Entertain Me (Aello)

[Amatus]

Summer 70 512AV
The Silver Sliver Tavern

"Wait, don' tell me. Lemme guess." the voice carved through the tavern to his busty company with relative ease. The tables were abuzz with insect wings flapping near his ear, the bottomless drone of chatter that lined his thoughts and played to the lively scenery. The room was a current, an easy comparison to the flowing canal within view through the swinging door.

Cupped palms clapped against the wooden knots of the bar with an accompanied declaration "I've got it!" Amatus' index rose and aimed toward the puffed chest in a dipping neckline. It was his day off, yet here he was exactly as he had been behind the counter. Slipping honey to flies and reveling in the fruit bore of his efforts.

The brunette with sharpened arrow pointed at her heart bubbled like toppled champagne. A tousle of bouncing ringlets and painted cheeks rose with airy giggle in the beehive. "Already? Are you sure?"

He nodded vigorously as he sipped upon her neglected drink wincing through a familiar burn struck through his trunk. The swallow and subsequent pant were exaggerated and slack. He inclined toward her shadowed by a view of shapely white opals peeking from behind a pink casket. "Tea with honey, cinnamon-" he chomped at his lip, squinted at her with some illusion of straining thought "and ginger, yes?"

Fresh laughter cooed with her roving fingers sweeping against his arm. "How did you know?"

"Ahhh but mi' lady, a gentlemen must never reveals trade secrets." his laugh was echoed by the tin mug before his mouth. The truth was, it was uncomplicated, no secrete at all. All that he required was to lean toward her glistening bosom to catch the scent of tea leaves and spices. A fickle guess to ginger deducted from a flailing hint that most ales left her nauseous. It was his job after all to find understanding in those that swung through the door and purchased his services. He had been taught well, raised in a similar setting.

A gracious nod through his mouthful of silver was all it took to keep her chattering. Even with his rootless scrutiny over the room, she assumed him to be listening. Such a man would never be one to neglect his company, would he? So she would think, and so he would have her think. He was bored with her already, ready to lead her to bed and put good use to such a restless mouth. He wound his way into her bed of curls, her shoulders rising as he grazed her neck, her speech stuttered and resumed as he continued to nod with full view down her sliding top.

"Amatus? Amaaatus!" The whine pulled him back to her pouted and playful expression.

"Yes, what is it?" her locks coiled and sprung from his hand where he lazed fingertips over her protruding collar bone.

"I asked if you wanted another drink. Your cup is empty." It is indeed. he joked inwardly, a smile tugging the corners of his mouth for a reason other than politeness.

"Please." metal scrapped over the wood into her waiting reach.

She was such a cute girl picking seed from his palm, ruffling her feathers with a thrust out chest. He was nothing if not entertained by her efforts to return his seduction. Still it was lackluster, pitiful even to fall prey so easily, he had only to bat his sinuous lashes in her direction and she fell into a pit of steely gray.

She returned only moments later, a fresh glass politely fell into his grasp, while he roamed over the doorway for a more inviting sight to tiptoe within sight. She sat beside him, slinking into cracks of creaking floor boards with sticky mop water and dust. She quietly observing his noticeable loss of interest her eyes trailing his lifting glass, determined not to budge until he himself was removed from their conversation. A damsel befitting a proper social burial.

[Aello]

Aello sat in the corner always favored. The table where everything went down. Like a quicksand drawing her under the surface; swallowing her sanity whole. Her fleeting sense of safety. Perhaps that's why she kept her weapons so close. Stacked on the table; save for the twin daggers strapped to her thighs. The sight of them obscured by the shapely sweep of her legs, and the strands of fabric that drizzled over muscles rippling beneath a bed of milky white flesh. Even though the cursed lined her skin with unsightly goose flesh; had a touch so cold, that it was enough to make her tremble, even after all this time. Some things never do change, Aello thought to herself as she folded her hands over her middle, and allowed her eyes to graze. Only to find that there wasn't a single shard of grass that looked any greener than that right before her very eyes. Disheartened, Aello returned her gaze to her table, and pushed back her seat. Within an instant, her feet had settled down alongside her weapons, and her chair had tilted back a fraction of an inch. She shook her head lightly as she made herself comfortable. Awaiting the time in which one of the maids would come to take her order. No. Some things never do...

