Work Text:
Stalking. Silent. Fearsome.
Her target was specific tonight, not just hunting whatever poor soul happened to be in the streets of Baldur’s Gate. A target who would require subterfuge, stillness - she would have to be one with the shadows. Slinking through alleyways, she finally came upon a workshop, illuminated even this late into the night. Quietly opening a window, she eased her way through, careful of each footstep as she finally came upon her mark. A man with mechanical grease smeared above his elbows, arms almost that deep in the project laid before him. Roughened hands, formed from years of hard labor. So concentrated on the work in front of him, he could not comprehend the threat that was coming.
As his hands tinkered with the steel beneath him, the shadows provided her cover. On a particularly loud gear switch she dropped down onto the lower floor, pure ravenous excitement overcoming her body at the thought of getting the drop of her prey.
Tail twitching behind her, she prowled closer, before finally leaping and going in for the kill. Launching onto his back, legs wrapping around his waist, she growled into his ear, “Gotcha”, before biting deep into his shoulder.
Through the euphoric haze, she heard cussing, followed by those strong hands squeezing her jaw so tightly there was no choice but to unlatch, right before she was vaulted over his shoulder. She landed hard on the work table, materials going flying as she grinned up at her gorgeous Banite, fury in his eyes.
One hand clutched at his bleeding neck to stanch the flow, the other was placed in the middle of her chest to keep her down. His fury at an unknown assailant melted to confusion, to then disappointment as he took in her giggling and swishing tail. “Are you drunk?” Incredulousness dripped from each word.
“Me? Drunk? Why, that’s impossible” Feigning seriousness, Eris half-heartedly attempted to get up, but when Enver’s hand remained unmoving, she simply gave up and continued looking at her partner above her, trying very hard not to crack a smile.
He looked right back at her, the only change in his expression was a single eyebrow raising. Huffing slightly, she finally relented. “Okay, fine , so I did have a bottle of liquor to myself. However! It was poisoned by a rival who thought they could best Bhaal’s scion, so the alcohol may have hit a little extra hard” Musing, she continued, “Although, I wouldn’t know because I’ve never been drunk before.”
A disbelieving frown, “You let yourself be poisoned?”
Giggling ensued as Eris leaned up as far as his hold on her would allow, stage whispering as if telling a secret, “I was curious what being drunk would feel like, and regular alcohol never does anything. Plus, I knew poison wouldn’t take me down, especially not one as weak as that one”. She pouted slightly. “Frankly, it was a little insulting. If you’re going to poison me, at least make it an expensively potent one”
“Noted.” After a moment, he finally let up on the pressure keeping her pinned. She immediately sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the table. He waited for a second, making sure she was not going to launch back for his shoulder. After she continued sitting there, just continuing swinging her legs, he finally felt confident she was no longer in hunting mode. He turned back around to his machine, lifting his hand from his neck, the blood flow from her bite having finally stopped. Parts moving as he began working once more, he threw over his shoulder, “I assume they are dead?”
“Obviously.”
Even though the blood had stopped flowing, there still was a good amount of it left on his neck, something he seemed unconcerned with as he returned with bloody hands to work on his machine. Sliding up to him, she whispered, teasing in his ear, “I can help you clean that up. Wouldn’t want to get grease on it, after all”, and gently licked by the wound to make her point.
His hands stopped moving for a second, contemplating, before (to her dismay) continuing to tighten one of the bolts that had come loose in the scuffle. “Little Storm, as much as I would love to bend you over the counter and give you payback for the mark you left on me, this prototype needs to be finished before the morning”
She sighed, mildly disappointed. After a second though, she grinned and whipped out a flask of vodka. “I don’t know what you were talking about, I genuinely wanted to help make sure one of my favorite necks didn’t get infected.”
Without skipping a beat, he retorted, “if that’s the poisoned vodka, I’ll pass, thanks”.
