The Thunderborn's Destiny

"No wonder he was such a terrible lay," Vespire spat, spittle raining on the eladrin's corpse. "Boy-loving, limp-dick elves."

*****

The Moongate was open for them when they approached as the sun rose. There was a man in yellow robes with red detailing singing praises to Amaunator who paused in his worship to greet the travelers, but they walked on by, returning his greeting with smiles and slight bows of their heads. The Knights-in-Silver hailed them, warned them that drawing steel was an offense that would land them in the prison, and sent them on their way.

Lark seemed to know the way to the Dancing Rose. Seeing no other option, especially with their prospects looking particularly dim. So to the festhall they went, meandering through the Gem of the North, wondering at the wholly unique architecture that seemed to flow with its creator's whim. It was certainly a unique place, filled with artistic freedom and utter acceptance. Even the minotaur, Gungir, a man-beast that would normally earn only wary glances from dark alleys in a place like Waterdeep or, certainly, Luskan, was hailed and welcomed so much that the normally stoic and quiet minotaur grinned and spoke with his deep, intelligent voice.

"Gungir, I've been meaning to ask," Lark asked as their march slowed to a meandering walk to take in the scenery. "Our first impression of you was all brawn and small brain. No offense. Your ilk doesn't usually lend itself to conversationalists."

"My kin are a myriad lot," he said, putting a large hand on Lark's mailed shoulder. "No offense taken. It takes a certain will to conquer the beast that lives within us all. I have done that, though I have caused much bloodshed in my younger years. But through meditation and mental exercises, I have silenced the beast and sharpened my reflexes."

"Impressive," Hammer said. The minotaur looked at him questioningly. "My kin are of the Tribe of the Thunderbeast," he explained. "We learn to harness the rage within us, to be one with the spirit of the Thunderbeast and those of our ancestors. Our rage is primal in nature, our way of life very much wild and out of our own control. Therefore many of us, myself included, find value in the ability to control one's self in the midst of rage. To not lose yourself so completely that you become a threat to yourself and your allies."

"It seems we are not so dissimilar," the minotaur said. "That doesn't mean we have to like each other."

"Indeed," Hammer said, smirking at Lark. "But I see little reason we shouldn't."

The minotaur glared down at him, black pits for eyes boring into him. Then, he smiled, and said, "Nor do I, human. Nor do I."

"That is well," Vespire said. "I feared I'd have to draw steel and separate you two. Then we'd all be in prison."

"What will you do now that your quest is ended?" Lark asked after several moments more of meandering about.

Vespire looked past the two massive males between them and arched a silver brow. She'd reverted back to her windsoul manifestation after combat with Allander the Warsoul. She explained that she didn't often manifest her firesoul for personal reasons. Apparently it took her back to a dark place in her past, but a place she needed when survival was paramount. None had questioned her further. "I know not. Perhaps I will strike out and try to find adventure or wealth in the service of some noble House or another. But not until after I sample the tawdry blessings of Sune."

Lark grinned conspiratorially. "My dear, you could have enjoyed those the moment I walked into your camp," she muttered quietly to herself. Loud enough, though, for Hammer and Gungir to glance at her, and catch her mischievous wink.

"And you, Gungir?" Hammer asked.

"My people are clan-oriented," he said. "Perhaps I will find a clan of sorts I can belong to in this world."

"I'm sure the Knights-in-Silver would welcome your prowess," Vespire said. "Or, perhaps, the heartwarders of Sune can teach you a thing or two in satisfying a maiden's hungers."

"Indeed we can," she murmured as her hand gripped his thick forearm. The minotaur didn't look down at her, but he did growl deep in his throat, a sound of approval.

"Ah, this must be it," Vespire said, breaking Lark's moment with Gungir. The priestess stepped ahead, but Hammer knew instinctively the genasi was right. There were two large double doors, both with a large rose emblazoned on the door panel with a nude—though craftily concealed—woman of alabaster skin hanging from the rose's stem, as if dancing around it. Her hair was painted as red as the rose's petals. The opposite door had the same image, though in reverse.

But the eyes on that woman, even inanimate, seemed to bore into Hammer. He recalled the dream in which he was shown a drow, the Red Knight, and a pale-skinned woman with ruby hair. This was that woman, he realized. Sune's hand had been in this from the beginning, from parting him with his dear lover Vyathan to this very moment. Lost in his ruminations, he didn't perceive the four of them approaching the doors and pulling them open.

