Men
Thanks to Yosei (Buddhacide), MisterJB & Hell - who helped to comment & shape this 2nd revision of the story. Rated M for figurative violence/ sex.
1.
Just south of Pieta, over the ridge where we first fought, is Giresan town. And that is where the inn is.
All trade from heading south from Alphonse has to flow needs to past down the winding forest road leading to Giresan, so we suspect it had always been entertaining highwaymen and traders and all sorts of company for years, possibly even before our arrival in the north. It filters away only a few regular customers, though, but somehow the brew there is the best I ever tasted: all of Alphonse's finest barley needs to stopover at the inn before going south. All that barley. Imagine that.
2.
The inn was where I first saw her. Like us, yet very much different. Back then, while still recovering from my wounds from that ill-prepared fight, I would be brought to the inn, sometimes to a room, and at others just to the front porch to watch the world slouch by. The master had been always kind enough to give me a room with a view.
So I had been well-prepared for the warrior's arrival. Even when facing the wall, trying to heal the arrow cuts and the carved slices in my side like gorges burrowed deep in my skin, the warrior never did bothere to mask her scent. A half-monster, half-lavender scent, a yoki-flowered pulse of sub-innocence. Sometimes she would throw my her eyes at me, as if thinking she had seen something – a lion or a monster, or both, perhaps – where I lay watching. But she still would enter the inn, her armoured boots a crescendo of expectation, a steady, almost predictable rhythm.
I have little experience with her kind. But I know she is short for a monster-slayer. We could stand head-to-head: a small, athletic, tense body. And from the first time I saw her, I have always deemed her unnaturally bronzed, as if by being half-human the foul Northern climate had a reverse-effect on her, or as if she had trekked seven hundred kilometres through the sunshine-drenched south just to hunt monsters here.
She never takes longer than a moment in the inn. A cup of warm goat's milk. Hardly a glance at the customers, who hardly glance back. And before anyone can see the frame of stray milk around the crest of her lips, she exits. The customers do not really bother.
As I watch her trudge away, in the directions of the mountains and towards Pieta, I catch her silhouette, obvious and silvery blatant, like a stick of meat left in between the teeth after a meal. And then the forest swallows her. But she will return, I tell myself, no need to fret.
Drinking from the flagon, the brew whirlpools in the back of my throat.
And Isley echoes my thoughts: "She'll be back. The forests are full of yoma anyway."
3.
The drizzle starts around the late afternoon. It is not so much a drizzle than a mist. But we feel no need to hurry; it is, after all, only November. A little rain never did us any harm anyway.
At the bar, our favourite master is cooking something foul, stirring his squirrel-nibbled ladle over a cauldron battered enough to be a trebuchet's firing load. He pays no heed to us – which is probably because he knows who we are, and what we are here for, and that we are only good for his business – so the arrangement for now works out fine between us. We hunker down at our favourite table, far enough from the door to remain hidden, but in the close vicinity to entertain ourselves should a brawl erupt.
The master sets down the flagons. Isley empties a handful of beras for the service. For some reason, he always has gold on him, even though outside of this place he has really no need for them. And he always pays, saying that between us brothers-in-arms he is obliged, as the superior, to be magnanimous. So he says. But I always let him have the first sip.
The rim of the flagon has hardly departed from his lips when he says: "She's coming."
I lean back into the blood-brown oak chair. It responds with a creak. And I ask him:
"So what are your thoughts?"
"She's not your type."
"And?"
"She will know. And then we'll have trouble."
Isley's tone does not change. He cups the flagon and drinks again, and gestures at my untouched drink, wiping the froth from his chin. The compelling extension to the subject at hand nudges with urgency:
"And then?"
"You're not listening to me."
"What is there to listen?" Partaking in my own drink, the pause levels the tension. "I'm not asking for advice. I'm asking for an opinion."
He leans, crosses his legs, the great sweep of his fur-coat makes him look as if he had the potential to sprout wings, to fly himself away out of this slum in the north. He nods carefully, says, "It's my job to give you advice. It's your mission to heed it."
"You hypocrite."
"At least I can live my life without using that thing between my legs."
We settle into an exploited silence, which we both use in different ways: he to properly don his cloak and I to empty my flagon. As always and as expected, only the aftertaste registers. And only in the most distant region of the tongue – a hard, almost oat-like descent of watery flavour. It lingers, then disappears before I can even put a name to it.
He has his head resigned to a mocking angle. "You should just admit it," he tells me.
"I have nothing to admit."
"You just want her in bed. Or under the pine tree. Or in a some bear's cave near the hills."
I pull a sarcastic grin: "Again, you self-righteous bastard."
"Priscilla is different," he excuses.
"At least this one's of age."
"At least," Isley corrects himself and throws a look at the door. "At least I don't pretend she needs it."
"She does."
"And what do we call this?" he questions. His finger is curled, accusatory. "A necessary bedding?"
