Talla's Fallen Temple Ch. 15

"You alright?" he asked.

Talla was crouching on her hands and knees, seemingly ready to spring into action. She looked around the darkened tent, her eyes wide.

A moment before, it had seemed as if the whole place were about to go down in flames. But that had passed and calm and quiet ensued. Not even a cricket could be heard.

She sat back on the corner of the blanket with her legs spread so her skirt did nothing to cover her, and eyed Zhair'lo from this position.

"Ow," she said, wincing suddenly.

"Huh?"

Her hands went to cover her genitals.

"Shouldn't have pulled off so quickly."

"Oh."

A pause.

"I don't suppose," she said, "that you have an explanation for why we ... exploded, I guess? Twice?"

Zhair'lo shook his head.

"It's just our thing," he replied. "We get together and there's pain."

He held out his hand, inviting her in. She slid forward to sit in his lap with legs around his back, trapping his dwindling erection between her skirt and the silken smoothness of her lips. Her arms went round his neck and she pulled him close so she could lay her head on his shoulder and inhale his scent.

"I've missed you," she said.

"Missed you, too."

They sat there, for a while, saying nothing. It was enough, for the moment, that they could quietly be together, their minds and bodies tangled up, as they had been the first time she'd come out to Serve him. That time they'd lain there for several bells, barely feeling the time pass. Such luxury wasn't available this night.

Come to think of it -- and they did think of it - such luxury might never be available again, unless they managed to tear down an entire society. There was a giant, sandstone triangle standing between them and the infinity of similar moments they should be able to share.

"What now?" he asked.

"We have a lot to talk about," Talla said. "Tell me about this V'shika girl you sent me."

"Very reliable," he reassured her instantly. "She hates the Temple like you wouldn't believe. I could feel it in her when I meshed with her -- the second time. No question of her honesty."

Talla's lips twisted.

"I don't know."

"What?"

Talla pulled away from him and looked up at the ceiling of tent, trying to put her thoughts into words.

"I only met her today, but I get a weird feeling from her. She's really unsteady."

"Yeah," Zhair'lo admitted. "Meshing with her was, I dunno, complicated. It's like the inside of her head is scrambled up with all these feelings."

"And yet you trust her?"

Zhair'lo nodded.

"Whatever's going on in there, she knows it's the Temple that hurt her and she can't wait to bring it down."

Talla tilted her head in acknowledgement.

"That's what I felt," she said. "When I meshed with you, I mean. I could feel how you felt about her."

They mulled that over in silence.

"She's right, though," Zhair'lo said.

"About what?"

"That we have no one from Sweetness."

Zhair'lo now had a catalogue of names and faces for every member on Talla's side of the conspiracy, as well as a pretty good idea of which facts were most important in her mind.

"True. She's gotta know stuff that'll help us."

Another long pause.

"So you know what I've been doing," Talla said. "Do you have any men on your side?"

This was a point of embarrassment. Talla knew the moment she asked, not just from the way his eyes avoided her but from the shame she felt over the link.

"Nothing here," Zhair'lo said. "Every Hunter I meet has been tested with that gods damned ritual they do -"

Talla smiled.

"You'd think it would have been fun," she chided. "Chasing after naked girls and fucking them."

"You know it wasn't."

"Yeah. Sorry."

"S'okay."

A darkness had come over his features. As she ran her hands through his dirty, brown hair, she watched as that gloom slowly faded away.

"Anyway. Every Hunter here has been through that ritual. You pass, you get a bow. You fail, you don't become a Hunter."

"But you passed."

Zhair'lo bit his lips and averted his eyes again.

"I don't know why," he replied. "Since I want to destroy the Temple, their test should have failed me. They wouldn't have let me have a bow if they were smart. But I also can't see how I could have failed the test. What part should I have failed?"

"Then the test must have a flaw."

"Right," he agreed. "But what?"

"Well, let's think. What were they testing?"

"How much I want to have sex with naked girls?"

Talla laughed.

"No. That would be a stupid thing to test. Maybe they were testing your stamina?"

Zhair'lo snorted.

"Yeah, I wonder if falling over unconscious would have been a failure."

Talla closed her eyes and tried to call up Zhair'lo's memories of that night.