[Amatus]

His sweep of the room was listless. He followed too easily things that drew the eye, the bustling maids freckling floors with armfuls of drink pressed to their centers. It was upon another lap across the room that his eyes crept into the corner. What pulled him at first was the weapon placed as centerpiece upon a desolate looking table. No drink or meal was visible, only the girl tilting in her seat so heels scuffed the table's legs. His throaty hum perked the sulking girl at his side. She straightened in her seat and smoothed the crumpled hem of her dress. He made a sideways glance toward her as he downed the last of the drink she had fetched.

The girl in the crook of the room was obviously being neglected shadowed under the supports of the second floor. It was enough to peak his interest and pull him over the uncharted waves of earthy brown. Amatus rose with a stretch of calves that hardened beneath his weight. To the girl at his right he offered a sympathetic kiss to her forehead and nothing else before parting her side. Bigger and better fish, it was always a comfortable excuse. He was hardly asked to explain further than that.

A feather light gait led him to Aello's table. His hand uncurled across her tabletop so he could lean with ankles crossed and a cock of friendly alabaster. If she was troubled by his brash intrusion he hardly noticed or consciously decided to brush it off in favor of the thought that he could win her over. “Good afternoon Miss." a crooked tilt of lips matched his leaning gaze. "The daft maids seem to have neglected you. It's so very impolite of them." with a shake of his head he craned over his shoulder to direct him comments better toward the girls that were paying the both of them no mind. “They would lose their heads, I’m sure, if they were not so firmly cast into place. I offer my apologies on their behalf.”

"This happens to be my day off, but for you I'll freely extend my service." his shameless scan across her garbed cambers was disguised as a downward glance. Had he seen her before? He wasn't sure. Perhaps his own judgments had drifted right over her on some other day he spent occupied behind the counter. With sweetened and petite features she seemed smaller than she probably was from his stance over her. "What can I get you?"

[Aello]

A single brow rose into a high arch. A mountain, lined by furrowed shadow. Darkness, dripping down cascading rock. "You wished to share a table?" Aello inquired, the edges of her lips curling to the likes of a fancier mustache. "Or try to pin another against a wall as your pants just so happen to slip?" There was a pause as the girl's arms drew away from her middle, and slid onto the arms of her chair. She leaned a little further back, almost casually, as though her words were not meant to insult. As though he weren't the easiest book to read, even without the aid of her magic. "And the seams of her skirts happen to rip?" Inwardly, Aello chuckled as a single foot waggled on the table, as though denoting her impatience. "Now as for those impudent maids, as you seem so keen to refer to them, haven't changed over the seasons past. Perhaps their faces, perhaps their rather unsightly forms, but not their manner." There was a slight pause, "they've always been slow. Strung up in a web. For each seems drawn to the silver silk woven by inebriated patrons, beginning to forget their names, and everything else about their pitiful lives." Again, the girl paused, as she raised a single hand, and drew it over her arched brow, willing it to settle back into her features. "Or perhaps they simply allow themselves to become tangled within the web of hands. Lost to the inky obscurity cast by limbs the shape of tentacles. Suctioned into the cups in the hopes that from one may sprout a single tip. A token of appreciation... and no my dear, it is not to that tip that is being referred. Although, I'm sure you'd like to think so." "Now," Aello began again as her feet slid off the table, and stomped onto the ground. Her body coming forward with the momentum, her arms sliding back down, elbows settling onto knees, as she leaned into the table. Hands careening off the edge. "Would you like to recant that heartfelt apology, littered with the dirt and grime swallowed from the bed beneath your nails? Or rather, the dark pits buried beneath the shimmering silver ale? That hidden within the deepened creases of ill-cleaned mugs and pitchers?" With eyes gleaming threateningly, Aello drew the only pure weapon she carried: the blade strapped to her left thigh. Within a heartbeat, she was casually twirling it between the tips of her fingers as she leaned back in her seat. Her right hand coming onto the rest as her legs came forward, and she leaned into her stance all the more. For her, this was child's play. "Now... as for what you could do... why don't you begin by wiping the sickening sheen of sheer grime from your visage before digging deep," Aello instructed, her voice icy, yet playful. "Unless you'd prefer I do it for you." She smiled wickedly. "Not to worry though, it's not all that difficult to handle a dagger," she finished, before giving a final, flourishing sweep of her wrist, which twisted the blade so that its point was directed towards her flesh. A twirl which ended in a dive, which made it seem as though she would sever herself, as opposed to the table, which she drove it into. Nearly cutting the string of her bow, as it slammed. Resting, point imbedded in wood, with a hollow thwunk. With heart hammering from the newfound excitement; a fresh player for one of her little games, the aurist couldn't help but smile as her thumb danced over the hilt. Waiting for the fool to make his next move.

