Shockwaves of bright pain bloomed into a heated afterglow, and she called out in a tangle of curses and moans and fervid pleas, the skin of her ass flushing a bright red where Aarno struck her. She was pliant under his hands— a live nerve of heady wanting, trying to chase that electricity that was pushing her closer to the precipice.

Following his touch, Farren sat up from her knees, melding her back against the solid swell of his front— her hair a tangled veil around her as she rested her head against the crook of his collarbones, her hands drifting to her front, one trailing up the petite curve of her heaving chest to grasp at her breast, desperate for the contact, the other dragging down her smooth stomach to grab onto Aarno's wrist, urging his dutiful minstrations ever on with breathless approval.

But something was missing, some pressure, some final piece to make her float away and sink fully into him. Peeking at him through heavy lashes, she watched a drop of sweat cut down the steep swallow of his throat, and she suddenly knew what she needed. The thought intoxicating her with a rush of dizzy desire. "Aarno, love— choke me. Put your hand right here, and hold me, please."

@Aarno
 
A shiver ran through him as she cursed, his palm settling to the mark he’d given her, sting against sting. He didn’t entirely like what the blow did to her, but neither did he falter. Had she told him to, he would’ve done it again and harder, if need be. Push and pull. Service.

He gained her closeness in turn, her body hoisting to meet his and he adjusted to stay upright, to accept and support her weight. His stomach lurched with how ardently he adored it, the all of her at reach to appreciate with both hands. He was moving slower inside her, a gentle rocking that’d accommodate their lingering — or just his will to — as much a relief as it was a burning ache calling to be quenched.

Planting a kiss on the side of her hair, he heard loud and clear when she spoke. Endearment and another command. He didn’t entirely know which one made his desire boil hotter, kindled that pressure in the end of his cock. He felt his pulse twitch in the heat of her, wanting nothing but to ram deeper.

He fought off the urge like he never had anything in his life, hand trailing up to her neck, mattress bouncing beneath them as he kept pace dutifully. Lest she go cold.

His grip spread evenly where she’d guided it. Put pressure on the sides with the fingers, the veins and the tendons where himself liked to be squeezed. To inflict those seconds of dizziness and lightness.

“ Here? “ He affirmed, more than asked, already pressing his mouth to her ear and her entire body to where his hips angled up. Faster.
 
Yes, came her fervent nods, lost to the pressure of long fingers around her throat that felt like salvation. Farren pressed into his palm, cutting off her airway as a pulsing began behind her eyes and beat in time to the one that pounded in her clit. Her body bucked— hands releasing to grab onto the contracting muscles of his thighs as he thrust into her, digging her nails into that writhing flesh, reveling in the feel of strong tendons. Every hard part of him, melding into the soft strength of hers.

Just when Farren's vision began to blur, her eyes latched onto the glowing embers of his, and for a moment, his hand let up, sending a rush of euphoria straight to her head. The connection and the staccato of his breath on her neck was finally too much. Sparks of sharp pleasure tore a cry from her lips and her body bowed with an orgasm that was ripped from her in wave after trembling wave— the muscles of her cunt squeezing him in turn, pulsing and flooding, begging him to follow her into rapture. Her legs tensed in tight, short spasms until she collapsed against him, sweaty and dizzy, panting hard— but the most self-gratified and smug smile curling her mouth. Like a cat who had found the cream.

@Aarno
 
The skin of her neck was endlessly soft and pliable. And she made him find the bone and cartilage within, to feel and to sink the grip in. Noted.

He felt the entirety of her shudder and contraction and the breath that caught in the cage of her ribs, tense spine pressed against his heaving chest and the soft of his stomach. His hand relented from working her below, held to her abdomen just inches above, just as the one on her neck slipped downward to grip her breast in turn. It was a tighter embrace and it was entirely for his own pleasure.

Despite the dizzying, rhythmic clutch of her cunt and their shared panting, it took a little longer for him to get there. Faster pace, face pressed to her shoulder, a held breath as he wrung every last bit of stamina from his body, focused on the hot point of pleasure that’d kept slipping away. The ache in every muscle was properly distracting, but the pressure in the length of his cock was building, promising and coaxing.

