A Drow's Dilemma Ep. 52: Tsabdrin

Author's Note:

A Drow's Dilemma began as a one-on-one roleplaying project and has been converted into a chapter-by-chapter format for weekly posting with the permission and assistance from my partner. It will contain a considerable amount of sexual themes such as femdom, lesbian, straight, 'reverse' rape, BDSM, group sex, romance, and other themes. The main goal of the story, however, is to tell an epic tale of adventures, gods and goddesses, fae, and nymphomaniacs. This episode and every episode to come will be available for free on Literotica for the foreseeable future. All characters that engage in sexual or suggestive situations are mentally and sexually mature: the human equivalent of 18 for their race.

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Episode 52: Tsabdrin

Ashyr did not move from her spot where she watched Tsabdrin, her cousin and partner all those years ago, mourn one of his animal companions. She looked up at her other cousin. "Yup. That's Tsabdrin. Ran into each other while loot..." She glanced over to Althaia with an apologetic look. "er, gathering supplies. Thought I'd bring him to you as a present. What would you like to do to him, dearest?" Her voice was not at all cheerful. Ashyr was clearly very angry at the pathetic wet puddle in front of her.

Althaia stood. The nymph was wearing only a satisfied look on her face. And blood. Lots of blood. "Good fighting." She said in a pleased tone. It was at times like these where Caleldir wondered about the nymph's alignment; the lawful part always seemed rather suspicious, and right now even good seemed like a stretch. Yet, there she was, giving off a magical aura of law and good.

The elf shook his head, and turned towards the more immediate issue. "A male of House Duskhaven?" He asked. He sighed. "Of what crimes is this one guilty?" he asked. "An actual perpetrator of evil, or merely an aider and abettor?" Caleldir felt a little bit sorry for the small, disheveled man, but it was not his place to argue on his behalf. If these two wanted to execute their brother for his crimes, well, he would simply ask that they not do the deed themselves, but get Althaia to do it. Or at least kill the fellow cleanly and without torture.

On the other hand, the sorry fellow could have crucial information. If that was the case, once again, he would trust Althaia to get said information out of him more than the vengeful females of his house.

So, Caleldir waited to see what the drow would do.

The male began to shiver in his place in the mud and rain and cooling body of his former companion. Ashyr was not so affected by the cold, of course, due to her ring. She just looked wet and pissed. But her attention was turned to her female cousin. Ashyr had no idea what crimes Tsabdrin was guilty of. The last thing she heard from him was that he wanted to leave the area with her. She had been in no condition to stand, let alone go galavanting off with some male. He'd run off when Caleldir came to rescue Ashyr. The last encounter was enough to make Ashyr decide to keep him alive for long enough for someone to explain things.

"He was the one to recapture me after I met Caleldir." Selene informed the rest of the party. The mage walked over to him and gave him another kick, this time to his ribcage. He cried out and half-heartedly tried to get out of the way. "They fucking raped me and forced me to become pregnant, you asshole." She snarled at him.

"He wasn't there when..." Ashyr began to ask.

"Ugh, goddess no. He's my full-blood brother." Selene responded before her cousin finished. "I don't know what other atrocities he's committed, though." Another kick.

"This is the one that recaptured you, you say?" Caleldir confirmed. "Well, if nothing else, I dislike him for that." He gave the sniveling fellow a disapproving glare. At least he had not been a part of the horror, although he was at least guilty inasmuch as he was a party to it. Caleldir still did not like watching Selene kick him. Even though the guy was a slimeball, Caleldir could not help but feel a little bit sorry for him.

Althaia was less sympathetic. After re-summoning her clothing (the blood on her from the other raptor seemed to magically vanish too), she sat down on the second raptor's carcass and watched impassively. "No need to kick the fellow while he is down." Althaia said in a relatively neutral tone. "Either kill him, or stop beating him up. One of those. I do not much care which." She sighed. It had been satisfying for a moment to bring down a creature like that, but now she was itching to get into another fight. Preferably with something bigger and more dangerous. The male drow clearly was not going to be the one to offer such a battle, and seeing as he was not worth fighting, sexing, or saving, he was not of particular interest to her.

