A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 05

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TaLtos6
TaLtos6
1,932 Followers

"And if I wasn't there?" she asked, "What then?"

"Then, I'd seek out the new direction and leave it at that. I was a little concerned whenever it happened, but it was all that I could do. I know that you are a very cautious and private person. You keep to yourself. I don't know why, but I think that it is so that you can remain largely unknown."

He felt her arm around him and she kissed him for several minutes, her tongue just grazing his lips for an instant now and then.

"What was that for?" he asked, a little shocked.

"I think that you're very considerate," she said, "and also, it's the generating interest thing again."

"Ah," he nodded with a little grin which made her want to do it all over again.

"I don't know much about you beyond that," he said, "but I've wanted to."

"I won't tell you more of me, unless you ask me really nicely," she whispered, "Besides, that would cost you a lot of kisses to find out only a little very uninteresting stuff, mostly. I can't see much return value for the kisses."

He guessed that this was the extent that she felt comfortable about giving him for now, and he didn't want to press for more. "What'll we do now?" he asked, "If there's nothing more to trade for?"

"Who said there's nothing more?" she looked at him seriously, "There's lots. Dahlgren, there's plenty. We could do this the other way around now. I could ask you now, if you want to keep playing."

He felt a little nervous about it, but he nodded.

"First off," she smiled, "I'd like you to know that I'm enjoying our game so much. It's made me more comfortable like this here with you. I think that I'd like to know a bit about you, like why you do the things that you do. What is it all for? All that I've heard is that you're some sort of priest or something." She reached over and moved some of his hair out of his eyes.

"Sorry," she grinned a little self-consciously, "I just wanted to do that. I so love your eyes. So tell me about what you do."

"Aren't you going to let me set my price?" he asked a little seriously.

Selena laughed a little. "Sorry. I guess it's just the rogue in me, trying to get something for nothing. Maybe it's not the best plan right here. How much, then?"

"Five kisses," he smiled.

"Five? Isn't that a bit steep?" she asked.

"I'm only going by what you charged me," he said.

"Yeah but,"

"Seven," he smiled.

"Hey, ..."

"Ten, then," he grinned that little grin watching with delight as Selena's mouth dropped open, "Twenty's not far off."

She was all over him, and after the fifth kiss, she didn't hold back her tongue anymore. They sighed and he groaned as she pushed him onto his back. It almost brought the tent down, but Selena didn't care. She hadn't had this kind of fun, well, ...

She pushed the thought away and kissed him even more, not being able to help herself, and almost not wanting to. When she was done, she smiled down at him as they looked at each other a little breathlessly.

"That was twelve kisses," he said.

Selena was a little astounded. He could keep the count through that?

"I'm a heavy tipper," she said.

"You almost brought the tent down on us," he said looking to make sure that it would stay up, not that he could see very far in the darkness. He dropped his head back down and put his arms around her again and he loved the way that she wriggled a little out of happiness.

"It's a cost of doing business," she said, "Now tell me."

"I've forgotten the question," he shrugged.

"Liar, "she grinned, "You know how many kisses I gave, and you can't remember the question?"

"Well, I was pretty certain that it was twelve," he smiled.

He felt her fingers as they worked their way under the edge of his singlet. She couldn't help running them over his chest once. "Tell me why you do what you do, or I'll see whether you're ticklish. She was almost a little disappointed when he began to speak.

"It's an old faith," he said, "and not known by many people. I'd say that almost all don't even know anything about it. It relates to a different plane than this one. For reasons which aren't all that clear to me, I was chosen to act here. I have a home which was hidden long ago, and I was told to go there to begin. I found it clean and not fallen down, so I just live there. Mostly, I do what I want. Sometimes, I hear of someone who needs killing. Sometimes, I am approached by others. I look at everything as it relates to the balance of things, and then I may act -- or I may not. I try to help with the orphanage at the old temple. It's not the same faith, but they accept my help, and I'm glad to give it. Is that enough for now?"

"Well for now, yes," Selena smiled, "I sense that there's more, but I have no wish to pry yet," she smirked, "I have another question."