He buried the loud moan into her skin, eyes closed as his back arched and hips twisted, stilling inside the hot embrace of her. Warmer yet as his balls hiked up, all of his nethers twitching as the heat in his groin jetted out of him. Hard, wet, sticky, deep as he kept fused to her back. Spent and wrung out, but holding on.

His grip fell away gradually, arms weak as he supported his weight with them. He didn’t have it in him to move her where where she sat, so he didn’t, despite how unpleasantly it tingled his softening cock. Couldn’t even smile, mouth lightly open as he caught his breath in the shelter behind her shoulder.

“ We should probably— “ He started in a mutter that was forcibly steady, caressing her hips and the length of her thighs. More tender, softer, devoid of that possessive clutch of fingers turned to claws. Humanity restored.

“ Clean up. “

Before I damn well pass out.
 
A languid satisfaction buzzed pleasantly just under the skin, and it was all Farren could do to keep from smiling like an idiot, even as she carefully extricated herself from his embrace.

She felt rejuvenated and well-spent, even laughing affectionately at Aarno's expression, "I mean, you did work rather hard. Even for an old man." She winked and stepped away, naked with a comfortable grace to her pack, taking out two strips of a linen and a small leather pouch filled with small green tablets.

Into the still-filled basin of water, she dropped a tablet and watched it fizzle and dissolve, the water a sea-green that smelled strongly of mint and other herbs. Dipping both strips of cloth into them, she wrung them out and walked to Aarno, handing him a tablet, while popping one in her mouth with a grin, relishing in the clean zaps of magic that freshened her mouth.

"Courtesy of Syr Darthinian's mother. A smart piece of herbcraft that I now try and not leave home without. It helps clean in a pinch. Dirt, blood, other unmentionables." Her brows rising suggestively.

"Here." She passed him a wet cloth, grinning still at his valiant attempt to not show her how much he loathed being sticky once the cloud of lust had lifted. He must forget that he was not the only perceptive one between them. She let him keep that strip of dignity, as endearing as it was.

@Aarno
 
His deadpan, weary expression was the one he chose to wear when she walked away, betraying neither offense nor pleasure for the tease. He knew what he was and what he’d done, and how she’d felt and the things she’d called him as she did. Nothing reached him more true. If anything it was hard to not keep smiling like he’d won some great feat.

Sluggishly, he adjusted to sit at the edge of the bed, resisting the urge to just press himself down to the sheets. Not get up for a couple hours or better yet — ever again. Maybe she’d stay with him, if Gods were real. From where he was slouching against the support of an arm, disgust over how his cooling skin was beginning to feel mounting, his look regarded her lazily. When she explained and offered, coming closer again.

He rose a brow as if in doubt or begrudging surprise, reaching for the green magic and slipping it betwixt his teeth without a second thought. The mint and fizzle was enough to make him huff for breath through the nose, mouth working like when one should’ve bit into something frozen. His face crinkled.

Courtesy indeed. His hand reached out for the fresh linen next, accepting it in one hand while the other whipped out to pull her closer. To stand betwixt his legs that overhung the edge of the bed, his head inclining to watch her face. Those damn eyes.

What she’d given him he pressed betwixt her legs, that fragrant coolness against her heat. What he’d left in her.

“ Call me an old man again, girl. “
 
The action caught her by surprise, and a breath hissed out of her with a flinch, her free hand grabbing Aarno's wrist, "Oof, darling, I'd ask you to be gentle. I don't know how long it's been for you— but I'm rather tender and don't exactly enjoy being manhandled so freely." Her face softened at his expression, "But no harm done, though, only a reminder to be mindful." She brushed his cheek affectionately and stepped out of reach to finish cleaning herself before bed. The furs called to her wrung bones with promises of rest and the giddy excitement that only came with the beginning of knowing the embrace of a new lover.

@Aarno
 
A flinch, a grip on his wrist. Seizing. Though his face didn’t change, keeping up appearances, his breath stilled. Held high up in the lungs, stomach taut.

