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Tut’Hunli is getting fed up with these two.
Seeks-By-Night has come to her this warm Elsweyr evening, his red plumage deflated and with this glum sort of look on his scaly face that tells Tut’Hunli that he has once again found some sort of grievance with his object of infatuation, the ever-bombastic Ruk’un, “Famed and Loved.” Since allowing herself and her Mirzan to band together with this unsightly gaggle, Tut’Hunli has had not a moment of peace. She has been playing the role of a double-agent, or rather, been “graced” with the opportunity of being the primary confidant of the two most dysfunctional men to walk Nirn. However, Seeks-By-Night brings with him a bottle of fine Nordic wine, as if he’s apologizing, and Tut’Hunli cannot find it in her heart – not to mention her thirst – to send the poor thing away.
“What is it now?” Tut’Hunli huffs, beckoning the Argonian forth with her paw. She is sitting at a laundry tub, and prior to Seeks-By-Night’s arrival she was washing a pair of Mirzan’s trousers, the pants-leg of which is almost as wide as her entire body. Mirzan’s whereabouts himself, Tut’Hunli isn’t certain.
“He keeps calling me ‘friend.’” Seeks-By-Night mumbles, sitting on the ground beside the tub. He stuck a claw into the bottle’s cork and pulled upward to gouge the cork out of the bottle’s mouth, from which he took a drink. Tut’Hunli stared at his expression, her brow furrowed. Seeks-By-Night isn’t the expressive type, really – most of the time he appears perfectly neutral, if not annoyed. However, Tut’Hunli is particularly adept at examining the minutia of a person’s face, and she can tell by the twinge in the Argonian’s brow and the way he refuses to even look at her spells a deep confusion and frustration.
Tut’Hunli groans, snatching the bottle from Seeks-By-Night and taking a drink, “He calls everybody ‘friend,’ are you truly getting worked up over that?” She asks, taking yet another drink before returning the bottle to Seeks-By-Night.
“That’s the exact problem!” Seeks-By-Night whines, rubbing his forehead and smoothing down his plumage, “He calls everybody ‘friend,’ does that mean that he doesn’t see me as special? Are my feelings as mutual as I thought they were? What if I’m…” Seeks-By-Night trails off, tugging at his bottom lip with his claw.
Tut’Hunli stares at Seeks-By-Night in utter shock. Slack-jawed, Tut’Hunli tries to gather her thoughts, tries to come up with some sort of empathetic reassurance, but in the end all she could come up with was,
“Are you kidding me?”
Seeks-By-Night’s plumage puffs up, and he finally meets her gaze with the sort of look you’d expect to see on a kicked puppy, “...No? Why would I be kidding?”
“You do remember that you two aren’t official, right?” Tut’Hunli sighs as she massages her temples. Seeks-By-Night takes a tentative drink from the bottle, considering his answer.
“Yes, of course I know that..” He near-whispers, holding the bottle out to Tut’Hunli, who grabs it swiftly,
“So why get so worked up over the language he uses to refer to you? Are you not his friend? If you want him to call you ‘lover’ so badly, go and get him already! He’s practically waiting for you!” Tut’Hunli stresses, gesturing widely with the bottle before taking as big of a gulp as her small mouth can manage. She neglects to mention how merely three nights prior, Ruk’un was sitting at her feet, sobbing into her knees over how Seeks-By-Night “so coldly” referred to Ruk’un as his ‘acquaintance.’
Seeks-By-Night’s brow furrows, “It isn’t that simple!” He argues, snatching the bottle away from Tut’Hunli the minute she gets it far enough from her mouth as to not spill the liquor,
“You try walking up to a guy like that and asking him to- t0-” Seeks-By-Night stammers, his mouth quivering as he hesitates to complete his sentence. Luckily, Tut’Hunli has no such qualms,
“To hold you? To soothe you in the middle of a cold night, his warm chest pressed against yours? Yes, yes, I know. Oh, but it is that easy, Seeks-By-Night! It is that easy, especially when the man you are going mad over is so simple and romantically-minded as that damn Northerner!” Tut’Hunli exclaims, jutting her finger out at Seeks-By-Night, nearly pricking the tip of his snout with her claw.
“...He isn’t simple.” Seeks-By-Night mumbles, sipping from the bottle.
“He watched those trout in the river swim for over two hours.” Tut’Hunli counters.
“He’s just… ponderous!” Seeks-By-Night huffs,
“You don’t even know what that word means!” Tut’Hunli shouts, snatching the bottle from Seeks-By-Night’s hand and smashing it over the edge of the laundry tub. The remaining wine stains the water, and thus Mirzan’s pants.
Tut’Hunli stands atop the bucket she previously sat on, and points the broken bottle at Seeks-By-Night, “I am getting quite tired of watching you both pussyfoot around acting like teenagers! Grow some hair on your balls and do something about this or, so help me, I will turn your feathers into stuffing for my pillow, and your hide into boots!” She barks, “If I don’t see that man on your arm by the time we get to his father’s house I’m going to have a conniption straight out of Oblivion!”
Seeks-By-Night merely stares in shock for a moment, looking offended yet also terrified, “...M-My wine…” He stammers, before being cut off by Tut’Hunli once more,
“You know I cherish you and that damned Khajiit, but I simply cannot let this go on any further! Forget about the wine, consider your life, child! Consider your future, surely you don’t intend to keep walking aimlessly across Tamriel! One day you’ll be an old man, an ornery old thing that can barely carry himself on the weight of his own legs! Wouldn’t you like to not be alone during that?!” Tut’Hunli sighs, “I don’t want that for you, and most of all I know that Ruk’un doesn’t want that for you. But he’s not the type of man to move first, it is you that has to take action.”
Seeks-By-Night can’t find any more words. His brow furrows, a sort of deep-thought expression. He grabs the broken bottle from Tut’Hunli’s hands, and walks toward the river without another word. Tut’Hunli watches him strip to his undergarments, and disappear into the water. She sighs, rubbing at her eyes in a desperate attempt to clear her mind from all things Seeks-By-Night and Ruk’un, Famed and Loved.
She is never that fortunate, however.
“Tut’Hunli, darling! I come bearing a bounty!” Ruk’un shouts in excitement from about fifty feet away,
“Dear Tut’Hunli, come look! I didn’t know they had game this big out here!” Mirzan calls in turn, seemingly unaffected and uncaring of the fact that he is wearing nothing but a loincloth. Alongside them both is Rali’Na, stripped of his excessive layers and holding a ream of slaughtered rabbits tied to a rope.
...At least Rali’Na was with them. Tut’Hunli thought, though from the way the boy was looking, with that big energetic grin on his pale face, she doubts that he reined them in all that much.
Once Mirzan and company drew close, Tut’Hunli looked back down at the pair of Mirzan’s pants in the tub, it only now registering in her mind that she had just been soaking Mirzan’s pants in wine-water for several minutes. If she weren’t so worn out, she would’ve flown into a rage by now. But right now, she is allowing it to pass over her like a breeze.
“Hey! Why are my pants stained?” Mirzan asks, leaning over the tub and spilling an incredible amount of blood from whatever large game he had strung over his shoulders into the water.
Tut’Hunli inhales.
Exhales.
Tut’Hunli is getting fed up with all of these boys. Besides perhaps Rali’Na.