"Seven kisses," he smiled, "I learned about selling kisses from you."

She groaned for a moment, but then she brightened as her hands ran over him lightly. "I have a request," she said.

"Do you need a quote for a price?" he smiled, "Or is this the question?"

"No," she said, "This is more like me making a decision and asking you for a little help with it. We seem to like this between us. I'd like you to understand the way that I might feel here with you like I am. I'm quite obviously attracted to you and I can tell that you feel the same way toward me -- if you've got the kind of brain that I know you do. I guess that I'm asking you to use it a little now.

I like this," she smiled, moving her hands, "I like it a lot, and I love our game, but Dahlgren, I don't want to give away the whole store, not like this, as nice as it is, and not here, at the very least. So what I want to say to you is that, if you'll let me decide what we do, then I want to show you my thanks for what you've done for me today."

He nodded, and he felt her hands moving to undo the closure on his pants. He hissed when he felt her fingers, a little cold, but warming quickly, as they wrapped themselves around his hardening shaft.

"Are you sure that you want this?" he asked, looking into her blue eyes, and feeling a little lost.

"Uh-huh," she sighed as she moved forward to kiss him. But after only a moment of it, she pulled him over with her onto their sides. Switching hands, she pulled as much of the bedroll over them as she could. "Give me your hand," she whispered.

With his hand in hers, she undid her own pants, "Try not to make me jump in the air from your cold fingers," she smiled, "I think I'm losing my mind, and if not, then I'm at least losing my shyness with you." She kissed him with a smile, "And I like that."

He was careful and slow so that his fingers wouldn't cause her heart to stop, but in a little while, they both smiled at each other. "I like this so much," she sighed.

He nodded, and kissed her again.

"I'm getting a little tired," she said after a while, "but I have an idea if you're willing to talk to the back of my head."

He thought that the way that he felt, he'd be happy to talk to her ass, but he only smiled and nodded.

Selena rolled over away from him carefully and pulled her pants down as far as she could in the confined space before she pushed back against him. "Put it between my legs, Dahl," she said quietly as she did her best to give him the space for it.

A few seconds later, she sighed, "This is better than I thought," she smiled over her shoulder at him as she reached to hold him against herself down there and keep him where it did her some good - which surprised her,since it was doing her a whole lot of good considering he was only against her.

"Will it be alright for you?"

"Yes," he sighed pressing against her. They moved like that for a while.

"What do you wish when I finish?" he asked.

"You're not there yet, are you?" she asked, a little concerned that this would end soon. It was only a little fooling around, but it was about the best that she was willing and able to do for him here.

"No, not yet," he said, "I only wished to know."

"You just let it go, Dahl," she whispered, "There's nothing else to do that I can think of. I like you. I'm happy to have you here with me. I can't believe my luck, to tell you the truth, so I won't mind. This is warming us up, and I really like the way that it feels. It'll be dry by morning, and if we leave early, I can be home and washed up by dinner. You just let it go when you finish."

His head was over hers and he kissed her ear, "Thank you, Selena," he whispered with a bit of effort.

"There will be a next time, won't there, Dahl?" she asked.

"Yes," he decided, "I'd really like for there to be."

"Then kiss me, Dahlgren Runei," she smiled, "if you can reach far enough to give me one of your fine kisses. Besides me, it's a very small group of people who know my true name, you know. Would you like to know how many there are? I kiss them all, especially when I'm in the mood for it. As I am now."

He didn't even need much of his ability to get it. He just didn't know how to say it to her. He was shocked. "How many?" he asked, "How many are blessed to know you well enough to get your soft kisses?"

She smiled, liking his answer, "There's only one, but I sure like him a lot," she sighed, "and I really hope that he likes me enough to want to do this with me fairly often." She pushed back against him and he groaned, reaching for her hip.

"Harder," she hissed to him, "Harder and faster now, Dahl. I need you so much."

He began to put a lot into it, letting go of her hip after a long caress over her haunch to reach for her breast -- the one that he could get to easily, at any rate. Selena groaned loudly when he pinched her nipple and she threw herself against him feverishly. He knew it when she came, and her soft cry threw him over his own edge so that he held her tightly as he groaned.

