[b][u][center]Perks of Desperation
Part 4
for A-lycotonum
by Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]








Vitus left Katya and Piers at the [i]Hound's Hearth[/i] and departed with Robin for the address on the poster. He didn't want to leave the former professor of magic behind, considering her vast knowledge of so many things, but they'd both agreed that they couldn't leave Piers behind where he might cause trouble, and they needed [i]someone[/i] back at the inn in case the posting didn't work out. At the same time, they couldn't send just one person to check the availability, particularly with what had to be negotiated. The only valid combination was Vitus and Robin on one team, and Katya and Piers on the other, both able to control their...pack-mates. 

He still didn't know what to think of that, nor how to think about Robin walking at his side, her head down. It kept reminding him of the harpy back in Absalom, how he had owned her in a very similar way, and...

Well, the feelings hadn't been bad all the time. He hadn't always felt like he was being a bad guy owning a slave. It just felt strange now, particularly with how she was already pack, and how that was inherently wrong, and yet...

"Ugh." Vitus rubbed his head. "This place is messing with me."

"You going to be able to focus for this meeting?" the human asked. 

"I...hope so."

"You better. I don't want to be sent home for a bounty."

"We'll figure it out. Somehow."

"You say that..."

For all that Robin had every reason to be doubtful about how they were going to get through this, he didn't appreciate the lack of faith at the moment. He was doing his best, and while his best had holes in it, there was no reason to take this out on him. They needed to stay united on this. 

He dragged her along the cobblestone streets to the north side of Westcrown, following the pathways as they narrowed and gave the usual signs that they were coming to the end of the larger, more often used streets and coming to the part of town that didn't get as much attention. The buildings were no longer as tall, the doors not quite as well-kept. He was rather surprised that there was anyone on this side of town that would be able to house them, let alone want to. 

And then, just as he was giving up hope, they passed through to a main square and their destination loomed on the right. 

It was a surprisingly large manor of a house, the sort that normally would have been near a city center to show off its opulence. Silver stakes jammed into the ground and were joined by wrought iron going around them, creating a boundary against both the physical and the magical. The gate that stood between the manor and the rest of the world was likewise a display of wealth, a pair of silver stakes that were joined by gold filigree between them. 

Vitus and Robin glanced at each other. 

"Merchants?" he asked. 

"Really rich merchants, if they are. And no reason to want expertise if they can just hire it," she said, shaking her head. "I'll bet secret wizards."

"That seems a little on the nose for Cheliax, don't you think?"

"Nah, that would be demon worshipers hiding in devil country."

"Don't...don't even go there," Vitus said, shaking his head. "We had enough problems with the harpy lord."

"Hmmph."

"...How do you want to play this?" he asked, putting his hands in his pockets."

"You're asking me?"

"You're the Watchwoman. You know how to go undercover better than I do."

"...Heh. The pack leader listens to the rat, huh?"

"I...yes, I guess so," he said, despite the hellhound's grumbles inside him. "You have a plan?" he asked, turning to her. 

She looked like she was glowing with excitement. No, not excitement, but something like it. Validation, perhaps. Either way, Robin didn't look nearly as crestfallen as she had, and he wondered just what had been going on between her and Piers for such a simple thing to mean so much. 

There was no point or time to ask. She nodded for him to come along, muttering as she did. 

"I'll be the bodyguard, a beast-folk that you hired to take care of things while you're traveling," she said. "I'll let out the were-rat a bit. You make it look like you have a hand on my leash, that you're keeping me safe, but Cheliax is the only place that I can live without getting completely fucked. That being a slave is better than being completely mind-blanked and controlled the other ways."

"Wait - you - hang on -"

"Trust me. It's the best way that we can do this. If they're rich enough to show off that much wealth, then they're going to be able to detect some magic, right?"

"...Right," Vitus admitted. 

"Then that means that we'll need to give them something to see. If they see me, a were-rat, and you using some magic to keep me 'leashed,' then they don't have to look deeper."

It was...surprisingly logical, and something that actually made sense for her to know. She had been a Watchwoman, and that meant that she had to deal with people pulling crimes and con games all the time. She'd have a better idea of how they got their schemes past the law than he did, and better still, how to run those cons. 

