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In fact, in the Aldarian Blessed Sapphire Empire, and especially in its capitol city of Corælyn, same sex relationships were often candidly, frankly and often scandalously public, and regularly a matter of popular gossip, usually without any derogative intent, unless the class difference was too great between the ladies, or the male lovers to be encouraged or even condoned. Corælyn in particular was held to be the most licentious and shamelessly immoral city in the known world, where scandal was just another facet of society, putting even the legendary debaucheries of Caestor quite to shame. One of their poets once remarked in a famous quote, 'Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corælynum. — It is not every man's lot to go to Corælyn'.
Such intimate associations were not to be flaunted here in the Duchy of Tellismere however, and normally any especially attached couplings were broken off, forcibly if necessary, before firmer lasting life pairings could be formed. Among the rich and powerful, daughters still primarily served the purpose of political currency, to be marrying as advantageously as possible to form dynastic alliances with other equally rich and powerful houses, and nothing could be allowed to stand in the way of that. Lesbianism might be enjoyable for the young noble ladies, but once they were married their duty was to close their eyes and if necessary to think of the good of the Duchy, and to bear sons for the continuation of the family lines.
As her current favorite and preferred feminine lover, Cedany had commented before that the Lady Ayleth was both very enthusiastic and extremely demanding in her sexual needs. While her lower-born attendant might be often required to spend several hours pleasuring her Lady's cunt, she had never once, in fact, ever returned the favor to her or anyone else. Often instead, she would have another of her attendants attend to Cedany's erotic needs, and she greatly enjoyed watching pairs of her ladies in a mutual loving embrace, while each licked the others' clit and cunt, as she masturbated herself near endlessly until everyone was tired and satisfied... for now.
Her daytime sexual requirements seemed to be nearly as intense. At the start of the summer on the shore of their island, the Lady had ordered for a large pavilion tent to be erected, for the use of her and her ladies, while they basked nude, or nearly so, in the sun and bathed in the placid waters of Lily Lake, right across from the favorite village bathing area, across the river. Naturally, this led to a good bit of mutual exhibition and voyeurism, especially since the attending ladies were usually fully nude. To maintain propriety, the Lady herself always wore at least a linen loincloth when she was outside of the tent, but she often stripped nude, along with her attendants, when inside the tent in privacy. Her guards knew well to keep their distance and where not to let their eyes linger.
Already at her young age of just nineteen, The Lady Ayleth already had a growing reputation for having a wickedly nasty and vicious sense of humor, and being prone to excessive and unfortunately cruel punishments for those attendants, courtiers, and guards that even remotely had displeased her.
Along the riverbank of their private island, the ladies enjoyed teasing the soldiers and the village men shamelessly, but in the privacy of their tent, the ladies resolved their sexual frustrations with each other, often in a large group where the Lady could watch her maidens lick and devour each other's cunts, in a large circle; partners to be switched and rotated, as her ladyship demanded.
*********
Rowan knew that it was pointless to object to the extra sexual fun that his lover was having; the whims of The Lady could not be questioned. He knew Cedany reserved her love for him, and him alone. Everything else he supposed was just harmless feminine exercise. Envisioning the sweet tiny mouth of his lover servicing the clit of the highborn lady excited him; he admitted it, and he would have also confessed that he would not have minded watching the ladies at their private play, on some future occasion. In fact, this fantasy often gave him private thoughts of pleasure late at night when he was alone in bed, and if he couldn't get to sleep, he'd then used this daydream memory to stimulate and relax him, whenever he occasionally masturbated in private.
Once again engorged with a suitable erection, the lovers then moved so that each could lick and suckle the other's genitals with their mouths. With Cedany firmly and comfortably resting on top of him, together they worked their tongues in a complicated rhythm designed so that each could, in time, cum once again in the mouth of the other, while in a deep and very long lasting sixty-nine. At length, with his cock as deeply into her mouth as she could manage it, he exploded another large load of semen into her mouth, almost but not quite, into her throat.
Like anal sex, Cedany usually had difficulty forcing his large cockhead past the overly tight opening of her throat. She was slowly improving at this skill, but she had not yet mastered the ability to take every single inch of him in her mouth and into her throat, with just her nose left to press hard and fast against his balls. She longed to do this simple but loving duty for him someday, and it seemed that every time she tried her nose managed to get just a little closer. Someday, perhaps after Rowan was her husband, she hoped she could learn to relax her throat enough to allow him full passage into her throat, so that she could love every single inch of him even better.
