[While on a rescue mission gone crazed, a holy warrior and a rogue fight bandits, demons, and the urge to rip each other's clothes off.]
The mission, rescuing a princess, could be going better.
Séa is an earnest paladin, honest and gullible. Tash is...
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With a helmet-muffled voice, the prone paladin said, "Oops." She wrestled her helm off, and then her gauntlets. Finally, she rolled to her hands and knees. Eventually and awkwardly, she wobbled to her feet.
The next moment, her callused hands cupped Tash's face, and her honest face drew within inches. Her wide gray eyes searched into Tash's, though she struggled to maintain focus. Worry drained from Séa's features, to be replaced with relief. "Thought I wazz —hic!— too late."
Tash replied, softly, "Mm, mm, mm."
A hug enveloped the spread-eagled rogue, warm somehow, despite all the cold iron. Séa's hair smelled like a bakery in the morning and a little bit like a zephyr-kissed field of spring wildflowers.
She cares about me.
An upwelling of a half-forgotten feeling gushed from her center and welled up in Tash's eyes. The warm wave of security and compassion put a lump in her throat on its way up. The moonlit landscape wavered, but it was only that her eyes had gone watery.
Séa mumbled, "Thank Torugg. Thank all the gods. Thank luck, too!" She pulled back from the hug.
Too soon. Come back.
"Gotta get you free," the paladin mumbled. It took her three tries, but she managed to locate a dagger in her belt. Tash eyed the dangerously wavering blade as Séa brought it near her face.
The biggest twit in all of Omnius, sure, but she cares for me.
The paladin's eyes tracked some of the time. During a moment of lucidity, she confessed, "I'm clumsy now. High azza hawk. Sorry." She gripped the blade by its tip rather than its hilt and worried at Tash's gag. By some miracle, Tash's face escaped collecting another scar, and the rope and rag fell away.
The rogue inhaled. "Much better. Thank you."
Séa's hands rose to stroke Tash's face. The dagger dropped to the forest floor. Her thumbs traced along the tracks left by the rope and smoothed them away. "So glad you're all right. I want—."
Her face looks like someone tied a board to it when she was a baby, but her eyes are so beautiful in the moonlight. Or maybe it's the reverse. Maybe moonlight was invented to make her eyes come alive. It's like I'm seeing them for the first time.
Tash's voice sounded oddly low and fuzzy in her own ears. "You're high on religion. Go on. What do you want?"
Séa's thumbs lightly traced along Tash's lips. A tingle of desire joined the warm gush of compassion. By the gods, I like that. She's high. What's my excuse?
"I want—" She transferred her caresses from Tash's lips to entwine her fingers into the half-elf's hair. "Bedder do this ... while you're tied up."
Better do what, now? Tash blinked. Oh, shit, she's going to kiss me.
