There's a reason this is rated M, and it's definitely not for use of naughty phrases. Remember that long winded cautionary at the beginning of this story? Well, stuff is coming. I dislike spoiling, but hopefully you're open minded. So we'll leave it at that.
Chapter 45
"The line must be thicker than this." He said distractedly, and poured more salt to thicken the circle where he had just connected the two ends. From behind him the Red Dragon huffed, but Tom barely glanced back to look at it again.
You could have had one of your lesser worms do this for you. But Tom only shook his head as he positioned the polished stones, kneeling to make sure their distances apart were perfectly proportioned.
"Nay, this is a thing I must ensure is perfect." He replied, and the Dragon tossed her head in annoyance. Meanwhile, Tom settled the burning sticks of incense into the ground at the final point and came back to face the Dragon, and kneeled. "Are you ready?" He asked the Dragon, and received a scoff as his answer. There might have been a distinct roll of eyes as well, but Tom was already settling into his position with his legs crossed, and his palms atop his knees.
He dug deeply into himself, to the parts of his core that were the most concentrated, and he began.
His chanting began quietly at first, barely more than a whisper that the Dragon could tell. But as he focused himself she could feel the tendrils of his mortal brand of magic begin to take ahold of her outer barriers, the tingling like a heated tickle across the insides of her scales. She allowed a shudder down her form to ease herself into the contact and closed her own eyes as well in the moment.
It was then, suddenly, that she felt the sharp prickles all within her, like hooks had formed and were..… They were pulling. She rose her head and her chest in an unexpected panic as her large eyes burst open and rip free from this feeling, but she could not. From all around her, and all within her, she was held and bound and unable to move even a mite further.
The mortal on the ground sat there peacefully focused and glowing brightly with the power he was pulling from her. She tried to open her maw to snarl and found that it, too, was frozen in place as the mortal held her firm in his magical grip, and she pulled harder away still.
Oh, Great Shadows did it hurt! The Dragon shut her eyes fast and tried to breathe away the feeling of having her magic slowly ripped from the very flesh of her body as her mouth remained shut and unable to move, unable to cry out, or snarl or snap this small fool into her mouth and crush his bones like they were twigs. It burned within her as nothing had before.
Sensing the pain from the Dragon, Tom pressed forward as quickly as he possible through his task. It was not expected that the Dragon would be so pained by the process. But then again, it was not as though the spell he'd used had spoken of any kind of harm to the beast he was using it with. He reminded himself.
Pushing the possibility from his mind, Tom forged onward as he protected himself over the cascading miles between his ancestral lands and those of Morvan Rove. The speed in which his mind could travel over this kind of distance was astronomically quicker than by foot, sea or beast. The dull pallor of the wintered lands passed beneath him as he pushed his mind onward more and more, until a dull glow could be seen on the horizon of his minds eyes.
Those were the wards of Morvan Rove. The barriers created by the Gold Dragons to protect their lands, and safeguard the beings within. Tom found himself grinning wickedly as he pressed onward even faster.
The great Red Dragon squeezed tighter her eyes as she tried to breathe through to constant feeling of ripping from within the core of her hulking body. Was this what death would feel like, when it came for her finally, she wondered then.
Slowing down as he approached the glowing transparent wall that stretched upward in a great arc, like an eggshell all around where he had arrived, Tom got straight to work, and placed his palms on the surface. He closed his eyes to concentrate himself on the barrier.
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It was cold this morning, even beneath the heavy quilting atop her. Ursa burrowed deeper into the covers to try to find some shred of comfort there, peeking towards the fire to see if any embers remained. All that was left was ashes and soot, and cold all around the room.
There was barely any light out at all, and she shivered in the indentation her body had created. She was still reticent to share Loren's bed on every night and often found herself more pleased to come again into a room that was not used. But she did acquiesce that it was at the cost of sharing body warmth with her Lord that was direly desirable during the long and cold winter storms.
The Lady reached out and grabbed her cold robes from the side-table near her bed and donned them quickly, slipping her feet into slippers as well to cover herself wherever possible. She plucked split wood and arranged it upright in a conic pattern and struck a match to the tinder she placed beneath. She fanned the flames with her magic, gentle coaxing more air to surround the budding flames, crackling as the frayed ends of wood began to catch. She nestled into the chair nearby, leaning herself as close to the heat source as she could, and closed her eyes.
