>>5396697>>5396592>>5396517>>5396319>>5396198>>5396186>>5396172>>5396139>>5396042>>5396025You eye the offering placed before you appraisingly. The courtesan—for whatever role this female placed before you normally holds, this is clearly the role which she presently fills—regards you in-kind. She does not shrink away when you place your claws upon her hips, but not does she demure or melt, as Davora the herbalist would have. This interaction is not repulsive to her, evidently, but she also seems to regard it with a detached professionalism, as a transaction.
She frowns only slightly when you lift her up and set her down on her feet, and stand to face her master.
“It is tempting,” you admit, perhaps underselling the degree to which you’d been genuinely considering this, “but I am here for state business, not… Trifling pleasure.”
You speak the words in the True Speech, and so the hair stylist-turned-courtesan regards her commanding noble with a quizzical look. Jazkarmel nods to her, assuring her subordinate that all is well, and dismisses her.
“I had thought I knew your weakness,” Jazkarmel admits, when you are alone.
You say nothing.
“Queen Myrymma is… Eager to secure an alliance.”
“We have given the Drow much already… Territory and more.”
“We have paid for it with our swords, our arrows, and our blood,” Jazkarmel notes.
“So has my race,” you retort, ‘and we have seen little land as a result.”
“But ample treasure,” she quickly counters.
“More than ample to maintain the current terms of our working alliance,” you say, “but the Serpent Priests will want more than words.”
“Are you not King of the Mountains, then, making your own deals?” the Drow princess inquires.
“I, too, will want more than words.”
She sighs and nods, accepting the situation.
“What are your terms?”
“I wish to secure our alliance lastingly,” you say, “consecrated beneath the all-seeing eyes and eternal memory of the Dark Gods.”
Jazkarmel hesitates.
“To accept gods, any gods, in a formal capacity… It may be seen as weak, if the Queen of Elves does this,” she says slowly.
“Do you think the Dark Gods weak?” you ask, seriously. “What of me, their servant?”
Jazkarmel shakes her head, and shrugs.
“No, but what one leader of a small border patrol does and what the Queen of Elves does… These are very different things.”
“I understand, but this is what I and the Priesthood will require… From Queen Myrymma, or whoever succeeds her as leader of the elves. That your people embrace the True Faith is more important than who leads you, in the end.”
Jazkarmel cringes at that, but nods. She is a political creature, as well, and seems to understands the decision without taking personal offence.
