Wanton Desires - Suren and the Librarian

When the bard Arielle moved to Saburra to be with her wife the moisture mage, it was only natural that her protege Pentos Everwind took over as bard to the city council. This is where the problems started for Jyonti and Pentos. First were the accusations that Pentos had no objectivity, his songs going from critical of the government to a lovey dovey songs, especially when Jyonti had proposed to him (he had said yes). But Pentos was in love and who was the crowd to say what he wrote, what he played.

Then were the comparisons to the written words of Naya Stormbringer and Deluna, that the man had been either deliberately derivative all the way to accidentally plagiaristic. And now, as the rumors of a party to Aranthme approaches, Pentos has to decide - can the bard weather another controversy.

So naturally Jyonti was surprised when he came into their abode to see Pentos doing up the laces on the side of skin-tight Greshire pants. Sure they looked good on those toned thighs, and the blouse that plunged down to the navel showed off an amazing amount of that twiggy chest that drew Jyonti visually to the bard in the first place, but the discreet shaped piece of paperbark with the spider print inked on the surface told the more rotund man that the love of his life was up to no good. And he doubted Pentos could survive the scandal.

"I have you a mask, you know." Pentos purred, running a hand over Jyonti's knee and scandalously up to tease the flustered librarian. Up further on their joint bed Jyonti distractedly noticed two masks one in black fabric over a loose frame, the other like mandibles in white, set to fit over hair and forehead and upper face. He also briefly notices Pentos has his hair back in a slick scorpion-tail, even as his beloved distracted him with tongue filled kisses.

He should not go to this forbidden party. Pentos should not go to the party and it ticked Jyonti off enough that a deep furrowing frown could invade his face even as the love of his life tried to distract him. "You. You should be trying to see if the council has more tasks for you, not doing something that could loose you even that security." Jyonti utters, even as those smooth lips are working his neck and Pentos is trying his most-stonely to get his mate out of those clothes and into a bath. At least he assumes that is the goal as despite all the affection, the last time they were intimate begs not thinking about.

Soon he is dressed in purple and black, a wreath of fallen cherry blossoms woven among discarded purple leaves - a transient outfit for a transient night. His mask is fixed, and Pentos is trying to encourage him to put on some luxwood nail polish to complete the outfit. The polish comes from the bard's collection, but the librarian hates how forced relaxed it makes him feel and his lip curls again.

"Don't do this. You always do this when I want us to go out and you to have a good time." Jyonti thinks Pentos is using a tone of voice that feels more like a child's whine than anything a grown Foliad should produce, but his mate is looking pretty and maybe Pentos will find someone to trade a song for to make being near people worth it.

Jyonti forces a smile into his eyes, mouth set grim beneath the mask as he turns on his 'helpful librarian' voice. "Did you ask Br1n where the location marked shows? Because that would be less wise given how illegal this is. It's not Exile worthy, but it is likely to get us reputation burned and so much community service." Jyonti does not mean for the way the bard's face falls at how he speaks to him, and his shoulders are allowed to relax when Pentos says he sorted through the puzzle himself, but the man he fell for all those years ago is too eager and too impulsive for the rank he has had thrust upon him.

Soon the couple are walking together beneath hooded cloaks, simple and unassuming, the sight on the street of dozens of the same an unspoken agreement that the warm night will not invite trouble before the party starts. The city council's watchers also seem to be deliberately turning a blind eye, for although the pair are staying away from the main thoroughfare the watchers cannot even be seen there when glimpses of the street can be seen in their journey.

Glimmer dances around Pentos tonight and Jyonti cannot help but to let out a wistful sigh, wishing he felt with the intensity of this man but constantly on guard even as his hand slips in to clasp that of his mate's.

Tonight's festival had gone one step more taboo, and Jyonti almost stubbed his toe on the carved bricks at the entrance to the old world ruin. There would be no running from scandal tonight if they got caught, though a doorman draped a small guest on each of them as they entered, a visitor of Aranthme's web of warmth and familiarity.

As Jyonti's new white bodied friend began to cast web into the purple wreathe and stain it with shimmering pale thread, they descended into the ruins. Stone on all sides reminds Jyonti of the utter brazen disregard Pentos and those like him have for rules and regulations and the dangers his mate often gets him into. Love is often not enough to get the solid man through this without him feeling bruised. He bumps the wall and the bruise becomes literal with a cry, these tunnels too small for his overweight frame and his nice top tears a little. Jyonti feels silly for saying yes and coming along now and he just....

Pentos has stopped, concern in his eyes and he takes the librarian by the arm, peppering gentle kisses across the scrape. "We will find a herbalist when we get inside. You're worrying and it will be ok. I promise we will have a nice night."

