i was brainrotting about kabumisu and was like "wait what if the entire canary squad traded kabru around" and went muahaha anyway here's the first chapter
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Title: Negotiations
Rating: Explicit
Pairings: Kabru/Mithrun & Canaries
Tags / CWs:
Breathplay/choking
Knifeplay
Blood kink
Biting and scratching
Bondage
Knotting
Sensory deprivation
Light body horror sex
Summary: The Golden Country is experiencing some diplomatic troubles with the Elves of the West. King Laios hasn't a clue how to dissolve tensions--or anything about international politics, for that matter--but luckily for him, Kabru volunteers to be an emissary to the rivaling country.
Once arrived, Kabru meets with Captain Mithrun and his Canaries. After arrangements are made with the Queen Immortal, Mithrun (in no part due to Cithis' influence, assuredly) grants Kabru permission to stay in the Canary lodge while he's in the country.
Read on AO3
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Chapter 1
“We’re gonna have a problem if they keep blocking the Carinagin Straits.”
Kabru opens his eyes; King Laios still has his head in his hands, elbows stilted on the table, fingers ruffling his short hair. Kabru sighs, taking another once-over of the map of the Western Seas that Marcille projects from her staff.
“It’s not like we can just threaten them,” the old gnome guy states—Kabru forgot his name. “After all they did for us, it would be in bad taste, don’t you think, my Lord?”
“The blockade is in bad taste,” groans Laios, still prone.
Marcille’s eyes dart to and fro. Kabru gets her; he doesn’t care, either.
“The elves are just miffed,” Kabru says, “that the Golden Land is a rising superpower. The same thing happened between the Tlanglaloc and Ulmen kingdoms in the thirteenth century.”
Laios looks up. “What’re those ones?”
The gnome sighs, subtly. “Tallman and dwarf kingdoms. Ancient history. The trade war between them was a major factor in the Western Mercenary Wars.”
“The what?”
“Oh my gods, Lord Laios— ”
“If I may,” Kabru starts, presenting to them a well-procured grin. “History doesn’t tend to repeat, but it does rhyme. The Ulmen-Tlanglaloc trade war shouldn’t serve as a model for our current situation quite yet. Things have yet to escalate that far, sir.”
“Yeah, what he said,” Laios deflates.
“So what, then? We send an emissary?” The gnome crosses his arms.
“Yeah… Yeah!” Laios springs up, startling a sleepy-eyed Marcille. “We can send Mr. Tansu!”
Right, his name’s Tansu.
Tansu clenches his jaw. “My Lord, I never agreed to any of this.”
“Oh? Are you going against your king?” Kabru smiles.
“Quiet.”
“No, no, if he doesn’t wanna…” Laios groans and falls back down to the table.
Kabru perks over the king. Laios looks up at him.
“What about you?”
“Sorry, my Lord?”
“You. Kabru. You know that elf guy, right? The Canary.”
“Mithrun.”
“Yeah, him.”
“The Canaries are present at the Straits,” Tansu notes, scritching his chin.
Laios perks up again, more relieved. “You can talk to them!”
“M’Lord, I hardly think I qualify—”
“Y-You don’t have to, but please!”
Then, Laios Touden, the Lord Sovereign of the Golden Country, Demonkiller, Devourer of Unpleasantries, falls from his chair prostrates before Kabru, wilting down to the bricklaid floor and hugging his shins. Kabru’s brow tightens; Marcille and Mr. Tansu watch on, completely perplexed.
“Ehh, sir…”
“Please! Please! I don’t wanna deal with this anymore.”
“L-Laios…” Marcille’s eyebrow twitches.
Kabru looks around. It’s true—whenever Mithrun and his Canaries come to visit, they always begin and end on good terms. It’s always a treat having him and the elves over at his place after a round of dialogues at the castle. Kabru has learned a lot from Senshi, and Mithrun has always been a willing test subject.
Out of bed, too, like with new recipes and stuff.
Kabru beckons back his salesman smile, and lays a soft hang on King Laios’ trembling shoulder. “Oh, Lord Sovereign,” he says, “of course I will.”
