Mature: Desert Moon

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad hesitated as he felt all the power drain from his body. He tried to make sense of her words. Obey, and survive. That had to mean that her pet creature was dangerous...right? Even magicless, he didn't feel all that threatened by the golem. He stared at it and could only see it as hope. It was real. It was here. Rescuing Tenele's memories was just a matter of gaining a chunk of this creature's stony flesh, and getting it back to Hajaria. "It has a poisonous bite...correct?" he murmured, sizing up the creature. A bite that could induce stiffening paralysis, almost like turning the victim to stone.

If he'd been a little less excited, just a bit less desperate, maybe he would have noticed something was wrong with this situation. But he only saw the locked gates and stern directions as signs that the creature was hard to control. Hardly a reason to worry.

[Emora Deen]

"That it does." Shehara sighed. Her voice had changed. It was less grating, and more musical. She lifted her head. Her face was smoother, younger, more beautiful. "Drakzim hek zaro," Lalana cursed out, smiling devilishly at her captive. The stone creature lurched out with his large hand to wrap it around Vlad's waist.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad was staring at Lelana too hard to notice the golem's hand until it had already trapped him. The massive stone fingers ground into him, dangerously close to snapping bones. He drew out his claws, his only defense that still worked, and thrashed against the creature's skin. The impact was jarring, and it didn't seem to damage the creature in the least.

"Lelana!" he growled, bracing his hands on the beast's knuckles and struggling to climb loose.

[Emora Deen]

Lelana laughed, clapping her hands together. "Oh, you were so easy to trick. All of you. It was beautiful! Unfortunately I couldn't win my brother over. He chose that stupid child over me..." She rose from the thrown and stepped towards him. "I've missed looking at you, handsome." She reached out, stroking her finger down the side of his thigh.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad's eyes were dark with violent hate. "I can't say I feel the same. Tell me what you want, Lelana. Why did you bring me here?"

[Emora Deen]

Lelana thought for a moment, as if it hadn't even crossed her mind why she brought him there. "I plan to keep you, of course. Call it vengeance. Call it boredom. Call me crazy, after all I am." She drummed her fingers across the gollem's hard stone skin. "After the fall of Hajara to my brother's traitorous forces I was left homeless, deposed of my title, and... alone. I was also not Verin's favourite descendant. I had nowhere to go. So, I wandered until I ended up here in this place. The King here was holding a contest, much like what Atul did for his bride." Her lip curled. "He chose some stupid ugly woman."

Lelana twirlled and danced around. "They got married. It was beautiful, of course. That was until I slit her throat and dumped her body into a quicksand bed. I stole her form... waited a few years to get respect from the people. Then, my husband tragically found himself strangled by a python in his bed." She placed her hand to her cheek, shaking her head mournful. "So sad."

"Anyway! Long story short, I heard of Atul's little adventure to find a Queen and thought I'd try the whole thing all over again. It seemed he, unlike my last husband, is into younger flesh." Lelana tugged at Vlad's pants. "I would have married him, united this kingdom with his... And he also might have met an unfortunate end of some sort at some point. Ah, but, at the same time it was all just a game. For fun. I really wasn't caring which way it went. I enjoyed his torment too much. After all, the real person he wants to marry wasn't any of those women."

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad rolled his eyes. "I'm not known for being easily domesticated," he wheezed through the creature's grip. "And believe me when I say that I'd prefer to fuck a golem before you."

[Emora Deen]

Lelana frowned at him. "Oh... Very harsh," she sighed. "And to think, I was going to let you go afterwards. Well, not directly afterwards. I'd keep you a couple of days, of course. But, I'd planned to let you go, and even go back with a scale for your wife. Now, I think I'll just keep you indefinitely. Maybe a few days without food will make you more complacent? Maybe a few days of thinking about your poor wife worried about where you went? Worried about who to trust? Poor little amnesiac. I bet that was hard, looking at the woman you love and realizing there was a chance she could completely be disgusted by you. I wonder how disgusted she would be if I wrote her a note explaining how it was just too hard, that you'd tried everything you could to fix her, but you couldn't, and you were giving up, and you wanted her to be happy with someone else?"

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad couldn't even think of something to say to that. He stopped squirming for a minute and just studied her, truly examining her and the situation he was in. What did she want?

Attention?
Sex?
Revenge?
Entertainment?

He honestly couldn't tell. He was usually so good at reading motives. Maybe she was truly insane, as she'd joked?

"I hope you're not planning on making use of my dick, because I can't feel it, or my legs," he muttered.

[Emora Deen]

Lelana grabbed his chin. "If I let you go, you have to behave, understand?" she smiled sickeningly sweet. "If you don't, he'll bite you and you won't be able to move. I'll keep you in a hole for the rest of your wife's life and your daughter's life until they are long dead and dust and then I will give you the antidote so that you may go and live a life, never having lived in theirs. Obey me, and when I am bored of you, I promise I will let you go with what you need to make Tenele better. Agreed?"

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad raised his chin, which was difficult when any movement felt like it might snap his spine. "I will not betray my wife. Otherwise, you may consider me behaved."

[Emora Deen]

Lelana glowered at him. "Fine," she sighed. "I will accept that for now, I suppose. Take all the fun out of it why don't you. You might enjoy it, you know!" She waved her hand at the gollem, who promptly released Vlad and took a step back.

"You can't escape," Lelana told him. "Just in case you were considering doing that. I have the palace warded. As long as the front door is closed no one can leave through any window or balcony. Things can come in, but nothing goes out. It makes it easy to catch thieves."

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad collapsed to the ground. He didn't want to show off how much that had hurt, so he pushed up to his feet in a casual motion. His legs shuddered with the effort, still getting their circulation back. He waited for his body to recover while he looked her over, recalculating what to make of her. She'd told him how her security worked. Arrogance? She could have watched him make the attempt for her own amusement. Not sadistic? If anything, she was acting like a attention-starved child with a captive friend. Lonely?

"You were such pleasant company on the way over here," he observed flatly. "How am I to know which of you is the act?"

[Emora Deen]

Lelana faltered, but recovered quickly. "Everyone acts, Vlad," she told him. "Even your wife, even Atul, and even you. Its all a matter of which version we want to play the most often."

"You will have dinner with me tonight, understand?" Lelana told him, pointing a finger at him. "Oded will show you where you'll be staying. Don't worry, I'm not throwing you in some cold dark dungeon. You'll have all the comforts of home." Oded, the man who had lifted the gollem from his hole stepped out of the shadows.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad smirked. "I'm picky with my vegetables," he warned. Animosity prickled in his voice. He'd been patient for so long finding the answer to Tenele's curse. Now, he had to humor Verin's little brat until she felt like giving him what his wife desperately needed. He'd never been a particularly patient man in the first place, and was certainly not in situations like these. There three people in the world who were allowed to speak to him like that, and this little bitch was not one of them.