The Sprite & the Fairyhunter:  Quality Time

 

Musical Interlude

 

He awoke to the sound of his lute being tuned and frowned with his eyes closed. The only being he knew of that would even bother to try and tune an instrument that was already magically perfect only did so when he had news that wasn’t going to make anyone happy. “I keep telling you that thing doesn’t NEED tuning,” Adrian tried to say, not opening his eyes.

What actually came out sounded more like “…keytln…thndunKNEEtnn…” Stupid magic sleep, he thought.

“I know,” he heard Olidammara reply, as if understanding him perfectly, “but the G string looked like it needed a little fiddling with. By the way, nice wife you’re wearing.” Adrian grinned slowly at the string double entendre, then forced his eyes open. He was still huge and Neena was laying on his chest under one of his hands with her arms stretched as best as she could around his neck, not unlike a necklace. “Don’t worry, she’s fine,” the god added. “She won’t wake up for at least another couple of hours. All that magic use…she must’ve been pretty worried about you.”

Adrian concentrated, trying focus enough to make sure the magic his wife had put into him to help heal him didn’t screw up his next sentence. “You must be, too, or you wouldn’t be tuning my lute again,” he finally managed, with minimal slurring.

The Laughing Rogue stopped tuning and finally looked right at Adrian. He leaned forward over the lute with a serious look on his face. “You’re getting a little too good at this. What happened to the fun-loving guy I taught to thwack people in the butt with a rapier?”

“That guy went for ice cream when the undead human bull came through the door and I haven’t seen him since.”

Olidammara sighed. “Not a lot of fun, is it?”

“Not as of late, no.”

“Yeah…sorry about that. It’s gonna get worse before it gets better, I’m afraid.”  

Adrian forced himself to a sitting position against the wall, cradling Neena in his arms like a baby as he did. “This is way beyond quality time now, isn’t it?” he asked.

Olidammara nodded solemnly and Adrian caught a shiver of panic. His god was NEVER this serious for this long. “Let me show you something.” He passed a hand over the wall opposite Adrian and suddenly, he was looking through it and the wall beyond it and the wall beyond that. Another wall had the same effect, but it seemed as though each wall was progressively at more of an angle than the next, making it impossible to see beyond 3 or 4 rooms.

Which was, in fact, what he was looking through. Another room, identical to his, but this time with Kaliea resting against the wall, along with another girl and a…bouncing badger? Past her was a strange looking man in tights with a lute that he was brandishing like a club in front of a troll while a dizzy looking sprite orbited his head. And just past them, he could see the Asperi he’d helped, or some other Asperi with a monstrous looking cleric…

“Maybe showing me stuff while I’m still a little magicked out is a BAD idea..” Adrian said slowly.

“No, you’re seeing things just fine. That really IS a half ogre cleric protecting the pretty pony and slinging holy feats all over the place. And, yes, that badger is really bouncing and no, I don’t know why that bard doesn’t stuff his tights, because WOW. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is this is a little bigger than you and Neena right now. You’re all heading toward something that I can’t quite explain right now.”

“Okay, THAT’S not good when your DEITY can’t explain what’s going on,” Adrian interjected.

“Not necessarily. There are times that I know what’s going on and just CAN’T explain to you.” Adrian relaxed a little until he added. “This just isn’t one of those times. Look, I don’t know where you’re headed, but I know I’m not about to let two of my favorite funlovers go into this without some decent protection. You’ve got the shiny turtle here (he gave a half smile and added “I’m KIDDING…shimmering TORTOISE, I KNOW!”), and you’ve got your lute and each other.” He paused a minute to think. “Still got that speed enchant on the sword?”

“Yeah.”

“Rapid shot on the bow?”

“Yeah.”

“Wife still shooting magic balls off the tips of her fingers?”

Adrian grinned. “Only when I hack her off.”

“So, like, all the time, then. She still got Frost & Flame?”

“Yeah.”

“Little sling with the electric shot?”

Adrian grinned and sang, “She’s got electric boooots, a mohair suuuit…”

“Y’know I read it in a maga-ZINNNNNE, oh, hoooo!” The two joined each other in song for a moment, then laughed, a good cleansing laugh that took the edge off.

“Okay, we needed that,” Olidammara admitted. “But seriously, try and be careful. I know that’s asking a lot of my favorite pratfall, but really, try and focus on staying lucky from here on out. I don’t know what you’re going to face, but the people you see (here he pointed to the “window” through the walls) are going to face it with you. I can’t speak for all of them, but I know they wouldn’t be here if some higher power didn’t think them capable of handling themselves. So,” he added, giving Adrian a wink, “don’t make your old man look bad, okay?”

“MY old man?” Adrian echoed, looking at him in shock.

Olidammara raised an eyebrow. “Hello? God of Trickery? It’s a joke!” He started to fade out, then added, “Although that COULD be true…your mom was a…”

Adrian narrowed his eyes. “I swear, if you EVEN THINK about saying…”

“…pretty decent romp in the sack, too…huh. I really have AMAZING taste in women!”

Adrian nearly hurled himself at the fading figure before remembering that he was holding his wife. Growling impotently, he shifted his mind back to the god’s warning to calm himself down. What WERE they up against? Would they even have a clue? And these other people…how did you fight well with people you didn’t know? Would they all have the same goal in mind or would they be the type willing to die for their faith?

At this point, the only life he was willing to sacrifice for his god was that of Olidammara himself…stupid gods living forever and doing my MOM!!!

 

 

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