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It comes as no surprise that the Upper City is the first to be rebuilt. Minthara saw its utter destruction with her own two eyes; had ridden the earth as it split and rose beneath her feet, cracked open like a skull as the brain spilled out of it. Yet, just under six months later, the ground still shows deep scars, but the High Hall stands anew, and mansions crop up around it like a mushroom circle.
Pragmatic. The rabble need strong leadership in this time of remediation, a glittering city on a hill to look up upon in inspiration, avarice, and fear. The notion that leaders— nobles , even—should roll about in the muck with the masses is hideous iblith nonsense. If all are equal, then none are above nor below, and the very balance of a society unravels. A clenched fist guides; a loose hand drops.
Iblith pretend, but they believe it all the same. They only lack the spine to properly enforce the status quo.
Advisory on such is the service Minthara provides in the shadows, these days.
One day, she will march upon Menzoberranzan and usurp her mother. For now, she attends town hall meetings in the blasted light of day, posing as a passionate new citizen, and at night, she meets with the unscrupulous counsellors and surviving patriars of Baldur’s Gate in the backrooms of flophouses and brothels.
For the most part.
One scrupulous counsellor, she meets not only in the light of day, but in the woman’s own domain.
Florrick’s office is smaller than her esteem would afford her, as the most trusted advisor to the city’s beloved, dewormed Grand Duke, and its broad windows face the stinking heap known as the Lower City, rather than the idyllic park and bay that offices on the other side of the hallway overlook. That is by preference, Florrick insists when Minthara insults it, not an oversight.
How humble , Minthara thinks, turning from the window to face the woman, herself. In Menzoberranzan, she would never dare turn her back on such a tepid ally, but even after discounting how cowardly iblith are in regards to back-stabbing, she finds Florrick particularly self-contained. How embarrassing.
Behind her desk, Florrick is straight-backed as ever, her arms crossed across her chest, chin held high enough that she still manages to look down her elegant nose on Minthara, even from an inferior seated position.
That the counsellor dislikes her is no news nor any mystery; Minthara did, after all, order the raid on Waukeen’s Rest that stole away the Grand Duke for the Absolute… and nearly burned Florrick herself alive. That Florrick seems to hold the former against her still, but not the latter, has been a point of intrigue ever since their private meetings began.
And it is intrigue, really, that makes and keeps these appointments. They have little actual business to discuss; Florrick allowed a devil to whisper in her ear once, and seems staunchly avowed never to do so again, and Minthara is busy enough with officials who are actually willing to parley with the likes of her.
But of course, neither of them would admit that theirs are more or less social calls, inasmuch as they involve ‘socializing.’
Florrick does not like her, and that feeling is essentially mutual, but…
Minthara chuckles, and Florrick’s dark eyes follow the sway of her hips as she approaches. Without breaking her stride, she hooks her shoe around the leg of Florrick’s chair and yanks it out from under the desk, sending it and Florrick still perched in it skittering backward a few feet, scraping the brand new tile floor.
Her breath catches slightly as she catches herself from falling off, but Florrick does not flinch or drop her gaze, but instead uncrosses her arms and ankles. She relaxes .
She does not like Minthara, or appreciate her input regarding her beloved city in town halls, and she is not afraid of Minthara.
Quite the contrary, actually.
Minthara grins as she callused palms rasp the sateen skin of Florrick’s perpetually-exposed thighs, guiding them apart, making room for herself to kneel between them. She slides her hands all he way up from knees to hips, where her fingertips sink deep into the perpetually-exposed meat of her flanks, and her thumbs trace the lines of her perpetually-exposed smallclothes.
And they are very small, to boot.
The ensemble had been an enigma, a seemingly bizarre choice for a stuck-up bureaucrat,... but, that’s failing to account for the fact that the stuck-up bureaucrat is still woodfae: stoic, humorless, dreadfully dull, yes, but—whorish. Loose, where she can find the liberty to be so in this city and its government dominated by prudish humans and high-elves.
When one lives a life discordant to their true nature, Minthara has long since concluded, it tends to bubble out in odd ways. Such is her assumption regarding the good counsellor—the good counsellor, uncorrupted even after several decades working alongside the same slimy creatures Minthara meets in the sinful night; the wood elf in the big city, the wizard —and her whorish dress.
In accordance with her kind’s nature, Florrick is reserved, but not shy; composed, but not patient. She does not mewl or demur at the attention because her kind are unabashed about sharing flesh, and so she only leans back in her seat and slides forward at the hip, pressing into the contact, encouraging and expectant.
Even without the hand that cards into her hair and pulls her closer, Minthara would have leaned in to bury her face in the warm, tender hollow of her pelvis. There, she smells like a citrus soap beneath a day’s musk, earthy and womanly, mouth-watering. If Minthara took a bite, the mark would be visible to all who cared to look the next time Florrick walked her beloved, filthy streets in her beloved, whorish dress.
But, Florrick does not like to be marked—as is her nature, she will not be possessed by any one man or woman, which is a shame; she would make a pretty pet, indeed. And so Minthara settles for testing the delicate skin with her lips and tongue only, reserving her teeth for picking at the leather strap of her thong.
Through weeks of careful cataloging, however, Minthara has determined which boundaries Florrick will allow to be pushed, even if she will not permit them to be crossed. So she lets one hand wander upward, mussing velvet against the grain, until she finds the smooth jugular of Florrick’s throat—but she only manages to test the thudding pulse (aroused, not anxious) beneath one fingertip before Florrick snatches her wrist.
Perhaps next time, then.
And there will be a ‘next time’, whether or not either of them would admit it aloud.
