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They were taking a few days of downtime in a cottage deep in the forest, a moment of rest in an otherwise chaotic existence. Beauregard was sitting in a small clearing a few hundred metres from the structure, cross-legged and listening, vaguely, as Nott bullied Caleb into taking a bath. The sound of approaching footsteps did not encourage her to open her eyes, but when the other person dropped onto the ground in front of Beau with a softly accented “Oof!” she cracked one eye open.
“Can I help you?”
“You looked so lonely out here, I thought I would join you.” Jester flashed her a smile, her teeth too white against her blue skin. “Or is that not welcome?”
Beau shrugged. “Fine by me.”
Jester clapped her hands together with obvious glee, beaming at the other woman, and Beau fixed her with a look.
“What do you want, Jester?”
“Nothing…” Jester had a habit of drawing out her words when she was hiding something. Beau narrowed her eyes.
“Out with it.”
“I just.” Jester’s teeth worried her bottom lip. “You are…very confident.”
“Yes?” Beau raised an eyebrow. “So are you. Shit, so is just about everyone, except Fjord and Caleb.”
“Caleb has his moments,” Jester said delicately. Flashing her a smile, she said, “You are right about Fjord, though.”
“Of course I am, the guy’s a disaster,” Beau said, and something in Jester’s face faltered. “Jes? Is there something you want to tell me?”
“I…” Jester’s mouth twisted to one side, and she looked away, clearly trying to choose her next words carefully. “I quite like Fjord, you know? He’s so handsome and captainly and dreamy…and I am…”
She gestured toward herself, like that explained anything. Beau frowned.
“You’re what?”
“I’m not unaware what people think of me,” the tiefling shrugged. “I am, you know. Crazy. That’s what they say.”
“You’re not crazy,” Beau felt compelled to say. “You’re just…different.”
Jester shrugged and looked away. “It does not matter.”
“What do you want, Jester?”
Beau’s voice had dropped its usual bravado, falling into something that could almost – almost, but not quite – be described as kind. Jester fidgeted with her skirt for a moment, before she blurted out, “I don’t know how to flirt with Fjord!”
Beau blinked.
“That’s it?”
Jester’s eyes flashed dark. “It is not so easy, you know. To be different.”
“That’s not – I didn’t mean it like that,” Beau huffed, running a hand through her hair. “I’m just, you know. You don’t know how to flirt? Of course you know how to flirt. You’re always reading those romance novels.”
“There is a difference,” Jester murmured, “Between theory and practice, Beauregard.”
Beau said, “Oh.”
They stared at each other for a moment, blue eyes meeting violet, and Jester raised a delicate eyebrow in almost a challenge. Beau’s brain, at that moment, seemed to lose all higher functions, because she blurted out:
“You could practice on me.”
Jester seemed taken aback. “Practice?”
“Yeah,” Beau struggled to find her footing, ignoring the voice in the back of her head asking her what the fuck it was, exactly, she thought she was doing. “Like, we can flirt with each other. And get a feel for, uh, you know…flirting.”
“Okaaaay,” Jester said slowly as she thought on it. “How though? Am I just meant to…?”
Her eyes drifted down Beau and her cheeks flushed darker before she looked away. Beau tilted her head, considering her. That was…interesting. Whatever that was.
“I’ll start,” she said, leaning back. Her voice turned low and husky. “Hey, Jes. You’re looking really cute today.”
Jester’s blush crept upwards. “Thank you, Beauregard. You…you are not looking so bad yourself.”
Beau smiled, because okay, this wasn’t all that hard.
“There you go,” Beau said. “You can flirt.”
Jester pursed her lips and looked away, her hands balling up into fists. “No, Beau, that was pathetic. I want to be romantic.”
“If you put so much pressure on the romance aspect, you’re not going to get it right,” Beau shrugged. “Try to relax. Look at me. Say the first thing that comes to your mind.”
Jester studied Beau for a moment, her eyes drifting over the monk’s still form. They lingered, certainly, in certain places, and Beau could’ve sworn the tiefling couldn’t blush any harder.
“Your eyes are like purest drop of the ocean, Beauregard,” Jester said softly, swallowing hard. “To gaze in them is to lose myself in your eternity.”
Beau dragged her gaze away from the tiefling’s face and, with one hand, covered the back of her neck, which she was sure had just blushed a blazing pink. No one had ever…look, Beau was known – quite extensively – for her history of meaningless hookups. She found women, she fucked women, she fucked off.
No one had ever spoken to her like that, even if they were trying to get in her pants, and the worst part was Beau knew Jester wasn’t trying to get in her pants. Jester had eyes only for Fjord.
Right?
“That was the wrong thing to say, right?” Jester interrupted Beau’s thought spiral sheepishly. “Like, way too corny.”
“No, it was…” Beau trailed off, not quite sure how to end that sentence, breathtakingly aware of how weirdly hot and bothered those words, the sincerity, had made her. She shifted uncomfortably and rubbed the back of her neck. “It was perfect, Jes. You’re doing great. Uh…keep going.”
“Okay,” she sounded a little uncertain, but she clasped her hands in front of her, eyes raking over Beau’s face. “You…you’re so strong and smart, I bet we could do some very fun things together…”
Beau considered, for a moment, what those fun things were, and then took another moment to consider asking Jester’s god to smite her where she sat.
It did not stop the next sentence that flowed from her lips, however.
“Yeah?” She grinned. “Like what?”
Jester’s blush seemed to deepen further, and she leaned in close enough that Beau could smell the sweet and heady floral scent of her perfume coming off her in waves. Her eyes flickered from side to side, and she lowered her voice.
“Like…” Jester bit her lip, and holy shit, Beau’s brain was doing some very strange things. For one, Jester was hot. “You could take me back to your room, pin me to the bed, and have your way with me.”
Beau gazed into Jester’s wide, trusting violet eyes, and considered doing exactly that.
For a moment.
Gods, she really needed to get laid – preferably by someone whose heart was not already spoken for. Surely this podunk town had a bar, right? She could hook up with a nice hot stuck-up elf and not think about this.
Jester’s face inched closer.
“JESTER! BEAU! Y’ALL COMING IN FOR SOME GRUB?”
Fjord’s voice boomed out through the trees, and Beau and Jester sprang apart, though they clearly had been doing nothing untoward. Jester got to her feet, gathering her skirts, and flounced away.
“Thanks Beau!” She called over her shoulder. “This was fun!”
Beau slumped back in the grass and covered her face with her hands, waiting for the heat to creep out of her face before she got to her feed and headed back to the cottage.
She was going to try very, very hard not to think about this again…
But it seemed likely the image of blue skin, flushed dark, would be creeping into her thoughts from time to time.