The librarian can't stay worried under the gaze of his bard, even as the shards of stone lance his metaphorical flesh towards his heart in slivers of anxiety. He affixes the mask of his emotions smiling reassuringly at his man before they continue down the stone steps towards the celebration area.

Darkness opens to dozens of lit fire-blossoms, moved into the once dining hall, rooms spidering out from the area to hoist other meeting locations in the half light. They are firmly underground now, but the 80, 90 people down here don't seem to care. Foliad, troll, whisperling pack and Nocturne, Jyonti can see smatterings of them all and even the horns of some sort of demon.

There is a large assembled fire-blossom, enhanced by a red painted heat circuit that pulses warmth across the cold stone area. Long troughs and baths have been arranged around the edges and blue fabrics have been hooked into the ceiling to mimic waterfalls. A small platform has been grown at one edge of the fire blossom, and that is the direction Pentos powered towards.

Jyonti trails behind, picking up a discarded cloak, as he watches the bard take the stage with an instrument they have procured from the ether, mist swirling about his body as he begins a performance. All eyes are on his mate now and the librarian sinks into his mask as he hides against a wall.

And that's how the night would have ended, if not for the champion of Aranthme.

Whether born from the mother of monsters, or manifested as concept made flesh from Aranthme herself, Suren Darkwater was always quite quiet about her origins - except to say that she was raised by a very loving couple up by Gracetown. But her position as champion was very obvious, not just in her combat ready body and strong musculature, but in her 4 spindly and pointed appendages growing from her back and the fact that past the knee her legs were the same thin things, coming to points. Her body craved to be on all 8s, even as her 10 eyed face surveyed the gathering, but she held herself up on stylised heels, odd for a foliad, but how she managed to get around - well apart from a stylised walking stick she used to assist.

Jyonti's gaze was on Pentos when the champion approached, and it was only that Pentos changed his stance completely as she got closer, becoming more lively and dripping with charm and the need to impress that alerted Jyonti to her presence. Despite all the tension between them, Jyonti's eyes never leave Pentos, entrapped within his web and utterly devoted to the fool of a bard. Both librarian and champion take in the bard - watch his display grow more lively and ostentatious, hips thrusting, voice crooning in verbal depravity.

"You disapprove of the man on stage?" comes her voice sweet but filled with chittering notes. Jyonti tilts his head at the words, playing them around his cranium as he considers his own reply.
"Not disapprove. I love him, I support him. He just makes it hard to support myself as his actions have consequences he does not care about." Jyonti's eyes do most of the expressiveness, trying to convey to Pentos his undying love, even as he lets this stranger know of the scar across his heart. He adjusts the cloth mask over the bottom half of his mouth, eyes briefly leaving Pentos as the sounds of the hundred kisses part of the event starts up.

Lips on flesh echo through the cave, sliding under the sounds of his lover's song and the low sounds of conversation - lips on hands, necks, mouths. Jyonti has no inclination to join in, here for support, yet a moment's sting meets his eyes as Pentos is replaced on stage with a poet and his lover begins his own worship of the night's gifts with the strangers all around.

"Have you told him about what his choices do to you?" Suren says from beside him, taking his hand and pulling him until they are shoulder to shoulder. Her warmth is comforting, even if her questions probe like a sharp knife between the ribs. Pentos is effortless under their gaze, a plucked bloom here offered to an admirer, a hand kiss there to someone looking forlorn, even lips brushed erotically over a younger participant's neck so that they feel the thrill of the night and enjoy the ache of wanting to return. Jyonti knows that Pentos knows his craft, and knows how to show his emotions and listen to those around him.

"I haven't told him, I guess I expected him to be as observant with me as he is with the world." There's pain lacing that sentence that Jyonti did not want to give it, hoping to speak more neutrally to the champion, lest the downer mood get the librarian kicked out, and Pentos further shamed. Our lady champion, the spider made upright, smiles from her porcelain face, even as she steps before Jyonti, breaking his gaze from his husband.

"A relationship is both communication and mutual respect. You are a boulder on a flowing stream, buffeted by the water all around you, hoping the flow of the journey changes for you before you are worn away. Tonight I will help you, and come morning you will be stronger than ever with your bard. Yes?" She chitters in the back of her throat as Suren takes his hand, leading them both through the cave back towards the entrance.

"I am not a stone" Jyonti says after a moment, even as they wiggle past the guard and make their way to the forest.

