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It had been a long time since Reticent had been really, truthfully alone.
Reticent, pink eyes near-glowing in the silence of her room in the inn - something stupid, she barely remembered the name despite the squeaking sign outside her window that creaked in every breeze - sighed and tried to relax. For a crimson-skinned woman normally dressed in more clothes than she could reasonably handle, she felt… uniquely naked with nothing but undergarments remaining. Without Kalaward resting in the same room (for the first time in a week) and without watches to participate in, she could try to get comfortable in her skin.
She'd never been completely comfortable in her skin though - never even halfway enjoyed the dark red expanse, the lashing thick tail, the ribs that felt too thin or the horns of the same bone that felt too thick. She wasn't beautiful under her clothes - she was no Annie, the warrior woman traveling alongside her, sweat shining on her tanned and work-hardened skin; she was no Kala, the soft and mysterious cat-like being that provided no shortage of teasing purrs and curiosity under beautiful pink fur; she was no Keizo, his mysterious demeanor and relentless stammering, flickering triangle ears and skilled hands…
Hells, even Matu with their gentle and gruff acceptance or even, if only as a passing consideration, Ien with his boundless optimism were on Reticent’s mind as she laid, alone and silent in her bed.
Something, probably a soft giggle and a thud against the wall beside her, made Reticent’s cheeks burn even darker than normal. The candleflame was not a small inn, and for being the cheaper option in Heathersford at large, it was populated by many more people than just the six adventurers together. The young tiefling had heard the couple next door almost every night they had slept in their own rooms and not on the road - she knew what they were doing, but not why or even how. Usually, she had Kala here to get mad at - the cat was always doing something bothersome, something annoying and meant to dig into Reticent’s skin.
Reticent flipped over, burying her face into the not-soft-at-all pillow. Thinking about Kala while listening to the couple next door shush each other and laugh quietly wasn’t helping her mood. Normally, at night the only emotion she had to fight was the bothersome nature of her sleeping companion, or the twinges of hunger in her gut. She was always hungry, and Kalaward was always staring just a bit too long and boring those eyes just a bit too far under Reticent’s blood-tinged skin.
Blood tinged, because she had to feast upon life. Skin the same color as the only thing that kept her upright, the slick iron taste and heat coating her tongue. The horrible curse of her family, passed through generations and landed on her shoulder; burned into her with the symbol of the eye on her shoulder and -
“ Levi! ” came hissed through the wall, soft and wanting, sending a jolt through Reticent that jerked her out of her self-hatred reverie. She groaned and rolled over, almost missing through the sound of her movement the thick, heated moan that followed that singular whispered name. Reticent’s cheeks went even deeper red, near black with blush and she went to wrap the pillow around her head but… something made her pause.
“ Vianna, you dirty thing, you know how thin these walls are. ” The sentence was barely whispered, basically in speaking tone and matched where Reticent’s pointed ear was nearest the wall almost perfectly. It was like having the words whispered into her , with her name by that soft masculine voice - it was like the groan that followed, the slick sound Reticent was almost positive she imagined both were right in the same bed as her that made the vampiric tiefling feel the gentle twinge of hunger shift to something warmer. Something… lower, drifting down her abdomen and settling right above her hips.
Reticent suddenly understood why she felt so fucking warm .
Her clothes felt too constricting, too… present on her skin and she had to fight the need to take what last layer she had remaining off. She was positive she hadn’t been in this mood before, but hearing the whimpers and moans of.. Apparently, someone named Levi and someone named Vianna next door had sent her mind down a very different path.
Reticent knew what sex was, and the general mechanics of it. She knew that she wasn’t… immune to the draw of it, and that this deeper, warmer hunger in her and the suddenly increased pulse of her normally deathly slow heart was probably related. If she paid less attention, she could have brushed it off as anxiety and her hunger being… somewhat sated after some strange events earlier. She could have brushed it off as the night being too warm, of the covers being too uncomfortable and the straw of the mattress digging into her the wrong way. But she knew, deep down, that this was a different kind of hunger digging into her like a heated claw.
Reticent also knew she had no idea… how sex… worked. Let alone with her own hand. That made situations like this all the more annoying.
Reticent flipped over again, trying to find some comfortable way to lay on her side. She thudded her tail against the bed, trying to maybe send some kind of signal that she could hear the gentle sounds of pleasure from next door to the partners. Eventually, she stopped and rolled onto her back, her distress and distraction making her growl deep in her throat. She felt… somewhat comfortable like this, despite the compression of the thick base of her tail against the bed, but also more.. Exposed. She wondered offhand if any of her “friends,” the 5 idiots traveling with her, ever looked at her in the way she caught herself thinking about them on nights like these.
