#we're in it now boys | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

astrovagrant · 6 months

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read my character study that's actually just set dressing for a lizard and an elf to have nat20 makeouts 🤙

parasympathetic –

Everything had been going so well. Zari had a nagging feeling of having missed something from her earlier conversations with Skalazar - the night before and then again this morning - but his transition from panic at her proposition to open desire had given her all the invitation she needed, and enough of a diversion to avoid thinking too hard about it.

Zari had shut the door - throwing them both into the grayscale of near-complete darkness, color drained away in their mutual darkvision - peeled his sleep shirt from him as she slid into his lap, and realized that Skalazar had no idea what he was doing. There was something charming - thrilling, even - about that, though, and she had decided not to think about it as she took his tea from him, placed her hand over one of his, and started to guide him through the basic motions.

She helped him pull off her over-robe, then unwind her sash, then release the ties holding her loose pants over her sharp hips and lifted herself just enough so he could wiggle them off her the rest of the way. That left her with her shirt and smallclothes, still, but she wasn’t quite ready to part with those yet.

Skalazar had been fairly quiet the whole time, fixing her with an intensity and rapt attention that belied the depth of his interest and only asking one or two questions about what was and wasn’t acceptable - ground rules. She was happy to supply them, but it was… a bit strange, to her, and different from the other kinds of amorous intention she’d seen on ample display in the brothels she’d drifted between in her years amongst the people of the Stormborn. Zari wasn’t sure yet what it meant, and wasn’t sure how she felt about it, but as she moved from his lap to the bed beside him and started to pull him sideways and over her for further education, she decided it didn’t matter right now.

Then, of course, her tides changed.

As she reclined back against the single pillow on his bed for support, her good arm outstretched, hand in his and using her movement to carry him along with her, some base pattern recognition living deep in her mind understood the true size of Skalazar as compared to herself - it understood. And it reacted. She felt it happen before he noticed - a tremor starting from the base of her skull, passing in waves down her spine, shaking out along her limbs in an initial shudder, followed by a softer but persistent tremble. Skalazar did see it, then, and froze in place with a flash of alarm, holding himself off of her with elbows locked and eyes wide. Damn it.

“It’s - “ she paused to pull her hand from his and place it against her other shoulder, willing the tremble to stop and failing. Her blood and organs quaked with involuntary physical response to a form - any form - bending over her that was baked so deep into her psyche that even her anticipation of things to come couldn’t hold it at bay. Under her arm, she felt her heart stutter.

“Should I stop?” Skalazar’s voice had gone thin with worry, and Zari shook her head, hair bunching up under her head and spilling out on bed behind her in frazzled waves as she did.

“No. I’d tell you if we needed to stop.” Yet again, her body acted outside of her own control - shaking like a leaf despite how bad that must look, despite any desire of her own. Please. Please. Obey her for once in your miserable existence -

“Are you…”

Hesitation hung around his words, such a far cry from the decisive intensity he’d had just a few minutes ago. Was he thinking better of it? Realizing he didn’t actually want her, or this? The burgeoning heat in her gut curdled a bit into something bitter, though when she’d first tried to leave him after propositioning she hadn’t taken it personally at all - she knew she was not a commonly desired format of woman, and was happy to leave it as yet another of her many misunderstandings.

That said - while she hadn’t necessarily enjoyed any of her past encounters with others more than what she could do for herself - through all of the conflicting messaging she’d read from Skalazar over the past few days, the one common trait seemed to be that he wanted something from her - she just couldn’t tell what. And if it wasn’t sex, then she was out of ideas.

He’d found his tongue in the time it took her to feel a sourness she wasn’t familiar with take root in her chest, and started again.

“Are you afraid of me?”

Oh, no.

She shook her head again, more vehemently this time. “It’s autonomic. It happens sometimes when I - when there’s - “ she paused, considering her phrasing against the tense draw of his brow ridges. “My sympathetic nerves go into overdrive when it feels like someone is… over me.”

The memory of salt and astringency and blood in her mouth, a tired ache overcoming her ability to move her own limbs - never enough to be unconscious, just enough to be pliant - Zari licked her lips against the intrusion. None of that was happening, now, and moreover she knew her own genuine fear enough to know she was not afraid, just that her body hadn’t gotten the message that she was the one very much in control of this situation.