How long has it been for me — manhandled? Freely, as if I’ve— He straightened, not believing a word of what came next. Reminder to be mindful, after mere minutes of— And then she turned away, helping herself. He didn’t know what part did him in the most.

Was it even a contest? That good old distance had long since stopped being a tease, turned to something resembling a game that he could look at soberly, now. But he had never been playing — he felt a mere toy, left on the bed. When the wolves leave— He drew breath and it grew hot in his chest.

“ Farren. “ He begun belatedly, but when he did it was firm and heavy. No anger, no disappointment, no nothing. Honesty, maybe, more in his stare than his tone that ran perfectly parallel to the horizon. Even.

“ I am not a child. “ He stated, wiping off his spent cock with the linen she’d left him with. Tossed it to the bed by himself, unable to keep his sour expression in check. Perhaps it was disgust, world-weary at the edges.

“ Or some— “ Pausing, he bent over his legs to pick up his braies and hose where he’d kicked them off to. “ Beast — “ The word had acid in it, corrosive as he stood up and stepped into his underwear. “ In need of soothing. “

Are you afraid of me? He eyed the sight of her for a second, standing stock still as he laced the first leg of his hose up. Considered just making some excuse and storming off, for the both of their sakes, but the poison boiled over.

“ It’s been your rules. “ In a little unsteady sway of posture as he continued on yanking the other leg of his hose up, vitriol. “ Your whimsy. “

He could hiss too.
 
Farren froze at the sharp tone of her name, her back still half-turned, fingers curled around her linen tunic as his words struck hard like a slap of cold wind— she slipped her tunic over her prickled skin that suddenly felt too exposed under his venom, crossing her arms like reluctant armor.

What had she said?

It felt like she'd missed a step on uneven stone. A stumble mid-thought. The kind that left her to pilfer through the wreckage, braving blistered fingers and trying to find what had started the fire in the first place, and if she was guilty for the kindling.

Farren breathed through the throb of her pulse, through the fraying edge of hurt, watching him lace his hose with shaking hands and sharper words. A piece of her itched to reach out, to still his hands, to lean into the curve of his shoulder, to reassure—but another part, the older, more broken part, kept her still. That part always moved too quickly. Smiled too quickly. Touched too quickly. And then bled too long for it after.

She’d thought she was past that. But there it was, the twitch of her fingers betraying her—the desire to fix it with tenderness, because maybe it would stop another person from leaving. From abandoning her when she still needed them.

But that placation in the name of assuaging her own fear, wasn’t fair. To either of them.

Her uncertain gaze rose to meet his, and though her pride smarted, for that word of beast had made something guarded and bitter inside her flinch— she took a breath and forced herself not to bite back.

As any beast would when cornered, came the grim thought.

Instead, her voice came quiet after finally finding the courage. “Aarno… I’m not trying to fight you.”

Her arms remained crossed, knuckles white with effort as her heart picked up. “You surprised me. That’s all. And maybe I… maybe I didn’t handle it well. Maybe I should have-"

The thundering of her heart gave pause, and she drew a deep breath, corralling back that budding panic.

“I wasn’t pushing you away, or trying to belittle you, but I can see that I did. I-I'm sorry.” she said more clearly this time. If he believed anything, she wanted him to believe that.

"And maybe, I don't know, maybe.... there's something more? It's clear that you're upset. And I’m trying to understand.... Was it the way I pulled away? That I told you to be gentle? That I didn't... That I-" She petered off, frustrated with herself and the rejection she feared.

@Aarno
 
Surprised her? After all that— He resisted rolling his eyes, averting them instead at the laces he was tying into the waistband. Snapped the bowed knot tight, points falling in a click and a warm flash.

The apology landed like a breath of lukewarm air upon his cooling skin. His face fell languid with marrow-deep weariness of the spirit and the body, hands on his hips as he stared at her through the rest of it. Deathly still, head askew like a hound that tried to make sense of what it was hearing.

