Louis, his best friend Dog, and a noblewoman courier find they have something in common.

Click here for content warnings.

Whores in Heaven (Part II) contains implied homophobia and internalized homophobia. Whores in Heaven as a series is “queer-squared,” where it does not fit neatly in any sort of gay, lesbian, or bi/pan categories because of the characters’ shifting understanding of gender. Have fun.

---

Louis is not panicking. He knows he isn’t because if he were panicking, he would’ve thrown up—making the situation worse—and run away. But that he and Dog are bringing the pervert—sorry, noble woman—back to their camp to discuss her letter means he is at least above genuine panic. He ignores the fact that he’s sweating worse than when Dog had impaled his ass over the creaky cart and that he hasn’t said a single word since she announced she was a noble courier masquerading as a mercenary. How odd!

They’re trekking off the trail back to camp, past thick forest brush with naught a berry in sight, trying not to itch in front of their guest. Sunset beckons night, and although they’d normally never take a lady to a suspicious place like this after-hours, she insisted. She had patted the sword on her hip, and the threat had been clear.

She hasn’t looked at him since the cart, which has helped his nerves but is also rousing his wanton need to be humiliated. She must think he’s disgusting, even if she allowed herself to watch such a wretched excuse for a Zimpala firstborn lord get knotted. Louis wants the beautiful half-elf to finally voice her disgust and allow him to grovel at her equally beautiful feet.

Dog continues to chatter the entire way, to which the noble-courier-mercenary gives polite, clipped answers. Louis doesn’t think her rude but might be more interested if she was. Dog has a way of charming people who are not typically charmed.

“And then this guy here,” Dog laughs, wrapping a furry arm around his shoulders, “Goes over to the lass and just starts crying. It was so awkward that she just started swimming away.”

“This was the rock-golem?” she asks.

Rock-golems, notoriously and obviously bad at swimming, so much so they’ll only do it as a life-or-death measure. Louis feels his body go hot all over again as Dog laughs a confirmation.

The woman gives a slight smile, a just-barely-there quirk of the lips, and his heart flips. She’s so pretty. She’s so pretty. She’s so pretty he can’t stand it.

“Pardon for the lack of manners. Might I have your name?” Dog asks.

“Divine,” she says.

Louis’ breathes out of his nose. Divine. What a gorgeous name. It suits her—it suits her dewy dark skin and with its artistic pale patches and it suits her long eyelashes and it suits her full lips and it suits her curvy body and it suits her-

“What House?”

“It’s just Divine.”

So no House and no family either. Louis wonders whether he should feel pity, but he only feels envy.

“Nice to meet you, Divine. Welcome to our humble abode.”

The camp is an expensive tent with several parts and flaps and exits. With such a nice structure, they’re forced to camp far away from people so it doesn’t get stolen. It’s not the most comfortable, but it beats paying for inns wherever they go. It took some time to get used to it, but he can’t imagine life without it now. The middle section even has a top that opens so he can stare up at the stars.

Louis wordlessly unfastens the entrance and hurries in first. He prefers to keep things clean and orderly as he’s accustomed to as a child, but there are unwashed clothes a fine noble shouldn’t have to see or smell. Louis tosses the clothes out of the large middle part they affectionately call the “living room” and into his “bedroom” before unrolling a blanket. He uses it as a fan to air out the living room before placing it carefully.

Dog must smell—or hear—that he’s finished because the flap opens as it welcomes in Divine. Louis doesn’t dare look her in the eye but awkwardly gestures for her to sit on the blanket as he settles across from Dog.

“Sorry for not having more appropriate accommodations fitting of your station,” Dog says with a fangy smile, “But I figure this might require some privacy.”

She nods once. “Do not worry about stations with me; I have slept in prison straw and caves alike.”

Louis feels himself perk with interest. He’d slept on prison straw for an entire month once upon a time and has fond memories of being half-buried in it as his cellmate took of him in the dead of night. He wonders what happened to the old bird, sentenced for daring to spit on a noble’s shoe?

“You have not read the letter, my lord,” she says.

It takes Louis a moment to recognize she’s speaking to him, and then another to form a word.

“No.”

He pulls the letter from his shirt, slightly crumpled and damp with sweat now, and stares at the unopened seal.

“I can open it for you,” Dog offers, claw at the ready.

“No,” both Divine and Louis say at once.

Dog startles and Louis chews his lip in embarrassment. “I—um, it’s tradition for the receiver of such a stamp to open it themselves.”

“Oh. Apologies.”

Louis says nothing about that. He knows how confusing it must be for Dog, when it knows Louis cares not for tradition and in fact loathes it. He appreciates that Dog is letting it go and letting him lead.

His body feels foreign to him as he slips a finger under the envelope and then slides it quickly under the seal and pops it until the end. He hasn’t done this in years and yet it still comes naturally. What else still comes naturally to him, he wonders?

“Lord Louis Zimpala,

I will begin this letter with an apology. It has come to our attention that the servant Filip A. has been found guilty of extreme indecency charges and upon a very rigorous review, we believe that your previous incidents, not brought to charge, were under his influence. His sentencing is ongoing with talks of execution. We hope that…”

Louis drops the letter with shaky fingers. No. No no no no.

“You alright, Lou?”

His mouth won’t open. Something squeaks out of him, and he claws at his chest. He needs to keep the burning on the inside, needs to keep his heart in his ribcage. Distantly, he sees Dog’s arms around him and pulling him tight, but he can’t feel it. Divine enters his vision, and he wonders if he imagines it because she’s looking him directly in the eye, and it hurts. He hurts. Everything hurts.

