Of Barbarians and Bards (Patreon)

Quiet shuffles of silk and cloth.  First one leg, then the other, sliding the trousers on over his legs as near silent as could be.  For someone who had made an unhappy expertise in being quiet, stealthy, near undetectable, this was perhaps his most tenuous, most dangerous of endeavors.  He’d snuck through Dragon hoards, Undead-infested crypts, entire cities on the hunt for his silver blood.

The sight of the war camp’s distant tents, visible through the flap of the one he had spent the night in, was just barely coming into light from the distant, rising sun.  Sneaking through there would be the easy part.  Getting out of his current conundrum however would be the most difficult challenge the Bard had ever faced.

Not for the challenge of attempting to make as little noise as blades of grass rustling under a gentle wind.  Not for the mental cataloging of how many steps it would take to acquire the rest of his gear and exit the tent in as little time as possible.  Not even having to have slid out from underneath powerful, iron-grey limbs wrapped around him as tightly as a child with their favorite toy.  

No.  

It was the bearer of those arms, easily thicker apiece than his thighs, the owner of the coat of midnight-black hair cascading down her naked, scar-riddled back, the same hair that had tickled him, hung about him, slid through his fingers with a texture like nothing else.  Leaving her was the greatest challenge he would ever face, and one he wished for all the Gods, for all the Magic in the world, for every laugh and tear he might ever have, that he did not have to do.  

The sheer memory of the song of their combined sounds, the dance of their entwined limbs, the rush of heat and warmth in equal measures as he felt for the first time in his life what it meant to hold the one most precious in all the world in his arms.  The one he had been searching for his entire life.

The old man had not lied when he showed Oborro a glimpse of this woman, all those years ago.  When he had been at his lowest, his most desperate and depressed, that tired, scar-faced old soldier had given him the greatest mercy imaginable; shielding him from the mob on the hunt for the vile Changeling.  

Even then, when all the world seemed against him and even the few he counted as close and dear to him saw him only for what silver blood was worth, when the sheer burden of having to breathe in a world that denied him either life or love, that venerable, ancient-eyed guard had shielded him, as a parent might to a terrified child.

For it was Alreigch’s way; the lonely grandfather who sheltered and shepherded the lost children of the world, protecting them from the monsters lurking in the shadows.  It was not every day that one met one of the most powerful beings in all of Talamh. Bearer of the title ‘All Conquerer’, source of legends and epics, counted amongst the most peerless warriors in all the lands, who knew what stories led to Him being disguised as a simple town guard?  But from who else would such mercy and kindness have been more meaningful, rescuing a frightened teenage Bard in training on the run from a howling mob?

But He had done more than that.  He had not only spirited then-named Leo of Blackstreet away from New Aurot, He had given him so much more.  Shelter from the storm of hatred and fear that had been his every-waking terror of being discovered for what he was.  Kind words when it seemed as finite a resource as air beneath the ocean waves.  A great fate, those shining threads only Alreigch, Master of Russland, could see was laid out before the exiled Bard; that to be centerstage as a new age of Talamh dawned.  The Greatest Bard who Never Lived, ready to tell his story, never again afraid to hide his face.  He would have allies the world over, treasured companions who saw him clearer than any reflection.

But most treasured of all His gifts was a vision: a vision of her.  It was nothing profound or grand, but it was a memory whose clarity would never fade, whose meaning would never be lost.  She stood upon a great mountain peak, facing out across a plain of mist shrouding a valley far below.  He would watch her turn, unbound, midnight black hair gusting out behind her, framing a feral, beautiful face that was more resplendent than a thousand sunrises.  Scarred lips turned upwards in a knowing grin, tusks flashing, wolf-yellow eyes crinkling with fondness such as he had never seen directed towards him.

She said only one word, a name that was not his, but in that moment, he knew she was speaking to him, and only him.  He would no longer be Leo of Blackstreet.  No matter who she was, where in the world she might be, the challenges he would face, the adventures and stories he would no doubt become the star player of; none of it mattered but for that singular vision.  Knowing out there was the perfect woman, the only woman he would ever love, for love he did completely.  In his mind, he raced towards her, leaping without care or fear into her powerful arms, crushed against her solid Orcish frame, nuzzling deep into that dark, ebony hair.





Oborro Othello was born.

On his loneliest of nights, when the road’s biting wind and rain would normally have stolen the heat from his limbs, the glow of her smile kept a fire burning inside of him that nothing could put out.  All the world was merely a challenge then, a stepping stone on the path that would someday lead him to her.  Even Alreigch’s warning to not go chasing visions, to find purpose of his own, had gone unheeded until now.

Then came years of wandering, of roaming, of adventures and great deeds, all boosting his renown and spreading his name far across the Landsrayd.  With the Dread Malig finally deposed, it was the dawning of a new Age, and Talamh had need of Bards to spread tales of heroism once again.

