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TEST DRIVE MEME 005
⚰︎ ⍢ ⌲ ⍚ TEST DRIVE MEME:
Welcome to RUBILYKSKOYE — a dark, horror-smut game where player choices will drive a mod-run storyline about the world and its NPCs. This test drive meme provides a medley of prompts evoking the game's general tone.
THESE THREADS CAN BE GAME CANON if both players are accepted into the game and agree to it. However, if players who'd prefer to start fresh are welcome to reuse these prompts in their own personal logs upon acceptance into the communities. Note: the universal test drive arrival prompt will not be repeated on the any event log, but players are welcome to reuse the prompt.
CONTENT WARNINGS for this game include: monsters, body horror, dub-con, non-con, religion, blood/violence, and marking/branding, loss of autonomy/self, and mental influences. This log additionally has warnings for: spiders, aphrodisiac and truth serum effects, public nudity, exhibitionism/voyeurism, bdsm, kink negotiation, social pressure, and animal sacrifice.
If you have QUESTIONS about the test drive prompts, please ask HERE. Questions about the game itself or the general setting should be directed to the FAQ.
FAQ ✧ SETTING ✧ CALENDAR ✧ RESERVES ✧ APPLICATIONS
THESE THREADS CAN BE GAME CANON if both players are accepted into the game and agree to it. However, if players who'd prefer to start fresh are welcome to reuse these prompts in their own personal logs upon acceptance into the communities. Note: the universal test drive arrival prompt will not be repeated on the any event log, but players are welcome to reuse the prompt.
CONTENT WARNINGS for this game include: monsters, body horror, dub-con, non-con, religion, blood/violence, and marking/branding, loss of autonomy/self, and mental influences. This log additionally has warnings for: spiders, aphrodisiac and truth serum effects, public nudity, exhibitionism/voyeurism, bdsm, kink negotiation, social pressure, and animal sacrifice.
If you have QUESTIONS about the test drive prompts, please ask HERE. Questions about the game itself or the general setting should be directed to the FAQ.
IN THE WOODS SOMEWHERE
The chirping of partridges in the treetops rouses you. Light barely filters through the canopy, just enough to suggest daylight. By the time it reaches the forest floor, the light has taken on a sickly green. You lie amongst the frost-covered mosses and ferns, the frozen soil cold and just a little damp on your bare skin. Wherever you were before this moment, whatever you were doing or wearing, when you awaken in this forest, you find yourself naked and helpless as the day you were born. As you sit up and get your bearings, aside from a brief wave of disoriented nausea, you seem to be no worse for wear than you last remember.
You seem to be alone. The gnarled oaks and moss suggest no sign of civilization or sentient life. Just flickers of movement from curious squirrels or brave lizards reemerging after a long winter. With your feet under you, and you'll find the wood is filled with berry bushes and nut trees, though much of the fruit has been picked clean. The freshwater stream that runs north-south, populated by both poisonous toads and delicious crawdads, will lead people towards the first signs of civilisation, the cabins of those who choose to live beyond Rubilyskoye's formidable walls.
In the forest, you may run into others with stories just like yours. Some may have already formed clumsy nudist groups, others may still be processing their confusion, with no memory of how they got here. Now is a good time to overcome any hang-ups you have about modesty; it's going to be a long hike.
Turn your back to the darker, shadowy parts of the forest and eventually the glow of manmade lights and the curve of a dirt road may come into view. At the edge of the wood, you'll find a town surrounded by a fifty-foot wall of beige stone. The only entrance is an iron gate positioned on the southern edge. When you arrive, the gate is already open, welcoming people inside.
This quaint, historic town of five-thousand has cobbled street and signs lit by gas lamp. Wooden shutters protect otherwise open-air windows on the buildings, which are all under three stories with gabled roofs. A number of businesses hug the main street — a clockmaker, a cobbler, a grocer — while residential homes sprawl outwards towards the wall. At the far end of the main street, visible about a mile to the north now that the trees and the enormous wall is out of the way, sits a castle with three towers.
