Obligatory Fanservice Episode

Log Info

• Title: The Obligatory Fanservice Episode

• Emitter: Telamon

• Characters: Ravenstongue, Telamon

• Place: Ravenstongue and Telamon's home

• Summary: Telamon's doing some DIY gardening, and Ravenstongue happens to step outside to see him pulling his shirt off. What ensues is comedy as Ravenstongue quickly devolves into a hot, stammering mess. Eventually the half-elves make it back inside and discuss their lives before deciding on a nap together.

-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=- Dramatis Personae =--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-    
Ravenstongue         5'0"     99 Lb      Half-Elf          Female    Short half-elf girl with violet eyes and black hair.             
Telamon              5'6"     140 Lb     Half-Elf          Male      A platinum-blond half-sil man with dancing dark eyes
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-

Lúpecyll-Atlon Home, Afternoon

The weather is nice, the sun is shining -- even with that cool breeze there's plenty of warmth. And that means, with the advent of spring, a backyard project.

Of course, Telamon cheats. He's not going to even try to do this by himself. Four unseen servants swarm around a section of the house's little backyard, digging, turning the soil, pulling and rolling stones out of the earth. A disk of force hovers nearby, smaller stones collected in it while larger ones are lifted by Telamon himself.

Dressed in a patched, beat up tunic and trousers, as well as wearing leather gloves, Tel grunts as he hoists another larger-than-average rock onto the disk. "Gods, now I know why I went into magic and not to be a stonemason." He's sweating more than a bit, tugging at his tunic. Suddenly he reaches down and pulls the wet, stained shirt off, gesturing at one of the servants. "Bring that pail of water over here, would you?"

It's a beautiful day for certain. The Lúpecyll half of the household is inside said house and dressed for the weather in a lavender cotton dress, waiting for a teapot to finish boiling as she stands in the kitchen, her eyes trained on a rather dry book about flight. The teapot whistles out its merry tune, and Cor'lana sets down her book (closing it properly, not putting it face-down on the counter like a sadist). She pours out a cup full of the familiar heady scent of Grandfather's night tea blend, taking a moment to savor its aroma with a waft of her hand.

Her gaze happens to wander upwards to the kitchen window, where she spots Telamon taking his shirt off. Violet eyes go very wide, and her cheeks turn a bright crimson. "Shit, I better drink this fast," she murmurs as she walks out into the garden to get a better look at him.

Telamon doesn't realize he's being watched. Granted, he's managing four unseen servants, which isn't quite as bad as herding cats but it does require a certain level of mental focus. Stack some physical labor on top of that and it's no wonder he's oblivious.

The servant brings him the pail, as Tel reviews the newly-dug garden, before eyeing the stones. "Hmm." He directs the servants, "Start pushing the stones off the disk, and roll them into lines around the garden. Be neat."

Then he dumps the pail of water over his head with a splash, pasting his hair to his head and spluttering a little as he rubs his brow with his free arm.

Cor'lana's jaw drops open without her noticing--until she almost drops her teacup, managing to preserve the precious liquid without spilling it at the last second with a careful reflexive maneuver of her wrist remembering how to be a wrist again. Her face looks almost sunburnt in how crimson it is--

And then she takes a breath. Because she also forgot how to do that in the moment she saw the water dump over his head.

Her hand wobbles a little on the handle of the teacup, and then she quickly takes a large gulp of the contents. "Ahaha, wow, what nice... Nice weather we're having today!" Cor'lana states. She's trying to look away but her eyes keep tearing back to her fiance in front of her in an ever-warring battle between her wits and her desires.

It doesn't help that Tel is... fit. He's never going to have a powerful build, the kind you could park a griffon on. But his frame is trim and lean, his skin a bit pale from the winter. He pushes his hair back from his face, wringing some of the water out as the servants begin moving the stones laboriously. At least all they have to do is roll them off the disk, and then into position.

When Cor'lana speaks, he actually jumps a little, the disk wobbling in time with his reaction, before he turns with a slightly embarrassed grin. "Oh. Er. Sorry, I thought you were reading." He looks at the nasty looking tunic still in his hand, then shrugs and tosses it over a wooden stool sitting outside.

"Ummm..." He blushes a bit, but can't help but offer a naughty-little-boy grin. "How long have you been watching?" His eyes flick to the cup, one eyebrow edging up fractionally.