How unlike other Bards he was, searching instead of his own acclaim but for the sight of his errant, estranged love.  A grand title had he, even if perplexing in its meaning, great stories all his own and readily told whenever resting at an inn, tavern, or around the campfire alongside fellow Adventurers.  But ever onward would his quest continue, even after treasures were won, battles ended, villains defeated, and heroes immortalized into song.  Never settling, never resting, never able to cease searching for the woman whose smile and embrace filled his dreams every night.  He chased that vision until his feet could go no farther, when his winding path brought him once again to the city he had always considered his home, even when the last sight of it years before had been lit by angry torches.

His path had led him to a place that needed heroes more than ever.  A supposed utopia caught in the midst of a brutal civil war fought in the shadows of the darkened streets of the Undercity.  New Aurot, besieged from within, by the forces and machinations of the People’s Army versus the insidious Faceless Kingdom, led by the one being who Oborro feared more than even his own reflection.  Learning to fight for others had changed him, to run a tavern as a beacon of hope and rest to the equally beleaguered and the war-weary.  He had found real purpose, a community that he feared not at all.  His path had given him a home.

Who could have guessed that only then would she arrive?  Mere months after his ousting of the sinister Bloodmoon, the taming of the Lower Quarter as the Quicksilver Domain, and his cementing of his name in the hearts and minds of all the people he had come to cherish and yearn to defend?  What was more, at the head of an Orc army ready to burn the city down because of the jibes and threats made by those in the Upper Quarter?

Only happenstance and coincidence had led to him being at the right place and time to entreat the Warrior Queen to spare his city.  Not the first time the Bard had made such a bargain, certainly not the last.  

But no one, not even he in his most heart-lost, daydreaming, could have expected that was to be the first time he would lay eyes upon Lykopis, and She upon him.

But for the cost of a single song he had spared so many lives and even her own, for it took him but a single glance at the supposed ‘Mad Queen’ to know that this was not her want.  

She had come to this place entirely to maintain the strength of her image, slandered by the petty, close-minded nobles of New Aurot.  More than even her prodigious skills in battle and command of the world's most unruly army, her invincible and unforgiving image alone kept her many enemies and rivals from attempting outright war with her beloved Rende.

The nobility of New Aurot were either unaware that their peace was partially bought by the refusal of Rende to join the many varying factions who once served the Dread Malig, or had lost all respect for the need for strength even in this Fourth “Enlightened” Age.  

Regardless, their slander of this infamously vengeful Queen, had to be answered or risk her looking weak.  And in the Wilderlands and her barbarian kingdom of Rende, Weakness soon brought on the End.

Like him, she had been forced to fight for the home she had found.  Like him, she had always secretly yearned for a better option, subtly worked towards finding one even since having marshaled her entourage to give the lofty bigheads in New Aurot a lesson in manners. He had given her one, and in so doing, found one another, even if she could have no clue as to the path that had led him to her that fateful day.

And now his path must lead him away.

What madness would possibly allow him to explain to her all of that?  None.  Her words the night previous, her claiming, dominant words, both whispered and snarled into his glaive-like ears, no matter how sweet, told him that their tales were not yet to intertwine more than this single night’s dalliance.  Their fates were as yet undefined, both leading such different lives that as of yet fate had only deigned to allow touch for this most brief, most treasured of moments.

No matter the warmth they two had shared, New Aurot and Rende were still very much enemies.  The peace between kingdoms was tenuous all across the Landsrayd even now, kept in check only by the hopes of a brighter Age to come.  Peace was a fragile thing.  She had said as much the night previous inbetwixt their many joinings, that her place here already strained the threat of war to its breaking point, praising him for helping her find a better way, but that come the morning, she must depart with her forces.

But Oborro?  He had to remain there, to face the world suddenly alone once again after only finally finding the one he had for so long been searching for.  He had a legacy to uphold, a reputation of his own to maintain.  Without him, the Lower Quarter might very well be swallowed back up by the People’s Army, his most unhappy allies with whom he shared no love for or with.  Even worse, all his hard work might end up with his friends, neighbors, and beloved tavern being redistributed amongst the nobles in the Uppercity for their political games.

There was too much at stake to allow them to be together more than this single moment.  And how he hated the world for that second for being so cruel, that after all the Good he had done, that to be once again alone was his reward.

He must have paused a second or two longer than he intended, purple eyes unable to tear away from her radiance, unable to force himself to ghost away whilst she still dreamed with that utterly wonderful smile on her sleepy face.  Who knew that the ‘Mad Queen of Rende’, barbarian warrioress, uniter of Orc tribes and founder of a country more savage than the lands that birthed it, could look in that moment so tender, so beautiful?

