#xanthe

"3 gold. I understand, it's a city, but this! Middle of nowhere!" She puts her hands on her hips. She thinks of Lamb's many javelins and tries to count how much they'd get for selling at least a few of them. Nobody needs fourteen javelins. Nyra puts hers down by a wall alongside her gear and straightens her back. It feels good to just not carry so much metal on your person.

Then something grabs her attention.

It's a small area, made private by a portable screen. Nyra's armor clinks against the wooden floors as she approaches and gingerly sets it aside. Her eyes widen in joy when she sees a bath. "That's why we paid so much," she whispers, almost reverently. The smell of her own body hits her all of a sudden and she breathes out impatiently.

"I found our price culprit," she calls. Xanthe looks over Nyra's shoulder.

They share relieved looks.

"Do the inns in the Sword Coast have baths?" Xanthe asks, voice low.

"Not all of them." They have not overpaid after all, but Nyra would rather drop dead than admit she'd judged the situation wrongly. Gods know this party does enough of that on its own; as much as this mission is a learning experience, it is also baked into the humiliation ritual of it.

Her muscles and her head hurt. As used to armor as she is, she feels it press against her body. Her hair is in a dire need of a wash. Xanthe doesn't seem to mind.

In fact, Xanthe didn't seem to mind when there was blood, either. She'd offer to braid Nyra's hair in the morning after breakfast. She'd put stray hair pieces behind Nyra's ears after battle. Her touch lingered comfortably after she'd treated Nyra's wounds.

Nyra did much of the same. She was not about to skip on the joys of courting a woman, and leaned into the role she'd always had and that she'd always enjoyed; it was all part of the game. It would seem, however, that Xanthe was of the same mind.

That left Nyra at a bit of a crossroads. She was mildly reluctant to admit she enjoyed the attention, but she did not wish to relinquish the role she liked. Nevertheless, she did not want to stop courting Xanthe, same way Xanthe did not want to stop courting her. It was only a matter of time, Nyra tells herself, before they acted on it.

Sooner, preferably. The wait is becoming insupportable.

And if Nyra was anything, she was daring.

"Help me remove my armor?" she asks, in the same low voice. Of course, she prides herself on how fast she's able to get in and out of armor by herself, but this feels like a different sort of pride, one for later. "Then we toss a coin who goes in first. No cheating."

Xanthe laughs. "Of course! I would never cheat."

Nyra smiles. "Liar."

"Just a little bit," Xanthe huffs and steps back. "Armor then?"

Nyra nods and straightens her back. She stands by the bed, hands suddenly far too empty and useless, but then she feels Xanthe's presence behind her. Nyra extends a hand, almost out of habit, the way she's seen older knights do for their squires to take off the gauntlets first. Xanthe smiles and feels around the points.

"Hands first," Nyra says by way of explanation, imagining Javen when he did this. Her own squiredom feels like it was ages ago. "You found the laces already. Good. The process is.. surprisingly intimate."

"It feels like a ritual of sorts," Xanthe comments, undoing the points. Nyra feels the metal press against her skin less. She almost breathes out. "Especially if a squire did it," she adds, letting the gauntlet drop. It echoes. She takes Nyra's hand in hers and pulls off the glove. Nyra allows her to run her fingers over hers.

"It does become soothing after a while," Nyra agrees, offering the other hand. "I never particularly enjoyed it. When I got to be the one getting undressed, however…" She laughs and her voice rings deep in the otherwise silent room. "All you have to do is stand there, really, and just proffer hands. Legs, too. Whatever needs to be made bare."

Xanthe catches her eye. She does not ask, but Nyra knows what she would have asked. She simply smiles. "Now be good, and I might just show you."

Xanthe breathes and feels for the laces again. Nyra watches her, mesmerised by the way warm light from nearby candles reflects on Xanthe's blue hair, on the shiny spots of her forehead. Her lips are slightly parted, eyes darkened. Nyra smiles.

Another gauntlet falls. Something in Nyra's belly burns.

"Sollerets now," she says, her voice low. "It goes from outside in."

"Outside in?" Xanthe asks. It sounds far too heavy for her to be entirely teasing.

Nyra simply presses her foot on the ground. Metal echoes, a warning. Xanthe kneels and reaches out. Nyra cannot help but put a hand on Xanthe's head.

It occurs to her, distantly, that they hadn't kissed yet.

She would very much like to kiss Xanthe.

One by one, pieces fall off. Sollerets, greaves, vambraces. Nyra cannot stop her breathing, and neither can Xanthe. The room in the air is heavy and it presses down like a veil.

"Why are you still so clad in metal?" Xanthe asks, frustration in her voice.

"Keeps me safe out there in the field," Nyra replies, amused.

"Except when you take hits."

Nyra's face burns. "It is inevitable. I cannot, however, bathe in my armor."

Xanthe presses her hands against the cuisses. "Fine," she says. "

Nyra's head spins. Xanthe's lips have never been rounder, fuller or more kissable; her grime and blood and dirt only make Nyra want to get the bed dirty with them too. She feels herself ache, almost, and it takes her off guard in a way a few things have recently.

There has simply been no time for sexual attraction in a party such as this. Not for Nyra, who's the one they're laughing at more often than not, even if she knows why that is. Knowledge does not erase the way it makes her annoyed, or the way she yearns for recognition she'll never get from them.

To Lamb, she's just a human child playacting war.

To Luka, she's someone to coddle them and someone to make fun of, depending on which face they're wearing that day.

To Altair, she's a hypocrite. You don't respect hypocrites. Nyra refuses to engage the thought further, though there's a press inside her to do so.

Only to Xanthe is she an ally, someone worth respecting. Only to Xanthe, who's undressing her on her knees, she's not a laughing stock of a paladin.

She doesn't want to think of Avaro right now. She can imagine her goddess is watching, counting her mistakes, and Nyra wonders how many before she makes good on her threat to find another champion.

She doesn't want to think of Avaro. Not right now.

Nyra runs her fingers through Xanthe's hair. It's greasy and dirty. She wants Xanthe's filth on her skin and wants it on her tongue.

When she's in her gambeson, she rasps out an order for her to stand up. Xanthe does; Nyra's taller than her. The grime, the dirt, the arousal, they're making Nyra's judgement cloudy, and she just wants to take, and take, and take.

Deprivation does that to you, turns out. She can barely restrain herself when she goes to cup Xanthe's face and pull her closer. She searches Xanthe's face for any clues of reluctance and comes up empty.

Xanthe wants to eat her alive, in the best possible way.

Avaro threatens to eat her alive as well, but Nyra doesn't find it appealing anymore.

She kisses Xanthe, hard. She kisses her like she needs her to breathe, like a prize she's finally won, like there's no chain holding her back. Xanthe digs her fingers into Nyra's hair, moans into her mouth. Nyra's hands press against Xanthe's ass, pulling her closer.

The world falls away.

There's a distant sound of a small metal thing falling on the floor. Nyra doesn't pay it any attention.