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When the pixies came to fetch Urianger, giggling at their latest prank, the most he expects is another hapless leafman decorating the flower fields outside Il Mheg. Mayhaps a tree'd fuath or glamoured no mou, if they were feeling particularly daring.
Therefore, the predicament laid before him takes him entirely by surprise.
Sat in the shade of one of Il Mheg's many flowering trees is the warrior of light, her hyuran stature small beneath its boughs. An echevore's harvested tail is at her lips, her throat working to drink down the plantkin's nectar.
Thaliak have mercy.
Too late to halt the travesty unfolding before him, Urianger fixes a calm smile on his face and approaches the warrior. His mind whirling through recent memory to review his own pixie-instigated encounter with the thick, aether-altering nectar.
"My friend," he calls, seeking her attention. Her eyes snap to him, clear, for the moment. Finishing the last drops, she smiles at him - her lips glistening with the nectar's shine.
"Urianger! So glad to see you, I was in the area and the pixies had a quick errand but I was on my way to the Shelves to see you."
She stands too quickly, words an uncharateristic jumble when she stumbles back into the tree. The quick spark that she had been nearby and planned to visit him doused by their oncoming reality.
"While thine intent is most pleasing to hear, I fear thy partaking of fae nectar necessitates a, what our mutual friend Thancred might term, a 'rain check'?" Urianger approaches the unsteady warrior, his smile tense at its edges. "Might I presume thine pixie guides left thee uninformed as to the effects of an echevore blossom's nectar on mortal constitution?"
The warrior's smile is radiant, cheeks dimpled in clear delight. The offending plantkin's tail still grasped in her hand. This close, Urianger can feel the crisp tang of Light that trails her every movement. Still kept in check by her Blessing and balanced red mage's aether, though he recalls well the scrambling effects of the echevore's nectar. Forcing his rising anxiety down, he strokes a hand along her cheek.
"How fares thine senses. If aught akin to a drunken sluggishness pulls at you, I must insist we retire to the Shelves at once."
His experience need not be her own, especially given her extreme resistance to aetherial manipulation. It had taken even the Crystal Exarch with all the might of Syrcus Tower behind him many attempts - and eventually her explicit consent - to pull her body and soul successfully across the rift. Perhaps fae magicks will be similarly rendered moot.
Perhaps he will not need watch her consumed by wanton impulse, as he was.
Watching him closely, the warrior turns her face into his palm. Brushing a kiss against the branch between forefinger and thumb, before taking the tip of his thumb into her mouth. The wet sweetness of her mouth assails him, her tongue boldly circling the digit she draws inside.
"Ah!" Breath punched from his lungs, Urianger's eyes flutter closed. His heart pounding, focus drawn to the pinpoint where the warrior's mouth encloses his thumb. "Twelve's tender mercies, I-I-"
That this is wrong, a reaction whose source is laid at the pixie's trickery alone, carves through the wordless joy pumping through Urianger's veins. He flinches back, withdrawing his wetted thumb. Unwilling to indulge in fae-forced fantasy. "This-this is," he inhales a steadying breath. "While thine attentions might be most welcome at another time, I must insist we remove ourselves to the Shelves. Now."
Gut churning, he watches for the warrior's reaction. She follows his hand, clutched to his chest like a startled maiden. Follows his words with a curious tilt to her head. And appears to follow along in understanding, a furrow appearing between her brows. She nods in the direction of the Shelves and begins to stride through the fields - only to stumble heavily into his side after the first step.
"Oof," Urianger grunts. While she stands similarly low to Thancred's hyuran height, her impact is anything but light. That his traitorous heart beats all the faster for the contact is not unrelated.
"Forgive mine presumptuous assistance." He loops an arm about her shoulders, guiding the fae-drunk warrior to his home here on the First. The soothing scent of parchment and well-tended papers surrounds them as they enter the Shelves, his unattended teacup no longer wisping steam and treatise on Umbral aspecting still in the haphazard pile where he left it. Navigating the stairs to the second floor full of bedrooms - his, Thancred's, his charge's, and the guest room - takes some dexterity that has him thanking the afternoon he spent perusing the Exarch's eclectic collection on Norvrandt dancing traditions.