GAME: Ravenstongue rolls Bluff: (4)+10: 14
GAME: Telamon rolls sense motive+3: (9)+7+3: 19

"Uh." That's the first sound that comes out of Cor'lana's mouth. The sorceress seems to have lost all of her gift of gab as her eyes wander down... And snap back up.

"N-N-Not... Not long!" She manages to stammer out. "I just happened to look up from brewing the tea--I have to have it every day we might--"

Her blush intensifies on her face as the violet eyes look firmly down at the ground. The grass is safe. The grass would never rat her out and reveal her thoughts. "You know," she finally says.

She's not the only one who can be dense. For a minute, Tel has a slightly confused expression, running his fingers through his hair. Then it clicks, and he looks down as well -- stripped to the waist, soaking wet -- and he bursts out laughing. "Oh... oh shit. Yeah, I guess I would be kind of distracting."

Then he blushes a little at the comment, but grins. "Well... yeah. We do have... a bit of an active night life." He leaves it at that, before continuing, "What do you think of it so far? Granted, nothing's planted yet but..." The garden is definitely taking shape, a neat rectangle framed with rocks pulled from the yard, the dirt turned and worked over, dark and ready. Like a blank page ready for the first line of poetry.

It's Telamon's running his fingers through his slicked-wet hair that seems to do in Cor'lana's sense of reasoning for a moment. What does she think of the garden? What garden?

She half-mumbles, half-says, "Wreck me."

Then she recalls all of her wits as soon as the last syllable leaves her mouth. Her hand holding the teacup violently trembles as she spits out, "I mean that I'm a wreck! Haha! Hah!"

She tries to take another sip of her tea and it doesn't quite make its mark, hot tea dribbling down her chin and landing down on her cotton dress, staining it. "See!" she says, almost hysterical. "Just a total mess!"

Telamon just eyes Cor'lana, wondering what he did. He tries to remember if he's ever acted like this around her, and he's pretty sure he hasn't, but then he's also willing to admit his memory may be faulty. "You're not a wreck, dear, but you might want to slow down. Here..." He moves over, grabbing the tunic and lobbing it at the door. A quick cantrip to make sure the stool is clean, before he gently but firmly guides her to sit down.

"If I'd known I was going to make you this disconcerted I'd have left the tunic on. Thank the gods the weather's not hotter. I've only got so many clothes I can take off before the neighbors would start complaining." He steadies the cup in her hand, looking into her eyes. "Now... what would you like to plant in the garden?"

In the span of a few seconds, everything is fine until suddenly Cor'lana's internally dying again. That hand guiding her cup, his starry eyes looking intently in hers...

"S-S-S--"

She shuts her eyes. "Lavender! Lavender. Lavender is nice. Calming. Very calming. Calm."

The last word is said more like a command to herself, right before she knocks back another large gulp of the tea and brings it back to reveal it's now empty. Should she even be drinking night tea this fast? Who knows.

He's pretty certain Grandfather wouldn't give her anything dangerous, or for that matter too difficult to use. "Lavender is always good. I was thinking some primroses or sweet violets. There's enough room to put in some berry bushes, though they may take a bit to grow."

He watches Cor'lana carefully, and shifts around so she's got a view of the garden bed -- and importantly, he's a little out of her field of vision. The rocks are still trundling along on their own, though the stone border is definitely taking shape. "I mean, it's not going to be a farm, but a nice little garden will brighten things up considerable."

Cor'lana breathes a little easier. The rocks are nice. Gardening is nice. There's going to be lavender in the garden. Calm.

"I like violets, too," she says. "Berry bushes would be nice for Pothy."

That's said normally enough. Everything's fine. Everything's cool. Everything's fine. The sorceress gets up from the stool. "I'm, uh, I'm going to go put the cup back in the house--"

But she's too unsteady getting up. Her foot doesn't quite leave the ground the way it's supposed to....

And she's falling.

Well, the good news is that Telamon is right there. Cor'lana's dashing, handsome prince. So when she starts to fall, his arms immediately go around her, instinctively keeping her from the tumble.

Of course, now the tableau looks like the cover of one of those gods-be-damned Crimson Pen novels, and even Tel can't keep from blushing a bit. But he's not letting go of her. That would be just silly, not to mention rude. "Careful!"

