Every house in Durakesh had at least one claim to fame, though whether or not any house cared which house had the largest collection of spider silk tapestries when they themselves could claim to have the largest single tapestry or the oldest or the most complete collection by a given artist was a question left politely unasked.
There were achievements that were almost universally held to be impressive… for instance, the d’Wyri line of descension was the envy of all, and the outsized army of House Delkan demanded respect… and there were ones that were only acknowledged through the politest flattery: “Ah, Matriarch Allendal, I would be so honored to see the deepest reflecting pool in all of Durakesh.”
House Eyru’s compound was somewhere in between those. Physical space for the shore-bound houses was at less of a premium than it was for the more prestigious lake houses, and the physical structure of House Eyru was a walled enclosure, with eight walls surrounding a spacious courtyard. The inner sanctum… where the house treasury was kept and where the ruling family lived… was a tower of magically-reinforced stone and iron in the center.
In between these structures was the largest house-controlled open space in the city. The presence of such an open, semi-public space within their boundaries was a unique feature of the house, and one that the Eyrui claimed led to a more egalitarian, less rigidly-stratified inner society than most houses had. The house’s members could encounter each other unhooded and decloaked in a wide open space, not simply in narrow hallways and cell-like rooms.
Men and women did not mix socially in any great numbers in this space, but they coexisted.
Inside the octagonal yard… taking up something like twenty percent of its area… was another feature of which the house was proud: Edurak, the Little Lake… an elf-made body of water kept stocked with the smaller and less vicious forms of fish and crustacean life. The house elves could practice the art of swimming as a form of recreation and exercise, something that would have been unwise in the great lake. Anchored in the center of it was a large raft of floating pumice, its uneven top surface forming natural divans and beds and tables had only required a little reshaping before being outfitted with pillows, mattresses, and cloths.
Almost immediately after the island’s addition to the compound, it had been claimed by the house’s harem of halfkind as their personal lounge, and it had remained that way for centuries. It was their territory, abandoned only when emergencies forced the entire house to take shelter. Other elves came to the island to court their favors… or take them, depending on their mood and goals. A small fenced enclosure had been constructed around the center of the raft to house sanitary facilities and store the garments that nominally covered the island’s inhabitants when they went out into the world, but otherwise there was no privacy to be had. The prevailing standards of modesty had been modified by common consent over the ages to accommodate this choice of habitation… although adjacent to and in clear view of public space, being on the island was considered “private enough”.
As in everything else, there was fierce competition among the houses regarding their collections of halfkind, those elves whose natures were not fully male nor female, who had been altered through divinely revealed magic to embody the duality of things and serve as a bridge between the male and the female. Such banal distinctions as “most beautiful” or “most desirable” or “best endowed” were too hotly contested and would generally brook no clear city-wide consensus, particularly among the contenders… so as in everything else, most houses sought to make a name for themselves through some distinguishing feature.
Many houses sought bragging rights in how pliable and compliant their halfkind were, but House Eyru, running with the theme of egalitarianism, prided itself on the independence of its living dolls. Thus, Dylie… de facto ruler of the floating harem by virtue of seniority and being a favorite of the sitting matriarch, Dania Allena… bore the epithet “wicked” as a badge of pride.
Dylie was never afraid to say what was on cer mind to anybody, including cer most powerful lover and protector. Immediately after returning from the marketplace, ce had stormed into the inner fortress to demand that the soldiers who had failed to protect cer balls should lose theirs. Dania Allena promised she would deal with the matter, and Dylie retired to the island, smug, satisfied, and composing in cer head the story of how ce had gotten four house soldiers castrated for displeasing cer.
Meanwhile, the matriarch simply had one of her daughters revise the guard details as soon as her temperamental lover was gone.
Dylie was not content to let the matter drop, though. Even after considerable affection and oral attention had been lavished on the injured organs both by cer subordinate sibs and by off-shift soldiers of both full sexes, Dylie continued to insist that they were “broken” and “not right”, that they would “never be right again”. The sympathy of cer peers and soldiers did nothing to diminish the anguish ce felt… if anything, cer condition seemed to worsen the more attention ce received.
Eventually, the soldiers realized that Dylie was not interested in anything more than being kissed and cosseted at the moment
“You’re delusional,” Ahdar, the halfkind paneled tightly in a wooden corset, said in their private language. Ce was carefully watering a dead stick sticking out of a pot of gravel. Ahdar… called, by cer own preference and against the testimony of reality, “pale Ahdar”… believed cerself to have been abducted as a child from the faint-colored elves of the surface. Pale Ahdar’s prized possession was this “tree”, a relic smuggled off the domed island of the monks. “There’s nothing wrong with you except that you’re spoiled. There isn’t a one of us that hasn’t had our jewels stomped flat by our own house members in play.”
