This is a start to a series I might continue if people enjoy it. Let me know what you think, if you like, and any critiques you might have. Thanks, and I truly hope people get enjoyment out of it.
Counterspell: A Fantasy Tickling Series
Chapter the 1st - Dwyer the dyer (f/m)
Dwyer had never asked for any of this. Isn’t it funny how your mind races through the true thoughts and emotions you ignore during typical consciousness when you’re in danger? In this moment, running down the streets and through the alleyways of his home city of Veritos, his subconscious is alight.
“Why did I get into the family business? I wanted to study at the college and become a scholar.” Dwyer thought to himself.
A dyer by trade, he ran a small, family-run dying business in low town. That’s right, Dwyer the dyer. His father was notorious for his word play. Dwyer knew he wasn’t going to become a noble merchant lord off of his business, but that had never mattered to him before now, forced to face his mortality. For what he runs from all un-gifted peoples of the world fear; he runs from a naturalis.
Darting down an alley by a fishmonger with whom Dwyer had always had a particular dislike of due to his penchant for wearing mismatched coats and britches – seriously, who wears orange and purple together – he finds a barrel filled with pickling herring. Hesitating due to the intense sour smell of the foul liquid in which the fish roil, Dwyer begins to climb the barrel to hide where no decent human would ever care to look. His depths of desperation at that point know no end.
Let be known, Dwyer is no small man. Dying is hard labor. Twenty-three years old and standing at almost six feet with a fairly toned physique for a non-warrior class, he can hold his own. Sure, he has a little extra tub about the middle from a few too many meat pies, but who doesn’t? In fact, with his light hair and strong hands, in the right clothes someone might consider him princely; at least, that is what his mother always told him. These things didn’t matter when a naturalis was after you; unless you have help, you run and hide.
In what scholars could argue for centuries on whether which would be the crueler fate, the pursuing naturalis pulls Dwyer down from the barrel, as if pulling a man from a ledge before a suicidal plunge. Before he can respond, a paper charm is slapped over his face and a soft, warmness flows through his body causing him to drift off to sleep.
“You made me run. Now, I have to do this the hard way,” are the last words Dwyer hears before blackness overtakes him.
*
As magically induced slumber is wont to do, the dyer awakes suddenly with a start, yet he finds himself in a decidedly uncomfortable position. First, he realizes after a few moments of fear that he hasn’t lost his eyesight but is merely blindfolded. Finding himself in a sitting position on a chair, a pull at his arms reveals they have been tied over his head with his wrists to the back of the chair. Finally, his legs rest atop something in front of him, yet they are trussed up in rope from his ankles to his knees, unable to move an inch. Fear runs down Dwyer the dyers body from head to toe.
“P-please. W-w-what’s going on? I’m just a dyer! I-“ He is cut off by the sound of boots on a hard floor. Dwyer gulps. “W-who’s there?” The sound of a chair dragging across the floor nearer to his hearing causes him to jump.
“Hello, Dwyer.” A soft, feminine voice calls to him. Sitting beside Dwyer in a chair is his naturalis pursuer. Like many of her kind, she wears flowing garments of a robe-like fashion. This naturalis’ sook, her identifying robe-like garment, is purple with short, open cuffed sleeves and shiny green trim. The sook cuts off at her knees revealing high, black, soft leather boots tied from ankle to shin. Dwyer would not have approved of the color coordination.
“My name is Kellen. Why did you run from my associate when she only wanted to talk to you?” She asks as kindly as one might when asking for a sweet. There is no malice on her round, pale face with freckled cheeks. Her auburn hair hangs mid-neck, framing her polite features. If Dwyer could see her, perhaps his intimidation would be assuaged. At twenty years old, she stands only five feet tall, and while not overweight at all, has curves befitting of a person perfect for hugs and cuddles.
“Y-your associate?” Dwyer stammered. “She c-came across in a very intimidating way. A-and she asked about Mr. Mascarpone so-“ All the color drained from his face and his explanation halted when he felt a hand on his shoulder opposite from Kellen.