The castle was quiet this morn, though the sun had not fully risen into the sky even and the House staff would still only be waking. But it was more that the silence was present because her children, and Lords wards were all still adrift in the mountain peaks that it was so.
Into her lower abdomen crept a sad, and sinking feeling. It had been so long since she had seen her children's smiles that she ached inside. The Lady rubbed at the feeling at the top of her pelvic bone absently, soothing the feeling with her fingertips and with warmth she conjured. It was only after a sharp pain that her eyes blinked back open and she inhaled in discomfort.
The ache had intensified unexpectedly, no longer a dull and ignorable sensation. She frowned in confusion; it had been handfuls of years since she had any feeling in that part of her body, as it was the cost that had been paid.
Curious, now, that for no reason she could determine, such a little complaint would come up without pre-empt. She made a mental note to send word to the Healer of the House for more herbs, and perhaps to speak to a midwife on her behalf. It must be time for her seasons to change, she mused sadly. Though it had been scores of years since she had experienced the monthly bloods of a fertile woman, it was only a matter of time until her body changed again as the Gods of nature willed it to.
She patted herself nostalgically, remembering the joy she had experienced carrying children. How wonderful the fullness had been, and how utterly magical their movements had been while still within her womb. Her eyes managed to water then unexpectedly, blurring down the vision of the growing fire within her hearth before her. It seemed there were still a few things she had not yet forgiven of her Lord husband, she realized. Perhaps it was all just a delayed emotional reaction to having both her precious children so far away, and facing perils she could not shield them from.
She wiped the tears away from her eyes and steeled herself. These thoughts and regrets were years too late for her to ruminate over now. There would never be a way to go back and change the choices that had been made for her. She simply had to make the best of what she faced before her and conquer each challenge as it rose.
Rising slowly, she noted that the ache in her pelvis extended to her lower back and she stretched as she rose to her full height, allowing her arms to rise above her hands. Perhaps it was all just a matter of fortifying the mattress, she questioned, and made another note to speak to her personal attendant that she could have it build up to greater comfort.
Rubbing her hands together absently, she breathed into them as she retreated back to bed. Unable to see it from her vantage point, the backside of her muslin dressing gown was peppered with the faintest touch of red.
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Over the time that she had spent in this foreign House, Narcissa had discovered that despite raging fires in certain rooms, there were always pockets within the Castle Keep that were unable to be heated. Having migrated here from a more agreeable, and temperate location she avoided these whenever possible, and with fervidity.
One such disastrous discovery was that he Library had a multitude of such pockets, which made it such that hovering hear the fireplace was the most sensible place for her to perch herself unless she wanted to sit in silence in any of the other sitting rooms, or a dining Hall. These choices all lacked reading materials, however, and were less adequate than simply enduring the Library. The real problem was that she found herself in the company of Rune Mora more often than not.
Certainly Rune was no bother; the Master kept to herself and acknowledged Narcissa once or twice in a congenial and passive manner. It was Narcissa that was uncomfortable in her presence, and she couldn't put her finger on why, exactly.
Since her semi break-down in her presence, she had retreated greatly into herself, concerned that there would be lingering questions about her well-being, and offers of comfort she would have to endure as a result. And though she felt herself continuously in a state of expectancy for one of these; they never came. It did seem, for all practical purposes, that Master Mora had all but forgotten those exposing moments.
And only in her mind could Narcissa be quietly honest with herself, because she hadn't determined whether she was relieved, or slightly annoyed.
Throughout the long years of her emotionally cold marriage, Narcissa had slowly allowed the ice of her Lord Husbands temperament to become her own, and in those years she had no longer come to expect things from others such as emotional comfort, or gentleness by his hands or countenance of any manner. Why in the name of all the Gods would this be something that would even register as a concern, she found herself wondering.
Yet here, through the painfully silent afternoons, she had found herself physically aware of any time Rune was sharing the same space as she, and it was as an oddity in her mind.
And with the cold snow falling more with every day, there was no place outside the stone walls for her to escape to, and thus with every day she felt herself slipping ever-deeper into a whirl of confusion she could not quite name.