Reticent pressed a hand to her forehead, felt the thud of heat under her palm and groaned, shifting in the bed to try and find an escape from the thoughts that pushed themselves to the front of her mind. A little gasp surprised her - not from next door, but from the sudden friction of her thighs rubbing together almost instinctively making her release the sound. It sent a jolt of foreign pleasure through her, it made the heat below her gut throb with delight. Her heart leapt to her throat and she bit her lip so hard she almost pierced it with a fang. She froze, completely unmoving, waiting for someone or something to come bursting through her door and bother her about the deafening noise she had just made. Or, at least something that felt deafening.
Nothing changed. No new sounds, nothing distracting the couple next door, none of her allies accusatorial and loud knocking on her door. Reticent let herself relax, let the breath finally jump out of her lungs where she had been holding it; her tail twitched where it extended off the bed as all her anxiety flowed lower and lower and found the tip like it always did. The need, the heat, the hunger below where it always was didn’t dissipate though.
Reticent found her hand drifting lower, sliding down the smooth and flat plane of her malnourished stomach. She didn’t move, just stared up at the ceiling, wondered if this was somehow the line she was willing to cross. The first time in a while she’d been alone, and simply the reminder that people could feel pleasure drove her to doing something stupid ? It was stupid too - to allow herself to explore, to fumble with her own body and see if her nerves were as fucked up as the rest of her was… idiotic. She didn’t even know what she was doing after all, she didn’t know how -
Reticent almost gasped again, the tendons and tension showing in her neck as she snapped her eyes closed and held back the sound. Her fingers, long, nimble and bony, had drifted below the hem of her undergarments and found nothing but slick wetness gently soaking into coarse hair. She didn’t know how to feel about the sensation, the mix of pleasure and unsure touch combining to a potent cocktail that froze her where she laid. Don’t most people shave this? She wondered to herself, pushing her hand beneath the curly hairs and drifting her nails gently across much-too-sensitive skin. This is gross… I shouldn’t be ok with feeling myself like this… why…
The tiefling really gasped then, really fully let out a shocked whimper of air that became a whimper a moment later as her fingers found swollen, needy flesh. She had a general idea of her own anatomy - she knew the structures and the nerves, knew the theory of it all. One didn’t survive until adulthood alone without reading a lot , both practical and fiction both. Reticent wasn’t immune to such, knew that the apex of her sex was the most sensitive and pleasurable both, but had no clue how to really… treat it.
Reticent shifted onto her side again, squeezed her fingers between her thighs and groaned, opening her eyes and praying that someone would tell her to stop - but she couldn’t. With the sense of just-barely-there satisfaction now pulsing from her own touch, she didn’t want to take her hand away from herself. No one else was in the room, no one could stop her from making this mistake, no one could prevent her mind from wandering along to the people bare rooms away that probably knew what they were doing in times like these.
Rolling herself onto her back once more - staying on her side just made her pant, made her breaths short and needy like she had her teeth at someone’s neck - and gently explored herself with as soft a touch as she could manage. Just a little bit lower than where she had rested the pads of her fingertips, a rise and the hard nub of her clit made another surprised breath escape her, and she silently thanked herself for going this direction where the silky pink hood of skin protected it. Just touching it this way was too much, and she instinctively spread her fingers out around it as she drifted lower into slick, warm, soft flesh that had never been touched by anyone else… and barely even herself.
Somehow, horribly, Kalaward’s satisfied little purrs drifted into Reticent’s mind’s eye, and Reticent didn’t… stop herself from touching. She felt dirty, felt something crawling up her spine that wasn’t just the lightning of pleasurable need and warm lust pushing into her veins. Thinking about bright blue eyes looking down at her, a soft paw pressing against the curls of hair and grinding there instead of her own bony hand and the stretch around a much thicker finger than her own made the inexperienced tiefling have to bite the inside of her own cheek to hold sounds back this time. Kalaward would be so horrible to have sex with too. They’d never let it go, never let Reticent forget the night of passion they had been embraced in together…
Reticent found herself thinking of that, of the catlike Cela sinking her teeth into Reticent’s neck from behind (instead of the other way around, like some horrible dreams had been) and gently purring words of affirming joy as her finger sank into the tiefling’s slit. Reticent of the real world, the material world tried to copy it, but the angle was just way too wrong, nothing felt right, so she instead shuddered with need as she ran her fingers in circles around an untouched entrance. How exactly Kala would manage to speak and bite at the same time dawned on her, and the fantasy shattered so thoroughly that Reticent had to pull her fingers away from herself with an angry hiss.
