Decisions

To start off this Patreon, I thought it'd be nice to share a story I wrote some time ago with everyone, patron or not! This is a SFW story about Rasrash, a dragonborn fighter who thinks with his heart (read: does not have a brain.) 

I hope you enjoy!

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He was at a crossroads, and whichever path he chose would ruin someone's life. There was a fuse waiting to be lit just beneath the toe of his boot, leading to fireworks that would illuminate the night sky above the city. It was equal parts hope and warning.

Once the fireworks went off, the search team would know. Either Rasrash lit the fuse and had to run for his life, or he let the fireworks go unused and, elsewhere in town, under the haze of smog and darkness, his lover would be imprisoned at best, killed at worst.

No matter how scared he may have been, it was an easy choice, and he struck the match between his fingers before dropping it on the fuse, his large boots pounding down the alley and out onto the main road before the fuse caught fire. In seconds, the silence of the night rung with a loud whistle, then another, then even more as one firework after another leaped into the sky.

Then, explosions.

It seemed uncoordinated, each firework going into the air one after another after another, but some were designed to explode faster than others, and soon the entire city could look up and read the message:

QASIM, WILL YOU MARRY ME?

It had been an elaborate plan on his part to ask his lover to marry him, complete with firework spectacle and followed by getting down on one knee to present him with a one-of-a-kind gilded ring.

That was the plan up until the city watch had become involved, anyway. It wasn’t that Rasrash had done anything to break the law, per se, but the city watch was already suspicious of the ways Rasrash accomplished the things he did as it were. His magic didn’t help, and neither did their corrupt system. The involvement of the merchants at the Blackguard Market seemed to be the root of the problem, though.

He’d bought the ring with his own money, but somewhere along the line, the ring had either come from or involved someone in the watch, and that had not gone over well afterward. It had been a city-wide scandal involving the Market being closed for several days, no less than two dead bodies appearing in the river, and the sense of fear that had lingered in the city for years instead being so strong in the air that it could almost be touched.

The hunt for the ring had been mostly public as well. Though they never announced what it was they were looking for, members of the city watch were patrolling everywhere looking for both the merchant who sold it and the person who bought it. Rasrash only figured out that he’d been the one to buy the thing they were looking for that morning, when he returned home to find a note fixed to his door with a knife: “Bring the ring to the city watch by midnight or you’ll never see him again.”

As Rasrash ran through the events of the day in his head, he also made it a point to weave around streets, dodging through the shadows between streetlamps to make it harder for him to be tracked. It made little difference, though, and he knew that even as he continued to run. He wasn’t running away from the danger, after all.

He was running toward it.

The sound of his large boots thumping against the pavement preceded his arrival, but even as he approached the stark, angular building that housed the city watch, he went unnoticed. When he opened the doors to the well-lit building, he almost wanted to yell to draw attention to himself, to try and get them to give him his love back immediately.

Instead, he entered the lobby and found himself face to face with Qasim, standing alone and unrestrained, staring him down in disbelief. “Rasrash, what in the nine heavens have you gotten yourself into?”

It took the dragonborn a moment to catch his breath, but when he did, he got down on one knee and looked up at Qasim, putting on his best winning smile. “Well, I thought it would be the best way to propose to you! I hope you were able to see the fireworks from here.”

“The whole city saw the fireworks, Rasrash,” Qasim replied. “Even if this building didn’t have glass walls, I think I’d have seen them.”

“...And?” Rasrash said, nudging Qasim with his arm, gesturing to the shimmering silver ring in his hand. “Will you?”

Qasim rolled his eyes. “Is now really the time? We don’t even know if we’ll make it out of this alive. Where did you get that ring? Can we just give it back to them and call it a day?”

Rasrash looked downtrodden. “I mean, we could, but it’s such a lovely ring, and it’s got magic to it! You love magic things, it’s perfect—”

“Perfect except for the part where they want to kill us to have it!” Qasim hissed, taking the ring from Rasrash hastily before looking down at it, suddenly intrigued. “It’s really...not safe for us to keep this, surely...”

Rasrash hooked his arm around Qasim’s shoulders, gently trying to guide the shorter human toward the entrance. “It’s perfect for you, and the city watch will hardly miss it at the end of the day. All we need to do is take a bit of a vacation, is all. We can go visit that one resort town with the waterfalls that we used to pass by when we would travel. Or we can go somewhere else if you prefer, I am entirely content to hear where you’d like to go—”

“We should go...return this ring, Rasrash.” Qasim said, frowning and shrugging off Rasrash’s arm. “It does feel very magical and I do thank you for wanting to propose with something as wonderful as this, but it’s just not worth the risk when we can give it back to them and get on with our day without dying!”

Shaking his head, Rasrash pointed to the door. “They killed the person who stole the ring to start with and the merchant who sold it to me. I don’t believe for a moment that they’ll let either of us walk out of here safely simply by giving the ring back. Besides, I spent good money on that! Only the best for my love!”

Qasim seemed to pause at this, weighing his options. His brows furrowed more deeply the longer he thought about it, and that was not helped by Rasrash frequently turning his head to look at the front door.

“Not to rush you, my dear, but it is perhaps a bit strange that the city watch is entirely not here right now. Can we perhaps make a decision while moving? You know, to safety?”

“Well...no. Not right now anyway,” Qasim replied, slowly.

“Why not?” Rasrash asked, puzzled. His confusion quickly shifted to concern and fear as he realized why the city watch would feel comfortable leaving their bargaining chip unattended in a building while hunting him down. “What have they done to you? Is it temporary? Is it reversible?”

“It is a magical restraint,” Qasim said. “They didn’t say how long it would last, but for the past few hours at the least I’ve been fully unable to cast any magic whatsoever. On top of that, I’ve been stuck still right where I am, which tells me that it’s not the building itself that prevents the magic from happening, but rather some spell that they’ve cast.”

“Did they say when they would be back?” Rasrash said. “I worry that they will return soon and things will get worse from here.”

“They told me nothing, except that if they didn’t get the ring back from you I wouldn’t see the light of day ever again. Well, that’s not really true, I suppose,” he added with a frown. “What they actually said was something akin to this being the last sunlight I’ll see, if they have anything to say about it. I don’t know when they’re coming back, but I can’t pretend I’m not scared...Rasrash? Rasrash, what are you doing?”

The deep blue dragonborn had once again dropped to one knee and was staring up at Qasim, determined. “Qasim, I didn’t want to have to ask again, but will you marry me? Yes or no.”

“Please can this wait?” Qasim replied, exasperated. “You know I love you and I have no intention of turning you down, but things are looking dire right now—”

“Which is why I need the answer right now! There might not be a later!” Rasrash said. His bright golden eyes bored into Qasim’s, and finally, Qasim relented.

“Yes. Yes, of course I will marry you, Rasrash.”

“Thank you, my love.” Rasrash took Qasim’s hand and slipped the ring on his ring finger, beaming as he looked up at his fiancé.

Qasim, for his part, stared down at his hand in awe. “Rasrash, you...absolute buffoon. You have no idea what you just put on my hand, do you?!”

Rasrash grinned, a bright, shining smile that somehow involved every pointed tooth in his mouth catching the light from the ceiling. “I know enough to know that it’s got magic in it, and that it looks amazing on your hand. Now then, are you going to tell me what’s going through your mind, or are you going to keep staring at the ring?”

“What’s on my mind is that you should never do something like this ever again, in case the ring turns out to be cursed, but the other thing on my mind is that resort town you mentioned. It’s past the Marble Coast, correct? The one with all the waterfalls and the like?”

“Yes, that’s the one,” Rasrash replied. “The pretty little town with the lovely bed and breakfast, and the pool at the base of one of the falls. You can picture it now, right?”

“I can. Take my hand, Rasrash.”

Rasrash obliged, holding Qasim’s hand. “I never need an excuse to take your hand, but I do have to ask, why?”

Before he got an answer, Rasrash felt his feet leave the ground, and he looked downward to see a bright blue glow surrounding both himself and Qasim. “Um, Qasim...what is happening?”

“Well, you wanted to take a vacation to Vertsage, didn’t you?”

Staring at his lover, Rasrash realized that Qasim’s eyes were glowing blue, and as the glow faded from his eyes, so too did the glow surrounding their bodies. When Rasrash blinked and looked around afterward, he could see the starry night sky laid out in all directions, with no smog or haze to dilute it, two bright blue moons in the sky acting as beacons signaling a serenity that Rasrash had not felt in a long time.

Behind him, he could hear the faint sound of the Vert Falls.

Qasim grabbed Rasrash’s hands and pulled him close, drawing the dragonborn in until he looked down to meet the human’s gaze. “Now then, did you mean all that? The marrying me thing? Or was all that just a means to get me to leave with you?”

Rasrash tilted his head to one side, astonished. “Qasim, I wanted you out of there one way or another for your safety, but I planned this whole proposal for weeks, that’s why the fireworks were all set up the way they were. That’s not the sort of thing I could do in a single day, especially one where I was being hunted down by the city patrol for half of it.”

The sound of the falls lingered in the breeze that flew between them.

Tentatively, Rasrash continued. “I love you, Qasim. I want to spend every eternity I can with you from now until the end of all things. Even though you’re much brighter than I am, even though you could and should have all that the cosmos has to offer...well, I want to be able to be there for it, and help give you all the good you deserve.”

Qasim again said nothing. Rasrash took a deep breath and held Qasim’s hands just a little bit more tightly, until he let go in surprise as Qasim surged upward and pressed his lips to the dragonborn’s.

Backlit by the serene blue light of the moons and stars, and surrounded by the sound of the Vert Falls, Rasrash pressed his body forward, embracing Qasim as the two lovers held one another and kissed passionately.

For a long time, there was nothing but the two of them.

When Qasim finally pulled back much later, it was with a small smile and a laugh. “I love you, Rasrash. You are my favorite lightning rod and any time you are near I can feel my heart race simply from the magic you put out into the world by existing.”

“I’m not terribly magical, you know that,” Rasrash retorted, still smiling even as he said it.

“That wasn’t the magic I meant, you silly man,” Qasim replied, wrapping his arms around Rasrash’s waist. “I meant your charisma. Your charm. Your devilish good looks and your heart-melting voice. That kind of magic.”

“If anyone is the charmer here, it’s you, Qasim.” Rasrash leaned in for another kiss, and the two fell back to it again until Qasim resurfaced.

“Speaking of charms, you do realize that at some point we’re going to need to figure out how to get this ring off me, right?”

Rasrash blinked. “W-What? What do you mean?”

“The ring is totally cursed, Rasrash. It’s thankfully not a terribly strong curse, at least as far as I can tell, and it did kickstart my magic enough that I could teleport us out of the city, but I can’t take it off myself.”

“We’ll also have to eventually flee whoever the city watch sends after us,” Rasrash added sheepishly. “But for now we can enjoy ourselves, no? Why don’t we go see if the bed and breakfast has a room available for the night? I would like to have a restful night with my fiancé.”

Qasim laughed, despite himself. “Alright. But I want to ask them if they have someone available to break the curse on this thing tonight. I don’t particularly want to go to bed wearing a cursed ring, even if it is from my favorite person in the universe.”

“Fair enough. Lead the way, beloved.”