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

"So how is it you've been getting on with the others?" you ask. "Part of the arrangement is that we all be able to get on with everyone else, so... best you tell me everything you have to say, for good or ill, so we can discuss it and work on it. Does that sound alright?"

Look at you, being all open and honest and mature. If Belial were here no doubt he'd be patting you on the back and telling you what a magnificent dragon you are, just the wisest and most handsome dragon ever and oh look you must have freshly polished your scales because you look magnificent. And you'd smile and preen and tell him that it's- wait you should be paying attention to Makram.

Thankfully, Makram needs a significant wind-up time to be candid. He rolls over on his cloud, lying on his belly as if balanced on a levitating translucent pillow, stretched out as far as his body will go from fingertip to toetip, flexing and kneading his golden talons against the empty air. A flicker of light runs through the patterns of molten gold and he sighs heavily.

"The eastern one, Jun-ho," he says grumpily. "He can be overly outgoing and he has little sense of personal space. However as I was being sadly neglected by my rightful Master at the time I was forced to spend extended periods of time with him, entertaining myself by educating him on various matters. If he has one virtue it is that he is an excellent listener, and perhaps one day soon he will finally ask no stupid questions at all. What a day that shall be."

"Jun-ho can be a little-"

"But he does have the appropriate level of awe," Makram continues suddenly, cutting you off. You scowl at him but he doesn't even look your way. "Yes, he is an earnest sort through and through. Endlessly fascinated by one such as I, my vast powers and my storied history and my many, many talents. Were my Master to order me to choose a favourite, well, I would find myself forced to say that Jun-ho is the one."

"Aha!" you say, buoyed hard and early. "Good, good, excellent to hear. Jun-ho does seem to be the most personable of the group so far - he asked to come with me last night out of a desire to meet new people marked on the map, and seemed to form a rapport with Datu very-"

"Shall I have to suffer through your interjections every time?" Makram asks in a long-suffering tone. You frown at him in reply, but after a long moment you force yourself to soften. He does have a slight point - at this stage it's best if you just let him talk uninterrupted.

"Not at all. Proceed."

"Mmmmverywellllll," he sighs rolling onto his side and languidly stretching out even further. He bends one leg at the knee, the other danging freely from the edge of the cloud. "Mrgh. The incubus. Belli-something. In our first meeting he was overly familiar, presumed to know too much about me and my kind. I rebuked him of course, and ever since I suspect he has been avoiding me."

You almost interject again, but catch yourself at the last second. Listen, you're supposed to be quiet and listen right now. It's awful, how do people do this all the time?

"Issachar," Makram says, "now he is just infuriating. The way he seems to just appear and disappear at will I swear he could be another djinn in disguise, but whenever I demand answers from him he studiously deflects my questions with some reversal or another."

"I know right!?" you blurt out. "He thinks he's slick, pretending to be some ordinary human when you can tell from meeting him let alone spending time with him that he's obviously not."

"Perhaps his disguise is not quite as good as he thinks it is," Makram remarks.

"No no, I think he knows we know. It's all part of his thing," you reply. "You should have seen him when we were alone together at Lyrros' mansion -he's one of the new people, should be turning up any day now-. It got absolutely pitch-black, no way a human could see through it, but he just kept up with me and didn't even mention it! Who does that!?"

"At this point to just ask would be an admission of defeat, wouldn't it?"

"Yes! Exactly, I thought I was the only one!"

"Mm," Makram says ambiguously, as if realising he accidentally connected with you and trying desperately to think of a way to run that back. Eventually he decides to move past it. "But he does make adequate banana bread so I suppose he can be allowed to stay. Even if I could make some of equal or greater quality. With less."

"Mm," you say in an almost identical tone. A brief pause, a hairline fracture in the conversation, as you pluck the forgotten name out of the blue. "And Abzu? I haven't had the chance to keep myself much appraised of their movements, but whether or not you've had the chance to see them again you were there when ah-"

makram laughing every last scrap of air from his lungs, clearly in pain but unable to stop

"-we met," you finish with an almost imperceptible shudder. "How do you feel about them?"