That was when the male tried to get to his feet and get away from the pain his sister was causing him. He managed to balance upright, through he was hunched over and clutching at his sides. If he stood up straight, he would likely be just a little bit taller than Ashyr. Though he was probably taller, he looked liked he weighed a little bit less; he was thinner than her, and less muscular. He looked up at the rest of the party with desperation in his dark blue eyes. Tsabdrin looked quite a bit like his sister, only smaller and less curved. "Please, don't kill me." He pleaded. His eyes fell on the most sympathetic-looking person: Caleldir. "Please, I'll help you, just don't kill me." There could have been tears on his face, but he was too wet to tell for sure.

"Why shouldn't we?" Ashyr growled. She moved a step closer to him to keep him from fleeing, but otherwise didn't touch him.

"The caves... Duagmyr and Irahc'vic did something. They're different now. You need me." His words seemed more like he was trying to convince himself. "And I have information. Please! I swear I'll help."

"It would behoove you to at least show a little bit of dignity in your surrender." Caleldir observed. "Sniveling and groveling makes one suspect your motives. Contrition and sadness would do you better than... whatever it is you are doing." He sighed. "I assume that Duagmyr and Irahc'vic are males of House Duskhaven? Probably the more psychotic ones at that?" He looked at the drow intently. The fellow was probably just a cringing coward out to try to save his own skin, but if he really was a mere coward and not an actual deserter on principal, well, such cowards would probably leave for whichever side was the more dangerous. Which was definitely the side armed with artifacts of major power and counting among their numbers a king of ghosts and the world's most psychotic nymph paladin, who challenged raptors to pankration matches for the hell of it.

The female ranger made a tsk-ing noise with her teeth. "Fucking pushover." She accused with derision. "Selene?"

Selene was still snarling, and looked incredibly angry. If she had been anything other than lawful, she would have obviously killed her brother then and there. Even with such negative emotion, in the end Selene was a logical creature. It helped that she never saw her brother do anything but do minor tasks for the rest of the Duskhaven males. And he looked so desperate, so afraid... "Fine. Whatever. Just keep him away from me." Then she turned and stormed off back in the direction of the inn.

Tsabdrin began shivering even harder and sunk to his knees.

"Duagmyr is my eldest brother, and was the ringleader from last I heard. Irahc'vic is the very definition of chaos. I wouldn't put it past him to alter the caves and whatever the hell else struck his fancy at the time." Ashyr confirmed once Selene was out of sight.

After turning to watch Selene storm back off to the inn, Caleldir breathed in deeply, and looked to Ashyr. After examining her expression for a moment, he looked back down at the drow male. "So, what sort of information do you have?"

Althaia ran her hand along the raptor's neck. "Were these two your animal companions? If so, I can revive them for you. Restoring life to animals is much easier than doing so for sapient beings..."

A glimmer of hope shone in Tsabdrin's eyes.

"No." Ashyr said firmly. "We will not be reviving them. He doesn't deserve them for what he did."

And his face fell again to gaze dazedly at his hands that gripped at his muddy thighs. Tsabdrin began to shiver so hard that it sounded like he was having a difficult time keeping his teeth from chattering. Every time he even looked near his fallen allosauruses he looked like he was about to fall apart again. Ashyr shut her eyes and rubbed a hand over her face. When she removed her hand, the anger and derision on her face melted to resignation. "Lolth damn you, Tsabdrin." She grumbled. The beginnings of pity settled in her breast. Not enough to let Althaia revive his pets, though.

Althaia pouted. "But I did not even get a chance to wrestle both of them to death. Now that would be a challenge! I want to resurrect them for a rematch..."

"Yeah, I doubt that is what Tsabdrin wants." Caleldir said dryly. "But we do not need to make that sort of decision now. Let us wait and see how useful Tsabdrin is before we either eat his pets or resurrect them. How long before you will no longer be able to revive them?"

The nymph shrugged. "If I preserve their bodies now, I can revive them whenever I want. The earliest I could though would be tomorrow, as that is a little miracle I generally do not petition my patrons for."

Caleldir nodded in acknowledgement. "How does this sound, Ashyr: Althaia preserves the bodies of these allosauruses and gives them to R.I.S.A. for safekeeping, and if Tsabdrin proves useful, we give him his companions back." He smiled thinly. "Think of it as practice. This sort of thing can go badly if not done right, and if Althaia can get the spell down correctly, she could revive Bard if he ever got himself scorched to death." Caleldir, not being one to hold a grudge for more than a few seconds, felt rather sorry for the poor fellow. It did not help that he reminded him way too much of Ashyr and Selene, and every time Tsabdrin looked at those allosauruses (Aha! That is what they were!) he felt a gut-wrenching feeling as if he was watching Ashyr getting torn up about Bard.