After a few minutes of silence, Selena looked back at him and kissed his face, "There. That wasn't so bad, was it?" she chuckled.

He smiled, "I think that you are telling yourself that, aren't you?"

Selena nodded, "I guess I am. I'd never have done this if we weren't like this here. I'd probably have needed a month or more of being with you first, and I think that you'd only need about five, wouldn't you?"

He nodded, "Yes, I guess it was the closeness. Thank you, I'm a little overwhelmed, but I'm happy."

"I am too," she grinned, "And you're very welcome. Um, you don't need this part of you back right away, do you? I'm getting a little fond of having it here."

"Well at some point, I'll need it," he smiled, "I'll have to go out to that pillar sometime."

"Why don't you just leave it here and go pee like I do? I'll take care of it, I promise."

She frowned after a moment, "It's leaving anyway. Alright, I'll let it go for now, but I won't mind so much if you promise me that we can do that again sometime."

"You have my word," he said, "and --"

"I know," she giggled, "I wouldn't dream of questioning your word." She moved a little and then she pressed up against him again, "Please hold me, Dahl. Put your arm around me and hold me, and I promise to shut up and go to sleep like a good girl. You ought to be pleased. It doesn't happen often."

He reached to hold her, but she pulled his hand to where she wanted it before covering them again. Then she took his hand and placed it on her breast, wishing him a good night.

----------------------

It was the cold air, she decided. That must have been why she'd awoken. Selena looked out at the fire, and she could see that while there was still a little life left to it, it wasn't going to warm her much, not unless she either sat on it or got up to add wood and tend to it as it got going again. The dawn was coming, she thought, and she found a hope inside her that it would be as full of nice things to her as the day before.

That had been something, she thought. To have seen him again would have been enough, and it was, other than the uncertainty over her stealing his horse. But after, well, she was just thrilled. She reached behind herself, feeling that he wasn't there against her. She almost just scooted herself back to be against him again, but for her sudden desire to look at him.

She wondered if now, after what had passed between them in the night, whether he'd still have that effect on her. She hoped that he did, they way that he could take her breath from only looking at him for the first time in a day.

When Selena rolled over onto her back to look over at him, her heart froze and her breath was gone.

He was there, all right, but there was something different about him. He was on his back, looking like she knew him to look -- for the most part. But every so often, about every five or ten seconds, she could see something else.

The skin of that something was a dirt shade of dark tan, though his hair was the same. His ears were longer than even an elf's, and that was just the start of it, that and the horns. He'd looked muscular before. Now he looked all that and more. The shoulders were larger and she knew that he didn't need much in the way of armor to protect himself from humans. His armor was built right in, his skin looking as though it was stretched over bony plates. They had a good shape to them; she'd have even liked it, but for one thing in her past.

She sat up slowly, ignoring the cold of the morning as she stared in the dim light there in the tent and waited for the next change. She looked at his legs and saw that they were heavily-muscled as well. With a start, she realized that he was dressed. The boots were fur-lined. Looking back again, she saw that he had clothes on -- it hadn't been him that she'd seen. The color of his armor was exactly like that of his skin. The ends of his sleeves were fur-lined as well.

Something moved, and she almost jumped straight up, but she fought off the impulse. She stared and waited. There was nothing there between his legs while he looked like the man that she'd gotten to know last night, but the next change, ...

That was when she saw his tail, moving a little in restless sleep.

Selena sat back, wondering what to do.

The very first thing, she decided, was to get one of her blades in her hand.

----------------------

He woke up feeling a little coldness. It was all over him and he guessed that he must have kicked the covers off himself in the night. A hell of a place to do that, he decided. His eyes were still closed and he was beginning to get that message that he had a full bladder. It came to him that he might have a little difficulty getting out of the tent to attend to that without waking Selena.

Then he thought of Selena and if he'd kicked the covers off, then she must already be half-frozen. He wasn't about to let that happen. He had to get up to make sure that she was warm. He opened his eyes.