“Be careful how you talk about my associate, Jolie. She controls the ropes around you, and she doesn’t like being called intimidating. She has been working on her social skills really hard!” Kellen says with a chuckle.
“Tsk. I just asked him about the guy.” Jolie moves away from Dwyer to sit across the room against the wall. “I was giving you the easy way out. Sometimes you have to be forceful to make people see that your way is the easy way.” Jolie smiles to herself. Her sook is dark green with longer, open sleeves going down to her wrists and a black trim. It cuts off at her waist to show her tanned, brown leather britches and ankle high black books. Her erratic, almost wavy, blonde hair falls about her face down to her shoulders and, coupled with her stark, green eyes, suggests someone somewhat dangerous. That said, at twenty-seven, her frame is not much more than that of Kellen; though, she is two inches taller, a source of pride for Jolie.
“You covered my customers in dye! Do you know how long it takes to make that much-“ Cut off once again, Dwyer found his ropes becoming increasingly more tight. “G-gah!” He choked.
“Now, Jolie. Ease up. Facts are facts. You overreacted. You had your shot. Let me give it a go.” Kellen cajoled sweetly. At that, the ropes became less restricting but still firmly in place.
“Tsk. Whatever you say. Just get on with it.” Jolie scoffed.
“Right. Dwyer, we need to know about the Mascarpone family. We know they frequent your shop because you’re the only dyer that can mix the right shade of pink for their identifying coats. That means you must have some information on them. Now isn’t that right?” Kellen asked in her even, patient tone.
“Like I t-told the other one. I can’t say anything about Mr. Mascarpone nor any of his family. End of story. They’d kill me.” Dwyer manages, regaining his composure a bit.
“I see.” Kellen taps her lips. “You know about naturali, right? Some people, when they’re young, find they have an affinity for certain objects or materials. That becomes the focus of a whole set of abilities that individual can then develop, should he or she choose to. For example, my friend Jolie has an affinity for silk. Hence, those silken ropes holding you down tight. Quite useful, no?” Kellen explains like a delighted teacher in front of her pupil.
Dwyer gets the sense of where she means to head and takes initiative. “I saw her mark. It’s on her neck. I know she can’t injure me. Mascarpone can. I only ran because I didn’t know who she worked with, but you don’t seem that bad. So your scary game can stop now; the jig is up.” Dwyer smiles smugly at himself.
Jolie chuckles once, and Kellen lets fly a burst of amused giggles. “Wow, how little the common man has thought about this. True, many naturali are enchanted to ensure they can’t use their abilities to kill or injure others. However, that is only directly. There are loopholes. She tightened those ropes pretty tight, didn’t she? That isn’t injuring, but breathing was harder. She couldn’t stab you in the heart with a silken spear, but she could definitely truss you up and roll you off a building.” Kellen laughs again.
Hearing this explained in such a way, Dwyer finally realized what a messed up world he lives in. “P-please don’t do that.” Dwyer sobs a little.
“Oh hush. We would never. We’re better than the Mascarpones. That said, we need to know what you know. And if you won’t tell us, I’m going to use my naturalis power to get you to tell me without injuring you one bit. I’m quite persuasive. So what do you say?”
Dwyer stares into the blackness of his blindfold for a minute. He wonders where his life goes from here, if he even has one after. In this brief stress madness, he comes to a decision.
“I’ll never tell. You can’t kill me. They can kill me. Simple as that.” And then Dwyer the dyer closes his lips.
“That’s unfortunate. Oh well. Let’s get started.” Kellen opens a pouch at her waist and pulls out one small, pink canary feather. Staring at it for a moment, it lifts off her hand and wafts over to Dwyer, coming to a stop near his ear. “Cootchie coo.” At this, the feather delicately brushes itself around his ear and just below it.
Dwyer jumps and shakes his head about, but the magically imbued feather stays its course. “H-hehehey! What the-a feather? Hehe what a silly naturalis! Hehe!” Dwyer giggles a bit before the feather stops.
