Chapter Text
Here's an image gallery for you. Look at my precious angels of darkness.
T’alice Xorlarrin was many things, but a fool was not one of them. Nere, or whatever his name was, was going on and on about something or other. Something irritating. Something about a forge. Truthfully, T’alice wasn’t listening.
She was thinking, quite deeply in fact, about how much this hot, sweltering place reminded her of Gauntylgrym. Long nights in her room, sweating and seething in shame and regret.
How long ago had House Xorlarrin left Menzoberranzan to settle that wretched city? How long had it been since she’d been exiled from it?
It should have been a comfort to be beneath the ground, and for most Drow, it probably was. But T’alice was haunted by her time there and likely still hunted by Lolth.
Accursed wretch. Even the thought of the Spider Queen was enough to inspire rage in T’alice’s chest, though that hardly mattered now. T’alice was nestled in the hands of the Absolute.
Finally, a God that loved her, that rewarded her for her loyalty and for deeds in Her name. The Absolute was a God that organized and united many peoples into a spearhead to drive into the belly of her enemies. Lolth could learn much from her.
“But the Rothe have been less than cooperative.” Nere continued.
T’alice took another sip of her wine, if she could even call it that. Vinegar at best.
“Enough of your babble. You’re boring me.” T’alice sighed.
Nere stopped and turned a hideous shade of purple, reminiscent of someone choking to death. Would that he would. That would, at least, be more entertaining.
Alas, this was the one downside to working for the Absolute. She allowed anyone and everyone into the folds of her Love. Even jaluk. Hells, even goblins and gnomes. Humans and darthiir. Ugh.
“I’m tired and my journey is far from done. Prepare for me a place to rest. Then I’ll be on my way and out of your hair.” T’alice sighed, whipping her goblet and spraying the ground with the remainder of her wine. Undrinkable swill.
“Of course, Deathwarden.” Nere sneered. He could barely hide his dislike of her, but he couldn’t speak against her. She was his superior, the right hand of Balthazar, beloved of Ketheric and of the Absolute herself. How frustrating it must have been to be so far from Menzoberranzan and still be here beneath the bootheel of a noble House’s daughter.
“And see that it’s in a cooler area. Feels like I’m in Avernus.” T’alice spat.
One of the Duergar attending to them shuffled over to take her goblet and muttered something under her breath.
“What was that?” T’alice asked evenly.
The creature looked up at her, defiant.
“I said, ‘Of course, princess.’”
T’alice felt a dark chuckle ease out of her throat. She drew one of the revolvers at her hip, personally designed, frighteningly deadly.
“Nere, I must say, you must have a generous heart to employ such…help that speaks so freely to their betters.”
Nere didn’t say anything to this. He knew it was pointless.
“Tell me, dear, do you know who I am?” T’alice asked.
The duergar had the wherewithal to be a little frightened as she answered.
“You are True Soul T’alice.” She said.
T’alice smacked her lips and brought the revolver to tap her temple.
“Not quite. I am T’alice Xorlarrin, Deathwarden of the Absolute. True Souls answer to me and you,” T’alice said, finally pointing the gun at her, “answer to True Souls. But I am no princess. My blood, blue as it once was, is irrelevant in Her eyes. And even then, I was never a princess. So, your little quip is inaccurate as well as impertinent.”
“I’m sorry, Mistress. I—”
“Shh.” T’alice crooned, soothing the duergar with the tip of her gun.
“Find me my resting quarters. Now.”
Everything was different under the Absolute and yet, some things were too old to change. T’alice was grateful for that.
She was escorted to a remote part of their camp where the heat was slightly less stifling and given a tent where she could enjoy a private respite.
“Thank you.” T’alice said pleasantly to the duergar woman, then she shot her in the head, before descending into her tent.
She sighed and settled onto the cot, her bones barely bothering to hold her up. Her task was quite heavy.
T’alice knelt before Ketheric Thorm before standing to receive her orders.
“I recognize that you are far better suited to your lab than to field work, but this task is best handled by one of your…background.” Ketheric said.
“Of course, Lord Chosen. I am at your disposal.”
“We seek a weapon that currently eludes us. Orin’s creature was sent to retrieve it, but she has since failed and we grow impatient. You will find Minthara Baenre, you will help her find the weapon, and you will bring them both here.”
Time seemed to slow and then to stop entirely. Minthara? Minthara Baenre? “Orin’s creature”? How could it be her? Her? The Minthara that had once…No, she hadn’t. Had she loved her? Yes. Hells, yes.
“You know her, yes?” General Thorm asked gruffly.
“Yes, my Lord Chosen.” T’alice whispered.
“Good. Then you will be the perfect person to bring our mad dog to heel. Go and fetch her. Preferably with the weapon in hand.”
How could she? Face her? See her? Speak to her? Order her? T’alice ordering Minthara? That was surely impossible, even being so far from Menzoberranzan, so far from home.