More— something more — what more? Pushed away, belittled, forgotten about, paraded around. Grieving disappointment budded in the set of his mouth and the twist of his brow, but he smoothed it down, jaw working as if chewing up a thought.

“ I’m not upset, Farren. “ He started, but it was through teeth. They bared as he brought his hands up by the sides of his face in a gesture of enraged cluelessness, fingers taut, the heart of fire in his eyes. “ I’m fucking mystified. “

He was shouting and didn’t give a single shit. What concern was it of his if a bunch of people he didn’t know heard him, that one unexpected guest amidst them. They probably wouldn’t even recognize his voice.

“ How can it be so— Unclear to you? “ His face twisted something ugly, that old grief again, mixed into the boiling anger. “ When I just got done saying— “

You don’t listen. Shook his head, let his glare rest in the soft earth beneath his feet. The one constance, steady. Suppose he should’ve believed the things she said more, not taken them as harmless jest all belongst to play.

“ You want my fire, you want my doused wick, by whichever whim. But I’m not your little lantern, for you to teach manners to. “ His fingers pinched the space by him and rotated as if to turn a fuse down, kill the light.

“ I am old. I have history. I have lived. “ And you know at least one of those things to be true, for certain. Don't you?

“ And here I am — “ Spread his arms and rotated on heel, gesturing at the space around them. But it went so far beyond. “ Just some stranger, pushed around, pulled along, reeled in and let go. “
 
Farren's breath hitched, and her head jerked like she’d been slapped, her fury flaring so bright it felt like it carved the hot beating heart right from her chest. For a breath, she just stared at him. A sharp, narrowing glare that burned with an anger that could've only been inherited, the kind born from savage women.

“You bastard.” Her voice came low and rough, venomously spoken like a curse that pulled its shroud from her marrow.

Her hands clenched at her sides. “A stranger?” she echoed, incredulous, striking a hand through her hair like claws, half of it tangled from sex. The reminder had her near snarling. “Some... stranger? You—You think you’ve been just some stranger?"

She stepped forward slowly, the fury and betrayal bleeding into her voice, lifting it higher with every breath. “Were you a stranger when we fought side by side in the snow? When you guarded my back through hours of hell, and we spilled blood for each other?

Wrath and self-ruin poured from her.

“When you sat by my bedside after the skirmish, telling me stories while I recovered—was that just passing time with some fucking stranger?”

It poured, and it poured, and it poured.

“Was it with a stranger that I broke bread at the Knoll? Or cooked beside Louretta’s hearth? Was it a stranger that I danced with?”

She took another step, teeth bared in disbelief.

“And when you saved my life in Urbos?" Farren slapped her chest in emphasis. "When you called me from the dark, when I couldn't remember my name? Was that a fucking stranger pulling me from the void?”

She was trembling now, fists white-knuckled and eyes rimmed in glassy silver fire that refused to spill.

“And when I brought you to the Wishing Grove, when you met my family—was that me letting go? Was that me reeling you in? Gods, Aarno. Godsdamnit. I brought you to the most sacred place I have? You placed a wish, right there beside the other people I love."

“I let you into my bed, I let you into my body, my—” She abruptly cut herself off, biting down on the last word like it was too dangerous to name.

Swallowing, her voice dipped. Her slow march forward halting mid-step.

“And you think I let go?”

They were close, too close. Even now, the soft slant of firelight on the angry lines of his face tempted her to distraction. And she closed her eyes to ward against that cannibalizing seduction. Even his wrath calling to her.

She tried to collect herself in the face of the panic cresting behind her ribs. Forcing her voice flat and retreating behind a wall where she wasn't drowning in everything she'd poured.

Taking a deep breath, she finally opened her eyes, flames banked to cooled silver coins, “I for one, cannot get over the conclusion that you must think me some reckless girl playing games with your pride? I didn’t push you away to make you feel small. I was scared, and unsure, and so very new to sharing pieces of myself. You arrogant, blind—gods, is malice really what you see when you look at me? Where is my grace to be found guilty of ignorance first?”