When you enter, the streets are full of people, but despite any efforts on your part to hide or make excuses, they don't seem offended by your nakedness. Even families with children don't gawk or look twice. Those determined to find proper clothing regardless will find that modern clothing stores aren't available — the closest this town has is a tailor's shop and a stand in the central marketplace selling scarves and blankets.
breaking and entering
If you intend to have your character break into someone's house or yard to steal some of their clean laundry, please review the info about game laws on the FAQ and give the mods a heads up HERE.
Fortunately, the people of the town are very generous! Anyone who ask the locals will be directed to the boarding house for both clothes and a place to stay. Accessible through an embellished iron garden gate and obscured by hanging plants, trees, and vines, beyond an overgrown yard in the residential sprawl of the town is a bright-red door, which opens to a spacious cottage of several stories. It's already full of people who appeared in the village just as you did today.
finding roommates
Don't spend too much time asking questions in the common areas. You'll want to claim a bedroom quickly because each one only has two full-size beds, and there aren't enough spaces for everyone. Maybe you'll get lucky and run into someone who has decided to move out? (Roommates will not be mod-assigned; players should coordinate directly with one another to determine their living arrangements; at this point, many characters have used activity rewards to move to accomodation outside the boarding house.)
Get a good night's rest. By the light of day, locals will help get the new arrivals set up on the coal stove with a breakfast of thick grain porridge and caramelised bananas from the new peaks; these NPCs can also answer any questions about the situation. You may notice they're dressed in a way you would almost call normal — at least, in a manner befitting 19th century Eastern Europe. Gossip about new arrivals spreads quickly, and Rubeans who run businesses or train trades are eager to help you find a place to apply your skills so you can contribute to your new home.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try: naked hiking, acquiring clothing, being offered work, asking questions over breakfast, or staking your claim on a bedroom!
HEARTS FESTIVAL
New arrivals to Rubilykskoye will find themselves strongly encouraged to participate in the current zadza purging festival, and will be assigned either a collar in leather or iron based on their Niez or Wilk mark, or a wrist-strap or manacle that suits the attachment of a leash for those with a Diabel or Skala mark.
Characters are encouraged to embrace this temporary designation as a sign that they will be good citizens; those who object or ignore their designation may find the NPCs try to helpfully guide them, express displeasure at "Void-Touched" who won't assimilate, or in rare cases exert social pressure, coercion, violence or shunning to ensure compliance.
Throughout town various NPCs have set up tents and booths to host myriad performances, workshops, demonstrations, and food stands for their celebration. The foods were made using some of the new flora that have brought back from the peaks. Characters can get their hands on the following heart-themed foods from the second day of the festival onwards:
The nature of the booths set up for performances, workshops, and other goods focuses around the festival's dominance and submission themes. These persist throughout the day regardless of the hour or the audience, so very few people can be found consistently at their places of work during the day this week. In addition:
However, characters may also come across some carnival games operated by NPCs who are eager to help the Duchess find her heart! Some involve slaughtering livestock by removing their hearts—rest assured, these livestock were already on the menu, but their ritual sacrifice will now involve the cutting out of their hearts. Cut out an animal's heart yourself, or just attend the show! Many of the townspeople will get into it, painting their faces with animal blood or drinking from it.
Characters are encouraged to embrace this temporary designation as a sign that they will be good citizens; those who object or ignore their designation may find the NPCs try to helpfully guide them, express displeasure at "Void-Touched" who won't assimilate, or in rare cases exert social pressure, coercion, violence or shunning to ensure compliance.