Skalazar moved to sit up, but she found herself placing her hand against his chest to stop him, flattened palm skimming the smaller, softer scales over his pectorals. How much of the rest of him was soft like this? She supposed she’d find out.

“I’m alright. Just - wait here, a minute?” She removed her hand from him and patted her own chest, beckoning him closer. If he rested his weight on her, if she had a moment for her body to accept that it wasn’t in any danger, they could continue without issue - she hoped. They just might need to slow down a little bit.

“I don’t want to crush you.”

“Here - “ Zari’s arm moved down between their bodies to touch the outside of his thigh, continuing to position him and show him where to touch her until he was comfortable enough to do it on his own. “ - tuck your thigh between mine.” His neck feathers flared slightly, their vibrancy lost in the dark but the familiarity of his own unique form of blushing apparent. “It’ll keep you from putting all your weight on me, but I’m sturdier than that.”

Skalazar made a noise with a little too much doubt in it for her liking but ultimately acquiesced, his much thicker and still-clothed thigh slotting between her own. Zari wiggled down a few inches to press herself down onto it, watching in muted and alien satisfaction as he looked away from her and coughed quietly to avoid making an altogether different noise.

She wasn’t sure why it mattered so much to her now as opposed to any other time, but something about Skalazar’s obvious interest in her - despite everything - made the heat between her legs flare pleasantly in a manner she couldn’t honestly say she’d felt before. It was something to be explored, of course, but - for once in her life - she had time. It was a several-day journey to Ödland, after all.

“Good. And if you come down here - “ Zari utilized the interesting reaction she’d observed earlier while she’d been settling into his lap and reached up to run her fingers along the underside of the bony crest that crowned the back of Skalazar’s skull. He shuddered under her touch for a moment before following her down and letting his chest rest against hers, a bulk of his weight settling over her. He seemed unsure what to do with his head, but eventually tucked his long skull in between the space between her head and her neck. He inhaled deeply a few times, and she wondered briefly if that was nerves or if he was specifically smelling her.

It wouldn’t be so bad if he was, she thought.

Silence fell for the moment, and through the comfortable blanket of darkness she realized how cold Skalazar was against her. Zari ran hot regardless, so most people did feel much cooler to the touch, but the large reptilian man on top of her was several degrees colder than your standard human or elf - not as frigid as a corpse, she noted, but easily surpassing the threshold that would kill other species. Their night swims the previous evening had given her a bit more perspective, but she realized in muted wonderment that she - with all her waste heat, which others interpreted as an indication of feverish illness - must feel wonderful just to be near, for him.

Despite her distraction, the alien nature of the situation seized her without warning as she tried to get herself to relax - how hard did she typically avoid being touched? How long had she avoided this kind of contact with only a few disappointing forays, finding no value in the gropings of idiots? She had no need for her magic, here, but what if she got overwhelmed and it lashed out without warning?

Anxiety spiked through her chest, and Skalazar’s mass on top of her seemed, for a moment, to trigger another set of feelings she knew were misplaced - but her limbs were not restrained, and weight was… nice, in a realm she didn’t fully have language for. The side of him that was pressed against her had even begun to fully absorb the heat she generated and seemed to be acting like a thermal battery, keeping her heat close to her body, where she normally was left cold as it immediately dissipated into the environment around her.

Despite that, her heartbeat worsened, thudding high and fast like a rabbit’s. She inhaled deeply, annoyed and trying not to show it. Calm down, she thought at her organs, you’ve copulated like this before. This negative reaction had happened before as well, of course, but this was the first time anyone had slowed or paid enough attention to her to realize it wasn’t the aroused trembling and fluttering heartbeat of an overly-engaged lover.

All the better, if she was honest - her indulging in passive curiosity with the fumbling grip of a stranger (sometimes a very inebriated one, as was often the case in brothels) was no stage for exposing her own vulnerabilities. This wasn’t, either, but Skalazar was already aware of some of her idiosyncrasies and seemed unaffected by them - in some cases, seemed to like them.