Another image floated forward - Matu or Annie, their strength alone enough to stop the crimson woman from bothering to move, hands tight around her wrists and - oh , both of them, both hands one rough from farmwork and the other rough from worship in such a strong way clasping about her; the image of curly black hair falling about both of their shoulders, Annie’s wide and welcoming chocolate-dark eyes staring before the warrior woman closed them, leaning down to press sun-chapped lips to Reticent’s and shut her up with a deep and intense kiss. Matu’s serious, darker features leaning down, the soft hair gracing his cheeks tickling the inside of her thighs as blunt fangs split in a little smile -
That broke the fantasy as well. Reticent realized her fingers had fallen to her clit once more, the gentle throb of need within her more than enough to cushion the blow as she traced around it in an awkward circle. Still over the hood, the sensation sent little jolts of pleasure coursing through her every single cycle, and for a moment she simply tried to empty her thoughts and just focus on herself. Was this why everyone cared about sex? Reticent had never really… cared to try something like this herself, but laying here, letting her mind drift about the people she… didn’t care about, no, not at all, in fact she was only doing this because of the couple next door who had since fallen silent - had Reticent really been imagining things for so long?
Keizo’s jade mask swam to the surface of her mind. The one person in the entire group she could probably catch off guard if she wanted. Reticent imagined it, her fingers speeding, her gentle touches becoming just that much faster as she stroked around the sensitive button of her clit. She could probably pin him down, make him whimper, make his eyes widen in surprise. She’d seen flickers of his tongue when he ate. Long, flat, curved in strange ways and flexible as all hell. She wondered what that would feel like on her, if he were looking up at her from between her thighs right now, if his tongue was lapping at her with long and gentle strokes instead of the flickering speed of her fingers.
Her imagination melded to reality in time, Reticent slowing her hand, little gasping whimpers leaving her and making her realize just how fucking loud she was being. She took her free hand, put the meat under her thumb between her teeth and bit. She didn’t stop, even when a twinge of pain became mixed into the heat of hungry pleasure that chased her every motion. Somehow every scenario melded together, made her feel so alive, made her feel like her skin was tingling and her body was melting at the same time and all of it no matter how unrealistic made her hips cant upwards against her hands and her tail flick against the ground.
Mask, the big eyes underneath, gentle and strong features on darker skin, pink fur looking oh so satisfied, a haloed veil of orange hair all of them jumping and jostling for all of Reticent’s mental perception. She gave up on controlling herself, gave up on any specific fantasy and instead muffled her groan against the hand tight between her teeth. In the moment, the girl didn’t notice that her fantasies completely ignored one member of her party, but she was also much too distracted to care either way. The heat in her belly tightened to a deep knot, something so thudding and impossible to ignore that it felt like she would bend in half just laying here and letting her hand dance along packed nerves.
Something broke, but not in a good way. If Reticent knew how to describe her own feelings, it'd have been something of ruin , of a built up dam not bursting to relieve pressure but instead creaking, groaning, and slowly falling away. Her fingers had been too fast, perhaps too direct, perhaps she hadn't realized how hard she was about to close her mouth, or maybe something completely different. What Reticent felt, though, was the night shattering around her.
Reticent felt pain first. Her fangs had sunk into her hand, nearly biting down to the bone of her thumb and sending lancing, white hot heat down her arm and up her back. The hand she had shoved beneath her clothing froze, becoming a jerking mess as her hips begged her to continue her own self-pleasure. Soon enough, rather than unraveling in whatever peak she had been approaching, Reticent felt a throbbing and unwelcome slow pain in her apex that jolted down her legs and made her cry out - still muffled by the hand between her fangs. She writhed, hand leaving her sex and curling into the thin blanket under her so tight she was positive she tore through it. It took monumental effort for her to loosen her lips, for her to realize as her head spun and her body writhed that she was still making dissatisfied and pained gasps.
Whatever had been building up inside Reticent pulsed much too slowly out through her limbs. It had begun as heat, become a needy hungry knot, and now the threads of it loosened around her with no relief whatsoever. In fact, it felt like whips lashing along her thighs and stomach, pulsing pain drifting through her almost as lazily as her fingers had been mere moments before. No longer did any fantasies follow her, just the sickening taste of her own blood on her tongue and the tension of having no idea what was going on.
Reticent curled around herself, rolling onto her side again. She found some relief there, some small escape in an almost fetal position with her own groans of pain the only companion she had. What before had seemed too hot, her clothes too much, felt instead like ice running through her veins and across her skin and crawling into her very heart. She held her sounds back for a long while, probably a handful of minutes, no idea what to do but wait out the slow and thudding beat of her heart sending low tension all through her body.
Eventually, the room was silent once more. Reticent relaxed, finally allowed her muscles to untense as if she had somehow run an entire mile in the last half hour of trying whatever stupid thing she had just done. Whimpers and shaking gasps became slow, deep breaths, and the tiefling finally opened her eyes to the night once more. She felt disgusting, wrong, even more so than if she had just fed on blood; she felt that she had betrayed a trust and been immediately punished by the divines and hellish ones themselves for trying something so foolish.
Laying there, Reticent lifted her hand - the unwounded one, the one that shone in the moonlight with her own need still despite the horrendous mistake she had just made. Another soft sound came from the wall - no, beyond it - a gentle murmur of one of the two names, tired and near asleep. Reticent just stared at herself, felt her own hatred and anger bubble up, and closed her eyes to let herself drift to fitful rest at last.