So, a leash. He looked down at his hand, and channeled the power of the hellhound through it rather than his own strength. His hand went slightly shaggy for a second or two, but then firmed up, becoming more of a proper hand once more with a bit of extra body hair. A leash and collar appeared between his fingers, and he tossed the leather band to Robin. She pulled it to her neck, and to her credit, only hesitated for a split second before wrapping it around her throat. 

She transformed as they walked up to the gates, and she was crunching, cracking, and snapping as the bones shifted beneath her skin. He held her with one hand and rapped his fingers against the gates with the other. 

No sooner had the ding ding of fingers on metal resounded through the air than a giant dog came padding down the path, and it was truly a giant hound, coming up to his chest when on all fours. It must have had some Dire blood to it, something that had raised it from the ranks of common hounds and made it utterly powerful. He stared at it, seeing yellow eyes staring back, and it reached up with one paw and flicked something out of sight. The gates opened, and it padded along at their sides, leading them through the paths of the garden towards the front of the house. 

[i]Well...they definitely have security...[/i]

Robin didn't say a thing, though she did pant more than he expected now that she'd become a were-rat. Her clothes didn't fit her as well, her shoulders bunched up, her chest expanded out a bit, and her hips were far, far larger. If she hadn't been wearing rather roomy trousers, he would have been bottomless at that moment, and the leathers she wore were pushed right to the brink, with several parts of them ripped and showing the fur strands poking through beneath. 

She walked with a wincing fashion, her lips tight and her teeth clenched. He was about to ask why when - 

RIIIIIP!

Right. Her boots were too small for her feet, and the transformation ripped right through them. Huffing and panting, she shook her head. 

"Sorry," she whispered to him. 

"It's no trouble."

"Gonna be awkward going back."

"If we have to go back."

"Ha..."

It might have been a bit optimistic, but there was nothing saying that this had to fail. They could actually succeed. 

The massive, gray-furred hound that followed them all the way from gate to door stopped at the side of the massive wooden plank. It was the one thing that didn't seem to fit with the rest of the house, almost like it had been slapped on to replace something that had been missing. The dog - who had a collar naming him 'Buck' - looked Vitus in the eye again, nodding its head toward the plank. 

"...You're not a normal dog, are you?" Vitus asked. 

Buck didn't answer. 

"Fine. Be like that." 

Shaking his head, he pulled the door open and stepped inside, keeping a tight grip on Robin's leash. It wasn't so much because he believed she needed it, and more that she was right about them needing to sell that illusion. He wanted to play his part correctly, and so far, it seemed to be working. 

The entry hall was a rounded thing, vaguely oval shaped with one narrow end leading out and the other leading further in. Vitus took the hung-up cloaks as invitation to shrug off his own cloak, hanging it up as he walked forward. Boot clicks and claw taps were the only sounds besides Robin's breathing and panting that they could hear as they walked across the marble floor. 

Despite the heat outside, it was cold inside. There was something about the hard white stone that made it seem both wealthy and austere at the same time, and Vitus wondered if they'd stepped into something of a trap before he saw the reason for the chill. 

It was all but hidden, but here and there, in the natural cracks of the marble tiles on the floor, he could see little blue stones. Chill-stones, something the same shade as a dull sapphire rock, but imbued with the sort of cold-spells that could chill entire rooms at a time. Except that this one had at least six of them per tile, which was probably why the front hall felt like stepping into an ice-box compared to the desert heat outside. He shook his head, glad of the flames inside that kept him from feeling the cold as much. 

"Excuse me? Hello?" he called out, his voice echoing back to him off the curved white walls. Two more exits were visible, as well as a stairway to the second floor. "Hello? Is anyone -"

"Oh, dear, dear, is that a guest?" a voice from far off on the second floor called down. "I didn't hear the door - oh my, my, I'm so sorry. Give me a moment!"

"Take as long as you need, no hurries here."

"S-speak for y-yourself," the shivering were-rat muttered, her arms pulled tight around her chest as she shivered. 

"Sorry."