Cedany's needs were not neglected either, and long after she had lovingly licked away the last traces of his semen load, her lover was still trying to entice yet one further orgasm from her. At length he succeeded, and the two very tired, but happy, lovers fell once more into each other's arms.
Normally, about this point, the couple would reluctantly separate, and Cedany would return to swim back across the lake, to gather her clothes and then sadly return to her room with the other attendants, in the nearby castle. Tonight she was unwilling to move away from her lover at all. Before each was aware of it, they had drifted into a soothing and deep slumber together, firmly intertwined in each other's arms, on the soft, high, sweet smelling, summer grass.
*************
About an hour or so before dawn, Rowan woke up from his deep happy sleep with a start, and he immediately poked Cedany awake. She had been restless and moaning in her sleep, as if she was having a bad nightmare, and she was sluggish to awaken. He was used to getting up early just before dawn, and well before breakfast, to make sure that an apprentice had arisen and begun to properly heat up the forge for the day's work. Usually they did so without his intervention, but Rowan was always present to make sure that this task was done properly and on time. Master Gorge would be extremely unhappy to find a cold forge after his morning breakfast, and it was during the early hours of the morning that often, they could get the most work done, while their arms were fresh, and before any friends or customers arrived to interrupt their labors.
After a good morning kiss, Cedany trembled unhappily in his arms, and held on to him even more tightly. She had had a bad dream, she admitted; something to do with the pavilion tent and fresh, bright red blood flowing in a pond all over the green grass nearby. More than that she would not say, but she continued to kiss and mash him ever more tightly. He was now mostly on top of her, kissing her lips and her small, but pert breasts, which he loved feeling underneath his fingers. Without quite realizing it, Rowan felt Cedany spread her thighs, and she started to wrap her legs around his hips and butt.
"Make love to me... real love to me. Fill me now! Let me completely belong to you and be your geféra, your wife in name and heart, or even as your concubina, your bedded common lover! After my bad dream, and the ill-omens of this dark night, I feel that I can never laugh or smile again until I have felt your love within me. I must be yours, entirely without limitation. I shall defy my father and defy my Lady, and also I shall defy the Weaver's to take me and cut my thread before my time... or at least before I have felt your seed flow within me, and the burning heat of your passionate kisses, to burn away this darkness from my soul. Here, now... I belong to you, and I beg you to take what I freely offer!"
Rowan kissed her yet still, another time or two, but her legs wrapped around him yet tighter. He then felt her delicate fingers take his cock, and lift it up to meet the opening of her vaginal lips, and there she pressed him into her, gently but firmly, at first, until, with a slight hesitation, her maidenhead was reached. As Cedany muttered 'Please!', Rowan began his first vaginal thrust into the formerly virginal tightness of his lover and she let out a slight cry of momentary discomfort as she bit her lip to avoid crying out in pain. Within a few strokes, all resistance and discomfort was gone, and their pubic mounds now met and caressed each other, as the young lovers truly fucked for the first time.
Experiencing Cedany's most intimate tightness for the first time, Rowan felt that she was a taut but increasingly comfortable fit for his large member. She quickly lubricated his cock shaft, so that he could thrust ever deeper and harder inside of her. When he thought he was starting to get close to orgasm, he slowed down, and tried to pull out from Cedany's fertile cunt before he could explode inside of her, but she just wrapped her legs around him even tighter.
"Cum inside of me... may I bear your child with joy!" She whispered in panting breath while keeping her eyes closed. He had wanted to look deep into her eyes, as his sperm spurted deeply inside of her for the first time, but they remained closed to him, and her face still retained a touch of her earlier sadness, as she gently kissed him afterwards with the first hints of sunrise now appearing on the horizon. Even after their lovemaking was done, she would not quite look at him, nor did their eyes meet afterwards. Try as he might, she looked away from him and arose to begin her departure.
"I love you!" They said to each other, as they at last parted, but as Cedany began her slow swim back across the river, to retrieve her clothes and start another new day in the service to her mistress, she soon stopped and turned to sadly whisper one last request to her lover.