Althaia just wanted to wrestle dinosaurs again.

"No." Ashyr said with a stubborn set to her jaw. "He was part of the plan to kill my mother, aunt, sisters, and niece. He knew who he was working for. He will not get away from this with no consequence. Tsabdrin will just have to replace his companions the usual way. You're just going to have to find a different... weird animal thing to wrestle to death."

"A-a-allos-s-saurus." Tsabdrin provided mournfully.

Althaia shrugged. "I suppose that now that I know that they exist, it should not be too very hard to find them for myself. Wild ones would be more amenable to a struggle anyway, even if they are not as tough as a ranger's companions." She hefted the two dinosaurs through the portal anyway, though. "But, I still think that holding the preserved bodies of his dead companions in storage will ensure good behavior from your cousin." For a paladin that, inexplicably, had not lost her powers, Althaia certainly could stray pretty far from the stereotype of a 'stick-up-their-ass' lawful stupid paladin. After all, taking dead bodies hostage was probably not something that most paladins would advocate. It made sense to her, though. If nothing else, perhaps not completely shutting down the hope of getting his companions back would improve the drow's attitude enough that he could be actually useful.

"Fine." Ashyr frowned at the sight of Althaia pulling in the carcasses of the two allosauruses. In the end, there was nothing she could really do to stop the good party members from preserving their bodies. It was probably a good way to keep Tsabdrin in check, though Ashyr was too stubborn and angry to admit it. "Now Tsabdrin, talk!"

"I w-wont t-t-tell you ever-r-ry thing n-n-n-now." The drow male shivered. His common was thickly accented and hard to understand with how violently he shivered. "Y-y-you'll k-kill m-m-m-me..." It wasn't something that it looked like he could control; the slender male was really damn cold and wet. His lips had already turned bloodless from the early stages of hypothermia.

Ashyr let out an exasperated sigh. "We should get him out of his wet armor and gear and in front of a fire. I can't understand a damn thing he's saying. Caleldir, you should go check on Selene." Ashyr had seen warning signs on the mage's face just before she turned and stormed off. Something was wrong in the land of Selene.

"I will go check on Selene." Caleldir agreed. He dashed off in the direction of the inn.

"I'm going to pull him into R.I.S.A. and make him stop that obnoxious shivering. Then maybe we can get something intelligible out of him." With that, Ashyr activated the portal. She seemed to trust that her male cousin wouldn't do anything stupid within their pocket dimension. That, and the A.I. could probably defend herself well enough. "Althaia, can you help me?"

"Sure I can help." Althaia said cheerfully. She towered over the drow man about as much as she did Ashyr, so nearly an entire foot on him.

Once Tsabdrin was in the pocket dimension, Ashyr began to methodically unstrap his drenched armor and pull it off of him. Tsabdrin tried to help her as much as he could, but his fingers didn't seem to be working very well. This was likely the most business-like manner Althaia had ever seen a person undress another.

"I didn't kn-n-n-now they would d-d-do that to my s-s-s-sister." He confessed while they were doing this. "I w-was told she sabotaged us and n-needed to be locked up before she did any more d-d-damage. N-next thing I heard was that Irahc-vic sold her to t-the orcs. That w-wasn't supposed to happen either. Everyone's pretty m-mad about that. And then I heard they had y-you, too, Ashyr." His expression turned almost petulant. "I came to rescue you, didn't I?" His accent was still pretty thick, but at least he was easier to understand now that his teeth weren't chattering so much.

"By that time you were rescuing me from allies, you cuntsucker." Ashyr snapped. "Almost ruined the entire thing and got me killed."

At least he looked uncomfortable when she said that. He was still very clearly upset and, to a lesser degree, afraid of his captors. "How was I supposed to know that? They're orcs and you were still tied up."