Makram ponders the question. He rolls over again, one end of the cloud curling up, the lower-middle cresting like a wave, supporting his head and knees like a shaped couch of glittering sand. He elegantly laces his fingers together behind his head, crossing one leg lazily over the other, raised foot bobbing slightly as he thinks.

"Watch that one carefully," he says at last.

You blink. You even double-take, as if the second time you look at Makram you'll find him flashing you one of his shit-eating grins. But no, he seems completely serious. You furrow your brow. "I don't understand," you reply. "Short of Jun-ho, Abzu seemed the least-objectionable of all the people the map's pointed me to."

"They're easily the most personable one, on that we can agree," Makram says, "but they have their own priorities, their own secrets. They are a wizard after all. I find myself wondering how much they would value this relationship in comparison to their original goals, that's all."

You lower your gaze, thinking on his words for a moment. It's not just sniping. The tone is all wrong. You still get the vague sense that Makram isn't telling you everything, but by the same token what he is telling you feels like the truth.

Makram shrugs. "Take that however you will. If the possibility does not bother you, then this little experiment of yours may proceed as planned. If it does, well, there is nothing stopping you from simply taking them aside and asking. They seem forthright enough."

"I see," you say. "Well... I certainly feel like this has been very constructive, so perhaps that's a good sign! Is there anything else you wish to discuss? Perhaps we can work out a way I could find you in the future without having to abduct you via lamp? You could pick a spare room if you haven't already!"

"An entire room? All to the likes of me?" Makram replies, faux-astonished, one hand resting delicately against his chest. "My my but you are being so wastefully generous. I am a djinn after all, Master. All the accommodation and comfort a dutiful servant like me requires is mine when I return to the crystal within my lamp. Surely the space would be better spent on others more deserving?"

You grimace. Why does he always have to be like this.

"Well I told the contractors to make a lot of spare rooms while they were here just in case, so..." you waggle your claw vaguely. "If you do decide on one, tell me so I know where to find you. Once my wing heals and I can go back into town I'll be buying personalised furnishings and the like for everyone, so if you want to be a part of that, you know what to do."

He acts like he's barely interested, extending one arm to check for some imaginary dirt on his golden claws. Turning his hand this way and that, inspecting the shine of his lustrous molten markings as if they were even slightly duller than when he first appeared. You mean, yes, preening is extremely important and it's a sign of Makram's excellent priorities that he would place so much emphasis on it but still there's a time and a place. You wait a few moments longer just in case he has anything else to say.

"I'm not keeping you, am I?" he asks airily, talontips lightly scraping at the near-solid band of molten gold around his throat. "If you wish to let your wing recover swiftly you might want to consider an early night."

"Well... yes. I should do that. Was. Planning on doing that. Entirely independent of your advice. All you did was remind me." You turn and stride towards your hoard rather than live with your halting mess of a reply any longer than you have to, only to pause halfway. What's the boyfriend thing to do? You should really practice that. Uh... "Goodnight, Makram?"

"Goodnight, Master. Do keep in mind through the night that I am always available to service any need or desire you may wish me to fulfil~"

You scowl at him as deeply as it is possible for one dragon to scowl, stomping your way up the side of the golden sand-dune that is your hoard and bellyflopping down atop the pile like an incensed seal, violently ballooning out into your true form with a whumpf of displaced air. The wave washes over Makram, succeeding only in nudging him away and tousling his hair. He rakes it back into place with a single smooth motion, snickering all the while. You angrily huff out twin jets of hot breath from your nose and wiggle into a more comfortable position, kneading your gold into proper order as you resolutely shut your eyes and wait for Makram to go away. Or to fall asleep, whichever comes first.