Kellen muses, “Silly? I suppose so. I didn’t find my ability until a bit older than most others. Who would have thought? Feathers? But I love them. Like me, so unassuming, yet I can do so much.” At the last, her delighted tone drops just a hair to one of dark whimsy. She takes out three more feathers much like the first and sends them on their way. One is opposite the first, and the other two rest lower on Dwyers neck. At a glance, they begin stroking and dusting their targets.
Dwyer is noticeably less controlled. “Tickling?” He thought. “This is child’s play. Just stand it for a bit and then they’ll be on their way. And they’ll be impressed at my fortitude, I bet!”
“Hehehe not so bad, miss. Almost hahehe relaxing!” Dwyer mocks.
In a serious, yet still pleasant tone, Kellen continues. “You’ll notice the sensations pick up just a bit. This is what I like to call the “lead up.” Jolie, if you’d be so kind.”
In an instant, Dwyer finds his chest bare. From across the room, Jolie had commanded a strip of the silk to act as a blade to slice his tunic clean off.
“Thank you. Now.” Kellen produces two long, stiff, white plumes from her bag. With a nod, they beeline for his underarms and begin twirling and circling.
Dwyer had been feeling pretty good about himself up until this point. Torture? No big deal. When those two feathers began their ticklish assault on his underarms, he was plunged back into boyhood. Giggles erupted from his lips in uncontrollable waves.
“BwahahAHaha! W-wait! AHaha! Not thehehehere!” Dwyer gets out.
“Aww. What’s wrong? Big stwong man too tickwy?” Kellen teases. “I find that every little boy is ticklish. Now talk.” Kellen produces two more small, soft feathers, green this time, and gave them a new mission with only a stare. One begins dusting around his stomach lightly while the other dips into his navel and twirls in sporadic intervals.
Dwyer erupts. “BWAhaAHahAHA! W-hyahaha!” Unable to regain composure, he can only laugh.
Kellen coos, “Poor wittle guy. The tickles can stop if you talk. Do you wanna?” Kellen halts every feather in its tracks.
Dwyer breathes and tries to think. “I-I can’t! I don’t wanna die! Stop this!” He yelps helplessly.
Like a composer, she lifts her hands and makes a slight flinch with her fingers. At this, the feathers make only small movements in each of their positions about Dwyer’s body. This causes him to jerk and giggle each time. Kellen does this over and over at random.
“Talk. Or the tickles are going to get you.” Kellen wiggles her fingers causing the feathers to twirl and crawl across his skin. At his ears and neck, the small feathers wave delicately, teasing the skin there. His underarms get poked by the tips of the longer feathers, occasionally causing him to squeak out. The tiny feathers about his tummy begin alternating between racing each other across his tummy and diving into his navel.
Dwyer is in hysterics, “WHAHAAHAhA! NoHAhAH MOhahRE!” The incessant sensations begin to make him think that death might be preferable to this treatment. The only thread he holds onto is that she may think him too tough to break, eventually giving up.
Kellen again halts the ticklish attack. Leaning in to Dwyer, she asks him as politely as she has ever been with him, “Why don’t you just tell us a little bit? We’ll make sure nothing bad happens to you.”
Dwyer responds incredulously, “Against Mascarpone? You can’t!”
Kellen suddenly dances her long, blunted, manicured nails along Dwyer’s side, causing him to convulse in laughter.
“I’m going to take the Mascarpone family down for what they’ve done.” Kellen hesitates. “For all they’ve done.” She states flatly.
Moving her chair down to his feet, Kellen sets her long plumes to making long strokes up and down his sides. Kellen herself removes each of his laceless boots while he giggles and guffaws from the tickles at his sides. Sliding off his stockings, she then removes a handful of small and medium feathers and tosses them into the air. With a single motion, all these feathers, maybe fifteen in all, take stations at Dwyer’s now bare feet.
“Quit messing around with him already. I wanted to be in bed by now.” Jolie lays her head back disparagingly. She bolts upright and lets out a giggle as a feather flies out of her sook, tickling across her sides all the way.
Kellen smiles at her knowingly. “Whoops. Must’ve left that thereby accident.” Jolie glares daggers at her, but she only sits back and smiles quietly to herself.