"My love, I feel that we are soon to be separated by cruel fate, but if I am to be taken from you, you must in return do everything that the Lady Ayleth begs of you, afterwards. She will need much from you in the dark days ahead, and however much she riles you, you must lend her your aid or everyone else we know and love shall fall with me into shadow. Her minstrel and Foole, the Histrio and gléaman, who is visiting the castle will know the wise steps from the foolish, and you must trust him, although he keeps many secrets and is not entirely whom he appears to be. I feel that he will be your sturdy left arm, during the many dark days that follow, even though he travels other more distant roads unseen. I saw this all in my dream and I know that it is but a foreshadowing of your future, all-too soon to come, but without me by your side. Trust him, love... and serve her, and yet all may be well. I will have your oath on this my beloved, before we take our final farewell." Her last words seemed as but tricks of the wind, but they burned themselves into his heart forever, their words forever on the tips of his lips.
Rowan stood and swore that oath, to the disappearing form of his lover and she nodded in acceptance. When she was mostly gone from sight, he slowly dressed and watched the final glimpse of Cedany waving farewell to him from the far shore, as she turned to head to the castle. Then, with a fearful wrenching sadness in his heart that he couldn't quite understand, he turned to head to the smithy, to start his own day of labor. A half-day of labor or not, there would be very much to do today.
**********
Even several hours later, while the hammers rang loud in the smith, as they worked hard to forge new parts or repair old ones, to mend the damage done to the caravan wagons, Rowan couldn't shake the shadowy feeling that everything that they had worked and planned for was about to go all terribly wrong, and that he would indeed never see Cedany again. Even the happiness at receiving a handful of good coins in payment for the repaired parts did not settle his uneasiness in the slightest.
Late that afternoon, just as Master Gorge was about to release his workers early for the weekend, the sudden sounds of horn sounding an alarm from the riverbank convinced Rowan that not only something terrible could happen, but that something dreadfully awful had indeed already occurred. The sounding of that horn was as a warning of doom to him, and it made him feel suddenly cold to the very marrow of his bones. Somehow he knew that the rest of his life would never be entirely the same, ever again.
- COMMENTS
Anonymousabout 13 years agoI am a fan of well-written fantasy, and I can see the effort you put into the piece. I appreciate a good build-up, but agree with some critics that the first chapter did not do as good a job at capturing the reader's attention. And the dialogue tended to be quite stilted. Over all, well written.
Anonymousalmost 14 years agoHi Stultus,
This caught my attention due to the intriguing summary, impeccable grammar in the first chapter, and the novel first scene, with the Greek Moirae being referenced. I'm not a published writer myself, but I know some authors writing for small publishing houses personally, and hope to give an informed critique.
OPENING: I noticed that you put the focus overwhelmingly on the minutiae of smithing. The goal of the first scenes is to compel the reader to continue, and the smithing technicalities went in the wrong direction in my opinion.
[Once the order for the horseshoes was completed and the forge banked low for the night, Rowan declared the work-day to be done, and his eager apprentices raced to tidy up the smithy and make sure that everything was clean and quite in its proper place. Master Gorge was still away down at the village factorage, negotiating to ship a barrel of nails down to the City of Apeleia, or now more often called simply Applewood, down at the southern end of Crystal Lake. Also, the Master might be already negotiating for the purchase of a large shipment of iron ore to arrive sometime after the fall rains swelled the Emerald River enough for such heavy bulk cargo, as he did regularly twice a year in both the early spring and fall. The price would undoubtedly be steep, but in turn their smithy forge was large, and the workers were skilled enough to melt and cast ingots for use by other blacksmiths and ironworkers, further west on the smaller settlements that dotted southern Crystal Lake. With profits from the resale of half of this raw iron, our smithy would have virtually free material to craft with until our next large shipment about six months later. As a result, the master enjoyed good profits and didn't begrudge any use of raw metal that would result in the training of his workers, or production of items, which could be sold locally or shipped either east or west via the factorage for a profit.]
Going into the economics and the negotiating over materials is probably going a little deeper than most people's interest in blacksmiths. I must have missed the memo stating that they had become fascinating subject matter to people who like reading fantasy. The dry, expository way it's presented doesn't help either.
TONE/WRITING STYLE: It reads halfway between the much-maligned Victorian-era romance novels people buy for $3 while waiting in line at a supermarket, and a history text. You know how some people want to imitate the prose of George R. R. Martin, or Tolkien? it's like you decided not to and instead chose to imitate Douglass Massey or someone of the historian profession.
In most of the successful novels I've read, the third-person limited perspective is at least somewhat defined by the main character. Here, it's formalized, mechanical. My suspicion is that the adjectives and the longer clauses are substitutions for innate lyricism and beauty of prose.
There are too many adjectives. Weighing what happens against the word count, you have comparatively little plot progression, character and setting development. It's mostly dead weight.
Taking an example by random: "True to his boasting, the allegedly simple lad understood trade and commerce far better than his older friend did, and shared his gains with his friend by usually paying for their occasional meals at the village tavern!"
When you pad sentences with adjectives, you begin making mistakes, such as contradictions like "usual" and "occasional", and a lot of sentences cross that boundary into ungainliness. The impression readers get is that you're trying to artificially generate density/complexity.
DIALOGUE: The dialogue overlaps with the writing style. When characters are saddled with phrases like [paraphrasing] "Accept that which I freely offer" in a sex scene, "Supposedly he thought that the smell of horse manure quickened his thoughts and made him cleverer!", it gets self-parodic. These guys aren't the highborn right? They're working-class people? Innkeepers, blacksmiths, commoners? It wouldn't be good reading even if you had your noble characters talking like this, but now there is no excuse.
SETTING: Setting factors heavily into the interest factor. It's enhanced by orders of magnitude with something unique, like the perpetual ashfalls in Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson as an example. In this story, there's a generic duchy/town/community, with vague references to other ordinary settlements. There's also a river. In a word, nondescript.
The worldbuilding so far isn't executed too well. The lesbianism custom is explained through pure exposition.
[In fact, in the Aldarian Blessed Sapphire Empire, and especially in its capitol city of Corælyn, same sex relationships were often candidly, frankly and often scandalously public, and regularly a matter of popular gossip, usually without any derogative intent, unless the class difference was too great between the ladies, or the male lovers to be encouraged or even condoned. Corælyn in particular was held to be the most licentious and shamelessly immoral city in the known world, where scandal was just another facet of society, putting even the legendary debaucheries of Caestor quite to shame. One of their poets once remarked in a famous quote, 'Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corælynum. — It is not every man's lot to go to Corælyn'.]
First, WHY EXPLAIN THAT? D: At first I saw a stroke of brilliance: you hint very slyly that the Lady and Cadeny are lovers. You're implying rather than expositing, and the male reader's mind goes into overdrive with the possibilities. It would've been a "Whoa" moment. The Lady gives the impression of a very sexually restrained person and the reader assumes Cadeny is faithful only to Rowan. Then you drop this bombshell. The attention's captured again, and you string the audience along before revealing the truth. I was about to be impressed. Then you gave it up with as clinical an explanation as the price of nails earlier.
Maybe the exposition is inevitable at some point, but the first chapters are balancing act between not exhausting the reader's goodwill and engaging them. So maybe reserve these info-dumps for later, once you've got the reader firmly on your side?
So far the heroic and fantasy haven't arisen, but I was indifferent to the romance, which is ironic considering the site. Rowan and the girl have a star-crossed lovers thing going on, except not dramatic or with much conflict despite their marriage being an uncertain thing. Neither is characterized beyond being the most attractive people in the village. The sex scenes weren't erotic, but that didn't matter in a novel of this scope and I didn't mind.
I don't know. Your story seemed to be well-written at first, but the writing's monotony, the lack of the barest hint of originality in the story's world, characters, and what little plot progression there is, wore me down fast. I'm not suggesting a revolutionary event occurring that no one's ever thought of, but some subtleties in constructing the world or characters will maintain the reader's interest. You don't need to have a UFO bomb the duke's crib out of nowhere, but, maybe you should. This story is lifeless, in a word, and I'm not finding much redeeming value beyond grammatical correctness.
The smithing seemed well-researched, however.
bruce22about 14 years agoStultus always writes well and this time I think he is on his way to having a publishable book.
Anonymousabout 14 years agoThis is looking to be a great story. i look forward to more. know not sure what was with the chapter but the flow or pace was off at least for me anyway. Thank you for sharing Mechmanas
