26. Lirion
Lirion felt downright relieved when Rain had the good sense to anchor for the night before they entered the dangerous stretch of Dead Man’s Curve. Trying to tackle it as the light was fading was suicidal.
In a post-cuddle haze, he went below deck, as it was time for dinner. If nothing else, just sitting and socializing for a while appealed to him. This crew was entertaining, to say the least. Lirion had a feeling that with alcohol in their systems, they’d be an absolute riot.
He also wanted to get a better read on Maxie.
The boy seemed somewhat out of place. A touch too sheltered, na?ve, and soft natured.
Maxie was such an odd duck to be part of this group, but somehow, he was fully welcomed in by every member, or so Lirion had observed.
How? Was there something about the boy he was missing?
Anyway, he’d like to learn more. And about the rest of the group, for that matter. It seemed prudent to have some kind of rapport with them before danger hit.
When he entered the galley, he found Hapi already cooking. The necromancer’s hands flew as he chopped, his demeanor calm and steady.
Feeling like he should offer some assistance, Lirion came up to the edge of the counter. “Need help?”
Hapi paused, his mouth lifting with a slight curve Lirion was slowly realizing was a full-blown smile for the man. “Thank you, but no. I have it well in hand.”
“All right.” Shrugging, Lirion turned and went for the table.
Rain was still above deck doing things to batten down the ship for the night, but Belstrom, Maxie, Malfas, and Fenric were all at the table and nursing a pre-dinner drink, from the looks of it.
Fenric caught his eye, nudging a chair his direction, and Lirion took the silent offer with a nod of thanks.
He did appreciate how Fenric silently invited him to join in. The man was considerate in that way.
Lirion poured himself a cup of wine from the jug, sat back, and intended to just sit there and listen. “What were you talking about?”
“Eh, nothing much.” Malfas shrugged. “We were recounting all of the other times we’ve gone through this section, and how the first time was an absolute fuck for all, mostly because every single bad thing that could have happened did, and gods, I seriously do not know how we managed to come out of that alive and with only one broken arm—”
“It was my broken arm,” Belstrom retorted in a mild tone.
“Why are you saying that like it was my fault you broke it? You were hanging off the side of the ship with nothing more than a line and a prayer, what did you think would happen?”
“Please recall the reason I was dangling over the side resulted from the ship nearly capsizing. I did not place myself in a harrowing position on purpose.”
Malfas flapped a hand as if to say it was neither here nor there.
Lirion had to ask, now worried about himself, “Uh, do you normally have that kind of trouble in this area?”
“Tends to be bad,” Fenric admitted. “It’s why Rain won’t go through here at night or if there’s a storm brewing.
Dead Man’s Curve is accurately named, after all.
A lot of people have died in this stretch because they didn’t show the right level of caution.
Rain learned from our first experience and he’s now very, very careful. ”
“Relieved to hear it.”
“So tell us, Lirion, is the old saying true? That bards will fuck themselves into trouble and then fuck their way right back out of it?” There was a teasing glint in Malfas’s eyes.
Lirion stared him down and deliberately didn’t say a word as he sipped his drink.
This reaction got quite the laugh from the rest of the table, but Fenric was quick to turn.
“Now hang on a second, if anyone in this group is the type to fuck their way into trouble—”
Malfas groaned. “Don’t start.”
“—it’s Mal,” Fenric finished with a pointed look at his friend. “How many times have I needed to come save your ass because you got entangled with someone who didn’t want to let you go afterward?”
“Is it so wrong to need emotional support pecs sometimes?” Malfas whined.
“If it means I have to break into a room and untie you from a headboard more than once, yes!”
Lirion damn near choked on his drink. Oh, he dearly wanted that story. What was with bondage and this party?
Wait, should they be saying stuff like this in front of Maxie’s innocent ears? He was listening to them with wide eyes and a growing blush, so likely not. Eh, it would be educational and good for the kid.