Kellen halts her two longest feathers from their ticklish torture of Dwyers sides and arms. She asks patiently, “Anything to say? I’m sure you’ve noticed your ticklish position. I’d hate to embarrass you by tickling your toes.” At this one of the feathers glides across the underside of his toes causing him to bark out a sudden burst of nervous, ticklish laughter.
“Y-you can’t! They’ll know it’s me! They always know! You don’t seem that bad. Please, listen to reason. Do you want me to die?” Dwyer, fearing a ticklish hell storm incoming, pleads desperately.
Kellen listens silently, like a mother hearing a child out about how the other kids wouldn’t let him go first on the slide, before she pats Dwyer’s leg comfortingly.
“There, there. It’s okay.” She reassures. “It is sweet of you to say I’m not that bad.” Her tone dips down into that dark playfulness again, “but you don’t know me at all.” She swipes her hand in the air dramatically as if sending an imaginary army off to war. The feathers at his feet begin their attack. Kellen’s smallest feathers are crawling in and out of between his toes. Two medium length, stiff, yellow feathers glide back and forth beneath his toes, causing them to wiggle violently. Tiny, soft feathers twirl and circle randomly on his arches, always changing and moving. At the same time, the two long feathers continue their slow, rhythmic path on his sides.
Dwyer goes mad. Laughter blubbers across his lip with abandon. His incoherent chortles cause Kellen to giggle. “Aww. Such tickly feet. Better not let anyone find out. Whoops! You already did! Big mistake.” Kellen moves the stiff feather to sawing between his toes and has the small ones begin dancing in groups over the tops of his feet, eliciting a new wave a shuddering laughter from Dwyer.
“Remember how I said this was the lead up? The feather is sensitivity incarnate. My feathers have drawn out all of your wonderful ticklishness as they touch your skin. Isn’t that delightful?” Kellen places her index fingers at the top of each of his arches. “You’re going to talk now.” She orders in a disturbingly enthusiastic tone before dragging each of her fingers down and then up the bottoms of his feet just once.
Dwyer’s world shatters. In that instant, he’s transported back to his early childhood in his father’s dye shop. His mother bakes fresh pies as his father lets him help in mixing ingredients to reach the correct pigments. “A dyer never dies; he lives in his pigments forever.” Always with the terrible word play, his father. “Oh, shut up, honey.” Always the realist, his mother.
Dwyer shocks back to reality with a gasp and shout of pent up laughter. Kellen places all ten of her fingers on his feet, not moving them nor her feathers, just waiting in silence.
“I’ll tell you everything I know! I will!” Dwyer proclaims. Kellen sits back and calls her feathers back to her bag with a smile.
Jolie stands and puts her hands on her hips, “About time!”
*
Dwyer the dyer scrubs the floors of his shop in a near vain attempt to remove the color clashes from the inside of his shop. When the mysterious, angry woman from yesterday had caused this mess in his shop, he thought cleaning it up would be the worst, most dreadful thing. On the contrary, something about his sleep last night had given him new vigor for the dye crafts. He remembered his father and his passion, and that will push him forward in expanding the business and doing his best. He might even ask the fishmonger to help him experiment with new and exciting color pallets.
Outside Dwyer’s shop, Kellen and Jolie sit on a bench watching Dwyer work and others of the city pass by about their business.
“Did you really have to use that haze charm to fuzz his memory about last night? He seemed helpful enough after – ya know. And those charms aren’t cheap!” Jolie scolds, giving Kellen a harsh look.
Kellen just laughs it off and wavs her hand about in the air. “No worries! We said we’d protect him from harm for the information he gave us. For him to have no recollection of having told us anything is probably the best protection. We got what we wanted, and now he can have what he wants: to be left alone.” With that, Kellen stands. “We’ve got work to do. He told us where they do pick-ups and drop-offs for the coats and described a few people in the organization that might be high up enough to get us some significant intel.”
“Fine, fine.” Jolie stands as well and looks at Kellen, her gaze softening. “Hey Kell, have you ever thought about maybe just letting all this go? Ya know, settling down and figuring life out? There is a lot of work out there for naturali. We could just walk away, right?”