It might have been a fair point, but Ashyr wasn't going to give it to him. She was still somewhat pissed, but wasn't quite as monumentally angry as she had been before. It seemed that recently Tsabdrin had only been an unknowing help to the nefarious actions of the rest of the males. He knew what they were and what they had done before, though; the loss of his animal companions was well-deserved. And it was something that he would suffer for acutely if the two beasts were anywhere near as important to him as Bard was to her. In fact, that would account for the 'sniveling and groveling' the nymph-kin saw in him. It had less to do with fear and more to do with emotional devastation. Ashyr understood this, but the whole situation was too emotionally charged for her to want to comfort him or grant him back his animals.

By that time, Ashyr managed to peel off the slender male's armor and clothing. The nymph watched mostly impassively as Ashyr undressed her cousin. It was definitely more a matter of medical sterility and practicality than anything sexual. Somehow, the very sight killed her sex-drive, which was quite impressive, especially considering that the drow was now naked. There was a good-sized gash across his leg that was leaking quite a lot of blood and his dark body was covered with even darker bruises. That probably had something to do with how he couldn't stand on his own anymore. Mud had somehow managed to get underneath all his clothes, and of course his hair was still wild with dirt and twigs. Both his hands covered his crotch as he gave Althaia a self-conscious look in what was another first the nymph would experience - a drow attempting to be modest.

"R.I.S.A? Can you draw a hot bath... eh, probably something to rinse both of us off first..." Ashyr couldn't think of a quicker, more efficient way to get him warm and keep him from tracking mud everywhere. "And I guess you might as well heal him, Althaia."

"Fuck me, a warm bath?" Tsabdrin asked. For a moment, his expression was wistful before it fell back to barely contained despair.

"You wish." Ashyr said irritably to the first part of his statement.

"Kinslayers are the most cursed of all beings." She helpfully observed. Tsabdrin may not have given out an aura of evil, but the stench of that most heinous of crimes did hang heavily on him. "But it is still possible to atone." She let out a sigh. "I will heal you. And put a spell on you to protect you from the elements. If you shiver yourself to death, how will you find redemption?"

As business-like as Ashyr herself, Althaia put her warm, pale hand on the shivering drow's dark, goosebumped flesh. His wounds melted away, as did his chill.

The shivering male relaxed slightly. The rest of her words, however, only put a mulish frown on his face. He looked like he was going to make a snappish remark to the paladin's kinslayer comment, but, for better or for worse, decided to lower his eyes in deference instead. "Thank you, my lady." The male said softly.

Upon examining Tsabdrin closer, Althaia did note that, despite the stench of kinslaying on him (whether it was something he personally did, or simply allowed to do, it was not certain) the sad male drow was probably quite altruistic by the standards of his race. Which is to say, not quite as selfish and sadistic as Selene. Still, Althaia thought very dimly of kinslayers, and so was not about to treat him as a neutral party. No, she would simply wait and see what it was that he had a mind to do. "You do not need to be that deferential." Althaia told the male. "I am not a drow to think that men are beneath me. No, there is only one time that I really want men beneath me (if you catch my drift), and sadly for you, I am not interested in that right now. Maybe one day, though." She gave the drow a broad wink, unleashing enough of her beauty that the effect was momentarily stunning (although not blinding, of course. She tried not to blind allies, as a rule, Selene notwithstanding). Given her current outfit, which was about as scanty as upworlders believed drow females to dress, the effect was rather potent.

[I have created a bath.] R.I.S.A. chimed in. [Do you still wish to use it?]

"Yes, R.I.S.A, we'll still use it." Ashyr decided. There was still the issue of both of them messing up the place with the mud caked to their hair and bodies. She pulled her cousin to his feet and led him over to the bath. He walked much better now, but there was still a distinct weakness about him. "Althaia? Can you watch him, make sure he doesn't do anything stupid? If you don't want to, I suppose R.I.S.A can." The added benefit of removing his clothing meant he had no protection and weapons. He wouldn't be able to cause much trouble. "Caleldir and Selene aren't back yet; I think this lovely one triggered her and I don't know how much Selene will let him help." She explained as she absently pulled a twig and drying clump of mud out of Tsabdrin's hair. "Anyway, I think at least Caleldir will want to be here when we question him." Then she turned away and began to make her way towards her lovers.

Again, Tsabdrin looked like he was about to protest before he thought better of it. It was hard to tell with how dark his skin was, but his face darkened in embarrassment. What was he going to do about it, though?