Dragon Harem Quest - Or: Saying You Were Gay Wasn't The Conversation-Ender You Hoped For

Well you'll never be able to do this if you wait to feel up for it. You'll just have to move all of a sudden before your body has time to warn your brain that this is a terrible idea and no dragon should be alive after consuming so much alcohol. Ready? Of course not but that's the idea. One-

You sit bolt upright in one explosive movement, burning every last scrap of energy you have left as your body lurches to keep up with you. You swing around to face the footsteps, eyes opening out of synch as you slur out an incredibly accusatory "Bitch-!"

And then stop. The footsteps stop all at once too as their owner freezes dead on the spot, caught red-handed with no idea how to handle this.

It's a he and he is... not what you expected. That is to say you didn't expect to have yet another uninvited guest in your cave but you still didn't expect this. He's not human, that much is painfully clear - his skin is bright scarlet, his eyes like luminous crimson rings in the pools of ink that are his sclera. Polished ebony horns sweep back from his brow, over long, silky, raven-black hair pulled back in a ponytail. His ears are pointed, fangs just barely visible between parted pitch-black lips. He's got the brawn of a pit-fighter, clearly something he's worked hard on, but he hasn't quite worked hard enough - his stomach is blurred with just a bit too much fat, more a solid slightly rounded slab than any kind of ab definition, like he's crossed his physical peak and now all the working out is a holding pattern first and a cure second. He seems a tad too tall for his build, but as your eyes travel down past the elegantly-embroidered gold and purple loincloth and flash of slender arrowhead-tipped tail behind his hip you see why. It's like he jumped into a thigh-high puddle of tar at some point and it half-dried before it could slough off, clinging and staining the skin in thick ropes and tendrils. His feet are more like yours than anything else, saurian things with curved black talons and an armoured look to the tar-like substance, overdeveloped dewclaw-looking things growing from the heels keeping him pushed up on the balls of his feet like... well, heels. His hands are similar, dunked in liquid darkness from the elbow down, a few tendrils clinging to the biceps, his fingers wicked talons. Kind of like yours, so he's got that going for him at least.

"... whuhdafuck?" you say insightfully.

The demon-man looks left, and he looks right. He seems to judge that trying to dart away would just further wake the already confused, hung over, annoyed and grumpy dragon he has the full attention of and decides to own it. He squares up and clasps his claws together.

"Uh... hello," he says. "I'll be your incubus for this evening. I apologise for the-"

Your eyes lose focus, your brow furrowing as you make a few more very concerning apnea-noises and you think you'll pass out again if you don't focus very very very hard. Your face of pure concentration probably just looks constipated.

"... a-are you ok?" he asks.

"M'finewhatsittoyou!" you snap back. Smacking your temple as if to clear all the fog out and shaking your head wildly. You cough, hack, clear your throat. "What's- what're- why's an incubus' out-of-work dad in my cave?"

The incubus blinks a few times. He takes a minute to answer, glancing down and swallowing before he does. "Well... he's here on a job. The only job he could get. On short notice I mean," he adds. He grimaces, exhaling twin jets of breath through his nose so hot they steam. "And I already fucked it up so hey good going everyone throw a party."

"Did my mother send you!?" you ask accusingly, leaping to the most logical conclusion immediately.

"Wh- no- who?" the incubus double-takes, eyebrows practically meeting in the middle. "I mean... is she a mage?"

You stare at him blankly for a bit. "... I actually know shockingly little about what she does in her spare time," you say at last. "Probably something horrible. Like eat babies. Or poison wells. Or forget my birthday."

The incubus looks extremely concerned about something but you're not really sure what so you just wait for him to say something. He catches himself and stumbles to a start again. "I really don't know anything about your mother beyond really basic details. I'm just here because I'm an incubus and... well this is my job. And nobody else was available for it." He unlaces his claws and gestures vaguely with one hand. "Incubi uh, seduce people. And succubi and the ones in-between or neither that is. It's what we do. They said down in the infernal plane you just got into a relationship so I came up to uh... get in on that action I suppose?"

You look back at Jun-ho. He's still snoring, worming and worrying his face deeper into the barrel's embrace. You look back at the incubus.

"Us?" you ask. "Already?"

The incubus shrugs helplessly. "Not every day you get a chance to siphon lust off a dragon. Just how it works."

You shoot him another long, blank stare.

"Then can you... get out of my cave now?" you ask. "Thanks but buh-bye. It's full."

"I can't... actually do that," he replies, scratching the back of his neck. "It kind of works on a contract system - I can't leave until I've seduced you."

"Well then appeal it!" you exclaim.

"I can't!" he shoots right back, "That doesn't work that way either!"

"Your system sucks!"

"Yes! Yes it does!"

"Reduced to passive-aggressive pressure and begging, have we? My my but standards have lowered since my time~"

You and the incubus turn in unison as a third yet familiar voice joins the fray. And there he is, real as anything and bold as brass. The ifrit, only technically more dressed than the incubus, reclining seductively on a hovering couch of glittering golden sand. He tilts his head back slightly, looking down the line of his perfect nose at the incubus, cheek propped up in one golden-clawed hand.

"An ifrit, huh," the incubus says, audibly keeping a neutral tone. "Didn't know you were already... spoken for?"

"He is," the ifrit says as if he owns the place, glancing over at you. "Really now, dragon, do you need yet another freeloader?"