"No, that's not it," she said, keeping her eyes closed. "When you got too tired, she would slow down for you."

"She did? Which one?"

"Hm. The first one, Rh'ris, was definitely playing with you."

Though her eyes were closed, Talla felt the need to squint her eyes to squeeze more of Zhair'lo's memories from her brain.

"Erin let you stall by talking to her."

More digging.

"I can't believe you remembered their names."

"I can't believe you pulled them out of my head."

Talla nodded, still squinting.

"En'tha," she said. "En'tha was odd."

"The one who ran naked the whole time?"

"Yeah."

"What was odd?"

"When she got undressed ... didn't she look scared to you?"

"You know she did."

Talla's eyes opened.

"You're glowing again."

"We both are."

She lifted her skirt up to peak underneath.

"Hard enough to get in?"

"Nine hells, yeah."

A couple of gentle strokes insured his rigidity and, with that out of the way, she lifted her hips up and slid his erection into herself.

...

'There!'

'Different this time,' he noted.

'A little less crazy.'

'Yeah.'

'Show me En'tha.'

Pushing aside his misgivings, he showed her En'tha the way he most fondly remembered her: standing there with her skirt around her ankles and her little white top still in place.

'Go on.'

Zhair'lo's erection twitched inside as the image of En'tha started to remove her top. Talla sensed the layers of emotion wrapped up in this mental sequence: his arousal; his hatred of that arousal; his sympathy for En'tha as another victim of the Temple's manipulation.

'She was scared of you, for a moment there.'

'I'd noticed that, but it was just this little flash.'

'Show me the rest.'

Even as Talla gyrated on his manhood, working him around and around, he showed her the chase that En'tha had led him on. Push-ups and sit-ups and running, always chasing the naked girl in front of him, always watching those pounding legs. He sped through his memories as quickly as he could.

The race ended and there was a jarring, unpleasant moment in that little room. Zhair'lo skipped over it, not wanting to relive that disappointment.

'No,' Talla told him. 'What was that?'

It had been the moment when En'tha had lain on her back and spread her lips apart. It was deeply carved in his mind, that image of her, wide open so he could see right into the moist tunnel where he desperately wanted to insert himself.

And she'd told him to stop.

So he'd stopped.

Zhair'lo was finding the whole recollection extremely unpleasant. Talla could feel that, but she'd also found what she'd been looking for.

'Come,' she pleaded. 'Fill me up again.'

He didn't wait and she, sensing his discomfort, didn't try to hold him back. The first pulse of his erection, jerking inside her, brought a sense of closure to what she'd put him through.

In its own way, this orgasm was more of a relief than the previous. The last had been pent up physical desire. This time, Zhair'lo was running away from a memory and was glad to put it behind him. He let his seed rushing into her with great haste, without the usual desire to hold it back until the last possible moment. Thrusting his pelvis, he buried himself as deeply inside her as he could and left himself there, helplessly twitching to its end.

More conveniently, the tent didn't explode this time. There was still a glare of blue light emanating from their bodies, shining on the insides of their eyelids so it was blinding them even with their eyes closed.

...

Having emptied out her man for the second time, Talla gingerly lifted herself off his erection.

Zhair'lo exhaled.

"I didn't realize how much I hated that test."

"But now we know what they were testing."

So wrapped up in his own emotions, he hadn't even realized what Talla had been doing inside the mesh. But the moment he turned his mind to the path she'd taken, he saw that her mind had gone through his memories with an efficiency that would be the envy of any arrow ever loosed from a bow.

"They meant to test my loyalty to the Temple."

"But they missed," Talla said with a smile.

He felt her sense of absolute glee, because she was right and they both knew it. The Temple's analysis was as flawed as Talla's was perfect.

"All they really tested was my ability to stop when told to," he said. "All they did was get me as aroused and frustrated as possible and then see if I would listen when a woman told me not to have sex with her."

"That's why you passed," Talla concluded. "They confused your respect for people with your obedience to the Temple."

"That's a pretty basic mistake to make, isn't it?"

Talla shrugged.

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?"

-----------===================-------------

"What in the nine hells is going on then?"

"I have no idea, Imminence," the Sorceress of Within replied patiently.

She mentally sized up her superior, who was valiantly attempting to stalk ferociously across her bedroom in spite of her pregnancy enforced waddle.

