ha! here I am for the last day of @aphrarepairweek2020, magic, with another pairing I think is very interesting but had never written before. this was a lot of fun, and I really like this little au, tbh. I feel like there could be more stories in here. I guess I alluded to a bunch of pairings, but they’re really not important and can be Ignored :)
~~~
the bard’s song
pairings/characters: Iceland (Egill)/New Zealand (Riley), Liechtenstein (Erika), Hong Kong (Leon), Taiwan (Mei), Seychelles (Angélique), Latvia (Raivis) + mentioned Moldova (Luca), Australia (David) & Norway (Einar)
word count: 3182
summary:
Egill really wishes Riley’s stupid D&D character would stop trying to seduce his own character. Mostly, he wishes Riley would try to seduce him instead.
~~~
“Well, Riley, if you insist…”
Egill can feel his eye twitch while Erika gestures wearily across the table at Riley, who looks poised and ready and far too pleased with themself.
“I guess you can roll to seduce the Owlbear. You know what to do,” Erika finishes. Riley is already throwing the twenty-sided die. On Egill’s other side, Leon is shaking with suppressed laughter, like he wasn’t the one who brought the menace of Riley Greenwood and their weirdly seductive halfling bard into their D&D group.
Riley actually pretends not to know what exactly they’re rolling for or what to add, as if they don’t try to seduce literally every NPC Erika throws at them, and then triumphantly declares it’s a seventeen. Egill pushes his hands into his hair, groaning. Erika just gives a resigned sigh, planting her elbows on the Monster Manual behind her little wall of books.
“It’s going to attack you anyway, I hope you know.”
“Can’t hurt to try,” Riley replies cheerfully.
“It literally can!” Egill says, and then he has to bite his lip and look away when Riley grins one of those mischievous grins of theirs, one that makes their eyes crinkle up and pulls at one corner of their mouth. Leon, who had just managed to calm himself, starts giggling again, and Egill elbows him.
“Egill, it’s your turn,” Erika says. He consults his character sheet.
“I could see Riley’s dumb bard being stupid, right?”
“Don’t talk about Minto like that!” Riley interjects, crossing their arms. “He’s wonderful and everyone loves him.”
“His wisdom modifier is minus two,” says Mei, who somehow always remembers everyone’s stats. Well, not that that particular tidbit is hard to remember. “I didn’t know you could get minus two.”
“Minto is special and I bet Yawen is jealous.” They raise their eyebrows at Egill. He sighs again.
“Well, I guess Dûrion is going to try and get Minto out of harm’s way.”
Riley beams from across the table, and it somehow makes Egill’s skin tingle.
It’s very likely that everyone in their casual little D&D party is aware that it isn’t an accident, at least on his part, that Minto and Dûrion, Egill’s high elf artificer character, are so often off on their own or just helping each other out in their sessions. It’s embarrassing as fuck, of course, but Egill has long since given up on trying to do anything about it. Soon enough, Leon or Raivis or another one of their friends will do something dumb, and Egill’s crush on Riley will be completely forgotten. Maybe even by Egill himself, although that seems unlikely to him at this point.
Riley might be aware of it as well, or they might not. They’re notoriously difficult to get a read on. Even Angélique, who has known them the longest, seems to have trouble with it. Egill thinks Riley enjoys it that way.
“Right, that’s fine,” Erika is saying, pushing her short hair behind her ears. “Tell me what Dûrion’s going to do, then.”
Egill manages to save Riley—well, Dûrion saves Minto from being eaten—and the rest of the party make quick work of the monster guarding the cave that contains whatever horrors Erika has in mind for them. For such an innocent-looking woman, she sure has a twisted imagination.
“Now that we’re out of combat,” Riley says, once Angélique’s druid has distributed some healing spells, “can I roll to seduce Dûrion?”
“Yes!” Angélique shouts, adding, “That’s in-character. Rovanon’s very keen on love.”
“Aryax hates love, and also Rovanon,” Leon puts in.
“Aryax hates everything, he’s just an excuse for you not to help.”
He finger-guns at her, and she shakes her head, smiling.
“So,” Riley says, “can we get back to Minto seducing Dûrion?”
“Maybe Dûrion isn’t interested in being seduced,” Egill replies, raising his eyebrows and hoping he isn’t blushing.
“Does Dûrion want a long-term relationship?”
“Aryax vomits in disgust,” Leon says.
“No!” Raivis yells. “Daina immediately hides. Last time Aryax vomited, he barfed lightning everywhere and nearly killed her.”
“Not my fault Daina’s human.”
Erika, as per usual when they go off on tangents like this—which is most of the time—looks both pained and amused.
None of them are really cut out for Dungeons & Dragons, Egill thinks, at least not in any serious way. The whole thing started as a joke in his first year of university, with just him, Leon and Erika, because the three of them were procrastinating on assignments and wanted to have something to do. Egill had been the DM, because it was his idea and his brother did tabletop RPGs, so it was assumed he’d know how it worked. He did not.
His brother, Einar, was the one who pointed out how crap he was at it and that Erika would probably enjoy being the DM more. Leon keeps trying to convince Einar to join a session, and Egill spends much of his time trying not to think about his best friend’s weird crush on his brother.
In the four years since then, the three of them have accumulated the rest of the party. Raivis dated Erika for a while, and took over her character, Daina. He stayed after they broke up, having become a good friend to Egill over that time. Mei was Leon’s roommate for a hot minute, and Angélique was her friend. Riley, in turn, was Angélique’s friend, but Leon is the one who convinced them to join after they came to watch one day. Their last party member, Luca, is studying abroad at the moment, so his character has been captured and they’re technically always on a quest to free him, but Egill thinks it seems likely Luca won’t return to be Raivis’s roommate ever again, so their wizard will probably die.
It’s a shame. Luca was the only useful person. Certainly more than fucking Minto.
“Don’t take off your clothes!” Mei is yelling at Riley. Egill blinks dazedly.
To his disappointment, Riley isn’t actually taking off their clothes, just crossing their arms petulantly, only the edge of the intricate tattoo on one of their forearms visible.
“You’re on a mountain,” Erika reminds everyone. “If Minto takes his clothes off, I will need a saving throw to see if he freezes.”
“It’s fine,” Riley says, “he’ll bask in Dûrion’s hotness.”
Dûrion only knows ice spells because Egill thought that would be a cool theme to have, but he doesn’t point that out.
“Aryax vomits lightning,” Leon says, reaching for his dice.
“No!” Mei yells.
“At Minto,” he adds.
“I can’t believe Minto died,” Angélique says drily. “Can Rovanon have his bagpipes?”
“No one can have Minto’s bagpipes because Minto isn’t dead yet,” Erika interrupts before they descend into chaos again. “Leon, is Aryax actually attacking him?”
Leon nods, in response to which Riley throws Egill an imploring look, which is just unfair. He tries to frown back, but Riley just smiles in a surprisingly soft way he’s never seen before, pushing their brown curls out of their face, as if they know Egill will help anyway, and not just because Dûrion has a good alignment.
Leon elbows him, and he snaps back.
“What?”
“Aryax missed,” he says sadly.
“Oh!” He turns to Erika. “Is anything on fire?”
She considers this for a moment.
“Yes. Minto’s bagpipes are on fire.”
“Nice.” Leon grins, and even Riley has to laugh at that. Egill decides Dûrion definitely won’t use a spell to douse those flames, and hopes Riley doesn’t remember anytime soon that Minto has more bagpipes. He exchanges an anxious look with Mei, who obviously does remember.
“Are we ever going into this cave?” Raivis asks.
“Daina is hidden, no one can hear her,” Erika reminds him.
“Guys, where’s Daina?” Angélique says, pretending to be distressed. “She must have gone into the cave! We have to help her! Rovanon charges into the cave.”
“I can’t believe Rovanon died,” Riley says. “He will be remembered. Minto composes a song for him on his… Flute, I guess.”
“Make… Make a performance roll for how good the song is,” Erika says, probably just to annoy everyone by making Riley look at their character sheet and remember they have no flute, because Minto traded it for more bagpipes.
Riley rolls the die, and starts to giggle. Angélique and Raivis peer over, and groan in unison.
“Erika, I’m delighted to tell you… It’s a thirty-three on how good the song is. Does everyone cry?” They lift the die to show off the twenty they got.
“Everyone weeps and your bagpipes are magically restored,” Erika confirms, much to everyone else’s horror. And, while Riley holds both hands up for high-fives that go unanswered, “And I think we’ll have to end it there, because I have to go.”
“Boo,” Mei says, winking. Erika ducks her head, cheeks turning rosy, and Raivis raises his eyebrows, looking between them. That’s pretty interesting.
“Sorry. Everyone, remember where you are.” She makes some notes behind her book partition before starting to dismantle it.
“Well, Rovanon is apparently in heaven,” Angélique says. “Mei, can Yawen come and get him? She can fly.”
“Possibly,” Mei muses. “We’ll see what Erika thinks.”
“I think Rovanon is in a cave and can see in the dark because he’s a half-orc, so he’s probably not dead,” she says, putting her bag on her lap and starting to stuff her books into it.
“Aw, I never get to fly,” Mei says, sadly. Angélique pats her hand. “Thanks.”
“I’ll find a way to make you fly,” Erika tells her, pushing herself backwards. Mei makes a face at the whole table. That sounds ominous.
Everyone puts away their dice and character sheets. Leon sweeps the blueberries he was eating into his bag wholesale, as he usually does. Egill is afraid to find out what the inside of his bag looks like.
Mei pushes the door open for Erika, who smiles gratefully up at her and wheels herself into the front room of her brother’s bakery. They’ve been meeting here for a while now, but he still won’t give them any free pastries. Luca had been getting through to him, but, well…
“Hey, Riley,” Angélique is saying, walking backwards to the door while looking at her phone, “do you want a ride? Me and David are going to the beach, we could drop you off. Or you can come along, if you want.”
“Ah, sure, because my middle name is Third Wheel,” they joke. “I’m good, thanks. Tell Dave he’s an idiot for me.”
“Will do. Bye, everyone!” She flits off, almost tripping over Erika’s wheelchair as she somehow always manages to do. “Sorry!”
Raivis just waves, slinging his backpack over his shoulder and picking up his longboard. He hurries through the bakery, apparently still convinced Erika’s brother hates him for breaking up with her. Riley chuckles next to Egill, hands in the pockets of their maroon pants. They rock back on their heels when Egill looks down at them and smile at him while Leon exits as well, crunching on something he unearthed from his bag on the way.
“Well,” Egill says, absently pushing his tongue against his lip piercing, “guess I should go.”
“Yes. No.” Riley blinks and takes a deep breath. They smooth an errant curl off their forehead. It bounces right back. “Actually, I wanted to ask…”
“Do… You need a ride with me?” Egill asks. “It’s no problem, I’ve got a spare helmet.”
“No. Well, I mean, hell yeah, that sounds amazing,” they reply, hazel eyes lighting up. “But no, that’s not it.”
“Okay.” Egill watches curiously while Riley fidgets with their belt buckle. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Riley fidget before; they always seem to know what they’re doing, even when what they’re doing is pretending to be unaware what’s going on when they most likely caused it.
“I wanted to know… Well, I know Dûrion isn’t interested in being seduced and all, but I kind of hope you are.” They gesture helplessly as Egill’s breath hitches. “I’ve got a feeling you are, and I’d like to try, eh? I’d like to—I like you, is what I’m trying to say. And I’d like to take you on a date?”
“Okay,” is all Egill can say, dumbstruck. And then, “Really?”
That, thankfully, gets him one of those smiles that pulls at Riley’s eyes and makes them twinkle.
“Yeah, Egill, really. You’re interesting, and I like that.”
He pushes his tongue against his piercing again.
“And also, that’s ridiculously hot and I don’t think you’re aware,” Riley blurts, eyes wide.
Egill stills, biting his lip, and just blinks down at them.
“It’s offensive.”
“Sorry?”
“Minto almost died because of that, you know? It’s distracting as fuck.”
“You’re, hm… You’re better at hiding it than I am,” Egill stutters. Laughing, Riley grasps his forearm, thumb stroking the pale skin as if on instinct.
“You do realize I’ve tried to seduce you and no other party members during every session for the past six months?”
“I—Riley, it doesn’t work like that!”
“Yeah, I get that now.” They shrug apologetically. “I thought it was fairly obvious. Everyone else seemed to know. I thought maybe you weren’t interested, but then it seemed like you were so I thought, you know, take a page out of Minto’s book and try it.”
Looking back, sure, it’s perfectly Riley to go about—about flirting so completely backwards, because just flirting like normal people do seems to be how Riley communicates with almost everyone. They can’t seem to help it. Egill thinks it’s charming. Mostly.
“That’s fair,” he says.
“I guess it works better for me than Minto, eh?”
“Unsurprisingly, yeah.” He wants to say something about Riley being much more attractive than fucking Minto, but doesn’t quite know how without embarrassing himself to death, so he just bites his lip again and smiles. Luckily, Riley seems a little unsure of themself as well, for once. It’s strangely bolstering. Egill leans a little towards them, catching the hazel gaze.
“Woo!” Mei suddenly says, from by the door, and Egill jerks up. “Sorry! I left my hair tie.”
Flushing, Egill just stands there awkwardly, with Riley still holding his arm, while she grabs the accessory and then pauses by the door on her way back out.
“Good for you guys,” she says, then flashes a peace sign and disappears back into the bakery. Riley clears their throat. Egill huffs.
“Well, that saves us the trouble of having to tell everyone,” Riley says, chuckling.
The idea of this being something that’s serious enough to tell their friends about is exciting. Mei is a notorious gossip, so Egill thinks Riley might have a point. He leans back over again, cautiously touching their shoulder, and they grin up at him, hair brushing his hand. It’s as soft as he always imagined it would be, and the curls bounce as they move their head.
By the quirk of Riley’s mouth, they can read the desire to run his hands through their hair on his face, which is probably still red too. Riley’s tan skin is only slightly flushed.
He bites his lip. Watches Riley’s eyes widen again, lips parting. Some eyeliner has smudged on their eyelid, and this is the first time he notices just how many faint freckles there are scattered across the bridge of their nose. It’s exhilarating to be able to look.
“So, you said something about a spare helmet?” Riley asks, a little breathier than usual, their eyes still fixated on his mouth.
“I did.” He takes a step back, then a step forward, back into Riley’s space. A wayward curl brushes against his nose, where the top of their head is, as they look up. “Where do you wanna go?”
“Well… I’m hungry. We could go eat something.”
Egill pulls out his phone to check the time. It’s going on five in the afternoon. He nearly drops his phone when Riley touches his hip, but smiles when they aim a questioning look at him. He isn’t very used to dating, hasn’t done so in a while, but this is good. And, really, he didn’t know if Riley dated at all; he’s never heard anything about it.
Evidently, they do.
“We could go for dinner, then?” He thinks about it. “We should take something out to the boulevard, it’ll be nice.”
Riley nods, grinning.
When they both start towards the door, Egill bites his lip and reaches for their hand, knocking their fingers together. Grinning even more, so much it almost looks painful but is very flattering at the same time, Riley grasps his hand and swings it between the two of them as they leave through the bakery.
Outside, they wave merrily at Erika and Mei, who are chatting on the sidewalk. Mei grins. Erika raises her eyebrows, resting her elbow on her bag and her chin in her hand. Egill blushes again, and Riley squeezes his fingers.
“Have fun,” Erika says, sketching a little wave. Just then, Raivis flies past on his longboard. He slows down and grins an uncharacteristically vibrant grin before speeding off down the winding street. Egill blinks after him.
“Hey, Erika!” Angélique calls from the passenger seat of a Jeep reversing out of the parking lot next to the bakery, poking her head out of the window. “I have—”
She hits her head on the top of the car when she spots him and Riley, and swears loudly, which is rare. Riley snorts, knocking their shoulder into Egill.
“Yeah, me too!” Erika calls back to Angélique, laughing.
“I regret this already,” Egill says, turning his head just enough that Riley’s hair blows into his face again. Riley just grasps his arm with their free hand and leans even more into him, so it isn’t all bad, really.
From the Jeep’s driver’s seat, Riley’s best friend, David, shouts something as he drives by, and they flip him off in response, letting go of Egill for a second. Angélique laughs, and David honks as they drive off.
“Come on,” Egill says, pulling Riley with him to the parking lot, where his motorcycle is. It used to be Einar’s, but he finally painted over the emblems his brother put on it, and it really feels like it’s his now. Riley gets an excited spring in their step as they near.
Of course, Leon is there, because why wouldn’t he be, sitting on his bicycle and looking at his phone. He glances up, thick eyebrows twitching.
“Oh, nice,” he just comments, and looks back down.
“Text Luca while we’re at it,” Riley says, dry as bone. Leon smiles.
“Maybe. Hey, I could text Einar.”
“Fuck off,” Egill tells him. He winks, puts his phone away, and bikes off.
So they finally leave, Riley hanging on to Egill and whooping excitedly at every turn and bump on the way to the boulevard, and the evening is wonderfully sun-soaked and bright, and Riley tastes like cheap wine at the end of it, so all in all… Maybe that dumb bard is good for something, after all.
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