“Of course he will,” mutters Tansu. Kabru chucks a daggerous glare in his direction.
“Are you sure?” Marcille says. “The Western elves have a habit of skinning diplomats.”
“Again, ancient history. Tallmen have evolved from being savage vikings, why haven’t the Western elves?”
“No, this still happens in the modern day, like—”
“Marcille.”
“Sorry.”
Laios holds Kabru, tears streaming from his eyes. Kabru laughs, faintly, and pats his King’s back. He supposes he feels bad for Laios, having to deal with all of this.
*
It was a hackneyed operation, but Kabru was comfortable. He was relatively swift in preparing his things in the usual manner, and, as usual, King Laios was accommodating to his needs.
The boat left at dawn. With magic, the journey was six weeks. Now, as Kabru stirs in his cabin, he feels a massive hammy palm slap on his back. He shuffles under the thin covers and looks up, bearing the sharp sun, as one of the sailors shakes him awake. The beefy dwarf walks away, making up for the deck, and Kabru rubs his eyes.
He steps out to the surface. The Western elven capital crowns the deep emerald country, the volcanic Mount Ingli spooling tufts of smoke over golden spires. The boat nears steadily the straight wooden port, the white cliffs carved away for a massive cothon containing hundreds of ships.
He steps off onto the short pier, lagging behind the gang of dwarven seamen who’d escorted him through the roiling sea to the Northwestern shore. The dwarf captain looks back for Kabru, who catches up to him with his things in tow.
Kabru slouches in pompous emissary wear and a large, hefty backpack, the leather straps girdled around his chest. The sinking sun casts a long shadow of his snail form on the hardwood boards.
Kabru and the captain walk side by side. “Careful around these parts,” tells the dwarf captain in perfect Goldenlander. “The elves have ways of getting what they want.”
“I’ll be fine, Gulwen.”
He waves goodbye to the dwarves and takes his things up the dock to the waterfront. Magical chariots crash by the road on shivering wheels with golden spokes, and from the marketfronts blistering shells jingle in the slight summer breeze. Kabru brushed up on his history: In the Kingdom of Cadarnle, those special seashells used to be the primary form of currency. The practice is still upheld to some degree—albeit, mostly for tourists.
“What are you doing here, Kabru?”
Kabru flips around to see a shawl sitting on the stone wall before the ocean. The black shawl is unkempt, busy with stains and old stitches.
“I thought I told you to get a new one,” Kabru frowns.
Mithrun glowers at him darkly from under his hood.
“Don’t wanna be seen out here, I take it?”
“I have unfinished business with these people.”
“Who, the merchants?”
“The mercantiles.” Mithrun quivers. “Milked me for every last cent. When they found out who I am…”
“What’s wrong with merchants? They keep the whole world running.”
Kabru gives him a smile. Mithrun, as usual, doesn’t return the favor.
“Easy for you to say, Goldenlander,” Mithrun scowls. “You people are members of the global north—the bourgeoisie. You only serve to benefit from global capitalism.”
“Oh gods, he’s also been getting into Orgodism,” Kabru mutters.
“Orgodism is BASED and REDPILLED!”
“Can we not do this right now?” Kabru unfolds the decree from King Laios and shows it to Mithrun. “You know why I’m here. I have business at the Citadel.”
Mithrun’s face relaxes, and he sighs. “Sorry. Yes, Kabru, I’ll take you. Come along.”
They proceed up the road, weaving through the city and its people, granted passage by standing guards along the way. They cross onto Royal Avenue, at once pristine and bustling, freckled with market stalls, horses, strangers in odd regalia, and glistening upperclassmen along the polished marble stone. This road isn’t meant for carriages: Garden islands thatch the center where rosegold pillars hold corinthian arcs over the myriad shrubbery, where bright butterflies frolic about between the soft ivies. Kabru watches as he and Mithrun pass a mother letting her children run about in the plants, no doubt disregarding the rules dictating otherwise, and the glowing butterflies that land on their noses. He smiles at them, genuinely this time. A kid waves back before his mother snatches him away at the sight of a passing guardsman.