"Mmmmph..."

They didn't have to wait long, thankfully. A human in a brilliantly pink dressing robe came rushing around the corner at the top of the stairs, all but throwing himself down the spiraling set. He called down one apology after another, shaking his head as he hurried along. 

"I'm so sorry. Truly, very embarrassing, I don't know what Buck was thinking letting you in. We told him twenty minutes, at least, and he - oh. Oh my." 

The master of the house, if such he was, came to a sudden stop at the bottom of the stairs. He cocked his head to the side, opened his mouth, and then shut it again as he laid eyes on Robin. As she looked up at him, he looked at the floor, then at her, then at the floor, and then at Vitus. 

"Ah. Hmm. I - well, I - oh, we are certainly getting off on the wrong foot here. Why did you come here, precisely?"

"Uh..." Vitus slowly reached for the poster that he'd brought with him, holding it up. "Are you either Marco or Pollius Cinna?" 

"Marco, yes," the man in the pink bathrobe said, pulling the waist-tie a little tighter. "And that would be..."

"Your advertisement for lodgers, provided that they can pay -"

"Who is it?" someone else called from the second floor, someone with a higher voice...and pitched higher than natural, Vitus noticed. 

"Two strangers talking about the want ad, dear," Marco called back. 

"Oh, my. Anyone good?"

"Um, one very fluffy, and the other a little...stiff."

"How stiff?"

"Not that kind, dear."

"Oh, fiddlesticks."

"But he's cute."

"Oooooh, shall I come down?"

With every exchange, Vitus could hear that the high-pitched note was fading a bit, coming closer and closer to a more masculine voice, until it simply was. He arched an eyebrow, meeting Marco's eyes as the other man gave him a look. After seemingly passing the examination, Marco sighed and nodded. 

"You might as well."

And just like that, someone in a much more majestic, flowing, and overstated purple bathrobe walked around the corner at the top of the stairs. One step turned into something almost more like a ooze, as there was no real movement of legs beneath the robe - at least not that Vitus could see - as the other man flowed over the railing. He seemed to slide like a slug or a snail, except that there was still some sort of odd grace to it, something that blended utter hedonism with more glamour than it entirely deserved. 

The purple-robed man leaned forward, smiling with such gentility only to ruin it as he licked his lips like some sort of predator eager for his meal. He looked from Vitus to Robin, getting a slight hint of distaste, before looking back to Vitus again. 

"Mmmmm, you remind me of the Leontinas, young man...what's your name?"

"V-Vitus," he said. 

And for once, the stammer had nothing to do with someone else showing interest in him. It was the fact that his last name had been referenced. 

The Leontinas were not known in Absalom, not even slightly, but he had heard that they had been known somewhere in the world. He hadn't expected it to be referenced so casually here, now, out in the middle of Infernal Cheliax. Marco rolled his eyes before Vitus could push. 

"Darling, could you not scare them off already?"

"Oh, dear, dear, honey, are you that worried we'll lose them? We don't need money."

"But we [i]do[/i] need some expertise on a few things." Marco whistled. "Buck! Come in here!"

Vitus turend as the massive hound nosed the door aside, stepping through it with a wiggle and a grind. The gray-furred dog stepped over the chilled floor gingerly -

Right, the chilled floor. He gently pulled the leash, and made Robin stand on his toes. He still had his boots on, and it meant that she would be shielded from the worst of the chill. She leaned back with a sigh of relief, and he gently hugged her round the waist, ensuring that she wouldn't just fall off if she started losing her balance. 

Buck passed by, sitting by Marco. The smaller man petted the wolf. 

"Now - wait, yes. There was something else."

BONK!

Vitus actually blinked as the pink-robed man actually hit the dog on the back of the head. Expecting either a whimper of a beaten hound or a sudden growl and thrash, he was shocked to see the hound just turn his head and look Marco right in the eye. He was reminded of nothing more than some great brute looking down at a drunk that had dared to hit him, asking with nothing more than a look if the drunk had honestly meant to do that. 

It didn't seem to do anything to Marco. The smaller man waggled his finger at the hound. 