Was the woman's instability some result of a late life pregnancy? Within had been through two pregnancies of her own and didn't recall any such emotional trauma. That had been in her early twenties, naturally, and well before she'd approached any aspects of Perfection. Was that what this was?

"I wonder, Imminence," she spoke gently. "Do you have any knowledge of the other Goddesses who have born children?"

The woman in black sighed and plopped herself down on the edge of her bed.

"No, not really," she said. "It's not the sort of thing we want recorded. The genealogists keep track of parentage and such, guarding the information carefully. We don't want our allies to know who are born of Goddesses, lest they inadvertently spoil the ability to measure the success of the programme. And we don't want those who would be our opponents in this stratagem to know, either."

The Goddess stared off at the ceiling for a moment.

"What were you asking?"

"Records, Imminence," Within reminded her patiently. "Records of previous pregnancies of Goddesses."

"I'm getting a little absentminded, aren't I?" the Goddess replied, a touch of surprise in her voice. "No. We keep no such records. We keep as little as possible, you see? That was the point I was making. Yes."

There was a long pause while the woman in black attempted to gather her thoughts and the woman in green wondered what would be left of her superior's mind when this was all done.

"Just a month left now, Imminence," Within said. "I recommend bed rest. I will investigate and see if others felt the mesh we felt earlier."

"Yes, rest," the Goddess said, yawning extravagantly. "An excellent idea."

Within waved to the two younger women who were waiting, politely out of earshot, at the entrance of the large bedroom.

"Her Imminence wishes to retire for the night."

The two women, wearing the yellow attire of second Level Adepts, entered the room swiftly, their grace speaking of the Form upgrades which made them so valuable lately. It was a simple matter for them to strip off their clothing as they approached their leader to prepare her for bed. Within stepped out of the way, taking only a moment to confirm the presence of the thick, soft triangle of hair between each woman's legs. It was Pussy, through and through, if you were working this office these days.

With the Goddess nearing unconsciousness, the two attendants were quick to pull her black dress up over her head, scattering blue sparks from her lustrous, black hair over both the bed and their own naked bodies. Her breasts, growing heavy in preparation for the arrival of a child, were supported by a second garment. This, too, was unhooked, eliciting a sigh of relief from the Goddess as the golden mounds of flesh were released.

Within slipped quietly out of the room, knowing that her superior was well cared for. But still, she was concerned. A woman with so many upgrades should not find herself so weak, either mentally or physically, in the face of something so common as a pregnancy.

But that was the key word, wasn't it? Weakening? That couldn't be possible. This Goddess was simply not old enough for that yet.

-----------===================-------------

Talla was lying on her back, gloriously and comfortably naked from the waist up -- they still hadn't bothered to remove her skirt. Zhair'lo lay crosswise to her, his head in the crook of her shoulder and one of her ample breasts. Both she and he were glowing a pleasant blue colour, the intensity of which was greatest where their bodies touched.

"Kind of unreal, isn't it?"

"Huh?"

"The glowing," Talla said. "Madra Zen, what's that about?"

"Something about us, I guess," Zhair'lo said. "I don't get it with any other girl, except when I do upgrades."

"You glow when you do upgrades?"

"No, just them," he clarified. "They glow, sometimes, wherever I'm upgrading them. It's easy to see when it's breasts, or faces. Harder to notice for anything in Sweetness and it's so spread out for Iron and Tight, you can barely see anything."

"Did anyone else see it?"

"I don't think so," he said. "I just figured it was normal for all the double upgrades they're doing."

Talla twitched, causing Zhair'lo to lift his head.

"Yeah," she said. "About that. How are you feeling?"

"Fine," he assured her. "I mean, I'm angry at them a lot, but I don't feel like it's hurting me or anything."

"You do seem healthy."

He gently brushed his lips across her nearest nipple, which began to both glow and perk up in response. So he moved across her chest, planting gentle kisses on her flesh as he went, evoking a glowing blue line to show his path. Her farther nipple was already erect when he reached, to he took it in his mouth and suckled gently. Soon, her aureola was glowing around his lips.

Unable to contain her joy, she let a laugh escape her mouth.

"I am not ready for another round yet," she pleaded with a heavy exhalation.