Kabru meets Mithrun’s handler at the foot of the great bridge. Cithis towers over him, looking down with bladed fox eyes, fool’s gold scars glinting in the setting sunlight. She turns to Mithrun: “You brought him back in one piece.”
Mithrun stays quiet. Kabru realizes that was meant for him. “Ah, yeah, he did well.”
Cithis regards him, cradling her chin in her talons. “Your analysis, emissary?”
“Uh… Full marks? The shawl could use some fixing.”
“That’s his favorite shawl.” She leans close, startling Kabru with a cold warmth on his ear; ”You should see him carrying it around, teething on it—”
“Quiet,” snaps Mithrun from ahead.
Cithis titters by and leaves Kabru despondent.
“Sorry about her,” Mithrun says, very loudly, from the front.
Cithis just smiles.
They wait for a while in the Iron Citadel. In Kabru’s reading he’s come to know the full history of this place—a stalwart stronghold against the half-mythical mynydd-dir, savage nomads from Cadarnle’s founding legend. Obviously inspired by the extinct orc population, Kabru knows, and a tad bit distasteful. Thank Falin and the orcs for instilling that sense of morality in him.
Now, it seems that a separate kingdom of orcs has scheduled a meeting with the Queen before him.
“It’ll take a while,” Cithis tells him, smiling eerily. She pats the spot mahogany seat next to her, one of the hundred lining the pristine walls.
It is, indeed, a while. Gradually Kabru starts to droop, holding his head in his upturned fist, as Mithrun sits undisturbed by his side. On the other end, Cithis sits looking at the bare palms of her hands; it takes Kabru a good minute of watching her just staring to finally ask, “What’re you doing, Cith?”
“... Cith?” She turns to him.
“Can I call you that?”
“No.”
“Okay. Sorry. Why are you looking at your hands?”
She looks back at them, ear flitting. “Magic.”
“Like… illusions?”
“Yeah.”
Kabru shuffles closer. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
“How would it be dangerous?”
“I was taught in school that too much exposure to illusion magic can drive one insane.”
“Only the lesser races. Elves are more pure, so we can persist.”
“A-Ah… That’s, uh…” Kabru chuckles sheepishly.
Cithis blinks, then shrugs, “It’s true.”
“Cith, stop being racist,” Mithrun says.
“Sorry, I can't help it with my obvious superiority.”
“I’m inclined to agree with your captain, Cithis,” Kabru says.
Cithis wrinkles her nose at him. Kabru just keeps on smiling.
They’re interrupted by an elf woman pushing out of the great court and through the procession of orcs crowding the waiting hall. They each suddenly look up to see Pattadol panting, gripping her fairy near-lethally in her fist. “Sorry I’m late!” she huffs.
“Ah, Pattadol,” Kabru rises and gives her his hand. She takes it and shakes it ricketedly.
“Pattadol,” Mithrun regards her. “Your cabinmate was just being violently racist towards the Golden emissary.”
Pattadol looks at Cithis.
Cithis crosses her arms. “I wasn’t violent.”
“Ahaha, ignore her!” Pattadol waves her hand. “But it’s so great to see you again! How is your king?”
“Doing well. As you can probably guess, this whole conundrum with the blockade has him very distressed.”
“And the half-blood?” Pattadol asks.
“Isn’t that also racist?” commentates Cithis.
“It’s a microaggression so it’s not as bad,” Kabru says.
“Microaggressions are actually still pretty bad.”
“How would you know this, Cithis?” Mithrun says.
“Sounds like something a human would say.”
“Well, you aren’t wrong.”
“ANYWAYS—” Pattadol shouts, startling the rest—”How’s Marcy? Duwiau uchod, I’ve been dying to see her again.”
“She’s good! Her progress on the passive dungeon has been hasty. Some of the villagers have even been able to partly domesticate her basilisks.”
“Ooh, splendid, splendid!”
Mithrun and Cithis glower at Kabru threateningly.
He laughs. “Don’t worry, we have it under control.”
“If anything goes wrong, Kabru…”
“Ahahaha, you guys!” Pattadol waves them away.