Throughout town various NPCs have set up tents and booths to host myriad performances, workshops, demonstrations, and food stands for their celebration. The foods were made using some of the new flora that have brought back from the peaks. Characters can get their hands on the following heart-themed foods from the second day of the festival onwards:
- HEART-SHAPED COOKIES: eating these intensifies body heat, making characters a great cuddle buddy for the cold weather and likely to strip down, feeling overheated even in a snowdrift
- BEEF HEART STEW WITH DUXELLES: eating these fills those who consume it with confidence, making them more solicitous and dominant
- LIME-GLAZED GOAT HEART SATAY: eating these intensifies sensation, making characters more sensitive to both pain and pleasure
- CINNAMON GLUWEIN: drinking a cup of this hot beverage will make characters especially honest
The nature of the booths set up for performances, workshops, and other goods focuses around the festival's dominance and submission themes. These persist throughout the day regardless of the hour or the audience, so very few people can be found consistently at their places of work during the day this week. In addition:
- Skala and diabel NPCs may offer to share their partner(s) with the Void-touched, or ask to share theirs.
- PIOTR, a farmer, brings tools over from the farm including bridles and saddles, which can be found at a booth near some hunters who've made anal plugs that end with real animal tails, as well as muzzles.
- The cages from the Moot Hall have been moved into the streets, and people are allowed to move freely in and out of them. One of them has been covered in curtains to function as a glory hole booth.
- Some niez and wilk NPCs line up near the main event stage and kneel to offer themselves as human furniture.
However, characters may also come across some carnival games operated by NPCs who are eager to help the Duchess find her heart! Some involve slaughtering livestock by removing their hearts—rest assured, these livestock were already on the menu, but their ritual sacrifice will now involve the cutting out of their hearts. Cut out an animal's heart yourself, or just attend the show! Many of the townspeople will get into it, painting their faces with animal blood or drinking from it.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try reacting to being assigned a dominant or submissive role, scenes where your character is starting to feel the effects of the food, watching (or participating in) a performance, or joining in on a gory animal sacrifice. NPCs that are usually welcoming may strongly pressure even new arrivals to participate in their cultural festivities.
the fathomless dark
At the outer edges of the forest, shadows grow long and the air grows thick. Though the sun never grows warm red-gold with sunset, the wood darkens. Birdsong is replaced by the click of mandibles and the skitter of many legs. Anyone who ventures out this way will soon find it difficult to see before them, even in the middle of the day — eventually, even the brightest magical light source or darkvision cannot stretch further than a few inches. In the void, the air feels heavy, as if it were not air at all but some more solid mass. Almost like liquid-smoke, it presses down upon you. Slowing your movements. Characters who push too far into the void may stop being able to move at all, and find themselves given over to insanity if they collapse, unable to draw themselves out. This is just one of many dangers.
Monsters thrive this far out. Huge, blood-red spiders the size of hunting dogs drop from the treetops. In addition to their venomous bite, which contains a fast-acting paralytic, these creatures are clever: they attempt to use their webbing to entangle any trespassers, binding limbs together or to trees. If you're unfortunate to become fully cocooned, you don't have long before this forest will be the last thing you see.
Those who seem lucky enough not to run afoul of the monsters here are in for a worse fate. The void can play tricks on your senses. As madness sets in and you lose all sense of direction, you may also lose control of your body — what is that steers your hands to turn against your friends? Why does it sound like your own voice whispering?
In the fog, you may also hear the voices of those familiar to you — people you know from the town, or people whom you know with almost perfect certainty aren't here. these figments may recreate unhappy memories or force trespassers to hallucinate their worst nightmares. Nothing is as it seems in the void, and when you swing at these figments, desperate to silence them, it might not be a figment at all, but a friend in the flesh trying to help you. By the time you see their true face, it could be too late to stop yourself.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try fighting a monster, hallucinating your worst nightmares, and/or attacking a friend or stranger!
HIDING INSIDE EACH OF US
Uh oh spaghetti-os.
The marks worn by all residents of Rubilykskoye aren't just cool body art, as it turns out. The town is full of rumors, whispered in shadows and over candles of a starving creature hiding in the dark corners of your chest. Feed your inner beast, they say, before it finds a way to feed itself.
