[Tethers] Two Can Play 1/2
Nov. 14th, 2020 08:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dracoqueen22Title: Two Can Play
Universe: Tethers, Pre-canon
Characters: Rathi of the Cinders/Sinoun
Rated: M
Enticements: Sexual Content
Description: Rathi has more time than she knows what to do with, before she has to take the throne, and she’ll find her entertainment where she can – even if it comes at the hands of a mysterious auburn stranger.
Part One
Rathi loves the mortal plane.
She hadn’t realized, until she set foot up here, how lively and random and amazing it is. She thought she’d miss the warmth of her home, the familiarity and predictability of it.
Honestly, she hasn’t missed it once. Her father, yes. Her comfortable bed, yes. Her ready and available bathing room, most certainly.
Everything else?
Not one bit. There’s so much to see here. So much to do. So much to eat.
So much to drink.
Rathi has never tasted so many varieties of booze before. Ales and meads and liquors and strange concoctions made from strange creatures or strange plants. Some of it sweet but devastating, some of it bitter and light. She’s got a sterner constitution than most of the mortals, but one cup of fireberry mead knocks her on her ass faster than she can burp.
It’s amazing.
And the challenges! Mortals are constantly challenging each other to feats of skill and strength and ability. Rathi’s won and lost her fair share of arm-wrestling tournaments and physical combats and athletic trials.
She may have lost the eating contest, but she refuses to lose the drinking contest. So long as they don’t bring out any fireberry mead, she’s going to win.
Rathi slaps down her five gold for the entrance fee and winks at the man taking all the entrants and assigning them. He gives her an assessing look, then a dismissive one.
“You’re a little tiny to be competing, aren’t ya?” he asks as he takes her coin and gives her a piece of wood with a number scraped on it in charcoal.
She’s competitor number seventeen.
“It’s not the size of the boat,” Rathi tells him with an appraising look she turns into a sneer. “Everyone knows it’s the motion.” She winks and saunters away as he sputters behind her and mutters something in one of the mortal tongues she doesn’t know.
There are two long tables arranged beneath the tent, already crowded with people of all sorts, their wooden placards sitting in front of them. Only a few places remain, and Rathi opts to take the empty space at the right table, as opposed to either of the empty seats on the left, where the occupants look unfriendly and unwelcoming.
She’s not afraid of unfriendly and unwelcoming people, but she’d rather enjoy this challenge, not have to deal with assholes and elbows.
Rathi whips out the last open chair on the left and slides into it, setting her piece of wood down in front of her. There’s a dwarf to her left, and a human male to her right, both of whom are having spirited conversations to the individuals on their other side. Across from her is another male, but she can’t quite tell his lineage, and he’s sat between two gnomes who are having a conversation behind his back. Literally.
He’s got a head of brown-red hair, tousled curls falling loose past his shoulders, and the scruff of a beard that could use some maintenance. His clothing is probably ostentatious for a mortal, but would fit right in at Cinder Mountain. He catches Rathi looking and throws her a grin, one hand flicking his hair over a shoulder.
“Well, well, well, you must be a new challenger,” he says, eyeing her wood block with a raised eyebrow.
“Aren’t we all?” Rathi asks.
He laughs and taps his own wooden block, which has the number one etched into the surface. "I'm the champion," he says with an air of self-importance. "I'm the one you have to beat."
"Oh." Rathi looks him up and down -- he's handsome enough, a bit on the slim side, his eyes an odd shade of green-purple which suggests he's not as mortal as some might think. It's the arrogance, however, which makes her smirk and say, "Should be easy then."
"Aren't you confident." His gaze rakes over her, lingering on her missing arm, but there's no trace of pity in the notice. "With great reason, I imagine. You've seen battle."
Rathi arches a brow. "Battle has nothing to do with constitution." She leans forward, bracing her only elbow on the table. "Truly, it's about the fire." She winks, and her hair flickers with flame before she promptly smothers it back to the glossy black spikes.
"Touche." He scrubs his fingers around the sparse beard before dragging two across his lips. "The name's Sinoun. Might I have yours, if you're to beat me after all?"
"Rathi."
He nods slowly, repeats her name as if tasting it, before a smile creeps over his lips. "And what brings you to this fair plane, Rathi?"
"You're certain I'm not from here?" Rathi asks, tilting her head.
Sinoun laughs, but there's nothing mocking about it. Amused, certainly, and possibly intrigued. "Like calls to like."
A tankard hits the table in front of Rathi, an amber liquid sloshing around inside. "Don't touch it yet, missie," a gruff voice warns before moving on, thunking more tankards to the other competitors, a hush falling over the loud chatter.
"And so it begins," Sinoun says. "When I win, be sure to congratulate me."
Rathi snorts. "You mean, when I win?"
"You're awfully confident. Care to make a friendly wager?" Sinoun asks as he lifts a pouch from his belt and sets it on the table beside his tankard, coins jangling noisily inside.
Their talk seems to have gathered some attention, Rathi realizes, as the competitors to either side of her and Sinoun now lean in, staring at the pouch of coins.
"I have plenty coin of my own." Rathi waves a dismissive hand and eyes Sinoun's fine clothing, the sense of magic which hangs around him like a second skin. "What've you got that's rare?"