A marble lift descends from the high mezzanine across from them. The alabaster platform, powered by advanced magicry, hums as it hovers slowly down, and from its flat surface steps an obsidian-skinned needlepick elf. They motion their hand forward; “This way, emissary.”
Kabru and the Canaries accompany the elf up to the citadel’s higher floors. A copper bell mounted on the contraption’s upholstery rings pleasantly, and the ivory doors slide open, revealing a plush, manifold garden, unfolding before them like an immaculately colored quilt. The same butterflies of light from the roads below flutter about the white ornamental fountain craning at the undergrowth’s center, webbed with prim paths of light brickwork.
“You may wait here until the Queen Immortal is prepared,” the elf guide says. “No guest of her’s should’st wait with the unwashed masses below.”
They step out and the elf disappears back down the lift. Kabru whistles; “This is swanky.”
“‘Swanky?’” Pattadol says.
“An old tallman saying.”
Pattadol turns to Mithrun, “Is that good or bad?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s a good thing,” returns Kabru. “Although, I wouldn’t have minded waiting down there. What’s the special occasion?”
Cithis smiles and elbows Pattadol, causing her to yelp. “Yeah, Pattadol, what’s the occasion?”
Pattadol grumbles. “Stop it, Cithis. I already get enough cachu from you all every other day.”
“Language,” Mithrun says. He addresses Kabru: “Pattadol is just a noble.”
“One of the lower rungs.”
“—Her family has certain connections. In short, she’s the reason why the Queen Immortal was open to seeing you in the first place, Kabru.”
“Ah,” Kabru turns to her. “I’m grateful, then.” He gives her a polite smile. The smile Pattadol returns is genuine, albeit faltering.
Cithis watches on, talons clicking against one another. She holds her long, damascened nails at the edge of her dress, fidgeting with her index and middle fingers. The sound they produce is crystalline.
As they wait in the garden, Cithis keeps looking back and forth between Kabru and the other Canaries. She rubs the pad of her thumb over her metallic claws, running them over like a washboard.
Kabru pulls out a knitting set. A knitting set! He knits! And he just sits there humming and kicking his feet next to the captain while he finishes off a scarf. When he’s done he presents his creation to Mithrun, who receives it unflinchingly. Kabru helps him weave it around his neck.
Cithis sits in the shade. The great elm that shelters her bristles lightly in the magical breeze, the topaz leaves above teeming with spectral butterflies. After a moment of deliberating she stands, brushes the dust off of her skirt, and walks over to them. Kabru looks up at her while Mithrun continues handling the scarf.
“Cute scarf,” she says.
“Is it?” Kabru smiles—that damn smile. “Apologies, it’s just that I don’t consider it my best work.”
“I think it’s fine.” Cithis crosses her arms. “Very fine.”
Pattadol watches on from afar disconcertingly.
Kabru hums. He digs in his bag to produce another ball of yarn, and offers it to Cithis. “Feel it.”
She does so. It’s soft and scratchy.
“Yarn from Utaya,” he says. “I taught the carpenters in the Golden Country to make yarn like it. It is to your liking, madam?”
“Madam?”
“Or do you go by some other form of address?”
Again he hums, studying her.
“I appreciate how close you and Captain Mithrun have become.”
“Oh, is that it?”
“Indeed. I’ve noticed. My, I wouldn’t mind asking you to look after the good commander from time to time.”
“I don’t look after him; he puts in his own effort when I’m around.”
“I see, yes. I’m impressed that you’ve managed to push him in the right direction.”
“Can you do this somewhere else?” Mithrun says.
Kabru and Cithis stare at each other.
She pushes him into the wall with her talons around his neck. She’s so close to kissing him, the cold warmth of her breath clashing against his nose, but she doesn’t, just looks at him with eyes like falcons circling directly above, so he presents her with his signature shit-eating smile. She scowls and presses her knee into his crotch; she expects him to squirm but he remains still, before clamping his thigh around her leg, bringing her closer.
“Really?” Kabru chuckles. “That was what got you into it?”
Cithis stabs, “It’s cute, you and Mithrun. Not like you’d understand. You’re the first person who’s gotten him to budge, as I recollect.”