But then those huntress-yellow eyes fluttered as from a waking dream.  Her great bulk of iron-grey flesh, covered and riddled with scars that on any lesser being would have been fatal, stirred.  A soft sigh escaped her then, a satisfied, sultry grin once again stretching across those full, tusk-framed lips.  His heart ached, burned, and broke to imagine not just throwing all caution to the winds and snuggling back into her.

Hands on the hem of his trousers, the broken-hearted Bard turned to go, tears heavy in his dual-colored black and lavender eyes.  How she might hate him, perpetuating the stereotype of Bards running out the morning after a passionate tryst.  How he hated himself for it too.

Then, suddenly, his entire body was yanked backwards.  Arms, corded with muscle that told of strength that could not be entirely mortal, wrapped around him in the space of his momentary hesitation.  His still naked back pushed flush up against a seeming wall of warmth, perfect contrast of softness and solidity.  Plush mountains pressed hard against his shoulders and neck, strands of raven-black tresses sliding almost possessively over his pale skin.

“Going somewhere?” came the sultry, growling voice in his ear.

His voice stammered and broke, faltering uneven and disjointed.  He was as trapped as if caught in an iron vice.  If only he had moved faster, he tried to think, even as internally he knew he might have delayed those crucial moments of sad contemplation in the hopes that he might feel this embrace just once more.

A chuckle, warm, rich, thrilling, sent shivers down his spine.  Huge hands that could engulf his skull in one palm wound around him, pinning his arms to his sides, wedging him yet further against her.  “Speechless?” she teased.  “How very unlike a Bard.”  Craning his neck back, he saw the twinkle of her yellow eyes gleaming down at him.

Again, he said nothing, for he had nothing to say.  The sight of her, the sound of her voice, robbed him of his breath and reasoning.  He had been searching for her for so long that her presence was nearly paralyzing.

“You certainly weren’t speechless last night,” her sultry, animal-like purr against him invoked images of their evening previous.  

Try as he might, even as bruised, exhausted, and fatigued as he was, he couldn’t help the rush of excitement and arousal at such thoughts.  They were tempered only by his despondent knowledge that this warmth and softness were not to last.  He had been caught, and now he’d have the storm to face.

“Not thinking of sneaking off, were we?”

Her words cut him to the quick.  Even spoken teasingly, they hurt more than the brand that had scarred part of his face silvery-pale on the night of his banishment and flight from the Bard’s College.  He tried to face her, to look her in the eye, but his vision blurred with yet more unspent tears.

A rough thumb brushed his cheek then, causing him to startle.  “Don’t go,” she breathed down at him.  Even sitting down, she was over a head taller than him.  “Not just yet.”

There was no part of him that could resist obeying her.  Somehow, he felt himself turning in her grasp to face halfway towards her, although he was not sure if it was through his own volition or her bodily doing it for him.  Either way, the sight of her bare, naked Half-Orc beauty now completely filled his vision.  Her gaze was inscrutable, as mysterious as the pale tattoos inked into her skin.

Lykopis, the Mad Queen of Rende.  She-Wolf.  Daughter of the War-God.  Slayer of Dragons, Destroyer of Kings, one of the most feared names in all of Talamh’s most recent history.  A more intimidating, alluring, savage woman the world had never seen.

Then she smiled, lips stretching over her sharpened teeth, framed by those thick, somehow beautiful tusks.  It was not as sultry a smile as he had seen her make before; it was sadder, melancholy, full of awareness like he had been cursed with upon awakening.

“You’re heading back home, aren’t you?”

He could not stand to look her in the eyes.  His head fell, forehead bumping against her collarbone.  The scent of her skin made it the worst torture he had ever endured, knowing that he had to leave this.

But why?  Why did he had to leave?  His hands tightened against her skin where he touched her, his back stiffening, tense as a bowstring, shivering every now and then with yet unspent sobs that threatened to break through his barely held composure any second.  But he knew why.

“I have…responsibilities,” he managed to finally mutter against her.

“Responsibilities…” she murmured.  Her arms tightened then, easily able to sense his trembling.  A rough cheek brushed against the top of his head, nuzzling his golden hair.  “I do so hate that word…”

He sniffed and nodded.

“You have your tavern to run, after all,” she grunted.  She almost sounded indignant, and she had every right to, if not for the sheer absurdity of it in his mind.  Love her he might with all of his being, but she could hardly know of the depth of it.  He might sound an utter madman were he to attempt to explain his real reasoning, so he just nodded unhappily.

“And you, your kingdom to run,” he replied against her chest.

There was a long pause.  Then, “I could just take you with me.”  It was not entirely an offer, nor entirely a threat.  It was or could have been both, and either one made his ache all the worse, all the more tender.  “I’ve taverns in Rende.  Orcs do love their drinking after all.”