“But my Lord Chosen, my Lord Balthazar has bid me—”
“And I have ordered you now.”
“As you say.”
The thought of seeing Minthara again was enough to exhaust her a hundred times over. How long had it been? Decades and their parting had been quite bitter.
T’alice laid in Minthara’s bed, one arm tucked behind her head. The other tangled in Minthara’s hair, idly tugging the locks, knowing that everything was about to change. For better and for worse.
Minthara Baenre stretched lazily like a cat who’d feasted on the canary. She had. Opened her jaws, gleaming fangs sharp and bloody, bits of T’alice still to be savored on her tongue.
“Why are you sulking? Have I not fucked you well enough?” Minthara sighed.
T’alice didn’t answer that. She just sulked and turned over to do it more effectively. Minthara slapped her ass, so she turned to look at her.
Gods, Minthara was beautiful. Feral and fierce. Practically pink in the light of the Narbondel’s heat glow that sank through their window. It was almost midnight. The Black Death approached, the end too, and something in T’alice begged for all of it to stop.
Let this be the only moment she would ever know. Let her go on gazing into Minthara Baenre’s eyes forever and ever and evermore.
“I’m leaving.” T’alice heard herself say, “We’re going to Gauntylgrym to conquer and quash. Not just me, but all of House Xorlarrin. I’m sure Quenthel told you.”
Quenthel, Minthara’s mother, had indeed informed Minthara of this. It was convenient. She’d end Minthara’s tryst and settle a new outpost in one fell swoop. It was best for everyone.
But when Minthara had heard this plan, she’d made one of her own. Even after everything that had happened between she and T’alice…she still loved her. She loved her more than anything, more than sense or reason could possibly allow. She’d spoken to her aunt Triel, sitting House Matron, and planned to take T’alice as her consort.
She would protect her from her mother, from both of their mothers, and from Lolth; from fate itself should it come to that.
But the words died on her lips. T’alice was leaving. She wanted to leave.
“Are you listening to me?” T’alice sighed.
“I heard you.”
“Good, then my work here is done.”
T’alice sat up and then left the bed, picking her discarded clothes from the floor for the last time.
Minthara wanted to say something. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. Every plea caught in a net of indignant pride in her throat. So, she settled for a question.
“So, that’s it? A century of…us and you just leave?” Minthara asked.
T’alice pulled herself into her dress, not even bothering to look at Minthara.
“If it makes you feel better, I don’t think it was entirely a waste. You were a skilled lover and I will remember the way you made me cum.”
And all the pleas caught in Minthara’s throat turned to regal outrage. She bristled like a displacer beast, eager suddenly to bring the back of her hand to T’alice’s cheek. Leave her on the floor, naked and bleeding, begging for forgiveness and more.
T’alice was imagining something similar.
“Goodbye, Minthara. I hope I never see you again.”
“Goodbye, T’alice.”
She didn’t say anything else.
That was the last time she’d seen Minthara, spoken to her. Obviously, she was not going to share such things with Lord Thorm, though perhaps, in retrospect, it would have been prudent to mention it. It was, after all, entirely possible that Minthara would disregard the Absolute’s will and slice her head clean from her shoulders.
And T’alice could see it clear as day behind her eyes. Her unmoored head pressed to Minthara’s cunt with those eyes, Minthara’s eyes, trained on the horizon. Retribution suited her so well.
The cot was hard, but its lack of comfort was almost comforting within itself. T’alice laid down and tried to rest.
Reverie, the state of meditation that all elves performed in favor of sleep, was not relaxing in the slightest for T’alice. She refused it and chose, instead, to sleep when she could. She laid against the cot and could not.
Her mind was alight with memory. Their final parting and their first night together.
It was a party. House Hunzrin often threw gaming tourneys with various prizes on offer for the victors. Minthara loved games and she often came out on top.
Minthara was the picture of Drow perfection as she disarmed her opponent and drove her blade between her ribs with a cry of delight.
She was declared the winner of the dueling tournament and awarded a beautiful, ornate blade as a reward. Her eyes weren’t on the blade though, nor the crowd of adoring fans. Her eyes were trained on one thing, and one thing only.
T’alice rolled her eyes. She hated these stupid parties and she hated Minthara Baenre. Sure, Minthara was beautiful. She was strong and handsome and powerful and elegant and known for her prowess in bed. Sure. But that didn’t change the fact that she was also spoiled beyond reason with a temper that surely made Lolth proud.
T’alice wanted nothing to do with her.
Too bad. Minthara wanted much to do with her that night. She sauntered over, brandishing her new blade in search of a new prize, a better one.
“Well, look who’s come to watch me conquer another tournament.” Minthara purred, sidling up to T’alice with a grin.
“Hardly.” T’alice sneered.
“And yet, you watched. Did you enjoy it?”
“What do you want, Baenre?”
Minthara laughed. She was so painfully handsome. A shapely jaw with a voice like wine that flowed down into a physique that could easily lift T’alice against the wall and—
“Dance with me.” Minthara said, cutting through T’alice’s thoughts.
“I’d rather—”
“No, you wouldn’t. You want to dance with me. Come on, princess.”
T’alice scoffed, but she couldn’t help herself. She smiled.
“There we go. Come on.” Minthara said.
There was no time to protest. She was pulled to the dance floor as the band struck up. Thumping drums with piercing strings. Minthara pulled her close, pressed her leg between T’alice’s legs.
“You’re a beast.” T’alice said.
Minthara rolled her hips against T’alice’s and leaned into her neck.
“You think so? I figured that was how you’d want it. A frigid thing like you.”
T’alice scowled, but the blush creeping up her neck said more than enough. The way her breath caught and hitched. Minthara brought her hands to T’alice’s thighs and gripped.
“The only question is how quickly you’ll beg for it.”
That was enough. T’alice ripped herself from Minthara’s grasp and stormed off. How dare she! The nerve! Even if she were a Baenre (and utterly correct), T’alice was no lowborn whore.
She made her way deeper into the Hunzrin estate to find a place to catch her breath and collect herself, but she wasn’t alone for long. Minthara pulled her into one of the rooms. It happened to be a bedroom. Lolth be praised.
There they were, standing in the dark, staring each other down, so close to a bed. Minthara stepped towards her. T’alice didn’t move.
“Do you really want me to go?” Minthara asked.
T’alice licked her lip. Her head swam from the wine she’d had earlier watching Minthara eviscerate her competition.
“Yes.” She whispered.
And yet, she moved back to the bed and sat on its edge. She spread her legs as wide as her dress would allow. Then she brought her hands to her shoulders and eased the dress off. It fell open, leaving her chest bare.
Minthara regarded her for a moment and then took another step towards her.
“Then tell me to go.” She said.
T’alice didn’t say a word. She grasped her own breast and squeezed, hard.
Minthara stalked closer. She removed her shirt and then came to kneel before T’alice. Shem moved her lips to T’alice’s nipple.
“Don’t.” T’alice whispered.
So, Minthara didn’t. She let her breath tickle the slowly pouting flesh. T’alice shivered.
“Please.”
Minthara’s tongue slowly left her lips to grant only the faintest touch to T’alice’s skin.
“Please…” T’alice whimpered.
Two sets of red eyes met and shared a heated look in the dark.
“You are mine, then?”
“Am I?”
How did T’alice have the power to make Minthara laugh so? So often and so genuinely? No one else had ever amused her like this. No one ever could.
And Minthara moved in a flash, like a serpent, and sunk her teeth into T’alice’s breast. The sound it tore from her quarry was nothing short of enchanting.
They moved quickly, tearing through every barrier to get to each other. Moaning and grinding and biting. Clawing through one another to get to the sweet meat.
For such an stony woman, T’alice was very responsive, at least to Minthara. She blossomed beneath her lips, between her fingers. She melted and writhed before hitting a violent crest and then crashing down in a wave of wet pleasure.
She was exquisite.
Again and again, Minthara drove her to the brink of herself. What could T’alice do but be swept away?
T’alice swooned into her sad little cot years and years away from that night. Yet, she could still feel it, feel her. Hells.
Against her better judgement, and maybe to remind herself that she didn’t need Minthara, she opened her mind and summoned Nere.
He entered her tent promptly.
“You will not speak. You will make no sound at all. You will perform your duty and then fuck off. Do you understand, jaluk?”
T’alice removed her traveling cloak and then pulled down her pants to give Nere the access he needed. She bent over the cot. Best not to see his face. It would be far more pleasurable that way.
He didn’t speak, as ordered. He just unlaced his breeches and got himself ready. T’alice sighed and continued through her memories of Minthara.
“You want this.” Minthara growled down at her.
T’alice nodded, gazing up with wide, wet eyes. She was not looking at Minthara per se, but at the thick, obsidian phallus that hung before her. It was personally designed by the woman wearing it for the woman lusting after it.
“Open your mouth.” Minthara ordered.
T’alice obeyed and the beast slid inside, inch by terrible inch. She gagged and tried to pull away, but Minthara leaned down, grabbed her by the hair, and kept her where she wanted to be.
“This is what you crave, what you have always wanted. To be mine. In all ways.”
She drove her hips forward, pressing her cock down T’alice’s throat.
“My property. My pretty thing. Mine.”
T’alice felt herself riding to a peak. Even with Nere’s desperate inadequacy, the recollections of her many, many days and night’s with Minthara were more than enough.
She came quickly with a hard grunt.
Nere was smart enough to pull out and finish in his hand. He left without a word.
Finally, T’alice could sleep.