"This conversation would best be served by honest discourse in privacy, should thee be amenable?" He leads the warrior to the guest bedroom, waiting for her assent before twisting a ward over the door. He will tolerate no further interference from the fae today.
"What is this, Urianger? What's happening?" The warrior stares at her hands, head downturned and expression hidden. Urianger's heart contracts, anxiety roaring to life. Has he already misstepped by not clarifying immediately? By allowing her to take his hand unprepared, and now must war with her distaste in touching an unwanted paramour? Through sheer force of will, he maintains a calm mien. His worries will not cost her further comfort.
He sits at the foot of the guest bed, diminishing his height for their conversation. The bed dips as she follows, sitting some few handspans apart nearer the head of the humble guest bed.
"To mine misfortune, I, too, once consumed the nectar from an echevore's tail." He inhales, bracing himself. "I found myself...lost to thoughts and sensations most suited to the pages of erotica shelved deep within the Studium. Mine aether disturbed until my body was slaked by grimoire's rune or traditional release." Quietly, on his exhale he admits, "-or both."
Not willing to look, to see horror at her immediate circumstance - or distaste at his own past - Urianger carries on. "After mine encounter with the sense-addling substance, my research led me to more effective runes with which to put one's body's needs at bay. Should you wish it, I shall summon aetheric ink and paint for you forthwith. Although, the paint must be applied to one's skin for full efficacy..."
"O-oh."
Looking up, Urianger sees the warrior bite her lip. The furrow between her brows deeper than before. "If thy wish'st for another's company for thine satisfaction, thou needs merely ask." He rushes through the offer, ignoring the thud of his heart. All too many have been those that watch the warrior's path with ardent eyes. His amongst them. But to presume to see her skin laid bare, for him to slake or scribe equilibrium, would be a presumption too far.
No matter how it makes his heart ache.
"No others, please." The rapid patter of before is replaced by rare hesitance, the warrior studiously avoiding his gaze. "I'm not opposed to your hand on-that is to say, the fruits of your research would be most welcome."
She licks her lips and Urianger finds himself transfixed. Thrown by how her mouth felt, his thumb scarcely now dry. Surely her advance was a simple expression of the want wracking her body. Fueled by no more than fae magick. Reminding himself of his place as chirugeon, he summons the ink he uses for his own crafts - a potent mixture of crystalline shards and metallic catalyst suspended in purest springwater.
"Pray forgive mine request, but the skin closest your core shalt serve best to settle the instability of thine body. I shall avert mine gaze whilst thou undresses...?"
The warrior's shoulders stiffen and she nods rapidly at his query. Waiting for him to turn and face the preserved wood of the Shelves guest room before the rustle of clothing reaches his ears.
Her breath rings loud in the room, closer to the cadence of exertion than one might expect, and it stirs Urianger's carnal attention despite his deliberate breathing and prayers to any of the Twelve willing to listen. Eventually the tap of fingers through closures and hush of folded clothing ends, and the bed dips as the warrior whispers in his ear, "What next?"
Urianger jolts, her words a sweet fog cloying his hearing. "Prithee lay back, that I mayest paint the needful runes."
He waits for the bed to settle before turning to look at her. And finds his lungs entirely bereft of air.
The warrior sprawls over the guest bed, lending it an eroticism he fears he will never be able to unsee. Her limbs, toned from sword and spellcraft, lay spread-eagled across the plain bedding. And her gaze burns him, no longer wandering but fixed on his every adjustment. Scant clothing remains to cover her chest and navel, the undergarments leaving little to his overburdened imagination.
He swallows, and watches her gleaming eyes track the bobble of his throat.
"I-I shall begin the runework." He manages, grasping a quill from the guest bedroom's writing desk. Dipping the tip into his vial of ink, his hand hovers over the expanse of her thigh. Chains to bind and equalize the fae's disturbance are the formation with the best odds of success, to be wound from leg to neck and across the torso between. He will need to ask for her cooperation moving.