He looks around, as if to check and see if anyone else is watching, and then grins down at Cor'lana before stealing a brief kiss. "Don't want you to get hurt," he murmurs with a smile.

In reality, it's afternoon in the middle of the week. Nobody's home or witnessing any of this except for them.

But for Cor'lana, it feels like the whole world is watching. That's because Telamon, her starborn savior, is her whole world, and her violet eyes are wide open like a doe in the road staring down a horse-drawn carriage. She lets out only a tiny squeak.

And then he steals the kiss.

Cor'lana goes limp in his arms. Just for two seconds. Her eyes flutter back open.

"If I die, I want Pothy to go to..." She mumbles. She's attempting to make an inheritor's will until her eyes open up back a bit more.

"Oh, I'm alive?" Cor'lana asks quietly. "You're not an angel, are you?"

Telamon doesn't let go of her, but he does smirk a tiny bit. "I am pretty certain angels don't do what we did the other night." He carefully straightens up with her, setting her upright as he does so.

"Are you all right? I think you fainted there for a second..." He brushes back her hair. "Why don't we go inside? I can wash up a bit and get dressed in something more presentable than a patched work outfit."

His insouciant expression softens a bit. "And for what it's worth," he says softly, "I always thought you were the angel, Lana."

Cor'lana has been utterly defeated. No witty retorts leave her. No comebacks, no words--the only thing she can manage is a little "Mmm" and a nod of her head. She somehow looks both merely drowsy and absolutely worn out at the same time.

Then Pothy pokes his head out of the house to peer at Cor'lana and Telamon. "What did you do?" Pothy calls out, in Nadina's voice. This causes Cor'lana to suddenly jolt to full wakefulness in Telamon's arms--

And then she sees it's only Pothy. "Pothy, you ass!" Cor'lana grumbles, followed by a sigh. "You're the meanest bird in the world."

Telamon starts as well, though he doesn't release Cor'lana. When he sees Pothy, he fixes the bird with a hard stare. "Pothy, do you do this to all your masters and mistresses?" he asks sardonically. He sighs, shaking his head. "He's incorrigible. I swear I think he does it just because he knows he can get away with it."

The servitors have finished encircling the garden with loose stones wedged together, a slightly rustic but appealing layout. Tel shivers as the wind blows, the water drying on his skin also a bit cool even if it doesn't faze him. "Time for a drink, I believe." He gives Cor'lana a squeeze, cuddling her against his chest. "You all right? Just... kind of overwhelmed?"

"Yeah," Cor'lana says quietly, nuzzling into his chest that's so freely offered to her.

There's another long moment before she elaborates, "Sometimes, I can hardly believe you're... actually my fiance. That you actually want me. That the only person I've ever found attractive in any way wants me back."

It seems that 'almost dying' has brought out the talker in Cor'lana, even if her words are slightly muffled against Telamon's skin. The feytouched sorceress seems so fragile now as she admits, "I know I'm not like normal people. Something about me is fundamentally different. And... I'm so lucky, Tel. Sometimes I think about what it'd be like if you had rejected me instead, and..."

"Oh no, don't cry," Pothy says again in Nadina's voice.

Too late. Tiny sniffles. The hazards of being feytouched are real.

Telamon starts stroking her hair, the way he does when he wants to soothe her. "Don't you think I understand that, Lana?" he says gently. "Yes, you're different, and I'm different too. Maybe it's those differences that bind us together, because we know the other understands what it's like?" He kisses the top of her head, tucking her in under his chin where he knows she likes to cuddle.

"Please don't cry, love. I know how strong you are. I admire it. I wonder sometimes how I could ever measure up, how I could ever be worthy of you." His voice is soft, with that touch of self-doubt that surfaces now and again. "And then I wake up in the morning and see you, and I know... you chose me, and I chose you, and that's all that matters."

Oh. He's put her in her happy spot. Cor'lana wraps her arms around him and nuzzles in underneath his chin, just holding onto him for a long moment while the sniffles subside.

"Ey lovebirds!" Pothy croaks. He flies onto Telamon's bare shoulder--thank goodness raven talons aren't strong enough to pierce skin--just to really sell the ridiculous Crimson Pen cover. (Coming soon to your nearest bookshop, stocked by a fey lord in disguise: a cover with a platinum blond shirtless half-elf man consoling his lover, a mysterious white raven on his shoulder.)