Alas, its emergence is inevitable — sooner or later, the horrible things that happen here pile up and make someone repulsed by the idea of human contact. Someone holds themselves back, bites their tongue, or simply does not believe the stories. Today, for one reason or another, that creature is coming out. Someone hasn't been keeping it sated.
Symptoms escalate over weeks, from monstrous irritability to full-blown body horror transformation, where people physically shed their human forms and evolve into the monsters this place made them. Once a person becomes something more (or less) than human there's only one way to go back — sate the beast.
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Poor Merta Chesnokov, the usually stalwart older woman who mans the Apothecary, has been beset by unusual requests in addition to her regular demands, not to mention sweating blood. The festival, a rash of skala blood flu, and a little extra town chaos in January, has brought a high demand to her little shop. Now there's also a local fashion springing up for teas and herbal remedies sourced from the recently revealed tropical mountains.
After another failed tisane test drive, and the third customer asking for a new kind of aphrodisiac to add to their festival food, she was seen tossing down her work knife with uncharacteristic frustration, and taking an "early lunch" that she didn't return from that night. Though her children, friends and employees reach out to her, there's no sign of her until you stumble upon her in the woods.
Merta overboils with her suppressed fury as her body distorts and her flesh blackens and crusts. Her attempts to hold off her transformation have failed, and Merta turns into a Smoldering Skink, a large repillian creature whose thick scales hold back her magmatic insides. The noise she makes is an unhearthly hissing scream like a boiling kettle, and she attempts to vent her pent-up stress by wildly attacking everything in sight. Immediately, the surroundings catch aflame! There will be a small fire eating at the dead wood of a long winter if it's not put out, but your first priority might have to be fielding a stampeding lizard with massive teeth and burning hot scales...
(There are other monsters lurking in every townsperson — feel free to invent your own npc monsters and scenarios!)
The marks worn by all residents of Rubilykskoye aren't just cool body art, as it turns out. The town is full of rumors, whispered in shadows and over candles of a starving creature hiding in the dark corners of your chest. Feed your inner beast, they say, before it finds a way to feed itself.
Alas, its emergence is inevitable — sooner or later, the horrible things that happen here pile up and make someone repulsed by the idea of human contact. Someone holds themselves back, bites their tongue, or simply does not believe the stories. Today, for one reason or another, that creature is coming out. Someone hasn't been keeping it sated.
Symptoms escalate over weeks, from monstrous irritability to full-blown body horror transformation, where people physically shed their human forms and evolve into the monsters this place made them. Once a person becomes something more (or less) than human there's only one way to go back — sate the beast.
someone else transforms
After another failed tisane test drive, and the third customer asking for a new kind of aphrodisiac to add to their festival food, she was seen tossing down her work knife with uncharacteristic frustration, and taking an "early lunch" that she didn't return from that night. Though her children, friends and employees reach out to her, there's no sign of her until you stumble upon her in the woods.
Merta overboils with her suppressed fury as her body distorts and her flesh blackens and crusts. Her attempts to hold off her transformation have failed, and Merta turns into a Smoldering Skink, a large repillian creature whose thick scales hold back her magmatic insides. The noise she makes is an unhearthly hissing scream like a boiling kettle, and she attempts to vent her pent-up stress by wildly attacking everything in sight. Immediately, the surroundings catch aflame! There will be a small fire eating at the dead wood of a long winter if it's not put out, but your first priority might have to be fielding a stampeding lizard with massive teeth and burning hot scales...
(There are other monsters lurking in every townsperson — feel free to invent your own npc monsters and scenarios!)
you waited too long
At first, as you hide yourself from your darker impulses, a subtle itch develops under your skin. An irritability that makes you snap at the person who bumps into you on the stairs because all those fleeting emotions that you've been repressing bubble to the surface. Every dark thought you've had about being here, all the fears of never getting home, of being surrounded by ticking time bombs, the anxiety of wondering who you might hurt or what relationships you might betray by doing what you have to do. The anger. Oh, the anger.