You gesticulate angrily up at the ifrit with one hand because you need the other right down with you on the cave floor to keep you from toppling over. "First of all! A) there is no 'we'! There's just 'I'! I because I own this place and I get to decide who stays and who goes and it was full of my treasure that you blew up, and B) Jun-ho is here because of an actual thing we're doing! You're the freeloader! The first one! The only 'another' freeloader here is him because you came first! It skips over Jun-ho!"

The ifrit slowly arches one eyebrow, staring down at you with a silent look of 'oh, worm?' "Freeloader, am I? And... who was it, pray tell, that saved your life from your horrid mother by finding all that wine? That wine you've been busy scoffing like water?"

You know the answer but you don't want to say it so you're just silently angry for a while. You leave it a good fifteen seconds before you finally answer with a quiet, grumpy "(you)".

"I see," the ifrit says, with another one of those insufferable smirks of his. "And who has two wishes yet to be granted~?"

"... (me)" you admit again. But he made you blow up your gold and you reserve the right to hold a grudge against him forever for that, the tosser. From his face you're pretty sure that A) he knows and B) he's perfectly fine with that. He slowly rotates his hovering sand-recliner to shoot the incubus another smug look.

"Look, I'm-" the incubus shrugs again. "I don't know what you want from me. By rights I should be running off to keep giving you wet dreams until you give in or something but I'm sure they'd all go just as bad as the first, but it's not like I can go home so it doesn't matter where I go."

"Why does everyone want to keep moving in with me!?" you complain to nothing and no one in particular, cradling your pulsing head. "Everything was better when it was quiet! Ugh, (learn incubi are actually real and they only show up right when I don't want one)," you mutter angrily. You raise your head and voice in equal measure. "Incubus guy. Whatever. Give me one good reason why I should let you stay."

Another long silence, punctuated by a heavy, alcoholic snore. Jun-ho's impressive set of lungs draws every eye in the cave.

"... relationship advice," the incubus says at last. "Let me hang around at least in the general area and I'll teach you everything I know about guys."

"Mm, and after you did such a bang-up job of it yes?" the ifrit comments.

"You pipe down," the incubus snaps, jabbing a talon at the hovering golden djinn. "You think a fully-realised intractable charm-dream is easy? You think an incubus can't seduce someone by talking? No, I can do that."

"And you probably try to seduce me at the end?" you ask.

The incubus replies with a 'well what can you do?' sort of shrug.

The snoring stops at last. Jun-ho sits upright with a deep breath in through his nose, blinking blearily as he glances between you and the incubus and the ifrit and back again. You turn your head to meet his gaze properly and the two of you are silent for a few long, long seconds.

"Mmmonsterpeople in your cave?" he asks insightfully.

"Yeah," you reply sagely.

"Oh. Cool." And like that he slumps forward onto the barrel again, the snoring resuming right where it left off. The spirits of various stripes hanging around like bad smells mostly just blink in surprise.

"... ugh. Y'know what? Fine." You cradle your aching head and just nod. "Fine, just fine. Incubus guy, fuck off and find somewhere to stay. Ifrit, you fuck off too." A pause. "Wait no, first guy, incubus, don't fuck off."

"Mm?"

"You're the dream person right?" you ask, gesticulating angrily at your head. "Can you put a person to sleep?"

"Every time he opens his mouth I wager," the ifrit comments.

"You shut up I'm still angry at you!" you snap at him with an accusatory point. You swing your extended index talon around to point at the incubus instead. "You. Magic people to sleep. Yes or no."

"Y-yes?" the incubus replies, clearly still coming to terms with whatever weird living situation it is you have here that he's contractually obligated to sink waist-deep into.

"Good. Sleep me."

With a moment's hesitation the incubus sweeps his hand in your direction, and sleep claims your more-than-willing body once more. You slump down, your head striking the cave floor with an audible THONK, and lie still as your snoring joins Jun-ho's own. You sleep deeply, peacefully, and dreamlessly.

You awaken to find your cave awash with the muted steely-grey light of morning. You're still on the floor right where you landed, not that sleeping on bare rock really matters to a dragon, and of your other mandatory cave-mates there is no sign. Jun-ho's moved at least, the table-barrel set off to the side again with the two chalices set down neatly side-to-side on top. Maybe he's outside taking a look around, going on a quick fly to clear his head. Ifrit and that incubus guy are who knows where, but you doubt it'd be some great effort getting them to come if you called. If you wanted to. Not that you do.

And, most importantly of all, you have silence. You have solitude. You have tranquillity. Who knows when you'll have it next after this wondrous stormy grey morning? Ahhh to be a solitary bachelor once more...

... but your mother is terrible and so is dragon society so much as you'd like to you can't just laze around and do nothing. You'll have to do something. The only question is what.

[ ] Go find Jun-ho and spend a little more time with him. Last time seemed to go pretty well! You know a bit more about each other -him about you far more than the reverse- and the wine probably broke down some barriers!
[ ] Go find the ifrit. He's a dumb stupid asshole idiot that ruined your life, but he's still got two wishes in the pocket and that's worth putting up with him. You can check out the limitations on it, see what problems you can solve.
[ ] Go find the incubus. Make him work for bothering you out of the blue, stupid contract or no. Besides, you're in such desperate need for romantic conversation help that an incubus may just be your last resort.
[ ] Stay inside and get to work cleaning up the goldsplosion in earnest. Seeing it all strewn about like this hurts your heart. The least you can do is make it look slightly less awful, and the gold-counting should be soothing.