"I don't know, I'm just worried about her, Mariah."
Mariah flicked her ears in annoyance as she fiddled with the lock on the chest. "I'm sure it's fine, Tyrla. Saehlin's a big girl, she'll be okay."
"But ever since she got that letter from home two weeks ago, she's been all," Tyrla gestured, ineffectually, "morose, or something. She's barely eating, she's always consulting that huge book of hers-"
"You mean her spellbook?" Mariah stuck her tongue between her lips and finally the lock clicked open. "Ha!"
"No! I know what her spellbook looks like. This is a different one, it's all in old elvish. I can't even read the title."
Mariah's ears rotated backwards to face Tyrla a moment before Mariah herself did. "Wait, that book? Oh no."
Saehlin sat in deep contemplation, the letter from home on one side of her desk while she focused intently on the enormous book opposite it. She flicked through several pages, traced a line of elvish runes with her finger, muttered something under her breath, and jotted down a note in her journal. She carefully tore a scrap of paper and placed it between the pages, where it matched the two dozen other scraps marking passages within the ancient tome.
"This is bad," muttered Mariah. "Last year she figured this out in a couple of days."
"What is it? What's going on?" Tyrla tried to keep her voice quiet, but couldn't help lashing her tail through the air.
Mariah stepped away from the doorway and scratched the black fuzz on her cheeks. "Okay. I don't know much about elf culture, you understand, and this looks very private, so I haven't asked her directly about this. But..."
Tyrla's tail lashed faster, nervous energy working its way out through her spine.
"...I think it's a courtship ritual."
Mariah barely ducked the gout of flame from Tyrla's throat. "WHAT!?"
"Shhhh! Keep it down!" Said Mariah, from the floor. "She used some elvish word for the person she keeps getting letters from, and when I looked it up the translation was 'long-term partner'. She does this every year, and it's some kind of super complicated elf bullshit. It always takes a while... I don't think there's anything we can do but wait it out. I'm sorry, Tyrla." She patted the dragonborn on the shoulder and walked away, also patting out some small cinders in her fur.
"But... I thought... she and I..." Tyrla slumped to her knees.
"What's all the noise out here?"
Tyrla scrambled back to her feet. "Saehlin! You, I, uh, we were just... I'll go."
Saehlin cocked her head. "No, it's alright. I think I've figured out my next move. It's not perfect, but if I don't send my letter out soon it won't arrive in time anyway." She flourished an envelope, flipping it in the air and catching it upright by a corner. "Want to come with me to the courier's office?"
Saehlin sighed in satisfaction as they left the office. "There! No more worring about it for another fifty weeks." She turned her smile to Tyria. "Sorry I've been somewhat absent, of late. Can I make it up to you? Pastries, perhaps?"
Tyria clacked her foreclaws together. She'd been trying to figure out what to say the whole time they'd been walking, and she couldn't keep it in anymore. "Saehlin, I... I don't want to be second fiddle!"
Saehlin blinked. "Huh?"
"If... if you're already married, or engaged, or whatever, I don't want to be the other woman! If you've got a lover... Saehlin, why didn't you say something? I feel like such a fool for hoping..." Tyrla's fists came to rest on Saehlin's chest, softly, and soft tears fell on her robes.
Saehlin grasped her wrists. "Tyrla, what are you talking about? We've known each other for almost a year. If I had a wife already, you would have met her by now." She released one fist to raise the dragonborn's chin so she could look her in the eyes.
"B-but, but Mariah said..."
Saehlin's eyes narrowed. "What did she say, exactly?"
Later, the pair sat at a table, a bowl of pastry bites and sweet cream between them. "So, you're really not married?"
"Nor am I engaged. The word uxoria means game partner. Alanis has been my rival in our game for more than three decades, and our positions are so close that neither of us can move without jostling the other. I've heard humans use the term 'work-wife' to mean a close business partner- I believe the connotation is similar. The idea of dating Alanis is," Saehlin searched for a polite word, "distasteful." She dipped a pastry in the cream and chewed it slowly to remove the sour flavor.
Tyrla let some of the tension of the afternoon run out of her as she placed her head on the table, golden-red scales shimmering in the sunlight. "So... what is this game, anyway?"
Saehlin flipped her hand, flicking the seriousness of the conversation away. "Oh, it's a fanciful interpretation of the Millenium War my people went through some eight thousand years ago. It's rather complex, hence the size of the rulebook, but it's only my turn every eleven months or so."
Tyrla raised an eyebrow. "How many people are playing this game?"
"Oh..." Saehlin tapped her fingers, counting. "Perhaps a dozen of us, now? Ever since Jandar became Galan a few years ago, they haven't really had the time to play, and their fortresses fell to ruin. Happens all the time, though. Players come and go, but the game itself has been going on for nearly five hundred years now."
Tyrla raised her head up on her arms. "You know... I like games."
"Oh, really?" Saehlin grinned. "There's no teams, you know." She leaned closer to Tylra. "If you joined, I'd expect you to give it your all."
Tyrla's tail flicked through the air as she slowly raised herself up. Saehlin's gaze was intense; she grabbed a pastry to avoid it. "I think I can do that," she said, popping the pastry into her mouth.
Abruptly, Saehlin struck. Her lips were on Tyrla's scales and her tongue was in her mouth. Saehlin's hand gripped the back of her neck, and she leaned into the kiss, the sweetness of the cream shared between them. Saehlin released her, and she fell back into her chair, dazed, before she realized she'd lost the pastry entirely.
Saehlin swallowed her purloined prize, savoring the taste as much as the rising flush in Tyrla's scales. "I look forward to competing with you, then," she grinned.