"Well –"
A therapeutic fuck?"
"She needs it. She needs someone to love her."
"Love is outdated."
At that moment, the doors open silently. The opportunity-seeking wind brings with it the scent of pine trees, a dusting of dead pine needles and a fully-armed warrior. She takes six strides and the master of the tavern rotates banally to attend to her. I see a tilted cup being filled with white.
"You think you know everything," I snarl. And clutching my flagon, I stand and prepare to leave.
"I do," he smiles gently, girlishly.
"You're not a real man."
As I depart from the table, his voice travels like a whisper on the scattering remnants of my conscience:
"Do real men even exist?"
4.
The master chucks several knobs of wilted potatoes and bloody fragments to meat into his pathetic cauldron, and revises his ritual. So he does not see me at the counter table.
She does not bristle when the extreme slice of my sleeve and my arm sweep gently across her shoulder. Her portion of goat's milk is snuggled deep in her palm, her gaze downcast, a lock of her silver-blonde hair traces a lone line down her face.
"Are there yoma up north?" I ask, gently, voice half-clear.
I watch her bring the residue of the goat's milk in her cup to her lips. They hardly part, but she downs the drink in the blink of an eye. A trail of white escapes from the corner of her mouth, but she contains it. And the smudge of the liquid hangs by her lower lip.
"Many." She stiffens. "I have to go now."
"They can wait. Here," I gesture to the master who, betrays the faintest shade of surprise at, I suppose, the unlikely couple. "Drink with me."
The dampness of her voice is smooth, close to flawless:
"I am sorry. There are things for me to do."
She moves, and before I can prevent myself, a hand fastens itself on her wrist.
"No, I insist." As if to affirm the proposal, there are now two cups of goat's milk beside us.
Her small eyes do not widen, but it is clear she is not accustomed to this. For a short moment she stares past the entire inn, into a distance deeper than imagination. Another customer decides at that moment to enter, and as the wind rushes in, I watch the shadows of the late afternoon creep up, then down, her outstretched thighs.
"You're drunk," she declares.
"Enough to tell you are not. Enough to tell you will surprise yourself if you stay."
She is still standing, but she grasps the helping of goat's milk anyway. I imitate her gesture, and swallow the victual with a simple gulp. My senses fail to register anything but a waxy, succulent wash of liquid.
"What's your name, warrior?"
She flinches. "I really need to leave." And she darts from her place, and is out the door before I can even stand.
There is no need for me to glimpse back at Isley. Because is still sipping ambivalently from his flagon, and he will probably not follow me out in my pursuit.
5.
The woods are devoid of life. Wind rakes the flood after flood of leaves and dead pine-needles into the solitary path which leads to the mountains. No one uses this road: too many yoma, too little refuge, too many places for ambush.
She knows someone is following her. She slows at the first ridge, and by the time I reach her she has her hand to her Claymore, facing me, taking a guard.
She forces me to stop, fifteen paces away from her, beside the trunk of a stripped pine tree.
"If you don't stay away, I will have to make you," she warns, a half-hearted attempt.
"Why not lower your sword and we can walk?"
The drizzle intensifies, but like a curtain it completely takes over the narrow forest road. The trees continue their silent observation. A bird noisily calls over us. She hesitates.
"Who are you?" she calls over the silence.
"Let's not talk standing still," I say, and I narrow the distance to ten paces. "Let's walk back to the inn before this rain gets worse."
She draws her Claymore in one astute, symbolic swing, like wave of a bird taking flight. Its polished, sharpened tip nods in my direction. Her outstretched, spindly fingers twirl around the hilt, whitened with the snow. The wind pushes her fringe aside, outlining caution – or fear? – or determination? – in her eyes.
I stuff my fists into the pockets of my coat.
"Real men don't follow my kind all alone into the woods. Who are you?"
"Someone trying to be a real man."
Five more paces, and she still has not moved. Leaves swirl at her feet. A squirrel streaks across the forest floor behind her. And with an outstretched arm, I touch the tip of her sword.
6.
I remember Isley's first thing he said to me after our fight:
"Masculinity is curse, isn't it?"
Waking up to his face, enshrined in dirty sunlight diluted by the trees – and then enduring the swelling of the injuries on every muscle on my body, the biting pressure on my neck where he had nearly dismembered my entire head, and the chronic stabbing pain (which exists till this day) in the abdomen which suffered the brunt of his finishing move – seemed more a nightmare, than recovery.
"If you move you'll reopen your wounds, so stay still."
The tassels of his coat, chopped to pieces, continued to hang from my shoulders, where he had draped over me. His gesture was the last thing I remembered after the defeat.
"You are like a mother," I had said hoarsely. "You're not a man."
"You believe so, Rigardo?"
I did: "A real warrior would have killed me. A real man would have let me die with honour out there."
"You shouldn't talk so much if you want to heal."
"You're not a real man," I had said.
