Work Text:
“Ehehe...Three Trout Farm, eh?” Sera’s giggle sounded more like a cackle. “Do you really expect to accommodate this many soldiers with only three fish? Seems like kind of a shite place to camp.”
“Er…” Harding was stumped by how to explain that it was just a silly local name and there were plenty of fish to go around without sounding too condescending. Also, she was not completely sure Sera wasn’t making a joke and she had missed the punch line.
“Get it? Get it? Only three fish in the camp!” Sera started elbowing Dorian in the ribs.
Her efforts were met with an eye roll and a gentle but unfriendly shove in return. “You are revolting,” Dorian muttered while stalking away toward the tent closest to the edge of the camp.
“Hilarious,” answered Inquisitor Cadash with flat inflection, her lips twitching in a faint smile in Harding’s direction.
Seeker Pentaghast had her nostrils flared and a deep frown on her severe features as she stood at the back of the group. The four travellers had looked rather worse for wear upon arrival, suggesting that they had probably been listening to Sera’s tasteless sense of humor for days out of a lack of anything else to entertain them on their journey.
“But what...oh.” Harding started, then the innuendo clicked and she loosed a short burst of laughter before she could stop herself. “Sorry,” she followed up quickly, feeling a faint redness creep across her face as a monstrous grin contorted Sera’s lips.
“See, she thinks it’s funny! The rest of you can go fuck a druffalo, Harding is my bestie now.”
“I don’t--” Harding started defensively, but Cadash’s guffaws drowned her out and continued to haunt her for several seconds as she and the Seeker moved toward the tents.
“Come on bestie, show me where the grub is.”
Suddenly alone with Sera, who threw one long arm around her shoulders to steer her toward the cookpot, Harding realized she always managed to crush on the worst people, it was really bad.
__
Harding was finishing her final check around the camp for the night, having been on rotation for first watch. The fire was burning low within the circle of tents, smoldering in the drizzle that had started up again just after sundown. Sera was still awake, sitting hunched over near the fire trying to revive it with some pokes from an arrow that was clearly broken beyond repair. While her bedroll was appealing, she hesitated at the tent flap and decided to join Sera instead. Harding looked forward to the rare times work allowed her to cross paths with the cute elf girl, and she couldn’t waste a chance to try to spend some time with her. Or maybe flirt a little. The rumors suggested that Sera wouldn’t be averse to a friendly flirt. Probably.
“Mind if join you?” Harding stood in the faint glow, unsure of what to do with her hands.
“Go ahead,” Sera answered, gesturing to the other side of the rotting log the camp had been using as a bench, but stood to leave. “I was just going to bed anyway. It’s too wet out here.”
Harding was disappointed and shifted her weight from foot to foot, debating if it would be awkward to change her mind and go to her own tent. Sera dropped her broken arrow and stretched her arms above her head, a rip in the bodice of her tunic accidentally causing her to show off rather more of her breasts that was decent.
“I could fix that for you,” Harding blurted out, trying to excuse herself from staring, for Sera had surely noticed that she was eye level with the exposed nipple. She pointed awkwardly at the rip, carefully training her eyes on Sera’s left ear instead.
“What?” Sera looked down as if she’d just noticed her clothing wasn’t completely intact. “Oh, that. Happened yesterday when we were fighting a bear. Not much good with needles.”
“I’m no tailor, but I can mend a rip well enough,” Harding said with a smile, glad that Sera didn’t seem bothered by the trajectory of her gaze.
“Brilliant.” Sera’s shirt was off in a blink. It dropped on her head before Harding could even utter a word of protest that her mending kit was in her tent. Sera folded her arms over her small breasts, dropping back down onto the log.
Harding pulled the shirt off her head and held it awkwardly. “Um...I’ll be right back.” She turned and marched toward her tent, taking a deep breath and grabbing a blanket along with her kit. Was this is a strange and overly forward type of flirting? Harding didn’t know all that much about romance with elves. Or all that much about Sera.
Once she had recovered her composure, Harding hurried back to rejoin Sera, immediately pulling the blanket around her skinny shoulders. “So you don’t freeze your tits off in the meantime,” Harding answered Sera’s raised eyebrow with a small blushing smile.
Sera’s appeared to be mulling over her gesture as Harding settled in and started digging around for an appropriate color of thread. She was uncharacteristically quiet for a few moments, watching Harding work through narrowed eyes. Eventually Harding began to hum softly, the scrutiny making her nervous about what Sera might be thinking.
“I think I know that one,” Sera blurted out. She started to sing, perhaps a little too loudly for a sleeping camp, “Seven dragons and a baby sitting in their nest…uh...the baby dances round the dragons while they take their rest, the baby understands the danger, knows he must be careful, and if he is successful then the dragons make him waffles!”
Sera did not have a great singing voice and Harding bit down on her tongue to keep from laughing too loudly. “I don’t think that’s how it goes!”
“No, no, it does! Listen,” Sera protested and kept singing in the same off key tune, “Seven dragons and a baby marching on the town
The villagers are fearful, but the baby calms them down,
Explains to them he understands that dragons can be awful,
But if they want some breakfast, yes, the dragons make them waffles!
Seven dragons and a baby sitting on their thrones,
The anteroom before them filled with rags and skulls and bones,
A townsman stands before them and insists this is unlawful,
The dragons kill the townsman and the baby makes them waffles!”
Harding couldn’t help her squawk of laughter this time, and she dropped her sewing things in her lap to clap enthusiastically.
Someone in a nearby tent yelled, “Shut up!”
Harding and Sera both clapped hands over their mouths and looked at each other with mirth in their eyes. “I guess we should be a bit quieter,” Harding whispered as she went back to her task.
“I heard a dwarven fairytale once.” Sera started to recite quietly, in a choppy sing-song, “Mindless he wanders, all unawary, where small dwarven should not tarry…something something...your eyes are shining, bright and something.” She grinned at Harding across the small space between them.
“Not bad, but I don’t think unawary is a word,” Harding laughed softly as she finished up her work on Sera’s tunic.
“Yeah, but it sounds better.” Sera pulled the blanket more tightly around herself, a slight shiver running through her body.
“Done!” Harding held up her handiwork for Sera to inspect, which she merely glanced at and stuffed under the blanket.
After some rummaging, Sera emerged fully clothed and took a longer look at the stitching in the dying light of the fire. “This is great, thanks. I owe you more than a dumb fairy story.”
“It wasn’t anything, really.” Harding collected her things and moved to stand. “My pleasure,” she added as an afterthought, hoping to convey that she enjoyed their time together.
“That could be arranged.” Sera’s hands fluttered uncertainly in the faint drizzle that had started up again. “Um...I could eat you out? If you want? I don’t wanna take my clothes off again, too much damp and cold for anything else.”
Harding’s thoughts of getting ready for bed stuttered to a halt. “Did you just…?”
“Yeah,” Sera replied quickly. “That’s why you’ve been, like, staring at my tits all night, right?
“Well, yes...if you want to, I would like that very much,” Harding managed to get out despite feeling rather tongue-tied and more than a bit dumbfounded that for once her ill-advised affections were being reciprocated.
“Score,” Sera replied with a grin, throwing the blanket off onto the ground before tugging on Harding’s leathers. “Let’s go somewhere more private.”
‘Private’ did not really translate in a small outpost like this, but Harding wasn’t about to risk dampening Sera’s enthusiasm now. Sera dragged her along to the edge of camp and behind the caved in house where a little crumbling wall held its own against the elements.
“Private-ish, yeah?” Sera said hopefully. She was fiddling with Harding’s clothes and trying to kiss her but mostly missing due to the awkward height difference.
“Here...stop, stop, it’ll go faster if I do it,” Harding protested between fumbled kisses. She batted Sera’s hands away and deftly started undoing the laces of her breeches before working on the buckles of her vest and boots. Partially unclothed, she was pale enough to almost glow in the weak moonlight. Sera was looking her over, clearly fascinated by something.
“Never seen a buck naked dwarf before?” Harding teased, taking a quick, girlish twirl on her toes. The air was cool enough to make her nipples pebble under her thin shirt; the sensation was a little exciting rather than bothersome.
“Not a lady one. You have freckles on your bum,” Sera giggled as she poked some of them with one finger. “Are they everywhere?”
Harding lifted her top up and gestured around her torso to demonstrate. “Pretty much, yeah.” She pulls the fabric back down over her stomach, a bit too chilly to go completely naked outdoors. At least the infernal drizzle had stopped for a while.
“Mm...nice.” Sera penned her in against the wall, crouching low to finally get a proper kiss. “You should sit up on this or I’ll be too tall.”
Harding complied, hopping up on the wall with her legs spread and using her arms to help balance as she leaned back. The surface was damp and cold under her bare buttocks, but at least the rocks were worn smooth and relatively comfortable. Sera was settling on her knees, already kissing along Harding’s thigh, with one slender hand holding loosely onto one of her ankles as a counterbalance.
With Sera’s incredibly skilled tongue, it didn’t take long for Harding to be teetering on the edge of orgasm, attempting to stifle her moans by biting her lower lip almost hard enough to bruise. She was so close, her thighs taut and toes flexing toward the ground. Her efforts to avoid making too much noise in the cramped camp were failing with the increasing rhythmic speed of Sera’s tongue around her clit. Naturally, that’s when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye and it took a moment for her to register it was Seeker Pentaghast, probably making her rounds for second watch. Harding grabbed Sera’s hair to stop her, but the Seeker had already continued on her way, a disgusted “ugh” floating back to Harding’s ears.
“Whassat?” Sera grumbled, shifting between her knees. “Oy, Cass, you want in on this or what?” she called belatedly when she realized what had caused the interruption.
Someone yelled “shut up!” from inside one of the tents, the same voice as before. Harding started laughing, muffling the sound with the palm of her hand. Sera was grinning up at her, using her deft fingers to quickly get her off without any more teasing. Feeling rather boneless, Harding dropped off the wall while Sera handed over her breeches and underthings. After dressing haphazardly and cramming her feet into her boots, Harding held on lightly to Sera’s elbow as they strolled back to the tents.
“That was fun, yeah?” Sera sounded hopeful with a hint of self confidence, which Harding was happy to indulge. Sera did have a very nice tongue.
“Definitely,” Harding agreed as she opened the flap to her tent. “You can share with me, if you want.”
“Alright, as long as you don’t care I got cuntbreath.” Sera punctuated this with a rude gesture and dived straight into Harding’s bedroll.
Well, this is going to be such a fairytale romance, Harding thought as she paused at the flap to kick off her boots, a courtesy Sera seemed to have forgotten.