Recovering and a heart to heart

The moment stretches for an eternity and my mind stops processing anything and everything. My brain is an endless desert, a wasteland with nary a tumbleweed to its name.

I hear the start of a peal of raucous laughter, it’s Rakos the minotaur. He’s one of the elf’s friends and others around his table have some laughs too.

“What kind of joke did ya tell ‘em to make ‘em laugh like that? Tell me, tell me! C’mon, Tilu, don’t leave us hangin’! We gotta know!”

Rakos got up and made his way over to my table with a clop clop clop of his hooves. He plopped his butt on the table next to me and posted his feet on the bench I’m sitting on, shoulders turned towards the elf. He brings up a meaty hand and gently prods her temple with his finger, urging her on.

“C’mon, c’mooooon,” he practically moos. I’d find this extremely endearing and entertaining if I weren’t mentally shitting my pants. Those were the mental ones that I shit right? Right?

A thought is inserted into my fried brain. Where it came from I don't know, but I’ll take anything I can get at this point.

“She said,” I started, “...she said, ‘What do you call a pantsless Moon Elf out in the snow?’”

The tavern was quiet, hanging onto my every, quietly spoken, word.

“A blue moon,” I finished.

The hush continued, broken only by the swivel of heads and eyes to the elf across the table from me. Her name is Tilu, apparently. Her eyes are still wide but her lips are twitching oddly.

“Pfffttt,” A barely restrained laugh sneaks through her lips and she smacks her hands over her mouth as it escapes.

The rest of the tavern took this as an approval to laugh at this potentially insensitive race-based joke and all the patrons exploded into abrupt guffaws. Rakos the minotaur did the same and slapped me on the back out of camaraderie. Some drinks are spilled as a result of fists pounding on the tables and some faces plopped dangerously close to plates of food in their mirth.

It wasn’t that funny…was it?

Tilu herself was full out laughing as well and put a hand on Rakos’ shoulder to support herself. Her eyes screwed shut from laughter, she didn’t see me let out the biggest sigh of my life and chug down the rest of my mug. I release a small burp after wiping my mouth and that only seems to encourage her giggles more.

The Moon Elf wipes a tear from each eye and gives me a relieved grin, “I really scared me there for a second, Grey.”

Hmm, she dropped the ‘Mister’.

I give her a small smile and let out a hesitant chuckle. My head is beginning to clear. I made it through this time.

Rakos stands up and slaps me on the back again, calling out to one of the wenches, “Another round of whatever they were having on me!” Everybody cheers.

“None of you louts are getting a single drop outta me, ya’ hear? Just a refill for these two, please lass.”

He continues to yell profanities and challenges all around him as he points his finger at each table, daring them to try to get a drink off his tab.

Tilu smiles her small smile at me, which I now understand means that she is amused, and steeples her fingers under chin. She gives me a hard discerning look with her sharp elven senses and seems to give up with a sigh.

“Is…is your face okay?” She looks and sounds genuinely worried.

I grimaced, “My legs are still a little shaky but besides that, I’m good.”

“...and how about the inside? How’s your psyche? You seem a little shaky in that department too…”

Damn this elf’s perceptions. I sigh. “Well, that’s a little shaky too, yeah. It’s calming down.”

Tilu lets the silence hang for me to recover, thankfully and she nurses her drink until I nod and give her a thumbs up after a deep, meditative breath.

“You are certainly a strange one, Grey. And that means that you’ll fit in perfectly,” she flashes me a smile. “We’re a bunch of casual folk, around here at least. Sorry for pushing you like that. Friends?” I nod and smile back. “Well then, welcome to Lustidia.”

She extends her dainty hand across the table to me and I shake it.

“Where’s my ‘Welcome to Lustidia Blowjob?” I say quietly in jest.

Her eyes go wide and a grin shows all her teeth at once, “If that was what you were after from the start why didn’t you just say so?”

Without any hesitation she dives underneath the table and pops her head up between my crotch and the table, her elbows on my thighs. My body couldn’t help but react to such eager passion but I frantically apologize and tell her it was a joke. Her head reappears on her side of the table, pouting slightly.

“Mia got a turn, I just wanted mine.” She turns her head to the side and spies a wench coming with our drinks, lighting back up. She’s either impossible to read or wears her heart on her sleeve and there’s no in between, it seems.

The busty blonde wench places down the mugs for us and takes our empty ones. She leans in to receive her tip and steals a kiss on the lips from Tilu, getting a slap on the ass as a bonus. That in turn sends her braless titties jiggling and giving me a bonus, as well. She pulls back after giving me a long smooch and is breathing heavier than when she arrived. She fans herself with her hand and a faint blush colors her face as she retreats back to the bar, tray tucked under her arm.

We both take a moment to swig our respective drinks and smile contentedly. I go to take another sip as the elf speaks again.

“You know that Moon Elves can sense emotion, right?”

I _almost _managed not to spew some of my drink out. Tilu blinks, taken aback as she’s showered in a light mist of apple mead, “You’ll spray me with booze but not with cum? Even with emotion-sense I just can’t get a read on you!”

I place the back of my hand over my mouth and slowly swallow the rest of the liquid that stayed in my mouth.

“That’s a no if I’ve ever heard one,” she continues as if nothing she said was out of the ordinary, “We can get a handle on most people within a couple of seconds and so I have to tell you, I don’t _think _that Mia greatly enjoys your company. I _know _that Mia greatly enjoys your company. Every time that goblin comes in here to scrape together enough LE for a meal, she’s off kilter for at least an hour. You helped soothe her midway through the interaction and finishing the job for him didn’t sour her mood at all. There’s something special about you, Grey, I just can’t pin it down.

“Your emotions are like a-a-a soup or something,” she flounders for a proper word and her hands gesture like crazy in the air. “Like swamp water! I can tell what emotions are there but I can’t really discern which is which, and you usually have no less than eight or ten at any given time.”

She seems to be getting more and more excited as she continues to ramble. Is this how people see me when I blabber about one thing or another? It’s quite endearing, to be honest-wait. It’s endearing? I thought that it was just a bother for the people around me. Is it always this fun to see someone speak on something that they are obviously passionate about? This might take a while to sink in but…maybe I could be a little less hard on myself.

“To be honest, your psyche is a fuckin’ mess but that’s okay! Most people are pretty fucked up around here. You’re just a _little _more fucked up than most.”

I note that she swears like a sailor when she really gets going. I’m gonna need a notebook or at least a bullet-pointed cheat sheet when talking to this woman.

I absentmindedly glance at the doors to the tavern, half expecting Nin or Dalia to saunter through at any moment. Tilu stops chattering and glances towards the doors as well.

“Waiting for someone?”