Zhair'lo smiled and propped himself up on his elbows, admiring the effect of his ministrations. Without sex as an immediate goal, he decided to sit up and began using his fingers to draw upon her body. Everywhere he touched, she would glow. He drew long curves from her breasts, down her smooth stomach to her bare mound. More along the lengths of her thighs and calves.

She, for her part, rose up on her elbows and watched as he painted her.

'We might never have this again,' she thought at him.

'I know,' he replied.

"What will you do now?" she asked aloud.

He stopped painting as his expression went dour. The reaction was so quick that she immediately regretted posing the question. But, sad as it was that the moment had ended, she had already known it couldn't last forever.

"There's nothing I can do here," he said, a jerk of his head indicating the camp, the Hunt and everything to do with Hunters in general. "I've learnt all I can."

"You're the gods damned master of bow?"

Pulling that phrase from his memory elicited a smirk.

"Well, good enough anyway," he said. "Considering there's no place in our plan for either of us shooting anyone with a bow."

"You never know."

"Talla, think about it. We have to concentrate our resources where they're most likely to matter."

It was board game talk again, she realized, just like when she was conspiring with the girls.

Did the Temple think of that, when they taught us to play games? That the strategies we learnt from the games might work against the Temple? And did Zhair'lo realize that the same argument had been used against the idea of involving men at all?

Talla revealed that conversation to him: the argument that men, outside the wall, would be useless for what was to come.

Zhair'lo was chagrined.

"They're kinda right," he admitted. "Here I'm no good. But I know a place where I can do something useful."

"Where?" she asked.

She was already dreading the answer, having blocked away any thought of it.

"With the Fighters."

"No," she insisted, flatly.

"Why not?"

"I don't want you going out there," she said. "It's too dangerous. I could lose you entirely to ... to whatever it is they're fighting out there."

Zhair'lo's back was up now, indignation lending him courage.

"You said yourself this was going to be dangerous," he argued. "You risk your life coming to see me. Why can't I -?"

"I'm risking my ass coming to see you, not my life," Talla insisted. "They might whip me again. They won't kill me. They won't maim me."

Zhair'lo sighed, almost a gesture of surrender.

"Look, Talla," he said. "I'm useless here. But if I get out there -- if I find out who it is that they're fighting, maybe I can find allies. Maybe I can find people who know something about the Temple and how to bring it down."

Talla laid her head back on the blanket and let out a sigh of her own.

"Besides," he added, throwing playful petulance into his voice. "You can't actually stop me."

She rubbed the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath before propping herself up on her elbows again.

"You're right," she said. "I shouldn't be telling you what to do."

Tension evaporated.

"I'll do my best not to get killed," he promised. "And you do yours not to get caught. Even if they don't whip you, they might send us both off to different cities."

"Like they did with Kenji?"

Zhair'lo nodded, confirming the transferred memory.

Sitting cross-legged beside her hips, from where he'd been colouring her body, his erection was within easy range of her hand. She reached over to cup his testicles and slowly draw her fingertips up his lengthening shaft.

"You're glowing, too," she noted.

He slid his body down on the blanket, keeping his erection in range of her hands while moving his head moved toward her breasts. Their bodies had gone without touching each other for so long that her skin had almost completely darkened. He suckled gently at first one nipple and then the other, watching as they brightened into tiny, blue torches in the otherwise unlit tent.

The mesh approached -- the real, sexual kind, not the general telepathic one they had going at normal times. Thoughts were starting to blend together, melting in a giant cauldron over a roaring fire.

Talla's mind became chaotic and suddenly difficult for Zhair'lo to read. Her hand paused in its stroking.

"What's wrong?" he asked, looking up from his work on her breasts.

The glow of her body waned and surged. She was holding something in -- he was sure of it.

"Talk to me, Talla."

She inhaled.

"There's something we need to do," she said, looking around frantically. "There's nothing in here that'll work though, and we can't go outside."

"Outside?"

Her mind was so full of dark, frightening fragments and jagged edges that he couldn't make any sense of it.

"We're glowing, right?" she said. "Too dangerous outside."

It seemed to him that she was hyperventilating. He watched her chest rise and fall with worrisome rapidness.

"We're a good distance from the other clearing," he said, keeping his voice tentative. "Why do you want to go outside?"