[Amatus]

With assiduous forbearance he allowed her to finish, wading through the twines of her own skillfully hewed sentences. It was a surprise to be rebutted in such a manner, his own brazenness of approach seemed juvenile compared to the reprimand he received. His ale sodden tongue slipped over fangs and gums, corners of a sealed entry sliced across his cheeks. She was challenging him with every word, each lovelier than the former that he may not have even caught her implication if he had chosen to glaze over from the beginning.

A short pause filled with a mute snigger trailed. "Oh I see." he opened a loitering laugh curdling the serious sentiment he meant to convey. It would take more to dissuade him, the flames of his confidence were fanned often and though he did not take well to insult, his ego was bruised by profounder relations. He was not alarmed yet, despite her ornate blade work. Only as the knife-edge grazed his bobbing throat would he offer her a whimper of discomfort. "Am I so disgusting, as frivolous as the wasting maids?" he eyed her entrenched dagger, and followed her fingers back up to her face. "Worse even for hoping for the dismemberment of clothing?" had she noticed him at the bar, or was she deducting that all who approached her were eager to lurch up her skirt. Not to say he was not there for that exact intention. What could be gained in life without pleasure? "No, if attire is to be lost it will be by pooling about their ankles or bunching to their navel," his smile widened and digits drummed across his swollen bottom lip. "Willing and begging."

He huffed, helping himself into the seat opposite her, sagging in his stool with exaggerated exasperation. Elbows folded before him like a longtime friend settling in after a day full of strife. "Never the less, all I say is from the heart." His fingers fiddled with her bow's dismembered thread. He curved it along the winding timber with sanded talons as he watched its path. "You can count my apology genuine if not tainted by the grit of my nail beds." His made a sucking sound, a wet hiss to exaggerate an offensive habit of masticated nails. "If you choose not to accept my words then I suppose they will float in open air, for I will not swallow them back down."

He reached to a neighboring table from his seat a groan to accompany his stretch. From the table he pulled a nearly bare pitcher, raising it to examine the bulk's bottom dotted by lent and table crumbs. "I suppose you’re right though, the pitchers are ill-cleaned, but one seems not to notice by the end of a pitcher."

The glass clinked against the table wobbling a short-lived ballet across the surface with his flimsy placement. "So, are you here for a clearer view of the grime or would you like a drink from a soiled glass to quench your thirst." cerulean rounds affronted her for the first time since he seated himself, curious for her reply.

[Aello]