He saw that he was alone, and thinking that she'd gone to attend to the same need that he felt, he waited, looking around. It didn't take him long to see the changes. The snowfall had ended, and what had fallen overnight lay like a thick blanket over everything. It allowed him to see that she'd been up for a time. Things were disturbed, but then he saw that they weren't so much disturbed as they were missing. He searched for her inside himself, and he knew then that she'd gone.

Looking around, he saw that she'd taken almost everything. He looked back into the tent and knew why he'd woken up feeling cold. Somehow, she'd taken her bedroll as well. Searching a little in the snow, he found his sword. Either she'd forgotten about it, or she hadn't wanted to take such a heavy thing along. He walked to where the horses were.

They weren't there. Neither was the small tarpaulin.

She'd stolen his horse again.

He walked to where he could see over the other side of the valley. He could see her riding her horse, pulling his along, and going at a fast canter over the windblown hard ground there.

He walked away from the peak back to his tent, wanting to know why, or what he'd done.

Had she been leading him along all of this time? What for? It didn't make any sort of sense to him at all. Had she changed her mind from what she'd said the night before? She must have, to have left like this.

He turned and rolled up his bedroll, tying it tightly. The tent was next, and then he lashed them together. He wiped his sword off on his cloak before putting it back in its scabbard.

Then it hit him. He must have lost the conscious control that he had over his appearance in his sleep. If she'd seen him as he really was, well, that would be enough for most people, he thought. He guessed that it spoke of her skill as a thief to have been able to leave like she did.

He hung his head, hating what he was for a moment.

----------------------

Selena looked over her shoulder just as she was leaving the valley. She'd gotten this far, though she really didn't know why. She thought that as soon as he woke up and put it all together, then he'd come after her at that strange clip that he could manage -- just moving from one spot to another across the landscape as he walked. She didn't think that he could cover ground any quicker than she could on a horse if she kept on at a good walking pace.

At least she hoped not.

At least she had some sort of explanation for this ability of his, and maybe the rest of them as well. The noises that he'd made about his faith being from another plane made sense to her as well, suddenly.

Devilspawn, she thought.

She thought back to the little valley where she'd been born. She was the only one left who still lived there. The rest, her father, her brother, they were buried on the hillside overlooking the little house. Her mother was there too, though it had taken a few years before what the demons had done to her had claimed her. Selena had been away, living in a much larger town, sent to school. On her return, she'd found her mother alone and waiting for her return from the school at the beginning of summer. But her mother was dying by then and there was a fine horse in the stable.

Her mother was half-mad, but in her more lucid moments, she'd told her daughter some of what had happened. There seemed to be times when the woman struggled with something which she seemed very much to want to say, but never could. Having a sense of what lay ahead for her, she'd taken all of the gold and possessions that they'd had and bought her daughter the horse that she now rode, so that she might leave and find a better life for herself. A day later, Selena was alone in the world.

Selena wiped the tear from her eye and gritted her teeth. It had never happened, this better life.

Her mother died before her eyes, and she'd buried her. Taking what she could that likely didn't have the demon taint on it, she left. But the better life never happened for her. She'd been forced to sell herself a little in that same much larger town, and then she fell in with a bunch of thieves, learning all that she could. But she'd used some of her take to buy herself a few decent clothes and with them, and a little more money, she paid someone to teach her how to use any blade that she could get into her hand. She excelled at everything.

When the thieves'-ring was broken up, Selena wasn't within a hundred miles, having left before the real onset of winter. She'd known that it was coming. They were living too high and carefree on stolen goods. Anyone could see that if they had a brain. You do this sort of thing for a living, the only way to stay alive was to live your live down low, as simply and as quietly as possible. Anything else was just asking for it. She'd ridden all the way back home and lived there alone. Whenever she was working, she wasn't anywhere near. Nobody knew about her line of work.

She wiped another tear from her face, telling herself that it was just the cold wind in her eyes. Look what had almost happened. Just once, she'd allowed herself to have a thought that there might be someone for her, for Selena the thief, and look at what had happened.

TaLtos6
TaLtos6
1,932 Followers