Once again I've left Murtagh and Tornac alone for far too long. I'm so sorry about this; perhaps the only explanation is the fact I work on two other fictions away from this site, am currently still studying for exams, and like to do a good bit of artwork alongside all of this. As well as that I do try my best to have something of a life, so that's why I always take a long time over each chapter. Also I'm deviously perfectionist about things, and toy with chapters a lot before I decide they're ready for posting.
However, here I am, ready to present to you the next chapter. And along with it, good news (well, perhaps…)
I'm finishing for the Summer in just one day's time now. Which means I'm going to have time to write. Now, I do have two other very important works to be doing - one band fiction and one main work, not to mention art commitments I have if I'm going to have a hope of getting the grades I want - but I promise I'll find some time for Murtagh and Tornac too. ;)
Firstly to introduce my new reader Dianayelli, thank you sincerely for all of your reviews! They were all much appreciated, it means such a lot to me that you read and enjoyed it, and I hope I can continue to produce chapters you like. And, of course, to keep you addicted to Tornac bless him. I have a really long review reply to send you hun, I promise I'll finish typing and send it off to you very very soon!!
Siren - Thank you very much for your review once again! It's lovely to get reviews, it really is! I hope you continue to enjoy it, and that you're now enjoying the summer.
Hot4Garrett - I'm glad you're enjoying it! Thank you so much for leaving me a review!
Bananasquash - I hope I've cleared you up on your question now. Thanks for reading.
So, new chapter new day. I hope you enjoy it, please R n R!
Chapter 11. Last Drop Falls
Tornac opened his eyes blearily, stretched out softly in a sleepy feline display and let out a soft little mewl of happy contentment. He had slept well, his dreams a happy whirl of innocent hopelessly childish romance, the kind of fairy-tale blur of love where the hero always managed to conquer the heart of his love, and the ending was always happy, happy forever. The birds outside his window sang a harmonious serenade to another day, a fresh page of his own personal story winding on and on. Another sparring session with Murtagh. He smiled to himself at the thought, listening absently to the sound of the world still sleeping drowsily around him, warmed by the sunrise glow that enlaced his sleepy body gently, appealing to him to wake up like a lover might. The breeze that lifted the birds and made the trees whisper found its way inside of his shutter-less window and came to tickle teasingly through his hair, playing childishly with strands of it, whistling in delight. What a beautiful morning.
Would Murtagh still be sleeping? With only the briefest of snatched pensive moments, Tornac decided firmly that he certainly would still be asleep, then quickly went on to wonder how anybody could miss such a wonderfully enchanting time of the day with something is futile and worthless as sleeping. Sleeping was strictly a night-time prohibited activity, to Tornac's mind at least. The warm beautiful day was to be spent doing things, not sleeping like some sort of a languid horse that did nothing but to swipe at the flies with its tail vaguely from time to time in a drowsy bleary day full of nothing in particular. Morning hours were supposed to be spent with lovers, just entwined so beautifully innocently intimately around each other, just to feel happy and safe in the company of the other, and not times intended for bleak solitude and pointless aimless thoughts. With one more tiny little feline stretch that sent a small shudder of pleasure streaking down his spine, and a small growling mewling sound in the back of his throat as his senses struggled to come to a comprehensible focus beyond the fickle glaze of sleep, Tornac rubbed his eyes got to his feet, and peered out of the window.
At last, the spring had arrived, the comforting season of beauty and nature and blissful content. Tornac always had loved the spring; such a romantic time of year, the time to ask a lover to dance or to sit watching the sun as it set in the evening. Of course, the summer was arguably wonderful as well, but the heat could be unbearable. The summer days made sparring an exhausting task, the sun beating down on the opponents backs and making everything too drowsy and slow. Spring still retained the grace and cool of the winter with all of the bloom of life that the summer had to show to the world.
As he splashed water onto his face, thoughts of his pupil… his friend… warmed his heart even more strongly than the sleek gleam of sunlight through the window. He had never for a single snatched moment intended to make such a rash - some might have gone as far as to call it entirely foolish - gesture, but the innocent purely beautiful passion of the moment had held him in such intoxicating enrapture that he had simply lost himself in all of the emotion and the perfection. Such a move could have cost his profession, his dignity, even his life. But it had felt so natural, nothing out of place, all making such clarified sense. He smiled to himself, reaching up to brush a wayward strand of dark hair from his eyes softly. He smiled, because he knew that no matter how utterly dangerous his little display of emotion had been, one fact struck clear and golden.