"We said twenty minutes. That was no more than ten. What were you thinking?"

"Merely that you would wish to see the guests," Buck said. 

"...You can talk. Lovely." Vitus shook his head. "Why not? Why wouldn't you?"

"Says the one that carries a rat on a leash...and smells different."

"...How so?" Vitus asked. 

"Yes, Buck, how so?" Pollius asked from the floor above, smiling again. "Does he smell lovely, Buck?"

The hound didn't respond to the flirtatious tones, instead sniffing the air again. His nostrils flared, and for a moment, Vitus was all but sure that his cover would be blown. 

Then Buck shrugged, inasmuch as a dog could shrug. He lowered himself to the ground, pressing his belly fur against the chilled marble. 

“He smells like magic, and nothing more,” Buck said. “He hides something, but whatever it is, I cannot smell it.”

“Hmmmm, a mystery. How very [i]engaging,[/i]” Pollius said, all but slithering along the railing above as he slid toward the stairs. “Marco, darling, are we thinking of letting the rooms, now? I believe that this young man might be lovely to have around, and his little pet will fit in just fine here, don’t you think?” 

“I - allow me - the things that we must consider -”

“Darling, darling, are you so afraid of making another mistake?” 

“We adopted Buck without even checking in on what he [i]was[/i], Pollius. We should be a lot more careful in the future, particularly with someone that’s brought a were-rat into the house. If she’s infectious -”

“I’m not.”

It was the first word out of Robin’s mouth since they’d entered the house, and suddenly, all attention was on her. It was something of a relief; having that much wanton interest in him from Pollius was starting to get a little bit intimidating, and he wasn’t sure how to take it when it never seemed to stop. He rubbed the back of his head as Robin took a step off his boots, hissed, and then stepped back on, thinking better of freezing her feet off on the enchanted marble. 

“I’m not infectious. At least…I’m pretty sure I’m not.”

“...Buck?” Marco asked. 

The dog sniffed the air, then shook its head. 

“Hmm…”

“Darling, darling, just trust Buck. His nose is perfect, just like your little ass.”

“Would - could you - would just [i]not?[/i] At least not in front of guests.”

“Darling, must I loosen you up again? You know you get so uptight when you don’t get your -”

“Anyway!” Vitus interrupted them as fast as he could, clearing his throat before that could get any more awkward. “We are looking to rent your rooms. The two of us, and two others.”

“Oh? Others? Any other lovely young men like yourself?” Pollius asked. 

“Um. No. One older woman and the husband to this one. He’s…come along after I leashed her, just to make sure that he could stay with her. Kind of pathetic, honestly,” Vitus said, in a way that he belatedly realized was only a half-lie at best. He pushed on. “At any rate, we have a lot of magical knowledge between us. The only thing I really don’t know much about are devils, but I can speak with some authority on pretty much everything else, and my associate with even more.”

“Hmmmm, interesting…any experience with incubi?” Pollius asked. 

“...I’ve tried other demons,” Vitus said. 

“That works for me. Threesome tonight!”

Marco covered his eyes, shaking his head, while Vitus was doing his best to put a good spin on this. He was supposed to trap, to take, to bring others into the pack and ensure that they were going to serve him and Melchiresa. That was what the Mistress of the Hunt wanted of him, and what she had taken great care to specify that he should do. At the same time…they [i]were[/i] getting what they needed out of this, for once. A perverted couple that just wanted extra company in the bedroom? That had to be workable, right? That didn’t need to have everything taken further.

But then…

He looked down at Buck. The gray-furred hound looked back at him with one eye, the yellow orb glowing as he looked so relaxed, and yet, so very ready to spring into action if he needed to. Vitus tried not to show the fear on his face as he turned back to the very gay pair. 

“Excuse me?”

Pollius looked up from his various molesting moves, his hands resting under Marco’s robe. 

“Yes?”

“Before I go to get my companions…just what is Buck?”

“Oh, just an abandoned familiar from a wizard friend of mine. Very intelligent, but still quite feral.”

Buck harrumphed, and he wondered just how ‘feral’ the hound actually was. 

“Is that going to be a problem?” Marco asked. 

