Anira’s fingers, light as silk, coaxed his hand to the curve of her back, guiding it with all the elegance of a dance step. A gentle entangling.

She had encountered men of wealth and title, men who could fill an entire ballroom with their laughter and still leave the air feeling empty. Her gaze held his, unwavering, a glimmer of mischief softening the tenderness. “I have never met someone like you. Someone whose story lingers in the mind long after the telling.” There was so much more she wanted to know, questions curling at the edges of her lips. Did it truly feel like he had escaped life that had branded him? She wanted to hear about the small, quiet victories, the fleeting joys, the choices that had shaped him outside the cruel hands of others.

“I do think you will make a name for yourself, Duscan. And when you do, I hope I shall be there to sing of it. To tell the world of the man who would not be bent, who carved his own place in the world.”

She let the words settle between them, before leaning in for a kiss. Slow enough for him to turn away if he wanted, but quick enough to steal any reply he might have formed.
 
Duscan's hand laid against the dip in her back. He liked how it felt under his palm, that it made a good hook to pull her in closer and hold her there. When she spoke of her singing his story and name, he was ready to give her reason to sing for him. It did not matter what may happen in the future. Should he remain a bastard, a barkeeper. Even if fate turned and he became villain, he became wrong, at least he did something right to be sung from the brilliance of her mind and heart.

He was ready to surrender to her muse.

His lips answered her own, meeting them the moment she drew breath before catching him. What he had tasted before in their brush of a kiss could not compare to the feel of their union now. He held her, hand at her lower back, and the other smoothing into place behind her neck. Intimacy was always strange for him, as a free man and away from the city that kept him trapped, there were too many questions about his marks, questions about what power he weaved.

Never had he been told his story was hard to quieten in one's mind. It meant something, to haunt the bard's thoughts after a short exchange of words at the inn. It meant much more after he heard her song, listened to the lyrics she wove in such an arrangement, her voice softened the blow. If his story made an imprint on her mind, then her song of the tower found a home in his.

Muse. That was what she had called him, but Duscan had been called worse.

His thumb brushed the edge of her ear softly, back and forth, before dropping his hands to rest at her waist. He opened his eyes, watching her as he began to gently push her back towards the center of the room. Duscan was careful, for he too moved slowly should she wish to stop him from guiding her towards that bed she wondered how he'd decorate. "I like this muse idea." He murmured quietly, moving his lips to kiss along her cheek and dip to the space below her jaw. "Got me thinking plenty of ideas that should be left out from any song. You know, unless I am that great of a muse." The bastard smiled, his teeth grazing at her flesh. He trailed a kiss down her neck, a hand moving to collect her flaxen hair and clear his kissing path.
 
When he guided her backwards, she went willingly, impatient to feel the press of his body against hers on the bed. His lips found the slope of her neck. Not just kisses, but promises, warm, open-mouthed, trailing fire where they touched. When his fingers slid into her hair, catching and twisting gently, Anira tilted her head to give him more, a soft hum of approval in her throat.

"Oh, you are a muse unlike any other," she purred. "I find myself pondering the most delightful scenarios," she teased. Her hands trailed over the front of his shirt, fingers splaying over the worn fabric. She wanted to tear the fabric away. But she forced herself to slow down, to savor each sensation. Her hand slipped beneath it just enough to feel the warmth of his skin, the flex of muscle beneath. Her fingers found the hem of his shirt and tugged it upward. This bloody shirt has had a long and noble life, but now its time has come.

Her skirts brushed the backs of her legs as she stepped, step by step, until the back of her knees found the edge of the bed. She didn’t sit just yet. Her body pressed against his with slow deliberation, letting him feel the slight arch of her hips, the soft rise of her chest against his. Anira finally lowered herself onto the bed with all the poise of a lady trained in the art of ballroom grace, yet none of the innocence such a posture might suggest. Her skirts fanned around her like petals, a careless tumble of silk and long legs.

“Well, would you look at you,” she purred, eyes glinting like mischief bottled in sapphire. The minstrel leaned back onto her elbows with all the dramatics of a woman thoroughly enjoying herself, hair cascading in a halo of flaxen, her smile infuriatingly smug. “You really are unfairly handsome, Duscan. It’s distracting, and I’m easily distracted. Terrible combination.”

She extended one languid hand toward him, fingers curling in a come-hither gesture. “The Dreamer help me, I do believe I’m inspired. Tragedy, betrayal, and those arms? You’re going to need your own epic, not just a song.”
 
His last clean shirt had served him well.

The moment her fingers had found the planes of his torso, muscles reacting to her soft touch, he was more than eager to help her in removing his shirt. Up and over his head, Duscan tossed it aside. That was the last time he would think of that shirt.

Right before him was a bard ready to pluck inspiration, to look to her muse in order to do so. He had been ready to lower to his knees, to give worship to the beauty she was and the charm she most definitely knew how to conduct, and yet her attention to his body filled him with pride. It didn't matter that he had been a lot more strict with his training and keeping his strength, and even as he had left his old life, Duscan still maintained routine to keep himself looking the way he did. Perhaps he didn't miss the severe definition of every muscle, as he stood before her and heard her praises.

That in itself was a drug he was quick to take.

Kicking off his boots, glad to have not laced them too tightly, Duscan placed his hands either side of where she sat, using that to keep his distance as they both toyed with the idea of patience. He was tall, having casted a shadow over when he had stood, but now lowered closer to her, he was able to take in the glimmers of her eyes as the light caught them.

"These arms, Lady Lark?" He dared to whisper. Duscan leaned, his arms bending to lower himself closer towards her. The flexing felt good, welcomed, and he knew it would give her something to look at even if he wanted to stare into those eyes forevermore. Blue. So blue they were stolen gems, surely.

Fuck, she was stunning.

"Must be all them ales I've poured." Bastard. He could not resist sneaking in something cheeky even as he was now trying to flirt and inspire the bard. Where his own tongue could betray him, Duscan had to settle on redeeming himself back to this moment. He shifted his weight to his dominant side, his right arm bearing his weight as his left hand lifted and began to gather some silk skirt between thumb and fingers. He rubbed the softness, letting the pad of his thumb feel the smooth texture and occasionally tugging at the length. "But for the purpose of being made into an epic, let's say these muscles were made in order to fight my way out of indenture. Not too far off from the truth, Anira Verseheart. The moment I was found to be valuable to my employer, vanity had gotten to my head and I wanted to make all them noble darlings swoon at the sight of me." Even with his weeping marks, Duscan knew he had grown into an unfair catch.
 
Anira’s gaze wandered slowly, unhurriedly, over the expanse of bare skin now revealed to her. The way he moved... The minstrel's hands skimmed up his bare arms, along the taut muscles. “Goodness,” she said, “If hauling barrels and pouring ale shapes the arms of men like this, I shall henceforth limit my all performances to taverns.” Fingers traced the lines of his arm, featherlight, where strength met softness.

“Oh, so they fawned over you, did they?” she said lightly. Her hand paused at his shoulder, resting there, as her thumb grazed the edge of one weeping mark. All people who lived through something that almost crushed them carried their past like a song half-finished. Lines scribbled out and rewritten, but still stuttering on the first verse. Then slid her hand down from his shoulder across the bare plane of his chest. “And by your own admission, you rather enjoyed it.” And who could fault him? The world was cruel, and it offered precious few moments where one might ever feel wanted, let alone powerful.

She lowered her gaze, lashes casting faint shadows on her cheeks, watching his fingers toy with the silk that cloaked her thigh. Felt the slow gathering of silk, the way his fingers coaxed it into folds. "That is… quite the thorough skirt-inspection... That’s a fine silk, you know,” her voice feathered with playfulness. Her hand lifted, not to still him, but to rest lightly over his, encouraging. With the lightest pressure, she guided his touch beneath the soft sweep of silk. Her cheeks betrayed only a faint blush.

Admired. Desired. Wanted. Yes, but only within the confines of possession. It seemed Duscan had lived the kind of life others of his state might claw and bleed to reach, polished halls, eyes watching hungrily, all those silken gazes sliding over him. A life gilded, if not golden. She paused, lips quirking just slightly.

But he had walked away from it.

"You speak of it as though you had everything you wanted then,” she said gently. “Admiration. Influence. A place carved out. And yet… you left,” she murmured.

Not exactly the sort of thing one ought to whisper between kisses, perhaps... but the thoughts coiled warm and restless beneath her ribs. “What made the golden boy with the pretty muscles and dangerous smile run away?" Was it the moment he realized they didn’t see him at all, just the story they wanted to own?
 
Duscan's mouth quirked into a crooked smile as her hand help guide him to a better silken touch, that of the bard's flesh. The back of his hand brushed against the side of her knee, ensuring his silver signet ring brazed her with it's cold touch as he traveled higher. Intent on taking this slowly, allowing her time to think up those lyrics to his awaiting epic. "I had shelter, I had money, I had status in the House that was loyal to... and yet it wasn't enough."

His hand retreated from beneath her skirts and the bastard shifted. His other hand moved to brace beside her, his knee replacing where it had been at her hips and now he leaned his face inches from her own. With her prior invitation, his hand crawled beneath the silk, cupping her shape and running upwards.

"It might not have looked the cage it truly was, but there were chains unseen to my freedoms. Expectations that I had to follow and not stray out of line." Duscan dared to trail his fingers against her skin now, teasing his route as he spoke. "I was a weapon before my indenture. Made of crude materials, of course, as one had to make a living to stay alive. Becoming property gave me the chance to plan, to train, to bide... my... time..."

His hand traveled towards warmth, crooking a finger so that his knuckle brushed against the apex of her legs. Every touch he did was slow and purposeful. Any moment she protested, Duscan would withdraw without hesitation. His eyes watched her face, reading her gaze for any signs that would indicate she was not comfortable.

"I am grateful, there is no doubt about it, but I could hate the lavish life while I enjoyed it. What is a life where stepping out of lines meant the noose around your neck would tighten instantaneously?" He lowered his head, aligning his lips to her ear in the same moments his fingers lazily mapped out the contours where pleasures were found. "Is this alright, Anira?" He withdrew to her inner thigh, awaiting her response before continuing.
 
He spoke of having everything except the right to be his own. "Tell me about that, the moment the world thought they owned you, and you decided… perhaps they never did.”

Her skin prickled under his fingers and silver ring. He leaned in further, and her head tipped back slightly in instinctive surrender. Her breath shallow.

"With all this freedom… surely you don’t intend to spend it pouring ales for the rest of your days?”

Under his touch, her thighs parted ever so in unspoken permission. Her body answered him before her lips ever did, hips shifted to meet his touch. Pleading I need you to touch me. A soft gasp caught in her throat as his touch grazed where she wanted him most.

“And what shall you do...” Her breath caught when his fingers stilled, hovering at the edge of surrender and want. " ...with a life unshackled?" Her gaze held his. Blue eyes molten with desire, glowing like steel fresh from the smithy, heated and malleable under his touch.

“Yes,” she whispered back, breath brushing his temple. Her fingers curled around his wrist like ivy, tender with need. Halting him mid-withdrawal. “Don’t..” Her voice all breath and wanting. “Please don’t stop.” begging with every soft sigh. Her fingers lingered at his wrist for a heartbeat longer, then slowly trailed up to his shoulder, over the muscles she admired. Nails lightly dragging against skin, then curling around the back of his neck and threaded through the mess of his hair.
 
"Oh, no darlin'." He smiled, and with her insistent hand, Duscan the Bastard teased with his fingers again. "I am not here to pour ale and not make any coin."

With her invitation clearly stated, Duscan slid his fingers inside her enough to coat them and ease her pleasure out. He used it to trace through the slit easily, returning those two attentive fingers to circle a distance around the bud he knew would be causing her an ache, and it's only remedy being the moment Dusc was drawing out.

He had a story to tell. A bard to inspire. He couldn't exactly answer her queries with his mouth and tongue busy with a Southern Kiss.

"I am traveling the free states, looking for my bastard brothers." It was time for the bard to listen to a song yet to be sung. "Having the Brotherhood... that was the first time I felt like something was right in my life. Before I was arrested and then indentured, I had found boys like me. I lost touch after... but I am a free man now." He dipped his head into the crook of her neck. Duscan inhaled, tracing his nose up to her ear. His tongue slid out to brush against the shell, before his teeth took claim of soft flesh at her ear. "It will take time to reunite with them for we have spread all over the South, but I don't mind the company that keeps me in place for one night."

Duscan withdrew his hand again, and yet this time he shifted off from the bed and found a comfortable spot to kneel before her. His hands returned to the skirts made of silk, arranging them neatly before a hand found her ankle. Gently moving her leg upwards, her foot resting on the edge and spreading her enough that made Duscan happy, his head disappeared beneath the silk. "I have true freedom now. I have all the time I could want..."

And with that, Duscan warmed her with his breath. His tongue tasted, traveling slowly as to feel for her reactions. Such an exploration was not to be rushed. After all, the bard needed time to catch her muse.
 
Anira watched raptly as Duscan dipped his head, his breath feathered over her inner thighs, a teasing caress that had her hips twitching, aching to lift up and seek more. His lips brushed the sensitive skin. Her fingers tighten convulsively in the bedclothes as his tongue flicks out, and then, oh, then came the slow licks of his.

“Don’t judge,” she murmured, her voice barely more than a breath. “It’s only a first ...draft.”

The minstrel sagged back onto the bed, boneless with bliss, even as she lifted her hips to meet each sumptuous lap. Her voice smoky as she began to recite. Her hands lingered on him, fingertips brushing where they could. Her lips parted in little gasps between words, caught between desire and recital.

“W-wolf of weaving…” she gasped, the words catching in her throat as another sigh broke free, "wound with shroud-cords" she murmured, her words tremulous, breathy, stolen by moans that escaped her throat. Her blue eyes fluttered closed, then opened again, she tilted her head to try catch a glimpse of him. "Wore the... will.... of wealth-sworn lords;" she continued, her voice hitching as she pressed closer.

“Gleam-gift gave… them, grim in silence… ah-ah” Anira shivered, each syllable punctuated by her gasps. She struggled to keep the meter, the rhyme, the story.

"Fate-forged fr...frame bought by...by swords." The word fell from her lips in jagged, uneven bursts. Her voice trembled, half stolen by pleasure, half determined to speak them aloud. "Bound ... in courts where ....crows feast sweet," She arches into his touch, one hand fisting the bed linen.

"Gold-ringed hands and grave-tongued masters, " She could feel the rhythm of his movements, the teasing strokes, and it drove her to weave the words with gasps, stammering lines in fragments. "Clasped the chain... oh! ..of charm and...cheat."
 
Duscan had his own symphonies to write.

His heavy panting breaths warmed her every now and then, his tongue getting the workout needed for the muscle as he took pleasure in the business of playing the bard like an instrument. He made notes, remembered what to do in order to get her to make that noise or to play teasingly cruel and make her train of thought falter. She had made it easy, moving herself to help direct how the song should be sung. His hands were eager to press into her soft flesh, held her by the hips like a cup of divine offering to his lips, his thirst beyond parched by the way he drank from her vine.

Once he surface, lifting his head up before she could step towards the precipice, he gave her a glistening smile. "Am I the Wolf of Weaving?" Sounded too generous for someone of his weaving make, but Duscan liked it better than the Bastard.

He wiped his chin along her thigh, eyes still trained on the bard that had her lips parted to breath. Not one to stop her from weaving her words of song, Duscan replaced his tongue with his expert fingers. They followed familiar paths, running a track around her pleasured bud before sinking into her welcoming. "I had a brother sell me out. I was arrested when I fell into a trap, and the Lady Arness had been the one to orchestrate it all. Be indentured to her, or see my brothers caught and strung up like the rats we were."

More loose information, but he knew the Lady Lark of the Lanes would be able to spin the fibers of his past into a strong yarn. Golden, even. If such a thing were possible, he had heard the bard weave as so. It stung still, to have that memory still staining him in the form of guilt. Why did he feel it when he was the one to sacrifice himself to protect the Brotherhood?

The distraction was before him. Duscan lowered his head down again and resumed his lazy lashes of his tongue while his fingers coaxed the silk and nectar. It caused an ache in his lower half, a build up of need that hardened him and soon would wish to be relieved of it's current restraints.
 
“Yes.. yes..” she murmured. “You are the Wolf.”

She was music beneath his hands. Each brush of his fingers across her skin was as a practiced stroke of a violin bow, drawing trembling notes from her throat. He played her like an instrument he had always known, as though her body had once belonged to him in another life and he’d only just remembered the notes. Anira’s breath stuttered, caught between a moan and a laugh as her spine arched of its own accord, a harpstring drawn taut.

She opened her mouth again to speak, to say something clever or poetic, she didn’t know what. But all that came out was a breathless whisper of his name, lost in the rising tide of sensation. Her body betrayed her better judgment, chasing each touch with aching want.

Her breath came in soft, stuttering measures, an aria composed in real time, just for him. "Blade-brothers... broken... bold gold ... had b-bought... them." The poem she had meant to recite lay half-formed on her tongue, its words slipping like silk through her thoughts, forgotten the moment his fingers found a new rhythm. Her cheeks flush a dusky rose. “Mercy! I can’t..."

Eyes lifted to him, glimmering with fire and want, she whispered, soft yet urgent. Half-laughing, half-moaning, “Come closer, you rogue… Let me feel you… please.”
 
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He lifted his head, all smiles and devious.

Duscan moved to crawl over her form, holding himself above so that he could take in the work of her. She held a beauty that he could not ever attempt to replicate. Even if the most skilled artist could paint her likeness, it would hold no justice. He crooked a finger below her chin, tilting it up just a fraction so that when he lowered his head, it was with little effort that their lips would brush. "You are very pretty, Lady Lark. I stood no chance tonight."

Marble. If he was to learn how to capture anything about her, he would carve her out of marble. A tableau of this moment, with her hair fanned out and tousled beneath her head. He had seen the perfect hand sculpt statues back in Veya. In a home he once resided in, where his marks came to be. This man had been simply an artist. Not a Weaver, not a young lordling taking up a new skill.

He had no true talents to get him by other than his charm.

So, tonight had to be remembered like this. His own eyes, his own memory. She could write a song or two about him, hero or foe, and Duscan liked the thought of it.

"Quite unfair, actually. I like to think I am the one doing the wooing, but..." He clicked his tongue, almost chastising her. "Then you had to leave the inn without signing my flyer after writing your address."
 
“You're built like an overture, you know,” she whispered. She raised her head, leaned closer and her lips grazed the place where heartbeat met collarbone.

Her fingers wandered over the subtle indent at his ribs, line of his abdomen, then they drifted lower. Brushing against the taut fabric that shielded him, exploring the contours of him.

“Broad and bold at first… " Her fingers, deft and deliberate, wandered to the laces of his trousers. And as if she were opening a gift, she worked the laces slowly. A smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth as she did. She tugged at a knot, just enough to make him notice. "... but there's nuance beneath, behind all that bastard bluster.”

Her palms, warm and reverent, slid slowly from the undone laces along the ridges of his hips. A bard’s hands, callused by strings and softened by ink, now mapped him like parchment, reading the story written in skin and muscle.

She guided her fingers past the barrier of cloth, slipping inside. He felt like taut chord that flexed beneath her curious hand. “Unfair? You dare accuse me of playing dirty?!" Her fingers curled arround the curve of him, feeling him straining against her palm. Her fingers pressed and traced, working within the narrow, soft confines of his trousers. Her thumb tracing circles over his soft peak.

"You are the unfair one,” she murmured, voice low, a tremor of want curling through it. “How am I ever to get you out of my head, Duscan?" Just like a tune that would not fade, a refrain that would haunt her long after the music ended.
 
The topic of unfairness would not come to an end anytime soon, not when the bard held him in a such a position and spoke of how he had been on her mind in the short time they had been apart from introductions. He had thought he would at least have one of her songs stuck in his head for days to come, to pour another drink and wipe up another table as another bard traipsed through the inn.

Lady Lark of the Lanes, Anira Verseheart had become more than just a voice expressing song. She was no mere instrument to be played, but a musician that knew how to arrange a performance. Her hand moved with skill and intention, placed against him at a slow tempo that did not exceed their exchange of words.

He ducked his head, face nuzzling into her hair as a low note of a groan was pried from him. His trousers were beginning to feel tighter, and her hand pressed up so flush against him left Duscan with half a mind to skip right to it and be rid of the rest of his attire. "You're really bolstering up my ego there, Lady Lark. Usually I reside in one's mind for all the wrong reasons..." In the past, he liked making others wary of him. To tread carefully lest Duscan and his Brotherhood of Bastards showed why they were not rotten fruits that fell from the family tree.

His hips began to move, his legs braced either side of one of her own as they held up his weight and helped maneuver his movements. It was encouragement, after all. "What do you say, darlin'? Should we choreograph a dance to this song you have begun to weave? After all, you started this all by flirting with me."

There, that should do it. His shit eating grin was hidden at the side of her face, but all he wanted was to feel her light outrage again. To feel her fingers pressed around him again.
 
A soft, silvery giggle escaped her, light as lace, and wholly unguarded.

The jerk of his hips are all the encouragement she needs, spurring her to free him from the restraining fabric. Anira smirked as she gazed up at Duscan towering over her on the bed. "Before we 'choreograph' anything. I think these need to come off first, don't you?"

With that, she gently guided him down to stretch out on the soft mattress beside her. Anira knelt at his side as she pulled at his trousers, then slowly tugged them down. She peeled them off him and tossed them unwanted to the floor.

"You have quite the...talent tucked away here." she teased. A laugh escaped her, bubbling up at her own words.

A rush of heat flood her body as she allowed her eyes to roam over Duscan's form. “Well,” she murmured, mischief silk-threaded though her voice “I think it’s only fair I get a little more comfortable too…” She tipped her head, a smile curling with the slow satisfaction.

Handsome bastard. There was something infuriatingly delicious about him. That glint in his eye, he knew exactly how good he looked.

As she opened the hooks of her bustier one at a time, she reached over with her other hand and wrapped it firmly around his rigid shaft. She pumped him slowly, matching the unhurried pace of her undressing.

Took her time with both tasks. As the last fastening came undone, she let the tight garment fall away and she pulled her shirt over her head. Her breasts spilled free, full and firm.
 
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