“I don’t know what women you’ve known who treated your love like a leash, tugging at you to follow, but I’m not one of them. I don’t know what ghosts are in your tent, Aarno, but I’m not the one who dragged them here to snuff out your fucking lantern.”

@Aarno
 
Last edited:
Bastard. For the second time tonight and in an entirely different tone for that. Thrill twisted in his gut for how her anger flared up, finally replacing that timid and heartbroken look about her. There was that fire when she’d grabbed him on the bed, told him to hit her, to choke her— Come on, scream your thoughts. I’ve all night.

Talk she did. And his expression shifted alongside the words. From disappointment to confusion and back to disappointment. Stranger— No, no— He remembered it all and then some, but it was not— A weary groan left him, skyward.

How fucking idiotic do you think I am? Like I need, again, some fucking reminder. Another obviousity, another condescension. Despite her approach and salvo after another, he didn’t as much as budge. His hand rested on his hip lazily, posture open, head bent to attention and glare level with the focus of a knifepoint.

Pride, small, arrogant, blind. She relented the line of questioning fast as she usually did, resulting to assumptions and then some. Borderline insults. It rankled, with how familiar it was. How he’d endured it — for his own fleeting benefit and now their shared detriment.

And it’d happen again.

“ My pride? My love? “He rumbled, thunder on a mountaintop. “ What women— what ghosts! “ Shouted again, the aspect of rage. “ You don’t need help from any of them — “

Swept his hand around, index brandished, like pointing out whatever wraiths shared their humble abode. Empty air.

“ To make me feel like shit. You manage that all on your own, darling. “ Settled back in shape and tone of his voice, but it was a begrudging peace. Heavy at the soles and the back of the throat, ready to spring.

“ But small. “ Eyes narrowed, brows drawing to a frown that doubted. Inspected her. “ You wish you had that power over me. You don’t. “ Had I any less pride—

“ No. “ A breath expanded his chest, head held higher. “ You’re not malicious, Farren. “

And he believed it to be true. Just as much as the next.

“ You’re just self-centered. “
 
Self. Fucking. Centered.

A dry, brittle laugh barked from her. How insane this turn of the night felt. She had told him something she didn't like, and now they were both furious and snapping in the empty space left cold between them. Someone please save her with a goddamn punchline.

Her hands curled at her sides and something wild skittered beneath her skin, restless and sharp-edged. Seething eyes sliced toward her bells resting on the table. She would need only one. One, and she could run.

Let the night swallow her whole and lose herself into the hush of fern-shadow and the damp cradle of root and loam and the wind that sang her name. She could run until the night stripped every human grief from her bones, until the thrum of her paws outpaced every ache in her chest.

A vegetarian she may be, but she wanted blood between her starved teeth.

"Okay, well, fuck you, for that." How dare he reduce vulnerability to selfishness.

Her mouth parted as if to say more, then closed, her throat working around the words that burned to be spoken. She paced a step away, fingers twitching again toward her bells, towards flight.

Instead, she turned back, eyes lit like mercury fire.

"You think that’s what I want? To have power over you?" Her scoff was furious for the sake of his audacity. "I would grieve—fucking grieve, Aarno—for any part of me that diminished the brightest parts of you. I want every ounce of that, the proud and complicated and blazing man that you are."

"You say I’m not listening,” she said more quietly, tapping the palm of her hand perpendicular to the other, “but I’m begging you to help me understand. Tell me how I’ve made you feel this way.”

Her hand pressed to her chest, the frenetic energy at her fingers kept her from the peace of stillness.

“Because I don’t want to be right. I'm not trying to win. I want to know the truth of you. But I can’t read your mind, Aarno. What you see as self-centered,maybe it was me trying to care for myself. Or protect us both. Or maybe I was wrong. But you have to talk to me, and tell me the language of atonement that would sate you. And trust me enough to help you carry it."

@Aarno
 
Proud, complicated and blazing. The aggressive mystification deepened, bleeding into his face. Fucking ardent praise, now? Lies, for the moment I gave it to you— The hardness didn’t leave his eyes, staring direct and rife with disbelief. No amusement, no matter how much he wished he could’ve laughed.