"Hmm. You're bold. I like it." Sinoun taps his bottom lip thoughtfully before his eyes brighten and he works one of the rings off his fingers. It's a silver band dotted with tiny, dark gems. "This is a guardian ring. Will that suffice?"
Several sharp inhalations echo around Rathi. Fellow competitors look on with lust and envy.
Rathi grins. "Absolutely."
"Don't you match it with coin either. I want something unique as well," Sinoun tells her as Rathi starts to dig into her pockets and pouch.
She already knows what to wager.
There, in the very bottom of her satchel, wrapped in leather and protected with a simple spell, is a small pouch. She removes a single jewel, about the size of a walnut, before replacing the pouch. She sets it on the table between them, right next to the ring.
"Do you know what this is?" Rathi asks.
Sinoun's eyes glitter with recognition. "I do. But perhaps our curious friends might like to know."
"This," Rathi says with a smirk and a tap to the gem, as black as night except when it catches the light and reflects a brilliant rainbow, "is an obsidian pearl, found only in the mouths of what swims in the Mercury Sea."
What makes it most valuable is not so much the rarity of the gem, but the fact it is uncut, which means the owner can shape it for their own use, rather than be restricted. Wizards would drool over it, as would clerics. It would catch a hefty sum on the open market, or it could be kept as a magical focus, or built into a magical weapon.
"Your wager is accepted," Sinoun says, and yes, there's most definitely lust in his voice and in his eyes. He wants the pearl with every fiber of his being.
Interesting.
Rathi sticks out her hand. "Then let's see which of us wins."
Sinoun sweeps her hand up into a firm grip, the tingle of magic buzzing between their palms. Ooo, he's definitely something not-mortal. There's something in his blood, either recently or distantly. He tastes of magic.
"Greetings and salutations, my good friends! Welcome to the twentieth annual Battle for the Brew!" A voice booms above the gathered crowd as the last of the initial tankards are dispersed and servers step back, hovering and ready to replace them. "There's a hefty purse at stake, as well as bragging rights, and we all know which of the two is more important, eh?"
"Aye!" The chorus rises up around them.
Rathi chuckles and waits, one eye on the wager in the middle of the table, the other on her fellow competitors, including Sinoun. None of them can match the fire in her belly.
"Aye," the announcer agrees. They've a gentle face, rosy cheeks, hair a halo of ginger curls, and big brown eyes. "Now I'm Salsa, the owner of this here establishment, and the barrels have been donated by the various breweries around here. The first round is on the Kunaits, eh? Give them a round of applause!"
Cheers and stomping feet and fists pounding and hands clapping rise into a riot of noise. It would be deafening if they were indoors. Thank the gods they aren’t.
"All right, all right." Salsa holds up his hands to call for attention. "Now, let me explain the rules. It's pretty simple. You drink your tankard. You finish your tankard. You turn it upside-down, and someone brings you another. The last one standing, the last one conscious without wasting all this good ale in an upchuck is the winner!"
More cheers.
Rathi's skin vibrates. Anticipation twists around in her belly like the dance of a bonfire.
Salsa grins and takes a short-handled mallet from a server nearby, the end swaddled in cloth. "Let the challenge begin!" he shouts and swings the mallet at a massive metal plate, a resounding echo of sound ringing through the packed space.
The cheering becomes cacophonous. The two tables of competitors are surrounded by servers and a thick crowd of non-participants, themselves clutching mugs of ale as they cheer on their friends or family or favorites.
Rathi looks across the table, catches Sinoun's eye, sweeps up her first tankard, and winks as she starts to chug it down. The beer bubbles over her tongue, warm and bitter and far from her favorite flavor. It's the bottom of the barrel, last of the dregs, and it's horrible.
Rathi shudders and tries not to think about taste as she empties the tankard of every drop, and turns it upside down on the table. One down.
Another full tankard sloshes into place in front of her. Then a third. Both go down same as the first, warm and sour and horrible. She's never drinking another Kunait blend so long as she's in this area. Some people might like their beer to be bitter, but not Rathi.
Three empty tankards line up in front of her upside-down. Across the table, Sinoun finishes the last of his third tankard, and it joins his line. He wipes his mouth, looking pleased with himself.
"How're you feeling?" he asks.
"I've had better," Rathi says.
Sinoun tips his head back and laughs.
Someone at the end of the table keels over. Another one drops his third tankard, spilling beer all over the table, and a server thrusts a bucket under him just as he regurgitates every last drop.
Che. Lightweights. They've barely begun.
"That's two competitors down already!" Salsa shouts above the masses as more tankards are brought around, this time filled with a darker liquid, thicker than the Kunait brew, giving off a faintly anise odor. "Next round comes to us from the Duvenes! May we all give them our patronage as a show of thanks."
The gong peals through the building again, and Rathi grabs her tankard, fully intending to toss it back as quickly as she can. That guardian ring is going to be hers.
The first gulp flows over her tongue.
Ohhh, this one's thick. Thick like honey mead, harder to suck down, but much tastier as a result. It's more spicy than sweet. It's pepper and anise and mint, balanced by the sweetness of honey, with a bit of a chill. It goes down smooth, but heavy, and takes longer to drink.