Maybe you shut yourself in your room or run into the woods to hide away, but there's only so much you can do to deny the itch that grows into hunger like a spark catching and growing to wildfire. Someone comes to check on you. That knock on the door or crunch of leaves in the wood that fills you with dread at what you might do and hope that you will be sated.
As claws and fangs and scales and spines and fur grow and your body transforms with a sickening crunch of bones and peeling of skin, so do your appetites. If you won't sate them, you'll lose yourself to your beastly impulses sooner or later, mauling friends and taking your fill. Is it better or worse if only your claws get inside of them?
Maybe you shut yourself in your room or run into the woods to hide away, but there's only so much you can do to deny the itch that grows into hunger like a spark catching and growing to wildfire. Someone comes to check on you. That knock on the door or crunch of leaves in the wood that fills you with dread at what you might do and hope that you will be sated.
As claws and fangs and scales and spines and fur grow and your body transforms with a sickening crunch of bones and peeling of skin, so do your appetites. If you won't sate them, you'll lose yourself to your beastly impulses sooner or later, mauling friends and taking your fill. Is it better or worse if only your claws get inside of them?
no subject
Peony pressed her lips together. "I walked away from the noble life precisely due to my exhaustion with it all. I didn't want to spend my days under scrutiny of which fork was incorrect or how to correctly address a Baron as opposed to a Vice Baron." She confessed. "They're fucking suffocating people." Lady Titania was the only supplication she could tolerate.
no subject
Ianthe brought them to a stop in the middle of an area with a few different food stands. "Hungry?"
no subject
"Well, you can be guaranteed of one thing. I have never been called dull or boring." A cheeky wink accompanied the proclamation.
But, oh, how the scents drifted past her nose and made her mouth water. "Yes. But--" Her stomach rumbled impatiently. "Is this one of those 'if you eat this, we own you' nonsenses?"
no subject
"Good to hear, though I'll reserve judgement for myself. After all, we've just met." And if Ianthe wasn't enjoying herself, she'd find something else to entertain herself with. That was rarely a good thing for others.
"And I have no idea what you're taking about. It's just food."
no subject
Wait, what was Ianthe saying? She got distracted thinking about herself.
"No. It's not. In the feywild, taking food without offering something in return is tantamount to offering your open service to whichever master provided it. I've been leaving offerings at the Inn to settle any percieved debt." She wasn't totally paranoid, but she was a healthy amount of cautious.
no subject
no subject
"I'll need to get my hands on a stringed instrument sooner rather than later then." If labour was the recompense for being the essentials of life, she would simply have to tolerate it until Archie and Red Kite could find a cleric to locate her. It would make for a good tale later down the line. "I'm a bard. It's how I earned to support myself." She added as an after note. "My playing is better than my singing."
But what would rhyme with zadza? Peony approached one of the vendors, taking the offered stew with polite thanks.
no subject
Now the food carried the effects of the natural ingredients it was made with, some having a variety of effects. Ianthe had become so used to it that it didn't even register to her anymore as something to warn about, and it never stayed in her system long enough to care. She took a bowl of stew as well, finding a place to sit.
no subject
"Thank you, those are good leads. If you'd recommend me to your friend if he manages to get up and running, I would be very appreciative." It seemed like here that more might be expected but she could deal with those issues as they came. But in the mean time, damn, this was good stew. "In fact--" Peony sat close beside her, smiling coyly at Ianthe now that they were at a nearer height and she could look more clearly at her face. "--I'd owe you a favour. And my favours are immeasurably valuable to those who have them."
A bold statement but she felt she could back it up.
no subject
Especially if Peony was bound by the same fairy shit Sweeney was. She did say she was a fairy thing, right? Regardless, she served the fairy queen and probably lived a fairy code even if she wasn't. She felt non-human, at least. Close enough.