Suddenly he was inside the Festhall. Music thrummed in the hazy common room, incense burned in the censers along the walls. Gauzy silks of varying hues of red, white, silver and gold hung from the ceiling, effectively partitioning off tables and booths along the wall into private areas, while leaving the center of the room wide open and on full display. The barbarian felt his blood surging when he looked around at scantily clad men and women, all of them perfumed and decorated, whether they appeared to be employees or patrons. Suddenly, he felt out of place. Their road-scent was overt, cutting through the subtle and insistent incense.

A red-skinned, horned woman approached them, wearing tight, revealing leathers: thigh high boots with severe, sharp heels, a low-cut bodice that revealed much of her tight midriff, and a skirt that hugged lean, muscular thighs. Her platinum hair was shoulder length and straight, and Hammer thought he caught a prehensile, spaded tail curling up to flick some locks of hair about behind her slender neck.

"Who're you?" she hissed in a sultry, powerfully erotic voice.

"I am Lark, Heartwarder of Sune. I and my companions hail form variety of places, myself from Grunwald to the west. Hammer, here, is a barbarian of the Uthgardt tribes, also from the west. Vespire is the genasi beauty you see here, she hails from Airspur, far to the east, and Gungir, the minotaur, is from the Feywild. More than that, I cannot tell you. I'd hoped to meet with Miria. She is the matron of this festhall still, yes?"

"She is," Cyra said flatly, staring hard at Lark, then at her holy symbol. She tossed her hair, her horns catching the light in a way that drew attention. Hammer realized they were studded with some silvery metal. He realized that was very attractive. But the tiefling looked up at the minotaur. "Your horn is twisted."

The minotaur stared at her in surprise for a moment, then let out a boisterous laugh. He looked at Vespire. "I told you so."

Vespire rolled her eyes. She asserted herself to the tiefling. "We came hoping to enjoy the comforts of Sune," she remarked, a bit sarcastically, which made the tiefling smirk. "Will we experience such a thing, or should we look elsewhere?"

"But of course," the tiefling said after staring down the genasi. "But come with me. We must bathe you before you are allowed to mingle with our patrons.

The tiefling turned quickly, and the four companions followed with haste. Hammer caught himself watching the round, shapely, muscular bottom the tiefling sported as she walked, amplified by her tall heels. Yes, this must be where his vision had demanded he go. At least for a time. They followed until the tiefling turned toward an iron door that led down into a dark, stone stairway.

"Go," she said, pointing down. "The baths are down there. They are heated by conjured fire elementals."

Hammer led the way down the stairs, and felt the steam wafting up from the subterranean baths.

"This should be pleasant," Lark murmured. Hammer nodded, but Vespire was the more vocal.

"Pleasant? All fucking hells, woman, we've been days without a bath. This will be bloody blissful!"

A full-bodied maiden awaited them at the bottom of the stairs, smiling warmly. She had flowing tattoos around her breasts, her navel, and her throat, as well as long, flowing lines down one arm. Hammer noted them, and smiled appreciatively. "Welcome to the baths," she said in a surprisingly high-pitched voice. Her breasts were full and heavy, sagging just slightly in her apparent youth. She wore only a scarlet sarong that draped down to her knees. Her broad, child-bearing hips held the sarong easily. Contrasted to the tiefling, she was much more soft. "There are single bathing rooms that pump steaming water from overhead, or you may use the heated pool."

"I prefer my bathing in private," Lark said, taking a towl from a stack next to the woman. The rest shrugged in acceptance and took their own towels. The woman pointed them toward the wide stalls with dense curtains to keep the water and heat in, and prying eyes out.

*****

Miria leaned back in her ornate, plush chair, a golden-haired beauty nestling her face between her thighs and lapping away. The knock on her door was not unexpected; she knew that Cyra, her tiefling enforcer of sorts, had greeted a handful of filthy travelers, one of which claiming to be a heartwarder. Regardless, the nubile girl between her thighs had distracted her sufficiently that when the knock came at her door and brusque, often-coarse tiefling marched in, she was a bit startled.

She seized a leather-wrapped rod with some heavy leather tassels at the end and rapped the girl thrice on the rear, leaving thin red streaks on her fair flesh. The girl quickly backed out of the crevasse of her thighs and wiped her mouth, smiling as she readjusted her flimsy gown and went back to the common room of the Dancing Rose.

"A good girl," Miria said in a husky voice at Cyra's questioning expression. She drew herself up to her full height, which was to say a hand or so over five feet, and shorter than the tiefling. "Come, Cyra, kiss me."

The tiefling did so, moving quickly and taking the black-haired woman's lips in her own. The kiss was searing, as everything was with the tiefling. Her infernal heritage, whether she embraced it or not, had always piqued Miria's curiosity. She'd never known tieflings to be so blasted hot to the touch. It was as if fire burned in the woman more than any other tiefling alive. That alone was a curiosity. The way she growled, the almost cinnamon taste to her mouth and loins...it was all so damned confusing. More than that, it was damned arousing!

"The travelers are in the bathing rooms," Cyra said in her low, sultry voice. Her golden eyes were fiercely focused, the small black pupils seeming almost too tall for their width. "The woman, Lark, is definitely a heartwarder. Sune's presence rides with her...and with the human barbarian that travels with him. I used the gem you gave me to be sure. It's as if she walks with him."

"Very curious," Miria said. "Offer him a job."

"What job?" Cyra asked.

"Your job." The tiefling glared at Miria, then smiled. "Yes, Cyra. For you, sole leadership over the pleasure-lasses and lads. I know you've yearned for that."

The tiefling gave the elf a searing kiss, and as her lips and teeth moved along the elf's jawline and down to her throat, the taller and stronger woman pushing Miria back against her own desk, Miria opened her thighs and took Cyra's actions as acceptance.

Vigorous acceptance.

*****

The first time the steaming water fell down from the tarnished metal shower head fastened into the wall and hit Hammer's skin, he felt as if his entire body shuddered with relief and relaxation. As a barbarian, the only type of bathing they enjoyed were from the cold waterfalls found in nature. This warm, steaming water was a new experience for him, and Hammer found that he loved it. The tall, massive barbarian stood under the water, face up into the spray, and let it flow over his chiseled, lightly-haired physique, flow through his tangled mane of dark hair until it straightened of its own accord, and cleaned his stubble beard.

The soft, feminine hands that wrapped around him from behind were wholly unexpected, though. He kept his eyes closed, expecting Lark's teasing attentions, but the thin, slight build that pressed against him from behind was certainly not the auburn-haired woman. He looked down at slender hands, icy blue, and the silvery lines of energy arcing elegantly around her wrists. The genasi planted her relatively cool lips against his thick, muscular back, tracing the lines his muscles made under his skin. The barbarian reached back, his hands grasping her hips and pulling her closer.

Lean and athletic, the genasi's athletic, svelte frame molded against his, her stomach against his bottom, her hands snaking up and down his abdomen to his barrel chest and the short nest of stubble wreathing his impressive manhood. Her lips and teeth nipped and kissed his wet skin, and her small breasts pressed against his back, the nipples atop them tightening into pebbles with the stimulation.

He groaned with pleasure, turning around in her embrace and lifting her up bodily. The genasi's legs instinctively wrapped around his hips as he hefted her up. His muscular arms hooked under her knees, hands gripping her small, round bottom firmly. Hammer used the smooth tiled wall to help support her body weight, though it was as a feather in his strong arms.

When their lips met for the first time, a thrill ran from Hammer's throat down to his groin, where he felt the blood pumping into his organ. Vespire's loins were pressed against his root, and the heated moistness of her cunny added to the flow of circulation. Their tongues clashed in a needful, hungry kiss, each devouring the other in a hungry oral sparring.

Instinctively, Hammer began to push against the genasi, crushing her into the wall with his thrusts and causing her to gasp at the rough handling. Her hands had been gripping his shoulders and the back of his neck since he lifted her, but now, as she became confident in his embrace, she reached down, between them and past her molten loins, to the growing cock hanging and swaying from his groin. It was already thick in her hand such that she could not wrap her fingers completely around it.

"Fuck, barbarian," she spat, her face moving to maul his neck and throat, then bite down on his ear. "You're thicker than a minotaur."

"You would know," he rumbled. His voice was as thunder, and the genasi's ensuing laughter was light as snowfall. Hammer grinned as he also began nibbling on the woman's flesh, her shoulder and collar bone. His strong hands gripping the genasi's butt, he let her do all the maneuvering as his cock rose to its full size. She stopped his thrusting with a hand on his chest, and they both looked down at the absolute size difference between the two of them.

Hammer's cock was fully erect, the veins thick with blood, and her thighs, while muscular in their own way, were only half again as thick around as his manhood. He truly dwarfed the genasi with his bulk. The visual was as arousing as it was stark in contrast. The bulging head of his cock was as broad as her swollen, weeping vulva, and as she split her lips with his head to slide it up and down her slit, he wondered if he would even fit.

Then he remembered the way she mastered the minotaur a day and more ago. Magic flowed from her palm as she muttered whispered words. He could feel it take effect in her loins from his contact with her, and without another breath of preparation, she slid her cunny down his length, slowly, letting her magically elasticized cunny conform to the absolute size of his turgid cock.

Hammer groaned a rumbling, thunderous groan in his throat, and Vespire gasped for air as the breath was taken by her. Even with the magic, he noticed, her body was struggling, and pain was melding with pleasure even as he watched her. She slid very slowly, taking in each inch with great care. When she was halfway down his length, he looked down, saw her pussy distended around his member, and a trickle of blood dribble down his shaft. They both looked up at each other simultaneously, and Vespire wore a crooked, molten grin, one that told Hammer all he needed to know.

He thrust in powerfully, hilting himself in her stretched cunny, evoking a loud cry of pain that ascended to a sultry moan of absolute pleasure when she realized his entire cock was buried in her loins.

*****

Gungir was at home in the underworld environs of most any plane of existence. Not that he'd ventured into most of them, but the minotaur kind were as at home in a labyrinth as an elf was in a tree. The soft, large rectangle of cloth he'd been given was unusual, but he shrugged his spear and shield off his shoulder and removed his hide armor with an unusual eagerness to be cleansed by these waters. His gear set aside, he removed his kilt, letting his dark brown member hang free from its sheath at his groin. He sighed deeply at the relaxing sensation of the humid air caressing his sensitive flesh. Despite his bulk and brawn, he was indeed a creature of comfort.

Sure, Gungir could thirve as any of his kin could in the unforgiving wilderness, but a side of him he rarely exposed was very much desirous of comfortable living. He thrust open the curtain blocking his shower stall aside, then stopped in his tracks, a sudden urging sensation blossoming in his cock.

Standing there leaning against the wall, the hot water steaming over her naked body, was the priestess lark. Gungir drank in her figure quickly, though still savoring every little inch of her body. Her lightly tanned skin glistened, her auburn hair soaked and matted to her flesh, draped over her full, round breasts to conceal her no doubt stiff nipples, but not blocking his vision of the underside of her breasts.

There was a ruddy tuft of hair, matching her auburn locks, forming a triangle between her lush, crossed thighs, but what grasped his attention and refused to relent were her intense emerald eyes. The minotaur snorted, an expression of eagerness and hunger, not of derision, and took two tentative steps forward. The seven foot behemoth didn't need that many steps to be up against the woman, so he measured his stride so that he stood only a foot away from the woman. Her breathing was shallow and quick, her hands planted firmly against the tiled wall.

With one hand on his cock, slowly stroking himself, he reached out to brush her hair away from her breasts, revealing the stiff peaks of her nipples, and the tightened areola. They pointed slightly up, which pleased him. His cock grew with quick vigor, thickening and lengthening to an intimidating size, and he heard Lark mutter something, probably a spell, but perhaps some sort of oath at the sight of his third horn.

Gungir reached forward, to push her legs apart, but Lark put a hand on his wrist, the strength of her grip surprising him.

"No," she said in a low voice laden with divine power. "It is my duty, as a Heartwarder, to teach you how to properly please a woman. It is more than your base desires, my beast. It is an exchange of pleasure. Giving and taking in equal measure. Do you wish to learn the art of lovemaking?"

Gungir stared at her, impatience smoldering in his eyes, but it quickly dimmed down and he grinned at her. "With pleasure," he said, using his free hand, away from his cock, to stroke her cheek. "Perhaps you will be surprised at what the minotaur are capable of, though. In the Feywild, the eladrin and dryads have festivals," he said, moving closer, his cock brushing her thigh as he bent to nip at her bare shoulder. His teeth and powerful jaw made the experience more painful than pleasurable, but Lark liked it. "Hours turn to days, days to tendays, and we spend all the time in the nude, dallying with each other, exploring the facets of our bodies. Certain things you mortals might find...unclean."