Even through his depression, Oborro couldn’t resist smirking a bit at that.  “Yes, but what would your ferocious followers think of their mighty Wolf-Queen, taking along such a paltry prize as spoils for her not raiding an enemy city?”

“Fuck my followers,” she grunted.  “They do what I say, believe what I tell them.  What I claim as my property is mine, and even with as thick of skulls as we Orcs are born with, they know not to dispute or complain.”

There was a thrill that he could not entirely fight against at her words, but also that resistance to what she had said.

“Not that you’re my property,” she amended as if sensing his even slight tensing.  Then another low growl tickled his insides as she brushed a tusk against the tip of one of his ears.  “Although, you could be.  I’m Mad, after all.”

“Not that Mad,” he managed to tease back up at her but without much heart to it.  Hearing her chuckle made his insides sing.  “But even so…”

“Even so,” she breathed out in a long, indignant sigh.  “If I made you, it would only make true what others might say.  The Barbarian Orc Queen…”

Sensing the fall of her brevity at her own title, Oborro could not help but push back harder into her arms.  Lykopis gave a small, delighted chuckle as they fell back together onto the vast pile of furs that served as her war-tent’s bedding.  Her arms wrapped about him all the tighter, crushing him against her so much like that vision.  Try as he might, he couldn’t help the tears leaking from his eyes, but this time they were happy ones.

To have found her was its own reward, their time together no matter how brief a blessing.  Then, that most still alien and foreign feeling rushed over him.  Peace.  So long he had been foolishly active in the pursuit of his supposed destiny, thinking her the culmination of his entire worth.  Only when he had finally ceased his world-wandering and settled down to rest, to accept that he could not rush these things, had he found a real purpose.

His tears abated and body warmed this time for real by his Orc’s embrace, he slowly sat up.  Lykopis allowed him to do so, gazing up at her Bard with a knowing twinkle in her wolf-like orbs.  Two minds, two souls, brought together, sharing the same knowledge, but saddened not at all.  Theirs was not a story over with and done; it was only just beginning.

“Peace for now?” he breathed down at her.

Her feral smile made his stomach alight into burning embers and twittering butterflies.  “Peace,” she growled. “I’ll do my part to make amends; treaties do make Humies much more complacent.”  A crooked grin stretched her features even more.  “How much they all owe you, little Bard.”

“I want nothing and less from them.  So long as my folk are left well alone from their politicking, I’ll be happy to speak to them to ease tensions on my end.  Hard to deny me a chance to do so when a single Bard saved their collective asses from themselves.  And…if they don’t listen, I’ll just challenge them all to single combat.”

“You’re so sexy when you talk like that…”

Rakishly, Oborro grinned just as broad back down at her.  “My dear Queen, chivalry is always sexy.”

Rich, gruff laughter filled the Queen’s war tent.  “I’ve had my fill of knightly chivalry and courtly ass-kissing.  But make no mistake, Bard:  I will be back.  And next time my army will be even bigger.  So you’d best work on changing the hearts and minds of those fops in your little city.”  But for a moment, that softness that no other could ever have seen the She-Wolf possess came again to her glowing eyes.  “You’ve certainly changed mine…”

Trying not to let the joy of her words cause him to lose his composure to happy tears again, Oborro cleared his throat and leaned down to kiss her as delicately as could be done.  At her fierce growl and firm, meaningful tugs on his hips with her huge hands, he chuckled.  “I doubt we have time,” he sighed against her skin.

“Bard, I’m the Mad Queen,” was her sultry, feral reply.  “The world goes on my time”

“Orcs never do anything halfway, do they?” he teased against her lips, never quite leaning his full weight into it.

Lykopis’ smile was as radiant as moonlight, and as feral as a Werebeast as her powerful arms reached up, grabbed hold of him, and dragged him back down onto the furs.  Her lips crushed against his, scarred and rough versus smooth and soft.  The whole world seemed to melt away as it had from the very first time they had kissed.

A blur of grey skin had him once again forced onto his back staring up at her, a sight much like that he had seen many times last night, only now with the sunrise framing her goddess-like beauty as she rose from their kiss, huge thighs easily straddling his slender hips.  His trousers were again torn unceremoniously from his long legs and tossed aside.

“Never,” came her possessive growl.  “Why, going somewhere?”  This time, her words caused a thrill within him like he had never known.  Even so, some part of him wanted to play it coy; she seemed to love these games between the two of them.

“Will I…see you again?” he struggled to ask, trying to maintain his composure as she easily pinned him, grinding hard and lovingly against his pale flesh.

Eyes gleaming more than ever, the Half-Orc Barbarian seized him in a grip that was two-fold, once again joining them.  “You’re not done seeing me now…”


The worlds of Barbarians and Bards could wait a bit longer, it seemed.