Snakes and Ladders-31

Chapter 31

*Before…

“You’re expecting the guilds to co-operate?”
“Yes and no, we get the information in secret, we offer good clean coin for it and we don’t charge them or even get in the way of them doing business.”
“You won’t, why?”
“Because the guilds are part of the kingdom too, because we need an underground economy as much as the real one and the people will not do better if Lyam takes the throne and imposes his laws on everyone.”
Ryann gives me the look he did in the cells.
“Right, then you have me with you.”
“Good, because this will become a whole lot larger than it sounds before we’re done.”
I move to the door when I hear the knock and let them in with his clothes and the writing equipment and he’s changing as I’m laying stuff out.
“We should get started…”
I turned and he dropped the towel at his waist and is getting into the clothes they brought.
Apparently he’s not bashful.

*And Now…

That gave me a few dry mouth moments and after another cup of coffee I link up with Shaya and she persuades me to try I think what is a scone of an elfin version of it.

Okay it’s like a bread/flour biscuit had a fling with puff pastry and it’s barely sweet but in a good way? Clotted cream…I’ve never had it but seen it before back home and this doesn’t seem too different and them the “Shavar”

She loves Shavar.

It’s this caviar made from the candied juice of blackberries with no sweetening to it but it’s mixed or folded with real fish caviar so there’s this…it’s salty and sweet and funky. All at the same time.

I’m not a huge fan of it though the thought of tiny berry caviars is cool instead of plain jelly to me.

There’s that and me sort of sharing with her Ryann getting dressed.

And we both share an ~Oh My~ moment between each other.

It’s odd and yet not when we’re both actually having female feelings over the memory image.

Not that we’re going to do anything yet but it’s part of being a girl…or was for both of us. It’s that ink and us as lovers and friends and more and at the same time it’s like we’re bi but at the same time in our first committed relationship as women…with another woman.

We actually have different tastes and Shaya has a thing for the chest and shoulders and I like arms. Tall is good for both of us and through her eyes he’s actually semi-rugged for an elf.

We sit and settle or I settle and we sort of fall together in the ink as she and I start going through the lists of the things the fortress had in inventory.

Ryann sits too and he’s taking notes of his own from things as I’m talking and scribing things and there’s goods catching his ear as it were that are “Gold items”

Nobles have luxuries and some of these things are fairly specific…food, drink, smoke and some spices and salts.

I also have a list for the drinks separately.

“Why are you keeping such records for the drink?”

“Home most brewers and vintners keep very, very good records and the older the drink the rarer it is and the more that some real experts would know of it.”

“There is that.”

“There is that and we can offer said rare bottles we have to these experts if they quietly do out footwork for us.”

He sits back or rather up. “And since it is their trade it wouldn’t look odd if they were looking for these things….very good…or bad…I mean I don’t think that the smugglers I know will be very happy about said skills coming to play.”

“Sorry but we need this though I really do want to speak to Shaya’s father about this. It’s one thing to track villains this way but it’s really not needed to hunt down those who make their livings doing these things.”

He’s looking at me. “For true?”

“Every culture needs an underground economy and it’d actually be in the king’s advantage to have friends out there.”

“How so?”

“Market control.”
“That sounds ominous.”

“No, not from a good ruler, a good ruler knows he will make up his tax monies on bulk of sale and not the raised prices for the few. But the nobility try to raise prices on certain goods for their own use to exclude people in the market other than themselves so they create a monopoly.”

“Like the factor houses for nobles?’

“Factor houses?” I’ve never heard the term before.

“An outside buyer for a noble so that their name doesn’t drive the prices up.”

“Oh…” I nod. “Very much like that.”

I’m thinking a tapping my cheek with the feather top of my pen. “The King needs a factor.”

“I’m sure he has several.”

“He needs one for the black market.”

I’m looking at him.

Ryann’s looking back at me…. “What?”

“You know what’s needed for this.”

“You know from the lists some of the things that we need to find and trace.”

Ryann… “No…Wren I’m a smuggler not a guild master.”

“Exactly…you can get the things that we need, the things that the terrorists need and you’re a smuggler so you can control the situation.”

“No…”

“And there’s more that you can do too.”

“No…”

“Like make sure that less of your people get hurt in this war.” I look right at him in his eyes.

“Ryann, you said that I’d have you on my side if I needed you but there’s more people that need you in their side that will get caught up into all of this…I’ve seen the forces they’re willing to use, the creatures they’re cutting deals with…what do you think that they’ll send in as a way of showing people a lesson while they’re in their towers.”

He’s really staring at me hard.

Working his jaw too.

“Ryann…the king needs more at his side then nobles in silks and lace and knights in gilded armor he needs real men…The Republic needs real men and not even as a nation of nations but in the…”

“Goddamn you Wren…” He says as he picks me up and sets my down hard on the desk.

His hands are cupping my face and they’re rough, with scars and calluses of work and fighting…softer than a humans I think but still.