At the first touch of nib to skin, she gasps, and Urianger freezes in place. Static Light prickles beneath his fingertips, but he waits patiently for the warrior to find her breath and murmur for him to continue. He lays a hand on her thigh to keep her in place, carefully scrawling the first few sigils. Her moan sends his blood southward, and he grits his teeth. "Mine apologies for any discomfort. Pray tell if there is aught I may do in service of easing your trial."
She growls an answer he pricks his ears to hear - and fails. "What was that? Mine hearing was not-"
"I said you could put your hands anywhere you wanted!"
Urianger stiffens. Surely he's misunderstood, that laying hands in order to better draw the sigils and glyphs upon Light-blighted skin is the entirety of the warrior's meaning. Surely she does not-
Glancing up, he finds a vision equal to any deity.
The warrior of light squirms on the bed, hands fisted into the bedding. Panting whimpers escape her nose, her mouth shut in denial of the pleasure apparent on her face. An undignified sound escapes him at the sight. His hands twitch reflexively, and she looses another moan that goes straight to his prick.
"I-I-mine apologies. I shall withdraw and-"
"Don't you dare leave!" She roars. The warrior's eyes blaze in command, gaze pinning him in place. "You offered your services and by the hells you will not leave me half-satisfied."
Speechless, his quill falls to the bed as the warrior sits up, her hands framing his face.
"You offered others, your knowledge, everything but yourself. If my company is so unwelcome then yes, remove yourself and I will paint whatever runes are needed myself. But-", she gathers herself, inhaling deeply. "I would very much like your hands. All over me."
"I would be most honored to oblige." Urianger breathes, half-checking that his ward on the room is holding and this is no fae glamour. The tang of intact magic tickles the back of his throat, reassurance that this is true. Real. He feels the warmth of the warrior's breath on his face, still so close, her hands a vice holding him in place. Gingerly, his hands eclipse hers. Holding hers in place, noting the differences between elezen and hyur sizes anew.
Claiming her hands with his, he lifts each palm in turn to his lips. Kissing along the lines of her life. Revelling in her sharp intake of breath. He draws her closer, kissing along her arms. Her shoulders. Her nape, until she curls neatly in his arms. "The-the ink wouldst alleviate thine symptoms all the sooner, if I mayest continue."
"Draw on me all you like so long as you keep kissing me like that," the warrior pants, craning her neck to kiss his collarbone. Shifting her in his lap that he may retrieve the blessedly unspilled ink and quill is a delicious torture, her barely clad rump sliding over his stiffening cock.
Yet Urianger perseveres.
Controlling his breathing, he nonetheless savors each wriggle and squirming motion from the warrior as he resumes his writing. The sigils quickly spread across her skin, the ink glimmering as the spellcraft takes hold.
Abruptly, the warrior grinds back into him. A pleading whine escaping her. Urianger's ears heat, and he timidly rolls his hips. Lifting her in his lap. His hands find the front of her undergarments, fingers delving furrows into the cloth until she bucks into his hand.
Pleasure will chase the remnants of the nectar from her system, and given her firm request of his continued company, surely it would not be untoward of him to bring her to her crest. He puts aside their future conversation, the scantest seeds of requited hopes, and seeks her pleasure. Her hand seized him by the wrist, shoving his fingers down her undergarments.
"There-!" She pants, grinding into his hand. Blushing fiercely with what blood remains in his head, Urianger parts her folds like a prime tome - delicately rubbing at their apex, delving until he's knuckles deep in her heat. And dedicating every moan, every noise, to memory with every onze of his scholarly focus.
"Will thou comest for me?" He whispers to her curved ear, fingers wringing carnal melodies from her throat.
With a keening wail, the warrior comes on his hand. Her back bowing against him. He gently coaxes her through her orgasm, his cock throbbing in stymied arousal. There will be time later, for him to tend himself. Time later to ask her, once full clarity of mind returns, how she would like to proceed.
The grasp of the warrior's hand on his still-hard cock drives rational thought from his mind and Urianger whines through his nose.
"Your turn," the warrior grins.
Urianger finds he cannot mind her solution in the here and now.