He had not been refused.
Murtagh had not even attempted the vaguest of efforts to push him away, to deny him, although he was certainly capable of such a thing. He was capable of showing disgust or shock if he had wanted to, but there had been no trace of any such thing. Which indicated only on possibility. As if to clarify matters even further, to turn them from proposed certainty into definite unquestionable truth, he had responded, though not in horror. Murtagh had shown enjoyment, shown pleasure. Tornac felt a vague warm feeling inside of him tickle at his stomach and rise up to his chest. Everything seemed to point to a single beautiful dream of a fact. Only a blind man would have been able to ignore such seemingly simple information.
Murtagh felt a similar way.
Murtagh felt something for him further than a strictly controlled and dignified tutor pupil relationship.
Had it not been that - despite possessing an almost completely childish confident persona - Tornac silently prided himself on preserving sincere gentlemanly ethics wherever humanly possible, he might have jumped up in celebration, for the pure sheer happiness of it all. As it was, he satisfied the blissful emotions with a gleefully delighted smile on his childishly gentle face, and trying to imagine what might happened further had he not been returned to his senses so harshly suddenly by the thunder. It was something beautiful, something he could only dream about. Something he fully intended on doing, if he was not denied it, at the next opportunity that rose from the horizon.
Snapping out of his daydream haze, Tornac told himself severely to grasp some sort of control on himself as his mind desperately smouldered over imagining Murtagh. He had always strived for total and complete self-control, long hard hours in the learning and seemingly only a single moment of tortuous, intimate, teasing lust to destroy all over again in a vivid passion of unruly needs and desires.
But the dream refused to leave.
Tornac, the hopeless romanticist that he was, was - even against his better judgments and regimental self-control - very much desperately in love. Some might have called it infatuation, but of course it was so much deeper than the simplicity of obsession. It was something inside of his veins that made him giddy just to be with Murtagh, happy and calm just to exchange even a few words, content with him as his best, or indeed, only, company - though it must be said that Tornac had more than might strictly be considered fair in terms of the degree of companionship he managed to attract from others in the palace. This was deeper than lust, this was deeper than attraction; and though the word could never, in all it's crude lack of emotion, describe how he felt, it came to be that the ailment he suffered so willingly from was love. How could he be expected to feel otherwise? Murtagh was just different enough to be beautifully attractive, and yet similar enough to feel a confidence in, similar enough to understand and to trust and to place trust in. Somebody who he could put at ease and at the same time be calmed down and comforted with his presence in return. Even the happiness of sparring was starting to ebb to an unimportance in the face of what now was his greatest delight.
To see Murtagh smile.
He didn't even know why the sea of his dreams had begun to calm to a single simple want and need; to make his pupil smile, because that smile was all he needed for his own happiness. When Murtagh smiled, it was the most warming thing he had ever experienced. To just for one moment take away hurt and bitterness and to have a snatched ash of bliss, so brief and fragile like the first summer butterfly, only there for a moment, but a moment nevertheless. It was such a simple thing he wanted, and yet it was coming to be his greatest pleasure. He always had liked to comfort people, to heal not physical hurt so much as deeper scars. They ran far deeper and took such a longer time to even begin to ease away, but when you could see someone smile again it was the greatest emotion of all. Although as a healer he had never excelled, on a more personal level, he had always possessed some degree of what others might have regretfully muttered to be talent. Tornac had always been uncannily perceptive of other people, despite having pathetically little mere grasp at social relationship for a very long while. To comfort had been his gift, although it had always been veiled away for the passion of sparring. And through comfort he had learned how it could feel just to make somebody else smile.
As he tugged his silk coat on roughly, glancing at himself in the mirror to satisfy his vanity briefly, he told himself to be under as much regimental control as he could possibly restrain himself with. Murtagh was not simply some pretty girl from a street corner who could be stolen away and taken into his own private little world of secrets and romance, Murtagh was his pupil, his profession, his duty; albeit a lovely duty. Allowing this love and lust intoxication to cloud his senses was leading him deeper and deeper into trouble he knew he was best avoiding. Tornac took a deep breath and tried to clear his mind. There was no other word for it. This was torture. Pleasurable torture, yes.