“You don’t seem to be calming down.” he whispered. Pressed against her as he was, his voice felt deeper and fuller as she felt the vibrations pass between their chests, despite how quietly they were talking to one another. It was more pleasant than it had any right to be. She wondered if he had realized just from his proximity that her organs were in the wrong places, that her heart thudded in the same place his did, a mirror image - knowledge he would have, with his experience. She wondered if he cared.

Zari sniffed. “We can continue regardless. We’re both aroused, and it’s not the first time I - “

Skalazar shifted his head slightly, and she felt something cool against her neck for a moment before the sensation of wetness followed behind it in a wide stripe parallel to her carotid artery. She gasped at the suddenness of it, and then found herself laughing, a short, sharp noise that seemed to surprise both of them.

“Did you just lick me?”

“I apologize. I have a specialized vomeronasal organ for specific scents - I’ve been curious and I haven’t been able to taste you.” He instantly seemed to regret what he was saying, adding an additional qualifier before she could respond. “I mean - we haven’t… kissed.”

Oh.

Zari had been avoiding that, actually. Other kisses she’d been subjected to had ranged from pointlessly chaste (relatively speaking) to what felt like a vast overcompensation for other lacking sexual attributes, a process that she neither craved nor enjoyed.

One human - an alchemist, if the reek of sulfur and reagent on him informed her of his profession accurately - had even grabbed her tongue afterwards, commenting on its unusual color and variegation as one would an interesting houseplant. She left him with a pile of ashes in place of his clothes, after that, and she’d decided that kissing was often a request for something that she had no interest in giving.

After slightly too long of a beat, Zari realized that the unbidden heat in her face was a blush, and wriggled underneath him to better position herself to look him in the eyes, a bit of a feat with the length of his skull. He’d lifted his head to do the same, it seemed, and she processed for the first time just how close he was. Obviously, he was half laying on top of her, so yes he was close, but this was the longest she’d spent in bodily contact with someone who wasn’t inevitably splattered with her own blood - possibly ever.

Skalazar shifted, then, and she moved back against the wall of his berth to allow him the space he needed to put himself to the side of her, both of them turning simultaneously to face each other. He was certainly too tall for this bed, though it was wide enough to accommodate his need to curl himself up to fit, and Zari carefully re-entangled her legs with his as they settled, bringing their bodies unbearably close again - which he didn’t seem to mind in the least.

For a moment, they said nothing, simply staring at one another as they both tried to resolve their own inner thoughts. There was an expression on his face that she couldn’t quite parse, the keratinized ridges that protected his eyes and vaguely suggested ‘eyebrows’ to her drawn together and mouth set in a thin, thoughtful line as he seemed to study her very seriously.

She wasn’t worried about waning interest - her thigh rubbing intermittently between his own in a reversal of their earlier positioning had confirmed a few other questions she had about lizardfolk physiology as well as what she’d be dealing with soon enough, and even the way he occasionally let his mouth part to facilitate the aforementioned scenting meant he had not, in any way, lost interest.

Still, there was something unsaid - possibly entirely unrelated to her, though she doubted it was entirely unrelated - hanging in the air between them. She almost asked, left the unspoken question linger in the back of her mouth for a moment before her own mind interrupted her with something altogether less pleasant - an unhinged desire to ask for something that she knew that she neither truly wanted nor should he actually give her crawled from a long-ignored corner of her brain.

Could you open me up, put your hands in my ribs, play around until there’s enough gore, until you’re satisfied? - and she recoiled from that line of thinking immediately, finding her face a mirror of Skalazar’s own mild frown. Zari wanted him to have nothing to do with any of that, instinctually (never know of it, even; never know she was ever so at someone’s mercy) - but she had no other context, felt the lack. Being naked and being bare were not the same things - she wanted him to put his hands on her and in her, but not - it could not originate from the same place.

Her newfound pleasure could not live in the same house as that, the chained up thing she kept away from guests and prying eyes alike, that still bled over into everything in her life regardless, no matter what she did. For her own sanity, she had to make sure they stayed firmly separated. A sliver of acute frustration at her inability to understand the true shape of her desire lodged in the back of her brain - something to examine later, or never.