"The gambling den is in the basement of the tavern. Don't mind the bloodstains on the floor. There used to be a fight club using it before Nikolai made arrangements to use it."
cw: blood, human sacrifice
"Pick a mark, seduce her, send her off on her merry way to get murdered on the promise of stardom and artistry. Quite the racket you have going here, Ianthe." She prodded at her playfully, a flirtatious gale in her tail all of a sudden. Obviously it was merely the stew revitalising her. Clearly she had been more hungry than she had thought and perhaps this place wasn't going to be so terrible. It was better than Barovia by a country mile. "Although, we're sadly lacking on the seduction front. I'm starting to think I need to pick up some of the slack."
no subject
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts."
Laughing, Ianthe went to take another bite of stew but paused, her eyes running over Peony with a bit more obvious interest than before. "My dear Paeonia, you're forgetting that I'm a Submissive this festival. It's not my place to seduce you."
no subject
"I never did like the story of Paeonia. A nymph turned into a flower by the Goddess of Love for the meager crime of being a pretty flirt. I always thought it rather dull. A true Goddess of Love would have merely watched in delight a the sight of her creation." She sighed whistfully. Sex and love were parallel pieces after all, they didn't have to go together but they complimented so well. "You have a very quick idea of seduction, my lady, if you think all it takes is a few words and then straight to fucking or Gods forbid-". Peony threw a glance to a couple in eyeline. "-rutting in the street for the amusement of others. Am I not permitted to ease myself into this world of oddity? Seduce a beautiful woman the natural way through charm and delight rather than clubbing her about the head and dragging her off to a cave somewhere to claim as my own?"
no subject
"What makes you think that isn't what I've been doing?" The touches, the information offered up about performance venues without being asked. Showing how important she was to an enterprising opportunist. Just because it had been too subtle for Peony to notice...
Ianthe withdrew her touch and leaned back. "I'm a very patient woman when I want to be," she said before turning back to her stew.
no subject
"Good things come to those who wait." It was a bullshit saying that had been levied on too many occasions against Peony, but, gods did it make for a good teasing line.
cw: strangulation, sadism, violence, implied non-con
"Are you enjoying the stew? Heart meat, or offal in general, never gets enough love."
Having caught sight of the perfect accomplice in the nearby crowd, she sent a mental message to him while Peony was replying to her inquiry about the stew, the lyctor's eyes fully focused on her. Somewhere before Peony was finished talking, Ianthe's braid was grabbed from behind and looped about her neck by a large bearish man sporting his own collar.
He pulled it tight, almost lifting Ianthe up, and her bowl of stew fell to the ground as she grabbed for her neck and the man's arm. She liked being choked, so he knew she wouldn't get upset by him going all out.
Leaning down, he spoke hard at Ianthe. "You're coming with me. He wants you."
"He can... fuck off," came the strangled reply.
The braid was pulled tighter, completely cutting off her air as he practically shook her. "No, no, no, Deathwarden. Word is that you ain't currently claimed, so you're fair game. He's going to enjoy putting a blade or two in you. Heh."
Ianthe's bone hand dug into the man's arm, drawing blood, but he was strong. Now to see if Lady Titania's Champion was going to pass up the opportunity to be Big Damn Hero...
cw: fair bit of misandry, vampire/stalking induced trauma, violence, choking, magical violence
It was really the term 'he wants you' that triggered an unholy fury in her and made her lips peel back from her teeth in a snarl.
She was so fucking sick of men. Claiming dominion over anything and everything they saw fit, cutting up the earth for their industry as if it weren't a living breathing thing, treating all around as if they were below their notice. Claim, conquer, cash-in, catastrophe - violent, disgusting beasts.