Kellen looks off toward the city center distantly, “Never.” She melds into the crowd with Jolie following behind.
Counterspell: A Fantasy Tickling Series
Chapter the 1st - Dwyer the dyer (f/m)
Dwyer had never asked for any of this. Isn’t it funny how your mind races through the true thoughts and emotions you ignore during typical consciousness when you’re in danger? In this moment, running down the streets and through the alleyways of his home city of Veritos, his subconscious is alight.
“Why did I get into the family business? I wanted to study at the college and become a scholar.” Dwyer thought to himself.
A dyer by trade, he ran a small, family-run dying business in low town. That’s right, Dwyer the dyer. His father was notorious for his word play. Dwyer knew he wasn’t going to become a noble merchant lord off of his business, but that had never mattered to him before now, forced to face his mortality. For what he runs from all un-gifted peoples of the world fear; he runs from a naturalis.
Darting down an alley by a fishmonger with whom Dwyer had always had a particular dislike of due to his penchant for wearing mismatched coats and britches – seriously, who wears orange and purple together – he finds a barrel filled with pickling herring. Hesitating due to the intense sour smell of the foul liquid in which the fish roil, Dwyer begins to climb the barrel to hide where no decent human would ever care to look. His depths of desperation at that point know no end.
Let be known, Dwyer is no small man. Dying is hard labor. Twenty-three years old and standing at almost six feet with a fairly toned physique for a non-warrior class, he can hold his own. Sure, he has a little extra tub about the middle from a few too many meat pies, but who doesn’t? In fact, with his light hair and strong hands, in the right clothes someone might consider him princely; at least, that is what his mother always told him. These things didn’t matter when a naturalis was after you; unless you have help, you run and hide.
In what scholars could argue for centuries on whether which would be the crueler fate, the pursuing naturalis pulls Dwyer down from the barrel, as if pulling a man from a ledge before a suicidal plunge. Before he can respond, a paper charm is slapped over his face and a soft, warmness flows through his body causing him to drift off to sleep.
“You made me run. Now, I have to do this the hard way,” are the last words Dwyer hears before blackness overtakes him.
*
As magically induced slumber is wont to do, the dyer awakes suddenly with a start, yet he finds himself in a decidedly uncomfortable position. First, he realizes after a few moments of fear that he hasn’t lost his eyesight but is merely blindfolded. Finding himself in a sitting position on a chair, a pull at his arms reveals they have been tied over his head with his wrists to the back of the chair. Finally, his legs rest atop something in front of him, yet they are trussed up in rope from his ankles to his knees, unable to move an inch. Fear runs down Dwyer the dyers body from head to toe.
“P-please. W-w-what’s going on? I’m just a dyer! I-“ He is cut off by the sound of boots on a hard floor. Dwyer gulps. “W-who’s there?” The sound of a chair dragging across the floor nearer to his hearing causes him to jump.
“Hello, Dwyer.” A soft, feminine voice calls to him. Sitting beside Dwyer in a chair is his naturalis pursuer. Like many of her kind, she wears flowing garments of a robe-like fashion. This naturalis’ sook, her identifying robe-like garment, is purple with short, open cuffed sleeves and shiny green trim. The sook cuts off at her knees revealing high, black, soft leather boots tied from ankle to shin. Dwyer would not have approved of the color coordination.
“My name is Kellen. Why did you run from my associate when she only wanted to talk to you?” She asks as kindly as one might when asking for a sweet. There is no malice on her round, pale face with freckled cheeks. Her auburn hair hangs mid-neck, framing her polite features. If Dwyer could see her, perhaps his intimidation would be assuaged. At twenty years old, she stands only five feet tall, and while not overweight at all, has curves befitting of a person perfect for hugs and cuddles.
“Y-your associate?” Dwyer stammered. “She c-came across in a very intimidating way. A-and she asked about Mr. Mascarpone so-“ All the color drained from his face and his explanation halted when he felt a hand on his shoulder opposite from Kellen.
“Be careful how you talk about my associate, Jolie. She controls the ropes around you, and she doesn’t like being called intimidating. She has been working on her social skills really hard!” Kellen says with a chuckle.