Two go down easily, the third she has to take a little slower, to let the first two settle more firmly in her belly, sending a familiar fire flushing through her body. Duvene is heavier than Kunait, and they don't mix well.
A little burp escapes before Rathi can stop it, but she's fine. Absolutely fine. She sets her sixth tankard down with a triumphant pump of her fist, and contemplates the competition.
Round two hit hard and fast. Of the two dozen or so people of all ages, races, and genders, there are only five left, including Rathi and Sinoun. Some passed out face first on the table. Others had fallen backward in their chairs. Even more hold buckets, looking gray in the face, no matter their complexion.
Sinoun fans himself, looking a little flushed. It's a good look for him, honestly. Rathi imagines it's what he looks like in bed, reddened with pleasure, his skin dotted with sweat.
Now there's a thought.
She imagines what he’d look like beneath her, perhaps bound so he has no choice but to take what she offers and nothing more. And he’d beg for it, his arrogance burned away by the force of his arousal.
Mmm. Tasty indeed.
"How're you feeling?" Rathi asks, to be smart, and Sinoun's eyes are a little glazed as they wander her direction.
"Me?" he asks, and his smile is lopsided, and he misses when he tries to toss his hair over his shoulder, at least the first time. "Well, I'm fit as a fiddle."
"I can tell." Rathi tugs on her collar a little, the inner heat flushing her skin, and Sinoun's watery gaze drops to the small slice of bared skin. His pupils dilate.
Rathi preens.
"And now we're at the final round! Unless, of course, these fine competitors need a fourth." Salsa directs a huge wink at the increasingly inebriated crowd, sending them into rales of laughter. "Be ready, my friends. Because the Chisholm blend has a real kick to it."
A new tankard slides onto the table in front of Rathi, the liquid inside almost as clear as water, with little bubbles rising to the top and absolutely no foam. It gives off no odor, and Rathi's tongue waters a bit. The least assuming drinks usually pack the hardest punch.
"This one," Sinoun declares with a bit of a slur, "Is my favorite."
"Nope. I don't touch Chisholm," says one of the other competitors as he shakes his head and gets up from the table. "I'm out."
Interesting.
"Four!" Salsa declares with a wide wave of his hands. "Four competitors left! Does anyone else at the table wish to forfeit?"
"Not on your life," says one of the remaining women, a slight wisp of a thing with pale skin and pale eyes and a delicateness which belies the six tankards upside down in front of her.
"I've never quit a day in me life," says a stout dwarf with braids sprouting from every inch of their beard, and even a few tiny ones in the longer hairs of their eyebrows.
Rathi licks her lips and smirks. "I want that ring."
Sinoun sits up straight and scratches painted fingernails through his sparse beard. "I'm not even tispy," he lies.
"The Tilted Tavern takes no responsibility for any overindulgence then," Salsa says, and sketches them a salute. "Good luck!"
Bong! goes the giant gong, and Rathi grabs her tankard. The ale spills over her tongue, light and airy and a bit bubbly. It's tart, with a hint of sweetness, but goes down as smooth as water. It has almost no discernible taste, and Rathi gulps it down with ease.
One and two fill her gullet, starting to complain from too much liquid in too little time. It sloshes around, but Rathi's fine. Absolutely fine.
She reaches for the third mug, but there are two of them now. She squints, and her fingers close around air. What the-- Is someone fucking with her?
Rathi tries to grab the mug again. Nothing. Is it an illusion?
She looks to her left, where the pale woman sits there, one hand curled around what would be her ninth tankard. She stares into space without blinking, unmoving. Her eyes look a little glazed. She lets out a snore.
That's not creepy at all.
"I give, I give," the dwarf cries, and they start weeping, burying their face in their folded arms, knocking over all of their empty tankards. "The Chisholm got me."
"Isn't it delightful?" Sinoun slurs as he turns his third tankard upside down and adds it to his neat little line.
"It would be," Rathi says. "If I could just grab it." She narrows her eyes and focuses, and the two full tankards in front of her shimmer and merge and become one. She grabs it before they can pull that trick again.
Success.
She tips her head back and guzzles the last of the tankard, ignoring the protest of her belly. She won't lose. She won't vomit, and she won't pass out. By her pride as heir to the Cinders, she won't let a little drink defeat her.
Rathi slams the tankard upside down and throws Sinoun a triumphant, if not lopsided smile. "There," she says as a halo sparkles into view around Sinoun's head, full of rainbow colors. It's pretty. "Done."
Sinoun points a wobbly finger at her. "You," he says, "are incredible."
"I know." Rathi shifts in the chair, slumping down a little, trying to make room for her protesting belly. "And I'm going to win."
"Well, well, well." Salsa approaches the table and looks them over with an approving nod. "Looks like we have a third round tie. Lucky then that I have the perfect tiebreaker for happy accidents like these. Neema?"
"Coming, dear!" A dwarf woman with cheeks to match the rosiness of Salsa's comes out from behind the bar, bearing a tray with little tumblers of a dark liquid inside.
Rathi's shoulders sag with relief. At least it's not fireberry.
"It's time for a lightning round, my friends," Salsa declares as Neema rests the tray on the table, the tumblers rattling ominously, but the liquid inside barely stirring. "Drink til you drop. The first one to tap out, pass out, or spew out, is the loser."