Malfas pouted—a truly comical expression on a man of his size.
“Not as if I’ve gotten any action recently.
The last man I flirted with was sooo fine, too.
Do you think he didn’t like me because I’m a villain?
I mean, we’re adventurers, sort of, and we kill people and chop things up.
I don’t know, it just gets hot after a while. That’s not a crime, right?”
Belstrom snorted. “When you express things so ineloquently, you make it undeniably clear a moon’s age has passed since you found pleasure betwixt two men.”
“I’m a fucking top!” Malfas howled.
“Is that so?”
“I hear your disbelief, don’t think I don’t.”
Listening to this exchange, Lirion realized Malfas was more a physical intelligence. Good to know.
Maxie looked between the two, confused. “So…if you’re a bottom, you have to be tied to a bed?”
Fenric scowled at the other two. “Good job, you’ve now confused the virgin. No, that’s not how bottoming works. I mean, it’s not my preference. Bondage can be fun so long as you’re consenting, but you don’t need bondage to have sex.”
Lirion made a mental note to get Maxie alone at some point for a proper sex talk.
For some funny reason, after hearing this conversation, he didn’t trust this lot to be good at it.
Also deciding this conversation was already headed off course, he tried to steer it back.
“I would think a man of your background would know how to slip out of knots?”
Malfas blinked. There were no thoughts behind his eyes. “Uh…I mean, normally I just use brute strength or magic…”
Warlock. Right. “And the reason why you didn’t use magic the last time you were tied to a bed was…?”
“I didn’t want to destroy the bed, the room, and half the inn?”
Fenric leaned in to mutter, “Malfas and restraint aren’t acquaintances.”
Clearly. “What I’m hearing is that I need to teach you and Maxie how to escape.”
Hapi came over to join them, settling down at the empty seat to Lirion’s right. “Not the rest of us?”
He eyed the elf askance. Was he teasing or not? Lirion really had a hard time reading Hapi. “Do I need to cover rope escapes with you, too?”
“Bedroom activities aside”—ah, there was a teasing light in his eyes—“it does seem a good skill to have. The only one of us who can easily slip out of such situations is Fen.”
Right, because he could shapeshift. Well, and being a rogue, he had such skills.
Fenric sipped from his tankard and eyed Hapi. “In my defense, I tried to teach Malfas this skill before.”
“I was drunk!” the warlock cried.
“Oh. Come to think of it, you were, weren’t you?”
Lirion caged the sigh of exasperation deep within his soul. His eye roll to the heavens, asking for patience, was not cageable. “We’ll cover that lesson after dinner, then.”
“Dinner should be in another twenty minutes,” Hapi informed them all. “I’m letting things cook right now.”
For some reason, Maxie oriented more toward Lirion, looking around Fenric as he did so. “I am, of course, very happy to learn from you, Lirion, but may I make a request?”
This boy spoke so formally. What would it take to get him to relax? “Of course. What?”
“Can you teach me how to charm someone?”
The reaction around the table was immediate and mixed. Fenric looked hesitant, eyeing Maxie like he wasn’t sure where that had come from and now had many, many questions. Malfas slapped the table with a hoot. Belstrom also eyed Maxie uncertainly.
“I think that’s a fine idea,” Hapi said, nodding in approval.
Honestly, so did Lirion. “Knowing how to charm and persuade someone is a vital skill, in my experience. Do you know the saying, it’s easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar?”
“Oh, no?” Maxie’s blank expression suggested he’d never heard of it.
“Well, it’s a saying for a reason. It’s easier to get someone’s help, or information, if you know how to approach them with charm. An angry approach just puts the other person’s back up and they’re less inclined to help you. I can certainly teach you a few tricks on how to approach someone.”
Maxie brightened. “That would be splendid. Thank you ever so much.”
“We’ll cover the topic after we’ve covered knots. It’s a bit trickier and will take more practice.”
Hapi turned his head, looking at what he was cooking, and made a noise. “We are getting close, I think. Puppy, set the table?”
“Oh, of course.”
The second Maxie popped up, Fenric leaned over the table to murmur, “When you say charm, you mean charm, right? Not seduce?”
Lirion regarded the man with question marks populating in his head. “There’s a difference?”
“Fucking bards.” Fenric dropped his head in despair. “Yes, there’s a fucking difference.”
News to Lirion. “I’ll teach him light seduction methods, then.”
“How about no seduction methods?”
“I would like to point out, he’s more than of age. I think he should know this already.” Lirion had been seducing people since he was sixteen. Granted, his nature rather demanded it, but still. Maxie was far too old to not know how to approach people, in his expert opinion.
Malfas leaned in closer too, whispering, “I agree with Lirion. Ow! Stop kicking my shin under the table.”
“I will not take advice from someone who routinely gets in over their head,” Fenric shot back.
“You’ve only had to rescue me three times—”
“Four,” Fenric countered immediately, tone absolutely fed up.
“Eh? No, it’s three.”
“Four, you numbskull. Believe me, I remember.”
Malfas stared hard at the ceiling, struggling to recall as he counted things off on his fingers. “The first one was that guy in Skesand with the amazing ass—”
Fenric groaned before taking a healthy swallow of his wine. “Subduing him long enough to get you out of those cuffs was a nightmare I’ve been trying to forget, thanks muchly.”
“—the second time was in Talmae, although that one really wasn’t my fault, how could I have possibly known his kink was being found cheating by his wife? Literally no part of that was mentioned to me when he flirted with me in the bar downstairs.”
“Mal. The man had a wedding ring on.”
“Uh?” Malfas canted his head to the other side. “Did he?”
Did the movement of his head back and forth actually help with recollecting something? Lirion was almost tempted to ask.
“Yes, he had a ring on,” Fenric said, exasperation growing. “If you’d spent less time staring at his ass, maybe you would have noticed?”
Malfas shrugged this off and kept going. “And the third time was over in Novento, but to be honest, I don’t remember that one well.”
“That’s because you and he were both so incredibly drunk, you’d somehow cuffed both of you to the bed with the key on the other side of the room, and I found you crying about how you’d have to live now attached to the bedframe and you didn’t even like the color on the walls.”
Lirion almost snorted wine up his nose. Not recommended, by the way, very painful.
Malfas bought a clue. “Oh! Right, I kind of remember that part. But what was the fourth?”
Fenric sighed. It was a sigh from deep within his soul, an audible effort of patience, one already strained to the max. “The fourth one was two months ago.”
“Still not ringing any bells.”
“Hundager?”
“Oh…” Malfas’s ginger brows beetled in fierce concentration. “I do remember being in Hundager.”
Belstrom stopped snickering under his breath long enough to pitch in helpfully, “Do you recall accepting the job of being a birthday surprise?”
“Uh…vaguely…?”
Fenric looked ready to strangle him. “The job we told you not to take because it was sus as hell? The one where you had to strip down to just pants, tie a bow around your wrists, and wait in an inn room? The one I had a bad gut feeling about, so I booked the room next to it, and when I heard you cry about not wanting cuffs on your ankles too, I had to break in and get you?”
Malfas’s expression slowly cleared. “Ohhh. Hand to my god, I thought that was a drunken nightmare.”
“It was my nightmare, certainly.”
Maxie interrupted this trip down memory lane by coming back with a stack of plates and cutlery.
People passed plates and such around, but Lirion was still stuck on the implications of this talk.
So, apparently, the only one with actual common sense in this group was Fenric.
Maybe Hapi. Also, apparently, Malfas had no good judgment where dick was concerned.
Lirion’s first task needed to be teaching both Malfas and Maxie how to discern the right partners for a night of fun because, gods above, he didn’t need another rescue on top of the one they were currently on.
Lessons started tonight.