If she had to put her finger on when it had all began, it must have been with the noise Rune had continued to make. At first, drastically irritating and impossible to stomach. It had cut through the silence of the room as Narcissa had been deeply engrossed in a historical text containing the self-written chronical of a man by the name of Hammon when there was a distinctive wet sound. The memory, still fresh in her mind, played back with ease for her, though it had occurred only a few days prior.
Narcissa had barely registered it at first, but the disturbance had been notable enough for her to lose her place on her page as she'd glanced about briefly.
Noting nothing amiss outside of the Master who sat across her at the opposite end of the fireplace, she browsed her paragraphs yet again, nestling into another comfortable position as she resumed the tale. It wasn't but a moment past that she heard it again. The sound of something wet, and, strangely, sliding? She darted her blue eyes to Rune's stilled form to watch her turn a page, enjoying the words of her own tome.
Narcissa blinked, wondering if the silence and confinement of being perpetually indoors was finally getting to her. She rubbed her eyes a moment, and readjusted herself briefly before she took a deep breath and looked out the window at the blindingly bright snow that fell around the castle. She glanced back down to the words in her book, allowing her vision to blur for a moment as she slipped herself into a state of pause.
The motion of Rune's hand caught her attention as her right index finger raised to her mouth, and passed over the surface of her tongue, creating a wet sliding noise that now seemed to be so quiet, Narcissa was astounded she heard it at all. Watching the motion of her digit passing over the moist muscle caused a rash of very involuntary tingles to form at the crown of her head and flow downward over her shoulder, and settle within the cradle of her body.
Utterly mesmerized by both the motion, sound, and subsequent reaction her body had experienced, she was utterly frozen in place for a few heartbeats. She must have made some noise, for it was just as Rune placed her finger at the top of the new page to turn it, her attention was called to her fellow bibliophile. To her horror, Narcissa discovered herself staring openly as those blue eyes met her own and she realized as she looked at them, that they were not blue at all, but a shade of gray added in. Or some other tone of color she could find no name for.
She blinked quickly and shut her book with a thumping noise that echoed throughout the library. To her credit, Rune looked utterly nonplussed at the little frizzle Narcissa found herself working into.
"Something gone amiss?" She asked the blond lazily, and the faintest motion of her eyebrow gave whisper to the Lady that she was being cheeky. She suppressed a huff that dared to try to exit her mouth and set her lips in a straight line. Narcissa straightened herself fully, and donned a haughty expression.
"Never." She defended in a dismissive, disinterested tone. "What gave you that impression?" The Master tutted a quiet tone.
"You were staring." Narcissa huffed delicately, and crafted her words as carefully as she could, keeping her eyes as neutral as possible. The Master held her gaze and raised her finger slowly to her mouth and licked the tip in a painfully slow gesture before reapplying the moistened tip to the page in her book and slowly turned the linen over. Mortifyingly, Narcissa felt the same tingling rise up from under layers of her skin and wash over her in waves of prickling tingles. She wanted to despise how wonderful it felt, but she absolutely could not. Not that her expression gave away the conflict.
The Master regarded her with a tilt to her head that expressed some curiousness at why the Lady stared her down so intently. She hadn't returned her attention to her book, but she raised the same index finger slowly to her mouth once again, and pointedly ran it down the length of her tongue. It was subtle, and the sight of the light pink tip completely captivating. Rune curved the end just slightly, playfully even, as she slowly shut her mouth and applied the finger to the page below her.
The Lady shook her head slightly, questioning then what sort of madness must have befallen her, for this pitiful state she found herself in now. Completely entranced by such a simple gesture- Mid-admonishment the tidal wave of shivering broke out one more time in its same pathway over her body. It dawned on her: It was magic that she felt! Rune's magic was-, she halted her train of thought and leaned back a slight bit, speculating briefly.
The entrancement dashed, Rune returned her eyes to her book once again only for Narcissa to realize that the Master had turned several pages without browsing them, and had not turned back to them. The corner of her mouth twitched into her cheek and she scoffed into her mouth and nestled back into her chair more comfortably. She looked more closely at the book in the Masters lap. It looked familiar; red and gold binding with pages tipped in gold foil. She'd seen that book before today.
Smugly, she nestled her closed book into her lap. "There are certainly a number of interesting publications in this House, do not you think?" Rune did not look up.