By virtue of sheer proportion—Florrick towers an unwieldy head taller than Minthara, on the rare occasions they stand side by side—Florric’s hand is larger, her fingers long enough to overlap as they encircle even Minthara’s battle-thickend wrist; and she’s not as pathetically under-conditioned as most wizards, so her grip is strong enough to make the joint underneath it creak.
Minthara is much stronger, of course; she could break Florrick’s grip, wrist, elbow, and neck in a singular motion, without expending so much as a grunt of exertion, a fact both of them know well.
But that is much of the allure. Florrick will not be cowed, even in the face of a vastly superior opponent; she surrenders no more quarter to Minthara in a tryst than she does in debate, even though Minthara’s victory will come to pass, in both regards, in the end.
So, Minthara could resist as Florrick shoves her backward; could catch herself, rather than falling to lie flat on her back like a slattern; could sweep Florrick’s ankles as she rises to stand on one foot, then the other, to shuck her knee-high boots; could shove Florrick away as she comes to straddle her waist, or punch her in the teeth, or engage her in a leglock and reverse their positions.
But instead, she reaches again for the smooth, generous expanses of her thighs as Florrick reaches for the cinches and hooks-and-eyes hidden underneath her bodice.
It’s unnecessary, of course; the woman’s cunt is hardly inaccessible, even when she purports to be ‘fully clothed’, but Florrick does not need to explain that she longs to feel the warm sun-ray flitting through the window on her skin, just as much as she longs for Minthara’s mouth. Minthara knows her kind.
And it makes for a good show, besides: more and more bronze skin, more curves, more shifting muscle and bone revealed as each inch of the tight bodice is peeled away. It has boning sewn in—gods forbid Florrick deign to wear a brassiere—so her breasts fall out freely like plump raindrops as she wrangles the garment up and over her ribs, and jiggle prettily as she frees her arms at last, their rich brown tips tight and pebbled already.
Florrick is not nearly as old as Minthara, but she is mature, nor is she battle-hardened; thus, her body is plush all over, such that anywhere Minthara reaches—belly, ribs, back, arms, ass —she can sink her fingertips deep into her flesh. But Minthara particularly admires her thick hips and thighs (and perhaps they are Florrick’s favorites as well, considering her refusal to wear clothing that hides them). Kneeled, the muscles in her thighs are firm, drawing her skin taut like a drum, but the fattier flesh along the sides remains pliant—perfect hand-holds for Minthara to tug, beckoning Florrick to bring her still-(barely)-covered cunt closer.
She obeys, slinking forward until her core is hovering expectantly over Minthara’s face, and cards the fingers of one hand again into Minthara’s hair, gripping it by the roots. She may be in the dominant spatial position, but she is at Minthara’s mercy, beseeching.
She will not beg . Like Minthara, Florrick is a woman used to barking orders and being heeded on the basis of sheer superiority; and she is a gentlewoman, but not particularly gentle. So she does not wait even for Minthara to pull her thong aside before rolling her hips, grinding downward, seeking Minthara’s proud nose and chin. Minthara permits it—savors it, even, the heat and the heady scent and the beginnings of slickness seeping through the gusset (it is cotton, unlike the straps—the woman has some sense).
She is ravenous, her own cunt throbbing under her clothing, and so she does not delay further before hooking a finger into the tiny garment and exposing her to Minthara, alone.
Positioned as they are, Minthara can see nothing but bronze skin, cocooning her from above and each side. The skin sandwiching her cheeks is tacky with the dew of a fresh sweat; it’s all Minthara can smell, mixed in with arousal and the dregs of that soap, and it’s so appealing that Minthara cannot help but seek out the crease between Florrick’s vulva and thigh. She takes a huff so deep that she can taste that succulent skin, even before she lashes out her tongue and takes a long, broad swipe. Teasing, if only to feel the impatient twitch in the muscles caging her face, and the tightening of Florrick’s strong grip on her roots, almost enough to hurt.
Florrick does not want to hurt her—not really.
The woman has charisma, Minthara would concede that, but she’s too virtuous, too straightforward, too dull —or else Minthara would worry she’d fallen for a honey pot. She’ll set this city ablaze before she ever sees the inside of its prison cells, yet week after week, she all but flings herself into a trap of silky thighs and sweet cunt.
But Minthara knows that the Grand Duke only ordered Florrick to monitor her—not to ride her tongue.
The notion makes her grin devilishly around the tongue she allows to lull out like the beast they all think her to be. She does not give, at first, so Florrick takes, rutting down, forcing Minthara’s tongue between her folds, guiding it by way of her grip on her hair until it’s coated in slick.
Minthara does not like to be idle for long, however, and so she waits just until she hears a frustrated huff, until it’s apparent that Florrick needs her contribution, after all, to seize control.
Florrick will accept Minthara’s pleasure, but not her offers to assassinate even her dear friend Ravengard’s detractors; will permit Minthara to pull her hair or pin her down, but will not permit her to rustle up a herd of kobold slaves to assist with the rebuilding effort, even for her beloved, stinking heap of a city; will turn her back and bare her throat on Minthara, bare and unguarded against the teeth that will not bite her because she does not like to be bitten, but, interestingly enough… it does so seem that any time Minthara sinks them into anyone else—a less scrupulous counsellor, a snivelly patriar—a Flaming Fist squadron follows the next week with search warrants, preventing her from leaving a mark there, too.
It does not have the same panache as the deadlier rivalries she suffered and enjoyed in Menzoberranzan. Florrick is a threat to her power, but not to her life.
But perhaps there is something to be said for a rival who will rub her back after emerging victorious—woodfaeries and their ‘aftercare’—rather than bury a knife in it.