“I am sorry for your loss,” she says softly with that singsong nightjay voice of hers.

Louis blinks.

“Madame Zimpala was a stately, kind woman.”

Louis laughs.

---

“What are your views on indecency?” Dog asks.

Louis’s teeth chatter. He is shocked at its audacity to address the unspoken devil, in any room, at any time. They ride two griffins, sailing through the air and unnaturally quiet.

Have their chords been cut? Barbarous.

Louis sits behind Dog on a black feathered steed from the Zimpala estate and Divine sits on her own brown-and-white patchy one that almost acts as camoflauge with her skin. Its name is Crimson or Cromson, Louis isn’t sure which she said.

“Depends on the indecency,” Divine responds diplomatically.

“How ‘bout ours?” Dog suggests, pointing to itself and Louis.

Louis closes his eyes.

“Anything goes in Oakenhollow.”

Dog laughs once, but Louis recognizes it as just as diplomatic. It is much wiser than it lets on and even more cunning. Louis has suspicions that Dog may even be some sort of immortal or elder being, but he can’t prove it. Dog is Dog.

“Ever been with a furred?” it asks.

“I have not.”

“A scaled?”

“No.”

“Dog-” Louis starts, pleading.

“A woman then.”

Divine does not immediately answer, and Dog glances behind it to Louis with a knowing smile.

“You don’t have to answer that!” Louis says suddenly. “Dog, enough. This is a n-noble.”

And implied: We don’t know if we can trust her.

“May I swear you to secrecy?” she asks.

There’s magic in the air. Dog licks its muzzle. “Yes.”

“I have only ever been with women.”

Louis knows he never had a chance, but he mourns all the same. He thinks back with gratitude to the two female sirens who didn’t care to touch him but dressed him up in their silken wardrobe. Louis isn’t sure what it meant, but it provided him with wares to sell. He wishes he had kept them.

“That so?” Dog says, grinning. It doesn’t ask why she bothered to watch Louis. “Well, I’m sure you can assume I don’t believe in indecency. They used to hunt my grandfather for sport based on those sorts of claims.”

“May I ask your heritage?”

“Lots,” Dog replies. “But my grandfather was a werehyena.”

Louis quietly notes that werehyena are thought to have been extinct centuries ago. What the hell is Dog?

“Let’s give the griffins a break,” Divine suggests. She pets the feathery neck of Crimson (or Cromson) and it closes its eyes with each stroke. Louis is overcome with jealousy.

---

They land at the border of Mist Creek Forest and don’t bother tying up the griffins. The largest predators around are bears, so anything in this area that wants a bite of them will be killed in seconds. Dog goes to empty its bladder, and Louis regrets not accompanying it. He fiddles with his hands and hopes the awkward silence becomes comfortable.

It does not.

“My Lord.”

Louis shivers. “Please—don’t. You, uh, don’t have to do that. Louis is fine.”

He forces himself to be polite and look over to where she leans against a tree. She’s looking at him. Oh, gods, she’s looking at him. The scent of citrus sticks in his nostrils.

“Louis,” she tests. “I am under the impression I may have overstepped previously. I did not mean to make you uncomfortable with my presence.”

Overstepped? Overstepped? Louis racks his brain to try to think of what she’s talking about. What did she ever do wrong? Should he say it’s fine? Would it be rude to ask what she’s talking about?

“You did nothing to offend me,” he decides. Safe. His nobility training from young does sometimes assist him.

“Then, if I may be so impertinent, may I ask a more private question?”

“I like impertinent people. Sure.”

Louis bites the inside of his cheek. Why the hell did he say that? She isn’t Dog. He shouldn’t be making jokes. But Divine laughs at that, and he suddenly doesn’t regret it at all. He can hear music. Alluring is she who lives in wind chimes.

“To be transparent, I do not know the Zimpalas well. I repeated what I thought you wanted to hear about your mother. I was sent to deliver the letter, but I have a second mission of escorting you.”

“Oh… Yes, I figured.”

“By force, if necessary.”

“Oh.”

“I am not supposed to tell you. But as we are sworn to secrecy together, and I was not for this mission… I thought it a good exchange. Please understand that the Zimpala, Yuqani, and Perisho have changed rapidly in the past few years. I understand you are somewhat estranged and so may not realize this. I do not wish you to walk into harm, ignorant.”

“Do you think they’re going to kill me?”

It’s the most emotion Louis has seen from her—the shock that straightens her back and widens her eyes.

“No. They need you alive, certainly.”

Louis can tell she wants to ask but is being polite about it. “They only need me alive temporarily. I bring shame to the family, so it’s probably best they get rid of me. Me being an indecent and all.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have more information to give you, Louis.”

He wonders how hard she’s had it with being an indecent herself, surrounded by frivolous lords who sent her to do their bidding.

“…Would you if I could afford it?”

She folds her arms across her chest and stares at him thoughtfully. “You think you can afford me? The estranged Zimpala lord?”

He likes the look on her face. She’s assessing him, breaking him down, evaluating his worth.

Louis might get hard if she keeps doing it.

“If you help me out, Divine, I’d be willing to give you everything in the Zimpala estate. Maybe we even split the Yuqani and Perisho.”

“You talk of mutiny.”

Divine looks no less interested. Louis feels giddy when he smiles back.

“Revenge, actually.”