Cor'lana looks up at Pothy, blinking. "What?" she asks.

"Snacks," Pothy says. He flaps back off Telamon's shoulder and into the house.

Cor'lana rolls her eyes and smiles like nothing happened. "Okay--but I want you to carry me back inside," she says to Telamon with a little grin.

Telamon eyeballs Pothy a bit balefully, but it dissolves into a smile. "Oh, all right, you oaf. I suppose you deserve it for having to witness that little bit of drama." He bats playfully at the raven as he soars off, before turning his eyes back to Cor'lana.

"Hmmm. Guess I'm not allowed to cheat with the disk, eh?" He nods his head to the floating disk, which is now empty of stones. He slides his arms under his lady love, and (wisely) lifts with his legs -- he simply isn't as densely muscled as a more martial type might be. "Can you get the door? Both my arms are occupied," he remarks with a smile.

Cor'lana grins a little herself as she lifts a hand, gives a command, and the door opens for them. "You're not the only one capable of summoning invisible servitors," she says playfully.

Pothy waits inside, having flown back in through the open kitchen window. He seems to be observing the two intently--perhaps to see if Telamon's going to fumble the precious package at the last second.

"Just set me down on the couch," Cor'lana dictates. "Don't want you to throw out your back."

A grin crosses her face. "You'll need it later."

To his credit, Tel doesn't drop her. It helps he was moving stones around outside earlier (even if he did have help). Carefully, he sets her down on the couch, and kisses her nose playfully. "Let me go get cleaned up, and I'll tell you what my plans are, and then you can see what you'd like to change."

With that, he slips off to the bedroom to clean up, with cantrip and water. Reemerging a short time later in a clean shirt and breeches, as he pads over to sit down next to Lana. "So..." he purrs with a grin. "Should I have commissioned someone to paint me as I was outside, so you could have it hung on the wall?"

Cor'lana blushes a little as he suggests it. "I mean, as the saying goes--if you paint a picture, it'll last longer," she says.

She scoots closer to him on the couch, the skirt of her lavender dress shifting slightly with the movement. "I don't know if I'd want anyone else to see what I saw, though. I want that moment all to myself," she says, her violet eyes dancing mischievously. "I'd happily die knowing I'm the only one who got to ogle Telamon Atlon that way."

Pothy croaks unhappily from the kitchen. Someone isn't getting up to feed him snacks.

Telamon laughs softly. "And here I was, looking at you in that low cut dress and admiring away as well." He nestles in close to her, his arms around her comfortably. "Although I'd like to think I kept my composure, at least from the outside. You were very distracting."

He sighs, and gives Pothy a stare, before crooking his fingers. One of the unseen servants whispers over to the kitchen, opening the pantry and retrieving a bag of nuts... pouring them into a bowl and then setting it on the kitchen table. "I swear, if I could leave one with him to cater to him... maybe... no, binding a summoned creature to fetch snacks for a familiar is absolutely ridiculous."

"Even if I'm not as 'generously gifted' as my mother?" Cor'lana asks with a smirk. "I have to wonder if maybe I did inherit her beauty and she just magically modified it later on. I mean, her eyes glowed like in the dream even when I was little--people generally aren't born with that kind of thing."

Pothy makes happy croaks from the kitchen, digging into the nuts. At least that'll keep him occupied for a while.

Cor'lana puts a hand to the curuchuil mark on her chest. "I was actually considering wearing a dress like that to our wedding--low-cut enough to reveal the mark. And to make sure you won't stop looking at me." She grins.

GAME: Telamon rolls spellcraft: (10)+11: 21

Telamon arches an eyebrow. "Odd, I don't think I've ever objected to your, ahem, 'attributes' before, and I didn't plan to start now." He smirks back, and gives her a squeeze. "She may well have. There's plenty of magic out there for unusual purposes. I think I recognized that eye-glow, though -- it's a spell used to examine magical auras and effects. If she was an experienced mage, she might well have made use of such a spell -- or bound it to her permanently."

He places his hand on hers, and smiles. "I don't think I could stop looking at you, no matter what you're wearing. I'm just glad I didn't faint when I saw you that first time in the dress, when we were calling Grandfather."