You think it was 'fall asleep' because the next thing you know you're having your favourite dream, lying comfortably atop a pile of gold so staggeringly high that even you can't see the bottom, the very sky around you shining with a warm golden light. You wiggle happily, tail swaying back and forth like the gargantuan scaly flail that it is, giving serious consideration to leaping forward and letting yourself sliiiiiiide down to whatever bottom there may be in a torrential avalanche of treasure. Only to blink and see Belial there again, a splash of scarlet and sable amid the gold.

"Yyyyyes?" you ask.

"Sorry to uh, to bother you again," he says, trying to find a comfortable position facing you on the shifting semi-treacherous slope of treasure. The way he endures the various pointy bits and edges digging into his skin, he seems to be free of his hypersensitivity in the dream world. "This is the last time I show up in one of your dreams uninvited, I promise. Like I said it's honestly pretty novel to have a real bed, hah. But anyway. I just... wanted to drop in and say I'm proud of you."

" 'Proud of me'?" you repeat incredulously.

"Well... yeah?" he replies. "C'mon, you remember what it was like the other day. You have trouble communicating with people and being honest about how you feel. That doesn't make you weak or inferior it just, dunno. Makes me happy to see you trying to act counter to that based on what I said. Like I helped."

You extend one massive claw, talons splayed, its shadow passing over Belial like a looming mountain.

"Uh wait-"

"Shush."

You bring it down, talons curling down and around, raking through the gold as you drag him up to the peak with you as if he were no more than a toy, pressing him against your collarbone region and packing him in with coins. He's left submerged in treasure to the waist, back pressed against your shield-like scales, stunned and bewildered.

"There," you say. "Much better."

"You really are a secret sweetheart," he says.

"And this is a dream," you retort. "So no one will ever believe you."

You awaken the next morning refreshed, which is a first. Your wing still aches a little but the pain has noticeably decreased - it's duller, easier to ignore, easier to get a bit more adventurous with its range of movement. You streeeeeeetch out with all five limbs, neck extending as far as it will go, letting out an almighty yawn all the while. Talons idly raaaaking across the stone beneath you, beginning to gouge fresh furrows in the recently-resurfaced floor out of habit, terrifying carnivorous maw open so wide that you could count every single fang in there. You flop down limp again, smacking your lips, and crack open your eyes.

To find... everybody gathered in a semicircle in front of you? You blink a few times, wondering if this is still a dream.

"Oh, you're up!" Jun-ho, in his bipedal form, says brightly. He turns and cups a claw at the end of his snout. "Now's good!" he calls through the door.

"Now for wh-?" you ask.

The great doors burst open in a sudden explosion of movement, tendrils of writhing shadow washing over the iron-banded wood and splashing across the stone like oil slicks as a figure strides purposefully across the threshold. A very familiar grey-skinned chest greets you, albeit slightly more covered up than the last time you saw it. Lyrros' long coat billows dramatically behind him in an unnatural wind, clinging to his shoulders for dear life. He holds his arms out wide to bask in the attention from all assembled onlookers, a silver-chased black leather suitcase dangling from one gloved hand. You notice he's even thrown on a charcoal-grey scarf, the twin tails long enough to dance in the wind with his silky raven-black hair. Honestly with even the thin strip of skin between his collarbone and chin covered up it makes his bare chest all the more prominent, you wonder how anyone who saw him on the way here got anything done that day.

At last Lyrros comes to a definitive stop, the crack of his heels striking the stone echoing all throughout the cavern. He flicks his head sharply, sending his hair into one more spiral, and slowly raises one hand to pinch the side of his sunglasses between his gloved claws and pull them free.

"Still your hearts," he said. "For I have come."

He throws his suitcase down flat on the floor and steps on it. "And I brought luggage."

The impact sends the buckles flying open with twin metallic clunks, Lyrros easing off the pressure only slightly to allow it to simply spring open of its own accord. What lies within is naught but a swirling vortex into a seemingly endless pit of shadows from which you swear you can hear the soft screams of the damned emerge. Lyrros stomps the lid back down, the buckles fastening themselves once more with a synchronous click.