“No, no. Just…wanted to know what we were dealing with. And…do you keep the whole house this cold?”

“No, no, just the front room…easier to tell if someone’s bringing a devil with them when you keep it cold,” Pollius said. “And you two are clear of that.”

“Devils? Then -”

“We are [i]not[/i] hiding from them,” Marco said, and the smaller man elbowed his partner. Or…whatever he was. “But there are certain regulations that they could use to challenge our relationship, and we’d prefer to know what we need to bring with us if they were to send someone. It’s just a simple matter of keeping everything safe, secure and - would you stop that?” 

Vitus nodded as the couple continued their fondling and arguing. At least this was something that he could understand. They were probably not [i]that[/i] accepted out here, which explained why they were off on the far end of town, and why they had a big guard dog. They were probably manipulating the system to keep what they had, and as a result, were very aware of the dangers inherent to the system. 

It meant that he had leverage, too, something that he could bring to bear if they ever became a danger to him and the rest of the pack. 

[i]No, no, don’t think like that…don’t think like that…[/i]

“Thank you…for your time,” he managed to say.

“No problem, dear,” Pollius said. 

“We are [i]not[/i] going down that road,” Marco said. 

“But darling, you’re fine with a threesome.”

“I share your cock. Not your heart.”

“Oh, but there is room for all - ulk!”

With the pair of them doubtlessly settling in for a lover’s quarrel, Vitus turned around as fast as he could, hustling back out of the main hall and into the entryway. As soon as they were off the chilled marble, Robin hopped off his boots and landed easily on the warmer rugs. She shook her head, looking over her shoulder. She had a smile on her face, at least; that was something. 

“First time that I’ll be rooming with guys like that.”

“Looks like we didn’t need much of a disguise.”

“I think we did; Buck might have seen more if we hadn’t done that.”

“...Is that the only reason?”

“...”

“...”

“I…” She reached up to the collar, and he saw the burning red in her cheeks. Her fingers shook for a moment as she fumbled with the clasp, undoing it and handing him the leather band back. The transformation shifted to her normal human shape again, though she hissed at the lack of her boots. “I shouldn’t have gone that far, I guess…I shouldn’t be…tempting myself with this.”

“With what?”

“...If you have to ask, that’s probably better.”

Vitus wanted to ask more, but he could see it in her eyes. Please don’t, her eyes said. Please don’t make me say it. 

So he didn’t. He let the leash disappear, vanishing on the winds of magic, and they stepped out of the house. It was going to be a bit of a walk, and he braced himself for Robin’s complaints. Going barefoot over cobblestones was akin to torture, but she was the one that had forgotten to take off her boots before transforming. 

#

Katya did not envy Vitus and Robin their task, but at the same time, she would have taken it were it not for the necessity that someone watch after Piers. Even so, she would have taken it regardless, if only to [i]not[/i] deal with the moping, ranting, whining mess of a human being. 

She had seen those that had been broken by their circumstances, and she had pity for them, though not as much as the church would have told her that she should have. There was reason for what they did, rationale behind their weeping. She understood that, and did not begrudge them their tears. If that were all that she had to deal with in Piers’s case, she would have been fine. 

But he was not broken, though he acted as if he were shattered beyond repair. Instead, he was consumed by a dark jealousy that refused to let loose its talons from his shoulders, and every moment spent with him was a moment spent dealing with that petty spitefulness and anger pouring off him, oozing through every pore and seeking another host. Katya knew how to keep it at bay - as she had learned to do that many times with her own anger since being dismissed from her job - but fending it off still required energy, and he did not do anything to make himself worthy of it. 

[i]Must we have him?[/i] she thought, not for the first time, as he thumped his long-empty mug against the table again. [i]Must we deal with something so stupid?[/i]

[i]There is a reason he’s here, my hound,[/i] Melchiresa whispered in her ear. [i]We have need of someone with his talents, his understandings. None of us have lived in the shadow of law so deeply as he; he may give us insights into the people of Cheliax, and help us understand them.[/i]

If he ever stopped moping around, that was. 

“Why are we here?” Piers asked for the third time in ten minutes. “We should be taking down Brundir, not fleeing him.”