"Get your hands off her, you waste of meat." Peony stood with a whirl of skirt and hair, disappearing is a puff of mist. Reappearing instantly behind him, leaping onto his back to choke him with the full tiny weight of her frame. "Get. Off. Her. You. Insignificant. Worm." And when the man's meaty neck wasn't responding to being choked by her, there was only one sensible thing to do.
Hopefully, it wouldn't translate down the line to Ianthe. But being shocked just a little bit had to be better than being choked to death. Anger swelled inside her as she could hear Ianthe struggling to breath, so hot that it made her blood boil, Peony raised her grip to claw at the man's face and cast shocking grasp with eight vicious charges of lightning. "Lucendi."
[ooc - she crit. oh god. rip bad dude and sorry Ianthe]
no subject
The vicious magic had not been expected, and Ianthe actually felt bad for the man. At least she had physical contact and was about to necromantically transfer half of the pain to herself. It didn't negate the damage, but she was already forcing the fried muscle to regrow. At least having her air cut off meant she didn't cry out from the pain. Like in a controlled environment, that would be hot, but this was too much electricity at once.
Still, the man let Ianthe go and grabbed Peony with a large hand that was now more bear than human, and flung her off his back before collapsing to a knee. Ianthe was immediately up, gaping for air, as she looked him over with a keen eye, lifting his lip to look at now-fanged teeth, and there was a lot more hair in him. A partial transformation.
"When did you-- Early today? Good. Just breathe. I got you," she said to him, forcing the burns to heal in the unpleasant way animaphiliacs could heal.
no subject
Her landing wasn't quite as elegant as her first round of attack. The challenge with being so light was that it was extremely easy to throw her. Peony crash landed and crumpled against a nearby vendor's stall. In six seconds she was forcing herself to her feet once again, hands lit with a readied spell, ready to jump into the breach once again.
But Ianthe was tending to her assailant. Peony looked between them and extinguished the magic lighting her palms as cold confusion and dread washed over her. Was this some ritual or social practice she had missed? Why the fuck was she helping a wereman who had lifted her off her feet an assaulted her? Somehow, Peony felt she was at the butt of a joke she was failing to understand.
"Shit." She'd been set up in some way, some guy had gotten hurt as a consequence and guilt dropped like a stone in her stomach.
no subject
"Tell me who put you up to this," she said out loud to the man who could only really manage a growl and acted as if she was getting responses via mental link. She continued having a one-sided conversation.
"Cesare? No, ok, good. Was it--?" A pause. "You can't be serious. Him?" She rolled her eyes. "For fuck's sake, when I say someone can can drag me away for knifeplay whenever they want, that's not meant to be literal."
Putting a meaty arm under ger shoulder, she helped the man stand who finally managed a broken growly, "Too long," and tapped Ianthe's collar with a claw.
"Yes, I am aware that I've gone too long without a Dominant," Ianthe replied with an irritated sigh. "I was enjoying the conversation and she's new--"
He cut Ianthe's words off with a growl. "Too long! What if--" Another growl and he pointed at Peony. "Claim her," he growled, blood slipping down his chin from the fangs cutting into his lip from the talking. Despite his general bearing, there was no anger in his eyes as he looked at Peony. Zadza was zadza.
"Enough. I don't want it if she doesn't. Don't give me a fucking obligation Dominant. I don't need protection, and you need to go purge your zadza before this gets worse. Go on."
With an annoyed growl, he lumbered off and Ianthe sighed, rubbing at her neck. "You good?" She asked Peony.
no subject
"You were strangled and lifted off your feet and you're asking me if I am good?" The warlock asked in cold disbelief, her eyebrows raised and eyes wide. Was Ianthe for real? What's more, she seemed to have been conversing with the man as if this were a run of the mill discussion rather than a violent attack. "Sit. You've clearly had your head knocked."