But torture nevertheless.
His mind wanted one thing, his body desperately another. His mind scolded and reprimanded, telling him that such a thing was forbidden in these parts of the world, that to do it might destroy all involved, but as much as he tried to convince himself with the best arguments he could place down, still a trick card appeared in the pack and lost his gamble. No matter how hard he fought not to, he knew that his body was desperate to wrap around Murtagh, and to hold him in his arms, to a shameful degree. He wanted to have something sensual, even if it was only to be brief and short, because it was only in tactile sensualities, he thought, that his true feelings could be properly expressed. Was it wrong to want something so passionately? Could love ever be something wrong, if it was pure and not wishing of anything bad. Was it wrong to love and lust for somebody so wholly that all you wanted was them, for their happiness, for their safety? Was it wrong to feel this burning need for intimacy, this burning intimacy to hold and to kiss and to go beyond that to-
Of course, it wasn't all sensualities and lust that he wanted. A more than heartily substantial part of his desire for Murtagh was chaste love and adoration; hopeless addiction to the presence and company of somebody else, to his voice, to his actions, to just his being near to him. But love was patient, love was content to wait for an eternity just for perfection. Love could wait and withhold and restrain. Lust just wanted hungrily, and showed itself more than was strictly proper of it to do so. Love was pure and innocent; lust was a sin, a crime. Lust had none of the grace of love.
But no matter how hard he tried to tell himself, he knew more plainly than ever that he was desperate for some little scrap of affection from Murtagh. Somebody so charming and confident and at the same time cautious and withdrawn; somebody so much of a contradiction could not hope to be anything other than fatally attractive. Attraction that would be the death of him if he didn't learn to control it. Something deep inside of him had begun to stir, something that he knew would certainly never be content until it was granted peace in the arms of somebody else.
Tornac turned away from the mirror, deciding to see if the object of his desires was still asleep. Today was a day for lessons of a different kind to sparring. Today was a day for learning about the world. Today was a day for comfort and smiling. Today was a beautiful day.
As he slipped, with lupine graceful elegance, inside Murtagh's room, he couldn't help but smile. The shutters were drawn, disallowing anything save for simple strands of golden sun to streak over the walls; the sky, always the most proud of artists, painting the days canvas with pristine care and making everything perfect. Murtagh was asleep, curled up, mumbling softly as he dreamed. Silently, cautious of waking his pupil, Tornac settled himself onto the bed beside him, tucking his legs underneath him neatly to watch his fascination sleep.
A look of surprise and sadness came into his face as he realised that Murtagh was unhappy in his dreams, a vague pained streak glimmering in his expression even as he lay dreaming, his eyes closed. Perhaps to others it might not have been noticeable, but to Tornac, even the slightest trace of sadness was evident, in an acute desire to be able to understand something he was coming more and more to love. It was interesting, Tornac mused to himself, that although he was so attracted to the power in Murtagh's eyes, to see them closed was just as satisfying, just as deeply undeniably attractive, enticing him and trapping him in snares that were a cruel vice, and yet graceful at the same time.
At a total lack of caution, slowly he uncurled his own body alongside Murtagh's, lying next to him to better attempt to soothe away whatever dream was haunting the thing he was so fond of. Without thinking, Tornac reached out to stroke Murtagh's face, to brush his hair back softly, affectionate but gentle, a simple whisper, barely noticeable to the world as it turned by, but conveying such a rush of raw passions and emotions that it was beyond itself in meaning. The feel of Murtagh's skin against his own made him tingle, made his body respond in a little tickle of pleasure. Inside the confines of his mind, he tried to imagine saying three blissful little words he pined to say, and indeed only refrained from for fear of hurting the thing he loved so much. He caressed his companion's face softly, a face that had held so much tragic emotion that he pined to erase, to demolish in the face of passions more comforting.
To say three words… Three words that were desperately striving to be set free, to be shown to the world in all of their shapen beauty. How could such simple utterances become such a complexity that it was pain simply in contemplating whether or not to pronounce them. Just to say them seemed to condemn him to the most beautiful agony, pain that he wanted to bear, seemed as though it might rip him apart and at the same time make him more complete than he could ever hope to be.