“Tsk. I just asked him about the guy.” Jolie moves away from Dwyer to sit across the room against the wall. “I was giving you the easy way out. Sometimes you have to be forceful to make people see that your way is the easy way.” Jolie smiles to herself. Her sook is dark green with longer, open sleeves going down to her wrists and a black trim. It cuts off at her waist to show her tanned, brown leather britches and ankle high black books. Her erratic, almost wavy, blonde hair falls about her face down to her shoulders and, coupled with her stark, green eyes, suggests someone somewhat dangerous. That said, at twenty-seven, her frame is not much more than that of Kellen; though, she is two inches taller, a source of pride for Jolie.
“You covered my customers in dye! Do you know how long it takes to make that much-“ Cut off once again, Dwyer found his ropes becoming increasingly more tight. “G-gah!” He choked.
“Now, Jolie. Ease up. Facts are facts. You overreacted. You had your shot. Let me give it a go.” Kellen cajoled sweetly. At that, the ropes became less restricting but still firmly in place.
“Tsk. Whatever you say. Just get on with it.” Jolie scoffed.
“Right. Dwyer, we need to know about the Mascarpone family. We know they frequent your shop because you’re the only dyer that can mix the right shade of pink for their identifying coats. That means you must have some information on them. Now isn’t that right?” Kellen asked in her even, patient tone.
“Like I t-told the other one. I can’t say anything about Mr. Mascarpone nor any of his family. End of story. They’d kill me.” Dwyer manages, regaining his composure a bit.
“I see.” Kellen taps her lips. “You know about naturali, right? Some people, when they’re young, find they have an affinity for certain objects or materials. That becomes the focus of a whole set of abilities that individual can then develop, should he or she choose to. For example, my friend Jolie has an affinity for silk. Hence, those silken ropes holding you down tight. Quite useful, no?” Kellen explains like a delighted teacher in front of her pupil.
Dwyer gets the sense of where she means to head and takes initiative. “I saw her mark. It’s on her neck. I know she can’t injure me. Mascarpone can. I only ran because I didn’t know who she worked with, but you don’t seem that bad. So your scary game can stop now; the jig is up.” Dwyer smiles smugly at himself.
Jolie chuckles once, and Kellen lets fly a burst of amused giggles. “Wow, how little the common man has thought about this. True, many naturali are enchanted to ensure they can’t use their abilities to kill or injure others. However, that is only directly. There are loopholes. She tightened those ropes pretty tight, didn’t she? That isn’t injuring, but breathing was harder. She couldn’t stab you in the heart with a silken spear, but she could definitely truss you up and roll you off a building.” Kellen laughs again.
Hearing this explained in such a way, Dwyer finally realized what a messed up world he lives in. “P-please don’t do that.” Dwyer sobs a little.
“Oh hush. We would never. We’re better than the Mascarpones. That said, we need to know what you know. And if you won’t tell us, I’m going to use my naturalis power to get you to tell me without injuring you one bit. I’m quite persuasive. So what do you say?”
Dwyer stares into the blackness of his blindfold for a minute. He wonders where his life goes from here, if he even has one after. In this brief stress madness, he comes to a decision.
“I’ll never tell. You can’t kill me. They can kill me. Simple as that.” And then Dwyer the dyer closes his lips.
“That’s unfortunate. Oh well. Let’s get started.” Kellen opens a pouch at her waist and pulls out one small, pink canary feather. Staring at it for a moment, it lifts off her hand and wafts over to Dwyer, coming to a stop near his ear. “Cootchie coo.” At this, the feather delicately brushes itself around his ear and just below it.
Dwyer jumps and shakes his head about, but the magically imbued feather stays its course. “H-hehehey! What the-a feather? Hehe what a silly naturalis! Hehe!” Dwyer giggles a bit before the feather stops.
Kellen muses, “Silly? I suppose so. I didn’t find my ability until a bit older than most others. Who would have thought? Feathers? But I love them. Like me, so unassuming, yet I can do so much.” At the last, her delighted tone drops just a hair to one of dark whimsy. She takes out three more feathers much like the first and sends them on their way. One is opposite the first, and the other two rest lower on Dwyers neck. At a glance, they begin stroking and dusting their targets.