"So, tell me everything," he says, tucking the folded arm of his sunglasses into his scarf for safekeeping as he scans the room. "Who is everyone, where shall I be staying, what are the accomodations like, what purchases will I have to make myself, and please; feel free to question me in kind. It's only natural to require explanation for"

He gestures in an all-encompassing fashion at himself.

"this."

You blink. Jun-ho is clapping, and you think Abzu is praising him but with the sign turned away from you it's anyone's guess what they're saying. Makram is curled up haughtily on his cloud in his usual fashion. Issachar stands beside him, arms folded and even with his back turned you can feel the knowing amusement radiating off of him like the heat from a fire - you suspect Lyrros' schtick will work on him about as well as anybody else's does. Belial, conversely, is off to the side scratching the back of his neck. You stretch one more time and crawl down from the peak of your pile, rising to your hind legs as you change and sidling your way into the middle of the gathered gaggle of boyfriends (and other).

"Ahhh, Eldingar!" Lyrros says broadly, flashing you a saucy grin. "The main event himself. How long has it been? Two days? Three? How time flies - but at last I have returned to you, ready to take my rightful place and make your humble abode so much less so."

You object strongly to calling your abode 'humble' in any capacity, but that's just a Thing mortals do all the time so you bite back the urge to scream EXCUSE YOU and focus on the rest.

"Wonderful to see you again Lyrros," you say. "This is Makram, Jun-ho, Issachar, Belial and Abzu - they appeared on the map just like you, and they're living here too for -well not Abzu they still live at their tower but they teleport over- for the foreseeable future."

"Ah yes, the fabled map!" Lyrros claps his hands together. "Where is it? I should so like to see it for myself."

"mnehehyeahthat'sgonnabeaproblem so let's get this dialogue going shall we?" you say quickly, glancing left, right and left again along the line of assembled boyfriends (and other). "Anyone have any questions, comments, things to volunteer?"

"How's your head?" Issachar asks. You want to slap your hand over your face.

"Filled with songs and wonder at how the world has changed these past hundred years," Lyrros replies. "Delighted the tastebuds of any of your fellows here yet, chef?"

"The kitchen here needs more setup but I've brought things from my house a few times," Issachar shoots right back.

"Ahhhhh. Then you should know that I hunger for only the finest of meals," Lyrros says, smooth as a serpent. You don't know if this is some kind of strange food-based flirting but if it is it's incredibly discomforting and you want it to stop.

"So are you human like Issachar?" Jun-ho asks, to an audible 'snrk' from most of the others (which you swear includes Issachar). "I just wanted to ask, since I don't know much about the people here and don't want to assume."

"No no, an excellent question," Lyrros says, patting at the air in Jun-ho's direction. "Even I do not truly know the name of what I have become. You see I have been cursed, sired by a monster and forced to persist in this achingly beautiful predator's form for time immemorial - I was only recently freed from my prison of stone by the handsome Eldingar, freed to travel the land and come here, where I shall no doubt see yet more wonderous sights~"

Makram laughs. Lyrros slooooowly shifts his gaze over, locking the ifrit dead in his sights.

"Does something amuse you, my golden friend?" Lyrros asks.

"Many things do," Makram replies. "But currently what amuses me most is the sheer energy and dedication with which your hurl yourself into this performative facade. I find myself wondering - do you ever allow yourself a moment to breathe without involving enough ham to shock a swineherd, or is this passion-play a special occasion for our benefit?"

Lyrros shifts his weight back on his heel, crossing one arm over his chest as the other hand cups his chin. Regarding the ifrit with a soft 'hm'. "Ahhhh. I see," he says knowingly. "Methinks the djinn doth protest too much. Is it feeling threatened, perhaps? The proud spirit soon to be outclassed in both service and entertainment?"

"You think yourself a musician, boy?" Makram retorts, only the barest pressure emphasising the final word, a promise of the full weight of age and experience he could bring down on Lyrros like a mace should he so choose. "I could do the work of a thousand without a breath of effort."

"But can you compose?"

"Can you?"

Lyrros chuckles. Makram projects an air of distant, condescending amusement. The air between them is so thick with tension you're not entirely sure if they're about to start throwing claws or passionately kissing.

Eventually Lyrros realises, at roughly the same speed you do, that Abzu is jumping up and down waving a sign to try and grab his attention. He seems briefly nonplussed, lips parting slightly as he no doubt thinks to ask about their muteness before reconsidering. You crane your neck to get a look at the sign from a better angle.

[Tell me more about the curse you mentioned!] Abzu has written in large, friendly letters. They swap signs with blinding speed. [I've never seen anyone like you in any of my materials.] [Are you undead?] [Do you breathe?] [Do you eat?] [Do you sleep?] [Actually can you even still have sex?] [I wouldn't ask normally but] [Well it's kinda relevant right now.] [Can I take some of your blood?]

Lyrros blinks a few times, a hairline crease of confusion forming in his brow. He clears his throat and recovers. "I presume so. Yes. Yes but I have no need to. Yes. Emphatically yes. No."

[Awww just a little bit!] [I promise it won't hurt!]

"Um," Jun-ho says, his hand raised. Lyrros turns to look at him. Jun-ho looks at his own raised hand and quickly lowers it in embarrassment. "I just wanted to say that you look really pretty and I don't know how you do it and I'm jealous."

Lyrros smiles a wide, sensual smile, baring a sliver of pale fangs. "These are all natural reactions to me, my dear Jun-ho~" he replies. "When it comes to my impossible beauty and animal magnetism that shines with a darkness that overwhelms even light itself, there are three key things;" He counts them off on his claws. "Confidence. Preparation. And being able to command the living shadow to take whatever shapes I desire."

Jun-ho nods with an earnest look on his face, as if he were seriously taking mental note of this.

[What's this about shadow-shaping!?] [I need to know more!] [You can't just drop that and not elaborate!] Abzu is hopping up and down frantically, waving signs in both hands for emphasis. [Tell meeeeeeee!]

"Please, please, boys and other, one at a time!" Lyrros laughs.

"That doesn't sound like something you'd say," Issachar remarks.

Lyrros clicks his fingers. "A-haaaa this one, he's a clever one this one."

"I read. It comes with the territory."

Well this seems to be going relatively well, but past a certain point you feel even Lyrros is going to have a hard time dealing with all the boyfriends (and other) talking to him at once. You should find a natural interjection point to lighten the load somewhat, whisk someone away from the introductory free-for-all to let things calm down a little. Letting everyone fight for attention feels a bit antithetical to the end-goal.

[ ] Offer to show Lyrros to his room. What better way to defuse the situation than abducting the focal point? Besides, it gives you an excuse to chat with him one-on-one and explain the situation.
[ ] Pull Makram away. You just got done speaking to him yesterday, true, but you can already tell he and Lyrros are going to be butting heads like rams from now until the end of time unless you do something. Maybe some time alone will help crack whatever it is that's driving his acting out?
[ ] Pull Jun-ho away. You have a great deal of very important and very dragony things to speak with him about... and, alright, you're starting to feel a bit jealous after watching him swoon over Datu and Lyrros so openly. Maybe some time alone to thank him for flying you back from the temple will help assuage your insecurities there.
[ ] Pull Belial away. He hasn't said a word yet, not has Lyrros acknowledged his presence. Sure the flamboyant performer has a great deal on his plate right now, but that can't feel good, especially based on what Belial's told you. Maybe some time alone can help him bounce back.
[ ] Pull Issachar away. He certainly seems to have the measure of Lyrros, thanks to accompanying you to the initial meeting at all. Removing him from the situation may give the others more room to get to know him, and with some time alone perhaps you can get a little advice?
[ ] Pull Abzu away. You get the feeling their analytical mind is the wrong kind of attention Lyrros craves, a feeling that's all the stronger thanks to the conversation you had with Makram just last night. Perhaps now's the time to really get into a talk with them, lay down some ground rules, work out just what their movements and plans are.