"Tornac?"
He quickly pulled his hand away from Murtagh's face in alarm, sitting up abruptly, starting to feel himself colour at such an undignified way to be caught dreaming, realising a little too late that, whilst he had been so caught in the spider web maze of his own thought trails, the world had progressed without him, and, inevitably, his pupil had opened his eyes and woken up, whilst he continued to stroke down his face, trying to comfort him without disturbing his sleep, wrapped up in a tangle of blissful ignorance. Murtagh was staring at him in innocent surprise and bemusement. The plain innocence on his face was so attractive, so out of place and yet so naturally created, so perfectly painted, a perfectly saccharine little confusion.
"Forgive me...you looked sad, in your sleep." The words came out so softly, barely a whisper of an excuse, so fragile and breakable because inside every emotion had rushed into clear turmoil, a battle of confusion and fright and fighting against his own love for Murtagh. He couldn't move, couldn't force his body to make any action because he was so enchanted and yet afraid of it. Slowly, like a bemused startled animal, Tornac blinked, his silver eyes unwilling to leave Murtagh even for a heartbeat. His mind screamed for him to move, to apologise, to flee and to not admit to what he felt. His body, his stubborn lover's heart, refused.
The moment became drawn out, just about the tension of them, side by side, each afraid, painfully tense, agitated, Murtagh lying looking up at his trainer with darkly innocent eyes that only spoke in whispered glimmers of what his mind truly felt. Every single beat in the rhythm of Tornac's heart seemed so painfully agonisingly clear in his ears, each syllable to a poem of such emotion he was begging to be allowed to express, each and every single note in a song that the world had seen so many times before and yet never quite in the same way. It felt so heavy in his chest, such a burden to bear this much want for somebody else. Such a crushing weight pressing down by three such short words, almost too crude to even possess any significance.
Murtagh looked so attractively innocent, so perfect in how he was delicately breakable yet so quietly confidant and assured. His brown eyes were riveted on Tornac's own, making his heart beat faster, a silent language of heartbeats.
In one moment, Tornac gave in to lust, to love, to wants and needs, threw away every caution, just for one moment. One moment of beautiful bliss, one moment when nothing else mattered at all. He surrendered to emotions, gave in to everything he knew he had that could bring him what he truly wanted.
He gave in to Murtagh, as he leaned down and, perfectly softly, kissed him.
Murtagh felt his breath hitch in his throat as his companion kissed him, very gently at first, softer than memories of the touch of his fingers caressing his face. Simply a butterfly whisper touch, the lightest soaring little breeze, a simple gentle little feeling, almost soft enough to be nothing. Tornac was so very gentle, so unbelievably cautious and lacking in haste. In his control, with him so careful, there was all the time in the world. There was a diminutive sound of surprise as his body tensed in perplexity at such an inexplicable feeling, at first completely shy of it and trying to plead that it was wrong, trying not to admit how much he wanted it. Trying to find it in himself to push Tornac away. But everything was lost into blissful serenity as Murtagh relaxed into the moment, closing his eyes, overwhelmed, senses filled wonderfully, intoxicatingly, with Tornac, satisfied desires clouding over every sense but feeling so beautiful, patiently coaxing him into coming alive.
Emotion streaked white hot through his veins, a deadly mixture of love, lust and Tornac. Not paralysed but so very struck down by enrapture and amazement.
It was incomparable.
It was captivating.
Tornac was so blissfully gentle, so careful with his treatment of Murtagh; and it only served to make the moment more intensely impassioned. So many emotions expressed through such a soft gesture made them all the more emotive, all the more empowering, and it ran warmly to his mind like a rich drug stealing away seemingly all feeling, leaving him empty of all troubles and confusion and plunged into a new world where nothing mattered but to be loved. He felt numbed by the new sensations exploding through his veins, and all at once every sense seemed to have a clarity it had never possessed before. His body was suddenly so acutely aware of even the very slightest touch, of Tornac's fingers finding his neck and stroking so very, very, teasingly slowly, making his pulse race and speed in dreamlike ecstasy to meet the frantic rhythm of his trainer's own. Everything about it was a beautiful sensual rush of pleasure that Murtagh found himself quickly drunk on. The pleasure, the delight, made his body shiver, and at the same time there was such warmth rushing through him the like of which he had never even so much as touched before, so much of him responding to such a small tender sigh of a gesture. Everything about the raw sensations exploding through his body was new, unexplored, and that served to make it all the more pleasurable, until Murtagh was desperate for it to go further, eager for more.