"Ah, is that what you call it then?" Aello asked, her tone betraying her displeasure. Her knuckles growing white as her grip hardened around the hilt. They rippled unpleasantly, as her muscles threatened to uncoil; as her bones worked beneath her paling flesh. "Inebriated maidens which could scarcely be called more than simple whores bending to your will?" she asked. "Quite literally." The girl laughed rather wickedly as a satisfied smirk crossed her lips. "Is it because you know you can't have anyone worthwhile? A girl who isn't spilling over from excess of drink?" There was a slight pause as the tips of her fingers drummed against the hilt, waiting. Her dark eyes hardening, flashing with the twisted pleasure taunting provided. "Considering the faded matt of your hair. Your eyes, covered in a thin sheen that makes you appear blind. Rosy cheeks against paler skin; as though you had descended into your sister's make up case, and fiddled around with a bit of blush." Her lips curled all the more. "And as for your form... it's hardly more than yellowing skin strewn over sinew and knob-ended bone. Which leaves one to wonder if you have anything to speak of. If you know what is being referred to." Inwardly laughing, the girl offered a playful wink as she yanked her dagger from the table, and forced herself to listen to the last of Amatus' blathering before getting to her feet. For a moment, Aello stood towering over the man, before she moved a little closer. Easing her right leg onto his own. With bent knee she leaned into him. Her dagger swinging around and easily, sliding across his throat. Right below the bobbing apple. With eyes as dark as mudslides she stared into him. "Dear stranger, haven't you learned to take a hint?" she asked, as she moved the dagger a little closer to his quivering flesh, and inched her free hand up his chest. Trailing it onto his shoulder, where it rolled lazily onto his back, and then back onto his pectoral muscle for a moment, before she forced it to move again. "Don't you know that no lady can ever truly be interested in the likes of you? That they only want what little resides in your pockets, save the lint that must be piling up in the corners." Aello paused, as her hand slid back up his chest slowly. Her fingers coming together, as her hand curled into a crescent and drove up his neck. Stopping only when she had cupped his cheek, and molded against the underside of his chin. She leaned in a little closer as her thumb danced across the hilt. "Haven't you been paying attention?" Aello asked. "Haven't you heard the stories, my dear boy, of what happens to the men who ignore a woman's wishes? Who choose to gamble with those who can handle a blade?" Her eyes trailed down his body, to the space across from her knee. She cast the area a fleeting glance, before reeling her eyes back up, and into Amatus' own. "Haven't you learned what happens to a man when he tries to persuade a real Ravokian woman into his bed? To slip between the sheets with him, as other layers are torn away? Exposing the mold that lies below? Fleshy pillows which could so easily be carved and whittled away into nothing." Smiling wickedly, she leaned in a little closer, her thumb now trailing across his cheek, brushing the corners of his pale lips. "Dear boy, do you have any idea what you're dealing with? Just what sort of things would occur if you were to be considered a new object for my bed?" Aello twisted the blade a little, so that it ran down. Sloping upwards from her form, which was inching even closer. Her lips mere inches from his. Her warm breath bouncing off his flesh; more than likely growing warm from their proximity. She could smell his too, the scent of rancid meat and ale lingering in the air between them. Disgusted, her thumb jerked, bunching skin onto a high rise. The not so delicate slope of a cheek bone. Her head shot forward, coming against his ear. Her cheek pressing into a bed of fair hair. "Do you want to know a secret?" she asked, as her tongue brushed up against the underside of the lobe. The soft curve. The only flesh which hung from him. "Of what happens when paths cross? And limbs tangle?" Aello would wait but an instant before continuing. "A woman always knows what a man wants." Her hand trailed down his cheek, past his neck, where it settled upon his heart. She could feel it beating through his flesh; his bony rib cage. "Just as it is known now that if we were to lean, your tongue would venture past lips, trying to come at its twin. Trapping it... but it wouldn't end there if you had your way would it?" she taunted. "No, you'd want more... to follow the folds of skirts. Inch up the lines until there was nothing left. Just two quivering bodies." She snickered, as she drew away to look him in the eyes. "But that won't happen. Just as you won't be keeping your tongue if you try." She pulled her hand off his chest, and set it at her side. "If you are not one to believe, then you may give it a try... it'd be fun to see how far you got, before it fell before mine."

[Amatus]

Frore metal nestled against his windpipe, hushing him with the wielder’s nefarious siren song. Chiseled accents of color flaunted with a swinging door, trinkets of topaz and emerald glimmered between squinting lids and a fluff of lash with her invasion. Her caress was as threatening as it was subduing. Fear and arousal brewed in a shared vat until they whisked into one and he was unable to distinguish the two. With a swallow the blade stirred, shaving untended fuzz from his throat.

"Your insinuations are all too understated fair maiden." his laugh had mutated, nerves shook it. He should have kept his mouth barred, he knew too well. Even in the face of trepidation it seemed he would quip to the end. He grunted and averted from her glower as she prolonged, still strapped to his chair against her restraining limbs. If this was true he would have been left time and time again, he had no real coin to speak of. Still the comments played their anticipated part, prodding upon his insides where it would fester, clinging to a rotted self-image covered by praise.