Like she had, throwing his honesty to his face. And then daring to ask for more. Another round of begging for the truth she clearly was deaf to. If he had any patience to spare, it would’ve finally torn at the seams. A scrap in the wind, blown apart and spirited away to the next world.

The refusal to examine. Endless questioning, circular. Acknowledgement to dismissal. Maybe, maybe, maybe, trust. Atonement? His face knotted with a host of feeling, triptych of disappointment, anger and grief. Distaste.

“ I have done nothing— “ He started, slowly as if out of fear he might tear out of his skin with any more momentum. “ But talked to you. Offered up my truth. And still you remain oblivious to it. “

Was this the prelude to all the fights to come? Refusal, willful ignorance which' density was measured in the cosmic scale. And you dare blame other women and ghosts for having made me this livid.

“ I gave you my brightest, most complicated part and the very wink of it blinded you. I’m giving it to you right now and it is deafening you! “ The grimace and the hiss. The active incomprehension. He’d riled himself up to a roar again.

Backs turned, averted stares. Out of reach. So many times, today. While I—

“ You don’t get to have this— “ He brought his hands up, showing the palms. All that he’d touched her with, felt the warmth and the tenderness, devised the safety and the unsoftness. Too rough. The face betwixt them blazed with a snarl, as bid. The fire she claimed she wanted.

“ And then try and temper it out of existence, or forget it in your wake, the moment it stops giving you pleasure. I’m not that man for you. “

His hands fell, slack to his sides. A huff through the nose deflated the scalding sharpness off his face.

“ I can’t teach you to sate me. I don’t need you to atone. I’m whole. I am not broken. And— “ I don’t need protection.

“ Perhaps that just isn’t what you want. Your incuriosity and inconsideration towards anything that is of me has been message enough. Conclusion after conclusion. Drawn and false. “ There was accusation there, the depth of examination in his glare as it lingered upon her eyes. That silver. All the tears he’d seen.

“ You hadn’t even told them I was to accompany you! “

He shouted, finality from the chest.
 
Farren hissed through her teeth, her nostrils flaring with the effort not to scream over him, "Will you keep your fucking voice down?" Her words striking like flint sparks. “Well— if anyone was unaware you were here, Aarno, they fucking know now, don't they—gods! Who the hells are you performing for?” She didn't want to admit how his raised voice rankled every hackle she had to defend the child-like part of her that shrank at his ire. Curling to protect her soft underbelly against old memories of the consequences of angry men.

“No, Aarno,” she bit out. “I didn’t tell them because it wasn’t necessary. Plenty of my people have brought friends and lovers alike, without notice. Without issue. And they were all the same, welcomed. Just as you were.”

Her cheeks flushed hot, and she cringed at how similar it felt to the same heat made from the staccato of snapping hips and tangled limbs. Her spine stiffened against the memory.

“We fed them. We embraced them. That is our way.”

She turned away. Arms crossed and staring a hole through the tent wall. That same feeling of being just one step behind in understanding this mess plagued her. Like she had been placed at the edge of a cliff, unaware of the ghost hands that danced at her back, ready to push her should she dare to glance at who dogged her shadow.

It was quiet for a dead moment before her voice came with a deflated whisper.

“Once again, you say I’ve drawn unfair conclusions. That I don’t care about you. That I don't want you as you are." Her voice cracked and she gritted her teeth around the bitter taste of that weakness. "That I am guilty of so much disinterest in your person." Incurious, inconsiderate. Self-centered. Took too much, gave too little. Not good enough. Those words would recolor every conversation between them, combing through them to find where she'd missed being so careless. Where the folly of her expectations had spelled this ruin.

With a great shuddering sigh, the fight drained out of her, the mantle of her shoulders crumbling. And as she turned to look at her lover, she didn't notice the single tear that crested the edge of her eye, spilling down the fine tracks of skin that were more accustomed to the wrinkled joys of laughter.

“I don't know what to tell you anymore. What do you even want from me, Aarno?”

@Aarno
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom