close over her, breaths mingling as surely as their legs and her tail were tangling.
“I’m sorry…” The elf made to rise, the haunted look of guilt still staining the edges of her elegantly sharp-featured face.
“Again with the apologies,” Karlach rumbled without heat, tail and arms refusing Qat her escape. “Don’t you get it?” Incisors bared, she tried her best to assuage the older woman’s self-loathing, her voice an impassioned though soft snarl, “I’d bloody forgive you murder if you had good reason. I know you, you’re not the horrible person you think you are.”
“And what reason would that be?!” Icy fires raked Karlach where she lay. The woman was clearly torn, unwilling to partake of pleasure when she had, in her mind, rejoiced in another’s passing. The muscles in her arms and shoulder bunched as she made to break out of the tiefling’s hold, “Just because I love you doesn’t mean I have the right…”
“You love me?” Karlach broke in past the elf’s building rant, her voice softly fearful, as if she had heard wrong. The earrings she wore glinted in the shafts of waning afternoon sun now pouring through the room’s windows, the light bathing both in a gold that shone equally bright within orbs of amber that regarded Qat past dancing motes of dust agitated by two breaths yearning to breathe as one. Whether the sources knew it or not.
Caught like a deer in a Light spell, the elf froze mid-struggle, mouth working but nothing emerging past her lips. A smile was threatening the corners of Karlach’s split lip and Qat felt her face grow warm. “Y-You’re hearing things. No one said anything a-about…” Seemingly robbed of all her usual eloquence, Qat stammered and stumbled over her words, hating how gods be damned cute the tiefling looked with that ever-growing smile. It made thinking so ‘fucking difficult’, as Karlach would’ve said. Fuck, she was mimicking the tiefling’s mannerisms now, nevermind that it was happening in her own stupid head.
Tearing her eyes away from that warm honeyed gaze, feeling other parts of her warming far too easily from her proximity to the younger woman, she again tried to get some distance between herself and Karlach. But the other woman wasn’t having any of that.
“I heard what I heard.” Karlach said, quietly adamant though her heart was singing, the grin fairly splitting her face in two. “Is that why it’s bothering you so much?” It was her turn to cup the elf’s cheek, firmly turning those crystalline eyes back to meet hers. The woman was rigid in her arms, expression almost fussbudget with how those lush lips had thinned at the question, “There you go assuming things again.” Her contralto took on a foreboding tone, meaning to reprimand the younger woman for… for what? Having working ears? It was confounding to be confounded. Why were the tables consistently being flipped when she was alone with Karlach?
“Am I?” Karlach cast a meaningful glance at the study desk set by one of the windows. On it, a multitude of empty tankards lay scattered across its surface, giving away what had most recently been occupying the elf before this morning’s impromptu training session with the recruits. It hadn’t missed the tiefling’s attention when they’d first entered the weapons master’s room, but she had made no mention of it then, her lips having been far more pleasantly occupied at the time. She wished they were still occupied like so, truth be told.
Sighing a silent apology to her clamouring desires, Karlach firmly closed the door on them and resigned herself to trying this talking thing that the barmaid down by the docks insisted was what most of her customers wanted when they were deep in their cups. Even over a fun tumble in the hay. How unthinkable.
“You felt something you thought you shouldn’t have. We all have those days, Qat. Even painfully perfect you.” Allowing her hand a small indulgence, she stroked the graceful planes above her as one would to soothe a skittish creature used to wilderness and freedom. She meant to tie this ethereal elf to her by hook or by crook and instinctively knew that there would be struggles from one so unaccustomed to entanglements of the personal kind. Fuck, she was new to this herself, but she knew what she wanted. Had known for a year and more.
Studying the woman in minute detail, a favourite pastime of hers, Karlach admired the faint flecks of silver peppering the crystal clear pupils that bored into hers, the woman’s refined jaw taking on a stubborn cast as her nostrils flared. And then the expected rebuttal was voiced in that buttery contralto, honed steel draped in the finest silk. Unfortunately, that steel held nicks and cuts, lending a ragged edge to her tone, “I have no right to, Lachlann. I swore an oath to protect…”
“And you TRIED . You can’t fucking convince me you stood by idly.”
“But I failed… and someone is less the person he was sworn to wed. When all I could think of…”
Karlach felt her hand covered by the elf’s, the woman’s fingers clasping convulsively over hers, and the revelation hit her.
“You were thinking of me.” The tiefling whispered, the weight of her words falling like redstone into the swirling depths of icy torrents that pulled inexorably at Karlach. But was it icy, when this titbit of knowledge had her flushing hotly from horns to toe? To realise she’d been foremost in the pedantically by the book weapons master? That this wasn't all just one-sided little infatuation the older woman was merely indulging a wayward apprentice in?
Unable to voice her sin, the elf merely nodded, head bowing, eyes obscured once more by the thick fall of her fringe.
“Bullshit.”
Startled by the piquant choice of word, Qat glanced down at the rebellious gaze directed up at her. Another tear threatened to escape the clump of thick raven lashes, blurring dusky features too strong to be called merely ‘beautiful’ in Qat's eyes.
“So you love me, like I… I love you. What's so wrong about caring, then?”
What in the name of all the blessed goddesses was the tiefling saying? She couldn't possibly… Love?? Did she truly let slip that word? She who'd sworn off all such relationships after her last had brought her such anguish and scars, physical and otherwise? This was insanity.
Then why is your heart leaping to hear those words from lips you keep thinking about kissing?
The tenacity with which Karlach showed on the battlefield was proving a terrible detriment to Qat’s composure. Detesting the warmth she could feel flooding her cheeks, Qat pondered breaking out of the tiefling’s hold - she knew she could, but at what cost? Those slitted gold eyes were glowing up at her, denying her surcease from their devoted regard and she consciously forced each part of her to relax and just absorb the comfort the taller woman was offering.
Karlach could feel the honed form in her arms tensing, see the lean muscles in the elf’s bare arms readying to break free and she wondered if she should fight against Qat’s obvious wish to get away. Then those chips of crystalline ice were softening in tandem with the form growing pliant in her arms and the tiefling held her breath, tail still running soothingly over the raven-haired woman’s calves.
“I’m not saying it’s wrong,” Qat murmured, unable to resist stroking the strong lines of the face that had somehow wormed its way into her dreams night after night. “I’m just… I need to be above that. I can’t play favourites.” Karlach’s eyes had drifted closed as her neck arched to further press her cheek into the elf’s calloused hand.
“S’good thing I didn’t join your company then, innit?” The tiefling’s tone was flippant, playful, though it was slowly taking on a deeper husk when the hand trailed down her throat to press palm down on the spot over her heart. Soft lips followed the path of that hand, lingering regretfully at a bruise on her collarbone.
“It’s really going to be mine…” Qat’s hushed words barely made a dent in the rising heat her mouth was building in the tiefling, until the import of those words broke past the thickening haze of arousal to crash into Karlach’s consciousness.
“Wh-What??” Eyes flying open, she stared up at the elf, the older woman’s expression holding equal parts chagrin and worry.
“Captain’s retiring; wants me to take over.” Qat admitted, eyes dropping, the guilt gripping her once more.
Another piece of the puzzle of the enigma that was Qat presented itself and Karlach did her best to choose her words carefully, “So that’s why y’think you can’t play favourites?”
A mute nod was her answer and the tiefling wondered how someone so smart seemed so dumb sometimes. “Qat, you’re my most favourite person. I’d hope… no,” she shook her head, “I’d want to be your favourite, too.”
The eyes she’d hope would look at her lifted, meeting hers. Injecting as much conviction as she could into her voice, she added, “Just ‘cause you look like a goddess doesn’t mean you have to behave like one.” She could tell the elf was about to scoff at her and pressed on, cutting off the expected deprecation, “You’re flesh and blood, like the rest of us, Qat - You feel what you feel, and there’s no controlling that. Becoming captain of the company… that changes nothing. You’re still you.”
There it was, and from the mouth of babes. Qat marvelled at the wisdom coming from one who’d seen but a mere twenty summers. Perhaps that was what first drew her to the youth those years back, that old soul that still feared nothing life threw at her, the complete opposite of her innermost self.
“There is no one I’d rather spend time with than you,” she admitted rawly. “Every sevenday was my own time; my time to be with yo-... mmph!” Further speech was made impossible by the dusk-complected tiefling who had reared up, the fingers of one hand burying itself in thick sable tresses as she kissed the elf, hard.
Qat’s heady scent of mist-cloaked wildflowers had been slowly driving Karlach wild and having the elf laying atop of her had only made keeping her urges in check harder and harder the longer the mercenary had remained. Spurred by the woman’s candid admission, the tiefling saw no need to hold herself back any longer and from the way her kiss was being returned, it appeared the elf was finally allowing herself the indulgence of her own desires.
The faint twinges and aches from their sparring session fell away, replaced by a far more urgent ache that had settled low in her belly and Karlach felt her heart beat in triple time under the elf’s cool palm. Breaking the kiss to trail affectionate nips up along the gentle curve of the elf’s jaw, she growled into one pointed ear, gratified to find it flushed a warm pink, “Then be with me.” She sank sharp incisors into the sensitive flesh behind that ear in a primal invitation and felt the shiver running down the delightfully lean form pressing her down into the chaise.
Eyes fully dilated stared hotly down at her, the crystal blue replaced almost entirely by obsidian want. There was a moment of internal struggle she could clearly see, before the elf rose to a seating position. Karlach bit back a groan. She could feel the heat of the elf’s core on her bare abdomen, her worn trews providing the thinnest of barriers between them.
Ensuring the tiefling’s eyes were on her, Qat slowly, deliberately hooked the claws of her fingers into her ever-present vambraces to pull at the worn leather. Laces snapped softly on one wrist, then the other, and the guards were tossed aside, once more revealing the latticework of scars circling each wrist. Soon, her sleeveless blouse followed, revealing achingly pale skin and a bounteous chest barely held in check by a leather bra.
“Lachlan…” Her contralto was throaty, molten with promise.
Swallowing a throat gone dry at the sight of all that skin, striped as it was by what appeared to be scars made by a whip, her answer was a mere croak, “Hngh?”
Returning the favour, Qat leaned close and the tiefling swallowed again at the feel of their chests pressed to each other. Sheets of midnight hair fell around them and the added intimacy wasn’t lost on Karlach as her hands moved of their own volition to wrap themselves around the other woman’s tightly muscled waist.
“Let’s get sweaty again…” The words were punctuated by a teasing tongue that tickled wetly into her ear. Snarling, the ties that bound Karlach to civility snapped easily at the elf’s urging and she surged up, broad hands supporting Qat’s shapely bottom as legs hooked themselves around her bare waist. The dark laugh that greeted her actions only spurred her on as she closed the short distance between the chaise and the mercenary’s large bed in a few long strides.