Dwyer is noticeably less controlled. “Tickling?” He thought. “This is child’s play. Just stand it for a bit and then they’ll be on their way. And they’ll be impressed at my fortitude, I bet!”
“Hehehe not so bad, miss. Almost hahehe relaxing!” Dwyer mocks.
In a serious, yet still pleasant tone, Kellen continues. “You’ll notice the sensations pick up just a bit. This is what I like to call the “lead up.” Jolie, if you’d be so kind.”
In an instant, Dwyer finds his chest bare. From across the room, Jolie had commanded a strip of the silk to act as a blade to slice his tunic clean off.
“Thank you. Now.” Kellen produces two long, stiff, white plumes from her bag. With a nod, they beeline for his underarms and begin twirling and circling.
Dwyer had been feeling pretty good about himself up until this point. Torture? No big deal. When those two feathers began their ticklish assault on his underarms, he was plunged back into boyhood. Giggles erupted from his lips in uncontrollable waves.
“BwahahAHaha! W-wait! AHaha! Not thehehehere!” Dwyer gets out.
“Aww. What’s wrong? Big stwong man too tickwy?” Kellen teases. “I find that every little boy is ticklish. Now talk.” Kellen produces two more small, soft feathers, green this time, and gave them a new mission with only a stare. One begins dusting around his stomach lightly while the other dips into his navel and twirls in sporadic intervals.
Dwyer erupts. “BWAhaAHahAHA! W-hyahaha!” Unable to regain composure, he can only laugh.
Kellen coos, “Poor wittle guy. The tickles can stop if you talk. Do you wanna?” Kellen halts every feather in its tracks.
Dwyer breathes and tries to think. “I-I can’t! I don’t wanna die! Stop this!” He yelps helplessly.
Like a composer, she lifts her hands and makes a slight flinch with her fingers. At this, the feathers make only small movements in each of their positions about Dwyer’s body. This causes him to jerk and giggle each time. Kellen does this over and over at random.
“Talk. Or the tickles are going to get you.” Kellen wiggles her fingers causing the feathers to twirl and crawl across his skin. At his ears and neck, the small feathers wave delicately, teasing the skin there. His underarms get poked by the tips of the longer feathers, occasionally causing him to squeak out. The tiny feathers about his tummy begin alternating between racing each other across his tummy and diving into his navel.
Dwyer is in hysterics, “WHAHAAHAhA! NoHAhAH MOhahRE!” The incessant sensations begin to make him think that death might be preferable to this treatment. The only thread he holds onto is that she may think him too tough to break, eventually giving up.
Kellen again halts the ticklish attack. Leaning in to Dwyer, she asks him as politely as she has ever been with him, “Why don’t you just tell us a little bit? We’ll make sure nothing bad happens to you.”
Dwyer responds incredulously, “Against Mascarpone? You can’t!”
Kellen suddenly dances her long, blunted, manicured nails along Dwyer’s side, causing him to convulse in laughter.
“I’m going to take the Mascarpone family down for what they’ve done.” Kellen hesitates. “For all they’ve done.” She states flatly.
Moving her chair down to his feet, Kellen sets her long plumes to making long strokes up and down his sides. Kellen herself removes each of his laceless boots while he giggles and guffaws from the tickles at his sides. Sliding off his stockings, she then removes a handful of small and medium feathers and tosses them into the air. With a single motion, all these feathers, maybe fifteen in all, take stations at Dwyer’s now bare feet.
“Quit messing around with him already. I wanted to be in bed by now.” Jolie lays her head back disparagingly. She bolts upright and lets out a giggle as a feather flies out of her sook, tickling across her sides all the way.
Kellen smiles at her knowingly. “Whoops. Must’ve left that thereby accident.” Jolie glares daggers at her, but she only sits back and smiles quietly to herself.