Cor'lana hums thoughtfully as she contemplates her mother's arcane sight. "She was an adventurer," she says, "so it makes sense she'd have something like that to keep herself safe. Imagine being able to just discern if something is magical with a single glance... Mother was pretty powerful."

She smiles back at him as he puts his hand on hers, but then a curious look settles on her face. "You know, after all of that... Would you really have never thought to ask if I was taken? You seemed interested in me, although I did show up to that one dinner date like it wasn't a date at all. Knowing what I know now, you probably were put off by that, weren't you?"

Pothy lets out a little laugh from the kitchen, which earns him a tiny glare from Cor'lana. The bird gets the (last) word.

His fingers interlace with hers, as he nods. "The spell definitely gets a lot of use among adventurers. It's the sort of thing you want to have to check for lingering spells, magical devices, and so on."

Leaning into her, Tel considers her words. "I... well, I'm obviously not that shy. But you looked so grand and beautiful and mysterious I couldn't imagine you without a suitor. I didn't want to be forward -- mind you, I was in and out of the city at the time, running some errands for father." He laughs softly. "Let's just chalk it up to me being dense as well... and be glad that Grandfather nudged us together."

Cor'lana hooks her legs over Telamon so that her dress drapes down over his legs, sort of a partial lap-sit as she snuggles even closer into him. There she goes underneath his chin again, where she sighs happily.

"I wonder if you'd known then that I was descended from the Feathered One... Would you have called me some sort of long-lost fey princess then?" she asks, a little joke in her voice. "Although I wouldn't want to be an actual fey princess, much as I sometimes longed to be one when I was a child."

Telamon smiles. "Probably. And I would've been even more impressed with you." He cuddles her in against his chest, into her happy spot under his chin. "Sometimes... I think we don't realize how others see us. I know I'm guilty of that."

He rests his cheek against the top of her head. "And while your family has... complicated things at times, I don't regret a bit of this. You're my fey princess; I hope that's enough."

There's a long and nice moment where Telamon's 'fey princess' just snuggles into him, happy to be tucked in under the chin of the diplomat's son and held like a precious thing. Her breathing slows as she just is close. Just stays close. There doesn't need to be a thing in the world besides her and Telamon.

Then Cor'lana says, "Hey Tel?" Her nose turns upward as she nuzzles into the base of his chin. "Speaking of fey... I've kind of been wondering. Do you think Grandfather's been acting a bit differently since he and I made that pact?"

This even gets Pothy's attention. The white raven looks up from his snacks in the kitchen, and that takes considerable effort. Half of the fun of eating is looking at the food, after all.

Telamon is just happy to have her here, with him. No matter what happens, as long as he has this everything will be all right. Cuddling up, listening to each other's breathing, their hearts beating in time.

When Lana speaks up, though, he rouses himself to listen to her. "Well, he's been less... pained, I could say. He was suffering for a long time, from the loneliness. Now, he has you -- and me, since it's kind of a package deal. I think it's changing his outlook." He looks thoughtful. "That might explain his little side job at the bookstore. How better to learn how to relate to people than to spend time with them regularly, at their best and worst?"

"Well, there's that," Cor'lana says, smirking a little as she thinks about Grandfather at the bookstore. Her voice takes on a different note, however--a subdued concern--with her next comments. "But I was also kind of curious--you mentioned he wanted to kill my father that other day. And... Well, I've seen small glimpses of him being angry. I can't honestly imagine him wanting to kill anyone, though."

She shifts a little so she looks at Telamon's eyes, abandoning her spot beneath his chin for now. "I guess I'm so used to the idea of him being a lovely man who sings me to sleep and dotes on me I can't think of him as anything else, but you've probably seen more sides of him than I have because, well, you weren't obligated to be close to him until recently."

Telamon sits back, thinking a bit. "It had a lot to do with the mess your father made of things. Grandfather was already angry with him, but I'm pretty certain whipping out a knife on me was the pebble that sank the barge." He touches her cheek. "He knows I mean so much to you, just like you mean so much to me. And I think that's what set him off."

