Reluctantly Rogue Pt. 01 Ch. 011

(Note: This is a long, ongoing story. It is a story with sex. It's a sexy story. It is in many ways a story about sex. But, it is not strictly a sex story. Many chapters may even be SFW.

This chapter is likely SFW!)

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

An Offer Repeated

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A short while later, the sound of angry bees came rushing up the road behind him once again. He looked over his shoulder, and just managed to duck his head in time to prevent a small, very irate sprite from slamming full speed into the back of it.

"Are you trying to lose me?"

Atyr smiled and quirked his brows at her. "Given the number of times I've asked you to leave, I wouldn't think it would be that shocking." He shook his head, and began walking again. "But no. I've decided to return to town."

"Town? Again?" She trailed along beside his head, her tiny temper already cooling as curiosity distracted her. "Why?"

"Not sure." He kept walking. "And lots of reasons. Maybe Bird can tell me some of the stuff you won't explain--"

"I have explained!"

He threw a look at her, and started again.

"Maybe Bird can explain some of the stuff you already explained in a way this dummy can understand. I want to get my wounds looked at. Couple other things."

Pesky flitted ahead. "Oh, don't bother about your wounds, they'll be gone tomorrow." She flitted over to a flowering vine crawling up a tree, and dragged a blossom down, releasing it and watching in pleasure as it bounced back into place. "What other things?"

"I found some coin near where I killed the wolf. Or, maybe on the wolf? In its fur, I think."

"Ah yeah, that'll happen. So we need more supplies?" She landed on his shoulder. "We definitely need more sweet apples. There's only one left."

"No, I still have four. I bought a half dozen."

There was silence from his shoulder. He looked at her, and she looked away at the passing trees, patting her hands distractedly on her knees. "Nooo, there's only one..."

"You're so tiny, how could you possibly--"

"I really like them, ok?"

Atyr sighed. "So do I. It was a full kip just for those six."

Pesky flitted back up in the air. "Ok, so, more apples, and more other stuff, then?"

"No, actually. I... I figured I would give the banner I found to Bird as a donation. To thank them for healing me."

"They didn't heal you."

"Ok, fair, for taking care of me then."

She landed back on his shoulder, leaning against his ear, and murmured into it. "Oh right, the girl." She paused, and then, her voice dripping with weird eroticism, continued. "Kella."

She hadn't used her Voice on him for a while, and he was unprepared. The bewildering, sleepy desire and arousal hit him hard, and he stumbled on the dirt of the track. "Don't DO that!"

"I've no idea what you mean."

"You know exactly what I -- Isn't that lying?"

"No."

"I feel like that's lying. I thought you couldn't lie."

"I can't."

"But you can deceive."

"True."

"How is flat out telling me you don't know what I mean not lying when you very well know exactly what I mean? That's not just deception, that's a lie!"

"It isn't."

"It is!"

"It's pretending." She stood up haughtily on his shoulder and faced away from him, arms crossed.

"So you can lie if you're pretending? If you're pretending what?"

"It's not lying."

"Ok." He stopped in the middle of the road. "Ok. I want to understand this. I want to know if I can trust you."

"You can trust me. That's the truth."

He scooped her off his shoulder, and she let him, sitting cross-legged on his palm as he held her in front of him.

"How can I trust you, if I can't know if you're lying or not? Or if you're deceiving me? Or if you're lying but it's not lying because you're pretending or something like that? You seem to want something from me, but I can't even figure out what it is, because you won't explain it. And even if you did, again, how could I trust you?"

She looked at him, head tilted, with a little smile on her tiny face. "Humans can deceive and lie. Can you trust them?"

"Well, yeah. I mean no, but at least I know they can lie to me, and what that means. With you I don't even know!"

"So you always know when humans lie?"

"Of course not, that's not what I--"

"Then what do you mean?" She laughed at him again. "Maybe I'm telling you the truth sometimes, maybe I'm not. You'll have to guess. It's the same."

"It's really not the same." He knew it wasn't the same. When he had engaged this topic with her, he had known it wasn't. He wasn't sure how exactly it wasn't the same now, but he still felt he was right. "It isn't."

She walked up his arm to his elbow, then reached up to tap him on his chin. "You dummy. It really is." She flew up, and continued down the road towards Woodstead. "And I don't want to lie to you or deceive you." She looked back. "Let's go deflower your maiden!"

Atyr stood still for a long moment, watching the glowing form buzz its winding, distractable way down the road. He shook his head, bit his lip, looked to the sky for patience, and set off after her.

On the walk back to Woodstead, Pesky alternated between fluttering around idly, playing with leaves and flowers, pestering Atyr with largely incomprehensible chatter, and disappearing unexpectedly. Doing his best to keep his annoyance in check, Atyr tried to pry a few slivers of information out of her here and there, but after a half dozen attempts, he had to admit it was largely a lost cause. Whether she actually believed she was explaining his new situation to him, or whether she was being intentionally obfuscatory, the results were indistinguishable.

She seemed to come and go for no identifiable reason. Atyr had thought she might hide from passers by, given her absence for most of his time in Woodstead, but she seemed unconcerned about being seen.

At one point, she had been sitting happily atop his head, teasing him about something (he was ignoring her, so he wasn't sure what) when four suspicious looking men, in dirty leathers and with weapons at their belts came walking towards them from the opposite direction. Pesky didn't even slow her pattering speech as the four men drew level with them. They acknowledged Atyr in a gruff but amiable way and continued past, as though there was nothing more usual than a faerie sitting atop a young man's head as he walked down the dusty track.

As the men disappeared around the bend, Atyr asked her about it. "Pesky, can people see and hear you? Other than me, I mean?"

She continued drumming her heels against his forehead. He'd given up trying to get her to stop. "Oh yes, of course!"

"Really? Its just that, well, people don't seem to take notice of you at all."

"Oh yes. That's because they can't see me."

"But you said --"

"You asked if people could see and hear me. And people can. Some people. But not the people who can't." She kicked back hard with both heels. "Obviously."

"So you choose who can see you?"

"No, they choose."

Atyr was both relieved and dismayed. Relieved that he was actually getting some straight answers out of her. Dismayed that, even with straight answers, he was only becoming more confused. He was trying to think of what question to ask to get clarification, but she continued, apparently feeling unusually generous with information today.

"Some people want to see me, so they invite me, and then they can see me. Some people don't want to see me, and some people don't know they can ask."

"Ok, but, I can see you, and I never asked."

Silence.

"One day, I just started feeling your weird thing that you do, and then I almost got killed by that green woman--"

"Elatla."

"Right, Elatla, she tried to kill me, and then there you were. I could see you. But I never asked to."

"You asked to see Elatla."

"Oh, that is something I absolutely did not ask for!"

"You did. You put your blood in her pool."

"Her pool?"

"She has been there since the eddy wore deep enough into the earth to house her." She hopped off his head into the air and looked him in the face, poking him in the nose sharply. "You don't even really live there yet."

Atyr sighed. "Ok, fair enough, fair enough. So bleeding in her pool counts as asking for her to come murder me?"

"That's one way to invite her." She shook her head at him, disapprovingly. "And she doesn't always murder people. You've met her twice, and you're still here."

"The first time you had to physically chase her away as she tried to drown me, and the second time you had to ask her not to literally eat me."

The sprite sniffed. "Nevertheless, that was a rude way for you to say it."

"Ok, ok." He backtracked, looking down at his trudging feet. "So how exactly did I ask to see you?"

There was no response. He looked up. There was no Pesky. He rolled his eyes and threw his head back in resigned frustration. There was no point. Hopefully Bird knew enough to give him the bare bones of what he was in for.

The Road was busy today, and Atyr passed several more travelers, some alone, some in pairs or small groups. As was custom, no one stopped or exchanged more than a few pleasantries. To stop on the road was to make an explicit threat.

