The battle is over, the enemy routed.
He's not thrilled about the prospect of even one dragon-spawn wandering about his duchy - one of those monsters might lay waste a village - but there's nothing to be done about it immediately.
He rises, bids his retinue to begin their preparations, and seeks out Ophel.
...
Mind your own business, boy.
...
All right, he has a point.
He turns to Ophel-
And turns back.
He freezes, and slowly turns back.
Ophel's eyes shine in the firelight.
"Yes?"
He grins. “It is your turn.”
Everyone is, in fact, staring at His Grace the Duke expectantly.
He chuckles, the sudden release of tension.
"Ah. Never before have I - " fought to the death with a relative gets Raina and Ophel but is horribly inappropriate - there are elves here - "kissed a stranger."
He laughs and drinks the last drops of his bottle. Most of the group do.
“Playing it safe, Your Grace?”
Caragon coughs and takes a sip when he thinks his dad isn’t looking.
It’s weird, playing this with him. It’s weird doing anything with him, now. Six months ago, he was dead.
He saw that.
Well. He's old enough to remember the days before the Church, when a man like his son has grown to be would have more than a string of jilted lovers - would have left children going hungry and women unmarriable - it is strange how fast things change when the goddess turns Her attention. It's a good thing, but - it's still jarring. It's not a dishonourable thing to be a man like his son... any more.
Anyway.
"I believe," he says with a tight smile, "it is your turn."
He didn’t drink.
Ophel doesn’t know why he finds that so… incomprehensible.
“Very well. Very well.” He straightens, though he still keeps an arm intertwined with Voltur’s. Looking around at the circle, his lips curl into a wicked smile. “Never have I ever…”
Ophel remembers only flashes of the rest of the game. He remembers singing with Raina and dancing with Flint–
And the next thing he knows, it is the dead of night, and he and Voltur are alone together, searching for their tents.
He can’t walk straight. The elf leans practically all of his weight into Voltur, so big, so strong–
“You really have not kissed a stranger?” He manages not to slur, by some divine grace.
"I have not," he says, only a little slurred as he staggers forwards.
Ophel is practically on top of him.
"The world was a different place when I was young. For example-"
He grunts.
"I did not customarily carry elves."
“You are not carrying me. Do not be so dramatic.” He laughs, pressing his face into Voltur’s shoulder for a moment.
His cheeks hurt. It has been a long time since he has smiled so much.
“We can change that. We should– should find you a stranger, right now, Voltur.”
"Ahem." Ophel has apparently not noticed that his feet aren't touching the ground any more.
"What do you mean?"
"Ha. Is it truly so unusual? What is so... kissable... about strangers?" There was definitely more than just wine in that wine.
“I do not know,” he confesses, with a wistful sigh. “It is a rare thing to meet a beautiful stranger. It is– a brief moment, a fleeting spark– the most intimate connection between two worlds, just for a moment, before Fate bids them separate.”
The elf’s poetry subsides as he stretches in Voltur’s arms.
He looks around.
“My tent is not this way.”
-two worlds-
His grip tightens almost imperceptibly - and then he masters himself.
"No," he rumbles, "no it is not". That same mad recklessness has bubbled up in him again, and he shoulders his way into what is technically the command tent.
There is– something going on, something that he is missing.
“Oh,” he breathes, trying to focus on his surroundings. “Is this your tent? I am certain that mine is– mine is not far–”
Voltur’s arms, Voltur’s tent–
“I can–”
"It is not. But I thought you might be more comfortable here." The elf is not as hardy as he is - even the Duke does not sleep on a feather mattress on the battlefield - he lowers him to the bedroll gently.
“Thank you.”
His voice is uncertain. He sinks into the cold fabric, delicate skin all but bruising.
He cannot feel much of it. Voltur is above him, dreamlike, blurred around the edges.
The elf blinks in much the same way a butterfly flaps its wings, trying to bring him, this, into focus—
He's fast, rough, the way Ophel likes to be touched, calloused hands pinning him down and stripping off his clothes, in a moment he looms over the supine priest and the heat radiates from his body as he kisses down his neck-
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