"You are not, you are not. This is true. There is no violence in you - you are tree, stalwart and strong and you wish to tame the fire. You must be eucalyptus, growing stronger from the flames if you are to match your husband." Suren leans against a tree now as the moon and one of the suns shine down in this half light. She plays a decaying stick over in her hands as she watches him stand there stiffly, quiet music returning to the air with the sounds of night critters. A tapestry of stars looms overhead and Jyonti knows if he stops he could name them all.

"How will he even notice we are gone?" Jyonti responds after a moment, the cool air and the isolation from the raucous of the festival letting the mood of this squat and frazzled man just settle ruffling into himself and the over the top outfit he is wearing. Suren discards the stick a moment, and moves to him, fussing out his outfit so it fits his mood better, untucking the mask from his shirt, popping a couple of the buttons on his overshirt to stop it pulling tight over his belly. Hands deft and yet reassuring that he is safe with her.

"He will notice we are gone because all of me is remarkable and very noticable - and because as much as he is in his own world, I am sure that he loves you." Suren's smile is full and warm, even as she leans her shoulder against him in support.

"He loves me like a pretty bauble he comes home to." Jyonti says with a sigh, that's not entirely true; the man knows their love has weathered more than the odd wind, and a more superficial love would follow the pretty things that are easily laid in his path - but depreciating himself is....

"It is not becoming to make yourself small just to win an argument with yourself. He is not here to agree or disagree, and I am not the kind of woman who will ever put up with that stone-logic." She pokes his chest with her long, thin boney finger, her mandibles clicking in frustration as she looks at him. "Now. What do you need to remind yourself that he loves you?"

The question plays around his head a bit, a whoop breaking the night's air as sounds of the forest echo around them, dulling the senses to the party below. The smell of damp earth heralds the coming of rain, but being wet is secondary to the question being asked. A date, a gift, behaving, all of these seem superficial answers to the crack forming down the very psyche of him.

"You are stronger than his detractors, that much is obvious. You just need to feel...." Suren places a hand on his, silk leaving her fingers as she binds his wrists before him, smiling gently. "You need to feel like he needs you more than he needs the next thrill. Like his job with the council was not just an excuse to up the stakes on his bad decisions. That you aren't one of his bad choices."

She pushes his hands up and binds them to the tree behind him, before standing before him with a devious look in her eye. "Do you feel the rush, little binding fungus? Do you think this is maybe what your bard feels when he does something that the world tells him no for?" There is a knot forming in Jyonti's throat, like no matter what Suren does right now, that it will be wonderful and dangerous and take the librarian right to the edge of where he wants to be.

Suren drags one of her smaller thin legs over his jaw and chin, pushing it up and pressing pressure along his spine until he is taut between tree and stool. His breathing quickens as the champion of lust inspects him, and for a moment his mind wanders to what her bite might feel like pressing pain into his neck and veins...

And then the bottom drops out. Because no matter what Suren might think, for Jyonti it means nothing to have a joyous thrill without Pentos there. His face drops from the smile that was beginning to form and it knots in his stomach like something sour. It is not even that a bite might be crossing some imaginary line that has never existed in their relationship. It is that for the librarian, he needs his bard for this to be more than some meaningless moment.

Suren watches him, standing at his knees as the pulse of their heartbeats strum the silence. The champion seems to sense the moment has passed, even though she does nothing to change the situation. Still it is a relief when a familiar chuckle enters the woodlands.

"Did you wrap me my gift? Or has our little present decided that he wishes to be gifted to another tonight?" Pentos keeps his voice even and light, even as he walks to Jyonti, sitting in his lap and pressing cheek to cheek. "Are you ok?" Pentos whispers to his husband, hand upon his chest.

Jyonti's heart is racing but he is sure of himself now that the bard is here. "I am alright. I came to talk but I am alright." He leans into the hand on his chest, his body quickening by the closeness of his love.

Suren chuckles behind them and rolls her shoulders, her thinner arms stretching as if wiggling out a tension knot in her spine. "Should I let you poor little nesting Salit be? Let you crawl back to the city and your problems? Or will you gift Aranthme her poem?"

Jyonti looks over Pentos' shoulder, as the webbing breaks and resting one web stained wrist over Pentos' shoulder as he looks at the spider champion. "Stay a while. I will give you your poem, and my bard will hear how things need to change."

And in webs and poems and truths the night continued, kisses echoing the crypts while a librarian wove a poem fit for kings and goddesses.

Pentos left the council, finding better work being true to his chaotic nature, nurtured by the strong tree that was Jyonti, the bard's truth meaning that the reckless behaviour shook the branches less than before. But every so often, a champion of spiders and love would come visit for tea, often leaving a webbed cuff to remind a certain stalwart one to be a little more chaotic of his own.