Rathi grins. "Sounds great."
"I'm ready when you are," Sinoun says.
The people cheer and crowd around the table, leaning in with their smells and their heat and their drunken selves, all of them eager to see who the victor is going to be.
"Sound the gong!" Salsa shouts and the crowd hollers their excitement as the low sounds rings through the air.
Rathi sweeps up the first cup, getting a whiff of something earthy and vaguely pinesappy, before she takes her first gulp. It seeps over her tongue, thick like syrup, and numbs immediately where it touches. It seems to expand to twice its volume, and it's all Rathi can do to swallow the whole mass of it, her stomach churning and a hard knot forming behind her lungs.
It's absolutely vile.
Her vision wavers. She nearly knocks over a tankard in an attempt at turning the tumbler upside down. She wobbles in her seat, managing a sloppy grin, as her stomach rolls.
She sweeps up the second tumbler and steals a glance at Sinoun. He's got what seems to be his first still in hand, half-empty now, and there's a queer look on his face.
"Thisss," he slurs, like his tongue isn't obeying him. He frowns, licks his lips, brings the cup to his mouth before lowering it without taking so much as a sip. "This ought to be illegal."
Rathi holds her breath, delaying her consumption of the second one. Because if Sinoun can't finish his first, she won't have to force herself through another.
"Aye, that's the rust talking, sure enough," Salsa says with a bit of a friendly elbow to Sinoun's shoulder that nearly topples him from the chair. "Gives the flavor a bit of kick, doesn't it?"
Sinoun smacks his lips like someone trying to keep from vomiting. "Rust," he repeats with a shudder. "Like iron." He sets the cup down and wobbles left and right. "Thisssss." He groans, long and low, and puts his head on the table. "The world spinsh. Make it shtop."
Salsa laughs. "And you, my dear?"
Rathi taps her upside-down tumbler. "Drank it all. Could go for another but why waste good brew, eh?" She winks at both of Salsa, and ignores the riot brewing in her belly. She'd clocked the washrooms earlier.
They're gonna be her first stop.
"Why indeed?" Salsa rounds the table and claps her on the back. "Congratulations! And what is the name of our new champion?"
"Rathi," she says, wobbling as she climbs to her feet, her only hand gripping her chair to keep her upright. "But you can call me the cinder queen."
Salsa's laughter rings long and loud over the celebrating masses. "Rathi, it is!"
He grabs her good hand away from the chair, and his grip is all that keeps her upright, her knees wobbling, and her stomach giving several warning gurgles.
Rathi forces a big smile onto her lips, through the smear of color and sound that is the crowd. "Three cheers for our new champion!"
"Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!"
"Huzzah," Sinoun groans, barely audible above the din.
Salsa lets her go, and Rathi scrambles to grab the chair again, before she topples over. Her belly starts to cramp, the back of her throat feeling hot and prickly. It's too much, too fast.
The bartender reaches across the table, sweeping the wooden block with the champion's number carved into the surface. He shoves it at Rathi until she takes it.
"Free drinks for life. Or at least until someone claims it from you," he says with a wink, and turns away from her, easily cleaving through the masses of people as he makes his way back to the bar itself. "Newest round is half-price for the next minute. Get it while you can!"
The promise of cheap drink is enough for a surge of patrons to rush toward the bar, shouting their orders and waving their coin in the air. It gives Rathi room to breathe, to tuck the wooden block into her pocket, and focus on the two items still sitting in the middle of the table -- luckily no one nicked them when she wasn't paying attention.
"I believe this is mine," she says as she retrieves her obsidian pearl and raps her fingers on the table next to the guardian ring.
Sinoun looks up at her with a watery eye. "A deal's a deal," he says, his grin sloppy and crooked. "You've earned it." He closes his eye, groans, and forces himself up, a crease in his cheek from where he'd laid his head upon the table. He hums as he braces his chin on his palm. "I like you."
Rathi snorts as she slides the guardian ring onto her middle finger, only to realize it's too big, so she moves it to her thumb instead. Perfect.
"You're cute," she says, because it's true, he's loose-limbed and relaxed in his inebriated state, that annoying confident smirk given way to a smile and a flush. "But you're wasted, and that's not me. Find me when you're sober."
Sinoun hums a laugh. "I can be sober," he says.
"I don't think magic works that way, but good try." Rathi chuckles.
Her stomach gurgles. Her eyes widen. She backs away from the table.
"Anyway," Rathi says, tossing him a friendly salute so it doesn't look like she's running away. "This was fun, but I gotta split." She points a thumb over her shoulder, and vanishes into the crowd before Sinoun can stop her.
He might have called after her, but Rathi ignores it. She pushes through the crowd, enduring congratulations and pats on the back and more than a few mugs of ale shoved under her nose, as if she wants to drink even more after downing what feels like a barrelful of various intoxicating liquids.
Urk.
She finds the washroom, mercifully empty, and kicks the door shut, throwing the wooden latch over it so no one disturbs her. It reeks in here, no one's emptied the pot in ages, but it'll do. There's no time to make for the alley.
It's worth it, she thinks as her stomach cramps. This ring makes it all worth it.