Somehow finding a clean washcloth in his materials drawer, Eris poured some of the drink on it, and went to wipe him up. “Nah, you deserve a far more glorious death than poison.” As she worked on cleaning his shoulder up, he continued working on his project. Without realizing it, she began humming an old sea shanty, the motions of the rag matching the cadence of the beat.
Enver asked no questions, used to his paramour’s many idiosyncrasies. When his shoulder was finally cleaned from the blood, she sat back enjoying her handiwork. It was all of two minutes before she got bored simply sitting, and began pacing the workshop, picking up random items to examine, before putting them back down. “So, what is so important it needs to be done before the morning?”
“A prototype for the Steel Watch. There is still a far way to go before they are perfected, however, I am presenting the idea to the patriars of the city in the morning. There has to at least be a base in order to get the funding for more”
Halfway through his response, he huffed slightly. Eris paused her wandering in the shop to see what was wrong and noticed his tool was slightly too large for the screw he was trying to tighten. Before he even had time to turn around, she was handing him the right sized screwdriver. He hummed back at her, nodding his head slightly in thanks, diving right back into his work.
That was fine with her, because that meant she could continue snooping. Mostly there was just scrap materials and drawing plans laid out, but in one of the top drawers she noticed a jewelry box. “Ooo, did you get some pretty little trinket from one of your special benefactors again?” Opening the box, she expected to find a fancy ring or family jewel like she had many times before, but instead what greeted her were two beautifully stylized compasses on a chain.
Knocked breathless by their beauty, she did not notice the noises behind her stopping, nor Enver coming up behind her. “You weren’t supposed to find those yet, they’re not done”
“What are they?” she whispered. This was not the first thing he had made for her, but it certainly was the prettiest to date.
He wiped his hands on a rag, making sure they were passably clean before he gently took the box from her and placed it back in the drawer. “They will be charmed to point towards each other rather than north.” After a moment, he cleared his throat. “It will be a boon whenever we go on missions, that way if we are split up we have a fast way back to the other.”
Eris grinned, knowing this probably had to do with their on-going bet about him finding Bhaal’s temple. A few months prior she had infiltrated Bane’s temple, and during the heated, ‘ discussion’ , they’d had she may or may not have claimed superiority between them. Which was absolutely true because she had found his god's temple, where he didn’t even know where to look. Not one to be outdone, he had bet her he could find her father’s temple before the year's end. If he succeeded she agreed to get a forever gold band attached to her horn with his engraving on it. If he failed, he had to finally take her to one of those fancy gala’s she had only seen from the shadows.
What he didn’t know was the entire temple and surrounding area had heavy wards preventing any magical tracking from occurring. She had already begun working with a tailor for a gown befitting a demi-god. Just because he was destined to lose though, didn’t mean she couldn’t indulge him.
Crooning, she grabbed his face with one hand, claws digging in enough to sting but not to break skin. Bringing his face towards her for a kiss, she lost herself for a moment with how fiercely he kissed her back, wanting to go further. Alas, she knew for their plans to work he needed to gain this influence. She pulled away, then turned him back towards his machinery, making sure to smack his ass as she did so.
A small chuckle escaped him, before he dutifully returned to work. She sighed, realizing her head was cursedly clear, the poison clearly had finished working its course. And, as her other method of fogging up her head was too busy working on his machines than working in her, she supposed it was time to go.
She had made it all the way to the window she had entered before he noticed she was not still beside him. “Leaving already?”
“Well, as you will not fuck me tonight, I am off to seek someone who will.” She was still perfecting the technique of maintaining their erection after they had expired, but she was not going to tell him that. He would simply get cocky about how he could get her off multiple times in a night, while also remaining alive. If she was being honest with herself, he was the only partner she’d had where the orgasms she received from him were better than the Ecstasy of Bhaal. One of the reasons the tiefling didn’t kill him the first time they slept together and why he remained drawing breath where all her other sexual exploits expired (other than their alliance and domination plans of course).
He simply chuckled at her and wished her farewell, as she left to hunt less satisfactory prey, nothing the rest of the night coming close to how his skin had felt on hers.