Every romantic novel where a guy has kissed a girl and I was putting myself in her place comes rushing through my head.

And there’s sheets and papers falling off the desk and his hands cup and grab my breasts in this…hard but oh so good hard way…that way that a man does…that I had done and now I’m the one with the shiver down her spine right to her sex.

I ache, I ache and swoon as I push into Ryann’s touch and I want this, I want this so bad because I might look like some twenty something now and I might have the feeling about Shaya and the nervousness of being with a man but I also have decades inside me of dreams and this whole life of phantom desires and dreams.

I can feel Shaya riding these waves with me and she’s finding herself some alone spot and…

I want to…I want to but I just can’t.

I push back with my hands moving Ryann off of me.

(Pant.) “I…I can’t…I can’t not like this Ryann.”

(Pant.) “Why…? Gods Wren…no one’s talked to me this way….”

(Swallow.) “No one…?”

“No…no one…I’ve been called a nice person before but…but you…you think I’m a good man.”

I knead my fingers into his shirt…the urge to rip cloth is really strong.

“That’s because I think that you are a good man…I…I just can’t…”

Shaya’s moaning in my head. ~Why Not!~

~Not without you love…I just can’t not without it being both of us…~

I feel her thump her head against the wall and I think she’s pulling her hand from her pants.

“No one’s believed like that Wren…I’m just a commoner from less that sunny streets.”

“I know…that doesn’t mean you’re not a good man.”

He is giving me this look like he wants me and that he’s gotten to that lump in his throat kind of feelings running through him.

“Is it her?”

“No…she wants me to…we’re bonded…and…I just can’t, I can’t do this without her with me…I…I have to have anyone in our lives like that be…be known like that to both of us…”

He’s really looking at me and he does that ragged inhale and then holds the breath a second or two before exhaling it in a long sigh.

“I’m sorry Ryann…I really am…”

He actually grins. “So…then if I have you with her in the same place a threesome then?”

“Ryann!” I giggle and I smack him again a few times.

~Yes!~

~What!?~

~Yes! Damn it all tell him yes!~

I look at him after I stopped hitting him.

“She just said yes.”

He blinks.

And then the hugest grin slips over his face and I know what he’s thinking because while I pushed him back from me it was more of a torso thing and we’re…well I’m on the desk and he’s between my legs pressed close and I can feel him…god…him pressed to me in that way and desiring me and the feelings…so intensely erotic.

I am suddenly blushing so deeply right now.

I take a deep breath and cough. “We need to get back to work.”

“Aye so what’s next?”

“Well I have a few ideas.”

He does that almost dirty eyebrow stare at me. “Oh I’m sure that you do.”

***............ (Late, Late that night.)

Alarms are sounding in Steadfast as part of the jail is burning and there chaos as people rush to douse the flames and the spell casters that deal with such things are being roused from their beds.

Several guards were surprised jumped and knocked out as one of the prisoners escaped.

Interrogated by the foreigner and the base commander it’s going around that he had lifted a pen and affected his escape with that; stolen from the woman.

Blasters were being fired along with bows as the smuggler was seen rising out of the far eastern courtyard on a cloud boat…his cloud boat a modest airship much like a fisherman’s long boat only with a single center mast and two folding ones that acted like wings.

And with a burst of magic the wing sails snapped out and filled with a pale glow shedding motes of spell-light and he was off streaking away from Steadfast and into the wilderness.

***………… (Wren)

I watch him go and escape with his boat which is kind of cool…dull grey wood and ceramic railings and these sails that actually do look like two birds wings on either side when folded out…an square sail in the middle and the thing moves like some kind of thing right out of science fiction like the sails are drives of some kind and for all that I know that they really are.

I swear I hear the entire fight to the heroic theme from Indiana Jones but there’s also this whole Sylvan Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon escaping Mos Eisely scene but wit Ryann and his airship.

Sigh…

He did have to rough up the guards after we sent him back to the cells so that the healers would know it was real and the gossip would be real.

He did pick the locks with my pen…and yeah I’ll be taking the blame for that bit of “incompetence.” but that’ll help sell the whole thing along with the fact that he kind of struck out even more at the crown to Lyam’s allies in a way since I’m being shipped with Shaya…it’s true but that doesn’t mean that we can’t use it as a selling point.

He made off with some of the funds from the guards and a ring that I actually didn’t own but we thought was something he could pass off as something he lifted from me. The commander supplied it and we’ve made plans for him to get more funds through the temple of the temple or we will once I have a talk back at the enemy fortress to our priestess mage friend.

I ache in a good and bad way as I see him quickly vanish off in the distance and part of me is wondering…just wondering that whole what if thing.

Or just if when it might come to Ryann and Shaya and Myself.

I wrap myself in my cloak against the cool air of the night and head back inside to meet up with the commander and to go with him to speak to The King.

I’ll be heading with Bhlaze back to The Holy City and to Lilac House.