“You’ve paid one arm to that plan. Do you want to pay the other?” she said. 

Was it callous? Yes, but she’d tried pity, and she’d tried logic. She was done with that. 

The once-Commander whipped his head around. No more tears, no more self-hate, just hate for her there. Not ideal, but it was something a little more workable than the other emotions that she’d been trying to play on. Katya leaned on one fist. 

“Or do you think that you’re somehow more capable lacking your sword-arm?”

“You think that you are so much better than me? You think that you can lecture me, you -”

“Ah.”

Katya lifted a finger, the motion carrying Piers’s jaw closed and holding it there. He grunted against the controlling power, grabbing at his own jaw, but at least he finally put down the mug. One of the servant girls hustled by, her shackled hands jangling as she took the cup away. 

That, more than anything else, seemed to finally get through to him. He watched her go, staying silent even when she released the spell. Katya shook her head as he clenched his hands beneath the table, looking away. 

“That is the fate waiting for you if you grumble to the wrong person about the wrong thing,” she said. 

“Slavery is wrong…”

“It’s legal, however, and that makes all the difference to those that practice it here. You can argue against it however you like, but whether you are a criminal, a naysayer, or just someone that someone in power considers a problem, the most common fate waiting for anyone caught is slavery. The power of Cheliax revolves around it, and always has. So, if you don’t want to end up there, or see your wife end up in those same shackles, you might want to consider the future rather than the past.”

“...The future. Yes.”

She’d heard that tone before. Oh, she’d heard it, and she knew that Piers was going to be trouble. He was thinking less of how to make things better, and more how to get things back. She shook her head; she or Vitus would need to keep an eye on him almost constantly if they were going to make this work. 

Cheliax. It would have to be Cheliax that her mistress demanded them make landfall in, in a land where slavery pervaded everything. Not only was it a risk for all of them should they be caught, but it was a temptation to someone that served the cause of law and order. She could see it in Piers’s eyes, see how he was already thinking of people that might deserve being under lock and key. Perhaps he was doing the thing that others of great lawful leanings had, of seeing it as merely a way of controlling criminals rather than anyone else, but Katya knew how such things expanded. 

[i]He will not limit his thoughts to that for long…[/i]

Shaking her head, she looked to the bartender of the inn. She gestured for him to weaken the next mugs that were brought to the table, and he nodded in understanding. It would still cost the same as all the other mugs that they’d received in the last hour while waiting for Vitus and Robin to return, but - 

“Shouldn’t have let him…should have fought him,” Piers muttered. 

“Hmm?”

“Vitus. I shouldn’t have let him…do things…to my wife,” he said. 

“...The way I’ve understood it, Robin did things to him rather than the other way around,” Katya said, shaking her head. “And after she did it the first time, you hardly showed her any understanding on the matter.”

“Are you saying that I should have just forgiven it? Forgiven her?”

“That would have been an option,” Katya said, shrugging. 

“She gave her word. We would be each other’s, forever, always, and no others.”

“Were you, perchance, sworn to a paladin order at some point?”

“...”

“Mortals make mistakes. We [i]all[/i] make mistakes. And sometimes, we can move forward from them. Sometimes, it’s just a one-time thing. But the more of a deal you make of it, the more that you push for her to pay the price for it, the more that it’s going to push her away. The laws of the land are not always the laws of the people, nor of the individual. Not all rules suit every person, and not every person suits the sweeping laws. That’s why there are exceptions to the rules.”

“That way lies blasphemy, and chaos.”

“A little chaos can be a good thing.”

“Hmmph…”

She shrugged, but before they could take the conversation further, the door opened. Vitus and Robin were back, and while the latter was limping, bare feet half-bruised from the walk, the former was smiling. 

Well, at least one thing had gone right today. 










[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]

Summary: Vitus and Robin go to find a place to stay while they’re in Cheliax, and find themselves in a very different house than they expected. 

Tags: No Sex, Transformation, Barefoot, Boot Ripping, Were-Rat, Human, Hellhound, Gay Couple, Open Affection, Complications, Series, Magic,