***
a/n: Feedback, as always, is welcome and appreciated. The steamier part two will be out next week. ;)
Universe: Tethers, Pre-canon
Characters: Rathi of the Cinders/Sinoun
Rated: M
Enticements: Sexual Content
Description: Rathi has more time than she knows what to do with, before she has to take the throne, and she’ll find her entertainment where she can – even if it comes at the hands of a mysterious auburn stranger.
Rathi loves the mortal plane.
She hadn’t realized, until she set foot up here, how lively and random and amazing it is. She thought she’d miss the warmth of her home, the familiarity and predictability of it.
Honestly, she hasn’t missed it once. Her father, yes. Her comfortable bed, yes. Her ready and available bathing room, most certainly.
Everything else?
Not one bit. There’s so much to see here. So much to do. So much to eat.
So much to drink.
Rathi has never tasted so many varieties of booze before. Ales and meads and liquors and strange concoctions made from strange creatures or strange plants. Some of it sweet but devastating, some of it bitter and light. She’s got a sterner constitution than most of the mortals, but one cup of fireberry mead knocks her on her ass faster than she can burp.
It’s amazing.
And the challenges! Mortals are constantly challenging each other to feats of skill and strength and ability. Rathi’s won and lost her fair share of arm-wrestling tournaments and physical combats and athletic trials.
She may have lost the eating contest, but she refuses to lose the drinking contest. So long as they don’t bring out any fireberry mead, she’s going to win.
Rathi slaps down her five gold for the entrance fee and winks at the man taking all the entrants and assigning them. He gives her an assessing look, then a dismissive one.
“You’re a little tiny to be competing, aren’t ya?” he asks as he takes her coin and gives her a piece of wood with a number scraped on it in charcoal.
She’s competitor number seventeen.
“It’s not the size of the boat,” Rathi tells him with an appraising look she turns into a sneer. “Everyone knows it’s the motion.” She winks and saunters away as he sputters behind her and mutters something in one of the mortal tongues she doesn’t know.
There are two long tables arranged beneath the tent, already crowded with people of all sorts, their wooden placards sitting in front of them. Only a few places remain, and Rathi opts to take the empty space at the right table, as opposed to either of the empty seats on the left, where the occupants look unfriendly and unwelcoming.
She’s not afraid of unfriendly and unwelcoming people, but she’d rather enjoy this challenge, not have to deal with assholes and elbows.
Rathi whips out the last open chair on the left and slides into it, setting her piece of wood down in front of her. There’s a dwarf to her left, and a human male to her right, both of whom are having spirited conversations to the individuals on their other side. Across from her is another male, but she can’t quite tell his lineage, and he’s sat between two gnomes who are having a conversation behind his back. Literally.
He’s got a head of brown-red hair, tousled curls falling loose past his shoulders, and the scruff of a beard that could use some maintenance. His clothing is probably ostentatious for a mortal, but would fit right in at Cinder Mountain. He catches Rathi looking and throws her a grin, one hand flicking his hair over a shoulder.
“Well, well, well, you must be a new challenger,” he says, eyeing her wood block with a raised eyebrow.
“Aren’t we all?” Rathi asks.
He laughs and taps his own wooden block, which has the number one etched into the surface. "I'm the champion," he says with an air of self-importance. "I'm the one you have to beat."
"Oh." Rathi looks him up and down -- he's handsome enough, a bit on the slim side, his eyes an odd shade of green-purple which suggests he's not as mortal as some might think. It's the arrogance, however, which makes her smirk and say, "Should be easy then."
"Aren't you confident." His gaze rakes over her, lingering on her missing arm, but there's no trace of pity in the notice. "With great reason, I imagine. You've seen battle."
Rathi arches a brow. "Battle has nothing to do with constitution." She leans forward, bracing her only elbow on the table. "Truly, it's about the fire." She winks, and her hair flickers with flame before she promptly smothers it back to the glossy black spikes.
"Touche." He scrubs his fingers around the sparse beard before dragging two across his lips. "The name's Sinoun. Might I have yours, if you're to beat me after all?"
"Rathi."
He nods slowly, repeats her name as if tasting it, before a smile creeps over his lips. "And what brings you to this fair plane, Rathi?"
"You're certain I'm not from here?" Rathi asks, tilting her head.
Sinoun laughs, but there's nothing mocking about it. Amused, certainly, and possibly intrigued. "Like calls to like."
A tankard hits the table in front of Rathi, an amber liquid sloshing around inside. "Don't touch it yet, missie," a gruff voice warns before moving on, thunking more tankards to the other competitors, a hush falling over the loud chatter.
"And so it begins," Sinoun says. "When I win, be sure to congratulate me."
Rathi snorts. "You mean, when I win?"
"You're awfully confident. Care to make a friendly wager?" Sinoun asks as he lifts a pouch from his belt and sets it on the table beside his tankard, coins jangling noisily inside.
Their talk seems to have gathered some attention, Rathi realizes, as the competitors to either side of her and Sinoun now lean in, staring at the pouch of coins.
"I have plenty coin of my own." Rathi waves a dismissive hand and eyes Sinoun's fine clothing, the sense of magic which hangs around him like a second skin. "What've you got that's rare?"