And she wouldn't take no for an answer, forcibly steering Ianthe through an arm around her waist to the nearest point to sit, kneeling in front of her and trying to decide whether it was worthwhile to use magic to cure any damage. She couldn't seem bleeding but Gods only knew with how bruising could be. "Are you seriously hurt?" She still had a reserve of magic but she was so much more tired than she normally was, as if she couldn't pull on the well of fey magic to assist her.
"I apologise if I stepped into something that you had pre-arranged, but I didn't see any negotiation there. You said there had to be negotiation beforehand." It wasn't accusatory but there was a hint of worry in Peony's tone that she had vitally misunderstood something. There had scarcely been sight of a slip of paper or scroll - no magistrate to ratify it. What manner of ferallity was this? "I've spent the last six months defending a young woman from an ancient vampire and his followers constantly attempting to claim her. I think my nerves are still shot from it all."
The barrage of questions continued; "Is that going to happen if you continue to wander about without a Dominant? Some fool can just throw you over his shoulder and carry you off?"
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"I'm fine, Peony; I'm immortal and strangulation is usual foreplay for me." No harm, no foul. "I thought he was referring to someone that absolutely would do what you thought was happening - fucking coward, by the way, not a local that misunderstood some flirting."
Ianthe noted that vampire information. She was going to have to decide if she wanted to warn Peony about the vampires in town - both natural and monsters - but that was something for future!Ianthe to deal with. Assuming she remembered.
"No one can throw me over their shoulder and carry me off unless I let them, but it does leave me open to any Dominant trying to get up in my business. Fucking annoying. I'm not even scheduled at an open demonstration booth today."
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"Cesare. That was the name you said." Peony was an impulsive soul, but far from being dim, despite how hard she tried to act it. His name was already noted as a danger.
The next words to tumble from her mouth had been chewed over in consideration since the wereman had stalked off. Peony remained kneeling in front of her, looking up at Ianthe with utter sincerity. "He was right, that thug. It'd be better if you had a Dominant, if only to keep the riff-raff away until you can find a companion you trust. I cannot have sex with you, but, I can offer to ward off the worst of any uninteresting parties until you see fit to part ways with me." The offer was almost there, but, tentative at the very best. Peony didn't want to jump wholly into demanding and claiming.
Pre-empting what she expected Ianthe's next statement to be she added; "I wouldn't view it as obligation. It's the least I can do for all the information you've offered me in the last hour or so."
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"He's not a thug; he's a good man. He's also a Wilk and therefore Submissive, and was acting on behalf of his Dominant. And again, normally I'd take it as some foreplay. He knows that."
Ianthe sighed, both in irritation and success. Yes, she'd wanted Peony to claim her for a while, but no sex? Girl must trait be clinging to that chastity-until-marriage bullshit. She knew from the feel that Peony was attracted to her, but fine. Whatever.
"If you actually want to do this, you will have to participate in the festivities. Sex isn't required. You can choose something else from the various displays," Ianthe pointed out as she curled a bit of Peony's loose hair about a golden phalange. "If you're going to participate, then participate. I don't need a shield, I need a Dominant."
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Oh, she was certainly clinging to one thread of connection with her patron. While their pact was intact then that meant she wasn't alone and if she wasn't alone, she didn't have to be scared.
Under normal circumstances, Peony might have turned reticent at that point, not willing to embarrass herself with the fear of seeming unknowing. Hidden behind her vow to Titania as a convenient excuse as to why it would be dangerous to participate. But instead; "Then I'll happily participate. Hardly the first time I've sang for my supper. But, I'll need your agreement first." If participation was what was demanded, then she would be nothing other than in hot demand - a performer to the bitter end. The warmth of stew in stomach was reminding her that this was a give and take situation and there was much that might be taken to give back.
Peony set a hand on Ianthe's thigh. A lingering touch as she slowed her frenetic pace and allowed her concerns to slip to the back of her mind. This was just an adventure after all. "I'm more blade than shield I'm afraid to report, my lady. Safe unless wielded incorrectly."
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cw: cannibalism
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Cw: various types of bondage
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