Instead, perhaps simply letting him have what he wanted was a better idea, a panacea to the burned-in fear response that lived in her arousal’s basement, as well as whatever currently ailed him. The rest might matter enough to discuss someday, but she wanted so badly to push through it as if it had no sway over her, as if believing that would make it true. A little kissing wouldn’t hurt her; with the way things had been going, she might even like it.

She leaned forward to chastely press her lips against the end of Skalazar’s snout.

It was a ridiculous move on her part, but the smooth, lightly bumped texture of his less-fatty lip structures was novel enough and the warm puff of air that exhaled from his slitted nostrils right into her face in surprise was distracting enough that she found another small chuckle tumbling out before she could stop it.

“I’ve never kissed lizardfolk before; I’m open to improvements.”

“May I - “ Skalazar’s hands flexed somewhere out of sight - she could feel it more than anything else, see his tail flicking in muted agitation in her peripheral vision - and nodded in response, reaching down to put her hand back over his, bring it up to rest on her hip - a relatively safe, neutral area, at least to start.

His fingers curled into her immediately, testing his grip against her own realization that he’d kept his hands off of her that entire long, long moment, and seemed to return to her like a moth to flame. There was impatience there, alongside the fact that he had clearly worried he’d fucked something up. The blush from earlier, though it hadn’t truly gone away, flushed her face again, slowly spreading down her chest and shoulders underneath the fabric of her shirt - that’d have to go, soon. Then he’d really see it all.

Maybe that, too, was alright.

“You can touch me however you want. I told you I’d let you know if anything wasn’t comfortable, and vice versa.”

With that additional reassurance, something in his face seemed to resolve, and he reached forward to wrap a hand around the back of her head, bringing her face to his with the same raw desire he’d done such a bad job at disguising earlier. As he did, she moved his hand gripping her hip down under the admittedly small curve of her ass, giving him leverage to pull her entire body up to him.

She parted her lips and pressed forward to make it easier for him to meet her, then reached up to reposition his jaw at an angle - he resisted no touch she offered, and a pleased rush of blood ran through her face and started making its way south as he - at first cautiously, but then with rapidly-increasing confidence - licked across her lips and paused for a moment before deciding that the most efficient way to do this - devise a compatible method between their differing physiologies - was going to inherently involve a lot of tongue.

A lot of tongue, and a not-insignificant amount of teeth.

Somewhere in Zari’s mind, a barrier fell apart. She didn’t notice it, or didn’t understand its meaning. All of her attention was focused on the present - the feeling, the heat between them, the need. She felt, for the first time, like she wanted her fill of another living being, and ‘greedy’ didn’t even begin to cover the tidal wave building under her breastbone. She rolled her pelvis into him under his grasp, curling her legs tight around his larger ones, and ate every near-silent utterance he rewarded her with.

Some time later, catching her breath while he continued to run his tongue along her neck and jaw and his hands along her naked legs, Zari realized she was no longer trembling like a prey animal against her will, and the cadence of her heart and heaving chest had everything to do with the brave new world of lizardfolk-elven relations and absolutely nothing to do with fight or flight.

She pushed Skalazar’s shoulder lightly, rolling him so that she could instead sit on top of his cool, scaled belly and continue their endeavors from there. Once fully in place, his clawed hands digging pleasantly into what scant hip and thigh meat she had, she leaned back, leveraging against his grip, and tapped her chin with a finger as if deep in thought.

“Let me know if you’re about ready to be done,” she offered in as sweet a tone as she could muster, dangling the bait just to see if he’d take it. It was surprisingly easy to tease him like this, no awkwardness or tension of uncertain social rules obstructing the basic fact that it would take an act of possibly several Goddesses to separate them from one another at this point.

“We are nowhere close to finished,” he bit out, nearly as breathless as she was and with pupils blown so wide they nearly blacked out his iris. His voice was rougher, composure out the window, and his tone verging on the edge of command. Hook, line, sinker.

Zari leaned back over Skalazar, a very small smile tucked into the corners of her mouth, and he instantly craned his neck to meet her lips and tongue with his own while he hooked his fingers under the hem of her shirt and started to pull upwards - without her guidance.

#pop campaign #zari #skalazar tag #skalazari #we're in it now boys

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