"Hmm. You're bold. I like it." Sinoun taps his bottom lip thoughtfully before his eyes brighten and he works one of the rings off his fingers. It's a silver band dotted with tiny, dark gems. "This is a guardian ring. Will that suffice?"
Several sharp inhalations echo around Rathi. Fellow competitors look on with lust and envy.
Rathi grins. "Absolutely."
"Don't you match it with coin either. I want something unique as well," Sinoun tells her as Rathi starts to dig into her pockets and pouch.
She already knows what to wager.
There, in the very bottom of her satchel, wrapped in leather and protected with a simple spell, is a small pouch. She removes a single jewel, about the size of a walnut, before replacing the pouch. She sets it on the table between them, right next to the ring.
"Do you know what this is?" Rathi asks.
Sinoun's eyes glitter with recognition. "I do. But perhaps our curious friends might like to know."
"This," Rathi says with a smirk and a tap to the gem, as black as night except when it catches the light and reflects a brilliant rainbow, "is an obsidian pearl, found only in the mouths of what swims in the Mercury Sea."
What makes it most valuable is not so much the rarity of the gem, but the fact it is uncut, which means the owner can shape it for their own use, rather than be restricted. Wizards would drool over it, as would clerics. It would catch a hefty sum on the open market, or it could be kept as a magical focus, or built into a magical weapon.
"Your wager is accepted," Sinoun says, and yes, there's most definitely lust in his voice and in his eyes. He wants the pearl with every fiber of his being.
Interesting.
Rathi sticks out her hand. "Then let's see which of us wins."
Sinoun sweeps her hand up into a firm grip, the tingle of magic buzzing between their palms. Ooo, he's definitely something not-mortal. There's something in his blood, either recently or distantly. He tastes of magic.
"Greetings and salutations, my good friends! Welcome to the twentieth annual Battle for the Brew!" A voice booms above the gathered crowd as the last of the initial tankards are dispersed and servers step back, hovering and ready to replace them. "There's a hefty purse at stake, as well as bragging rights, and we all know which of the two is more important, eh?"
"Aye!" The chorus rises up around them.
Rathi chuckles and waits, one eye on the wager in the middle of the table, the other on her fellow competitors, including Sinoun. None of them can match the fire in her belly.
"Aye," the announcer agrees. They've a gentle face, rosy cheeks, hair a halo of ginger curls, and big brown eyes. "Now I'm Salsa, the owner of this here establishment, and the barrels have been donated by the various breweries around here. The first round is on the Kunaits, eh? Give them a round of applause!"
Cheers and stomping feet and fists pounding and hands clapping rise into a riot of noise. It would be deafening if they were indoors. Thank the gods they aren’t.
"All right, all right." Salsa holds up his hands to call for attention. "Now, let me explain the rules. It's pretty simple. You drink your tankard. You finish your tankard. You turn it upside-down, and someone brings you another. The last one standing, the last one conscious without wasting all this good ale in an upchuck is the winner!"
More cheers.
Rathi's skin vibrates. Anticipation twists around in her belly like the dance of a bonfire.
Salsa grins and takes a short-handled mallet from a server nearby, the end swaddled in cloth. "Let the challenge begin!" he shouts and swings the mallet at a massive metal plate, a resounding echo of sound ringing through the packed space.
The cheering becomes cacophonous. The two tables of competitors are surrounded by servers and a thick crowd of non-participants, themselves clutching mugs of ale as they cheer on their friends or family or favorites.
Rathi looks across the table, catches Sinoun's eye, sweeps up her first tankard, and winks as she starts to chug it down. The beer bubbles over her tongue, warm and bitter and far from her favorite flavor. It's the bottom of the barrel, last of the dregs, and it's horrible.
Rathi shudders and tries not to think about taste as she empties the tankard of every drop, and turns it upside down on the table. One down.
Another full tankard sloshes into place in front of her. Then a third. Both go down same as the first, warm and sour and horrible. She's never drinking another Kunait blend so long as she's in this area. Some people might like their beer to be bitter, but not Rathi.
Three empty tankards line up in front of her upside-down. Across the table, Sinoun finishes the last of his third tankard, and it joins his line. He wipes his mouth, looking pleased with himself.
"How're you feeling?" he asks.
"I've had better," Rathi says.
Sinoun tips his head back and laughs.
Someone at the end of the table keels over. Another one drops his third tankard, spilling beer all over the table, and a server thrusts a bucket under him just as he regurgitates every last drop.
Che. Lightweights. They've barely begun.
"That's two competitors down already!" Salsa shouts above the masses as more tankards are brought around, this time filled with a darker liquid, thicker than the Kunait brew, giving off a faintly anise odor. "Next round comes to us from the Duvenes! May we all give them our patronage as a show of thanks."
The gong peals through the building again, and Rathi grabs her tankard, fully intending to toss it back as quickly as she can. That guardian ring is going to be hers.
The first gulp flows over her tongue.
Ohhh, this one's thick. Thick like honey mead, harder to suck down, but much tastier as a result. It's more spicy than sweet. It's pepper and anise and mint, balanced by the sweetness of honey, with a bit of a chill. It goes down smooth, but heavy, and takes longer to drink.
Two go down easily, the third she has to take a little slower, to let the first two settle more firmly in her belly, sending a familiar fire flushing through her body. Duvene is heavier than Kunait, and they don't mix well.
A little burp escapes before Rathi can stop it, but she's fine. Absolutely fine. She sets her sixth tankard down with a triumphant pump of her fist, and contemplates the competition.
Round two hit hard and fast. Of the two dozen or so people of all ages, races, and genders, there are only five left, including Rathi and Sinoun. Some passed out face first on the table. Others had fallen backward in their chairs. Even more hold buckets, looking gray in the face, no matter their complexion.
Sinoun fans himself, looking a little flushed. It's a good look for him, honestly. Rathi imagines it's what he looks like in bed, reddened with pleasure, his skin dotted with sweat.
Now there's a thought.
She imagines what he’d look like beneath her, perhaps bound so he has no choice but to take what she offers and nothing more. And he’d beg for it, his arrogance burned away by the force of his arousal.
Mmm. Tasty indeed.
"How're you feeling?" Rathi asks, to be smart, and Sinoun's eyes are a little glazed as they wander her direction.
"Me?" he asks, and his smile is lopsided, and he misses when he tries to toss his hair over his shoulder, at least the first time. "Well, I'm fit as a fiddle."
"I can tell." Rathi tugs on her collar a little, the inner heat flushing her skin, and Sinoun's watery gaze drops to the small slice of bared skin. His pupils dilate.
Rathi preens.
"And now we're at the final round! Unless, of course, these fine competitors need a fourth." Salsa directs a huge wink at the increasingly inebriated crowd, sending them into rales of laughter. "Be ready, my friends. Because the Chisholm blend has a real kick to it."
A new tankard slides onto the table in front of Rathi, the liquid inside almost as clear as water, with little bubbles rising to the top and absolutely no foam. It gives off no odor, and Rathi's tongue waters a bit. The least assuming drinks usually pack the hardest punch.
"This one," Sinoun declares with a bit of a slur, "Is my favorite."
"Nope. I don't touch Chisholm," says one of the other competitors as he shakes his head and gets up from the table. "I'm out."
Interesting.
"Four!" Salsa declares with a wide wave of his hands. "Four competitors left! Does anyone else at the table wish to forfeit?"
"Not on your life," says one of the remaining women, a slight wisp of a thing with pale skin and pale eyes and a delicateness which belies the six tankards upside down in front of her.
"I've never quit a day in me life," says a stout dwarf with braids sprouting from every inch of their beard, and even a few tiny ones in the longer hairs of their eyebrows.
Rathi licks her lips and smirks. "I want that ring."
Sinoun sits up straight and scratches painted fingernails through his sparse beard. "I'm not even tispy," he lies.
"The Tilted Tavern takes no responsibility for any overindulgence then," Salsa says, and sketches them a salute. "Good luck!"
Bong! goes the giant gong, and Rathi grabs her tankard. The ale spills over her tongue, light and airy and a bit bubbly. It's tart, with a hint of sweetness, but goes down as smooth as water. It has almost no discernible taste, and Rathi gulps it down with ease.
One and two fill her gullet, starting to complain from too much liquid in too little time. It sloshes around, but Rathi's fine. Absolutely fine.
She reaches for the third mug, but there are two of them now. She squints, and her fingers close around air. What the-- Is someone fucking with her?
Rathi tries to grab the mug again. Nothing. Is it an illusion?
She looks to her left, where the pale woman sits there, one hand curled around what would be her ninth tankard. She stares into space without blinking, unmoving. Her eyes look a little glazed. She lets out a snore.
That's not creepy at all.
"I give, I give," the dwarf cries, and they start weeping, burying their face in their folded arms, knocking over all of their empty tankards. "The Chisholm got me."
"Isn't it delightful?" Sinoun slurs as he turns his third tankard upside down and adds it to his neat little line.
"It would be," Rathi says. "If I could just grab it." She narrows her eyes and focuses, and the two full tankards in front of her shimmer and merge and become one. She grabs it before they can pull that trick again.
Success.
She tips her head back and guzzles the last of the tankard, ignoring the protest of her belly. She won't lose. She won't vomit, and she won't pass out. By her pride as heir to the Cinders, she won't let a little drink defeat her.
Rathi slams the tankard upside down and throws Sinoun a triumphant, if not lopsided smile. "There," she says as a halo sparkles into view around Sinoun's head, full of rainbow colors. It's pretty. "Done."
Sinoun points a wobbly finger at her. "You," he says, "are incredible."
"I know." Rathi shifts in the chair, slumping down a little, trying to make room for her protesting belly. "And I'm going to win."
"Well, well, well." Salsa approaches the table and looks them over with an approving nod. "Looks like we have a third round tie. Lucky then that I have the perfect tiebreaker for happy accidents like these. Neema?"
"Coming, dear!" A dwarf woman with cheeks to match the rosiness of Salsa's comes out from behind the bar, bearing a tray with little tumblers of a dark liquid inside.
Rathi's shoulders sag with relief. At least it's not fireberry.
"It's time for a lightning round, my friends," Salsa declares as Neema rests the tray on the table, the tumblers rattling ominously, but the liquid inside barely stirring. "Drink til you drop. The first one to tap out, pass out, or spew out, is the loser."
Rathi grins. "Sounds great."
"I'm ready when you are," Sinoun says.
The people cheer and crowd around the table, leaning in with their smells and their heat and their drunken selves, all of them eager to see who the victor is going to be.
"Sound the gong!" Salsa shouts and the crowd hollers their excitement as the low sounds rings through the air.
Rathi sweeps up the first cup, getting a whiff of something earthy and vaguely pinesappy, before she takes her first gulp. It seeps over her tongue, thick like syrup, and numbs immediately where it touches. It seems to expand to twice its volume, and it's all Rathi can do to swallow the whole mass of it, her stomach churning and a hard knot forming behind her lungs.
It's absolutely vile.
Her vision wavers. She nearly knocks over a tankard in an attempt at turning the tumbler upside down. She wobbles in her seat, managing a sloppy grin, as her stomach rolls.
She sweeps up the second tumbler and steals a glance at Sinoun. He's got what seems to be his first still in hand, half-empty now, and there's a queer look on his face.
"Thisss," he slurs, like his tongue isn't obeying him. He frowns, licks his lips, brings the cup to his mouth before lowering it without taking so much as a sip. "This ought to be illegal."
Rathi holds her breath, delaying her consumption of the second one. Because if Sinoun can't finish his first, she won't have to force herself through another.
"Aye, that's the rust talking, sure enough," Salsa says with a bit of a friendly elbow to Sinoun's shoulder that nearly topples him from the chair. "Gives the flavor a bit of kick, doesn't it?"
Sinoun smacks his lips like someone trying to keep from vomiting. "Rust," he repeats with a shudder. "Like iron." He sets the cup down and wobbles left and right. "Thisssss." He groans, long and low, and puts his head on the table. "The world spinsh. Make it shtop."
Salsa laughs. "And you, my dear?"
Rathi taps her upside-down tumbler. "Drank it all. Could go for another but why waste good brew, eh?" She winks at both of Salsa, and ignores the riot brewing in her belly. She'd clocked the washrooms earlier.
They're gonna be her first stop.
"Why indeed?" Salsa rounds the table and claps her on the back. "Congratulations! And what is the name of our new champion?"
"Rathi," she says, wobbling as she climbs to her feet, her only hand gripping her chair to keep her upright. "But you can call me the cinder queen."
Salsa's laughter rings long and loud over the celebrating masses. "Rathi, it is!"
He grabs her good hand away from the chair, and his grip is all that keeps her upright, her knees wobbling, and her stomach giving several warning gurgles.
Rathi forces a big smile onto her lips, through the smear of color and sound that is the crowd. "Three cheers for our new champion!"
"Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!"
"Huzzah," Sinoun groans, barely audible above the din.
Salsa lets her go, and Rathi scrambles to grab the chair again, before she topples over. Her belly starts to cramp, the back of her throat feeling hot and prickly. It's too much, too fast.
The bartender reaches across the table, sweeping the wooden block with the champion's number carved into the surface. He shoves it at Rathi until she takes it.
"Free drinks for life. Or at least until someone claims it from you," he says with a wink, and turns away from her, easily cleaving through the masses of people as he makes his way back to the bar itself. "Newest round is half-price for the next minute. Get it while you can!"
The promise of cheap drink is enough for a surge of patrons to rush toward the bar, shouting their orders and waving their coin in the air. It gives Rathi room to breathe, to tuck the wooden block into her pocket, and focus on the two items still sitting in the middle of the table -- luckily no one nicked them when she wasn't paying attention.
"I believe this is mine," she says as she retrieves her obsidian pearl and raps her fingers on the table next to the guardian ring.
Sinoun looks up at her with a watery eye. "A deal's a deal," he says, his grin sloppy and crooked. "You've earned it." He closes his eye, groans, and forces himself up, a crease in his cheek from where he'd laid his head upon the table. He hums as he braces his chin on his palm. "I like you."
Rathi snorts as she slides the guardian ring onto her middle finger, only to realize it's too big, so she moves it to her thumb instead. Perfect.
"You're cute," she says, because it's true, he's loose-limbed and relaxed in his inebriated state, that annoying confident smirk given way to a smile and a flush. "But you're wasted, and that's not me. Find me when you're sober."
Sinoun hums a laugh. "I can be sober," he says.
"I don't think magic works that way, but good try." Rathi chuckles.
Her stomach gurgles. Her eyes widen. She backs away from the table.
"Anyway," Rathi says, tossing him a friendly salute so it doesn't look like she's running away. "This was fun, but I gotta split." She points a thumb over her shoulder, and vanishes into the crowd before Sinoun can stop her.
He might have called after her, but Rathi ignores it. She pushes through the crowd, enduring congratulations and pats on the back and more than a few mugs of ale shoved under her nose, as if she wants to drink even more after downing what feels like a barrelful of various intoxicating liquids.
Urk.
She finds the washroom, mercifully empty, and kicks the door shut, throwing the wooden latch over it so no one disturbs her. It reeks in here, no one's emptied the pot in ages, but it'll do. There's no time to make for the alley.
It's worth it, she thinks as her stomach cramps. This ring makes it all worth it.
a/n: Feedback, as always, is welcome and appreciated. The steamier part two will be out next week. ;)