He chuckles a bit grimly. "I admit I'm astonished that I was so calm through that part, at least at first. I was talking Grandfather down, because I honestly thought he was going to pull Glórenacil's head right off. I only got angry myself when he said--"

He pauses. Then says, "Well, I'm not going to repeat it. Suffice to say that one does not say such things about a man's fiancee or wife if you don't want a fist in your throat at the least."

Cor'lana blinks a few times. "It had to be really bad to get you angry," she says, reaching up to touch his platinum blond tresses with her hands--almost experimentally at first, to see if his hair is still a bit wet from being dowsed earlier. "I... Well, I'm curious and I'm not. Last thing I want is to get you worked up about it again."

Then she thinks a little more, her lips pressing together into a thin line for a moment. "I wonder if he defended you so ardently from my father because he considers you part of the bloodline unofficially," she says. "When we did the pact, we spoke about the bloodline and while he didn't talk about you, I have a feeling he considers you important in that, well, we'll have children one day in the future--"

Cor'lana blushes a little. "Not anytime soon, of course, but Grandfather's just not the type of person, I think, to just threaten violence on behalf of anyone."

Telamon's hair is a little damp in a couple spots, but mostly dry. "I would prefer not to be, either." He nuzzles her fiercely, hugging her close, before continuing to speak.

"Honestly? I think he does. Part of it was... well, he knows I was reticent initially, but gradually came to accept him. We had that talk at your old apartment and..." He sighs. "He was hurting for a long time, you know. The fact I was willing to meet him half way, that I didn't want to take you from him but I did want to spend my life with you... I suppose you may have it right."

He smiles a bit. "We did talk about whether he would be bound to our children. I get the impression he's washed his hands... claws... whatever, of Glórenacil's side of the family."

"Talons," Cor'lana says, grinning a little at the mention of claws. "That's what he calls them. They're kind of more like claws, though--maybe it's just another one of his bird jokes. He thinks he's funny when it comes to that kind of thing."

But she sighs a little and nods at the mention of his loneliness. "That's something I've always worried about--him hurting. Do you remember when we summoned him in the Mythwood and he kept looking at me like he was the most guilty man in the universe? He even cried. When he kept calling me his beautiful descendant, I... kind of felt that loneliness."

She nuzzles back into her spot under Telamon's chin. "I was lonely for a long time after my mother died, after all. So I understood what it was like... and I couldn't ignore someone who kept addressing me as family who wanted me around."

Then there's a moment before she grins and says, "Do you know what, Tel? I just remember him asking me, in the days after that first meeting, 'Who was that half-elven boy that was with you?' Just asked me all sorts of questions about you. I guess there was something there that appealed to him since he brought us together."

Telamon nods. "Hence why I think he's... opening up again, changing. He knows he's going to have both of us, and children, and any time he's feeling lonely he can knock on the door or window. He's gone from being a solitary, sad person to having a family." He pauses, and grins. "Remind you of anyone?"

"There's another aspect too. I think... he was happy that there was another half-elf. If I'd been an elf, or human... there would've been a good chance one of us would outlive the other. This way... we'll be together for the same time, gods willing. And eventually go to Quelynos together." He squeezes her back as she nuzzles. "Never alone."

"You did promise me to never leave me alone," Cor'lana says with a giggle as she's squeezed. "I'm sure he was concerned about the lifespan issue, but I do know that he was mostly just happy I found someone who was like me in that we're both half-elves with 'talent'."

There's a little grin on her face as she uses Telperius's terminology. Clearly, the Atlon influence is rubbing off on her too. "Ultimately, Grandfather and I are alike in many ways. He needed a friend, as did I--and then he fell in love with his friend. So did I."

Then she gives off a little yawn. "Mnnn, Tel, you're too comfortable of a pillow," she complains rather cutely. "I think I need a little nap."

Just a nap? Pothy looks up from his bowl of snacks in the kitchen then as though to determine if he needs to go hide or not.

Tel smiles, and kisses the top of her head. "And I meant it. The both of us, together." He nestles her in close, a warm embrace. "And I'm happy to know both of you. You've changed my world completely and for the better."

The mention of a nap seems to remind him what he spent a goodly chunk of the day doing, and he yawns. "Actually, a nap might be a good idea." He grins at Pothy's suspicious glare, and just cuddles up to Lana, resting his cheek against her brow. "Mmm. This is the best way to nap though."