Isley bent in, his locks pulled behind his ears. His words were supposedly philosophical:
"Which is why I won."
7.
The gesture is enough for her to make the first move. The sword retracts, then flings itself towards my fingertip. And all it takes is a second – the swipe hits air – and she is exposed and open –
Five paces become three. Still I know – I know she will counter. And she does, she deflects the fist aiming at her wrist with her elbow. Enough force ensues for her to bring the blade back at me. This time there is no escape – I palm the Claymore – and wrench it upwards. She struggles with the blade. And stumbles.
I catch her by the wrist to steady her.
"What are you doing?" she demands. She regains control of the blade, and bursts into a safe distance. Three paces become twenty once again.
She is flushed. She is beautiful.
"Stay away from me!" she warns.
"No."
"What?"
"It will be easier if you drop the sword and come to me. It will be over in a moment, I promise." And I feel expectation creep into every battery of muscle. But it is suppressed, for now.
"You're an awakened one, aren't you?"
Truth strikes at me relentlessly. But the façade of a man, a real man, needs to be maintained. And it is: truth privileges her with information only I can erase, here and now.
"Does it matter?"
"I'd rather die than –"
Death is, truly, overrated too. So all talk of death needs to be shushed. Twenty paces become ten, ten become five, five become two, and two become one –
My right hand steadies itself on her shoulder, where beneath the slab of armour, I can feel the blood and, tense and warm. My fingers rest at the exposed side of her neck.
My other hand snuggles into her blade-carrying hand: two different sets of palms, clasping one blade.
"Try not to move," I advise her.
When she screams, I smother it with a mouth: it has been a very long time since I have tasted flesh this fresh.
8.
"Why are you doing this?"
She has a lithe, lean body, hardly a curve, but as my hands explore her back, they roam over muscle, the tightness of raw flesh open to the cold.
(I have always believed in precautions, and judging from her feisty resistance, I decide then to make the necessary adjustments: the removal both legs from her body, at the knee, inhibiting potential regeneration).
As I claw at her in the still dry leaf-litter, a pool of pine-needles amassed in between the tree's roots. Beneath her tunic, her flesh is, unlike her arms and neck, pale, snowy, warm.
I check my own insidious energy, swallowing hard to prevent it from slipping into her presence. And as I burrow deep into her navel, both fingers and tongue find the landmark she carries: an endless maze of canyons slashed into flesh, a spider-like web of a thousand smaller tributaries. The outermost tip of my tongue follows the patterns, draining through these streams, and sensation flows through the back of my mouth, a river of once-dammed and unknown sense finally burning into prominence.
"Please prepare yourself," I say. "This might hurt."
She starts to weep. Her hands stamp to my shoulders, at which my response is:
"You shouldn't – it makes things overly dramatic."
A drainage path – led by my tongue – flows into her trembling mouth, and over her lips and into perfect contact with her shy tongue. It digs through saliva frothing at the base of her teeth. Drinking I taste – like a flood of spices and a rush of pain – the moist, blurred-blunt, dense swathe of milk.
She does not flinch as I try to shift my weight to make her comfortable, positing myself at where she would feel least pain. But she does not appreciate the gesture, and with her remaining limbs she attempts to scramble aside.
I feel something burn –a ferocious pulse from within my gut, like indigestion, but sharper – as I restrain her movement. With a palm I catch her by the throat, and exert force.
"This will be over in a minute," I reassure her.
She gags, her tongue flipping on her lips; at this moment, I apply flesh to flesh, and with an expectant tug on my torso the burning sensation within my crotch filters away into smoother, much more desirable friction. Friction so sharp and grating that soon my entire torso is splashed with crimson.
9.
The next time I see Isley, he is having another round of drinks, at the same table. The entire inn is deserted, probably because it is late, and the woods are full of unpleasant creatures at twilight. The master has left a wick, set in the centre of an oily puddle, burning. Approaching, I see Isley's coat is pulled open at the side to reveal a slice of his lean, exposed frame. He looks as how I had left him. But now Priscilla is with him.
"Had your fun?" he says, barely looking up from his repetitive, ridiculous ritual – an absentminded sips from the flagon, a halfhearted stroking of Priscilla's chin.
"She was weak."
"I hope you cleared everything. I hate it when you leave scraps for the crows. Or the yoma," he turns to be finally. "They're unpleasant creatures both."
"At least I still have it." And I cannot resist: "At least I 'm not screwing a kid."
When Isley sets down his flagon, I'm certain I can feel it – the smallest flare of yoki, the slightest switch into rage. But he hides it so excellently, so smoothly, that as he strokes her, Priscilla curls up to him, her fragile hands scouring through his cloak to find exposed skin, her head upturned to face him. Isley trails a finger across her collarbone, peeking out through the undone top of her cloak.
"At least she appreciates it," he says. And Priscilla strikes her tongue, all the way down to where Isley's crotch is patiently waiting for its application.
END