"A good number, if one can be the judge of such things." Narcissa continued.
"Have you come across any chronicles of particular whilst here?" Rune paused what she was doing, but still kept her eyes to her pages.
"It depends on what your interests speak to." She replied passively.
"And what then of your current folio?" She moved in for the kill. "Had it captivated your interests keenly whilst you have been grounded here?"
Rune raised her full attention to Narcissa, and closed the book quietly. Her eye color seemed smokier for some reason. "My interest has been captured here, Lady, that much is correct." Rune's expression seemed raw in that moment, and Narcissa found herself a little taken back by the sudden change in atmosphere.
"And what then arrests your attention about this volume?" Her mouth had gone dry as she spoke, realizing all too quickly what path seemed to have appeared. Rune considered her a moment, as if observing Narcissa's subtle queues in posture and she shifted the book in her hands.
"It's a beautifully crafted piece, though much of the beginning can seem stubborn. Recalcitrant even," the Master mused, tenderly fingering the golden edges of pages. How such a simple act could be so sensual, Narcissa was completely ignorant to. "Nevertheless, its pages hold troves of passionate expression. Very few books are crafted as such. Certainly, all books contain something of interest to someone." She raised her strange not-blue, not-gray eyes to Narcissa and held them fast. "But this one seems particularly extraordinary in my estimation. Like a diamond in the rough amongst these, it stands apart. Fascinating. Unexpected. Alluring, you might say." She paused. "I find it an impossible task to put it away from my mind."
The silence following Rune's words was broken by what seemed to be Narcissa's deafening swallow. Perhaps that was only in her own ears? Her body was frozen, and yet she was warming in a way that was foreign. She struggled not to stammer. "It is only a book-" she managed before the movement of Rune making to stand halted her words in her mouth completely.
The Master's stride was impeccably smooth as she closed the distance between them, never taking her eyes from Narcissa until she stood just in front of her. The book was long forgotten now, and Rune reached up gently and stroked the soft expanse of Narcissa's cheek, her eyes fluttered at the sensation. Her rougher fingers danced over the edge of her chin to the other cheek before she broke contact.
"It is not only a book." The Master whispered to Narcissa, and delicately traced the plumb flesh of Narcissa's lower lip. Without meaning to, her lips parted and the digit passed so closely to the wetness between them that the Lady nearly gasped at how the deliciously intimate gesture enticed her. But as quickly as it started, Rune pulled her hand back.
Her blue eyes opened in confusion at the break in physical contact to see the back of Rune's body as she walked towards the door.
Before this….. Occasion, her library companion had been present and already reading when Narcissa entered the room. But since, she had neither seen her at meals, nor spied her entering or exiting the vast room filled with books. She found this to be more irritating that she had anticipated. Each time she expected the Master to be there, each time she was rebuffed, she felt something hard in her gut that roiled angrily.
The trail that Rune's finger had taken across Narcissa's face had practically burned these last two days. In her disassociation from any others in this House, she'd frequently discovered herself tracing that same pathway in the following days. Over and over she touched it with her finger tips, reviving the scene in her mind, and each time finding herself caught between turmoil, and intoxication.
Her normally calm and controlled internal monologue was boiling over with questions, queries, and agonies over what was happening to her. Having come to her marriage untouched, she was no stranger to the lusts a man brought into his bedroom, no matter how uncomfortable or disgusting they ever made her. She had long-ago committed herself to enduring the various attentions her Lord conscripted on her body. She had accepted that this was her purpose, though she did not relish it in any fashion, she did not react to it either. Not as it seemed he did. For never once, when the man had peeled his body from hers, bared or not, had she ever felt so much as the slightest stirring in her woman's body.
And yet now, here, in this strange place she could never consider home, and with a family at the very brink of war with her own, she felt something she had never felt before; it was fire, and it was ice, and it coursed through her body like a raging storm that she had no idea how to control.
She could barely sit still, and when she did it was at a great effort of focus upon herself. All the while, all she could do was replay that scene where Rune's eyes had held hers, and how she had touched her so.