Which is why, when the three figures approaching from the opposite direction halted a short ways ahead of him, and the smaller figure in the middle pointed directly at him, Atyr didn't hesitate to leap off the road and down the bank, sprinting into the trees and vanishing into the Brookwood. He might not be sure what the "Rogue" implied in the symbols on his arm, but "Ranger" was a description he'd heard of himself a fair number of times, and it was appropriate. He'd grown up running, playing, and living in the wood. He could outpace most people swiftly, and lose them among the dense trunks in short order. It gave him a sense of safety on this stretch of road that few others could enjoy.

After diving into the trees, he sped straight away from the road. He was out of sight in just over a dozen strides. He slowed immediately to a stealthy jog, crouching low and slipping through the undergrowth as smoothly as the wolf had earlier that day. He turned and cut back towards the road in an arc that would bring him up behind the trio.

Creeping up to the edge of the dusty road, he peered down the way and saw the backs of the three figures. Two men and a woman, he could tell now. He heard the woman laugh and say something. From their posture, they seemed unconcerned: not about to race off into the trees after him. He darted across the road to the higher shoulder, and slipped forward through the trees, silent from long practice. He swiftly caught up to the three of them.

As he drew near, he began to hear their conversation. A man's voice came, low and rough, with an incredulous tone to it. "Really? He was awake? Weird little shit. Just laying there watching?"

The woman laughed again. "Oh, I was basically begging him to join with my eyes." Atyr stumbled and almost fell as he recognized her voice. Two men and a woman; it was that trio.

"Yes," she was saying, "I think he was mostly just really uncomfortable. He just looked at me and then rolled over and pretended to sleep. I saw him as he left in the morning. He was a fairly young guy, looked very rustic. Probably not used to that sort of invitation."

"Still a weird thing for him to do," said the man.

The other man broke in now. "Because what we were doing was so normal, right?"

All three laughed She swatted both of their backsides, and skipped ahead. Atyr was barely a half dozen strides from them now, as they came to the place where he had left the road. The woman stopped, and turned to face the trees opposite him, her back to where he now crouched.

"Sorry again!" she called loudly into the woods. "We should have kept it to ourselves!" She paused, considering something, then shouted again, "Offer still stands though, if you have second thoughts!"

The two men chuckled and shook their heads, and the trio continued down the road, away from Woodstead. Atyr remained concealed in the brush, watching them go. Just as they were about the fall out of view, thin wisps of grey drifted out of each of their backs, and shot straight at Atyr. He was barely able to react before they reached him and vanished into his chest. He staggered back in surprise, tripping and sitting down hard. That faint, warm sense that something had been accomplished flickered in him again. It was nowhere near as strong as it had been with the wolf, in fact, he might not have noticed the sensation if he hadn't had the previous experience.

Experience. Right. That's what Pesky had called it. He still had no idea what that meant. Of course he had experienced both fighting the wolf, and now this whole... whatever it was that had just happened, but what did experiencing things have to do with grey, ghostly mist burying itself in his chest? Yet more things he hoped Bird had some insight into.

"Can't believe you turned her down a second time."

Atyr leapt in a random direction, as the soft, little bell of a voice chimed in his ear. He slammed sideways into a tree and landed back on the ground, wounded wrist and ankle flaring with pain at the jolt.

"Fates, Pesky!" He picked himself up. "You always show back up at just the right moment, don't you?"

"I've been with you for a bit now."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "I thought I could see you. Can I not see you all the time?"

A smirk. "Not if you never look behind you." She drifted off down the bank to the road. "For a sexy tree boy, you sure can be kind of unobservant. You should probably work on that."

The remaining walk back to town was quiet, almost entirely Pesky-free and, unusual of late, uneventful. Just since this morning, he had been attacked by a glowing-eyed lone wolf in the broad daylight and been horrifically mauled, had a ghost-wolf of something called "Experience" vanish into his chest, seen his terrifying wounds knit themselves over in only a short span, been spotted by his overly lusty bed-mates from a few nights earlier, and had three more little motes of Experience fly straight into him. If not for the events of the preceding week, this would have been, by far, the strangest day of his life to date.

And he was tired, well and truly tired. His wounds may have healed over, the pain mostly gone, but he felt nearly as exhausted and weak as if he were still bleeding on the forest floor next to the corpse of the wolf. He trudged wearily on.

He reached town just as the gloom was well and truly deepening into night, and stopped on the outskirts. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the two coins. A banner and a kip, silver and bronze glinting in the wan light of the slivered moon. A night at Gant's was three kips, and three kips meant he would have to beak the banner, or stay on credit once again. Atyr hated doing anything on credit, but he also didn't want to break the banner. There was something solid and meaningful about donating a full silver which somehow seemed missing when he considered handing over a fistful of twenty-two kips instead.

He decided to save the coin, and rolled out his cloak a little ways back up the road in a small glade of bracken and blackthorn. He ate a large handful of the sour berries, and was just digging into his pack for something more substantial, when he noticed Pesky had returned. Unusually, she was silent. She stood on a rounded stone a stride away, staring at him intently.

"Oh, um, hey Pesky." He looked at her uncertainly. "Just camping here tonight to save a bit of coin."

She continued to consider him, then hopped off the rock and flitted to the strap of his pack. "Are you getting out the last sweet apple?"

He raised his brows at her, sighed, and fished out the apple, cutting it in half and laying her portion down on the stone. The sprite tore into the fruit voraciously, a surprising amount disappearing into her tiny mouth. It was a shocking, impossible-seeming quantity of apple actually, but the dietary practices of sprites were pretty far down the list of things he wanted answers to.

After a quick meal, he settled himself on the ground and wrapped himself in his cloak. Sleep was without question the most wonderful thing he could imagine right now. He let his eyes drift lazily across the road, towards the town, then up the rocky spire where the old watchtower stood. A prickle of cold ran along his spine. There was an odd, purplish glow coming from the windows at the top.

"Hey Pesky?" he said slowly. "The other day, Gant, he's the innkeeper, he said there was a witch in the old watchtower. And then he acted like he'd never said it. Um... do you know if there's a witch living in the tower?"

Pesky, who had made herself a nest in the top of his pack, poked her head up. "Wetlyn? Oh yeah, she's been there for a while now." She yawned and ducked back into the bag.

"Ok, well, Gant said he would pay me to get rid of her. Then he said he hadn't said any of it. Is that... I mean.... do you know what was going on there?"

"I do."

"Pesky, I am too tired for--"

"I am also too tired." Her tiny voice was muffled by the pack. "Someone wants her gone. They used Gant to ask you. Gant will have no idea about any of it. You should leave her alone."

"Is she nice? Wetlyn, you said? You know her?"

"No, she's not nice. Yes I know her. I'm tired."

"Ok, so, if she's not nice, then why--"

"Hey dummy, what does it say on your arm again?"

"On my arm? The symbols? Uh, it says 'Ranger' and 'Rogue.' Which I still don't understa--"

"All of it. What else did it say."

"Oh, um... 'subclass' before 'Rogue', I think, and then 'Level 0' after both of them."

"Right. Level 0. A little old wolf almost killed you today. Please leave the witch alone."

Atyr was caught aback. He was also confused, but he was always confused, talking to Pesky. But her mannerisms were... very different than they had been up until now. He hadn't realized she got tired.

"Ok, yeah. I mean, I wasn't planning on marching right over there and demanding she leave, I was just curious what that was all about."

No response came from the pack.

"Ok," Atyr continued. "I'm beat, time to sleep. So uh, goodnight I guess."

Still no response. He lay back down, wrapping his cloak about him once more, and with the greatest of pleasure, closed his exhausted lids. The world began to dissolve into the fractured beginnings of dreams.

"Atyr?"

"Hmmm?"

"Please don't let any more wolves almost eat you, ok?"

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Hey, thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Twelve will be up soon!

-ScryBells