Aello's tale of women's wishes, true Ravokain women, it was all too poetic for his tastes, acrimonious and self-righteous as if she knew anything about him. He scoffed at the idea, where she dove into seduction with fickle arguments that pumped blood in heat waves across his flesh. Then a kiss? No, she was too rugged, too indelicate, but he was enjoying himself. He would not deny a savory taste of such a venomous mouth. She was coiled over him with fangs bared ready to impale into his collar. It was thrilling being hunted.

He fought the compulsion to wrap around her, wind his own tangle of limbs across her dipping waist. "Your aim was too dissuade I'm sure, but with such romanticism and such touch, do you not expect a man to envisage you sprawled beneath them? Your vile words silenced with a rhythm of drawing breaths." he smirked and rose to overshadow her though he had no skill that would fall into the same respect. "No I'm sure you would prefer to ride out your pleasure from a more upright position holding your voice as to not betray your enjoyment, you seem the type." he tucked pearly strands behind his moistened and simmering ear.

"I would never be such a brute as to force my will upon you or any other. If they bend to such a repugnant man, then they have only themselves to blame, not ale nor I." his hand pressed to the wall. "Have I laid one finger on you? It has not been I, straddled over loins whispering sweet conviction in a stranger's ear. So I wonder, who do you propose the true predator to be?" he nodded to her limped blade. "You certainly have your claws drawn.”

"If I am unusable and undesirable, then by all means, keep your legs overlapped and I will keep my meandering tongue behind my teeth. I came to you with no intent to insult or upset, and despite yourself, I am modestly and solely a hospitable host. What would you ask of me? Should I grovel at your feet or leave you here in your dejected corner waiting for the maids to find you, or would you accept what I came to offer." he straightened and submerged fingers from root to tip into white. "Otherwise, I am confused as to why you chose to perch in a place such as the Silver Sliver."

[Aello]

Aello's lips parted, as her cheeks scrunched, denoting a sense of amusement, as her pawn lost himself in her game. Her dagger slid up the length of his neck, until it was tucked neatly under his chin, forcing it up, so that he could peer into her deathly gaze. "My dear stranger, you have it all wrong. You're but a plaything, don't you know, that you'd be the one sprawled on your stomach. With legs drizzling over the edge of silken sheets. My body held high, behind yours, as this dagger remained poised. Waiting, for a time in which it could draw its bed." Inwardly she chuckled. "Dear stranger," she continued, as her free hand circled his thigh. Squeezing whatever flesh hung to ivory bone. "Any enjoyment to be derived would stem from this fine blade becoming rather acquainted with your taint. Putrid flesh; as it continues to slide in and out, even after all the blood has been wasted. Tasted by a single, ravenous, silver tongue." With that, her pointer finger unfurled, and came against his chin. Running from the base where her dagger held, to the tip, where there was a slight indentation of skin. "And as for force, well, it's quite the pleasure, when given the proper application..." "Although, something stirs within, suggesting that it's not something you'd be all too fond of," Aello wore on. "For although you may choose to force the urges down, and keep your hands away from rusted zippers, my hands are free to venture. Especially after the time in which one sticks out his neck. Offering but a chance to create that which should adorn a woman, no?" she asked, her brow rising again, as though in question. "How would you like one of the finest ruby necklaces? With stones that gleam like pearls?" Her finger fell, receding into the black. Her grip tightened, as she allowed her blade to circle, sliding down the length of his neck, but a fraction of a centimeter, before moving back up. "Until it grows old. Dries; turns to a matted crust. Not worth but a single lick." With murderous eyes she bore her gaze into him, as the edge of steel rose, threatening to split skin. "Dear stranger, it is too late for that. For offers, for apologies. For words to spare," Aello whispered. "You've ventured to another table, wedged yourself into a corner. And now, you belong to someone else. Your life dangles from a single thread, stretched tightly between the tips of her fingers." She smiled wickedly as she leaned a little closer. "How long do you think it would take for severance? For deliverance?" she asked, as her warm breath cascaded down his cheeks, billowing over the length of his swan like neck. "For one to toy with every piece in the chest?"