“Oh? You’re his caretaker.” He snickers into his hand with slitted snake eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”
“You little slut,” she snarls.
She finally takes what he’s been giving her and shoves her tongue into his mouth. Her teeth and her mouth and her knee press even harder into Kabru. Further inside. She feels his erection under his linens. She tests his gag reflex and finds him worthy.
“You must be pretty good if Mithrun is fucking you,” she says after decoupling, wiping her mouth.
Kabru wipes his. “And you aren’t?”
“You flatter me.”
“I’m really not. He really hasn’t taken a bite out of you yet?”
“Business etiquette,” she says. “Don’t shit where you eat.”
“Oh, come on, I was getting into it.”
“And talking about babysitting Mithrun didn’t put you out of it?”
“It was hot in a responsible way. You looked good.”
“Quiet, you.”
Kabru gasps and slaps his hand over his mouth when Cithis lunges forward and bites his neck. She sucks, tongue slithering over the agitated flesh, and leaves a seething leechmark above his shoulder. Strings of spit connect them. Cithis leans upward and drags her tongue—forked, as Kabru now realizes—along his cheek, hot breath blistering the skin.
He clasps his legs harder around the thigh on his dick. She growls.
“Your legs are stone.”
Kabru shudders, feeling the senses in his legs fall away.
“Your arms are stone.”
Her mouth is stuck in his ear, and he can’t move away. His arms become cold and lifeless, despite the nerves screaming for motion. It makes his dick throb.
“U-Using magic for stuff like this?” He laughs in her face. “What right does a deviant have to call me a slut?”
“Already got my ears cut, why stop while I’m ahead?”
Her tongue stabs back inside, jamming down his throat. He feels the muscle bump and swell against his uvula, her spit spilling down into his larynx. He can’t help but choke on her. Any further and she could easily reach his trachea.
Her gilded talons dig into his sides. Her choking tongue represses the laugh that comes from the digging pain. She scratches up, no doubt leaving cuts under his clothes, until her knuckles are under his armpits. She traces around to his tits and cups them, squeezing, before clenching two fingers around one of his stinging nipples.
She pulls back when his eyes start turning dark. He coughs, mixed saliva webbing from his mouth like mucus. “Now I know why he likes you,” Cithis pants.
“He would if he could get it up.”
“Shut up.”
“Aw, did I just spoil him for you?”
She snatches his chin and snarls into his mouth. “Shut up or I’ll make you shut up,” she says.
She pushes her thumb into his lower lip, the tip of her nail ending just below his nose. He smirks and licks it. Cithis reaches down with her other hand and squeezes his dick through his pants.
“Cum.”
Kabru’s mind goes numb.
“You’re cumming.”
He bucks his hips into her hand and suppresses the moan cascading from his gullet. His arms and legs still won’t move, so he squirms between Cithis and the wall uselessly as a dark spot forms on his groin. Cithis peers down at it, self-satisfied.
“That’s a lot,” she muses, letting go of his face. Kabru slumps down, feeling the senses return to his limbs, and falls down to his knees.
Cithis reaches down and ruffles a hand through his dark curls. “Good boy.”
She then cradles her chin in her fingers and looks ahead in thought. Kabru continues panting beneath her.
She sighs, then looks back down at him. “As for your stay in this country,” she says, “I’m sure Captain Mithrun wouldn’t mind if you stayed in our lodge. Hmm, or would you rather stay in a tavern…”
Kabru looks up. He wipes the spittle from his chin with a finger, and grins with teeth. “I’d l-love to,” he says. “Mithrun needs the company.”
“Good, good.” She whisks her hand in the air: “Ei guddio.”
The damp mark in his pants fades away, but he can still feel it.
“Behave yourself, Kabru. You’re talking to the Queen, after all.”
Negotiating with the Queen of the Western Elves with a full wad in your pants is a harrowing experience. Doubly so when the person who magicked it out of you is standing right there, stealing glances every now and then. Pattadol, too, seemed disquieted.
Mithrun didn’t seem to care. That is, until the meeting was over, where he asked Cithis and Kabru, “Was all that really necessary?”
“Was what?” Kabru asked, very politely.
“... Nevermind.”
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