It had become a kind of madness, in a way, to feel such an intense sensation after a lifetime confined to unfeeling of anything possible. And yet again, on this morning as she had flung open the double wooden doors and entered the library, there was no other presence than her own. She felt the blood behind her face heat up and her brows draw together in a deep frown. The rushing in her ears was so loud, Narcissa didn't realize she had begun picking up side tables and hurling as far as her arms could heave them.
She flung her magic outward and tipped over chairs, but it wasn't enough. Not nearly as satisfying as giving into the whirlwind she felt inside of her. She threw the second chair over on its side with her bare hands, and raked her fists across the mantle above the fireplace, scattering books and candles all over the floor around her.
She shattered glass pillars and broke candlesticks, upended chairs and end tables. Each bit of destruction fueling the fire within her further, adding to the cyclone within herself that threatened to level everything around her into dust.
A pair of arms wrapped around her from behind, the body attached to them sealing itself behind her. She struggled in the grip to try to break free, only to feel labored breaths at the side of her neck and a voice softly easing her back from her eruption. Shushing her tenderly.
Her heart hammered in her chest, adding movement to her violence, but the arms held her strong and firm and she was unable to wrench away from them. Struggling once more, she moved her magic into a fierce attack at the person binding her person, only to have her body covered in a cool, mildly tingling sensation that started all about the crown of her head and washed down over the rest over her body.
The familiarity of it caused her to jerk her head to the side through her disheveled hair. Through it she saw the face she had been seeking for these last days. The eyes that had captivated her then, did so now as well. And Narcissa was lost once more.
She whimpered softly as Rune closed the distance and sealed her lips over hers, still gripping her tightly from behind. Her lips were so soft, and her kiss so tender that Narcissa felt her anger dissipate and melt away as though it were nothing. THIS! This was what she wanted! This is the sensation she had so desperately sought. Rune's lips danced across hers with a delicacy that made Narcissa's head spin. Her soft tongue licked playfully at the joining, and Narcissa opened her lips invitingly as a groan of pleasure escaped her mouth.
Rune kissed her deeply, and fully, and the sensation was wildly exciting and delicious. Her tongue was firm and soft and exquisite as it played with Narcissa. Her tongue set a tempo of dance that had heat and tingling rushing into Narcissa's groin instantly, and her legs ached to wrap themselves around Runes hips.
The Lady moaned at the luscious feeling, and turned her body around to press flush into Rune's. The Master's arms moved around her body, pressing firmly against her as she crept her hands into Narcissa's soft blond hair, loosening the pins that held the elegant twists in place with her magic, and scraping her short fingernails gently along her scalp, down her shoulders, and around her waist. The sensation of the kisses and her touches made Narcissa gasp into Rune's mouth, and the Master skillfully sealed the gap, pressing her body forward assertively into Narcissa. The warmth growing steadily between them enveloping them in the passion firmly.
The foreignness of Rune's body against hers was exhilarating, the friction there causing her breasts to ache deliciously as she moved them over Rune's chest, and Rune gave a low growl as she moved her strong hands over Narcissa's clothed ribs, pointedly avoiding the soft mounds the Lady had pressed into her, she felt bereft at the little teasing Rune played at.
Panting, she opened her blue eyes pleadingly, and Rune touched her cheeks as she kissed them. Her mouth moving to her jaw as she placed delicate kisses, licking playfully and moving back to the joining of her neck and shoulder to suckle lightly.
Narcissa felt like she might keel over as her blood rushed through her veins and she wobbled on her feet, but Rune's strong arms steadied her. For a moment, the Master paused as Narcissa turned her head to the side, cutting of Rune's access to her neck. But the spell was hardly broken and Rune waited patiently for Narcissa to collect herself before she faced Rune fully. She traced the lines of her square jaw with her feminine, soft fingers. Back to her brown hair bound tightly at the nape of her neck. Narcissa's fingers itched to unravel it and comb her fingers through it. To feel the cascading strands draped across her skin as she lay naked beneath Rune's body.
Rune smirked knowingly at the Lady in her arms, as though she could hear the thoughts plainly. "If it is your wish, then it is my pleasure." Narcissa's chest was heaving and her body nearly slithering in her arms. She nodded and Rune's mouth met hers once again as the pair sighed into the each other's mouths once more. As Rune kissed her, she bent her back slightly, moving her arm around Narcissa's lower back and around her hip.
Into her mouth Narcissa whispered; "Yes."
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