He reached out slowly to tangle his fingers into Tornac's long black hair; nervous but cherishing the feeling, pulling him a little closer gently. Everything was graceful, nothing ever rough or careless, everything so amazingly tender and caring that it warmed him even more, burned away at his every reservation and dragged him into new happiness, into new fatalistically devoted pleasure. It should have felt wrong. But through his mind ran one stark realisation.
It felt exquisitely right.
Tornac touched along his bottom lip gently with his tongue, asking soundlessly for something, silently offering something a little further but not forcing it, always careful. Trying very slowly and modestly so as not to make anything feel unnatural. Slowly, intensely cautious and very shy of such a contact, he gave in and allowed his companion's tongue to delicately meet his own, something so foreign that at first it was intimidating. But with Tornac stroking his neck reassuringly, soon he learned that this new feeling was pleasant, not uncomfortable. Far from it.
Murtagh mewled quietly, enjoying the pleasurable shock that ran hot through his veins as Tornac pressed very lightly against him, his body wonderfully warm, his companion occupying himself with stroking his fingers across Murtagh's neck, running them up to touch along his ear teasingly, making him shiver in delight. The tenderness of desperation that was such a perfect contradiction that it made him giddy. Murtagh moaned softly, and he could feel Tornac become a little more fervent, still so protectively gentle but just a little bit more passionate, careful not to push too far but relishing everything they were sharing.
He was on fire, burning with the thrill of being treated with such sensual tenderness.
If everything was lost after this moment, well then it was lost, because for this little snatch of happiness everything was drowning and he loved it. Tornac was extending his hand to catch him and pull him further down into an ocean he couldn't breathe in, but that was so divinely gentle that it was heaven. He wanted to keep this moment for an eternity, to never break it, because the clashing confusion of different sensations and lusts on his body was just too wonderful. Was this finally what it felt like, to love? To feel so awoken that the past seemed as though you had been sleeping just to wait for this moment. That this was finally to live and to breathe and to feel happy and to feel warm and contented and so dizzy, none of it mattering and at the same time everything vitally important.
He felt so dizzy with how beautifully innocent Tornac was with him, how reserved he was, holding back so that there was no embarrassment, no intimidation. Every move was innocent and yet accented with such an ecstasy blur of deep emotions that they threatened to throw his mind into blank numb emptiness.
Finally, Tornac pulled away from their kiss, a sorry little smile on his face, a smile that was still so breathtakingly beautiful that it might as well have been their first meeting. Murtagh opened his eyes to look at his companion, feeling his heart racing from what he had just had. From what they had just shared. Tornac looked back at him, silver eyes shining with an icy little edge of mournful loneliness and at the same time so deeply simply contentedly happy.
Murtagh felt a smile start to form on his own face, and Tornac laughed softly, kindly. For a little glimmering time they simply lay contented with each other's company, happy to look and to smile, in the knowledge of what they had just partaken in, which bridge they had burned to acknowledge their companionship.
"I think, Murtagh, that you had better get more appropriately dressed for training." Tornac laughed softly, sitting up neatly, brushing a strand of black hair back behind his ear. "And I will wait for you…" he cut short, smiling, lupine prettiness shining in his silver eyes.
As he watched his trainer get to his feet and pad sleekly from his room with a smile on his face, Murtagh finally allowed himself to breathe deeply and to acknowledge his situation. It was with inextinguishable happiness that he got up to open the shutters.
Unaware of how, in other parts of the palace, things were stirring.
And two people sat in restless wait for Murtagh to join them. With two very different motives.
FINALLY I've finished the chapter. That one took me a very long time to write, I redrafted over and over.
I hope you enjoyed that, I have to say I did like writing it!
Please R n R, especially if you're one of those people lurking out there reading yet never reviewing for me. ;) You know who you are.