“I haven’t,” Dylie said.
“That’s because you’re spoiled,” Ahdar said. “Wicked Dylie, the favorite of the matriarch, so you never get a hiding or even a bite you don’t ask for. Three hundred cycles old and you’ve never been hit in the balls before? It’s no wonder you’re wicked. In the forests of my people, all halvsies are assigned…”
“Oh, shut your lying mouth,” Dylie said.
“Don’t you dare disrespect my heritage, wicked Dylie!” Ahdar said.
Ce put her inanimate pet on top of a tall outcropping and arranged it to what ce felt was the most flattering angle of presentation, then laid back on a rock couch and began pleasuring cerself to thought of running through a forest. The trees of Ahdar’s mind looked an awful lot like leafy stalagmites, and the sky was pretty much just a high black ceiling with a yellow disk stuck to it. It wasn’t likely that anybody would correct cer misapprehensions.
Ahdar had only begun to stroke cerself when a female soldier crawled towards cer, pushed cer hand away, and took over. While there were men and women who took delight in the entirety of the halfkinds, the male parts of halfkind generated an especial interest in women who desired casual encounters with such things, and it was likewise with their female parts and men. The halfkind enabled other elves to experience the physicality of the other sex without crossing certain lines.
The soldiers gathered on the porous rock didn’t care about the argument, which they couldn’t understand… they were simply there to indulge a little before they had to go take their meal and then sleep. For those who had a taste for such things, it was acceptable to simply take what they wanted and leave… the soldiers were productive members of society, after all, and had limited free time.
For most, though, it was a matter of waiting for any opportunity, any opening, and seizing it. The two dozen halfkind that sprawled around the island were enough to satisfy most comers, but Dylie, Ahdar, and the other seniors didn’t feel the need to make themselves available. They either had to be courted or distracted.
“It’s that houseless whore’s fault,” Dylie said. “I’d like to teach her a lesson.”
“Wicked!” the rest of the halfkind… those with empty mouths, anyway… called out in chorus.
“It is,” Dylie said. “I’m going to bring suit against her with the city council.”
That brought several gasps, more cries of “wicked!”, and a stream of giggling from an unfortunate halfkind named Dala, who was too new to have earned an epithet or made any allies on the floating island. At a dark look from Dylie, three of the lounging soldiers immediately went to work on cer.
“Dylie,” drawled Useless, whose name none of them could remember. Ce took the role of house adornment very seriously, having refused to take a step or even stand upright since the day ce was selected for it. Ce simply sprawled wherever ce was placed… not feeding herself, not actively participating in sex, nor even rousing cerself for required temple servies. The previous matriarch, tired of administering fruitless punishments, had finally declared this practice to be a kind of religious devotion in and of itself. “Dylie, you can’t do that, Dylie….”
“Why can’t I?” Dylie demanded.
“Because houseless or not, she’s a woman,,” Ahdar said.
“There were four of us there,” Dylie said. “Together, we add up to one more woman than her.”
“That’s not how it works,” Ahdar said. “Dylie, you need to learn to let things go. Among my people…”
“If I have to hear one more about ‘your people’ before the change of the shift, that ‘tree’ is going right up your traitorous ass,” Dylie said.
“Ce’d probably like that,” Useless said breezily. “Everybody knows that faint elves fuck their trees.”
Ahdar tried the trick of signaling for someone to beat Useless with a dirty look, but Useless’s practiced helplessness had won cer more support and admiration from the house rank-and-file than Ahdar’s colorful imagination had, and the would-be surface elf found cerself demonstrating to Dylie how to stoically take a stomping in cer more sensitive spots.
Dylie ignored the lesson , though. Ce was composing what ce would say to Dania Allena when ce got the chance… even wicked Dylie would not burst in and interrupt the same trade negotiation twice… in order to convince her of cer case against the polloi priestess. Ce closed her eyes, imagining a triumphant speech before the city council, with the houseless bitch being dragged away in chains.
A couple of male soldiers, seeing Dylie calm, lifted cer up and turned cer over, one of them taking the ass and the other finding a receptive hole in cer mouth. A pair of female lips encircled cer cock, and it was shortly proven that cer balls worked as well as ever. Dylie accepted it all with a passivity that rivaled that of Useless.
The drama of the moment ended, the island of halfkind descended into a quiet and desperate sort of orgy as the off-shift soldiers pursued a moment of pleasure, of release, of catharsis, of romance or the illusion of romance… men and women fucking and sucking and licking and biting and hitting and stomping right next to each other, but not talking and not touching.