[Amatus]

The sharp edge returned as an unwelcome visitor threatening to crack a window into his windpipe. His breathing hitched, and he looked down upon his attacker, where he had been backed against a wall. Something was knocking. A hollow beat like crackling wood. Like a remembrance, perhaps a lie caving in, bleeding through tissue paper defenses. He fought to keep the walls erect and foolish worry at bay. The bartender abhorred the feel of it, clawing away at his temples. He had been aware of its presence, but never cared for things that would fail to benefit him. Something about the brunette’s threat, the curse in her stare that reflected the sight of his whitened skin in her pupils, and her weapons liking of tantalizing dermis had roused it. "Enough" he groaned wafting silk across his face. Amatus shuddered and abruptly flinched away, tossing his head to the side and dragging the blade with him. A bloodless grin formed from one dip of muscle to the other, his eyes sealed shut with noiseless displeasure.

There was a suspension between the sting and the blood filling the slice of what Aello may call his severance. Gooseflesh flecked along his arms, raising invisible hair to kiss the ceiling. His hand cupped over the shallow wound, velvet beads scrubbed upon salty palms. Amatus was too pale, his hair too white and his clothes too crisp, the roseate dye was out of place; a splash of paint across a pallid canvas. "Have you had your fill? Is this what it is to be your plaything? You slice them like fish. Quench a thirst that clamors about your salivating jowls." His voice smoothed and he straightened, letting his arms fall to his sides so strands of red could drizzle along his collar. “Acquire a slave then that may better befit your prerequisites. Torture them as you please by thrusting your tarnished blade into their ill-fated carcasses.” Trembling knuckles smeared a stain into his lip's corners displaying a veiled obscenity. “I am uninterested in becoming your sacrifice. Where you deal in torment, I prefer pleasure to accompany my pain. Your impression of a delightful time appears to vastly differ from my own." He coughed and a sting bristled with tugging cords.

The throbbing had served its purpose. No longer did his head brim with toppling contemplations. It was not enough for a thanks and he assumed nothing he would willing contribute would be a sufficient cost for this vicious girl. “What is your aim? Do you treat all strangers with such hostility? Insult them as such before even inquiring their name.”

He found the dagger he could picture more intimately now that it had delivered its love bite. There was too much blood upon it for it to be his. His gut flopped onto the muddy flooring, liquefying with consternation. "If you plan to kill me at least give me a title to put to my executioner."

[Aello]

"Enjoy?" Aello whispered, as she shook her head slowly. "Not truly. Drawing blood simply offers the profane to the spider god. Simply stirs a sense of passion and joy within the hearts of those with a greater sense of bloodlust." There was a pause as her free finger circled, "interests of present merely delve into the fleeting nature of this single life we all live. What comes in the realm beyond, what death is like should we feel the need to dwell as one of the world's specters. Ethereal hauntings." A soft yet slightly pained smile crossed the girl's lips. "It's interesting you should think there is pleasure derived in such simplistic pain," the girl shrugged. "That you should sever your own strings. No one has ever done that before. Dear stranger, you do make an interesting pet," she chided, as a gleam leapt into her eyes. Like a smoldering ember, waiting to be fanned into a larger flame. "Considering how little you seem to understand. The words that spew from your mouth. Words you seem so incapable of contemplating, let alone weaving into a sensible web," Aello continued, as her breath dripped down the edges of his chin. "But that's no matter. You're managing to keep up well enough for someone who will wind up in the bin." With that her lips curled into their previous smile, as her hands flitted over skin. Taking care not to smear the blood stains. "Who will never come to know a name, but merely a reputation, if you but think of that which is being held." The girl paused, allowing her words to sink in a little. "Which would allude to one acting in a certain manner, in most situations, would it not? At least, when they allow themselves to be known." Her head rolled to the side rather lazily, before coming back up, as she bunched her nose. Creating streaks of flesh across beds of til recently smooth white. The stench was getting to her. It forced her to back away, but hold the weapon there as she glared down at him. "Do you understand, stranger?" Aello asked.