Kellen halts her two longest feathers from their ticklish torture of Dwyers sides and arms. She asks patiently, “Anything to say? I’m sure you’ve noticed your ticklish position. I’d hate to embarrass you by tickling your toes.” At this one of the feathers glides across the underside of his toes causing him to bark out a sudden burst of nervous, ticklish laughter.
“Y-you can’t! They’ll know it’s me! They always know! You don’t seem that bad. Please, listen to reason. Do you want me to die?” Dwyer, fearing a ticklish hell storm incoming, pleads desperately.
Kellen listens silently, like a mother hearing a child out about how the other kids wouldn’t let him go first on the slide, before she pats Dwyer’s leg comfortingly.
“There, there. It’s okay.” She reassures. “It is sweet of you to say I’m not that bad.” Her tone dips down into that dark playfulness again, “but you don’t know me at all.” She swipes her hand in the air dramatically as if sending an imaginary army off to war. The feathers at his feet begin their attack. Kellen’s smallest feathers are crawling in and out of between his toes. Two medium length, stiff, yellow feathers glide back and forth beneath his toes, causing them to wiggle violently. Tiny, soft feathers twirl and circle randomly on his arches, always changing and moving. At the same time, the two long feathers continue their slow, rhythmic path on his sides.
Dwyer goes mad. Laughter blubbers across his lip with abandon. His incoherent chortles cause Kellen to giggle. “Aww. Such tickly feet. Better not let anyone find out. Whoops! You already did! Big mistake.” Kellen moves the stiff feather to sawing between his toes and has the small ones begin dancing in groups over the tops of his feet, eliciting a new wave a shuddering laughter from Dwyer.
“Remember how I said this was the lead up? The feather is sensitivity incarnate. My feathers have drawn out all of your wonderful ticklishness as they touch your skin. Isn’t that delightful?” Kellen places her index fingers at the top of each of his arches. “You’re going to talk now.” She orders in a disturbingly enthusiastic tone before dragging each of her fingers down and then up the bottoms of his feet just once.
Dwyer’s world shatters. In that instant, he’s transported back to his early childhood in his father’s dye shop. His mother bakes fresh pies as his father lets him help in mixing ingredients to reach the correct pigments. “A dyer never dies; he lives in his pigments forever.” Always with the terrible word play, his father. “Oh, shut up, honey.” Always the realist, his mother.
Dwyer shocks back to reality with a gasp and shout of pent up laughter. Kellen places all ten of her fingers on his feet, not moving them nor her feathers, just waiting in silence.
“I’ll tell you everything I know! I will!” Dwyer proclaims. Kellen sits back and calls her feathers back to her bag with a smile.
Jolie stands and puts her hands on her hips, “About time!”
*
Dwyer the dyer scrubs the floors of his shop in a near vain attempt to remove the color clashes from the inside of his shop. When the mysterious, angry woman from yesterday had caused this mess in his shop, he thought cleaning it up would be the worst, most dreadful thing. On the contrary, something about his sleep last night had given him new vigor for the dye crafts. He remembered his father and his passion, and that will push him forward in expanding the business and doing his best. He might even ask the fishmonger to help him experiment with new and exciting color pallets.
Outside Dwyer’s shop, Kellen and Jolie sit on a bench watching Dwyer work and others of the city pass by about their business.
“Did you really have to use that haze charm to fuzz his memory about last night? He seemed helpful enough after – ya know. And those charms aren’t cheap!” Jolie scolds, giving Kellen a harsh look.
Kellen just laughs it off and wavs her hand about in the air. “No worries! We said we’d protect him from harm for the information he gave us. For him to have no recollection of having told us anything is probably the best protection. We got what we wanted, and now he can have what he wants: to be left alone.” With that, Kellen stands. “We’ve got work to do. He told us where they do pick-ups and drop-offs for the coats and described a few people in the organization that might be high up enough to get us some significant intel.”
“Fine, fine.” Jolie stands as well and looks at Kellen, her gaze softening. “Hey Kell, have you ever thought about maybe just letting all this go? Ya know, settling down and figuring life out? There is a lot of work out there for naturali. We could just walk away, right?”
Kellen looks off toward the city center distantly, “Never.” She melds into the crowd with Jolie following behind.
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